Doctor Who_ So Vile a Sin - Ben Aaronovitch [2]
Chris was speaking. He’d been up half the night trying to get the eulogy to sound right. It had started as a four-thousand-word essay. Standing in front of a mirror in one of the TARDIS’s libraries, he’d recited it over and over, scribbling out bits, until he’d got it down to just the right length.
Had Chris finished speaking? The Doctor couldn’t hear him for the sunlight, battering down. He closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again, Chris was lifting Roz’s body from the bier.
He didn’t feel the impact itself, just the after-effects, every cell in his body ringing with the shock. Whatever had hit him had knocked the air out of his lungs. His whole chest was alight with crushing pain.
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He looked around, trying to work out what had hit him, realizing he was on his knees. One hand was pressed to his chest.
Had he been shot? Where was the blood?
Something inside him clenched, and clenched again. Sparkles erupted across his field of vision. His fingers were tingling, suddenly cold. He still couldn’t work out what had hit him.
His other hand was clutching his hat, trying to keep it on, keep his face hidden from the staring POVs. They would just love this.
Green eyes, watching.
Someone took his hand, gripping it tightly, trying to pull him to his feet. Somebody was calling for a doctor.
I’m here, he thought, I’m on my way, just let me catch my breath.
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Prologue
All the King’s Horses
Spaceport 16 Undertown: 22 February 2981
Vincenzi’s platoon ran into a company-sized unit of OLM
regulars on the wrong side of the pacification zone. They lost five troopers to PG ordnance before they reached makeshift firing positions in a nearby defile.
The oggies started lobbing AP Seekers in their general direction: marble-sized smart munitions that homed in on the smell of human fear. It was gear that oggies were supposed to be too dumb to use.
The smart money was on staying down and waiting for the nearest orbital platform to come over the horizon and rock the Ogrons into the ground. But the platoon’s lieutenant was fresh off the ship from Purgatory and still believed the Landsknechte party line on death and glory. He stood up, said something inspiring, and prepared to lead his troops in a glorious charge against the enemy.
Vincenzi shot him in the back of the head.
The platoon withdrew under cover of a precision orbital strike.
No more casualties were taken.
Division had a good idea of what had gone down – they had the unit telemetry, and a partial log from the edge of a satellite sensor 13
footprint. But the oggies had scavenged the battlefield and the lieutenant’s body was MPE. Missing, presumed eaten. The troopers wouldn’t talk: they knew
what Vincenzi had done and why.
No one was sure what to do with Vincenzi.
He spent two months in administrative limbo, eating and sleeping in a series of identical battleship-grey cabins on board a variety of troopships – each one a few parsecs closer to Earth.
Every so often he was visited by investigators from the Judge Advocate’s office, the rank insignia growing more elaborate as he was passed up the chain of command. They saw an average-looking guy with average coffee-coloured skin and average dark eyes with a slight fold, black hair cropped tidily, uniform pressed, body hunched and weary from the long hours in what was essentially solitary confinement. He got through the interviews by sticking to yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir, and as much chicken shit as he thought he could get away with.
In the gaps he mostly spent his time staring at the bulkhead.
Occasionally the lieutenant’s head would squeeze out of the corner where the ceiling met the wall and bounce around the room screaming. Vincenzi did his best to ignore it.
Then one day he looked out of the viewport and saw the unmistakable blue, green and silver of Earth turning below him.
The Imperial Landsknechte gave him a dishonourable discharge, a one-way ticket down the well, and just enough money to drink himself to death.
He did his best to comply. After all, following