Machine World (Undying Mercenaries Book 4) (19 page)

“The squids are breaking our truce,” she announced at last. “Advance and destroy their ships. Leave the Galactic trade ship alone.”

Her tapper beeped as the channel closed. I set her down on the deck as gently as I could. She glared up at me with baleful eyes.

“I’ll get you for this, McGill,” she said, rubbing her wrists and straightening her uniform.

“Looking forward to it, sir. Uh…what are we going to do about Drusus?”

“Can I erase his memory now, or are you going to man-handle me again?”

I thought about it. “Let’s make a deal, Galina. All this will be one more dirty little secret between us. You don’t blame me, and I’ll back up whatever story you want to tell.”

Turov frowned. “I thought you were in love with Drusus or something.”

“No sir, you get me all wrong. This isn’t about loving anyone. This is about hating Claver and the squids.”

Turov nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe you can be useful in this new situation. You’ve put me in a bad spot. Claver will take this as a double-cross. I’m unsure as to how I’ll proceed.”

“I’m always good in a war, sir,” I said. “Just point me at something you want destroyed. Preferably a squid this time, though.”

Turov gave me a half-smile as she erased Drusus’ mind. I have to admit, that look of hers creeped me out a bit. She was already working on an entirely new scheme. I knew I was a player in it, and I also knew I wasn’t going to like my new role—whatever it was.

The ship lurched then, throwing both of us against the far wall of her office. Drusus’ body flopped like a doll. The ship was making maneuvers. I could only imagine what kind of firepower was flying around outside the hull that surrounded us.

My dragon automatically climbed to its feet. I helped Galina up as gently as I could, but she swatted my grippers away. She pointed to Drusus.

“That’s our chance she said. Snap his neck.”

“What about the burn hole in his chest?”

“Let me worry about that.”

I looked at Drusus. Sure, he was already dead, but I felt like a ghoul just contemplating breaking a dead man’s bones.

“Come on, McGill, don’t tell me you’re squeamish now!” she growled. She got hold of Drusus, put her knee against his throat and twisted with both hands. The popping sound made me wince.

“There,” she said, panting. “We have an accidental death on our hands. A terrible tragedy, a freak incident. We’ll avenge his loss upon the squids.”

Shaking my head, I followed her next orders. We carried Drusus out onto Gold Deck. People looked at us suspiciously, especially Graves. I think he knew there was funny business afoot, and it made me feel a little self-conscious.

Like some kind of grim reaper, I carried my own tribune down to Blue Deck. There, a familiar face met me. It was none other than the high-ranking bio, Centurion Thompson. She’d always been a sidekick of Turov’s. Her attitude told me she wasn’t shocked by Drusus’ death. She’d been tipped off and probably given orders as to what to do by Turov herself.

Thompson took the body from me with the help of two orderlies. “Cause of death, accidental injury,” she said without looking. “Mark him as a shipboard battle casualty.”

They walked away from me, hurrying down the passage. The two orderlies looked at one another, frowning. One of them was already fingering the burn-hole.

“But sir, what about this—”

“You have your orders,” Thompson said. “Have I been unclear in some manner?”

“No sir. I’m clear.”

“Good, now recycle the body immediately. We need to charge our protoplasm tanks with fresh material. He won’t be the last to die on this ship today.”

They disappeared into the bowels of Blue Deck, and I left them to their grim arts.

-25-

The battle with the squid ships was brief but violent. The enemy vessels turned out to be troop transports, not true warships. They fired missiles back at
Minotaur
and
Cyclops
but only scored minor damage.

Each of our ships unloaded a full barrage from their broadsides into the enemy. The enemy ships were torn apart as they hung just above the atmosphere.

Treachery, that’s what it was—in more ways than one. The fact that Claver and Turov had hatched this deal outside of government channels against the Empire was the work of two renegades. On the other hand, the squids had been screwed as well. They’d doubtlessly been assured they wouldn’t face resistance and hadn’t sent serious naval vessels to protect their troopships.

Smiling, I watched the vid over and over again. I could only imagine what Claver must be screaming about Turov on his bridge right now. Unsurprisingly, his trade ship beat a hasty retreat from the system.

I knew Claver fairly well. He was a trader through and through. He wanted to make money, not war. In some ways I could approve of the goal. But he’d always advanced his agenda outside of regular channels, and not for moral reasons. He wanted to cash in, that’s all. Greed, pure and simple. He didn’t care if a few million citizens lived or died as long as he got his paycheck.

Apparently, his plan had been to set up a trading outpost right here on Machine World, no doubt charging squids and humans alike for his services. The squids were to have military possession of Machine World, while Earth got all the mineral output. That way, both sides could save face and live together peacefully. Come to think of it, the arrangement wouldn’t have been a half-bad one if we’d been living with a different political reality.

The trouble was there was this little thing called the Galactic Empire to worry about. They had a million star systems while the squids had an estimated three hundred. Humanity? We were a joke with only two. Millions of star systems translated into millions of warships, and then an extinct species by the end of any conflict that came our way.

As things stood now, it looked like Humanity was going to expand our holdings by a dramatic fifty percent. This third star system would be ours, with all its mineral wealth. All we had to do was evict the squids that had already landed and pacify the ravenous native machines. It should be a piece of cake, really.

“McGill?” my tapper asked me. It was Graves’ voice.

I accepted the private connection without hesitation. “What is it, sir?”

“Are you watching this so-called battle? The enemy ships are both down.”

“Yes, sir. I can see it. The squids have got to be pissed.”

Graves didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I thought about closing the connection, but I didn’t. It was still open, and he’d made the call. He could decide when the conversation was over.

“McGill?” he asked finally. “What happened on Gold Deck in the Imperator’s office tonight?”

“You sure you really want to know about that, sir?”

“No…” he said. “No, I probably don’t. I’ll just let it go.”

“Thank you, Centurion. Anything else?”

“Yes. Were you in on today’s events before they began to unfold?”

It took me a few seconds to realize what he was talking about.

“No sir!” I said firmly. “I ended up playing a role in the drama, but I had no idea Claver was going to show up repping the squids, much less that Turov was going to try to play nice with him.”

Graves gave me a dirty chuckle. “That’s what I thought. Those two should have made sure you were on board before they tried to include you in their schemes. I could have told them that much.”

It made me happy to think that my superior had faith in me. I wasn’t a schemer. I was an opportunist and a loose cannon, sure, and I didn’t always follow orders. But that didn’t mean I could be counted on to go along with the random crazy plans of others. I was glad that Graves knew that.

“I guess those two don’t really understand me, sir,” I said.

“I guess not. Graves out.”

The connection closed, and I headed for Blue Deck. My date with Anne had been cut short, and I wanted to see if she was in the mood to continue our get-together.

When I got there, the place was shutting down. Anne had left to go to bed. I couldn’t blame her. After all, it was only a few hours until dawn. I went back to my quarters, laid down, and passed out.

* * *

One bad thing about being a squad’s veteran was the general expectation that I would wake up before anyone else did. In order to kick people out of bed, a man pretty much had to be dressed and ready to go before the sun touched the sky. I found that part of the job to be difficult—but I did it anyway.

Carlos was my first victim. I kicked him out of his bunk an hour after it was officially dawn on ship-time. In space, you had to make these things up, but we kept a twenty-four hour clock going so everyone felt at home.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, McGill,” Carlos said from the floor. “Are the squids hitting us again?”

“Nope,” I said, “but I noticed your dragon hasn’t been cleaned in a week. I want to see an oil-change, and I want every ding and dent buffed out.”

Carlos heaved himself up and yawned. “This is revenge, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I will admit to taking a small amount of pleasure in the situation,” I said.

“That’s very small of
you
, Vet.”

An hour later the squad was showered up, fed and working hard. Harris’ crew walked in on us. They shared the same mechanics’ bay we did aboard ship. I didn’t even look up when he came in. It felt good to get away with that.

Harris ordered his people to work then stared at me for a few long seconds. I knew he was staring, but I didn’t even look at him.

Finally, he walked over to me, sighed, and held out his hand to shake. I frowned at it in honest confusion.

“Do I owe you some money, Harris?” I asked.

“No, McGill,” he huffed. Then he got a little mad. “Just take it, dammit. Be a man!”

“Why?”

“Because I was
wrong
, that’s why!”

This surprised me quite a bit. I could not recall a time I’d heard those words come out of Harris’ mouth before. In fact, I doubted they ever had.

I took his hand, and I shook it firmly.

“Why the change of heart, Vet?” I asked him.

“I saw what you did down there in the middle of that shit-storm. You took one for the team, and it worked. I got out of that place alive. Most of my squad did, too. If it hadn’t been for you and Graves—well, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“Okay then…I guess we can call off our little feud.”

“Yes, consider it forgotten,” he said. “You’re a real veteran now. You’ve earned your rank, and I’m willing to admit it wasn’t a mistake. But one thing, James?”

I blinked at the use of my first name. I was pretty sure he’d never done that before.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Don’t sing anymore, okay? I don’t think I could take it.”

“I’ll try to remember that, Vet. But sometimes, the mood just strikes me, you know?”

We parted ways, grinning. I harangued my squad, and he did the same with his, but we were both in better spirits. It’s hard to work alongside a man who you know hates you. Today, I didn’t have to live with that.

-26-

We didn’t invade Machine World again for three more days. During that time, the revival machines worked night and day, churning out the troops who’d died. Many of them were sad-sacks from Solstice who’d been dead since the first hours of the conflict. They’d died on their ship,
Pegasus
, and had been waiting in line to return to life for over a week.

“It just doesn’t seem right,” I remarked to Natasha. I’d connected up with her again aboard
Cyclops
as she’d been assigned to working on signal interpretation duties. It was her job to glean whatever intel she could from the scratchy transmissions coming up from Machine World.

“What doesn’t seem right?” she asked. She was bent over a device that looked like a microwave oven with the guts of it turned inside out. She wore sensitive headphones as she tested various inputs and outputs. Every time I said something to her, she had to remove the headphones so she could hear me.

“I’m talking about leaving people in the queue so long before revival. They’ll be freaked out when they finally regain consciousness—I know how it feels. One time, I was left dead for three days—that’s a long time to be dead and gone.”

“That’s why you keep going down to Blue Deck?” she asked.

“Yes. I’m checking on Drusus.”

She looked at me for a moment. “I don’t believe you. You’re going down there to see Anne, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“I know you’ve been going down to Blue Deck every couple of hours asking for her. She’s too busy to see you—running the revives night and day. The bio people are pulling double-shifts, and that’s putting a kink in your nighttime plans, isn’t it?”

I tried not to look embarrassed, because she was partly right. That’s the trouble with hanging around smart girls like Natasha.

Now, I liked Natasha, don’t get me wrong. We’d had plenty of good times over the years. She’d been my sort-of girlfriend, if it could be said I’d ever officially had one. But she always became possessive after a while, and then we’d break up and things would cool down. On my side of the story, I didn’t think I was in the wrong this time.

“Natasha,” I said, “you and I aren’t sleeping together, right? So why can’t I take another girl on a date without you getting bent out of shape?”

“I’m not upset,” she said, turning back to her gizmo and fooling with it. She was frowning, but nothing more than that. “I was just putting together the equation, that’s all.”

“Fine, fine,” I said, forcing a smile she didn’t return. “If we can drop that now, I’d like to talk to you about our latest dragon load-outs. If we’re going up against the squids, possibly allied with the Machines, what do you think we should equip on a front-line dragon?”

Natasha had her headset on again. She lifted the set from one of her ears and glanced at me. I wasn’t sure if she’d heard my question at all, or if she was thinking so much she’d decided to ignore it.

“What I object to is your lack of transparency, James,” she said in a somewhat stern voice. “You should be more open with women. You should let them know what they’re in for before you get involved with them.”

“I thought you didn’t care.”

“I didn’t say that. I don’t care from a personal standpoint, but I’m looking out for Anne. She’s new to the James McGill shell-game.”

She put her headphones back on and went back to work.

My face twisted up into a grimace, and I sighed. “Sure, you’re just thinking about poor Anne. You wanted to rip her hair out last year.”

“Did not,” she responded.

“You heard that clearly enough.”

She pulled her headphones back off. She gave me a sideways glance then went back to her equipment. “Just don’t break her heart. Tell her how it’s going to be. Tell her you’ll get bored around date number four, and by date six or seven you’ll be chasing someone else.”

“That’s not always how it goes.”

“Yes—it pretty much is.”

“Well…” I said, running out of words. “...look, she’s been in the same unit with me for a long time. She knows the score. Besides, when did I ever lie to you about anything?”

She gave me an up-down look. “It’s not about lies, it’s about critical omissions.”

“Like what?”

“Like Della, for instance. When were you going to tell me you’d slept with her again? When were you going to tell me you two had a child together?”

I was floored. First of all, I hadn’t thought Natasha knew about these things, and secondly, I didn’t think she’d throw them in my face. But these revelations helped explain the generally poor attitude she’d been showing me ever since we’d reached Machine World.

“Natasha, I haven’t been chasing you, have I?” I asked.

“No, I guess not,” she said, sounding a little hurt.

“Well then, why should I have to tell you every detail of my personal—?”

“Have you told Anne
anything
about Della?”

“Uh…it hasn’t come up yet,” I admitted.

“You see? That’s the problem. Women like to know such details before they get involved. They don’t want to be rudely surprised later on. That’s the kind of thing that explodes so many of your relationships.”

I thought about what she was saying. Maybe she was right, to a degree. When I approached a new relationship with a woman who’d gotten my attention, I generally tried to hide all the bad stuff. Look as good as you can and keep smiling, that was my motto.

“Don’t you think starting off with a laundry list of past misdeeds might put a damper on a new romance?” I asked her.

“Well, yes. You have a point there.”

We fell quiet for a time. I worked on dragon load-outs on a computer scroll while she kept toying with the listening system, isolating signals and marking interesting ones for later focused study.

Designing my squad’s dragons, I considered shielding, but I didn’t select the option in the end. Shields were nice, but they drained your power very quickly, and the projection units were heavy. In my opinion, part of the point of cavalry was being able to move across the battlefield quickly.

After several minutes of quiet, Natasha pulled her headphones off and turned to frown at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Don’t you even care about your child? Don’t you even care about Della being married? How could you sleep with her in such a situation? I don’t get you sometimes, James—then again, maybe I do and I don’t like what I—”

“Whoa, whoa!” I said, putting up my hands. “Have you been sitting there stewing all this time?”

She didn’t answer, but her expression told me that she had.

“Listen,” I said. “Della came on to
me
, and it was after we made love she told me about the kid thing. And the marriage thing. After she dropped those bombs on me, we’ve stayed apart.”

Natasha’s mouth was a tiny, straight line. She was pissed under that cool exterior, I could tell. I had to wonder how long she’d been steaming like this and not talking to me about it. Come to think of it, she’d been kind of cold and distant lately—I guess I just hadn’t noticed.

“Okay,” she said, “you didn’t know everything when you chased her. But ‘kid-thing’? Really? That’s what you call your own child?”

“Maybe it’s me,” I said, “but I’m beginning to feel a little hostility, here. Look, here’s my kid’s picture. She’s named Etta. Here’s a movie.”

I played a short clip on my tapper then another. Natasha eyed these and softened.

“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly. “I was an idiot. Forget I said anything. Everyone carries their private sorrows differently, I guess you prefer to bottle yours up inside.”

Her statements left me wanting to scratch my head in confusion, but I know it’s a good idea to take a breather when your opponent offers one. Sure, I’d looked through the pictures and thought about being a father. I’d been pretty busy fighting and dying to do much of that, but I’d spent a few minutes now and then contemplating these new realities. The truth was, the kid was on another planet and would probably grow up without laying eyes on her real dad. It was more tragic, in my opinion, that her mother had left to fight in the legions as well, because Della had gone off to the stars
knowing
what that meant.

“Look,” I said, “you seem more torn up by this than Della herself. The colonists…well, they don’t think quite the way we do. They have more of a communal society from what I can see. They raise kids with a group effort. They don’t dote on them and take them to theme parks and stuff like that. People on Earth have a much tighter relationship with their children.”

Natasha pursed her lips and nodded. “I think you’re right. You should be pretty happy about all that. It fits right in with your preferred path through life.”

I wasn’t certain, but I figured I was probably being insulted again. I stood up and gathered my kit.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I’m through here.”

She watched me pack my stuff, without talking. Finally, as I was about to leave, she stopped me. She got up, put her hands on my arm, and tugged.

“Don’t go away angry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m jealous. I can’t help it. The whole thing with Della—that freaked me out when I heard about it.”

“I thought you had a new boyfriend. What about that skinny bio guy?”

She shook her head. “It didn’t work out.”

Her hands were still on my arm, so I couldn’t very well rip away from her. “Uh…are you trying to tell me something?” I asked.

Natasha frowned, not meeting my eyes. “I don’t know. Look, you’re dropping on the planet again soon, right?”

“We pretty much all are, as I understand the plan.”

“Okay. This shouldn’t be too hard. We’ll wipe out these squid troops in a month and head home. I’ve got an idea for afterward.”

Her rosy scenario concerning the invasion didn’t match my own expectations, but I didn’t burst her bubble. I’d fought squid troops before, and they were real bastards. Just one of them was worth a squad of men if they got in close.

“What did you want to do when we get home?” I asked.

I don’t know what I thought she’d say. Maybe that we should have a drink together in Atlanta and give our old relationship a fresh try. Or that she’d been building one of her illegal bio-nano creatures again, and she wanted to share the secret with me. What she did suggest had never entered my head.

“I was thinking you and I could fly out to Zeta Herculis,” she said. “There are regular flights between Earth and Dust World now, you know. They’re mostly trade ships, nothing fancy, but it would be at least as comfortable as
Cyclops
. Relatively cheap fare, too.”

My mouth must have been hanging open by this time. “Why would we want to do that?”

“To see your daughter, of course!” she said brightly.

The light went on in my skull. “Oh—I guess that
is
possible. I’d honestly never thought of it before. I mean…all our lives we’ve been stuck on Earth unless we joined the legion and were given a contract in another star system. The idea that we can travel as private citizens—that’s all new.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, smiling. “It
is
new, and I’d like to be one of the first to give it a try.”

That was pure Natasha. She’d always been an explorer. If she’d had her way, she’d be flying in a scientific vessel of exploration, not a warship.

Then another, even bigger thought struck me—right between the eyes. My smile faded, and so did hers as she watched me.

Della’s story about Natasha 2.0 sprung into my mind whole and fully fleshed. It was as if I could see both of them, standing side by side. Twins, but one older and wearing a hard, sun-burnt scowl. The second younger, a little more innocent, standing here and looking at me.

How could I tell her? How could I tell poor Natasha she couldn’t ever go back to Dust World? That a crime had been committed, a Galactic violation, and it had been committed by another version of herself? A version of herself who’d been cruelly left for dead in space?

“It’s a good idea,” I said, coming up with what I felt was a gifted dodge. “But I’ll have to ask Della about it. That only seems right, doesn’t it? I mean—what if she doesn’t want me to interfere? She’s got a new husband and all—maybe he wouldn’t be too keen on seeing me show up from out of nowhere when he’s trying to bond with his stepdaughter.”

Natasha’s face fell. She nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. You’re right. Della would have to know, and she must approve of the idea. It’s only right. I’ll ask her about it.”

She gave me a little kiss and turned away, going back to her work. She didn’t see me grimace in concern as I left, shaking my head.

Della wasn’t going to like the idea, I knew that much. Who knew what Natasha would read into that?

Damn, why did women always have to make things so complicated?