Dark World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 9), page 25
Cooper came close and threw his shoulder against the umbilical. He used proximity chat, so that only I could hear him.
“You’re so full of shit, sir,” he said, gasping for air. “That crap about a cool-down cycle…”
“That’s right,” I said. “But it got everyone’s ass out of cover and running, didn’t it. Take a look back, Cooper. Check out your friends who froze like frightened mice.”
Cooper did, and he blinked at the drifting, flash-roasted corpses. Finally, he nodded.
“You played it right—again,” he said. “I don’t have your kind of brains. I don’t think I could ever do your job.”
I clanked a gauntlet down on his shoulder. “It’s not some innate ability, it’s experience. Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a kid. I’m older than your daddy—maybe your granddaddy too, even if I don’t look like it. Who knows what you’ll be capable of if you make it to my age without being permed?”
Cooper nodded, but he didn’t look overly comforted.
“McGill?” Kivi called out to me.
“Kivi? You got those charges set yet?”
“Not yet—but I’m getting nasty calls from Deech. She’s knows it’s you. She demands to be transferred to you, directly.”
I closed my eyes.
Dammit. We were so close.
“Imperator?” I asked, tapping on her name. “To what do I owe this honor, sir?”
“McGill, you are a rogue element. If you don’t obey me right now, I’m going to put you down.”
Hearing those words, I craned up my neck and helmet. I could see Nostrum hanging in space.
Deech had moved the ship, and I was now under her guns.
Nostrum had more armament than just her broadsides. She had smaller weapons, defensive guns that could knock out missiles. I suspected it was these that Deech was threatening to use on me now. We hadn’t dared place the ship in the sights of the ground batteries before—but apparently, Deech was determined to stop me.
“Fantastic!” I shouted, waving a hand at the ship, although I doubted she could see me. “We’ll stand down, sir. All we wanted to do is hit the Vulbites as they arrived in this big elevator.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “You’re stalling for time. McGill, if you don’t move your troops away from that strategic asset in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to fire.”
“Aw now, Imperator, these troops came a long way—”
“We’ll honor them properly in the revival chamber. Twenty seconds left, McGill. It’s up to you.”
I switched over to tactical chat.
“Kivi, are you ready?” I asked.
“No, sir. I don’t have the charges set yet. We lost most of our stuff with the weaponeers. I’m chaining together grenades, here.”
“How long do you need?”
“About five minutes—maybe ten.”
I closed my eyes. There was no way I could stall Deech that long.
“McGill?” she shouted in my ear. Her voice seemed emotional when she spoke my name. “I’m running a countdown. Ten… Nine…”
“Troops!” I shouted. “Move out! Everyone away from the umbilical—including you, Kivi!”
They didn’t hesitate. They fled in every direction, seeking whatever cover they could find.
Only I remained, standing with my butt propped up against the undulating skin of the umbilical.
“Excellent,” Deech said. “My people tell me your platoon has scattered. You’ve avoided a well-deserved perming today, McGill.”
I was barely listening to her, but I sensed I’d get more time if I kept her talking, so I tried to keep her on the line.
“This was all a big misunderstanding, sir,” I said.
While I talked, I dug out my combat knife and began slashing a hole in the umbilical tube. The material was tough, but my molecularly aligned blade was insanely sharp. I managed to slash a slit, which was soon crossed by another cut. An X-shaped hole formed, and I began crawling inside.
The umbilical was lightly pressurized to keep it from collapsing, and a gush of air came out. I crawled inside, feeling the rough fabric shiver and flap over my suit.
“We were ordered to rush into the enemy lines,” I told Deech. “Ordered to seek and destroy, to advance until the enemy was defeated. When we ran out of Vulbites, we naturally pursued them right out onto the hull itself.”
“I can almost believe that. You Varus types are like animals trained to fight in pits.”
“That’s right, sir. You just let us loose, and we’ll get rid of any—.”
“McGill? What are you—?” Deech interrupted, and the change in her tone left no doubt she was aware I wasn’t huddled-up on the hull with the rest of my troops.
“Damn you, man! You’ve left me no choice. Gunners, burn him down!”
I was inside the umbilical, edging my way around inside it. Knowing I only had seconds left, I lunged hurling myself out into the void. For a few seconds, I found myself falling in the middle of the chute. Once away from the space complex, the gravity of Dark World had begun to tug me downward.
Below, toward the planet, I could see the silver disk coming rapidly up the endless tube. If I didn’t die soon, I’d be crushed for certain.
But I didn’t plan to last that long.
Stuttering beams came crashing all around me at an angle, puncturing the umbilical fabric in a hundred places. I could vaguely hear a ripping sound as the fabric was torn apart by a thousand pencil-thin bolts from Nostrum.
Deech and her gunners had doubtlessly locked onto my signal and were showering the area with rapid fire. The stream of bolts followed me down as I fell toward Dark World, many kilometers below. A few of them slammed into my body and threw me into a spin.
As a man who’s been shot on many occasions, I knew right off I was dying. It seemed like one of my thighs had caught most of it. The rest of my leg below that—it was gone.
I experienced shock and pain that was more like pressure and sickness than real agony. All of that was followed the by stinging sensation of the freezing thin atmosphere, which invaded my suit like a splash of ice water.
The cold wrapped me up in a frozen hand, and soon it sucked the very air from my lungs, replacing it with frost.
My mind was still working well enough to understand I’d failed. I was spinning, dying, falling toward Dark World. The umbilical was all around me, a semi-transparent film that had somehow held together. There were holes—lots of holes—but it was still in one piece.
Then, as my vision began to darken, I saw a change.
The sun came out. Dark World loomed a moment later, surrounded by its purplish haze of atmosphere.
It took me a second to realize the umbilical had torn loose, and it had begun to fall due to its own fantastic weight.
I tried to whoop as I dropped toward the alien planet, one I’d never yet set foot upon, but there wasn’t enough air left in my lungs to make a sound.
-36-
I died hard, and my corpse fell all the way down to Dark World. Fortunately, I lost consciousness before I burned up in that thick, hazy atmosphere.
There was time to calculate that I’d probably permed myself. It had been a good way to go out, as a man like me measures such things. After all, if every single one of us is destined to be permed at some point—why not do it in the most dramatic fashion possible?
But it wasn’t to be. When I felt life stir in my mind and my limbs again, I was almost disappointed.
“What now?” I managed to croak out.
“What’s that? He’s talking?” said a male voice.
“He’s a good grow—good enough, anyway,” a female answered. “Get him off my table.”
My mind was slowly knitting together, and I squinted in the glare of the revival chamber, trying to figure out what was going on.
Usually, after a stunt like the one I’d just pulled on Deech, I would be revived to stand trial. Today, though, there was a different vibe going on.
The bio people looked stressed and tired. The floor was stained and even a little steamy. These were sure signs that they’d been running the machines night and day, churning out troops.
That was normal in the wake of a big battle, but I got the impression from their intense, nearly exhausted behavior that we were in trouble.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “What’s our status? Are we losing the platform?”
They looked at me in surprise. The specialist turned to the orderly and glared at him. She had a mean look to her. “I thought you said his numbers checked out. His mind isn’t working right.”
“It’s working okay—for him,” he said defensively. “Check out his storage date—he’s been in limbo for two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” she said, blinking. Then she frowned at me. “Did your dog take a shit on somebody’s lawn up there on Gold Deck, Adjunct?”
“Um… something like that, yeah.”
She nodded. “Well, I don’t want any part of that. Get to your unit. Someone will brief you there.”
I agreed, deciding it was high time that I became agreeable. Maybe I’d gotten off easy—somehow.
Making my way to my unit’s module, I found it empty. Checking my tapper, I discovered there wasn’t a soul aboard Nostrum who was part of 3rd unit.
Feeling uncertain as to what to do, I began making quiet inquiries using my tapper. That could be dangerous if I’d been revived by mistake, but I felt I had to know the score.
Graves was the first one I reached out to. After all, he’d more or less approved of my intended actions.
The tapper rang and rang, but he didn’t pick up. Finally, I noticed the message: unavailable.
That was strange. He’d been on Gold Deck, then on the space complex with me. If he was in either place now, he’d be available. Could he be dead? I wasn’t sure.
In rapid order, I tried Carlos, Kivi, Natasha—even Harris. I came up with nothing.
Worried, I took a quick shower, dressed in fatigues and headed up to Gold Deck.
Now, a thinking person might believe waltzing onto Gold Deck was madness on my part. To be honest, part of me was thinking the same thing.
But someone up there must have released the hold on my revive. Someone had to know what the score was—so I took the gamble.
I got to the elevator lobby and was waiting to catch a lift to Gold Deck when a small hand tapped on my back.
I whirled around, expecting foul play—but the face that greeted me was familiar.
She was a petite, thin woman with sharp features. She was cute enough when she smiled, and a few years ago we’d had a thing going on.
It was none other than Centurion Evelyn Thompson, a bio officer from Blue Deck. She backed up a step when I whirled around on her, but then she relaxed when I smiled in recognition.
“Sorry,” I said, “I’m a little jumpy after spending two weeks on ice.”
“Right,” she said. “You can relax. I’m the one who shuffled the queue to get you back into the game.”
“Really? Thanks. But… can you tell me what’s going on?”
She looked around with furtive eyes. “Not here. Follow me.”
Evelyn was a special case. She worked for Turov most of the time, but she didn’t always like her job. Most recently, she’d been restored to the rank of centurion by Turov—which to my mind meant she was locked-in like an indentured servant.
When Evelyn and I had enjoyed our affair, I figured it hadn’t really harmed either of us—but still, we weren’t really on the same side.
It occurred to me as I followed her tight little behind down a side-passage, that Evelyn fit the profile of Varus women I tended to get involved with down to a T. She blew hot and cold seemingly at random, and in the past we’d both killed each other at one point or another. Why such females attracted me was a mystery I figured I’d never solve.
“Uh…” I said. “Where are we going?”
She glanced over her shoulder in surprise. “No trust? Not even on a day like today?”
“Well… sorry.”
I soon figured out she was leading me to her private quarters. Things were looking up, from my point of view.
After she let me in, I stretched out on her couch.
“I do have some fine memories of this couch,” I told her.
“Don’t… don’t go there.”
“What? Why not? You aren’t still upset about our past, are you?”
She shrugged and didn’t meet my eye. That told me she was still uncomfortable about it.
The thing was, Evelyn had been playing me for a dupe. She’d spied on me, loved me, then spied on me some more. When I’d finally figured out what she was doing, she dumped me, apologizing briefly before running off into the night.
“James, can we forget our past? Things are urgent.”
“I’m sure they are,” I said. “People don’t just unperm old McGill for nothing. But you know, you kind of hurt my feelings a few summers back...”
“Look, I told you I was sorry about that. What else can I do?”
Thinking of several pleasant possibilities, I shrugged. Fortunately, I was smart enough not to suggest anything out loud.
“All right,” I said, “apology accepted for now. What do you want to tell me? By the way, have you got a beer or something? My mouth always tastes awful after a revive.”
She gave me a beer, and she sipped a can of wine herself. She stared at me for a moment before she began talking rapidly.
“Here’s the deal: your unit has been deployed on Dark World. Most of our legion was deployed down there over a week ago.”
I sat up and slammed down my beer can. It was already empty. “We invaded Dark World? Hot damn!”
Evelyn snorted and shook her head, smiling. “Same old James. You like to fight, don’t you?”
“I love smashing bugs like these Vulbites. So, have we pushed their garrison troops back? Have we flushed them all out of their holes down there and squished them by the thousands?”
She looked down and licked her lips before answering. “This planet isn’t garrisoned by the Vulbites, James. We’ve discovered… It’s their home world.”
That was a stunner. All of a sudden, I understood why they’d been coming at us in what seemed like endless waves. They were fighting for their home planet.
“Uh-oh…” I said, thinking about it. “That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not. After we kicked them off this orbital platform, Deech ordered Legion Varus to drop on the planet itself. The fighting down there has been fierce.”
I was frowning now, not liking the idea of having missed all that action. “Why couldn’t they have revived me and thrown me into battle with my troops?”
“They just decided to do so last night. An order went out saying all holds on revivals were off—and your name was cleared immediately. I popped you up to the top of the queue this morning, and here we are.”
Jumping up off her couch, I approached her, and she took a cautionary step back.
“You’ve got to get me down there, girl! I need to join my unit if they’re in trouble.”
My hand clasped her elbow, and she looked a little scared.
“I understand how you feel,” she said, “but it’s a bit more complicated than that. You’re cohort has been captured.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
Now, I understood why she looked worried. She hadn’t told me the really bad stuff before, and now that she had, she was concerned about how I’d react.
I let go of her, and she breathed more easily.
“Look,” she said. “I know this sucks. I know this is unfair—but I’m going to lay it out for you. Deech still wants you dead. She’s up on Gold Deck, busy with disasters, and she doesn’t know you’ve been revived. It probably slipped her mind when she released everyone who was held up in the queue that the order would include you.”
Frowning, I gave her my full attention. “But the Blue Deck people would know the difference. They’d check with the brass before okaying my revival. Who authorized this then? Turov, right?”
“Yeah,” Evelyn said. “She told me to do it. In case someone noticed I’d altered the queues, I decided not to be there when you came out.”
“You chickened,” I said nodding.
“I took precautions,” she amended, and I let her get away with it.
“How did it happen? The capture, I mean?”
For legionnaires, being captured on an alien world was just about the worst imaginable fate. Legally, Earth couldn’t revive troops who weren’t confirmed dead. Being captured and disappearing meant you were permed—no revive. No possibility of freedom, either, if you did somehow survive. Aliens typically made poor hosts.
“They were invading a hive—that’s what’s down there on Dark World. Big hives full of Vulbites. It turns out they live kind of like ants, or termites.”
“Great,” I said. “So all of them are gone? My whole unit?”
She squirmed. “More like your whole cohort.”
My heart sank—and it was feeling pretty low already. “Even Graves?”
“Yes.”
“Well… what the hell can I do about that? Reviving me was thoughtful, but I don’t—”
“We’re supposed to—do something extreme.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me and you—mostly you. I’m supposed to help.”
She looked scared, and I looked baffled for a few seconds—then I caught on.
“Turov wants us to fix this? Somehow?”
Evelyn nodded.
“But… how can we…?” I began, then I thought I had the answer. “You don’t mean the broadsides, do you? That would be extreme. You’d really go so far for Turov?”
“She gave me my rank back, James. Without Turov, I’ll be busted back down to specialist.”
“Yeah, I get that, but… this is a whole new level of crazy for you.”
“She said you could do it. She said you’d want to do it.”
Feeling a little overwhelmed, I paced around her quarters, rubbing at my own shoulders and face.
