She had me. She was looking all cute and happy and almost ready to cry. Sure, I knew she was a dangerous woman—but you just try waving a slice of fried chicken in front of a hound dog. He’ll snap for it, every damned time.

  I sat up on the bunk, and I kind of expected her to climb on the bed with me—but she didn’t. She stayed on her knees and began kissing my legs. Things proceeded very nicely—but after a bit, I became alarmed. I got the feeling Armel had taught this lady to do things his way.

  “Whoa, girl!” I said, gently taking her by the elbows and lifting her up on the bunk with me.

  She didn’t resist at all, and I gave her the best I had in me. She seemed to like that, and the night passed by in very pleasant fashion.

  -51-

  The very next day, the floor lit up red and klaxons dragged us from our bunks. When I came stumbling out into the cramped passages with Leeza yawning in my wake, there were a few snorts of amusement, but I knew how to fix that.

  Slamming my oven mitt-sized hands together repeatedly, I roared for people to “move, move, MOVE!” and soon, the whole unit was tramping to the armory. We outfitted ourselves, checked our gear and loaded our weapons.

  Surprisingly, we weren’t directed to deploy immediately. I got the feeling others weren’t so lucky. The passages were crowded with rushing troops.

  For my unit, the arrows led to the mess deck first, where we were given a hearty breakfast. There were real eggs, real bacon, and toasted English muffins. To me, it was all a giant danger sign… The brass never splurged on breakfast without a damned good reason.

  Deciding not to worry about it, I ate with gusto and entertained myself with thoughts of my new lady-friend. If I had to die on any given morning, I at least liked to have some good memories of the night before. Last night I’d achieved that goal.

  As we finished up our meal the biggest, blankest wall of the mess deck lit up. A briefing began while we were still chewing and gulping the last of it.

  The wolfshead emblem of Varus glowed, then split apart. In its place appeared Winslade’s leering face. A few people hissed, and I heard Moller slapping and shouting for them to shut up.

  “My proud legion,” he began. “Today, we’ve been blessed with a rare opportunity. We’re going to rectify our mistakes of the recent past. We’re going back down to Glass World, and we’re going to do it right this time.”

  No one cheered. In fact, I heard Carlos say something about “rectifying” Winslade himself.

  I found it hard to blame my troops. For one thing, no one was too fond of Winslade. For another, we hadn’t heard the details yet. Love, joy or horror—any of these could be buried in the details.

  Winslade began playing with graphic maps. He showed the same odd, wavery shots of the surface he’d been examining in his office the last time I’d spoken to him. Slowly, he panned through a dozen shots, one at a time. They all looked confusing and mostly the same. It was like he’d given the planet an X-ray.

  “See here? This splotch with the lines? That’s one of the crystal patches. One of the outcroppings of glass-like material that dots this strange world—but today, these obvious features of the planet don’t contain our goal.”

  He panned down, then to the left. The bumpy imagery swam and blurred. Finally, he seemed to find the spot he’d been seeking. Pointing out a lung-shaped region of darkness on the image, his finger looked like the hand of God.

  “There…” he said. “Right there. That’s a tunnel complex. It doesn’t look like much on this scan, but let me assure you, it is at least ten square kilometers of caverns. They exist about five hundred meters below the surface.”

  The image faded, and Winslade’s face loomed again. There were a few groans and boos. I had to admit, I liked the x-ray better myself.

  “That’s the only sizeable tunnel complex we’ve managed to locate. It’s our belief that the processing center must be inside that sealed region. There’s simply nowhere else it could be.”

  “Did he say sealed?” Carlos asked loudly from two tables over. “What kind of fuckery is this?”

  I didn’t bother to shout at him, or even to look at him. Moller was already up and moving. She would shorten his dick for him, and I didn’t have to even worry about it. I smiled, enjoying the kind of small perk that made it worthwhile to be a centurion.

  “It’s probably full of lava or something,” Adjunct Barton said next to me.

  I was mildly surprised to hear her speak. She’d sat right next to me, eating without a word for ten full minutes now. I’d pretended not to notice how quiet she was—which was easy, as I really didn’t care.

  Erin and I had had a fling a few years back, but that was long over with now. If she wanted to get disgusted every time I spent some time with a new lady-friend, well, that was her problem.

  “Nah,” I said, “not lava. That would be too quick of a death. That’s not how Varus does things.”

  We continued watching Winslade’s presentation. He outlined how, after a careful search, they’d been unable to find any other regions large enough on the planet to house a hidden manufacturing center. He failed to mention that Abigail was the source for the theory that a processing facility existed. That was either because he wanted to take the credit, or because he didn’t want us to freak out. After all, we’d spent a year on a campaign to destroy the Claver homeworld. No one in Legion Varus trusted any sort of Claver clone, female or otherwise.

  “Lastly,” Winslade continued, “we’ve decided on who will be volunteered for this glorious mission.”

  A loud groan came up from my unit. Moller and Sargon were looking around sternly, but there were so many people groaning it was hard to assign blame. In fact, I counted myself among them.

  Winslade’s oversized eyeballs peered at us, and his teeth showed in what I imagined passed for a grin on his face. “I can almost hear the dismay in 3rd Unit—but worry not. Your fears are unfounded. I’ve decided to send troops from 3rd Cohort, yes—but not your unit.”

  Blinking and stunned, we looked around at each other. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing.

  “That’s right. The first to go will be 7th Unit, then if needed, the 8th. This is to rectify—”

  “—he said it again!” Carlos shouted.

  “—what I believe to be an error in Graves’ operational strategy. He relied overly-much on the admittedly extensive experience of 3rd Unit. Due to this habit, others in Varus haven’t gotten a chance to prove themselves. That practice ends today.”

  People whooped and cheered. Moller was so happy she didn’t even cuff Carlos. More importantly, Erin slapped me on the back, and we grinned at one another. All thoughts of jealousy had vanished in an instant, and I thought she looked her best when she smiled a real, honest smile.

  When Winslade’s briefing ended, the only thing that 3rd Unit cared about was the fact we weren’t going in first. Carlos even came up and tried to hug me.

  “McGill…” he said, “I don’t know who you had to blow for this—in fact, I don’t want to know. I’m just glad you did it, big guy.”

  I pushed him away, cursing. He was escorted back to his seat by one of the noncoms, and we ate the rest of our meal with gusto.

  7th Unit, on the other hand, looked like they were attending their own funerals. They were all out of hoots and hollers today. They’d been fingered for the worst of duties: a teleport-assault mission into the unknown.

  I grinned and waved at Manfred, who was their leader and a friend of mine. He flipped me the bird in return, but I kept on waving and grinning.

  “Bon voyage, Manfred!” I laughed.

  The next few hours were sheer bliss. My troops had been certain we’d be chosen to go on this particular suicide mission. We’d done more of them than any other outfit in the legion.

  That was the kind of insidious trap that so often caught a man in the military: success usually bought you more difficult assignments and more pain. Sure, we took pride in our record, but at the same time, we were tired of carrying such a heavy load.

  Long ago, we’d been chosen to pioneer the original teleportation commando missions. Since some of us had survived the experience, we’d been called upon again and again. Our very success became a curse, as the brass started to rely on our legendary expertise. The more missions we performed, the more they sent us—the cycle had seemed unbreakable.

  Until now. Winslade had stated the obvious: others needed to get a shot at using the equipment. As he didn’t seem to believe this mission would be difficult to complete, he had no reason to send his best.

  Internally, I had to wonder what other factors his calculations entailed. For instance, I knew he didn’t like sharing the limelight with anyone. Maybe he was doing this to cut me down a peg. Or maybe it was just so he could do something differently than Graves, as he’d said.

  It didn’t matter. I was glad to get out of another death today, regardless of the cause. Never look a gift-horse in the mouth, my daddy used to say.

  Whistling a cheerful tune, I marched my people out of the mess and down to the shooting range. Today, we were the only unit aboard that was neither slated to go down to Glass World, nor already dead and waiting in the revival queue.

  We shot targets, had a few non-deadly contests of arms, and generally whooped it up. Downstairs, on Gray Deck, sorry platoons of guinea pigs were suited-up, jacked-in and fired into the guts of an unsuspecting planet.

  About thirty minutes into our celebration, we saw the lights shimmer. That was the second time around, and it was a sure sign of a power fluctuation. Aboard Berlin, that kind of thing usually happened when the main guns were fired, or we went into warp. This time, however, I knew it was because Gray Deck was pulling a lot of amperage. Another unit must be charging up to head down to the planet.

  “Another group is porting out!” Carlos told me unnecessarily. “I’ve got confirmation on my tapper. Want to look at the readouts?”

  “Nope,” I said, lining up my rifle on an alien holo-target. I released a short burst with a practiced squeeze of the trigger. The bolts sprayed the target downrange, destroying the hulking monster.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” Carlos persisted in a lowered voice. “It means the first unit didn’t finish the job. They needed back up.”

  I shrugged and fired another burst.

  Carlos, never one to take any kind of hint, subtle or otherwise, sidled closer. “You should talk to Natasha. Something’s wrong down there. The techs know about it—they always do.”

  “Are you here specifically to spoil this fine day, Specialist?”

  “Hell no, sir. That’s Winslade’s job. He’s in charge of this legion now, and whatever happens, it’s his fault.”

  He left me at last, and I fired three more bursts, destroying three more targets. Finally, however, I set my rifle down in disgust. Carlos had done his dirty work with all that whispering.

  I lifted my tapper to contact Natasha—but I hesitated. The ship shivered again.

  A third unit? Only twenty minutes after the last one? Why would they have to send three units…? Could Carlos, that loudmouthed, self-appointed buzz-killer be right?

  Instead of making a call, I left the range and headed down to Gray Deck. I wanted to see what was happening in person.

  Stepping onto the deck, I noted several things. First off, there were techs tearing around, rushing from one panel to the next. At the far end of the deck, standing at the control panels that did group-targeting, I saw a familiar face.

  It was Winslade himself, and he was scowling with unusual ferocity. As I approached, he scolded one of the techs.

  “Don’t tell me that again! Repeated information is useless!”

  “But sir, you said—”

  “Get back to your console and fix it!”

  The tech specialist wasn’t one that I knew. Scowling, she slunk away and began poking at instruments.

  Rather than approach Winslade, who seemed like he was in a bad mood anyway, I walked after the specialist. She was better-looking anyhow.

  “Hey,” I said, “I heard I might be up next. Is that right?”

  She looked around in surprise. “That’s bullshit—sorry Centurion. Did Winslade send you over here?”

  “Uh… no. What’s the trouble?”

  “We don’t know,” she said, adjusting touch-controls and gripping her station with one claw-like hand. “They just aren’t responding. They can’t be found or recalled. I don’t get it. The empty zone we sent them into is very clearly visible on LIDAR—they can’t be entombed down there.”

  At the word entombed, I became concerned. I stepped up to her panel and ran my eyes over it. I wasn’t a tech, but I knew my way around a coordinate system.

  I pointed a thick finger at a glowing golden circle of pixels. “Is that the LZ?”

  “Yes, of course. We’ve just sent our third unit there. They haven’t responded in any way. None of them have. No radio, no gateway hook-up—they were supposed to configure a gateway to bring down more support. I can’t believe it. I guess that they’re missing, or something…”

  “That’s a way’s down. You don’t think they’re suffocating? Or burning in magma?”

  “Six kilometers deep is the estimated bottom of the tunnel complex. We’ve been targeting a much more shallow region. It’s only about five hundred meters deep.”

  “You don’t say? You’ve sent three units down there, all to different spots, but you’ve gotten no response? None at all?”

  She looked at me seriously and shook her head. “The tribune keeps telling us to prep the next group. I… I’m worried we might be perming them.”

  I could see she was freaked out. I put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go see what I can do.”

  She flashed me a grateful smile, and I took note of her name plate for later. After all, you never knew…

  Walking away, I soon discovered Winslade again. He was tugging and cursing at a teleport harness.

  “Uh… what seems to be the trouble, Tribune?”

  He looked at me with a snarl on his lips. “Oh, it’s you, McGill. Fancy seeing you down here. Well, if you’re looking for another shot at glory, you’ll have to wait. We’re out of serviceable harnesses.”

  I looked around in alarm. Sure enough, most of the racks were empty.

  “That’s a crying shame, sir. I was kind of hoping to solve your problem for you.”

  “That’s not going to happen on my watch. I’ve had enough of your grandstanding and gloating. Can’t you let someone else have a shot at the limelight, hmm?”

  “As you command, Tribune.”

  Turning away, I began to stride off, but I didn’t make it six sweeping steps before he was on my tail all of a sudden.

  “Just a moment, McGill. Suddenly, this situation strikes me as odd. Here I am, struggling with this teleportation gear, when you just happened to show up asking pointed questions. Why is that?”

  “Uh… because I felt the ship shudder three times. Also… the techs are starting to gossip. You won’t be able to keep a lid on this for long.”

  Winslade bared his teeth, but he wasn’t smiling. He looked toward a table full of techs. They were whispering and casting glances around—and not just at their instruments.

  A skinny fist struck the housing of an empty locker. All the harnesses had been used. “Damn it! One of these techs alerted you, didn’t they? Some ex-girlfriend with a connection to Gray Deck? It’s always the same story with you, McGill.”

  “Well sir, if I can’t be of any—”

  “What did you have in mind? What’s your solution? Come, come, I know you have an idea rattling inside that thick skull of yours.”

  “Solution, sir? Well, I…” I stopped, as I realized I did have an idea. It was worth sharing, too, as otherwise these men might be permed. The first group had been led by one of my best friends in the legion, Centurion Manfred. “Actually, I do have a suggestion.”

  “Out with it, damn you, before one of these nerds uses the deep-link to alert Central.”

  “You need more harnesses. The only way to get them is to send back through the gateway to Earth for them.”

  “You think I haven’t thought of that? The moment I make such a requisition, the brass back home will know I’ve lost every harness aboard ship. How will that sound to them?”

  “Expensive,” I admitted. “All right, what if you try something else? What if you send down one man, rather than a dozen?”

  Winslade blinked. “You’re volunteering for this duty?”

  “I might have to, but I wasn’t planning on doing things exactly the same way. You need to know what happened to our people. If we used a different device… that might be possible.”

  “A different device? You mean something other than a teleport harness?”

  “Yes.”

  He frowned at me. “Does such a thing even exist? And what would be the nature of the improvement?”

  Naturally, I was thinking of what they called the “casting” device back at Central. Etta had worked on it and used it to transport my butt to Rigel twice. That had supposedly been a spying mission—but I’d turned it into more of a sabotage effort.

  “I can’t tell you—not exactly. Let’s just say it’s possible to take a look at what is at a given set of coordinates—not just blindly teleport someone to the spot.”

  “Ah…” he said, tapping his finger on his pointy chin and looking intrigued. “Normally, I’d assume you were full of grade A manure—but I happen to know you’ve been used as a guinea pig for experimental technologies before… you say this device can let us see what’s happened to our troops?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what is your great interest in this matter?”

  I shrugged. “Some of those people are my friends, and they’re as good as permed right now. If you let me help, I’ll at least get them cleared for revival.”

  “More importantly,” Winslade said thoughtfully, “we’ll be able to prove whether the processing center is down there or not. Very well, I’m desperate, so I’ll give you my permission to proceed with this hare-brained scheme of yours. What do you need—access to the deep-link?”