Tech World (Undying Mercenaries Series) (36 page)

“We’re like an egg placed between two boulders,” Turov said, echoing my thoughts. “If these two behemoths start a fight, we’ll be crushed in the first years of the conflict.”

“The squids do seem to have a lot of guts,” Graves said thoughtfully. “They
clearly knew about the Empire when we first met them, which means they have scouts or at least active probes.”

“I agree they must have
had some idea what they were going up against—and yet they hit our ship
Corvus
anyway,” Turov said thoughtfully. “To me, that alone indicates their kingdom is large enough to contemplate a border skirmish with the Empire.”

“
For them it was a question of either fighting, or submitting,” Graves said. “Apparently, they thought they could stand against the Empire. I now believe they know what they’re doing better than we do. We didn’t know how greatly the Empire has weakened along the frontier—not until Inspector Xlur admitted it and made us local Enforcers. The squids
must
have spies, perhaps drones crawl among us even now. We have nothing.”

“That’s not entirely true,”
Turov said. “Hegemony knows more than they let on. What matters now, however, is that we make the wisest choice we can make at this critical juncture.”

Graves turned to face her. “
Imperator Turov, to that end I would like to formally request that you revive Tribune Drusus next. We need his insight.”

“Insight? The last time he drew breath he was shot down like a dog by Claver. He didn’t see that one coming.”

“Maybe not. But he’s a thinker. He’s been on the frontier for more years than any of us.”

Turov chewed that one over. She turned to me. “What do you think, James?”

Startled, I gave my head a shake. “I just want to do my job. Let me take a squad over there on a pinnace to stop the slaughter among the Tau. I can at least do that much. Maybe they can help us.”

Turov snorted. “The Tau? Help? They’ll try to collect a fee for allowing you to dock your pinnace. Or perhaps they’ll sue us for violating licensing agreements with your altered holographic devices.”

“Nevertheless, sir, I request that you let me go on the mission.”

She looked at me for a moment then nodded. “Go. If the station is under some semblance of control, maybe the squids will think we’re still dangerous.”

I hurried out of the room before she could change her mind.

-38-

Natasha had a working model of her holographic reprograming device less than an hour later. Taking a squad of heavies—including Kivi and Carlos—we boarded a pinnace and flew toward the station.

We glided through space warily, watching for some kind of attack. I couldn’t see the squid ship. It was far out in space lurking in a long, elliptical orbit around the planet.

“The station looks darker than it did last time I saw it from space,” Natasha noted.

“You’re right,” I said. “A lot of the external power systems must have shut down. I hope the life support systems are still functioning.”

“I studied the station’s schematics before we left Earth. The life support units will be the last systems to shut down.”

I thought about those giant machines, the ones down in the region known as the Vents. They were pretty low in the station’s superstructure.

“If the bottom of the station begins to overheat—won’t the life support modules shut down?” I asked.

Natasha looked at me worriedly and licked her lips. Then, she shook her head. “It’s worse than that. If the bottom rim of the station touches the atmosphere, the pressure will tear the whole thing apart. It will be like dipping a spider web into a river—too much pressure and too much friction. The whole thing will start to come unraveled.”

I nodded my head. “I get the picture. Well, we have to move fast, that’s all.”

Time crawled, and so did our pinnace. I thought the best approach would have been to rush in, engines flaring, do a spin at the last second, and land while blasting our engines hard and fast. Why give them the chance to see us coming and react to our move? Unfortunately, I wasn’t the pilot.

We landed a few minutes later on the outer skin of the station. Clangs and thumps heralded our arrival. I heard the hiss of escaping gasses.

“That’s it,” I told my team. “Magnetize your boots and check your power readings. We’re walking the rest of the way in. Remember, Natasha is our queen bee on this mission. If she’s in trouble, throw your life away to save her or there’s no point to any of this.”

“Easy for you to say, McGill,” Kivi complained.

I glanced at her but didn’t respond. I figured she was still a little peeved at me for events that had occurred long ago. Mentally, I shrugged. She could hate me if she wanted to as long as she followed orders.

We unloaded, grunting and struggling to climb out of the airlock and clank out onto the hull. Open space yawned to my left and to my right the blue-white-gray arc of the planet stretched wide. It felt like I was going to fall off and never stop falling. It didn’t help to know that we were very close to doing just that.

After our navigational systems got their bearings, they led us to a maintenance hatch. We tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.

“McGill?” Natasha said. “I think it’s been welded shut—from the inside.”

“Great.”

I came over to her and knelt awkwardly. Carlos and I both applied our exoskeletons and strained on the wheel-like door handle.

“On three!” I shouted. Both of us roared, grunting and straining. Our boots slipped, and we braced them against nearby struts. About twenty seconds passed—and then we heard a terrible screeching grind.

“That’s it!” Carlos shouted. “We did it!”

I lifted the circular door handle up into space. It came free in my hands and floated there. “We sure did,” I said, tossing the wheel away. “We broke it clean off.”

Everyone groaned and complained. I went to look for another hatch. We soon found
one, about two hundred meters higher up on the hull of the station. It was welded shut, as well.

“We’re screwed,” Carlos complained, bumping along behind me. “We’re totally screwed. Ridiculous, that’s what we are. Absolutely absurd. The Tau shitheads who did this are probably inside watching on security cams and having themselves a belly laugh.”

“I doubt it,” I said. “They don’t seem to be big on humor. Especially not when they’re wearing their rebel colors. Stand clear—I’ve got an idea.”

Carlos threw himself backwards with comic frantic motions. “Everyone run! McGill’s up to something! We’re all gonna die—again!”

I chuckled, unlimbering something I’d brought along in my kit. It was a short-barreled weapon with a tip of fused metal.

“Is that one of those lightning things? The ones the Tau brought—”

Carlos broke off because instead of answering him I unleashed a bolt of energy with the weapon, scorching the second hatch we’d failed to open. The blow-back wasn’t that bad, but the jolt of current that came up from the hull into my boots and into my toes hurt.

“Shit!” screeched Carlos, hopping from foot to foot. “You buzzed me! You crazy mother—!”

I gave a little hop, allowing myself to float above the surface of the hull and squeezed the trigger again. The weapon blazed into life. This time, I held it down until the power bar registered empty and the blazing arc of blue-white electricity died to a few sparks.

“You bastard,” Carlos said, clumping up close to me. He had to crank back his head to look up at me. “My feet feel like they’re numb and my teeth hurt.”

I pointed toward the smoking hole below me. The center of the hatch had been burned clean through.

“Stop complaining and stick your arm in there. You should be able to blow the hinges.”

Grumbling, he did as I asked. Meanwhile, Natasha threw me a line and I reeled myself back in.

“You could have fried us with that stunt,” she complained. “Or at least yourself.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But we don’t have much time. If we can’t get into the station, we’re as good as dead anyway.”

A few minutes later we had the smoldering hatch pried open. We wriggled into an airlock and then the passages beyond. Fortunately, there wasn’t any resistance.

After following a labyrinth of tunnels, we found our way out onto the deserted streets. The first sign of enemy activity we saw came from a large gang that roved along at street level smashing air car windows and tipping over anything they could. They seemed to be having a good time.

The second they caught sight of us, however, their demeanor changed. They froze as one and turned in our direction. I’d seen this behavior before. They were going to charge us.

“Turn it on, Natasha,” I said.

“It
is
on,” she hissed back.

“Well, it’s not frigging working!” Carlos shouted unnecessarily.

“It might take some time—” I began, but Carlos already had his rifle out and up.

I smashed it down. “Hold your fire! That’s an order!”

“Are you crazy? We’ll all be permed!”

“No we won’t,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “Natasha is relaying our data. We’ll catch a revive on
Minotaur
if—”

That was all the time the gang of around three hundred rebels gave me. They charged us in a silent wave. They’d seen something unlike themselves, homed in on it, and decided as a single mass mind to make their move.

“Behind us!” screeched Kivi.

I turned in her direction. Another mass of rebels—bigger than the first group—had come around the corner. Maybe that’s what the first group had been waiting for, I’ll never know.

All of them charged us from two sides. With a greedy, careless thirst for blood, they were so eager to reach us they knocked one another down and trampled their own comrades.

I’d seen this behavior before. Their very disregard for their own safety made them more dangerous. Fortunately, I didn’t see any advanced weaponry on them. These were average citizens converted into raving lunatics by Claver’s digital virus.

“All right,” I shouted as they came in close. “Force-blades out. If they get in melee range—you can take them out.”

“So very considerate of you, McGill!” Carlos said bitterly.

We braced ourselves, putting our backs together in a circle. Our force-blades shimmered and extended in deadly lines from our arms. I made sure Natasha and her device were in the center. The box she’d been babying since we’d left
Minotaur
buzzed and glowed—but judging by the enemy approach, it wasn’t doing much.

“Hold them!” I shouted. “Hold the line!”

The wave of bodies lashed us like a torrent of water. Even inside my armor, I was rocked backward. Rebels launched themselves overhead, diving over the bodies of their comrades as I cut them down.

I made an effort to stop those that were trying to climb over us to the center. I couldn’t afford to have them take out Natasha. That wasn’t as easy as it sounded because bodies were piling up fast and the latest group to arrive climbed over the fallen, up and up to where they almost slid over our helmets into the circle.

Maybe they
knew
, I thought.
How could they know?

The line broke a moment later. I don’t know who failed me—it didn’t matter. Someone tripped or slid on blood and entrails. They went down, and there was a hole in the circle.

I stabbed and slashed, shortening down my blades to a half-meter and thickening them up. I tried to shuffle toward the breach, to close it, but I could barely move. There were so many squirming bodies all around me, living and dead, I was locked into place.

“They’re on me, James!” I heard Natasha say in despair. “They’ve got a hold on the box!”

My heart sank. We were all going to die, crushed down by a thousand raving lunatics. What a way to go.

Then, something changed. I don’t quite know how I knew it—but the sensation was undeniable.

“They’re slowing down,” Carlos said. “They’re running out of gas. You guys are going to pay!”

“Don’t!” shouted. “If they try to get away, let them!”

Hansen was down. So was Gorman. As team leader, my helmet had automatically presented me with printed names around the bottom rim of my faceplate, which was now starred from impacts. Seven names were red, indicating they’d been pulled down and killed. The rest were still green, including Natasha’s.

“They’re crawling away!” Kivi said. “Let’s kill them before they regroup!”

“No!” I roared. “Let them go. That’s an order.”

Soon, the fight was over. We were left with a mound of bodies ten feet high. We had to climb out of there on our hands and knees with dead people shifting under us and sliding away under the weight of our banged-up armor.

When at last we could see the artificial sky again, we gazed in dull amazement.

The rebels were standing nearby—but they looked different. They weren’t maroon and silver anymore. They were slate-gray. Like living granite statues sculpted into the shape of humanoids, they were everywhere, standing around in confusion.

“People of Tau Ceti,” I said loudly, projecting my voice through a microphone in my suit. “Listen to me, you’ve been freed!”

They looked from one to another aghast and dazed.

“We need your help,” I said. “You must walk among your own kind. Sneak upon them. Hug your loved ones. Free them as we freed you. Your projectors will pass on the cure, and you will all be saved.”

They ignored me and backed away. They dripped with gore from their fallen comrades. They gazed in fear and disbelief from one to another.

“They’re freaked out,” Carlos said. “Too scared to help.”

“Maybe it will work anyway,” Natasha said. “The virus I put into their holo-suits will infect anyone they come into contact with—but it will take time.”

“That’s not good enough,” I said, wading through corpses toward the retreating citizens. “You have to work with us,” I shouted after them. “Stop!”

The man nearest me paused and studied me. “What do you offer us in return, Earth man?” he asked.

I shook my head and snorted in disbelief. “Life!” I shouted. “Liberty! You’ll get your city back.”

He shook his head. “Get someone else. If I help, I’ll die. No one will aid you without benefit.”

“You’ll die anyway,” I told him. “The only way you’ll live is if you cooperate!”

He shook his head and turned to go. “You don’t understand us. I would help if I thought others would—but I know they won’t. It is not our way. I’ll look for a way down to the surface.”

I stood there, aghast. The plan had worked. The solution was in my grasp—but these people were too damned greedy and selfish to do anything for their fellows.

Watching them walk away, I had to question my efforts today. Maybe they weren’t worth the effort after all.

“That’s so typical,” Carlos complained as the citizens of Tau wandered away to find somewhere to hide.

I looked at him and narrowed my eyes. “Give me your Imperial coins, Carlos,” I said.

He appeared startled. “What? What are you talking about—?”

I grabbed him, and a force-blade extended in my hand. “Give them to me—all of them. I know you’ve got them. People told me.”

Carlos’ eyes went to Kivi. “Damn you girl,” he said.

I grinned. I’d had no idea whether Carlos had stolen any of the credits or not, but I’d figured it was a pretty good chance he had. Now, my suspicions had been confirmed.