by B. V. Larson
“Not at all, sir. But I’ve done it before and we haven’t got anyone else.”
I turned to go, but she called me back.
“James?”
“Imperator?”
She reached out a small, smooth hand and squeezed my arm. “Thank you. I’m going to formally drop the charges against you.”
“Uh…that would be appreciated, sir.”
I rushed out, knowing that the revival unit was probably spitting out its next victim any minute. I gave my head a little shake as I trotted down echoing passages.
The look in her eyes—she’d been thinking about kissing me. Call me a fool, call me crazy, but I’d seen that look before. Plenty of times.
Reaching the revival unit, I was in for a new shock. There had already been a birth, a male who’d fallen out of the maw and turned blue on the floor.
I scramble forward and tried to bring him back—but I’m not a bio. I’m a front-line fighter. I failed.
Cursing and breathing through clenched teeth, I carried the body over to the chute. I knew I should recycle him—but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t even know the man’s name. Here he was, dead in my arms, and I’d caused it because I hadn’t been here when he’d needed my help.
I felt pain in my chest, a pang of guilt. To steel my resolve, I reminded myself that millions had died today and the dying wasn’t over with yet.
I let the body slump on the floor, pushing it out of the way with the toe of my boot. There was just too much crap going on today, and I refused to shove him into a wood-chipper. I’d heard the recycle machine buzz in the past, doing its grizzly work, and I just couldn’t take that right now. I was on my last nerve.
“This shitty job isn’t my shitty job,” I said aloud to nobody. I walked to the console, determined. I flipped through the touchscreen interface, scrolling through to the bio specialists. To hell with letting this machine decide who popped out next, I was going to make the choice.
So many dead! I could scarcely believe it. Never in all my years with Varus had there been such a disaster. I knew that there were two legions worth of names on that list, and that was too grim to contemplate. Just reviving them all would take weeks.
Flipping through the names of various bio people, I automatically selected Legion Varus troops over Germanica. Germanica had given me the gift of Old Silver, so screw them. I figured they could wait their turn in a very long line.
There was a name that stood out to me, one which made me pause immediately. Anne Grant.
I almost selected her name, but stopped. She would hate me for this. Thousands of revives? Work without rest for long days? Why do that to her? I decided to let the poor girl rest.
I kept scrolling with a new goal in mind. I found another name, one I hadn’t had the pleasure of dealing with for a long time. Centurion Thompson.
Long ago, back on my first campaign on Steel World, she and I had not gotten along. She was a bio and an officer. She’d done everything she could to perm me, and I’d hung on to life despite her best efforts. Smiling, I tapped her name and confirmed.
Who deserved to be set up as a slave to this machine other than my least-favorite high-ranking bio? I couldn’t think of a better candidate.
Then I charged the tanks and rushed back to find Galina—I mean, the Imperator. She was still standing on the deck of the fire control room. The view out of the front portals had changed. No longer were we staring down at the planet. Instead, we had turned and were gazing at the station.
The massive structure looked like it was operating normally, but then I saw escaping gas near the bottom. It looked like a jet of steam flowing out into space.
“What’s that?” I asked her.
Turov stared without turning around. “At first, I thought the lower tip of the station was touching the atmosphere. But I don’t think that’s the case. She’s venting. Overheating. Now that she’s drifting, she’s getting too much sun.”
“I assume you got into contact with the Skrull?”
“Yes. They’ve been monitoring the station, but not ‘interfering’—as they put it. How could a spacefaring crew watch such an ongoing disaster so callously, silently waiting for millions to die without bothering to lift a finger?”
I didn’t answer her. We both knew the truth. The Empire made such insane levels of caution a necessity for all frontier civilizations. We had to work the harsh calculus every day. Breaking a Galactic Law, no matter how good the cause, could result in disaster for one’s entire species. It was the kind of situation that revealed the worst side of the Empire.
“I’m reviving a bio now,” I told her. “And I’ve got an idea. I recall Claver saying he’d ejected several modules—modules full of Germanica’s troops.”
She turned to me. “Yes. The Skrull reported that. What a psychopath. To commit his own people to such a death—”
“Right,” I said. “But what if their orbits haven’t decayed yet? Maybe we could retrieve a module or two and save them.”
She brightened. “Excellent thinking, Specialist.” She contacted the Skrull and soon the ship swung around in space. We were skimming over the clouds, and a tiny, box-like object grew in perspective.
Turov looked at her tapper, listening to the Skrull at the same time.
“Just one left,” she said to me. “The others—it’s too late. Their orbits decayed almost immediately.”
Just one module. A hundred Germanica legionnaires. I hated to be choosy at a moment like this, but I really hoped the troops aboard this one didn’t recognize me. They might tell Turov a different story about my interactions with Claver. I hadn’t been one hundred percent forthcoming about my involvement with him.
“Gotta go check the revival machine again—if you don’t mind, sir.”
“Of course. Go.”
Trotting down the passages again, I made it back to the machine before the maw opened this time. Curling my lips and wrinkling my nose, I endured a shower of fluids when the maw finally sagged open.
The body of a woman slipped out. She was thin and had a pinched face, but she came out kicking. She coughed and panted. There was a wild look in her eye.
“You’re all right,” I told her, helping her onto a table.
“Get off me,” she managed to say, slapping at my hands weakly.
I smiled. This one wouldn’t need a defib or some other procedure I was even more hazy on. She was in fighting shape fresh out of the oven.
“Centurion Thompson,” I said. “I hereby declare you a good grow.”
She looked around, dazed but ornery. “What’s this? James McGill? What the hell are you doing in a revival room? Where are the bio people?”
“I’m it, sir,” I said. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, looking around with squinting eyes. “This isn’t even the right module. Are we on the station?”
“No sir,” I said. “We’re on Minotaur. We’ve lost contact with the station. We fear the legion—they might have wiped.”
Her gaze became distant, unfocussed. I knew that look. She was reliving the circumstances of her death.
“I remember now. I thought it must have been a dream. They flooded right in coming out of underground tunnels and air shafts. While we struggled with them, more surged down the streets and right into the front door. I watched the monitors. The troops killed thousands upon thousands—but they kept coming.”
“It’s best not to think about that too much right now,” I said. “Just think of it as a dream.”
Her eyes came back to me, but they looked through me. She was still seeing that other place, that other time.
“They crawled up the walls,” she said. “They ripped men apart barehanded. I was working on blue deck—they came in and killed us all in the end. They had guns—our guns. They were stripping the dead as they came, and we couldn’t stop them. McGill you have to—”
Her voice had been rising and her eyes widening. Her breathing had increased to a
hyperventilating pant.
I slapped her lightly on the cheek. She recoiled and snarled at me. “I’ll have you up on charges!”
“Sir,” I said in a reasonable tone. “You’re going into memory-shock.”
“I wasn’t,” she snapped. “I’m fine. Get me some clothes.”
I did as she asked, and she climbed down to the floor while toweling herself off. About one second later, she hit the deck with her butt. I grabbed her elbow, but wasn’t fast enough.
“You let me fall,” she said blearily.
Frowning, I flashed a meter into her eyes. The dilation was on the high side, but the machine didn’t register any brain damage.
“How long has it been since you’ve been revived, Centurion Thompson?” I asked her.
“I—I don’t know. Years.”
Nodding, I helped her to her feet. “Try to pull it together, sir. You’re just experiencing what every trooper feels when they come back to life after a bad death. It’s all normal to us. Routine. Shake it off, sir.”
She tried. I almost felt sorry for her despite our bad past. She put her elbows on the table and slumped over it.
“Can you get me some water?” she asked.
I did as she asked and tapped at the revival machine. Time was wasting. I selected a senior bio off the list. A noncom Centurion Thompson was sure to know and be able to work with. She was going to need an assistant.
“I’d forgotten,” she said, sipping her water. “I’d forgotten how much this sucks. You asked me how long it had been since I’d been revived.”
“Yes sir, I did.”
She turned and looked at me. Her teeth were bared and her finger was up in an accusatory gesture.
“Have you forgotten? It was you. The last time I was revived, it was after you murdered me.”
I felt a little jolt of embarrassment. That had been years ago. I hadn’t figured—I did the best to hide my dismay and shrugged.
“Water under the bridge, sir. That unhappy misunderstanding is all in the past now.”
“Maybe for you it is,” she said. “Why the hell did you pick me to revive, anyway?”
“I wanted the best, sir. I’m a heavy infantryman who takes lives wholesale rather than saving them. I’m not qualified to operate this system, and I wanted someone I knew could do the job.”
Thompson blinked at me. “But I haven’t done grunt work in one of these chambers—never mind…” She seemed to get a grip on herself then. Often, people were like sobering drunks or sleepwalkers during their first moments in a new body. But she was pulling it together rapidly, I could see that.
She stood straight and squared her shoulders. She was dressed now, and except for the fact her hair was wet and sticky, she looked almost normal.
“All right, Specialist,” she said. “I must thank you for your confidence in me. I won’t let Legion Varus down. Now, if you don’t mind getting the hell out of my chambers, I’ve got work to do.”
I gave her a small tight smile and left. Out in the hallway, I allowed my expression to spread and widen. I grinned to myself, certain that there was one officer on this ship who was going to earn her pay today.
“McGill?” a voice squawked in my earpiece. It was Turov, but her voice was higher pitched than it had been days ago, so I almost didn’t recognize her.
“Go ahead, Imperator.”
“Get down to the hangar. Move everything you can out of the way. The module is coming in hot.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand, sir.”
“I’m telling you this isn’t going to be a picture-perfect docking, Specialist. The module is tumbling, and we don’t have time to make this pretty. We’re going to suck it into the hangar and hope someone survives.”
“Sir, I can’t recommend this course of action,” I said as I began hustling down the tubes and passages toward the hangar. “Maybe we should just let the module burn up and revive the troops when we can.”
“I’d do that,” she said, “but we need every gun we can get.” Her voice shifted again, sounding less professional. “There are ships coming toward us from the station now, McGill. They aren’t responding to any kind of challenge, and the Skrull say they’re on a collision course.”
My mind raced almost as fast as my feet. I was regretting the fact I’d taken off my armor to work in the bio lab, and there was no time to put it back on now. Turov had to be nuts to try this.
“But sir…they could be boarding parties. We can’t let them get onto Minotaur.”
“They’re coming directly toward us, and they’re already in too close now to use the broadsides. We’ve got some PD armament, but I’ll be damned if I can get it working up here. I don’t have the codes—we don’t have any defenses, James.”
“Understood. What do you want me to do in the hangar?”
“I’m going to drop the field so the hangar will evacuate. You’ll be dealing with hard vacuum. Do you copy that?”
“Yes sir,” I said, turning the last corner and slapping down my visor. I was wearing a light vac suit and little else. Her timing was impeccable.
“Get in there,” she said, “move aside every small ship you can—I’m hoping not to do too much damage when the module slams into the hangar.”
“Right…” I said, my heart sinking. All I could think of was how insane her orders were. If the module slammed right into the deck, I’d be killed and anything it touched would be damaged.
“You have four minutes, McGill. Run faster.”
“Plenty of time, sir. Don’t worry about a thing.”
-31-
The module we’d caught up with was indeed spinning, but it was doing so at a fairly sedate pace. I’d say it made a full revolution about once a minute.
My task in the hangar was, naturally, impossible. But I did it anyway. The element that allowed me to actually accomplish anything was the Galactic key. I’d placed that device in my pocket right after gunning down Claver, and I hadn’t used it since.
This seemed like the perfect opportunity to work a little magic. I ran from ship to ship, entered the hatch after slapping the vessel with the Galactic key and set the vessels onto a scatter-pattern autopilot protocol.
I’m no pilot, but these pinnaces and tugs weren’t designed to be flown by wizards. They were standard issue small spacecraft, manufactured within Frontier 921 and designed to be operated by any humanoid that wanted to buy one. Most of them accepted voice commands, and with the help of the Galactic key, I was able to get my orders across quickly.
After setting up two of the small ships and seeing them scoot out into space to save themselves, I headed for a third—but I knew I wasn’t going to make it. There just wasn’t any time left.
The module loomed outside the ship. It was coming closer at a relatively sedate pace, but an object that big could crush a man even if it was moving at a dead crawl.
I pulled a U-turn and headed back to the airlock. I almost made it, a testament to my long legs and my uncommonly strong instinct for personal survival.
What I didn’t figure on was Turov’s last-second action. She dropped the containment field and the air escaped into space. I was sucked backward, and I in my urgency to fling myself flat I slammed onto my face onto the deck plates so hard my visor cracked. I barely managed to hang onto the Galactic key and secure it, and I was very happy I’d remembered to pressurize my suit before coming in here.
The module sailed right over me, blocking out everything for several long seconds. It was like having a house thrown at you. I tried to keep low, but I was still sliding toward open space myself, being sucked out with the atmosphere.
Somehow, I escaped being crushed. The module didn’t fare as well as I did, first plowing into a pinnace and causing a silent orange bloom of flame. The module came to a stop when it hit the back wall of the hangar, cracking open and spraying out gas everywhere like a cube-shaped teakettle.
“Turov!” I shouted. “The module is inside, but ruptured. Activate the fie
ld again!”
She did it, but it was too late for me. I was already past the barrier and twirling out into open space.
“What’s your status, McGill?”
“The air release propelled me outside Minotaur,” I reported. “Can you affect a rescue?”
“Negative. I’m going down to help the troops. I need some effectives before the invaders reach us.”
“Roger that.”
“You’re on your own, McGill. Sorry about that.”
“No problem, sir. I understand.”
The connection closed. For several long seconds, I figured I’d bought myself yet another death. I was in a gentle spin, heading toward the huge disk of the planet below.
Some men might have opened up their suits right then and there figuring that would be better than cooking to death an hour later on reentry. But I didn’t want to give up. For one thing, I might not get a revive for a long time—maybe never. If the small complement of troops aboard Minotaur couldn’t repel the invaders, all would be lost.
The first thing I had to do was get my spin under control. I used my snap-rifle, which was still slung across my back. I set the rifle for single-shot mode and popped off rounds in the direction of my spin until I almost had myself steady.
Using every trick of my null-G training I could remember, I managed to get myself turned around and began popping off shots toward the planet to slow myself down.
Fortunately, the kick on a snap-rifle was pretty strong. I was able to use the released energy to counter my motion and reverse it. My biggest worry was that the Skrull would decide to—
“Dammit!” I shouted inside my helmet.
Minotaur’s engines flared blue. They were trying to run, and by doing so, they were leaving me behind.
I relaxed, resigning myself to my fate, but silvery flickers of movement nearby caught my attention. Between my position and the surface of the planet, slipping up out of the darkness like ghosts, were the small shuttles and pinnaces of the enemy. They were all utility ships—tugs and the like. None of them were armed. But they were in pursuit, and they were infinitely more nimble than Minotaur.
