Star Wolf (Shattered Galaxy)

by David G. Johnson

  Rayce once again looked a little dazed and was looking around for the person to go with Dub’s voice.

  “Whoa, now a bodyless dude voice,” Rayce said as he focused his eyes on Molon once again. “Tell me you are hearing that too, man.”

  “Dub, how long has he been there?” Molon asked, ignoring Rayce’s nonsense for the moment.

  “Fifteen days paying with an anonymous, numbered debit account card that has been refilled twice with enough Theocreds to cover the room as well as room service charges and surfboard rentals.”

  “Yeah, ghostly dude voice,” Rayce replied. “Imperial Island has some seriously awesome waves, man.”

  “I still don’t like it,” Molon grumbled.

  “Look, Molon,” Voide said in a low whisper, pulling Molon’s ear close to her mouth. “Put him on my security team, and I’ll take responsibility for him.”

  “You want this guy on your team?” Molon whispered back. “He looks like he is one or two brain cells away from a talking monkey. No way this wasteoid has been running the shadows for four years. More likely he’s been in a drug den slowly killing his brain.”

  “I don’t believe he is half the burnout he is pretending to be,” Voide replied. “Sometimes deep cover agents don’t know when to stop working a cover. Doubtless he figures GalSec isn’t going to be looking for some brain-fried beach bum on a Theocracy world. I ran his current image against his GalSec service record photo through my facial recognition app. Didn’t even trigger a possible partial. This guy is good.”

  Molon sat back up straight in his chair.

  “Looks like your lucky day, Rayce. You have a billet on our security team if you want it. Since your rank, and everything else, is redacted, you’ll start as a base security officer with the effective shipboard rank of a marine private. You okay with that?

  Rayce was grinning broadly.

  “Sure thing, man. Rank is just a system of oppression anyway. I don’t wanna be bossing nobody around. You won’t regret it, chica. You’ll see.”

  “I already regret it,” Voide replied. “And the name’s Voide, not chica. See the sergeant over there and grab a chair until we are done.”

  Rayce looked over to the table where Sergeant Jackson “Banger” Padenesa was handling all the record keeping for the potential hires.

  “Chilly,” Rayce answered. “Hey, you guys buying the drinks?”

  A silence and stern looks from Molon and Voide was their only reply.

  “Okay, man, I’ll cover my own tab. Jeesh, not a very good way to welcome a new guy.”

  Rayce staggered his way over to the bar and took a stool and began regaling the bartender with tales of monster waves and skimpy swimsuits.

  Over the next hour they picked up a couple more unremarkable grunts. Voide had by far the most billets to fill as the boarding action, plus their previous encounters, had hit her marines the hardest. These guys were decently skilled, and Molon wasn’t worried about disciplinary issues with Voide in charge of them.

  The next unusual individual seemed to be more machine than man. He had externally augmented arms, legs, and what seemed to be an external metal carapace around his torso covered lightly by a woven poncho. His right eye and ear were a single unit of cybernetic replacements connected by a sheet of steel that wrapped around his cheek on that side. The man was large, even slightly taller than Molon, and all the weight of all that hardware sent shivers through the floor when he walked. His wrinkled, bald head and thick neck were the only obviously biological parts of him left.

  “Name and preferred call sign?” Molon asked, eyeing the individual warily.

  “Sergei Orov,” the man answered with a thick accent. “call sign Verks.”

  “Verks?” Molon asked. “What is that supposed to be?”

  “No,” Orov said shaking his head. “W-E-R-X. Like short for clock-vorks but spelled cooler. Vas smart-alek Major give me this name after my refit.”

  Molon punched Orov’s name into the datapad.

  Error: Record Not Found

  “Ah, Cybertrooper,” Molon said, staring at Orov. “We seem to be missing your service record. Why is that?”

  “Saw line. Asked. Said ship vas hiring. Got in line. Can provide service records if needed, but don’t have vit me.”

  “Ah, I see,” Molon replied, noting the plate that held his service time rank held the barely-visible remnant of a first lieutenant’s bar. “So, lieutenant, let me guess. Barton Rebellion?”

  Orov’s face went even more stony. He didn’t answer but gave a slight nod.

  “Empire or rebels?” Molon pressed.

  Orov let out a deep sigh and scowled. He shook his head as he folded his large, cybernetic arms across his metallic chest.

  “This matters now? Rebels gone. Empire gone. I’m just old Cybertrooper looking to find honest verk.”

  “So rebels, then,” Molon snarked and saw Orov’s face flush a bit as he tensed and his scowl deepened.

  Molon knew provoking a Cybertrooper was not exactly the height of wisdom, but he figured that between himself and Voide, they could handle Orov if it came to that. Provocation was actually the best way to test for cyberpsychosis. Most suffering from the condition had very little self-control. They were like the human id cut loose. Most external augments didn’t exhibit cyberpsychosis nearly as frequently as those with extensive sub-cutaneous augmentation. Still it would be better to find out here than when locked in a space ship with a Cybertrooper gone off the rails.

  “Vas like this,” Orov explained, in a calm and level tone. “Barton colonies vanted independence. Empire said no. Empire von argument. End of story. Ancient history. So you need soldiers or vat?

  Molon was satisfied. Orov seems a tough old bird, but sane enough. The Barton Rebellion was almost thirty years ago. Even at Orov’s age, which Molon guessed was maybe late fifties, early sixties, these Cybertroopers were some of the best soldiers around. Their augments kept them from suffering some of the effects of aging that normal soldiers would have to deal with. As long as his parts were maintained and his mind stayed sharp, a Cybertrooper like Orov could hold his own against any other soldier.

  “Okay, trooper. See the sergeant over there,” Molon said, pointing to Banger’s table. “He has a comms link set up to our ship’s database and the planetary records. If you were part of the Barton Rebellion, he should be able to pull up your service record. Let him know if you have anything else to add. Provided there are no red flags, we could use an experienced combat officer.”

  “Thank you, captain,” Orov said as he snapped to attention and issued a salute.

  “No need for all that formality, lieutenant. For now, you will take your orders from Master Gunny Tibbs, but once you’ve been vetted, you will be given a billet in line with your rank and experience. You good with that?”

  “Just happy to be verking again, captain.”

  With that, Orov lumbered over to where Banger was processing the applicants. When Orov moved, it felt like the whole bar shook.

  “Dub?” Molon said into the remote link microphone.

  “Yeah, Cap?”

  “You think Star Wolf’s decking is up to the wear and tear a Cybertrooper is going to be putting on her? Guy has to be pushing two hundred kilos easy.”

  Dub laughed.

  “I’m over one-seventy myself, Cap. He’s big, but he ain’t no wider than me. Might have to reinforce his bunk, and he’ll probably take two seats on an STS, but we’ll work it out.”

  “And you can keep his parts in working order?”

  “Heck yeah. When I was apprenticing I used to build Cybertrooper models. Those guys were my heroes.”

  “Well try not to drool all over my shiny new marine,” Voide quipped. “He might rust.”

  Half a dozen sub-par rejects later, a dark-haired man in his mid-twenties stepped up. He was not like most of the rest of the dregs. This guy was decked out in the latest street-armor outfit, a hodge-podge of style and functionality. He had a pu
lse blaster on his right hip, an automag on his left fitted for a cross-draw, and a needler pistol fitted in a shoulder holster. Molon noted all these weapons had the nub of a smart-weapon interface built into their grips.

  “Expecting trouble?” Molon said as the man stepped up to the application table.

  “Always,” the man replied.

  “Name and preferred call sign?” Molon said, noting out of the corner of his eye Voide was accessing something below the table; probably a weapon of her own just in case.

  “Rafael Fuentes, but people call me Dex.”

  Molon punched up the name on his datapad but found not a military service record but a civilian curriculum vitae and a list of references. Fuentes had half a dozen computer and sensors certifications, a doctoral degree in starship sensor operations, and oddly enough a perfect marksmanship certificate from a gun club on Furi’s mainworld.

  “You lost, son? This ain’t computer club tryouts. We’re hiring mercenaries.”

  The man smiled, not at all rattled by Molon’s sarcasm.

  “That’s my life,” Fuentes replied. “Dex stands for cyberdecks,” he said extending his right hand and showing a palm-mounted datajack that looked different from Twitch’s or Dub’s.

  “Wow,” Dub replied through the uplink. “That looks like a Novacorp C2700 CID/NID tactile port. That’s top of the line hardware there, kid. How’d you afford a toy like that?”

  Fuentes beamed and nodded.

  “Good eye,” he said holding the interface up closer to the camera. “I definitely burned a half dozen paydays on this baby, but worth every credit.”

  “If you bought that and those toys you are loaded down with using just six paydays, I take it you aren’t a desk jockey,” Molon said. “Shade?”

  Fuentes nodded.

  “Yessir. Decker, mecher, and marksman extraordinaire.”

  “Well, if you are that good,” Voide said, “then why would you take a massive pay cut and join a merc crew? Who is after you?”

  The fur on the back of Molon’s neck stood up and his ears twitched forward. Voide was right. Top-notch shades could write their own ticket working as shadow runners for megacorps. Most mercs lived payday to payday, not knowing if there was going to be any pay at all. Something didn’t add up.

  “Last run went all bonzo. Corp snuck a mole onto the team. I was decked in remotely and barely jacked out before some of the meanest black ICE I’ve ever seen punched my ticket.”

  “And your team?” Molon asked.

  “As far as I know the rest of the team got slagged. None showed at the rendezvous spot, no comms in three weeks to our check-in line. They’re gone, and Zephyr Technologies knows a shade decker got away. Right now any ship moving away from PI space is a good place for me to be.”

  “Zephyr Tech?” Dub replied. “Thought they were a biofoods company. What’d they have worth pillaging, nuclear carrots?”

  Fuentes looked around and lowered his voice.

  “Let’s just say their R&D division is working on more than ways to boost food’s nutritional effects on the body.”

  Molon had heard enough. Shades were the scum of the earth to the megacorps, but to common people they were like the legendary Robin Hood, taking up the fight against the powers that controlled everyone’s lives. In truth, most were just thugs hired by one oppressive corporation to raid another, but most shades had a strong sense of loyalty to a team. Once bonded, they didn’t break faith easily. Molon had a few former shades on the team, and they were shorthanded on the bridge.

  “I need a replacement sensors officer. You’re more than qualified. You will get an honorary rank as ensign, as bridge crew must be officers, but don’t go getting any ideas. You ain’t in charge of nobody, so don’t get heady with the rank. Crew is full of hard-core soldiers that earned their bars and stripes, so don’t give them a reason to frag you. We clear?”

  “As crystal,” Fuentes replied.

  “Good. See the sergeant over there and he’ll get you sorted. Welcome aboard.”

  Fuentes nodded and walked away.

  “So we’re babysitting deckheads now?” Voide grumbled.

  “He’s got great skills we need, and he is clearly no stranger to combat. If he’s been running the shadows, he’s gotten the chance to shoot at more than gun range targets. He’ll be fine.”

  “He has a naïve confidence,” Mel added. “He will need guidance, Molon.”

  “He’ll be on Hoot’s team. They speak the same lingo and Hoot is not much older. They’ll be fine.”

  The next interesting candidate was a man in his early forties with a receding hairline and a well-developed paunch around his middle. Not much taller than Mel, the man’s slightly skewed eyes, large nose, and somewhat nasal voice pattern were an unusual mix.

  “Name and preferred call sign?”

  “Retired Lieutenant JG Dassous Ajam, formerly of the Imperial Navy. Call sign is Ace. I’m a pilot.”

  Molon pulled up Ajam’s impressive service record.

  “Lots of shiny bits here,” Molon said noting the medals Ajam’s record showed he had earned. “Career man. In at eighteen, put in your twenty, then retired. What have you been up to for the last few years?”

  “Enjoying my retirement. Traveling, sight-seeing, you know, living the life.”

  “More like eating the life,” Voide quipped, noting the man’s rotund middle.

  “Ah yes,” Ajam laughed, rubbing his stomach. “Let’s just say I haven’t been as diligent keeping up my service time PT. But then again, pilots burn a lot of chair time, so I would be lying if I said I was ever in tip-top shape, even while I served.”

  Molon did note the only smudge on the man’s records were the note on every physical evaluation that he needed to lose weight. As far as dings on the record went, that was one Molon could live with, and with Twitch out, even with Angel they were short on pilots. Twitch’s second pilot, Lieutenant Lawrence ‘Angel’ Mallory had been killed in Revenge’s boarding action, and they were already down a pilot after one had been killed while defending a grounded STS on previous mission. Twitch and Z-Man had been it, with Warbird being able to help in a pinch.

  “What brings you out of retirement, then?” Molon asked. “And signing on with a merc crew no less. Surely the academy would love to have a decorated officer come back to teach the new recruits.”

  “Truth be told, captain, I’m bored out of my skull. If I tried flying a desk, I’d lose my mind. I miss being out there; being at the helm.”

  Molon nodded.

  There was a pause, and then Ajam cleared his throat again. “Let me ask you, captain,” he said, eyeing where Rayce was sitting at the bar. “Did that strange fellow over there sign on with your crew as well?”

  “What’s that to you?” Molon asked, laying his datapad on the table as he wondered at Ajam’s odd question.

  “It’s just that I have seen him around the beach. I’m not sure he is right…in the head I mean.”

  Molon smiled.

  “Don’t worry about him, my security chief here will make sure to keep an eye on him.”

  The man smiled and nodded as he pointed to his service record on Molon’s datapad.

  “I’m a top pilot, captain. Help me do what I love to do again.”

  “Fair enough, Ace. Check in with the sergeant.”

  A few other applicants stood out and were hired, but Molon was growing tired as the line wound down. The final applicant for the day was easily the most unexpected, Cybertroopers, shades, and brain-fried assassins notwithstanding.

  A huge Dractauri approached the recruitment table. Dractauri were interstellar nomads. They were reptilian with four solid legs beneath the main part of their body but a forward torso that bent upward, like the earthly centaur legends. The scaly torso held high a fearsome-looking lizard head and large, human-like arms and hands covered in scales. At the end of each three-fingered and one-opposable thumbed hand were wicked-looking black claws, still sharply pointed but f
iled down for improved manual dexterity.

  The Dractauri wore no clothes to speak of, but did have several utility belts and harnesses hooked around to carry tools, weapons, and anything else they needed. While there was a long knife sheathed at one side, the Dractauri carried no other obvious weapons. Instead, he looked more like a walking tool chest.

  Dractauri could not speak Galactic Common. Their vocal chords couldn’t form most of the sounds, so typically they wore collars with a translator module attached. The module would render their own sub-sonic speech into audible Galactic Common while sub-sonically translating other languages back to them.

  “Name and preferred call sign?” Molon asked.

  “My name is unpronounceable to you, and the closest transliteration is devoid of beauty. The humans I have encountered have called me ‘Draco’. I believe they intended it as a pejorative. However, it is not displeasing when translated to my own language, so I will accept this moniker.”

  Molon stifled a smile at the response. Dinos, Dracos, Sauros, were all slurs referencing Dractauri. They were interstellar gypsies most believed had fled across the Stygian Rift far rimward and tailward from Humaniti space.

  “I take it you have no service record?” Molon asked.

  “My people have no use for such trivia. I am what you would call an engineer. That is sufficient.”

  “And how did you wind up at a Humaniti merc bar looking to join a crew? I thought Dractauri only flew on Dractauri ships?”

  “Our ship was badly damaged by pirates. We escaped to Furi, but the water-world was unsuitable for us. The Furian government directed us to Irnedag, whose mainworld is a desert world more suitable to our physiology. Our ship was gone, so the crew decided to settle there. I am not a settler. I am an engineer.”

  “Dub, can Star Wolf accommodate a Dractauri?”

  “Should be no issue, Cap. If he can tell me what he needs, we can rig something up.”

  Before Molon could answer, Draco replied.

  “I require nothing unusual. I sleep standing, so a corner of a shuttle bay or cargo area would be sufficient. Most engineering sections are dehumidified, so that will be fine. I have a portable heating device mounted on my person, so your temperature settings also should not adversely affect my person. So may I nest with you?”