Particle Beam A type of directed energy weapon that fires particles with minuscule mass.
Plasma Cannon see Blaster.
Point Defense Cannon (PDC) PDCs are installed on almost every starship to protect hulls from impacts from things like meteoroids. They are also useful defense against torpedoes, although generally ineffective against railguns due to the high velocity of railgun rounds. PDCs can be kinetic or directed energy weapons.
Power Armor Armor that is motor-assisted, often used for deployments on high-G worlds. Configuration often includes vehicle weapon mounts, allowing a higher degree of flexibility for infantry deployment.
Prirene Dynasty The Prirene Dynasty has stretched back over two hundred years. It was the last family to hold the ruling seat of the Empire.
RADAR Acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging. RADAR uses radio waves to determine the range, angle, and velocity of objects.
Radiation Sickness A constant hazard of space. Many crews take daily medication to ward off radiation sickness. It’s as much a part of shipboard life as making sure your O2 is topped up. This means that a mild dose of radiation is unlikely to kill you if treated in time, but massive doses are still dangerous.
Railgun A kinetic weapon that fires high velocity rounds by way of a pair of conductive rails. They are often mounted on larger ships and make a dramatic statement when fired against enemy vessels.
Reactor Starships use fusion reactors. The most common design is the ICF (Internal Confinement Fusion) style of reactor. These have a variety of safety functions that make them suitable for spacefaring needs, including containment fields in case of malfunction. Larger starships can eject faulty reactors into the hard black.
Republic The ruling government of human civilization. The Republic is made up of a Senate, headquartered on Earth. Initially founded by dissenters against the Empire, it has risen to be the driving force of human innovation, commerce, and expansion. The final fight between the Empire and the Republic was quick, due to the small number of ships deployed by the Empire (the Republic Navy had reliable intelligence that the Empire’s forces were much larger). Quick didn’t mean bloodless, although the Republic offered amnesty for any serving Empire crew who wished to take it.
Rig Slang for maintenance equipment commonly worn by Guild Engineers about starships. These double as space suits for zero atmosphere maintenance on the exterior of a starship’s hull. The design incorporates a visor with configurable HUD for instrumentation and telemetry, and a set of programmable servitor arms for complex manipulation of equipment.
Shingle A guild badge of practice, allowing the holder to a) claim they are Guild certified and b) ply their trade as a Guild craftsperson. They are notoriously hard to get, requiring years of study and excellence in your field.
Ship Suit Slang for spacesuit. Generally denotes a space suit for a specific ship carrying crew logograms and/or color themes.
Space Suit Clothing worn to keep humans alive in the hard black. They provide protection against vacuum, temperature extremes, and radiation. Military models are often fitted with armor to protect against blasters, lasers, masers, and kinetic rounds. They often provide additional protection against high-G maneuvers.
Spacer Slang for those who crew on a starship, civilian or military.
Tonne Metric ton, equivalent to 1,000 kilograms.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FIRST UP, THANKS to all y’all who read these books. Without readers, there would be no stories, and the world would be a darker place. You are legendary.
Thanks to everyone who helped with this series, but in particular Scott and Pat. Your help and encouragement is humbling.
My last thanks is reserved for my Rae. You are my true north charting a sea made of stars and possibility.
— R. P.
March 2018, Wellington
EXCERPT: TYCHE'S FURY
A SAKI DEAL
“YOU’RE SAYING SOME asshole wants to hire me,” said Kohl. It came out as more of a shout than a whisper, drawing a few eyes. Kohl ignored those eyes. No law against self-expression, not here in the glorious new Republic. If they were keeping score, the people around him should be arrested for their clothing choices. Neon green jackets. Neon pink hair. Neon everywhere. Some fool was even drinking saki the color of coral not two tables back.
Shig looked at him over saki, eyes focusing about as well as expected on account of the bottle between them being two-thirds empty. “No,” he said. “Kohl? You threw your net. This is what you dragged in.” Shig had dressed down a little this evening, his usual five-thousand coin suit replaced by a silk shirt over white pants. The shirt was long enough to cover the tattoos on Shig’s arms. The man was covered in ‘em, but Kohl figured that was just par for the course when dealing with Yakuza. Kohl himself was dressed in relaxed cargo pants and a jacket that would take kinetic rounds as easy as rain. Wouldn’t do shit against blaster fire though, but they were drinking saki, not starting a gang war. Hell, Shig hadn’t even brought a weapon with him, which Kohl figured on being careless in his line of work, but whatever. His funeral.
The bar was about three meters wide and about twenty long. It was full of people drinking saki, it being a saki bar and all. Lavadome. Hell of a name, but Shig had said it was the second best bar on Trypso Beta, and with the best bar on the other side of the planet, here they were. Kohl didn’t much like saki, but it served a purpose, in this instance getting Shig drunk enough to share a detail or two that might help Kohl land a contract to get off this rock. Also, Shig was paying, and in Kohl’s short set of rules for navigating the clouded waters of his life, turning down free booze was up in the top five of shit not to do.
Kohl sighed, dropped another shot of saki back like it was free, and refilled his glass. The problem with drinking saki with Shig was that he wanted to go to asshole bars with asshole glasses the size of a thimble. It was like they wanted to set an additional expert-level challenge: get drunk a mouthful at a time! Fine. Challenge accepted. “I know I threw my net. I hate this fucking planet.” He pointed at Shig with his glass. “It’s got people like you on it.”
Shig blinked, like he was trying to work out whether that was an insult. “What?”
“So, anyway,” said Kohl. He pushed dreads out of his face. “I need a ride out of here, and it so happens your boss wants to hire me. Your gang lord boss.”
“Hayashi-san is an independent businessman,” said Shig.
“Independent businessmen need hired muscle?” said Kohl.
“I work in acquisitions,” said Shig, slurring the last word. Aquisishionsss. “The Demon Crocodile Company—”
“The what now?”
“Demon Crocodile Company,” said Shig.
“You work for an asshole who named his gang the Demon Crocodile Company?” said Kohl. “I thought you worked for the Yak. Hell, you are the Yak.”
“New branding. Renamed, but yeah.” Shig frowned. “I mean, I think they left things out of the recruitment briefing. They’re not real Yakuza. They’re back on Earth. But you make do with what you’ve got, right?”
“You want to get off this rock too?”
“A little bit,” admitted Shig. “I’ve been having doubts about my life choices.”
“You meet a girl?” Kohl figured you didn’t leave the Yakuza, fake or not, on a whim. It had to be serious, which meant girls or liquor. Standard distribution suggested girls.
“No girl,” said Shig. “Just, you know. Assholes.”
Kohl had worked for a few assholes in his time, and he felt the stirrings of something that might be empathy. “What’s the job?” he said.
“Easy money,” said Shig.
Kohl held up a hand. “I’m gonna stop you right there. Anytime someone says, ‘Kohl, this job is easy money,’ my price goes up.”
“We haven’t set a price,” said Shig.
“Whatever we agree on, it’s going up,” said Kohl. “Principle of the thing, you get me?”
Shig sighed.
“It’s better if you meet the boss. Decide for yourself.”
“How long we known each other, Shig?”
Shig thought that one through, lips moving. He blinked owlishly, saki at the helm. “I figure about three years.”
“I figure that too,” said Kohl. “In all that time, you’ve played a straight game with me. It’s why you’re not in a recycler.” He slugged his saki back, winced, and tapped on the table’s surface to bring up a menu. Saki, saki, and more saki. Didn’t these fuckers sell beer? Ah. There. He keyed an order in for Trypso East Lager while Shig scowled at him. “What?”
“We ever cross swords—”
“Nah,” said Kohl.
“But—”
“No, not that either,” said Kohl. He rolled his shoulders. “Remember who it was who pulled your ass out of that air car fire.”
“I remember,” said Shig.
“With the three guys trying to gun you down.”
“I said, I remember,” said Shig. He straightened. “Anyway. What’s all this about the memory lane, air-car-fire, three-years bullshit?”
“Well, you said it’d be better if I met your boss,” said Kohl. “And that sounds like the worst idea you’ve ever had.”
“Because you’re such a people person?”
Kohl’s beer arrived courtesy of a low-slung delivery robot. This place doesn’t even have real people. The robot threaded through the throng of drinkers on low-slip treads, dodging those less capable of charting an accurate course themselves. He grabbed the beer from the bot’s tray, taking a pull. Turns out, Trypso East Lager didn’t suck. “Nah. Because you and I both know if it happens, I’m gonna end up hitting someone. Might be you. Might be your boss. But someone.”
“Ah,” said Shig. “That’s the whole point.” He smiled beatifically, as if he’d solved the universe’s problems. “Hayashi-san wants you to hit someone. This job? It’s special, Kohl. It will require you to hit a great many people.”
“Hell,” said Kohl. “Why didn’t you lead with that? It would have saved you money on the saki.”
“I like saki,” said Shig.
“Makes one of us,” said Kohl. “Set up the meeting.”
• • •
The meeting took place a mere sleep later, which meant Kohl didn’t feel his best. He figured he didn’t smell his best either on account of falling asleep on the table at Lavadome in a puddle of saki, so he grabbed a shower in his single-room apartment before setting out for the day. The stall was like any you’d find in low-rent places on Trypso Beta. A sign under the mixer said it was okay to wash with, but you shouldn’t drink it, which felt to Kohl like a wasted message. Only fools drank water when there was alcohol in every store. Some water got in his eyes, which stung a little, but nothing anyone over the age of five would cry about.
He snared an auto taxi from his part of downtown to another part of downtown. The only difference Kohl could see was the size and shape of the assholes outside different places. Otherwise, just people swarming the streets. Trypso Beta’s main export was drugs, home to about a hundred corp pushers housing their R&D facilities where the planet gave friendly tax breaks. Lots of bright minds here, the kind of people who’d pay Kohl to keep them and theirs safe.
He didn’t like it. The problem with bright minds is they always figured themselves above you, and wanted to put a boot on your neck. Sure, it was a moneyed boot, made of diamond lace and candy cane, but that didn’t stop it being uncomfortable all the same. Shig had said Kohl, get your ass over here, I’m balls-deep in coin, and so he’d got his ass over here. Shig hadn’t lied. The coin flowed, but Kohl had just about enough of trying to smile while walking some senior scientist’s kid to school. Those fuckers didn’t want the hired help to speak around them, let alone swear, and Kohl felt that put an unnecessary crimp on his own personal brand.
So, it had come to this. Get off the rock. And that wasn’t a problem. Kohl could walk over to the spaceport, drop a suitcase of coins on the counter, and get a ride just about anywhere. But that way, he’d be riding on his own coin, rather than someone else’s. In Kohl’s book of rules, up there along with not buying drinks when someone else was paying, was don’t work for free, nestled alongside if someone will pay you for what you were going to do anyway, take that fool’s coin.
Speaking of fools, the auto taxi set itself down outside an establishment of dubious provenance. The holo said laundry, which was as poor a cover as you could come by. Inside, it didn’t smell of soap. It smelled of sweat and urine and death. Kohl had been into a hundred places just like it on this crust alone, so he wasn’t surprised at the shakedown at the door. There were two men wearing five-thousand coin suits in a dingy anteroom, peeling plaster on the wall. They looked like Yaks, tattoos peeking out at neck and wrist. A holo ticked to itself in a corner, the display busted so only half of a person was showing. Looked like some kind of music holo, whatever the kids around here kidded themselves was popular. The half person was androgynous, hell it might have been a robot for all Kohl could tell. The holo was caught on repeat, unable to walk forward, and Kohl had a little sympathy for the androgynous-maybe-robot as he faced the two men. “Nice suits,” he said.
“Thanks,” said one. “Weapons.”
“Yeah, I got ‘em,” said Kohl.
“Very funny,” said the other. “In the locker.” He pointed to an open locker in a rack, the kind you’d find at a gymnasium if you were a person who paid to exercise when you could just beat up people for free.
Kohl sighed, unslung his blaster, and tossed it inside. “There. Happy?”
The first suit frowned. “We look like the stupid kind to you?”
Kohl thought about that, maybe a little too long, then said, “Nah.”
First Suit jerked a thumb at the locker. “Weapons. All the weapons.”
Well, fuck. Kohl reached behind him, unslinging his small backup blaster. It was a gift from a hooker he’d helped out a spell back, and despite the pink lacquered handle he quite liked it. He tossed it in the locker alongside the other blaster. “Happy?”
Second Suit hadn’t been smiling before, but he looked less likely to start now. “Boot.”
“You’re kidding me,” said Kohl.
“Boot.”
“You guys are making this personal,” said Kohl, but he reached inside his boot, pulling out a ceramic blade fifteen centimeters long. He studied it for a second or two. “This? It’s tiny. Not worth your trouble.”
“Locker,” said First Suit. “No weapons.”
“You guys have weapons,” said Kohl.
“Our zoo,” said Second Suit, like that made sense.
Whatever. Kohl tossed the knife in the locker. “Happy?”
“Just peachy,” said First Suit. He opened the door behind them, no locking mechanism Kohl could see in sight. A plain ol’ door, handle like out of some historical holo. It bore remembering, because if this Demon Crocodile Company were the kind that didn’t care about locks, it meant either they had nothing worth stealing or that all the guys wearing five-thousand coin suits had earned ‘em.
Still, this was a business meeting, and Kohl had learned during his time on Trypso Beta that business meetings weren’t conducted using firearms.
No one escorted Kohl as he walked down a gloom-riddled corridor, half expecting rats to be scurrying about. Not a rat in sight, just a door at the end with a big red light above. Did the red light mean go in, or did it mean wait? Or was it a poor lighting choice? Hard to tell with the Yakuza, and Kohl wasn’t used to waiting, so he walked on in. The door opened in the rear corner of a room, stretching out to the left of where he’d entered from.
The room inside was unusual, but not outside the scale of weird that came with putting a bridle on the Yakuza. The floor was one big grate, which meant cleaning crews could just hose the place down and viola, no more mess. An automated cleaning system, complete with industrial hose, crabbed against one wall. Hung from the ceiling were a bunch of chains, and hung
from those was a dead-looking guy. He was dead-looking on account of the loll of his head. Also, his eyes were missing, gore painting his face, and he wasn’t complaining about that. So, yeah. Dead guy.
Next to the auto cleaner was Shig, wearing one of his five-thousand coin suits, wiping his hands with a blood-soaked handkerchief. The handkerchief looked like it was made of silk, which in Kohl’s experience made it a sub-optimal tool for that particular job, but Kohl’s experience also suggested that Shig liked showing off, so that played out just fine.
At the end of the room to Kohl’s left, a chair that wouldn’t have been out of place in a throne room held a bare-chested man, tattoos covering his body. There was a man to his right — Kohl’s left — and a woman on his other side. Both had swords, which was weird but fine, and to compliment this the woman had a sidearm that looked like a dart gun. That was also weird and slightly less fine, as the last time Kohl had seen someone shot by a dart gun his blood had boiled through his skin after being converted to an acid. It had bothered Kohl because it was inefficient. If you want to kill a man, just render him down to carbon. Fucking around with acid? That was crazy.
So, the woman might have been crazy. It was a tenuous A to B, B to C, but Kohl had learned to trust his gut. He looked at Shig, then back at the tattoo’d guy on the throne. “Which one of you needs someone like me?”
Shig stepped forward. “October Kohl, this,” and here, he held a hand out, palm up, towards the bare-chested man, “is Kazuhiko Hayashi. Hayashi-san is—”
Kohl brushed him aside, stepping forward. “Kaz. Do you mind if I call you Kaz? Kaz, apparently you’ve got something you need to get off world. You need a courier.” He ignored Shig’s intake of breath, his friend frozen like ice in shock. Whatever. Best to get through the familiarity barrier early, hey?
Kaz looked at Kohl like he was a curious breed of small dog, a vanity pet you might keep in a bag. He leaned towards the woman, whispering something to her. She nodded just once, then stepped towards Kohl and Shig. She stopped a couple paces away, waiting. Kaz cleared his throat. “October Kohl, do you know why I need a courier when I have so many fine soldiers of my own?”
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