After he’d met Rick the other day, Jim had sent a query to the Winged Hussars personnel office. They confirmed Rick was the same Rick Culper Jim had grown up with. They also confirmed he’d suffered a near-fatal laser wound repelling pirates from a tramp freighter while en route to Karma in search of work. The rest was confidential. His friend, it would seem, simply didn’t remember him.
With an effort, Jim forced his concentration to the matter of Karma. He thought about the forces at their disposal, and a feeling of helplessness overcame him. If they’d been too few before, what were they now? Inconsequential, that’s what. Was humanity to be the slaves of alien races…or just annihilated? He glanced at Nigel and saw fuming rage. The other man looked at him and shook his head, blame obvious in his gaze.
“So what’s to become of us?” Alistair Sinclair asked.
“Yeah,” Lisa Drake added. “What are we going to do?’
“Do?” Alexis asked. “Nothing.” Everyone gawked at her, even Nigel.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean we’re not doing anything. The war is lost. I don’t have the forces to face opposition like that, and even if I could defeat that kind of fleet, you don’t represent a fraction of the power we’d need to retake Earth.”
“You’re throwing us out then?” Nigel snapped.
“No,” Alexis said. “I’ve decided to let you stay.”
“And then?” he persisted.
Alexis calmly considered him for a long moment. Jim watched her, the way she held herself, the way she examined everything around her, and the confidence she radiated. For a second, he felt like he was looking at the female incarnation of his father. The similarities were startling. All except one important thing.
“Eventually we’ll be able to do something about it,” she said. “I have a new fleet under construction. It should be ready in about a year. We have crews to spare, but not ships.”
“A year?” Nigel yelled and slammed a fist on the table. “What will happen in a year?”
Alexis’ eyes narrowed at his display, then she lifted an eyebrow in what must have been amusement.
That wasn’t what Jim had expected. “You said something about other information from Earth?” Jim asked.
Alexis looked at him and gave a little sigh. “Paka,” she said.
“Commander?”
“Play them the recording.”
“Yes, sir.”
Everyone listened in silence, even Nigel, as the unmistakable voice of Peepo spoke about how humanity was now under guild control, that the race was denied membership in the Union, and all merc commanders must report to Capital and face a tribunal.
“What’s this bullshit about a tribunal?” Nigel snarled.
“They’re blaming us,” she said, looking at Jim and Nigel, “the Four Horsemen, for a number of crimes. The Canavars on Chimsa.”
“What?!” Jim yelled.
“The extermination of all life on Moorhouse, and the use of banshee bombs against same.”
“Outrageous!” Nigel roared. “The Besquith used them, not us! The Caroons were still alive when we left!”
“They’re dead now,” Alexis said. “They’re also accusing the Hussars of illegally attacking neutral space forces, and the Golden Horde of using bioweapons, among other things.”
“Wow,” Alistair Sinclair said. “They’re framing you with everything they did.” Alexis nodded solemnly.
“It’s an elegant move on their part,” Frank Earl agreed. “They’re using you to clean up a lot of messes.”
“Or they’ve been planning this all along,” Lisa Drake said. Alexis stared at her, and the room went deathly silent. “That’s what you think, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she agreed. “They nearly destroyed us all. In the case of Asbaran, they came very close to succeeding.” Nigel looked like he was imagining strangling the leaders of the plot. “It all started with Cartwright’s, though,” she said, nodding toward Jim. “That was a subtle ploy. We think your mother was manipulated into bankrupting the company. Sorry to say, it wasn’t hard.” Jim shrugged. “They went after Asbaran next, then my Hussars, then the Horde. I can only guess that, since none of the plots wholly succeeded, they decided to do what they did on Earth.”
“But why?” Jim asked.
“Nobody knows,” Alexis admitted. “Though I admit, I’d like to ask Peepo.”
“Then let’s ask her,” Jim said. Her head spun around in surprise.
“I already explained we don’t have the forces.”
“Then we don’t go at them straight,” he said, “we do it sideways. Like you did that fleet.”
“That was complicated and risky. I almost lost Pegasus.”
“Is that why you’ve been hiding here ever since?”
“What?” Alexis demanded. There was a general intake of breath around the table at the accusation.
“I understand,” he said. “You’re scared. This is a great place to hide.”
“How dare you,” she said, her voice low and menacing.
“My grandfather would spit on you,” Nigel said.
“I knew your grandfather,” Alexis snapped. “You’re not your grandfather.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed. “But at least I am not a coward.”
“This meeting is over,” she said and shot to her feet.
“You’re a Horseman,” Jim said, making her freeze. “You said it. The Four Horsemen for Earth. Was that a lie?” She left without looking back. Her XO, Paka, stayed for a couple of moments, staring at Jim, before eventually following her boss out.
“Well, that could have gone better,” Alistair Sinclair said with a laugh as they were escorted out of the conference room.
“You struck gold with those comments,” Frank Earl said to Jim and Nigel. “The look on her face…”
“They cut deep,” Lisa Drake agreed. “Blood flowed.”
“Now what?” Nigel asked as they walked down the corridor.
“We wait,” Jim said. For once, Nigel didn’t argue. “Let’s stay on the station.” Jim had a slight grin on his face. “If I’m right, this won’t take long.” He turned to their escort and asked for quarters on the station. The escort, a Cochkala in Hussars uniform, looked surprised, but said he’d take care of it. As they were led to another level, Jim smiled even bigger. If half of what he’d heard about Alexis was true, he’d set events into motion. He just hoped it was the direction he wanted. After a string of disasters, a little luck would be nice for once.
* * * * *
Chapter Ten
Winged Hussars Prime Base, New Warsaw System
Rick watched the collection of merc commanders leave the conference room. None of them were aware they’d been under observation. His entire squad was in an adjacent room in light combat armor. Alexis Cromwell was never without a squad more than a few feet away. They monitored the proceedings through their pinplants, ready to respond at a moment’s notice.
“Holy shit,” Sergeant Johansson said after the meeting room was empty. “I’m surprised she didn’t rip that fat kid’s head off and shit down his neck!”
Rick only nodded. He’d been out of sorts since meeting Cartwright’s commander, and seeing the exchange in the conference room hadn’t helped. He’d been intimately familiar with the trials and tribulations of the Hussars and their attempts to avoid destruction, including the battle at Karma and the subsequent fight in the Grkata system. The incidents in the “black nothing” after the battle were even more harrowing and highly classified.
“Dragon, stand down from stations,” Paka spoke to them over their pinplants. “Raptor squad has security for the rest of the day.”
“Acknowledged,” T’jto said, then addressed the rest. “Dismissed.”
“Boring job,” Trah’q clicked and began to shuffle out. The Xiq’tal trooper was the member of an immensely-powerful crustacean-like species and had replaced Oort in their squad. The Xiq’tal weren’t known to be as brutally murdero
us as Tortantula, but they were even harder to kill and essentially functioned as tanks. Rick hadn’t seen him fight yet but was looking forward to it.
“Hope it stays that way,” Johansson told the crab, who just grunted and skittered out of the armored room toward the armory. “Plans?” she asked Rick.
“I have an appointment with Nemo.”
“Oh?” she said and glanced at him as she slipped off the up-armor from her uniform. “I figured you’d given up that idea.”
“So had I,” he admitted, “but something made me reconsider.” The two walked to the armory and stowed their gear. Rick didn’t say anything more, so she didn’t push it. They were intermittent lovers at the least, possibly boyfriend and girlfriend at most, although they’d never discussed it. Rick was glad for that, because, other than a general sense of ease around her, and pleasure from their lovemaking, he felt nothing more toward her. That, of course, was part of the problem.
He grabbed a quick shower; when he was finished, the armory was empty. After donning a fresh uniform, he strapped on his sidearm, an old HP-4 he’d owned for years, and headed out. The wing of Prime Base the Winged Hussars’ command officers called home was always busy, with lots of staff coming and going on all kinds of business. With the large number of aliens in the Hussars, you learned not to be caught off guard when you spotted one you hadn’t seen before. However, seeing one you had seen before was another matter.
Rick was walking around the corner, just down from the conference room used for the merc commander meeting, when he spotted it. A humanoid figure, slightly shorter than himself, dressed in dark, loose-fitting robes was coming toward him. Instantly, something about the figure struck him as familiar. The other’s gait had a strange, loose, hunched-shoulder quality about it. Almost as if he were stooped over.
He couldn’t see the face as they passed each other; it wore its hood up, but Rick got the briefest flash of red from where the eyes would have been in a humanoid. The red was otherworldly, as if it were produced by a power source. He also saw a hand with long fingers and more joints than a Human hand. The skin was as black as space and so tight as to be skeletal.
Red eyes, his mind said, stooped over with skeletal black-skinned hands. The pieces were enough to fall into place. It was the same alien he’d seen in the Winged Hussars recruiting office back in Karma, just before he was hired. The alien had just seemed to disappear while Rick was completing his application. He stopped and spun around.
“Hey!” he called. The alien continued. “You, in the black robes.” The alien stopped and turned in a most peculiar method, as if its legs and hips didn’t work like most bipedal lifeforms. “Didn’t I see you back on Karma in the Hussars’ recruiting office?”
The alien reached up with those long-fingered hands and delicately pulled back the hood to reveal a head straight from a fever dream. The skull was more pointed than a Human’s, with exaggerated occipital ridges, and eyes that looked like glowing red coals. Its mouth looked more like a fish’s, and when it opened it revealed lines of glinting, razor-sharp silver teeth. There was no chin or nose to speak of, and the neck was pencil-thin and ludicrously long. The eyes narrowed, and it hissed.
Rick felt something, a tickle in the back of his mind, and his vision blurred slightly. He shook his head and took a step back. The alien put its hood up and started to turn away. “Wait, what the fuck was that?” Rick demanded. Had that thing just used some kind of crazy mind power on him? The alien spun back to look at him, hood half up. If Rick didn’t know better, it looked stunned. “Maybe you’d better let me see your ID.”
Rick had the authority to do that. Winged Hussars marines did double duty as security. In the months since they’d been locked down in New Warsaw, he’d been called in on a couple of barroom brawls, a disagreement over a gambling bet, and even a domestic dispute between a pair of Oogar. He’d worn his CASPer on the latter, just to be safe. However, he’d never asked anyone for identification. Who could be in New Warsaw if they weren’t supposed to be? No one—at least, not until now.
The alien opened his mouth and hissed again, narrowing its eyes even harder. Rick felt the same tingling. He grunted this time as his vision swam. As soon as it let up, he drew his HP-4.
“That’s it, freeze!” he ordered, but the alien was gone. “Son of a bitch!” he cried and ran in the direction the alien had been heading. Only a few dozen meters further, he came to a glideway, a tube with a continuously moving cable that had intermittent handholds. Several Humans were standing outside waiting for a free handhold to appear. They looked alarmed when he ran up, handgun drawn.
“What’s going on, corporal?” a woman asked, wearing the single bar of a lieutenant.
“Did you see a robed, black-skinned alien run this way?” She looked at her companions, two civilian men, who looked back at him. They all shook their heads.
“No,” one of the men said, “we haven’t seen anyone since we got here a minute ago.” Rick cursed and activated his pinplants.
“Lieutenant T’jto, this is Corporal Culper. I think we have a problem.”
* * *
Alexis Cromwell calmly slid the door to her personal quarters closed after acknowledging Sergeant Jakal at his post, then stood there shuddering. She’d never been more enraged in her entire life. How dare they say that? she fumed and began to pace back and forth. The gall of them, saying I’m a coward! “Impudent little shits,” she snarled aloud. She’d been fighting among the stars since before Jim Cartwright had been born, and while Nigel Shirazi was still running around playing with toys.
“
“I’m sure you were listening,” she replied.
“”
Alexis grunted. That was all too true. Despite the fact they wouldn’t have had New Warsaw without Ghost, none of the Hussars’ commanders before her had ever completely trusted the machine lifeform. And neither did she. How do you trust the most alien of all beings? Compared to it, the most exotic life found thus far was easy to understand.
“Yet you listen in on my meeting.”
“
“Don’t remind me.”
“
“You heard them; they accused me of being a fucking coward! I’m Alexis Cromwell, the commander of the Winged Hussars. I do not back away from a fight.”
“
“Now you, too?” It was quiet in her mind for a brief time, then she was surprised to hear her own voice talking.
“You were right, leaving was a mistake. Let them have their conflicts; I’m done with it.”
“What about Earth?” Ghost asked as the playback continued. “Aren’t the Four Horsemen pledged to defend your home world?”
“The other Horsemen know where to find us.”
“
Of course Alexis remembered saying those words, shortly after barely surviving a rescue mission of her own people. She’d risked her ship, her crew, and her own life to go after them, even when the odds were astronomically against her. Son of a bitch, she thought.
“Just leave me alone for now?” she asked. Thankfully, for once, Ghost did what she asked.
* * *
Descending from Orbit, Capital Planet
“Let’s go,” the MinSha officer said from the door of Sansar’s stateroom/cell. Throughout the week-long journey through hyperspace, she’d been kept in the single room, out of contact with anyone else other than the MinSha troopers who’d been assigned to guard her.
“You’re new,” Sansar said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”
“I’m in charge of this unit, and the p
erson responsible for making sure you get to the Merc Guild Headquarters in one piece. Apparently, they weren’t sure the Besquith troopers could be counted on to do that without eating you.”
“We’re at Capital Planet?” Sansar asked. The officer nodded. “I’ve never been here before. Where’s this system located?”
“Capital Planet is in the Gresht region of the Tolo Arm. It’s off the core, but not too far from it, astronomically speaking.”
“Core region? I didn’t know there was anything worthwhile here.”
“You’re correct; there’s very little of value nearby. Most of the worlds are only marginally inhabitable, and many are nuclear wastelands or mined out. Capital Planet exists as a testament to the galaxy’s history. The Union uses it as a reminder of what could happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there was a great war in our past—”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Even before the war, though, Capital Planet was a dead world, as far as you or I are concerned. While it has an atmosphere, the oxygen levels are far too low for us.”
“How did it become the capital then, if no one could live here?”
“The first people who lived here weren’t oxygen breathers, and they liked the appearance of the planet. Their original name for it translated to ‘Beautiful desolation.’ Besides that, there were also some areas rendered uninhabitable during the galactic war due to radiation and…other issues.”
“Other issues? What do you mean?”
“I don’t know; there are places on the planet you can’t go, though. They’re listed as ‘too dangerous.’”
“I don’t get it. If the planet’s that bad, why didn’t they move the capital somewhere else?”
“It’s a reminder of what happened in the past and a cautionary tale for the future. Even the asteroid belt is a reminder of the Great War.”
“Why is that?”
A Fiery Sunset Page 13
