by David Gunn
The problem is my prosthetic arm.
Has General Tournier heard of me? Extremely unlikely, but my arm was made by Colonel Madeleine, and he will have heard of her. The arm’s black metal, swallows light and rings when tapped. No arm at all is less obvious, at least that is the way it seems to me. Although when I say this to Colonel Vijay, he smiles.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
He loses his smile soon enough.
The colonel’s never seen me without an arm before. If he thinks that looks bad, he should see the stump before Colonel Madeleine remade it.
‘Look after this for me,’ I tell Iona.
She buckles under its weight, then straightens and shoots Neen a smile. We’ll be back, she believes that now. No way will I leave this behind. Sliding my shoulder into Emil’s jacket, I have Rachel fold the sleeve across my front and tack it into place.
‘Hey, looking good,’ my gun says.
———
‘Officer on deck . . .’ As I step through the hatch, Neen has the Aux salute. Vijay walks a few paces behind me. Returning the salute, I send them to their places.
My place is in the pilot’s seat. Haze sits one side of me. Vijay sits the other, looking bemused. He’s wearing my rank badges on either side of his collar. Even as a lieutenant, he looks absurdly young.
The first thing I do on sitting is charge the power packs for my gun. The one usually slung behind the trigger is almost out. The other, the one that wasn’t left behind, is long since empty.
‘Thank fuck,’ says the SIG.
‘Make them last,’ I reply, and then tell the gun what I expect.
SIG-37s are fluent in fifty languages, or so it claims. For all I know it’s telling the truth. Because there are words in there I don’t begin to recognize. And I can order a whore or a beer in more languages than anyone I know.
‘You can do it?’
Torn between saying it’s impossible, and wanting to boast that of course it can do it, the gun decides to boast.
‘Good,’ I say. ‘Then start us up.’
Diodes ripple along the SIG’s chassis, and it does the whirring thing it does every time I demand that it do something difficult. The familiarity is vaguely comforting. Although I don’t let the gun know that.
As I wait, the deck beneath my feet begins to hum and the lights go low in the crewpit. So Haze, Vijay and I buckle ourselves in. The others are already tied to a rail. It is the best we can do.
‘Sir,’ says Haze. ‘You sure you want me to do this?’
Yes, I’m sure.
Wiping the ship’s memory with a single pulse obviously hurts his head, because he vomits into a bag he grabs. We’re still running low gravity, thank God.
‘Do that in freefall,’ I say, ‘and I’ll dump you outside myself.’
He manages to smile.
Read-outs promise clear space between the asteroid belt and us. Well, hydrogen, helium, assorted trace elements, not to mention your basic interstellar radiation field. Also three dead satellites, a rotting cargo container and half a dozen coffins in loose orbit around the habitat. Nothing, however, that looks like it wants to shoot us. In fact, nothing that looks like it is paying any attention to us at all.
Suits me fine.
‘OK,’ I say to the gun. ‘Take us out.’
Pipes hiss as couplings break free, grapples clang and the crewpit shudders. I would ask the SIG how long this tug’s been in dock but I don’t want to know. It’s not as if we have much choice.
‘So,’ asks the SIG. ‘You want this quick or careful?’
‘Careful,’ I say.
‘Good answer.’
I leave the SIG to work out Hekati’s spin. We need to keep her bulk between us and the Silver Fist ship on her side. This matters, because we are about to arrive on Hekati for the first time. At least that’s what we’ll be telling General Tournier.
As the SIG runs our tug along one spoke, then slides it over Hekati’s outer rim to hug the far side, it mutters endless numbers. ‘Point one nine two four six,’ it says, adding a string of numbers to the end of this.
‘Angular velocity?’ asks Haze.
‘Check,’ it says. It’s a tricky manoeuvre; at least I assume it is, because eventually it reduces my gun to silence.
At some point, we pass beyond the abandoned cargo container, the satellites and all the coffins and match Hekati’s spin, right out to the rocks. The asteroid belt is an M-type, which gives us a hundred thousand bloody great clumps of metal in slow orbit about the star Hekati uses for light.
No one is going to spot us in here. So we peel off and hide ourselves in its edge.
‘OK,’ I tell the others. ‘This is how it’s going to work.’
I talk, they listen. And then they look at me, look at one another, and do what they’re told. Because the look on my face tells them what will happen if they don’t. Only the gun vocalizes — and it has the sense to whisper.
‘You nuts?’
‘Probably.’
It snorts. ‘I mean,’ it says, ‘it’s not like it makes a difference to me. But sabotaging your own ship . . .’ Lights flicker as it scans the crewpit. ‘Given it was pretty fucked to start with.’
‘Going to be worse now.’
‘Tell me about it,’ says the gun.
Most of the asteroids are no bigger than us. But we manage to find one fifty times our size and I have the gun scrape us alongside. You can’t hear in space, so everyone insists, but I hear every screech, so maybe the air in here makes a difference. Not that that’s going to be around much longer.
‘Sven,’ says a voice.
‘Trooper?’ Something in my tone makes Emil’s chin come up.
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘Is this necessary?’ Colonel Vijay asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I ask. ‘What do you think?’
He bites his lip. Not his fault, I remind myself. Sending an eighteen-year-old staff officer to assassinate a Death Head’s general always was stupid. Except that thought is treason. So I decide it is actually a brilliant idea, in a way still to be revealed to the rest of us.
‘You done?’
‘Almost,’ says the SIG.
A radiation tag on the shoulder of my pressure suit is orange, going on black. Looks like it’s useless. Mind you, it was orange going on black when I first looked, and that was before we even left the mirror hub.
So maybe everything is fine.
‘We stole this ship,’ I tell the others. ‘OK?’
They nod.
‘Took it from a launch yard in Ilseville.’
‘But—’ says Neen.
‘Yeah, OK. There isn’t a launch yard in Ilseville. General Tournier won’t know that . . .’
Clicking my helmet shut starts an oxygen feed. So I reduce the mix, because we have to make the air last. And then, tapping a dial, I hold up two fingers and twist my hand. Everyone turns their mix down. I’d tell them, but the audio on most of our suits is out.
‘On my count,’ I tell the gun.
As we hit zero, the SIG scrapes us down the rock one final time. We lose our only escape pod, a jagged outcrop rips our shell and every wall light dies. A second later, two emergency lights come on. It’s true what they say about noise in a vacuum. Sirens scream, and then fade as our air is sucked away through the punctured hull.
‘Fuck,’ says Vijay, whose comms system still works. Dark eyes stare from behind the faceplate in his helmet. So I give him a thumbs up.
After a second, he nods.
Extreme cold withdraws blood from your fingers and toes, hands and feet, arms and legs, in that order. I’ve seen it happen. The emergency routine on our ship follows the same principle. It kills the lights, slams doors, seals any rips it can, and stops supplying heat to non-essential areas and then essential ones.
We feel the chill, all of us.
‘Shutting down,’ says a voice.
The ship sends its warning direct to my helmet.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I know.’ To the SIG, I say, ‘Run that broadcast.’
The gun does.
‘Mayday, SOS, Mayday . . . This is the cargo ship Teller3, coordinates . . .‘ The SIG blasts out a string of numbers that puts us near the asteroid belt, on a heading that has the ship almost crashing into Hekati.
‘This is the cargo ship Teller3, coordinates . . .’
The coordinates are shifting slightly and so are we.
Everything depends on the next few hours. If we can’t go to the Silver Fist, then they must come to us. And the bait has to be convincing. My mouth tastes sour, and it’s not just the kyp feeding off the panic around me. It is not fear, either.
Expectation, maybe. And a tightness that comes from wanting to know that I have this right. I will kill General Tournier. If it can be done, then I will do it, whatever it takes.
Whatever it takes, that’s what we’ll do.
The Aux motto.
‘Sven,’ says Vijay. ‘You’re smiling.’ Not sure how he can see in the dull glow from the few bits of console still working.
‘It’s sir,’ I say. ‘And we’re observing radio silence.’
Chapter 40
HEKATI LOOKS VAST AND WE ARE STILL SOME WAY OUT. OUR engines are almost dead, our life-support system critically compromised. The number of lights on our console falls every few minutes as something else takes itself off line.
The temperature in the crewpit reads way below zero. But my body is unsure if it’s hot or cold, and even the kyp in my throat is threatening a sullen shut-down, as if aware that making me vomit now would be a bad move.
Vijay slumps forward in his chair, barely moving.
I have a feeling Haze might be praying to legba uploaded to judge from the signs his right hand keeps making over and over again.
Put me in front of a man with a weapon and I will happily let the best man win. Because that will be me. And I’ve done it enough times to know that. But this, waiting for help and waiting for death, and not knowing which is going to arrive first, it’s teaching me things about myself.
And you know what?
Mostly, what it’s teaching me is that patience is overrated.
Between runs of its distress routine, the SIG takes read-outs direct from each of our suits. ‘Well,’ it tells me, ‘Rachel’s fucked.’ She has three hours. Neen has four. I have four ten. Franc has four twenty. As has Vijay. Haze has five. And Emil five thirty.
At the rate we’re drifting, it is going to total five hours before we hit.
‘You,’ I mouth, tapping Emil’s shoulder. ‘And you . . .’ Rachel looks round when I tap. ‘Swap tanks.’
I have to repeat it three times, before they eventually manage to read my lips in the grim half light around us. Taking a deep breath, Rachel turns so Emil can unclip her bottle. Seals close as her tank comes free, and then he takes a breath, turns and lets Rachel remove his own tank.
He clips his into place for her.
This is good, because she’s beginning to sway. And then she does the same for him. They work as a team and I’m impressed. He must know he is getting the worst of the deal.
Five minutes pass into ten, and then make twenty. No one is hailing us. In fact, no one is paying us any attention at all. As half an hour becomes an hour, and then two, and Hekati begins to look larger, I wonder if I have this wrong. It’s not a state of mind I’m prepared to accept for long.
Filing it under interesting, but avoidable, I go back to staring at the screen.
We run skeleton software, down to bare bones and beyond. The asteroid field is at our back and Hekati between the sun and us. So we approach in shadow. Against that, we have the SIG emergency-broadcasting our position.
What is our fall-back?
Die, I guess. But I’ve never been good at that.
Checking with the SIG for the read-out for each tank in turn, I discover the colonel has his mix turned so low it’s almost dangerous. At that level, he might make it. Of course, he’ll be brain-damaged, but maybe he doesn’t care.
Time for a change of plan.
Tapping the control pad on my glove, I put myself back on line. At a nod from me, Colonel Vijay does the same. It’s not as if I have much power left in my comms systems anyway. Might as well put it to good use. Haze is last, only putting himself on line when he realizes we’ve done so already.
‘Speed up,’ I tell the SIG.
Haze gapes, mouth open behind glass. ‘Sir,’ he whispers. ‘What about radio silence?’
‘Go on,’ I say. ‘Do it.’
‘Do what?’ Haze is so bemused he speaks without thinking, then realizes what he has done.
‘Take us in faster.’
‘Can’t,’ he says. ‘Not enough power.’
‘Being scanned,’ announces the ship.
When the hell did that wake up? ‘What by?’
‘Sir,’ says Haze.
‘What?’ I demand.
Lights flicker along the edge of my gun. Something whirrs, and it flicks clips. Ceramic to explosive, then back. Always knew it did that for effect. ‘Machine code,’ says the SIG. ‘Local, slightly dated.’ That should piss them off.
‘Probably Enlightened,’ Haze finishes for it.
‘Fucking great,’ I say. ‘So where are we anyway?’
The SIG plays me the coordinates from our distress beacon, and recites them over and over, as our vessel drifts closer, changing the last few digits as it goes.
‘Very funny. What the fuck’s that thing over there?’
‘Hekati,’ it says. ‘Deserted habitat . . .’
‘Shouldn’t be here,’ Haze announces suddenly. As always, he’s a quick learner.
‘You want to go back?’ Colonel Vijay’s voice is harsh. He has my growl down to the last tee. In fact, it’s so perfect Haze flinches as if taking a lash.
‘Hey,’ he says.
‘What?’ demands Colonel Vijay.
‘Shut it.’ My voice cuts through their babble. I’m not sure Vijay knows what’s going on yet. From the way he’s glaring at Haze, helmets almost touching, I doubt it.
‘Vijay,’ I say. ‘Enough.’
He gets excused his moment’s hesitation.
‘Makes no difference,’ I tell them. ‘We’re headed for that thing. No way of turning back and where the fuck do you think we’d go anyway?’ My glare swings round to include them all. Even Emil, who is watching with a sour smile on his face.
‘We’re Death’s Head.’
The Uplifted better be listening. I’m counting on it.
‘Well, we’re fucked for glory. And anyone who wants death can have it now, free. No need to turn back for that.’ Vijay’s laugh is bitter.
‘So . . .’ I tell the SIG. ‘Speed this crate up before we run out of air.’
———
A curve of habitat comes up to meet us. Can’t believe we’re not going to hit it, but between them, the SIG and Haze have this covered. We turn slightly, fire boosters and release something that would be a drag parachute if we weren’t in vacuum.
‘What’s that?’
‘Medusa bell,’ says the SIG. ‘Big about fifty years ago.’
‘What happened?’
‘They didn’t work.’
So why fire it? Except whatever it is it must work slightly, because we slow and then twist sideways, scraping across the side of Hekati. I can see clouds and valleys through the glass as we pass, and what looks like a village far below.
‘Fuck.’
‘Yeah,’ says the gun. ‘Imagine having to—’
It doesn’t get to finish its sentence, because something brings us to a sudden halt before we clear Hekati’s rim. Something being a harpoon that slams through the side of our vessel, spreads its tines and locks solid. What little air was left is sucked through the rip.
‘Asteroid drill,’ says my SIG.
And then we lurch sideways, as an unseen hawser jerks tight, slamming me into a bulkhead. Another two ha
rpoons hit, another craft slams into us and our outer door blows. We are being boarded.
The first man fires a spread net that should lock down the crewpit. It fails to open, so I head for the ceiling, slamming my gravity glove against cheap mesh. Tiny hooks give me enough leverage to stamp on the faceplate of a Silver Fist. His head twists sideways, so I stamp again and something snaps.
‘Cheap shit,’ says my gun. It’s talking about his helmet.
Never fought in zero gravity before. It’s like swimming without the water. Also never fought with only one arm, zero gravity or not. A hell of a lot harder than swimming without water. For a start, I can’t hold on and fire anything at the same time.
The answer hits me a moment before a stun truncheon tries to do the same. Flipping sideways, I glue both boots to a wall and put a flechette into the helmet of a Silver Fist lieutenant in the doorway. He is low-ranking and it’s not as if they’ll really miss him.
Blood explodes in a thousand floating droplets.
‘Pretty,’ says my gun. The SIG is the only weapon working.
At least, the only one on our side. Neen is busy yanking the trigger of a ship’s pulse rifle. He’s done all the right things, like charge its precoil, but it still won’t fire. So he uses it as a club. A Silver Fist goes down clutching his faceplate.
‘How come—?’
‘Because I’m not cheap shit,’ the SIG tells me, not bothering to let me complete the question.
‘Switch back,’ I say.
‘No, hollow-point.’
‘Flechette.’
It switches clips with bad grace. I love flechette. You get minimum recoil, with maximum kinetic energy, and carbon darts fragment on impact. I drill a hole through a man behind Neen, and watch his suit suddenly become form-fitting. As the air goes out of it and vacuum begins sucking, blood flies through a tear.
A Taser bolt hits where I should be.
Only I’m somewhere else. Except it’s not where I should be, because I’ve forgotten my arm.
‘God, I love this.’
‘Now that’s fucked,’ says the SIG. ‘Only alive when you’re at risk of being dead.’
‘Telling me you don’t feel the same?’
It shuts up. And I’m still grinning, when I realize my last shot was explosive.