Wild Nines (Mercenaries Book 1)

by A. R. Knight

  “Get your gear on, we’ve got a special job,” Davin said by way of announcing himself.

  Mox twitched, looked at the captain. Before Mox swiped away the image on the console, Davin caught a glimpse. A news piece with a familiar title. Not the first time he'd seen Mox looking at that one. An attack on Luna, the main city on Earth’s moon, years ago.

  “Doing what?” Mox replied, his voice a lava flow, slow and thick.

  “Escorting some VIPs. I think it’s for Eden. You’ve got thirty minutes, and we’re going hot.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  Davin turned to leave, then paused.

  “I’m going to need you here,” the captain said. “Not thinking about her.”

  Mox matched Davin’s look. Didn’t blink.

  “I’ll be fine.” The metal man said. Davin left Mox with that. Davin couldn't stop Mox from crawling through his past. Problem was that Mox was doing it more and more these days. Wrapped up in things he couldn’t change. At least this escort could be a distraction.

  Opal was aft, near the engines. Davin found her working with Trina, tearing apart the housing on one of the four main thrusters designed to push ionized gas out behind the Whiskey Jumper when she made her escapes to orbit. The juxtaposition of the two, Opal, the strapped veteran, taking commands from Trina, the grease-ball mechanic caught in cords, tool belts and goggles made Davin laugh.

  “It’ll get us another one percent boost on initial acceleration,” Trina was saying, with every word spoken as though it was an experiment, examined and displayed on its own. “Should reduce our escape time from this rock to be less than a minute.”

  “And how much did that cost?” Davin interrupted, disarming the comment with a grin.

  “Oh, hey cap,” Trina replied, turning her oil-smudged face back to Davin. “Not much. Bought it myself, off my pay. If it works, you can buy it off me.”

  “I hate it when you do that,” Davin said.

  “You’re a bad liar, captain,” Opal ran her words tight, a flow between the ends and beginnings. She held a bunch of screws that’d been keeping the thruster’s access plate closed. “You ready for these yet?”

  “Almost. Just have to reconnect the circuit,” Trina said, turning back to the cluster of wires hanging off the engine’s control panel. “Cap, you can’t be too mad. Bet I got these for half the price you would have.”

  “Hey now,” Davin said. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

  Both of the women gave him deadpan looks.

  “Shoulda seen her, captain,” Opal said, setting the screws on Trina’s wheeled work cart. “Here’s this guy, sitting on a stock of these boosters thinking he’ll sell them to Eden -”

  “Only Eden doesn’t use gas for their ships,” Trina continued.

  “They’re all solar, electric now. So he’s stuck here with this cargo that he can’t sell. Thinks I don’t know that and wants to charge me double what they’re worth.”

  “Trina says, you want to eat tonight? I’ll give you enough for dinner, and even a drink, cause I know you don’t even have that much,” Opal said, laughing.

  Trina blushed, shrugged.

  “Harsh,” Davin said, shaking his head.

  “The guy broke down. It was pathetic, really,” Trina said. “But then I bought four to cheer him up.”

  “Four that I’m going to wind up paying for,” Davin said. “Guess I can cut you some slack though, seeing as you keep the Jumper running so well.”

  “Thanks, cap,” Trina replied.

  “So what d’ya need, captain?” Opal asked. “Assuming you’re not stopping back here just to chat.”

  “You and that rifle of yours,” Davin said. “We’ve got an escort, and it’s chancing to get unfriendly.”

  5

  Inspectors

  Pain. With each step, the scratch of a nerve. Bending fingers, the tug of a joint. Feeling something against his skin every moment of every day. There were many sleepless nights. Still were, years after the procedure. Hundreds of Earth days since Mox planted himself on the slab and growled at the doctors to do it.

  To plant bolts inside his skin, to lace every limb of his body with an electric-powered frame. To graft the wires through his spine. They’d offered to hide it. Bury it beneath skin and along bone. An operation with months of recovery, multiple stages, more money Mox didn’t have.

  So Mox stood near the Jumper’s ramp and ran his hands along the meter-long pulse cannon. The weapon ran from the same batteries powering Mox’s exoskeleton, batteries that patterned around his waist in a series of small, thin boxes. Batteries that Mox charged nightly, that would get him through two days of use if he had to run them dry. The cannon could discharge over twenty bolts per second, not as fast as projectile weapons, but fast enough. Mox would never lack enough again.

  Davin and Opal walked in, bearing their own, smaller, arms. Davin with his shotgun, Melody, and sidearms holstered at his hip. Opal carrying a sniper rifle, its barrel as long as Mox’s cannon, but with a thin scope attached. A lot of firepower for an escort job in this tiny base. Mox wasn't paid to understand. Only to shoot when ordered.

  “Their ship’s coming into bay seven,” Davin said. “Let’s get walking.”

  Down the ramp into bay three. They weren’t unloading cargo, so Mox wasn’t surprised to see the bay deserted. Big enough to hold a ship twice the Jumper’s size, Davin had negotiated for the solo space as part of the contract with Eden. The less people running around your ship, the fewer parts that went missing.

  As it was, fuel pods, supply containers, and random junk cluttered the bay. If Eden Prime's dock master couldn’t fill the bay with ships, he was going to use it for storage.

  “Haven’t seen you use that since Titan,” Opal said to Mox, nodding at the cannon. “Careful you don’t blow a hole in this place.”

  “Davin said heavy,” Mox replied.

  “I’m saying that for what they’re paying, they’re either paranoid or know something isn’t right,” Davin said.

  “No Merc?” Mox asked when the Jumper’s ramp closed behind them. The stick jockey was usually part of their ground team, or flying cover in the Wild Nine’s lone space fighter, a Viper.

  “He was on overnight,” Opal said. “Has it again tonight. I know I don't want him shooting when he's half asleep.”

  “Agreed,” Mox said.

  Stretching along behind the bays was a wide corridor meant for shuttling goods and people. Mox walked behind Opal and Davin, eyes scanning the back and forth movement of small skiffs, a seat or two and a flat bed.

  Magnetic repulsion kept the skiffs afloat, signals activating magnets in front as the skiff passed over them and deactivating as it passed to keep from messing with people walking the halls. Of which there were always plenty; merchants, mechanics, and various service bots. Obstacles to be dodged. Or to be kicked out of the way.

  The walk meant passing bays four and five, which were in-and-outs. Ships landed, dropped cargo, fueled, and left within a few hours. Skiffs lined up at the gates to deposit or receive cargo. Eden Prime was a taker, needing everything to keep itself alive.

  Mox glanced at one skiff going by, its back end laden with crates colored for fruits and vegetables. Less of those lately. Gardens were online now, growing produce with water gathered from Europa's melting surface ice.

  “Mako!” Davin called as the trio walked by bay six, one of a few privately owned bays on the small base. As Mox looked at the towering piles of parts, organized in a way he couldn’t untangle, a helmeted head poked itself around a column of pipes and waved.

  “Davin?” Mako replied, stepping around the column and extending his scrawny, pale hand for a shake. “What’re you doing this deep?” Mako took them in, lifted the goggles from his eyes and whistled. “And ready for action.”

  “A job,” Davin said, then waved his arms. “Your place is messier than usual.”

  Mako turned and gestured at a ship behind the junk piles. A cargo hauler from a
generation before the Jumper, the hulking series of spheres was being dismantled by a horde of small robots, scratching and tearing at various pieces and hauling the scraps to different piles.

  “You see that?” Mako said, squinting at Davin. “Business is good. You ever see this place clean, you’ll know I’m done. What job?”

  “You’re going to have a neighbor,” Davin said.

  “Five? You know that’s an in-and-out.”

  “Seven,” Mox announced. “And soon.”

  “Seven?” Mako said. “Rare day that seven gets filled. Only Eden corporate, or big shots.”

  “Any idea who might be coming in?” Davin asked.

  Mako shrugged, looking like a puppet on strings, given how light the man was. Mox felt a tug on his frame and glanced. One of the salvage bots, poking at his leg. Mox kicked it away. Mako’s eyes followed the stumbling droid, tracking back to Mox, and then looking away. Mox saw the man gulp. Fear. Mox supposed that was the intended reaction.

  “Maybe if you kept your ears out of that junk pile,” Opal said. “You’d catch wind of things.”

  “All I know is what comes in pieces,” Mako said. “And the parts are selling fast. Most of it to our fearless leader, Marl.”

  “What’s she want?” Davin asked.

  “No idea. Don’t care,” Mako said. “I mean, should I…?”

  Davin sighed, pressed a few keys on his comm. Mako’s own unit beeped and the junk vendor looked at it with a wide grin.

  “It’s energy stuff, and shelter gear,” Mako said. “Like she’s planning on expanding, but not with Eden’s help. A new group of people.”

  Davin glanced at Mox and Opal, but neither one had any ideas. Eden, the super-massive company that was investing in the base, had plenty of coin and supplies to expand Eden Prime as much as they wanted. Marl, the base’s director, shouldn’t have to go scrap hunting.

  “Seeing as I just paid you for that crap,” Davin said. “You give us a heads up if it looks like something strange is heading towards bay seven.”

  “Like you three?” Mako laughed. None of them joined him. “Sure, yeah. You see one of my scrap bots roll by, expect company.”

  Then Mako went to a pile of small lift jets and dove in, digging. Conversation over. Davin walked out and Opal followed. Mox took one look back at the busy bay, bots building piles of scrap to sell. Tried to picture himself doing that job, sorting through junk for anything good. Couldn’t. Mox tested the grips on the cannon as he stepped back into the hallway, firm and ready. His weapon far from belonging in those heaps.

  The gate into bay seven was unlocked. Mox glanced to the left, at the blank stretch of blue-tinted wall across from the gate. In there, somewhere, was a camera. More in the halls. Anyone thinking to get fast-fingered with someone else’s stuff would be filmed, found, and flung off the moon. Davin held up his comm to the scanner alongside the door which beeped an affirmative.

  Bay seven appeared as the gate slid open, vast and empty. No crates, no power cells. As the trio stepped into the bay, Mox felt his neck itch. The walls shifted, slid in his vision. He’d been here before, or somewhere like it.

  Mox knew what was about to happen. Past memories too strong to let die. Knew it, and could not stop it.

  6

  Strongman’s Start

  A blink back.

  The green lunar surface, a verdant product of terramorphing weaving between spiraling glass towers. Low gravity making it easier to arc buildings overhead, or to build off-shoots, architecture as fantastic art. Mox moved through a wide courtyard, smoothed moon rock broken up by those patches of mossy grass. Security’s crimson colors enveloped him, a cape hanging off his shoulders.

  The first explosion came many meters over Mox’s head. It tore through the centerpiece of an arching office, sending ripples of shattering glass across the lunar sky. A second and third boom occurred at the base of the buildings across the courtyard as Mox looked up at the first. Orange novas blooming against the ground. Mox felt the first waves of heat, the rumbling, crackling noise, and pellets of glass rained around him.

  Mox tried to press forward, towards the explosions. Workers, business people were going the other way, running and jumping through the low gravity in a rolling surge of panic. As he came closer, Mox saw ruin. The shattered building’s foundation leaned, while people scrambled out.

  Overhead, the arch split, breaking this half of the building free from its counterpart. The curved tower listed further. Mox waved people away, pointing back towards the courtyard. Countless faces blurred passed as Mox’s comm called out with questions, orders, warnings.

  Then the floors started falling. Support beams tearing apart, anchors ripping up the lunar surface as the leaning weight proved too much. A woman tottered out of the building as it collapsed, bleeding from her head. She looked dazed, then fell to one knee. Mox ran towards her, pushing against the crowd.

  They parted for the red uniform, worth respecting even in crazed flight. Mox picked her up, the woman turning to look at him, her face marred with a hundred tiny scratches from the glass window that’d blown out in front of her. In her eyes, Mox saw the building above them, falling. The woman’s mouth opened.

  “Yo, Mox, you with us buddy?” she said.

  A blink.

  Bay seven sat in front of him, no fire. No woman. Just Davin, waving his hand back and forth in front of Mox’s eyes.

  “We’re not there. You’re not there,” Davin said.

  “I know,” Mox growled, but the edges of his vision played out the attack, flames still curling, glass still falling. “It feels similar. Open, calm.”

  “Tell me about it,” Davin said, looking around the bay.

  “You weren’t there.”

  “Doesn’t mean I don’t understand.”

  Mox didn’t reply. No point in arguing.

  Mox looked and found Opal, set up in the near-right corner. Rifle up and out, supported by shipping crates. Davin leaned against the door. Mox stayed where he was. Dead center, cannon primed. Mox felt the captain’s eyes on his back.

  “What?” Mox asked.

  “Who was it? The woman you say you're seeing?” Davin said.

  “I knew her,” Mox replied.

  “That’s it?”

  Mox didn’t turn to look at the captain, just stared straight ahead at the bay’s opening. Resisted falling through he hole again.

  “I don’t talk about her,” Mox said after a few seconds.

  “Doesn’t mean I can’t ask,” Davin replied.

  “Why?”

  “Cause I got a guy wearing a machine running around my ship, think I owe it to the crew to know if you'll ever lose it.”

  “It won’t happen again.”

  “Feel like I’ve heard that before.”

  “It won’t happen again,” Mox repeated, more to himself than Davin.

  Mox raised his arms, showing off the exoskeleton. The cannon, when Mox let go, pulled forward on his torso. The frame tugged back, its batteries pushing energy to keep the big weapon level. Mox felt it, the tight yank on his muscles, the red bloom of pain as bolts in his shoulders tensed. His face tried to move, eyes tried to narrow, but Mox resisted. Showing weakness wasn’t a choice. Was not his role.

  “This is enough,” Mox continued.

  “I won’t push you,” Davin said. “Just don’t go day-dreaming if this goes sideways.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Mox said.

  Bay seven’s alarms wailed. Incoming ship. A light blue film covered the big, gray bay doors. A magnetic field, preventing the oxygen and atmosphere in the base from leaking out.

  The gray doors opened with a loud chunk, then slid along rails greased to perfection by the endless attention of bots. Europa's dark, bruised sky shown through the doors, a thin wash of blue sheer silk over the endless outer black. At the edge of the opening, a hint of bright lurked, the edge of the solar beam. Jupiter was on the other horizon tonight.

  The ship flew into view, float
ing like a ghost. Electric engines, so quiet and without the burn, the pulse of cruder methods. Mox looked at the sleek oval craft, its matte exterior the color of deep jungle. No logo, any company sign. It was too small to hold cargo. Five, maybe six passengers for any lengthy journey.

  The ramp extended slow, like a person’s tongue tasting a hot drink. As though trying not to hurt itself. Small, yellow lights blinked along the slope to the bay floor.

  The first feet appeared at the top of the ramp, followed by the stamp of a cane. A weathered, white-haired man and a kind-faced woman following after. Then nobody. The two of them made their way down the ramp, their eyes casting around the bay. At least, Mox noticed, the man’s eyes. The woman’s gaze went to Davin, to Opal in the corner, and then back to Mox.

  “I will say, the guards here do have flare,” The woman said, holding a hand towards Mox. “I’m Clare, this is Ward. We’re here because Eden thinks this base may no longer be in its control.”

  7

  Seen through the Scope

  The two of them were easy targets. Their clothes were thin, no armor. Every step methodical, easy to predict. Opal felt the ice forming in her veins. Security wasn’t hired if there wasn’t risk. If things went wrong, the Nines would have to fire first. The woman talked to Mox and Davin, out of earshot. Davin was making his characteristic shrugs, and Opal pressed her lips together to keep from yelling at them to stay low.

  Davin didn’t have the experience. He’d found Opal on Miner Prime, that space station sitting between Mars and Jupiter, in the heart of the asteroid belt. Not that those were great times for Opal, not that she could afford to say no, but Davin telling her with that smug grin he was moving from cargo into the protection business told Opal all she needed to know. Davin hadn’t ever laid in the red mud on Mars, watched the enemy for hours, waiting for the perfect moment.