by Mark Wandrey
“What does a short Zuul have to do with this?” he asked, and Jim laughed. The Zuul were a canine race, and the translator had no doubt caught the dog part and gone the wrong way. He explained the meaning. “Ah, I see. You root for the likely loser?”
“Not really,” Jim said. “Maybe it’s too complicated for me to easily explain.”
“Maybe you Humans are just crazy.”
Jim shrugged. Before he could think of a retort a figure in an environmental suit ran up the ramp and jumped on him. For once Jim was glad he was fat, otherwise, he’d probably have been tackled like a rag doll. Adayn ripped her helmet off and kissed him, long and hard.
“Hi, honey,” he said eventually.
“I will leave you with your mate,” the Peacemaker said, the translation holding an obvious edge of distaste.
“Hello, Funwork,
“How’s my little watchmaker?” Adayn asked. The Fae cooed her appreciation, everything was as it should be. Which was when Adayn saw the access panel open and twisted metal. Her face darkened.
“It’s just minor damage,” Jim said, putting her down.
“It was brand new!” she said, walking around to see the impact. “Oh, Jim, you are so hard on my toys!”
“Your toys?” he spluttered. “Who pays for all this?”
She gave him a lopsided grin. “Okay, point.” Adayn came back around the CASPer. “So, we going home?”
“That’s the plan,” he said. Adayn smiled and gave him a kiss. “We could all use a few weeks on Earth.”
Smiling, she went over to discuss fixing Jim’s CASPer with Splunk. Jim finished his drink and looked at Chiss for a moment. Two other Aku were discussing the gifts he’d given them. They might well be the last of their race. Jim found the imminent extinction of the Aku intolerable.
“Enforcer Poltova?” Jim called. The Oogar came back over, after first making sure Adayn wasn’t there to perform any more mating rituals.
“Yes, Commander?”
“How many of the Aku do you believe might be being held right now?”
“We estimate several thousand, at least, based on the slavery market we’ve monitored.” Jim nodded then went over to Chiss.
“I want to suggest a plan,” he said to the leader of the survivors. “It presents some risk to you but may also be of great benefit.” He outlined his idea, with both the Aku and Poltova listening.
“You are willing to risk this?” Poltova asked, looking from Jim to the Aku. “Both of you?” Chiss spoke with his fellows for a moment, then addressed the Peacemaker.
“If the Cavalier thinks it is possible, we believe it is worth the risk.”
“Then you are just as crazy as this Human,” said Poltova. “But I will go along with it.”
“Okay!” Jim said, slapping his hands together and smiling. He glanced up at his girlfriend who he’d just told was going home, and his grin faded. Only one hitch, he thought, then used his radio. “Hargrave?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“Detail a squad to collect as many intact or partly intact KzSha combat armor suits as you can.”
“Sure,” the older man said, “but why?”
Jim told him, and Hargrave laughed.
* * *
“But why do you need to go yourself?” Adayn asked, tickling the not-quite mustache Jim had been cultivating. It had doggedly refused to grow in seriously, and he’d secretly looked up some nanite treatments. It was hard to concentrate with her lithe body curled next to him in the hammock, even after what they’d spent the last hour doing.
“Merc law,” he explained yet again. “If it’s not a commander or XO, there can be some denial of claim.”
“Then send Hargrave,” she suggested. Jim sighed. The hammock jostled as Bucephalus maneuvered slightly, holding its position at the stargate.
“I won’t send someone else to do something which is my responsibility, just because there’s risk.” The cabin was almost dark, and he could still see her frown from the dim glow of the room’s status controls next to the door. He liked the ship; it was more modern and comfortable than Traveler had been. Captain Kim Su was also an excellent ship’s master, having been hired after a recommendation left by Winslow prior to his death. It didn’t hurt that she’d been trained by the Winged Hussars at their secret space naval academy.
He still missed Captain Winslow, the old British gentleman who’d been Traveler’s captain; he had been one of the first men Jim had lost under his command. “He won’t be the last,” Hargrave’s voice echoed in his mind.
“The commander can’t take every risk himself.”
“True,” he agreed, and he felt her tense, “but I’m taking this one.” She took a breath to offer another argument, and he quickly cut her off. “This is how it’s going to be, so drop it.”
“Is that an order, sir?” she asked coldly.
“If you force me to make it an order, then yes.” She didn’t say anything. “I have a feeling I need to follow through with this myself. No, I don’t know why.” She gave a deep sigh and relaxed against him. “Can we just enjoy the next week before I have to go?”
“Sure,” she said. He knew she wasn’t happy, and there was nothing he could do about it. Ever since he’d taken over the company after his mother had nearly destroyed it, he’d needed to make tough calls, sometimes without enough information. He’d had a marvelous series of successes, though the jury was out on whether it was a chain of brilliant successes or incredible luck. He dearly hoped his instinct was still working well.
He napped for a bit, and time slipped by. He was awoken by the ship’s computer announcing they were about to make transition to hyperspace. He’d done it so often in the last few months it wasn’t even interesting anymore. An instant of un-creation, and they were in hyperspace.
“Prepare for spin,” Captain Kim Su said over the intercom. A second later the hammock swung to one side, and he felt the spin create pseudo gravity. After a few minutes, it settled at one-quarter G. Adayn half woke, repositioning in the gravity, and drifted back to sleep. He knew she was tired after two days of custom robotic builds. If it hadn’t been for Splunk’s unbelievable ability to improvise with machines and Adayn’s knowhow, they would never have been able to manage his crazy plan.
Jim didn’t want to wake his girlfriend up, so he stayed where he was and used his pinplants to do company paperwork. There was always plenty to keep him occupied. He noted the loss of a CASPer and damage to six in the last mission, including his own. Then he authorized the payment of death benefits to the dependents of Corporal Nick Sharps. He accessed the dead man’s file—wife and two kids. He remembered when Sharps signed on, so incredibly proud to be one of the Four Horsemen. Now he was dead. He knew not to dwell on such things, so he composed a quick letter to the man’s widow and sent it to the outbound transmit queue to be delivered to the next stargate they passed. The Information Guild would see it got back to Earth.
By the time Mrs. Sharps knew her husband was dead, months may have gone by. Jim hoped the credits would lessen the blow, but he knew it was unlikely. He wondered how many Human merc relatives had gotten those messages from a commander. “I’m sorry to inform you your husband died on contract. He fought valiantly in a mission for the Peacemakers to free an alien race from slavery.” The mission was important to him; would it be important enough to soothe the loss for Mrs. Sharps? What about their children who would never again see their father?
It was almost 2:00 am, ship time, when he finished the necessary work and started thinking about sleep. Only a couple messages remained unread, both received from the stargate just before they’d made transition. One was a note from his cadre commander back in Houston. Charlie Company training was coming along well. He smiled and turned to the last email. As he read it, his smile turned to a frown.
“Damn it,” he muttered. Adayn shifted and stop snoring. He reread the email before saving it with a flag. There was nothing he could
do about it right now, not thousands of light years from Earth and going in the wrong direction. He’d have to make some arrangements after they returned to normal space in a week. His mother had died three weeks previously.
* * * * *
Chapter Twelve
The small ship dropped through the planet Ja-ku-Tapa’s outer atmosphere, its hull glowing white-hot as it burned off velocity to slow. Computers linked up and exchanged codes. The ship’s identity was verified, and a controller came on the radio.
“Gatherer G-12, you are overdue. Where is G-09?”
“Lost,” the ship’s pilot replied. “We were attacked by Human mercenaries.” The channel was silent for a moment.
“Where is commander Koto?”
“He was on G-09,” the pilot said. “This is Oso, in command. I managed to escape with forty slaves.”
“How many of your troopers survived?”
“Myself, and one other.”
“Entropy!” the other said. “Still, the slaves will offset some of the costs. Did you make the Humans pay?”
“Dearly,” the pilot said.
“Then you did your duty. Follow the approach beacon to the landing field by Slave Processing Camp Two. Welcome home.”
The ground crew watched the ship approach, immediately noting it was damaged. Two of the cargo pods were holed to space, and one of the lifter engines was missing. The pilot brought it down roughly, more of a controlled crash than a landing. Emergency robots stood by, just in case. They stood down when nothing exploded or caught fire, and the boarding ramp fell.
Slave Camp Two’s administrator, Jolo, buzzed out of the flier he’d arrived in and landed at the base of the ramp. The pilot, one of only two survivors of the expedition he’d been told, came down the ramp.
“Where are your wings?” Jolo said in surprise. “And why are you still wearing armor?”
“I was badly injured by the Human mercs,” Oso explained, “it was only luck I escaped with this ship. The Humans were overconfident, so I stole the ship and got away with the slaves. The armor is still trying to heal my injuries.” At the single intact cargo pod, a dozen KzSha were opening it up and using shock probes to move the slow Aku off the ship. “Be easy on those slaves!” Oso barked. Jolo looked at him, waving his antenna in incredulity. “They’re the last profit we’ll see from these creatures,” Oso said quickly, and Jolo snapped his mouthparts in agreement.
The other surviving trooper came down behind Oso. Jolo didn’t notice the trooper also wore combat armor. The Aku lined up meekly, and a robot used a laser to etch an identification number on each of their shells. Oso watched it all, obviously intent on making sure his share of the profit was secure. When they were finished, he fell in with the processors.
“You should see the physician,” Jolo said. “They will help facilitate your wing budding.”
“Once these slaves are processed and logged into my record,” he insisted.
“Your diligence is admirable, but your trooper can do this.”
“I must insist,” Oso said. Finally, Jolo relented, and the procession moved toward the camp.
The planet was cool, and the light from its yellow star was mellow compared to Soo-Aku. The Aku moved extra slowly, having trouble seeing in the, to them, dim light. In the camp, bright lighting was set up to aid in training the new slaves in their future duties as equipment handlers in high-radiation jobs. The trooper that had arrived with Oso flew alongside the formation, but kept turning this way and that, apparently curious about the surroundings. Jolo noticed this behavior.
“What is wrong with him?” he asked, pointing with a limb.
“He has been a little out of sorts since the tasty batch of the color seven,” Oso said, and Jolo looked at the trooper in confusion.
“What?”
“The sun is crunchy, and provides a wonderful smell in the yellow blood.” Jolo stopped and looked at Oso, trying to make sense of the wounded trooper. Meanwhile, the other armored trooper had flown to the camp’s perimeter fence and hovered there, seemingly observing the hundreds of Aku who were being trained to move machinery. Jolo turned to look closer at Oso and saw one of the trooper’s antennae disappear and then reappear inside his helmet.
“What in entropy is going on?”
There was a banging sound inside the armor, almost like something was pounding on it. A second later the trooper’s head seemed to disappear and was replaced with another. This head was not a KzSha at all, but a Human!
“Fuck,” Jim said as the Tri-V projector failed completely. He activated the remote on his pinplants. “Go, go, go!” he ordered. From the hold of the ship, dozens of KzSha combat armored suits flew up and out, spreading in all directions. Only their wings weren’t buzzing as they flew, each was powered by four tiny lift fans and their heads were replaced with Tri-V cameras.
“What is going on?” Jolo demanded.
Jim had no idea what the alien was saying, the translator built into the suit had failed along with the mimic software he’d cobbled together. His personal translator was inside the armor, not in view of the supervisor. He abandoned all pretenses and ran right into the stunned camp administrator, bowling him over with a crash.
“Stop him!” Jolo flashed at the slave handlers, who had stopped herding the new slaves and were watching the rampaging armored trooper in amazement.
Meanwhile, the other trooper who’d been acting erratically deployed a laser and disabled the camp perimeter defenses nearest to it, then flew over the fence and out of view.
“It is a break-out attempt!” Jolo called on the radio, “Summon a platoon from the barracks!”
The camps had never had any trouble with the slow, docile Aku, so the summons took some time to accomplish. Jim managed to crash through the camp fence near where the trooper had wrecked the defenses, and he charged into the midst of the Aku being trained. Their trainers, non-combat KzSha, backed away in confusion at the combat armor, even more rattled by the alien head inside.
Jim managed to get the suit to stop in the middle of a huge group of Aku, whereupon the cobbled together automation committed suicide and blew out entirely. The armor thudded to the ground, all the limbs spasming randomly. Coughing from the smoke, Jim hit the eject control and the front of the suit popped off. He slowly and ponderously extracted his bulk, grumbling and cursing the whole time. When he stood up, there were a dozen KzSha troopers pointing lasers at him.
“Hi!” he said and lifted the other item taking up space in the armor with him. It was the warhead from one of the ship-killer missiles on Bucephalus. Essentially, it was a 200 kiloton micro-nuke. All the alien troopers froze. “Translator?” he asked and very slowly reached inside his Cavaliers uniform to lift it out so it could flash visible signals.
“Who are you?” he immediately heard from the pendant.
“Jim Cartwright, commander of Cartwright’s Cavaliers.”
The commander of the KzSha troopers landed and examined Jim. “Well, Commander, your attempt to free these creatures was ill-conceived. Your drones are being rounded up—they did no real damage—and the other trooper you brought will soon be captured, as well.” It pointed at the warhead. “You Humans aren’t known for your willingness to die for no effect. Using the bomb will not free our slaves. It would kill most of them, though.”
“It wasn’t an attempt to free them,” Jim said, making sure his thumb didn’t come off the bomb’s trigger, “and my friend should be back any second.” Time passed, and the alien commander watched him. “Any second now…” Jim said, starting to sweat. His thumb threatened to cramp. Just as he was beginning to worry, the other suit of KzSha combat armor flew up. A dozen real KzSha troopers tracked it with weapons, watching its every move. The suit landed lightly, and its torso popped open. This one didn’t hold another Human; Splunk hopped out and looked around.
“Stupid bugs,
“Easy, Splunk,” Jim suggested. His friend adjusted her goggles and hopped over to
land on Jim’s shoulder. She looked at the warhead, then the alien commander, and smiled. The alien trooper commander took it all in.
“If you weren’t trying to free them, what were you doing? I’d like to know before we kill you.”
“You are no more suicidal than I am,” Jim admitted, “but you want to hold off on killing me for a minute.”
“Why?”
Jim triggered his pinplant link to the transmitter on his belt. “Peacemaker Poltova, have you been recording the remote data?”
“I have, Commander Cartwright.” Jim knew the KzSha back at the starport would be looking on in amazement as the Peacemaker came walking out of Jim’s ship. One of the cargo holds only appeared destroyed. Instead it was carefully shielded to avoid anyone detecting the person inside.
“I must thank you,” the Oogar said. “I’ve been to Ja-ku-Tapa three times before and never saw a single slave. Evidently they detected my transition into the system and hid these camps. Riding in with you gave me the perfect cover. I’m transmitting to their government now.” Jim waited for a tense minute, knowing there was still no guarantee. They might kill him anyway. It was a huge gamble with the nuke; it could provide a near perfect cover for the mess. Murdering a merc commander wasn’t much when compared with a charge of genocidal slavery. Kaboom, and no witnesses.
At last the troopers began lowering their weapons. The unit commander was the final one to do so, and Jim could tell he really didn’t want to. The gambit had paid off. In the Merc Guild rule book, there wasn’t anything against slavery. However, what they’d been doing to the Aku was against one of the few Union laws—genocide—and that law had real teeth. Jim had the feeling the guild wouldn’t forgive and forget, this time.
“Get off our planet,” the KzSha commander said.
“Gladly,” Jim said, and he walked with Splunk back toward the ship. “And we’re taking the ship. It’s already been registered with the guild as a war prize.” Chiss was waiting by the ship, wearing one of the translators Jim had given the alien.
