Dust World Page 5

  They could hang any pretty words on it they wanted to, but that’s how it stacked up to me. We’d been hired to kill our own kind. I was sorry to be a part of this mission already. The more I learned about it, the less I liked it.

  -5-

  “Are you having bad feelings, McGill?” Veteran Harris asked me a few minutes later in our barracks.

  I didn’t even look at him.

  “You do understand you’re not paid to have feelings of any kind, right?” he asked me, getting in my face. “None of us are. The stakes are too high for any of that crap. All of Earth—everything you love and live for—is in danger.”

  “I get that, Vet,” I said, “but this is bullshit.”

  “Now don’t get like that on me. We don’t even know the whole story. You have to trust in your officers and your government. Didn’t they teach you that in tech school?”

  “I dropped out, remember?”

  “That’s no excuse. Get your head straight. If I give the order, I need to know you’ll pull the trigger—no matter what you’re aiming at.”

  I sighed and grumbled. Harris stalked away to harangue others. Morale was low. We’d been under the impression we were heading out to fight an alien race to expand our territory. Instead, we were apparently going to have to kill our own kind before they could set up shop and compete with us. That just didn’t sit well with me—or most of the others.

  One notable exception was Carlos. He was positively cheery.

  “Why the smile, Carlos?” I asked him after the ten-minute buzzer for lights-out went off. “You have a secret murdering soul in your chest?”

  “Sure do,” he said. “Same as you. But that’s not it. I’m happy because this is going to be an easy run. Finally, a mission a guy can sleep through. Just think about it! A few scrawny colonists who’ve been sitting in a tin-can ship for fifty years. They’ll probably be wearing loincloths and giving each other rides in antique rickshaws. They won’t have a chance against a polished outfit of pros like us.”

  I stared at him. “And that makes you happy?”

  “Sure does. What? Did you want to fight another horde of crazy lizards?”

  “No,” I admitted. “But I don’t want to be gunning down women and little kids, either.”

  “We won’t have to do that!” Carlos said. “We’ll just show up and scare them. Make them think of some other way to make a trade deal with the Galactics.”

  “What if they don’t have anything else worth selling?”

  Carlos shrugged. “No idea. But hey, do you think they’ll have girls on this colony? I mean…they’d have to be pretty starved for a real man by now, wouldn’t you think?”

  I took a swing at him. I’d done it before, but usually he’d started it. I think I surprised him because he jerked his head back too late. I caught the tip of his chin with my knuckles, and he stumbled away, cursing.

  We thumped each other a few times, then began wrestling. I was winning easily, but Veteran Harris’ big boots clumped near, and he pulled us apart like two school kids.

  “What’s wrong with you clowns?” Harris demanded, glowering at us. Then he let go of me and shook Carlos. “You started it, didn’t you?”

  “That’s an unfair assumption, Vet,” Carlos complained. “McGill swung first.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Harris said. “I know it’s your fault.”

  “What? Why?”

  “‘Cause McGill is an asshole, but you’re worse.”

  A few minutes later we were on our bunks with the lights out. I rubbed at a bruise on my cheek.

  “Seriously,” Carlos whispered from the bunk above mine. “You think they’ll have girls on this rock?”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll save them for you. You’ll get to slaughter all the civvies.”

  “That’s not what I meant, dammit,” he muttered. “Just forget about it. And I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. No one seems to know when I’m joking around.”

  “That’s because you joke about things that aren’t funny.”

  Eventually, I drifted off to sleep. I dreamt of screaming colonists with legionnaires running after them, hosing them down with pellets and sizzling beams. I didn’t really believe it could happen, but Legion Varus had done some questionable things in the past—and Earth was desperate.

  * * *

  Centurion Graves summoned me to his office at the end of our first week in space. I’d been expecting his call. It was time for me to begin my training as a specialist. I’d have to learn fast, as by the time we made planetfall and I jumped out of Corvus, I’d be expected to function in my new role.

  Earth’s legions had three flavors of non-coms in the enlisted ranks—four, if you counted the Veterans. As a specialist, you could become a Bio who basically served as a medic in the legions. It was a little more complicated than patching up the wounded, however. You had to learn how to operate the revival machines. I shuddered just thinking about that job. I didn’t want to work with those machines. Call me squeamish, but I didn’t even like the idea that I’d been birthed by them repeatedly after dying.

  Fortunately, I knew the bio people in the legion pretty much hated me and would probably veto the idea. I wasn’t worried I’d end up working with them. That brought it down to two possibilities: I could be a Tech or a Weaponeer. Techs were just what they sounded like; they handled the drones, our weapons and our combat suits. Maintaining the hardware was a big job in a space-going military force. I knew I could do that kind of work, and I had the education for it. I rather suspected they would assign me there. But they didn’t.

  “James McGill,” Graves said slowly. He made it sound as if my name left a funny taste in his mouth.

  “Sir?”

  He stared at me for a second. “You’re a lot trouble. Did you know that?”

  “Yes sir. My mama tells great stories about my early days.”

  He chuckled. “I bet she does. I just reread your psych report, you know.”

  I didn’t flinch. After all, they’d let me into this legion. When I’d first joined up, the other legions hadn’t wanted me due to a few spikes and curls that showed up on the tests. They’d labeled me a troublemaker, the same as Graves was doing now, and they’d passed—all of them. But Legion Varus had signed me on willingly enough.

  “I kind of figured that was all behind me by now,” I said.

  Graves shook his head. “I’m not talking about the original tests. I’m talking about the ones they did before we shipped out from Earth. You failed, you know, with flying colors. You lost it in the pressure tent.”

  I glanced at him in surprise.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “You had a cover story for beating on your robot. Did you really think there weren’t any cameras recording it all? Worse than that, you failed to follow orders on several additional occasions, doing whatever you damned well pleased.”

  I snapped my eyes back to the forward wall. “Sorry about that, sir.”

  “Don’t be. We brought you along anyway, didn’t we? Really, I wasn’t surprised by the results. But you have to try to keep a lid on it this time, okay? Do me that little favor. Follow orders this time out and don’t kill people who get in your way—unless they’re the enemy. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Crystal,” I said.

  Graves sighed. I could tell he didn’t believe me.

  “Let me level with you, Specialist. I don’t know how this is all going to go down. We have no real idea what we’ll be facing. According to our estimates, there shouldn’t be more than twenty thousand colonists assuming a reasonable level of attrition and breeding over the last seventy years. On top of that, they’ll be wielding pitchforks with any luck.”

  He paused, looking over a flimsy slip of dynamically updating computer paper. He put it down.

  “But I don’t buy these predictions. I don’t think we’re going to get lucky this time out. We’re probably going to be facing an organized and well-equipped military force.”

/>   I frowned at him. “How is that possible, sir? How could the colonists have advanced equipment? It costs too much—and we know they couldn’t have brought it with them.”

  “Loans from the Empire,” Graves said. “We know the imperials know about them. If they are offering them membership, they’ll be given some starter cash.”

  Frowning, I shook my head. “They do that?”

  “That’s how it works,” he said. “It has to. Think about it. How did Earth suddenly become an interstellar power back in the late 2050s? We didn’t have two sticks to rub together back then, and if we had, we wouldn’t have been able to use them due to some copyright infringement with our neighbors. Every fledgling planet is allowed to borrow Galactic credits to get started. Seed money, essentially. That’s how we financed our first tickets on ships like this one. They flew us to distant worlds and were paid with low-interest, government-backed loans that we couldn’t refuse to take. We had to be able to buy passage, plus our guns and suits, somehow.”

  I nodded, thinking about it. The early days weren’t often talked about. I knew the history written about in my school textbooks had been cleaned up. There had been many shady deals, civil wars and upheavals they’d seen fit to leave out. Apparently, they’d also left out details like taking loans from the Galactics.

  “So, this could be a battle between two human legions?” I asked in concern.

  “Something like that, but don’t worry. We should have the upper hand. They’ve been cut off. They started off with discipline when they left Earth, of course, but it was more like a scientific expedition than a military one. I think they must have a tight organization to have reached the stars and survived. Still, I don’t see how they can match our experience and expertise if it comes down to a fight. I expect Legion Varus will win this conflict in the end.”

  I felt uneasy, but managed not to say anything.

  Graves stared at me. “I’m going to break one of my own rules, McGill,” he said. “I’m going to ask an enlisted man what he’s thinking. I never do that.”

  “I’m thinking that humans should not be killing humans, sir.”

  “See? That’s just the kind of crap I don’t want to hear. Didn’t we just lay out the basis for an understanding not five minutes earlier? You’re not supposed to think about things like that at all. You’re no good to me if you’re questioning your orders before we even land.”

  “Sorry sir. You asked.”

  “So I did,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “All right. Let’s do this. Let’s talk about your promotion and how you’ll fit into Legion Varus after today. First off, you should know that I’ve been transferred—or rather, Primus Turov has been. She’s been given command of a heavy cohort. The Tribune felt she didn’t have the right feel for training fresh troops. Turov is taking her senior officers with her—including me.”

  He looked at me as this sank in. Graves was out of my unit? I was surprised, but the more I thought about it, the happier I became.

  “Congratulations, sir,” I said quickly.

  “I guess that’s an appropriate response,” he said. “I’m finally being moved out of kindergarten. No more light infantry. No more riding herd on fresh recruits in pajamas.”

  Graves tapped at a set of orders that appeared on the flimsy slip of plastic on his desk. Words shifted on the film, and his identifying icon blossomed into place. He’d signed the computer scroll with his fingerprints.

  He’d transferred out! I hadn’t dared hope for this. It would be so good to have Graves out of my hair. The guy was a capable officer, but he was as cold as a lizard in a snow bank.

  I noticed my name was on the electronic slip of plastic. I felt elated to see I had new orders as well.

  “I’m taking your squad with me, by the way,” Graves said a moment later, dashing my hopes. “I’m putting you into heavy armor, Specialist. I’m making you a Weaponeer, too, so you’ll have to bulk up in the gym. What do you think about that?”

  I froze for a second but managed to swallow my shock.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said diplomatically.

  “That’s what I figured,” Graves chuckled. “I can always tell when my troops are sweet on me. Now, get the hell out of here.”

  I left with sagging spirits.

  * * *

  The months passed quickly. I learned how to operate heavy armor, which was radically different from the thin smart-cloth suits I’d become accustomed to. Overall, that part of the change was a good one.

  My new weapon wasn’t as easy to get used to, however. The old hands called it a belcher—a heavy, plasma-firing tube. It was about five feet long and felt like it weighed five tons. I’d handled one of these units before in combat under dire conditions, and I didn’t find it much easier to operate one now that I’d been issued a weapon officially.

  The plasma-tube was something like an RPG in size but heavier and bulkier. It had manual controls and a power pack you had to lug around on your back. The tube itself was difficult in every way. Just adjusting power levels and cranking the focus from tight to diffuse was a workout.

  As per Graves’ suggestion, I spent my mornings exercising with weights in the portions of the ship that maintained active gravity-wells. I did this vigorously, as we didn’t even know exactly what conditions would be like when we reached the target world. What if the gravity was double that of Earth? I didn’t want to be caught dragging my weapon behind me in the dirt with my exoskeleton groaning and sparking, unable to keep up with the rest of the squad.

  Training in body armor was another new experience for me. The light infantry really did have the worst of it, I could see that now. The best part was that Veteran Harris showed no new inclinations to kill me during training. It wasn’t that he’d gotten over our little rivalry, but rather that he feared damaging my equipment. In order to kill an armored trooper shouldering a belcher, you had to do a lot of damage. That would almost certainly wreck the armor I was carrying around. The fact that all of our equipment was virtually irreplaceable made matters worse for my trainers.

  On my first campaign into space, nothing had been more expendable than human flesh. The officers hadn’t been overly-concerned with our gear, either. We recycled what we could, but if a smart-suit stopped knitting back up, or a snap-rifle didn’t operate properly—we tossed it. Legion Varus, for all our bad reputation, had always been awarded a generous budget of Galactic credits from Hegemony.

  Those days were gone. Now that my gear was worth more than my flesh, everyone inspected my equipment whenever I fell down. It was like being ordered around by accountants. I said as much to Veteran Harris, who didn’t enjoy listening to my opinions.

  “McGill,” he said, “you just make damn sure you don’t wreck anything when we get down there. You’re a specialist now, a big-time weaponeer. Yeah, I’m all impressed. But you remember you’re the greenest frigging weaponeer on this deck, and I mean that. So, learn from your betters, boy. They’re all around you.”

  We were standing in a sandy pit with scorched puff-crete walls in every direction. In order to operate a weapon like a plasma cannon aboard a spaceship in flight, you had to make damned sure it didn’t puncture the hull. The legion techs had achieved an appropriate level of safety by building up a puff-crete bunker several layers thick all around us. That way, they could just construct a new wall of the material every time we wrecked the nearest one. As a further precaution, they made certain there were always a few more layers outside the bunker to keep us from reaching the actual hull itself.

  I took a second to eye the crowd in the bunker with me. It did seem like the heavy weapons squad I’d been assigned to for training was made up of experts. They snapped each component into place with practiced precision. It seemed to me that all the most muscular guys in the cohort were there.

  Veteran Harris never looked at the rest of the weaponeers. He was watching me. He had his hands on his hips staring at my hands as I worked with my weapon, waiting for me to mak
e the slightest mistake.

  “No, no, no!” he shouted a moment later as I pushed a cartridge into the base of the weapon. “You have to slap it in, boy. It won’t lock right if you just toy with it!”

  I slapped, and apparently I did that wrong too, because he ripped it out of my hands and whacked the cartridge with a big hand. He tossed the weapon back to me. I caught it, but not without staggering.

  He glared. “You’re hopeless. I’m telling Graves this was a big mistake. He should keep you with the light troops, where at least you know what the hell you’re doing.”

  “Sorry Vet,” I said. “I don’t know why I didn’t get assigned to heavy weapons training during shore leave.”

  Harris shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way. Too expensive.”

  I thought about it and nodded. We weren’t like a national standing army, we were mercenaries. Our treasury was based on active contracts not taxpayer dollars coming from some borrowed government pot. An active duty legionnaire was paid about triple what a man got while sitting on his hands at home. That’s why they didn’t like to have us muster back in until it was go-time—meaning they had a new contract.

  “That’s why you didn’t put us through boot camp the first time out, right? Cheaper to do it on the flight to the target world, and then throw us into the fight. After dying a few times, we figured out how to be proper soldiers.”

  Harris shrugged. “That’s about the size of it. But you’re failing at weaponeer school. You don’t know how to handle your suit or your weapon. What’s worse, we won’t have time to properly train you on artillery systems at all.”

  I was about to apologize again when another broad-looking fellow stepped up. It was none other than Specialist Sargon. He’d been something of a big-brother to me on my first campaign. By that I mean he’d bullied and abused me but taught me a few critical details almost by accident.

  “Harris is right,” he said, looking me up and down. “That kit isn’t on right. Your exo-systems are working overtime hindering your arm-motions. You can’t work against your suit, you have to make it work for you.”