Tech World (Undying Mercenaries Series) Read Free

on?”
    “To join Hegemony,” she said in exasperation.
    “All of us?”
    “Yeah,” she said. “All of us. All the Legions have been given the option. We can either stay independent, or we can sign on with Earth’s Central Command.”
    “What brought this on?”
    She laughed, but this time I thought her laugh was tinged with bitterness. “If I had to guess, I’d say you brought it on, James McGill. You talked the Nairbs into making us Enforcers, remember?”
    “Yeah sure,” I said. “But what’s that got to do with folding Legion Varus into Hegemony?”
    She shrugged. “I guess as Enforcers Earth has a new source of credits, a new service we provide to the Empire. We don’t all have to play mercenaries to the stars anymore. And Hegemony expects to be called upon to do some ‘enforcing’ at some point by the Nairbs or maybe even by the Core Systems. Hegemony needs experienced troops.”
    “Experienced troops…” I echoed. “That’s us. The independent legions. There’s no one else who’s been out there.”
    “Exactly.”
    I thought about the situation for a time. The more I thought about it, the less happy I was. I didn’t want to join up with Hegemony. Those guys were self-important pukes.
    “What if we say no?” I asked her.
    “I don’t know,” she admitted. “No one does. They might disband us. Or they might hire us and send us out anyway. No one really knows how this is all going to go down.”
    “One thing’s for sure,” I said, beginning to work my tapper. “Earth isn’t getting all these credits from the Galactics for us to sit on our hands. They’ll want us to do something soon.”
    Natasha nodded then frowned as I kept working my tapper steadily. She scooted her butt over the couch to see what I was doing, and I let her.
    I’d gone into my settings first and done a full reset. When it booted back up, I tapped in a message and selected the send-all option. It questioned my sanity, and I confirmed the choice—twice. I hit the final acknowledgement before she could stop me.
    Her tapper beeped, and she opened the message I’d just sent to her—and everyone else in the legion. Her jaw sagged.
    “You’re crazy,” she whispered. “You can’t do that. You can’t spam the entire legion at midnight!”
    “I just did.”
    Natasha read my message on her own arm while I downed the rest of my beer and got out two new ones. When I returned to the couch, she waved me away at first, but after a few seconds of reading, she took the second beer and guzzled it.
    She shook her head and laughed. Then she began reading the note again, out loud this time. “‘As one of only two individuals in this legion who was personally involved in negotiating Earth’s new status, I urge my fellow Legionnaires to reject Hegemony’s offer. Let’s stay independent and free rather than chained up by sanctimonious dirt-siders who think they know the stars better than we do. Specialist James McGill, Legion Varus.’”
    “It’s just one man’s opinion,” I said, shrugging.
    Natasha laughed again and drank. I joined her.
    “I didn’t have to come all the way down here to know your answer, did I?” she asked. “All I had to do was think about you, and I would’ve known how you were voting.”
    Somehow, my arm had snaked its way around her shoulders. She sat up close to me, and I could feel her warmth. Usually, I avoided warmth of any kind in August—but this was different.
    “You’re going to get into trouble,” she said.
    I scoffed. “What are they going to do? Kill me?”
    It was a favorite joke of all Legionnaires, and it never failed to garner a bitter chuckle from our fellows. We often died in the field, but we almost always were returned to life. That sounded great—until after you went through the agony and helpless terror of dying a few times.
    Natasha and I ended up making love on that grungy couch. We fell asleep immediately afterward. Outside, the katydids buzzed and the fireflies