I hate him so much, I thought to myself. Yet this was the best I could do. Ten years of hard service in some of the toughest merc campaigns, and here I was, on a crappy little planet no one had ever heard of, pulling garrison duty with a unit that wasn’t fit to clean the latrines of my old unit. I shouldn’t have punched that bastard, I thought of my old commander; I should have shot him somewhere painful instead…
Here I was, Jason Azoros, veteran of numerous campaigns, skilled in the use of three variants of CASPers and over 40 different modern weapon systems, implanted with the latest sets of pinplants… and Julian Neubauer’s Argonauts was the only unit that would take me. My last commander had burned me badly, and I had no one to blame but myself. Stupid name for his company, I thought as I stared at my nominally superior officers. The name meant the sailors of Argo. The Colonel is too much of a cheapskate to buy a garbage scow, much less any ship worth naming…
Captain Schultz and Colonel Neubauer had gone back to knob-polishing one another, and I scowled at Gomez and the rest of my squad. “Next one of you opens your mouth, I’ll put my boot up your ass.” They looked sullen, but they kept their mouths shut.
We all knew what to expect. Colonel Neubauer would spend another 30 minutes or more having his ego stroked by Captain Schultz, with the entire unit as an audience. After that, he’d go back to his office and probably put together some fancy report for our employers about how effective we were as a deterrent against rear-area operations or some kind of crap like that. Then he’d make certain everything was in the right font. It wouldn’t do for him to present a brief with Calibri font, after all. If everything worked out well, we wouldn’t see him again until tomorrow.
Captain Schultz would call in his platoon leaders, and they’d repeat the process. If we were really lucky, Captain Schultz would be pleased with 20 minutes of fawning, then our platoon leaders would give us our assignments, and we could go back to guarding Bedarine Seven’s capital, about a thousand miles from the front lines.
Even as I thought that, Colonel Neubauer gave a crisp, parade-ground salute and sauntered away, high-fiving Lieutenant Chin on his way back to his headquarters. His female clerk followed after him, and I felt a moment’s pity for the young woman. How bad must it be to be stuck around him all day?
“My feet hurt,” Reedie muttered.
I turned my head and gave him my crazy eyes. Reedie went pale and his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“All our feet hurt, Reedie,” Corporal Gomez replied; either he didn’t see my look, or he didn’t care. “It’s ‘cause this is amateur hour, and Captain Schultz has his head so far up Colonel Neubauer’s—”
“Staff Sergeant Azoros!” Captain Schultz barked out, looking up from his platoon leaders. “Apparently you feel your squad has already received the mission, and you’ve begun your own briefing?”
“Sir?” I asked as calmly as I could manage.
“Since that’s the case, you and your squad can accompany me and Second Platoon to the landing platform, just in case any cargo from the delegation requires offloading.”
Shit, I thought to myself. Second Platoon had the nicest looking gear, not because Captain Schultz liked them better, but because Colonel Neubauer seemed to like the number two. Similarly, we were Second Company, but we only had one company of CASPers. Second Platoon’s nicer-looking gear meant they often pulled dignitary guard duty for formal ceremonies. Second Squad of Second Platoon was filled with the Colonel’s old drinking buddies, most of whom were barely standing, and I could smell the alcohol oozing out of their skin from where I stood. This was going to suck.
First Platoon had to “assist” one time in the past couple months. We’d spent 18 hours using our CASPers to unload cargo crates as a “favor” to our employers. The Colonel had loved it, and he had said that the “multilateral use of resources” showed “great initiative.”
I was going to kill Gomez. Probably Reedie, too.
“Yes, sir!” I barked out. Apparently I’d pitched my voice a bit louder than I intended, and Captain Schultz and his platoon leaders all took a couple of startled steps back. Fuck this, I thought to myself, Reedie was right, how the hell do I get out of this chicken-shit outfit?
* * *
An hour later, we were suited up in our obsolete Mark Six CASPers. I switched over to the squad net. “Alright, Professor, what do you know about this delegation?”
“Staff Sergeant,” Private Grimes muttered, “what makes you think I know anything about them?”
“You know everything,” I answered. Unlike the rest of us, Grimes came from a decent family back on Earth. He’d done two years of college, working on a degree he could use to build a brighter future for humanity, then he realized he could make a fortune breaking stuff and blowing things up instead. Unfortunately for him, he’d joined the Argonauts. Classic blunder, I thought to myself, sign up with the first unit that offered to take you...
After all, I’d made the same mistake. Granted, in my case, I hadn’t had many options. I should have shot him; I really should have shot him…
“I just like to read up on stuff, that’s all,” Grimes responded.
“Are you saying you don’t know anything about them?” I demanded.
“No...” Grimes admitted. “This delegation is made up of Cartar, from the Antara system. Their planet has abnormally heavy quantities of deuterium, so it’s sort of a win-win situation. They sell the Lotar fuel to carry out their war, and they get rich, plus they get plenty of F11 from the Lotar mines to make their own reactors.”
“Why send delegates, then?” I asked. Meeting in person was difficult. It required travel, and we weren’t in a big system so they ran the risk of encountering pirates or some kind of hostile attack when they came in to land. Bedarine Seven was a war-zone, after all, and from what I’d heard, our side didn’t have nearly as much control of things as it liked to pretend. The Lotar were here to back their group of natives against the group of natives who lived where they wanted to mine. Since the F11 mining operations I’d seen before made the Moon look pretty hospitable in comparison, I didn’t really blame the natives for fighting over it.
Grimes didn’t reply right away. After a moment, I prompted him, “Come on, Professor...”
“Look,” Grimes said, “I don’t really know, okay? I read somewhere that the Antaran Cartar are some kind of splinter group; they aren’t part of the greater Cartar species. They don’t have many trade partners...and they used to trade with natives who used to be in charge—the guys we’re here to fight. Apparently they already imported F11 from them, just nowhere near as much as the Lotar think they can provide.”
“Great,” Gomez muttered, “so they don’t like us?”
“I don’t know,” Grimes admitted. “I mean, why would they send a trade delegation if they weren’t interested in trade, right?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. “So they’re Cartars,” I said. I’d encountered a few, they were big octopi-looking aliens that lived underwater.
“I hate mollusks,” Corporal Gomez muttered.
“Technically they’re cephalopods, a subspecies of mollusk” Grimes corrected.
“Never met a good one,” Gomez began. “Back in the Golden Horde....”
“Was this before or after you failed out of their training program?” I snapped.
Gomez shut up. It was a sullen silence, though. He and I were going to have to work it out. I just hoped I wouldn’t have to kill the damned fool. Then I’d have to explain it to Schultz. Then there would be all kinds of paperwork, and I hate paperwork...
Speak of the devil, I thought to myself as Captain Schultz emerged onto the landing pad. Like the rest of us, he wore the older Mark Six CASPer. His, though, bore the latest upgrades, complete with variable reflective coatings and a shoulder-mounted laser. He also carried a laser carbine secondary weapon on his hip, but I knew he hadn’t fired either of the weapons, not even when the company went to the range. I stil
l wasn’t sure if that was because he was that poor of a shot, or simply because he didn’t know how to fire them.
“Second Platoon,” Captain Schultz snapped out, “Form up!”
“Squad,” I snapped, “Form up.”
“No, no, no,” Captain Schultz waved the arm of his suit, “Staff Sergeant Azoros, your squad will form up to the side...uh, over there.” He gestured off to the rear of the platform, mostly out of sight behind stacked crates. “If we need you to help unload, I’ll let you know.”
“Yes, sir,” I growled. “Squad, fall in,” I snapped, even as I cued up our positions on my screens. Newer CASPers bore Tri-V’s, and I could have used those to position my platoon while half asleep. But it took a bit more time and effort on the older displays.
We fell in on our position and waited. Even in the CASPer, my feet began to hurt. “So,” Reedie spoke up, “Professor, do you want to play some Towers and Terrors tonight after we finish—”
“Squad,” I snapped. “Full weapons and equipment readiness check!”
All of them grumbled, but they got to it. A full readiness check would require the entirety of their attention, going through maintenance subroutines and making certain their weapons, ammo, and capacitors were at a hundred percent.
Since Colonel Neubauer skimped on parts, I knew none of them would be at a hundred percent. But that didn’t matter. I’d helped to scavenge the best replacement parts I could find, and I knew which systems weren’t needed. When necessary, I’d even stolen from other platoons. Second Platoon may look the best, I thought with a smirk, but if they really get into some shit...
That was highly unlikely. We were here for show. The Lotar knew they’d gotten the second string with the Argonauts, and they didn’t want anyone to swat their paper tigers. They’d keep us far from the front, a “reserve” force in a war they were winning without our help.
This far out from civilized space, an exotic company of armored humans was far more useful for impressing than it was in a position where it could be defeated.
“Here we are,” Grimes said, just as my sensors picked out the descending ship. “Huh, that’s funny. That’s an old Styx-class, not what I’d figure for a diplomatic ship.”
“A what?” I asked.
“Styx,” Grimes said.
“We heard you the first time, Professor,” Gomez sneered. “He means what the hell is a Styx?”
“It’s an old gunboat. There were a few built for the Peacemakers, but all of them were decommissioned a few decades back. They were too big and expensive for the Peacemakers to operate. It looks like they pulled the guns off, but you can see how heavy that thing is...lots of armor and, well, it’s huge!”
I couldn’t argue with that. The squat, angry-looking craft on approach didn’t look anything like what I’d send on a diplomatic mission. On impulse, I spoke, “Squad, go to weapons ready status.”
“Staff Sergeant?” Reedie asked in surprise.
“Just do it,” I hissed.
The ship settled down to the landing pad without any hostile actions, but I still felt uneasy about the situation. Who brought a decommissioned gunboat to a trade negotiation?
The ramp opened and out came the delegation. At first, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. The five Cartar exited in spheres of water, with rolling metal frames that seemed to provide support and structure. They were crouched inside their balls, meshed into the machinery that controlled their contraptions. In the lead was the biggest Cartar I’d ever seen. He towered over the CASPers of Second Platoon, and they were nine feet tall.
“I ain’t ever seen a mollusk in that kind of rig before,” Gomez grunted.
“Cephalopod,” Grimes corrected automatically. “Wow,” he said after a moment, “that’s fascinating. They’re using the cages sort of like hamster wheels to move around. But there’s some kind of electromagnetic field around them that keeps the water inside and supports them...”
“Smart,” I said. Most of the Cartar I’d encountered had issues operating outside of water. It left them weaker and at a disadvantage to land-dwellers. It seemed the Antaran Cartar had found a way to compensate.
“Greetings,” an automated voice spoke. It seemed to come from one of the Cartar’s water balls, but not the big one in the lead. “Who is in charge here? We wish to greet you.” Whoever had programmed the translator either hadn’t bothered with emotion emulators or had configured it to sound threatening, on purpose.
I brought up my passive scanners, trying to learn what I could about the Cartar’s balls. The electromagnetic fields that contained their water played havoc with my scanners. I couldn’t tell a damned thing about what was inside those balls. They all had to have serious power sources, possibly even fusion-driven.
Why not, I thought, when your system has plenty of fuel...
“I’m in charge,” Captain Schultz spoke up. He stepped forward, “On behalf of the Lotar Industrial Commission of Bendarine Seven, I greet you...”
The big Cartar rolled forward. Before I knew what had happened, it rolled over Captain Schultz, pulling him into the ball of water, only a few feet from the big octopus alien.
“What’s going on?” Captain Schultz’s voice on his radio was heavily distorted, probably from the EM field. This isn’t good, I thought, as I switched my MAC’s safety off.
“I think he’s trying to greet you, sir,” Lieutenant Chin said, helpfully.
“Oh, well then...” Captain Schultz chuckled nervously.
The big Cartar’s eight arms spread out, and he embraced Captain Schultz. The gesture caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
“Friendly fellows, aren’t they?” Captain Schultz laughed. “Wait, what, no, stop! He’s biting through my armor! Oh, God, get him off me!”
Then the screaming began.
* * *
To give Second Platoon credit, they didn’t hesitate more than a few seconds before they opened fire. Unfortunately, almost all of them were armed with fancy-looking laser weapons.
I watched as the lasers impacted the five spheres and caused water to splash out, but failed to penetrate. “Tune your frequencies for penetration!” I shouted to them, even as I directed my squad to sheltered positions.
Captain Schultz was still screaming over the company net. He had the command override, and I wasn’t going to push through.
At least they aren’t armed, I thought to myself.
They proved me wrong as Lieutenant Chin’s armor erupted in flames. A moment later, I spotted the laser fire coming from inside the spheres. Of course, they’d adjusted the frequencies of their laser weapons to allow them to shoot through their water spheres.
“Return fire!” I barked out to my men.
Second Platoon was going down quickly, though, and as they dropped, I saw more of the death balls roll down the ramp. Two, then four, then a dozen. These were different; they were armored, the surfaces shifting as they rolled, firing ports snapping open and closed as the pilots inside fired.
This wasn’t a fight, it was a massacre.
“Focus fire,” I snapped at my squad, designating two of the death balls closest to us. I fired my MAC, and the hypersonic rounds impacted the unarmored water spheres with huge splashes, yet our projectile rounds didn’t seem to gain any real penetration. The water, I thought to myself. “All Argonaut units, this is Argonaut Two-One-Two, we have a foothold situation, we are under serious attack. I repeat, we are under serious attack!”
“Screw this,” Gomez snapped, “I’m not paid enough for this shit!”
“Gomez, hold your damned position!” I snapped back.
“Argonaut Two One Two,” a calm voice replied. “That’s a negative, we don’t have any drills on the schedule, over.”
“This isn’t a god-damned drill!” I shouted. Our combined firepower finally seemed to hit something and the nearest of the Cartar went limp in his harness. But there were five of them firing back at us. Pa
st them, I saw the remnants of Second Platoon falling back.
“I’m going to have to get Argonaut Two on the net...”
“Argonaut Two is down!” I snapped. “Those mollusk bastards ate him!”
“Cephalopod, Staff Sergeant,” Grimes chimed in.
“How do I get out of this chicken-shit outfit?” Reedie whined, as he returned fire.
“I’ll need to get some kind of authorization...”
The net went down with a squeal of static. At least I didn’t have to listen to the idiots anymore.
* * *
The only reason we made it back to our base was because the damned squids went chasing after Second Platoon. Periodically, my suit’s sensors picked up weapons fire as the survivors of Second Platoon continued to run to the south. Who could blame them? They were outgunned and taken by surprise. It looked as if the Cartar had targeted their squad leaders first, which meant the survivors were little more than a broken rabble.
I led my squad up the hill to the Argonaut headquarters. Third Platoon stood around, half of them out of their Mark 6 CASPers, the other half in suits, with their weapon’s slung. “What’s happening?” Lieutenant Bohannan asked, wearing only a pair of trousers, “Some kind of firearms practice? The Colonel is irritated; he can’t pick up Captain Schultz.” He scratched his hairy chest and spat a blob of chewing tobacco-laced spit.
“That’s because he’s dead, you moron,” I snapped at him over my suit’s speakers, not caring who heard. “Get your men ready, those eight-legged freaks are coming for us as soon as they finish with the rest of Second Platoon.”
“What?” Bohannan stared blankly at me. His bovine expression annoyed me at the best of times. Under these circumstances, I wanted to wipe it off his face with a burst from my MAC. I’ll need all the ammo I have left, I reminded myself. Instead I reached out and used my CASPer enhanced strength to shove him out of my way and stalked forward.
“Suit up, get to your battle positions, now!” I snapped. Mercenaries scattered. They didn’t look ready to fight. I knew they spent more time watching lewd movies and playing games than they did training. I knew from my old unit that a well-trained regiment would have trouble fighting off this kind of surprise attack. I didn’t have a well-equipped, well-trained regiment. I had two platoons, armed with obsolete garbage and made up of whatever criminals, miscreants, and desperate hopefuls Colonel Neubauer had been able to find.
The Good, the Bad, and the Merc: Even More Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 8) Page 2