David Gunn - Day of the Damned

‘Sir,’ I say, ‘where are the bombers?’

The first thing you do with a defensive position is pound the fuck out of it. You destroy its occupants’ will to fight. If we’re not being bombed there’s a reason and I know what it is. Leona told me, I was just too stupid to realize.

‘No bombers,’ the Wolf agrees. So I ask his permission to speak freely.

‘Quickly would make more sense.’

Our rockets have destroyed half a dozen copters at most. As I watch, a goat tit on the walls lets rip, and another four rockets head skywards. An explosion of chaff sends three after false targets and the fourth misses, only to be blinded by more chaff as it loops back for a second run.

If the U/Free haven’t helped the Thomassi with their defences, then their luck is extraordinary. We’re already fighting a losing battle.

Most of the heavy copters are dropping their cargo, and the first new-model Tuskers are grinding their way up the spiral. I can almost taste the static of their engines and the slap of their tracks.

‘Sven,’ my SIG says. ‘You might want-’

‘Down,’ I order. When Aptitude doesn’t move, I grab her wrist and drag her to the deck. Vijay follows after. Not sure where Debro and Neen are, but he’d better be keeping her safe.

‘Stay down,’ I shout, when the colonel raises his head. ‘Sir.’

Banking, one of the combat copters screams over the H-pad, its guns spinning as bullets slap across our deck, churning up bitumen and cutting a mortar man in two. Small-arms fire follows it into the distance, and it chaffs the only rocket to come close.

‘Fuck,’ Aptitude says.

The deck around us is a mess of spilt blood, crouching men and spent cases from the copter’s chain gun.

‘I imagine,’ the SIG says, ‘it’ll be back for more.’

‘Sir,’ I tell General Luc, ‘you must take Colonel Vijay through the gate.’

The Wolf goes utterly still.

‘What gate would that be?’ he asks finally.

His words are so quiet only I can hear them. General Luc’s fingers are round the handle of his pistol, and he’s already flicked safety. Vijay Jaxx fidgets behind me, as the SIG switches clips with an over-loud click.

‘Of course,’ I say, ‘we’ll need the key.’

The general’s eyes widen at that. Slowly, so he can follow my movements, I undo the top two buttons on my shirt and tug free my dog tags.

‘Where did you get that?’

‘From a friend.’

The general laughs sourly. ‘Any other surprises?’

Battle is raging above us. It sounds as if the Wolf Brigade are using up their entire stock of missiles; but sometimes there’s no point saving ammunition for later, and I think we understand this is one of those times.

All the same, raging battle or not, I move slowly as I dip my hand into my jacket pocket and extract the planet buster, its top still open.

‘Fuck,’ General Luc says.

The first time I’ve heard him swear.

‘Sven,’ Colonel Vijay says, ‘you might want to disarm that.’

At his suggestion, I flip the lid shut, twist the enamel ring below the button and stand down the planet buster.

‘I take it you were planning to withdraw your parole?’

When I nod, the Wolf smiles.

Only three people on this planet know how a buster works, and two of them have forgotten, that’s what Leona told me. It involves what General Luc’s hex gate and the U/Free’s ships involve. A folding of space so things that exist on one plane exist on another as well. Or, in the case of my planet buster, stop existing at all.

‘Took it from the Uplifted,’ I say, in answer to his next question.

‘Never reported it?’

‘Kept it as an insurance policy.’

A simplification of the last few months of my life.

‘Sir,’ I say, ‘Paper doesn’t know this exists. So it must be the hex gate that stops them bombing the shit out of us.’

A dozen questions fight for air time. The first out of General Luc’s mouth is, ‘What’s Paper Osamu got to do with this?’

‘We were lovers, sir.’

Behind me, Shil stiffens.

‘You and the U/Free ambassador?’ General Luc’s disbelief is clear.

‘She has odd tastes.’

‘Obviously . . .’

‘Sir, most U/Free don’t know this is happening, because it isn’t officially. The few that do know have it worked out to the last bait and switch and box of glass beads.’

‘Don’t like them, do you?’

‘They think we’re savages.’ I shrug. ‘OK, so they’re right. All the same, this is wrong and those aren’t Thomassi’s forces out there.’

‘Those are X39s. Octovian planes.’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Octovian planes carrying Uplifted elite.’

The general considers my words. Then shakes his head so fiercely grey hair swirls around his shoulders. ‘Even Thomassi,’ he says. ‘Even Sebastian Thomassi wouldn’t . . .’

‘You think he was given a choice?’

For the first time since we met, I have the Wolf’s absolute attention. Missiles scream overhead and tanks growl their way round the mountain, while a spew of ‘chutes drop from gliders like lines of falling piss.

None of that matters for him.

‘Why not?’ he demands.

‘Because the U/Free will trick Thomassi as they tricked OctoV. They plan to fold us into the Enlightened, and nothing that Sebastian Thomassi, Colonel Vijay or you can do will change that. Unless we leave here now.’

He shakes his head, less forcefully.

Even if he wasn’t in on the planning – or was, and simply didn’t join in the attack – he knew about Thomassi’s plot to take down General Jaxx. He would know, he tells himself. Surely, he would know if the United Free were behind this?

I see doubt enter his grey eyes.

General Luc blinks. ‘What are you?’

‘Sven Tveskoeg, Lieutenant, Obsidian Cross, second class.’

My salute is abrupt enough to amuse Colonel Nswor and Major Whipple, who hover at the edge of our group.

‘Recently appointed ADC to OctoV’s chosen successor, His Imperial Majesty Vijay Jaxx, Duke of Farlight and new ruler of the Octovian Empire. To who you and your brigade owe loyalty.’

‘Whom,’ Aptitude says.

Her voice is as clear as the note of a bell.

It takes almost two hours to activate the hex gate. Well, thirty minutes to activate it and one and a bit hours to rip the gate free from where it’s been for the last five hundred years. Behind the picture of Major Wolf, which hides a bricked-up doorway.

Behind the door is a small room, filled with rubble, then another door, blocked in its turn. Major Wolf, Leona Zabo and their AI, Calinda, really wanted to keep the gate hidden.

‘If you’re lying . . .’

General Luc glares at me.

I nod, to show I understand. He knows I’m not lying.

OctoV, our glorious leader, the never defeated, whose very sweat was perfume to his subjects, told me that Colonel Jaxx was to be the new emperor.

Well, Leona did. But there’s no need to make things more complicated than necessary.

The Wolf has me repeat the bit about OctoV several times.

So I do. OctoV’s last order for the commander of his personal guard was that he transfer the Wolf Brigade’s loyalty to the new emperor.

‘He told you this when?’

‘A while ago,’ I tell General Luc.

I’m not about to say it was in the shadow of an oak tree, with OctoV’s avatar wrapping her arms around my neck. Any more than I am about to say I put a round through her head on his orders. Leona will remain an Aux in General Luc’s memory. If he remembers her at all.

Engineers with angle grinders and hammer drills cut their way through the first door and clear the rubble. Then they attack the final door, coughing at a cloud of dust thrown by burning stone and mortar.