The Midnight Sun (The Omega War Book 2)

by Tim C. Taylor

  “Permission to open fire?” requested Flkk’Sss.

  Blue’s only response was to continue the countdown.

  The Scorpion-controlled mecha turned around, shuffling as clumsily as a dime-store clockwork robot. Comparing this fairground attraction to what Jim Cartwright had managed to make one do was like comparing a prima ballerina to a drunk lurching around an alleyway in search of a good spot to vomit. Yet they were all Raknar. If these war machines could be made to work properly…Branco’s guts turned to icy water just to contemplate such terror. First Jim Cartwright and now the Condottieri and Scorpions. A lot of people were suddenly thinking they could turn these shuffling curios into something indescribably lethal.

  Thump…Thump…The lumbering mecha made their slow-speed exit.

  “Ma’am, do we fire?” Flkk’Sss was twitching her wing cases with frustration.

  “Fire?” Blue looked down on the officer from the archway, her eyes wide with surprise. “Of course not, Lieutenant. I’ve only counted down to 67.”

  “All we need are cables,” said Sergeant Albali. “Trip the buggers up.”

  “We need CASPers with grappling clamps,” said Sun. “I’ve ordered three squads to suit up ASAP.”

  “If they used Mark 7s—” started Branco.

  “Then the heavier model will be more effective than the lighter Mark 8s. Yes, we thought of that too.” Sun hesitated. “But good thinking, people. Keep it coming.”

  Suddenly, everyone was hitting the deck as explosions ripped into the ground in front of the wood.

  The gleaming shoulders of the Raknar poked out of swirling, thick clouds speckled with gleaming ribbons and pulsing flares. It was a defensive cloud, designed to hide from a wide range of sensors. Soon, it spread high enough to engulf the Raknar.

  By the time a squad of Mark 7 CASPers let loose with their boot jets and jumped into the cloud, they were too late. Seconds later, a trio of heavy lift shuttles emerged from the screen of the woods and made brazenly for orbit, the three dangling mecha glinting in the sunlight.

  The gun turrets and missile-armed CASPers tracked the shuttles all the way into the upper atmosphere, awaiting the order to fire.

  Blue watched them escape and said nothing.

  Still atop the high arch bristling with turrets, she turned to face her company. Instead of ordering them to fire, she closed her eyes and tilted her head forward a little – the sign of someone withdrawing into her pinplants.

  Branco grimaced when Blue’s face flinched as if repeatedly slapped. Inside Blue’s mind, she must be receiving a hell of a roasting from Gloriana. But there was no denying the heaving chest and the tongue darting out of her open mouth like an excited Zuul. His human commander was dosed sky high on excitement.

  She was up to something.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 4

  Captain Blue closed her eyes and ears on the mercenaries clamoring for revenge. There was no time to lose. They needed to do something.

  But whatever she decided that should be, Blue knew it had to be the right thing. She’d never met her employer in the flesh, but Gloriana’s reputation said the alien would not permit second chances.

  Blue’s senior command staff had formed a defensive line at the base of the arch to keep the crowd away so she had space to work. Surprisingly, so did Venix, the Zuparti installed by Gloriana to keep watch on the human commander, who’d returned from his interrogation.

  Inside Blue’s brain were four sets of cognitive enhancements, data analyzers, and high-bandwidth data links known as pinplants. The augmentations had been partly inserted, partly grown, and wholly painful going in. Her brain still felt bruised, but Gloriana had insisted on the implants, and the alien boss had already been proven right on several occasions.

  Blue established a secure connection to a nearby comm node and spent several hundred milliseconds meticulously building an unhackable link to a cylinder in high orbit. To all but the most perceptive of prying eyes, the floating object was nothing more than space junk, but Blue knew better.

  * * *

  Of all the specialist Midnighter personnel who served rotations aboard Detritus-2, Jenkins was the only one to actually volunteer. Others regarded the miniature stealth boat’s isolation and cramped confines to be arduous duty, to be endured and grumbled about. But in the Jeha’s opinion, nothing gave a better opportunity to contemplate the majestic song of the cosmos and embrace the precious yet infinitesimally small part he played in that music. Also, here aboard Detritus-2, no one complained when he recited his experimental poetry, although he’d twice noticed his assistant holding her body with an impertinent slant.

  Like many of his species, Jenkins’ naturally mathematical brain saw order and pattern in everything – which was why his kind made such good engineers and navigators. From Detritus-2, he only had to point his multi-sensory eyestalks at the viewport to see and hear the ultimate mathematical order written in the stars. Lesser species insisted there were no sounds in space, and the black was indeed silent to their limited perception of pressure waves via vibrating bones. Jenkins was Jeha. Even in the vacuum of space, the entire universe blazed with song.

  But in orbit above the world of Tau-Rietzke where the Midnighters were based, there was order too, discernible in the comings and goings of trade and mercenary activity. Tau-Rietzke was a rich and well-established world, with many ships passing through its stargate and emergence points. There were many complex patterns for an observer of his sophistication to lose oneself within.

  Several hundred miles away, in a Port Hektatus orbital docking bay, was the starship that bore the company’s name, Midnight Sun. A unique, polished rotating sphere, which was easy to see from afar due to its highly reflective surface. Pretty it may be, but the unique warship was deadly, and large enough to carry a battalion with full logistical support.

  Sometimes Tau-Rietzke’s orbital song missed half a beat, a tiny grain of disharmony that less observant species wouldn’t notice. That was why Jeha also made good intelligence analysts.

  “Zarbi?” he prompted the other occupant of the stealth cylinder, rotating his eyestalks because once again he found himself using the human version of Kl’ch’hk’s name. “Answer me, Kl’ch’hk! I need confirmation.”

  “Jenkins, I’m young,” replied Zarbi. “My brain’s not slowed by your aged metabolism. Of course I have the data. Furthermore, I can now confirm your hypothesis. The signals we intercepted are passing between the ships of interest and Kubar Park.”

  Jenkins hesitated to contact the base on the planet below. “The problem with feeling so attuned to the vibration of the universe,” he explained to the three-foot-long youngling, “is that it makes one reluctant to interrupt the harmony. Jeha aren’t good with guns and such things. That’s why species with the gift of violence make such good soldiers. Species such as humans.”

  “I understand what you’re trying to say,” said Zarbi. “Captain Blue scares the crap outta you.”

  Jenkins snapped his mandibles at the insolent junior but said nothing to her. Would Captain Blue thank him for interrupting the revelries down below at Kubar Park? Probably not. Nonetheless, reporting suspicious activity was his duty. He rippled his carapace, which heated his body to generate the courage to contact the fearsome human devil.

  An infrared lamp blinked. Incoming communication.

  “Jenkins here.”

  “There’s been an incident,” the Jeha’s pendant translated, but the speaker was unmistakably the same human captain that had been foremost in the intelligence analyst’s mind. “Thieves have taken off from our base with our owner’s valuable property.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ve detected suspicious data traffic connecting unidentified persons at Kubar Park with two orbiting spacecraft. One is an Ulura-class light cruiser, EMS Regina Margherita, registered to mercenary company Condottieri. The other is a Behemoth-class super freighter currently docked at Port Hektatus.”

  “Docked?” The translato
r pendant conveyed the human’s surprise. Jenkins was wary of the random disharmonies the captain flung at the pattern of the universe, but Blue herself was surprisingly adept at glimpsing that pattern. As the humans themselves might say, Captain Blue wasn’t born yesterday.

  “Stolen items are Raknar relics being carried to orbit on Type-47B tugs,” said the captain. “Thieves claim to be Sinclair’s Scorpions, but we’ve also been infiltrated by Condottieri and other mercs who claim direct employment by the Merc Guild. That’s all I know. Now give me your assessment. Tell me what’s happening up there, Jenkins.”

  Jenkins wriggled with pleasure. To think he was actually being paid do this! “The Behemoth-class super freighter is UTS Exuberance. To see a ship of that class in-system is common, but their poor maneuverability and enormous momentum mean it’s generally uneconomic for them to deviate from a course directly from emergence point to stargate. Combined with the enormous port fees they would incur, it means that mooring at an orbital dock is unusual. My speculation is that your thieves are transit riders, paying to clamp onto the heavy hauler’s hull to let the bigger ship handle the cost of transition through hyperspace, and bribing its captain to dock in orbit so the Type-47B tugs can offload easily. There are no ships in-system registered to the Scorpions. No doubt they’re under a false flag. The Exuberance is due to leave dock shortly and is scheduled to pass through the stargate in 35 Terran hours. I speculate that once through hyperspace, the thieves’ ship will detach and travel to its client.”

  “Then we must make sure it won’t detach. Infiltrate the freighter. I need you onboard to be my eyes, ears, and antennae. And Jenkins, you mustn’t let anyone know you’re there.”

  “Covert infiltration. I understand, ma’am. We’re on it…”

  Zarbi was gyrating frantically in the zero-g, giving out high-pitched screams. Jenkins didn’t want to disturb the captain, but the youngling’s meaning was clear. “Ca-captain?” Jenkins ventured. “My subordinate has further information. Please standby…” Jenkins pushed the communicator over to Zarbi as if it were a primed grenade.

  “Captain?”

  “Relax, Rating Kl’ch’hk, also known as Zarbi. You’re safe up there in your orbital coffin. I can’t go full-human on you and bite off your legs.”

  Zarbi’s body segments began curling in on themselves. Then she remembered that the captain enjoyed terrorizing subordinates but was not known to eat them. “Ahh. Glad to hear it, ma’am. Our assets in the Navigation Guild are telling me the ultra-freighter is making a last-minute reregistering of its manifest. It will carry the Condottieri ship clamped to its hull.”

  “Well that’s all right then,” said the captain. “Because you’ll already be there on the freighter waiting for them. Won’t you? Won’t you?”

  A blast of cold fear swept Jenkins out of his pleasant contemplation of scenario outcomes, but terror of displeasing the captain also temporarily froze each of his many limbs. Luckily, before the human could prompt him again, he recovered enough to send Detritus-2 on a slow tumbling course toward Port Hektatus. “We’re on our way, Captain,” he said hurriedly. All the legs on his left side went limp with relief when Blue cut the comm line.

  Zarbi picked that moment to float past, upside down and with her eyestalks curved round to look at each other. Where in the Nightmare Worlds had the youngster picked up such an obscene gesture?

  “See?” said Zarbi, overtly choosing the less respectful verb form. “I told you the captain scared you.”

  Clicking his mandibles in irritation, Jenkins considered possible means for applying mild pain to the annoying junior that wouldn’t cause permanent damage.

  But as the elder, he took seriously his responsibility of teaching Zarbi.

  “Fear is information, youngling. A part of nature’s pattern. We’re both right to fear Captain Blue and…I suspect, in the task she’s set us, we’ll discover much else to fear besides.”

  * * *

  Captain Blue trembled atop the high arch.

  Beneath the burning pleasure of exhilaration was a wellspring of cold fear. Blue’s predecessor as the first field commander of the Midnight Sun – at least the part of the company that Gloriana had revealed to Blue – had disappeared suddenly. “He’d become problematic,” was all Gloriana would say on the matter.

  If Blue didn’t bring back those Raknar, Gloriana might find the human sisters had become problematic too.

  She welcomed in the deep gnawing fear that filled her bones with ice and sent crawling beasts rampaging through her guts. Fear was the most intoxicating drug of all.

  So it was with her jaw snapping in excitement that she opened wild eyes on the noisy crowd of mercenaries awaiting her leadership, and waved them to silence. It was time to announce their next adventure.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 5

  “Situation’s in hand,” Blue announced. “We brought in the Itaneno Job, and we all know that contract could easily have gone south. Tonight, we celebrate. We remember Duchenne, Pienkowski, Fls’Ssar, and McAuley who never made it back, and the brave souls who were wounded in the Condottieri attack and are on their way to the infirmary. They’ll be okay, but it would be an insult not to drink their share of the liquor.” Scarlet flames flickered down the side of her head. “All personnel of O-2 grade and above will pay rapt attention to the orders I’m about to send via the command channel. By morning, I want to know how not one, but two hostile forces infiltrated this facility.” The angry flames drained back into her skin and she grinned. “Everyone else – party till you drop, and that’s an order. Tomorrow we ship out and bring back the big boss’ Raknar. Without a scratch.”

  The cheers, whistles, and clicks from the enlisted and O-1 ranks were so loud that they could probably be detected from orbit.

  But the decibels dropped as the crowd beneath the arch parted to allow a Tortantula to approach their leader.

  “Captain, do we get paid?” asked Betty, sounding confused.

  It wasn’t easy to feel sorry for a ten-legged monster, twelve-feet long and six wide, who desired little more in life than the pleasure of breaking things – especially living things. Yet Branco almost felt sympathy for the big alien. Betty wasn’t even a pendant translation but was actually the Tortantula’s legal name after Tatterjee, in a particularly devilish mood, had persuaded his partner that to humans it was a terrifying word of power. Now everyone but Betty realized that, although it was the Tortantula who spoke those words, she was voicing Tatterjee’s question.

  Captain Blue scrambled down the outside of the arch and squared up to the ten-foot high creature, reaching up on tiptoe to drag Betty’s head down.

  “Yes, Betty,” Blue whispered in her face. “You shall be paid.”

  With one hand grasping a Tortantula fang, Blue flung the other wide to address the crowd of mercenaries. “If we return Gloriana’s Raknar toys without a dent, you’ll be paid standard acquisition contract rates plus a hefty bonus.”

  “What’s the bonus, Captain?” asked Keiko, one of Branco’s best friends from Shock Squad. She licked her lips in anticipation of a galactic credit windfall.

  “Our bonus is Gloriana’s forgiveness for allowing not just the Scorpions but the Condottieri to infiltrate our base and steal valuable property from under our noses. That, Trooper Keiko, is the most valuable bonus of all.”

  Keiko went wide-eyed and shut up, but some of the other Shock Squad troopers started grumbling, until Blades and Wuey jerked in surprise when Major Sun appeared from nowhere and put her hands on their shoulders.

  “What the captain means,” Sun growled, “is that if we get back in Gloriana’s good books, you two maggots get to live. And if we don’t…you’d better pray you die trying to retrieve her Raknar.”

  She shot Branco a quick glance laden with meaning before walking off, leaving Sergeant Albali glaring at Blades and Wuey. “Idiots,” growled the big, angry Spaniard.

  Branco didn’t listen in on Albali reaming out his squa
dmates. He knew where Sun was headed – over to the far side of the main compound and the private summer house hidden in the orchard cut through with paths and clearings.

  Branco gave it a minute and followed by a different route.

  Their special relationship wasn’t exactly against the rules, but they never discussed it with each other, let alone anyone else.

  By tomorrow, Sun Sue would be a major once more, the officer in charge of both marine companies. Not only that, but she had to be the wary counterpoint to her sister’s wildness. Sun would be so consumed with keeping everyone in her charge safe that she’d spare no thoughts for herself.

  But for the next hour or so, Sun would try to be just a simple woman, shielded from her responsibilities by the warmth of Branco’s arms

  He licked his lips at the prospect. Yet he hated it too. He wanted her, but he needed to seek refuge from her within the safe mass of Shock Squad.

  Because the instant Sun was on a mission, she’d shut down whatever feelings she had for him, sealing them away in a lead-lined vault from which not a hint would escape.

  But however hard he tried, Branco couldn’t switch his off. Not ever.

  There was a reason fraternizing was frowned upon. And that was why signing up to this company had been the most wonderfully stupid thing Saisho Branco had ever done.

  * * * * *