The first mate opened her mouth to scream, but Poppins was there with another pistol and blew a hole in the side of her head. She fell, trailing blood, landing in a tangled awkward heap.
For the first time ever, none of my training kicked in. I didn’t move to attack or to defend. I just gawked. Something jabbed my side, and a jolt burned through every part of my body. Suddenly I was on my hands and knees, trying to clear my head.
A stun wand. Someone had hit me with a fucking stun wand.
More people were coming onto the bridge, stepping around or over me to take up positions at the various stations. My head swam, but I was conscious enough to look up and see Poppins standing in front of Cindy, snapping off a crisp salute.
“Bridge secure, ma’am,” Poppins said.
“Excellent,” Cindy said. “Are we ready to broadcast?”
“Soon,” Poppins assured her. “Our people on the ground are already spreading the word that their new chancellor will address them.”
“Bring up the planetary news feeds, and put them on the big screen,” Cindy said.
The big screen flickered to life with a scene from the capital city down on Mars. Hundreds of thousands of citizens crowded the main square in front of Gestapo headquarters. A group of men and women unfurled a huge red banner from the roof, and it hung down between the building’s fluted columns. It proudly displayed the swastika, the brass dragon perched on top, wings spread grandly. They erected a thirty-foot-high view screen next to the banner.
Suddenly Cindy was kneeling next to me, a smug gleam in her eye.
“So easy. I knew from your profile you wouldn’t be able to resist the demure girl who so needed to be saved. So shy. So vulnerable… and you. So predictable. If you had a row of buttons across your forehead, they couldn’t be any easier to press. You so desperately needed to see me a certain way, didn’t you? Because then you could think of yourself differently. You’re flesh and blood, Sloan, but you might as well be a robot for all your programming.”
I wanted to tell her to go fuck herself, but I was fighting the effects of the stun wand. Dizzy. Darkness coming and going.
“I am the daughter of the Brass Dragon,” she said, “and I’ve come to claim my birthright.”
“Ma’am, we’re ready to broadcast,” Poppins said.
Cindy stood and turned away.
“Put me on.”
Her face suddenly appeared on the thirty-foot screen in the square, the crowd hushed, turning to her. My eyes went blurry, but I blinked them clear. I needed to see this.
“Citizens,” she said, her voice ringing across the square. “I am Cinder Josephine Cleopatra Heintz, the direct descendant of Joseph Heintz, the Brass Dragon, and your new chancellor. I have arrived to deliver you from the Godless alien invaders and to lead the Reich into a glorious new future.”
The crowd cheered wildly. Just like that Cindy was the new chancellor, the ruler of Mars and whatever was left of the Reich Empire. I mean, it had to be true, right? I’d just seen it on TV.
And then I passed out.
* * *
I awoke in the brig and stayed there awhile, alone. A couple of hours went by. The daughter of the Brass Dragon was the new supreme ruler of the Reich Empire, and I helped put her there.
Agent dumbass.
My cell door opened and two burly men entered, each holding a stun wand.
“Get up.”
“Time for the firing squad?” I asked.
“Sooner or later I guess,” one of the guards said. “First, a little interrogation. If you know anything useful, we need to squeeze it out of you, maybe have some fun in the process.”
“I suppose this involves a fresh cup of coffee and some earnest conversation,” I said.
“It involves electrodes on your gonads.”
Damn.
A hand cracked one of the guards in the neck. I heard a sharp snap, and he went down.
Meredith moved into the room, arms up in perfect fighting posture. The second guard swung the stun wand and she blocked it, her other hand shooting out, the heel of her palm slamming the guy’s nose flat. It exploded blood down the front of his uniform, and he staggered back.
She pressed forward, spinning in a roundhouse kick that connected to the side of his head and put him down.
I gaped. “What the fuck, lady!”
“I’ve been downloading martial arts training for a week,” Meredith said. “Come on!” She took my hand and dragged me out of the brig.
We came to a crossroads, and she looked both ways down the wide corridors of the battle hulk. Nobody around.
“The passcodes on my yacht are still the same,” she said. “Most of the crew is celebrating the victory, so you should be able to sneak to the hangar bay, no problem.”
“Me? You’re not coming?”
“Everything’s confused right now, but you can hide out on one of the frontier planets and come back to join me later,” Meredith said. “I’m useful here. I’m part of this. I can’t leave.”
“But it’s fake,” I said. “All a lie.”
Her face fell, and I saw that my words genuinely confused and saddened her.
“How can you say that? We defeated the aliens. We saved the Reich.”
“You hate the Reich.”
“That was before,” Meredith said. “Don’t you see that everything’s changed? We’re humans, and we’ve got to stick together. When I was spoiled millionaire Meredith Capulet back on Luna, I thought I could give my life meaning by buying it. Like it was some kind of hobby. It’s different now. I laid it on the line and came through the other side to tell about it. I can’t give that up. I can’t let that be meaningless. I’m needed here, and I’ve never been needed before.”
The weight of unreality was suddenly too much for me. How could I explain about the clones and Mueller and all the lies that had brought us where we were now?
I couldn’t. The truth would crush her. I wouldn’t be the one to take away everything she thought she had.
“You’re right,” I said. “You stay here where you can do some good.”
She brightened and kissed me. I let the kiss linger an extra moment, knowing it would be the last.
“Okay, get out of here,” she said. “While you still can.” Then she turned and trotted back down the corridor.
On the way I met some drunken members of the crew. They toasted the victory. Toasted the Brass Dragon. One stopped me in the hall and gave me a high five.
“Hey, you’re the agent guy that flew the zip ship into the big toilet right?”
“Sort of, yeah.”
“Nice job, man!” Fist bump.
I’d almost made it to the hangar bay when I ran into a trio of crewmen, arms around each other, beers in hand. They toasted me, slurring words.
“Yo, man. You know the five-oh-first fight song? That’s our fucking outfit.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not very musical.”
They passed me and began to sing, loud and off key. “Hey hey, we’re the Nazis… and people say we Nazi around!” That gave me incentive to keep moving, and fast.
I found the hangar bay and let myself into Meredith’s yacht. I strapped myself into the pilot’s seat and calmly initiated the startup procedure.
The hangar bay doors were closed.
I donned the headset, adjusted the mic. “Hangar bay control, I need the doors open and clearance for takeoff.”
A second later, a drunken voice crackled in my headset.
“Hey, where you… hic… where you, uh, going?”
“Beer run,” I said. “We’re dangerously low. I’m also bringing back a half dozen of those android prostitutes with the pheromones.”
“Oh, shit yeah. Yeah, that’s… hic… that’s cool. Can you, like, get a bag of Curry Crisps while you’re out?”
“Affirmative.”
A second later the hangar bay doors slid open.
I eased the yacht out and turned away from the fleet. Meredit
h had told me to head for the frontier, maybe a little green rural planet where the Reich would forget about me, and then, at some future time, we’d meet up again. But I knew it would never happen.
I left the bright garish red of Mars behind me, and turned the ship toward the darkened Earth.
EPILOGUE
The bodies were still there. The agency cryo facility had been long abandoned. What did a few bodies matter? It seemed a lifetime ago that the man in the glitter tie had arrived to bring me out of stasis.
I stepped over him, wiped the dust off the cryo computer and prepped the chamber. There was usually a lab tech for this, but I knew the routine. I stripped down and lowered myself into the chamber, closed the door to my glass coffin.
Eventually, I would be plunged into total oblivion, a frozen darkness as brain functions slowed to almost nothing, but it was a slow descent, and I dreamed at first.
Meredith and me, and Cindy was there too, all of us tangled together so completely that we might have been one. Cindy’s face hovered in front of me, lips black, smile predatory like an animal’s. Her face elongated, fangs growing from her mouth until I was looking at a dragon, scales a gleaming brass.
The dragon spread its wings and took flight, soaring past the clouds and into space. It sped between stars and grew enormous, a beast unrivaled.
It breathed a fire that consumed the galaxy.
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks as always to my agent David Hale Smith. Thanks to my editor, Steve Saffel, and to the team at Titan Books, including Nick Landau, Vivian Cheung, Laura Price, Miranda Jewess, Paul Gill, Julia Lloyd, Chris Teather, and Hayley Shepherd.
And thanks to my family, who love me for some reason. Most of all, thank YOU, readers, who seem to get me. Lunatics like us have to stick together.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Victor Gischler lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with his wife and son. He can usually be found next to his charcoal grill. His novels include Gun Monkeys, Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse, and the fantasy trilogy A Fire Beneath the Skin. His comic book work includes runs on Punisher MAX, Deadpool, X-Men, The Shadow, and Angel & Faith, and his creator-owned book Sally of the Wasteland was published by Titan Comics. He is the winner of Italy’s Black Corsair award for adventure fiction. Gischler is a world traveler and amateur beer-swiller.
AVAILABLE NOW FROM TITAN BOOKS
VIRTUES OF WAR
BENNETT R. COLES
The Terran military, the Astral Force, launches a mission to crush a colonial rebellion on the Centauri colony. Although Expeditionary Force 15 succeeds, the surviving veterans remain scarred—physically and emotionally, and the consequences of their actions follow them back to Earth when terrorists seek to exact catastrophic revenge.
Introducing platoon commander Lieutenant Katja Emmes, pilot Sublieutenant Jack Mallory, and Astral Fleet commander Lieutenant Commander Thomas Kane, Virtues of War is the start of an epic new military science-fiction series.
TITAN BOOKS
“Virtues of War is most impressive in its big-canvas prose spectacle, whether on the ground or in space, with titanic kaleidoscopes of burning starships, killer droids and raining fire.” SFX
“a considerable volume of action, and none of it disappoints.” Starburst
“The fast-moving pace of the story is terrific and makes it an absolute pleasure to read.” Impedimenta
“high-energy, high-velocity, high-tech, throbbing with explosive action.” The Blood Shed
“I hope there is more solid Military SF from Coles yet to come.” Wordpress
“The writing itself caught my interest and kept my eyes solidly on each page from start to finish. If you are a fan of solid military themed science fiction, this one is a great read.” Science Fiction.com
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COMING SOON FROM TITAN BOOKS
GHOSTS OF WAR
BENNETT R. COLES
Lieutenant Katja Emmes is dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder as the result of her part in the war, and with internal politics that threaten to tear her family apart. Lieutenant Commander Thomas Kane has been given a pivotal mission—one that may prove a valuable stepping-stone, as long as he retains the support of his political patron. And Sublieutenant Jack Mallory has been rebuilt by surgeons, having nearly died in combat.
Kane and Mallory are assigned to the research station that is developing the Dark Bomb, Terra’s newest weapon, nicknamed “The Peacemaker.” But the greatest threat won’t come from outside of the solar system…
AVAILABLE 2016
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MARCH OF WAR
BENNETT R. COLES
The Centauri terrorist was stopped, but not before he caused widespread death and destruction on Earth. This leads to an escalating war. Lieutenant Jack Mallory is on the front lines, leading a flight of Hawks into the battle zone. His mission is to rescue Thomas Kane, whose Astral forces are under fire.
The Astral Force must establish a bridgehead in Centauri territory, where they will place a jump gate in anticipation of a new invasion. Lieutenant Katja Emmes works behind the scenes, to keep the Centauri from learning of the plan before it can be carried out successfully.
AVAILABLE 2017
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Gestapo Mars Page 20
