Clone World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 12) Read online

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  CLONE WORLD

  (Undying Mercenaries Series #12)

  by

  B. V. Larson

  The Undying Mercenaries Series:

  Steel World

  Dust World

  Tech World

  Machine World

  Death World

  Home World

  Rogue World

  Blood World

  Dark World

  Storm World

  Armor World

  Clone World

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Copyright © 2019 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.

  “Do not fear an army of lions led by a sheep. Fear an army of sheep led by a lion.”

  —Alexander the Great, 326 BC

  -1-

  It was early spring in the swamps of southern Georgia. That’s a nice time to be off-duty in Waycross, just ask anybody.

  The sky overhead was blue with white clouds splashed across it in streaks. The water trickling in the swamp behind my shack was fresher than usual, having lost the cold sluggish quality of winter. Springtime always made the world smell better.

  I stood in the midst of my family land, squinting in the sun and smiling like a fool. The ground around my shack had transformed, becoming a vibrant green with wild flowers blooming everyplace. The blossoms sprinkled the land with welcome dots of color.

  It had been more than a year now since I’d been called up to serve Legion Varus as an active-duty centurion. The truth was I’d grown a little soft, having enjoyed my time of relative leisure. We still had mandatory meetings every month at the local Chapter House, but they didn’t amount to much. As an officer, I led those meetings, but they were little more than excuses to check on troop-readiness and drink a lot afterward.

  Every three months, I had to report to Central for a situational briefing. That was boring, too. Other than that, my time was my own.

  Unfortunately, money was starting to run thin. My daughter Etta had taken an internship up at Central, and she was getting paid… sort of… but it wasn’t enough. Not to live up in the big city. They were rebuilding everything about that place, and the old neighborhoods with cheap rent had been demolished by the Skay. For some reason, everything they built new came with a much higher price tag than before.

  Etta was living the independent life she wanted, but it was still an illusion. She had a job in the depths of Central, and she lived in a nice apartment with a real live cat. In order to keep her afloat, I had to make a giant deposit into her bank account every month or so.

  When you’re off-duty in the legions you get about one-third the pay you get while you’re on active-duty. That doesn’t sound like much, and it isn’t. Still, as an officer I would have been doing fine if it wasn’t for Etta’s expenses.

  “You should just let that girl borrow for school like everyone else,” my dad suggested one morning when I wandered into the house late to see what was left over from breakfast.

  “No way,” I told him. “My daughter isn’t going to end up indentured to Hegemony Financial forever.”

  He snorted. “Maybe not, but you’ll be instead if you keep giving her top dollar.”

  My mom came in next, and she didn’t look at me. I knew what that meant. She avoided my eyes when she wanted to argue.

  “Poppa’s right, James,” she said as she put a fresh auto-pot of coffee on the table between us.

  “No he’s not,” I said stubbornly. “Etta isn’t gonna kick off her life owing millions to some bank.”

  The little coffee robot weaved its way between the dishes, examined each cup and topped it off as needed. The thing was kind of annoying, but at least this new model didn’t make whining electric motor noises all the time like the old one did.

  “But you’re spending down all your savings, boy,” my dad insisted.

  Dipping my head, I hunched low over my coffee cup. The eager auto-pot wormed its way toward me again, but I shooed it away. It always screwed up the mixture of sugar and cream in my cup by adding more hot coffee, which pissed me off.

  “Listen here, I’m not doing it,” I said with finality. “I won’t leave her high and dry. She’ll be done with her schooling in only one more year. After that, she can handle her own money.”

  Far from being completely happy, they at least fell silent, which was fine by me. I ate some leftover eggs and toast.

  I began to relax. It was never good to kick-off the morning with an argument. I began to hope this fine spring day could still be enjoyable.

  Dad cleared his throat and moved around restlessly. After living with anyone for decades, you get to know the signs: he wasn’t done yet.

  “James…” he said, “we got a notice.”

  I looked up. They both met my gaze. Their lips were downturned at the corners—another bad sign.

  “Uh… what notice?”

  “I didn’t mean to open it,” my mom said. “But it was right there on the family’s official email screen.”

  I frowned. “What notice?”

  My mom looked at my dad, who shifted uncomfortably. “It seems like you bought a tram for Etta… they’re going to repossess it. In fact, they probably already have.”

  My eyes blinked once, then twice. I nodded. I hadn’t made the last payment or three. I’d gotten some colorful messages on my tapper, but I’d ignored them. Apparently, the bank had tracked down the family address and tried to contact me that way.

  “She’ll have to ride the city-skimmers like everyone else, I guess,” I said.

  “Those things aren’t safe,” Momma fretted. “Maybe we should lend her our tram.”

  My dad looked alarmed. “Are you crazy, woman? What the hell are we supposed to drive then?”

  My mom walked out, pissed off. We let her go. The idea, after all, was insane. When you lived in a swamp, you had to have personal transportation. Owning a tram was just one more expensive luxury in the city. Clearly, I couldn’t afford to keep Etta in that kind of state forever.

  A full minute of silence followed while I polished off every scrap of food my parents had.

  “I’m sorry,” I said at last. “I know I’m spoiling the girl. I just didn’t want to saddle her up with money troubles right from day one.”

  “Everyone owes the bank, James,” my dad told me. “At some point, it’ll happen to her, too. You came out of your education a million credits low, and you didn’t even finish.”

  “Yeah…” I said thoughtful
ly. “Hell, the real problem isn’t on Earth, it’s upstairs.” I pointed vaguely at the heavens above. “Things have been too peaceful among the stars lately. The big name legions have gotten cushy assignments, but not my old warhorse, Legion Varus. Ever since we saved the Pegs, we’ve been on ice.”

  “Hmm…” my dad said, frowning. He slapped the squirming auto-pot away from his coffee cup, the same as I had. It was really something my mom was into.

  After I finished my coffee, I stepped back outside under that glorious sky and went for a walk. I thought about a lot of things as I wandered the back lot, eyeing bald cypress trees that had stood on this land for centuries. Some of them had lived here for a thousand years or more.

  Heaving a sigh, I made a tough decision. I logged into Central on my tapper, and I selected a menu option I’d never touched before: experimental contracts.

  Now, one thing that every second-year regular in the legions has burned into his brain is this: in military service, you never volunteer for anything. Not for one damned thing. Not ever.

  But I did it anyway. What’s more, I volunteered myself for the darkest of assignments. For the real guinea-pig stuff that no one even knows about until it bites them in the ass.

  A few seconds later, my tapper buzzed. Then it buzzed again.

  I had new orders. That fast, I’d been selected and given a slot. Bonus money was coming my way—lots of it.

  The ACCEPT button popped up and glowed on my forearm, big and green. I stared at it, thinking hard.

  The universe had immediately called my bluff. My heart rate accelerated as I looked at that button and hesitated. I was signing up to die, and I knew it.

  What kind of shitty abuse had I volunteered myself for? I had no idea. That was part of the fun. It was certain to be some kind of shady-as-fuck, black ops, commando thing, I knew that much. Teleportation was likely involved, as I had extensive experience with that particular method of self-destruction.

  Lots of people talk a good game about being willing to die for their kids, but for a Varus man like me, it was more than just talk. It was an easily selected option.

  Finally, squinching my eyes up tight, I tapped on the accept button, then tapped yes to confirm.

  Follow-up screens came at me. I agreed to report up at Central by morning, and I closed the windows. I didn’t bother to read anything else because the details weren’t going to help.

  Looking around at the pretty green growth surrounding me, I managed to smile again. I picked a few wildflowers. I’d miss them, no matter where I was headed next.

  -2-

  Central was a black-glass pyramid a thousand stories high. It loomed in the midst of Central City, by far the tallest and most impressive structure in sight. Surrounding this manmade mountain, the new sleek buildings of the rebuilt city looked like toys.

  The sky train banked and glided down in a spiral. It landed at the station, and I stepped onto the platform.

  Wearing fatigues and carrying my ruck, I looked like any of another dozen military types that drifted around the place. Only the red crests of a centurion on my shoulders marked me as an officer.

  It was enough to gain the attention of a pair of enlisted security hogs on patrol. They seemed to be eyeing everyone who disembarked from my train.

  “You there, Varus!” called one hog.

  I thought about ignoring him, but I didn’t want to cause a scene. After all, I’d only been back in town for about ninety seconds. Besides, I was still in a good mood after my long vacation at home.

  I turned to see what this pair had to say and gave them a tight smile. They walked up to me, each with one hand on their truncheons. They were shock-rods, actually. Devices built to stun the nerves and make limbs useless on contact.

  “What’s up, boys? You trawling for dates?”

  The hogs blinked, and their faces darkened a notch, but they weren’t enraged. Not yet. After all, I hadn’t called them hogs or anything. For my own part, I felt like a diplomat on a streak. Meeting up with two patrolmen without friction was something of an accomplishment for me.

  “Uh… Centurion? Are you James McGill?”

  It was my turn to blink in surprise.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Did someone send you out here? I’m not even late yet.”

  “Sorry sir. We’re here to escort you to Central.”

  “I’m not lost, you know.”

  “Um… it was mentioned that you tended to wander off. Their words, not mine, sir.”

  I felt a pang of irritation, but I shoved that right back down. After all, this mission was classified and very lucrative. I didn’t want to blow it and lose my paycheck without a damned good reason.

  Forcing myself to relax, I took a deep breath and nodded. “All right. Take me in.”

  They looked relieved, and their hands slid away from their shock-rods. Apparently, they’d heard a thing or two about me. Sometimes, events took a bad turn when I was arrested or escorted in what I considered to be a disrespectful manner.

  Following my hogs, I regretfully noted several eateries and bars along the promenade.

  “You boys mind if I stop to get some breakfast?” I asked.

  “No time. Sorry, sir. There will be some refreshments at the meeting.”

  “What meeting?”

  They glanced at one another. “Uh… we don’t know, Centurion.”

  “Right… you don’t know a damned thing. I get it.”

  They loaded my ass into the back of an air car and zoomed over the city toward Central. We didn’t land on the roof, though, not this time. We landed on a small side-platform, which stuck out like a shelf from the side of the massive structure.

  “I don’t remember this birdhouse,” I remarked as we entered a modular structure that bulged like a wart on the side of Central’s hide.

  “It’s probably new, sir,” one of the hogs explained. “Lots of new stuff has been built since the Skay bombed us.”

  We passed through a security scanner and all of us lost our guns. The hogs were allowed to keep their shock-rods and I was left with my combat knife. It was stupid, to my way of thinking, to disarm loyal troops at the door. But I wasn’t in charge of Hegemony’s military policies.

  They led me down, down, down through the building and underneath it. Down below Central… things got a little strange. The complex reached at least five hundred levels deep under the Earth, but no one seemed to know for sure how far down the digging had gone. Reportedly, after the attack by the Skay, they’d dug deeper. There could be a thousand levels by now—there was no way for a legion man like me to know for sure.

  The hogs walked me to an unmarked door and waited. No one said anything, or knocked on the door, or tapped at their tappers. I figured we were being scanned and identified automatically.

  After about thirty seconds, when I was just about to ask what the hell was holding things up, the door opened. It did so silently, with no one behind it pushing it open.

  The hogs didn’t move, so I stepped forward and entered the dim interior.

  “Good luck, Centurion,” said one of the men behind me.

  A note in his voice made me half-turn, frowning. Was that a hint of sincerity? Of actual regret? Of pity, maybe?

  The door closed behind me before I could land my eyes on his, and the moment was gone.

  There were red arrows on the floor. They lit up, and I followed them. It was almost automatic. Red arrows were for combat soldiers, drop-ship splats on their way to their doom. I’d been in that classification of service for decades now.

  The arrows led down dim passages. At one point, the passage went past a large door covered with all sorts of danger symbols and warning signs.

  Curious, I stopped and pushed on it. The door opened, and I stepped off the trail of red arrows into a circular chamber. In the midst of the chamber was a spinning blob of light. I don’t know how else to describe it.

  Squinting in the silent, flickering, bluish glare, my mouth sagged open. br />
  “What the hell is this…?” I asked aloud, but no one answered.

  I heard murmuring voices on the far side of the blob. The room was spherical, I realized, with a dip in the middle that held that spinning light like a flame in a fire pit. Around the light was a flat ring of metal which provided a catwalk to safely circuit the weird light. The whole room was maybe fifty meters across and the path around it was about three meters wide.

  I circled the blob of twisting energy, sticking to the metal pathway. I didn’t dare get too close to whatever nightmare of physics I was circling. Staying as far away as possible, I ran my hand along the curved, crystalline walls.

  Coming to the other side, I met up with a band of scientists. Floramel headed the committee. She glanced at me, but she didn’t even reward me with a smile.

  That was a kind of a shocker. After all, we’d had a number of nice nights together in the past. It had been years… but still.

  “Floramel?” I asked.

  She put a single long, thin finger to her lips, silencing me. I walked closer and peered over her shoulder and the shoulders of her two assistants.

  “It’s still not stable,” one of the assistants said. “It’s reacting to something.”

  “Give it time,” Floramel told her. They were all females, all Rogue World near-humans. “It will settle down. This is a nonlinear continuity. The algorithm has to learn all the anomalous patterns.”

  “Uh…” I said, leaning over their shoulders and staring at a control console they were tapping on. Formulas and trend-line graphics were jumping all over the screens. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “What’s this thing doing? Is it dangerous?”

  Floramel glanced back at me. She looked slightly uncomfortable, as did the others. That was because I was standing kind of close to them, but I wasn’t touching them. You didn’t touch a Rogue Worlder unless you meant business.

  “It’s an open rift,” she told me. “A new transportation technology. Essentially, we’ve removed the need for suits and gateway posts. We’re trying to take matter-transmission to a new level of efficiency.”