Blood World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 8)

by B. V. Larson

  “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “No, no, not by a long shot. We’ve got some dealing to do, you and I.”

  “Dealing? I don’t think so. What’s there to deal about?”

  “This planet. The next war on the Frontier—oh yeah, I know all about that. Earth’s on her own now. You do realize the Empire handed you a pack of rebellious worlds and took off, right?”

  Unable to deny it, I nodded. “That’s a fair assessment. What can you do about it?”

  “I can give you three billion troops. It used to be nine billion—but, you know, there were casualties recently. This planet wasn’t always covered in fallout.”

  Despite myself, I felt stunned. I looked around at the dusty air.

  Six billion lost? That was grim. The Blood Worlders had paid harshly for their loyalty to the squids.

  “How can you get them to join us?” I asked him. “What influence can an old peddler like you possibly wield out here on the fringe?”

  The best way to get Claver talking had always been to sting his pride. He was pretty big on himself, and if you could get him into a defensive mood, he might brag about all sorts of things.

  Frowning, Claver shook his head. “Rude. Just plain rude. Your momma failed in her first duty, turning out a young man who respects his elders.”

  Turning my head to the north, I studied a pile of boulders, as if I was seeing something interesting. Then I turned back to Claver.

  His suspicious eyes followed my glance then went back to my face.

  “Is that where Harris went with his snipers?” he asked. “Did you think I didn’t notice when he disappeared from the battlefield?”

  I shrugged and checked my tapper in boredom. “We’re going to have to wrap this up. It’s going to be dark soon.”

  “Here’s the essence of my offer: I can throw this fight. These dumb lizards are trained to follow me. I’ll order them to march right into your 88s until there’s nothing left but a few tails sticking out of an ash-heap.”

  “We can beat them without your help.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. The stakes are high, McGill, and Earth needs this army.”

  “I might be interested,” I said. “If you’d answer a few more questions first.”

  “Don’t you even want to know what I want for this service?”

  “That was my first question.”

  He laughed again. “Okay. Fair enough. You might be thinking that I want the galactic key again—but that’s old hat. Sure, it’s nice, but the Empire is a toothless old man with a chill. The frontier—this is where things are happening now. Right here.”

  “So? What do you want?”

  “I want legitimacy. A planet of my own. Somewhere full of docile workers would be nice. I’ve got three worlds scoped out for the job.”

  I blinked in confusion. “What makes you think I can deliver anything remotely like that?”

  “Not you, moron. Deech can do it, with her deep-link reporting back to Earth. I’m offering a valuable planet. I’m only asking to trade you for a less valuable planet. Your role in this deal is to play the go-between.”

  I craned my neck, looking at the sky. “You know they’re watching this, don’t you? Don’t you think the Blood Worlders are going to be suspicious about us talking here so long?”

  “Fortunately, most of the Blood Worlders are fools—not that Gytha though. You’re right to think we have to watch out for her. But don’t worry, I’ve got an excuse for this parley. That’s all part of the plan.”

  “Let’s pretend I’m interested. What’s the next step in this show? Even if you let me beat your lizards, that won’t be the end of it.”

  “No,” he admitted. “It’s a down payment. You’ll have to revive me on your ship—I have to die at the end of this round, of course, in order for you to be declared the winner. Once I’m aboard your ship, I’ll talk to Deech and give her more intel. Enough to help your side win the final round.”

  “What will we be facing next?”

  He looked cagey all of a sudden. “You’ve got all you’re going to get from me for now. Is it a yes, or a no?”

  I thought it over for a second, then I nodded.

  He began to smile, until he saw me extend a force-blade from my right arm.

  We weren’t that far apart. Maybe he’d forgotten that my armor always had a weapon built into it.

  Thrusting my blade deep into his chest, I gave it a twist and let it sizzle in there.

  Shaking, knees buckling, he collapsed in a heap. I stood over him. His mouth was open, with drool and blood making a dark stain on the sand.

  “I accept your terms, Claver,” I told him. “It’s a deal.”

  He died quickly, and I walked away from the mess.

  “McGill!” Harris shouted in my ears as soon as I was far enough away from Claver for his blocker to be ineffective. “You old sly-boots! That was wild!”

  “Centurion,” Sargon shouted before I could answer, “you’ve got incoming! Watch your six!”

  “Sargon,” I said, “get those 88s sighted on me.”

  “Already done, sir. But that’s extreme range for these babies.”

  “I know. Harris, when the acid-shells start to fly, spot the enemy. You’ve got to go in and pop them if you can’t snipe them.”

  “Roger that,” he said in a deflated tone.

  In the meantime, I began to run. Not flat-out, mind you, but moving at a good clip back toward our lines.

  The remainder of the saurian heavies pursued me, but they weren’t fast on their feet. Mini-missiles were my big concern. They snapped and whined nearby, blasting up chunks of sand and rock. I ran into what little cover I could find, putting some of those mushroom-cap things between my back and the enemy lizards—but that didn’t help much. Their missiles chewed the mushrooms down fast.

  My helmet was on by this time, and it was a good thing I’d thought of it. Black roiling clouds burst nearby, causing me to carom off at an angle whenever one came down.

  “We’ve spotted them, sir!” Harris shouted. “They’re dug in all right. My snipers are engaging now, and I’m sending another team down to close-assault their nests.”

  I could see shiny flashes bouncing off Toro’s surviving troops. They wanted to come out and meet me, but I ordered them to stay low. They were one of the final cards I could play in this struggle.

  Enraged after witnessing what looked like treachery on my part, the saurian troops seemed hell-bent on my personal destruction. They doggedly followed me, taking sweeps from the 88s when they crossed the open land where Claver and I had met. They pressed on despite their losses.

  In the end, I almost made it to our lines—but not quite. I caught one of those missiles in the spine.

  Knocked off my feet and spun around, I found myself making a strange, continuous wheezing sound. Air was escaping me, but I wasn’t really breathing. It was more like a long, low howl of pain and shock.

  Forcing my eyes to focus, I saw three lizards catch up.

  I’d died like this once before, long ago. My first death had come under the claws and teeth of raptors like this, in fact. It was the death that played most often in my nightmares to this very day.

  But before they could tear my steaming guts from my body and run around with bloody trophies in their wet muzzles, I saw the 88s sweep over all of us.

  The world went white, and we were all turned to ash together.

  -41-

  Voices slowly impinged on my universe.

  “What’s his score?” a female voice asked.

  “A ten… See that? A frigging ten!”

  “That’s what I call a good grow.”

  I didn’t open my eyes right off, as I knew they were bleary and sore. The dimmest light was always blinding right after a revive.

  “James?” the feminine voice called softly. I felt her breath puff over my ear.

  I knew that voice. I knew she was someone who could be evil or sweet. Part angel and part devil, Sp
ecialist Evelyn Thompson was the kind of woman who often attracted me. I’d long accounted this as one of my many flaws.

  “Evelyn?” I croaked, using her first name, as she’d done for me.

  She almost giggled. That wasn’t a normal sound for her, either.

  “You’re okay,” she said. “You died hard in the crater. I watched it—but you’re doing great now. Your revival scores are topping the charts.”

  “Do you… do you forgive me? For Floramel?”

  “Yes,” she said, running her fingers through my wet, sticky hair. “I forgive you. After all, you won the battle. But let me warn you: not everyone aboard this ship is so happy with—”

  I heard the revival chamber’s hatch snick open and shut again.

  “Ah…” Winslade said. “Our sleeping beauty awakens again, hmm? Well Specialist, hurry up and give him a goodbye kiss. He’s got some explaining to do.”

  Surprising everyone, Evelyn did kiss my cheek.

  My eyes fluttered open. I snorted and released a laugh. My nose ran, but I ignored it.

  Coughing up stuff I’d rather not name, I sat up and fumbled my numb arms into fresh sleeves.

  Winslade watched impatiently. “I swear, McGill, you’ll be late to your own perming in the end.”

  “As long as I get to watch yours first, sir,” I managed to rumble out.

  Winslade huffed out the door, and I staggered in his wake.

  When we reached Gold Deck, I figured I was going to have to talk the brass into reviving Claver and talking turkey with him—but I’d figured wrong.

  Claver was already there in Deech’s office. Winslade waved me inside with a smirk and closed the door, staying on the far side of it.

  Turning around, I was shocked to see Deech and Claver talking in calm tones.

  “Was everyone in on this from the start?” I demanded.

  “Everyone but you, apparently,” Claver remarked.

  Deech sighed. “The situation is… complicated, McGill. Not every lower echelon officer is informed when—”

  “When traitors are stalking the halls?” I finished for her.

  She frowned. “That’s a very rude tone. I’m going to excuse it, but only because you just handed Earth another victory. Don’t get too cocky, however. No one is irreplaceable.”

  Grumbling to myself, I found a chair and stretched out in it. While I listened, Claver and Deech wrangled about various details of the bargain.

  Claver wanted his own personal planet-sized playground, but Deech wanted to buy him off cheap. She offered him a shipment of goods and a transport to carry them in. They just weren’t seeing eye-to-eye.

  “Tribune,” Claver said, “you’re being miserly. Worse, you’re doing it at the wrong time. The stakes are much too high in this case to quibble about a few billion credits one way or the other.”

  “I disagree,” Deech said. “It’s your cooperation that’s barely required. Legion Varus may well win this contest outright, in which case everything Earth paid will have been wasted.”

  Claver sucked in a breath and let it out in a long sigh. “Winslade was right about you,” he said.

  Deech looked annoyed and adjusted her clothing. “What exactly does that mean?”

  Claver looked at me suddenly. They’d both been ignoring me for the last ten minutes, and I was ready to fall asleep.

  “McGill!” Claver shouted.

  “Huh?”

  “Would you pay me a planet to seal this deal?”

  Deech shot daggers at me with her eyes.

  “Uh…” I said. “It’s not really my place to say.”

  “I know that. Just give us your honest opinion.”

  “Well…” I said thoughtfully. “It does seem to me that when something is so close to a done deal, it’s worth a little extra to make sure the outcome goes your way. I mean—given that the stakes are so high.”

  Claver turned back to Deech, crossed his arms, and grinned. “You hear that? He’s as dumb as a hog’s fart, but even McGill knows when to squeeze and when to give generously.”

  “McGill,” Deech said in a dangerous tone. “Get out. I’m not sure what you’re doing here, anyway.”

  “Yes sir,” I said, getting to my feet.

  Turning, I walked to the door and reached for it, but I heard an odd sound behind me. Was that the distinctive tone of a needler singing its deadly song?

  Turning back around, I saw a sight I wasn’t expecting. Deech was slumped dead on the floor with a perfectly round needle-hole in the back of her neck. Claver stood over her, his hands on his hips, clucking his tongue.

  My hand reached for my sidearm—but I realized it wasn’t there. I had no weapons on me. Winslade had marched me up here fresh from a revive. There was nothing but a wad of spacer-blues in my clenched fist.

  Claver looked at me speculatively. “You know, I was going to send you down in the next contest. Really, I was. But after that display of untrustworthy behavior the last time we met, I changed my mind.”

  “You don’t belong on this ship, Claver,” I said. “Much less in command of anything. I’d kill you where you stand if I was armed.”

  “Maybe—but you’re not armed!” Claver said, tsking and tapping his temple with his needler. “Keep your fingers away from your tapper, McGill.”

  I froze. I’d been reaching for my left forearm with my right hand, but Claver was too cagey to let me call security.

  “You see?” Claver said in a conversational tone, “this is all part of the problem. Your mind is flexible, and you do possess a certain degree of horse-sense… but really McGill, it’s just not good enough.”

  Confused by his talk, I was looking around the room for something to kill him with. Weapons came in a wide variety of forms. I’d found you could use almost anything to hurt a man if your heart was really in it.

  The door behind me opened then. Winslade popped in. He gave a little gasp when he saw Deech on the floor.

  “Contact security, Primus!” I shouted.

  “Instantly!” Winslade said, and he brought up his tapper.

  Instead of contacting anyone, he took a snap of me and of Deech lying on the floor.

  Claver released a nasty chuckle. “There’s a man capable of planning ahead,” he said. “I think in the end, you were right about this all along, Winslade. We can’t trust McGill. He’s just too much of a beast.”

  “Every man has his advantages and his limitations,” Winslade replied in the tone of a man quoting a proverb.

  That was it for me. I understood that Winslade was in on this conspiracy, and I didn’t like it. Claver’s insults had been rankling me all along, and I didn’t think Deech deserved this kind of treachery in any case. Say what you will about the woman, she normally played things straight.

  Winslade had gone and taken advantage of her, seducing her, playing the suck-up like only a master could. She’d bought into it so far she’d even tried to dress sexy for him. Turning on her now? That was just plain wrong.

  Two of my stiff fingers jabbed Winslade in the throat. He staggered back, gagging. I launched a hammer-blow with my left, which just caught his temple as he fell away from me.

  Claver laughed. He was close behind me.

  I whirled, but he had his needler in my face.

  “Perfectly played, boy! You’re like a puppet without strings. You got me back on the planet, I’ll admit that. A shameful moment. But now, you’ve finished this little Greek tragedy I’ve set up in the tribune’s office.”

  My fists flew again—but after all, I’m just muscle, sinew and bone.

  The needler sang, and I had a new dime-sized hole in my right cheekbone. Burning, losing control of my body, I slumped down on the deck.

  “You’re going to stay asleep for a while now, McGill,” Claver said with amusement. “You’re going to make an excellent alibi. Sweet dreams, dummy.”

  As I lost consciousness and died, my final thought concerned this particular grow of James McGill. He’d been a fine spec
imen. I couldn’t recall ever having achieved a revival score of ten. Not in any of my uncounted past lives.

  It was a damned shame.

  -42-

  As was often the case, I awoke with the same lingering thoughts I’d died with.

  “I was a ten,” I muttered.

  “What’s that? Did he talk?”

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  Two voices were speaking in hushed tones. They were both women, and they seemed familiar, but my brain wasn’t quite able to identify them yet.

  I was coming back to life. My eyes fluttered, but they didn’t want to open all the way.

  “Hack the console again,” the first one said.

  I recognized her now. That was Specialist Thompson—Evelyn.

  “It’s done. Be quick, every time we get into the data core it leaves a trace.”

  Floramel. The second voice had to be hers. But how could these two girls be working on my revival together? The last I’d heard, they hated one another.

  “McGill?” Evelyn hissed in my ear. “Are you ready to move yet? We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Summoning what little strength my fresh body had, I sucked in air, coughed it back out, then forced myself into a hunched sitting position.

  “What’s the rush?” I managed to slur.

  “Listen to me, James,” Floramel said.

  I could smell her natural, hot-sweet scent. She never wore perfumes, but she never seemed to stink, either. Not even to my new nostrils, which had never sniffed anything before.

  “What?” I managed.

  “This is an illegal grow. We got your data, we charged the machine with stale materials out of the tanks, and we revived you. But we’ve got to get out of here. The revival machine will log this usage.”

  “Help me up,” I said, without demanding any further explanations.

  The two women did as I asked, and I staggered off the gurney. They staggered with me, almost buckling under my thick arms. Neither one of them was a weight-lifter.

  With each step and each breath, I became more human. Stronger, more alert—and I found I was slowly growing pissed, too.

  Standing on my own at last, I nearly tore my jacket apart as I pulled it on over my slimy limbs. Why was it that liquids made you slip on the floor, but they made clothing stick to you like glue?