Broken Angels

Flare. You stupid fuck, he’s lit you up.

I snapped on the impellers and whirled away sideways. Sunjet fire chased me from a rampart on the hull over my head. On one spin, I managed to get off returning fire. Three sputtering seconds, but Carrera’s beam shut off. I fled for the roof, got some piece of hull architecture between me and Carrera’s position, then reversed the impeller drive and braked to slow drift. Blood hammered in my temples.

Did I get him?

Proximity to the hull forced receding of my surroundings. The alien sculpted architecture of the vessel overhead was suddenly the surface of a planetoid and I was head down five metres over it. The flare burnt steadily a hundred metres out, casting twisted shadows past the chunk of hull architecture I was floating behind. Weird detail scarred the surfaces around me, curls and scrapings of structure like scrawlings in has relief, glyphs on a monumental scale.

Did I—

“Nice evasion, Kovacs.” Carrera’s voice spoke into my ear as if he was sitting in the helmet beside me. “Not bad for a non-swimmer.”

I checked the head up displays. The suit radio was set for receive only. I nudged sideways in the helmet space and the transmit symbol glowed on. A cautious body flex put me parallel to the hull. Meanwhile…

Keep him talking.

“Who told you I was a non-swimmer?”

“Oh, yes, I was forgetting. That fiasco with Randall. But a couple of outings like that hardly make you a VacCom veteran.” He was playing for avuncular amusement, but there wasn’t much hiding the raw ugliness of the rage underneath it. “Which fact explains why it’s going to be very easy for me to kill you. That is what I’m going to do, Kovacs. I’m going to smash in your faceplate and watch your face boil out.”

“Better get on with it, then.” I sca

“Only came back for the view, huh. Or did you leave some holoporn with sentimental value lying around the docking bay?”

“Just keeping you out of the way while Wardani closes the gate, that’s all.”

A short pause, in which I could hear him breathing. I shortened the tether line on the Sunjet until it floated close beside my right arm, then touched the trim controls on the impeller arm and risked a half-second impulse. The straps tugged as the racked motors on my back lifted me delicately up and forward.

“What’s the matter, Isaac? You sulking?”

He made a noise in his throat. “You’re a piece of shit, Kovacs. You’ve sold out your comrades like a tower dweller. Murdered them for credit.”

“I thought that’s what we were about, Isaac. Murder for credit.”

“Don’t give me your fucking Quellisms, Kovacs. Not with a hundred Wedge perso

A tiny stinging in my throat and eyes at the names.

Lock it down.

“They slaughtered sort of easily for soldiers.”

“Fuck you, Kovacs.”

“Whatever.” I reached out for the approaching curve of the hull architecture where a small bubble formed a rounded spur on one side of the main structure. Behind my outstretched arms, the rest of my body shifted into a dead stop posture. A momentary sense of panic sweated through me at the sudden thought that the hull might be contact-mined in some way—

Oh well. Can’t think of everything.

—and then my gloved hands came to rest on the curving surface and I stopped moving. The Sunjet bumped gently off my shoulder. I risked a rapid glance through the gull-winged space where the two bubble forms intersected. Ducked back. Envoy recall built me a picture and mapped it against memory.

It was the docking bay, centred at the bottom of the same three-hundred-metre dimple and set about with bubbled hillocks that were themselves distorted by other smaller swellings rising haphazardly from their flanks. Loemanako’s squad must have left a locater beacon, because there was no other way Carrera could have found the place this fast on a hull nearly thirty klicks across and sixty long. I looked at the suit receiver display again, but the only cha

So where the fuck are you, Isaac? I can hear your breathing, I just need to see you so I can stop it.

I eased myself painstakingly back to a viewing position and started sca

From Isaac Carrera, decorated VacCom commander, survivor of half a thousand vacuum combat engagements and victor in most. A careless move. Sure, Tak. Coming right up.

“You know, I wonder, Kovacs.” His voice was calm again. He’d cranked his anger back under control. Under the circumstances, the last thing I needed. “What kind of deal did Hand offer you?”

Scan, search. Keep him talking.

“More than you’re paying me, Isaac.”

“I think you’re forgetting our rather excellent healthcare cover.”

“Nope. Just trying to avoid needing it again.”

Scan, search.

“Was it so bad, fighting for the Wedge? You were guaranteed re-sleeving at all times, and it’s not as if a man of your training was ever likely to suffer real death.”

“Three of my team would have to disagree with you, there, Isaac. If they weren’t already really fucking dead, that is.”

A slight hesitation. “Your team?”

I grimaced. “Jiang Jianping got turned into soup by an ultravibe blast, the nanobes took Hansen and Cruicksha—”

“Your tea—”

“I heard what you fucking said the first time, Isaac.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I merely wonder—”

“Training’s got fucking nothing to do with it, and you know it. You can go sell that fucking song to Lapinee. Machines and luck, that’s what kills you or keeps you alive on Sanction IV.”

Scan, search, find that motherfucker.

And calm down.

“Sanction IV and any other conflict,” Carrera said quietly. “You of all people should know that. It’s the nature of the game. If you didn’t want to play, you shouldn’t have dealt yourself in. The Wedge isn’t a conscript army.”

“Isaac, the whole fucking planet has been conscripted into this war. No one’s got any choice any more. You’re going to be involved, you might as well have the big guns. That’s a Quellism for you, in case you wondered.”

He grunted. “Sounds like common sense to me. Didn’t that bitch ever say anything original.”

There. My ‘methed-out nerves jumped with it. Right there.

The slim edge of something built by human technology, stark angular outline caught by flarelight among the curves at the base of a bubble outcrop. One side of an impeller set frame. I settled the Sunjet into place and lined up on the target. Drawled response.

“She wasn’t a philosopher, Isaac. She was a soldier.”

“She was a terrorist.”

“We quibble over terms.”

I triggered the Sunjet. Fire lanced across the concave arena and splashed off the outline. Something exploded visibly off the hull, in fragments. I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth.

Breathing.

It was the only thing that warned me. The papery whisper of breath at the bottom of the suit receiver. The suppressed sound of effort.

Fu—

Something invisible shattered and shed light over my head. Something no more visible spanged off my faceplate, leaving a tiny glowing V of chipped glass. I felt other tiny impacts off my suit.

Grenade!