Tech World (Undying Mercenaries Series) (16 page)

By this time, Centurion Dubois finally
was
listening. He lifted a hand and snapped his fingers. An adjunct appeared next to him. “Get Claver’s ass out here.”

The adjunct disappeared. We didn’t have long to wait. Claver soon came out of a nearby passageway, sauntering as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Ah, there you are, Graves,” Claver said. “Kind of odd to see you here aboard a Germanica ship.”

Graves ignored him as he turned to centurion
Dubois. “Do I have your permission to assert command over this officer?” he asked Dubois formally.

Dubois
nodded.

Graves turned to me. “McGill, arrest this man. We’re taking him back to his post.”

I smiled and came clanking forward. I suddenly understood why he’d brought me along. I was the muscle—and I was well-motivated.

Claver’s upper lip curled as I raised a powered gauntlet toward him.

“Unnecessary,” he said. “This is all a misunderstanding.”

“We’ll talk everything out on the way back to the station,” Graves assured him.

I removed Claver’s sidearm, and he did nothing to resist. Graves led the way back toward the pinnace with Claver grumbling along after him, and I brought up the rear.

My grin stayed in place as we returned to the pinnace. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed arresting someone so thoroughly.

-16-

Once we boarded the pinnace, Graves’ promise to talk things out with Claver evaporated. Taking my cue from him, I stoically ignored the mixture of scoffing, insults and veiled threats the Germanica Adjunct dished out.

“There’s never been any love lost between our two organizations, Graves,” Claver said, throwing out his latest barb. “But I don’t see any reason to take things to this extreme. Your men made it back to base without anyone getting permed. The mission was completed—despite poor management on the part of your man. What was his name? Adjunct Leeson, that’s it. He resisted every step of the way, but I managed to hold it together until we reached the foot of the bank steps.”

Graves was as silent as space. I didn’t even look at Claver. I tried to do the same, but I did grin just a little. I couldn’t help it.

“Look,” said Claver, edging
closer to the Centurion’s chair. “I imagine I know what the real problem is. You don’t know how to handle those credit pieces. I can help you there. Sure, I know you can’t just take them home to Earth and spend them at the corner store. But you can get good value out of them. Ten percent maybe, if you go through me.”

Graves finally glanced at Claver flatly. The Adjunct lit up, misinterpreting the look. I could have told him he was on the wrong track, but I was having too much fun enjoying the show.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Claver said quickly. “Ten percent of face value. How? First, we’ll contact the dead clients. They’ll all have been revived by now and anxious to reclaim their goods. A finder’s fee under extenuating circumstances like these will be expected. They’ll pay in clean credits, dumped right into your tapper. We’re talking about a lifetime of credit, Graves.”

“McGill,” Graves said, staring at Claver like he smelled filth.

“Sir?”

“Did you overhear Claver’s remarks?”

“Yes sir!”

“How would you characterize them?”

“I heard a confession, sir. Bribery, extortion, fencing illegal goods—a laundry list of crimes, Centurion.”

Claver laughed nervously. “You guys have to be—”

“I recommend you shut up, Adjunct,” Graves interrupted. “For your own good—although I doubt anything you do will matter at this point.”

Claver frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I said that I contacted Hegemony. They’ve dispatched a flag officer. Have you heard of Imperator Turov?”

Claver squinted. “Oh, yeah. Is that the one that used to be your Primus? Tribune Armel called her a real bitch.”

“A poor choice of words,” Graves said smoothly, although I didn’t believe his heart was in it. “She’s coming out on one of the new corvettes. She’ll be here within hours.”

I was as surprised as Claver by
this statement.

“Hours?” Claver asked.

“Hegemony has been busy purchasing new hardware,” Graves explained, “and the corvettes are their latest naval toys. Flag officers can travel first class now if they need to.”

Claver nodded slowly. “Good thinking,” he said. “She’ll know how to sweep this business under the rug. Nothing like an Imperator for that.”

Graves turned to me. “Specialist, tell the Adjunct how Turov handled the last Imperial crime she discovered.”

“Uh…
sure. She had me executed. I caught a quiet revive afterward because it was all a misunderstanding—but then she went for me again anyway. Court martial, the whole deal. She almost got her way and had me burned all over again. Fortunately, Tribune Drusus managed to stop her.”

“That’s how
I recall the sequence of events,” Graves said. He gave Claver a nod and a grim smile. “The only difference is that this time she outranks Tribune Drusus
and
Tribune Armel. On top of that, I doubt either of them would lift a finger to save your hide, Claver.”

Graves turned away again as if satisfied. Claver was quiet for a moment, but he sighed heavily after a few minutes.

“So you’re going for broke on this? Bringing in Turov to screw me permanently? That’s unfortunate—for everyone.”

Graves ignored him
and the rest of the flight went quietly. I took the opportunity to eye Claver in concern. He fingered his tapper now and then, but said nothing. He was no longer smiling and cajoling anyone—but he didn’t seem defeated, either.

It occurred to me that a man like him didn’t get a full head of silver hair without being resourceful. I watched the instruments and kept checking on the crew, but nothing seemed amiss.

We reached our destination a few minutes later and landed on the flat roof of legion headquarters. All this time, Claver hadn’t tried to escape or do anything else unexpected. When we disembarked, he marched along in front of me without missing a step.

Just as we reached the elevators an emergency message came in over Graves’ tapper.
The centurion halted and lifted his arm, frowning.

“Something on command chat…” he said. After a few moments, he looked up at me. I saw a hint of alarm on his normally stoic features. “Specialist McGill, what kind of weapons did you deliver to the gun-runners down at the Vents? I thought they fired explosive pellets.”

“I can’t say the guns in the box were the same type, sir. We never saw them. I only have Claver’s word that they were guns at all. Whatever was in those containers, the items would have to be unusual and valuable to warrant all that credit.”

“Indeed. I’ve just received a priority message from Drusus. There’s an attack underway at the umbilical
transport hub and the weaponry involved is quite unusual. In fact, no one who’s seen it can identify the technology.”

Both of us looked at Old Silver. He smiled back faintly and shrugged. “Can I help you gentlemen?”

“You better not be behind this, Claver,” Graves said.

Claver laughed coldly. “What are you going to do? Hold me in contempt in some Galactic court run by Nairbs? Or maybe you’ll perm me on the spot? What’s the difference to me at this point? You’ve played your last card, Centurion.”

Graves turned away from him and back to me. “The Tribune has heard about your jog across the city, the gunrunning—everything. He’s not happy and he’s already done the math. He’s blaming our new Primus, who in turn is blaming us. Our unit is to deploy in a police action to stop the riot at the umbilical transport hub.”

Claver chuckled. “A riot, huh? Is that what it is?”

“We’re bringing this man to the line with us. I don’t trust anyone to watch over him—not even you, McGill.”

“Don’t worry, sir,” I said. “You can give me his leash. I hate him more than I love money.”

The corners of Graves’ mouth twitched upward. “Good to hear. I’ve arranged air transport. Three units are deploying at once.”

“Air transport?” I asked. “The pilots wouldn’t be hired locals—guys who look like turtles?”

“What the hell difference does that make?”

I sighed. “None at all, sir.”

* * *

We arrived less than an hour later at the umbilical
transport hub. The place was eerily quiet. It wasn’t empty, however. There were corpses everywhere.

Most noticeable to me were the corpses of the ghoulish revival squads. They had attempted to search among the dead for good clients and quickly paid the ultimate price.

Hanging back now along a perimeter a block from the cavern-like entrance to station, the surviving revival squads complained and stayed behind hastily erected barriers.

I followed Graves who met up with Adjunct Leeson. I rejoined 3
rd
Unit, with Old Silver at my side. He was in a fine mood for a man condemned. I couldn’t explain his attitude, but I knew I didn’t like it.

Leeson didn’t hesitate to put his face into Claver’s face. It was an odd spectacle, one man screaming and red-faced, the other smiling and unconcerned.

“I know how you feel, kid,” Claver told Leeson. “I’ve been there, believe me. Really sucks to be in the dark when the shit starts to fly. If you live through this one, take notes and learn for next time.”

Leeson finally stalked off, and I relaxed a little. I’d been charged with watching over Claver. He was unarmed, unarmored and under arrest. Officially, he was an officer who had yet to face trial. Unfortunately, that meant I was in the odd position of protecting him.

I followed Claver to the front lines. Harris was there, and he gave Claver a deadly stare. For the second time within a minute, I knew my prisoner’s life was in jeopardy.

Harris was good, I have to admit that. He knew the score. He knew I was Claver’s jailor and bodyguard at the same time. What I should have seen coming was an underhanded move. Harris was a master at putting the hurt on a man when he least expected it. I should have, in retrospect, figured out what was going to happen. I’d been the Veteran’s victim often enough myself.

Harris turned to me, ignoring Claver. “Nice of you to join us, McGill,” he said. “You know what we get to do now? We’re going into that bat-cave over there and down to the bottom of the station. The only thing lower than the Vents on this megahab is the umbilical transport hub, and we’re going to visit it personally.”

“It’s been on my list of tourist destinations since we got here, Vet.”

Harris shook his head, stood up, and turned toward the cavernous entrance to the transport hub. Naturally enough, I moved to stand next to him, and Claver came up behind the two of us.

That was all the proximity that Harris needed. He
took a step backward and stomped his boot down onto Claver’s right foot with grinding force.

Now, stomping on another guy’s foot is all fun and games back on Earth. But when you’re wearing heavy armor weighing in at a ton or more, and you engage the power-assist mode when you stomp—bones break.

Claver went down, hissing and screeching.

Harris whirled, almost catching him before he hit the ground.

“Oh,
damn
,” he said, “did I do that, Adjunct? I’m sorry, man. I backed up right onto your foot. I’m so
sorry
, sir. Please accept my heartfelt apologies.”

I put a gauntlet on Harris’ forearm. Harris already had a short, white-hot length of force-blade sticking out of it. He looked at me, and I shook my head.

“Can’t let you do it, Vet. Much as I’d like to.”

The force-blade vanished. Harris’ face shifted to one of innocence.
“McGill,” he said, “you’re a guardian angel. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

“No
Vet, I don’t believe they ever have.”

“Well, it’s true. And do you know when people see angels? Old people like you see them all the time, Adjunct Claver. Right before they die. Did you know that, Adjunct Claver, sir?”

“Come on, Vet,” I said, and I finally got him to retreat.

I noticed Claver was tapping on his forearm again. His expression was grim but that might have been the pain.

“If you pricks are done laughing,” he growled, “help me up and get a bio over here.”

I signaled the bio people, one of whom had seen the fall and was already on her way. I tapped a short text to Natasha as well. She arrived and they worked on Claver together.

The Adjunct was on his feet again shortly, but limping. The bones wouldn’t knit up for hours, but his boot had been turned into a cast, holding his foot so tightly he was able to walk on it.

Out the corner of my eye, I saw Claver working on his tapper again. He paused, cursed, then repeated a series of gestures. Finally, he looked around after Natasha, then at me.

“Did that bitch disconnect my tapper?” he demanded.

“It’s for the best, sir,” I said.

“You don’t have the authority to do that!”

“Should I contact Centurion Graves? I’m sure he’ll be glad to have our techs look over all your recent activity. If there’s nothing unusual recorded, I bet he’ll turn it back on.”

Claver bared his teeth at me then nodded after a few seconds thought.

“All right,” he said. “Why not? We’ll ride this out blindfolded and see how it ends.”

I cocked my head, unsure of what he was talking about. Before I could ask anything else, an explosion rolled up against my back. My faceplate was open, but my armor took most of the heat and pressure. I turned, flipping down my visor, and unlimbered my belcher. My ears stopped singing and started working again a second later.

A horde of Tau were boiling up out of the
transport hub entrance. They were wearing a shifting maroon light for clothing and nonexistent silver shoes. Many of them had slim metal rods in their hands with knobs at the end. From these they released bolts of energy that looked to me like…lightning?

Whoever these people were, they were pissed. They fired their strange weapons toward us, and each strike landed like a mortar. I think the only reason they didn’t clear our line right off was because they barely knew how to aim their lightning rods.

A bolt struck a puff-crete barrier right in front of me. It jumped as if kicked and was left smoking. I was knocked flat from the jolt, falling onto my face.