by Rachel Bach
I’d never been to a cash planet before. The Sacred King had banned them in Paradoxian space, and Terrans didn’t bother hiring elite mercs to guard such low-margin operations. Considering what I’d heard, though, I’d always pictured them as barren wastes, hunks of rock stripped of everything valuable by their greedy corporate overlords, so you can imagine my surprise when Atlas 35 Moon E turned out to be actually sort of beautiful.
It was about half the size of Paradox, a bright green and blue ball basking in the intense combined light of the double star and the reflected brilliance of Atlas 35’s golden clouds. The place had clearly been terraformed within an inch of its life; there was just no other way continents ended up perfectly square. There were only two seas, both wrapped in rings around the north and south poles, leaving the equator and everything north and south of it for thousands of miles as a huge, flat, uniform tract of arable land covered in a forest so green I had trouble looking at it directly.
As we entered the atmosphere, I realized the brilliant green that covered every inch of the planet’s surface wasn’t actually forest. Or, rather, it was a forest, just not of trees. The green came from rows and rows and rows of soypen. Some genetic monkeying must have been going on, because the stalks were enormous, easily ten times bigger than anything I’d seen back home. Even the smallest ones had truck-sized, neon-green leaves spread wide to catch the bright light that shone from every direction.
Thanks to its pale yellow clouds, Atlas 35’s reflected light shone down on the farming moon even brighter than the twin suns did. Even after we’d cleared the reflective upper layers of the atmosphere, the glare was almost unbearable. But when I looked up in disbelief that anywhere could be so bright, I realized I could still see the stars overhead. Even through the hazy atmosphere and the blinding light, the Atlas nebula shone clear through the deep blue sky, creating a star-spangled high noon that would have been amazingly pretty if my visor hadn’t had to go almost black to let me look at it without burning my eyes. I was still trying anyway when we reached the coordinates for Hicks’s beacon.
Though the planet had looked like nothing but plants and water from the air, Hicks’s signal had directed us to a small city. As we got closer, though, I realized “city” was probably the wrong word. There were a lot of buildings, but I didn’t see any sign of people. No houses, no shops, no civilian ships, just loading zones, shuttle tracks, and huge packing machines gleaming in the harsh sunlight. No one even came out to gawk as Rupert set us down on one of the huge, open loading areas stacked high with crates of soypen flour, which seemed very odd considering we were landing a xith’cal ship smack-dab in the middle of a Terran colony.
The escape pod set down with a clunk and a shudder it would probably never recover from, but even so, I couldn’t help being impressed. The little thing had put in a fine show for what was basically a lifeboat. I could shoot a lizard every day of my life and feel just lovely about it, but damn if they didn’t build nice ships. Rupert had just reached up to unlock the canopy when I spotted Hicks jogging toward us across the white paved landing.
At least, I assumed it was Hicks. I couldn’t see his face since his visor was blacked against the blinding sun just like mine, but I couldn’t believe there’d be anyone else on this dirtball wearing a Count-class suit of Paradoxian armor. I waved to him when he got close, hopping out of the pod just in time to get swept into a bear hug.
“Devi!” Hicks shouted, picking my armored body up and swinging me around without missing a beat. But then, of course, Count armor like his could lift a tank. “By the king, woman, call ahead next time. I almost hit the guns when I saw your lizard can.”
“Just working with what I had,” I said, wiggling free. “Thanks for guiding us down, and for not shooting. Always a pleasure not to be shot.”
“Must be a change of pace for you, certainly,” Hicks said, stepping back to look up at Rupert, who was pulling my armor case out of the cockpit. “Who’s your friend? Another merc?”
I bit my lip. I didn’t actually know how to explain Rupert. Considering he spoke perfect King’s Tongue, I could try passing him off as an official from the Royal Office, which wouldn’t be too far from the truth. Before I could get a word out, though, Rupert answered for himself in his usual softly accented Universal.
“I am not a mercenary,” he said, handing me my case before grabbing his own bag and dropping down seven feet to land neatly beside me on the blinding white cement. “I am Devi’s escort.”
That stopped Hicks cold. I still couldn’t see through his blacked helmet, but I could feel his questioning stare just as a private channel opened to my com. “Is this idiot for real?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, but before I could explain further, Rupert reached into his bag and pulled out a badge. It wasn’t a Royal Warrant, but it must have been serious business, because the moment he opened it, Hicks shut up.
Rupert’s smile was polite as always, but I knew him well enough now to catch the smug turn at the edge of his mouth as he closed the badge and tucked it into his jacket pocket. “Mr. Hicks, correct?”
“Captain Hicks,” Hicks replied in Universal. At Rupert’s raised eyebrow, he added a grudging, “Sir.”
Rupert nodded. “I need immediate access to your communications drones. I’m also going to need your fastest hyperdrive-capable ship ready to launch as soon as possible. The Atlas Corporation will be compensated in full for the loss, of course.”
“You want a ship?” Hicks said, though from the tone of his voice, you’d have thought Rupert had asked for a unicorn. “Um, sir, this here is a cash colony. We don’t have hyperdrive-capable ships.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked before Rupert could.
Hicks threw out his arms. “Look around. This entire place is an automated farm. There’s like, thirty of us on the whole planet. My job is to run the security drones. Hell, I only put my armor on because I thought you’d need help.”
“So you don’t have a ship?” Rupert clarified. “Nothing with a hyperdrive?”
Hicks shook his head.
“But,” I said, “how do you get off-world?”
“On the freighter,” Hicks replied, pointing at the wall of shipping containers behind us. “See those crates? Corporate sends a continent freighter around to pick them up every month.”
I blinked. “Continent freighter?”
“An industrial ship too large to enter orbit,” Rupert said. “Usually loaded by space elevator. The corps use them for planetary scale transport.”
“Basically a giant moving space station,” Hicks finished. “Only it holds cargo instead of people. The automated harvesters pick the soypen and load it onto the trains, which ship the beans here from all over the planet. Every month, the freighter comes and picks up the harvest. At that point, if you want to get off-planet, you just go up with the produce. The freighter makes a few more stops after us, and then it uses its internal gate to jump back to the Atlas distribution facility in the core worlds. Once you’re there, you can get a flight anywhere you want.”
“Hold on,” I said. “So this freighter has a gate inside itself?”
Hicks nodded. “Told you it was big.”
“How long until the next freighter arrives?” Rupert said.
“’Bout two weeks galactic,” Hicks said with a shrug. “Give or take a week.”
Rupert did not look happy about that. “Can’t you signal it here now?”
“I can’t,” Hicks said. “I’m just security. The freighter’s route is determined by corporate, but I could get you the contact info for Atlas Industrial Farming Division.”
Rupert turned away, and I would have sworn he cursed under his breath. Still, he was all politeness when he turned back around. “That won’t be necessary, Captain Hicks. We don’t have time to cut through corporate red tape. I’ll be putting in for our own pickup, which means I’ll still need to use your communications drone, but now I’ll also require lodging and supplies for myself a
nd Ms. Morris until our ship arrives.”
Hicks sighed. “Well, about that. We don’t exactly have a hotel here. I’d offer to let you stay with me, but I’m married now and I don’t think my wife would like it.”
“You got married?” I scoffed. “Woman must be nuts.”
Hicks chuckled, and then he snapped his fingers. “I know! You can stay at the colony manager’s house. It’s a nice little place, and he’s been off-world all year.”
“Fine,” Rupert said, though I could tell he was starting to get very annoyed. “And the communications drones?”
“Right over there,” Hicks said, pointing across the landing zone at something that looked more like a jury-rigged water tower than a communications facility. “Our com guy’s an antisocial bastard and prefers to run things from the southern hemisphere, but just flash your badge at the camera and he should give you full access. Meanwhile, Devi and I’ll bring the car around.”
Rupert nodded, and then, before I could even think about dodging, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to the side of my helmet. “I won’t be long.”
When I turned to glower at him, Rupert was already jogging away at a brisk but still acceptably human pace across the blinding expanse of sunny cement, his bag hooked over one shoulder. Hicks watched him go, whistling softly. “God and king, Devi, you’re slumming with Terrans now?”
“Shut up,” I muttered, suddenly furious, both at Rupert for setting me up like that and at myself for kind of liking it. “Let’s get out of the sun.”
“How the mighty have fallen,” Hicks said, motioning for me to follow him.
By the time we’d finished crossing the two hundred feet of blinding white cement to the garage at the landing’s edge, I was good and sick of this bright, sunny place, beautiful day stars or no. Hicks, on the other hand, seemed far more at ease now that Rupert wasn’t around, and he showed it by talking nonstop about the life he’d built here. By the time we got inside, I’d heard all about the crazy money he was making and how he’d married the lady who supervised the automated soypen trains.
“Honestly, if it wasn’t for her, I’d have invited you to stay with me instead of sticking you out in the manager’s place,” Hicks said as we entered the blissful dark of the shaded garage. “But I’d rather deal with him than my wife. She worries I only married her because there are only five women on the whole planet.”
“Did you?” Because that was totally something Hicks would do.
“Sort of,” he admitted, taking off his helmet. My first sight of his face shocked me a bit, mostly because he looked so much older than I remembered. Apparently, the year I’d lost had been a doozy. “I also might have told her a bit about you.”
I rolled my eyes. Hicks and I had slept together once or twice while we’d been out on assignment. It was good fun at the time, but he’d gotten on my nerves after a while, mostly because he did stupid shit like this. “Why would you tell your wife something like that?”
He shrugged and walked over to a truck that looked like a cross between a tank and a tractor. “She asked.”
I decided it was time to change the subject. We spent the ride over to the communications tower talking about the planet’s crazy sunshine. Apparently, with two suns and the bright gas giant of Atlas 35 acting like a mirror, the colony never actually got dark. The closest thing they had were two hours of dusk out of every forty.
“How the hell do you live out here?” I asked. “Nothing to do, no night, and no way off. I’d go crazy.”
“You get used to it,” Hicks said, slowing down as we approached the tower where Rupert was already waiting for us, standing in the sliver of shade provided by a tiny metal overhang. “Devi,” Hicks said, dropping his voice to a whisper even though we were talking through our suits. “Are you really okay? I don’t know who that Terran is, but—”
“I’ve got it covered,” I said, cutting him off. “This is me we’re talking about, remember?”
Hicks shot me a look. “That’s what I’m afraid of. I mean, you don’t exactly have the best record when it comes to staying out of trouble.”
I couldn’t help laughing at that. “Thanks for the sentiment,” I said as we rolled to a stop. “But everything’s fine. I just want to get to wherever you’re taking us so I can get some real sleep. You would not believe the week I’ve had.”
Hicks shot me a sideways look, but with Rupert climbing into the backseat, he didn’t press. We drove in silence after that, speeding through the huge, empty streets of the loading facility. I hadn’t fully appreciated just how big the place was from the air, but it took us nearly fifteen minutes to get away from the buildings and into the fields. Once we did, though, soypen was all I saw.
At first it was kind of neat to be surrounded by enormous versions of plants I was used to seeing in shoulder-high rows, but soon it just got confusing. The fields were laid out for automated harvesters running on a maximum-efficiency pattern, not for human navigation. There were no signs either, and by the fifth turn, I was completely lost. Fortunately, Hicks seemed to know the way by heart, or at least his suit did, because half an hour later he slowed down and turned us off the dirt road onto a paved drive that stopped abruptly at a wide front porch.
Even though we were only a few feet off the main harvester corridor, the manager’s house had the feeling of being buried deep in the forest. The cinderblock construction and boxy design should have made the two-story structure look cheap, but the little house was painted a very soothing shade of deep green that blended into the leafy shadows of the soypen stalks. The soldier in me didn’t like that the fat waxy leaves pressed right up to the windows, providing excellent cover for anyone who might try and sneak up on us, but the rest of me thought the sheltered house was charming, like a bird’s nest hidden in tall grass.
As soon as the car stopped, Hicks hopped out and did something to the keypad by the door that turned all the lights green. “There you go,” he said, putting up his visor as he turned back around to face us. “There should be plenty of food in the deep freeze and there’s a satellite uplink on the roof that’ll keep you connected to the planet’s com system. I live about thirty minutes down the road, so just call if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Hicks,” I said, lifting my own visor to give him a grin. “You’re a lifesaver.”
He winked at me and hopped back into his truck. He didn’t salute Rupert as he left, but I don’t think Rupert noticed. He was too busy opening up the house.
Stepping inside the manager’s place felt a bit like breaking into someone’s summer home. Pictures of a family I’d never seen smiled down at me from every wall, and a stranger’s coats hung on the pegs by the door. The towering soypen kept the place nice and shady, so at least it wasn’t baking after being shut up for so long, but everything was dusty from disuse.
Even though it was obvious no one had been here in months, I hesitated before going over to the corner to plug my armor case into the house’s power grid. With all the stuff around us, it was too easy to imagine the manager storming down the stairs at any second, demanding to know what we were doing in his living room. Rupert, however, didn’t seem discomforted in the least. He was already checking out the small kitchen, opening cabinets and peering into the chest freezer like he owned the place. In his mind, at least, we were here to stay.
I shed my suit and locked her in her case to repair and recharge. I didn’t have my gun cases, so I had to hook Mia directly into the wall to charge up. I set Sasha right beside her, nesting my guns together with their handles out so I could grab them quickly if I needed to. But while my equipment was easily taken care of, I was another matter.
I was still dressed in the military-issue underarmor pants and tank top from the Paradoxian embassy, and though I thanked the king Rupert had had the presence of mind to grab my armor case instead of my duffel, the fact remained that I had no clothes other than the filthy set I was wearing. I needed a change and a shower in the worst way, but while I was
sure this place had an autowash around somewhere, I wasn’t ready to sit around naked waiting for my laundry. I was pondering what to do about it when Rupert walked back into the living room and placed his bag on the table. When he unzipped it to dig out his gun, I saw he had several spare shirts in there on top of what looked like an entire spare suit, which only made sense when you considered how he ripped through them.
“Hey,” I said, walking over. “Can I borrow some clothes? I’m going to take a shower.”
Rupert, who’d just sat down on the couch, looked up at me like I’d stung him. “Of course,” he said after a short pause. “Help yourself.”
I smiled my thanks and snagged one of his shirts, then walked upstairs to find the bathroom.
Like everything else in the house, the bathroom was dusty from disuse. I found soap and shampoo in the cabinet, and though the water here was so soft it was almost slimy, that didn’t stop me from luxuriating in the first real, not-on-a-ship-or-in-a-military-bunker shower I’d had since the night I’d spent in Anthony’s apartment back on Paradox. By the time the hot water started to go tepid, I was so relaxed I was nearly asleep on my feet. Considering my life over the last few days, I was pretty sure the strange calm was some kind of shock, but I was okay with that for now, especially since I hadn’t seen a single phantom since I’d taken off my helmet. Mostly, though, I was just tired, like I hadn’t slept in a year, and it was all I could do to keep my eyes open as I climbed out of the shower and toweled off.
When I was more or less dry, I shoved the towel and my filthy clothes into the autowash canister in the corner and put on Rupert’s button-up shirt. Thanks to our height difference, the hem went almost to my knees, well long enough to be decent. The long sleeves swallowed my hands, but once I rolled them up, I got along okay.
My hair was another story. Thanks to the slimy water and harsh soap, the brown mass on my head was looking more like tree roots than anything that should grow on a human. It needed a good brushing and some real shampoo, but I didn’t have either. I was too tired to care much in any case, so I just let it be, swearing for the thousandth time to cut the whole mess off the next chance I got.