Kiera’s face was smiling complacently out of another, her refined voice booming round the room, telling the fleet that they should turn their backs on Capone and emigrate down to the planet with her. The screen next to her was flipping through the asteroid’s communication circuits, running a program to track down which antenna she was using and where her input entered the network.
The SD sensor network flashed up a priority-one alert. The Swabia had disengaged from its docking bay cradle and initiated a jump immediately.
The assholes hadn’t even cleared the rim!
His desktop block bleeped urgently. “What?” Emmet yelled.
“Emmet, this is Silvano. I’ve got a message from the boss.”
“I’m a little busy right now.” He squinted at the display of the communication circuits. Sections were dropping out. Viral warnings started to appear.
“Get in to the control centre and make sure the fleet stays on duty. Anyone starts heading for the surface, nuke the fuckers with the SD weapons. Got that?”
“But …”
“Now, you pissant little mother.” The block went dead. Emmet snarled at it, the closest he’d ever come to showing disrespect to Al’s chilling enforcer. He took the time to load a couple of orders in the desktop to run a virus scan through the office hardware, and went out at a run.
The thick door to the control centre slid open. Jagged lines of white fire ripped through the air centimetres in front of Emmet. Alarms were screaming as red strobes burned down his optic nerves. Layers of smoke lashed out down the corridor. He squealed in panic and dived behind one of the consoles as he hardened a bubble of air around himself. Two fireballs burst open against its boundary. Instinctively he sent white fire of his own back along the direction they’d come from. It sizzled sharply in the torrent of purple retardant foam spraying out of the ceiling nozzles.
“What the fuck is going on?” he yelled. He could sense two distinct groupings of minds in the control centre, clustered at opposite ends of the chamber. Most of the consoles between them were smothered with foam that seethed and writhed as it absorbed the flames licking up from smoking puncture holes.
“Emmet, that you? Kiera’s bastards tried to shut down the SD network. We stopped them. Snuffed one.”
Despite the lethal environment, Emmet lifted one arm away from his head to glance round again. Stopped what? he thought incredulously. The centre was a total wreck.
“Emmet!” Jull von Holger called. “Emmet, tell your guys to pack it in. We’ve won and you know it. The Navy’s coming and it’s not taking prisoners. We have to get down the planet.”
“Oh shit,” Emmet whispered.
“Emmet, help us,” Capone’s faction called. “We can whip their asses.”
“Put a stop to it, Emmet,” Jull called. “Come with us. Be safe.”
The white fire was slashing faster, its brightness building. Emmet curled up tighter, trying to shut it all out.
The gleaming scarlet rocketship edged slowly over the docking ledge, creeping up to the pedestal positioned only sixty metres from the vertical wall of rock. It settled smoothly, and a metallic airlock tube telescoped away from the cliff face to search out the hellhawk’s hatch.
They engaged and sealed.
Al Capone stomped along the tube into the reception lounge, a baseball bat gripped firmly in his right hand. His lieutenants were waiting for him, Silvano and Patricia grim-faced but obviously spoiling for a fight.
Leroy at their side, anxious and desperate to prove his loyalty. A semicircle of over a dozen more behind them, equally committed, dressed in their best pinstripe suits, Thompson machine guns gleaming and ready.
Al nodded round, pleased with what he saw. He would have preferred old friends, but these would do. “Okay, we all know what Kiera wants. The dame’s running scared of the Navy and that Ruski admiral. Well, now we’ve seen what those bastards will do when their back’s to the wall, I say that makes it more important than ever to stay here and cover our asses.
We’ve still got antimatter, and lots of it. That means we got clout where it hurts, we can make them the offer. Unless the Feds agree to stop dicking around with us, every planet they got’s gonna live in fear from now on. That’s the only way to be sure. I’ve lived with being wanted all my life, and I know how to deal with that kind of bullshit. You never, fucking ever, let your guard down. You gotta make like you’re the meanest SOB on the street to stop them messing with you. If they don’t respect you, they don’t fear you.” He slapped the top of the baseball bat against his left palm. “Kiera needs to be told that in person.”
“We’re with you, Al,” someone called.
The semicircle of gangsters parted, and Al strode forward. “Silvano, we know where she is?”
“I think she went to the hotel, Al. We can’t get them on the phone. Mickey’s gone back there to take a look. He’ll call if he finds her.”
“What about Jez?”
Silvano shot Leroy a glance. “We think she’s still there, Al. Couple of the guys are there with her. She’ll be fine.”
“Better be,” Al muttered. He looked ahead to see Avram Harwood III standing in the lounge’s doorway. The man was a total tow truck job.
Breathing badly, his unhealed wounds leaking cheesy fluid down pale damp skin; he could barely stand.
“I am the mayor,” Avram wheezed. “I am entitled to respect. That’s your big thing, isn’t it, respect.” He giggled.
“Avvy, get the fuck out of my way,” Al snapped.
“Kiera showed me respect.” Avram raised his static bullet machine gun.
“Now it’s your turn.” The weapon’s fire rate control was set at maximum.
He pulled the trigger.
Al was already jumping out of the way. Silvano was raising his own Thompson. Leroy brought his arms up, yelling a frantic: “No!” at the top of his lungs. The other gangsters were diving to the floor or aiming at Avram.
Electrically charged bullets tore across the lounge, a devastating line of throbbing blue-white light complementing the dragon’s roar. Al hit the floor just as the first possessed body ignited in its unique spectacular fashion. The searing glare wiped out everyone’s vision. A shockwave of heat washed over them, blistering exposed skin, singeing hair. Another body ignited.
Al screamed in raw fury, flinging a white firebolt as strong as the internecine furnace of flesh. Eight identical streamers of white fire smashed into Avram Harwood’s body, vaporizing his torso instantly amid a bloom of ash and blood steam. Arms that had been held outstretched dropped to the melting carpet next to his collapsing legs. Heat detonated every chemical bullet left in the machine gun’s magazine as it fell, sending out a lethal volley of shrapnel to slash walls and flesh.
When the light, heat, and noise shrank away, Al swayed to his feet. All he could see at first was a giant purple afterimage which his energistic power was incapable of banishing. His weird psychic sense couldn’t track down Avram Harwood’s thoughts anywhere. As he blinked the blotches away from his eyes, he realized how badly parts of him were hurting. His suit and hands were running with blood from half a dozen wounds where the shrapnel had sliced into him. One by one he made the slivers of hot metal slide up out of his body and closed the lips on each cut, bonding the skin back together. The pain dwindled away.
Leroy was lying on the floor at Al’s feet. Bullets had torn their way across him, the last one removing half of his throat. Dead eyes stared upwards. Al switched his gaze to the two piles of charcoal scattered over the molten composite floor tiling. “Who?” he demanded.
The gangsters were picking themselves up, healing and sealing their shrapnel wounds. A head count told Al that Silvano had been among the victims of the static bullets. Nobody dared say anything as Al stood over the small black pile of cooling ash that used to be his chief enforcer.
His head was bowed as if in prayer. After a minute he walked over to the four battered limbs that remained of Avram Harwood. “Bastard!”
Al screamed. He brought his baseball bat crashing down on an arm.
“Motherfucking!” The bat slammed into the arm again. “Shit eating!” This time he hit a leg. “Psycho bastard!” The other leg. “I’ll kill your family. I’ll burn your house to the ground. I’ll dig up your mother’s coffin and shit on her. You wanted respect? That what you wanted? This is the kind of respect I got for a cornholing son of a bitch like you.” The bat pounded and pounded on the limbs, pulping them to roadkill smears.
Patricia stepped forward from the rank of badly alarmed gangsters. “Al. Al, that’s enough.”
The bat was brought up, ready to fly at her head. Al met her level gaze, stood for a moment with the bat poised. A long breath shuddered out of him. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go find Kiera.”
The floor under Emmet was melting, transmuting into a puddle of cold liquid rock. It would soon be deep enough to swallow him whole. Somebody was becoming very anxious to turn him into a fossil. He strove hard to turn the rock solid again as the air above him raged with white fire and profanities. The two factions were evenly matched, and both of them kept shouting at him to throw his strength in on their side.
He wanted to help Al’s guys. His own side. Really wanted to. Except the idea of going with New California into a place of safety was hugely appealing. No more of this shit, for a start.
A voracious spout of white fire hit the console he was crouched behind, and started chewing its way through the composite casing and tightly packed circuitry cubes inside. Kiera’s people obviously had decided he wasn’t joining them.
Retardant foam gushed downwards, only to be catalysed into boiling green treacle by the unnatural blaze. It poured off the top of the console and splattered over Emmet, stinging his exposed skin. He drew a deep breath, praying his bladder would hold out, and conjured up a spear of white fire. It flashed across the chamber towards Jull von Holger and his cohorts. The immediate result wasn’t quite what he expected.
A thunderous roar swamped the control centre. A possessed body ignited, forcing Emmet to clamp his hand over his eyes. The mental and vocal shriek of the vanquished soul grated down his skin like needles of ice. A second body erupted, then another. The air was clogged with stifling heat and a vomitous stench of incinerated meat as they belched out thick fumes.
After a long time the bodies burnt out, returning the light level to normal. The awful fetor remained. The roaring had stopped.
A loud metallic snik sounded across the chamber. To Emmet’s ears it sounded mechanical, and very weapons orientated. Footsteps squelched through the foam.
“You’ve pissed yourself,” a voice told him.
Emmet twisted his head out of the foetal position. A gaunt man in a grubby one-piece suit was looking down at him, holding a peculiar machine gun, its warm barrel pointing directly at Emmet’s forehead. A canvas satchel was slung over his shoulder, packed full of magazines.
“I was scared,” Emmet said. “I’m not part of the Organization’s muscle.”
The man’s features vanished for a second, replaced by a woman’s. If anything, her expression was even more forbidding. Emmet could sense the energistic power circulating through the body. It rivalled Al’s strength.
Survivors from the Organization faction were peering nervously over the top of their trashed consoles.
“Who are you?” Emmet stammered.
“We are the Skibbows.”
“Uh, right. Are you on Kiera’s side?”
“No. But we’d really like to know where she is.” The machine gun’s safety catch was released. “Now, please.”
Mickey Pileggi had learned the hard way not to try and storm Kiera and her goons. Three of his soldiers had wound up burning like miniature suns when they all charged into the Nixon suite. Mickey had entertained visions of lavish praise and unlimited privileges heaped upon him by Al for rescuing Jezzibella from Kiera’s hands. That dream had quickly turned into a crock of shit. The guns she was armed with had caused havoc amongst the gangsters. Those screams would echo through the air around Mickey for eternity.
He’d ordered them to fall back to the hallway outside, taking up shielded positions in the twin stairwells and disabling the elevators with strategic blasts of white fire. They were at the bottom of the tower. She wasn’t going anywhere. Now he just had to explain to Al how he’d fouled up.
Another spray of static bullets hammered out from the splintered doors of the Nixon suite. All the gangsters ducked, thickening the local air.
“We should seal this floor off,” one of them said. “Blow the windows out and see how she likes eating vacuum.”
“Great idea,” Mickey grumbled. “Are you gonna tell Al we did to Jezzibella what they did to Brown-nose Bernhard?”
“Guess not.”
“Okay. Now come on, guys. Let’s concentrate on making those doors evaporate. Keep them occupied defending themselves while our reinforcements arrive.”
“If any do.”
Mickey shot the man a furious glare. “Nobody’s deserting Al, not after what he’s done for us.”
“For you.”
Mickey didn’t see who said that, but let the sharp anger show amid his thoughts as a warning. He focused on the door, and punched it with the force of his mind. Bullets pulverised a line in the marble wall above his head. Tiny tendrils of electricity scrabbled across the surface. Everyone flinched down fast.
His processor block bleeped. He dusted hot marble chips from his hair and pulled it out of his pocket, amazed the thing was working with so much machismo energistic power buzzing about.
“Mickey?” Emmet implored. “Mickey, you got any idea where Kiera is?”
“Pretty sure, yeah. She’s like ten yards away from me.” Mickey gave the block an infuriated look as Emmet abruptly cut the call. “Okay guys, let’s hit the doors together this time. On three. One. Two—”
The office door shut behind Skibbow, and Emmet let out a huge gasp of relief. There was a real monster of a problem torturing that wacko possessed, and Emmet was enormously glad he didn’t share any part of it.
He let his body calm for a few precious moments more, then called Al.
“Whatcha got for me, Emmet?”
“We had a problem in the SD control centre, Al. Kiera’s people tried to knock out the orbital platforms.”
“And?”
“They’re sleeping with the fish.” He held his breath, worried Al could sense half-truths along the communication circuit.
“I owe you one, Emmet. I won’t forget what you did.”
Emmet’s fingers were skidding fast over his desktop keyboard, re-routing the SD network’s main command channels. Symbols blinked up on the tactical display, showing him what he was in charge of. He smiled uneasily at the power he’d assumed. Lord of the sky, admiral of the fleet, enforcer of order across a whole planet. “The place is pretty much a bombsite, Al, but I’ve still got control of the major hardware.”
“What’s the fleet doing, Emmet? Are the guys staying put?”
“Pretty much. Eight frigates are heading down to low orbit, I guess the rest are waiting to hear what you’ve got to say. But Al, I count seventeen hellhawks missing.”
“Je-zus, Emmet, first chunk of good news I’ve had today. You keep watching everybody, make sure they don’t move. I got some business to clear up, then I’ll be right back with you.”
“Sure thing, Al.” He blinked, and squinted at the tactical display. It wasn’t supposed to be shown on such a small scale; this was a format designed to showcase across a hundred metre screen in front of admirals and defence chiefs. From what he could make out, two miniaturised symbols were moving very close to Monterey itself.
The Varrad skimmed above the wrinkled rock, keeping a constant fifty-metre separation from the pumice-like terrain, lifting and sinking in perfect curving parallels with the craters and ridges beneath its metallic lower hull. Pran Soo was pursuing the Hilton tower as it slid across the stars, closing on it like an atmospher
ic fighter on a low-visibility strike run. Along with all the other hellhawks, she’d been monitoring what communications she could access since Kiera’s revolt had started. And Mickey Pileggi had spent fifteen minutes yelling across the net at his fellow Organization lieutenants for help to deal with Kiera and her dangerous weapons.
> Rocio asked.
>
>
>
>
>
>
Pran Soo opened her affinity, allowing him to borrow the sights revealed to her bitek sensor blisters, showing him the rock rushing past her hull.
Her other principal sense, the Varrad’s distortion field, was reduced to a hemispherical shape, its usual bloated coverage curtailed by the giant asteroid.
The Monterey Hilton swung towards her, sticking out proud from the rock.
Visually, a pillar of tough carbon-reinforced titanium riddled with thick, multi-layered windows. Inside the distortion field it emerged as a coagulation of thin sheets of matter, threaded with a filigree of minute power cables whose electrons were imbued with a delicate spectral sheen.
She matched her vector with the asteroid’s rotation. Electronic pods on her hull flowered, thrusting out sensors. They swept across the lower floors of the tower.
> she told Rocio.