‘Your mother recommended us,’ Buck said.
‘I could see my mother recommending you have a bath, but really. I mean why use Yanks?’
"Cause the 160th are good,’ Buck said. This wasn’t just transatlantic banter. Mudge had a point: why hadn’t Rolleston kept it in the family?
‘So’s 47 Squadron and the CHF,’ I said, meaning the Commando Helicopter squadron.
Gibby sighed. ‘They are.’ Buck glared at him. ‘But we were air and space force before we transferred into the army. Part of the Special Operations Wing.’
‘So?’ Mudge asked. Sometimes I forgot that Mudge wasn’t actually military.
‘I get it,’ I said. Mudge and Morag turned to look at me. Pagan had already worked it out and Rannu didn’t seem to care.
‘They don’t just fly gunships and copters; they’re trained to pilot spacecraft as well,’ Pagan said.
‘And interface stuff like assault shuttles,’ Gibby added.
‘You can fly spacecraft and you chose to fly gunships?’ I asked. Flying spacecraft was the more prestigious job. Gunship pilots at the end of the day were just infantry taxi drivers. Buck let out a snort of derision and Gibby smiled.
‘Spaceships are boring. Here’s some black, here’s some more black,’ Gibby began. ‘But flying two metres above the ground at six hundred-plus clicks, watching a tracer firework display with crystal setting your veins on fire, that’s fun.’ Buck nodded his agreement.
‘You boys miss the war?’ Morag asked. At first I thought Buck was going to take offence – it wasn’t a question that most vets like to hear – instead he smiled.
‘Naw, miss the toys though.’ He lit up a cigarette and I nicked one off him.
‘Rolleston take you out-system?’ Mudge asked.
‘Couple of times, but you know how fast information moves out there. I think he had other teams in the other colonies looking for the same thing. It was mostly in-system stuff and we were always too late until that Foreign Legion unit went down and he decided to use the Wild Boys as bait,’ Gibby answered.
‘Who was he taking orders from?’ I asked. Gibby shrugged but Buck answered.
‘We don’t know, but I’ll tell you this: he was outside the chain of command. I once saw him give a full air force colonel an order and get it obeyed. He didn’t like working with us none, though.’
‘No?’ I asked.
‘Can’t imagine why,’ Mudge said. ‘Two such sweet guys like you.’
‘Son,’ Buck said, ‘you keep banging your gums together like that and I’m going to kick your ass so bad you’ll get to wear it as a hat.’
Mudge opened his mouth to counter threaten. I said, ‘Mudge, give it a rest, will you?’ He looked like he was going to argue but decided to remain quiet. Buck was busy staring at Mudge so Gibby took up the story.
‘Like I said, we had the skill set he needed, but I think they were setting up their own people.’
‘A private army?’ Pagan asked, leaning into the conversation and taking an interest.
Gibby shrugged. ‘Mebbe. He definitely wanted to keep it in-house.’
‘Like the XIs?’ I asked. Buck and Gibby looked at me blankly.
‘The whole XI thing doesn’t seem to be working too well for Rolleston,’ Pagan said, nodding at Rannu and me. I had to agree with him.
‘So why hasn’t he sent his army after us?’ I asked. ‘Why just the XIs?’
‘Because we’re not important enough,’ Pagan said.
‘So what is?’ I asked.
‘You feeling unwanted?’ Mudge asked.
‘Not really,’ I said.
‘It would suggest that this God thing is all bollocks,’ Mudge said. Pagan glared at him. ‘I’m serious, man. The alien is dead, that seems to be all he cares about. We’re just loose ends that the XIs and the Fortunate Sons will deal with eventually. If Rolleston wanted you dead you would be. Thinking you’re more important than that is just delusions of grandeur. You’ve pissed him off but you’re not the big threat you think you are.’
‘Whereas you are?’ Rannu asked. Mudge turned around to look at the Nepalese.
‘I don’t know. The Grey Lady comes to me and asks me to mind my own business or she’ll kill me, and I tend to believe her, but that’s the thing, see? I’m a pain in the arse.’ I found myself nodding with everyone else present. ‘Not a huge threat. I think we may have lost some perspective.’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But we are running around with an alien, even if it’s only an alien information form. That is potentially a serious threat to Earth security.’
‘You’ve got a what?’ Buck asked, swapping a look of confusion with Gibby.
‘I guess Rolleston either doesn’t care or doesn’t know about that,’ Mudge said.
‘So what do you suggest?’ Pagan asked.
‘Keep a low profile and die of liver failure,’ Mudge answered. That appealed to me. Even coming to some kind of an accord with Rolleston appealed to me.
‘So what happened to your friend?’ Morag asked. I turned to look at Buck and Gibby.
‘After we left you guys-’ Buck began.
‘To die,’ Mudge added. I glanced over at him. He just shrugged but remained quiet.
‘We had a mid-air rendezvous with a transport shuttle. In orbit we docked with Rolleston’s ship-’
‘He had a ship?’ I asked, surprised. Pagan let out a low whistle. That was serious resources. Buck looked pissed off with yet another interruption.
‘What was the name of the ship?’ Pagan asked.
‘HMS Steel.’
‘Frigate class, fitted out for stealth operations,’ Pagan said. It was the sort of ship that special forces types tended to operate off.
‘Anyway,’ Buck tried again, ‘we were still in orbit waiting for clearance to set sail. We were using some of the bigger ships for cover from Them’s fleet and surface bombardment when the call comes through that you two had made it off Dog 4.’ I already knew this. Rolleston had given the command to dump us.
‘So what? Tell me about Gregor.’
Thing you’ve got to know is the gunship and the transport shuttle, all of them, were set up for bio containment. They were ready for what happened to your friend.’
I flicked the cigarette away, resisting the urge to cough in case I didn’t like what came up. I was feeling quite weak; I’d need another stim soon.
‘So where’d you take Gregor?’ Mudge asked.
‘Back to Sol, the Atlantis Spoke,’ Gibby answered. ‘We took the whole of the transport into the biggest cargo elevator.’
‘That the last you saw of it?’ I asked. Gibby nodded. I could see the disappointment on Mudge’s face. It meant nothing. The Spokes were entrepots. They were connected to the entire transport infrastructure of Earth. If Gregor was still alive he could be anywhere. I heard Pagan sigh.
‘Give me the exact date and time,’ Pagan said in a resigned tone of voice.
‘Can you do anything with that?’ I asked him.
‘Maybe.’
‘Do you want help?’ Morag asked.
‘It’ll just be sifting through data, little hacking involved, pretty boring.’
‘I have to learn that too.’
‘That it?’ Mudge asked. He was visibly pissed off. Buck and Gibby gave the question some thought and seemed to come to an unspoken agreement.
‘Not quite,’ Buck said. We all turned to him expectantly.
‘Go on,’ I urged.
‘Look, man, your friend is more than likely fucked. Why you doing this?’ Buck asked.
‘Stupid question,’ Rannu said.
I pointed at Gibby. ‘He goes down in a burning gunship, what do you do?’ I asked. Buck nodded.
‘MacDonald might still be on the Spoke, or at least I’m pretty sure he was kept there for a while,’ Gibby said.
‘Why?’ Mudge asked.
‘For one thing, the elevator took the transport way down below sea level. It went straight past the flight decks, and docks.’