Alcatraz returns from their supply crates and dumps a dog tag on the bloodied deck between us. It’s the snarling face of a vicious dog. The metalwork’s some sort of nanotech, the dog’s jaws tearing into dripping blue flesh on an endless loop.
Alcatraz steps forward and dangles the snarling dog tag in front of the Harvester’s face. ‘Where’s the Canine King?’ I know they’re running translation software similar to ours, so even if the gesture isn’t clear there’s no misunderstanding.
The Harvester laughs. ‘He’s planning to play with you blue freaks.’ The words jump across my HUD in neon-red text as he speaks. ‘He cuts Reapers open, likes to watch how the blue pumps through your arteries. Takes it slow enough you last the whole day. And when you’re broken, he staples the ones he likes to the front of his ship, gives them a little tour of the planet while it burns.’
I can feel slow fury shooting into every joint and every limb, so hard I can feel my veins prickling. I want to hurt him and keep hurting him until he’s spluttering on the concrete in front of me. I flinch. I’ve never felt like this before. There’s a thick, overripe smell in the air. Something intoxicatingly sweet. It’s coming from me. It’s coming from my fireteam. We’re all struggling to hold ourselves in check.
He’s still talking. ‘You ever seen a Reaper cut open while they’re still screaming? I have.’
Ratchet slams his blade into a crate so hard the metal breaks inwards. ‘Let’s gut him.’ His voice is strangled and thick. ‘Give me thirty seconds and a pair of pliers and I’ll have your answer.’
‘No,’ Alcatraz barks. Myra moves behind them to start rifling through their munitions for salvageable intel.
Ratchet’s almost spitting. ‘Fine. Fifteen seconds and a hot screwdriver. I’ll make it quick.’
‘I said no.’
‘They’d do it to us,’ Ratchet snarls back. He gestures towards the dead Reapers, strung up and swaying in the muggy wind. Kept alive as long as possible, but drugged enough so they couldn’t escape. ‘I say we send the Dog King and his pack of bitches a message. You screw with Reapers, we screw you back.’
Alcatraz starts to speak, but closes his mouth again.
‘I know you five,’ the Harvester continues. Every word oozing out of his twisted, smiling mouth sets my nervous system on fire. How many civilians and children have men like him killed? ‘The Canine King’s been watching you. Put bounties on your heads. It’s just a matter of time before you’re screaming in his—’
The words die as Cable’s armoured fist crunches into his jaw.
He’s slammed backwards, his head thunking off the guardrail. Cable picks him up like he’s a sack of dirt, starts smashing his head against the metal wall with a wet crack. Cable slams him again and again and again, harder every time. The Harvester’s struggling grows weaker, his legs starting to shake.
My instinct is to reach for Cable, to pull him off. But the urge is swallowed by the electric fury the stormtech’s been feeding into my body, arming me with the reflexes needed to survive this nightmare. Reapers, hunted down like animals. Towns and cities vaporized into blackened shells. Harvesters gunning Harmony personnel down and watching them howl in the mud.
The stormtech holds me back.
The stormtech makes me watch.
The Commando’s feet stop twitching. Cable lets him go. The body slides down the wall, leaving a long streak of blood, his skull smashed apart. Cable clenches his hands, his body hunched, his muscles tightening inside his armour, his eyes darting in search of new enemies before swinging around to us. He blinks hard, then glances down at the man he just killed.
No. Not killed. Murdered.
I know I shouldn’t be glad. But I am.
I let the stormtech’s wet warmth crawl up through my body like thousands of sticky ropes. I feel my body heat declining. My breathing regulating now the last of the threat has gone.
We’re alive. And staying alive is the only thing that matters.
Myra mutters something.
I shake my head. Listen again. ‘They had the data with them the whole time,’ she says, holding up a passkey she’s removed from their commslink device. ‘Not precise co-ordinates, but close.’
‘Move out,’ Alcatraz snaps, his breathing shallow. The sticky wind rushes through the hangar bay. Rusted walkways creak. The sky rumbling as rain comes hurtling through holes in the roof and spatters on my armour. I roll my shoulders and scoop up my weapon. But as we pick our way back through the rainforest, it crosses my mind that we didn’t need to kill that Harvester. And how much we had wanted to do it anyway.
31
Head in the Clouds
I’m not good in small places.
The memory of being trapped in my armour with the nightware wasn’t helping much. And someone of my size and height doesn’t work too well when you can stretch your hands out and feel both walls. And I was sharing this space with someone who was no less hyper than me. Worse, with the never-ending whine of hardware, substrates, powerlines, and memory crystals, the room was an airtight sauna. There was a constant stripe of sweat down my back and soaking into my underskin collar. I could practically feel the walls pressing in on me, the agitation barrelling along my synapses. Still, it wasn’t safe to leave, given the likelihood the Suns were still determined to feed me my own balls on a silver platter.
I wished Katherine would call, even just for the chance for us to talk. But the lines remained silent. It made me realise how she’d felt when I’d gone out on my solo hunting expedition, leaving her to rely on me occasionally forwarding a few scraps of intel. Now, perhaps for the first time, I understood how much of a limb she’d gone out on
