David Gunn - Death's head

On his desk is the same map as last time. Only it has significantly more glass stains and several more rows of crude blocking to indicate enemy rocket damage. We’re surrounded. That is, enemy reserves have crossed the river. The colonel is carefully shading in enemy mortar positions; there are dozens of the bastards.

“Silver Fist hacked my slab,” he says. “So now I use only this. Got to keep my plans secret.”

I wonder about the girl, how much she sees and hears, where she lives, and who, if anyone, she tells…Not that it’s going to make much difference. We’re obviously fucked anyway, mere hours from a full-on attack.

“You stirred up a real hornets’ nest,” he says, “slotting that seven-braid. I’d award you a first-class Obsidian, but we’re right out of those and you’ve already got a second.”

Putting down my glass, I wait for whatever it is Colonel Nuevo really wants to say. The man’s been sending messengers to my house for the best part of three weeks; there has to be more to this conversation than his current twittering.

“You kept me waiting.”

“Sorry, sir. I was injured, sir.”

Must be my tone that makes him look up. “Self-inflicted,” he says. “You know the penalty for self-inflicted wounds.” Pulling his pistol from its holster, he jacks the slide and checks the safety. Which is already off, or he wouldn’t be able to jack the slide in the first place.

Colonel Nuevo really is very drunk.

“Going up against a seven-braid,” he says, “sounds like a suicide attempt to me. Nothing brave about committing suicide.”

“Except,” I say, picking up my glass, “the seven-braid’s dead. And I’m here, enjoying a drink with my commanding officer.” The glass is cheap, which is good. It looks like it would break easily. Say, against the side of a desk or directly into an enemy’s face.

And then there’s my gun, which has unlocked without being asked and is doing its own version of a discreet vibrate against my hip. It sounds like a cheap tractor.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” says Colonel Nuevo. “Put down that glass and tell your bloody toy to go back to sleep. I haven’t got enough officers left to kill any more of you.”

We’re headed for the heart of his bitterness.

“You know what my orders are?”

“Death or glory?”

“Of course…” Putting down his pistol, he pulls a small cylinder from his pocket and flips up its lid. The button is red. I’d always thought that was just a rumor. “Unfortunately,” he says. “We’re right out of glory. Which just leaves this.”

Colonel Nuevo’s thumb hovers over DESTRUCT.

“That’s illegal technology,” I say.

He nods. “Pretty, isn’t it? Also effective…I can take the whole fucking city. Inside and outside, houses and temples, streets, boulevards, the lot.”

He puts a mocking stress on boulevards, as if Ilseville is too poor, insignificant, and out of the way to have streets that qualify for a label so grand. He’s right, of course. Maybe in a hundred or two hundred years it will have impressive buildings and smoked-glass palaces, but not yet.

“You want to do the job for me?”

I shake my head.

“Too bad,” he says. “Because you’re going to. That’s a direct order.” He puts the cylinder on his desk, reaches into a drawer, and pulls out an envelope. LAST DAYS, it says. I’m expecting code, something complicated that needs translating, but General Jaxx’s instructions are uncoded.

“See,” says Colonel Nuevo. “Hold the city or die.”

And then he says something that makes me realize this man hates me and has probably always hated me; all that shit about liking me was lies. “You could do it,” he says. “No problem. After all, you murdered Debro Wildeside’s daughter.”

I look at him.

“It was a test,” he says. “You passed.”

“Sir?”

The colonel shrugs. “If you can do that,” he says, tossing me the DESTRUCT button, “I’m sure you can use this.”

“Sven,” says my gun.

But it’s too late.

Opening his mouth, the colonel jams his own gun against its roof and yanks the trigger. Colonel Nuevo, leader of Octovian troops in Ilseville, has just shot himself rather than take it to the wire. He’s also just broken the arm of a chair and knocked over his vodka bottle on the way down.

“Idiot,” says the SIG.

Flicking my gun to flechette, I target the door and catch the first of the running guards in my sights.

“Explosive,” I tell him. “Burn you to a cinder.”

He stays exactly where he is.

“Come in,” I say. The three boys behind him enter without being told. All four line up against a wall on my order.

“We have a situation.”

Shock keeps their faces slack. These are meant to be Death’s Head officers, but I’ve seen better raw recruits.

“While drunk,” I tell them, “the colonel slipped and shot himself.”

“Fatally,” adds my gun.

“This information is confidential. Understand? You will behave exactly as if Colonel Nuevo is alive. I want you standing guard at his door. Anyone wants to see the colonel, you come in, ask if he wants to see them, and then tell whoever is waiting that the colonel says come back tomorrow.”

Four pairs of eyes watch me.

“You understand?”

All four boys nod.

“Good,” I say.

Sitting at the colonel’s desk, I fire up his slab and see that its power reserve is almost gone. So I keep the order brief. Each officer will prepare for the final attack, food is no longer to be hoarded, ammunition is to be shared, and all missing officers are to be replaced by NCOs. All missing NCOs will be replaced by promotion from the ranks. The battle for Ilseville’s heart will be bloody. Whatever happens, we will go down fighting to the last man.

I certainly hope the colonel’s pad has been hacked, because I want that order read by the Silver Head as much as I want it read by our own side.

Every belt-fed we own is up here on the city walls, with a thousand ammo belts waiting in open boxes. We have pulse rifles, pistols, and a handful of hunting crossbows. We even have fifteen rockets, although we’ll probably fire those in the first ten minutes.

The attack comes at dawn, and I’m right about the rockets.

“Hostiles, two o clock…”

Behind me someone coughs. It’s a gunnery officer, a second lieutenant twice my age and with probably three times my experience. Most of the Death’s Head officers treat him as an irritating fool.

“Sir, is your man ready?”

“He’d better be,” I say, casting a glance at Haze.

The boy nods, his head wrapped in a bloody towel. We’ve told everyone he’s taken a head wound that won’t stop bleeding; it’s easier than trying to explain about the new-grown braids.

“Target and fire,” the gunnery officer shouts.

A high fighter goes down, flames billowing as it hits marshland, and its fuel tanks burn up in one go. Two of our rockets miss other planes, and their targets withdraw.

“You okay?”

“Yes, sir.” Haze wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sips sugar water. He’s pale as paper, and his eyes are washed-out ghosts of what they used to be. Shil, Neen, and Franc stand guard around him, which works for me and is better than having them trail me as I set off along the wall to check how things are going.

I’m Colonel Nuevo’s eyes and ears, that’s the official story. So far most officers seem to accept it. And the high fighter we’ve just downed goes a long way toward explaining the determination I find on most faces. A handful of women wait up on the walls, ready to be deployed as necessary.

“You know your orders?”