the barrel of his AK-47 still smoking.
On the net the glow around Pagan became bright. It whited out the window momentarily, like the flash from a nuclear weapon I’d seen in vizzes about the FHC. Then it came back. White light and lightning was pouring into Pagan and then back out of him, striking out all around him. The ship shuddered beneath my feet. I could see something rise from Pagan like a ghost of blue energy. I could just about make out the shape of Ambassador as I’d first seen him so long ago on board the Forbidden Pleasure being protected by a terrified Morag. Now it was Demiurge’s turn to scream as white fire and steel-blue lightning purged him out of his own isolated system.
The ship bucked and shook. All the things trying to grow through the walls and the ceiling thrashed about and screamed inhumanly. The honeycombed bulge in the floor cracked and glowed beneath it. Pagan’s body spasmed so hard it actually left the ground and then burst into flames. This was what had been planned for Morag.
The inhuman screaming stopped and all the things that had been growing out of the wall fell. It was quiet. This was respite, but it still left us with the Black Squadron things, the Grey Lady and Rolleston, who must be pretty angry now. Who must be through toying with us.
Morag came to and sat up. She looked at Pagan’s charred corpse. Then she looked at my blood-covered and scorched form.
Merle was trying to crawl out from underneath the corpse of his transformed sister.
‘I’m not being funny, Merle, but if you’re capable of holding a gun do you think you could help?’ I asked him.
He just muttered something and then screamed as he pulled the blades out of his flesh. He retrieved his plasma rifle and got ready. He was bleeding badly. We all were.
The fleet battle was almost over. Just the badly damaged Thunderchilde and a few others held out. There was debris everywhere.
In the net the fight was going a little better as the vagabond army surrounded the few remaining angels. They didn’t know they were killing children. Above them the sky looked like a rough sea of fire and the four black suns still burned in the sky, columns of black fire still raining down on the plain of black glass.
‘Do you like my Seraphim? They are born into the net and think it is the real world. They truly do believe they are my terrible angels.’
I had no idea where he had come from. He just appeared in the room. I think he might have wanted to spout some snappy villainous monologue. Fuck that. We knew it was pointless but we shot him. A lot. It was cathartic.
Rannu was thrown back from the doorway he was guarding. He shouted. The side of his head steamed red as he staggered and fired a long and surprisingly undisciplined burst down the corridor one-handed. He was still staggering back as he fired his grenade launcher. There was an explosion in the corridor. Then a grenade hit the ground by Rannu and exploded. A concussion grenade, it still had enough force to blow him into the air. The Grey Lady jumped through the explosion.
Mudge, Morag, Merle and I concentrated fire on Rolleston. I ran out of ammo and ditched the SAW. I was aware of something happening in the net but I wasn’t sure what. I grabbed my Mastodon and TO-7 from their smartgrip holsters and with my shoulder laser continued firing uselessly at Rolleston.
He walked through the fire and made for Merle, who fired round after round into him from his plasma rifle, surrounding him in flames. Merle dropped the plasma weapon because he didn’t want Rolleston surrounded in burning plasma when he reached him, then drew his Void Eagle. In very rapid succession he fired all the rounds in its magazine pointlessly into Rolleston. His flesh was reforming and healing the inflicted wounds. Rolleston closed with Merle and we had to stop shooting at him. I holstered both my pistols and sprinted towards Rolleston.
I only saw it because I was looking for it. Both of the obsidian-bladed punch daggers appeared in Merle’s hands. The daggers were filled with Crom Dhu, the derivate of Crom designed to seek out and kill the other bio- nanites. It had been designed to exterminate Them if the war had ever got beyond the Cabal’s control.
Without the co-operation and resources of the Cabal, Crom Dhu had proved costly and difficult to replicate. Most of what the Earth forces had manufactured was stored in bunkers on Earth ready to fight the terraforming attempts of Crom Cruach. Rannu, Merle and I each had some. Merle’s was in his punch daggers; Rannu’s and mine were both in skull fuckers, daggers designed for piercing the hard bone of skulls. The virus was in the pommels, designed to be released when the blades felt flesh. Not unlike the dagger that Rolleston had used to infect Gregor. I drew mine from the small of my back as I ran towards Rolleston.
Unable to get a clear shot, Morag charged the Grey Lady, who was fighting Rannu. He had his skull fucker in his hand as he tried to dodge and block the Grey Lady’s incredibly fast flurry of kicks and hand strikes. She was beating the shit out of him.
Morag launched herself into the air in a perfect flying kick aimed at the Grey Lady, who side-kicked her in mid-air. I heard the crack of bone powdering as foot contacted face. It was a sickening sound. Morag’s head whipped back and she flew past the pair of them and landed in a heap.
The Grey Lady spun round on one leg and kneed Rannu in the side of the head with the upraised leg. It was so fast even Rannu hadn’t been able to do anything about it. She kneed him so hard that his knees gave out and he stumbled to the ground.
Merle stabbed out at Rolleston with speed I could only envy. Rolleston reached forward and grabbed one arm, but that had been a feint for the blade in Merle’s other hand, which was heading straight at Rolleston’s face. He caught that arm as well. I saw a look of panic on Merle’s face, and then Rolleston just broke both his arms, snapping the bones with such force that they broke through flesh and subcutaneous armour. I saw the bulges under Merle’s inertial armour as it turned dark and wet with blood. Merle started screaming. Understandably.
Rolleston turned to me as I reached him and swung at him with the blade. He grabbed my arm and then used my own momentum to help propel me into the wall. I bounced off the dead mutated Berserks that had been growing there and hit the ground disoriented.
I shook my head. I was vaguely aware of things happening on the net. No time. The knife, the knife? Rolleston was holding it. He knew. Hell, it had been his idea.
Morag and Rannu had both staggered to their feet and were attacking Josephine Bran. She was having no problem blocking or dodging both their attacks. When one of them gave her an opening she would close and hit them with low kicks, elbows and strikes at joint or nerves. Almost every touch made them cry out in pain. When she attacked she would manoeuvre so her intended victim got in the way of the other one’s attack. More than once Morag punched or kicked Rannu.
Rolleston tossed away the knife. Mudge started shooting him pointlessly in the back. Staring at Rolleston, everything he’d done, everything he’d caused to happen, came flooding back to me. From Sirius onwards, I could see the faces of all the members of the Wild Boys, SAS, SBS, other special forces, military intelligence and conventional soldiers whose deaths he’d been responsible for. All my friends that I’d watched die. I saw all of the pain he’d caused. In a moment of clarity, a moment of perfect cold anger, I knew that I was going to kill him.
Now I saw what was happening on the net. The plain of glass was obscured in mist. The beatific and horrific walked in the mist as shadows. They were like giants among the vagabond army, seeking out those who had been loyal, those who had worshipped them, and gifting them with the godsware. They were the history of humanity as religious iconography given form on the net. Like their namesakes they did not fight alongside humanity; they played their own games, but today they rewarded their followers with technology, uplifting them. Morag’s threat/summons had been heard.
I smiled. All eight blades extended from my knuckles. Rolleston slowly turned to Mudge. He could take his time as Mudge was no threat. One of Rolleston’s arms was transforming into a plasma weapon as he readied himself to kill another one of my friends. Mudge was still lying where he had fallen, firing burst after burst.
I ran at Rolleston’s back and jumped on it, swinging at him like a wild thing with the claws. With a strength I did not know I had, I pushed the blades through his hardening flesh again and again, just hacking at him. Black ichor, like Them, an entire alien race of his victims, spurted out over me. It was a religious experience. A very base one, as I became a vessel of rage moving faster and hitting harder than I ever had before. I was a wild animal enhanced by cybernetics and alien creatures in my blood and pure fucking rage. Rolleston was surprised by the ferocity of my attack. I would’ve been surprised by the ferocity of the attack if my total hatred for this man had not just coalesced into a perfect rage that left no room for thought in my head.
His head came away in my hand. His body dropped to the ground. I was covered from head to foot in blood and ichor. Winded, almost unable to breathe. I had become something else. I wondered about the Themtech in my
