Death World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 5) (32 page)

“Of course you would. Dismissed.”

Winslade left, and I was glad to see him go.

Smiling an odd smile, Galina came to me and sat in my lap. When my hands came up to reach for her, she slapped me a hard one across the face.

I looked at her questioningly.

“You’re becoming insolent,” she said. “I wanted to shoot you when you sprawled yourself out in this chair like a child. Winslade knows we’re having an affair. It’s affecting his performance.”

I scoffed. “I think you’ll find
my
performance hasn’t diminished in the least.”

My arms came up again, and this time she allowed them to encircle her. She squirmed a little, but she let me touch her. Things progressed quickly as they always did with Galina. After making doubly sure the desktop display was turned off and not recording anything, she leaned on it and let me have my way with her, right then and there.

After we were finished, she walked primly around to the other side of the desk. Her clothes reknitted over her as I watched. I was sorry to see her soft skin vanish under cloth.

“That was the last time, James,” she said.

My jaw sagged. “Really?”

“Yes. People are beginning to talk. I find that annoying. Please don’t be distraught.”

I felt an urge to laugh at the idea that I would cry about losing her, but I knew enough to hold that back. Sure, I liked our get-togethers, what man wouldn’t? But I’d never been one to fool myself into thinking she seriously cared about me. The best I could hope for was an even break now and then.

“I’m surprised, not hurt,” I said. “Women don’t dump me all that often. Not without good reason, anyway.”

“Yes,” she said. “Usually you forget about them and wander off. Just as often they catch you cheating and become angry. Don’t you think it’s better for both of us to end it this way instead? As adults?”

Thinking, I stuck out my chin and nodded. “Good enough. I guess I’ll be going, but there’s one more thing, Galina.”

“What is it?”

“Did you mean what you said? About being impressed by my actions in the field?”

She met my eyes evenly. “Absolutely. Compared to you, Winslade is a worm under a rock.”

I knew she was right, of course. But hearing it from someone in command was good for the spirit.

Galina Turov was as ruthless as they came, and she didn’t pull any punches. That said, I felt I could count on her to say what she thought was the truth most of the time.

Happy with her honest praise, I smiled all the way out of the lifter and back to my squad.

-41-

The next morning we launched an all-out assault.
Minotaur
had been squatting in space over Death World for about a week now. In all that time, it hadn’t shifted orbit or responded to transmissions other than in the most rudimentary, automated fashion.

Fortunately, the dreadnaught was far enough out in space to stay stable. The orbit hadn’t decayed, so it wasn’t in danger of falling and crashing yet. The techs had already calculated we had around two years before that happened. But we weren’t interested in waiting around any longer than we had to.

We loaded up four hundred troops, carrying the best of the gear we had left. We left Winslade and about two hundred troops behind, camped on the endless green expanse of grass that had begun to grow over the scorched land. Turov had assigned him a single combat unit, which was made up of poorly equipped recruits. They had a few bunkers and drones, and of course, were left in charge of the revival unit.

Winslade was all smiles and waving as we took off and left him. You’d have thought we were loved ones going on a cruise.

Anne, Natasha and most of the other non-combatants were left planet-side with Winslade. There would be time enough to ferry them to
Minotaur
later—assuming that we were able to recapture her.

All attention turned toward our goal once the cloud cover enveloped the world below us. I was up in the command center with Turov, Tribune Drusus and Captain Graves. That was quite an honor for me. I didn’t know why they’d taken me up there, unless it was because there was plenty of room. The briefing chambers were meant to hold all the officers in a full cohort.

Turov, as usual, spoke first. “I want to tell you all that I have the utmost confidence in the highly-experienced troops Legion Varus has left,” she said, looking from one centurion to the next. “I’m only sorry that we could not bring more troops. It would take months to revive the whole legion, and this lifter is only capable of transporting a single cohort.”

A centurion named Martinez spoke up.  She was a stocky woman with her hair pulled back so tightly her eyebrows were half-way up her forehead.

“We could have waited one more week, at least,” she said. “Then we’d have a thousand troops rather than four hundred.”

Turov looked at her flatly. “Yes. But we don’t have guns for that many men. In that same period of time, we don’t know how much stronger the enemy aboard the ship might grow. They might even gain control of the ship and maroon us here.”

Tribune Drusus cleared his throat. Turov glanced at him and nodded.

“Now,” she said, “I’m going to turn planning over to our master tactician, Tribune Drusus.”

She stepped away from the central console and Drusus stepped forward. The officers relaxed visibly. Drusus was far more experienced in this area. I considered it a wise move on her part to relinquish control.

“Thank you, Imperator,” Drusus said. “I’ve been studying this problem since we first learned
Minotaur
had been overrun. Here’s the ship in detail.”

He brought up a three-dimensional display of the vessel and spun it around with his fingertips so that we were looking at the stern region.

“As best we can tell, the enemy pierced the thick hull surrounding the engine core. This took time, but when they finally made it through, they were able to do enough damage to poison the atmosphere of the ship.”

As we watched, a simulation of poisonous gas flooded the ship. The decks were each displayed in their appropriate color: gold for the command level, green for the central exercise zone and blue for the bio level. These decks were sealed at first, but with the help of the invading aliens, the gas spread from zone to zone until the entire ship was affected.

“This scenario is supposition, of course,” Drusus said. “But we know from models that it could have happened this way, especially given the alien capacity to excrete acids that burn through metal quickly. Taken by surprise, most of our troops would have succumbed to the radiation and poisoned air. The rest were probably killed by the invaders themselves.”

We watched in grim silence as deck by deck, the ship was invaded and all resistance extinguished. I felt a fresh surge of hatred for the Wur, and I had to wonder how many desperate troops had fought to the death on
Minotaur
. Cut off and dying, I was sure our troops had done their damnedest—but it hadn’t been enough.

“That’s all history,” Drusus said, watching our grim faces. “Here’s the plan to retake the ship. We’ll start here, at Green Deck. The upper dome is shielded with a heavy blast-dome, but we can disable that from the outer hull and get the clamshell dome to open. After that, all we have to do is puncture the inner transparent bubble and enter the ship.”

There were surprised looks all around. Martinez spoke up again.

“But won’t that release the atmosphere, sir? Explosive decompression will result. If there are any survivors...”

“If there are, we doubt we’ll find them on Green Deck. Think about it. These are plants. Where do you think the Wur are most likely to have taken up residence? Moreover, the atmosphere inside the ship has been compromised already. We’ll have to release it all anyway to begin the clean-up process.”

Martinez nodded. She retreated a step and said nothing more. I understood how she felt. The situation was terrible. All this time, down here on the planet’s surface, we’d been too busy to think about how the rest of our legion had fared. But now, we were going to be confronted with the gruesome realities.

There had to be thousands of dead. They’d been left rotting for a week inside our ship. Even if we could retake
Minotaur
, we were going to have a hell of a time making the ship livable again.

There wasn’t much argument after that. People got their assignments, and they left one by one to brief their teams. Each unit got a specific mission, either to capture a critical zone of the ship or to search and destroy enemy combatants.

“McGill?” Drusus said at last.

“Here sir,” I said. I’d been hanging back in a shadowy region near a curving bulkhead. There were only a few people left in the chamber, so I walked up to the central console.

“There you are. It’s not like you to hide.”

“No sir. What can I do for you?”

Drusus eyed me strangely. “I’ve got a special mission for you. I want you to get to Gold Deck and get to this area.”

He leaned over the table and zoomed in on the map of the ship. A region blinked red. It was part of Gold Deck, way out along the starboard side.

“Storage locker six, sir?” I said, reading the legend that popped up between us.

“That’s it. There should be something useful there or right near that location. A combat vehicle.”

It was about then that I noticed Turov. She was staring at me from her seat in a chair behind Drusus. She looked like a cat eyeing a bird on the wrong side of a plate glass window. That look on that woman’s face made me nervous.

“Uh…a combat vehicle, sir? You mean a dragon?”

“That’s right.”

“I thought we left all the dragons—”

“McGill, are you refusing this mission?” he asked.

“No sir. Not at all. I can see how a dragon might be useful. I accept the mission, sir.”

“I’ll inform Graves.”

That was it. I walked out, headed to my squad in the hold, and sat down with them. Sargon was the first one to notice that I had an odd look on my face.

“What’s up, boss?” he asked, frowning.

“Nothing,” I said. “But we’ve got a special op coming.”

I explained it to him and the rest of the squad. They were left scratching their heads with me.

“Let me get this straight,” Carlos said. “Your girlfriend sent you to Gold Deck to get her shoes, is that it?”

“Shut up, Specialist,” I said.

Kivi perked up at the mention of the word “girlfriend.” She looked from me to Carlos and back again.

“Girlfriend? On Gold Deck? McGill, don’t tell me you’ve been fooling around with Turov again. I thought you’d buried that evil relationship back on Tech World.”

“Think again!” Carlos said unhelpfully. “Actually, I can’t believe you didn’t already know, Kivi. You need to get online more. There are chat-line reports and even a few blurry snaps taken by suit-cameras.”

“What?” I demanded. “Of all the dirty, underhanded—”

“Luckily they aren’t underhanded,” Carlos said, showing me his tapper. “At least you have your clothes on. Turov’s hair looks a little funny, though, as you two come out of her office together in this one. That’s a dead giveaway, McGill. Unprofessional.”

A blurry shot of me kissing the Imperator was displayed on Carlos’ arm. I had no idea who’d taken it. Hell, it might have been a buzzer on the wall for all I knew.

“That’s the trouble with pinhead cameras flying around everywhere,” I complained.

Kivi’s face pushed between us, and she got a good look.

“Dammit,” she said. “You’re a fool, that’s all I have to say. You’re not going to get anything out of that relationship other than friction with everyone in the legion.”

“Ha-ha!” burst out Carlos. “Friction! McGill’s all over that.”

“There is no relationship, Kivi,” I said, but that sounded weak, even to me. Still, I had to try. “We’re not seeing each other anymore. It was just a weak moment caught on camera.”

“Hey,” Carlos said, nudging me, “check this out.”

Knowing I shouldn’t, I saw him swipe to a brief vid. This one showed me coming out of the Imperator’s quarters, not her office. Neither of us was entirely dressed, and she had a beverage in her hand.

“Shit,” I said.

“Look at it this way, McGill,” he said, “at least she’s smiling.”

I grabbed his arm and tapped the delete button while he chuckled. A few moments later, he showed me he had it back again.

“What the hell…?” I demanded.

“It’s on a server somewhere. In a cache, floating on a cloud—whatever. Give it up, McGill. You’re famous. The good stuff never dies on the net.”

Knowing he was right, I sat glumly for the rest of the flight. I decided to ignore them. After all, I’d done it, and they couldn’t be expected to let it go. Sometimes there were things that superseded the chain of command. I couldn’t squelch their fun without turning into a raging dick, and they didn’t deserve that.

So, I suffered the ribbing until it died down then turned to business, giving out tactical assignments.

“I don’t have to remind you all that this is do or die,” I told them when I had their full attention again. “We’re sitting in the last lifter. Our legion is over ninety-percent dead. The enemy strength is unknown, but it was enough to kill everyone aboard when they invaded.”

They began to sober up as they listened to my words. The odds were bleak.

Legionnaires, particularly those who had the misfortune to sign up with Legion Varus, aren’t strangers to death. But that didn’t mean we
liked
dying.