Heart of Granite

by James Barclay

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Glad you could all get out on your own.’

  Valera turned to him, the shock of all she was seeing on her face.

  ‘Just look at this mess,’ she said.

  Chapter 13

  The problem with the glorious design of the fire drake is that it was undiluted by any strands of Terran DNA. We couldn’t engineer indigenous DNA into it and make it work. So the dragon of myth is an alien lifeform and people immediately speculated whether aliens ever flew them in our skies in centuries gone by. Our issue was more pressing. What would happen to the humans asked to fly them?

  Professor Helena Markov, Managing Director, Extra Reptilian Construct Organisation.

  Gargan’s was quiet that night. Plenty of people were out, and dancing, but there was none of the normal frenetic energy about it. Mostly they stood in groups and talked. And stared.

  Max nursed a glass of whisky into which the ice had long since melted. Those few with him had only left the rack out of a sense of duty and in the wake of further bad news. None of the downed drakes or their pilots had survived. That made it official: Inferno-X was eight down.

  ‘We have to have a naming,’ said Max.

  Valera nodded. ‘I know but we aren’t all here.’

  ‘Barring those in medical, only Risa’s missing,’ said Max.

  Risa, who had shut her door on it all and was alone with Grim. ‘Come on Skipper. Get it done and we can move on. I think the whole bar is waiting.’

  Valera sighed and pushed herself to her feet. The squad, just eleven of them left, assembled in a circle. The music fell silent and everyone in Gargan’s with it. Valera raised her glass.

  ‘And you’re all going to drain yours when I’m done, right?’ she muttered to them before raising her voice. ‘To our lost, we name you. We remember you as heroes of Inferno-X. Abraham. Lankowski. Jaks. Losano. Schmidt, Jes. Borini. Fellows. You made the sacrifice. You are gone but will ever remain InfernoX. Salute!’

  Glasses were raised and drained. The silence in Gargan’s was brief and then applause began to grow. It boomed around the tenways space, louder than he had ever heard it and Max closed his eyes and let it roll over him, soaking in the emotion until it faded and all that was left was an echo in his memory.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Valera to all who could hear. ‘Now let’s celebrate their talent and theirlives.’

  Gargan’s closed early that night and Inferno-X had returned to their racks long before the last dance.

  Max woke well before the bells and let Anna-Beth sleep on, letting the sounds of the HoG settle into his body just like he had the first night he’d been on board. First there was the hum, a bass tone with a slight rhythmic throb. It was always there in the background; blood pumping through arteries as thick as tree trunks. It was a sound of comfort and security. Next, there was the distant vibrating rumble and thud, one every fifteen seconds or so; the heart beating, powering the blood. The sound of life.

  Third, there was the titanic dull roar that surrounded everything, the wind you would never feel; breath entering and leaving the cavernous lungs. It was the sound of health, if you felt you needed to hear it. And lastly, there was the repeated heavy crump that reverberated gently through everything; thirty pairs of giant clawed feet impacting the ground in a rhythm more akin to a centipede’s than a giant iguana.

  ‘You okay?’ Anna-Beth was staring at him.

  ‘Yeah, not so bad,’ said Max. ‘Sorry I wasn’t great company last night.’

  ‘Or the night before . . . but I think I can find it in my heart to forgive you.’ Anna-Beth sat up. ‘I need to go. Got a brain pattern scan this morning and the Hammerclaws are out on earlies.’

  Max sat up and drew her to him, kissing her and burying his face into her neck, breathing her in. ‘It would be so much worse without you.’

  ‘Are you going soft on me, Halloran?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Good.’ Anna-Beth got out of bed, pulled her clothes on and gave him a peck on the cheek before going to the door. ‘My place next time. Your pod smells too much of sweaty man.’

  When the bells sounded a few minutes later, summoning them all from their pods, Max pulled on his sweats and walked out to the squad room, the gentler sounds of the HoG having reminded him that life went on. One look at his friends, silent and drawn when he strode in, reminded him that, for some of them, it didn’t. Not straight away.

  What struck Max most as he walked to the coffee machine to pour himself the obligatory half litre mug, was how sparsely populated the squad room was, how few of them remained fit to fly. Eight of them were dead, another four were hospitalised with broken bones, severe concussion or internal injuries from the sheer force of impact.

  Everyone was sitting in their usual places, which only emphasised the great gaps that had been torn in the squad. Max sat between Redfearn and Kullani, who bumped their shoulders with his in a half-hearted version of their normal boisterous greeting.

  ‘All right, Reds?’

  ‘So, so,’ said Redfearn.

  ‘Risa?’

  ‘The nightmare is running through my head on endless loop. There is so much more I should have done,’ said Kullani.

  ‘You can’t afford to think like that,’ said Gurney who was seated opposite them, by Jes’s empty place. ‘Check the data. It’s incredible so many of us survived.’

  Max nodded. The room fell silent again. Max tried to catch the eyes of as many as he could, asking them with a raise of his eyebrows if they were all right. The response was patchy at best, though Stepanek at least seemed pumped for some reason. Eventually, all of them switched their attention to Valera who was studying her p-palm. She was waiting for something, if her constant refreshing of the screen was anything to go by.

  ‘Skipper?’ asked Palant. ‘What’s happening?’

  Valera looked up. ‘Sorry Pal, sorry everyone, it’s—’

  The door to their rack squeaked open and in came Grim pushing a trolley. Scents of hot food and fresh baked bread heralded its cargo and Max realised that he was hungry, so not absolutely everything had gone to shit.

  Grim wheeled the trolley over to the drinks point, looking intensely uncomfortable under the gaze of every pilot but trying to smile. She shrugged.

  ‘I thought . . . you know, you might not want to sit and eat and have everyone staring at you, so, you know . ..’

  Valera took her hands.

  ‘Grim, you are an absolute angel. Thank you.’

  Grim relaxed and her smile broadened. ‘Oh, great, well it was nothing, you know . .. right, well I’ll be going.’

  ‘Like hell you will,’ said Valera. ‘Eat with us.’

  Grim scrubbed her hands down her fatigues, blushing. ‘No, it’s not my place. This is a drake squad room.’

  ‘Grim, you’re practically family,’ said Monteith. ‘Sit down. Max’ll make a space for you.’

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ said Max, springing up. ‘Sit down, let me get you something.’

  Grim made a half move and then stopped. Valera caught her eye.

  ‘I’d have all of you up here if I could. Every medic, every flight crew . . . picking us up yesterday when we got home, you have no idea how much it means. So do as you’re told and sit down and we’ll serve you for a change, all right?’

  Kullani held out her hands and Grim shrugged and went over to a cheer from the squad.

  ‘Eggs is it, Grim?’

  ‘Yep. Scrambled. On toast and with a few beans. And a coffee if that’s okay?’

  Max grinned. ‘Your wish is my command.’

  He walked to the trolley, leading a surge of hungry pilots grabbing plates and descending on the food. Max delivered Grim’s breakfast and took his own over to sit by Monteith who put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in hard, almost dumping his food on the floor.

  ‘I love you too, Monts, even with your scratchy hair.’

  ‘Hey, you should have seen me when I had dreads.’ Monteith rapp
ed a knuckle on his skull for good measure and headed off to the trolley.

  ‘All right, people,’ said Valera, sitting down and talking while she ate. ‘It’s oh-seven-fifteen now and we have our debrief at oh-eight-hundred in the flight deck briefing room. It’s going to be a hard day, let’s not pretend otherwise. But we’re Inferno-X. Yesterday was tough, but today we’re the flagship squadron and I need you all to act like it though you might not feel like it, okay?’

  Valera looked around the squad and nodded at what she saw.

  ‘Good. So shower. Shave if you’re hairy, make sure you smell nice and put on clean fatigues if you’ve got any,’ she said, giving Max a stare and drawing a chuckle from the rest of them. ‘Get down to alpha deck and spend a moment with your drake before the debrief. It’ll be a fact-finding exercise so keep your emotions out of it. If you can’t, don’t say anything at all.’

  ‘Any news on our medical cases?’ asked Redfearn.

  ‘I was coming to that. One by one: Roberts has a broken collarbone, dislocated shoulder and some whacked out tendons and ligaments in his arm and across his shoulder and chest. He’s out of it for six weeks. The Nuge has electrical burns to his face and neck, muscle tears in his biceps and quads from his crash landing and also sustained a concussion. But he’s not as bad as we feared. Monteith saved his life: the Mafs circled back to make sure his drake was dead.’

  Monteith inclined his head modestly. The squad applauded him and Max gave him a big kiss on the cheek.

  ‘That is disgusting,’ said Monteith. ‘I won’t be saving you if that’s what I can look forward to.’

  ‘That was for saving the Nuge. Just imagine how grateful I’d be if you saved me.’ Max winked and pouted.

  ‘Should that horror arise, I will don my armoured underpants immediately.’

  ‘All right you two, enough of the love,’ said Valera. ‘Kane is in a bad way but it’s not life threatening. He has a severe concussion, whiplash injuries and a broken leg. We won’t be seeing him for some time, I’m afraid. And finally, Colette . . . well she’s pretty much one giant bruise. She’s suffered some internals and had abdominal bleeding. She’s stable but like all of them, some rehab time will be necessary before she’s fit to fly. Go see them all regularly. Out of sight is not out of mind. Not in my squad.’

  Valera blew out her cheeks. ‘Lastly, I can confirm that all the bodies have been recovered along with our drakes, so we have our people back for remembrance. Nothing has fallen into enemy hands. The memorial will be in the reflection room at fourteen hundred tomorrow with cremations immediately afterwards.’

  ‘Got a suggestion,’ said Gurney.

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Since we’re debriefing on the flight deck, how about doing a run?’ He shrugged. ‘I mean, we could all do with the cardio and a little energy burn and it’ll send the right message. What do you think?’

  ‘I think last one to their drake pen does the squad laundry for a week. Be back here at quarter to for the starting gun,’ said Valera.

  For those few minutes they forgot everything but the race. Every dirty trick in the book was played. The pushing, jabbing and tripping were all way over the top, as if the attempt to exorcise yesterday demanded they risk further serious injury.

  Going across the flesh bridge towards the inner scale, Max was just behind Calder at the head of the pack and that was only because she’d shouldered him into the wall just before the left turn on to the bridge. Valera had chosen a quiet route, conscious of appearing disrespectful to their dead, knowing there would be some who would misinterpret their high intensity determination for plain high spirits.

  But there were always some people about and when Calder was slowed by a group of flight crew heading towards their mess hall, Max took his chance. He got right in her boot prints, stooped and tapped her ankle with an outstretched hand. She careered to the right, colliding with a railing. Max left her to dust herself down and continued the chase.

  He was in the clear and heading for the stairs. The next moment, he felt a blow to the back of his leg and he was tumbling into the dust, dirt and marbles of desiccated behemoth flesh.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he growled, hearing a triumphant shout as Gurney vaulted his prone body and hared off.

  The bastard was fast, Max would give him that. Max drove to his feet and accelerated along the bridge. Redfearn, Nevant, Xavier and Valera were all past him by now. He hit the stairs, used the rails for balance and vaulted down flight by flight, as they wound down towards the flight decks.

  He burst into the echoing space, feeling the exhilaration of the run, pissed that he wasn’t first but buzzed he wasn’t last either. Valera was at the door, counting them all in, logging who was last. Max’s money was on Salewski. She was a great flyer but a total slug on the sprint.

  But the moment his feet rang on the bone deck, he slowed and stopped. The deck was clear but the place stank of blood, ERC shit and cleansing agents. Everything came flooding back and the muscles in his arms began to ache at the memory of Roberts’s drake crashing into his on landing, and the mess he’d been inside his pouch.

  Max sucked his lip, put it behind him, and jogged towards Martha’s pen, already feeling the warmth of her in his mind. Grim was at the door to the pen, her fresh overalls already sporting smears of dirt and drake oil.

  ‘She okay?’ asked Max.

  ‘Subdued,’ said Grim and she shuddered. ‘Can’t you feel it? Not just her but every drake, every ERC for that matter, whether ground or air lizard. They know. I think they grieve.’

  Max saw the conviction in her face. He paused to take in the atmosphere and the noise and had to agree. There was a dampening of energy in here, a pall of shock– or that’s how it felt. And it didn’t just come from the crew.

  ‘Weird.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Grim. ‘You think about them like I do.’

  ‘You’ve got me there.’ Max unlatched the pen and walked in, blowing out his cheeks at the wash of heat. Martha was lying down, her tail along the length of her body and her neck curled back along her spine. She was plugged into the central ERC system that fed her the exact quantity of nutrient she needed and constantly monitored her condition. She raised her head in greeting and brought it towards him. ‘You look tired, princess.’

  Martha stared at him and opened her jaws wide as if yawning to confirm his words. It was hard to define the feelings he got from her. There was warmth, but there was something else too and perhaps it was loss.

  ‘Reckon we might not be flying for a while. Not until we can make ourselves whole again, you know? Become the Inferno-X we should be. Hard to do with only half your people. I can’t stay but I’ll be back soon. Rest up, okay?’

  He turned to go only to find her head coming to rest on his shoulder, weighing him down. It was a brief moment and he turned his head just in time to catch her eye and see the depths of her emotions before she pulled back.

  ‘Did you see that?’ he asked. Grim nodded. ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Sometimes I envy you,’ she said. ‘You can feel her and I can only look.’

  ‘Aye but one day, I’ll fall into those feelings and never come back. You can look forever.’

  Valera walked by, leading the squad. ‘Come on, Max. We’re all going in together.’

  ‘See you later,’ he said.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Grim.

  The flight deck briefing room was large enough to accommodate all six drake squadrons but today only a handful of chairs and tables were set out facing the wall screen. There was water and biscuits on every table and Max dumped himself down between Valera and Nevant, who had the tidiest beard on the HoG, at the front. He poured them all water and helped himself to a biscuit. It was a little stale.

  ‘I wonder who’s coming to tell us everything’s all right,’ said Nevant and, not for the first time, Max wished he had a French accent too.

  ‘The ExO is my guess,’ said Max and he was proved right moments later when K
irby walked in, flanked by two of his senior staff; Moeller entered alone, looking like he’d been handed his cards; and lastly came Doctor Eleanor Rosenbach, a very senior Tweaker for a mission debrief, even one as difficult as this. Max felt a sweep of unease.

  The atmosphere in the room switched from apprehension to tension in a blink. Everyone straightened in their chairs to watch the execs as they gathered under the screen. One of Kirby’s people, a thin-faced ping-pusher called Hewitt who seemed glued to his ExO’s side most of the time, tapped up a few inset screens of data and video using his p-palm. Up popped a stream of stuff Max couldn’t care less about, some transcripts of com chatter and an HD vid of InfernoX’s final approach.

  Kirby faced them and waved a hand at the screen. He was a tall man with a powerful frame and had served in the army on combat duty before moving to his executive position. The endless hard decisions his job demanded were reflected in the lines on his face and in the grey marking his neat beard and moustache.

  ‘Don’t worry about all that, it’s just background to the real issues in play here,’ he said. ‘The first of which is; how are you feeling? How’s your morale? Where are your heads right now and how are your bodies faring? Squadron Leader Orin, I’m sure you speak for the squad.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, and on behalf of the squad, thank you for your concern. I won’t gloss over this: while those of us here are fine physically, we’re in an average state at best. We aren’t used to losing our people, let alone eight in the same mission. So we’ve had a sleepless night, a whole lot of guilt-ridden nightmares, and now we’re about to relive the whole thing. Not a whole lot of positives to be had, sir.’

  ‘Understood, Valera. Thank you for your honesty. I can ease your minds on one score: we’re not going to hold a blow-by-blow analysis of the mission. We have drake cam footage, voice records and all your flight data. All we’re lacking is your take on the enemy drakes. We saw almost nothing of them on the mission downloads. I’ll open the floor for this one . . . yes, Gurney.’