Dark World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 9), page 9
“For once,” Harris whispered, “I’m with you one hundred percent.”
Leeson walked over nonchalantly to join us. He gave me a hard look.
“Did you know about this bullshit, McGill?”
“Fuck no, he didn’t,” Harris said. “Didn’t you hear him mouthing off in shock?”
Leeson looked around and lowered his voice. “McGill always mouths off. What I want to know is: how are we going to fix this?”
Harris and Leeson both looked at me then. In our unit, I had a rep as the man who got things done—even when the brass didn’t want them done.
“My mind is a blank,” I admitted.
“That’s just shock,” Leeson said. He turned back to Harris, who was still staring at the screen with wide eyes. “Don’t worry, McGill will come up with something. He always does.”
“This is bullshit…” Harris said, listening to Turov and glaring. “Total bullshit. I didn’t sign up with Varus to manage a zoo!”
Turov was strutting around now in front of the alien troops. When she got close to the heavy troopers, who were hulking men with massive limbs and thick bones, she recoiled.
“Ha!” Harris said. “Right there, see that? She caught a whiff! Why don’t you put that ape in your quarters with you, lady?”
The troops who overheard him laughed. A buzzing started among them.
“Harris, I’m warning you right now,” Winslade said. “Unless you want to enjoy a demotion of your own back down to veteran, you’ll curb your mouth.”
Harris shut up in a hurry. His eyes spoke of hate and death when they landed on Winslade—but he wasn’t saying a word. Not a damned word.
He liked being an officer, even if he wasn’t entirely fit for the job.
When the new “recruits” arrived, it wasn’t a happy day in our unit. They were led by an individual known as “Silt” who was a card-carrying Cephalopod.
Silt was a large, imposing creature. He was alien and bulky. There was an indescribable aura of menace about him. It was something about the way his thick dark tentacles drifted and rasped upon the deck while he stared at us with numerous baleful eyes.
“I can’t believe it’s come down to this,” Leeson said quietly.
I knew how he was feeling. We’d spent years fighting the Cephalopods, killing their troops while they killed ours. To have to serve alongside these aliens—well, no one who had lived through those wars was happy about it.
“Sub-Veteran Silt,” Winslade said, stepping forward. “Meet my supporting officers. These three are my adjuncts.”
“These beings serve you?” Silt’s translator asked as his own words spluttered and smacked behind it.
“Ah… yes.”
“Then I respect only you. I will listen only to you. I will not respond to the bleating of—”
“Hold on,” Winslade said, putting up a hand in a languid gesture. “Your rank is that of a noncom. Therefore, you will give deference to me and all my officers.”
Silt’s limb churned for a moment. I could tell he was unhappy.
“I will obey,” he said at last.
“Good! Now that that’s settled, we’ll place you and your men in these quarters.”
One thing about Winslade, he knew how to finesse something like a bad case of B.O. The squid himself stank a little as he liked to swim in murky water and his wetsuit was kind of drippy—but that was nothing compared to the raw stench of his troops.
Crowding up behind him were a dozen and a half heavy troopers. These were men that weighed four hundred kilos or more. They were a solid three meters in height, on average, but if they could stand straight they might be even taller. As it was, their hulking bodies seemed forever hunched forward, like men bending to shovel dirt, or to drag a heavy burden.
Their eyes weren’t the eyes of idiots—but you could tell they weren’t thinking men, either. They were cunning and possessed of an intellect that reminded me of a forest predator. They ran their eyes over everyone present as if sizing us up.
They hung together in two tight groups, and it was then that I realized we had two sets of nine—two sets of littermates. Each group was made up of close-knit brothers, all with the same brood-mother back home on Blood World.
Looking over the troops, I was at least relieved not to see slavers, full-on giants or other types of Blood Worlders. At least it was just the littermates.
“Who is going to have to babysit this parade?” Leeson demanded.
“I’ve given that considerable thought,” Winslade said, rubbing at his chin. “Toro has been… removed from her platoon. Her armored troops would work most naturally together with these men.”
There was a murmur of dismay from Toro’s platoon, but Winslade ignored them.
“Normally,” he said, “I’d place McGill in charge of the heavy platoon and add these troops there. However, McGill doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to cooperating with aliens.”
“Excuse me, Master,” Silt said to Winslade.
“Don’t call me master. Call me Centurion—it’s more specific.”
“A thousand rippling apologies,” the squid said. “Centurion, you mentioned ‘McGill’ is that correct?”
Winslade’s eyes slid toward me. His lips twisted into a scowl. “You see? They hate you already.” Turning back to the alien, he addressed Silt. “Yes, we do have an officer named McGill in this unit.”
“Remarkable! I’m truly honored to serve the master of the McGill.”
“Yes, I’m sure you are,” Winslade said sourly. “Harris, you’ll take charge of these men. They seem to be more your cup of tea.”
“Say what?” Harris demanded.
“Harris, your rank is in jeopardy…”
Harris shut up, but he glared at everyone, daring us to make a joke.
No one did.
“Yes,” Winslade said more decisively. “You’ll take the heavy squad. McGill will take over your team of light troops. Many of them are raw recruits, so that’s not such a bad assignment.”
Harris’ eyes told a different tale, but Winslade didn’t seem to care.
“That’s settled then! Harris, assign these men to your barracks. You’ll probably need to requisition stronger bunks… Start working with Silt immediately.”
So saying, Winslade beat a hasty retreat to his combination office and quarters. He promptly shut the door behind him.
“Well, if that don’t beat all!” Leeson said, whistling loudly. “I’d never counted you as a squid-tamer, Harris! Will wonders never cease?”
Harris turned him a venomous glance, and Leeson grinned back. Then he sauntered away to his end of the module with his head held high.
“That prick,” Harris muttered to me. “He’s loving it. We got all the shit-work and he’d sitting pretty.”
“Shall I kill him, Adjunct?” Silt said, looming near.
Harris looked up in surprise. “Well… no. We don’t do that sort of thing normally in this outfit.”
“My mistake,” the squid said. “On my homeworld, when two officers disagree, one of them must be defeated by the other before there is resolution. Servitude or death—there is no other possibility.”
“There’s cooperation,” I said, speaking up. “For the mutual survival of all.”
Silt made a rumbling sound. He could have been laughing, coughing, or shitting himself. It was hard to tell with a squid.
After the newcomers were given quarters—as far from the rest of the troops as possible—we spent an uneasy night with them.
I don’t know about the rest of the officers, but I could hardly sleep knowing the enemy was snoring nearby.
-11-
Integration was the goal, but it didn’t come easily. Blood Worlders were near-humans, but we soon found our new soldiers had a very different mindset.
“All right 3rd Unit,” Winslade began, marching in front of us with his hands clasped behind his back.
His long-fingered right hand clutched at his skinny left wrist. For some reason, I found this distasteful, but I tried to overlook it.
“Today, we’re going to start with target practice. Our new friends will be introduced to non-traditional weaponry—non-traditional for them, that is.”
So saying, he gave each of the heavy troopers a belcher. They looked at them like they’d been given toilet brushes. One man even looked into the barrel with a huge, bloodshot eye.
“No, no, no,” Sargon said, shouldering forward.
He was about the biggest man in the Unit, not as tall as me, but bulkier. He snatched away the belcher and earned himself a scowl.
The man he’d disarmed reached forward to snatch the belcher back—but halted.
I noticed that the squid noncom, Silt, made a fluttering gesture with one tentacle. The heavy trooper froze then dropped his hand. He sulked motionlessly.
Silt used hand-gestures to command the littermates? I might have to learn those.
“You see here, dumbass?” Sargon began. “This is the reticle. You’re looking at the wrong end. You’ll burn your fool head off doing that.”
Sargon proceeded, in his usual brusque fashion, to educate the hulking near-humans on the proper use of the belcher. They learned slowly, but methodically. They appeared to be teachable.
That’s when I turned to my fresh-faced squad of human kids. I twisted my lips up into an expression of disgust.
“This is where we take our leave,” I told them. “Follow me.”
They did so, and I was glad they were too scared to ask any questions. I didn’t like to lie—not on a day like today.
We walked out of the main chamber of Green Deck, which by day served us as an exercise yard and by night as a social haven. We walked the long, long way around to the far side, and we waited at a pair of huge power-doors.
“Don’t these doors lead into the main room again?” asked a snotty voice.
My head snapped up. There he was: Cooper. He’d been quiet up until now. He’d stayed low—but a young man like him could only fake it for so long. His real personality was bound to emerge over time, as certain as the sun rising in the east.
“That’s right,” I told him.
“Then why are we wasting time, sir?”
There was just a little hint of a sneer in that last word. I could hear it. Maybe not everyone could, but I did, and that was good enough.
I gave him a grin, which made him frown back.
“We’re waiting until that light goes on—right up there.”
I pointed to a big light over the top of the powered doors.
Cooper shut up, but I could see that not knowing the score was eating at him.
“Strange setup,” one of Cooper’s squad mates said.
“Retarded is a form of strange, I guess,” Cooper agreed.
My veteran glowered at them, then glanced at me. She was a stocky fireplug of a woman named Moller.
I shook my head just a fraction. Nope, it wasn’t time to bust heads. Not yet.
Another minute slid by, and all my snot-nosed splats began shifting restlessly. Finally, the light went green.
I slammed my hands together loudly.
“Okay, platoon. We’re going in. You’ll be issued snap-rifles. Listen close to Veteran Moller. She’ll teach you how to use them.”
“About frigging time,” Cooper said.
The big doors slid open, and we stepped inside. There, right in front of us, were several racks of snap-rifles.
These light but highly versatile and effective weapons weren’t quite like the ballistic weapons of the past. Instead of using gunpowder to propel their bullets, the snap-rifles used tricks of physics to accelerate tiny pellets to fantastic speeds.
Any object sped up to around five thousand miles an hour tended to do two things: burn up and hit hard. The bullets were often made with alloys including metals like tungsten, which had a melting temperature of well over three thousand degrees C. The size of the projectile didn’t matter that much, as the kinetic force upon impact was tremendous anyway.
The rifles had a high rate of fire, and could hold about a thousand rounds of ammo in their auto-fed magazines. This meant troops didn’t have to worry about reloading much, and they could hit targets at long range with little drop-off due to gravity and wind resistance.
After a brief lecture outlining these points, I handed off the distribution of the weapons to Veteran Moller. She issued each soldier a gun and made sure they could hold it right.
“Now,” I said. “You see those targets over there?”
They followed my gesture, and Cooper laughed.
“All I see are trees,” he said.
“Right. Hit them. Take them down.”
The troops looked at me in confusion, but Cooper grinned. He aimed his gun and released a loud hammering spray of rounds.
The weapon kicked up, but he didn’t lose control. He took a firm stance and grip. He set his feet, put his eye to the sites and fired away in short, controlled bursts.
The tree he was aiming at spit white wood. The trunk was soon torn up, and leaves fluttered.
“This is great!” Cooper laughed.
The others soon joined in, and Moller walked the line, adjusting grips and kicking feet wider apart. Soon, they were all blazing away and the first tree came crashing down.
The squad cheered, and I smiled grimly. It was their first accomplishment.
“Aren’t we damaging Green Deck, sir?” one of the girls asked me.
I shrugged. “It grows back fast. Don’t worry about it.”
The trees were, in fact, genetically designed to sprout up like mushrooms. The wood was thin and light, and it would crack if you punched it hard enough. But by the next day, it would grow back again.
The team was all smiles at that point, but the mood didn’t last long.
A beam sprang out of the tree line to our left—a bluish radiance that was ghostly and liquid in nature. It struck three of the recruits. They went up in flames, screaming. They fell and writhed on the deck.
“Incoming fire!” I roared. “Take cover!”
They threw themselves onto the ground—except the two slowest. They were crisped next.
“Spread out! Return fire!”
“I can’t see them!” Cooper shouted.
“They’re behind the trees and rocks!”
I began laying down suppressive fire, chipping each of the trees and sparking rounds on the rocks. I had to get the enemy to duck before my whole command was taken out.
Most of the recruits hammered away, shooting ghosts. But Cooper held his fire. He wasn’t scared—not more than usual, anyway. He seemed to have a plan.
Movement appeared to our right. Cooper was on it like an angry wasp. He fired short bursts, hard-hitting and accurate enough at this range, which was maybe fifty meters.
A heavy trooper toppled back, but then got up again, hugging his rock. More blue beams lanced out at us, and we returned fire.
“It’s those freaks!” a recruit shouted. “They’ve turned on us, sir! I knew they would!”
“That’s right,” I said. “Take them down.”
Cooper stood up and charged. Two beams tried to catch him—but the kid was fast and the enemy barely knew how to handle their weapons. They had their belchers dialed up too tightly. Hell, if they’d opened the apertures just halfway, they’d have burned us all down in that first barrage.
Cooper made it to the rock where he’d hit the first Blood Worlder. Standing on top of it, he hammered away, point-blank, putting a hundred rounds through a near-human’s faceplate.
The trooper sagged down, stone dead.
That’s when things went off-script. The troopers, seeing one of their littermates brought low, went berserk. They stood up in unison, roaring with impossibly low voices.
They charged us, and we blazed away at them, bringing down two, then three more.
But that was it. The troopers were berserk. They used their belchers as clubs as often as they fired them. Clubbing the crawling recruits like seals on a beach, they put us down—all of us.
Moller and I managed to take out one more with our knives before we, too, were beaten to death.
-12-
I was revived and dumped into the cold, waiting arms of an orderly. Before I could see straight, I was hustled off Blue Deck and into Nostrum’s echoing passages.
I didn’t mind. It was all part of the job.
“Adjunct McGill?” a voice called after me as I staggered toward 3rd Unit’s assigned module.
Turning around, I nodded to Cooper. “Did you just pop out of the oven?” I asked him.
“No, sir. I was one of the first to die, so they processed me about an hour ago. I’ve been waiting for you to walk down this passage.”
Warily, I slowed, and we walked alongside one another. I took my time to fully appraise him.
Back in my day, I’d killed Veteran Harris for slaughtering my fellow recruits. Cooper might be that kind of renegade as well.
But I didn’t see murder in his eyes, and he had no weapon. Instead, he was looking at me with honest curiosity.
“What did you want to say, Recruit?” I asked him.
“Well… sir… I realize that whole thing was a setup. I read up on Varus training techniques months ago. I was kind of expecting it, in fact. Not so soon though… I thought it would happen after we got our first week’s weapons training.”
“Is that what you wanted to know? Why we moved ahead so fast?”
He eyed me curiously. “No, I get all that—what I want to know is why you fought with us.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I would’ve expected an officer to step back, out of the line of fire. To send all us chumps into the grinder. I mean—you knew it was coming, right?”
“Of course.”
“So… why did you play it to the end? Why’d you actually die with us?”
I shrugged. “It’s all part of the job. Dying isn’t fun, but you get used to it.”
The kid’s mouth hung open. He shook his head slowly.
“I don’t know… I don’t know if I can ever get used it.”
“Some can’t,” I admitted. “They usually bug-out and join the hogs. Life and death both come hard and fast for a bona fide starman. Not everyone can take it.”
