“You know what I want to do right now?” I asked him.
I could see in his eyes that he did.
“Yeah, sorry,” he said. “I have that effect on a lot of people. Listen—just tell me—did you screw me here? Did you get me to sign with Varus on purpose? That was what I thought when I read that stuff. But then I got here and saw you really were here, and you really did sign. So now I’m not sure.”
“Just tell me what you found out about Varus.”
“They’ve wiped—dead, every one of them, down to the last man. And they’ve done that more than once.”
He’d finally gotten through to me. “Wiped…as in got wiped out.”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what it means. They were all killed. All of them. Do you get that? No survivors.”
“We’re not talking about perma-death, right?”
“No, of course not. If they all got permed they would have deleted the legion. But they all died on several occasions and were regenerated from stored data. The point is: they suck. They take losers because no one wants to join. The recruits die a lot in this legion.”
I shrugged. “It’s not like you really die,” I said. “Not if they can bring you back.”
Carlos laughed and sat next to me. Both of us buckled in again.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, “they store a copy. They can reconstruct you out of pigsblood or whatever. But that means you still got to enjoy the full experience of death. You know, as in pain, fear—the whole thing. Doesn’t that sound great?”
I was beginning to see his point. “Why did they wipe?”
“No one knows. No one knows what kind of work they do, either. They’re secretive about it. Once you join Varus, you don’t talk about your missions anymore.”
I thought about that, and all the possible reasons why that might be the case. None of them sounded good to me.
“Maybe they do illegal contracts,” I said. “Maybe we’ve joined a legion of smuggler guardians.”
“Either that, or they’re some kind of pirates.”
I nodded. “You going to try to skip out?” I asked.
“No, I’d rather risk going off-world than take a tour of prison.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because they don’t revive you if you die behind bars.”
I laughed. “I see your point. If I’ve ever met anyone who’s likely to get shanked in prison, it’s you.”
He twisted his mouth and gave me a sour look. “Thanks.”
Just then, the sky-train rattled to a stop. We walked off with about ten other recruits. They looked scared, furtive and suspicious—no one looked happy.
Carlos stayed close behind me. I thought about telling him to shove off, but I didn’t for some reason. He was annoying, but I had gotten him into this, and he was the only person in the legion besides Veteran Harris who knew my name.
Outside, we unloaded under the massive shadow of a transport lifter. It blocked out the moon, the stars and even the lights around the field. We stumbled in the dark, but then a shimmering line of yellow LEDs came on. These were embedded in the tarmac like the ones that led you out of a building in an emergency.
Barely talking, we followed the lights until we came to a ramp that dropped down from the transport’s belly. It looked as if a massive predator was lowering its jaw to swallow us up. Dutifully, we marched up the ramp and into the ship. At the top, a bored looking tech specialist took our silver disks and checked our identification. She dropped every disk into a container, and we didn’t get them back.
On the inside, the lifter was less than dramatic. There were no windows down in the holding pens where we were. Just fold-down seats and harnesses, most of which were empty. A few crewmen walked between the rows, shouting for us to untwist our belt straps, check the buckles twice, and to aim at the crusty drain in the center of each row if we barfed.
Then the ship flew, and it wasn’t fun at all. It was wrenching, as if we were riding the fastest elevator in history for about twenty full minutes. There was free-fall at the top, but when you’re strapped in and smelling vomit it wasn’t as cool as it had looked in online games.
At last, there came a series of tremendous clangs and rasping sounds. The ship shook as if a train was going by.
“We’re docking up,” Carlos said.
He’d taken the seat next to me. At least he’d managed to hold onto his dinner.
The crew didn’t come back. Instead, the ship went silent. Slowly, the recruits began to chatter. There were probably a hundred or more on board all together. We’d taken the last sky-train out to the transport tonight. The rest had come out earlier. A lot of them said they’d been sitting on this rust-bucket for hours.
Everyone looked around expectantly, waiting for something to happen. When something finally did, they groaned aloud.
The lights went out. This unwelcome event was accompanied by a long, drawn-out whirring sound that died at the end. We’d all heard that kind of noise before: It was the sound of failing machinery.
The ship was pitch-black for about ten seconds. Then there were banging sounds as relays were thrown. A dim, reddish glow filled the ship. Emergency lighting, I figured. At the end of each row of seats, a line of status LEDs flashed, turning from green to dull amber one at a time.
“And we almost made it, too,” Carlos laughed.
Several more long minutes passed while we waited for them to fix whatever the hell had gone wrong. I kept expecting some crewman or member of the legion to show up and give us instructions, but they never did. They’d all disappeared.
A few troops laughed while others argued and kicked at each other. No one had anything good to say. We were a sorry-looking, disorganized mob.
Finally, something new did happen. A hissing began. I didn’t like it from the start. It didn’t sound right—in fact it sounded wrong—as in dangerous.
“What the hell…?” asked Carlos beside me.
I leaned forward and stared one way then the other.
“Something’s wrong,” I said, and began unsnapping my buckles.
“We’re supposed to stay in our seats,” Carlos said.
“You can do what you want. If this thing is going to depressurize or blow up, I’m going to try to get to an emergency exit.”
I was the first recruit to free himself. The last buckle had frozen and wouldn’t open. Without hesitating, I pulled a knife out and slashed it. I sawed until the cloth parted and I was free.
I floated away at an angle, going into a spin. I’d kind of forgotten we were in free-fall, as I’d never been in space before. I threw a hand back, grabbing the mangled harness. I pulled myself to it and began climbing upward until I was on top of the row of strapped-in recruits. They gaped up at me.
“Hey man, get back in your seat. If a veteran sees you, he’ll toast you alive.”
I ignored those who jeered and laughed. But then Carlos called out after me.
“Hey, McGill! Don’t leave me here, man!”
I turned and stared. He was struggling with that last buckle. It wouldn’t release, the same as mine. I wondered if it was magnetically sealed as some kind of safety precaution. Growling with frustration, I went back hand-over-hand to his seat and cut him loose. Then, with Carlos right behind me, we headed toward the nearest exit.
We’d almost made it when the seal blew. Carlos and I were about ten feet from an emergency pod door when a chunk of rubber gave way somewhere at the back of the chamber. I hadn’t been sure what was happening up until then, but I knew the sound of leaking air when I heard it.
What had been a hiss grew into a sucking, roaring sound. The troops that had been laughing and admonishing me a moment before were now screaming and tearing at their harnesses. Many of them got down to that last buckle, and strained with it furiously.
“Cut yourselves loose!” I shouted at them, but I don’t think any of them could hear me. There was too much noise and confusion. Besides, most of them didn’t appear to have a kn
ife handy.
When we made it to the emergency door, I grabbed the handle and twisted. There was a round portal in the door, but it was black. There were instructions too, but I knew I didn’t have time to read them. I was already losing oxygen. The air was thin, and even though I was holding my breath, it felt as if my lungs were going to burst. The depressurizing chamber would soon cause them to rupture. I’d learned that much from video games and movies about space.
I held onto consciousness and tried to lever the door open. It occurred to me the entire thing was futile, we were probably all as good as dead, but I wasn’t giving up. I was going to use all the time I had left to open that damned door. The problem was one of leverage. I had a good grip on the handle, but it was built to twist open and unlock. In free-fall, there is very little to push against. Without gravity, getting a good grip on anything is difficult, and I wasn’t trained for it.
The sounds of panic in the chamber died slowly. At first, I thought I was losing it. But then I realized the air was thinning and changing the frequency of the sounds. Also, the panicked recruits were beginning to lose consciousness.
Looking back, I saw Carlos had already passed out. He was drifting away from me, his mouth hanging open. I kicked him out of the way and reached back with my long legs. I wrapped them around the nearest seat, which was a good five feet from the door handle.
That worked. I had leverage at last. Using my legs to push, I was able to twist the latch open. The door flew open and a gush of warm air blasted into my face. I tried to suck it in, but it was gone in an instant.
To my surprise, a man stood there in a vac suit. He had a helmet with a red crest on his sleeve, marking him as a centurion. He looked at me and lifted his hand. His thumb stuck up from his fist.
I was losing it, and I didn’t quite understand what was happening anymore. I couldn’t think.
I passed out at last, and my final thought was one of confusion. I was baffled as to why the centurion had just stood there watching us through that portal, doing nothing to help us.
* * *
Some of the men didn’t wake up. A few had expired. But a couple of hours later, as the survivors recovered in the ship’s medical unit, we saw the dead return to our group. They’d been revived.
I could only imagine what a revival looked like. Had their bodies twitched and spasmed unnaturally as life returned to them?
We were ordered to gather in a large ready-room with big wall-screens on every side—even the ceiling and the floor had screens. We stared at them, fascinated despite ourselves. Each depicted a different view of the ship we were on or space itself.
The ship was huge, bigger than any ship that had ever crossed Earth’s oceans. It was long and sleek in design. There weren’t many gunports, as the vessel was primarily designed to deliver troops between star systems, not to fight other ships.
Under the ship was the blue-white marble of Earth, a vast expanse of natural beauty. Sitting in the skies over our homeworld like this made me feel lonely and triumphant at the same time.
Most of the men were just annoyed. They’d died and been revived, and they were sour about it.
The centurion who had greeted me with flinty eyes at the exit of the lifter arrived and stood in our midst. None of the recruits smiled when they saw him, and neither did he.
“Good morning recruits,” he said. “I’m Centurion Graves, your commanding officer. Welcome aboard the dreadnaught Corvus.”
No one said anything. I suspected there were some hard feelings among the troops.
“You almost wiped,” he said. “Only a few made it to an exit at all, and only McGill here managed to get one open.”
A few eyes drifted to linger on me. I didn’t look back. I stared at the centurion instead.
“Normally,” he continued, “if this had been a real emergency, McGill’s action would have been worth a promotion. But since it was only a training exercise, he’ll gain a commending mark on his record instead.”
I thought I deserved more, but I wasn’t going to complain now. I’d learned something, however: this legion wasn’t for the faint of heart. Whatever our missions were, we played for keeps. I’d read a bit about training exercises, and I’d never even heard of an outfit killing their recruits wholesale on the first day as part of a routine.
Graves stood easily in the middle of the recruits, as if he didn’t know many of us already wanted to kill him. Or maybe he just didn’t care.
“Now that you’ve been properly introduced to Legion Varus,” he continued, “I want you to find your assigned bunk and take a break. If you died, you’ll find it takes a few hours to feel right again. A veteran can go straight back into combat after a revive, but most recruits can’t. I’m giving you all twelve hours leave until we do any more training. Meet me in the exercise rooms after that at 0500.”
On the way out, the centurion came by and clapped me on the shoulder. “Good work,” he said, without smiling. “I’ve never seen a man manage to open that door single-handedly. You’re supposed to get there and do it with a partner who provides a fulcrum. You happened to be tall and determined enough to do it alone.”
I nodded, but I didn’t smile at him. He was a prick, I knew that now. He’d made us all suffer in what I thought was a needlessly cruel way. I understood we’d all learned a lesson, and I understood the power of training, but tricking people like that…I wasn’t happy.
The centurion eyed me for a moment longer, then nodded as if satisfied. After he left, Carlos came up to me and shook his head.
“The Great James McGill!” he shouted, throwing up his arms in a victory salute. His tone wasn’t mocking, however. He didn’t sneer; he seemed bemused, like he didn’t quite know what to make of me.
“I guess I owe you for coming back to get me,” he said.
I shrugged. “It wasn’t real.”
“Yeah, it was. Plenty of guys died for God’s sake! The more I think about it, I’m realizing it was worse than it will ever be again. We didn’t know that the disks we gave them when we boarded the transport had all our data, enough for a revival. As I passed out, I thought I’d been permed. It will never be that bad again. From now on, whenever I die, I’ll know I’m probably coming back.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right about that. I figured we were screwed, too.”
“What did you see when you opened the door?”
“Centurion Graves. He was just standing there, and he gave me the thumbs-up when I got it open at last.”
“What a smug dick,” Carlos said, laughing and shaking his head. “So Graves was watching us the whole time? He didn’t lift a finger to help? I can’t believe he had the gall to just let us all die while he sat in there. You’re sure about this?”
“Looked that way.”
Carlos’ face shifted as he thought about it. He looked more serious than he ever had. “I owe you, buddy. I owe you.”
“Owe me what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll jump on a grenade for you one day. It will be something cool like that. You’ll see.”
Somehow, I had my doubts that Carlos would do that when the time came, but I appreciated the thought.
-4-
War in my time was different than in the past. For one thing, it was more regulated. I’d learned in school that the Galactic rulers had decided long ago they couldn’t directly govern thousands of worlds with alien populations. While humanity was still squatting in trees, the Galactics had decided it was best to invent a simple set of ground rules for their empire and enforce them vigorously.
The Galactics weren’t a single species themselves. They were made up of the original elder peoples, mostly from the galactic center, where stars and planets were very close together. That core group that ran the Empire had battle fleets, but no one on Earth had seen one for more than fifty years. The fleets themselves were reported to be vast, but usually they were only used as a show of force.
They’d come to my planet in 2052
, long before I was born, and they’d delivered an ultimatum. It was same choice they’d given to every other species they’d discovered to be experimenting with space flight: humanity must join the Galactic Empire, if we could qualify for membership. In return, we’d be given a wealth of technology and access to interplanetary trade. They made it clear that this was not an annexation—not exactly. We would be allowed to run our own planet pretty much however we wished. Internal matters were none of their affair. From their point of view, we were a primitive wild species that had always been within their sphere of influence. We were akin to an anthill in a wilderness preserve. They couldn’t care less who was queen of our anthill, or who had mistreated whom. In their eyes, we’d only just become advanced enough to bother with.
The ultimatum wasn’t entirely positive, however. If we refused membership, or could not qualify for it, our species would be erased from Earth and removed from the cosmos forever. As far as the Galactics were concerned, we were squatters on a planet which they owned. In their minds, they were being generous to offer us membership in their vast union.
Not left with much choice, humanity had quickly opted to join. There were only two requirements, and they were fairly simple: first, humanity was not permitted to build starships or any other device capable of leaving our star system. They knew we’d already sent out probes, but that was forbidden in the future. From now on, we could only leave the Solar System by paying for the privilege with Galactic credits.
Their second requirement was harder to meet. We had to have something of value to trade with the rest of the member worlds in order to pay the Galactic government. In other words, we had to demonstrate we could pull our weight and pay our taxes.
At first, the requirement to provide a trade good had been problematic. Our technology was pathetic by Galactic standards. Our foodstuffs and raw resources were, at best, mundane. An alien counselor was appointed to see if something could be worked out before our scheduled demise. This snail-looking official was aloof, but she’d done her job thoroughly. She determined that humanity had been discovered early in our developmental cycle as a species. We didn’t even have a world government yet, which made us a throwback amongst the membership. We frequently engaged in bloody wars against one another, and had a long history of conflict, something most worlds had left behind in their histories. She recommended we hire out as mercenaries to other, more civilized planets that lacked professional armies.
Steel World Page 4