David Gunn - Maximum Offence

Only I know what I’m doing.

I’m obeying orders, more or less. And using my initiative. Even a general like Jaxx can hardly ask for more. Although he will. Generals always do.

‘Tveskoeg,’ he says. ‘I thought you were dead . . .’

‘Not here,’ I tell him. ‘And not yet.’ I end explaining that’s an Aux saying, and we’re sticking with it.

‘Aux,’ he says thoughtfully. ‘That’s your little group, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘How long have you been together?’

I admit it’s only a matter of months. And he laughs at the idea of us having traditions, then decides it is not a laughing matter after all. Seems he’s recently taken a call from Paper Osamu. She regretted to announce I had been killed in a tragic accident. When I ask where, the general names a planet three systems away from here. I was on safari, a guest of a well-known anthropologist.

After telling me what anthropologist means, General Jaxx admits he did find it unlikely. ‘So where are you?’ he says. ‘And what’s with that absurd arm?’

‘Combat issue,’ I tell him. ‘Killed a couple of Vals with it.’

‘Did you now?’ he says.

‘Yes, sir. Got their implants in a jar. Intend to ship them back to Val Central if I get the chance. Feel we owe them that.’

‘And you’re where now?’

On a mining tug, floating in space, off the edge of a dead habitat. Where the fuck do you think we are? I don’t say it, obviously. But something about his question worries me.

Of course, the fact I’m talking to General Jaxx at all should worry me. Any general is dangerous. A Death’s Head general takes danger to new heights. And Jaxx commands the other generals. If half the things said about him are true, you could float entire planets in the blood he has spilt.

Life was simpler in the Legion. Only I’m not in the Legion any more.

‘Sir,’ I say. ‘Did Paper Osamu say why she wanted us? I mean originally, when the U/Free first borrowed the Aux?’ This is big-picture stuff, not something a lieutenant should ask a general. I know that, even before General Jaxx scowls.

He’s about to break the connection.

‘All I’m asking,’ I say, ‘is, was the job legit?’

The general looks puzzled.

‘It was one job, right?’

‘Right, sir .’

I ignore him. What’s he going to do?

‘One job, that’s right?’

His nod is slight. He seems to be watching, and I can see his eyes focus on something behind me. It’s probably one of the safety signs. Our tub is littered with them: although I can’t see the point. Anyone who doesn’t understand that explosives go bang or stepping into space without a suit kills is too stupid to be alive in the first place.

‘Sven,’ he says, ‘where are you?’

‘In a Z-class mining tug.’

He sighs. ‘I don’t want to know, do I?’

‘Sir,’ I say, surprising myself. ‘What was the job?’

The general glances out of screen, stands up and disappears. When he gets back, he’s clutching a floating lenz. This says some interesting things about his sex life. Although who am I kidding? I’d probably record my own, if I could afford the kit.

‘Capture or kill,’ he says. ‘You already know the target.’

Except I don’t, or maybe I do . . . One of us is in for a shock, and it is probably him. And since generals don’t like shocks, and I don’t like floating around in space miles from home, I am going to have to be careful how I word this.

‘Did you know about the party?’

‘On arrival?’ He nods, his smile mocking. ‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘We heard all about your party. Quite the social animal.’

‘And did you hear about the person I killed?’

He goes still.

‘Sven,’ he says. ‘No one died at that party.’

‘They didn’t?’

‘No,’ he says firmly. ‘They didn’t. There was, however, a tragic accident later that evening. As you know-’ He catches himself. ‘Well, maybe you don’t.’

General Jaxx shakes his head.

‘Oregon Marx, the U/Free president,’ he says. ‘Died in a fall. You had nothing to do with that . . .’

‘I didn’t?’

Turns out the general isn’t telling me. It’s a question. ‘Sven,’ he says. ‘Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with that.’

‘ I didn’t have anything to do with that .’

He sucks his teeth. Now generals don’t suck their teeth. Militia troopers suck their teeth. And then he looks at the lenz, checking it really is turned off. And he flips open a pad to pass his fingers across the top.

‘This line,’ he says.

‘Is secure . . . Haze set it up,’ I add, when the general looks doubtful.

‘Your pet Enlightened?’

‘Yes.’ I had forgotten he knew about that.

‘That party,’ he says. ‘Nothing happened.’

‘No, sir.’

‘You understand?’

‘Completely, sir,’ I say. ‘At that party Paper Osamu’s grandfather didn’t ask me to kill the president . . .’

The general shuts his eyes.

‘What about Hekati, sir . . . ? Also the general and the mother ship. What’s our position on those?’

He looks up from under half-open eyelids. And I’ve seen cats torturing half-dead mice look cuddlier. ‘ Hekati ,’ he says. ‘ The general . . . Mother ship .’ A space is left between each item.

‘Yes, sir,’ I say. ‘What’s our position on those?’

‘Sven,’ he says. ‘There is no our . . . I’m here; you’re floating in a tin can somewhere. And this conversation is over.’

‘I know about the Ninth.’

General Jaxx halts, his hand an inch away from a switch that will shut me off and leave me floating out here. Because I have just realized something. The U/Free think we’re dead. So they’re not going to come racing out here to collect us either. But someone might find us, and he is not sure he can take that risk.

‘Where are the others?’ he asks me.

‘In the airlock, sir.’

The general looks at me, very strangely.

‘What are they doing in the airlock?’

‘Waiting, sir. I locked them all in there. Didn’t want them overhearing this conversation.’

General Jaxx sweeps his hand back across his skull, and then discreetly wipes his hand on his uniform trousers. Buttoning his shirt, he tucks it in and stands up to put on his jacket.

‘If I tell you to dump them all into space?’

‘Then I pull the lever, sir.’

‘I believe you would.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He sighs. ‘You have no notion,’ he says, ‘how tempting I find that idea.’ Sitting down again, he leans forward. ‘This was a simple mission, Sven. A basic infiltrate and terminate. Sounds to me like you messed up.’

Thinking back over the past three weeks, I can see how he might think that.

‘What are your casualties?’

‘Franc, sir.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What about enemy losses?’

‘Don’t know, sir.’

He must hear something in my voice, because he leans closer to the lenz. ‘Sven,’ he says, ‘give me a figure.’

I shake my head, but it is not insolence. I really don’t know. ‘How many people are there on a mother ship, sir?’

He sits back. ‘You destroyed a mother ship?’

‘Yes, sir. It killed Hekati-’ I hesitate. ‘Well, it wounded Hekati.’ My mouth tastes sour with the recollection. It will be a while before I scrub the habitat’s dying scream from my memory. ‘The mother ship split,’ I tell him. ‘Birthed a cruiser.’

‘We’re talking about Victory First Last and Always ?’

What does he think we’re talking about? That’s the problem with senior officers. They’re too busy thinking about half a dozen other things to listen to what is being said.