On the deck plating, Throam had carefully arranged everything that they would need when they arrived at Herros. Everything they would need, and then some. He had run enough missions with Caden to know what they were likely to want immediate access to in the most probable scenarios.
First and foremost were three sets of body armour of a light flexible sort, which each of them would wear over their base layer regardless of whatever else they carried. Throam, Caden, and Eilentes; they would all have this protection as a bare minimum. Plasteel fibres woven into panels that covered the chest, abdomen, shoulders, sides and back, with additional shaped plates to protect the neck and femoral arteries.
Next to these he had placed the outer armour that he and Caden would almost certainly don before they arrived. He had already checked each piece for cracks, ensured no seals had perished or separated from the armour itself, and run the diagnostic routine built in to each suit. He had tested the skinprinting function, and smiled with satisfaction when the outer layers shifted quickly — from their default white and grey digital urban camouflage — to mimic the darker hatchings of the deck plates. Finally, he had also checked the webbing, mag-tags, and straps that they would need to carry the rest of their equipment: all in order.
Eilentes had her own set of armour stowed in one of the cabins on the shuttle, and he knew she had checked this herself. Unnecessarily so, since that set had only just been issued, but it was always gratifying to see someone exercising a good habit.
Two large plastic crates with chunky handles came next, each of them bearing the red and blue emblem of Life and Rescue. Essential in any situation. One crate was simply a duplicate of the other: field medical kits, ropes, basic rescue equipment, metallic blankets, and a body bag. Time and time again, previous experience had demonstrated the value of carrying redundant supplies.
A similar pair of crates held the basics that would be needed to keep the three of them alive should they become stranded. Water, ration packs, solid fuel blocks, power cells, air scrubbers, a beacon, more metallic blankets, and a collapsible survival tent. All of them in date, with intact seals. Excellent.
A final duo of crates, these with thick walls and adorned with the blue and white symbol that represented Tech and Systems. Each was filled with a flexible foam lining, impregnated with a protective wire mesh that acted as a Faraday cage. Entombed within, resting snugly in their sculpted recesses, were spare communication links, holographic storage, and an interface tool.
The final arrangement was his favourite, and the one which had occupied most of his time; weapons, beautiful weapons.
At the back lay three long plasteel cases, none of which he had checked. Eilentes had warned that she had done it herself, and he knew better than to interfere once she had closed the lids. Her long range rifles, she had once said, were her own trustworthy arsenal. No hands would ever touch them but for her own.
Everything else, on the other hand, was entirely in his purview. Caden had no reservations about picking up a weapon that his counterpart had stripped, cleaned, and loaded; as far as the Shard was concerned, it was the same as doing it himself. This suited Throam well, for he loved the job. It had become almost a ritual.
Two times Moachim M46 short-barrelled assault rifles: check.
Two times Moachim P16 rapid fire pistols: check.
One times Lancillon Industries 10/W compact mini-gun: check.
One times BromCon Type II shotgun: check.
Eight zadaqtan throwing blades: check.
His own dagger, with ankle sheath: check.
Ten frag grenades: check.
Six density grenades: check.
Four packs gel explosive: check.
Big grin: check.
Nothing had ever satisfied Throam quite so much as ensuring that a huge pile of unborn devastation was ready to be played with. It certainly beat the prospect of carrying it all, even if the majority of it would be split between him and Caden.
Throam wiped sweat from his thick brow with his forearm, then ran his hand over his scalp. A fine spray of moisture flicked off his black hair as each short bristle sprang back to its natural place. He was by no means tired, but the task of sorting the equipment and moving it all around had not been inconsiderable. It was fortunate then that neither was he; at nearly two metres tall, and giving the honest appearance of being just as wide, he was only just starting to get warmed up. That warmth was the real problem; a natural consequence of being built like a tank. He was beginning to regret starting the day with a chest session. But it was worth it, to finally have everything in its proper place.
Starting with the stackable crates, he began to lift the kit into the waiting shuttle.
• • •
Euryce Eilentes moved gracefully from console to console, swiping and pressing the interactive holos which gave her access to the shuttle’s flight systems. She was not happy.
An hour beforehand, when she had come to the hangar deck to run pre-flight checks on the small craft, she had found several critical problems with the flight control module. Re-installing the shuttle’s operating system from the backup core had been simple enough, but she had then needed to go through each of the primary systems in turn, inputting her customisations as best as she could remember them. That would teach her to forget to create a preferences file. Noted for next time.
The shuttle was effectively theirs, requisitioned from Fleet Command a few days beforehand for the purposes of Shard operations. Eilentes had flown it only once before, when she had transferred it from Fort Kosling to the hangar deck of the Hammer. Perhaps it had been somewhat premature of her to spend so much time customising the various systems while she waited for the rendezvous with the battleship.
But there were better things to worry about. This was her first Shard op, and she had never before worked with Caden. It was not in the remit of the pilot to get involved in the Shard-counterpart dynamic, so she could avoid accidentally causing ructions between him and Throam easily. But that same factor might well prolong her status as a third wheel. Even though she had previously run missions with Throam, many times in fact, as far as this specific trio went she was still going to be the unknown quantity. The outsider. The newbie.
If you want to be truly needed, you have to shine.
Mama’s words were as true to her now as they ever had been. She had first been given this advice when she reached her final year at the Commerce Authority Piloting School on Kementhast Prime. Later, when she retrained at the Imperial Flight Academy, her mother had repeated the suggestion.
And how Eilentes had shone.
It’s just nerves, she told herself. I can do this, and I can do it well. I’ll just treat it as a practical exam, like at the academy.
“Are we good to go?”
Eilentes looked back from the cockpit and saw that Caden was standing in the main compartment, leaning against the edge of the intervening bulkhead. He waited patiently for her answer, a faintly amused expression on his otherwise neutral face.
“A few minutes more,” she said. “I had a bit of a problem earlier.”
“Nothing serious?”
Definitely do not give the impression of incompetence. “Oh no, not at all. Just a setback. We’re flight-capable.”
Caden smiled at her, and she found herself wondering if the tales of his cold and aloof manner had been exaggerated. Anything passed around the fleet that could reasonably be called a ‘tale’ was usually precisely that.
“What exactly are we here for?” She asked.
“That can wait until we’re away from the Hammer,” Caden said. “I’d rather not run the risk of being overheard.”
“There’s nobody else on the hangar deck,” she said.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t be heard.”
She felt instantly foolish. The Shard had been sent to the far end of space by the Empress herself, on a mission so secretive that not even the ship’s captain had been briefed. Of course he was going to play it safe.
She would need to be more mindful in future that she was no longer simply piloting ships. Now she was a part of something bigger and more important. Secrets would need to be kept, and interests protected. Not least of which was the interest they all shared in staying alive. Careless words could cost lives, if not their own then perhaps those of others.
“I can wait,” she said. She smiled back at him.
“Are either of you lazy assholes going to help me with all this shit? Half of it’s yours anyway.”
Eilentes looked past Caden and saw Throam stumbling into the cabin, a plastic crate tucked under each arm. She knew that expression. He was feigning difficulty; the crates might as well have been empty for all the trouble they were really giving him.
“Sorry. I’d love to help, but I’m busy.” She slapped and pawed at the cockpit holos in a patently meaningless way.
“I just don’t want to,” said Caden. “But I can see you’re doing a grand job.”
“I’m supposed to keep you alive.” Throam dropped the crates almost onto Caden’s feet. “So I can still pummel you, as long as I don’t go too far.”
“Your problem though is you always go too far,” said Caden.
Eilentes smiled secretly to herself. Yes, that was certainly one of his problems. The Shard was a good judge of character. She supposed it went with the territory.
“Better come help me then.”
Caden shoved aside the crates Throam had dumped so unceremoniously, and followed him back down the ramp. Eilentes heard his retort even from the cockpit.
“I’ve never liked you, you know that don’t you?”
Neither of them had got it right. She hauled the crates into the correct position and latched them down securely. The last thing she needed when the shuttle left the artificial gravity of Hammer behind was a bunch of kit floating through to the cockpit.
I was wrong, she thought. This isn’t going to be like an exam at all. It’s going to be just like living in halls. Always tidying up after stupid boys.
— 03 —
A Free Man
Urx. An ugly name for an ugly planet. Maber Castigon had hated every second of the years he had spent on this primitive, miserable, noxious world. But then, he was supposed to have hated it. That was the general idea.
“Look directly at the sensor,” said the guard.
Castigon stared directly ahead, his face a blank mask. A single light blinked on the front of the camera, and that was that. Exit image recorded.
“Go to the next room.”
Evidently satisfied, the guard gave Castigon his single instruction then paid him no more attention. He gestured at a holo, pushing the exit image into Castigon’s file and marking it to be appended to Imperial records during the next databurst.
I’d love to snap your neck, Castigon thought. Ten Solar years I spent on this absolute hole of a planet; you could at least acknowledge me.
One good twist. He imagined the noise that would make.
“Go to the next room,” the guard said. “Go now.”
Castigon realised he had remained seated and staring for several long moments since the guard first told him to move. He had been so busy thinking about the sensation of the man’s briefly painful death, and the expression that would be on his face as he realised the finality of what had just happened to him.
He went to the next room.
“This way please.” A distant voice beckoned him the moment he passed through the doorway.
Castigon walked across the concrete floor and glanced around at the stark, white walls. No windows, no décor, no features. Just the one steel desk in the centre of the room, and a man standing behind it with one hand resting on a plasteel container. The room seemed immense for just one desk.
“You will no longer be referred to as 409-966, Citizen,” said the man. “You are now once more Maber Castigon, a free man of the Empire.”
“I never stopped being Maber Castigon,” he said.
“Quite.” The man took the lid off the container. “I believe you will find everything in order.”
Castigon peered over the rim, and recognised the possessions he had brought with him to Urx. All except one item, which he picked up and turned quizzically.
“A transport chit,” the man said. “You’ll be taken from Urx to Imiron, free of charge. There is a probation office at the starport, and you are required to visit. Once validated there the chit can be exchanged for one more trip to any planet of class two or lower. After that, you’re on your own.”
“Imperial routes only?”
“But of course. Nobody else will accept that chit.”
Castigon sighed to himself. They were so predictable.
“A reminder that the Empire knows where I am,” he said. “Just like this enormous room is supposed to remind me that I am a small and insignificant thing, being sent back out into a great and mighty society.”
“I just work here, Mister Castigon.”
Castigon began to remove his effects from the container; first, neatly folded clothes. “You know if I were the disturbed sort, the ones you people seem to want to put in here as often as possible, that kind of thing might actually make me more likely to come back.”
He lifted a pair of shoes from one side of the container. At least whoever had packed it had put the dirty soles on the bottom, with the clothing on top. Someone more vindictive might have done it the other way around.
“I mean, I’m sure it works with rational people,” he said. “Reminding them they did a bad thing, they needed to be punished, and they’ll be watched. I would imagine most people take the hint.”
A personal link. Not charged.
“But there are so many people in here with real issues. I can’t imagine that serving out a sentence feels like much of an achievement to a crazy when they get told they’re going to be subjected to surveillance for evermore.”
A holo. Not charged.
“Not to mention that telling someone they’re small is a pretty bad idea, if their crimes were a product of their own sense of insignificance. You know, if they think that murdering a few dozen people will make their name live forever, and so on.”
A short dagger in a black sheath. The sort carried by counterparts.
“The really damaged ones.” He met the other man’s gaze directly.
He turned the sheath over twice, and felt the handle of the dagger.
“If I were one of that sort, this whole experience might just be too much.”
He drew the dagger, inspected the blade carefully. Light glanced off the polished metal, perfect reflections revealing the quality of the blade and the obsessive care lavished on it by its keeper.
“I could decide it’s too hard to even go back out into the world,” he said. “Or I might think that I’ll eventually end up back here anyway, and decide to speed things along.”
He pointed the blade at the man behind the desk.
“I might decide to do something that would extend my stay.”
The man looked down at the blade, then brought his eyes back up slowly to meet Castigon’s. Those impassive, fathomless pools.
“As I mentioned, Mister Castigon,” he said, “I just work here.”
• • •
As was his custom on the last day of the local week, Proconsul Maggine worked late into the night. The slightly sweet sea air was so warm that he had left the balcony doors open, allowing a balmy current to meander through his office. No need to turn on the environmental systems; the temperature was just right. With his quarters in the House of Governance facing out onto the coastal cliffs, the gentle breeze carried the scent of the ocean rather than the cloying odours of Lophrit’s capital. He was quite content to breathe in the night air.
He swiped across the next unopened item in the stack of tasks displayed by his holo. Another petition from a Raised citizen, yet again relaying the inane objections of an Ordinary. How tiresome. It was entirely obvious to him that the more prestigious el
ements of Lophrit society had not quite grasped their roles, despite the planet being settled half a century ago. Still they continued to bring trivia to his desk. Still they failed to screen the problems and desires of their less fortunate peers, issues which they were quite capable of diverting at their own level. He would have to discuss the matter with the more prolific offenders, and ensure that they understood properly how society was supposed to function. This one in particular could deal with the Ordinary himself, and Maggine tapped out a reply to that effect quickly. The petty issues of Ordinary citizens were just not interesting. The fact that they only had such mediocre things to complain about was exactly why they were considered… well… ordinary.
A splintering crack sounded off in the far distance, and almost immediately the sharp noise was followed by the rumble of air crashing and rolling high over head. Maggine registered the sound, but barely moved. He loved a good thunderstorm, especially the great violent shows that Lophrit could muster in her humid atmosphere. If he were able to finish his remaining tasks quickly, he could sit out on the covered balcony and quite safely watch the glorious display in its cataclysmic entirety.
He flicked to the next item, and found it more interesting. A request to establish a permanent gate relationship with a Gomlic trading post, on a world just across the border? Intriguing. His predecessor had always rejected such ideas, but gate security was more refined these days. The Gomlic world was less than three thousand light years away, upstream on the Sagittarius arm. He requested a comprehensive cost-benefit report from the sender, and closed the item. The stack of tasks plopped down once again, one step closer to completion.
Another crack, another rumble. The thunderous sound seemed to wash across the building, shaking the window panes ever so slightly. He hoped Lophrit would indeed put on the spectacular performance that the thunder promised.
A legal matter was next, and he quickly came to his conclusion. He was experienced with the civil claims system and wasted no time in making a decision. He sent the item across to the courthouse for their records.
Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Page 4