Steel World (14 page)

The worst part had been removing our dead. Unlike past armies, we didn’t imbue our fallen comrades with special meaning. We didn’t bury them with flags and expensive caskets. Those honors were only for perma-dead troops. What would be the point of holding a ceremony and a funeral for a man who stood nearby, hale and healthy?

But we did need the equipment on the bodies. Clearing out the dead, then, became a grisly task. I’d felt like a grave robber in the morning, stripping the dead and dumping them into pits for mass burial. The saurian corpses weren’t as bad, as I didn’t care much about them. We used power-machines with scoops to scrape them from our walls and roll them into hastily dug graves.

Carlos tried to shake me awake, but I slapped him away. Moments later his hand was replaced by another, sterner grip. I could tell these fingers were steel-wrapped, rather than gloved.

I awoke with a snort and a gasp of breath. Veteran Harris glared at me sternly.

“Up and moving!” he roared, walking away down the line. “Every third man goes on break downstairs. Get a meal and a cot, but don’t get too comfy. You’re relieved for two hours, no more. Then it’s back to the wall. You can sleep all you want when you’re dead.”

“Lying bastard,” mumbled a recruit nearby. I realized in surprise it was Kivi. Her voice was rough and she coughed. “I’ve died twice today, and I never got more than ten minutes rest.”

I wondered about that. Did a person come back feeling refreshed? Was it like sleep? I could hardly recall my own revival. It had been unpleasant, I knew that. The experience was like a dream to me now. I knew I’d remembered everything clearly when I first awakened, but now I’d lost the thread of it.

“You go,” Carlos said, looking at me.

“What?”

“You take first break. Take my spot.”

I finally figured out what he was talking about. “Do I look that bad?”

“Your face is wet with drool.”

I chuckled and heaved myself onto my feet. The truth was, I did feel pretty bad. I could use some food and rest.

“Thanks man,” I said. “You’re nowhere near as bad as everyone says.”

“Oh yeah, I am.”

I thanked him again and headed down the steps. I thought to myself that Carlos had changed since I’d first met him. I guess that getting killed and eaten by dinos could change anyone.

When I reached the mess hall I ate with gusto, and when my head touched my pillow, I passed out instantly.

It seemed to be only seconds later when my cot was roughly kicked over. I went sprawling on the floor. I looked up to see Veteran Harris glaring down at me. For some reason, I wasn’t surprised.

“Get back out there or I’ll feed you to the lizards myself!”

I jumped up, gathered my kit and headed back to the wall. Carlos was still there. He’d been placed on construction duty, patching up the wall with a slurry of blue puff-crete repair formula. His gloves were thick with it.

“Your turn for a break,” I said.

“So soon?” he asked sarcastically. “I thought you’d taken a two week vacation on the beach.”

“I billed your account.”

He flipped me off and staggered away toward the tents. I took over his position, and I had to admit I felt a lot better. The battlefield had been cleaned up by now, and it stank less, too. There was still a steamy haze hanging over the entire fortification, and the light of the binary stars overhead was brutal. In the evenings we could take off our helmets to breathe, but in the heat of day that was unthinkable. We had to have the air conditioning our suits provided to protect us.

About an hour later, I looked up to see a primus named Turov examining me. She wasn’t very tall, but she had sharp features and a stocky build. She didn’t look more than thirty years old, but I knew she was might be older. Dying in combat returned a person’s body to their last stored point—essentially making you younger than you had been. The system stored the mind often, but not the body. There was no point in making a dead legionnaire come back older than necessary. Some recruits, I knew, considered dying a perk. They talked as if they’d found a fountain of youth—but I thought repeatedly experiencing death was a grim price to pay just to stay young.

I straightened and threw a salute at the primus, even though I wasn’t sure I was really supposed to. She gave me a lazy return salute and narrowed her eyes. Then I noticed Veteran Harris was standing at her side, his arms crossed.

“Come with me, Recruit,” Turov said at last.

I followed, not daring to ask what was wrong. When a primus gave an order in Legion Varus, recruits were expected to follow it without question.

I glanced inquiringly to Veteran Harris, but he avoided my eye. A few hundred steps led us to a bunker in the ground. I stared at it for a second then realized it was the bunker that housed the officers’ quarters. I stood at attention, having no idea what this was about.

“Now,” the primus said, “do you know who I am, McGill?”

“A primus?” I asked, bewildered.

“That’s right. Do you know
which
primus?”

I strained to read her nametag just to double-check.

“Uh, Primus Turov?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “At least we know you can read. I’m
your
primus, Recruit.”

I nodded. “Sorry, I’ve never met anyone higher in rank than Centurion Graves.”

“Yes, I hear you made quite an impression on him, too,” she said. I saw a thin smile on her lips, as if she was enjoying a private joke. “Now, before I send you into the Tribune Drusus’ office—”

“Excuse me, Primus,” I dared to interrupt. The moment after I did so, I froze. She looked at me in displeasure, but she waited for me to speak.

“What is this about?” I asked.

“It’s about making false reports. At least, that’s what I hope you did.”

I blinked in confusion and looked at Harris for some help.

He sighed in disgust. “He just experienced his first death today,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“So what?” snapped the primus. “A lot of people die in Legion Varus. This mission is nothing special. Over five hundred died today alone. We’re down to half our protoplasm supplies, and I’ve had to order more down from the ship.”

Five hundred?
I thought. I couldn’t get that number out of my head.

“I just meant that he might not be one hundred percent—cognitively speaking,” Harris explained.

The primus stepped closer to me, peering up into my face. “A tall boy, aren’t you? Well? Do you think you’re suffering from delusions, McGill?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Go into this bunker, stand at attention in front of the desk and wait. The tribune should come around shortly. Whatever you do, don’t embarrass me.”

“I wouldn’t think of it.”

I saw Veteran Harris make a face behind her back. I could tell he believed I was quite capable of embarrassing any officer.

“Well?” she snapped. “You’re dismissed. Carry on, man!”

I stepped forward and entered the gloom of the bunker. After the glaring day outside, the dimly lit interior was blindingly dark. I walked down the puff-crete steps as evenly as I could, and when I reached the bottom I stood still until my eyes adjusted.

I was in an underground office. The chamber was quite nicely appointed. I turned my head slowly, trying to take it all in.

On the far wall opposite from where I’d entered, a series of heads were hung. These were alien in the extreme. Not one of them represented a species I was familiar with. There was a centipede-looking thing with pinchers as long as a man’s arm. Next to that, a wizened multi-eyed monkey stared at me. Third, and last of the trophies on display, appeared at first to be a bear of some kind—but then I caught sight of the six-inch curved fangs coming down from the upper jaw.

The desk itself was yellow metal and shiny. It appeared to be meticulously polished. There were eagles of the same metal at each of the four post-like corners of the desk. Embedded in the heart of the elaborate-looking piece of furniture was a screen that was smudged with fingerprints.

“Recruit James McGill,” said a voice.

I stiffened, stared directly ahead and stood at attention.

“At ease, McGill. I’m Tribune Drusus.”

I assumed a more relaxed posture, but it was all a ruse. I’d rarely been addressed directly by a primus or a centurion. To suddenly have the commander of all Legion Varus interested in me was unnerving.

“I see you’ve noticed my trophies,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you see the flags hanging over the entrance? I’m particularly proud of those.”

“No, sir.”

“Well, turn around and look at them, man!”

I turned and stared. There were flags draped over the entrance, just as he’d said.

“See this one? With the roman patrician’s head? That’s an image of Publius Quinctilius Varus. Do you know who he was?”

I shook my head.

“No, I suppose not. They don’t teach much legion history in Varus. It’s a shame, really. He was the commander of three Roman legions, and it is in his dubious honor our legion was named.”

I took a second to dart my eyes in the tribune’s direction. He was a thin man who looked intelligent and capable. But he didn’t look much like a warrior. Sometimes, I told myself, looks could be deceiving.

“Legion Varus,” he said thoughtfully. “Our name is a joke, a deception, did you know that?”

I glanced at him again, then away.

“No, Tribune.”

“Of course not,” he murmured. “Let me tell you the short version of an ancient story. One stormy day in the year 9 A. D., a horde of German barbarians waylaid Varus at the head of three legions. They were strung out and caught in a trackless forest—much like the one we’re in now. He and almost all his men were slaughtered. His head was hauled around as a trophy on a pike for weeks afterward. So you see, when they named us Varus, they named us after the biggest loser in Roman history.”

“Why would they do that, sir?”

He huffed. “We were assembled to do Earth’s dirty work, that’s why. To take on the missions no one else wanted, the deadliest of missions.”

That part of his little speech jibed with what I knew. Drusus stopped talking for a moment and walked to the opposite wall where his desk stood. He pointed at the heads on display there. I had no idea what he was talking about or why I was here, but I was determined to stay quiet about it. Maybe the answers would come in time.

“These heads are from enemy mercenary companies,” he informed me. “They faced Legion Varus in combat and lost. I cut them off and mounted them—just the way the Germans did to old Varus himself.”

I frowned.

“I can see you’re full of questions,” he said, watching me. “Ask them, please.”

“Why am I here, sir?”

“Because you saw an alien in the forest. One that can’t be here.”

I looked at him and he met my gaze evenly. “Am I in trouble for making my report?”

“No. I don’t operate that way. I don’t
like
your report, naturally. I wish there was video evidence to prove or disprove your claims one way or the other—but there isn’t. We have only a single, grainy night shot you took with your suit. We searched the area, you know. There was no body. Only saurian dead.”

“You don’t believe me, then?”

“I didn’t say that. I don’t like what this might mean, but I’m not going to shoot the messenger. Not this time.”

There was a pause in the conversation. I wasn’t sure if I should keep asking questions, but, as he was looking at me expectantly, I continued.

“What do you want from me, sir?” I asked.

“I wanted to meet you, mostly, to take your measure, to decide if you could be trusted to report the truth, or if you were some kind of troublemaker.”

“And what’s your verdict, sir?”

“You seem like a young, vigorous recruit. A man with a serious mind. Is it true you shot Veteran Harris to death during a training exercise?”

I felt like squirming but controlled the urge. “Yes, sir, I did.”

The tribune laughed suddenly. “That was quite a feat, you know. The man almost never dies.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Harris vouched for you. He said that, of all his recruits, he trusted you the most.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. This was news to me.

“Further, he is convinced that you
did
see what you reported. That it wasn’t an accident or some other kind of creature. That’s why he brought the issue to my attention.”

“What did I see out there?”

“The real enemy, Earth’s enemy. A creature that represents a competitor to our way of life.”

I frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“No, but you will. We all will, if I’m right. Let me explain it to you this way: do you know how the Empire works?”

“Only what I learned in school.”

He nodded sagely. “That’s good enough as a starting point. Each planet that is part of our vast, beloved Galactic Empire has a single commodity to trade. Without it, they’re kicked out of the Empire, losing their membership. The beings we call Galactics inhabit the thick clusters of stars at the core of our galaxy. They’re ancient and wise beyond our capacity to comprehend. They don’t tolerate failures in the fringe members of the Empire. They destroy any race that becomes economically insolvent.”