Tool of War

  “They want to finish us,” Tool said. “They’re coming.”

  “They can try.” Wincing against the pain in her guts, Mahlia dug for one of the fancy rifles that the Mercier soldiers carried. “They can try.”

  Ocho rolled his head to look at Tool. Mahlia didn’t like the look that passed between them.

  “We must go,” Tool said.

  “I can’t leave him!” Mahlia said. “He’s hurt because of me! I got him into this!”

  “No.” Ocho coughed weakly. “We chose. We followed you because we chose.” He nodded at her bloodied prosthetic. “Glad that pigsticker of yours turned out handy. Knew you’d be good with it.”

  Tool was looting the body of another dead Mercier soldier. He came up with a weapon, and calmly checked the load. “They’re coming, Mahlia. It’s time to go.”

  “Let them come!”

  “No.” Ocho clutched her arm. “Go. Get yourself stitched up. Go someplace safe.” His hand slid down to her rifle, tugged at it. “Gimme this. I got this. You get out.” He looked down at his shattered legs, then back up at her. “Don’t make this all a waste, castoff.” He gently pried the gun from her hands.

  Tool’s ears were twitching. “They’ve entered the building.”

  Mahlia’s vision was blurry with tears. “Ocho—” she whispered, but Tool’s huge hand was on her shoulder now, dragging her away.

  “Go on, Mahlia,” Ocho said. “I got these maggots.” He looked at Tool. “Take her. Go!”

  “Good hunting,” Tool growled. With a single easy motion, he scooped her up.

  “No!”

  She struggled, fighting to get back to Ocho, but it was like fighting a mountain. Tool ignored her, easily carrying her away from Ocho and all the dead soldier boys. She flailed and bit and tore at him. She popped her blade, trying to cut him, but Tool stopped her easily. He was strong.

  Now he was strong. Now, when it was too late. Now, when there was nothing left.

  The last thing Mahlia saw was Ocho, lying amongst the bodies, the high-tech gun held at the ready, calmly settled in for one last stand against Mercier, an enemy that couldn’t be stopped.

  Her guts felt like razor blades and fire as Tool hauled her out through the rubble of the ruined rear wall. Just let me die. Tool caught hold of the twisted and bent fire escape ladder, and began climbing. Seconds later, he had her up on the roof.

  From up high, Mahlia could see all around. The glittering lights of a wealthy city. The rippling waters of the Seascape. Down below, a cacophony of gunfire shook the building.

  Ocho…

  Tool lifted her up and began to run, speeding toward the edge of the roof. He leaped. For a wild moment they were in the air, flying, and then they were falling, plunging.

  They hit the next rooftop. Pain exploded in Mahlia’s guts.

  She blacked out.

  25

  MAHLIA WOKE GROGGY, overwhelmed by the reek of fish. Wincing, she sat up. Her hands squelched in cool mud. She saw dark wooden pillars, sea mud, lapping fishy waters…

  She realized that she was lying beneath one of the huge piers where clipper ships docked. Closer to the water’s edge, Tool crouched, gazing out at the bay beyond.

  In the darkness and mud, the half-man seemed more bestial than ever. His shoulders and back gleamed with a black sheen of fresh blood, his flesh a ripped tapestry of ragged divots and uneven gashes. Mahlia realized that he’d dug into his own body, ripping and tearing to remove the bullets that had penetrated his hide.

  Tool’s ears twitched at her movement and he turned to regard her. His one remaining eye gleamed yellow, stark and inhuman.

  Beyond him, she could see out across the waters of the Seascape. The navigation lights of clipper ships shimmered across rippling waters as ships set sail. The red warning lights of the floating arcologies blinked in steady rhythm. All around the edge of the bay, the floodlights of the trading warehouses and shipbuilding cranes blazed, working twenty-four seven. All that business, all that trade, all that wealth…

  Her eyes were drawn to a fiery orange flickering near the deepwater anchorages. Sweating and gasping, her guts full of saw blade pain, she hauled herself through the mud to join Tool at the waterline. Out on the waters, a ship was burning. Sails. Aft cabins sending up bonfire flames.

  “The Raker,” she breathed.

  “Yes.”

  She realized that Tool was offering her something in his open hand—the Mercier commlink. She plucked it from his palm and pressed it to her ear.

  “Contact,” someone was saying. “Clear.”

  “Two o’clock.”

  She heard the distant shudder of a rifle. Looked to Tool, shocked. Tool nodded confirmation. “Mercier.”

  The combat chatter continued in the earpiece.

  “Galley. Contact.”

  “Galley clear.”

  “Team Two?”

  “Contact.”

  More rifle chatter.

  “Aft cabins clear.”

  The announcements were relaxed, almost conversational. It was war, but nothing like the frantic, bloody, adrenalized fighting that Mahlia had known in the Drowned Cities. This was quiet—surgical, calm, and deliberate—as easy as drowning a cat in a bag.

  “Why are they going after the ship?” she asked.

  Tool grunted. “I think they wish to cleanse every trace of me. To wipe my memory from the face of the earth.”

  More gunfire pops, shots taken without malice or fear, crackled through the commlink.

  “Clear.”

  Everyone was being erased. All the soldier boys she’d brought out of the Drowned Cities, those frightened young men she had saved, and who, in return, had joined her when she created her smuggling schemes for the Raker.

  “Clear.”

  Wild, infinitely tough boys with their soldier brands burned on their cheeks. She remembered them drinking on the deck of the Raker after their first successful art run, all of them toasting her. Ocho, watching from the sidelines, keeping an eye on the boys, not drinking, as much of a father figure as any of them had had in years.

  “Team One, extract.”

  More of the Raker was catching fire. Sails. Decks, fore and aft. With a start, Mahlia realized that Almadi’s sailors had to be there as well. Maybe even Almadi herself. Fates, the woman had been right to fear Tool.

  Mahlia clutched at her gunshot stomach, watching as what remained of her world was destroyed. She could make out human shadow shapes now, spilling off the sides of the ship, jumping down to black shadow rafts. Rats deserting the ship. Rats who had casually wiped out every person she knew or cared about, and who were now moving on.

  But I made it, she wanted to cry. I made it out. I had the ship. I had the crew. I had a plan. I had…

  A future. Wiped out. Cabin by cabin. Tiny pops echoing through the commlink.

  “All clear.”

  “Team Two, ext—”

  The commlink went dead. Mahlia pressed it tighter to her ear, but heard nothing more. Tool was nodding, as if he knew already what had happened. He held out his hand.

  “They have cut the comm. They have discovered that it was stolen.” He took the earpiece from her and crushed it between his fingers, turning the delicate plastic and electronics to dust. “They resent it when their enemies eavesdrop.”

  The attack rafts were rushing away from the conflagration of the Raker, disappearing into the dark Seascape waters.

  “That’s it, then. Everyone is dead.”

  “Yes.”

  Mahlia was overwhelmed by a wave of exhaustion. She eased herself down, letting herself rest on her side, laying her cheek in the mud. “This is my fault. You warned me, but I didn’t understand. I get it now.” She winced as a new twist of pain tightened her guts. “People die around you. You don’t die. But we all do. Everyone else dies, but you’re still here.”

  “Your kind are fragile.”

  “Yeah.” She lifted her shirt and stared at the bullet hole in her belly. So
small, yet so deadly. “Tell me about it.” She forced down the sadness that threatened to engulf her. “We die like flies.”

  Tool said nothing. His gaze lingered on the dark bay and the burning ship. It was almost peaceful, Mahlia thought. The mud. The waters lapping around the pylons of the pier. The fire, far away.

  “I don’t blame you, you know,” she said. “You warned me it was dangerous.”

  “All of my pack are dead as well,” Tool said. “You are the last.”

  Mahlia laughed. “Yeah, well—” She waved weakly at her stomach. “Not for long.”

  “You will heal.”

  Mahlia laughed incredulously, but Tool gave her a sharp look. “Believe me. I will heal you.”

  “If you say so.” She rested her cheek again in the mud. “If you can fix me, I’ll go wherever you want. Swamps. Forest. Whatever you want. We can lie low.”

  “No.” Tool shook his head. “The places I intend to go are not suitable for your kind. Once you heal, our paths must separate.”

  “But I can help you.” She tried to sit up, gasping as a new wave of pain washed over her. “We can find a hideout.”

  Tool was shaking his head vigorously. “No. There will be no more running, or hiding. I have run from Mercier for years. I have run and I have hidden, and I have lived as you suggest, ‘lying low,’ and none of that has protected me. Neither me, nor mine.” He touched her gently. “Too many of my kin die when I run.”

  “But you can’t fight them! Look what they did to us. Look what they did…”

  “Do not underestimate me, Mahlia. I went against my true nature when I sought to hide, instead of hunting. But no more. Now I will hunt, as I was always meant to. Now I will war, as I was designed to.” He growled, low and bloody. “I will hunt my gods, and I will kill them.”

  His dagger teeth glinted and his growling increased. “I am no longer prey.”

  26

  JONES KNOCKED GINGERLY, and waited outside the general’s suite. If she knocked quietly enough, he might not even hear, and she wouldn’t have to have this uncomfortable conversation.

  She’d knock, not use the buzzer, and the old curmudgeon might complain she hadn’t shown proper respect, but she could honestly say she’d come by—

  The door slid aside.

  “Come!” the general called.

  Jones sighed.

  Inside, Caroa’s quarters were a shambles. Onyx, the general’s augment aide, was busily boxing the general’s effects, but he stopped in his work to usher her through to the general. The rich carpets were already rolled up and gone. The liquor was put away. The ancient swords and pistols, disappeared. The maps of battle campaigns he had waged, all gone.

  Still, Caroa remained. A general for a few moments longer. He wasn’t gone yet. He still rated this stateroom aboard a Narwhal-class dirigible. Mercier had protocols, after all. The general still had his rank, if not his command.

  Caroa was standing outside on his balcony, a glass of cognac in one hand, a smoldering cigar in the other.

  “That’s fine, Onyx,” Caroa said without turning. “We can continue later.”

  Onyx let himself out. Jones waited, uncomfortably marooned in the bare room for the general to attend to her. He was leaning over his balcony rail, lording one last time over the SoCal Protectorate, before exile.

  “Jones,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “Get yourself a drink.” His gaze returned to Los Angeles.

  Jones searched around, but all the bottles were put away.

  “In the box by the door,” Caroa called back without turning.

  She found the box and hesitantly unwrapped a delicate bulb of glass, cushioned by air-wrap. She poured the amber liquid awkwardly, wondering how much this liquor was worth, that he drank so casually. Not wanting to spill anything so precious, and yet juggling bottle and glass while she crouched beside the boxed-up artifacts of a lifetime in Mercier’s service.

  She carried the snifter out to join him on the balcony, warm breezes and a view of the protectorate.

  The Annapurna was tethered low. A mere thousand feet above the harbor. Supply tubes clutched at its belly, like tentacles reaching up out of the sea, a great supply kraken seizing hold of them, determined to never let them go. Some tubes would be pumping down sewage, while others pumped up fresh water and compressed hydrogen fuel for drones. On other tether lines, freight pulleys were cranking up food and ammunition supplies to the support crews, who would be feverishly wrestling the crates into their resupply stations, preparing the airship for its next deployment.

  Out on the waters of the bay, clipper ships glittered on the dark waters, fixed wind wings, communication arrays blazing like torches. Around the bay, other dirigibles were tether-docked, heavy lift freight and a few passenger transports. Logos gleamed on their oblong bellies. Huawei, Patel Global, LG, Mercier. A lot of Mercier logos out there. Los Angeles was home, as far as most of the crew was concerned. One of the company’s crown ports, giving them influence over trade up the Cali coast and around the Pacific Rim.

  “What’s on your mind, Analyst?”

  “I’m being transferred.”

  Caroa laughed darkly. “They’re thorough when it comes to punishments.”

  “I’m being promoted, actually.”

  “Oh?”

  “I heard that you put in a good recommendation for me,” she said.

  Caroa snorted laughter. “I was trying to sink your career with that.” But he was smiling. “Where to?”

  “Enge has asked me to report directly to him.”

  “Ah.” Caroa gave her a mock salute. “The Executive Committee. You’re on the fast track, then. Rewards for good service rendered.” His words dripped with innuendo.

  “I had to tell them, sir. You said they knew, but they had no idea—”

  He waved a hand, silencing her. “You went above me. Not many people would take that risk. Back-checking their own general. Bold move.”

  “Well, it is my job to look for secondary confirmation.”

  He laughed at that and shook his head ruefully. “I didn’t even see you coming. I thought you were just squeamish. And then I’m up in front of ExCom, explaining so very many things I thought they didn’t know. All that clever digging you did.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Sorry?” Caroa looked surprised. “Don’t be sorry for playing the game well, Jones. You made your move, you took the risk, and now you reap the reward.” He waved his glass at the newly stitched rank on her sleeves. “Clearly you chose correctly, so don’t be sorry for the success it brings. No one else here apologizes.”

  “I wasn’t looking for a promotion. I thought they needed to know the whole story. They needed those files. I needed those files. If I’d known—”

  “Stop justifying yourself, Jones. You made a decision. Now you live with it. As we all do.” He quirked a smile. “In any case, ExCom is a good move for you. But watch your back. Enge is a slippery bastard. He knows how to climb the ladder, too, and he’ll save his own skin before he’ll save yours. He doesn’t have a problem with burning subordinates, if it suits him.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll watch out. Thank you, sir.”

  They were quiet for a while, staring down at Los Angeles.

  “He’s still out there,” Caroa said.

  Jones didn’t have to ask whom he was talking about. “We’ll find him.”

  “No…” Caroa shook his head. “ExCom will want to repair our trade agreements with the Seascape, even though bent northeastern noses are the least of their problems. It’s up to you now. You must hunt high and low.”

  “We don’t have any more leads,” Jones said. “None of the new assets had a single idea of where he might be headed now. We’re at a dead end.”

  “So now you’ll wait.” Contempt dripped from Caroa’s words.

  “Pattern-recognition systems will pick him up eventually. He’ll board a ship. Or that Drowned Cities girl he rescued will show up on a street. Or he??
?ll buy medicines in a Co-Prosperity city. He’ll paddle past a camera in some protectorate orleans. We aren’t doing nothing,” she said in response to his disgusted expression. “Just because we aren’t burning the Seascape to the ground doesn’t mean we’re sitting on our hands. We’re searching all the time.”

  “You say.”

  “Well, I’m still searching, anyway. He can’t hide forever.”

  “I can’t decide if I’m more frightened of the idea of him disappearing forever, or him turning up again.” He stared down at the city, thoughtful. Troubled. “I dream about that bastard sometimes. Haven’t in years, but now… all the time. Every night.” He lifted his cognac glass. “I can’t tell if the drink makes it better or worse.” He sipped. Made a face. “I spent years with him.”

  “I know. I’ve read all the files now.”

  Caroa looked surprised. “How high is your security clearance?”

  “High. Enge wanted me to audit every one of your missions. ExCom is… angry.”

  “Well, I didn’t put everything in those files. Those files don’t have the blood of the truth in them. They don’t have the life. The bonding.” Caroa shook his head. “He was special. His whole pack was special. I picked every gene in him. Knew exactly what we needed. Supervised every bit of that pack’s training. I lived with them. I ate and drank with them. I slept beside them. I hunted and killed alongside them. We were pack, you understand? Pack.”

  The way the general said the word made Jones shiver. It had an obsessional quality, a whiff of madness. It was probably good that the old man was being removed from the hunt.

  Caroa was looking at her, smiling cynically. “You think I’m crazy.”

  She covered as well as she could. “No, sir.”

  “Yes, you do. And so does ExCom.” He shrugged. “Well, I don’t give a damn. I don’t give a single damn anymore. Where I’m going, I don’t have to give a single damn.” He laughed at that. “I’m going to be general to a bunch of damn penguins, now. I’ll make those little bastards march!” He pretended to wobble around for a moment. “Hup, hup, hup!”