Authors: David Gunn
Chapter 52
THE NIGHT RETREATS IN A CRUNCH OF BOOTS AND THE CLANK of ratchets, as sappers work through to build the scaffold on which Colonel Vijay will die come morning.
We hear chainsaws, and the flat slap of a nail gun, which sounds enough like small-arms fire to comfort me and keep everyone else awake.
Apart from Colonel Vijay, who sleeps curled in a ball. One arm folded under his head, the other wrapped round his knees. He looks too young to take the weight of General Luc’s hatred for Indigo Jaxx, and whatever warped need for revenge makes the Wolf want Aptitude because he couldn’t have Debro.
Shil’s shocked when I mutter this.
Sitting up, she peers into my face. There’s enough light coming through the slit window for us to see each other’s eyes, and I don’t know what she sees, but she leans forward and kisses me carefully on the cheek, while the others pretend not to notice.
‘Say it, sir,’ she whispers.
‘You get your wish.’
‘I what . . .?’
‘You’re out of the Aux. Soon as this is over.’
She’s meant to be happy about that. Not spend the rest of the night slumped in the opposite corner, with her legs pulled up and her arms holding them in place and her head buried in her knees, crying.
Outside our window the nail gun falls silent. Colonel Vijay’s scaffold is bolted together, the boards now form its floor. A strip of railing secures the back and runs along both edges, but the front is open.
Makes the execution easier to see.
A second platform sits in front of the first. It’s longer and lower, with newly built wooden benches to either side of two ornate chairs. I was wondering what kept the nail gunner so busy.
Do I have a plan?
I have several. Unfortunately, I don’t know which is right. Although Leona’s comment about the long game won’t leave my head. And her strange silver key feels heavy next to the dog tags and planet buster around my neck.
The long game.
What does a key usually open?
I think I’ve left it too late to learn to play chess. Coming to stand at my shoulder, Rachel sees the scaffolding outside and her face tightens.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘He’s getting an audience.’
‘Bastards.’
We both look at Colonel Vijay at the same time. He’s still curled in the dawn light like a baby, head on his arm. Makes me wonder if he’s really sleeping, or just being kind to the rest of us. Wouldn’t put that past him either. A few minutes later, the colonel stretches and yawns.
‘Breakfast, sir?’ Iona asks.
He takes the fig she offers, and peels it carefully, lifting first one sliver of skin and then another with his fingernail. Don’t think I knew people peeled figs. Only when he has eaten and wiped his fingers does he climb to his feet and walk to the window.
‘Interesting,’ he says.
‘Sir?’
‘Those seats . . .’
Before the colonel can explain his interest, an ADC knocks at our door.
The boy is barely wide enough at the shoulder for the wolf skin General Luc’s officers wear. His boots have thick heels as if the extra height will make a difference. ‘If I could trouble you, sir?’
Colonel Vijay turns from the window.
‘I meant your lieutenant, sir.’
Wolf Brigade troopers watch as I stalk through their base.
Some meet my eye, and others glance away. A few stare. An old lieutenant in a uniform jacket frayed at the cuffs nods, as if he recognizes me. Or maybe he simply recognizes the type. He’s me, twenty years down the line. If I’m lucky enough to live that long.
I return his nod.
A sergeant, I decide. Up through the ranks.
Not rich and not well-born, but good in a scrap and forgiven his filthy jacket, poorly cut hair and greying moustache for battles fought and victories won. He would know the answer to the question occupying my mind.
‘Parole?’ I say.
He stops, stares at me.
The ADC keeps walking, only to stop in his turn. Looking back, he sees something in the lieutenant’s face that makes him stay where he is.
‘You spoke?’
The lieutenant’s voice is rough. His accent as raw as mine. We speak traveller, because that’s what people on Farlight use. Something says it’s not his natural tongue either.
‘How does it work? Parole?’
‘The generality?’
‘What does it mean?’
‘You don’t know?’ The lieutenant considers this. His slow nod says he approves of my ignorance. ‘One officer gives another his word not to fight or try to escape. In return, the officer is treated as a guest and not as a prisoner.’
‘Invited to dine? Doors left unlocked?’
The man nods.
‘That’s it?’
Another nod. The ADC is getting worried. Which means whoever sent him outranks this officer. He’s worried enough to start shuffling his feet.
‘When does it run out?’ The only question to matter.
The lieutenant grins. ‘When you take it back.’
‘What if I didn’t give it myself?’
‘Your colonel?’ He obviously knows about us. I guess everyone in the Wolf’s Lair does. Even those who didn’t make the retreat when we did.
‘Sir,’ the ADC sounds anxious.
‘Wait,’ the man demands.
The ADC does.
‘Interesting question.’ I have his attention back. ‘Until his death, certainly. After that? Keeping parole would show respect.’
‘But personally . . .?’
He shrugs, turns to go. Then looks back. ‘Personally, we both know it’s a crock of horseshit. It ends when you decide so.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘That’s what I thought.’
He returns my salute with a smile.
Our boots ring on the stairs as we go up a level. Officers that outrank me move aside. Must be the glare on my face and the urgency with which the ADC leads me across a lobby and towards a new flight of stairs. He’s on the general’s staff, that much is obvious.
Those who don’t watch me, watch him pass, and mutter.
We’re in a long corridor.
Huge portraits of Wolf Brigade COs line both walls, with gilded frames and brass plaques giving each a name and his dates. These are counted in the years then ruled by OctoV, the glorious, victorious and undisputed.
Doesn’t say undisputed what.
The wolf skin begins five commanders ago, the grey jacket lined with leather three COs before that. The brigade’s first two commanders wear no uniform. The ADC stops when I stop, and hesitates, too nervous to tell me to hurry.
He opens his mouth to protest when I tap the final picture.
It’s life-size, with a flat and shiny surface, like a news screen that has frozen or a holo cube that has lost its ability to rotate.
The man in the picture wears a bulky suit, like OctoV’s in that statue at the Emsworth landing fields. He even has the same bubble helmet. What he doesn’t have is OctoV’s ship.
‘What’s that?’
‘Wolf’s landing.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘That weird shape behind him . . .’
‘A hexagram, sir.’
That’s the shape of the handle of Leona’s key. See, I knew he was the kind of ADC who would know stuff like that.
‘Actually, sir, it’s probably a hexatope.’
‘A what?’
‘Reroutes reality through six dimensions.’ He blushes. ‘Well, that’s what we’re taught at the Academy.’
‘And the man next to it?’
‘Major Wolf,’ the ADC says softly. He could be talking about a saint.
‘Major?’
‘Before he became a general.’
‘He went from major to general? That’s some promotion.’
The ADC stares at me, to see if I’m mocking him. He’s afraid to tell me to hurry up, but not so afraid that he won’t defend Major Wolf’s reputation. A man dead seven hundred years, or six or five, or however long it is.
‘I mean it,’ I tell the boy. ‘I’m impressed.’
His nod says that’s natural and we pass a door I remember leading to General Luc’s study and head for another flight of steps. There’s daylight at the top, and a huge H painted on the deck to say I was right, the round tower doubles as a copter pad.
‘Sir,’ the ADC says. ‘I’ve got Lieutenant Tvesko
eg.
’
When Colonel Nswor is sure I’ve registered his glare, he returns to scanning the horizon. The H-pad has an inbuilt ground-to-air defence system, but a trooper still sets up a belt-fed on the parapet to face the courtyard. Beyond him, a corporal manoeuvres a rocket launcher into place, using handheld controls.
Hydraulics are meant to damp the recoil and prevent the launcher from skidding, but the way he double-checks wires used to shackle the unit suggests they’re less than successful.
The launcher has four barrels, like goat tits, fed from a single magazine holding eight rockets. A dozen magazines sit on a trolley. The launcher faces outwards, which is interesting, but not as interesting as the fact other launchers are appearing.
‘Sir . . .’ Major Whipple hands the colonel his field-glasses.
Scanning the horizon, Colonel Nswor nods when he finds what he’s looking for. Everyone else has to wait until the copter comes into sight. It’s sleek and grey and flying so low it raises dust as it skims the dirt.
It is bigger than it first looks.
There’s a lazy thud to its rotor that speaks of untapped power. Twin cannon hang both sides of its nose, and the flight window is a narrow wrap tinted the same grey as the sides.
‘The general’s own,’ the ADC whispers.
I could have guessed that for myself.
Only General Luc’s not aboard, because he’s down below inspecting his engineers’ handiwork. Having climbed onto the viewing platform, he seats himself in one of the two chairs. Then he stands and nods to Sergeant Toro. It seems the view is everything he wanted.
‘Prepare to receive our guests,’ the colonel snaps.
An NCO shouts orders and the honour guard comes to attention.
Banking as it reaches the mountain, the copter starts a twisting approach that tracks the spiral road towards the gates, hugging the rock as it goes. Impossible to tell if the pilots are AI or human, but they’ve obviously done this before.
Maybe the flight path is tradition.
Most of the pointless things you find are.
As the copter skims the road, a rocket launcher starts tracking its movement. So maybe there is a logic to that approach pattern after all. Like a dung-fly dance, get it wrong and you get eaten.
‘Present arms . . .’
The cockpit membrane slides back and slabs of chitin shift as the craft settles and its wheels touch the deck. The first person out is Debro, the second is her daughter. The guard behind them holds a pulse rifle, sloping down.
‘Sven,’ Debro says.
We air-kiss. Then Debro grabs me and hugs me tight.
‘Why isn’t General Luc here?’ she hisses. ‘Surely he has the manners to meet his bride?’
‘He’s busy inspecting the scaffold.’
It takes her a second to understand my words.
Now, I’ve seen Debro angry and I’ve seen her outraged. I’ve seen her stark naked, standing in steely silence, while a guard cavity-searches her. The only emotion she showed then was to shiver at the icy wind that blew through our underground corridor. Didn’t think Debro did shock.
‘Who for?’
‘One for Vijay. Another to seat the audience.’
‘How could he?’ she hisses. ‘After Aptitude agreed.’
Debro glances back at her daughter, who wears a simple white dress, and complicated braids. Apt’s losing her battle with tears.
Behind me, Colonel Nswor and his men remain at attention. Only the trooper manning the belt-fed has the honesty to stare.
‘Vijay refused Aptitude’s offer.’
Debro’s mouth drops open. ‘What?’
‘He denies her right to sacrifice herself.’
She doesn’t challenge my statement. In fact, Debro accepts it without question, turning away to wrap one arm round Aptitude’s shoulders. Mother and daughter stand side by side, then face to face, their foreheads touching.
Seeing them like that makes me want to kill someone. Their escort must read that in my face, because he grips his rifle tighter. We stare for the second it takes me to remember him for later. And then he steps around me to present himself to Colonel Nswor.
‘Reporting with your prisoners, sir.’
‘Prisoners?’ Stepping forward, the Wolf Brigade officer backhands him so hard the man goes down. ‘They’re guests,’ he says furiously.
Seven hundred pairs of boots stamp courtyard dirt as the entire brigade comes to attention. Their chief warrant officer salutes a captain, who turns on his heels and marches to where Colonel Nswor stands.
The WO salutes the colonel, who about turns and presents himself to General Luc, who accepts his salute with hurried elegance.
If they weren’t my enemies I’d be impressed.
Not a word passes between the Wolf and his guests. His bow, which is slight, is met with the briefest of nods.
‘If you will, Lady Aptitude,’ says the little ADC, offering his arm to help her up the steps, but she ignores him entirely, still fighting back tears. Everyone waits for Aptitude to move, even Debro, who steps forward.
I’m already there.
Apt takes my hand.
Helping Debro up next, I step back for Colonel Nswor, and then let Major Whipple follow, but the Major is watching the sky. Dark grey eyes and a hard face and something close to regret. He’s impressed by Aptitude, which doesn’t surprise me because I’ve never met anyone yet who wasn’t. And he’s impressed by Debro, because she’s Senator Debro Tezuka Wildeside, and Debro impresses everyone.
He’s even impressed by us, the Aux.
But he wants this over.
And when General Luc follows his major’s gaze, the answer hits me. They’re expecting an attack. That’s what those mortars and rockets and belt-feds are about. Dragging his attention from the sky, General Luc nods to Sergeant Toro. ‘Housekeeping first,’ he says. ‘We can deal with the Thomassi afterwards.’
Chapter 53
COLONEL VIJAY ENTERS THE COURTYARD ALONE.
If he’s seen Aptitude he doesn’t let on. He must have seen her, you can hardly miss a sobbing girl in a white dress. Debro sits beside her, one hand lightly on her daughter’s wrist to steady her.
‘Any last words?’ General Luc demands.
Colonel Vijay shakes his head.
‘None at all? No pleas for mercy, requests to be remembered, fond words for your ex-beloved?’ The Wolf looks at Aptitude, who sits as if cut from stone. Except no statue ever cried, whatever wise women and fools say.
Colonel Vijay opens his mouth to answer.
Then shuts it again.
His eyes, which watch General Luc, flick to the sky. And we hear what he hears, a low buzz in the distance, like mechanical wasps.
‘Too late to save you,’ the Wolf says. ‘Not that they’d bother.’ He shrugs. ‘You should thank me for saving you from a Thomassi show trial.’
On cue, Sergeant Toro steps from under an arch carrying a sword as long as he is tall over his shoulder. It is double-handed, with a heavy hilt, and weighs enough to make him stoop on one side.
Aptitude whimpers.
But Debro is looking at the sky, which is now dotted with a hundred tiny black specks getting closer, with more specks behind.
‘Last chance,’ says the Wolf.
‘For what?’ Colonel Vijay demands.
These are the first words he’s spoken since he walked from under that arch. And they’re calm, almost reasonable. He knows Aptitude is here, all right.
‘To plead,’ Luc says. ‘Surely you want your life?’
‘Not at any price.’
At a touch from Debro’s hand, Aptitude stifles her sobs, and her swallowed gasps sound worse still, like a child drowning in misery. Only Aptitude is not a child, she’s a major piece in a game so messy the only person to understand it is dead.
Take ground, keep ground.
Keep taking ground until you can take no more.
Die rather than let the ground you’ve taken be taken back.
There is nothing in those rules you’ll find hard to understand. At twelve I understood them perfectly. Every one of the Aux understands them perfectly now. I’m just having trouble making them fit what’s happening around me.
‘Steiner 3 Combat copters,’ Major Whipple mutters.
Not sure if he’s talking to me, his colonel or himself.
Mixed in with the copters are gliders. And worse than that, the gliders are spilling white globs like drops of milk. Each dot a parachute.
Up on the battlements, a rocket launcher opens fire and shuts down just as fast. The Wolf refuses to let what is happening beyond his walls interfere with what is happening inside.
‘If you will go first, sir . . .’
Nodding to the sergeant, Colonel Vijay climbs the steps. He stands aside to let General Luc climb after him. Sergeant Toro follows, and Colonel Vijay steadies him when he stumbles under the weight of that sword. Next to me, Major Whipple grunts approvingly.
In my pocket I have the planet buster.
Its lid is raised and its priming ring already turned. All I have to do is push the button and this is over. Everyone dies. But that is not a long game, so there has to be a better answer.
A warm wind blows into Colonel Vijay’s face and tugs at the edge of his white shirt. The shirt is clean, the colonel’s hair still wet and he’s been allowed to shave. Only the hollowness around his eyes suggests last night’s sleep was fake.
‘Ready when you are,’ he says.
The Wolf scowls. As we watch, he tests the sword’s balance.
And then, standing firm, his shoulders twisted and his boots glued to the boards, General Luc draws back the blade to take Colonel Vijay’s head from his shoulders.
‘Ready for death?’
Colonel Vijay smiles. ‘I’m a Jaxx,’ he says. ‘An officer in the Death’s Head. What do you think?’
General Luc sighs.
‘I think you’re a fucking little idiot. And every bit as insane as your father. What do I think . . .?’ He grounds the sword. ‘I think this world’s gone to hell in a handcart and you two deserve each other.’
We have the long game.
Things change swiftly after that.
‘I release you from your parole,’ the Wolf tells Colonel Vijay. ‘You can take your chances here or try to break through those.’ He nods towards the falling chutes, then turns to where Aptitude sits, and says, ‘I renounce my claim on his life. You too may stay here, or go . . .’
‘She’s staying. They’re both staying.’
All three turn to look at me.
Of course they are. There’s a war going on out there and I’m not about to lose my major players at this point. General Luc’s halfway down the steps when I block his way.
‘Sven,’ Colonel Vijay says. ‘No.’
‘I want my gun back.’
The Wolf shows yellow teeth. It’s a grin, of sorts.
He tells me it’s an illegal piece of shit, ideally suited for scum like me. Then he orders Sergeant Toro to make sure the Aux are freed and our weapons returned to us.
‘Anything else?’ he asks me.
‘Yes, sir,’ I say. ‘We need to talk.’
His nod takes in the men scattering to their positions. ‘It can wait.’