The aux line up. They’re not meeting my eyes. In fact, they’re doing everything but looking directly at me. Must be the blood on my uniform. So I have Neen bring them to attention and walk myself down the line. That way they have no choice. Rachel is crying, but quietly. Franc looks lost inside herself. And I can’t read Shil’s expression at all.
‘Report,’ I order Neen.
‘All present, sir,’ he says.
And he’s right. Because Haze is in the doorway behind us, looking like sin on a bad day. At a nod from me, Neen tosses him a spare Silver Fist rifle, and we all watch as he fumbles the catch.
Colonel Vijay sighs.
‘What now, sir?’ I ask.
‘We find ourselves an escape deck,’ he says.
‘Sir,’ I say. ‘What about the missing U/Free observer?’
‘He’s gone, Sven. Got that from the general himself.’
‘Dead, sir?’
The colonel looks at me, glances at the others, and then walks me across to a corner of the general’s suite, his head bent close to mine. ‘Sven,’ he says. ‘There was no observer. OK? Let it go . . .’
It’s my turn to stare.
‘We needed cover stories. That was our second. You know, the first one was we’re on a cultural mission. And then, for the people who don’t believe that . . . we’re looking for a missing U/Free.’
‘And the U/Free agreed to go along with it, because they think we’re here to sign their treaty? But really,’ I say, glancing at his trophy, ‘we’ve been here to collect that all along and there was no observer?’
‘You’ve got it,’ he says, slapping me on the back.
There are days I fucking hate politics.
Racing up the corridor, a Death’s Head trooper from the Ninth Regiment freezes, unsure what’s happening. After a second, he salutes. Idiot.
‘A false alarm,’ I say.
He gapes at me.
‘Malfunctioning sirens,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘Return to your unit.’
The man nods and turns. Only a Silver Fist captain is turning the corner behind him and he isn’t as stupid. He is, however, slow. He’s still pulling his pistol when I put a throwing spike in his throat. Colonel Vijay kills the original trooper, who dies still looking puzzled.
Bundling down a corridor, we head for a door. The elevators are locked down. That is good, because it keeps the enemy away. Also bad, because it means we might need to fight on the stairs. Should the Silver Fist work out that having elevators arrive and not leave is a better option still, then we’ll really have a battle on our hands.
‘Sven,’ says my gun as I skid-turn, and rip my fighting arm into the throat of a sergeant rounding a corner towards me.
Colonel Vijay shoots the man behind him. The man behind that turns to run and dies with one of Franc’s knives in his back.
‘What? ‘ I demand.
‘Remember me?’
You can always tell when the SIG’s jealous. It gets snippy. ‘This arm’s useful,’ I say.
‘No,’ says the gun. ‘It’s rusty, out-dated, and ugly.’ The SIG places special emphasis on the last. ‘And it’s slowing you down.’
‘It’s not.’
‘Weighs more than a combat trike,’ it says. ‘Bloody thing was meant to handicap you. Only you’re so stupid you decided to keep it.’
‘You’ll get your chance soon enough.’
‘So you keep saying.’
Catching up with me at the stair door, Neen opens it and through I go. Takes me ten seconds to reach the first bend and check it is clear, eleven to return. As I step back into the corridor, Neen raises his rifle. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he says, lowering it again.
‘Next time hold your aim,’ I tell him.
Colonel Vijay is listening.
‘What if someone was coming through behind me?’
He’ll remember next time. For an ex-militia grunt with barely six months as an NCO he is turning into a pro. Actually, he’s turning into a veteran. Neen goes red when I say this.
‘Round here,’ says his sister, ‘it’s adapt or die.’
When Neen shoots Shil a frown, the colonel laughs. ‘It’s all right,’ he says. ‘I’m sure Lieutenant Tveskoeg can recognize a compliment when he hears one.’
Standing by a Silver Fist launch that looks more like a small space liner, Colonel Vijay says, ‘We’ll take this one.’ The Wild Wild Wind has elegant lines, its own escape pods and an array of antennae bristling along the top. It’s also easily big enough to take all of us and still have room to spare.
Obviously enough, the SIG disagrees.
The craft the SIG wants sits behind the one Colonel Vijay likes. It’s a B79 bomber and a third the size of the launch. A silver skull on its black nose-cone reinforces what we already know. The craft belongs to the Ninth.
‘This one,’ says the colonel, tapping the little liner.
The SIG is not having it.
As they argue, lights start flickering on the bomber’s hatch. At first they’re out of sync with those on the SIG. Slowly the sequences begin to match. When they match exactly, the hatch shifts slightly, stops, and then pops open.
‘Well, hello,’ says the gun.
A second later a ladder folds down.
‘B79, new model,’ says the SIG. ‘Now with sixty-four rockets, instead of forty-eight. Added stealth screening. Uprated quad-barrelled machine gun, fully automatic obviously. Semi AI navigation, fully AI combat brain . . .’
Haze is practically drooling.
He’s sold. The others are looking at Colonel Vijay.
‘Well?’ says the gun.
OK, he’s sold as well. Who wouldn’t be with that firepower? And we need to move anyway, because the sirens are dying, and that is not good. It means someone is finally taking charge.
‘Fighters,’ says Haze, glancing at a wall screen. ‘They’ve scrambled fighters.’
‘Gets worse,’ my gun says.
‘How?’
All the overhead strips go out. On cue, the escape deck’s emergency lights fire up. Only to go out just as quickly. A second later, Neen turns on his rifle’s torch. It produces enough light for us to see our way to the bomber.
Neen thinks that’s the problem solved. He hasn’t thought it through.
If the emergency power is dead, then how do we fire the explosive bolts holding the outer wall in place? Without these, the wall remains and the escape deck keeps us trapped. Until their CO works out a way to hook us out of here. Personally, I would flood the place with nerve gas.
Colonel Vijay agrees. ‘Has that bomber got an air system?’
‘Of course,’ says the gun. ‘It’s got an Alexo3 ferric-’
‘Everyone inside,’ he says.
The SIG’s still running its sales pitch for the purifier, though it stops when it realizes no one is listening. The steps flip up, and the door hisses down, and we are airtight inside fifteen seconds. I’m beginning to like this machine.
‘Permission to . . .’
Colonel Vijay nods. ‘Go ahead, Sven,’ he says.
Slapping my hand on a plate next to the pilot’s seat, I let the B79 scan my palm and then give it my name, rank and service number. I give it the real ones. If it is as clever as the gun says, then it can match the hand scan to my service records anyway.
A line of words scrolls across the glass plate.
Information already entered.
‘Genotype human equivalent. Status DH class 2, override . . .’
It’s reading a bloody identity chip fitted when I was on the general’s mother ship. Knew I had one in that arm Colonel Madeleine made me. Obviously got one under my skin somewhere as well.
There are three combat seats in the B79.
The colonel gets one, because he’s ranking officer. I get one, because I’ll be handling the cannon. Also, Vijay might be younger than Neen, but he is not stupid, he knows who’s winning this war for him.
Haze gets the last seat, because he’s a braid.
I run that thought back, decide I agree with it, and realize just how bloody odd that sounds. ‘Sit there,’ I tell Haze. ‘Before I change my mind.’
Emil is not happy. He outranks Haze in theory. As do Neen and Franc. But they’re not braids, and they don’t chat up machinery the way the rest of us joke with whores. That leaves five people without proper seats.
A low ledge runs round the back of the crewpit. Five people sitting together on the ledge should help cushion each other from the worst of the acceleration shock. All we have to do is what we did in that tug.
‘Tie yourselves into place.’
‘Sven,’ says Emil, sounding horrified. Turns out, he’s flown in a B79 before.
‘So you’ll know what to expect,’ I tell him. ‘And it’s sir. You’re a trooper in the Aux and you’ll remain one until I tell you otherwise.’