‘You just killed a Church Militiaman,’ Vic said. ‘They have a frigate here.’ He had seen the craft on the way in – sleek, violent-looking, a minimum of statuary on it, the armour engraved with the fall of the Naga. Frigates were fast. The Basilisk was faster, but the frigate horribly outgunned them and would be manoeuvring into position at this very moment.
‘The Saint Brendan’s Fire. I saw it,’ Vic said as he concentrated on the virtual map in his mind, cracking systems that were readying to fire on the Basilisk.
‘Fear and desire,’ Scab said over the interface. It took a moment for Vic to realise that his partner was talking to the security force where the Basilisk was docked. They would be under a lot of pressure from the cartel to ambush Vic. ‘Leave now and you have cartel trouble. Stay now and we’ll take you down and take you with us. Your suffering can be my hobby for a week and then I’ll turn you over to a house of pain. You won’t die so your clone insurance won’t be valid.’ And he would do it too, Vic thought. He would have to, otherwise people would not take his threats seriously in the future.
When they got to the dock the door was open and the place was empty.
The pair of them strode onto the ship. Scab had left both airlock irises wide open. He closed them with a thought and the Basilisk began to scrub out the virals, its powerful nano-screen hunting down all the new guests. The Basilisk’s skin was hardening so the external feed was coming straight through the interface along with all the sensor data. Sure enough, most of Arclight’s batteries capable of a firing solution on the Basilisk were aiming at the small craft. The St Brendan’s Fire was manoeuvring into firing position, its thrusters glowing against a background of black and neon.
‘Well, it’s been a pleasure,’ Vic said, ready to die and yet still absurdly proud of how much sarcasm he had managed to get into what he assumed was his parting shot. The ’sect felt the Basilisk disconnect from Arclight.
The night lit up as all the batteries on Arclight shifted to fire at the St Brendan’s Fire as per their hacked orders. So many batteries fired in such a small area that it looked like a grid of fiercely defined light. The ’sect was aware of the acceleration: constant sensor feed from the Basilisk made the ship seem more real than his own slaved body. The burn of the engine, the Basilisk’s own batteries firing, the racks of kinetic shots silently emptying. All aimed at the St Brendan’s Fire. The Church ship’s energy dissipation grid lit up, making it look less like a solid, more like a ship of painfully bright light. Reactive armour blew out, trying to dissipate the energy of hypersonic kinetic shots, destroying the engraved scene as the carbon reservoir struggled to replace the armour.
The St Brendan’s Fire’s manoeuvring thrusters burned bright as it tried to rise above the firestorm. Vic knew that all over Arclight security coordinators, pet hackers and weapon operators were desperately trying to regain control of their weapons. Arclight’s PR team and spin doctors would already be apologising to the frigate and assuring them that the Queen’s Cartel was not initiating hostilities against the Church.
The Basilisk soared through the fire, taking minor hits from a few opportunists in independent craft. Scab made a note of every shot and added the ships to his enormous opportunist kill file. The pursuit craft that the cartel had launched were too far away; however, all the bridge points were covered by picket ships.
‘This is Woodbine Scab in the Basilisk. If you’re going to fire then make sure you get it right,’ he told the light cruiser waiting by the bridge point he wanted. A Corsair, even one as high spec as the Basilisk, was no match for a light cruiser. The picket ship didn’t fire. The Basilisk’s bridge drive did violence to the fabric of space/time. The Basilisk left Real Space.
Only when Scab had locked the Basilisk onto the closest Red Space beacon and linked into the beacon network did he pull out the grisly objects the dead self-mutilator had given him. To Vic they were looking more and more like the eyes of some kind of properly alien species, not those of uplifted animals like themselves.
‘How’d they know you’d need that?’ Vic asked.
‘Are you going to behave if I give you your body back?’ Scab asked instead of answering the question. Vic nodded. The human gesture still felt uncomfortable but he was pretty sure that he had it down.
‘Who was the Church Militiaman you killed?’ Vic asked. Scab was staring at the alien organs pulsing in his bloody hand as he used a sophisticated neunonic surgery program to reconfigure his internal nanites in preparation for a xeno-graft surgical procedure.
‘Scab,’ Vic said.
‘I need to find the template and kill it.’ Scab said it in the same tone as everything else he said.
11. Northern Britain, a Long Time Ago
She was moving, floating to the sound of waves gently lapping against the shore. There was a bump as she hit the beach. She enjoyed the gentle movement of the sea. It was a moment of peace before her nostrils were assaulted by the charnel smells of aftermath. Her eyes flicked open. Carrion eaters wheeled in the grey, blank, nothing sky above her. She sucked in air in a long ragged gasp like the first breath of the infants she had delivered. She didn’t scream though. Britha just didn’t understand why she wasn’t dead.
The beach looked red. The sand crawled with flies that rose into the air in thick black swarms when the ravens landed to feast. The carrion that used to be her people had enticed a pack of wolves out of the forest, their maws red now.
Britha’s hand went to her chest and she traced the line of scar tissue. It was as if the wound had been received years ago. She understood that her magics were getting stronger, perhaps because of her relationship with Cliodna bringing her closer to the Otherworld and its wellspring of power, but it had been a mortal wound. She had felt the head of the spear grow through her like the sharp roots of an iron tree.
She had dreamed of Cliodna. The selkie had been strange, frightening and hateful. In the dream Cliodna had done cruel and agonising things to Britha’s body. Her eyes hurt but felt dry. She couldn’t cry. She ached but she could stand, though it seemed like the beach was trying to tilt up to meet her, nausea washing over her. She felt different somehow, hot, feverish.
The warriors and landsmen of her tribe were gone, all that was left was their empty shells making red patterns on the sand. Britha could not bury them all. She would not try. The sky would be their burial place. There was no shame in that. The ravens would carry their flesh there. The beasts of the land had nurtured them and they would do the same for the carrion eaters.
There was a low growl. The wolf pack scattered. Britha watched the bear lumber across the beach towards her, its maw already red from feasting on the dead. Normally all gave way to the king of the forest, but Britha felt nothing. That included fear. The beast got up on its hind legs but did not roar at her. It just stared. It was as if the bear didn’t think she belonged.
‘Maybe I am just a shade now,’ Britha said quietly to herself. She had failed to protect her people. This was the ban draoi’s main responsibility – to live apart from the tribe but use her knowledge, wisdom and skills to keep them safe. Britha could not imagine a more complete failure. But how do you protect against the likes of the Lochlannach? she wondered.