Lights in the upper corridor remain dim as we pass. Lenz sweep from side to side without seeing us. Emergency stairs open and shut their fire doors, seemingly without noticing.
Haze is concentrating. That’s why he is in the middle.
I take point and Shil brings up the rear. Although we bunch tight. Both Shil and I are working hard to keep Haze feeling safe while he runs his routines. It’s like old times, and that makes me realize how badly Hekati gets to me. Give me a proper battle every time.
Behind me, Haze snorts.
‘What?’ I say.
He opens his eyes as if seeing the stairs for the first time. ‘One battle coming up,’ he says, adding sir as an afterthought.
‘You think?’
‘All hell’s about to break loose.’
So now, I’m smiling too. Setting the SIG-37 to thirty seconds certain, five minutes likely and fifteen highly probable burns battery, but the gun started this with a full power pack, and I have another on my belt. Makes lugging it around all this time worthwhile.
‘Talk to Haze,’ I tell the gun. ‘And keep me updated.’
This just leaves Shil. For once, she is not scowling; her face simply looks puzzled. ‘But you can do that, sir.’ Shil means the ju-ju shit.
‘Haze and the gun guard. We fight. Someone has to.’
‘And that’s us?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s us.’
She has the Vals’ implants in a flask on her belt. It is the best I can do: stuffing the implants into a water bottle before tipping ice on top. I have told her we owe the Vals that. She’s wondering if I am one of the good guys after all.
My orders to Shil are simple. We find the general, we kill him. Everyone and everything is expendable: that includes her, it includes Haze, and it includes me. Nothing in there she doesn’t already know.
‘Sir,’ says Haze, sounding worried.
I turn back, SIG in hand. ‘What?’ I demand.
‘Being scan-’
Shil drags his unconscious body into a doorway. As she does, a lenz flicks towards her and locks on to where she is crouching. Except the lenz obviously didn’t catch her, because it continues its run and then scans back without stopping.
‘Sir,’ says Shil.
‘More trouble than he’s worth,’ I say about Haze.
I’m joking, almost . . . We are three levels above General Tournier’s quarters, and six above where the Aux are being held, or sleeping, or whatever their bloody status is. According to the SIG, there are guards outside the elevator to the general’s level, outside every escape deck, and on the corridor where the Aux are.
The stairs are deserted. They are, however, alarmed.
‘SIG,’ I say. ‘You can deal with it, right?’
‘What, you think I’m fucking human? Of course I can deal with it.’ The SIG’s enjoying itself, you can always tell.
‘You,’ I say to Shil. ‘Wait here until all hell breaks loose. Then drag Haze to the escape deck. If you can’t do that, head for the level below. We’ll find you on our way up.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I toss her a grenade. ‘Take this. You might need it.’
She nods, gratefully.
‘And Shil.’ Must be something in my tone that makes her glance up and then look away.
‘Sir?’
‘That night you were captured . . .’
She wants to wave away what I’m going to say, because she thinks I’m apologizing. She’s wrong. ‘You shouldn’t have come back for me. You should have retreated when I gave you the order. Next time you do as you’re told.’
Shil scowls at me.
‘Understand?’
‘Yes, sir. Understand, sir.’
‘What do you understand?’
‘Next time someone wants to kill you, sir, I’m to let them.’
Chapter 48
I hear the first guard’s neck break. Unfortunately, so does everyone else, it echoes so loudly off the walls of a corridor. Scrabbling at his holster, the second guard takes a spike under his chin. I don’t even bother to throw, just flip the spike and ram. Slapping it with the heel of my hand makes the entire thing disappear.
As the second guard goes cross-eyed, the guard beyond him acquires a neat hole in his forehead. There’s no splatter pattern of blood or spilt brains on the bulkhead behind, and I am impressed.
See, the SIG can do silent when it tries.
The fourth man does what the first, second and third should have done. He dives for an emergency button on the wall. He doesn’t reach it. Entering the guard’s eye, the subsonic bullet bounces around inside his skull, pulping memories. ‘And for my next trick,’ the SIG says.
A ceiling lenz glitches, giving me time to drag the bodies into a nearby elevator and punch a button for fifty floors below. As the doors close on them, I check the corridor both ways. A sign on the wall beside the elevators reads This floor: NCOs only. I’m already trying one of the dorms.
Rolling over, a trooper spots my officer’s uniform in the light coming from behind me and decides faking sleep is a good choice. Makes me wonder what goes on around here. Three other dorms pass in quick succession. And I’m opening a fifth door when someone grabs me.
Neen has his knife under my chin.
I have the SIG under his.
‘How sweet,’ my gun says.
‘Sir . . .‘
‘Shut it,’ I say.
Franc, Rachel and Emil wait in the half dark behind him. A couple of guards lie dead behind them. And a dozen beds lie empty beyond, no sheets or blankets, just mattresses. Looks like they are being kept in isolation.
Jerking my thumb at Emil, I say, ‘Behaving?’
Neen nods. ‘Perfectly, sir.’
‘Betray us,’ I tell Trooper Emil, ‘and it’ll be the last thing you do.’
‘That’s great to see you too,’ says my gun, in case our newest recruit isn’t good at translating.
‘Sir,’ says Neen. ‘Question?’
‘What?’
‘Where are the others?’
I’m impressed he includes Vijay and Haze and doesn’t just ask about Shil. But then I spot the worry in Rachel’s eyes and know he is asking on her behalf as well, because she doesn’t quite dare.
‘First point,’ I say. ‘Shil’s absolutely fine.’
Franc flicks me a glance I’m not meant to see. I know that much when she bites her lip. Seems best to ignore it. ‘Haze had a turn. They’re both waiting above. Not sure about Vijay.’ Have to stop myself from calling him the colonel.
Haze’s being scanned has me worried.
The five-braid’s dead, General Tournier doesn’t yet have that level of power, the ship’s AI might be clever, but no more so than the SIG-37 . . . Who does that leave to do the scanning? Only an Uplifted. All flashing lights, memory crystal and arrogance. Or a higher-ranking Enlightened than the one we killed.
Has to be a braid, I think.
‘Sir,’ says Rachel. She sounds worried.
More time has passed than I was aware of. We’re in a different corridor. Actually, we’re not in a corridor at all. We’re about to finish climbing a flight of emergency stairs. Senior Officers Only, says a sign.
Been here before, I think, opening a door. In a tight gap, on the other side, wait Haze and Shil.
‘You . . . ?’ asks Neen.
‘Yeah,’ Shil says. ‘I’m fine.’
That is the extent of their conversation.
Although he wraps one arm briefly round her shoulder when he thinks we’re not looking. And she flicks him the kind of smile that says, quit fussing.
The internal emergency doors in Victory First have portholes. That’s one difference between Enlightened and Octovian ships. No way would General Jaxx let anyone ruin his immaculate matt-black doors. Also, Enlightened doorways double as airlocks, all of them.
A door, a space deep enough to take six people, then another door. Heavy bolts are fixed above and below each one, ready to lock it down.