‘It’s not to say he didn’t either,’ Pagan pointed out. He was not looking happy.
‘Mudge? Do you believe in these guys now?’ I asked.
‘I did then,’ Mudge said distractedly. He was studying the monitor. He looked up at Cat. ‘He’s very pretty.’ I’m not sure she knew what to say to that. ‘I went looking for them. I got very efficiently bagged. I was held completely immobile in a stress position for a week. Then someone I didn’t hear enter the room came and held a gun to my head for six hours. Completely still. Never uttered a word. I couldn’t hear him or her breathe. I decided to stop looking.’
‘You make them sound like the Grey Lady,’ Morag said and shivered.
‘Different kind of scary,’ Mudge said. ‘I like him. Let’s use him.’
‘Are you sure you don’t just want to fuck him?’ I asked.
‘He’s my brother,’ Cat protested.
‘Maybe, but if he is Cemetery Wind, then they scare me and make Morag shiver. I also like the idea that one of the guns is a little more subtle than you or me,’ Mudge said.
‘Morag?’
‘I agree with Mudge. It’d be nice to work with someone who can respond to a problem without shooting it a lot.’
‘Pagan?’
‘I don’t like the Cabal connection. But if he’s an ex-PJ then he won’t be as big a wuss about OILO insertion. I say we talk to him’
‘That’s an issue. What happens if we talk to him and either we don’t like what we hear or he doesn’t want to play? He’ll already know too much,’ I asked.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Cat assured us.
I wasn’t quite so sure. Family complicated things and there was a very real chance that we might have to put a bullet in this guy’s head. I couldn’t see Cat getting behind that and she was good people. Besides, it would leave us another shooter down and we’d have to start again.
‘Have you seen where he is?’ Mudge asked as he passed the monitor back.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake. A high-security clipper? En route? What did he think was going to happen?’ I said. ‘Well that’s him out.’
Pagan took the monitor from me. He read the info. ‘What were you thinking?’
‘I was thinking,’ Cat said, ‘that aside from the ridiculous amount of money I want paid in advance, getting him out is my price. Either that or I walk.’ Except she knew and we knew that it wouldn’t be easy if she chose to walk.
8
The standard-issue sidearm for the SAS is the Sig Sauer P410. It is capable of semi-automatic or full automatic fire and has an integral suppressor. The standard magazine contains fifteen 10mm rounds, though oversized magazines with the capacity for twenty or twenty-five rounds are favoured when concealment is not an issue. When fighting Them the favoured load was an armour-piercing, hydro-shock round because of the effects on Their liquid physiology. The hydro-shock rounds are perfectly adequate when used against humans, but many, like Morag, preferred armour-piercing explosive rounds when shooting at people.
The P410 is largely a hold-out weapon. It does not have the stopping power of a rifle or a Mastodon or Void Eagle. If you’re using one against a Berserk then your day’s gone horribly wrong. Given enough hits, they will mess up a Berserk or someone with cybernetic augmentation up to the level of a special forces operator, but they are not one-hit-one-kill on someone with decent subcutaneous armour. This is something I was very grateful for when Morag decided to shoot me with hers. I was less pleased that we’d collectively advised her to use a large-capacity magazine.
Anyone putting any effort into tracking us was going to be able to, but we were trying to stay off the radar. The Brazilian was the closest spoke to New Mexico, but US military shuttles were still not allowed to dock there so we’d been flown to High Pacifica. I had never quite been able to reconcile the view from orbit with the reality of living on Earth. From high above the Earth looked bright, blue, peaceful and, weirdest of all, clean.
The space around High Pacifica was very busy with everything from military shuttles like ours to net tugs pulling in chunks of refined asteroid from orbital refineries, as well as interplanetary traffic from the rest of the system.
We made our way as inconspicuously as we could to an outbound tramp freighter with parts going to Freetown in the Belt. Cat and I all but sat on Mudge to make sure he didn’t call attention to himself.
The freighter was called Loser’s Luck and I was astonished it was still holding together. It had a mainly Indonesian crew who we’d paid enough to leave us in peace and hopefully not tell too many people that we were travelling with them. We still were not discussing the details of our mission, however. I think what bothered me the most was that I’d found myself in yet another poorly heated, thin-walled cargo hold far too close to the vacuum and radiation outside.
The flimsy cargo hold was yet another reason why I was less than pleased when 10mm rounds started sparking off the metal around me. This was foolishness, however. There are few man-portable weapons powerful enough to get through even the cheapest cargo hull. Still, getting shot was no fun.
I wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention and it was pretty much the last thing I had expected. It was just like being rapidly punched with extraordinary force. She nailed me in the chest with a three-round burst, tight grouping. The integrity of my armour held, but warning icons were already appearing in my IVD as I rolled backwards off the crate of supplies I’d been lying on. The second burst caught me painfully in the left leg below the knee before I managed to get into cover.
I drew the Mastodon and my TO-5 laser pistol. I wasn’t sure what was happening or who was shooting. Mudge had been sitting on a pile of gear opposite, reading. Pagan was tranced into his own systems — I assumed working. Cat was checking the gyroscopic mount for the railgun and Morag had just wandered back from the galley.
‘You fucking bastard!’ Morag shouted and fired again. It was suppressing fire. It worked. I kept my head down. Then again, maybe she was just firing out of anger or frustration.
‘Morag?!’ I said incredulously. This was a completely new phase of our relationship and I wasn’t very happy about it.
‘Put the gun down,’ I heard Mudge say. I continued cowering behind the crate. I really wasn’t sure what to do. Had she really been trying to kill me?
‘Fuck off, Mudge!’ Morag said, and there was another burst of armour-piercing, explosive-tipped bullets.
‘Morag… what the fuck?!’ I managed. There was the sound of a scuffle. I dared to poke my head over the crate and saw Mudge grappling with Morag. Now Mudge is no slouch in a fight. I’ve seen him take special forces operators on without a trace of hesitation. He mostly lost, but he was game and reasonably skilled. Morag straight-armed him in the throat, pistol-whipped him and then side-kicked him so hard that he was knocked off his feet and slammed into the hull wall.
I threw myself behind more crates as she turned and fired again. I caught a glimpse of her face contorted with anger.
There was the sound of another scuffle. I heard Morag cry out and then a thump as someone hit the floor. I risked looking again. Morag was lying next to Mudge rubbing her wrist. Cat was standing close to where Morag had been, making the Sig safe. Cat was glaring and Morag was staring at me with so much hatred I was beginning to think I’d rather be shot.
‘What did you do?’ Cat demanded.
I was pretty much struck dumb for the moment. Apparently being shot was my own fault. Pagan had been tranced in though the whole thing, completely oblivious.
‘Its okay. There are other guns,’ Morag spat. She sounded really angry.
‘Is everything okay?’ Mudge asked. ‘Can I go back to my book or is there more imminent gunplay?’