Star Risk, LTD.: Book One of the Star Risk Series

by Chris Bunch

  “And I have nothing for him.” Baldur sighed again. “But I cannot evade him forever.” King passed him the com number, and he touched buttons.

  The screen cleared, and Reg Goodnight looked up from a printout.

  “Goodnight. Ah. There you are, Mr. Baldur. Scrambling. I’m preparing a status report for my headquarters, and since you haven’t filed anything with me in three weeks, I need to know what’s going on.”

  “Our covert operations are proceeding smoothly,” Baldur said. “And our security teams are working excellently in the asteroids. You will note there have not been any attacks on your miners in some time.”

  “Would you care to be more specific about your undercover work?”

  “Not on an open channel,” Baldur said, “Not even with a scrambler on.”

  “Might I at least ask why you’re on Glace, instead of Mfir?”

  “I am afraid,” Baldur said, “the same answer must apply. Perhaps if you came here, in person?”

  “I certainly haven’t the time,” Goodnight said. “I’m not terribly pleased with your work at the moment, Baldur. I’m no soldier, but I know defense can do no more than put off a problem.”

  “True,” Baldur conceded.

  “I’m not making any threats, nor am I putting Star Risk on any sort of notice,” Goodnight said. “But if there aren’t results in the very near future, I’m afraid we may have to review your contract.” He smiled politely, shut off.

  “Thank you,” Grok said. “That was all that I needed.”

  “Come on, M’chel,” King said. “Kick some butt and get us some good news.”

  Baldur nodded.

  “As they used to say, baby needs a new pair of shoes.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  There were more than a hundred trolls huddled in the rocks.

  If this was a romance, Riss thought, this grand conclave of all local aliens would have been held at night, with flashing firelight, dancers, howls of approval.

  Not with Murgatroyd’s goons having air superiority, roving patrols, infrared, and amplified light technology.

  Instead, the meeting was held about midday, when the forest was still in the heat, napping, and sentries could hear any patrols approaching for hundreds of meters.

  And there was utter silence, the silence prized by any jungle resident not quite the size of a T. Rex.

  Riss grinned at her thoughts. What local aliens? They were the natives, remember? She … and those murderous bastards in that cave … were the aliens, and pretty damned alien at that.

  M’chel, who still hadn’t mastered much of the trolls’ language beyond a convenient cheep or two, stood, to make the most important speech of her life, so far.

  In silence, with only gestures.

  Head sweep. All of you.

  Point to herself. Know me.

  Hand sweep including herself. We.

  Hand drawn across throat. Kill.

  Hold up a combat harness taken from a raider corpse. Raiders together.

  The trolls came to their feet, shaking their fists in silent approval.

  Pick up a blaster. There are guns you like and need.

  Pick up twigs, drop a handful. Many of them.

  Point to Murgatroyd’s base. In the raiders’ base.

  Pick up another handful of twigs, drop them. There are many raiders.

  Hand across throat. To kill.

  Pick up knives, other loot taken from raiders’ corpses. There will be loot.

  Point around. For all.

  Two fingers moving. We go to.

  Point again to Murgatroyd’s base. The raiders’ base.

  Pick up spear, jab with it. And kill them.

  Pick up the raider’s harness. Point again at the base, shake head, point around at the ground, shake head. No more raiders, no more humans in your valley.

  Hold out arms, turn twice, then hands point around at the trolls. The valley will be all yours.

  Some puzzlement, then the trolls got it.

  Again, they were on their feet, waving their arms, all in utter silence.

  M’chel Riss had her army.

  • • •

  The doors to the cave opened slightly, and eight men and women came out.

  They were a little nervous, but not as nervous as they could be if they’d been told to patrol the jungle. This was fairly simple, not to mention safe, duty.

  They were to relieve the two four-man guard posts fifty meters beyond the cave’s entrance. There were two other posts atop the cliff, reached by ramps, but mostly the base was secured by electronics, both aerial and in the ground.

  Everything was mostly routine. There’d been no alarms going off for two days, after an annoying series of false alarms that had kept ground security on edge.

  They were starting to wonder just how good their much-vaunted bester, and his combat-expert assistant, really were, since they hadn’t been bringing in many kills of late.

  The optimists figured they’d driven the Grays back out of the valley, or killed enough of them for the others to lie low.

  The pessimists, who of course called themselves realists, said the damned aliens were just waiting for another chance, waiting until everyone got complacent and happy again, and then they’d start picking people off again, like they’d done before.

  The replacement guards went down the trail, as they did every eight hours, around a bend, and out of sight.

  The two women on the cave gate controls waited for the eight they’d relieved to come back.

  Instead, a blood-covered figure staggered up the trail toward them. He/she’d been badly wounded, so badly the controllers couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.

  The figure dragged a blaster by its sling, stumbling, almost falling.

  The controllers touched sensors, and the gate swung open a little more.

  One woman ran out to help the casualty.

  The bloody figure straightened, and shot the woman in the face.

  The figure vaulted past the falling corpse, and gunned down the other controller, who was frozen in shock.

  Riss took a moment to wipe off some of the blood — not hers, but one of he cut-down guardshack replacements, who’d died as silently as the ones they’d come out to replace — and looked at the inside of one of the cave’s huge doors.

  Just like any other hangar setup.

  She thumbed a grenade, pitched it underhand into the rear of the door, where hydraulic lines snaked, jumped back and went down.

  The grenade went off, and hydraulic fluid sprayed in all directions.

  Riss came to her feet, went through the door, shouting, and half a hundred of her trolls, her Grays, came out of invisibility in the brush and ran after her, into the heart of the hidden base.

  Even though she knew what to expect, she still stood a moment in awe. There were two ships in the hangar — one the enormous Sensei-class cruiser she’d been hunting, the other the transport Goodnight had arrived on, looming out of the dimness.

  Riss saw a gaping mechanic, killed him, brought her blaster up, and sent bolts chattering up toward a petrified work detail on a platform next to the enormous cruiser.

  A bolt cracked past her head, and she dove for cover behind the transport’s landing skids.

  She saw the man who’d tried to gun her down as he took aim again, killed him, shot his fellow as he bent to pick up the man’s gun.

  Then small gray figures were tumbling past her, and spears floated through the air, found targets and brought them down.

  Guns slammed behind her, some the trolls’ archaic projectile weapons, others modern blasters taken from raiders’ corpses.

  Sirens in various shades of panic started screaming, and men and women darted about like residents of a molotoved ants nest.

  That was what she’d expected, figuring Murgatroyd would have no more than a handful of soldiers with close-in experience. There’d be more supply clerks, ship mechanics, medics to wag the dog, and none of them would have sign
ed a contract that mentioned throat-slitting as a required talent.

  Loudspeakers began blaring, and, just to confuse things further, Riss blew a couple of them off the hangar walls.

  Smoke curled, wisped from the remains of one, and she put another couple of bolts into the area on general principles, then rolled, diving, as two men shot at her. She sat up, and a third bolt crashed into the steel/concrete, a bolt from behind her.

  Riss rolled twice more, fired more or less blindly, saw someone duck back into the hatch of the transport. She shot at him, missed.

  And where the hell was Goodnight? She hoped she, or one of the trolls, hadn’t killed the bastard.

  Through the screech of the sirens, she made out two announcements: “Fire in fuel depot”; then “All personnel, prepare for evacuation.”

  One of her trolls was looking at her in what she thought was a bewildered fashion, then the top of his/her/its head sprayed off. Another troll wailed, shot blindly, then crouched over his/her/its mate, and was killed in turn.

  Riss saw the sniper, blew his chest apart, then ran hard for the transport’s ramp.

  She went up it at the double — the hangar floor was entirely too hot.

  M’chel vaguely noticed people pelting up the ramps of the cruiser, didn’t have time to worry about them, barely dove into the transport as the lock hissed closed.

  Remembering her old attack training, she reflexively went for the nose of the ship. Someone stuck a head out, yeeped in horror, fell dead as Riss killed him.

  Then she was in the control spaces, and there were four men and women, mouths open, perhaps to say something, perhaps to scream.

  She chattered a burst across them, jumped over their collapsing bodies. Ahead was the control room, and there was someone in a pilot’s seat. She shot him.

  Riss glanced at the controls, hoping she’d vaguely recognize something that could be made to do something, or maybe a weapons station to take over that would add to the madness outside.

  She saw nothing familiar, decided any havoc was good havoc, pulled the trigger on her blaster, aiming at the panel, listened to it fire once, clack empty, realized she’d burnt through more than two hundred rounds coming into the base.

  She slid another magazine in place, held the trigger back and let the blaster bounce rounds around the control room.

  There were internal sirens going off in the ship, and the control panel was flashing a pleasing amount of red. Then the ship groaned, and one of the landing skids folded up.

  The ship slammed to the deck of the hangar, rolled, and M’chel was thrown into a chair, fell heavily.

  She got up, flash-thought a girl like me’s getting too old for this nonsense, went back for the airlock.

  If there were any living troops in the transport, none came out of their hiding places.

  The lock was jammed, and Riss slung her blaster, spun the emergency manual controls, and the lock groaned open.

  • • •

  Chas Goodnight crouched just inside one of the hangar tunnels above the cruisers, calculating the odds. Every now and then, just to make sure he still looked to be on the side of the angels, he shot at one of the scuttling Grays, missing each time by about a meter.

  On the other side of the tunnel mouth, Siegfried and three of his patrol troopies lay prone, shooting as they dared.

  The speakers blared, commanding evacuation, and Goodnight was looking for a chance to order a strategic withdrawal and haul ass for the cruiser.

  Except that … he wasn’t sure whether he should stay under cover. Except that … if he started gunning down raiders, somebody would certainly gun him down. Not to mention the Grays were hardly likely to realize he was sort of on their side and would be targeting their spears at his nice, soft hide.

  So he shot and wondered.

  The cruiser’s secondary drive whined into life, and Goodnight smelt gawdawful smells.

  “Look!” Siegfried called. “Over there.”

  He pointed to the transport, and Goodnight saw Riss slide out and down the ramp, jump the last two meters to the floor, kneel, and shoot down a couple of raiders.

  “Goddamned bitch traitor,” Siegfried spat nonsensically, lifting his blaster.

  That settled that.

  Goodnight, not without regret, since the man was a bit on the competent side, shot him through the heart.

  The other soldiers had time for a wide-eyed look of astonishment, and Goodnight rolled a grenade between them, back-flipped, and went into bester.

  Nobody knew what it was like, except those who’d been there. In bester, you were warm, safe, and the king of the world. At least as long as you didn’t run into a machine with faster reflexes than you’d been given.

  Sound went up decibels, and Goodnight ran for the nearest set of stairs down to the floor.

  He shot as he went, not aiming, intending to cause more upset and poor morale.

  Goodnight ran toward the transport, just as the cruiser lifted on its antigravs. He ducked under the massive ship as it floated toward the hangar mouth.

  He thought of putting a few rounds straight up into the cruiser, didn’t think they’d punch through the armor, and besides, if they did, he sure as hell didn’t want the damned thing falling on his head.

  Goodnight went around a pair of Grays, who’d just realized the blur was sort of human, which meant sort of an enemy, and then he was past them, almost slipping on the slick floor, then behind the nice, safe, solid ramp, and out of bester.

  “I figured it was you,” Riss said calmly.

  “You owe me.”

  “Okay. I owe you. For what?”

  “Somebody was trying to blow your silly frigging head off, and I went and — ”

  Riss had her blaster up, snapped two shots.

  “We’re even now,” she said.

  “I didn’t see that,” Goodnight protested.

  “I’m a woman of my word.”

  “Yeah,” Goodnight said, squirming closer under cover. “And, by the way, what brings you to these parts?”

  “My trolls wanted to go a-looting…. Shit that was close!” Riss growled, sending a burst out.

  “And so you thought of me,” Goodnight said. “How touching.”

  “Yeah. Is this place gonna go up?”

  “Hell if I know. The automatic fire extinguisher ain’t automatically fire extinguishing,” Goodnight said. “Can you get your … trolls, you said, we call ‘em Grays … under control, or are they gonna stick around maiming, tearing, and ripping til the place blows up?”

  “Good question,” Riss said. “I think we’d best just sit here, nice and close to that door, until all the humans are dead or the flames get too big to take, and then plan what comes next.”

  “That’s what I grew to know and love about you revolutionary leaders,” Goodnight said. “The tight control you have of your troopies.”

  “And of course you counterrevolutionary swine have everybody in lockstep.”

  “Weeell, there were a few things we were still working out.”

  “Shut up,” Riss said, “and take care of those three idiots who’re trying to work around our flank.

  “You got any idea where that cruiser is heading?”

  “Nary a one,” Goodnight said. “I hadn’t wormed my way that far into their affections.”

  “Then you best start thinking about your debriefing. Baldur’s gonna be in the mood for some fingernail pulling, and he’ll practice on yours if you don’t have something nice and concrete.”

  “Not a problem,” Goodnight said smugly. “I can lie my way through anything. So let’s go looking for a com and call up the rescue squad.

  “And as long as we’re at it, let’s tell ‘em to bring half a dozen steaks.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Ten miners had formed a coop to work a smallish asteroid that was rich in high-grade industrial ores, and silver as well, but was on the outer fringes of the belt.

  When the raiders showed, they’d clos
ed their stake and gone back to Sheol to rethink matters.

  After Star Risk was signed on, and began offering serious self-defense tools, the miners had invested in two autocannon, and gone back to their claim, restaking after the mining office was destroyed.

  They set up shifts to man the guns, which were so automated it took only one man to operate each weapon.

  The miners kept someone at the guns’ control panels for three E-weeks, eternity to a civilian when nothing happens.

  The raiders seemed to be driven back, and hadn’t struck in quite a while. So the miners, seeing no profit in sitting behind a gun, let things slide.

  They did buy a radar warning system, and hooked it up. Since they were shallow-pit mining, they figured that would give them time enough to reach the guns if they were attacked.

  They were wrong.

  The huge Sensei-class cruiser approached the asteroid from the far side, closing to within twenty kilometers.

  The raiders launched a missile, with a camera instead of a warhead, and drifted it up on the asteroid. Within two shipdays the raiders had a schedule for the miners. They were hardworking, reliable sorts, and held to a definite shift.

  When their determined “night” came, they retired to the three small domes they’d built a hundred meters from the pit, close to the guns and their ships.

  No one was awake to see the monstrous cruiser lift over the asteroid’s near horizon, nor to see the four missiles spray fire as they were launched.

  The four missiles, skillfully guided by operators on the cruiser, homed on the ships and domes.

  They struck and exploded nearly simultaneously.

  The cruiser’s crew didn’t bother landing to make an assessment. Their camera-carrying missile told them enough.

  The raiders’ ship jumped into N-space, was gone.

  There were no survivors on the asteroid.

  It took an E-week before a passing lone wolf miner orbited by, looking for a little of their bonded rye and somebody to talk to in person instead of a chat link.

  Neither he nor anyone at Transkootenay noticed the cruiser’s strike had left the mine pit quite untouched.