Dark Angels Rising Read online

  Is there a choice? Nate jammed his helmet back on. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

  He had a temper, he knew that, and had been fighting to keep it in check for much of his life. It had landed him in trouble more than once, especially in his youth. He grew up in Lower Denrach, a city that had been devastated by war and then left to its own devices once the conflict moved on. With civil infrastructure shattered and officialdom either killed or fled, others had moved in to fill the vacuum, opportunists for whom social welfare was an alien concept. A hierarchy of necessity had taken shape, where strength and self-interest ruled. Being big bad and angry in a place like that was guaranteed to get you noticed, with the likelihood that you would end up either dead or successful as a result.

  Nate had been among the lucky ones. He had fallen in with the right crowd, becoming part of the problem rather than a victim of it.

  Escaping Lower Denrach’s toxic environment and limiting horizons had been the single most important step of his life. He never forgot how fortunate he’d been, getting a berth on a ship which carried him away from the misery, and every day he determined to make the most of the opportunity an impassive universe had seen fit to present him with.

  Nate had known friends over the years, many friends, but he was never one to form deep attachments and had always found it easy to move on. Until he crossed paths with Pelquin. He and Pel had a real connection – kindred spirits even though they were different in so many ways. Leaving the Comet the first time, following their spat over Julia, had been hard. This second time, not so much, not really.

  Maybe there was a nugget of truth in the old adage about never going back… So why, from the moment the Dark Angels had revealed themselves, had his first thought been to share what was going on with his old pal?

  If only Pel could see me now had flashed through his mind constantly as they left the Spacer’s Lament and made the short journey to the port. For as long as Nate had known him, Pelquin had been obsessed with Cornische and the whole story of the Dark Angels – even had an image of the Ion Raider leaping out the wall as you approached the bridge of the Comet. It was ironic, looking back; if only Pel had realised how close he had been to his idol, but none of them suspected that First Solar’s agent – the unwelcome guest the bank had foisted on them – was none other than Francis Hilary Cornische, nor that Monkey’s replacement – the new ship’s engineer who had ended up saving all their lives – was in fact Hel N, Cornische’s lieutenant – and, according to some rumours, his lover… The truth was that Pelquin would likely go to his grave never knowing, and that was a genuine shame.

  Nate could feel his own excitement mounting as the Ion Raider had first come into view. He studied the craft as they drew closer. There was nothing obvious to indicate this was the notorious ship of legend. An additional airlock had been installed just behind where the bridge must be, allowing access to the ship without the need to open the large cargo doors at the back – a modification Nate approved of – but other than that there was little to distinguish this old crate from any other Comet class, including Pelquin’s Comet, which had been his home for so long. Here was just another well-travelled trader which had seen better days, with dulled metallic hull and no insignia, no adornments of any kind – ident being integral to a ship’s hull and, in theory, inviolate unless realigned by official registration systems.

  Quite why the ship’s very ordinariness should come as such a disappointment, he wasn’t sure; after all, how else could the Dark Angels roam around human space incognito? But somehow it did.

  “Look sharp!” Jen’s voice cut through his reveries, just as a saw-toothed disc spat from a nearby wall, slicing across his upper arm to inflict a stinging wound. “Concentrate!” she yelled.

  He couldn’t blame her for yelling this time – it was hardly the right place for daydreaming. He’d seen where the disc came from and reacted at once, slamming his fist into the wall on his right. A second disc raced to meet him at the same instant, but it bounced away harmlessly, his aggressive movement triggering the kinetic protection of the harness. He was beginning to get the hang of when that worked and when it was dormant – a lesson learned the hard way via a dozen nicks and bruises. His fist punctured what appeared to be brickwork without any resistance, reaching through to smash into the disc launcher behind it. He sensed a crackle of energy, rendered harmless by the harness, and that section of the wall shimmered and winked out, revealing itself to be no more than a projection, albeit a convincing one.

  Two more discs flew from the wall on the opposite side of the empty street, heading directly towards Jen. Had she seen them? He couldn’t take the chance, stepping forward to protect her, his arms swinging to intercept first one and then the other, sending both spinning away to clatter to the ground. Jen still hadn’t moved. She’d known the discs were there. A test, he realised.

  Without hesitating, Nate turned to grasp the wrecked disc thrower, wrenching the mechanism from its mounting and hurling it across the street. It disappeared, swallowed by the false wall there. A loud crack punctured the silence and that section of wall vanished. In its stead lay a tangle of wrecked machinery.

  “Better,” Jen said, “much better. I think that’ll do for today. Raider, end simulation.”

  The light level increased and the world abruptly became less threatening; several more sections of wall disappeared to reveal hidden launchers and devices of various sort. The remaining walls commenced to concertina and collapse back into storage, leaving the two humans in the deceptively small confines of the gym.

  “This is one hell of a workout room,” Nate observed.

  “I normally stick with traditional gym equipment,” Jen said. “This sort of mock up is more Leesa’s bag, but it comes in handy for training purposes. You okay?” she nodded towards his latest wound, just below the shoulder, which was still weeping blood.

  He grunted. “Nothing a patch of nuskin won’t sort out. I’ve had worse.”

  “That much I can believe.”

  They took dry showers and dressed in fresh overalls, before heading in the direction of the galley.

  He couldn’t get a handle on Jen. As yet he was getting no vibe of either friendship or hostility from her, just a neutral pragmatism, as if he was a job she’d been assigned which she had every intention of seeing through to the best of her ability.

  It was an attitude Nate would normally have accepted, admired even, since it aligned with his own general outlook, but these were the Dark Angels for Elders’ sake, and he had just been accepted into their ranks; surely, this once, he could be forgiven a bit of enthusiasm.

  “You know they made a holodrama series about the Dark Angels?” he said, breaking the silence. Hell! Of all the questions bubbling away in his head, why had he opted to go with this one?

  “So I heard,” Jen replied.

  “In it, you were portrayed as a kind of ninja warrior woman, leaping from the shadows and taking out villains in a blur of martial arts. Is that really you?”

  “No idea, I never saw it.”

  “But the way you fight… It’s not all down to the shadowtech, is it?”

  “No,” she confirmed.

  Hardly the icebreaker he’d hoped for, but he was committed now, so ploughed on. “My guess would be that you learned to fight before you became Shadow.” She made no effort to either confirm or deny. “So, were you in the military?”

  She stopped walking and stared at him coldly, before saying, “Of sorts; it’s not something I care to talk about.”

  Nate clammed up. Even in his current state of excited enthusiasm, he could tell when he was pushing his luck.

  Part of Jen resented Leesa for saddling her with this. Oh, she knew the reasons: Kyle had been such a big part of Leesa’s life, and the Ramrod outfit was synonymous with Kyle. Jen could appreciate how painful that might make things, but Leesa was still the one who understood Ramrod’s abilities better than any of them. On the other hand,
Leesa was a mechanic, primarily – despite having fought in the Auganics Wars – while everyone knew that Jen had received formal military training at some point, so from that perspective it made sense that she should be the one to take the new recruit under her wing.

  There was just something about Nate, though, that got to her. He tested her patience as few others had, and she found herself wanting to snap at him over the most trivial of things, when in truth he was doing pretty well, all things considered.

  “Must be love,” Leesa quipped when she shared her frustration over a beer.

  “Sod off.”

  Inevitably Leesa’s comment sparked thoughts of Robin and their life together on the farm. A rural idyll that now seemed a lifetime ago, as it increasingly took on the trappings of a dream.

  “I’ll take tomorrow’s session, if you like.”

  That snapped her attention back to the present. She stared at her friend. “Really?”

  Leesa shrugged. “It’s only a suit, after all. About time I got over myself, don’t you think?”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to say anything…” She started to grin but abruptly felt guilty. “I don’t want you to think I was angling for you to offer.”

  “Don’t be daft.”

  “Well, if you’re sure…”

  “I’m sure. Besides, it’ll do him good to have a teacher blessed with a little more patience.”

  Jen snorted. “Right, because that’s a quality you’re so well known for – your patience.”

  Leesa’s offer was as welcome as it was unexpected; so why did Jen also feel a little bit… disappointed?

  Evidently, she wasn’t the only one, at least to judge by Nate’s reaction when she bumped into him shortly afterwards and told him about the new arrangement.

  “Okay, but why?” he wanted to know. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Have I upset you in some way?”

  “Nothing like that, no. It’s just that we felt you’d benefit from being trained by different Angels, and Leesa knows Ramrod’s capabilities better than anyone else on board, so she’ll be able to offer you invaluable insight from a different perspective.”

  The explanation seemed to mollify him. “Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Just didn’t want to think I’d messed up without even knowing how.”

  “If you had, I would tell you, don’t worry.”

  “Good. I’ll keep you to that.”

  The exchange amused Jen considerably. It also pleased her far more than she felt it ought to.

  Eleven

  “Barbary, are you serious?”

  The captain seemed to have taken Cloud’s revelation of their next destination in his stride, Leesa, less so.

  Mosi wasn’t sure how he felt.

  “Oh come on, bro’,” Naj said in his head, “Barbary’s never boring.”

  “The place is a shithole,” he responded.

  “Yeah, but it’s our kind of shithole.”

  Back in the external world, the captain replied to Leesa with: “We’ve been made welcome there in the past, Lees.”

  “Doesn’t mean I’m in any great hurry to rush back,” she said. “The place is a shithole.”

  “Told you!” said Mosi to his sister.

  “Stop gloating,” she responded. “You’re better than that.”

  “Just making the most of a rare opportunity.”

  “It does make sense, though,” the captain said, “that a former Dark Angel might end up there. Raider, how long to reach Barbary from our current position?” he then asked.

  “Sixty-four hours, standard time.”

  “No point in hanging around, then. Set course accordingly. Get ready for the jump into Rz, everyone.”

  There was a lot of hokum spoken about the transition into RzSpace; it wasn’t unpleasant, not really, at least not in Mosi’s experience. It could be a little disorientating, certainly, which was why some folk insisted on sitting down or fastening themselves to walls with cling patches, but he found that simply holding onto something solid worked for him, and even that was only by way of a precaution.

  The moment came and went: a fleeting transition in which he felt at one with the universe, his consciousness expanding to touch every distant corner, quickly followed by the emotional dampening of Rz.

  With the ship safely side-stepping the restraints of light speed via the non-place that was Rz, the crew made for the galley.

  “Are you joining us, Saavi?” Mosi asked, knowing that more often than not she would demur and head for the cloud chamber instead, on the pretext of double checking some detail or other. He suspected that crowds made her uncomfortable, which was not a reaction he recalled from when she’d been a physical adult. “We’re underway, after all,” he added, “so there’s not much more you can do for now.”

  “You’re putting her on the spot,” Naj said in his head.

  “No I’m not. I just want her to feel included.”

  “Okay, I’ll come for a while,” Saavi said.

  It was evening, by ship’s reckoning. ‘Day’ and ‘night’ had no real relevance in transit, but the human body still required downtime, so the convention was still observed on most vessels, including the Ion Raider: twenty-four standard hours, with nine allocated for darkness. Of course, lights could be activated at any time, either individually or collectively, but the convention provided a useful framework, especially in the soporific environs of RzSpace.

  The galley was equipped with comfy chairs and low tables – more in keeping with a bar than a dining area, but no one spoke of a ‘bar’ on a ship unless it was a private yacht or passenger vessel.

  “Sixty-four hours,” Nate said as they sat down.

  “At least that’ll give us a few more days to train you up,” Jen said.

  “Why, are you expecting trouble at Barbary?”

  “You never can tell, not where Barbary’s concerned,” Leesa assured him.

  “It’s a safe haven for every lowlife and miscreant to ever travel the spaceways,” Jen said.

  “I’ve heard of the place, of course,” said Nate.

  “But you’ve never been there?”

  He shook his head.

  “My mistake, then; not every lowlife, apparently.”

  “Thanks a bunch,” but he was smiling.

  “The rest of us have all been there, though” Drake pointed out, “which probably proves your point.”

  Jen grinned and raised her beer to him.

  Nate seemed to be settling in well, though Mosi had not had a great deal to do with him as yet, and there appeared to be some sort of friction between him and the captain that predated current events. Cornische wasn’t making a big thing of it, but Mosi felt the newcomer had some way to go before the captain fully accepted him.

  “A bit too full of himself, if you ask me,” Naj supplied.

  “I think that was just nerves,” Mosi said, recalling Nate’s overly bullish attitude when he first arrived. “He’s calmed down a bit since then.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Besides, if he’s going to be Ramrod a bit of attitude is no bad thing.”

  Conversation broke into clumps, with Mosi talking to Saavi, who sat immediately beside him.

  “I don’t think I’ve heard you talk about what you’ve been doing in the past ten years,” he said. “How did you cope with the reverse aging thing?”

  “Oh, very subtle,” Naj said in his thoughts. “Nothing like hitting a nerve to start a conversation.”

  Saavi didn’t seem to mind, though. “At first it was fine,” she said. “I mean I didn’t notice right off – it’s not exactly something I was looking for. I got a job in strategy prediction with a big corporation.”

  “I’ll bet you were outstanding at that.”

  “I did okay. I didn’t have to work, not with the money I brought away after we broke up, but I wanted to feel useful, to st
ill feel relevant, you know?”

  Mosi did, all too well.

  “After a couple of years, though, it was clear something was going on. People started commenting on how young I looked, people started noticing, so I went and got myself checked out, thoroughly.”

  “That’s when you found out.”

  “Yeah. Hell of a shock, as you can imagine. Plus, it cost me a fortune to hush things up, to pay specialists to keep their mouths shut – the last thing I wanted was to become some sort of test subject. Still not convinced all of them did. I’d mastered the paintpad by then and had worked out how to use it to read potentials, up to a point. I saw that someone was hunting me and that, if they caught me, it wouldn’t end well. At the time, I thought it was most likely to be the government, or maybe the media, but now I wonder if it mightn’t have been Saflik. I didn’t wait to find out. I went on the run. Leaving my job and the life I’d started to build proved a lot easier than I’d expected it to be, and after that I avoided putting down any sort of roots anywhere, just kept moving around.

  “Realising that as time passed I was getting younger and smaller, which left me vulnerable, I sought out the T’kai and commissioned them to build Jai to my specifications. As soon as he was by my side, the potentials looked much brighter, and then one day I saw that – against all reason – the Iron Raider would be at a port in the city of la Gossa on a world called Babylon. I was nowhere near that sector of space and must have broken some sort of record to get there in time, but I made it.”

  “And before meeting up with Jen and Leesa again, you didn’t have any trouble travelling around on your own, even as you got younger and younger?”

  “Not really. Being able to predict the future – however vaguely – can be a real boon when it comes to accumulating wealth, and you’d be amazed at how frequently rules turn flexible or even irrelevant once you’ve thrown enough money at them.”

  “And you gave up all that freedom and wealth for this?” Mosi gestured around them.

  She actually laughed, a girlish giggle which, Mosi realised, was the most relaxed expression he’d seen from her.