Edge World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 14) Read online

  “A sheer disappointment,” I repeated. “You going to stab me now with that glow-stick, or what?”

  “I don’t want to. You’re right… this is wrong. My mother ordered it, however. She’s our sovereign. I can’t disobey her any more than you can ignore the orders of your superiors.”

  I laughed. “You don’t know me very well yet. I do, upon occasion, take certain liberties with the authority figures in Legion Varus.”

  Her mouth twitched. A hint of a smile. “I bet you do. In any case, you will be dispatched. Your memories will be deleted, and you’ll—”

  I reached out with a long, long arm. I did it fast, but she was faster. She flicked her glowing blade toward me.

  My black-gauntleted hand grasped the force-blade in the middle of its sizzling length. Now, if I’d been wearing old-fashioned metal armor, or anything like it, I would have just burned my hand clean off. But this stuff was the best personal armor humanity had yet to encounter. The fibers were impregnated with star stuff, and it was damned near indestructible.

  A nasty smell erupted, and I could feel the heat of her blade. It wasn’t burning me, not yet, but I got the feeling it could get hot enough to melt a bit and maybe even come through the glove. That process would take some time, however.

  Surprised, Helsa tried to snatch her blade away from me. I let her take it, and I advanced. She slashed viciously, one-two-three times she drew a smoky line across my armored torso, but it didn’t penetrate my suit.

  Grinning, I kept advancing toward her.

  “What are you wearing?” she panted out. “You sand-devil!”

  “Just a little something our labs cooked up. You didn’t think Earth became the enforcers of Province 921 by playing fair, did you?”

  She tried to spring away, but I was already too close. She’d figured she could cut me down, but she’d thought wrong. Her overconfidence had allowed me to get within grabbing distance.

  I clamped onto her wrists and shook her weapon loose. It fell to the carpets on the ground and burned a hole in them.

  “Pity that,” I said. “Come on, time to port out of here.”

  “Where are you taking me?” she demanded, her face registering horror.

  “Why, back up to my ship, where else? We’ve got to get on the deep-link and report this to the Nairbs, pronto. They’ll know what to do. If you’re lucky, they’ll only erase the Shadowlanders—but I doubt they’ll stop there. With this kind of excuse, and what with the Skay taking over anytime now…”

  Her eyes were tortured, and she looked like a wild rabbit caught in a snare. I didn’t let up, however. She deserved it.

  “You can’t do this!”

  “Yeah, yeah. People always whine when justice is done. I hear it all the time, but you have to turn a deaf ear and a hard heart to it.”

  “Please… my entire planet…”

  “You should have thought about that before you pulled this bullshit move with the hostages and all. We didn’t print out a fresh Galina Turov, did we? No, sir! We’ve got backups in our home data core at Central and all that, but we didn’t break the rules. She’s as good as permed as far as we’re concerned. Too bad, but—”

  “I’ll get her back,” Helsa said quickly. “I’ll give her to you. Anything, McGill. Anything!”

  Helsa twisted and writhed around in my grip, but I held on firmly. I wasn’t about to let this snake get out of my hands again.

  “Have her brought here, then,” I said. “Right now. I’ll take her back to Dominus instead, and that will be that.”

  Licking her lips and shaking a little, she used her tapper to transmit a message. Just in case, I revved up my suit. I could port her out of here in a flash if there was any more funny business.

  A few moments later, two more women arrived. One was Kattra, and the other was Galina. They were both wearing those gauzy bed sheet type garments everyone seemed to wear on Edge World. Neither one of them looked too happy.

  “McGill?” Kattra said. “I’m beginning to dislike you.”

  Galina’s eyes roved around. I could tell she was thinking about trying to make a move. I hoped she didn’t, as I had the feeling these alien ladies would kick her butt right-quick.

  “I’m making a trade,” I said. “I’m handing over your daughter for my tribune.”

  “That’s unacceptable,” Kattra said smoothly. “You already have my daughter as prisoner, and you—”

  “No we don’t. You made a frigging copy. She’s right here, and unless you comply, I’ll take her butt up to Dominus and report this matter to the Galactics. The Nairbs will be here any day now. They’ll dispense justice upon their arrival.”

  Kattra’s lower jaw jutted out. There was dark murder in her eyes.

  She turned on her daughter in anger. “How did you let yourself be captured by this oaf?” she demanded. “You’re an embarrassment to our entire world!”

  “He has an impenetrable suit, mother.”

  “And you’re the one who cloned Helsa,” I said, jabbing a finger at Kattra. “That makes you the guilty party here. When the hell-burners begin to fall, sweeping away this strange world, remember that you personally brought it all down on yourself.”

  Kattra seemed to be catching on. She lowered her own weapons and bared her teeth. “Very well, McGill. I shall allow you to win this clash of blades. Don’t dream that you will win the next.”

  Drawing her pistol, she aimed it at her daughter. Without a speech, she shot her dead.

  I released the girl’s hand, and she sagged down onto the carpets—which were looking worse for the wear by now.

  “What’d you do that for?” I demanded.

  “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Now, there’s only one Helsa. She’s aboard your ship. I would appreciate her release.”

  “Give me Turov, then.”

  Kattra hesitated, but then she passed over Galina. There were some jingling chains on her, and I could tell she wasn’t happy about that. I put an arm around her, and she allowed it.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  “No,” she said sullenly. “I’m pissed.”

  I nodded.

  Kattra watched us closely.

  “You two are mates…?” she said. “I hadn’t suspected it, but it all makes better sense now. Who else would come here and risk everything for such a vile woman?”

  Fooling with my teleport harness, I set the destination. With any luck the suit would take us both home to Dominus.

  “You have what you came for,” Kattra said. “Now, you must release my daughter and promise not to tell any Galactic what happened here today.”

  “Hmm…” I said, thinking things over. “That’s a tall order. I’m thinking you have to put more into the deal, seeing as we’re the injured party here.”

  Galina was alarmed. “James, don’t screw this up. Get me out of here before an army of drones marches into the dome.”

  “That won’t happen. I switched them all off.”

  Kattra’s eyes flew wide. “You what?”

  “Hold on, hold on—forget about that. Here are my terms, Kattra. You’ll tell the Galactics you wish to stay in Province 921 as long as possible. What’s more, you’ll ask for Earth to be your protector, and you’ll sell your revival machines to us at a cut rate—say a twenty-five percent discount?”

  “Twenty-five percent?! That’s insane!”

  I shrugged. “Okay, okay. Whatever. Make it ten percent off. Do we have a deal?”

  Kattra’s lips squirmed. At last, she nodded. “You have a deal, robber. Now, get off my planet!”

  “Gladly.”

  With that, I activated the harness. Galina and I were transported up to Dominus in orbit above. I could feel her squirming next to me for a split-second, and it felt kind of nice. I was glad I’d gotten her back safe and sound.

  -43-

  When we arrived, Galina was all business at first. She demanded proper clothing and a sidearm. The techs on Gray Deck rushed to provide thes
e things.

  She fondled her pistol for a moment, looking at it in a loving fashion. This kind of alarmed me, as I’ve been shot by any number of superior officers. Sometimes, it had been for good reasons. On other occasions, it had been done out of petty spite.

  “Uh…” I said. “Will that be all, Tribune?”

  Galina looked at me thoughtfully. “No. I want you to attend a debriefing. Follow me.”

  What could I do? I walked in her wake, looking like some kind of a gorilla following his mistress. I was still wearing the combat armor as I figured it might still help me out today.

  “Tribune?” I asked. “There are a few things that have gone on since you were kidnapped.”

  “I’m sure there are. That’s why I’m taking you upstairs to be debriefed.”

  I chewed that over as we reached the elevator and rode it up to Gold Deck. I hated to be the one to tell the brass bad news, but I couldn’t think of an easy way to slip away from her. If Galina got to her office and found it occupied by an angry Winslade with a banged-up head—well, things might not go so well.

  “Uh…” I said. “I had to take certain liberties to get you back, see.”

  Galina halted. She slowly turned around. “You did?”

  “That’s right.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “No one ordered you to go down and save me, did they?”

  “Well… not exactly,” I said. My visor was open, and I scratched my face with one finger. Armored suits like this tended to be hot and kind of itchy. That went double after you’d almost died and got all sweaty. “You see, uh, the legion has a new commander.”

  Her eyes narrowed some more. They were pretty much slits by this time.

  “Who?” she demanded.

  “First off, Fike took over. He did some ops, got my unit slaughtered… well, anyways, he decided he didn’t have the chops it took to run the legion. He walked through the posts and got another officer from Central.”

  Galina’s eyes widened in alarm. “Don’t tell me that bitch Deech is sitting in my office!”

  “No, no, things aren’t that bad. Drusus bumped up Winslade to the rank of tribune and then… well, he sort of gave him the legion to run.”

  Galina was in shock. I’d seen that expression on her pretty face before. But, as always, it didn’t last long. Her mind switched to scheming again with fresh vigor.

  “I see it all now. You decided you wanted me back, so you stole that suit and went down to the planet to find me.”

  “Pretty much…”

  “Where is Winslade? Is he still alive?”

  “What kind of a question is that, sir? Of course he is. I imagine he’s off somewhere, taking a long piss or something…”

  She checked her tapper. She looked up at me in alarm. “He’s in my private armory! How the hell did he—oh…”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “He’s dead. I get it now. You murdered him and stuffed him in there.”

  “Well now, hold on, I didn’t—”

  Galina reached up and hooked a finger in my suit’s chin strap. This surprised me. She tugged at me, pulling me toward her.

  Wincing a bit, and not knowing quite what to expect, I leaned down toward her. To my utter surprise, she kissed me deeply.

  My lips were in shock. They didn’t really kiss her back, they just kind of formed a rubbery barrier for her to push against. She didn’t seem to mind.

  “Uh…” I said.

  After a bit more kissing, during which I kind of woke up and kissed her back some, she finally pulled away and smiled at me.

  “I love it when you go mad and kill for me,” she said in a near-whisper.

  It took me a moment for my brain to catch up, but it did so quickly enough.

  “You do?” I asked. “Well… yeah. I had to do it, see. Couldn’t sleep at night. I kept thinking about you down there on that planet, being abused or whatever.”

  At this point I was bent over at the waist, and she continued staring into my face. “I need one more thing from you, James.”

  “What?”

  She put out her small hand. She made a grabbing motion.

  “The key,” she said. “Give me back my key.”

  My mouth hung open for a second. I’d kind of forgotten about the key, what with all the kissing and lying and stuff.

  “Uh… okay. You knew I took it, huh?”

  “Obviously.”

  With a hint of reluctance, I reached down into my armor to fish it out and hand it to her—but it wasn’t there. With increasing alarm, I searched my pockets. The armor was a pretty tight fit. It shouldn’t have been so hard to find.

  Galina watched me with a flat stare. She folded her arms over her perky bosom “Are you really going to fake having lost it? Really?”

  “Uh… Galina? I—I’ve got an awful confession to make.”

  She growled in sudden anger. That was just like her. She could blow hot and cold faster than a summer rainstorm.

  “Don’t try to bullshit me now! I’m very grateful for this rescue, James, but I don’t plan on paying you for the service with the key.”

  I knew she’d willingly die a dozen times to keep that key. It had long been one of her aces she kept well up her sleeve. I didn’t even know—didn’t even want to know—all the skullduggery, hacking and blackmail she’d accomplished with it over the years.

  Sadly, I shook my head. “You can strip me down and give me a barium enema. You won’t find that key. I think I dropped it back in that throne room. I was fighting a couple of crazy women with force-blades, after all.”

  “You were playing with them!” she exclaimed. “You could have killed them both easily. You were essentially flirting with them, weren’t you? Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

  “Yeah, well… I don’t have the key.”

  To my surprise, she actually took me up on my offer. She had me searched, stripped down, then marched me down to the labs and had them fluoroscope everything. She even ordered a dozen techs to review every second of video the security cameras had made of me since I’d returned to the ship—but they found nothing.

  After about ninety long minutes of this crap, she took me into her office and slammed the door.

  “So,” she hissed, “you really, actually, fucking lost it?”

  “Yeah… it looks that way.”

  “The aliens have it then? They’re not dumbasses, McGill. They’ll figure out what it does, how it works—and where it came from!”

  “Yeah… probably. But look, I only took it down there in order to save you. I used it, too. I disabled their combat drones, so I could get into their headquarters.”

  To prove my point, I played my suit’s body cam vids for her. She saw me fight with the operator at the console, then watched as I used the key to disable the drones.

  At last she heaved a sigh. “Okay. You screwed up—but you still did more than anyone else in this damned legion of snakes. Okay… I have to calm down.”

  “I’ve got just the thing for that.”

  I’d taken it upon myself to make her a powerful mixed drink while she was watching the vids. She took this dubiously, but she soon gulped it down. I gave her a second drink, and I had one myself. This put us both in a better mood.

  “Do you think you could do a commando run again?” she asked me. “Like the last one—but to get the key back?”

  “Do I think so?” I asked loudly. “I don’t think so, sir, I know I can do it!”

  I was boasting, of course, and I think she knew it. But she liked the boast, so she smiled at me.

  Being a man who believes in seizing opportunities whenever they presented themselves, I slipped a long arm behind her and pulled her close.

  She resisted, and I let her go in disappointment.

  “I haven’t bathed for days,” she said. “The Shadowlanders are disgusting. They often go for a week without a shower.”

  “Well, they do live in a prefab dome city with no permanent—”

 
“Are you making excuses for the enemy again?”

  “Uh… no sir.”

  “Good. I hate them. Now, if you will do me one final service today, James, I would appreciate it.”

  “What’s that—?”

  She’d turned away and walked into the bathroom. Curious, I followed her.

  There, she fired up her shower and her clothes drop to the floor in a heap. She looked great, and she didn’t smell bad to me. Not in the least.

  Her shower was impressive. It wasn’t one of your typical, low-grav jobs that pissed a little warm water into your face. No, sir. It had a big head with a powerful spray. It had to be the best private bathing facility on Dominus—possibly the best in the entire fleet.

  Without asking permission, I stripped down and climbed into the shower behind her. She had no objections. She didn’t talk at all.

  Soon, we both forgot about all the difficulties of our long day.

  -44-

  The next morning I was dragged into a command-level meeting on Gold Deck. I wasn’t really interested, but the military could be like that: no one cared about your hurt feelings.

  My body was kind of sore after fighting and screwing all day long yesterday. Stretching and yawning now and then, I fielded annoyed stares from a dozen others. They were all primus-ranked and above. To them, I was an unflushed turd—I just didn’t belong.

  I didn’t care at all. They were just going to have to get over themselves.

  “After the shit-show that went on in my absence,” Galina began, “we’ll have to take a new approach.”

  As she spoke, she moved to the central display and began working it with her fingers. She was freshly washed and done-up to look her best. I think she wanted to appear strong and healthy, just in case anyone who’d usurped her command position was still having lingering thoughts about taking another shot at it.

  Fike wore a mask of stone on his face. You could sure tell he didn’t like being lectured to by Turov. He reminded me of Graves that way, but he wasn’t as good of an officer, or as tough.

  “Here’s our new situation,” Galina continued, displaying the 91 Aquarii system with Edge World on the map near the central star. Nearby, no more than a dozen lightyears off, a blinking orange contact appeared. “This is the approaching fleet of the Galactics.”