War in Heaven

by Gavin G. Smith

  ‘I need to get out of here,’ Mudge said. He turned and practically ran out of the room. I knew how he felt. I was going to be seeing Rolleston’s red fantasy world every time I closed my eyes for a very long time.

  ‘I’m sorry. We need to go. Thank you,’ I said haltingly.

  She was broken, she must be. I felt so sorry for her, even with all her privileges. Anything I could think of to say sounded inappropriate in my head, not enough.

  ‘Goodbye, Jakob,’ she said. Rannu and I made for the door. I’d forgotten about the security detail. They looked as pale and shaky as we did. I hadn’t even heard one of them throwing up in the hall.

  ‘Why’d she keep his room like that?’ Rannu asked as we made our way back to the assault shuttle. I didn’t know. The healthiest reason I could think of was fear.

  I walked across the perfect lawn. I felt light. I could breathe without any problem and the air was crisp and fresh. The sun was a ball of pale light and the sky bright blue. I wondered if this was the last time I’d see the Earth.

  I would’ve liked to see Scotland again. The nice bits anyway. This would have been enough though – the house, the grounds, the skeletal woodlands – if only my mind hadn’t been polluted by what I’d seen. What I now knew.

  Mudge was smoking a cigarette as if his life depended on it as we approached the assault shuttle. I saw a uniformed deliveryman walking away from him across the lawn under the watchful eyes of the security detail. There were a number of boxes laid on the ramp. He was still very pale when we reached him.

  ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here,’ he said.

  ‘You okay?’ I asked. One look from him told me I’d asked a stupid question. If you were all right after that then you were very sick. ‘What’s this?’ I said, pointing at the boxes.

  ‘Replacements. You guys never think ahead,’ Mudge told us.

  Fun and games with orbital manoeuvring. The silent burn of the engines as the assault shuttle jockeyed for position for ship-to-ship docking. A message to Nuiko – something forgotten that we desperately needed, huge pain in the arse, we’re terribly sorry. Rannu went on board to do the dirty work. He’s the sneakiest. He didn’t like it but he agreed with my thinking. Hopefully it won’t be unnecessary.

  We burned more time as well as fuel as we climbed. Earth orbit looked like a traffic jam. Everywhere you looked, engines burned as they moved little dots of metal to and fro over our blue planet. The spokes looked like thin bending straws growing out of land and sea.

  The fleet was a mess. Many of its ships looked like ancient hulks compared to the modern battle-scarred craft I had been used to seeing in the night above Sirius. Ships of various sizes came and went. There was no discernible formation, but maybe its scale was just too vast for me to be able to make sense of through the images being fed to my IVD from the cockpit.

  Below us the civilian populace mostly did not panic because so many of them had been soldiers. Below us our political leaders still fought and jockeyed for position.

  HMS Thunderchilde quickly filled the window of the feed. It was a vast space-going hunk of armour plate, weapons and sensors powered by huge glowing engines. Smaller manoeuvring thrusters constantly burned to keep it in position. Its vast sails were folded away in thick armoured compartments that ran down most of the ship’s body. It was a technological terror designed to bring to bear more firepower than the humble infantryman could ever understand.

  Its newness looked out of place. I didn’t trust its lack of scars and burns. It looked inexperienced. It was unproven. I hoped its crew was not. The Thunderchilde’s crew was made up of the pick of the RSAF brought back from colonial fleets for its shake-down runs. Most of the rest of the assembled fleet was crewed by Fortunate Sons, the children of people wealthy enough to buy them out of front-line service in the draft. This made me nauseous. While there was a degree of satisfaction that they finally had to fight like the rest of us, these people were fucking cowards. I just couldn’t see them standing up to what was coming.

  Metal on metal rang through the assault shuttle as a docking clamp attached itself. It felt like the shuttle had been restrained. We rose into the shuttle airlock. When the air was pumped in and the pressure equalised the airlock split in two and folded down into one of the Thunderchilde’s flight decks.

  All around us was organised chaos. They were too busy to even have us escorted. A red line superimposed over our IVDs showed the way to our destination. We made our way past mechanics readying fighters and long-range strike craft for flight.

  I saw a recently docked flight of fighters having their cockpits drained of acceleration gel, the gooey pilots unplugging themselves and climbing out. EVA remotes, heavily armed and equipped with extensive countermeasures, were being prepped.

  I saw a skin mech, an EVA-converted Bismarck, being armed, readying it to climb out onto the hull of the Thunderchilde for added firepower and an eyes-on perspective. I’d always thought that skin mech drivers were suicidal; now I just hoped that they were as desperate as the rest of us.

  There were a lot of raised voices, metal clanging on metal, the screaming sound of power tools over PA announcements and the occasional shower of sparks, but no panic. To give the RSAF their credit, everything was brutal efficiency and urgent professionalism. The panic would come later. I had to stop thinking like that. I had things to do. I had to blackmail an old man and put all of this, everything, in jeopardy for one person. Pagan was not going to have his sacrifice. First I needed a doctor.

  ‘Of course, Sergeant. We’re getting ready for a major fleet action. I have nothing better to do than attach a new toy laser to your fucking shoulder,’ one of the ship’s surgeons told me.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. Trying not to smirk at him. Ruperts hated when special forces did that.

  ‘What are you complaining about?’ Mudge asked. ‘Nobody’s hurt yet. Surely you’ll be busy later on.’

  Probably not, I thought. Not that many injuries in fleet actions. Space is unforgiving: it tends to make more dead people.

  The surgeon turned to give Mudge the eye. Mudge smiled at him but it was bluster. He was still shook up by what we’d seen on Earth.

  While the surgeon was glaring at Mudge, Rannu embraced his British army heritage and stole what we needed from the RSAF.

  The surgeon installed the shoulder laser with ill grace. I put in the new claws myself. I had a replacement Mastodon in my shoulder holster, and a new Tyler Optics laser pistol – the bigger, more powerful TO-7 – rode at my hip. They wouldn’t help but their familiar weight made me feel better.

  Mudge had bought replacements for the kit that Rannu had lost on Lalande 2 as well. Except the kukri – I don’t think that could be replaced.

  Pagan came out of fleet Command and Control to meet us. He looked tired and twitchy. He was on something to keep going. We’d need something soon too. He looked at us suspiciously. Behind him the red glow of a holographic display disappeared from view as the door slid shut. Two solid-looking Rock Apes, soldiers in the RSAF Regiment, flanked the door to C&C.

  ‘What?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘We need to talk,’ I said.

  ‘I think you’ve made your feelings perfectly clear,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be fucking difficult. I don’t want to talk about feelings. We need somewhere private. Where God can’t see us,’ I told him.

  He knew something was up but I think he trusted Rannu enough to believe that we weren’t going to do anything too stupid. Certainly nothing that would jeopardise the operation.

  Sharcroft and Akhtar, both of whom were on board, were giving us free run of the ship because they thought that they were going to be able to march us at certain death.

  Pagan was sharing an officer’s stateroom with Merle, who was in there, a wire stretched between his plugs and a port in the wall of the cabin. I guessed he was connected to the ship’s internal isolated computer system.

  They would have to open all the isola
ted systems to God if they wanted to stand a chance of winning. I knew that all over the fleet cargo holds were being filled up with mass-produced, networked, solid-state memory. Like every tribe in history, we wanted, needed, our god to be bigger than theirs.

  Merle was stripping down and cleaning his fancy gauss sniper rifle. He seemed unsurprised as we entered.

  ‘Give us the room, will you?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m a little busy,’ he said.

  Nothing was ever easy with Merle. Rannu glanced over at me.

  ‘Fuck it. Let him stay,’ I said, but I knew Rannu was watching him now and I knew that Merle was suspicious.

  Mudge lit up another cigarette. He’d pretty much been chain-smoking since we’d left Buckinghamshire. I don’t think he’d taken anything though. I guessed his consciousness was feeling a little fragile.

  ‘What?’ Pagan asked, turning to face me.

  ‘Sit down,’ I said, nodding at his bunk. He looked like he was about to argue but sat down. Merle quickly reassembled his rifle and then Mudge handed him a box. Merle looked at him questioningly.

  ‘A new Void Eagle. To replace the one Jakob lost,’ he told him.

  ‘Thanks, darling. Though I’m not sure anything can replace a gift from my departed sister when she first joined the Tunnel Rats,’ Merle said to Mudge while looking at me. With what was going down, I wasn’t sure I wanted Mudge giving Merle more weapons.

  ‘Are we free from God?’ I asked. Pagan nodded. ‘Anyone else?’ Pagan sighed – he was looking more and more pissed off – but he took out a white-noise device and set it off.

  ‘We deactivated any audio/visual surveillance earlier today,’ an exasperated Pagan said.

  ‘We’re all alone,’ Merle said meaningfully and then looked at Rannu. He was letting us know that he knew something was going down. He wasn’t as trusting as Pagan.

  ‘What do you want, Jakob?’ Pagan demanded.

  ‘Tell me about Nuiko,’ I said.

  ‘What?!’ he said incredulously. ‘I thought we weren’t going to talk about our feelings.’

  Merle was staring at me. He shifted slightly. Rannu would need to be faster. Mudge was starting to look a little unsure.

  ‘Well it’s bollocks, isn’t it? You’re in love with a spaceship. You’re not fucking her; you’re fucking a dream, an icon. She doesn’t want you thinking about her twisted body in its metal tank. It’s sense porn, not a relationship,’ I said. I’d have liked to be able to hate myself for saying this shit but we were well beyond that now; besides, what was another little atrocity in our brave new world. Even Mudge was looking at me appalled. It was no better than when I’d been possessed and called him a faggot. On the other hand, if there was anyone here who had taught me how to get under people’s skin quickly it was him. Pagan was too shocked to answer immediately.

  ‘Jakob, just fuck off. Leave the ship or I’ll have security escort you off,’ he finally managed to say.

  ‘Well convince me it’s something real,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t have to convince you of anything. Fuck off!’

  I drew the Mastodon and put it to his head. I was moving relatively slowly. Merle was moving much faster as he reached under his armpits for his two Arbiters. Rannu was moving faster than Merle. He kicked Merle off his bunk as the two compact Glocks slid out of the wrist hoppers and into his hands. Merle was furious. I hoped he didn’t make a move. He was key to this.

  ‘Merle, you weren’t properly introduced on Lalande 2. This is Rannu. He’s better than you,’ I said.

  ‘Because we can’t do things without pointing guns at each other,’ Mudge said in a tone of resignation.

  ‘This is pathetic, Jakob,’ Pagan said. ‘I’m sorry we both betrayed you—’

  ‘I wish I’d done a better job,’ Merle said.

  ‘But you want revenge now? Put everything at risk to get your own back?’ Pagan continued.

  ‘No. I want an answer to my fucking question.’

  ‘They knew each other for sixteen days,’ Mudge pointed out. He clearly disapproved of the drawn guns but wasn’t doing anything. Good of him really when you think that Rannu was pointing two at his lover.

  ‘Seventeen,’ Pagan said a little too sharply.

  ‘But it was all in sense, wasn’t it? You can do funny things to subjective time with sense. Besides, it’s not a real relationship at all. You could have spent months there living out … What do you call those Japanese knights?’ I asked.

  ‘Samurais,’ Mudge told me.

  ‘Your samurai fantasies,’ I finished.

  ‘Fuck you! Where the hell do you get off lecturing me about my relationship! What, it’s abnormal because I’m not fucking a teenager?!’

  That stung.

  ‘We’re not talking about me,’ I said. ‘Convince me.’

  ‘Go to hell, Jakob! Nobody has time for one of your psychotic episodes.’ Pagan was as angry as I’d ever seen him before. Then something occurred to him. ‘Are you still possessed?’ he demanded. I felt rather than saw Mudge turn to look at me.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Rannu said. He and Merle were just staring at each other. Pagan’s head whipped round to glare at Rannu.

  ‘I’d expect better from you,’ he told the Ghurkha.

  ‘Just answer his question,’ Rannu said.

  Pagan sighed and then turned back to me.

  ‘I don’t have to justify or expect you to understand our relationship. Much of it may happen in sense, but it’s her I love. She’s … she’s amazing. She’s more than human. She’s the ship, the Tetsuo Chou. I merged with her and she showed me what it was to be free. What it’s like to touch space, soar through it. Break the bondage of our flesh and become more.’

  ‘So you like her then?’ I asked.

  ‘Obviously. Is this about Morag? She made the choice, not me.’

  ‘But somebody else could do it?’

  ‘It’s exactly the same problem as God. We need an interface that can handle a huge amount of raw information quickly. She has to act as a conduit for God.’

  ‘Which means relying on Ambassador?’ I asked.

  Pagan just looked pissed off.

  ‘You know this. Look, I’m sorry, but there’s no other way and she volunteered.’

  ‘She’s eighteen,’ I said very quietly.

  Pagan looked up and straight into my lenses.

  ‘Maybe that’s something you should have borne in mind.’

  He wasn’t wrong.

  ‘But anyone with Ambassador in their head could do this?’ I asked.

  He went white. He saw what I was thinking.

  Merle looked over at me with renewed interest, the ghost of a smile on his mouth. ‘You bastard.’ It almost sounded like admiration.

  Pagan swallowed hard.

  ‘Frightened, Pagan?’ I asked. Go on, twist the knife some more. ‘See, I’m no better than you. You were both right – sacrifices have to be made.’

  ‘She’d never agree,’ Pagan said.

  ‘That’s our problem,’ I told him.

  ‘Ambassador would never agree.’

  ‘That is your problem. You’d better be fucking persuasive.’

  ‘Why would I do that?!’ Pagan demanded. ‘Look, I’m very sorry about Morag, but she’s made her choice and I don’t want to die.’

  ‘You RSAF types like your ships, don’t you? You know what Rannu and I learned about ships in the Regiment?’

  ‘Was it to do with liking the sound of your own voice?’ Merle asked.

  Rannu smiled despite himself.

  ‘We learned how to sabotage them. We learned how to hide charges very well. They don’t have to be big, just strategically placed.’ I watched the mounting horror on Pagan’s face. ‘Just before we got here we went back to the Tetsuo Chou.’

  Pagan surged forward on his bunk. I cocked the hammer on the Mastodon. It was an affectation but it had the required effect. Pagan looked furious.

  ‘I will fucking kill you. You may be younger and
faster than me, but sooner or later you’ll just get too close to the net and I’ll murder you, you understand me? I will tear out your fucking soul and leave you a smoking, brain-dead corpse,’ he spat.

  ‘Fair enough. What is important is that you don’t try and warn Nuiko. I’ve asked God to keep me informed of all transmissions. Anything at all and God himself will carry the detonation signal. You understand?’

  Pagan nodded. This was why I’d had to be sure that the relationship was as serious as I’d thought. Not just a fling.

  Pagan turned on Rannu. ‘How fucking could you?!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Rannu said. He sounded like he meant it but then he hadn’t been sold out by Pagan. He hadn’t watched Morag die. It hadn’t been Pagan and Merle’s fault that he’d been possessed.

  I holstered the Mastodon.

  ‘If we all put our guns away are you going to behave?’ I asked Merle.

  ‘None of this is anything to do with me,’ he said.

  ‘So you see how important it is that you convince Ambassador?’ I asked Pagan.

  He was just staring at me with utter hatred.

  ‘So her life is more valuable than mine?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes,’ I told him. I wondered if Rannu even knew he was nodding. ‘We’ve both had a fair innings, Pagan,’ I told him.

  ‘Has it occurred to you that she’s used to operating with Ambassador – that it’s fully integrated with her? I’m not. I just need to be slightly slower and we’re all dead and we fail? You’re prepared to jeopardise all of this for her?’ he asked.

  ‘We know he is. He did the same thing when he spilled his guts in Moa City,’ Merle pointed out.

  ‘The world doesn’t work for me if she doesn’t have a place in it. Believe me, it’s very liberating when you know you’re going to die,’ I told him. ‘Unless you want to sacrifice Nuiko instead?’

  ‘She’ll hate you,’ Pagan said.

  I just nodded. I needed to hurt her one more time and then she would be free of me.

  She knew I was coming. She didn’t know why. I made my way up through the decks of the massive super-carrier. Through the ghettoised and gang-controlled dorms of the enlisted crew area. Through the well-appointed but still cramped staterooms of the officers. Up onto the top levels. Corridors left empty because they’re too close to the armoured skin of the ship and used to gain internal access to the weapons systems. Heavy-gauge power cables ran down thickly insulated walls.