by B. V. Larson
It wasn’t a troopship, it was a gunship. The bridge was accordingly designed along lines that were familiar enough to an experienced spacer. There weren’t any seats as floating squids didn’t need to sit down. Instead, there were grab rails everywhere. They had instrument panels—but those were all over the place. They covered the floor, the ceiling and every wall with equal frequency.
There were only two squids in there. They both looked surprised. Harris moved to fire his weapon, but I pushed the muzzle up and the beam scarred harmlessly across an access hatch.
“Surrender your ship!” I ordered, activating an external translation device.
“You speak of an impossibility,” said the smaller of the two squids.
Aiming with some care, I shot the shit out of him. Then I turned to the larger squid.
“Surrender your ship or die,” I said.
At first, he didn’t say anything. Then he dropped his electric fork onto the deck. It crackled and spit a few sparks when it touched metal.
“Good,” I said, “you’re my captive. You must serve me.”
The squid’s tentacles squirmed for a moment, then it spoke.
“I am your slave.”
The rest of my troops looked at one another in shock. I didn’t have time to explain cephalopod psychology to them—that this enemy only understood master-slave relationships. There were no such things as “equals” in their society.
Naturally, squids preferred to be the masters, but they could accept the opposite role if given no choice. I’d noticed that the upper-crust squids were the most likely to give up like this—they probably liked dying even less than their underlings did.
“What’s your name and your previous title?” I demanded in the confident voice of a master.
“I was Storm, and I was the captain of this vessel.”
“Excellent. You will now be my pilot. You will fly this vessel.”
His numerous eyes tracked me. “I will fly this vessel.”
“Storm—I return to you your name for the sake of my convenience.”
“Of course.”
“Are you the only one of your crew left alive on this ship?”
“Yes. That’s why I’ve accepted defeat.”
I turned to Lisa. “Confirm that. Send out all your swimming buzzers.”
She released a dozen tiny drones. We’d kept them close to hand until now, but it was definitely time to map the entire ship. Lisa watched her tapper as they swam and transmitted back their findings.
“Did you communicate with your fellow cephalopod captains during the assault?” I demanded. “Did you tell them you were under attack and losing your ship?”
His eyes again slid around the room. He looked uncertain.
“Will a poor answer result in punishment?”
“Only a false answer is a poor one.”
“Then yes, I did so.”
I grinned inside my helmet. The squid probably would have lied to evade a fate he didn’t like. I couldn’t blame him for that. He was my slave—but that didn’t mean I could trust him any farther than a man could trust any prisoner of war in such a situation.
“In that case,” I said, “am I correct in assuming your comrades are maneuvering to board this ship and take her back?”
“What else would they be doing?”
“As expected. You shall take Force out of formation. Let her fall back so they must slow down to board her. Take no other action. This includes responding to any communication from other ships. Make it appear as if she’s lost power.”
“Your instructions are confusing… but I will obey.”
The squid turned to the controls. When he touched them, my team reacted uneasily.
“We can’t trust this monster, McGill,” Harris hissed at me. “Are you insane?”
“I’ve been called worse,” I told him. “The cephalopod is under no obligation to screw us. Unlike a human prisoner, it’s not his duty to sabotage our mission. He’s completely self-centered now. He serves only me—or himself if he thinks his odds are better by defying my will.”
“Strange,” Lisa said, stepping forward a pace and watching Storm work. “He switched sides that fast?”
“Not really. It’s kind of like being taken prisoner. Only, in their case, they take that role very seriously.”
She nodded and watched him closely.
“Master,” Storm said after a time, “we’re falling back from the formation—but it will not stop the enemy from assaulting this ship.”
“I know that. I’m only trying to buy us some time. Harris, guard our new friend. Lisa, come with me. We’re going to gather up every teleport suit we can.”
“That’s the best idea you’ve had all day,” she said, her eyes alight with excitement.
What was it about techs and technology? They were like drunks in a liquor cabinet every time they found some new gadget to play with.
We hustled back to the room we’d ported into first. Around us, the ship lurched and the pressure of deceleration pushed us back. We had to fight the water and centrifugal force to get to the aft of the ship again.
Gathering the jump-suits turned out to be a time-consuming task. The main problem was that the suits were full of dead squids. We had to peel them off and roll massive bodies away. It was a good thing we were in water. Without buoyancy on our side, I doubted we could have done it.
After shucking the third suit, we had a workable system and even split up—making faster work of the rest.
“Got them all,” Lisa reported finally, with clear excitement in her voice. “None of them look damaged.”
“Good, I’m calling Harris. We have to rig this ship to blow up then jump home again.”
She put a hand on my elbow. With all my armor and gear, I barely felt her touch. But I stopped anyway.
“What’s wrong?”
“Are you sure we have to ditch this ship?” she asked. “There’s so much here. I’ve been recording everything, and—”
“Get on the pad. Take all the suits with you right now. That’s an order.”
Her hand slid away from mine. She nodded. “You’re right. We have to secure the suits.”
While we’d been stripping down squids, Lisa’s drones had mapped out most of the ship. We had the data we needed for future strikes.
I gave her all the suits, plugged her into the ship’s central power and watched her jump out. Then I moved toward the engine room, which was now displayed on my tapper after we’d shared her maps.
Moving down the long central passage, the ship lurched suddenly.
“Harris?” I called. “What’s going on up there?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Looks like something’s hit us. I can’t read these squid instruments—McGill, it’s time to get out of here.”
I nodded, hearing muffled clangs and screeching sounds of metal-on-metal. The enemy was on the hull.
“No time to rig the engine to blow,” I said. “Find any plug and port out.”
“Got it—luck, McGill.”
Switching directions, I moved to the nearest hatch according to Lisa’s maps—yes. It was a gun turret.
“You still there, Harris?” I asked.
There was silence on my chat channel. “Carlos?”
More silence. I was alone on the squid ship. That meant the captain would probably rethink his role and come after me.
The ship lurched again, and I saw sparks in the ceiling. The squids were burning their way through the hull.
I looked around, but I didn’t see any of those handy power ports. Behind me, a dark figure appeared in the murky water. It was Storm—he’d changed his mind very quickly.
“I order you to stand down, Storm!” I shouted.
A bubbling sound came back to me. “You are now my slave. You’re outnumbered. Submit or die.”
“Humans make bad slaves,” I told him as I climbed into the turret. It was a tight squeeze as it was built for an invertebrate and therefore was p
erfectly spherical in nature. My spine had to curve painfully, and my bulky suit made it even harder.
“Get out of there!” Storm raged. “I demand you provide me the same courtesy I did you. I demand you become my servant in all things. I demand—”
I never heard his third demand, and I didn’t much care to, either. I’d figured out by that time how to operate the triggers in the turret. They were built for someone with multiple hands—but how hard was it to fire a big gun at a range of a few dozen meters?
The turret roared, and my eyes were blinded by the flash. A second squid ship, identical to the one I was on, had latched onto us and hugged up tight—that was a mistake. They should have just stood off and blown us apart.
But that wasn’t the squid way. They liked captives. Catching people really turned them on.
The gun turret was amazingly effective. That was probably due to the close range. Fully a quarter of the enemy ship was blown away from the rest of the hull. A brief plume of plasma and radiation bathed me, and it made me smile.
I fired one more time before I died. That shot took out the front nodule where the bridge was.
Then they fired back—or some other squid ship did, I couldn’t tell which.
Either way, I died fast. There was a huge grin on my face right to the end.
-24-
Revival was never pleasant, but this time, I came out laughing. Choking on slime, I spat it out, and kept laughing.
“What’s so funny, McGill?” asked a familiar voice.
It was Anne Grant, I knew her voice anywhere.
“Anne?” I asked, eyes still glued shut.
“Yeah, it’s me. They’ve been calling more and more Varus people to Central for some reason. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Not a thing,” I said, knowing the teleport-suits were beyond classified. If she hadn’t been briefed, I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to do it.
They worked on me for a few minutes. When I could see, I stared at her through blurred eyes.
“Why do we always come out of these machines with eyes glued shut like kittens?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. Ask the aliens who made it—or the kittens. But you never answered my question. Why did you come out laughing? That’s a rare response to a violent death.”
I finally caught on. She was doing a psych eval. Whenever a legionnaire behaved oddly after being revived, it was her job to investigate and report it.
In my particular case, I knew she was doubly concerned. I’d once woken up with a screw loose and tried to kill Winslade immediately afterward. Come to think of it, though, that hadn’t been such a bad idea…
“I’m fine,” I said, then I explained how I’d died fighting squids and gotten two of their ships to blast one another.
She looked at me, stunned. “You were on a squid ship? How in the hell—?”
I’d blown it. The recent revive had caused me to let my guard down. I’d promised myself I’d keep quiet, but then I went right off and blabbed not thirty seconds later. Groping for a dodge, I came up with one.
“Hey,” I said. “Don’t you owe me a date?”
“No,” she said. “That was several James McGills ago.”
Anne smiled even as she looked down at my arm and measured my vitals.
“You sure you aren’t interested?” I pressed.
“I’m sure—that’s over with, James. I’m seeing someone else.”
“Who? Winslade?”
She moved to slap me, but I caught her hand. I kept smiling and kissed her fingers.
“James,” she said, sighing and looking at me. “You’re definitely the man I know. Personality checks out, you’re cleared for duty. Graves wants you to report to his office immediately.”
“No shower?”
“No shower.”
Disappointed, I pulled on my clothes and made it to the doorway. There on the far side was a small, pissed-off tech. Lisa had been waiting for me to be revived. Apparently, she’d seen the whole finger-kissing thing with Anne through the window in the door.
“Hey babe,” I said, reaching for her.
She dodged away.
“Don’t touch me. Why were you kissing that bio?”
I looked over my shoulder in surprise. “Who? Anne? She’s like my mama. She’s birthed me twenty times over. My mama only did it once.”
Lisa put her hands on her hips and glowered up at me.
I was still a little foggy, but my brain seemed to be wired for moments like this.
“Look,” I said squinting at her through burning eyes, “did you notice she tried to slap me the second I came out? I’m not talking about my bottom, either. She was testing my memory, and I gave her some smart-ass answers. Are you that jealous already? We’ve only been together for a few days.”
“Well…” she said doubtfully, “don’t paw any more women in front of me, okay?”
“I promise. How long was I dead, anyway?”
“Not long. Just a few hours. Graves ordered your revival to be prioritized.”
Figuring that had to be a good sign, I moved quickly upstairs with Lisa at my side. When we reached Graves, he was in a positively good mood. That was rare with the Centurion.
“Hey Graves,” I called. “You gonna torture me or blow my face off? Which one, I’m running a pool.”
“Neither, McGill. That was excellent work you did up there. How did you manage to destroy two ships?”
I explained and embellished freely. That was one of the finest things about living on after death in combat: you got to make yourself out as a hero every time—as long as you didn’t die too early.
He listened with a near-smile. When I was finished, he nodded and clapped me on the shoulder.
“When those ships blew,” he said, “I figured anyone who hadn’t ported back was a safe bet for ordering a revive—even without the evidence if you know what I mean. As to your story, I almost believe it. But the part about making the squid captain your slave seems a step too far.”
“Didn’t Harris tell you about that?”
“Harris? He’s not been revived yet. He didn’t make it out.”
Frowning, I thought about that. He’d been ordered to find a plug and port out. Maybe he hadn’t made it.
“Don’t worry,” Graves said. “I’ve prioritized Harris and Carlos both. They died with you on the cruiser. From Earth, we knew the story when it blew up in tandem with another ship. From here it looked like you’d gotten them to ram into one another. The story about the turret—that’s gravy.”
“It’s true sir, every word,” I assured him. But then I had a thought, and I frowned. “Sir? How do I remember all these details? I died out there beyond the reach of the net. The data core here at Central couldn’t possibly—”
Graves waved my words away.
“That your tech’s work,” he said. “The minute you got there, she rigged up a relay transmitter. We didn’t want to miss anything, so it was all transmitted back to Earth. Took nearly an hour to get here after the explosion, but I figured it was worth the wait.”
I nodded slowly, thinking about it. I was now wondering about the key, too. Lisa had taken it with her when she returned. I had to get it back as soon as possible.
“What really matters is that you got Lisa back with those suits,” Graves continued. “We’ve now got fourteen working jump-suits even after taking a few losses. The trouble is…”
I looked at him expectantly, and his smile faded.
“The trouble is that the enemy ship was destroyed. That lab you popped into was assumed to be a reprogramming point. All the equipment that presumably sets up these suits is gone. This effort might be at an end.”
“No sir,” I said firmly. “We’ve got several more missions in us. I’m sure of that much.”
My finger indicated the dial on my chest. There were, after all, three more settings. Only three of them had been explored so far.
“I hereby volunte
er to take my team on another mission,” I said. “We’ll hit the island I jumped to last time. There was power there to return, and maybe we’ll even find some answers about how this gear works.”
He thought that over. “I’m going to have to get approval for that. Give me a few minutes.”
I frowned. “A few minutes? I was thinking I’d shower-up and get some sleep.”
“No way. That cephalopod fleet is still out there, you realize that don’t you? You can shower, but as soon as the rest of your team is on its feet, you’re on your way again.”
He pointed toward a big chrono on the wall.
“Four hours,” he said. “That’s all you get.”
“Good enough,” I said, and I exited the chamber.
Lisa followed me. “We’re going out there again?” she asked in concern.
“Yes ma’am. That’s what legionnaires do.”
“Couldn’t someone else do it this time?”
I looked at her. “You’ve got the key still, don’t you? The shell thing?”
“Yes, of course.”
Suddenly, I realized what had happened to Harris and Carlos.
“Oh no,” I said.
“What?”
“The key opened the security on their suits to jump out there—but the effect must not have lasted. It must be on a reset timer or something.”
She looked horrified. “You mean you ordered them to jump back home—and they fried instead?”
Nodding slowly, I considered my thoughtlessness. We’d lost two good suits and two good men.
“We’ll have to play it tighter next time,” I said. “Good thing they probably don’t know what hit them.”
“That’s all you have to say? Don’t you even want to apologize to them, James?”
“Hell no. They’d never let me live it down if they knew I had something to do with it. Besides, the key has to stay a secret.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s too powerful and very illegal. Just possessing such a device is a Galactic offense. An extinction-level offense.”
That made her eyes widen. She reached reflexively toward the lump in her pocket.