geneering we hear so much about,” Uzuma offered with a grin.
Michael nodded even though geneering had nothing to with anything. Every waking moment he had thought about the oath he had sworn over Yazdi’s grave. That and a slowburning hatred had driven him relentlessly on.
“How do you know I’m a Fed?”
Uzuma laughed. “You’re too good-looking to be a Hammer even if you are half-starved and a bit frayed around the edges. Lot of scars. Who’ve you upset?”
Michael nodded, fingering the scar put across his forehead by Sergeant Jacobsen a lifetime earlier. “DocSec,” was all he said.
“Aaah. We wondered. Anyway, let me tell you a few things,” Uzuma said softly, his eyes not leaving the holovid screen in front of him for more than a second or two. “We’re with the New Revolutionary Army.” His hand went up as Michael started to speak.
“No questions, okay? Now, we hoped there were survivors from the lander, and we’ve had patrols out to pick you up before the bad guys did. There were two of you, right?”
Michael nodded.
“And your partner?”
“She’s dead.” Michael’s voice was flat, unemotional. “Head injury when we crashed. Internal injuries, too. She didn’t make it.”
Uzuma nodded sympathetically. “Pity. If we’d gotten to you a bit earlier. .” His voice trailed off into silence. “Anyway, it was not to be. You were too far away. You’ve done well. The Hammers are pretty upset. You gave Kraneveldt a good going over, and the Hammers still can’t work out who it was.”
Michael looked surprised. “Surely they’ve got us on their security holocams.”
“Apparently not. You kept your head down, which was good. That cap-nice touch. There’s holovid of you getting into the lander, but from too far away to identify you. They’re blaming us, which is good because I really, really wish we’d done that job.”
“So glad to be of help,” Michael said ironically. “Since you haven’t beaten the shit out of me despite having me by the balls, I’m happy to accept that you’re the good guys-”
“Trust me, Michael,” Uzuma interrupted emphatically, “we are the good guys.”
“Fine. So what’s the plan?”
“Ah, well.” Suddenly Uzuma was evasive. “The plan. Umm, well, let’s say the plan is for you to trust me. There are some people who want to meet you.”
“That’s it?” Michael asked incredulously. “Trust you? Meet some people? That’s the plan?”
“Yes, Michael. Trust me. Believe me when I say that it’s the best plan. In fact, it’s the only plan, so I suggest you go with it.” Uzuma stopped for a second. “You know, I quite like you, Michael. So I would hate to have to kill you, which I will if I have to. You can trust me on that, too.”
Michael flinched.
His face softening, Uzuma leaned forward and patted Michael on the knee. “Enough. Two days will see us at the drop-off point. We move out in an hour.”
Saturday, December 25, 2399, UD
Michael blinked as the black hood was removed. The sudden glare made his eyes water.
“Sit down, Michael. Please.”
Michael did as he was told, sitting in a battered old chair. The man opposite him was in his late twenties, though his eyes were the eyes of a man twice that age, bottomless and dark brown, set deep under dirty black hair. Michael’s nerves jangled. There was something about the man that was deeply unsettling, a barely concealed intensity. No, it was not intensity. It was ferocity, a single-minded purpose to which everything would be sacrificed. This was not a man to cross; this was a bad man to have as one’s enemy, Michael decided.
Michael waited. He had learned. Asking these people questions was a waste of time. If there was something he should know, he would be told.
The man looked at him thoughtfully for a long time before speaking. “I’m Mutti Vaas, Michael, and I’m happy to see you. Luckily for you, you’re now in the hands of the NRA.”
“Ah,” Michael said, “the New Revolutionary Army. Your man Uzuma said that’s what he belonged to. No details, though. So what the hell is the NRA? Didn’t feature in any intelligence summary I’ve ever read.”
“Later,” Vaas said brusquely. “Now, some friends of yours asked us to look out for you, and when we heard about the Kraneveldt business. .”
Michael’s mouth sagged open in astonishment. If Vaas and his men had been asked to look for him, his message to the embassy in McNair must have gotten through! A tiny seed of hope began to grow somewhere deep inside.
“Who? Who asked you?” He had to know.
Vaas put his hands up. “Don’t ask, can’t tell. Sorry. But I do have some good news for you.”
“I hope so. What news?”
“Well, we’re going to get you out of here. Next week probably. We’re going to hand you over to your own people. They’ll arrange to get you off-planet.”
Vaas’s words were so understated, his voice so matter-of-fact, that nothing registered at first. When it did, Michael’s heart pounded as he absorbed what he had been told. Hardly daring to breathe, he looked Vaas right in the eye.
“Off-planet? You’re kidding me, right?”
“No, I’m not.” Vaas’s voice brooked no argument. “Off-planet. That’s what they say. How, I don’t know. Not my business.”
“Oh, oh,” Michael stuttered. “Can I ask some questions?”
“You can ask, but I have some first,” Vaas said drily.
“Go ahead.”
Vaas’s face hardened. “Were you responsible for the attack on the Barkersville police station?”
Michael tried to swallow, his mouth suddenly dry. He had hoped that whole foul business would be forgotten. He certainly never intended to admit to it now that Yazdi was not there to bear witness against him. “Er, well,” he foundered, taken by surprise. “I. .” He trailed off into silence. What could he say?
Vaas whistled softly through pursed lips. He nodded. “I thought so. I’ll take that as a yes, shall I? Look, Michael.” His voice softened. “To some extent I don’t blame you; we have a pretty good idea what you’ve been through. But you need to understand something about us, about the New Revolutionary Army.”
Vaas paused. Michael sat there silent, the knowledge that he had failed a test he should never have failed gnawing at him. Vaas looked at him for a while before continuing.
“The NRA is not a bunch of psychopathic killers like those DocSec perverts. Chief Councillor Polk calls us terrorists, but we’re not. We have rules, and when you get home, when you get debriefed, make sure your people understand that. We are Hammers, true, but we’re not like the rest of them out there. Got it?”
Michael nodded his agreement.
“Good. We have rules, and believe me, I enforce them”-one look at Vaas’s face and Michael was quite prepared to believe him-“and our rules are these. Our enemy is the Hammer government, not the Hammer people. Any Hammer the NRA comes up against in combat is fair game. Don’t care who they are. If they shoot at us, if they attack the NRA, we shoot back. But we don’t kill the wounded, we don’t kill ordinary policemen just doing their jobs, and we don’t kill civilians.” Vaas paused for a moment. “There is one exception. We kill every DocSec trooper we get our hands on. We kill DocSec anywhere, anytime, even if they’re wounded. They get one bullet because that’s all the filthy swine are worth. So at least you got one right,” he said with a faint smile. “But Michael, we do not kill police.”
Michael felt ashamed, unclean, the guilt flooding back. He could not say anything. There was nothing to say. What he had done would stay with him forever. With a cold, sinking feeling he realized that the deaths back at Barkersville had placed a burden on him that he could never, ever put down.
