by David Gunn
‘She’s not my women.’
‘Really?’ Paper Osamu looks at me.
‘All right. But only the once.’
‘You’re such children—’ Ms Osamu catches herself, apologizes. The U/Free are big on not being rude about others. They have laws about such things. Me? As far as I’m concerned, if you think someone’s a crawling heap of shit, you’re allowed to say so. Just don’t be surprised if they pull a knife on you.
Taking a piece of card from her pocket, Paper Osamu says, ‘Look . . . The general’s invited you to a breakfast he’s giving in my honour.’
I check both sides of the invitation.
‘Want me to read it?’
‘I can manage. My old lieutenant taught me.’
‘Bonafonte deMax?’
It’s my turn to stare.
‘I checked him out,’ she says. ‘At the general’s suggestion.’
We live in a city full of generals, empire ministers and senators. Also heads of the high clans, distant cousins of the emperor and trade lords. However, round here, if someone says the general they mean General Indigo Jaxx, commander of the Death’s Head and my ultimate boss.
‘And call me Paper,’ she adds. ‘We’re friends.’
First I’ve heard of it.
Walking over to my wardrobe, Paper finds my uniform. The jacket has been cleaned since she last saw it and the blood’s come out. My boots are also clean, which must be Angelique’s work, because I don’t remember scrubbing them.
There’s a waterfall of silver braid tucked inside one of the boots, a holster over the back of a chair and a dagger’s sheath on the mantel over the fireplace. The dagger itself keeps the sash window from sliding shut.
‘Antique,’ says Paper, looking at the blade. ‘You steal this?’
‘General Jaxx gave it to me.’
‘So,’ Paper says, ‘I guess that means he stole it.’
‘Paper . . .’
‘The blade’s old Earth,’ she tells me. ‘All old Earth artefacts are protected under United Free legislation. No trading, no selling, no transfer between systems without a licence.’
‘Could have been in his family for generations.’
‘We’ll make a diplomat of you yet.’
‘God forbid.’
‘I’m a diplomat,’ she points out.
‘So you’ve said.’
Arranging my uniform on the floor, Paper stands back and looks expectant. She’s medium height, athletic without being muscled, just enough hips to grip, a tight rear and high breasts, which are full without being large. She’s also black-haired, but that means nothing. Last time we met her hair was chestnut and her eyes were blue. Today they are green.
‘Sven,’ she says. ‘You need to dress.’
‘Then get out.’
‘I’ve seen naked men before.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I’m sure you have.’ Dropping the towel, I stamp over to the shower. It’s a real one, the kind that uses water. Unfortunately, its sides are made of clear glass. Paper walks round it slowly, taking a good look.
‘Impressive,’ she says. She’s not talking about the cubicle.
I keep my back to her as I pull my trousers over wet skin and buckle my belt.
‘May I?’ says Paper’s voice behind me.
So polite, the U/Free.
Reaching up, she wipes a drop of water from my shoulder where it vanishes under the edge of my prosthetic arm. ‘Exquisite workmanship.’ The stump has a tortoiseshell effect where badly healed flesh used to be. It gives a dull click as she taps it. Then she taps my arm itself, which rings slightly.
‘You lost this to a ferox?’
Nodding, I turn round.
She is standing so close that I can smell woman under whatever scent she’s wearing. And her pupils are wide, those little black dots no longer little but vast, reducing the green of her irises to a thin circle around the edges.
‘Really?’ she says, breathless. ‘A ferox?’
‘It was old,’ I say. ‘Almost dead.’
‘I heard you cut off its head.’
‘Needed proof.’
‘Of what?’
‘That this wound wasn’t self-inflicted.’
‘People do that?’ she asks. ‘In the desert . . . ?’
Smiling, I say, ‘In the desert, people do anything.’ Then, because she’s still close, I wrap one arm around her waist and pull her close, raising her chin with my other hand.
‘Sven . . .‘ She twists away before I can stop her.
‘Thought we were meant to be friends?’
Paper Osamu tuts. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Let’s get you dressed.’
Helping me into my jacket, she adjusts my holster, buttons my braid into place, hangs my Obsidian Cross, second class, on its ribbon around my neck, and rips my blade from the sash window. Which, obviously enough, crashes shut.
The U/Free can be strange sometimes.
———
When we get downstairs the others are waiting. Telling Neen I’ll see him later, I ask Aptitude to help Lisa clean up and the rest to get on with whatever needs doing. Angelique scowls when I hold the door for Paper. Shil merely raises her eyebrows and makes sure that I’ve seen.
‘Who’s the eldest one?’ Paper demands, the moment we’re outside.
‘Shil . . . My sergeant’s sister.’
‘Had her too?’
‘Paper! ‘
‘Just asking,’ she says.
Paper mutters something about research, and I stop listening when she starts using words like polyandry. I’m pretty sure there’s a primitive peoples in there somewhere. But she catches herself, glances at me and decides I’m not paying attention anyway.
‘She likes you,’ Paper says, bringing it back to my level.
I could tell her that Shil hates my guts and has done ever since I made her brother my sergeant. But I don’t bother. ‘No, she doesn’t,’ I say instead.
‘Believe me,’ says Paper. ‘She does. I know these things.’
Paper probably means she once read something about the mating habits of those primitive peoples she was muttering about. As we walk, the city of Farlight wakes around us and she tells me my mission. The one I’m meant to keep quiet about.
We’re being borrowed by the U/Free. We being the Aux. Although that is a secret, obviously.
‘You understand?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I know what secret means.’
Paper sighs. She doesn’t, however, tell me why we’re being borrowed. That’s going to come later.
The houses become larger as we head downhill, and keep getting larger, grander and cleaner until we near Farlight’s centre where huge mansions hide behind heavy gates. The gardens are green and roses flourish. People down here have enough water to waste on plants. It’s an interesting idea for someone who grew up on a frontier fort in the desert.
Elegant hovers wait outside shops as we get closer still. Uniformed guards usher high clan families into retailers so exclusive I have no idea what they sell. And nothing outside gives a clue. Paper watches me watch them. There is something knowing in her gaze. As if this is what she expects me to do.
Cold air blasts from shop doors.
For a few seconds, as they leave, the families experience the heat with which the rest of this city lives daily. And then sides lift on sleek hovers, and chauffeurs and cold air welcome them inside. This was Aptitude’s life once. She’s never seemed to miss it.
‘What are you thinking?’ Paper asks.
‘Nice car,’ I say, as a smoked-glass monstrosity slides away. She glances at me strangely.
A virus attack hit this area before I was born. A few of the streets melted. Most just dripped a little and then solidified. Although few of them dripped as much as OctoV’s cathedral. This looks ready to collapse into a puddle the moment the sun rises high enough.
It’s looked like that for five hundred years.
That’s what Paper tells me as we skirt the
square and duck under an arch in the shadow of the cathedral, that leads down an alley and into a smaller square beyond. Behind this is a long and narrow lake, looking like a river, that divides the north from the south of Farlight. The lake stinks in summer, and it stinks in winter. Only not quite as badly. Bodies have a habit of turning up in that lake. A number of them badly mutilated. I know where we’re going.
What interests me is that Paper also knows. I’ll give good money she hasn’t been before. The Death’s Head aren’t known for issuing open invitations to their regimental HQ.
The square is dusty, the grass even browner than the last time I was here. No one’s wasting any water round here. A fir tree droops behind rusting railings, stripped of its needles by the heat as surely as if someone had lit a bonfire underneath. The HQ itself is immaculate.
‘Don’t tell me,’ says Paper.
Glancing from the freshly painted door to the rusting railings, from the scrubbed steps to the parched earth showing between patches of dead grass, she says, ‘Subliminal reinforcement of already established hierarchical patterns . . .’
I ignore her.
Elbowing my way through a crowd around the door brings me to the steps at the same time as a major in the militia. His chest drips with braid and he’s wearing a row of ribbons probably awarded for dressing himself. A young woman hangs off his arm. She has as many jewels as he has medals. In addition, her breasts are doing their best to fight free from her blouse. It’s a heroic battle.
There’s no doubt what the jewels were awarded for.
‘Lieutenant,’ he says. We stare at each other.
Maybe I’m meant to stand back, or something. When I don’t, he draws himself up to his full height. This is a head shorter than me. ‘I order you to give way . . .’
OK, so I shouldn’t grin.
‘Sven,’ says Paper. ‘Let him go first.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I outrank you,’ says the major.
Like I give a fuck. ‘Tell me,’ I say, ‘what are all those ribbons for? Heroism in the face of overwhelming . . .’
My nod takes in his partner’s generous flesh.
Anything the major intends to say — and he looks like someone who intends to say a lot — dies at a bark of laughter from the top of the steps. A crop-haired man with wire glasses hiding pale blue eyes stands in the doorway. He’s wearing a simple uniform. No decorations except a single Obsidian Cross.
‘Wondered what was holding everyone. Should have known . . .’
The major’s eyes flick from me to General Jaxx. Then from General Jaxx to Paper Osamu, and some dim understanding of who this strangely dressed woman might be finally reaches his brain. He looks like a man already regretting getting out of bed.
Paper and I go up the steps first.
Chapter 3
THE DROP GLIDER IS SO OLD IT COMES FROM A TIME WHEN stealth meant making the edges pointed and painting everything matt black.
Now it just looks dated.
An X73i says the pilot. Then admits he had to look it up, because he’s never flown one before. In fact, he didn’t know any still existed.
‘Great,’ says Neen.
He shuts up when I glare at him.
Our pilot has been jumpy since we began to drop. All he and his co-pilot have to do is sit in their little cabin upfront and steer this thing in controlled descent. So I don’t see their problem. We are five hours out of Farlight and half a spiral arm away. That’s what happens if your general lends you to the U/Free. You present yourself at their embassy one afternoon, sign papers stating you undertake the job willingly, and head downstairs into a shitty little basement.
I think we’re going for a briefing.
Perhaps a medical.
What am I meant to think? The basement door opens on one planet and closes on another? That would be bad enough. Only it doesn’t. It dumps us on board a U/Free ship in low orbit over a planet. The ship’s bigger than most cities.
Well, cities I’ve seen.
Fifteen minutes later, we are dropping towards the planet’s surface in an out-dated glider, dressed as mercenaries but minus any weapons. Clearly, we’re going to be given those later.
‘How much longer?’ asks Rachel.
She’s my sniper, all red hair and attitude. Heavy breasts and broad hips. She has been fucking Haze, my intelligence officer, for the last six weeks. We’ve all been pretending not to notice.
‘Zero one five,’ says the pilot.
There is cold desert below, and if villages exist down there they don’t show on the scans. According to our briefing Hekati is five rocks out from a double star on the inner fringe of a spiral. It lacks oil, minerals and decent agricultural land. I’d ask what we’re doing here but I already know. Destroying a weapons factory.
‘Don’t worry,’ the co-pilot tells Rachel. ‘I’ll get you down safely.’
On screen, which is how we see them, his boss quietly takes a medal of legba uploaded from inside his shirt, and I know we’re in trouble.
‘Actually,’ he says, ‘you won’t.’
Touching the medal to his lips obviously closes a circuit.
As the pilot’s skull explodes, jagged splinters take his co-pilot through the head, and splatter two helpings of brain across a bulkhead. It happens too fast to stop, even if we could get through the security doors to the cabin.
‘Sir?’ says Shil. ‘We’re . . .’
‘Yeah,’ I say.
We are doing what happens when a drop glider loses both its pilots, we’re crashing. The X73i is a thousand feet above the desert floor, and headed for a cliff half a mile ahead. The cliff is a good thousand feet higher again.
‘We’ll have ridge lift,’ says Haze.
Half of what Haze says is nonsense. The rest can sometimes save your life. He might be large, moon-faced and clumsy. But he’s not as large as he was when we first met on a battlefield and I stopped him being chopped up by enemy guns. Although he still sounds simple to anyone who doesn’t know different.
‘Wind hits a cliff, sir,’ he says, ‘it rises. Creates an updraught. The updraught will give us lift.’
‘Not enough,’ I say.
We have about two minutes before the cliff face and this plane get up close and personal. All we’ve got going for us is the fact the desert floor is rising as it approaches the cliff. A thousand years of sifting sand for all I know.
‘Sir,’ says Rachel. ‘The exit’s jammed.’
‘Of course it is. It’s tied to the system.’
‘One minute thirty.’
‘Sir,’ asks Haze. ‘You want me to override the glider’s AI?’
As I said, he is my intelligence officer. Only, he’s not an officer and his intelligence isn’t something most people recognize. But he has more shit in his skull than I have and two metal braids one each side of his skull to prove it.
‘No time,’ I tell him.
‘One minute twenty-five.’ He’s counting down to the AI’s internal clock. ‘I can probably—’
‘Haze.’
‘Sir?’
‘Prepare to jump.’
‘But sir,’ says Rachel. ‘The exit . . .’
‘Fuck the exit.’
One minute ten.
Dropping to my knees, I punch my fist through the glider’s floor and rip with my metal hand. Cold wind swirls into the hold and scoops trays from a trolley. The air on this planet is thin and we’re losing the oxygen mix that keeps us comfortable.
‘Help me.’
Ceramic slices at their fingers but they tear anyway. Leaving me to snap the optic fibres that run like veins under the skin of this craft. We wobble. Of course we bloody wobble. You rip holes in a glider it’s going to get upset.
‘Grab what you can.’
When Rachel just stands there, I push her towards the rear of the plane. She wants to protest, but doesn’t dare. She grabs food packs and begins tossing them through the rip in the floor.
‘Just drop
the lot.’
She does.
A gun cabinet clings to a rear bulkhead. It’s locked, but one punch takes it off the wall. The cabinet has no back, which makes locking it pointless and gives us our only weapon. A fat distress pistol, with three flares. As Rachel throws out the pistol and tosses flares after it, part of me wonders how we are going to find this stuff.
‘Jump,’ I tell her.
When she hesitates, I push her after the gun, the flares and all that other stuff she has been tossing out. Haze follows, looking shocked.
The others don’t need encouraging.
———
So I hit the ground and roll to put out flames. A split moment later, a second explosion drops fifty tons of cliff on what is left of our glider, burying it. The first explosion might be an accident. The second is intentional. I just have time to think this before rocks begin rolling my way.
‘Incoming,’ I shout.
A small boulder, the size of a three-wheel combat, tumbles past, then a larger one, maybe the size of a house, followed by a cartwheeling splinter as long as our buried plane.
Progression, I think.
Flinging myself behind a rock, I wait out the landslide. The crawl space is too small, so I jam my legs into the gap and wait it out some more.
A year ago I wouldn’t have known what progression meant. Mind you, a year ago I was someone else. These days I’m Sven Tveskoeg, lieutenant with the Death’s Head, Obsidian Cross, second class. What I’m doing out of uniform is a whole other question.
‘Sir . . .’
Haze, from the sound of it.
‘Sir . . .‘
‘Over here,’ I call, and he stumbles uphill, Rachel in tow.
She has the distress pistol in her hand, which means she’s already started hunting down the supplies we dropped. I like Rachel; she’s one of my better finds. Haze knows I think this. I am not sure he is happy.
Mind you, I’m not sure I give a fuck.
‘You’re burnt.’
That’s Haze for you, always stating the obvious.
‘Not badly,’ I tell him. ‘Report.’
He looks at me.
‘Rachel . . . ?’
‘Sergeant Neen’s down, sir. Arm broken. Corporal Franc has a broken ankle. I’m OK. Shil’s OK.’