The missile crashed against the hull.
And bounced off.
“EMP scrambled its fuse,” he heard an alien voice say back in the CIC. The system identified the speaker as the tactical officer, Lieutenant Flkk’Sss, which was a MinSha name if ever he’d heard one.
They’d survived. He was going to live.
Then he remembered where he was.
Branco rotated his cone of vision all the way around the hull until it faced the direction of travel. There it was. The Taphao-47 stargate.
The sight was beautiful. A rip in reality caught inside a gleaming metal frame, which shimmered in every wavelength as exotic particles ionized along its outer edge.
And they were about to go through.
He shut his eyes.
But that made no difference. He wasn’t seeing any of this through his eyes.
I’m gonna see transition in full fidelity. No one has ever done that.
He screamed once more and was wrenched back into his body.
For several seconds, he couldn’t work out who he was, let alone where or why. Then it all came flooding back.
He was Saisho Branco, safely inside hyperspace and locked into an acceleration cocoon by the mercs who’d kidnapped him. He might be trapped, but his lurching gut told him they’d ceased accelerating, and they were now floating in zero-g.
Branco vomited into the air.
“Well done, Captain,” he gasped when the retching eased. “Can someone release me? I gotta wipe my face.”
Ow! The Zuparti XO gave him a well-aimed kick to his face. “Shut up, filthy human creature,” it snarled, but its tube-shaped body had already shot past him to attend more pressing matters.
Branco twisted round and lifted his head through the top of the cocoon still clamped around him. He couldn’t see clearly, but Venix had halted by the captain. “Medics!” shouted the XO. “To the CIC, STAT.”
“Is someone hurt?” Branco asked, feeling foolish the moment he uttered the words.
“Yes,” answered the Zuparti. The XO mumbled a mix of curses and commands under his breath that resulted in Branco’s cocoon retracting. It helped him out with a little parting gift of momentum that pushed him into the globules of puke, and the air-scrubber micro-drones swarming over to clean up his mess.
Branco had 100 pounds of mass on the XO, but the little weasel didn’t break sweat as he grabbed the human by the cuffs that bound his wrists and twisted him around so he was facing Captain Blue.
A cloud of scrubber drones hovered over the captain, sucking up the writhing bulbs of thick red fluid streaming out from her open cocoon.
Jesus, there was so much blood!
Captain Sue Blue was a striking-looking woman. He had known the instant he’d walked in on her negotiating a merc contract with the Oriflamme, and seen the blue topknot crowning her otherwise completely hairless head. That had been three days ago. Now her most striking feature was the left side of her torso, where the mangled ruins of her light body armor merged with her charred and torn flesh. And through that wound, her still-beating heart pumped a geyser of blood like the sulfur volcanoes of Cap-Soufre that threw their plumes hundreds of miles into space.
Crap.
He thought the captain had only been lightly wounded during his kidnapping. Being wrong about that could prove a problem, because it was he, Saisho Branco, senior weapons designer at Cap-Soufre Base, who had shot her.
Branco looked at the CIC crew. He tried holding up his hands in supplication, but forgot they were cuffed. “Hey, I’m sorry about Captain Blue, but you can’t blame me for resisting my own kidnapping.”
Venix drew up close and pushed his be-whiskered snout into Branco’s face. “You’re wasting your breath, wondering what we think. It’s Major Sun Sue you should be shitting yourself about.”
Branco followed the Zuparti’s gaze. The CIC main hatch had opened, and a medical team were coming through, pushing trauma kits and a stretcher sled before them.
Following them was a human woman sailing through the air with the effortless grace of a superlative athlete. If not for the lush eyebrows that framed her dark eyes, this could be Captain Blue. But she was dressed in black shipboard fatigues with a major’s insignia on her collar.
“Where is he?” shouted the woman. “Where’s the fucker who shot my sister?”
Branco allowed the fear to bloom across his face, and to be fair, it wasn’t difficult as the woman rounded on him with fury blazing in her eyes.
But inwardly, he clung to a thread of hope his implants had given him after he’d re-queried with this new data: Captain Sue Blue had a sister.
His implants finally found a match within the forbidden records he kept in his head, wrapped in the ultimate encryption known to humanity. The two women were sisters, all right. But that was about the only truth going in these parts.
Neither Captain Sue Blue nor Major Sun Sue were who they claimed to be.
And neither was he.
Chapter 2
“She dies, you die,” said Sun, sneering at the brig’s only prisoner.
Blue had purred like a cat in heat when she had first described this Saisho Branco—or whatever his name really was. Blue had allowed this man to apparently chance across her as she ran through a fake merc garrison contract with the boss of this sickly yellow moon, a human with the unlikely title of Oriflamme. But Blue didn’t just sound like she was in heat when she mixed with dangerous men—which was why they’d been forced to flee their original merc contract in the first place.
Honestly, sometimes Sun thought it was better Momma thought they were dead than realize what the nanites had turned her favorite daughter into.
She sighed hard. Branco didn’t look much of a catch right now. In fact, he looked like spoiled meat. The brig was subject to low gravity from the centrifugal effect of the spinning hull, but this was only pseudo-gravity. Given the prisoner’s pallor, Branco’s gut had not been fooled.
“I’m sorry about your sister,” he said.
“Sorry? You fucking shot her!”
“I won’t apologize about that,” he said, seeming to grow a little backbone in his stance as he did so. “I was being kidnapped. Of course I fired in self-defense.”
“Fair point,” Sun admitted. “If you’d missed, we would be laughing about it right now. My sister would be seducing you, and we’d be trying to pretend we didn’t know that at the end of our journey, we would hand you over to our client for the brief remnant of your life. But you didn’t miss, did you? I won’t apologize for killing you if my twin sister dies.”
“I thought mercs cared only about profit,” said Branco. “Kill me, and your client won’t pay out.”
“Mercs know loyalty too. So do sisters.”
Branco rose unsteadily to his feet, and paced slowly in the low gravity to the edge of his cell. “Look, Major, my superiors have resources, very deep pockets. You know I must be valuable because you’ve taken a contract on me already. Whatever your client has offered you, my superiors will more than match it.”
Sun shook her head. This guy was a disappointment after all. “Not going to work, Branco. It’s one thing for you to die under interrogation. That’s an unfortunate accident that will void the contract. But for us to swap clients midway through a deal…Have you any idea of what the Merc Guild would do to us?”
Sun shuddered at the thought, and then watched intrigued as Branco bit his lip for a moment before seeming to arrive at a decision.
“You’re human,” he said, as if it were an accusation.
Sun frowned. “Well spotted.”
“Your merc company—the Midnight Sun Free Company—it’s not registered with the Earth branch of the Merc Guild.”
“True.”
“How come humans lead an alien-registered merc company?”
“Now that is a very interesting story. But as you’ve seen fit to remind me, mercenaries feel the profit motive, and it is not profitable for me to tell that tale right no
w.”
“Your twin explained about the nanites,” he said. “Back on Cap-Soufre.” He had the decency to blush a little, but she couldn’t see where this was leading.
She shrugged. “Some kids get themselves a pornographic morphogenic tattoo and regret it the rest of their life. My sister wanted more. She went for an illegal nanite package that amplified all the pleasure centers in the brain, and it worked beyond her expectations. Except the off switch failed. I’m still searching for one that works. Until I find one, Blue remains a pleasure addict.”
Sun narrowed her eyes and waited for the bastard to smirk, daring him to think the idea of a pleasure addiction was amusing. “So you know our dirty little secret,” she said when he didn’t. “So what?”
“So I had the opportunity to take a DNA sample of your sister, back on the moon. I needed several, because she’s running some serious DNA obfuscation, and I bet you are too. But it’s not impenetrable. I know who you really are, Sun-Yin Solara, and your twin sister, Sun-Yin Midnight. Officially, you’re dead. Your legitimate merc company even paid out your death benefits to your mother.”
“You’re a stupid man. You’ve just talked yourself into a death sentence. How the hell did you know about us anyway? And how come you had our DNA on file? That’s seriously classified.”
He grimaced as if admitting to an embarrassing misdeed. “Because you’ve worn a CASPer at some point. Usage telemetry is constantly assembled into data packets and quietly streamed back to Earth. It’s in the small print. To improve the suits, we need to know how they perform in the field, and for that we have to know about the people inside too.”
Shock pummeled Sun’s guts. She blinked. She already knew Branco was worth money, but she had no idea how big a deal she was getting into. She knew, and he knew she knew, but she whispered it anyway. “You mean you work for—”
“Yes. Binnig.”
“Jesus Christ, Mister. When you said your superiors had money…No one on Earth has more money than the corporation who builds the CASPers.” She smiled triumphantly, because they had bested the little prick. It took a couple of seconds before Branco realized something was badly wrong—he had miscalculated.
Sun laughed. “I know you’re watching,” she announced into the air. “Make yourself presentable, Blue, and come join us.”
The prisoner protested and pleaded, but Sun was bored of him now and ignored the man. He didn’t shut up until the hatch opened, and her twin sister bounded through in the low-gee.
“But…?”
Blue winked at Branco. “Oh, I’m fine, sweetie. I was just messing with you. We wanted to put a little pressure onto our corporate spy.”
Sis beamed with pleasure. Sun recognized the warning signs: her twin was enjoying this just a little too much. She gave her sister a quick kick to the ankle and brought her back to her senses.
“Helm, change course,” Blue ordered. “We’ve finished with Mr. Branco sooner than we expected. As soon as we transition back to normal space, organize a turnaround back to Taphoe-47 in the next slot available.”
“No!” Branco was really frantic now. “You can’t. I need to return to Earth. If you don’t, the Oriflamme will find me and kill me. Earth needs to know what he’s up to.”
“We’re the Midnight Sun Free Company,” said Blue. “We always fulfill our contract.”
“But the Oriflamme is stealing secrets and equipment from Binnig, and a dozen other organizations. His fingers run deep into the corporation, and I know he’s working on behalf of someone else. This could be a prelude to an attack on Earth. Humanity can’t afford for Binnig to be compromised, for the CASPers to be hacked. Your former brothers and sisters in the merc companies need you. Don’t you even care?”
The twins exchanged glances. Branco had a point.
“Of course we care,” said Blue, “but our first loyalty is to whoever pays our contract. And our client would be especially displeased if we did as you said.”
“Who is it? Maybe Binnig can negotiate with them. Who paid the acquisition contract?”
“Acquisition?” teased Blue, raising what had once been an eyebrow. “Our client is your boss, the Oriflamme. He knew you were a very naughty spy, but he didn’t know who you were working for. That was our job, to pretend to kidnap you and shake you up to reveal clues to your true purpose.”
“We were contracted to provide a lead on your employer,” said Sun. “But you went and told us everything. Binnig.” She gave a low whistle. “That’s a fat bonus for us.”
The man looked from one sister to the other, but didn’t find what he sought there. “Have you no honor?”
“I’ve already explained,” said Blue in a voice edged with sharpened steel. “We are the Midnight Sun Free Company, and we always get the job done. And you, Mr. Binnig-Spy, mean contract fulfilled.”
Chapter 3
Blue didn’t bother speaking, she simply stuck her hands on her naked hips and cocked an eyebrow at the pair of CASPers standing guard over the Oriflamme’s fancy chambers.
At least, she raised the ridge of flesh over her eye where a brow had grown until the day every hair follicle ejected from her body. At first, she had hated the side effect of her DNA obfuscation. Now she reveled in her distinctiveness—and the effect it had on people.
The CASPers guarding the Oriflamme regarded her impassively. She couldn’t see inside their helmets, but she wanted to believe the show she was putting on was making the troopers inside sweat inside their haptic suits. She bit her lip and tried hard not to groan, because she was getting a serious thrill from all that deadly hardware standing before her. For all she knew, the CASPers might be women, but the suits they wore were oh-so-masculine.
“As you can see,” she told them, “the Oriflamme’s rather enthusiastic security insects thought any clothing was threatening. You know how Jeha can be.”
She padded about in bare feet, cushioned by the thick carpet and the moon’s low gravity. “As you can also see,” she said, “I’m not armed with any clothing, dangerous or otherwise. Now, your master, the Oriflamme, invited me to share a little nightcap in his private chambers. He can share a drink if that’s what he wants, but I intend to fuck his brains out before we transition away tomorrow. Maybe a little playtime is on his mind too. So are you going to let me in or explain to your boss why he has to drink alone?”
“The Oriflamme says come through now,” said one of the CASPers through his external speakers.
Blue ran a hand over the machine’s metal chest. Interesting. It was like a Mark 8 suit, but the neck armor was thinner and the faint hum of its capacitors was pitched higher.
The exotic configuration made the occupant seem even more dangerous. Excitingly so.
“Step away from the suit, ma’am.”
“Shame we’re leaving tomorrow,” said Blue. “I would have liked to know you better, trooper.”
“The galaxy is frequently a disappointment, ma’am. Now, go on through, the Oriflamme is waiting.”
Blue shrugged, pushed through a wooden door wrapped in metal bands, and entered the Oriflamme’s inner sanctum.
He was waiting for her inside, elbow resting on the mantelpiece over a roaring hearth.
Oh, please. Really?
Cap-Soufre was an airless moon, but the Oriflamme inhabited a make-believe world that was far grander. From the crystal glass tumbler in his hand, filled with a gleaming dark liquid, to the fake logs and a fake hearth, and the silk kimono coating his broad chest like an invitation to stroke him, the Oriflamme’s tastes were a throwback to the 20th century on Earth.
He gestured to a matching tumbler waiting for her on the glass table.
“You don’t need to ply me with drink, Oriflamme.”
“I want to see the effect.”
She drank the fluid. It was whiskey, rich and smoky, that sent sweet fire coursing through her veins. She trembled with giddy anticipation. “So do I.”
He laughed, a very deep but also a quintessentially
human and masculine sound. He beckoned her to sit on the deep leather sofa beside the table.
“Why are you really here?” he asked, as he watched her take her seat while taking a sip of his drink.
“We’ve had the after-contract party. Thank you, it was delicious. You’ve paid us in full for shaking up your spy, and paid us again for revealing the Binnig connection.” She gave a languid shrug. “I guess I never did know when to finish a good party.”
He smiled indulgently, and she had to look away because she was choking up with the prospect of toying with this dangerous man.
“You are former mercenary trooper Sun-Yin Midnight,” he said looking down at her in judgment from his post at the mantelpiece.
Blue felt a sudden chill. Two people had seen through her disguise in the past few days. She would have to hide better if she got out of here alive.
The Oriflamme enjoyed her disquiet. “You underwent viral rewriting of your DNA to change your appearance and identity, and you couldn’t resist adding in a reworking of your hair pigmentation to render it midnight blue to reflect your name. Leaving this giveaway clue was bad enough, but made worse because the viral rewriting had a side effect. You lost all your hair other than your topknot. That, at least, is what my researchers tell me, but I think they’re wrong about your hair loss. My dear, it is not a loss at all but an exquisitely exotic veneer. Truly, you are a delight to someone such as myself, who considers himself a connoisseur of beauty.”
She sniffed with disdain, the way she imagined a haughty twentieth-century aristo might. “I research my clients too. You are the de facto governor of Cap-Soufre. To the galaxy outside, you are conducting research on synthesizing F11 from the core of Phobetor, the gas giant we orbit. How convenient it would be if one could source F11 without the tedious necessity of waiting for dying stars to blast away the atmospheres of their gas giants first.” She looked up. The colored bands of Phobetor cast a beautiful and eerie light through the upper view bubble.
“If your research succeeds, Mr. Oriflamme, you’ll be rich beyond imagination, but my ship has some impressive sensors, and she says there’s far more to this base than you pretend. You have a fusion power plant, for instance…that was the first clue.”
For a Few Credits More: More Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 7) Page 18