by B. V. Larson
I told her the full story then. About the squids invading Earth and surrounding Central. Soon they would win, and Dust World would be enslaved or destroyed immediately afterward.
Then I told her about the teleport reprogramming systems, and how I needed her to help me with them.
She bit her lower lip. “Did I tell you I’m feeling sick again? Like the old days?”
“You mentioned that.”
“Let’s say I went along with your crazy plan,” she said. “How am I going to protect Etta?”
“Can she take care of herself for a few days?” I asked. “I would take her back to Earth, but she might not survive for long there if things go badly. I wouldn’t want to introduce her to her home world only to have it fall to the squids the next day.”
Natasha looked at me with longing. I knew then that she wanted to go home. She’d been exiled for so long she’d probably come to accept she’d never see Earth again. Given the chance now, however…
“I’ll talk to the Investigator,” she said. “He’s displayed some degree of interest in his granddaughter off and on. Maybe he’ll help with her.”
“Can’t I just see Etta now?” I asked.
“No,” she said, putting up a hand to stop me, “I still don’t trust you. This could all be a big pile of crap. I know you, James. Remember that.”
“Yeah… okay.”
I waited while she went to make arrangements. It was a chance to rest, so I took it. The nap did me good. I was snoring by the time anyone came back to the place.
“Well,” said a sonorous male voice from my past, “if it isn’t our star man. Why are you here, James McGill? Are you out for an evening stroll?”
The Investigator was just as I remembered him, except a lot older. He was tall and thin with muscles that stood out under his skin like cables. He had long, white hair that hung down past his armpits in an unruly mass.
“Hello sir,” I said, “I came to take Natasha back home with me. Etta too, if you’ll let me.”
“Both of them? That’s ambitious. I’d thought you might have been satisfied with my daughter, Della.”
That made me blink. Could the Investigator be upset that his daughter had joined Varus and left Dust World behind? Maybe she’d done it to get away from him. He’d always been a strange one, even for a Dust Worlder.
“Della is an excellent soldier, sir,” I said. “But Natasha has talents we need now.”
“Yes…” he said, glancing back at someone who had appeared in the doorway behind him.
It was Natasha herself. She held back and stayed quiet outside.
“This is the way with Earthers,” the Investigator went on, “in my experience. You come and take what you need, leaving behind only our wind and our sand.”
“We’re all in this together,” I told him. “If Earth falls, Dust World will be next.”
He gazed at me earnestly. “You’ve struck upon the reason that you’re breathing again. I approved the revival precisely so I could learn how badly the home world has behaved. It would seem that you’ve resisted the cephalopods until they’ve finally decided to rain death down upon you.”
“Will you help us?” I demanded. “Will you help both our worlds?”
He looked thoughtfully at me, then Natasha.
“I will allow it,” he said at last, nodding to Natasha. “Etta will be cared for. Go home and see what can be done for Earth.”
Natasha, looking scared and maybe a little bit sick, came into the room and blinked at me nervously.
I couldn’t blame her. She was in for quite a ride.
* * *
The long teleport trip across the cosmos was full of worry and memories. To have Natasha—the original one—up against me in the same suit was something I’d never thought I’d experience.
My biggest regrets concerned Etta, however. I’d gotten Natasha to come home, but no one had trusted me enough to allow me to so much as meet my own daughter. If I’d had more time, I would have argued more—but I knew that I didn’t. Delaying could mean the difference between life and death for all of us.
When we arrived on Green World, Natasha looked around in wonderment.
“This isn’t Earth!” she exclaimed. “Is this some kind of trick? Or a malfunction?”
“Neither,” I said, “you’re technically still part of Legion Varus. I’m still on active duty, and so are you. We’re here to perform a mission.”
I climbed out of the suit, and she did the same, numbly. I folded it up and stashed it while she examined the warm waves and the pebble-strewn beach.
She followed me up the shore to the only scrap of high land in sight. On top was the strange, organically-shaped building. We went inside, and I let her look over the equipment.
I’d been here twice before. Some of the items had been removed to Central for study, but the main console was embedded into the building itself. The walls appeared to have grown right over the console like melting wax.
“This is very strange,” she said, “some of this is Imperial tech, but most of it I’ve never seen before.”
Natasha was intrigued. I dared to smile behind her back. She’d always been a sucker for technological gizmos.
Soon, she had worked out what it was for, that it attached to the teleport suits.
“But, what’s the purpose?” she asked me. “If you can charge the units from any power source with a compatible plug, what’s this do?”
“According to Claver, it’s a programming system. It allows the user to set the control options on these suits.”
“I see…” she said. “I guess such a system must exist.”
“They’re set for destinations now, but I can’t change them. Squids supposedly have finer muscle control and understanding of these units and can go places by merely twiddling the dials precisely. We clumsy humans must use the presets.”
She frowned at me. “Who’s Claver?”
I’d forgotten how long she’d been out of touch. So many years… I’d met Claver on Tech World, after Natasha had been left behind on Dust World.
I showed her the vids of Claver programming the suits. She marveled at the process and all the small references to things she knew nothing about.
“I’ve been out of the loop for a long time,” she said.
“I’m sorry we left you out there,” I said. “We thought it was for the best. Our other Natasha—we liked her too. How could we have chosen?”
She looked at me thoughtfully. “Did the other Natasha die at some point? Didn’t you consider your options then—about maybe retrieving me from Dust World, I mean?”
“Well… no,” I admitted. “I didn’t have any easy way to get here, and your existence was a secret. Only Della and I knew. We didn’t have any power over the officers. If we’d told them to get you back instead of performing a local revive, it would have been proof of an Imperial crime.”
“Right,” she said, sighing. “I held out hope for years, but I knew it wasn’t likely you’d come back for me. How could you risk it? The Hegemony brass would have moved to perm me out of caution—and maybe you too. Otherwise the Galactics could rightly charge them with aiding a criminal in a high crime.”
“Can you do anything with this programming system?” I asked her.
“I think so. In fact, I think it’s going to be easy.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
She smiled, holding up a data chip. “Because, this console has landing spots preprogrammed for every world in the Cephalopod Kingdom already worked out. All I have to do is load the set we want into the suit. The hard part would have been figuring out the location algorithms for spots without presets—but the squids must have worked that out years ago. You just have to tell me where you want to go.”
Staring at her, a slow smile grew on my face.
“Easy…” I said, echoing her words.
I had plans—big plans.
And this time, just maybe, they were going to work out.
-60-
> Feeling like winners, we went back to Central a few hours later. We had the suit reprogrammed. I had Natasha in the suit with me, and I could rightfully claim I’d rescued her.
Not from the squids, of course, but from Dust World. She’d promised to pretend I’d brought her back from a squid planet. With luck, no one would be the wiser.
My good mood evaporated about three seconds after we got home. Central was in emergency lock-down.
We’d popped back into the underground landing zone, but no one was there. Not Graves, Lisa—no one.
But the yellow flashers told the tale. The computer was talking, and emergency arrows were lighting up the floor.
“We have a breach at floor one hundred sixty-two,” the computer said calmly. “All emergency personnel are to report to floor one hundred-ten for triage setup. All combat personnel are to report to the ground floor for defensive deployment…”
The computer went on like that, and our tappers were spitting out data as well.
“What’s going on?” Natasha asked, wriggling out of the teleport suit.
“I don’t know, but it looks like the cephalopod armies are in the city.”
It occurred to me, as we raced through deserted corridors, that we’d been gone for at least thirty hours. I’d been completely out of touch all that time.
“My tapper is working fully again,” Natasha said, marveling. “I disconnected it on Dust World from the local net, not wanting anyone to know who I was. But now, here it is, synching up like nothing ever went wrong.”
To me, plenty had gone wrong, but I didn’t want to ruin her moment. I half-dragged her down the corridors to the elevators while she looked at her tapper in fascination.
“It’s backing me up,” she said excitedly. “It’s a long refresh for the data core. Ten years worth! It’s barely one percent done.”
The elevators were out of order, so we rushed to the stairs. We didn’t even make it that far before my tapper lit up.
“McGill?” Graves asked, his face appearing to me on live chat. “Have you got her?”
“Yes sir, I do.”
“Did you figure anything out?”
“We’re now able to program the teleport suits,” I said, my voice tinged with pride.
“What took you so damned long? It better not have been romance.”
“Negative, sir. She doesn’t even like me much anymore.”
“Good. Listen, we’re taking heavy shelling. The building is badly damaged on the upper floors, but with heavy puff-crete construction and nano-fiber—”
“Sir,” I said, “these red arrows are guiding me to the defensive effort on the ground floor. Should I follow them?”
“What? Hell, no. You’re to come down here to floor minus five hundred. Report as fast as you can and bring Natasha.”
Taking the steps downward two at a time, I felt the building shake now and then. Even though we were far underground the echoing reports of shells landing on the roof still reached us.
It occurred to me that the enemy had a grossly unfair advantage. They could shell us, but we couldn’t shell them back. Only short-range fire at low altitude could strike past the dampening fields. They’d managed to suppress our defense and drive us steadily back into the city.
When we’d gone down about thirty flights of stairs, I decided to try the elevator again. I managed to find one that worked. We rushed inside, and I pecked at the console. Soon we were moving, and I breathed easier.
Natasha had managed to patch into the local news streams by this time. She looked at me with big eyes and showed me what they were playing.
The city around us was on fire. Camera drones transmitted the vid feed in night-vision mode. We could see brilliant bursts of greenish-white as the city became engulfed in flames and billowing smoke.
“They’re tearing us apart,” she said, “we can’t hold out long.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “We’re not going to be here much longer.”
She looked at me quizzically. “But… hey, this elevator is going up, not down!”
“So it is,” I said, “don’t worry about it.”
She looked at me in fear. “James, there are shells and squids up there. Why are we going up instead of down like Graves ordered you to? He’s not going to like that.”
“Hmm, you’re right,” I said. “He’s going to figure it out pretty quickly, too. Have you got a jammer on you?”
She looked at me for a frozen second. “You know I always have a jammer on me.”
“Turn it on. I don’t want them to trace us.”
“James…”
“Come on, Natasha,” I said, “do you really think Graves has a plan that will save us?”
“No, not really.”
“Trust me then.”
She sighed and turned on her jammer. We were instantly untraceable.
Instead of getting out of the elevator far underground, we got off at floor one hundred. Things were a lot more exciting up here.
A section of the building was missing. The hallway just went along, perfectly smooth and natural-looking, until it ended in a ragged finish. Beyond it was open air and the sounds of a city under siege.
Wind and the smell of smoke filled the corridor, but I walked out and gestured for her to follow.
Natasha was hesitant, slow. I could tell years out of active duty had made her go soft. At least her technical skills were still good.
“It should be here somewhere,” I said, “at the end of the hall. Look for a security door. It might be buried in debris.”
“James, the end of the hall is a three hundred meter drop into the streets.”
“Right… I didn’t mean all the way to the end.”
We pressed ahead, and we heard the sky rumble outside. The star-falls were being lobbed onto us. They smashed into the building and neighboring structures. They were so big and dramatic the explosions almost looked like they were in slow-motion.
A flare of orange flame, followed by a ball of black smoke, rolled up over the end of the hallway. Natasha fell to her belly and covered her head.
I reached down as gently as I could and hauled her up.
“You go on, James,” she said, “I can’t help you here. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything like this. I’m just not battle-ready yet.”
There was a moment of indecision, but then I nodded. “Go back down. Go to floor minus-five hundred. Help them as best you can.”
“Good luck, James,” she said, giving me a kiss on the cheek.
Putting gloved fingers to my cheek, I touched the spot then turned away.
When I reached the right door, I had to use the Galactic Key to hack the lock. The sign over the door said, “Weapons Storage, No Admittance.”
Opening the door and bypassing the security systems, I slipped inside.
When I got in there, I went to the storage lockers. Most of them were empty, and I cursed inside my helmet, which I’d shut to keep out the smoke.
“Adjunct James McGill,” a pissed-off voice said inside my helmet.
It was Graves. I realized then that I was no longer in range of Natasha’s jammer. She’d been carrying it, and it served to block all communications and tracking—but not anymore.
“Uh… just a second sir, I’m busy.”
“McGill, you were given a direct order. This is gross insubordination.”
“I’m sorry sir,” I said, “Natasha had an idea. It was a good idea, so I thought—”
“Do not attempt to slur that woman’s good name,” Graves said. “McGill, are you coming down here to minus-five hundred or not?”
“I sure am, sir,” I said. “I’ll be there with bells on any time now.”
Graves fell silent, but he didn’t disconnect. I knew he was thinking.
“You’re in the weapons storage unit. How the hell did you get in there? That’s top-secret, and it’s locked down.”
While this conversation went on, I was searching every d
amned locker in the place. I’d found all sorts of weird-looking alien devices, but not the one I was looking for.
“McGill, damn your dark heart to hell,” Graves said. “I’m going to have you drawn and quartered if you don’t get your ass down here right now!”
“My I ask why I’m so important?”
“You have that teleport suit, don’t you? I know what presets you managed to program into it. I’ve been in contact with Natasha.”
I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. She’d turned off the jammer and reported in.
That was my big problem with Natasha. She was smart as a whip, cute, and she’d always loved me. But she was way too much of a rule-follower. That deficiency in her personality had always been a problem in our relationship.
“I see,” I said. “Well, sir, whatever plans you have you can use Natasha to help. She can reprogram those suits to go wherever you want.”
“That’s not our problem, and you know it.”
Right about then, I finally jimmied open a locker that had the item I’d been seeking. Inside was a big steel canister. It looked to be about the size of a watermelon.
I’d found what I wanted at last. Grinning, I pulled it out of the locker. Checking to make sure it was functional, I tucked it under my arm and staggered out of the lab. Another star-fall had just landed, scorching the walls outside and opening new wounds in Central’s thick skin. The thunder from its detonation was unimaginably loud and deep.
“McGill?” Graves demanded. “Are you still with us, McGill?”
Climbing over wreckage, I kept quiet. Maybe he’d figure I bought it in that last strike.
There was no such luck. Graves knew me better than my own mama did by now.
“My displays show you’re still moving, McGill. Talk to me.”
“I’m making my way back down to you now, sir,” I said. “Just give me a minute.”
“McGill, don’t you pull any cowboy shit on me today. This war is way, way beyond your competency zone. Do you understand me?”
“I sure do, Centurion. Don’t you worry about a thing. By the way, what do you need me for so badly? What’s the nature of my mission?”
“You’re to teleport to the squid home world. You’ll present our surrender. According to Claver, they have FTL communications with their army here on Earth. They’ll stop the attack immediately.”