Tech World (Undying Mercenaries Series) (4 page)

I hesitated. While I watched, she stood up and turned around. She removed a beret and jacket from the rack behind the desk. She put them on slowly, almost languidly.

As she turned away to gather her things, my eyes roved over her. I have to admit, although I was a young guy who usually didn’t stare at women over thirty, I’d always kept Turov on my radar. She liked to wear her uniforms at the tightest, most form-fitting setting. Maybe even a notch tighter than that if the truth were to be told.

She turned back around and smiled. It was as if she’d put on a little show, and she’d known how it would affect me.

“Admiring my new patch I see
?” she said. “Or maybe the suns caught your eye?”

My eyes flew wide. I’d been
staring at her butt, naturally. Now that she mentioned it, however, she
did
have two gold suns on her collar and the wrong legion patch adhered to her shoulder.

Among the officer ranks,
suns were the top insignia that could be achieved. Once you got to suns, it was just a matter of how many you had. I realized that Turov was no longer a Primus. She’d moved up two ranks, to the level of an Imperator. She could command her own legion now if she was assigned one. Or even multiple legions.

The promotion wasn’t the biggest shocker for me, though. Her legion patch was what got me the most. Where the Wolfshead of Legion Varus should have been riding proudly on her shoulder there was now a blue-green globe.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out for a second. When I managed to speak at last, I spoke rudely. “You bugged out? You joined Hegemony?”

“That’s hardly an appropriate expression of congratulations,” she snapped.

“Sorry sir.”

“I’ve moved up in rank. There can only be one Tribune in Legion Varus, and that job is taken by Drusus. The council decided not to give me the legion, but rather to move me into Hegemony.”

“I understand, sir,” I said.

And I did understand. She’d been bucking for rank from the very first moment I’d met her, and now she’d finally gotten it. I’m a slow country boy sometimes, but today the light was going on inside my thick, dark skull.

I recalled all the times she and Winslade had made a huge production of filming the aftermath of battle. I’d also heard she wasn’t above doctoring reports to make it seem as if every victory was due to her leadership. She wasn’t the kind who liked to fight or even command in a battle—in fact I don’t think I’d ever seen her fire a weapon or man a line in combat.

“Well, Specialist?” Turov asked, gesturing toward the door.

“One more question, sir?”

She nodded.

“I understand you got rank and I congratulate you, but what’s happening to Varus? We’re supposed to vote on our independence tonight, and—”

“About that,” she said, walking to the door and opening it. “I know you’re not the type to take good advice, but I’m going to give it to you anyway. Vote to disband Varus. Don’t stand against what must be. Independent legions are a thing of the past. They’re unwelcome anachronisms. Maybe you’ll be allowed to keep your patches and unit names, but you’ll soon be melded into Hegemony no matter how you vote today. I believe the plan is to assign each legion a number with the names becoming nicknames rather than official designations.”

I was horrified. I had no interest in becoming a Hog from the 199
th
, or whatever they assigned us.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea—” I began.

Sudden anger tightened her face. “McGill, you’ve had your warning, and you’ve had your explanations. Now, get the hell out.”

She stood to one side, holding open the door. I saluted and marched past her into the hallway. She didn’t bother to return the salute. Instead, she slammed the door so fast it almost hit me in the ass.

I walked down the passage trying to look on the bright side of things. At least Primus Turov—
Imperator
Turov, that is—was out of my hair. I should be celebrating. But somehow, things didn’t feel quite right.

True to his word, Winslade was out in the lobby chatting up Natasha. She wore a polite but bored look on her face. Winslade didn’t seem to have noticed. He was disappointed when I showed up.

“We’ve been ordered to muster out,” I told Natasha. “Can you drive me to the spaceport?”

“Sure,” she said, but she looked as confused as I’d been a few minutes earlier.

In the meantime, Winslade had stopped chattering and was now looking smug. He pulled a jacket out from behind his desk.

“Secret’s out,” he said. “I guess I can show you this.”

There was a globe patch on his jacket shoulder.

“You too, huh?” I asked. I sneered. I couldn’t help it. “True loyalty is a damned rare commodity, I guess.”

Winslade’s expression transformed in an instant. He hunched forward and showed me his teeth.

“You’ll switch tonight if you’re smart, McGill. Don’t even participate in the vote. That’s a ruse. The fix is in. If you vote the wrong way, you’ll lose rank and be transferred to Hegemony in the end, anyway.”

Natasha eyed him in concern. I sniffed.

“Thanks for the tip, Hog,” I said, heading for the door.

“I’d kick your ass for that if you weren’t mustering out,” he called after me.

“Sure thing, sir.”

-4-

Natasha followed me out to the parking lot, and we climbed into her car. She was freaked out, and frankly, so was I.

“What kind of crap have you gotten me into now, James?” she demanded.

“Don’t worry, babe—” I began.

“
No!
Don’t even go there. I don’t want to hear any sweet-sounding talk about how everything’s going to be fine. Turov—I always knew she was cast-iron bitch and that she hated you. But something serious is up, and I’m worried.”

“Yeah,” I said, making a forward spinning motion with one finger.

She caught the meaning of my gesture and started the car. We lifted up and glided out onto the road.

The conversation lagged as we both fell to brooding. I watched the streets whiz by out my passenger window. There were signs of Earth’s newfound wealth everywhere. Atlanta’s roads had all been dilapidated a year or two back. Now the weeds had been replaced with sapling trees, and the old crumbling asphalt had been paved over with puff-crete. I looked down, marveling at the alien building material. Puff-crete was colorful compared to plain concrete. The new road that slid under us was shot through with hints of pink and blue. Puff-crete was almost indestructible, and the stuff had been used all over the planet to give old roads one last, permanent pave-over. I knew the disintegrating roads of the past were
hidden underneath that thin veneer. Here and there you could see dark patches of old asphalt like rotten teeth glimpsed in the back of a mouth full of crowns.

“You think we have time to go back to your place and get your personals?” Natasha asked me.

I tapped at my arm. After a moment, I shook my head.

“No,” I said. “Forget about my stuff—and yours. I’m checking the new deployment orders on my tapper right now. They’ve gone out to everyone. We’re to leave Earth immediately by any means possible.”

Realizing shore leave had come to an abrupt end, a flood of new thoughts occurred to me. I wasn’t going to have time to say any goodbyes or even to lock up my place properly. I could only imagine what my parents were going through. I’d been killed on their property, and my body had been hauled away with the rest. I hoped my mom hadn’t seen it—not even with a sheet pulled over my face. The sight would freak her out for life, I was sure of that.

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, 3
rd
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 out 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.