Death World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 5) (7 page)

“It’s that far, huh?” I asked in disappointment.

He put two fingers on his desktop and brought them slowly together. The map contracted. I could now see the line extended farther out. There
was
a fourth star, but it was pretty distant.

“McGill,” Graves said. “I want you to give this up if we don’t find them soon. It’s not healthy, and worse, it’s pointless. Use your brain, man. What are the odds the raiders came from so far out? We’re talking about more than a hundred and seventy lights from Earth to get to that fourth star. It doesn’t even make sense that an enemy would know about a freighter heading to Earth from Machine World at that distance.”

Brooding and quiet, I stopped asking questions, and Graves soon dismissed me.

Frustrated and feeling like my greatest fears concerning this expedition were coming to life before my eyes, I left his office. I hadn’t wanted this to turn into a wild goose-chase, but that’s exactly what was happening. I could feel it.

There was only one other place to go, only one other person to talk to who could change things.

With a heavy sigh, I headed for Gold Deck.

-7-

Imperator Turov wasn’t always the easiest officer to talk to. First off, she liked to put barriers in a man’s way. Secondly, she was always busy doing something important or at least something that
seemed
important. Today was no exception to either of these rules.

There were no less than three adjuncts and a couple of centurions that I had to go through to meet up with Turov. The high and mighty one herself didn’t have time for a lowly noncom, I was told this repeatedly.

Insisting I had something to say that only Turov herself was qualified to listen to got me pretty far—but that was only because they knew I’d had unusual dealings with her in the past. Eventually, I was faced with a final adjunct—a woman named Bachchan. She had an attitude as snotty as the rest of them. I told her my story all over again, concluding that Turov wouldn’t like it if an adjunct turned me back. At last, she led me to a well-appointed office door. It wasn’t the same office where I’d met up with Turov in the past, but I figured maybe she’d moved.

The lock buzzed open even before my fist rapped on the door. It melted away from my hand as I pushed it open. Stepping inside, I was met with another unpleasant surprise.

I was standing in Winslade’s office, not Turov’s. He was sitting behind his desk with his non-reg jackboots resting between a monitor and a cup of coffee. Working on a computer scroll, he waved at me with a skinny set of fingers, indicating I should approach but remain standing.

I did so, but after a moment I couldn’t take the waiting around.

“Sir? Primus, sir? I’m sorry, I must have been led to the wrong office. I’ll be going now. Didn’t mean to bother you.”

Winslade glanced up and gave me an unhappy stare.

“You’re in the right place, McGill,” he said. “That is, if it can be said that there is a right place for the likes of you.”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

He set the scroll aside and removed his feet from his desk. Weaving together his fingers like a spider web, he leaned forward and gave me an unfriendly appraisal. I could tell I was a bug on a dinner plate to him.

“Let me spell it out for you,” he began. “I’m in command of your cohort. In truth, even
I’m
too far up the chain of command to be talking to the likes of a freshly promoted veteran, and the Imperator is two steps above my station. The idea you should be allowed to waltz in here and meet with her in person on demand…it’s preposterous. And it’s going to stop today! If you have something to say to the Imperator, you’ll tell me first. If I find it worthy, I may kick it up another level. But I’ll warn you right now, that’s highly unlikely.”

Winslade had my attention now. I knew he didn’t like me, and he didn’t enjoy it when I went over his head and talked to Turov. But this wasn’t about protocol or personal dislike. He wanted to know what I was up to. He didn’t want to be cut out of the loop, as had happened in the past.

“I hear you, Primus. Loud and clear. I’ll be going now.”

I spun on my heel and managed to take two long strides across his thick carpet toward the door before he reacted.

“Halt! You haven’t been dismissed, Veteran!”

Stopping, I spun back around, but I still didn’t say anything. I stood at attention and looked at the wall.

“Tell me why you wanted to talk to the Imperator,” he prompted.

“Because I think she’s making a strategic error, sir.”

A frown grew on his face. It was a wary look of displeasure.

“You’ve always believed you know better than your commanders how to run our legions, haven’t you?”

“Not at all, sir. But sometimes, people don’t have a clear view. They don’t have the vision of the man in the trenches.”

“Interesting. Let me see if I can interpret your vague hints. You’ve uncovered a scheme of some kind. You believe the Imperator should be given this information in person as it may affect her decisions regarding our current mission.”

I gave him a startled glance. I didn’t have any such information. I was planning on trying to convince her not to give up on finding the raiders too easily, that was all. But as usual, Winslade with his conniving personality thought I was holding back something more sinister.

“Ah-ha!” Winslade cried, banging a skinny fist on his desk. “I’ve got your attention now, don’t I? Yes, McGill, even
I
can follow your clever machinations. Well, I’ll have none of it. I don’t want you pestering Turov. I’ve given the staff orders to intercede if you try. As you can see, they’ve been quite effective today.”

Nodding and looking back at the wall, I paused for a second. “Am I dismissed then, sir?”

“No, you’re not dismissed.”

He studied me quietly for a few seconds. He was obviously waiting for me to volunteer information. I endeavored to make my face a blank mask and said nothing.

“Damn you, man,” he said at last. “You’re not getting out of here without telling me what this is about. But even if you don’t want to talk, your motivations should be vulnerable to logical reasoning. Let’s continue extrapolating down this path…if you wanted to tell Turov something crucial, why not send her a text? Can it be because you’re well aware all your texts are carefully monitored?”

I gave him another startled look. He smiled.

“I see that you
do
know. That indicates you want to talk to Turov in person in order to give her a private message—and don’t even try to convince me you’re simply making another ham-handed romantic overture. I know that you’ve been far from lonely at night.”‘

This entire discussion was getting off-track in an alarming way. Winslade seemed to have gone paranoid. Reading my texts? Having people provide him with reports on my dating life? The man was losing it.

“Sir, I’m in the dark about all that,” I said honestly. “I’m just trying to help our commander achieve her goals. If you stand between me and the imperator—well, that’s your business, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

Winslade was suddenly pissed again. He stood up and began to pace. He clasped his arms behind his back oddly, with one hand grabbing the elbow of the other.

“Threats? You dare so much? You think you still have her ear and her eye, don’t you? All right, McGill. You can go to the imperator and give her your dirty little report. But don’t think I’m not watching. Don’t think I’ll allow you to keep rank-climbing and undermining my position year after year. I have
real
rank, and I have a growing record in the field. On top of that, let’s not forget I’m still in your chain of command. I can make things unpleasant for you.”

“Of course, sir. I must say it’s been a pleasure to serve. Can I be on my way now?”

“Get out.”

I’d been thrown out of any number of offices, so I knew the routine. I left without saying anything more. I didn’t even glance back to see what he was doing.

When the door squeezed shut behind me, I met up with the sneering Adjunct Bachchan. She’d evidently been waiting for me.

“I’ll take you back to your module, Veteran,” Bachchan said. “This way, please.”

“Uh…you might want to check with Primus Winslade on that point, first.”

Frowning, she looked at her tapper, which beeped and displayed fresh orders. She looked up at me a moment later, startled.

“I’m to take you to the imperator?”

“Yes. As I originally requested.”

Adjunct Bachchan didn’t say another word as she marched me down a passage or two. We wound up in front of a pair of imposing doors. She looked more worried than annoyed now. When Turov was involved directly, she knew enough to stay quiet and keep her head low.

The office doors that led to Turov’s office were impressive indeed. They weren’t like any I’d ever seen on a dreadnaught before. Ornately carved with dark alien hardwoods, they depicted the heads of what looked like a species of bird that had been crossed with a demon.

I stepped inside, and the first thing I noticed was the carpet. It wasn’t your typical military-grade weatherproof stuff. It was sumptuous. Red, rich…it felt like I was walking on velvet.

“What do you think of my new office, McGill?” asked a voice I recognized. I looked for Turov, but I didn’t see her right off. There were hanging curtains, folding glass barriers and a variety of other decorations all over the place.

“Wow,” I said, “this is really something, sir.”

Imperator Galina Turov became visible then—sort of. She was lurking behind a semi-opaque pane of glass. I couldn’t help but stare, as her lithe form was displayed in stark silhouette. What’s more, it looked to me like she was walking around nude back there. She seemed to be toweling off her hair, like she’d just come out of the shower.

It took me a long second, but I finally realized this personal display couldn’t be an accident. No one put a light bulb behind their shower curtain and stood between the two without a damned good reason.

“Sir?” I asked. “Should I come back another time?”

“Will your visit be any less annoying if it is postponed?”

“I’m not sure I can promise that.”

“Then let’s get this over with. Take a seat, James.”

James.
She usually didn’t call me that. She only did so, in fact, when she was in an amorous mood, or drunk.

You have to understand that I’d had an inappropriate relationship with the imperator some years back. Most people, especially Winslade, still considered my familiarity with her to be improper.

She came out of her inner sanctum a moment later with her hair still hanging limp and wet. She had clothes on, but they didn’t amount to a regulation uniform. She wore something like a sleeping jumper with rank insignia on the epaulets. It was the sort of thing officers wore to bed. But as usual, it was tighter than it was supposed to be. Smart clothes could be told to cinch-up if you wanted them to.

“Uh…is this your off-duty shift, sir?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, high level officers are never truly off-duty. Your visit is a clear exemplification of that reality. Now, before you waste any more of my time, get to the point. Why are you working so hard to see me in person?”

“Because I think you’re making a mistake. I think you should check out all three of the systems where our enemy might have taken refuge as we originally planned.”

“The raiders…of course. James, I know of your personal loss in this tragedy. I too, would like to hold the raiders accountable. But I have to be honest with you—we’ve lost them.”

I blinked at her in surprise. “That’s not how I understand the situation.”

“We had one chance, really, that first stop. After that, the odds that we’re following the right line grew very long indeed.”

“But the techs did the math. This course should match that of the raiders. They have to come out eventually.”

“Let’s assume you’re correct,” she said, toweling off her hair while I watched. “We may have been following the right course initially, but we must admit to certain realities. Any raider with a modicum of intelligence should have used the last few weeks to come out of warp, switch courses and fly in another direction. They could have done that a week ago, for example, and we would never have known as we were in a warp bubble ourselves and thus blinded. They could be doing it right now in fact—and again, we’d never know.”

“I understand that. But a ship’s crew will normally take a straight path toward their destination while fleeing. We had three target stars they might have been trying to—”

“Not really. We never had three targets. That first one held promise. The odds were high we’d catch them there. But now, the probability is slim. It’s simple mathematics. We drew a line following their initial path as best we could. But our measurements couldn’t be exact. Therefore, each lightyear we fly from the original starting point creates a cone of space, not a line, containing places they might stop. We’re reaching the wide end of that cone, and there are a great number of destinations within it. So as I explained, that first binary system was our only real hope.”

I felt a wave of frustration. She might be right, and in fact I sensed that she at least
believed
she was, but I didn’t want to give up. Not yet.

“You’re talking about the margin of error,” I said, “about probabilities. Well, if it’s hopeless, why aren’t we abandoning the hunt right now? Why not simply turn around and go home today?”

“Politics and public relations forbid it,” she said, setting aside her towel and walking languidly around her desk to my side of it. She put her butt up against the edge of the desktop and leaned back, resting her hands on the desk. “We must make it seem we’ve searched everywhere to satisfy the angry mob back home. We’re going to return empty-handed in the end, and it would be best that we our take time before we admit failure.”

“Look,” I said, “Imperator, we have a lot of secrets between us, and quite a colorful past—”

“You think I’m going to listen to threats?” she demanded, interrupting. “Really, McGill? I hadn’t thought you were so deluded as to think you could damage me at this point. I know about your little talk with Nagata. Don’t think I’ll be taken unaware.”