David Gunn - Maximum Offence

‘SIG,’ I say. ‘You can deal with it, right?’

‘What, you think I’m fucking human? Of course I can deal with it.’ The SIG’s enjoying itself, you can always tell.

‘You,’ I say to Shil. ‘Wait here until all hell breaks loose. Then drag Haze to the escape deck. If you can’t do that, head for the level below. We’ll find you on our way up.’

‘Yes, sir.’

I toss her a grenade. ‘Take this. You might need it.’

She nods, gratefully.

‘And Shil.’ Must be something in my tone that makes her glance up and then look away.

‘Sir?’

‘That night you were captured . . .’

She wants to wave away what I’m going to say, because she thinks I’m apologizing. She’s wrong. ‘You shouldn’t have come back for me. You should have retreated when I gave you the order. Next time you do as you’re told.’

Shil scowls at me.

‘Understand?’

‘Yes, sir. Understand, sir.’

‘What do you understand?’

‘Next time someone wants to kill you, sir, I’m to let them.’

I hear the first guard’s neck break. Unfortunately, so does everyone else, it echoes so loudly off the walls of a corridor. Scrabbling at his holster, the second guard takes a spike under his chin. I don’t even bother to throw, just flip the spike and ram. Slapping it with the heel of my hand makes the entire thing disappear.

As the second guard goes cross-eyed, the guard beyond him acquires a neat hole in his forehead. There’s no splatter pattern of blood or spilt brains on the bulkhead behind, and I am impressed.

See, the SIG can do silent when it tries.

The fourth man does what the first, second and third should have done. He dives for an emergency button on the wall. He doesn’t reach it. Entering the guard’s eye, the subsonic bullet bounces around inside his skull, pulping memories. ‘And for my next trick,’ the SIG says.

A ceiling lenz glitches, giving me time to drag the bodies into a nearby elevator and punch a button for fifty floors below. As the doors close on them, I check the corridor both ways. A sign on the wall beside the elevators reads This floor: NCOs only . I’m already trying one of the dorms.

Rolling over, a trooper spots my officer’s uniform in the light coming from behind me and decides faking sleep is a good choice. Makes me wonder what goes on around here. Three other dorms pass in quick succession. And I’m opening a fifth door when someone grabs me.

Neen has his knife under my chin.

I have the SIG under his.

‘How sweet,’ my gun says.

‘ Sir . . . ‘

‘Shut it,’ I say.

Franc, Rachel and Emil wait in the half dark behind him. A couple of guards lie dead behind them. And a dozen beds lie empty beyond, no sheets or blankets, just mattresses. Looks like they are being kept in isolation.

Jerking my thumb at Emil, I say, ‘Behaving?’

Neen nods. ‘Perfectly, sir.’

‘Betray us,’ I tell Trooper Emil, ‘and it’ll be the last thing you do.’

‘That’s great to see you too ,’ says my gun, in case our newest recruit isn’t good at translating.

‘Sir,’ says Neen. ‘Question?’

‘What?’

‘Where are the others?’

I’m impressed he includes Vijay and Haze and doesn’t just ask about Shil. But then I spot the worry in Rachel’s eyes and know he is asking on her behalf as well, because she doesn’t quite dare.

‘First point,’ I say. ‘Shil’s absolutely fine.’

Franc flicks me a glance I’m not meant to see. I know that much when she bites her lip. Seems best to ignore it. ‘Haze had a turn. They’re both waiting above. Not sure about Vijay.’ Have to stop myself from calling him the colonel .

Haze’s being scanned has me worried.

The five-braid’s dead, General Tournier doesn’t yet have that level of power, the ship’s AI might be clever, but no more so than the SIG-37 . . . Who does that leave to do the scanning? Only an Uplifted. All flashing lights, memory crystal and arrogance. Or a higher-ranking Enlightened than the one we killed.

Has to be a braid , I think.

‘Sir,’ says Rachel. She sounds worried.

More time has passed than I was aware of. We’re in a different corridor. Actually, we’re not in a corridor at all. We’re about to finish climbing a flight of emergency stairs. Senior Officers Only , says a sign.

Been here before, I think, opening a door. In a tight gap, on the other side, wait Haze and Shil.

‘You . . . ?’ asks Neen.

‘Yeah,’ Shil says. ‘I’m fine.’

That is the extent of their conversation.

Although he wraps one arm briefly round her shoulder when he thinks we’re not looking. And she flicks him the kind of smile that says, quit fussing .

The internal emergency doors in Victory First have portholes. That’s one difference between Enlightened and Octovian ships. No way would General Jaxx let anyone ruin his immaculate matt-black doors. Also, Enlightened doorways double as airlocks, all of them.

A door, a space deep enough to take six people, then another door. Heavy bolts are fixed above and below each one, ready to lock it down.

‘Modular, sir,’ says Haze.

‘What?’ I look at him.

‘This whole ship,’ he says. ‘Each section is a mirror of a bigger section. Boxes inside boxes. The design reflects Uplift theories of the hive.’

I’ll take his word for it.

Using a porthole, Neen checks the corridor beyond.

It’s empty in one direction. In the other, two guards wait outside General Tournier’s cabin. As he watches, two guards become four. A Silver Fist nods, another laughs. And then the first two head towards a bank of elevators.

‘Changing shifts,’ Neen whispers.

We wait some more.

A few minutes later Rachel blunders through the outer emergency door, and stares around her. She does a good impression of a woman lost. Also drunk, and slightly dishevelled. Shaking out her hair, she turns back and both guards take the bait.

‘Wait,’ says one.

‘No way,’ Rachel gives another shake. ‘Wrong floor.’ She looks at the expensive carpet. ‘Very definitely the wrong floor.’

‘Where do you want to be?’

‘On a water bed,’ says Rachel. ‘In a hotel overlooking a blue lagoon. With flying fish breaking through the waves and a double sun rising and setting.’

Who knew she could be so poetic?

‘You and me both,’ says one of the Silver Fist.

To follow Rachel through the door is a misdemeanour in anybody’s army; although being on a charge is the least of his worries. Yanking him inside, Franc stabs him through the heart and kicks his twitching body down the stairs. It tumbles as far as a half-landing and jams against a bulkhead.

‘What was that?’

Rachel returns to the corridor.

‘What?’ she asks, walking towards the second guard. ‘What was what?’ Her knife takes him under his chin and enters his brain. The smile she gives Franc when the rest of us reach her makes me glad she is on my side.

‘On my count,’ I tell Neen. ‘Five . . . four . . .’

When I hit zero, Neen turns the handle and I kick open the general’s door, sliding myself inside, gun combat-ready. Staff officers look up, and the general spins round; over in one corner Vijay’s eyes widen.

He’s holding a glass. As is almost every other officer in that room.

‘Entering emergency shut-down,’ announces my gun.

The SIG-37 and I really need to talk about this. It’s as irritating as its bloody whirring, and several times more inconvenient. ‘ Don’t you fucking . . . ‘