A knocking wakes me, and a trooper announces that one quarter of the city has risen. He’s not looking for me in particular; his orders are to rouse every house in the square. Other soldiers are working the streets behind us.
Neen is behind the soldier, slouched on our doorstep. He has a black eye to match the graze he got climbing from the sewer, but he’s awake and mostly sober and looking very pleased with himself.
“Good night?”
Scrambling to his feet, he snaps out a salute.
“Yes, sir. Very good, sir.” If he notices Shil’s sourness he brushes it off, assuming it has more to do with him than me.
“Helmets,” I tell everyone.
Neen has to go upstairs.
Pulse rifles at the ready, we hit the street. At which point something becomes obvious. My team are militia and I’m Death’s Head, but many of the soldiers out here are neither.
We’re outnumbered by mercenaries. Not legion-type mercenaries: Sign on, get paid shit, and die to order. These are the other kind, freelance looters, people discharged from militias for being too vicious or damaged to take orders, ex-penal-battalion officers, the sweepings of half a dozen prison planets, people like the person I might have been.
“What?” demands Shil, seeing me stop.
I wait.
“Sir.”
“Mercenaries.”
“Came in on the final drop,” says Haze, and then blushes.
He’s been up all night, patching himself into the data feeds. We have quite an audience, apparently. Propaganda is one of this war’s greatest weapons. It’s why OctoV complains about U/Free observers, Greater Council monitors, and freelance data collectors, but lets them in anyway.
“Take point,” I tell Neen. “We’ll be right behind.”
He leads us between dying bonfires and drunken troopers being kicked back to sobriety. Gunfire comes from a low-lying district ahead, which explains the column of black smoke rising in front of us.
The batwings are back.
“That’s not possible.” Haze is staring up at the sky.
Rolling as languidly as a fish surfacing, a tiny plane twists itself around its own axis and drops like a supercharged stone. It keeps dropping and a second column of smoke joins the first.
“Someone’s controlling them,” I say.
He nods, and Franc points beyond distant walls to where another batwing is dropping from the clouds.
“What does it mean?” asks Franc.
It means we’re fucked.
But I don’t say that, because that’s one of the things you just don’t say. “Insurgents,” I tell her. “Must have a few left over from yesterday. Not sure how they’re controlling them.”
There’s another Uplifted, obviously.
A gap stands like a broken tooth in a row of houses ahead. The buildings on both sides are cheap, fiber-made, and already rotting. Past the gap, the ground dips and we can see even cheaper buildings beyond. In the middle of these stands a metal turret, black with age and ringed by shacks that huddle below what look like flying buttresses. After a second, I realize they’re fins.
“What happened to the house?”
The trooper stops, registers my rank, and salutes. “Control post, sir. Got hit just before dawn. Killed a captain.”
I let the man go, and he scurries away with obvious relief. The next person I see is Major Silva, still looking neat as always and still wearing his tiny spectacles. He greets me with a smile, which tells me all I need to know about how serious this situation is.
“The colonel’s waiting.”
We follow the man through a roadblock, under a bridge that supports a broken railroad, and into the rubble of the ruined building.
“Sven…”
“Sir.”
“They had a belt-fed in the turret and snipers everywhere…” He steps closer. “Lieutenant Uffingham volunteered to clean them out.”
“What happened?”
“You’re the new senior lieutenant.”
Apparently my Obsidian Cross automatically gives me five years’ seniority. I can take a wild guess how the other lieutenants feel about that, not that I care.
“We’ve got rockets,” I say. “Why not just blow the thing to fuck?”
Colonel Nuevo’s eyes flick sideways, and I see a girl wearing the uniform of a recognized U/Free observer.
“Meet Paper Osamu,” he says. “She has plenipotentiary status.”
Plenipo…what? “He’s ex-legion,” my gun tells her. “Up through the ranks. He doesn’t understand stuff like that.”
“There are civilians down there.”
“And up here,” says the gun tartly. “Doesn’t stop the machine heads crashing their planes on us.”
“They’re not machine heads, ” Ms. Osamu says, pronouncing the words with distaste.
“Well, they’re sure as fuck not human.”
At this point I take Colonel Nuevo’s unspoken advice and put my gun back into sleep mode. The next few seconds are wasted as Neen and I go into a huddle. It’s obvious from the shock on the faces of my fellow officers that they think this outrageous. But too many battles have been lost because officers were too grand to take advice from their NCOs.
“Anyone else have an opinion?”
Franc wants to attack from the front; Haze wants to hack into the batwings and corrupt them, preferably from the safety of a cellar several miles away. Neen’s already had his say, and Shil keeps glancing toward the tower.
“Say it.”
She shrugs.
“That’s an order.”
Tight-lipped, she scoops away a handful of dirt, and then carves a line next to it with her dagger. She’s looking at me as she does this.
“Okay,” she says. “That’s the river…and this is their tower.” She stabs her dagger hard into the depression. Taking Neen’s dagger, she cuts a much shorter line from her river to the edge of the dip. “That’s our canal.”
Standing up, she fills her hands with water from a puddle and tips the water slowly into the tiny river, letting it run through the canal into the depression.
“Welcome to my world,” she says. “Where if you’re not trying to find water, you’re trying to get rid of it.”
The others nod.
If we had a combat satellite we could burn the ditch with that. Of course, if we had a high-orbit laser we wouldn’t need to cut a ditch, because we could obliterate the tower without damaging the ghetto around it. This makes me wonder where General Jaxx’s mother ship has gone.
All the same, it’s a neat answer to a difficult question and it should keep the U/Free observer happy.
So I go find Major Silva. “Can you give me troops?”
The major looks slightly shocked. When he comes back it’s with Colonel Nuevo. The U/Free observer is following along behind.
“I hear you want more men.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How many?”
“About five hundred.”
Colonel Nuevo’s eyes widen. He doesn’t like being surprised in front of Paper Osamu. “You want to attack the tower with five hundred men?”
“No, sir. I want them to dig a ditch and flood it.”
I can tell he’s disappointed. We’re his suicide squad, afraid of nothing. We exist to irritate his other officers, keep them unsettled. Safe options and engineered solutions are not welcome.
“Haze,” I say. “Explain to the colonel why this makes sense.”
The boy looks stricken. He’s fumbling for a reason when he stumbles over the real one. “There’s an Uplifted inside, sir.”
Haze thinks about it some more and realizes the obvious. “The Uplifted is controlling the batwings. So it’s still fully functioning.”
“If we destroy the tower,” I say, “we risk killing the thing.”
The colonel gets his smile back.
Five hundred men dig for the best part of a day. Being militia, they expect the shitty jobs. I want the mercenaries to do it, but it isn’t my choice and Major Silva insists they’re being saved for later. The grim satisfaction in his voice when he says this is reassuring.
Warnings are broadcast and transport is arranged. And when everything is ready, the women, children, and old men are evacuated under the suspicious gaze of Paper Osamu, licensed witness and plenipotentiary for the U/Free. We begin to flood the tower just before nightfall.
Back at the house, Neen retires to his room, while Haze goes to play with his slabs. Franc excuses herself, and about an hour later the smell of baking fills the house.
“Didn’t know we had a drexler.”
“We don’t,” says Maria. “She’s making it by hand.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
She grins at the look on my face. “You want coffee?”
“Sure,” I say. “I’ll be in the study.”
The coffee is hot and strong and Maria makes enough for two. Realizing Lord Filipacchi’s ornate desk is buried under my open maps, she places her tray carefully on the floor. The maps are printouts showing Ilseville as it used to be, which is pretty much the same as it is now except for the newly flooded area and old warehouses where temples now stand.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking a few things.”
“I’ll be downstairs,” she says, picking up her mug. “If, you know…”
“If what?”
“You want me.”
Taking the mug from her hand, I put it on top of a map and turn Maria toward me, raising her face with one hand. “What’s to doubt?” Reaching for her dress, I undo the first two buttons.
“Not here, sir,” she says.
“Where then?”
I should be studying the map and working out my best route into that tower, but the truth is I’ll probably riff it anyway, because planning and I never got on that well to start with. Most battles are simple: The fastest and the nastiest group wins. Anyone tells you different probably has red tabs under his or her insignia and issues orders from several miles behind the front line.
Maria and I go to her room together.
Her body is as full as it was last time, and her nipples are still pale enough to be almost invisible, but I see things I didn’t notice then, like the neatly sewn track of a bullet scar above one hip. She’d been shot from behind, then given medical treatment by an outfit who obviously knew what they were doing.
“Long story,” she says.
I have enough sense not to ask.
We sleep and fuck and sleep some more, and dawn finds us in the bath, Maria behind me scrubbing my back with what seems to be the dried skin of a local slug. After a while I decide that I’m clean enough and we swap positions, although not much back scrubbing is done once I’m behind her.
I’ve just picked Maria up by the hips when there’s a tentative knock at the door.
“Sir…” It’s Neen.
Yesterday he’d have come straight into the bathroom; today he knows Maria’s in here with me. So does Shil, because her eyes refuse to catch mine when we meet on the stairs, both struggling into our jackets.
“Lieutenant Tveskoeg?”
The boy’s young, little older than Neen, but his uniform is immaculate and silver braid waterfalls from his left shoulder. The poor little shit’s even wearing a dress dagger, hung from a chain on his hip.
“You’re a new staff officer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hope you last longer than the last one.”
He chews his lip. “The colonel requires you.”
“Be with you in a moment.”
“Sir…” He hesitates, not yet secure in Death’s Head arrogance and unused to borrowing the power of whomever sent the message. “He requires you now.”
“And I’ll be with you in a moment.”
My group dress in their new uniforms, which are Death’s Head issue with all the distinguishing marks cut away and skin patches sewn in their place. The boy blinks, opens his mouth, and shuts it again.
“What’s your name?”
“Benj…”
“Your other name.”
“Flypast, sir. Second Lieutenant Benj Flypast.”
I shake his hand, which he doesn’t expect, then introduce him to the group, which he expects even less. “And this is Haze,” I say. “Our expert on Uplifted and Enlightened.”
Both boys blush.
The colonel is waiting impatiently near the tower. Having flooded the area, the militia are now busy pumping the water out again. Apparently a number of enemy soldiers tried to escape on a homemade raft in the night, but they didn’t make it. A row of bodies provides evidence.
Our side has experts, real experts. Officers who trained on Death’s Head scholarships and intelligence analysts who’ve spent their entire lives studying the enemy. I’m not even sure why my group is here.
Pretty soon I find out.
“Enter the tower,” orders Colonel Nuevo. “Kill anything you like, except the Uplifted.”
Water has stained each room. Sometimes the water has risen to the ceiling; other times the positioning of windows means layers of air got trapped. This is made obvious by tide marks high up on a couple of walls. I begin to see why the colonel wants my groups to check the building first.
Just to make the job interesting, he’s landed me with Lieutenant Flypast, who needs bloodying. So now the boy hangs back and holds his pulse rifle as if it’s about to turn around and bite him.
“Report,” I tell Neen.
“Clear, sir.”
“Very good. Carry on.”
So far we’ve swept eleven floors, with only one kill. An old man huddled over a crude fire. He’d obviously hidden himself rather than be evacuated, not one of life’s better decisions.
It looks like there’s one, maybe two more floors to go, and logic tells me this is where anyone waiting to attack us will be.
“Right,” I tell Neen. “Take us up a level.”
He hits the stairs, rifle ported across his front. Shil follows, with Haze and Franc behind her. Benj trails after them and I bring up the rear. Neen is good at this, but he’s angry with me about Maria and it shows in the way he carries himself. His shoulders are locked and his movements overrapid.
Bollocking someone for not staying chilled is counterproductive, so I swallow my irritation.
“Hold it.” Neen’s instruction filters down the line.
A creak comes from overhead. It could be metal warming in what passes for this planet’s sunlight; alternatively, it could be someone with a gun. It’s Neen’s call and he has to be allowed to make it.
Our galaxy is rumored to be full of planets able to adjust their own weather, but most of these reside in the center and are owned by the United Free. The Enlightened have their Dyson habitat, also climate-controlled and endlessly enjoyable, but they keep that for themselves. As for our beloved leader…OctoV believes in traditional values, which is just as well, because he certainly can’t afford any new ones.
“Back…” Neen drops to a crouch, signaling for everyone to retreat. Shil hesitates and I grab her ankle, pulling her down a handful of stairs. She manages to take the bumps in silence.
“Wait,” Neen orders.
Edging forward, he vanishes almost from sight.
Neen’s call, I remind myself.
But that doesn’t stop me from getting impatient.
So I make myself listen to the noises inside and out while trying not to notice Shil’s hips, which are next to my face. Part of my irritation is at not being able to use my gun. Apparently the Uplifted are worse than the Enlightened for being able to read data patterns. Use my gun in here and I might as well climb the stairs shouting, Hi, it’s Sven, anyone home?
That the SIG’s version anyway. Of course, it might simply be sulking about Paper Osamu. Shifting pipes disturb the air around me. From outside comes the noise of a pump as engineers drain the last of the floodwater, and the five hundred militia who dug yesterday’s canal prepare to fill it in again. The air through an open window smells sour, because the flood has opened sewers and made latrines overspill their banks.
“Not yet,” I whisper when Shil starts to shift forward.
The sniper hiding in the room above gets bored before we do. A handle creaks and a face peers through a gap. He’s looking straight ahead when he should be looking down, and Neen’s shot takes him under the chin, painting the ceiling behind him with blood, skull, and brains.
“Move…”
Another two Uplifted go down as Neen sweeps the room. They’re already dead by the time I hit the door.
“Good call.”
“Thank you, sir.” Neen looks at me, then looks at his sister, and makes a decision. “Permission to…”
I nod.
“Please don’t send Shil to another unit.”
“Why would I?”
“Shil said she asked you to make Franc sergeant instead of me, and now you’re angry with her.”
“Forget it,” I tell him. “I already have.”
The Uplifted sits in one corner. Wherever the thing originally sat it wasn’t here, because a bundle of filaments have been slashed in a hurry. A huge diamond nestles in anemone optic, a jumble of teraflips are tied into the matrix memory, and the thing is pulsing like festival lights.
Something tells me the colonel is going to be pleased.