“I don’t know.” He said. “Not the wrong question but more questioning it. There was something strange about it, the way it spoke, acted.”
“Like?”
“Making jokes.”
“Were they funny?”
“No, but that’s not the point. Sentinels aren’t designed for that, they’re simple machines.”
“You report it?”
“Of course, though what the nan-Aye will do.” He shrugged.
“Then nothing to worry about.”
“You’re a pain in the bruk when you’re drunk.”
She filled their glasses, put one down in front of him. “Best get drunk as well then.”
“Is that all there is?”
“All?”
“I wonder what the point of it all is.”
“To take Nupts.”
“No.” Irritated he scowled at her. “I don't mean just this, I mean it all, life.”
“Life!”
“Yes, it's purpose.”
“Does it need to have one?”
“We have it all, and what do we do?”
“You can do whatever you want Mason, it’s not like you were conscripted.”
“But do what?”
“That's always been the issue hasn’t it?” She traced a finger through spilt liquid. “Paucity of imagination.”
“If you’d seen all the things I’ve done.”
“Prove it.” She held up a hand. “I’m joking, I've no desire to see your skelfy antics.”
He sniffed. “You might enjoy it.”
“You think anything you've done hasn't been by one of my splint sibs?” She smiled. “Or me for that matter.”
“I bet.” He paused. “But then it comes to this, the ultimate gamble.”
“Without risk there is no pleasure in the reward.”
“Reward, please. Just an excuse for killing.”
“Could say that for any of the races.”
“Except the Dolia.”
“And look at them, confined to one Nupt, and if that wasn't in the galp end of the galaxy they wouldn’t even have that.”
She ground out her cigar, sloshed more booze into her glass.
“Prospy's mori is up, there's talk of taking it.”
“Attack a Chainer Nupt?”
“Yeah, go in hard, God’s fist and full on ground assault, flesh on flesh.”
Mason ordered a Mai Tai, twirled the umbrella between stubby fingers.
“Chainers bear a grudge.” He said.
“Chainers die like the rest of them.” A sniper pushed in between them. Lacking a table service even the most socially reclusive had to approach the bar. Irritated Mason moved back from the man, just shy of a metre fifty he looked like a child next to the infantry soldiers, skinny body with a lollipop head stuck on top, oversized eyes dominating it, the split pupils betraying their cephalopod origin. The name 'Barrows' pulsed in Mason's Sense, a number 19 floating by it.
“What's the 19 for?” He said, not bothering to query it with the Allknow.
“Confirmed headshots over 5k.” Barrows said, a smug expression on his face. He fussed with the fastenings of a purple fur cloak fastened to the collar of camofabric fatigues.
“Planetary?” Grace said.
“Five of them, fourteen orbital plate.”
“Orbital plate.” She shook her head.
“There's still coriolis!”
“Run on little boy, can't you see adults are talking?”
“You want to watch your words grunt.”
Grace pushed off her stool and stood. “You going to make me?”
She loomed over Barrows, her arms half raised, fists clenched.
“Grace.” Mason said, trying to diffuse the tension. “That cloak, it looks like Howli, it synthskin?”
The sniper shrugged his shoulders to make it jump, the fur rippling and settling back down.
“Close enough.”
“As if you had the guts.” Grace said.
Barrows picked up a piña colada from the bar and edged back from the woman.
“You want to watch out.” He said, making a trigger pull motion with his finger as he walked to his table.
“Only if you're less than 5k.” She sat down on her stool. “And we're not on a planet.”
“Grace.” Mason said.
She smiled, emptied the bottle into her glass and ordered another.
“Was there a need for that?” Mason said.
“Jumped up snipes, think they’re special skulking round covered in leaves. They want to try it up front, face to face, blood on your hands, taste of it in your mouth.”
“You should keep the helmet on.”
She thumped his shoulder. “You know what I mean.”
Mason extinguished his cigar in the remains of the Mai Tai, took the bottle of Arfax from her and filled his shot glass.
“Yes.” He drained it, topped it back up, filled her glass. “You serious about Prospy? I haven’t seen it on the main boards.”
“Still speculation, mere chatter, but why not? We've got the indulgences for a fist.”
“Take most of them.”
“What's the point in saving them?”
“I don't know, maybe for something important, like defending Earth?”
She snorted. “Earth! A home Nupt - who’d dare?”
“Maybe the Chainers if we took Prospy.”
“They're smarter than that.”
“Angrier too.”
“Earth Nan-Aye wouldn’t let us even consider it if there was a risk.”
“Yes.” Mason focussed on his drink. “We’re just puppets.”
“Mason?” She frowned, leant in to catch his attention.
“Just pieces on a board.”
“You’re not saying anything new.”
“No, but I’m starting to realise that this isn't just a game.”
Grace shook her head. “Only now? Mason how long have we been doing this? No, you don’t need to answer, I know as well as you do.”
“That’s part of the problem, how long we’ve been doing this, and for what? What’ve we gained? What’s been the point?”
“We control the Orion spiral, making headway in to Perseus.”
“For what though?”
She screwed up her face. “For what?”
“Yes, why we doing this?”
“Humanity is expanding, needs the room.”
“Oh come on, Venus is almost inhabitable, another 150 years and we’ll have 3 planets in the Sol system. And that’s not counting all the artificial shelt available.”
“Ayes think we need to control Nupts.”
“Exactly.” He tapped a finger on the bar counter. “Yet they don’t take any of the risk.”
“You know why that is Mason.”
“Why they say they can’t, but I don’t know. That sentinel, it got me thinking. We’re not being told everything.”
“We wouldn’t understand, be like us talking to an ant.”
“I think I’m more intelligent than that.”
“And so is the Aye, it’s not us talking to an ant, it’s a god talking to a man. And you know how that usually turns out.”
She grabbed the front of his shirt and twisted him toward her. “We’re the last of the 99’ers, our class is gone.”
“I know that Grace.”
“Then what’s all this chiff about?”
He broke her grip, filled their glasses, pushed one along the bar to her and picked his up.
“It’s nothing, we’ll keep on doing what we’ve been doing.”
“And that’s all it needs to be.”
iv
“Entering combat zone, backup systems deactivated.”
“Dead is dead.” Mason muttered, his attack craft joining the others spalling like seeds from a dandelion, dropping free from the superlifter that had brought them in.
He pushed forward on the stick igniting chemical rockets, 200G pinning him to the seat for a 30 second
burn. Acceleration tailing off the shock gel protection drained away enabling him to breathe again. Targeting the orbital array, missiles streaming free, following in their debris cloud, smashing into the atmosphere in a blaze of coruscating burning air. His ship shook from mine hits, the hull heating, ablatives flaking off. At 15km he pointed it at the enemy line and ejected, tumbling free from the hypersonic projectile.
Arms and legs splayed out he attempted to control his spin. Suit unable to dump the building heat, temperature alerts flashed across his vision, countdowns to critical failure a needless distraction he blinked away. He released a drogue chute, the action slowing his speed, readouts turning to blue, beginning to drift in the jet stream. High altitude anti-air lit up around him, expanding clouds of shrapnel, breach warnings, a vapour trail from his left leg sputtering out as emergency systems sealed the tear. He cut the chute free, twisted to face head to the ground and deployed wings, accelerating again, arrow straight trusting his luck not to be hit. At 200m he readied his assault rifle and released the main chute scarcely slowing his descent. Relying on his suit to absorb the shock he struck the ground, his impact throwing up dirt, the crater an instant foxhole. He let the drop gear fall free and jumped out of the depression, using up valuable power reserves to assist the action, turning 3m leaps in to 10 and allowing him to cover the exposed terrain in several steps, mortar shells raining down around him, subsonic whumps, battlesuit colours shifting in camouflage patterns, hazing the edges and making him a harder target to hit. He stumbled, foot twisting, managed to turn the fall to a roll that brought him up against a low wall made from steel cages filled with rocks and dirt.
“Grace?”
“Took your time.” The voice sardonic on his comms.
“Got here as quick as I could. Where’re you?”
“Here.” A burst of data.
He zoomed out the map, found her pulsing icon and plotted a route.
“I’m 200 metres south of you, there’s a trench that’ll take me most of the way.”
“South?”
“Yeah.”
“South is in enemy territory.”
“You galping me?”
“Check your map Mason.” Even without Sense he could feel her head shake.
“Maybe I should push on then.”
“You got enough shredders?”
“Standard allocation.”
“Might be short lived.”
“I’ll make my way back.”
“Wise.”
He poked his head over the top of the wall, considered the distance and ran for it. Rounds struck him and he dived for the trench sliding over its edge and splashing into mud.
“Chelnt!” He got back to his feet and crouch ran toward Grace’s position.
“You got power?” He said.
“On a firebird, one free spot.”
“Good, almost there.”
A blow from behind sent him sprawling, arms out he hit the ground face down, rolled on to his back bringing his rifle up and firing at the Chainer bearing down on him concentrating on the weak points where the globes that made up its body connected. It screamed, jaw splitting in four revealing concentric rows of razor sharp teeth. He scrabbled backward as it stabbed down, warnings chiming from the damage to his suit. Young, it was less than 4m long, one of the shock troops that was expected to earn its right to enter Chainer society and so very much expendable. It reared up for another strike, its cowl pulled back to reveal the manipulators, several tipped with scalpel sharp blades.
“Might be a bit delayed.”
Fired again, the rounds creasing the Chainer’s skin, micro explosions tearing into it. He peeled a barnacle from the string round his waist and lobbed it at the Chainer, the blast knocking him backward smashing him against the trench wall. The smoke clearing he could see the Chainer twisting, a livid wound on its side where the shaped charge had hit. He regained his feet and approached it, jammed his rifle in the cut and fired, barrel bucking, fluids steaming out. The manipulators drummed, attempting to strike him, he dodged under their attack and shoved another barnacle into it. Contained by the exoskeleton its force was directed inwards mushing the Chainer’s internal organs. It hissed and collapsed. Not bothering to check if it was dead, Mason reloaded and resumed his run.
“150 metres, don’t shoot me.”
“We see you. Don’t look back.”
“What the chiff?”
“Laying down suppressing, keep your head down.” If Sensed she would have sent a string of winks intertwined with cats and unicorns.
He increased his speed, pounding along the trench, boots sinking in the mud, skin crawling at the thought of Chainers closing in.
Superheated heavy metal rounds tore the air around him making him hunch over and slowing his pace.
“Danger close! Danger close!”
“We see you Mason, stop being a Dolia.”
Muttering he pushed his reserves, ignored the redlines, legs lifted up, knees high.
“We’ve got bets on how close they’ll get.” Grace said.
“They?”
“Not as many now.”
“As many?”
“Yes, as was.”
“Grace.”
“Pick it up Mason, I don’t want to be the last 99er, not yet anyway.”
He tossed a barnacle behind him, felt the blast through his feet.
“Wasted, just keep running, we’re thinning em out.”
“Thinning? How many are there?”
“Think you stumbled on a nest.”
“Oh chelnt.”
“No adults.”
“That’s something.”
“Yet.”
Mason saw the firebird, it was arched up and over an embankment, all hard angles and weapon ports. Its surface flickered in patterns that echoed the sky behind it, neutral patches betraying damage. A sentinel stood beside it observing the action, it turned to focus on him. He faltered, slowing his approach.
“Mason!”
The firebird bucked as its firing intensified, the mud beneath his feet drying and cracking in the heat, the trench walls gouged and collapsing, behind him a low rumble, a snickering of blades.
“Mason, run!”
“Chelnt!” He overrode the safeties, felt his leg muscles tearing, the suit’s extending beyond normal parameters, head down and arms pumping, he jumped for the trench edge, hands scrabbling for purchase, toes jabbed in, he pulled up, dragging under the firebird that dropped its front edge to cover him. A hatch opened in its belly and an arm swung down to grab him.
“Thanks.” Mason said to his rescuer, callsign ‘Sparrow’, Captain insignia on their chest, campaign medals below.
“Grace is backing us out, you stirred up a shelt load of Chainers, we’re down to 18% munitions.”
The firebird lurched and Mason grabbed a support strut. Inside the battle was muted, the occasional thump from ordnance shaking them as they retreated. Following Sparrow, Mason squeezed between the shell carousels up to the central cab where Grace was sat and took a seat behind her.
“Like a galping Mecher eh Mason?” On minimal power her suit was a dull black reminding him to switch off his cammo and look for a recharge cable.
“Yeah, surprised you’re not in it hand to hand.”
“Against Chainers?” She laughed. “I’m not crazy.”
“You wouldn't know it.” Sparrow said. “I’m supposed to be in command.”
“You give an order I like the sound of and I’ll obey it.”
“That’s not how it works sergeant.”
Accustomed to Grace, Mason ignored the bickering and switched to external view. The trench he had run down was swarming with Chainers, writhing and rolling over each other in an attempt to reach the firebird. Grace popped smoke, jerked the craft to the left and spun it 180, pushed forward on the yoke to give them maximum speed.
“I don’t like running.” She said.
“Sometimes better part of valour.” Mason said.
> “What chiff said that?”
“A non dead one.” Sparrow said.
“We’re all dead in the end.”
“Not today though.” Mason said. “Not today.”
Table of Contents
i
ii
iii
iv
Peacetaker (Nupt Wars Book 1) Page 2