War Criminals by Gavin Smith (ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📕

‘Why is that man naked?’ he asked.

‘Fuck this,’ Miska said reaching the end of her patience. ‘Guys,’ she said out loud but opening a direct comms link to Grig and Bean. She didn’t want to use their names or call signs in front of Resnick. ‘Leave the prisoners, make your way to the rendezvous.’

‘Aye,’ Bean answer.

‘Understood,’ Grig replied.

‘Good luck finding your prisoners,’ she told Resnick.

He nodded at two of his people. One of them, a blonde woman, caught Miska’s eye. She looked familiar but she couldn’t quite place her. If she did know the blonde woman then it had to have been from her time in the marines, or the CIA’s Special Activities Division.

‘You people fucking disgust me, you’re a disgrace—’ he started but Miska just turned and walked away, making her way towards the prison shuttle. Gunhir and the Ultra followed, as did Nyukuti, though he kept an eye on the Triple S operators. Kaczmar remained, staring at Resnick. Miska stopped by the ruined airlock and turned to look at the huge serial killer. She could only see one side of Kaczmar’s face but it looked as though he was studying Resnick. He leaned forward.

‘I’m hungry!’ he shouted at Resnick. The commander of Triple S (elite) in the Epsilon Eridani system took an involuntary step back. Miska couldn’t help but laugh. Kaczmar turned his back on Resnick and the Triple S squad and lumbered after Miska and the others.

‘Tell Kaczmar he can go into Waterloo Station restaurant of his choice, and eat as much as he likes,’ Miska told the Ultra as they made their way into the prison shuttle.

‘A dangerous proposition,’ the Ultra mused, ‘but I shall pass that on.’ Then, a few moments later as they were walking down the corridor past the melted and burned remains of the Honey Badger: ‘I’m out of this conflict, aren’t I?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Miska told him. He nodded but Miska was sure she detected sadness in his expression.

Between them they managed to dump the destroyed Honey Badger in the departure lounge area. The aerostat’s emergency systems sealed the ruined airlock as soon as it detected the prison shuttle disengaging. Grig and Bean had left through a different airlock. They rendezvoused with the shuttle in the upper atmosphere. All of them were sat in the prisoner transport area. Bean and Grig were still in their combat exoskeletons.

‘That man does not like you,’ Gunhir pointed out, meaning Resnick.

‘I know, and I’m such a likeable person!’ Miska said. ‘Though you’d be surprised how often that happens.’

‘Maybe it’s the whole slavery thing?’ Grig suggested.

‘Oh, you love it really,’ Miska said but Gunhir was right. Resnick’s dislike of her seemed disproportionate and very personal. She ran through some of the gun-and helm-cam footage, taking the best images of each of the operators, putting it into a text message, encrypting it and then sending it to one of Raff’s dead letter drops. She wanted to know who they were, particularly the woman.

The journey was going to be a bit of a trek. Waterloo Station was about as far away from their position as it was possible for the station to be, despite orbiting a satellite of the planet whose atmosphere they were just leaving.

A blinking icon asking if she wanted to accept an incoming comms link appeared in her vision. She accepted it and a grainy image of Corenbloom and the Doc appeared in a window of her IVD. She guessed that Corenbloom had wedged his helmet in a tree to film them both. In the background FOB Trafalgar looked even more like an anthill than ever with UN and New Sun investigators crawling all over it. It was night down on Ephesus. The investigators had set up huge lights to illuminate the scene of the crime. On a flat piece of open ground she could see where all the body bags had been laid out. As she watched, an investigator in a brightly coloured hostile environment suit came out of one of the tunnel system exits.

‘Guys, what’ve you got? Did we do it?’ Miska joked. There was a bit of a lag.

‘It wasn’t us,’ Corenbloom said, smiling. ‘It’s weird stuff. Whatever did this came on them suddenly. Natural weapons of some kind, traces of a super dense wood in the wounds. Whatever they used was hard enough to go through combat exoskeleton armour, and whoever was wielding it was strong enough to push it through.’ The disgraced FBI agent did not look happy.

Miska frowned. ‘Are you saying the trees did this?’ she asked.

‘You know some of the so-called mangroves are ambulatory?’ the Doc asked. ‘Actually, they are less like mangroves and much more like the kahikatea trees native to New Zealand back on Earth.’

‘That’s great, Doc,’ Miska said. She had heard of the walking mangroves in the swampy land north of where they had found FOB Trafalgar. ‘But there’s a big difference between trees that move slowly to catch the light and a tree that kills a mercenary company made up of experienced pipe-hitters, know what I mean?’

‘Not really,’ Doc said. ‘But the root, branch and trunk structures of the Ephesus-Mangrove heavily resemble mammalian musculature.’

‘So what are you telling me?’ Miska asked. ‘An unknown alien plant species that was missed by the extensive planetary survey?’

Neither of them answered but Miska suspected that the Doc was so excited by the prospect he might even have a facial expression. Corenbloom looked less happy.

‘The UN people are freaking out down here. They’re talking about suspending all hostilities, first contact protocols, even planetary evacuation.’

Miska pursed her lips. That wasn’t good news but all it really meant was that they would have to go looking for another job.

‘How are New Sun behaving?’ Miska asked.

Even with the lag Corenbloom seemed hesitant in answering.

‘Poker-faced,’ he finally said.

I’ll bet, Miska thought.

‘And?’ she pushed.

‘It’s just a hunch but I don’t think they’re all that surprised,’ he told her.

Again Miska found herself wondering why New Sun were there.

‘Colonel Corbin,’ Doc said. ‘Epsilon Eridani