Taylor nodded his thanks then watched his friend vanish into the kitchen with the burger order.
You’d forgotten how much you missed this place, huh? Glancing around the room, it dawned on Taylor just how true that was. Life back then had seemed so much simpler. For one, there’d been no combat, not that the Eagles had seen much of that recently. There’d also been no real responsibilities to mind—no checks to write, no meetings to attend, no decisions to make that, under the right circumstances, could determine whether people lived or died under Taylor’s command.
On a personal note, there’d also been no legacy here. On the contrary, Taylor’s time at the Hell House had marked perhaps the only point of his twenty-three-year-old life when the name Van Zant hadn’t followed him around like a specter. Here, he was just Hillbilly T, the long-haired hippie bartender from Riverside with a love of cheap domestic booze, Major League Baseball, and fishing.
If only Shands Hospital took pickle jar tips for nanite treatments. Taylor checked his watch. He needed another beer, badly.
“Hey, Donnie, look who it is,” a voice said.
Ah, crap. Taylor turned to see three men enter the bar. The first was a tall fellow, wearing dirty jeans and a plum-colored work shirt that reminded Taylor of that goofy dinosaur from his nephew’s favorite cartoon. The second man sported heavy coveralls with a nasty skid mark down the front. The third wore a rumpled mechanic’s shirt and a snaggletooth grin, which he aimed at Taylor.
Roughnecks from the starport.
“If it ain’t the boy wonder himself,” Snaggletooth said. “Tell me, Chief, what brings you back down here to fraternize with us mere mortals?”
Taylor presented his mug. “Good drinks and good company, mostly.”
Snaggletooth traded sour looks with Skidmark.
“Is that right?” the latter said.
“Yep,” Taylor said.
Snaggletooth folded his arms. “Well then. Seein’ as how you’re feelin’ so communal today, how’s about you buy me and my boys here a few rounds?”
Taylor rubbed his forehead as a waitress wearing denim shorts and a tank top emerged from the kitchen.
“Whoa, wait a second.” She halted at once, eyes wide. “Y’all boys can’t just come in here and—”
“Shut it, Peaches.” Snaggletooth cut her off. “This don’t concern you. It’s just a friendly conversation between me and Wonder Boy.”
The trio took a step forward, and Taylor briefly considered pulling the sidearm concealed under his flannel. Not yet.
“Sure don’t look friendly to me,” a throaty voice said from the corner.
All eyes shifted to the two men shooting billiards as they paused their game and approached the bar, still holding their cues.
“What do ya say, Stan?” the voice’s owner asked. He was a short man with a silver beard and leathered skin, wearing denim overalls and a straw cowboy hat. “This here encounter look even remotely friendly to you?”
The second man—a tall gent with grizzled features, wearing a brown duster and matching fedora—shook his head. “No, Jack, it most certainly does not. To the contrary, I’d dare say these men mean to do this youngster harm if left to their devices.”
“This don’t concern you, old timers.” Snaggletooth grunted.
“That there’d be true,” Jack said. “Even still, I must confess. I abhor with every fiber of my bein’ an unfair fight. And three against one?” He clicked his tongue. “Well, that strikes me as all sorts of unfair.”
Stan tapped his shoulder with the end of his pool cue. “Yep.”
Taylor took a final pull of his beer, exhaled, and climbed off his stool. “Listen, fellas. How about we all just take a minute and—”
“Look out!” the waitress shrieked.
A glass bottle whizzed past Taylor’s ear and shattered against the bar with a crash.
“Let’s dance!” Jack launched forward as if shot from a cannon and drilled the dinosaur with a hard right. The big man hit the floor, wailing, amid a geyser of nose blood.
“Don’t mind if I do!” Stan whooped, slamming a cross to Skidmark’s jaw.
That left Taylor alone with Snaggletooth. Great.
The greasy mechanic charged in, swinging wildly and chasing any strike he could get. Most of his blows caught air as Taylor dodged aside. One, however, made contact, sending a white-hot jolt of pain tearing through Taylor’s ribcage.
Okay, so maybe you ain’t a total flunky after all. Taylor staggered back to regroup. He then lunged in for an offensive run of his own, baiting Snaggletooth with a series of jabs and body shots, only to set the man up for a full-force uppercut to the jaw.
The mechanic howled and fell back, clutching his face as a steady stream of red poured from his lip. “You’ll pay for that, you little shit.”
“Stand and deliver, Hoss,” Taylor said.
This time when Snaggletooth stormed in, Taylor had a plan. He juked left, then right, then left again. Then, seeing the mechanic’s fist sail past his head, Taylor seized on the opening and caught the man’s wrist in a joint lock.
Snaggletooth jerked and snatched, but it was no use. He’d been had, and the panicked look in his eye said he knew it.
His dominance firmly established, Taylor flexed the mechanic’s arm until he felt a pop, eliciting a scream. He then pinned Snaggletooth’s wrist to his back, spun him forward, and face-planted the roughneck into the bar top.
Thwack! Snaggletooth fell to the floor, joining the other roughnecks.
“Woo, Nelly! That was fun!” Jack hollered. “What do ya say, boys? Was it good for you?”
The men on the floor had no answer save for a faint set of groans.
“Stan, I don’t think they heard me.” Jack retrieved his beer for a quick swig then landed a boot-first mule-kick to the side of Skidmark’s head. “Now listen outta your good ear!”
Taylor could’ve sworn he’d heard that line before.
“I do not,” Jack said. “Repeat, do not ever wanna see you ugly sons of bitches in here again. We savvy? Now pick your sorry fargin asses up off that floor and get.” He feigned another kick. “I said get!”
The roughnecks stumbled to their feet, grumbling all the way, and departed the premises sans any further objections.
“Holy crap.” Rex exited the kitchen and glanced at Taylor. “I leave you alone to watch my bar for five minutes, and this is the reward I get?”
Taylor shrugged.
“You gentlemen all right?” Rex asked the old men.
“Eh, that depends.” Jack brushed a speck of lint from his overalls. “I personally like to do my fightin’ first thing in the mornin’, given the chance. You know, when I’m fresh. Alas, a wise Englishman once said, we can’t always get what we want. But, sometimes we get what we need.”
“And you needed a bar fight?” the waitress asked, incredulous.
Jack tipped up his cowboy hat, blue eyes twinkling at the girl thirty years his junior. “Exercise is a vital part of a man’s daily regimen, ma’am. It helps keep him spry, alert, and virile.”
The waitress blushed.
“Thank you, fellas.” Taylor offered the strangers a hand.
“Pardon, son, but you, uh…” Stan touched a finger to his own cheek.
“Oh, right.” Taylor reached up and plucked a glass shard from his face, courtesy of Snaggletooth’s smashed beer bottle. “Not to worry. I got nanites in my bloodstream that’ll patch that up in a jiffy.”
“Ah,” Stan said. “Good deal, then.”
Taylor lobbed the bloody shard into the trash can behind the bar and blotted his face with a napkin. “Like I was sayin’, I really appreciate you fellas jumpin’ in like that. It was damn neighborly of you.”
Jack waved off the comment. “No worries, son. To be honest, it’s been a bit too long since we’ve been in a scuffle, so we’re obliged for the refresher.”
Taylor cocked his head. “Why do I sense that ‘a bit too long’ ain’t exactly that long
?”
Jack flashed a smile.
“Who are you guys, anyway?” Rex asked.
“The name’s Bowyer,” Jack said, “Jack Bowyer, from Stillwater, Oklahoma. This here’s my partner, Jedidiah Stan.”
Taylor wrinkled his nose, recognizing the names but not quite able to place them. Then he caught sight of the U.S. Special Forces tattoo on the underside of Jack’s forearm. “Wait, are you…Blackjack Bowyer and Mississippi Stan?”
Stan tipped his fedora. “At your service.”
Taylor’s jaw would’ve hit the floor had it not been hinged to his face.
“Look, Stan. He’s heard of us,” Jack quipped.
“You guys rode with Asbaran Solutions twenty years ago on the Medford contract,” Taylor said. “My brother used to tell stories about the two of you. He said you once took on a full horde of Oogar with nothin’ but a burned-out Mk 5 CASPer and a chem pistol with three magazines. He said you had no support.”
Stan made a face. “It was more like a company of Oogar with a Mk 4 and five mags. Still, the no support part is true.”
“What brings you to Jacksonville?” Taylor asked.
“A little of this and that,” Jack said. “Mostly we just come lookin’ for a new adventure.”
“And jobs,” Stan added. “Jobs are good, too.”
“Several of our old merc buddies have long since migrated down here to North Florida on account of the taxes,” Jack said. “They say the work is good, and the pay is even better. So, given that we’ve been off-world a while, we figured it was time to come back south and give the old Liberty State a whirl.”
Taylor fished his Generals hat from the ground and dusted it against his jeans. “Well, gentlemen, you’ve come to the right place. My name’s Taylor, Taylor Van Zant.”
This time it was Jack’s turn to look surprised.
“I’ll be damned.” Stan chuckled. “How did I not pick up on that?”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Jack agreed. “Now that you mention it, son, you even look like Terry.” He pointed to Taylor’s ponytail. “Except for the hippie hair. That’s new.”
“I get that a lot.” Taylor grabbed a fresh napkin from the bar and jotted down the Eagles’ contact info. “You say you’re here to find work? Well, I can make that happen. Give this number a ring anytime and ask for Captain Billy Dawson. He’s my XO. He’ll handle all the arrangements from there.”
Jack studied the napkin, then extended a hand. “Well, all right then, Mr. Van Zant. I reckon we’ll be in touch. How’s tomorrow sound?”
“Fine by me.” Taylor jumped slightly when the name Ron Carnegie began flashing in his lower-right field of vision. What the hell? Then he remembered. Damn pinplants. “Listen, fellas. Speakin’ of calls, I got one here I have to take. If you’ll excuse me?”
Jack shoed him off with a hand. “Go, do your thing.”
Once outside of the bar for privacy, Taylor cut right into the nearest alley and keyed the accept call option via thought command. “Hey Ron,” he said aloud. “What’s goin’ on?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Ron aid. “What in the blue blazes are you thinking, kid?”
Taylor raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”
“Rumor has it you’re about to spend a boatload of your company’s hard-earned credits for a piece-of-crap frigate that hasn’t been good since the Jaguars left town for London.”
Taylor muttered a curse in his mind. “Did Billy put you up to this?”
“No, he did not,” Ron said. “This call is all me.”
“This call got a point or did you just wake up this mornin’ in a mood to bust my chops over business?”
“A little of both, actually,” Ron said. “I’m calling to save your butt from making this horrible decision, and to give you an alternative.”
Taylor wrinkled his nose. “What kind of alternative?”
“Not over comms,” Ron said. “Come out to my place, and I’ll show you.”
* * * * *
Chapter 3: Echoes of the Past
His call with Ron concluded, Taylor ducked back into the Hell House long enough to power down his burger and say goodbye to Rex. After that, he boarded his Harley and headed out for the Steeldriver Defense Group main campus, located forty miles southwest in the old Orange Park.
The route Taylor chose out of startown was the same one he always took, straight down 295 South. Granted, there were better, shorter ways to reach the Steeldriver’s campus. However, this one netted Taylor a solid fifteen extra minutes of road time, plus a pristine view of his hometown’s skyline.
Taylor had been lucky. He’d grown up at a time when Jacksonville had ranked among the top cities in America for places to live. Prior to his generation, that hadn’t always been the case.
Toward the end of the twenty-first century, after decades of political feuding with the so-called “Panhandle Rednecks” up north, the citizens of Florida’s southern half had petitioned the U.S. government for the right to independent statehood. The request was granted, and in 2085 the American flag saw a fifty-second star added to its pattern.
Naturally, most of Florida’s powerhouse tourism drivers—Disney, the cruise industry, and so forth—had supported the move, as had many others who’d fled south to join them in the new South Florida capital of Orlando. This left North Florida, and cities like Jax, with nothing on which to hang their commercial hats. Soon, empty shopping parks, rotting factories, and decimated property values were commonplace from Daytona Beach to the Alabama line. By 2096, everyone including the state’s lawmakers knew something had to change.
In a stunning break from tradition, the North Florida Congress passed sweeping legislation that scrapped the state’s tax code and replaced it with a one percent consumption tax on goods and services. In effect, this took North Florida from being among the nation’s elite taxers to rivaling Texas as the cheapest place in the country to do business.
The response was instantaneous. Almost overnight, companies from across the American landscape flocked to cities like Pensacola, Tallahassee, and Gainesville to seize on the new incentives. Every industry was represented, from tech brands like Mozilla and EXT to automotive companies like Ford and Sierra Motors.
Still, no trade was more represented in the new North Florida than the mercenary field, an industry which by then had become the backbone of the global economy. Now, whereas a Galactic Union contract worth eighty million credits would’ve netted an outfit forty million post-tax in New York, that figure ballooned to sixty million in North Florida. Pair that with the abundance of land cities like Jax offered on the cheap, and while the South Florida economy languished under bloated deficits, North Florida’s economy was vibrant and alive—flush with billions in mercenary cash.
Spotting the exit for Tebow Drive, Taylor hooked right off the interstate and headed north up Coughlin Avenue until the expansive compound that was the Steeldriver’s main campus crested the horizon. The place was impressive, especially considering that the man who’d built it had scarcely owned two nickels to rub together when he’d arrived in Jax thirty years ago from Pittsburgh. Ron Carnegie was nothing if not hardworking, and over time he’d grown Steeldriver from a three-person outfit working training and support contracts to one of the largest merc firms in the southeast, employing more than six hundred people.
Taylor hoped to one day return his own company to that kind of status. In their prime, the Eagles had employed almost twice that amount.
Easing up to the chain-link entrance, Taylor signaled to the checkpoint guard that he was there to see the owner. Once inside, Taylor taxied his Harley up the path to the main administrative complex, then turned right toward the airfield per his host’s instructions.
As promised, Ron was waiting outside a hangar cluster when Taylor entered the parking lot. A thin man of smallish stature, Carnegie had just turned sixty-two, and he had short, silver hair, a matching mustache, and prominent lines across his sun-bronzed features. He was
also, as many noted, one of the more eccentric dressers in Duval County. That was evidenced by the day’s wardrobe of knee-length Bermuda shorts, flip flops, and a camo-patterned Hawaiian shirt.
Now there’s one snowbird who embraced his new environment.
“Hail to the Chief!” Ron grinned and adjusted his sunglasses as Taylor parked his bike.
“Hey, old man,” the latter answered. Once he’d dismounted, the two men shared a hug then stood outside a massive hangar, talking.
“How’s the retired life these days?” Taylor asked.
“Meh.” Ron raised a shoulder. “I fish a lot, play a lot of golf, hang out with my grandkids. That sort of stuff.”
“Sounds like Heaven,” Taylor said.
“Oh, it is,” Ron said seriously. “I’d be lying, though, if I said I didn’t miss the action some days.”
Ron had retired from active merc field duty a few years earlier to stay closer to family. While he remained heavily involved in Steeldriver’s day-to-day operations, most of the company’s dealings off-world were now conducted by Ron’s XO.
“How are things across the tracks?” Ron asked.
“Not bad,” Taylor said. “We just wrapped an executive security contract over in the Jesc Arm that paid fairly well. I’ve got Smitty on her way back now from Karma with something new.”
Ron stabbed a finger into his guest’s chest. “I could kick your ass for poaching that girl out from under me. She was one of my best.”
“Hey, don’t get testy with me, old man,” Taylor defended. “Smitty saw a chance to jump ship and move straight to senior command on my staff. It ain’t my fault she wanted to advance her career.”
“Please,” Ron scoffed. “As if career advancement was the real reason she left.”
“It’s the only one on record I know of,” Taylor said slyly.
“Uh huh.” Ron seemed less than convinced. “How’s the family?”
Taylor smirked and slid on his Generals cap. “They’re good, all things considered. Rita just wrapped her third semester of medical school at Georgia and is well on her way to an M.D.”
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