Tech World (Undying Mercenaries Series) (39 page)

“No,” I said firmly. “Natasha, try to delete their minds one minute back. Carlos, help me with the controls.”

I pulled out the Galactic key and approached the console.

“James, fooling with their memory backups is dangerous. We could purge months, or even years. Besides, that won’t help unless we kill them. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Just do it.”

Carlos made a sound of pain and worry, but he didn’t say anything. That had to be some kind of a first for him.

I approached the console and punched in the coordinates that Natasha had worked out. Outside, the huge cylindrical barrels of
Minotaur’s
broadsides began to move, swiveling and locking onto their new target—the squid ship.

-41-

You’d think that after all I’d been through with the squids, launching a surprise attack on their ship would be an easy thing to do—but it wasn’t.

I’m not totally stupid. I knew I was pretty much starting an interstellar war. But I took solace in the fact that the
squids had started this whole thing—or maybe that the Galactics had. Either way, it wasn’t Earth men who had launched the first attack. Squids had been abusing our colonists on Zeta Herculis for decades. They’d also attacked the Galactics and taken out
Corvus
back in the middle of our last campaign.

In turn, it was the Galactics that had melted their colony world to component organic molecules. None of those actions had been initiated by my people—but we were making our first move, right now.

As soon as the broadsides had swung around and locked, I hit the ignition touch area on the console. The firing process began, but rather than a roaring sound, an alarm rang. The console lit up with warning lights and flashing orange failure messages.

“What’s wrong?” I shouted.

“You have to close the blast shields over the windows first, or we’ll be killed in the back-blast.”

“Right,” I said, slamming a physical switch home. The shields began to roll swiftly over the windows, blocking my view of the planet and the station.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “The guns will fire the second the shields are down.”

We ran like we’d never run before. We were three ghosts in sleek suits, and we made it a hundred meters or so before the broadsides boomed.

I was tossed onto the deck by the reverberation. One second the floor had been two meters under my feet then it seemed to buck up and slam into my face. I climbed to my feet painfully.

Carlos hooked a hand under my armpit and hauled me up. “No napping now, McGill,” he grunted, propelling me forward.

On my feet and staggering, I broke into a shambling run again. The plan at this point was relatively simple. We’d take the back passages to our unit module and stretch out on our bunks. The vid-blockers Natasha had set up would expire, and we’d appear as innocent as the day was long.

The plan almost worked, too. Sure, there were klaxons going off, and Natasha was summoned to join the tech brigade investigating what kind of malfunction had occurred, but for about three minutes, Carlos and I actually got to lie there in our bunks.

We fought to control our breathing and contrived to shape our faces into a semblance of innocence.

“McGill?” Carlos whispered down to me.

“What?”

“Hey, you owe me. Right? You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Good, here’s what I want you to do.”

I rolled my eyes. Apparently, he’d already worked out what form of repayment he wanted on our newly established debt.

“First,” he said, “when this all goes tits-up—which I totally know it’s going to do—leave me out of the story, okay?”

I thought about it, and shrugged. “Sure thing,” I said. “I did this whole thing solo. They can perm me, but I won’t budge from that story.”

“Good man. Secondly—”

“For crying out loud, isn’t that good enough?” I demanded.

“Hold on, the second thing is easy! Just tell me how it was with Turov. I mean, is she as hot as she looks? Is she a screamer?”

I rolled my eyes. “She brings the house down, Carlos. Every time.”

“Ha! I knew it.”

“You happy now?’

“Actually, there is one more—”

I never heard what his third demand was because at that moment the door tore apart.

If you’ve never been in a quiet room when the door is literally torn off the hinges, you can’t know just how shocking it can be. One second, we were talking quietly in our bunks, pretending innocence. The metal door squealed and crumpled being pulled outward like tinfoil.

There in the doorway stood a nightmare that was worse than any squid that had ever lived. It was a battle suit—a monstrosity of metal claws and whining servos. Worse, I knew the face behind the visor, the being who was driving the metal terror. I’d seen her in this battle suit before, and I knew what it could do.

Imperator Turov was young and pretty, but her face was twisted into such a state of rage that I barely recognized her. Shouldering her way inside the small chamber, she dented up the framing bulkhead, and dropped the hatch itself which was still clenched in one gripper.

“Imperator?” I shouted, jumping to my feet and standing at attention.

Carlos followed my cue and did the same thing. He looked like he was about to pee himself, and I probably wore the same expression.

“McGill…” she said, rotating the battle suit’s upper body back and forth. “McGill and Ortiz. Is that it? Where are the others? You don’t have the brains to do this by yourselves.”

“Sorry sir?” I said. “Has something gone wrong?”

She hissed at me. She honest-to-God let loose a hiss of displeasure.

“Are you going to bullshit me, NOW?” she demanded. “Are you honestly going to give that a try at this point?”

The volume of her external microphone had been cranked up punishingly high, and I winced as her words washed over me. They had a slightly muffled sound to them as she was inside an enclosed environment.

I faced the machine resolutely. Standing a hair taller than me in her suit, she looked down with predatory anger. The suit’s balancing tail-section swerved and twisted in reaction to her every motion.

Carlos, up until this point, had said nothing. “Sir,” he said at last, “whatever McGill has done, sir, I wasn’t involved. I apologize for sharing a room with him, but I don’t think it would be fair to—”

He broke off as Turov had thrust a gripper in his direction. It flexed and snapped closed. Blood shot out as if a balloon full of red liquid had popped. Carlos’ head had been snipped off. Just like that. I stared dumbly at the floor where his eyes stared back. Those eyes were flung wide and possibly appeared even more surprised than I was.

Turov bent over the head and spoke to it. “If you can still hear me, Ortiz,” she said. “I accept your apology.”

I thought about attacking her then, but I knew it was hopeless. In fact, such a move might provoke a second beheading. I stood at attention and averted my eyes from the mess on the floor.

Turov turned her attention back to me. The servos in her suit whined as she leaned the suit’s jaws close to my face.

“Why did you do it, McGill? Why did you blast the squid ship to atoms?”

Despite everything, I felt a rush of relief. After all, I’d never actually witnessed the broadside salvo striking the squid ship and taking it out. Now I knew that, even if I died today for the final time, it had not all been in vain.

I looked at her, square in the eye.

“Because we’re already at war with the squids, Imperator,” I said. “There’s no point in denying it. Did you really think they’d be satisfied with looting Tech World? No way. Giving them an easy victory would only cause them to report back that we’re weak and ripe for an attack. More of their ships would come. At that point, Earth would be faced with war anyway. This way, we struck the first blow.”

“Such decisions aren’t yours to make, McGill! You’re only a frigging
specialist
!”

“You’re right about that, sir,” I said. “I know I went beyond the bounds.”

Turov began to pace around me in a tight circle. The heavy metal feet of her machine crumped close to mine threatening to crush my bones and pop my toes.

“I don’t even understand
how
you did it,” she fumed. “How could you have convinced the broadside crew to fire their weapons? They aren’t even your friends.”

I glanced at her realizing she had that part of the story wrong.

“I guess my arguments persuaded everyone except for you, sir,” I said.

“
That’s the conclusion I came to—as incredible as it seems. The crewmen said they’d been knocked out or some such nonsense, but I know how this ship operates. They
had
to operate the controls personally. The system is linked to their biometrics.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “What did they say when you pointed this out, sir?”

“They tried to bullshit me, so I killed them both.”

She reached out a gripper and snapped it several times in front of my face. A tiny splatter of blood and gore flew. I thought I saw dark strands of hair there—they
probably belonged to Carlos, but I could be looking at the remains of the gunnery crew. It was hard to say.

“What are your orders, sir?” I asked, returning my eyes to front and center.

Turov circled around me one more time.

“I have to think,” she said at last, “and it is difficult to think clearly with you standing here in front of me. You distract me, McGill. You always have.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that, and I opened my mouth to make a polite reply—but then she took radical action.

There was a sudden movement followed by a loud snapping sound. I was never sure afterward if the last sound I heard had been my spine breaking or the clacking together of the pinchers as they closed shut after
passing through my neck and striking one another.

The results were the same either way. I collap
sed onto the deck in two pieces—and died.

* * *

How many times have I died in the service of Legion Varus and mankind in general? I don’t know—I think I’ve lost count. Or maybe I don’t want to remember. Just thinking about it makes me feel a little sick.

This time around I became aware again beginning with a sharp pain. The pain was in my ribs, on my right side. The pain repeated itself.

When you first regain consciousness after a death, it’s like waking from a dream. Your mind isn’t all there instantly. So it was today as what my senses were telling me
couldn’t
be happening.

Someone was stomping on my chest. Crashing their foot down onto my ribs like they were trying to kill a rat.

My hearing came into tune next. There was someone else here—a female. She was talking, egging on the rat-stomper.

“Do it, Carlos. Put him back into the wood-chipper thing!”

Kivi.
That voice had to be Kivi’s. I’d recognize her accent anywhere.

“Kivi?” I called weakly. I put my hands up to stop the stomping, but it shifted toward my face.

“I’m going to do his throat,” Carlos said. “I’m going to! He deserves it. Let the next version of him apologize.”

“If you kill him fast enough,” said Kivi, and her voice dripping venom, “he’ll never remember any of this.”

My strength was returning. Following an instinct, I shifted my hands up to cover my throat. If they crushed my larynx—well, it would be all over. I’d suffocate.

I had just enough in me to grab that bare foot and twist it when it came down the next time. Carlos cursed and crashed to the deck. I followed up my foot-twist with a kick. It landed but wasn’t enough to put him out. He crawled away.

Struggling to one elbow and wiping goo from my eyes, I took a quick, wild look around.

Kivi was crouching over me. She had a blade in her hand—a scalpel. My eyes flicked around the room. There was one more body here besides Carlos. It had to be Anne Grant.

That made me angry. I reached for Kivi’s wrist, and got a long cut drawn down my arm as a reward.

“What’s wrong with you?” I demanded, sitting up.

She took a combat stance. I waited for her next attack. I thought I could defend myself from the ground if I had to, but if she attacked when I stood up and was off-balance—well, that glittering blade would be rammed into my guts.

Carlos climbed back to his feet. I realized we were all three naked. We’d been revived and left without clothing or gear. I quickly began to figure out the sequence of events even though it was difficult to get my brand new brain functioning.

“Let me guess,” I said. “They revived us and strapped us down as we came out. One of you broke free and killed Anne. Are you two proud of that?”

“I am,” said Kivi with more than the usual level of snarl in her tone. She’d always had a short fuse and an emotional take on life. She could be your best friend and your worst enemy—maybe both at the same time.

“What did Anne ever do to you?” I demanded.

“She brought me back to life to stand trial, that’s what.”

I squinted at her then looked at Carlos. “Trial?”

“That’s it, buddy. We’re all dead. We’re all as good as permed thanks to your
insanely stupid plan. I want you to think about that before we kill you right now for revenge. I want you to own it.”

I got up slowly—and Kivi lunged. She knew she didn’t want me on my feet. Fortunately, I’d expected her to do that. I rolled back and threw a big, size-thirteen foot into her face stopping her dead in her tracks.

Another cut appeared along my calf, but Kivi was down and the scalpel clattered on the deck. Carlos dove for it, and I landed on top of him. I put a knee into his kidney and pinned him, wresting the blade free.