Morning Star полностью

But I say nothing. My place now is beside Ragnar and Victra, behind Sevro as he spits out his gum and stalks forward, giving me a wink and an elbow in the side, to stand in front of the small army. His army. He’s tiny for an Obsidian male, but still scarred and tattooed and terrifying to this company of small-handed garbage men and hunched tower welders. He tilts his head forward, eyes smoldering behind his black contacts. Wolf tattoos looking evil against his pale skin in the industrial light.

“Greetings, grease monkeys.” His voice rumbles, low and predatory. “You might be wondering why Ares has sent a pack of hardcore nasties like us to this tin shithole.” The Sons look to one another nervously. “We aren’t here to cuddle. We aren’t here to inspire you or give long-ass speeches like the bloodydamn Sovereign.” He snaps his fingers. Pebble and Clown wheel the carts forward and unlatch the tops. The hinges squeal open to reveal mining explosives. “We’re here to blow shit up.” He throws open his arms and cackles. “Any questions?”

I float in the back of the trash collector with the Howlers. It’s dark. The night vision of my optics shows the garbage that orbits us in shadowy green. Banana peels. Toy packaging. Coffee grounds. Victra makes a gagging sound over the com as toilet paper sticks to her face. Her mask is a demonHelm. Like mine, it’s pupil black and shaped subtly like a screaming demon face. Fitchner managed to steal them from Luna’s armories for the Sons more than a year back. With them, we can see most spectrums, amplify sound, track one another’s coordinates, access maps, and communicate silently. My friends around me are in all black. We wear no mechanized armor, only thin scarabSkin over our bodies that will stop knives and occasional projectiles. We have no gravBoots or pulseArmor. Nothing that will slow us, cause noise, or trip sensors. We wear oxygen tanks with air enough for forty minutes. I finish adjusting Ragnar’s harness and look to my datapad. The two Reds crewing the old trash collector are giving us a countdown. When it reaches one, Sevro says, “Tuck your sacks and pop your cloaks.”

I activate my ghostCloak and the world warps, distorted by the cloak. It’s like looking through refracted, dirty water, and I already feel the battery pack heating up against my tailbone. The cloak’s good for short bursts. But it burns up small batteries like the ones we pack and needs time to cool and recharge. I grope for Sevro and Victra’s hands, managing to grasp them in time. The rest partner up as well. I don’t remember feeling so frightened before the Iron Rain. Was I braver then? Maybe just more naïve.

“Hold tight. We’re in for some chop,” Sevro says. “Popping top in three…two…” I tighten my grip on his hand. “…one.”

The collector’s door retracts silently, bathing us in the amber light of a holoDisplay screen on a nearby skyscraper. There’s a burst of air and my world spins as the trash collector ejects its load of garbage from the back of its hold. We’re like seed chaff thrown into the city. Spinning with debris through a kaleidoscope world of towers and advertisements. Hundreds of ships funneling along avenues. All a flashing, liquid blur. We continue to spin head over heel to mask our signatures.

Over the com, I hear the grousing of a Blue traffic controller, annoyed at the spilled trash. Soon there’s a company Copper on the line threatening to fire the incompetent drivers. But it’s what I don’t hear that makes me smile. The police channels drone on their usual slant, reporting a Syndicate airjacking in the Hive, a grisly murder in the ancient art museum near the Park Plaza, a datacenter robbery in the Banking Cluster. They haven’t seen us amidst the debris.

We slow our spin gradually using small thrusters in our helmets. Bursts of air bring us to a steady drift. Silent in the vacuum. We’re on target. Along with the rest of the trash, we’re about to impact on the side of a steel tower. Has to be a clean landing. Victra curses as we drift closer, closer. My fingers tremble. Don’t bounce. Don’t bounce.

“Release,” Sevro orders.

I pull my hands from his and Victra’s, and the three of us impact jarringly against the steel. The trash around us bounds off the metal, cartwheeling backward at odd angles. Sevro and Victra stick, compliments of the magnets in their gloves, but a piece of debris impacting in front of me bounces off the steel and hits me in the thigh, altering my trajectory. Tipping me sideways, hands windmilling for a grip, which causes me to spin.

My feet hit first and I bounce backward toward space, cursing.

“Sevro!” I shout.

“Victra. Get him.”