War in Heaven

8

The standard-issue sidearm for the SAS is the Sig Sauer P410. It is capable of semi-automatic or full automatic fire and has an integral suppressor. The standard magazine contains fifteen 10mm rounds, though oversized magazines with the capacity for twenty or twenty-five rounds are favoured when concealment is not an issue. When fighting Them the favoured load was an armour-piercing, hydro-shock round because of the effects on Their liquid physiology. The hydro-shock rounds are perfectly adequate when used against humans, but many, like Morag, preferred armour-piercing explosive rounds when shooting at people.

The P410 is largely a hold-out weapon. It does not have the stopping power of a rifle or a Mastodon or Void Eagle. If you’re using one against a Berserk then your day’s gone horribly wrong. Given enough hits, they will mess up a Berserk or someone with cybernetic augmentation up to the level of a special forces operator, but they are not one-hit-one-kill on someone with decent subcutaneous armour. This is something I was very grateful for when Morag decided to shoot me with hers. I was less pleased that we’d collectively advised her to use a large-capacity magazine.

Anyone putting any effort into tracking us was going to be able to, but we were trying to stay off the radar. The Brazilian was the closest spoke to New Mexico, but US military shuttles were still not allowed to dock there so we’d been flown to High Pacifica. I had never quite been able to reconcile the view from orbit with the reality of living on Earth. From high above the Earth looked bright, blue, peaceful and, weirdest of all, clean.

The space around High Pacifica was very busy with everything from military shuttles like ours to net tugs pulling in chunks of refined asteroid from orbital refineries, as well as interplanetary traffic from the rest of the system.

We made our way as inconspicuously as we could to an outbound tramp freighter with parts going to Freetown in the Belt. Cat and I all but sat on Mudge to make sure he didn’t call attention to himself.

The freighter was called Loser’s Luck and I was astonished it was still holding together. It had a mainly Indonesian crew who we’d paid enough to leave us in peace and hopefully not tell too many people that we were travelling with them. We still were not discussing the details of our mission, however. I think what bothered me the most was that I’d found myself in yet another poorly heated, thin-walled cargo hold far too close to the vacuum and radiation outside.

The flimsy cargo hold was yet another reason why I was less than pleased when 10mm rounds started sparking off the metal around me. This was foolishness, however. There are few man-portable weapons powerful enough to get through even the cheapest cargo hull. Still, getting shot was no fun.

I wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention and it was pretty much the last thing I had expected. It was just like being rapidly punched with extraordinary force. She nailed me in the chest with a three-round burst, tight grouping. The integrity of my armour held, but warning icons were already appearing in my IVD as I rolled backwards off the crate of supplies I’d been lying on. The second burst caught me painfully in the left leg below the knee before I managed to get into cover.

I drew the Mastodon and my TO-5 laser pistol. I wasn’t sure what was happening or who was shooting. Mudge had been sitting on a pile of gear opposite, reading. Pagan was tranced into his own systems — I assumed working. Cat was checking the gyroscopic mount for the railgun and Morag had just wandered back from the galley.

‘You fucking bastard!’ Morag shouted and fired again. It was suppressing fire. It worked. I kept my head down. Then again, maybe she was just firing out of anger or frustration.

‘Morag?!’ I said incredulously. This was a completely new phase of our relationship and I wasn’t very happy about it.

‘Put the gun down,’ I heard Mudge say. I continued cowering behind the crate. I really wasn’t sure what to do. Had she really been trying to kill me?

‘Fuck off, Mudge!’ Morag said, and there was another burst of armour-piercing, explosive-tipped bullets.

‘Morag… what the fuck?!’ I managed. There was the sound of a scuffle. I dared to poke my head over the crate and saw Mudge grappling with Morag. Now Mudge is no slouch in a fight. I’ve seen him take special forces operators on without a trace of hesitation. He mostly lost, but he was game and reasonably skilled. Morag straight-armed him in the throat, pistol-whipped him and then side-kicked him so hard that he was knocked off his feet and slammed into the hull wall.

I threw myself behind more crates as she turned and fired again. I caught a glimpse of her face contorted with anger.

There was the sound of another scuffle. I heard Morag cry out and then a thump as someone hit the floor. I risked looking again. Morag was lying next to Mudge rubbing her wrist. Cat was standing close to where Morag had been, making the Sig safe. Cat was glaring and Morag was staring at me with so much hatred I was beginning to think I’d rather be shot.

‘What did you do?’ Cat demanded.

I was pretty much struck dumb for the moment. Apparently being shot was my own fault. Pagan had been tranced in though the whole thing, completely oblivious.

‘Its okay. There are other guns,’ Morag spat. She sounded really angry.

‘Is everything okay?’ Mudge asked. ‘Can I go back to my book or is there more imminent gunplay?’

‘More imminent gunplay,’ Morag told him.

‘Can we not shoot at crates full of munitions?’ Cat said, sounding more reasonable, but then she went back to glaring at me.

‘What’s going on?’ I demanded, finally mastering speech again.

‘How could you, you piece of shit?!’ Morag hissed at me. She looked like she would be holding back tears if she could still cry.

‘I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about!’ I shouted.

I was holstering my guns when the portable monitor landed on the crates I’d been using as cover. I glanced down at the image. I didn’t need to run the viz to know what the story was. The frozen image at the start of the viz was me on top of Fiona, whose features had been obscured. I felt the sick feeling of being found out. It was a feeling I hadn’t had in a while because I hadn’t really cared about what I’d done and how it would affect others for a long time. It was like ice had replaced sluggish blood in my body. I felt pressure in my chest, as if someone was slowly but surely crushing my augmented heart.

‘It’s all over the net,’ Morag said more quietly now. ‘The crew were laughing about it in the galley when I went in.’

‘You bastard,’ Cat said.

‘Yes, thank you, Cat,’ I said, but I was trying to think of something sensible to say.

Mudge walked over, picked up the monitor and spent a few moments tapping at it and scrawling through the story. I steeled myself for some inappropriate and insensitive attempt at humour.

‘It’s a slander piece. It’s designed to undermine what we did in Atlantis. These things are easy to mock up,’ he said. I couldn’t quite work out the significance of the look he gave me.

‘But it’s not mocked up, is it?’ Morag asked quietly.

‘No,’ I said. Mudge shook his head sadly.

‘She looks so fucking trashy,’ Morag said, trying not to sob. Then she stared at me, angry again. ‘But I guess she was a step up from an ex-whore from the Rigs, aye?’

I felt like I’d been stabbed. I think I would have preferred stabbing. I was almost looking around for an airlock to leave by.

‘Morag, don’t say that. She was horrible…’ I started and then realised that wasn’t a good thing to say. Mudge almost flinched.

‘But you’d rather fuck her than stay with me. Thanks, Jake. I feel much better now.’ The anger was easier to deal with.

‘That wasn’t what I meant. Look, I thought you’d gone…’

‘I hadn’t gone anywhere; you left us.’

You shit, I told myself.

‘I thought that we… that you…’

‘How did you put it? “We’re off to die under some alien sun”? Morag’s gone; let’s have sex with some trashy blonde.’

‘Look, Morag, I’m sorry, but I’m new to all this, I really am. I’ve never-’

‘And I fucking have?!’ she screamed at me. ‘I may have been a fucking whore but at least I know not to fucking cheat on the person you love!’

When she realised what she’d said she looked stricken. I think the last thing she needed now was to show any vulnerability. Unfortunately dry sobbing racked her small frame. The sort of crying that made your implanted eyes hurt. I foolishly moved towards her.

‘Stay away from me!’ she screamed. The anger was back and seemed even more intense. I actually took a step back at the look of blazing hatred on her face. ‘I swear to God, you come anywhere near me and I will find a way to fucking kill you!’ At this she stormed out of the hold.

Cat gave me one last baleful look and went after her.

I slumped against the cold of the hull’s external bulkhead. I could feel the nothingness on the other side of the metal. I felt hollow. I felt like I did before all this happened except I didn’t think the respite of the sense booths would help now.

‘I’m sorry, man…’ Mudge started.

‘Not now.’ Then I realised what he’d said. ‘Oh.’ Mudge was being sympathetic, time to buy a lottery ticket.

‘Was it a bad night?’

‘Yes, I guess. I’ve had worse. You know, I just didn’t think. I never really had to before.’

‘I can sort of see how it went down, but she’s never going to get that. I wouldn’t try trancing in anywhere soon though. For what it’s worth, I think her expectations are pretty high. You should get what you can when you can from this world.’ I wasn’t sure if that was what Mudge believed or just what he wanted others to think he believed.

So this was their revenge. But whose? I couldn’t really see it as being Calum’s. Surely he wouldn’t want his daughter splashed all over the net like that. Even with her features distorted it wouldn’t take God long to work out who it was if anyone asked. Alasdair? Maybe, but how did he get the footage? Then again, maybe people like that shared these things — what did I know? Fiona herself? Would she get off on this kind of notoriety? I thought maybe she would.

Mudge said, ‘I’ve never really got this. It’s a fucked-up world in a fucked-up system. Every one of us does fucked-up things, most people just to survive. Everyone I’ve ever met has a kink and the more straight-laced the person seems to be then the dirtier their kink tends to be.’ I started to protest. ‘Let me finish. See, this is about what we did and God. The subtext is, how dare we sit in judgement on our masters when this is how we act in private? How can people in this world be shocked by this? I mean it’s taking the piss. The thing is, is any of it anyone’s business?’

‘Someone’s just done to me what we did to everyone.’

‘We didn’t put cameras in people’s bedrooms.’

‘Oh well, that’s all right then. How many people do you think we’ve killed over shit like this?’

He paused for a moment and then said, ‘Look — cheating aside, and I can’t quite make up my mind if Morag’s being unfair or naive — I think maybe all this stuff — who we really are — should all be out there and we shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed of it. I mean, who’s this supposed to shock? This doesn’t shock; it titillates. We should be shocked that people kill each other to feed their kids. We should be shocked that vets serve our race and then all the systems that were forcibly implanted in them are harvested and they’re left crippled. We should be shocked at the disparity between the poor and the rich-’

‘Mudge.’

‘Yeah, sorry. I got a little carried away. That said, I’ve got the name of the so-called journalist, and I’m going to do something bad to him when we get back.’

‘He’s one of many and we’re not coming back.’

Mudge just looked at me for a while, the camera lenses that were his eyes whirring one way and then the other.

‘Thanks for trying,’ I finally said.

‘Want me to talk to her?’ he asked.

‘Definitely not.’

‘Want to get fucked up?’

‘Yes, but I’m not going to.’

‘What’s going on?’ Pagan asked, coming out of his trance. He was looking around at the scorch marks on the hull and the holes in some of the crates.

‘Morag and Jake’s relationship has entered an exciting new phase. Now they’re using firearms as a method of conflict resolution.’

‘What? What did you do?’

I sighed.

‘Jakob fucked some trashy blonde. It’s all over the net.’

‘Oh.’

So that was day one of our trip.

And then things got really difficult. We hadn’t been given much room on the freighter because the crew wanted to give most of their hold over to more lucrative machine parts. This meant that Morag and I were forced into close proximity. She wasn’t speaking to me at all but she was giving good glare. Sometimes she used night vision to glare at me in the dark as I slept. She did this with sufficient intensity to wake me up. This meant a shitty atmosphere and I felt sorry for the other three.

We still weren’t in a position to talk about or otherwise prep for the mission, which meant we were bored. This was time I’d hoped to spend with Morag. Instead I tried to avoid everyone, which can be difficult in the confined space of a ship.

I had thought to practise my trumpet but apparently it echoed. It made me even more unpopular with the others and resulted in threats from the crew. Pagan offered to set up a virtual practice programme in one of the spare memory cubes. However, if Morag found out I would be taking my life in my hands as she could easily hack the program into a death trap.

She was really, really hurt. I’d really fucked this up. Even though I’d known what I’d done was wrong, I had completely underestimated the effect on her. Which meant that I’d completely underestimated Morag’s depth of feeling for me. I’d found out just in time to twist it.

I tried to keep my mind off it. I couldn’t. I tried a lot of wishful thinking, how things could have played out differently. That was probably the most pointless exercise I engaged in. I tried to work out how I could fix things. That was more wishful thinking. I was probably going to die on Lalande and all I could think about was Morag. Though I was coming to terms with dying on Lalande.

I wanted to escape. More than anything, I wanted the booths or to climb into a bottle of whisky. Mudge, who was spending most of his time on psychotropics, which were his drug of choice for travelling, was more than eager to join me. But I didn’t. I wasn’t sure why.

Was she being unreasonable? Maybe the shooting was. Was she being naive? I don’t know. I couldn’t see the situation through the eyes of an eighteen-year-old. The whole thing was new territory for me, and with her background how naive could she be? I just knew that I was causing her so much pain. I could see that in unguarded moments, when she wasn’t putting on a brave face to get through the day. When she wasn’t hiding behind a wall of hate for me.

Pagan and Cat came and found me. I was hiding in another hold, close to the engines. Listening to them reverberate though the ship’s steel superstructure. For some reason I wanted to look outside even though I hated space.

I didn’t like the look on either of their faces. Pagan’s expression seemed one of reserved concern. Situations like these are difficult for most British people. Well maybe not Mudge. Cat, on the other hand, looked at me like I was something unpleasant she’d found crawling through her pubic hair.

‘We have some concerns,’ Pagan said.

It was not a good start to the conversation.

Cat snorted.

‘Pagan, really ask yourself if this can’t be done at another time,’ I suggested, failing utterly to keep the edge out of my voice.

‘Because this soap opera’s going to work fine on the ground,’ Cat said. ‘This shit will get us killed in Freetown, never mind our fucking destination.’

She was right of course. With men and women fighting together it was inevitable that they’d form bonds — people fighting together had always formed bonds. The rule was, never get so close to someone that it screwed you up in the field. This had always been easy for me. I’d seen lovers torn apart and mangled by war, same as I’d seen good friends. Fortunately, after a while you get numb to this. The fear, the drugs, the fatigue all chip away at anything inside that makes you care. All the hand-wringing and dry tears are for when you’re out of danger and have time to reflect. The people who can care through all this are few and far between and die quickly, often at their own hands. I had a feeling that Morag could be someone like that.

She would compromise me and I would compromise her, even when/if she didn’t hate and possibly want to kill me.

‘This situation’s untenable,’ Cat continued.

‘Now wait a minute,’ Pagan began. ‘We’ve accomplished quite a lot with-’

‘A completely dysfunctional unit?’ she asked.

‘You knew who you were getting involved with when we asked,’ I told her.

‘They fight a lot,’ Pagan pointed out. ‘Though the gunplay’s new.’

‘Look, this isn’t Delta Force or your professional and well-resourced C-SWAT team; we’re doing our best here-’ I tried.

‘It’s just not good enough.’ Both of us were staring at her.

I turned to Pagan. ‘You agree?’

‘Well not quite. But she’s right, this is a mess…’

‘You can’t go into the field with someone you’re that emotionally tied to,’ Cat continued.

‘But you want to go in with your brother?’

‘My brother’s a prick.’ I couldn’t believe I was hearing this.

‘Then why are we wasting time going to get him?!’ Maybe I was just looking for an excuse to get angry.

Cat shrugged. ‘Because he’s my brother and he’ll be useful. It’s not just you and Morag.’

‘What then?’ I could see where this was going. I’d heard it a lot when we were back in the Regiment.

‘Mudge,’ Pagan said. I turned and fixed him with a glare from my lenses. He at least had the decency to look guilty.

‘Have you forgotten the broadcast? Fuck. He made us rich, and no matter what he has always been there.’

‘No doubt…’

‘You just don’t fucking like him because he says whatever he damn well pleases and always tells the truth,’ I said.

‘Very admirable I’m sure.’ There was a trace of irritation in his voice. ‘It’s not that; it’s the drugs. We’re going on what could be a very long-term mission.’

‘So? Mudge has done long-range recon. He always takes enough and can find more…’ I was about to say ‘between jobs’. There wasn’t going to be a between jobs.

‘Remember the Dog’s Teeth? How he was? He’ll end up withdrawing, and that will make him combat ineffective. It’ll make him a liability.’ He was right. I was so used to Mudge’s presence I think I’d tried to force this from my mind. More than anything I needed him here at that moment.

‘And you bring this up now?’ I demanded angrily.

‘I had misgivings, but what with the situation with you and Morag as well… we’re struggling, man.’

‘So what do you want to do? Scrub the mission? Because if you both want to call it quits and turn around I have no real objection.’

They looked at each other.

‘Look, can you honestly say that having her around won’t affect your judgement?’ Pagan finally asked.

‘No. What I’m saying is we’ve coped with it before and it worked. Don’t get me wrong. If I could talk her out of going I would.’

‘I wouldn’t try talking to her at the moment,’ Cat suggested. ‘She’d probably shoot you again. I might give her the gun.’

I glared at Cat. ‘Where the fuck do you get off, being so judgemental.’ Then I turned to Pagan. ‘It’s thanks to your brave new world we’re in this spot.’ It was weak, I knew it was, but I was miserable, pissed off and wanted to lash out.

‘Oh yeah, this is my fault,’ Pagan said sarcastically.

‘No, it’s thanks to you not being able to keep your dick leashed,’ Cat said to me.

‘Fine, whatever. Pagan, can you and Morag work on what we need and then we can leave Morag on board? Even if we have to drug her.’ At this Pagan started to look very uncomfortable. ‘What?!’ I demanded, beginning to lose my patience.

‘It’s just…’ Pagan stammered.

‘She’s more important to the mission than you,’ Cat said bluntly. I stared at her. It took me a while to work through what she’d said.

‘You fucking what?!’ I demanded. ‘Twelve years, twelve fucking years is a fuck of a lot more time in-country than you. You fucked off for your cushy corporate job.’ Then because I wanted to make sure I pissed off everyone I turned on Pagan. ‘And you, you not getting too fucking old for this shit?’

‘Well yes,’ Pagan said, surprising me.

Cat had bristled but remained calm.

‘Don’t you get this? We’re just guns, that’s all. It’s information warfare and all we’re here to do is keep them safe. They’re going to be the ones doing the fighting,’ Cat said.

‘Demiurge will fucking destroy them if they try.’

‘Right, that’s it. Shut up, both of you,’ Pagan snapped. ‘This is my problem. I may be over the fucking hill, but see how far standards are slipping. Like this we’re just going to get ourselves killed.’

‘So you want to leave me and Mudge behind? Fine. Fuck off with your American friends then. What, are you licking up to her to get in her pants?’ I was just being petty but I wasn’t liking this picked-last-for-PT bollocks, even if I really didn’t want to be here in the first place.

‘Figures that’s how you’d think of it,’ Cat said, an edge in her voice. I was going off her rapidly. Not as rapidly as she was going off me though.

‘No, we want you and Mudge to sort your shit out so you’re not a fucking liability,’ Pagan said, remaining calm.

I turned to give him another mouthful but something about his expression stopped me. He looked serious, maybe even formidable, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was pity there too.

‘Why don’t you go and have this conversation with Mudge?’ I muttered, looking away from the pair of them.

‘You know why,’ Pagan answered quietly.

I did. If Mudge was going to listen to anyone, and he probably wasn’t, it’d be me.

‘I’ve a good mind to just turn around when we get to Freetown and head back,’ I told them both.

‘Well let us know if self-pity wins out, won’t you?’ Pagan said, and then he and Cat turned and walked away.

It was a long and miserable journey in a rusting, damp, dripping, metallic piece of shit that seemed to echo every time somebody moved. It was claustrophobic because there were no external views and it smelled due to rudimentary facilities. I’d had worse trips, but everyone being pissed off with everyone else was what truly put the cherry on top. The only time that Morag even met my eyes was to glare at me. I felt like those looks could cause physical pain. With Pagan and Cat it was strained politeness. Mudge was the only cheerful one, but that just got on everyone’s nerves. I didn’t have a chat with him like Cat and Pagan wanted me to, largely because they wanted me to. But I didn’t get fucked up with him either, which was what I felt like doing.

I felt like a Jonah. Like I was screwing everything up. When I told Mudge this he agreed with me.

I was so pissed off with everyone I didn’t care if they didn’t like me learning the trumpet. I played what I thought were suitably mournful blues numbers that echoed through the ship. I thought it was better than listening to a fellow passenger strain on the cludgy. The others thought differently and the captain threatened to space me. By that point I think I’d managed to piss everyone off. I was almost revelling in it. Like Mudge. I wondered how he managed to keep up his cheerful demeanour.

Of course, at the end of every shit journey is a perfectly shit destination. We were going to Freetown Camp 12.

In theory the Belt was open to exploitation by anyone. In practice everybody had to rely on logistics from the extra-planetary Belt Prospect Industrial Corporation. Outside the big Belt cities of Ceres, Vesta and Hygeia, it was the Freetown stations that provided docking facilities and supplies for their own fleet of factory refinery ships. BPIC were pretty much a law unto themselves, and as long as the minerals kept coming nobody on Earth cared. Any smaller corporate attempts to exploit the Belt were charged exorbitant prices for what they needed from the Freetown stations until they went out of business. If they didn’t take the hint then BPIC could more than afford the corporate army and space forces necessary to protect their assets. More underhand activities were handled either by specialists or by contracting out to the inevitable organised crime elements that ran the Freetown vice franchises.

Anything went out on the Belt as long as it did not disturb the flow of ore. Smuggling, gambling, prostitution and drugs were all fine as long as BPIC got its cut. You could kill someone provided you knew the right people and had enough money. There were rumours of gladiatorial snuff games as well.

In short it was like Earth, maybe a bit more honest about things, although unlike Earth the Belt was one place you were guaranteed a job. That was as long as you didn’t mind indentured servitude and a short life expectancy due to cheap suits with shitty radiation protection. See, humans were cheaper to run than machines. They didn’t even need training any more. Cheap skillsofts would do for on-the-job training. Though you had to pay the company back for that and for your ride out to the Belt — and for your ride back in the unlikely event you ever earned enough before dying in an industrial accident or from radiation poisoning.

You also had to pay for the performance-enhancing drugs you needed to keep up with your quotas. What little money you might have left, instead of saving for your future, you were better off spending at the vice franchises, on alcohol, drugs, sense booths and the truly desperate, and if rumour was true, often slaved, hookers.

Any attempts at unionisation or even basic workers’ rights were stamped on hard. Insurrection or revolution was a joke. Who had the energy? Any ship attempting to bring out seditious materials was impounded, its entire crew executed. BPIC had more power than many Earthbound governments, a virtual monopoly and the muscle to back it all up. They ran their own corporate feudal empire. Their employees were known as Belt zombies.

Breaking Merle out would have been a major operation. Instead we were going to negotiate. Or more accurately use Sharcroft’s money for a bribe. It would have to be a large bribe.

What Cat’s brother had done was audacious. Most ore or other bulk cargoes like ice (it was cheaper to import ice from the Belt than from Earth, to turn into water for the various habitats in Earth orbit) were fired by mass driver, either from the stations or the factory ships themselves. The mass drivers propelled them into high Earth orbit, where net tugs caught them and shunted them to the Spokes’ high ports. Precious metals were mined with automated machinery, as it was more precise and trustworthy than Belt zombies. BPIC Armed Response, the corporation’s well-trained and equipped security force/private military, kept the precious metals under guard. These were transferred back to Earth on high-security, high-speed, intra-system clippers.

Merle had tried to hijack one. On his own. He nearly succeeded. He’d somehow gained access to it via EVA after it had left its security bay at Freetown Camp 12. Got past its electronic security. Taken out its security and crew and then, through a combination of pre-programmed hacks and high-end skillsofts, attempted to divert it. He would have got away with it except that the prearranged security responses he’d bribed a lower-echelon BPIC security employee for were a day out of date. There was a pursuit and a firefight and Merle got caught.

What I couldn’t figure out was why he was still alive. I could understand why they’d want him alive long enough to work out how he’d done what he’d done, but this had happened eight months ago. They would have that information by now. Why go to the expense of locking up someone with his skill set? BPIC didn’t need brigs; they had airlocks to push the troublesome out of. On the other hand, I could make this someone else’s problem and just fuck off back to Earth with Mudge and get drunk and fucked on drugs. I wondered if I had enough money now for my own sense booth. It wouldn’t be difficult to get a ship back home. Hell, the way I was feeling they could just fire me out of one of the mass drivers.

The Belt now had religion. God was with us. Hallelujah. We were keeping comms chatter to a minimum but I opened a link to the ship’s systems so I could watch us land. See what this shit hole looked like. Maybe just to depress myself a little further.

It looked like a scar. The station was in a recessed crater created by strip mining. It looked like an old quarry suspended in the night.

The asteroid itself was a little over twenty kilometres in length. As we sank into the scar and the cameras panned around, I could just about make out some of the other asteroids that formed the Gorgon family. They looked like potato-shaped rocks suspended in the sky, utterly static, though obviously they weren’t. There were vast fields of solar panels tethered high above Gorgon’s surface. They, along with a fusion reactor buried far from the main station and hydrogen cells, provided fuel for the town-sized camp. The floor of the scar was covered in prefab vacuum-proofed buildings, storage tethers and dry docks for the massive factory ships with their insectile legs for gripping and burrowing into asteroids. There was something parasitical about the factory ships. Their enormous industrial mass drivers reminded me of stings. Several of the heavy-duty tethers had ice asteroids attached to them. They would be processed for fuel and much-needed water. The dormitory, commercial, administration and vice areas were recessed deep into the rock. This was largely to help shield from radiation.

Space in the scar was busy with the ponderous movements of incoming and outgoing factory ships, the faster tugs, faster still intra-system clippers, enormous super-carriers and the barely tolerated tramp independents like ours. All of this was being watched over by a BPIC destroyer. I had seen military facilities in the colonies less well armed than this station. Piracy was a big if rarely actualised fear, but I suspect that much of the weaponry was to prevent annexation either by a nation state or more likely by another extra-planetary corp. They had missile, plasma and laser batteries, rapid-firing railguns, mass driver cannons and even one of the huge particle beam cannons.

The landing pads were at the base of the scar against one of the rock walls. On the ship’s external lenses I saw our manoeuvring engines fire as we slowly sank into the crater. We were tracked by weapon systems all the way. I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being swallowed. I barely felt the landing, though I heard metal protest ominously throughout the ship. The cargo airlock concertinaed out to mate with the Loser’s Luck.

We’d already used the ship’s comms to text ahead our request to meet Wilson Trace, the BPIC regional director who ran Freetown Camp 12. We’d been pleased that he’d agreed to a meeting. We were less pleased when we saw his conditions. Before we were allowed anywhere near Mr Trace we had to have security locks put on all integral weapons and an inhibitor jack in one of our plugs to dull enhanced reactions. It went without saying that we had to be unarmed. We didn’t like it, but it was either that or we would have to mount a major operation and make yet another powerful enemy to get Merle out. Besides, it would be nice to not have to resort to violence for once.

The plush office was a marked contrast to what we’d just walked through. There had been no luxurious carpet, no laser-carved basalt desk and very few recessed windows looking out over the tangled industrial mess of Gorgon’s scar. Instead we had seen deep-set eyes lined with scar tissue from botched re-implant jobs on the faces of gaunt, indentured miners who had little care that their stale sweat added to the stench of oil and badly ventilated air. Many of them showed signs of radiation poisoning or seemed to have respiratory problems. They bunked in the streets. The bunks were stacked high, each with its small locker. The miners were charged for them. Fights were commonplace and nobody did anything, though BPIC Armed Response watched on. The guards even had exo-armoured personnel and light mechs in case the miners got out of hand. I couldn’t see that happening — it looked like most of the Belt zombies had given up years ago.

As desperate as the miners looked, they were nowhere near as sad as the wrung-out-looking, presumably once-attractive men and woman who worked the vice franchise. At least they weren’t slaved, I’m not sure I would have coped with that. Gaudy, badly maintained neon signs promised pleasure that the reality of the bars seemed to refute. The Yakuza had won the vice franchise for Freetown 12. The gangsters and the guards were the only people who looked well fed. Many of the Yakuza were stripped to the waist, gangster ink on display, and all of them wore shades. They had watched us pass impassively. The miners and the hookers had looked at us less impassively. I could feel their resentment.

For some reason Pagan had seemed pleased that the Yakuza were running the vice franchise and had split off from the rest of us to speak to them. I hoped he wasn’t going whoring. Mudge had given him a list of exotic pharmaceuticals he wanted picked up. Pagan had seemed less than pleased about this. It would have been better if Mudge had gone with Pagan but Mudge insisted that his people skills would be of use to us with Trace. I had my misgivings.

We’d walked right through the so-called entertainment area of the station. It had been so quiet. People weren’t talking, just drinking or rutting or taking some recreational substance to try and make it all go away for a little while. There were no sense booths. Nobody here could afford them.

As we climbed through the levels towards the corporate offices, the bunks in the alcohol- and blood-muddied dirt of the street became small wage-slave cubicles. The offices got larger and more luxurious the higher we went until we found ourselves in Trace’s.

He kept us waiting so we understood how important he was. When we were finally escorted into his office we found ourselves covered by four guards with M-19 carbines. There was also an automated twin fast-cycling rotary laser system protruding from the wall above and behind Trace’s desk. That was overkill. It was the kind of weapon used for point defence on spacecraft. I guessed this guy was paranoid.

Trace was obviously engaged in a sub-vocal conversation on his internal comms link. He continued with it apparently oblivious to us. It looked social judging from his occasional laughter and easy-going demeanour. Of course this was all for our benefit. He looked like every other suit I’d seen. Indeterminate age, handsome but indeterminate looks bought in a salon somewhere. Neat, tidy. Probably paid over the odds for a suit, the specifications of which would be important to people who knew such things. I was going to forget about this guy as soon as he was out of sight. He was a corporate cliche complete with katana and another shorter sword on a rack behind his desk.

The only thing that did stick out was his eyes. They were obviously expensive designer implants but they weren’t designed to mimic real eyes. Nor were they the non-light reflecting matt of our hardened plastic lenses. His were shiny black mirrors. You saw yourself in his eyes and you looked small. I didn’t think I was going to like this guy. Mudge had also made up his mind.

We were expected to stand. There was some shouting and Mudge almost got shot when he threw himself into a seat. I wished I’d gone with Pagan. Mudge lit up a cigarette.

‘Actually, it’s no smoking in here.’ Trace’s accent was one of those weird non-accents that people who lived in space had. I’d always thought it made them sound desperate to not come from anywhere.

‘I know,’ Mudge said agreeably. I groaned inwardly and Cat glared at him. We were off to a good start. A little bit more sub-vocalisation and Trace finished his call. I inclined my head towards the guards and the lasers.

‘You’re safe. We just came here to talk,’ I told him.

His mouth twitched into a momentary and humourless smile. ‘I’ll keep this brief. Merley Sommerjay is a thief, a bad one, and you have committed terrorist acts against this very corpora-’

‘What terrorist acts?!’ Morag demanded. Trace looked annoyed at being interrupted.

‘The release of the God virus into our systems. The removal of which is an ongoing and mounting cost, not to mention how much setting up dedicated and secure God-free networks has been.’

‘Oh,’ said Morag. I think she’d forgotten.

‘Any conflict between Earth governments and their colonial forces has nothing to do with us as a commercial organisation and we do not wish to take sides.’

‘You worked extensively with the Cabal, didn’t you?’ Mudge asked as he stubbed his cigarette out on the basalt desk. Trace stared at him. He let Mudge see himself small in the reflections of his eyes.

‘We do business with those who can pay,’ he told Mudge.

‘No ethics?’ I asked. I was answered with a sneer. I looked away from Trace to try and calm myself. I was amazed that nobody had ever put the drill arm of a mining mech through his window. Spaced this sweetheart of a man. I watched a long range strike craft sinking into the asteroid’s scar. It was similar to the Spear, the craft we’d taken to the Sirius system, but an older model. I turned back to the conversation.

‘… you will be slaved.’

What the fuck? I turned my attention back to Trace.

‘You will join our mining operation, except -’ he turned to Morag ‘- you’ll make an excellent addition to the executive-level vice operation. Initially anyway. You’ll work your way down and end up servicing the miners like all the others. Perhaps you’ll see your friends again. I understand you have the experience, otherwise I’d break you in myself.’

Morag just looked bored. She’d heard it all before. I wanted to kill him. I was also wishing I’d been paying more attention.

‘Did he just say he was going to slave us?’ I double-checked.

‘Apparently so,’ Cat said. ‘Remind me again why we walked into this trap.’

‘Because Jakob keeps on hoping he’ll meet someone reasonable some day. Tell me, Wilson — it’s okay if I call you Wilson, isn’t it? I mean presumably it’ll be your sexy masterness when we’re all slaved,’ Mudge said.

‘Do you have a point?’ Trace asked. I was wondering the same thing.

‘Why’d you take the meeting?’ Mudge asked.

‘Because of our previous working relationship with Sharcroft.’

‘You did use to work with the Cabal then?’ Morag asked.

‘And you seem like such a nice guy,’ I muttered.

‘Really?’ Mudge asked. ‘Because you have to know, even with your guards this is dangerous. No, I think you’re gloating. Which is weird because what do you have against us?’ Mudge had such a good eye for weakness because he embraced his so openly. ‘How old are you, Wilson?’ Trace didn’t answer. He was starting to look angry. The sort of angry that came from being found out and not being able to argue back. ‘See, you fucking clones all look the same to me, but I’m guessing you’re in your late thirties, right? But the Savile Row suit, the Musamoko katana, Zeiss designer eyes… You were someone once, weren’t you? But this is a pretty shitty posting for a rising star.’

‘Go and fuck yourself!’ Trace spat. We weren’t accomplishing anything, but on the other hand the guy was a prick and didn’t mean us well so we may as well let Mudge go to town on him.

Mudge leaned forward. ‘What did you get caught doing when God came to town?’ His manner was all mock concern. ‘Embezzlement? Too much crystal? Too much time in the sense booths? Fucking the boss’s kid? A penchant for farmyard frolics? Coprophilia? Has to be a weakness because it’s never going to be about being crooked or without morals, is it?’ Trace was going the kind of scarlet that only people who have been speaking to Mudge for any period of time can go. Judging by the response, Mudge must have been getting close to the heart of the matter. Just another person we’d reached out and touched. I glanced up at the lasers nervously.

‘Mudge, why don’t you give it a rest?’ Cat said. Her voice was heavy with implied threat. ‘Look, asshole,’ she continued diplomatically. ‘You’re only choice is take the money or we break him out. Don’t you want the cash? It’s a lot of fucking money.’ I couldn’t tell if she was bargaining, pleading or threatening.

‘I have to admit I was actually surprised by the size of Sharcroft’s offer to the company and my own gratuity. Sadly this ups the value of your brother as a prisoner so we’ll keep him to bargain for something important.’ I glanced over at Cat but she was staring at Trace. I almost groaned when I heard Mudge’s voice again. It seemed like he wasn’t going to be happy until someone got killed.

‘You did a profit-and-loss projection. Didn’t you?’ Mudge asked. Suddenly we were talking about something else. I wasn’t sure if it was the conversation or Mudge’s train of thought I wasn’t following. I watched Trace swallow several times as he sought to control himself. The calmness that spread over his features looked like it was narcotic. It would be drug-administered from his internal reservoirs, the sort execs use to calm themselves in the boardroom.

‘I think our meeting is over,’ Trace said, then to his guards: ‘Please see them to their new jobs.’

We didn’t move. Pre-violence tension just kept building. I tried calculating our chances. I didn’t like the rotary laser element.

Trace turned to Morag. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’ It was a threat.

He was dead. Well he was dead if the lasers and the guards didn’t get me first. I just wished I didn’t feel like I was moving in slow motion. I scratched at the inhibitor jack in one of my neck plugs. Pointlessly; metal and plastic didn’t have any nerve endings.

‘I didn’t say anything,’ Morag protested. I wasn’t sure how seriously she was taking this. I think hanging around with us was making her a little too blase.

‘You did a profit-and-loss forecast based on the coming conflict. You modelled who would win, or more likely who would pay more. Do the Earth governments know?’ Mudge asked. Now I saw it.

‘If someone like you could work it out, what do you think? What? You think they’re going to stop dealing with us? They need our resources. They’re preparing for war.’

‘Fucking parasite,’ Cat muttered.

‘You’re a collaborator?’ I asked incredulously. I don’t know why I was surprised. It was all flies to shit.

‘Oh grow up,’ he sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. ‘Your schoolboy revolutionary act is no doubt great fun, but adults run the system and business is the fuel. Now go and get slaved like the good little victims you are before I have your flesh turned to steam.’

Something unpleasant occurred to me. ‘Why not just kill us?’ I asked.

‘Because we’ll make a nice little gift when Rolleston and his friends come in-system,’ Mudge said.

‘You want to hand us to them?’ Morag demanded. Trace didn’t answer, but for a moment I saw his concentration waver as if he was listening to someone else. Then he was with us again.

‘Because he’s begging for favours,’ Mudge added. ‘Because despite business models and all that other bollocks, he knows that Rolleston, Cronin and their friends are going to fucking eat him. Don’t you, little man?’

I wondered if it was the little man comment that tipped it. I saw it; Cat saw it; Mudge would have seen it; and I guessed Morag had been through enough of this shit with us to know what was coming next. The decision to kill us was written all over Trace’s face. I wondered how Mudge thought we were going to get out of this.

It went black. Then the lights flickered so quickly they were almost strobing. My flash compensators kicked in and I saw the look of surprise on Trace’s face. Fortunately he was surprised enough not to give the kill order to the lasers.

Then God started screaming.