Machine World Read online

  Nagata glared at Drusus, but then he began to nod slowly after a few seconds. His sudden anger appeared to dissipate.

  “Very well. I know exactly where to deploy your legion of outcasts, Drusus. You’ll serve us yet—even if your murderous specialist here doesn’t feel like it.”

  -5-

  I bedded down that night on cold puff-crete in the sub-basement under the tram station. This part of the Mustering Hall was dank and dimly lit. Most people didn’t even know it existed. Overhead, the trams rumbled and squealed all night long.

  Various people from my unit as well as many others filtered in and found a spot to camp nearby, but they barely looked at me.

  Carlos didn’t show up as I’d expected him to do—maybe because he hadn’t bothered to look for me. Others wandered by, and I recognized some of them, but they didn’t stop to talk to me either.

  The word must be out. Specialist James McGill was to be avoided at all costs. I was bad news, and somehow, everyone knew it.

  I was in a bit of a blue mood myself. Camping out in the cavernous sub-basement was quite a come-down from the pricy hotel where I’d spent my previous night. There wasn’t any beer to be had and precious little food. Once we’d reported in down here we weren’t allowed to go back up into the Mustering Hall proper where we could at least buy a burger. We were informed that we were shipping out at dawn, and that we’d best shut the hell up and stay put in the meantime.

  When a familiar face did finally find me, it was late. Most troopers were snoring, and I’d joined them.

  A kick in the ribs alerted me that I wasn’t alone. I rolled to my feet and stared at my assailant.

  “Is that a snarl I see on your face, McGill?” Veteran Harris asked. He looked amused, and his fists were on his hips. His eyes were tight and serious despite his light tone. He wasn’t happy with me—he rarely was.

  Veteran Harris was a big black guy who was as mean as cat dirt. He was an experienced soldier and the most senior noncom in my unit, but he’d never quite gotten used to my style.

  “Oh, it’s you Vet,” I said. “Come to tuck me in?”

  “That’s right. Me and my friends want to talk things over with you.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. Sure enough, three more veterans stood behind me with their arms crossed. They wore Varus patches, all of them. This made my heart sink a little. I couldn’t pull any crap on them about not being under their command. All of these men were from my outfit, and they had every right to give me an order.

  “What’s this about, Vet?” I asked nonchalantly, even though I figured I already knew.

  Veteran Harris and I had never quite seen eye-to-eye. In fact, he’d killed me a few times, and I’d returned the favor in my own way. When we were both in the path of a real enemy, we’d always fought back-to-back—but if we were on our own time, well, we just didn’t get along.

  “We want you to refuse your advancement to candidacy,” Harris said, coming right out with it.

  “Why would I do that, Vet?”

  “Because we don’t think you’re ready yet for that kind of responsibility.”

  “With all due respect, I disagree,” I said.

  One of the men behind me jabbed me in the left kidney at that moment. It was a sharp blow, not full-force, but it was enough to hurt pretty bad—and it kind of pissed me off.

  I grunted but didn’t fall to my knees. I didn’t even turn around.

  “You want do this right now?” I asked Harris.

  Harris’ face clouded in momentary confusion. “Do what?”

  “The test. The trial. Whatever hokum you’ve come up with to determine if a man is ready to be a veteran or not.” As I said this, I stood at attention and clasped my hands behind my back. “Maybe beating on a man from behind is part of your hazing routine,” I said.

  I reached into my back pocket and retrieved a combat knife. I didn’t draw it out into the open. The sub-basement wasn’t pitch dark, but it was pretty near it. The only light was shining into my face from a few scattered lanterns. As long as I kept the knife behind my back, I was pretty sure the guys standing behind me wouldn’t see it.

  “I don’t think you’re getting the message, McGill,” Harris said.

  I kept my hands behind my back and angled the blade of my knife toward the men behind me. I smiled at Veteran Harris.

  “I don’t think I am,” I said. “But I’m ready, and I’ll take your best shot with my hands behind my back. How’s that?”

  Harris got into my face. “Are you threatening me, Specialist? I think you’re threatening me.”

  “No Vet. I just don’t get it. Why don’t you ladies explain it to me?”

  This last I tossed over my shoulder toward the men behind me. A fist was driven at my back again in immediate response, targeting my right kidney this time. It came in harder—which was bad for the guy throwing the punch.

  I’d gambled dangerously this time. That punch could have come at another spot, for instance, but I had calculated that it wouldn’t. This guy seemed fascinated with kidney-punches. He could have gone at the left kidney again—but I’d guessed he’d go after the right since his first shot to the left had failed to knock me down.

  An odd, screeching sound came to my ears after I took that second punch in the back.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Johnson?” Harris demanded.

  “My fingers—two of them are off!”

  Harris snapped his eyes to mine. He nodded appreciatively. I was still standing and there was blood all over the knife behind me. Fortunately, it was another man’s blood.

  “We’re not Hogs,” Harris said dangerously. “We’re your superiors.”

  “I know that, Vet,” I said. “That’s why you’re still on your feet.”

  Harris threw up his arms in disgust. “All right, fine! You want to go for it, don’t you? I don’t know why I bothered to try to explain things to you. I’m some kind of kind-hearted fool. I tried to come here and give you a friendly warning. I tried to do the right thing for a man I’ve fought shoulder-to-shoulder with. What you don’t understand is that this isn’t about you being a good fighter, McGill. We all know you can fight. We just don’t think you’re ready to lead men into battle. As Varus veterans, it’s our responsibility to make that call. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I hear you loud and clear, Vet,” I said.

  Veteran Harris sighed and stalked away into the night. “Pick up your damned fingers, Johnson,” I heard him say, “and quit that whining!”

  After they left me, I settled back down using my ruck as a pillow on that hard, cold floor. I closed my eyes, crossed my arms, and pretended to fall asleep again.

  But I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about this trial and what it might entail. I got the feeling it wasn’t going to involve a multiple-choice test and a good-natured round of arm-wrestling.

  Still, I was more determined than ever to get through it. Call it a character flaw, but when people told me I wasn’t good enough for something…well, I tended to get stubborn about it. I just had to prove them wrong.

  -6-

  We were rousted out of our sleeping bags before the sun rose the next day. Hustling aboard early-morning trams, we were sent rattling down the tracks to the spaceport.

  There, waiting for us under the pink skies of dawn, we found a long line of lifters. I shuffled aboard the closest one and less than an hour later flew up into space.

  None of these events were new to me. I’d been deployed on alien planets several times before and on each occasion I’d been shipped off into space to travel to the target world. This time, however, I had no idea where we were going or who we were supposed to fight…but come to think of it, that part wasn’t all that unusual, either.

  The only surprising element of the new campaign was the sight of two more ships following Minotaur in space. In the past, the legion had always flown out aboard a single dreadnaught-class ship, a starship capable of warp driv
e. One ship, one legion—that was how it had always been. This time instead of one dreadnaught there were three.

  We found our bunks, and before we could stretch out on them Minotaur entered a warp bubble. We were quickly propelled right out of the Solar System.

  At the first morning roll call the next day, I raised my hand to ask Centurion Graves about the other ships.

  “Sir?” I asked when he reluctantly called on me.

  “What is it, McGill?”

  “Why are there two other ships following Minotaur, sir? Are we heading out with three legions this time?”

  “Close,” he said. “There are two full legions on this trip, Varus and Solstice. In addition, we have a third ship with extra equipment and an auxiliary cohort for each legion.”

  I frowned at this answer. I recalled the Solstice regular who’d yelled at me at the smart-door yesterday. It made sense that Solstice was going with us, as they’d been visible all over the Mustering Hall, too. But auxiliaries? Where had they come from?

  Although I’d never gone through the process before, I knew that joining up with other legions and auxiliary cohorts was SOP for special missions. A full cohort of techs, for example, was useful when handling engineering projects or drone-based units. Bio cohorts were known to exist as well, on hand in case we were tasked with giving aid to an alien world with a rampaging pandemic. Our people were especially sought after under such circumstances as humans couldn’t catch a disease that had evolved to kill an alien form of life. Such missions were considered cakewalks, however, and I doubted Varus would be treated to any such easy task. From what Equestrian Nagata had indicated, this was going to be a rough campaign.

  “Then can I ask—” I began, but Graves cut me off.

  “No. Shut up, McGill.” He looked away from me and ran his eyes over the assembled unit. “Now that we’re up and flying, I can tell you our destination. We’re going to Gamma Pavonis, a white F-Class star a little larger than our own Sol.”

  We looked from one to another, confused. I couldn’t recall ever having heard of such a star before.

  “That’s right,” Graves said, taking in our baffled looks, “we’re heading off the charts this time. This star is over thirty lights out from Earth in a new direction. To the best of our knowledge, we’ve never been there before. Let’s join the Imperator’s briefing channel.”

  Imperator Turov’s face flashed up on the wall behind him. The entire wall was made up of photosensitive organic LEDs, and they made her image glow with life. This was the first time I’d see Galina Turov’s new, younger self magnified. She really was a sight for sore eyes.

  For about a minute, she fooled with her tapper. Finally, she looked up.

  “Commanders,” she said, “please signal the last few units that it’s time to connect to my channel.”

  She looked down again, waiting.

  During this warm-up time, Natasha had been eyeing me rather than Turov. Natasha had been placed near me as we were both specialists and accordingly had been assigned to a front row spot.

  I stared up at Imperator Turov expressionlessly. Sure, I wanted to smile about those lips which she’d glossed up. Each lip had to be thicker than a man’s arm on that huge screen, but I didn’t dare show interest. Natasha and I had an on-again, off-again thing going, and I knew that if she caught me grinning at Turov I’d be in the “off-again” stage indefinitely.

  “Do you think she’s doing this on purpose?” Natasha asked me.

  “Doing what?”

  Looking disgusted she nodded toward the screen. “Making us watch her. She has a captive audience of about twenty five thousand right now, and she’s not even making a speech.”

  “Oh, that,” I said. “I don’t know. I’m kind of hungry. I could really use some breakfast about now.”

  This was not total bullshit, but it was pretty close. I was hungry, but I could probably watch Turov’s little pre-game show for another ten minutes before I got bored with it.

  Finally, the Imperator got on with the briefing.

  “Good morning troops. I will attempt to answer all your questions at once with this briefing. We’re moving out today, not as a hired mercenary band, but rather as an organized force representing Earth. Our contracts have been paid by Hegemony, using Galactic credits. I’ve been chosen to lead this campaign personally by my superiors because of my intimate knowledge of our true enemy.”

  Frowning, I absorbed her words. Our true enemy? She could only mean the squids.

  “Renegade forces abound along the fringe of the Empire. Frontier 921, being at the edge of explored galactic space, naturally borders dangerous barbarians. One such untamed tribe calls itself the Kingdom of the Cephalopods.”

  I glanced at Natasha. She was frowning, too. We were both worried. I’d been holding out a thin hope we’d been assigned one of those easy escort-missions I’d heard so much about since I was a kid. Instead, this looked like we were marching to war—real war. At least Natasha seemed to have gotten over the idea that Turov was flirting with everyone.

  “The target world’s atmosphere is somewhat similar to that of Earth. It’s made up primarily of nitrogen, about seventy-five percent, with an oxygen content just under ten percent. That’s where the similarities end, however. The world’s surface is made up of an icy frost of methane and bubbling petroleum byproducts. There are lakes and even small seas of liquid methane—but very little water.”

  “Sounds like a real garden,” I said quietly.

  “Sounds like an ice-ball,” Natasha said. “It must be if there’s liquid methane.”

  “Sounds like you two need to learn when to shut the hell up,” Harris said from behind us.

  We both straightened up and stared at the giant Turov on the forward wall.

  “The surface temperature varies between minus one-fifty and minus two hundred degrees C,” she continued.

  I winced. An ice-ball indeed.

  “Interestingly,” the giant face went on, “science tells us there might be some kind of life on this world producing the oxygen in the atmosphere. If so, this life must be quite alien and subsist by using methane as a primary energy source. The cloud layer is so thick that photosynthesis, as we understand it, is probably impossible.”

  The world she was painting in my mind was an unpleasant one: Frozen, with deadly substances everywhere. The air might be breathable if we filtered it and warmed it up by a few hundred degrees, but that was about it.

  “The reason we’re interested in this planet is strategic,” Turov continued. “Galactic Intel tells us that the cephalopods are probing this world and maybe building an advance base there as it’s close to Empire space. Their strategic goals are easy to discern. The world is mineral rich. Metals and radioactives are plentiful.”

  That made more sense to me. If the target world could be used to build ships and weapons right on the border, both sides would want the planet.

  Turov continued her lecture. “If there is an indigenous population, it’s probably primitive and negligible. We will arrive with three ships and two legions. Any cephalopod forces will be eliminated if they refuse to vacate the system.”

  This caused me a pang. Sure, the Nairbs had blown up one of their worlds when they’d attacked our ship, Corvus. And later, I’d personally had a hand in destroying their ship when they attacked a megahab full of Tau civilians on Tech World.

  But this was different. We’d be invading, striking first. As far as the squids were concerned, I was pretty sure they figured this planet was theirs for the taking. Interfering with that using Earth’s legions—well, I hoped the hog brass knew what they were doing.

  “On to the last item of today’s agenda,” Turov continued. “Legion Solstice, Legion Varus, I would like to introduce you to two new cohorts. They’re both cavalry units from Zeta Herculis.”

  That got our attention. I hadn’t known what to expect, but two cohorts of specialized troops from Zeta Herculis? That had to be damned near the bottom of the
probability chart for me.

  Zeta Herculis, better known as Dust World, was Earth’s one and only colony. We’d been allowed to keep it on a technicality. Normally, civilizations in the Empire were permitted to inhabit only a single star system. But since we’d colonized this lonely, dry planet back before the Empire had discovered us, we’d been “grandfathered in.”

  “These two auxiliary cohorts do include some colonial troops,” Turov said. “They’ll be attached to your existing legions. Cross-training will take place on the third ship, Cyclops, as there’s plenty of open space available on her decks.”

  “I bet there is,” I said quietly.

  Natasha’s eyes snapped toward me, and I shut up immediately. Romance-wise, this might be yet another bad turn. I’d taken an interest in one of the colonists on Dust World, years back. Her name was Della, and I’d probably never had a stranger relationship in my lifetime. Including Natasha and Turov, that made this a potential three-girl situation, and I’m simply not equipped to handle that kind of pressure.

  “I will now list off the units I want transferred to Cyclops for immediate cross-training.”

  Turov began to read off various unit designations from one cohort or another. Units from both Varus and Solstice were specified. There were quite a few of them.

  I finally noticed Natasha was staring at me.

  “What?” I asked her.

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. Don’t play that dumb-guy thing with me. You’re thinking about Della.”

  “Who?”

  She made a disgusted sound.

  “Oh yeah, Della,” I said as if just recalling the name. “That crazy colonist chick. Do you know she killed me twice back on Dust World?”

  “Then why do you still want to see her?”

  I shook my head, baffled. “Where’s this coming from?” I demanded. “She’s probably not even on that ship—I mean, what are the odds?”

  “Pretty good. She was one of their top fighters.”