by Mark Wandrey
“I see you finally came back?” he said. She nodded. He reached up and touched the metal point embedded in his skull. “Are you curious about those?” She’d never given them any attention before. She didn’t say anything, just trilled and jumped onto a shelf nearby. It held an old equipment box that she’d adopted as a kind of cubby, lined with one of Jim’s old worn sweaters. “That was weird,” he said and sat up, feeling dampness under the sheets. The smell left little doubt what the incredibly vivid dream had resulted in.
“Fucking great,” he said, lifting the sheets and looking at the mess. Plus, he was still hard as a titanium strut. He tried to recall the dream, but already it was fading into that etherealness where all dreams go upon waking. He considered doing something private, but looked up and saw in the near darkness two slightly glowing ovals examining him. That put paid to the idea. Instead, he bundled up the dirtied linen and his sleeping clothes and stuffed them into the auto cleaner. He jumped in the shower and set it for extra cold.
A few minutes later, he zipped up his uniform light duty jacket and headed for the door. Splunk hopped onto his shoulder automatically, and Jim pulled the door open. He almost collided with Adayn.
“Oh!” she gasped. “You scared me.”
“S-sorry,” he said, and instantly the image of her naked and willing came unbidden to his mind. The shower hadn’t been quite cold enough.
“I see our little Watchmaker has returned at last.”
“Hello, funwork...
“Hello yourself, Splunk,” she said and scratched behind the Fae’s ears. She chirped and trilled appreciably. Adayn noticed the way Jim was blushing. “What’s up with you?”
“Just nervous,” he lied. The way she felt as they pushed together. Oh, fuck. “Look, I have to hurry to meet the transport.” He pushed past her and fairly ran down the corridor. Splunk looked back and watched her as Jim rushed away. Adayn looked totally confused.
The transport had already docked and begun disgorging cargo when Jim arrived. The center of the station was a series of massive open bays in microgravity. Ships were held in place via delicate mooring arms, cables and hoses attached to transfer fuel, remove wastes, and provide station power if necessary. Like most space-going bulk transports, it looked like a child’s version of a toy dirigible. Huge sections of the hull were now open and loaders (zero-gravity tugs, really) were moving goods in and out. There were several viewing verandas where customers or inspectors could observe the work. Jim met his command team there.
“You’re late,” Hargrave said, without looking up. Jim maneuvered into the room carefully, using handholds until he reached a place where he could wrap a loop of the ubiquitous Velcro on zero-gravity decks around one arm so he didn’t float away. Murdock was nearby in conversation with A Company Commander, Lieutenant Parker, and the relatively new B Company Commander, Lieutenant Kipp Duggin. All three men nodded at his arrival.
“I was detained,” Jim said. As soon as he’d secured himself, Splunk leaped from his shoulder and caught a handhold next to the viewing window where she watched the activity outside. Clearly, she wished she was out there examining the machinery. Jim was glad she wasn’t. “Everything okay?”
“You wish,” Hargrave said. He consulted his slate, then pointed outside. “You’re just in time for the show,” he said. Jim looked and then gawked. Crews were maneuvering two Raknar, strapped together via a carefully constructed framework, clear of the hold where they were left temporarily floating.
“What the fuck?” Jim asked. “Those look just like my two mechs.”
“That’s because they are,” Hargrave sighed and handed Jim the manifest. Yes, they were there. They’d never been unloaded at Earth.
“What happened?”
“I can’t be sure, but my guess is groundside logistics screwed the Zuul.”
“I thought I ordered Sommerkorn cashiered!”
“He was,” Hargrave confirmed. “The problem is he was actually pretty competent overall; he just got a bit tied up when he was excited. The new logistics guy is a full-blown clusterfuck. The Raknar isn’t the worst of it. Look at items thirty-six, thirty-seven, and thirty-eight.” Jim scanned down and his eyes got even wider.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Jim shook his head. “Why would they—”
“No clue,” Hargrave said, cutting him off. Outside crews were clearing the aforementioned line items from the transport’s cargo hold. Several movers had stopped flying about to look at the huge steel things in rapt amazement.
“Tell me we at least got what we actually called for?”
“Yes,” Hargrave said with an obviously relieved expression on his face, “this stuff just cost us a shitload to move here. And, to put the cherry on the tart, we don’t have anywhere to put it.”
“Right,” Jim said, “I signed to release most of our warehouse space because we’re deploying in a few hours.” Hargrave just nodded.
“Decided you wanted your big toys along?” Murdock laughed from a few feet away. Jim stared daggers at him, to which he roared with laughter. The two company commanders looked on with mild amusement. The operations of the merc company didn’t interest them, as long as they had what they needed to kill aliens and break shit when they got there.
Jim accessed his slate via his pinplants and began looking at figures. Hargrave recognized the spaced out look on Jim’s face and let him work. There wasn’t any storage to be had on Karma station; a lot of shit was moving through just then. He considered just selling it all, then discarded the notion. He wouldn’t get one percent of their value here on such short notice. Besides, the mechs were his, damn it! Then he found some space. It was going to be close, but enough.
“Okay,” he said, turning to Hargrave, “stow it all on Traveler.”
“Oh, Captain Winslow is just going to love this.”
“Offer my apologies, but explain it’s the CO’s prerogative. Get the loadmaster to start modifying cargo hold Number Two. Put it all in there and get it secured. We depart for Chimsa on schedule.” Jim turned to other details, then stopped. “Oh, and fire the asshole who did this and get us another logistics head. Jumping shit, there has to be someone competent left on Earth, right?”
“Raknar, kaboom...
* * * * *
Chapter 30
Chimsa was all the way over in the Peco arm of the galaxy, in the populous Cimaron region. Halfway across the galaxy from Karma in the Jesc arm, or nearly sixty thousand light years. They’d make it in four transitions, or about a month total travel time. Long hauls like that were one of the reasons Traveler was fitted with a gravity deck. Humans lost muscle tone and bone mass readily during extensive exposures to zero gravity. The day spent between each transition cruising from arrival point to stargate only provided a brief respite from the nullness of hyperspace.
The crew kept busy, running tests on equipment, performing routine maintenance on their suits, training in simulators, and exercising. Jim was amazed that career soldiers could so easily handle the long, tedious hours spent traveling to and from contracts. It was hard to underestimate how important patience, and the ability to avoid being bored might be as qualifications to serve as a mercenary in the twenty-second century.
Splunk loved zero gravity, of course. As an arboreal species, she was as happy flying down corridors or bouncing around open spaces as she would have been climbing oversized, glowing, subterranean fungi. Her unusually long tail functioned as a perfect counterbalance to help her in those endeavors as well. Watching her soaring down the main dorsal companionway of Traveler reminded Jim of another creature from a childhood movie – F
alkor from The Neverending Story. She could use it to change angles and direction almost as if her species were born in zero gravity.
Jim continued his daily workouts. They’d finally become a part of his routine. He never enjoyed them, but it had increased his ability in the CASPers, so he stuck with it. The scale said he’d lost a total of seventeen pounds since he’d first started exercising shortly after reactivating the Cavaliers. At this rate, he’d reach normal weight for his height just before he turned thirty-two. He celebrated his nineteenth birthday in hyperspace crossing the five-thousand-light-year void between the Tolo and Peco arms of the galaxy.
There was a surprise party, much to Jim’s chagrin. It was the strangest setting for a birthday he could have imagined: thousands of light years from the nearest star, hurtling through the vast expanse of interstellar space at inconceivable speeds. All the officers and NCOs were there in the main dining hall of the gravity ring. He’d just come from his workout, listening to music on his pinplants, and they yelled, “Surprise,” catching him completely off-guard.
There was cake, of course, and the ship’s autochefs produced the food: Jim’s perennial favorite, pepperoni pizza. He also received a few gifts. Many of the NCOs had joined in to get him a silver-tipped swagger stick, which was a bit of a gag gift, but he appreciated it nonetheless. Hargrave gave him a computer chip holding all the episodes of Lost in Space, an old Earth TV series. But it was Adayn who got him the most interesting thing.
“Here,” she said and handed him a small gift-wrapped box.
“Thanks,” he said and opened the package. Inside was a watch. He looked at it curiously.
“It’s an antique,” she said as he tried it on. Once it was fastened on his wrist, she leaned over his shoulder. He was far too conscious of her breasts pressing into his back as she reached to adjust the watch. Most modern watches didn’t have winders anymore. This one did. “I thought you would appreciate something with some class – something more befitting a merc commander.”
“This is awesome,” he said. “Thanks!” Nearby Splunk was sitting on a table busily munching a small pile of purloined pepperoni. She looked up at him, chewing contentedly.
“Pepperoni, tasty...
“Yes, they are,” Jim said and looked back at Adayn, still leaning over him. He was starting to sweat. She was just inches away. He could smell her perfume and see what a startling shade of brown her eyes were. How carefully she’d tied her long ponytail. He swore he could feel her body heat. “Adayn?”
“Yeah?” she asked. Jim felt lightheaded. He knew what he wanted to say, but couldn’t make himself say it. The dream all those weeks ago flashed through his mind like a zephyr wind. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said and shook his head. “Thanks for the watch.”
“Sure,” she said and touched his arm. A moment later she went to get a piece of cake, leaving him feeling like he’d just made a huge mistake.
“I have something for you too, Commander.” It was Hargrave. Jim turned to face him. He took out a little silver case and held it up. It looked a lot like a typical ring box. He popped it open to reveal a pin. The Cartwright’s Cavalier done in silver suspended ridiculously from a parachute. “You should have received this right after the mission.”
“Aten...shun!” Murdock barked in his command voice. Jim obeyed without considering he was actually the one everyone else was standing at attention for. Everyone gathered around as Hargrave spoke.
“Commander Jim Cartwright, having executed a HALD drop in your CASPer, and survived...”
“Barely,” someone mumbled, and everyone chuckled, even Jim.
“Still, survived,” Hargrave said, “and as such you have earned the right to be a drop-pinned CASPer trooper.” And he fixed it on Jim’s uniform board to a round of applause from the others. Jim smiled hugely. He felt closer to these people than he ever had to any of his family, except maybe his father. Someone handed him another Coke, he’d had two cases put aboard. He took it and popped the top, eager for the adventure ahead.
* * * * *
Chapter 31
“Set Condition One throughout the ship,” the 1MC barked throughout Traveler. The gravity deck spun down to a stop and the air-tight doors closed automatically. “Battle stations. Battle stations!”
Captain Winslow decided their arrival in the Chimsa system would be, in his words, with teeth bared and claws out. Arriving at their last stop, they’d received notice from Wathayat that there had already been scouts encountered on Chimsa, and that meant significant forces were already in the system. Allied space forces were supposed to be holding it.
“But you can never trust other mercs to cover your ass,” the captain told him. When it came to ship operations and tactics, Jim deferred to Winslow, just as his father had. He said to always listen to experience, and Winslow was that experience.
“Transition in one minute...one minute.”
“Troopers report,” Winslow called over the command channel.
“Cavalier A and B are all reporting as ready,” Jim replied, “we’re locked and ready.” Splunk purred against his right thigh. This was becoming old hat to her.
“Dropships report.”
“Phoenix 1 through 8 report ready,” Jane Wheeler replied. “Launch systems are armed and standing by.” The clock ticked down to the last seconds.
“Transition in 5...4...3...2...” One moment of discontinuity and they were in the Chimsa system, and in the thick of hell.
“Jim...Jim, come in!”
He shook his head and tried clawing up through a sea of cobwebs. What the hell? He forced his eyes to open as the sounds of his suit’s systems, and the data feeds to his pinplants slowly came back to his consciousness. He was spinning on all three axes, and falling.
“Yeah,” he moaned, his head hurting. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“Thank God.” He finally recognized Hargrave’s voice. “I thought we lost you when your Phoenix was hit.”
“Phoenix hit,” he said, trying to force his brain back into activity. He used his pinplants to stabilize the CASPer’s attitude. As he did so, his memory returned. He also felt Splunk stir against his thigh. “You okay down there?”
“Dizzy, sore...
“Yeah, me too.”
As soon as Traveler came out of hyperspace, they’d dropped into the middle of a massive space battle. The mercenary cruiser’s electronics warfare specialists identified ship after ship, and they struggled mightily to find out who was on whose side. Unlike conventional warfare where governments faced off, merc battles involved units with no set allegiance. It was quickly obvious that many of the ships so engaged were just as confused as they were!
“I’m getting us clear!” Captain Winslow announced. There were at least two Dreadnought-class ships in the melee. Traveler was based on an Enterprise class cruiser hull, but her armaments were far less than that of an actual ship of her class. Plus, she was almost thirty years out of date. What she did have was legs far beyond her obvious capacity, benefits of shaving armament and armor.
With the ship already at battle stations, there was no warning as the cruiser pivoted on her central axis and piled on the Gs, well beyond what she should have been capable of. The troopers, snug in their CASPers were rocked against their padded interiors, silently offering earnest prayers to whatever god or gods might be listening.
Traveler’s shields team focused on energizing her aft shields to maximum as the captain desperately tried to pry them out of the threat box where behemoths many times their size were slugging it out with energy beams and missiles. It almost worked, too.
Less than five minutes in, they felt the first missiles being launched from Traveler’s defensive batteries. Her maneuvers became increasingly radical, too. Everyone locked in the ship’s belly knew they were fighting for their lives – even Jim, who’d never experienced such a battle before. The ship shuddered as impacts hit her shields, then bucked mightily as th
e first beam weapon penetrated them.
“I need to shed weight!” Captain Winslow said. “There’s debris everywhere. You guys will be safer out there than in here, and losing eight dropships just might give me the edge I need. Permission to deploy, Commander?” Jim’s eyes were wide as the meaning of his request came home. He wanted to launch all the dropships amidst the maelstrom. It was a desperate move. It also meant that Traveler was likely doomed, and Winslow was hoping to give Jim and his troopers a chance, even if it was an insanely small one.
“Permission granted,” he said, managing to keep the shake out of his voice. “Good luck, Captain.”
“And to you,” Winslow replied. “Godspeed. Your father would be proud.” Jim felt his eyes tear up as the captain gave the order. “All ships, drop, drop, DROP!” And with a shuddering blast of compressed air, they were propelled away from Traveler and into space.
The captain had brought his ship into an attitude to help aim his departing craft at the distant target planet. It also put Traveler between them and the swirling mass of fighting and dying starships. Jim could only see it as an abstract representation on his CASPer’s command channel. He could see Traveler’s sleek form with bulbous gravity deck yawing upwards as it released the dropships. He also saw an energy beam carve a huge chunk out of her side.
“Oh god,” he moaned as the ship seemed to shudder, and then come apart into pieces. All those people. And Adayn! Oh, no, not Adayn. Tears filled his eyes. He shook his head to clear it, there were more depending on him, those that were still alive.
“Scatter!” he called over the command channel. “All Phoenix, scatter and make for the planet!”
