by Gavin Smith
He was roaring. He aimed the gun at her and Miska had to throw herself around the corner as he squeezed off a long, undisciplined burst.
‘Really!’ she demanded. She cursed Che. It was really difficult trying not to kill people.
Further up the corridor she heard voices. A head popped around a junction. She wasn’t sure but she thought it might have been Joshua.
‘Duck!’ she shouted and fired a long burst in his general direction. The face disappeared back into cover.
Miska peeked round the corridor to the airlock. The Native American fired off another long burst.
‘Jesus!’ Miska ducked back behind the corner. Kneecapping a stationary person was one thing. Hitting a moving arm with your off-hand, even with a smartlink, was what her dad called viz-bullshit.
She heard the satisfying clang of the Little Jimmy docking with the Sneaky Bitch and then cries of surprise from forward.
Right, enough mucking around. She came round the corner low and fired off the rest of the magazine. The recoil on the gauss pistol, even on full automatic, was negligible. She used the smartlink to aim as much as possible but was hoping that filling the air with rounds would solve the problem. A round caught the PDW’s ceramic magazine, shattering it; another caught him in the arm and he dropped the weapon. She was now taking fire from forward as she rolled into the airlock corridor and up onto her feet, quickly changing the gauss pistol’s magazine. The Native American was thrashing around on the floor and roaring in pain and anger.
Miska started running and then threw herself into the air, hitting the deck on the other side of the two prone gun tramps and rolling to her feet.
‘Oh god!’ she howled. Her accumulated injuries and muscular pain from the extensive tasering had not left her in the best state for gymnastics.
In some pain, she spun around to cover the corridor behind her. The Native American was reaching for another weapon with his uninjured left hand.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Miska muttered and shot him in his left arm. It was much easier at near point-blank range. The airlock hissed open behind her. Her yellow worm had worked. She backed into it. The airlock hissed shut. Gosia, Joshua, the other gun tramp and two other crew in Crimson Sisterhood colours ran into the corridor. Gosia and the two crew leapt the Native American and the dwarf. The external airlocks on the Sneaky Bitch and the Little Jimmy opened behind Miska. Gosia looked angry, she was screaming at Miska, hammering on the airlock. Miska smiled, waved cheerily and mouthed the words ‘Star Kitten’ to her and then headed into the Little Jimmy.
Miska targeted the Sneaky Bitch’s weapon systems with the Little Jimmy’s lasers on the way out but there was only so much that Gosia could do as the Teten flooded space with radar and lidar, missile-locked the corsair and almost managed to do the same to the Little Jimmy before Miska set sail and accelerated.
Oddly, Miska was in a much better mood. Her kidnapping had proven a distraction. Provided perspective on her problems back on Waterloo Station. That didn’t, however, mean that New Sun could get away with talking trash about her and her Bastards.
Chapter 13
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ The fact that her dad was swearing, let alone at her, admittedly over the comms, illustrated just how frightened he’d been.
‘Got kidnapped, escaped again, it was a thing,’ Miska told him. She’d used her engine to get into the correct orbit around Ephesus for Waterloo Station but then run silent and cold on the approach. She was relying on the Little Jimmy’s superior stealth systems to prevent her having to explain the presence of the stolen NSA ship in Epsilon Eridani space. She didn’t care how liberal the ‘authorities’ were. Besides, as far as she knew the Teten was still in-system.
This is your life now, she thought as she used the compressed gas manoeuvring thrusters to invert the Little Jimmy as it came in beneath the Daughter’s superstructure and docked with one of the underside maintenance airlocks.
‘What kind of answer is that?’ her dad demanded.
‘Bounty hunters,’ she told him, wondering where Vido was. She quickly explained what had happened.
‘You want to go after them?’ he asked.
Yes, she thought, but although the Daughter outgunned the Sneaky Bitch, the corsair was faster and more manoeuvrable, and the prison barge wasn’t really set up for pirate interdiction.
‘No,’ she told her dad, ‘but we see that ship again we shoot first and ask questions later, I don’t care who her boyfriend is. Did we get everyone off-world and back to the ship?’
‘Yes, pretty much everyone’s back in their pods. Except the Ultra and his people.’ Oddly, for matters pertaining to the Ultra, her dad didn’t sound as though he disapproved.
‘I don’t like him, his people, or his methods, but I think you were right to put someone down on the ground. Depending on what you want to do here, we need intel,’ he told her.
Miska spun round in the bucket seat in the Little Jimmy’s cockpit and looked at the airlock hatch on the floor of the ship. She should probably trance in to Camp Reisman and talk to her dad and Uncle V but being electrified into unconsciousness wasn’t the same as getting sleep and she was dog-tired.
‘Nyukuti?’ she asked.
‘Came back, when he came to. I think they left him in the street. He was a bit banged up but none the worse for wear.’
‘Nothing back from the war crimes investigation?’ she asked.
‘No, Vido thinks that Triple S will be doing everything they can to slow it down.’
‘Is Vido getting some rest?’ she asked. He had sounded desperately like he’d needed it the last time she had spoken to him.
‘Er …’ her dad said. Miska frowned. Then she ran his image through the projector in the cockpit. He became a twelve-inch hologram stood atop the main console.
‘What?’ she asked. Then she remembered New Sun’s offer to remove the N-bombs. ‘Did he desert?’ she asked, dreading the answer. A blinking link to a news viz appeared in her IVD. ‘I’m not going to like this, am I?’
Her dad didn’t answer.
She opened the link.
‘… no sexual abuse among the Legion. Colonel Corbin made it absolutely clear from the first that she would not tolerate sexual violence in any form when she killed all the sex offenders, and anyone who’d ever hurt a child.’
Vido was in the same real-world studio, being interviewed by the same media clone as Campbell and Hinton had been.
‘I see. And the allegations that she has sexual relations with many of the prisoners and the virtual ghost of her father?’
Miska hadn’t heard that one. Her breath caught in her throat. Her hands bunched into fists. She glanced at her father’s hologram, he was stony faced but she knew him well enough to know he was seething.
‘Utter nonsense,’ Vido told her.
‘But the electronic recording of her father is a tyrannical force within the virtual environment where the convicts’ minds are imprisoned.’
‘Only in so much as he’s a marine sergeant major, so what do you expect? A fairy godmother?’
‘But you’re slaves kept in line with explosives in your heads?’
‘We’re prisoners, a penal legion in the truest sense of the world, but active duty is for volunteers only. The bombs in our heads are our prison while we’re working.’ He leaned forward. ‘They’re to protect people like you. They’re to protect the likes of people who spread horrible lies from the consequences of coming face to face with the victims of their propaganda. The thing I don’t get is why you feel the need to make up stories, we’re a pretty colourful bunch.’
For a moment, the media clone looked decidedly uncomfortable.
‘You were a member of the Cofino crime family, weren’t you?’ she asked, changing the subject.
‘Obviously I’m not going to discuss that,’ he told her. ‘But let me say this. I ended up on the Hangman’s Daughter because of cause and effect. Imagine if the people who invented and disseminated
such lies were subject to cause and effect.’
‘Mr Cofino, please, Corporal Corbin …’
‘Colonel,’ Vido corrected her.
‘Colonel Corbin attacked the gas mining platform with some of the most horrific criminals on board the infamous Hangman’s Daughter. Do you honestly expect people to believe that they didn’t commit those atrocities? Your blaming of Triple S smacks of a conspiracy theory.’
‘We expect people to believe the result of the evidence from the UN’s investigation that New Sun is trying so hard to suppress at the moment. And we’re hoping that media organisations, even those who have received contributions from PR agencies tied to New Sun,’ he said with some significance, ‘will report those results with the minimum of spin.’
‘But Miska Corbin is a psychopath,’ the interviewer insisted.
‘Undoubtedly, but she’s a lot of fun,’ Uncle V told her. ‘Many of us have done monstrous things, but we’re not all monsters, and those of us that are, are on a pretty tight leash.’
‘Until someone tells lies about you?’ The way the interviewer said it made it sound like she’d gone off-script. Miska suspected she was scared. That pleased Miska, Vido was right, there should be consequences for talking shit about people, even if it was just a bust nose.
‘I didn’t say that,’ Uncle V said. ‘You’re putting words in my mouth.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the interviewer sputtered. Uncle V gave her one of his more disarming smiles.
‘I’m just saying there’s no need to lie. The truth is much more interesting.’
It appeared that the interview was over. Uncle V exchanged some pleasantries and shook hands with the still somewhat frightened-looking interviewer. Miska ran over what she’d seen of the interview. He’d not revealed anything that people hadn’t already known, certainly nothing operational. She wasn’t sure if it had done any good. She suspected that he/they might have come across as a little intimidating but at least their side of the story had been told.
‘We discussed this when you were away,’ her dad told her. ‘Decided it was the way to go.’
‘Vido’s idea?’ she asked.
‘Golda’s.’
Well, he’s getting stuck in, Miska thought.
‘Not the way I would’ve done it,’ she admitted.
‘We did discuss fire-bombing the PR offices,’ her dad told her, coaxing a smile out of her.
‘Let’s not dismiss that just yet,’ she said and it was his turn to smile.
‘My instinct was to say no but we’re a conventional force now, we’re not running black ops. I think the silence was hurting us.’
Miska nodded. They were one big black op but she couldn’t tell her father that.
‘You need sleep,’ he told her. She nodded again. She could have gone on longer if needed, but frankly there was no real gain.
‘They take Badajoz?’ she asked.
Her dad nodded. ‘MACE abandoned the camp. With us gone they were stretched too thin. Their forces retreated west.’
This meant the uninhabited jungle highlands on the western side of the river to the north of Badajoz, that supposedly had no strategic significance, were completely open to New Sun. She desperately wanted boots on the ground, wanted to send the Sneaky Bastards into the north, but there was no way to get them onto the ground without people noticing. She could repurpose the Nightmare Squad but she wanted them hunting Resnick. Besides, she suspected Resnick would head north eventually.
‘There’s one other thing,’ the twelve-inch hologram of her dad said.
She had known this was coming since she’d seen Hinton’s interview.
‘How many deserted?’ she asked.
‘We’ve got about fifty people unaccounted for,’ he told her. ‘Including Torricone.’
She tried to swallow but couldn’t. She was glad that the pressure building up behind artificial eyes couldn’t turn to tears any more.
‘Send me the list,’ she managed.
‘Miska—’
‘I’ve got to get some sleep, Dad. But the list first.’ She severed the comms link.
A few moment later the fifty or so names appeared in her IVD. She battered her fist off the cockpit console, boosted muscle denting the hardened composite material. She had no idea how Torricone had got to her like this. This wasn’t the way she conducted herself, it wasn’t the way she worked. She tried to think of the Ultra. The way she felt about him. Tried to block out Torricone with lust but it wasn’t working. She was furious with him. Not his desertion, his defection, his betrayal – she was angry with him for the way she felt.
Angry enough to kill?
She screamed. Then she sent the codes to detonate the N-bombs in all fifty of the defectors’ heads. There were of course no N-bombs to detonate. Presumably New Sun had already had them surgically removed. A dry sob wracked her frame. It was relief. She pulled her knees up to her chin and hugged her legs.
Sleep had finally come with the help of chemicals. She was less fatigued but she did not feel rested. She was still lying in her bunk on board the Little Jimmy in her PJs, but she had tranced in to Camp Reisman. Outside the CP it was business as usual. Not everybody volunteered for active service but everyone trained. She knew that those who had returned from active service were being left to sleep. They were owed shore leave but even as quiet as Waterloo Station was at the moment, due to Triple S’s offensive, the station still wasn’t a healthy place for the Bastards to hang out.
She would have preferred to have the meeting outside the CP under the awning. This was despite the humidity that simulated the conditions down on the planet within the VR training construct. However, this meeting was better had out of sight of the rest of the Legion for the time being.
The door to the smartcrete bunker hissed open and she made her way to one of the larger meeting rooms. Her dad, Vido and Golda were all sat at the featureless utilitarian table. They stood up and saluted as she entered.
‘Nobody’s watching, gentlemen,’ she told them, as all four sat back down.
‘You okay, boss?’ Vido asked. She just nodded. ‘The interview?’
‘I wasn’t here, you made a call.’ That was all she was prepared to say about it.
‘The deserters?’ her dad asked.
‘Their N-bombs have been removed,’ she told them.
‘You tried …?’ Vido started.
Miska nodded curtly. She didn’t like the look of concern on Vido’s face. Her dad at least had the courtesy to cover his concern. Golda was just watching her, an expression of detached interest on his face.
‘How come so few deserted?’ she asked.
‘We didn’t trust New Sun,’ Golda told her. He looked over at Vido. ‘Words were had.’
‘Mass got into it with Torricone,’ Vido told her. ‘Tuned him up a little but … They probably shouldn’t be in a room together any time soon.’
‘Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be an issue,’ Miska told him.
‘Your FBI agent and the doctor are back,’ Golda said. ‘We’ve kept them awake so they could speak with you.’
A hologram flickered into life over the table. Corenbloom and the doctor were at one of the workbenches in the med bay. The disgraced FBI agent was slumped over the dull grey bench. The doctor had propped his head up on his elbows but even he looked tired. There were four guard droids standing not-so-unobtrusively in the background.
‘Franklyn,’ the Doc said and nudged Corenbloom.
Nice to see they’re bonding, Miska thought. Particularly as the ex-FBI agent’s job had been to hunt down people like the Doc. Corenbloom sat up and slapped his face a little. If the Doc looked tired then Corenbloom was clearly exhausted. Miska noticed that Vido was struggling to hide the apparent disgust he had for the ex-FBI agent.
‘Well?’ her dad asked.
‘The long and short of it is that they’re reasonably sure it wasn’t us,’ Corenbloom told them. ‘I could go into detail if you want but basically it was
a series of sloppy copycat killings. It didn’t help that we use the same weapons as Triple S, but the ballistics and knife wounds don’t match our gear.’
‘Well, that’s great, isn’t it?’ Miska said. ‘When are they going to release that information?’
‘That’s the problem. They can’t tie it to Triple S either. They handed over weapons and equipment that they say Resnick’s squad wore when they relieved you but we suspect they were the wrong ones …’ Corenbloom’s words faltered as his eyes flickered.
‘The time of death places Resnick’s people at the scene of the crime,’ the Doc continued, ‘but that’s circumstantial at best. They were careful. We suspect they wore clean suits, they left very little evidence.’
‘Let me guess, they wiped the memory on all the security lenses?’ Miska asked. The Doc nodded and then he shook Corenbloom awake again.
‘What?’ he asked. The Doc just pointed into the lens that was shooting the holographic image. ‘Oh yeah, so basically they’re holding back on the announcement because New Sun’s lawyers are telling them that if they implicate Triple S in any of this there will be hell to pay.’
‘But they are implicated,’ her dad said. Even to Miska’s ears it sounded naive.
‘Doesn’t matter what you know, it matters what you can prove,’ Vido and Corenbloom said at the same time, and then realistic net icon and hologram glared at each other.
‘So they’re holding back on the announcement?’ Miska asked. Corenbloom nodded. ‘But we can tell people, can’t we? I mean they’re free to try and sue me.’
‘It’ll be better coming from the UN investigator,’ Vido told her. ‘We lack credibility and we could do with less emphasis on the amount of contempt you have for the law.’
‘There’s something else,’ Corenbloom added. ‘Between the possible first contact situation at Trafalgar, and the war crimes, the UN are quite close to calling in a peacekeeping force.’
‘I don’t suppose they’d employ us for the job?’ Miska asked. There were a few smiles around the table,