Wild Nines (Mercenaries Book 1)

by A. R. Knight

  Davin sat back in the chair, stared out the glass. Being a mercenary captain was supposed to be about adventure. About jaunting through the galaxy, seeing new places, meeting new people, and getting the spicy side of life. Not watching his friends fall apart.

  “Captain?” Viola commed. “The engines look OK, but I’m not liking some of the readings. Temps are spiking randomly, and we’ve lost efficiency. We’re burning more than the solar can charge.”

  “How much time?” Davin replied.

  “Not enough to get most places.”

  Jupiter had plenty of moons. A few had stations on them. Refueling spots for ships heading to the back reaches of the solar system or returning with hauls of rare minerals, gasses, or just experiments. Even in its limping state, the Whiskey Jumper should be able to make it to one. The question was whether Bosser’s androids would be waiting.

  “If you want, I’ve got an idea,” Viola said.

  “All ears.”

  “My parents, they own Galaxy Forge, on Ganymede. It’s manufacturing, plenty of bay space for us. Parts to repair. We could hide there.”

  “Doesn’t your dad have a bounty on your head?” Davin said. “And he’s good with harboring suspected murderers?”

  “He wants me to come home, whatever that takes.”

  “You sure you want to do that?”

  “I want to do anything but. Only, I don’t think we have a choice.”

  “I like it,” Davin said. “Let’s bring you home.”

  Phyla nodded and punched in the destination. A faint blue line appeared on the glass, swinging out and running into the distance. The course they would follow to Ganymede. Intersect the moon as it came around on its orbit. Davin watched the line for a second, felt the Jumper turn, then stood.

  “I’d better see if Opal’s all right,” Davin said. “You good up front?”

  “Go be the captain, captain,” Phyla replied.

  That title didn’t sound as good as it used to.

  71

  Homecoming

  The Jumper’s ramp slid down and Viola struggled to keep a straight face. She didn’t know whether to be happy or sad, giddy at the thought of home or scared at what her parents would say. Then again, she’d nearly been killed at least twice since leaving here, and at least her father would not murder her, right?

  “You should go first,” Davin said, standing next to Viola at the top of the ramp. “Figure they’ll want to see you more than a bunch of dirty mercenaries.”

  Viola took the cue and walked into the bay. Part of the processing plant for the precious metals her father’s company extracted from Ganymede, the bay was huge. The Jumper tiny compared to the kilometer-long ships that could dock there. It was also empty except for her parents, staring at her from the dirty slate floor.

  Seeing their faces, her mother’s endless concern and curiosity, her father’s cocked eyebrow and folded arms, flooded Viola’s head with memories. Like a vault of happiness unlocked. Why she’d run away from these two into the wild horror-show of space was a question that had no good answer.

  Hugs exchanged, cheeks kissed. Viola’s father shook Davin’s hand and thanked the captain for bringing back his daughter. Promises of food, medical facilities and supplies. Davin didn’t bother protesting, but said Viola more than pulled her weight, causing a blush to spring out of nowhere.

  The rest of the crew filtered out and to the series of rooms reserved at the quarters normally used for visiting pilots and businessmen. Except Fournine, who was still on the ship - Viola shut its power off to keep the android inert until someone decided what to do with it.

  Viola followed her parents out of the bay and towards the short tram to take them back to the residence. The cars were big enough for ten people, built like busses, and shot along magnetic rails to various destinations. The parts and paving necessary for personal vehicles was too expensive on Ganymede, so Galaxy Forge built houses in pods. A central hub connected to six or seven places shooting off at various angles, shielded from radiation through electric energy, like the ones on space ships. The ride took less than ten minutes, but they spent the whole of it under the glow of Jupiter’s monstrous body.

  As soon as they went through the front door, Viola’s mother announced they had an hour till dinner. Viola moved towards her room, but her father took Viola’s elbow and pointed her to a small study.

  “Time for a quick talk?” her father asked.

  That phrase. One her dad used any time Viola was in for a lecture. Innocent on the face of it, just a quip, a grab for a few minutes with his daughter to expound on some life lesson. That phrase stole away the warmth, brought with it why Viola had run away. The expectant look in her father’s eyes. It was time to fall back in line. Revert away from the glitch in the plan, get back to business.

  “You know what, yeah. Let’s chat,” Viola said.

  Her father’s study was an exercise in antiquities. Rock-wood shelves, stone painted and smoothed to resemble a dark walnut, lined the room. Real wood was too expensive to bother freighting over from Earth. Trinkets covered those shelves, products and design models made at Galaxy Forge. A history from small single-man scouters to vast military freighters contained in the figures. At the far end, the desk where her father worked when he was home. A window staring out through the bubble into the vast icy gray of the Ganymede surface.

  Viola’s father sat in one of the room’s two chairs, folding one leg up on another as he clasped his hands. Viola watched him take in the deep breath and struck first.

  “You put a bounty on your daughter’s head,” Viola said, keeping on her feet. “I was almost kidnapped, twice, because of you.”

  Her father’s mouth fell open.

  “On Europa, there were two men, armored, that threw me to the ground. They were going to carry me to their ship, maybe tie me up, and fly me home,” Viola continued. “On Miner Prime, I was saved because an android decided to kill the man who was taking me. Do you understand? A man died because of your stupid bounty.”

  “Viola, I —”

  “No. You don’t get to talk yet,” she said. “There’s a universe out there you don’t even know, full of people fighting and striving and dying to make a bit of coin. Your bounty? That was convenience for you. So you didn’t have to look for me yourself. But to the people trying to take me? To Cadge? That coin meant everything.”

  “You never said why you ran away,” her father replied, throwing the words up in defense.

  “I wanted something more exciting than sitting in this bubble all day!” Viola said. “More than your planned future for me.”

  “And you found it?”

  Viola nodded. She felt the conversation turning. The outburst hadn't overwhelmed her father, and now that he had his poise back . . .

  “I’m sorry,” her father said. “I shouldn’t have posted the bounty, but I didn’t know where you’d gone. Didn’t know how to find you. It was a reaction. Now, though, you’re home.”

  Over the house’s intercom, Viola’s mother called. Dinner, made by the house’s bots, was ready.

  “Did you tell her about it? The bounty?”

  “That doesn’t matter anymore,” her father said. “It’s gone. Over. What matters is where you’re going next. We want you to stay here.”

  “It’s too boring.”

  “I know, so I’m arranging for you to take a job at Galaxy Forge. You’ll have to earn it, and it will be hard, but nobody’s going to be shooting at you.”

  Seeing Viola’s expression, he added, “Give it a chance. If you miss the excitement, it’ll still be there waiting for you.”

  They left the study, wandered to what would be Viola’s best meal in months. Real food, not packets of goop. A real table, rather than the grimy Jumper kitchen. Comforts Viola hadn’t even realized she missed till they were in front of her again. Already she could fell home asserting itself, breaking her resolve. Ganymede had been a temporary stopover, but now it was forming a more permane
nt place.

  72

  Choices

  “How long will it take to get ready?” Viola said to Davin as he took a sip from the steaming cup of coffee.

  The cafe, one of only three in the entire ten-thousand worker factory, was designed like the gears that drove the ore-digging machines they made. Viola glanced over at Phyla, coming up to a console in the center. Each displayed an array of options on a colored screen, then asked for a swipe to deduct payment. Behind the scenes, bots made the drinks, the ingredients replenished by nearly hidden support staff.

  Tables, like the small one Viola and Davin were sitting on, ringed the center and, with a tap on the surface, displayed rolling headlines. The glass ceiling above showed the gray morning on Ganymede, a product of low sunlight and manufactured gasses meant to thicken the atmosphere. The view wasn’t great sometimes, but the thick fog blocked radiation, and Viola would rather not have a tumor, thank you.

  “Only two days. Patching up a little torn hull doesn’t take too long.”

  “You can stay longer, you know.”

  Davin looked at Viola for a moment and nodded, a thanks for what her father was giving and was still willing to give them.

  “No, we can’t,” Davin said. “They killed Merc. They’re still hunting us, and the androids will follow us here eventually. Our choices are fight back, or run to the edges.”

  Run to the edges. Davin heard the words and ran them around his mind. Wouldn’t be much different from Vagrant’s Hollow. Making due with whatever work they could find, staying mobile and working transports around Saturn’s rings out to Uranus.

  “Will Trina be ready?” Viola said.

  “Good enough to fly.”

  “Good enough to fight?”

  Davin took another long drink from the coffee cup. Viola knew the captain wasn’t very old, but Davin’s eyes changed as he considered Viola’s words. As though Davin became elderly right in front of her, the captain shut his eyes for a moment and set the mug down, letting go a long sigh as he did.

  “Good enough to leave,” Davin said. “Whether we fight, I don’t know.”

  “You’re giving up?” Viola said.

  Davin didn’t answer, but stared at the coffee like it wasn’t Viola who’d asked. Like it was himself.

  73

  What Could Be

  Ganymede was boring. The daily routine bled into her life like a virus, eating away at her soul through standard breakfasts, news reports, the same conversations with her mother and father about re-integrating. About getting ready to start at Galaxy Forge. Nobody had shot at her in days. It was awful.

  “Doing some hard work there,” Puk commented as Viola stared at nothing, sitting in the room next to her bed, where she’d had Puk blast Roddy ages ago.

  “I can’t focus,” Viola said.

  “You used to love being in this room.”

  “I think that’s because I didn’t know what was outside of it.”

  “A harsh, thin atmosphere that would kill you in seconds?”

  “I wasn’t being literal.”

  “Sorry, you bumped my sarcasm setting way too high to have this conversation.”

  Viola smiled. The little bot had a way of reading her moods. An unintended effect of the learning algorithm she’d plugged into Puk years ago. Viola thought there was something a wrong in the code, something that was driving Puk insane. A typo in the variable mediating the bot’s personality.

  “Never change, Puk.”

  “That’s a literal impossibility, Viola.”

  “S’pose you’re right. Though I guess it’s mean to ask someone to never change, isn’t it?”

  “Most find it endearing, my database of popular romance films tells me.”

  “Yeah? What else does that database tell you?”

  “That you’re lacking the love of your life.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And that you’re never going to find it here.”

  “What?” Viola turned on her chair and stared at the little bot. “I mean, obviously I’m not going to find someone in this room.”

  “Not talking about someone, Viola. There’s a common thread among the movies, right? It’s where the person has to soul-search, go on an adventure, before they have a chance of finding what they really love.”

  “Now you’re getting philosophical.”

  “Not my forte. But I can say that based on my observations of your mood over the last couple of weeks that when we were with the mercenaries, it was the happiest time of your life since you were a kid.”

  Like Viola didn’t know that. Like she didn’t understand that every second on board that ship, being run through the lifts of Miner Prime, or puzzling a way to start the engines before the frigate blew them to bits made her feel more alive than hours spent pouring over thought exercises. Not that Viola didn’t like crunching the numbers, but there was an itch to put all that data diving into practice. To see Fournine open its eyes and run the way she set him.

  “My father will not be happy with you.”

  “Thankfully, I don’t care.”

  74

  Doubt

  The five of them sat around the table in the lobby of the Moonshot, the hotel Viola’s father let Davin and the rest use while repairs continued. Davin looked around at their faces: Erick’s slumped-back, arms-crossed curiosity, Mox staring at the table like it held life’s grand secrets, Opal looking back at Davin, her eyes stretched, red. Phyla was the only one that looked engaged, and even she gripped the glass of water in front of her like it might spring away for freedom at any moment.

  “Tomorrow, the doctors think Trina will be ready. The Jumper’s about ready to fly,” Davin started. “I wanted to ask where you thought we should go.”

  Paused for a second. No outbursts, no immediate calls for a revenge assault on Europa. Davin almost wanted one of them to speak. To yell that they couldn’t let Marl get away with it. For Mox to overturn the table, drag Trina out of the hospital and rain laser death on Eden Prime. At least until they were blown out of the sky. Opal’s mouth opened, but whatever she was going to say didn’t come out.

  “I want to clear us.” Davin said. “I want to shoot our way in there, tell Marl to drop the charges. To confess to arranging the hit on those inspectors. I want the androids to leave us alone. And the entire time we’ve been here, I’ve been throwing ideas around. Thinking of ways to win. But I can’t find one that doesn’t end with us all dead.”

  “You’re talking like some of us are dead already,” Opal said.

  “Merc -”

  “We don’t know if he’s gone,” Opal said, her voice peppered with somber heat. “And Cadge had it coming. Sorry about Lina, too, but she wasn’t really one of us.”

  “Hey,” Phyla said.

  “It’s fine,” Davin said. “You’re right. We don’t know for sure. But there’s been no contact. We saw his ship break apart. Even if he ejected, I don’t know why they would have saved him.”

  “I don’t think that’s helping,” Phyla said,Opal’s glower growing darker.

  “I’m trying to say going back to Europa is suicide. We can fly farther out from here. I know a few people who run ore and gas fromUranus. They’d get us contracts. The androids wouldn’t find us.”

  “Running,” Mox said.

  “Sounds like it,” muttered Erick.

  “Look. I don’t want to see any more of you, or me, die. I don’t want to keep looking over my shoulder wondering if the next person I see is really a homicidal bot that wants to dissect me. That’s not a life I want to lead.” Davin said. “We go out there, there’s none of that.”

  “What if we don’t want to?” Opal said.

  “It’s my ship, she goes where I do,” Davin said. “You don’t have to decide now. We’ll leave tomorrow, so think about it. I’m sure you can find passage off here if you don’t want to go. But you are all more than welcome to come with.”

  Davin pushed himself away from the table and walked do
wn the hallway, up the stairs to his room. Nobody followed, nobody made any comments he could hear as he walked away. Davin felt a crawling sickness growing in his stomach. Was this what cowards felt like? Streams of rationalizations ran through Davin’s head, all of them valid and pointless.

  The room was sparse. The wall screen turned on as Davin went in, set to his automatic preference. A martial arts movie played, then cut to a commercial. Davin stood there, watching as a panning shot showed the changing lines of Europa, the green mossy growth on one side and the blue ice on the other. A voice came over as the camera continued to soar across the landscape, talking about the business opportunities, the vacation possibilities, the beautiful landscapes soon to be available. All stemming from Eden Prime.

  A knock at the door twisted Davin away. Phyla stood in the hallway, sporting a look that razed Davin’s soul. His counter-expression, an open-mouthed shrug, prompted Phyla to push her way past Davin and into his room. The door shut behind her, the latch on a closing trap.

  “What?” Davin said, feeling meek though he didn’t know why.

  “You know what. You know precisely why I’m here. That’s why you’re standing over there near the door like some kid wanting to make a run for it,” Phyla said.

  Davin inched forward till he was in the room’s living space. He leaned against the wall, folded his arms across his chest, and tried to adopt something that looked unafraid.

  “That better?” Davin said.

  “Now you’re a cocky teenager who doesn’t want to admit he’s being dumb. Which, I guess, is pretty right for you.”

  “Slinging heat tonight, huh?”

  “Carrying the torch for the people you call your friends. Your crew. The ones you abandoned.”

  “I believe I offered them a lift? A chance to move on?”