“Centurion McGill?”

  That voice… I knew it well. Female, and a bit snake-like. As smooth as silk and twice as dangerous.

  I turned to find Imperator Galina Turov approaching. She looked absolutely stunning in her dress uniform. Her hair was pulled back in perfect military style, and her blue eyes held that mixture of intelligence and amusement that had gotten me into trouble more times than I could count.

  Her uniform, as usual, was cinched up a couple of sizes too tight. Instead of a jumpsuit, it looked like she was wearing yoga pants, and there were extra lines drawn in all the right places.

  “Uh… Galina?” I said, questioning my eyes. I tried to keep my voice neutral. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  She moved closer, and I sensed a dangerous lilt in her voice. “I heard you had an eventful time planetside, McGill.”

  Then she was closer still, and I caught a hint of her perfume. It was called Golden China, and I remembered it well. Expensive stuff. The kind of luxury that cost more than a regular’s monthly pay.

  I laughed. “You heard something, huh?” I fingered my lips, looked up at the roof as if trying to puzzle it out. “Well… I did start a food fight last Thursday…”

  “I’m talking about the quarantine chambers. Under Central,” she said. “Ring any bells? Tales about mysterious parasites—and the unfortunate murder of an intel agent? Does any of that sound familiar?”

  “Oh… that. Right… Word sure travels fast.”

  “Yes, it does. Word travels exactly as fast as I want it to travel when it’s coming to my ears, McGill. Walk with me. You’ve already missed the preliminary briefing, and we have a lot to discuss.”

  I followed her, and that was quite a treat. She always wrapped herself up like a birthday present, and I was enjoying my view of the cake.

  As we walked along through Scorpio’s corridors, the crew straightened up whenever Galina passed. She had that effect on people—not just because of her rank. Her beauty and infamous temperament demanded attentiveness as well. She was the kind of person who commanded respect, fear, and horn-doggery in equal measures from every man in the Legion.

  “So,” I said casually while I was staring at her butt, “any idea why they grabbed Megan? She already went through all the decontamination procedures, you know.”

  “Megan?” Galina’s tone was perfectly innocent. She didn’t even bother to look over her shoulder at me. “Oh, you mean that botanist person? All standard precautions, I’m sure. We can’t be too careful with potential biological contaminations.”

  Suddenly, the light went on in my fridge. My face twisted up in disgust. “You arranged all this, didn’t you?”

  “Arranged—? Don’t be absurd. I haven’t been aboard Scorpio for the past eighteen hours preparing to waylay your latest girlfriend. Not at all. I’ve been busy readying Legion Varus for deployment. Unlike you, who’s been gallivanting around Central City causing trouble and getting every authority who knows my tapper ID to send me an angry message.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. “You got jealous and set up some bullshit to put Megan on ice.”

  She paused and spun around on one heel. She was still looking smooth and composed, but I could tell I was starting to piss her off. “How could I possibly have arranged anything involving your latest whore?”

  “Because you’re an Imperator, you’re a Turov, and you like to arrange things.”

  She gave me a little frown and a shake of her head. She spun back around and walked away again. I followed her, still mesmerized.

  “You give me too much credit. I’m just a simple officer following orders and trying to keep humanity safe from alien threats. You should try to be the same.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll do my damnedest to stay out of your business if you stay out of mine.”

  “You are my business, James.”

  She waggled a few fingers over her shoulder indicating I should stay on her six. I did as she commanded.

  Gold Deck was a maze with way too many staffers crawling around on it. Graves had tried to cull their numbers, but when Galina returned to Scorpio they seemed to multiply again.

  When we reached a corridor intersection marked with the officers’ quarters on one side and briefing rooms on the other, she paused. Galina gestured languidly toward the briefing room doors.

  “Your fellow officers are waiting in there,” she said. “The mission parameters have been updated based on new intel we’ve gathered about Kepler-62.”

  “Uh… can’t we go get a drink or something, first?”

  Galina shook her pretty head. “The briefing, James. Duty first, personal matters second.”

  She sounded very professional, but I knew that practically none of this was. She’d neatly caught Megan on a technicality and stuffed her away somewhere. Now, she’d privately led me, trying to entice my attentions, up to this meeting.

  “All right,” I finally said resignedly, “but I want to talk to you later in private.”

  She cocked her head to one side, and her eyebrows arched in a way that meant I was going to get either very lucky—or very dead.

  “Do you now?” she said. “And what makes you think I’d be interested in a private conversation with someone who spends his entire shore leave picking up alien-infected women?”

  “Because,” I said, moving a step closer to her.

  She was well within grabbing distance now, but she didn’t dance away or draw her weapon. That was a good sign, at least. “Because what?”

  Daring a smile, I gazed down at her. “Because you’re just as curious about what happened down there as I am. And because despite all your games and manipulations, you still find me irresistible, don’t you?”

  “Irresistible? That’s a very strong word.”

  “How about charming?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Ruggedly handsome in a dangerous sort of way?”

  She squinted at me for a moment. “James, you are someone who gets into bar fights for entertainment.”

  “That’s true.”

  Galina smiled despite herself. “That’s not the high and mighty recommendation that you think it is.”

  I leaned against the nearest bulkhead, trying to look casual. Sure, I was wearing yesterday’s clothes under my spacer suit, and I probably still smelled like hotel soap.

  “Just one dinner, Galina,” I said. “That’s all I’m suggesting. Just the two of us. Somewhere quiet where we can talk.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “About our mission. About whatever the hell you want to talk about.”

  She studied me. Her lower lip popped out in a little pink pout. Her eyes were calculating for a long moment. I could practically see her gears spinning. She had a small head, even for a small woman, but there was plenty of brain cells in there. Plenty and far away enough for scheming.

  “You killed Agent Dickson,” she said finally.

  “That was an accident of the sheerest kind.”

  She nodded slowly, not believing me for a second. “Then, you arranged for your little botanist friend to be assigned to this mission.”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” I said, throwing my arms wide and spreading my thick fingers in every direction.

  Her lips pursed together tightly. “You’re sleeping with a woman who has potentially been exposed to alien parasites.”

  I shook my head slowly. “She was cleared by medical staff. Real doctors. Real tests and stuff!”

  “And now,” she finished, “you’re asking me on a date. A few hours after spending the night with someone else.”

  I shrugged. “I’m a complicated man.”

  “You’re a goat, James. A dangerous goat who causes problems for me everywhere he goes.”

  I crossed my arms, and I waited, leaning against the bulkhead. This was time for her to decide. Any more lines that I threw out at her were probably just going to get in the way and weren’t going to change anything. One of the most important scraps of knowledge I’ve learned when it comes to women and getting on their good side was to know when it was time to shut the hell up.

  Finally, after a few quiet moments, she shook her head with the expression of someone making a final decision. She sighed.

  “Lavender Deck,” she said, “the Blind Fish, 800 hours. Don’t be late—and come alone!”

  “It’s a date,” I said, slapping my hands together so hard the sound made her wince.

  “It’s just dinner, James. Nothing more.” She turned away again after gesturing toward the briefing doors. “And James, your quarantine friend will be perfectly safe in medical. No need to worry about her—or go looking for her.”

  With that, she was gone, leaving me standing there in the corridor with the distinct impression that I had been bait-and-switched. Was it my idea to get Megan stuffed into quarantine again? No. Was it my idea to ask Galina out on a date in the meantime—hard to say. That could have been her intention—and I was easy to distract.

  Say what you will about Galina’s feigned lack of interest in yours truly. She’d carefully maneuvered her competition out of the way and got me to beg for a date all within a ten-minute span. That wasn’t by accident, and almost none of it was my idea. I knew that from experience.

  The Gold Deck briefing room doors loomed ahead of me as I turned in the direction she’d indicated. The doors, just as one might think they should be, were actually lined with gold gilt. I hoped it was only paint, not hammered on, but I wouldn’t put it past officers like Galina, who liked to waste budgets on extravagances whenever they could, to have put a thin layer of the real metal all over every curve and crease of the design on the door.

  It was time to rejoin the real world and pretend I was a professional soldier instead of a man juggling women across every star system I journeyed to.

  Reluctantly, I opened the door. Dozens of hostile eyes glanced at me. No one gave me a smile or a wave.

  At least I had a dinner date to look forward to later on.

  -10-

  As I slipped into the briefing room, Tribune Graves was just getting warmed up. The man was actually exhibiting enthusiasm, and that was never a good sign. Whenever Graves got a boner about something, it usually meant somebody was going to have a very bad day. I wondered who was going to be scraped off the deck with a shovel.

  The room was packed with Legion Varus officers. The centurions were on the left, and the primus-ranked, fancy-pants guys on the right. The adjuncts dotted the place, those who were lucky enough to get invited to a function like this.

  All of us were crammed around a holographic display table that showed various deck schematics. I spotted Centurion Manfred near the back, looking skeptical as usual. Primus Winslade was near Manfred. He wasn’t mirroring Manfred’s skepticism. Instead, he looked like an eager brown-noser, ready to dig in.

  “Ah, McGill,” Graves said, spotting me. “Good of you to join us at last. We were just discussing the upcoming training exercises.”

  I found an empty chair and settled in, trying to look like I cared. “Training exercises, sir? You mean, like, the big event?”

  “Yes. Our Green Deck combat wargames are going to be held early on this trip,” Graves explained. His eyes took on a particular shine whenever he was contemplating violence. “We’ve been remiss lately, not properly utilizing the training time allotted to us on these long voyages to the fullest extent. I intend to change all that.”

  I looked around at my neighboring officers, and they glanced back at me. None of them looked any happier with Graves’ comments than I was.

  The holographic display in the middle of the room lit up to show Green Deck’s layout. It was a massive artificial environment complete with forested areas, a small lake, and rocky hills.

  All of it was fake, of course. The rocks were puff-crete and even the tree trunks were hollow. They were genetically engineered to grow from a stump to a ceiling-scraper with a leafy crown overnight. The whole thing was impressive tech, both biological and inorganic.

  Green Deck was designed to provide space for realistic training scenarios and, in the meantime, operate as a relaxation zone for the crew and soldiers aboard the ship.

  “The thing is,” Graves continued, pacing around the table like a man stalking prey, “our boys have gotten soft. Too much time on shore leave. Too much comfort. We’ve all consumed too many meals that didn’t come out of a field ration pack.”

  Manfred snorted nearby. “Soft? We just finished operations on Rage World not six months back. Give us a bit of exercise and live fire drills, and my men will be combat-ready long before we reach Kepler-62.”

  Graves shook his head. “Combat ready isn’t combat perfect. We’re going to be perfect on this mission. Whatever’s down there on Kepler has turned trained colonists into puppets. You think our current fitness standards are going to cut it against alien parasites that can rewrite human brains?”

  A few of the officers shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Nobody liked to think about the implications of what we’d learned from the Kepler survivors.

  “What kind of exercises are we talking about, sir?” asked Adjunct Cherish Collins.

  That startled me. She was my own adjunct, from my unit, and that meant any mistake she made would reflect upon me. Talking out of turn when you were an adjunct—well, that was strike-one right there.

  Worse, I hadn’t even noticed her in the crowd. This lack of attentiveness on my part was heightened by the simple fact that Cherish was sitting at the table behind me.

  When I gaped at her, she lifted her nose and refused to make eye-contact. Uh-oh. Maybe she knew I’d skipped out on our promised dinner together to do… other things.

  Cherish had always been a problem animal, and she’d been worse about it recently. She’d been demoted during the Rage World campaign and was still nursing a deep, butthurt wound about it.

  Normally, an adjunct in her position wasn’t expected to contribute anything to a conversation like this. They were expected to listen, to learn, and maybe take some notes.

  But Cherish thought of herself as a legit higher-level officer. So, while she was professional enough to focus on the mission, she hadn’t yet relearned the fine art of shutting the fuck up.

  Graves glanced at her with a moment of disapproval, but he decided to answer rather than reprimand her. “I’m talking about the kind of exercises that separate the wheat from the chaff,” he said. “Full contact scenarios, live ammunition, environmental hazards, multiple casualty events.”

  “Multiple casualties?” Winslade looked intrigued. “You mean...?”

  “I mean these troops have gotten soft. We’re going to kill them—or at least a lot of them. Then, we’re going to revive them and kill them again if need be.” Graves’ grin was now growing in width. It was truly unsettling. “Nothing teaches a man how to stay alive or keep his diet under control like dying a few times. Dying hard.”

  The room quieted. These training exercises often involved actual death. That was pretty standard among the legions. Every time we shipped out, a number of men died in training. Usually, fresh recruits were all but required to die before we reached our destination planet.

  But Graves and the enthusiasm in his gravelly voice was indicating he had something else entirely in mind.

  Sure, our revival machines had made death only a temporary inconvenience, but death was still painful, traumatic, and not something you forgot easily. A lot of us right here in this room hadn’t died for several years.

  Looking around, I noticed a paunch here or there. That was a telltale sign. Some of these boys had indeed skipped the revival queue for a lot longer than others.

  “At least half this legion,” Graves continued, “maybe more, are completely out of shape. We’ve got around 12,000 men aboard. I want to see at least 6,000 of them in body bags before we reach Kepler. That’s at a minimum.”

  Some of the officers exchanged glances. This was extreme, even for Legion Varus.

  “The revival process takes a long time,” pointed out Centurion Torres. “If we kill half our legion at once, we won’t have enough functional troops available by the time we have to invade Kepler-62.”

  “Not so,” Graves said. “I’ve calculated it out. We’ll need to start the exercises early—not mid voyage. We’ll hit our troops hard and get those revival machines churning day and night.”

  The biotechs groaned in unison. Emily Thompson, another ex-girlfriend of mine, stood up. She seemed white in the face. “My calculations show—”

  “Yes, I know,” Graves said, cutting her off. “We barely have the time to revive six thousand, even while churning day and night. That’s why we need to start early. I want a cohort’s worth dead by mid-morning tomorrow. While we’re reviving them, we’ll plot out how to kill the next batch. By the time we reach Kepler, at least half of us will have died—some more than once. They’ll all be grateful and back alive by the time we make planetfall.”

  “But what about the psychological effects?” Cherish blurted. “Repeated death trauma over a short period can cause—”

  Graves interrupted her. “It will cause them to take living more seriously. These aren’t children we’re talking about, Adjunct Collins. They’re supposedly professional soldiers. A quick little death never hurt anyone.”

  Cherish sat her ass back down, defeated.

  I found myself tuning out the rest of the discussion, which devolved into logistics and scheduling details. My mind wandered to more pressing concerns, like how Megan was settling into her quarantine quarters and whether Galina had any more surprises waiting for me.

  I visualized Megan in her hospital gown—and out of it… Galina Turov was hot, but she had a vicious talent for complicating my life in unexpected ways. Megan seemed too sweet in comparison.

  “The question is about the methodology,” Winslade was saying when I forced myself to pay attention again. “How do we maximize casualties while maintaining training value?”