“Unfortunately,” he said, “our friend’s exuberance means that we are now about to get wet.” Caccamo pointed. “Swim as far underwater as you can in that direction. Sel-en-Sek – grab my belt – I’m taking you to the surface myself. We’ll rendezvous at Maddison-Ekeke Dock. And, NJ.” He grinned. “Do try to take more care when blowing things up in future. Good luck, everyone.”
Then the submersible vanished.
It didn’t leak. It didn’t collapse. It simply was no longer there.
I had thought that shooting along the harbor in a transparent bubble was experiencing the underwater world just like a fish. But as my muscles cramped in shock, I realized there had been a part of the experience I had missed.
The water was frakking, pig-wixering cold.
My body soon responded to the chill, and my enhanced eyes reassured me that none of my companions was drowning yet. The rictus grin on my face eased into a smile.
I’d been taunted by a sadistic maintenance bot, forced to scale a vertical bulkhead by scrapheap combat droids, dropped from a great height, and rescued using tech I had no idea existed, before being dumped into the bottom of the harbor.
Back in 2762, that’s how life was for an agent of Revenge Squad Incorporated, Port Zahir branch.
There was only one thing better in that life: bragging about the events of the day over a beer or several in the Slaughterhouse.
— CHAPTER 7 —
With my mood easing into a second mug of beer, and bolstered by the regularly shouted commentary along the lines of: ‘you’re one insane veck, McCall’, I began to almost enjoy the classic tub-thumping tune hitting me through the sound system.
I wasn’t one for music, but I recognized this came from the Symphony of Liberation, supposedly a musical interpretation of the Invasion of Athena.
I had been there at Athena, as had Nolog who was sitting beside me on the row of chairs pushed to one edge of the Slaughterhouse bullpen, but I don’t remember hearing anything like this during the campaign. The real battle sound I recalled most was the ceaseless thump of artillery in the distance. Now I brought the nightmare memories of Athena before me, it also evoked the piercing screech of torn metal as another chunk of Athena’s world tree sheared away, and all this punctuated by the whine of charging railguns and the hiss of short-range missiles, and half drowned out by the ever-present roar of blood pulsing through my ears.
Didn’t matter though, I liked this tune. Mind you, in this setting I would enjoy pretty much anything.
With a crew of junior Revenge Squad associates to guard the base perimeter, and the lights set to simulate the outer corona of a famous gas giant called Euphrates, the converted abattoir that now housed Revenge Squad’s Port Zahir branch was transformed at night into the perfect place to let it all hang out after a mission.
Whether you like it or not, I thought to myself, as I felt a twinge of sympathy when Shahdi hauled César’s brightly hued and scaly ass onto the dancefloor that served as the mess hall during daytime.
Nolog nudged my shoulder, a tectonic dislocation. I fought and held my drink without spilling any, having learned long ago never to fill my mug more than half full in case I happened to be sitting near the big guy.
“NJ,” said the Tallerman, “are you contemplating the rhythmic movement of your hips and arms in full view of other people?”
“No.”
When Nolog froze his body and ceased breathing, I felt a little sorry for him. More practically, I had learned that these signs of disappointment could progress to a full-on sulk that could last for weeks, rendering him unfit for duty. So I took one for the team. “I shall dance with you later.”
The alien began to breathe once more.
“Much later,” I added. “I need to lubricate my joints with alcohol first.”
With the alien’s head half retracted into his neck cupola as he digested the information that I lubricated my body with alcohol, I took my leave of Nolog-Ndacu by landing a hefty punch in his chest – he would have been offended if I’d touched him less vigorously – and advanced on the critical ingredient missing from my evening so far: food.
I was only a stride away from the workbench serving duty as a buffet table, when someone ruined the perfect moment by cranking out some Litt-Beat.
I groaned inwardly.
Then I groaned out loud.
Litt-Beat was constructed by taking cast-off human Spacer dance rhythms, Littorane yodeling that sounded like underwater death rattles, Marine spoken poetry, and then making no attempt whatsoever to blend the ingredients together.
A sixth sense caused my head to turn. I stared down into the faces of Qyn and Siyuk, our two Littorane agents. Perfect!
The amphibious creatures resembled heavy duty newts scaled up to my size. They possessed a pivot point halfway along their torsos that allowed them to raise their head and shoulders to a vertical position, like a rearing centaur, although this pair were standing low to the floor with all four limbs on the ground. Prone to religious cults and moral crusades, you didn’t want to get on the bad side of the Littorane race. On the other hand, the alliance between human and Littorane had transformed the Legion from a renegade band into a small army.
And it looked as if I’d just insulted their culture.
Qyn and Siyuk curled the ends of their tails into spirals, the equivalent in human body language to crossing your arms, beetling your brow, and tapping your foot. Maybe drawing a blade too.
I groaned again. And this evening had been going so well.
I was not a fan of throwing diverse species together and expecting them to play nicely, as the Legion had done with us on Klin-Tula. You just had to look at the surge in racially motivated beatings across Port Zahir to see how that was working out. But I’d admit that the fusion between cultures could lead to fascinating results that wouldn’t otherwise have come about. Music was a particularly good example of this, but not Litt-Beat.
If the Symphony of Liberation was a triumph of cross-species culture – fitting as it had been commissioned to celebrate an allied victory – Litt-Beat was its nadir. Inexplicably, the monthly Intelligence Context Report that Caccamo made us read said it was wildly popular amongst the young people of the port.
“Does this Litt-Beat music displease you?” Qyn asked me. Or possibly it was Siyuk. The alien ‘spoke’ my language using a thought-to-speech collar hung around its neck, and with this basic model unable to carry an emotional dynamic, I couldn’t tell whether the Littorane was making polite small talk or screaming in fury.
I took a deep breath and counted to five. We were all part of the same team, so I gave the most diplomatic answer I could devise without flat-out lying. “I would rather be smeared in dog vomit and have grit ground into my eyeballs than listen to this calamitous drent.”
I was particularly pleased with my use of calamitous. I felt that diplomacy benefited from an elevated vocabulary. All the same, as a precaution, I loosened my stance in anticipation of violence.
“Well said,” said one. I’ll just assume this was Qyn.
“Calamitous,” said Siyuk. “Yes, I like that. I cannot imagine how the calamity of Litt-Beat was allowed. It’s wrong on every level.”
Qyn vibrated her head vigorously. “The religious chants alone are bad enough that I would claw out of my ears rather than endure prolonged exposure.”
As I watched Qyn’s tail alternately curl and then uncurl, the part of my mind that associated with Efia had an insight as to what was bugging the fish people. “I presume the sound reproduction in this air-filled room bears little resemblance to the underwater experience,” I said.
Both tails uncurled fully.
They steered me away in the direction of Caccamo’s office, which was a little quieter and cozier.
“NJ, thank you for not giving us a pat on the head and telling us how lovely everything Littorane is,” said Qyn en route. “You, at least, understand. One day, I’d like to take you to hear our chants for real.
The Srecnadra Choir performs free concerts at Dengali’s Spit. You should come along.”
My reply was poised ready to burst from my lips when Sanaa interrupted me with the sensation of a chill blast of wind on my face.
NJ, she warned. Remember you’re in diplomatic mode.
I forced my lips and teeth into a shape that could pass as a smile to a nonhuman unfamiliar with my species. “That would be perfect,” I lied. “I’d love to dip my head into the sea for a listen.”
Aliens were not my thing, but I’d grown to like Nolog-Ndacu, and Silky. Most of the time. Maybe I would get on okay with the Littoranes.
“It shall indeed be perfect,” Qyn said.
“Do you realize what you’re getting yourself into?” asked Siyuk. “I can’t think of anything more outrageous than bringing a human to a concert. She wants to scandalize her family. Whatever you do, don’t let her tell them that you’re her boyfriend. That could prove very dangerous.”
“Not on a date,” I repeated. I looked at Qyn until I got her attention. “Probably safest all round if we don’t let my wife think we are on a date either.”
Their reaction was priceless. Qyn pushed herself down to the floor, legs splayed, as if someone heavy had just stood on her. Siyuk, meanwhile, appeared to be picked up around the shoulders by an invisible hand and given a quick shake.
If I had interpreted this correctly, Qyn was scared of Silky, and Siyuk was laughing his pants off, though to be honest, I knew so little about Littoranes I could have just witnessed a declaration of holy war.
We managed the short distance to Caccamo’s office without violence, so I decided my first interpretation was the more likely one.
Laban Caccamo was a strange character. For starters, he had begun life as a Tac-Marine – as part of the squad around which the Human Legion had formed – but he’d retrained as a Navy pilot, and spent most of his war as an X-Boat squadron leader. Scuttlebutt said that Caccamo had designed his office to be the exact same dimensions as his squadron’s ready room on his old carrier, Lance of Freedom. I believed it.
I felt foolish abandoning the celebration as we closed the door behind us, muffling the Litt-Beat, although the bass continued to assault us through the floor.
Doing my best to hide behind my beer mug, my awkwardness only grew as I stood watching my amphibian comrades push two chairs together. One rested its body on the seats while the other laid down underneath. I had been blind to how a room designed by humanoids might appear to a species whose body design meant they could never be seated.
“Um… Is that comfortable for you guys?” I asked.
The music’s sudden increase in volume warned that someone else had joined us.
“Simply wonderful, NJ,” announced Caccamo from the doorway. “You are an inspiration.”
“It’s no good, sir,” I told him. “You’ll need to explain that.”
“You arrived at my door last year with an alien bride,” he replied. “Young Nolog-Ndacu is telling everyone who will listen – as well as everyone who won’t – that you’ve asked him to dance, and I find you here chatting away on the topic of cross-species musical culture.”
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way–”
Caccamo cut me off. “Yes, yes. Quite so. Congratulations, NJ, and well done on your new appointment.”
I replayed the contents of my short-term memory buffer. No, I hadn’t missed anything. “My new what?”
“Hereby you are appointed the branch multi-species integration officer.”
If my face looked blank, it was because I was engaged with an internal debate with my ghosts. Our conclusion was unanimous. “We think you’re joking,” I told him.
“I was…” Caccamo paused, as if having second thoughts about what he was about to say. “Humor is most effective when it skirts the uncomfortable frontiers of real life.” He turned to the Littoranes. “Isn’t that so?”
“This is a universal truth,” agreed Qyn.
“I don’t do aliens.”
It wasn’t merely my words that issued from the collar that hung around Siyuk’s neck but a recording of my voice. “And yet he does,” he said, back to his usual thought-to-speech. “NJ, I think you are the funniest human who ever lived.”
“He means that sincerely,” Qyn clarified.
“Then that’s settled,” said Caccamo in a voice suddenly devoid of all humor. “Effective immediately, McCall you are indeed the multi-species integration officer.”
“I don’t want to do it,” I told him.
“I know you don’t,” said Caccamo grimly. “Do I have to remind you that Revenge Squad is not a social club?” His expression softened. “Or explain that the post comes with a modest pay increase?”
“Most timely,” said Qyn. “You’ll need plenty of money to take me out to the choir recital.”
“I thought you said it was free?” I protested.
“Of course it’s free. But our church is a proud one. You will be expected to make a generous donation.”
I sighed. I’d lived most of my life without money. Now that I had a decent wage, I found myself reluctant to let it go.
“Don’t worry, old boy.” Caccamo’s idiot’s grin was back in place. “Attendance at alien musical extravaganzas is part of your new job description. Talk to me tomorrow and I will explain the creative wonder that is the expense claim.”
Caccamo’s face snapped into a harder expression. “Listen up now, all of you.” The geniality had left his voice. Old habits brought me sharply to attention.
“Today Section ‘C’ got a soaking,” said the former squadron leader. “If more of you had been injured then you could have drowned. We are based at a port, McCall. And it is not only the harbor and the coastline where we need to be active, the canal system is vital to this region too.”
He paused. I wasn’t sure if I was expected to ask the obvious question, so I played safe and kept my mouth shut.
“Thirty-eight percent of the provincial population are Homo sapiens and related subspecies, and twenty-seven percent Littoranes. Qyn and Siyuk, you are the only two Littorane members of our branch, representing a wholly inadequate percentage of our personnel.”
“Why not recruit more, sir?” There, I’d said it.
A calculating smile came to his face. “Why indeed? Qyn, would you care to explain?”
“When you humans left the Legion, you left your units behind, your squads and your squadrons, your battalions and your fleets. You had to learn to become individuals, something I know many of you struggle with. But when Littoranes left their Legion units, we immediately formed civilian ones.”
“Our equivalent of your infantry squad, is the extended family,” said Siyuk. “If you see a group of Littoranes together in Port Zahir, they will almost certainly be related.”
“Then how come you are here?” I asked the amphibians.
Siyuk reached up with his tail to touch Qyn’s. “Because we are outcasts,” they said in unison.
“Well,” said Qyn, “technically, I’m an outcast disowned by my family, but Siyuk is merely a disgrace who’s fallen in with corrupting influences. You humans, for example.”
“Other than attracting the occasional flotsam and jetsam such as ourselves,” said Siyuk, “if you want more Littoranes in Revenge Squad then you need to stop thinking about recruiting individuals, and concentrate instead on forming alliances with family groups.”
“Well then, that’s what we need to do,” I said.
Caccamo gave me a look laden with meaning.
I corrected myself. “That’s what I need to do.”
“We can advise,” said Siyuk, “but we can’t represent Revenge Squad. Remember, she’s flotsam.”
“And he’s jetsam,” said Qyn.
The door opened again. This time it was Silky.
“If you were to take an alien out on a date one night,” Caccamo whispered to me with a conspiratorial wink. “That could be artfully construed as a business expense.”
I regarded my alien. Kurlei were about the same height as a baseline human, which means shoulder height against a Marine. Nonetheless Silky possessed the unnatural talent of appearing to loom over Marines, an ability she now deployed against Caccamo with maximum force. “What is this man saying, NJ?”
“The precise words are unimportant,” Siyuk answered for me. “Director Caccamo is performing humor by drawing a pointed reference to the human trait of self-ignorance.”
“Indeed,” Qyn agreed. “I find them endlessly amusing. Section Leader Sylk-Peddembal, what is the most ridiculous thing your human has done?”
Silky glared at Caccamo for several uncomfortable seconds before taking a seat next to the Littoranes.
“There are so many examples to choose from,” she said cheerfully. “He’s just the one human but I could spend a week and only give you the highlights.”
I rolled my eyes, but it was pointless to get angry. Besides, I was intrigued to hear what Silky would say about me.
Everyone focused intently on her.
“However, I do not think NJ’s foibles are an appropriate centerpiece for tonight’s celebration,” said Silky.
An amused grunt came from the back of Caccamo’s throat. He nodded to us and returned to the bullpen.
A few moments later, so too did the Littoranes.
I started to follow, but Silky intercepted me and gently pushed me down into a chair.
I frowned at my wife. “Did you make them leave?”
She peered at me. I think she was assessing my alcohol consumption to judge whether she could lie. Being able to read each other’s emotions was a double-edged sword: deceit was near impossible.
“I gave them mild anxiety,” she admitted. “Boosted their impatience. A suggestion that it was time to move on. Nothing more.”
“Okay. So you did get rid of them. Why?”
“I wish to spend time with my husband. Is that so bad? Do you wish me to keep away from you?”
I admonished her with a wagging finger. “No and no.” I stopped and put my arm around her shoulder, squeezing gently. “I like being with you. Even when I don’t say much, it’s nice to do so around you. But tonight is about celebrating that we’re still alive, and I don’t want to do that stuck here in Caccamo’s office. Silky, you can be as subtle as a squadron of battlecruisers in a bad mood. What is it you want? No, let’s start with a better question. Whatever it is, can it wait until tomorrow?”
Second Strike Page 6
