Gradually, this idea seemed to sink in, and the officer stopped straggling in their grasp.
“The CEO will make them pay for what they did,” the trooper went on earnestly. “All of them. And they’ll suffer, too. You know how they’ll suffer. It’ll take them days to die.”
“You’re right,” the officer said, throwing off the restraining arms. She took a step back. “Why let these scum die so easily? Where is the justice in that?”
“No justice at all, Captain,” the trooper agreed. “Bind them securely and throw them in the back of my wag.”
The troopers pulled the companions’ arms behind their backs and tied their thumbs together with thin plastic straps. Then they put larger straps on their legs, linking their captives together at the ankles, so if one ran, they all had to run; if one fell, they all fell. The troops shoved Ryan and the others through the rear cargo door of one of the big wags and made them sit on the floor, alongside the lashed down body bags and the pile of their captured weapons.
As the rear door closed, the soldiers took their places in the jump seats along the cargo bay walls.
There were no windows inside the vehicle. The only light source was the red glow of the instrument panel, which was well forward.
After strapping himself in, the trooper nearest to Ryan cleared his visor and said in a barely audible tone, “You really put your dick in it this time, Shadow Man.”
His eyebrows were very dense and very blond. His skin was pale, and there was a tattooed teardrop at the outside corner of his right eye. Looking more closely, Ryan saw that the tear was actually made up of three tiny blue letters. PCS. Population Control Service. Ryan had seen the handiwork of the PCS in the other reality: vast, sealed, underground galleries choked with heaps of human skeletons. Too many bones to count.
“Captain Kira was the first officer to die on this mission,” the trooper continued in a whisper. “The other two grunts don’t count. They were good soldiers, but they were just regular men. Regular men like us are expendable. We can be replaced by Deathlanders, if need be. You never know, Shadow Man, maybe you’ll be wearing my battlesuit someday.”
Ryan wondered, and not for the first time, why the trooper was confiding in him. There had to be some personal risk involved. “Your officers are all women?” he said.
“No. Not women like your two friends, there. Not good for screwing or making babies. Like I told you, they’re she-hes.”
Ryan grimaced, not understanding.
“Genetically modified human beings,” the trooper went on. “They aren’t female, and they aren’t male, either. They’re a third gender created by the white-coats specifically for this mission.”
Mildred leaned forward. “Made from scratch, you mean? Cloned in a test tube?”
“No, these beauties started out just like you, honey.”
The trooper stiffened as the front doors of the wag rose and the driver and captain climbed in. His visor immediately fogged over and he said no more. Like his seven comrades, he sat like a statue in his shock-mounted jump seat.
“It would appear our new friend has a bone to pick with his superiors,” Doc said.
“Same old military song and dance, even in jolly Super Techno World,” J.B. commented.
Ryan had his doubts about that, but he kept them to himself for the time being. From what the trooper had told them, the separation of officers and enlisted men in the invasion army was absolute and based on genetically engineered differences. The male troopers were ordered into combat by creatures unlike them or anyone else they had ever known. Creatures who, it seemed, could both outfight and out think them. All the talkative trooper knew about his future was that when he was chilled, someone else would inherit his battlesuit. Because of this, Ryan couldn’t view the trooper’s remarks as the typical grousing and backbiting of the lower ranks. Since when did well-trained, battle-hardened soldiers relate better to prisoners of war than to their own officers?
Once the wag got under way, the reason for the shock-mounted jump seats and cross-chest safety harnesses became painfully apparent. As the vehicle picked up speed, its yawing, pitching motion increased. Ryan and the others couldn’t hang on to anything with their arms pinned behind their backs. As a result, they took a pounding on the cargo deck, bumping into one another, as well as the plastisteel floor.