No one was sure whether the same was true of the Outer Ring, since it was far enough outside the normal sphere of operations that it made no sense to expand there until Kuiper Belt 2 was fully exploited, which it wouldn’t be for a long time.
Eventually, everyone dropped the “2” in Kuiper Belt 2. No one who’d followed Darkstream to this galaxy intended on having any more contact with the inhabitants of humanity’s home system, and so using the same name wasn’t likely to become a problem.
Even so, nowadays, most people simply called the circumstellar disk “the Belt.”
Darkstream Security Ltd. supplied Jake and his father with the equipment and building materials necessary to erect each colony, in exchange for sixty percent of all resources extracted as well as fifty percent of the sales they made to homesteaders.
It was kind of funny to think about how the homesteaders wanted so badly to get away from Darkstream, and yet without the company they’d never be able to—
“Jake.”
Jake’s head jerked up, until he was looking at his father, whose hand was raised in a gesture recognizable as one used to manipulate a virtual interface.
“Yeah?”
“Radar found something odd. I think…I think there’s something inside this thing.”
“The comet?”
“Yeah. Take a look at this.” With a flicking gesture, Peter sent the radar image to Jake’s HUD.
So far, the antenna array had only managed to render part of the object buried deep within the ice of the comet, but Jake thought he recognized it nevertheless. He’d never seen one in person, of course, because they didn’t actually exist.
Or so he’d thought. And yet, here one was. He’d piloted simulated versions himself, many times, while lucid. But here one was in real life.
An actual mech. Buried deep within the comet’s ice.
Chapter 2
The Dusty Bucket
“The usual, Lisa?” Phineas Gage asked when she sauntered up to the bar.
Lisa Sato nodded, using her implant to summon the pile of silver and copper coins that represented her financial worth in credits. It hovered in the air, waiting for her to count out the right change from it. She did so, and pinched some extra copper from the top, dropping it onto the bar in front of Phineas.
The bartender grinned, eyeing the added coin through his v-lenses. Lisa believed in tipping generously. Darkstream paid its military operatives well—much better than most other employees, as well as most of those the company contracted with. Spreading the extra coin around a bit was the least she could do.
“Can I have your number, Lisa?” Bob O’Toole singsonged drunkenly from the bar’s end.
She suppressed a grimace, avoiding O’Toole’s gaze. The gross old man had never tried anything with her, and if he did he’d live to regret it. But he did have a knack for being annoying.
“Getting her number wouldn’t help you one iota, Bob,” said Tessa Notaras, who sat with her hands curled around a beer between Lisa and the old lech. “Even if you managed to get her number, IM address, and employee ID, she still wouldn’t sleep with you.”
Bob might have come back with something saucy, but Tessa had paired her words with a stern glare, and the drunk fell silent. Then Tessa turned to smile at Lisa.
Lisa smiled back. She often shared a drink with Tessa, and she liked the older woman a lot. Tessa always seemed to have something interesting to share, whether it was a rumor no one had heard yet, but which would inevitably be all over Habitat 2 by the next day, or an intriguing tidbit from one of the books she spent so much time reading on her implant.
Tessa had also worked for Darkstream, once, but now she seemed to revile the company. That made it a little awkward whenever Lisa’s employer came up in conversation. Lisa had no idea how the ex-soldier made money now that she’d estranged herself from the biggest company in the system, but it didn’t really matter. Tessa had come to play something of a “big sister” role to Lisa.
“Here you go, darling,” Phineas said, plunking a whiskey sour on the bar top in front of her.
Lisa raised the glass to her lips, sipped in some foam, and tilted the tumbler toward Phineas. “Delicious as always, Phin.”
“Better than the Swinging Eel?” he asked, voice flush with mirth.
That got a laugh from Lisa. “You know I’d never betray your trust by patronizing them.”
It was true. Of Habitat 2’s two bars, the Swinging Eel was by far the seedier one, and especially dangerous for a Darkstream Security operative. Lisa far preferred to drink here at the Dusty Bucket, even if Bob O’Toole did seem to cling permanently to his customary stool like an unpleasant growth.
I wonder if anyone would dare sit on that stool, if he ever got up from it. I bet it’s filthy. The thought made her grin wider. Maybe a newcomer would. Habitat 2 didn’t get many of those.
Settling onto her own stool, Lisa cast her mind back over the day she’d had, which had involved busting two in-progress drug deals. Those were getting more frequent, lately, and they’d already been pretty bad. Her entire job seemed to boil down to arresting people whose crimes had something to do with drugs—smuggling them, selling them, buying them, or stealing enough credits to buy them.
It never ends.
Andy Miller entered the bar, nodding at Phineas before noticing Lisa.
“Seaman Apprentice,” she said, with a slight nod.
“Seaman,” Andy said, smirking.
Andy was a fellow Darkstream employee, and so he had a rank, like her. The company had given its hired military operatives naval ranks soon after deciding to colonize this solar system, to increase their perceived legitimacy as the closest thing the system had to a military.
Lisa had heard that Darkstream wasn’t quite as finicky about ranks as the UHF had been back in the Milky Way, but the command structure was still taken seriously.
Lisa had gone on a couple of dates with Andy a few months ago, but suddenly he’d stopped messaging her, and so she’d stopped messaging him. Now, he treated her with a mixture of ridicule and disdain whenever they saw each other. She wasn’t a fan of that at all.
“Just getting back from a run, Andy?” Phineas asked, sliding over a pint of stout.
Andy nodded. “Brought a big shipment back from the elevator, too.”
Phineas grunted. “Thing makes me nervous. I don’t care how far away they put it. I hear that thing is over twenty thousand miles high, and if something ever went wrong with it and it fell over the wrong way…”
A sharp laugh from Andy. “It’ll never fall over, Phin. The physics are as dependable as your beer is good.”
“Ah. Well, they must be pretty dependable, then.” Still, Phineas sniffed sharply. “How’s the weather out on Alex?”
“Could be a lot worse.”
Alexandria was one of the two planets Darkstream’s employees and former employees had colonized after arriving in this system, which company execs had christened the Steele System. It was a bit of a mouthful to say “Alexandria” all the time, though, so everyone shortened the planet’s name to “Alex.”
Andy shrugged. “The biggest dangers are inside Habitat 2. ‘Hell is other people.’ Someone said that once. Back in the, uh…”
“Yeah,” Phineas said with a nod.
“Pansies,” Bob O’Toole said around a belch. Lisa had no idea why Phineas let the man stick around when he constantly insulted him like that. On the other hand, Bob O’Toole could very well be keeping the Bucket afloat, with all his drinking, so maybe it made sense after all.
“What are you talking about, Bob?” Andy said.
“Just saying,” O’Toole said, enunciating everything in that sarcastic way he had. “Grown men, whining about every little thing—sounds like you need yourselves a safe space to go cry in. Hmm? Why don’t you go back to the Milky Way, if that’s how you feel? Back where they give everybody a medal, including the losers, so that even a pansy like Captain Leonard Keyes could come to get
respect.”
“Keyes is a great man,” Phineas said quietly.
That twisted O’Toole’s face into a sneer. “Great man? Ha!” For a second, Lisa thought the jerk was about to spit, but he seemed to know that really would get him kicked out. “Dead man, probably,” he said instead. “Everyone in the Milky Way’s dead by now, I’d wager. Nineteen years is more than enough time for the Ixa to wipe out every last one of them. And soon enough, they’ll come for us.”
“Cut it out, Bob,” Tessa Notaras said, voice icy, white hair swinging as she turned to glare at him once more.
Bob did cut it out. He always heeded Tessa. Most people did.
Lisa’s com, which the company had set to permanent speaker-mode, squawked: “Attention all combat units. There has been a shooting at the southern collection node. Converge there immediately. Code red. I repeat, code red.”
The message repeated once, and Lisa found herself exchanging bewildered glances with Andy.
“You’re probably the closest soldier to there,” he said.
Oh, God. Lisa’s hand strayed toward her pistol unconsciously, but she caught herself. I’m not ready for this.
Her only training had been running combat sims while lucid. She’d never faced off with an actual person holding an actual gun. Her heart pounded, and she hadn’t even left yet.
“You okay?” Andy said. “You’re kinda pale.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she snapped.
“You’re on foot, right? I doubt you’ll get there in time, traveling that way. I can give you a ride on my bike.”
“Sure. Yeah. Okay.” Lisa took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 3
Gabriel Roach
Gabriel Roach woke with a splitting headache and a mysterious sense of guilt. He normally felt guilty, actually, but this guilt was new, about something else.
For a few moments after waking, everything was a mystery. It took a moment for him to piece together where he was and what he’d done last night.
Then the pieces started falling into place. He was very hungover. The reason: last night, he’d downed way too many vodka cranberries at the summer festival, which this year had been hosted by Northshire, the village he’d been contracted out by Darkstream to protect.
And lying in bed beside him was Mayor Sweeney’s daughter, Jess.
Ah, yes.
That was where the guilt came from.
Memory flooded back, from after they’d stumbled into his private quarters at the end of his unit’s barracks, which he enjoyed because of his position as Captain of the Guard.
He remembered what they’d done together, in and out of lucid.
He wanted to vomit. There’d be a record of the lucid parts, if anyone cared to review his history. That was something new to worry about, for the rest of his career.
What he’d done last night was unprofessional, self-indulgent, and not to mention—
“Gabe?” Jess said sleepily, pushing herself up on one elbow, a strand of auburn hair falling across her face.
His hand sprang forward of its own accord, yanking the blanket up before it could fall any farther. “Keep yourself covered,” he snapped, too harshly.
—not to mention, at twenty-one, Jess was eighteen years younger than him.
He began a frantic search of the floor, hunting down each article of clothing and tossing it in her direction without looking directly at the bed.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jess was sitting up now, and clutching the comforter’s edge to her chin, thankfully.
“This was a mistake,” Gabe said, his fingers landing on a shirt, which went sailing over his shoulder.
“That’s not what you said last night.”
“I was ossified last night.”
“I’ve seen the way you look at me when you’re stone-sober.”
“You’re imagining things.” She wasn’t, of course. Gabe had definitely looked at her. And unlike most of the other women he’d ever looked at, the crazy thing was, he thought he might actually be catching feelings for Jess. She was so quirky and unbridled, such a distillation of youth, so—
Listen to yourself, Gabe. You’re a walking stereotype. “You’re twenty-one, Jess.”
“So what? I’m a grown woman and I’m perfectly capable of making up my mind about what I want. I want you.”
“You can’t have me. I’ll lose my job, for one.”
“We won’t tell anyone, then.”
“That’s not going to work. Darkstream can basically read my thoughts before I think them. It would be just a matter of time before it comes out that I’m sleeping with the daughter of the mayor whose village I’m assigned to protect!”
Gabe began to pace back and forth across the tiny bedroom, shooting glances through the kitchenette whenever he passed it. The window out there featured a view of the walk up to the barracks, and he wanted to spot anyone approaching long before they reached him.
The time on the wall caught his eye, which clued him in to the fact that he had to go on patrol in fifteen minutes. Cursing, he ran to the locker near the door, dragging out his fatigues and pulling them on article by article.
Behind the clothes, a rack held his SL-17, and he unclipped it, checking the action and the magazine before turning once more to Jess.
“I have to go on patrol. Keep the door locked and don’t open it for anyone. Stay away from the windows. I’ll figure something out.”
“Gabe—”
But he was out the door, slamming it behind him and strolling down the path toward the village proper, trying not to look as ruined as he felt. Eresos’ mildew smell invaded his nostrils at once. You couldn’t get away from that odor, no matter how far you cut back the forest.
Gabe had been the very first person to set foot on Planet Eresos, and he still wasn’t used to the stench.
As was typical behavior for the universe, Mayor Sweeney was the first villager he encountered.
“You look like hell,” the mayor said.
“I look worse than I feel,” Gabe said. “I call it being ugly.”
Sweeney barked a laugh. “You’re far from that. Not judging from the way the village girls look at you, anyhow.”
Gabe forced a strained chuckle. “I’m sure that’s not true,” he choked out.
“Sure it is. Anyway, we’re all at least a little hungover. I won’t tell Darkstream if you won’t. Listen, have you seen Jess?”
For a brief second, Gabe froze. Then he unglued himself from his terror enough to say something: “Jess? No. Why, is she missing?”
“Ah, I’m sure it’s nothing. It’s not like the Quatro have been active lately. Her and her friends probably decided to take the party into the woods again, after us adults went to bed.”
Jess is an adult too, he wanted to say, for various reasons. But it didn’t seem wise. “I’m going on patrol, but if I see her I’ll send her your way, all right?”
“Thanks, Gabe. I can always count on you.”
“Sure can,” he said, flashing a grin, trying not to make it awkward-looking. He turned and marched on.
“Hey, Gabe?”
He froze. “Yeah?”
“I wanted to ask you something. About Jess.”
Slowly, Gabe turned again, sure he could actually feel the blood draining from his face. “Yes? What is it?”
“You don’t…you don’t think Jess is a liberal, do you?”
Gabe blinked. Then he brayed laughter, so forceful the spit flew from his lips. “Jess? No. No way she is. Jess knows which side her bread is buttered on.”
Mayor Sweeney shared in his laughter. “You’re right, you’re right. And she does the buttering by herself!” The mayor’s grin threatened to crack his face clean in half.
“Uh, yeah! Exactly.” He suspected the butter metaphor had gone astray at some point, but it was good that Sweeney was laughing. Instead of smashing my face in with a plank. “Anyway. I’d better start my rounds.”
“You do that. Ta
lk to you later, Gabe.”
Continuing on, Gabe scanned Northshire, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Problem was, after the once-annual festival, everything seemed out of the ordinary.
Toby Horton lay sprawled in the middle of the village green, snoring like a bandsaw. Wrappers and drink containers littered the ground. Speeders from other villages were parked in a haphazard circle all around the settlement, their sleek contours glimmering in the morning light. The vehicles were modeled after stolen Winger tech, which rumor said that Darkstream had gotten by spying on the species using micro-wormholes.
Back when we used micro-wormholes.
Anything could be hiding behind those speeders.
Focus on what matters. What would Darkstream most want you to protect?
That was easy. The collection facility, first, which the company had provided in exchange for sixty percent of all resources collected. That looks fine. Second, the farming equipment Darkstream leased to the villagers in exchange for sixty percent of whatever food they produced. Third, the self-erecting structures, and the machines the villagers had used to expand their town with wooden buildings.
And finally, Darkstream’s military operatives, plus the weaponry they carried. Gabe decided to check on them next. The current shift would be at their usual outposts, and he’d have to make a wide loop around the village to get them all.
On his way, he heard a grinding sound coming from behind one of the speeders, which was slowly inching forward. Gripping his assault rifle, Gabe jogged over, raising the gun to sight down the barrel at whatever was pushing the vehicle.
His gun barrel dipped the instant he saw it, and he suppressed the urge to scream in frustration. Then he dashed back toward where he’d last seen the mayor, forcing his aching legs to move as fast as they were able.
Gabe found Sweeney in front of the door to his residence, hunting through a set of keys. The mayor turned when Gabe shouted his name.
Mech Wars: The Complete Series Page 2
