Tech World (Undying Mercenaries Series) (40 page)

Kivi was up and circling, eyes wild, looking for another weapon. I kept Carlos pinned. My blood ran down from my arm and my leg, splattering all over his back.

“I should kill both of you clowns, right here, right now,” I said, my sides heaving.

“Do it!” Carlos said from the floor. “It won’t make any difference. We’re all screwed.”

“Then maybe we should be figuring a way out of our situation rather than fighting amongst ourselves. Turov is probably recording this and sipping a martini right now. Maybe this was her plan all along. Let’s keep going—wouldn’t want to disappoint.”

Kivi frowned and looked around at the walls, which might very well have cameras. They were everywhere these days, and the low-res models were no bigger than a needle.

“Let him up,” Kivi said, gesturing toward Carlos.

“You promise not to try killing me?” I asked Carlos.

“Sure,” he said. “Why not? If you can get us out of this, McGill, I’ll clean your kit for a year. And Kivi—well, she’ll warm your bed for a year, no charge. Won’t you, girl?”

She kicked him, and I didn’t interfere. He deserved it. He always did.

I got up off Carlos’ back and he struggled to his feet.

“You’re bleeding bad,” Kivi said to me.

“
Now
you care?” I asked incredulously. I found a skin-printer and ran the wand over my injuries.

“Do you really have a plan?” Kivi asked. Her eyes were desperate.

So odd,
I thought. She’d been hell-bent on cutting me a minute ago. I took a second to reflect on just how dying all the time could twist a person’s mind. We were effectively immortal—but that only made us fear the process of death more because we knew what it was really like. At the same time, we’d become callous about the lives of others and terrified of getting ourselves permed. Now that perma-death was a very real possibility—even a
probability
—all semblance of civilized behavior had been stripped away.

“People,” I said, “we have to pull it together. Where’s Natasha? Did they catch her too?”

Kivi slapped me. “Always thinking about your women! All of them except for me, that is. I wasn’t even involved in your scheme and Turov didn’t believe me. She came into my room and murdered me. She clipped off my arms and legs first. My head was the last to go.”

I thought I saw a single tear welling up in her left eye. That was unusual and significant. Turov must have made it traumatic if Kivi was even
close to crying.

“Forget all that,” I said. “Forget about Turov. I’m asking about Natasha because she’s the only one that can help us.”

“Then we’re screwed, big guy,” Carlos said. “She was arrested too. I don’t know what they charged her with, but I can guess.”

The revival machine burbled then. We all looked at it. Kivi’s lip curled.

“Who do you think…?” she asked.

We approached the machine, and I worked open the jaws. There were feet in there—female feet. I pulled Natasha out and revived her as gently as I could.

“Good,” said Kivi. “She deserves to join us. I’m the only one who shouldn’t be here.”

“Kivi,” I said, nursing Natasha who was groggy and feeble, “I’ll tell Turov that. I’m not sure she’ll believe me, but I’ll tell her at the trial.”

“There’s going to be a trial?” Natasha asked weakly.

I felt a wave of regret. Sure, I’d blown away the squid ship and saved the Tau and their station, but my friends and I had paid a grim price and it was about to get worse.

When the hatch finally rattled, I stood close to the door. Carlos moved like a spider poising himself behind the door, but I waved him away. That wasn’t going to work.

Sure enough, three heavies in full armor strode in. The
y plucked Carlos out of his hiding place like he was bug on the wall. They gave us clothes at least, but no weapons. We had nothing but thin cloth.

We were marched down a long passageway. I hadn’t remembered the passage being this long before. As we passed a viewport, I glanced outside.

Tech World was gone. Instead, stars glided by. I knew the image was projected, not actual. We were in warp, and the viewport was only reporting to our eyes what we would have seen if mere vision could have penetrated an Alcubierre warp-bubble—which it couldn’t.

When we got to the command module, Kivi, Natasha and Carlos were left manacled in the waiting area. At least they had comfortable seats.

I was ushered into the next room. As the ringleader, I guessed I was going to stand trial first.

-42-

Imperator Turov gave me a little smile as I entered her office. I could tell she was looking forward to the trial. I reflected that maybe she was happy about the situation. After all, she’d been trying to get me permed legitimately alm
ost since we’d first met. What a cold witch she was! We’d had two bouts of passion recently, but none of that seemed to be impinging on her now.

Tribune Drusus was there, but he didn’t look at me. Tribune Armel arrived a moment later. He had a drink in his hand, and
somehow I knew it wasn’t iced tea.

“Here he is,” Armel said with an odd smile. “The famous James McGill. The man who embodies Legion Varus with his roguish charm.”

“Shut up, Armel,” Turov said in a mild tone of voice. “This is a trial. I demand decorum.”

“Right you are, sir,” he said, finding a chair and sinking into it. He took a long slurping drink from his glass and eyed everyone expectantly.

“Let us begin,” Turov said seriously. She took a seat as well.

For my part, I stood at attention facing the three of them. I stared over their heads, studying the wall. My face was as expressionless as I could make it.

“Specialist James McGill,” Turov said slowly. “Where did we go wrong with you?”

I wasn’t sure if I was expected to answer, but I did anyway. If man can’t talk when he’s on trial for his life, well, there’s no justice in the universe.

“Legion Varus wanted me, sir,” I said. “They saw my psych profiles. It’s all there. No one should be surprised.”

Drusus leaned forward. “It’s one thing to see a number on a chart, McGill, and another to have one of your enlisted men mutiny and start an interstellar war.”

As nothing had been asked, I made no reply.

Armel shook his head suddenly and gave a bray of laughter. He was mildly drunk, I could see that now. He rattled his glass and the ice cubes chased one another around in a swirling circle.

“You should give this man a medal!” he said exuberantly. “He’s right—he’s the poster-child for your entire outfit, Drusus.”

“Give it a rest, Armel,” Drusus retorted. “If it wasn’t for Varus, you’d have been out of a job by now. Earth would be toast. You know that.”

“Ha! Fantasies! Hegemony gives you shit-work and tells you how important you are. Haven’t you ever considered the idea that anyone could do these ‘critical’ missions? That they’re left to your misfits precisely because no one else wants to experience whatever meat-grinder planet you’ll been assigned to next?”

Drusus’ face darkened and he began to stand, but Turov waved him back down. She’d been smugly watching the interchange up until this point, but now she seemed to have grown tired of the show.

“That’s enough,” she said. “We’ve talked for nearly two hours, gentlemen. The time has come to make a decision. What is to be done with the defendant? You’ve had plenty of time to come to a conclusion. How do you vote?”

This statement caught me by surprise. I flicked my eyes downward and scanned each face. Drusus and Armel were looking a
t each other, Drusus was angry while Armel was amused. Turov, for her part, was staring right at me. That look—it made me uncomfortable.

Tribune Armel was all smiles. “Guilty!” he said, leaning forward and swilling down the last of his drink. “Perm him—you really should have done it ages ago, my fellow officers. I can’t comprehend why you didn’t take appropriate action after previous abuses. Now is a fresh opportunity to correct your past errors.”

Armel’s vote wasn’t really a surprise to me. My eyes slid to meet those of Drusus. He was my best hope.

Tribune Drusus heaved a sigh. “I’ve been hoping for years it wouldn’t come down to something like this,” he said. “But I’m afraid I have to agree with my colleague this time. James, you’ve gone too far. We can’t allow people to take policy into their own hands. Surely you can see that?”

I didn’t know what to say. I liked Drusus, and I could see that his decision pained him. Maybe he liked me just a little as well.

“I put you in a bad spot, sir,” I said. “I know that. But I believed then as I believe now that we’re going to have to fight the squids sooner or later. They’re bullies, sir. To show weakness to their kind will only invite further attacks. Regardless of how you people judge me, history will tell the truth.”

“A philosopher!” shouted Armel suddenly. “A prognosticator! A seer of the future! Drusus, really, you shouldn’t have hidden this gem for so long. So good of you to share him with us at last.”

Drusus cast Armel a venomous glance.

I found Armel’s behavior annoying but also baffling. The Tribune wasn’t acting his age. He had to know that the situation was a serious one. Maybe getting loaded, taunting Drusus and perming me was his way of coping with the magnitude of what was occurring in this star system.

All eyes now fell upon the Imperator. As the commanding officer in the system, she could veto the execution—or go along with the verdict and order me permed.

“Gentlemen,” she said, standing up, “please leave me with the accused for a moment, will you?”

This caused a general look of surprise from the Tribunes.

“Imperator?” Drusus asked. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? The accused has been known to turn violent under similar circumstances.”

Turov touched her sidearm confidently. “I think I’ll be fine. Do you really think he could kill me?”

“Frankly…yes,” Drusus said.

Turov frowned. “Get out.”

They hesitated, but only for a second.

On his way past me to the door, Armel gave me a wink and suggestive twitch of the lips, as if he suspected I might well be kissing Turov in his absence. I wanted to punch him or at least flip him off, but I did neither. I was in enough trouble as it was. And besides, I had to admit that if romance was what Turov had in mind, she was going to have her way with me today.

When the two of us were alone, the Imperator immediately came to the point. She opened her top desk drawer and lifted the Galactic key in her hand. The iridescent shell-shaped object was placed on her desk where the screen glowed around it. Usually, desk computers would helpfully identify and connect with any technological gizmo you put on them, but not this time. The desk glowed, but only a question mark in a bubble appeared beside it.

“What is this, James?”

I eyed the invaluable object. My expression indicated vague interest on my part.

“That is a trick cigarette lighter, sir,” I said. “It’s difficult to operate with a human hand, but if you give it to me I’ll show you how.”

She blew air through her lips and rolled her eyes. “I will do no such thing. You will explain this artifact and how it functions. I want to know what role it played in your scheme.”

For the first time since my current body had been born, my lips curved up into a smile. It wasn’t a broad grin—but it was definitely a smile.

“What’s it worth to you, sir? As a condemned man…”

“You aren’t condemned yet. But as your every word is annoying me further, you’re getting closer to that goal.”

We stared at one another for several seconds, at an impasse.

“Fine,” she snapped, reaching out with a finger toward her desktop. “I will summon Natasha Elkin. She will be slaughtered here on my carpet. I will then revive her and ask her about the artifact again. If she doesn’t answer to my satisfaction, I’ll repeat the process until we make planetfall over Earth.”

I frowned. “Why don’t you try that with me, sir?”

“Because I don’t think it would work. At least, not as quickly as it will with Specialist Elkin.”

I sighed. “All right,” I said. “But you have to leave the others out of this. They weren’t responsible—I was. Hell, Kivi didn’t even know what we were up to.”

“Really?” she said thoughtfully. “Then I made a miscalculation in her case. I didn’t think you could pull off something so elaborate without the help of all your comrades.”

“It wasn’t all that elaborate.”

“Yes, it was. You essentially took command of our weapons systems and managed to hit a target of your choosing. Not only did you hit it, you destroyed it.”

“I’m a weaponeer, sir. Legion Varus has trained me well.”

She
nudged the key on her desktop. “What does it do?”

“Are you voting to perm me or not?”

“That depends entirely on your answer.”

Chewing that over for a few seconds, I pondered my options. There weren’t many. I could try to jump her, but she was on the far side of a big desk. All she had to do was pull out her sidearm and fire a single shot. Even a representative of Hegemony brass should be capable of doing that much.

“First, I want some assurances,” I said. “I want my friends let off the hook—not just me.”

“Fine—if this item is worth anything.”

“It is, don’t worry.”

“So what is it, damn
you? How did you pull off all these tricks?”

“
No trickery was involved,” I said. “The magic was all technological. This item is what’s known as a Galactic key.”

I went on for a few minutes to explain the key’s purpose and operation. As I spoke, Turov’s eyes widened.

“I don’t believe it,” she said, picking up the object and turning it slowly in her hands. “This explains so much… I must admit I’m in your debt for having brought it to me.”

I frowned. “It’s mine, sir.”

“No it isn’t. This item belongs to me now. You will also maintain full secrecy as to the nature of it—even its existence. In return, I’ll stay your sentence and pardon your friends. Further, as your entire scheme was my idea originally, I’ll promote you to candidacy for Veteran as a reward for having executed my plans flawlessly.”

My eyes squinted into two narrow lines. “What?
Your
idea, sir?”

“That’s right. You followed my orders. You succeeded in a
clandestine mission. You aren’t authorized to talk about it further with any other persons. Are these conditions clear?”

My
face twisted up in disgust, but I quickly saw the advantages of her offer.

“I accept your terms, sir,” I said. “And I hope you’re happy with the way I executed your brilliant plan.”

Turov was barely listening to me. She had the shell-like key in her hands, and she was turning it this way and that, gazing at it from every angle as if it were made of the purest diamond.

“
Yes,” she said. “I’m happy with you, James. Very happy indeed.”