by B. V. Larson
I tapped a message to my folks letting them know I was fine, and that I’d been ordered to deploy. I grimaced when I sent that one. I’d said nothing about being killed, and that seemed like a pretty big omission even to me. My parents would figure I was in some kind of trouble and bullshitting about being deployed. The sad thing was they might be right.
We were going off-world. We were being mustered and deployed all at once, pronto. That wasn’t the usual way these things happened. Normally, unless there was some kind of emergency, legionnaires were given a summons with a few weeks to comply. Once we made it to the Mustering Hall we were generally briefed, sometimes tested or trained, and only then sent into space. This time the process had been accelerated. I felt like we were moving much too fast.
Suddenly, Natasha pulled over. “You drive,” she said. “I want to work my tapper.”
I realized that fine brain of hers had been quietly churning. I switched places with her, and I was happy to be driving through downtown traffic. It gave me something to do besides think about Turov and her plans.
Natasha worked her tapper like a demon. Tech specialists were given better tapper units than the rest of us grunts—way better than civilians could buy. In addition to her tapper, she had various auxiliary devices in her kit to enhance her abilities. Fortunately, she’d brought them all in her car like a good legionnaire. Staying prepared was standard procedure for active duty personnel. We were supposed to carry around our basic kits. But in my case, as a weaponeer who specialized in big guns, I hadn’t been allowed to take anything dirt-side other than my uniform.
She worked in relative silence. As an ex-hacker I knew she needed to focus if she was going to dig up anything that we didn’t already know.
“The vote—I think this is all about the vote,” she said a few minutes later.
“Yeah?” I asked. “Why would Turov care so much about the damned vote? She and that little ass-kisser Winslade spent the last hour telling me that it doesn’t matter. We’re all going to end up in Hegemony according to them, no matter what.”
“Here’s what I have from our official orders,” Natasha said. Her voice had changed and become officious. She liked to line up her ducks before she knocked them down. “Tribune Drusus has ordered us all to muster out tonight and catch any transport we can to space. We’ll gather aboard Minotaur tonight. Anyone who takes more than twenty-four hours to reach the ship will be left behind and disciplined.”
We’d lost our old transport, Corvus, at Dust World. The legion had since arranged for a new ship named Minotaur to transport us. I hadn’t gotten to see it yet, but it was rumored to be an improvement.
“Anyone who can’t make it up in twenty-four is going to be flogged, eh?” I said. “ Harsh. I know some guys are out climbing mountains and such-like.”
Discipline generally didn’t take the form of an actual flogging, but that technically could happen in the legions.
“I know,” Natasha said. “We’re going to leave some people behind, and they’re on the forums screaming because they already know their screwed. But anyway, the interesting stuff on the boards and chat lines concerns tonight’s vote. There’s a new posting since your recommendation that they vote NO, and there are a ton of views on each side.”
“A new posting? What’s that about?”
Natasha tapped at it, and then hissed between her teeth. “I’m not going to show you this because you’re driving—but there are pictures, James. Pictures attached to your name.”
I huffed. “Pictures? What, did my latest gallery of selfies get out?”
“No. They’re pictures of the men you killed.”
That changed my grin into a frown. “Read the damned post.”
“You sure?”
“Read it, girl.”
She took in a breath and began reading. “‘James McGill, Weapons Specialist, 3rd Unit. Three Hegemony MPs were dispatched to arrest Specialist McGill in the early morning hours today. He was found in a rundown shack in the countryside of Georgia District, North America Sector. Reportedly, he was met at the door armed with a large cutting instrument of some kind. Going berserk, McGill killed the three arresting officers but died in the process. The investigation is pending, and no reason was given for the arrest order. Drugs or other illicit behavior was hinted at by the officer who reported the incident.’”
As she read this aloud, I found myself hunkering over the steering wheel and gripping it more tightly with every word she spoke.
“That is one hundred percent horseshit,” I told her. “Let me guess who released that message. Winslade, right?”
“Anon signature. But it does rank him as an Adjunct.”
“Right, of course,” I said. “I should have snapped his skinny arm when I had the chance—”
“James,” Natasha said, putting a hand on me. “You need to calm down. I know how you feel, but this mess isn’t the kind you can punch your way out of.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, right—but he’s such a little rat-bastard.”
“I know. Let’s try to think. I’m piecing this together now. Turov got herself promoted—”
“Sure, by taking credit for negotiating Earth’s new role in the Empire. She was there, but she was trying to stop us, not help!”
“I know, I know,” Natasha said soothingly. “But now we need to figure out what she’s going to do next. She got herself bumped up a rank and put into Hegemony. Now, she’s trying to fold Legion Varus into Hegemony with her. Maybe that was her promise to the brass in turn for her new rank. Maybe she said she could use her influence to get us to join up willingly.”
“I don’t care why she’s doing it. I want her to fail—now more than ever. Are there any polls on the vote?”
“Nothing official. But it’s pretty obvious she didn’t like your open statement to the Legion to vote no. She wouldn’t be working so hard to discredit you if she thought the vote was going the right way.”
It was dark when we reached the spaceport. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously as we pulled into the parking lot. Was this place even safe? I had to think like a conniving officer to anticipate what might be coming at me next.
We climbed out of the car, and Natasha swiped the “go home” command on her tapper. The car would carefully drive itself to her place hundreds of miles north. These days most cars could drive themselves on automatic, but riding that way made for slow, boring trips. I preferred to steer myself.
We walked toward the dark hulk of the waiting lifter which loomed nearly a mile ahead. I found myself looking around the spaceport as if I expected a gunman to show up and open fire on us. That’s what it felt like—as if Earth wasn’t neutral ground anymore. Even Atlanta felt like hostile territory. I told myself I was paranoid and tried to shake off the feeling.
A buzzing sound made me turn and look. There was a vehicle coming toward us from the entrance. It was moving fast—too fast.
I reached for my sidearm, but of course it wasn’t there. Legionnaires didn’t usually get to take their weaponry off-base. It was alien-made and too valuable. In most Districts, even a snap-rifle was illegal for citizens to own.
I gave Natasha a shove, spinning her around and out of the way. I stepped in the opposite direction. I figured that the driver of this small one-man machine might nail one of us, but there was no reason to let him run us both down at once.
“What—?” asked Natasha, who’d been tapping at her arm and not paying attention. Then she spotted the speeding vehicle and quickly stepped away in the direction I’d pushed her.
It was getting dark now, and the only thing I could tell about the driver was that he was short and reckless. He aimed his odd machine in my direction. He seemed to be slowing down, but not enough. At the last second he locked on his brakes and the vehicle went into a slide. He ended up lying it down and sliding past me as I danced to one side. Sparks came up from the fenders of the large single wheel that looped around the entire machine.
I reached ou
t a long arm as he passed and gripped the visor of his helmet. It came off with a snap and his head jerked and flopped.
With the help of the nearby floodlights of the lifter I recognized the face. The strange vehicle came to a stop and when he climbed to his feet, I threw his helmet at him. He caught it, staggering and cursing.
“You about tore my head off!” Carlos complained. “You’re an angry, violent man, McGill. The net doesn’t lie about that!”
Carlos was a swarthy fellow built like a fireplug. He had thick limbs and a mess of dark curly hair. He was from Chicago and had plenty of attitude to prove it.
I wanted to shoot him right then, so it was probably a good thing I didn’t have a weapon on me. I calmed myself with an effort of will and stepped closer to inspect his odd vehicle.
“What the hell is this thing, Ortiz?” I demanded. “And why were you trying to kill me with it?”
“It’s a one-seat air-cycle,” he said. “They’re new, just out from Rigel. Fun to drive and humanoid-safe! Guaranteed!”
“Not moron-safe, unfortunately,” said Natasha as she came close to glare at him.
Carlos looked from one of us to the other and threw up his hands. “What? Aren’t you guys glad to see me? I got the mustering order while I was sitting on a beach in Florida. This is the closest District spaceport, so I came up as fast as I could. And baby, this thing goes fast.”
“That’s great,” I said. “What are you going to do with it aboard a lifter? You can’t just leave it out here on the ground. Not if you ever want to see it again.”
Carlos grinned hugely. “That’s where you’re wrong. I can take it aboard the lifter.”
He walked over and tapped at the controls. I could see there were colorful nodules displaying three-dimensional symbols rather than a screen. Lots of equipment that came from the Rigel area was built like that. We couldn’t understand their natural language, but you could get used to their symbolic geometry-based sticks and buttons if you worked at it.
To our surprise, the cycle began to contract. It folded and twisted into itself. Like a deflating balloon, it kept shrinking. The single large tire that looped around the vehicle went limp and shriveled to nothing. The central motor became a bumpy cube of metal. The seat he’d been riding in folded away as if it had been so much paper.
Within a minute, the entire thing was down to shivering mass about the size of an orange crate. Carlos picked it up, tugged at the sides and they pulled up to form a carrying bag, complete with a shoulder strap. He heaved it onto his back and grinned at us.
“Pretty neat, huh?”
“Yes,” I nodded, laughing. “That is pretty cool. Let’s go up the ramp.”
Together, we marched up into the gloomy interior of the lifter.
The lifter wasn’t crowded. In fact, it was almost empty. That was strange all by itself. Burning fuel to boost less than a hundred passengers into orbit wasn’t efficient, but the crew did it anyway without even announcing the lift-off was coming.
Only the warning tones and a few recorded messages warned us that heavy G-forces were imminent. Natasha, Carlos and I all strapped in, pulling down the safety bar over our heads and slapping the chest harness buckle into place.
“This is way too familiar,” Carlos said.
When I didn’t react right away, he had to emphasize his point. “You remember the first time, McGill? When we went up in one of these deathtraps and, in fact, died?”
“Yeah, I remember,” I said. “Except I didn’t die. Not that time.”
“You expecting some kind of thank-you rubdown? ‘Cause you’re not getting it. Not this time. I repaid that debt.”
“Shut up, Carlos,” Natasha said.
He grumbled, but he did shut up—for a few minutes. Once we broke into orbit and the powerful weight of acceleration left our bodies, he perked up again.
“I got that message last night, big guy,” he said. “A little love note just after midnight. The Primus must have been thrilled.”
I looked at him. “What do you know about it? Why would she care so much?”
“Are you kidding me? She’s Hegemony now. She figures Varus is just an embarrassment—a stepping stone from her past. She’d rather not have us do anything else dramatic now that she’s out of our outfit. She has plans, baby. All the way to the top, and she doesn’t care who she has to blow to get there.”
Carlos had never been a tactful guy, but in this case, I figured he was dead-on target. “You think that’s it? She’s out of Varus, so if we screw up she’ll get the blame?”
“Yeah, something like that. If we get sucked up into Hegemony, it’s some other guy’s fault if old McGill goes hillbilly on the Nairbs again.”
I nodded slowly. “What do you know about this deployment?”
“Sudden and unwanted. I’d prefer to be back on Miami beach. This is total, sugar-spiked bullshit.”
“Yes,” Natasha exclaimed suddenly.
We glanced over at her. She was working her tapper as usual. She had a cable running from her arm into her pack which was sitting in the seat next to her strapped in like a toddler.
“What do you have?”
“I’m linking up!” she declared, eyes shining. “I can do it.”
“Yeah, so?” Carlos asked.
“That means we can still vote,” she said.
We looked at her for a second. Finally, I caught on. “You mean because we’re up in space, our vote wouldn’t count?”
“I say we do it right now,” she said. “All three of us. If we don’t, we could get disconnected again. I’m running on a thin tunneling-hack right now to get a stream off this ship and down to central.”
“Could that be it?” I asked aloud. “Could she have called this emergency deployment just to scramble the vote? Once we’re up here, we’re out of range.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Carlos said doubtfully. “But that seems extreme.”
I was tapping at my tapper. I fired off a message to every marine on the lifter. Carlos got it right away, and he read it aloud. “You’ve all been tricked. Vote now, vote fast, or you’ll be silent hogs forever.” Carlos looked at me. “Dude, you don’t know that. You shouldn’t spread rumors.”
“It’s already done,” I said. “Are they voting, Natasha?”
She worked, tapping quietly with a fixed frown on her face. She nodded after a while. “About half of them have logged in to the voting page. I’m going to have to fight to keep this tunnel open until they finish. Don’t bug me.”
“Excuse me? Is there a stewardess on this flight?” Carlos asked no one loudly. “I need to move to another seat before McGill makes me dead again!”
I smiled at him. “Too late,” I said. “Stop fooling around and vote to keep Varus independent.”
“What if I vote for unity, for strength—to join the pride and glory that’s known to us lowly rodents as Hegemony?”
I gave him an evil look. “If we lose, I’m going to ask that you and I serve together in a new unit under Winslade, damn you.”
“Okay, okay.”
-5-
When we reached Minotaur and docked, Natasha quickly repeated her hack. For a brief time, everyone aboard was able to navigate on their tappers to Earth and log into Central. I walked the promenades over the exercise deck spreading the word. It was time to vote—now or never.
I needn’t have bothered because the news spread like wildfire. They didn’t like the implications of the situation, and as far as I could tell there were a lot of angry votes shunting down the line to Earth. No one liked the idea that they’d been railroaded into not voting by being mustered off Earth on the eve of the vote.
“The loyalists are whipping the quitters five to one, I bet,” Carlos said.
“I thought you were a quitter,” I answered.
He looked at me in mock outrage. “That was just my charming sense of humor. I don’t want to be a hog any more than you do.”
I smiled at him, but inwardly I worried abou
t what Turov had said. She’d indicated that it didn’t really matter how we voted. It was only a method to identify dissenters. I hoped she’d been bluffing about that.
Outwardly, I clapped people on the shoulders and told them they were doing the right thing. I wondered about myself as I did so. Was I really into winning this vote? How much did it matter to me that we stayed independent? Sure, the dirt-side hogs were losers, but at least they didn’t have to look forward to getting their guts chewed on by aliens once or twice a year.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, James,” Natasha said later, echoing my sentiments. She’d been eyeing me. I recognized the look. She knew me too well, and she knew when I was in over my head and bullshitting. This was definitely one of those times.
I took a moment to remind myself that Turov deserved to lose this vote even if it was only an embarrassment for her. She’d overstepped her authority, and right now she was coming off as petty despite her promotion. Defying her just for spite was a worthwhile cause in my mind.
“I joined this legion to see the stars,” I told Natasha. “And I mean to keep doing just that. I don’t want to be gelded and left in an office someplace.”
She laughed. “Don’t worry. I have a feeling no one in any office could put up with you for more than an hour.”
I took her statement as a compliment, thanked her, and moved off to tour the ship. Minotaur really was an improvement over Corvus. Word was it had been shipped out from the Perseus spiral arm systems, from its old base about two hundred lightyears closer to the Core.
Whether this rumor was true or not, I liked the ship. It wasn’t just a transport, it was a hulking warship. Minotaur had a broadside of guns, sixteen of them, strung down the starboard length of her thick, scarred hull. That meant this ship could fight if she had to. Corvus had been very lightly armed and built only to take a legion of humanoids to battle.
I managed to get to my bunk just before midnight. Over the last hour, every trooper I’d met had already voted. At the end they were telling me that they couldn’t get through to Central anymore, and I assured them that that was normal—even though I had no idea why the connection had been broken.
