Maximum Offence (13 page)

That is when I realize she thinks I’m following Colonel Vijay’s orders. He wants her shot.
Too bad
. I wanted a Silver Fist prisoner.

Neither of us is going to get what we wanted.

‘Rachel,’ I say, ‘it’s a whipping.’

Relief floods her eyes.

And that tells me she’s never been whipped, at least not properly. I have, and shooting is preferable. Five lashes shreds muscle from your back, and ten reveals glistening ribs. Fifteen can kill and, if it doesn’t, twenty will. As deaths go, the whipping post is a damn sight less clean than a bullet.

But we are not talking about a bull-hide whip here.

‘You have a knife?’

She nods, tears in her eyes.

It’s the relief, I realize. She’s up here expecting to be shot. That means the rest of them, waiting in a sullen little knot below, probably expect the same.

‘Show me your belt . . .’

Pulling it through the loops on her uniform trousers, she hands it to me. The leather is new and stiff in places, but I’ve seen worse. So I show her how to cut a cat’s tail and tell her I expect there to be at least ten more when I next see the belt.

She has an hour to cut the others and return.

I will be waiting up here on this slope. Three valleys up from the one where we fought the Silver Fist.

‘You going through with this?’ demands the SIG.

I nod, which it picks up.

‘They’re going to hate you.’

‘No, they’re not.’

‘And you don’t care if they do?’

‘Not really.’

When the SIG realizes I’m refusing to rise to the bait, it lets me field-strip it with bad grace. There are thirty-seven separate pieces, but only one way to break the gun down and put it back together. My quickest is one minute ten, and I’m aiming for under a minute before Rachel returns.

We’re down to fifty-five seconds when I hear a scuffle of boots on the gravel. She’s taken fifteen minutes to do a job hardened troopers will take the best part of a day over, if allowed.

Mind you, they know the results of getting it wrong.

‘Show me.’

She hands me the cat.

Too heavy and the lashes will cut to the bone, too light and they will lift whole patches of skin. ‘Anyone help you?’

Rachel shakes her head.

‘OK,’ I say. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

She doesn’t beg and she doesn’t hesitate. Just takes back her whip and follows me down the slope. Neen has the Aux lined up at the bottom. Their combat jackets are brushed down, their pockets fastened.

Colonel Vijay stands to one side, scowling.

‘Right,’ I say. ‘Give the whip to Haze.’

‘Bastard,’ says my gun, but says it quietly.

We are dealing with half a dozen issues here and I don’t have time for each in turn. I’m going to get them all over at once. Leading her to a rock, Haze waits for Rachel to remove her jacket, then leans her face-down on the rock’s hot surface and lifts the back of her shirt to her shoulders.

‘Five,’ I tell him.

It’s less than he expects.

‘Lay them on properly. Or I will.’

He is looking inwards, wondering if he caused this. We both know the answer to that. Haze didn’t cause it but he didn’t help either.

‘Are you ready?’

Lifting her head, Rachel nods.

‘Hold her by the wrists,’ I tell Neen and Franc. Looking at Shil, I say, ‘And you count the lashes.’

Everyone has a part in this. That’s the point.

Slashing the belt into Rachel’s back, Haze winces. It is hard for a first stroke, but he’s afraid I will take over if he doesn’t do it properly.

‘One,’ says Shil.

The second draws blood, for all that it is softer.

A third breaks her silence, but I decide she will make five without screaming. I’m right: she gasps at the third, gasps louder at the fourth and sobs with the fifth, but we are done.

‘Bring her here.’

Neen and Franc are wondering whether to dress her.

‘
Now
,’ I order. Can’t believe anyone’s that stupid. Pull her shirt down over that and Rachel will be peeling cloth from half-healed flesh for the next week and that
will
make her scream.

Putting a hand under each elbow, Neen and Franc walk her across.

It takes Rachel a second to focus.

‘Now listen,’ I say.

She does.

‘I don’t give a fuck how things were done before. We’re the Aux. We never abandon our posts. We stand. And, if necessary, we die. Understand?’

Rachel nods.

‘Good,’ I say.

Undoing my jacket, I remove the Obsidian Cross I’ve been keeping inside my shirt. ‘For killing two snipers in near impossible conditions I award you the Obsidian Cross, second class. Wear it with pride.’ Kissing her on both cheeks, I hang the cross on its ribbon around Rachel’s neck and stand back.

A moment later, the others join me in saluting her.

A WARM WIND BLOWS ACROSS A NARROW UPLAND LAKE THAT smells of salt. Until three months ago, I’d never even seen a proper lake. But then, until a year ago all I knew was desert and forts and battles against the ferox. It’s been two days since we fought the Silver Fist, and five hours since we made camp high on the edge of a mountain.

Franc and I stand guard.

Except we sit. Somehow, I end up telling her about losing my arm. It is a simple enough story. My arm was ripped off by eight foot of fur and fangs. If the ferox hadn’t been dying, it would probably have taken my other arm and both my legs as well.

I took the beast’s head and left my arm.

Seems a fair trade to me.

Franc laughs when I say this, though I’m not sure why. Then I see it, or at least I think I do. A light skimming high in the sky above us.

At its fattest point, Hekati’s ring, in a cross section, is eighteen miles from side to side. Most of the ballast beneath our feet, including the mountain on this side and the rubble under that, exists to provide radiation shielding. That still leaves several miles of air above us, before you hit the chevron glass overhead.

‘What?’ Franc says.

‘He’s glitching,’ says the SIG.

I ignore it. ‘Up there,’ I tell Franc.

She scans the night sky. ‘A shooting star?’

‘Wrong side of the glass.’

As I stand, the single light becomes two. I keep watching, just in case it splits again, and when both lights begin to drop, I yank Franc upright. ‘Get Neen and tell him to catch up with me.’

I head downhill before she can reply.

‘Suppose Vijay gets them killed?’ demands my gun. ‘Not that I give a fuck, obviously.’

‘He won’t.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Neen won’t allow it.’

If you want to build your leg muscles, spend fifteen years marching on sand. Running over rock is nothing after that. Withered trees slip by. A stone wall appears, the first sign of civilization. A dog barks from a hut below. Only the hut and dog and slope are now somewhere behind me.

The two lights are closer now. Still falling, faster than I would expect.

Flicking up the screen on my helmet loses them. Flipping it down brings them back. Their heat signature is tiny. Most of the energy transfer is happening beyond the visible bands.
Shit
, I think.
Where did that thought come from?
‘Where do you think?’ asks my gun.

Didn’t realize I had spoken aloud.

‘You can see it?’

‘Them,’ says the SIG.

I turn it off.

My boots take me down a twisting path and through an orange grove towards a small valley where the lights are heading. And the lights are powered, because they shift position twice, adjusting direction and rate of fall. But this isn’t a powered descent; it’s a jump followed by a controlled fall.

FLEAS — fast leaping enemy access system
. Some geek’s idea of a joke. Slapping the gun awake, I say, ‘Explosive.’

‘Don’t you want to confirm identity?’

I hate it when the SIG’s right. ‘Be ready,’ I tell it.

Yeah, I know, it’s always fucking ready
.

Hitting the bottom of a slope, I make it halfway up the other side in a single rush and roll to a stop. I’m grinning. Not sure I knew how much all that going to parties and being polite to Colonel Vijay was getting to me.

‘Incoming,’ says the gun.

I duck, but it means the landers.

Metal hits rock and long legs splay, pistons hissing. Dust rises, clearly visible through my night visor. The metal legs stay splayed, because each flea spikes to bedrock to stop its rebound. Flame adds to the dust, as explosive charges blow off doors and restraining straps peel back.

One of the two pilots yanks the ring on a ceramic tube.

Chaff
, I think. Only it’s
blinder
.

A million sparks flare as magnesium ignites. Luckily, my brain’s ahead of me and I’m flat in the dirt, eyes shut and then rolling out of harm’s way before a slug clips splinters from a rock beside me.

Night vision’s fucked, though.

These aren’t Silver Fist, and they’re sure as hell not Death’s Head. They are carrying weapons from half a dozen different armies.

Dropping into a ditch, I sight over the edge. Empty a clip to keep them locked down. ‘Got one,’ says the gun.

I’m not sure. So I stay low until I hear a rustle behind me.

Flipping round, I find Colonel Vijay wearing a red dot from the SIG right in the middle of his forehead. Remember that one-second rule? Never been so tempted in my life. Only then, of course, we wouldn’t have the jump coordinates to get us off this habitat.

‘Get down,’ I tell him.

He opens his mouth to object.

‘Alternatively, sir . . . feel free to get yourself killed.’

Something tells me this really is his first time in the field. Behind him, five troopers crouch in the dirt.

Neen crawls forward.

‘How many, sir?’

‘Two.’ Half of me wants to bollock him for not being quicker. The other half for not taking longer. I was just beginning to enjoy myself.

‘Silver Fist?’

‘Guess again,’ I tell him.

The army’s mostly militia where he comes from and their job is to die. Militia don’t qualify for jumping fleas or use night haze. Kit like that comes expensive and militia are cheap. Since our new arrivals are not Death’s Head and they’re not Silver Fist, that only leaves . . .

‘Mercenaries?’

Maybe Neen will make good after all.

Nodding, I tell him to take two troopers and work his way round to the other side. He chooses Rachel, plus Haze, which surprises me.

‘You,’ I tell Franc. ‘Go that way.’

My corporal slips away to my left, a blade between her teeth. I used to think soldiers only did that for effect. Not Franc, she lives those knives. Probably sleeps with one clutched to her breast. Now there’s a thought.

‘And you, follow her.’

Shil vanishes.

‘
Who
are they?’ Colonel Vijay asks.

‘Mercenaries, sir.’

These are the first civil words we’ve spoken to each other since he ordered the Aux to slaughter the Silver Fist troopers two days ago. They obeyed, despite knowing I wanted a prisoner. What else could they do?

‘Why are they here?’

‘Same reason as you, sir. I imagine.’

My answer makes him go very quiet indeed.

ON THE COAST, YOU CAN TELL THAT HEKATI IS ARTIFICIAL. IT’S hard to ignore a shoreline that rises away from you. Up here, where outcrops and peaks shorten the horizon, we can go whole days thinking we’re somewhere real.

High on a mountain dawn is turning the rocks pink. And a warm wind is chasing away the night’s cold. It is a beautiful morning. Obviously enough, I am doing my best to ruin it for our new arrivals.

Want to see metal melt like wax? Use a SIG-37 with cinder capacity. It makes most plasma rifles look as efficient as trying to melt sheet steel with a candle. Burning the fleas back to silvery puddles creates a rivulet of molten metal that ignites thorn bushes and dry bracken as it dribbles downhill towards a ditch.

‘Pretty,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘But you’re—’

‘Wait, sir.’

Scrambling from the ditch, a mercenary takes a direct hit from my left. The slug ricochets off the armour on his shoulder, but that’s not the point. He’s rattled. Hitting dirt, he rolls behind a rock. If he has any sense, he’ll stay there.

‘Sir.’ Neen’s gaze flicks from me to the colonel.

‘What?’

‘Haze, sir . . . He’s worried.’

My sergeant is in a difficult position. Haze isn’t paid to worry. In fact, I’m not sure he is paid at all. He was probably conscripted on the basis of food, shelter and all the ammunition one man can fire.

‘Not surprised,’ I say, nodding towards what remains of the pods. ‘Listening to that lot melt must hurt his head.’

Now it is Colonel Vijay’s turn to look worried. ‘Those were AI?’

‘Semi AI at the most, sir.’

One mercenary faces me. The other faces Rachel, who has them both locked down. ‘Your choice,’ I tell the gun.

An over blast lights the dawn sky like a gigantic firework.

The SIG-37 places its shot perfectly. Anyone else, and we’d’ve been down there scooping up chopped meat, if we could be bothered. As it is . . . When the explosion clears, a merc sticks his rifle round a rock and shoots back.

‘Ceramic carapace,’ says the SIG, making it sound obscene.

Jumping fleas, full-body armour, a blind refusal to know where they are outnumbered . . . Now why does that sound familiar?

Neen still wants my attention.

‘All right,’ I say. ‘What’s Haze worried about?’

My sergeant hesitates. That tells me I’m not going to like it. ‘Sir,’ he says, ‘Haze tapped into Hekati’s AI. Didn’t mean to. It just happened. And while he was tapped in . . .’

I’ll give Haze
just happened
.

Firing off a shot, I duck as a mercenary fires back. They’re harder to kill than fagan lizards. Of course, you need to know what a fagan lizard is for that to make sense. ‘And while Haze was locked in . . . ?’

‘He piggybacked the sky cams. There are Silver Fist coming this way.’

I grin.

‘That’s not good, sir.’

‘
Why not?
‘