by Gavin Smith
It was so dark on the other side of the collapse that both of them had to use the powerful flashlights mounted on their weapons – there wasn’t enough ambient light for her eyes to amplify it. Miska played her torch around the collapsed earth. She half convinced herself that it looked like something had come through the wall of the tunnel.
That’s just your mind playing tricks on you, she told herself.
‘Miska,’ Hogg said from the darkness, his light playing over a large humanoid figure. It took a moment for Miska to realise what it was. It looked like an updated version of the venerable Wraith combat exoskeleton. The design was well over a hundred years old but they were robust and comparatively low tech compared to something like the Machimoi. They were still used by fourth-tier colonial militias and some police forces for crowd control. There were some on board the Hangman’s Daughter, designed for use in the unlikely event of a prisoner riot.
Instead of the venerable Retributor railgun that most Wraiths were armed with, there was a 20mm slugthrower cannon lying in the dirt next to the suit of power armour. Hogg pointed his light at a ragged, bloody hole in the front of the Wraith. Someone, or something, had rammed a pointed object straight through the heavily armoured chest of the combat exoskeleton.
‘Okay, we need to leave,’ Miska said. She was aware of Hogg nodding. She assumed that if Trafalgar didn’t report in then Triple S command would send someone to investigate. They didn’t want to be there when that happened.
She couldn’t shake the feeling they were dealing with a new player.
She also couldn’t shake the feeling that Triple S and New Sun would find a way to hold the Bastards responsible for this massacre.
Chapter 6
Salik had made it sound like an invitation but Miska recognised a summoning when she heard one. The massacre had hit the net a few hours after Miska and the Sneaky Bastards had been airlifted out of FOB Trafalgar. Carefully edited footage and heavily spun information made sure that the finger was pointed at the Bastards.
‘Why us?’ she muttered to herself as she tramped up Pegasus 2’s cargo ramp, secured her pack and the M-187 laser carbine, and slumped down into one of the folding bucket seats. If she was honest she suspected that she knew the answer.
‘Because you wanted to be the bad guy,’ Torricone told her. He was sat on one of the seats on the opposite bulkhead, watching her. The other members of the Legion in the cargo bay, who were on their way up to Waterloo Station for some R&R, shuffled a bit and looked the other way.
‘I’m not the bad … oh wait, you mean because my mercenary legion is made up of enslaved violent criminals?’ Even subvocalising the message her jaw moved a little. The other Bastards in the shuttle would be aware of the exchange. If they suspected there was something between Torricone and herself it could go badly for him. On the other hand if they realised just how antagonistic he was being then it could make him a hero to some of the Bastards.
‘Legion?’ Torricone asked over the direct comms link. ‘A couple of companies at most.’
Nyukuti trotted up the ramp just as it started to close and sat down next to Miska. It could be difficult to tell with him, but Miska suspected it wasn’t so much that he was angry with her for going out without him the night before, as hurt. He was dressed in civvies but carrying one of the snubby MMI personal defence weapons. It seemed he was still taking his bodyguard/close protection role seriously.
‘Surprised to see you taking a leave at all,’ Miska subvocalised as she leaned forward, clasping her hands, staring at Torricone, the smile on her face more than a little evil. ‘I thought you’d be out providing blood transfusions to sickly children direct from your bleeding heart.’
Torricone glared at her. ‘Why don’t you go and fuck yourself?’
Even over the roar of the engines as the assault shuttle took off, his voice carried enough for all the legionnaires in the cargo bay to hear. Next to her Nyukuti made to get up but Miska put a hand on his arm. The stand-over man froze for a moment but then relaxed back into his seat. Suddenly it was quiet in the back of the shuttle as it lurched forward and upwards.
Torricone’s beautiful brown eyes held her stare. He tapped the side of his head, a careful measured movement. His finger touching the skin just above the single tattooed tear.
He’s daring me to kill him, Miska thought. The public challenge put her in a difficult position. She was, however, trying to get past the point where she had to kill anyone who stepped out of line.
‘What the fuck is your problem?’ Miska demanded, subvocalising over the direct comms link. The other legionnaires on board the shuttle were still watching the confrontation intently.
‘It’s too much, Miska, you’re messing around with things …’ he left the rest unsaid but she was pretty sure that he was talking about the artefact they had ’jacked on Barney’s Prime. The weird piece of alien tech that had somehow shielded them from the orbital strike by forces as yet unknown. Kaneda, Vido, Mass and Torricone had apparently seen nothing when they had jumped into the artefact, but all of them had been aware of the passing of time, the sense of being somewhere else, the sense of wrongness, and strange but indeterminate nightmares. Whatever had happened to them, it hadn’t so much changed Torricone as reinforced previously held convictions.
‘You’re frightened,’ Miska mused over the comms link. Torricone didn’t say anything. ‘So why not just wait it out in suspended animation? You’ve said it yourself: all I’ve got is enemies. This is just a matter of time.’
‘Because between now and then you can do a lot of damage. If I’m going to live with myself when you’re gone, I need to know that I did everything I could to mitigate that.’
Miska let his words settle in. She could still feel the other legionnaires in the shuttle’s hold watching them. She narrowed her eyes, as though studying Torricone anew.
‘No,’ she subvocalised, ‘I don’t think so. I’ve met your mom …’
‘You mean you’ve had your ass kicked by my mom,’ Torricone told her, no trace of humour in his voice.
‘I did not … I’m not sure that’s anything you should be … That’s not my point.’ She could feel Nyukuti watching the silent exchange now as well. What? Am I flustered? she wondered. ‘You didn’t have to grow up the way you did. You didn’t have to steal cars. You did it because you liked it. Now you’re walking unarmed into a war zone. Your problem is that you’re just as much an action junkie as I am. The only difference is that you want to feel good about the bad things we do. That’s not the way that works.’ She leaned back in the bucket chair and crossed her arms, smiling.
‘Unless you’re a psychopath,’ Torricone said out loud. Miska was pretty sure she heard a couple of sharp intakes of breath, but over the engines it might have been her imagination.
‘Your leave is revoked, Private,’ Miska told him. ‘Report to LSM Corbin to discuss your attitude.’ It felt petty but she had to at least give the impression there was discipline. Torricone let out a humourless laugh and shook his head.
‘You could just get a room together?’ Nyukuti suggested over a direct comms link. Miska turned to stare at him. He held up his hands and shook his head. The problem was that if the other legionnaires decided that this was all sexual tension then Torricone might not be long for this world.
There was clearly a lot of money in mercenary proxy wars. Waterloo Station was a lot grander than any military orbital habitat Miska had ever been posted to. The modular station was designed to be broken down and pulled by FTL-capable tugs to new colonial conflicts. There were other stations that did a similar job but none of them came close to the scale and success of Salik’s operation.
Much of the station was given over to hotels of various quality, alcohol and drug bars, restaurants, clubs, strip joints, brothels and sense booths. All ways for Salik to claw back the mercenaries’ pay above and beyond his fifteen per cent. The station had offices for the representatives of the belligerents and the various milit
ary contractors to rent, and even modular barrack areas for those that didn’t have their own ships to work from.
As Miska and Nyukuti made their way down the bustling Central Concourse past drunk and wasted mercenaries, barkers hustling their varied entertainments, serving drones and prostitutes of various genders, Miska noticed she was earning more than her fair share of glares. From various screens she could see footage from the massacre. It still surprised her just how much those who should know better lapped up propaganda. She guessed people just believed what they wanted to believe. She also noticed that she had a number of messages from Raff. They would all appear to be legitimate communications from a journalist to a commanding officer. What he really wanted would be encrypted. She just didn’t want to deal with it right now.
Too many spinning plates.
Above her the transparent panes of the domed ceiling provided vertiginous views. Miska could see most of the rest of the torus and the centre spindle. Further up the spindle she could make out the smaller top docking torus. The long, slab-like mess of superstructure and armour that was the Hangman’s Daughter was slowly rotating into sight. Miska was almost surprised at how much the ugly prison barge felt like home. That said, she would much rather be in-country than up here on the Station.
Salik’s house was a tall, grey stone, nineteenth century town house that, according to Uncle Vido, used to belong to somebody of import to the Napoleonic Wars. (Miska had forgotten who that was moments after she had been told.) The house had been transported block-by-block from London, or possibly Paris, or some other old place back on Earth. Waterloo Station’s nineteenth century meets vice-Disneyland aesthetic notwithstanding, the antique house looked pretty incongruous on the habitat.
Miska paused and looked up again. Beyond the spindle and the other side of the torus she could make out a glorious sunrise as the bright but distant Epsilon Eridani peaked over the gas giant’s horizon. The lights of the gas mining aerostats looked like glinting jewels in Eridani B’s upper atmosphere. New Ephesus seemed very close to the station. The green moon’s peaceful look belied the reality of the situation below the jungle canopy.
‘You all right, boss?’ Nyukuti asked.
‘We get in there, I give the word and we kill everyone who isn’t a Bastard. You cool with that?’
‘I can’t tell if you’re joking or not,’ Nyukuti told her. Miska headed for the front door. ‘Seriously, what’s the word?’ he asked.
Miska supposed the hall to the town house was nice. It was certainly full of expensive, old and tasteful – she guessed – stuff, but it wasn’t really her sort of thing. The servant drones in nineteenth century livery were a bit much, however. Drones shouldn’t wear hosiery and wigs, she decided.
One of the drones showed her up the stairs and into the lounge, which she knew from a previous visit was actually called the drawing room, though she had no idea why. Apparently drawing rooms weren’t supposed to be on the fourth floor but Salik liked to look out over his domain.
‘Miska!’ Salik stood up to hug her. She frowned a little but let it go. She liked Salik well enough but she never let herself forget who and what he was. Much of his fleshiness was artfully concealed in a well-tailored suit. Miska supposed she should be thankful that he wasn’t doing his Napoleon cosplay thing today. Salik had a perfectly shaped goatee and lacquered, shoulder-length hair. He may have had the look of a well-turned-out Europhile but Miska knew he came from Arabian old money. Old money that had helped him set up his mercenary brokerage operation. ‘What a pleasure. I’m sorry to call you away from your command but I’m sure you can appreciate the seriousness of the situation.’
‘Not my problem …’ Miska started but then Uncle V was in front of her, hugging her as well. This she hadn’t expected.
‘You get you’re supposed to salute, right?’ she asked her executive officer. In his mid-sixties, Vido was in surprisingly good shape for his age. This was probably in part due to her dad’s punishing physical training regime. With a white crown of hair, his features just beginning to flesh out and sag, he looked like somebody’s favourite grandfather – something he both knew and capitalised on. That said, he’d done his bit with a gun in his hand when the cluster had been well and truly fucked, back on Barney Prime.
‘Hey, boss,’ he said out loud. ‘Any chance I can do the talking?’ he subvocalised over an encrypted comms link. Over Vido’s shoulder she caught Salik frowning. He must have picked up the transmission. Vido let go of her and nodded at Nyukuti who’d wandered into the drawing room behind Miska, hands still on the PDW casually slung down his chest. Miska gestured at the stand-over man with her thumb.
‘This is Nyukuti, he’s my …’ she started. ‘Well I don’t really know, but he’s one of my guys.’
‘One of your slaves?’ suggested a statuesque woman sitting on one of the two antique sofas. Olive-skinned, long pitch-black hair tied back in ponytail, she, like Miska, wore fatigue trousers and combat boots. A black sleeveless T-shirt completed the ensemble. A sidearm was strapped to her leg in a smartgrip drop holster. Colonel ‘Ma’ Duellona, the commander of the Triple S forces in the Epsilon Eridani system.
‘Bodyguard,’ Nyukuti supplied. Duellona ignored him. She just glared at Miska. Miska grinned back at her.
‘Ma!’ she said excitedly. ‘Great to see you.’ She sat down opposite Duellona on the other sofa and then squirmed a little bit. She was sure all the antiques were very nice but frankly she had sat on more comfortable seats in military vehicles. Or perhaps you’re just getting too used to the comforts of stolen Martian Military Industries equipment. ‘And you brought your pet monkey!’
Standing behind the other sofa was a short, dark-haired man with a wiry build and a face covered in stubble. He was wearing a mixture of rugged civilian and military clothing that practically screamed special forces to Miska. She had no idea of Resnick’s rank, or even his first name, but she knew he was in charge of Triple S (elite) in the Epsilon Eridani system. Miska had never heard him talk at one of these meetings. She had, however, felt his cold appraising eyes run over her and Nyukuti when they entered.
Duellona opened her mouth to say something but the man next to her on the antique sofa put his manicured, long-fingered hand on her wrist. Duellona stared down at the hand as though a snake had just crawled over her arm and taken a shit on it. Miska could empathise. Tall, hawk-nosed, with slicked-back thinning blond hair that looked like a holdover from his youth as corporate young Turk, the word oily may well have been invented to describe Brennan Campbell. The highest-ranking New Sun corporate representative on the station, he had some complex job title that Miska had long since forgotten and replaced with ‘executive douchebag’. He struck her as someone with just enough power to be dangerous but not enough to be genuinely useful. The kind of middle management brown-nose who was a menace to his underlings. It was always a real effort not to break his nose every time he opened his mouth.
‘What I’m sure my colleague meant to say—’ he started. His voice was smooth and even, doubtless the product of corporate, by-the-number, neural linguistic programming training.
‘I’m sure Duellona is more than capable of speaking for herself,’ Salik said as he sat down on a high-backed chair between the two sofas. This was the reason Miska liked him. There was no doubt in her mind that he was just another snake oil salesman in a world of snake oil salesmen but, his polite facade aside, he did not suffer fools gladly.
Vido joined Miska on the sofa. Nyukuti went and sat by the window, which looked out over a holographic projection that Miska suspected was supposed to be some old Earth city in the nineteenth century. Duellona glanced over at Nyukuti. It was clear that she didn’t like the stand-over man sitting behind her. Resnick shifted slightly to get a better view of Nyukuti.
‘We were having coffee,’ Salik said. ‘Could I get you and Nyukuti … did I pronounce that correctly? … a cup?’
‘Have you got a beer?’ Miska asked. A pained expression momenta
rily flickered across Salik’s face.
‘I’m sure we can accommodate,’ he said, smiling again.
‘It’s not even ten a.m.,’ Vido pointed out.
‘I’ve no idea what the time is, I’ve had so little sleep over the last three days. Too busy upgrading the electronic security on all my new toys.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Vido muttered.
‘And murdering more than a hundred of my people,’ Duellona spat with enough venom to make Miska wonder if she really believed their own bullshit propaganda.
‘Oh, come on!’ Vido started. ‘You wanna play the propaganda game with your PR company out there, that’s fine, but we’re all adults in here. Don’t piss on us and tell us it’s raining.’ Uncle V sounded uncharacteristically irritated. Miska suspected that dealing with Colonel Duellona’s truculence and Campbell’s bullshit was starting to tell on the consigliere. Her own behaviour wasn’t helping but she was tired, pissed off, hated these games, and her talk with Torricone hadn’t improved her demeanour.
‘They’re not soldiers, they’re animals,’ Duellona spat. She was pointing at Miska but talking to Salik. ‘You know as well as I do that they’ve got no place in any civilised conflict!’
‘Civilised conflict, will you fucking listen to yourself?’ Miska demanded. She knew Duellona was trying to get a rise out of her but didn’t care.
‘She’s too aggressive!’ Duellona snapped. ‘She kills too many people. That’s not how this game is …’
‘It’s not a game!’ Miska snapped, leaning forward in the sofa. ‘You really care about your people? Really!’ Duellona stared at her. ‘Get them to surrender faster. Better yet, pack them up and leave. See you at the next war.’
‘Miska,’ Salik said. He spoke quietly but it was enough for Miska to relent. ‘It is in nobody’s best interests that this conflict ends quickly.’