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

much about watching Torricone get marched away by Salik’s security, and the accompanying ache that memory brought. ‘But I’ll be honest, I don’t think you’re quite the observer of human behaviour you think you are.’

The Ultra stood up as Miska approached. She felt strong arms wrap around her as her own slid around his corded neck.

She kissed him because she was angry at Mass. She kissed him because nobody would try and shank the Ultra in the showers. She kissed him because he was pretty. Most importantly she kissed him because she wanted to. Despite the stench of chemicals he somehow tasted of spearmint. It started as a performance but she felt herself responding.

She broke the clinch to the sound of catcalls. There was something comedic about a Cyclops war droid not knowing quite where to look.

She couldn’t help but smile. It was less than subtle but she knew it would take some of the wind out of Mass’s argument. Then she saw the hurt expression on the Ultra’s face.

She had stimmed herself to stay awake long enough to strip down and clean all her kit. Then another, more thorough, shower in fungicide. It made her skin stop itching. It burned instead. Finally she made it to a real shower. Then the exhaustion engulfed her and she started to really feel the pain from her various injuries, the ache from her muscles. Finally she allowed herself to think about Torricone and she slid down the wall to the floor in the shower room.

Miska awoke some sixteen hours later. She had managed to make it as far as her bunk aboard the Little Jimmy before she’d crashed. She was awoken by a blinking comms message in her IVD.

‘What is it, Dad?’ she asked across the comms link. She knew she couldn’t go back to sleep. She had to follow up payment, authorise shore leave, see about getting the battle damage to the mechs fixed and the numerous other things that were involved in running your own private penal legion.

‘Salik wants to see you,’ her dad told her.

‘Okay, tell him I’ll come and see him when I get the chance.’

‘He’s outside.’

The airlock slid open. Miska frowned. Salik was there with one of his security detail and four of his ridiculous liveried servitor droids. Two were carrying ornate chairs, the third a similarly ornate table, and the fourth a picnic hamper.

‘I initially thought canapés and champagne, but decided that a submarine sandwich and fine beer might be more appropriate,’ Salik announced. They were sat in the middle of the otherwise empty hangar deck.

‘You were right,’ Miska said through a mouthful of sandwich, though she did like champagne. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was. Salik was drinking tea and eating more refined sandwiches. They even had the crusts cut off. ‘Would have thought you’d be pleased to see the back of me?’

Salik gave her question some thought.

‘Well you have been … difficult … but I spend most of my working life trying to hide my revulsion of people like Campbell … I’m not sure I like what you do here but I also know that I profit from the misery of conflict so I am in no position to judge you, and you are refreshingly honest and straight forward.’

‘Wow,’ she said, and took a swig of her beer and then another mouthful of the sandwich. ‘Thanks for the testimonial, but so?’

‘I have a proposition for you,’ he told her. ‘Let me represent you as an agent. I can find you work. Find free ports that will accept the Daughter, run interference for you with the colonies, and find employers that otherwise wouldn’t touch you. I can open up whole new markets for you, get you on preferred suppliers’ lists.’

Miska stopped chewing, swallowed and took another swig of the beer. It was really good beer. It was certainly an attractive offer. It would take some of the worry out of wondering where the next job was coming from.

‘Despite the ship, despite the number of inmates, I don’t think we could muster more than two companies. We’ve got a few mechs and a few combat exoskeletons but we’re short on vehicles, air support and shuttles. There are better equipped, and if I’m honest, more professional units out there. Why us?’

‘Because you had considerably less than this when you started, because you play fair, because you scare people, and because I see a great deal of potential. With me as a mentor …’

‘You know I have an overabundance of paternalistic advisers here?’ she asked.

‘A poor choice of words,’ he admitted with a degree of chagrin.

‘Wouldn’t it be a conflict of interest?’

‘You would simply be a preferred supplier for conflicts I’m running, nothing unusual about that.’

‘We get the final say on who we work for? I’m becoming asshole-averse.’

Salik looked a little pained. ‘Ideally I will act as buffer between you and the assholes,’ he told her, ‘but yes, you would have final say.’

‘Jobs we find ourselves?’ she asked, thinking about Raff.

‘I get no cut.’

‘How much for the ones you get us?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes as she took another bite of her sandwich.

‘Twenty-five per cent,’ he told her.

‘Fuck off!’ she said with a mouthful of bread, meat, cheese and peppers. ‘Twenty-five for a series of conversations while we risk getting our asses blown off? Ten per cent.’

‘Twenty.’

‘Fifteen.’

Salik didn’t look entirely happy.

‘Agreed,’ he finally said. ‘I’m not sure how profitable this will be, but if nothing else it’ll be interesting.’

They had talked about the evacuation of Ephesus for a little while. As Councillor Omiata had suspected, quite a few people had chosen to stay, including the councillor herself. Salik suspected that the Maasai colonists were already in contact with Artemis but nobody else was, so there was a panic, particularly from the various mercenary units, to get off-world before the lights were switched off.

After Salik had left, Miska had found herself sat on the deck leaning against the bulkhead close to one of the airlocks. She could