by B. V. Larson
“With pleasure.”
We hunkered down and listened. Checking out my HUD, I watched as my fighters blinked red, then went dark one or two at a time. At first, I was smiling. Our plan had worked flawlessly. Manfred was out there chewing up those that needed a good recycling.
But after a dozen were down, I began to frown. A rustling at my side revealed Carlos.
“What the fuck, McGill?” he asked. “Why are we sitting here with our fingers in our butts? We have to go help them!”
“It’s all part of the plan, Carlos. This position is great defensive ground.”
“So what? Morale will be in the toilet after this. All those guys down there are feeling abandoned, and the rest of us up here are feeling like cowards.”
I looked at him, and he looked back. I could tell he was serious, and worse, I knew he was right.
“McGill,” Della said in my ear. “Our troops are dying. They’re pinned down and encircled. Why are we doing holding back like cowards?”
“Shit…”
I spent a hard moment reflecting on her words. “How many of the enemy are attacking?”
“Looks like Manfred’s full unit. They outnumber our boys two to one.”
“Goddamn it…” Dark thoughts began to enter my mind. What if Manfred had decided to screw me? What if he’d lost interest in trimming the fat? Sometimes, when faced with real combat, men reverted to their natural instincts.
“Harris! Mount-up! Della, Cooper—yeah, I know you’re out there staying quiet, Cooper—engage them with sniper fire and try to slow them down. Draw them north, if you can. We’ll be there in a minute.”
“Uh…” Harris said, “are you sure about this, sir?”
“Move!”
Cursing, he rushed off to get the troops on their feet. He didn’t have to work too hard, as they were all itching to charge.
Two minutes later, we were running through the thin, crackling trees and stomping them down. The whole forest shook with our passage.
But I wasn’t too worried about being detected. Manfred was having too much fun slaughtering my troops for that.
When we got there, we found Manfred’s unit had entirely encircled our lesser half. Leeson was cagey, however, and he’d chosen the best defensive ground he could. His back was to a cliff between the two waterfalls, and his troops were spread out along the shoreline behind any scrap of cover they could find.
Manfred, on the other hand, had fanned his troops wide in a half-circle. His people were advancing, firing steadily, pinning down my smaller force. Both sides were nailing each other now and then, but my troops were naturally taking the worst of it. By the time we got there, at least thirty of my men were down, and maybe a dozen or so of Manfred’s were floating in the lagoon.
We circled until Manfred’s troops were directly between my two groups.
“Hit ‘em,” I said to Harris and the rest. “Hit ‘em hard, right in the ass! Go, go, go!”
We didn’t shout and roar. Not this time. We simply walked forward, blazing automatic fire at the enemy’s exposed flank. Ten of them were down before they knew what was happening.
Wild shouts and sounds of rage met our ears. Manfred’s unit separated by platoons, trying to get out of the trap. They peppered us with fire, making us duck and take cover—but we kept up the attack. Soon, the lagoon was choked with bodies. Manfred’s troops reached the safety of the shoreline and dragged their wounded into the cover of the trees.
“They’re ducking under the water, sir,” Harris said. “Using their suits to breathe.”
Grim-faced, I dug a grav-plasma grenade off my belt. I lobbed it into the middle of the lagoon. The concussion sent up a white geyser, and Manfred’s men scrambled toward shore.
Sure, I’d cheated, but as I saw it the enemy had cheated first.
Barton led a counterattack then, coming out of her defensive position. I saw no sign of Leeson—then I noticed on my HUD that one of my adjuncts was clearly down. Barton was in charge of the second half of my unit—or what was left of it.
“Let’s crush the right side,” I said. “They’re stuck climbing a wall there, no easy way out.”
Veering right, we advanced toward a platoon of Manfred’s people. Seeing this, Barton did the same. We were soon pressing into the trees, killing them hand-to-hand in some cases.
Manfred himself came up and rushed me, roaring when I waded up onto the shore. He must have been waiting there for me.
“You fucking twat!” he shouted. “Draw your blade if you have the balls!”
I threw up one arm, fist held high. “Hold your fire! This prissy Brit is all mine!”
As most of Manfred’s troops were dead, the rest threw down their arms. At a signal from Harris, our boys slung their rifles. Everyone gathered around, relieved the fight was over.
But it wasn’t finished for me and Manfred. Not yet.
He was well and truly pissed. I could tell. His anger seemed misplaced from my point of view, but everyone sees battle through their own eyes.
We squared off, with nothing between our skin and two blades but a centimeter of tough cloth. We weren’t wearing our combat armor, and we hadn’t yet been issued the new stuff we’d learned to make from the Rigellian bears.
Our knives glinted, and I caught a yellow gleam on his blade. Was that flame?
Backing up a step, I dared a glance over my shoulder. “The forest is on fire?” I asked.
“Yes, you fool. You’re the one that threw grenades to get my troops into the lagoon.”
I whirled back to him. “So you lit up the trees?”
He grinned. “One trick deserves another. Graves won’t be happy.”
Suddenly, I got it. Graves would blame me for turning his precious Green Deck into a smoky ruin. It was a foolproof form of revenge. No matter how the battle turned out, I was going to take a ration of shit from the brass about this.
Already, the distant roof was turning black with soot. The trees were weak, it seemed, more vulnerable to fire since they were so young and frail.
“They don’t put in the fire retardant until they’re full grown,” Manfred informed me. “Or didn’t you know that, you long-armed wanker?”
That was it. I charged him. We went into a clinch, grabbing for each other’s wrists. I got in one stab, nailing him in the shoulder before he clamped onto my hand and pushed me back.
Unfortunately, he’d gotten in a poke under my ribs. My guts took it, and I felt a sick explosion in my belly.
I wasn’t out yet, not by a long shot. We grunted and strained, slashing at each other when we could. Our body types were quite different, but we were well-matched. He probably had the greater strength in close due to his short-limbed leverage, but I had the bigger frame, the greater weight and reach.
Snaking an arm around his neck, I managed to draw my blade under his chin. I’d cut his throat. Gore flew everywhere, and he mouthed raspy curses.
Most men would reel from the shock of such an injury, but Manfred was what he sometimes called “a tough old bird.” He put both hands on his knife handle, and he drove it at me.
I tried to keep him away, but he got in close. I was losing strength from my wounds, and he had the powerful arms of a gorilla. I stabbed him in the chest and arms a half-dozen times—but he rammed that knife home anyway. The thrust was unstoppable. I took it in the chest, and I knew even as he slumped down from loss of blood, that I was well and truly screwed.
Standing tall, I lifted my knife over my head. Blood dripped from my fist, and the blade ran with reflected flames. The whole damned forest seemed to be going up now, all around us.
My troops cheered, but it was half-hearted thing. They could see I wasn’t in good shape.
Disappointed by their lack of enthusiasm, I staggered two steps toward shore before flopping down in the mud. Bubbles and bloody foam oozed out of my lips as I died.
-26-
When I got out of the revival machine, I wasn’t pissed. After all, Manfr
ed and I had both done a number on each other. We were friends underneath, and real friends didn’t let one night of murderous rage get between them.
After returning to life, my habit was to take a shower, sleep a bit, then maybe find something to eat. Knowing Centurion Manfred well, like I did, I was aware his habits were somewhat different.
I found him in the officers’ pub, with wet hair and a sour look on his face. He had a mug of beer in each hand, and when he saw me, he slid the one in his left paw across the bar.
Catching it with clumsy fingers, I sat on a seat beside him and took a big gulp.
“Nice of you to save me a mug, Manfred.”
“You’re daft, McGill. I was drinking two at a time.”
We grinned at one another and went back to drinking.
After a solid killing, Manfred liked to drink. I figured it was his way of ignoring what had just happened. Everyone had their own way of dealing with death in the legions. If you didn’t have a few mind-tricks like that, you wouldn’t last long.
“Graves is looking for you, you know,” he said after we’d drained a few.
“I kind of figured.”
I was making a point of ignoring my tapper. It was buzzing, and vibrating and generally carrying on—but I wasn’t in the mood.
Manfred looked down at his, reading it. I could have told him that was a mistake. Graves was a master at souring a man’s gut.
Manfred frowned. “He says he’ll remove your teeth, your balls and your rank buttons if you don’t contact him right now.”
I sighed heavily. “All right, all right.”
Poking at my arm, I faked a grin. “Hello Primus, sir. Damn if that wasn’t a fine idea you had about matching up two units on Green Deck. We had a blast. What’s more—”
I broke off as Graves began an angry tirade.
“Why, no sir!” I exclaimed. “Manfred didn’t intend any excessive destruction. Sure, he lit that forest on fire but—what’s that, sir?”
I glanced up at Manfred, who had been grinning at my distress. Now, his face had transformed into a glare. “You prick,” he whispered.
“The primus wants to talk to you, Centurion. Apparently, they had to open the dome and expose the whole deck to space in order to suck out all the oxygen. That stopped the fire right-quick.” Whistling long and low, I shook my head. “Damn boy, when you punch yourself in the nuts you go all out—you’d better answer that.”
Manfred’s tapper was buzzing now. I poked at it to wake it up. I was only trying to be helpful, but Manfred took offense and slapped my thick fingers away.
“Get off!”
Chuckling, I paid the bar computer with a brush of my tapper. Draining my third beer, I headed for the exit. Manfred wasn’t good company all of a sudden, and it seemed likely to me he would be tied up for a spell.
Walking out, I stretched and yawned. All that beer on an empty stomach hadn’t made me sick, but it had made me a little sleepy. I headed down to the mess hall, grabbed a few items to snack on, and then found my bunk. I fell onto it gratefully.
Sleep was not for the wicked, however. Not tonight, not ever.
“McGill?”
It was my tapper. The damned thing was talking to me in the dark—again. At least it wasn’t Graves peeping at me. He was probably still too busy making a chew-toy out of poor old Manfred.
That thought made me smile, so when I put my big face into view of the camera pickup, Galina Turov at least got to see me at my best.
“I’m glad you’re so happy to see me,” she said with false warmth. “You wrecked all of Graves’ plans—you know that, don’t you?”
“Just a little high-spiritedness, sir. You see, once a fight breaks out among the boys of Varus, there’s no telling—”
“I know what you did. You wrecked Green Deck. Did it occur to you that no one can use it now? We’ll probably arrive at 91 Aquarii before it’s grown in fully.”
“Well now, that sounds like poor planning to me. Why couldn’t these Fleet pukes grow out the deck before we even got aboard?”
“They were saving budget money, I’m sure. They didn’t seed it until they knew they had a legion to carry.”
“That sounds about right. What a miserly bunch. Penny-wise is pound-foolish, my father always says.”
“I’m sure he does, whatever the hell that means. In any case, I was wondering if you’d made any progress toward contacting the Clavers.”
“Uh… I sure have!” I said with certainty. The truth was I’d forgotten all about it in the excitement of the day. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. I’ll have Claver on the line the minute we decide the 91 Aquarii campaign is a bust.”
“That will possibly be too late. Get on with it, and report back to me as soon as you have made contact—sooner, if there are any positive developments.”
“Will do, sir. Now, how about a nightcap? I was just lying here bored and wondering—”
“Forget it. Contact Claver. Turov out.”
I sighed and waited five seconds before heaving my carcass out of bed. After all, I could sleep the next time I was dead. Searching doors and tapping on a few, I looked for Natasha.
She wasn’t in her bunk asleep, naturally. As her superior officer, I could have simply done a trace on her location with my own tapper—but I didn’t dare. Things like that were automatically flagged by tech specialists. Not only would Natasha have been warned by her defensive software, but every other mouthy little tech would know about it, too.
Kivi was the problem creature in this scenario. Sure, we hadn’t hooked up for a long time, but there was always hope for the prospect on any new campaign. The one person in the world she seemed most jealous of was Natasha. If she knew I was looking for her at around midnight… well, I could kiss all my fantasies goodbye for the next year or so.
I finally found Natasha down in the quartermaster’s storage room. Every unit had their own supply man, who was sometimes a specialist, or other times a veteran. They were always people who were slower and fussier than the rest.
In this case, I didn’t see the quartermaster at all. Instead, I saw only Natasha squatting over some kind of gear.
Clearing my throat, I got her to spin around on her haunches and almost fall on her can. That was a dead giveaway. She was up to something that was against regs.
“Oh! Hello, Centurion. I didn’t hear you come in.”
I nodded sternly, putting on my serious officer’s face. I stepped inside the store room and had a look around.
There was gear of every kind in here, but mostly the unusual stuff. There were medical kits, two communications dishes, and a lot of extra buzzers.
Her body was between my eyes and whatever she’d been working on. I pretended not to notice. Picking up an auto-wrench, I waved it around and smiled. “Found it,” I said, and I moved to go.
Relieved, Natasha turned back toward whatever she was illicitly working on.
“Hold on,” I said, turning back around again at the door.
“Yes?”
“I just had a thought. You remember that private project we were working on last year—on the way out to Glass World?”
She blinked for a second in surprise. “You don’t mean—?”
“That’s right. Something about aligning light. About recording shimmers in oceans and such-like.”
“I remember… what about it?”
“Well, I’ll tell you what. If you don’t want to go on report for your little midnight excursions—”
“Hold on, McGill,” she reached out a hand to touch mine. “James... You can’t tell anyone about that.”
“Don’t I know it,” I said, having absolutely no idea nor interest in whatever the hell she was up to. “The brass would be pissed, wouldn’t they?”
She stared at me furtively. “You’re not asking me for a date or something, are you?”
“Huh? Oh… no, no. I’m asking for you to work on something for me. I want you to press on with y
our… uh… your detection equipment. In particular, I want to be able to read an ID from a message. An old message, maybe.”
She blinked at me. “What?”
“Well, if you can figure out what a deep-link message is saying, you’d think it would be even easier to trace back where it’s coming from, right?”
“Oh… I see. Maybe…” she said, looking down.
Was she a little disappointed? Maybe she wanted a date. Natasha and I shared a strange, long history, after all. But now wasn’t the time for fooling around. I put such thoughts away for later. Right now, I needed her help. If anyone could reach the Clavers, Natasha could.
“Let me know if you figure anything out. All of this,” I said, waving my wrench around to indicate the entire storeroom, “I never heard a thing about it. Okay?”
“Okay…” she said, almost whispering. “Thanks, James.”
“Sure thing. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
As I yawned and staggered back to my bunk, I felt a sense of pride surging. That had been a job well done, if I did say so myself. Natasha would work like a beaver chewing on a fencepost until she solved my problems for me.
Contented with this certain knowledge, I fell asleep until dawn.
-27-
Graves finally caught up with me at breakfast.
“There you are, McGill. Don’t think that I’m unaware you’ve been dodging me since your latest revival.”
“Uh… why would I do that, sir?”
Graves glowered at me. “Because you don’t want to talk about that jackassed stunt you pulled yesterday on Green Deck. You told me there would be no more than an acre’s worth of damage. Well, the entire deck was a total loss.”
“Really? That’s a shame, sir. A damned shame. Did you know they had two waterfalls this time? And that lagoon… it was as pretty as a sapphire shining under that fake sun.”
“McGill, listen to me: this is exactly the kind of wasteful behavior that must stop if we’re going to operate effectively without revival machines. You’re going to have to clean up your act, or I won’t be able to use you on future campaigns.”