I just don’t know what I am any more.
My head felt like it had been cleaved with a hammer, and every fibre of my muscle was burning with fever. Using the wall to steady myself, I rose from the muck. My corelink was ruined; it had been submerged the entire time I was out.
That reminded me of what I was supposed to be doing: finding a three-week supply of meat for Dusty. Wandering through an alley of closed shops, I was wondering who was going to sell me anything at that hour when I heard a loud shriek.
A silhouette darted across the street in front of me. Before I could blink, two more followed, both much larger than the first. One of them halted, staring at me for a moment before resuming chase.
I don’t know why, but I decided to follow. When I rounded the bend, I saw a young kid, clearly a mutant, cornered by two men.
‘This is your final warning,’ the boy said. ‘Repent, or you will be judged.’
The man confronting him was large, overweight, and with hideous boils all over his face. The other looked the same age, and had a badly hunched back. Their dirty, loose overalls made me think they worked in the slush pits.
‘You’ve got that wrong, freak,’ boil-face said, shoving the boy so hard that he struck his head on the pavement.
I couldn’t help myself.
‘Hey!’ I shouted. ‘What the fuck!’
The two men turned. Suddenly, a rush of premonition staggered me. Hunchback and I were going to dance first.
‘Get out of here, junkie,’ boil-face warned.
‘Junkie?’ I said. ‘Do you know who I am?’
‘No,’ hunchback said, closing on me. ‘Do you know I am?’
I knew it was coming: a hard, accurate punch to my solar plexus that left me doubled over and breathless. The blow hurt far worse than I imagined it would, but the adrenaline burst made me forget my other ailments.
Part of me even felt I deserved a good beating.
‘Mind your own fucking business now?’ boil-face said.
‘Maybe,’ I stammered, ‘you should go fuck yourself.’
‘A tough guy, eh?’ hunchback said. ‘Hear that, mate?’
Right now, I hate the fact I was trained to let people hit me. Fortunately, these two had learned to fight on the streets, and most of their shots were ineffective. I let the hunchback land a combo, again to my stomach, and then a knee that caught my forehead instead of my nose. But it was still enough force to jolt my vision and send me to the ground.
‘Run, kid!’ I warned.
But he made no effort to escape. Instead, he rose to his knees, eyes closed, palms facing upwards.
‘Saviour of Sol, fiery art thou,’ the boy said. ‘Blessed is thy wrath.’
Whatever nonsense he had just said really pissed off boil-face.
‘Shut the fuck up!’ the brute said, unleashing a wicked backhand on the boy’s face.
It was time for the dance to resume.
‘Hit that kid again and I’ll kill you,’ I said.
‘You must love pain,’ hunchback growled.
As I pushed myself off the ground, he gambled on a knockout shot with another high, hard punch. I stayed low and lunged, latching onto his knee and twisting him down, establishing side control before his shoulder blades even struck the ground. My right arm slipped under his hamstring as my left knee swung onto his stomach. I grabbed his leg and pulled it back towards me, straightening and bracing it against my shoulder. Then I let myself fall backwards.
Hunchback’s knee hyper-extended and snapped. I yanked it back further to make sure all the ligaments popped, because fuck him.
Kicking myself away from the screaming invalid, I rose to confront boil-face.
The boy, meanwhile, had resumed praying.
‘The righteous shall inherit the Earth,’ he said. ‘We worship you who conquer it.’
I dodged a punch from boil-face and countered with a perfect hook to the man’s kidney. To my bitter surprise, he didn’t crumble like I’d hoped. My punches just weren’t as strong as they used to be. All the drugs and anxiety and everything else had caught up, and no amount of adrenaline would help. This was an even fight now, because his strength and stamina could compensate for inferior reflexes.
We traded punches like savages. As fists smashed into bone and tissue, I lost track of the praying boy and the howling hunchback. I just focused on staying alive.
Mercifully, I landed a solid uppercut straight on his chin. Boil-face collapsed, unconscious, his limbs twitching. Completely spent, I fell to my knees in exhaustion.
It was then I realised that a crowd had surrounded us.
They said nothing, even as hunchback’s cries filled the night. My vision was blurry, whether from drugs or concussion I couldn’t say. But it looked to me as if every single person in this crowd – which included men, women, and children – was a mutant.
Suddenly, the praying boy stood up. He was smiling.
‘You see? Rao-lord has answered,’ he said, approaching me. I hadn’t noticed before that his head was misshapen, and his hands had just three fingers each. ‘Thank you.’
I didn’t know how to answer.
‘Shouldn’t you … be home or something?’ I muttered.
‘This is my hive,’ he said, motioning to the crowd. ‘And they are my children.’
I considered asking where I could find some choice tenderloins.
‘Sure they are,’ I said. ‘Do you need any CROs or something? For food or a place to stay or whatever?’
His smile had a creepy paternalistic assurance to it.
‘I won’t forget this,’ he said. ‘I will see you again. Perhaps then we will talk some more.’
Some people in the crowd were nodding at me approvingly.
‘Farewell, Jack Tatum,’ he said, winking at me.
I didn’t know what that meant. All I could do was watch as they dragged the thugs away.
By the time I made it back to Dusty’s flat, Brotherhood’s mirrors were reflecting the first rays of daybreak. With any luck, he was asleep, or better yet on his way to the Breakaway. Even without a corelink, I had still managed to get all the items on his list, including the damn meat. The bounty was on its way to the ship right now.
All I wanted was a few hours of sleep before my last trip into space. As the lift ascended to Dusty’s floor, I cursed my impatience. I didn’t need to kill myself; a premature death was already coming for me. All I needed to do was relax and ‘go with the flow’, even if that flow was a river of sewage churning towards the maws of a treatment plant.
Naturally, I had scored some more smacker during my errands, and I decided to light up as I approached the flat. After a deep, bitter, satisfying puff, I opened the door …
… and saw Vladric Mors sitting at the kitchen table with Dusty.
I froze in the doorway as if I’d just been shot.
‘Good morning, Jack,’ Vladric said, smiling broadly. ‘Won’t you join us?’
Dusty was looking at me as if I had three heads.
‘Rough night?’ Vladric commiserated, motioning for the table upon which a breakfast feast was evident. ‘Have a seat and tell us about it.’
As if it would make a difference, I straightened out my jacket and ran a hand through my hair, still unsure if I was really seeing this.
‘Oh, this is real,’ the Minotaur said, walking out from the bedrooms. He stood right over both of them. ‘And right here for the taking!’
The altruistic part of me found common ground with the fatalist. Here was Vladric Mors, with no guards, alone with Dusty. It was a momentous opportunity; the man who had ruined my life and controlled the fate of thousands, possibly millions, was sitting just ten metres away. If only I had been carrying a gun, this would have been over by now.
Instead, I needed to improvise, or die trying. There was no downside.
‘Lots of options here, Jake,’ the Minotaur said. ‘Snap out of it and close the door.’
‘I don’t want to interrupt …�
� I said.
‘Not at all,’ Vladric responded. ‘Dusty and I were just discussing the invasion.’
‘Yeah?’ I said, closing the door and taking a deep puff. ‘How’s that going?’
‘Would you mind putting that out?’ Vladric asked. ‘As long as that’s alright with you, Dusty. It’s your home.’
‘Yes, I mean sure,’ Dusty said tentatively. ‘I kind of would appreciate it if you didn’t smoke in here, Jack. Like, ever.’
‘Vladric has been talking up his ego,’ the Minotaur warned. ‘But he won’t be an issue when you make your move.’
‘Sorry,’ I muttered, extinguishing the joint. ‘Habit.’
‘We know,’ Vladric said, sniffing the air and frowning. ‘On second thought, maybe you should just stay right where you are.’
Dusty got a whiff of whatever Vladric had smelled and winced.
‘Did you …?’ he asked.
My ability to smell had been ruined by my addiction. Whatever was in the puddle I passed out in had dried up and stained my pants. Judging from the look on their faces, I just assumed I was caked in shit.
‘Your grocery list wasn’t easy to get,’ I said.
‘Idiot!’ the Minotaur snarled. ‘Now you have to wait for him to come to you. He’s no street punk, Jake. Watch it.’
‘Did you get it all?’ Dusty asked, covering his mouth and nose.
‘On its way to the Breakaway right now,’ I nodded.
‘Let me see the list,’ Vladric said. Dusty handed him his corelink. ‘Synthetic steaks?’
‘It’s a delicacy,’ Dusty said, sheepishly.
‘That’s funny,’ Vladric said. ‘I thought I was the only one who liked it.’
‘Fucking cannibals,’ the Minotaur snarled.
‘Why didn’t you tell me, Jack?’ Vladric asked. ‘I could have had this taken care of. Where’d you get the meat?’
‘Sixth Ward,’ I answered.
‘Mutants don’t like strangers,’ Vladric said. ‘You ought to know that.’
‘Learned the hard way,’ I answered.
Dusty looked uncomfortable.
‘Well, gentlemen, I have to see to some final preparations,’ Vladric said, rising from the table. ‘Dusty can fill you in, but to summarise, I’ve asked the Breakaway to join the vanguard in our attack on Corinth.’
‘The vanguard?’ roared the Minotaur. In naval warfare terminology, it was the lead element of any attack group tasked with intercepting a point in space, which in this case was the defences surrounding Corinth Naval Yards and the Archangel, the most heavily defended fortress in Orionis.
Of course, long before reaching there, they would run into a barrage of tungsten slugs with relative speeds approaching 35,000 metres per second.
‘That’s quite an honour,’ I said.
‘I think so,’ Vladric said, setting his coffee mug down. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard about the fleet modifications. The Breakaway will fly in my lance, protected by the shield cover of my ship.’
‘You’re blocking the door,’ the Minotaur said excitedly. ‘He has to go through you.’
‘I want the best men beside me for this moment in history,’ Vladric said. ‘And my best pilots, of course.’
‘Thank you, sir!’ Dusty said.
Vladric smiled as he began walking towards me.
‘This is it,’ the Minotaur said. ‘Don’t tense up. Act a little stoned, he knows what a junkie you are. Take his neck if it’s there, but his nose and a follow-up work just as well.’
Time slowed down. I waited for the premonition.
Instead of relaxing my shoulders, I tensed and froze as Vladric stopped exactly an arm’s length from me.
‘Now, Jake!’ the Minotaur shouted. ‘You’ll never get another chance!’
Vladric waited. He stood there, smiling, knowing exactly what I was thinking.
But there was no dance. As much as I had fantasised about this moment, it wasn’t meant to be.
And that son of a bitch knew it.
‘Excuse me,’ Vladric said.
I stepped out of his way. The Minotaur howled.
Vladric walked on by, pausing as the door opened.
‘See you in space,’ he said.
23
SIG
With the exception of an idled fusion reactor, the only source of heat on the Aria Black was the tempers of six angry, bitterly cold men. Hunter ops were tedious affairs punctuated by brief moments of excitement and, hopefully, the exhilaration of victory instead of the despair of failure. But context made all the difference. Hunting convoys between Zeus and Hera, within range of Ceti support, was easy.
Setting an ambush in the Hades Terminus was something else.
Occupying an orbit between Zeus and the Triton Worlds, the most prominent artefact of the expanse was a dense, icy comet field composed of fragments ranging in size from pebbles to mountains. Its existence was as much a surprise to the Tabit Genesis settlers as the utter inhabitability of Eileithyia.
Presently, the Aria Black was roughly one metre from the surface of a dirty chunk of ice the size of a gas freighter. Sig had expertly placed the ship over it and matched its low angular momentum, all but merging with the comet itself. Two hundred kilometres from their position was a Navy EXR-10 ‘Big Eye’ probe, the same model used in the early warning tracking systems of the Orionis Navy.
Before they vanished in the comet field, the Big Eye had been pushed from the Black’s dropship bay and pointed in the direction of Hyllus, scanning a cone of space nearly six billion kilometres long for signs of the Lightspear. The Navy went to great lengths to keep their technology from falling into Ceti hands, and Sig couldn’t even imagine how Vladric had acquired it. The conical-shaped craft had a twelve-metre-diameter mirror capable of detecting the infrared emissions of a burning candle from a hundred thousand kilometres away.
Per Vladric’s instructions, every non-life support system of the Aria Black was shut down. Although the ship was fully pressurised, the crew was wearing stealthy zero-thermal signature survival suits, because the ambient temperature of the cabin was presently -20 C. Water, food, and related necessities were handled in the reactor compartment, the most insulated area of the ship, where the temperature was kept at a balmy 1 C.
To minimise detection and maximise survival odds, they had to be cold. Despite their precautions, they were still the warmest object in this comet belt, and a shining beacon for anyone who decided to look for them.
It was also dark. From this distance, the Orionis sun was the size of a pinhead, just barely the brightest star against the backdrop of the Milky Way, and not radiant enough to read by. Not that it mattered. Any light-emitting source that could escape from the Black’s eight portals was forbidden, except within sealed compartments.
Taken altogether, the conditions were ripe for a souring of moods and patience.
The men that Vladric had assembled for the mission were chosen for their skill sets, not their personalities. Their dossiers left Sig more concerned about them than House Obyeran lunatics.
The Glasnard brothers Drake and Theron were former asteroid miners who had found their calling as demolitions experts for Ceti. They were a volatile pair, siblings forged in a vat of chaos, the sort that relied foremost on violence to settle disagreements. Bouncing from one dangerous Belt job to the next as privateers, they were approached by Ceti recruiters and asked if they’d like to swap their mining gear for more playful things like firearms and explosives. It was an easy transition, as the tools used to blast through rock differed little from those used to blow up people.
Between their disregard for personal safety and extensive experience working in microgravity, they were the ideal marauders. Together they boasted more than fifty ship raids, with a kill list twice that. Whenever Sig gave an order neither one verbally acknowledged it, but they generally obeyed with a poignant defiance that expressed disdain for a proxy captain, and not the real legend who owned this historic ship.
Their job was to blast their way into the Lightspear, clearing a path for the marksmen behind them. That role fell to two men on the opposite side of the sociopathic spectrum: Larry Vostov and Jaz DeMoer. As former security officers at Bertha and then Brotherhood, they were close quarters combat experts with top notch certifications across a broad range of weapons and tactics. They were also total recluses who, if nothing else, at least never complained about the cold and darkness. Beyond that, all attempts at meaningful conversation were met with variations of ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘I don’t know’.
Their experience included six hostage rescue missions, plus a number of assassinations on Inner Rim targets. Since this op was a non-lethal takedown, their kit included stun guns, concussion grenades, mesh traps, and tranquillisers. But they also would bring real guns in case the intel about who was on board was wrong. No matter how the mission turned out, no one was to be left alive on the Lightspear.
The last marauder that Vladric had selected was the one who bothered Sig the most.
Angus McCreary was a Ceti lieutenant who had risen in the organisation through military service alone. He was a hero in the Battle of Brotherhood, leading a bold mech assault against the Navy frigate ONW Madrid that some considered a turning point in the battle. Today he was a tactics adviser for the SIOPS military division of Ceti, and the lead planner for this mission.
He carried himself in a manner more befitting a pirate than military officer. He was crude and intrusive, constantly pestering Sig about past exploits, and sharing unsolicited graphic details about his own marauding adventures. According to Vladric, the role of Angus was to run the actual breach and raid. But he was also a capable captain with his own ship and crew, and far more proficient in military operations than someone who hadn’t fired a gun in a quarter-century.
Such redundancy was a message from Vladric. Sig knew that if he was thinking these things, so was the rest of the crew.
It was nearing the end of an eight-hour shift on the bridge, during which time Sig had fiddled with the passive sensors on the Black, visualised different boarding scenarios, and, when vigilance lapsed, read some classical Earth literature.
The Tabit Genesis Page 25
