by James Evans
They were good kids, and Warden needed him to do this. He’d seen the look on the lad’s face when the AI had shown them the archive footage. His own face had remained blank, but he thought Warden had been close to tears. Ten had looked away, giving him his privacy. There was no shame in it, but he didn’t have time to offer counselling in the middle of combat, and not everyone responded to tough love.
Ten rolled his eyes and slid up into the room, looking about for what he needed most to deal with the GKI in the room. Yes, there it was. In a crouch, he moved forward and reached out, taking hold of a kitchen towel and carefully rubbing his face clean, or as clean as he could, before pulling the goggles up. He blinked a couple of times to make sure nothing had run into his eyes, then he wiped his HUD clean and slipped it back on.
Instantly the red outlines of three GKI mercenaries and the green outlines for the hostages appeared in the overlaid wireframe view of the room. Two were seated eating a meal. A double tap to the head with his suppressed pistol dealt with them. The one he shot from behind slumped forward into his food. The other just slumped.
Ten was moving to the third man, who was standing nearer the hostages as they huddled at one end of the room, near the pantries and cold storage. There were only women there, and for a moment he thought the GKI troops might have murdered the men and children, but his HUD showed them locked away in the large storage rooms that supplied the kitchen. They were alive.
The third man turned to face him, dropping his weapon so that it dangled from his neck by a strap as his mouth opened in a silent protest. Ten raised his pistol.
“Niet! Niet!”
Ten paused, lifting the barrel as he advanced and aiming it just to the side of the GKI man’s head. “Why shouldn’t I shoot you, hmm?”
“Niet! Niet!”
Ten switched his HUD to auto-translate. This was as good a time as any to give the head shed’s work a field test.
“What’s your name?” he said. The HUD offered him a translation into Koschite, all neatly laid out in phonetic English, but clearly the man’s own HUD was giving him a translation. Ten watched as the man frowned at his HUD, then he started babbling.
“Specialist Popov,” the snivelling man said, then sneezed. He looked startled. “Please, I have the fever of the hay. They grow many plants here.”
Translation isn’t quite right, thought Ten, but it’ll do for now.
“Why shouldn’t I shoot you?” Ten asked again.
“I am soldier just like you! I don’t want to be here, they made me come. GKI force me to do bad things for them. I do not wish. I just want to go home. I did not want to do this.”
“Oh really? Someone made you do it, did they? Someone made you kill women and children? Who was that, then?”
The man dropped to his knees, tears streaming from his eyes. Ten was pretty sure that wasn’t the hay fever.
“It was Captain Petrovna. I didn’t want to hit the bio-dome, but she made me guide the pod there. She killed them.”
The slight delay for translation and the reading of the text made for a somewhat surreal interrogation.
“Did she now? I don’t see any bruises on you, mate. Did you put up much of a struggle or just do as you were told?”
“She would have killed me. I couldn’t prevent her. I would have died.”
Ten shook his head sadly. “Son, if you were really a soldier, you would have told her to fuck off anyway.” He put a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder and saw the hopeful look bloom in his eyes. “Your mother still alive, son? Any sisters?”
Popov nodded. “Mother is home, she doesn’t know what GKI make me do. My sisters are still in school.”
“If Petrovna ordered you to shoot your sisters, would you do it, or would you try and stop her?”
Popov snivelled. “I would try and stop her, but she would kill me.”
Ten patted his shoulder. “This is a clone body, yes? If you die, you get redeployed in a new one, safe at home, right?”
Popov nodded miserably.
“Then what the fuck did you have to lose, eh? We just don’t do it, son. It’s the job. You take a bullet for your mate, you take one for a woman, you sure as fuck take one for a child. ‘Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.’ You heard that one? John Stuart Mill. It means evil men aren’t the problem, it’s the good men who surround them but are too cowardly to act who are the problem.” Ten poked him in the chest. “You’re the good man, Popov.”
“I would have died,” Popov sobbed between breaths.
“Yeah. With your conscience clean.” Ten reached down and pulled the rifle up over Popov’s head, passing it to one of the older women behind him, and placing a finger over his lips for silence.
Ten glanced at the room beyond the kitchen. Another six red outlines showed the GKI troops in there. No hostages. He brought up the internal camera feeds. No friendlies. He pulled something from Popov’s belt and stopped by the two he’d shot to resupply.
Ten swapped his pistol to his left hand and looked to the left of the door, where a red outline sat on a barstool on the other side of the wall. He squeezed the trigger repeatedly and then opened the door. He didn’t kick it in or shout. He simply stepped through into the room and threw the flashbang he’d pulled from Popov’s webbing to the right, where the GKI captain seemed to be with her cronies.
Then he executed. Five, four, three and his clip was empty.
“Who the fuck are you?” roared the last man standing in Koschite, grabbing a vicious looking vibro-sword and advancing to protect his captain.
Ten could hear Warden and the rest of the team bursting into the room; he felt bad that they’d waited to do their part and he’d left them nothing but potential scraps. He just wasn’t in the mood for sharing.
“I’m a Commando. Who are you? Just another walking, talking turd? Or are you someone important?”
“I am Sergeant Pichugin Filippovich and I am going to kill you, little man!”
“Okay, well, I’m Penal Marine X and when we next meet, I’ll kill you twice over. Alright?”
Filippovich didn’t seem to appreciate Ten’s disrespectful attitude, and he charged with a roar. He screamed briefly when his sword arm split from his body, and gurgled when Ten drove the serge
ant’s own vibro-sword through his chest, and casually tripped him, pinning him to the floor with his own weapon.
“Bloody hell. You’re still alive, Sergeant Filippovich. It’s almost as if I miraculously missed all your vital organs, except your spine. It’ll probably take ages for you to die like this. I’d help, but I have places to be, murderesses to kill, that sort of thing.”
Captain Petrovna snarled at him.
“What? You want to grandstand too?” Ten barked at her.
“No, I am going to kill you,” she said, raising her pistol.
“With a gun? Bit impersonal, isn’t it? Don’t fancy doing your killing up close and personal then? I understand. If he was your best fighter, you’ve no hope,” said Ten.
“Hah. You think you can beat me with bare hands?”
“No idea. But I’m damn sure as mustard I could kill you with this grenade if I drop it before putting the pin back in. So. Would you like to find out? If you win you’ll go to jail, but you’ll have one up on me, if that helps,” Ten said, unfurling his hand to show the grenade nestled in it, the pin dangling from his index finger. Petrovna nodded and tossed away her pistol.
Marine X reciprocated, putting the pin back in the grenade and kicking it to the far end of the room, just in case. He laid his knife on a table.
Petrovna didn’t wait for him to get ready. She pounced, reaching out to grapple him and take him down before he’d even made a move. Ten grinned and let her wrap her arms around his grease-covered body. She struggled, trying to get a grip on him, but soon her hands where slippery and she couldn’t get a purchase.
Ten’s smile widened, and he butted her in the face, hearing a satisfying crunch as her nose broke.
“You’re not a soldier, Petrovna. You’re a thug.” Ten slammed his head forward again. Petrovna released him and staggered back. “A petty criminal, given big guns by a weaselly little shit who thinks he’s above the law,” said Ten, delivering swift strikes to her torso.
She screamed in rage and flung herself at him again, flailing and kicking as she came on.
“You think you can play at soldier, but you’re not one,” Ten repeated, sweeping Petrovna’s legs from under her. He allowed her to stand and come on again. “You’re certainly not a Marine. You kill because it gets you off, some twisted part of your brain enjoys the sadism of it.” He flung her away again, but she was surprisingly tough and she bounced right back.
“For me, it’s usually not that enjoyable. But in your case, I must admit, I’m taking great pleasure in seeing the fear build in your eyes. That’s what you like, isn’t it? To watch them die in terror. You know why?”
“You talk too much, Marine,” she said spitting blood at him. She couldn’t help following up, though. The open loop gets them every time. “Why do you think?”
Ten shrugged. “Buggered if I know. You’re probably just a garden-variety sociopath. A serial killer working for a company. Either way, the only death you don’t enjoy is your own.”
She let forth a guttural scream and grabbed Ten’s vibro-knife from the table he’d been watching her edge toward. Ten could see the triumph in her eyes as she swung the deadly blade at him. He watched that gleam die as he stepped quickly into her reach, grabbing her wrist in one hand and wrenching it hard until she dropped the knife, even as he punched viciously at her throat, once, twice, three times.
The knife clattered to the floor, and Ten took a step back as Petrovna dropped to her knees, gasping for air. It would do her no good; he’d crushed her throat. He watched her, slowly removing his knuckledusters as she turned a different shade.
“Bloody hell – I’ve got to help her, Captain,” said Goodwin.
Ten whirled and stepped between her and the GKI leader. He shook his head. “Don’t, Goodwin. You’ll only prolong it, and if you help her, you’ll probably get a broken arm for your troubles.”
Goodwin reeled back in shock and Ten winced.
“Ten, stand down!” roared Milton.
“I’m sorry, Goodwin. I didn’t mean that. But don’t help her. She’s not a soldier, she’s a terrorist.”
Goodwin nodded. “Yeah. I know, Ten. Sometimes, though, you’re almost as much of a bastard as they are.” The tech specialist turned on her heel and walked back out of the room.
Ten sighed and knelt down by Petrovna who was still sucking in painful gasps of air.
“This is better than you deserve. I won’t go so easy on you next time we meet, so I suggest you resign, because any time I see this company badge from now on, I’m going to kill the wearer as slow as I can.” The mercenary stared at him but couldn’t speak. Ten slammed his vibro-knife into the mercenary’s skull to deliver the coup de grace. Then he stood up, calmly collected his pistol and slapped in a fresh magazine.
He came back from the kitchen, grabbed Popov by the scruff of the neck, and marched him over to where he could see the captain. “She’s dead now, son. She can’t order you to kill kids anymore.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you. I am free. Thank you.”
Ten shook his head. “You’re not free, Popov. You still did it, you have to pay for your crimes. In any case, I need you to deliver a message. You tell him I’m coming for him.”
Popov looked confused, “Tell him? Who?”
“You tell Giacomo Khan, that…” Ten paused racking his brain. “Baba Yaga is coming for him. Tell him that I did this. His entire team. Okay, except for the one Milton got. The rest was all me, and I’m just one Royal Marine. Tell him I know he ordered this. Tell him I’m a criminal, a Penal Marine. Tell him I’m a ghost, and I’m not for hire like this arsehole,” he said, toeing Petrovna’s corpse.
“He can’t find me. He can’t stop me. He can’t run from me. Frankly, he should just kill himself now and save me the bother. He won’t believe you. He won’t take it seriously.” Ten leaned in close to watch Popov’s eyes skim across the text in his HUD. “But you believe me, don’t you, Popov? You know I’m coming for him, don’t you?”
Popov nodded. “I want to go home to my mother,” he whispered.
“You can go home to your mum, Popov. But first, you deliver my message. Understood?”
Popov nodded miserably, confused until Ten raised his pistol. Then he understood.
Ten fired and Popov went home to his mother, via GKI regional headquarters.
Warden’s head whipped round at the sound and he strode over as the Penal Marie began stowing his kit.
“What the hell, Ten?”
“Look, Captain, if it bothers you that much, just put it in the report and they’ll add some years to my sentence. I’m not going to apologise for offing those bastards. Not even Popov, the naive idiot.”
Warden stared at him for a long time. “I don’t think our HUDs have been backing this up properly, I’m afraid,” he said. “They’ve been on the fritz for the last five or ten minutes, I think. Can’t prove you did anything untoward, especially with no eyewitnesses. Anyone else see any unprofessional conduct enacted against these child-murdering scum?” he asked to a resounding silence. “There you go then, no case to answer.”
Ten gave a wan smile.
Warden moved to stand in front of Marine X then leaned in close, so only Ten could hear.
“Reign it in, Marine,” he hissed, “before the darkness consumes you.”
Ten blinked, not quite believing his ears.
Then Warden straightened up and turned away.
“No, what I am surprised about, Ten, is seeing you wear pink goggles with glitter in them and what appear to be unicorns on the strap. I wouldn’t believe my own eyes, but fortunately my HUD has started working again and I’ve got it saved in glorious high resolution, so we can all see it.” Warden grinned.
The rest of the team moved off to speak to the hostages, leaving Ten to attend to his personal hygiene.
Ten nodded, following the directions.
23
“Come on, people, where did they go?” Cohen sat on Palmerston’s cramped bridge, scanning the displays.
“I’m sorry, sir, we’ve lost them,” Midshipman Parks replied.
“How the hell did that happen? We hit them with a rail cannon and went straight after them with our railguns when they left dock with Oldervik,” Cohen fumed.
“I’m sorry, sir, it’s my fault. I took my eye off the ball when we were manoeuvring to evade their missiles. They released decoy drones to create false signals and by the time I realised what was going on, they’d slipped into the asteroid belt proper. I think they’ve released more drones because I’m getting pings from all over the place.”
The railguns fired again.
“What are you doing, Elson?” Cohen asked his weapons officer.
“Attempting to clear the drones away, sir. Six down in that burst, but this might take a while.”
“There are at least ninety drones out there, sir,” Parks added.
“Cease fire, Elson. We aren’t going to get rid of them all without going into that asteroid belt. If we do that, they could pop up from behind any mid-sized asteroid and strike us. Even damaged, they outclass us. We can’t match them head-on,” said Cohen.