Undying Mercenaries 2: Dust World (16 page)

I grimaced. She was going through a bad one, I could tell right away. Harris always said that the best thing for a revived soldier was to go right back into combat. That way, they didn’t have time to think about what had just happened to them.

I reached out and touched her.

“There,” I said. “Now we’ve touched. Now we’re real.”

She rewarded me with a wan smile. “Is that all there is to it?”

“I could arrange more…when I’m off-duty.”

Her smile swelled and transformed into a quiet laugh. I smiled back, feeling relieved. I didn’t want her to freak out on me. Occasionally troopers had to be sedated or even restrained.

Natasha sat on
a rock that was covered with a dry, purple moss. We’d been worried about the strange-looking growth at first, but our bio teams had assured everyone it was non-toxic.

I sat beside her, and she went back to eying the alien orchid I’d given her.

“It went badly in the end, James,” she said suddenly, quietly. “They let us fry up there. We knew we couldn’t save the ship after a few hours. It was obvious. But central didn’t even try to let us escape. We were ordered not to take any of the lifeboats or the emergency pods. But a few of us tried anyway when we reached the corona. Do you know what we found?”

I opened my mouth, closed it again, then shook my head.

“They’d launched them all before you fled in the lifters. There was never a way for us to survive. We were left there to fix the
Corvus
or to die trying.”

“Are you sure you should be talking about—”

“Don’t worry about your suit recorders. I’m wearing a jammer I built myself. Most of the techs have them. They’re against regs but it’s so easy to build one, and even the tech officers look the other way. I guess it’s a perk of being in charge of technology—we get to turn it off when we want to.”

I thought about that, and it made sense. The computer people back home on Earth had always lived apart from the rest of us. They were the watchers, and we were the watched. Only they could avoid that fate.

I sidled close to her and put an arm behind her. Not anything intrusive. I just wanted her to feel supported. She leaned back against my shoulder without thinking about it.

“Okay, tell me the rest,” I said. “What really happened up there?”

In truth, I didn’t want to hear her story at all. I was already pretty sure I would be pissed off and disgusted by the end of it. But I knew she wanted to tell me, so I let her.

“We freaked out a little,” she said. “Discipline broke down. We’re techs, you know? Like the bio people, we don’t always have to play by the same rules as everyone else does.”

Pretending to know what she was talking about, I nodded my head.

“We switched off the neural transmitters first. That way when they were revived, they wouldn’t remember the final hour.”

I frowned. “Who is ‘they’—who are you talking about?”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m talking about the last of us. The techs who didn’t want to fry. The ones who were the most upset about being consigned to death.”

“Okay…” I said slowly. “What did you do then, when your minds were no longer being transcribed?”

“I don’t remember what happened, only what we planned up until that point in time. My mind wasn’t stored after that either. But I know there was a group of techs that weren’t going to break ranks. They were all smug and self-sacrificing. They thought it was their duty to die horribly if that’s what the Primus wanted. Others thought differently when the final moments came. We didn’t think it was fair, and—well, I guess we lost our minds a little. Part of that might have been due to the growing radiation, heat and fear.”

The picture-perfect listener, I didn’t move a muscle or a make a sound. Internally however, my guts were crawling. I tried not to judge her. I hadn’t been there. I hadn’t been the one trapped in what amounted to a giant microwave oven.

“We had a plan to stay alive. It wasn’t in the script, but we thought it might work. By separating the modules of the ship, we could give each part of the ship a jolt of lateral thrust, just enough to send one part of the ship away from the star. There would be radiation and heat, but we
might
have survived.”

“Sounds like a plan. Why didn’t the others go for it?”

“Because central command had already set the plan. We were to be copied as soon as
Corvus
burned up. If some of us got off the ship inside the corona, we wouldn’t be able to report back whether we’d lived or died. It might have taken a long time to get the word back to the lifters that they’d made a mistake—that the bio people on Dust World had made copies too early.”

She looked at me then, and I began to figure out what she was talking about. There would be
two
Natashas if that scenario had played out. One out there in space, clinging to life, the other coming out of the revival machines here on this dusty rock.

“That would be a violation of Galactic Law,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “It would have been. But we were going mad. You know what I mean. Sometimes, the urge to live is too strong in a person. Even if they know intellectually that’ll come back in a new body, it’s hard to give up on the old one.”

She was right. I knew that feeling well.

“So,” I said, “how did it play out? I mean, obviously you failed and were revived here.”

She looked at me strangely. She gave me a tiny shake of her head.

I froze. “You don’t mean…”

“I don’t
know
,” she said. “I don’t remember all of it, but that’s because the neural transmitters were switched off. I do remember the plan: we were going to kill those who demanded to die on the ship. The plan was to reprogram their own buzzers remotely—to kill their masters. I mean, they wanted to die anyway, we thought we’d help them along a little. Then we would try to escape the corona. That’s all I know, because my memories stopped in the planning stages of the mutiny.”

My mouth hung open and I stared at her. I lowered my voice to a whisper even though I knew it wouldn’t help if my suit was somehow recording my conversation despite her jammer.

“Are you saying there might be
two of you
?” I asked. “One here, in my arms, and the other one out there—lost in space and still alive?”

She nodded and turned her attention back to the orchid I’d given her. She plucked a petal from it and peeled it back. Thick greenish sap ran like syrup from the stem.

“What will they do if they figure it out?” I asked. “I mean, which one of you is the valid, bona fide, genuine, Tech Specialist Natasha Elkin?”

“You mean, which one will they execute? Probably that poor, desperate, murdering bitch who disobeyed orders and did her utmost to survive.”

I heaved a big sigh and hugged her.

“Stop worrying,” I said. “I can understand why you’d be upset, but it’s all for nothing. There’s only one Natasha, and I’m hugging her right now. You couldn’t have survived. No one could have.”

She looked at me gratefully. “You really think so?”

I nodded my head firmly. “Absolutely. I saw diagrams of your flight path. There’s no way out of a gravity well that big when you are so close to a star. You had a bad death, that’s all. Just let it go. Would it be better if you’d been permed?”

“I guess not,” she said, giving herself a little shake.

She hugged me back then, and one thing led to another. We’d only made love a few times before, but this time, there among the alien orchids on the mossy lakeshore, she had a new fire in her.

The sex was good—but I was a little freaked out. Could there be another Natasha out there, still alive and screaming in space? I had no idea. I’d lied to her about seeing diagrams and flight paths. That was pure, grade-A, Georgia bullshit. And I didn’t know anything more about surviving in the corona of a star than I did about the rock-fish in the lake nearby—I probably understood the fish better.

Sometimes, it’s better not to know all the details when bad things happen. Was Natasha a murderer? Or had she chickened in the end? I prayed she’d never find out what had actually happened up there aboard the
Corvus
in those final, desperate hours.

Keeping my thoughts to myself, I loved her, held her afterward, and I got her through the malaise that sometimes lingers in a soldier after a bad death.

-15-

I woke up with Harris’ boot crashing into my side. I swear that man must creep up on sleeping troopers just to indulge himself in this kind of sport.

Scrambling awake, I automatically reached for my hand-beamer, but Harris’ foot was already planted on it. Then I recognized him, and I cursed him.

He chuckled at me in return. Then he looked over Natasha’s kit, which was lying nearby.

“A jammer, huh?” he said.

She snatched her clothing and her ruck away from him and pulled her uniform on. She threw her shirt over her bare back like a shawl. The smart-cloth flaps found each other and knitted themselves together to cover her skin.

Both Harris and I watched this happen while she glowered back at us. Modesty was a funny thing in Legion Varus. You might take a shower with a girl, all the while chatting her up and enjoying the view, and no one thought anything of it. But if she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to—like screwing in the bushes on an alien planet—she got all prudish on you for some reason.

“You could have said something to warn us,” she complained.

“And spoil the fun?” Harris asked, chuckling. “Two sleeping love-birds in a nest of mossy rocks—I’m a sucker for that kind of cuteness. I took a few pics, hope you don’t mind.”

Natasha gathered her kit and left in a huff, disappearing into the thick fleshy leaves that surrounded us. Despite her angry exit, I felt good about her behavior. She seemed to be back to normal. At least she wasn’t wondering about her hypothetical twin, who might or might not be cooking out in space somewhere at this very moment.

“Get rid of that jammer, Specialist!” Harris called after her. “You know it took me more than half an hour to find you two? This isn’t the Garden of Eden, this is a damned war zone.”

She shouted something back, but I didn’t catch it. Harris reached down and hauled me to my feet. I thought about pushing him into the lake but restrained myself. His sense of humor didn’t extend that far.

“Sorry Vet,” I said. “Won’t happen again.”

“Bullshit. I know your kind, McGill. You latch onto every piece of tail that comes into range. Now, get your ass back to the lifter. We’re gathering up the unit and marching on the colonist stronghold tonight.”

We began the trek back to the lifter. As we walked, I began getting worried.

“You said something about a war zone,” I said. “No one’s attacked the colonists yet, have they? No reprisals, no diplomatic incidents?”

I looked at him meaningfully as I knew he was perfectly capable of causing a diplomatic incident if he was in the mood.

“Nope. That’s your job, McGill.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You made contact the first time, remember?” he said, grinning at me. “The Primus nominated you for round two. We’re sending you in to negotiate surrender conditions with the colonists.”

“What happens if I can’t do that?”

Harris’ grin grew a fraction wider. “Then it’s boom-time for our little arrow-shooting friends. No more mantraps or picking off patrols. They’re a menace, and they’ve got to learn who’s in command on this rock. The Centurion will tell you all about it.”

When we got back to base camp around the lifter, I met up with Centurion Graves. He waved me close and walked away from the rest of the troops who’d built up a firebase with a perimeter of low puff-crete walls. We didn’t have a lot of extra material for a really big wall—those supplies had been lost with
Corvus
.

“McGill, you’re just the man I want to talk to. Where the hell have you been?”

I glanced back at Harris who made kissing faces at both of us.

“Ah,” said Graves. “I get it. Pretty ballsy of you to pull a stunt like that right after a revive. You feeling up for a new mission?”

“Would it matter if I wasn’t?”

“Not in the least.”

“I’m operating at one hundred and ten percent, sir.”

“Good,” he said. “Let’s go over the game plan.”

As he spoke, he walked me out of ear shot of the rest of the unit. Harris lost interest and went to harass Carlos, who was trying to catch more rock-fish with a nanite string on his finger. He’d gotten one of the techs to make a wriggling lure which he’d attached to the end and now was reeling them in every few minutes.

“What’s my mission, sir?” I asked Graves.

“You’re going to penetrate their defenses, as you did before. They speak English, right?”

“They do, sir. But with an odd accent.”

“Good. You’re to deliver the ultimatum and return to our unit which will be in hiding about a kilometer from that shitty rock pile they like to hide under.”

“What’s the nature of this ultimatum, sir?”

“Simple enough. They must march out of hiding and surrender their weapons by dumping them on the beach, then walk to our lines with their hands on their heads. After that—”

“Sir,” I said, interrupting. “I’ve talked to these people. I think it’s highly unlikely they will—”

“I’m not going to candy this one up,” he said, cutting off my protest. “The orders are unreasonable. In fact, I think they’re damn near impossible to execute.”

I stared at him, trying to recall an occasion when he’d candied up anything. My mind drew a blank.

“But you’re a smart boy,” he continued. “You’ve already figured out that you’re
supposed
to fail. If you want, you can walk up there, hide in the boulders for half an hour or so, then run back to our lines. I wouldn’t blame you. The results will most likely be the same either way.”

I straightened my spine. “No sir, I’ll deliver the message. But I have to point out that these people are civilians. They’re human civvies, and we should be protecting them, not threatening and killing them.”

“They seem human enough, I’ll give you that one. But they aren’t officially citizens of Earth—they’re
wild
humans. Out of control and unaware they live in the shadow of the Empire. Look, you have to understand what’s at stake, and you have to try to explain it to them if you want to save them.”

“I’ve heard that line of reasoning before. Why do we have to mess with them at all? Let’s just leave them alone. When a rescue ship comes, we’ll leave and forget about them.”

“It won’t work that way, soldier,” said a voice in the growing darkness.

Graves and I turned to see a man wearing a cloak walk up to us. He didn’t wear full battle armor as I did, but he did have on a breastplate and an ornate sidearm.

“Tribune!” Graves said. “You honor us with your presence.”

“Take a walk, Centurion.”

Without another word, Graves turned on his heel and headed back toward the shimmering lake and the scattered campfires. Men were toasting up rock-fish and dousing the meat with alkaline solutions to leech out the toxins.

“We can’t just leave them alone, McGill,” Tribune Drusus told me. “The Empire will blame us for whatever these people do once they’ve been discovered—and they will be discovered when the Galactics come to pick us up. We had to report the attack upon our vessel to regional command. When the Galactics return, they’ll come in force.”

“The Battlefleet?” I asked in awe.

Drusus nodded. “Perhaps not right away, but a violation of this magnitude can’t be ignored. They’ll have to come and expunge all disobedient life from these worlds. The cephalopods are as good as dead even if they don’t know it. Knowing what’s coming, our mission has changed. Instead of worrying about putting down a possible rival, I’m here to ensure that Earth isn’t going to be somehow blamed for what’s happened here.”

“I understand that, sir. Maybe if we took our time and talked to the colonists gently, we could win their trust over a period of—”

“Hours,” Drusus finished for me. “That’s how long we have. The Galactics have military-grade warp drives. They might be far from here, but we can’t take that chance. Really, we should pulverize these warrens with an immediate bombardment, but I’ve decided to give them one last chance.”

“Hours? But the Galactics aren’t likely to come that fast. They’ll probably take months to arrive.”

“Yes, but then again, they might not. It is imperative that we have this situation resolved before they arrive.”

“You’re willing to kill an entire population of your own people just because the Battlefleet
might
be nearby? May I remind you, sir, that these people don’t have revival machines? Every one of them we kill will be permed.”

“I know that. But I also know the Galactics are as heartless as the stars themselves. The threat they represent forces my hand. I have to protect Legion and I have to protect Earth.”

“Can I ask one more question, Tribune? Why me?”

“Because you at least managed to talk to them for a while before they became violent. I think it was the adaptation of removing your armor that saved you. Can you explain that choice to me?”

I thought about it. “Yes sir. I didn’t want to look threatening, so I stripped down to look more like one of them. They seem to fear armored men. They said something about me having ‘littermates’, and they doubted I was even human at first. I didn’t know what to make of it.”

“Strange. Maybe they’ve developed superstitious beliefs. They’ve been cut off from Earth for quite a while, and they’ve obviously diverged from the rest of us culturally.”

“Am I to understand that I’m the last attempt we’re making at diplomatic contact?”

“Yes.”

I mulled that one over for a second. I didn’t like the situation at all. I’d never considered myself to be good at diplomacy—except possibly when it came to getting myself laid. Other than that, I’d always failed miserably at negotiating anything. Most people found me abrasive and difficult to deal with. Maybe that was the real reason they were sending me—I was expected to fail.

I didn’t see any way out of my situation. The colonists were slated for death, and I had to do what I could to help them. The poor bastards probably had no idea what an Earth legion could do to them.

“I understand, sir,” I said at last. “I’ll do my best.”

“I know that you will.”

The tribune left then, vanishing into the dark. Most soldiers wore identifying lights around the camp at night and used lamps to see, but not Drusus. He walked like a ghost among the rest of us.

An hour later I found myself picking my way through loose gravel toward the hulking boulders in the dark. I shed my armor and left my cannon at the base of the first big rock I came to. I then went on with only a shoulder-lamp and my sidearm. Going completely unarmed would probably have been best, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I’d already decided that if that rat-faced guy Stott showed up with his crossbow I was going to kill him if at all possible, diplomacy be damned.

For a while, I felt like I was grunting and climbing among the boulders alone. But I knew that this time there were buzzers nearby. There were insects on Dust World—plenty of them—but our buzzers sounded different from the native species. Their black polymer wings made a tiny clicking noise that I found distinctive.

The legion techs were watching me. Natasha herself was probably playing the vid feed inside her helmet.

Feeling a little self-conscious, I came to the area where Gorman had bought the proverbial farm. I stepped carefully from there on, staying on top of the widest, flattest rocks and avoiding loose dirt.

I heard another kind of click about a hundred meters farther in. It was a sound that made my skin crawl. It was the sound of a crossbow string being drawn back and loaded with deadly bolt.

Halting, I put my hands over my head.

“I’m here to talk,” I said loudly.

“You people don’t learn, do you?” asked a female voice.

“Della?”

She stayed quiet for a second, then I heard a soft thudding of feet as she circled around me. She was almost invisible in the rocks. I tried not to flinch, and I almost managed it as she brought the tip of her weapon under my chin.

She reached out and turned my shoulder lamp upward to shine upon my face. She gasped.

“You
are
a littermate!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t believe they could do this! I didn’t
want
to believe!”

“Hold on,” I said, sensing that she was about to shoot me. “Can you at least tell me what a
littermate is? I don’t have a clue.”

“Pretense of ignorance will fool no one. I’ve patrolled these stones since I was little. I know them better than anyone alive. You can’t fool a
scout. I’m surprised you would even try.”

I sensed she was proud of her accomplishments and her title. I filed that information away, trying to think fast. I had no desire to be revived twice in a single day. It would make Harris far too happy.

“Look,” I said. “I’m no littermate—if you mean I’m some kind of clone. If I was a clone, how would I know your name? You killed me last time, remember? How would I know that?”

She circled and I sensed indecision. “You made a mistake coming back here, whatever you are. Abominations will always die in Happy Valley.”