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

drawn to the ‘goddess’ but she had heard that was always the case with the Small Gods. Their sheer force of personality was hardwired.

‘This is just entertainment, right?’ Miska asked. She had to force herself to look away from the so-called goddess. She was looking for Resnick to make his move now. She was pretty sure that a lot of his so-called Double Veterans had just tried to use their weapons out in the woods somewhere. Resnick would be close though, he’d have a contingency, he’d want to be sure.

‘How is it different to you watching wars on vizzes?’ the goddess asked. Her voice sounded like wind blowing through the trees. Her ‘mouth’ trisected the triangular bark below her eyes. She sounded odd using a word like ‘vizzes’. Miska was almost disappointed.

Concentrate! Where the fuck was he?

‘Mars is trying to kill you,’ Miska told her as she searched the surrounding area. It’s movement that gives you away, she told herself.

‘My half brother wants me dead.’ It wasn’t a question, just a simple statement of fact.

Miska had meant the planet, or rather the government of the planet, but it was pretty much the same thing.

‘I think it’s more he wants the planet for himself,’ Miska said. She had no idea what Artemis was going to do, though it must have been obvious to her that some drama was unfolding here. She seemed content to let it play out.

‘There is nothing he won’t try and turn into a weapon,’ Artemis said.

‘Yeah, well one of his assassins is here now and he may just have the tools for the job,’ Miska told the goddess. She was sure that there was movement in the woods now but it was too far away for Resnick. Even if he had a bow or a crossbow like Hogg’s he couldn’t be sure it would hit. ‘If you’ve got any intel you could offer, like his whereabouts, well that …’ Just the slightest movement. ‘Move now!’ she ordered the goddess, as Resnick seemed to explode out of the earth at Artemis’s feet. Miska was moving but it was futile. He had some kind of hypodermic dagger in his hand and it was stabbing down towards Artemis’s leg. Miska watched as the blade pierced the bark of an empty husk that looked like Artemis. One of the handmaidens stepped forward. Root-like tendrils wrapped themselves around Resnick, stilling his struggling form, the tips of the roots growing into his nostrils, holding his mouth open, his eyelids.

‘Don’t kill him!’ Miska shouted. Resnick had used an old-fashioned ghillie suit and the even older technique of being really sneaky, mostly from being quiet and still. He must have either observed or guessed the rough area where Artemis would reveal herself and then moved towards her very slowly. It was as much luck as observation skills and knowing what she was looking for that had allowed Miska to see the movement. God, he’s good though.

‘Why?’ Artemis asked as she grew out of the earth next to Miska.

‘Ah!’ Miska cried, almost stabbing the goddess. ‘I want to do it,’ Miska told her after she had composed herself. Only up close did she realise just how big Artemis was. She had to be at least ten feet tall.

‘Well, your warning saved my life,’ Artemis admitted. Somehow Miska doubted that, but she wasn’t about to argue.

‘He’s got some more people around,’ Miska said.

‘So have you,’ Artemis pointed out.

‘They want to kill them as well,’ Miska admitted.

‘You’re quite bloodthirsty, aren’t you?’

‘They did some bad things. What are you going to do now?’ Miska asked. It wasn’t as if Mars was going to stop because Resnick had failed.

‘I had hoped to live in peace with the modern world. We observed the colonists. I like them well enough, their ways, but now …’

‘The pollen?’ Miska asked. Artemis nodded. ‘The colonists?’

‘They can stay or leave as they wish. If they stay then things will become simpler for them.’

‘Why did you attack my people?’ Miska asked.

Artemis looked down at her. ‘Same weapons, same equipment. It was only when you came here that we realised you were different from these others,’ Artemis said and gestured to Resnick’s struggling form.

‘So you get that we’re on your side?’ Miska asked hopefully. ‘Because we could really do with getting a shuttle in here to evac.’

‘Don’t you have some unfinished business to deal with?’ Artemis asked. Figures were emerging from the woods on the high ground at the northern end of the clearing. Resnick’s so-called Double Veterans. The dryad drones were moving back into the trees. The handmaiden holding Resnick plucked the hypodermic dagger from his grip and then she too backed into the woods, her tendrils drawing back from the Spartan’s struggling form until he was free. Miska looked around and Artemis had gone.

‘It was nothing personal,’ Resnick called. He was on his feet now, moving down the mound created by the crashed ship. ‘Just a job.’

‘I’m still going to kill you,’ Miska told him. Though she had been hoping that the handmaiden could hold him down while she stabbed him to death because he would be filled with Martian nanotech. He would be faster and stronger than her. His Double Veterans formed a staggered line either side of him. There were ten of them. She recognised some faces from the aerostat. Doubtless they had already tried to shoot her and found their weapons not working. Doubtless her Bastards had done the same as soon as Resnick and the Double Veterans had appeared.

‘I think we both know that’s not how this is going to go down,’ Resnick said. Miska was aware of her people walking out of the woods behind her. Knives, hatchets, māripi already drawn. She noticed that neither Hogg nor Kaneda were with them. This, she hoped, was a good thing. Either that or they’re both already dead.

Mass came to stand one side of her, Grig the other.

‘Come a long way from sitting in a nice warm mech,’ Mass muttered.

‘It’s just war, fam, just