by Lucas Bale
She knew where his father was.
He could think about nothing else. He saw only the opportunity to rid himself of the puppeteer. He knew his praxis was failing—he had neither checked sufficiently to ensure he was not being followed nor taken measures to lose unseen pursuers who might be tracking him. He had no time. She had told him to come quickly, immediately. There was no time to waste—he had to trust in his instincts.
He saw her waiting beneath the Conduit’s velarium, the rain cascading off the glass and onto the track. He approached her, oblivious to the rush of the city around him, focused only on discovering what was inside her mind. He seized her arm and she flinched. The rain had dampened her hair, and it hung almost limply. The lights of the city seemed dull in her eyes. He hardly cared how tired she looked.
‘Where is he?’ he asked her, almost breathless.
‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Come with me.’
She didn’t look at him as they walked. She led him along a passage between low warehouses, glancing around as she walked, looking, he assumed, for any signs that they were being followed.
‘Sarin,’ he said.
‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘Not now.’
‘Sarin, I need to know.’ Again he felt the ghost of his father’s pain. ‘Tell me, Sarin.’
She ignored him and kept walking, the rain drenching them both. Finally she stopped and turned to him. ‘Check this end of the passage,’ she said quickly. ‘Make sure we haven’t been followed. I’ll check for cameras at the other end.’ Before he could respond, she had disappeared into the shadows. She’s right, he thought. She’s thinking clearly, which is more than can be said of you.
He scanned the walkways and narrow passages, but there was no one, no sign that they had been followed. He turned and made his way back to her, to where she waited for him in the shadows. As he approached, the light glinted on something in her hand.
He should have known then, but he was blinded by desperation—as she had known he would be. He realised that only seconds later. She had said she knew where his father was. How could she have? How could he have so blindly trusted her?
She hid the pistol well, but she hadn’t realised it was wet with the rain, and the light had caught it. Maybe if he had been more cautious, he would have realised the threat sooner and been able to react.
But now it was too late. He was too close to run, and he had to know why.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said weakly.
She didn’t reply. Instead, she stared straight through him. The muzzle of the pistol glistened as rain fell onto it. It didn’t tremble in her hand.
‘Sarin, you don’t need to do this.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m truly sorry.’
‘At least tell me why.’
‘I was outmanoeuvred.’
‘I can help you. We can do it together—’
She shook her head. ‘No, Elias,’ she said quietly. ‘You went too far. You’re a risk to them.’
‘Who told you to do this?’
Time stretched. Her mouth opened to answer, but the words never came out. Her elegant face froze as something streaked away behind it, dragging a spray of red along with it. A single whiplash crack, a harsh echo from somewhere behind him, came almost at the same moment. Sarin stood for a half second, then crumpled as if a switch somewhere had been flipped and the lights turned off inside her.
He shouted and leapt to her, hardly caring about the continuing threat of whatever had taken her life.
‘Don’t touch her,’ a voice commanded. Elias turned towards it, towards the person who had taken her life and spared his.
In the dwindling half light, his hair matted by rain, stood Weaver. The pistol was still in his hand, down by his side. ‘We need to go, Elias,’ he said. ‘They’re coming for us both.’
‘I could have stopped her—’
‘No, Elias, you couldn’t,’ he said quietly. ‘All she saw was a path to her own survival—and you, standing in the way of it. Whatever you might have felt for her, whatever she thought about that, it wasn’t enough to stop her.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Because she and I are the same,’ he said. ‘Products of the same system. And I would have killed you.’
‘Why here…’ he murmured to himself, confused, unable to think clearly. ‘Why bring me… here?’
Weaver pointed upwards to the cameras. ‘They needed to see,’ he said. ‘She needed to prove she’d done it.’
‘The Magistratus,’ he said quietly. ‘They had her.’
‘No,’ Weaver said. ‘It was someone else.’ He reached down and took her pistol. He pressed it into Elias’s trembling hands, then seized him by the collar and dragged him away from her body.
‘The Conduit bomb,’ Elias said. ‘That was you. You played right into the Quorum’s hands. You gave them just what they needed.’
Weaver didn’t look at him. ‘I never intended it. It was meant to derail the conveyance, nothing more.’
‘Skoryk has accused you of it. He alleges that you’re still working for the Caesteri.’ Elias didn’t mention Carsten’s plan for the Caestor. Instead, he searched Weaver’s face for a reaction. There was none. No surprise, because the Caestor had expected it.
When Weaver caught Elias looking at him, he nodded. ‘Skoryk placed those explosives himself. He placed more in my own pack. He tried to kill me. He’s covering his own tracks. I don’t know what his endgame is, but it isn’t anything to do with getting people off Theia before the war begins.’
‘How can I believe you?’ Elias said.
‘You’re alive, aren’t you?’
‘A strategy. Gain my trust, and with it a way into my master’s House.’
‘It might have been your master who just tried to kill you.’
‘No.’
Weaver stopped and took Elias by the arm. His fingers dug through the soaked fabric of his coat and into the muscle. ‘Someone told her to kill you. It wasn’t the Seneshal—they’d have done it themselves, and even if they had used her, they would’ve had someone waiting in case she failed. I’ve been following you for hours. There was no one.’
Elias tried to pull his arm away, but Weaver held onto it, tightening his grip. ‘It wasn’t him,’ Elias said.
‘How do you know?’
‘He wouldn’t do it that way.’ Who else then, if not the Seneshal? Elias thought frantically. Who else had any reason?
‘The privateering company who sacked Jieshou,’ Weaver demanded. ‘You know who they are?’
‘Yes,’ Elias said. ‘I have the details of their ship. I have a contact on Samarkand who knows where they are. Why?’
‘That’s where we’re going,’ Weaver said. ‘Both of us.’
‘Why?’
‘Justice. To make things right.’
‘I’m not going with you,’ Elias said. ‘I can’t leave—’
‘They have something on you, do they?’
Elias found himself short of breath. ‘It isn’t your concern.’
‘Of course it’s my concern. If the Seneshal didn’t try to kill you, who else? To whom are you a threat? I think you’ve been playing both sides and you were discovered. The Seneshal have been manipulating you, and your master knows.’
‘I said it wasn’t him.’
‘Whoever it was, you’re coming with me. You stay and you’re dead. What do the Seneshal have on you? Something in your past? Or someone you care about?’ Elias’s eyes must have given Weaver his answer, because he continued, ‘Whoever it is, they’re more valuable to the Seneshal alive. They know you’ll come back for them. And we will come back, I promise you that.’
But Elias was hardly listening now. As he looked straight at Weaver, he recognised, almost too suddenly, the Caestor’s value to him, and to his father.
Finally, Elias realised, he had something to bargain with.
C H A P T E R 49
NEILSSEN KNELT beside Carrel within a copse
of frozen trees. They were two unseen shadows, the hues and casts of their suits blended to the contours of Herse’s bleak forest. Beneath them, at the base of a shallow ridge that dropped into surging glacial runoff, stood the small warehouse where over a hundred townsfolk were sequestered. A herd, waiting to be used as bait. Beside the warehouse was the township’s abandoned hydroelectric plant, pockmarked with scattered patches of grey snow. Above them, a single black crow circled the forest, shrieking.
Through the commslink in their helmets, they both heard the exchange between the frigate orbiting the planet, and Sigma.
‘Command, this is Hampton. Be advised unidentified spacecraft have entered Zone Alpha. Four contacts, all on course for the planet.’
‘Hampton, this is Command. All received.’
‘Command, Hampton. Weapons free. We won’t be able to keep them off you for long. Get yourselves ready.’
‘Hampton, Command. All received. Good hunting.’
‘Command, Hampton. Received. You too.’
Carrel glanced over at Neilssen, waiting.
‘It’s time,’ Neilssen said quietly. ‘We go get them now.’
‘Hobbes,’ Carrel said. ‘Engage.’
‘Acknowledged,’ Hobbes said. ‘Moving in now.’
From their position, Neilssen could see Hobbes’s squad filtering silently between the buildings. ‘The sentries won’t understand,’ he said.
‘Then we make them. If not, Hobbes knows what he has to do.’
Neilssen watched the squad. They moved swiftly and precisely—a team that had trained together, fought together; individuals who understood each other’s functions in the machine. Two men went up the spur of the valley wall to take up covering positions, and the rest headed up the track that led to the hydro-electric plant and the warehouse. Both buildings were lightly guarded now, but soon, when the Hampton was gone and whatever enemy was coming flooded the sky, more Peacekeepers would come to take the civilians to their deployment positions.
There wasn’t much time.
Is this really what it has come to? Neilssen thought. Killing our own?
‘The APT?’ he asked.
‘Transport’s ready. We’re waiting on the gunship and the rest of the platoon.’
‘Any word from Eldridge?’
‘He and the platoon are en route.’
‘The squads have removed their sensors?’
‘All technical equipment is gone except short-range interpersonal comms. We’re giving off no signals anywhere. They can’t pick us up that way. But it means we’re blind, too. All we have is visual.’
‘Are Dayton and Soames in place?’
‘On the beta ridge. They have line of sight over the township’s main street and down the valley.’
‘Good. Then we wait on the platoon.’ Neilssen grimaced slightly—a barely perceptible shift in the expression on his face, but Carrel saw it.
‘You don’t know what the platoon will do. Where their allegiance lies.’
‘No.’
‘We’ll know once the fighting starts.’
Neilssen nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘We won’t have long until the ships are through the atmosphere,’ Carrel said. ‘The Hampton’s alone up there. And we have no idea what to expect.’
‘Then we get those people out and we fight as long as we can,’ Neilssen said.
Hobbes came in sight of the three Peacekeeper sentries at the same moment that Neilssen and Carrel began to descend the hills behind the warehouse. Silently they dropped from a low escarpment onto the dusty streets and slipped between the shadows surrounding the warehouse.
The whole of Hobbes’s conversation automatically filtered into Neilssen’s commslink. ‘Stand down, Sergeant,’ he said.
‘We’ve been instructed to wait here until given the order to deploy the civilians,’ came the reply.
‘The civilians are to come with us.’
‘On whose authority?’
‘Stand down, Sergeant. I won’t ask again.’
‘I need an authority.’
Neilssen watched Hobbes raise his weapon and direct it at the Peacekeeper sergeant. The two other Peacekeepers with him backed away, raising their weapons; the rest of Hobbes’s squad had readied their own at the moment Hobbes began speaking.
‘What are you doing?’ the sergeant said. Neilssen heard no fear in his voice, nor even confusion. It seemed alien to him now, with his gathering experience and the turmoil of the past few years, to hear a voice so completely lacking in anything that could be said to be emotion.
‘You’re covered from an elevated position. Relinquish your weapons and open the warehouse. Disobey, and we’ll be forced to put you down. Don’t make us do that—the attack is coming, and the battalion needs every Peacekeeper in service.’
There was a hesitation, then, ‘You’re committing an offence, and you’ll be punished. Do you understand that?’ The sergeant’s voice was still impassive, almost robotic.
‘Yes,’ Hobbes replied. ‘I understand. You’ve done your duty. Now relinquish your weapons and open the door.’
They wouldn’t; Neilssen knew that. They would fight.
Time seemed to wait. There was silence for what felt like too long.
Hobbes’s squad opened fire.
The sound echoed over the township, but that didn’t matter. Implants would record and transmit their deaths. Gunships would be deployed to investigate.
Three dead Peacekeepers, Neilssen thought. Three less for the enemy to kill.
‘We’re inside,’ Hobbes said. ‘Heading to the main warehouse area. Starting the clock now.’
‘We’re covering the rear of the warehouse,’ Neilssen said. ‘Three minutes. No longer.’
‘Acknowledged,’ Hobbes replied.
Three minutes to get the people out. Three minutes until the Armoured Personnel Transport arrived, accompanied by a gunship. About the same time that other patrol gunships would arrive to investigate.
Dayton’s voice came over the commslink. ‘Two gunships, about ninety seconds out.’ Or sooner.
Neilssen and Carrel moved round to the front of the warehouse.
‘Any sign of Eldridge and the APT?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Time to move, Hobbes.’
‘We’re here.’ Hobbes appeared at the door of the warehouse. Behind him were over a hundred townsfolk. They were huddled together, beleaguered and cold. A grimy, terrified mass who did not understand what was happening. Children were clasped close to wearied, fretful parents. And in their eyes, Neilssen saw dread. He knew why; he understood what they had come to expect from the faceless men and women standing in the armoured suits in front of them. There would be no trust from these people—only fear. For now, that was enough; but they would need to learn to fight, too—both to protect themselves and to enable the platoon to concentrate on the enemy without the need to guard against an attack from within.
‘Get them away from the plant. Hide in the township until the APT arrives. If we have to hit the gunships, that’s what we do.’
‘Sir.’
‘Dayton. Wait until the gunships are nearly on us, then buy us some time. Soon as you’re done, get down low and evac to the edge of town.’
‘Received. Gunships seventy-five seconds out. Suggest you get moving, sir.’
Neilssen pulled the explosive charges from his pack and set them in a line at the base of the warehouse. Behind him, Hobbes and Carrel and the rest of the squad led the townsfolk along the trail into the town. There isn’t enough time, he thought.
He stepped away from the building and glanced up at the sky. Another storm was coming. Herse was an inhospitable planet, a landscape not meant to sustain any sort of civilisation, yet humanity was here. And it had survived, despite the savage cold of the winter and nothing more than a tiny sliver of land that could be cultivated close to the sea. The Praetor was gone—withdrawn back to the Core—and command now fell to the Peacekeeper battalion st
ationed here. The Praetor’s protected compound, high in the mountains, would have been the obvious place to settle the civilians, had the objective been to protect them.
But that wasn’t the objective.
Neilssen turned away and detonated the explosives.
As the building erupted behind him, fire and plumes of mushrooming charcoal surging into the cold, grey sky, he followed Hobbes and the thin line of people he had decided to save.
They hurried the townsfolk along the trail, jogging on either side of them and behind them, covering the sky and the landscape around them with precise arcs of their weapons. Neilssen counted off the seconds in his head as they moved. Finally the township hove into view.
‘I have visual,’ Dayton said. ‘Two gunships moving fast. You need to get them inside now. Engaging in fifteen seconds.’
‘Received,’ Neilssen said. He stopped at the mouth of the main street as the rest of his squad ushered their frightened charges into the nearest buildings. Doors had been left unsealed so there would be no delays getting inside. There were cellars in the buildings Dayton and his squad had selected, so there would be no heat signatures for the gunships to trace, and the implant traces would be masked by units the squad carried.
He wondered whether it would be enough.
He turned and crouched, his weapon aimed upwards. He could hear them now, the faint whine of their engines filtering through the augmented auditory systems in his helmet and the surgical implants in his ears. The whine grew quickly, and he felt the familiar growl fill the sky.
Then came two deep throbs, almost like hollow echoes: the notes from Dayton’s heavy sniper rifle. The moment he heard Dayton’s distraction, Neilssen entered one of the buildings and climbed up to the roof.
He saw them then, the two ships hovering one hundred and thirty-seven metres away, a flood of light from each thrown onto the mountainside as they searched for Dayton.
Two more deep throbs. This time from Soames on the other side of the valley. Dayton would be moving now, keeping low in the forest, avoiding their sensor sweeps.