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

link. She hadn’t even seen him subvocalise. It was a question she’d been dreading. He had deserted. She had to kill him to maintain discipline. She had already tried to do it. It was suddenly very quiet in the room. Miska could feel eyes on her. Raff and Corenbloom were both watching her intently. This was another reason that she hadn’t brought Mass with her. It was in Corenbloom and Raff’s best interests to be discreet about this matter. Besides all they would know was that she had, rather rudely, subvocalised a private message to Salik.

‘Let him go,’ Miska told Salik over the private comms link. ‘Make it clear that he needs to be discreet and he never crosses our paths again.’

Salik nodded.

‘I shall make it clear that it’s my decision to let him live contra to your instructions,’ Salik told her over the private link.

‘Thank you,’ Miska said. It would help if it ever came out. Though somehow she wasn’t comfortable with lying to her Bastards any more.

Two drones and a human member of Salik’s security detail appeared. They escorted the struggling Torricone out of the room. Miska caught her last ever glimpse of him and immediately looked away. It felt like actual physical pain, like something breaking inside her. She did her very best not to acknowledge it, to ignore it.

‘Well, if Salik and Colonel Corbin are finished with their private conversation,’ Councillor Omiata said, ‘can I assume that New Sun and Triple S forces will offer a full and unconditional surrender?’

‘And submit to a full UN investigation?’ Corenbloom suggested. The UN conflict inspector nodded. She still seemed a little stunned. The severed head probably hadn’t helped.

Campbell didn’t say anything. He knew who was behind New Sun. He must know what they were going to do to someone who had screwed up this big.

‘What was it all about?’ the councillor asked. ‘I still don’t see what you had to gain from these actions. You must have realised that you were going to be found out.’

Again Campbell ignored her, locked up in a prison of his own fear.

‘They were hoping that by the time they were found out it would have been too late,’ Miska told her, shaking herself out of her thoughts. ‘You would have lost, they would have what they wanted. The problem was we kept on pushing their hand. Camp Badajoz effectively gave us strategic control of the north, even though we didn’t realise the importance. They had to get us out of the mix, which would in turn weaken your hand.’

‘What was so important in the north?’ the woman from the UN asked.

‘Artemis,’ Miska told them. She gave them a moment to let that settle in. Watched the dawning realisation on their faces.

‘So this was just another Small Gods family squabble?’ the UN conflict inspector asked.

‘Not quite,’ Miska said, and then turned to Councillor Omiata. ‘We won the war, so we get the combat pay and expenses due us.’

Omiata regarded her coolly and then looked to Salik.

‘Fair is fair,’ he told the councillor.

‘Why do I get the feeling that our victory is coming with something of a caveat?’ Omiata asked.

Miska explained what New Sun had been up to, their plans to turn Ephesus into one huge manufacturing facility for weaponised biotech. She also told them about Artemis’s plan to destroy all technology on the moon, and effectively cut it off from the rest of humanity.

‘And you call this winning the war?’ Omiata asked. Oddly she sounded more amused than angry or upset.

‘Better than the alternative,’ Raff suggested.

‘Artemis is happy to live with those of your people who wish to stay,’ Miska said.

‘Technology can be as much a curse as a boon sometimes,’ Omiata said. ‘I’m sure many will stay.’

‘I suspect she’ll allow some of the older tech to work. You may also find that she introduces her own kind of tech. Be careful. Whatever she is, she believes she’s a goddess. She may only want to bestow her bounty on those who worship her.’

Omiata pursed her lips. ‘Thank you for the warning, Colonel. Frankly we have enough gods of our own. We don’t need another one.’ Then she looked at the shaking, sweat-covered Campbell and just shook her head sadly. She stood up, nodded to Salik and turned to look at Miska. Miska couldn’t shake the feeling that there was just a hint of sympathy in her otherwise inscrutable expression.

Campbell stood up as well. ‘Well, as you can imagine I need to return to the—’ he started.

‘Stay where you are,’ Salik demanded. He turned to the woman from the UN.

‘I think the best thing to do is to call the Teten in,’ the UN conflict inspector said. ‘I have the authority to give them jurisdiction as peacekeepers. They can take the New Sun staff and the Triple S command …’

It hurt so much because of her broken arm that she actually screamed in pain but Miska grabbed Campbell and threw him out of a window. It was a different one to the window that Duellona had jumped out of.

‘Miska!’ Salik complained. The woman from the UN was staring at her. Miska gestured towards the newly broken window with her thumb.

‘You all saw that, right?’ she asked. ‘He was alive when he left the room.’

Outside, Campbell was trying to crawl away on two broken legs, the result of his four-storey fall. Kaneda, Mass and Hemi fell in with her and Corenbloom as they left Salik’s house. Raff went his own way.

Miska shot Campbell twice in the back of his head as she walked past him. One more murder hardly seemed to matter, after all. She heard Mass laugh.

Chapter 22

They had actually cheered when Miska and the others walked out onto the Hangman’s Daughter’s hangar deck. She’d put bombs inside their heads, forced them to train like marines and then put them in harm’s way, and yet they’d cheered when she walked on board. She felt pressure behind her artificial eyes.