by W. C. Bauers
Bella Antonescu was perched on Walker’s desk, her legs crossed and her face schooled to hide her true feelings on the matter. She wore a tan jacket, fitted slacks, and black stiletto boots. A conventional pistol hugged each hip. Both barrels were cold but inside she was seething mad. Everyone in the Grey Walkers knew she was Walker’s woman. He didn’t have to make the point by embarrassing her that way. He didn’t have to smoke up the room either. But that was Walker. She was his. The room was his. Forget that and you wouldn’t live long in the outfit. Thankfully, Antonescu barely noticed the peppery bite of Walker’s breath anymore. How could she, considering the quality of the air on Sheol? At least he’d switched to the mint-flavored Johansens during what passed for Sheol’s spring, at her insistence. She’d pitched the others and presented him with the minties, and then turned her cheek and tried her best not to flinch. The blow hadn’t come like it had so many times before.
“Bella, you’ve got the biggest pair in the world,” he’d said. He’d leaned forward and cupped her hand in a rare display of affection. For all of his sixty-plus years, Walker had looked like a deprived child in the grandest department store imaginable. Years of sharing his bed had hardened Antonescu against the smell and aftertaste, even against the blows of her common-law mercenary. She didn’t dare call him hers, though that’s how she felt about him. Not on her life did she do that.
If Walker had an addiction, it was her: lips, hips, and barrel. She was the woman he reached for at night and the woman who listened to him snore. She’d earned the right to elbow him at twilight. Usually, he slept like a baby in her presence, and that spoke volumes. When there was a mark, Antonescu took care of it. Discreetly. She’d stopped counting her marks years ago, somewhere in the high sixties, maybe low seventies. She’d done more than a few doubles, and that wedding party Walker couldn’t stand. Rigging the stretch limo’s engines to fail over the water had been ingenious, all for a man who couldn’t be bought.
“Commander, you better put that out before you suffocate Mouse.” Antonescu leaned forward on Walker’s desk and planted a kiss on his forehead.
“He’s fine, aren’t you, Mouse?”
Cato Tate was the outfit’s small-arms expert and Walker’s second-in-command. Like an ordinary house rodent, Cato liked to sit in the corner with his back to the wall, where he could see everything. Only Mouse was on his feet and leaning against the wall of the pop-up honeycombed office looking rather pale, and trying very hard not to breathe the air.
“Sure, chief,” Mouse said, cupping his nose and mouth. He was small of stature and wore a too-thin mustache.
Walker kicked a wastebasket across the floor in time to catch the contents of Cato’s stomach. “Fine,” he said as he came to the end of his cigar and put it out on his desktop.
“You said never to do that.” Antonescu was genuinely surprised. He’d nearly beaten her once for doing the same thing.
“I did, because you ruin the smoke. Letting it go out on its own is about as bad. It will never taste the same either way. Mouse, you owe me twenty-five.”
“Just take it out of my pay—” Cato wiped his mouth on the handkerchief he’d pulled from his coat pocket. “—like you always do.”
“Done. Open a window so I can breathe,” Walker growled out. “And comm Marcus. We need to discuss some things.”
Humid air rushed into the small office from a darkly lit outside. The sound of lapping water wasn’t far off. The sky was black and starless. Unnatural. It had taken Antonescu weeks to adjust to living inside the dormant volcano that served as the Grey Walkers’ base camp on Sheol. The lamps weren’t strong enough to bathe the rocky overhead in light. They were about a kilometer underground and far enough from an active hot spot to enjoy relatively cool weather by Sheol’s standards. The subterranean lake had been a bonus. They’d constructed their base by the lake’s shore, because the water acted like a natural heat sink, keeping the days and nights consistent.
“Don’t worry,” Walker had said when they’d moved in. “There won’t be activity here for at least a hundred years. The RAW will never think to look for us in a planet-sized zit.” Never say Walker wasn’t one for words.
It wasn’t long before a broad-shouldered man approached Walker’s office. Antonescu watched his outline draw near through the now-open window, and her hand slid to her sidearm. He was almost to the door before she could see the stubble on his chin and upper lip. Marcus Shoup didn’t bother to knock or wipe the soles of his boots at the door. Antonescu knew he didn’t bother using the safety on his weapon either, in spite of Cato’s explicit orders. When you had close to one hundred armed mercenaries working for you, in close quarters, in low light, underground, upon ground that was known to shift, you didn’t leave safeties off. It didn’t matter if you had one in the chamber or charge in the cell. Keep it simple. Keep it safe. Marcus believed the rules didn’t apply to him.
Antonescu eyed the pulser on Marcus’s hip and the only empty chair in the room, which would put Marcus directly opposite Walker and Walker squarely in the sights of the barrel when Marcus sat down. She pushed off the desk and spun the chair to straddle it, which left Marcus to stand. His scowl could have stripped the smoke damage off Walker’s office walls.
“How many did we lose?” Walker asked.
“Not one,” Marcus said.
“How many did they lose?”
“Impossible to know.” Marcus shrugged his massive shoulder.
“And the mechsuit?”
“Heavily damaged, but intact.”
Antonescu thought she saw fear on Marcus’s face. There for just a rare moment. It disappeared so quickly she couldn’t be sure.
“The driver is stabilized in Medical,” Marcus added. “She’s got a mouth on her, that one. Keeps switching between Terran Standard and a language I don’t recognize. What is an overgrown pen-day-hoe?”
“You mean pendejo.” Walker threw his head back and roared. “I haven’t heard that word since I was a child.”
“Fits too,” said Antonescu. Walker frowned and shook his head at her, message loud and clear. Don’t. “Well, it does,” she said, and emphasized the point with her eyes.
“Say that to my face again.” Marcus’s weight shifted forward and both hands were clenched.
“Pen-day-hoe.”
“Say that to my face one more time and I’ll—”
“Enough!”
Antonescu jumped in her chair. Even Marcus blinked and took a step backward.
“Did the Marine scrub her suit before you took her?” Walker’s tone was deadly calm.
“Not as far as we can tell.”
“Good.” Walker rocked forward in his chair. “The Lusitanians won’t pay for it otherwise.”
“We’ve hooked the armor up to our scanners but it’s going to take time to crack it.” Marcus looked from Walker to Antonescu. “We could try to crack the Marine instead.” It was one of the few times Antonescu could remember seeing Marcus smile, and it sent chills down her spine.
“Might have to. Leave that to me.” Walker gave Antonescu the look, which told her he was leaving that to her. Killing wasn’t the only thing she was good at. Antonescu dipped her head in acknowledgment and stood to leave.
“Keep at it. The RAW-MC has developed a field infantry cloaking device.” Walker stood abruptly. “Hopefully we snatched a suit with one of those because it doubles the price. I can think of more than one government that will pay handsomely to get their hands on the tech. Maybe we’ll get ourselves a bidding war.”
“Double-cross the Lusitanian Empire?” Antonescu said.
“No.” Walker leaned forward on his desk and glared at her. “Do you take me for a fool? The Lusies funded this operation. They arranged the welcoming committee at Danny True. They gave us the pirate drive Mouse installed on the Black Weasel.”
The Weasel was the outfit’s only jump-capable assault-class LAC. The pirate drive made a hyperjump inside a planet’s atmosphere possible. Only a m
adman would try something like that.
Walker’s lip began to twitch. “Be that as it may, I still intend to make the Lusitanians pay for my armor.” He stared at Antonescu until she looked away, before he returned his attention to Marcus. “Tell our technicians to proceed cautiously. I don’t want to trip a fail-safe and end up with a lobotomized suit of armor. We’re playing the Lusitanians against the Republic. But we don’t want the queen mad at us. Bella, go have a chat with our Marine. Don’t come back until you have what I need.”
Fifty-one
MAY 25TH, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 1222 HOURS
THE KORAZIM SYSTEM, PLANET SHEOL
COMBAT OUTPOST DANNY TRUE
Thanks to a stiff wind washing over Combat Outpost Danny True, visibility was approaching something tolerable. And Mount Fhorro Tan had spent most of its wrath before settling down to a low rumble. In the distance, Promise saw the faint outline of the wreckage she’d come down in. She didn’t even want to think about the inside of the craft, or the one that Captain Yates narrowly escaped from before it too had imploded. Both dropships looked like a crushed tin of rations, and only one weapon left that calling card. A warp bomb. The technology was bleeding-edge, and because of its inherent instability banned by every star nation in the ’verse. Leave it to a lunatic like Greystone to set one off.
Remains in tow, Promise was almost to Danny True’s temporary command center when her mastoid implant crackled to life. “Lieutenant, is PFC Cervantes with you?”
It was the first time she’d heard the captain’s voice since the battle ended. Thank God Yates was still alive. Though Promise would never admit to it, she was glad to have a CO to pass the buck to. “No, ma’am, I thought she was with you.”
“She was but I can’t track her. We may have a problem.”
“Stand by, ma’am. Let me try.” Promise opened Victor Company’s unit roster and scrolled down to CERVANTES, JUPITER—PFC. “Activate Cervantes’s emergency transponder, continuous squawk.”
“Please state command authorization,” said her AI.
“Identify Lieutenant Promise T. Paen.” For a second she couldn’t remember her command key, because she’d had to change it only the day before. “Ah … Tango-Foxtrot-Six-Gamma-Two-Two-Six-Echo-Alpha-Three-Two.”
“Voice identification confirmed. Hold for retinal scan.” Two seconds later: “Stand by, ma’am. Locating PFC Cervantes now.”
The result was almost immediate. SIGNAL NOT FOUND.
“Wait a minute, this can’t be right.” Jupiter’s brain-box should have been throwing off a signal of some kind. “Ping her box again.”
“Negative, ma’am,” her AI said. “The PFC’s I-dent isn’t squawking. Neither are the tags in her mechsuit.”
“None of them? That’s not possible.”
“Same story on my end, Promise,” said Captain Yates. “Her brain-box could have been destroyed.”
Every mechsuit driver carried a surgically implanted static backup, or brain-box, at the base of her cerebellum. Its nickname was “the NCO brain,” because having a sergeant of some stripe yelling at you in the background was never a bad thing at all. During combat, it recorded what the driver saw, the actions the driver took, and the outcomes she caused, for after-action reports and reviews. It could also link with the mechsuit’s AI combat matrix so that if the driver was incapacitated, a jane or jack could still fight at a reduced level of combat effectiveness with an AI-assist.
A driver’s brain-box also stored a unique I-dent, which could be triggered in the event that a Marine fell unconscious or was captured. Either Jupiter’s brain-box was malfunctioning or it had been destroyed. Or it’s been tampered with. Theoretically, that’s possible.
“Could she have been in the dropship when the warp detonated?”
“No, she was with me,” Yates answered, “on my heels, running for the main supply depot. When it blew I was thrown clear. When I got to my feet Jupiter was gone. There was so much chaos…”
“Captain, what if her armor rejected the new codes when I cycled the net? It’s happened before. That might explain why we can’t find her.”
“That’s possible.” Yates sounded unconvinced. “I hope to God you’re right. Still, where is she?”
“Did any craft depart during the attack?” Promise asked. She hadn’t even thought it through. They were missing a Marine. No squawk. No remains. That didn’t leave a lot of options, and Jupiter had to be somewhere. And RAW-MC mechanized armor didn’t go AWOL.
“I don’t know,” Yates said. “Wait one while I check. Why? You don’t think someone…”
“I can’t see how, ma’am, but we can’t rule it out either.”
“You do think someone … God help us … stand by.”
Promise didn’t have to wait long. “Promise, I’ve got a controller Lynn on the comm. He’s from the Nexus Flight Authority. A shuttle on a grocery run did lift off during the attack.” Yates paused. “The pilot didn’t have clearance and nearly plowed into one of our LACs as it fled. We were too busy to pursue. I’ll patch you in.”
Promise’s HUD split into two panels. The captain’s eyes filled the left screen and a frazzled-looking civilian contractor appeared on the right. His skin was yellow, very pale, and his uniform was stained and burned. Both hands were badly blistered. A black cap said NFA in bold white lettering. Nexus Flight Authority. He was sitting at a workstation and cupping an earpiece. Two holographic windows floated before him. He reached into the right-hand window and flicked the image aside, then again, and then a map appeared.
“All right, Mr. Lynn. We know the shuttle was supposed to return to Nexus after making its run to Danny True. Any theories on where it went?”
“Just a minute, ma’am.” Lynn looked off-screen. Apparently, Yates wasn’t the only one relaying information.
“Ma’am, we’re trying to fix the shuttle’s position as we speak. We lost it en route to Nexus. It dipped below scanners and disappeared. We fear it may have crashed. We’re pulling satellite telemetry now but that will take time for us to sort through and given the atmospheric conditions I doubt it will be much help. As soon as I know more I will…”
“Don’t you have an AI?” Yates said.
“Yes, of course.” Lynn’s eyes hardened. “We still have to place a work order, and requisition the time. Captain, this isn’t a core world with unlimited resources.”
“Mr. Lynn, Lieutenant Paen, my XO, is listening on the comm.” Lynn’s eyes flicked to Promise, and she realized the captain has just made her visible on the man’s screen. Lynn did not look pleased. “I’ve linked the lieutenant into our conversation as a witness. I suggest you do the same on your end. I need immediate access to your satellite grid. Please, patch me through.”
“Ma’am, that’s not something I can authorize without checking with my—”
“Lynn, I don’t have time for a pissing match between our governments.” Promise heard the captain’s deep breath over the comm. “Mr. Lynn, I realize this is a local NFA matter. It’s your shuttle that’s missing after all. I hope your people are all right. I truly do. I will do everything in my power to help you find them. But, I have a missing Marine and reason to believe that shuttle may have abducted her. If she’s a hostage that changes everything. I have no desire to interfere in NFA affairs. Please, sir, my Marine was driving a latest-gen RAW-MC mechsuit worth more to the Republic than either one of us fully realizes. My suit’s AI is available. I can get us both what we want. You, your shuttle and her crew, and me, my Marine.”
The Kydoimos-6 mechsuit came equipped with several classified systems. Half the drugs in the suit’s pharmacope were banned on the civilian market. The software was of course military-grade tech, not to mention the mil-spec AI, which was as close to sentient as humanly possible. Promise was certain the field infantry cloaking device was Yates’s primary concern. Other star nations were developing their own versions of it, but only the RAW had an operational model. Assuming the Bureau of Marine Int
elligence had that right.
“If my Marine meets an untimely end and my armor falls into enemy hands how do you think that’s going to reflect upon me, or you?”
“Ma’am, I don’t know…”
“Mr. Lynn, patch me in. That’s all I’m asking. I need eyes on the last known position of that shuttle. Just a look, okay. Get me that and I’ll get out of your system and out of your hair, deal?”
Lynn was sweating now and his eyes were bouncing between the captain and Promise.
“Sir,” Yates said with as much respect as she could muster, “who do you think just hit us? How many were in your tower when it went up?” Lynn’s eyes dropped to his hands. “Please, sir, help me catch the bastards who did this.”
Lynn clenched his jaw and then turned and punched something into his controls. “I could get into big trouble for this.”
Promise’s HUD chirped without warning. “Ma’am, I’ve got a prompt from the NFA’s planetary control grid,” Bond said. “And a temporary user name and password. Shall I authenticate?”
“I assume the lieutenant has an AI too?” Lynn said. “I can only let the two of you in. No more. And you can’t stay long, okay?”
“Thank you, Mr. Lynn,” Yates said. “The RAW-MC owes you and we always pay our debts.”
“No, ma’am, the Greys owe us all one. I lost good friends today. Don’t let them get away with this.”
“I swear to you we won’t. Yates, out.”
The right window on Promise’s HUD closed and the left grew to fill it.
“Promise, I’ve got the shuttle on the tower’s pickups. There,” Yates said. The feed streamed into Promise’s HUD. There was the parked shuttle, and a work crew was off-loading crates from the cargo bay. A lone silhouette stood by the craft’s nose wearing a rebreather, so facial recognition was out of the question. Probably the pilot, Promise thought. Then the pilot grabbed a gravsled loaded with a long crate and disappeared out of view. Yates advanced the vid. The pilot reappeared several mikes later and helped load the crate. Weapons fire and explosions swamped the feed. The craft lifted off, and narrowly avoided colliding with one of their LACs before it flew out of view.
