Murphy's Lawless: A Terran Republic Novel

by Charles E. Gannon

  Murphy’s Lawless

  A Terran Republic Novel

  By

  Charles E. Gannon

  and

  Griffin Barber

  Kacey Ezell

  Kevin Ikenberry

  Chris Kennedy

  Mike Massa

  Mark Wandrey

  PUBLISHED BY: Beyond Terra Press

  Copyright © 2020 Charles E. Gannon

  All Rights Reserved

  * * * * *

  Get the free Four Horseman prelude story “Shattered Crucible”

  and discover other Beyond Terra Press titles at:

  http://chriskennedypublishing.com/

  * * * * *

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  * * * * *

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to many people, because it took a whole lot of people to make it a reality.

  Firstly, thanks to Chris Kennedy, who said “yes” to this project before I could finish telling him about it (really). Further thanks to Kevin Ikenberry, and then Mark Wandrey, who did the same soon after. As did those now-scattered members of the Lost Signals Crewe that convened and conspired with me at World Fantasy Con in Baltimore a few months later: Griffin Barber, Kacey Ezell, and Mike Massa.

  Another huge thank you goes to Tony Weiskopf without whose blessings and support this project would never have made it onto the runway, let alone take wing and soar. Not a lot of publishers (whether traditional or start-up indies) can boast the inspired mix of personal kindness and professional craftiness that discerned this project as a win-win. Most would simply have seen it as a threat to exclusivity regarding a successful IP and would have killed it in its notional crib. Instead, at every step of the way, Toni’s encouragement and material support has been unwavering.

  Thanks also to my agent, Eleanor Wood of Spectrum Literary Agency, who generously gave of her time and peerless professional counsel as we came up with the basic contractual and governing documents that helped ensure this was not just a successful, but well-grounded, endeavor in today’s extremely volatile marketplace.

  And never last nor least, to my family: none of this would be possible if it wasn’t for you.

  But when all is said and done, it is you readers and fans of the series who made this unique project a stellar success (literally and figuratively). Without you, we wouldn't be here, doing what we love, and expanding a universe that has begun to take on a life of its own. So, all our thanks for coming along for the ride…which has only just begun!

  * * * * *

  Cover Design by J Caleb Design

  * * * * *

  Contents

  November, 1993:

  Mogadishu

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Part One: Murphy

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Two: Tapper

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Part Three: Moorefield

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Part Four: Chalmers

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Part Five: Lee

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Part Six: Vat

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Part Seven: Bowden

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  About Charles E. Gannon

  The Caine Riordan Universe

  Excerpt from Book One of the Revelations Cycle

  Excerpt from Book One of the Salvage Title Trilogy

  Excerpt from Book One of the Singularity War

  Excerpt from Devil Calls the Tune

  * * * * *

  November, 1993:

  Mogadishu

  Chapter One

  Mogadishu

  The Blackhawk banked, giving Murphy his last glimpse of Somalia. It was a mostly brown and tan expanse except for two dark epicenters of activity. The smaller of the two was home to the runways and tarmac above which they were rapidly rising. Around it was a gridwork of tents. Around those were angular defenses backed by outward-facing, Matchbox-sized vehicles and tiny figures. That was the American base in-theater. Other, smaller compounds were scattered around the city, more ragged but roughly analogous.

  However, even the least orderly of those compounds were punctiliously arranged marvels compared to the far larger smudge at their approximate center, the smudge that marred the otherwise unexceptioned desert waste palette: Mogadishu—a sprawling, chaotic jumble of
low, sunbaked buildings, tin-roofed shacks, and every other conceivable kind of rudimentary shelter. At the lowest end of the survival spectrum, he saw blue plastic hurricane tarps unevenly lashed to the sheared and crumbling walls of long abandoned colonial ruins, desperate havens from the punishing sun.

  “Good riddance,” breathed Melissa “Missy” Katano as she leaned sharply inboard, her nostrils pinched tight. You couldn’t smell Mogadishu from up here, but it seemed that she wasn’t willing to lean any closer than necessary to the source of the superheated stink.

  She must have seen Murphy’s small smile. “What? You like it here?”

  He hadn’t seen that question coming, so didn’t have an answer ready. However, it was Murphy’s good fortune that Dr. Hampson was there to lean over and observe in an almost fatherly tone, “Well sometimes, no matter how unpleasant a place might be, we don’t want to leave all of it—or what we experienced there—behind.”

  The one SEAL on the chopper, who was going home after having had his tour extended twice, glanced over at the unexpected interjection by the doctor. He glanced briefly at Murphy, then turned his gaze back out the other open door, eyes fixed upon the broad, blue expanse of the Indian Ocean and the thin sprinkling of fishing boats upon it.

  Murphy managed not to frown. Doc Hampson meant well, but every once in a while, his deep civilian roots showed through. Like in this case. Sent in-country to look at the head wounds of a congresswoman’s son, he had done something that few military doctors were likely to do: stop by to take a quick look at a much less urgent case that was puzzling the base’s medicos.

  It was the case of one Rodger Y. Murphy, US Army, a hotshot young major who had experienced some mild unsteadiness in the wake of being a few meters too close to an improvised explosive device. He hadn’t been close enough to be significantly roughed up by it. There were no concussion or open wounds, even though there were plenty of contusions on hands, knees, and back where the shockwave had rolled him in the dust along Mogadishu’s Maxud Harbi Street. The young medicos were trying to figure out why the young major still had lingering difficulties when he tried to type a report or clean a weapon.

  But Dr. Hampson looked at him for all of three minutes, leaned back, and pronounced the diagnosis that was also a life sentence. “Multiple sclerosis,” Hampson had said frankly. “No question about it. Well, not much question, but if you conduct the standard battery, I think that’s what you’re going to find.”

  Which, of course, the medicos had no reason to suspect. What with shock trauma in a combat zone and no history of the disease, it was a million-to-one that Major Murphy was suffering the onset of an unlooked-for disease instead of after-effects of the trauma. Doctors with five times their experience would have been just as likely to misdiagnose.

  Then again, there weren’t a whole lot of doctors of Robert Hampson’s caliber. Not in the whole world, and not when it came down to brain and neurological diagnosis and treatment. After Hampson had trundled out of the ward with his perennial good humor, the young medicos had clustered near Murphy’s end of the ward, trading muttered reports about what they knew of the specialist. To hear them talk, he was either the elect of God or a deity himself when it came to nerves or the brain.

  The doc was also a good guy—sometimes too good, Murphy reflected as the heavily built man leaned back into his seat, eclipsing a small, spare soldier seated on his other side. Hampson’s reflex had been pure civvy: jumping into a conversation to help out a startled or rattled pal. But here, in this chopper, it wasn’t a civilian world. It was a world of fighters and the people who worked with them. People who took care of themselves.

  Of all of them, Katano was the closest to civilian, but she’d been in-country so long—trying to keep all the allies working on the same page, and supply and logistics flowing without completely ditching protocol—that she had almost as hard an edge as the soldiers and airmen and sailors she dealt with.

  The rest of the compartment was filled with other weary faces that were just waiting out another ride in a shuddering Blackhawk. The SEAL officer was the size of a bear, but his young face was already seamed by lines that most people wouldn’t acquire until well into their thirties. Next to him was a blue-eyed, sunburned guy wearing a flight suit, a pilot’s wings, and a hastily reattached captain’s patch. Another guy, about the same age, was sitting just beyond the flight engineer/chief, wearing a hundred-yard stare instead of a rank patch, his face faintly dark with deep-driven grit except for a raccoon mask of paleness around his eyes. Definitely a cav officer who’d spent a lot of time driving around looking for UN-baiting bandits and bad guys—who were often the same thing.

  Their collective stillness was offset by the middle-aged man on Murphy’s side of the fuselage, wearing well-worn tactical gear and clothes to match. No signs of rank or service branch. Defense contractor rep? Smuggler? Private security? Spook? No, Murphy revised, not a spook: way too jumpy, even for an analyst thrown into the field.

  The fellow leaned forward and shouted over the rotors toward the cockpit. “Hey, how much longer?”

  The pilot glanced at her copilot, whose hands were already more firmly locked on the controls. “Who wants to know?” the pilot shouted back.

  “An American citizen,” the guy answered loudly, a little more testy.

  “Well then, John Q. Public, it’s like your momma said when you were in the back of that hot station wagon: we’ll get there when we get there.” She turned to face the plexiglass cockpit.

  John Q. Public sputtered, striving for a retort as the passenger beside him—another guy in sanitized tactical dress—shook his head and tilted a slow, almost sleepy smile at him. “Not worth it, friend.”

  Mr. Citizen glanced at the man—whose eyes hardened slightly—then shrugged and slumped back in his seat.

  The still-smiling fellow turned toward Murphy. Almost every pair of eyes in this damned country measured you, assessed you, but these were different. His assessment seemed professional. Like an interrogator’s. Or a cop’s.

  What he said didn’t give any clues about his origins. “You look like you’re going back to the world.”

  “So do you.”

  “That’s ‘cause I am.” The man’s smile widened before it faded. “For now.” And he waited.

  Murphy kept the frown off his face. Kept the annoyance off, too. Annoyance at himself for no longer being able to instantly access the stockpile of bullshit responses, empty remarks, and harmless comebacks that he’d picked up ever since ROTC, fourteen years and several lifetimes ago. The MS—the ever-present fear of it—had taken that from him, too.

  And the guy saw it. A slight frown, the kind when a person encounters a conversational twist they didn’t expect, a break or a flaw they hadn’t foreseen. His eyes simultaneously became slightly more wary but also slightly more compassionate. And in that instant, Murphy saw what he hated to see most of all: a shift to pity.

  Damn it: no. “I’m just glad to be going—”

  The Blackhawk shifted; not a thermal, a small, sharp banking maneuver. “Hold on,” the pilot shouted over her shoulder.

  “Trouble?” asked the copilot in way too calm a voice.

  “Not sure. Dye in the water. Ours. Near that raft.”

  Her copilot glanced over. “We’ve got orders—”

  “Can’t ignore the dye. SOP.”

  “But the VIP—”

  “Enough.” The pilot’s voice was sharper. “My bird, my call.” She craned her neck.

  The copilot did as well. “Yeah, that’s one of ours down there in the—”

  “That’s one of our uniforms,” the pilot emphasized. “Doesn’t tell us who’s wearing it. Zipper,” she called back at her crew chief, “get eyes-on while I come around. Too many boats out here. We’ve gotta watch for—”

  “Launch plume!” yelled Zipper. “Eight o’clo—!”

  He never finished; the pilot’s sharp evasive maneuver threw him back from the door into the passenger comp
artment.

  “Lieutenant, eyes on the other side. I need to know if—”

  “Captain,” shouted the copilot—too loud and too panicked to be anything but a complete newb. “Bigger plume. Coming up from the trawler at our—”

  The threat warning system began to wail. The Blackhawk’s engines screamed as the pilot pulled it into what felt like a counter-banking maneuver so steep that Murphy would have sworn they were going backward—

  A flash. A blast that blew his ability to hear right out of his head. Pieces of the craft spraying up and out from where the copilot’s seat should have been. Some of the eyes around him were wide, others narrowed and alert as the Blackhawk seemed to both roll and pitch forward, as if the tail was coming over the nose…

  Chest hard against his straps, the guy with the raccoon mask sighed. “Ah, shit—”

  And then there was nothing.

  * * * * *

  August, 2125

  55 Tauri B 3

  (“R’Bak”)

  Chapter Two

  Near 55 Tauri B 3

  The small rotational habitat—four pods cycling around a central docking hub—was hit by three missiles. It came apart in a ruin of components that recalled a pair of bolos tearing free from a splintering discus, the rotational tethers hurling away transport pods like bullets from a sling.

  Richard Downing was unable to suppress a sharp flinch, whereas, alongside him, his “nephew” Trevor Corcoran didn’t even react. The young-ish captain was a SEAL and had seen far worse, and far more, during the invasion of Earth. But his lack of reaction was diagnostic of a deeper change, a partial detachment from his own humanity. For which, Downing admitted bitterly, he himself was at least partially responsible.