Rogue World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 7)

by B. V. Larson

  “No, no. Nothing like that. I’m calling about my momma. She’s sick.”

  “Really…? Yes… now that I think about it, I think I knew that.”

  I frowned at her. “Why?”

  “Because I’ve seen the look. A grayness to the face. A bloodless look. Does she bleed at night—inside?”

  “Yeah,” I said, amazed. “How’d you know that?”

  She composed her thoughts, and her eyes took on an unfocused look. “Some of our people used to get like that back home on Dust World. But the last of them died off when I was a child.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Not you though? Not Natasha, or Etta?”

  “It generally strikes the aged. But we have so few of them on my home planet.”

  I knew all too well why there weren’t any old folks on Dust World. Life there was just too harsh. Oh, there were a few old-timers around, like her father the Investigator. But one could argue he was far from a typical person.

  “So what is it? What do you think is wrong with her?”

  “Nanites,” she said. “They’re everywhere, you know. In the dust, in the water, even in the cells of the plants and animals we eat. We developed them many decades ago, and the first colonies were wild. They escaped, some of them. Now, they infest and feast on any host they can find.”

  An involuntary shudder threatened to sweep through me, but I quelled the urge. You haven’t seen death until you watch a grown man consumed alive by a swarm of nanites. It was like watching a dead thing decompose before your eyes—only, the victim was very much alive.

  “Nanites…” I said. “They’re inside her? That’s fixable. I can just set up an EMP wand and zap her with it.”

  Della looked thoughtful, she nodded, but with an unconvinced air.

  “Maybe,” she said, “but the internal damage is probably already done. Scarring of organs. Tiny leaks caused by laceration from their metal bodies—microscopic wounds that won’t heal. She’s probably going to die, James.”

  “Why didn’t you say something about it, then?” I asked loudly.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t think of it until now. Until I thought about how she looks, and where she’s been living.”

  The situation was astounding to me. Earth was sending out colonists to Dust World every week, and I didn’t know if anyone knew about that particular danger. Possibly, Hegemony knew full well and just didn’t care. The strong would survive, and the weak would be left to their inevitable fate.

  “I’m sorry, James,” she said. “On Dust World there’s no cure, but you can try your EMP idea. In my experience, a person either heals over their scars, or they can’t and they die.”

  Heaving a sigh, I said goodbye and closed the channel. I contacted my dad and gave him a rosy version of what Della had told me. He headed off eagerly to the hardware store to build an EMP device. It really wasn’t a hard contraption to construct when you were only trying to disrupt something the size of a nanite.

  Next, I contacted a bio named Anne Grant. We’d had a thing going years back, but I hadn’t talked to her in a long time. She came online warily.

  “James?” she said. “Just so you know, I’m married now. I’ve left the legions, and I—”

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s okay. This isn’t some kind of midnight booty-call. But it’s nice to see your face and hear your voice just the same.”

  She gave me a cautious, flickering smile.

  “Listen,” I said, “I’ve got a problem.”

  I described my momma’s situation in detail, and she listened in concern.

  “Nanites?” she asked, marveling. “I remember them—so strange. We still can’t make them reproduce themselves independently, you know. Only the Dust Worlders have managed that trick.”

  “Yeah, that’s great. Do you think anyone can help her?”

  She thought about it, then shook her head. “I’m sorry James. You could use a cellular regrow agent, to speed healing after you’ve killed the nanites, but their tiny metal corpses will still be in her system. They’ll clog her organs and arteries, like sand in gears.”

  “Then you think she needs a regrow, huh?” I asked. “That’s what you’re saying.”

  Anne looked at me sharply. “Where’d you get that idea? She’s a civilian, James. The data core isn’t even tracking her body, much less her mind.”

  “Yeah…” I said, my thoughts moving down new paths. “Well, thanks for the professional info, Anne. It’s been real nice talking to you.”

  She smiled. “You too. I hope everything works out—oh, and James?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’m not really married.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, I know. Takes more than an amateur to pull off a lie on old James McGill.”

  She laughed. “I should have known better than to try.”

  We got off, and I was left thinking. There wasn’t much time. If I knew my higher-up officers, they were likely to send me off to get permed on one mission or another until they got it right.

  Accordingly, I contacted my dad again. He had Etta with him, and they were at the local drone-repair shop, picking up parts to build their EMP wand.

  “While you’re at it, Dad,” I told him. “Run that wand over yourself and Etta.”

  “Do you really think—right. I’ll do it. Repeatedly.”

  “Good. And Dad? Do you think you could bring Momma up here to Newark? To the Mustering Hall?”

  “The what—why?”

  “So she can take a look at the legion recruitment center. I know she’s always been interested in the place. I want her to see it while she can still get around.”

  He stared at me through my tapper as if I’d gone insane.

  “James…” he said slowly, “I beginning to think you’ve gotten one of your strange ideas.”

  “Not at all,” I assured him. “I just remembered they’ve got morning tours at the Mustering Hall, and I wanted to show her around.”

  “Uh… okay,” he said, squinting at me in suspicion. He knew something was up, but he didn’t want to blow a chance at helping Mom by asking too much about it. He’d learned a few things by raising a son like me.

  “Bring Etta along, too,” I said, “and be here by morning.”

  “What? Morning? We’ll have to drive all night.”

  “Yeah… better get started.”

  He nodded, giving me a bewildered but intense look.

  “All right. We’ll be there.”

  Before he disconnected, I saw through his tapper he was moving fast. He trotted toward the exit at the automated store. He had an armload of stuff and a long night ahead of him.

  I’d given him hope. I knew that, and I prayed it wasn’t a mistake.

  Maybe I could do something to help, and maybe I couldn’t. It was hard to tell until I got into the thick of it.

  Checking the time, I saw it was just about nine pm. Doing a quick person-search on my previous call, I located Anne. She was only about twenty miles away in a suburb. Shrugging, I decided it wasn’t too far. A man might as well go for the gusto when faced with a future full of deadly unknowns.

  I rented an auto-cab and fed it the address with a swipe on my tapper. It whisked me away and I sat back to enjoy the city lights.

  Anne was surprised to see me at her door—but not too surprised. She knew me pretty damned well. Her talk of not having a husband—well, to a man like me, that was just about as clear an invitation as a woman could provide.

  After a little bit of quiet talking at the door, she let me inside. The rest of the evening, as they say, was preordained.

  -7-

  I woke up the next day a tiny bit later than I meant to. It was at least a half-hour past dawn, and I had a hell of a line-up of activities.

  After jumping out of bed, I rushed to the shower. Moving as fast as a late soldier can, I cleaned-up, dressed-up and raced to the Mustering Hall.

  Warm water splashed over me in the shower as I worked my tapper like a pro. I sent a message
on to Drusus indicating I’d been momentarily detained, with full apologies and lots of “sirs” written in there to cushion the blow.

  Speaking of which, Anne had snuck into the stall behind me and wrapped her small hand around my chest. She put her head against my back even as I finished my message and fired it off.

  “Begging for more time, is that it?” she asked, smiling. “I know what that means, James.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t play coy with me. I saw you telling your officers you’ll be late. You didn’t even ask me if I could make a morning of it.”

  “Oh…” I said, feeling a small twinge of concern.

  I’m a man who tends to overschedule himself under the best of circumstances, but this morning’s punch list was getting unmanageable. I was supposed to report to Central, meet my parents for their tour and satisfy Anne one more time—all at once!

  Thoughtfully, I looked down at her sweet face. She was quickly drifting to the top of the list. I’d always had sort of a nurse-and-patient thing going for her. She’d presided over more of my revivals than anyone else I knew. That made a man feel close to a girl, believe it or not.

  Sucking in a deep breath and chuckling, so it didn’t turn into a sigh, I grabbed her and went into motion. She was taken by surprise, but she soon melted.

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” she said when she got her mouth free of mine for a moment.

  I didn’t say anything. I had to make this good, and quick-like. It was pressure, but I didn’t mind that. I had fun anyway, even if I was distracted.

  Anne seemed bemused by what she took as an urgent passionate need on my part.

  “You weren’t like this last night,” she said. “Are you okay, James?” she asked, cupping my face in her hands.

  We were up close, wet, and about as intimate as two people could be right then.

  I smiled. “I’m fine—but today I’m headed somewhere sketchy. I might not come back.”

  Her face fell. “A mission? Another deadly mission? Why don’t you quit today? I’d like to spend the day with you instead of reading later on that you were permed.”

  For just a second, I considered her offer. But I had to reject it.

  “The legions are a way of life for me now,” I told her. “Love it, hate it—it’s my existence. I never get old, and I never seem to get enough.”

  She sighed, hugged me, and let me go. I watched her dress in slow-motion.

  “I’m telling the truth about this mission,” I said. “I’m not just shining you on for another girl—not this time.”

  Anne nodded without turning back to face me. “I know. That burst of passion this morning—that convinced me. That seemed like a man who knows he’s about to die—again.”

  “Yeah… Well, I’ll see you as soon as I can, okay?”

  I gave her a kiss, but she never answered me. I left her place, and once I was out in the hallway, I began to race down the corridors of her apartment complex at a dead run.

  Twenty minutes later I was dropped off at the Mustering Hall. My parents were there, looking nervous. My mom was holding onto my dad’s arm. Was she getting weak again already? She’d had a transfusion just a day or so ago… The condition seemed to be getting worse.

  “Where’s Etta?” I asked.

  “She didn’t want to come,” my mom said. “She found some new pile of mud and sticks way south of our house. She can’t talk about anything else.”

  “Okay… well, come on, we’ve got to move.”

  They hobbled after me, and I noticed neither one of them was moving as fast as they used to. How damned old were they now? Maybe I wasn’t even sure. Dying and coming back all the time made it so I could hardly keep track of my own age, much less theirs.

  “Here,” I said, as we reached the door.

  It was a smart door that I hadn’t laid eyes on for a few years. It had a handprint-reader on the door and a stained screen above it.

  I had my dad apply his hand first—the door rejected him immediately.

  Part of the legion recruiting process began right here. If you tested out as substandard in any obvious way, the door wouldn’t even let you inside to be humiliated by further testing.

  I’d expected nothing else, but I still had him try three times. Each time, the door refused to open. There was one good thing about coming late, there was no line. We took our time.

  I walked my momma up to the door next, and she rolled her eyes at me when I repeatedly applied her hand to the door. At last, after she’d been rejected over and over again, she objected.

  “James, if you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re failing miserably. I know I’m a broken down old woman. I don’t need some government AI to confirm it!”

  “I know, Momma,” I said. “I’m sorry. One more time.”

  After a final rejection. I applied my tapper to the door—not my hand. The door went green and popped open.

  On the other side was an irritated-looking hog. I knew him, fortunately. He was none other than Tech Specialist Ville, the same man who’d steered me down to Varus on the lower deck of the Hall years ago.

  He must have died in the recent squid invasion, however, because he looked a mite younger than he had when I’d last seen him. He had no paunch, and his hair was all present and accounted for.

  He squinted at me in shock.

  “McGill?” he asked. “The James McGill?”

  I smiled. “That’s me, Specialist Ville.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “What the hell are you doing here—and who do you have with you?”

  “I’m so sorry to bother you,” I said, “but my folks have never been down here before. They kind of wanted to see how the process worked.”

  He shook his head slowly. “They give tours, but that’s only on weekends. You should bring your folks back then, Centurion.”

  “Yeah… but they’re only here for a day. Can you help me out?”

  He stared at me then looked around for any officers that may have been lurking around. There weren’t any.

  “I’m not supposed to. The recruitment system is live. Recruits are trying out right now—and the crop is thin, let me tell you.”

  “It always is,” I said sympathetically. “Well? Just for a few minutes?”

  The tech specialist sighed, and he turned his back on us. He was a man after my own heart. If he didn’t see it, it had never happened.

  But I wasn’t quite done pestering him yet. “Hey,” I said, poking him in the back. “How about letting the machine drop their imprints—you know, the data disks that look like a credit coin?”

  “What the hell are you going to do with those?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I’ll return them in a few minutes. But you can’t get the full effect if you don’t have a disk to start tests and all.”

  Shaking his head, he tapped a few buttons and a rattling sound rang out in the pan near the door. I scooped up the coin-like data disks and led my parents quickly away.

  “This is something, James!” my mother said. “I didn’t know you had this surprise tour waiting for us.”

  “Uh-huh. It’s my big surprise. I’m going away for a short time, and I wanted to show you something before I leave.”

  “Away?” she asked in disappointment. “You’re not going on deployment again, are you? What about Etta?”

  “That girl can look after herself.”

  “She sure as hell can,” my father muttered.

  “James, why are we walking so fast?” my momma demanded. “I’m feeling faint.”

  Instead of slowing down, I reached down and looped my arm under hers. I half-lifted her off the ground and hurried her along.

  I think my dad had an inkling of what was really going on. He lifted her other arm, and between the two of us, the old lady’s feet hardly touched the floor.

  “This isn’t the recruitment lines,” she complained.

  “Yeah, I know. Now listen, when everything breaks, you guys head
through that door right there, you hear? Get back to your tram and head home. Don’t call me—don’t call anyone.”

  They stared at me in shock. My father nodded grimly, but my mom’s jaw sagged open. She’d been treated to any number of my shenanigans back when I was a kid, but she didn’t fully realize that I’d become a professional disruptor of peace as an adult.

  My dad was white-faced, but he was game. He didn’t know what my plan was, but he understood the stakes well enough.

  I took the two tiny silver disks and put them into his hand, closing his fingers into a fist on top of them.

  “Don’t lose these. Not for anything. Let them cut off fingers and toes first.”

  He nodded again, looking a little sick.

  I left them there—standing at the emergency exit. They looked so old and bewildered. It gave me a pang. At what point had they become the ones I had to care for, instead of the other way around? I didn’t know exactly when it had happened, but I didn’t like the feeling at all.

  In order not to alarm them anymore than I had to, I walked away at a brisk, but less than desperate pace. The second I could, I ducked down the escalators toward the legion booths in the basement.

  I was surprised to see that the Varus booth wasn’t there anymore. That meant they had to have been moved upstairs. Could that have been due to my influence?

  Nah, I told myself. It was never good for a man to grow a swelled head. The legion had proven itself over the years, that’s all. We were no longer shunned—we were still infamous, yes, and nothing like respectable—but people had decided we had value after all.

  “Hey, Varus!” shouted a tough-looking noncom from Legion Solstice. “You lost?”

  I flipped him the bird without a glance and headed for the bathrooms. Once inside, I entered the first stall and locked the door. There was no one in the place, fortunately.

  I made the mistake of glancing at my tapper then—I’d been avoiding that all morning. There had to be fifteen red-message lines on there. I was over an hour late for Central, after all.

  Fumbling in my urgency, I dug a plasma grenade out of my pocket. Then I took my combat knife off my belt and engaged in a little bit of field-surgery on the device.