The War for Profit Series Omnibus

by Gideon Fleisher

  “Just cool it,” said Spike, “you know that being a soldier means doing a lot of waiting, standing around. I’ve developed the skill of waiting to a fine art. I can wait as long as necessary for the right opportunity.”

  “Right,” said Galen, “Not many units would agree to take three green academy grads together, so let’s play the waiting game. We should be grateful they even had us wait on them.”

  Tad squirmed inside his clothes and said, “Yeah I know, but who ever heard of the Jasmine Panzer Brigade?”

  “We have. The academy wouldn’t have listed them in our employment prospectus if they weren’t any good,” said Spike.

  “Hey, there’s that old man! He’s waving to us, wants us to come in!” said Tad.

  The three friends climbed the rest of the steps and entered the hiring hall through the door held open by the agent. He led them halfway down the hall to an interior stairwell and down three flights of steps and into a small, windowless office. The three warriors had to stand because there was only a desk, a computer terminal and a chair behind it. The portly old man, wearing a black business smock and soft-soled dress shoes, sank into the chair and pressed a key on the computer. As soon as a barely perceptible, but somewhat irritating, high-pitched noise filled the room he stood and extended a hand and a warm smile to the three friends.

  “Glad you’re all here, I need all three of you.”

  “Glad to be here,” said Galen. He had been drafted by Spike and Tad to do most of the talking.

  “I’m Mister Burwell, your Designated Agent to hire personnel for Colonel Theil’s Panzer Brigade. Look at the plaques, degrees and certificates on the wall behind me. I’m trained at it and I’m good at it. I’m fully certified to take care of your employment needs as well as the needs of the units I represent. Yes, I do represent more than one unit, but that works to our advantage. If I see a better deal for you, I can let you know about it. So let’s talk. What kind of work do you young gentlemen want?”

  “More than one unit? I mean, I thought…”

  “Yes, it’s no problem at all.” A broad smile, arms open wide as he stood, “I’m an agent, your agent. The better the deal you get, the more money I make. The longer you live, the more money I make. Sure, I’m on retainer to recruit for the Panzers, and they do want three new recruits right now, but I’m flexible.”

  Galen thought a moment too long before replying. Tad jumped right in and asked, “So what else, what’s better, I mean, what else have you got?”

  Spike grabbed Tad by the arm and pulled him back. Tad remembered his promise to keep his mouth shut and stepped back to lean against the wall with Spike.

  Galen nodded at Burwell, so he replied to Tad’s question. “Training cadre on a new settlement on the periphery. You’re green here but you’d be drill instructors out there. It’s a two year contract, starting as a Corporal with unlimited advancement potential. You’d provide basic training for their militia volunteers. Finish that assignment as a Sergeant or higher and you’ll have a handy entry on your resume.”

  “Please, let’s skip anything that doesn’t include tanks,” said Galen.

  “Okay. You three at a spaceport, maneuvering tanks around from cargo ships to storage bays. It’s a one year assignment with a great chance to get hands-on experience with all sorts of different fighting vehicles.”

  “No.”

  “Here’s another chance. Members of the police force on Kalidasa. Patrol the military factories to prevent industrial espionage, and then if the planet is attacked you jump into a tank and defend it.”

  “Security guards? That’s no job for academy graduates; that’s where academy dropouts end up!”

  Burwell winced at the criticism, “Listen, hotshot. I was quite the soldier myself for a while. So when I ask myself how I would do it, if I had it all to do over again, this is it. I’m trying to get you to ease into the system, get a feel for the mercenary business. Get you feet wet before you plunge in. Spend a year or two of your youth being young, find a woman, start a family before you throw your fortunes to the stars. Go into it with your head on straight and with someone to come home to.”

  “Never mind that, mister. Tell us about the Panzers.”

  Burwell waited a full minute before speaking. He hit a few keys on the computer; it spat out three sheets of auto-copy paper and he handed a sheet to each of them.

  “That’s the standard contract, no flexibility for you guys. You sign away the next five years of your life, total loyalty to the Jasmine Panzer Brigade. Because of your status as academy graduates, you will enlist at the grade of Sergeant. However, if you are involved in disciplinary action your rank could go as low as nothing and you could spend your whole enlistment cleaning toilets. Good luck, gentlemen.”

  Burwell handed them boarding passes to a ship leaving in less than three hours. “Now sign those pieces of trash, give me back the original and last copy, and get out of my office.”

  Spike, Tad and Galen pressed their contracts against the wall and shared an ink stick to sign them. Just as they were leaving Mr. Burwell said, “When you look back on this day, and you will, remember that I gave you some good advice and you ignored it. Remember that!”

  The three young mercenaries scurried down the hallway, went up the steps two and three at a time, strode out of the office building and walked briskly to the spaceport. They were now officially members of a recognized and active mercenary unit, eager to get to their first duty station.

  They entered the spaceport, drawing icy and suspicious stares from the security guards. They seemed lost and had no luggage: obviously up to no good.

  “So where’s our gate?” asked Tad.

  “Section zulu one niner foxtrot.”

  “Which is?”

  “On this map somewhere. Hey, where’d Spike go?”

  “Over here,” called Spike. “We got to get on the pedestrian skywalk, hit this shuttle here,” he indicated an obscure part of the spaceport map, “then walk to the edge of the tarmac, enter this building, check in on the…well, not the first floor… then board our drop boat.”

  “Simple. We’ll follow you,” said Galen.

  They walked about half a kilometer, the bustle of the main terminal dissipating into lonely walkways as they went. Soon they came to the automated monorail shuttle, waved their personal communicators past its toll sensor it and rode it to their destination.

  “Hurry guys, we only got twenty five minutes left,” said Galen.

  “I’m with you, brother,” said Tad.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll make it,” said Spike. They found their terminal and gate and dropped their boarding passes on the counter for a bored attendant to examine.

  “You got any luggage?” asked the thin man in his mid-thirties.

  “No,” said Galen, unable to take his eyes off the man’s bald spot.

  “Unusual. Oh well, your liftoff has been delayed about three hours.”

  “So what do we do now?” asked Tad.

  “Go up two levels to the lounge, and keep a close eye on the monitor, to be sure you don’t miss your liftoff,” said the attendant, as though the question were directed at him.

  They took his advice. The lounge looked worn and overused and there were no other customers. The three mercenaries chose the corner booth nearest the bar.

  “Three ales, barkeep,” ordered Galen,

  “With you in a minute.” True to his word, the barkeep took at least a full minute to bring the drinks. “So, you young guns heading out into the big universe today?”

  “Yeah,” said Tad.

  “Where to?”

  The young men looked at one another, then at their boarding passes. Galen dug out his contract, scanned it for the name of some place, any place. The three young mercenaries honestly didn’t know where they were going. After a long pause the barkeep broke the tension, “Oh, a classified, secret destination. I understand.”

  They drank their first ales in silence, brooding over th
eir lack of knowledge about their future. When the barkeep finally returned with another round of ale Tad asked him, “You know anything about the Panzer Brigade commanded by Colonel Theil?”

  “The Jasmine Panzers. Yes, I’ve heard of them.”

  “Well? Where are they?”

  “Mandarin Confederation space. If you’re lucky you’ll get stationed on Cyan. Beautiful world. Or maybe Ngsien. That rock is a great big ball of ore orbiting the fourth planet of the Drago star system.”

  “We didn’t say we were going to the Jasmine Panzers,” said Galen, trying to preserve some semblance of operations security.

  “No, I guess you didn’t.”

  They left nine empty bottles and a reasonable tip when they went back down to their boarding gate. The balding attendant was talking with a loadmaster and a ship steward. They were welcoming civilian passengers and processing their paperwork when Galen and his two buddies arrived.

  “Wait over there, gentlemen,” said the steward.

  They watched nearly a hundred passengers pass through the boarding gate and guessed there were about twenty more waiting to board when the loadmaster called, “There any military out there? I’m supposed to pick up three tank jockeys.”

  “Right here!” said Galen.

  “Come over here.”

  They pushed their way through the knot of civilians. The loadmaster gave them a skeptical look and said, “Show me some identification and some orders.”

  They reached in their pockets and pulled out credit markers, academy graduate I.D.s and their mercenary contracts. The loadmaster read all the documents carefully and handed them back.

  “Okay, get on.”

  As he walked down the boarding gantry Galen heard the loadmaster tell the other waiting passengers, “Sorry folks, my boat’s full. Better luck catching the next one.”

  The steward caught up to Galen and his two buddies and told them, “We’re really packing them in this time, what with that other ship breaking down. Anyhow, you three will ride in the upper weapons blister, for two reasons. One, you’re tank jockeys, so that means you know a thing or two about weapons. But we aren’t putting you there to use the damn things, understand that right now. The reason you’re being put there instead of civilians is so that if a weapon gets discharged, we can take legal action against you. You know enough about those weapons to make absolutely sure they don’t get fired. Or damaged. Remember that. Your cabin, gentlemen.”

  “Do you think they wouldn’t call us ‘gentlemen’ if we weren’t academy graduates?” said Tad.

  “I guess so,” said Spike. He strapped himself into the weapons control couch.

  Galen said, “That loadmaster, he probably still thinks we’re impostors. Did you see the dirty look he gave us, like we insulted the whole universe by calling ourselves military?”

  “No, spacers hate mercenaries. That’s what my uncle told me. He used to work at this spaceport,” said Spike.

  “No wonder you found your way around here so well, it runs in your family,” said Tad.

  “Talk about family, why your family...”

  “Let’s drop it. I’m in no mood to fight,” said Galen. For him, discussions about family and lineage were taboo. But with a comfortably retired mother and a big chunk of money in his own account, his family heritage would be quite respectable. But not until then, not for a while longer.

  “So Spike, tell us more about this spacer/mercenary complex,” said Tad.

  “Oh, it’s not so hard to figure out. Being in space, weightless or in control of your gravity is kind of comfortable. The only reason they have to come down is to get us. A necessary evil they have to put up with to earn a living. And in space this ship is quite a powerful weapon, but on the ground it’s kind of vulnerable to attack, dependent on ground units for protection. So they resent us for several reasons. Then there are the crews. Now they really don’t like us, but I don’t suppose we’ll ever meet any of them. We shouldn’t, anyway.”

  “Attention passengers,” the steward’s voice came over the intercom, “we will be lifting off in thirty seconds. Because of our tight schedule we will be launching faster than normal and will burn at a rate of three Gs while leaving the planet’s gravity well. Then as we approach the jump point we will decelerate at two Gs. We will, however, give you fifteen minutes of weightlessness between one G burns. I advise you to make the most of those times to prepare for the second leg of the flight. There will be no one or zero G breaks after the turnaround. That will be all.”

  “How long does this flight take?”

  “About six hours to the turnaround, where we coast for a while, and then maybe four hours as we decelerate to stop at the jump point.” Galen didn’t know, he was only guessing. The primary thrusters fired, gently lifting the drop ship into the air.

  “Hey, this ain’t so bad, can hardly feel the extra gravity,” said Tad.

  Spike said, “Yeah, you know the deal with them spacers. They just said that to scare us.”

  Chapter Two

  Galen said nothing. He sensed a gradual but steady increase in the velocity of the drop ship. It lifted smoothly, taking nearly two minutes to reach two Gs. Then BAM, the secondary thrusters fired. The ship lurched upward, vibrating and groaning for a few seconds while it tore out of the last layer of the atmosphere. The three young mercenaries didn’t talk much, not accustomed to weighing three times as much as normal.

  Galen wondered how the civilian passengers fared. After all, he was a strong, physically fit young soldier and he was not feeling well at all. It took every ounce of determination and discipline he could muster to keep from slumping over into unconsciousness. He felt as though his bowels were about to explode.

  “What manner of torture is this?” said Tad through clenched teeth.

  Galen envied him. At least Tad had strength enough to speak. The chronometer on the weapons control panel showed only twenty minutes elapsed since the torment began. Galen knew he couldn’t take another moment of it, but what could he do? Pride made him put up a front of being able to handle the stress.

  A voice, this one less cultured and more strained than the steward’s, came over the intercom, “You there at weapons station two. What in the name of God are you doing? HEY YOU, I can see you on my monitor!”

  Galen looked over Spike’s shoulder and saw a large red “2” stenciled over the weapons control panel.

  “You mean us?” grunted Galen.

  “Yes, you. Why don’t you lay on the floor like everybody else? You keep sitting up like that and you’ll break your stupid neck. Too late for you to get out your mat, but lying on the bare floor is better than being paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of your life.”

  “Aw,” said another voice in the background, “they’re them tank jockeys. I figured they’d know better. Guess not.”

  “You people lay down right now or I’ll jettison your carcasses at the turnaround point.”

  The three friends lay on their backs on the floor of the weapons station for the remainder of the high-G burn, grateful but embarrassed. When the acceleration finally stopped and gravity inside the drop ship became zero, Galen had an intense feeling of falling that lasted a couple of minutes. He closed his eyes for a second but had to reopen them. The sensation of falling was too intense, too real. He had to focus his attention and hold tightly to the bulkhead and deck to keep from losing his grip on reality.

  Spike and Tad seemed unaffected. They went to use the restroom. When they returned, Galen was somewhat relaxed. Galen saw Spike floating and mused over how even in zero-G, he seemed to be leaning on something, totally calm. Tad, of course, was performing gymnastics and trying as quickly as possible to develop a talent for floating. When Galen left the weapons station to visit the head, Tad was altering the speed of his body’s axial rotation by extending his arms to slow down, then bringing them in to allow himself to spin faster.

  When Galen got back to the weapons station the hatchway wouldn’t open. It
was locked. Galen beat on the door and could hear a rude voice coming over the intercom inside, “You got ten seconds to get that gun under control or I’ll de-pressurize your cabin!” Ten seconds later, the lock disengaged. Galen opened the hatch and floated in.

  “What happened while I was gone?”

  “We decided to get out our high-G pads for the deceleration towards the jump point,” said Spike.

  “Somehow we let them float around too much. They bumped into the panel and activated the fire control system. That guy on the bridge got pretty hot about it. Anyhow, we’ll have about two minutes of half-G to get organized before full deceleration, meaning two Gs, sets in.”

  “Oh,” said Galen.

  An insistent beating came at the hatchway. It was the steward. “Here. Normally we don’t give these to military passengers, usually it isn’t necessary. Read it.” He handed Galen a single-page pamphlet entitled ‘Tips on Space Travel’ before he left, closing the hatch behind him.

  “Now they tell us.”

  It took six hours for the drop ship to reach the turnaround point, then another four hours of constant, non-stop deceleration at two Gs for it to reach the jump point.

  The rest of the passengers floated freely about the drop ship while it waited at the jump point but the ship’s steward kept the hatchway to weapon station two secured. Galen wished he knew what was going on, wished he could peer out into the endless expanse of space. The viewport of the weapons station was covered at the moment and it would require the forbidden act of powering up the fire control system to open the blast shield.

  Galen couldn’t sleep without gravity. Tad floated about the chamber, legs bent into a sitting position and his arms bent at the elbows, hands forward, like a mindless undead creature reaching for something.

  Spike slept on his mat, strapped flat on his back to the floor by some elastic cords he found in the stowage compartment. Galen hadn’t slept more than a few winks over the past ten hours, catching naps during the one G burns but not sleeping at all during the two G deceleration. He just couldn’t.