by B. V. Larson
“You handled that ambush like a pro, McGill.”
“Sure did… thank you kindly, sir.”
“In fact, everything apparently went smoothly until you blew up the town with napalm.”
“That wasn’t me, Praetor!”
Drusus shook his head. “Regardless, I can see these machines are a serious threat. Bevan, what do you know about them?”
With a halting voice, Bevan told him about the enemy machines. He concluded with his suspicion that the machines were made in Province 926, rather than our own 921. Drusus seemed to find these details ominous.
“They’re already dealing with 926… On one level, I can understand that. After all, in a decade’s time, their planet will officially drift into Skay territory.”
He paced around for a moment before continuing on. “There are two critical facts that make their actions problematic, however. For one thing, a decade is a decade. They shouldn’t be trading with 926 vendors before they officially transfer into the hands of the Skay.”
“And what’s the second thing, sir?” I asked.
“The second problem is much more important from our point of view. We need to keep buying their revival machines today. We should have access to them for at least another decade. This action on their part might open us up to some legal trouble. The Skay can claim that the citizens of 91 Aquarii are already operating as if they belong in their province. It gives them legal ground to stand on.”
Drusus looked up from his star maps to study us. His eyebrows were cinched up tight with worry. I’d often seen that look on the face of all my superiors. When I brought them news from the front lines, they never seemed happier. It was a rare day indeed that I left them in a more relaxed mood than when I’d arrived.
“McGill,” he said. “I want you to question that captive from Edge World. Find out where Turov is being held.”
“Uh… okay. I can try.”
“Once you find her, you’ll lead a mission to rescue her.”
Drusus and I gave each other a serious glance. I knew what he was thinking. He knew Galina and I had a thing going on the side, and that we’d even been in love on and off for many years now. What’s more, he knew I was probably the best teleporting commando he had. That combination of motive and know-how made me a natural for this mission.
I nodded in understanding. “She’ll come home safe and sound, sir.”
I heard a snort behind me. I knew that snotty sound well.
Slowly, I turned around. There was another officer present. I hadn’t even heard him enter, probably because he was the naturally sneaky type. A man who I respected less than any of the others present.
“Winslade?” I demanded. “Is that really you? I guess the rumors are true!”
“What rumors, McGill?”
“Why, that you’ve volunteered to become the praetor’s new secretary. That’s what all the hogs are saying here around Central.”
Now, I had no idea such a thing might be going on, but it stood to reason. Winslade looked startled.
“That sort of personnel assignment is up to Praetor Drusus, of course,” he said stiffly.
Fike was trying not to grin. Winslade looked annoyed, and Drusus looked thoughtful.
“Winslade, I’m giving you an interim appointment. Your new post will make you the tribune of Legion Varus—temporarily, of course.”
It was Winslade’s chance to blink in confusion. His surprise might have been mixed with horror, too—it was hard to tell.
“This comes as a shock, sir.”
“I’m sure it does.”
Fike cleared his throat.
“Yes?” Drusus asked him.
“I don’t see much logic in replacing one inexperienced man with another, sir.”
Drusus nodded. “I’ve got more in mind than your service records. You’re short one key commander out there with Turov out of the picture. You’ve already got your support legion to operate. You’re good at that, and so there’s no point in shuffling two people into new spots.”
Fike looked glum, while Winslade still looked kind of shocked. For my part, well sir, I was grinning. Grinning big.
“There’s more to it than that,” Drusus said. “Winslade has been secretly working on the new armor McGill here brought back from Glass World. So far, we’ve yet to mass produce it. He can, however, provide a small commando team with superior gear.”
Drusus reached a hand to his table. He replayed the vicious street fight with a practiced touch. He paused at the dramatic moment where one of my troops was made into a shish-kebab by an alien machine.
“With one of Winslade’s suits,” he said, “this sort of thing won’t be happening again out there.”
I had to agree with him. The secret armor we’d stolen from Rigel was amazing. If I was going to fight monsters like these combat-drones, I’d love to wear a suit of it.
-40-
Fike had gone back to Earth with a problem, and then he’d come back with a whole different one. I almost felt bad for him. Almost.
The first thing Winslade ordered was a full briefing. That was reasonable—but his reactions weren’t. We held the briefing aboard Dominus, and although I did my damnedest to dodge out of it, I was dragged into yet another boring meeting.
“So…” Winslade began, interrupting Fike’s briefing, “let me make sure I’ve absorbed these details, Sub-Tribune. Before you arrived at 91 Aquarii you were attacked and lost your commander, hmm? In spite of this sick error, you pressed onward, going so far as to allow this same assassin to return to your ship as a supposed hostage?”
“Well sir, first off, let me point out that I wasn’t in command when the initial attack took place. However—”
“However, you still allowed a murderous saboteur aboard instead of insisting on Turov’s return?”
“Not so, Tribune,” Graves spoke up.
We all turned and saw Primus Graves at the doorway.
“Ah, back from the revival machines?” Winslade asked. “What, pray tell, do you have to add to our conversation, Graves?”
“Just this sir: I demanded the return of Turov. What’s more, I demanded they submit to Earth’s military protection. The Shadowlanders reacted violently.”
“Right, right. I haven’t even gotten to your disasters, Graves. All in due time. Please take a seat.”
He did so, stiffly. I waved at him, but he wasn’t in the mood. He glowered straight ahead, watching Winslade the way a snake watches a mouse.
“Back to it then,” Winslade continued, turning his attention toward Fike again. “You managed to contain the planted agent, but only after someone named Daniels was killed—and McGill was nearly killed as well. I have all that down. At this point I’m going to offer a solution: Let’s execute her.”
The assembled officers blinked in surprise. Captain Merton was among them, and he raised a hand. Winslade signaled impatiently for him to speak.
“Sir… I don’t think that would be wise. The locals are liable to kill Turov in response. That will perm her.”
Winslade aimed a skinny finger at Merton. “That’s exactly right, Captain. The situation is absurd. There is no equivalency between our captive and theirs. Kattra knows she can print out a new version of her daughter Helsa at any moment. That means she’s not really a prisoner here at all.”
“Well sir… but…”
“Silence. Listen people, your actions so far have been a series of abject failures. We’re going to change all that.”
My hand shot up. Sometimes it just did that, almost on its own. On other, worse occasions, I simply started blurting out words with no preamble whatsoever.
Winslade wrinkled up his nose like he smelled a shithouse, but he called on me anyway.
“Sir, I’ve got a better idea. Let’s pull the same move they did on us.”
“Explain yourself, McGill.”
“I’ll put on one of those fancy suits you’ve been working on, and I’ll go down there and delete Kattra’s
daughter from their database. Then our hostages will both be real. They might be willing to make the exchange we’ve been asking for at that point.”
Winslade narrowed his rat-eyes. I could tell he was seriously considering the idea.
Graves could tell too, so he got into the act with a sense of new-found urgency. “Tribune, McGill has no idea how to delete his own name from a tapper, much less repeat the magic trick the Shadowlanders performed on our revival machines.”
“Not so, sir!” I boomed. “Natasha can reverse-engineer the hack. She can do anything like that.”
Winslade looked at me, then Graves. He pointed a finger at me. “I like it. McGill, you’ve got twenty-four hours. Come up with a set of coordinates and a mission plan. If it looks workable, you’re going in.”
Graves and Fike both shook their heads and looked alarmed, but I ignored those naysayers. I stood up quickly.
“In that case, sirs,” I said, “may I be excused from the rest of this briefing? I need to get right to it.”
“Of course. Dismissed.”
I waltzed out of the meeting with a broad Georgia grin on my face. Sometimes, I surprised even myself with my slick maneuvering. There was nothing I hated more than a long, rehashed meeting with no new information in it. With the careful use of a dozen words, I’d just escaped a small slice of Hell. Let the rest of them revel in it.
My first instinct was to find the officer’s pub—but a nagging sensation caused me to take another approach. I went down to the labs instead.
Floramel and Etta had stayed back home on the Moon, but Natasha was down there in the Dominus labs. The place looked like a dungeon to me, but she liked it.
“James!” she said, smiling and excited. “I’ve got some real progress to show you.”
“Huh? Okay…”
The truth was I’d kind of forgotten up until this moment that she had another secret project in progress. She’d been working on it for a long time, and I’d kind of figured by this time it couldn’t be done.
She led me to a private office and turned on six kinds of anti-spy gear and VPNs, etc. After all that paranoid stuff, she brought up her software. She ran a few programs I couldn’t make heads or tails of, until finally she had a bunch of symbols on the screen.
Her project consisted of listening in on deep-link transmissions. She’d figured out a year back how to see a transmission that was on-going, but now she was trying to translate it to know what was being said.
“They’re using the Imperial alphabet. It’s kind of hieroglyphic, but there are translation programs I can rely on. Here, check this out. Just yesterday a message was sent home from Dominus to Central. Using your suggested method of code-breaking, I came up with this.”
Looking pleased as punch, she brought up some English words. Apparently, this was her translation of what had been sent.
“Barium-five, barium-five,” I read aloud. “Water plant transmission, arch-down… Uh…”
“You see? Isn’t that cool?”
“Heh… sure is. What the hell does it mean?”
She slapped my fingers away from the console in irritation. “I reported that our water recycling unit was down—even though it’s not. Part of yesterday’s transmission back to Central reported this false information. That’s how I can tell my translation program is working.”
“Huh?” I asked, scratching my ear with one finger. “I can’t hardly make heads or tails of it.”
“It’s not perfect yet, James. It’s a proof of concept, that’s all. A serious advance.”
I smiled falsely. “That’s right, it sure is. I’m very impressed.”
Natasha studied me for a moment, and I was worried. But then she smiled back, and I knew she was fooled. She honestly thought I was impressed.
“Okay,” I said, slamming my hands together. “Now that you’ve got real progress in that department, I’ve got a new project for you to work on.”
“What? But I’ve only just begun my effort here. This first breakthrough—”
“That’s great, but it will have to wait. We’ve been given something more serious and immediate to do. Something official.”
“Tell me about it.”
I did, and as I spoke, her face registered fresh degrees of horror. “James… Twenty-four hours? I can’t do all that!”
“Hmm…” I said. “Yeah… I didn’t think you could.”
“How could you be so insane as to tell the brass I could instantly hack alien hardware without even checking with me first?”
“Well… the truth is, I’ve got an ace in the hole.”
Natasha licked her lips. She crossed her arms and leaned back, waiting for me to explain. I surely preferred the joyous expression she’d shown me earlier.
“There’s something in Turov’s quarters,” I said, “something that can do the job for us.”
A long time ago, I’d owned and utilized something called a Galactic Key. This object of power had been fought over for years, and it had finally wound up in Turov’s hands. I’d let her keep it, as it was mostly trouble anyway.
Instead of naming it, I described what it did to Natasha.
“A universal hacking device? Something that works on Imperial technology?”
“It does. I’ve hacked revival machines with it before, in fact.”
Natasha fell silent. She studied her desk for a time. “I’ve long suspected you had something like that,” she said.
Then, with no warning whatsoever, she hauled off and hit me across the mouth.
“Hey! What’s that for?”
“You know how much something like that would mean to me, don’t you? But, just to get some favors from Turov, you gave it to her, not me. That is so like you.”
“Now, hold on a minute. That’s a very illegal piece of gear. If the Nairbs, Mogwa or Skay find out we’ve got it… well, they’ll have one more good reason to perm the lot of us.”
Natasha nodded slowly. “You’re right about that.”
“It’s dangerous, girl. Giving that to you would have been a crime. I would have felt awful if you’d been permed over it.”
She digested that thoughtfully, and at last she sighed. “All right. I forgive you. What do we do next?”
“We use the key to hack the Shadowlanders database, that’s what.”
“Hmm… let me see if I have the gist of your plan. First, you’ll take the key and teleport down to 91 Aquarii where that silly siege is ongoing. Right?”
“Yep.”
“Okay then… just do it. What do you need me for? There’s nothing for me to hack.”
I smiled. “That’s not exactly true. Remember, I don’t have the key yet… so I need someone to help me get into Turov’s quarters. That’s officially a crime-scene right now, see… not so easy to break-and-enter.”
Natasha wasn’t happy, but in the end she helped me. She was an accomplished hacker, and something easy like an officer’s door lock was no problem. To get me into the area without raising an alarm, she turned off most of the security systems on Gold Deck.
Whistling, I marched past Veteran Daniels on Gold Deck like I owned the place.
“Hey! You there, McGill!”
I kept walking, making him follow me. When he caught up, I showed him my tapper. Natasha had cooked up some good-looking approvals for me to be on Gold Deck. They even had the right Fleet emblems and everything.
“Your orders do seem to be legit,” Daniels said doubtfully. “I’m sorry, sir. Just doing my job.”
“And you should keep right on doing it, Daniels. See you around.”
Making my way to Turov’s door, I tried the handle—but it was already hanging open. “Damnation, but you’re good at this Natasha,” I whispered to myself.
Stepping inside, I found I wasn’t alone.
Someone stealthy was already there, so I didn’t turn on the lights. I saw a figure in the dim illumination from the ship’s passageway. Whoever it was, they were rummaging in Turov’s desk.
/> Two steps, one roar, and a heavy fist swung down. The smaller man crumpled to the floor.
“You’re under arrest, thief!” I boomed, standing over him.
I lifted the man to his feet and shook him. He didn’t weigh much.
The lights went up then, having detected our movement—or maybe they’d responded to the noise. I wasn’t sure how Galina had rigged her personal settings.
That’s when I found myself nose-to-nose with a bleeding, angry, Tribune Winslade.
-41-
“Unhand me, you ape!” Winslade ordered.
I released him, and he almost fell on his ass again. Straightening up, he glowered up at me.
“Give me one good reason why I don’t burn you down right here, McGill.”
“Uh… because I was just doing my job, sir.”
“Nonsense. Do you take me for an utter fool? I knew what you were planning the moment you came up with that cockamamie plan to go down to the planet and hack a revival machine. Not even Natasha can do that on a whim—but Turov and her little prize could.”
Now it was my turn to glare. “Now see here, Tribune—”
“No. You shut up. I’m in charge here, McGill. Believe it or not, like it or not, this is my moment of legitimacy.”
“So, you’re after the key, huh?”
“That’s right. I consider it to be the unofficial property of Legion Varus’ commander. As such, I’ve laid rightful claim to it.”
“Robbing Turov’s grave so soon? Isn’t this a little premature?”
“Not at all. Grave-robbing is best done while the grave is fresh—don’t you agree?”
I was flummoxed. Winslade had been one step ahead of me all along. The feeling wasn’t a pleasant one.
“Listen,” I said, “I can’t complete my mission without that key. You know that. Let me borrow it at least for tomorrow’s jump.”
Winslade huffed. “As if. You’ll have to improvise.”
“You know I can’t—oh… wait a second. You don’t want me to succeed. You want Galina out of the picture. You want Legion Varus on a permanent basis, don’t you?”
