by Gavin Smith
Duellona took her time walking around the now-broken window. Miska forced herself to her feet, glancing at Nyukuti. The stand-over man had his hands raised. Resnick was covering him with a gauss pistol.
‘You shouldn’t be able to do that,’ Miska muttered through gritted teeth, and it was true. Miska had military grade cyberware augmenting high-end skills that she had worked hard to develop. She should have been able to get out of the way of, or at least block, something as slow as a kick.
‘A disgraced tier-three special forces operator in charge of a crew of sick animals? Of course I can do this.’
Miska slapped the first blow out of the way, and too late realised it was a feint. She took a jab to the head that was hard enough to make her see lights. A blow to the stomach doubled her over. A knee to the face straightened her up again, broke her nose and sent her staggering backwards.
Duellona was making this look effortless but Miska just couldn’t move fast enough to block. She tried to counter but Duellona battered the blows aside as though they weren’t there. Miska grabbed for her SIG. ‘I don’t think so,’ Duellona said. She kicked Miska in the hand, breaking it, and bouncing her off the wall. The last time she had felt this outclassed was when she had fought whatever it was that had inhabited Teramoto’s dead body back on Barney Prime.
Miska was aware of other people joining the crowd to watch the fight, including some of her Bastards.
‘Small Gods …’ Miska slurred. Duellona’s elbow caught her under the chin with enough to force to launch her into the air. She was unconscious before she hit the ground.
‘Do you ever win a fight?’
Her headache wasn’t getting any better. She tried opening her eyes but the white strip lighting of the Hangman’s Daughter’s medical bay felt like knives being pushed through the soft part of her head.
‘Your fight’s all over the net. It’s being hailed as a triumph of real soldiers over criminal wannabes.’
It was with a not inconsiderable degree of irritation that Miska recognised Torricone’s voice. She suspected it was her own fault. Her dad had probably assigned him to assist the Doc after she’d cancelled his leave.
‘Win-lots-of-fights,’ she slurred and then managed to push through the pain and open her eyes again. Though she almost puked when she sat up.
The operating theatre was stark, grey and very institutional, all the surgical instruments held in locked cabinets and drawers. The robot arms of the operating theatre’s built-in automed were poised over her like a long-limbed predatory insect.
Doc, still the most non-descript man that Miska had ever met, was attaching a medpak to drive the gel that covered her hand. MACE’s medical facilities were rudimentary at best. The Bastards had been making do with combat medics in the field. Anyone seriously wounded was medevac’d to the Daughter and the Doc’s tender mercies. Everyone tried not to get medevac’d. The Doc had killed sixty of his patients with nearly untraceable poisons made from genetically modified plants that he had engineered himself, before he had been caught. He had told the court that poisoning his victims had been the only way to preserve their beauty. He was one of the more prolific serial killers on board. The Ultra had asked for the Doc for his Nightmare Squad but he was more valuable to the Legion as a medic. Though if anyone was going to get away with killing someone on her watch, it would be the Doc. He finished attaching the medpak, and his colourless eyes looked down at her.
‘The hand will take a day or two to heal. You’re probably still concussed but the swelling is now under control, and I’ve done what I can for the bruising. You’ve got micro fractures in the reinforcement material on your jaw, but you’ll either need to upgrade the facilities here, or take yourself to a ’ware clinic to get that seen to,’ he told her. She wasn’t sure why, but of all the criminals, even those with much higher body counts like the Ultra, it was the Doc who creeped her out the most.
‘Thanks,’ she said. He continued looking at her. Irritated that he was making her uncomfortable she instead looked over at Torricone. He was leaning against the reinforced doorframe. He smiled at her, irritating her further.
‘You properly and publicly got your ass kicked,’ he told her.
‘Yeah, I was there. She was made of nanotech. She’s either a demigod or one of the Small Gods.’ Her mounting irritation wasn’t helped by the defensive tone she heard in her voice.
‘Was my mom a Small God as well?’ Torricone asked with mock innocence.
The Small Gods were AIs of still unknown origin who had grown their own bodies from the Grey Goo Wastelands that had resulted from the nanobombing of Earth during the War in Heaven.
Grinding her teeth made pain shoot through her head. The Doc was still watching her.
‘That was different, and I got some good shots in on your mom! Besides, it’s not like hiding behind your mom makes you look cool, is it?’ she demanded.
Torricone was laughing.
‘I’m not trying to look cool,’ he said. Miska just stared at him. ‘I am saying if you go around claiming that she’s a Small God, it’s just going to look like you’re a sore loser.’
He was right. She knew he was right. That annoyed her more.
‘Just fuck off will you, T?’ she told him. His smile faltered but he nodded and left the OT.
‘People have noticed,’ the Doc said quietly. Miska turned to stare at him. She assumed what he saw was a mass of swellpatches and bruises looking back at him.
‘Noticed what?’ she growled. The Doc just looked at her.
‘You’ll get him killed,’ he finally said.
‘You care about that?’ she asked. Because she really didn’t right then and there.
‘He is useful. This work is more interesting to me than the alternative. I like the fungal infections on this world. They have a compelling and alien beauty.’
Miska squeezed her eyes shut as the throbbing in her head intensified. She opened her eyes again as Nyukuti entered the OT. He had not timed it well.
‘Some fucking bodyguard you are!’
Nyukuti looked between Miska and the Doc. Then he backed out of the OT.
Miska slid off the operating table. Her legs almost went from underneath her and she had to steady herself by holding on to the table. It was only then she realised that she was just wearing a backless hospital gown.
‘Who undressed me?’ she asked. The Doc opened his mouth to answer. ‘Wait, I don’t want to know. Are you trained to do forensics?’ It was a long shot, she knew.
‘Not specifically, though I did spend some time working with the coroner’s office in Capital City.’
‘Of course you did,’ Miska muttered. It had probably made him a more efficient murderer.
‘The Daughter has a good library of forensics pathology skillsofts. It’s not as good as actual training but it will do in a pinch. Would you have me join the investigators looking into the Trafalgar massacre?’
Does this guy ever blink? Miska wondered.
‘Yeah, I really want to know what happened to them. They had fungus growing out of the wounds, you’ll love it.’
Doc gave this some thought and then slowly nodded, smiling slightly.
‘Will Special Agent Corenbloom be joining me?’
Miska suppressed a slight shiver. It was as though the Doc had read her mind. Though the disgraced FBI agent was of course the obvious choice to accompany him.
‘We’ll see,’ Miska said. The problem was she still had to talk him into it.
Why did I let my dad talk me into only taking volunteers for active service? she wondered. It had been so much easier when people just did as she told them or she blew their heads up.
‘Vido, where are you?’ she subvocalised over the comms link. She’d put her clothes back on, somewhat gingerly as a surprising amount of her left side – as well as her face, arm, hand and stomach – still hurt. She didn’t care what was being said. She could accept getting a kicking, like the one she had at the hands of Torricone�
�s mom. She knew there were better, stronger, more experienced fighters out there. She was self-aware enough to understand the limitations of her own skills, but Colonel Duellona had breezed through her as though she didn’t exist.
As Miska made her way through the bowels of the ship towards the hangar deck she tried to find the least edited footage of the fight to play back. Duellona had done her job well. It hadn’t looked like Pavor/Phobos, the entity that had taken over Teramoto’s body, cutting through Miska and the other Bastards in the warehouse back in New Verona. Instead the Triple S colonel had made it look as though Miska was just hopelessly outclassed in terms of skill level, rather than technology. Torricone had been right, though. If she started screaming that Duellona was a Small God then she would just be labelled a sore loser and a conspiracy theorist. It would have the opposite effect to what she wanted.
‘I’m back at Camp Reisman,’ Vido answered. That meant he was back in his suspended animation pod in GenPop, or general population, and tranced in to the VR construct that Miska and her father used to train the Bastards.
‘What was the verdict as regards the gas mine operation?’ she asked.
‘Legally do-able but it’ll ruffle feathers at MACE,’ Vido told her. She could tell he didn’t approve. ‘You’re going to do it, aren’t you?’
‘Probably,’ she told him.
‘Are you just doing this to piss off Triple S? Because we’ve got lots of other ways we can do that.’
She didn’t really want to analyse the answer too carefully.
‘Any other business?’ Miska asked.
‘Mostly routine stuff. The Ultra reached out to me. He wants Gumbhir on his squad.’ She could tell that Uncle V didn’t enjoy talking about the Nightmare Squad, Miska’s scorched-earth option. ‘Want me to speak to Golda?’
Miska gave the question some thought.
‘What do you think?’
‘I think Gumbhir’s sick enough but I think Grig will probably kill them all anyway.’ Vido meant Rufus Grig, a British vigilante, and the only other person on board the Hangman’s Daughter with special forces experience.
As far as you know. Miska was thinking of the people who had murdered her father, hidden somewhere in the ship’s criminal population.
‘But?’ Miska asked.
‘Golda will try and build an empire …’ Vido told her.
‘Like you,’ Miska said.
‘Well, yes,’ Vido said. She suspected he was suppressing a little irritation. ‘But I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. He’s effectively run an insurgency. Frankly, I think we can use him in a command position, but he should be made to work for it. Gumbhir’s an animal but I think Golda getting what he wants is actually the gain for us.’
‘Enlightened self-interest?’ Miska asked.
‘Indeed.’ It was practically Uncle V’s mantra. He attributed his success to it, well, at least until he fell afoul of the RICO act and ended up in a maximum-security prison barge.
‘Where’s Golda now?’ she asked.
‘He’s in here training,’ Vido told her after a slight delay.
‘Okay, I’ll speak with him once I’ve talked to Corenbloom.’
‘Uh huh,’ Vido said. She could tell he didn’t approve of the crooked FBI agent either. Few criminals did approve of law enforcement when they ended up sharing the same prison air. ‘Look, I know you don’t want any old-life problems landing here but some beefs run deeper than others. It’s worth keeping Mass and Corenbloom away from each other. I don’t think Mass could help himself.’
Miska wanted to ask but she couldn’t shake the feeling it just legitimised whatever the problem was. Instead she closed the comms link down.
Corenbloom, Franklyn, had been a special agent in the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. Although he was a trained behavioural analyst in the CID’s violent crimes section, he had used his position to set up a protection racket for criminal street gangs in New Erebus, a ski resort and vice capital on Barney Prime’s night side. He had finally been caught after he had arranged to have his partner, who had been his accomplice in the protection rackets, killed because he had insisted on a larger cut of the profits. Hated by his victims and the Mafia, whom he had acted against to protect his ‘clients’, it was astonishing to Miska that nobody had managed to kill him in the exercise yard under the Hangman’s Daughter’s old regime. Even now nobody wanted to work with him during training and he hadn’t volunteered for active duty.
She could see the prisoners, wearing printed battle dress uniforms and carrying heavy packs, running around the cavernous hangar deck. They were escorted by guard droids. The lead droid had a screen mounted on it. From the screen the image of her dad exhorted them to try harder in the way that only a Corps training sergeant could. His voice echoed through the hangar. She opened a comms link to her dad.
‘Gunny … sorry, force of habit, LSM, I need to speak to Private Corenbloom.’
‘I prefer Gunny,’ her dad’s gruff voice replied. Miska smiled. ‘Where are you?’
‘Over by the Centaurs,’ she told him as she made her way towards the two captured Martian-built eight-wheeled armoured personnel carriers. She leant against the one that had been configured as a mobile command post and waited. Her hand felt numb now but the rest of her still hurt from the beating, despite the painkillers. She could see a figure jogging towards her.
Corenbloom had been a big, powerfully built man when he’d gone to college on a football scholarship. Judging by the images she’d seen of him during his FBI days he’d tried to keep himself fit but too much riding around in cars and sitting behind desks and he’d surrendered to middle age spread. Her father’s punishing PT schedule, however, was slowly turning him back into the man he had once been.
Corenbloom reached the APC covered in sweat. He held his hand up, asking for a moment. Miska nodded. He bent at the waist as he fought to recover his breath.
‘You want to ditch the pack, private?’ Miska asked.
He just nodded, hit the quick-release straps and shrugged out of it and then looked her up and down.
‘Who kicked your ass?’ he asked. Miska didn’t answer. He shrugged as if it wasn’t important. ‘This about Trafalgar?’ he asked. He wasn’t an unattractive man, Miska decided, despite his age. His close cropped hair and carefully trimmed goatee were both more salt than pepper. It was the eyes that bothered her, again. They were like black chips of ice. It wasn’t that they made him look evil or insane. Just calculating. Like he was measuring you all the time.
‘Yeah. Salik reckons he can get you and the Doc on the investigation team. I want to know what happened.’
‘Why?’ he asked. Miska decided that this was a guy that she would not like to play poker with.
‘Because we’re getting blamed.’
‘So? Ride it out, nobody believes the propaganda.’
Miska thought back to what Jones had said to her, to Duellona playing to the crowd.
‘You believe that?’ she asked.
He thought about it briefly and then shook his head.
‘No, people believe what they want to believe. Truth, facts, actual information often have very little to do with it until you’re trying to prove something in a court of law, and even then …’
‘Such cynicism,’ Miska said.
Corenbloom just shrugged.
‘This an order?’ he asked.
Here we go, Miska thought.
‘And if it is?’
‘I thought active service was only for volunteers,’ he said.
‘Yes, but the deal for active service remains the same, shore leave and share of the money. I’m not negotiating.’
He nodded, mulling over what she had told him.
‘Can I show you something?’ he finally said.
‘I don’t have time for games,’ she said.
‘It’s no game and I promise you it’ll be worth it.’
Now it was Miska’s turn to study the disgraced FBI agent. She was reall
y struggling to get a read on the guy, though if she was honest, working out what other people were thinking or feeling had never been her strong point. She was, however, mildly curious.
‘Fine,’ she relented. He picked up his pack and made his way across the hangar deck. He moved over to the bulkhead close to one of the shuttle airlocks. Then he looked at her expectantly.
‘What?’ she demanded.
‘We have a lot in common, you and me. Both disgraced ex-employees of the United States Government. Both people that the rest of the Legion would like to see dead.’
‘Well, let’s be besties,’ Miska suggested. ‘We could have a sleepover and you could braid my hair.’
‘I was sorry to hear about your father’s murder.’
It was like someone had thrown a cold bucket of water over her. Then she got angry.
‘Don’t let the hand fool you, motherfucker, I’m still more than capable of beating you down.’
He made a calming motion.
‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to upset you. The fact that you’re asking me to look into the massacre means that you know what I used to do for a living.’
‘What makes you think that’s anything to do …’
‘Because I play Go with Kaneda, and before him, Teramoto. I know you believe that your father’s killers are on board, and I’m guessing that you think it’s all part of a black op of some kind.’
‘So you decided to cut out the middle man?’ Miska asked. It was clear that the Yakuza had Corenbloom looking into her father’s murder for leverage. She didn’t like this, didn’t like it all.
‘Yes, though they did hire me so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Kaneda that I’ve come direct to you.’
‘The Yakuza have been keeping you alive in here, haven’t they?’ Miska asked. He didn’t answer. It made sense. Most of the Yakuza on board came from the Lalande system. They’d never crossed paths with Corenbloom, and the disgraced FBI agent’s problems with the Mafia would only have made him more attractive as an ally. ‘What do you want?’ She was starting to feel that she had been utterly played. As though Corenbloom had been waiting for an opportunity to have this talk.