by B. V. Larson
Still, Toro’s group was outmatched by the weight of the enemy. They couldn’t take them down without help.
When I had five weaponeers prepped up, I ordered them to fire at once, for the heads.
Four hit their targets. Smoking and wreathed in flames, they went down in a heap.
Their brothers went berserk then, and they stopped playing around with Toro’s heavies. They dropped their swords and grabbed the heavy troops with massive fists, trying to tear the men apart with their bare hands.
Blood sprayed and smoked. Most of it was from the enemy’s side—but not all. Two heavies were taken apart—literally. Their limbs were ripped off, their armor ignored.
Toro’s troops hacked them down. Leeson’s weaponeers advanced and shot the flopping bodies, several of which were still struggling to rise.
“Well, well, well,” said a familiar voice behind me.
I turned slowly. It was Winslade. He had his arms crossed, and a smug smile on his face.
“Don’t tell me this was all some kind of exercise, Primus,” I said dangerously.
“Seemed real enough to me. Didn’t it to you?”
Before I could wring his neck, another voice spoke up off to my side. It was that battle axe Deech.
“Stand down, Centurion. You fought well. The scenario wasn’t fair—but it wasn’t meant to be.”
I blinked at her then looked around as more Gold Deck people appeared in a steady stream.
“Is this really happening, sirs?”
“Yes,” Deech said, “and for what it’s worth, I didn’t want to do this. It’s part of our commitment, you see.”
“That’s right,” Graves said.
“You too, huh?”
“Let’s not sour your success with complaints, McGill. The element of confusion was required. We’re trying to impress the natives of Epsilon Leporis, remember?”
“Well…” I said, kicking at a steaming body at my feet, “did we impress them?”
Graves nodded. “Enough to be allowed to continue. We’ve proven we’re worthy of our invitation.”
“Was everyone in on this? Everyone but me?”
“No one below the rank of Primus knew anything,” Deech told me. “That’s why we simulated an attack on Gold Deck. Our sparring partners specified that they wanted a convincing test of our forces. In this case, the purpose of the test was to see how one of our small units performed without higher level officers to direct them.”
“This is really weird,” I said, feeling angry and somewhat cheated.
Deech looked at Graves. “You can handle the rest of this, Primus. I’ve got other things to attend to in my office.”
She sauntered away, and Winslade followed immediately in her wake. It looked to me like he was trying to court a new master. I looked after them both sourly.
“That’s Deech,” Graves said as he came up beside me and clapped me on the shoulder.
His gauntlets rang against my epaulets and that irritated me. Everything about this irritated me.
“She always passes the buck,” Graves went on. “Do you know that she made a huge point of sitting out this entire contest? Winslade and I were in complete command of the situation—at least, that’s what she said until it became clear you were going to win. Then, she rushed out here to get her face into the after-action vids.”
“Sir,” I said, “this exercise was total horseshit.”
“Oh, come off it, McGill,” he said. “Just think of all the times you’ve pissed me off with some kind of trick.”
I did for a second, and I shrugged. He had a point, but I didn’t feel like admitting it.
“What happened to that first squad we sent up?” I asked.
He led me to the transport-tube landing zone. It was kind of like a big elevator lobby without any mirrors. A mass of bodies were strewn there.
“They were all murdered the second they stepped off the elevator?” I asked
“Right. That was supposed to happen to more of your men to even out the contest. But then you rushed up the stairway and flanked the ambushers. Good call, by the way.”
“We outnumbered them badly from the start,” I said. “Did they really think they could win?”
“They did, because they had many advantages. The thinking was that you’d lose more of your men right here at the tubes than you did. If you hadn’t outmaneuvered them, they probably would have skunked you.”
“Why’d you pick me for this surprise drill, sir?” I asked.
He looked at me questioningly.
“I didn’t. You picked yourself. Remember when you contacted me and suggested you should mobilize your unit just in case?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s when you volunteered.”
I heaved a sigh. It was the oldest lesson in Legion Varus lore: never volunteer for anything.
On that simple point, I’d failed.
“Wait a second, Primus,” I said, “what about the warp-bubble accident? Were we kicked out of warp or not?”
“Yeah…” he said thoughtfully. “I thought that was over-dramatic. It seemed dangerous, too. I’m not really sure how that all played in. We could have just come out of warp, rendezvoused with these troops from Blood World—that’s what the natives call it, by the way—Blood World.”
“Sounds inviting.”
“It’s not meant to.”
“About the warp-collision,” I said, thinking it over. “Was that meant to make the entire scenario seem more real?”
“Not in any briefing I attended. It wasn’t mentioned at all. We were simply told we would meet with a Blood World ship, take on boarders, and play out this battle. That’s all.”
Turning my head back toward the pile of gigantic bodies, I frowned. “Maybe we should consider reviving a few of these guys and asking them some questions.”
Graves chuckled. “There are several key problems with that idea, McGill. First off, they don’t have tappers recording their engrams. We could copy their bodies from DNA samples, but they would be mindless.”
“Oh… right. Are they catching a revive back on Blood World then?”
He looked at me like I was stupid. It was an expression I was well-familiar with.
“Of course not,” he said. “These monsters wouldn’t even fit in a standard-issue revival machine. They came here, and they died, and that’s it.”
“You mean I permed all these guys?”
“That’s right—if you can even call it that. I mean, for normal people who’ve never even heard of a revival machine, it’s just called dying, isn’t it?”
“I guess so…” I said, somewhat disturbed.
Graves walked away, shaking his head at my foolishness, but my eyes lingered on the stack of dead. Sure, they were somewhat alien and monstrous, but they were mostly human underneath. It seemed kind of unfair for the Legions to use them as target practice when we could just bounce back the next day.
Troubled, I left Gold Deck behind and headed down to the labs. I had a lot of unanswered questions buzzing in my head.
-18-
On the way down to the labs, I took the opportunity to strip off my armor and weapons, tossing the whole kit into my unit’s module. There was plenty of blood and scorch marks on my gear, and I didn’t think anyone down below wanted to see that.
When I reached the labs, I was in for a surprise. Floramel was working in the depths of Nostrum’s lower decks, right alongside Natasha.
Just spotting the two of them, working together, made me halt in my tracks. These two women both had a claim on me. Natasha’s claim was far older, but Floramel’s was fresh and new.
Standing there for a few long seconds, I wasn’t quite sure what to do.
The labs themselves were spacious, super-clean, and full of strange equipment. This was the deck that belonged to the techs. Unlike Blue Deck, the level that every ship had which was inhabited purely by bio-specialists and their victims, this one never seemed to be named after a color. People jus
t called it “the labs” or “engineering” and left it at that.
I suspected it was because the region wasn’t quite as restricted as other areas were. Gold Deck was for commanders and flight personnel only. It usually encompassed the ship’s bridge and the offices for all the brass aboard any given transport. Gold Deck’s unique purpose formed a good reason to restrict access.
Likewise, Blue Deck was crewed by the paranoid bio-types. They operated like a priesthood, caring for their incredibly expensive—and incredibly useful—revival machines. Oh, sure, any bio could cure a cold or cancer if she felt like it, but the main service they provided was the revival of dead troops, and everyone knew it.
The tech people were different. They were important, sure, but they were more down-to-earth and approachable. They handled a wide variety of problems—everything from servicing shipboard equipment to coming up with analyses about astrophysics and alien psychology. The breadth of their responsibilities forced them to work with others every day, and that seemed to make them easier to deal with.
A finger tapped my back while I stood in the doorway. Startled, I turned and looked down. There was Kivi, giving me a disgusted sneer.
“Can’t decide which one to hit on today, McGill?” she asked.
I marveled at my poor timing. Kivi was a tech specialist herself. How likely was it that she’d show up right now? Together with Natasha and Floramel, I was in the presence of every tech girl I’d ever been involved with. The odds would have seemed longer, except for the fact they were all techs, this was their deck, and I’d taken no precautions such as contacting anyone before I came down here.
“Uh…” I said, trying to think.
“Don’t bother coming up with a lie,” Kivi said, and she scooted by me. As she did so, there was plenty of contact.
Now, you have to understand that a man just hasn’t been brushed up against properly until Kivi’s done it to you. She was a master. She rubbed every important part of herself against my side as she went by, making it all seem natural, accidental, and thrilling at the same time. We both knew full well there was plenty of room for her to scoot by in that open doorway without touching me at all—but that wasn’t how Kivi operated.
I knew her game. She wasn’t really promising me anything, nor was she too clueless to squeeze by neatly. She was trying to torture old James McGill. She wanted revenge on me after having caught me checking out two other women right in front of her.
Unreasonable? Yes. Pure Kivi? Definitely.
Using my full knowledge of her nature to my advantage, I enjoyed the fleeting contact and let it go. I didn’t chase her, make a comment, or even let my eyes drift after her well-rounded posterior.
Soon she was gone, and I was able to think clearly again. I came to a firm decision. I walked up behind the Floramel and Natasha team, bold as brass, and laid one hand on each of their backs. My head poked between them as I did so.
“What are you two working on?” I asked loudly.
Startled, the girls eyed me, but they didn’t pull away. Neither one of them knew I was touching the other. Sometimes, it pays to be large and have a long reach.
“We’re trying to figure out what happened to the warp field,” Natasha said.
“Incorrect,” Floramel said. “We know what happened. We’re trying to figure out why it happened.”
Natasha’s shoulders bunched up a bit in irritation. I couldn’t blame her for that. Floramel liked to be precise, and all too often, that urge came out sounding like she was calling other people morons.
“Okay…” I said, “but what’s that thing on the table?”
“It’s a section of the outer hull, James,” Natasha said patiently.
“That thing? Looks like a head-sized lump of charcoal.”
“Extreme heat has been applied,” Floramel explained, “along with some warping, radioactive fields and torsion. In combination, this abuse caused this section of the hull to be reduced to this damaged state.”
“You’re telling me this lump of crap came off the outside of our ship?” I asked, and I gave a long, low whistle. “So, what’s the verdict? Did we hit another vessel or not?”
“Yes,” Natasha said.
“No,” Floramel said at almost the same instant.
I looked from one to the other. “Uh…”
Natasha wore a tight expression. I got the feeling Floramel was starting to get on her nerves.
“She means,” Natasha explained, “that we didn’t literally strike the other ship. We hit its wake. If we’d hit the other ship itself… well… we’d all be dead by now.”
About then, Floramel pulled back a little, and I blew it. I left my hands on both of the girls. She noticed this, and she looked confused.
“I don’t know what it is that you’re proposing, James,” she told me.
“Huh?”
“You’re touching both of us. This behavior doesn’t quite correspond to your traditional gripping of the shoulder—but the nature of the signal is still unmistakable.”
Frowning, Natasha stepped back. Even though I dropped my hands to my sides, she began to glare at me like she’d been molested or something.
“Oh, come on,” I said to them both. “We’re all friends here, working on a critical scientific mission. Grow up, ladies. Continue the briefing.”
It was a bold-as-brass play, but it was all I had. Fortunately, it seemed to work. Both of them turned slowly back to face their lump of melted space-crap again.
I suppressed a sigh of relief.
Natasha began explaining about heat-thresholds, force fields and the unique properties of melting-point temperatures in vacuum. Occasionally, Floramel corrected her on a tiny technical detail. I found the lecture less than fascinating.
My hands—those bored, treacherous bastards—crept up again and almost touched each of the girls. To me, it sometimes seemed like my fingers have minds of their own.
I managed to fight my sinister urges and clasped my hands behind my back for good. With a pasted-on smile, I strictly maintained the pretense that I cared about their burnt space-rock. It was a sheer force of will.
“Uh-huh,” I said about two minutes later, sensing it was an appropriate moment to jump in. “Look, ladies, this is fascinating, but I’m no tech. What I need to know is what happened? Did the Blood Worlders send out a ship and run it into our warp-bubble or not?”
“That’s not entirely clear,” Natasha said. “We think they tried to match our course and speed, but perhaps they got too close and caused the disruption… by the way, did you say ‘Blood Worlders’?”
“I did indeed. That’s what they call themselves. Colorful, isn’t it? Conjures quite an image.”
“Yes, lovely,” Natasha said, turning to Floramel and giving her an up-down appraisal. “Have you heard that name before, Floramel?”
“Yes,” she said. “The littermates didn’t coin it themselves. Their brood-mothers did.”
Natasha suppressed a shiver. “In any case, I think we’ve done all the analysis of this chunk of debris we can. I’m willing to rule the incident was an accident.”
Both of us looked at Floramel. “I’m not willing to do so,” she said. “I’m of the opinion our warp-field was disrupted purposefully.”
“But why?” Natasha asked. “The most believable scenario is the simplest one. The ship came here to meet us, got too close, and both our fields were disrupted. When we dropped out of warp they crossed over to Gold Deck to spring their trap on McGill. Case closed.”
I had to admit, she made a convincing argument. I turned my eyes to Floramel, who was still looking at the space-rock doubtfully.
“People think the Blood Worlders are stupid,” she said, “but they aren’t. Not all of them. Those who are in charge are very cunning.”
“Okay,” I said, “but to be cunning, you have to have a motive. What were they trying to do?”
She shook her head. “That I don’t know. I just know they managed to knock us out of w
arp. We’re still not flying again—did you know that?”
“I noticed that,” I said. “All the field projectors are dead. The back half of the ship, which is usually thrumming all the time, seems quiet.”
“Do you want to walk with me down there and check it out, James?” Natasha asked.
“Sure.”
This was a mistake. Floramel immediately looked upset.
“Uh…” I said, “you want to come along too, Floramel? Any tech will do. I’m not welcome in the engine room. They won’t want to answer my questions unless I’m escorted by a tech.”
It was an ass-covering play on my part. Floramel was still suspicious of my motives concerning her and Natasha, and I didn’t want her to feel I’d left her out.
“Oh… is that the intention? Then no, I’ll stay here. I need to finish my measurements on this hull sample.”
“Suit yourself,” I said, giving her a friendly nod and a smile.
I left, and Natasha followed.
“You’re still trying to rekindle with her, is that it?” she asked me.
“Is that a problem?”
“Not for me,” she said a little too quickly.
The last time Natasha and I had connected, it hadn’t seemed like a big deal. We’d been fighting and dying on a rock-pile planet called Rogue World. Tech-smiths like Floramel had lived there under a blue-glass dome—but that was over a year ago.
“I’m not chasing her,” I said. “Not really. It’s just that Floramel is different. She doesn’t totally get our social rules here on Earth. I don’t like the idea of hurting her in a careless way.”
“Better to break hearts up-front and guilt-free, hmm?”
“Come on, Natasha. You and I haven’t been intimate for a long time.”
“It was on Rogue World. Where you met Floramel.”
I got it then. She was jealous of Floramel. Not because there weren’t any other women around—there always were. But because she’d decided Floramel was the one who’d stolen me away.
