by B. V. Larson
I found the big doors of the number seven portal wide open when I arrived. The cool green world inside was lit only by fake starlight and the occasional phosphorescent mushroom. I walked inside and raised my hands to my mouth, cupping them to bellow for Galina.
A tiny hand touched my elbow.
I spun around, one hand going to my pistol—but I paused. There she was, smiling up at me.
“Always ready to kill at a moment’s notice, hmm?”
“Absolutely.”
“Come on, I’ve brought us a basket.”
I followed her into the gloom. The big doors with a giant seven painted on them swung shut with a clang. We were all alone on a brand new Green Deck.
“The trees aren’t fully grown yet,” I said, looking around. “The tallest is no more than five meters high.”
“Yes. It will take another few days for them to reach maturity.”
For the sake of our human psyche, the Green Deck was bioengineered to grow lush but hollow plants of every variety. As the forest was often damaged, the rate of growth had been accelerated. You could actually hear the genetically enhanced plants rustling as they nudged taller every few minutes. The trees were really stalks of feral grasses, designed to grow at unheard of speeds. Pipes pumped liquids up from the deck underneath a thin coating of soil, feeding the growths a continuous ooze of water and nutrients.
We walked to the best spot in the park-like chamber. It was a forested area surrounding what amounted to a rocky swimming hole. Galina led me to a boulder near a waterfall and opened up her basket. I reached out to dig in, but she slapped my paws away.
The first thing she pulled out of the basket was a bottle of sparkling wine. We poured it into cups. She sipped while I gulped.
“This is lovely, isn’t it?” she asked. “So much better than that dusty old Moon—or that cramped warship, Berlin.”
“You’ve got that right.”
She finally handed me half a roasted chicken. I started chewing immediately, as I really was hungry. She stuck to the wine.
“James,” she said, “let’s say for the sake of argument that we can’t stop the Skay.”
“Uh-huh.” I said, chomping and plucking bones out of my mouth.
“Just how do you plan to contact the Clavers? I mean, no one else can do that, you know? We’re underway aboard a transport at this point. How do you plan to reach them…?”
I licked a few greasy fingers before answering. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll get ahold of them. You’ll see.”
As my hand reached into the picnic basket for the other half of the chicken, she snapped it closed on me.
“Not good enough,” she said. “How are you going to do it?”
I glanced up in surprise. “Is this idle curiosity, or…?”
“James, I really want to secure a reliable supply of revival machines. I don’t want to be left dead or old or anything horrible like that. This is important to me, and I want to hear the details.”
“Oh… right. Well, don’t worry. I’m planning out some special engineering tricks. When the time comes, I’ll reach out and find a Claver. It can’t be that hard!”
She squinted at me. “Why are you being so evasive? Can it be that you’re still secretly in touch with that bitch, Abigail? I should have known.”
“Uh…”
“She’s an evil woman, McGill. You should steer clear of her kind.”
“Don’t I know it,” I mumbled, but Galina didn’t seem to get my meaning.
Galina’s eyes were glittering dangerously. She was looking around at the fake forest and the fake stars. Suddenly, those eyes landed on me again. “Call her right now. I want to see you do it. If you’re bluffing, I’m going to have to pursue other options.”
“Oh… well… I can’t really do that right now. Give me a few days.”
I was stalling, and we both knew it. The trouble was, I couldn’t contact Abigail any more than Galina could. I couldn’t get in touch with any of the Clavers using my tapper, and I didn’t have Abigail’s deep-link ID to send ping out to her, even if I did have the gear. All along, my plan had been to get Natasha to help me with all those messy technical details.
Galina glared at me. Her mind was churning. At last, she sat back and nodded. “Okay. I get it. You don’t want me around when you talk to that little witch. I get it.”
“Uh… hold on, Tribune—”
“No, no. Don’t play me for the fool. Our picnic in heaven is done.”
She stood up and walked away, taking her basket with her. Grumbling, I followed her. All fantasies of enjoying the rest of the evening with her had been banished from my mind in an instant.
-24-
The next day I was in a bad mood. I got up early, around 0530, and rousted my troops for a hard day of physical training.
“PT already?” Carlos complained as he staggered out of his module. “We just got aboard this monster ship. I haven’t even explored the observation deck, or the squash courts, or—”
“Shut up and fall in. Harris!”
Adjunct Harris trotted up and glowered at Carlos. “Is Specialist Ortiz giving you a pain, sir? I haven’t kicked him for an age now, and my boots are itching.”
“He’s getting to that point. Take over, Adjunct. Get these lazy, yawning troops into line. We’ve got to whip them into shape.”
Harris took a step closer. “How long do we have, sir? To whip them up, that is?”
“A week, maybe two, tops. This new ship is fast, and we’re not sparing the engines. We’ve got to figure we’ll be deploying planet-side a few days from now.”
Harris whistled and shook his head. “That’s not enough time. Many of these boys are hanging over their pants with an obvious paunch. At least thirty of them have a beer gut. May I make an unpopular suggestion?”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s get them killed. Most of them, anyway. Then we’ll pump out a lean, trim unit after that. It’ll save time.”
The irony of the suggestion didn’t escape me. He was talking about leaning on the revival machines. It was almost reflexive for Legion Varus officers to do so. Most of our problems could be easily solved by recycling anyone that wasn’t performing at their best.
Soon that capability might be lost to us. At the very least, they’d start rationing revives, no longer allowing us to wear out machines with frivolous use.
Harris didn’t know about any of this, of course. He hadn’t been briefed yet—I wasn’t sure Turov planned to tell the rank and file at all.
“All right,” I said. “We’ll think about that. For right now, I want to work them hard. See who’s in good condition and who isn’t. Make a list.”
Harris grinned. He liked making up death-lists—as long as there was no chance his name would be on it.
“Good call, Centurion. Good call.”
He trotted off and began drilling the troops. They really were in sorry shape. It was partly because we’d called them up with no warning at all. Oftentimes, the legion got some kind of advanced warning about a coming deployment. That gave a man a few weeks to get his wind up—but not this time.
After an hour of exercise, we broke for showers and breakfast. After that, we got serious.
Heading down to the ranges, we found them full of units with commanders who’d had the same idea.
“Here comes McGill,” Centurion Manfred said loudly with a Brit accent. “Late to the party as usual, eh mate?”
I walked up and hammered Manfred on the shoulder. He smiled up at me. That’s what I liked about Manfred. He wasn’t anywhere near my height, but he was just as broad across the chest as I was. He could take a big fist to the shoulder without crying about it.
“My boys have already run a 5K,” I told him.
“Really? They look kind of fat to me.”
My grin soured. “Yeah… about that. Maybe you can help me out, and I can return the favor?”
“Go on.”
I explained the situ
ation. How we had only a few days to prepare our men. Manfred looked concerned.
“How do you know all this? The brass hasn’t shat down so much as a single pellet of hard data into my lap yet.”
“Uh… let’s just say, I’m in the loop this time out.”
Manfred nodded sagely. “Banging Turov again, are we? I stand impressed as always.”
I shook my head. “You’re as bad as Ortiz.”
“What? I won’t have that! Those are fighting words, McGill!”
He said this very loudly, taking our private conversation up to a level that could be heard by the men around us. Several glanced our way.
My face went slack for a second. I was honestly surprised by the look of anger and outrage on Manfred’s face—but then I saw him wink, and I finally caught on.
“You Brit wanker,” I said with equal volume. “That’s what I said, you’re as bad as Specialist Ortiz!”
A few around us sucked in a quick breath. Carlos might be my friend, but he was a renown asshole of the highest order. Being compared to him had been insult in our cohort for decades.
“You take that back, or you’ll eat my boot, McGill!”
“You can’t kick that high, midget!”
We traded insults, then jostled each other, then threw punches. It was fun. I was impressed not only by how hard Manfred could land a fist on my ribs, but also with the punishment he could take in turn.
Finally, standing back from each other and panting, we noticed our adjuncts had come to circle around.
“I thought you two were lovebirds, McGill,” Leeson said.
“Don’t let him get away with that crap!” Harris said in my other ear. “Put him down by surprise!”
Barton was the last of my people to weigh in. “Sir, Manfred’s adjuncts want a word with you—that probably means they’re calling for a duel. What’s this all about, Centurion?”
Fistfights, duels and even large-scale brawls were commonplace in a rough outfit like Legion Varus. Not only were we surly, bad-tempered and mean—we were close to immortal. When a man knew he couldn’t be killed permanently, it tended to make him push things further when he lost control of his emotions.
My face was red, and my right eye was mildly swollen. I stabbed a finger in Manfred’s direction, and it was easy to play the part of the pissed-off officer.
“We came here to shoot—but this pug beat us to it. That’s fine, but then he starts in with the insults.”
“That’s right!” Harris said excitedly. “He compared McGill to Carlos, straight-up!”
The crowd muttered and surged a little. Everyone knew that was a strike below the belt.
Naturally, I knew Harris’ game. He was egging me on. He wanted to see me duel. The first clue was he’d reversed the direction of the insult in question—after all, I was the one who’d compared Manfred to Carlos, not the other way around.
Harris loved duels—when he wasn’t involved. Nothing made him happier than to watch another man catch a beating. But today, things weren’t going to go quite the way he planned.
I lifted a fist in the air. The groups fell quiet. I boomed out my challenge then.
“These fleet-loving snots from Unit Seven don’t want to let us do any target practice today,” I shouted. “But I don’t accept that. I’m hereby calling them out.”
“Uh…” Harris said. His face fell, and he looked around in alarm. “What the hell…?”
“That’s right,” I roared. “We’ll have our target-practice. I hereby challenge Unit Seven to tactical action down on Green Deck—right the fuck now!”
“Oh shit… you’ve got to be kidding me, McGill,” Harris complained, but I ignored him.
My eyes locked on Manfred. After a dramatic pause, he swaggered closer. “Challenge accepted, McGill. You and your fat-assed load of cowards will serve well as moving game for my boys. Your team and mine, one hour from now, Green Deck. Light suits and snap-rifles only—no armor, grenades, or other heavy gear.”
“Got it. Challenge accepted. You’ll be face down in mud inside of ten minutes, Manfred! Mark my words!”
“Bravado from the doomed.”
And that was it. My troops and Manfred’s were both cheering, baring their teeth and shouting boasts.
The exception was the handful of adjuncts and veterans on both sides. They looked concerned, and more than a little baffled. How had this fight mushroomed so quickly into an outright mini-war?
I’d never tell, and I was pretty sure Manfred wouldn’t either.
-25-
Aboard Dominus, the Green Deck trees were quite a bit taller than I remembered from Legate. What’s more, they’d grown significantly since last night. Despite this, most of them hadn’t yet reached their full height. I got a few complaints about that from the various custodians and wannabe hogs who were Fleet crewmen. It was their job to care for and maintain this new Green Deck, and I could tell they didn’t want to see it get torn up before it’d even had the chance to fully grow.
I didn’t care at all about their petty problems. I contacted Graves, told him what I was up to, and got immediate approval.
“That’s excellent, McGill,” he said. “Innovation as usual, I’ve come to expect it from you.”
“Uh… thanks, sir.”
“The praise is well-earned. The primus council has been meeting today on this very topic. How do we get a good training in to sharpen our troops with only a few days to spare? You’ve got an answer, and it’s flexible, with no prep-time needed.”
He waxed on, telling me how he planned to have units pair-off, staging fights all up and down the legion. I soon grew bored and began to wonder when he’d say “dismissed” and get off my tapper screen.
“All right then, all I ask is that you damage no more than an acre of territory on Green Deck. Do you think you can do that? There are a lot of other men that need to water those plants with their blood.”
“Sure thing, Primus. An acre is plenty of room.”
“Excellent. Proceed with my blessing.”
Armed with the name of our Blood Primus, I was able to brush aside the grumbling Fleet losers who seemed to think they were growing out Green Deck to be their personal vegetable garden. Choosing the big gate number seven, I led my men onto the field of honor with loaded snap-rifles and little else. I’d chosen gate seven because I knew the lay of the land from there, having scouted the area the night before with Galina.
“Out that way,” I said, “toward the center of the combat zone, is a small lake with two waterfalls. They’re each bigger and nicer than Legate ever had, too.”
“That’s great, McGill,” Leeson said, “but where is the enemy?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I doubt he knows, either. We just agreed to meet each other out here. He probably chose one of the other gates, and he’s wandering around looking for us.”
My troops fanned out, and we began patrolling. I deployed Della and Cooper to scout ahead. They were my ghost specialists, and they both had camo suits. Unfortunately, as we’d agreed not to use advanced equipment, they couldn’t activate them. Essentially, they were recon on foot.
“This sucks,” Carlos said loudly. “Kivi can’t even launch her drones? Seriously? No buzzers? Nothing?”
“That’s right,” I called back to him. “Now shut up, or I’ll send you forward to probe the grass with your dick.”
We walked around for longer than I expected without meeting the enemy unit. Harris followed me closely.
“This is the biggest Green Deck I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“Sure is.”
“Excuse me for saying this, Centurion, but this scenario doesn’t seem super well worked-out.”
I glanced at him. “Who said it was a scenario? This is a straight-up duel. The challenge was publicly accepted.”
“Excuse me again, Centurion, but that’s total horseshit. It took me a few minutes to figure it out, but after our discussion about our troops state of readiness, and the f
act this fight came out of nowhere between you and your only friend in Legion Varus—”
“Stop right there. You’re starting to irritate me with this subversive talk. Try to come up with more solutions and less bitching, Adjunct. You’ll live longer.”
Harris stopped talking for a bit. He was frowning hard, thinking it over. “How about we break the unit into squads? Send the half that need, uh, servicing right toward the center. The rest of us will turtle up somewhere and wait.”
I thought that over. It seemed like as good a plan as any. “All right. Who leads the lucky half?”
“The two adjuncts who aren’t talking to you, of course.”
I glanced back and saw Leeson and Barton. They looked paranoid but clueless. Harris and I grinned at each other.
“You have been keeping in shape…” I told him. “All right.”
We broke our squads up, and I did a bit of last-second shuffling around. Barton and Leeson were baffled, but I told them I had a secret plan. That was the God’s-honest truth, but they didn’t get it at all, fortunately.
Once all the lame-footed fatties were grouped up, I ordered them to go stake out the waterfall area. They’d be hard to miss there.
In the meantime, Harris and I took the better half of our troops and positioned them in a strong defensive area. It was a cluster of boulders with a slight rise all around. The foliage was thick here, and it would provide good cover. We took up a circle of firing positions and waited.
It didn’t take too long before the fireworks started. Out near the center of the deck, where the lake was, a rattling sound began. A moment later, the forest lit up with flashes and ripping sounds.
“Snap-rifle fire in the area around the lagoon,” Della said in my ear. “Leeson reports contact at ten O-clock, Centurion!”
“You don’t say… hold your position, Ghost.” I turned to Harris. “Have your men hold their positions, Adjunct.”