Death World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 5) Read Free

clueless look all babies wear most of the time.
    “Look at that, she’s a cute thing,” she said.
    I sighed again. “Yes, she is.”
    “A little young for you, isn’t she?”
    “She’s not my girlfriend, Mom.”
    “So, then, who is she?”
    “She’s…her name is Etta.”
    My mom set down the tweezers, and then she sat herself down on the couch opposite me. She stared at me with hungry eyes.
    I knew she was onto me. It was confession time.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know quite how to tell you.”
    “Tell me what?” she asked in a tiny voice.
    “Etta is my daughter. She’s your granddaughter, Mama.”
    You could have heard the grass grow for about five seconds. My mom had this weird look on her face, like she was going to cry, pass out, or both.
    Instead, she leapt up, ran over and hugged me. Then she let go of me and slapped me a good one.
    “You little bastard,” she said, almost whispering. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Uh…I didn’t know how.”
    She grabbed my wrist and began working the touchscreen on my arm like a pro. Navigating the tapper’s menus, she soon found a movie featuring Etta and watched it with tears running down her face.
    “She’s got to be almost two. She’s walking, a few steps at a time. Two years , James? You kept my only grandbaby from me for two years? ”
    “Oh no, hold on,” I said. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t know about her myself until a couple of months ago.”
    Then I told her the story. All about the crazy colonist girl named Della, who’d killed me a couple of times before getting purposefully pregnant. I left out the part about her killing me, of course, but the story still didn’t sound entirely wholesome to my mother.
    “You barely know this girl? And wait a moment—are you saying this child isn’t even on Earth?”
    “Yeah,” I said, “that’s what I’m saying, Mom. She’s on Dust World…you know, Gamma Pavonis. I’ve never even met her. Della gave me a few pictures, but that’s all.”
    “Are you sure the child is even yours? I mean, she looks like you—but this Della person—she’s doesn’t sound like a reliable source of information.”
    “You mean she probably sleeps with plenty of guys, right? Well, according to her, she doesn’t. But as to the parentage—I’m sure about that. Della’s father is kind of a…a doctor. He did the DNA test.”
    “They have your DNA?”
    “Yes.”
    The truth was, they had plenty of my DNA back on Dust World—more than I did in my own body, in fact. They’d dissected a couple of my corpses and knew me better than I knew myself. They had enough damned DNA to build a whole new James McGill if they’d wanted to.
    My mom was crying again. I tried to comfort her, and I transferred all the pictures and movies I had to her tapper. I don’t think this helped much. She looked at them, but she still wasn’t happy.
    When she’d settled down, we had lunch, then I went back to my shack. I walked back home like a hound dog who has just experienced a good solid kick in the hindquarters. As far as I could tell, I’d done the worst job possible of breaking the news to her, and she’d reacted in the worst possible way.
    James McGill had struck again.
    That evening, my dad tapped on my door. I let him in and faked a smile. He managed a flickering one of his own.
    “What’s up, Dad?”
    He stared at me for a few seconds. “You have any of that rot-gut beer left?”
    “Sure do.”
    I put a cold one into his hands and popped one open for myself.
    He took a slug before talking. “Your mother is freaking out.”
    “Yeah…I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to break it to her that way.”
    “It’s not about how you told her. It’s about the news itself.”
    “She’s always hinting about wanting to be a grandma,” I said. “I thought she might be happy after she got over the surprise.”
    “Really, James?” he asked. “Our first grandchild is on another planet, and you