Undying Mercenaries 2: Dust World (23 page)

I struggled, but a second later I was lifted like a child by a kidnapper. I realized I was aloft and bouncing. They’d lifted me up and were carrying me away toward their ship, no doubt.

Visions of slavery on a strange world sprang up in my mind. I quelled panic. I had to keep myself in as cool a frame of mind as I could. I wanted to shout and call for help—but I resisted the urge. The recon team was too far from the rest of the platoon. No one was going to come to my aid in time.

As calmly as I could under the circumstances, I radioed Leeson and reported my situation.

“Sir, we’ve been overrun. We killed two tall, skinny guys, but I’m the only man left conscious.”

“What are you saying, McGill? Where’s the rest of the team? I’m only seeing your suit on my display.”

Squeezing my gauntlets, I shortened the force-blades. As it was, they’d been cutting through the forest of growths like twin scythes. I figured I might as well save power.

“Sir, they’ve been captured in some kind of metallic netting. Maybe it interferes with radio contact. We’re all being carried to the ship. We’ve been captured, sir—all of us.”

“What? By a bunch of naked freaks? Kill them and free yourself. That’s an order, McGill.”

I rolled my eyes as the channel closed. I tried to think, but it was difficult. There had to be something I could do. They were smarter than I’d assumed, and when they got me to their ship I was pretty sure they’d dismantle my suit and pull me out of it as a man might rip an oyster from its shell.

In the meantime, the slavers weren’t idle. They must have noticed my force-blades had withdrawn. They forced my arms forward, and I strained against them—but not too strongly. I didn’t want them to know just how powerful my exoskeleton could be if I diverted all power to the enhancement systems.

That was a mistake on my part because they touched my wrists together, and I heard a loud, metallic click.

The huge hand that had been over my visor retreated. I was able to see my situation clearly. My wrists each had a circle of metal around them. Two black rings that touched one another. I tugged, but my wrists would not come apart.

I recalled then what Della had told me:
They will place rings around your arms and touch them together. Then you will never be able to separate your hands from one another again until they will it.

I stared at those rings around my wrists for a long second, then cranked my neck around. We were heading toward the ship just as I’d thought. I saw Kivi, Hudson and Carlos were all netted and being dragged behind the other slavers. My comrades appeared to be helpless, paralyzed by the effect of the nets.

I wondered then if my first command was going to go down in Legion Varus history with a footnote declaring it a record-breaking failure.

We’d made a sorry showing. We’d only killed two of our attackers, and they’d captured my entire team. As the only man who could still act, I was determined to put up more of a fight.

The first thing I did was relax. I let the slavers carry me at a loping run toward the lowered ramp. Being carried like captive prey by tall skinny guys that were twice my height had to be the oddest ride I’d ever experienced. I felt like a little kid—something I wasn’t at all used to.

We reached the force shields that encircled their ship. I felt the screens tingle against my skin as we passed through them. The slavers were forced to slow down and
edge their way through. As we pressed into the shimmering zone of stilled molecules, I felt a chill pass through me, which was a side effect of shielding.

I noted that the slaver carrying me made a mistake then. He let go of my clasped wrists. His huge palm, a webbing of bones and skin, reached up to press against the screens. It was a natural enough thing to do. People normally tried to touch the screens, as they felt odd against your face, like a mass of breaking cobwebs. Putting out your hand to brush them away never helped end the sensation, but people did it all the time anyway.

Biding my time, I waited until the very moment we passed through the shielding. Force-blades didn’t operate properly inside a shield wall.

Once we were through, the slaver’s hand came for my wrists again. I grinned inside my helmet. I squeezed my fingers closed inside my right gauntlet, and a shimmering line of force sprouted like a unicorn horn out of it.

The slaver must have known what was coming. His red eyes widened, and I thought I heard a croak of dismay. I thrust my, short, thick blade home. The slaver crumpled, his legs going limp, and I crashed down five feet or more to the hard ground.

I grunted, rolled onto all fours and struggled to my feet. Ahead of me, Kivi, Hudson and Carlos were all being dragged away. I reached for my sidearm, but it was gone. The slavers had been bright enough to disarm me.

Glancing toward the shield that shot up into a high dome at my back, it occurred to me that I should be slipping back through it and running for the forest. Don’t think for a moment that this thought didn’t impinge strongly—it did. But against my desire for self-preservation was concern for my teammates, who were even now being carted toward that strange, looming ship. I stared after the slavers, watching my friends bang against their legs in sacks of metallic webbing.

What would happen to Kivi, to Carlos? I didn’t know Hudson that well, but I knew he didn’t deserve this fate.

The key problem was that they couldn’t be revived if they were captured. One of the chief nightmares of any Legionnaire was exactly this situation. There were few fates worse than being held captive and incognito on an alien world. Without a confirmed death, the legion couldn’t legally revive you—probably a good thing, in my estimation. Who’d want to try to live a normal life knowing that you had a copy of yourself screaming in a cell lightyears away, circling a distant star?

“Ah, crap,” I muttered, and started after the trio of slavers. I cranked my exoskeleton to full power and diverted most of it to my legs. With leaps and bounds, I raced after them.

They spotted me before I reached the ramp. The slavers were at the foot of that vast tongue of metal. Just the ramp by itself was impressive. It had looked small at a distance, but up close, I realized it was
huge
. The size of a basketball court at least.

Above that tongue was a vast black mouth that yawned open. There was darkness inside, punctuated by brilliant points of white light. I didn’t know what they had in there, and right now I didn’t want to know.

I concentrated on one thing: getting to my friends before they were dragged into that ship and forgotten forever.

Very aware of my situation, I saw the big gun on top of the ship catch sight of me. Like a bird of prey, it tracked and swiveled. Could it have nothing better to burn than little old me?

To give it something to worry about, I ran into a pile of crated equipment. The operators would have to make a decision; was a single man worth damaging their stockpile?

The gun kept tracking me right up to the point where I set foot on the ramp. It never fired, and at that point shifted away toward more distant enemies. I didn’t have time to breathe a sigh of relief, however.

In front of me, the three slavers turned around. They looked surprised to see me sprinting after them—even amused. Behind me, a squad of nine littermates who’d been standing in a perfect square like switched-off robots suddenly came to life. They turned together and approached. I imagined that someone in the ship had activated the squad to deal with the lone human inside their perimeter.

It didn’t take a genius to realize I was trapped and screwed. The nine at my rear shouldered huge rifles, but the slavers lifted hands and chittered at them waving them back. They must have been happy to see a new captive who seemed intent on delivering himself into their vast hands.

The trio dropped my friends like sacks of meal. Then they stepped apart, moving to flank me.

This was it, I realized. It was time to do—and to die.

Moments like this come to legion troops more often than old Earth armies. Knowing you’re going to come back to life after a fight changes a man’s calculations. Sure, plenty of times in history men have made the decision to go down fighting, to take as many of the enemy with them as they could, but with foreknowledge of resurrection, I think we were a little more likely to choose such a path.

Legionnaires didn’t fall to their knees and beg for mercy from our alien foes. We didn’t embrace capture as a way out
. Instead, we feared it as one of the worst possible fates.

Knowing I was about to die freed up my mind and my body. I wasn’t afraid anymore—not exactly. I was intent on doing damage, as much as I could, before they brought me down.

The slavers didn’t know any of this, naturally. They knew I could fight. They knew I was dangerous, but they couldn’t know they had a suicidal maniac charging toward them.

I veered left, letting the center man maneuver to circle behind me. The man on the far right huffed and ran forward, not wanting to be left out of the capture.

Take down one at a time,
Veteran Harris had always said.
The others guys can wait. Finish your target and move on only after you’re sure the first one is in the bag.

To my pleasure, I noticed a hint of doubt in the expression on my targeted slaver’s ugly face. The tall, skinny monster on the left side of the ramp didn’t look as happy as the other two.

Still, he postured himself gamely enough. His knobby knees flexed and bent. His arms flew wide—impossibly wide. He had a wingspan that would have made a condor jealous.

Instead of extending two force-blades, I extended only one. After all, my wrists were still clamped together. I couldn’t work two weapons effectively if I couldn’t move my arms independently.

I slowed down in the final moments of my charge. I leveled one long blade like a lance. Shimmers of dusky orange, magenta and neon green ran the length of the blade like electric flames. The colors reached the tip, then chased themselves back again to my gauntlet.

Thrusting for the slaver’s midsection, I was surprised by his agility. He bounced backward, squirming in the air. I thrust and missed again, while he retreated farther.

His strategy was immediately clear to me. The other two were circling and closing in. They’d pull me down from behind, just as they’d done before.

With a snarl of frustration, I shifted right toward my three helpless comrades. The slaver I’d been stabbing at gargled something in his throat and advanced to follow me.

That was the move I’d been waiting for. I whirled back and thrust for him again—but this time I stabbed downward, lancing his foot. I pinned it for a brief second to the ramp itself.

He struggled with a cry of pain and pulled away the smoking remnants of his injured foot. My blade flicked upward again—and this time he couldn’t dodge and hop away. I gutted him and left him flopping on the ramp.

I turned with barely a second to spare. The center man, who’d been coming up behind me, closed his massive hands. His fingers enveloped each of my arms.

It was a losing strategy for him. Force-blades don’t get pinned. They may take a few seconds to burn through a tough substance, but they always go through in the end.

I cut the second man in half, from crotch to skull. Those big hands that gripped me fell away as lifeless as dead autumn leaves.

The third and final slaver lost heart then. He pointed at me and turned toward the nine that stood in perfect formation at the foot of the ramp. He was obviously declaring me
persona non grata
. I couldn’t blame him for that.

The front rank of the nine dropped to the ground, the second rank went down to one knee, and the three in back stood tall. Once in position, they lifted their rifles and sighted in unison.

I hadn’t waited around while they created their own miniature firing-square. I ignored the last slaver and ran to my three comrades.

My force-blade sank first into Kivi. It was a hard thing to do, let me tell you. I’ve slept with Kivi, and I’ve fought with her and died at her side. To kill her, to drive my lance into her back while she lay there helpless and paralyzed—I never wanted to do it again.

Three quick strides brought me to Carlos next. He was lying in a different pose. His face plate was open and his brown eyes stared up at me. Even though he was watching, I found it a little easier to kill him—don’t ask me why.

The first volley caught me then, knocking me from my feet and tossing me ass-over-teakettle right up the ramp. I was broken, and my armor had at least four smoking holes punched into it.

I’d taken nine massive slugs, but I struggled to my knees and approached Hudson, the last of the captives. I can’t tell you how much pain I was in. I’m not really sure anyone can when they’re already dead but still moving. My body was functioning to some extent, not having shut down completely yet, but for the most part I was numb.

The last slaver made whooping noises. I’m not really sure if he was cheering on the gunners, or impressed by my performance, or just plain happy to be alive.

Crawling, I reached Hudson, but I didn’t get my blade into him. I tried, oh Lord, how I tried, but my body just wouldn’t obey me anymore.

I rolled onto my back, going limp. The sky above was lit by the harsh light of Zeta Herculis, but there was no beauty in the sight for me.