Tech World (Undying Mercenaries Series)

by B. V. Larson

  She had pinned her golden suns on her lapels by this time. Two suns—the rank insignia of an Imperator. I knew I should feel overawed and stand at attention—but I couldn’t muster that sort of reaction. I was tired, and she looked all wrong in the role of high-level brass. She looked more like she’d just graduated high school. Revivals like this one could be very confusing.

  Her eyes studied me thoughtfully. “I understand,” she said after a moment, sighing, “and I forgive you.”

  She turned back to her console, and I stepped forward cautiously. I understood that I’d been forgiven—but for what exactly, I wasn’t sure. It could have been for my lack of respect or simply for being caught staring at her butt. Then again, it could have been something else entirely. As a man who often needed forgiveness, I certainly wasn’t going to blow it this time.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said in a neutral voice.

  “You still haven’t given me your report.”

  Relieved, I did as she asked. I avoided looking at her by staring out into open space as I spoke. I found it was easier to convince myself I was talking to an Imperator if I didn’t actually have to look at her.

  I told her the ship was clear of invaders. But, as far as we could tell, Gelt Station was entirely in enemy hands. At least it wasn’t sinking into the atmosphere—not yet, anyway. Number-wise aboard Minotaur, we were nearly up to a full strength unit due to Centurion Thompson’s relentless efforts.

  “Pitiful,” she said when I’d finished.

  I didn’t argue. She was right. Two Earth legions had been essentially wiped out, and we were down to a handful of troops struggling to survive aboard Minotaur. We were cockroaches—hard to stamp out but, for the most part, harmless.

  “I screwed up, you know,” she said suddenly.

  I glanced at her which was a mistake. She looked sad. Was her lower lip trembling? I couldn’t believe it. This woman was normally made of steel! I could tell she had a better grip on her mind than she’d had when she’d first been revived, but she still wasn’t in the clear.

  “A bad death, that’s all it was,” I said, echoing the words of my commanders since I’d joined Varus. “We all have them, and we all have to learn to shake them off.”

  She sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. I thought she might cry or something, so I tried to stare down at the planet below. There was plenty to see. The impact of Minotaur’s broadsides hadn’t fully dissipated yet. There were storms and dust clouds spreading over a quarter of the planet. I could only imagine the number of deaths that had been caused by that single salvo Claver had launched.

  “Normally,” she said in a stronger voice, “your advice would be sound. But this occasion is very unusual. Have you looked at me, Specialist?”

  My eyes widened. For me, that wasn’t a safe question when I was around Turov. Never had been. Rather than replying, I bided my time. Sure enough, she started talking again and the awkward moment slipped away.

  “I’m—I’m a kid!” she said. “I was a fool.”

  A small fist hammered on the console.

  “Oh—that. Yeah, you’re looking a little on the young side, sir.”’

  “It will ruin me,” she said bitterly. “Don’t you see? Normally, when a Legionnaire dies it’s a shock. But you can get over that shock. People treat you the same way as they did in your previous incarnation—but how can that happen now? How am I to command, to climb higher, if I look like I should have a curfew every night?”

  I shrugged. “Look on the bright side, Imperator. You’ve got your youth back. Doesn’t everyone want to go back in time at some point?”

  “Yes, of course. That’s why I didn’t update. I got notices, you know. If you last long enough—more than five years or so—the bio people start to send you requests to update your body records. In some cases, they can compel you to do so. But not me. I had too much rank. I slipped by them and ignored their wisdom.”

  “Why’d you do it—if you don’t mind my asking, sir?”

  “Selfish reasons. Fantasies. Who doesn’t want to freeze their body at that perfect moment in their lives? I was vain. I wanted my youth back some day. I fantasized about it now and then.”

  I was kind of surprised she was confiding in me about all this but not too surprised. I’d found that people were often their most honest and philosophical after a solid death experience. Turov’s had been extreme. I figured she was correct, too. It would take years to regain the respect she’d once commanded. Those Hegemony pukes back on Earth could be vicious. They probably already disliked her—hell, I couldn’t blame them for that.

  But worse, Hegemony people rarely died. They weren’t like frontline legionnaires. At least people in Varus had some understanding and sympathy for the side effects of revivals. None of that would translate well back on Earth where Tribunes and Imperators had bellies that pushed against their desks and receding hairlines to match.

  “You’re getting it now, aren’t you?” she said, reading my expression.

  “Yes sir, I do see your problem. But it’s just a setback, that’s all.”

  She shook her head. “Combined with this disaster?” she asked, waving a hand toward the portal where the planet’s atmosphere still roiled. “I’ll be lucky if I’m a centurion a year from now.”

  I wondered if she could be right, but I didn’t say anything.

  “I can’t believe it, McGill,” she said. “You’re actually a good listener. Of all the hidden traits I might have suspected you of having—that must be one of the last.”

  “Uh…thanks.”

  “I’m not trying to insult you,” she said, putting out a hand to touch my arm.

  It was a natural gesture, but her touch felt like a shock to me. I wasn’t used to being gently touched by an officer. And especially not by one that resembled a cheerleader.

  She withdrew her hand, but I could feel her touch there afterward as if it was burning my skin.

  “What’s the plan, sir?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “We’ll build up. We’ll wait. The rebels have very little armament. The station is stable, so I think we have some time.”

  I frowned. “Time for what?”

  “To revive our legions and retake the station—what else?”

  I blinked but managed to nod. I’d been thinking more along the lines of flying home to Earth where we could revive all our people in a day. I almost suggested it—but held my tongue. I could tell she wasn’t in any mood for more suggestions from enlisted types today.

  The more I thought about it, the more I understood her line of reasoning. She couldn’t go back to Earth—not now. At this point she was a monumental loser, a close equivalent to the original Tribune Varus of Rome himself. He’d managed to lose the province of Germany and three legions all at once, barely beating Turov’s new record. In fact, maybe Earth would christen their next legion of misfits “Turov.”

  That thought brought a smile to my face. Unfortunately the Imperator noticed it quickly.

  “What’s funny?” she asked me.

  “Uh…nothing really. I was just thinking of the commissary.”

  “The what?” she asked, frowning.

  I was proud of my quick dodge. I’d been thinking of the commissary—but only at a very low level. The best misdirection contains an element of truth. After all, I was a little hungry.

  “Claver didn’t eject all the modules,” I explained. “That means there’s a commissary full of food and drink nearby. It also means there’s almost no one aboard to share it with.”

  “Drink…” she said, as if the thought had never occurred to her before. She opened a channel to Centurion Leeza. She ordered that a watch be posted here at the fire control center then she turned back to me. There was an odd look in her eyes.

  “Come with me, Specialist.”

  What could I do? It was a direct order from a high-ranking officer. I followed her down the passages until we came to the commissary in question. It was, in fact
, the officer’s pub that we stopped in. She took a seat and slapped the bar.

  “I need something strong,” she said. “What does a weaponeer drink when he wants to get drunk immediately?”

  I grimaced. “Sir, I’m not sure that’s a good—”

  She slammed her small hand down on the bar again. “Shut up, McGill. You talk all the time. I want you to play bartender.”

  Shrugging, I dug into the cabinets.

  “Wow, I’m impressed,” I said a moment later. “These Germanica friggers do like the good stuff.”

  I poured her a glassful of eighteen year old single malt scotch and left it on the bar between us. She looked at the brown liquid dubiously.

  “Can you at least give me an ice cube?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  I gave her three, and after she let them melt a bit, she took a swig. The results were comical, but she managed not to spit it out on the floor.

  “My taste buds,” she said, “they’re operating fully again now that I’m young. This stuff tastes like gasoline.”

  “Over six hundred Hegemony credits a bottle,” I said, pouring myself a glass and clinking it into hers. “That’s expensive gas.”

  Galina laughed and drank her drink. She drank too fast—and I let her. When a soldier has just finished a hard battle, they want a drink at that moment like no other point in their lifetime.

  I found some chips and peanuts under the bar that weren’t too stale. We ate them, but it was already too late to slow down the booze. We were getting drunk.

  “Galina,” I said, staring at her with glassy eyes.

  “What?” she asked, laughing.

  “Why did you send goons to my place back on Earth?”

  She rolled her eyes and looked a little embarrassed. “Oh—that. Can we talk about something else?”

  “Sure, as soon as you tell me the truth.”

  I figured this was going to be my one and only chance to get some honesty out of this woman. She was pretty loaded, and her defenses were down.

  She shook her head. “I did it because you posted that note telling people to vote against joining Hegemony.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” I said. “But was that the whole story? You sent them just for petty revenge?”

  “Noooo,” she said. “Not at all. I’m not that kind of person. I wanted to discredit you.”

  I chewed that one over fuzzily. I tried eating more peanuts, but I was still baffled. “I don’t understand. Arresting me was supposed to make people distrust my word?”

  She gave me a smile that was almost shy. “I know you, James,” she said. “I knew what you would do. You performed perfectly.”

  Frowning, I thought that one over. “You knew I’d kill those men?”

  “The odds were good you’d resist arrest. That makes you look guilty.”

  “I see,” I said, irritated. “It didn’t work. The vote went my way.”

  Galina nodded. “Yes. You won that one.”

  Her admission made it easier to forgive her—that, and the booze. We shared two more shots, and soon we were both laughing about it.

  What happened next was predictable but unplanned—at least, it wasn’t planned by me. I wasn’t so sure about Turov. She was a woman who got what she wanted any way she could.

  We ended up emptying the bottle and making love on top of a pool table. The balls had all been sucked down into the table, stowed for flight so they didn’t get in the way. The whole time we were doing it, I was thinking to myself something along the lines of this is crazy! You’re crazy, McGill!

  But it didn’t matter. We did it anyway, and we were just lucky no one came in and caught us.

  Afterward, I found myself stretched out on my back with her draped over me and snoring. I could feel her small tight breasts against my belly. I wondered if anyone was going to notice a large sweat-stain on their pool table in the morning. The thought made me chuckle, causing Imperator Turov’s cheek to bounce on my ribs.

  Not wanting to disturb her, I lightly wound my fingers in her hair. It felt silky and nice.

  I had the time to contemplate who’d taken advantage of whom. There were a number of mitigating factors to consider. First off, she was an officer while I was enlisted. Technically, that meant she was in the wrong.

  There were countless extenuating circumstances, however. I was a big guy who was physically older than she was. I’d plied her with strong drink which her young body had no resistance against—that was wrong even if she’d ordered me to do it.

  I decided in the end there was plenty of guilt to go around between the both of us. In my honest opinion, I figured even a council of Nairbs would’ve declared the situation to be a tie.

  -34-

  When I woke up, Galina was gone. Instead my eyes focused upon a very pissed-off looking Centurion Leeza.

  Her face loomed into mine. I’d thought before that she was too tall and had narrow eyes like a ferret, and her newfound rage hadn’t improved things. She was as sour and sneering as an officer could get.

  “Get off that table, Specialist!” she roared.

  I rolled off with a groan. An empty bottle went over the edge with me, making a splintery crash.

  “Varus trash!” she shouted. She made my legion’s name sound like an expletive. “This is just what you’re famous for. Disorder, slovenly behavior, drunkenness—”

  I didn’t really listen to the rest, but the list was a long one. I got to my feet. Behind the Centurion were several of her grinning noncoms. They were obviously enjoying the situation.

  “Sorry sir,” I said. “Tough battle. I’ll be going back to my unit now.”

  “Unit?” she scoffed. “What unit? You’re alone on this ship, Varus—except for that crazy bio and a few of her sidekicks. She revived my unit to full strength first.”

  I nodded, unsurprised. It was standard operating procedure after heavy losses to revive entire units together instead of spreading the service around. What good would it do to have a dozen solo centurions standing around? Better to have a cohesive force that knew one another and had trained together.

  “Can I be dismissed, sir?” I asked, tugging and patting my uniform into place until it started to grab and latch onto my shoulders.

  Smart clothing generally attempted to cover a person up, but if you pushed it away repeatedly, it was intelligent enough to give up and stop trying. Later, you had to coax it into covering your body fully again. That’s what I was attempting to do now.

  “No,” she said, putting one hip up on the corner of the pool table and swinging her leg like a cat lashing its tail. “I want you to tell me how a man like you—an obvious moron—managed to take out a shipload of invaders almost singlehandedly.”

  I smiled a fraction. “There was nothing ‘almost’ about it, sir. I fried them all.”

  “How?”

  “They’re not too bright, these rioters. They’re untrained and their brains are only operating on half-power anyway if you ask me. All I did was flank them and unload.”

  She nodded and heaved a sigh. “This is Germanica’s officers’ mess—you know that, right?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Why would you put me in this position? I owe you a great deal—without your aid both our legions might have been permed. Immediately after your heroic effort, you have to go and do something like this. Something that would get any of my men flogged. How am I supposed to handle this situation?”

  I knew she was telling the truth about the flogging. Just as they’d done so long ago back in Roman times, our legions still flogged men for things like breaking into the officers’ liquor. If a soldier was beaten so badly a coat of sprayed-on skin wouldn’t fix him, well hell, they could always run him through the revival machine again to freshen him up.

  “You could let me off with a warning this time, sir,” I suggested hopefully.

  Leeza shook her head and her troops chuckled. She tossed them an annoyed glance over her shoulder, and they quieted imm
ediately.

  “I will,” she said, “if you tell me why you broke in here in the first place.”

  We stared at one another for a full second after that. My head swam with words I couldn’t afford to let out of my mouth. I could have told her the truth—that a very youthful version of our Imperator had ordered me down here, fed me booze until we were both out of control, and then proceeded to strip me down on the pool table. But somehow, I knew that wasn’t the way to go.

  For a full second I didn’t know what the hell to say, but fortunately God has gifted me with a quick wit and a quick tongue—at least when I’m faced with the kind of dilemma where I need to come up with a good story or be flogged.

  “After the battle, I really needed a drink, Centurion,” I said. “As far as I knew, this was the only place on the ship I could get one.”

  Leeza heaved another sigh and nodded. “At least you’ve been honest. Everyone was wiped out aboard this ship, is that right? Everyone except for you and the Imperator? Then you began reviving bio people.”

  I nodded warily. Could this woman know the truth about Turov and me? Was she having a little fun right now? Was all this being recorded and posted on the Germanica legion laugh-boards even as we spoke?

  “Dismissed, Specialist,” Leeza said suddenly. “But don’t pull this crap again. I won’t stand for more petty crimes, not even from you.”

  I was halfway to the door by the time she finished her sentence. “Won’t happen again, Centurion,” I said over my shoulder, “and thank you, sir.”

  One of her veterans, who’d been looming behind her this whole time, flipped me off on the way out. I touched my hand to my brow and gave him a very informal salute in return. There never had been any love lost between our two legions.

  Not knowing where else to go—and not wanting to meet up with Galina again right now—I headed to the bio module.

  Blue deck was even busier and steamier than it had been the night before. The first thing I saw was a muzzle in my face when I entered. Germanica had posted guards. I thought it was a wise move.