Armor World Read online

  “You see?” I demanded, flicking my fingers at Galina. “These Mogwa crews aren’t losers. They’ve got new, state of the art ships from the Core Worlds.”

  “This ship they’re facing isn’t primitive either, James,” she said eyeing me.

  I frowned. She knew something. She knew more about this ship than she should have known. That worried me more than anything else.

  Back in the day, Galina had been quite the schemer. She’d tried to take over Earth on several occasions among other, darker crimes.

  The battle, such as it was, continued. The big ship fired several more times, about once every minute, while the Mogwa ships kept dodging and stabbing burn-holes into the monster that stalked them. They weren’t doing much damage, but they weren’t dying—until everything shifted again.

  “Dammit…” Graves said under his breath.

  The rest of us collectively gasped. Another of the heavy cruisers was caught and embroiled in flame. It wasn’t a clean, direct hit, but it was enough to send them into a spin.

  “They’re venting,” Winslade said. “That ship is a goner.”

  “How did they figure out the algorithm so fast?” Winslade asked. “The Mogwa jump-pattern appears to be completely random.”

  “It never is,” Galina said tightly. “Not really. Random to a computer is predicable—if you figure out the software.”

  “That fast?” Winslade asked. “How could they…?”

  Galina shrugged. “The enemy isn’t natural AI. It is… advanced.”

  Graves gave her a long squinty-eyed stare after that exchange. He was beginning to suspect her, too. I could tell.

  “The Mogwa missiles have reached the hull!” someone shouted.

  That surprised me. It had been quite a while since they’d first been fired, but then again, it takes a missile a lot longer to travel sixty thousand kilometers than it takes a beam of light.

  The strikes were impressive. Those warheads…

  “Antimatter?” I asked aloud.

  “It must be,” Winslade said, his tone hushed.

  We were all overawed, because these warheads were something else again. It wasn’t the fact of their composition, it was their yield that made a hushed silence fall over the audience while we watched.

  “Gigatons…” Graves said. “A lot of gigatons.”

  The whole face of the moon-like ship was ablaze now—in fact, it was pushed back some. I couldn’t believe it, but the raining impacts were actually pushing the moon-sized giant away from the attacking fleet. The amount of energy released was fantastic to behold.

  “We’re totally outclassed…” Drusus said. He was back, in hologram form. He looked like a ghost, and he sounded like one too. “Nothing in our fleet could stand up for five minutes against either of these forces.”

  No one argued with him. We were glued to the projections.

  “They could have shredded Earth at any moment,” I said. “Why didn’t they?”

  “That’s not what they came out here to do,” Turov told me.

  The giant, armored sphere finally seemed concerned at last. That missile barrage had gotten their full attention. Moving away and spinning to present a fresh side to the attacking fleet, the monster ship didn’t retreat—but they did put some distance between themselves and the Mogwa ships.

  “Things are going to get ugly now…” Galina said.

  She gripped my arm. That was a surprise, and I almost pulled away, fearing another vicious pinch—but it didn’t come. It might be an unconscious reaction, but she seemed to want some physical contact. I reflected on the fact our relationship had always been a damned strange one.

  Moments later, a bad thing did happen.

  Three of the Mogwa ships blew up in rapid succession.

  “T-bombs!” Winslade said. “It has to be. Inserted right into their guts, right through their shields and their dodging… remarkable.”

  The Mogwa ships all vanished a moment later.

  “Where’d they go?” I demanded. “Are they running? Did they blow up?”

  “No…” Winslade said, working the console. “They appear to have teleported farther than I would have given them credit for. In fact… there they are. We’ve picked them up again on our sensors.”

  The ships reappeared on the hologram projection a moment later—and they were all around us.

  Galina yelped. That was the only word I had to describe it. She sounded like a small dog when you step on it.

  She ripped her hands off of my bicep, and I don’t mind telling you her nails left a few curvy lines behind.

  “Drusus!” she called out. “Get us out of here! Withdraw, flank speed!”

  “Are they attacking us?” Winslade asked.

  “No, but the invader is fully engaged now. It’s guilt by association. We’re about to be destroyed, trust me!”

  Drusus’ hologram turned toward Galina. “Helm, withdraw in good order. Take us to the far side of the planet.”

  “No, no,” Galina said. “You have to warp out, right now!”

  Drusus’ wavering form regarded her. “There’s something you’re not telling me, Tribune. Would you care to explain your intimate knowledge of—”

  “There’s no time!” she screamed.

  Just then, a strange brilliance lit up the bridge. It was from space, I could tell that. A light so bright it shone right through the portholes and maybe the hull itself.

  Drusus’ image blinked out.

  “Aeternum has been destroyed…” Winslade said in a shocked voice. “She’s gone. Legion Solstice is gone… Drusus is gone. There’s nothing but radiation and—”

  “Shut up!” Turov shouted. “Crew, as the most senior officer left alive in this expedition, I order you to go to warp—now!”

  Armel looked as shocked as anyone else. He was a tribune as well, but he wasn’t as senior as Turov was. He nodded.

  “I concur. Helm, get us the hell out of here.”

  Legate heeled over and began to flee. We nosed toward open space and home, hopefully.

  A few seconds later, before they could engage the warp bubble, a glare lit up the bridge again.

  Were we hit? It was all I could think of.

  What a way to get myself permed…

  -42-

  Fortunately, although we’d all gotten a nice dose of hard gamma rays, we were still alive.

  “Sateekas…” Winslade said. “His flagship has blown up.”

  He sounded stunned. For him, that was an unusual tone. He normally didn’t give a rat’s ass if anyone died—other than himself.

  “Get us into warp—now!” Turov ordered.

  Within ninety seconds, Legate generated a warp bubble and slid away into space. We felt mildly safe for the first time in days.

  Everyone felt safe, that is, except for me.

  Turov’s eyes had turned into slits. She rounded on me, and she might have landed a fist on my cheek if I hadn’t reached up a hand to block her.

  That was a mistake, because she hurt her wrist on my hand, and then she got really pissed. She pulled out a pistol.

  “Aw now, come on,” I said. “I just got out of Blue Deck ten minutes ago.”

  “And you’ve earned your way back there already!”

  “Tribune,” Armel said. “I know how you feel—believe me, I do. You are in command… but I’m not sure if executing McGill now is the best choice.”

  She turned to look at him, and I thought for a second she would gun him down instead. But then, with a roar of anger, she spun on her heel and shoved her pistol back into its holster. She marched away into the main passage.

  Armel approached me with a grin floating under that thin mustache.

  “I think that you missed your calling in life, McGill,” he said. “You should have been born a court jester. A fool who lives at the sufferance of those he mocks.”

  “Yeah…?” I said, turning his words over in my mind once, then twice. I was pretty sure I’d been insulted, but I wasn’t c
lear on how, exactly.

  “Thanks for speaking up, Armel,” I told him.

  “Think nothing of it. Right now, she is a woman in a rage. If she were to kill you, nothing would be solved. Worse, she would be forced to identify a new target for her frustrations.”

  “Oh…” I said, catching on. “You intervened so she could kick me around again later—instead of you?”

  “It was a risk, I admit,” he agreed. “But what I said is true. Come, we should get down to Blue Deck.”

  “Huh…? why?”

  “Because our new leader should be coming out shortly. Check with your contacts—I know you keep them at every critical station.”

  I frowned at him, not exactly sure what he was talking about. I did, however, have plenty of friends on Blue Deck. Mostly, they were women I’d hit on repeatedly, a few I’d dated…

  Sending out several quick texts, I got a response from a gossipy bio on Blue Deck. She liked to tell people who was being revived—if it was someone important.

  “An alien?” I said aloud.

  Armel tossed me a knowing smile over his shoulder. He must have people down there too—people he’d bribed, or threatened. He didn’t have any friends to the best of my knowledge.

  “I thought you meant Drusus was coming out,” I said. “He should be the next in line since Aeternum blew up.”

  Armel made tsking sounds and shook his head, like I was some new and advanced variety of moron. He did that a lot.

  “Such a lack of imagination,” he said. “First of all, it should be obvious that Drusus would never be popping back out of the oven so quickly. Turov seems quite worked up about recent events, and she’s very recently inherited command. Surely, you can see that she isn’t eager to remove herself from that lofty position so soon.”

  “Uh… okay. But if it’s not Drusus, who is it? You said ‘our new leader’ I don’t miss a trick when it comes to something like that.”

  “No, you certainly don’t. Let’s use a bit of logic, shall we?”

  “Logic?”

  “Yes. Try it, McGill. Do your best. I wish to be amused—or possibly amazed.”

  “Uh… well, let’s see… there are other officers back on Earth that might be considered a new leader. Various imperators and equestrians… But they wouldn’t be coming out on Blue Deck, they’d come to Gray Deck, using the gateway posts.”

  Armel made that annoying tsking sound again. “Failure. Not even an amusing failure. You’ve disappointed me, McGill. Too bad the game is finished, as we are here at the very gates of Blue Deck.”

  Eyeing the sealed pressure doors and the unsmiling bio guards who watched our approach, I was suddenly struck with an idea. I stopped dead in my tracks.

  “You don’t mean… You didn’t revive Sateekas, did you?”

  Armel turned toward me with a shitty grin. “Ah-ha! You have redeemed yourself!”

  “That file he sent… he was talking about his own body-scans, his engrams, right? But can we print out a new Mogwa? I thought these machines were charged with materials for human organics.”

  Armel waved off the two bio guards, who reluctantly retreated. They knew not to mess with a tribune.

  “Such things can be fixed in desperate times,” he said, “and recent events have proven desperate indeed, have they not?”

  Not sure what Armel’s game was, I began to grow suspicious. He was the kind of tricky officer who couldn’t be trusted. Galina was the same way, but she always had lofty goals. Armel’s were usually… personal.

  Reaching down to my tapper, I muted the speaker and cranked up the microphone. Then, I tapped the record button.

  “So,” I said loudly, “let me get this straight, you tricky old bastard!”

  He paused in the hallway, frowning. I’d stopped walking and grinned at him hugely.

  “You pulled this whole thing off, didn’t you?” I demanded.

  “Do not be absurd.”

  “Aw, come on. You’re just being shy. I stand impressed! You just brought me along to witness to your masterful maneuvers, isn’t that right?”

  Armel looked slightly proud. He loved praise. “Well… yes. Come now, let’s be going. Sateekas is due to be reborn—”

  “Hold on, hold on,” I said, laughing and touching his shoulder briefly.

  His eyes glanced at my hand with extreme disapproval, and I dropped it immediately. My grin was as wide as I could make it.

  “Why’d you do it?” I asked in a hissing whisper. My tapper was up high, as if I was holding my hands up between us in a gesture of supplication. In reality I was trying to make sure I caught every word he said.

  “Don’t you want to see our Mogwa overlord live again?” Armel asked. “He’s our governor, and he seems to be your personal friend, McGill.”

  Having heard enough, I tapped the stop recording button on my tapper, then hit transmit. The file went straight to Galina.

  Unfortunately, Armel had quick eyes and a quick mind. He hadn’t missed my move, and he knew what it meant. I’d ratted him out.

  “What’s this? You sent my confession to Turov?”

  “Sure did. She’s on her way here, right now.”

  “Treachery!” he said, hissing like a stomped snake. “I should never have brought you along.”

  “I guess not,” I told him.

  Unexpectedly, Armel’s frown faded away. He reversed his expression, and in moments he was smiling again. I realized then that his rage had been fake.

  “Uh… what’s going on?” I asked.

  “You have been most helpful,” he said. “I thought you’d have to see the Mogwa’s feet sticking out before you caught on. But no, you followed my clues and came to the conclusion I needed you to reach.”

  “What the hell?” I asked. “Are you telling me you wanted me to tattle on you? Why?”

  “Because,” he said, “I knew that if I asked Turov to come here with me, she’d suspect something and hesitate. But not with you serving as her spy. She trusts you, in an odd way.”

  I opened my mouth to ask another question, but I never got it out.

  Armel must have had a needler in the palm of his hand. He shot me dead without warning.

  -43-

  It’s my firm belief that there comes a moment in every man’s life when enough is enough. When I groaned awake sometime later, I felt I’d reached that delicate tipping point.

  Long familiarity with the revival process helped me out. I couldn’t see, but I could hear them talking. I couldn’t move fast or accurately, but I knew my surroundings very well. I’d memorized the layout of your typical revival room by this time in my endless parade of existences.

  Under the table I was on, for instance, I knew there was a drawer. It had a stainless steel pull-handle, and it was full of interesting things.

  One of them was a scalpel. Another was a pair of razor-sharp surgical scissors. These instruments could be used for lots of things, but they were generally employed to cut the umbilical on a fresh grow.

  My fumbling fingers discovered the drawer was ajar. I reasoned that umbilical-severing step of the operation had already been performed by the bio people who stood over me.

  My hand slid inside the drawer, and I closed it on the scissors. I didn’t have much of a grip, but I didn’t need strength now—I needed the element of surprise.

  “What kind of numbers do we have?” a female bio asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said a familiar, French-accented male voice. “This man is standing trial. He’s about to be found guilty and executed.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the bio said coldly. “But no matter what your plans are, I have to enter an Apgar score on every birth.”

  The Frenchman sighed. “Very well, proceed with your formalities.”

  Armel. That was definitely his voice—I hadn’t recognized it at first because my mind was still floating, just a little.

  A blinding light shined in my eyes. It was painful.

  “He’s a nine. May
be a nine and a half. An excellent grow.”

  Armel clucked his tongue. “A pity, then. You did your best work to no purpose.”

  I needed him to come close, so I stashed the scissors under my butt, then reached into the drawer again. I rattled it, making sure it made some noise.

  “What’s this?” Armel demanded.

  Three quick steps. He crossed the room, and I could feel the heat of him, standing over my nude, sticky body.

  “Sir, if you would please—”

  “No, I will not! He is attempting to arm himself. Such incompetence! I should have—”

  I never found out what Armel should have done, because about then he made a funny choking sound.

  “Oh God!” the bio screeched.

  Equipment clattered to the floor, and she ran. I could hear her steps and her cries for help.

  In the meantime, I opened my bleary eyes and sat up. I couldn’t see Armel very well, but I figured he could see me. He was on his knees next to the table, with a pair of scissors sticking out of his neck.

  “Damnation!” I said, grinning down at him. “I’m mighty sorry about that, sir. You just can’t go sneaking up on a Varus legionnaire. Safety first, I always say.”

  Armel’s hand was still moving around. I figured he might have been digging for his needler, so I kicked him a hard one. He went over on his back, and he didn’t get back up.

  Standing and stretching, I reached down and pulled his hand out of his pocket. Sure enough, he had a needler secreted in his palm.

  About a minute later, something like eight orderlies rushed me. They pushed me up against the wall, but as I was unarmed and buck naked, they gave me a second to explain. I pointed out the needler, and the fact that Armel had recently killed Galina Turov.

  “Look,” I argued, “I was just revived. You boys don’t think I came back to life with that needler stuck up my ass, now do you?”

  They hemmed and hawed after that. I’d guessed rightly that Galina was dead. After I demanded loudly that they bring Graves down to sort things out, they finally relented and did exactly that.

  I watched them all closely even after Graves arrived. Bio people can be snakes of the worst variety, and I still didn’t know who exactly was in on this conspiracy.