Sinclair's Scorpions (The Omega War Book 5)

by PP Corcoran

  “They’ll not let you fly with them again if you don’t clean that up you know,” Croll cautioned Jackson with a half laugh.

  Jackson wiped his mouth with the empty barf bag. “I’m sure the fly boys do this on purpose. It’s probably a bright sunny day outside and they are just fucking with us,” he moaned.

  The sound of the engines screaming lessened as the pilots eased back on the power and the dropship’s flight profile smoothed off. “We’re through the worst of it now. Landing pads are in sight, and I would like to thank you all for flying Winged Hussars today and look forward to seeing you again,” came the jovial voice of the pilot.

  “Smart arse,” grumbled Jackson.

  Minutes later, the dropship touched down smooth as a feather, the engine noise dying away completely. Croll was up and at the ramp controls, hand hovering over the release switch, as he looked to Alastair for permission.

  With a nod from Alastair, Croll mashed the ramp control panel, and, with a hydraulic whine, the ramp dropped smoothly until it touched the concrete surface of the landing pad. The wind sweeping across the pad whipped up the dust into tiny dust devils which appeared and disappeared at random. Croll went down the ramp and his head did a quick but thorough three-sixty as he searched for threats.

  Satisfied nothing was going to jump out and start blasting at them, he shouted over to Jackson who was repeating Croll’s action on the far side of the dropship. “Go see if you can scare up any transport,” ordered Croll, having to shout to be heard over the whistling wind.

  Rather than shout an acknowledgment, Jackson flashed a thumbs up and jogged off to the nearest building.

  Alastair paused at the bottom of the ramp, looked up at the alien sky, and marveled at the complexity of the universe. The massive gas giant filled a little under half the sky at this point of Moon 5’s rotation and was close enough that it looked like you could reach out and touch it. It was massive enough that it could swallow up nearly fifteen hundred planets the size of Earth, and the giant hung like some malevolent being ready to unleash its fury and consume the small world that Alastair now stood upon. If that was not disconcerting enough, four more moons were visible to the naked eye. Focusing on the second most distant, Alastair tried to make out details but Kathal was simply too distant to pick out the Science Guild research base without artificial aid.

  “Everything good, Colonel?” asked Croll through the thin membrane filtering out the microscopic dust particles carried in the stiff breeze. His eyes were hidden behind protective lenses. Moon 5 may have been habitable, but that did not mean it was a Garden of Eden. Life here was hard here, but it was better than living within Kathal’s atmosphere, which could kill you in minutes.

  “Yeah, no problems here, Ethan,” answered Alastair. “And try to remember that we are prospectors working on behalf of the Sidar looking to scope out the feasibility of setting up an F11 extraction plant in this system. So, first names only, understood?”

  “Roger that, Colonel—” Croll paused as he corrected himself. “Understood, Alastair.” Using the colonel’s first name just sounded—wrong to him; however, he would have to get used to it.

  Jackson rejoined them. “This whole place is shut up tighter than a Cartar’s bum hole.”

  The image of the underwater race that looked like an octopus had mated with a squid came unbidden to Alastair’s mind. Dismissing it, he scanned the buildings ringing the landing pad. “Abandoned or just closed up for the day, Gregor?” By Jackson’s momentary pause before answering, Alastair guessed the trooper was having the same difficulty with his colonel addressing him by his first name.

  “Eh—I would say closed up rather than abandoned, eh—Alastair.” The sound of a harrumph from Croll reached Alastair over the sound of the wind before Jackson continued. “I took a look in through some of the building’s windows and a few of the terminals are still on, so somebody is using them and either forgot or didn’t care about turning them off before leaving.”

  “Transport?” asked Croll.

  The trooper shook his head. “Nothing.”

  Alastair straightened his jacket while attempting to access the local GalNet. The cursor floating in his right eye continued to blink for a few seconds before a message was displayed. ‘No local access.’ Alastair dismissed the message, pulling his slate from beneath his knee length jacket and bringing up an aerial view of the settlement. “This building here near the town center has a cluster of vehicles around it, so I vote we head there and see what we find.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Alastair,” agreed Croll.

  Decision made, the three Scorpions headed into town.

  As the three men walked, Alastair was struck by how ramshackle the buildings and the street furniture were. In the modern Galactic Union, everything revolved around money, and it looked very much like that when the red diamond mine had ceased operating, the majority of the population, or at least those who could afford it, simply upped sticks and left, leaving everyone who was barely scratching a living out of the ground, such as the arable farmers, to get on with it.

  Occasionally the men would pass a building or home where a stray light would cast its shadow across the cracked and pot-holed surface of the sidewalk. There would be the fleeting image of a shadowy figure or a muffled shout to move away from the window before the light was extinguished.

  “Looks like they are not too friendly around here,” said Croll.

  “Or scared of visitors,” Alastair said as an occupant doused another light as they passed the crumbling facade of a dwelling.

  The town was not a large affair, emphasized by the fact it only took the Scorpions around ten minutes to walk from the landing pads to the nominal town center. Standing with the wind tugging at his jacket, surrounded by darkened buildings, Alastair wondered if coming here had been a colossal waste of time. Then he heard a faint sound of what he generously called music, barely audible over the noise of the wind. Pulling his hood down, Alastair cupped his hands behind his ears as he strained to locate the source of the music. Satisfied he had a general direction, he re-covered his head. It now had a generous amount of grit on it which was slowly working its way down his neckline.

  Alastair set off in the direction of the sound, trailed by Croll and Jackson. Going down a narrow side street Alastair was rewarded by the sight of a blinking, gaudy neon sign winking on and off like some distant lighthouse warning unwary mariners of an impending danger. Scattered around seemingly at random in the street was a variety of ground and air transport vehicles. This would be the building from the aerial image, surmised Alastair. As they got closer, the music got louder and, as the incessant wind dropped momentarily, a yelping laugh cut through the music. Besquith!

  “Well, looks like we may be in the right place,” said Jackson having to raise his voice to be heard over the resurgent wind.

  Alastair looked up at the blinking sign which was randomly rotating through the multiple languages prevalent in the Union, proudly announcing the name of the establishment. Automatically Alastair’s interpretation software converted the sign to English for him. ‘The Red Fox.’ Has to be a bar, thought Alastair as he wondered for a moment at the choice of name. It seemed very…Human. And what would a Human being be doing this far out in the Union? Nobody had really been out this way since the Alpha Contracts over a hundred years ago. Maybe a member of another race had heard the phrase somewhere and liked the sound of it.

  Dismissing the thought, Alastair waved a hand for the men to follow him and covered the last few steps to the building’s entrance. The exterior of the building looked as badly maintained as the rest of the town; however, the door panel glowed invitingly, and Alastair obligingly tapped it.

  With a whoosh, the door slid back to reveal a well-lit airlock type affair roughly ten feet by ten feet. The floor and ceiling were constructed of fine mesh, which looked like there was no way in hell it could support the weight of a grown man—never mind three—however, looks can be deceiving, and Ala
stair stepped confidently into the small room. Once all three men had entered, the outer door closed, shutting off the sound of the incessant wind, which only allowed the raucous music to assault their ears. From below the mesh they were standing on, strong fans whirred to life. Around them the dust from their clothes danced in the air before being sucked away by the extraction system built into the room’s ceiling. Well that makes sense at least, thought Alastair. You needed to keep the copious amounts of dust carried in the air out somehow.

  The fans died abruptly, their task completed, and the inner door slid to one side, allowing the deep, booming music to assault them like a physical thing. Alastair raised his arms, slipping his hood down while removing his goggles and placing them securely in a pocket. The thought of walking back to the landing pads through the mini dust storm outside without eye protection was not an appealing one. Alastair’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the dimly-lit interior of what was obviously a bar. At least a dozen Besquith, armed with a mix of laser and chemically-propelled sidearms, were gathered around a music terminal howling along to whatever the hell was coming from its speakers while slurping from glass mugs full of a green liquid that looked like the rejected scum of a waste recycling plant.

  Alastair ran his eye over the remaining patrons of the bar, and it was your typical eclectic mix of Union races. Short framed elSha, multi-tentacled Bakulu, Jeha scampering across the floor holding plates of mush which Alastair recognized as a delicacy, having seen Doctor Wong’s assistant Larras devouring it back on the Glambring. There was even a sprinkling of Zuul who were either strolling around the bar on their rear legs or had assumed their more lackadaisical quadruped method of movement.

  Ethan Croll had been viewing the crowd also, and he leaned into Alastair to speak in a low voice. The loud music easily ensured that anybody not standing directly beside the two men would ever overhear their conversation, but why take chances. “Notice how only the Besquith are armed and everybody else is making a point of not making eye contact with them?”

  Alastair scanned the crowd again, verifying Croll’s observation. “You think the Besquith are their guards, Ethan?”

  “Guards, escorts, call it what you will. One thing is for sure,” said Ethan. “If the Besquith said ‘jump’ everybody in here would ask ‘how high?’”

  To one side of the entry door there was a small booth with a very bored-looking Zeewie slumped over the counter. “Drop your jackets in here, we don’t want all that crap from outside being dragged everywhere. It will only give me more work to do when we close up, and I have enough to do tidying up after those mutts.” The Zeewie inclined its head toward the howling Besquith, and its pink nose twitched in apparent disgust.

  “Sure thing,” said Ethan, unsealing his jacket and letting it slip off his shoulders to reveal the PS6 pistol hanging at his waist. The Zeewie’s black on black eyes went wide at the sight of the weapon and, if anything, got wider as Gregor Jackson’s jacket opened to reveal another of the deadly People Stoppers.

  Ethan gave the rodent his most reassuring smile. “Company policy I’m afraid. Quote ‘All personnel engaged in prospecting operations on behalf of the Eili Corporation must be armed while visiting an unfamiliar planet, moon, or orbiting station.’ Unquote.” Ethan moved closer to the diminutive Zeewie, taking a quick glance about before whispering conspiratorially to him. “I reckon it’s because they could not get insurance for us if we were not armed, then anything that goes wrong is all our fault leaving the corporation off the hook and indemnity free.”

  Reassured by Ethan’s explanation, the Zeewie took the opportunity to engage in some corporation bashing. “I know exactly what you mean, friend. I was employed in the red diamond mine on Kathal, a supervisor I was, until the owners just closed the whole damn thing down. They left a shitload of us without cash to pay for a ticket out of here. So, here I am, saving every last credit I can to buy my way off this rock.”

  “Damn, man,” said Ethan sympathetically, immediately recognizing a potential source of intelligence that only needed a friendly shoulder to cry on. “A friend of mine had that happen to him when some Cochkala aligned with the Wathayat dumped his sorry ass out in the Centaur Region. Tell you what, why don’t we get ourselves a drink, and you can tell me all about it?” The Zeewie looked at Ethan uncertainly until Ethan produced his Yack. “Hell, I’ll even buy the first round or two.”

  “Now you’re talking,” grinned the Zeewie.

  Alastair tapped Ethan on the shoulder to get his attention. “We’re going to find a seat, Ethan.”

  “Sure, sure. I’ll be over in a minute,” Ethan said dismissively while whispering something to the Zeewie that made the little rodent squeak with laughter.

  Leaving Ethan to interrogate the talkative employee, Alastair and Gregor made their way across to the main bar area, dodging the occasional worse for wear patron as they did. Reaching the bar, they found that their Veetch bartender was as about interested in his job as the Zeewie and, although he had undoubtedly seen them, he ignored their presence while he continued a conversation with a Bakulu who was holding a drink in two of its tentacles and employing a third to emphasize what must have been an enthralling story.

  “Service is pretty poor around here,” commented Alastair, to which Gregor decided to take matters into his own hands, reaching over the counter top and retrieving a pair of none-too-clean glasses, placing one in front of Alastair and the other on the counter in front of himself. With still no reaction from the Veetch, Gregor’s hands disappeared over the top of the counter once more only to reappear holding a half-filled bottle of a brownish liquid. Unsealing the cork, Gregor held it under his nose and gave the contents a sniff, regretting the action instantly as a powerful odor cleared his sinuses and threatened to burn the back of his throat clean out.

  “You might not want to try that again, son; it’s likely to leave you looking for a new pair of lungs,” came a deep, booming voice with an accent that neither Scorpion had heard in what felt like a lifetime. The Scottish brogue cut clear through the background music, even managing to overwhelm the yapping of the Besquith.

  Alastair’s head spun in the direction of the voice, and his eyes went wide as they fell upon something behind the bar which, if you were only to see the head, you would happily have taken for a Human male, even with the obvious prosthetic eye, which burned like a laser out of the darkness of its socket. It felt like Alastair had lost control of his own eyes as they moved down the man’s neck onto a torso partially covered in loose-fitting clothing. Where there should have been flesh and blood, skin and bones, there was instead metal alloy joined haphazardly to the original flesh. Arms, bare from the elbow down, showed signs of being supplemented under the skin by artificial aids.

  “Aye, as you can see, laddie, there’s not much left of the man I used to be and over the years I’ve made do with what’s at hand to keep me alive.” A low, rumbling laugh—a mixture of sadness and melancholy—filled the air. “Not many decent cybernetic surgeons out this far.”

  Alastair shook himself, dragging his gaze back to the man’s face. The one still-Human bright blue eye stared back at him, assessing him. “Alastair Sinclair,” he said by way of introduction, nodding toward Gregor. “And this is Gregor Jackson. Arrived in the system a couple of hours ago. Doing some preliminary work to see if it’s worth our boss’ time and money investing in an F11 extraction and purification refinery operation here.”

  The man’s eye maintained its steady gaze for a few seconds more before it blinked, and the man thrust out a gloved hand. “You can call me Oren.” The name was pronounced with the rolling Rs of the Scottish Highlands, so it came out more like Orrren. Alastair gripped Oren’s hand firmly, feeling the distinctive unnatural outline of metal beneath the cloth.

  “Prospectors you say?” Oren pointed toward Gregor’s sidearm. “Packing a bit heavy for that are you not?”

  “Company policy,” interjected Gregor, preparing to go through Ethan Croll’s ex
planation from earlier, only for a sardonic expression from Oren to stop him in his tracks.

  “Of course it is, laddie. Of course, it is.” Oren reached under the bar and produced a bottle of clear liquid and slammed it down in front of Gregor. “Now stop yer jabbering and drink some of that while I speak to yer boss will yae.”

  Suitably rebuked, Gregor unstopped the bottle and poured himself a generous helping of the lighter brown liquid, sniffing tentatively before taking a sip. Fire burned its way from his lips, across his tongue, down his throat, and slammed into his belly.

  Oren let out another of his deep laughs as Gregor coughed hard enough that it felt as if his lungs were about to come out of his mouth.

  “Have yae no had decent whisky before? I make that one myself and it’s only about 110 proof. Not even enough to put hairs on yer chest, man.”

  Ignoring the still spluttering Gregor, Oren returned his attention to Alastair. “And I take it that fella gossiping like an old fisherman’s wife to yon wee Zeewie of mine is wh’ay you, too?”

  Alastair looked across to where Ethan Croll was engaged in deep conversation with the Zeewie that had relieved them of their jackets when they had first come in. “That would be correct Oren. Ethan Croll, my chemical engineering expert.”

  “Inquisitive lot, aren’t you?”

  Alastair shrugged while keeping his face expressionless. “My bosses like us that way.”

  “I’m sure they do, Alastair, though yae might want tae be a wee bit careful around some of my more—” Oren cast his eye toward the yapping and howling Besquith. “Aggressive patrons.”