The Midnight Sun (The Omega War Book 2)

by Tim C. Taylor

  There were far prettier names for what humanity would face than slavery. More face-saving arrangements than outright and direct ownership – which was theoretically illegal in any case – but the reality was that, to be free, Earth must have its mercs.

  He and Lorenzo had been slaves to alien owners, and they’d risk everything to ensure their fate wasn’t shared by the rest of humanity. Compared to that, the risk of nuclear death for his entire company was a trifling matter.

  Dove disabled the arm actuators in his CASPer, wriggled his human arms free of their haptic sleeves, and grabbed the cigar tube taped to the inside of the cockpit.

  To the devil with fire safety! Important moments in one’s life must be marked appropriately.

  “Where’s that cursed Zuparti?” he hissed as he snipped the end from his Robusta.

  Perhaps Venix was inside one of the tugs. If Dove were in that position, he’d stay inside.

  Here it comes…As he puffed the cigar alight, the hatch opened to the flight compartment of one tug.

  The Dove hurriedly reinserted one arm into its actuator sleeve.

  But it was a human who emerged. He was a tall bear of a man, though much shrunken by the trials he’d endured in the swamp.

  The man turned to each shore in turn while waving a once-white piece of cloth in surrender. Then he dropped the white flag and clambered up to stand atop the tug’s flight compartment. “We surrender!” he shouted.

  From the description of the prisoners he’d interrogated, this appeared to be First Sergeant Albali.

  “Stay here,” Dove ordered his CASPers before setting off alone for the shore.

  “Sir!” complained DiAngelo.

  “No,” Dove cut off his subordinate. “This must be done with panache. Our way.”

  Dove strode the several hundred yards to the shore to meet Albali, heedless of the eyes upon him from both mercenary companies but noting there were no CASPers to be seen in the entire Midnighter force. As Dove neared the shore, he called to Albali through his loudspeakers. “Have you forgotten something, First Sergeant?”

  Albali looked puzzled for a moment before replying. “Our mecha?”

  “Indeed, Sergeant. We of clearly lesser mercenary companies regard our CASPers as essential equipment. Clearly you don’t.”

  The big man – a Spaniard, apparently – gave an expressive shrug. “We were never going to survive a pitched battle with you. We dumped our suits in the river ten miles upstream.”

  “In a condition to salvage?”

  “Yes. Though you’ll struggle to find them unless we show you.”

  “Where’s Commander Venix?”

  The first sergeant went pale. “About ten miles upstream. There was an…unfortunate disagreement. The commander is dead.”

  Madonna! Albali looked as if he were eating cold ash. Had this man murdered his commander? The first sergeant raised one hand high while the other reached very slowly inside his battle dress jacket from which he drew out…Venix’s stick.

  Dove raised an arm to blow the Spaniard full of holes.

  “It’s been disabled,” Albali claimed, and he threw it into the river. Nothing exploded.

  Maybe there were more triggers inside. Maybe Venix was still alive and waiting to make his next play. Maybe…maybe.

  And maybe I need to take a chance, the Dove told himself. What would Margherita think to see you so cowed?

  “This is how it works,” Dove announced, amplifying so all could hear. “First, you’ll order the three gentlemen and the lady with the laser rifles to place them on the ground and walk away into the trees.”

  “Do it!” shouted Albali.

  Dove linked into the view from Corporal Etienne and watched as the Midnighters from the advanced party complied.

  “Very good,” said Dove. “Now you’ll ferry all Midnighters to the shore. Four people at a time, to be processed by my personnel. Be aware that you’re surrounded, and heavy weapons are trained upon you. I could kill you all with a single word. Please behave in a civilized and dignified manner, and don’t give me cause to slaughter you.”

  “You heard the Italian,” Albali cried to his Midnighters. “We need to act dignified. Guess there’s a first time for everything.”

  The Midnighters laughed. It was a cagey and ragged sound but better than the resistance and slaughter the Dove had feared. Better still, Albali complied with his instructions and was soon floating across with three others.

  Even before he reached the shore, Condottieri CASPers had jetted over to seize the lifter tugs and were in the process of detaching them from their rafts so they could be flown onto the mudflats.

  As he walked over to the flats to await his prizes, Dove linked in Corporal Etienne and Marksman Chantilly. “Commiserations, gentlemen. It appears our Zuparti friend is neither hat nor display item to be mounted on my wall, but food for the fishes and bedding for the giant water voles. In compensation, I award you each a case of the finest champagne upon our safe return home.”

  He basked in their thanks and sucked on his Robusta.

  “Now that,” he announced to the inside of his cockpit, “is how to win a campaign in style.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 109

  The ring of human prisoners knelt before the Condottieri CASPers on the barren shore, a long and featureless stretch of sand and mud patrolled by squads of wading bat-birds searching for worms and other sustenance beneath the surface. Only thirteen Midnighters had survived to huddle in defeat with their arms tied behind them. Their skin was stretched like old paper over their prominent bones. No doubt there would be those on Earth who idolized glorious failures and would regard these people as some kind of heroes, never mind the reality of boils, sores, and eyes that wept sulfurous pus.

  The Dove held no such illusions. It was clear to him that the galaxy was divided into two kinds of people: winners and losers. True, you had one chance at life. Only an oaf would do other than try to live that life with style and panache, and these sorry Midnighters had lost in style. Nonetheless, however prettily you dressed up their defeat in fine tailoring, this pathetic huddle of brave men and women were losers.

  The only question that mattered to Dove now was whether he’d also join the ranks of losers in the estimation of General Peepo.

  He tugged at his beard and looked out to sea. Was the third Raknar out there?

  The General had ordered Dove to retrieve all three. Anything less would be a failure, yet some of the prisoners captured at the bluffs had been convinced reinforcements were on the way. Could these be fighters from the race he didn’t know, but just the rumor of them was getting Veetanho underwear twisted in a way he’d never heard of before? If he were still in command, he’d have to consider cutting and running with just the two ancient mecha and taking the consequences.

  But the Veetanho were in full command now. He was just a hired ape with a cigar. Out of his hands.

  “Execute them,” said Boroi, surprising Dove by appearing at his side. “The prisoners. They’re an encumbrance. Eliminate them.”

  Murdering, stronza, pig cow of an alien mole rat. “No!”

  “Obey me.”

  “What I meant, Commissar, is that these prisoners are an asset. Bait with which we can lure in the ship and the third Raknar that our dear leader, Commodore Noikaa, has tasked us with retrieving.”

  “Overruled,” said Boroi. “The Raknar are of dwindling interest to us. And if we were to lure in the ship, we need the other sister, not these scum who are of no value to us now. Kill them! Now!” The Veetanho drew a handheld weapon on Dove. “Or I kill you.”

  The Dove looked from the Midnighters kneeling in the dirt nearby to Boroi’s gun, which looked somewhat like a laser pistol, but the barrel was too wide and flared at the end like a blunderbuss.

  Murdering prisoners didn’t sit well on his stomach. On the other hand, the entire reason he was here on this planet – other than the money, of course – was to prove to Peepo’s Veet
anho faction that humans were worth more as allies than slaves.

  “Attention to orders,” came the translation of an alien voice over the command channel. It was Commodore Noikaa. “I clarify your mission objectives. Pay heed, both of you. Our priority is to deny the enemy access to the Raknar as potential machines of war. However, to seize them for ourselves remains an important secondary objective, and one the general expects of you. We’ll extract these two Raknar to orbit immediately. I give you until sundown tomorrow to retrieve the third. If you fail, we’ll evacuate the planet and you’ll both need to prepare your excuses for the general.”

  “Thank you, Commodore,” said Dove, “and I insist that we retain these prisoners for now to lure the sister, Major Sun.”

  “You insist on nothing,” said Boroi. “However, for now our fates are linked. You may use the prisoners as you see fit. But before we leave this world, those here and your other prisoners held at Seven Hills will be terminated.”

  “Of course, Commissar. I shall execute them myself.”

  “Lorenzo, did you hear that?” the Dove asked on a private channel when Boroi left.

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “Do you think some of our new Midnighter prisoners might regrettably die under interrogation? Before I can execute them?”

  DiAngelo took a long while to think over his words. “Are you suggesting we should smuggle them out? I suppose they could wear the uniforms and identities of our deceased personnel.”

  “I’m not suggesting anything, Lorenzo. I don’t want to know the details, but I do note in passing that we humans all look and smell the same to the Veetanho. Be creative. Be discrete.”

  “Be lucky. Do you always have to take such big risks, Nicolo?”

  “I flatter myself that this is the core of my charm. Will you do it, Lorenzo?”

  “Do what, Colonel?”

  The Dove laughed. “Thank you, Lorenzo. I can always rely on you.”

  As he walked over to the tugs that were about to reveal their precious contents, his comm chimed with a call from Seven Hills. “Go ahead, Fiorentino.”

  “Colonel, the ocean sensor chain has sighted Midnight Sun. Very high confidence. It’s four miles to the west of your position and headed directly for you at about 23 knots. A and B Batteries are tracking and ready to fire once she nears the surface.”

  Everything was finally falling into place. “All we need now is to bring in Captain Blue,” he said to the sergeant in charge of opening up the tugs, “and we can end this campaign in glory. She’s not far away now.”

  “She’s closer than you think,” said Captain Blue herself in his headset. His HUD linked the signal carrying her voice to a simple general-purpose drone headed his way from the sea. It wasn’t a combat-specific model, so he allowed it to come ashore. It halted two hundred yards away.

  “Let’s trade,” said Blue. “You want the third Raknar, and I want my people to get back home alive. I can offer the Condottieri a protection contract to get me and my people home in exchange for the Midnight Sun battlecruiser and the third Raknar. And a handsome pile of credits.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Why? I imagine your contract with the Veetanho is to recover the Raknar, not to kill me or my people.”

  “It could be done. Perhaps. But you yourself would need to be brought before General Peepo. So would your sister.”

  “No deal. I’ll go alone. Peepo’s summons was for the mercenary leaders of Earth. The Midnight Sun Free Company is not Earth-based, but I accept I’m human. On that basis, I’ll personally obey the general’s summons. But my sister is only an employee. She goes home alive.”

  “What you ask isn’t easy. My own freedom in this matter is less than you may think. However, we have official guild representatives in system, and there may be some merit to what you propose. Let’s not negotiate by shouting at each other across a beach like ruffians. Let’s discuss this in person over coffee, cigars, and fine brandy.”

  “The tug is ready, Colonel,” DiAngelo said on another channel.

  “Excuse me, Captain Blue. I must first inspect the goods that First Sergeant Albali has delivered into my hands.”

  “Yes, yes,” she gasped. “You do that.”

  He hesitated. Her voice…it thrilled with excitement. His mind pictured her, eyes wild with arousal. The skin pulled taut over that strange, yet beautiful hairless head as her mouth widened into the kind of smile completely foreign to people with a conventional relationship with sanity.

  He tapped his jets to jump onto the top of one of the flight cabins.

  This Blue woman…he shouldn’t let her get to him. She was a supplicant in this exchange. A beaten foe suing for favorable terms. So why did she sound as if she were experiencing the throes of passion? She was a madwoman. It was the only explanation.

  He gestured to the curved canopy of his tug and watched it slide back to reveal its precious cargo.

  “Blue!” he bellowed when the bay was open. “Daughter of a whore! What have you done!”

  Inside the tug was nothing but dirt and air.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 110

  “Get ready,” Albali warned the other prisoners as the Condottieri colonel screamed Italian curses at the two lifter tugs.

  “If I’d known the dirty things you want us to do, I wouldn’t have volunteered to stay with the rafts,” wailed Lily McNeil, pitifully, but quietly enough not to arouse the Condottieri nearby.

  Albali knew wisecracking when he heard it. “What’s the matter, Lily?” he asked. “Never kissed an alien before?”

  “I’ve done far more than kiss ’em,” she replied, “but only after we’ve been properly introduced.”

  “You hear that?” Top whispered loudly enough for all the prisoners to hear. “Lily knows the territory. Follow her lead.”

  The circle of prisoners laughed, which was good, because the next few minutes would be far from a laughing matter.

  “To the Devil with you all!” roared the Dove from the top of one of the flight compartments. “You think these emptied tugs are a game?” He jumped down to the ground, his half ton of CASPer splashing muddy spray and sinking down to his ankles.

  But he was wrong. The tugs weren’t empty.

  The prisoners all heard the tearing noise as the hidden compartments were pushed open from within, and the beings inside sprang out – jumping, twisting, dancing out of the tugs and onto the unsuspecting Condottieri CASPers.

  Humans tended to compare aliens to the Earth species they most resembled, but these Rietzkens, as the boss called them, had no match. They were vaguely like human-sized squid or octopus, but their seven muscular limbs – perhaps “tentacles” was the correct word – seemed to glue themselves to any surface or repel from them as they desired. Unlike the sea creatures to which they bore a passing resemblance, they were as fluid out of water as in, and they wheeled through their dance of death, flailing their many limbs to crawl over CASPers, placing bomblets on the backs of the Condottieri before dancing away.

  Man, they were so fast!

  And graceful. Like seven-legged powerlifters performing professional ballet with bombs, guns, and knives with which they gouged out cameras, sensor plates, and the weak points of segmented joint armor.

  And the guns? These Rietzkens were packing hand cannons that weren’t enough to take out a CASPer in a single shot, but the aliens could fire at multiple targets simultaneously and with unwavering accuracy.

  Holy Madonna! These creatures were devils!

  But humans were no slouches at war either. Condottieri troopers hacked wildly with sword blades at Rietzkens, slicing them from the backs of their comrades.

  Machine gun fire sprayed everywhere, hitting friend and foe alike. But while the CASPer armor was proof against a few friendly fire bullets, the Rietzkens were not.

  A bony crest ran over the top of their heads and along the back of their bulbous bodies. Overlapping bony segments covered the tentacles. Albali didn’t
fancy punching the armored creatures in a fist fight, but their bone plates offered limited protection against bullets, and sword arms swung with the enormous force of a CASPer.

  Leaving a trail of smoking CASPers and their own dead in their wake, the Rietzkens danced across the shore to the Midnighter prisoners.

  “Arms out!” Albali shouted.

  Of the forty aliens who’d hidden inside the concealed compartments in the tugs, Albali estimated ten were dead, ten keeping the Condottieri busy, and twenty were bounding over the fifty yards that separated them from the prisoners.

  They covered the distance in a blink of an eye.

  He realized a Rietzken was coming for him. It sailed through the air, high over the heads of kneeling prisoners, with its tentacles whirling and its open beak an impossibly bright blood-red.

  With his heart pounding fit to burst, and with freshly soiled underwear, Albali managed to keep still with his bound hands thrust behind him.

  The alien landed behind him with a thump, and Albali noticed his wrists were free. Had the creature used a knife or snapped with its beak? Albali had felt nothing. Before he could see what the creature had done, he was swept up in the Rietzken’s thunderous momentum as it seized him in two tentacles that wrapped around him, securing him to its body.

  The next few seconds were a terrifying blur. The alien twitched and ducked like a footballer squirming for the end zone.