They clutch hands occasionally, making their combat trikes wobble until tiny gyros kick in to stabilize them. You shouldn’t need gyros on a fat-wheel, my gun tells me crossly.
It’s in a foul mood.
Not the only one. Neen and Shil aren’t talking. And Iona spends most of the morning giving Neen sympathetic glances. Occasionally she stops to glare at Shil, when she thinks we’re not looking.
Colonel Vijay is oblivious to it all.
I’d be so lucky.
As the scout cars pull ahead, and the incline increases, and the transporters fall back behind us, we’re left on our own in a little huddle. Six Aux and the colonel, on combat trikes, each of us in a uniform so dusty it needs no camouflage.
Even our outriders have scattered.
Sergeant Toro is hunting goat for General Luc’s supper. His corporal is thirty minutes back helping a trooper who shredded his tyre. Not sure where the final one is. Out of our sight somewhere.
We’ll never get another chance this good.
Neen sees me loosen the flap on my holster. We haven’t discussed this, because you don’t discuss mutiny. You act and live or die with the consequences. Tapping the SIG-37 awake, I tell it to keep quiet.
‘Fucking great,’ it says. ‘You’re about to do something stupid.’
‘I’m saving Colonel Vijay’s life.’
‘What I said.’
For once I wish the SIG was less lethal. ‘Neen,’ I say, ‘what rounds are you carrying?’
A Kemzin is strapped to his back. At the hip, he has a simple Colt automatic. Almost no brains and zero attitude. ‘Seven six two, sir. Full metal.’
‘Cut a cross in the top?’
That’s illegal but everyone does it.
‘No, sir,’ he says. ‘Uncircumcised.’
Seeing my surprise, Neen says he took the side arm from a militia officer in Farlight. An amateur, obviously.
‘Right,’ I say. ‘We’ll swap.’
Neen looks at the SIG, and nearly runs himself off the road. Only instinct and gyros save him. ‘Sir?’ he says.
‘He’ll want me back,’ the SIG says.
‘Don’t count on it.’
Taking my weapon, Neen slides it into his jacket for safety, while he flips up his own holster flap and hands me his automatic. Only then does he put the SIG-37 in his own holster. He checks three times it’s fastened safely.
‘Scan for comms traffic,’ I tell the SIG.
It takes so long to answer I think it didn’t hear, but it’s sulking. ‘No traffic,’ it says, which surprises me.
‘Check again.’
The SIG does. It was right first time.
‘Cover me,’ I tell Neen.
He wants to ask, from what?
Seeing us, the colonel nods, then forces a polite smile.
Shil appears on his other side. A fact that darkens Neen’s face, as swiftly as it wipes the smile from Colonel Vijay’s own. She positions herself well. A little back from the colonel, but close enough to stop him making a run for it.
‘Sir,’ I say, ‘I’m taking over.’
‘Mutiny is a capital offence, Sven.’
‘Not mutiny, sir. A temporary redesignation of command.’
His mouth twists, and he looks almost impressed. ‘And you’re going to shoot me if I refuse to accept this redesignation?’
‘Yes, sir.’ I have Neen’s gun aimed at his heart.
‘No, you’re not,’ he says. ‘I’ve read your file. You’re clinically incapable of killing your CO.’
Dropping my hand, I re-sight on his upper leg.
A leg wound can kill, but only if you’re unlucky. As I switch my aim, the colonel realizes I’m holding an ordinary weapon. It’s this, more than anything else, which convinces him I mean it.
‘Sven,’ he says. ‘Wait.’
‘Colonel, I’m taking control.’
‘On what grounds?’ His voice is calm.
‘Grief makes you unable to command, sir.’
‘Temporarily unfit,’ Shil says, supplying the term I want. Neen glares at his sister and then glances at me. He decides we’ve discussed this already, without him knowing. He’s wrong. She just learns fast.
‘Grief at what?’ Colonel Vijay demands.
‘The death of your father, sir. The massacre of doubters. The arson that destroyed your family home. The Thomassi’s coup. The call on officers of the Third Death’s Head to surrender. Our capture by General Luc . . .’
It is quite a list.
‘I see,’ he says. ‘And this grief manifests how?’
Takes me a moment to work out what he’s asking. Ahead of us the scout cars increase their lead, while a drone overhead drifts to one side. I can barely see the transporters that should bring up our rear.
‘Refusal to escape, sir.’
He nods, as if expecting no less.
‘Every officer’s duty,’ I remind him. ‘Kill your captors and escape. In certain circumstances, to be judged by a later court martial, simply escaping may be enough to wipe out the disgrace of being captured in the first place.’
‘Sven, General Luc is not the enemy.’
‘Well, he’s not a friend, sir. We should be fighting the Thomassi. The rules state-’
‘I know the rules.’
‘Yes, sir. I don’t doubt it.’
‘My father wrote most of them.’
Looking from me to Neen and across at Shil, Colonel Vijay checks how far back the rest of us are in his mirrors. Then he nods to the gun in my hand. ‘You’re going through with this,’ he says. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you’ll give me back my command. Knowing I’ll have you court martialled and shot for mutiny?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Colonel Vijay buries his face in one hand.
We ride in silence, the colonel’s trike bracketed by mine on one side and Shil’s on the other. Neen rides to the left of me, keeping a slight distance. The others keep their positions, still wondering what’s going on.
‘Your NCOs didn’t know about this, did they?’
‘No, sir. They didn’t.’
‘Of course not. Otherwise they’d be liable for mutiny.’ Colonel Vijay’s lips twist. ‘Sven,’ he says, ‘take a look around you.’
In that moment, he sounds exactly like his father.
‘I have, sir.’
‘Take another.’
Scout cars up ahead, transporters and trucks way behind. An-incline of rock, grit and gravel on both sides, rising to that mountain pass ahead. We’re in the middle of goddam nowhere. Even the buzzards are beginning to turn back in disgust.
‘What do you see?’ the colonel demands.
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘Exactly,’ he says. ‘You see nothing.’
Neen and Shil scan the slopes, wondering what they’re missing.
‘It’s a trap, Sven,’ Colonel Vijay says. ‘The moment we make a break, those outriders will reappear. The Wolf ‘s probably got snipers on that mound.’
He jerks his chin to a low hill ahead of us.
‘And those scout cars? They’ll birth extra trikes the moment they’re needed.’ Colonel Vijay sounds apologetic for stating the obvious. ‘Sven,’ he says, ‘they want us to run.’
‘Sir,’ says Neen, ‘It’s not-’
He doesn’t get to finish, although Colonel Vijay’s glance is almost kind. ‘Sergeant,’ he says, ‘I’m not going to get myself shot while escaping. Certainly not so General Luc can keep a clear conscience.’
He raises his eyebrows.
‘Assuming it is clear, of course.’
Personally, I doubt the Wolf has a conscience at all, clear or otherwise.
‘Since he’s going to kill me,’ Colonel Vijay adds, ‘I might as well make him go through the pretence of due process.’
Nodding politely, he edges his bike forwards and, after a second, I fall back to return Neen’s side arm.
‘You know,’ the SIG says, ‘I’m not sure chess is your thing.’
That night, after we’ve made camp on the far side of the pass, Colonel Vijay excuses himself from the Wolf’s company and joins us round our fire.
He smokes a cheap cigar with Neen, takes a swig from Shil’s brandy and tries not to choke on either. He even shares our rations. And if he pays a little too much attention to Iona’s breasts and gets slightly drunker on three swigs from a bottle than is decent, that’s fine. We’ve all been there at his age.