The Ace of Skulls totkj-4

by Chris Wooding

  The Murthian’s unflappable manner took the edge off Frey’s rage. He saw the sense in that, but it was the principle of the thing. He felt defiled.

  ‘We oughta go see what they been up to,’ said Silo.

  Ashua made to follow, but Frey stopped her. ‘Keep Bess busy till the Awakeners have gone, will you?’

  ‘Sure, sure. Not like I’ve got anything better to do,’ she grumbled as she headed back to the sanctum.

  The engine room was an oven, warmed by the south coast sun. They made their way among the pipes and gauges until Silo spotted what they were looking for. It was a rectangular metal case, thoroughly sealed and bolted to the frame of the engine. There were no markings on it beyond a meaningless identification code.

  Silo poked around at it. ‘Don’t look like it’s even connected to the engine, Cap’n. They just stuck it here. Don’t see how it gonna affect anythin’.’

  ‘Could it be a bomb?’

  ‘S’pose,’ he said. ‘Don’t see the good of it, though. Need a bitch of a transmitter to set it off at a distance. And if it’s on a timer, well. .’ He shrugged. ‘If they wanted to kill us, reckon they’d have done it.’ He tapped the case with the end of a screwdriver that had appeared from his pocket. ‘Let me get into, Cap’n. I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Later,’ said Frey. ‘I need you downstairs.’

  By the time they opened the Ketty Jay up again, the Prognosticator and his men were packing up and heading off. Frey glared at them till they were gone. Harkins was flapping about the Firecrow, gibbering in horror at the sight of all those Ciphers. Pinn was complaining about people messing with his engine.

  ‘Alright, alright! Get in here, you lot!’ Frey called.

  The crew assembled in the cargo hold. Pelaru materialised from the gloom. Jez jumped down from the walkway many metres above to land expertly on top of a pile of crates, where she crouched, watching them with shining eyes. Once the ramp was shut, Ashua came out of the sanctum with Bess tramping after her.

  ‘Swear I need double pay for being her bloody mother on top of everything else,’ she grouched.

  ‘Ciphers on the Ketty Jay,’ Malvery muttered. ‘Insult to injury, that’s what it is. Never thought I’d see the day.’

  ‘Settle down, everyone,’ said Frey. ‘I’ve got some information.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Get it from your sweetheart, did you?’ Malvery was in a foul mood.

  ‘Clam it, eh? You’ll want to hear this. Might stop you carping for two seconds.’

  When he had everyone’s attention, he began. ‘So I was talking to Trinica-’

  He was interrupted by a chorus of groans.

  ‘-talking to Trinica,’ he continued pointedly, ‘and she told me the Awakeners have a hidden compound a few kloms from here. They’re planning on inviting a bunch of captains over there, her included. Sounds like there’s something important on the boil. I want to find out what, and take a look at that compound while we’re at it.’

  ‘Bit of breaking and entering, Cap’n?’ Ashua asked, with a wicked look in her eye.

  ‘Might come to that,’ he said.

  ‘Why not just find out from Trinica?’ Pelaru asked.

  ‘Because, believe it or not, she might not tell me the truth,’ Frey replied, irritation creeping in to his voice. ‘Now let’s get something straight, everyone. Despite appearances, we are not on the Awakeners’ side and we sure as shit aren’t gonna fight for them. But right now we’ve got a chance to find out what they’re up to and I for one don’t plan to waste it. Might even get us back in the Coalition’s good graces if we’ve got a juicy bone to throw ’em. Right, Doc?’

  Malvery crossed his arms, reluctantly mollified. ‘Yeah,’ he sulked. ‘S’pose.’

  ‘Harkins,’ said Frey. ‘I reckon you should-’

  ‘Yes, sir! Staying behind to look after Bess, sir!’ said Harkins with a smart salute, his chin outthrust.

  ‘Er. . good,’ said Frey, who’d been about to suggest exactly that.

  ‘I would like to come,’ said Pelaru.

  ‘If there’s information to be found, you want in, huh?’ said Frey. ‘Alright, you can come.’ Privately he was relieved: he worried what Pelaru might get up to and didn’t trust Harkins to deal with him if he proved troublesome.

  He held out his hand to Jez. ‘Lend me your earcuff, will you?’

  She plucked it from inside her overalls and dropped it down to him. ‘What happened to yours?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s in Trinica’s pocket. I slipped it in there when she hugged me. As long as we’re close enough to receive, we’ll be able to hear everything the Awakeners tell her.’ He winked at them. ‘Still got it,’ he said with a grin, and then walked away from his amazed crew, snapping his fingers in the air.

  Oblivious to the furore, Slag prowled among the pipes and panels of the Ketty Jay’s maintenance ducts. He was angry. A challenge had been made to his supremacy, and that would not be borne. It could only end in blood.

  The smell of the intruder was everywhere. It seemed he could scarcely pass a corner without finding that the foreign cat had rubbed against it, impressing its scent over his own. It maddened him and made him murderous.

  Slag was not capable of any emotion as subtle as indignant outrage, but his instincts provided a pretty close approximation. The Ketty Jay was his. He allowed the puzzling and noisy big ones to share it, but only because they knew their place and paid him tribute in food (and occasionally booze). Otherwise he found them generally inoffensive. But the intruder’s scent dredged up hot new sensations that compelled him into action.

  The wounds from his fight with the rat hadn’t entirely healed, and the bruises were still making themselves known. In his younger days he’d have shaken them off, but he wasn’t young any longer. He did his best to ignore the aches and twinges, obsessed with the need to eradicate this pretender to his territory.

  The intruder was elusive. He’d neither seen nor heard it on his patrols. But now he was on the trail.

  He stopped and sniffed at the edge of a vent. The scent was strong. Fresh. He listened. His ears weren’t as keen as they once were, but they were good enough to hear faint movement up ahead. And it didn’t sound like a rat.

  He crept slowly forward, hackles rising. At last he had his prey within reach.

  The vent became a crossroads up ahead. The sound of movement came from around the corner. It was his enemy, rubbing up against something. He knew the secret ways and hidden routes of the Ketty Jay, and he knew that was a dead end. The other cat had no way out.

  Slag stalked closer, eyes fixed. Small red lights provided illumination in the warm, close ducts. He sneaked silently through the glow, a dark pile of muscle and mange.

  Not silently enough. He heard the enemy freeze, tensing up in alarm. He lunged towards the corner, but the other cat flashed across the junction in front of him. Slag hissed as he went in with his claws, but the intruder was small and fast, and it went darting away down the duct to his left.

  Claws scrabbling, Slag gave chase. There was no way he was letting that cat get away.

  Down the air ducts they went, over and under pipes and obstacles, sprinting where they could. Slag’s blood was up now; by the size of it, the other cat was no threat at all, and he threw caution to the wind. He pursued it here and there, and though it was agile it didn’t know this territory like he did, and it didn’t have his fury. They thumped and thundered through the narrow metal passageways, Slag yowling like a thing possessed.

  Suddenly it skidded to a stop. He caught his first good look at it then, as it bunched its haunches to spring, eyes fixed on something above. It was a thin, ragged, ugly thing, fur a muddle of black and orange. He raced towards it, hoping to bring it down before it jumped, but he was too slow. It disappeared just before his unsheathed claws could find it, leaped upward through a shaft in the ceiling of the vent. He heard a scrabble, and then it was gone.

  Slag’s pounce had taken him a half-metre down the vent.
He found his feet, turned about and ran back. The shaft above him looked impossibly high. When he was in his prime he could have got up it, but he hadn’t attempted a jump like that in years.

  Still, the invader had managed it. And he wouldn’t be outdone.

  He screwed himself down on his haunches, wiggling his hindquarters as if to build up power for the leap to come. His gaze never left the shaft above. He ignored his aches and tiredness and the weakness of age, and let anger lend him strength. Then, with a mighty surge, he sprang.

  His jump took him to the lip of the shaft, but only barely. His forepaws cleared the edge; his claws tried to dig in, but there was no purchase. For a terrifying instant, he began sliding back towards the drop. Then his back paws found a grip against the side of the shaft, and propelled him over, and he was triumphant.

  There was the intruder, backed into a dead end. It was pressed down low, eyes wide with terror, ears flat against its head. Slag approached with his back arched and hackles up, crooning dangerously. There was no escape for it now. He moved slowly closer, ready to exact retribution.

  But just as he came close enough to strike, he felt a new and puzzling feeling wash through him. His anger began to dissipate. There was something in the newcomer’s scent, something. . interesting. He’d detected it before but hadn’t known what it was. He’d been isolated from his own kind for so long that he hadn’t anything to compare it with. Now he was up close it was overwhelming, and instinct told him what he should have known all along.

  The intruder was a female.

  Confused, Slag came closer, sniffing at her. He hadn’t encountered a female since before pubescence. Powerful, unfamiliar sensations swept through him. He didn’t want to sink his claws into her any more, he wanted to sink his-

  The female lashed out with a hiss, and a stunning burst of pain startled him as she scratched him across his sensitive nose. She squirmed past him and back down the shaft. By the time he recovered, she was long gone.

  Slag blinked, and licked at his nose. The wound was nothing. The newcomer. . that was something else. A female? On board the Ketty Jay? What was he supposed to do now?

  He looked around as if to check no one was watching, then began to groom himself uneasily with his tongue.

  Seventeen

  The Compound — A Fearful Encounter — The Infiltrator — Mercy

  Trudging off into a swamp in the middle of the night had seemed like a good idea at the time but, like most of Frey’s ideas, the reality fell short of the concept. A few kloms from the base to the Awakeners’ hidden compound didn’t sound like much, but Frey hadn’t accounted for the terrain. After a couple of hours of ploughing through sucking mud and reeds, he was ready to admit they should have abandoned stealth and gone for a good old full frontal assault instead.

  It didn’t help that he was a tiny bit lost. Trinica’s directions had been vague at best, and he was beginning to worry that they’d missed the base amid the dense foliage. He’d sent Jez to get some bearings, and she’d sprung off into the dark like a wild animal loosed from its leash. It worked out for all concerned. She moved faster without them, and the group felt better when she wasn’t around.

  It was hard to see anything, even with the moon up. A white mist lurked in the hollows and lay on the water, curling between the twisted roots of the mangroves. In the dark, things slithered and moved, some of them unpleasantly large. Insects hammered the hot air with percussive taps and whistles that ranged from mildly annoying to painfully loud.

  Malvery in particular was being driven to distraction. His hangover had rallied with the din, and he looked ready to murder somebody. ‘Think we’ve got enough bullets to shut up every bloody living thing in the delta?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘I’m up for trying,’ said Pinn, who was equally unimpressed with their situation.

  ‘Come on, you two, where’s your spirit of adventure?’ Ashua said. ‘Get a lungful of that swamp air! Ooo, I think that was an alligator!’

  Pinn and Malvery had been griping ever since they set off, only pausing when one or the other of them tripped and splashed into the brackish water. Ashua, on the other hand, seemed to be rather enjoying her field trip. Frey knew she’d spent most of her life in cities, but the way she talked you’d think she’d never seen a tree before.

  Silo was uncomplaining, as ever. Frey was glad to have him by his side. The Murthian’s solid presence helped to anchor him somehow. That was a man he always knew he could count on.

  Pelaru followed along silently behind, picking his way through the hot soggy undergrowth. Frey kept a suspicious eye on him. What was his angle? Whispermongers were famous for their neutrality, but Frey couldn’t help feeling the elegant Thacian had some agenda here. The sooner that man was off the Ketty Jay, the better, but there hadn’t been a safe place to offload him yet, and Frey certainly wasn’t going to leave him unsupervised while they were busy playing double agents in the heart of Awakener territory.

  Annoyingly, Pelaru was the only one of them still clean. Frey and the others were sweaty, grimy and tired, but he’d somehow escaped with only mud spatters on his boots, and he wasn’t even out of breath.

  Thacians. Even in a swamp they’re so rotting superior.

  ‘Cap’n,’ said Jez by his ear. He jumped and clutched at his heart.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ he gasped.

  ‘Sorry, Cap’n,’ she said, but her voice was flat and she wasn’t sorry at all. She looked through him with those shining wolf eyes of hers. ‘I found it.’

  Relief soothed Frey’s unease at being so close to her. ‘Nice work, Jez,’ he said. ‘Lead on.’

  They spotted the lights of the compound soon after, hazed by mist in the distance. It was surrounded by a perimeter wall, surmounted by electric floods that illuminated the dank swampland all around. Once they got near, they cut across in the direction of the main gate and found a dirt road leading back towards the base. Silo picked out a likely hiding spot which overlooked the road and the gate, and there they settled in amid the mud and roots and scuttling things.

  Frey eyed the defences uncertainly. The gate stood open, but it was heavily guarded. The wall was metal, discoloured by the wet air and patched with lichen. This compound had been constructed with care and attention, not at all like the ramshackle hotchpotch of dwellings in the main part of the base. There was no way they’d cobbled it together since the war kicked off. That meant the Awakeners had been up to something in the Barabac Delta long before anyone realised there was a base here at all.

  ‘Strikes me, Cap’n,’ said Malvery, adjusting his glasses. ‘Strikes me we might just’ve taken this road all the way from the base instead of arsing about in stinking bogs and whatnot.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have worked,’ said Ashua. ‘I asked about while I was off procuring a few bits.’ She slapped the pack on Silo’s back, one of three that were stuffed with items which Ashua had stolen from the camp, and which Frey dearly hoped they wouldn’t need. ‘They’ve got guards all up and down this stretch.’

  ‘Besides,’ Frey put in. ‘I reckoned you and Pinn could do with working off a kilo or two.’

  ‘Oi!’ said Pinn, patting his belly. ‘This is prime steak, you twat!’

  ‘Good of you to be thinking of our health, Cap’n,’ said Malvery.

  ‘I’m considerate like that.’

  Everyone felt better now they had the compound in sight. Even Malvery’s grumbles were light-hearted. The doc was glad to be doing something to ease his conscience, striking a blow for the Coalition. Frey enjoyed seeing him a bit more upbeat. He’d been in a downer ever since the civil war began, and Crake’s departure hardly helped matters.

  Crake, you’d better be alright, you idiot.

  Thoughts of Crake reminded him of his earcuff. He hadn’t been wearing it in the swamp. He found voices in his ear distracting, and he was only capable of concentrating on one thing at a time. Now he took it out, clipped it on and listened.

  At first there was no
thing. He began to worry. What if Trinica had found the earcuff in her pocket? What if she’d changed clothes? But then he heard a muffled voice. He frowned and focused on the sound over the racket of the swamp. Soon he could make out words.

  ‘. . arriving at the compound soon, eminent captains.’ It was an oily voice that he didn’t recognise. Some random fundamentalist nut-bag, no doubt. ‘I beg of you your complete discretion in the matter of the things we are about to show you.’

  Frey let a little smile touch his lips. Oh, she could be discreet if she wanted. But he’d find out all the same.

  Trinica was going to kill him when she eventually discovered the trinket in her pocket. That, or she’d laugh and tell him how clever he was. It depended on the day, really; he’d take his chances. But her talk of the growing threat from her crew had disturbed him deeply, and he wanted to keep track of her. He wouldn’t let her get away again.

  She’d be hurt that he didn’t trust her, perhaps. But he was smitten, not stupid.

  ‘They’re on their way,’ he told the others.

  Shortly afterward, two vehicles came rumbling up the track, each rolling along on six huge wheels. A pair of Renford Overlanders, armoured all-terrain transport vehicles. Frey had only seen a few before; flying was almost always preferable to land travel in a country as vast and varied as Vardia. But Ashua had told them there was a no-fly zone overhead, and a ring of anti-aircraft cannon ready to enforce it. Obviously the Awakeners didn’t even want to risk shuttle traffic here.

  Definitely up to something, Frey thought to himself. Something big.

  ‘She in one of those Overlanders, Cap’n?’ Ashua asked.

  Frey nodded.

  ‘You’ve really got a thing for her, haven’t you?’ she said.

  ‘You have no idea,’ muttered Malvery.

  Ashua nudged the doctor. ‘Leave him alone. I think it’s kinda sweet. Never pegged him as a romantic.’

  ‘Fellers, can we stop discussing my love life?’ Frey complained.

  ‘Or lack of it,’ Pinn put in. ‘When was the last time you got your pods jiggled, Cap’n?’