Veteran (36 page)

Tendrils grabbed the armoured soldiers and simply prised open their armour. The soldiers inside the powered armour died when they were exposed to vacuum but the tendrils still pierced their flesh. The semi-solid black liquid surged into the shuttles and then penetrated the base. I found myself able to move, trying to ignore the panicking, dying humans around me as I moved, or was taken, into the base.

Corpses of military cyborgs hung in the air. It looked like they had tendrils of their own blood growing out of them. The base seemed to me to be more of a warehouse. It was full of weapons - everything from a space fighter to a laser pistol, but only one of each. There were surface-to-space missile launchers, self-propelled artillery, a sled, a tank, assault rifles and railguns. The newest of these weapons was about seventy years old.

The liquid seemed to reach out and touch it all, even the dead cyborgs; it was like it was tasting everything. Through the massive torn-open airlock door I could see what looked like a tree branch made of liquid reaching up towards the now inert and drifting cruiser. After all, if they were going to go to war they would need to learn to travel interstellar distances.

My eyes flickered open. I was lying in her lap. She was gently cradling my head. A familiar tendril of black liquid flowed from her mouth and into mine. Her eyes were gone; black liquid pools had replaced them. Suddenly I was choking and I could hear whispers inside me.

I sat bolt upright. There was an uncomfortable yank from the sockets on my neck as our connection was broken. Morag cried out and sat up.

‘What’re you doing?’ she cried. I was almost surprised to find myself in the dusty ruins of the old terraced flat.

‘What am I doing?’ I demanded, pulling the last remaining plug from the biofeedback device. ‘What are
you
doing?’ I was shouting now. ‘In here!’ I tapped the side of my head. She looked stricken, but I was too angry at my violation, at the revelation that flew in the face of everything I’d always known.

‘But you said—’

I stabbed my finger at her. ‘To share, with you. Not so you could fucking brainwash me! You let him in! You gave him access to my head!’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You know it doesn’t make any difference?’ I told her.

‘What doesn’t?’ she demanded, getting angry.

‘Whether your pimp is human or alien!’ I shouted. I think I expected her to burst into tears. She didn’t; she just looked cold, distant and very angry.

‘Go away,’ she said through gritted teeth. Straight away I knew I was being an arsehole, straight away I knew I’d woken up afraid, but I tried to ignore that weakness and hold on to my pride and anger. I grabbed my clothes and my gear and went to find a place to dress.

I guess Mudge noticed my face like thunder as I returned to where we’d parked. The cyberbillys were beginning to break camp and head out. Dust filled the air again.

‘Went well then?’ he asked, smirking. He was smirking less when he found himself lying on his arse with his mouth bleeding.

Mudge jumped back to his feet. ‘What the fuck!’ he shouted.

‘Not now,’ I told him, and he had the sense not to push it further. Pagan was stood a little way from us, leaning on his staff, watching me. I couldn’t make out the expression on his face.

Gibby skidded his car to a halt next to me, kicking up dust and causing me to cough. I slapped on another stim and knocked back some more of Papa Neon’s pills with water. Buck pulled up on his low rider.

‘What’s the plan?’ he asked.

Something exploded in the air over the square. We all instinctively ducked and weapons were drawn. I saw bits of debris rain down on the ground around a small group of complaining cyberbillys. Whatever it was hadn’t been big.

‘What d’you reckon?’ Buck asked. ‘Recce drone?’ I nodded. I could see Morag striding angrily across the square towards us carrying the camping gear. Shame and anger were warring within me. I think shame was winning but anger had pride on its side.

From the embankment I could see Rannu walking towards us. He had removed the magazine from, and was folding in half, a shotgun/ sniper rifle combo weapon.

‘Recce drone?’ I asked. He nodded, sliding the folded weapon into a long sheath strapped to his thigh. Morag was with us now, talking quietly to Buck. He did not look happy.

‘Rannu just took out a recce drone, which means that we’re compromised,’ I said. Everyone continued to look at me expectantly except Morag. ‘We’re going to head back to Crawling Town and swap the vehicles if we can.’ I was looking at Buck and Gibby. Gibby swore but Buck nodded. ‘And then make our way as fast as possible back to New York. Is that okay with everyone?’ There were nods and muttered assents.

I turned to the muscle car and climbed into the driver seat, ignoring complaints from Mudge. Rannu and Pagan climbed into the cramped back seat and Mudge took shotgun. I saw Buck get off his bike as I plugged myself into the car’s interface and the engine growled into life. Morag climbed onto Buck’s low rider and Buck got into Gibby’s car. The suspicious and unpleasant part of my mind asked how she’d talked Buck into loaning her his bike.

We kicked up dust as we joined the rest of the Hard Luck Commancheros heading back to Crawling Town.

I drove the car through suburbs that looked more deserted than ruined. It gave them an eerie feel, as if all the people had just left. The sun glowed red through the polluted air. Every so often we saw feral dog packs roaming the rubble-strewn streets. We didn’t talk much. Gibby’s car was ahead of us and in front of that Morag rode alone. I could feel Pagan staring at the back of my head.

‘What is it, Pagan?’ I asked when I finally got fed up with the feeling of his eyes on my neck.

‘You slept with her?’ he asked. Mudge gave me a sideways glance. He was grinning. He seemed to have forgiven me for punching him.

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘That depends,’ he said.

‘This should be good,’ Mudge said exaggeratedly, making himself comfortable in his bucket seat.

‘Do you know what a hierodule is?’ Pagan asked me.

‘You know I don’t.’

‘Oh come on,’ Mudge said, shaking his head. ‘A temple prostitute. You’re not serious?’ Every so often I forget that Mudge is actually quite well educated.

‘I think she is possessed and I think she will do anything for what possesses her.’ This sounded familiar. Pagan was starting to sound like Vicar. The thing is I wasn’t sure he was wrong.

‘It would certainly explain why she was prepared to sleep with this wanker when someone like me was on offer,’ Mudge said, still grinning. I didn’t say anything. Mudge looked over at me. ‘You’re not buying this shit, are you? She may have some funny ideas, probably thanks to this arsehole,’ he said pointing his thumb at Pagan, ‘but a one-hooker alien invasion she is not.’ I still didn’t say anything. I just concentrated on the road. Mudge was staring at me now.

‘Jake?’ he said.

‘I don’t know, man. Some things happened,’ I said. ‘Weird shit.’

‘Cool. Did she lick your arse?’ Mudge asked. This was why it was sometimes difficult to remember that he was educated.

‘Was it her or the alien?’ Pagan asked.

‘Does she have tentacles?’ Mudge enquired.

‘Shut up, Mudge. I don’t know. The alien, I guess.’

‘But she seduced you?’ Pagan more sort of stated than asked. Interesting question: did she seduce me? It didn’t feel like a seduction but then maybe that was the beauty of it. She was after all an experienced hooker.

‘Losing your religion, Pagan?’ Mudge asked.

‘What?’

‘Listen to yourselves. You’re turning a young girl - sorry, woman -into some kind of alien sex demon. What happened to the licentiousness of paganism? Hmm? You sound like one of those old-time pre-FHC fundamentalists. All women are evil. You’re just pissed off because she’s better than you. Don’t worry. I don’t think she’ll be interested in playing John the Baptist; you’ll get the glory for creating God,’ Mudge said before turning to me. ‘And you, you’re lucky that Ash and Bibs aren’t around because they would’ve taken you off and given you a right hiding by now. Grow the fuck up.’

‘Mudge, you weren’t there—’ I began.

‘Shame really. Even I wouldn’t have been as big a prick about it as you are. Maybe there’s something going on with her, so what? You keep second-guessing her and you’ll make yourself miserable and I’ll probably get punched more often. Take it at face value until you know better. You both just sound fucking frightened. In fact, fuck it, when we stop I’ll go and ride with her, see how she feels about a real man. Yeah?’

I didn’t want that, I definitely did not want that, but I did want to hit Mudge again.

‘No, I didn’t think so,’ he said as he watched my knuckles turn white. ‘You know, if we had more women with our merry band I wouldn’t have to listen to this bullshit.’

‘You’re woman enough,’ I assured him.

‘Perhaps dressing it up in religious terms is hyperbole but the fact remains—’ Pagan began.

‘That she is reacting to what is happening to her; she has not found and adapted a belief system to herself. Hers is a natural reaction, whereas yours, like every religion, is man-made,’ Rannu said.

‘You’ve been thinking about this,’ I said to him.

‘I think when things do not go well between a man and a woman, the man and his friends sit around and damn the girl,’ Rannu said. ‘You are both just finding her more difficult to manipulate.’

‘I’m not trying to manipulate her,’ Pagan said. ‘I have concerns.’

‘Really? Fucking least of mine. The lovely Josephine Bran may be looking through a smartgun link at my pretty face right now,’ Mudge pointed out.

‘And if we inadvertently destroy the human race?’ Pagan said. Mudge started laughing; even to my ears it sounded ridiculous. ‘I’m serious,’ he insisted. ‘We get this wrong, we could hand over our system to Them.’

‘Don’t get it wrong then,’ Mudge said. ‘I still don’t see how it’d be Morag’s fault.’

‘Have faith,’ Rannu told him. We lapsed back into silence. If Rannu and Mudge were right, and I think I’d always known they were, then I’d screwed up big time. Not only that but I’d said the most hurtful things I could to her. It also meant that what I’d dreamt or what Ambassador had told me might be true. If that were the case then it would seem that not only had we started the war but we had also provided them with the means to make their own weapons. That, however, didn’t make any sense. I couldn’t think of a single good reason to throw humanity into a war like this. I couldn’t understand the gain.

Back at Crawling Town we had a hurried meeting with Papa Neon and Mrs Tillwater. The moving city was getting ready to pull out. They’d had more incursions, serious ones this time. The Fortunate Sons had assembled a full armoured brigade across the border in Pennsylvania with air and artillery support. The Commancheros provided us with new vehicles: two pretty utilitarian pickup trucks (much to Buck and Gibby’s disappointment) and a dirt bike to act as a motorcycle outrider. Mudge had taken the bike and invited Morag to ride with him, probably just to piss me off. She had accepted. It was working. I was pissed off but mostly angry with myself and very sorry.

Pagan sent out a heavily encrypted message to Balor. Rolleston, if he was still interested, could break it in time, but the phrase was random, prearranged with Balor when we’d set up our comms procedures. The Commancheros and the Big Neon Voodoo had both agreed to send out small convoys to confuse anyone surveilling us and to confuse satellite observation. Pagan was running scans and ECM attempting to either find or confuse recce drones and other methods of detection they might use. He’d also swept the vehicles and us for bugs but found nothing. We discussed nothing more about our plans on the journey back.

We drove through the night. Mudge ditched the bike but neither he nor Morag was badly hurt. I kept going through the pills, the stims and some rather good amphetamines that Mudge had. I’d known he would have some somewhere. Things were pretty quiet in our truck.

Balor himself met us by the water, a different rendezvous point from where we’d last seen him. There was a speedboat waiting for us; we were to leave the trucks. He greeted us all like old friends and Morag like visiting royalty. I think Buck and Gibby may have found him somewhat disconcerting.

Over the water I could see parts of New York were burning, the flames reflected in the cold grey water. Smoke was rising from other sections of the city.

‘Problems?’ I asked somewhat redundantly.

‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ Balor said. ‘You are my guests.’

‘Is this because of us?’ Morag asked.

‘I don’t know; we didn’t stop to ask them.’

‘Who were they?’ Mudge asked.

‘They insulted me by sending a marine expeditionary force of Fortunate Sons. As if Fortunate Sons would be a match for my vets. Still, they did have a lot of aircraft,’ he growled, sounding generally angry that they had not properly challenged him.

‘Balor, they could level the city if they wanted to,’ I said evenly. Balor turned to me.

‘I think my evil eye would weep. I love that city.’ He looked sad but then he laughed. ‘I was told they tried to assemble a SEAL team to come into the city, but they all refused and then contacted some of their friends who work for me. That was how we knew they were coming.’ He grinned his unnerving shark grin.

‘If this is Rolleston he’s painting with a pretty big brush,’ Mudge said. I nodded.

We went to work, though I spent a bit of time in the hospital getting my skin patched up again. I wrote down what we would need and gave it to Balor. He read it, ate it and then asked me for another, memorised that one and then ate that too before complaining that I would bankrupt him. I was asking a lot from him but he came through. I couldn’t help but be impressed when he showed me the ten Wraiths. They were one generation back but they were what I’d been trained on in the Regiment.

‘You got the deep-water conversion kit?’

‘Got all the conversion kits, deep water, deep space, toxic atmosphere, high gravity, you name it. They’ve never been used; they belonged to a Fortunate Sons unit before we boosted them.’