Tilted Axis

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Tilted Axis Page 31

by David Ryker


  His hands went for Ward’s face, to scratch at his eyes, but before they even got close, Ward had Ferlish’s arm in his right hand, his cyber hand, and twisted roughly until he felt the tension in Arza’s shoulder and wrist reach breaking point, Ward’s elbow up under his gullet so he couldn’t make a sound. He held Ferlish’s arm aloft and gripped tighter. His other hand stopped clawing and held itself free, his crimson soaked teeth bared in a wide, defeated snarl.

  Ward found his eyes in the dark, still like glowing marbles alight with rage.

  Someone banged on the door. “Sir,” they called in Martian, “is everything okay? Sir?” They banged harder.

  Ward glanced over his shoulder and then back at Arza, who’d now contorted his mouth into a toothy grin, the little wheezy breaths escaping from his nose blowing drops of blood over Ward’s hand and shirt. He tried to laugh, his body just shuddering instead with a lack of air to be expelled.

  Ward gritted his teeth and made his mind up. As much as he wanted to just put his fist through Ferlish’s face and kill him, he couldn’t. There was still work to do, and killing a senior advisor in the UMR Defence Committee wasn’t going to be a good way to buy favor. He didn’t have the sort of time to get a confession out of Ferlish, either — and he wasn’t sure he ever could. You didn’t get that high up in the military without knowing how to take a beating and worse.

  In a whirl of blood, Ward stepped back and wrenched Arza’s hand in a halo around his own head, spinning him on his heel before he could react.

  Ward’s left hand came under his arm and cupped the back of his head, his right hand gripping his own left elbow. He squeezed hard until he felt Arza’s throat close down to nothing, and then filled his lungs, arching his back so that Arza’s feet were barely on the ground, the full weight of his body on his neck.

  He kicked for a few seconds, spluttering, and then fell limp as the blood stopped flowing into his brain.

  As the bolt started sliding out of the door, the shouts growing louder outside, Ferlish was unconscious and Ward was dragging his limp body backwards.

  When the two guards burst in, they froze, seeing Ferlish sitting in the chair, head bowed, blood covering his shirt, arms limp at his sides, legs splayed like a corpse’s. Whether they thought he was dead, Ward didn’t know or care. It didn’t matter. All that did was that they spent a second thinking about it.

  Ward came in from the side, calculating as he did.

  Two guards, both with black bullpup rifles, both in Defense Committee Ranger tac gear — sand camo jumpsuits, full-face helmets with visors like the Peacekeepers or sentinels, and Pettler automatic rifles pulled up to their shoulders.

  They were innocent — probably — so Ward didn’t see any point in executing them. Arza hadn’t been dumb enough to wear his pistol into the interrogation, so he would have had to have opted for a snapped neck or two if that was the route he was taking.

  Instead, he aimed low.

  The first blow came hard and fast.

  His heel drove downwards through the side of the first guard’s knee-cap, the telltale pop of dislocation echoing around the stark room.

  The guy sagged into the kick, twisting away from Ward, which was what he wanted.

  In a fluid movement, Ward stepped over him, throwing his leg up and over his back so that Ward’s thigh looped over his far shoulder, his neck pinned between it and his calf.

  His right hand was already moving, knuckles clenched at the second knuckle so his hand was flatter than a fist. If he’d used his left he would have probably broken them. But his right was strong enough to endure the blow, and found the soft patch of flesh between the bottom of the guard’s helmet and his collar. Only three or four centimeters, but enough to take a well-placed strike.

  The blow sent a dull pain up Ward’s arm — the diminished sensation a godsend in that moment — and the guy curled his head into his shoulder, whining like a kicked dog.

  Ward took the rifle of the second guard in his left hand and rolled backward toward the floor, throwing his left leg under the guard’s left arm and up across his chest, hooking his knee around the toe of his right leg, clamping down hard on the guard’s neck like a pincer.

  The second guy sprawled after them as Ward pulled the first to the ground, the strap on his rifle dragging him along.

  He stumbled before he could find his balance and Ward reached over, grabbing the back of his helmet and wrenching with all his weight and strength.

  The chinstrap held and the guy started to flip over the two of them, letting out a strangulated moan as he did and landing flat on his back with a deep grunt somewhere over Ward’s shoulder.

  The first guard, still tangled in Ward’s legs, hit the ground too, beating on Ward’s thighs with everything he had.

  Ward reached down and pulled the visor up with his left, hitting him hard in the face with the heel of his right hand, balled up like a peening hammer. He fell quiet, blood gushing out of his nose and pooling around his face in the trough where the helmet met the face.

  Ward could hear the second scrabbling behind him, moaning in short breaths as he tried to find his feet.

  Ward rolled backward in a shower of dust, kicking off the first guard and to his feet, twisting to see the rifle barrel rising.

  Muzzle flash lit the room before Ward could get there, but the guy didn’t hit anything except algae-covered brick.

  Ward was inside him, his right hand coming up under the weapon.

  A loud crack rang out as the top of the rifle rebounded off the guy’s visor, a crack rippling through it, sparks and little digital images flickering across the screen as the HUD inside faltered and failed.

  The guy stumbled and then bent sideways at a violent angle as Ward took the rifle in his other hand, the barrel hot under his grip, and twisted it toward him, trapping the guard’s finger in the trigger ring.

  Ward’s right hand came up, closed in the air, hung there for an instant, and then splintered the visor into splinters of cracked plastic.

  He hit the guy again and his eyes closed.

  And again, feeling him go limp at the end of the gun.

  He hit him a fourth time and then let him fall to the ground. Ward’s shoulders were pumping, his chest heaving in and out, blood splatters on his face and neck, and shards of helmet sticking out between his knuckles.

  Lubricant and impact jelly leaked out from the holes around the shrapnel like dark green blood, oozing down his fingers and dripping onto the floor.

  Ward wiped his face with his left, smearing dirt across his cheek, and pulled out the jagged needles, regaining his breath with every second.

  He looked around at the three bodies, and pricked his ears for any signs of incoming backup.

  He couldn’t hear anything.

  He went over to Ferlish and checked his pockets, pulling out the handkerchief he’d been carrying to wipe his own knuckles when he was done working on Ward, and wiped the blood from his still-split lips.

  Ward tore it into two strips and wrapped his hand, tying it off at his palm. The jelly would react with the oxygen in the air and congeal soon enough, but until then, he didn’t want to be leaving a trail to follow.

  He scooped up one of the guards’ rifles and extra ammo in case there was a firefight coming, stripped them of the rest of their weapons and their communicators too so they couldn’t call for help, and then headed out.

  He approached the door cautiously, in case his hearing was failing him. He had a concussion, after all, and he didn’t trust anything anymore, not even his own ears.

  He pressed his shoulder against the frame, took a breath and ducked into the sunshine, sweeping low and wide, ready to fire.

  But there wasn’t anything to fire at.

  All that was staring back at Ward was an empty stretch of Martian plains.

  He stepped carefully out and up the makeshift ramp of earth.

  There was a clearing, about ten by ten meters wide, a rough circle of exposed dirt.<
br />
  The building where Ward was being kept was sunk into the ground so that the low ceiling was didn’t protrude above the sand. Tufts of Martian grass clung to the roof, just a sheet of metal laid on top of four single-skin alcrete block walls set on a layer of concrete dug into the ground. This definitely wasn’t a DC black site or military base. It was just some shack in the middle of nowhere.

  Ward set his jaw and looked around for the thing he knew would be close by, spotting it almost immediately.

  At the far side of the clearing, where the grass started to thicken, was a mound of earth, and sticking out of it, two shovels.

  Ward didn’t need to go over to know there was a grave already dug. They had no intention of ever taking him in.

  He exhaled slowly in the thick air and let the rifle hang at his side, wiping his forehead with his arm, sweat already beading there. It was hot. Ward figured, judging by the position of the sun, somewhere in the early afternoon.

  His growling stomach confirmed it, though he had no idea where he was.

  An unmarked Security Bureau all-terrain cruiser sat quietly to his left, a heat ripple coming off its black shell.

  It was a stocky-looking thing with high wheel arches, knobbled tires for tackling the plains outside the city, and a miniaturized fusion-drive engine for long-distance trips. The marked SB ones back in the city were decked out in the Bureau’s colors and equipped with sirens, mostly doing things like chasing urchins who’d lifted solar cells off the ring roads outside the city, or running down illegals on the salt flats. But this one was low-key. The perfect vehicle to tackle a long drive out to the desert, with ample space to carry a corpse and a pair of shovels.

  Ward went over and looked in through the window. There was a lap-terminal on the rear seat with the Defense Committee logo on it — a planet with six gates around it, signifying their role in protecting the OCA — no doubt Ferlish’s.

  They’d all come out here in the cruiser.

  Ferlish had stayed inside to do some work while the two DC Rangers he’d brought kept guard. That’s where the first had slunk off to when Ward woke up.

  He pulled open the door to the cruiser and felt the wash of AC, climbing in.

  The rifle hit the passenger seat and the truck snaked out of the clearing in a cloud of dust, heading straight for the city, some three hundred clicks to the north — or so said the GPS system. Hell, if they’d have buried him out there, no one ever would have found him.

  He drove through a featureless landscape of flat grassland wondering how many bodies Ferlish had buried out there over the years.

  He tossed the communicators out the window randomly. They’d never be found in the grass and Arza would have no way of contacting the SB or DC without them — or so Ward hoped. He didn’t know what sort of tech the UMR was putting out these days. But either way, he figured he had a good head start back to the city.

  It would be a little while before any of them came to, and while bolting the door would have been a better way to keep them locked up, they might never be rescued.

  Ward didn’t know how secret that little playhouse was, and it came back to the whole ‘not killing a high ranking official of the UMR without ironclad proof of his guilt’ thing.

  God, Ward hated bureaucracy.

  Part VI

  The Drop

  Historical Archive Information

  Extract Retrieved From:

  “An Idiot’s Guide to OCA Political History”

  Published, October 2337

  The most important occurrence in the last few decades, at least on the political stage in regards to the OCA and the ever-evolving relationship between the United Martian Republic and the United Nations of Earth, was, of course, the ratification of the Thessaly Treaty.

  Named aptly for the battle between the Titans and Olympians of Ancient Greece — that being the old versus the new, for those unconversant with ancient Earth history and its many theistic pantheons — the ‘Thessaly’ in Thessaly Treaty refers to the battleground where this war of the gods transpired.

  The agreement simultaneously granted military sanction to both the UMR and UNoE and allowed them to operate with much greater prejudice when facing corporate threats or encountering corporate violence and hostility across the OCA. The treaty also, in one fell swoop, made it a violation of OCA law to develop weapons and military technology without the prior approval of the OCA, and prevented the sale of any such goods to any non-approved third parties. This, in effect, destroyed the until-then-legal arms trade happening across the OCA. Stock prices in many corporations plummeted, but strangely, so did the number of violent operations carried out by corporations on colonies across the OCA. Only time will tell, however, if ultimately the Thessaly Treaty will prove to be a good thing or not. For now, all we can do is wait and see.

  26

  Ward left the truck outside the city and went in on foot, carrying only Ferlish’s pistol and a bottle of water with him. Everything else he left for the SB to find with the cruiser. He’d gone through the communicators and the lap terminal and found nothing immediately incriminating, and without trying to hack into Ferlish’s secured account on the Defense Committee network — a near impossible fleet with a bank of AIA analysts and hackers on the job, let alone on his own — there was nothing worth his time.

  He parked the truck in an overnight lot, a few clicks outside the city, that people used to store their vehicles when they went out into the plains hunting, or walking, or bird watching, or whatever it was that normal people did on their days off when they weren’t trying to stop the known universe from imploding at the hands of corrupt officials and mad gunmen.

  The truck was unmarked and under an overhang between some other cars. Ward had no doubt that it was fitted with a tracker, but at least this way a patrol wouldn’t spot it on a routine pass and pull in. They’d find it eventually when they realized what happened to Ferlish and his guards, but until then, Ward still hoped he had some time.

  If Ferlish had given the DC and SB a ‘don’t bother me ‘til I’m finished’ order, then heck, Ward might just have slipped through the net. Still, getting into the city was going to be harder than ever. It was the day before Chang was due to arrive in the capital and the Bureau’s patrols, crooked or not, would be doubled. Tripled even.

  The streets would be crawling with them. By now the shooter would be all geared up with a new safe house, and Moozana would be off the trail one way or another. Either the shooter wouldn’t have been found, or he’d have been found dead, or he’d never have existed at all, and it was all just Michael Ward Miller’s paranoid mind making more out of this than it was for his own twisted agenda. Who knew what story Ferlish had spun for Moozana? But Ward knew he’d definitely spun one. Burying Ward in the desert was proof enough that whatever Ferlish was selling, Ward wouldn’t be buying, and silencing him was the only way to make sure he couldn’t cause any more trouble or make any more noise.

  His only mistake was letting his personal vendetta get the better of him. Sure, he might have wanted some information from Ward, but honestly, what could Ferlish have really wanted out of him?

  He was planning to assassinate Chang, which would shatter the Thessaly Treaty and set OCA politics back thirty years — probably more — so what did it matter what Ward knew about the AIA’s activities in the capital? On the grander scale, wasn’t just shooting him and putting him in the ground the safer way to go? Take him off the board completely without wasting any more time?

  It probably was, but then again, it came down to personal stake. Ward hadn’t just screwed with his plans for the prime minister’s assassination, he’d screwed with his yacht, with his family. His daughter. Damn, yeah, Ward would have wanted to hurt the guy, too.

  As he slid down the gravel bank and onto the salt flats, pink in the waning sun, he thanked whatever gods were out there for Erica’s need for justice. If she hadn’t suggested her father’s yacht, then Ward would already be dead. Or maybe he wouldn�
��t. Who knew? The events that had led him to that moment, boots crunching across the salty ground, hard and sharp with the crystals of a hundred million tons of evaporated water, were unforeseeable. No one could have known. Like he’d said to Erica, it was just pulling on loose threads. You pull one, and then another, and another, and eventually you pull on the right one, and the whole thing just unravels.

  Ward was dogged, breathing hard, as he thought about it. He felt like he was unraveling. His chest was killing him, his ribs were bruised and maybe cracked. His head was swollen and throbbing, his teeth ringing like bells, his lips like ripe berries on the verge of bursting. He was concussed and sore and tired as hell. But he couldn’t stop. Not now. Not when he was so close.

  His run devolved into a lope, and then into a rough limp, an uneven gait between ragged breaths.

  He had to get into the city, find somewhere to hole up, recover some strength, and then reach out to Moozana and Cootes. As much of a bastard as the former was, he was the only one Ward thought he could trust at the SB. He hadn’t seen his friend’s betrayal. But then again, how could he have? Ferlish Arza was good. Smart as a goddamn whip, and he stayed behind the scenes, pulling the puppet-strings from on high. Ward couldn’t blame Moozana. But he could tell him. He could tell him everything, make him believe, make him understand. And then they could bring it all crashing down. They could get the third shooter, save Chang, and save the Thessaly Treaty before it was torn in two and the OCA was thrown into a new era of political unrest and war. A war that probably wouldn’t see an end for many, many years.

  Cootes, if he was still even in the city — and Ward wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t — would pass it all along to the AIA, make sure that the UN and the UMR were reading off the same sheet. That everyone knew what was happening, and everyone knew what a colossal bastard Ferlish Arza was.

 

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