“Okay,” Rogan replied. “But stay back a ways . . . They could have weapons.”

  They left the truck and made their way toward the house. Once they were a couple of hundred yards away, Meyers took partial cover behind a pump house as Rogan went forward alone. He stopped a hundred feet away. The front door opened and Tran stumbled out, closely followed by the man with the blond hair. He was carrying a blast rifle.

  Tran had been beaten and Rogan felt sorry for her. More than that, he felt a growing sense of anger. He looked Olafson in the eye. “So who the hell are you?”

  “My name doesn’t matter,” Olafson replied. “What matters is my money. Tran took it and I’m here to get it back.”

  “So take it and leave,” Rogan said.

  “Ah, if only it was that simple,” Olafson replied. “Tran hid the money inside one of your robots. We haven’t been able to find it. So here’s the deal . . . You have one hour to find the robot, get the money, and bring it here. Otherwise I will shoot Tran in the head and leave. Oh, and don’t attempt to board my ship; you’ll be sorry if you do.”

  Rogan looked at Tran. One eye was swollen shut and her lower lip was puffy. “Which robot did you hide the money in?”

  Her voice was shaky. “The one you call Judy.”

  “Okay,” Rogan said as he turned to Olafson. “I’ll find Judy and return the money.”

  “One hour,” Olafson said as he pulled Tran toward the door. “That’s allyou get.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The first and most important responsibility of a Calag Planetary Manager is to protect the company’s property.

  (Excerpted from the Calag Planetary Manager’s Handbook, 2nd edition, chapter 1, page 1, paragraph 3.)

  Calag Planet 4782/X

  Rogan pressed the com link under his jaw. “Waly . . . Tran says she hid the money inside Judy. Where is Judy right now?”

  Wally thought Rogan’s tendency to name robots was silly but had grown accustomed to it.

  “I’ll check,” he replied. “Stand by.”

  Meyers came forward to meet Rogan. Her expression was grave. “What willyou do?”

  “I can’t fight them,” Rogan replied. “They have the only weapons on the planet. So all I can do is give them the money and alert the authorities.”

  Meyers’s eyes grew larger. She pointed over Rogan’s shoulder. “Who is that?”

  Rogan heard a loud humming sound and turned to look. The open grav barge was in the process of landing. And there, standing in the middle of it, was Elvas Werkmor. He was wearing a sleeping bag. Holes had been cut for his arms and the bottom was hacked off just below the knees. “That,” Rogan said, “is my boss. Or ex-boss, since I don’t expect to be working here much longer.”

  A ramp dropped to the ground, which allowed Werkmor to make his way down off the barge.

  The mummy bag forced him to take tiny steps, and Meyers stifled a laugh as the executive approached them. “Where is the rotten bitch?” he demanded.

  “In the house,” Rogan replied.

  “I’m going to kill her,” Werkmor declared calmly. “Then I’m going to fire you and the tin can up in orbit. Who the hell is this?”

  “My name is Meyers. Dr. Matti Meyers,” the anthropologist replied brightly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She extended a hand.

  Werkmor ignored it. He turned to Rogan. “Why is she here?”

  “She’s studying the Hudu,” Rogan answered. “They owned Calag 4782/X before we bought it—and have the right to bury their dead here. That’s what they claim anyway. More than a million mourners will arrive during the next few days. Their ships are in orbit now.”

  Werkmor was speechless. His jaw worked, but nothing came out of his mouth. Finally, he managed to produce the necessary words. “You’re fired.”

  “Yes, sir . . . That being the case, I will hand the Tran situation over to you.”

  Werkmor looked suspicious. “Tran situation? What Tran situation?”

  “She’s being held captive inside the house,” Meyers said helpfully. “It seems she stole some money and hid it inside a robot named Judy, and the people she took it from are here to get it back.”

  Werkmor looked at Rogan, who nodded. “That’s about the size of it, sir. You have less than an hour to find the money and give it to them. Otherwise they plan to kill her. Wait a minute—Wally has something to tell me.”

  The others were forced to wait as Wally spoke to Rogan. “You aren’t going to like this.”

  Rogan sighed. “What now?”

  “My records show that Judy continued to take unauthorized coffee breaks even after the reload and reboot process was completed. So she was deactivated and placed in a container loaded with scrap metal.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Rogan replied. “Let me guess. The scrap was fired into orbit and loaded onto one of the freighters.”

  “You’re smarter than you look.”

  “So there’s nothing we can do. Not in the amount of time we have.”

  “Not true,” Wally countered. “There is something you can do.”

  Rogan listened. Would the plan work? He’d know soon enough.

  • • •

  There was very little light inside the bedroom. That was partly because a large wardrobe had been placed in front of the single window, but the room’s glow strips were turned off as well.

  Tran was seated on a chair while two androids stood guard. She thought of them as Frick and Frack.

  Jones figured Rogan would be willing to trade the money for her. Tran knew better. She had lied to Rogan. Used him. So once he recovered the money, he would keep it, and Jones wouldn’t be able to find him. Not on Rogan’s world.

  And there was something else as well. There had been a number of beatings, but during an intermission Jones told her about the artificial kidneys and what would happen if he couldn’t return the money to La Paz within a couple of weeks. The con man was living on borrowed time. That meant he couldn’t afford to stay on Calag 4782/X for very long.

  Tran’s thoughts were interrupted by a crash as something punched a hole in the wall. It was a huge fist, a mechanical fist. A shaft of sunlight hit the floor as it was withdrawn.

  Frick hurried over to peer through the hole. The fist struck again and the impact made a big dent in Frick’s face. As the android keeled over backward, Frack grabbed hold of her. A metal foot pod kicked a hole in the wall. Tran had seen Rogan use the exoskeletons and understood.

  He was coming for her! Suddenly there was reason to hope.

  • • •

  Jones heard the commotion from the other side of the house but was powerless to help.

  The more immediate threat was the huge harvester that rumbled into view. It crushed a storage shed and made straight for his spaceship, so Jones came out shooting, and the target was so big that he couldn’t miss. Energy bolts hit the harvester, blew holes in it, and started a fire.

  But none of the hits were sufficient to stop the gigantic machine as it bore down on the Avian, so Jones aimed for the control compartment on top of the monster. There was a flash as the bolt struck and metal turned to slag. That was when a man wearing what looked like a dress emerged, ran the length of a catwalk, and jumped. Jones fired again. The resulting explosion brought the harvester to a halt. Having won that battle, Jones turned to go inside.

  • • •

  Rogan delivered a final kick, and another section of wall collapsed. Now the hole was large enough for the exoskeleton to step through. The android let go of Tran in order to attack him.

  It was clear that the normal prohibitions against attacking humans had been bypassed.

  Even though Rogan was “wearing” an ES, large sections of his anatomy were exposed. That included his abdomen, and a well-delivered punch brought him to his mechanical knees. And that’s where he was, struggling to recover, when Tran jumped the robot from behind. She was riding the droid’s back and clawing at the machine’s face when Rogan stood.

  Servos whined as he reached out to grab the robot’s skull. Rogan gave a mighty twist to the right, and sparks flew as the head came off. Tran jumped free as the machine collapsed.

  “Through the hole,” Rogan ordered. “Now.”

  Tran obeyed and was gone by the time Jones entered. He looked at Rogan, saw the opening, and swore. He was in the process of raising the blast rifle when Meyers shot him in the back. The bolt exited through his chest, missed Rogan by six inches, and passed through the hole in the wall. There was a thump as the body hit the ruble-strewn floor. “Sorry,” Meyers said as she looked at all the destruction. “I never fired one of these things before.”

  The anthropologist looked like she was going to throw up. Rogan freed himself from the ES and jumped to the floor. Then with one arm around Meyers’s waist, he took her out into the living area. As they passed through, Rogan saw two rifles lying on the kitchen table. He appropriated one just in case.

  Werkmor was standing on the porch. Apparently all was forgiven, because he had one arm around Tran and she was sobbing into his right shoulder. An act? Probably. But so what?

  Rogan figured the two of them deserved each other. Then he noticed the badly damaged harvey, the smoke pouring out of the engine compartment, and the robots working to put the fire out. And that wasn’t all. Something was missing. “Where’s the Avian?” Rogan inquired.

  “A woman and an android ran out of the house shortly after Mr. Werkmor jumped off the harvester,” Meyers said. “The Avian took off a few moments later.”

  Rogan knew the woman was Jones’s pilot. He eyed Werkmor. The Calag executive was still dressed in the modified sleeping bag. “You ran the harvester?”

  Werkmor’s eyes went to the machine in question before swinging back to Rogan. There was a frown on his face. “You mean the unit that suffered a malfunction and caught fire? Certainly not. Why would I do that?”

  The implication was clear. Werkmor planned to make the whole thing go away: his dalliance with Tran, the trouble she had been in, and the battle that ensued. And that suited Rogan just fine. “Right . . . Well, if you had, that would have been a brave thing to do. I’ll pack my stuff and put in a call to Moms. Maybe she can give me a lift.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Werkmor cautioned, “not unless you’re willing to forfeit this month’s pay. Read section 5689.4, paragraph three of your contract. It’s right there in black-and-white. Besides, you have work to do.”

  Rogan was about to reply when Wally’s voice came over the com link. “Heads up, Dan . . . Here they come.”

  Rogan looked up and shaded his eyes. Thousands of shuttle pods were falling out of the sky. They braked and disappeared beyond some low-lying hills. The Hudu death rites were about to begin.

  • • •

  Three days had passed since the battle with Olafson and his thugs, and the con man was buried under a tree two miles south of the house. Tran said that the grave was “a waste of a perfectly good hole.” Of course, reports would have to be filed and lies would have to be told, all of which would add to Rogan’s burden.

  The load out had been completed, and in spite of multiple delays, the fleet was only fifteen hours late as it departed for Mechnos 3, the world where the food would be processed and packaged for distribution.

  Shortly after the fleet departed, Werkmor’s ship took off with Tran on board. They were clearly in a hurry. To spend some quality time together? Or to beat the fleet to Mechnos 3 and intercept Judy? If Werkmor retired within the next month, Rogan would know why.

  Now, as the final phase of the Hudu death rites began, Rogan and Meyers were standing on an otherwise empty grav barge. The platform was floating about fifty feet off the ground so the anthropologist could capture video of everything that took place below.

  Thousands of shuttle pods were resting on the gently rolling grassland, and hundreds of thousands of mourners were present. Some sat on blankets, some were wandering about, and others were clustered around screens that allowed them to watch the ceremonies via a temporary wide area network.

  Contrary to what Rogan expected, the mood was upbeat. And that, according to Meyers, had to do with the firm belief that the departed were in a much better place, a paradise where there were no onerous government regulations to comply with, no tort laws to circumvent, and no income taxes to pay—in other words, a land of eternal bliss.

  Now, having expired right on schedule, the elders were laid out on the conveyer belts that would bring their carefully wrapped bodies up out of underground storage vaults to a platform directly below a gleaming stainless steel arch. Rogan was stationed in front of a slender waist-high podium where he could control the barge via two joysticks. He held the platform stationary over Crematorium 22 as the final moment arrived.

  Each crematorium was equipped with a magnifying lens that was roughly twelve feet across.

  They were mounted on the crosspieces that ran side to side between the central arches. As the humans looked on, servos were used to adjust the big magnifier until it was in the perfect position. Then shutters opened and a beam of sunlight hit the first body. The heat produced was well in excess of two thousand degrees Fahrenheit and more than sufficient to vaporize the small sheet-wrapped corpse.

  Smoke drifted away as the conveyer belt delivered the next body, and so forth, until all the elders (shareowners) had been accounted for. As Rogan watched, he knew that the same process was being replicated at all the other crematoriums as well.

  The Hudu had been fasting for the last thirty-six hours, so once the last cremation was over, it was time to open up containers of food and party. Meyers recorded some of that prior to shutting her corders down and turning to Rogan. “Okay,” she said. “I’m off duty.”

  “Excellent,” Rogan replied. “I brought a picnic dinner. Would you care to join me?”

  “I would like that very much,” Meyers replied as a gentle breeze pushed the barge east. “I’m hungry.”

  It was later, after a leisurely meal and a bottle of wine, that the conversation turned to the future. “The crematoriums will disappear into the ground again,” Meyers told him, “but there’s a library . . . and the Hudu are willing to let me access it. Who knows what sort of information is waiting there.”

  There was a hopeful expression on Rogan’s face. “So you might stay?”

  “Could I?”

  “As long as you want.”

  Meyers smiled. “They tell me it’s a big library. This could take a while.”

  Rogan said, “I sure hope so,” and that was when they kissed.

  • • •

  Wally was watching from two hundred and fifty miles above the surface. He couldn’t hear but didn’t need to. The kiss said it all. He waited for the sudden flood of jealousy and was surprised when it failed to make itself known. Maybe he had changed. Or maybe messing around with Rogan’s love life was too much work.

  A message came in. A rogue storm was ripping into some fish farms three thousand miles southeast of Rogan’s house. The PM would want to know. But there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. So Wally killed the video feed and made a note to tell Rogan about the storm in the morning. Then he went to sleep. There were dreams—and he was whole.

  Other books by William C. Dietz

  The McCade Series: Galactic Bounty (War World), Imperial Bounty, Alien Bounty, McCade’s Bounty, McCade For Hire (Includes Galactic Bounty and Imperial Bounty), McCade On The Run (Includes Alien Bounty and McCade’s Bounty)

  The Drifter Series: Drifter, Drifter’s Run, Drifter’s War

  The Corvan duology: Matrix Man, and Mars Prime

  The Original Legion Series: Legion Of The Damned, The Final Battle, By Blood Alone, By Force Of Arms, For More Than Glory, For Those Who Fell, When All Seems Lost, and When Duty Calls and A Fighting Chance

  The Prequel Legion Series Andromeda’s Fall, Andromeda’s Choice (December 2013), and Andromeda’s War (December 2014)

  The Sauron Duology, Deathday and Earthrise

  The Runner Duology, Runner, and Logos Run

  The Empire Duology, At Empire’s Edge (October 2009), and Bones Of Empire (October 2010)

  Singles: Freehold, Prison Planet, Where The Ships Die, Bodyguard, Steelheart, The Seeds of Man

  Thrillers: Snake Eye, Ejecta (Kindle only)

  With other authors: Cluster Command, with Dave Drake

  Gaming related books: Soldier For The Empire, Dark Forces, Rebel Agent, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Dark Forces/Lucas Films, Berkley Publishing/Darkhorse Comics

  Halo, The Flood/Tor/Bungie

  Hitman:Enemy Within/Del Rey/Eidos

  Resistance: The Gathering Storm/Del Rey/Sony-Insomniac.

  Resistance: A Hole In The Sky/Del Rey/Sony-Insomniac.

  Heaven’s Devils/Pocket/Blizzard.

  Mass Effect: Deception Del Rey/BioWare

  Games Written:

  Legion of the Damned for i-Phone, i-Touch, and i-Pad from Offworld Games

  Resistance: Burning Skies for the Sony PS Vita, with Mike Bates, from Nihilistic

  New York Times bestselling author William C. Dietz has published more than forty novels some of which have been translated into German, French, Russian, Korean and Japanese. Dietz also wrote the script for the Legion of the Damned game (i-Phone, i-Touch, & i-Pad) based on his book of the same name—and co-wrote SONY’s Resistance: Burning Skies game for the PS Vita.

  Dietz grew up in the Seattle area, spent time with the Navy and Marine Corps as a medic, graduated from the University of Washington, lived in Africa for half a year, and has traveled to six continents. Dietz has been employed as a surgical technician, college instructor, news writer, television producer and Director of Public Relations and Marketing for an international telephone company.

  Dietz is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the Writer’s Guild, and the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. He and his wife live near Gig Harbor in Washington State where they enjoy traveling, kayaking, and reading books. For more information about William C. Dietz and his work visit: williamcdietz.com