Undying Mercenaries 2: Dust World

by B. V. Larson

  “You didn’t have orders to do that!”

  “Sure I did,” I said. “Leeson told me to guard this ship. I’ve been standing on guard duty out here for hours. I recognized a threat, and I eliminated it.”

  Natasha looked up. “It’s not falling. It’s leveled off.”

  I sighted on the ship again. It was harder this time as the ship wasn’t holding still. It was flying in a circular pattern, directly above the lifter.

  Before I could get another clean shot, a smoking object fell from the aircraft. I frowned at it. The object looked like a glass sphere full of a pitch-black substance. A spiraling tendril of gray smoke trailed behind it as it fell.

  “Incoming!” I shouted over the general unit channel.

  “McGill?” Leeson’s voice answered. “What’s going on out there?”

  “Close visors!” I shouted. “I think its gas, sir!”

  I fired my weapon but missed. The glass sphere fell nearby and popped. Roiling vapors exploded in every direction, obscuring my vision. My visor was down, as was Natasha’s.

  Not all our troops were so fortunate. Caught by surprise, a few of them slumped, crawled then stopped moving entirely.

  The fluttering aircraft moved away then, scudding back toward the enemy ship. I fired twice more and got lucky on the last shot. I missed the ship, which was flat from this angle, but I hit the last of the three crewmen. He pitched off the platform. The aircraft, unguided, slid sideways and slammed into a cliff face. A gush of orange fire brought a smile to my face.

  A heavy gauntlet slammed down onto my shoulder. I half-turned and was half-hauled around to look into Harris’ bulging eyes.

  “What did you do, Specialist?” he roared.

  “I brought down an attacking aircraft, sir. It was an amazing shot, if I do say so myself.”

  Harris looked out toward the cliffs, where a spot still burned brightly. Then he eyed the vapors that were hugging the ground stubbornly, refusing to disperse.

  “What about the enemy crew? Any survivors?”

  I pointed out to the water. We all looked, and my mouth twisted into a grimace.

  The pilot who had fallen into the water wasn’t having a good time of it. The rock-fish had gathered around, sensing an injured, helpless victim. I could barely see the man anymore. He looked more like a hump of wriggling flesh. The rock-fish, with their wart-encrusted bodies glinting wetly, were feasting.

  “How can he still be alive?” Harris asked.

  I lifted my weapon again. “Permission to put him out of his misery, Vet?” I asked.

  “Since when do you ever ask permission to fire your weapon, McGill?”

  I just looked at him.

  “All right,” he said, sighing. “Do it.”

  Fire lanced out of my tube, and the water steamed. The splashing stopped until fresh, living rock-fish came up to finish the task their dead comrades had begun.

  “Guys, look,” Natasha said. She had a scope out and was examining the far side of the lake. We both joined her.

  The situation on the rock-pile had changed. The troops that had been laboriously climbing the stones and occasionally falling into mantraps had halted and reversed themselves. They were now marching toward the verdant line of flowery growths along the west side of the region.

  There was a moment of calm—then Legion Varus did what they had to do. They fired upon the advancing enemy.

  I watched with interest as the armored squares of troops rocked backward, taking the shocks in stride. The laser rifles my comrades were equipped with didn’t seem to be having much effect. Each hit staggered a trooper—but a moment later he was back in perfect stride with his brothers.

  “The primus shouldn’t play around with these boys,” I said. “They look pretty serious.”

  “Why don’t you call her and tell her how to handle it, McGill?” Harris suggested. “I bet she’d like that.”

  “She’s got to use her mortars, or at least her plasma cannons. I’m just saying.”

  As if I was a fortuneteller, my fellow weaponeers stepped up the assault. Lasers weren’t penetrating, so heavy beams lanced out taking down troopers with each shot. Sometimes, two fell to a single beam. They rarely got back up.

  At that point, the battlefield shifted again. I got the feeling both sides had been hesitant, feeling out each other’s capabilities to inflict harm. Now, the littermates were convinced.

  Just as Della had intimated to me, the armored enemy didn’t take kindly to watching their brothers die. They changed demeanor suddenly and completely as if a switch had been thrown.

  They’d been marching in precise order, lockstep, almost methodical in their movements. Now their calm melted and turned into wild rage. Their slow, measured steps became sweeping bounds. Their limbs, once quiet at their sides, came up and formed gauntleted claws.

  “Holy shit,” Harris whispered at my side.

  The troopers charged. It was a berserker thing and an astounding rush of metal-encased flesh. The beams coming out of the flowery embankment ahead of them increased to an almost frantic level of fire. Energy beams were released steadily but struck the ground as often as armor, forming glassy patches on the sandy soil and smoky holes in armor.

  At the last moment, a line three ranks deep of our own heavy troopers rushed forward. They carried the banner of the wolf’s head emblem, and Legion Varus’ best rushed to meet the maddened enemy.

  The two lines crashed together. We were too distant to see the details, but I could tell our men were using force-blades for the most part. They were sawing and hacking limbs from their larger opponents. The enemy was not helpless, though. They had large pistols, which they used to great effect at close range. In hand-to-hand, they wielded heavy sabers to hack and hew. I wished I could have been there with my comrades.

  Outnumbered four to one, the massive berserkers could not win. But they did reap a terrible toll. Before the struggle was over, dozens of our silver-armored legionnaires lay in the mud.

  “Not one of them broke—did you see that?” Harris demanded. “Not one of those big bastards would turn tail and run. They all fought to the death. They fought until they were chopped apart.”

  I didn’t say anything. Neither did Natasha.

  Harris hit me then, slamming his fist into the back of my helmet. The blow didn’t really hurt, but it did cause my head to ring.

  “Did you want to add something to that, Vet?” I asked.

  Harris glowered at me. “If I find out that you started this fight, so help me McGill, I’ll kill you myself.”

  “You’d be well within your rights, Vet,” I said calmly.

  “Don’t think I won’t do it, McGill. I’ve done it before.”

  “You have indeed, Vet. I haven’t forgotten.”

  For several long seconds, we had ourselves an old-fashioned stare-down.

  “I’ve been tired of your bullshit for nearly two years now,” he told me. “I can’t wait until you muster out.”

  “Haven’t you heard? I’m re-upping. Planning to become a lifer.”

  Cursing and muttering, Harris disappeared into the ship leaving Natasha and me at the bottom of the ramp.

  Natasha looked after him in concern. She put a hand on the back of my helmet.

  “He dented your helmet,” she said.

  “That’s legion property, too.”

  She gave a small, nervous laugh. Then she spoke with me in a hushed, worried voice.

  “James, what if he finds out what you did?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t think he will. I think he’ll have plenty of better things to worry about from now on. Look.”

  She followed my arm and gasped. Fresh troops were marching down from the huge ship. These new enemies looked different. They weren’t all standing in perfect nines, either.

  “Are those—squids?” Natasha asked.

  “Looks that way.”

  A group of cephalopods had emerged for the first time. They were the same size as the human
troopers they’d bred for war. I realized that now. I wondered if they’d tried to make them in their own image, growing them and altering their genes so they were the same size and weight. There was something creepy about that. This species was a cold people, and I found I liked them less with every passing hour.

  “They might have made a mistake,” I said hopefully.

  Legion Varus hadn’t been slow to react to this new threat. They fired a barrage of heavy beams toward the cephalopods. But the beams didn’t reach the enemy. Instead, the energy splashed and flickered as each beam was intercepted by a shimmering field of force.

  “They put a shield up!” Natasha breathed. “A shield big enough and strong enough to cover their entire ship.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. The squids had just moved up a few notches in technical prowess in my estimation.

  “How are we ever going to get through to their ship if they have shields with that kind of range?” Natasha asked.

  I didn’t reply because I didn’t have an answer. I watched as the squids calmly rummaged in the equipment they’d piled outside their ship. No wonder they hadn’t worried about protecting it from fire. They were in no danger from our weaponry now that they’d shielded the region.

  While we looked on, the fresh troops kept flowing down the ramps. Before they were done, there were twice as many as there had been. They all stood in calm, perfectly-formed squares of nine. Their black armor gleamed like star-studded space.

  As we watched, a protuberance began to slowly lift from the crown of the great ship. It was oblong, sleek, and quite large. By my estimation, it was at least thirty meters in length.

  “What the hell is that thing?” Natasha asked.

  “Looks like a big weapon,” I said. “Or it could be a sensor of some kind.”

  As we watched in growing concern, the object began to swivel coming around slowly.

  “It’s got to be some kind of cannon!” I shouted.

  I reported in—but it was hardly necessary. Half the people in the valley had seen it. The threat was unmistakable.

  Across the lake, the legionnaires who’d been busy removing valuable equipment from their dead comrades stood up and bolted into the forest of flowers. I heard the tactical chatter and tuned into my overall unit chat. They’d been ordered to withdraw and scatter.

  For several seconds, as the giant turret traveled, I felt certain it was going to fire on the troops who were fleeing certain death. But it didn’t.

  The big weapon kept turning, slowly, coming around until…

  “Run!” I shouted. Natasha was right behind me. We didn’t really have anywhere safe to go, so we ran to the lakeshore. I leapt out into the water just before the air grew blindingly white and a tremendous beam of power flashed out.

  The beam cut into the lifter and tore her apart. There was no chance for anyone aboard to escape. I was sure of that. Harris, Leeson and whoever else was still aboard—they were all dead.

  I knew as I crouched in the water, pushing away rock-fish that kept yawning, trying to get a grip on my armor that Leeson was going to be mighty upset when he was revived. Nothing made a man feel like more of a loser than to die twice in the same day.

  -21-

  “Good thing we pulled the revival unit out of the ship when we did,” I said to Carlos when he came staggering back to camp after his revival.

  He was still dripping wet. He reached for his armor with numb fingers. I helped him with the leggings. That was always the worst part when a man was fresh from a revive. Your balance was one of the last things to start working right. The bio people said it was due to the excess liquids inside the sinuses, which clogged the inner ear. It took a while to drain out and clear our heads.

  “No it isn’t!” Carlos complained. “If the cohort’s revival unit had been destroyed, I could have been revived in another valley—one where I wasn’t up to my ass in space-squids.”

  I chuckled. “Most of them seem to be some kind of genetically-altered mega-humans,” I pointed out.

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Carlos demanded, leaning on me heavily. “And how come you’re looking so smug?”

  “What did you want?” I asked him, “a kiss on the top of your head?”

  Carlos was quite a bit shorter than I was, and he always hated it whenever I brought up this obvious comparison.

  “That’s all you’ve got?” Carlos demanded. “Smartass remarks? I died at your hands—again—and I don’t even get an apology? Nothing? Zip? Some friend you are.”

  “I didn’t fire that big beam,” I told him somewhat defensively. “The squids blew you up, not me.”

  I’d been getting accusations like this all afternoon. The platoon was looking at me like I’d personally executed them. I knew it was partly because I’d survived and they hadn’t. The guys who got lucky and lived through a bad fight always seemed like dirty, lucky pricks to the ones who’d died.

  “You might as well have blown up the lifter,” Carlos retorted. “Yeah, yeah, I know, they attacked us first. But I heard about what you did.”

  I eyed him coolly, trying to hide my concern. If Carlos knew that I’d shot down that enemy aircraft—well, I might as well broadcast vid of the event to the entire legion. There were many things Carlos was capable of, but keeping his big mouth shut wasn’t one of them.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Don’t play dumb with me, you freckle-faced cracker,” he said. “The role of village idiot suits you, but it doesn’t fool me. I know you talked to that crazy little chick with the crossbow—that’s treason right there, did you know that? You arranged some kind of alliance with her, didn’t you? And now, all of a sudden, the aliens are shooting at us. What a surprise. Before, they’d been content to play slave-driver with the colonists, but noooo, you had to go and mess that up and drag us into this crap-stew...”

  I stopped listening to his tirade around then. Carlos kept complaining, but I didn’t hear a word of it as I helped him into his armor. He was right, of course, but if he didn’t know how I’d pulled it off, it didn’t really matter. Suspicion wasn’t in the same league as evidence.

  Internally, I breathed a sigh of relief. Natasha seemed to be the only one who knew the full story. She’d seen me shoot the alien aircraft personally, but I was pretty sure she would keep quiet. After all, we already had a few secrets between us.

  Carlos finally shut up when I put his helmet on. He lifted the visor and stared at me.

  “You aren’t even listening, are you?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  “I totally hate you.”

  “I kind of figured. Close your faceplate, the enemy is using gas.”

  Grumbling, he did as I suggested.

  We got moving then, as Leeson was calling on all his able-bodied people to assemble. We were to advance and recon the enemy ship. Carlos wasn’t happy about these orders—no one was.

  “This is just total bullshit,” he kept saying as we pressed our way through the thick, waxy leaves. We ran into a patch of different vegetation every now and then, stuff that looked like chard or spinach, but which was as tall as a man.

  “We could make a nice salad with all this greenery,” I commented.

  “Be my guest and eat some of it, McGill. I double-dog dare you.”

  I chuckled and kept moving forward. Leeson wasn’t happy with me, either. He’d put me on recon and given me a three-man team. Naturally, the adjunct let the rest of his troops fall behind and linger. With me were only Carlos, Kivi and Hudson. None of them were smiling when they realized the four of us were getting close to the enemy ship alone.

  Finally, Carlos kicked me in the ass. I turned around, my servos whirring. I straight-armed him, and he almost fell down.

  “You left a gouge in my armor,” I complained.

  “It was an accident, Specialist.”

  We glared at each other for a second. Kivi and Hudson caught up, and Kivi rolled her eyes at us.


  “You boys going to fight again?” Kivi asked. “Don’t be pussies this time. Use force-blades. You might both die that way.”

  Carlos stopped glaring at me long enough to look at her. “Both of us, huh?” he asked her. “Aren’t you pissed at McGill? He got you killed along with the rest of us. And don’t pretend you don’t know it.”

  Hudson took a step forward, but before he could speak I lifted a hand to silence the group. I was only a specialist, but I outranked all of them. They paused to look at me.

  I could tell morale was low. That wasn’t unusual in Legion Varus, but I didn’t like being the cause of it.

  “Look,” I said. “We’ve had a bad day, but we’re marching in the right direction now. We’re going to kill these squids and their pet freaks, not colonists from Earth.”

  “That was your plan, wasn’t it?” asked Carlos, squinting at me. “I see it all now. You’re not just having fun—you’re on a crusade. Well, count me out. I don’t want to be involved with another of your lost causes.”

  “You sure?” I asked him. “I’ve seen the colonist girls, you know. They’re pretty hot. They’ll be grateful if we save them all.”

  Carlos chewed on that one. I knew he’d been having fantasies about innocent colonists all the way out here in Corvus.

  “They don’t seem very friendly,” he said.

  “Let’s find out.”

  I turned and kept marching. The rest fell behind me. They were still grumbling, but at least no one was kicking me in the butt. I hoped we’d pull together before we made contact with the enemy.

  My hopes were dashed when we reached the top of a rise and bellied up to have a look. I could see the ship and, at this close range, the shimmering shields were visible to the naked eye. The shields looked like a shell of rain that fell endlessly over the ship but never touched it.

  “Turn on your suits and transmit,” I said quietly. I needn’t have bothered. Everyone was working their tappers, taking stills and transmitting vids.

  Something strange loomed up among the thick foliage directly to the east of us. It wasn’t anything I’d seen before.

  Impossibly tall, thin and man-like, the creature had dangling limbs with oversized hands and feet. Naked except for a flap of leathery cloth wound around its narrow midsection, it had no weapons that we could see. The face was even odder than the body. Nostrils the size of credit-pieces quivered in a nose that was as large and protruding as a normal man’s elbow. Red-rimmed eyes like coals stared at us over that nose.