Death's Head: Maximum Offence

by David Gunn

‘And you?’ I ask Haze.

  ‘I’ve got a headache.’

  I am about to say, of course you have a fucking headache. You just fell thirty feet. However, something stops me. Haze’s eyes are glazed, his face is sweating. Any minute now, his nose is going to start to bleed. It is a habit of his.

  ‘We’re being watched?’

  ‘Think so, sir.’

  He might be soft as uncooked dough and have even fewer social skills than I have, but if Haze thinks we are being watched . . .

  Mind you. In the middle of a desert?

  Satellites are possible. The sky is clear, almost purple. Not a single cloud, although infrared lenzing means clouds don’t present a problem these days.

  We’ll deal with the watchers later.

  ‘Find the flares,’ I tell Haze.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  To Rachel I say, ‘Take me to Neen.’

  ‘Franc’s worse . . .’

  Rachel adds sir, when she sees my face. But it’s too late. As I step towards her, she steps back; and then makes herself stand her ground. Although she twists her head away from the blow she thinks is coming.

  ‘Sergeants outrank corporals,’ I say, and leave it at that.

  We find Neen against a boulder, clutching his arm. His face is tight and he has bitten through his lower lip.

  ‘You needled yet?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Thought we might need them later.’

  Ripping open a combat pack, I stab a syringe into his neck and feel the bulb deflate as morphine enters his bloodstream. There are better drugs and better ways to deliver them, but morphine is cheap and effective and you can buy it anywhere.

  Counting down from five, I let the drug do its job and then reach for Neen’s forearm. The thinner of the two bones is broken. But it hasn’t ripped its way through his skin and the break feels clean.

  He is lucky.

  ‘Find me splints.’

  When Rachel comes back, it is with a strip of ceramic from the glider’s tail, and a length of fibre optic that thrashes in her hand like a wounded snake. Seems the rear section of our glider broke free. Must have been that hole I ripped in the skin.

  Haze carries a food parcel, two flares and a water bottle.

  ‘Find the other bottles,’ I tell him.

  ‘Sir . . .’ Rachel wants to say something.

  It’s written on her face and that is an improvement. A few months back she wore her hair over her eyes so no one could see her face at all. After the surrender of Ilseville, a Silver Fist officer put his gun to the back of her head to shoot her and then changed his mind when he saw me watching. Maybe he decided raping her was enough. She got to live provided some idiot agreed to carry her.

  That idiot was me.

  Snapping the ceramic into sections, I pick two the closest in length and pull Neen’s arm straight. It is probably good that he faints. Lashing the ceramic into place with optic, I make him a sling with the last of the tubing and sit him against a rock.

  ‘Call me when he wakes.’

  Rachel nods.

  I find Shil fussing over Franc, who is white-faced and silent. One boot, old, buckled, and worn at the heel, lies in the dirt beside her. Shil is asking Franc to wiggle her toes.

  Dropping to a crouch, I grip Franc’s ankle.

  As I yank, her other boot clips the side of my jaw. It is a good kick, with massive amounts of power behind it. One of the things I love about Franc is that she has aggression hardwired right through her.

  Shil and Neen might be farm-boy thin, but Franc is compact. She’s also shaven-headed and removes her body hair daily with the edge of a knife. Although the rest of us aren’t meant to know that. She once belonged to Haze, some kind of bonded servant.

  ‘Fuck,’ she says. ‘I’m—’

  ‘Anyone ever told you the one-second rule?’

  Franc shakes her head.

  ‘Wake someone and they cripple you inside the first second, then tough. Should be more careful how you wake them . . . Also applies to treating wounds. Although you should have known that was dislocated, not broken.’

  Chapter 4

  THE STARS ARE HIGH AND CLEAR, WHICH MEANS THE AIR HERE is thin. What little heat the dunes take up during the day is taken back by the night faster than is safe for any of us. Cold kills as surely as a knife. It creeps up on you. Makes you decide it would be a good idea to lie down for a little while. Perhaps shut your eyes and remember all those interesting times you thought you had forgotten.

  Almost froze to death once. If you have to go, it’s probably as good a way as any.

  Doesn’t mean I’m going to let it happen here though. Not to me, and not to any of my troopers. I am headed for the plane, or what is left of it. The tail is way behind us, one of the wing tips just ahead. And we are half a mile from the cliff itself. Seems to me the glider broke up far too neatly.

  Out to my left a double moon brightens. Then a third. Maybe it is that third moon which wakes whatever beast it is that howls. A long howl, too deep for a sand wolf and too raw for a fox.

  Not ferox.

  I’m glad about that. Ferox hunt silently.

  ‘Sir.’ Neen drops back from walking point.

  Yeah, I know . . .

  We have a big problem, and a small problem. The small problem is out in the wilderness howling at us. The bigger problem is that where we’re meant to be doesn’t have three moons.

  It has two suns.

  At least it does according to our briefing.

  As I glance to the left, checking on that triple moon, something crests the top of a dune and rears upright. Its howl echoes off a distant cliff and starts other voices howling.

  ‘Fuck,’ says Shil. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A wolf.’

  I wouldn’t believe me either.

  ‘Build a fire,’ I tell her. ‘When we reach the cliff.’

  She wants to say there’ll be nothing to burn, but has more sense. I know that, we are in the middle of a desert, for fuck’s sake. She needs to improvise.

  ‘You know . . .’ says Haze.

  ‘There’s going to be nothing to burn?’

  He nods.

  Telling Neen to resume point, I order Shil to move out, then I watch as Franc and Rachel head after her. Rachel is limping, and working hard at not looking back. As I wait for her to leave me with Haze, I break open our distress pistol and feed it a flare.

  ‘Why? ‘ I ask Haze.

  He steps back. ‘Sorry, sir . . .’

  ‘No. Tell me why there’s going to be nothing to burn.’

  He considers this, his head tipped to one side and still wrapped in bandages. We tell everyone he took a wound that will not heal. The truth is messier. Those two braids budding through his skull make him Enlightened.

  We kill Enlightened, because they’re our enemy. Only Haze is an Aux, a member of our troop and that makes the truth messier still.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘That second explosion,’ he says. ‘It smelt chemical.’

  ‘Plastique.’

  Haze stares at me.

  ‘Used it when I was a kid,’ I say. ‘In the Legion. Along with rusting rifles, sweat-rotted uniforms and food rations so stale no one else in OctoV’s army would even open them.’

  He nods.

  ‘The first bang was the AI,’ he says. ‘Plus our oxygen tanks. The second, that was serious. Someone stuffed the glider’s nose-cone with enough explosive to wipe out us, half a cliff and all the evidence . . .’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Enlightened?’

  A fair guess. Only how the fuck would a bunch of metalheads know about us . . . And how could they get themselves into a U/Free security base and pack the nose of a glider that is being kept under guard?

  I have a better explanation. Only it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

  ‘What do you think, sir?’

  ‘No idea,’ I tell Haze.

  ———


  Walking backwards is easy. Well, it’s easy when you’ve done it as often as I have. You just lean yourself slightly forward for better balance, and keep the gun low and swivel from the hip.

  I’m the last into the camp, obviously. If you can call five troopers waiting in the rubble of a fallen cliff a camp.

  ‘Sir,’ says Neen. ‘You want me to take watch?’

  ‘How’s the arm?’

  He looks at me.

  ‘It’s not a trick question.’

  ‘Numb,’ he admits. ‘But I can handle a gun.’

  A good answer and a true one. ‘Later,’ I say. ‘First we need a tent. And a fire, assuming there’s anything to burn.’

  ‘Bushes,’ says Franc.

  ‘What? ‘

  ‘In the cliff. Shil and Rachel are trying to . . .’

  Well, if Rachel thinks she has something to prove.

  There are bushes all right. They begin a quarter of the way up, which puts them a long way above Rachel and Shil, who are lit by the pale light of three separate slivers of moon.

  ‘Come down.’

  ‘I’m . . .’ Rachel’s voice is distant. More worried than I would like.

  ‘Now.’

  Neither one moves.

  As Shil shouts something to Rachel, I realize we have a problem, and it isn’t just their stupidity. Great, I think. Should have known Rachel was too good to be true. Still, if you are going to be afraid of something it might as well be something that’s likely to kill you, like heights.

  ‘As soon as I start throwing wood down,’ I tell Neen, ‘get a fire going. Also, if you can’t make a tent have the others build a sand wall.’

  ‘Sir,’ he says.

  Neen points to a dark gash at the base of the cliff. It’s low and slants away to one side. As I approach, a bat the size of my fist spirals out and hits an insect on the rise. A second later a dozen bats spiral out behind the first.

  I leave Rachel where she is.

  The mouth of the cave is tight enough to scrape my shoulders and that doesn’t help my temper. Although what I find inside goes a long way to making me happy again. No ash from a fire, or spoor. Nothing that looks like the remains of a meal. The cave is clean. Which means that whatever is howling out there in the wilderness either doesn’t come up this far, or is too big to fit through that hole.

  Shil is waiting when I get outside.

  ‘Rachel . . .’ she begins.

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  The cliff is sheer and handholds rare.

  It is now so cold that frost glues the rock to my bare toes and the fingers of my good hand. Probably glues itself to the fingers of my other hand too, but that’s metal so I can’t feel it.

  Climbing quickly, I ignore the ache across my shoulders as I haul myself to where Rachel clings to the rockface. She is shivering, from fear or cold.

  ‘OK for the moment?’

  That’s a question needing an answer in the affirmative.

  Whatever the fuck that is. Actually, I know what it is. It’s when you can’t say no. My old lieutenant taught me. Part of my education, like learning to use a fork instead of my fingers, wash myself at least once a week and not punch people without good reason.

  Arm over arm, I drag myself to a point a hundred yards above Rachel. A quick tug does nothing to move the first bush, and neither does a hard yank. In the end, I have to position my feet, grip rock tightly with my good hand and wrap a branch several times round my prosthetic hand to discover why. The bloody plant has roots five times longer than the bits I can see.

  Now I know what to expect, the second bush comes free with less effort. Then a third and a fourth and a fifth. I keep ripping them out until my good hand is bleeding from gripping rock and my feet are raw.

  It doesn’t matter, I mend fast.

  ‘Last one,’ I shout.

  Somewhere below Neen shouts back. A second later, a howling comes from the wastelands, sounding closer than before, a lot closer. And unless the cliff is doubling the noise, there is more than one animal advancing.

  Rachel is waiting for me, her face lost in the shadow.

  ‘You OK?’

  She nods, and then realizes I can’t see. So she says, yes, sir, of course, sir. Her voice is tight, however, and she shakes my hand off her shoulder without thinking. Her body is humming with tension under those shivers.

  ‘Rachel,’ I say, ‘what’s wrong?’

  ‘My hand’s trapped.’

  Fuck. Sliding my hand along her arm, I find fingers hooked into a crack in the rockface. They don’t feel trapped to me. ‘Lift your little finger.’

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Do it . . .’ Her smallest finger flexes under my grip. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Now the next one.’

  There is no movement at all.

  ‘Try your thumb,’ I suggest, although I already know the answer. One way or another, she’s frozen. ‘Right,’ I say. ‘This is how we’re going to do it.’

  It takes me a minute to find a handhold good enough to take both our weights. By now, I’m behind her, my body close to hers. She can feel my breath on the back of her neck and I can smell fear rise like dying heat from her body.

  I tell her to turn round and grip my shoulders.

  She doesn’t want to do it, but she knows that staying glued to this cliff isn’t a choice. So she shifts slightly, only to freeze as I wrap one arm round her waist.

  ‘Turn slowly, I’ve got you.’

  Can she do it?

  The answer is yes. Letting go, she shifts until she can put her arms round my neck. It is just bad luck my foot chooses that moment to slip.

  As I grab cliff and Rachel tightens her grip, my feet kick for a new hold. For a moment, I think we are not going to make it. So does Rachel. As my toes find rock, a liquid heat fills my lap.

  She’s pissed herself. As good a sign that we’re still alive as any.

  ‘Wrap your legs round me.’

  Her hips are wide enough to let her do it. She’s strong, unless it’s just fear that has her squeezing my hips as if her life depends on it. When she tightens her grip, I can feel her breasts squash against me. Her hair smells of oil, and her body smells of fear, overlaid with the sharpness of fresh urine.

  ‘Sir,’ she says. ‘You all right, sir?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just wondered.’

  ‘Rachel . . .‘

  ‘You went still, sir. Like you’d realized something.’

  She’s brighter than I thought. Either that or she reads minds.

  ‘We need to move.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  With her arms locked tight round my neck and her legs gripping my hips, we make the return climb. It takes longer than it should, as I have to test each grip before letting go with my other hand.

  Normally I’d jump the last fifteen or twenty feet, but I can’t. Not carrying Rachel. So I edge my way down the cliff until I feel gravel beneath my toes.

  ‘Wrap her in something warm.’

  If Shil notices the stain on Rachel’s clothes, she keeps it to herself.

  Chapter 5

  ONCE THEY ARE BROKEN, NEEN SEPARATES THE BUSHES INTO piles. One pile is kindling, the other our supplies for later. Franc is feeding the fire. She’s having a competition with herself to see how close she can get her fingers to the flames.

  The roots are oily, which helps them burn. Ash already lines a circle of stones holding the fire. Shil is talking to Rachel, both of them kneeling behind us in the safety of the cave.

  Between them, they scoop handfuls of grit from the floor until they hit water. Most of the Aux are farm-born on shitty little planets, in backward bits of the spiral. It’s easy to forget that; until one of them makes a perfect fire or finds water from instinct.

  They are born on farms, grow up on farms, are conscripted into one army, captured and conscripted by another. Then, carrying cheap guns and wearing even cheaper uniforms, they pod-drop onto marshland outside a city called Ilseville. />
  That is where they’re meant to die.

  Only they meet a lieutenant without troops. So when their NCO goes down he takes over.

  That’s me.

  When I look up, Shil’s staring at me, and there’s something knowing in her eyes. Maybe she’s noticed the way I’ve been watching Rachel . . . Franc’s abandoned the fire for her knives, which she’s sharpening on a tiny whetstone. They look sharp enough to me.

  Pushing myself to my feet, I nod towards the darkness.

  ‘Coming?’ I ask Franc.

  Grinning, she stuffs one knife into her belt, another into her boot and slots the last, sight unseen, into a sheath hidden in the small of her back. I don’t see where she puts the last one because she turns her back on me.

  We are done up as mercenaries. This means far too many zips, flaps and shiny buckles for my liking. The Legion wear combat camouflage. Double dirt, they call it. Death’s Head wear black, with silver stripes or shoulder bars.

  Mercenaries look like an explosion in a cheap market.

  ‘Neen,’ I say, ‘keep everyone in the cave.’

  ‘What about . . . ?’

  ‘They piss in it, they shit in it. For all I care, they can fuck in it. But if anyone takes a step outside I will cut their throats myself. Any other questions?’

  He meets my gaze. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘The rest of you?’

  Rachel and Haze look away, and Shil just shrugs as if she expected no better. She’s the eldest, apart from me. You’ve probably worked that out for yourselves.

  ———

  Say desert and people think of sand, but it is as likely to be grit, or something like the shale that crunches under my feet. The cliff is at my back, the cave is that glow away to one side and ahead of me is a slope down to the desert floor.

  If it wants us, whatever is out there will have to climb that slope. We have triple moonlight and the slope on our side, and a cruel wind against us. Every now and then, the wind catches grit and throws it into my eyes.

  I could leave it until daylight . . .

  The thought comes out of nowhere. There is nothing to say we must meet them head on. Then again, there is nothing to say we must not. But I’m ex-Legion, and meeting the enemy head on is what the Legion do. Of course, that doesn’t mean it is always right.