The comm in my ear beeps. Not the urgent tone so I ignore it.
“Carter, what’s the good of all this if we never get to see you? To have you in our lives?”
“Mel, we’ve been through this—”
My sentence is cut off at the sight of a brilliant explosion and subsequent boom erupting in the distance. I have a nice view of exactly what Surber meant when he said Command would send in someone to clean up the remaining koobs and their vehicles.
Two spawn-fire missiles slammed into the scene of our handiwork almost as soon as we were clear of danger. I can make out balls of flames and trucks jumping in the air, only to land absolutely consumed by fire.
“I gotta go,” is all I say to Mel.
She manages to stutter out, “Carter, is everything—” before I kill the connection and power off the datapad.
This conversation was probably a mistake. But I didn’t know what to expect from dressing up in koob clothing, and I already had to take down a tribal elder and his fighters riding up on us in technicals once today. Guess I didn’t want to miss what might be my last opportunity to talk to home for a while.
But it was a bad call. I tilt my head back and let it thud against the enclosed wall of the truck bed.
“That’s why I never got married,” says Lashley.
The guys next to him immediately bust up laughing. I start to chuckle, too. Times like this, that kind of advice makes a lot of sense. At least for a guy like me.
“Holy sket,” Abers says, shaking his head as he smiles at the big man. “You’re startin’ to come around, Lash.”
But Lashley is done talking again. He stares past me, eyes fixed on the inferno swirling around the destroyed koob vehicle column.
I feel like that’s where his soul is at. In the middle of the chaos; that’s where he always wants to be. The money is just a bonus.
“Look alert,” Brisco chimes into my comm. “That little boomy-boomy is probably gonna draw the attention of some zhee we’ve been monitoring on the other side of that pass to the northeast of your location.”
“Copy,” I say, and then turn on my team comm so Easy and Lana can hear me as well. “Command says watch for zhee out of the northeast.”
My guys start going over their kits, pushing aside their robes to get at charge packs and fraggers. Abers moves forward across the pile of dead koobs and begins to rearrange the corpses.
“Get me a nice flat surface, just in case,” he says.
We drive for a while, seeing nothing but the passing desert and distant rocks leading up to a small outcropping of mountains with a winding pass through a box canyon. And then I catch a glint of something metallic in the distance.
I pull out my macros and search for what caused the glare, almost maxing the zoom before I see what look like hover bikes skimming above the Kublar soil at high speed. I tag the location and send it to Command.
“I’ve got visuals on approximately nine hover bikes coming out of the northeast,” I say.
“Copy that,” answers Brisco. Which is better than the usual acknowledgements I get, like “yeah” or “mmhmm.”
I keep looking, and soon the distinctive features of the zhee—the blunted equine-like noses, pointed ears, and claw-like hooves gripping the throttles—are clear enough. “Confirmed zhee riders.”
“Yep. That’s them.”
Brisco’s flirtation with proper comm procedures is over almost as soon as it started.
“They’re coming after us, Command. Requesting close air support.”
“Sorry, Carter. I had two missiles on that observation bot and I used ’em both to blow the trucks. Figured I’d better keep visuals on you than bring it back in for a rearming, ya know?”
“Copy. We’ll handle. Carter out.”
If there’s a breakdown in this little private army of mercs, it’s situations like this. When guys like Brisco are operating tech they’re really not trained on. Sure, they know how to use what’s at their disposal as good as anyone. But they haven’t learned all the whys. And so they waste two missiles when one would have done the job just fine.
I key in my team. “Nine donks on speeders are on our six. This rig isn’t going to outrun them and Command’s got no more death from above for us today. Abers, you keep them honest while I check in with Mr. Surber. Lana—don’t crash.”
“As if,” she says from the cab.
Abers is all business. He’s got an N-18, something usually only the Legion plays with. There are some perks for a Marine out here that he wouldn’t have gotten in the Corps. He flips down the bipod and rests it on the back of a dead koob, lying on top of still more bodies as the truck speeds on.
I see him dial down the charge expenditure. N-18s are extremely powerful blasters, and the bolts they throw have enough kinetic energy packed in each discharge that they can blow off limbs at a very long distance. If you turn the charge all the way up, the energized bolt is so hot that it’s pretty much invisible unless you’re a species with enhanced vision or wearing some augmented visors. But Abers knows the same thing I do. The donks chasing us down are going to know where the shot comes from if they get that close. So why not get as much out of a charge pack as possible?
The donk speeder gang are picking up ground. Still well out of blaster rifle range, but dancing on the edge of death when it comes to what Abers can do.
“I’m not making out a clear priority target from the rabble,” I tell Abers.
“Just watch that lead donk, then.”
I focus my macros on the target. But the zhee on that bike is still a long, long way from us. “You’re not seriously going to shoot yet.”
But Abers doesn’t answer. And I know enough from the time we’ve worked together so far on this planet that he’s going into that box he places himself in when it’s time to make a difficult shot. I say box because that’s how he described it to me once. Like he’s inside a box, cut off from all light except what comes through the scope. That’s all he’s aware of. All he’s focused on. It’s everything he knows at that moment in time.
Krak-bdew!
The N-18 barks behind me and at almost the same moment I see the bolt blast through the target’s chest, leaving what has to be a twelve-inch hole. The donk goes down hard, pulling his speeder down with him until both zhee and machine are violently sliding and spinning up and down in a tumultuous wipeout.
The rest of the zhee riders turn behind them, their minds not yet catching up with what just happened. They’re still processing why their brother in the lead just went down so hard, he ain’t ever comin’ back up.
Abers nails a second one.
He actually hit the bike’s handle bar, but the force of the shot broke the handle off the bike and impaled its rider as the bolt redirected up into the donk’s muzzle in the instant before he, too, was pulled down to the Kublaren dirt.
That’s all it takes for the rest of the bikers to realize what’s happening. They peel off wildly, just missing crashing into one another as they decelerate and attempt to get out of Abers’s monstrous range.
“Nice shooting,” I say.
Abers lets out a breath, but doesn’t say anything.
“Mr. Abers,” I hear called over the comm. It’s Surber. “Once again, you’ve shown us why we were right to invest in you and your skills. Exceptional shooting.”
Abers frowns, the slightest look of disgust on his face. But it goes away pretty swiftly. “Thank you, sir.”
“Let’s keep eyes on the rest of them in case they try to flank,” I announce over the comm.
“Do that,” Surber says, but I can tell he’s not all that concerned. “But we’re entering the Lowak valley to pay a visit to the Pekk tribe. The zhee aren’t going to follow too close once we get past the hills ahead.”
“Copy,” I say. “Sounds like that’s it for dusting donks to
day, gang.”
“If all goes well with the Pekk,” Surber says, a definite note of cheer in his voice, “you’ll be afforded the opportunity to ‘dust more donks’ sooner than you might think.”
I see Lashley look up. Not at me. At the roof. Like he’s trying to see through the canopy to the sky. And then I see him silently mouth the words as if in prayer:
“KTF.”
BOWIE
THE SOOB
05
The morning sun hit Bowie hard. He’d been on Kublar three days and had yet to get used to it. It was a hot, dry world. Though there was some humidity here along the coast in the Republic’s burgeoning Prosperity Zone. Subiyook City.
Or the Soob as some called it. A strange collection of religious zealots, flesh peddlers, corporate adventurers, and of course, the worst creatures of all… House of Reason politicians holding on to the local power they still had, even after the fall of Utopion. About as far from what people thought of when they thought of rustic, hostile Kublar.
“But what’re you gonna do,” Bowie told himself as he shoved untraceable credit chits into his jacket pocket. Then a folding tanto knife into his belt. A smaller blade into his low-cut boot. And finally one in his pocket. That one really wouldn’t do anything in the way of fighting or killing. But it had a corkscrew and you just never knew.
“You never do,” he chuckled, looking around the cruddy little seaside motel he’d selected as a base of operations in the K’keeb district of Subiyook.
“You never know.”
Outside, across the district, the zhee brayed their call to daily prayers. Even the defiant little koobs didn’t dare transgress these streets. The zhee wouldn’t hesitate to cut deep and many for such blasphemy. But ensconced inside his dingy little motel, he was safe to collect everything he would need for all that must be done today.
Which was optimistic at best. But that’s what he was paid for, a certain sense of optimism despite the odds. Years in Naval Intel, underfunded, over-tasked, and outgunned, had taught Lt. Commander Jack Bowie to always expect the best and prepare for the worst. Especially of himself in both cases.
He stuffed the Python blaster in his shoulder harness.
“You never know,” he said again.
Which was something that anyone who knew him would hear him say several times a day. He said it almost unconsciously now. Like a mantra, a chant, or mere punctuation. Some who claimed to know him would have sworn it wasn’t even on purpose.
It was more of a warning to himself in these uncertain times now that all semblance of government, order, and path into the future had collapsed after the Republic’s brief war with the Empire. There was no such thing as a safe bet. But had there ever really been?
So… you never know.
Because, in his line of work, you never really did know who was out to get you. Who was setting you up for the double cross to either the MCR—not that they were much of a threat any more, some other intel agency, a rogue national actor, or just someone with a score to settle.
Naval Intel’s main job for the Republic had been misinformation. “Weaponized imagination,” some nice old admiral who was more academic than bridge officer had once explained to Jack Bowie. “We play games with what people know. That way, we control everything. Which really helps when you think about it,” the oldster had said upon reflection. “Because when you don’t have as many super-carriers and full battle fleets as everybody thinks you’re supposed to have, it all comes down to controlling the flow of information.”
How’d that work out for you? Bowie thought as he put a few pieces of his gadget-like kit together, concealing everything under a perfectly tailored suit cut in Utopion’s latest style. No tie, of course. Just an open-collared dress shirt that stretched over his six-foot-two frame. He’d been a swimmer and never lost the body.
That had been his job with Naval Intelligence when he was a fleet officer attached to the Marines. Sent out to gather, collect, confirm, and pass on. Operating with the Special Operations Teams Oceanic Group. Dropped onto unstable worlds, operating offshore in deep water, infiltrating onshore to keep the Republic informed. Getting shot up nine times out of ten. Having enough backup zero times out of always.
Fun, huh?
And occasionally he got tasked for darker off-book things that needed doing when you didn’t want to get Dark Ops from the Legion involved, or, make a deal with the devil and summon up some freak from Nether Ops. Naval Intel was still part of the Fleet, after all. “We’re not savages for Oba’s sake, dear boy,” that old academic had once lectured him when he’d been sent off to terminate a village headman on Rhiodor.
Then he’d gotten out because his career was ended for all intents and purposes. Months before the final battle that turned the galaxy upside down. An emperor kills the Republic. The Legion kills the emperor. Now what? And… truth be told, there was no money. And so he’d turned independent.
Now, six months later, the emperor was still dead, the House of Reason wasn’t a thing, and he was on Kublar with a briefcase full of Ice. One of the most illegal party drugs in the Republic. High-end. Very expensive stuff. The kind of dust the celebrities and the rich kids of the Senate liked to play with.
What was in the briefcase would make him rich for many years to come. And only the people who had that kind of money… money to make an average ex-naval officer rich enough to live out his life on some off-the-main-lanes edge world so they could snort it all in one afternoon… could afford the contents of the briefcase. But it wasn’t easy. You needed access to sell next-level drugs.
You couldn’t just chop it up and sell it as you went. Though some would like it that way, and almost everyone inside the Prosperity Zone would casually kill him for a bit of it. What was in the briefcase gave you access because you needed access to sell it.
Even a few grams cost far beyond most people’s yearly income. Those who sold Ice told you it was always that way. Sell it all in one go and make enough to buy a very nice starliner—the four hundred passenger, luxe accommodations, full crew type—or don’t sell any portion of it because most likely you’ll end up dead.
Why?
Because everybody will try to kill you to get it. Except the people who can buy it. They’ve got bigger people than you to kill.
He pulled his blaster from under the pillow he’d slept next to. It was a compact, yet very powerful, Python Model 45 Automatic. Python was Bowie’s favorite purveyor. He shoved that in the carry at his lower back.
There was a knock at the door. Unusual for this early at the Suns and Fun motel along the edge of Marina Beach deep in the K’keeb that lay west of the glittering bureaucracy at the center of Soob City. It was far away from the action down here, where before the zhee showed up, the locals used to land freighters on death’s door—the type that would never take off again after entering atmo—and break them up for salvage.
This was the side of town where the drunks came to drink themselves to death. Where the local H8 Cartel, overseen by the zhee gangs for a cut, ran their illegal activities all night long. And where there was no such thing as maid service, especially at eight a.m. local.
His comm device rang.
The burner.
He answered.
“Hey, it’s me, Waria. I send one of my guys down to escort you to street,” said the alien in alien-ish. “I’m waiting and I got set up meet. Big party today, I’m hearing back. Cash buyer for the whole case. We’re gonna be rich, hooman.”
Two thoughts occurred to Jack Bowie at that point as he made his way toward the motel room door.
One. Waria was lying. There were two guys outside his door because he could hear them whispering. And two… he knew about the party. That’s what he’d been aiming for all along. Access. He’d only let the alien connect the dots because it was more organic that way. Waria had been holding out saying there wasn’t any
kind of buyer that could handle that kind of action lately. Not since the zhee mullahs had started agitating for a morality crackdown to support their bizarre system of laws on this world. Agitating for the laws to be enforced everywhere except Marina Beach where zhee gangs ran the trade.
“Coming,” said Bowie to the empty room and the strangers at the door. Everyone called him Bowie. Ex-navy officer, intel, drummed out for messing up an op, or running around with an admiral’s daughter, depending on who you asked. Last names stuck when you’d been reduced in rank and no one wanted to remember what you’d once been before you’d fallen from grace.
He left the briefcase exactly where they could see it when he opened the door. Sitting right on the bed. Visible from the narrow hall that connected to the door the two hired blasters were most likely hiding at on either side. They needed to see the briefcase full of Ice because that’s what they’d come to kill him for. Wouldn’t want to disappoint them. They’d act all nonchalant in the first moment because they’d seen actors do that in the entertainments, or, because they had some kind of real-world training… who knew. He’d use that against them since they were giving him a freebie.
They knew there was a briefcase. One hundred percent. Waria had to have told them that’s what they were coming in for. Leave the ex-navy intel officer who’d gotten drummed out for shenanigans with a senior admiral’s young daughter, dead. Get the briefcase and get back to the pickup. Waria was probably going to have them killed there too because there were so many credits on the line. Buy your own small luxury starliner credits. Disappear out along the edge money.
That would have been their marching orders. Get case. Kill hooman chump. In either order.
A Lahursian snake man, Waria was the kind of guy who’d make that kind of play. And with enough Ice to buy a small planet out on the edge, something no one really ever went to, or wanted, it was worth it. Dumb people thought that way. Low investment, big return. What was in the briefcase was life changing money.
Galaxy's Edge: Takeover: Season Two: Book One Page 4