On a Pale Ship Read online

  "Aww, dammit," Chuckles said as a glint of light caught his attention and the view from his scope showed a soldier aiming a long-barreled rifle at his position.

  "Chuckles, get out of there!" Gob exclaimed, but it was too late. Chuckle's bio signs flatlined beneath his name on Gob's HUD.

  Hearing the stress in Gob’s voice, the rest of the team had jumped to their feet, weapons at the ready.

  "Squad leader, this is Team Two," Gob said, switching channels and jumping up. "We're taking fire. Chuckles is down. I repeat, Chuckles is down. "

  Gob muted the command channel and switched back to his team channel. "On me."

  He raced down the path. In the back of his mind, he knew they were already too late. If there was one thing the Army's technology was good at, it was counting the dead. Gob's lungs burned as he barreled down the mountain path.

  Balltrain's voice came over the command channel. "Sergeant, you need to fall back and get to a location you can transmit to Centcom. We're currently blacked out for anything beyond local chatter and I'm hoping to make contact on the top of the ridge."

  "Negative, Sergeant," Gob replied. "You can't go up that hill. Enemy combatants are danger close."

  "Get down. Get down! Frak!" The sound of gunfire carried over the command channel just before there was silence.

  Gob slid to a stop on the path, parallel to where he'd sent Chuckles out on the ledge to scout. Ten meters over in a rocky outcropping, his buddy's unmoving body was prone, his rifle having fallen to the side, out of reach.

  "Cover me," Gob ordered.

  Big Bob and Nickle pointed their rifles down the hill, the valley still obscured from view. They crept forward, stocks pressed against shoulders, barrels sweeping back and forth. Gob ran ahead, the valley scene coming into view. A warning on his HUD alerted him to weapons targeting him. He threw himself forward just as a round ripped through the air over his head.

  In combat, soldiers know that to fire at an enemy who isn't returning fire is to gain a substantial advantage. Simply put, a one-sided fight isn't much of a fight at all. Big Bob and Nickle understood this. As soon as the bullets started to fly, they stepped forward and returned fire, focusing on the position of the shooter who had targeted Gob.

  Crawling forward, Gob pulled himself even with his fallen comrade, bullets whizzing over his back.

  "I'm hit," Nickle exclaimed. "We're taking too much heat, Sarge."

  "Move back and get a kit on that," Gob ordered, rolling Chuckles over, still hoping to find signs of life. While crawling, he'd fished out a medical patch infused with nano-bots that he knew could save all but the most grievously injured.

  His heart sank when he discovered that Chuckles' had taken a shot directly to his head, blowing the left side of his face off.

  "Sarge, we gotta move," Big Bob said.

  Gob pushed against his friend and backed away from the precipice, staying low on hands and knees. A chime in his ear warned him of an incoming command channel update. Hope surged in his chest. If command had heard Balltrain's call for reinforcements, air support might be only moments away.

  "Sergeant Gabin Alcazar has received a field promotion to squad leader. Acknowledge command transfer."

  "Damn," he grunted. "Acknowledged."

  Team-One’s bio data flashed up on Gob's HUD. Bug and Cougar from Team One were green. The remaining life signs, including Balltrain, all showed red.

  "Bug, Cougar, check in," Gob called, finally reaching the main trail where Big Bob helped him to his feet.

  Bug replied and Gob heard gunfire in the background. "Balltrain, Sugar, Pedro are all down. We're taking heavy fire. They're almost on us."

  "We're coming. You have to hold on," Gob said.

  "Sarge," Big Bob pushed.

  "Go!"

  Gob jumped out ahead of his comrades. They were four clicks from Bug and Cougar. It would take more than twenty minutes to cover the distance, but he saw no other choice. Reinforcements weren't coming and if separated, neither team stood a chance against the shit storm they'd walked into.

  For a few minutes, Gob's plan seemed to work. The unseen forces closing in on Bug and Cougar had them pinned down, but didn’t seem to be in a big rush to overrun their position, seemingly adverse to taking casualties.

  "Sarge, it's no good," Bug called again. "Get word to Mary that I love her."

  Gob never discovered what took out the remainder of Team-One. One minute, Big Bob, Nickle, and he were sprinting down the mountain path and the next, Bug and Cougar's life signs simply blinked out. The AI reported their deaths as killed-in-action.

  A round caught Gob in the shoulder from behind and sent him spinning off the path onto the rocky hillside. Through sheer force of will, he reached for and grabbed the twisted trunk of a grisly old cedar, his weapon clattering onto the rocks next to him. At least he’d stopped falling. Letting go of the tree, Gob slapped a med-patch onto his shoulder. The pain meds kicked in, providing immediate relief and a burst of energy.

  Gob shook his head wryly. The burst of energy was a bad sign, as the combat stimulant was only allowed when the AI determined the risk of damage from the drugs was outweighed by the severity of the wound.

  Rage welled up in his chest. Gob knew it was the drugs, but mierda, he felt powerful! He plucked the heavy, automatic weapon from the ground and scrabbled back up the mountainside. On top of the rage, pride found a place as he saw Big Bob and Nickle screaming at the top of their lungs, firing wildly at a line of encroaching Cruddies.

  His weapon roared to life and he stepped in front of his boys as they fell to enemy fire. The SAW was a fearsome animal that simply begged to be let off the chain. Gob cackled as he loosed the beast, surprised that he only saw a single enemy on the path returning his fire. Standing firm, he barely felt the bullets as they tore into his side. His massive legs dug into the soft dirt of the trail, holding him in place. Somewhere in his waning consciousness, Gob recognized he was running out of breath, but he refused to give in to the pain.

  At some point, Gob found himself on the ground, staring down the length of his barrel. His brain focused on the sound of the impotent weapon, still spinning, all rounds from his ammo pack depleted. With satisfaction, he knew the Cruddies would always remember the morning when Team Two came to visit.

  Chapter 4

  Little Deuce

  System: Tipperary, Planet: Grünholz, City: Nuage Gros

  Luc planted his foot onto the wall and sprang upward and back, flipping over the top of his opponent, Cyril Lebas. A quick strike on the jaw with Luc’s wooden bokken, elicited a surprised grunt of pain. He landed with knees bent just as Cyril brought a knee up and into his chest. Luc stumbled backward a single step and carefully watched his friend's footwork. He'd struck Cyril's face harder than usual. His friend had a temper and would want to extract maximum revenge. Such emotions made Cyril predictable and Luc grinned as the younger, stronger, and faster man's hips twisted into the start of a spinning back heel-kick. Just in time, Luc ducked. Unable to resist, Luc pivoted, sweeping the planted leg of his Sergeant-at-Arms from beneath him.

  Cyril landed flat on his back. He started to pull up when the point of Luc's bokken thwacked his chest, just below the throat, holding him to the ground.

  "Dakpiss!" Cyril grunted, tapping the mat to signal his acquiescence.

  "Good match," Luc said, leaning forward and extending a sweaty arm.

  "Arlette keeps asking why I require med-patches after our training sessions," Cyril complained, hopping up and favoring his right leg. "You need to find something to occupy your mind, otherwise I fear I might not survive."

  Luc helped Cyril hobble toward the showers. "I'm sorry, old friend, first beer is on me tonight. I was thinking of trying out that new bar, Nid Précaire.”

  “Why not de Laroche? So many have been asking about you,” Cyril said. The bar he referred to was a favorite haunt in the cloud nation’s capital city where the air defense fighter jocks congregated.

 
“Not my place anymore,” Luc said. “Have they assigned a squad commander, yet?”

  “Word is they’ll promote Alex Ouvrard by the end of ten-day,” Cyril said.

  “Alex is a good kid,” Luc said. The two stripped off their workout clothing and stepped into the communal gym shower. Luc couldn’t help but notice bruising on his muscular friend’s ribs. “Did I do that?”

  “You have been training with a particular intensity recently. For what it’s worth, I know that most within Air Defense do not agree with the panel’s findings,” he said.

  “It is my own fault,” Luc said. “I’d heard there’d been regular sightings of Oberrhein ships in that area. I had no intent to apprehend them, but I did not communicate rules of engagement before we arrived. My squad was too inexperienced to see the danger for what it was.”

  “I heard your testimony, Luc, and I reviewed the data-streams. Lieutenant Brighton drew you into that fight,” Cyril said. “You should have used this in your defense.”

  The two men finished their showers in silence. They’d had the conversation more than once and, apparently, had not resolved it to Cyril’s satisfaction.

  “The squad was my responsibility. Brighton is dead, Cyril. I will not lay blame at a dead man’s feet.”

  “And so you lose your career because a kid can’t obey orders?” Cyril said. “I do not see the honor in taking blame for his mistakes.”

  “I admire your loyalty, my good friend.” Luc looked into the mirror and swept his sandy-blonde bangs into position. For the first time in over fifteen years, he’d allowed his hair to grow beyond the short military cut he preferred as squad leader. “Festove has been looking for a way to move me out of my position for several months. I admit I was surprised that Admiral Marsh allowed a court martial.”

  “So, Nid Précaire, you say?” Cyril changed the subject. “You know I’m a man of routine. What if this new bar serves their beer warm as the Germans drink? I might not survive.”

  Luc slid his bokken into a case that hung between his shoulder blades and picked up the small bag of workout clothes. “I understand Nid Précaire carries imported beer from Earth.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  The two men moved along the carpeted walkway that ran along the outside edge of every floor in the cloud city. The only thing separating them from a several-thousand-meter drop to the planet Grünholz below was a thin layer of armored glass. At a junction, they turned inward toward the center of the city, walking past a mixture of residential and commercial apartments. They finally arrived at a grouping of transparent tubes that pierced the floor and ceiling, carrying elevator cars filled with passengers.

  “There is a trader who operates out of Leger who brings the beer with him on his trips through the TransLoc gates,” Luc said.

  “Who would bring beer through TransLoc? Do we not have drinkable beer in Tipperary?”

  “Jake Berandor is the trader and I believe you have proven more times than you care to admit that Nuage has drinkable beer.”

  “Spurious accusations,” Cyril said as an elevator car responded to their summons and arrived in a nearby tube.

  “Level forty-two,” Luc informed his ever-listening AI which, in turn, communicated the same to the elevator. He smiled as his friend closed his eyes and the elevator moved. For some, the ability to see the decks flashing quickly by was too much.

  “Someone should turn on more lights,” Cyril observed as they wound through the passageways.

  “Only warehouse space on this level, no retail or residential,” Luc explained.

  “Except your fancy new bar.”

  “Technically, Nid Précaire isn’t on this level.”

  The two came to a stop at a closed hatch, behind which they could just hear jazz music playing. Luc’s AI had outlined the doorway with a slow-strobing, light blue line. The highlighting was actually projected onto his retina from a small device commonly called an earwig. Pushing the hatch open, the music’s volume increased and they found themselves at the bottom of a narrow flight of stairs.

  Luc felt a twinge of guilt as his companion hobbled up the steps — without complaint, but with substantial effort. The light breeze that flowed down the stairwell was cut off as the hatch below closed automatically. The bar was close to the outside wall of the city and late afternoon light flooded the top of the stairwell.

  Cyril grunted in appreciation as he reached the top of the stairs. “That’s a view you don’t see every day.”

  Luc caught up with his friend and discovered what Cyril had already seen. The bar was simple and dramatic; a collection of booths, tables and chairs arranged across a landing pad hanging off the side of the cylindrical city. A sail, which shielded the bar’s occupants from the afternoon sun, had been stretched from the city’s armored glass skin out to cables anchored on the platform’s railing. Every seat in the bar had a perfect view of the thick clouds below and the purple, starred nebula in the sky above.

  “Sit anywhere you like.” A young man dressed in all black had approached from the side. “Could I bring anything to you directly or would you like to review our selections first?”

  “Is it true you have beer from Earth? I believe my friend here is buying the first round.” Cyril nodded in Luc’s direction.

  The man smiled solicitously. “We have three selections from the Sol system. Might I recommend our sampler? It is only twenty credits.”

  “These are cold?” Cyril asked.

  The waiter smiled and nodded his head as if he was privy to an inside joke. “Of course.”

  “We’ll take two,” Luc said.

  “Are you sure?” Cyril asked. “Twenty credits is pretty steep.”

  “I think I owe you that much,” Luc said as the two found a well-padded booth and slumped into it.

  “What will you do now that the inquiry is complete? Will you appeal?”

  “My advocate said we have grounds for appeal, but no, I’m out,” he answered. “The process would take stans (Earth standard years).”

  “What will you do?”

  The waiter arrived with a tray holding a total of six drinks. “The dark is a Guinness stout. Don’t be fooled by its color, it is quite smooth. The blue ale is from a manufacturer called Marfon on Mars. Its distinctive color is naturally occurring and comes from a modified hops plant originally seeded on Mars during its terraforming period. Finally, my favorite, a wheat beer from the Thunderhead Brewery in the Midwest region of North America called Golden Frau.”

  “To friends lost.” Luc picked up the glass containing the golden liquid and held it out toward Cyril.

  “May they never be forgotten.” Cyril completed the toast, holding up the Marfon and clinking the glasses.

  The two men sat in amiable silence, enjoying the drinks they’d chosen.

  “Cold enough?” Luc finally asked.

  Cyril smiled. “What can I say? I don’t like change, but I admit this is quite something. I’ll have to bring Arlette up here. You didn’t answer my question, though. What are you going to do with yourself? I assume you’re free of legal entanglements at this point?”

  “That’s right. I am free to pursue other opportunities.” Luc said. “Do you know if Emilie’s body was returned yet?”

  “The official statement from Oberrhein was that she was eaten by a groglesnout and there is nothing left to return.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Luc said. “I’ve seen that report. They would have killed the beast and opened it up. You don’t let animals eat people.”

  “Apparently, Oberrhein does. According to this same report, groglesnouts are revered and killing them is not something they’re willing to do.”

  “Convenient,” Luc said. “You know as well as I do that Oberrhein runs slaves. I’ve been checking into the group we fought. I believe that Sandlot freighter we were chasing was deep into something illicit. Why else would they attack a fully-armed squadron?”

  “Nuage is looking into the whole thing. You nee
d to let it go, Luc,” Cyril warned. “My heart broke the day I pulled your bars. I don’t want to get the order to arrest you for stirring up trouble with Oberrhein.”

  “I won’t.” Luc sat back into his chair.

  “And on that cheery note, I’m afraid I must leave you. Arlette awaits with dinner,” Cyril said, standing. “You’d be welcome to join us, you know. She’s been asking about you.”

  “Not tonight,” Luc said. “I think perhaps I’ll have another beer and then start looking for employment.”

  “Same time tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Luc pulled a knee up and rested it against the edge of the table. He leaned his head back and allowed the slight swimmy feeling of the foreign beer to relax him as he closed his eyes.

  A few minutes later, a soft voice roused him from his reverie. “Would you mind a little company?”

  Luc opened his eyes to find an older ebony-skinned woman smiling politely at him. Her black hair was close cropped and showed signs of graying. He sat forward with a start and attempted to get up. He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep and felt awkward as he fumbled his words. "Dorian? What … why are you here?"

  He'd dated Dorian Anino a few stans back. Even with their age difference, they had enjoyed each other's company. Unfortunately, with her being CEO of one of the largest corporations in the Tipperary system and him a fast-tracked officer in Nuage, their relationship faltered for lack of attention.

  The woman chuckled. "I'm hurt. How soon they forget." He looked at her long fingers as she grasped his hand. Luc’s eyes followed the woman’s thin, muscular arm up to well-defined shoulders and finally back to her angular face.

  "Things have changed. I'm not in a good place," he said.

  Dorian nodded with a tight, polite smile. “I take it this is your bokken? Do you mind?” Without waiting for approval, she lifted the wooden sword from its case and inspected its length. “I enjoyed our time together. I don't believe I told you that I came to see you compete on our moon, Irène, a couple stans ago. I thought it would feel awkward, you know after …”