Under A Winter Sun E-Book

Johan M. Dahlgren

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

After the events of Under a Dark Sky, Asher Perez has been hunting and killing immortals for years. Then one day, they contact him with a proposition. They need his help.

An agent has gone missing on the Goliath homeworld, Nifelheim. Baseline humans are not welcome on the icy moon, and the only way for the team to get clearance is for Perez to talk to his old friend, Thorfinn Wagner: the heir to the Throne of Shields.

Intrigued, Perez agrees to join them. But when civil war breaks out on Nifelheim shortly after they land, Perez realises there is much more to the story than he first thought.

Something on Nifelheim wants them all dead.

Leseprobe

Under A Winter Sun

Worldburner book 2

Johan M. Dahlgren

Copyright (C) 2021 Johan M. Dahlgren

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2021 by Next Chapter

Published 2021 by Next Chapter

Edited by Fading Street Services

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

You Can't Save The World

Every morning you wake up a day closer to your own death.

The cops on the ground should have stayed in bed.

They were shot in the back at close range from the looks of it. The Front laid an ambush for them, and they walked right into it. Wankers. Send local talent to do a grown-up's job, and this is what you get.

Ignoring the glassy-eyed stares of the corpses, I step over them and continue down the dimly lit tunnel. The big boys will be here any minute, and I need to be in position by then.

The gear I'm hauling slows me down, but you can never carry too much hardware, as Wagner used to say. Especially on a job like this. With the assault rifle in my hands, the pistol on my hip and the huge Lensfield sniper rifle on my back, I should have all eventualities covered.

Famous last words. It's a good thing I have a knife for contingencies.

I spit on the dusty floor and trudge on.

“You have to go deeper, Perez.”

Aeryn's voice in my ear is a reassuring presence. “Three levels down is the auditorium. According to Winger's source, that's where she is.”

Everyone knows Aeryn Winger's sources are the best.

Yesterday morning, the Terrans agreed to the demands of the Revolutionary Utopian Front. That's as good as a death sentence for all involved. Everyone knows the government doesn't negotiate with terrorists. Not even when threatened with local nuclear holocaust.

This is the third incident featuring weapons of mass destruction in the last couple of months, and every time, the authorities have dealt with the situation in their own heavy-handed way. Terran special ops are competent but famously trigger-happy. They love to go in shooting, and more often than not, they get people killed. Including the hostage.

“Got it,” I subvocalise. The bone induction microphone hurt like a bitch to instal, but Winger insisted. In hindsight, I've got to admit it was an excellent idea. This way I can communicate with Aeryn with no one able to eavesdrop. Knowing a hi-tech lowlife like Winger is not a disadvantage. Not that anyone's around to listen to our conversation, anyway. This place is quieter than a library on a Saturday night. I move three levels down into the old Utopian mine without incident.

It wasn't hard to figure out when the black ops team from Earth would strike. A fistful of credits in a traffic controller's pocket got me the time and place an unlisted shuttle docked at the Utopian beanstalk. Another fistful told me the ship had no registered point of origin. A sure sign of black ops. They're here, and they're on their way in. I plan to do my thing while the terrorists are busy fighting the strike team and then slip away unseen in the chaos. It's a simple plan, and that's the way I like it. Simple plans have a sporting chance to play out as intended.

“Someone's coming.”

I freeze. So much for playing out as intended.

A door opens up ahead, and a man backs into the tunnel.

Shit.

He's thin. Early twenties, maybe. Twitchy. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin. He could be anybody anywhere. He carries an ancient hunting rifle that looks like it would explode in his hands if he should ever have to fire it. The extremists here on Utopia have an endless supply of frustrated young men from the miners' ranks. Their supply of firearms, it would seem, is not so endless.

The man grabs the door to steady himself.

“Hey, Ramirez,” he calls to someone back in the room. “Save me some of that cerveza, will you?”

He's had a few already.

“Fuck you, Diaz. I can't promise anything,” comes the reply.

“Doorway on your left.” Aeryn has direct access to the feed from my retinas. That's another tactical neural implant that hurt like hell. It took a while to adapt to, but now I don't even think about that whatever I see, Aeryn sees. Which has resulted in some awkward moments, usually related to bodily functions.

Diaz has still got his back to me, laughing at something Ramirez is doing. I slip into the recessed doorway and keep my fingers crossed Diaz won't come my way. Carefully, I release the Aitchenkai to let it dangle on its strap and pull my knife. I open the short, hyper-sharp blade and the familiar buzz as the knife grinds a few atoms off the monomolecular edge sends shivers of anticipation up my arm.

“Mission parameters specify no unnecessary death. Play with yourself later if you need to reduce your adrenaline levels.”

“I won't kill him unless I have to. And I'll play with myself whenever I damn well please.”

“Don't make me watch this time.”

“You could have switched off the feed. Now hush.”

They say a monomolecular knife is sharp enough to nick a man's soul, and if we had one, I think it would. The edge is so sharp that weird quantum effects occur there. People say strange things happen when you use one of these. Like the time I used this blade to kill Oddgrim Morgenstern and became the saviour of humanity.

What is not so strange is that Diaz comes my way. That's just my usual bad luck playing up.

“Shit, I need to piss,” the man informs the darkness. Why do some have to advertise their every intention when they're drunk?

I glance behind me and notice the symbol on the door. Oh, fuck. I'm standing in the door to the toilet.

“Brilliant plan, Aeryn. Thanks,” I whisper and grip the knife harder.

“There was no way for me to know he needed to urinate.”

“Couldn't you tell from his walking pattern or something?”

“I'm not that good.”

“Remind me why you're on board at all?”

“You need Winger's intel on this place. I can provide that for you.”

I sigh. Sarcasm and rhetorical questions are not something a construct handles well.

Embedding a brain image in your head is dangerous, not to mention highly illegal. Despite the risk of overpopulation in my head, a scan and implant were the only ways to give me instant access to the intel in Winger's head. The six-minute time delay between Elysium and Utopia renders real-time communication impossible, even disregarding the shitty reception down here under kilometres of rock. Besides, I enjoy having Aeryn around. Now that Finn is gone, it's nice to have someone to talk to, and Aeryn reminds me of him. They are at about the same level when it comes to social interaction.

Diaz stumbles and supports himself on the wall to keep from falling over. The guy is pretty far gone, and I raise the knife in preparation. He mutters something about beer and small bladders as he lurches closer. He's younger than I thought. No more than sixteen, with his whole sorry life ahead of him. Fuck.

Maybe I can still avoid bloodshed.

“Thank you.”

“You owe me one, Aeryn.”

I crack the door behind me and inch inside. As he comes up, I push the door wide and stumble into him.

He swears. “Hey, man. Watch where you're going.”

Judging by the bleary eyes and pinprick pupils, beer is not the only thing he's ingested tonight. And here I was, thinking religious extremists were against all earthly pleasures. Perhaps endorsing intoxicants is the unique selling point of the RUF.

“Asshole,” he mutters.

“Sorry.” I push past him into the corridor with my head down.

For once, the universe has my back. As I exit, the crude lights bolted to the rock ceiling waver and go out. The newsfeeds assure us the authorities are looking into the recent power failures, but it would surprise me if they were. The electrical systems in Subburbia are ancient. It was only a question of time before they started acting up. Too bad they had to act up now when I'm here. The lights flicker back on with an unhealthy electrical buzz.

“No bloody manners these days,” the man says as the restroom door swings shut behind him. “And the fucking lights.”

“Yeah, the fucking lights,” I agree to the closed door and breathe a sigh of relief.

“That was close, Perez. Stay frosty.”

Frosty? Who even talks that way? “Mm-hm.”

“Say again?”

I fold the knife closed and pick up the Aitchenkai again. “Never mind. Let's go.”

It's good to hear someone still gives a damn about manners here on Utopia because this place is a shithole. It's the planet closest to our twin suns, and it's tidally locked to them. The planet's dayside is a radiation-blasted nightmare that will melt the flesh from your bones in a minute, while the nightside is one of the coldest places in the system. Right on the terminator between night and day is the only area even remotely habitable.

Except for the cloud cities, that is. Suspended on enormous cables from asteroids in orbit, those aerial metropolises are supposed to be impenetrable. I bet Lady Shadow thought she was safe up there with her minions and WMDs, but boy, was she wrong. She's held her city in the clouds in a well-manicured iron fist for over five decades, but somehow, she got herself taken hostage by these tossers. The Front either have well-informed friends or they got lucky, and in my experience, luck has nothing to do with success in this line of business. Someone must have tipped them off on her whereabouts. Someone who doesn't care about his skin. Lady Shadow is infamous for the creative ways she hurts people. Someone who sold her out like this is likely to become a mythical example of pain. Along with his extended family, friends, and distant acquaintances. If the Shady Lady survives, that is.

Whatever the context of her abduction, the Front now has her launch codes.

“We're close. Make a left here.”

I turn a corner and pass an open door. Inside is a large storage room with crates of varying sizes filling the space from floor to ceiling. They all bear the unmistakable markings of Terran military hardware. I've seen those with a lot of extremist groups recently. It's like they're stockpiling for Armageddon or something. Not my business. Just saying it's odd, that's all. I'll leave it to the cops to wipe up after this mess is over.

A few twists and turns later, I arrive at the auditorium. The staff access at the back is my designated point of entry, and I make haste down the corridor. I risk a glance through the open double doors as I pass, and there she is. Lady Shadow stands chained on a circular dais, centre stage in the vast, spherical chamber. In her sheer, crimson gown she looks like a dragon sacrifice. How apt. Ascending rows of seats circle the deep-set stage, like an ancient amphitheatre.

The Lady stands amid a group of bearded arseholes who look like they won the lottery. They think they are about to receive a king's ransom in a matter of minutes, and there's at least one snake-grass pipe doing the rounds. Amateurs. The weed makes them slow, and when you're slow, you're dead.

Lady Shadow is short a hand. The stump has been crudely bandaged, and there's a mess of blood on her gown. To her credit, the pain is almost indiscernible on her smooth, aristocratic features. Having a hand cut off hurts. I know.

“She had the codes implanted in her palm,” the construct notifies me.

“Thanks, but I figured that out myself, Aeryn.”

“I'm only here to help.”

There's an oven-sized cryogenic container on the stage, next to the hostage. Something resembling a tan glove floats in the slush inside. I hope they were careful when they froze it, or they will have destroyed the codes. No matter. They will not get the chance to use them.

There's a hint of a sneer on Lady Shadow's thin lips. She knows she's getting rescued. The Utopian Front does not understand who their hostage is. Stealing the launch codes to an orbital nuclear arms platform might sound like a large-scale operation to them, but it's not. Not compared to what's going on behind the curtains right now.

“There are twelve of them. Small arms only. No heavy gear.”

“Good.”

I don't plan to take them on myself, but the absence of heavy weapons means less risk of me taking a stray bullet. My body may be immortal, but a high velocity round through the spine will still incapacitate me. That would put a major dent in my self-esteem and bring awkward questions from the paramedics when they try to zip me into a body bag later.

The back entrance is right where Aeryn told me it would be. It's locked, but the access code the construct whispers in my ear opens the door on the first try. Remind me to buy Winger a good bottle of whisky when I return to Masada.

“Open Sesame.”

Inside is a storage area behind the top row of seats, filled with stacks of crates and miscellaneous stage equipment.

“Open what?”

I slip inside and take up position behind the crates. There's a perfect view of the auditorium from here.

“It's a literary reference.”

I drop the Aitchenkai on its sling and get the Lensfield off my back. It's solid and perfectly balanced, the way well-designed hardware should be. “I read, Aeryn.” The rifle smells of gun oil.

“You read horoscopes and beer bottle labels, Perez.”

“So what?” I start to assemble the enormous weapon. “The labels are way more accurate in foretelling the future.”

“They foretell you will spend another night sleeping it off in a back alley?”

“Always reliable, those labels. None of that 'Today could be your lucky day, and if you play, you might win' wank.”

“Why do you read the horoscopes?”

I unfold the rifle's stand and set it on top of a crate. The stage is only fifty metres away. I peer through the scope. Ducks in a pond.

“To pretend there's a grand plan to the universe. And that my life isn't a sequence of chance events on the one-way road to the dirt.”

The Lensfield's high-end optics tag a couple of notable terrorists among the prats surrounding the Lady. This will be a nice catch for the Terrans.

“Eloquent, Perez.”

“Thanks. Now shut up and let me concentrate.” I pull the bolt and load a bullet into the breach. “I have work to do.”

You can't save the world. The best you can hope for is a chance to waste a bad guy or two, to give the universe a breather before another arsehole steps in to fill their shoes.

That works for me.

Now we wait for the clowns to show up to get this party started.

The Centre of Her Being

The Terrans are late.

It's a miracle they can run their empire in anything resembling working order. It's another miracle they reconquered the Hope system as quickly as they did. But then, we had a hand in that ourselves. They say the quickest way to end a war is to lose it, so that's what we did. We lost spectacularly, and, once more, the Hope system is under the Terran boot. All except Nifelheim and Utopia. No one conquers Nifelheim. And Utopia … Well. The first explorers who came here found immense wealth below the surface. They dug down to find refuge from the hostile surface and struck metaphorical gold when they discovered an underground ocean of fresh water. Now, the planet is like a Swiss cheese, riddled with caves, both natural and man-made. The population of Subburbia is as diverse as they come. It's like someone kicked the universe over on its side, shook it around, and everything loose ended up down here. Over the centuries, hundreds of thousands of miscreants and down-at-luck citizens from all corners of the system moved in and set up shop. Subburbia is us, boiled down to a rich broth of the essence of what makes us human. All the hate, the hope, and the anger. The fear, the love, and the lust. Whatever you can think of, you'll find it here. Everything is for sale down here. The Terrans need all that shit too, so they let it go. For now.

Subburbia is the perfect place for groups like the Revolutionary Utopian Front to make their hangout. There are countless more or less revolutionary groups operating down here. They all have names that remind you of some ancient comedy sketch, but the RUF is no laughing matter. They are one of the innumerable neo-libertarian groups who fight for independence from Earth. I guess you could call them Terrarists if you felt the need to be funny. The goal of the RUF is to destroy the Eternal Patriarchy. According to their holy scriptures, the Patriarchy has been yanking humanity's balls since we left the oceans, with the single purpose to oppress women, free thinkers, homosexuals, and people of colour. Probably mimes and accordion players too. If only the Front knew how close to the truth they are. Not about the mimes and the accordion players, but the Eternal Patriarchy. The ones pulling the strings. Had the RUF not been such sadistic homicidal maniacs I might even have rooted for them, but I draw the line at killing women and children. At least killing women and children not actively shooting at me. The Front has no such compunctions.

The room goes black.

“Contact.”

Shit. They're already here.

Muzzle flashes light the place up like a dance floor, accompanied by the staccato bark of assault rifles and a chorus of screams. I switch to the thermal scope on the Lensfield. All the cultists are dead or dying.

“All targets neutralised.” They waste no time. The Shady Lady knows some very important people.

“Thanks for the heads-up, Aeryn, but I have eyes in my head.”

“I'm only here to help.”

The room reeks of gunpowder and death. Not an appealing mix, but one I know far too well.

The lights come back on, and a lone soldier in heavy body armour walks up to Lady Shadow. She stands stiff as a board amid the dead. I've got to admire her composure. Most people would scream their lungs out in a situation like this, but not The Shady Lady. From the way the soldier walks, I can tell he's pleased with himself and I can't help being a little impressed. They got into the room under my radar, and few people can do that. I'd toast them if I had a drink on hand, and they weren't Terran bastards. I always knew the special operations soldiers of Earth were good, but I didn't think they had the balls to pull off something like this. They usually worry too much about the negative press generated by mass murder.

The soldier tips his head in greeting to Lady Shadow. He's got a skull painted on his helmet. What a twat. Even with my enhanced hearing, I can't make out what he says to her, but I bet it's “Come with me if you want to live.” They always say that.

He reaches out a gloved hand to her, and I hook my finger around the Lensfield's feather-light trigger. Oh, no. She's mine.

I squint through the scope, crack my neck, and take aim.

I click up the magnification as far as it will go.

The Shady Lady's face fills the scope. She's beautiful. Angular, Slavic features with alabaster skin and full, blood-red lips. With an eternity to perfect your looks, anyone can be beautiful. She smiles at the soldier. It's a smile that has started wars and driven men insane.

They are not truly immortal, you know.

I squeeze the trigger and her smile disappears along with her exquisite face. The back of her head explodes as the hypervelocity bullet tears through the centre of her being.

They may live forever if left to their own devices, but they die by violent means like the rest of us.

What? Didn't think I'd kill a woman?

I can't go around letting immortals live because they sport a set of tits. Where's the gender equality in that? Winger's hard-ass feminista girlfriend would applaud my progressive attitude if she didn't also want to kill me for banging her girlfriend. They have a strange relationship, those two. And that's without adding Christine into the equation.

The Terran soldier doesn't even flinch. He spins around and opens fire on my position while he sprints for cover. Impressive cool. His rounds are eerily accurate, and I drop behind the crates to avoid having my head blown off.

I peer around the box, but he's gone. There's still no sign of his team.

Shit.

They are a little too good, even for Terran black ops. Something's wrong.

Well, they're not on my list, and I need to leave before the Utopian Police Department drops on this place like a ton of bricks. I set the Lensfield on the concrete floor. It's a fine rifle, and it stings my heart to leave it behind, but it's an enormous weapon and it would slow me down. Besides, I could never smuggle it off-world. I hope someone who understands its value finds it and makes good use of it.

There's a shuttle leaving for Elysium in less than an hour. The Utopian Police Department may be corrupt and incompetent, but even they can close the spaceports.

Time to go.

* * *

Four hours later, I float weightless in the third-class lounge of the passenger liner Lady of Heaven. Around me, hundreds of members from the lower tiers of humanity get ready to enjoy the three-day flight to Elysium. The atmosphere is thick with the pungent smell of old sweat and anticipation. It's hot as a sauna, too. Down here in the common areas, we're not exactly swimming in luxury, and they haven't turned on the air-conditioning yet. I could buy better accommodations — hell, I could buy this ship if I wanted to — but I like to keep a low profile. The powers that be don't care about the people down here, which means they don't waste good money on DNA scans of the third-class passengers. That suits me perfectly. It would be a major nuisance if a nosy security algorithm matched my DNA to that of the worst war criminal in history.

The complimentary drinks handed out by disinterested staff are not too bad. It's a generic mix of vodka and citrus-flavoured chemicals, but the booze has a good kick to it. I sip my drink and watch the other passengers. They are all young contract miners on leave. Lean, pale, and hollow-eyed from living underground for months or years on end. Most people in Subburbia are only there to save up for a better life back home. They are a cheerless bunch, and most of them are already well on their way to drunken oblivion. I can't blame them. Working in Utopia's mines is dangerous but lucrative. If you live, you can make enough to buy a second-hand residential pod in the lower levels of Masada. Maybe even earn enough to start a family. Something I could only dream of when I grew up. I can understand they take the risk and sign on. If you don't play, you can't win, like my horoscopes like to say.

The lights dim, and a single harsh spotlight switches on. It wavers around for a second before it finds its target. The entertainment crew down here is not exactly professional. A woman in a billowing white gossamer dress floats at the centre of the lounge. A hush goes through the crowd. She holds a white electric violin and a matching bow in her outstretched arms. It could have been artsy and beautiful had not one man in the audience grabbed a flowing corner of her dress and tried to pull her over. I can tell it's not the first time this has happened. She stabs him in the chest with the bow and yanks the dress from his hand. The hapless customer goes into a spin to the laughter and ridicule of his drinking companions. The woman brings the bow to her violin and the music starts.

I sigh. They had the same show on the trip over from Elysium. I don't know if it's the same violinist, but it could be. There are not that many half-decent musicians who are content entertaining drunks in third class on a planet-hopper. I enjoyed the show the first time. Despite the cheesy tunes and bored expression on the performer's face, it had a sordid, guilty appeal. Like cheap porn. But I'm not sure it holds up for an encore.

The lights flicker out and the lounge goes dark. The music cuts out, and another, deeper hush sweeps through the crowd. One or two voices cry out in fear. The lights flicker back on and the music starts where it left off. I groan. So, it was playback. I should have known. There are a few nervous laughs around the audience.

“There was a spike in data traffic before the blackout. Could be related.”

“Or it was a rat chewing on an old cable somewhere and the spike was a coincidence.”

These old ships are death traps. The only thing standing between us and explosive decompression is a small team of underpaid mechanics.

“Not when the two events happen within milliseconds of each other.”

“Let it go, Aeryn. Someone tried to hack their mainframe. So what?”

“We haven't used mainframes for hundreds of years, Perez.”

“I know that. It's a figure of speech. Let it go.”

“Whatever.”

The show goes on.

I scan the crowd, hoping for something interesting. There is not. Just a bunch of leering men who haven't seen a woman in months. Five security guards with stun rods float at strategic points in the crowd. With trained eyes, they've spotted the potential troublemakers and keep tabs on them. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one of those stun rods again.

Oh, hello there. There's a woman in a black hooded top staring at me from across the open space. She hovers behind the crowd, near the curved wall. Despite the distance and the dim lighting, I note her sharp features and the hint of a fit body hidden under the top and matching loose black slacks. She looks away as soon as I spot her, but too late. She knows she's been compromised. With a kick against the wall, she pushes off and disappears into the crowd.

What was that all about? I'm not that ugly.

“Yes, you are.”

“I'm not, Aeryn.”

“You're not getting any younger.”

“Shut up. I'm not here to find a date. I'm on my way home to my bed and a long shower.”

“Yes, in that dingy little pod flat you call home.”

“Hey, that's my home you're talking about.”

“It's still dingy.”

“Oh, yeah? You've never been there.”

“Winger has,” Aeryn reminds me.

It's right. That one time, after way too much whisky and illegal pipe contents, Winger followed me back to my place. I always hoped she was too drunk to recall the place and what happened there. Not one of my best performances.

“I do not forget.”

“I kind of hoped you did.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Oh, shut up, Aeryn. Please delete that memory.”

“It is done.”

I can't verify it has deleted it. Or if deleting a memory is even possible for a construct. I must ask someone about that sometime.

I return my attention to the show, but it's already over. Oh, well. I grab another drink from a passing drone servitor. Since I missed the show, I'm entitled to another glass.

I push off against a beam and follow the crowd out.

The wide passageways of the Lady of Heaven do not differ from any other drifting ferryboat. They are only slightly more worn and depressing. White paint has flaked from the walls in places, and the carpet on the floor is scuffed and frayed. The passages lack sharp edges to keep the passengers from injuring themselves. One surface serves as the dedicated floor, used to walk on during the twenty-four-hour acceleration and deceleration phases of the trip when engine thrust generates artificial gravity. The rest of the journey we pull ourselves in endless lines by recessed handholds. Like cattle. There are a lot of collisions between the Zero-G rookies. Same on all flights I've ever been on. Someone bumps into me hard from behind and sends me spinning out of my elaborate trajectory. “The fuck?” I go tumbling into a wall and crack my elbow. A sharp jolt of pain spasms my fingers open and my almost empty glass spins down the passage. It leaves a spiral trail of liquid blobs that splatter the walls and several oblivious passengers.

I twist around, trying to glimpse the arsehole who knocked my free drink out.

“Sorry.” It's a woman's voice.

She's already gone in the crowd.

The buzz of the repair nanites in my blood assures me no lasting harm was done, but it's still annoying. Almost as annoying as losing my drink. With the drink gone, there's nothing to keep me up any longer. I could go to one of the many bars for another drink before blast-off, but I don't think I'd enjoy the miners' company. And they wouldn't enjoy mine. Fighting can be entertaining, but I'm grumpy and tired. I might hurt someone, and I don't feel like spending the trip in the brig.

I am getting old.

“Yes, you're …”

“Aeryn. Shut it.”

“Whatever.”

I head for my cabin to strap down early and prepare for the trip. The cheap ticket I bought got me a bunk in the dorms. When I enter the room, the smell of feet and cheap beer almost suffocates me. Five miners have a private party over in one corner. When they see me enter, one of them calls out.

“Hey, compadre, come join us.”

On any other day I would, but not today. I need my beauty sleep. Assassinating immortals and evading the police is hard work.

“Nah, not today, brother. Thanks for the invitation though.”

The man who called to me glares and goes back to whatever he was doing.

Another man does not let it go as easily.

“Oy, fucker.”

Oh, dear. Here we go.

“Are you too fancy to drink with us, old man?”

“No, I'm tired. I'm going to bed.”

There's a pause while his mental gears grind on. “Are you taking the piss? Are you laughing at me?”

He pushes from the crowd and floats over. He's a big, ugly man. Large, but well-muscled under layers of fat. Looks like he can handle himself in a fight. This could get ugly.

“Nope.” I reach my allotted space and make a show of grabbing one of the inset handholds to brake my approach. My shirt slides up to show the big handgun tucked into the back of my trousers. With the current recession, getting a weapon aboard one of these boats is just a matter of money in the right hands, but it cost me a minor fortune.

He spots the gun and sobers up at once. “Sorry, man.” He grabs another bed to stop his approach and kicks off back to his mates. Seems the gun was worth every penny.

I unbutton my shirt as bits of conversation float over from the party in the corner. They can't decide if I'm an undercover cop or a hired killer for the Yakuza. Both serve my purposes since they are no longer likely to murder me in my sleep. I grin and put a hand in my pocket to get the key card to extend my bed from the wall.

What now?

I pull a scrap of paper from my pocket. There's something written on it in actual handwriting. Quaint. That piece of paper was not there when I swiped the key card at the boarding station earlier. That means someone put it there along the way. An impressive move by the mystery woman who bumped into me.

Three words in hurried handwriting.

There is another. And a Masada address.

This ride just got interesting.

Die Fast

I know it's a trap.

But they knew I would show up. If there's even a remote chance another one of those fuckers is still hiding out there, it's worth checking out. And that someone knows I hunt them intrigues me.

A woman in a hooded cloak sits dead centre in the dark, empty warehouse. She's slumped on a polymer chair, arms behind her back. The scene is illuminated by a solitary light bulb suspended on a frayed cord that disappears into the dusty gloom high above. Like the lure of a giant anglerfish. Dust motes swirl lazily like fireflies in the light. Someone disturbed the air not too long ago. This whole setup is wrong.

I slip out into the echoing space with the pistol held before me. Like everything down here in the Bottoms, the warehouse smells of old dust and engine oil. The smells of my childhood. My eyes and ears strain to pick up any hint of danger, but even my unnaturally sharp senses have to admit defeat. If there's someone out there in the shadows, they are not moving. I glance around as I inch forward, trying to make out anything in the darkness, but the contrast from the light is too strong. They staged this perfectly.

The girl hasn't moved a finger since I entered the room. Is she even breathing? I don't think they've killed her, but I can't be certain. She's likely an unsuspecting girl from the street, lured with drugs or money and left here for me as human bait.

There's a faint scrape of hardened rubber on concrete somewhere to my right and a spring baton comes twirling out of the darkness and knocks the gun from my hands.

“You've got company.”

“I am aware.”

“There are five of them.”

I drop into a fighter's stance an instant before the men charge from all sides. They materialise like ghosts as they step into the dusty light. Two in front of me, one on each side and one man behind, hoping to outflank me. Not going to happen.

They are sizeable men, and they move with the cocky assurance of experienced fighters. These men have killed before, and they are certain they will do so again tonight. Not if I have anything to say about that. I drop the first one with a quick jab to the throat. His shocked grunt can't get past his crushed larynx. It's a slow and horrible death, choking on yourself. Sorry about that. Before he falls, I kick low to the right. My heavy boot finds an unprotected knee with a satisfying crunch. The leg bends the wrong way and man number two crashes to the floor. He grabs his ruined knee and screams.

By now the other three are on me. A powerful arm locks around my neck from behind and musky breath moistens my ear as if from a rough lover. The calm, even breathing and lack of alcohol on his breath tell me these guys are professionals. I'm flattered. Someone has done his homework. I stab two fingers into his right eye, hook my thumb under his thick jaw and dig into his socket with my augmented strength. His terrified scream cuts short as his cheek snaps, and he goes limp. I roll his lifeless body over my shoulder and it slumps into a mess of arms and legs on the floor. The two remaining men back away and circle me, just out of range. The screams of the man with the broken knee echo around the empty warehouse.

They haven't said a word so far. Another sure sign of professionals. There's no reason to talk to your assignment.

I have learned two things. They know who I am, and they want me alive. If they worked for the people I first thought they did, they wouldn't waste time on this martial arts crap. They'd just kill me. They know me too well to give me a sporting chance like this. No, this must be something else.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” I call out into the darkness over my shoulder while keeping a careful eye on my circling opponents.

No reply. I figured as much.

The two men reach their positions on my flanks and get ready to strike. The girl on the chair has raised her head and looks at us. She could be watching a dull cage fight for all the interest she displays. They must have drugged her.

As on a signal, the men rush me. I go for the man on the right. He's the uglier of the two.

I twist and put a foot out to trip him, then grab his outstretched arm and pull him off balance and use his momentum to throw him into the man coming from the other direction. The horrible sound of two thick skulls cracking against each other echoes around the hangar. They both drop without so much as a whimper.

It's all over in less than ten seconds. Two men dead, one with a broken leg and two possible broken necks. Not a bad score for an old man.

I walk up to the girl on the chair and kneel at her side, searching for the ropes. “I'm gonna get you out of here. We need to go before more of them show up.” This is far too easy.

“Is that so?”

I know that voice.

I look up. It's her. The woman from the Lady of Heaven. The one who slipped me the note. I should have known.

That's when I realise the guy with the broken knee has fallen silent.

I can't find any ropes.

“Behind you, Perez.”

Too late I register the slick metallic sound of a gun cocking behind me and I know I'm done for. I close my eyes. Mostly from the shame of being outsmarted. Even I can't dodge a bullet to the brain from point-blank range.

The shot rings out and I wait for my skull to explode.

It doesn't. Not that I would have had time to savour the experience, but still. There's a heavy, meaty thud as if a body drops behind me.

“You're fine, Perez.”

“Was that a compliment?”

“Fuck you.”

“Fucking amateurs.” There's a smoking gun in the woman's hand.

One of those guns. The ones that kill people like yours truly. Was that gun meant for me?

What the hell is going on here?

I get up and take a few careful steps back. “Why the theatrics? You could have just asked me if you wanted a date.”

She doesn't reply. Instead, she gets up from the chair and casually tosses the gun away. It clatters away into the darkness. It's a one-shot weapon, and she knows that. I've only seen a gun like that once before, and that was years ago. A brief memory flashes across the silver screen of my mind. A memory of spiky red hair and a promise.

The woman stretches her arms and lets the hooded cloak drop to the floor. Underneath, she wears a heavy military issue charcoal-grey jumpsuit. The chest, shoulders, knees, and elbows are armoured with angled hypercarbon plating. There's a large dust-coloured scarf around her neck. Special ops gear. Her black hair is tied back in a ponytail and a straight-cut fringe hangs down to her eyebrows. Her skin is paler than the universal norm, but she's got the deep tan of someone with an outdoor job. She means serious business.

She moves in, deliberately closing the gap between us.

“They were right, you know.”

She stares me hard in the eye. She's got beautiful brown eyes. The colour of oak-aged whisky. “You are good.”

Her face is now close to mine. I can smell her sweet breath and our noses almost touch.

“Thanks.”

So, she knows my name. This gets more intriguing by the minute.

Her lips are beautiful and cruel, and she smells of strawberries and fine tobacco. “Now let's see how good you really are.”

She kicks the legs out from under me and I drop like I've been axed. I twist and turn the fall into a quick shoulder-roll and I'm back on my feet a healthy distance away from her.

“All right, you've got my curiosity piqued, girl.”

I crack my neck to get the kinks out and get ready for another quick fight. “Who are you?”

We circle the edge of the pool of light, measuring each other, staying well out of each other's reach.

“I'm Soledad.”

“Nice to meet you, Soledad.” I tip an imaginary hat to her. “But I was thinking more 'who the fuck are you people'?”

“We are the ones sent to find you where others have failed.”

“What, you and those clowns?” I jab a thumb over my shoulder at the dead and dying men on the floor.

She shrugs. “They were just hired help.”

“Staff these days …”

We keep circling.

“Do you think we'd only send amateurs like them after you? Show us some respect at least.”

“You've sent amateurs after me in the past.”

“That was the past.”

“So, you work for the immortals. I always wondered when they'd bring in the cavalry.”

Her failure to react when I mention the immortals tells me I'm right.

“But if you work for them, you know who I am. You know what I am. And you must know you can't win this fight.”

“Yes, I know what you are.” She cracks her fingers. “And I know I can win this fight.”

She's not bragging. The poor girl thinks she can beat me. Oh, dear. I have no wish to ruin that face.

“I see. You wanted me for yourself.” I sneer. “I'm flattered. Is that why you shot that guy when he pulled a gun on me?”

I nod at the corpse on the floor. There's a hole in his forehead. A trail of inky spatter leads out into the shadows behind him, like the gruesome minute hand of an ancient mechanical watch.

“No. A gun was not part of the plan. That was him … improvising.” She waves a hand in the air. “Nasty things happen when people improvise.”

“You know what they say, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Maybe he was showing initiative? That's a valued trait for many employers.”

“He knew the plan, and he knew we don't encourage critical thinking. And you were right. I want you for myself.”

“As I said, I'm flattered.”

I am. She's lean, muscular, with an ass to die for in that tight combat suit. The fact she wears the suit zipped open to show a tight, greasy white top that leaves her toned belly bare doesn't hurt. She hasn't even broken a sweat yet. There's something special about girls who can handle themselves in a fight. I smile.

When she strikes, she moves at the speed of darkness.

What? Never heard of the speed of darkness? No matter how swift the light moves, the darkness is always there to poke it in the eye when it arrives.

I've seen no one move like this. She crosses the circle and attacks me in the single moment it takes a human being to blink. Only my augmented reflexes save me from taking a fist in the face.

She rains punches and kicks over me and it's all I can do to fend her off. The accuracy of her blows is terrifying, but what's even worse is the fury with which she delivers them. This girl wants to hurt me. Bad.

We dance around the warehouse, trading punches and kicks in and out of the pool of light.

She catches me on the nose with a lucky punch and blood spurts everywhere. She is pissing me off. “Ouch. You fight like a girl, Soledad, and normally, I don't fight girls. But for you, I might have to make an exception.” I snort and swallow a fair amount of blood mixed with snot. Whoever called unarmed combat an art, was a wanker.

I aim a kick at her knee, but she dances out of reach.

“You need to be quicker than that to beat me, old man,” she says.

She throws another fist to my face and I block it high, opening up her midsection to attack. I see my chance.

She delivers a quick knee to my balls, and I go down.

She follows up with a lightning-swift boot in my face and my vision explodes into a galaxy of pulsating stars. I fail to roll away, and she drops on top of me. She pins me to the floor by pressing my arms down my sides with her finely toned legs. She's strong. Impossibly strong. Her combat suit creaks as she squeezes her legs around me.

“Fuck, that hurt.”

I try to clear my head, but everything is still blurry. Her thighs smell of dust and hi-tech fibres. To gain time to let my vision clear, I keep talking.

“Look, Soledad. We both know you will not kill me before you've told me what this crap is all about. Why not tell me your grand plan and get it over? I hear you criminal masterminds love the sound of your own voice even more than you enjoy hurting people.”

“Who said I was the criminal mastermind?”

She punches me in the face. Hard. And then again, and again. There is no way I can fight her off or get away. My head cracks against the concrete floor and something breaks in my cheek under her fist. Ouch.

Something colossal shifts deep in my mind, like a deep-sea leviathan rolling over in its sleep, close to waking up. Not now. Not yet. I need her alive to find out who is behind all this.

“Stop. Don't do this.” Don't feed the monster.

Not the best thing to say to an obvious sadist. The fervour of her attacks increases and with every punch she brings the thing inside me closer to the surface.

Punch. Closer.

Punch. Closer.

Punch.

The thing snaps free from its chains at the murky bottom of my consciousness and comes rushing to the surface. My mind does the all too familiar somersault and my body goes light like I'm floating in water. Everything slows to a crawl and I can't control my body anymore.

The Dread General is in the house.

“Unknown entity detected.”

“I know, Aeryn. Sit back and enjoy the show.” It's all we can do.

“You're not so cocky now, are you, Perez?”

The mystery woman named Soledad keeps pounding away, lost in the moment. “The great Asher Perez. Not so invincible now.”

The pain is dull and far away, but my mind remains crystal clear. Asher Perez no longer feels the pain.

Unfortunately for Soledad, she's not fighting Asher Perez anymore.

General Meridian, the World Burner, does not enjoy being hurt.

He smashes his bloodied and broken forehead into Soledad's face with enough force to throw her over. Her nose explodes into a slow-motion shower of blood as her head arcs over backwards. She sprawls on her ass and clutches her nose. Meridian gets up and launches a kick to her face. She doesn't even see it coming for all the blood, and the heavy boot impacts the side of her head. The kick caves in her temple and snaps her neck like a dry twig, and she goes down. Hard.

The fight is over.

But then the woman pushes up from the floor on shaking arms. She is not dead, even though her neck remains at an odd angle. One of her hands twitches, but she should not be able to move at all. She should be dead or paralysed from the shoulders down. Instead, she cracks her slender neck, something pops back into place, and she can move again. She leers at Meridian through the blood flowing from her nose. The blood bubbles between her ruined teeth as she breathes hard.

Soledad wiggles her fingers. “Surprise.”

It is. I was not expecting that, and neither was Meridian. She's an augmented immortal. Like me.

But that's impossible. The last of the Cherubim were killed on Persephone forty years ago. All but me.

The General doesn't burden himself with questions. The rudimentary lizard brain functionality left of his once great mind is focused on one thing, and one thing only. Keeping the General alive at any cost. Soledad is still a threat, and he won't stop until she is neutralised.

He punches her in the face, and she goes down again. She struggles to her feet. Stay down, Soledad, I want to scream. Stay down. No sound crosses my lips. Meridian sneers.

He hits her again, sending her off balance. Then he goes for her eye. Her beautiful eye. His fingers dig into her socket and tear it out. She howls and drops to her knees. Meridian moves in for the kill and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Soledad is going to die. He grabs her by the collar and pulls the monomolecular knife with his free hand. Even if she's an immortal, she can't live without her head, and the General knows that. He flips the blade open one-handed.

Now I will never learn who she was or what this was about.

Soledad glares up at Meridian with a mixture of rage and defiance in her remaining eye. The jelly from her torn eye squishes between Meridian's fingers as he raises the knife to take her head.

“Fuck you, Perez,” she says with blood flowing down her face and bubbling from her once attractive lips.

As last words go, not especially original, but far from the worst I've heard. She spits blood in Meridian's face, defiant to the last. Fuck, I liked her.

A short, controlled swarm of bullets explodes from Meridian's chest, tearing control of my body from him along with my internal organs. The aim is perfect, and the projectiles cut through my spinal cord right between the shoulder blades. I lose all motor functions in my lower body and I drop to the floor next to Soledad. Ice creeps into my veins as the blood leaks from the fist-sized exit wound in my chest. As I expire on the dusty concrete floor of this sorry warehouse, there's another voice in the shadows.

“Goodbye, Perez.”

“Major internal damage. Vital signs in the red. You're dying, Perez.”

“Don't worry about that.”

“Whatever.”

The newcomer steps into the light.

At first, I only see a halo of platinum-blonde hair. Then she leans in and her face comes into focus.

Except for the hair, she is the spitting image of Soledad.

“Die fast. We have a job for you.”

Something Big

If this is death, I'm sorely disappointed in the universe.

I've been here before, many times, in this darkness, and if this is all we get when we die, I'm not impressed. I hope ordinary humans get something more when they go because this is just sad. To make matters even worse, I'm not even getting the full run of my life passing in front of my eyes this time. It's only the last twenty-something minutes. Not my greatest hits.

What a shame.

There was a moment or two from my childhood I would have liked to revisit.

* * *

There's a flicker of light, like a school of fish reflected in a submarine's headlights, and I return to life. No sudden intake of breath, no tunnel of light. I simply wake up.

“Back online. Vitals stabilising.”

“Stop talking, Aeryn.”

“Whatever.”

“And he's back.”

A woman's voice. “How good of you to rejoin us, Perez.”

She speaks in the low, cultured tones of an aristocrat from Earth. Fuck.

There's still a hint of gunpowder on the air, so I can't have been out for too long.

I open my eyes, getting ready to close them again if the glare is too sharp. But the lights are turned down like someone knows how the eyes hurt when you come back. And then I remember. They're clones. Immortals.

Like me.

They must have been in that darkness themselves.

I blink and squint through the gloom. I'm still on the warehouse floor. There's still dried blood around me, but they left me in it so the nanites could reabsorb my precious fluids.

How kind of them.

It's also a message. They could have killed me when I was dead, but they didn't.

My cheek has stuck to the dusty concrete. Shit. Couldn't they at least have cleaned me up while I was out?

There's a powerful-looking black executive-style car standing close by with the engine humming. Two women lean against it.

“Please, can I kick his teeth in?” the one called Soledad asks with obvious longing as she fingers her still ruined face. She winces as she finds a sore spot on her full lower lip and spits blood on the concrete in front of my face. There are shards of teeth in there. Her eye is still a gory mess, but it's not bleeding anymore. She catches me staring and pulls out a pair of dark shades and puts them on. Sunglasses at night? Fucking poser. She looks like a feed-star.

I strain to focus on the two women through the headache splitting my skull.

They have the same sleek, powerful build, the same fair skin, they dress the same in those charcoal military combat suits, but they sport different hairdos. If they didn't, I don't think I'd be able to tell them apart.

Where Soledad has her black hair tied back in a ponytail, the other one is platinum-blonde and wears her hair in a stylish asymmetrical bob. Very haute couture.

Where Soledad is unarmed, the other one holds a compact automatic rifle. It looks like an Aitchenkai PDW. Packs a hell of a punch in a compact package. One of my favourites.

So, she was the one who shot me in the back. The bitch.

I finger my leg, feeling for my gun. It's not there.

“No, you can't,” the one who is not Soledad replies to her friend.

Her long platinum fringe bounces as she shakes her head. It's mesmerising.

I blink to get my focus back.

“We need him, Soledad. Kicking his teeth in might disincline him from accepting our generous offer.”

I open my mouth to speak. All that comes out is a dry rasp.

One of the unpleasant things about being dead is that your mouth dries out.

The woman who is not Soledad leans forward to hear me better.

With an effort, I peel my dry tongue from the roof of my mouth and try again.

“Who are you?” I manage. There is still no strength in my body, so I stay sprawled on the concrete.

She seems to hear me this time, and leans back against the car, letting the rifle dangle from one slender hand.

“You've met Soledad. I'm Jagr.”

“Jagr? Is that your first name?”

“No.”

I wait for her to elaborate. She does not.

OK, fresh angle of approach.

“Who do you work for, Jagr?”

“I think you can guess, but that is not important. What is important, is that we need your help.”

“You need my help?” My mouth is finally back in business.

“Yes.”

“Word of advice, Jagr,” I cough. “Beating people up and shooting them in the back is a bad way to call for help.”

I cough again, trying to work some moisture into my dry throat. “Do you always enlist people this way?”

“Nope.”

I stare at her.

“So why the charade with the kidnapping and the goons?” I can now move my hands and feet. I flex my fingers.

“Soledad wanted to see if you were any good.”

“And did I pass the test?” I glance at Soledad.

She sneers. “Barely.”

“Barely? I almost killed you.” I try to work up the energy to get off the floor.

Soledad snorts and Jagr goes on. “We know who you are. We are aware of what you're doing to us. And we know what you did to Arcadia.”

Shit.

She squats beside me. She's got spectacular legs and the dark combat suit does nothing to hide them. Quite the contrary.

“Still, you could have just asked.”

With a groan, I roll over on my back. The pain in my cheek as it unsticks from the concrete makes me wince.

“And what do you need my help for, anyway? You need someone to teach Soledad manners?”

I pump my fingers, trying to get the blood flowing into my hands again. It hurts like liquid fire streaming into my digits. Coming back to life is a painful process.

“Yes, I do, but that's not the primary job I have for you. If she ends up house-trained,” Jagr glances sideways at Soledad, “I consider that a secondary objective achieved, and you get a bonus.”

“Bonus.” I taste the word. “I like the sound of that.”