‘Neurotoxin,’ someone whispered. ‘Just like you used on my man. Only, I use the deadly stuff.’ The Jackal stepped into the room, eyes trained on me like restraining bolts. He gestured at me with his handgun. The silver-bodied weapon glinted dully in the light. ‘Hands behind your head. Now.’
The palmerlog was active in my hand, but if he saw me flick the switch to call Kowalski he’d put a shell through my face. Without taking my eyes off him, I pressed the closest button on the scroll-down menu. No way of knowing if I got it right. I dropped the device, fists clenching.
Luciano was clawing his throat with gnarled fingers, gasping. His feet twitching violently.
The Jackal tilted his handgun. ‘Go for it. Help him out. Maybe you can do something.’
I knew an invitation to get myself shot when I heard one. I stayed put and glared at the Jackal. He’d been a part of the Suns this whole time. Tipei, his biolabs and darkmarket connections, all channelling their resources into the one cult. No wonder they’d been able to take root so deeply in Compass.
The Jackal smiled, as if knowing I’d figured it out. He gently tilted Luciano’s head, ensuring he didn’t choke on his own tongue while the neurotoxin ran its full, brutal course. ‘Remember what I said in the alleyway?’ He leaned over to press the handgun against my forehead. The cold touch of death against my warm flesh. His face twisting with an arrogant streak a kilometre long. ‘I don’t need augs to hunt a man down.’
I was starting to wonder how many holes I’d have punched in my chest before I tore the Jackal’s throat open. I looked over his shoulder and saw the receptionist in the doorway. Of course she was one of them, right here in the Shenoi Collective. She must have seen the symbol and known to call the Jackal. Next I saw Simmons step into the room, a perverse hatred burning in his eyes. The stormtech screamed at me to charge them. I made my fists tighter and forced myself still as Luciano continued to splutter and twitch, glaring at the killers who had invaded his sacred place of study, unable to raise a finger to stop them.
‘Miss me?’ Now Lasky walked in, his grin wide. The little bastard grabbed me and locked an arm around my neck with his handgun pressed against one eye, his chin resting on my shoulder. You never appreciate how big handguns are until one’s jammed square in your face. ‘We’re going to have fun, you and I.’
Simmons rifled through Luciano’s books, ripping the pages in full view of the dying man. The Jackal stopped him with a hand. ‘No, no. That’s not the way we do it. He loved his papers so much? He can choke on them.’ The Jackal bundled the shredded sheets into a tight roll, thick as a rifle’s muzzle. His eyes locked with mine. ‘I’m not one for metaphors, you see.’
Then, his gaze still fixed on me; he shoved the roll of papers deep into Luciano’s frothing mouth. I shook with fury, the handgun against my eye keeping me parked where I was. The Jackal gave a faint smile and drove the papers deeper and deeper. Luciano squirmed feebly under him. His eyes twitched to the side and met mine, filled with a furious determination that I put these people down as we’d agreed we would. I bit back my rage and nodded, once.
Something cold and wet punched into my neck. I felt myself lurching forward, like it was happening to someone else, before I was jerked backwards, smothered by the darkness collapsing around me.
22
Ashes
There’s nothing like seeing a planet slaughtered.
I knew the war-sims and visualisation packages they showed us in training weren’t telling half the story. Turns out, they weren’t telling any of it.
The stink of grasslands burning. Highrises collapsing like they’re made of paper, the concrete smashing down the length of a city. Screaming civilians. The ear-splitting sirens. Blaster cannons streaking gunfire down from fighter-ships in a blazing hailstorm, scarring the sky with lacerations of fire.
It’s so bizarre, so outlandish it’s almost unreal. Like you’ve been dumped in someone else’s fragmented nightmare and told to fight your own way out.
Harvest turned its bloodthirsty sights on Renchio, so Renchio has become the frontline of the Reaper War. I’m sent with Fireteam Ghost to rally points across the planet, co-ordinating with my Battalion or any other Companies that make up the grizzled constellation of Harmony SSC infantry. We see destruction and terror wherever we go. Roads filled with fleeing civilians like clotted arteries. Dockyards for interstellar ships smashed to blackened ruins. We walk through the smoking shell of a once-opulent coastal city where pylons jut through the rubble like broken fingers. What looks like black snow swirls around us. I stretch out my hand to let it melt in my palm.
Ash. It’s raining ash.
But the killzones are the worst. The towns and cities Harvesters seized for a tactical advantage. They sealed them off, marched inside and killed every man, woman and child. Any civilians they didn’t kill, they enslaved or used as target practice, or for whatever other sick game passed the time. There are so many bodies on the streets you can barely see the pavement. Sometimes, we find survivors. Kids, usually, pushed into some small crevice when their parents heard the door crashing in. Cable’s the best with them. He gets his helmet off, kneels down to their level and speaks to them in their language, lets them grieve. But they’ve all
