by Terry Mixon
“You, Saburo and Brenda,” he confirmed with a chuckle and a gesture at the other two officers. “If you fly us, then that saves a seat on the shuttle and a hotel room at the other end.
“Any guesses as to who the mysterious client might be?” he asked.
Saburo snorted.
“Given all of the runaround? I’m guessing we’re not even talking to the client. We’re talking to a rep, and the client is political. Senate, maybe.”
The Senate was the elected body that ran the Commonwealth, with some help from the President and the various planetary and station governors.
“Or corporate,” Brad said. “There’s at least a dozen corporations out there big enough for this much trouble. We’ll find out in the morning. Do we have a shuttle ready to go?”
“Of course we do,” Michelle replied. “Everlit, do you realize how many people you’d have to fire if we’d managed to not have a shuttle ready to fly?”
He snorted.
“We could always take Oath of Vengeance,” he pointed out.
“Overkill. And Ganymede Traffic Control likes at least twenty-four-hours notice of moving warships into their space,” Shelly told him. “You’ll survive on a shuttle for six hours, boss.”
Chapter Three
Ganymede Traffic Control, thankfully, was much more lenient toward regular space shuttles. The shuttle Michelle had grabbed was armed, of course, but for some reason, the guys with half a dozen corvettes orbiting the moon weren’t bothered by the shuttle’s machine guns.
Ganymede Landing itself was an impressive sight. The south side of the city was an artificial lake where large chunks of the moon’s surface had been blasted away to expose the water underneath. Since the planet had no atmosphere, an immense but flimsy-seeming dome of plastic had been raised over the hundreds of square kilometers of water.
“There’s no logical reason to do that,” Brad noted as they swept in for a landing at one of the domes on the “shore.” Ten domes made up the majority of Ganymede Landing, each roughly two kilometers across. Most of the city was almost certainly underground, but the glittering crystal domes shone brightly with the reflection of Jupiter.
“Nope,” Saburo agreed. “They did it because it would be pretty. The dome helps keep the uncovered water liquid and is a bit hardier than it looks. They apparently installed a ‘beach’ along one side of it.” The mercenary Colonel chuckled. “They don’t recommend swimming outside the marked areas. Those areas are heated and rendered nontoxic. The rest…”
“Swimming,” Brad echoed. “I am…vaguely aware of that as a concept. Seriously?”
“Seriously,” the other mercenary confirmed. “Remember, Ganymede was colonized directly from Earth. They wanted something to remind them of home. So…” He gestured expansively. “Beach.”
“The actual money is in the silos to the north of the city, there,” Andre noted, the ship Captain pointing toward a series of tall concrete structures. “Those are hiding some massive wells pumping up water and running it into purifiers. That set you see there provides, oh, sixty percent of the moon’s water.”
Brad blinked.
“Damn.”
“Yeah. Fleet knows damn well there’s guns in the mountains that could actually threaten the picket squadron—because Fleet helped put them there. Without Ganymede’s water, a good third of Jupiter’s population would probably die before a secondary source could be established.”
“There’s water on the other moons,” Brad objected. “They’ve all got water sources of their own. Plus the ice in the rings.”
“And that’s why someone taking out Ganymede’s water extraction and refining would only kill about two million people,” Brenda said quietly.
“Depressing as this conversation became, we are coming in for a landing at Ganymede Landing’s Hidden Valley Dome,” Michelle told them. “I’m looking forward to a nice hotel. It can’t be worse than our apartment on Io.”
“Hey, I wanted to sleep on the ship,” Brad replied.
“Oh, so that’s why we rented a shoe closet instead of a suite!”
He blew his wife an affectionate kiss and shut up. Interrupting the person landing a space shuttle was always a bad idea.
Brad had never visited Ganymede’s surface before. He’d also never been to Earth, and his time on Mars had mostly been spent in tunnels. He was familiar with the concept of a “car,” but his experience was with the vehicles designed to move around the corridors and tunnels of space stations and underground colonies.
The vehicle waiting for them at the landing pad was something quite different. It was still more compact than the vehicles he’d seen in movies set on Earth, but it was longer and broader than any land vehicle he’d ever seen before. Most of its length was a passenger compartment large enough for six people, with the driver sitting in front, on top of what he assumed was an electric motor turning the wheels.
The driver was a young woman with a shaved head, wearing a burgundy bodysuit. The heavy collar clearly contained an emergency helmet, and he nodded approvingly at the concession to the fact that Ganymede Landing was under a dome.
The dome might allow them to pretend they were an Earthside city, other than the three-tenths gravity maintained throughout, but if it was breached, the locals would be retreating to the buildings around them very quickly.
“Commodore Madrid and party?” the driver asked as they exited the shuttle. “The Guild sent me to pick you up.” She gestured to the shuttle, where robots and humans were already starting to swarm.
“The pad crew will take care of your shuttle; she’ll be refueled and waiting for you when you return.”
“Thank you. Can you recommend a hotel?” Brad said.
She smirked.
“That’s why Factor Parisi sent me. The Guild has booked you rooms at the Hidden Valley Starview. Your meeting will be there in the morning, so I understand it to be convenient, and I’m relatively sure the Starview will meet your needs.”
“All I really need is a bed for about six hours,” he told the driver. “Though I’d definitely love a shower.”
“Oh, I think the Starview will definitely serve,” she replied.
The Starview turned out to be Ganymede Landing’s premier luxury hotel, positioned on the edge of an artificially-constructed lake and under one of the clearer sections of the dome. Polite staff saw Brad and his people to gorgeously comfortable rooms, and collected them in the morning for their breakfast meeting.
They met Factor Parisi, the replacement for Brad’s old friend Sara Kernsky, who’d moved to a bigger office on Mars, in a fifth-floor room of the ten-story building, where floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the lake, currently reflecting the bright colors of Jupiter. The dark-skinned Guild agent looked tired, but she gestured them to seats around a good-sized dark stone table.
“I landed an hour ago,” she told them by way of apology. “Coffee and food will be coming; our guest will be joining us in about half an hour.”
“We’re playing by their schedule, are we?” Brad asked.
“Yes,” Parisi confirmed flatly. “You’re meeting with the Jovian Trade Attaché of the Governing Council of New Venice. Her job is to make sure that water flows to the floating cities, at a minimum, and that trade in general moves smoothly.
“As you can imagine, Kaura Jenkins is a busy, busy woman. But the Council wants mercenaries, so she’s willing to meet with us.”
“New Venice,” Brad repeated. “I know that’s on Venus, Factor, but I’ll admit that’s as far as my knowledge goes. Care to fill me in?”
“I didn’t expect much more,” she told him, quieting for a moment as hotel staff came through with coffee and laid out platters of hot food on the side table. Once she’d grabbed her own coffee and the mercenaries were digging in, Parisi settled back down and considered.
“New Venice is the capital of Venus, the largest and wealthiest of the aerostat cities,” she continued. “Something like sixty percent of Ven
us’s population is concentrated into the cluster of aerostats that surround New Venice. They make their living by gas skimming, tourism, and mining.
“The Governor of Venus sits as the senior member of the Governing Council of New Venice. In practice, they’re the closest things the planet has to rulers.” Parisi shrugged. “What they haven’t told us is what they want mercenaries for. They’ve given us their specifications: a significant space-based force with boarding-trained troops, but they haven’t told us what for.
“They’ve agreed to escrow and the contract is approved in principle by the Guild, but until we have final details, that approval is preliminary. We may revoke it, depending on what the Council wants you to do.”
Brad nodded. The main reason the Commonwealth not only allowed the Mercenaries Guild but encouraged its existence was that the Guild made sure that mercenaries didn’t fall too far into murky waters.
Even a contract that the Guild didn’t approve still had to meet minimum criteria to even be listed. There were ways to get unlisted contracts, but few Guild companies would take them.
No one really wanted to break strikes or blockade stations into submission, for example.
“Kaura Jenkins will fill you in on the contract details and will make at least an initial recommendation to the Governing Council on whether to hire you,” Parisi told him. “I’m here to make sure Guild rules are respected, not that we have a concern about you breaking them, Commodore.”
“I appreciate that,” Brad allowed. He glanced around at his officers. They all looked as intrigued as he did. “If she’ll be here that quickly, I suggest we get another round of food and coffee into us all before she arrives. This sounds like it’s going to be an interesting meeting.”
Chapter Four
Kaura Jenkins was an extraordinarily tiny woman who entered the room with brisk efficiency. Two much larger bodyguards accompanied her and split off to flank the inside of the door after Jenkins entered.
They loomed impressively, though Brad didn’t rank their threat level particularly highly. In compliance with Ganymede weapons laws, he was only officially carrying a stun baton…and he figured it would take him under twenty seconds to disable both men with it.
He wouldn’t even need to break out any of his other tricks—and that was assuming Saburo didn’t beat him to one or both guards.
Jenkins herself was more intimidating in many ways. Her hair had been night black once but was now fading toward silver. Her skin was darker than many Brad had known, and she had a small red tattoo he was unfamiliar with between her brows.
“All right, Mr. Madrid,” she said briskly. “To business.”
“Commodore Madrid, if you please,” he asked. “Or Brad, if you wish. The Guild is quite specific on who may use flag ranks among our number. Like any doctor, Ms. Jenkins, I earned my title.”
He doubted she even realized she was being rude, hence his calm explanation. Jenkins didn’t strike him as the type who had much interaction with mercenaries—or even Fleet, for that matter.
“And how many people do you have to kill to be a Commodore, then?” she asked as she sat down, and he winced.
“Quite a few, usually,” he replied—mostly to make her share his wince. “The title, however, is primarily based around the size and…respectability of the company I control. I command multiple warships and am a Platinum-rated company commander, therefore I have the title.”
“I see.” Her voice was prim and tight. She didn’t seem very happy with his explanation, but if she was going to poke him, he was going to return the favor. “In that case, Commodore, I suggest you call me Doctor.”
“Of course, Dr. Jenkins,” he allowed instantly. Mentally, he kicked himself. He hadn’t had a lot of time, but he could have at least made sure he knew if the attaché was a PhD or not.
“To business, then,” she repeated. Saburo delivered a cup of milky tea to her elbow, distracting her for a moment. She nodded her thanks and took a sip.
“I represent the Governing Council of New Venice, on Venus,” she laid out. “While I do not necessarily approve of the Mercenary Guild, I understand the occasional need for an organization such as yours. The decision is not mine, in any case, but I have been briefed and asked to assess you and your company.”
“Why don’t you lay out the mission, Dr. Jenkins, and I’ll tell you what my company can do to fill your needs?” Brad suggested.
“Very well.” She took another sip of tea and considered. “How much do you know about Venusian deep-dive mining operations?”
“I don’t know very much, but I am extremely familiar with Jupiter and Saturn gas-mining operations,” he replied. “My understanding is that Venus operates similar gas-skimming operations, and I can imagine that any surface mining would require massive amounts of specialty gear. I may never have visited Venus, Doctor, but I understand the surface to be spectacularly hostile.”
“It is,” she allowed. “And you are correct. We have gas-skimming operations similar to that done out here, but the mining environment is entirely unique. It is, of course, that unique environment that creates the compounds and materials that we extract.
“There are, at any given moment, between three and six hundred vehicles of various sizes carrying out mining operations in the mountain ranges and plateaus of Venus. Mining the actual surface itself is…fraught. There are only a handful of vehicles capable of the process, and even they usually stick to the mountains with their less-robust brethren.”
A kilometer or two of altitude wouldn’t make that much difference, from what Brad had read—but on the other hand, it clearly made enough difference.
“Given the number of mining vehicles, gas skimmers and, indeed, aerostat cities themselves, Venus sees in excess of three thousand daily flights of various transport aircraft between worksites, warehousing facilities, refineries and residential aerostat platforms. The Venusian atmosphere is difficult to navigate and almost impossible to scan through.
“You can imagine, I suspect, what this leads to, given the violent nature of some men.”
Brad got the impression that Dr. Jenkins figured he was more capable of that imagination than she was, and she might even have been right.
“What’s your loss rate?” he asked quietly. “Do you know the numbers for piracy versus natural hazard?”
“We normally lose about fifteen to twenty craft per standard year,” Jenkins replied. “We can confirm about half of those are natural hazards, and my understanding is that we believe most of the remainder are as well. The estimates I have seen previously are that we have between one and five hijackings a year. We have caught, usually, about two hijacking teams a year.”
There had been some spikes in the past, Brad knew. His occasional Agency partner, Kate Falcone, had been involved in an operation against them several years earlier.
“In the last six months, Commodore, we’ve lost over a hundred aircraft.”
Brad’s wince was in sympathy this time.
“And you want us to stop that,” he said calmly. “We…can probably do that, Dr. Jenkins, though I’ll need more information before I can devise a strategy.”
“We don’t have more information,” Jenkins admitted. “Normally, we have something. There are satellites covering sixty percent of Venus’s surface at any moment. They can’t see that deeply, but weapons fire is obvious.
“We haven’t detected anything. Just aircraft that don’t reach their destinations. Always cargo craft, not passenger planes. Between cargos and the aircraft themselves, we’re looking at a billion dollars gone up in smoke, Commodore. So, what would you suggest?”
“More information on the missing planes would be a good starting point,” he repeated. “But also more information on usual flight parameters, destinations, journey times, previous similar problems… I know there was a problem with wreckers a few years ago.”
He glanced at his officers thoughtfully.
“Right off the bat, I’d suggest moving
my ships into key positions on the shipping routes. We have more powerful sensors than your satellites, which would give us more information—and if we get lucky, I’m comfortable in my gunners’ ability to pick off pirate craft without damaging the cargo planes.”
“That might be valuable,” she allowed. “What the Council wants is for you to bring your ships to the key aerostat cities, the ones with spaceports, and establish a customs blockade. They want you to inspect every ship leaving Venus. There’s no value in piracy if they can’t get the cargo off-world.”
“Venus has, what, six million people?” Brad asked. “That’s quite the market if they’re trying to sell things without leaving.”
“Perhaps, but there’s only so much of an ability to market stolen ore and refined metals in the aerostats, Commodore. To make a profit, they have to move the cargos off-world.”
“We can stop that,” he confirmed. “Each of my destroyers carries a platoon of thirty troops and three shuttles. If we can borrow refueling facilities and barracks from your Council, we can even use the shuttles to maintain customs patrols and use three or four of the destroyers for the kind of interception I suggested earlier.”
Brad paused thoughtfully. There was one part of this that bothered him.
“I hate to try and turn down work,” he said, “but this is the Commonwealth’s responsibility, isn’t it? I know Fleet moved against the wreckers you had a problem with in the past. Why aren’t you going to them?”
“I asked the same question, Commodore,” Jenkins told him. “I was told that Fleet is now too understrength to spare us assistance and we have been told to find our own solutions. Since New Venice and the other aerostat cities don’t maintain any space force beyond a basic search-and-rescue capability, we simply do not have the ability to deal with this ourselves.
“I have no enthusiasm for you or what you do, Commodore, and I am inclined to suggest we simply find the cheapest rent-a-thugs we can. I’m frankly unconvinced of the difference that justifies your astronomical price tag.”
