Ketty Jay 04 - The Ace of Skulls (25 page)

Slag’s pounce had taken him a half-metre down the vent. He found his feet, turned about and ran back. The shaft above him looked impossibly high. When he was in his prime he could have got up it, but he hadn’t attempted a jump like that in years.

Still, the invader had managed it. And he wouldn’t be outdone.

He screwed himself down on his haunches, wiggling his hindquarters as if to build up power for the leap to come. His gaze never left the shaft above. He ignored his aches and tiredness and the weakness of age, and let anger lend him strength. Then, with a mighty surge, he sprang.

His jump took him to the lip of the shaft, but only barely. His forepaws cleared the edge; his claws tried to dig in, but there was no purchase. For a terrifying instant, he began sliding back towards the drop. Then his back paws found a grip against the side of the shaft, and propelled him over, and he was triumphant.

There was the intruder, backed into a dead end. It was pressed down low, eyes wide with terror, ears flat against its head. Slag approached with his back arched and hackles up, crooning dangerously. There was no escape for it now. He moved slowly closer, ready to exact retribution.

But just as he came close enough to strike, he felt a new and puzzling feeling wash through him. His anger began to dissipate. There was something in the newcomer’s scent, something . . . interesting. He’d detected it before but hadn’t known what it was. He’d been isolated from his own kind for so long that he hadn’t anything to compare it with. Now he was up close it was overwhelming, and instinct told him what he should have known all along.

The intruder was a female.

Confused, Slag came closer, sniffing at her. He hadn’t encountered a female since before pubescence. Powerful, unfamiliar sensations swept through him. He didn’t want to sink his claws into her any more, he wanted to sink his—

The female lashed out with a hiss, and a stunning burst of pain startled him as she scratched him across his sensitive nose. She squirmed past him and back down the shaft. By the time he recovered, she was long gone.

Slag blinked, and licked at his nose. The wound was nothing. The newcomer . . . that was something else. A female? On board the
Ketty Jay
? What was he supposed to do now?

He looked around as if to check no one was watching, then began to groom himself uneasily with his tongue.

Seventeen

The Compound – A Fearful Encounter – The Infiltrator – Mercy

T
rudging off into a swamp in the middle of the night had seemed like a good idea at the time but, like most of Frey’s ideas, the reality fell short of the concept. A few kloms from the base to the Awakeners’ hidden compound didn’t sound like much, but Frey hadn’t accounted for the terrain. After a couple of hours of ploughing through sucking mud and reeds, he was ready to admit they should have abandoned stealth and gone for a good old full frontal assault instead.

It didn’t help that he was a tiny bit lost. Trinica’s directions had been vague at best, and he was beginning to worry that they’d missed the base amid the dense foliage. He’d sent Jez to get some bearings, and she’d sprung off into the dark like a wild animal loosed from its leash. It worked out for all concerned. She moved faster without them, and the group felt better when she wasn’t around.

It was hard to see anything, even with the moon up. A white mist lurked in the hollows and lay on the water, curling between the twisted roots of the mangroves. In the dark, things slithered and moved, some of them unpleasantly large. Insects hammered the hot air with percussive taps and whistles that ranged from mildly annoying to painfully loud.

Malvery in particular was being driven to distraction. His hangover had rallied with the din, and he looked ready to murder somebody. ‘Think we’ve got enough bullets to shut up every bloody living thing in the delta?’ he asked hopefully.

‘I’m up for trying,’ said Pinn, who was equally unimpressed with their situation.

‘Come on, you two, where’s your spirit of adventure?’ Ashua said. ‘Get a lungful of that swamp air! Ooo, I think that was an alligator!’

Pinn and Malvery had been griping ever since they set off, only pausing when one or the other of them tripped and splashed into the brackish water. Ashua, on the other hand, seemed to be rather enjoying her field trip. Frey knew she’d spent most of her life in cities, but the way she talked you’d think she’d never seen a tree before.

Silo was uncomplaining, as ever. Frey was glad to have him by his side. The Murthian’s solid presence helped to anchor him somehow. That was a man he always knew he could count on.

Pelaru followed along silently behind, picking his way through the hot soggy undergrowth. Frey kept a suspicious eye on him. What was his angle? Whispermongers were famous for their neutrality, but Frey couldn’t help feeling the elegant Thacian had some agenda here. The sooner that man was off the
Ketty Jay
, the better, but there hadn’t been a safe place to offload him yet, and Frey certainly wasn’t going to leave him unsupervised while they were busy playing double agents in the heart of Awakener territory.

Annoyingly, Pelaru was the only one of them still clean. Frey and the others were sweaty, grimy and tired, but he’d somehow escaped with only mud spatters on his boots, and he wasn’t even out of breath.

Thacians. Even in a swamp they’re so rotting superior.

‘Cap’n,’ said Jez by his ear. He jumped and clutched at his heart.

‘Don’t do that,’ he gasped.

‘Sorry, Cap’n,’ she said, but her voice was flat and she wasn’t sorry at all. She looked through him with those shining wolf eyes of hers. ‘I found it.’

Relief soothed Frey’s unease at being so close to her. ‘Nice work, Jez,’ he said. ‘Lead on.’

They spotted the lights of the compound soon after, hazed by mist in the distance. It was surrounded by a perimeter wall, surmounted by electric floods that illuminated the dank swampland all around. Once they got near, they cut across in the direction of the main gate and found a dirt road leading back towards the base. Silo picked out a likely hiding spot which overlooked the road and the gate, and there they settled in amid the mud and roots and scuttling things.

Frey eyed the defences uncertainly. The gate stood open, but it was heavily guarded. The wall was metal, discoloured by the wet air and patched with lichen. This compound had been constructed with care and attention, not at all like the ramshackle hotchpotch of dwellings in the main part of the base. There was no way they’d cobbled it together since the war kicked off. That meant the Awakeners had been up to something in the Barabac Delta long before anyone realised there was a base here at all.

‘Strikes me, Cap’n,’ said Malvery, adjusting his glasses. ‘Strikes me we might just’ve taken this road all the way from the base instead of arsing about in stinking bogs and whatnot.’

‘Wouldn’t have worked,’ said Ashua. ‘I asked about while I was off procuring a few bits.’ She slapped the pack on Silo’s back, one of three that were stuffed with items which Ashua had stolen from the camp, and which Frey dearly hoped they wouldn’t need. ‘They’ve got guards all up and down this stretch.’

‘Besides,’ Frey put in. ‘I reckoned you and Pinn could do with working off a kilo or two.’

‘Oi!’ said Pinn, patting his belly. ‘This is prime steak, you twat!’

‘Good of you to be thinking of our health, Cap’n,’ said Malvery.

‘I’m considerate like that.’

Everyone felt better now they had the compound in sight. Even Malvery’s grumbles were light-hearted. The doc was glad to be doing something to ease his conscience, striking a blow for the Coalition. Frey enjoyed seeing him a bit more upbeat. He’d been in a downer ever since the civil war began, and Crake’s departure hardly helped matters.

Crake, you’d better be alright, you idiot.

Thoughts of Crake reminded him of his earcuff. He hadn’t been wearing it in the swamp. He found voices in his ear distracting, and he was only capable of concentrating on one thing at a time. Now he took it out, clipped it on and listened.

At first there was nothing. He began to worry. What if Trinica had found the earcuff in her pocket? What if she’d changed clothes? But then he heard a muffled voice. He frowned and focused on the sound over the racket of the swamp. Soon he could make out words.

‘. . . arriving at the compound soon, eminent captains.’ It was an oily voice that he didn’t recognise. Some random fundamentalist nut-bag, no doubt. ‘I beg of you your complete discretion in the matter of the things we are about to show you.’

Frey let a little smile touch his lips. Oh, she could be discreet if she wanted. But he’d find out all the same.

Trinica was going to kill him when she eventually discovered the trinket in her pocket. That, or she’d laugh and tell him how clever he was. It depended on the day, really; he’d take his chances. But her talk of the growing threat from her crew had disturbed him deeply, and he wanted to keep track of her. He wouldn’t let her get away again.

She’d be hurt that he didn’t trust her, perhaps. But he was smitten, not stupid.

‘They’re on their way,’ he told the others.

Shortly afterward, two vehicles came rumbling up the track, each rolling along on six huge wheels. A pair of Renford Overlanders, armoured all-terrain transport vehicles. Frey had only seen a few before; flying was almost always preferable to land travel in a country as vast and varied as Vardia. But Ashua had told them there was a no-fly zone overhead, and a ring of anti-aircraft cannon ready to enforce it. Obviously the Awakeners didn’t even want to risk shuttle traffic here.

Definitely up to something
, Frey thought to himself.
Something big.

‘She in one of those Overlanders, Cap’n?’ Ashua asked.

Frey nodded.

‘You’ve really got a thing for her, haven’t you?’ she said.

‘You have no idea,’ muttered Malvery.

Ashua nudged the doctor. ‘Leave him alone. I think it’s kinda sweet. Never pegged him as a romantic.’

‘Fellers, can we stop discussing my love life?’ Frey complained.

‘Or lack of it,’ Pinn put in. ‘When was the last time you got your pods jiggled, Cap’n?’

Malvery coughed to suppress a laugh. Ashua, who wasn’t suppressing it quite so well, said, ‘Yeah, Cap’n. Spill it. When was the last time someone, er, jiggled your pods?’

‘I’ll have you know my pods have been jiggled by some of the finest bloody females in the land!’ Frey said. ‘Now shut it, I’m trying to listen.’

Malvery leaned over to Ashua, covered his mouth and pointed at the vehicles on the road below. ‘Saving himself,’ he stage-whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear. Even Silo smiled at that.

‘Swear I’m gonna dump you all at the next port,’ Frey murmured, shaking his head.

The vehicles halted in front of the gate and a pair of Sentinels emerged from the guardhouse. After a brief exchange with the driver of the first vehicle, they waved them through. The second vehicle stayed where it was. The passenger door in the flank slid open, and a dark figure stepped out.

Oh, shit
, thought Frey, as his stomach sank.

It was an Imperator.

He was dressed head to foot in close-fitting black leather. A smooth black mask showed beneath the cowl of his cloak. The eyes were the only evidence that there was a person inside there at all, but Frey had seen beneath an Imperator’s mask before, and he knew they were not people. They were more daemon than man, the husks of the faithful turned rancid by monstrous symbiotes from the aether.

The Imperator stood in the middle of the road, bathed in the harsh light of the floods, alone. Slowly, suspiciously, he turned his head, scanning the swamp on the side where Frey and his crew were hiding.

He senses us
, Frey thought, and panic burst in his mind at that.
He’s gonna find us!

Fear sank down upon him, pressing him into the undergrowth. It wasn’t just a desire to remain unseen, it was a
need
. He wanted to dig into the mud and disappear. Anything to avoid that dreadful accusing gaze. He was guilty, an unbeliever, a heretic, and if the Imperator saw him it would be as if a light shone through him, turning him transparent, exposing his soul in all its filthy grotesquery. He clawed at the ground and whimpered like a child.

The others felt it too. Their faces were distorted in horror, despair in their eyes. How could they possibly triumph against this kind of terror? Frey knew this feeling to be caused by the power of the Imperators; he’d felt it before. But knowing that didn’t lessen the fear one bit.

He looked back over his shoulder, and saw Jez there. On Jez’s face was not fear but rage. Her teeth were bared, and seemed sharper than before. Her eyes rolled like a maddened beast. She was turning; the daemon in her was forcing its way out. But it couldn’t, it mustn’t! Even though Frey had seen her kill an Imperator before, it seemed inconceivable that she could fight the force that oppressed them.

Driven by one fear to overcome another, he grabbed on to her wrist to hold her back. Her head snapped round and she glared at him as if she was about to rip his throat out with her teeth. Then another hand closed round her other wrist. Pelaru’s. Of all of them, he seemed the calmest, the least affected. He stared hard at Jez, and she stared hard back at him, and the intensity between them was such that Frey felt almost ashamed to witness it, as if he was intruding on something intensely sacred and private.

But Jez stayed where she was, pinned by that gaze, and she didn’t move.

The Imperator’s searchlight gaze swept away, and the fear lifted from them. Frey lay there panting. He heard the door to the Overlander close and the vehicle drive away. He didn’t dare lift his head until silence had returned and the road was empty again.

‘What was
that
?’ Ashua asked, her eyes round.

‘That’s what we’re up against,’ said Frey. ‘That’s what we’ll get if the Awakeners win.’ The experience, now that it had passed, made him feel angry. That wasn’t the first time he’d been humiliated by an Imperator. Suddenly he was very keen to prevent the Awakeners doing that shit to him again.