Storm World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 10)

by B. V. Larson

  “That’s right, sir,” I said. “But I can still shoot pretty straight.”

  He blinked at me for a moment, then the frown returned. “Listen, I don’t want you here. I don’t want any Varus trash under my command at all. You’ll only bring me down somehow in the end.”

  “Aw now, that’s not a fair characterization, Primus. You can’t tell me you’re still sore about dying back there on Dark World? That was over a year ago. Get over it man. A death is a death. It’s no big deal to real legionnaire.”

  Fike’s face darkened further. Before, he’d been glaring like an angry old man with kids on his lawn. Now, he looked like I’d tipped over his outhouse and set it on fire.

  “You’d best not antagonize me, Centurion.”

  “That’s the furthest thing from my mind, sir.”

  “Good. Dismissed.”

  “Uh… there is one more detail.”

  “What now?”

  “What about the invading ships, sir? Are we going to set up defensive measures to meet the new threat?”

  He blinked again. “Surface-to-air missiles?”

  “That’d be a good start. I haven’t seen any deployed here except at Gold Bunker. Surely, you have more than a single battery.”

  Fike looked concerned for a moment, and I almost grinned.

  He’d skipped over preparations for a serious strike from above. That’s because, in my opinion, the Iron Eagles were glorified color guards. They’d been polishing gear and standing watch over alien princes for so long, they’d forgotten how to fight a real war.

  Unfortunately, this was beginning to look like one.

  “Look, sir,” I said. “I’m seriously suggesting we build up our air defenses—and we scatter them all over the fort. We’ve got lots of alien ships in the system, and there’s no way Legate could take them all out if they decide to strike at us.”

  “But…” he said and consulted his tapper again. At last, he nodded. “I’ll talk to Armel about it. We’ll request and deploy missile batteries. But you—you’re to report to your new station immediately.”

  I grinned. “I’m already here, sir. I’m your gatehouse watchman, remember?”

  He gave me a sour salute and rushed away, talking to his tapper.

  The whole scene worried me a little. These troops all thought they were hot-shit, but they didn’t seem to have things completely in hand yet.

  The next two hours slid by in a boring fashion. As my men hadn’t been given much to do, we lounged around indoors and made trouble with the Blood Worlders. We got them to arm-wrestle each other, and taught them various games of chance. Somehow, the near-humans always seemed to lose their money to the Varus troops.

  As the third hour began, things changed. Darkness had fallen outside, and the rain had finally died down to a drizzle.

  “McGill!” my tapper spoke to me. I opened a channel, recognizing the caller as Natasha. “Look at this—I can’t believe it.”

  She passed me a vid feed. It was from space, and I recognized the cloud-smothered planet below our ship—the video was looking down on Storm World.

  “Looks like rain,” I said, laughing a little.

  Natasha didn’t share in the joke. She sounded a bit panicky. “They’re about to fire on those alien ships!”

  My mouth fell open, my eyes widened, and I stepped outside into the rain. Standing on the battlements, I tilted my head back and stared up into the dark skies.

  Above me was a gray-black wall of ever-lasting cloud-cover. I knew Legate was on the other side of the storm, cruising above the atmosphere in a high orbit.

  To my surprise, I saw her fire her broadsides. The orange flashes were so bright they came through the clouds like lightning and made the sky shine daylight for a second or two.

  Now, I have to tell you that when a dreadnought fires her primary armament, it’s a big deal. Sixteen cannons, carefully constructed to fire sixteen fusion warheads all at once—that packs a powerful punch.

  “What’s that? Lightning?” Harris asked, joining me on the battlements.

  Together, we gawked up at the clouds.

  “What’s up, McGill? You know something, don’t you? You’re holding out on me—you’re holding out on everyone!”

  “Shut up,” I said. “Just watch the sky.”

  Sure enough, the clouds flashed again. There was another rippling series of flashes, as if someone had set off a dozen firecrackers in rapid succession, a split-second apart. As it was all happening up in space, the explosions were eerily silent.

  At least ten more times, something big lit up the sky.

  “They’re firing again,” I whispered, checking my tapper feed for confirmation.

  Harris grabbed my arm to look at my screen, and I let him.

  “The broadsides… they’re firing the broadsides?” he asked, letting go of me.

  I shook my head. “They already did that a few minutes back. They couldn’t have reloaded them all so fast, and besides, the broadsides fire in unison.”

  “Well then what’s going on?”

  “Remember those new missile pods Turov showed us at the briefing?” I asked him.

  His face went ashen in sudden comprehension. “They’re firing everything they’ve got.”

  “Seem like it.”

  Harris peered up into the cloud cover fiercely, as if he could penetrate the gloom with the power of his will alone.

  “What are they shooting at, McGill?” he asked me.

  “They’ve spotted alien ships up there,” I said.

  “You mean the Nairbs?”

  “Not just them. Someone else has arrived. They came out of warp real close to the planet.”

  Harris looked at me in shock and alarm. “We should get below ground. What if one of those shells strays down to here?”

  I laughed quietly. “Well Adjunct, in that case we’ll be transformed into a spreading cloud of atoms a split-second later. Armel hasn’t deployed anti-air batteries or shields. There’s no point in running now. We might as well enjoy the show.”

  Together, we continued to gawk up at the sky.

  All over the fort, the word had spread. Troops and vehicles rushed this way and that, and sirens wailed.

  But we stayed put, walking on the battlements atop our gatehouse. After all, we were already at our assigned battle station.

  -48-

  Natasha kept streaming vids to me from space. Otherwise, I might not have known what was happening up there.

  It was disturbing. Three ships had arrived—three more ships. It wasn’t clear what kind of ships they were due to the range, but I didn’t think they were friendly.

  Allied ships didn’t just pop into disputed star systems, coming out of warp close to a planetary gravity-well, if they had friendly intentions. First of all, appearing next to a planet was a dangerous stunt. Warp drives weren’t super-accurate, as you had to navigate blind while you flew a ship in warp. It was like coming up for air from the bottom of the ocean. You weren’t always exactly sure where you would surface.

  In addition to the navigational hazards, it was just plain rude. Hostility would be assumed, and rightly so, by any local inhabitants.

  But neither of these concerns had impinged on our new visitors. They’d appeared about a hundred thousand kilometers out, and were coming into orbit at speed.

  “Are you getting this, McGill?” Natasha asked me.

  “I sure am—thanks.”

  “Don’t share it around. I could get into trouble. Not even every primus is seeing this.”

  “Are they worried about morale?” I asked.

  “Maybe…” she said, “or maybe there’s more to this than we know about yet. Maybe this is someone’s dirty little secret.”

  “Hmm…” I said thoughtfully.

  In Earth’s past, some of our militaries had been outstanding and purely professional. Others, sadly, had been shams run by dictators and the like. Our modern armed forces were worldwide, and therefore they operated simil
ar to what the old defunct United Nations may have fielded back in the day… In other words, our military was functional, but far from perfect.

  For a long time, Hegemony hadn’t been run in an entirely up-and-up fashion. Corruption, shenanigans, and even treason had frequently reared their ugly heads. Natasha was hinting that this might be a private deal. It could be Claver, for example, coming to do a deal under the table with Turov, or Armel. Neither one was springtime fresh as far as dirty dealing goes.

  But if that was the case, why were they shooting at each other? At the very least, if this was some kind of smuggling operation, it had almost certainly gone off the tracks.

  “Oh shit!” Natasha hissed less than a minute later. “I don’t believe it!”

  “What?” I asked, but right about then a nose appeared near my left arm.

  It was Leeson’s nose, and he had planted it way too close to my tapper.

  “What you got there, Centurion?” he demanded.

  Adjunct Leeson was a fairly short, stocky man, but he was tall enough to see my forearm clearly.

  “Is that…” he said, grabbing my arm.

  Before I could shake him off, he’d gotten an eye-full.

  “Jumping Jesus! Is that a squadron of enemy ships bearing down on Legate?”

  “We don’t know that,” I told him. “They might be making a special delivery.”

  “I don’t think so, James,” Natasha said, sounding freaked out. “Those salvoes weren’t just warning shots. I think one of the enemy ships has been hit.”

  My heart sank. This wasn’t a good sign at all.

  Planting my hand on Leeson’s face, I pushed him away—but he’d already seen too much.

  “Those streaks,” he said, his eyes bulging. “Legate is firing on them! One against three? We’re doomed!”

  “Shut up,” I told him. “Get all the men under any kind of cover you can find.”

  “I thought there was no point,” Harris boomed.

  Turning the other way, I saw he’d come up surprisingly close. He was glaring at me the way a man might glare at his cheating wife.

  I sighed. “Okay,” I said, “if a fusion warhead lands here, we’re dead. But if it’s only wreckage, or a stray shell comes down a few kilometers away, shelter will save us.”

  “So I was right before?”

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “Damned straight I was right…” Harris said, stomping away.

  Harris and Leeson were both marching around shouting orders. They were trying to pack up the gatehouse, demanding that pigs be sent to the walls to help dig an emergency bunker—all sorts of things.

  I let them handle it. My eyes were glued to my tapper. Up in space, I could see the streaking fusion shells now. They were leaving trails that soon vanished—but they didn’t have all that far to go. Any thoughts of digging a new bunker in time—that was a fantasy.

  But I let them do it. Sometimes, keeping troops busy was the best policy. It stopped them from panicking on you.

  Adjunct Barton showed up next. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. All the junior officers depended on me to provide filtered-down information from on-high.

  “Sir?” she asked. “What’s the panic about? Are the Wur close?”

  She was trying not to look worried, but I could see she was failing at it. She’d died during the last battle, after all. She was a Victrix officer, which meant she had good discipline and probably an excellent GPA from college. However, she wasn’t used to fighting and dying hard in trenches. She’d gotten a taste of that in her short time with Varus, and her outlook had shifted accordingly.

  My first instinct was to shine her on with a smile and a lie—but I couldn’t do it. Leeson, Harris, Natasha—hell, half my unit already knew what was really going on. Probably, the only reason Barton didn’t know was because she was new and hadn’t gained the trust of those who networked privately. It didn’t seem fair to me.

  “It’s worse than that,” I told her. “Check out my tapper feed.”

  She glanced at my arm, then back up at me. She hesitated, but finally stepped close enough to see my screen.

  The strange reaction made me wonder if the other women in the unit had warned her about my frequent relationships. I found that annoying, as I was no fiend. The women I pawed on a regular basis were always willing partners—always. They were just trying to warn off the new girl.

  Adjunct Barton finally caught sight of the approaching ships and the icy vapor trails left in space by our barrage of fusion shells. She gasped and grabbed my arm with two sets of fingers that felt like claws. Damn, did everyone have to do that?

  “We’re under attack? Seriously? From space?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “But… the Wur are already down here. Who else would…?”

  I shrugged. “It’s a mystery to me, too. I suspect Turov and Armel are both filling their pants over it right now.”

  “Legate can’t take down three alien ships—can she?”

  I shrugged again. “Maybe. I’ve seen Imperial transports blow down aliens, but I’ve also seen them get crushed. Legate is an Earth-built ship, but she’s similar in design to countless other dreadnoughts that serve the Empire. It’s a workhorse design. Nothing special—but always effective.”

  Right about then, Barton realized that she was holding onto my arm like a tree branch in a flood. She let go and took a step back.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  Carlos happened to be wandering by, and he made an obscene gesture behind her back. I ignored him, as I didn’t want to add to Barton’s embarrassment.

  “Adjunct,” I told her, “I’ve got special orders for you. Have your light troops break out their tents. Tape up all the windows in the gatehouse—pronto.”

  She blinked at me, and she almost said: “Why?” But then, she got it. “Fallout? Okay… I’m on it, sir!”

  Barton ran off, full of purpose. I had no idea if my instructions were worth the effort, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to give her something to do.

  While she ordered confused light troopers to dig into their packs, I faced Carlos. He’d come to stand by me and ogle her.

  “That’s not your usual type,” he said. “She’s too buff. Too much of a—”

  My open hand slammed the back of his head. “Haven’t you got something better to do than mock your officers, Ortiz?”

  “Ow! You don’t have to be a tool about it, McGill.”

  “Report to Harris and ask for a job to do.”

  “But I’m a bio—I don’t get busy until after the battle.”

  “Well then, I’ve got—”

  “Whoa! I spoke too soon. I just remembered I’ve got critical work on the lower floor. Thanks for reminding me, sir. That knock on the head must have jarred my memory back into place.”

  “Anytime…” I said, and I watched him run for the stairs.

  Looking back at my tapper, I heard Natasha saying something. She’d been squawking in my ear while I dealt with Carlos, but I’m not good at listening to more than one person at a time. Some would say that listening to even one was a major problem for me.

  “James! James!”

  “What’s wrong, girl? Oh… I see it.”

  One of three ships was gone, but there was a swarm of missiles flying toward Legate. The Rigellians had finally gotten into range, and they were fighting back.

  “How many missiles is that?” I asked Natasha.

  “At least sixty in each group. There are three groups—it looks like the ship we took down fired before she was destroyed.”

  “Nearly two hundred birds?” I asked in concern. “Our defensive guns can’t stop that many at once.”

  “No, not by the specs I know. Legate’s defenses will be overwhelmed in about ten minutes.”

  We watched as the ship that had been shattered stopped burning. Fire never lasts long in space, as it must have oxygen to burn. Once the initial fireball had dissipated, we could see the dead ship had been
transformed into an expanding field of tumbling debris.

  “Who is commanding Legate now?” I asked.

  “It’s Turov herself,” Natasha told me. “She used the gateway to return to Earth to ask for reinforcements, but she wasn’t gone long. She came back today.”

  “Did she bring back help from Earth or not?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. All of this—it’s kind of sudden.”

  “No shit… But anyway, Turov has to retreat,” I said. “Legate can’t take that many missiles. Connect me to her on Gold Deck.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Yes… but do it anyway.”

  There were a few moments of delay before Turov came onto the line. “McGill, this had better be good.”

  “It’s not good, sir—not at all. I don’t think they’ll fall for the same trick with the broadsides again.”

  One of the reasons our broadsides and missiles did so well is they appeared to be dumb weapons—but they really weren’t. Each warhead had a cagey AI built-in, and the software helped them get hits reliably. They did this by either changing course, or blowing up early—or some other dirty trick. That sort of thing generally worked against new opponents better than it did against an experienced opponent. Once you’d laid your cards down, the surprises were over.

  “Thank you for that sage advice, Centurion,” Galina said. “I’m so glad you interrupted me at my command post to inform me about how I should be running this battle. Wait… hold on. How do you even know about the battle up here?”

  “Let’s just say you’re streaming live.”

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter. McGill… you called to check up on me, didn’t you? You’re actually concerned for my safety?”

  I hesitated. Possibly, just possibly, she was right. But on the other hand, there were lots of good reasons for me to worry about the status of our only ticket back to Earth.

  “Uh…” I said. “Of course I’m worried about you, sir… I’m also tired of Armel ordering us around down here.”

  “What?” she demanded angrily.

  “He’s superseded Graves, and he’s giving us orders since you’re not here.”