45
Helldivers
My ship lands in the early morning snowfall of Attica, a southern mountain city set on seven peaks. Jagged buildings of steel and glass christen the peaks like icy thorn crowns, now dusted with fresh powder. The red morning sun rises over the mountain range to the east. Bridges link the seven peaks, and the city’s lesser wards spill around the roots of the mountains. My shuttle flies over them. Plows melt paths through the snow with pulsing orange blades. Soon, midColor landcars will flow along the avenues. And highColor shuttles will ferry Silvers and Golds to their offices on the mountain peaks. Remote and renowned for its banking, Attica is a prime seat of power. It belongs now to the Jackal.
Under heavy guard by ripWings, I land on a platform surrounded by evergreens. Several lurchers wait there in white tactical gear. A lone Gold stands with them. Victra embraces me with a hug, a white fur pelt pulled tight about her shoulders. Jade earrings clatter in the breeze as the Grays inspect the outside of my ship.
“Victra,” I say, holding her back to look at her. She grins devilishly and kisses my cheek, grabbing my butt as she does. I jump in surprise. She laughs merrily.
“Just making sure the pieces are in order. You had us worried, darling. Roque kept me apprised while I was with Lorn.”
“Brokering another alliance, I hear.”
“Who would have thought, Victra au Julii, the peacemaker.”
The Grays notify me that they have orders to search my ship.
“Ragnar,” I call. He steps out of the ship’s confines, near twice the size of the largest Gray. “Let the mice search the ship. They’re looking for …”
The Gray spares a glance at Ragnar, swallows. “Bombs, dominus.”
Victra escorts me into the Jackal’s new home—a fortress citadel atop the highest of Attica’s peaks. The city stretches far beneath us. Trees line the path from the landing pad to the citadel. “Adrius took the place soon as the last Bellona ship retreated. Came in with a thousand lurchers and displaced the Bellona allies who owned the place. Took all they had. Emptied their bank accounts. Full-on theft. But that’s war.” She nods to the west. “Wonderful slopes just a few klicks out. We’ll take a few days when this all settles down. You bring Virginia, I’ll find myself a man.” Nearly my own height, she looks sideways at me. “You do ski, don’t you?”
I snort out a laugh. “Never had the time.”
We find the Jackal in his living room. Walls and floor are glass. Fire swirls under the floor, licking up in columns near the window. Several minimalist chairs of steel and leather sit on fur rugs. The Jackal is hunched over a holoDisplay, speaking quickly to someone. He motions us to take a seat. On the holo, I glimpse Harmony in a dark room, surrounded by Grays. One is hunched over her, doing something with some device I can’t quite see.
We sit by the flames, but a chill goes through me that no fire can dispel.
The Jackal finishes, giving a dataStrip to Sun-hwa before she leaves. He joins us, rubbing the back of his neck.
“So many moving parts.” He winces. “Hell, organizing the food shipments alone takes a hundred Coppers. And those odious little shits will spend all day bickering about whether or not a ship should have granola or muesli in its galley. Both is an option. Both! How difficult is that, really? It’s like they enjoy the spreadsheets and busywork. Mind boggling.”
“I keep telling him he should delegate more efficiently,” Victra says. So they’ve been talking too. I’m behind.
“I hate delegating,” the Jackal replies. He scratches his head. “At least with numbers and particulars. You two can take all the gory planets you like. Just leave me my bureaucracy, please.”
“Kind of you,” I laugh. “Just keep me away from food requisition orders.” I lean forward. “I hear the fleet will be ready to depart for the Core in two weeks. By the bye, wonderful new home you have.”
“I like it,” he sighs. “Father is furious I took it for myself, of course. I wanted to give it as a present to one of the Governors of the Gas Giants.”
“I think you’ve earned it,” I say. “That and more.”
“Exactly.” The Jackal makes a tired motion with his lone hand. “I came here as a boy to ski with Mother. I always looked up here and said it’d be mine. Father said you can’t have everything you want.”
“And you asked, Why not?” Victra says. She’s already heard the story.
“Why not?” the Jackal repeats the words fondly. “So if Father wants it back, he’ll have to make his own food purchase orders.”
We all know it isn’t food purchase orders that occupies his time. Not solely.
I accept a cup of tea from a Pink. A small spread of breakfast is placed in front of me. I’m seven hours behind this timezone, but I can’t let on how nervous I am.
The Jackal watches me spear a melon with my fork. Who knows what he thinks behind those dirty gold eyes? “So, Darrow, healed and mended in time for the great battle.”
“Mending,” I say. “No thanks to your media. The HC shows all say I’ve become immortal since Karnus opened me up.”
“It’s all part of the game, my goodman. Perception, deception, media!” He slaps his hand on his thigh, though his eyes don’t share the mirth. “Give me the word and I can go public with your improved vitality. We’ll schedule a press conference. Dress you in armor. My Violets are building you a proper suit of your own. They’ve been conspiring with Greens to give you a marvel of form and tech.”
“You know I hate the cameras.”
“Oh, stop whining. They’re why we have half our allies. And why the Sovereign’s scrambling like a spider on ice. Her coalition is … stressed.”
“We’ll do it today then,” I say. I look out the window, remembering Roque’s words. “I wanted a moment of peace, but …” They join me in looking at the falling snow and the distant city beneath. “I suppose we’ve yet to earn that. Which brings me to why I called this meeting.”
“I admit I’ve been curious,” the Jackal says.
“He’s been dying to know,” Victra corrects.
I nod to Ragnar, who followed Victra and me into the room. He comes forward with two boxes from my ship. “I wanted to give you both gifts. Our alliance has had an … interesting beginning. But I want you both to know how committed I am not only to it, but to each of you. I hope you take this to be a sign of my trust.”
“Always trust a Stained bearing gifts.” Victra chuckles, looking up at Ragnar. “Goryhell, go over there. You’re like a tree blocking out the light, Ragnar.”
“Ragnar, wait outside,” I say.
The Jackal doesn’t even look at Ragnar. Physical power bores him.
Snapping her fingers so I bring my attention back to her, Victra unwraps her box to find a small crystal bottle I had Theodora commission from the Carvers on the Pax before the siege of Mars.
“Petrichor,” I say as she opens the bottle. The room fills with the smell of stone before rain. She thanks me with a scarred hand on my forearm, holding the bottle close to her chest.
“No one remembers that sort of thing. Thank you, Darrow.” She sits there for a moment before rising quickly and kissing me on the lips. I would have preferred the cheek.
“My turn.” The Jackal unwraps his box with his lone hand. Tearing through the paper with a grin on his face. He opens the leather box beneath and is quiet for a long moment. “Darrow, you shouldn’t—”
He’s cut short as a high-pitched alarm screams out of the walls.
A Gray lurcher bursts into the room, weapon drawn. Four others accompany her. “Dominus, we have a breach in the lower level. We have to escort you to a safer room.”
“Who?” the Jackal rasps. Victra and I draw our razors. The Gray is about to answer when the alarms are cut short and replaced by a rising humorless laughter over the speakers. It echoes through the room even as the lighting of the place blacks out. We hurry to the door. A small metal spider clinks onto the window. The glass melts. My vision and hearing vanish. Replaced by a swarming, high-pitched keening. I stumble, stunned by the flash grenade.
Dark shapes fly into the room. Blinking, I glimpse cacodemon masks. Eyes glowing red out of terrible visages. The Sons have come. They shoot the Grays and kick us to the ground. Ragnar storms in from the hall and catches three stunFist blasts to his chest. He goes down like a felled tree. One masked intruder bends over the Jackal. As my hearing returns, I make out that he’s screaming for the code to the facility’s mainframe. He shoves the muzzle of his scorcher into the Jackal’s mouth till the Jackal gives it up.
“Some Gold,” rasps a distorted voice.
Behind the mask, I know Sevro would love nothing more than to pull the trigger, and for a moment I think he’s going to. But he waits for me as he’s supposed to. And on cue, I rise sluggishly, shaking off the results of the flash grenade, and grab one of the intruder’s weapons, taking it for myself. I fire at them. They fire at me. Each of us missing on purpose. Then they are gone, back out the window. The Grays lie dead on the ground. Victra bleeds from a shallow head wound and rises to her feet. The Jackal tries to stand, blood dripping from his nose.
Wordlessly, we try the doors to the room. They’re locked. The Sons have control of the mainframe now. The Jackal leans his head against the door. Then he rears back and slams it into the metal again, again, again till blood pours down his face. I have to pull him away before he splits his skull. He laughs darkly for a moment before shaking himself.
“Twice,” he sneers. “Twice they violate me.” An animalistic shudder goes through his body. “I was breaking them. Another day. Maybe two and they would have cracked.”
“Who?” Victra asks.
He doesn’t answer. I press the question. “Who, Adrius? Who the hell was that?”
“Terrorists. Came for captured Sons,” he says impatiently. “One was the Pink bitch who tried to kill us on Luna, Darrow. It wasn’t Pliny after all. It was the Sons. Another was one of Ares’s right hands. They call her Harmony. A Violet was with them. Making them an army of carved soldiers.”
“You had captured Sons of Ares here? When were you going to tell us this?” Victra snarls, standing from checking the pulse of a dead Gray.
“I wasn’t. Not until I knew who Ares was.”
“What else are you keeping from us?” I say. “This is a partnership.” I kick over a table. “Why the goryhell do you have me if not to protect you from things like this?”
“My fault,” he says. “My fault.” He swallows the blood in his mouth and walks toward the empty window bank, gripping my shoulder as he passes. Wind howls in. “You did protect me. Yet again. Thank you.”
I scowl and brood in fine actorly fashion.
“They couldn’t have been Reds,” I say bitterly. “Couldn’t have been Sons. Sons never would have, could have done that. Not to me. Not to Ragnar.” I help the Stained from the floor. “They were too organized. They had gravBoots.”
“You underestimate them, my friend,” the Jackal says. “They can pull triggers too. And they would have pulled them with their muzzles against our heads if you hadn’t stopped them.”
“How the gorydamn did they get past your security?” Victra asks. “Were there tracking devices? Signal jammers? GravBoot signatures?”
“I don’t know,” the Jackal says.
Because the Sons held on to my hull wearing ghostCloaks, like little barnacles.
“Who else has come and gone?” I ask.
He looks around as I hoped he might. He calls up his men on a com at his desk. After a moment, he looks back up to us. “Sun-hwa,” he whispers. “Her men are dead and she’s gone like the wind. She survived the last attack too.” Then he laughs. “She betrayed me.” And when he sees the money transferred to Sun-hwa’s accounts, he’ll find all the corroborating evidence he needs to pin the blame on his chief of security. Only thing is, Sun-hwa is loyal as a dog and dead as a doornail in the cargo hold of the shuttle that now tears away from the Jackal’s winter citadel carrying Fitchner, Sevro, and my once-captured friends.
I come beside the Jackal as Victra tries the door again. Together we watch the ship disappear beyond the mountains. And I say in a low, menacing voice, “We will kill the rats, together. I promise. All of them.”
“After the Sovereign,” he says, patting my back. “After the Sovereign.”