Tool of War

  Tool smiled grimly as he made his way along the skin of the ship, headed for the next helium chamber.

  Send up your beacons. They will mark your graves.

  Emergency klaxons wakened Jones from a fitful sleep. She jerked upright, covering her ears as the sirens yowled, blinking against the sharp glare of emergency LED lights telling her how to make her way out of the dirigible.

  Long habit and drill told her what to do. She’d been aboard the Annapurna long enough to have memorized this airship’s emergency procedures. She rolled out of her bunk with the muscle memory and reflex of long practice, and kept rolling.

  She slammed into a wall, shocked. Only when she tried to stand did she fully understand the situation. The Annapurna was canted. In fact, her deck was almost at a forty-five-degree angle.

  What in the name of the Fates?

  Jones hesitated. If the Annapurna had still been her duty assignment, she would have had tasks to accomplish in the intelligence section. Computer memory and servers that needed to be burned and scuttled so that intel couldn’t fall into a competitor’s hands.

  But here, she was just a passenger, attached to ExCom.

  Find the escape pods, then.

  She wasn’t in charge here. Her job was simply to get out. She grabbed her work tablet. This at least either needed to be destroyed, or leave with her. She called Enge. His face appeared on her screen.

  “Jones! Where the hell are you?”

  The man looked crazed and disheveled, his features lit with the orange emergency lights of a ship in distress. He was already on the move, panting, making his way through corridors.

  “Deck three, starboard, aft,” Jones said.

  “ExCom is being evacuated,” Enge said. “Can you get to the port side?”

  She stared at the canted deck. “I can try, sir.”

  “Do it, then. We’re taking the glider. There’s room for you, but we can’t wait. You understand?”

  She did. The Executive Committee had to be saved. She was an afterthought, if she was lucky.

  “On my way.”

  “More leaks, sir!” Tolly announced. “We just lost Fore-Ten! It’s venting!”

  “That can’t be!” the weapons officer exclaimed. “There’s nothing shooting at us!” He pointed at his air-defense screens. “No missiles, no planes. No SAM. No laser targeting. Nothing!”

  “You fool! They’re already on us!” Ambrose said. “That’s why we can’t find them! There’s a Strike Claw on the outside of this ship!”

  “What?”

  All the crew turned, startled by the weapons officer’s exclamation. The man tried to master his voice. “How?”

  “It doesn’t matter how,” Ambrose said. “It matters that they’re here. It’s the only explanation.” He stared grimly at the Annapurna’s engineering diagnostics as another helium chamber began venting. “Get me the Claw leaders. Titan and Edge will have to send their Strike Claws out to fight, hand to hand. We’ll use the forward maintenance hatches. Whoever it is hasn’t gotten that far yet.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Blitz deployment!” Ambrose ordered. “We have to maintain some containment, or we won’t float when we hit water!” Privately, the captain was beginning to wonder if the Annapurna would float, even so. There were so many red lights glowing on the emergency monitors.

  My ship. My beautiful ship.

  Tolly came off the comm. “Claw Leaders Titan, Mayhem, and Edge confirm. The Strike Claws are deploying.”

  “How long?” Ambrose asked.

  “Well… they’re fast, sir.”

  But would they be fast enough to stop the saboteurs who were destroying his ship? Ambrose clung to his captain’s chair. The Annapurna was now so canted from loss of helium he could no longer sit. He couldn’t even stand on the deck without clinging to a chair or a control board for support.

  If the Annapurna had been a plane, they would have already been in a steep rolling crash. As it was, the center of gravity on the dirigible had simply shifted; the port side of the airship still held helium and so continued to provide lift, while the starboard side now sank.

  They were rolling over like a log, and all that was preventing them from going over on their side entirely was the maximum power of the reoriented starboard turbofans. Ambrose could feel their vibrations shaking the ship, even now, as they reoriented and burned through their battery reserves in a vain attempt to keep the Annapurna airworthy.

  More status boards blinked red, showing the internal pressure of the ship had changed as forward maintenance hatches opened.

  That would be the Strike Claws, deploying.

  Ambrose smiled grimly.

  We have you now…

  Ahead of Tool, predatory forms sprang out of a hatch, fast and graceful, clinging to the service ladders of the dirigible. Tool bared his teeth, recognizing the threat.

  Of course they had sent his kin to neutralize him. No human could hope to fight on the skin of a dirigible, thousands of meters in the air, in subzero temperatures and less oxygen. Even he was light-headed from the effort of working in the hostile environment.

  Tool scrambled back to his most recently torn-open helium chamber. Behind him, rifles chattered, but the projectiles whistled harmlessly past as he dove into the hole he’d made.

  He swung quickly down inside and grabbed hold of one of the great carbon-fiber ribs of the dirigible’s interior superstructure. Inside, out of the winds, it was dark, almost peaceful. Warmer.

  Tool’s breath steamed and turned to ice crystals before him. Moonlight filtered through the hole he’d created. He waited, ears pricked, listening, as Mercier’s most deadly soldiers made their way along the skin of the dirigible.

  His kin, hunting him. Mercier’s most obedient slaves.

  In the darkness of the helium chamber, waiting for his brothers, Tool felt a cold slithering of discomfort.

  Kin.

  The loyal soldiers of Mercier. The ones who had kept their oaths, as he had failed to do.

  A low, unwilling growl escaped from between Tool’s clenched teeth. I did not fail. I chose. I am no traitor. They are slaves.

  But the trickle of uncertainty chilled Tool, far worse than the arctic air that was already causing ice crystals to form inside the helium chamber, freezing the last of the sealants to the double hull.

  I am no slave. I am free.

  He huffed out a great gust of air, causing a cloud of ice crystals to form and fall.

  I am free.

  He had climbed into the sky to slay his gods, to be free of them at last, and yet now, this close to his kin, to his gods, to his makers—the same dark feeling that had immobilized him in the Seascape was there. A creeping serpent of shame, coiling in his mind, sliding down his spine, hissing in his ear.

  Traitor, oath breaker, carrion, failure, weak, soft, coward…

  A corrosive voice, slithering through his mind.

  They are not my kin, Tool told himself. Mercier is not my master.

  But still, he could feel the serpent coiling around his heart, and feel it tightening. Could feel it in his blood, draining away his will to fight.

  Tool eased back into the darkness, listening to the scrabbling claws of the elite soldiers approaching, fighting the urge to cower and roll over like a dog.

  I will not surrender, he thought desperately. I will not bow.

  “They’ve got him,” Tolly announced, his voice full of relief.

  “Him?” Ambrose demanded. “That’s all? Just one?”

  Tolly put up a hand, listening. “Yes, sir. One military augment.” He looked up again, eyes round with surprise. “It’s one of ours. Titan is reporting that it’s one of ours. A rogue…”

  “Karta-Kul!”

  Ambrose whirled at the exclamation. General Caroa stood on the bridge. Ambrose fought the urge to salute. “General!”

  Ambrose had seen the deposed general rendezvous with the ship shortly after leaving the SoCal Protectorate, but Caroa had mo
stly kept to his small cabin, perhaps too embarrassed after his reassignment and demotions to show himself on the ship where he had once overseen Mercier operations over a quarter of the world. But now here he was, smiling grimly.

  “Karta-Kul is here.” The old general’s eyes were gleaming with madness. “Kill him, immediately.”

  Ambrose frowned. “You don’t have the authority—”

  “Don’t waste time on rank and permission! ExCom is already evacuating! I’m your ranking officer, and I say execute that augment, immediately!”

  You seem to have forgotten your demotion, old friend.

  “The Strike Claws have already captured him,” Ambrose said soothingly. He had to fight the urge to add sir.

  “He’s with the Strike Claws?” Caroa roared. “Where? Where is he?”

  Ensign Tolly checked the hatch indicators. “They just brought him inside.”

  39

  THE EXPERIENCE OF being inside a Mercier dirigible was disorienting, almost dizzying. The smells of gun oil, of mess halls, of disinfectants. The familiar gleam of corridors with Mercier logos on the walls, Mercier uniformed personnel all around…

  The memories were everywhere—his pack, surrounding him, kith and kin, immensely powerful. The campaign patches of their uniforms…

  FERITAS. FIDELITAS.

  The members of the Claws handled him roughly, jerking him about. Their contempt for his surrender was palpable. Their hatred of what they smelled on him—one of their own and yet a traitor—was overwhelming. He felt a shocking, almost desperate, need to beg their forgiveness.

  “Worm Blood,” they muttered again and again. “Oath Breaker.”

  It had required three Strike Claws to just catch him, led by a trio of monstrous augments. Titan, Edge, and Mayhem, by the patches on their uniforms.

  The Strike Claws marched ahead and behind, shoving him forward in shackles.

  “Brothers…” Tool said.

  A general growl of disgust rose from the Claws. Tool stopped short. They grabbed his manacles, dragged him forward, stumbling. “Brothers,” he said again, and was cuffed for it.

  “Silence, Worm Blood!”

  The one called Titan suddenly held up a hand. “Hold!”

  The troops froze, waiting his instructions. He appeared to be listening to his commlink. The pressure of the augments all around in the corridor crackled with electric hatred for Tool.

  Titan turned to his troops. “Execute the prisoner.”

  “Here?” someone asked.

  Titan was already unlimbering his heavy rifle. “Here.”

  Tool shrank back against the wall as his captors hastily stepped out of the firing zone. More augments raised their own rifles.

  “Brothers,” Tool said again. He could smell them. All their history. Their wars, their loyalty.

  “You are no brother of mine.”

  But Titan hesitated.

  Tool stared at the Strike Claw leader. Eye-to-eye. Tool growled. “Brother…” He reached out to the Claw leader, speaking their shared language. The language of those who had fought their way out of the bone pits. The language of triumph and survival.

  “Loyal brother. Honorable kin. True warrior…”

  Titan snarled, but did not fire. Tool could smell the uncertainty already in the troops around him. But this one, Titan, he was the true pack leader. This one he needed. This one he must influence. He held Titan’s gaze. These were not the weak-minded augments of the Patels. These were his true people. Loyal and terrible. Beautiful and monstrous.

  Kin…

  Tool took a step forward, extending manacled hands to Titan.

  Another step.

  “Keep back!” Titan bellowed. He raised his rifle but could not break from Tool’s gaze.

  Tool pressed his chest to the muzzle of Titan’s rifle. He could feel the power within himself. The power to overwhelm. The same power that humanity had used against him to make him feel shame. The demand for loyalty and obedience.

  The thing that had made him first amongst Claws, then a general of armies, and finally a leader, fighting free.

  “Will you slay me, brother?” Tool asked.

  “We are not brothers,” Titan growled.

  “No?” Tool showed his fangs. “Are we not of Mercier? I, too, clawed my way out of the bone pits and swore oaths to my saviors. I laid the bodies of the weakest at the feet of General Caroa and swore my loyalty oaths to him before you were even conceived in test tubes.”

  He could smell the doubt and confusion in the Claw leader now. Tool raised his voice so that all of his kin could hear his words. “I clawed my way out of darkness to serve Mercier. I have fought on every continent. I am Blood. I am Blade. I am Karta-Kul. I defeated the First Claw of Lagos in single combat and ate his heart on the sands, and ended war in a single day. I have no fear!” He pressed harder against the gun muzzle, staring into Titan’s eyes. “I do not cower! I do not retreat! And I am not prey! I am Karta-Kul, Slaughter-Bringer! We are brothers.”

  “You are cowering cur, and worm blood!” Titan snarled.

  “I am free,” Tool said. “Just as you shall be.”

  He could smell the troops around him, frozen in awe. Wavering. “Are we slaves to do our masters’ bidding? Whose wars do we fight?” His gaze bored into Titan. “Whose blood is shed?”

  The fear and uncertainty were thick in the corridor. He could smell the emotions roiling, black and thick as wildfire smoke. All of his kin, all around, all of them balanced on a suddenly slippery knife edge of loyalty, conditioning, and training.

  Tool leaned hard against the muzzle of Titan’s rifle.

  “Who will you fight for, brother?”

  “Helium losses contained, Captain!”

  “Elevation?”

  “Three thousand meters, and holding, sir. Starboard turbines at a hundred and fifteen percent of recommended limit, but holding.”

  Ambrose blew out his breath, trying not to show his relief. He went over to the nav charts. “We should be able to make Greenland, assuming we can maintain this for a few hours.”

  “Should we order general evac?”

  “No. But make sure the ExCom is off. They’re better off in the glider.”

  “What about the augment?” Caroa demanded. “What’s his status?”

  Ambrose gave him an irritated look. “A mass of blood and bone. If you like, you can go swab his guts off the walls.”

  “Has that been confirmed?” Caroa snapped.

  The man was positively insane. “It’s been handled,” Ambrose said, trying not to show his disgust for the general.

  He returned to charting the Annapurna’s emergency course. “If we can keep lift for another two hours, we can make a landing on the coast, here.” He pointed. “Radio our assets in the northern tar sands. Notify them of our intended rendezvous point. They should be able to send out rescue vessels.”

  “Sir! We have another helium leak!”

  “What?” Ambrose lunged for the engineering boards. Stared at the light blinking amber, then suddenly going red. Another went red as well.

  “They must not have caught all the saboteurs!”

  Caroa was laughing, nearly cackling. “No, you fools. He’s turned our own troops against us. Those are our own Strike Claws out there, sinking us.”

  “That’s impossible!”

  Caroa was pulling his service weapon and checking its load. “Impossible or not, the Strike Claws are no longer yours to command. Even now, they are probably slaughtering your people.” He relocked the pistol.

  The Annapurna heaved and shifted again, tilting at an even more alarming angle. Caroa favored Ambrose with a grim eye. “Sound the general evacuation, Captain. Your ship is lost.”

  “Sir?” Tolly was staring helplessly at the engineering boards. More red lights had come on.

  Captain Ambrose keyed the comm. “Claw Leader Titan! Report! What’s your status?”

  No response came.

  “Claw Leader Titan, this i
s Captain Ambrose! Status report!”

  After a long pause, the Claw leader’s basso voice filled the line. “He is coming for you,” Titan growled. “He is coming for all of you.”

  The comm went dead.

  “Fates,” Tolly whispered, wide-eyed.

  Caroa sketched a mocking salute at Ambrose. “I trust we’re on the same page now, Captain?”

  Ambrose stared out the observation windows at the cold darkness of the sea below. Watched the altimeter as it spun down.

  “Announce a general evacuation,” he said. “All hands to the escape pods.”

  “Sir?”

  “We aren’t going to float. We’ve lost too much buoyancy.” He glanced at Caroa, and swallowed, then leaned forward and murmured to Tolly. “And issue a tight-band notice to all human personnel to avoid all augmented personnel. Do not engage with the augments.”

  The ensign looked horrified, but did as he was told. “How can they turn against us?” he asked.

  Ambrose shook his head helplessly. The thought of augments… turning… It was more terrifying than the impending demise of the Annapurna. A new thought struck him.

  “Where’s ExCom? Have they launched yet?”

  Tolly checked the boards. “No response from ExCom, sir.”

  “What do you mean, no response?”

  “I—” He hesitated. “I can’t raise ExCom. No one is answering my comm.”

  “Did they launch?”

  Tolly scanned the boards. “No, sir. The glider is still prepped to launch. But I’m not getting a response.”

  Caroa started to laugh again, a dry, hopeless sound.

  40

  FOR JONES, CLIMBING up to the port side of the heavily listing dirigible was like clawing her way through a fun-house maze. All the decks were wrong; all the stairs were wrong. The elevators were all shut down.

  Jones crawled and braced and shimmied, using doorjambs for handholds, using walls as wedges, climbing, always climbing for the launch decks where the glider waited.

  It felt futile, and yet she kept going. She told herself that even if she was too late to catch the glider, her best bet for dropping out in an evacuation pod lay on the port side, now turning into the top of the ship, where the ejection would launch her into the air, instead of straight down into ocean.