The Lion and the Unicorn Read online

  Can we really call it monstrous, he asked himself, if it doesn’t have the option of not being monstrous?

  “We’ll do what we can,” he said. It was his duty. Cold logic told him the pilots were expendable, but his heart told him something else. “At the very least, we have to avoid losing pilots for nothing.”

  “Yes, sir,” Donker said. “Speaking of which, Major Craig wanted to borrow the pilots.”

  Thomas blinked. “What for?”

  “The marines need hostages to rescue,” Donker said. “And a bunch of other missions they need to practice, like escorting the pilots through hostile territory. It will be a nice change for them.”

  “I’m sure the pilots will appreciate a change,” Thomas agreed. He’d enjoyed exercising with the marines, although that had been back during the last interstellar war. Things had probably changed a bit since he’d been a junior midshipman. “Clear it with Colonel Bagehot before proceeding, though. He’s got his own problems.”

  “Yes, sir,” Donker said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Who was it,” Private Davies asked, “who said he had that déjà vu feeling all over again?”

  “You, just now,” Private Henry Willis said, as he followed his friend down the poorly lit corridor. “A truly original expression, eminently quotable.”

  Colin scowled at their backs as he brought up the rear, sweat drenching his uniform. The mask and suit hadn’t grown any more bearable in the last week of endless drills. He was tempted to accidentally lose it somewhere, despite the risk of breathing in something that would turn him into a zombie. He wanted to believe the vaccinations and booster shots they’d been given would be enough to protect him, particularly if he wore a mask. He wanted to believe …

  “Get the hatch,” he ordered, curtly. He unhooked a grenade from his belt, holding it at the ready. “Now.”

  “Aye, boss,” Davies said, all business now. He knelt beside the hatch and started to work, bypassing the automated system to open the airlock manually. “Ready … now.”

  The hatch hissed open. Colin peered into the next compartment, silently relieved there was no place to hide. Anyone within the section would be in plain view … he inched forward, sweeping his rifle from side to side. The corridor felt cramped, even though it was wide enough for the marines to walk three abreast. The air felt uncomfortably hot as he hurried forward, reaching the second airlock before it could be opened from the other side. He had the feeling he was being watched.

  We are being watched, he reminded himself, dryly. Their superiors would be watching through the sensors, no doubt coming up with a list of problems they’d have to fix during the after-action discussion. But are we being watched by the enemy?

  Davies tapped the hatch. “The air should be clean, on the other side,” he said. “Keep your mask on, though.”

  “Got it.” Colin might joke about losing his mask, but he understood how important it was to wear. “Open the hatch.”

  He glanced at the other three, then tensed as the hatch inched open. The mission was supposed to be simple, but he had a feeling the exercise planners had thrown a few wrinkles into the mix. Escorting gunboat pilots from one compartment to another was the sort of mission that looked good on paper, yet tended to come with a sting in the tail. The OPFOR would be on the prowl, waiting for a chance to jump the marines and embarrass them in front of their commanding officers. And the pilots themselves were probably under orders to make life difficult for the marines too. Colin wondered, as the hatch revealed another empty compartment, if they could get away with pointing guns at the pilots. It wasn’t as though they were real.

  But the CO will blow a fuse anyway, he thought, dryly. We’re meant to treat exercises as reality.

  The thought made him smile as they inched forward, heading towards the next hatch. The pilots were supposed to be on the other side, trapped and helpless. Colin gritted his teeth, silently impressed by how well the SAS coped with escort and hostage rescue missions. He’d taken part in a handful of hostage rescue exercises, with all the advantages offered to his side, and they’d still lost a bunch of hostages. The SAS officer who’d coordinated the operation had detailed their mistakes in great detail, then admitted that something was always left to chance. The terrorists might manage to kill their hostages before the poor buggers could be rescued.

  And here, it might be a great deal worse, he told himself. The pilots might already have been infected.

  He gritted his teeth as they reached the hatch. The briefing hadn’t been clear on just what the pilots had been doing, before they’d been trapped. Colin wasn’t sure if that was deliberate. The CO had spoken endlessly of the fog of war, leaving Colin and his men unsure if they were saving friends and allies or clutching vipers to their bosoms. The pilots would have to be tested, as soon as they reached the safe zone. The hell of it was that the safe zones might be moved at any moment. Colin remembered earlier exercises and cursed himself for wanting something more complex. Complexity was bad. He should have remembered that before it had been too late.

  The hatch felt cool to his touch. He rapped on it twice, as agreed. The hatch shuddered, then opened slowly. A handful of people sat inside the chamber, looking remarkably unworried even though they were in the middle of an exercise. Colin suspected they thought they would never be in any real trouble, whatever happened. They were pilots, not marines. Colin would be the one in deep shit if something went wrong.

  He allowed his gaze to sweep the room. Seven people; four men, three women. They were all around the same age as himself, if he was any judge, although there was something faintly odd about their appearance. He tensed, gripping his rifle instinctively before realising it had nothing to do with the virus. The gunboat pilots looked like people who’d only just started intensive exercise, like people who’d been chubby and unhealthy before the navy got its hands on them. Colin felt a flicker of sympathy, mingled with contempt. Staying healthy wasn’t hard. They could have dealt with most of their body issues in PE.

  “On your feet,” he snapped. He saw flashes of resentment in their eyes as they hurried to obey. “Do as you’re told and we might just get out of this alive.”

  He checked his HUD as the pilots lined up by the door. The safe route was still safe, but … he shook his head. He doubted he could take that for granted. The enemy might be sneaking through the tubes or settling up an ambush or even plotting an assault on the safe zone itself. It wasn’t technically on the list of things that would be considered cheating. And if he’d spotted the loophole, he was sure a more experienced officer would spot it too.

  “Let us take point,” he added. The gunboat pilots were practically civilians. They’d blunder around like … like civilians. He couldn’t trust them with weapons. “Keep your heads down and your masks on. Don’t even think about taking them off.”

  He gritted his teeth as he checked the rest of the room, then turned back to the hatch. The pilots should be fine, as long as they kept their masks on. Their shipsuits should provide enough protection to survive a minor hull breach, if they were lucky. Besides, it wasn’t as if they had anything else. There were no EVA suits in the chamber. Even if there were, Colin would have been reluctant to use them. A lone zombie inside a suit might manage to slip through the defence lines and do a lot of damage.

  “Follow me,” he ordered. “And keep your fucking heads down.”

  ***

  Tobias could barely look at the marines - armoured and masked figures that seemed like creatures out of nightmares - as they chivvied him and the other volunteers towards the airlock. He’d been told he was going to volunteer … he cursed under his breath as he forced himself to move. The marines were blunt, crude, rude … he thought he heard a hint of Liverpool in the leader’s voice, but it was hard to be sure. The mask muffled everything. It was hard to believe the figures were even human.

  They are human, he told himself. The light flickered and flared, brightening and darkening seemingly at ra
ndom. That makes it worse.

  He managed to keep moving, shuffling out of the hatch. The air was hot, swelteringly hot. It was difficult to accept that he knew the corridors, that they were as familiar to him as the palm of his hand. The ever-changing lights, the faint flickers in the gravity field, the clouds of mist hanging in the air … the scene had an air of unreality that tore at his mind. He kept walking, silently relieved that Marigold had managed to escape being volunteered. It was like being forced to play team sports, only worse. His lips quirked. Here, at least, no one would give him a hard time for playing badly.

  His legs wobbled. The briefing officer had told them to dawdle as much as possible, to do everything short of actual violence to slow the march down, but he didn’t dare. The marines were supposed to have orders not to hurt the pilots … Tobias didn’t believe it. They’d do whatever it took to keep the pilots alive, even if it included pushing them along or knocking them out and carrying them. The deck seemed to shift under his feet as they stepped through a second airlock. It was a drill - he knew it was - and yet part of him refused to believe that. It felt very real.

  And what were you expecting? He remembered fire drills at school and snorted. Rows of bored children heading for the exits? Teachers trying desperately to maintain order as their students enjoy the chance to escape classes? The headmaster waving his cane in the air as he bawls for order?

  He didn’t smile as the gravity shifted again. His world had shrunk. He was aware of the pilot in front of him, and the pilot behind him, and the marines … but very little else. He kept his eyes on Jeanette’s back, trying not to distract himself by looking around. Cold air blew over him, chilling him to the bone. The lights flickered and died. He heard someone cry out behind him as he stumbled to a halt, the pilot behind him crashing into his back a second later. It was easy to panic …

  “Remain calm,” the marine ordered, sharply. A slap echoed through the dark air. “We’ll guide you. Keep inching forward.”

  Tobias forced himself to keep moving, somehow. The marines could see in the dark, either through night-vision gear or genetically-enhanced eyeballs, but for him … it was nothing but utter darkness. A chill ran down his spine. There’d been wankers in school who’d turned out the lights, forcing him to grope his way to the exit … the memory taunted him; mocking him, shaming him. He’d been a useless wimp. All the old doubts and fears rose to the surface. He’d been useless; a poor son, a poor student, a waste of time and space and …

  Keep moving, he told himself. Don’t stop for anything …

  The deck lurched. The gravity field suddenly grew stronger. Tobias lost his balance and fell, hitting the deck hard enough to hurt. Someone - it sounded like one of the women - yelped in pain. He tried to move, but the gravity kept tugging at him. Panic yammered at the back of his mind, trying to slow him down. It was all he could do to keep crawling until the gravity field snapped back to normal.

  “Get up,” the marine ordered. “Hurry!”

  Easy for you to say, Tobias thought. It was the sort of thing he’d never dare tell anyone. Witty remarks delivered to arseholes who couldn’t count past ten without taking off their socks always ended poorly, at least for him. He didn’t have a friendly scriptwriter putting one-liners in his mouth. You can see in the dark.

  The light flared. Tobias stumbled, nearly falling again. They were in the corridor … he blinked, looking down as the lights grew brighter before dimming again. He’d lost track of where he was, as if he no longer knew anything … the marines shoved him forward as they opened the next airlock. He wanted to push back, or to lie down and play dead, but he couldn’t. It was impossible. Instead, he just kept moving …

  And then the shooting started.

  ***

  Colin swore as he saw muzzle flashes from further down the corridor. “Hit the deck,” he shouted. Laser pulses - invisible laser pulses - would be already coming at them. “Get down!”

  He shoved the nearest pilot down, heedless of her cry of pain. The enemy had a good position, he noted sourly. They’d taken advantage of the dim light and mist to set up a barricade, studded with murder holes. He unhooked a grenade and hurled it down the corridor, more in hope than anything else. The enemy position was too good. A real HE grenade would probably make some room, but the dummies weren’t good enough. The umpires would rule against him.

  “Move the pilots back,” he shouted. They couldn’t go through the trap. They’d have to go around it. “We’ll go down the next corridor.”

  He hurled another grenade as the rearguard started inching backwards. They were too far from the safe zone - and any hope of reinforcements - for his peace of mind, although he called the contact in anyway. The enemy were remaining behind their barricade … Colin half-wished they’d come out and fight. They could be cut down in short order if they exposed themselves. He snapped orders to Davies and Willis, ordering them to keep the enemy pinned down. It wasn’t much, but it was all they had.

  “We need a fucking antitank missile, boss,” Davies shouted. “That barricade is too bloody strong!”

  “Keep them pinned,” Colin said. He considered using their remaining grenades, but there was no guarantee they’d work. “Get to the rear when the pilots are gone.”

  He glared at the pilots, who were hugging the decks like men who’d just survived their very first parachute drops. They looked terrified, even though the bullets weren’t real. The bangs and flashes were nothing more than firecrackers … hell, firecrackers would be a lot more dangerous. But they were panicking … Colin wondered, suddenly who’d had the bright idea of sending the pilots into the fray. They weren’t marines, or territorial soldiers, or even reservists seeing out their time in the Home Guard. They were … he shook his head. There’d be time to worry about it later.

  “Move,” he shouted. It was hard to make himself heard, over the racket. “Move!”

  ***

  Tobias clung to the deck, unwilling to risk so much as raising his head.

  He’d heard all the stories about combat, from teachers who’d actually served to army officers on recruitment drives. They’d talked about the military life, about testing one’s self against the enemy, about the sheer joy that came with emerging victorious from yet another battle against the enemies of civilisation. They hadn’t talked about the noise, or the fear, or … his thoughts ran in circles. He could barely think. He wanted to lie on the deck until it was all over.

  “Move,” someone shouted. “Damn it, move!”

  A hand slapped his back. Tobias forced himself to obey the order, somehow. The noise was getting louder, as impossible as it seemed. The racket was deafening. He could feel his ears starting to ache as he kept moving, flashes of light following them down the corridor. Were they still on the ship? He couldn’t believe it. They’d been teleported somewhere else, perhaps into hell itself. Perhaps they were dead. It felt … very much like hell.

  “Move!” The marine was screaming as they turned into another corridor. “Move, you …”

  The world seemed to explode. Tobias felt something pass over his head, so close he thought it passed through his hair. Panic overwhelmed him, just as silence fell so sharply he was half-convinced he’d gone deaf. He raised his head as far as he dared - not very far at all, really - and peered around. Everyone - pilots, marines - were lying on the deck. Were they dead?

  “Well,” a calm voice said. “That could have gone better.”

  Tobias managed to sit up. His uniform was drenched in sweat. He felt himself shaking … he hoped he hadn’t pissed himself. No one would ever let him forget it, just as they’d made fun of Brian for puking up meals his mother had eaten during the nastier parts of endurance training. They’d called him the Vomit King. In hindsight, that had been more than a little unfair. They’d all thrown up, their first time.

  “Yes, sir,” the lead marine said. “We got ambushed.”

  Tobias barely listened as he stumbled to his feet, then helped Jeanette to hers. She
looked badly shaken, eyes wide with fear. He wanted to go to whoever had had the bright idea of volunteering the pilots for the exercise and shake him, to demand to know what the fuck he’d been thinking. They were gunboat pilots, half-trained gunboat pilots. They’d be screwed beyond all hope of recovery if they were given rifles and told to go on the front lines.

  “Go back to your bunks,” the newcomer ordered. He spoke with the calm assurance Tobias had come to hate in his teenage years. “You’ll be debriefed later.”

  Tobias nodded, not trusting himself to speak as the rest of the pilots stood. They looked as though they’d gone through hell. The marines looked more irritated than anything else. They’d all been killed … not in reality, but their superiors would give them a stern lecture anyway. Tobias had had the same treatment, once he’d mastered the gunboat. They had to treat the exercise as real.

  He watched as one of the marines removed his helmet. Tobias felt his stomach clench. The marine looked thoroughly unpleasant, just the type who’d made his life miserable when he’d been a child. The wanker didn’t even seem to notice him. The leader, the one with the accent, started to remove his helmet. Tobias walked away, then stopped - dead - as he heard a very familiar voice behind him, no longer muffled by the mask.

  “We let ourselves be pinned down, sir,” the voice said.

  Tobias froze. Colin?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tobias barely heard anything during the debriefing - more of a formality than anything else - and the meal that followed it. The voice … it couldn’t be Colin. It really couldn’t be Colin. Fear – pure, animalistic fear - ran through him as he finished his dinner, then hurried to the gunboat. It was all he could do to keep his hands from shaking. Colin had followed him. Impossibly, absurdly, he’d followed him. It was …