Day of the Damned (21 page)

Chapter 41

‘SVEN . . .’

Yeah, I know. The road’s this way. Grabbing my bars, I blip the throttle and jump a ditch, missing a man who opens his mouth to swear. Only to shut it again at the sight of my face. Wise move. Although I’m too drunk to go back and kill him. So maybe he’s not in that much danger after all.

Given I’ve finished a bottle of cane spirit, it’s a miracle I can steer this thing. Mind you, it has three wheels and that probably helps. An Icefeld couldn’t cope with the state I’m in.

Someone got splashed the last time I vomited.

Shil probably, knowing my luck. Something else for her to get sour-faced and tight-lipped about. Luckily, I’ve got a second bottle in the pocket of my coat. So I don’t care that much.

We’re getting out of Farlight.

So is half the city from the look of it.

But we’re having a better time of it than they are.

A broken-down truck with an armchair tied to its flat-bed sits up ahead, guarded by an old doubter woman, who slumps on the chair, with a crying child on her lap. The child clutches a doll.

A hover taxi lies burnt-out in a ditch. Given its age and rust, and the patches of rot pocking its neoprene skirt, I’m surprised it made it this far. Gyrobikes wobble under the weight of two adults and more children than their riders can afford to feed.

The city obviously started emptying hours ago.

But we plough our way through the lot. General Luc doesn’t bother with sirens. Vehicles and people move out of our way or get driven off the road as the Wolf Brigade convoy roars by.

Three personnel carriers, five scout cars, sporting light machine guns. A pair of anti-tank missile launchers, with pintel mounts. Three transporters, loaded with food, water and ammunition . . .

The SIG gives me the list.

I tell it to shut up.

It tells me Aptitude was more fun than this.

Everyone in the Aux avoids me. Don’t blame them. Not their fault if I’m drunk. Apparently, Shil thought I was over behaving like this. Fuck knows where she got that idea. Don’t appreciate the SIG telling me either.

I blame Sergeant Leona. She landed me with the shit about thinking ahead, long games and people changing. Undoing my second bottle, I swear when the SIG says that’s a bad idea, and swap them around. The SIG-37 goes in my pocket and the bottle goes in my holster, an altogether better arrangement.

My combat trike is really just a fat-wheel with added light machine gun. I’m riding one. We’re all riding one. The bastards have even left the LMG’s belt in place. A clanking strip of 7.62 knitted with twists of ceramic. The LMG is automatic, gas-operated, belt-fed, air-cooled . . .

Our glorious leader’s usual shit. I wonder the Wolf is stupid enough to leave us loaded guns given the way I feel. The SIG tells me he’s not.

The pin has been shaved.

General Luc is up ahead. His vehicle identical to the one at Wildeside. Long snout, short back, weird turret. Painted grey, flying his flag. Still looks like a wolf’s skull on wheels.

‘Same one, fuckwit . . .’

Being in my pocket makes the SIG sound muffled.

The road we travel steams with early rain. The clouds have burnt away, and with them our protection from the early-after-noon sun. It will be worse later, when we hit the wastelands. Everyone rides in silence, staring ahead. No one knows what to say. And I’m not ready to say anything. Not yet.

So we wrestle with our fat-wheels, set our faces to the hot wind, wipe dust from our visors and head down Farlight’s slopes towards a gash through the wastes beyond.

Our route to the high plains.

There are seven of us and there should be nine.

Like I said, General Luc rides ahead. The personnel carriers ride behind. Four of the fat-wheels are used by Luc’s men. They act as our guards and as the Wolf’s outriders. Five hundred Wolf Brigade in all.

Drones fly overhead, all stubby wings and afterburners. They’re worked by a pale-faced girl who sits up front in a scout car, with a pad on her knee that she scratches with one nail as she flicks them round the sky. Not sure what she’s—

Oh, fuck it.

Upending the bottle, I swallow half in one go.

‘Sven,’ the gun says. ‘This isn’t helping.’ Shows what it knows.

The trucks are being loaded with supplies. The officers will travel separately from the men, and the NCOs separately from both. There’s even less mixing of ranks in the Wolf Brigade than in the Death’s Head, and there was little enough there.

Imagine it reflects General Luc’s tastes.

This is a memory, in case you didn’t realize. Not even the second bottle of cane spirit is enough to wash it away. So I guess I’ll be living with it for a while.

In my memory, we line up and the Wolf walks himself down our line.

As if we’re on parade, and he’s inspecting us. Colonel Jaxx is two paces behind. Still in his uniform and wearing his side arm. His loaded side arm, because General Luc lets him keep his rounds. The colonel looks younger than he is. And, God knows, he’s young enough.

The Wolf stops twice.

Once in front of me. Staring me up and down, he asks if I’m glad to have my arm back.

‘Yes . . .’

‘You call him sir,’ Colonel Jaxx snaps.

‘Yes, sir.’

General Luc nods. ‘That’s better.’

‘I was talking to my colonel.’

The Wolf’s eyes tighten. Leaning close, he takes a long look at my skull. I know it’s wide. I’m just not used to people making their interest so obvious.

‘So,’ he says. ‘The last human.’

I salute so fast it’s like a spring uncoiling. General Luc isn’t sure how he feels about that. ‘Checked your record,’ he says. ‘Did you really destroy an Enlightened mother ship?’

‘Not by myself, sir.’

He smiles. ‘Now we get to the truth. What help did you have?’

‘That lot.’ I jerk my head towards the Aux.

The Wolf’s wondering if I’m mocking him. Takes a moment for him to decide I’m not and he likes that even less. ‘Near original,’ he says. ‘Isn’t that what the Uplifted said?’

‘Yes, sir.’

How the fuck does he know about that?

I’d always assumed I’m human, plus. Not that it matters since our glorious— our late, no longer glorious leader declared all forms of human equal. But it seems I’m not. Everyone else is human, minus.

They probably believe they have the bad bits cut out.

The second time he stops is at the end of the line where Anton should be. Anton, who is with us right up to the point General Luc announces he’s abandoning Farlight for the Wolf Brigade’s mountain HQ; and then vanishes, along with five million credits on an open chip, although that’s not something the rest know.

‘Ah yes,’ he says. ‘Our missing hero.’

‘Sir,’ I say.

Grey eyes flick towards me.

‘Anton wasn’t Aux.’

The Wolf smiles. ‘No,’ he says. ‘You’re right. He wasn’t. Was he?’ There’s something dangerously silky in his voice. ‘You’re saying your colonel’s parole didn’t apply to him?’

I shrug. The Wolf is not amused. I’m not sure I care.

‘Well?’ he growls.

‘How the fuck would I know? My childhood was spent stealing food on a planet you’ve never heard of, sir. It took the man who shot my sister to teach me not to eat with my fingers, shit in public and kill animals for fun.’

‘Is there a point to this?’

‘Yeah . . . If it wasn’t for Colonel Vijay I’d have killed you by now, set fire to your corpse and pissed on the ashes.’

He stares at me. ‘Are you really a Death’s Head lieutenant?’

‘General Jaxx’s choice.’

‘That true?’ the Wolf asks Colonel Vijay.

‘My father was an astute judge of men.’

‘Anton Tezuka and I have history,’ General Luc tells him. ‘Did Anton mention that? Such an ambitious young man.’ The general bares his teeth. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘I always wondered what Anton saw in my well-connected, beautiful, absurdly rich fiancée.’

‘Senator Wildeside?’ The colonel looks shocked.

‘Yep,’ I say. ‘Debro.’

The general’s eyebrows rise at my use of her first name. ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘I forget. The dashing young lieutenant saves the disgraced senator from the insane and ravening inmates of an ice planet. Demands her freedom as his reward for destroying an Uplifted mother ship. Are you in love with her?’

My expression makes him bark with laughter.

‘I’ll take that as a no.’

It wasn’t the five million in credits that made Anton desert us. At least, not entirely; although no doubt that helped his decision. As General Luc walks up and down our line, I replay his words in my head. You’re right. He wasn’t. Was he?

Anton didn’t trust the Wolf not to take his revenge.

Right now, General Luc is pretending to talk to himself and we’re listening carefully, because our lives depend on it.

‘I could keep some of you and kill the rest,’ he says. ‘Or simply kill all of you. Only I can’t kill your colonel, can I? Because he’s given parole and, anyway, his heart needs to be fresh.’

Vijay Jaxx says nothing.

So I guess they’ve had that conversation already.

‘And tempting as it is I can hardly kill you, can I?’ he says, looking at me. ‘Last human and all. What with you having freed Debro. Given I intend to marry her daughter . . .’

Colonel Vijay’s head does twitch at that.

‘But,’ he says. ‘Someone has to pay for Anton’s desertion.’

Stopping by Rachel, he raises her head. ‘Hard enough to find snipers as it is.’

Neen he passes without comment. Good sergeants are as valuable as snipers. Noting the corporal’s stripes on Shil’s uniform, and the sour way she scowls at him, the Wolf grunts his approval. Ajac stares straight ahead. Iona is in tears . . .

‘You,’ General Luc tells her. ‘Step out of line.’

‘Take me instead,’ Ajac says, stepping forward.

‘You’re lovers?’ The Wolf sounds amused.

‘Cousins,’ Ajac says. ‘And she’s precog. That has to be worth something.’

The Wolf looks between them, eyes hard as flint, noting their family likenesses. ‘Your accent,’ he demands. ‘What is it?’

‘Hekati,’ says Iona. She manages to hiccup in the middle.

‘You’re from Hekati?’

Iona nods, not realizing she’s saved. No way will the Wolf kill the last two survivors from the oldest of habitats. The first one to become sentient and aware. Keep Iona as his mistress, and make Ajac his servant, quite possibly.

But not kill them.

‘That leaves you,’ he tells Leona.

She smiles. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It does.’

‘You think that’s amusing?’

Leona runs her gaze up his uniform, stopping at his face. Grey eyes, swept-back hair, a scar that whitens his cheek. ‘General Luc, commander of the Wolf Brigade, bound to protect the emperor by blood and oath.’ Her smile grows wider. ‘You have no idea how funny it is.’

Chapter 42

IN A CORNER OF THE WOLF’S PARADE GROUND IN FARLIGHT, under an oak tree that looks as if it’s been there as long as the barracks, which must have been there since the beginning, Leona says goodbye to me. She wraps both arms around my neck and holds tight, resting her head on my chest. I shouldn’t let my hand slip, but I do.

Her bottom is as perfect in the flesh as it is in bronze.

I can feel her grin.

‘Sven,’ she says. ‘They’re about to shoot me.’

‘For real?’

She prises herself away. Lets me see her face. She’s still smiling, but looks slightly puzzled.’ How do you mean for real?’

‘You’ll die like everyone else?’

Snuggling close, she rests her head again, and I feel her nod. ‘We’ve been through this. When the bullets hit, flesh will tear and muscles will rip. My lungs will fail, my vision cloud. I’ll be fighting for life long after any chance of it has gone.’

Leona grips me tighter when I try to pull away.

‘Sit for a second,’ she says. ‘Luc’s given me time to say goodbye.’

Dropping to a crouch, she points to a patch of dirt next to her. So I sit cross-legged beside her.

‘Sven,’ she says. ‘Can I look at the gun?’

She field-strips the SIG so fast my eyes barely follow her fingers. And she lays it out in front of her according to the official manual for a Colt-37, which is what it used to be before it was upgraded to full SIG AI and cinder maker capacity.

Having done that, she slides free its chip.

Breaks the chip into five smaller pieces and reassembles it just as swiftly. Less than thirty seconds later the SIG-37 is swearing blue murder and Leona’s nodding to herself with a pleased smile on her face.

‘You’ve done that before.’

‘At my age, it’s hard to find something I haven’t.’

I’m not sure who’s talking. But I don’t think it’s the girl in front of me.

So we sit in the early morning light, under the shadow of a huge tree, with a sticky wind rustling oak leaves and stirring dust. Her hair is damp at the neck and her skin smells of soap and sweat. I promise to kill General Luc the first chance I get. I promise it will be a slow and painful death and he will die in absolute—

Leona tells me this isn’t what she wants.

She wants me to pay attention. So I try not to notice her scent or how the skin of her neck feels under my touch. Although it doesn’t help my concentration when she shifts back and starts to unzip her jacket, revealing a vee of sweat beneath.

Her breasts shift either side of three dog tags that hide behind her vest’s green cotton. One tag to be buried with her body, one to be returned to her regiment, and one for central records so everything is up to date.

Don’t imagine that will happen.

Removing the chain, Leona ignores her dog tags, and holds up the key next to them. This would be simple, if not for its handle, which looks like the bastard son of a circle and a square.

Then she leans forward and unbuttons my shirt.

Next to my tags is a planet buster.

I took it on Hekati from a man who tried to kill me. He’d been given it by members of the Silver Fist. All he had to do, they told him, was twist its top and all his enemies would disappear.

He should wait until the next full moon.

By then, the shock troops intended to be somewhere else.

Somewhere that turning time inside out and destroying a sentient ring world wasn’t going to cause them problems. Because the U/Free can be very strict about things like that.

Only I screwed their plan and their ship too. Screwed the lot of them. But the ring world still died and I heard it happen.

‘Remembering Hekati?’ Leona says.

I nod abruptly.

‘It will get better.’

She smiles when I growl that I’ll take her word for it. Reaching out, she opens my hand and drops her chain into the middle, folding my fingers around it.

‘Fuck,’ the SIG says. ‘That’s—’

‘None of your business,’ Leona replies.

A tingle like static burns the centre of my palm.

‘Profiling,’ the SIG says. ‘Genotype human equivalent. Status DH class 2, override complete . . .’ It sounds like someone else.

My planet buster has a flip-up top, a purple ring that needs turning to set the core and a locking mechanism to stop the top opening accidentally. The key Leona gives me is simply a key.

‘What do I do with it?’

‘What do keys usually do?’ Taking her chain from my hand, she hangs it round my neck and buttons my shirt, before resting her forehead on mine. ‘The empire is not a thing,’ she says. ‘It’s an idea. You understand?’

‘No. I don’t understand at all.’

‘The long game.’

‘Leona, I can’t play chess.’

‘Then learn fast,’ she says firmly. ‘Or find people to play it for you.’

My face is to the sun and hers in shadow. Over her shoulders, half life-size in the distance, are the Aux, a dozen officers from the Wolf Brigade and the Wolf himself.

I’m impressed he’s left us alone this long.

‘Yes,’ Leona says. ‘I know. It’s time.’

Reaching out, she touches my face and her eyes glisten.

As we climb to our feet, she takes my hand and walks me back to where the others wait. And she keeps her face turned to mine and her smile in place, as if I am the one about to d
ie.

Leona refuses General Luc’s offer of a blindfold.

She does, however, beg a cigarette from Neen, whose fingers shake badly when he lifts his hand to shield the flame. Trickling smoke between her lips, Leona glances round and nods towards a wall.

‘That’ll do, I guess.’

Soldiers from the Wolf Brigade continue loading trucks.

Food and ammunition and crates of weaponry. Kemzin 19s, half a dozen Z93z long-range rifles, a couple of mortars, a heavy machine gun, on a tripod so unwieldy it takes three men to carry.

They turn to watch us as they pass.

We’re a minor part of a play parallel to their own. Nodding to Colonel Vijay, the Wolf says, ‘I’ll leave the arrangements to you.’

Colonel Vijay says nothing.

‘Sir?’ I say.

Both men look in my direction.

It’s easy to read the colonel’s eyes. The last twenty-four hours have filled them with horror, sadness and a sense of hopelessness. The Wolf’s stare is harder to translate.

‘Permission to carry on, sir?’

It is the Wolf who nods.

Pulling my SIG-37 from its holster, I switch to hollow-point while the gun is still at my side and walk towards Leona. She’s still smiling when I raise the SIG and blow out her brains. No one said she had to be against a wall. No one said there had to be a firing party.

‘Find shovels,’ I tell the Aux. ‘Get yourselves over to that oak and dig a grave. I want her buried and prayers said before we move out.’

Sergeant Toro sends for entrenching tools, those flip-down spades with spikes one side and shovel blades the other. I could crack the Wolf’s skull with one blow. Only my idiot colonel gave his word and we’re stuck with that.

Ajac breaks the first of the dirt, hacking through a root that gets in his way. He’s broad and blond and strong as an ox. But he grew up on a deserted ring world in a goat-infested village that called itself a city. He digs until the sweat running down his face hides the tears he’s ashamed to show.

Then Neen volunteers.

He didn’t know Leona. None of them did, not really. But, by the end, she was one of us and that is enough. When Neen is exhausted, I take my turn.

Shucking off my coat, I strip off my shirt, wrap both hands round the handle of the entrenching tool and cut through roots in short, brutal strokes. Each one is General Luc’s skull being smashed beneath my blade.

A crowd begins to gather.

At first I think they’re drawn by the ferocity of my digging. But it’s the scars on my back that have them muttering to each other. They’ve never seen an officer who’s been whipped before, and my scars are clear enough to be counted.

Most men would be dead.

‘Lieutenant,’ says a voice. It’s the Wolf. So I don’t bother to look up.

‘Sir?’ I say, slamming my entrenching tool into a root.

‘Your back . . .’

‘Whipped for hitting an NCO.’

‘You were a trooper?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But you made sergeant?’

‘Made sergeant, sir. Lost it for hitting an officer.’ Another crack of the entrenching tool and its blade skids off a root to split a block of black stone. Obsidian, I’ve seen it before.

‘You were whipped for hitting an NCO. But not for hitting an officer?’

‘The penalty for hitting an officer is death, sir.’

General Luc knows that.

There is probably an army somewhere with different rules. I imagine they’ll lose to the first serious enemy they meet. Militia exist to d
ie.
Conscripts hold the enemy’s attention while the professionals get on with the real job.

As for the rest of us . . .

Legion, Death’s Head or Wolf Brigade, it doesn’t matter. Our officers can be trusted to behave in public. The rest, and I include myself in that, are in for life. We’re a fuck of a lot less dangerous to other people that way.

Scrambling from the grave, I discover it’s as deep as I’m tall.

So I carry Leona to the edge and have Neen pass her down to me.

From the front, as she lies face up, staring at the blue sky above, you’d never know that most of the back of her skull is missing.

‘Fill it in,’ I tell the Aux.

One of Luc’s officers checks his watch.

The Wolf shakes his head, and the major goes back to staring straight ahead. The men who finish loading their trucks drift over in twos and threes and find themselves staying. When Leona’s grave is full, and its overspill heaped into a mound, as overspill always is, we seem to have most of the Wolf Brigade around us.

Several hundred people bow their heads when I say the soldier’s prayer.