Steel World (7 page)

Carlos was suddenly delighted. He leaned forward, face split into a grin. “You screwed your veteran, didn’t you?”

She shook her head, smiling demurely. She lifted a thumb and aimed it upward. It took us a second to catch on.

“An officer?” asked Carlos excitedly. “What, not Centurion Graves himself, was it?”

Natasha frowned at him. “No. Don’t be gross. There was this fine little adjunct. He looked like a kid in his uniform.”

Carlos scoffed. “He’s probably fifty. If he dies a lot and keeps getting copied, he might have the body of a twenty-five year old. It takes you back to the last time they backed up your data, you know.”

“I know that, but he wasn’t
old
,” Natasha said in irritation.

I marveled at how quickly Carlos could piss people off. It was a gift he had. I’d come to ignore his quirks, but it was always instructive to watch as his personality impacted someone new. Before she took a fork and stabbed him, I decided to intervene.

“All right,” I said, “now I know how you got yourself transferred. Thanks for answering me honestly. If you want to, you can become a regular at our table.”

“I’d be happy to,” Natasha said, reaching across the table and touching the back of my hand lightly.

At that, another recruit named Kivi got up and huffed away. She was a small, olive-skinned girl who moved quickly. She dumped her platter, which was only half-eaten. I avoided her eye.

The warning buzzer sounded. We stopped talking and scrambled to shove food into our mouths. The buzzer indicated there was only three minutes left. I glanced at the tapper imprinted on my forearm. It looked like a tattoo, and the ink changed as the seconds ticked away. The timing seemed off, we should have had another ten minutes or more.

Not knowing what was up, we chewed furiously. Only Carlos attempted to talk and eat at the same time.

“Something’s up. Must be a special drill. They never open up the rooms before 0600. This will be big—I know it.”

“Shut up and eat,” I told him.

For once, he did as I asked. Just as we were finishing up, the second buzzer sounded. This one was longer and louder. We scrambled to our feet as we’d been trained to do over the last several months and rushed out of the mess hall. As we passed the recycling center, we shoved our trays into waiting slots. The automated kitchens behind the walls began the lengthy process of turning whatever we didn’t eat from breakfast into lunch.

We charged out in a line, two abreast, and headed down the hallways double-time. Veteran Harris appeared out of nowhere and roared at us, trotting along beside the column. We stared ahead and prepared ourselves mentally for another grueling day on the training fields.

Usually, we began with calisthenics and a long run. Today, however, was very different.

As we marched out onto the fields under the big dome we passed a weapons rack. The veteran screamed at us to grab and check our weapons. Frowning, I grasped a snap-rifle and pulled it off the rack with the rest of my squad.

Snap-rifles fired metal slivers at high velocity. They used magnetics to accelerate the projectiles to amazing speeds with little recoil. For the most part, they operated like old-fashioned chemical gunpowder weapons, but were much quieter. Instead of a bang, they made a relatively soft, snapping sound.

As members of the light infantry, these weapons were preferred. A heavy trooper wore armor shielding and carried an energy weapon. But all those took power and weight. New recruits weren’t issued such valuable equipment. We got thin smart cloth uniforms and snap-rifles.

I cracked open my weapon, checked the magazine, and saw it was full. Another advantage of the snap-rifle was the large capacity for ammo. With no cartridge, each slender bullet took less space and weight.

I heard a distinctive snapping sound a moment later. It was faint and distant—but my head was up and swiveling, seeking the source of fire.

“Incoming!” choked Carlos. “I’m hit!”

He went down beside me. A spot of blood bubbled over his lung, where he’d been shot. I didn’t bend down to help him. I dashed away instead.

“Sniper!” I shouted.

Everyone was running now in every direction. Kivi, the girl who’d run out of the mess hall pissed off not fifteen minutes earlier, went down next. Her legs were hit, and she was rolling around and screeching, grabbing her shins. She wasn’t dead, but she was in a lot of pain.

This changed my response from fear to anger. I liked Kivi, and, somehow, seeing her shot made things personal for me. I took cover behind one of the practice rocks and aimed my weapon in the direction I thought the fire was coming from. I released what I hoped would be a suppressing spray of fire in that direction. A copse of palms stood in that quadrant. The leaves shivered and made sounds as if they were being hit by hailstones.

The fire kept coming in. I looked around, expecting the veteran who’d led us into this trap to be somewhere, calling out orders. He was nowhere to be found. He had vanished just as fast as he’d appeared.

Often during our training sessions our trainers had surprised us with attacks. Occasionally they’d been deadly. But I hadn’t run into a drill that seemed so intentionally cruel since they’d tried to suffocate us all. Sure, we might come out of this situation as better soldiers, but there were already seven recruits down in this ambush. They were bleeding out, with all the pain of death on their faces. I knew they could be revived later, but I didn’t think it was a fair test of our skills. What were we supposed to do to avoid this situation? Shoot our veteran instead of following him? That wouldn’t have made them happy, I’m certain.

The rest of the team was crouching behind any cover they could find and firing randomly at the trees. I scanned the scene, desperate for any indication as to where the fire was coming from.

On a hunch, I looked back toward the hallway from which we’d entered. There was a shadow there, inside the entrance. The lights in the hall behind the figure had been shut off.

I jumped up and sprinted toward the wall. I threw myself against it and ran along it toward the entrance. I saw two more of my squaddies go down. They were shot in the back. They’d all assumed, as had I, that the fire had been coming from the trees ahead. Instead, the sniper was right behind us.

I came around the corner with my weapon upraised. There was Veteran Harris, crouching and aiming at my squad, half of whom were down and crawling in their own blood.

The veteran glanced up at me in surprise. He chuckled.

“Good work, Recruit. Now—”

I fired six fast rounds into his chest. Several pierced his heart. He slumped forward onto his face in shock. His final moments were spent shivering and pissing himself on the floor, and I didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for him.

-5-

I stood at attention. No less than three veterans and three officers surrounded me. The seventh man, Centurion Graves, was the only one present who wasn’t shouting at me. The rest were barking like a pack of dogs.

“You
knew
you were involved in a drill, is that correct, Recruit?”

“Yes, Adjunct. I suspected that was the case.”

A tough-eyed woman pressed forward. She was Adjunct Toro, one of Centurion Graves’ two supporting officers. Most importantly, she was the officer closest to me in the chain of command. Among all of them, she was possibly the angriest. She was red-faced, and her lips curled away from her teeth as she spoke, as if I’d shot her instead of Harris.

“What you did was unacceptable, McGill. Drill or not, killing a superior on the practice field without cause isn’t permitted. I’m formally requesting that you be kicked out of my unit, and preferably the entire legion.”

I glanced at her, and then directed my eyes straight ahead again. “May I be permitted to speak, sirs?”

“No!” shouted the adjunct.

“Yes,” said Centurion Graves.

Everyone stopped talking. They continued glaring at me but tossed surprised looks at Graves. It was the first time he’d spoken during the grilling.

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “Veteran Harris was engaged in sniping at my squad mates when I located him. The drill had not ended when I fired my weapon. I believe I took appropriate action.”

“That’s it?” squawked the adjunct. “That’s your answer? He was no longer a threat. He acknowledged you’d located him and therefore had successfully terminated the exercise.”

“Excuse me, sirs,” I said. “He did not drop his weapon. He did not surrender. He did not announce the exercise was over.”

“That’s because you shot him before he could speak!”

“That’s enough,” said Graves, sighing. “Anyone else want to say anything before I announce my disciplinary decision?”

Someone cleared his throat at the back of the room. Everyone turned to look. It was Veteran Harris. He was having difficulty walking, as he’d only just returned from the revival center. I felt my throat constrict at the sight of him.

“I’d like to say something, sir,” he said.

“Please do.”

“I know Legion Varus is a harsh unit. We train our troops to think for themselves. We kill them now and then to keep them sharp and to make sure they take their training seriously. All that said, I would suggest that this young man has done me a favor.”

Centurion Graves’ eyebrows raised high in surprise. “And what favor is that?”

“He taught me a lesson today. One I’ll not soon forget.”

The centurion nodded thoughtfully. “I take it then, that you wish to drop the charges?” he asked.

Veteran Harris coughed and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Very well. The charges are dropped. Dismissed.”

“That’s it?” the adjunct asked rudely.

“Do you have something to add?”

“Yes. I don’t want a man like this in my group. He’ll shoot me in the back one day if he doesn’t like how I run things.”

“All right. Transfer him to Adjunct Leeson’s group.”

I couldn’t believe the ordeal was over. It had been a grueling day. Before noon, I’d been placed in detention. After hours, the officers and veterans had formed a pack and I’d spent an hour being debriefed, grilled, and just plain yelled at.

A few minutes after Graves had announced his decision I was out in the hallway, breathing a sigh of relief. Harris followed me down the long, echoing tubes toward our quarters.

“Why’d you shoot me, son?” he asked.

“I was pissed off,” I said.

He nodded. “That’s what I figured. Do you know that I haven’t died in three campaigns?”

I looked at him. He did look old. Almost as old as Graves himself. I shook my head. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“That’s why they call me the old man. Do you know how I kept from dying all that time, through three campaigns on three worlds?”

“No, Veteran.”

“Because I always killed the other guy first. But this time, you surprised me. No warning, no shouting. You just fired your weapon. You won’t surprise me again, Recruit.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Veteran.”

He left me then, moving painfully off toward the non-com sleeping quarters on Deck Eight. I heaved another sigh. I could understand his anger.

A grim thought occurred to me. What if he’d spoken up on my behalf in order to keep me in this unit? Not because he understood my actions, but because he wanted the opportunity to get even—personally.

I’d expected that my actions would make an enemy out of Harris. But now I thought I might have made something far worse: a
committed
enemy.

I crashed on my bunk on Deck Nine, stretching my arms over my head. Lights were already out, and everyone was asleep.

The moment my head hit the pillow, I heard stealthy footsteps. I lurched awake, lifting my hands, reaching for the throat of my attacker—I barely stopped myself in time.

It was Kivi. She smiled at me in the dim light.

“I wanted to thank you for killing the old man.”

I laughed softly. “I think you’re the only one who’s happy about it.”

“Are you kidding?” she whispered. “The whole unit is talking about it. No one can believe it. He hasn’t died for years, you know. He was the oldest living ground troop in the legion.”

“I’ve heard that. How are your legs?”

“They’re good. The bio people worked on them for six hours, pulling out metal and re-growing tissue. Now I’m ready for anything again. That brings me to why I’m here. Have you figured it out, yet?”

Then she opened her shirt as a hint, and I got the idea.

Kivi, like almost everyone in Legion Varus, had a colorful past. She’d been rejected by the name-brand legions just as I had—but for entirely different reasons. I’d heard rumors about her operating questionable websites and services on the public grid during her college years…some people said they were illegal scams. Whatever the case, she was a very expressive and extroverted girl.

What can I say? I’m young, male and as much of an opportunist as the next guy. We made love, despite the fact that I was bone-tired.