Balor shook his head, his sensor dreads whipping round as his head moved. ‘I don’t like seeing a warr-’
‘Soldier,’ I interrupted. He looked at me quizzically. ‘I am, or I was, a soldier, and a reluctant one at that. Don’t give me any of this warrior bullshit; you save it for Rannu.’
‘I don’t like seeing a soldier this way,’ he said. I managed another sip from the whisky and then refilled the glass with some of my blood. I looked back up at Balor, sitting huge and impassive next to my bed.
‘You’re really scared of me, aren’t you?’ I said. ‘I mean this.’ I gestured down at my sore-covered wreck of a body. ‘This is pretty much your worst fear, isn’t it?’
He didn’t say anything. It hit me then that like all the other soldiers who dressed themselves up like monsters, Balor was overcompensating, running from something, hiding from something. He was just better at it than the rest.
‘Why are you here?’ I asked. ‘Out of all of us you’ve got to have the most to lose – maybe Mudge now, but he’s too fucked to care.’
‘Loyalty,’ he said.
‘Oh bullshit. You want to do a dying man a favour then, don’t fucking lie to me.’
He glared at me. I think I’d made him angry, and not the mock anger he play-acted with his cronies; I’d genuinely hit a raw nerve.
‘Because I think we’ve changed something,’ he finally said through gritted rows of shark-like teeth.
‘You don’t sound pleased about it,’ I replied.
‘I am. It’s why we’re warriors after all,’ he said. I didn’t follow him but I was sick of hearing all this warrior self-justification bollocks.
‘Don’t fucking start with that warr-’ I began.
‘No, you be quiet,’ Balor said. ‘I don’t care what you think of my beliefs, but is that not what all the fighting and killing was for? Isn’t that why all those marines on Atlantis had to die? Aren’t we trying to make things better? Isn’t that our job as the strong? Isn’t that what you told Cronin?’ he snarled. ‘The world without war, the world you’re trying to build, has no place for someone like me,’ he said finally. That stopped me.
‘What about Rolleston and the Black Squadrons?’ I asked weakly.
‘Believe it or not,’ he said evenly, ‘despite what you’ve seen me do, I don’t really have much of an appetite for killing humans.’
‘You’ve come here to die?’ I asked.
‘No. I’ve come here to die in a way that people will talk about for ever.’
‘You want to go out in a blaze of glory,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘That is why, more than anyone else, Mudge must live.’
‘So he can tell your story.’ Balor nodded. ‘And you don’t want me around because despite what you’ve done to your body and your head, you don’t want to be reminded that you are still human and human flesh is weak,’ I said.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t need to.’
‘I’m worried that you will risk the mission-’
‘You’re on a fucking suicide run, pal. You don’t give a shit about the others – you’ve just fucking said that. You know the score. You know how we do business. What’s your motto, by guile not strength? We’re going in quiet and you want to make a fucking spectacle of your death!’
‘I’m trying to offer you a way out,’ he growled.
‘What’s going on?’ Morag asked from the open doorway. I hadn’t even heard her, though Balor must have. Neither of us said anything. For no good reason I suddenly felt guilty. I think I saw a trace of guilt on Balor’s face too, but who can tell? Morag took in the gun, the knife and the pill box.
‘What were you doing?’ she demanded, asking us both.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
Morag turned to glare at Balor. Balor stood up, his enormous scaled bulk seeming to fill the cramped cabin. Morag moved into the room, Balor towering over her.
‘Were you going to kill him?’
‘I offered him a way out,’ he growled again. Morag looked angrier than I’d ever seen her.
‘A way out? A fucking way out!’ she screamed at him. ‘Why can’t you say kill, or even better, murder?’
‘Morag…’ I started, but she’d grabbed Balor’s shotgun pistol and held the heavy pistol in an unsteady two-handed grip. Balor reached out to take the pistol. The report was deafening in the confined space. Or at least it would have been if we didn’t all have audio dampeners now. The recoil sent Morag sprawling back into the bulkhead, the gun clattering to the deck. Buckshot was suddenly ricocheting all around me, flattening against my subcutaneous armour. There was a black scorch mark on Balor’s chest from the pistol’s fierce muzzle flash. He barely took a step back. She’d shot him in exactly the same place that Rolleston had. Scorched his nice new rebuilt armour.
‘I’m sorry,’ Morag said, much more out of shock at what she’d done than fear of Balor. Balor bent down and retrieved the shotgun pistol and grabbed his dive knife and pill box from the table. I don’t think this had played out the way he’d envisaged. It was difficult to tell with his inhuman face but I think he was embarrassed. Mudge and Rannu were at the door. Rannu had removed the medpak; half of his face was angry red new-growth skin. He had a gun in each hand and Pagan was behind him. Balor made to push past them.
‘Balor,’ I said quietly.
He stopped and turned to look at me.
‘Balor, if I live long enough I’ll go down with you.’ He gave this some thought and then nodded before turning. Mudge and Pagan moved out of the way. Rannu just stared at him.
‘Don’t say that,’ Morag said through gritted teeth. I suspected there would be tears in her eyes if she’d still had real ones.
‘Is everything okay?’ Rannu asked, almost tonelessly.
‘Yeah, we’re fine,’ I said, but Rannu did not move.
‘Get out of the way,’ Balor said dangerously. Rannu still didn’t move.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Morag said.
Rannu moved aside for Balor, who glared at him one last time and then stormed off.
‘Thank you,’ Morag said to Rannu and the others. Mudge started to say something but she closed the door. She threw herself onto the bed next to me, causing me some pain, and then burst into tears. Or rather she started sobbing, no tears any more. I held her as best as my decaying flesh could manage.
‘That bastard,’ she managed later through the sobs.
‘I think he honestly thought he was doing me a favour. He’s scared, he’s just not scared of the same things the rest of us are.’ She looked up at me, her brown eyes no longer up to the job of conveying emotion. I struggled to look at them.
‘I’m not afraid,’ she said, and I think I believed her.
‘No?’ I asked. She shook her head. ‘Why not?’ In comparison I was shitting myself.
‘I know you’ll protect me,’ she replied with utter conviction.
‘I thought you didn’t need my protection,’ I said, my mouth working faster than my brain.
‘We both need protection,’ she said. Despite the pain I held her to me, my eyes hurting where my machinery prohibited tears.
A day out from Sirius and Gregor was still in a cocoon. All we’d been able to do was speculate. We’d not been able to come up with a solid plan, let alone run simulations. Though in this case I suspected the simulations would have been quite depressing, in a you’re-all-going-to-die kind of way.
The door to the dying room, as I’d come to think of my cabin, opened. Morag and Pagan walked in. Pagan leant heavily on his staff; both of them looked thoughtful. They looked at each other, both seemingly waiting for the other to start. They seemed to be in a state of mild nerd excitement.
‘We need to speak to Gregor,’ Pagan said.
‘Or turn back,’ I said. An option which was beginning to look pretty good even to me, and I had nothing to lose, or rather I did but I’d already lost it.