Blood World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 8) Read online

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  BLOOD WORLD

  (Undying Mercenaries Series #8)

  by

  B. V. Larson

  The Undying Mercenaries Series:

  Steel World

  Dust World

  Tech World

  Machine World

  Death World

  Home World

  Rogue World

  Blood World

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Copyright © 2017 by Iron Tower Press, Inc.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  “Soldiers are marching flasks of blood, flesh and bronze. None of it matters save for the flame inside.”

  – Marcus Aurelius, 171 AD

  -1-

  My daughter Etta took on a new fascination in her eleventh year. Her fledgling interest grew into a full-blown obsession right around her twelfth birthday in late spring.

  The whole thing reached critical mass when she got her new, very expensive birthday gift. I wouldn’t have sprung for it, except my parents were doing better with money now and had gone in halfway with me. On top of that, Etta had specified she’d only wanted one thing for a present. How do you tell a kid “no” when there’s only one thing on her list, and she really wants it?

  After spending all that money, I was pleased to see her use it every night. Like every parent who buys a child an expensive toy—or in this case, an expensive alien-made scientific instrument—you can’t quite be sure it won’t sit a shelf after a week or two.

  But Etta wasn’t that kind of girl. Her new obsession had a firm grip on her young mind. She became an expert with the auto-scope right away, and she spent most of her free time fooling with it.

  The auto-scope amounted to an intelligent, star-gazing device that could spot, track, identify, and perfectly visualize any star or planet in the heavens.

  Tonight, she had her star-gazing rig set up on the back porch. It was a warm evening in May down in Georgia Sector, and I was rocking on the porch swing while Etta worked the device, her face glued to its eye piece.

  “Dad?” she asked. “Have you been to Tau Ceti?”

  “You know I have, girl. Tech World, we called it back in the day.”

  “What do they call it now?”

  I winced. The truth was grim: my legionnaire friends called the world of the Tau “Trash World” these days. The planet’s ecosystem had yet to completely recover from the devastating thermonuclear strikes launched by Minotaur’s broadside cannons.

  But even that wasn’t the worst of the damage that had been inflicted. The Tau people’s main spaceport, Gelt Station, had suffered as well, sending their economy into a tail-spin.

  Etta eyed me carefully.

  “They call it Trash World, don’t they?” she asked. “Did you have something to do with that new name, Father?”

  That was the trouble with little girls. They tended to grow up and start figuring things out.

  “Uh…” I said, making a vague gesture. I faked a smile and took in a deep breath. “My legion was out there, it’s true. A lot of bad things happened at about the same time. But that doesn’t make everything our fault.”

  She continued eyeing me instead of staring into the lighted interior of her faintly humming auto-scope. The scope’s eyepiece put an oval of white light on her cheek.

  “It’s true then,” she declared after measuring my expression. Then she turned her attention back to her machine.

  “What’s true?”

  “What they say at school.”

  I shifted uncomfortably on the porch swing and took a swig of beer. I knew I should keep quiet, but I couldn’t.

  “What do they say?” I demanded.

  Etta kept her face aimed into that circle of light as she spoke. “That Legion Varus destroys everything it touches.”

  “No!” I said loudly. “That’s not the truth. At least… not always. Sure, we get the roughest missions. Sometimes, bad things happen when we’re deployed to a hot spot. But that doesn’t make it all our fault! That’s like blaming the fireman for the fire he’s trying put out!”

  “Hmm…” she said. “I almost believe you.”

  My beer was still in my hand, but I set it aside, finding I no longer enjoyed the taste.

  “Why are you asking about Tech World, anyway?” I demanded, becoming irritated. I was thinking of all those installments I paid every month to send Etta to a private school. That was a whole bunch of money to waste on being insulted. My family could do that for free.

  “Come here,” she said a moment later. “Look into my scope.”

  There was an odd tone in her voice. It was almost like she knew she was going to blow my mind.

  For my own part, I welcomed the shift in the conversation. I moved to the scope and towered over her. So far Etta’s strength was mostly in her personality and mind. Someday she’d become a big girl, and she was already lightning-quick with a blade, but for now she was still just tall and willowy.

  Stooping, I looked into her scope. What I saw there was amazing.

  “The resolution… the image… so perfect! I can see Gelt Station spinning slowly over the clouds. It’s as plain as day! But that’s twelve lightyears away… How can this thing possibly…?”

  “It’s not real,” she said quickly. “Well, I mean, it really is Tau Ceti, and the scope is aimed that way and zoomed in so tightly it appears you can see the planet in question. However, the image the auto-scope is displaying is being relayed over the grid. The scope cheats, you see, interpolating what you want to see, and bypassing its own optics with—”

  Laughing, I straightened up. “I get it, professor. You know who you sound like?”

  “My grandfather? The Investigator?”

  “Yeah, him. Do you remember him? It’s been years.”

  “Of course I do. When I lived on Dust World, he was my only living relative who admitted to the relationship.”

  Frowning again, I wondered about that. Etta had always been a troublemaker, both on Dust World and Earth. There was a little too much of me and her mother in her, I supposed.

  She was a wild thing, essentially, and raising her was like raising a half-wolf hybrid. Worse, I was pretty sure she was smarter than I was.

  Sitting back down on the porch swing, I took up my beer bottle again. It was a little on the warm side, but I swilled it down. As I did so, I watched Etta. She was changing shape, too—just starting to grow hips and boobs. She was going to turn into a cute, dangerous little woman soon, and I was going to be in a fresh new world of hurt.

  Damn.

  Etta turned
to look at me. “What are you thinking about now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Liar.”

  “That’s disrespectful, girl!”

  “Sorry,” she said in a tone that indicated she didn’t mean it.

  She was my daughter all right. I sighed, and she turned back to her auto-scope.

  “Hey,” I said, deciding to switch up the mood, “aim that thing at L-347, will you?”

  “I don’t know that star… but okay, I’ve found it in the index.”

  The auto-scope whirred and spun to the south. It aimed into the trees, and I figured the target must be low on the horizon.

  Etta looked into the scope anyway, and she clucked her tongue. “I’ve got it, but there’s not much to see.”

  “Look for L-347 Prime, the only planet close to the star.”

  She twiddled her knobs and muttered to herself. She was so serious. She looked like a tech already.

  “Got it…” she said. “Huh… megaflora?”

  I stood and approached. My heart was suddenly pounding. Could this little alien-made machine really look across the gulf of lightyears to check up on other star systems? The mere idea…

  “L-347 is better known as Death World,” I said, horning in on the eye piece and staring. “Will you look at that! I’ll be damned, that really is Death World! I can see the clouds, the massive forests. Those plants—they can think, you know. Some of them.”

  Etta was looking at me, and she was smiling.

  “What?” I asked turning my eyes back to the scope. I was hooked.

  “You like my new toy. Do you still regret the cost?”

  “Nope. Not anymore. You got me. What am I really looking at? A conglomeration of images from the past? Some kind of wiki spiced-up to look like a live stream?”

  “Better than that. Earth has a new data feed from the Galactics. The Mogwa commissioned a permanent deep-link. We’re now hooked up to their grid. The Galaxy-wide Imperial grid. These data streams therefore come from the Core Worlds themselves.”

  Stunned, I looked at her. “Seriously? I’m looking at a live-stream of Death World in this scope on my back porch?”

  “Not necessarily. It depends on the source material. See the icons at the bottom of the display? They indicate this image is less than a hundred hours old. That could be anything from live to four days or so in the past. Pretty good, in either case. But one thing you can be certain of: that visual of Death World is the latest that exists anywhere in the galaxy. At least, the latest that our side has.”

  I turned back to the auto-scope, and I laid my hands on the machine. It had no keyboard, but it did have a touch-interface. The system used Empire-standard icons and gestures, but I didn’t understand the navigation right away.

  “Show me how it works,” I said, “and how much did this really cost, by the way? Your grandma was evasive. She just kept saying that she paid half.”

  “More than the family tram,” Etta said.

  “That’s not too bad. The tram’s a piece of crap.”

  Etta giggled, and she showed me how to work the auto-scope. Soon, I had Gamma Pavonis in view, then Cancri-9.

  “Steel World…” I said, feeling a surge of nostalgia. “That’s where it all started for me. My service with the legions began right there on that harsh planet.”

  “I know,” she said, “but it’s hard for me to believe. Do you realize Earth legions haven’t been out there for more than two decades?”

  “Has it been that long?”

  She looked at me kind of funny.

  “Father?” she asked. “How old are you—exactly?”

  “Uh… what year is it?”

  She shook her head. “You have to be forty-something. Maybe fifty? It’s alarming. You look like you’re twenty-five. I’m catching up to both you and mother.”

  “Yeah…” I admitted. “You’re really going to feel weird if you start to look older than we do.”

  “I’m never going to do that. I’m going to join the legions as soon as I’m of age.”

  I looked at her seriously. “I don’t know about that, girl… No, I take that back. I do know: that’s a bad idea.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “No? Well… that’s because you haven’t died yet. After you go through the guts of a revival machine a few times, you might feel differently.”

  She fell quiet. I could tell she was in one of her stubborn moods.

  Right then, I realized Etta probably would end up joining the legions, just like she said. That was the kind of girl she was. Once an idea implanted itself in that overactive brain of hers, a crowbar and six gorillas didn’t have a prayer of prying it back out again.

  The thought of Etta in the legions broke the spell the auto-scope had cast over me. I straightened, feeling a pang in my back. How long had I been out here on the porch, looking at every world I’d ever visited? The night had gone from warm to cold, so I figured it had been hours.

  Looking at my tapper, which was embedded in my forearm and needed a shave, I clucked my tongue. “It’s late, and it’s a school night. Time for bed.”

  “I’m not finished with my planned observation of the Triangulum Galaxy.”

  “Yeah, well… it’s late.”

  She crossed her arms. “That’s because you spent all night hogging my scope.”

  “True…”

  “Father, do you know what they’ll attempt to teach me tomorrow in that so-called school?”

  “What?”

  “We’re to learn and sing the Galactic Anthem-all sixteen versions, one for each of the known Superior Races. It’s humiliating.”

  “Humiliating? Why?”

  “To sing songs praising the Galactics? They’re our conquerors, our—”

  I did something sudden and dangerous then. I grabbed Etta and clamped my hand over her mouth.

  She had a knife out, quick as a cat, but I’d expected that. Using my off-hand, I shook her wrist until she dropped it.

  Breathing hard and pissed beyond measure, she glared up at me. Slowly, I removed my hand from her face.

  “Tell me,” she hissed, “why I shouldn’t damage you in your sleep tonight?”

  “First off, because I’m your father. Second, because I’m trying to save your disobedient tail, whether you know it or not, girl.”

  Moving slowly, I let go of her. She was combat-trained and naturally vicious. The girl had a bad temper in her to boot—a mean-streak. Nothing we’d tried had ever fixed that.

  I kept my eyes on her hands and knees, suspecting she just might strike a soft spot.

  “Explain yourself,” she growled, still breathing hard and giving me the stink-eye.

  “You can’t talk like that about the Galactics,” I said in a calm, measured voice. “Not at school, not at home—not ever.”

  “Why not?”

  “I know we’re on our own home porch, but our tappers spy on us. So, possibly, does your nifty new auto-scope, here.”

  She glanced at her forearm, then the auto-scope, frowning in alarm.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Then I told her how they’d measured my emotional state for years. How such automated spying had affected my promotions within the legion, and how it had come as a shock to me as well when I’d learned of it.

  “Hegemony can listen to us? Any time they want?” she asked, horrified.

  “Yes, I think they can. But the trick is: they don’t. Not most of the time. There are only so many Hog agents out there looking for subversion. So, they use AI listening-programs to trigger on keywords, phrases—”

  She brightened. “A simple solution presents itself. Sensitive topics should be discussed in code.”

  “Uh…”

  “Yes…” she said, pacing the porch. The old floorboards creaked under her tread. “At first, I was thinking I’d have to damage my tapper. But now—”

  “Hold on,” I said, regaining her attention. “Look, it’s not a
big deal for you—not yet. Even the AI probably doesn’t care what a kid thinks or says about anything. It’s me who’s the danger, here. I’m a legion officer. I have a colorful history. If they’re listening to anyone, it’s me.”

  “And by inference, whoever you’re talking to…” she said, her eyes unfocused, thinking hard.

  “Right. You’ve got it now.”

  She picked up her knife, waved it in my face momentarily then put it away with a flourish.

  “You took dangerous action,” she said. “I don’t like being disarmed.”

  “No killer does.”

  “But I think now, in retrospect, that you were correct to do so.”

  “No hard feelings, Etta?”

  “None. I’m tired now, and sad.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I no longer completely trust my auto-scope. It’s disappointing. I’m going to bed.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Why?” she asked, and I could tell she meant it.

  I struggled with a way to explain what I was feeling. “For parents, it feels terrible to have to shatter your kid’s innocence.”

  “There’s no need to apologize… but, Father?”

  “What?”

  “Are there many more such shocking things to learn in my future?”

  I heaved a sigh. “Well… you probably don’t have as many surprises coming as most young girls do, because you’re pretty worldly already. But yeah, you’ve still got a lot to learn.”

  “Another alarming thought… Goodnight.”

  She stood on her tiptoes, and I automatically bent my knees. She managed to brush my cheek with her lips, and then she vanished into the house.

  Heading to my own shack out in back of the main house, I settled down on my stained couch and tried to fall asleep.

  I couldn’t help but think of all the things Etta had to learn about the world—and all the things the world had to learn about her.

  Boyfriends, for instance.

  That was the first topic that came to mind. Etta had a lot to learn about that phase of life. What would she do when some sorry bastard tried to cop a feel for the first time? Damn… that was going to be one hellacious night to remember for everyone.