I frowned, because I didn’t see anything like a slot. I flipped on my lights, then got all the way down on my knees and crawled under there.
Data slot, it said again.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
As it wasn’t voice-activated, it didn’t react to my query. I tapped at my arm. The test was run again, and the answer came back the same: data slot.
I opened my helmet and peered at it up close. The only thing it could be talking about was a rectangular section of metal in the surface of the machine under the control panel. Experimentally, I pushed my finger up to it and applied pressure.
The metal folded inward, and allowed my finger to push inside. I pulled it back, and it snapped shut.
“That’s got to be it,” I said aloud. “But how can I get anything out of it? I don’t have a data stick—certainly not one that will fit that slot. And I don’t—”
Growling in frustration, I realized I was talking to myself. Was that a sign of shock or insanity? A little of both, I suspected.
I got back to my feet and began disassembling the panel. If the data slot was there, it had to lead somewhere in the guts of this machine—quite literally, in the case of a revival unit.
I’d been trained on data systems of every variety in college. But we’d never been allowed to fool with alien tech. That was something most professionals rarely saw unless they worked for a very rich company or Hegemony itself.
Fortunately, our suits came with a small toolkit. I disassembled the outer housing and pulled the front panel right off.
I was immediately disgusted. My lips curled away from my teeth slowly and stayed there.
It was a hybrid. I could tell right away these “machines” didn’t come to Earth with a nice metal casing over them. Inside the box was a blob of flesh. It looked like a fatty ham, skinless and pink. Embedded in this wall of meat were numerous probes. These probes were connected with wires to the front panel.
I ripped them out by the handful. I was horrified to see the flesh shiver as I did this. Could it be alive? Could it feel what I was doing, somehow?
I tried not to think about it. I tried not to think about anything. I took the housing off completely and ripped it loose from every connection, ignoring the disturbing, shuddering reactions.
Finally, I had it off. It was big, about the size of a refrigerator door torn off its hinges. I put it on my back, but my right arm protested.
I thought of the air sled the saurian had been using earlier. I tried it, but it was dead. It looked undamaged, but possibly it wouldn’t work for a human. I cursed and gave it a kick.
It was time to do things the hard way. Cursing steadily, I took a strap from Carlos’ rifle, attached it to the panel and began to drag it behind me.
I looked at my watch. Adjunct Leeson had said he’d give us an hour, and I had eighteen minutes to go.
I began trotting with the panel sparking and banging behind me. If there were any other lizards around in these tunnels, they sure as hell weren’t going to have to work hard to track me.
-27-
In the end, I made it out of the tunnel with about four minutes to spare. We’d marched into that hole carefully, looking around every corner. On the way out, I’d been running for my life, despite my heavy, bumping burden..
When I came out of the tunnel mouth, they almost blew me away. There were six weaponeers and a full squad of light troops aiming at me. I must have looked like I had scales to these people because every finger was on a trigger, and they looked like they were sweating and itching to pull them.
“Friendly!” I shouted breathlessly. “Hold your fire! It’s me, Recruit McGill. No pursuit is inbound.”
Leeson himself stalked forward. I saw Veteran Harris behind him, waving down the upraised guns. The squadron let their muzzles drift down to aim at the steel floors disappointedly.
“I can’t believe I gave you clowns an hour,” Leeson said. “About one minute after you left, I regretted it. If you only—”
He broke off as I emerged and removed my helmet. He’d noticed the burden I was dragging behind me through the tunnels and now stared down at it with a heavy frown.
“What the hell is that, Recruit?” he demanded.
“That, sir, is the front panel of a revival unit. It will probably look more recognizable if I flip it over.”
I got down on my knees and strained. “Could you help, sir? I’m injured.”
“Are you shitting me? What did you do? You’ve damaged it—you’ve torn it apart. That’s a very expensive piece of equipment, McGill. Do you realize that?”
I looked up at him. “Sir, did you really think we were going to be able to go down there and haul back the entire system intact in one hour? That would have required a full squadron and a lifter.”
“I didn’t expect you to tear it apart!”
“Well, sir, this is the section of the machine that contains the data slot.”
“What are all those meat-thermometer-looking things dangling from it?”
“As far as I can determine, those couplings connect our human-tech computers with the organic alien components inside revival units.”
“That will be enough,” said a new, loud voice.
We both looked up. A stern, pissed-looking bio named Thompson stood with her hands on her hips. She was a centurion, which surprised me. Most bios weren’t officers.
“I’ll take that piece of scrap, Adjunct,” she told Leeson.
“Can you do anything with it?” he asked.
“I can remove it from your possession. Those are my orders. This mission you sent the recruit on was ill-advised, Adjunct. Authority levels have been superseded.”
Adjunct Leeson chewed his lower lip for a second. “Sir, I know the revival units are sacred cows for you bios, but we are talking about permed legionnaires, here.”
Centurion Thompson glared at him. “Please release the component into my custody immediately. I have an air sled with me.”
Leeson stepped out of the way and waved them forward. I watched as two orderlies helped her load the broken panel onto an air sled. I would have liked to have had one of those handy earlier today. It was too small to have carried the entire machine, but it would have helped a lot in getting this piece out of the tunnels.
The centurion threw a rattling plastic tarp over the scrap of metal when she had it loaded and then carefully pushed the air sled away. She refused all help from the grunts around her and only allowed her orderlies to touch the wreckage. She handled the air sled personally and attentively. She guided it away as if it was carrying an injured infant.
Leeson stared after her with an unpleasant expression. “Sanctimonious bios,” he growled. “They’re all like that, you know. More worried about their machines and their protocols than they are about the people they’re supposed to be caring for. They think they’re some kind of lab coat-wearing priesthood.”
I thought about Anne, and I had to disagree with him in her case. She was very caring, if a little touchy, and she seemed to want to break with her fellow bios to be a dedicated healer. But I didn’t see any reason to tell Leeson this. As long as he wasn’t yelling at me, there was no need to give him a fresh cause.
His distraction didn’t last long. He wheeled on me and regarded me with a growing frown.
“Where’s Sargon and that other irritant—what’s his name?”
“They didn’t make it, sir. But I have the vids to prove they’re both dead. We can revive them immediately on Corvus.”
“Right, sure. They get a nice vacation, eh? While they leave us down here in the shit?”
“That’s a painful way to get a vacation, sir,” I said.
He tossed me an acid glance and then waved to the weaponeers. “All right, people. You’re finally going to get to use those toys of yours. Light this tunnel up and melt it to slag. I want no more lizards coming through from that direction ever again.”
We left the chamber, and they began beaming. Th
e chamber became white-hot and I, for one, wasn’t unhappy to see it destroyed.
Veteran Harris approached me when we were on the steps going up to the main building.
“You’ve been missing the party, McGill,” he said.
“I’ve been having one of my own underground, Veteran.”
He chuckled. “So I heard, so I heard. Did you really volunteer for that?”
“Yes, Veteran.”
“Crazy mother,” he muttered. He hesitated for a second before continuing. “Why don’t you go to the infirmary and get that arm patched up?”
I stopped climbing the stairs and looked at him to see if he was serious. I could tell by his eyes that he was. With a major attack inbound, I’d thought for sure he was going to have me man the walls until I dropped.
“Thank you, Veteran.”
“Never thank me for anything, Recruit. That isn’t good for morale.”
“Why not?”
“Because when or if I have to gut you later, we’ll both feel bad.”
I nodded but didn’t entirely understand his meaning. Now that training was over, when was he going to have to kill me?
“I’ll be going,” I said.
I left and sensed him watching me as I walked away. I didn’t bother to look back and check, though. I was tired and needed to get my arm fixed.
Legion medical was pretty good. We had more fancy gadgets than just the revival units. Often, troops were injured but not killed and needed repairs—that’s what they called the process: repairs. You didn’t heal the sick in Legion Varus. You repaired a broken soldier. We were like cars or robots. I guess, in a way, it was an accurate definition. Since they could stamp out new replacement troops, were we really all that different from any other piece of equipment?
I shook my head. It was best to leave thoughts like that in storage rather than letting them carom around in your mind and possibly bounce out of your mouth later on. They were damaging, difficult ideas—what officers in Legion Varus called “bad thoughts”.
Outside, it was eerily quiet. People spoke in whispers as if they thought making noise would attract the enemy. Apparently, the lizards had yet to make their attack. They’d pounded out a few holes in the walls and scorched much of the roof, but they hadn’t charged in yet. I wondered what they were waiting around for.
I crossed the compound to a small, squatty building. I could tell the legionaries had been busy. They’d domed many of the structures with a quick layer of puff-crete to reinforce them.
Medical was inside one of these igloo-like buildings. I went inside and felt a cool blast of air wash over my face as I removed my helmet. A bio met me and ran a critical eye over me.
“You don’t look good,” he said.
I showed him my shoulder.
“Shrapnel?”
I shook my head. “Bullets. Snap-rifle slivers, to be exact.”
He gave me an odd look. “This isn’t blue-on-blue, is it?”
“No, Specialist. The lizards have them too.”
He nodded and made a note on his tapper. “Good. Loads more screens to fill out if its friendly fire. Let’s get you onto a gurney.”
I let myself flop onto a floating surface as soon as it was brought near enough. It was really an air sled with a pad on it and a white sheet over that. It wasn’t overly comfortable, but right now it felt good.
They scooted me into a back room and left. I sighed and peeled my uniform away from my injuries. They didn’t look good. At the very least, they were infected. The skin was an angry red all around the puncture wounds. I wondered if the lizards had dirtied up their bullets on purpose, or if it was just the natural microbes of Steel World that were eating my flesh and poisoning my blood.
The wait went on for several minutes. I reflected that every medical establishment I’d ever been in seemed to automatically place you in a room and forget about you for a while. At least the air was cool and dry in here. I tried to focus on that and enjoy it, letting my suit open at every vent point to allow my sweat to dry.
Finally, another bio entered. Her nose wrinkled in disgust immediately. I guessed I wasn’t the freshest-smelling recruit she’d ever met.
She didn’t say anything to me. Two orderlies came in behind her and stood with arms crossed. They were muscular guys, and their cold stares had me worried. Was this going to hurt more than I thought it was? They had the look of men who were thinking about how to hold me down.
The bio looked up again, and for the first time I saw her rank insignia: she was a centurion. I finally recognized her. She was Centurion Thompson, the same woman who I’d met when I came out of the saurian tunnel. I sat up on my elbows, wincing in pain as I did so.
“Sir?” I called out to her.
“What is it, Recruit?”
“Did you get the revival data out of that unit?” I asked. “The one I hauled out of the tunnels?”
She gave me a sidelong glance. “It’s best you don’t ask about that.”
“Why not?”
“Why not, ‘Centurion Thompson’,” she corrected.
“Sorry, sir. Why not, Centurion Thompson?”
She sucked in a breath and let it out. “You’re forcing my hand. Don’t they teach recruits how to keep to their own tech?”
I stared at her, unsure how to answer that one.
Thompson waved forward the two orderlies. I didn’t like the look in their eyes. Hard hands gripped my arms, one man on each arm. I thought about kicking them, but I’d been surprised.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.
They had restraints out now. I hadn’t seen them before. I guess these guys were good at hiding them.
Alarmed, I struggled. I managed to get a knee into one man’s gut, but he didn’t let go. They were strong, and I was injured.
I saw the bio readying a needle.
“This is bullshit, Centurion,” I shouted. “My commander will hear about this!”
“No he won’t,” she said in the sweet voice her kind used on screaming children who didn’t want their shots. “Now listen, James, it’s best for everyone if you calm down. There’s no need to make this unpleasant.”
My hands were lashed together and my ankles too. I was tied to the same air sled gurney I’d been enjoying a minute before.
I looked across the room to the regrowth equipment. They had a flesh-printer right there. All she had to do was pull the metal out of me, shoot in some antibiotics and run the printer over my wounds. They would spray out fresh cells, and the wound would seal over almost immediately. What was the delay?
“Do you really think all this is necessary to pull a few slivers out of my shoulder?” I asked her.
“All your injuries will be taken care of,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
I had no idea what she was up to, but she waved away the orderlies. She held her syringe up, and a single droplet of amber liquid ran down the needle.
The orderlies left, and Thompson and I were alone. I glared at her while she gave me a reassuring smile in return.
“I’m going to ask you some questions before I inject you with this,” she said in a very professional-sounding voice.
“What is it?”
“Nothing important.”
I eyed the needle, then her face. Her eyes were fixed upon mine. She was still smiling.
“Ask,” I said.
“Have you ever been revived illegally?”
I hesitated and immediately cursed myself for that. So that’s what this was about. I should have suspected I couldn’t stay below the radar forever. Even if the Galactics were in the dark about it, not everyone else would be.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, trying to be as convincing as possible. “I’ve been killed multiple times if that’s what you’re asking: In combat and in training.”
“Negative,” she said, examining her tapper. “You never died in training. You were killed in combat twice, and you were revived twice.
There is one other entry, however: Treatment for toxemia. The toxins found were quite unusual. That sort of treatment isn’t given without us knowing about it, James. Healthy people only get these blood-gas numbers from being revived with bad materials. If it had happened on the battlefield, they would have done a regrow immediately.”
“Are you going to do your job and fix my arm, or what?”
She smiled calmly. “Yes, of course. But not in the manner you’re expecting. In answer to your other, earlier question: yes, we did get the data from the components you salvaged. And yes, most of the people stored there were revived.”
I was glad to hear the people I’d meant to save had survived. Graves, Natasha, Kivi—all of them. But right now, I had other concerns. I had no idea what this crazy centurion was up to, but it didn’t look good.
Clearly, the bios knew something was up, and they wanted to know what it was. I couldn’t tell them I’d been executed and illegally revived. That wasn’t going to help anyone. Specialist Grant and I would both be in trouble then. I couldn’t do that to her after she’d taken big chances to save me.
“Centurion,” I said, “you seem quite upset about something. I hope it’s nothing I’ve done.”
Thompson laughed. “I’m not upset at all, James.”
“So that’s why you’re going to murder me?”
“This isn’t murder, Recruit! Think about it as the correction of an unfortunate error. You’re not supposed to be dismantling our revival units. You’re also operating on a bad grow—another error. Lastly, you aren’t being truthful with me. I’m going to correct all these problems by recycling you now. This injection will solve further problems. Mentally, you’ll be taken back in time. You won’t remember anything about our equipment. Really, you should be thanking me. You’ll be back on Corvus in no time.”
I was breathing hard. Part of me could see what she was saying—but I didn’t want to die. Every instinct in my body fought against it.
“Don’t you people take an oath to protect life and heal the sick?” I asked. “What kind of a loser were you in school?”
Steel World Page 27
