Maximum Offence (24 page)

We find Shil or die trying.

And I mean it. Whatever else happens I will find his sister for him. It might be Shil’s fault she got captured, but it was my fault too. I should have dealt with what there was between us.

Of course, to do that, I would need to admit there was anything between us. I don’t tell Neen any of this, obviously . . . I’m still shocked at being able to realize it for myself.

The wind has changed and the temperature fallen to way below zero by the time Colonel Vijay and I head out for our talk. I want to talk somewhere private. Bizarrely enough, this means finding somewhere crowded.

Well, that has always worked for me.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asks.

A weird question for a senior officer. Actually, it’s a weird question for a man. Almost anyone who’s ever asked me that was flat on her back and naked, looking for compliments or a little extra coin on top of her price.

‘About this afternoon,’ I tell him.

He looks at me. It’s a quick glance, because the wind carries sleet and blows it straight into our faces. Colonel Vijay thinks I’m lost, but he is wrong. I can find a bar blindfolded in the middle of a desert. ‘What about it?’

‘It was clean, sir,’ I tell him. ‘No one died. No one’s getting fucked who doesn’t want to be.’ I’m thinking not just of Adelpha, but also of Rachel, who took one look at a stinking straw-stuffed mattress above the guardhouse and went to find Haze. I guess everyone’s idea of luxury is different. I’ll take clean earth every time. ‘Sir,’ I say to the colonel, ‘I’ve seen cities taken.’

‘This isn’t a city,’ he replies.

‘Seen towns too, and villages . . . Women raped, children beaten, men killed. Seen houses on fire, and animals tortured for the hell of it, when the enemy were all dead and the fury was still in everyone’s eyes.’

‘Sven,’ he says, ‘what are you saying?’

‘That we’re here, sir.’

Banging on a door, I wait. When no one comes, I start banging again.

‘We’re shut.’

‘Not any longer,’ says my SIG.

The room is crowded and smoky, warmed by a fire in the corner. All I want is a cold beer but a blank look greets that demand. There’s wine, brandy and something midway between those two.

‘Shit,’ says Colonel Vijay, looking at a crack in his glass. He blushes. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I know. Staff officers. Don’t even know they’re born.’

Three drinks later, he’s close to being drunk. It doesn’t even seem to be intentional. If it was, he’d be sticking to the brandy, which packs a punch like . . .

‘Milo,’ I say, raising my glass. ‘The new caudillo.’

My accent is terrible, but the crowd around us dutifully raise their glasses. A few minutes later, half of them drift away into the night. Those remaining are the ones who hated Pavel in the first place.

When I tell Colonel Vijay this, he squints at me.

‘I’ll prove it,’ I tell him. Spitting, I say, ‘Pavel, shit.’

A fat man with a broken nose cheers heavily. Wandering over, he half kicks a stool and sits when I nod. He doesn’t say much and I don’t either, and when he’s finished as much of our fortified wine as was left, he shakes both our hands and wanders out into the night, still stinking of goats. A couple of the others get up and amble after him.

‘You were saying . . .’ Colonel Vijay says suddenly.

I was?

‘About cities being taken.’

Yeah, I remember. Although I don’t remember what.

The colonel squints at me through the smoke. He looks like a man about to say something profound, but he just belches and settles back on his stool, watching the few remaining customers drift their way towards the door.

After a minute or two, I realize he’s back to watching me.

‘Sir?’

‘Called up your file before I left Farlight,’ he says. ‘Said you were a killer. No subtlety. I’ll tell them they were wrong. Assuming we ever get home . . .’

He’s drunker than I thought.

It makes a change, because that is usually me missing the table with my elbow and wondering why my glass is empty. And I’m sober, or mostly sober; and Colonel Vijay is really hammered.

‘Carry on,’ he says. ‘With what you were saying earlier.’

Oh, about Milo . . . ‘One man gets hurt,’ I say. ‘This place has a new caudillo. In a village south of Karbonne a hundred died, but they were militia. A few dozen women were raped, the same number of children were killed, but mostly . . .’

‘You were part of that?’

He sees the answer in my scowl. I was in the Legion. What does he think we did?

‘And Ilseville?’ he says.

‘That’s different. A hundred thousand dead. Ghettos burnt. They took the city, we took the city, they took the city. It’s a piece of shit in the middle of nowhere . . . I don’t know why anyone would want it anyway.’

‘Bloody?’

‘Brutal . . .’ My glass is empty so I take his, but that’s also empty. The man behind the bar brings me another bottle. Maybe he sees in my face what will happen if he refuses.

‘Yes,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘I see.’

I’m glad he does, because I sure as fuck don’t. Leaning forward, the colonel fills my glass and then his own. We clink glasses.

‘Death or Glory,’ I say.

We drink.

He refills my glass, and I kill that as well.

Somewhere around now, the bar empties of the last person but the barman and us. Might be because I’m field-stripping the SIG on a table in front of me. I have it on mute, so it doesn’t whine too much when I pull the chip.

‘Sven,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘How long have you known?’

‘What, sir?’

‘About my mission.’

Sitting back, he squints at me.

‘Village,’ he says. ‘Town, city, country, planet, two planets, ten planets; each capture more bloody than the one before. Yes,’ he says. ‘I see exactly what you’re saying.’

‘Sir?’

‘Must be why you killed the honour guard.’

The colonel nods to himself. ‘Because you knew I wasn’t up to it. I would have tried, you know. Done my best. Of course,’ he says, ‘it probably wouldn’t have been good enough, but . . .’ There are two people in this conversation, and both of them seem to be Colonel Vijay.

‘Perhaps,’ I say, ‘if you start at the beginning?’

The colonel sighs. ‘Who knows,’ he asks, ‘where anything begins?’

All right, so I shouldn’t grin. Only I have had this conversation in a dozen bars in a dozen cities with a dozen different troopers, usually just before they pass out. Just never had it with a Death’s Head colonel while wearing a planet buster round my neck.

I have to remind myself he’s eighteen. Or is it nineteen? If so, we’ve missed his birthday.

‘Sir,’ I say. ‘Would you excuse me?’

‘Use the fire. It’s traditional.’

‘Need some air, sir.’

‘Very well.’

Sleet hammers my face, and the wind rips heat from my hands as I force my fingers down my throat. The vomit melts the ice glaze on the dirt at my feet, and then becomes part of that glaze in its turn. I piss anyway because I’m here; although that is not what brings me outside. I need to be sober.

‘Sir,’ I say, when I return. ‘Let’s keep this simple.’

He laughs.

‘That’s what it says in your file,’ he tells me. ‘Likes to keep it simple. Guess that’s why my father chose you.’

It’s the first time I have heard him call Jaxx that.

‘Plus the fact you killed that colonel.’

‘Nuevo?’

‘
You killed Colonel Nuevo?
‘

‘Actually, no . . . Colonel Nuevo killed himself. I killed Captain Mye.’

‘Why?’ Colonel Vijay demands.

‘He intended to surrender.’

Sitting back, the colonel puts a hand to his face. ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘What better reason could anyone have? And I hear you killed another officer for insulting OctoV . . .’

It’s not really a question, and it takes me a moment to work out who he means.

Wiping brandy from the SIG’s chip, I slide it into place and twist the grip, locking it down. The barrel slots next, and then it’s just the pin, the slide, a couple of clips, an underhung rangefinder and the sights.

Forty-five seconds.

I think of telling Colonel Vijay the man in question was an Uplift plant, put into a cell with us to sow discontent. But I have no proof of that. Anyway, Colonel Vijay has made up his own mind about this stuff.

‘Sven,’ he says. ‘If you knew I was here to betray our glorious leader what would you do?’

‘Kill you.’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I imagine you would.’

‘No
imagine
about it, sir . . .’

‘Well I’m not,’ he tells me. ‘So you can put that knife away.’

What knife?
Oh, that one. Slipping it back into my boot, I shrug.

‘So why am I here?’ asks the colonel. ‘I just wish I had a good answer . . . Or a better one, anyway,’ he adds. ‘What do you know about politics?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

Around senior officers, that is the only safe reply. In my case, it’s also true.

‘Probably wise. Officially, we’re here to sign a treaty with the Enlightened. That’s why the U/Free sent us. And that’s why we were met by an Enlightened honour guard. Obviously, you know that already.’

Obviously, I don’t.

Apparently, the U/Free president brokered a treaty. A deal between the Enlightened and the Octovians. It will unite the two empires into one, fold the Death’s Head back into the Silver Fist, from which they originally sprang, and see OctoV and the Uplifted become a single mind.

War will be over. Peace will return.

We will all become Enlightened.

‘OctoV agrees this?’

‘What do you think?’

I think OctoV should order his entire army to fight to the death rather than accept such insanity.

SITTING NEXT TO A FIRE, FRANC CUTS A SLICE OF BREAD FROM a stale loaf with the longest of her knives and holds it to the flame with another, the shortest. The heat must be unbearable; I guess that’s the point.

Neen has dug into his rucksack for the last of the coffee. A huge square of goat’s cheese sits on a plate. I don’t ask where it came from, but I expect it’s the same place as the slices of salt goat that sit on a plate beside it.

A jug of water occupies the middle of the table. It’s all Colonel Vijay has been drinking. No doubt he’ll drink some more when he gets back from vomiting.

‘Makes a change,’ says the SIG.

‘What does?’

‘Usually,’ it says, ‘that’s you.’

Serves me right for asking. ‘You all right, sir?’

The colonel nods, and takes his place at the table. I want him here, because I want him to listen to what I say. Picking up my mug, I sip my coffee and look slowly round the table. My words are already agreed, but I wait until I have his attention as well. If the Aux are going to die — and chances are they will — then we might as well tell them why.

Neen stops loading clips, Franc puts her piece of toast onto a plate and sits at the only unclaimed chair. Rachel and Haze glance at each other. Ajac and Iona are off begging bullets from Milo. We need more ammunition. Also, I need them gone, because this is for Neen, Franc, Rachel and Haze only.

What I’m about to say can get them killed. So I’m going to tell them, and then they are going to forget. ‘You understand?’ I ask Neen.

‘Yes, sir.’

I make each one give me an answer in turn.

‘Good,’ I say, when we’re done. ‘Three months ago, a regiment of the Death’s Head mutinied . . . While we were fighting in Ilseville, General Tournier surrendered the Ninth half a spiral arm away. He surrendered rather than go down fighting.’

‘Fuck,’ Neen says.

‘Yeah,’ says my gun. ‘Bet you didn’t know you could do that.’

‘It gets worse,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘Under the terms of the surrender, the Ninth went over to the Enlightened. General Tournier offered to bring the rest of the Death’s Head with him.’

Silence fills the upper room in the little gatehouse.

Treason
, pure and simple. Except nothing about treason is pure, and this is not simple.

‘My father was offered money,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘A dukedom, his own planet, his own system. All he had to do was declare for the Uplifted.’

‘And OctoV, sir?’ demands Neen.

‘The U/Free would take care of him,’ I say.

‘Will of the people,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘Freely expressed. If enough Octovians wanted to become Uplifted . . .’

‘Can they do that?’ Rachel asks.

‘They can do anything they like,’ says Haze, the first time I’ve heard him sound anything but envious of the United Free.

Our glorious leader’s answer to all this is elegant in the extreme. On OctoV’s orders, General Jaxx gives his son authority to sign the treaty on the general’s behalf. Colonel Vijay Jaxx will meet General Tournier under a flag of truce. The chosen location is Hekati, an insignificant ex-mining colony on the edge of Enlightened space.

Having met General Tournier, under this flag of truce, Colonel Vijay has orders to kill him. At one stroke, OctoV allows General Jaxx to prove his loyalty, disposes of a threat to his empire, and ensures a treaty will never be signed.

Without General Tournier, the conspiracy collapses. There is, of course, only one problem. Jaxx’s son is a staff officer with zero combat experience.

That is where we come in.

Most of the U/Free think we’re on a cultural mission.

A smaller group think we’re looking for their missing observer. Who must have gone missing during the setting up of the treaty, although they don’t know about that. An even smaller group, who do know about it, believe we’re escorting Colonel Vijay to a pre-agreed location to sign the damn thing. Only OctoV, General Jaxx, his son — and now us — know we are delivering an assassin.

‘So,’ says the SIG, when I finish running it through. ‘Killing that braid was a bad career move?’

That is one way of putting it.

‘What now?’ asks Neen.

‘We find the Enlightened. We get your sister back. We kill General Tournier. We go home . . .’

‘Yeah,’ the gun says sourly. ‘Sounds like a plan to me.’

———

The drop is swift; the sideways flick as the elevator hits the bottom and begins its travel up the side of Hekati’s shell is brutal enough to make our stomachs lurch. Should have known all those temples were good for something. Makes me wonder what else the colonel forgot to tell me.