Mercenaries

A klaxon was screaming, a buzzing howl of warning that made the hair rise on the back of Cassidy Vika’s neck. The cockpit was hazed with smoke, and every breath stank of ozone. Sweat rolled, stinging, into Cassidy’s eyes, but she couldn’t wipe it away with her faceplate closed. And she had no intention of opening it with God knew what burning in the cockpit.

Besides, such distractions were minor. She couldn’t afford to divert her attention from the Dharani fighter, or she was dead.

He’d zeroed in on her the moment she took off from the Starrunner, his fighter a slim silver stiletto darting against the stars, lit up with the hot blue glow of his jump generators. She’d fired off a shot that almost clipped one of his engines, but he’d juked and the blast went wild.

Then the dogfight was on. Other fighters streamed from the two warships, engaging in dozens of savage battles. Though she saw some of her comrades exploding in fireballs while others blew up their enemies, Cassidy kept her attention focused on the Dharani she fought. Only an idiot would have done anything else. The Tribesmen had a reputation as the deadliest killers in human space.

Cassidy gathered they’d spent a little too long trapped on the wrong side of the Tormod Front, cut off from the rest of humankind. Now that they’d been reunited with humanity, they were intent on building their collective wealth by any means necessary. Including hiring out to the Kalistans in their campaign to conquer New Galveston.

This particular Dharani was certainly a determined bastard. He and Cassidy had chased each other from the Starrunner to the Dharani Tribeship and back, looping around New Galveston twice. Fighting every millimeter of the way. Yet no matter how they’d maneuvered, neither had managed to get the other in his sights long enough to get off a good shot.

At least until the Dharani grazed one of her nacelles with a beamer blast, sending all that menacing smoke boiling through her cockpit.

Cassidy had zoomed off then, trying to get room enough to turn the tables, but he’d stuck to her butt like a burrworm. He smelled blood, and if she didn’t do something, he was going to get it.

Cassidy glared at the three-dimensional cockpit readouts floating in front of her face. There was far too much red in the systems pane. She needed to either ditch or kill the Dharani before the engines went critical on her.

Her attention was caught by another readout pane, this one showing three globes floating off to starboard—New Galveston’s sister planet, Dallas, and its two moons. The former was habitable; there were even a few colony towns there.

Cassidy punched it. Gs slammed her back in her seat, pressing hard on her chest as the fighter screamed toward the planet. Dallas swelled in her viewscreen, blue and green, swirling with cotton-white clouds as it grew larger.

Shitpissfuck. She jerked the fighter into a roll. A mental command to the computer, and the ship’s rear guns fired off a beamer blast and a burst of sensor chaff designed to confuse the Dharani’s weapons.

Light flared off to starboard. Something banged hard into the fighter. Her roll became an out-of-control tumble. The computer’s klaxon howled, “Starboard engine hit! Critical damage!”

Grimly Cassidy scanned the sensor readouts. Most of the damage seemed electrical rather than structural. The Tribesman hadn’t actually managed to hole her fighter’s skin, so it was just possible she could land. If she could make it through the atmosphere, and if the Dharani didn’t get her first.

MAJOR Rune Alrigo felt a savage grin spread across his face as his computer told him he’d damaged the enemy’s starboard engine. It appeared the pilot was going to try to land his crippled craft on the planet ahead.

He allowed himself a flicker of regret. The other was a skilled and brilliant warrior who had fought well. Which only made it more imperative that the enemy pilot die. He couldn’t be allowed to survive to fight again, or worse, breed more warriors to oppose another generation of Dharani. Despite his admiration, Rune could not afford mercy.

Rune sent a mental order to his combat computer, which in turn shot a command through the fighter’s interface. Behind his head, the engines howled in response, vibrating through the cockpit like the screams of the damned. Acceleration smashed him back in his seat as the fighter tore after his enemy. Trid displays shimmered around him, revealing system functioning for his own craft as well as sensor data on the enemy. He monitored them automatically as he piloted his fighter, the vessel responding to the silent orders he sent through his comp.

The cockpit canopy began to heat as the fighter hit the atmosphere. A soft whistle sounded as the air thickened, the sound swiftly escalating into a howl. In minutes the gentle cherry glow of friction built to a hellish blaze. Finally the light abruptly cut off as the canopy went opaque, but the howl of the wind continued to build.

A glance at his sensor readouts told him the enemy fighter was still shooting along ahead of him, pitching and rolling wildly as its pilot fought for control. Rune admired the man’s skill even as he tried to get a weapons’ lock.

The planet zoomed closer. Blobs of green and sand brown resolved themselves into land masses, then into forests, then finally into trees. A patch of blue glittered in the sunlight, became a lake. The enemy fighter headed for that blue shimmer, apparently intending to land in the clearing on its leeward side. Rune followed, reverse engines thundering as he slowed his craft for the killing pass. Deceleration sent his body surging against the harness.

The enemy’s port nacelle dipped as he approached the ground, and for a moment Rune thought he wouldn’t have to kill the man after all.

Somehow the pilot brought it back under control, the craft rocking furiously as he played force against force in a desperate bid for life. At last all three wheels touched, and the fighter slid to a neat stop.

Before he could get the rest of the command out of his mouth, something boomed. His fighter rocked wildly. “Warning!” the comp howled. “Tachyon torpedo hit to the fuselage. Control systems failing!”

Blazing angels, the bastard had hit him! Swearing, Rune fought to regain control of the fighter as it shot helplessly past his enemy. The nose dipped, and the ground spiraled toward him. He commed order after order to the ship, forcing the craft to stabilize right side up just long enough to . . .

Light exploded in his skull. Metal shrieked. Rune tasted blood as he bit his tongue, and his torso slammed with bruising force against the straps. The crash seemed to go on and on, an endless kaleidoscope of pain and brutal sensation as the craft pinwheeled around him. He knew he was dead.

The fighter rolled over once more and stopped, rocking a moment before it went still. Metal creaked and groaned. Cautiously Rune opened his eyes. He was hanging upside down in his harness. Only a dim bloodred emergency light illuminated the cramped interior of the cockpit.

Static roared white-hot in his head, blinding him as his sensors picked up the savage tachyon pulse that blasted from the ship’s systems.

Grimly Rune hauled off his helmet; the Pulse had killed his suit’s internal oxygen system. If the planet hadn’t had breathable air, he wouldn’t have dared use the weapon, last ditch or not.

Reaching over his head to the cockpit release, he grabbed it and jerked down with all his considerable strength. The canopy plummeted to the ground below. Freeing his shoulder harness, Rune dropped a few centimeters before the webbing caught him, then quickly twisted his way free and fell.

He landed in a crouch, looking around for the enemy pilot. The bastard’s fighter sat demurely a couple of dozen meters away, despite its scorched nacelle. To his irritation, it had emerged from this engagement better off than his own craft.

At least until he’d fired the Tach Pulse. At close range, the blast of tachyon radiation was powerful enough to punch right through the shielding that would normally protect electronics. Now every power supply for every piece of equipment on both fighters was dead, including those of any beamer pistols or energy weapons.

Rune’s nanotech computer and muscle enhancements alone survived, since they were biological rather than electronic. So had the enemy pilot’s, of course, but the odds were that Rune now had the advantage. Dharani nanotech was generally superior. In any hand-to-hand battle, he had the edge.

BLOODY hell, the bastard had Pulsed her! Cassidy jerked her helmet off and started flicking the manual switches, but everything remained stubbornly dead.

Maybe—maybe—she could set up the solar collectors to recharge the main batteries, then use the batts to recharge her suit, communication system, and weapons. But that would take hours.

What if the Starrunner left the system before the process was completed? How the fuck was she supposed to get rescued if she couldn’t send a com message? Her internal implant couldn’t punch a signal much farther than orbit. And the nearest town was on the other side of a mountain range that would block her transmission.

Growling to herself, she grabbed the canopy release and popped it, then levered herself out of the cockpit. With a surge and flex, she vaulted over the side and dropped to the ground.

Straightening, Cassidy took a look around. She could have landed in worse places. Just as sensors had indicated, Dallas was more than habitable. The lake was a clean, clear blue under the crystalline sky, and the leafy lavender-tinted vegetation underfoot reminded her of Terran crabgrass. The air felt just right—warm without being hot, scented with a medley of alien perfumes from God knew what plants.

All of which was why they were fighting this war to begin with. It was very rare to find two naturally habitable planets in the same star system. Usually only one was located at the right spot for a temperature range humans could stand. Dallas, however, orbited at a screwy angle to the rest of the system. The local star must have captured it at some point in the distant past. It wasn’t a stable arrangement; computer simulations said eventually Dallas and New Galveston would collide—in a few million years. Until then, the colonists intended to take full advantage of the situation.

Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones. The inhabitants the next system over had a yen for a little empire building, and Galveston and its settlement here had looked like easy pickings. So the Kalistans had mounted an invasion force, hiring three Dharani Tribeships to give it some muscle. The Galvestonians didn’t have a navy big enough to defend themselves against that kind of attack, so they’d called in several mercenary companies, including the Starrunner.

Cassidy whipped around. A tall male figure stalked toward her around the curve of the lake. Dammit, she’d hoped the bastard had been hurt in the crash. No such luck.

Jesus, he was big. She took a wary step back. Easily the size of Captain August, maybe a little bigger, tall and broad-shouldered in his skin-tight black body armor. There was some serious muscle under that suit, too, backing up whatever implants he had. From the look of all that beef, he was probably even stronger than she was. Dammit.

Adding to the stark, menacing look created by the suit, he wore his hair in a stiff black brush that emphasized the stark lines of his angular face. As he moved closer, she saw that his eyes were very pale against his tanned skin, a smoky silver. Their expression was cold, flat. As deadly as the big knife he carried in one hand.

His features were strong and intensely male, with broad, high cheekbones, a hawkish nose, and wide, full mouth. She’d have considered him handsome if he hadn’t been planning to kill her.