Undying Mercenaries 2: Dust World (4 page)

The Primus’ head turned, and she stared at us coldly for a second or two before continuing with her speech and her walk. That woman really knew how to walk. It had to have something to do with her hips and the heels of her officers’ boots. Hell, I don’t know. I felt like I was being hypnotized by some kind of exotic snake as I listened and stared.

“This campaign will be different,” she said. “As you muster back in, you’ll all be required to pass a specialized battery of tests.”

There were groans. I glanced at Carlos, but he was keeping his lips compressed together tightly, resisting his natural urges. Veteran Harris’ arm lashed out twice, slapping recruits who’d dared to voice their dismay.

Discipline in a modern legion was very physical. I’d read a bit about the old Roman legions during my shore leave. The historical records had stipulated a long list of harsh punishments for soldiers in ancient times. One or two had stuck out in my mind. When a Roman citizen signed on for military service and took the oath known as the
sacramentum
, he knew what he was in for. The
sacramentum
stated that he would serve Rome on pain of punishment up to and inclusive of his death. The discipline was much more rigorous in those days, and Earth had revived the old model in response to the Galactic Empire’s requirements.

In ancient Rome, an officer had the power to summarily execute anyone under his command. Depending on the nature of the crime and the disposition of the commander, punishments varied. A man might be fined a few silver coins for minor infractions, or he might be publicly flogged until his skin hung from his back in bloody strips. For serious crimes like treasonous behavior, the standard penalty was to be sewn into a leather sack full of snakes and tossed into a nearby lake or river to drown while the serpents presumably went mad and chewed on the disgraced soldier.

Although I’d never heard of anyone being drowned with reptiles, I was pretty sure some commanders had thought it over—especially if they were dealing with a guy like Carlos.

“Yes,” said the Primus loudly with
her hands on her hips. She’d stopped strutting around and now looked deadly serious. “I’m talking about a few tests: blood, core-samples, the works. You’ll have to pass physical stress-tests, too. I don’t want any weaklings on this campaign. The stakes are too high.”

Core-samples?
I didn’t even know what the hell that was, and I exchanged worried glances with a few others nearby.

“We’re heading to a harsh environment,” Turov continued as if that explained everything. “I’m only making sure we’re all fit to do our duty. Accordingly, I want everyone to spend the night in the Hall instead of heading out to the spaceport. We don’t have the facilities to do the testing on the transports, and
Corvus
won’t be in orbit until the very hour we launch. We’ll do the tests here, and they will be administered by Hegemony personnel.”

Another round of groans and cuffing sounds swept the chamber. This wasn’t good news. As harshly as my legion’s personnel treated us, they were at least on our side. They’d been in battle with most of us, and some of us had even developed personal relationships with the bio specialists.

That wouldn’t be the case with the Hegemony people. They weren’t our friends. If the reaction of the two Germanica legionnaires was any indicator, this was going to go badly. Most members of other legions had spit on us before, but now they thought they had a real reason to hate us.

“Any questions?”

I knew I shouldn’t, but I did it. I raised my hand.

“For God’s sake, McGill…” Harris muttered.

I knew why he wanted me to stay quiet. Primus Turov and I went way back—in a bad way. She’d tried to have me executed—in fact, Harris himself had done the job, killing me with a grin on his face. But I’d managed to weasel out of that with an unauthorized revival. That had never sat well with Turov. The very fact I was still breathing annoyed my superior officer. It hadn’t been a good place to start off a relationship, but I hoped she might forget about it eventually.

“Sir?” I asked when she called on me. “Has the legion considered trying to counter all the bad press we’re getting? I mean, everyone on the planet hates us now. They think we single-handedly brought financial ruin to Earth.”

I don’t know what Primus Turov had expected me to ask—maybe something like “where’s the bathroom?” but I was pretty sure from her shocked expression that my question had taken her by surprise. She paused for a moment before answering.

“Legion Varus’ reputation isn’t an issue,” she said. “Remember—all of you! We aren’t in this for the glory. Fame would only make our job harder. We’ll fix public opinion by fixing the problem, not by going on a PR campaign. What we want is to be forgotten about again. We fix things, but we don’t do it with fanfare. That’s our mission.”

The meeting broke up after that. Carlos let out a sigh.

“My life flashed before my eyes when you opened your big yap,” he told me. “But she took your question seriously. Must be bothering her, too.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “It has to be bothering all the brass. How’d you like to be in charge of a unit like this for years only to have people talk crap about you online all day long?”

“That’s the sad thing about it.”

“What do you mean?”

Carlos
shook his head. “I mean that even if we
do
fix it, we won’t get the credit. People will stop being mad, sure, but they’ll probably never know what we did or why.”

I thought about it, and I had to admit to myself that he was probably right.

“How about that Turov, huh?” Carlos asked when we’d rolled out insta-mats alongside the train-gliders and stretched out to sleep.

I’d thrown my arm over my eyes—they never turned off the lights down here. I lifted my arm slightly and looked at him with bleary eyes.

“What about her?” I asked him.

“I’m talking about her butt,” Carlos said, rubbing his face and yawning. “Don’t pretend you didn’t notice. How can I want to screw someone and want to kill her at the same time?”

I chuckled. “My father could explain that to you. He says that’s what marriage is all about.”

-4-

The next day was an entirely new flavor of Hell. These Hegemony bio-types had to be the most heartless bunch I’d ever encountered.

It turned out that a “core sample” was just what it sounded like. They drove little round tubes of steel into our abdomens, tubes that had very sharp ends to them, and left them in our guts while we howled, squirmed and sweated.

The real trick came when they pulled these meat-thermometers out of our bodies. They didn’t want to give us infections or cause organ failure—that would be inconvenient and require an expensive regrow. They wanted to take their measure of our guts and heal us back up from the inside.

In order to accomplish this, the tubes were equipped with flesh-spraying tips. Ever so slowly as the tubes were withdrawn, they spit out enough fresh human cells to knit up our punctured bodies. We were left with nickel-sized scars on our bellies and tears running down our faces.

“I want to congratulate you, Specialist Franklin,” Carlos said, his voice coming out in hitches. “You’ve invented the perfect torture device: plenty of pain, but no chance of relief through death.”

He got a laugh out of Franklin with that line. She laughed quite heartily. I had to wonder if she really
did
get a charge out of taking core-samples.

Afterward, the circular scars were tender, but we could function. Holding our sides, we moved slowly and painfully to the next chamber, anxious about further tests.

I was surprised by what happened next. Instead of giving us a break, or making us take a sit-down test at least, they put us into sparring chambers. These were sealed, bubble-like affairs. They looked like tents. Carlos and I separated with a nod.

“Good luck, buddy,” Carlos said. “The bio told me what’s coming up next, and you’re going to need
some.”

“What—?” I began, but he was gone, shunted off down through a line of groaning troops. Everyone had a hand on their side and a grimace on their face.

As I entered my tent a robot grabbed me. It was skinny, a pile of wires and steel tubing. It had fingers—lots of them, and the damned thing seemed to be trying to frisk me.

I’ve gotten into trouble in the past by abusing robots. In fact, I take a certain degree of pride in my ability to mess with them. But as the legion people never seemed to be happy with my changes to their scripts, I thought I would give
the tech who operated this thing a chance.

“Can someone please explain why I should put up with this?” I asked loudly of the plastic, shivering walls.

No one answered me. That was typical of legion tests. They often wanted to see how I would handle a situation. Sometimes they were testing my psychology as well as my physical abilities. On other occasions, they just didn’t give a damn what I thought about anything and didn’t feel like bothering to tell me what the plan was.

It was hot and humid in the tent. The pressure felt higher, too. There were no ventilation sources I could see, and as far as I could tell, the whole chamber was being filled up with a continuous blowing fan that pumped hot wet air into the dome. It was about thirty feet around and nearly as tall. I could easily stand up and walk around inside—that was, if the robot let go of my shirt.

Instinctively, I resisted the robot. It’s just something in me, I guess. I could stand a bio driving what amounted to a metal spike into my guts, but having a robot molest me—that was too much.

The machine managed to get my chest-wrap open. We didn’t have shirts, not exactly. Legion uniforms were fairly dumb as
smart-clothes went. They only knew enough to fit a man’s form and hug up against him, adhering to skin and other smart-cloth.

Having the robot rip my shirt open was too much for me. I was already sore, pissed off and hot. I narrowed my eyes at the skinny bundle of metal sticks.

I figured that someone had to be watching—this wasn’t my first rodeo—so I decided not to attack the bot directly. Instead, I grabbed its right hand, pushed against its right shoulder, and simultaneously swept my foot behind it, stepping on its power cord. It was a judo move tailored for the target enemy.

The effect was quite gratifying. The robot lost its balance and flipped onto its back. It crashed onto the floor with a jangling sound I quite enjoyed.

“Test failed!” shouted a voice from a hidden speaker.

I looked around but still didn’t spot the camera. The tent was hotter than ever, but I was frowning now and becoming stubborn.

“Sir? How did I fail the test, sir?”

“We aren’t playing Q and A. Exit the tent, soldier!”

I didn’t budge. “Your robot seems to have malfunctioned,” I said.

The robot tried to get up, servos whining. I kept my foot on its cord,
so it couldn’t stand.

“You struck the machine,” said the voice. “That’s a clear demonstration of malice right there. I’m calling that intolerance under mild stress and discomfort. Test failed.”

“I repeat, your robot has malfunctioned,” I said, trying to sound reasonable, even cheerful. Sure, I felt like belting the owner of that voice, but I spoke pleasantly and even managed to inject a note of concern into my tone. “I tried to catch it as it fell. Maybe the heat was too much for the machine.”

There was silence for about ten seconds. Taking a chance, I stooped over the robot and appeared to be trying to help it. In reality, I groped its chest panel until I found a set of hair thin wires. I gave them a little tug, and the robot stopped struggling.

A moment later, a rustling sound made me turn around. A small, portly woman with blonde hair and twisted lips came in. She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. She was a tech, a type of enlisted specialist that worked with advanced equipment—like robots.

“This automated unit checked out two hours ago,” she said in concern. “Why isn’t it operating now? What did you do, Specialist?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it has a faulty balance gyro. I didn’t hit the thing—it just fell down.”

She glared at me, then checked out her robot. Her face changed from anger to concern.  “It’s lost power…”

“Like I said—”

She stood up suddenly and put her finger in my face. “You’re one of those clowns from Varus, aren’t you?”

I slapped the patch on my shoulder. “I wear the wolf’s head with pride, Specialist.”

Cursing, she dragged her robot away. I offered to help, but the tech waved me back.

“Just keep away from my equipment. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to pass you. That’s the worst thing I could do…yeah, you’re getting an A-plus, asshole!”

I frowned and, not knowing what to make of her threats, I exited the tent immediately. Outside I sucked in gulps of cool air in the open Hall.

I saw a familiar face just coming out of another tent. The girl’s name was Kivi. It had been a few months since I’d seen her, and she was a sight for sore eyes. She had that classic short-girl body: short limbs, but with plenty of curves. Her hair was curly and her eyes were quick. She was from the Mideast somewhere originally, and right now she looked hot in more ways than one.

I couldn’t help smiling as I ran my eyes over her. She was in a state of undress and struggling to get her smart-clothes to adhere to her body again.

Her eyes flicked over to me, and she caught me watching her. She smiled.

“You made it through the test?” she asked me.

“Of course,” I said, having no real idea what the test had been about.

She pursed her lips. “I’m kind of surprised. Did the robot undress you completely?”

I blinked, then I caught on. So that’s what it had been trying to do. “I let it,” I said, “just the way I was supposed to.”

“You’ve changed, then.”

She walked toward me and began flicking at my specialist patch. She didn’t have one.

“Looks like we might not be in the same unit any longer,” she said.

“We’ll have to see,” I said. I lifted up a hand and touched her elbow. It just felt like a natural thing to do.

Kivi and I had been intimate on a number of occasions. We’d broken up long ago, but several months apart tends to make a man forget about whatever it was that had pissed him off in the first place.

She smiled up at me shyly, but I wasn’t fooled. Kivi didn’t have a shy bone in her body.

“I passed, according to the tech,” I said, “but I don’t know why the hell they would give us such a freaky test in the first place.”

“I’m not sure. But I’ll bet we’re heading somewhere hot and wet.”

I thought about that, and nodded. “Testing how easily we’re irritated by heat and pressure?”

“I guess.”

“You feel a little warmed up,” I said, looking down at her and smiling again. “How about we go get a cool drink before these Hegemony bastards torture us some more?”

“Good idea,” she said, and we headed up a short flight of steps to the ring of booths that surrounded the central testing area. Half the booths were occupied by various legion representatives while the rest seemed to be concession stands selling things.

I bought Kivi a beer and we drank fast. You never knew how long you had before you were caught goofing off in Legion Varus.

As it turned out, I was just lowering my face toward hers to kiss her when my tapper buzzed on my arm.

I could tell hers was going off too. She winced a little. The vibration under your skin never felt right. Most of us had them set so that they only made tones or flashed colors on the skin. But legion rules were clear: we had to have them set to vibrate for emergency incoming orders.

She raised my arm to eye my tapper, which I’d had fixed earlier today. When she let it go, I naturally allowed my hand to come down and rest on her shoulder. She smiled and reached up in response, throwing a hand around my neck.

“Forget about it for a second,” she whispered.

Then she kissed me, dragging my face down to meet hers. We had a serious height difference…but we’d always managed to find ways to get around it.

* * *

The next day went by quickly. We were tested some more, and the tests themselves made me feel suspicious about this mission. Most of the metrics being measured centered on our tolerance for irritation, pain, heat and pressure. Could we take it? The answer for most of us was
yes
. The legionnaires in Varus weren’t like most of the others I’d run into. We might not be the smartest or the best-equipped, but we could take a beating and keep marching on.

By the third night, we were tired but not defeated. We were herded aboard a sky-train going to the spaceport sometime after midnight. No one complained. No one said much of anything. We were going off-world and, unlike fresh recruits, we knew that meant we’d be in for a rough ride.

Fortunately, the officers didn’t play any tricks on my unit on the way up to
Corvus
. We weren’t here to go through boot camp. We were veterans: flat-faced, dark-eyed. No one smiled or fooled around much. We all had the feeling that we were going to have entirely new reasons to regret signing up before this mission was over.

Corvus
was an amazing sight just as it had been the first time I’d laid eyes on her. Over five kilometers long, the ship was of the dreadnaught class. She had sharp angles, sleek lines and acres of burnished metal hull plates that were so long they boggled the mind.
Corvus
was big enough to carry an entire Earth legion plus a crew of aliens call “Skrull” and all of our equipment. Thousands of troops tramped aboard from dozens of transports which had lifted off from spaceports all around the planet.

After we’d found our assigned quarters, we were summoned to the mess hall for a unit-wide briefing. I was happy about that, as were most of the rest of my comrades. Often, the brass didn’t bother telling us what we were facing. This time, they’d felt the need was great enough to clue in the grunts.

“Zeta Herculis,” Centurion Graves said, as if that explained everything.

He stood at the front of the mess hall with a laser pointer aimed at the wall-screen. Depicted in blazing color was a system with two stars: one
was a big K-class with an orangey hue to it, the second was a smaller white dwarf.

Graves looked around the group, and we stared back blankly.

“My God, people,” he said. “Don’t they teach you anything in school anymore?”

Carlos perked up. He couldn’t help it.

“Yes, sir! They teach us to join the legions and see the stars, sir!”

Veteran Harris stepped closer to Carlos and loomed over him. I could tell he was angry and dying for a hint from Graves that he should lean on Carlos, but Graves didn’t give him an excuse.

Carlos’ comment seemed to amuse Graves. He chuckled and shook his head.

“Yes, I guess that’s all troops come in with. Heads full of happy-talk and lies. But today, we’re going to tell you a little secret: we’re not alone in space.”

I don’t think a single one of us knew what the hell he was talking about, but we knew enough to keep quiet and stare. Even Carlos kept his mouth shut.