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

The second shuttle came down to land but stayed on the ground, leaving the first Pegasus to provide aerial cover. Again, Bastards sprinted down the already-lowered ramp. Everyone knew their job. Their orders were simple. Steal absolutely everything except the missile launchers – they were going to leave those as a booby trap.

Seven large Maoris in battle dress inertial armour, carrying snubby personal defence weapons, came sprinting towards her from the second assault shuttle. They were members of the Whānau, or family. The Whānau had originally come from disparate mine gangs working the subterranean rock of Lalande 2. They had banded together for self-protection during the war with Them. Since the war they had become one of the biggest organised crime syndicates within the Lalande system, with a ferocious reputation for violence, born of their warrior heritage – so they claimed. Many of their ancestors had piloted mechs during the war. Even today a lot of them had worked in civilian mech piloting jobs like cargo handling, construction and mining. A few had even seen military service as mech pilots, and all of them, apparently, played on virtual mech simulations. Not surprisingly, when the opportunity to put together a mech platoon had arisen, the Whānau had all volunteered. The nine best had been picked for the armoured platoon commanded by Mass. The Mafia button man, or hitman, had become obsessed with heavy armour ever since he’d worn a Wraith combat exoskeleton during the battle for Faigroe Station.

Miska startled the Maoris by flicking the ghillie suit over her head, practically appearing in mid-air. Suddenly seven snubby Martian Military Industries PDWs were pointing at her.

‘Easy, boys. Where’re the rest of you?’ She was directing her question to the six-foot-four, powerfully built leader of the Whānau on the Hangman’s Daughter. His details scrolled down her IVD. Kohere, Hemi, thirty-five years for distribution of narcotics but with a long history of violence, and suspected of being behind at least five murders. He had long, black, braided hair. The spiral and fern-like designs of chiselled out and dyed tā moko markings made his face look as though it had been carved out of hard wood. The two lower canine tusk implants protruding from his bottom lip made his face look brutal, like a monster from a fantasy viz. Miska had asked Mass about the tusks. He had told her that it was in tribute to his favourite viz, and that the fantasy in question had somehow been of import to the Maori people back on Earth at the time of its making.

Hemi stopped running, leaving the rest of his crew to sprint towards the mechs.

‘There’s a scout mech in each of the drop shuttles, they’ve gone to grab them,’ he told her, his voice a deep, impassive growl. ‘You want them with us, boss-lady?’

It made sense, most mech platoons went out with one or two Satyr scout mechs for recon and forward observation.

‘Yeah, as soon as they’re powered up I want you running them full-tilt, tell Mass,’ Miska said. Hemi just nodded and resumed sprinting towards the mechs.

‘Hey, boss,’ Hemi shouted. Miska glanced behind her. He was jogging backwards. ‘Did you want that lenshead with us?’

It took Miska a moment to work out what Hemi was talking about.

‘Oh shit!’ she groaned and changed direction making for the second shuttle, Pegasus 2.

Miska was pretty sure that Raff had been a journalist before he had been recruited and trained by the CIA. The Epsilon Eridani conflict had given him a chance to brush up on old skills. It also worked as an excuse to keep an unusually close eye on Operation Lee Marvin, the deniable black operation that had seen Miska steal the Hangman’s Daughter and form the penal mercenary Bastard Legion. Pretend to be a journalist, however, and get treated like one. Of African-American descent, Raff had the kind of open, handsome face that made people want to tell him things. He had what Miska thought of as a gym body. He was in good shape but it was all show, she doubted there was any real endurance there. He was also bound and gagged and lying on the dirty floor of the Pegasus assault shuttle. Judging by the boot marks on his designer outdoor clothing, some of her Bastards had been using him as footrest. Miska would have laughed except for the attractive Hispanic still sat on one of the benches glowering at her. Torricone pointed at Raff and opened his mouth to say something. Fortunately Raff had his back to the other man.

‘Shut the fuck up, hippy!’ Miska snapped. Torricone looked as though he’d been slapped. Miska gestured for the ex-car thief, and her self-appointed conscience, to get out of the assault shuttle.

She walked him away from Pegasus 2.

‘That—’ Torricone started. Miska held up her hand. She knew Raff’s ears would have been augmented to filter and amplify sound. Being able to listen in on people’s conversations from afar was as good for a journalist as it was for a spy. His artificial eyes were almost certainly lenses as well. That’s how war correspondents had got the name lensheads.

‘Comms,’ Miska subvocalised, opening up a private, secure comms link to Torricone as she turned to face him. His shaved head had a crown of thorns tattooed around it. He had an inked tear on his cheek, in memoriam for the gang member he’d killed in self-defence. It had been that killing that had resulted in him being sent to the ultra-max prison barge. She knew he had other tattoos, mostly religious iconography. His battle dress inertial armour covered a body that Miska knew was all hard, tight street muscle, little fat, and no pumped steroid muscles. Not that you ever look at him naked in his pod, right? There was anger in his brown eyes. There always seemed to be these days.

‘Who is that guy?’ Torricone demanded over the comms link. Respecting