Maximum Offence (12 page)

‘No point,’ he says. ‘We’ll be joining him soon enough.’ His shrug is that of someone grown used to the idea of his own death. ‘Might as well save our energy.’

With that, he slopes away, weighed down by a pack a six-year-old should be able to carry. I doubt we will see him again and Mic obviously feels the same, because he doesn’t look back and nor do the couple stumbling after him.

‘SVEN,’ SAYS COLONEL VIJAY. ‘A WORD.’

‘Sir . . . ?’

‘What’s wrong with that man?’

‘The air, sir,’ I say. ‘He comes from a planet with more oxygen. Hekati’s atmosphere is thinner.’

The colonel considers this. ‘Do his nosebleeds happen often?’

I consider this in my turn. ‘Some months,’ I say, ‘he bleeds more than Shil, Franc and Rachel put together.’

Colonel Vijay decides he wants to be somewhere else.

The Aux are digging a slit trench across a dry river bed and that is where I find Haze. Climbing out of the trench, he wipes blood from his face.

‘I’m fine, sir.’

Trooper Haze hasn’t been fine the entire time I’ve known him. But his softness is going and he causes less grief than before. Of course, he’s always going to be large and he’s always going to look stupid when he runs. Still, he can now hold a rifle and dig slit trenches with the best of them.

‘Sir,’ says Haze, ‘can I ask something?’

‘Depends what it is.’

He wipes his nose again.

‘Ask,’ I say.

There is a famous triple-sunned planet in the northern spiral, but a single sun is more than enough for me. And for Haze, clearly, because he turns his back on the brightness and stares in the other direction.

He’s listening.

Only Haze doesn’t listen like other people. At least, he doesn’t listen to frequencies the rest of us hear. ‘Can you hear it?’ he asks finally.

I shake my head.

‘
Sir . . .
‘

A lot hangs on that word, and I am going to leave it like that. I’m not about to start barking when he’s the dog I keep to do it for me. Plus, I like it when the kyp in my throat sleeps. Food tastes like food and colours look vaguely normal. I can even wake in the morning without my mouth foul with static.

‘So,’ I say. ‘What can you hear?’

He struggles to put it into words. While I struggle to understand the words he does manage.
Insane signal to noise ratio. Off scale. Way too much loopback for a habitat that’s on file as deserted
.

I ask Haze if he is certain.

He’s certain. This habitat is on U/Free lists as uninhabited. The prospectors qualify as short-stay visitors and the gangs don’t count, being residual and indigenous. As for Hekati herself, she shows clear signs of
abulia
, with secondary signs of emotional
cri du chat
. About one word in five of this makes sense.

‘Haze,’ I say, ‘just dig the fucking trench.’

He turns, head down and shoulders hunched. So I tell him to come back when I’m going to understand what he is saying.

As Colonel Vijay watches, we scatter dirt.

A few strategically placed rocks and bushes will help hide the trench. We don’t have to worry about the bushes dying on us. They are dead already. He’s not happy about me stripping to the waist and doesn’t approve of my helping dig.

‘You’re an officer.’

‘I was a sergeant first, sir.’

And you should still be one
, his look says. But he keeps the words to himself and stares towards the head of the valley. ‘If they are Silver Fist . . .’

‘They’ll be fucking hard to kill.’

‘Sven,’ he says. ‘About what happened in the hub. I don’t think you understand . . .’

‘Oh,’ I say, ‘I think I do, sir.’

He flushes. ‘You’ve fought the Fist in battle?’

‘At Ilseville, sir,’ I tell him. ‘We all have.’

Except you
. Must see it in my eyes, because he turns away.

Digging her own slot, Rachel rips up a couple of bushes to improve her cover and sweeps the area in front of her trench with twigs to rid it of footprints. When I give her a nod, she grins.

I know less about Rachel than the others. She was raped after Ilseville. A few weeks later she killed her attacker. Other than that . . . ? She’s the best shot I’ve met, and her friendship with Haze gets stronger by the day.

Maybe that’s all I need to know.

A hand signal sends her to her trench. Another brings the Aux to me, gives them positions and tells them to take cover. Colonel Vijay accepts a position beside me.

Time to wake my gun.

‘That’s—’ says the colonel.

‘Illegal technology? Yes, I know.’

He hasn’t seen the SIG-37 close up before. Unfortunately, the SIG doesn’t think much of him either. ‘Who’s the—?’

‘Colonel Vijay. He’s leading this mission.’

‘Bullshit,’ says my gun. ‘You are. Jaxx said so. I was there, remember? Said he could rely on you to do the right thing.’

The Aux are pretending not to listen.

‘Well,’ I say, ‘he changed his mind.’

Colonel Vijay is looking at me. ‘Jaxx?’ he says. ‘The general chose you for this mission?’

‘Yeah,’ says my gun. ‘Who chose you?’

‘Enough,’ I tell it.

‘Or what?’ it says. ‘You’ll turn me off thirty seconds before a battle?’

Obviously, the SIG is looking forward to killing Silver Fist, because it decides to behave after all. Doesn’t even criticize my choice of ammunition. Although it flips clips the moment it thinks I’m not looking.

———

Whatever sends the birds skywards is threatening enough to have a whole flock circling angrily. They are huge and ugly, with a cry as bleak as a baby being strangled. And there must be ten, if not fifteen of the bastards.

It’s the fact I can’t see what has upset them that has me counting clips. Hollow-point, explosive, incendiary, flechette, over blast. A knife in my belt, a dagger in my boot, throwing spikes on one hip and a garrotte in the bottom of one pocket.

Should keep me going for a while.

‘Check again,’ I demand.

The SIG-37 does.

After the gun finds nothing, I send Shil to fetch Haze, who is at the far end of our trench. I also tell her to keep her head down.

She does as ordered. Whatever she says as she passes the others has them crouching lower.

‘Sir,’ says Haze.

You know that look you get when a beautiful stranger walks into your favourite bar, and you know she is going to fuck you over and empty your wallet and leave you with a nasty infection and you still don’t care?

Haze gets that look every time he sees my gun.

And the scary bit is he doesn’t lust after the SIG because it can fire faster than anything in existence, burn sheet steel in cinder-maker mode, or blow out every eardrum on a whole bloody platoon with a single airburst.

No, he lusts after its intelligence chip.

‘Here,’ I say. ‘Enjoy each other.’

Fumbling his catch, Haze breaks sweat. He thinks AIs should be treated with respect. So does the SIG, that’s half my problem.

‘See those birds?’

The raptors are settling now. This says whatever upset them stands between us and the thorn trees behind, and that brings us into their firing range.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Tell me what’s out there.’

He glances at Colonel Vijay, looks back at me and bites his lip. We were going to hit this problem eventually. Why not deal with it now?

‘Haze is my intelligence officer.’

‘Your . . .’

‘Check with General Jaxx.’ We both know he can’t.

‘What are you saying?’ demands Colonel Vijay. The Aux think he’s angry. Given the way his gaze keeps flicking towards those thorn bushes, I think he’s scared.

‘Haze,’ I say, ‘take off your helmet.’

‘My God,’ the colonel says. ‘He’s . . .’

‘Yes, sir. You’re right. He is.’ Nodding at the river bed, I say to Haze, ‘Now we’ve got that over. Tell me.’

Handing me back my gun, he flips open a pocket slab. Fingers move faster than my eyes can follow as he inputs line after line of headache-inducing numbers.

‘Fuck,’ says my gun.

Then says it again. Only this time the SIG’s voice is louder. ‘
Cancel
,’ it says. ‘Don’t fucking
retry
. . .’

‘No,’ whispers Haze. ‘Not yet.’

‘
Haze . . .
‘ the gun says, and then it’s too late.

As the beginnings of a fit jerk Haze upright, Shil grabs him and drags him down, a split second ahead of a bullet whistling overhead. We have lost the element of surprise. As if that isn’t bad enough, Neen is tugging at my arm.

‘
Sir
,’ he says.

Rachel is out of her foxhole and racing towards us. Raising the SIG, I aim at her.

I don’t know what it is loaded with and don’t much care. Another step and I am going to kill her myself. ‘Get back to your fucking position.’

Looking both ways, she flinches as an enemy shot whips past. It’s only hesitating that saves her life. When she hits the ground, it’s halfway between her foxhole and our own trench. She is still yelling Haze’s name, and I realize she believes the bullet took him down.

On the slope ahead, a Silver Fist sniper appears.

I’ve no idea how Haze is making him visible and no time to ask. Even if Haze was in a state to answer. Because I’m out of my trench and halfway to where Rachel sobs in the dirt.

Grabbing her, I hurl her towards her position. Pick her up again, and toss her into the foxhole ahead of me.

‘
Haze
.’ A slap focuses her attention. Should leave it there, because the second slap puts her eyes out of focus again. ‘He’s alive,’ I tell her. ‘Unhurt . . . Now pick up your fucking rifle.’

She grabs it.

There are things you do in battle and things you don’t. Abandoning a position is one of the don’ts. Nodding at the opposite slope, I say, ‘Where would you hide?’

Rachel looks puzzled.

‘Imagine you’re a fucking Silver Fist sniper and you want to protect infantry walking up that river bed. Where do you hide?’

‘Over there.’ She points. ‘In those rocks, just behind that bush.’

She hesitates.

‘Sir, I’m . . .’

‘Lucky to be alive.’

Death is the penalty for what she’s done.

‘Sight on that position,’ I tell her. ‘Fire when I give the order.’

To her credit, Rachel doesn’t ask why. Working the bolt, she adjusts the sight for crosswind, steadies herself and becomes one with the gun. She has her eye to the scope, and I see her twist her head slightly, as if puzzled.

‘Something there,’ she says. ‘I mean, not really, but . . .’

‘Kill it,’ I say.

The bullet leaves her barrel at 3800 fps and crosses the valley before her target has time to realize she’s fired; although it’s probably luck that gives Rachel a head shot. As the braid flips backwards, his camouflage blanket slips.

And the Silver Fist open fire.

They have a machine gun set up on the river bed. It’s spitting bullets so fast that they must have two Silver Fist working the belt. Or maybe it’s only one. Because thirty seconds in the gun jams. And my team give it everything they’ve got. Bushes explode, stones fly and a tree beside the river bed turns to wood chip a hand’s breadth above the gravel before toppling sideways.

Whole clips empty in seconds.

Nitrocellulose.

If we had the supplies I’d let them burn off for the sheer hell of it. Instead, I jack the slide on my gun.

‘Oh yes,’ says the SIG.

It has wanted to do this for days.

Prefrag ceramic is messy but effective as fuck. Get caught by one and you become your own body weight in mince. Hiding behind something doesn’t help, hiding under something isn’t much better.

I put an over blast above where I think the belt-fed is sited.

‘And again,’ my gun says. So I bracket a couple of shots forward and back.

What looks like a piece of Silver Fist crawls towards our trench. If he had sense, he’d head in the other direction. As he crawls, more and more of him becomes visible. His camouflage blanket slipping free.

‘Head shot,’ I say. ‘Finish him.’

Rachel does.

‘And the others.’

Using her scope, she scans the river bed. Every thirty seconds or so she puts a shot into a whimpering sliver of someone. She does this so steadily my temper begins to improve. Until a bullet ricochets from the rock I’m hiding behind.

‘Another sniper,’ yells my gun.

‘Yeah,’ says Rachel. ‘We noticed.’

After a second, she sticks her head above the foxhole and ducks as a second shot cracks overhead. ‘He’s good,’ she says.

‘If he was good,’ I tell her, ‘you’d be dead.’

She looks at me.

‘Where is he?’ I demand.

‘On the right.’

‘Rachel . . .
Where is he?
‘

Sticking up her head, she takes another look. It is rolling sideways that saves her life, because the next bullet hits where she was.

‘Not sure, sir.’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘This is how it’s going to work. I’m going to stand up and run for the trench. Their sniper is going to raise his head to take a shot and you’re going to blow it off for me.’

‘
Sir
,’ she says, ‘
I can’t see him
.’

‘He’s you,’ I tell her.

That’s how this stuff works
, I realize. You decide what you would do if you were the enemy and then you do it different, or you do it better. Can’t imagine why I didn’t grasp that before.

‘OK,’ I say. ‘You’re on.’

Legs power me as I head for the trench below. A slug raises dust behind me, another hits the slope ahead. I’m throwing myself from side to side, which slows me down but makes me harder to hit. A hundred paces, seventy paces . . .

Fuck
, I think,
how much longer is she going to leave it?

And then it occurs to me Rachel can solve all her problems by doing nothing. Only she’s Aux, and she wouldn’t do that, would she? My answer comes in a single shot from behind.

After that, it is just cleaning up.

‘YOU KNOW WHY THIS IS NECESSARY?’

Rachel nods, and I am glad. She doesn’t have to think it justice; she doesn’t have to think it right. She just has to understand why. If she doesn’t, the punishment is worthless. ‘Sir,’ she says. ‘May I say goodbye to Haze first?’