After War

by Tim C. Taylor

  “I forgive you,” said Silky. “But I see no reason to change loyalties.”

  “Oh, but you should,” cooed Gregory. “I can double what Revenge Squad pays you. Triple. And–” Gregory paused to cough out the ever-thickening smoke. “And then there is the matter of why you are on this planet at all, given that the Kurlei are not one of the founding races of the federal constitution. You’re running from something. Whatever or whoever it is, run to me. I can protect you. No one in this star system is better qualified to be your friend and protector than me.”

  I watched in silence as Silky seemed to seriously consider Gregory’s proposal while trying not to cough.

  During the war I had switched sides for all the right reasons, and yet my betrayal still felt like a poison that had soaked deep into my bones. I wasn’t about to switch sides for the wrong reasons.

  Not even if Silky told me to.

  As I struggled to find the right words to explain that to Silky without Gregory killing me on the spot, my wife gasped in shock. I felt her horror like a slap across my face.

  “You’ll hurt NJ,” she screamed. “I can feel the hunger inside you. No! You can’t!”

  “I can’t help it, my dear.” Gregory’s skin was mottling again. “It’s nothing personal. It’s not me at all, really. It’s my body’s unwanted house guest, the thing inside me that demands to feed.”

  “Are you mad?” asked Silky, even though by that point I felt we’d established beyond doubt that she was. “You talk of killing him, of eating him, and you expect me to side with you?”

  “My guest has a rampant urge to spread,” replied Mrs. Gregory, whose voice was growing steadily less human. “The reproductive habits of parasites are rarely pleasant, my dear, and the creature I host is no exception. Yet it is a price worth paying. For both of us. The parasite forces me to commit acts that are disgusting but…” Her eyes flicked to blood red, and her voice lowered an octave. “It gives me such power when it feeds.”

  “Does it give you the power to open doors?” I quipped. “That would be helpful about now.”

  Her demonic eyes widened, shooting me a bolt of purest hatred. I’d stared death in the face before, but I’d never feared for my soul. Just what was she threatening me with?

  She blinked a little humanity back into her eyes – probably due to the smoke – and turned her body to face Silky, blanking me.

  “Why do you protect him?” Gregory asked her.

  “He is my husband.”

  “We all know how that story will end.” Gregory laughed hungrily. “Fast forward to that story’s conclusion and kill him now. He doesn’t need to be alive to slake my inner beast’s thirst. Just so long as his body retains some warmth. Join me. Now.”

  Silky thought that over. Come on. It’s not meant to be a hard question. “No,” she said eventually.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I love him.”

  The music stopped. I forgot the smoke that was choking us. Even my ghosts gaped with imaginary mouths open.

  It fell to Mrs. Gregory to pierce the shocked silence with a cackling laugh.

  What was I doing while all this was going on? Sanaa, Efia, and the Sarge had forged an alliance to tell me to shut the frakk up after my last quip to Gregory had nearly gotten us killed. I didn’t fight them. The best I could hope for was that Silky could string out Gregory’s madness long enough for Revenge Squad to reach us just in time before smoke inhalation did for us. Every other outcome we could foresee involved a dead former Assault Marine sergeant, and his equally dead alien sort-of wife.

  Gregory’s human side reasserted itself. “You’ve no reason to feel any loyalty to Revenge Squad,” she told Silky. “The only difference between my organization and yours is our respective backers.”

  “Really?” she replied. “Who are they?”

  “I can tell you this much. Revenge Squad is not owned by that little ring of accountants who think the corporation is theirs. Not most of them, anyway. If you feel the need to learn more, seek out the Phoenix Cabal.”

  Instinctively, I back-flipped into my subconscious. It was a sudden change of mental state that was designed to keep surprise from registering on my face. I’d honed the reflex over many years, mostly for use in card games. I’m good at it too, but I wasn’t good enough for Mrs. Gregory. I made a mental note never to play her at poker.

  “Now, that is interesting,” I heard her say when I emerged from my subconscious a few seconds later. “What have you learned about the Cabal, Mr. McCall?”

  “Silky,” I shouted. “Tell her nothing about Phoenix. Not even if she tortures me or threatens to kill me. That is an order.”

  Gregory rolled her eyes. “Really, Mr. McCall, you should stop offering me all these tempting challenges. An order, you say. I wonder how easy it will be to break your wife of any inconvenient sense of loyalty.”

  “Shall I check the door again?” interrupted Mez.

  “Stop being so nervous,” snapped Gregory. “I’m sure it’s back under our control, and even if it weren’t, I prefer the door to be closed because it makes life simpler. I like simplicity, it makes for a robust legal defense.” She addressed Silky. “When my associates burst in and see me threatened by ex-soldiers working for a mercenary paramilitary militia, no judge in the province would punish them for shooting you dead – especially not since it would be one of my judges.”

  “They had better hurry up,” said Silky through a fit of coughs. She wasn’t bluffing. Thick smoke filled the upper reaches of the room and was sending patient tendrils of death down to its prey.

  At an unspoken command, the disinterested witness took Volk’s gun from Gregory’s feet and went to the door.

  “Regrettably, I accept this wretched smoke forces us to take this conversation elsewhere,” said Gregory. “How inconvenient. Mez! Why do you delay?”

  “The door is still locked, ma’am. We’re trapped.”

  “Kavislev-Mez, have faith,” insisted Gregory, though I could hear her confidence slipping. “We shall be rescued. Any moment now.”

  I swear Fate was listening in – or maybe Volk’s loyal supporters – because as soon as Mrs. Gregory issued her assurance, someone cut power to the bunker and we were thrown into darkness as thick as the deepest ocean abyss. The background power hum that we’d scarcely noticed suddenly became apparent by its absence. We weren’t in total silence, though. From outside the bunker I could hear gunfire and explosions.

  But mostly I heard the sound of me trying not to make a sound as I switched my eyes to infra-red and leaped into action.

  I was done waiting like a recruit with my mouth shut. It was time to take the fight to the enemy.

  — CHAPTER 68 —

  I feinted left, felt my skin crawl as I came back across Gregory’s front, and then attacked her from behind. I felt something like an angry hornet whizz past my ear, but that was the best Gregory managed with her cyborg fingers. I soon had her flat on her belly, bucking and writhing like a sack of vengeful puppies. I nearly bound her hands behind her but, remembering the weapons in her fingers, I rammed her hands beneath her belly and applied my knee to the small of her back.

  I didn’t understand how this parasite worked, but it gave her slight frame far more power than seemed possible. Her struggles grew wilder. I wasn’t sure if I could hold her down much longer.

  Silky contacted Denisoff, setting her comm device to conference mode so I could hear her situation report and Denisoff’s reply.

  According to Denisoff, Revenge Squad rescuers were outside the bunker door, having secured the building, and were now trying to free us.

  We heard a bang on the door. To be honest, it was more of a polite knock than a bang.

  “Is that the best you can do?” screeched Gregory, her words as squashed as Volk’s had been. “Do you see, Silky? They want me dead and if I die here in the smoke, that’s not Revenge Squad’s responsibility. You and your human husband and your oh, so precious accountant
– you are a price they will readily pay for killing me.”

  “Well, Denisoff?” I asked.

  His hesitation was all I needed for an answer. “I do not wish you dead, NJ,” he told me. “We are… acting.”

  “It won’t be that simple, though, will it?” Silky told Gregory. What was she on about? “If you die here, your successors will take your place. This feud between Revenge Squad and your organization will not end here. It will only intensify.”

  “Not for long, my dear. Revenge Squad has grown very quickly but not enough. My successors will indeed crush you. A large organization such as mine requires funding. And my financial backers require the security of succession planning before they committed their money. My organization will not die with me, but will divert every resource to exterminate Revenge Squad.”

  “Did you get that, Assistant Squad Leader?” asked Silky.

  “I don’t disagree,” Denisoff replied miserably. “I cannot do more to help.”

  A light went on in my head. With all the smoke, it was no more than the feeblest flicker, but it was there and carried the scent of my ghosts.

  Backtrack, said Sanaa.

  The photograph, said Efia.

  Do you love her? Bahati accused.

  My oxygen-starved brain was confusing the ghosts, but they were onto something and it connected somehow to Silky. Whatever the connection was, it darted out of reach of my faltering brain.

  Gregory first. To avoid suffocating her I eased the pressure off the Earther’s back, just a little. She had gone limp, but even if she was genuinely unconscious she still scared the crap out of me.

  The photograph.

  Love. Her.

  “Silky,” I called out into the smoke, “why did you say you loved me?”

  I heard her gathering her breath before replying. “A distraction. I feel deep affection for you, NJ. I wouldn’t call it love.”

  “Work with me,” I said, scrabbling around for mental traction. “If you did love me, then that might drive you to irrational acts.”

  “Yes, NJ.”

  “To vengeance?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  Bullseye! My neurons finally fired up a coherent thought that propelled me to action. “Denisoff!” I screamed.

  “What now?”

  “Get Philby on this channel. Tell him I have new information about Michelle-Leanne Odeku.” I wasn’t idle as I waited for the branch director. Not only did I pass the time by drowning in the smoke, but I told Kavislev-Mez to advance to the sound of my voice until I grabbed her by the scruff of the neck.

  I heard the voice of a mutton-chopped psychopath. “Philby here.”

  “Director, I know why you hate Volk so much.” Actually, I didn’t, but I did know that two men, one woman, and a surfeit of love can be combustible ingredients. “Volk stole Michelle from you, didn’t he?”

  As I said the words, they sounded so fragile, a flyweight offensive that relied on my opponent not realizing how little I knew. It could just as easily have been that Volk and Philby were lovers, and Michelle had seduced Volk away from Philby.

  Philby didn’t reply.

  “Director,” I said, “there’s a dis-witness here. Name of Kavislev-Mez.”

  “I know her. Damn! Can’t be helped.”

  I cuffed Mez. “Come on then, confirm the death.”

  “I confirm that Volk is dead, killed by Mrs. Yannine Gregory in self-defense. Do you wish remote confirmation of my veracity? It can be arranged, though by the time I set that up, the smoke will have killed us.”

  I added my debating skills to the argument. “Gregory sang, sir. Said things that Mez has heard and uploaded remotely. Things that will be made public if she dies here.”

  I could hear Holland Philby groaning. It was not a happy sound. “Such as?” he asked grudgingly.

  “Officials corrupted by various parties. Financial backers, including a Revenge Squad backer Gregory let slip. Something about a Phoenix. Sir, if the dis-witness dies here, those memories will be made available to the feds.”

  “I know how the frakking dis-witness death release works, McCall!”

  “Your revenge is complete, sir. Volk is dead. Betrayed. Beaten. And you have the satisfaction, sir, that it was you who set in train the events that led to the death of the friend who betrayed you. If you are loyal to Revenge Squad, you need to get us out, and make sure the dis-witness lives.”

  “That’s enough, McCall! Listen to me you frakked up wreck. You can…”

  I’m not going to repeat what Holland Philby said I should do next, because the power of a good insult depends on so much context that to an outsider it loses a lot of its power. Instead, I want you to imagine the vilest insult possible, the taboo kind that incites immediate violence and marks the offender as an outcast with no possibility of rehabilitation. Now magnify the result. That’s what Philby said to me.

  The polite translation: Philby wished us all a painful death.

  And just in case there was any lingering doubt as to his sincerity, he cut the connection dead.

  — CHAPTER 69 —

  The smoke was thick above our heads, pooling into clouds of death. By this point if we were expecting rescue then we would have hunkered down to the floor where the smoke was thinnest.

  But there could be no rescue. This was a bunker. There would be no convenient ventilation shafts to crawl through, or weak spots in the walls or door. There was nothing we could do. Only our friends on the outside could blast or hack their way through, but they were under orders from Philby to let us die.

  I bid goodbye to my ghosts but they seemed to be suffering from the smoke worse than I was. I don’t think they heard me.

  Silky still had her eyes open. We only had a few seconds left together. If I was a romantic, as dear Bahati had been, I would’ve told her I loved her. Not because I did, but because it would be a dramatic gesture. I missed Bahati, but I would miss Silky too.

  I let Mez drop to the ground and abandoned Mrs. Gregory. I sat against a table leg, wrapped my arms around my wife and gently pulled her head to nestle against the base of my neck, trying not to crush the final breaths from her lungs. I placed one hand over the alien coils on her head. They felt unexpectedly cool and velvety to the touch. Beautiful really. I realized to my shame that I had never touched them before. I felt them tingling and sensed a calm acceptance from her, the consolation of not dying alone.

  My arms shook. I bared my teeth. Silky could meekly accept the inevitable, but I could not. I was an Assault Marine! We weren’t built that way. I wanted to scream, hit something, to pull or dig or do something. Anything! Anything but sit here and die with my wife in my arms.

  My body convulsed with the need to act but Silky had needs too, and though my fingers were digging craters into my forearms, I would not abandon my embrace of her.

  Tears streamed from my eyes – the smoke, you understand. In fact, my vision was so messed up that Silky’s face appeared to light up. My confused brain was convinced it wasn’t my imagination. Maybe Kurlei glowed before their souls left their mortal husk. Perhaps her god was shining divine light upon her to mark her as one of the faithful.

  If so, I decided with a sniff, she was going to a good place, because this divine light looked an awful lot like the kind that shot out of a standard Marine-issue flashlight, and any deity that used standard Marine kit couldn’t be too bad in my book.

  “Not disturbing anything, are we?”

  I spun around to see Shahdi Mowad standing in the hatchway shining a flashlight at us. The fact I could see her told me something else too: the smoke was clearing, and rapidly. I could hear the air filters operating.

  “I can’t believe Philby had a change of heart,” I said to no one in particular.

  “He didn’t,” Shahdi answered, tension evident in her voice. “It was more a case of Denisoff suffering a sudden communication blackout, followed by a rapid and flexible reinterpretation of his orders.”

  Denisoff sa
ved us? “I don’t believe it,” was all I could think to say.

  I saw Denisoff and almost called out to him, but thought better of it.

  “I don’t think McCall wants our help,” said Chikune, the little twonk, as he moved to take up a guard position behind Gregory’s slumped form. “We could always seal you back in and come back later,” he suggested. For the first time in history, I was glad to see him.

  “What’s with you?” he asked because he thought I was staring at him. “Have you fallen in love with me too?”

  I hadn’t. And I wasn’t looking at him but behind him. There was still so much smoke that it took even my uprated eyes a few moments to make sense of why I was looking his way. Then the scene snapped into sharp focus. The wall of this impenetrable bunker wasn’t as solid as I’d assumed. Behind Chikune, where the wall joined the ceiling, a panel had been worked loose from the outside and was being pushed to one side.

  “Look out!” I shouted at Chikune as the panel fell. “They’re behind you.”

  — CHAPTER 70 —

  As the panel clattered to the ground, and small arms fire erupted all around, Mrs. Gregory seized her chance and indicated she wasn’t unconscious by getting to her feet. I rose too.

  “Too bad I’ve exhausted my digital weapons,” she shouted at me over the gunfire. “Lucky I carry a spare.”

  Whatever she intended to do next was interrupted by the detonation of smoke bombs and concussion grenades that swept her to the floor, and me with her.

  By the time I regained my feet and my senses, she had beaten me to it and was drawing a heavy pistol from the inside of her smart little jacket. I can only assume her jacket pocket was a throat to a bubble universe, because it’s the only way she could have concealed that weapon.