Undying Mercenaries 2: Dust World (15 page)

“Damn it, McGill! Get on with it!”

I sighed and began to climb those stark boulders. I felt the heat radiating from them and burning my hands right through my gloves. It was times like these that made me wonder if there was something wrong with my brain.

I picked my way over the hot rocks, staying on the large flat surfaces as much as I could. I avoided open areas of ground and loose gravel, assuming that’s where the traps were. I climbed until I was within fifty meters of the cliff itself.

Suddenly, I made contact. It happened fast, and it happened with smooth coordination. Six of the colonists—or hunters, or whatever you want to call them—sprang up from hiding places all around me. I wasn’t armed, so I slowly put up my hands and stood there.

“Do you guys speak English?” I asked hopefully.

They didn’t say anything. Up until this point they’d barely made a sound. They’d come out of dark cracks under the biggest boulders, sliding out from under their rocks like scorpions coming out of burrows.

None of them spoke or smiled. Instead they were crouching and staring. Their crossbows were loaded with dark metal bolts, and I had no doubt that a hit from any of those weapons would chew through my flesh. I’d be dead in less than a minute from a minor wound.

I kept my hands raised, and I glanced over my shoulder toward the lakeshore. I wasn’t really surprised to find I couldn’t see my comrades from here. There were a few key boulders between this spot and their position.

“Your
littermates can’t help you now,” said one of the group. “We have your twisted life, and we will end it.”

I thought I recognized her. She had long hair and even longer, tanned legs. She was the one that had shot me the first time.

“We don’t mean you any harm,” I said.

“You will die no matter what you say.”

The colonists were a motley bunch. They had skins tanned a deep brown, hair that was pulled back in knotted tangles and bows held tightly. I could see their corded muscles outstanding on every arm and neck. They were very tense.

I lowered my hands and shrugged. “Well then, get on with it. Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

“Your masters have trained you well,” the woman said. “This is a new tactic, and I don’t understand it yet. We hesitate, waiting for your trick to play out. We must learn so we can warn others. Your kind has invaded many valleys at once this time, but your purpose is unclear. Whatever it is, you will not be successful.”

I frowned, not knowing what the hell she was talking about. “You sound like you’ve seen our kind before. We’re the first to come here. We’re from Earth, just as your parents were.”

This statement seemed to surprise the girl. She gave a bark of laughter. The others hooted and bared their teeth in amusement. I got the feeling they weren’t dumb, but they’d definitely lost some social skills somewhere along the way out from Earth.

“So
strange,” she said. “You do seem to be unlike the others. How can you know of Earth? How can you know of our name for that place?”

“Kill it now, Della,” said one of the men suddenly. He was a hunched fellow with white wispy hair circling his head like cotton. His eyes were wide and staring. He moved his feet constantly, shuffling on the stones. Instead of a bow, he had a cocked and loaded crossbow trained on my back. He never shifted his aim away from me. My skin crawled as if it knew it had never had so many deadly weapons aimed at it at once.

“I’m in command, Stott,” Della said. “I say not yet.”

“Be sure, be safe,” said another, younger male. He was maybe fourteen, and there was no pity in his youthful eyes. I took it that he was agreeing with Stott.

“Be sure, be safe!” they all muttered, as if saying a prayer. Even Della seemed compelled to repeat the chorus.

I looked around the group. They flinched as my eyes fell upon them.

“What are you people so afraid of?” I demanded. “Ever since we got here, you’ve been hiding, and now you’re taking shots at us. We haven’t killed any of your folk. Why kill us? We have ships and weapons. Don’t give my commanders cause to harm you. We could wipe you out if we wanted to.”

“It threatens us!” shouted Stott. He lifted his crossbow higher, sighting along the stock as if I was a
kilometer away. “Della, we must kill it now before it learns more from us. Clearly, it is a spy.”

“I’m not an ‘it’,” I said. I’m James McGill, a weaponeer from Legion Varus. I’m a soldier from Earth. If you’ll let me, I’ll help you.”

“Now you sound like one from the litters,” Della said. “Except you should not have a name. That’s unnatural. Can it be that the cephalopods are trying to create beings that mirror our ways? You’re so thin and small of stature. I don’t understand you—how can you be the way you are?”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand you, either. But you said something about cephalopods. That’s a squid, right? Are you talking about the aliens? The walking squids?”

That was the wrong thing to say. They hissed and squirmed around me, clearly not liking any reference to space-squids.

“You see!” Stott shouted. “He’s one of them! Don’t be fooled! He’s allied with them.”

I was really starting to dislike Stott, but I decided it was best to ignore his outbursts and focus on Della, who appeared to be in charge.

“The squids attacked us,” I said. “They attacked our ship as we came here from Earth. They damaged our ship, but we were able to escape on lifters—the smaller ships that came here to land. We landed in your valleys because they were the only places where we could survive. We didn’t even know you were here. You were supposed to colonize the water-world.”

“How can you listen to his twisting lies?” demanded Stott. “They’ve improved their techniques, that’s all. He’ll want you to mate with him. That’s next. He’ll turn you into a brood-mother, see if he won’t!”

Della’s dark, intelligent eyes swung to Stott, then back to me. “How did they teach you all this? Could you once have been a captive child? If so, you must have been raised since you were a pup, making it all the more odd. Small children don’t have the ability to discuss space. The cephalopods themselves must have taught you this story.”

At least Della seemed intrigued with me. She narrowed her eyes and stared at me as if I was some kind of deep puzzle. The idea that I was really from Earth didn’t seem to be sinking in at all.

On a hunch, I reached into one of my pockets. They all tensed around me.

“Easy,” I said. “I’m unarmed. I only want to show you something.”

I drew out a knife. It was the one my dad had given me before I left home. I held it out toward Della.

“Take it,” I said. “It’s from Earth. Can you read?”

She snorted at me. “Of course I can read.”

“See the inscription? It says made in the North America Sector. That’s real, old-fashioned Pittsburgh steel.”

She frowned at the knife and then at me. “You can’t have this thing. No captive child would be given such a treasure from the old world. No
littermate could have it, either.”

“It’s from Earth,” I said. “My dad gave it to me.”

I could see in her eyes that she was baffled but that she was starting to believe. I smiled at her.

That was a mistake. Stott, who’d been watching the interchange very closely, chose that moment to fire his crossbow. The bolt tore through my back and lodged itself in my ribs. I looked down, stunned. The head of the bolt was wet, dark metal. I could see a chunk of bone there as well.

I sank to my knees. There was a sick explosion inside my body, a cold feeling. Not pain yet—not exactly. It felt as if I had a new bone protruding outward from inside my chest.

The nanite head of the bolt activated then. It must have sensed the nearness of flesh, bone and blood. It crawled into my skin. I put my hand over it, trying to tug it out, but it was wedged in pretty well. I felt the head of the bolt bite my hand, and I tried to pull away but couldn’t. I howled. My hand had been fused to the wound in my chest.

It was worse, I thought, to know what was happening. I envied dumb animals, creatures that just thrashed without thought, not understanding they were doomed.

The nanites invaded the palm of my hand and the arteries in my chest, digging into my body. I could feel them tickling and rasping in my bloodstream as my dying heart pumped them throughout my network of veins like hot poison.

I rolled onto my back, gasping.

“You were not to slay him,” Della shouted at Stott. “You disobeyed.”

“He was controlling your mind,” Stott protested. “I saved you, Della. Didn’t you see him smile? All of you! Speak truly! You saw it, didn’t you? His smile was pure evil.”

I used the hand that wasn’t stuck to my chest to reach up to Della. I beckoned her closer.

“He’ll strike like a water-slip!” Stott warned her. “Don’t go near!”

She’d finally had enough of Stott, as had I. She kicked him in the face. I was impressed by the maneuver. She was quite limber, moving with the grace of someone who lives in the wild. Stott spun away, growling and spitting blood.

Della bent close to me. “What dying words do you have for me?”

I didn’t smile. I’d learned my lesson there. Instead, I coughed some blood then spoke as clearly as I was able.

“When I come back here,” I rasped. “I’ll want my knife back.”

I was rewarded with a confused, worried look from Della. I’d managed to freak her out a little. I thought to myself that she was quite pretty, in an unsophisticated way. As feral humans went, she was the best-looking one I’d met up with so far.

Then I lost interest in my new friends. Some trick of my nervous system decided to let me feel the full agony of the bolt in my back at this moment. I twisted and cried out, but that only made the pain worse.

Della leaned close and thrust her knife up into my skull. I’d been holding out a faint hope I might survive until that moment when all hope was lost.

In my final moments, I tried to absolve Della of the murder. I was sure she’d stuck me with her knife without malice believing it to be an act of mercy.

I heard the breath go out of my lungs in an elongated sigh. Then I died on that hot, flat rock in a sticky pool of blood and nanites.

-14-

The first thought that intruded upon the peace of my nonexistence was one of irritation. That Stott fellow had been a true bastard. He’d been jealous; angry to see Della talking to rival male. Maybe she’d spurned him and he’d been a bloodthirsty prick ever since. I wasn’t sure how I knew this, but I
felt
that it was true. The thought was clear in my mind as I came back to life. It was as if I’d been working on it during a long turbulent dream from which I was only now awakening.

I was naked, but I wasn’t cold. In fact, I was too warm. Sweat rolled off my new skin pooling up on the steel tongue that I rested upon. My lungs spasmed, and I coughed wetly. Thick, choking liquids spouted, and I almost rolled onto the
deck of the lifter’s revival chamber.

I found I was restrained and couldn’t fall. Hanging by straps, I spit on the floor.

“That’s not normal. Give me some numbers.”

“Ten-by-ten.”

“Can’t be.”

“That’s what it says, Specialist. Check it yourself.”

There was motion around me, but I didn’t feel like opening my eyes. I was prodded and needles were shoved into my arms only to be quickly withdrawn.

“
His test numbers are good,” said the bio specialist who was working on me. “My bad. He’s an acceptable grow. Turn off the recycler.”

I heard a whirring sound that was dying slowly, like that of a power saw when the switch was flipped off. I frowned and opened my eyes, glancing toward the sound. I didn’t see a saw blade, but I did see a stained maw nearby. It looked like a chute of some kind, one that angled away from the revival machine itself.

The revival machine was behind me. Its mouth was warm and womb-like. Could that chute to one side of the chamber be where they sent the bad grows? To be
recycled
?

Had I ever been shoved into such a chute? Had a version of me with a very short lifespan, been recycled and forgotten?

I made a growling sound and tried to rise again.

“Let me up,” I said. “I’ve got to go get my knife.”

This seemed to amuse the staff. “Did you lose it in the spine of one of the primitives?”

“No—and they’re not primitives. They’re just scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Cephalopods from space. They come here and attack them. I’ve got to report to my centurion. Get me into my uniform.”

Their attitudes changed when I said this. They freed me from the steel tongue then helped me get my rubbery limbs into a smart-cloth suit. I was out the door and staggering two minutes later.

I
t was strange to be born again—to be back on the lifter, almost like I hadn’t just been killed. I walked among groups of bored troops who sat in their jump seats. Some were trying to sleep while others played games on their tappers or ate sandwiches.

Those I passed b
y weren’t green soldiers. They’d all seen a man fresh from a revive. They made room for me and let me pass. Some had pity in their eyes, but none of them said anything. They’d all been in my shoes before.

After passing two guardsmen without acknowledging their presence, I reached for the shaft that led up to the upper deck, where the officers held court.

A thick-fingered hand reached out and clasped my arm. I swayed and almost punched the guy, but I controlled myself.

“I have to talk to my centurion,” I told them.

They eyed my insignia. “Graves is out of the ship. He’s heading for the rebel camp.”

“I have to talk to the primus, then.”

The guard laughed. “You already died once today, McGill. Haven’t you had enough?”

“No.”

They shrugged and let me go. I could tell they were amused. “Your funeral, buddy.”

I struggled to get myself up to the second floor. I wasn’t one hundred percent yet. Normally, it took an hour or two after a revive for a man to feel like himself again.

When I finally found Primus Turov, she gave me a quick up-down look with sour eyes.

“What do you want, Specialist?”

“I’ve made contact with the colonists, sir,” I said. “They aren’t the enemy.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. You’re not the only man they killed today—did you know that your unit mounted a rescue effort?”

I shook my head. I felt my heart sinking. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“We lost six,” she said sternly. “Only one of the enemy was taken down. It’s embarrassing. I should demote Leeson when this is over.”

Part of me hoped the dead one was Stott, and at the same time I worried that it might be Della. I took in a deep breath and tried to focus. This was important.

“Sir, I talked to them—”

“Yeah, I heard about that. It appears you managed to sweet talk them into killing you. Your comrades could hear your screams all the way down to the water’s edge, you know.”

“I was following your orders, sir,” I said. “Can I please make my report?”

She eyed me, then nodded.

I recounted the strange conversation I’d had with the feral colonists. She listened, and frowned throughout. By the end, her expression became thoughtful.

“Do you believe them?”

“Yes. They’ve met up with the cephalopods, I’m sure of that. From the sound of it, they’ve had frequent violent encounters with them. That’s why they live underground and employ traps and weapons designed to combat high-tech equipment. These nanite-tipped weapons would eat right through a squid’s suit.”

“All right,” she said, “let’s assume everything you told me is factual. What do you want me to do about it?”

“Call off the attack. Leave them alone and prepare to meet the real enemy instead. Who knows, maybe they can help us beat the squids when the time comes.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Turov said, pacing around the small confines of her office.

I eyed her as she walked away from me. I couldn’t help it. I oftentimes figure
d that when I died for the last time, I’d do so while staring at a nurse’s butt.

“What doesn’t make sense, sir?”

“Why would the squids come
here
?”

“To kill humans?”

“Maybe. But if that was their goal, all they would have to do is drop a nuke in each of these little valleys. They have the tech, I’m sure of it. No spacefaring race could have missed the relatively simple feat of building a fusion bomb.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe there’s a resource here they need. Maybe they come to mine it and leave.”

She snorted and shook her head. “Not worth it. Hostile locals, a thick atmosphere and significant gravity…no, any element they could get here they could get somewhere else in the system more easily. Even fissionables.”

“Uh,” I said, not sure why this mattered so much, but deciding to play along. “Maybe they want oil. This planet has life…maybe fossil fuels?”

She scoffed again. “Are you serious? Crossing a solar system for oil? You’re not as bright as I thought, McGill.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to take this statement. It was an insult, but it also indicated that she thought I was
somewhat
bright, making it a compliment of sorts at the same time.

Irritated, I tried to come up with another reason. “Maybe they like to hunt,” I said. “I’ve fought with them up-close and personal. I know these beasts don’t eat seaweed. They’re predators, I’d bet my last credit on it.”

She stopped and narrowed her eyes at me, nodding. “Good thinking,” she said. “That’s possible. A hunter doesn’t want to wipe out all the game. And a hunter will go far for unique kills or trophies. Could work.”

“Uh, Primus?”

“What is it?”

“Why does all this matter so much?” I asked.

She looked at me for a moment, as if deciding something. “Because the techs aboard
Corvus
discovered something.”

“They managed to regain control of the ship?”

“Partially. They managed to engage some of the sensor systems, but the propulsion and navigation units eluded them.”

I frowned. “So is
Corvus
lost or not?”

“Yes, but it was a close thing. A valiant effort by the techs. The ship skimmed the corona of Zeta Herculis and cooked the last survivors. What matters is that they spotted something interesting. A single, large ship lifted off from the water world yesterday. I’m thinking there’s only one reason for the cephalopods to launch a ship right now.”

My eyes widened. “You think they’re coming here?”

She laughed. “You just spent ten minutes convincing me of the fact! Damn, McGill, shake it off.
Get your brain in the game. This isn’t your first revive, soldier!”

“Sorry, sir.”

“I’ll call off the attack on your vicious, burrowing colonists for now. But if they give us too much trouble, or there’s any hint Earth will be blamed for their misbehavior, I’ll have to eliminate them. You understand that, don’t you Specialist?”

“I guess so, sir,” I said. “I’ll get back to my unit now.”

I moved toward the exit but hesitated when I thought of something. It was the first time since dying Natasha had come to my mind. She’d had been aboard
Corvus
, one of the many techs left there to attempt the repair work. I wondered if she was still okay, or drifting out in space somewhere.

“Primus? If
Corvus
was burned, how did you get your report from the techs?”

“We revived them here, of course. Once we knew there was too much radiation aboard for anyone to survive, we approved the action.”

“Right. But their minds…the backups would have to have been stored aboard the ship itself, which was lost. How can they remember what happened.”

She stared at me for a moment.

“You’re a thinker, aren’t you?” she said. “Don’t ask the techs about that sort of thing. They’ll get pissed off just the way the bio people do. They have alien equipment of their own that isn’t widely talked about. Let’s just say that the transfer from
Corvus
to our lifters occurred, despite less than optimal conditions aboard the ship itself.”

Less than optimal conditions
…
That was a nice way to describe being bombarded by a million rads of gamma rays. No radio I knew of could transmit under those circumstances. No computer could function, either. Even if it could, a radio transmission would have taken hours to reach this world from the star.

I left her office wondering about Legion Varus’ tech. We seemed to have gizmos no one else did. Another thought followed upon that last one: was all of it purchased with Galactic credits? Or were we stealing bits of know-how now and then and using it on the sly? That might explain the secrecy.

I filed these thoughts away in my mind and hoped that the revival systems would store them for me forever no matter where I was in time and space.

* * *

Since the attack on the colonist hideout had been called off and my unit was out on patrol, I spent the next hour looking for Natasha. There had been plenty of time for her revival, and she was part of the same unit as I was. I figured she was somewhere outside the lifter by now.

I felt bad for her.
She’d been left aboard
Corvus,
working desperately to repair the Skrull ship. The techs had made a valiant effort, but they’d failed and died in the end. I’ve died in some pretty bad ways, but I’ve never yet been cooked by radiation. That didn’t sound like one of the best on the list to me.

It took me a
while, but I finally located Natasha with my tapper and headed toward her coordinates without alerting her to my approach with a call or a text. Feeling sympathetic, I plucked a big-ass alien orchid the size of a basketball on the way and surprised her with it.

“Thanks,” she said, taking the massive purple blossom from me and looking it over. It was
waxy and thick, weighing about half a kilogram.

She wasn’t with it yet, I could tell right off. Her hair was still matted by the slime of a fresh revival. Mine was
too, of course. It hadn’t been a good day for either of us. We were both wearing light uniforms and long faces.

“Don’t sniff it,” I advised her
as she toyed with the flower. “They look good, but they smell like a gym sock.”

Natasha eyed the flower contemplatively. Her eyes were slightly glazed as if she was in a thoughtful, distant mood. She was calm, but I could tell her mind was numbly pondering the horrors of her last minutes aboard
Corvus
. I’d seen that haunted look before.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked gently.

She looked at me as if seeing me for the first time.

“You died too, didn’t you?” she asked. “About the same time I did. That means we
’re both fresh constructs of flesh. We’ve never truly met before, James. Have you ever thought of that? We
remember
having met, having made love, but those were different bodies that have long since decomposed.”