by Mark Wandrey
“Jim here needs some work, but I can assure you he’s Cartwright through and through. Jim, this is Eugene Treadwell, former First Sergeant of the Golden Horde.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir.” Treadwell just nodded and turned back to Hargrave.
“So what’s an old burned-out grease monkey like you doing in a pit?”
“Just sightseeing,” Hargrave said without missing a beat.
“Bullshit,” Treadwell roared. Hargrave gestured him to a chair at their table and they all sat back down. He ordered drinks for himself and their guest, Jim bit his lip and thumbed for another Coca-Cola. The table filled the older men’s drinks. They clinked glasses and talked about old times for a bit. Eventually, Treadwell circled back to where he started. “So, I’ll ask you again, Hargrave. What the fuck you doing in a pit on Karma?” Hargrave looked at him for a second, then drew out a coin and put it on the table where Treadwell could clearly see.
“That answer your question?” The logo of the Cavaliers was clear, even though it was stamped on an old tarnished piece of armor.
“Well, no shit,” Treadwell said again. “The Cavaliers are gutted, everyone knows that.” He glanced at Jim as he spoke. “The government of Earth, lawyers, and every loan shark in the solar system feasted on the corpse like a Tortantula on a fat pig. All the juice was sucked out. What do you still got? That yacht up in orbit?”
“We’re down, but not out,” Jim said. Treadwell turned and looked at him again, then roared laughter.
“You gonna run the outfit, boy? Aside from an extra couple hundred pounds of lard, what do you have over your dad?”
“Nothing,” Jim admitted, “but leave my dad out of it.”
“Thaddeus would have been better off to leave you with that bitch he married,” Treadwell spat. “The better part of you dripped down her ass and left a stain on the mattress.” Jim’s face wasn’t hot anymore, his blood was. He clenched his jaw and snarled.
“Leave my fucking family out of this, you old asshole.”
“Or what, boy, you gonna sit on me? Your dad—”
Jim’s chair skidded across the floor as he shot to his feet in a white-hot rage, hands at his side bunched into fists. Treadwell stood up slowly and deliberately. The pit had gone completely silent.
“Jim,” Hargrave said coolly.
“Shut up,” Jim barked in the suddenly quiet bar. “This bastard doesn’t close his mouth, he’s going to be choking on his own teeth!”
“Jim, you need to—”
“I said shut the fuck up, Hargrave!” Treadwell regarded him, several inches shorter but puffed up like an adder. His eyes flicked down to Jim’s waist and back up in a quick look. Jim figured he was looking at his belly and his vision began to turn red. He was unaware that people were moving in the bar, slowly moving out from a cone behind Jim and Treadwell both.
Jim changed the set of his shoulders slightly and the other man’s demeanor changed. It was almost imperceptible, but it changed. Jim’s right hand brushed the holster of the GP-90, and he was instantly aware that the other man hadn’t been looking at his belly, he’d been looking at that holstered gun. The entire tone of the confrontation was changed. He was an adult, an armed adult, off planet, facing another adult in a merc pit. He was less than a second from dying.
“I told you he was Thaddeus’s son,” Hargrave said calmly. He hadn’t gotten up like the other two men, but Jim noticed his hand was resting on the closure of his coat, almost too casually. Treadwell looked from Jim to Hargrave, and his eyes narrowed. Oh fuck, Jim thought, and wondered if he could pull the gun out without shooting his own ass off.
“Your beverage,” said a little mechanical voice. Jim looked down and saw his ice cold Coca-Cola being held up on a tray by the robot. Dumbfounded, he took it, and the serving robot popped the top obediently. Treadwell looked gob-smacked. Hargrave gave Jim a little wink and lifted his drink to offer a toast.
“To Thaddeus Cartwright, and the Cavaliers.” Treadwell shook his head, not in amazement but seemingly to clear the cobwebs, then picked up his own glass, slowly, never taking his eyes off Jim’s.
“To the Cavaliers,” he offered and raised his own glass.
“To the Cavaliers,” Jim said, a little shaky. The three men clinked glasses, and the room went back to its previous noise level, albeit slowly at first. Jim savored the sweet burnt caramel flavor of the cola and hoped it was sweat he felt dripping down his pant leg.
“Your father drank that crap,” Treadwell said, wiping foam off his upper lip with his shirtsleeve. Jim nodded. “Took balls to stand up like that. I could have shot you dead.”
“Tch. Y-you could have tried,” Jim replied, stammering a little. The older merc’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded, then sat down. Jim retrieved his chair and sat as well.
“You’re a Cartwright, all right. Not necessarily all that smart, but brave as hell.” He and Hargrave laughed. Jim tried but knew it didn’t sound very heartfelt. His chest hurt, and his sweat was cold on his back, the aftereffects of the adrenaline surge. Treadwell picked up the coin from the table and examined it for a moment, rolling it expertly on his knuckles as he thought. “I have a contract I’ve been trying to broker,” he said. “It’s only garrison duty, but the pay is pretty good.” He looked from Jim to Hargrave. “Figure you can scrape together an entire company?”
“Sure,” Jim said. Hargrave nodded as well.
“Okay,” Treadwell said and drained the glass. “I’ll make some calls.” An hour later, Cartwright’s Cavaliers, under Jim’s leadership, had their first contract.
* * * * *
Chapter 10
Once they got back to Earth, they started the nearly impossible task of assembling a working merc company in only thirty days with limited funds. Jim tried to keep to the gym schedule from the ship. Hargrave had hoped he would, and there was a treadmill, rowing machine, and weight simulator machine already installed in one of the unused bedrooms in his tower apartment. The second day after returning, he got another surprise. Captain Winslow showed up at his door at 8:00 a.m.
“Sir,” he said in his upright, proper British manner.
“Captain, what can I do for you?”
“I understand you have a gym in your flat?” Jim nodded. “The treadmill in my flat at the hangar is broken. Could I join you in your morning workout?” Jim had planned to skip it that morning. He realized he was already becoming too happy to find an excuse not to work out. He looked down and nodded.
“Sure,” he said, and headed for his private suite. “Let me get some shorts.” After that, the captain was his regular morning guest. By the end of the third week, Jim had set a personal record. He’d lost over five pounds, though he couldn’t tell to look in the mirror. He still thought he looked like an overfed manatee, but the scale was ruthlessly accurate, so he called it a victory.
His exercise regime was one thing. In addition, Hargrave had him studying daily. The course varied from basic aeronautics to how a ground transport worked, from merc law to the formation and regulation of the Galactic Union, from small arms to ship-to-ship particle accelerator cannon. A lot he already knew from school and his personal studies, though even more he didn’t. Hargrave’s files and saved searches on the Galnet were incredibly well-documented.
“I’m never going to absorb all this in just a few weeks,” Jim had complained.
“With those pinplants?”
“They’re not like something from Hollywood.” Hargrave had just stared at him. “I can’t learn anything with the pinplants, just store information, retrieve it, and access the Aethernet easier than you.”
“Store it, and read through it later,” Hargrave said, so he did. Jim began his personal transformation to becoming a merc. He had some weapons lessons, got fitted for uniforms, had his nano-therapy scheduled, and finally visited the storage hangars where teams of techs were going over equipment. Hargrave hadn’t been kidding about collecting all kinds of equipment. What he hadn’t said was why.<
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“This isn’t random,” Jim said, “or for historic purposes.” On the floor were 100 Binnig Mk 7 CASPers in various states of disassembly. In the next hangar, four of the Phoenix dropships were being checked out, along with four M-336 Powell APCs. “These were retained as contingencies against just this sort of turn of events.” Hargrave shrugged, but a hint of a smile was on his face. “When did you start this collection?”
“We’ve always maintained this level of backfill,” Hargrave said. “Your dad called it the “Rainy Day Fund. There were minor setbacks in the past. No one ever thought the Cavaliers would be so wrecked they’d need it. Turns out we were wrong.” Jim finished his review of the equipment and shook his head.
“It’s not much.”
“A lot more than you could afford to buy,” Hargrave said. “It may not be state-of-the-art, but it’s paid for.” Jim looked dubious. “Think of it this way: it’s a lot more than Jim Cartwright, Sr., started out with.” It was hard to argue with that statement. The Four Horsemen generally completed their contracts without the benefit of much advanced tech or the use of CASPers. The contract they’d drawn in this case was garrison duty. It was unlikely they’d even fire a shot.
The next morning, three weeks into preparation, he exited the door of his building and found his small car from the trust motor pool missing. It took him a few seconds to recall it had been brought in for routine maintenance. He could go back into the building and down to the basement tunnels, but that was a lot of stairs. He needed to get to the main building for the first senior command staff meeting. He just couldn’t be late for this and walking across the tarmac was against regulations.
“It’s only a half a mile to the captain’s hangar,” he said aloud. He could see the working hangar open. The Pale Rider was sitting outside, gleaming in the Houston morning sun. The captain had moved it outside while he worked on another project. Despite the heat, the self-cooling clothing he wore would keep him comfortable in temps well past 110 degrees Fahrenheit. He knew the captain would have a car. He went around the back of the old control tower building, through the gate, and started walking toward the captain’s hangar.
He had his pinlink in and was reviewing some documents as he walked. Hargrave had hired a whole score of office and logistics staff, temporarily, to get the Cavaliers back up and running. They’d put the word out, and much to his surprise, had hundreds of people vying for the forty-four open combat positions. At this point, he’d only gotten a glimpse of a couple of them since so much was going on. He did know that starting tomorrow he was to begin undergoing his leadership orientation. He was both looking forward to it and dreading it. He just knew the mercs would take one look at him and laugh. So he had personnel files running through his implants, memorizing names and duty assignments and was completely unaware of where he was.
“Hey fat boy, where you going?” Jim was jerked out of his reverie by the strange voice. He almost tripped into a big pothole in the old maintenance road. There were three men, all in their twenties, all wearing dark clothes, all looking like serious predators.
“Oh fuck,” he hissed under his breath. He’d walked out the back gate and hadn’t even realized he was now off the airport grounds. “I’m just going to a meeting,” he said stupidly. One of the guys laughed and walked out of the shadows. He held a very long knife in one hand and had morphagenic tattoos all down his arms. Jim couldn’t tell what they were, and he was too scared to care.
“Oh, you got a meeting,” the man laughed and came closer. Jim backed in the direction he’d been heading, glancing over his shoulder. It was at least another 500 feet to the security gate by the captain’s hangar. When he looked back the other two were moving, in opposite directions. Pincer, his mind told him, they’re trying to get behind you.
“I have some money,” he told them, “a few hundred credits.” The lead one stopped, surprised by that.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Sure,” Jim stammered, and reached into his pocket. The man licked his lips and stepped toward him as Jim drew out the C-Tech GP-90. The man stopped dead in his tracks. Jim didn’t raise or point it. He did just what Hargrave had instructed, he kept it flush against his side, trigger finger extended along the trigger guard. He was sweating, despite the cooling clothes, and visibly shaking, but also strangely calm in his mind.
“You put that gun down before you get hurt, fat boy.”
“J-just w-walk away,” Jim said, then again, calmer this time. “Just walk away.”
“Fuck that,” one of the others said, beginning to move again. “I bet that’s one of those plastic guns punks is usin’ to scare off people.”
“You’d be wrong,” Jim said. He flicked his thumb and released the safety.
“Your fat ass is worth a lot more than a few credits to the organ exchange,” the leader said. “Get him!” He pointed and Jim sensed the other two begin to move.
Over a month ago he’d been handed the GP-90 by Hargrave. He had carried the gun without knowing a thing about it, and almost got in a duel with an old, deadly, and very experienced ex-merc. He had barely been able to load the thing without dropping it. But that was weeks ago. Jim raised the gun smoothly, mentally triggering his pinlink with the gun, allowing its holographic multi-spectrum sight to feed the data directly into his brain. The gun locked squarely on the target’s center of mass and Jim stroked the trigger. It was set for burst fire. All three rounds punched through the man’s body, from just below his breast bone, center of chest, and neck. The hypervelocity 7mm light armor-piercing round penetrated clean through the man with three cracking sounds, blowing holes through his back five times the size of the entrance wounds. He was dead before the sound of the first shot.
Immediately after returning to Pale Rider from Karma, Hargrave had taken Jim to an empty cargo hold and started instructing him in the use of the weapon. In the four weeks since receiving it, Jim had fired the little gun a thousand times. He felt very confident with it. Shooting the man was like shooting a paper target.
The two others staggered in their surprise. Jim did as Hargrave had taught him, cutting sideways and letting his pinplants draw the target. With the live feed he didn’t have to see what he was shooting at, the sight from the gun was like an extra eye. It didn’t hurt that he’d played a thousand video games just like this. But a bit of his brain was screaming at him, there were no extra lives or respawn here. The second man came on target in his brain. Jim fired another burst. This one wasn’t as accurate. Only one round hit, on that man’s shoulder. It was enough to stagger him.
Jim turned his head toward the last attacker. The man was close. Damned close. Lacking the time to turn properly, he just cocked his elbow and moved the gun cross body. The man screamed something and lunged. Jim stroked the trigger one, twice, again. The man took most of the rounds in the gut and pelvis, and was nearly cut in two. He crumpled to the ground at Jim’s feet, screaming in agony. Jim looked down at him in shock. The games weren’t like this. A single booming shot rang out, and Jim staggered forward, an intense pain in the small of his back.
He tried to turn, got tangled in his own feet, and went down. He’d slipped and gotten wrapped up in the dying man’s spilled intestines. Jim tried not to puke his breakfast as he struggled to hold on to the gun while rolling over in the piteously screaming man’s guts. His back didn’t hurt badly, and that scared him.
“Fucker!” the last bandit screamed. He was working to reload a single shot pistol – the kind of POS you could buy from a 3D print shop anywhere in Startown. Jim tried to finish rolling over, but his own bulk and the gore he was lying in were working against him. The gun the punk had was indeed crap, but he had clearly practiced with it. He was going to beat Jim to the shot. Jim realized he was going to die.
“You killed Spade and Rollo,” the man said. He finished reloading, and aimed at Jim’s head. “Now you gonna–” He never finished what he was going to say because his face exploded in a fountain of gore, and he f
ell like a sack of meat. Jim shook his head as blood and brain rained down on him, his own gun still not up all the way. Somewhere in the back of his perceptions, he recalled hearing another gunshot.
“You okay kid?” Jim looked past the newly dead man to see a huge guy striding toward him, a massive ultra-short carbine held expertly in one hand like it was a toy as he surveyed the alley for more threats. Jim started to raise his gun. “Hey,” the man said and carefully pointed his weapon toward the ground and raised the other hand, palm out. “Don’t go all PTSD on me, kid, I’m a good guy.”
“They were going to sell my organs,” Jim gasped, starting to feel faint. The new arrival might have been wearing Cavaliers sweats, or not. He was struggling to focus.
“Yep,” the man said. After he finished surveying the area and making sure the guy with his guts all over the place was too busy trying to put them back in to be any threat, he looked down at Jim. He was not only imposing but older than Jim had realized at first. His face, neck, and what he could see of his chest showed lots of old scarring. His brow furrowed as he looked at Jim. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I think they shot me,” Jim said. The last thing he remembered was falling back and his head going splat into a puddle of blood and guts.
“Come on, kid,” he heard, and someone was slapping him. “Come on, wake up.” Jim jerked his head and opened his eyes. Hargrave’s face was just inches away from his, concern clear on the wrinkled face. “There you are.”
“I’m shot,” Jim moaned. “They shot me.”
“Aye,” he said, then winked, “but you wore your armor. Smart boy.” Jim looked up at the hazy blue sky for a moment, trying to reconstruct the morning. After his workout, he’d been about to leave, then remembered the light armor vest Hargrave had given him with the admonition to wear it out and about on the property, because security wasn’t as good as it should be. “And you decided to go for a stroll behind the airport? What were you thinkin’, boy?”
