Here, he flashed up some stills that I thought were even more interesting than the guard-dogs. They were real shots of Green World from orbit. The planet was almost entirely covered in water, one giant sea of dark green. Here and there, islands dotted its surface. There couldn’t be more than five percent of the surface that was land, however.
“The largest island is about the size of Greenland,” he said, tapping a smudge of land on the endless green sea. “It is located here, near the equator. The weather will be balmy—but the reception will be quite cold, I’m afraid.”
“Few people are happy when Legion Varus visits their planet,” Winslade remarked, then he gestured for Armel to continue.
“Just so. I’m not able to help you with the details of any tactical operation after this point. I have not walked the surface, nor have I personally seen the facilities that McGill’s video feed has revealed.”
Here, he brought up a second window. It showed the inside of the big warehouse I visited, and the rocky beaches surrounding it.
“I was right there!” I burst out. “That’s from my body-cams!”
“Yes, yes, McGill… Anyway, as you can plainly see, this island isn’t extremely large. I see no mountain range in the middle of it. The whole place appears to be relatively flat and devoid of major features. Was it hot there, McGill?”
“No… it was just a nice normal warm temperature. Something like you’d expect on the coast of the Mediterranean or the Caspian Sea, I guess.”
Armel nodded. “Just so. Dry hot land, but pleasant sea breezes… Hmm. We’ve done some work trying to locate the exact area. There is a large bay with a chain of small islands on the south end of the big island—but that is just a guess on location.”
Winslade cleared his throat. “I’ve put several techs on the topic. Judging by the tilt of the sun and various other readings from McGill’s tapper, we believe the location is indeed somewhere in the southern tropics. In other words, your guess might be correct.”
Armel smiled. “That summarizes my briefing at this point. Are there any questions?”
My arm shot up like a jack-in-the-box, but both Winslade and Armel ignored me.
Winslade pointed into the crowd. “Yes? No, not you, McGill.”
I turned to see Leeza standing behind me. Winslade had been pointing at her.
“I would like to know why we’re trusting this man to lead us into Province 926,” she asked. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, and her eyes angry. “This could be a trap. What if that friend-or-foe transmission of his attracts the Skay, alerting them to our presence?”
Armel’s mouth twisted up badly. I could commiserate. There wasn’t anything worse than being publicly confronted by your ex-girlfriend—especially when she was butt-hurt about your old relationship.
The whole situation wasn’t even fair, to my way of thinking. Armel hadn’t ditched her, for one thing. She’d murdered him with a needler and helped me escape his grasp by teleporting out of his quarters at Rigel. To my way of thinking, that made him the injured party.
But you couldn’t even try to tell that to a woman like Leeza. She was hell-bent on making it all Armel’s fault. You could just see it in her blazing eyes.
“I’m trusting that he wants to survive,” Winslade told her. “If we are destroyed, he will be permed.”
Armel’s lips twitched at the mention of a perming, but otherwise, he had no reaction.
Finally, Winslade sighed and pointed at me. All this time, I’d had my hand up, waggling my fingers for attention.
“All right, McGill. What pearls of wisdom do you have for us today?”
My big hand came down, and it leveled off to point at the big spread of food behind him. “When do we get to eat, sir? I’m starving.”
-28-
At first, the voyage was relatively uneventful. About a week went by, during which I tried hitting on every girl aboard ship, but I wasn’t very successful.
Leeza straight-out wasn’t interested. She seemed to be all flustered-up because Armel was around. Worse, she was convinced his very existence was entirely my fault. To her mind, I’d brought her old boyfriend back to Legion Varus just to haunt her. No amount of wheedling, boasting, or offers of wine and companionship could budge her.
Accordingly, I moved on. I tried Natasha, but she wasn’t having any either. That’s the trouble with turning to the second girl in line. She’d watched me follow Leeza around, what with the ship being mostly empty. It was hard for a man to hide his intentions when there were only like five hundred people in a tight amount of space.
Kivi, on the other hand, was too busy teasing Sargon and Carlos to bother with me. There was nothing unusual about that.
Galina wasn’t aboard at all, of course, and… well sir, there just weren’t too many other women left in the passages after all those strike-outs. The ship was damned-near empty.
After the first week, however, more people came aboard. On the morning of the eighth day they set up a direct link to the Mustering Hall. This allowed us to take thousands of fresh faces aboard that had been gathering back on Earth.
I made certain I was on hand for the opening rush the very minute the gateway posts became active, and I stood right up front, too. The column of marching troops was a welcome sight. They were wearing their full kits and carrying their rucks. Marching two abreast, they appeared to be ready for action. We greeted them with cheers and waves.
Carlos found me in the middle of this meet-and-greet. He looked me up and down suspiciously. “Waiting for someone special, Centurion?”
“I sure am, Specialist, and you’re
