by Matt Novotny
He didn’t have to wait long before the other teams returned. The Cajuns that hadn’t been out gathering information or on rotation to one of the local bars, had made themselves busy with making lunch. Michael Garst brought over a po’boy and a cup of gumbo for Jackson. He realized he hadn’t eaten in a while when his stomach kicked into overdrive at the heavenly smell.
“Mind if I join you?” Michael asked.
“Feel free.” Rains hefted the po’boy. “You have more than paid the tax.” He bit into the sandwich. The French bread was crisp, the catfish was perfectly spiced and crisp on the outside while tender and juicy on the inside. The light crunch of tomato, lettuce, and pickles finished it off nicely. “How did you make this?” Jackson marveled at how fresh it was.
Garst smiled. “That was all Marie Arton. She has this special container, keeps the hot hot and the cool cool.” He peeled the paper back on his own po’boy and bit into it.
All too soon, Jackson was finished and wondering if there was more. He was about to go look when Amos returned and ambled up to Rains’ table. He didn’t look happy as he sat down.
“Everything okay?” Rains asked.
Amos shook his head. “There be some contract issues, but nothin’ to do with this.” He brightened up a bit when someone set a po’boy and gumbo in front of him. Amos dug in with gusto. Soon they were just waiting for Remmy, Race, and Junkyard. The rest were chatting and eating when the trio entered the ready room.
Race stalked to the far side of the room, fuming. Nolan shook his head at Amos and followed the young man. Remmy looked like the cat who caught the bird.
“What happened?” Rains asked, pointing at Race.
Remmy laughed and sat down at the table. “Race found out that he’s more than a pretty boy for just Humans. You see, we were in the Dwarf Star Bar when—”
“No!” Race shouted suddenly, dismay and embarrassment clear on his face.
Remmy held both hands up in surrender. “It’s his story. I’m sure he will find it funnier tomorrow.” He chuckled and winked at the people at the table.
“Now that everyone is here, let’s see what we found out,” Rains said. He asked Bev, “Do you have a Tri-V projector?”
She nodded and opened a couple of Pelican cases until she found what she needed. She set down a meter-diameter ring, connected a box, plugged in a cable, and offered it to Rains. He connected the assembly to his slate and the ring came to life.
“Okay, let’s start with what we know of the system.”
He tapped the slate a few times, and the system flashed into view above the table. “Here’s the star and the asteroid belt made up from the destroyed planets, or whatever was in this system before.” Something didn’t look right. He panned the view, and a second star came into the display. “Oh, a binary. That explains why there are only a few planets.”
“I have some information on the location of the jump point.” Bev tapped her slate and swiped toward the display. The location for the stargate flashed, and several points highlighted the Lagrange points. She tapped the slate and a fuchsia orb appeared at the exact midpoint between stars. “That’s the station. It sits on a Lagrange point. So, for all intents and purposes, it never moves relative to the two stars.” She tapped again. One point glowed brightly. “This is the primary emergence point in the binary system according to the Cartography Guild. There is a second one attached to the smaller star but emerging there is very unlikely. We got the REX topped off with F11 so we should be good to head out whenever we’re ready.” Bev nodded at Remmy.
Remmy cleared his throat. “Ah. Guess I’m next. The original station was built by Humans based on a very dated mining resource survey. And by dated, I mean before the Great War. The system had some number and letter designation until the rights were sold to a Human company. They named it Hope. The survey showed all kinds of metals and minerals. They had one big strike, red diamonds, platinum, iridium, some other things, but after that ran out, they only found a modest amount of rhodium.
“Once that proved to be harder to mine than they originally thought, the company ran out of operating capital. According to the limited registration records, the station has been bought and sold at least a dozen times, and has been at different times a brothel—” there were several catcalls and Remmy just waved, “—a casino, a shipping hub, storage facility—”
“—a pirate base for a time, according to the Peacemaker’s info,” added Rains.
Remmy nodded, then continued, “The next conglomerate to acquire the station thought this was a great location to break up ships into component metals and minerals, leveraging the ore processing capabilities as scrap processing. They bought all kinds of ancient, and I mean ancient, ships from everywhere and brought them to the station to be deconstructed.” Remmy ran a finger along the figure eight belt of asteroids. “Not all of this is rock. There are a staggering number of derelicts here.” He took a breath and looked at Amos. “Remember when Uncle Ike thought recycling tires would be a goldmine and he bought every tire he could get?”
Amos laughed. “The old fool had acres of tires and no way to process them.”
“Yeah, that’s what happened here. That business went belly-up.” Remmy sighed. “Just like Uncle Ike.”
“Really?” Rains said softly looking at the primary emergence point. “Coming in here, would we be able to keep some of those wrecks between us and the base?”
“If they’re still there,” Remmy said. “My contacts said that the new owners of the station didn’t declare a business change. So, in theory, they are in the salvage business, and, for all we know, they busted everything up.”
Rains smiled. “According to the Peacemakers, they think the corporation that has a lease on Hope’s End has a similar fingerprint to what Kr’et’Socae likes to set up.” He looked over to Rikki. “What did you find?”
“The system used to have some modest minerals for export. The last salvage shipment put up for sale was twenty years ago. Now they don’t officially export anything,” Rikki reported.
“How ‘bout you, Callista?” asked Amos.
Her cheeks flushed as all eyes turned to her. “Um, pretty much what Rikki said.” She shifted in her chair. “Though, I did see an odd number of orders for the next starport over that surged three months ago.” Rikki looked at her in surprise. She flushed again. “I was looking for odd patterns and thought maybe they have a ship they use to hop over there for supplies. Like getting crayfish delivered to work when you know you won’t be home.”
Rains nodded, impressed. “What kinds of supplies?”
“Live animals. Protein cubes. Glorp. There’s nothing specific that says, ‘only this race eats this’ so I can only guess at the number of crew based on the animals and hope they aren’t stockpiling.” She took a deep breath, then continued. “They have the same quantity of things showing up every month for the last three and scheduled for next month.”
“Okay, anything else?” Rains asked.
Remmy raised his hand. “If they know we are coming and have had time to prepare, and there are a bunch of different races there—we know at least four—what are you thinking for how we open this can?”
Rains glanced over at Amos. “I think if we can come at them by either keeping a derelict between us, or if there aren’t any, we could veer out to the asteroid belt and keep a band between us. Thoughts?”
Amos nodded. “Simple is good. What about when we get in close?”
“That’s simple,” Rains smiled at Remmy. “Did I read in your file that you know how to pilot an assault pod?”
* * *
Hope Station
Sin’Kura glared at the message, furious. She couldn’t believe the incompetence of her people. Chovar was one of her most reliable warriors from the cells on Te’Warri. That he had failed to retrieve the data and kill Rains was inconceivable. They had every advantage: surprise, superior numbers, and a tracking algorithm that led them directly to Rains.
She
closed her eyes and let the rage wash over her. A boot on the deck behind her set her in motion. She flashed out of her seat and cartwheeled to her left and back as her powerful claws decapitated the Zeewie messenger. Having vented her displeasure, she watched dispassionately as the body slumped to the deck, still clutching a message board. She reached down and plucked the slate from its hands.
“Come see me.” It was a simple one-line message. Three words that she really didn’t relish fulfilling. There was no signature, but Sin’Kura knew who sent the message to her. Kr’et’Socae.
She thought he might not know about her attempt on Rains, but then she laughed. Of course, he knew. He knew everything. She steeled herself and headed to his conference room.
There were several Blevin in the corridor. She sniffed at them. None were a match for her in combat. As she sized them up, she realized none avoided looking at her. All of them were focused on her, their hands on their weapons. This did not bode well for her. She hit the chime next to the door.
“Enter,” came from the intercom, and the door opened.
Sin’Kura glided into the room and faced Kr’et’Socae where he sat in his custom Equiri chair. “You sent for me,” she said demurely.
He snorted at her. “You have something to tell me?” He spoke softly, but Sin’Kura could see his nostrils were distended. She had been around Kr’et’Socae long enough to read his signs.
“On Kleve…there may have been a team that encountered Rains.”
“Do not be evasive with me, Sin’Kura.”
“Fine. I had a team attack Rains after he got the information. The team failed,” she admitted.
Kr’et’Socae shot to his feet and Sin’Kura could see him shaking with rage. His breathing was labored. Sin’Kura’s cybernetic eye was a pale blue as she watched him with fear. “Are you—Why did you—” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. She could see that he had composed himself as he opened his eyes and sat back in his chair. “Please continue,” he said softly.
Sin’Kura was scared. She shrank back into the shadows and made herself as small as possible. Her mind raced, searching for a way out. She settled on the truth.
“I thought that if I could get the data and eliminate Rains, then it would speed up your plans. I didn’t expect them to have such formidable firepower. My team had a ground attack vehicle from a local warlord. Somehow they disintegrated it.”
Dispassionately, Kr’et’Socae asked her, “Can it be traced back to us? To me?”
Sin’Kura hung her head and whispered, “I don’t know.”
“This could complicate things with Rains. It could definitely explain why he is late. I am displeased, Sin’Kura.”
“I only did this to help.”
Kr’et’Socae snorted. “You do things to help yourself. To use the Human phrase: You are one crazy bitch.”
“It was a worthy gambit, Kr’et’Socae. If we could have killed the Peacemaker and retrieved the data, we would be ahead of the day. As it is, we are out nothing.”
“Nothing?” he shouted, and Sin’Kura winced. Kr’et’Socae rarely lost his temper, and the last time had been when they were still in prison. She took a breath and met his gaze.
“How can I make this right?” She hoped to deflect the situation to a more positive outcome for herself.
“I don’t know that you can,” he said softly, and in such a way that her hackles rose. “Your usefulness to me might be nearing its end.”
Anger flashed through her like a tidal wave. Her eye glowed a bright red. She flexed her hands, and her claws extended fully. “Are we ending this now?”
Sin’Kura saw disappointment on his face. The muzzle of a weapon touched her back. She froze, barely daring to breathe. She turned her head a fraction and saw Churff holding a wide-barreled Equiri rifle.
Kr’et’Socae spoke. “Sin’Kura, let’s have peace between us.” His voice was mild. Now she really looked at him. None of the danger signs she had seen earlier were present. “You asked how you can make this right? Well, I have a project I think you will enjoy.”
Everything he said felt sincere to Sin’Kura. She sniffed the air. She didn’t smell fear or anger on either of the Equiri. One thing that Kr’et’Socae had never done was lie to her. He might hide things from her, but he had never lied to her. She relaxed, her eye changed color, and her claws retracted.
“I accept. What may I do for you?” Sin’Kura asked. “What is this project?”
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty
REX
“All right, boys and girls, most of you are dead, so let’s reset and run it again,” Rains ordered. There was a chorus of banter and a few groans.
“Again? My CASPer is starting to smell so bad I’m going to have to get it detailed.”
“That’s affirmative, Killzone,” said Bev, who was running the simulations. “For this next run, your callsign is redesignated as Roadkill. Your squaddies will appreciate the cleanup.”
“Breaks are for the living,” Rains replied. “Charging a Xiq’tal trooper isn’t the dumbest thing I saw during that run, but it was close.”
For the last couple of days, they had been running simulations, trying to transform the Olympians, Cajuns, and volunteers into a coherent fighting force. The CASPers were staged in launch cradles in the belly of the REX, and Remmy had managed to come up with a couple versions of ancient plans for Hope Station. He and Bev had turned those into a simulation so they could put everyone through some dry runs.
“I think the simulation is being weighted unfairly, Peacemaker. I was only able to kill nine of them before I was disabled,” observed Sebastian.
“‘Only,’ he says,” someone chimed in, sparking laughter among Sebastian’s victims.
The simulations were good, but just about everything about them was a guess. Layout, armament, troops—all were wild guesses except for the base specifications, and those weren’t encouraging. As an asteroid mining base, the construction and armor were a good match for the heavy railguns that were REX’s main weaponry. They were working on different strategies to overcome that issue, but they wouldn’t know what they were up against until they arrived in-system.
For all that most of the Olympians had once been mercs, as a fighting force, not only were they up against differences in equipment and experience—the latter sometimes generations apart—but the circus atmosphere and emphasis on showmanship that the arena circuit had drilled into them was a real issue. For the first time, Rains was able to genuinely appreciate the task that Tara Mason and Colonel Ibson had trying to bring the Trenta Knights into the fold with Force 25. The simulations were getting the job done, but slowly, and Rains missed Lucille’s artistry and flexibility with the simulations.
There were some bright spots. Amos and the Cajuns approached the simulations with deadly earnestness, showing zero mercy to any that opposed them, and in helping program the station defenses. Rains only hoped that Kr’et’Socae didn’t have anyone in the same class as Amos for defensive setup.
The other ray of sunshine was, surprisingly, Race Romero and Junkyard. Though they had both signed with the Cajuns for this run, they would both be going in with the Olympians. The younger Olympians all envied Race for his abilities in the arena and followed his lead, while a fair number of Olympians who had been mercs knew Nolan and respected him. Rains and Amos were both impressed with how seriously Race had taken his new responsibilities.
Unfortunately, Sebastian had become a target for the show boaters in the Olympians during the simulations. Tavvi, likewise, got a large share of up close and personal attention by mercs going for the big kill. They had added additional Tortantula and Xiq’tal troops, but there were differences in the simulation that could be picked up on. The long and short of it was that about half the team was treating the sims like a game instead of battle preparation, and they didn’t have the resources to ground 50 percent of their force or the time to replace them.
They had Race to thank for
the solution they finally came up with.
During an informal cadre meeting after a long day running sims, Rains had been taking a pull of his Abita bulb. The REX was under thrust, but they weren’t taking any chances. “I don’t know, Amos, I’m kind of running out of ways to kill Olympians in the sims; the showoffs are going to get people killed if we don’t come up with something,” Rains had said.
“I know it too, Jac-son. I shoulda signed ‘em all in the beginning. Still planning on it, just to have it all handled right, but I was thinkin’ ‘bout the girls and not the paperwork,” Amos said.
“Kick their asses!” encouraged Rikki.
“Or assign them to something where they aren’t in a position to be a hazard,” suggested Tikki.
“If we knew what that was, we would,” said Rains. “Right now we have to work up the assault plan based on what we know, which is not enough.”
Race slipped by and grabbed himself a bulb out of the dispenser. He pointed at the table in a silent question, and there were several nods, so he pulled extras and handed them out.
“Xiq’tal do not have this problem. You accept your place in the battle line or you are used to feed those who do,” said Sebastian.
Amos snorted. “Not even I could do justice to dat much stringy meat.”
Nolan held his bulb up to the light and gazed at the rich, dark liquid. “I have to admit, I thought we’d have fewer problems getting established. There’s a lot of experienced mercs in the Olympians. They oughta know better.”
“The problem you got, cher, is that they’ve spent too long getting shot at for fun and not in anger. They’re just having problems rememberin’,” Remmy offered.
“Uh, nobody asked me, but why don’t you show them?” asked Race.
“Dat’s what the sims is for,” said Amos.
“That’s my point. It isn’t real. I have tons of sim time, but I never thought about getting hurt until that day at Sanctuary. It’s different,” said Race.
