Death's Head: Maximum Offence Read online

  ‘At Ilseville, sir,’ I tell him. ‘We all have.’

  Except you. Must see it in my eyes, because he turns away.

  Digging her own slot, Rachel rips up a couple of bushes to improve her cover and sweeps the area in front of her trench with twigs to rid it of footprints. When I give her a nod, she grins.

  I know less about Rachel than the others. She was raped after Ilseville. A few weeks later she killed her attacker. Other than that . . . ? She’s the best shot I’ve met, and her friendship with Haze gets stronger by the day.

  Maybe that’s all I need to know.

  A hand signal sends her to her trench. Another brings the Aux to me, gives them positions and tells them to take cover. Colonel Vijay accepts a position beside me.

  Time to wake my gun.

  ‘That’s—’ says the colonel.

  ‘Illegal technology? Yes, I know.’

  He hasn’t seen the SIG-37 close up before. Unfortunately, the SIG doesn’t think much of him either. ‘Who’s the—?’

  ‘Colonel Vijay. He’s leading this mission.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ says my gun. ‘You are. Jaxx said so. I was there, remember? Said he could rely on you to do the right thing.’

  The Aux are pretending not to listen.

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘he changed his mind.’

  Colonel Vijay is looking at me. ‘Jaxx?’ he says. ‘The general chose you for this mission?’

  ‘Yeah,’ says my gun. ‘Who chose you?’

  ‘Enough,’ I tell it.

  ‘Or what?’ it says. ‘You’ll turn me off thirty seconds before a battle?’

  Obviously, the SIG is looking forward to killing Silver Fist, because it decides to behave after all. Doesn’t even criticize my choice of ammunition. Although it flips clips the moment it thinks I’m not looking.

  ———

  Whatever sends the birds skywards is threatening enough to have a whole flock circling angrily. They are huge and ugly, with a cry as bleak as a baby being strangled. And there must be ten, if not fifteen of the bastards.

  It’s the fact I can’t see what has upset them that has me counting clips. Hollow-point, explosive, incendiary, flechette, over blast. A knife in my belt, a dagger in my boot, throwing spikes on one hip and a garrotte in the bottom of one pocket.

  Should keep me going for a while.

  ‘Check again,’ I demand.

  The SIG-37 does.

  After the gun finds nothing, I send Shil to fetch Haze, who is at the far end of our trench. I also tell her to keep her head down.

  She does as ordered. Whatever she says as she passes the others has them crouching lower.

  ‘Sir,’ says Haze.

  You know that look you get when a beautiful stranger walks into your favourite bar, and you know she is going to fuck you over and empty your wallet and leave you with a nasty infection and you still don’t care?

  Haze gets that look every time he sees my gun.

  And the scary bit is he doesn’t lust after the SIG because it can fire faster than anything in existence, burn sheet steel in cinder-maker mode, or blow out every eardrum on a whole bloody platoon with a single airburst.

  No, he lusts after its intelligence chip.

  ‘Here,’ I say. ‘Enjoy each other.’

  Fumbling his catch, Haze breaks sweat. He thinks AIs should be treated with respect. So does the SIG, that’s half my problem.

  ‘See those birds?’

  The raptors are settling now. This says whatever upset them stands between us and the thorn trees behind, and that brings us into their firing range.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Tell me what’s out there.’

  He glances at Colonel Vijay, looks back at me and bites his lip. We were going to hit this problem eventually. Why not deal with it now?

  ‘Haze is my intelligence officer.’

  ‘Your . . .’

  ‘Check with General Jaxx.’ We both know he can’t.

  ‘What are you saying?’ demands Colonel Vijay. The Aux think he’s angry. Given the way his gaze keeps flicking towards those thorn bushes, I think he’s scared.

  ‘Haze,’ I say, ‘take off your helmet.’

  ‘My God,’ the colonel says. ‘He’s . . .’

  ‘Yes, sir. You’re right. He is.’ Nodding at the river bed, I say to Haze, ‘Now we’ve got that over. Tell me.’

  Handing me back my gun, he flips open a pocket slab. Fingers move faster than my eyes can follow as he inputs line after line of headache-inducing numbers.

  ‘Fuck,’ says my gun.

  Then says it again. Only this time the SIG’s voice is louder. ‘Cancel,’ it says. ‘Don’t fucking retry . . .’

  ‘No,’ whispers Haze. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Haze . . .‘ the gun says, and then it’s too late.

  As the beginnings of a fit jerk Haze upright, Shil grabs him and drags him down, a split second ahead of a bullet whistling overhead. We have lost the element of surprise. As if that isn’t bad enough, Neen is tugging at my arm.

  ‘Sir,’ he says.

  Rachel is out of her foxhole and racing towards us. Raising the SIG, I aim at her.

  I don’t know what it is loaded with and don’t much care. Another step and I am going to kill her myself. ‘Get back to your fucking position.’

  Looking both ways, she flinches as an enemy shot whips past. It’s only hesitating that saves her life. When she hits the ground, it’s halfway between her foxhole and our own trench. She is still yelling Haze’s name, and I realize she believes the bullet took him down.

  On the slope ahead, a Silver Fist sniper appears.

  I’ve no idea how Haze is making him visible and no time to ask. Even if Haze was in a state to answer. Because I’m out of my trench and halfway to where Rachel sobs in the dirt.

  Grabbing her, I hurl her towards her position. Pick her up again, and toss her into the foxhole ahead of me.

  ‘Haze.’ A slap focuses her attention. Should leave it there, because the second slap puts her eyes out of focus again. ‘He’s alive,’ I tell her. ‘Unhurt . . . Now pick up your fucking rifle.’

  She grabs it.

  There are things you do in battle and things you don’t. Abandoning a position is one of the don’ts. Nodding at the opposite slope, I say, ‘Where would you hide?’

  Rachel looks puzzled.

  ‘Imagine you’re a fucking Silver Fist sniper and you want to protect infantry walking up that river bed. Where do you hide?’

  ‘Over there.’ She points. ‘In those rocks, just behind that bush.’

  She hesitates.

  ‘Sir, I’m . . .’

  ‘Lucky to be alive.’

  Death is the penalty for what she’s done.

  ‘Sight on that position,’ I tell her. ‘Fire when I give the order.’

  To her credit, Rachel doesn’t ask why. Working the bolt, she adjusts the sight for crosswind, steadies herself and becomes one with the gun. She has her eye to the scope, and I see her twist her head slightly, as if puzzled.

  ‘Something there,’ she says. ‘I mean, not really, but . . .’

  ‘Kill it,’ I say.

  The bullet leaves her barrel at 3800 fps and crosses the valley before her target has time to realize she’s fired; although it’s probably luck that gives Rachel a head shot. As the braid flips backwards, his camouflage blanket slips.

  And the Silver Fist open fire.

  They have a machine gun set up on the river bed. It’s spitting bullets so fast that they must have two Silver Fist working the belt. Or maybe it’s only one. Because thirty seconds in the gun jams. And my team give it everything they’ve got. Bushes explode, stones fly and a tree beside the river bed turns to wood chip a hand’s breadth above the gravel before toppling sideways.

  Whole clips empty in seconds.

  Nitrocellulose.

  If we had the supplies I’d let them burn off for the sheer hell of it. Instead, I jack the slide on my gun.

 
‘Oh yes,’ says the SIG.

  It has wanted to do this for days.

  Prefrag ceramic is messy but effective as fuck. Get caught by one and you become your own body weight in mince. Hiding behind something doesn’t help, hiding under something isn’t much better.

  I put an over blast above where I think the belt-fed is sited.

  ‘And again,’ my gun says. So I bracket a couple of shots forward and back.

  What looks like a piece of Silver Fist crawls towards our trench. If he had sense, he’d head in the other direction. As he crawls, more and more of him becomes visible. His camouflage blanket slipping free.

  ‘Head shot,’ I say. ‘Finish him.’

  Rachel does.

  ‘And the others.’

  Using her scope, she scans the river bed. Every thirty seconds or so she puts a shot into a whimpering sliver of someone. She does this so steadily my temper begins to improve. Until a bullet ricochets from the rock I’m hiding behind.

  ‘Another sniper,’ yells my gun.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Rachel. ‘We noticed.’

  After a second, she sticks her head above the foxhole and ducks as a second shot cracks overhead. ‘He’s good,’ she says.

  ‘If he was good,’ I tell her, ‘you’d be dead.’

  She looks at me.

  ‘Where is he?’ I demand.

  ‘On the right.’

  ‘Rachel . . . Where is he? ‘

  Sticking up her head, she takes another look. It is rolling sideways that saves her life, because the next bullet hits where she was.

  ‘Not sure, sir.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘This is how it’s going to work. I’m going to stand up and run for the trench. Their sniper is going to raise his head to take a shot and you’re going to blow it off for me.’

  ‘Sir,’ she says, ‘I can’t see him.’

  ‘He’s you,’ I tell her.

  That’s how this stuff works, I realize. You decide what you would do if you were the enemy and then you do it different, or you do it better. Can’t imagine why I didn’t grasp that before.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘You’re on.’

  Legs power me as I head for the trench below. A slug raises dust behind me, another hits the slope ahead. I’m throwing myself from side to side, which slows me down but makes me harder to hit. A hundred paces, seventy paces . . .

  Fuck, I think, how much longer is she going to leave it?

  And then it occurs to me Rachel can solve all her problems by doing nothing. Only she’s Aux, and she wouldn’t do that, would she? My answer comes in a single shot from behind.

  After that, it is just cleaning up.

  Chapter 16

  ‘YOU KNOW WHY THIS IS NECESSARY?’

  Rachel nods, and I am glad. She doesn’t have to think it justice; she doesn’t have to think it right. She just has to understand why. If she doesn’t, the punishment is worthless. ‘Sir,’ she says. ‘May I say goodbye to Haze first?’

  That is when I realize she thinks I’m following Colonel Vijay’s orders. He wants her shot. Too bad. I wanted a Silver Fist prisoner.

  Neither of us is going to get what we wanted.

  ‘Rachel,’ I say, ‘it’s a whipping.’

  Relief floods her eyes.

  And that tells me she’s never been whipped, at least not properly. I have, and shooting is preferable. Five lashes shreds muscle from your back, and ten reveals glistening ribs. Fifteen can kill and, if it doesn’t, twenty will. As deaths go, the whipping post is a damn sight less clean than a bullet.

  But we are not talking about a bull-hide whip here.

  ‘You have a knife?’

  She nods, tears in her eyes.

  It’s the relief, I realize. She’s up here expecting to be shot. That means the rest of them, waiting in a sullen little knot below, probably expect the same.

  ‘Show me your belt . . .’

  Pulling it through the loops on her uniform trousers, she hands it to me. The leather is new and stiff in places, but I’ve seen worse. So I show her how to cut a cat’s tail and tell her I expect there to be at least ten more when I next see the belt.

  She has an hour to cut the others and return.

  I will be waiting up here on this slope. Three valleys up from the one where we fought the Silver Fist.

  ‘You going through with this?’ demands the SIG.

  I nod, which it picks up.

  ‘They’re going to hate you.’

  ‘No, they’re not.’

  ‘And you don’t care if they do?’

  ‘Not really.’

  When the SIG realizes I’m refusing to rise to the bait, it lets me field-strip it with bad grace. There are thirty-seven separate pieces, but only one way to break the gun down and put it back together. My quickest is one minute ten, and I’m aiming for under a minute before Rachel returns.

  We’re down to fifty-five seconds when I hear a scuffle of boots on the gravel. She’s taken fifteen minutes to do a job hardened troopers will take the best part of a day over, if allowed.

  Mind you, they know the results of getting it wrong.

  ‘Show me.’

  She hands me the cat.

  Too heavy and the lashes will cut to the bone, too light and they will lift whole patches of skin. ‘Anyone help you?’

  Rachel shakes her head.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

  She doesn’t beg and she doesn’t hesitate. Just takes back her whip and follows me down the slope. Neen has the Aux lined up at the bottom. Their combat jackets are brushed down, their pockets fastened.

  Colonel Vijay stands to one side, scowling.

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Give the whip to Haze.’

  ‘Bastard,’ says my gun, but says it quietly.

  We are dealing with half a dozen issues here and I don’t have time for each in turn. I’m going to get them all over at once. Leading her to a rock, Haze waits for Rachel to remove her jacket, then leans her face-down on the rock’s hot surface and lifts the back of her shirt to her shoulders.

  ‘Five,’ I tell him.

  It’s less than he expects.

  ‘Lay them on properly. Or I will.’

  He is looking inwards, wondering if he caused this. We both know the answer to that. Haze didn’t cause it but he didn’t help either.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  Lifting her head, Rachel nods.

  ‘Hold her by the wrists,’ I tell Neen and Franc. Looking at Shil, I say, ‘And you count the lashes.’

  Everyone has a part in this. That’s the point.

  Slashing the belt into Rachel’s back, Haze winces. It is hard for a first stroke, but he’s afraid I will take over if he doesn’t do it properly.

  ‘One,’ says Shil.

  The second draws blood, for all that it is softer.

  A third breaks her silence, but I decide she will make five without screaming. I’m right: she gasps at the third, gasps louder at the fourth and sobs with the fifth, but we are done.

  ‘Bring her here.’

  Neen and Franc are wondering whether to dress her.

  ‘Now,’ I order. Can’t believe anyone’s that stupid. Pull her shirt down over that and Rachel will be peeling cloth from half-healed flesh for the next week and that will make her scream.

  Putting a hand under each elbow, Neen and Franc walk her across.

  It takes Rachel a second to focus.

  ‘Now listen,’ I say.

  She does.

  ‘I don’t give a fuck how things were done before. We’re the Aux. We never abandon our posts. We stand. And, if necessary, we die. Understand?’

  Rachel nods.

  ‘Good,’ I say.

  Undoing my jacket, I remove the Obsidian Cross I’ve been keeping inside my shirt. ‘For killing two snipers in near impossible conditions I award you the Obsidian Cross, second class. Wear it with pride.’ Kissing her on both cheeks, I hang the cross on its ribbon around Rachel’s neck and stand ba
ck.

  A moment later, the others join me in saluting her.

  Chapter 17

  A WARM WIND BLOWS ACROSS A NARROW UPLAND LAKE THAT smells of salt. Until three months ago, I’d never even seen a proper lake. But then, until a year ago all I knew was desert and forts and battles against the ferox. It’s been two days since we fought the Silver Fist, and five hours since we made camp high on the edge of a mountain.

  Franc and I stand guard.

  Except we sit. Somehow, I end up telling her about losing my arm. It is a simple enough story. My arm was ripped off by eight foot of fur and fangs. If the ferox hadn’t been dying, it would probably have taken my other arm and both my legs as well.

  I took the beast’s head and left my arm.

  Seems a fair trade to me.

  Franc laughs when I say this, though I’m not sure why. Then I see it, or at least I think I do. A light skimming high in the sky above us.

  At its fattest point, Hekati’s ring, in a cross section, is eighteen miles from side to side. Most of the ballast beneath our feet, including the mountain on this side and the rubble under that, exists to provide radiation shielding. That still leaves several miles of air above us, before you hit the chevron glass overhead.

  ‘What?’ Franc says.

  ‘He’s glitching,’ says the SIG.

  I ignore it. ‘Up there,’ I tell Franc.

  She scans the night sky. ‘A shooting star?’

  ‘Wrong side of the glass.’

  As I stand, the single light becomes two. I keep watching, just in case it splits again, and when both lights begin to drop, I yank Franc upright. ‘Get Neen and tell him to catch up with me.’

  I head downhill before she can reply.

  ‘Suppose Vijay gets them killed?’ demands my gun. ‘Not that I give a fuck, obviously.’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Neen won’t allow it.’

  If you want to build your leg muscles, spend fifteen years marching on sand. Running over rock is nothing after that. Withered trees slip by. A stone wall appears, the first sign of civilization. A dog barks from a hut below. Only the hut and dog and slope are now somewhere behind me.

  The two lights are closer now. Still falling, faster than I would expect.

  Flicking up the screen on my helmet loses them. Flipping it down brings them back. Their heat signature is tiny. Most of the energy transfer is happening beyond the visible bands. Shit, I think. Where did that thought come from? ‘Where do you think?’ asks my gun.