There was no news from the spy over the next 4 days while Cray recuperated from his wounds, for Waylon and Jrt’kn there would be no recovery. Waylon was killed by something the likes of which none of them had ever seen, it looked like he’d been mauled by a large dog underneath the armour and Cray had similar wounds on his back that would take a long time to heal.
"What will we do sir, cant wait down here forever." Marr asked after the 5th day.
"Take the jeep, you and Gary go up and check the safehouse. Be careful, one of those things, they took over Jrt’kn’s mind so dont trust the spy if he’s there."
"Do we know what he looks like?"
Cray shook his head, "no, so be very careful sergeant. Take the SHIVER armour and be very discrete."
He would have rather gone himself but Cray was still feeling very poorly physically.
"I thought you had the key corporal?"
Gary shrugged, as he didn't have any key to the little shanty in upper downtown, he’d never even been here.
"Ah we’ll go in stealthy"
Marr kicked the door off its hinges and covered Gary as he moved into the room with the browbeater, following him in as the soldier scoured the room for signs of life. A series of soft ‘puff’s’ left two huge holes through the wall near his leg and Gary dived over the couch facing the TV and landed on someone who screamed. Even without thinking Marr hit the trigger on the riot gun and the air filled with ricocheting little ceramic balls and he heard Gary swear, "shit, those hurt sarge!"
"Oops! Sorry Gaz," Marr covered the prone form on the floor Gary was sitting on.
"You hit her in the head Sarge!"
"Hit who, her? I thought it was supposed to be a he?"
"She’ll live, have a few nasty bruises though."
Neither of them really knew who the spy was in the first place, but the Thresher 11mm pistol with its bulbous silencer was a sign that the dark haired woman in the expensive biogenetic suit probably wasnt a SLA employee. Still, after what the lieutenant had told them Marr wasnt about to take any chances and handcuffed her to the to the floor in the back of the jeep while Gary collected the woman’s things.
"Mister shiver! Mister shiver! Someone shot my mum!"
Some boy probably 17 or 18 years old, was calling Marr over from the small balcony in front of the second bungalow. He cursed, realised who he was pretending to be and walked over to the kid who dragged him inside, "dont touch me kid!"
She was as dead as a doornail, slumped in front of the TV in her chair with two holes in her chest, "so call the Shivers, Im here to pick up a, a subversive", that was the word they used wasnt it he wondered.
"You’re the SHIVER, you call them."
"Fuck off Im busy!"
Either from grief or his own stupidity the kid grabbed him again and tried to drag him back in the house by his left hand, clinging on with dear life and an angry look in his eye.
"Dont touch me!"
"Call a doctor!"
A few belts about the skull and shoulders later Marr knew why they called it a ‘Pacifier Baton’ because if the kid ever lived he’d be a drip-fed vegetable for the rest of his life. Gary came in and looked at the mess on the chair and the pulped teenager at the sergeant’s feet, "all taken care of? Ive got her things, not much in there. Just a computer, handbag with about 10,000 uni’s and some minor girl stuff things in it."
"All taken care of, might want to rig up an Uncle Willie Pete on the door frame for anyone poking through the flat while I scan the gear for bugs."
While the corporal rigged up two incendiary grenades on a tripwire Marr went over the equipment for any bugs or other tracking devices with his hand held scanner, it looked clean but that just meant that it was not currently transmitting anything. He had a brief look over some of it, the SLA Oyster laptop was not familiar to him but nothing seemed out of the ordinary in it. The build quality wasnt as good as the Thresher equivalent but that didn't surprise him, though he was impressed with the pacifier baton, it was good fun.
Gary had just gotten the Jeep down the end of the entrance to the dirty little off road where the bungalow was when a group of four SHIVER’s hailed them down, "better pull over corporal. See what these dickheads want."
"Excuse me Sergeant could we use your radio? Our headsets dont quite make it back to base."
"Yeah ok" Marr nodded noticing that he outranked them all so if they got inquisitive he could pull rank.
One of them a private reached inside the jeep and called back to report his radio problem while some of the others pulled up the tarpaulin to look at the woman, she was awake too he noticed and looking very worried.
"Darknight scum or subversive sarge?" A lowly little corporal reached in to poke her in the ribs with his baton.
"Ah, this ones a naughty little lass, can’t tell you who she worked for. Dont poke the meat, it bruises."
"Oh!" The Corporal exclaimed and lewdly lifted up her skirt, "you might want to check her out, they hide things in there every now and there. If not..."
This elicited a scream and a whimper from woman, which had Gary reach for his browbeater, discretely unbuttoning the catch on his leg webbing where the 11mm pistol was.
"Dont tell me how to do my job and I said dont poke the prisoner."
"She might like a bit of a poke." He was about to jab her again now that he had made her start crying pitifully and the SHIVER obviously enjoyed the work up.
He smashed the baton over the SHIVER’s helmet, leaving an impressive dent in the top and the corporal groaning on the ground. "I said dont poke the prisoner. Anyone else want to try?"
The rest of the SHIVER privates took two steps back from the jeep.
"Now if you lovely ladies wouldn't mind, theres a little shack up there, you’ll see it with the open door right up the end. Theres two dead bodies in one and the other has some drugs, money and contraband in there. As soon as I get back to base I’ll have a forensics team up there so look after it. So make sure it gets looked after."
Marr got back into the jeep while the rest of the SHIVER’s helped their Corporal to their feet and respectfully made promises to look after the bungalow. Gary got them out of there at high speed, not wanting to wait until the enemy went inside the little bungalow. "You do realise sarge that they will probably go in there to have a look around and try to pocket something?"
"Oh indeed Corporal, I do", he laughed evilly under the helmet, "oh yes indeed."
"You have a very bad sense of humour sarge"
"They shouldn’t have joined if they couldn't take a joke."
Chicane kicked Marr a few times in the face and chest ineffectively when he stuck the bag over her head and they took her off somewhere that she had long ago worked out from the surrounding streets would be nowhere near a SHIVER station. "Look lady, dont kick me and you’ll be ok. You run and we’ll shoot you but be nice and calm and no one’s going to get hurt." She screamed through the gag and kicked him a bit more anyway fearing for her life, "I said, dont fucking kick me!" He reached for the pacifier baton but Gary stopped his arm noticing the sergeant was getting very angry and about to snap.
"Look ma’am, we know who you are. We’re just going to go somewhere, verify that and then you can be let out of the bag. Ok?" She didn't answer but stopped crying for now in the back of the jeep.
Cray took one look at the miserable woman the pair dragged out of the back of the jeep, " I thought I told you two. No freebies! Now what is it you have here Sgt Marr?"
"We think it’s the spy, sir"
"She check out clear of bugs? You made really sure?"
"Yes, sir," Gary answered, "she had a FLAY pistol, took a few shots us too with it so we dont know how flaky she is."
"Ok then boys, sit her down over there and we’ll ask her a few questions."
"If you three are Thresher soldiers, you are in so much shit!" She yelled through the bag over her head while they dumped her roughly on a tattered lounge chair scavenged from a nearby flat.
"And why is that young lady? You got something in your head thats going to come out and bite us?" Cray cycled a round into the carbine that got her to shut up immediately, "you answer when you are spoken to. You will be shot if you do that again. Do you understand?"
"Yes"
"Ive had three good soldiers die on me in the last week and Im not in the mood for your bullshit. Now, start telling me about us, our codename is ‘Little Fish’."
"I dont have any squad here under that name and your obviously not Thresher. Which means Im dead."
"Maybe, but that means you dont know who we are and maybe if theres something in your head it wont like the DU round Im about to put in there."
"I dont think its going to matter if its regular lead or not, theres not much I can do about it is there? Your accent isn't from around here, maybe Bremen or you're a backwater inbred from Despair? Trailer boy."
"Hey I come from Bremen!"
"Shut up Gary!"
"Bunch of lazy beach combers, thought I could smell the stink of fish guts still on you."
"Hey she said I stink!"
"You do now shut the fuck up."
Marr laughed at the reference to the common derogatory name for people who came from Bremen. It was only used by locals from his planet of Destarphas, "you cut that shit out too sergeant."
"LT 038382-7TH"
"Saltwater? So you’re the scum from the seventh light irregulars, that would explain the overall lack of intelligence on your behalf. So what choice did they give you? 5 years in the ‘we stop bullets’ or life on a company paid for, ‘pound us in the arse prison’ planet?"
"We took the honorable way out."
"Figured the sergeant to take any way he could. Or maybe he’s just a sexually repressed receiver type?"
"I’ll slap the shit out of your smart mouth bitch!"
There was the sound of a scuffle while Gary subdued Marr to the ground.
After another ten minutes of mixed answers and generic abuse Cray gave up and let her go, she was obviously too annoying to be any type of necanthrope hiding in her brain. There was the other obvious problem that TH03456-UXX Rachael Ansted was a full rank higher than Cray after checking out her ID card hidden in the handbag. So he didn't want to push the tolerance of a senior officer anymore than he had already even if she was under the corporate sector command chain, several years younger and most annoyingly, a woman of all things. He hated taking orders from women.