Storm World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 10) Page 7
“What do you know about this particular charley-foxtrot, Centurion?” he asked me.
I shook my head. I’d long ago decided to play dumb on this trip.
“Nothing,” I lied. “I was taken completely by surprise, just like the rest of you.”
He eyed me for a moment, and I eyed him right back. At last, he sighed.
“Okay. I can buy that. No one knows where we’re going, or why we were mustered up with only three days’ notice before an undetermined deployment. This is just the kind of bullshit that makes me envy hogs.”
“Aw now, don’t say that Adjunct. There’s no need to stoop to that level.”
“Yeah… you’re right. But it seems unfair. We were fighting and dying back on Dark World not six months ago. Now, we’re on the way out into space again, and they haven’t even bothered to dust us with any shitty lies as to why we’re doing it. I mean, I don’t mind getting fucked. Hell, I’m used it. But I like to get kissed first. Call me old-fashioned if you want to.”
“Uh-huh…” I said, checking my tapper.
A red message blinked there. My tapper was shivering. I slapped Leeson’s shoulder with the back of my hand.
“I’ve got a summons. Keep them all from wetting the bed, Leeson.”
“You got it, Centurion.”
Harris turned a baleful eye after the two of us as I left. I’d just left Leeson in charge of the unit in my absence, and for some reason, that always pissed off Harris. He wanted to be my second in command, despite the fact he didn’t have the seniority with officer’s standing.
All of that was just six kinds of too-damned-bad. With rapid tugs on a series of rings on the walls and ceiling, I negotiated the null-G environment and got myself flying in the right direction.
Catching the hatchway with one out-flung hand, I swung myself inside and shot up a tube to the upper chambers.
Here, the officers and crew enjoyed the kind of space and comfort that was unknown below on the troop level. Up here, there weren’t any armored knees and elbows hitting you in the side, or vacuum-powered drains crusty with puke. It was fresh-smelling, roomy and even brightly lit.
Graves’ office was at the end of the main passage, but I skipped that and headed for the conference chamber adjacent to the bridge. There, I found a group of centurions encircling our primus and a central viewing tank.
A few more centurions arrived before the tank flickered into life. Primus Graves shushed us all with a glare, and we listened up without being told to do so.
First, the Legion Varus symbol blazed in the midst of the tank. It was a Wolf’s head, stylized and standing out in metallic relief. It spun around and then seemed to fall away from us, shrinking to a point and vanishing.
Tribune Galina Turov loomed next. She was standing too close to the pick-up, to my way of thinking. Her head was about a meter across—but maybe she liked it that way.
“Officers,” she said. “I know you’re all wondering why we’re going on deployment again so soon. Let me assure everyone, it’s for a good reason.”
We squirmed a little, and several of the centurions threw a glance my way. Everyone knew Turov and I had a thing going. It was hard to keep a secret of that nature under wraps.
I played the situation the way I usually did: I ignored everybody. With a deadly serious look on my face, I stared at Galina. The truth was, I didn’t know where we were headed or why. She’d cut me off from insider information the same day she’d gotten all jealous about Floramel.
“Legion Varus has been honored by a direct call to service from Hegemony,” Galina said. “As your leader, I felt compelled to take advantage of this unique opportunity.”
“Turov sounds like she’s selling a condo,” Centurion Manfred commented.
We all chuckled—except for Graves. The primus tossed Manfred a quick glare, and he quieted.
The scene in the tank changed. I realized now, for the first time, that Galina was already aboard the transport ship. She had to be, as she was in a very large chamber on Gold Deck. The lifters were coming in, closing on the transport and docking. Even as I watched her speak, I heard our lifter’s braking jets light up.
The hull shuddered as we made course adjustments. In a few minutes, we’d begin unloading and walking onto the decks of our new transport vessel.
“Welcome to Legate,” she said, indicating an external view of the ship.
Galina’s own shapely form was superimposed on a star field, and it looked like she was a goddess pointing out details of our new ship from the outside. A few of the centurions whistled appreciatively, but it wasn’t entirely clear if they intended to praise the lines of the new ship, or Galina’s form.
The ship was large—very large. If I had to guess, I’d say it was twice the size of our last transport, Nostrum.
“Legate is the first ship with a radical new design,” she told us, running her hand along the spine of the ship. “We’ve maintained prior functionality and added new elements. Here, for example, is a pod containing a full broadside of sixteen cannons firing fusion shells. That is still our primary armament.”
We quieted, as this was getting interesting.
“The nature of our missions in space has been changing, however. It is perceived that we may face naval combat as well as be involved in planetary invasions.”
“Well, no shit!” Manfred said.
Another glare from Graves was followed by silence.
“Accordingly,” Galina said, running her fine fingers to the bow of the ship, “we’ve added a smaller battery here, here and one more in the stern.”
At her touch, the modules seemed to blossom. A spiny set of missiles sprouted up.
I whistled at that.
“These missile pods are new,” Galina continued, “in more ways than one. They contain a new kind of missile. One that kills enemy crews with x-rays. Therefore, it doesn’t need to strike a ship directly in order to deliver death.”
“Hey!” I shouted suddenly. “I know where they got that idea! The Rogue Worlders gave it to them. They fired missiles just like—”
“McGill,” Graves said. “Shut the hell up.”
“Yes sir. Sorry, sir.”
We were really listening now. We weren’t fleet-lovers, far from it. But as men who got to ride to their deaths among the stars, we’d often commented on the superior nature of rival navies. Since the Empire’s battle fleet seemed to be stuck off somewhere among the Core Worlds, we needed all our ships to be armed.
Galina went on detailing more of our ship’s capabilities, both offensive and defensive. It seemed to be a dramatic set of advances. This new ship, Legate, was sleek and deadly.
When the briefing was over, I realized we still didn’t know where we were headed, but I almost didn’t care.
“Did you see those new missile pods?” I demanded of Manfred. “Do you see that? It’s like the brass listened to us for once!”
“Nah,” he said. “They’d never do that. They looked at the numbers, and they decided it was too expensive to keep losing ships. It’s all about the budget.”
“There’s another factor,” Graves said, stepping up to join us.
“What’s that, sir?”
“It takes time to advance your technology. We first witnessed weapons like those Zeon missiles back at Rogue World several years back. But you don’t just witness a new tech, steal the scientists who built it, and then roll your own version out the next day. You have to research, develop, design and build. And yes, allocate the budget for each of those vital steps.”
“Well…” I said, “whatever the case is, I’m glad they finally did it. Maybe this ship—Legate, right? Maybe Legate won’t blow up the first time out like the last one did.”
Graves gave me a hard look. “That might be up to you, McGill.”
“How’s that, sir?”
“Is it my imagination, or did you do severe damage to several of these transport ships in the past?”
“That, sir, is not j
ust a lie. It’s a damned lie!” I boomed.
He sighed. “Right…”
Then he spun around, raising his arms for attention. They all shut up.
“Listen up everyone. The lifter is docking right now. There will be another briefing, including target planet information, at 0700 tomorrow. Get your men into their modules and bedded down. We’re going into warp tonight. Any questions?”
My hand shot up. Graves looked around in vain for another hand, but he didn’t see any. He called on me in defeat.
“What is it, McGill?”
“Sir? What happened to the Blood Worlders on our rosters? I noticed there are no squids, heavy troopers, or—”
“The last trip out was an experiment involving integrated units. It didn’t work out well for a variety of reasons. Henceforth, Central has decided Varus is all-human, with a few auxiliaries—”
His voice was drowned out by my cheering. Manfred and a few others joined in and soon we were chanting: “No more squids! No more squids!” at the top of our lungs.
Graves waved for order. “Shut up until you hear the rest, you apes. We’ve still got Blood Worlders aboard—did any of you notice that there are more than ten lifters out there heading toward Legate? The number is closer to thirty.”
“Come to think of it…” I said. “I did. And that transport is big, anyway. The whole ship looks pregnant.”
“She’s fat all right. Fat with troops, not just new weaponry. She’s designed to carry a human legion and a Blood Worlder legion at the same time.”
A chorus of groans rose up from the group.
“Don’t worry, they won’t be in our faces—not much, at least. They’ve got their own modules and training zones. Except for a few exercises, we probably won’t see them at all until we hit our target planet.”
There was scattered grumbling, but overall, we weren’t too upset. Graves dismissed us all, and we went below.
Reaching my former seat, I buckled in and passed along choice pieces of information to my supporting officers and noncoms.
Soon thereafter, we were jostled as we docked. Huge metallic groans and clangs filled the lifter. It was like robots were drumming on the hull.
It was Carlos, however, who asked the most critical question.
“That’s all cool, sir,” he said. “But where the hell are we going, exactly?”
“That’s classified,” I said confidently. “You’ll find out soon enough,”
They groaned at this, but no one argued outright.
Of course, no one had told me our destination either, but I didn’t see any advantage to admitting that to the rank and file.
No wonder officers always kept their troops in the dark, I thought to myself. It was just easier that way.
-12-
As it turned out, our new pot-bellied ship carried two full legions. One was a regular professional Human legion, while the second… Well, it was made up of near-humans.
Most of them were heavy troopers. Overgrown hulking men we called littermates, they came in batches of nine from Blood World. Each unit of heavies had Cephalopod officers and an auxiliary squad of slavers for scouting.
What impressed me most, however, were their giants. These monsters hadn’t gone into combat with us back on Dark World. That was about to change.
I was summoned to Gold Deck early the next morning. All the Varus officers were ordered to attend a briefing—at least, everyone with the rank of centurion or higher.
When we first got there, the tribune and her pack of primus-ranked staffers were having a pre-meeting. Probably, they were making all their decisions before they met with us, so they could dump them on us as a done deal during the briefing.
I didn’t care much about that, but I was bored. There were a few female centurions in the group, so I moved to the closest and began to pester her. I knew from her first sneer I wasn’t getting anywhere, but a man has to try.
There had to be over a hundred of us in the main meeting chamber. Being Varus regulars, we weren’t quiet and orderly. Things got pretty loud as we talked, laughed and speculated concerning what kind of a shithole we were likely to be invading this time out.
Twenty long minutes passed, during which things got louder and more unruly with every passing second. Line combatant Varus officers were, after all, just senior troops with rank. We were still a rough lot, older and meaner in the mind, but not in the body. Physically, most of us were in our late twenties.
“Hey, McGill!” Manfred called out. “Get off that poor lady and come talk to me!”
Manfred was another centurion like myself. He ran the sixth unit in Graves’ cohort, while my unit was Graves’ old one, the third. I counted him as a friend, so I did as he asked.
We clasped hands and slapped each other on the back.
“What’s up, Stumpy?” I asked him.
He curled his lip at the name, and others laughed nearby.
Manfred was built like a barrel. He had short, thick arms and a chest that was almost as deep as it was wide. To me, he looked like a bulldog somebody had taught to walk on his hind legs.
“Let’s wrestle,” he said, throwing out one of those lumpy arms of his.
A whoop went up from the gathered centurions. I knew right off I was committed. To back down from a direct challenge like that…? Well, it just wasn’t done.
I grinned and threw my arm up into his face. “And here I thought you were chicken all this time!”
We squatted around a table, and a small crowd formed. Bets began to flow.
We were both grinning, sizing each other up. He had the leverage on me, there was no doubt about that. But I’d kept in good shape. A lot of that was related to dying a couple of times over the last month. My body-scans had taken in my prime, at about twenty-five years of age. In that period of my life I’d been a weaponeer who worked out constantly.
Sometimes, I fell into bad habits between deployments and even managed to grow a few extra pounds of blubber on my waist—but as soon as I got killed, I popped back out lean-and-mean all over again. As that had happened only a few days earlier, I had an edge on fitness.
Manfred hadn’t died for months. I could tell that just by looking at him. It could have been my imagination, but he was definitely packing more than one six pack around his middle.
Of course, that didn’t mean I could beat him—but I thought I had a chance.
We clasped our hands, and another centurion name Doyle wrapped his fists over ours. He rocked our knotted fingers back and forth, forcing us to move.
“Loosen up, boys. Let’s start this even-like, now!”
Our self-appointed referee was a pro, and I recognized him, but I didn’t know Doyle well. He came from another cohort, I was sure of that much.
Now, I don’t know much about this world, but I know how to arm-wrestle. I crunched up tight, but so did Manfred.
“You guys gonna kiss?” Doyle asked.
Manfred backed off a little, and for that tiny favor, I mentally thanked the ref for his interference.
“Okay… GO!”
Doyle took his sweaty hands off ours, and we went for it.
At first, Manfred’s hand felt like a block of steel in mine. I threw my weight and power into it—but he didn’t budge.
Then, an evil smile came over his face.
“Is that all you’ve got, McGill?” he asked me.
I felt a tickle of worry, and I braced myself, wrapping my legs around the table struts for leverage. Someone was pointing and saying I was cheating—but I didn’t recall anyone specifying a rule about that.
It was a good thing I’d braced myself, too, because Manfred began to pour it on. His arm was an unnatural thing, proportioned all wrong. It was just too damned thick and short.
He moved, and I began to give.
This pissed me off. One thing about my colorful personality that has been a constant since I was a kid annoying everyone in grade school, was my strong desire to win contests of this sort.
Snaking my legs out farther for leverage, I bent my neck, lowered my head, and heaved for all I was worth.
The contest locked up then. We weren’t moving, but I was probably an eighth of the way gone. Any arm wrestler can tell you that when you’re about a quarter gone, you’re screwed—but I wasn’t there yet.
I think my efforts surprised Manfred at least. He wasn’t smiling that evil little smile anymore. He was deadly serious, face red and running with sweat.
A matching trickle of sweat ran down out of my hair to make my left eye burn about then. I didn’t care at all. I was barely aware of it.
The crowd was cheering, and I was howling now, roaring and carrying on. So far, Manfred had endured this contest in confident quiet, but when my arm started to gain on him—maybe it was a matter of flagging endurance, I wasn’t sure—but he began to shout, too.
The fight went longer than such things usually do. My world had focused down to just the two of us, and I was barely aware of the rest of the noisy meeting hall.
Suddenly, however, something impinged. A different group now surrounded the two of us. Was that Primus Graves? And that lithe, strutting form—could Galina Turov herself have stepped up to watch?
The officers were saying something. Talking to us. I couldn’t have given a single shit what they were saying, however. All I cared about was Manfred’s unnatural frigging arm, an arm made of steel that I just couldn’t bend.
“McGill!” Graves shouted into my ear.
His head was bent down now, even with my face and Manfred’s. He looked kind of annoyed.
“Can we start the meeting now, gentlemen?” he demanded.
That was the critical moment. Manfred shifted, and he looked up. I think he pulled back his legs, too, which had been braced on the steel table just like mine had.
It was a crucial error. I half stood up, and I lifted him high, then I threw him over. As he was a smaller, lighter man, he rolled right out of his chair and did a facer on the deck.
Panting and standing tall, I shouted and shook my fists over my head.