“Then subtract that bonus due to the CASPers’ skeletal structure and design being obsolete. It’s not cost-effective,” Mulbah growled through clenched teeth. He was sliding down a slippery slope and was desperate not to lose control of his temper. He did not want to leave a poor impression but was not certain he could hang onto it any longer. He began to count his heartbeats between each breath to calm down. “But still, they use less power than the newer models. So I guess that’s a bonus.”
“Their power plants have been recertified recently and are in excellent working order,” Zion confirmed.
“Yes,” Mulbah nodded, his mood improving ever so slightly. “Good. Let’s end things on a positive note.”
“One final thing,” Zion said as he read the final page on his slate. He looked up from the hand-held device and offered his new boss a grim look. “Not a good note. I’m sorry. You received a summons for court in the United States. Anne Arundel County in Maryland, to be precise. Apparently, your wife is divorcing you.”
Mulbah’s primal scream of rage and despair echoed through the mostly-empty warehouse.
* * *
“So that’s the new boss, eh?” Antonius lifted his head as a faint scream came through the ventilation shaft. He glanced at the digital clock and swore. He pulled out the euro note from the breast pocket of his flight suit and passed it over. His team lead accepted the money and tried not to look too smug. “Two more minutes.”
“One day you’ll be as wise as I am,” Samson noted sagely. “I pay attention to the chee-chee-polay. The man has a temper. I thought he would snap long before now.”
“The CASPers aren’t horrible,” the third member of their little party said as he clambered down from behind the Mark Seven suit. He lovingly patted it on the arm. “It’ll hold up in a fight, obsolete or no.”
“Khean, you can find good in anything,” Antonius complained in a good-natured tone. He waved a hand around at the limited inventory. “This isn’t enough to get any job done. Not even babysitting a diplomat in a peaceful region of space.”
“They never promised at MST that any of this would be easy,” Khean reminded them all. The Mercenary Service Track, adopted from the American model, had been initiated by the Liberian government after the Alpha contracts had decimated most of the world’s elite fighting forces. The Liberian government had squandered millions on training barely adequate mercenaries, but then had decided to simply ship them off to the United States instead. Most of the country’s populace approved of this action, since the government had a poor reputation for doing anything well. “Still, better than what the Alpha contracts walked into.”
“Amen, brother,” Antonius agreed.
“Here he comes,” Samson called out sotto voce. The other two men scrambled into position and stood next to their machines as the lean, well-dressed man walked in.
Mulbah sized up the employees as he walked into the open area of the warehouse. Most of the warehouse had been partitioned off with temporary dividers so equipment could be stored and located with ease, but the five Mark Sevens were simply too big and were stored in the largest open space left over. This, unfortunately, was in the back corner of the warehouse, far away from the entrance.
The movers had been careful with the equipment, however. The boxes containing advanced combat armor and weapons were neatly stacked and organized. The floors had been swept clean, and the maintenance crew had their work stations looking almost spotless. Once more, he was surprised by the former owners.
“Hello boss,” Samson dipped his head quickly as Mulbah strode into their area, the bursar hot on his heels. Samson offered his hand as the men approached. “Samson Tolbert. I am the team leader.”
“So, you’re the head pilot of the mecha?” Mulbah nodded as he took in the brawny, muscular man. “How do you like them?”
“Pilot? Oh, no sir,” Samson shook his head and laughed. “I am your head mechanic. This is my team. The little guy is Khean Waring. The mouthy one with craw-craw on his junk is Antonius Karnga.”
“Piss on you! I’m clean! The doctor said so!” Antonius protested loudly.
“So where are the rest of the mercs?” Mulbah asked as he looked around.
“Uh, they left when they stopped getting paid, boss,” Samson explained carefully. “About four months back, I think. We’re still here because we got paid in full in advance. We’re good negotiators.”
“What? Nobody mentioned that!” Mulbah nearly shouted.
“Sorry, boss,” Samson said in a low voice.
“No, I’m not yelling at you; I’m sorry,” Mulbah exhaled and looked around. It took him a moment to cool down. “Are the suits operational at least?”
“They’re in good shape,” Antonius answered as he bounded over to one and gave it a solid rap on the arm. “These mecha might be old, but they are well-taken care of.”
“They’re good to go for up to eight hours, boss,” Samson stated as he eyed his compatriots. “We also have reserve packs to do battlefield recharges. Drop them in from orbit as needed. That was a fun custom build. The Spaniards might not have known how to run a company, but they did listen to their mechanics.”
“Could be why they never got around to replacing these,” Khean said off-handedly. “We told the old bosses constantly that these were almost as good as the Mark Eights.”
It was just about an unmitigated disaster. Mulbah was ruined.
“It’s not all that bad, boss,” Samson tried to reassure him. “The mecha can do most jobs in a pinch, as long as they are familiar with the oddities of the Mark Sevens. The armor is a little tougher but the machine is slower, so the mecha pilots will not be able to counterattack an enemy position easily. Defensive? These mecha can do that job, boss. I promise.”
“It’s not hard,” Antonius confirmed. “Just need smart pilots who know the machines as well as we do. Not hard, just not always cheap.”
“I’m ruined,” Mulbah muttered in despair.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Khean interjected. He pointed at the mecha. “These machines are solid, boss. The advanced combat armor? In pristine condition. The other weaponry stored over in the armory? Okay, it’s old, but it’s good stuff. We take pride in keeping everything in good order here. What were you expecting, new stuff? Boss, the Spaniards didn’t have the capital to buy new stuff. They sure kept what they had in good shape, though.”
“I was hoping to be the first successful Liberian mercenary company,” Mulbah said as he looked at his four employees. “Better still, the first African one to succeed. I wanted to have people remember Liberia for something other than civil war. I want to build something here, like our ancestors dreamt of when they emigrated and founded the country. Doing this with only four employees? Impossible.”
“That’s a noble dream, boss, but mercs are expensive to pay on a salary,” Antonius said. “Most of the soldiers were paid on a job-to-job basis. It’s why the Spaniards went broke. But you say this job is easy, so you can hire mercs at a low rate and stick them in suits. Then it is a matter of watching the aliens do their thing and using the mecha as some sort of overwatch. Might not even need more troops if the job is small enough.”
Mulbah thought it over. It would take more time to investigate thoroughly and hire new mercenaries for the job. Hiring a company-sized cadre of men and women would be almost impossible with his constraints, so he would need to focus his efforts and energy on the mecha. He swore. He needed more time, but time was something he did not have. It was too narrow a window in which the contract had to be fulfilled. Kakata Korps was already on the clock, and he had not a moment to spare.
Where could he find enough qualified mercs to man the suits though? He furrowed his brow and silently mulled it over. He could potentially grab some on the way out from a random merc pit and run the risk of them being unreliable. Or, he could go through the old rosters and call to see if any wanted their old jobs back. Neither scenario was going to be cost-effective, though. Both would d
efinitely be time-consuming, a commodity he simply did not have. Plus, each man would need to be custom-fitted for their haptic suits, which meant waiting for them to join the company to make certain each fit correctly.
He was done. He was going to fail as a mercenary company owner before he even began. There was simply no way for him to find enough men to pilot the mecha, much less—
From out of the blue, inspiration struck him in the head like a thunderbolt. The solution was right there in front of him. He looked at the bursar and the three mechanics and felt a wide grin form on his face. The grin was that of a madman, and there was an excited glint in his eyes which terrified his new employees. Every member of a merc company was required by law to pass through MST and register as a merc with the guild, no matter what their final job with the company would be. Hell, he was registered with the guild as a merc. The fact that he owned the company meant little to the guild in the grand scheme of things.
Mulbah could not help it; the idea was too good to ignore. It would require quite a bit of planning, most of which he had no idea how to accomplish, and would also include figuring out transport to the surface of the planet, but...
“So…any of you want a pay raise?”
* * *
The Liberian-born, American-raised college graduate couldn’t pronounce the name of the planet his mercenary company was supposed to go to. He was barely able to say the name of the species he was hired to protect during the upcoming four weeks, though he could handle the standard name other aliens called them—the Kertoschii. He did have coordinates to the world, though, which the captain of the hired vessel had no problem finding. While he didn’t entirely trust the MinSha—humanity had never truly forgotten their attack on the Middle East—he was a driven and determined man who was not about to let a little alien prejudice get in the way of making a lot of money. Plus, the MinSha captain was as big a capitalist as he was.
Mulbah felt the pressure of his new company’s first contract weighing on him and knew that he was growing angrier and more stressed with each passing second. He needed to protect a small, very specific area of the planet for four weeks. Four weeks on a planet whose name he was pretty sure he couldn’t translate to English, with a species whose physiology was completely foreign to him. He wasn’t even sure if they had bones in their lumpy, bulbous bodies. There were a lot of hisses and random clicks in the planet’s name, as spoken by the natives, but thanks to the rudimentary translation process it came out as “Hot Ball of Fiery Piss.”
Three minutes on the surface, and he understood why the name fit perfectly.
Except for the poles, the planet was hot and humid throughout, with varying fungi growing amidst short, flattened tree groves. There were three continents and many small islands, and roughly half of what was considered “dry land” was marsh. The thick air was oppressive and overbearing, and Mulbah could have sworn he saw bugs the size of small cats hovering in the shadows of the trees. The ground was soft and muck-filled, appearing solid until one stepped on it. Water appeared as if by magic and filled every single footstep he made. It led to the appearance that the mecha was creating small lakes in its wake as it moved. The sun was hazy due to the high humidity, and constant thunderstorms loomed in the distance.
The area where the aliens needed his protection was closer to a swamp than a marsh, with standing water in random patches, and a thorny underbrush covering most of the dry areas. Frog analogues hissed noisily, and other creatures scuttled across the ground, oblivious to the giant mecha in their midst.
Mulbah met the leader of the people who had hired him and was surprised to find the entire race consisted of a singular tribe. He was even more shocked to discover they had only recently been admitted into the Union, and this was the first contract they had offered. He was mildly confused and had many questions, but he knew he had to portray the calm and collected head of a merc company.
He had not read up on the aliens beforehand, outside of their needs and his obligations to ensure the contract was fulfilled. This was a mistake, he realized, after it dawned on him that he had no idea whatsoever how to properly greet their leader. He wasn’t even sure which end of the alien, which resembled a wet trash bag with eyes and weird appendages sticking out in all directions, he was talking to.
“I’m Mulbah Luo, CEO of Kakata Korps. And you are?”
“My name is Zxkyabllob. You may call me Bob.”
“Oh...okay.”
“We’re a very modern people.”
Mulbah was at a loss. He had known the aliens would be, well, alien, but he had not expected to have a conversation with a walking trash bag who had multiple eyes and random protrusions. The alien stuck one out at him and Mulbah, hoping that he wasn’t about to grab a reproductive organ, accepted it and, not knowing what else to do, shook it.
“We are familiar with Human customs thanks to the GalNet,” Bob said. “I understand the ‘shaking of hands’ is a customary greeting. We marveled at this idea and decided to use it to make you feel more comfortable with us. The GalNet has provided us with much information on your species. We find you fascinating.”
“Thank you,” Mulbah said and dipped his head a little. “You are most considerate.”
“We have never used hands before, either,” Bob continued as his eyes shifted from the front of his body to the back. The alien began to slide away, so Mulbah followed. “Typically, if one offers an appendage, they are signaling their desire to become.”
“That’s…interesting,” Mulbah said. He had no idea what Bob was talking about but he still held out hope that he hadn’t just grabbed alien mating equipment.
“We have places for you to sleep,” Bob said as a new appendage slipped out and pointed to their right. Mulbah peered off into the distance and saw rudimentary huts. “Our research suggested that men of your culture sleep in huts. Fascinating idea. Will these suffice?”
Mulbah nodded. “The men will do fine in these. Your atmosphere is very similar to our own, except a little thinner with higher doses of nitrous oxide. It makes us sound a little different.”
“I have read that your species descends from the water yet does not reside in it,” Bob continued as they moved past the huts. “Why?”
“I…don’t know,” Mulbah admitted. “Evolution works in mysterious ways.”
“It does, it does,” Bob burbled happily. “We formed from creatures of the water long ago, and we kept their shape and traits. Now we become and it is good.”
Mulbah simply nodded. He didn’t need to understand them, only to do his job.
* * *
For almost four weeks it was the same routine every day. He and the rest of his Korps would don their mecha (minus the one man who pulled overwatch during the night) and trudge out into the murky swamp and stand around. While Bob assured them the aliens would only come during a storm, Mulbah was taking no chances. He and his men maintained their post for eighteen hours straight before trudging back to their huts and removing themselves from the mecha. They would then sleep, and do it all over again in the morning.
“Nothing,” Mulbah muttered as he scanned the small area for the millionth time, every sensor on the Mark Seven active and tracking. He could not quite figure out what the aliens were doing, but they appeared to be having a large gathering of some sort.
Every dawn, in fact, the aliens proceeded to almost mimic the routine of the Korps: they would wander out into the small swampy area and stand around, then scan the sky and look for something. They would interact with one another in ways that only trash bag aliens could, and then, at dusk, they would move back to an area where it was not as wet. There, they would huddle together and make odd keening sounds in the darkness. It reminded Mulbah a little of how some of the bush people in Liberia would gather around a large fire and sings songs of the day.
Today seemed to be a little different. Far in the distance, thunder crackled and boomed, and he could almost feel the burnt ozone from the lightning strikes. It was purel
y phantasmal sensations, he knew, but Mulbah could not shake the feeling the air was foreboding and ominous. His eyes drifted from the skies to the aliens he was guarding.
They were more nervous than usual, he noticed as he truly watched the proceedings for the first time. The ones he had tagged as males were continuously looking upwards towards the sky while the others were clustering closer and closer together in the knee-deep muck. The bulbous, blob-looking creatures were mewling and keening in an eerie tone. It grated on his nerves, and he almost turned off the auditory receptors in his suit.
“Boss,” Samson’s voice was pitched soft despite the comms links being perfectly tuned. “Are you seeing this?”
“I am,” Mulbah subvocalized back. He zoomed in on the activity, and his eyes widened as he realized just what he was watching.
“Are they…giving birth?” Samson asked.
The keening suddenly stopped, and every single alien female turned to stare at one particular female. Everyone, males and females alike, backed away as the body of the chosen female rippled. The female dropped to the ground and shuddered violently. Her translucent skin rippled, and she began to emit a soft blue glow from deep within her body. The blue glow grew brighter with each passing ripple as the alien began to cry out in a low, mournful squall. The others followed suit and with one final yowl, the alien melted into the ground.
The glow was almost blinding but it slowly began to grow more subdued the longer Mulbah looked at it. He gasped as a small blue figure unfurled from the ground and began to stretch slowly out.
“It’s beautiful,” Khean whispered as blue glow wings unfurled from the body. Mulbah could not argue with the man. Terrifyingly Human-like, it looked very fragile and delicate to the touch, a veritable sculpture of a ballerina. Oversized eyes and elongated ears reminded Mulbah of an elf. The creature had no mouth, but for some reason this was not very disturbing. Mulbah simply marveled at the stunning creature before him.
A Fistful of Credits: Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 5) Page 9
