Edge World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 14) Read online

  By this time, I was getting pretty tired of Daniels. “Back off, hog. I’m taking her down to the brig.”

  “No you’re not. I’ve got orders from Fike. He wants you back up on Gold Deck.”

  I grunted unhappily. Daniels took custody of the girl with obvious relish. His whole face lit up as he walked her onto the elevator.

  The pair turned to face the doors and Daniels touched a button. I noticed that Helsa was frowning at Daniels’ hand, which was still latched onto her wrist. It was a new expression, one I hadn’t seen before on her face. I could tell she was irritated. Daniels had seen fit to keep ahold of her, and he didn’t seem to understand she could be dangerous.

  As the elevator doors shut, I thought about warning him. I really did. But something evil inside me kept me from doing so. I figured that if Daniels lost a few fingers on the way down to the security deck, well, he kind of deserved it.

  Whistling loudly, I returned to Gold Deck. Fike was having a powwow with Captain Merton, who still looked like he smelled shit.

  “All right, Merton. Pull your ship up to high orbit. We can’t drop from there, but we’ll be out of range of any defensive guns they might have.”

  “I told you before, Fike, the locals lack any kind of space-based defenses.”

  “Yes you did, and you were wrong. They popped agents aboard Dominus, and you almost lost her due to incompetence. I repeat: You’ll move to high orbit, ready to swoop back down into landing range with fifteen minutes notice.”

  There went good old Fike, making friends again. I recalled he had a talent for pissing off other officers. Winslade had outright hated him at first sight.

  Captain Merton nodded his head stiffly. I could tell he didn’t love being ordered around on his own bridge—no captain ever did.

  The two men noticed me, and Fike gestured impatiently for me to speak up.

  “Sirs,” I said, stepping forward. “Did you want me for something, Sub-Tribune Fike?”

  He turned slowly toward me, and his eyes darkened. “What are you doing here? You couldn’t possibly have delivered the prisoner to the brig so quickly.”

  “Uh… Daniels took over to do that, sir. He said it was done under your orders.”

  “You’re mistaken, McGill—or you’re lying. I don’t care which it is. If you’ve lost that girl already, it’s your ass.”

  Fike turned back toward Merton, and it was about then I realized I’d been screwed. I raced for the door and thumped down the passages. By the time I reached the elevator, however, it was too late.

  Daniels was facedown with his own knife planted in his spine. For good measure, that fat hand he’d been too eager with had been sliced off.

  It was a clean cut. One stroke, no-fuss, no-muss.

  “That girl knows how to handle a blade,” I said aloud with honest appreciation. “Etta herself couldn’t have done better.”

  I was inside the elevator car then, and a tiny sound caught my attention. I whirled, my hands coming up into a fighting stance.

  There was the girl, stuck to the ceiling like some kind of spider. Her feet were braced, her legs and arms splayed. She was able to hold herself up there—maybe her palms were sticky or something.

  Helsa aimed a pistol into my face. It was Daniels gun. I cursed, realizing I’d been distracted by the body and the knife. I hadn’t even checked to see if she’d armed herself.

  “This elevator is programmed to ignore my biometrics,” she said calmly. “Move the body, close the door, and take us to Green Deck.”

  Shrugging, I did as she asked.

  “Why’d you kill Daniels?”

  “I found him unpleasant.”

  “Uh… but not me?”

  “You are less disgusting. Less weak and obvious in your motivations. I sense in you a strange combination of honesty and duplicity. I’m mildly intrigued.”

  I put my hands on my hips and looked up at her. She wasn’t even straining to maintain a pose that no human could manage. That was bizarre, but I’d dealt with plenty of aliens before. They were full of surprises. For all of that, I’d never met one that couldn’t be killed—or fooled.

  “I thought you said you were an honorable agent. You’re our prisoner, right? I demand you accompany me to the brig until we decide what to do with you.”

  She gave me that quizzical tilt of the head again. “Would you submit to such treatment?”

  “Uh… probably not. But this was all your idea—your mom’s idea, I mean. Listen, are you going to cooperate or not?”

  “There is little you can do about it at the moment,” she said.

  “Wrong.”

  So saying, I stepped up, reaching high with my, long, long ape-arms, and plucked her skinny ass off the ceiling.

  She fired the gun at me—or rather, she squeezed the trigger. But it didn’t go off.

  “Biometrics,” I explained as I set her on her feet and removed the gun from her hand.

  “You’re strong, and brave, and tricky. But you’re not fast.”

  So saying, she swept up a foot toward my privates. If I hadn’t been wearing a cup, I might have been stunned—but most military men wear protection for moments like this.

  My foot moved next, and I swept her feet out from under her. I didn’t put her down hard. I caught the back of her head so my knuckles took the blow instead. This left me kneeling over her.

  Helsa was breathing hard. She looked kind of pissed. “You humiliate me.”

  “That’s my intention, girl.”

  A hard little fist came up and cracked me one on the cheekbone. It would have hit my nose if I hadn’t turned my head.

  I stood up, and she bounced to her feet like a cat.

  “You don’t want to go and get me riled,” I warned her.

  Her eyes darted down to Daniels, who was still soiling the floor of the elevator.

  “You’re not like him. He was slow, stupid, distracted and a poor fighter.”

  “Yeah, well… Daniels’ isn’t a legion man. He’s just a kind of cop. He stays on our ships—he doesn’t fight for a living.”

  “Ahh…” she said, as if finally understanding. “You are a true warrior of Earth, then?”

  “That’s right.”

  “In that case it was an insult when your commander ordered such a poor specimen to take custody of an agent. He thought very little of me.”

  I blinked in confusion. “You mean you didn’t change that order? You didn’t hack Daniels’ tapper and get him to take custody of you?”

  She spat on the dead man. “Of course not. I wouldn’t lower myself to be pawed by such a creature. Besides… I don’t have the skills to hack your tech.”

  “Yeah…” I said thoughtfully, thinking of the gun and the elevator buttons. If she couldn’t operate basic equipment, there was no way she was capable of sending a message that imitated a legit order.

  We got to Green Deck then. Helsa took a step, but I barred her way with one thick arm.

  “Why did you want to come here?”

  “I was told you people keep a facsimile of Earth aboard your ships. I wanted to see your flora and fauna.”

  “Huh… well, we don’t have much in the way of fauna. A few birds, maybe. What we do have is a lot of pretty plants. I could show you that.”

  “I’d like that.”

  She stared at me with those big eyes. Damnation, this girl was trouble. All naked and wide-eyed like that, I felt an urge to indulge her wish—even if she was a murdering alien.

  “Just a second. I’m going to check Daniels’ tapper.”

  Leaning over the corpse, I noticed for the first time that she’d knifed his tapper too.

  “Did you do this? You can’t perm him that way, you know.”

  “Of course not. But destroying his implant means he’ll never remember what it was like to touch me. He might not recall meeting me at all.”

  “Huh… vindictive little thing, aren’t you?”

  “I am an avenger. That is one of the mos
t appropriate terms in your language for my occupation.”

  Mumbling something about petty vengeance, I led my peculiar companion onto Green Deck. I showed her around for a few minutes—but the detour was a mistake.

  “What the hell is this?”

  It was Kivi. I could hardly think of a more unwelcome girl to meet up with right about then. Raising her arm, she took a couple of quick snapshots with her tapper and scowled at me.

  At Kivi’s side another trooper raised his big hand. It was Veteran Sargon.

  “Hey, McGill,” he said.

  “Hey, Sargon.”

  I knew what it meant when Kivi led a man around by the nose on Green Deck. Sargon was either about to get some, or he’d already done so.

  None of this changed Kivi’s reaction to Helsa. Her lip curled like a snarling wolf.

  “Disgusting, McGill. Positively disgusting.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me your little naked friend here isn’t an alien from the planet below?”

  “Uh… can’t do that, I’m afraid.”

  “I know you work fast, but this is ridiculous. We’ve only just arrived. How did you get a native up here so quickly?”

  “She just sort of… popped in on me.”

  Kivi shook her head, grabbed Sargon’s hand and led him off into the trees.

  “Who was that woman?” Helsa asked.

  “Nobody. She’s just one of my support personnel.”

  “Strange… she was so familiar in her speech. You say she’s your inferior?”

  “Yeah… well… we’ve known one another a long, long time. On top of that, she’s off-duty.”

  “You should discipline her. Will you do so?”

  “Uh… maybe later.”

  “I would like to watch.”

  I laughed. “I’ll see what I can do. Now, let’s take you down to the brig.”

  Suddenly, her hand came up, and I flinched a little. I don’t mind telling you, I expected pain—but it didn’t come. Instead, she sort of caressed my arm with back of her fingers.

  “I thought when you agreed to bring me here… I thought we would mate.”

  Standing still, I blinked a few times. I considered it. I honestly did.

  At last, I sadly shook my head. “Nope, not today. Come on.”

  She followed me dejectedly. She stepped behind me as we exited Green Deck, but I spun around and grabbed her wrist.

  Her hand was on the hilt of my knife. I almost hadn’t felt her touch. She was a sneaky one, that was for sure.

  Helsa looked at me in honest surprise. “Will you slay me now? Or abuse me?”

  “Nope—but you’re walking ahead of me from now on.”

  Helsa took the lead. I marched her pretty, naked little butt down to the brig. I couldn’t even properly enjoy the view as I kept thinking she was going to pull something else—but she didn’t.

  When I handed her over to the Fleet security-pukes, they all looked angry.

  “What took you so damned long? And what did you do to Daniels? He’s away from his post, and his tapper isn’t responding to any pings.”

  I glanced at Helsa. If these wannabe hogs found out what she’d done, they might put her in a straightjacket or something.

  “Daniels and I are great friends,” I told them. “We played a little game in the elevator. You’ll find him in there.”

  The cops narrowed their eyes at me, but they let me go. With any luck, they’d blame me for Daniels’ death. Since he probably wouldn’t remember what had happened, that would work out just fine for Helsa.

  Unconcerned with the regulations they read out to me, I left them mid-sentence and made my way upstairs again. The brig was always on one of the lowest decks, down near the engines, where it was hot and humid.

  They took custody of Helsa arrogantly when I left. All of their pissing and moaning about Daniels had left me in an uncharitable mood, so I didn’t warn them about the seemingly harmless Helsa.

  I figured she’d school them on her Shadowlander ways before too long.

  -34-

  The next morning we dropped on the planet at 0600 hours. It was a fine morning for an invasion, and my troops looked like they were perky and raring to go—all of them, that is, except for Kivi.

  She was still butt-hurt about meeting up with me and the naked Helsa. She was spreading venom about it to every female who was interested—which meant pretty much all of them.

  “And he had her by the arm, too. Leading her around like a dog. I’m surprised he didn’t make her wear a leash and collar.”

  “Now, now,” I said, walking up behind her. “Let’s not be spinning those tall tales, Specialist. We’re about to drop.”

  The women surrounding Kivi gave me odd glances. I couldn’t read their expressions as I wasn’t good at that. But they didn’t look happy. Even Moller was giving me a weird look.

  Annoyed, I hammered my big palms together repeatedly, making a loud booming sound designed to interrupt every conversation in the module. “All right people, saddle-up. We’re heading down to Red Deck.”

  “What?” Leeson complained. “No breakfast?”

  “That’s right. Leeson, you’re with me. Moller, ride herd on the new recruits.”

  That got them moving. Instead of slouching and bitching, they started grabbing up gear and flooding into the passageways.

  Leeson caught up with me just as I’d ordered. “McGill? The deck arrows haven’t even lit up yet. Are you sure we’re supposed to board the lifters already?”

  “That’s what I said,” I spoke with utter confidence. “Fike’s new. Maybe he forgot to push the button.”

  Just as I said these words, the floor under our feet lit up. It was stroke of luck, really.

  “There we go,” Leeson said. “I should have known.”

  I nodded sagely, as if it was all a choreographed operation. Glancing back along the line, I saw they were really hustling now. The unit moved at a ground-eating trot. We weren’t in parade-step, but we stayed together due to long practice.

  A face back there caught my eye. It was Natasha, and she was running, pushing her way up among the platoons.

  Internally, I groaned. Kivi had probably gotten to her, telling her about Helsa. Damnation, these women had to get over this kind of thing—but I knew in Natasha’s case that was pretty much hopeless. The girl had been hung up on me for over two or three decades now.

  I picked up the pace. As I was in the lead and in command, the entire column was soon pounding along, passing over the deck with startling speed. Every now and then, a hapless crewman stumbled into our path, and we pretty much ran him over. Varus legionnaires were all business when the call to action finally came.

  Daring another glance back, I saw Natasha was still gaining on me. Shit. That girl was persistent. I figured that if I made it to the lifter first, we’d get wedged in our seats, and she’d be unable to catch up to me and deliver whatever heartfelt message was simmering in her mind just now.

  Taking a chance, I glanced down at my tapper. I’m well-known as a man who might leave a text message drifting for a week or more before I got around to reading it. Today was no exception, as there were no less than forty-one unread messages in my queue.

  I’d almost made it to Red Deck and rushed aboard our assigned lifter when there was a snag. Another cohort had beaten us to the loading zone.

  “You’re early, McGill,” a sour-faced Primus Collins told me.

  Collins was mean-looking, and she had a long scar over her face. She’d never gotten her body-scan files updated to get that fixed. I guess that was because she thought the scar looked kind of cool. To me, it had ruined her face.

  “Stand down,” she ordered. “Stay off Red Deck for five more minutes.”

  Sighing, I stood aside and tried not to pant. I’d run down here for nothing.

  Moments later, a gasping Natasha came trotting up behind me. She poked at my back persistently with a finger.

  “Hey! What kind of
bird is pecking at my backside?” I asked, turning around on her. I pretended to be glad to see her. “There you are, Natasha… did you know you’re panting hard, girl? Did you let yourself go during that last furlough on Earth?”

  She shook her head, and she crooked a finger in my direction.

  I knew she wanted me to lean close. Hesitantly, I did so. A few of the troops guffawed.

  “He’s gonna kiss her!” Carlos howled in delight. “Right in the middle of a drop! Watch and learn, boys!”

  Both Natasha and I straightened our spines immediately. We stopped leaning close.

  “Frigging Carlos,” Natasha complained. “Come on James, step out of the main passage. It’s important.”

  I hesitated, but at last I followed her. I could tell after that run she wasn’t going to give up easily. I might be able to shine her on this time, but she’d make sure she got her chance to speak her mind at some point. I figured I might as well get it over with.

  Sighing, I followed her into a ready room that was empty. A few hooting sounds followed us, but I cut them off when I shut the door.

  “What is so wildly important, Natasha?” I demanded.

  “Did you read my messages?”

  “Messages? I sure did!”

  She twisted up her lips. “No, you didn’t. Well, they weren’t very specific, anyway. I wanted to be as vague as possible, so we wouldn’t get into any trouble.”

  “Uh-huh…” I said, not getting whatever she was hinting about. I’m not terribly good at taking hints about anything. Just ask anyone.

  At least I was beginning to figure out this wasn’t about Helsa at all. That was a relief.

  “Anyway, as you’ve probably figured out by now, I cracked the code.”

  I almost said “what code?” like an idiot. It was that close. But fortunately, a dim bulb lit up in my sorry brain, and I realized what the hell she must be talking about.

  “The deep-link? You managed to crack the deep-link com system? What message did you intercept?”

  “None, really. I just hacked Captain Merton’s bridge console and downloaded a standard report he sent back to Central. After that, it was easy. After he transmitted the message back to Earth, I ran a program to look for patterns. It was like having the combination to a safe. All I had to do was dial it in, and—”