Armor World Read online

  “Looks that way.”

  Harris eyed me sidelong. “I don’t think he liked the way you tricked him on Green Deck yesterday.”

  I shrugged, not caring at all. “Nah… Winslade’s not like that. He’s not petty, or vindictive… He barely cares about who kills who on the field of honor.”

  Harris laughed and marched his platoon away. I was about to move out myself when my tapper began buzzing.

  With a sigh, I answered it.

  “McGill?”

  It was Tribune Galina Turov. She didn’t sound happy.

  “Yes sir! McGill on station, reporting in!”

  “Get up here to Gold Deck. I want to discuss some things with you.”

  About then, I noticed Adjunct Erin Barton was watching me closely. Natasha and Kivi were eyeing me as well.

  They were all subtle, but I knew how women kept a man under surveillance. They liked to turn their heads away but still study the innocent male with their peripheral vision. Sometimes, like in the case of Natasha right now, they’d slide their eyes to one side tightly—staring without seeming to stare. Using a variety of methods, no less than three women were spying on me at the moment.

  Now, that might be nine kinds of a coincidence—or even a delusion of grandeur on my part—but I didn’t think so. Two of the three had been intimate with me over recent nights. As for Natasha… well, she kind of had a permanent thing for me that never seemed to fade away completely.

  “Uh… sure, Tribune,” I told my tapper. “I’ll be right up there.”

  Avoiding the critical eyes of all three curious ladies, I headed to the elevators. I stepped inside and pressed the button that would whisk me away to Gold Deck.

  At the last moment I stopped the car by reaching out a hand to keep the doors from sliding shut.

  “Adjunct Barton?” I called out to Erin, as if I’d just had an afterthought.

  “Sir?”

  “Take everyone that’s still lingering here back to our module. Await further orders there. We’re off active duty, but we’re still on alert.”

  “Got it, Centurion.”

  Then the elevator door shut, and I escaped from all those prying eyes.

  Gold Deck had never looked so busy. People were bustling everywhere. There were even a few squids in evidence, sub-centurions from Armel’s zoo legion.

  One of these tentacle-types approached me. I didn’t recognize him, as squids all looked alike to me, but I caught sight of his nameplate.

  “Bubbles!” I said, throwing my hands wide in greeting.

  Sub-Centurion Bubble was fussy, even for a squid. He turned to look at me in confusion. “Is there a reason why you are addressing me, Centurion McGill?”

  “Damn straight there is. I thought you might have died back on Storm World, but here you are, safe and sound.”

  “I did die, actually. Twice. But on each occasion, Tribune Armel saw my value and committed resources to revive me.”

  “Doesn’t that beat all? Wow, I didn’t think he would revive anything less useful than a giant with that expensive rig of his…”

  “Your statement is both inaccurate and somewhat insulting.”

  “Now, now, when your tribune assigns you a relative value, you can’t go around saying his judgment is poor. You’ll never get a promotion with that kind of attitude.”

  “I was not suggesting that the tribune—”

  “Hey,” I said, taking an aggressive step toward him.

  The big squid shifted his bulk uncomfortably, but he did stand his ground without inking himself.

  That was one of the many strange things about Cephalopods. They could be cowed if you acted tough enough. The fact this stack of raw calamari was powerful enough to rip my limbs off like rose petals didn’t change that reality: Bubbles was a scaredy-squid.

  “Hey, how about you tell me what these Peg bastards are up to? Surely you know the real score.”

  Bubbles looked confused, which squids expressed by wriggling their tentacles around aimlessly.

  “I don’t understand your request, Centurion.”

  “Are they in cahoots with that big invasion ship or not?”

  “Cahoots…? A colloquialism suggesting a temporary alliance? No, Centurion McGill. I am not ‘in cahoots’ with anyone else on this ship.”

  I frowned at him for a second. Had his translation box goofed up? I’d asked him about the ships outside—not about old Bubbles himself. Maybe my use of a new term had confused him. I decided to let old Bubbles slide on it.

  “So,” I said, rewording my question, “you have no idea who these attackers are, or what they might want?”

  “That is essentially correct.”

  “Hmm…” I said, beginning to wonder about him. Squids were never trustworthy, not unless you had a gun aimed at each eyeball—and they had a lot of eyeballs. “What are those Peg ships doing out there, then?”

  “McGill!” Tribune Turov interrupted.

  I turned to see her standing with her fists on the nice swell of her hips. She looked annoyed.

  “There you are, sir,” I said. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “I’ve been waiting in my office since I called you. Get in here.”

  “Right away, sir. If you’d just—”

  I turned, expecting to see Bubbles standing around—but I didn’t. He’d made off down the nearest passageway. Strange behavior—even for him.

  “Uh…” I said, pivoting back to Galina. “Lead the way, sir. I’m right on your tail.”

  She gave me a sour glance with twisted lips and marched away.

  I’d vaguely hoped she’d been planning to meet with me alone. Possibly, this could lead to a little private moment—but it was not to be.

  Winslade was there, sitting at a small table. At his side sat Armel. Together these three made up a big percentage of all the brass aboard Legate.

  Surprised, I stood at attention and let my face shift toward hardcore ignorance.

  “Sirs! McGill reporting as ordered!”

  “You took an incredible span of time getting here, McGill,” Armel complained.

  “Sorry sir. I met up with an old friend who wanted to wish me well.”

  “You mean Sub-Centurion Bubble?” he asked. “I had no idea you two were so close.”

  My eyes flicked down in surprise, then back up again. I stared fixedly at the forward bulkhead like it owed me money.

  “Uh…” I said. “Bubbles and I go way back. Way back, sir.”

  “I’m sure you do, but in any case, there’s been a complaint lodged against you.”

  “Really? What might the nature of the charge be, sir?”

  Armel leaned forward. “You’ve been accused of having rigged the exercise on Green Deck yesterday, Centurion. Knowing your reputation and the highly unlikely outcome that resulted during the contest, I’m likely to agree with your accusers.”

  I got it now. Winslade had tattled to Armel, who’d been judging the contest. Galina had joined in, doubtlessly with hurt feelings over the abuse her dragon’s tail had suffered at my hands.

  Sometimes, I wished people could just suck it up when they died badly and soldier on. This group had clearly decided to form a court of inquiry instead.

  “Now that the accused and the injured parties are all present, we can continue,” Armel said. “Winslade, state your case.”

  Winslade adopted an air of formality. “Yesterday, during a routine exercise, there was a surprise upset. The higher ranked officers were supposed to win—but they did not.”

  “Wait… The brass was supposed to win?” I asked suddenly. “I didn’t get that feeling at all.”

  “Possibly,” Armel said, “it wasn’t spelled out.”

  “Nonsense!” Winslade objected. “The situation was obvious from the start. That’s why the primus-level officers received vastly better equipment.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but we outnumbered you twenty to one. Sir, don’t you think it would be better to just acce
pt your ass-whooping? It would set a better example for the troops.”

  “I will not. I was cheated. No one could have imagined what was about to take place!”

  “I sure did!” I argued.

  Armel smirked at that and Galina frowned—but Winslade… he was fuming.

  “All right, Winslade,” Galina said, “you called this lynch party. What do you propose should be done about it?”

  “He killed you as well, Tribune. Try to remember that.”

  “My memory is excellent,” Galina snapped, giving him a threatening glance.

  Over the years, Winslade had been involved in any number of wrongful actions. The span of his crimes covered quite a range, from assassination to treason, dereliction of duty, and so much more.

  Winslade turned back to me. “One more chance to confess before I show much greater crimes than this, McGill.”

  That alarmed me a bit. After all, I was no boy scout.

  “Uh… I can’t confess to something that never happened, sir. Sorry.”

  “Very well.”

  Winslade picked up an instrument. It looked like a writing stylus. He waved it over the table we encircled, and an odd vid began to play.

  It took me a few seconds to get the perspective—but then I had it. Natasha and I were in the foreground, huddled-up and working on her computer. For a moment, the scene swooped and dived sickeningly.

  “You put a drone on me?” I asked.

  Winslade shrugged. “Absurd paranoia. I merely scan Gold Deck’s defenses with regularity. It’s one of my duty assignments.”

  We watched for several more moments, and soon it became evident that Natasha and I were hacking officer tappers—in addition to Legate’s data core.

  “Um…” I said, and they looked at me. “We were bored. We were just trying to figure out what was going on out there in space.”

  Winslade looked like a kitten getting ready to pounce. “And you expect us to believe you did nothing like this to find out about the strategies and equipment involved in the Green Deck exercise?”

  “Stand down, Primus!” Armel said suddenly.

  Surprised, Winslade withdrew and sat down. He did maintain a smug expression of insufferable self-satisfaction, however.

  Armel studied me coldly. “James McGill… at it again, I see. Insubordination, dangerous sharing of intelligence—the list seems endless.”

  “I would like to see the record of this event swept clean,” Winslade said. “McGill didn’t win that contest. He cheated. He—”

  “Silence, Primus Winslade,” Armel said. “You’re embarrassing yourself. This is much bigger than some exercise. I will report this to Drusus. McGill should be executed and expelled back to Earth for a proper court martial when we have time. Optionally, we could just leave him dead and save ourselves the trouble.”

  Both Galina and Winslade were frowning now. I could see they’d been looking for some petty revenge—at least Winslade was, and Galina had gone along for the ride to teach me a lesson.

  But talk of perming me? That wasn’t how they’d thought this would end up.

  They argued for a moment about what should be done. I stood there, imitating a bag of hammers.

  “All right,” Turov said at last. “As McGill’s CO, he’s my responsibility. I’ll bring the matter up to Drusus when it’s appropriate to do so.”

  Armel twisted up his lips at her. “Appropriate, eh? That’s a curious word to use.”

  She glared back at him. He was obviously referring to our personal conduct.

  The meeting ended with no one being fully satisfied, least of all me. Winslade and Armel left, but I lingered hoping Galina would soften.

  I was sorely disappointed.

  “All right McGill,” she said. “You’ve embarrassed me again. I placed you at the gates of Gold Deck, as safe and easy a post as I could imagine, but you still managed to fuck it up.”

  “Huh… you did?”

  “Who runs Legion Varus?”

  “You do.”

  “So, who do you think assigned 3rd unit to that hallway?”

  “Um… you, sir?”

  “Exactly. Get your head out of your ass, McGill. Now I have no option but to give you hazardous duty. That will get these two morons to leave me alone.”

  “Leave you alone? Don’t you mean to leave me alone?”

  She rolled her eyes at me. Girls did that a lot.

  “Didn’t you hear those barbs coming from Armel about our relationship? He wanted to make me save you, to embarrass me. His gambit won’t succeed.”

  “Well… maybe you could give me a kiss to remember you by, if I’m going on a dangerous assignment.”

  “Don’t,” she said, and I got nowhere.

  Kicked out of her office, I found myself heading back to my module. There were plenty of mysteries in my near future, but I didn’t let any of that bother me. I took it in stride and made passes at Adjunct Barton, Kivi and Natasha in that order.

  I flamed out all three times. Unfortunately, they’d all noticed each other. They’d all seen other women watching me with interest in the elevator lobby—and they knew what that meant.

  Not for the first time, I spent the night alone.

  -30-

  The next morning we were called to arms. At roll call, we got a televised briefing on the day’s operations. The most interesting part concerned the intel we’d gathered so far.

  “51 Pegasi is a peaceful star system,” Drusus said, “or it was, until today. We’ve never been hired as mercenaries to come here, nor have Earth’s legions been deployed in our official capacity as local enforcers of Galactic Law.”

  He gestured, and a sweeping map of the planetary system came into focus. Our two ships were far from the central star and the single inhabited planet. We were hanging around the moon-sized invasion ship that had threatened Earth.

  “So far,” Drusus continued, “the enemy has ignored our presence. They are focused on repairing the damage we did to their ship. The local space traffic we expected to see is nonexistent. As well, there’s almost no radio communications going on down below, on the planet itself.”

  The praetor paused to let that sink in.

  Carlos took that moment to sidle up to me.

  “Where’s Turov?” he asked. “I like it better when she does the briefing.”

  “Same here—shut up.”

  “We aren’t sure what’s happening down there on the Peg planet.” Drusus droned on. “It could be everyone is dead, but we’re not seeing any signs of mass destruction, nor of a poisoned atmosphere. There is some particle radiation… but not enough to kill the population. Our best guess is they’ve suffered a massive EMP attack. Perhaps a series of fusion weapons were set off in the upper atmosphere. Such an attack could cause an EMP blast that would fry unprotected electronics.”

  He motioned with his fingers, making a spreading movement. The camera zoomed in sickeningly. “We’re going to insert a squad here, at one of the largest population centers. Their mission will be to scout the location, seeking evidence of an EMP blast and looking for survivors. Tribune Turov? Please take over.”

  Turov strode onto the stage at last.

  “About damned time…” Carlos said.

  I thought about giving him a kick in the pants, but I couldn’t muster the anger to do it. After all, Galina was dressed up again, wearing her uniform an extra size too small and tight. Was she doing that just to tease me? Or was her natural desire to look attractive in front of a crowd coming out? It could have been anything, but the effects were obvious. Every male in my unit was squirming, and every female was whispering.

  “Hey McGill,” Carlos asked me. “Is that a camel-toe or a—”

  That was as far as he got. Moller had spotted him and come up from behind, waiting for him to speak out of turn again. As a commanding officer, it really was beneath my rank to discipline the enlisted types personally—although it still happened now and then. I had a couple of veterans who were built
like apes to handle that kind of thing now.

  Moller landed a boot in Carlos’ ass that dropped him to one knee. Cursing, he got back up slowly.

  “Eyes-front, mouth-closed, Specialist,” she whispered to him in an unusually sweet voice, and she moved on down the line.

  Grumbling briefly, Carlos finally shut up.

  “…and so you can see, a small team at the communications hub right here should be able to determine the nature of the situation on the ground. Of all my beloved troops, there is one cohort that has shouldered more of these special missions than all the rest combined. That would be 3rd Cohort, under the expert command of Primus Graves.”

  A few groans went up. Every experienced infantryman knew that doing impressive things only led to more difficult assignments. That had been true throughout history, so Legion Varus people weren’t the type to show off unless it was by accident. Clearly, my unit had failed to escape notice when it came to successful teleport missions.

  “Over the last two decades,” Galina continued, “Earth has developed our teleport technology. It’s no longer a curiosity, it’s now a vital tool in our arsenal. We also have gateway technology, but that’s quite different in function. The teleport suits—or teleporting harnesses for bombs, as the case may be—allow a small mass to be moved to a variety of locations with adjustments. They work once or twice on battery power, but after that they must be recharged. This allows great flexibility.”

  People around me shuffled their feet a little. They already knew all this, and they were worried Turov’s speech might end on a bad note for us. Everyone wanted her to get to the point—but I knew this woman well, and that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. She liked the sound of her own voice even more than most high-ranking officers did.

  “Gateway technology can only go between two points, but it connects them on a more permanent basis. Effectively, with enough power and time, an army can be marched between any two equipped stations. We’re planning to use both these varieties of transportation technology in new ways starting with today’s mission. I’ll now defer to Primus Graves for a special announcement.”

  “Thank you, Tribune,” Graves said, stepping forward. “My cohort has been elevated in importance—let me explain why. We’re now the first official jump-troop cohort in Earth’s legions. Eventually, there will be a jump-troop unit in every legion, but to start with—it’s just us.”