Rogue World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 7) Read online

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  ROGUE WORLD

  (Undying Mercenaries Series #7)

  by

  B. V. Larson

  The Undying Mercenaries Series:

  Steel World

  Dust World

  Tech World

  Machine World

  Death World

  Home World

  Rogue World

  Copyright © 2017 by the author.

  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.

  “Great empires are not maintained by timidity.”

  – Tacitus, 101 AD

  -1-

  We all live on balls of dirt, essentially. Rocky planets that form around relatively stable stars in a tight orbital band—a zone where liquid water can form on the surface.

  That’s what we all have in common, all the beings living on one island in the sky or another. Once you’ve visited enough new worlds and gotten to know a few of them, it seems like one man’s alien is another man’s local inhabitant. I think most humans who’ve traveled among the stars can’t help but question their place in this vast cosmos of ours when they finally return home again.

  Gazing out into the evening sky from my parents’ back porch in Waycross, Georgia Sector had left my mind full of such big thoughts. The first stars were popping into life in the heavens, and they made my think.

  That was unusual for me, as I normally spent my time between deployments drinking, working on farm buildings that were almost falling down, and trying to get lucky with the ladies in Waycross.

  But tonight felt different somehow—and it was better. After I’d teleported my daughter Etta and my momma back home from Dust World, I’d realized I’d gathered my family together in one spot for the first time.

  For a while, the togetherness was sheer bliss. Even Della, Etta’s mother, came by now and then to check on her little girl. I wouldn’t exactly call that “motherly instinct,” as Della never had been the nesting type. Della had good survival instincts, but socially she was pretty disconnected for a human being.

  Della’s behavior had always seemed downright weird to my mom, and she’d taken it upon herself to provide all the care and attention that Etta needed.

  The only problem was that Etta didn’t really want much affection. She was the daughter of a wild woman from Dust World and me. I didn’t know which one of us was responsible for any particular genetic aspect of Etta’s personality, or if it was just due to a rough upbringing on Dust World, but it hardly mattered. The long and the short of it was that since coming to Earth, Etta had spent most of her time running around in the swampy forest out back of my shack.

  “James?” Momma asked me one muggy evening in April. “How are we going to get her into a regular school next year?”

  “Uh…” I said, giving my skull a scratch. “I’m not sure that it would be wise to even attempt such a thing. We might be liable for damage to public property—and injuries, maybe. We might have to home-school.”

  Momma turned pale at the thought, but she didn’t argue, she just sighed. She knew I was right.

  I felt kind of bad for her. Etta had a room painted pink in the main house, a pile of self-dressing dolls with nanite clothing, and enough pretty dresses to impress a Sunday school teacher. But she ignored all that stuff.

  “What’s she doing out there in that bog today?” Momma asked me.

  “Well…” I answered reluctantly. “I think she’s adding to her bone collection.”

  Etta had a fascination with bones. She found them everywhere, often digging them up with a stick or other improvised tool. It was kind of an unusual hobby for a nine year old girl.

  “She’ll be a great mind someday, son,” Momma said, putting up a brave front. “At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. She’ll be an archeologist or something.”

  “Maybe she takes after her grandpa like that—on Della’s side, I mean. He’s the most respected scientist on Dust World.”

  “The Investigator?” she asked, suppressing a shudder. “Yes, I met him a few times when I was staying out there. A ghastly man.”

  I figured it wouldn’t help at all to admit I agreed with her. One time, the Investigator dissected me after Della had killed me. I’ll never forget the smell and look of my own death laid bare on a slab.

  “Just seems like we have so little time to enjoy moments like this,” Momma said. “And when we do have time, they never quite turn out like we’d hoped. Well, I’m going in to make dinner now. Etta will come home hungry at dusk—she always does.”

  Something in her tone made me frown and look at her. “You aren’t regretting living with us, are you Momma?” I asked. “You don’t seem happy.”

  She looked surprised. There was a sadness in her eyes, but I didn’t understand it. I’d brought home her granddaughter—and sure, the child was a little odd—but one would think a granny could look past that.

  “No, no,” she said. “I’m very happy to have both of you here. More than you know, James.”

  She went inside then, and I stared after her in confusion.

  My dad came out to talk to me a moment later. He looked as long in the face as a bloodhound. That’s when I began to realize something was seriously wrong.

  “Let me guess,” I asked him as he pressed a cold squeeze-bottle of beer into my hand. “It’s about immigration. You broke your contract and they’re giving you hell about it.”

  He nodded slightly. “That’s part of it, actually,” he said.

  “Those damned chair-monkeys!” I growled. “It didn’t cost them squat to transport Momma to Earth, but they’re still trying to charge you for the trip back, aren’t they?”

  “Sort of,” he admitted. “Your mother signed an emigration pledge, remember? They charged her very little to go out to Dust World, as long as she agreed she’d never come back. You brought her back, James.”

  “So it’s my fault? Should I steal another teleport suit and air-mail her back out ot the stars?”

  “Please don’t,” he chuckled quietly. “Just forget about it. We’ll pay the fines and make do. We don’t want to burden you with our troubles—in fact, I promised your mother I wouldn’t say a thing.”

  I stared at him for a second. “Well then, you lied, didn’t you? I get it already, and I’m willing to help. I’ve been paying rent here, and I’ll double it.”

  He perked up a little. “That’s very generous of you, son.”

  “But that won’t be enough, will it?” I asked him suspiciously. “What’s really wrong? Are the hogs threatening to put you guys in jail for coming back to Earth?”

  “No… but our Hegemony Coverage has lapsed.”

&n
bsp; “What? Your healthcare? You can still pay cash, right?”

  He shrugged. “Let’s just drop it.”

  I drained my beer as we watched the sun go down. Just about the time I began to get worried, and the first wave of skeeters took a shot at my bare arms, Etta showed up.

  She was just a shadow at first, slinking around behind my shack. She came toward the house when I hollered about suppertime. My dad took one look at her and exploded in laughter.

  “Etta?” he asked incredulously. “Have you covered yourself in mud?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The insects here bite.”

  “That’s right,” I told her, “but you can’t come into the house looking like a swamp-monster. Get the hose around on the side of the house and spray off—not onto the windows either.”

  We got her cleaned up, and we praised her latest bone specimens.

  “Is that a dog’s skull?” my dad asked in mild disgust.

  “No…” she said. “I think it’s called a fox.”

  I eyed her thoughtfully. “That’s a rare animal in these woods. You sure you didn’t help this fox along to becoming a pile of bones?”

  She straightened up and looked indignant. “That wouldn’t be the same thing at all. Just look here, at the wear on this jaw. It’s been cured in the bog for years.”

  We inspected it, and we both had to admit, she’d found an honest-to-God skeleton.

  “What are you going to do with this one?” my father asked.

  “I was thinking of reconstructing him—posing him, maybe.”

  “Yeah…” he said.

  Etta was like Della in that she didn’t understand the natural squeamishness of Earth people. She didn’t seem to know that her grandpa was unsure about her hobby. She was so fascinated by her collection, she probably couldn’t grasp why anyone would be upset about it.

  Throwing a towel around her wet clothes, I led her into the house.

  We ate dinner, and everything seemed fine to me. Sure, Mom was a little quiet, and my dad was thoughtful, but they’d told me things were all right, so I didn’t let their mood bother me.

  It wasn’t until the next morning that things took a bad turn.

  A small hand touched my shoulder waking me up at dawn, and that hand gave me a shake.

  This might not seem odd to you, but it was to me. No one got all the way into my shack without waking me up—at least, not too many people did. Claver had managed it, but he’d done so using a teleport suit. Della had snuck in, too, but I’d caught her before she could lay a hand on me.

  As a man who’d spent more than a decade getting killed and revived again among the stars, I’d developed a keen sense for danger. Even when I slept, I never really let my guard down. A part of my brain was always on the alert.

  Immediately upon contact, I bounced off the couch with a combat knife glittering in my hand.

  “Hush,” Etta said. “It’s me.”

  Squinting and bleary-eyed, I lowered the knife. “I told you before, girl, you can’t just go sneaking up on me like that. It’s not healthy for you—or anyone else.”

  She wasn’t listening, as usual. She was at the window, peering out of a tiny crack in the faded curtains.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “There’re men at the house. I slipped out my window and came to get you—was I wrong? Should I have fought them myself?”

  “What in the living Hell are you…?” I asked, coming to lean beside her and peer out.

  Etta was right. A white air car had landed in our driveway. Air cars were expensive. We didn’t get them often out here in Waycross. My family’s tram was worth maybe one percent of the value of a shiny new air car.

  “I didn’t even hear them land,” I said.

  “You have to run,” she said, looking at me seriously. “I’ll guide you. I have several shelters in the woods nearby. We’ll wait for them to leave.”

  “You’re assuming they’ve come for me.”

  She shrugged. “Don’t they always come for you?”

  Etta had a point there, they usually did. I was the only one in the family that had repeatedly irked the law—although I had a sneaking suspicion that Etta might take that distinction away from me by the time she grew up.

  “That emblem,” I said, pointing at the blue-green stylized emblem of Earth that was stamped on the air car door. “That means they’re some kind of hog. Local, District—maybe even Sector level.”

  “What do they want?”

  I sighed, threw on a shirt and stashed my knife in my back pocket. “I guess it’s time I found out.”

  Walking down the short path between my place and my parent’s house, I tried to calm down. There was no reason to assume that these hogs meant my family harm.

  But I’d had so many bad run-ins with officials like these it was impossible not to feel a simmering sense of rage. As I walked, I repeatedly told myself I wasn’t going to kill anyone—not today. It became almost a chant in my mind.

  What I saw when I got close erased my promises. I sprang forward, eyes blazing.

  My mom was on a gurney. It was a powered model, and it hovered about two feet off the ground as a single blue-suited attendant walked beside it.

  My mom looked sicker than I’d ever seen her. She had her eyes open, but they were squinting in the morning sunlight as if it pained her.

  “Get your hands off my ma, you hog!” I shouted.

  Startled, the attendant craned his neck around and his eyes bugged out.

  I had my combat knife out, and it was whirring with power. Twin serrated edges worked in opposite directions, ready to chew through meat and bone like warm butter.

  “Who the hell are you?” the man asked.

  He didn’t pull a weapon, or even run. He just stared at me in complete shock. He looked so startled, in fact, I didn’t bother to kill him.

  “Momma?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

  “Calm down, James,” she said. “They’re just bringing me home.”

  Her voice was weak and raspy. I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  “What’d you do to her?” I demanded from the blue-shirt medic.

  He had one of those clipboard-type computers, and it was filming me.

  “I’m streaming all of this,” he said nervously. “Any assault will be—”

  “Will be too damned late for you,” I finished for him. “Now, answer me.”

  He licked his lips and eyed my knife. I switched it off and lowered it, but still held the handle in a white-knuckled grip.

  Before he answered, he dared to glance toward his air car, which I now realized was outfitted to carry gurneys like the one my mom was on. He did a double-take when he looked that way, though.

  Etta was there, stationed between the attendant and the car. There was no escape for him. She was small, but she had a knife of her own. It wasn’t powered, but it looked wickedly sharp in the pink light of dawn.

  “This is crazy,” the attendant said. “I’m reporting all of this. You people are crazy. All I’m doing is returning this patient. We picked her up last night on an emergency call. Today, the hospital in Albany released her. That’s all I know.”

  I looked at my mom. “Is that right, Momma?”

  “Yes, you big oaf. You’re getting far too carried away. Get me into the house.”

  She apologized to the attendant, and we got her off the gurney and into the house. The man with the air car lit out of our driveway like all the bats of Hell were chasing him. That was just fine by me.

  “I can’t stay mad at you,” she said. “It would be wrong. I should blame myself—I should have told you.”

  “What’s going on? Are you sick?”

  “Yes, she is,” my father said from the porch.

  He looked old, and sad, just like my mom. They were both about sixty now, and nothing shows a person’s age like the morning light.

  We all went inside, and I helped my dad make breakfast. As we prepared our morning meal, my pare
nts began to explain.

  “Your mother contracted something nasty back on Dust World,” my dad said. “A poison, maybe. Or possibly a nanite infection left behind by the squids who used to plague that planet.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Could you have done anything about it?” Momma asked.

  “I don’t know… maybe.”

  “Would it have made you happier to know I was sick?”

  I didn’t answer, because the answer was obvious.

  “Well,” my dad said, “Whatever it is, it’s killing her slowly.”

  “I have good days and bad days,” Momma said. “Sometimes, I have to go into Albany for a complete blood transfusion.”

  That sounded stupidly expensive to me, and it was.

  “The hogs can cure anything,” I told my parents. “There’s hardly a disease out there that we haven’t conquered. Hell, they could grow you a new body if they really wanted to.”

  My mom shrugged. “I guess that’s so, James. But everything has a price. Nothing’s free—not really.”

  I was in a bad mood after breakfast. I paced and muttered. They watched me worriedly. I was glad Etta had gone out again to play in the swamp. She didn’t need to see her daddy brooding.

  “Now son,” my dad said warily. “Don’t you go off and do something crazy, you hear me?”

  “That notion never crossed my mind,” I assured him.

  I even summoned up a smile to go along with that lie, but I could tell he wasn’t buying it.

  He knew me too damned well.

  -2-

  Later that day, I contacted the Sector Office of Hegemony Care. My mom needed something better than out-patient visits. Whatever she had, it was clearly getting worse. There was supposed to be a procedure for fixing people who came down with alien pathogens, and I meant to find out how it could be done.

  If my mom had been a legionnaire, there wouldn’t have been a problem at all. They were cleared for such things by default. It was expected that soldiers traveling to the stars might pick up any number of illnesses. Worst case, they could just recycle us.