He found the Scorpion in one of the departure bays, getting ready for launch. She was a heavily modified Morning Star–class ship. Instead of two thrusters, she had four, which should ring alarm bells in the heads of anybody involved in law enforcement. The structural changes that allowed her to use all that power and not be ripped apart meant there was precious little Morning Star left and she was trying very hard to be a Comet-class ship. Except, of course, that the military decommissioned Comets rather than resell them on the open market.
That military-grade shield projector under her nose had most definitely started life in the Space Navy. It was complemented rather fetchingly with four rad blasters at the front and the same number of sonic blasters, all of which were cursorily camouflaged with a sensor panel.
This little ship certainly lived up to its name. Kyle wouldn't want to be on board a raider whose crew mistook this "simple" Morning Star for easy quarry. But his hands itched to fly her. He'd loved his Comets back in the day; he'd preferred them even to the heavy war frigates he'd flown toward the end of his career.
Time to gather more information. When he played the outraged passenger of a shuttle two berths down, the port crew told him that the Scorpion wasn't scheduled to leave before midnight. He stomped off, and went in search of her crew. Somebody was most likely on board, but he didn't want to push too hard—they'd only get suspicious. Also, if he could grab and bag Kshar while still on-planet, getting him back would be easier.
Beyond the protective barrier, where permanent structures had a chance to survive the radiation blast from the thrusters, people sat densely packed in rows, grabbing a fast meal from a mobile kitchen. Large soup bowls were filled to the brim with broth, vegetables, and noodles. Clouds of steam rose from large pots at the back, where five people worked to prepare the food just a little faster than it was eaten. This was the busiest eatery on the concourse, which meant that, usually, it was also the best. If he'd learned one thing in the Space Navy, it was to eat at places that served so much food so fast it couldn't possibly get rancid.
Prices were reasonable, too, he discovered as he walked closer.
We Don't Serve Meat declared a board dangling overhead. He paid a couple credits for a bowl and scanned the rows upon rows of eaters. They ranged from scantily clad prostitutes of every possible gender to soldiers, but no smooth spy face among them. Toward the back sat a crew of what looked like rough-and-ready mercenaries, wearing matching dark gray jumpsuits and darker gray multi-pocketed flak vests. They carried enough personal weaponry to slaughter everybody in sight. Among the other diners, there were a couple weapons here and there, but not another unit like this one.
"By their ship ye shall know them," he said under his breath, bastardizing a Space Navy slogan from a recruitment poster, and went to pick up his food at the counter.
When he'd been served, he found a place near one of the men, set his bowl down, and navigated the bench. In such a constricted space, that was easier thought than fucking done. His leg caught the bench and he very nearly fell, face first, into his bowl. A hand shot out and steadied him by the scruff of his neck, as though he were the runt of the litter.
"Careful, mate," the mercenary said.
Kyle gritted his teeth and steadied himself on the table, then tried again to get his feet under it. "Fuck."
The mercenary glanced toward the end of the row. "Hey, Winter, you going to change places with this guy? Has trouble sitting down."
A large woman stood at the very end of the table. "And sit next to you?"
"If you can bear it." The mercenary made a stupid kissy face and laughed.
Winter gathered her bowl and came around to where Kyle stood. Shockingly, her skin was cement gray, unhealthy, worse than a radiation poisoning patient in a hospital's death ward. She was also completely hairless.
"Sit down over there," Winter said. "Got shot up?"
"Yeah."
Winter nodded with what looked like understanding. From her skin tone, the woman should be getting a blood transfusion at the very least, right now. "Served?"
"Yeah."
Winter nodded again. "Sit. Eat in peace."
It was the friendliest anybody but the shrink had been in what felt like months. Eat in peace—Spacer code that made meal times very nearly holy. Food was too scarce and too expensive to squander on any fight, and even rivals and enemies accepted that rule. "Thanks." He stalked over to the end of the row, which put him into the odd position of having taken the "seat of honor" at their table, like their officer. Winter didn't seem to be their leader though, or was she?
The food proved as good as expected; fresh, hot, and spicy enough to tickle his long-neglected taste buds.
While he ate, he studied their faces, but not one of them looked like a Glyrinny spy. A passenger, then? As far as getaway transports went, the Scorpion was too perfect to pass on. And these guys no doubt made excellent guards. Short of using fighter drones, taking them down would demand a huge body count—not something anybody could do on the sly.
The mercenaries ate, bantered, and two of the men even kissed, which didn't raise so much as an eyebrow among their comrades. Most of them could have come from anywhere—their dialects smoothed from rubbing against each other for a long time. They could have been Space Navy, too; on average, they were darker-skinned than most people on this planet, but not so much that they would have drawn comment. Winter was a notable exception. In terms of bodies, they ranged from the bulky Winter to a much thinner, even scrawny-looking fellow who could have fitted two of himself in a pilot seat and still have room for entertainment.
Kyle lowered his bowl and turned to the mercenary to his left. "If I needed to get off-world fast, how'd I go about that?"
The man regarded him wearily. "Depends on your means."
"I have some means."
The mercenary stroked his stubbled chin. "And your destination."
"Away." Kyle spread his hands.
"So what have you done?"
Kyle laughed softly. "I pissed some people off. What else?"
"They broke your back?" Winter asked. The others fell silent. Seemed she was somehow special.
"Tried to kill me," Kyle confirmed. "Scrapyard medic put me back together. I can walk, but I can't run."
"I've seen that," Winter said. "You figure we have our own ship?"
"Or take me to your employer. I can pay. I have . . ." Kyle hesitated. Whatever weasel-faced rat he was playing wouldn't give that information up to people who could just break his neck and throw him into space. "Information. Codes. Money. I just need to get off-planet."
"No, seriously, where you headed?"
"Place with good surgeons." Kyle glanced down at his legs.
"We can drop him off on Ganesh, en route," said one of the men who'd been kissing. He winked at Kyle. "Or Liberty."
"I'm not ready yet to join the Doctrine zombies in exchange for free healthcare and advanced cybernetics." Kyle tapped his temple. "I quite like being a free man."
"Ganesh, then," Winter said.
"You're heading further out? Isn't that close to Glyrinny space?" Kyle asked.
A hush settled over the mercenaries. Kyle lowered his voice. "Bad topic?" The continued silence confirmed it; he didn't need anybody to answer.
"Plenty of bounty to collect, from what we're hearing. Seeing how the morphs are not respecting the border an' all," Winter said.
Kyle glanced from one face to the next, but no mercenary responded in any unexpected way. Kshar might still be wearing that original face. Quite possibly playing "passenger" and being the reason the mercenaries were headed toward Glyrinny space. He finished his meal and stood when the mercs did.
The pair of lovers broke off from the group on the way back to the Scorpion. Kyle turned around, and one of the mercenaries sniggered at him. "Getting some alone time in one of the coffin pods before we leave."
Kyle cleared his throat. "Your officer okay with that?"
"We don't have
an officer, only a captain," the mercenary said. "'s far as he's concerned, boots on the ground, we're all our own men."
Yeah, they weren't exactly the Space Navy. Then again, he'd always had his own quarters and not rubbed shoulders with the common Marines or crew on a transport.
They were leading him straight toward the Scorpion. He fell behind so he didn't betray that he knew their destination.
What if the Commissar was wrong? What if Kshar played it a lot safer than expected?
Then, at the very least, he'd get himself off this damned planet. Of course, "home" was in the other direction, away from Glyrinny space. And he was reluctant to return. There was nothing for him to do on Tamene but crawl in with his wider family relations and serve as physical proof of the elders' warning that going off into space to fight wars breaks people's bodies and minds. Unless, of course, you were warrior caste and pure enough for it.
Up this close, the Scorpion hadn't lost any of her viciousness. His fingers itched again to fly her, test if her hull would really withstand the four-strong thrust. "Who's the pilot?" he asked Winter.
"You're gonna meet him," she said.
When they approached, the ramp lowered and they all stepped under her belly onto the platform, to be lifted inside. As far as entry points went, this was crammed and tight, but then, with ten people sharing the space, all it did was re-create the claustrophobia of any military ship.
The platform locked into place with a jolt and Kyle had to quickly rebalance. Winter took him by the arm and steadied him, but didn't release him immediately. Here, onboard the Scorpion, that gave Kyle gooseflesh. A steadying hand seemed a lot less friendly, or a lot less altruistic, now.
He was glad when they were moving again. Winter and another mercenary escorted him down toward the command center.
Behind the final door was the brain of the ship. Some of the casings that held instruments and wires in place had been screwed loose, and cables were dangling everywhere, creating a scene that looked like a technical interpretation of Tamene's southern jungle. And the man in the middle, half-hidden behind panels and rewiring cables and running programs off a number of diagnostics screens jury-rigged to the main power outlet, fit right in. Broad-shouldered and tall, he didn't belong in a pilot seat, but that was undoubtedly his role. He probably got a lot of shit for it, like Kyle had at the Academy.
Juenger, you going to be a gunner?
No, I'm going to be a pilot.
You're shitting me.
Lucky that he'd passed all the aptitude tests, despite people telling him he was too tall and wide to make a good pilot.
Your reflexes have to travel too far, idiot.
"Grimm, this is Kyle. He wants to travel with us to Ganesh," Winter said.
"Anyplace that can fix me up," Kyle corrected.
Grimm stepped out of the mass of wires until the tattoo on his face was visible. Blue-black whorls and twirls covered the left side of his face from hairline to chin, exaggerating his features while blurring them at the same time. The pattern indicated he was not only from Tamene, but the southern lowlands of the antipodean continent, near the ocean. The fiercest of the tribes, the one that took pride in going into battle first and returning last.
"Mother of Light," Kyle said under his breath.
Grimm hesitated, then near-bowed. "Father of Darkness," he completed.
Kyle didn't know what to say, and Grimm seemed comfortable with the lull in the introduction. When the silence dragged on, Winter cleared her throat. "You guys know each other?"
Grimm waved his hand. "You want to explain, Kyle? I'm just tracking a wire I had somewhere around here." He grabbed a handful of cables and lifted them to demonstrate.
"We're both from the same planet. Even the same continent." Kyle peered over at Grimm, but the man just gave him a nod and continued skinning a wire with a too-large knife. "But he's a warrior."
"Our Grimm? Really?"
"Don't sound so surprised." Grimm twirled two cables together between his dirty fingers. "I didn't get the tattoo in a drunken stupor."
More like a holy trance, but Kyle wasn't about to talk about that. "Yeah, he's warrior caste."
"These days I'm mostly handy with a tool belt. And I fly this slingshot bauble, too." Grimm wrapped insulation tape around the bared wiring and tested the area with a thumb. "That should hold."
"What the fuck are you doing here anyway?" Winter asked. "This looks like . . ."
"I'm just improving performance. That should give us three percent more on the thrusters, and a good fifteen-point-five percent on the shield in the front. Figure we never know when we'll need it."
"You said you were going to hook up the second life-preserving system."
Grimm glanced to the side, where parts were neatly stacked and completely untouched in a corner. "I'll do that next." He wiped his hands on an oily rag, then ducked under a strand of cables.
"Kyle, eh?" He glanced down at Kyle's legs, but didn't comment. "What's the offer for passage?"
Kyle shook off the impact of meeting another Tamenean this far from home. "I have codes. Money. Credits."
"Let's see the merchandise." Grimm stretched out his hand. "I'd fly you as a brother, but this outfit's got to eat."
"Yes. Of course." Kyle pulled his ID from his pocket.
Grimm grabbed a pad that was hooked up to one of the ship's internal processors, then pushed Kyle's ID in and began to type on the screen.
"The code is—"
"Access granted."
Kyle frowned and looked into Grimm's dark eyes.
"Basic encryption—it was a simple word, correct?"
"Yes."
Kyle ignored the smirk and looked at the screen while Grimm scrolled through everything he'd done, everything he'd earned.
"Want me to undress and bend over, too?" he snapped.
"Can't be too careful in this business," Grimm said, then looked at Winter. "He's got two diplomatic codes."
Winter grunted. "That's why they want to kill you?"
Kyle shrugged.
"Kyle here's a bad boy. Deserted the Space Navy, then lived a life of crime, apparently. Two convictions for fraud and identity theft. Even spent some time with Hunter Zero in a military prison."
"Yeah, that was fun," Kyle muttered.
"A petty criminal." Grimm lifted an eyebrow. "What's the honor of Tamene come to, eh, Kyle?"
"Like you said. Man's got to eat." He only hoped the Commissar would reinstate his real life once he brought Kshar in. Lying about his past and what the ID record said set him on edge. He didn't like playing that particular game, but the falsified record gave him plenty of reasons to get off-planet as fast as possible—without making him high profile enough to create problems for people like these. He was scum, but not bad scum. He hadn't expected to have to face a warrior, though.
"Are the codes genuine?" Winter asked. "We'll be in deep shit if we use them and they're fake."
"I can find out, but they look pretty genuine to me. Some diplomats are gonna miss them when they run out, but they can't be invalidated. It's a free pass for as far as we want to go. And back." Grimm tapped on Kyle's ID card. "We'll take you to Ganesh for both of them."
"That's a rip-off," Kyle protested. "How am I supposed to get home?"
"Last time I checked, Tamene wasn't in restricted space. You can likely catch a freighter home," Grimm said.
"And arrive when I'm fifty."
"It's faster than walking." Grimm's face was serious. "Both codes. We'll kit you up and feed you and make sure nobody's going to hurt you—worse—while you're with us."
Kyle glanced at Winter, but she looked pretty fucking serious, too. Both had that kind of stillness that came over people when they were considering killing for what they needed. They were mercenaries, they were harboring a morphing fugitive, and Grimm had sold out on every warrior ideal he'd once held holy. That thought was sobering. He might look like a brother, but he wasn't. Not anymore. He'd taken over how ot
her men conducted business and lost every claim he'd had to honor. "You're a fucking bastard," Kyle said.
Grimm hesitated, then pulled the ID out and handed it back to Kyle. "It's business. You'll see that it'll be worth it."
"That was a healthy chunk of my medical costs."
Grimm glanced down at his legs. "You can't trade that shit openly, not on Ganesh, not without connections."
"Who says I don't have any? Huh? You think I'm just setting off into nothing with no fucking clue what I'm doing?"
Grimm drew a deep breath. "I'm sorry." He turned and ducked back into the cables.
This was the cue for Winter to tap Kyle's shoulder. "Come, I'll show you your quarters. It's not luxurious."
"Luxurious would have cost ten codes." Kyle turned away, but still heard Grimm's snorted laughter.
Somehow, that laughter soothed him, calming his faked outrage over being skinned alive with that deal. Back in his days as Hunter Five, he'd been the one interrogating captives. He'd had the most acting talent, and planting fear deep down in their brains just made things easier. Plus, they deserved it. Sometimes, he'd leave the room shaking with rage, seething for a full ten minutes before realizing the anger wasn't actually his and that he had nothing to be angry about.
Winter led him down the main axis of the ship. On the inside, she didn't look much different from any other Morning Star. The vital parts of the ship formed one line; every section could be separated and shut off. The non-vital parts, such as the cargo bays, were likely not even heated, just insulated to save energy. Had some of those areas been converted to house passengers? Some slave traders used Morning Stars to raid and grab high-value slaves, but they were definitely not fit to ship anything beyond maybe twenty heads in any kind of comfort.
The crew quarters consisted of two crammed spaces: one general living and mess area, and sleeping quarters with three-high bunk beds lining the walls. Storage came as holes in the wall, closed with grills and nothing more. Those were large enough to hold another two people if necessary, but the ones Kyle saw were crammed full with basics like rations. Five bunks with three sleepers made fifteen. The maximum recommended number of people for a Morning Star.