Death's Head: Maximum Offence

by David Gunn

  ‘What was that?’

  Rachel returns to the corridor.

  ‘What?’ she asks, walking towards the second guard. ‘What was what?’ Her knife takes him under his chin and enters his brain. The smile she gives Franc when the rest of us reach her makes me glad she is on my side.

  Chapter 49

  ‘ON MY COUNT,’ I TELL NEEN. ‘FIVE . . . FOUR . . .’

  When I hit zero, Neen turns the handle and I kick open the general’s door, sliding myself inside, gun combat-ready. Staff officers look up, and the general spins round; over in one corner Vijay’s eyes widen.

  He’s holding a glass. As is almost every other officer in that room.

  ‘Entering emergency shut-down,’ announces my gun.

  The SIG-37 and I really need to talk about this. It’s as irritating as its bloody whirring, and several times more inconvenient. ‘Don’t you fucking . . .‘

  Diodes die before I can finish the sentence.

  A dozen Death’s Head officers nod, and a handful of them smirk. I’m glad; it lets me know who to kill first. After the Silver Fist, obviously. There are six of these, three on either side of the door. All are armed. And all have guns pointing at my head.

  ‘Sven,’ says the general. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’ Waving vaguely towards the middle of his cabin, he adds, ‘Come in. And bring your friends.’

  So in we troop.

  Although that is not entirely true, because when I glance back Haze is missing and Rachel is shutting the door carefully behind her.

  ‘Sir,’ says the little ADC. ‘Perhaps we should disarm them?’

  The general considers this.

  ‘Why,’ he asks. ‘Would it make you feel safer?’

  The boy blushes.

  Returning my SIG to its holster, I fumble the catch and then unbuckle my belt, dropping it to the deck. At least fumbling is how it’s meant to look. One throwing spike now rests in the palm of my hand. At my nod, the Aux put down their guns.

  ‘Search them.’

  The boy finds a knife in my boot.

  ‘Anyone else hiding anything?’ asks General Tournier. ‘If so, you might want to give your weapons up.’ There is a drawl to his voice, and a smile on his face that would disgrace a cat. He’s obviously hoping we’ll ignore his suggestion.

  ‘Lose the lot,’ I say.

  The Aux do as they’re told.

  Rachel has a knife inside her shirt, Neen a blade in his boot that the general’s ADC missed first time round. Shil just shakes her head. Trooper Emil, our ex-Ninth captain, has a tiny pistol tucked into the back of his belt. Not sure how he expected to get away with that.

  ‘That’s it?’

  Everyone nods.

  ‘And again,’ the general says.

  Only this time he is talking to a Silver Fist.

  The man starts with me and finds nothing, because the throwing spike is now buried deep under the flesh of my good wrist. Hurts, but then it would. Neen goes next and he’s clean. As expected, the man spends more time than necessary on the women.

  Stony-faced, Franc waits while he runs his hands over her hips and up the inside of her legs. He misses the blade between her shoulders, but to find that he needs to focus less on her breasts. Rachel just stands there. Shil is less forgiving.

  In fact, her slap rocks the Silver Fist on his heels. She is savagely punched for her trouble. As she crawls to her feet, she glances at Neen, who nods. One of the knives on the deck a second before is now missing.

  Emil turns out to have a cosh in his boot. When he picks himself up, he sneers at the Silver Fist who hit him and has to pick himself up all over again.

  ‘Just leaves your arm,’ General Tournier tells me.

  I’ve been wondering when he would get round to that. When the arm arrived, the screw designed to hold it in place was crusty with rust. Now it’s crusted with a mix of new rust and dried blood from the Vals. That makes it damn near impossible to shift without the right tools. When I point this out to the general, he suggests I try using a discarded blade. So polite these Death’s Head senior officers.

  We might as well be discussing the weather.

  ‘Of course,’ he says, ‘we’ll kill your troops if you try anything stupid. And after that we’ll kill you, obviously.’ Two Silver Fist point their rifles at me as I bend to pick up a knife.

  Don’t show any surprise, sir . . .

  Haze is inside my head. And yes, I told him to stay out of there, but I’m still glad to hear him. Listen, I say. My fucking gun’s dead again.

  Faking, sir.

  It can do that?

  ‘Sven,’ the general’s voice is abrupt.

  Looking up, I find the whole room staring at me.

  ‘Anything wrong?’

  ———

  History is made of questions asked and roads taken . . . So Haze tells me, but he talks shit about stuff like that. What will happen happens, and anything that doesn’t happen wasn’t meant to happen in the first place. This is our glorious leader’s definition of historical determinism.

  So it is unquestionably right.

  All the same, there seems more than one answer to the general’s question. And I’m not sure which is right. Presumably, if I say it, then that is what I’m meant to say, and I was never going to say anything else anyway.

  ‘Fuck,’ I say.

  ‘What?’ General Tournier demands.

  ‘Thinking,’ I say. ‘Makes my head hurt. Always has done.’

  Looking round his room with its carpet and bowls of fruit, and staff officers chatting to each other because this has lasted so long it’s become boring, I realize the obvious. ‘Should have killed you,’ I say. ‘Should have just killed the fucking lot of you the first time we met . . .’

  He stares at me. ‘You’re not really a colonel, are you?’

  ‘What the fuck do you think? ‘

  Now I have his officers’ attention back. And I am actually beginning to enjoy myself, because facing death does that for me. Then there’s our glorious leader’s law . . . You know, the one that demands ex-NCOs announce their status, so trouble-makers can be identified early.

  ‘I’m an ex-sergeant,’ I say. ‘From the Legion.’

  ‘Jaxx sent a sergeant after me?’

  ‘An ex-sergeant,’ I remind him. ‘A Legion ex-sergeant.’

  It is worth saying for the look on General Tournier’s face. This man is seriously insulted. As for his staff officers, they’re slicking sideways glances at him. This is fine, because it means they’re not looking at me.

  ‘Neen,’ I say.

  Stabbing a guard, Neen flicks the blade to his sister. She kills the one next to her, then goes after a man behind. I’m busy extracting my elbow from the skull of the nearest Silver Fist. And the man who patted down Franc has a new mouth. As I watch, she reaches into the gash and yanks his tongue through the slit.

  Serious anger issues, that woman.

  We’re good, and we’re quick. Six dead in less than a second. But guns are being levelled across the room.

  ‘Neen,’ I say. ‘The SIG.’

  Neen wants to say it’s dead. Instead, he hooks his foot under the holster and boots it up to me.

  Catching the SIG, I rip it free.

  ‘Haze,’ I say.

  The lights go out. Actually, everything goes out. Lights, temperature control, oxygen recycling units, cheesy classical music, the lot.

  ‘Hollow-point . . .’

  The SIG-37’s loaded up already.

  I fire at their muzzle flashes and they fire at mine. Only I’m not where I was because I’m already somewhere else. All of my troopers have hit the deck and rolled towards the nearest bulkhead, which helps. Although I almost trip over Rachel.

  She yelps, and then yelps again when I boot her out of the way.

  It’s dark, and then it’s not, because my eyes adjust and I watch the general aim his gun. Seems I’m not the only one with night vision. This isn’t looking good. ‘Move,’ sug
gests my gun.

  ‘Too late,’ says the general.

  ‘Not really,’ says the man standing directly behind him.

  Smashing his brandy glass, Colonel Vijay rams it into the general’s neck, and twists savagely on the stem to widen the wound. Blood spurts halfway across the room, and then weakens until a final dribble wets the general’s boots like piss.

  Vijay does this blind. In total darkness. Having memorized his position.

  I’m impressed. ‘Sir,’ I say, ‘the command is yours.’

  ‘Carry on, Sven.’

  The next job is less pretty.

  The general’s little ADC has his dagger out and is jabbing it frantically at the darkness around him. He’s as likely to stab his own side as ours; but he is frightened beyond caring.

  Was I like that? I wonder. When Lieutenant Bonafonte put his gun to my head in the dump. The day the Legion burnt down my village and slaughtered the Junkyard Rats on the road below the edge of Primary One.

  No . . . Death would have been welcome. It was probably why Bonafonte spared me. He always was a perverse bastard. Reaching forward to snap the ADC’s neck, I find myself hesitating.

  Now, I don’t hesitate, ever. I do.

  That is the way this shit works. Stop to think about what you’re doing and you’re dead. That’s what Bonafonte told me, and he was right.

  Look what happened to him.

  I’m glad it’s dark and no one saw. Realizing this makes me angrier still. Since when do I give a fuck what anyone else thinks? But this kid could be me; if I’d grown up rich, of course . . . In a proper house, with schooling and stuff like that.

  Grabbing the little ADC’s wrist, I twist until he drops his dagger. And then I push my face close to his. ‘Hit the deck,’ I tell him. ‘Crawl towards the door. Get yourself out of here.’

  He nods, as if this is obvious. As if he should be listening to orders from an enemy. And while he’s still nodding, I jab my own blade hard through the side of his skull and cut his brain stem.

  He dies without knowing it has happened.

  The others I kill brutally. Gutting some and sweeping the feet from under others, stamping on their necks. I go through that room like the wind, taking down all in my path. Three Silver Fist I simply kill with a single sweep of my blade, opening their throats in a row and welcoming the hot liquid that jets out to spray me. I’m just wiping my mouth when the panic lights come up.

  Probably looks like I’m licking my fingers.

  Shil turns away and Rachel signs against the evil eye. Even the colonel looks at me strangely. ‘All done?’ he asks.

  ‘All done, sir.’

  ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Then let’s get out of here. But first . . .’ Hacking the general’s head from his body, Colonel Vijay lifts his trophy by its braids, and smiles.

  ‘Sir,’ I say, ‘you want me to rip his implant?’

  ‘Oh no,’ he says. ‘I’m sure OctoV would prefer the whole head.’

  Chapter 50

  THE AUX LINE UP. THEY’RE NOT MEETING MY EYES. IN FACT, they’re doing everything but looking directly at me. Must be the blood on my uniform. So I have Neen bring them to attention and walk myself down the line. That way they have no choice. Rachel is crying, but quietly. Franc looks lost inside herself. And I can’t read Shil’s expression at all.

  ‘Report,’ I order Neen.

  ‘All present, sir,’ he says.

  And he’s right. Because Haze is in the doorway behind us, looking like sin on a bad day. At a nod from me, Neen tosses him a spare Silver Fist rifle, and we all watch as he fumbles the catch.

  Colonel Vijay sighs.

  ‘What now, sir?’ I ask.

  ‘We find ourselves an escape deck,’ he says.

  ‘Sir,’ I say. ‘What about the missing U/Free observer?’

  ‘He’s gone, Sven. Got that from the general himself.’

  ‘Dead, sir?’

  The colonel looks at me, glances at the others, and then walks me across to a corner of the general’s suite, his head bent close to mine. ‘Sven,’ he says. ‘There was no observer. OK? Let it go . . .’

  It’s my turn to stare.

  ‘We needed cover stories. That was our second. You know, the first one was we’re on a cultural mission. And then, for the people who don’t believe that . . . we’re looking for a missing U/Free.’

  ‘And the U/Free agreed to go along with it, because they think we’re here to sign their treaty? But really,’ I say, glancing at his trophy, ‘we’ve been here to collect that all along and there was no observer?’

  ‘You’ve got it,’ he says, slapping me on the back.

  There are days I fucking hate politics.

  ———

  Racing up the corridor, a Death’s Head trooper from the Ninth Regiment freezes, unsure what’s happening. After a second, he salutes. Idiot.

  ‘A false alarm,’ I say.

  He gapes at me.

  ‘Malfunctioning sirens,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘Return to your unit.’

  The man nods and turns. Only a Silver Fist captain is turning the corner behind him and he isn’t as stupid. He is, however, slow. He’s still pulling his pistol when I put a throwing spike in his throat. Colonel Vijay kills the original trooper, who dies still looking puzzled.

  Bundling down a corridor, we head for a door. The elevators are locked down. That is good, because it keeps the enemy away. Also bad, because it means we might need to fight on the stairs. Should the Silver Fist work out that having elevators arrive and not leave is a better option still, then we’ll really have a battle on our hands.

  ‘Sven,’ says my gun as I skid-turn, and rip my fighting arm into the throat of a sergeant rounding a corner towards me.

  Colonel Vijay shoots the man behind him. The man behind that turns to run and dies with one of Franc’s knives in his back.

  ‘What? ‘ I demand.

  ‘Remember me?’

  You can always tell when the SIG’s jealous. It gets snippy. ‘This arm’s useful,’ I say.

  ‘No,’ says the gun. ‘It’s rusty, out-dated, and ugly.’ The SIG places special emphasis on the last. ‘And it’s slowing you down.’

  ‘It’s not.’

  ‘Weighs more than a combat trike,’ it says. ‘Bloody thing was meant to handicap you. Only you’re so stupid you decided to keep it.’

  ‘You’ll get your chance soon enough.’

  ‘So you keep saying.’

  Catching up with me at the stair door, Neen opens it and through I go. Takes me ten seconds to reach the first bend and check it is clear, eleven to return. As I step back into the corridor, Neen raises his rifle. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he says, lowering it again.

  ‘Next time hold your aim,’ I tell him.

  Colonel Vijay is listening.

  ‘What if someone was coming through behind me?’

  He’ll remember next time. For an ex-militia grunt with barely six months as an NCO he is turning into a pro. Actually, he’s turning into a veteran. Neen goes red when I say this.

  ‘Round here,’ says his sister, ‘it’s adapt or die.’

  When Neen shoots Shil a frown, the colonel laughs. ‘It’s all right,’ he says. ‘I’m sure Lieutenant Tveskoeg can recognize a compliment when he hears one.’

  ———

  Standing by a Silver Fist launch that looks more like a small space liner, Colonel Vijay says, ‘We’ll take this one.’ The Wild Wild Wind has elegant lines, its own escape pods and an array of antennae bristling along the top. It’s also easily big enough to take all of us and still have room to spare.

  Obviously enough, the SIG disagrees.

  The craft the SIG wants sits behind the one Colonel Vijay likes. It’s a B79 bomber and a third the size of the launch. A silver skull on its black nose-cone reinforces what we already know. The craft belongs to the Ninth.

  ‘This one,’ says the colonel, tapping the little liner.

  The SIG is not having it.

  As they ar
gue, lights start flickering on the bomber’s hatch. At first they’re out of sync with those on the SIG. Slowly the sequences begin to match. When they match exactly, the hatch shifts slightly, stops, and then pops open.

  ‘Well, hello,’ says the gun.

  A second later a ladder folds down.

  ‘B79, new model,’ says the SIG. ‘Now with sixty-four rockets, instead of forty-eight. Added stealth screening. Uprated quad-barrelled machine gun, fully automatic obviously. Semi AI navigation, fully AI combat brain . . .’

  Haze is practically drooling.

  He’s sold. The others are looking at Colonel Vijay.

  ‘Well?’ says the gun.

  OK, he’s sold as well. Who wouldn’t be with that firepower? And we need to move anyway, because the sirens are dying, and that is not good. It means someone is finally taking charge.

  ‘Fighters,’ says Haze, glancing at a wall screen. ‘They’ve scrambled fighters.’

  ‘Gets worse,’ my gun says.

  ‘How?’

  All the overhead strips go out. On cue, the escape deck’s emergency lights fire up. Only to go out just as quickly. A second later, Neen turns on his rifle’s torch. It produces enough light for us to see our way to the bomber.

  Neen thinks that’s the problem solved. He hasn’t thought it through.

  If the emergency power is dead, then how do we fire the explosive bolts holding the outer wall in place? Without these, the wall remains and the escape deck keeps us trapped. Until their CO works out a way to hook us out of here. Personally, I would flood the place with nerve gas.

  Colonel Vijay agrees. ‘Has that bomber got an air system?’

  ‘Of course,’ says the gun. ‘It’s got an Alexo3 ferric—’

  ‘Everyone inside,’ he says.

  The SIG’s still running its sales pitch for the purifier, though it stops when it realizes no one is listening. The steps flip up, and the door hisses down, and we are airtight inside fifteen seconds. I’m beginning to like this machine.

  ‘Permission to . . .’

  Colonel Vijay nods. ‘Go ahead, Sven,’ he says.

  Slapping my hand on a plate next to the pilot’s seat, I let the B79 scan my palm and then give it my name, rank and service number. I give it the real ones. If it is as clever as the gun says, then it can match the hand scan to my service records anyway.