Wild Nines (Mercenaries Book 1)

by A. R. Knight

  “Hey, sitting ducks!” Merc announced through the short-range comm to the ship. “Flag yourself for surrender and I won’t fill you full of holes.”

  “You think I don’t know you’ll do that anyway?” The reply came, the voice strained, high-pitched.

  “Dunno what you’re talking about, man. Except that you keep heading to the stars, you’re going to do it as a fireball here in a sec.”

  “There weren’t supposed to be extra people there, in the bay,” the man said.“It should have been simple. We’d already be gone by now.”

  “Say again, ship? And cut your engines,” Merc replied. “You getting this, Phyla?”

  “Hearing it, don’t understand it,” Phyla replied through their secure channel. “Hey! Heads up. Jumper’s picking up a new player in your game.”

  A moment later the Viper’s own sensors beeped. New craft, coming from orbit. Hot. Far enough out that the scanners showed a plain circle, but it was going fast. Another few seconds and there'd be a picture.

  “Shields maximum,” Merc said, the voice toggles mimicking hard switches, but he didn’t want to take his hand off the stick right now. Slotting the energy to the shields meant losing some of the Viper’s potential thrust, but it wasn’t like Merc needed it to keep up with the slow-burn wreck of the enemy.

  “Ship, you got a new bogey coming in fast. Suggest you tell me what it is, you got any info,” Merc commed to the enemy ship. “Then suggest you turn around, high-tail it back to base all nice and easy.”

  “Stick jockey, threatening a man whose already dead won’t get you very far,” The guy on the ship replied, before breaking off in sad laughter.

  The ship started swinging left, turning away from the inbound craft, but it wasn’t moving nearly fast enough. Merc saw the new ship adjust its line to match. At the speed it was going, the new ship was going to overtake in ten, fifteen seconds.

  “Ten percent,” Merc said, cutting the throttle. No sense getting between the new guy and the old one. Especially when he didn’t know what the new one was going to do.

  The Viper beeped twice. Deep tones. Missiles launched, but not at Merc.

  “Ship, you got a pair of bugs incoming,” Merc said.

  “They weren’t supposed to be there, man,” the guy said. “Supposed to be in and out. Can’t say we didn’t do the job though. Can’t say that.”

  The missiles, their bright ends just visible like a pair of fast-moving stars, lanced through the air in front of Merc and struck the ship. The explosion started small, then crackled into an enormous cloud of fire and arcing electricity. Electric engines would blow big, but that was something more.

  “Phyla, there was a bomb on board that ship. Or something that goes up real nice,” Merc said, watching the fireball collapse on itself, shards of wreckage plummeting like meteors towards Europa’s surface.

  “Just get back here,” Phyla said.

  “What, don’t want me playing tag with that new ship?”

  Speaking of, the attacking vessel was adjusting course towards Merc, but also towards Eden Prime behind him. Merc pushed the flight stick forward, tilting the nose of the Viper straight. At its velocity, the other ship couldn’t twist sharp enough to get a clean shot. Even in Europa’s thin, developing atmosphere, the air resistance would rip the craft apart. Once Merc sped underneath the other ship, he could turn around and, if he needed to, light up their rear with all kinds of goodies.

  “Hello there!” Crackled Merc’s short-range radio. “Just calling to confirm we’ve got no designs on you, mate!”

  Sure they didn’t. Merc wasn’t going to put himself in their trusting hands anyway.

  “Why’d you toast that guy?” Merc replied into the radio, keeping his comm open.

  “Put him out of his misery,” the voice on the other end fell flat, a player tired of the game. “He was a dead man. Not that it matters for you.”

  “Kind of you to tell me that,” Merc said.

  The larger ship blew by overhead, continuing to head for Eden Prime. Merc detected no missile locks, no warning shots. Apparently they were one-and-done killers.

  “What do you want me to do, Phyla?” Merc said. “We’re supposed to be providing security, and they just wiped a guy on our turf.”

  “Come back home, Merc. Till we know what’s going on here, I don’t want you out.”

  Merc almost complained, wanted to protest. Maybe take the Viper after that new ship. But instead he plugged in the docking routine, curled through the sky and went back to base.

  9

  Contract Disputes

  The headquarters of Eden Prime sat a ten-minute walk from the bays. That walk went along a wide, open space everyone called the Boulevard. Like a cylinder sliced in half, the curved roof collected solar energy and gave a stellar view of Jupiter and the surrounding stars. Stores bought space along the sides, building bubble shapes from the outer wall.

  Marl’s government building wasn’t any different, except in design. Made from blue swoops, with not a straight edge in sight, the building evoked the waves in Europa’s soon-to-be-thawed oceans. At least, that’s what Marl said.

  The front doors, tempered glass inlaid with swirling drawings of fish, currents, and kelp, opened as Davin approached. Business hours were over for the day, but Davin pushed through the door anyway. Marl had to know what’d just happened in bay five, had to know about the ambushed execution of the ship Mox had shot to pieces.

  No ship could land at Eden Prime without permission from flight control. The Wild Nines were the de facto police for this place, and nobody bothered to let them know a suspicious vessel with a bomb was coming. Nor that there was another ship entering the atmosphere loaded with heavy weapons.

  “Bay seven’s locked,” Opal’s voice came over the comm. “Can’t get in. There's some weird people there though. Looks like they’re trying to get in Clare’s ship. Don't recognize their uniforms.”

  “It’s fine. Don’t push it,” Davin replied.

  No getting back to the inspector’s ship for any hints. Just another twist in this great day.

  Davin stood in the lobby of the Eden Prime building, glancing at the twin stairs curling up around either side of the entrance hall. They both led to the same second-floor landing, a balcony that gave you an eye-level view of a dangling chandelier. The lights in that fixture cut sharp, long and thin, like the frozen shards decorating the wasteland beyond the terramorpher’s mouth. Lit, as it was now, the chandelier cast a pure white light around the interior. Eden Prime, it said, was beautiful. Was open for real business, real class. How long that impression would keep with a pair of people burned alive in a docking bay, Davin wasn't sure.

  He took the left stairs, walking up the steps to the landing. Short hallways on either side ended in doors. During the day, the first floor held the business application work, the tour groups full of prospective investors. The doors up here were labeled ‘Eden Prime Staff Only’. Davin tried one. Not locked. The only light on the other side coming from windows, Jupiter's reflection. Empty cubicles guided Davin towards Marl’s office.

  He itched for Melody, but the only thing he had was a sidearm. The same one Clare had used to blast that guy an hour ago. Davin kept a hand on it. Marl’s office was walled off with a darker blue than the rest. As big by itself as the rest of the cubicles.

  The door to Marl’s office was the first one that, when Davin pressed on it to open, stayed shut. The badge scanner on the right beeped a low tone when Davin swiped his card. No dice. Suddenly Davin, without knowing why, hammered his fist on Marl’s door. Pounded it once, twice, three times. The metal didn’t bend, didn’t even give a satisfying thwack. Instead it took the punishment and sat there, solid.

  Davin didn’t know Clare or Ward, didn’t know what they were looking for, or why they’d requested the Wild Nines give them a shot at getting out alive, but they had, and Davin had failed. But he hadn’t failed alone. The killers had help.

  “Davin Masters,” s
aid Marl’s voice, a calm, dead weight, over the office comm. “Isn’t it past your shift?”

  “Everybody’s working late,” Davin replied, his eyes scanning up and around the door, looking for the camera and not finding it.

  “You know me, I live for the job,” Marl said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Open this door for starters.”

  “Are you going to shoot me if I do?”

  “Depends,” Davin said.

  The lock next to the door flashed green and the metal barrier slid right and opened. Davin stepped through into Marl’s office, a set of chairs, a desk, and an endless view out onto Europa’s surface. Standing off to the side, gun drawn, was Castor, the PR man and Marl’s unofficial bodyguard.

  “Castor,” Davin said as he stepped into the room. “Always a pleasure.”

  “Davin,” Castor said, his voice a straight level tone that avoided any inflection.Whether Castor was getting ready to murder him or wish him a happy early birthday, Davin couldn't tell.

  “Who were those two that hired you?” Marl asked. “I’d like to know whose ashes my crews are sweeping away.”

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” Davin said.“We didn’t get much time to talk.”

  “I wonder whose fault that is?”

  Davin knew it was bait. Knew it. Marl trying to get him angry, to say something stupid. Davin had seen her do this to a dozen people before, manipulate their emotions with a carefully placed sentence or three and then come away with coin or blackmail while the other person struggled to hold on to their dignity.

  “Why was bay five sealed, Marl? Why couldn’t we get out?” Davin said, walking closer to the desk, his voice rising as he spoke. “Why was that ship allowed to land?”

  Davin took another step, was between the chairs now, when he felt Castor touch his arm. Davin shook the bodyguard off, but stopped his forward march. Marl half-turned back from the view, looked right at Davin, her eyes flashing fire in the dim light. Davin couldn’t deny that Marl looked powerful, her chin lofted so her eyes stared down at him. Decked out in official Eden uniforms, but, unlike the drab green worn by the grunts, Marl had dresses and suits that fit. Not a spare wrinkle, a sleeve too long. Their green shades were deeper emeralds, matching the flora growing now on Europa.

  In this light, Marl was a black silhoulette as she stood over her desk.

  “Doors malfunction all the time,” Marl said.“I’ll look into why the ship landed. It’s possible they lied, hid their weapons from our scanners.”

  “So you know nothing,” Davin said.

  “I’m sorry,”

  “You’re not,”

  “No, but then, I shouldn’t be. You and your team failed to tell me an escort hired you. Failed to tell me why those two were here. Failed to keep them alive. Failed to capture the ship that attacked them,” Marl placed her hands on the desk, thin, bony, but strong. “In fact, Davin, what I should be is angry. And I am.”

  “Hey —” Davin started.

  “Which is why,” Marl waved him quiet.“Effective immediately, I’m ending your contract with Eden Prime. You and your Wild Nines have a day to put yourselves together, but then I want you off this moon.”

  “And whose going to keep this place from falling apart? Captain flack here?” Davin said, nodding at Castor.

  “We are,” said a new voice behind Davin, full of cocky pride.

  The voice came from a built man in the doorway. He looked like a retired fighter, stood with the rugged wariness of someone who'd earned his gray hair. The man’s clothes caught Davin’s eye. The same set, a loose collection of dusty red and blue, that the man back in bay five had been wearing.

  “Ferro and his team are your replacements,” Marl said. “And the important thing, Davin, is that they’re better than you.”

  “Really?” Davin turned to the new man. “Where’d she find you, Ferro? Just hanging out waiting for a contract?”

  “Marl and I, we go back to Mars—” Ferro started.

  “Quiet,” Marl said. “Davin, you have a day to get your things together. Then I want you gone.”

  “You look at the camera feed from bay five, you’ll see this guy and the one that tried to blow up your base have a very similar fashion sense,” Davin said. “Might want to reconsider.”

  Davin stepped away from the desk, back towards the door.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Ferro said as Davin went by. “I am sorry my coming means you're going.”

  “Sure you are,” Davin said. “Enjoy this pile of trash, it’s a real winner.”

  “Twenty-four hours,” Marl said to Davin’s back. “Then you’re gone, or you’re dead.”

  “Always a sweet-talker, Marl,” Davin said as he walked by Ferro, out the door, out the office, out of the building.

  10

  Terms of Deception

  As soon as the door shut behind Davin, Marl glared at Castor.

  “You didn't catch the transmission,” Marl said.“You didn't intercept it and warn me, warn Ferro that they had hired bodyguards.”

  Castor, always the model of military training, didn’t flinch under Marl’s stare. Stood straight. As though this was an official ceremony. Like they weren’t on a backwater world trying to scrabble for survival.

  “Direct signals are almost impossible to intercept unless you're listening right in between them,” Castor said. The even tone, the march of logic. Just once, Marl would love to see the man show emotion.“What’s done is done. We need to move on.”

  “My men are not police,” Ferro said.

  “They are now,” Marl replied. “Alissa asked me to take you in, and I’ve done that. You can do this for me. Eden Prime isn’t big enough to cause much trouble.”

  “There is another problem,” Castor said.“The inspectors are dead, and Eden will want to know why.”

  “I suppose we can’t tell them it was a botched assassination?” Marl said. “Or it was an accident that a ship turned around in a docking bay full of people and ignited its main engines?”

  “Sarcasm?” Ferro asked Castor.

  “I don’t think either of those will hold up,” Castor said, ignoring Ferro. “The recording won’t back them.”

  The recording. Eden Prime was full of cameras catching everything, like everywhere else. They stored the recordings here. Video that could be altered. Nobody had even seen the playback yet, outside of Marl and Castor. There were no witnesses, only Davin and his crew, and who would believe a few hired guns when the evidence was so damning?

  “We adjust the video. Change it,” Marl said.“The Red Voice has a specialist right? For the media?”

  “We could do it,” Castor said.

  “Quickly?” Marl said, then she pointed to Ferro.“For this to work, you'll have to arrest Davin. Prevent him from leaving. Then, when Eden’s next force arrives, we can hand them their prize.”

  “I’ll send the recording,” Castor said. “Ferro, give your men a few hours. Then strike.”

  “Go, get them ready,” Marl said to Ferro. “Castor, one more minute please.”

  Ferro left the room.

  “Davin won’t let this play out,”Marl said. “They will fight.”

  “We can't let them win,” Castor said. “Call him.”

  “I don’t like owing one man so many favors,” Marl said. She sat back in her chair, stared at her comm.

  “You won’t have to repay them,” Castor said. “He’ll be dead before he can collect.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Marl said, and punched in the number.

  11

  Bar Nights

  It was way past her bedtime. The cockpit of the Gepard whooshed open in bay four of Eden Prime after twelve hours of spaceflight. Viola hadn’t checked the route before she’d started. Hadn’t realized that she launched at the exact wrong time in the moon’s orbits to make the transfer. Not that floating along the stars, Jupiter’s giant bulk dominating the view, was a bad thing. Meditative, quiet. Especially when she’d mad
e Puk turn itself off for a while.

  Approaching Europa meant a slew of conversations with Eden Prime’s flight control, along with a quick pause in the approach for a scanning. Viola had slowed the Gepard to wait in line behind two larger cargo haulers, rounded boxes with engines. When it was her turn, a swarm of bug bots surrounded her ship.

  Some blasted the Gepard’s small hold with x-rays. Others crawled along the exterior, tapping into the fuel line, probing the airlock to make sure there wasn’t a hidden bomb or other undisclosed items. The whole thing was claimed to be for security, but Viola’s dad had spent more than one dinner complaining how it was an excuse to find more cargo they could tax.

  The landing into Europa was the easiest part, a matter of punching in the docking command to the Gepard’s auto-pilot and letting it handle things. Current practice frowned on any manual piloting, even prohibited it entirely if the ship had an automatic choice available.

  The moment Viola touched down and popped the hatch, the dockmaster was there demanding coin for the slot. Viola paid a large chunk of what she had and the dockmaster tucked the Gepard away to the side of the bay where it wouldn’t interrupt the constant traffic of more important ships.

  “How many messages so far, Puk?” Viola asked as they walked the quiet corridor into the promenade.

  “Only ten, but they’re increasingly frantic,” Puk replied. “Your father's showing an impressive range of emotions. We’re talking anger, sadness, desperation. Man deserves an award.”

  “He’ll get over it,” Viola replied.

  The curving central walk of Eden Prime brought Viola by a hotel and, suddenly feeling tired, Viola swerved towards it. A mash-up of Greek architecture with space-age curls, the hotel bathed in purple cast from surrounding spotlights. Cosmagora blinked at Viola on a scrolling pink neon banner. The price blaring out below in that same neon made Viola’s stomach lurch, but there weren't a lot of options.