Takeshi Kovacs - Broken Angels Part 20

"Aren't you overreacting a li-"

He was already turning away.

"Hand, the recruits aren't used to those sleeves yet. Not by a long way."

"I left them in there." He flung the words back over his shoulder. "They can have another ten minutes-that's two days virtual time. Then we download them for real and leave leave. If someone's up at Dangrek ahead of us, they're going to be very sorry."

"If they were there when Sauberville went down," I shouted after him, suddenly furious. "They're probably already already very sorry. Along with everyone else." very sorry. Along with everyone else."

I heard his footsteps, receding up the corridor. Mandrake Man, shirt closed up, suit settling onto squared shoulders, moving forward. Enabled. About Mandrake's heavy-duty business, while I sat bare-chested in a puddle of my own unfocused rage.

PART III: DISRUPTIVE ELEMENTS.

The difference between virtuality and life is very simple. In a construct you know everything is being run by an all-powerful machine. Reality doesn't offer this a.s.surance, so it's very easy to develop the mistaken impression that you're in control.

QUELLCRIST FALCONER.

Ethics on the Precipice

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

There is no subtle way to deploy an IP vessel across half a planet. So we didn't try.

Mandrake booked us a priority launch and landing parabola with the Cartel's suborbital traffic arm, and we flew out to an anonymous landing field on the outskirts of Landfall just as the heat was leaching out of the afternoon. There was a shiny new Lockheed Mitoma IP a.s.sault ship dug into the concrete, looking like nothing so much as a smoked gla.s.s scorpion someone had ripped the fighting claws off. Ameli Vongsavath grunted in approval when she saw it.

"Omega series," she said to me, mainly because I happened to be standing next to her when we climbed out of the cruiser. She was fixing her hair reflexively as she spoke, twisting the thick black strands up and clear of the flight symbiote sockets at her nape, pegging the loosely gathered bun in place with static clips. "You could fly that baby right down Incorporation Boulevard and not even scorch the trees. Put plasma torpedoes through the front door of the Senate House, stand on your tail and be in orbit before they blew."

"For example," I said dryly. "Of course, with those mission objectives, you'd be a Kempist, which means you'd be flying some beaten-up piece of s.h.i.t like a Mowai Ten. Right, Schneider?"

Schneider grinned. "Yeah, doesn't bear thinking about."

"What doesn't bear thinking about?" Yvette Cruickshank wanted to know. "Being a Kempist?"

"No, flying a Mowai," Schneider told her, eyes flickering up and down the frame of her Maori combat sleeve. "Being a Kempist's not so bad. Well, apart from all the pledge singing."

Cruickshank blinked. "You were really a Kempist?"

"He's joking," I said, with a warning glance at Schneider. There was no political officer along this time, but Jiang Jianping at least seemed to have strong feelings about Kemp, and there was no telling how many other members of the team might share them. Stirring up potential animosities just to impress well-shaped women didn't strike me as all that smart.

Then again, Schneider hadn't had his hormones wrung out in virtual that morning, so maybe I was just being unduly balanced about the whole thing.

One of the Lock Mit's loading hatches hinged up. A moment later Hand appeared in the entrance in neatly pressed combat chameleochrome, now smoky grey against the prevalent hue of the a.s.sault ship. The change from his usual corporate attire was so complete it jarred, for all that everyone else was similarly dressed.

"Welcome to the f.u.c.king cruise," muttered Hansen.

We cleared for dust-off five minutes before Mandrake's authorised launch envelope opened. Ameli Vongsavath put the flight plan to bed in the Lock Mit's datacore, powered up the systems and then to all appearances went to sleep. Jacked in at nape and cheekbone, eyes shuttered down, she lay back in her borrowed Maori flesh like the cryocapped princess in some obscure Settlement Years fairytale. She'd scored perhaps the darkest, slimmest built of the sleeves, and the data cables stood out against her skin like pale worms.

Sidelined in the co-pilot's seat, Schneider cast longing glances at the helm.

"You'll get your chance," I told him.

"Yeah, when?"

"When you're a millionaire on Latimer."

He shot me a resentful glance and put one booted foot up on the console in front of him.

"Ha f.u.c.king ha."

Below her closed eyes, Ameli Vongsavath's mouth quirked. It must have sounded like an elaborate way of saying not in a million years not in a million years. None of the Dangrek crew knew about the deal with Mandrake. Hand had introduced us as consultants, and left it at that.

"You think it'll go through the gate?" I asked Schneider, trying to extract him from his sulk.

He didn't look up at me. "How the h.e.l.l would I know?"

"Just w-"

"Gentlemen," Ameli Vongsavath had still not opened her eyes. "Do you think I could have a little pre-swim quiet in here please?"

"Yeah, shut up Kovacs," said Schneider maliciously. "Why don't you get back with the pa.s.sengers?"

Back in the main cabin, the seats on either side of Wardani were taken by Hand and Sun Liping, so I crossed to the opposing side and dropped into the s.p.a.ce next to Luc Deprez. He gave me a curious glance and then went back to examining his new hands.

"Like it?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "It has a certain splendour. But I am not used to being so bulky bulky, you know."

"You'll settle into it. Sleeping helps."

The curious look again. "You know this for certain then. What kind of consultant are you exactly?"

"Ex-Envoy."

"Really?" He shifted in the seat. "That's a surprise. You will have to tell me about this."

I caught echoes of his movement from other seats, where I'd been overheard. Instant notoriety. Just like being back in the Wedge.

"Long story. And not very interesting."

"We are now one minute from launch," Ameli Vongsavath's voice came through the intercom, sardonic, "I'd like to take this opportunity to officially welcome you aboard the fast a.s.sault launch Nagini Nagini and to warn you that if you are not now secured to a seat, I cannot guarantee your physical integrity for the next fifteen minutes." and to warn you that if you are not now secured to a seat, I cannot guarantee your physical integrity for the next fifteen minutes."

There was a scrabble of activity along the two lines of seats. Grins broke out among those who had already webbed in.

"I think she exaggerates," remarked Deprez, smoothing the webbing bond tabs unhurriedly into unity on the harness's chest plate. "These vessels have good compensators."

"Well, you never know. Might catch some orbital fire on the way through."

"That's right, Kovacs." Hansen grinned across at me. "Look on the positive side."

"Just thinking ahead."

"Are you afraid?" asked Jiang suddenly.

"Regularly. You?"

"Fear is an inconvenience. You must learn to suppress it. That is what it is to be a committed soldier. To abandon fear."

"No, Jiang," said Sun Liping gravely. "That is what it is to be dead."

The a.s.sault ship tilted suddenly, and weight smashed down on my guts and chest. Blood-drained limbs. Crushed-out breath.

"Jesus f.u.c.king Christ," said Ole Hansen through his teeth.

It slacked off, presumably when we got orbital and some of the power Ameli Vongsavath had rammed into the lifters was allowed back into the onboard grav system. I rolled my head sideways to look at Deprez.

"Exaggerates, huh?"

He spotted blood from his bitten tongue onto his knuckle and looked at it critically. "I would call that exaggeration, yes."

"Orbital status attained," Vongsavath's voice confirmed. "We have approximately six minutes of safe transit under the Landfall High Orbit Geosynch Umbrella. After that we're exposed, and I'll be throwing some evasive curves, so keep those tongues tucked up safe."

Deprez nodded glumly and held up his blood-spotted knuckle. Laughter down the gangway.

"Hey, Hand," said Yvette Cruickshank. "How come the Cartel doesn't just put up five, six of those HOGs, wide-s.p.a.ced, and finish this war?"

Further down the opposite row, Markus Sutjiadi smiled very slightly, but said nothing. His eyes flickered towards Ole Hansen.

"Hey, Cruickshank." The demolitions expert could have been speaking on Sutjiadi's cue. His tone was withering. "Can you even spell spell marauder? You got any idea what kind of target a HOG makes from shallow s.p.a.ce?" marauder? You got any idea what kind of target a HOG makes from shallow s.p.a.ce?"

"Yeah." Cruickshank came back stubborn. "But most of Kemp's marauders are on the ground now, and with the geosynchs in place..."

"Try telling that to the inhabitants of Sauberville," Wardani told her, and the comment dragged a comet tail of quiet across the discussion. Glances shuttled back and forth up the gangway like slug-thrower sh.e.l.ls chambering.

"That attack was ground launched, Mistress Wardani," said Jiang finally.

"Was it?"

Hand cleared his throat. "In point of fact, the Cartel are not entirely sure how many of Kemp's missile drones are still deployed off-planet-"

"No s.h.i.t," grunted Hansen.

"-but to attempt high-orbit placement of any substantial platform at this stage would not be sufficiently-"

"Profitable?" asked Wardani.

Hand gave her an unpleasant smile. "Low risk."

"We're about to leave the Landfall HOG umbrella," said Ameli Vongsavath over the intercom, tour-guide calm. "Expect some kinks."

I felt a subtle increase in pressure at my temples as power diverted from the onboard compensators. Vongsavath getting ready for aerobatics around the curve of the world and down through re-entry. With the HOG setting behind us, there would be no more paternal corporate presence to cushion our fall back into the war zone. From here on in, we were out to play on our own.

They exploit, and deal, and shift ground constantly, but for all that you can get used to them. You can get used to their gleaming company towers and their nanocopter security, their cartels and their HOGs, their stretched-over-centuries unhuman patience and their a.s.sumed inheritance of G.o.dfather status for the human race. You can get so you're grateful for the there-but-for-the-grace-of-G.o.d relief of whatever little f.l.a.n.g.e of existence they afford you on the corporate platform.

You can get so it seems eminently preferable to a cold gut-swooping drop into the human chaos waiting below.

You can get so you're grateful.

Got to watch out for that.

"Over the rim," said Ameli Vongsavath from the c.o.c.kpit.

We dropped.

With the onboard comp running at combat minimum, it felt like the start of a grav jump, before the harness kicks in. My guts lifted to the base of my ribcage and the back of my eyeb.a.l.l.s tickled. The neurachem fizzled sullenly to unwanted life and the bioalloy plates in my hands shivered. Vongsavath must have nailed us to the floor of Mandrake's landing envelope and piled on everything the main drives would give her, hoping to beat any distant early-warned Kempist anti-incursion systems that might have decoded the flight path from Cartel traffic transmissions.

It seemed to work.

We came down in the sea about two kilometres off the Dangrek coast, Vongsavath using the water to crash cool re-entry surfaces in approved military fashion. In some places, environmental pressure groups have got violent over this kind of contamination, but somehow I doubted anyone on Sanction IV would be up for it. War has a soothing, simplifying effect on politics that must hit the politicians like a betathanatine rush. You don't have to balance the issues any more, and you can justify anything. Fight and win, and bring the victory home. Everything else whites out, like the sky over Sauberville.

"Surface status attained," intoned Vongsavath. "Preliminary sweeps show no traffic. I'm going for the beach on secondaries, but I'd like you to stay in your seats until advised otherwise. Commander Hand, we have a needlecast squirt from Isaac Carrera you might like to have a look at."

Hand traded glances with me. He reached back and touched the seat mike.

"Run it on the discreet loop. Mine, Kovacs, Sutjiadi."

"Understood."

I pulled down the headset and settled the discreet reception mask over my face. Carrera came online behind the shrill warble of unravelling scrambler codes. He was in combat coveralls and a recently gelled wound was livid across his forehead and down one cheek. He looked tired.

"This is Northern Rim Control to incoming FAL 931/4. We have your flight plan and mission filed but must warn you that under current circ.u.mstances we cannot afford ground or close detail aerial support. Wedge forces have fallen back to the Ma.s.son lake system where we are holding a defensive stance until the Kempist offensive has been a.s.sessed and its consequences correlated. A full-scale jamming offensive is expected in the wake of the bombing, so this is probably the last time you'll be able to communicate effectively with anyone outside the blast zone. Additional to these strategic considerations, you should be aware that the Cartel have deployed experimental nanorepair systems in the Sauberville area. We cannot predict how these systems will react to unexpected incursions. Personally," he leaned forward in the screen, "my advice would be to withdraw on secondary drives as far as Ma.s.son and wait until I can order a reprise front back-up to the coast. This shouldn't involve a delay of any more than two weeks. Blast research," a ripple of distaste pa.s.sed across his face, as if he had just caught the odour of something rotting in his wounds, "is hardly a priority worthy of the risks you are running, whatever compet.i.tive advantage your masters may hope to gain from it. A Wedge incoming code is attached, should you wish to avail yourself of the fallback option. Otherwise, there is nothing I can do for you. Good luck. Out."

I unmasked and pushed back the headset. Hand was watching me with a faint smile tucked into one corner of his mouth.