Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Read online

  “So we dig in behind their lines, and every second of every day we’re expecting to be torn to pieces by skulkers. We dig in and start laying our booby traps across their supply routes, and never know from one moment to the next if a cloud of whirling blades is about to come rolling across the ground and dice us.

  “Imagine it. One day, two days, three… a week goes by, during which we have crawled, crawled, across fields of dead, black mud and rotten crops. Not just flat terrain mind; we’re in and out of craters and ditches, and trenches too, up and down, and even climbing over bodies when we have to. Humans and Viskr alike, the ones who couldn’t be recovered. We’ve not washed, barely slept, and eaten minimal rations. Only the stims are keeping us moving. Everything is wet. And every few minutes we’re freezing where we are, waiting to see if that slight noise was a buddy moving out of time, or an enemy machine that’s zeroed in on a heartbeat.

  “And just when we think we’re about to finish what we set out to do, just as we are about to lay the final traps, they change their pattern. They bring in an early resupply, and BAM! Up go our charges, our mines, our snares, BAM BAM BAM, popping all the way along the enemy lines, and there are Viskr running this way and that, firing at smoke and shadows, rounds zipping past our faces, mortars coming down every which way, and the fucking skulkers are going bat-shit insane.

  “The Viskr were easy enough to pick off, most of them that weren’t blown apart by our traps or killed by their own mortars, but the skulkers were vicious. Fuck knows how many they had, but those metal bastards were everywhere, whirring and whistling and slicing. We couldn’t run, or they’d have had us; chopped us into little bits if we gave them the chance. So all we could do was dig in again.

  “Five days we lay there, in the mud and the rain. Just dug right in, literally hollowed out the earth with our hands and boots, wriggled down into the ground as best we could. Two were killed where they were, this skulker that wouldn’t give up. Kept chopping back and forth across the ground like it was determined to kill something for what we’d done. Never seen a machine behave like that motherfucker did, never in my life. I swear, when it found Jaias and pulled out her insides it was actually enjoying it. You know they build those things with vocalisations? It fucking laughed.”

  At this point, Castigon had realised that the rumours of Molcomb’s prodigious appetite for stims were not in the least bit exaggerated. Everybody knew that skulkers were just dumb machines responding rigidly to specific stimuli. Yes they made noises, but they could not gloat or crow or scoff, and they certainly were not programmed to enjoy.

  The story had meandered on for a while longer, but he could not quite remember how the rest of it went. Most likely he had stopped listening by then, or Molcomb had rapidly become incoherent as he was wont to do when he drank. The bits that mattered though, the parts that gave an insight into the way Molcomb’s brain responded to mortal danger, were still safely filed away.

  Before long, Castigon would know if they had been worth holding on to.

  • • •

  Kulik Molcomb had been as amused with being sent to Low Cerin as ever he was with being sent anywhere, although to be fair to his keen sense of injustice it was true that the world offered plenty to complain about.

  It was not just the planet he despised though, with its densely packed cities, lack of amenities, and widespread poverty; it was the ultimate pointlessness of his purpose here that made him burn with resentment. Nobody cared about the Coalition that much these days, and those who did sympathise with the movement were rarely invested enough to risk being charged with sedition.

  Observe and report? Pah!

  This was not, in his opinion, a job for a Shard. Eyes and Ears should be running this show, and not even officers — field agents would be perfectly adequate to the task. There must have been much better things he could be doing right now than scouring the dingiest corners of the Empire for people who had the nerve to not accept that their lives were basically awful. He had survived both Tochi and Ottomas, for goodness sake, and before them the entire Perseus conflict. How had it ever come to this?

  He trudged through a narrow alleyway, covering his mouth and nose when his path was partly obstructed by a midden, which over time had been poured out of one of the overlooking buildings. Garbage and effluent, dumped directly onto the street. Nice. Insects crawled over the sprawling mound, foraging amongst the rotting scraps. The familiar orange and turquoise mottling of a powdery Blight plaque encrusted much of the oldest matter, and it reminded him not to linger in the unsanitary passageway for any longer than was strictly necessary. The plaque and its spores were not a threat to him, but the last thing he wanted when the time came to leave Low Cerin was to be stuck in quarantine awaiting decontamination. Decontamination was never fun, and when it came to the Blight it always seemed to take forever.

  The sooner they got off this filthy planet, the better. He had already exhausted all of the potential leads that he came to the capital with, and failed to find any more. Big surprise. It was not that he was treating the endeavour as a box-ticking exercise, or doing the bare minimum he needed to do before he could honestly but inaccurately claim to have completed the mission. It was just that there really were no Coalition interests being advanced in the city. Each of the contacts he maintained here had looked at him as if he were mad when he asked about political dissidents. It was time to collect Rupus and go to the next city.

  He had left Rupus Dyne drinking and whoring down-town, much to the counterpart’s great satisfaction. Neither of them had felt it particularly important that they stick together, not on this assignment and not on this world. Molcomb had said Rupus would just get in the way if they went to meet his contacts together. Rupus had agreed, and said Molcomb would just get in the way if he came to the bordello.

  They had split up.

  Molcomb was beginning to regret it. If they had stayed together, he could have been on his way to the starport by now. Instead he was weaving his way through the cramped and dirty streets of the Empire’s least impressive capital city. Next time he would—

  He whirled and dropped at the same time, pivoting his body into cover while turning to face the threat. A single shot had been fired from the opposite side of the street, some way ahead of him, and he had felt the air being displaced when the bullet sliced past his cheek. He put his fingers up to his face, and they came away sticky and red.

  People were screaming, panicked, running in the street like headless chickens. Except for one man, who walked towards him casually with a rifle and a grim smile. It was a man Molcomb had once hoped never to see again for as long as he lived.

  Although he had not got his wish, he suspected immediately that it would probably not be an issue for very long.

  • • •

  Rupus Dyne woke up the very second his link started to chirrup. Groaning at the suddenness of the awakening, he shielded his eyes against the full daylight that streamed through the window. Akasi’s arm was still draped across his chest, her forehead resting against his shoulder. More than anything, he wanted to stay right where he was. After all, he had paid.

  Silently cursing Molcomb, he plucked his link from the night stand and placed it to his ear. When he clicked the button and answered, he was almost deafened by a staccato blast of automatic weapons fire. In a flash, he was off the bed and sliding into his trousers. Akasi rolled on her side and propped her chin on one hand, her elbow resting on the mattress.

  “Who are you talking to?” She said.

  Dyne ignored her. “How the fuck have you managed to get into a fight on this nothing planet?”

  He slapped his holo onto his wrist, and brought up Molcomb’s location. “I’ll be there in six minutes.”

  “You’re going? Come back real soon honey.”

  Dyne continued to ignore her as he scrabbled under the edge of the bed for his pistols. “Well it’s not really my fault is it? You’re the one who let me go whoring. You know how much I love whor
ing.”

  He mag-tagged the pistols to his outer armour, and grabbed his rifle from where he had slung it behind the door. “Yeah, well until I get there, just try not to die, okay?”

  Akasi was pouting by the time he leaned across the bed to kiss her on the forehead.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  • • •

  The situation was not great. Molcomb did not like being exposed one bit, and after finding such a great place to lie low he had already forced himself to move once by contacting Rupus. This new hidey hole was good, but much less ideal than the last one. If only he had found them in reverse order.

  In the gloom of the stairwell, his holo was far too bright. He turned it off.

  A scraping sound came from below, and he peered cautiously over the railing. Beneath him, in the entrance lobby, a figure was advancing slowly into the hallway: Castigon must have seen him enter the building, damn him to the Deep.

  The figure was out of his line of sight again before he could get off a certain kill-shot. Molcomb withdrew silently, before Castigon could look up and spot him.

  The last he had heard, Castigon had been serving hard time on Urx. Nice of the authorities to let him know the guy was being released! If indeed he was supposed to be back in the worlds.

  Truth be told, after his initial relief that Castigon had been sent down, Molcomb had started to miss the crazy bastard. It had been very uncomfortable indeed to give evidence against his former ally. It occurred to him, what with the shooting and all, that Castigon might be a bit annoyed he had done it. That was a shame, because Molcomb had not really had any choice about testifying, and his part in all of that had hardly been worthy of a deathly vendetta. But then Castigon had been away for a long time. And on Urx, of all places. What a shit-hole.

  Even as a veteran of the last war, he was acutely aware that Castigon was a much better shot than he was. And a better blade, and a better fist, and at this point in their lives, he probably had better legs and lungs as well.

  Rupus had better hurry the fuck up, he thought.

  • • •

  Castigon sighed to himself as he worked his way along the ground floor corridor. He had always expected Molcomb to go to ground, he had just hoped he would do it in a less complicated setting. But then, a Shard was hardly going to make things easy for him.

  Most of the doors along the corridor were locked, and those rooms that were insecure were for the most part empty. The old apartment building was without utilities, and the rooms that were occupied were invariably tenanted by squatters. Some of the most wretched people Castigon had ever seen, in fact.

  Eventually he came to the stairwell at the far end of the corridor, and rounded the corner of the first flight of steps carefully, his rifle at the ready. There was no way he was going to use the lift in this decrepit building; he had an acute sense of self-preservation, after all. In any case, in all likelihood it was without power.

  There was nobody in the stairwell, and he emerged on the first floor corridor. Further down, perhaps some six rooms away, a thin figure with long hair was leaning against a wall. A drug-addled squatter, judging by the movements.

  Ignoring the civilian he advanced along the corridor, checking rooms as he had on the ground floor, until he reached the far stairwell. Unbeknown to him, he walked through the very spot Molcomb had stood in when he watched Castigon enter the building, and followed the Shard’s exact route up to the next floor.

  Two identical floors later, he exited the stairwell and came up against a makeshift barrier. Someone had tried to create a barricade with furniture dragged out of the nearby rooms.

  As defences went it was pretty poor, and he was able to push it over almost in one go. But the moment he had made a gap large enough to step through, the shooting began.

  Rounds whizzed past him, sinking deep into the cheap plaster of the wall behind, some of them making hollow popping sounds as they passed through the flimsy furniture in the barricade. He had no real cover to speak of, just a few bits of wood and plasteel that screened the view from the corridor, so he returned fire on automatic.

  The shooter was down the corridor, near the far end, and the gloom and range made it difficult to aim true. Luckily, what was so for Castigon was so for his opponent. Unwilling to stand firm in the line of fire, the figure hopped into the stairwell at their own end of the corridor, and ascended.

  Castigon punched and kicked the remains of the furniture out of his way, and barrelled down the corridor towards the stairwell, all the while wondering why Molcomb — and presumably it was Molcomb — had gone up, not down. When he reached the end he saw why: the descending flight was blocked by what appeared to be discarded filing cabinets. The whole stairwell smelled of urine. He bounded up the stairs.

  There were no more corridors, just the roof access. He exited cautiously, knowing full well that he was probably about to step out of a position that was entirely exposed on all sides.

  Wherever Molcomb was, he had not hung around to take advantage of the fact. Castigon advanced quickly until he hit the tall side of an environment control module, and hunkered down into cover.

  Where in the worlds had he gone?

  Then, as if to answer that very question, there was a scrabbling sound off to his left, and someone whispered “Shit!”

  Castigon mag-tagged his rifle, and creeping cautiously to the edge of the roof he peered over the safety rail, pistol first.

  Molcomb was hanging from a cable that ran along a narrow ledge, less than a metre below the edge of the roof. The clips that should have held the cable flush against the wall were beginning to twist away under his weight, slackening it. He was trying to dig the toes of his boots into the wall as if that would take the weight off the cable.

  “Hey,” said Molcomb.

  “Hey.”

  “Long time no see.”

  “Whose fault is that?” Castigon asked, and shot him in the face.

  Moments after Molcomb’s body hit the ground, so soon after that Castigon was still looking over the edge, another figure ran towards the crumpled mess. Castigon heard shouting from the ground, strained and anguished, and the figure looked up towards him. It could only have been the counterpart. A weapon was raised, but the aim was terrible. Whether that was due to the distance or the counterpart’s apparent distress, Castigon could not say.

  He waved cheerfully, and stepped back from the edge.

  — 15 —

  The Battle of Gousk

  “Brace for impact!”

  The entire superstructure of Love Tap shuddered, distant clangs and crashes reverberating savagely through his corridors. Somewhere along the length of the immense ship, a metal slug had penetrated his hull at a low angle and ripped through bulkhead after bulkhead. Alerts blared across the command deck.

  “Helm, what are you doing?” Betombe shouted. “Keep us angled into the station’s field of fire, nose first. Give them the smallest target possible.”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  “COMOP, damage control teams to whatever sections we just lost.”

  “Already on it, Sir.”

  The battle had already passed its most furious point, Betombe knew. Unless the Viskr could shore up their defences they had already lost. All he had to do now was keep grinding at them until they broke: he knew it, and they almost certainly knew it too.

  What they probably did not know was that try as they might they would not be getting any reinforcements. Operation Seawall should be making sure of that: all the Viskr fleets in the neighbouring star systems would by now be engaged in similar skirmishes of their own.

  Until they realised it though, the Viskr at Gousk would fight to the last ship. Betombe had little chance of putting them to flight, since they would never abandon their permanent battle station to the mercies of an invading force.

  “Sir, Surprise Entry reports critical damage to primary engines. They’re fighting fit, but down to manoeuvring thrusters.”

  “Have Hard T
imes move in to provide additional cover.”

  With thick blast shields covering all the view ports on the command deck, much of the compartment was given over to a holographic master map of the battle, centred on the battle station that long ago had been the keystone of the Viskr border defences. Parts of the hologram flickered in and out of cohesion — the Viskr were flashing the Imperial ships with their lasers as quickly as they could, hoping to knock out enough sensor palettes simultaneously to create a moment of opportunity. The Imperial ships were doing the same thing right back at them, and the space between the opposing forces was criss-crossed by an ever-changing lattice of almost invisible beams.

  The lasers were of little concern to the dreadnought. He had so many sensor palettes dotted across his hull that the Viskr could not hope to block them all. Even with the rest of the fleet half-blinded, for most of the time Love Tap could see well enough to guide them all.

  The gauss guns however were a very real threat. So very many of them were mounted on the battle station, and more besides on the vessels that guarded it. Betombe had already lost two ships, and even the beloved dreadnought had taken several nasty hits before his flak curtain really started to take shape.

  It was the station’s ordnance that presented the greatest problem, Betombe reflected. Deflecting something as you pass it by is easy, he had thought. After all, you just need to give it some more energy, to get it moving along a vector angled away from you. But a slug coming straight at you? You either move your own ass, or you supply the slug with enough energy to fully oppose its momentum. The triple-fire C-MADS turrets that defended the Imperial ships were good at what they did, but their designers had unfortunately not equipped them to work miracles.