Rogue World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 7)

by B. V. Larson

  From this angle, I could see the phenomenon much better than I had when I’d been in the midst of it. There was no way it was natural or by chance. Every hundred meters or so, on what looked like a hexagonal grid, the vapor was chugged up out of the ground. It soon grew into a billowing cloud that filled the valley surrounding the dome itself.

  My secondaries all looked to me. “Orders, sir?” Leeson asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not getting anything useful from command, either. Just a lot of chatter.”

  We continued to watch as the vapor filled every square inch of low terrain. There was no doubt it was heavier than whatever passed for air on this world. It clung to the ground and soon smoothed over. It stopped rising and resembled a black pond of oil after twenty minutes of bubbling.

  “There’s no wind,” Leeson said, checking his tapper.

  “That’s probably why they deployed it.”

  “No sir, that’s not what I meant,” he said. “There was wind a few minutes back. Now, it’s dead calm. Do you think they have control of the weather on this rock?”

  I thought about it, and what we knew of these people.

  “It’s a possibility,” I admitted.

  “What do you think is down there in that vapor? They wouldn’t fill up the whole damned valley for nothing.”

  “You’re right. It’s got to cost them something to do this. It could be a defense against an attack from us, but we’re just setting up. I’ve got an idea.”

  Calling to Leeson’s weaponeers, I had them man the 88s.

  “As a test, we’re going to try to cut swathes through that vapor,” I told them.

  “Centurion,” Leeson said. “Have we got orders to start hostilities.”

  “Who said anything about mounting an attack?” I asked him. “We’re just going to test our guns. We can’t do that without burning a few rocks, can we? Let’s fire down there and see if we can’t find something under that black smoke.”

  Leeson grinned, and he turned to do it.

  Harris sensed something big happening and he called for his lights to set their weapons to sniping mode. Snap-rifles could be reconfigured for various types of combat by changing their barrels, sights and trigger mechanisms. They weren’t powerful weapons, but they were versatile.

  Seeing this, Toro got into the act. Harris had lined up his people, widely spread apart as snipers on the ridge overlooking the valley. At the same time, she moved her heavies up to crouch below and behind the snipers—just in case.

  I looked it all over, made a few adjustments and was about to give the order to fire the 88s.

  A message came in on my tapper at that exact moment. I could tell from the tone and the urgency of the vibration, it was from the command group. That could only mean one thing: my behavior had been noticed by some Primus or another. My operation was about to be shut down, even before I got it up and running.

  Waving for Leeson to speed things up, I was grateful to see him turn and order his weaponeers to fire.

  Now, an 88 is a weird weapon. In an experienced gunner’s hands, it blazes out in wide swathes. It has a long cool-down, and once the gunner begins a sweep, he’s kind of locked in. He has to complete the beam’s path, trying to keep it even and steady, and afterwards he’s down for several seconds while the cannon cycles through and recharges.

  The weaponeers were all experienced troops. They handled their big guns like pros. Not an inch of overlap was to be seen anywhere on the valley floor. Vast, hundred-meter runways were cut thru the black mist, which recoiled as if it were alive and stung by the sizzling heat.

  And there they were, under that covering mist. At least fifty monsters had been revealed.

  They weren’t robots. They weren’t human. They were actual monsters. Beings such as I’d never seen before. They had twenty or more multi-jointed limbs each, and they scuttled around like crabs.

  When the beams of the 88s struck them, they reacted as if in pain. Gray smoke wisped up from their bodies as furrows in their flesh turned to ash. An unarmored man struck by such a beam was converted to dust immediately, but I didn’t see a single monster go down.

  Instead, they scuttled into regions of black smoke that hadn’t been burned away yet. They looked to me like giant roaches seeking cover when the lights suddenly flickered on.

  And all of them—every last one—was rushing toward our lines.

  -34-

  As soon as my troopers got over their shock, they began peppering the crab-like monsters with sniper fire. At this range, it was hard to tell if it was having much effect.

  My tapper buzzed my wrist again. It somehow seemed to me that the buzz was angrier than it had been just a moment ago.

  “Sir?” I asked, answering the call. “Are you seeing this?”

  “McGill, what the hell are you playing at?” Winslade demanded. “No one ordered you to fire at anything—”

  He broke off at that moment as I streamed vid playback from my helmet to his tapper. Since we were already connected, he didn’t even have to approve the incoming stream, it just started playing in his face.

  “What have you done?” he demanded, his voice cracking high for a second.

  “Nothing, Primus. I just saw something in that smoke down there, and I thought we should take a poke at it. Well sir, turns out I was right.”

  “Why is it always you who starts these things, McGill?”

  “Just dumb luck, I guess.”

  “Are they attacking?”

  “Uh…” I said, hoisting myself up to the ridge again to have a look. The ribbons of bare rock were vanishing again as the vapor closed over them. “The creatures appear to have all vanished into the smoke again. It’s hard to tell, but they were surging in our direction when we uncovered their presence.”

  “You mean when you provoked them,” Winslade said. “We’ll have to step up every element of the plan. These damnable rebels. If I wasn’t under direct orders, I’d burn their dome out right now.”

  “Your orders, Primus?”

  “Keep those creatures from overrunning us. Those are your orders. Winslade out.”

  Nodding thoughtfully, I had another peek down at the field. Was that a feeler poking out of the smoke at the very bottom of the slope, at the edge of the smoke-filled region? It seemed to me that it just might be.

  “Leeson,” I said, “what are the other units up to?”

  “Looks like they’re setting up 88s now in a panic,” he said, chuckling. “They should have done it first thing. What’s the point of high ground and an open field of fire if you don’t exploit it?”

  “What’s the point indeed... Leeson, what would you do if you were a bug that loved smoke, but were planning to rush out of it and kill something?”

  “Well… I’d probably move to the edge of it and mass up right there under cover.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” I said. “Let’s get those 88s tilted straight down, shall we? We’re going to be burning their forward perimeter in about thirty seconds.”

  “Thirty seconds? On it, sir!”

  He began yelling at his men to hustle. They did so, piling up charges and cranking their field of fire more steeply, so they could hit the bottom of the ridge below with ease.

  I liked Toro and her heavies just where they were, but I frowned when I considered Harris and his light snipers. They seemed useless against this foe. An enemy that could withstand an 88 was going to shrug off a snap-rifle without feeling a thing.

  “Harris!” I called. “Get your lights off that ridge. Have them retreat to the lifter and pull out three more 88s. Set them up right in front of the lifter itself.”

  “Huh? Uh… right sir.”

  Surprised, he withdrew and kicked his people into gear. They raced past me toward the lifter. When his own butt was on the line, he tended to follow directions very well, as long as they didn’t directly result in his own demise.

  Long before the light troopers could pull out a fresh 88, however
, my thirty seconds were up and Leeson laid down a fresh set of criss-crossing burn-lines in the smoke directly below us. The monsters hidden by the smoke were thus revealed, and their tough carapaces were left ash-gray by the searing beams.

  Some of them actually ignited when they were hit by multiple beams. A few even went down and died, flopping and flailing.

  But the majority appeared to go absolutely mad. They charged up the slope toward our lines, and even I was impressed by their ferocity.

  Without being told, Toro ordered her heavies to advance to the ridge and blaze away. They already had their plasma rifles in assault mode, set for rapid-fire at short range. As the monsters came clawing their way up the rocks, Toro’s team blasted away limbs and sent the leaders tumbling back into the roiling mass behind them.

  Joining in, I found myself chugging out power-bolts like there was no tomorrow—and I seriously doubted that there would be if those things got to our lines.

  Seeing that our part of the defensive line was being unfairly singled out, neighboring units had joined the fight. They sprayed the advancing line with all sorts of fire. 88s, snap-rifle rounds and power-bolts flew in a wild display of energy and heat.

  Such was the tenacity of the enemy, however, that they reached our lines anyway. Our 88s died first, the weaponeers plucked free from their tiny bunkers by extremely long, powerful arms that whipped and moved with alarming speed. These unfortunates were beaten to death on the rocks, their faceplates cracking and blood spraying everywhere.

  “Fall back!” I roared, and Toro’s heavies hustled toward the lifter all around me.

  The monsters dragged themselves, smoking and crippled, over the ridge and reached out to snap up men by the feet. Troops were killed in a variety of gruesome ways. The monsters seemed to favor tug-of-wars with the fallen, like terriers with prey animals between them. They ripped them limb from limb and left them to die on the rocks.

  Running toward the lifter and firing back at them whenever we could, we continued retreating. If they hadn’t been thinned out and slowed down by injuries, the monsters would have swept over us in an instant.

  Up close, I was able to fully appreciate the size and power of this new foe. They reminded me of the Wur we’d fought on Death World in a way, but they were much lower to the ground. They stood no more than five meters high, but their span of legs was more than twice that.

  “McGill!” my helmet buzzed. It was Graves this time. “Under no circumstances are you to allow those creatures into my lifter!”

  “Got it, Primus,” I said wearily. Turning to the heavies and lights around me, I gave them a grim nod. “We stand here.”

  They looked shocked. Several were already heading up the ramp, seeking safety. Even as I spoke, the ramp began to retract, shaking them off like fleas.

  I’d hoped Harris’ light troopers might have set up an 88 by now, but they’d failed. They weren’t trained to use the equipment, and they were almost in a state of panic anyway.

  “Hug up under the ship,” I shouted to my troops. “Watch for the anti-personnel guns. They’ll be poking out overhead any second now.”

  As I expected, Graves deployed the ship’s last ditch defense. The ship’s external guns were automatic and not very discriminating. They began spraying deadly bolts at the approaching enemy the moment they were deployed. In several cases, light troopers were slow to catch on. They died when they were caught between the turrets and their targets.

  This last effort finally did the trick. The monsters were cut down. When they’d been reduced to shivering piles of smoldering meat, the gun turrets retracted back into the lifter.

  Less than half of my troops had survived. Curious, I advanced and poked at a leg the size of a tree branch. It squirmed weakly at the contact.

  “They look dead,” I said.

  Natasha advanced to my side. “They must be some kind of artificial life.”

  “Yeah…” I agreed. “You’re something of an expert in that field, aren’t you?”

  It was a sore point for her, so she gave me a twisted grimace in response. She’d once engineered her own AL pet in college and been expelled for it.

  “They’ve definitely been designed, I can tell that much. No sex organs. No variation in individuals at all. They were genetically edited together and cloned.”

  Giving the crab leg nearest me a stomp, it cracked open. I could see cooked meat inside. It was all red and white with thick cartilage wrapping the muscle.

  “They’d probably taste good with some butter and garlic.”

  Natasha shook her head. “They’re almost certainly toxic. If they can breathe this atmosphere, not to mention the vapor down there, they don’t belong in a human gut.”

  “I wasn’t serious, you know.”

  She smirked at me, then went back to poking at the dead. “What I don’t get is where they’re keeping these things. They’re big, they must eat… There’s no way they can all live under that dome.”

  “Maybe they come from underground, like that smoke,” I said, thinking it through. “They can’t have come out of the dome itself. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Which indicates,” Natasha said thoughtfully, “that there must also be a way in and out of the dome from underneath.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “Dangerous talk. Let’s keep that one to ourselves, shall we?”

  “What? Seriously, Centurion? It’s my job to report something like this. Are you ordering me not to tell the Primus what we’ve deduced?”

  I sighed. “No, I guess not. Go ahead.”

  She walked away, building up her after-action report, which would have to be melded into mine. I seriously considered editing her section out, but by the time I got it, Graves was demanding to see it.

  Carlos came out and smirked at me. He had a tired look to him.

  “You just had to stir the shit again, didn’t you, Centurion?” he asked me.

  “It’s in my nature,” I admitted.

  “Winslade has to be hammering on his dinner table somewhere in that bunker,” he said, gazing up and down the ridgeline. Here and there, the enemy was still fighting with various units. We’d gotten the worst of it, I figured, but it was hard to tell.

  “What’s the word on Deech?” I asked him. “Is she still on hold?”

  Carlos nodded. “Indefinitely. In fact, you might have just given Winslade some help in that department. We just lost about five percent more of our troops. We’re seventy percent down, and we’re facing serious attacks. No one would pop out the brass now.”

  “Not unless they wanted a more experienced officer running the show.”

  “If that was the goal, Graves would be in charge right now.”

  “I’ll take that as a vote of confidence, Specialist,” Graves said, walking up behind us.

  “Sir,” Carlos said, turning in surprise. “That’s exactly how it was meant, Primus. Anyway, break’s over. I’m back to the sweatshop. The undercarriage on the revival machine has sprung a leak, and it’s pissing itself every time it gives birth. It’s ‘all hands on deck’ down there.”

  Having worked with the equipment before, I couldn’t help but grimace and shudder. “Give me a rifle and a giant crab to shoot at any day,” I said.

  “McGill, where’s your report?” Graves asked me.

  “Right here on my arm, sir. You want me to send it to you first—or do I broadcast it?”

  He looked at me for a second. “I’m not a schemer like you. Fire it off to all-points, and let the chips fall where they may.”

  “Your call, sir,” I said, and I sent it.

  The second I’d done so, I felt a pang of regret. I hoped my fears wouldn’t materialize—but the hope was a faint one.

  -35-

  Not more than two hours passed before my report—especially the parts written by Natasha—began to have their inevitable impact. Winslade himself came to talk to me.

  He at least had the balls to come out and stand on the ridgeline with me. When h
e arrived with Graves in tow, I was supervising the removal of the monstrous carcasses that littered our encampment. Always having been a man who takes the easiest course, I simply had the men use the robotic pigs to drag them over the ridge and roll them back down to where they’d come from. A ghastly, twisted pile of the dead lay at the foot of our mountain.

  Winslade peered down over the side at the mess, and he made a tsking sound.

  “Up to your usual hijinks I see, McGill,” he said.

  “That’s right sir. Defeating the enemy and cleaning up the mess afterward.”

  “That’s not what I meant. You’re a glory-hound. A man bent on endangering his troops for his own personal advancement.”

  I turned to look at him with my brow furrowing. Graves had positioned himself directly behind Winslade, and he gave me a slow shake of the head.

  Forcing myself to relax, I smiled at Winslade. “That’s right sir,” I said. “Men like you and me really know how to climb the rank ladder.”

  It was Winslade’s turn to frown, and even Graves winced slightly. Sure, Graves had been worried that I’d toss the little bastard off the cliff that was so temptingly near, but apparently needling him with remarks wasn’t nice enough to suit either of them.

  “Insolent, as always,” Winslade said, then he glanced over his shoulder at Graves. “I don’t know how you’ve put up with him all these years, Primus Graves.”

  “I’m not sure myself.”

  “Never mind,” Winslade continued, “I have a solution for all this. A clear method that will allow you to redeem yourself, McGill.”

  Knowing what was coming, I forced myself to look interested.

  “I’ve had every legion tech in the field analyzing the ground here,” Winslade told me, “they’ve been using sonic wave equipment and the like. Even the Nostrum has been in on the work. They’ve found large hollow regions beneath the valley floor.”

  “Those caves had to be there, Primus. I just knew it.”

  “Yes… very intuitive. As a just reward for an ambitious man, I’ve decided you’re going to be given the honor of leading a new expedition with the purpose of exploring—”