Dark World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 9), page 34
“No,” he said.
“Treachery!” I shouted. “You’re giving him the fight!”
It was true. The squid had been momentarily stunned by my attack, but now he’d looped a few coiling tentacles around my midsection. He began to squeeze the way a python could only dream of.
“Stop,” the bullfrog voice of the littermate said. “Look—the light.”
Somehow, by the direction of his voice, I knew to look up. There, far above us, was a tiny pinprick of light. A white dot that was growing both in size and brilliance.
“We’re saved!” I shouted. “Good thing you intervened, soldier. I was about to kill Bubbles.”
The powerful coils fell away from me. I could see Bubbles now, staring upward at the light.
The Blood Worlder was similarly transfixed.
Now, no one should feel I’m a mean-spirited person, but it took all my strength of character not to stab them both right then, while they were distracted and I had the chance.
Why? Don’t ask. It’s a Legion Varus thing, I guess. We’re all kind of like junkyard dogs. If we encounter something we can’t eat or hump, we feel a powerful urge to tear it apart just for spite.
-50-
The light continued to grow. Soon, we could see stuff again in our immediate vicinity.
After about four minutes the chamber we were in was fully lit. I measured the time passing on my tapper as that familiar, reddish glow had returned to the organic diodes embedded in my forearm.
Surprisingly, I realized I knew exactly where we were.
“This is the jump-gate chamber on the space factory,” I told my two fellow castaways. “That circle of ice, that island of nothingness we were all trapped on—it’s gone now.”
“The field has stabilized,” Bubbles said. “I suspect the transportation system enqueued us somehow, and it now has allowed the transmission to finish.”
“What?”
“Like any technological communications device, the jump-gate must have a buffer. Perhaps, when the system detected an error in transmission, it held up the final processing. Now, it seems to have decided to complete the task and release us.”
“Hmm…” I said. “You’re saying the transmission system timed out?”
“It’s my working hypothesis.”
“I’ll have to ask Floramel about that sometime. But anyway, we’re in a way-station. The halfway point between Earth and Dark World. All the soldiers who came out here after we arrived walked through this chamber first.”
“Evidently. What do we do now, Adjunct?” Bubbles asked.
I noticed Bubbles was behaving himself once again. Neither he nor the Blood Worlder seemed overly upset by the fact we’d all almost killed one another about two minutes ago. They didn’t seem to get as rattled by such events as regular humans did.
I pointed toward the second gateway, the one that was farther from us.
“That one goes to Dark World. Step through, and tell Natasha and the rest they can use the gate to escape safely to Earth. Tell them they shouldn’t delay or worry about me.”
Bubbles looked at me quizzically. “Not worry about you? This sounds as if you’re not coming with us.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I’ve got a little work to do here on the station. I’ll follow you soon enough. Time to get going, Sub-Centurion.”
Bubbles looked disgruntled, but he beckoned to his only soldier. They stepped to the gateway and went through. I got the feeling he knew that was his only way out of this star system, and he wanted to get back to the safety of Earth. Otherwise, he might have argued.
Looking around, I found the security stations—and a lot of dead people.
Apparently, after arriving with their fleet, the Rigellians had fried the space factory. Everyone I could find was stiff as a board.
Radiation beams—that was my guess. The dosimeters that hung here and there were all in the red, which confirmed my suspicions.
It made sense, in a rude way. We were lice to them, and they’d just fumigated the entire space factory at once.
The next step was a landing party to make sure none of the vermin—namely me—had survived. Accordingly, I moved to the security station with all the external smart-cameras. This spot had served as our command outpost. In fact, the place was still crowded by the dead.
Pushing aside stunned-looked, burnt-eyed legionnaires, I found that some of the electronics still worked.
I saw enemy troops crawling on the hull. They weren’t Vulbites, but a veritable army of bipedal creatures. Could they all be bear cubs from Rigel? Maybe—it was hard to tell in those suits.
There wasn’t any point in fighting with them as they’d won the day. I wanted to kill a few, naturally, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to take many out before getting whacked myself.
A thought did come to me, however, as I bounced through the passages back toward the way-station. When I reached the chamber with the jump-gate, I stared at it and paused.
I could walk into it, head down to Dark World, then step through the gate down there and be back on Earth. That was the rational thing to do.
But my monstrous idea gripped my mind. There should be just enough time. Just barely…
Gripped by a thought that would have alarmed anyone else who’d conceived it, I ran from the way-station and headed back downward, going deeper into the structure.
Running in half-G is kind of tricky. You tend to bounce like a jackrabbit. Unfortunately, the ceiling wasn’t more than three meters high, so I kept scraping it and taking too long to land and get another bound going. To compensate, I used my hands to pull me along, flinging myself like an ape crossing a jungle-gym. I also bent my head low. Using these techniques I got myself moving at a pretty good clip, probably around thirty kilometers an hour. At that speed, I could crack my helmet if I hit a bulkhead.
Once I was into the rhythm of it, I traveled fast. At each junction, I took the one that went downward, deeper and deeper into the guts of the factory.
I’d only been down here once, back when we’d been searching for a strange, crying voice in the depths of the vast deserted structure.
At last I found the power generator. The squat alien contraption flashed and spun. It was a sight to behold.
Spinning—but not actually moving—a ball of light whirled around on a spindle of silvery diamond. That ball of energy shot off jolts of electrical power every second or so like miniature bolts of lightning. A coiled metallic framework around it caught the bolts. It looked to me like a lightning storm trapped inside a silver cage.
The last time I’d been down here, Natasha had told me that the power generator, and particularly the containment field that kept it from going wild, was inherently unstable. She hadn’t understood how the Rigellians had managed to keep it from going berserk, and she’d been impressed with the technology. She’d wanted to study it, but we’d never gotten the time.
Looking at the tech marvel, my desire was somewhat different. Since it was soon to be captured by an enemy who’d managed to wipe out two Earth legions—well, I wanted to break it.
I guess I’m a true Varus man in the end, through and through.
I started off by poking at it. I almost fried my ass off, right there. Only the wisdom of the moment kept me from sticking a tool I’d found—something like a screwdriver attached to a pair of tree pruners—into the field inside the cage.
Instead, I tapped the base of the unit. Just to see what would happen.
A flash went off, and I was left holding a burnt stump. Fortunately, both my gauntlets and the handle on the tool had been heavily insulated. Still, there were black streaks all up my arm to the elbow.
“Wow,” I said, dropping the burning stump of a tool. “This thing is dangerous!”
Circling the machine, I tried to think of a way to disable it—nothing came easily to mind.
It was about then that I got a warning tone from my tapper. I looked down, and I knew what I was seeing. I’d tapped into the security systems, and they were trying to warn me.
Tuning in to the security cameras, I swiped through a dozen of them. At last, I saw what I was looking for. The enemy had breached the outer hull. They were pouring into the complex from all over, swarming the upper decks.
They weren’t taking anything for granted, either. They were moving fast, with their weapons held at the ready. They were acting like they were ready for resistance.
I felt a sinking feeling as I watched one group get to the security center—and keep going. The camera system was fairly smart, and it followed the group’s progress as they rushed deeper and deeper.
How could they have tracked me? How did they know where’d I gone?
“Shit,” I said, knowing in my heart I was doomed.
I wouldn’t be going back to the way station and stepping out. I wouldn’t be sneaking off this pile of burnt steel in any other nefarious fashion, either.
They knew right where I was, and they were making a beeline for this spot.
It didn’t matter how they’d done it. Maybe my suit was leaking RF. Maybe they had spy drones aboard already, hunting for survivors.
It hardly mattered because I was thoroughly screwed.
Knowing this, I felt somewhat freed. Once a man gives up on living, it can be a liberating moment. You can do all sorts of things that you wouldn’t otherwise dare to contemplate.
Guessing which door the Rigellians would come bursting through when they got here, I moved to the opposite side of the power generator. When they came through, at least they’d have to circle around to get a shot at me.
Taking my only large piece of metal—my rifle, I tossed it on top of the silver cage that contained the power reaction.
That did something. It caused some sparks and smoke. The rifle buzzed up there—but it didn’t explode. After a few seconds, it kind of melted partway and slid off onto the deck.
Cursing, I tried to pick it up, but it was a red-hot mess.
I checked my tapper—damn if those boys weren’t closing in on me. They’d moved to cover every exit, clearly knowing I was in here. They advanced from several directions, planning on opening all the hatches at once.
Glancing at my ruined rifle, I was kinda sorry I’d wrecked it.
There wasn’t much time left. They wouldn’t arrest me, or listen to some bullshit story. They’d gun me down and ask questions later.
Looking around the chamber in a panic, I didn’t see anything else large and conductive. That had been my first instinct, to jam something into the cage and short it out.
But maybe, just maybe, I’d been on the wrong track. I began looking for insulators, rather than conductors—I found just what I needed.
Big gloves. So big, they would have fit a Blood Worlder. They were black, and rubbery.
Putting my hands inside, I was shocked to see they barely fit. That’s when I figured out the gloves were made for an alien hand.
Lifting them, with my fingers rammed painfully inside, I flexed my hands. The big black gloves flexed with them, mimicking the motion.
I knew what I had then, and I smiled. They were exoskeletal gloves. They enhanced the power of the user, making his hands work like those of a giant.
Without any further delay, I rammed all the glove’s big fat fingers into the cage and tried to spread them.
It was hard, and I heard the gloves whine. After a half-minute, they started to smolder. The chamber filled with black smoke, like a rubber-fire.
The trouble was my hands were strong, but not my arms. I had to spread my fingers on both hands in the same spot, to tear open a hole in the cage.
While I was doing this, the generator began to flash more brightly, in a rhythm. The light became so bright it hurt my retinas right through my squeezed-tight eyelids.
The white flashes were speeding up as I worked, like an accelerating heartbeat.
Finally, the hatches began to click and grind around me. I’d tried to lock them, but these people had probably built the place, so that hadn’t held them up for long.
I heard a hatch swing open slowly, creaking and groaning. This was it.
Strange, excited clicking sounds told me they were Rigellians. They sounded just like the guy I’d bamboozled down on Dark World.
Thinking of that, I smiled as I made my final play.
There was only one more large, metal object I had handy for shorting this generator out. That was my helmet.
Unfortunately, my head was locked up inside it—but, oh well. Everyone’s body had to die at some point.
I rammed my helmeted head into the hole I’d spread open in the containment cage, and I knew no more.
-51-
When I caught a revive, I was even more surprised than usual. I’d kind of figured I’d permed myself that last go-around.
Big questions swam into my new brain. Where had I been returned to life? How long had I been dead?
They were serious questions. Sometimes, people brought old James McGill back just to have a little fun with him before recycling his remains all over again.
“McGill…” I said blearily when some guy asked my name.
“Rank?”
“James McGill—uh, adjunct, I mean.”
“He’s fuzzy, but he’ll do. Take him upstairs.”
Those were encouraging words for my new-grown brain. If there were stairs here, that meant there was a building, which in turn indicated some level of civilization.
Also, just on the face of it, being taken upstairs was almost always better than going downstairs. Prisoners tended to be dragged to underground dungeons—it made them easier to contain, and I guess it always had.
As something of an authority on being arrested, tried, tortured, executed and nearly permed on any number of occasions, I struggled to wake up and figure out my predicament. My mind sharpened with every halting step.
I did my best to assess the situation. Two burly men with arms like gorillas were marching me down a long passageway and into an elevator. They’d given me clothing, but it was only an orange, papery jumpsuit.
That was bad. If I’d been given a formal dress-blues uniform, or at least a nice hot shower—that would’ve been a better omen.
Nice clothes and comfort, that’s how people greeted revived heroes. Jumpsuits and dragging? These things didn’t indicate respect.
So, wherever I was, I wasn’t a hero here.
The elevator went up—and that’s when I got my first hard look at my guards.
“Um…” I said. “Do I know you guys?”
They didn’t respond. They stared away from me, at the elevator’s digital floor readout.
The weird thing wasn’t their attitude, but their appearance. I could have sworn I’d seen someone like these two apes before. What was even freakier, as I looked at one and then the other, was the simple fact they were twins.
Identical twins…
Now, people might say I’m a dim bulb stuck in a lighthouse sometimes, but even after a sticky revive, I’m capable of logical thought.
“You two are clones, aren’t you?” I asked.
There was no response from my captors. They didn’t even look at me.
The elevator door swished open. The floor counter displayed a green nine on it, and there was only room for two digits on the readout.
That meant this just couldn’t be Central. Sure, what I’d seen of the place didn’t look much like Central anyway, but I’d been kind of hoping I was back home.
Dragged out of the elevator and marched along to a brighter series of offices, I became sure that I wasn’t on Earth at all.
There were windows, and whatever planet they were allowing me to look at, I knew it wasn’t Earth.
The landscape was kind of pretty. It had heavy plant growth. Kind of jungle-like. Lots of floating things were in the air, too, hanging above the trees. They looked like jellyfish.
When one of the drifting shapes outside twitched and began to undulate, I realized it was alive.
“I’ll be damned!” I said, gawking at the creatures. “Flying jellyfish!”
A familiar voice laughed quietly behind me.
“Same old McGill. You still have the mind of a child, don’t you?”
The two ape-men turned me around, and I faced Claver.
That’s when I realized who the two holding onto me looked like—they were Clavers, too. But they weren’t the type I’d known for so many years. They were more like primitive relatives of Claver. In every way, they seemed dimwitted, inbred and brutish, while Claver had always been small of body and quick of mind.
I nodded my head toward my guards.
“Clones?” I asked Claver. “You made these warped clones of yourself?”
“Who else would I clone?” he asked, shrugging. “Welcome to my happy home, McGill.”
“Uh…” I said looking around again. “What planet is this, anyway?”
“You sure you want to know? I’ll have to erase you if I tell you.”
“Well in that case, keep your secret.”
He gave me a dirty laugh. Walking over to the nearby window, he tapped on the glass. One of the floating jellyfish things startled and humped away in the air.
“Air-jellies,” Claver said, “that’s what I call them—unless I’m in a bad mood, then I just call them farting gasbags. They use air like ballast, sucking it up and farting it out to stay at a given altitude.”
“How can they fly at all?”
“A combination of things. For one, we’re in low-G here.”
Now that I thought about it, the world did seem a little bouncy. I might have paid more attention to that if I hadn’t just come from the space factory where gravity was even less of an issue.
“Second,” Claver continued, “the atmosphere here is kind of thick. Not as thick as water, mind you, and just barely breathable. But it is thick. I think that helps them stay drifting around on the air currents.”
“I see… I’m truly marveling at your home, Claver. But now, if I might ask a question?”
“Why’d I bring you back to life? Why are you here at all?”
“Um… yeah. That’s kind of what I was wondering.”
