by B. V. Larson
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 unders
tand 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.
