by Mark Wandrey
Cartwright’s Cavaliers
Book One of The Revelations Cycle
By
Mark Wandrey
PUBLISHED BY: Seventh Seal Press
Copyright © 2017 Mark Wandrey
All Rights Reserved
Get the free prelude story “Gateway to Union”
and discover other titles by Mark Wandrey at:
http://worldmaker.us/
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License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
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This book is the culmination of several years of brain storming by my wife Joy, son Patrick, and myself. I owe them so much already, but now even more for helping this come together. Thanks to Chris Kennedy for publishing it, and to Patty McIntosh Mize and Beth Agejew for editing it.
To everyone who loves mecha, and the sheer boyish destruction we can do with them!
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Cover Design by Brenda Mihalko
Original Art by Ricky Ryan
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Contents:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Epilogue
About the Author
Titles by Mark Wandrey
Excerpt from Book 2 of the Revelations Cycle:
Excerpt from “Asbaran Solutions:”
Excerpt from Book One of the Kin Wars Saga:
Excerpt from “Wraithkin:”
Chapter 1
Jim Cartwright was daydreaming. What else was there to do in school when you were basically done, but they insisted you be physically present the last week? Of course, there were the VOWS, voluntary off-world assessments, but he still had a few hours to try and forget about them. At least he had a nice view of the school grounds. As a senior, he’d managed to secure a window seat in the 12th floor study lounge. If you were watching him sitting there with a slate propped up, its plastic screen full of dates and figures, you’d almost think he was actually doing something school-related.
It was a beautiful spring morning in Indianapolis. Below, he could see a group of rising freshmen taking their orientation tour. The physical education compound – the bane of his existence – was nearly deserted as everyone prepared for events later that day. Across the street, the primary school’s playground was full of young children running and squealing in exuberant play, full of excitement that the school year was almost over. Watching them, he couldn’t help but find his thoughts slipping back to that period of time in his own life.
It was twelve years earlier, at a school near his family’s estate in Dallas. His mother had insisted he attend the local public school, as she believed it would build character. Mrs. Addams was his first grade teacher. She was a tall, stern-looking woman who wore her hair in an almost masculine style – short, slicked back, and parted neatly down one side – and she ran her class in a similarly disciplined manner. Children were expected to sit ramrod straight, their special beginner slates in the proper place on their desks. Students were seated in alphabetical order waiting as patiently as six-year-old boys and girls are capable of waiting. They were about to have their initial exposure to MST, and the excitement in the room was palpable.
Most of his classmates were thrilled to begin. He was...less so. Most the kids in the room already knew each other from kindergarten, but he’d only entered a public classroom for the first time that morning. On the chubby side, he’d already drawn far more attention to himself than he liked. For young children, different was a thing of instant interest. It could be fun, exciting, or just something to point and laugh at. Jim’s extra childhood weight fell into the latter category. The fact that he’d been raised as a privileged child with a tutor until now also meant he didn’t really know how to deal with negative attention, so he took it in silence.
“So class,” Mrs. Addams had said, making an odd face, “I’m sure many of you would like to grow up to be mercenaries.”
Jim wouldn’t realize until years later the emphasis she put on the word mercenaries had not been a positive one. While she, like all the other teachers, promoted MST as was mandated by the government, like most other teachers, she was far from approving of it.
“Today you’re going to meet your primary school MST Facilitator, Major Taylor. Major Taylor works for the United States Government and she will be here throughout your school years to…help you understand your potential future career.” The door to the classroom opened and another woman walked in.
A couple of inches shorter than Mrs. Addams, she had ultra-short black hair and deep-set, piercing gray eyes in a face so thin it was almost skeletal. She wore her dark blue Army uniform like plate armor. He only knew she was a woman by the slight swell of her breasts beneath her uniform shirt. Major Taylor walked the same way she wore her uniform – with crisp precision. Her hat remained firmly tucked under one arm as she marched into the room. All the kids sat up a little straighter, recognizing authority as it arrived. This authority clearly outranked even Mrs. Addams, by whom they were more than a little intimidated. Jim took immediate note of the rows of ribbons on her chest. In particular, his perceptive young eyes spotted two ribbons that did not match the others. I know why you do this job, he thought with a little smile. He’d recognized service ribbons for two different mercenary companies.
“Good afternoon, class,” she said as the teacher gave the new arrival the position at the head of the class.
“Good afternoon, Major Taylor,” everyone repeated in the same way they’d learned from Mrs. Addams. A small smile broke the Major’s face, almost like a crack appearing in a granite counter top.
“I’m sure your teacher has explained why I am here. MST, which stands for Mercenary Service Track, is your pathway to fame, fortune, and a brighter future for all humanity.” Jim remembered smiling. It was the same catchphrase used in TV commercials promoting MST all the time. “There are a lot of exciting classes in your future, and I’m here to help guide you through them. I’ll answe
r any questions you may have and provide you with whatever help you need, should you decide to continue with MST later in your schooling.” She looked around the room, seeming to make eye contact with each of them in turn.
“So,” she continued, “how many of you think you might want to choose merc service when you grow up?” Almost every hand in the room went up. Jim raised his without thinking. A couple boys further back snickered, and he knew why. “Excellent!” Major Taylor said. “Now how many of you have someone in your family who has military service?” A few hands went down. “Good, good. And how many are mercs?” Another percentage went down. “Parents who are or were?” A larger group went down this time. Only about ten were still up, Jim included.
“Okay,” she said and clapped her hands together. “Can any of you kids with your hands still up tell me what unit your mother or father served with?” She pointed at a girl toward the rear. “You, young lady?”
“My daddy is with the Hellcats,” she said proudly to some applause.
“Good unit, you may put your hand down,” the Major said with a nod. “And you, son?” she asked another boy.
“Drake’s Rangers,” the boy said. More applause.
“I had a friend serve with them,” the Major replied. “And you, little miss?”
“Triple T,” she said. More applause.
“Tom’s Total Terrors,” the Major laughed. “Tough bunch.” The girl smiled as she put her arm down. The Major went around the room and almost stopped before she realized Jim still had his arm up. “Oh, almost didn’t see you,” she said.
“Hard to believe,” one of the boys who’d snickered earlier said. A few others laughed but Mrs. Addams’ glare brought almost instant silence.
“Speak up, son! Who’d your parent serve with?”
“Cartwright’s Cavaliers,” he said in as clear and even a voice as he could. The room was deathly silent, partly because of the name, partly because many were only now remembering Jim’s name from when he’d stood that morning and introduced himself in front of the class.
“What’s your name, son?” the Major asked, her gaze like dual lasers.
“Jim Cartwright, ma’am.” She grunted, almost like she’d been punched.
“Wow,” the kid sitting next to him said loud enough that Jim could hear it.
“So, your father would be…” the Major said, letting her sentence trail off.
“Thaddeus Cartwright, ma’am,” Jim finished for her, knowing she was pausing to let him prove his claim. Almost anyone in America would know the name Cartwright, but not many five-year-old boys would know the name of its commanding officer.
“So, we have a son of the Four Horsemen here,” she said and nodded. Jim felt like he was being examined by a medical scanner. Despite himself, he fidgeted in his seat under her gaze. “Of course, all of you kids know the Four Horsemen were the only merc units to return from the Alpha Contracts, right?” There were noncommittal mumbles from the kids. Most only knew the Four Horsemen were heroes and famous, not many knew why. The Major nodded again. “Well, Jim, tell your father Major Evelyn Taylor, formerly First Sergeant of the Golden Horde, sends her regards. You deliver that message for me.” Jim nodded his head; he knew to take such a request seriously, even at his age. “See that you do. Now, let’s talk about the MST classes you’ll be taking this year.”
“Son of a Horseman,” the kid next to him whispered, “That’s cool!” Jim beamed at him. “My name is Rick. Rick Culper.”
“Hi,” Jim said back. It occurred to him that his standing in the class had just shifted for the better – and he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. He’d find through his life that being a Cartwright often worked in strange and confusing ways.
Jim had delivered the message, just as he’d been instructed, that evening at dinner. His father smiled and got that distant look in his eye as he often did when thinking about events long past.
“Tell her Thad says, ‘Hi!’ right back,” he’d said, “and to have a Coke on me.” Jim returned that message, and Major Taylor had laughed uproariously, thanking Jim for the message. It was the last time she’d ever smiled at him. As the years went on, and he’d begun to grow in all the wrong ways, the Major became less and less interested in Jim. She always looked at him with the sort of disappointment one reserves for a particularly poor meal you’d paid far too much for. She had retired in his eighth year. Her replacement never gave Jim a second glance.
He’d continued to doggedly study all the academic classes needed to be a merc, regardless of his scores in other areas required for MST success. He’d suffered the barbs and scorn of his classmates. The Great Waist, they called him. Portly Cavalier. Cartwaist’s Cavalier, and another hundred they’d come up with, each more stupid and insulting than the last. Through it all, he’d studied, and he’d learned about the service, about merc history (the parts he hadn’t been taught at home), and about the galaxy in which they served and its history of combat. When the planetary Aethernet ran out of resources, he went to the Galnet node provided by the Galactic Union.
He learned about the beginning of FTL flight, and the formation of the First Republic (before the Union). He read about the Great War between the two strongest races of the Republic, the Dusman and the Kahraman. The history spoke about how the war spiraled out of control, ultimately embroiling thousands of races and tens of thousands of worlds in the conflict. The Republic’s form of democracy proved unable to contain the war, and the final results were cataclysmic.
Eventually the Kahraman unleashed what they believed to be an unstoppable terror weapon upon the galaxy – the Canavar. They were titanic beasts genetically engineered to wreak havoc on property and destroy populations. The planets where they landed were helpless to defend themselves against these monstrous creatures. They were living engines of ultimate destruction. Details were fuzzy, but he read how the Canavar were bred to be resistant to all but the most powerful weapons, yet too agile to be killed from orbit without laying waste to the entirety of whatever civilization lay below.
Somehow the Kahraman were defeated after many years, but much of the galaxy was devastated. It took hundreds of years for many worlds to recover. Many others were left uninhabitable. In the aftermath of the Great War, the Union was born, as were the many guilds which the Union used instead of its old structures. At the core was the Mercenary Guild, with its rules of warfare to ensure such devastation never happened again.
While his fellow students both hated and envied him, he used his elementary school years to learn as much as he could about his future career and about technology – specifically about computers. He loved computers. He had a natural knack for programming and working on the Aethernet. His mother called it an unhealthy attraction.
“Ready for the VOWS, fat boy?”
Jim was jarred back to the real world by the insult, and he remembered where he was. The implants in his brain told him it was 2:30 – time to head to the PE compound. The young man who stood next to him was several inches taller and about 100 lbs. lighter, despite all the muscle and hair. He’d had a run-in with him before, as he had with many of the other merc jocks. Didn’t this twit know that he could well be begging Jim for a job someday?
“Sure Brad,” he said dismissively.
“Not that it matters, rich fat kid.” The jock looked like he was trying to start a fight – something Jim had been adept at avoiding most his life. He’d only been in one, and that was enough of a humiliation to teach him to avoid fistfights at all costs. It wasn’t that he was afraid of getting hurt, he wasn’t. He just wasn’t good at fighting and didn’t want to give the other kids one more thing to laugh at him about.
“Piss off, Brad,” another student said. Jim recognized Rick Culper’s voice without looking up and couldn’t resist a little smile. That same kid from his first school day – they’d remained friends the whole time they were in school together.
“I don’t know what you see in that loser,” Brad said and left w
ithout another word.
“Don’t let that asshole bother you,” Rick said, giving Jim a nudge. “Come on, we’re going to be late to the VOWS.”
“Ready…set…bang!” The starter pistol’s report was both old-fashioned and sharp. Each group took off down the track, their legs pumping furiously and arms working as they ran for their lives. The physical tests were something Jim had been dreading for most of his school years. They were the last hurdle of the MST.
“Don’t sweat it, Jimbo,” Rick said as he strolled into the room, relaxed and casual as always.
“Easy for you to say,” Jim said, casting an envious look at his best friend’s physique. You could describe Rick as a Greek god, and you wouldn’t be doing Zeus or Hercules any disservice. He was just over six feet tall with a chiseled chin, and bright Delft-blue eyes under thick waves of dark brown hair. The muscles on his arms were veined, while his chest and abs looked like they were cut from stone. There was no deviation from that perfection from his lips down to the tips of his toes. His ass was so tight the girls in their class went weak in the knees at the sight of it.
Rick held the school record in almost every athletic accomplishment, including the 100-yard dash they were about to run. He’d spent the last month as Jim’s personal trainer, working with him methodically every day after school and on most weekends – at least when he could catch Jim before he sneaked off to avoid training, anyway. Over the course of that agonizing month, Rick had managed to shave two seconds off Jim’s best time in the 100-yard dash. He now produced a blazing 15.5 seconds. Rick’s best was 8.75 – only a quarter second over the world record.
“Next!” the tester barked and glanced down at his slate. “Caan, Cadley, Cartwright, Culper...” he went on listing the names. Jim couldn’t help but hear a few guffaws from the stands full of his fellow seniors, who’d already taken this test and were waiting for their turn at the next. Jim moved forward to the starting line, and put a foot in the blocks while trying to figure out how to adjust the damned jockstrap that had worked its way into the crack of his sizeable ass.
