War in Heaven

14

Despite the prep, despite the waiting for it to start, you’re never ready for when it does. Without comms, separated from one another, you’re left with nothing but going over the plan again and again. Where did we fuck up? What have we forgotten?

I felt like I stuck out a mile. I didn’t belong in the Rookery and the people here knew it. I didn’t meet their eyes and they ignored me, but I think they knew my presence here meant trouble for them.

Cat, Merle and Tailgunner were on roofs on either side of the main thoroughfare. Morag and I were on the same side of the street but separated, with Mother and Strange, who were our drivers. Mudge and Pagan were on the other side of the street, again far apart, with Dog Face and Big Henry as their drivers.

I saw the Ground Effects Raider leading the convoy. I watched it wind round the bend on the spiral roadway and head towards my position. The GE Raider was the bigger, better-armed and better-armoured older brother of the GE fast-attack sled. Almost as heavily armed as a main battle tank, it used four low-level vectored-thrust engines to provide propulsion and manoeuvrability. Hopefully they wouldn’t help much in the cramped streets of Moa City.

Behind the first GE Raider were four civilian trucks that had been up-armoured for military use. Each of the cabs had an armoured turret with an autocannon. These cannons were tracking from side to side, looking for targets, intimidating the street. Maybe the gunners in the cabs were in control, maybe Demiurge was. It must have been pre-combat nerves but to me the autocannons looked eager. Why hadn’t I taken some drugs? Just to even out the mood a little. Bringing up the rear of the convoy behind the trucks was another GE Raider. There was a lot of firepower in the convoy for just eleven guns. The four combat drones in the air above the convoy were a further unplanned-for complication.

I was standing on one of the alleyway corners, next to a lean-to that was half home and half a third- or fourth-hand used-tech stall. Its inhabitant kept on giving me dirty looks. I knew that as we watched the convoy street kids working for the Puppet Show were blacking out security lenses all over the Rookery with spray paint.

It was Mother’s job to start the show. I was used to being out on my own fighting armour; she was used to fighting from inside hundreds of tonnes of mech so God knows how she must have been feeling. I checked the time on my IVD, looked away from the street and started pulling the balaclava that I’d been wearing as a hat down over my features. I hoped Mother’s nerve didn’t fail, otherwise I was going to feel really stupid wearing a balaclava and not doing any crime.

The tech salesman in his little packing-material stall/house saw what I was doing. He watched me with a kind of helpless resentment. He could see what was coming. I reached into the duffel bag with my left hand and gripped the smart frame inside. My right reached up under the armoured combat jacket and I took hold of the Benelli assault shotgun slung under my arm. The jacket was fine but I missed my long coat. Also it didn’t have a break-open flap for my shoulder laser, making me a weapon down.

The GE Raider passed my position, its engines blowing rubbish all over the street, collapsing stalls and trash-built homes. I needn’t have worried about Mother. She kicked the wheeled anti-armour mine out into the road under the GE Raider. As soon as it appeared, the remotes and the turret on the first truck started tracking her. The corner of the alley she was concealed behind was eaten away by autocannon and railgun fire. She triggered the mine. The GE Raider seemed to bend slightly in the middle and lift itself up into the air. Flames rolled out from underneath it, engulfing the street ahead, the shock wave flattening everything it hit, knocking people to the ground, cracking teeth together and destroying eardrums that weren’t made of metal and plastic.

I ran towards the first truck. As I did, Merle triggered the two Laa-Laas set up on a tripod on the opposite roof from his position. The GE Raider was driven back down onto the street as first one and then the other missile went through its turret armour and exploded. As this happened, two combat remotes and the autocannon turrets on the first two trucks turned and fired at the now empty Laa-Laa tubes. The stone by the tubes disintegrated like someone had taken a bite out of it. On the opposite roof Merle popped up and fired his plasma rifle four times in quick succession. Before I even reached the door of the truck, he’d reduced the first two truck turrets and the remotes to molten slag. Hot liquid metal was raining down on me, eating into my armour, from the destroyed remotes above. Behind me I could hear more weapons fire and explosions as Cat and Dog Face took out the rear GE Raider and dealt with the other two remotes.

I reached the truck. The crew were trying to manoeuvre but they had nowhere to go. The convoy was blocked ahead and behind by the burning wreckage of the GE Raiders. I just hoped their ammunition didn’t cook off or we were all fucked. I could see the panicked faces of the driver and the now-redundant gunner in the cab. The former was frantically driving backwards and forwards, trying to make it difficult for me.

I pulled the smart frame out and dropped the duffel bag. I let the shotgun hang on its sling as I jumped onto the lowest rung of the steps leading up to the cab. Holding on to the wing mirror, I sent the information on the truck through my palm link into the smart frame. The frame extended and I placed it against the door, sending a two-second time delay detonation order. Then I dropped off the truck and moved to one side.

To my enhanced reactions those two seconds seemed to take a lot of time. The weird thing was, there was no screaming. I mean there were cries of pains from the collateral damage — try not to think of them as people. That was to be expected; we were using heavy weapons in a built-up area. What was missing was the normal screaming you’d hear from panicked civilians. This area had seen vicious street fighting against Them throughout the war so I guess this didn’t frighten them. They’d just cleared out as much as they could. Here and there I could see the odd dirty face looking at us with resentment rather than fear. Sorry.

The ceramic crucibles on the programmable frame channelled the thermite charges. The thermite cut through the hinges and the lock on the armoured door and filled the cab with fumes almost immediately. Then the concussion charge in the centre of the frame detonated. Between the charge and the door was a container with a litre of saline solution. The charge went off with a bang, battering the driver and the gunner with over-pressure. The solution created a sucking effect and the entire door flew back off the cab and into the rock on the side of the street.

The truck had stopped moving now. I heard the pops and bangs from the other vehicles behind me.

Mother came out of the alleyway she’d been hiding in, heading straight towards the truck, a Metal Storm gauss carbine at the ready.

I swung round towards the cab, shotgun at the ready. The two inside were battered and bleeding from the door charge. I didn’t want to kill them but then we weren’t going to be gentle either. I put a three-round burst into each of them — gel batons. They got battered around some more, disoriented, the fight knocked out of them. I grabbed the gunner and threw him out into the street, face down. Mother covered me. She was holding together just fine without her mech. I knelt in the centre of the screaming gunner’s back and cable-tied his hands together. I then repeated this with the driver. In many ways I was being nicer to these guys than the others were. The other three truck crews were getting hit with thirty-millimetre gel baton grenades.

With the truck crew subdued and restrained, I ejected the magazine of gel baton rounds and replaced it with a magazine of saboted twelve-millimetre, armour-piercing explosive rounds. Then I covered Mother as she threw herself into the foot well of the cab.

Unless they’re part of the Crawling Town convoy or way out in the sticks somewhere, most vehicles are heavily computerised. This meant that Demiurge had access to the systems of these trucks. However, vehicles used by the military have to be able to work without their computerised components. This is in case of an electromagnetic pulse. With a pulse even hardened electronics go offline, though they are not slagged like unprotected systems. Military vehicles also need to work without their computerised components because squaddies break stuff. Mother had to remove the truck’s CPU and transponder before we could nick it.

And then it all went quiet. The main thoroughfare was filled with smoke and on fire in a few small areas. I could hear Mother working frantically in the truck’s cab as I watched around us. I could make out Morag further down the street, doing the same as Strange disabled the CPU and transponder on the third truck. I knew that Pagan and Mudge would be doing the same on the other side of the convoy.

In the alleyway next to us the Puppet Show’s heavily disguised people appeared as if from nowhere. The normal inhabitants of the alley had been convinced to go elsewhere and the cluttered passage was being cleared to reveal a road just about big enough to fit trucks down.

It was taking too long, but it was pointless to tell Mother to hurry up. She knew what she was doing, but I still felt very exposed and Demiurge would have known what was happening from the moment we hit the first GE Raider. The Black Squadrons were already on their way.

Mother appeared in the cab door. The CPU and transponder hit the road and she signalled that she was done. She disappeared back into the cab and the truck engine started again. She was driving it manually. Moments later I heard the other three engines start up. We covered the whanau as the Puppet Show’s people guided them into the alleyway. The trucks would have their cargoes stripped, separated and hidden all over the Rookery. Then those of Mother’s people who were familiar with Moa City would smuggle the cargo back through the tunnels, staying well clear of the cable car system. That was the plan anyway.

Big Henry turned his truck into the alleyway and followed Mother. Mudge was now on the other side of the road from me. I caught a glimpse of him between the two last trucks just before Strange turned in. Morag had pulled back closer to my position now.

Strange was manoeuvring into the tight passageway, Dog Face waiting behind her.

‘Contact! Light Walker and wheeled APC coming up behind us!’ Cat.

‘Contact! Light Walker and wheeled APC ahead of us!’ Merle.

Behind me, whoosh and explosion followed whoosh and explosion as Cat fired her final two Laa-Laas — I was guessing at the mech.

I couldn’t see ahead of me as Dog Face’s truck was blocking my view as he turned into the alley. I crouched down and looked under the moving truck as Merle fired his two remaining Laa-Laas from the shoulder. I heard the explosions and beneath the truck I could see the stilt-like legs of a light Walker stagger from the impact of the missiles. I could also see the wheels of the APC. It was lucky I’d crouched as railgun fire tore through the truck above me, stitching a line down it, showering me in some unidentifiable foodstuff. Across the road I saw Mudge lift his AK and begin firing short bursts up the main thoroughfare.

It was too soon. They had got here too quickly with too many people. Something had gone wrong.

Behind me I could hear laser and assault-rifle fire from Pagan, Morag, Tailgunner and Cat. Cat hadn’t brought her railgun as it would have been too obvious. We would miss it now.

Big Henry gunned the truck and it disappeared into the alleyway. I crossed the mouth of the alley, passing the shotgun’s pistol grip from my right hand to my left.

The Walker was reeling from the double Laa-Laa hit. Merle was rapid-firing plasma round after plasma round into it, his grouping tight and each round burning a little deeper into the mech.

The APC was advancing towards us, its double railgun firing at Mudge, destroying the corner of the rock building he’d been using as cover and forcing him deeper into the alleyway.

Infantry were pouring out of the back of the APC and sprinting for cover. This was a mistake. I started killing them. I fired, dropping the rounds in just under their helmets. My smartlink, training, skill and experience showed me where to aim. Facial features were replaced with red as some mother’s son ran a little longer before he realised he was dead. Then another, then another. The APC’s railguns switched to me and I calmly moved back into the alleyway as hypersonic rounds powdered rock all around me. Across the main thoroughfare Mudge popped out of his alley mouth and started on the dismounted infantry.

A shadow from above flickered over me as Merle leaped from one side of the alley to the other. Then the rooftop that he had just left ceased to exist. I was blown across the alleyway and rubble rained down on me. The inertial armour undersuit soaked up a lot of the damage but I still felt like I’d been beaten with hammers. I struggled out from beneath the rocks and staggered to my feet.

I looked into the main thoroughfare. The APC was firing at Mudge now. More of the infantry had successfully debussed and were in cover, firing at us. I fired two more short bursts. Armour-piercing rounds flew through the superstructure of a car and exploded inside the young infantrywoman who’d taken cover behind it.

I risked glancing behind me as I reloaded, to see Morag backing down the street. She was firing burst after burst from her laser carbine.

Plasma fire on the Walker started again from Merle’s new position as I exchanged fire with the remaining infantrymen, keeping their heads down. Any who did show themselves got killed. It was only Mudge and me suppressing the infantry between hiding from the APCs railguns, but we did it with such accuracy and ferocity that their return fire was weak and inaccurate. Still we needed to get out of here.

Rubble rained down on me again as the Walker’s twin rapid-firing railguns ate away at the rock above, seeking Merle. He returned fire from another new position, putting plasma round after plasma round into the Walker. The entire front of the light mech’s barrel-like torso was on fire. More rapid railgun fire, this time from behind as the light Walker coming up behind us opened up. The street shook and I ducked back into the alley as the Walker ahead mercifully exploded. The APC shifted its railguns from me to Mudge, who had to throw himself back into the alley as the rock corner he’d been behind just ceased to exist. I saw blood explode out of his side as a ricochet caught him, spinning him around in mid-air.

‘APC turret!’ I screamed, hoping that Merle’s aural filter would pick me up through the gunfire.

I fired at a small group of infantry trying to conduct an overoptimistic fire-and-manoeuvre drill to get closer to us. Three of them died; the fourth might have lived. He was diving for cover when one of the saboted rounds penetrated his cheap leg armour and exploded. Hydrostatic shock blew his leg off, sending it spinning away in the opposite direction from the rest of him. I could hear him screaming. The filters never seem to drown that out. As I was firing, Merle put two plasma rounds into the APC’s turret, turning it to slag.

Behind me I could hear grenade after grenade detonating against the other Walker’s armour and its returning railgun fire. Merle fired at the APC behind us, another two rounds destroying its railgun turret, and then the building above me exploded as the remaining Walker fired at Merle’s position. The concussion wave knocked me to the ground so hard I felt the subcutaneous armour in my face give. The impact felt like it had powdered bone. Fire and rubble covered me again. Red warnings appeared all across my IVD. My face felt liked pulped meat with jagged shards of ceramic armour stabbing through my nerve endings. Painkillers from my internal reserves kicked in and then a stim to counteract the painkillers’ downer side effects. I practically bounced back to my feet.

Morag appeared behind me.

‘Reloading!’ she shouted, ejected the battery from her laser carbine and rammed another one home. There was blood all over her face and I could see marks on her arm, leg and side from what I guessed were superficial hits. Still she wasn’t built like us. I was impressed she was still on her feet.

I fired back the way she’d just come, forcing some of the dismounted infantry to keep their heads down. I caught a glimpse of the remaining Walker. It was limping, its body smoking from the Laa-Laas and repeated hits from high-explosive, armour-piercing grenades.

Glancing up the alleyway I could see the rear of Dog Face’s truck disappearing into the distance. I watched as Tailgunner jumped from one rooftop across the alley to the other side and disappeared from view. He had the right idea. We needed to fall back.

Pagan had joined Mudge on the other side of the thoroughfare and was firing controlled bursts back down the way he’d come.

‘Morag, cover!’ I shouted. She nodded, loading a grenade into the underslung launcher of her carbine. ‘Pagan, Mudge!’ They didn’t hear; they were both too busy firing. Fucking running without comms. ‘Pagan! Mudge!’ Mudge was used to me shouting at him. He glanced over. ‘To me now!’ I shouted. Mudge nodded and signalled Pagan to follow him. Morag and I leaned around the corner and fired at anything we could see.

Just as Mudge and Pagan broke cover the mouth of the alley exploded, throwing both of them into the air. It had been a missile fired by the remaining Walker. A cloud of dust engulfed them.

Morag burned through a battery with a long burst from the laser carbine, the red light firing in a rapid strobe, superheated air exploding in its wake. I felt a bullet tug at the sleeve of my armoured combat jacket, then something slammed into my shoulder, spinning me around. I felt burning and more warning signs appeared on my IVD.

Mudge and Pagan emerged from the cloud of dust, half running, half staggering. The ground around them seemed to throw itself up into the air as railgun fire from the Walker impacted all around them. I’m not sure if a round glanced against Pagan or he caught a ricochet but his arse disintegrated in a spray of flesh, the impact too quick for much blood. He was thrown into the air and spun around. He landed on his face.

I heard four grenades fired from a launcher explode against the Walker. It had to be Cat on a rooftop. She bought Mudge just enough time to grab Pagan by the scruff of his neck and drag him into our alley. Cat had saved Pagan’s life. I heard another missile hit and a long burst of railgun fire.

Further up the thoroughfare, a lone soldier made a run from the back of the APC for cover. I led him with the shotgun and fired a three-round burst. A spray of red, he staggered and almost lost his balance, but kept running and made it into the alley he was heading for. That wasn’t right. He should have gone down.

‘Jake, move!’ Morag screamed as she pulled me back down the alley after Mudge, who was still dragging a screaming Pagan.

I actually saw the contrail of the missile as it hit where I’d been standing moments ago. I watched the explosion blossom, pushing powdered stone out as razor-sharp fragments. This was the glory of being wired as high as I was. You got to see your own death. You also had the time to do dumb things like move between the blast and Morag. It went black.

My internal medical systems flooded my body with stims, waking me up immediately. I felt something moving under me. I was rolled over onto my face. If I still had one — a face, that is. There was shouting. There nearly always is.

I opened my eyes to pain but a perfectly working IVD, though my vision was full of red warning icons. I was being told electronically what my body already knew. My world was pain. The fact that my IVD was still working so well gave me the clarity to see just how fucked we were. That was once the internal pain management systems and a fuck of a lot of painkillers and stims from my rapidly depleting internal drugs reservoirs made me capable of functioning again.

My entire front was black from scorch marks and high-velocity embedded rock grit. I don’t think I had any skin left on my face. It had effectively been sandblasted off. Diagnostics were showing that shrapnel had pierced my subcutaneous armour in several places. The worst was a stomach wound that would need attention soon. Another piece of stone and metal had gone through my armoured skull and fractured it. That was bleeding badly over my lenses.

Morag was on all fours next to me, having managed to roll me off her. She was gasping for breath like she’d been badly winded. Blood was pissing out of her nose but otherwise she seemed not much worse than she had moments before.

‘C’mon!’ Mudge screamed at me. He was trying to get a screaming Pagan over his shoulder so he could carry him.

Still dazed, I looked up to see Tailgunner and Cat on opposite rooftops firing back towards the main thoroughfare. I looked down the alleyway and saw the remaining Walker limp into the mouth of the alley. The multiple barrels of its rapid-firing railgun were already rotating up to speed. We were dead.

This was what Merle had been waiting for. The building hewn out of the rock on the corner of the alley had been blown open by missile fire. Merle appeared on the first floor, now open to the air, his plasma rifle at his shoulder, and fired it at almost point-blank range. He squeezed the trigger on the semi-automatic weapon again and again, firing the whole magazine into the mech. The plasma gun’s barrel glowed white hot. The front of the mech was wreathed in white fire that ate through armour plate. I think I saw Merle turn and run. I grabbed Morag and forced her to the ground and fell on top of her. Mudge dropped Pagan and threw himself on top of the screaming hacker. The mech blew.

‘That was fucking stupid,’ I heard Mudge say and start coughing. ‘He was in the army. He’s got more armour than me.’

This time I saw all black because we were buried. I felt like all the weight of the planet’s heavy G was bearing down on me. It seemed like the stone ceiling that replaced the sky in the cavern had landed on me. Boosted muscle, metal and a bit of screaming, and I managed to push myself up through the rubble. I saw light again. I spat dirt, blood and gravel out of my mouth and glanced behind me. The mouth of the alleyway was gone.

I reached down and dragged Morag’s limp body out of the debris. She was unconscious. My back felt like a whole load of stone had landed on it. Funny that. I overrode all the warning signs in my IVD so I could see better.

‘Move! We’ll cover you!’ Cat, from the roof. Christ, she was keen. Still she hadn’t just been blown up. She was right. The mechs were gone but the infantry would be in the alleys, trying to flank us.

The trucks were gone. Good, that was what this was about. Still, I didn’t want to die for a bit of food. I put a stim on Morag’s neck. She cried out as she was rudely pulled out of unconsciousness by the drug.

‘On your feet,’ I said.

There was just a little look of resentment from her before she realised where she was.

I retrieved my shotgun. Ejected the magazine, replaced it, ran a quick diagnostic. It was still working.

Morag staggered to her feet. Pagan was unconscious. I looked at Mudge’s blackened face.

‘I had to sedate him,’ he told me.

I helped sling Pagan across his shoulders.

‘C’mon!’ Cat shouted from above. She sounded worried but not rattled.

‘Air force,’ I said to Mudge. Mudge looked at me quizzically. I nodded at Pagan. ‘He was air force, not army.’ I had no idea why it was suddenly important to me.

‘You want to talk about this now?’ Mudge asked.

I shook my head. ‘Let’s go.’

If we were lucky we could get out of here without another contact. We’re never lucky. Even so, this was taking the piss.

Tailgunner took a hit first. A lump of his armoured combat jacket superheated and blew off. He went down, his chest steaming. Cat hit the ground, hiding behind the stone lip of the roof she was on. Morag cried out as she took a hit to the back, knocking her to the ground again. There was a smoking hole in the back of her armour. It had stopped most of the beam but I could see blackened and blistered skin through it. Mudge and Pagan were a two-for-one. Red steam jetted out of Pagan’s leg, the beam almost severing it. The beam then went through Mudge’s shoulder. Mudge cried out and dropped Pagan as he stumbled forward, his shoulder steaming red. The laser took me in the right shoulder, almost severing my cybernetic arm.

Rapid and accurate laser fire. I got a sinking feeling. I managed to bring the shotgun up to my shoulder, though it felt like my arm was about to fall off. There’s nothing like smelling your own cooked flesh. More painkillers, more stims, more red warning icons.

‘Fall back, now!’ I barked.

Morag was helping Mudge get the badly bleeding Pagan up and over his unwounded shoulder.

‘I can’t see them.’ Cat from above.

I was looking down the barrel of the shotgun. Where had the fire come from?

A figure was moving fast and low in the main thoroughfare. I triggered a burst from the shotgun but the figure had gone, disappeared into one of the cave-like buildings next to the ruins of the mouth of the alley. Above me Cat leaped over the alleyway to check on Tailgunner. It had all been going so smoothly. Well, it hadn’t really.

Mudge had Pagan over his shoulder now and was moving as quickly as he could manage. Morag was staying level, covering them. I was backing down the alleyway looking for the figure, knowing who it was but not wanting to admit it to myself. Above us, Cat hefted Tailgunner onto her shoulder and started jogging across the rooftops, easily keeping pace with us. What a fucking mess. How did they get to us so quickly?

The sound of gauss fire from behind. A shout of surprise from Cat. The sound of a body being dropped onto a rooftop. Answering laser fire from Morag. I started to turn.

Someone grabbed my shotgun. I shouldn’t be this easy to sneak up on. Not when I’m operational. The weapon was twisted, then wrenched from my grip and thrown away.

‘Hello, Jakob.’ Josephine, the Grey Lady, still wouldn’t look me in the eye. She was standing in front of me. Small wiry build, nondescript to the point of drabness. She wore an inertial armour suit and had the laser carbine she’d just used on us slung across her back. I just stared at her as I went through the cliches of my blood running cold and my mainly mechanical heart skipping a beat.

‘Run!’ I screamed at the others.

I took a step back and went for the Mastodon and my laser pistol. She moved too fast. Steely fingers hit my right wrist hard enough to affect a nerve point through subcutaneous armour and my laser pistol flew out of my hand as I lost all feeling in my fingers. Then she locked up my right hand, elbowed me in the face and bent the Mastodon out of my grip and threw it away. She chopped my neck with both her hands and kneed me in the chest, knocking me back into a wall.

I clenched my fists and all eight of my knuckle blades slid out of their forearm sheaths.

‘How’d you know?’ I asked, trying to buy time.

She just shook her head as if she was sad that I’d even asked.

I punched at her with the blades. She batted one bladed fist aside. She wasn’t even where I’d aimed the other. I stabbed air.

Fighting other operators, you don’t attempt kicks above knee height. Your legs may have the strongest muscles on your body, but kicks are slow and anyone with decent reactions who knows what they are doing will avoid or counter them. Josephine kicked me in the head, which snapped to the left as I explosively spat blood out. I felt bone and armour crunch and I went down on one knee.

I swung blindly with the claws at where I thought she was. She seemed to roll over my arm. She was now so close it felt intimate as she hit me hard enough to hurt through the armour in the chest, stomach, kidneys and groin. She was moving so fast I could barely register where she was going to hit next.

I tried to hook the blades on my right arm, the cybernetic one, into her kidneys. She stepped back, took my right arm by the elbow and wrist, and used my own momentum to push it up. Then she hooked one of her legs behind mine and stepped forward. I felt myself starting to fall back. She leaped up, adding her weight to my momentum, lodging her leg horizontally across my throat, and rode me to the ground. As I hit the rock, her leg crushed my windpipe. I was now using my internal air supply. My claws, held in place by her seemingly unbreakable grip, were stabbed into the ground with enough force to shatter the carbon-fibre blades.

I stabbed at her with the blades on my left arm. She leaned back, and I missed. Josephine grabbed the arm. I screamed as she struck my elbow, shattering it. My left arm was now useless and limp. Black scalpel-like claws shot from the fingertips of her right hand and she dug them into the wound in my right shoulder. More screaming, mine again. I tried to punch her with the broken blades on my right fist until she’d severed enough connections to the cybernetic arm and it went limp as well.

She was sitting atop me, leg still crossed over my neck. The only real option I had left was to try and buck her off. She was too far forward to hook with my legs, and I knew that would be ineffective and only cause me pain. I knew when I was beat, or maybe I didn’t, but I was beat now. She’d walked all over me. I hadn’t even landed a blow. Being beaten by a better opponent is one thing, but I felt helpless. She still wouldn’t look at me directly.

‘I don’t suppose you’d kill me?’ I managed through blood, grit and broken teeth.

‘I’m sorry, Jakob.’ She sounded like she meant it.

I was peripherally aware of a firefight and managed to turn my head. Further down the alley I could see Cat, Morag and Mudge firing at opponents who were out of view, their lasers and assault rifles being answered by what sounded like gauss carbines. There was the occasional explosion of a grenade. I watched as Morag went down in a hail of fire. The spray of blood told me that her armour was compromised. She hit the ground but I could see she was still moving. I had to help.

When the Grey Lady had hit me in the shoulder with laser fire and then dug her claws in, she’d torn the combat jacket. There was just about enough room to bring my shoulder laser to bear.

I think when the laser slid out on its servos Josephine was surprised enough to almost have a facial expression. For a moment I had her in the laser’s cross hairs superimposed on my IVD. The red beam stabbed out. Superheated air exploded. She grabbed the laser and shifted it slightly as she moved her head to the side. It missed. Then she tore it off my shoulder.

‘That’s the closest anyone’s come for a while,’ she mused.

I could still hear the gunfight. I guessed my friends were too busy to kill me like we’d agreed. I had the presence of mind to trigger the kill switch on my internal memory. Virtual flames burned away electronic data, hopefully leaving them nothing for the inevitable system violation.

Josephine took me by the hair and pulled my head up. On the wall behind her I could see a peeling thinscreen poster of Mudge. It was a screenshot from when we’d taken over the media node on the Atlantis Spoke. He was grinning, had a spliff in his mouth and was holding his AK at port. Across the poster, written in red, was the word R ESIST. The Puppet Show had been disseminating the information we’d given them on the Cabal, the Black Squadrons and what had happened on Earth. I couldn’t help but smile. Mudge was the unacceptable face of the resistance. You had to laugh really, didn’t you?

I tried to move my head so I could see Morag but Josephine held me still. I felt her push the coma jack into one of my plugs. Felt the click as it slid home. The fight my security software put up was depressingly brief. Darkness.