SF Books by B. V. Larson:
Rebel Fleet Series:
Rebel Fleet
Orion Fleet
Alpha Fleet
Earth Fleet
Star Force Series:
Swarm
Extinction
Rebellion
Conquest
Army of One (Novella)
Battle Station
Empire
Annihilation
Storm Assault
The Dead Sun
Outcast
Exile
Demon Star
Starship Pandora (Audio Drama)
The Star Runner Series:
Star Runner
Fire Fight
Visit BVLarson.com for more information.
GREEN WORLD
(Undying Mercenaries Series #15)
by
B. V. Larson
The Undying Mercenaries Series:
Steel World
Dust World
Tech World
Machine World
Death World
Home World
Rogue World
Blood World
Dark World
Storm World
Armor World
Clone World
Glass World
Edge World
Green World
Illustration © Tom Edwards TomEdwardsDesign.com
Copyright © 2021 by Iron Tower Press, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.
“Never was there a government that was not composed of liars, malefactors and thieves.”
—Cicero, 66 BC
-1-
After our Edge World campaign ended, I hung around Central for a solid month. This time was mostly spent with Helsa, a lady-friend I’d met out at 91 Aquarii. She and her mom ruled the most advanced people from her unlucky planet, and they’d been given the incredible job of moving their entire population to Earth.
If that sounds like a tall order, it surely was. Thousands of refugees with all their pets, aunties and family portraits were transported via several sets of gateway posts to the western deserts—areas we used to call Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Nowadays, people just called the region “The Desert” without making it more complicated than that.
Now, before you go and start cussing at our government for ditching these sad-sacks in a godforsaken wasteland, be advised that the not-so-good people of 91 Aquarii liked that kind of land. After all, they came from a world with a slowly creeping sun that never let anything as grandiose as a tree grow. To them, a lot of spiny shrubs and sand seemed positively homey.
After about a month, which I have to confess was a pretty fun time for old McGill, the semi-wild girl Helsa got bored. Or maybe she succumbed to the call of her people. It could have been either, but regardless, I awoke one morning to find she’d cleared out. She’d left the east coast and moved out to the deserts to sit in a tent with her own kind.
On that fateful morning, I noticed she was gone and shrugged. I climbed out of bed and took a shower. Was I all broken-up about it? No, not really. After all, I hadn’t figured I’d found the one and only true love of my overly-long lifetime.
“She ditched you, huh?” Galina asked a few hours later.
She was a voice and a face on my tapper, but I was only half paying attention. I was deep into a four-egg breakfast with a double-helping of bacon, and I wasn’t in the mood to entertain anyone. I had half a mind to tap out of the call, and I would have, if she hadn’t been my C.O. and long term lover of the last decade or so.
“I guess so,” I said, talking around a mouthful of hash browns.
“Can you stop eating long enough to talk to me?”
“But I’m hungry, and these hash browns are at their very best right now. They’re all crispy. If I don’t eat them straight away, they’ll get soggy with grease.”
She folded up her lips and sighed. “I don’t see why I bother to check up on you. You can follow that whore out into the desert for all I care. I—”
“Hey, hey, relax. I knew she would leave sooner or later. Her people are nomads. After three weeks, she started getting kind of itchy. I could tell she wanted to move on. So… you can forget about Helsa.”
Galina was quiet for a moment, then she sighed. “All right, fine…”
“Is that the only reason you called?”
She didn’t answer right away, and so I let the question linger. It gave me the perfect opportunity to catch up on my hash browns. They were already starting to wilt a bit, and I didn’t want to have to resort to the microwave to spruce them up. That sort of thing might ruin the whole flavor.
“You realize that we haven’t found a new home planet for your lady-love, don’t you?” Galina said.
“Uh… I guess so. But I haven’t kept up with the briefings lately…”
“You never read the frigging briefings. All right, I’ll come right out and tell you: we’re considering putting them on L-374.”
“Huh? Oh… that place? Death World, wasn’t that what everyone called it?”
“An unfortunate nickname,” she snapped. “Don’t use it around Helsa or her mother.”
“Okay,” I said, figuring I was unlikely to meet up with either of the women anytime soon. “But… Death World? Really? They might just prefer to camp in our deserts…”
“Well, they can’t do that. That’s government land, you know. All of it.”
“What the hell does the government need all that empty land for anyway? They’ve kept it off-limits for centuries. Why don’t they just sell it off, pay down some debts and call it even?”
“That sort of thing isn’t for us to decide, McGill.”
I shrugged and moved on to my eggs. I liked to dig into the eggs last. The bacon had gone first, then the hash browns, now for the eggs.
“…McGill? Are you even listening to me?”
“Of course I am. Uh… what was that last thing again?”
Galina glared at me for a few moments. “I’ve got a new duty for you.”
“Really? I thought you were
