by B. V. Larson
“Yeah… Listen girl, I know you’re in an emotional state. You seem to have lost much of your aloof nature. I mean, you’ve changed a lot since you’ve moved to Earth.”
Floramel nodded, and she looked lost.
“It’s so different on Earth,” she said. “Living among neural-typical humans is difficult. I think I’ve become more like them.”
“That’s bound to happen. Culture shock, they call it.”
She studied me for a moment, and she nodded slowly.
“Now,” I said gently, sitting my big butt on her desk. “We need to talk about these gremlins. How do we kill them and kick them off our ship?”
“They’re your brothers,” she said. “Or at least, your cousins.”
“Right…” I said gently. “Later on, we’ll do our very best to make friends. I promise. But for right now, they’ve got to go. You can see that, can’t you?”
Her distress was obvious, and deep down in my guts, I began to suspect a new reason for her uncharacteristically emotional state.
She’d admitted she’d had a personal hand in the creation of these little bastards. Could it be she still held some fondness for them? Were they, to Floramel, something akin to small pets—or even wild, errant children?
“Listen,” I said, “back on Earth, things like this happen now and then.”
She looked at me in surprise. “They do?” she asked.
“Well, not exactly like this. But sometimes a person takes in a pet when it’s small. They treat it like an infant, but when it grows up, its true nature always comes out. Beloved things sometimes turn vicious with age, like a tiger, or a chimp that goes berserk as an adult.”
“The homunculi aren’t animals, James.”
“No, no, of course not. They’re infinitely worse. They’re smarter and meaner than any monkey I’ve ever heard of.”
I told her then of being lanced with an electrified needle. Of how the gremlin grinned at me, enjoying my agony.
By the end of my story Floramel was crying again. Gently, I touched her cheek and swept away a tear. I’d never seen her cry before.
“Times up, McGill!” Winslade called from the doorway.
Throwing up my hand, I gave him a stopping gesture. He sighed and began to pace outside again.
“Will you do it?” I asked her gently. “Will you help us get our ship back?”
“I will,” she said, her voice sad and dull.
Somehow, I didn’t feel triumphant about my successful persuasion. Floramel was an honestly sweet girl. She was so wise and so innocent, all at the same time.
But dammit, those tiny demons had to go!
-21-
We stood outside Engineering—well outside.
Floramel marched forward slowly, stopping about fifty meters away from the end of the passageway. Bodies were strewn all over the deck in front of the hatchway, which had been blackened by Graves and his earlier attempt to breach it.
“Children?” Floramel called out. “This is Floramel calling to you. Come out and speak with me.”
This startled me. I was standing behind her, ready to fight. She was unarmed and looking helpless in her vac suit. She had her hands clasped in front of her, and her head tilted upward at the end of that long, lovely neck of hers.
I found myself feeling protective. These little friggers had already killed Natasha and me, plus about two hundred others. If we hadn’t been desperate, I would never have approved of this attempted pow-wow with the enemy.
“Tell me again, McGill,” Carlos’ voice buzzed in my ear, “when are we going to charge in there and slaughter these monkeys?”
“Hold on, Carlos,” I radioed back. “Give Floramel her shot.”
Carlos and a full unit of troops were well back, in defensive positions at the other end of the long passageway that led to Engineering.
I knew why Carlos was angry. We’d both been killed by these guys in devious ways. Graves and his troops had penetrated further, and the main hatch was already hanging half off its hinges.
“Children?” Floramel asked softly, but there was no response.
Then she did what I’d specifically told her not to do. She walked forward, coming to within twenty meters of that exposed hatch. The first of the dead bodies lay right at her feet.
“Dammit, girl,” I said in her ear on a private channel. “Step back here. If they nail you, we have to nail them.”
She paid me no attention at all. Maybe she’d figured out she was the last chance these gremlins had to live. In that case, she was right.
Frankly, I was amazed they’d survived so long. We’d tried all the easy stuff. We’d flushed the deck with radioactive gas. We’d electrified the deck and then tried to shut off the power entirely.
The trouble was that in each case, they’d been able to override our remote control actions. Engineering was at least as well wired-in to the ship’s controls as Gold Deck was. They’d been able to shut down every move we made.
The only systems the gremlins didn’t have control of were the helm, life support and navigation. They were working on that tirelessly, however. Our techs could sense their interference, hacking and workarounds. For every attack we sent their way, they sent one right back.
Sooner or later, this was going to change from a stand-off to an outright fight to the finish. If they managed to cut power to the rest of the ship, or gain control of our engines and begin flying the ship, Winslade had issued firm orders: we were to go in and take them all out, even if it meant losing the ship.
A core breach. That’s what we feared most. We’d been pussy-footing around with these gremlins precisely because they were holed up in Engineering. The drive was there, with about a terawatt’s worth of fusion reactors. If we ruptured the cooling jackets or otherwise did permanent damage to the engines, well, it was all over for Legion Varus. We’d have to signal Earth that we’d lost the ship to pirates, and blow ourselves up.
If the hogs back home were in a charitable mood, they’d revive us all on Earth. It was a humiliating defeat that none of us wanted to endure.
“Floramel!” I hissed down the hall after her.
She’d begun stepping over bodies. Any one of them could kill her. They’d all been wired up to zap the unwary.
Before she reached the hatch, a figure appeared ahead of her. Then six more tiny heads popped up.
“There you are!” she said. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”
“You are the designer?” one of them asked in a tiny voice.
“Yes. I’m Floramel. I—”
They swarmed forward. Bounding over the wired-up bodies with astounding speed and agility, they were all around her in an instant.
I had my rifle up to my shoulder. I sighted the nearest of them, and I put my crosshairs on his tiny scalp.
“Why would the designer be here?” asked the gremlin. “Why aren’t you home?”
“Our old home was destroyed, children,” Floramel said gently. “It’s all gone. Even the rock beneath our dome has been melted away into fragments.”
A general hissing went up from the gremlins. They were circling now, all around Floramel’s feet. It was a weird sight, like seeing a goddess stand as tall as a tree surrounded by villagers.
“Who?” a gremlin asked.
“Who destroyed our world? I…” Floramel faltered. She’d had a nice lilt in her voice up until now. She’d been glad to see her tiny creations again. But now, perhaps she’d sensed that she shouldn’t tell them who was responsible for the destruction of their original home.
“The Empire,” another one said, answering for her. “We know.”
“I’m sorry,” Floramel told them. “As sorry as you all are. But there has been enough death and destruction. We must—”
“No!” one shouted. “We mustn’t!”
“Children, please.”
“You’re a slave to these apes. We’ve seen them from the inside. We’ve cooked them and tasted their flesh. They aren
’t us—but they are like us. Did you make them, too?”
“No, they’re the original form. You, me—all of us are descended from these humans.”
The gremlins cocked their heads and regarded me curiously for a moment.
“They seem so slow and stupid,” one said. “How can they be our gods?”
“They aren’t gods. They’re our ancestors.”
“Primitive proto-beings?”
“If you like.”
I didn’t like it. Not the way this conversation was going, or Floramel’s unwarranted attachment to these tiny devils.
Standing, I lowered my gun and took ten steps forward. The gremlins shifted warily.
“This one is mean,” one said.
“He’s big, but he’s dumb.”
I forced a grin. After all, we were supposed to be on a diplomatic mission. If Floramel could charm these imps, maybe I could do the same.
“Listen kids,” I said. “I’m in charge of the security down here. We’re all on the same ship. How about we make a deal?”
“What kind of deal, big-man?”
“Here’s a bargain: We’ll give you a ride back to Blood World, with a module aboard our ship just for you. You’ll be fed, clothed and given whatever you need. When we get to your planet, you can go free without any repercussions.”
“Sixteen of us have died on this huge, cold ship,” one of the gremlins complained. He stepped forward from the rest as if he was their leader. “How will you pay for that?”
“Well,” I said, “I’m sorry about that, but a lot of us died, too.”
A general laugh went up from the group. They grinned at me, but I wasn’t sure what was so damned funny.
“Sorrow isn’t payment,” the gremlin informed me. “Only pain pays a blood-price.”
“That’s right,” said another, walking forward confidently. He looked up at me and he grinned. He grinned hugely.
“Big-man,” he said, “would you like to dance? I’ve seen you dance, and I enjoyed—”
That was about it for old James McGill. You have to understand, I’m a dishonest man. I’m a man who knows all the ways a truth can be bent, this way and that, until it breaks like a dry twig.
Now, I’m not an evil sort. At least, I like to think I’m not. My lies are almost always told to ease over the difficult parts in life. To grease the sharp edges and painful sorts of things we’re all forced to swallow from time to time.
But my intimate knowledge of deceit allowed me powers others didn’t possess when it came to spotting subterfuge, treachery and downright orneriness in others. In short, I knew these devils were lying to me, and they had no intention of letting us bargain our way back into Engineering. It just wasn’t going to happen.
Last of all, in that singular moment before I lost control, I recognized the gremlin at my feet—the one that was grinning up at me, asking funny questions about dancing… Grinning wide.
It was none other than the same little dick who’d jabbed me with an electrified needle not two hours earlier.
And now he was teasing me about it. Enjoying himself. When I realized that—I snapped.
It’s been said before, and it’ll be said again—a Legion Varus man isn’t to be trifled with. We simply don’t take well to being played. It’s just not in our natures to laugh with an enemy. Instead, we tend to take matters into our own hands and kill whatever gets in our way.
Not being a philosopher or a psychologist, I don’t have any fancy way of explaining what gripped me over the next few moments, but I can tell you plainly what happened.
A cold, deadly calm came over me. A murderous stare haunted my eyes. It was as if the light of the stars themselves glittered in my pupils, and let me assure you, there’s no light more merciless or terrifying than that.
The gremlin who’d dared to tease me—he knew he’d made a mistake. He’d overstepped his bounds and then some.
Maybe he’d thought that with Floramel there, he was safe to do and say what he wanted to the big-man. But he’d thought wrong.
He bounded in a single leap backward, moving through the air like a trapeze artist.
But it wasn’t enough to escape. My hand swept up and caught him. I didn’t bother to do anything complicated. I just crushed him and threw his lifeless doll-like body at the rest, who scattered like raccoons firing off a tipped-over garbage can.
“James!” Floramel called out in horror.
She might have tried to do something like restrain me, but it was no use. I was wearing powered armor, and I didn’t even feel her touch.
My heavy boots crushed down the dead men all around us as I charged after the gremlins who hooted and bounced away in a dozen directions. I felt a tingle coming up from my boots, but I wasn’t fried. I’d taken the precaution of insulating my body to prevent such traps from stopping me again.
Another gremlin caught a bolt from my rifle, which I whipped up one-handed from my shoulder where I’d slung it. He went ass-over-teakettle down the passage, looking like a tiny man-shaped fireball.
The rest of them vanished through the open hatchway, and just like that, our peace-talks came to an abrupt end.
I turned around slowly to see Floramel’s eyes were full of horror and tears.
“Dammit…” I said.
There were some things you just never wanted your lady to see—and this had been one of them.
She ran off, crying, and I didn’t try to stop her. I heaved a sigh instead.
That’s when I felt it—a tiny prick in the back of my left leg, right behind the kneecap.
The electricity flowed, and I did that dance the other gremlin had asked for. I danced until I fell, then I kept dancing, eyes blinking fast.
My flesh smoked and my lungs locked up.
It seemed like it went on for a long time. Maybe the gremlins had been studying us, working hard to determine just how much current they could apply to incapacitate a human body without quite killing the subject.
Either that or it was just dumb luck.
In any case, I was in agony. My heart was fibrillating, my muscles were locked so tight I couldn’t barf. I couldn’t even breathe or cry aloud. I just kind of gurgled and shook.
Then, thankfully, I died.
-22-
“Twice in a row, McGill?” Winslade asked with a hint of amusement. “I’ve got half a mind to send you back down there. Maybe you’ll beat your personal record for failure today.”
Struggling, I found the strength to get up into a sitting position.
“Where’s…” I rasped, “Where’s Floramel?”
Winslade chuckled. “Chasing skirts again already? I’m afraid you’ve gotten your last taste of that one. After you lost your mind during that impromptu peace conference, she specified she doesn’t want to work together with you—on anything. Ever.”
I didn’t hear the rest of his snotty speech. He probably told me what kind of a loser I was, and that I’d blown everything—but I didn’t care.
Inside, I was feeling a broad range of conflicting emotions. Part of me was glad I’d laid into those monstrous runts. They’d paid the price for playing with a Varus man.
But I wasn’t entirely at ease. I’d blown it with Floramel—probably permanently. It was obvious she felt some kind of unearned love for the gremlins. Going berserk and killing them in front of her? That had to be the equivalent of stomping cats in front of a cat-lady. Relationship-death at its finest.
Still another part of my mind was worried I’d blown everything on a bigger scale. That I’d possibly doomed all Legion Varus to drift out here in interstellar space for years—maybe forever.
“…are you even listening to me?” Winslade demanded. “Specialist? Check this man—is he a bad grow?”
She came close and poked at me. I allowed it.
“He’s fine. He looks depressed, but if I know James McGill, he’s probably just bored and tuning you out.”
I glanced at the bio in surprise then I recognized he
r. It was Centurion Thompson. That was unexpected because bio people of officer rank rarely worked in the revival rooms.
Frowning for a second, I checked her lapels. She wasn’t a centurion anymore. She was a specialist—and I realized Winslade had called her that.
Two steps lost in rank? That seemed odd. What had she done to fall so far from grace?
Thompson almost seemed to follow my thinking.
“Sir?” she said to Winslade. “Maybe I should keep this man under observation for a few minutes. If he’s a good grow, I’ll send him up to Gold Deck.”
“Thirty minutes,” Winslade told both of us. “That’s it. I expect to see you on Gold Deck by then. We’re having a discussion you don’t want to miss.”
“Roger that, sir,” I said.
He left, and I frowned at Specialist Thompson.
She looked back at me warily, without saying anything. We’d had a bad relationship from the start, Thompson and I.
She was thin and had a pinched face, but she’d never lacked for energy or a sense of duty.
“Well?” I asked. “I got rid of Winslade. What was it you wanted to say?”
We studied one another for a few more moments then she shook her head, releasing a bemused puff of air from her lips.
“I can’t believe this,” she said. “I used to be the centurion, and you were the specialist. I can’t say I like the switch.”
“Yeah…” I said, eyeing her warily as she checked me over.
Years back, Thompson had tried to kill me with a needle. I’d reversed the situation on her, but I’d never quite trusted her since.
I reached out and touched her rank insignia. She flinched away, but then she got it.
“How’d it happen?” I asked, ending our uncomfortable silence.
She took a probe out of my ear and looked at me. She put her hands on her hips.
“What I want to know is: why didn’t you get demoted?”
“Uh… what?”
She shook her head and continued the examination. “I’m guessing it was dumb luck. I was associated with Turov—the same as you. What did she do? Endangered all Earth and started a half-dozen wars. Winslade came out all right, as you did, apparently. But me? I got nailed.”