Sungrazer

by Jay Posey

  SUNGRAZER

  JAY POSEY

  PRAISE FOR JAY POSEY

  “With Outriders, Jay Posey announces himself as belonging in the top rank of military science fiction authors. Effortlessly cool and instantly engaging, Outriders is impossible to put down.”

  Richard Dansky, lead writer, Tom Clancy’s The Division

  “A few pages into Outriders and I forgot the book was set in a science fiction world. Jay nails the mindset and the dynamics of a special operations unit. Keenly written with authentic characters, Outriders was one of the best science fiction books I’ve read in a long time.”

  Kevin Maurer, author of Hunter Killer and No Easy Day

  “Spoiler alert: The main character dies on page one. And then things get very interesting. Posey’s Outriders is thrilling, action-packed science fiction that grabs and doesn’t let go!”

  Jason M Hough, New York Times bestselling author of The Dire Earth Cycle

  “Jay Posey creates a vivid and mesmerizing world whose characters are so real and so flawed that you’ll recognize them immediately. An unforgettable read.”

  Peter Telep, Co-author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Against All Enemies

  “Gritty action-packed drama so hi-res and real you’ll believe you got something in your eye.”

  Matt Forbeck, author of Amortals and Dangerous Games

  “Outriders offers up a realistic portrayal of grey world / black ops while doing some nice horizon busting both conceptually and technologically. A highly enjoyable read.”

  August Cole, co-author of Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War

  “Three feels like the result of tossing Mad Max, Neuromancer and Metal Gear Solid into a blender. If you don’t find that combination appealing, then I do not understand you as a human being.”

  Anthony Burch, writer for Borderlands 2 and Hey Ash Whatcha Playin

  “Outriders is a kind of gripping, elegant, high-tech romp. Posey writes like he’s some kind of gol-durned science fiction tom Clancy. Characters come to full-fledged life with an ease that astonishes, and this plot has a constant credibility that makes believing it a simple pleasure. Here’s hoping this guy hurries up and writes another one.”

  Jason VandenBerghe, Creative Director, Ubisoft

  “I literally bit my nails to the quick from the non-stop, mind-bending action and tension – Jay Posey, you owe me new fingernails, but I forgive you that along with the lost sleep. It was well worth every minute of it. This is classic interplanetary outer-space science fiction in the grand classical tradition and I ate it up! I really can’t wait until book 2 is ready to read – so get writing already – those are your marching orders, Mr Posey! And for you science fiction fans out there, I highly recommend Outriders!”

  Popcorn Reads

  “This book should have come with a warning – ‘Attention! Once started this book cannot be put down’. An amazing blending of military action and science fiction. I have rarely encountered a book that I HAD to finish; it kept me up all night. But it was worth it.”

  A Book Drunkard

  “At the heart of Outriders is a thriller with bursts of action and a book you begin to read and realise you’ve become so engrossed in that a whole day has passed by without you noticing.”

  Strange Alliances

  “People are judged on the content of their character, their actions and choices, not even a little bit on what they look like or who their ancestors were. I hope other authors take note. This is how you do diversity.”

  Reanne Reads

  “It is a military science fiction adventure story with a twisty plot and a complex political landscape. It focuses on a very small unit of people with character development as a centerpiece but the plot gods are also appeased. A great read for lovers of science fiction adventure!”

  Bull Spec

  “Posey’s writing is easy, the characters nuanced, and certainly there is a lot to love here as a result. The villains are just as interesting as the good guys and there is definitely a set-up for a larger story.”

  Online Eccentric Librarian

  “Outriders offers a high-paced blend of near-future space opera and military science fiction, and in a nutshell it’s good fun.”

  SFF World

  “Posey has constructed a really unique world, one that steps to the side of the usual zombie tropes and provides an apocalypse that’s at once unfathomable, but also believable. That’s no mean feat.”

  SF Crow’s Nest

  “Ok, Mr Posey I liked the Duskwalker series a lot, but now damnit… now you got me. You reached into the depths of my cobweb and comic book addled brain, took my love for science fiction and military action and put it on paper.”

  Shelf Inflicted

  “What really drew me to this book was the mix of elements. It’s post-apocalyptic. It’s a western in styling. It’s science fiction – sometimes rather hard science fiction. It’s a bit of a fantasy, too. The blend of fantastical elements with the science fiction ones, which are in turn harnessed to the western post-apocalyptic setting is a matter of brilliance on Posey’s part.”

  On Writing

  “The overall atmosphere of Morningside Fall was one of tense, edge-of-your-seat terror. Posey knows how to convey suspense, and he put his characters in danger over and over again, which left my pulse pounding and my heart racing. This is science fiction, but like the best science fiction, it’s also horror.”

  Books, Bones & Buffy

  “Posey brings a conviction to the story he tells and shines in action packed scenes which help reinforce the cinematic feeling.”

  Literary Escapism

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  LEGENDS OF THE DUSKWALKER

  Three

  Morningside Fall

  Dawnbreaker

  Outriders

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Praise for Jay Posey

  By the Same Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Mom and Dad,

  and for Mom and Dad

  ONE

  Elliot Goodkind knew it was a bad meet before he walked in, and he had a rule: never walk into a meet if there was even the slightest suspicion that it was bad. It was about ten thousand times easier to dodge the problem ahead of time than it was to get in the middle of it and then try to walk back out again.

  And of course, in this case, he’d broken his own rule.

  He’d ignored the twinge in his gut on the ride in, explained to himself how he’d triple-checked everything and why it was all going to be fine. The vibe in the restaurant had been off as soon as he opened the front door. But instead of turning around and walking away, he’d stepped inside.

  Elliot had greeted his contact, Wilson, in his usual cautiously friendly manner, nodded politely and shaken the hand of the other man seated at the same table. Wilson had introduced that other man as Dillon, a business as
sociate. And judging from the look that Dillon shot back at Wilson, it must have been his real name.

  But Wilson had rubbed his hands on his pants before shaking Elliot’s hand, trying to hide sweaty palms, and he’d been a little too enthusiastic in his welcome. Tried a little too hard to make Elliot comfortable, which naturally had the opposite effect. Final confirmation had come when Elliot had excused himself to use the restroom before sitting down; the way Wilson watched him intently, eyes following him all the way to the bathroom door, but anxious to leap back to Dillon, his mouth practically ballooning with excuses and explanations ready to spill out.

  Elliot was blown. And Wilson knew it. This meeting was for Wilson’s sake, then, his one attempt to prove that he wasn’t a snitch or a plant, that he had no idea who Elliot really was. Elliot’s fate had already been decided. A bad meet. And Elliot had walked right into it.

  He turned on the water, splashed it cold over his hands and face, then left it running in the sink while he dried off. The bathroom was small, just a one-stall arrangement. The only window was a high slot. Maybe big enough to slide through, if he could get to it. He’d have to stand on the back of the toilet, and make an awkward stretch for that. That was assuming he could even get the window open, and judging from the grime built up around the frame, that wasn’t a sure bet.

  But escape was admission of guilt. And while it might get him out of the restaurant alive, there was no telling what effect that might cascade across all his many other networks and plans. Elliot had been here a long time. He’d done well for himself. Wriggling his ungainly way through a slot window into some grungy side-alley seemed like the wrong way to let it all end. Besides, if they were any sort of professionals, they’d have placed some muscle around the outside. Elliot could just see himself, draped halfway out a window, shot to death, limp like a wet towel out to dry.

  He looked at himself in the mirror. Looked himself in the eye.

  “Elliot,” he said. He spoke aloud, but low enough for the running water to cover the words. “You’re being ridiculous.” He took a deep breath, stood straighter, pulled his shoulders back. Smiled. “Quit being ridiculous.”

  What did they really know? He could guess. Wilson thought he was a smuggler; the other man at the table probably thought him an undercover agent, local cop or internal security services, maybe. They were both right, of course. To a point.

  Elliot was, in fact, smuggling small batches of black market, military-grade hardware out of the Martian People’s Collective Republic for his employer. And Elliot was, in fact, an undercover agent. Though the proper term was undeclared field officer, and he didn’t work for local police or for the Collective’s feared Internal Security Services. He worked for the United States National Intelligence Directorate. He was a spy, in hostile territory, about two hundred and twenty-five million kilometers from home, give or take a few million depending on the orbital cycle. And being undeclared meant he only worked for the NID as long as he didn’t get caught. If he was exposed as a foreign intelligence agent, there were no protections for him. The Directorate would conveniently have no knowledge or record of him, and he’d face whatever consequences his host nation might have in store for, say, a treasonous citizen, or perhaps a domestic terrorist.

  The only help he was going to get in this particular moment, then, was whatever help he could create himself. It wasn’t often he wished he carried a gun. In Elliot’s experience, people who carried guns typically saw violence or the threat thereof as the default solution to too many problems. They let the weapon blind them to the possibilities. They lacked creativity. And, of course, there had been the incident in his early days involving a riot shotgun and an office ceiling, but Elliot didn’t like to admit how much that had influenced his feelings on the matter.

  The main trouble Elliot had with guns, though, was that usually when they were the solution to a problem, they were the only solution to the problem. And this particular problem sure looked an awful lot like one of those problems. He was just going to have to figure it out. He didn’t have a lot to work with.

  But he knew Wilson. Knew him enough. Just a guy with a side hustle. Wilson didn’t care if he was selling milspec hardware or lollipops, he was just trying to make money where he saw opportunity. Well, no, that wasn’t totally true. Wilson liked to think of himself as different than everyone else. Better. Special. He made good money and lived well, and as far as he was concerned, he deserved it because he didn’t play by the same rules as all the other suckers out there. Living outside the norm, making his own rules, winning at his own game. That was important to Wilson. As long as he didn’t get busted. He was a coward, really. An insecure man, looking for significance. That was part of what had made him so easy for Elliot to develop as an asset.

  Dillon, on the other hand… well, Elliot hadn’t seen him before, which meant Elliot had missed something along the way. Which was probably how Elliot had ended up in a one-stall bathroom, with the water running, trying to puzzle his way out. He glanced back up at that window again. Shook his head. Just too narrow.

  So, best guess time. Dillon the Business Associate. Elliot let his mind draw up that brief flash of a first impression, let his instincts drive his assumptions. Dillon. Square jaw, square shoulders, everything squared away. Not overly friendly. Former military, turned businessman, then. He was probably Wilson’s supplier. His boss, maybe, but more likely someone adjacent, someone at a similar level in the hierarchy who just treated Wilson as inferior. Aggression was Dillon’s thing. His posture, his expression, his demeanor. Alpha.

  Dillon had concealed his anger, mostly. There’d been an edge to it, though, something more. But not personal, he was too professional for that. He wasn’t hurt by the possibility of Wilson’s betrayal. It was a potential threat, and Dillon was the kind of guy who had to deal with all potential threats, immediately and with finality.

  If Elliot had to guess, and he most certainly did have to guess, Wilson was out there, right now, doing everything he could to prove his loyalty to the relationship, to ingratiate himself to the strong man who could protect him. And meanwhile Dillon was evaluating the whole situation on a different plane; detached, impersonal, deciding whether or not continuing to do business with Wilson posed a threat to whatever operation it was he had going on. The more Wilson talked, the bigger the threat would seem.

  Elliot shut the water off, took a deep breath. Smiled at himself in the mirror.

  Show time. He stepped out.

  “Sorry about that, gentlemen,” he said, patting his belly as he approached the table. “Three breakfast burritos seemed like a good idea at the time but uh… can’t say I recommend it.”

  It was a round table, four chairs. Dillon and Wilson sitting across from one another. They’d pulled a chair out for Elliot, but he stopped next to Dillon, stood a little too close to the man’s shoulder than was socially appropriate.

  “Hey buddy,” he said. Dillon looked up at him, icy. “You’re in my seat.”

  The big, square man was sitting in the position that had the best view of both the front and rear entrances, and Elliot knew that was no accident. It was the best seat in the house for this kind of work, but that wasn’t the reason Elliot wanted it. At least, not the only reason.

  “Just sit here, man,” Wilson said.

  “Nah,” Elliot answered without looking at him. He held Dillon’s stare, kept his face as neutral, counted to twenty. Neither of them budged.

  “Come on,” Elliot said. “You picked the place, I get to pick the chair.”

  Dillon was not a small man; Elliot guessed he was 225, maybe 230 pounds at one-G. By contrast, Elliot was about 165 if his pockets were full. But Elliot had one advantage; he was standing while Dillon was sitting. Most alpha males had a natural aversion to having another man’s crotch in their face. Elliot casually grabbed his belt buckle and jiggled it around as if adjusting it, just to emphasize the point.

  Dillon slid to the next chair over.

&nb
sp; Elliot flashed a smile and plopped down casually, and just like that he’d changed the dynamic. Now it was a conversation between Wilson and him, with Dillon as observer. And Dillon was smoldering. Not just angry, but irritated. Hopefully enough to be distracted, and not enough to reach across the table and kill Elliot right there in the open.

  Some attendant had come and gone while Elliot had been in the bathroom. A basket sat in the middle of the table filled with flatbread, herbed and glistening with rich oil, faintly steaming. Four glasses of water sweated almost as much as Wilson.

  “All right,” Elliot said, “I know we need to get to business, but before we do, I gotta tell you this joke. So, there’s these three guys, right? These three guys walk into a restaurant… a businessman, a thief, and an undercover cop.”

  He let the words hang there in the air for a moment.

  “And the joke is,” he said, “I know who the businessman is.” He raised his hand, pointer finger extended up towards the ceiling at first for dramatic effect, and then pointed at himself.

  “So what I have to do now, is figure out which one of you is the no-good, lying, conniving, dirty scumbag… and which one’s just the thief.”

  The color leaked out of Wilson’s face so fast it was almost cartoonish, or as if someone had pulled a drain plug on him. Dillon, on the other hand, was unmoved. He returned Elliot’s gaze with steady intensity, a corner of his mouth pulled back with one part smirk and three parts malice. Elliot held still, tried his best to look right through the man’s eyes and straight out the back of his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Wilson shifting his head back and forth between the two of them, no doubt wondering who would make the first move, and trying to decide whether he should make a run for it, or stick around to help.

  After a long moment, Dillon leaned forward and drew a breath to speak. But before he could get a word out, Elliot slammed his palm down on the table, hard; it made the silverware jump and the other patrons quiet. Dillon sat momentarily stunned.