Wild Nines (Mercenaries Book 1)

by A. R. Knight

  With a strangled sigh, Cadge sat up, just enough so that his head peeked up at the android.

  “How many times do I have to tell you? Go to hell, you metal bastard,” Cadge growled.

  Fournine nodded, then raised the red gun and blasted Cadge in the chest. The mercenary fell back to the floor. Fournine holstered its weapons, staring at Cadge the entire time.

  “You’re recording him, aren’t you?” Viola asked, coming out onto the walkway.

  “Part of the requirements. I have to get proof,” Fournine replied, not looking away from Cadge’s body. “One down. Plenty left.”

  Fournine straightened, looked at Viola. This close, with the hat on the ground, Fournine stared at her. Jagged lines ran along the left side of its face.A hasty plaskin repair. The rest of its skin looked too perfect. No wrinkles. No natural bumps, hairs, or eyelashes out of place.

  “What are you staring at?” Fournine said. “It is rude to study another so. As I understand it, a human would blush under such scrutiny.”

  “You, uh, can’t do that. Can you?” Viola said.

  “Doesn’t matter to you. Or me,” Fournine said, moving over to the lifts and pushing the call button.

  The android seemed to forget Viola was still standing there, watching him. Maybe the android really didn’t care about her. Viola could walk away, head back to the Jumper. Or . . .

  “Who are you going after next?” Viola said.

  “Don’t care,” Fournine replied, staring ahead at the closed lift doors. “This is a list that can be read in any order. Cadge Vasseter happened to have the least luck of his friends.”

  “I guess I’m thankful.”

  Fournine turned now and Viola felt those inanimate eyes poring over her. Every part of her tested, ranked and measured.

  “I’m having a hard time understanding why you’re continuing to talk,” Fournine said. “According to my logic, you interacting with me only increases your chances of death.”

  “I can help you,” Viola said. “Find the rest of them, I mean.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “You just saw one of them try and kidnap me,” Viola said. “They deserve what’s coming to them.”

  Viola had no idea if Fournine would take her word, but if the bot let her come with him, it didn’t really matter. Viola reached towards Cadge’s body, which smelled like burning meat, the charred hole in the mercenaries chest twisting her stomach in knots. Focus, girl, focus. On Cadge’s left wrist wrapped his comm. A button on the underside unlatched the tool, and Viola slipped it off and then around her own forearm. Fournine watched with a robot’s lifeless impassivity.

  “Who are you going to talk to?” Fournine asked.

  “I’ll be able to find their location,” Viola said. “Lead you right to them.”

  Fournine nodded and Viola raised the comm.

  “Phyla?” Viola asked into the device.

  “Viola?” Phyla replied. “You have a comm? The signature says it’s Cadge’s?”

  “Long story,” Viola said. “I need to know where Davin’s going.”

  “He’s trying to find the guy who can get that android off our backs. He’s on this station somewhere. But what’s going on? Where’s Cadge?”

  Viola caught Fournine’s eye, and the android waved a hand in a quick slash motion. Cut the call.

  “Thanks, Phyla. I’ll be in touch,” Viola said.

  “Hey—”

  Viola cut the transmission. Fournine was busy punching a request into the lift panel. The clock was ticking. If Viola didn’t find a way to shut down Fournine before it found Davin, the captain’s death would be on her.

  Not for the first time, Viola wished she’d just stayed at home on Ganymede.

  45

  Save the Ship

  Nobody answers the calls, and then Viola chimes in out of nowhere with Cadge’s comm. Phyla tried another round of calls out to the crew. Radio silence from Mox, Opal, Merc, and Davin. What the hell was going on out there?

  Outside the cockpit window, the activity in the bay was winding down as the hours crept later. Dinner time. A pinch in her own stomach where some food would’ve found a welcome home. Here they were, on a station where Phyla might get a good meal, and she was still stuck on the ship. It wasn’t fair. Then, that’d always been her lot. Sitting on the ship playing comm operator while Davin dashed around or Merc aced out the skies.

  The main lift doors kicked Phyla out of the musing. A squad, at least ten people wearing the forest green of Miner Prime’s peacekeepers. Only these looked armed, ready for combat, not patrol. Too terrible to be a coincidence.

  Phyla slapped a button on the right side of the console, big and red, labeled Alarm. The button’s sole purpose was to make a lot of noise while sliding up the loading ramp and sealing the doors. Hopefully, neither Trina nor Erick had decided on an evening stroll.

  Outside, the security forces paused, grouping into bunches and looking like easy targets. Phyla twisted a small dial that popped a turret from the top of the ship. On the ground, with the turret up, Phyla’s flight stick rerouted to control where the gun pointed, and she aimed it at the closest group.

  “You’re all not here for us, right?” Phyla spoke through the ship’s intercom system.

  One of the security members, with a thicker collar than the others and a blue armband around his bicep, raised a hand and stepped towards the ship.

  “No closer. You talk nice and loud and I’ll hear you fine,” Phyla said. “Your boot goes another centimeter and I’ll take it as assault with deadly force and respond in kind.”

  As the security officer cleared his throat, Phyla switched the comm to broadcast internally.

  “Trina, get our engines ready. I’ll stall as long as I can, but we can’t stay here.”

  “Already on it,” Trina replied a heartbeat later.

  “That’s why you’re the best,” Phyla replied, then realized the officer out front was speaking.

  “… and, in addition to the aforementioned crimes, it is suspected that your vessel carries a number of illegal modifications not approved for its class. Like, uh, that turret there.”

  “It’s not my ship,” Phyla said. “I’m just the pilot. Have no say in what the captain does with her.”

  The console showed the engines were at twenty-five percent. Phyla knew the ship could bounce at seventy-five if it had to, it just wouldn’t be the smoothest launch. But then, nothing with this damned ship was smooth. Only, without the Jumper she wouldn’t have ever left Miner Prime. Maybe she’d be down there in one of those green suits instead of up here, manning a spewing death weapon and waiting for someone to make the wrong move.

  “Then you won’t mind us coming aboard to look for him?” the officer replied.

  The man was stalling for time same as she was. The other security forces shifted around, spreading out. The main lift doors opened again. More peacekeepers, only these carried larger weapons. Crowd suppression turrets and strong EMP launchers. Couldn’t do explosions on a space station, but shorting circuitry was fair game.

  “He’s on his way to talk to your boss right now,” Phyla said. “You should check, maybe they’ve cleared this up.”

  Dangerous, hinting to what Davin was doing, but Phyla didn’t see she had a choice. The engines hadn’t hit fifty yet. Cold starts were rough, and if they took fire too soon, the Jumper wouldn’t be going anywhere. The officer bought it, though, holding up a hand and speaking into his comm. Phyla rotated the turret to aim at the group of security setting up the EMPs. Another thirty seconds and she’d fire anyway. She dialed down the power on the turret - it would burn, hurt, but shouldn’t kill anymore. The last thing they needed was an actual set of murders on their record.

  “How we doing?” Phyla commed to Trina.

  The engines were at sixty percent. Close. If the Jumper wasn’t going to take off early, Phyla had to know.

  “They’re goosed, Phyla. When you say go, they’ll get us out of here,
” Trina said. “But if you can hold till ninety, we’ll have a better chance of not exploding.”

  “Noted,” Phyla replied.

  “Phyla?” Mox’s voice came over the comm. “I lost Viola.”

  So many questions there wasn’t time to ask.

  “She’s fine,” Phyla replied. “No word on Opal and Merc. Go find them, please. Then hole up and wait for more.”

  The security officer lowered his arm, a scowl lighting up his face. That meant Davin hadn’t taken care of things. Which meant their stall time was up. Phyla pressed on the flight stick’s trigger and the turret fired, spraying yellow lasers into the bay. There wasn’t any recoil, not even much noise inside the ship, but Phyla flinched at the bright light.

  The bolts struck home, frying circuits and scattering the security forces across the bay. Burning bits of cloth and sparking mechanics sent smoke swirling from the blasts. Keeping the trigger down, Phyla swept the turret left to right across the peacekeeper formation.

  The first return shots came, small lasers from sidearms. They glanced off plating meant to handle space awfulness, from rocks to blasts from far more powerful anti-ship weaponry. Part of the constant upgrades Davin put into the ship whenever he had spare coin. Now, though, Phyla appreciated it. Prayed that it would hold another minute till those engines were ready. That the exclamation point to her life wouldn’t be written in this awful docking bay.

  46

  Up By Force

  The tube intersection looked so basic, smooth and perfect like a children's toy. A big central shaft with vented openings all over the place. Like the inside of a twisted flute. Davin and Lina stood at the end of their tube, surveying the sheer sides of the shaft. Davin didn’t think he’d be a terrible climber, but the whole no handholds thing would make it difficult.

  “They use a hovering vehicle to get up and down the shaft for maintenance,” Lina said, whispering. “I’ve picked it up on camera a few times.”

  “Good to know. I’ll keep that in mind when I get my own space station,” Davin replied.

  “But if there’s a problem,” Lina said, ignoring Davin’s quip. “They’ll send a spotter bot first to find the damage.”

  “Should I be taking notes? Is there a test?”

  “Stop being stupid. We'll trigger a maintenance check. The spotter bot will come, we’ll trick it into seeing a problem, then hijack the maintenance craft,” Lina said.

  “See, you’re using the word ‘we’ a lot there, only I don't understand how we're doing any of this. Or, at least the first two. The hijacking I get.”

  Lina stepped over to the side of the tub they were in and pulled out her sidearm, a standard-issue laser pistol she’s probably stole from Miner Prime’s police armory. She popped the weapon open using a slider underneath the barrel. Made cleaning and repairing the lasers easy, only now Lina was using it to take out the gun’s battery. Lina set the battery on the floor of the tube, then walked back. Davin followed.

  “I suppose now you want me to shoot it?” Davin asked.

  “Knew you’d figure it out,” Lina replied.

  Blasting a battery pack caused the stored energy in it to overheat. With the small size of Lina’s sidearm, that wouldn’t be much, but it might mangle the tube enough. Davin couldn’t help but smile. This was the same stuff Lina pulled hen they were kids, upping the risk from one prank to the next till something backfired.

  “Lina, before I shoot this thing and possibly bring hell itself upon us, I have a question.”

  “And maybe I have an answer,” Lina replied.

  “How long have you been planning this?”

  “Since I saw your name on the wanted list,” Lina said. “Whenever you’re in trouble, you always come back here.”

  “And you knew we’d be going in the tubes?”

  “There’s only one way for people without clearance to get to that level, and it’s this one. Now, you going to shoot that thing or do I have to?”

  Without another word, Davin drew and fired his gun in a single motion, the laser hitting the battery pack and exploding the thing in a bright flash of molten plasma. The super-heated goop burnt into the side of the tube, hollowing out pits and charring the surface.

  “That doesn’t draw an investigation, dunno what will,” Davin said.

  “Always knew you could hit a stationary target.” Lina said.

  “I do have skills.”

  Only a few seconds later the soft hum of low-powered engines echoed through the tube. Davin and Lina inched backward, around a slight bend and out of site of the central shaft. If the bot found something needing repair, the maintenance crew would come after it. No need to risk getting caught. The hum grew louder, then held steady for ten seconds, before rising up and away from the tube.

  “A thought,” Davin said. “That bot, when it looks at the damage, it will know an explosion isn’t a typical problem down here.”

  “Even if it does, that just means you’ll have to show off those deadly talents you talk about so much.”

  Lina, always with the ribbing. Davin didn’t talk himself up too much, did he?

  “Good point. So excited,” Davin said.

  Not too many minutes later another rumbling noise made its way the shaft and shook the tube. Much larger than the inspection bot. Large enough that Davin threw Lina some side-eye. When Lina glanced his way, Davin pointed at her, then at himself, and held up two fingers and tilted his head towards the loud engine noise. A craft that big against the two of them? Those weren't good odds.

  “Surprise,” Lina whispered to him, barely audible over the engine noise.

  Then, before Davin could move, Lina slipped along the tube towards the craft. Davin rounded the bend after her and saw the floating platform hovering just below the exit of the tube. On it Davin counted four people, three in the gray outfits of mechanical personal and one in the green of Miner Prime security. All of them were looking at Lina, who stood waving. In a second, they’d realize she wasn’t alone.

  In that second, Davin drew his gun and, in the same motion, moved his finger along the power slider. Fancier weapons like his had the choice to toss more, and lower-powered, shots. Seeing as they were trying to get rid of a criminal charge, it didn’t seem like a great idea to kill someone. At least, not if they didn’t have to.

  Davin’s first shot went under Lina’s raised, waving arm and struck the security guard in the chest. The guard stumbled back to the edge of the platform, about to fall off, when he hit the safety barrier. The edge of the platform flashed a neon blue around where the guard was tumbling and, instead of falling off, the platform pushed the guard back. Lina dove to the side, giving Davin a clear second shot.

  This one flew wide, just over the ducking head of the mechanic closest to the damaged tube. An intentional miss. Had to make them understand Davin could take them out whenever he wanted. The shot had the desired effect, as the mechanics backed up, hands raised, and leaned against the platform’s barriers.

  “Which one of you knows how to fly this thing?” Davin said, running onto the craft and kicking away the wounded guard’s weapon.

  None of them said anything at first. Then Lina picked up the guard’s gun, a hefty piece of work meant to spray stunning electricity, and trained it on them. That prompted one of the mechanics to raise his hand. Davin gave him a nod.

  “Well, uh, we all can. Sir,” the mechanic said. “Part of our training.”

  “Ah. Good. Then one of you, send us up,” Davin said, waving with the jig.

  “Level Nine,” Lina said.

  The mechanic that spoke went to the console. Just before the craft moved, Davin pulled the guard and the other two mechanics off, leaving them on the tube. Their buddy could come back for them later. Davin hadn’t taken a hostage before, and one seemed a safer bet than four.

  The piloting mechanic pushed a lever and the craft rose. One step closer.

  47

  Take Off

  The console pinged when the e
ngines hit ninety, just like it had every ten percent before then, but when Phyla heard that wonderful bell, she let go of the flight stick and tapped the launch sequence on the console. First step was to trigger the landing rockets, pushing the ship a few inches off the ground, then tap the landing gear retrieval, and then flip the turret onto auto-fire mode. The last one was dangerous, as the turret then analyzed any incoming fire and shoot in that direction. It always meant the turret fired second, but Phyla needed the flight stick to fly.

  The security forces hadn’t expected the Whiskey Jumper’s defenses. After Phyla neutralized the EMPs, the bulk of the attackers hunkered behind walls, stacked cargo, or dove into the lift and fled. Reinforcements would come, but right now there was a distinct lack of laser fire splashing across Phyla’s cockpit. As the ship lifted off the ground and rotated, Phyla saw bright orange lights flash in the bay. They were shutting the door, trying to keep the Jumper sealed on the station. Only, they were way too slow.

  Phyla goosed the engines even before the exit was fully in view, arcing the Jumper out before the bay door was even a quarter shut. The black infinite of space stretched before her though the Jumper’s radar showed a slew of other ships spread around the station. The question was whether Miner Prime would bother to fight them out here. The station would risk coin and cargo if they tried to have a shoot-out near these trading ships.

  So Phyla steered the Jumper to the nearest cluster, hoping to hide among their valuable structures. Then she'd find a way to get the rest of their friends back. Speaking of….

  “Mox, you there?”

  “Here,” Mox said a second later, the transmission faint and blipped with static, a result of the increasing distance between the two. “You gone?”