Honor the Threat

by Kevin Ikenberry

  Tara turned her head and spat blood onto the floor outside the ring. Saying nothing was the preferred response—one that didn’t guarantee more violence. She returned her commander’s gaze but kept her mouth shut. He smiled wider, like a shark sensing blood. He waved to the rest of the group.

  “This is the commander of the lost platoon from Death on Tracks, people! The very one who ran from combat. The official report says differently, but we know the truth. It’s why she’s the only survivor from Araf—that pitiful bunch that called themselves Force 25. It’s why the number is painted on her CASPer, like some badge of honor. They all died protecting a Peacemaker, yet she walked away unscathed. She’s a cheat and a coward.”

  A chorus of boos rang out. Beer bottles and cans flew through the air, one striking her hard on the right shoulder. She raised her hands to protect her head but did not cower away. Teeth gritted in the expectation of pain, she realized more cans and bottles missed her by wide margins than came close. The whole gods-damned company was drunk off its collective ass. Again.

  Again, Raleigh raised his fist. “What do you have to say for yourself, Mason? Before I pass judgment on your performance and sentence you to your punishment.”

  Tara bit the inside of her lip. Araf hadn’t left her unscathed, and Raleigh knew that better than anyone else. She’d had extensive therapy for six weeks so she could walk again, and even more to get back into fighting shape. But he had been right that no one wanted her. In the pits, she’d tried to sign on with half a dozen units. None of them would have her. The Golden Horde even called her a Jonah to her face. Bad luck. Paper warrior. The comments stung, but she kept trying. After all, she had a Mk 8 CASPer with more than a few modifications that someone would appreciate. After Raleigh’s recruiters told her she had a job, her joy at the chance to clear her name evaporated when she walked into their headquarters. She’d seen college fraternity houses that looked and smelled better, but it was a job. She’d kept that mindset until she nearly had her jaw broken in the first mandated fight.

  Resistance wasn’t allowed. Moreover, it would get her beaten worse. Rumors of Raleigh killing recruits in training flew at night in the junior mercenary open bays. Tara believed it was possible. While they shouldn’t have been profitable, Reilly’s Raiders thrived. There was no job they wouldn’t do for credits. They were little more than fucking pirates, but as much as it turned her stomach, it was a job. Returning to Earth in shame was something she couldn’t bring herself to do, and she still had debts to pay.

  “Anything?” Raleigh sneered.

  Tara shook her head and kept her mouth shut. The bastard started to laugh.

  “There is one rule above all others. Do you remember what it is?”

  The drunken crowd roared, almost as one. “Rules are made to be broken.”

  “That’s right! Miss Mason did just that, and I’ll let it pass for tonight. But,” he leveled a shaking finger at her, “you do that again, and I’ll kill you on the spot. Is that clear?”

  Tara nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” Raleigh sat down. “Fight Twenty-Four—two-minute warning.”

  Tara bent down to move through the ropes and saw Bakkus looking at her. The burly Greek rolled over on to his knees and kept staring. “Sorry.”

  “Whatever,” Bakkus replied and crawled out of the ring. She made her way to the rickety stairs and climbed down. Although she wanted a shower and a copious amount of painkillers, Tara made her way to her assigned seat and sat down. The mercenaries around her flinched as she sat down and reached for her metal bottle of water. She downed it in four huge swallows, blinking against the chill. Her towel was wet, drenched with beer by the smell, so she dropped it on the floor and let the sweat drip off her body.

  The next fighters made their way into the ring. While she kept her eyes on them and applauded with the rest of the crowd, she wasn’t seeing anything in front of her. Her vision filled with memories that threatened to bring tears. Hex Alison’s boyish smile. The path of destruction she and Lucille cut through the Altar colony before coming face-to-face with the commander of the Darkness. Her heartbeat accelerated a little at the memory of putting a dozen high-velocity shells through their commander’s vehicle, after what he’d done to both her units. The commendation she had from the Peacemaker Guild should have enabled her to join any of the elite mercenary units, but it was not to be. She’d have to rebuild everything, or at least gain enough credits to pay her debts, and sell her CASPer. Even if she did, there was nowhere she wanted to go and nothing she wanted to do on Earth. Her life now was out in the vast reaches of space, and if she had to keep fighting, she would.

  The fights kept going until midnight, when Raleigh stood and raised his fist for quiet. The mercenaries paid attention as best they could. Details about their next mission were scant. He’d called them back from a rare liberty, after only six hours. Thirty mercenaries didn’t make it back in time and were fired on the spot. He’d visited the brig and filled the roster with any able-bodied Humans he could find. Bail monies equated to slavery, and Raleigh openly relished the concept.

  “Listen up. Mission brief is tomorrow morning at 1000. We’re doing somebody else’s dirty work again, and that’s good because it pays really fucking well. No more fights for this jump—I want you to be able to take whatever the fuck we want on Weqq. You’ll get the full details tomorrow, but hear this, motherfuckers! I expect all of you to rage once we get there. You hear me?”

  The crowd roared. Tara kept her mouth shut; her mind was elsewhere, several months earlier.

  “You’re sure?” James Francis, “Snowman,” had asked her.

  She’d nodded and smiled. “I’m sure. I have to go out and do this on my own.”

  “You’ve got nothing to prove, Tara. You’d be a fantastic addition to the Haulers.” Snowman owned Intergalactic Haulers. The mercenary company, disguised as a galactic freight hauling business, had nearly the budget of Cartwright’s Cavaliers and continued to grow. His primary mission was helping mercenary units in trouble, rather than taking on fights for himself. Francis quietly worked the outer rim regions of the galaxy, gaining a great, if not well known, reputation. Working with him would have been an honor, but she didn’t want his favor for protecting his daughter on Araf and working with the Peacemaker Guild. Being her own person mattered the most, even when it came to rebuilding her reputation.

  “I can’t, Mister Francis. I hope you understand.”

  Snowman had smiled at her. “I do understand, and I know you’re wrong. You’re going to figure that out, and when you do, call me. My offer doesn’t have an expiration date.”

  There was another loud roar from the mercenary crowd, enough to jostle her back from her memories to see that the official portion of the evening was over. The crowd broke up into smaller groups—the CASPer pilots, the support pilots, the tankers, and the mechanics assembled and went to their smaller spaces to continue the party. Tara stayed seated, watching the company disperse, and saw that Raleigh remained behind, as well. Hands on his hips, he watched them depart then turned slowly to face her. They locked eyes, and she saw his smile widen as he watched her. He raised two fingers and pointed to his own eyes, then pointed a single finger at her. The meaning was clear.

  I’m watching you.

  He spun on his heel and left. After a few minutes, Tara felt balanced enough to stand and walk toward her quarters. Hearing the drunken revelry in the Satisfaction’s passageways, she went to the central spoke and climbed the ladder until microgravity returned near the five-pronged nexus. She maneuvered toward Cargo Bay Four, where the CASPers were, and made her way down the ladder until she reached one-third gravity, and she could slide down the ladder’s edge to the unoccupied cargo bay. Among the mismatched CASPers, what she’d known as Angel 2 on Araf stood in a separate cradle from the other mechs. On the cockpit shell, she’d painted the number 25 and added nose art.

  Watching an old movie, she’d had the idea. Combined with one of
the sneering jabs directed her way, but turned deftly into a callsign, the art of a pale, white-haired warrior exemplified the way she felt. Tara ran a hand over the pitted and scored mecha lovingly. Deathangel 25 was all she had left in the world. But it was a hell of a start. For a moment, she considered climbing inside, but she hesitated. Lucille’s control presence would be there, and while conversing with a near-artificial intelligence was of some benefit, it was still just a program.

  Company was company, though. Tara keyed the cockpit door to open and climbed inside. As the cockpit hatch closed, she initiated the internal power system, and Lucille chimed to life.

  <>

  * * * * *

  Chapter Four

  Luna

  James Francis rubbed the beard on his chin, stared at the half-finished drink on the bar, and then slowly looked back at the message on his wrist slate. Twenty years of hauling, often disguised as mercenary work, and he’d never considered a contract for more than a few minutes. The unanswered message icon on his slate continued to flash on and off like a siren. For the last hour, he’d stared alternately at the message and the Tri-V screens of a watering hole that barely passed for a bar. Some godawful Jeha sporting event he couldn’t understand, much less follow, played along with some twinkling, techno music he recognized with disdain from his time in Japan. Some Waylon Jennings or Johnny Cash would have been nice, but their comfort wouldn’t help his brain, or his stomach, reconcile the offer in his inbox.

  A contract was a contract, and a good contract was something he couldn’t pass up. Had he not learned in idle bar conversation that Reilly’s Raiders jumped toward Jessica’s corner of the galaxy, it would have been a no-brainer. Worrying about the worst company on Earth crossing paths with his daughter was silly. Jessica was still in her first year of assignment, and protocol meant she’d work more than her share of crappy jobs at the Peacemaker barracks before being assigned to critical missions. On the other hand, the Mercenary Guild hadn’t called on him for a “critical mission” in more than two years. According to his contract, he had to accept the mission immediately, but he’d completed his term of service with the guild and could refuse it. Refusal meant severing ties with them permanently. As much as he wanted to slow down and retire, he couldn’t. Human mercenary companies had gone into the void since the Alpha Contracts and had had their asses handed to them. Somebody needed to be there for them. He could save Human lives, and the Mercenary Guild would pay for the retrieval of casualties and whatever scrapped equipment he could salvage. The money was good, but the mission was too far away should Jessica need help.

  The urge to help her, to come sweeping in and save the day as any good father would do, overpowered everything. For twenty-five years, he’d stayed out of her life purposefully, wagering everything he’d built on her ability to remember her favorite ceramic toy and follow a trail of breadcrumbs. Leaving as he had, in the middle of the night, with his wife in tears, hadn’t been part of the plan, but when it fell through there was nothing else he could do. Katherine, his Katie, had played her role to the hilt for the rest of her life, until cancer took her. She kept Jessica safe and ignorant of the truth all the way to her grave, leaving instructions for Jessica’s ex-husband to hold Elly until the time was right. To her credit, Jessica realized this and found a way to recover the statuette. She’d done what she had to without knowing why until his cyber-techs reported a signal from the Dusman chipset he’d stamped with his callsign. From there, it was easy. He’d ridden in with his forces and found Jessica on the verge of dying.

  He’d shivered at the controls of Bandit One, his personal skiff, watching the Selroth patrol surface in the Choote River on Araf, their tridents and laser rifles focused on a lone, red-haired, Human girl. Jessica. He’d grabbed the controls tight enough to block the blood from his fingertips as he watched her drop them in short order. As information rolled in from his collection teams, he learned she was the Human Peacemaker candidate he’d heard rumors about on Luna. He discovered she and a force of a few Humans had held out against two very capable mercenary companies.

  She can hold her own.

  But I’m not going to be there for her.

  You weren’t there for twenty-five years. She can hold her own. Now, stop being squeamish, old man. He told himself as he reached for his drink. The cheap bourbon burned his throat and brought tears to his eyes, but it snapped a bit of clarity into his consciousness. He’d earned his callsign, as a wet-behind-the-ears fighter pilot on Earth, for being ice cold under pressure. Being an engaged father, for the first time in his life, had left him a nervous wreck. He sighed and closed his eyes for a long moment. Okay, then. Get your ass in gear, Snowman.

  From his quiet corner booth, he could see all the way across the nearly empty bar. The pilots would be in soon, but he’d be long gone. With a few taps of the slate, he instructed his crew to request emergency jump clearance for the Thletca-4 system in the Jesc region. He’d be across the galaxy from Jessica, but Alden’s Anzacs needed emergency retrieval. Max Alden had been his best friend for most of his adult life. Word was he’d kicked a hornet’s nest at Shaw Outpost and was pinned down by a nest of Tortantulas who wanted blood. He could hold out a week, maybe less.

  Dammit.

  Jessica will understand.

  He keyed a message to Max saying help was on the way before writing a priority message to Jessica. Choosing his words carefully to protect the confidentiality of the movement of mercenary units, he typed the message and directed it to a GalNet newsfeed service Lucille monitored passively—the idea being that changes could be found, re-directed, and reported faster than they could if she received an emergency message through traditional methods. They’d used this method for six months with no problems, and it was a sure way to get a warning to Jessica.

  Bulldog.

  Gotta mission, and it’s about as far away from you as it can get. Max needs some help, and the guild wants me to go after him. Kinda one ya can’t refuse, huh? I know you’ve been down about sitting the desk and doing small jobs, but keep your head up and ready, will ya? Watch out for your fellow Humans out there, too. Send me a message when you can.

  Love you,

  Dad.

  With a swirl of the remaining ice in his glass, Snowman drained its contents and winced. He paid eight credits and walked into the main passageway. Angling toward the flight hangars where Bandit One berthed, he caught sight of a familiar Sidar ambling his way. Snowman felt a smile come to his face as they closed the distance.

  “Commander Francis.” The Sidar smiled and raised one clawed hand, palm down, in the Sidar manner of shaking hands. He reached out and took the hand.

  “Selector Hak-Chet. I didn’t expect to see you here at Jupiter. What brings you to the Human side of the galaxy?”

  The Sidar leaned forward. “We jump for home soon. One’s job is never done.”

  They continued to clasp hands. “Something I understand all too well.”

  Hak-Chet chuckled, a rasping sound that seemed almost painful. “Priority missions can do that, Commander.”

  Snowman nodded and kept his face straight. The Peacemaker Guild knew much more than people thought they did. “Even those that take us far away from the ones we love.”

  “You’re wise to worry, Snowman, if I may call you that?” The Sidar’s eyes twinkled. “There are far too many in the galaxy who seem to loathe the Human presence these days. You and your friend would be wise to remember that.”

  Snowman took a breath and held it. The stories from the rim were as awful as they were during the Alpha Contracts. Human companies were failing missions at an alarming rate. His teams in the Yolo arm had rescued four companies from failed contracts in the last four months. Two of those companies were mixes of aliens and Humans that fractured and dissolved from within under fire. “I will, Selector.”

  “Safe travels,” the Sidar said as he rotated his forearm. The Sidar’s hand was on top now
, signaling the conversation was over. Something cool dropped into Snowman’s palm.

  “Thank you, Selector.” They unclasped hands and parted, Snowman not wanting to look back over his shoulder. Making his way through the throng of travelers, Snowman realized what he held in his clenched fist, about the same time he noticed how many beings filled the normally busy, but not packed, terminal. Lines of passengers overwhelmed outbound freighters. In the crowd of ticket waving passengers, there weren’t very many Humans.

  From the passenger terminal, he made his way to the base operations section. A secure airlock controlled the outer section. Snowman stepped inside and waited for it to cycle and match pressures with the private hangar section. Alone, he opened his fist and looked down at the Dusman chipset—the very same one he’d left for Jessica to find. She’d had it tested by every piece of equipment in the Peacemaker’s research and development section and had managed to have the Besquith do the same. There was no explanation for why it powered up a portion of a fallen Raknar’s control architecture, other than it had an almost primitive transmitter and receiver function. All they could tell her was it was a small portion of a larger emergency system. That was the truth.

  He slipped the chipset into his pocket as the airlock chimed a ten-second warning. He’d secure the chipset in his personal safe, where no one could accidentally power it up again. It was a good thing the Caroon mediator who’d tried to kill Jessica disabled the console as it switched on. Each Raknar had a system very much like a classic, electronic, locator transmitter fitted to an aircraft. A beacon. Taking the damned thing in the first place had been a risk, and there was no guarantee it would work on the Aethernet and GalNet devices of the present-day Union. All he’d needed was a signal to come running. The trouble with beacons was that anyone could be listening and, depending on how far the signal could travel, too many parties might be interested. After all, working Raknars were few and far between. Humans who knew more about the fallen warriors than most people were even rarer.