Memento Youri - Regaining control of the Crew + Oops! Bonus Body Horror

[deuceoftears]

Eventually a different officer emerged. First you saw the man’s blotchy, balding head, then a blocky pair of shoulders almost too wide for the maintenance shaft. Aha: the wolf’s-head emblem again, heavily foreshortened. Another Rahal. “I know you’re in there, sir,” the officer said without craning his head to look at you.

“Splendid,” you said. “Take me to the command center.”

“You’re under—”

“—arrest. I know. That’s too bad, because you’re going to take me to the command center.”

The Rahal still didn’t change the angle of his head. “How are you going to contrive that, sir?”

“I would prefer not to fight you,” you said, doing your best to project I am a badass. Instant soldier, just add water. Ruo, you would be laughing so hard at what I’m trying to pull here. “You have a job to do and I might need you later.”

“The hexarch gave his orders.”

“The hexarch,” you said, “is on another moth far away. I’m right here.”

“Sir,” the Rahal said, “please return quietly with me or we’ll both suffer the consequences.”

“Tell me,” you said, “how’s the battle going?”

“Inesser was completely unprepared for the shear cannon,” the Rahal said. “Your assistance is not required.”

Fuck. “You need me to stop the fighting,” you said. “Or do you really want all the Kel shooting each other? That can’t be good for morale.”

The Rahal was scowling. “You’re the Immolation Fox. Why do you—argh!”

You had launched yourself from the wall and delivered a chop to the side of the Rahal’s neck in passing. You grabbed the Rahal by the arm and pulled him into an embrace, not out of amorous intent but to keep the man from smashing into the wall. You checked his pulse: alive, thank goodness.

A quick search revealed that the Rahal had brought spider restraints with him. You trussed him to the handholds. “Sorry about that,” you said on your way out of the chamber with its chatter of status displays. “I’ll send someone for you later.”

When you emerged from the next maintenance shaft, a squad of six Kel awaited you. Their guns were trained on you. Slowly, you raised your hands and smiled at them. One woman’s trigger finger shifted, withdrew. What the hell did I use to do while smiling at people? you wondered.

“Commander Kel Talaw will see you,” said the highest-ranked one, a sergeant whose expression said she wished she were enjoying a nice quiet nap in barracks instead.

“Why,” you said, “were you afraid I was going to break down the doors if you didn’t take me in?”

“The commander is being very indulgent.”

“I’m sure.” You surveyed the squad. “Commander Talaw is the one I want to talk to anyway. I’ll permit it.”

“It’s not your decision.”

You lifted an eyebrow at her. “Of course it isn’t. Well, I’d hate to keep the commander waiting.”

The sergeant made an irritable gesture. One of the soldiers holstered his gun and brought out spider restraints.

What is it with people and those things? you thought. Did real spiders spin the restraints, or were they human-manufactured? Perhaps somewhere in the bowels of the Revenant lived a colony of spiders, diligently weaving spider restraints for wayward generals.

The horrible pain scraped through your head. It helped that you were prepared for it this time. Commander Talaw must have fired the shear cannon again. You listened for the Revenant. Nothing.

“I’ll come along,” you said. “I’d rather not have those things on me, though.”

“Sir, I must insist,” the sergeant said.

The soldier with the restraints signaled frantically with his eyebrows that he didn’t want to get into a wrestling match over this. The sergeant signaled back with a combination of eyebrows and hand motions. Under other circumstances, you would have enjoyed watching the exchange, but you did need to recover your command.

You didn’t want to initiate hostilities. But the situation was only growing worse. You consulted the othersense. The faraway swarms that you recognized as Inesser’s were in bad shape. In particular, the largest one, Inesser’s cindermoth, had stoppedfiring down the incoming flock of missiles, which meant their point defenses had gone down. You had to intervene before this turned into a senseless massacre.

“Fuck this,” you said, losing patience. You were guessing that these Kel didn’t have much experience taking generals into custody or they’d have trussed you up already. You snatched the restraints out of the soldier’s hands and snared another’s hands in them. “You’re wasting everyone’s time.”

The sergeant’s entire face pulled downward. “I warned you, sir.” She gestured sharply.

Four bullets slammed into you. One took you in the side of the head, another in the neck. The third hit you in center of mass, blowing out most of your chest. The last whined over your shoulder, missing you by a meter. In the scatter-shock moment before the pain registered, you thought, Someone needs more time at the firing range.

You fell ungracefully on your side. Your elbow and left hip were going to sport spectacular bruises. Funny how the mind fixed on ridiculous details. Your augment had jolted back on and was offering diagnostics that you were too stupid with shock to interpret.

One of the soldiers was waving her gun around in an entirely unsafe manner, terrible muzzle control, and shouting at the sergeant: “Fucking hell, sir, what are we supposed to do now?”

“He’s the fucking Immolation Fox, he wasn’t supposed to go down that easy!” the sergeant yelled back.

You clambered back to your feet. Your vision had blurred, and patches of darkness encroached on every side. But the proprioception had, if anything, strengthened. “Excuse me,” you said, forcing the words past your teeth. Your mouth was filled with blood, and controlling individual muscles took all your concentration. “I’m still here. Could we get on with this?”

The sergeant blanched. “How—how—”

You would have liked an answer to that question yourself, since by all rights you should be dead or well on the way to it. But the emergency hadn’t gone away. You lurched toward the soldier to the sergeant’s side and plucked the gun out of his grasp. “Thank you,” you mumbled. For some reason that basic courtesy caused the unlucky soldier to piss himself. He started babbling in a language you didn’t recognize. “That’ll be handy.”

You could see the application of unkillable soldiers. It was proving useful right now. At the same time, you didn’t enjoy feeling like a freak, and judging from the Kel squad’s reactions, they hadn’t had any idea about this either. You bet Kujen would have answers, if you ever got the chance to ask the questions.

You shifted the gun just slightly, pointing it several inches to the right of the sergeant’s head. She backed away from you, sweat trickling down her face. You couldn’t see why she was so worried. If you genuinely wanted to threaten her, you'd already have shot her. Admittedly, she might be worried about ricochets if you started randomly pulling the trigger.

(So you also knew how to use a handgun. Useful, if disconcerting. You hoped you didn’t have to reload the damn thing in a hurry.)

“I believe you said the commander’s waiting?” you said.

This time the sergeant didn’t argue.

Despite your difficulty walking, you kept your gun pointed to the right of the sergeant’s head, and away from anybody else. Although you were outnumbered, the Kel squad didn’t know what to do with someone who wouldn’t go down when shot. You couldn’t blame them. They hadn’t kept trying, also interesting. Pragmatism, shock, or worry that they’d kill you inadvertently?

The sergeant preceded you into the command center. Talaw, sitting in their accustomed seat, began to snap a reprimand, then stared at you. “General Jedao,” Talaw said in a brittle voice.

“Sorry to interrupt,” you said. Speaking took all your concentration when you were having difficulty keeping your head from lolling to the side. Keeping track of all your body parts was proving troublesome. “Status of the battle, Commander?”

Talaw’s gaze dropped to a display at their side, then back up to your face. They smiled mirthlessly. “The hexarch—”

“The hexarch isn’t here.” You were impressed that no one had opened fire on you, but either they were too horrified to attempt anything or the blood leaking down the side of your neck and from the hole in your chest was as distracting to them as it was to you.

Talaw glared at you. “I don’t see that I owe any information to an inhuman walking corpse.”

You couldn’t disregard the challenge to your authority. On the other hand, threatening your crew was unsustainable, especially if you wanted them to continue being your crew. With a slowness that wasn’t all theater, you shoved the gun into your belt. You hoped it wouldn’t randomly discharge into your thigh. Your luck held, if you could call it that.

“I would prefer to have your cooperation, Commander.” You decided you might as well use your smile as a weapon, since everyone reacted to it like one. You focused on the othersense, on interpreting what it told you. “The Three Kestrels Three Suns lost its point defenses a few seconds before your squad tried to apprehend me,” you said. “The swarm is in disarray. You’re about to destroy it.”

Talaw looked shaken in spite of themselves. “A good guess. And irrelevant, in any case. You can’t save it from its fate.”

You were sure your grin was ghastly. “Can’t I?” You swung slowly around, meeting each Kel’s gaze in turn. “Countermand,” you said. “I have no intention of destroying the protector-general.” Demanding Inesser’s surrender would result in another intervention from Kujen. You'd have to salvage the situation otherwise. “Retreat to Second Tactical’s current position.”

You might be an inhuman walking corpse, but you were the inhuman walking corpse offering them a way to save the general they’d rather be serving.

Talaw ground out, “The hexarch has ordered otherwise.” But they were tempted. You could see it in Talaw’s rigid jaw.

You peeled off first one glove, then the other, and flung them at Talaw’s feet. The command center plummeted silent, except for the sound of dripping blood. “I’ll take that up with the hexarch myself when I see him next. I am your general.” You didn’t like leaning on formation instinct, but you were out of options. “Turn the swarm around.”

Everyone’s eyes were drawn not to the gloves, but to the gun in your belt. Talaw was breathing shallowly, and too fast.

I don’t have time for this, you thought. You couldn’t countenance the slaughter of Inesser and her troops, not when they’d already been defeated. But neither did you want to risk the lives of your own soldiers. Inesser might be able to regroup for a counterattack, even now. You needed to resolve this quickly.

You staggered toward Talaw’s seat. Blood continued to drip. You glanced down and saw that it was a sluggish black, not red. Shit. That couldn’t mean anything good.

You laid your hands on Talaw’s shoulders and leaned over them. “Do it,” you said in your friendliest voice.

Talaw flinched from your bare hands. For a second, you thought that Talaw would surge up from the seat and fling you to the ground. You wouldn’t be able to fight back, except perhaps by bleeding on Talaw. And you were pretty sure that Kel commanders didn’t succumb to squeamishness that easily.

Tension gathered in Talaw’s shoulders; dissipated. You were momentarily relieved that you weren’t going to be punched in the face for your temerity. Among other things, you were already worried that your head would fall off.

“Communications, address to all units,” Talaw said. They were staring straight into your eyes, and you knew then that you'd lost any hope of their friendship forever. “This is Commander Talaw. All units retreat to—”

Thank fox and hound it worked, you thought, and were completely unprepared for the darkness that rose up to swallow you. The last thing you saw was the black-stained floor rushing up to greet you.