War Criminals, Gavin Smith [best novels for beginners .txt] 📗

giant’s hand: a failed project, signs of intent to build a temple. And then there were the heads. They were impaled on poles just in the treeline surrounding the clearing, all in various states of decomposition. Dead eyes and hollow sockets staring at nothing, clusters of fungal growth sprouting from their wounds, moss crawling across their faces like a virulent skin disease. But even the mass of severed heads weren’t as surprising as the crashed spaceship.

‘I’m a little disappointed that we’re not dealing with aliens,’ Bean said on the other side of her. Miska didn’t like being this close to the repellent Scottish cannibal but she had to admit he was right. More and more this nonsense had the hallmarks of Small Gods involvement.

‘What do you think?’ Miska asked Bean. ‘Long-range strike craft? Maybe a hundred years old?’ Which would date it round about the time of the War in Heaven, when the Small Gods had grown themselves bodies from the Grey Goo Wastelands.

Bean turned to look at her.

‘I used to live in a cave,’ he told her.

‘I really believe that.’

The long-range strike craft had come down hard but it looked mostly intact. Half buried in the soft mud, the craft was part of a hillock that led to higher ground on the other side of the clearing. Much of the higher ground was obscured by the pollen fall and rising, humid mists that were starting to creep in. The airlock was open. It looked strangely inviting.

‘I know the trees, though,’ the cannibal told her, pointing at a tree.

‘Don’t point,’ Miska told him. Movement was what would give them away.

‘They’ve got to have eyes on us,’ Grig said from where he was covering their right flank. Gunhir was on the left, Kaczmar, Kaneda and Hogg were providing rear security. Corenbloom, Hemi and Raff had eyes forward with Miska, Bean and Mass. The Ultra was, in theory, waiting for them back in the fungal wood, some two klicks south.

Grig was, of course, right. They were in a reasonably obvious place as well. If she were Resnick then she’d try and get behind them. Except she didn’t think Resnick was here for her. She and her Bastards were just a pain in the ass to him.

It might have stopped raining but the pollen fall was so heavy it might as well have been snow. After the battle at Camp Badajoz, Miska had assumed that the pollen affected electronic systems that it could gain access to. Hence sealed goggles and ear covers protecting cyberware. Their inertial armour undersuits might have been sophisticated tech but they had little in the way of moving parts, and that was sealed inside the clothing itself. She had assumed that mechanical devices like slugthrowers would be impervious to the pollen but she didn’t like the way the pollen seemed to be gathering on the weapons, despite their attempts to wipe it off.

‘Mass, you’re in charge, Grig’s second, listen to him, he knows what he’s talking about,’ Miska told them. In a situation like this she would have far preferred to put Grig in charge but if she didn’t respect the chain of command then she couldn’t expect them to. She just hoped that Mass had his ego in check to know enough to listen to Grig. ‘Kaneda, Hogg, I want you hunting. Find Resnick’s people and kill them quietly.’

Neither of them responded. She just heard them slither out of the ditch.

‘The rest of us?’ Grig asked.

‘Find firing positions,’ Miska told them. They knew what to look for. ‘Keep the defoliant squirters and the flamers handy but don’t switch on the pilot lights unless you see the tree people. Understand?’ She glanced at them, saw nods, heard muttered affirmatives. Grig was explaining it to Kaczmar in sign language.

‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend?’ Mass asked.

‘You know me, Mass, I’m all about the diplomacy.’ She turned to Bean. ‘What are the trees?’ she asked.

‘Apples, walnut, oaks and ash, the death tree,’ he told her and then grinned at her with a mouth full of canines.

‘The moss-lain dryads shall be lull’d to sleep,’ Mass muttered.

‘Huh?’ Bean grunted.

‘It’s Keats,’ Hemi supplied.

Miska hoped the dryads were asleep.

‘Where you going?’ Grig asked.

‘Into the ship,’ she said, and grinned.

‘You’ll get cut down the moment you put your head up,’ he told her. It was clear that he didn’t approve. She didn’t think he was right, though. Resnick had some expendable assets he could afford to waste on them but if Mars had risked sending a Spartan then he was here for something a lot more important. She was starting to think that he was hunting a Small God in his master’s name.

You can be as sneaky as you like but sooner or later, you’re just going to have to cover a lot of open ground, Miska decided, as she sprinted across the clearing. She practically dived through the open external airlock door.

Down on one knee, she switched on the AK-47’s aim-light. She wasn’t even remotely surprised when the light flickered and died almost immediately. It had momentarily illuminated an open internal airlock and a fungus-overgrown, debris-strewn corridor. She swung around behind her, half expecting to see more of the tree women rising from the mud, but all she saw was mist, trees and decapitated heads on poles. It looked like a picture from old Earth.

She moved into the corridor so she could get the hull between herself and the outside. Her one remaining eye was amplifying what little murky light was managing to make it in from the outside. She would be in pitch darkness if she went much further into the ship. Ignoring her own advice, she tried to light the pilot light on the flamer. The blue light wouldn’t provide much illumination but it would be enough for her remaining eye to do the rest. The pilot light wouldn’t light. That was bad news. She cleared the nozzle as best she could and tried again. Nothing.

One more time and then I’m