“She’s lying, James,” Leeza said. “She sold you to Rigel. She probably figured that she could get you revived somehow back here aboard ship and no one would ever know what happened.”

  “Huh…” I said, thinking about that. The truth was, I might never learn what had actually happened. Abigail was that kind of sneaky—just like her brothers.

  The two women looked at me. “What are you doing here anyway?” I asked Abigail. “I thought you were executed or something.”

  Abigail gave me another of her little shrugs. “You spoke with Praetor Drusus, didn’t you? He gave me a chance to make my case. That was very honorable of you. That was a bargain kept.”

  “So… after he had you executed, what happened?”

  She shrugged. “I returned to Earth. I spoke there with other people who were… more congenial. I managed to get myself officially assigned to this mission,” she concluded. “I stepped out from Earth only an hour ago.”

  “How convenient!” Leeza huffed from behind her. “Right when James is crated and shipped to Rigel, you reappear and act like you belong here.”

  Abigail turned her back on Leeza. While she was making eyes at me, she reached back to settle her admittedly tousled hair—but I saw she had one long finger flipped out in plain view while she did it. That finger took a slow trip down her hair in the back, and Leeza couldn’t have missed the spectacle.

  Abigail smiled up at me. “We can sort this out,” she said.

  That’s when Leeza kicked her in the ass—or, to be more accurate, a bit lower than that. That boot tip came up hard from behind, and I could tell from the widening of Abigail’s eyes that she wasn’t a happy camper.

  I could have told her she’d made a tactical error. She was used to being around men—hell, as far as I knew she’d only known various versions of her brothers up until recently. But that might have left her with poor predictive skills when it came to the behavior of rival women.

  Whatever the case, the fight was on again, and this time it was in earnest. Claws were out, and they were reaching for their knives after thirty loud seconds had passed.

  I honestly considered letting them kill each other. Sometimes, it was for the best to let new recruits work these things out for themselves. After all, it wouldn’t be anything a bit of flesh-printing couldn’t fix.

  But I found I couldn’t stay neutral. They were making an awful racket, and even I was getting tired of it. Accordingly, I reached out and gently thumped their heads together. It was the sort of thing I did to settle down feisty recruits on the training grounds.

  I didn’t do it real hard, just enough to send them reeling. They both staggered backward, stunned. Leeza went to her knees, and Abigail puked—but I figured that was from exertion as much as anything else.

  Helping the girls stand straight, I plucked their weapons from their hands and belts, dropping them on the deck. Needlers and knives clattered loudly. Then, I walked them both toward the exit.

  “What are you doing?” Leeza asked me.

  “Taking you two to the brig to cool off. I don’t know who’s a traitor and who’s full of shit—could be both of you. In any case, I’m tired of the whole thing.”

  “McGill, I don’t have time for this,” Abigail said urgently.

  “No? Maybe you should have thought of that before you shipped my ass off to the bears to make a buck.”

  “It was a business deal. If you’d actually been transported there, you’d have been revived back here aboard this warship. I saw to it. In fact, you would never have known anything had happened if events had gone as planned.”

  “Yeah, well, is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it doesn’t. In fact, I’ve got hurt feelings. I was kind of sweet on you, Miss Claver. Now, you’ve gone and burst my bubble. I might have to go get counseling or something.”

  She glanced up at me like I was crazy. I gave her back an indignant angry look that would have convinced anyone—except possibly my dad.

  “I can’t go to the brig now,” she said in breathy panic. “I’ve just become respectable in Earth’s eyes. I’ll tell you what—I’ll share the payment with you. How about that?”

  I stopped frog-marching the two women toward the lower decks. “Really? How much is my carcass worth to old Squanto?”

  “A million credits,” she said. “You can have it all.”

  “Hegemony or Galactic?”

  “Hegemony, of course.”

  I snorted. “That’s a crap payout. You got ripped off, girl. Do you know how much that bear cub hates me? In fact, I’m so insulted by that offer you’re going to the brig anyway.”

  For the first time since I’d met her, she seemed actually alarmed about this turn of events. Her eyes were looking around like she was hoping to see an exit—but there wasn’t any. She scratched at my fingers, which were wrapped around her arm, but that was like scratching at an oak branch.

  “All right,” she said. “Two million. I’ll give it all to you.”

  I made a rude, blatting noise with my lips.

  We reached the passageways, and crewmen were giving us very strange looks. But I kept marching, not even making eye-contact with anyone.

  “James, really, I can’t go to the brig. I’ll lose all my credibility with certain patrons. Drusus is already against me. I’ve worked so hard…”

  “You should have thought of that before you tried to make a quick buck out of old James McGill.”

  “Yes. Yes, I should have. I’m very sorry, James.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “I’ll make it five million—no, five million each!”

  I stopped walking. I stood the girls in front of me. They didn’t look their best, but Leeza didn’t appear to be angry anymore. She looked kind of… greedy.

  “What do you think about that, Ensign?” I asked her.

  “Ten million,” she said. “Each. Or no deal.”

  Abigail bared her teeth. “All right. You’ve got it.”

  I let go of the two ornery women.

  “Shake on it,” I said.

  They both reached out a distrustful hand toward one another. After a moment, they clasped hands and shook briefly. Seeing that, I smiled my first honest smile of the day.

  I didn’t care much about the money. I’d probably end up giving it to my folks to keep them from aging, anyway. However, I did dare to hope to enjoy some peace and quiet around this ship at last.

  -50-

  My hopes and dreams of a peaceful night were not to be. Around about midnight, just as I stretched out for some well-deserved shuteye, there was a knock on my door.

  As a centurion, I rated a small personal cabin, but that was only because there was enough room aboard at the moment. As the revivals continued, troops would pile up like cordwood until multiple centurions would be stacked into this tiny chamber with me. Still, that was way better than sleeping on the deck, which is what most of our soldiers would have to do when things got tighter.

  “What is it?” I called out.

  The tapping came again. The knocking wasn’t a pounding fist, but there was definitely some urgency behind it. Sighing, I threw my arm over my face to shield my eyes from the light and tapped the walls. The room lit up, and I told the door to open.

  Two women stood in the passage outside. One was Ensign Leeza. Adjunct Erin Barton stood behind her.

  “Uh…” I said, not quite knowing what was what. “Can I help you ladies?”

  “Sir,” Barton said, “I found this fleet-type slinking through our assigned quarters. She was checking every room, asking for you. Did you approve of this action as she says, or should I remove her?”

  “Huh…” I said, thinking over these two options. “What’s the problem, Ensign?”

  “So she lied to me?” Barton asked, jerking up on Leeza’s arm. That’s when I noticed Barton had the smaller woman’s arm twisted up behind her. Adjunct Barton could be the stern type when she got riled.

  Leeza stared at the deck. “I don’t understand why your troops think it’s appropriate to treat crewmen this way.”

  “Because you’re on every watch-list there is,” Barton told her angrily. Leeza’s hair puffed up with each word that was blasted into the back of her head. “You’ve been relieved of all duties by the captain, and you should be in the brig. In fact, I think I’ll take you down there and see if I can convince them to lock you up. I’m sorry to disturb you with this trash, Centurion.”

  “Adjunct?” I said, sitting up and yawning. “Hold on a second.”

  With visible reluctance, Barton stopped dragging Leeza away.

  “Did you want to talk, or something?” I asked Leeza.

  She nodded her head. She was still staring fixedly at the deck. I thought that over, and I even glanced lovingly at my pillow. I could really use some sleep after all I’d been through.

  Finally, I sighed and waved to Barton. “It’s okay, Erin. I’ll talk to her for a minute.”

  Adjunct Barton didn’t look any happier to hear these words. She showed her teeth, nodded, and shoved Leeza into my cabin. Then she slammed the door behind her.

  “Sit down, sit down,” I said, waving my visitor to the bunks opposite me. The cabin had four bunks, two on each side with a cramped aisle in the middle.

  Leeza sat opposite me, but she didn’t look comfortable there. She didn’t meet my gaze.

  “What’d you want to talk about?”

  “What you saw out there,” she said, “or what you think you saw. They’re talking about an inquiry. Are you going to testify?”

  “Uh…” I said, giving my face a rubdown. “You got a beer or anything? It’s hard for me to think at night without—”

  Leeza produced a silver flask. I didn’t ask her where she kept it. Most mercenaries kept alcohol handy for rough moments. She poured out a couple shots, and I gulped mine.

  Not quite knowing how to kick-off the conversation, I started with the most immediate mystery. I figured I could get around to the big stuff later.

  “You were knocking on every cabin? Why didn’t you just use your tapper? Oh—wait, you ripped it out, didn’t you?”

  She showed me a scarred arm. “Armel’s butchers replaced it. The screen is distorted, but it works.”

  I nodded. “You used to be in charge of seat assignments on this ship. I would think—”

  “Used to,” she said. “But the captain has lost all faith in me. He… he disconnected me from the grid, except for emergency incoming messages only.”

  “Is that why you’re moping around here at midnight?”

  Leeza looked up. “Not exactly. James, I need your help. I… I’ve been hiding things—from everyone.”

  She began to tell me then that she’d suffered some kind of mysterious amnesia. That she couldn’t remember almost a year’s time in her life. That she’d been revived with a big chunk of her history missing, and she’d forgotten the entirety of the Clone World campaign.

  While she confessed all this, I winced a few times. Winslade had undergone that same treatment, and he hadn’t reacted well, either. I’d begun to regret having a hand in delivering a serious mind-fuck to both these people.

  Sure, the versions of them that I’d known and dealt with had turned traitor. They’d been turned by Claver and his promises of promotions in his clone legions. They were supposed to live forever, get higher ranks and escape Earth’s smothering government.

  All of that hadn’t excused them for treason—but this version of these people had never committed the crime. Was it right, was it moral, to punish a person for something they had no knowledge of doing? They weren’t the people who’d performed these heinous acts—not exactly. They were more like twin siblings to those wayward souls.

  Worse, no one had ever bothered to tell them why they were being leaned on, why they were demoted and kicked around… Winslade had reacted by pulling in some big favors with Hegemony. He was a different man now, in some ways, and the change wasn’t for the better.

  Leeza, on the other hand, had turned her confusion and mistreatment inward. She didn’t understand it, and she seemed to be tormented by it all.

  I heaved a sigh. “Listen,” I said, “I’m going to tell you something I’ve been ordered not to. Something that explains all the shit you’ve been going through for about a year now.”

  Slowly, her face turned up to mine. She had the light of hope in her eyes. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. The hunger for the truth was plain to see.

  “Don’t get too happy,” I warned her. “The truth isn’t good. It isn’t fair. It’s not likely to make your day.”

  She licked her lips and nodded. “I’ve already figured that out. Just tell me.”

  So… I did. I told her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By the end of it, I’d had a second shot of booze, and she’d drained the flask.

  She stretched out on the bunk opposite me. I thought she was going to cry or something, but she didn’t. She’d always been a tough woman.

  “You set this nightmare in motion,” she said. “When you executed me and talked them into bringing me back.”

  “You’d rather be permed?”

  “I don’t know. It’s been rough.”

  “The woman I talked to out there on Clone World—the one who was a primus commanding a cohort of Clavers—she didn’t want to be permed. She called in a favor, an old debt, and I agreed.”

  She thought that over, and she shook the flask. It was empty. She tossed it on the deck, where it clattered like a dinner bell.

  “You’re right,” she said, sucking in a long breath and sighing. “You didn’t start this—I did. I asked for a favor, and you did the favor. It’s all my fault.”

  I laughed, feeling good about having come clean on our strangely twisted fate.

  Suddenly, she sat straight up. “It’s not fair! I’ve been kissing ass for a year without even knowing why. They’ve leaned on me in so many little ways…”

  “Yeah, that does suck. Now, if you’re feeling better, maybe you could see your way to letting me get some sleep. What do you say?”

  She looked at the deck again. “I don’t have an assigned bunk, McGill. I’ve got as much space on a steel deck as my butt can cover, that’s all. They said it was a mix-up—but I know now it wasn’t.”

  “Oh… well, if you want, you can sleep right there—as long as you promise to shut up, that is.”

  When you tell a woman to shut up, especially when she’s drunk and emotional, she’ll do one of two things: she’ll either get mad, or she won’t hear you. Leeza chose the second option.

  “There’s something I should tell you now. About how I got back to Armel. Things have been weird on Earth and on this ship for months. When Abigail first contacted me, she told me she would relay anything I wanted to Armel. That she was in contact with him.”

  Frowning, I propped myself up with an elbow. I had been vaguely wondering what kind of monkey-business she’d used to escape her post aboard Berlin and why she was so angry with Abigail.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “She tricked me. She knew more than she was letting on. She got me into communication with Armel, who’d been looking for a way to get me back. In fact, I think he had a bounty out on me, and Abigail took it—just the way she did to make a quick credit piece on your head.”

  “Hmm… that does sound like a Claver,” I admitted.

  “So, they gave me coordinates. I stole a harness and ported out. In payment… I gave them the location of your unit’s LZ during that last drop. I’m really sorry about that.”

  I chewed that over, and I found I didn’t like the taste. “Girl, maybe you are a natural traitor. Did you ever think of that? You did it twice now, on two different grows.”

  “I know, I know! But it wasn’t me, it’s not about me—it’s Armel. He’s bad for me. He’s always managed to get me to do whatever he wanted. That’s my real weakness.”

  “So you’re in love with him? You sure can pick them!”

  I laughed, but she didn’t. She stopped talking, and I gratefully fell asleep, assuming she’d done the same.

  A bit later—it might have been a minute or an hour, it’s hard to tell when you’re sleeping hard—I felt a light touch.

  Snorting awake, I remembered who was in the room, and I stopped myself from killing her in the dark. Slapping at the wall, I looked at her in the sudden light, blinking.

  Leeza was on her knees next to my bunk. She watched me like a cat, and I got the feeling she’d never slept a wink.

  “Uh…” I said. “What now?”

  “Do you like Abigail?” she asked. “Do you think she’s pretty?”

  Women loved to set traps for men like that one, but fortunately, I knew the answer. It was reflexive, and practically burned into my brain.

  “Hell no!” I lied with gusto. For flavor, I decided that simple denial needed a grain of truth placed on it—like a cherry on top. “She kind of freaks me out, to be honest. She looks too much like her brothers.”

  For the first time in a long time, I saw Leeza smile. She looked a lot cuter when she smiled. Usually, she had this stern, mean-looking expression on her face—but not tonight.

  “Good,” she said. “I really, really hate that woman.”

  “You’ve got no worries in that department,” I lied firmly.

  Leeza knew my rep, of course, but she was from outside the legion, so she didn’t really know how I operated. I could tell she bought every word I said. It was kind of refreshing. All the female officers in my outfit seemed to go out of their way to tell stories about me—they seemed to have skipped giving this girl “the James McGill talk.”

  She studied the deck again. “I’ve been kind of interested in you, James. For years—no, for decades now. Maybe it all started when I found you nude on that pool table…”

  I laughed, not sure where she was going with this.

  Suddenly, she looked up and dropped her bomb. “Do you like me at all? That way, I mean?”

  “Well…” I began, but I didn’t say anything else.