Storm World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 10)

by B. V. Larson

  His right thumb was off. It had tumbled, splattering blood, all the way down to the deck under his massive feet.

  His small head and stupid eyes stared at that, dumbfounded.

  In that instant, I could have killed him. I was in the mood, that was for certain—but I held off. After all, I knew these ogres were Armel’s personal pets, and they were just following orders.

  The moment of bewilderment passed, and the giant seemed to become aware again. I was halfway down his body, having escaped his hand, which was now just a ball of flexing fingers and blood.

  A transformation overcame him. He reached for me again—and I slashed him open.

  A howl came out of that massive throat. It was the kind of noise that hasn’t been heard on Earth since the last Ice Age.

  Rearing up, the giant took the only thing he had handy, and he threw it at me.

  At the last second, Natasha screamed.

  “James!” she screeched as she went flying by.

  The giant had thrown her at me with all his terrible strength. What could I do? I stood my ground and switched off my force-blade so I wouldn’t cut her.

  The impact knocked me right off my feet. Worse, I wasn’t able to hold onto Natasha. She banged into the wall, the deck, then the wall again.

  Each of these surfaces was raw, unforgiving puff-crete. By the time she stopped tumbling and flopping, she was stone dead.

  After that, I lost consciousness myself. I think the giant might have bashed me one on the head, but it was hard for me to be sure.

  -63-

  I passed out for a time. I wasn’t sure how long. But when I woke up, I was sure I hadn’t died and come out in the revival chamber again.

  Partly, my certainty was born of the simple fact I was lying on my back in the passageway of Gold Bunker. In addition to that, a familiar, unpleasant face was blocking my vision of the place.

  “Resisting arrest again, eh, McGill?” Armel asked.

  He straightened up and made small sucking sounds with his mouth. “That’s simply unacceptable. If you were one of my officers, I’d demote you.”

  “How’s Natasha?” I croaked out.

  “Hmmm…? Ah, the tech girl. She’s been… mangled. It seems she did an excellent job of cushioning your fall.”

  “It was the other way around,” I said, struggling to stand.

  “A pity in any case. Now, back to why you’re under arrest.”

  “I’ll bite,” I said, getting to my feet and rubbing my neck. “Why did you send a giant down here to pester me?”

  “Correction: the giant was sent to arrest you.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you hacked into our battle streams. This is not Legion Varus, McGill. I demand adherence to the chain of command. We have strict protocols here, and we don’t appreciate data breaches.”

  “Uh…” I said, looking around.

  There were three giants nearby now, not just the one. Of the three, one of them had his hand wrapped up. I gave him a little smirk and a rapid up-down motion with my eyebrows. Unfortunately, he just stared at me in resentment, cradling his hand. I figured my taunts were wasted on him.

  “Are you considering attacking me and my troops again?” Armel asked.

  “No,” I lied. “I’m just confused, that’s all. Natasha said she had something to show me, and I came here to see it. There was no indication that it was secret data. Who would I tell out here on this rock, anyway?”

  Armel wagged a skinny finger in my face. “Some things are classified, McGill. What goes into that category is for me to decide—not my underlings.”

  “Of course, Tribune. Can I go now? I’ve got a headache.”

  He looked at me oddly, suspiciously.

  “What did you see in those streams?” he asked.

  Right then, alarm bells went off inside my head. I’m a slow man on the uptake, just ask any teacher who’s had the misfortune to try to teach me anything. But I could tell Armel was hiding something. Something so big, so heinous, he was willing to kill over it.

  I looked him right in the eye, and I let the left half of my mouth curve up into a smile. “I saw the Wur cooperating with a lot of Rigellian troops. It looked like they were having a big pow-wow out there. Maybe, even, they were preparing to—”

  That finger of his came back into my face, and I might have cut it off—but my gauntlet seemed to be missing.

  “Shut up,” he said suddenly, making a flicking motion.

  I complied, and he frowned.

  “Something you said has intrigued me, despite my irritation,” he said at last. “You will follow me.”

  I did as he asked, and the three giants thumped along in the rear. I could hear their ragged breathing, punctuated by loud swallows and incomprehensible grumbling.

  Armel led me to his personal office. We pressed through the first door into the waiting area. There he left the giants behind, ordering the wounded man to take his thumb to Blue Bunker so the bio people could reattach it.

  Leading me into his inner sanctum, I wasn’t surprised to see he had a similar battle map displayed on the central conference table.

  Graves was there as well, which also didn’t surprise me. After all, in Turov’s absence, he was the top ranking man among the Varus officers.

  “Hello sir!” I boomed, grinning.

  Unfortunately, Graves seemed less excited to see me.

  “What are you doing here, McGill? I don’t recall relieving you of your post on the wall.”

  “Uh… no sir. Tribune Armel here asked me to accompany him.”

  It was more of a twist of the truth than an outright lie, so I looked at Armel, hoping for confirmation.

  “McGill has made a suggestion. A disturbing one.”

  “Let’s hear it then,” Graves said, crossing his arms.

  I wracked my brain, but I had no idea what Armel was talking about.

  “Uh…” I said.

  Armel rolled his eyes briefly. “It was something about having a meeting…”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, brightening. “That’s what it looks like to me, sirs. The Wur and the Rigel-boys. They’re having a good old-fashioned sit-down. A conference, maybe.”

  Suddenly, Graves stiffened. He looked at the map in alarm.

  “Could that be true?” he asked. His head snapped up, and he glowered at me again. “You know something about this, don’t you?”

  “I know all kinds of stuff, Primus. Just ask me.”

  “I’m not talking about how to count, McGill. I’m talking about the fact you’ve been interacting with the leadership of Rigel, the Scuppers—and the Wur? Have you been talking to the Wur, McGill?”

  That question put me in a tough spot. If I lied now, and I told him I had been talking to the Wur, he’d most likely believe me. That meant there was a golden opportunity for untruth staring me right in the face.

  But the question was whether I wanted to take him up on that offer. Sometimes, just because a cover story is being dangled under your nose, that didn’t always mean you wanted to take it.

  Twists and turns. They’d gotten me into all kinds of trouble all of my life. I guess it’s just part of my nature.

  At last, I sighed and looked down. “I suppose, sirs… I suppose that maybe I have been.”

  There it was. You could have heard a pin drop. I’d released a dangerous lie, one with no real purpose behind it—and I couldn’t take it back now. My only hope was it would turn out to be useful at some point in the future.

  Glancing up, I snuck a peek to see how it was going over. One glance, and I cast my eyes back down again. I studied the floor like a man convicted of a heinous crime.

  They were buying it. Both of them. Hook, line and sinker. Normally, people scoff when you tell them a whopper they don’t believe. These two looked deadly serious.

  In a way, I supposed, I was a convicted man now. I’d convicted myself.

  The only thing left to do now was to decide what my crime had bee
n, and why I’d done it.

  -64-

  Fortunately, at times like these my fertile mind goes into overdrive. A dozen scenarios sprang up, all shiny and new, in rapid succession.

  I thought of telling them I’d met up with the Wur in the forest—which was true enough—but this time I’d embellish the tale, adding a Wur Nexus.

  The Wur could only be described as an odd race. They were plants, but it was more than that which set us apart from them. They were downright weird.

  Most of them had only rudimentary brains. Not much more than an insect might possess. But a few, a select, secretive cabal on every world they inhabited, were called Nexus plants.

  These plants were the brains of the outfit. They were giant, green-blooded cacti, in fact. Full of juice, spines and evil, they squatted in dank holes here and there on every Wur world, plotting and chemically transmitting orders to their countless underlings.

  All I had to do was tell Armel I’d run into one of these immobile monstrosities, and that could be a pretext for every other indiscretion I’d indulged in recently.

  Opening my mouth, I almost brought up the Nexus plants—but Armel beat me to the punch.

  “It’s Claver, isn’t it?” he asked, leaning on the table.

  His fists formed two shimmering zones on the smart-table as he leaned on it. The table was trying to interpret this odd gesture from its master.

  “Claver…?” I asked, truly baffled. I blinked in confusion.

  Armel stalked forward. “Yes, I can see it now in your eyes. Guilt. How infuriating you are. Do you know I sometimes dream of your murder, McGill?”

  “Uh…”

  “Tribune,” Graves interjected. “Let him speak. I want him to tell us more without us offering up our own suspicions.”

  My eyes slid to glance at Graves. There he sat, acting all smart and everything. His advice was dead solid, of course. The quieter Armel stayed, the easier it would be to catch me as I spun my tale. If he told me up front what he thought I was going to say, well, that just gave me something to work with as I formed my fabrications.

  Graves was a hard man to fool, and he already suspected I was full of shit. Accordingly, it was time to regain the initiative with a play of my own.

  I selected a barb, and went with it.

  “The primus has it right, sir,” I told Armel as I crossed my arms. “You haven’t even let me talk yet. I bet you have no idea why Claver is interested in me.”

  Armel showed me a line of teeth—and he took the bait.

  “I do know. It’s that damnable book!”

  That got my attention for reals. I didn’t think Armel knew about the book.

  Surprised, I gave him a real look of shock. That was a mistake on my part, of course. Perhaps he’d been fishing for just such a response.

  Quickly, I down-shifted the expression to one of slack bafflement—but it was too late. The damage had been done.

  “Ah-ha!” he said, pointing a gloved finger at my face. “There it is! I see the truth in your eyes. You had no idea I knew of this dangerous item until now, did you? Have a care, McGill, I know more of your nefarious dealings than you might be aware of.”

  “Uh…” I said, playing dumb out of sheer desperation.

  “What book?” Graves demanded.

  Armel and I didn’t even look at him. We locked eyes instead.

  “Now,” Armel said in the voice of a hunting snake, “time to tell me the rest of it.”

  “Sure thing,” I said. “There’s this book, see, and Claver has been chasing me halfway around the galaxy to get it. So far, he’s failed.”

  “Yes, yes,” Armel said, leaning over his desk in an eager manner. “But where is it now? Does it still exist in some form? Anywhere?”

  I thought about his words for a second—they revealed even more about what the man knew. Graves was frowning hard, and I was beginning to agree with his sentiment. Armel was way too excited about this subject for his interest to be purely academic.

  “Um…” I said, mentally stalling for time. After a few seconds, during which Armel made nearly frantic hand-gestures for me to hurry up, I spoke again with confidence. “There’s always another copy. Not easy to get, mind you, but it exists.”

  Armel sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. A long, drawn-out sigh. “Excellent. In this case, you will provide me with a copy—immediately.”

  “Sure thing, sir. Just as soon as I get home to Earth—”

  Armel’s face hardened again. “That’s too late! This is a golden opportunity, for me, and for Earth herself.”

  My face twisted up. That was a puzzler. “Uh…”

  Graves didn’t like it either. He pointed a finger at Armel.

  “Tribune,” he said. “We’re getting badly off track. We’ve got two enemy forces gathering strength nearby. If they’re combining their armies, forming an alliance against us, we must move quickly to halt that process.”

  Armel’s eyes slid toward Graves. He smirked.

  “It’s too late for that. We’ve lost this campaign.”

  “I don’t like to hear this kind of defeatism,” Graves said. “Especially from someone of your rank.”

  “Get over it, old man. Rigel and the Wur have allied. It’s obvious. It’s time to grab what we can and run.”

  “Run? How? They chased off the Legate.”

  Armel made a pffing sound. “We’ve got the gateway. Once the battle begins, we’ll march our officers through and tell our tale of woe.”

  “But what about the troops you’ll be leaving behind?” I demanded.

  Armel shrugged. “There are always casualties in war. We’ll print out those who deserve to live again, and we’ll honor the rest with a pointless ceremony.”

  Graves stood up suddenly. I could tell he’d had enough.

  “In that case, sir, I’m out. Please dismiss me from this conference. I want no part of it.”

  Armel shrugged again and pursed his lips in a disgusted fashion. “As you will. You’re dismissed, Primus.”

  Graves walked out. He got to the door, lifting a gloved hand… But he didn’t reach for the touchplate. Instead, he groped at his back. At that moment, I noted the dark circle in his lower spinal region.

  Sagging first to his knees, Graves groped for his pistol.

  Armel fired his gun again. It was a slim laser with a wickedly thin beam. I hadn’t even heard him fire it the first time, but I could smell the tell-tale acrid scent some lasers left in the air. It reminded me of the special stink burnt hair made.

  Before he could shoot Graves a third time, I slammed the gun out of Armel’s hand. It went flying and clattered on the floor.

  Graves never died easily. Still on his knees, he struggled with his lower body, but he couldn’t rise. I figured his spinal cord had been badly damaged.

  “Armel,” he rasped. “I want you to know all of this has been recorded and transmitted. You won’t get away with any of it.”

  So saying, he pitched forward and began convulsing on the deck. He was having a seizure.

  “Such bravado,” Armel complained. “As if I would allow an errant transmission to escape my own office while in the field. Absurdity. Graves, if you can hear me, your transmission has gone nowhere.”

  “What kind of bullshit is this?” I demanded.

  Armel glanced at me. He pointed to Graves, who still quivered and jerked now and then. “You’re partially to blame for this mess. You should have let me finish him, McGill, for pity’s sake.”

  I stood over Armel now, close to twice his size, and there was stark murder in my eyes. No one have could have missed it, least of all Maurice Armel. He’d felt my wrath before.

  “Don’t be a fool,” he said. “Attempt to predict your immediate future, for both of our sakes. If you kill me now, who will be the sole individual to come out of my legion’s revival machines? You, Graves… or me?”

  I controlled my baser instincts with difficulty. My arms shook a little. My blood was up, I do
n’t mind telling you.

  We locked gazes. I wanted to kill him sooo badly—just for spite, if nothing else.

  “All right,” I said. “Talk to me. What the hell are you up to? What makes the book worth so much at this point?”

  “You haven’t guessed yet? Really? With a skull so large, I’d calculated there must be a brain of considerable capacity within. That was my mistake, and I’m disappointed.”

  My hand shot out and grabbed him by the tunic. I gave him a good shaking, and he pulled a vibro-knife on me, but I batted that away.

  “Since you insist,” he said, “I will explain. We have a buyer. Right here, in this star system.”

  “A buyer…? Who?”

  “I can’t reveal that—but again, I’m astounded at your lack of intuition in this matter. I was told you possess a certain animal cunning that belies your brutish nature and your obvious lack of intellect. Perhaps the individual who so informed me was wrong.”

  “Who told you that? Who set this all up?”

  I gave him a shake as I demanded these facts, but even as I did so, I knew the answer in my heart. To a certain degree, Armel was right. I should have known.

  “Claver…?” I asked aloud.

  “Damn straight, you moron,” said a familiar voice behind me.

  Setting Armel back on his feet and turning around slowly, I saw Claver-Prime. He was flanked on either side by two third-rate Clavers. These two said nothing, but they did brandish rifles in my direction.

  I let go of Armel, and the trio of Clavers approached. They hadn’t entered through the main office door, but rather some kind of side passage. Leave it to Armel to pour a puff-crete bunker and add secret doors to it.

  The Class-Threes were wary, but the Prime was all grins.

  “Oh, no!” he said sarcastically, slapping his own cheeks. “Is that Graves? Did he trip or something?”

  “He chose to stand on principle,” Armel said, “rather than firm ground.”

  Claver put his fists on his hips, shook his head, and tsked. “It’s a shame, really—but predictable. Graves always was a boy scout. I’m not even sure how he’s managed to last so long without a solid perming. He’s even older than I am, you know.”