by B. V. Larson
Winslade shrugged. “The thought has occurred. In any case, if you would prefer it, I will relieve you of your mission. You won’t have to make a suicidal attack tomorrow.”
My eyes were narrow and dark as I regarded him. “So… do you have the key yet?”
“Of course I do. Now, I’m going to tidy this place up. Your new orders are to immediately vacate the premises and—”
I grabbed him. I knew he was lying. When I’d spotted him, he was obviously still searching for the key. He just wanted me out of the way so I couldn’t stop him from finding it.
As part of our native-suppression gear, the quartermaster’s had seen fit to issue wrist-ties to us. You never knew when you would need to take a captive on a mission like this, civilian or otherwise.
Before he knew what was happening, I had him hog-tied and face down on the deck. He made an awful racket and cursed up a blue streak.
“McGill, you’re going up on charges this time! I will NOT suffer this kind of indignity at your hands again!”
“Now, now, Tribune. You know as well as I do that you’re not supposed to be in here ransacking the place. Graves, Fike, the rest of the primus types—they don’t trust you any farther than they can throw you. Not half that far, if the truth was to be told.”
He kept on grunting and struggling, but my boot stayed planted on his spine. While he was down there, I searched him to be sure, before I went through Turov’s desk.
“Huh…” I said. “Nothing.”
“Get off, you oaf!”
“All right, all right,” I said, standing him up like a ragdoll for the second time. “I’m real sorry about any indignities—”
“I’m not going to forget this, McGill. Not this time.”
“That’s real unfortunate, sir. I’ll tell you what I’ll do to make it up to you.”
Winslade glared at me for several seconds.
“What?” he asked finally.
There it was. Winslade had pride, but never let it get between him and a good deal.
“Here it is: let’s say I find that key before you do.”
“You won’t.”
“But I know Turov way better than you do. I’ve got a list of other places I can search.”
That was a lie, of course, but he didn’t know that. What he knew was that I’d been intimate with Turov for years.
“So… what if you find it? You’ll give it to me? Why should I believe you?”
“Because we’re cutting a deal. Right now, just you and me. You get the key, but I get to use it one last time. I get to use it to go down and spring Galina.”
“We don’t even know where she is.”
“That’s right—but it doesn’t matter. I’m going to erase Helsa, just the same way she did our girl. Then her mamma will cut a deal.”
“After that string of unlikely events, you’re promising to return the key to me?”
“That’s right. Win or lose, you get the key. Scout’s honor.”
“Untie me immediately.”
I hesitated only a moment, then I slashed the zip-ties and freed him.
Winslade snapped a needler into my face. “I ought to burn you down right now.”
“Can’t say as I would blame you.”
He puffed for several seconds, then lowered his tiny weapon.
“All right,” he said. “We’ve a truce, and we’ve got a plan. Now, where is that damned key?”
A slow smile split my face. “Come with me.”
I turned my back on him and led him out of the office. I knew full well he might burn me down. I would have respected him more if he did so.
But I knew he wouldn’t. He wanted that key far more than he wanted revenge. It was a weakness of the soul, just the sort of thing that plagued men like Winslade.
I led him down two decks, to a mid-deck zone. Technically, it served as our armory. Winslade never stopped rubbing at his bruised collar bone and complaining.
“If this is another of your goose-chases, McGill, so help me—”
“Just a few steps farther on, sir.”
At last, we stopped about a hundred meters short of the ship’s fire control center. There, feeling around, I found a compartment I knew would be there. I turned to Winslade.
“What is it now?” he demanded. “A fresh excuse? Are you needing more time, or perhaps you’re simply out of lies, or—”
“None of those things, sir. I was just thinking you should step back a little.”
Frowning, he did hop backward. It was just in time, too, as I’d fondled a catch behind a false wall.
With a groaning sound, a door opened up and clanged down between us.
“That panel is huge,” Winslade complained. “I might have been killed.”
“Uh-huh…”
We both stared into the revealed compartment. Inside was a dragon—an armored, self-propelled combat suit. It stood nearly three meters high, and it was made of shiny white metal—titanium.
“A dragon?” Winslade gasped. “How did it—Turov stashed it in here?”
“She does that,” I said. “She’s been hiding machines like this on ships for emergencies for decades. The first one I met up with was back on Corvis—remember that old ship?”
“Certainly, but which campaign?”
“Tech World. She drove it around the decks after we were driven off Gelt Station. I happen to know she found that experience exhilarating. Ever since then, she’s been stashing fighting machines onboard starships whenever she can.”
“All right… knowing her, I’m willing to believe that. But what makes you think she would stash the key here?”
I shrugged. “Can you think of a safer place? Let’s have a look.”
I climbed up the stirrups and opened the hatch over the cockpit. Rummaging around, I lifted a small pouch. I waved it around and grinned.
“Give that to me,” Winslade hissed.
He had that small needler in his hand again. He was aiming right at me.
“Now, now, we had a deal, sir.”
“Yes, and I might still honor it. But for right now, I order you to give me that object.”
We had a short stare-down. Finally, I heaved a sigh and tossed down the key. He caught it after a single bounce in his off-hand. Cursing, he was momentarily distracted.
That’s when I leaned into the cockpit of the dragon and touched an actuator. The battle machine’s titanium fist jabbed forward, catching Winslade in the left ear.
He spun around and fell on the deck. He didn’t get up again.
Climbing down, I tsked the whole time. He should have known better than to try a double-cross.
I plucked the key from his skinny fingers, then checked his carotid. I found a thready pulse. He was still alive, but he was going to have a hummer of a headache later on.
Grunting, I carried him up the stirrups again and stuffed his unconscious body into the Dragon’s cockpit. The machine’s interior had been tailored for Galina’s small form, so it was a tight squeeze, but he fit without having to make any adjustments.
Sealing the false wall in place again, I left the scene at a trot.
Making my way down to Gray Deck a few minutes later, I told everyone my mission plans had been accelerated. Fortunately, they had some of Winslade’s armored suits already available. I took the biggest one they had, forced myself into it, and put on a teleport harness.
Ninety seconds later, the world was a throbbing blue-white blob. I was on my way down to visit the Shadowlanders.
I hoped they’d be in a better mood than they had been the last time I’d met up with them.
-42-
The suit of armor I’d commandeered was much more advanced than the prototypes I’d tried out during the Glass World campaign. Back then, I’d worn what amounted to a layered stack of smaller suits made for Rigellian troops. It had covered me incompletely, but it had still been effective in stopping enemy weaponry as long as they didn’t get lucky and hit one of the many cracks and splits
.
The suit I put on now wasn’t perfect either, mind you. The helmet area was still vulnerable, for instance. Worse, there were a few ports and plugs that could be breached. But it would do fine for what I had in mind.
Armament was another issue. I’d chosen to pack one of the Rigellian shotguns along with a pistol and combat knife. Some might have suggested I carry a rifle for dealing with Shadowlanders at range, but I didn’t like getting loaded down. Three weapons was about all a fella can realistically carry into battle if he wants to be fast on his feet.
The really important thing was my insertion point. Where, in that big mess of domes, huts and urns, etc., should I land? A good choice could mean success, while a bad choice would doom my mission to failure.
Intel told me where the enemy combat machines were stored, and where their command and control headquarters was—but I didn’t care about any of that. I wanted to make this personal. I wanted to find their revival machines.
Reasoning that they’d be valuable and well-guarded, I chose to land near the center of their town. All I had the techs do was isolate a dome nearby that didn’t have any life forms within ten meters—and I jumped.
Arriving in a crouch, I looked around, gripping my shotgun tightly. I became alarmed when I realized I was in the midst of two ranks of combat drones.
Suddenly, I realized why there hadn’t been any life readings here: the place was full of robots.
Like me, however, the drones were motionless and kind of folded-up. They formed hulking dark shapes, most of them with blankets thrown over them to keep the dust off.
Lifting up a blanket, I took a peek. There were a few status lights on the unit I revealed. Most of them glowed yellow. The drone was charging.
It seemed to be shut down for the moment, and I considered disabling it—but I passed on the idea. There had to be twenty of these machines parked here, and someone was bound to notice if I started fooling with them.
Standing up in the middle of the throng of drones, I looked around. There was a Shadowlander tech nearby. He was monitoring the machines and eating some kind of nasty stew. It probably was made of that moss these folks liked so much.
Walking quietly, I approached him from behind. Something must have tipped him off, however. Maybe it was the swish of my black fibrous armor, or the rattle of a grenade on my belt. Whatever the case, he snapped his head around in surprise.
I had my knife out for a silent kill, if that was needed. The man’s eyes widened and his spoon clattered to the floor. Without a word he reached for a big button on his console. I could only imagine that it would awaken the machines behind me.
My blade flicked out of my hand. It pinned his wrist to the console. The man howled a bit and struggled, but he managed to get to the console with his good hand.
I was rushing him, big stomping boots coming down in fast thumps—but I wasn’t going to make it. I could tell that already.
The man touched the big red button. Behind me, a dozen machines stirred. They began that kind of slow wake-up process, the same behavior I’d seen them go through when they’d come up off the grav-carts in the streets. They must be rebooting, or something.
When I got to the console, I struck the operator in the head with the butt of my shotgun. He slumped over, but it was too late. The drones had all been activated.
“Shit!” I hissed out, tapping at the console.
It didn’t respond to my touch. Every time I pressed an override or tried to get into a menu, it beeped and brought up some kind of security screen. I had no idea what the password might be, or even if the damned thing had a password.
Behind me, blankets began to slip away from the drones. They luffed to the mossy floor and the machines rose up, buzzing and activating their vision systems. Soon, they’d track me and shoot me down.
I considered running. I could have lit out of the dome and sprinted away. With luck, I might even have made it to the gates, what with my armor being hard to penetrate.
But that wasn’t my mission. I wasn’t here to make a fool of myself and get chased out of this Shadowlander town for a second time.
Then, I finally had an idea. It had been long in coming to that dusty gray organ in my skull, but at last, it had arrived.
“The key…” I said aloud.
Scrambling to get a hand into my armor, I managed to pull out the Galactic Key. It didn’t look like much. It never had. The thing resembled a natural sea shell, all curved, smooth and shiny. There was no hint from its appearance that it had amazing hacking powers.
I applied the key to the Shadowlander interface, and the results were immediate. The security warnings vanished. I slammed my hand down on the same red button, but this time, it responded.
The drones behind me all froze.
I craned my neck around to watch. They didn’t lie down. They didn’t pull their sheets back over themselves. They just kind of stood there. Some were already in the middle of aiming weapons at me—but they’d all stopped functioning.
I breathed a little sigh of relief. “You dummies are going to have to wait to get a piece of old McGill.”
Turning away from them, I took stock of things. So far, the mission had pretty much been a disaster. I’d failed to make any kind of a quiet, easy entrance. I had no idea where Galina was, and a score of evil machines had all marked me down for a quick death.
I sighed, freed my knife from the injured operator’s pinned wrist and sheathed it. No longer held in place, the man sprawled on the mossy ground.
Right about then, it occurred to me that my plans so far could be called half-baked—or maybe even quarter-baked. The trouble had started once I’d clocked Winslade. After that unfortunate moment, I’d needed to get moving right away. I hadn’t had time to figure out what I was planning to do down here.
Even now, Winslade was probably rubbing his head and getting himself all worked up. By the time I returned to Dominus, he was liable to be in a seriously ornery mood. Misunderstandings of this nature had gotten me into all kinds of trouble in the past.
“Gotta keep moving…” I told myself.
Taking a chance, I walked to the flimsy door of the big dome and peered out with one eye. What I saw was a busy street. Back aboard Dominus it had been nighttime hours, but here on 91 Aquarii, that’s not how things worked.
It was always twilight here, never full dark or full light. At least, you never saw full night or full day if you were a Shadowlander. That was the whole point.
As far as we could tell, Shadowlanders didn’t really sleep. They didn’t have that entire circadian rhythm thing going, not in their strange lives. They rested when they were tired, but they didn’t pass into an unconscious state like we did. To them, we were the freaks for hibernating on a regular basis.
Deciding that walking out into the main streets would be a mistake, I used my knife to punch a few eye-holes to look in other directions. To the west, I found there was another dome right up against the one I was in. It looked even bigger than the one I was in now, so I went for it.
Decisiveness was one of my strong points. Oftentimes, making any decision was better than doing nothing. This was definitely one of those times.
I used my knife to slice a narrow opening between the domes. The metal was quite thin, as the nomads had to carry it from place to place on a regular basis. In addition, my knife’s edge was molecularly aligned. You couldn’t find a diamond, shard of glass or a length of steel that was any sharper.
Cutting another eyehole in the next, bigger dome, what I saw inside surprised me. It wasn’t a revival machine. It wasn’t even a personal residence. Instead, it looked more like a throne room.
A central chair sat on a pile of carpets or blankets, or whatever they had to cover the ground. That was how nomadic people tended to live, with everything mobile. The whole town was built to be torn down and set up again every month or so. I guess it was a good thing Shadowlanders didn’t sleep much. They had to be hard workers.
With a tearing sound, I cut my way out of one dome and into the next. But by the time time I had gotten one leg into that chamber someone walked in the main doors.
It was a woman, and I knew her.
“Helsa, right?” I asked aloud. “What are you doing here, girl? You’re supposed to be our prisoner.”
Helsa froze. She stared at me, and her eyes slid around the room warily, looking for others. She walked into the chamber, drawing a weapon as she did so.
I made no fast moves. I just stepped all the way into the dome and stood there in my black armor, watching her.
“This is… awkward…” she said.
“Sure is. You’re a cheat. Worse, you’re a walking Galactic crime. The Skay, the Mogwa and the Nairbs, they’re all on their way here, you know. What do you think they’ll say when they find out about this gross violation of Imperial law?”
“I know that voice, that bulk…” she said, peering at me. “McGill? You’re in that suit, aren’t you? Why do you seem to haunt me?”
“You’d be surprised if you knew how many women had asked me that very question.”
Helsa stepped forward four more paces, but I still didn’t react. I recognized the weapon in her hand. It was a force-blade, switched off. Her mamma had used just such a weapon to kill Graves the day before.
Could a force-blade cut through my new body armor? I didn’t think so…
“Why are you here?” Helsa demanded. “Are you actually alone? Such bravado… it’s almost insulting.”
“I told you I’m of a warrior breed.”
“Yes, and I respect that. But you can’t be here. You can’t have witnessed what you have witnessed.”
“No shame, huh? No honesty? No honor?” I asked, shaking my armored head and tsking at her. “I’m disappointed in you. I mean, sure you’re nothing but a desert rat creeping around on a moss carpet down here on 91 Aquarii, but I kind of figured you were capable of keeping your word. But nooooo—”
“Shut up,” she said, springing forward and thumbing her force-blade into life. It glowed and glimmered under my nose.
Naturally, she’d been walking up until she was close enough to pull her weapon out on me. I didn’t even flinch.