Monkey's Luck

by Bonnie Milani

  MONKEY’S LUCK

  Bonnie Milani

  Monkey’s Luck

  Copyright © 2017 Bonnie Milani

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any

  manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of

  brief quotations in a book review.

  For information, contact Bonnie Milani at:

  https://homeworldthenovel.wordpress.com/

  Cover art © 2017 by Mirna Gilman

  Published in the United States of America

  Chapter 1

  Black. I was floating somewhere, adrift in rasping darkness.

  Red. In the upper right corner of the dark a dim light flashed red. I blinked lazy eyes at it,

  vaguely noting that the red winked in time to the rasp. I opted to ignore it. I didn’t know where I

  was and I didn’t care. I was content to just drift, at peace with infinity. If only that damned

  rasping wink would go away.

  Red rasped again, brighter and louder. This time some groggy part of my mind recognized the

  rasp as the sound of my breather. Slowly, I followed the red rasp of my breath back up to

  consciousness, still puzzling the light. Red meant some kind of warning…

  Air supply! I came awake in a rush of terror as memory of the Lupans’ attack flooded back. I

  saw the hull vanish again, sucking armored bodies out into the vast nothingness beyond. Oh,

  gobbing hell, where was I?

  The idea that I was one of those bodies kicked terror into jump drive. Marine I might be, but I

  heard myself whimper. A flush to vacuum is every soldier’s nightmare. We weren’t close enough

  to any star system to worry about sunstroke. This far out, you could only hope your suit’s heater

  gave out before the seals or air. That way at least you just froze. Otherwise, it was a choice

  between slow suffocation and having your blood boil in your veins. My vote was none of the

  above. A walk in vacuum was not the way this woman wanted to die. I tested an arm. Thank the

  local gods, I could still move. Carefully, I tried probing my surroundings. Bad idea. Slight as it

  was, my movement shifted whatever it was that anchored me. I started to drift. I did a one-eighty

  before my hand locked on to a new anchor. I blinked up and my tongue went dry. I was looking

  out through the blast hole. Straight into star field.

  A new set of lights popped red and blue along my peripheral vision. My heart was pounding

  hard enough to worry my armor’s bio-pat monitors. Every sensation seemed intensified. The red

  warning blip in the upper right of my helmet display looked brighter, the rasp of my breather

  sounded louder. My helmet smelled of fear. Only saving grace was that the star field gave me a

  bit of light. Using my free hand I traced the dim outline of my anchor to see what held me.

  The sad answer stared up at me through the jagged edges of a helmet’s face mask. That

  wasn’t a sight to dwell on. I followed the starlit outline of his armored body across the blast hole.

  Lucky for me he’d hit the hole ahead of me. Big guy, whoever he’d been, big enough for his

  body to stretch lengthwise across the opening. I told myself not to check his armor’s name tag.

  Old soldier’s trick: you can skip the pain, as long as you don’t know the corpse.

  But why? It was all so godsbedamned stupid! Gods-be-damned, gobbing war was supposed to

  be over! Or nearly so – all we’d heard these past few months was that the peace talks scheduled

  for Bogue Dast Station were going to end hostilities once and for all. So the Lupans had no call

  to attack us. Hells, we were in the demilitarized zone, still in our side of their damned Dominion

  border. And our transport was just an old sow of a freighter. Okay, so it was an old sow of a

  freighter transporting a battalion of marines. It was still a civilian freighter! The Dogs never

  attacked civ ships. And as far as the Dogs should know this old sow was just hauling ore.

  Unless somebody up top had sold us out. Gods knew it wouldn’t be the first time.

  I slammed my hand down in helpless rage. Wrong move. The blow sent my anchor sliding

  sideways. I shoved clear of the corpse an instant before it drifted out of the blast hole. Clinging

  to a hand hold on the wall I held my breath till my heart slowed down and my head cleared. I

  needed to find a way out of the troop hold. Otherwise my name’d be on the dead scrolls right

  beside my lost comrades. Because it finally registered on me what that rasping red light above

  my eye meant. Leakage warning. My armor was leaking air.

  I handed myself from hold to hold along the wall above the blast hole. A head twitch

  activated my suit’s night sights, played green light across what had been our staging platform.

  Nothing left now except the inevitable “Remember Marg Sang!” graffiti and free-floating junk,

  most of which had been human not so long ago. I switched directions, played light across the

  inner walls till I spotted the airlock. My heart lurched in relief. By some miracle the lock was

  still sealed. The control panel beside it still showed active. All I had to do was cycle through. If

  that reading was right there’d be free air on the other side.

  On second thought…maybe not so free. If three years of combat and five of dodging death

  warrants had taught me anything, it was how to survive. And right now my survival instincts

  were not happy.

  I thought back, trying to work out how long I’d been out. Our armor recycled air, but the leak

  I’d sprung threw estimates off. Could’ve been a sixty-minim cycle, could’ve been a day. I wasn’t

  betting on that second option. Odds were on the sixty minims. In which case, there might still be

  Lupan raiders on the other side of that lock. Well, hells…maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Always

  heard Lupan men treated their women better than human-only men. And none of the Sisters I’d

  met believed that the Lupans were responsible for the horror at Marg Sang. I snorted at myself.

  Yeah, right. Like it mattered. Any warrior seeing an armored Marine charging down on him

  would shoot first and check sex later. At that point ‘sorry’ wouldn’t cut it.

  A warning buzz broke my stream of thoughts. In the corner of my headset display the red

  blink solidified to a steady burn. No chance of trying to just wait any raiders out. Boarders be

  damned. I was not going to sit here beside a gods-be-damned airlock and just wait to die. Not

  when I finally had the chance to put all those death warrants behind me. Once that treaty was

  signed, I was taking my discharge pay and settling down on one of the Free Worlds. The

  Freebers didn’t care what you’d done inside the Commonwealth borders. I could start over again

  there. I’d adopt myself some babies – wars always leave more orphans than parents – start a

  family. Those plans would not happen if I stayed here any longer.

  I ran lights across the ex-human flotsam till I spotted a corpse still clutching its laser rifle. I

  cast off from the wall, snagged the rifle by its strap as I soared past. Lucky for me the corpse let

  the gun go without an argument. I slung the gun over my shoulder while I bounced from corpse

  to corpse till I reached
the hand holds on the opposite wall. I powered up the rifle, then handed

  myself along the wall back to the air lock and cycled through.

  I sucked in a good part of my dwindling air as I pushed the open patch. If the Lupans had

  guards posted on the other side, then I was walking into suicide. I stepped out of the lock in a

  whoosh of cold vacuum and hot nerves.

  The corridor was empty.

  My stomach squirmed as Earth-level gravity kicked in. That I hadn’t expected. I’d figured any

  Lupan boarders would’ve left life support up for their own convenience; leaving grav systems on

  was an unexpected treat. I checked environs readings just in case they’d poisoned the air. All

  good: when my suit air ran out, I’d be able to breathe. Assuming I was still alive to need it.

  Sidling away from the lock, I took a moment to mentally re-trace the ship’s layout. It was pretty

  much freighter standard: the massive cargo hold where they’d stashed us grunts was connected to

  a short cylindrical neck. The neck tied into the middle of the great bulb of the crew habitat. The

  bridge would be way up on the topmost deck in the sphere. If I could reach the bridge I could put

  out a Mayday – assuming the Lupans hadn’t blown ship’s comm. Not likely anybody’d hear me

  this far out in the DMZ, but I had to try. It was the only hope I had.

  Rifle at the ready, I clumped down the corridor as quietly as armored boots allowed. That was

  about as quiet as incoming artillery. Any Lupan within three decks of me would hear me coming.

  Nothing I could do about it, though, except look on the bright side. At least the noise would

  shorten my search. If the boarders were still here I’d have company pretty damned quick. Only

  thing that bothered me was that I wouldn’t be able to hear them coming over my own damned

  racket. I set suit audio on max and prayed any boarders left were too busy to pay attention.

  Nobody showed. I thudded clear up to the officers’ habitat level before I heard any other

  sound at all. It was a low, sobbing moan. I tracked it to the officer’s john just outside the sealed

  doors of the brass’s lift. The moan carried none of the growly undertone of a Lupan voice. The

  poor sot behind it was probably one of ours, then. The door to the john was open, so whoever

  was in there either figured he was alone, or wasn’t in condition to care. Just in case, I shuffled

  wide of the door to get a better firing angle before I stepped into the doorway’s line of sight.

  Needn’t have bothered. Some girlie in medic whites and a rainbow scarf stood staring into the

  mirror. I swallowed a flash of jealousy. She looked maybe twenty, twenty-two at most – a good

  ten years younger than me. SpriteType, too, no question about it.

  Now that was a whole new kind of mystery. What in all the hells was a Sprite doing in medic

  uniform? Of all the Types humanity had engineered itself into, SpriteType was the only one

  designed exclusively for pleasure. Sprites were hard-coded charming. Also beautiful, graceful,

  and about a dozen other happy things bad-luck sots like me couldn’t afford to dream about. Even

  in profile the little bitch was prettier than I’d ever been. Prettier than I was now, too, despite the

  physical changes my illegal Type coding had wrought on my body.

  Then she pulled the scarf off her neck to dab her eyes and I saw ‘her’ Adam’s apple bob.

  Woman my ass – that Sprite was a man.

  And the little bastard was still prettier’n me.

  “Anybody else still alive?” Jealousy turned my tone sour. I took satisfaction in making the

  little idiot yelp.

  He jumped back to face me. My jealousy vanished. He had been a dainty little thing: silken

  black hair, bronze skin setting off lilting dark eyes. That was before some Lupan warrior

  slammed a taloned backhand across his face, slashing open cheeks and nose. Blood had drained

  into long red channels down his chest. Dark red stains were slowly soaking through the stark

  white of his dress.

  “Help me!” His eyes sought the name tag on my armor. “Sergeant…” he found the name and

  gave up.

  “Don’t worry about it. Where’s the rest of the crew?”

  “I’m Roy. Roy Bunyasam.” Despite the pain he held out a hand – palm down, fingers dainty –

  and tried to simper. “Who’re you?”

  Maybe he was still in shock. Or maybe he was just being a Sprite. Either way, I ignored his

  hand. “Don’t matter who I am. Who else is still alive?”

  “I don’t know.” Again the pointed glance at my name tag. “Help me? Please, Sergeant…?”

  Leave it to a Sprite to worry about social niceties now. “Vahrheitsyaeger.” I said the Aryan

  name I’d bought slow and careful. Even after five years, the damned thing could still trip me up.

  “Katrina Vahrheitsyaeger.”

  “Katrina?” He dropped the hand. “Oh. You’re a woman.”

  Damned little bastard just had to sound surprised. Okay, so armor don’t come in feminine

  styles. And it’s hard to see details through a faceplate. The mitigating circumstances didn’t help.

  He still made me feel like a double strike-out. “Just call me Kat,” I growled. “Now answer the

  gobbin’ question, will you? Any of those Dogs still on board?”

  “I don’t know.” He fluttered fingers at his face. “I can’t see very well right now.” His tone

  turned pleading. “Can’t you help me? Please?”

  “No!” I realized I’d snapped it aloud when the Sprite blanched. Tears welled up in his huge

  brown eyes.

  Oh, hells. I felt like I’d stomped on a kitten. Swearing, I shoved past him into the john. The

  core part of me that was still me wanted to patch the choom up. The instincts embedded in the

  Aryan gene pack I’d bought wanted to get that kid between me and the corridor in case any

  Lupans wandered past. I compromised by shouldering the rifle and rifling the medicine cabinet.

  I found a bulb of synskin. It wasn’t the heavy duty kind his wounds needed but it’d hold his

  face together until he got to a real medic. “Hold this.” I unhooked a suit glove, ran my bare hand

  under the sink sudser. Squeezing synskin into my palm, I lifted the boy’s chin with my still-

  armored hand and started smoothing the goo into his wounds. “So answer the question. Who else

  is still alive?”

  “Ow!” He tried to jerk away from the sting as the bioadaptable goop melded itself to his skin.

  My armored grip held him steady. “That’s going to bruise! ”

  “Too bad. Now hold still and tell me: anybody else in the crew still alive up here?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Figures.” Lupans might have a good rep for taking care of their womenfolk, but they weren’t

  big on leaving survivors on the battlefield. I finished gooping him up and rinsed my hand.

  “Except him, of course.”

  I’d been rehooking my glove. That ‘him’ nearly made me drop it. “’Him’ who?”

  “The Lupan.”

  “What Lupan?”

  “The one who did…” He fluttered fingers and his face puckered. The movement hurt more

  than just his scars. “And he was so handsome, too…” He glanced back in the mirror and the

  words trailed off into tears.

  Oh, gobbing hells. I grabbed the boy and shook. “Where’s the Dog now? ”

  “On the bridge, I think. He was heading for the doors. After…After he did this…”

  “So he
’s still in there?” Only answer I got was a shrug and a sniff. Damn, we were in deep

  shit if that Dog had got control of the bridge. I checked sights on the rifle, glanced at the Sprite

  over it. “Was that Dog injured?”

  “I don’t –” he must have caught my glare even through the face mask. “I don’t think so.”

  Yeah, then he’d probably stayed behind to blow the ship. Why he’d want to I couldn’t

  imagine. Trouble was, I couldn’t imagine any other reason for him to stay aboard. Shit. “How

  long’s he been in there?”

  Roy just looked vague.

  Too long, for my good mood, then. “Stay here,” I told him, and shuffled out of the john.

  The bridge was a couple of decks up from the officers’ habitat level. The lift was still working

  so I unlocked my armor’s boots on the ride up. Hated doing it but Lupan hearing is a thing of

  legend. Only hope I had of sneaking up on the sonuvabitch was to keep my approach quiet;

  stomping up in armored boots sure as hell wasn’t going to do the trick. The boots were too bulky

  to carry so I left them beside the lift doors where I could pick them up later. If I lived.

  I tiptoed down the bridge corridor. The metal edges of my armor bit into my ankles; the deck

  plate froze my toes with every step. I hesitated outside the bridge doors just long enough to do a

  mental re-trace of the bridge lay-out. This old tub followed standard lay-out, so the bulbous

  podium that housed ShipMind would be center stage. And if he wanted to blow the ship, then

  that’s where the Lupan would be.

  Assuming the Lupan really did want to blow the ship, then odds were ShipMind was the

  reason we were still here. The semi-sentient machines that were the brains of every ship in the

  Commonwealth understood things like death. They weren’t any fonder of the concept than the

  rest of us, either. StelFleet handled the problem by installing an auto-destruct override in its

  warships. But civilian ships didn’t come equipped with suicide commands. Anybody trying to

  convince a civ ship to blow itself up was going to have an argument on his hands.

  With luck, then, that warrior would have both hands full. I sure as hells hoped so. The Lupan

  branch of humanity was genetically designed for combat. Those ancient NorthAm gene techs had

  spliced characteristics from wolves and eagles and gods knew what other predators into the