David Gunn - Maximum Offence

Colonel Vijay scowls when he sees us. I’m not sure if it’s the fact we no longer look neat, or he simply doesn’t like what was in the boxes. Everyone wears a sleeveless jacket; everyone wears a helmet, with flip-down visor. Except Colonel Vijay, who still wears his full-dress uniform. He looks about twelve.

The co-pilot’s seat is empty, so I take it.

Having opened his mouth to order me out, the colonel changes his mind. Maybe he believes officers shouldn’t argue in front of their men. Instead, he takes his place in the pilot’s seat in silence.

‘Sir,’ I say.

A sideways flick of his eyes tells me he is listening.

‘About our mission. When do I get briefed?’

He sighs. ‘It’s need to know,’ he says. ‘You don’t.’

Leaning forward, he slaps his hand on a recognition panel, and engines begin to quiver behind us. This shuttle is strictly short-run. I’ve seen one like this before on a landing field in Farlight. Unless our destination is within a hundred thousand miles of here, I don’t see how we are going to get anywhere.

I needn’t have worried.

Once we are buckled in, the colonel taps a number sequence into a pad on the console in front of him. He does it swiftly and confidently. The very exemplar of a competent officer. Then ruins it all by cancelling and re-entering the numbers, more slowly this time.

And before I even have time to think idiot , space rips and we are there.

Most civilians believe you can catch the uplift virus simply by being in the same room as an Enlightened. That is not true according to Haze. It’s elective. That means people choose to catch it. Well, it means they find an Uplifted willing to cut three lines into their wrist and rub his blood into the wounds.

After that, it is too late. You can’t change your mind if you want to. You have it, your children have it, their children have it. Germ-line manipulation, Haze says. Whatever the fuck that means. I am not sure what I’m expecting when an airlock opens to let us into Hekati’s hub, but a greeting party made up of a five-braid Enlightened in full-dress uniform, flanked by half a dozen Silver Fist guards, isn’t on my list.

This braid is as tall as I am.

Almost as broad too, but that is where the likeness ends. I don’t have fat tubes looping from my naked chest to my hip nor a dozen metal hoses criss-crossing my gut like veins. Mind you, he doesn’t have a prosthetic arm.

As the Enlightened turns, one of his braids scrapes against the leathery skin of his left shoulder. His eyes are shiny as glass. Perhaps five-braids have eyelids and perhaps not. Hard to say, because this one doesn’t blink. He just stands with his legs planted on the deck and his fingers tight round the handle of a heavy pistol.

For now it’s in his holster.

As I said, we are newly docked in Hekati’s central hub.

Take a huge wheel world, give it four spokes that join in the middle at a hub and we’re inside that. Our CO is frozen in the doorway. I don’t think he’s ever seen an Enlightened before. Certainly not close up.

Behind the five-braid stands a Silver Fist lieutenant. He has one of those faces that looks chiselled from granite and he likes the look. As I watch, his eyes flick to a screen to check his own reflection.

Their sergeant interests me.

He is broad, because sergeants mostly are. Doesn’t matter how often officers tell you they want NCOs with brain. Most officers want brawn and are happy to supply the brains themselves. Neen is the exception, he has brains and he’s not broad. Their sergeant is watching me.

He is puzzled. Since I’m one of life’s natural sergeants, he probably wants to know what I’m doing wearing the collar bars of a Death’s Head lieutenant. It’s a question I ask myself most mornings. Until I remember the answer.

My alternative was to be shot.

‘So,’ the braid says. ‘If you’d like to introduce yourselves?’ He is staring at Colonel Vijay when he says this.

When the colonel remains frozen, I answer for him.

‘Tveskoeg, Sven, lieutenant, 1028282839.’

The braid looks at me.

‘Name, rank and number,’ I say. ‘That’s all we’re giving.’

‘You’re not prisoners,’ says the five-braid. ‘You’re . . .’ He hesitates, thinking about it. Or maybe he is only pretending, because he’s nodding and all his men are leaning forward to catch what he will say.

‘Honoured guests.’

The Silver Fist sergeant has something like pity in his eyes. His sympathy doesn’t make me feel any better. As for the five-braid, he’s gesturing at a screen that shows our little craft hanging in space just beyond the edge of the hub. ‘Regard us as a necessary evil,’ he says. ‘If that helps.’

‘Name, rank and number,’ I tell the Aux. ‘Nothing else.’

The five-braid sighs.

‘Tveskoeg, Sven, lieutenant, Death’s Head . . .’ I begin to reel off the number tattooed on my wrist.

‘And you’re the colonel’s ADC?’

‘Tveskoeg, Sven, lieutenant . . .’

‘Sven,’ says the five-braid, ‘I’m not sure you’re listening.’

Being called Sven by a metalhead doesn’t help my patience any.

‘Colonel,’ the Enlightened says. ‘Perhaps you could . . .’

But, shocked solid by his first sight of a braid, Colonel Vijay isn’t listening either. Edging past him, I face our questioner.

To kill a braid you have to lock it down. That is one of the basic rules of combat. Otherwise, they flick dimensions. It’s hard to kill anything that keeps disappearing on you.

So I grab both sides of its head and dig my thumbs into its eyes, and keep gouging until they pop. Locking down a braid involves hurting it very hard and very fast.

Thought that would do it.

As their sergeant grabs his sidearm, Neen moves.

Jacking his pre-charge, Neen raises his own weapon but he’s a split second behind. Turns out not to matter, because a knife already sticks from the sergeant’s throat and his rifle is clattering to the deck.

Grinning, Franc rips her blade free and goes after a Silver Fist behind. Might be her speed that shocks the men. Or maybe it is the fact they’re dying.

‘ Sven! ‘ shouts Colonel Vijay.

I throw him my knife. ‘Behind you,’ I say.

Ducking away from a Silver Fist corporal, he fumbles the catch and hesitates as Neen lifts his gun.

‘No rifles,’ I shout.

Reversing his weapon, Neen clubs the corporal instead.

Vacuum lies beyond the hub walls. Maybe the bulkhead can survive a direct hit. But I don’t want to take that risk. We don’t need guns to kill these shits anyway. All we need is surprise, and I have given us that.

‘ Tveskoeg ,’ I announce, as my fist crushes the five-braid’s larynx. A knee to the balls doubles him over. ‘ Sven .’ I wrap one arm around his neck.

He’s dead before I even finish reciting my number.

Spitting dirt, Neen hammers a peg into rubble as a cold wind throws grit into his face. A yank of the cord and his pup tent rises, as its crossbars inflate to create the space he will share with Haze. Silver foil lines the inside to preserve body heat and the door has a double flap, which should help keep this bloody wind out.

My tent is up. Colonel Vijay is already in his.

The way he looks as he crawls inside to seal the flap against the rest of us, I wonder if he is ever coming out again. You can’t accuse a senior officer of cowardice, it’s insubordination. Well, you can. But you have to do it in private and then kill him afterwards.

He keeps looking at us, opening his mouth and then closing it again.

‘Shock,’ says Shil, sounding like she actually pities the useless little shit.