Edge World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 14) Read online

  “How’s that, sir? After all, we’ve still got plenty of the machines aboard.”

  He sighed and sat down opposite me. “Let me educate you on the subject of economics and human psychology.”

  “Oh… not that, sir. Please. I’ll eat my greens, I swear.”

  Half of Graves’ face twitched up. For him, that was the equivalent of a wide grin—but it didn’t last long.

  “Listen,” he said, “if we lose our revival machine supplier, everything is going to change very quickly.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Because a lot of people rely on them—important people back home.”

  We stared at each other for a second, and I started to catch on. “Are you saying these machines aren’t just reserved for the legions? That some political types back home use them?”

  “Of course they do. Every rich, privileged shit-heel back on Earth has access to them.”

  “But… I don’t think that’s legal, sir. Or ethical.”

  Graves laughed. “Even you have cheated with them, haven’t you?”

  I stared stupidly, pretending I had no earthly idea what he was talking about—but I did.

  A decade ago, I’d noticed my parents were in failing health. I’d rigged up a way to copy them, kill them, and then get them revived again. No one knew about that, no one but Natasha.

  Or at least, that’s what I’d thought. But now here was Graves, giving me a hard stare. Did he know? Crap…

  “Okay,” I said, “I can understand the appeal of printing out a limb or an organ—even a whole body of some fat VIP when he gets too drunk and crashes his government aircar. But why would that mean we’d have to change things? These units we have aboard right now are good for years. With any luck, we’ll still be pumping out legionnaires with them when I retire.”

  Graves shook his head slowly. “Forget that. The moment the big boys at the top find out our supply is threatened, they’ll hoard whatever is left for themselves.”

  “Really? But how could they explain—?”

  “Oh, sure,” Graves said, leaning back. “They’ll talk big about a strategic reserve, or some such malarkey. But the fact is the important people will still get revives, while grunts like you and me will be face down in the mud—permanently.”

  I was beginning to see his point. The change would come faster than I’d assumed. Graves had me frowning now, and I’d been in such a great mood only moments before. He was a wizard at making a man glum.

  “Uh… what do we do to fix this?”

  “We stop fucking off, for one thing. We don’t take the resources we have for granted. We shape-up, and we run this legion like professionals.”

  “That’s a tall stack of change, sir.”

  “Indeed it is. Do I have your cooperation?”

  “You were never without it, Primus. I hereby swear to fly as straight as an arrow from now on. You have my word on that, something everyone in space knows and trusts. You can take it to the bank!”

  Looking unconvinced, he stood up. “There’s a general officers’ briefing on Gold Deck at 1300 hours. Be there.”

  Then he left me in peace, and I finished my breakfast. It was a dismal way to start your day, contemplating such big issues.

  The day dragged by until 1 p.m., when I went up to the meeting. There was a sorry spread of food to be had, and it wasn’t even a proper lunch. Just a few chips, dips and stuff with toothpicks in it. I filled the biggest plate I could find and found a seat to start munching.

  Manfred came in and sat down next to me. He bummed some of my snacks off me, and we watched the proceedings begin.

  Tribune Turov strutted out onto the stage first. In her wake was her zoo-legion sidekick, Sub-Tribune Fike.

  “Gentlemen,” Turov began. “I’m here before you today to explain what we know of the situation on the ground at 91 Aquarii. The most important fact is that the Skay ship has not yet arrived. With any luck, we will beat them to this prized star system. That alone, however, won’t guarantee anything.”

  She made a subtle spinning motion with her finger. I knew the gesture well. She was signaling Fike to take action.

  Like a trained seal, he went to the big wall behind them and began to pull up a full diagram of the star system in question.

  I was immediately disappointed when Fike started the info-dump. Usually, Galina herself would turn away and do this part. She often had to stand on her tippy-toes to reach the corners of the huge screen area. This gave everyone a highly advantageous view of her posterior.

  Today, there was no such luck. She kept on yapping, and Fike showed us his lumpy rear to the disgust of many.

  “When did Fike turn into Turov’s butt-monkey?” Manfred asked me, but I shushed him.

  Galina began talking, and I tried hard to pay attention. “The 91 Aquarii system is on the very edge of known space. It’s on the border between Province 921 and Province 926. The most important thing about this border is it separates vast zones of space owned by the Mogwa and the Skay.”

  I knew all this. We all did. We shifted in our seats and stared, hoping she would get to the point.

  “Here is a visual of the movement of the star system. Over the past decade, it has crossed a boundary line. As it continues, it will soon be entirely in Province 926. By custom, the moment it does the system will be seized by the Skay.”

  My fist came up and pushed into my right cheek. Even eating chips wasn’t going to keep me awake through this one.

  “Most of you know all of this,” she continued, “what you don’t know is the nature of the planet and its inhabitants. Fike?”

  Fike touched the display, and it lit up nicely. A pack of skinny humanoids wrapped up in strips of cloth appeared.

  “Heh,” I said. “They look like mummies.”

  A number of the officers around me rumbled with laughter. They did look like mummies.

  “That’s enough disrespect,” Fike said sternly. “These people live on the bright side of the planet. They’re nomadic, of course, like the entire population. Their brethren don’t allow them to enter the shadowed zone, or the night side, of course. Arguably, they’re the least fortunate of all three tribes, but—”

  “Ahem,” Galina cleared her throat importantly. “I believe you’re leaving out some vital information.”

  Fike frowned. “The basics? Is that really needed? All of the background information was distributed to everyone’s tapper hours ago.”

  Galina nodded. “Yes… but that doesn’t mean anyone read it.”

  Fike released a puffing breath, showing his disgust. “The officer core of the Iron Eagles would have—”

  “Yes, yes, I’m sure they would all have book reports ready here at the meeting, just in case. But these unfortunates aren’t from the Eagles. They were all rejected by your former outfit. So, if you wouldn’t mind?”

  Grumbling disapprovingly, Fike swept his hand over the image on the big screen, quickly swiping left to right to back up the presentation. Soon, he was at the beginning of it.

  Manfred leaned over to me. “Did you read the report they sent out this morning?”

  “What report?”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Fike began to drone again. He started off with the description of the star system itself. 91 Aquarii, was in the constellation of Aquarius from Earth’s point of view. It was a triple-star system, with a binary center and a long range small third star that orbited the other two at a significant distance.

  “Sounds just like Alpha Centauri,” I said aloud.

  Fike glanced up. He was somewhat irritated with the interruption, but also glad that at least someone was paying attention.

  “Yes,” he said, “it’s similar to that, although the core double-stars are very close—even physically connected. This makes them somewhat less stable and their output of energy is much higher. The first exoplanet discovered in this system was a gas giant, suspected in 2003 and confirmed in 2020. Since then, a sm
aller and more habitable planet has been located in the system. That planet is our destination.”

  “What do we call it?”

  “The local name is unpronounceable. Our astronomers call it 91 Aquarii e—but I’m sure you’ll come up with something more catchy soon. It’s an arid planet without oceans. The local gravity, atmosphere and general composition is similar to a dry, stony version of Earth.”

  “Sounds nice so far.”

  Fike frowned at me. “Just keep listening. I’m almost finished with the happy-talk. The planet is in a life-allowing orbit around its double-star. It’s well-positioned for liquid water to be stable and even common. The poles are lightly frosted with ice, and the equatorial region is hotter than the rest of the world—however.”

  “Here it comes,” Manfred said beside me, and I steeled myself. There was always something shitty about any world Legion Varus got shipped out to. Always.

  “What makes this world different from Earth,” Fike continued, “is its damnably slow rotation period. One local day takes just over a standard year to go by.”

  There were some gasps from the crowd. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t done his homework.

  “That’s right,” Fike continued. “A damned whole year. That means any given spot on the planet is in daylight for about five months and then dark for about five months. For about one month at either end of that sequence, it’s either dawn or dusk.”

  The imagery swam on the screen, and we saw the world. It looked of kind yellow-orange, like a lemon-flavored version of Mars.

  “There it is, that shadowed zone,” Galina chimed in, and she finally turned toward the screen. She began stretching and tapping at it. This made every male in the chamber look a little happier.

  “Yes…” Fike said. “As you can see, about forty percent of the planet is dark and freezing at any given time, while another forty is blazing hot and sunny for months. The shadowed zones long the edges—that’s where things are pleasant, but where that region is slowly shifts day to day. Our Earth rotates at around seventeen hundred kilometers an hour. 91 Aquarii rotates at about five kilometers an hour—a walking pace.”

  Galina spun her finger at Fike again, but this time she did it faster. She wanted him to hurry things up.

  “So you see,” he began summing up, “the inhabitants have divided into three tribes. One inhabits the bright side, one the dark, and the last lives in the glorious middle.”

  “The shadowed zone,” Galina interjected.

  “The shadowed zone is the most pleasant of the three, and those who dwell there are dominant. It’s these folks who managed to invent the revival machines. They have an advanced culture—but it is, by necessity, nomadic.”

  “That’s really weird,” I said loudly. “Show me the freaks from the dark side. Are they mummies too?”

  Fike shook his head and skipped past a few screens of his slide show. Suddenly, a lumpy four-legged creature crouched on a patch of ice and black rock. It was as thick as the bright-siders were thin. Instead of a mummy’s rags, he wore heavy furs. In fact, he was furred from what I could tell. A mangy coat of hair grew all over him to protect him from the cold.

  And the eyes—the eyes were the worst. They gleamed yellow like some kind of a wild thing that’s been drawn to a campfire in the wilderness.

  “They wear furs, they have eyes adapted for night vision, and they’re vicious. The night-siders are probably the most dangerous and uncivilized of the lot.”

  I hooted and pointed. “He looks like a werewolf! We’ve got mummies by day and werewolves by night!”

  The group busted up laughing. Even Graves let his lips twitch upward before scowling at me.

  “And the third tribe rides herd on them all,” he said, flipping to another image. A tall man and a tall attractive woman stood side by side. For a second, I thought they were humans—but they weren’t.

  The differences were subtle. For one thing, they had eyes that were too big. For another, there were tufts of fur on them, here and there. On humans, you only saw hair on the head, plus some body hair. These guys had more. Their shoulders, for instance, had small epaulets of carefully combed hair.

  A few of the officers present winced and hissed. Not me, however. I kind of like the lioness look of the female. The male wasn’t anything special, but he seemed mighty proud of his shoulder-patches.

  They wore clothing as well. It was a normal combo of shirts and pants.

  “These shadow-zoners are definitely humanoid. They’re well-adapted to a life in perpetual twilight. It’s these people who invented the revival machines we rely upon in the legions.”

  My hand shot up at this point, making Fike frown. “What is it, McGill?”

  “Why’d they make them?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Why’d they invent revival machines? I mean, if they’ve got it so good, if they run the show on 91 Aquarii—why did they go to all this trouble to patch themselves up?”

  Fike pointed a finger at me. “Ah-ha! A good question at last. We’ve determined that it’s because of the extreme bloodshed on 91 Aquarii. Due to the existence of the three distinct tribes, and the perpetual requirement for nomadic behavior, there is a constant struggle going on. Essentially, these three tribes are in a permanent state of war.”

  “And the shadow tribe decided they wanted to live again, huh? That’s really something.”

  The briefing went on after that, but I didn’t pay it any heed.

  I was thinking too hard inside my own head to listen to Fike or Galina. This was going to be really something. Three sides in a permanent war? On a planet that rotated as slowly as molasses in winter?

  Then there was the Skay. What would that monster out of space demand? When the Skay arrived, it was surely going to stir up the local pot.

  I began eyeing the female Shadowlander again, and I felt a twinge of interest in her. She looked smart, pretty and exotic. At the very least, she might make a suitable companion for a man like me.

  -28-

  We were dismissed, and Galina slapped me on top of the head as the meeting broke up.

  “Hey, Tribune,” I said good-naturedly.

  “Stop drooling over that creature.”

  “What?”

  “The Shadowlander. She’s not likely to want an ape like you. Her native males are civilized and distinguished-looking. You, McGill, are a brute. You’ll remind her of a vicious night-sider.”

  There she was again, acting all jealous. I hadn’t even gotten off the ship yet, but she was seeing every woman as a rival. Oh sure, there were plenty of reasons from our shared past for her to feel jealous, but to me it seemed premature for her to start in before we’d even reached the planet in question.

  “Uh… I don’t even know who you’re talking about… wait a second! You don’t mean that freaky shadow-lady, do you?”

  “Yes, of course. I saw how you looked at her.”

  I laughed and faked a shudder. “Don’t be crazy, girl! I’m not into alien tail. I’m into humans, you know that.”

  “Yes… I do. But I also know how your eye wanders when something interesting goes by.”

  I tilted my head speculatively. “Sounds like someone wants a date tonight, huh?”

  “Think again.”

  “Don’t you like your men to be a little… brutish?” I asked, giving her my best smile.

  She thought about it. She honestly did. Finally, she sighed. “I don’t know why I should care one way or the other about that Shadowlander.”

  “It’s because you’re lonely. I’ve got the fix for that.” My big palm slapped down on the table. “Done! It’s a date. See you at eight.”

  She started to turn away, but I stood suddenly and kissed her. She pouted, but she was kind of smiling, too. She didn’t meet my eye.

  “Eight,” I whispered in her ear. “Don’t forget.”

  “All right, eight… if you don’t get killed again by then.”

  I thought tha
t was an odd and rather cryptic message to give me under the circumstances, but a man like myself couldn’t afford to look a gift-horse in the mouth. Accordingly, I ducked out before she could change her mind, or I somehow managed to blow up our plans.

  Whistling as I marched down the passageways, I found myself to be in an excellent mood. I had a hot date scheduled tonight, followed by a planet full of interesting women to conquer in the morning. What could go wrong?

  Returning to my module, I found my whole unit was in turmoil. Word had gotten out that we would be dropping in the morning.

  “Hey, Harris,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Who spilled the beans?”

  “About the drop? You did.” He grinned and walked off to shout at a recruit who was packing the extra barrel for his rifle the wrong way.

  Alarmed, I checked my tapper. It was true. I’d meant to forward the briefing from my tapper to Adjunct Barton’s. I often did that when there were too many details to learn. Barton was the kind of woman who loved details. She couldn’t get enough of them.

  But instead of targeting Barton alone, I’d actually hit the mailbox of every officer and noncom in my unit. It was a disaster, as they were busily spreading the word to other units.

  “Damn…”

  My first thought concerned the date I’d just set up. If word of this had gotten out… well, it would be hard to cover all my bases by eight pm.

  I began walking fast and picking up steam. Soon, I was trotting after Barton. I caught up with her and crooked my finger. She followed me into my office.

  “That briefing you sent me,” she said, almost out of breath, “there hasn’t been enough time to react to it. Can you confirm that we’re flying into the 91 Aquarii system late tonight, then dropping on their capital in the afternoon? Doesn’t that seem extreme?”

  I blinked at her for a few seconds. Sure, I’d figured out that we were arriving tomorrow, but I hadn’t read any of the other documents. This whole business about dropping on a capital immediately was news to me.

  “Uh… which capital?”

  “The Shadowlanders, of course. They’re the only ones who don’t have a completely nomadic society.”