Andromeda’s Choice (15 page)

In the meantime, Gavin managed to stand upright. His face was white with pain, and there was hatred in his eyes. “I'm going to kill you.”

McKee felt a stab of fear. Gavin
could
kill her, and she didn't want to die.
So live,
she told herself, as Gavin began to close with her.
You can do it.

Gavin advanced, chin down and hands up, ready to throw punches. McKee knew that a solid blow could put her on the floor, where Gavin could stomp her, so she danced backwards. Gavin's bullet-shaped head shifted from side to side as he advanced.

Suddenly, McKee felt a rope pressing against her back and barely had time to jerk her head to one side. The blow landed, but not squarely, so McKee was able to keep her feet. But her left cheek hurt like hell—and Gavin was herding her toward a corner. Once there, he could pound her senseless.

There was a chorus of boos from the people who had money on Gavin as McKee dropped to the floor and rolled away. Then there were shouts of approval as she jumped to her feet. But things weren't looking good as Gavin began to close in again.

McKee had a secret weapon, however—and that was her knowledge of Gavin's medical history. The scar on his right knee had been visible on the day they met, and having read his M-1 file, she knew he had taken a piece of shrapnel there. That meant the key to survival was to attack the injured knee—and keep attacking until Gavin went down. All without letting him back her into a corner.

So McKee raised her hands, took a couple of steps forward, and flicked a fist at Gavin's face. When he moved to block it she kicked him in the knee. The blow was rewarded with a grunt of pain—and, judging from the expression on Gavin's face, he understood what she was up to.

Maybe it was in response to that realization, or maybe Gavin would have done it anyway, but whatever the reason, he threw himself onto the floor and rolled toward her. She tried to jump, but the effort came too late. The crowd roared as Gavin's body knocked her feet out from under her, and she fell.
“Gotcha!”
Gavin said exultantly, as she tried to escape, and he wrapped his arms around her torso.

McKee had learned a lot of things since joining the Legion, one of which was the value of a well-delivered headbutt. It broke Gavin's nose. Blood gushed, his hands came up, and she was free. Mixed cheers and groans were heard as McKee stood. Then, determined to end the fight once and for all, she took careful aim at the already weakened knee. The kick from her combat boot hit full force, and she heard something snap just before Gavin screamed.

The noise inside the hold was deafening as Larkin came forward to hold McKee's right arm up in the air. She swayed, felt dizzy, and was grateful when Larkin ducked under the arm to offer some additional support. His voice was unusually gentle. “You made your point, McKee. It's time to go home.”

 • • • 

McKee was a minor celebrity. That was what she discovered the next morning, when she went to breakfast. That didn't mean she was universally admired. Not by a long shot. Many of the people who had money on Gavin the night before directed scowls her way.

But there were others, people who liked to root for an underdog or had won money by betting on her, who came up to congratulate her, which was nice. But the word was out, all bucket fights had been canceled, and that constituted the
real
win. And by the time she showed up in the sick bay, it was clear that Fry had heard the news. He was sitting on the edge of his bed getting ready to leave. “Hey, Sarge . . . Where did you get that bruise?”

“I fell in the shower.”

Fry laughed. Then he turned serious. “Thanks, McKee. Thanks for what you did.”

“You're welcome. So, how 'bout it? What did Gavin have on you?”

Fry looked around. There was no one within earshot. “Promise you won't tell?”

“I promise.”

“I have a boyfriend.”

“So?”

“He's an officer.”

Suddenly McKee understood. Enlisted people weren't allowed to have romantic relationships with officers or the other way around. It was a rule that she and Avery had broken on Orlo II and were still violating as far as she knew. “Gavin found out?”

Fry nodded. “He was going to turn us in if I refused to fight.”

“And the visits?”

“He was afraid that I might work up the courage to report him in spite of the trouble I would be in. So he threatened me.”

McKee said, “Come on, let's get out of here. I could use a one-armed legionnaire.”

They were headed for the hatch when Lieutenant Heacox appeared. McKee felt a sudden stab of fear. Was she in trouble?

Heacox looked from Fry to her and blinked three times. The dislike was plain to see in his eyes. “They're going to replace Gavin's knee.”

McKee allowed herself to relax slightly. Heacox was there to see Gavin rather than take action against her. “Sir, yes, sir.”

Heacox blinked. “We'll meet again, Sergeant. And I won't forget.”

McKee nodded grimly. “Sir, yes, sir. Neither will I.”

Divid
e and conquer.

PHILIP II,
king of Macedon
Standard year circa 356
B.C.

PLANET ALGERON

It felt good to exist. That's what Private Roy Sykes was thinking as technicians aboard the Combat Supply Vessel
Victoria
brought him up out of the drug-induced coma he'd been in since departing Earth. After all, why would the swabbies use the space required to transport a hundred spider forms when they could store unconscious borg brains in racks of fifty? Just one of the many indignities that cyborgs were forced to endure.
But,
Sykes thought philosophically,
it's better than the long sleep that never ends.

A female voice rolled like thunder through his consciousness. “Time to wake up, sleepyhead. Can you hear me?”

Sykes thought “Yes,” and knew that the resulting electronic impulses would be converted into synth speech, which the technician would hear.

“Good. I'm going to disconnect your brain box from the rack. You might feel dizzy. Then I'm going to drop your box into a spider form. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” Sykes had been through the process dozens of times before. The grayness that surrounded him morphed into a different grayness and remained that way for what might have been seconds or minutes. There was no way to tell, and he felt the suspense start to build. Then there was light, and he was reborn. His vision was restored first, quickly followed by his hearing and sense of touch.

Sykes discovered that he was in the ship's cyber center. Other cyborgs were standing to the left and right going through the same process. Uniform-clad bio bods moved from borg to borg checking to make sure that the transfers went smoothly. Sykes knew the machine's interface by heart and went straight to the spider form's readouts. What he saw made him angry. “You've got to be kidding me. This piece of shit has more than twenty-six thousand hours on it!”

A tech appeared in front of him. She had short red hair, a sprinkling of freckles across her face, and was wearing a headset. “That's true,” she replied. “But that rig had a major overhaul at 20K—and all of your readouts are green. Of course, you can refuse it if you want to.”

That was true. No cyborg could be forced to accept a form they thought was unsafe. But chances were that a refusal would mean more rack time while he waited for a new ride. And Sykes couldn't face that. “No, I'll take it. What outfit am I slated for? Maybe they can give me something better.”

The tech consulted the tablet in her hand. “It looks like you're going to take a swim in the replacement pool.”

Any outfit that needed a replacement could get one from the pool, and that was fine with Sykes. Once on the ground, he would find out what unit Sergeant Andromeda McKee had been assigned to and put in a request for it. That was no guarantee, of course, but it was worth a try. “Roger that. So what's next?”

“Follow the yellow line,” the tech replied. “And welcome to Algeron.”

Sykes had been to the planet before and knew what awaited him on the surface. “Yeah,” he said. “Lucky me.”

Servos whined intermittently as he followed the yellow line down a corridor and onto a platform already loaded with five spider forms. They began to shoot the shit on the squad-level freq as the elevator jerked into motion. Sykes let the others do the talking and quickly concluded that they were out of touch, too.

When the lift came to a stop, the cyborgs spidered out into a lock. A hatch closed behind them, and the air inside the chamber was pumped out. Any bio bod not clad in space armor would have been killed. But each borg had his or her own onboard oxygen supply and could operate in a vacuum for up to a week if necessary.

When the next hatch cycled open, the spider forms trooped out into one of the
Victoria
's docking bays. It was currently open to space so that shuttles could come and go. One of them, a boxy ship with the letters
CSV-012
painted on her hull, was crouched about a hundred yards away. As the legionnaires appeared, a space-suit-clad sailor was there to direct them. His voice crackled over their radios. “You're slated for a ride on zero-one-two. Go straight out and wait by the ramp. The loadmaster will tell you when to board.”

Sykes followed another borg out across the blast-scarred deck. According to his sensor package, the outside temperature was minus two hundred degrees Centigrade and falling. A bit chilly to say the least. Not that it mattered to Sykes. His onboard computer had registered the drop and activated the microheaters that would keep his brain tissue from freezing.

Then it was time to stand around while the swabbies continued to load more cargo. Finally, after a bright orange robo loader deposited the last pallet of field rations in the hold, the legionnaires were given permission to board. But, rather than sit in seats as their biological counterparts would, the cyborgs were strapped to O-rings set into the deck.
That's what we are,
Sykes thought to himself,
cargo.

That opinion was reaffirmed when the ramp came up, the hatch closed, and the shuttle took off without any of the announcements bio bods would receive. And that made sense since the cyborgs had been strapped down, couldn't free themselves without help, and weren't going to barf.

The trip down through the atmosphere was bumpy but otherwise uneventful, for which Sykes was grateful. Like the rest of the legionnaires, he could “hear” the pilots talk to each other on the intercom—and access basic information from the ship's NAVCOMP. As the shuttle descended below thirty thousand feet, he checked to see if the ship's vid cams were locked out and discovered they weren't. There were six views for Sykes to select from. He chose the port camera and the landscape to the south.

It was a clear day, and as the ship continued to descend, Sykes had a spectacular view of the planet's famous mountain range. They were called the Towers of Algeron and circled most of the globe. The tallest peaks topped eighty thousand feet, which made them higher than Everest on Earth, or Olympic Mons on Mars. In fact, they were so massive that if placed on Earth, the Towers would sink through the planet's crust.

But Sykes knew that wouldn't occur on Algeron because it completed a full rotation every two hours and forty-two minutes. A rotation so fast that it created a bulge at the equator. In fact, Algeron's equatorial diameter was 27 percent larger than Earth's. And that explained how the Towers of Algeron had been formed. They represented the top of a world-spanning bulge. And, thanks to the gravity differential that existed between Algeron's relatively small poles and its equator, the mountains weighed half of what they would on Earth. Sykes's thoughts were interrupted as the pilot made her only announcement. “We're five out from Fort Camerone.”

As the shuttle passed between two hills and came in for a landing, Sykes studied the fort via the camera located in the nose of the ship. A new defensive wall had been added since the last time he'd been there, a sure sign that the Naa were still causing trouble. But some things hadn't changed, couldn't change, like the fact that the fortress had been built in a valley between three hills. And even though that valley was quite broad it was still possible for a sniper to score from the surrounding slopes. Not with a locally manufactured weapon, perhaps, but with a .50-caliber sniper's rifle that had been stolen from the Legion. That's why outposts (OPs) had been established on all three hilltops, and patrols scoured the area every day.

Sykes knew all of that better than most because that was how he'd been killed, or almost killed, when a high-velocity slug went through his body armor. He could still fell the shock of it as he was thrown down, and the darkness took him in.

But the presence of a good medic, and the fact that his patrol was still within sight of the fort, meant his buddies were able to get him back quickly enough to be saved. His brain, anyway, even if his biological body was damaged beyond repair. He'd been sent to Earth after that, trained to pilot T-1s, and sent off to fight on a succession of far-flung worlds. There was a thump as the shuttle touched down on one of the fort's many landing pads. Sykes had returned from the dead.

 • • • 

A harsh greenish blue light flooded Staging Area 6 from above as five bio bods and five T-1s prepared to go out on patrol. The cyborgs were standing in a row, their fifties cradled in their arms, with a combat-ready bio bod positioned in front of each. And as McKee got ready to inspect the squad, she was conscious of the fact that her platoon leader was present and looking over her shoulder.

Lieutenant Cassie Dero had a broad, open face and was built like the amateur weight lifter that she was. McKee liked the officer's blunt, straight-ahead style but sensed that Dero wouldn't suffer fools gladly. And she figured that was why Dero was present. To find out if the sergeant she had assigned to lead the third squad, second platoon, of Bravo Company was a competent NCO—or the lucky recipient of a medal she didn't deserve. Because it wouldn't be long before McKee was expected to lead patrols up into the hills by herself. Such responsibility would inevitably force her to make life-and-death decisions on behalf of her tiny command.

All of which made McKee feel very self-conscious as the inspection began. Each bio bod was responsible for performing basic maintenance on the T-1 they had been partnered with, and she was no exception. That's why McKee had worked late the evening before to make sure that all of her cyborg's systems were green. She turned to Dero. “Ma'am? Would you care to inspect Private Ree-Ree?”

Dero looked up into the T-1's predatory face. His paint was faded, there were dings in his armor, and patches of bright metal could be seen where repairs had been made. “How 'bout it, Ree-Ree? Did you get that knee actuator fixed?”

Ree-Ree's vid pickups were fixed on a spot over Dero's head. “Sergeant McKee repaired it last night, ma'am.”

Dero looked at McKee. “That's a tech-level repair.”

McKee was careful to keep her face expressionless. “Yes, ma'am . . . But the techs were busy. So I pitched in.”

Dero frowned, and McKee knew what the officer was thinking. A sergeant who could make tech-level repairs would be an asset—but a sergeant who took problems and made them worse would be a liability. T-1s were equipped with ten inspection plates, and Dero went straight to Ree-Ree's left knee, where she applied pressure to a tiny hatch. It popped open, and she eyed the readout within. “Ninety-six percent . . . That's damned good. Well done.”

After choosing three more readouts at random and finding them to her liking, Dero stepped over to where Larkin and a T-1 named Jaggi were waiting. The officer went over Larkin's combat rig first and delivered a grunt of approval before turning her attention to Jaggi. And so it went until the entire squad had been inspected. There were some dings, including the fact that a bio bod named Axler was one grenade short of a full load-out, and a T-1 named Tanner had a bent antenna. The latter was something that McKee should have noticed.

Still, it was a good turnout, all things considered, even if Dero's praise was somewhat muted. “I've seen worse,” she said phlegmatically. “Let's mount up.”

Each cyborg could carry a bio bod or dual missile launchers. And since the purpose of the patrol was to chase Naa snipers out of the hills rather than attack enemy armor, the T-1s were going to serve as cavalry mounts. Once the flesh-and-blood legionnaires were strapped in, Dero led them up a series of ramps and onto the so-called grinder at the center of the fort. From there it was a short walk to the main gate.

It was dark and would remain so for another hour and twenty-two minutes. Then the sun would make a brief two-hour-and-forty-minute-plus appearance before setting again. McKee wasn't used to that yet and wondered if she ever would be. But that was one of the reasons why Emperor Ordanus I had ceded Algeron to the Legion. Because it was unlikely to attract settlers. Of course, there was a political reason as well. Had the Legion been stationed on Earth, it and its leaders would have been a threat. And that's how it had always been. Governments of all stripes were happy to use the Legion—but always sought to keep it at arm's length.

Snowflakes twirled through a spill of light as the patrol approached a massive gate. A sentry said something to Dero as the barrier rumbled out of the way—and she raised a hand by way of an acknowledgment.

Then they crossed the moatlike defensive ditch that surrounded the fort, and McKee heard the gate clang behind them. The lights of Naa Town glowed up ahead. The locals didn't like the way the fort smelled, and as the patrol passed between a couple of domed roofs, McKee caught a whiff of the incense they used to combat the off-world stench.

While the roofs were visible, most of the space in the surrounding dwellings was underground. Even so, McKee could see rectangles of light here and there and knew that the town's shops were open for business around the clock. That included taverns, where bio bods went to unwind, flirt with the Naa barmaids, and get into fights. There was nothing else to do.

The Naa who lived in the town were outcasts, misfits, and criminals for the most part, not unlike the humans they sold things to. And they were trapped because, now that they had associated with the humans, the people of the so-called “free” tribes would never take them back.

That didn't mean the townspeople liked their benefactors, however, and as the patrol passed a group of males who were standing around a burn barrel, McKee could feel the animosity they exuded. But friendly or not, she had to admit that the Naa were generally attractive. The males were typically six or seven feet tall while the females were a bit shorter. All of them were covered with short fur that came in a wide variety of colors and patterns. Their heads were humanoid in shape but had a vaguely feline aspect to them. And, like humans, the Naa had four fingers and opposable thumbs. Their feet were different, however, being broader, flatter, and without toes. One of the males said something in his native tongue, and the others laughed. McKee didn't need a translator to know that she and her companions had been on the receiving end of an insult.