War in Heaven

by Gavin G. Smith

  ‘You killed them!’ Soloso screamed at me. This surprised me. He was genuinely angry.

  ‘Who?’ I asked, sort of, while drooling blood down myself.

  ‘The Puppet Show!’ he howled. The calm contained hard man I’d met in Moa City was gone now. This was a deeply emotional man. Admittedly it was a deeply emotional man holding a bloody sickle and wanting to cause me harm.

  Then it hit me. I’d been an idiot. I’d been so worried about what my betrayal had done to the people here, I hadn’t considered that I’d implicated the Puppet Show, and unlike us the Puppet Show wasn’t exactly mobile.

  ‘Those three beautiful women! You destroyed them! Do you know they killed themselves rather than let the Squads put the Black Wave into their systems!’

  The big man was much more upset than he was angry. Big Henry and Strange were casting uneasy glances at him and each other. Another four lives I’d fucked. More if they’d gone after the entire gang.

  I just stared at him, not sure what to do. One thing that doesn’t go down well with vocational criminals is betrayal, particularly if high-ranking people go down as a result of it. I didn’t think that was Soloso’s problem. The guy had obviously not processed his grief. My blades slid back up into my arm.

  ‘I’m sorry, man,’ I gurgled at him.

  I couldn’t fight them. They were the victims here and I’d had a hand in their victimisation. More than anything this drove home the warnings I’d been given about operating in the field with Morag. This drove home how selfish my feelings for her were. I’d been prepared to flush a lot of lives down the toilet. The people of Earth may have been an abstract. This huge and dangerous man sobbing in a way I knew made the muscles round the plastic in your eyes hurt wasn’t an abstract.

  Soloso sat down hard. All the fight had gone from him. The sickle clattered to the stone and he held his face in his hands as he sobbed. I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I don’t think that Strange or Big Henry knew either. I spat out some blood so I could try and talk.

  ‘Shall we leave it at that?’ I asked.

  Big Henry looked at Strange. She nodded. I sat cross-legged in front of Soloso.

  ‘I’m really sorry, man,’ I told him earnestly through a mouthful of blood. He just sobbed harder. Finally he looked up at me.

  ‘They … they …’ He swallowed hard. Snot was running down his face. ‘They were incandescent,’ he finally managed.

  I had nothing. I just nodded like I had the slightest idea what he was talking about. He leaned forward and I thought he was trying to kill me again. Instead he just hugged me and started crying harder. That’s the thing with the truly hard: some of them can be very sentimental.

  Tailgunner and Mother ran into the cave. Tailgunner took one look at Strange’s broken nose. Strange at least had the courtesy to look guilty. The big hacker turned on me.

  ‘I told you …’ He trailed off as he saw Soloso’s massive form hugging me and sobbing. I looked up at him as I bled onto Soloso’s arm. Even Mother looked surprised.

  She turned on Strange and Big Henry. ‘No more of this, okay? I mean it. We have enough problems.’

  Strange was looking at her feet like a naughty child being scolded. Big Henry was staring back at her defiantly.

  ‘You would never—’ he started.

  ‘That’s enough!’ Tailgunner snapped.

  ‘We’re not letting this lie. We are going after those responsible, but I’m not going to settle for murdering the weapon. Do you understand me, Henry?’ said Mother. Big Henry didn’t answer.

  ‘You think you’re the only one grieving?’ Tailgunner demanded. The impact of his question was somewhat spoiled by Soloso sobbing all the harder. I patted his arm.

  ‘I mean it, Henry. No more. This is what they want to happen with these tactics. You do their work when you go after him,’ Mother said. Big Henry, with a final angry glare at me, nodded.

  ‘Pagan wants to see everyone in Rannu’s cave,’ Tailgunner told us. I nodded, wondering how I was going to disentangle myself from Soloso.

  Mudge was heading towards Rannu’s cave. He changed his course to intercept me.

  ‘Does a day go by when you don’t get your arse kicked?’

  I tried to tell him to fuck off but I just ended up spitting blood all over myself so had to settle for giving him the finger. Offensive or not, I could tell that Mudge wasn’t his old self.

  In Rannu’s cave I saw Morag look up at my bloodied form and just shake her head.

  ‘You’ll have a smile like me soon,’ Merle said, grinning viciously. Not that he had much of a choice these days. I had to settle for giving him the finger as well.

  ‘Merle, look after the wound,’ Cat told her brother.

  ‘Fuck that.’

  ‘Don’t be an arsehole.’

  ‘Later,’ I tried to say but just ended up gargling and bleeding all over myself.

  Pagan was already tranced in. There were a number of plugs on the ground. I picked one up and plugged it into one of my jacks.

  ‘Christ, Pagan, why does it always have to be so cold here?’ I asked. Or rather I thought, and my icon, who hadn’t just had its cheek torn open, asked. We were standing in some kind of great stone hall. One wall was missing and instead there was a large balcony open to the night sky. It was a welcome sight.

  ‘Sorry,’ Pagan said. The flames in a fire pit crackled and leaped as a wave of heat swept out of it. I was beginning to like it here. In the real world everything was pain and air that smelled of rotten eggs. I remembered how easy it had been to lose myself in the sense booths.

  The others started to appear as Pagan passed me a stone bottle full of fake whisky. Normally I considered this sort of thing pointless, but he’d almost managed to program the taste of good whisky and at least it didn’t taste of greasy farts in here.

  I had appeared near a decoratively carved, sturdy wooden table. On the table were two travel-stained, patched and ancient-looking cloaks.

  ‘This what was in my head?’ I asked when everyone was here.

  ‘Sort of, the components were,’ Pagan said.

  He still didn’t seem comfortable with me. Couldn’t say I blamed him. I hadn’t ruled out beating the shit out of him yet. Still, I’d probably end up losing that fight as well.

  ‘Whatever they put in your head, it was well hidden. We couldn’t find it. It seems that Nuada needed to expose you to Demiurge.’

  ‘And they did that when they used the sense booth on you,’ Morag as Black Annis said. Where I betrayed everything for you, I thought. This explained the dreams of plains of black glass and the dark burning sun.

  ‘Nuada’s program could hide from Demiurge?’ I asked.

  ‘Which means you can hack Demiurge?’ Tailgunner asked.

  ‘Yes. More to the point, we can hack Demiurge without being noticed,’ Pagan said. The atmosphere in the virtual construct lightened. This was good news. This was a chance. There was a sense of relief, a relaxing of tension. Hope.

  ‘Can we fight Demiurge?’ Mother asked.

  ‘We can’t, not with our resources. But a data raid’s not out of the question and, more to the point, if they don’t know we’ve been there then they don’t know they’ve been compromised.’

  ‘Surely you can do that from any system in Lalande?’ Cat asked. She had a new icon that looked just like her. It was Morag’s work. Merle had a new one as well. Tailgunner had presumably designed the whanau’s high-quality icons.

  ‘Yes, if we just want to creep around and look at non-vital info,’ Annis said, her voice like grinding stones. ‘All the useful stuff is kept in isolated systems. They have learned from our mistakes.’

  ‘So they think they have an unassailable, completely secure system, but all the juicy stuff they still hold on an isolated system. And I thought I was paranoid,’ Mudge said.

  ‘You’re not paranoid; everyone hates you,’ I told him.

  He brightened up. ‘Thank goodness for that.’

 
‘It’s SOP, good tradecraft. They’ve got no reason to stop using things that have worked for them in the past,’ Salem said.

  ‘Particularly when God demonstrated just how vulnerable non-isolated systems were,’ Pagan added.

  ‘So we’re right back to square one?’ Mother asked.

  ‘Where are these systems?’ said Rannu.

  ‘I’m guessing the fleet flagship will have one,’ Pagan told him.

  ‘Not going to happen,’ I said.

  ‘Or the Citadel,’ Annis told us. A lot of virtual air was sucked past virtual teeth.

  ‘Do we have a valid plan?’ Cat asked.

  ‘Kind of your job, but I think I can get us in, sort of. I just can’t figure a way out,’ Annis said.

  ‘Even if you do, so what?’ Mother asked. ‘How much use to you is it? Surely you’re stuck here until the war ends, and before then all of Rolleston and Cronin’s forces are going to pull out.’

  ‘It could help liberate Lalande 2,’ Tailgunner said.

  ‘And if Earth loses, then they just come back,’ Mother answered.

  ‘It’s more complicated than that,’ Pagan said. ‘We use what we know too soon and our advantage is gone as they’ll know that Demiurge is compromised and change their plans accordingly.’

  It was an old military intelligence paradox.

  ‘Let’s see your in,’ Mother asked. Scrolls appeared in front of us and unrolled glyphs on the scrolls lit up and disappeared as information was transferred into our internal memories. I reviewed the data.

  ‘That doesn’t get us in; that gets us close, and then we die in a hail of vastly superior firepower,’ I said. It was good as far as it went but it was messy. Annis still looked like I’d slapped her.

  ‘He’s right,’ Rannu said.

  ‘It’s worth it if we get their entire strategy,’ Annis said.

  ‘But what use is it to you if you can’t get out?’ Mother asked.

  ‘Either we have to get into orbit undetected—’ Annis began.

  ‘Not going to happen,’ Mother countered, but I noticed that Salem looked like he had something to say.

  ‘We can do it with a tight beam broadcast from the surface,’ Pagan said.

  ‘Only on a clear enough day,’ Salem said. ‘There may however be a way to get you into orbit undetected. I would like some time to look into it.’

  ‘Can we use their exo-armour to infiltrate?’ I asked.

  Pagan and Annis were shaking their heads. Presumably Tailgunner or Mother had told them about Soloso’s final delivery.

  ‘You can’t bluff them because the moment you don’t respond to hails they know something’s up, and they’ll know that eight of their exo-armours are missing and who has them. And we can’t reliably use them for a stealthy approach,’ Annis told us. Having looked at her plan I already knew she was right.

  ‘We’re also assuming that we don’t climb into them and Demiurge takes the suits over,’ Rannu said before turning to Pagan. ‘Can you give them a proper look over?’ Pagan nodded.

  ‘Can’t you hack Demiurge so it thinks the armour is theirs?’ Mudge asked.

  ‘No, that won’t work either. As soon as we hit them they’ll know we’ve broken Demiurge,’ I said. ‘Shame though, it’s a good idea.’

  ‘With a clear corridor of fire you can’t get them in with a direct attack?’ Mother asked. I saw Tailgunner glance at Mother. ‘I’m just asking,’ she told him.

  It was Cat who shook her head this time. ‘Too far. I don’t fancy their chances of not getting picked out of the sky – even with the added confusion of looking like their machines, and believe me, I’d much rather be in exo-armour.’

  ‘You haven’t seen the inside of those things,’ I told her. ‘With a bit of tinkering the in is solid if fucking hairy, but we’re dead as soon as we get in, or more likely as soon as we get close. The only advantage we have is surprise. Once that’s gone, it’s over for us. Even if we get in there’s no way we can get out.’

  ‘Well isn’t that your job, Jakob?’ Annis growled.

  ‘Yes, but only if there’s an actual solution. We can look at it some more, but we’re not going to piss everyone’s life away.’ Cat and Rannu were nodding in agreement.

  ‘You know how much they need this info back on Earth – what’s at stake here?’ Annis demanded.

  ‘Fuck Earth,’ Mother said. Everyone turned to look at her. There were a lot of angry faces. ‘I’m tired of risking my life and watching my friends die for a place I’ve never seen, couldn’t afford to go to and wouldn’t accept me even if I got there. I know it’s important to you people but not at our expense.’

  ‘Whether you like it or not, Earth’s key, because if Earth falls then the people here in this cave are pretty much the resistance. Maybe with a few scattered groups who won’t have anything like the advantages we do,’ Merle told her, contempt creeping into his tone, or maybe it just lived there.

  ‘The Citadel’s the base of their ops here, their main manufacturing site. It’s the key. Vicar knew that,’ Annis said angrily.

  ‘And how does all of us being dead help?’ I demanded.

  ‘You fucking coward!’ she spat at me.

  I saw people’s postures shift. Not nervous, just getting ready for another one of our arguments.

  ‘Shut up, Morag,’ Mudge told her. He was staring at her angrily.

  ‘This isn’t the place,’ Cat told her, shaking her head.

  ‘This, I guess, shows up another problem,’ I said. ‘I’m not trusted in command of the warfare element of Operation Ungentlemanly Warfare.’ There was little in the way of protest. Merle was smiling in a way that made me want to hit him. ‘Cat, I think it’s better that you take over.’

  ‘Why? What’d I do?’ She looked surprised.

  ‘You’ve got experience of command; you’ve not been compromised.’

  She obviously didn’t want it. Who would? It was a fucked situation. It also felt like a weight off my shoulders, like I was stepping into lighter gravity. Maybe I was being a coward, but Morag had demonstrated, along with the repeated murder attempts and my total inability to deal with Merle, that I could not lead these people.

  The argument was heating up. I understood Morag’s perspective. The exo-armour seemed to be a boon; the two cloaks, if they could hide the hackers from Demiurge, really would be an asset, but there were still many considerations that had to be borne in mind. We couldn’t piss these advantages away by committing suicide.

  I watched Annis argue with Merle and Mother. Maybe Morag had become used to doing six impossible things before breakfast. Maybe the extraordinary luck that had seen us through so far had raised her expectations unrealistically, but she was pushing too hard.

  ‘All of you, shut up!’ Cat said. ‘Everyone calm down. This is getting us nowhere. You’re acting like a bunch of new recruits. Shut up!’ she snapped. Good sergeant voice, I thought, smiling, enjoying it not being me. ‘Okay, we keep looking at this, but until we at least have an out it’s not happening, okay?’ There were muted mutterings but everyone eventually nodded. ‘Until then we help Mother’s people maintain a perimeter and run patrols. Clear? I also want plans to fuck up their infrastructure without committing suicide or unnecessary collateral damage. Any fucking personal problem, sort it out in your own time. Clear?’

  More nods. She was purposely talking to us like regular army, conventional soldiers, letting us know what she thought of our behaviour. She had a point.

  ‘Merle, no fucking around. We get out of here, you look after Jakob’s cheek, understood?’

  He looked like he was going to argue but finally nodded. He’d be pissed off because he knew that my wound would heal as a result of the bio-nanites in my blood, whereas he was scarred until we got back to Earth. Which seemed unlikely.

  ‘Now the Kiwis are watching, so let’s see if we can get through the next couple of days without disgracing ourselves, okay?’ Mother and Tailgunner were smiling.

  Under Cat
we started to resemble a special forces unit a bit more but we were getting nowhere. We were just going through the motions. We’d been lucky to survive our one operation against the Black Squadrons. We didn’t have anything like the resources we needed to do the Citadel and the rest of our options were risky propositions at best, for very little gain.

  Soloso had joined us in the pa. He’d also joined the continuing list of people who were avoiding me. Fine, I was starting to get used to my own company again. With somebody else in charge it was starting to feel like the army again. Guard and picket duty, patrolling, I was quickly into the routine. I didn’t even feel guilty when I used my down time to read what I could find. The firestorm had taken out all the books and music I’d had stored in my internal memory, and my trumpet and the skillsofts were still on the Tetsuo Chou

  Mudge at least had started talking to me again. His problem had never really been with me. I welcomed his company though we were both getting worried about the diminishing alcohol and drug supplies. As well as being pissed off with Merle, the constant inactivity was getting to him. He was seriously jittery. The day after our briefing in Dinas Emrys, I saw him having a fierce argument with Morag. I’d been tempted to boost my hearing to listen in but you never hear well of yourself.

  Morag, when she wasn’t tranced in working on the stuff they’d got out of my head, the eel net and what little they’d learned when Nuada had fried half their systems, was hanging out with Strange. Apparently the girl didn’t speak to anyone but Tailgunner. Now it seemed she was talking to Morag. Maybe they’d team up and properly murder me.

  Hanging over our heads like a bladed pendulum on some kind of ancient clock was the knowledge that any day soon Rolleston and his band of merry arseholes were going to attack Earth and there wasn’t a lot we could do about it.

  I was in the main cave in the shadow of Apakura. I’d come to find the motionless giant mech somehow comforting. I was stripping down and cleaning my SAW and engaging in a tried and trusted activity of British squaddies. I was trying to work out how to nick something. Merle’s Void Eagle.