Dark Angels Rising Read online

  Why indeed? Cornische was missing something, he knew that. The only reason Cloud would sneak off the ship to help a stranger was if the man were important in some way. If that was the case, why didn’t she tell somebody? Someone who could have gone with her and helped; someone who could have saved her.

  Mosi and Jen arrived with the gurney, and he placed Saavi’s small form down gently. She looked lost in its embrace.

  As he did so, the vagrant staggered. They’d been so focussed on Saavi they’d forgotten the man who brought her back to them.

  “You’re hurt,” Cornische said, and reached out instinctively to offer support.

  “I’m all right,” the man mumbled. “Beatings aren’t exactly unknown when you live rough on Barbary.”

  “You could have broken ribs, internal bleeding, who knows? Come up into the ship and let’s check you over, just to make sure.”

  “No!” The vagrant pulled away from Cornische’s touch and looked up, almost pleading. For a moment there was something in his eyes… “No,” he repeated. “I don’t want to intrude on your grief. I’ll be fine”

  So saying, the man took a step back but wilted, and he had to grasp the gurney to avoid collapsing entirely.

  “No intrusion,” Leesa assured him. “You brought our friend back to us. Please don’t belittle her sacrifice by refusing our help when you so clearly need it.”

  He could hardly say no after that, so the vagrant joined their sombre group, accepting Leesa’s support as they made their way back into the ship, though Cornische still had the impression he did so with a degree of reluctance.

  As they stepped aboard, Raider spoke up. “Greetings, Frame, welcome home.”

  Everyone stopped, and stared.

  “Billy?” Jen whispered.

  The vagrant was visibly sobbing now, his shoulders shaking with grief. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t even recognise her as Cloud until I brought her back here and you said ‘Saavi’, how could I? Why did she do that for me?”

  His legs buckled completely, and he collapsed to his knees on the deck, Leesa letting him go gently. His head was bowed, tears falling freely.

  “I’m nobody,” he murmured. “Why would she do this?”

  Before Cornische could react, Jen crouched down beside him. “You’re not nobody,” she insisted. “You’re one of us, and that matters to everyone here. On top of which, Saavi wouldn’t have sacrificed her life for a ‘nobody’. You’re important in what’s to come. Somehow, in some way that none of us can begin to guess, you have a part to play. You’re a Dark Angel, Billy.”

  “Some Angel. Look at me.”

  That was the reason he’d been so reluctant to accompany them on board, Cornische realised: pride; shame; he didn’t want his former crewmates to recognise him, to see what had become of him. He didn’t want their pity.

  “You’re the reason we’re here, Billy,” Cornische said. “We need you.”

  “Yeah, and we’ll need you a whole lot more once you’ve had a dry shower and a change of clothes,” Leesa added, gripping his arm and half helping, half hauling him back to his feet. “Come on.”

  As Leesa took Billy to sickbay, Cornische said to Jen, “Actually, I reckon Saavi would have put her life on the line for just about anybody.”

  “So do I, but it seemed the right thing to say at the time.”

  “Oh it was, it certainly was. You did well.”

  “Can you believe that’s Billy?” Mosi said. “I mean I know it’s been ten years, but I’d never have recognised him.”

  They placed Saavi in one of the cryochambers – a hangover from the pre-RzSpace days of space travel, but one which all ships with any sense subscribed to. The chambers were a last resort, a means of preserving life in the event of a ship suffering catastrophic damage far from help.

  Cornische had never been convinced; if things were that bad and you were so far from anywhere, what were the chances you’d be able to reach the cryochambers on a failing ship before vacuum claimed you, or that anyone would ever find you if you did? A frozen corpsicle entombed in a high tech casket, forever suspended in the limbo between life and death – or at least until the systems failed.

  However, psychologically it did the crew good to know the chambers were there; just in case.

  The lights dimmed and the Dark Angels left their fallen friend in peace.

  They gathered in the galley to raise a glass and bid Saavi farewell. Initially it was just Cornische, Jen, Mosi and Nate, with Leesa still off tending to Billy.

  “Maybe we should stick to fruit juice,” Mosi suggested, recalling the fact that Saavi didn’t drink alcohol.

  “Feel free to, if you like,” said Jen, opening a beer.

  “No,” said Mosi, raising his own beer. “She never objected to our drinking while she was alive…” His words trailed off, as he realised where that was leading.

  Leesa soon joined them. “He’s sedated,” she said. “Raider’s checked him over.”

  “How badly hurt is he, Raider?” Cornische asked.

  “Fractured ribs, damage to pancreas and liver, a herniated disc, considerable internal bruising, ligament damage to the right knee, a…”

  “Okay, we get the picture,” Leesa cut in. “We don’t need a comprehensive list, thanks all the same.”

  “Are all his injuries readily treatable?” Cornische asked

  “Yes, he should recover fully, given sufficient time and the correct care.”

  “And what can be managed without sufficient time? Would you be able to get him up on his feet in a few days?”

  “Theoretically, yes. I can accelerate treatment and take care of the more serious injuries, and provide painkillers if required, though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend doing so from a medical perspective.”

  “Noted. That’ll have to do, then.”

  “The longer he has to recuperate, the better,” Raider added.

  “Understood. We’ll let him rest in sickbay for as long as we possibly can.”

  “First the captain, then Mosi, now Billy,” Leesa said. “That bed’s getting more use than any other on the ship,”

  “I need to talk to him,” Cornische said, not relishing the prospect. “We can’t pluck him away from whatever life he has here and drag him off to a war he knows nothing about. He needs to know what he’s getting into and give some level of consent.”

  “And if he says ‘no’?”

  “Then we leave him here.”

  A moment’s silence followed, as it sank in for all of them that leaving Billy behind would mean Saavi had died for nothing.

  “Did he say any more about what might have happened to Jai?” Jen wondered, breaking the silence.

  “No, he didn’t say much more about anything.”

  “It’s a good question, though,” Cornische said. It was hardly surprising that Billy’s attention had been focussed elsewhere, but the last thing any of them wanted was for some child to stumble across the T’kai killing machine and take a fancy to it, mistaking Jai for a genuine retro toy.

  He glanced across to Jen, who met his gaze and gave a resigned nod. “I’ll go and check.”

  “We’ll join you,” Mosi said. “Naj will meet you there, if that’s okay.”

  Cornische kept quiet. It seemed unlikely there was anything Jen and Najat could achieve together that Jen couldn’t manage on her own, but he recognised Mosi’s need to contribute.

  While they did their thing, he went to see Billy.

  The man Cornische found sleeping peacefully in sickbay was unrecognisable as the dishevelled figure that had come aboard such a short time ago. In repose, with beard and hair trimmed and face cleaned, he looked much younger, and Cornische could now see the hint of a resemblance to the person he recalled from a decade ago.

  A few days back he’d been sitting in this same chair waiting for Mosi to come round, and he still felt the effects of his own ordeal every now and then. Some
times it felt as if he was going into battle at the head of the Walking Wounded rather than the Dark Angels…

  He waited as Raider brought the patient round. Lips opening and closing, a twitch around the eyes, and finally the eyes blinked open. The eyes flicked from side to side, taking in the surroundings. Finally they focussed on Cornische.

  “Captain?”

  “Billy, how are you feeling?”

  “Terrible… Actually no, that’s not true, it’s more the memory of how I was feeling. Whatever meds Raider’s feeding me are working wonders. I feel much more comfortable, thank you.”

  “Glad to hear it. Are you up to a brief chat? There are some things I need to explain.”

  “Yeah, I reckon so. Go ahead.”

  Cornische then summarised the situation and explained their mission to reunite the Dark Angels in order to thwart Mudball and Saflik. He finished with, “I can’t pretend that what we’re about to undertake will be easy, but it is necessary. Every additional Angel we’re able to count on will make a difference, possibly the difference. Sorry to put you on the spot after all you’ve been through, but we have to leave shortly. Are you with us?”

  He could only hope that Billy was able to think clearly enough to understand, despite the injuries and the sedation. His next words suggested that he might be.

  “So… Cloud died trying to recruit me.”

  “That’s a simplification, but in essence, yes.”

  Billy closed his eyes and for a moment Cornische feared that he might be drifting off again, but then he said, “For her sake, then, I don’t see how I can say no.”

  “For all our sakes, I hope you don’t, but no one wants to force you, and it will mean leaving your life here on Barbary behind.”

  Billy made a barking sound that might have been a laugh. “That won’t be hard, Captain, I promise you. You’ve seen me, you can work out what’s become of me in recent years. There’s nothing much to leave.”

  “You’re in, then?”

  “Yes, I’m in.”

  He left Billy to Raider’s tender ministrations and headed back to the galley, to discover that Jen and Najat had just returned, having recovered Jai from the alley. The T’kai mechanoid was damaged but still functioning.

  “Raider reckons he might be able to repair it,” Jen said.

  “The T’kai technology appears to be entirely human in its derivation,” Raider explained, “without any contamination from Elder tech, as far as I can tell. They have developed rather singular skills, and while it will be a challenge to restore the morph to its former elegant state, this is a challenge I would relish.”

  Cornische wasn’t entirely certain why anyone would want to have the bodyguard rebuilt without Saavi being around, but he didn’t object.

  “What about the muggers?” he asked.

  “Three bodies in the alley, all male,” Jen reported, “which I left in situ.”

  “The other two must have slithered off to find a rock to hide beneath so they could lick their wounds,” Mosi said.

  “Was there anything to suggest this wasn’t just a gang of local thugs high on drugs and bloodlust?”

  “No,” Jen confirmed, “but how would we tell if there was anything more to them?”

  She was right; it had been a stupid question. He was seeing Saflik in every misfortune, which didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  “Does anyone harbour any doubts that Billy is the reason we’re here?” he asked.

  “No, it fits the pattern,” Leesa replied.

  They all agreed.

  “If only I hadn’t told Saavi about seeing that stupid horned fish…”

  “Don’t beat yourself up over it, Jen. You couldn’t anticipate she’d go off on her own like that, and, let’s face it, if anyone knew what they were walking into, it was Saavi.”

  “I told her to come and get me if the information led to anything… Why didn’t she just do that?”

  “Saavi had her reasons,” Cornische said. “We may never know what they were but she persuaded Raider to cover for her, so she must have believed that having company would affect the outcome, changing things for the worse going forward. I know that’s difficult to get our heads around, given what’s happened, but we have to trust her and believe that her death, her sacrifice, will benefit us in some manner we may never even recognise.”

  “That’s a hard one to buy, Captain.”

  “I know, but it’s the only way I can see to make sense of this.”

  They couldn’t afford the luxury of taking time to mourn, and Cornische was concerned about the effect Saavi’s death might have on morale. He had to keep them moving forward, to maintain the momentum they’d built.

  “All right, most of us have been off the ship in the last few hours without any thought of disguise – understandable, given what else has been going on – but it means we’ve no idea what intel, if any, Barbary may now hold on us.

  “Given that we’ve found one former Angel in Frame, I propose we get the hell off Barbary immediately. Does anyone object?” He waited a silent second. “Good. We also have to accept that without Saavi here to guide us, the likelihood of our finding any more long lost crewmates is somewhere between slim and none.

  “Fortunately, we now have a pretty strong roster of Dark Angels on board, and I reckon we’re as ready as we’ll ever be. While we can try to chase others down by more traditional methods, we have to remember Saavi’s warnings that almost anything we do from here on in is more likely to hinder than help us.

  “So, once we’re clear of Barbary, I intend to head straight to Lenbya.”

  “Can’t see any reason not to,” Jen agreed.

  “Raider?”

  “Now would be a good time, Captain. The Elder composite and its allies are making progress in forcing a way through to the cache. Intervention will soon be required.”

  “That settles it,” said Leesa. “Let’s go save the universe.”

  Fifteen

  Cornische was surprised when Seb Watkins answered his call.

  “Have you any idea what time it is?” the bleary-eyed councillor asked.

  “Yes, which is why I was expecting to speak to an automated answer service rather than an actual person.”

  “I’ve had you listed as a priority, so that any contact from you gets transferred to me wherever I am and whenever. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “And I’m shattered, so let’s cut to the chase. Why the out of hours call?”

  “Just wanted to let you know that we’re leaving.”

  “What? You only just got here.”

  “I know – change of plans.”

  “You found what you came for, then. That was quick.”

  “Sort of,” Cornische conceded. “We gained a crewmember and we lost one, so it’s more of a quid pro quo.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “There was an incident an hour or two ago, a mugging. You’ll find three of the attackers dead in an alley beside a restaurant called the Blue Buccaneer, close to the port. Two others were shot but presumably survived, because they’re not there now. I wouldn’t want you to think we were running away because of this.”

  “For Elder’s sake, you haven’t even been here for a full day yet. Deyna was right. Trouble really does follow you lot around. How does any of this relate to you swapping out a crewmember?”

  “We lost somebody, we gained somebody.” Cornische did his best to keep his voice steady.

  “That’s all you’re telling me? You and your stupid secrets… I won’t lie, there are more than a few folk around here who’ll be relieved to see you go. When will you be ready to lift off?”

  “As soon as we get clearance.”

  “Okay, leave that with me. Control will be in touch shortly to give you the green light.”

  “Thanks, Seb.”

  “I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure,
but…”

  “…You’ll be glad when we’re off world and become someone else’s problem rather than yours.”

  “Pretty much. Take care, Cornische. Don’t hurry back, but good luck with whatever it is the Dark Angels are up to.”

  “What exactly does Frame do?” Nate asked.

  It was late the next morning. Leesa, Jen and Nate were having breakfast in the galley. Neither Mosi nor the captain had surfaced as yet, but given what they’d been through the previous night anyone could be excused an extended lie in, and Leesa knew that Cornische had stayed up later than the rest of them. She’d been with him long enough to see the Ion Raider lift off from Barbary and enter RzSpace, but had then left him to his own devices and headed for bed.

  The mood in the galley was subdued, and none of them were attacking their food with any great relish, despite Raider’s ability to synthesise just about anything they could think of. The lack of enthusiasm could be explained in part by the customary dampening of senses caused by travelling through Rz – including appetite and taste – but on this particular morning there was, of course, more to it than that. Saavi. No one had mentioned her but her absence weighed heavy and painful.

  “His abilities, I mean,” Nate added.

  “He interferes with reality,” Leesa said, glad of the distraction, glad to have something to think about that didn’t include the empty cloud chamber sitting in the cargo hold.

  “He staggers time,” Jen added.

  “What?”

  “It’s a little hard to explain unless you’ve seen him in action,” Leesa admitted, “but he can… pause I suppose is the best word, the world, so that everything within the area he targets freezes, just for a second, and then snaps back into action an instant later, immediately catching up to where it would have been without the pause, only to freeze again – like a series of stop-start transitions from then to now, rather than the continuous flow of events we’re used to. It’s sort of how life might seem if viewed through the medium of a stroboscope.”