Death's Head: Maximum Offence Read online

  ‘U/Free orders,’ it says.

  ‘What - pimp my gun?’

  ‘Not that,’ it says bitterly. ‘Take a proper look.’

  The cinder-maker capacity is gone. Some idiot’s taken the world’s first fully intelligent pulse pistol, with advanced AI and battle-precognition capabilities and reconfigured it as something a fifteen-year-old gangbanger would be ashamed to carry.

  In the bottom of the box is a holster.

  Black leather, silver buckle. A full-dress dagger sits under that, its pommel a skull. Slamming the SIG into its new holster, I ignore the fact it’s now sulking, and say, ‘Let’s get this over with.’

  We change on the spot. I have a reason for this.

  I want to see Franc naked, just not that way. She’s fit, thigh muscles sliding over each other as she moves. From her cropped skull to the gash of her sex, she still lacks body hair, but I am right about one thing. Her scars are gone.

  Seeing me look, Franc turns her back.

  ‘You plan to redo them?’

  When she doesn’t answer, I twist her round so fast she almost trips. The others go still. They’re wise.

  ‘Well?’ I say.

  Scared eyes meet mine.

  Franc can remember me killing her. She can remember dying at the bottom of a bleak cliff on some shitty little planet, half gutted by a creature whose ancestors used to be human.

  Then she wakes here. In a place she doesn’t recognize.

  ‘Say it.’

  ‘Sir,’ she says. ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘For what? ‘

  She flicks her gaze around the room, before settling it on me. Her eyes are dark, her face gaunt. I can tell how badly she wants to look away. ‘I didn’t mean to let everyone down.’

  ‘You didn’t—‘

  Then I get it. She is ashamed of being killed.

  ‘See that,’ I say, pointing to a scar on my ribs. ‘Should have finished me. And that,’ I point to my gut. ‘Hurt so much I wished it fucking had. And this . . .’ I tap my prosthetic arm, making it ring. ‘Got ripped off by a ferox.’

  She knows that.

  ‘You don’t survive shit like that. Not normally. Only I mend fast. You don’t. So get yourself dressed and go party.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Naked, but happier, she salutes.

  Chapter 9

  WE STOP THE SKY BRIDGE AND GIVE IT AN ADDRESS. THERE IS a slight ripple before the bridge begins to move. Five buildings later, the bridge drops to level ten and creates a door in an outside wall ahead of us. We’re impressed. We’re meant to be impressed.

  ‘Welcome to tonight’s soirée,’ says the bridge.

  Haze snorts, but then he is the only one to know what it means.

  On the far side of the door we find a bedroom, leading to living quarters, with an exit onto the walkway beyond. The rails around the walkway are missing, and a dance floor floats in the triangular space where emptiness should be.

  This is a small and private gathering it seems.

  A dozen U/Free turn to watch us, and then a dozen more. By the time I realize the floor’s floating, and we’re expected to step across the gap from walkway to floor, a hundred people are watching.

  And you’ve never seen anything like them.

  Well, I haven’t.

  They’re tall, they’re elegant, and they’re beautiful. A hundred white smiles, a hundred displays of perfect teeth. They’re all holding glasses, and sipping chilled white wine.

  ‘Fuckers,’ says my gun. It speaks for us all.

  ‘Sven,’ says a voice from the crowd. ‘How sweet of you to come.’ Paper Osamu’s words ooze warmth. ‘And your friends as well.’ She smiles broadly.

  Like we had a choice.

  ‘I’m sure you need a drink,’ she says.

  A waitress appears, wearing a skirt slit to her thigh, with a top tight enough to squeeze her breasts while open enough to reveal their valley. She bows when I take a glass, and the valley gets a whole lot deeper.

  Laughing, Paper Osamu says, ‘Come on. There are far more interesting people to meet.’

  Morgan is talking to a blonde in a shirt so thin it’s see-through. She has nipples like bullets and the tits of a teenage whore, all four of them. She also has pale blue eyes, and these belong to a woman old enough to be my great-grandmother. As her gaze sweeps down my uniform it rests a little too long on the zip.

  ‘So,’ she says. ‘This is him?’

  Paper nods.

  The woman smiles. ‘If you’re interested,’ she says, ‘we might try a threesome?’ She’s talking to me this time.

  ‘Maybe later.’

  As I am herded away, Paper leans close. ‘I’m impressed,’ she whispers. ‘That was almost polite for you.’

  ‘I meant it.’

  She frowns, and then decides I’m joking.

  The first hour goes well enough. People talk, I pretend to listen. The waitress with the split skirt and overflowing breasts becomes my shadow. Every time my glass is empty, she fills it from a bottle that looks full.

  Her smile gets wider as the night goes on.

  Just as I am about to ask what time she gets off, a scowl fills her face and she fades into the crowd, taking the champagne with her. So I turn, none too happy, and find myself staring at an elegant young man with blond hair and high cheekbones. Little more than a boy, really.

  He nods, the slightest dip of his head.

  So I inspect him the way I’d inspect a trooper back when I was a sergeant. A wispy beard, one of those little fair ones. Teeth that gleam. A narrow waist, and shoulders padded to make them broader. He’s thin and elegant, and he is rotating his fluted wine glass by its narrow stem, lazily.

  I hate him on sight.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sven Tveskoeg?’ The fact he drawls my name should be warning enough, but I’m not big on warnings.

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  Drawing himself to his full height, the boy sweeps back his cloak.

  ‘Fuck . . .‘

  Well, what am I supposed to say?

  He wears the dress uniform of a Death’s Head colonel. And it’s the real thing: with a double loop of silver braid falling from one shoulder, and an impressive row of battle ribbons. An Obsidian Cross hangs at his neck. First class, obviously. Actually, it’s the one above: with a little crown and a spray of oak leaves.

  ‘Colonel Vijay,’ he says. ‘I’ll be leading this mission.’

  ‘You’ll be . . . ? ‘

  ‘Leading this mission.’

  He says it loud enough to make a woman next to us turn. Maybe Colonel Vijay has been told to expect an argument. But he’s a senior officer and I’m a lieutenant, and I should have known something like this would happen.

  ‘Of course you will, sir . . . What mission would that be?’

  ‘To rescue the missing U/Free.’

  ‘Missing U/Free, sir?’

  ‘Captured, Ms Osamu believes. By some god-awful little local militia. We’re going to get him back.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I say. ‘Of course we are, sir.’

  Imagine a steel spring uncoiling. That is how fast I salute. It’s so fast, so faultless I might as well have slapped his face.

  Can I help if he flinches? Rules are rules, so I hold my salute until he returns it.

  ‘Enough,’ he tells me. ‘We’re off duty here.’

  ‘Are we, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘We are . . . And providing you follow my orders I’m sure we’ll get on.’

  ‘Never disobeyed an order in my life, sir.’

  The little idiot believes me.

  A flash of red under his collar badges tells me he is a staff officer, and that makes me take a closer look at those battle ribbons. One of them is for a campaign fought five years ago. This would make him what? Sixteen at the time? Fifteen?

  Then I see Ilseville. It is the medal ribbon we have.

  The only one we have.

  I was there . . . Might have mentioned that bef
ore. I can name every Octovian officer, NCO or trooper who stumbled away from that city alive. God knows, there aren’t many of us. ‘Ilseville?’ I say it without thinking.

  His eyes narrow. ‘I helped with the planning.’

  Stepping closer, I put my face near his.

  ‘It was a fuck-up,’ I say, keeping my voice low. ‘A disaster. You know the casualty rate? As close to a hundred per cent as makes no difference.’

  ‘You survived.’ There is something bitter in his voice.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘No thanks to shits like you.’

  ‘What did you say? ‘

  ‘No thanks to HQ, sir.’

  ‘It was a victory,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘To suggest otherwise is treason.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Glorious, wasn’t it? Makes me wonder about all those other victories we keep winning.’

  Turning on his heel, he begins to stalk towards my troopers and then changes his mind. The next time I see our little colonel, he is laughing with Morgan and the blonde with four tits and thousand-mile eyes.

  Strikes me, they are made for one another.

  It is a long night and I lose the Aux somewhere down the line. Although I glimpse Colonel Vijay, with a glass of wine. The woman he’s talking to has her face close to his, and they are agreeing about something, strongly from the look of it.

  ‘I had no idea,’ she tells me later.

  ‘What?’ I demand.

  ‘That Octovians . . .’

  Can hold their drink? Don’t fart in public? As she struggles with words I’m not interested in hearing, I wonder if it is a good idea for her to stand like that on a mirrored floor when she has clearly forgotten her knickers.

  Who knows what she’s trying to say?

  The woman hesitates. ‘Are so cultured,’ she says finally.

  ‘Not all of us.’

  She laughs, tells me she wants to introduce me to a friend.

  His name is Obsidian, and he’s Paper’s grandfather. Looking at him, I can’t see a likeness. Unless it is his eyes. They are narrow, slightly almond in shape and cold as ice. His smile is equally chilly. ‘Sven,’ he says. ‘I’ve heard interesting things about you.’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve heard of you.’

  Obsidian Osamu tells me I’m part of an important mission. A chance . . . A rare, unmissable chance — their president thinks — for the U/Free to integrate with galactic society. He keeps an utterly straight face as he says this. I’m really hoping he doesn’t expect me to believe it. Even the U/Free can’t think we’re that stupid.

  ‘But first,’ he says, ‘a small favour.’

  The request obviously means more to him than it does to me, because his voice trembles as he tells me what it is. Don’t think I have seen a U/Free nervous before. I file the fact away for later.

  ‘You’ll do it?’

  Looking round the room, I say, ‘Way I feel now it would be a pleasure.’ It’s not the answer he’s expecting.

  ———

  The cubicle walls are marble, the floor is warm and the lighting inside the cubicle so subtle it’s impossible to tell where it comes from. But it is the seashell in a little tray on the wall that interests me. What the fuck is that about?

  Crumbling it between my fingers, I discover it’s real.

  When I look back another replaces the one I took. So I smash that and keep watching. A third shell appears — and I mean appears — it doesn’t drop down or slide out. It simply appears.

  This time when I take the shell, I don’t break it.

  Comparing the third and fourth tells me each shell is different. I’m still not sure why they are there. I mean, all anyone comes in here to do is piss or take a shit. Flushing the pan, I wash my fingers and dry them on the seat of my trousers.

  There’s nothing else to use.

  A door opens in the restroom beyond.

  Someone pees, water runs. That’s my cue to get myself out there. At the basin, a U/Free looks up. He is old, examining his face carefully in the glass as if he’s never seen it before.

  Seeing a stranger behind him, he scowls. Then remembers his manners and forces a smile. I don’t know his name. But I know he has been watching us all evening.

  ‘So,’ he says. ‘You’re off to mend bridges . . .’

  The coy way he says this irritates me. Also, I don’t have the faintest idea what he’s talking about and that irritates me even more. He takes my grunt as an invitation to keep boring me. Meanwhile, I’m thinking mend bridges? Blowing them up is more my style.

  ‘What bridges?’ I demand, when he finishes.

  ‘Well . . . Maybe it’s more accurate to say you’re setting off on the final part of a vital search.’

  ‘Really?’ I say. ‘And what am I meant to be searching for?’ That poncy little colonel said something about a missing observer. However, I’d like it confirmed by one of the U/Free.

  ‘What we’re all searching for. He looks at me expectantly. ‘Peace,’ he says. ‘Resolution to deep divisions. What else is there . . . ?’

  The man turns to go.

  ‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Tell me more about Hekati.’

  Looking from my face to the way my hand now grips the edge of a sink, he sighs, ‘You’re drunk. Ask Paper about it in the morning.’

  ‘Not that drunk,’ I say.

  He has just realized something.

  I’m holding a dagger. It’s small and light and made of glass. And if I concentrate hard, I can remember the dampness of Lisa’s thigh as I took its sister from her garter. The man knows he’s about to be hurt. He knows it’s possible he will die. What he doesn’t know is his next death is going to be his last.

  That is what the U/Free fear.

  Paper Osamu told me this three months ago. She was doing that deprecating, we’re-also-human thing the United Free do when trying to pretend they don’t believe they are better than everyone else.

  ‘You can’t—’ he begins to say.

  I can, and do. Stabbing hard and fast. ‘Say goodnight to your memories.’

  His implant is where you would expect. At the back of his neck, just below the curve of his skull. It is very cross when I rip it free. Slicing away the last tendril, I crush the ‘biont underfoot and flush it. Pulpy threads wriggle as they spin round the pan, but that is just aftershock. Having flushed the man’s memories, I am left with his body.

  Leave it, Paper’s grandfather said. We’ll handle that bit.

  An interesting moral code. Unwilling to kill, happy to mop up the floor afterwards.

  Taking the man’s watch, a handful of gold coins and a diamond ring, I leave him a little pearl-handled knife and the medal round his neck. The coins go in our kitty, the watch I’ll keep, and Franc can have the ring.

  ‘Where have you been?’ asks Colonel Vijay.

  ‘Taking a shit.’

  He scowls.

  Across the room Haze laughs, looking better than I have seen him in a while. As far as I know, he hasn’t vomited all evening. Like the nosebleeds, it is a reaction to the Uplift virus. They are going to stop sometime. Unfortunately, no one can tell us when.

  Rachel’s still fretting that his head hurts. But as Haze points out, if she had metal growing through her skull her head would hurt too.

  ‘She stays here,’ Colonel Vijay says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘And the other two. You must know women are a liability in battle.’ He speaks with the absolute authority of someone who has never been near a battle in his life.

  ‘They’re Aux,’ I tell him.

  The colonel stares at me.

  So I add, sir. But that’s to annoy the U/Free. Paper’s just been telling Neen that she does not approve of hierarchies. Of course, she has to tell him what they are, before she can tell him why she doesn’t like them.

  ‘Paper,’ I say.

  She inclines her head.

  ‘You asked for the Aux, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Paper Osamu nods. ‘You know we did.’<
br />
  ‘That’s us,’ I tell Colonel Vijay. ‘All of us.’ Saluting, I step back, and it is my turn to spin on my heels and stalk away. I don’t need to look back to know I have made an enemy.

  Like I give a fuck.

  Chapter 10

  PEOPLE TURN OUT TO SEE US OFF ON OUR SO-CALLED CULTURAL tour. More people than I expect. Come to that, more people than I imagined were in Letogratz. Almost all are wearing black and silver copies of our Death’s Head uniform. Some even have the leather thigh boots.

  ‘Started a craze,’ says Paper, standing behind me. She smiles at someone in the crowd. ‘You wouldn’t believe the number of daggers the factor boxes have been asked to make in the past twenty-four hours. For decoration obviously.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  She shoots me a glance. ‘You’ve made a big impression.’

  ‘And that makes you look good?’

  ‘Of course,’ she says.

  Paper hugs me, which shocks Colonel Vijay slightly. Then she walks us to the open door of a shuttle and steps back, smiling. We are on lenz, I realize. Millions of U/Free are watching this.

  God these bastards must be bored.

  Hydraulics hiss, doors rise, we buckle ourselves in, and Letogratz drops away hard and fast. Fifteen minutes later, we put down eight thousand miles away. On a deserted beach, with coral reefs to one side and a mangrove swamp on the other. The roots of the mangroves are woven tightly enough to make an impenetrable wall.

  ‘Planted them an hour ago,’ says the pilot. He smiles at our disbelief. ‘Made the island this morning. It will be gone by tonight.’

  Now that’s what I call maximum deniability.

  Another shuttle is waiting on the beach. And stacked beside it are crates fixed with OctoV’s seal.

  diplomatic supplies, reads a stencil. security cleared.

  Inside the crates are enough weapons to start a small war. Also flip-down helmets, body armour, boots, field-glasses and battlefield radios. The colonel and I have reached an agreement. The agreement every CO reaches the moment he gets his first command. Find someone competent; tell him to carry on as normal. Of course, that is not how Colonel Vijay puts it.

  He will tell me if I do anything wrong.