CHAPTER 18
Hell’s Cross, Outpost Fisher Four
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00
Ockham’s punch glances off my symbiarmor. But I feel the force of it disperse through my body, and I almost take a step backward. Almost. The old man still has power, and he knows how to use it. But I’m younger, faster, and my armor’s a few pay grades above his. If Ockham thinks he’s facing a soft Offworlder, he’s in for a surprise.
To answer the challenge, I pound his chest with both fists. He comes back at me, grinning through tobacco-stained teeth. He needs dental work. Lots of dental work.
And a sprig of mint.
“Strike fast and hard,” Mimi tells me. “You should end this as quickly as possible.”
“Yes, Mother,” I say.
“I formally challenge you for command of the davos,” Ockham says. Then he bows, palms pressed together.
“Challenge accepted,” I reply.
But the words no more than pass my lips then Vienne interrupts. “Chief,” she says. “This fight is mine.”
“Vienne, no.” This has to be my battle, because I’m fighting the miners as much as I’m fighting Ockham. “Not this time.”
“I’m your second,” she says stubbornly. “It is my right to take on all comers.”
I start to argue when Mimi chimes in, “To refuse her is to dishonor her.”
“I know that!”
“If you dishonor her, she will never forgive you.”
“I know that, too!”
“But if you let her fight in your place, the miners will never respect you.”
“Yes! Yes! I’ve got it. This is one of those gu pì bù tng messes that go with being chief. I know I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Okay?”
“Just making sure,” Mimi says.
If she weren’t flash-cloned to my brain, I would knock her silly.
Taking a deep breath, realizing that all eyes are on me and Vienne, who is standing beside me frozen in the Regulator salute, I make the decision to hurt her.
“Vienne, you are excused. I will fight Ockham.”
She blanches. Then regains her composure and bows. Only I know the truth: My words burn like battery acid. Only seconds pass, but I can feel a chasm opening between us.
“Yes, chief.” She stands aside. “As you wish.”
I can’t look at her. Turning away, I strip my armor down to the skivvies. Then stand calmly before Ockham. My body is lean and hard, the muscles rippling in my stomach as I flex, calling forth my chi.
Ockham tosses his head back. Laughs. “Nice belly, pretty boy. But you best not expect me to go easy on yo—ack!”
A chop to the windpipe silences him mid-sentence. Ockham grabs his throat and staggers back, trying to catch his breath. Pressing the advantage, I launch a scissors kick to the side of his head. Then drop into a crouch as I leg whip his knees.
The old warrior lands hard on his butt. Groans. As I move in to deliver a stomp to the ribs, a blow I’ve seen Vienne maim men with, Ockham rolls away. My foot stomps bare ground, and the old man kips up to his feet.
“Too slow,” he says, laughing at his escape.
His breath comes in wheezing gasps, but he’s able to drop into a defensive stance. I recover quickly. Throw a round kick at the side of his head. It’s a killing blow, but Ockham catches my foot easily in his thick-calloused hands. Draws my foot into his belly, then shoves hard and sends me spinning away.
“Too slow again. You ought to let the suzy fight your battles.”
For an instant it looks as if I’ll crash headlong into the stone floor. But I twist like a goring drill and land on my toes. The soles of my feet smack the stone. The sound echoes in my ears.
Damn it, this needs to end now.
Before the sound fades, I attack again. This time, with a series of rapid-fire kicks to Ockham’s chest. He blocks the first three with his forearms. But I drive a rock-hard heel into his solar plexus. Softly I land in the dust as he gags and heaves. His body bends at the waist like a steel bar melted in the center. The muscles in his face slacken, the skin on his cheeks turns red like he’s been burned. His eyes droop and close halfway, the pupils dilated.
I slide behind Ockham. As he falls to one knee, struggling for breath, I step in to deliver the coup de grace—an overhand punch that Vienne taught me, aimed at the base of the neck. Where his brain stem is unprotected. The correct term for it is a rabbit punch, but Vienne is no rabbit. She’s a cobra, and her strikes are lethal.
What am I doing? “No!” I yell the instant before the blow lands.
The sound of my voice causes Ockham to twitch his head to the side. My calloused knuckles land anyway. But the turn of Ockham’s head has changed the target. Instead of the soft tissue of the neck, I hit boney skull.
Crack!
A bone breaks.
I think it’s mine.
“It’s yours,” Mimi says. “You delivered the punch at precisely the wrong angle.”
“Thanks for that crumb of recon,” I say. “Which one?”
“Fifth metacarpal. Hairline fracture. Treatment protocol requires ice and elevation above heart level to reduce swelling—”
“Remind me later,” I say.
Ockham slumps forward, eyes rolling into his head, and topples almost gently onto his side. I stand above him, take three calming breaths, and flex my hand. It burns like hot mercury. I bend down to check the old man’s pulse. He’s alive. Thank God.
“You hurt yourself,” Vienne says.
“Just a metacarpal,” I reply.
“You should have killed him,” she says. “It’s your right.”
“We need him to fight the Dr?u. Besides, now that I’ve kicked his ass, he has to fall in line. It’s in the Tenets, right.”
She nods, satisfied. “Right.”
We step away. Allow the miners to minister to him. Spiner and Jurm check Ockham for injuries.
“Is he still alive?” I ask.
“He’s breathing,” Jurm says.
“I reckon that counts as living,” I say, and then wait until Mimi tells me that his injuries are minor. “Don’t move him until we check him out. Call your medic down here.”
The miners shrug, and no one moves. A few of them murmur about taking orders from a dalit and helping a damned Regulator.
“Do it,” áine says, striding toward us. “There’s no arguing when a man’s hurt. Jurm, I’ll get Maeve. You and two others, fetch a gurney from the infirmary. Now. If you don’t mind.” She pauses and then adds, “Please.”
She catches my eye. Shakes her head. Walks up the stairs. There is frustration there. And fear. How can I blame her? Dissension in the ranks. Two Regulators injured, one possibly crippled, with a cannibalistic enemy in the wings, waiting to attack fortifications that aren’t finished. I feel like a mountain climber whose only toehold is a thin lip of crumbling rock.
“Will Ockham die?” Jean-Paul asks Vienne, his body colored rust from the fight, the blood from his mouth drying black on his belly.
His voice gives me a start. I almost forgot he was there.
“No,” I hear Vienne answer. “He’s too mean to die.”
Jean-Paul flashes that same determined look I saw back in the New Eden bazaar. “What about my training? How will I become a Regulator now?”
“Here’s some advice,” she says, leading him away, “and it won’t cost you a penny. If you want to become a Regulator, try to learn from the man who won the fight, not the one who lost it.”