_ Hiiro

  The palace was quiet when I woke up, the air stale and sticky with heat like the building was holding its breath. Today was the day the mercs went to war; the ambush for the ambushers. Leeroy had gotten to plan to his black heart's content, now all that was left was to go through the motions. Breakfast was waiting for me, as it always was. I forced down as much as I could past the knots wriggling in my guts. That done, I loaded for b?r as ordered— whatever a b?r was.

  My restocked wardrobe was pillaged, flame-retardant ballistic vest donned, holster tucked, harness slung, magnetic speedloaders spun and every pocket on me got stuffed to near bursting with anything and everything I thought might be useful if worst came to. I looked myself over in the mirror, bobbing my head at what I saw— purely from confidence, not nerves. Yeah, definitely not nerves.

  Then I ran for the sink and upchucked my guts, puking out every bit of fragile confidence I'd mustered.

  What the hell was I doing? The outfit wanted me to drive Celio right into the thick of it and just sit there waiting to get shot to hell and back and then some! Of all the mercs in the outfit, I was the perfect man for the job; two parts competent, three parts expendable. They'd kill me if I didn't go, Leeroy had basically come out and said as much in all his planning sessions.

  I pulled out a cigarette and used that little trick Bi taught me to spark it up with my bare hands right there in the bathroom. The fact that I'd never need to worry about matches for the rest of my life was probably the only upside to my present circumstances. Not that the rest of my life was looking that long… All it took me was three long drags to finish my smoke off and that wasn't nearly enough to settle my nerves, so I lit up another one and a third after that. Some part of me should have still been amazed that I could start fires just by snapping my fingers together, but sucking down sweet poison took precedent.

  I found enough get up and go in the locally grown tobacco to drag my ass off the bathroom floor and get gone before I could light up a forth cigarette. In a past life I might have marveled at the quality of the cheap little paper sticks. Maybe it was my month of involuntary abstinence or maybe the local scat was just that good, but by the time I stepped out of the palace and headed for the parked convoy, I nearly felt human again. Then I lit up another smoke and actually savored the little paper miracle instead of just inhaling it.

  This job called for all hands on deck. I spotted Princess fussing over how certain explosives were being stacked, Gidget going over our refitted engines one last time, and even Bim was patiently sitting in Celio's backup car looking for all the world like a sliver of sunlight in the middle of a gathering storm. The cars were all lined up with the trucks queued alongside, the last of Celio's Vigia still on the estate were all stood ready and waiting while the maids handled the rest of the mundane lifting. Next to them, doing all the truly heavy lifting were the mercs, all suited for war and loaded for the mother of all b?rs.

  When I'd seen their armor before it had been impressive, like a hall of giant metal statues depicting heroic titans straight out of the legends. Now, all that steel was walking, talking and lifting. It was alive and some part of me hadn't really believed it until now. I couldn't decide if they looked more like avatars of iron or engines of war. They made the ground quake when they walked, the weapons stuck to their backs were bigger than I was tall, and above all, they made me and my little revolver feel entirely insignificant. If I stood in the wrong place they'd crush me underfoot and I doubted they'd even notice.

  "Hero," A giant among giants growled. I couldn't tell who was inside, the voice was too metallic and there was a resonant bassy boom to it that made me want to be anywhere else. It took me a second to recognize the mass of plates and servos as Anvil— Leeroy's suit of warplate. "Don't fuck this up."

  Threat delivered, he stomped off not wanting to spend a second longer in my proximity than was necessary. They all were I realized. Every single one of those tempered badasses clad in hulking masses of killing steel were keeping clear of me. Even in all that armor they didn't want to be anywhere near me. Some part of me wanted to take exception to that, but I couldn't find any exception in me buried under the gnawing fear doing its damnedest to make me scat out my guts.

  The background murmur of work and chatter stopped. It was so sudden that I thought I'd gone deaf or maybe had fire pouring out of my ears or something. I didn't, but I still ran a hand up to check before I followed everyone's hushed double takes to the source. They were all gawking at the only person more loathed and despised than I was.

  Treu had evidently missed the memo that we were going to war, clad in plainclothes stretched to bursting over his freakishly huge proportions. All of the exception I couldn't find in me was plastered on his posture, his cocksure swaggering stride that broadcast just how beneath him this whole spectacle was. His eyes were scanning forward, each one periodically swiveling in his repugnant reptilian manner to scowl in disdain at whatever it beheld. Until he looked my way, then both eyes came to bear down on me from on high, and he smiled— all predatory teeth and icy animosity.

  "Everyone! Mount up!" One of the armored Mercs bellowed, dispelling the ungodly silence that had befallen the palace parkway.

  I bolted for my car, gasping out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. It wasn't an ornate staff car this time, just another militia surplus crossover a few years out of date; the perfect cover for an arms dealer trying to lose himself in the cracks of the underworld. We'd up-armored the wannabe APC as much as the chassis and up-rated suspension could take, but two tonnes of composite steel still wasn't thick enough for me to shake the feeling that Treu was watching me. Watching, waiting and smiling at his cruel fantasies of what he'd get to do to me when the time came.

  "You're looking even shittier than usual." Malik snidely commented from my shotgun seat.

  "You drew the short twig?" I asked between deep breaths.

  "We use a black bullet, but yeah. Let's hope I live long enough to regret it, Firebug."

  Malik tried to slump down in his seat but there wasn't enough footspace for his long legs and the quartet of fire extinguishers he'd brought. The killing heat inside of me flared up at the sight, some primeval instinct rearing back to challenge an ancestral foe. It was comforting in a sickening way. I grabbed another cigarette and sparked it with a finger. While I sucked down my sweet poison, Celio climbed in the back and the car's radio crackled to life.

  "You all know your jobs," Leeroy stated, his voice saturated with so much commanding surety that the radio could hardly contain it. "Intel teams have already spotted hostile activity in our AO. They mean to make sure the Client doesn't escape them twice. Expect extremely-heavy resistance when the fighting starts and make no mistake, this is a when not an if. Fight smart, play to our strengths and destroy them utterly. Stick to your combat teams, stick to your sectors and DO NOT overextend yourselves. We've got a juicy combat bonus lined up after this, but you've gotta be alive to spend it. So remember, no dead heroes."

  Malik cast a sidelong glance at me, tempting fate then and there. I held my breath, hoping Leeroy would continue. Hoping he hadn't actually just finished his little speech with my impending death front and center in everyone's minds. But it seemed he had. No more words of encouragement were forthcoming. The convoy rolled out.

  "No dead heroes…" I muttered, taking a long drag off my cigarette. "Just one. Right?"

  Malik just turned his head to look out the window rather than face me, the fire extinguishers clattering at his feet.

  We took a long, meandering route across the hilly countryside, periodically stopping at the odd rural warehouse or seemingly-abandoned mountainside supply depot. Massive flatbed trucks laden with canvas-covered payloads joined us in their ones and twos, falling into file with the rest of the precious cargo. Soon enough, our convoy was too long for me to spot its full length in my mirrors. I tried my best not to think about the growing volume of munitions surrounding me— failing utterly. I wasn't sure which was worse, driving Celio or knowing that soon enough the shooting would start and I'd be right in the middle of it with a few hundred tonnes of extremely flammable explosives. We drove around the countryside for a good four hours and I went through a full pack and a half of smokes before we finally crossed into Crucibab's city limits.

  "All Chefs, we are now in the Kitchen." Leeroy said over the radio.

  "We've got over three-hundred guests already with more trickling in. Expect a serious dinner rush." Alice said, the radio amplifying her soft voice to conversational volume.

  I gulped down a mouthful of bile and tightened my white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. This was insane! I was insane for following through with it, but I didn't lift my foot from the gas pedal. I followed the lead car, a dozen trucks following me with half as many cars staggered throughout. We were just like a colony of rodents all rushing off the same cliff because some idiot leader thought it was a good idea and jumped first. We descended from the overpasses into the cluttered streets below, racing away from the rolling hills towards the sea. There was a moment, just a glimpse really before it was lost between the mid-rise mud brick towers, but I saw the ocean up close for the first time.

  I'd seen plenty of lakes as a pioneer, most freshwater but not all, but I'd never seen an ocean as anything but a blue blur or a smudged horizon. I had no idea they were so beautiful. The arid mesa hills of Cruicbab swathed the sea, hues of orange, yellow and umber all shoving against each other to escape the rich copper-oxide green of the ocean cove and the deep blue that lay beyond. There was a brown river, almost like a snaking line of the city had been gouged and liquefied, pouring out into a swirling muddy estuary. Specks of color burst everywhere to break up the monotony with sparks of individuality: painted ships in the water, dyed awnings in the city and defiant patches of natural foliage growing wherever mankind had left a gap.

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  "Why the hell are we fighting in a place like this?" I asked, rounding a corner and losing sight of the landscape to the dense city streets.

  'Ask not for the reason why, but for the will to do and die.' Malik offered without turning from his window. "If we do this right, it's one and done. Otherwise, this whole city will become a warzone for real."

  "No pressure." I said with a gulp. "What's that from? It sounded like a tune."

  "Just an old bastardized poem I read in university. Courage, Heroism, Sacrifice. All the glory they try to sell you on to get you to enlist. It's botshit mostly, but damned if they don't make it sound good for the people well away from the sharp end of the fighting."

  I didn't know how to follow that. It sounded like a long story, but then, I suppose we all had our reasons for being here at the sharp end. Money, Glory, Questions; what'd it matter why? We were here and soon enough we'd be getting shot at, wondering just if those reasons were worth it. I hit a pothole and my holster bounced, reminding me just how heavy my revolver was. The weight of all the lives I'd taken came down on my shoulders too.

  "At least it's not raining." I said, casting a quick glance upwards to the clear blue sky and it's foreign twin suns.

  "Don't jinx us." Malik said, his voice deadly serious.

  "All Chefs, all Chefs. Goose is in the Oven. Standby for the Banquet." Alice stated over the radio.

  I rounded the final blind corner in our long drive fighting down the urge to light another smoke. Rows of colossal warehouses ran inland to my left, away from the deep water port and the berthed pair of armed cargo ships resting at the docks ahead of me. There was a massive ringed something out in the water beyond the ships that I vaguely remembered being called a tidal turbine from the mission briefing.

  I'd been expecting the docks to appear run-down and abandoned— this was supposed to be a not-so-secret meeting place for an arms deal after all. I was sorely disappointed. These docks must have been top of the line at one point and they'd been in daily use and good repair ever since. There were splayed-legged cranes everywhere, an overhead grid of rugged steel, and everything from the buildings to the equipment had a practical design meant to maximize productivity without letting safety or worker wellbeing get in the way.

  To my right and rear it was all unplanned sprawling city clinging to the rocky seaside hills: apartments, side-street industrial parks, public works, shopping malls, solar cell grids, and the irregular ferrocrete block streets tying it all together. Our trucks were still pulling in behind me, all headed for the terminal lying in wait before us. Four groundcars were parked there waiting for us, surrounded by a loose gaggle of goons in what passed for suits on a world where heatstroke was a daily threat. In the middle of that gaggle, there was a fat balding man dressed in robes that were trying to be formal, militant and chic all at once (and failing horribly on all accounts) being fanned by one of his guards.

  "Alright everyone," Leeroy said. "Just like we planned."

  "Time to earn our pay, Firebug." Malik said, flicking the fire selector on his carbine from safe to burst.

  I nodded, gulping another mouthful of bile into my knotting guts as the killing heat built inside my hands. I pulled up my car, front and center while the trucks parked in slanted aisles behind us, sparing no effort on the showmanship. Celio wanted a grand spectacle to draw in prying eyes and Leeroy had been happy to oblige that request. I cast my gaze away from the show into my rear view, looking at the man of the hour.

  Celio was sitting in my backseat, just bobbing his head as his fingers drummed some unheard song's rhythm into the door handle. His eyes had this kind of stormy distant look to them, his brow furrowed like he couldn't remember the words of a tricky verse, and all the while his fingers kept dancing. He looked up, met my stare and a switch inside of him was thrown. He perked up in an instant and I was left wondering which Celio was real; the icon who'd swore to save the world or the aged man who'd been silently brooding for the past five hours. I hoped it was the former, but I couldn't say. Celio flung the door open without a trace of his burden, striding towards his opposite with arms wide in greeting.

  "My Friend! It has been too long!" He cried with such raw delight it seemed a little too genuine to be an act.

  The goons surrounding his 'friend' tensed instantly, reaching for holstered weapons or half-raising those weapons already in hand. Malik thumbed his carbine's fire-selector from burst to auto, but kept the rifle out of sight. I put another cigarette between my lips and rested a hand on my revolver. For his part, Celio's 'friend' scowled as he approached. That scowl only deepened the closer the two men got until his balding friend's face was a caricature of wrath and disgust. With a gap of two meters, the balding man drew an engraved, silver pistol and began examining it in detail. Celio didn't falter, but rather halted purposely as if this was all planned in advance— which it was, but his friend didn't need to know that.

  "All Chefs! Hold." Leeroy growled over the radio.

  "I remember when my father gave you that weapon, Diego…" Celio said. He was speaking to his opposite but also addressing the men around them— a statesman who made every person in the crowd feel as if he was talking to them and them alone. "Do you remember that day as well, My Friend?"

  The balding man—Diego, evidently—raised his pistol to eye height and recited something too faintly for me to hear.

  "Just so, Meu Irm?o." Celio answered wistfully. "Put the gun away Diego. We'll need every loyal son soon enough."

  An inland gust kicked salty brine down the dockyard lots, and for a long while Diego regarded his pistol and then Celio. His goons played their part well, but they were holding their breath along with everyone else present. A few cast knowing glances to their opposites among Celio's Vigia, shadowed eyes somewhere between sympathetic and pleading as they held their weapons ready.

  Gradually, Diego lowered his engraved pistol. His look of grave severity didn't depart, though it did gain a mourning note around the edges.

  "I hear nothing from you for years." Diego said, husk tinting his accent into dour tones. "You ignore my calls for assistance. The Guerreiro besiege my isles and where are you and your Vigia and your ships? Playing politician with the rest of the vipers carpeting the Throne of Cruz. And now, I hear of your death and not three cycles later you wish to renew our brotherhood? It is you who have forgotten the words we swore on that day, Brother."

  Diego finished by spitting on the ground at Celio's feet. His Vigia shuffled anxiously, but Celio was unflinching.

  "I will honor my vows," Diego continued, crossing himself with his pistol. "As we both swore to do. So do not remind me of my oaths, Brother. I will repulse the Guerreiro. I will fight any tyrant who lays claim to our home! Now tell me Brother, will I be fighting you once I have destroyed Vincete Dominar's lackeys at sea and on land?"

  "I would be a fool to war with you," Celio stated, again addressing everyone and only them. "Once you have added these to your arsenal."

  Celio snapped his fingers and the Vigia standing by their flatbeds took their cue to flash the goods. Canvas covers fell away from the trucks parked to maximize this reveal. The big ticket items commanded the docks, all eyes pulled at once in a calculated display of salesmanship and subterfuge. The lead trucks were carrying intercontinental missiles— minus the warheads and fuel for the time being. The next pair of trucks had heavily armored tanks, the ones behind them sported gunships, and then self-propelled artillery, and then the neatly stacked pyramids of ordinance to feed it all. The flatbeds further back remained tarped, tantalizing the imagination with possibilities when the reality was far more mundane. Crates of small arms, grenades, anti-material weaponry, fuel and even more ammunition didn't have the same wow factor as the rest.

  Now, had the third row of trucks from the rear had their coverings removed, Diego would have been moved to tears, but that surprise wasn't meant for him. At least not yet. As it was, Diego's severe demeanor broke apart, clearing the way for a wide childish grin as his eyes ogled the hardware. He blinked in stupification, his smile widened some more into lecherous proportions and then he was laughing.

  "We've got a lot of tardy guests arriving at the banquet." Alice whispered via the radio. "We might need catering sooner than anticipated."

  "We've got the van all warmed up, just say when and we'll be there in five." Tony replied.

  "Fried Chicken, standing by." Aivery snapped.

  "Chiefs, Severs, standby for the opening Toast." Leeroy ordered. It was probably just the radio, but he sounded tense.

  Celio wrapped an arm around Diego's shoulder and started walking him towards the merchandise. If I wasn't working for the man, I'd have sworn he was a swindler about to con his mark for all they had. I'd seen plenty of that type before, a wink and some honeyed words could be nearly as dangerous as a gun… if you knew how to use them. But it wasn't Diego we were trying to con, he was just the unlucky bastard caught in the middle. Same as me. I poked at the cigarette between my lips, lighting it with a finger that should have been red hot and started puffing.

  "Think his buddy will be happy when he learns Celio is using him as bait?" I asked, more so thinking aloud than really asking.

  "Are you happy being used as bait?" Malik retorted, making his thoughts on the matter perfectly clear.

  "Not particularly." I answered, unholstering my revolver and checking its cylinder.

  The murderous heat inside me was stoked to a steady burn, alive and ready, just waiting to be tapped into. My inner blaze was about as comforting as the heavy pistol in my hand or the knots in my guts were. It should have been sickening, a soul-searing cancer consuming me from within, but damned if that murderous fire inside didn't feel like a nasty friend who had my back— not unlike the cigarette I was puffing on. It was all sweet poison, killing me softly. I just needed to survive long enough for it to do so. Otherwise what was the harm?

  The sales pitch was a done deal within the minute. Diego whistled and that was all the signal his men needed. They moved with an ease that only came from practice and experience, Celio's Vigia trading their trucks for Diego's cars as the docks kicked into gear. Some of the cargo was getting buried in warehouses, others just driven back into the city streets to go get lost, the rest slowly started making its way onto Diego's waiting ships. In the center of all this activity, Diego and Celio stood immobile, speaking softly.

  "We might not get to serve dinner after all…" Tony quipped over the radio. An eruption of chatter squawked from the radio in reply.

  "Dammit Tony!" "Shut your whore mouth!" "Don't say shit like that!" "Whelp, we're jinxed." "Someone punch him!" "I'm gonna kick you in the balls when this is over."

  "What are our guests doing?" Leeroy asked and suddenly the radio was all business. "Alice, why haven't they moved yet?"

  "Dunno," She answered, I could almost hear the shrug accompanying her words. "They're just hunkered in cover. Watching, waiting."

  "You don't need hundreds of eyes to watch. What are they waiting for?"

  "Dunno."

  "Are they just cautious or do we have a leak?"

  "Dunno." Alice repeated.

  "That's not good enough! Find someone who won't be missed and get me some-" Leeroy was interrupted by someone keying their radio in rapid bursts.

  "Break break break!" Princess snapped. "Ship two is lazing something… No! Fuck. It's being-"

  The ship was already exploding before she could finish.