The Noise Within Read online

  In memory of Bill Whates, who, I like to think,

  would have been proud of his son.

  First published 2010 by Solaris an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX1 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  EPUB ISBN: 978-1-84997-172-0

  MOBI ISBN: 978-1-84997-173-7

  Copyright © Ian Whates 2010

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  Designed & typeset by Rebellion Publishing

  eBook production by Oxford-eBooks

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Leyton crouched beneath the wall, waiting for the right moment. Two red dots moved across the inside of his visor, steadily converging: the two guards on their rounds, about to cross almost immediately above him.

  As they drew nearer, he stepped away from the wall and raised his gun, holding it ready.

  "Another two degrees higher," whispered a voice in his ear.

  He hated when it did that, but made the minute adjustment in any case. As the two dots on his visor touched, he squeezed the trigger. The gun featured two grenades built into the unorthodox and slightly bulky base of its barrel. One of these now flipped up, to be catapulted forward, spinning as it flew over the wall and onto the balcony beyond. Brief seconds later, the night's stillness was ripped apart as the shell exploded.

  Something flew past, arcing over his head to land wetly on the lawn; it might have been an arm or some other body part, but Leyton didn't wait to find out. He was already racing up the broad stairway, gun levelled and firing as he reached the veranda, sending a stream of pulsed sonics at the glass doors before him. Bullet-proof and reinforced, the glass had resolutely withstood the force of the blast, but the machine-gun-quick pulses set up a resonance within its structure before delivering a sonic hammer-blow. The doors shattered spectacularly, enabling him to run without pausing through a curtain of glassy splinters and into the building beyond.

  More red dots; three of them, approaching at a run. He sub-vocalised the word 'projectile' and then moved quickly away from the doors to stand against a wall, relying on the eye-foxing qualities of his shimmer suit to do the rest.

  Three more guards came charging from the narrow corridor that emerged beside the stairs. They ran straight past him and then slowed as they approached the gaping expanse of doorway, seeking an enemy.

  "Body armour," whispered the voice.

  Now standing at their backs, he raised the gun and fired, raking a stream of bullets across the trio at knee level. Body armour protected the torso, but not the legs. All three went down, screaming. One of them let off a burst of bullets from his own clutched weapon, an instinctive twitch of the trigger finger as he fell; enough to turn the face of the man beside him to bloody pulp.

  Again, Leyton didn't pause to finish them off but charged on, taking the marble stairs two at a time. Sensors and alarms showed up in his visor as orange beams criss-crossing the stairs. He ignored them. If every alarm in the place wasn't going off already, then these guys had some serious technical issues.

  "Automated weapon placement," the voice whispered, and his visor highlighted the centre of a fast-approaching pillar which marked the top of the stairs.

  "Best counter?"

  "Energy, not projectile."

  "Energy!" he snapped at once, then raised the gun and fired. The centre of the post exploded, a fraction of a second before he reached it. Shards of marble stung his legs, slicing through the shimmer suit and damaging its integrity, though hopefully he wouldn't need it to pass close inspection from here on in.

  He ordered the gun back to 'projectile', knowing how quickly 'energy' depleted its power reserves. Two more red dots went down as he tore along the corridor. A spent ammo clip was jettisoned and replaced, and then he was at The Door.

  The visor reported two occupants, one hiding behind a false reinforced wall in the room's left hand corner, the second pressed against the wall to one side of the door. The latter was armed. No concealed weapons.

  "Armour-piercing."

  The gun carried just three such shells, tips constructed of a polymer tougher than diamond with sharpened edges that would put a razor to shame. He put two of them through the wall and the man hiding against it, then kicked the door open and stepped into the room.

  The readings on his visor confirmed the identity of the surviving occupant. He fired the final armour-piercing round through the false wall and the man behind it, then swapped instantly to projectile and put a dozen bullets through the hole left by the shell. The red dot faded. Mission accomplished: scratch one drugs baron.

  But more red dots were converging on this room from both directions in the corridor beyond.

  His shimmer suit was still sound everywhere but the legs, so he dropped to his belly when peering out into the corridor and fired to his left from the resultant prone position, instantly rolling over and doing the same to the right, before scrambling back into the room. There were a few bursts of answering fire, but all of it far too late. A couple of the red dots winked out on either side and the others stopped their advance, for the moment at least.

  It was going to have to be the window. He raised the gun.

  "Opening the window might be quieter," said a familiar voice.

  Good point. He pressed the wall control and the glass panes instantly slid upwards, smooth and silent - the system clearly not fingerprint-coded, which made sense in a place with multiple occupants. Besides, the focus of security here was to keep people out rather than in. Not that they were doing such a great job of that, either.

  He returned to the door and fired a further burst blind down the corridor for good measure, then holstered the gun and dashed across the room, using the noise of the red dots' inevitable response to mask any slight sound as he eased himself out of the window. No red dots outside, thank God. For a brief moment he hung from the sill by straining fingertips, his arms fully extended, before letting go, to roll as he landed on the veranda. He came to his feet and sprinted the few steps to the wall, which he vaulted, pivoting on one hand while gripping the balustrade's top in order to come down in its shadow. He crouched, hugging the wall as he had before entering the house.

  Only once he was there, at the very edge of the building's dampener field, did Leyton open up the appropriate frequency and fire off the retrieval signal; a microsecond burst on a very tight beam which would make it impossible to pinpoint should anyone be trying to.

  Now all that remained was to wait.

  Voices from above him, presumably from the window - the red dots still one step behind. He edged along the wall, crouching low, just in case his exit had been picked up on any security cameras.

  Where was his damn pick-up?

  Four red dots closing fast, too quickly to be human.

  "War hounds," the voice whispered; "armour plating grafted to head and shoulders."

  He knew the type: all augmented muscles and steel teeth. They could be stopped by a bullet if you were very accurate and very lucky, but there were four of them, and he didn't feel that lucky.

  "Sonics," he sub-vocalised, reasoning that dogs were sensitive to sound and so might be confused, distressed, or even stopped by it. Though, of course, anything he did was likely to leave him exposed to the guards at the window or elsewhere. Where the hell was that pick-up? He felt a mounting sense o
f doom, but was determined to fight until the last.

  A long bass howl filled the night, sounding as if it came from just around the corner of the house. Seconds left before they arrived. He licked his lips, aware that he was breathing harder than at any time during the mission. Would they come down the steps, over the low wall, or both?

  He wanted to step away from the wall and give himself some room, but knew that would leave him exposed. Guards were bound to be hot on the hounds' heels.

  Another howl, much closer this time. The red dots were on the veranda, almost on him.

  Stuff this! He pushed himself away from the wall, standing upright with gun at the ready. Then came the boom and he felt the push of wind as a craft dropped from the sky to hover above the lawn scant metres away.

  "Come on!" yelled a voice.

  He didn't need any further urging but was already sprinting towards the gaping hatchway. From the corner of his eye he caught a flash of fur as something large hurtled down the veranda steps. An energy beam sizzled past, fired from the hatchway, and he heard a yelp of pain behind him. But he could hear the other dogs now. It was going to be close.

  A machine gun chattered from the direction of the house, though whether aimed at him or the rescue craft he would never be certain. It didn't seem to hit either. Answering fire came from figures crouching in the hatch.

  Then he was flinging himself aboard.

  "Go!" yelled a voice and the craft lifted, his feet still dangling from the open doorway. Even as someone pulled him in, steel teeth clashed shut a finger's breadth from his ankle, the leaping hound falling back as the craft continued to rise.

  Leyton rolled onto his back and let out a whoop of laughter.

  "How the hell can he laugh about it?" somebody said.

  He sat up, grinning at the soldier who had asked such a stupid question, even though it wasn't directed at him. "I'm alive; how would you expect me to react to that particular revelation - cry?"

  A figure loomed forward out of the shadows as he got to his feet. "How did the new visor work out?" That was Benson; the man had no sense of occasion and even less patience, which was typical of government officials in Leyton's experience. He wondered whether they deliberately bred them to be that way.

  "Fine; no problem at all."

  "And the gun?"

  "The same - worked perfectly."

  "Naturally," said the gun's familiar whisper. "Did you seriously expect anything less?"

  Kyle was on the bridge when the emergency began; which was kind of funny really, because he had just spent the best part of the previous hour moaning to Mac, the ship's captain, about there being nothing for him to do except sit around on the bridge and moan. That and talk about swans, of course.

  The only part of the preceding hour not spent on the bridge had been when he slipped away to accost Marie. Marie was petite and cute, with large brown eyes, full lips, a pert little nose and a way of wearing the requisite black and white uniform which seemed to have passed the rest of the passenger service crew by. She somehow made the outfit look sexy, whereas it reduced everyone else to a state of bland androgyny.

  You had to admire the young woman's skill and professionalism as well. She never spilled a drop, even when two arms enfolded her from behind without warning.

  "Stop that!"

  "Stop what?" he said softly into her ear. "I only grabbed you because you looked a little unsteady; thought you were about to fall over."

  "Well I wasn't, so you can let go." Her words said one thing, but the way she pressed against him, turning her head to nuzzle his chin with her forehead while grinding her buttocks against his groin, suggested quite the opposite.

  "Now why would I want to do that?"

  "Because I'm on duty, and I'm holding a tray of drinks... and mind where you put those hands!"

  "That's not what you said last..."

  "Don't you dare!" Marie stepped away from his embrace and turned to face him, the tray and its liquid burden staying improbably level as she revolved around it. She was evidently trying to look stern but failed dismally; the smile which tugged at the corners of her mouth wrecking any pretence of severity.

  He studied her with the sort of quizzical consideration people normally reserve for wall pictures that are hung slightly askew.

  "What is it?" she asked, suddenly concerned. "My hair, my makeup...?"

  "No, no," he assured her, "nothing like that. You just still look a little... I don't know, unstable. Here, maybe this will help."

  He reached forward and picked up two of the chilled champagne flutes, one from either side of the silver serving tray. "Better?"

  "Kyle! You know that's for the passengers. I'm not supposed to serve crew."

  "Shhh."

  "You're unreal."

  "Now that's more the sort of thing you said..."

  "One more word and I'll throw the whole trayful at you!"

  He mimed a kiss, then, grinning, turned and walked the few steps across plush, deep-piled carpet to the door marked 'Flight Crew Only'.

  He stared into the retinal scanner and the door swished open. On its far side, the carpet became more practical; harder wearing, but the fact there was carpet at all told you all you needed to know about The Lady J.

  Contrary to several regulations, the door to the bridge stood open. Nonetheless, he paused at the threshold.

  "Permission to enter the bridge?"

  "Quit fooling around and get in here with those damn drinks," said a rich, baritone voice. "What took you so long, anyway? Flirting with that pretty brunette waitress, I suppose."

  "I wasn't flirting with her, she was flirting with me. And she's not a waitress, she's an In-Transit Passenger Entertainment Officer."

  Mac grunted. "She can entertain me any time she likes."

  "Ah, but you're not the one she flirts with," Kyle pointed out. He had reached the pilot's chair in which Mac lounged, and now held out one of the drinks.

  The slightly older, slightly broader man frowned at the proffered glass. "Champagne again? I thought you were going to get beer." It didn't stop him accepting the glass.

  Kyle shrugged. "I can only bring back whatever Marie's carrying. Seems you just can't find the right class of passenger these days."

  "Ain't that a fact?"

  They clinked flutes and each took a generous swig, the dry effervescence tingling against the back of Kyle's throat as it slid down.

  He slumped into the deep leather of the absent navigator's chair. He had no idea where the seat's official occupant, Brad, was at the time - probably cosying up with one of the off-duty service crew. "Now, what were we talking about?"

  "Don't care," Mac replied, "so long as it's not swans again."

  Kyle had been fascinated by these long-extinct birds ever since he was a kid, when his father had first shown him archive footage of them. He could remember it clearly to this day: a picturesque scene with trees and mountains in the background, a mirror-surfaced lake in the middle-distance and a meadow in the foreground. Perspective had shifted almost at once, zooming in on two white smudges, which started out as mere dots on the water but were now revealed to be magnificent white birds, sailing majestically across the lake as if they owned the place. Their precise posture, even down to the curve of their necks, could not have been more perfect had they been sculpted by a master aesthetician. It was this deportment that he especially loved, a way of carrying themselves which declared to all the world that these birds were beautiful and they knew it.

  Good looks with attitude. Just like The Lady J.

  Apparently, there had once been a myth that while swans might look serene and elegant on the surface, out of sight, beneath the water, they were paddling away furiously to maintain that image. Which was exactly like The Lady J. For most of her staff at any rate.

  The Lady J was a pleasure cruiser; top of the line, attracting the obscenely rich and famous as well as those with ambitions to become such. In theory, as the ship's In-Transit Systems Engine
er, Kyle was one of those responsible for keeping her paddling. In practice, he was barely needed at all; a trophy spaceman to be paraded in front of the passengers from time to time to demonstrate that they were in safe hands.

  The ship was just too damn efficient. Or, to put it another way, Kyle was just too damn good. He had managed, in effect, to get himself promoted out of the job he loved. Having cut his teeth in the navy, Kyle found himself at something of a loose end once the War ended. Still a young man, he got a berth as flight engineer on The Star Witch, an aged rust bucket of a private trader which should have been sold for scrap long ago. Somehow he performed miracles and kept her engines ticking over. He didn't stay long and there followed a period which saw him flit from one vessel to the next, each subsequent ship being a few notches higher on the evolutionary scale which culminates in 'fully space-worthy'.

  Along the way he began to build a reputation as one of the best mechanics around, which brought him to the attention of an altogether superior class of ship owner and eventually led to his current position. Only the best for The Lady J; a maxim which extended to her engines and systems - state of the art in every regard, requiring virtually no maintenance whatsoever, which was kind of hard on the man employed to maintain them.

  When he first joined the crew of The Lady J, Kyle was unable to believe his luck. She had the latest Kauffman Drive, the Mark VI, engines he had never dreamed of seeing, let alone working on. What could be better than this?

  That first trip had been the most frustrating of his life. While the cabin crew ran themselves ragged to produce the illusion of effortless efficiency, he could only twiddle his thumbs and look on. His most challenging moment came when a vending machine malfunctioned and started to dispense lukewarm bucks fizz.

  The entire ship's systems were subjected to a full diagnostics test at the end of each and every trip. If anything showed up as performing at less than perfect efficiency, that part was immediately replaced. Even the ones that consistently registered as perfect were routinely discarded after a specified time, well within recommended performance parameters. On top of that, multiple redundancy had been built into every conceivable system, leaving Kyle very much the last resort. He found himself relegated from being a hands-on mechanic to simply being on hand in the unlikely event that something should go wrong; but how could it, with a maintenance regime like that?