Death's Head: Maximum Offence Read online

  Ripping open a case, I check the list inside its lid.

  ‘Here,’ I say.

  Catching a package, Rachel unwraps a stripped-down sniper rifle. She has never seen one like it before. She snaps the barrel into place from instinct and gives me a wide grin.

  ‘Like it?’

  ‘Fuck, sir. Yes.’

  It is an 8.59mm Z93z long-range rifle, with adjustable cheek piece, ×3-×12-×50 spotting scope, floating breech and fluting on the outer barrel to aid heat dissipation. And while it might fire electronically to avoid the snap of a firing pin, it’s bolt action, because snipers cling to the strangest traditions.

  The only other Z93z I have seen decorates the wall of a sergeants’ mess in General Jaxx’s mother ship. The braids cut from a metalhead general are arranged underneath, along with his shoulder patches.

  Colonel Vijay looks at me when I say this.

  Not Rachel, she gets taking trophies. Snipers are high maintenance, like their weapons, everyone knows that.

  ‘Mine, sir?’

  ‘Until you’re dead,’ I tell her. ‘Or I take it back.’

  ‘This is my rifle,’ she says. ‘There are many like it, but this one is mine. Without it I am nothing.’ Brushing aside long red hair, Rachel adjusts the sight and blind-fires at the shuttle disappearing into the sky above us.

  When she lowers the rifle, she’s still grinning.

  ‘Sir,’ she says. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘That true?’ Colonel Vijay asks a minute later.

  ‘What, sir?’

  ‘You were’ — he hesitates — ‘on the general’s mother ship?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Being tried for treason. Well, that was the third time. Second time, I was being fitted for this.’ I tap my arm loud enough to make it ring. ‘Of course, that was after Colonel Nuevo rescued me from the ferox . . .’

  ‘Colonel Nuevo?’

  ‘Shot himself at Ilseville. All part of a bigger plan.’

  The colonel shuts his eyes. Think it might be irritation.

  ‘So you’ve never met General Jaxx?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I say. ‘Several times.’

  For some reason that doesn’t make Colonel Vijay any happier. ‘See you inside,’ he says, heading for the shuttle. A real CO would give me a time limit.

  ‘Keep unpacking,’ I say.

  It is the second case that excites my gun. The SIG-37’s been pissed off since it hit U/Free territory. No ammo. Mind you, given the way I feel about Morgan, not letting me take a loaded gun into Paper’s party was only sensible.

  All the same . . .

  ‘Sir,’ says Haze. He’s cupping his hand as if it holds an empire’s worth of treasure. So far as the SIG’s concerned, it does.

  ‘A cinder-maker chip?’

  ‘Better, sir . . .’ Haze grins excitedly. ‘It’s a conscience override. Would you like me to fit it?’ What he means is, please may I . . .

  Tossing him the gun, I watch Haze swivel a grip to click the chip into place. Some of what he does deals with a handshake routine for the power pack, but mostly he’s just checking everything is in order. That’s what he tells me anyway.

  In the bottom of the case we find two more power packs. Both full.

  ‘Sweet,’ says the gun.

  Rotating through incendiary, explosive and hollow-point, it swallows a third of the first pack and flickers happily. There is an old law against hollow-point, but no one pays it much attention.

  ‘Lock and load,’ says Shil.

  The SIG-37 snorts. ‘It’s load and lock.’

  She scowls, just for a change. Although that might be at the way Rachel is still smiling at me. Neen, Franc and Haze pull weapons from a box, and are obviously disappointed. They were hoping for pulse rifles.

  What they have are Kemzin 19s, militia standard.

  Mud-coloured and squat, short scopes, blunt muzzles, long magazines, under-slung rangefinders. Ugly as fuck.

  The galaxy is full of them. At least the bits we occupy.

  You can buy a Kemzin 19 rifle for less than the cost of a meal at a café on Zabo Square. There are places you can get one for the price of a beer. Hell, there are probably places where you buy a beer and they throw in a Kemzin free.

  ‘Shit,’ says Neen.

  Shil is swearing in her turn.

  Needles in the trigger guards have just drawn blood, allowing the weapons to lock themselves to their owner’s DNA. That kind of modification is expensive.

  And OctoV isn’t known for being generous.

  So either the U/Free are paying, or the general and OctoV need to be sure no one else is going to be firing these. That means we have to be going somewhere that guns are rare. Even Kemzins.

  At least I think that is what it means . . .

  Our new combat jackets are interesting. They’re sleeveless, with a dozen ammunition pouches. That’s not what is interesting. Each one has scrub camouflage, great patches of yellow, greys and brown.

  ‘Rags,’ says Shil.

  ‘Ballistically lined rags,’ says Haze.

  I’d kill for a couple of fat-wheel combats or a light IV, but maybe we’re going to pick up half-tracks at the other end. And maybe we’re not, because the next things we find are boots, with air soles, double bonding and padded sides. These things matter. At least, they matter to anyone who relies on being able to move and keep moving to stay alive.

  ‘Armour up,’ I tell my troopers.

  We lose our fancy jackets, our old boots. All the kit we got for Paper’s party. What interests me is that none of our new kit is Octovian-made. You could slaughter the lot of us and learn nothing from picking over our bodies. In fact, if all you had was Haze to pin the choice on, you would think we were metalheads.

  It makes me want to ask Colonel Vijay exactly what getting this U/Free observer back involves. Not that I give a fuck either way, you understand.

  Colonel Vijay scowls when he sees us. I’m not sure if it’s the fact we no longer look neat, or he simply doesn’t like what was in the boxes. Everyone wears a sleeveless jacket; everyone wears a helmet, with flip-down visor. Except Colonel Vijay, who still wears his full-dress uniform. He looks about twelve.

  The co-pilot’s seat is empty, so I take it.

  Having opened his mouth to order me out, the colonel changes his mind. Maybe he believes officers shouldn’t argue in front of their men. Instead, he takes his place in the pilot’s seat in silence.

  ‘Sir,’ I say.

  A sideways flick of his eyes tells me he is listening.

  ‘About our mission. When do I get briefed?’

  He sighs. ‘It’s need to know,’ he says. ‘You don’t.’

  Leaning forward, he slaps his hand on a recognition panel, and engines begin to quiver behind us. This shuttle is strictly short-run. I’ve seen one like this before on a landing field in Farlight. Unless our destination is within a hundred thousand miles of here, I don’t see how we are going to get anywhere.

  I needn’t have worried.

  Once we are buckled in, the colonel taps a number sequence into a pad on the console in front of him. He does it swiftly and confidently. The very exemplar of a competent officer. Then ruins it all by cancelling and re-entering the numbers, more slowly this time.

  And before I even have time to think idiot, space rips and we are there.

  Chapter 11

  MOST CIVILIANS BELIEVE YOU CAN CATCH THE UPLIFT VIRUS simply by being in the same room as an Enlightened. That is not true according to Haze. It’s elective. That means people choose to catch it. Well, it means they find an Uplifted willing to cut three lines into their wrist and rub his blood into the wounds.

  After that, it is too late. You can’t change your mind if you want to. You have it, your children have it, their children have it. Germ-line manipulation, Haze says. Whatever the fuck that means. I am not sure what I’m expecting when an airlock opens to let us into Hekati’s hub, but a greeting
party made up of a five-braid Enlightened in full-dress uniform, flanked by half a dozen Silver Fist guards, isn’t on my list.

  This braid is as tall as I am.

  Almost as broad too, but that is where the likeness ends. I don’t have fat tubes looping from my naked chest to my hip nor a dozen metal hoses criss-crossing my gut like veins. Mind you, he doesn’t have a prosthetic arm.

  As the Enlightened turns, one of his braids scrapes against the leathery skin of his left shoulder. His eyes are shiny as glass. Perhaps five-braids have eyelids and perhaps not. Hard to say, because this one doesn’t blink. He just stands with his legs planted on the deck and his fingers tight round the handle of a heavy pistol.

  For now it’s in his holster.

  As I said, we are newly docked in Hekati’s central hub.

  Take a huge wheel world, give it four spokes that join in the middle at a hub and we’re inside that. Our CO is frozen in the doorway. I don’t think he’s ever seen an Enlightened before. Certainly not close up.

  Behind the five-braid stands a Silver Fist lieutenant. He has one of those faces that looks chiselled from granite and he likes the look. As I watch, his eyes flick to a screen to check his own reflection.

  Their sergeant interests me.

  He is broad, because sergeants mostly are. Doesn’t matter how often officers tell you they want NCOs with brain. Most officers want brawn and are happy to supply the brains themselves. Neen is the exception, he has brains and he’s not broad. Their sergeant is watching me.

  He is puzzled. Since I’m one of life’s natural sergeants, he probably wants to know what I’m doing wearing the collar bars of a Death’s Head lieutenant. It’s a question I ask myself most mornings. Until I remember the answer.

  My alternative was to be shot.

  ‘So,’ the braid says. ‘If you’d like to introduce yourselves?’ He is staring at Colonel Vijay when he says this.

  When the colonel remains frozen, I answer for him.

  ‘Tveskoeg, Sven, lieutenant, 1028282839.’

  The braid looks at me.

  ‘Name, rank and number,’ I say. ‘That’s all we’re giving.’

  ‘You’re not prisoners,’ says the five-braid. ‘You’re . . .’ He hesitates, thinking about it. Or maybe he is only pretending, because he’s nodding and all his men are leaning forward to catch what he will say.

  ‘Honoured guests.’

  The Silver Fist sergeant has something like pity in his eyes. His sympathy doesn’t make me feel any better. As for the five-braid, he’s gesturing at a screen that shows our little craft hanging in space just beyond the edge of the hub. ‘Regard us as a necessary evil,’ he says. ‘If that helps.’

  ‘Name, rank and number,’ I tell the Aux. ‘Nothing else.’

  The five-braid sighs.

  ‘Tveskoeg, Sven, lieutenant, Death’s Head . . .’ I begin to reel off the number tattooed on my wrist.

  ‘And you’re the colonel’s ADC?’

  ‘Tveskoeg, Sven, lieutenant . . .’

  ‘Sven,’ says the five-braid, ‘I’m not sure you’re listening.’

  Being called Sven by a metalhead doesn’t help my patience any.

  ‘Colonel,’ the Enlightened says. ‘Perhaps you could . . .’

  But, shocked solid by his first sight of a braid, Colonel Vijay isn’t listening either. Edging past him, I face our questioner.

  To kill a braid you have to lock it down. That is one of the basic rules of combat. Otherwise, they flick dimensions. It’s hard to kill anything that keeps disappearing on you.

  So I grab both sides of its head and dig my thumbs into its eyes, and keep gouging until they pop. Locking down a braid involves hurting it very hard and very fast.

  Thought that would do it.

  As their sergeant grabs his sidearm, Neen moves.

  Jacking his pre-charge, Neen raises his own weapon but he’s a split second behind. Turns out not to matter, because a knife already sticks from the sergeant’s throat and his rifle is clattering to the deck.

  Grinning, Franc rips her blade free and goes after a Silver Fist behind. Might be her speed that shocks the men. Or maybe it is the fact they’re dying.

  ‘Sven! ‘ shouts Colonel Vijay.

  I throw him my knife. ‘Behind you,’ I say.

  Ducking away from a Silver Fist corporal, he fumbles the catch and hesitates as Neen lifts his gun.

  ‘No rifles,’ I shout.

  Reversing his weapon, Neen clubs the corporal instead.

  Vacuum lies beyond the hub walls. Maybe the bulkhead can survive a direct hit. But I don’t want to take that risk. We don’t need guns to kill these shits anyway. All we need is surprise, and I have given us that.

  ‘Tveskoeg,’ I announce, as my fist crushes the five-braid’s larynx. A knee to the balls doubles him over. ‘Sven.’ I wrap one arm around his neck.

  He’s dead before I even finish reciting my number.

  Chapter 12

  SPITTING DIRT, NEEN HAMMERS A PEG INTO RUBBLE AS A COLD wind throws grit into his face. A yank of the cord and his pup tent rises, as its crossbars inflate to create the space he will share with Haze. Silver foil lines the inside to preserve body heat and the door has a double flap, which should help keep this bloody wind out.

  My tent is up. Colonel Vijay is already in his.

  The way he looks as he crawls inside to seal the flap against the rest of us, I wonder if he is ever coming out again. You can’t accuse a senior officer of cowardice, it’s insubordination. Well, you can. But you have to do it in private and then kill him afterwards.

  He keeps looking at us, opening his mouth and then closing it again.

  ‘Shock,’ says Shil, sounding like she actually pities the useless little shit.

  ‘Sir,’ says Neen. ‘Permission to speak.’

  Not sure where he got that phrase from. But he uses it now and then, when he’s worried his question is going to piss me off.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘About the colonel—’

  He knows it is the wrong thing to say before he’s even finished. Must be the way I go still and stare at him. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Sir,’ Neen says. ‘Did he . . . Did he say why we’re here?’

  Neen sees my sour grin and knows he’s just saved his skin.

  ‘We’re looking for a missing U/Free observer, apparently.’ I got that apparently from General Jaxx. He tags it onto the end of his sentences.

  ‘A U/Free?’ Neen looks shocked. ‘Who would kidnap a U/Free?’

  ‘If he was kidnapped,’ I say. ‘Could have just fallen off a cliff . . .’ Although that doesn’t explain what a U/Free observer was doing crawling around Hekati in the first place.

  Dusk comes early, and with it that wind to hurl dirt in our faces. It is as if, for an hour or so, the whole habitat wants to reject us. We go from survivable temperature to sub-zero in the time it takes to find a wall tall enough to make a windbreak for our tents.

  By the time the last tent is up, the wind is already dropping. We will know next time, and find ourselves a wall in advance. Because the whole habitat is a maze of the bloody things. Unfortunately, most of the walls aren’t high enough to trip a child. They are like memories.

  A map of a city scrubbed back to ground level.

  I don’t say this. Haze does, but he’s full of stuff like that. All the same, the rest of us know what he means. Hekati is what happens if you cram seven million people onto a ninety-mile-long strip around the inside of a ring world, then get rid of the people and let their city crumble to dust.

  Oh yeah, and build a few huts on top of the ruins.

  The wall we are sheltering behind is stained with age. Neen claims it’s recycled asteroid. Shil thinks it’s ancient stonefoam blocks. I don’t give a fuck what it is so long as it stops my pup tent blowing away in the night.

  After a minute of listening to them argue, I tell them to shut up and go do something useful. So Shil lights a fire, using dry wood to keep
the smoke down, and Neen collects firewood.

  Finding a spring, Franc sniffs the water and sips a little.

  When it doesn’t taste sour, she scoops a mouthful and drinks that as well. If she’s not rolling around in agony in ten minutes I will let the others drink it too . . . As for Rachel, she’s on top of an outcrop behind us. A building once, I guess. Now it just looks natural.

  Rachel has night sights and thermal imaging on that Z93z of hers. She might as well use them.

  ‘How many?’ I ask when she comes running back.

  ‘Five people for certain, sir.’

  ‘Silver Fist?’ If they are, we have a problem.

  The problem won’t be that they are Silver Fist. We’ve killed half a dozen of those already today. We can kill five more easily enough. No, the problem will be they have found us. That means spy cameras somewhere high in the habitat’s roof. And I don’t like the idea of being watched from above.

  ‘Well?’ I say to Rachel.

  ‘Not Silver Fist, sir.’

  Imagine a long strip of mountain with a valley floor to the side, and a long shoreline parallel to that. In daylight, the sea seems to stretch out for ever. That is only because the opposite wall is painted blue. Walk straight ahead, along the shore, the valley or a mountain path, and eventually you will come back to where you started.

  That’s ring worlds for you.

  A hundred million tons of rubble to create ninety miles of valley, with four central spokes rising through the roof and meeting at the mirror hub in the ring’s middle. We saw cities when we came in. Although they’re more towns, really. The biggest is half a mile away. It has wooden walls and earth roofs. And I took my best look at it fifteen minutes before the wind came up and grit started to thicken the air.

  ‘Reckon they’re hunting us?’

  She nods.

  ‘They know where we are yet?’

  Rachel shakes her head. ‘Doubt it, sir.’

  We have two choices for our U/Free’s captors. Assuming he didn’t just fall down a cliff. Either they’re illegal prospectors. Or they’re the descendants of Hekati’s original miners, now grouped into warring tribes. Seemingly three hundred years of being locked in an oversized child’s toy does that to you.