Steel World (5 page)

“Those are sweet deals.”

“Right. And they’re taking me up in a lifter tonight.”

Carlos’s eyes widened. “You signed?”

I nodded. “On the spot. They’re taking me right in and straight up to space. No boot camp. No bullshit.”

“All right,” he said, straightening his spine and tugging at his collar. “If you can get in, they’re sure to take me.”

“I bet you’re right about that.”

He glided downward, and I chuckled all the way to a mug of beer on the main floor. I figured that I might have screwed myself by joining Varus, but at least I’d be bringing along a friend.

-3-

Several hours later, I found myself being shaken awake. An angry Carlos glared at me.

“What’s wrong with you, McGill?” he demanded.

“I was sleeping, actually.”

We were on the sky-train to the transport lifter. I looked outside, bleary-eyed. It was raining, and huge ships sat hulking in their blast-pans all over the field. I stretched and blinked at them. They were dark, unpainted and ugly.

“Those must be the transports.”

“No shit,” Carlos said. He seemed agitated. He was standing, despite all the flashing signs telling him to sit down and buckle in.

“I’ve been researching this Varus outfit. It’s a loser. Do you know what? Varus has wiped
twice
.”

I didn’t want admit I didn’t know what wiped meant, so I played it cool. “Yeah, so?”

“You can’t be this big of a moron! What’s wrong with you? Do you have some kind of death-wish? Maybe you’re so tall that you need two brains to drive that body of yours, is that it? Well, please stop talking to me with the hindbrain!”

I was beginning to get mad. I don’t get angry quickly, but bad things happen when I finally reach the point of no return.

I unbuckled and stood up, towering over him.

“You know what I want to do right now?” I asked him.

I could see in his eyes that he did.

“Yeah, sorry,” he said. “I have that effect on a lot of people. Listen—just tell me—did you screw me here? Did you get me to sign with Varus on purpose? That was what I thought when I read that stuff. But then I got here and saw you really
were
here, and you really
did
sign. So now I’m not sure.”

“Just tell me what you found out about Varus.”

“They’ve wiped—dead, every one of them, down to the last man. And they’ve done that more than once.”

He’d finally gotten through to me. “Wiped…as in got wiped out.”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what it means. They were all killed. All of them. Do you get that? No survivors.”

“We’re not talking about perma-death, right?”

“No, of course not. If they all got permed they would have deleted the legion. But they all died on several occasions and were regenerated from stored data. The point is: they suck. They take losers because no one wants to join. The recruits die
a lot
in this legion.”

I shrugged. “It’s not like you
really
die,” I said. “Not if they can bring you back.”

Carlos laughed and sat next to me. Both of us buckled in again.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, “they store a copy. They can reconstruct you out of pigsblood or whatever. But that means you still got to enjoy the full experience of death. You know, as in pain, fear—the whole thing. Doesn’t that sound great?”

I was beginning to see his point. “Why did they wipe?”

“No one knows. No one knows what kind of work they do, either. They’re secretive about it. Once you join Varus, you don’t talk about your missions anymore.”

I thought about that, and all the possible reasons why that might be the case. None of them sounded good to me.

“Maybe they do illegal contracts,” I said. “Maybe we’ve joined a legion of smuggler guardians.”

“Either that, or they’re some kind of pirates.”

I nodded. “You going to try to skip out?” I asked.

“No, I’d rather risk going off-world than take a tour of prison.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because they don’t revive you if you die behind bars.”

I laughed. “I see your point. If I’ve ever met anyone who’s likely to get shanked in prison, it’s you.”

He twisted his mouth and gave me a sour look. “Thanks.”

Just then, the sky-train rattled to a stop. We walked off with about ten other recruits. They looked scared, furtive and suspicious—no one looked happy.

Carlos stayed close behind me. I thought about telling him to shove off, but I didn’t for some reason. He was annoying, but I had gotten him into this, and he was the only person in the legion besides Veteran Harris who knew my name.

Outside, we unloaded under the massive shadow of a transport lifter. It blocked out the moon, the stars and even the lights around the field. We stumbled in the dark, but then a shimmering line of yellow LEDs came on. These were embedded in the tarmac like the ones that led you out of a building in an emergency.

Barely talking, we followed the lights until we came to a ramp that dropped down from the transport’s belly. It looked as if a massive predator was lowering its jaw to swallow us up. Dutifully, we marched up the ramp and into the ship. At the top, a bored looking tech specialist took our silver disks and checked our identification. She dropped every disk into a container, and we didn’t get them back.

On the inside, the lifter was less than dramatic. There were no windows down in the holding pens where we were. Just fold-down seats and harnesses, most of which were empty. A few crewmen walked between the rows, shouting for us to untwist our belt straps, check the buckles twice, and to aim at the crusty drain in the center of each row if we barfed.

Then the ship flew, and it wasn’t fun at all. It was wrenching, as if we were riding the fastest elevator in history for about twenty full minutes. There was free-fall at the top, but when you’re strapped in and smelling vomit it wasn’t as cool as it had looked in online games.

At last, there came a series of tremendous clangs and rasping sounds. The ship shook as if a train was going by.

“We’re docking up,” Carlos said.

He’d taken the seat next to me. At least he’d managed to hold onto his dinner.

The crew didn’t come back. Instead, the ship went silent. Slowly, the recruits began to chatter. There were probably a hundred or more on board all together. We’d taken the last sky-train out to the transport tonight. The rest had come out earlier. A lot of them said they’d been sitting on this rust-bucket for hours.

Everyone looked around expectantly, waiting for something to happen. When something finally did, they groaned aloud.

The lights went out. This unwelcome event was accompanied by a long, drawn-out whirring sound that died at the end. We’d all heard that kind of noise before: It was the sound of failing machinery.

The ship was pitch-black for about ten seconds. Then there were banging sounds as relays were thrown. A dim, reddish glow filled the ship. Emergency lighting, I figured. At the end of each row of seats, a line of status LEDs flashed, turning from green to dull amber one at a time.

“And we almost made it, too,” Carlos laughed.

Several more long minutes passed while we waited for them to fix whatever the hell had gone wrong. I kept expecting some crewman or member of the legion to show up and give us instructions, but they never did. They’d all disappeared.

A few troops laughed while others argued and kicked at each other. No one had anything good to say. We were a sorry-looking, disorganized mob.

Finally, something new did happen. A hissing began. I didn’t like it from the start. It didn’t sound right—in fact it sounded wrong—as in dangerous.

“What the hell…?” asked Carlos beside me.

I leaned forward and stared one way then the other.

“Something’s wrong,” I said, and began unsnapping my buckles.

“We’re supposed to stay in our seats,” Carlos said.

“You can do what you want. If this thing is going to depressurize or blow up, I’m going to try to get to an emergency exit.”

I was the first recruit to free himself. The last buckle had frozen and wouldn’t open. Without hesitating, I pulled a knife out and slashed it. I sawed until the cloth parted and I was free.

I floated away at an angle, going into a spin. I’d kind of forgotten we were in free-fall, as I’d never been in space before. I threw a hand back, grabbing the mangled harness. I pulled myself to it and began climbing upward until I was on top of the row of strapped-in recruits. They gaped up at me.

“Hey man, get back in your seat. If a veteran sees you, he’ll toast you alive.”

I ignored those who jeered and laughed. But then Carlos called out after me.

“Hey, McGill! Don’t leave me here, man!”

I turned and stared. He was struggling with that last buckle. It wouldn’t release, the same as mine. I wondered if it was magnetically sealed as some kind of safety precaution. Growling with frustration, I went back hand-over-hand to his seat and cut him loose. Then, with Carlos right behind me, we headed toward the nearest exit.

We’d almost made it when the seal blew. Carlos and I were about ten feet from an emergency pod door when a chunk of rubber gave way somewhere at the back of the chamber. I hadn’t been sure what was happening up until then, but I knew the sound of leaking air when I heard it.

What had been a hiss grew into a sucking, roaring sound. The troops that had been laughing and admonishing me a moment before were now screaming and tearing at their harnesses. Many of them got down to that last buckle, and strained with it furiously.

“Cut yourselves loose!” I shouted at them, but I don’t think any of them could hear me. There was too much noise and confusion. Besides, most of them didn’t appear to have a knife handy.

When we made it to the emergency door, I grabbed the handle and twisted. There was a round portal in the door, but it was black. There were instructions too, but I knew I didn’t have time to read them. I was already losing oxygen. The air was thin, and even though I was holding my breath, it felt as if my lungs were going to burst. The depressurizing chamber would soon cause them to rupture. I’d learned that much from video games and movies about space.

I held onto consciousness and tried to lever the door open. It occurred to me the entire thing was futile, we were probably all as good as dead, but I wasn’t giving up. I was going to use all the time I had left to open that damned door. The problem was one of leverage. I had a good grip on the handle, but it was built to twist open and unlock. In free-fall, there is very little to push against. Without gravity, getting a good grip on anything is difficult, and I wasn’t trained for it.

The sounds of panic in the chamber died slowly. At first, I thought I was losing it. But then I realized the air was thinning and changing the frequency of the sounds. Also, the panicked recruits were beginning to lose consciousness.

Looking back, I saw Carlos had already passed out. He was drifting away from me, his mouth hanging open. I kicked him out of the way and reached back with my long legs. I wrapped them around the nearest seat, which was a good five feet from the door handle.

That worked. I had leverage at last. Using my legs to push, I was able to twist the latch open. The door flew open and a gush of warm air blasted into my face. I tried to suck it in, but it was gone in an instant.

To my surprise, a man stood there in a vac suit. He had a helmet with a red crest on his sleeve, marking him as a centurion. He looked at me and lifted his hand. His thumb stuck up from his fist.

I was losing it, and I didn’t quite understand what was happening anymore. I couldn’t think.

I passed out at last, and my final thought was one of confusion. I was baffled as to why the centurion had just stood there watching us through that portal, doing nothing to help us.

* * *

Some of the men didn’t wake up. A few had expired. But a couple of hours later, as the survivors recovered in the ship’s medical unit, we saw the dead return to our group. They’d been revived.

I could only imagine what a revival looked like. Had their bodies twitched and spasmed unnaturally as life returned to them?

We were ordered to gather in a large ready-room with big wall-screens on every side—even the ceiling and the floor had screens. We stared at them, fascinated despite ourselves. Each depicted a different view of the ship we were on or space itself.

The ship was huge, bigger than any ship that had ever crossed Earth’s oceans. It was long and sleek in design. There weren’t many gunports, as the vessel was primarily designed to deliver troops between star systems, not to fight other ships.

Under the ship was the blue-white marble of Earth, a vast expanse of natural beauty. Sitting in the skies over our homeworld like this made me feel lonely and triumphant at the same time.

Most of the men were just annoyed. They’d died and been revived, and they were sour about it.