Merkiaari Wars: 01 - Hard Duty Read online

  He focused upon the list and with a coded thought selected the Infonet node in the lounge.

  >_ Infonet: Logon Eric Martell account number #08965bHu532AsW... Done.

  A new window popped up on his display and Eric ran a quick search as he followed the signs in the lounge toward the exit. He wasn’t surprised to find a lack of security. All of that was up at the station for outsystem arrivals and departures. Any departures from the planet though, even shuttle departures bound for the station from the other side of the port, would be another matter. Security and customs would be on that side and they never slept.

  Most spacecraft were unable to land and would use the station to unload and load cargo, but most wasn’t all, and out here in the border zone raiders were a concern. Pirates took ships, but raiders were another breed. They not only jacked ships, they jacked stations and even colonies if they could get away with it. Their ships had landing capability, and Fleet was stretched thin out here. Raiders weren’t the only concern for colonies like Thurston. Smugglers could quickly undermine fragile economies, but Thurston had another worry right now. Gun runners. The marines really wouldn’t appreciate a ship full of weapons making landfall, especially when the only customer was a terrorist group like the Freedom Movement. Security would be tight right now with a continual over watch by navy hotshot pilots patrolling in low orbit.

  Eric found what he was looking for and dismissed the Infonet window.

  >_ Infonet: Logoff [Y]es/[N]o?

  >_ Y

  Eric left the lounge but instead of heading outside for a taxi, he turned right. His search on Infonet had been for the bank that matched the key card Ken had slipped him. Banks at spaceports and on stations were common. They catered to spacers who needed quick access to funds or a secure place to leave their gear. Crew on freighters with a regular run found it easier and cheaper to stash their stuff in a deposit box rather than continue paying for an empty housing unit. Eric knew he wouldn’t look out of place, even in his less than pristine faked up merc uniform.

  He walked into the bank and got in line. There were a few early risers making transactions before catching a shuttle up to the station. The android bank tellers didn’t care of course. When it was his turn, he slid the key card into a slot in the countertop and chose option three.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” the android said. “A Human member of staff will be with you shortly. Please take a seat.”

  “I’m not a ma’am, I’m a sir,” Eric said because he was bored and twitting the droid appealed to him. “Male you know?”

  “Thank you for the correction. Correction logged. Please take a seat ma’am. A Human member of staff will be with you shortly.”

  Eric sighed, already losing interest in the game. “All is programming... you poor bastard.” He wasn’t sure who to feel the more sorry for; an android following its programming and completely unaware of it or himself who followed his while denying it.

  “Next please,” the android said.

  Eric moved away and took a seat.

  Five minutes later he was escorted down to the vaults beneath the building. It was a typical example of its kind and Eric considered it no better than medium security. Plenty good enough for its purpose of storing its customer’s gear, but not something governments or military would consider using. Security systems were in place—Eric’s sensors had picked up their emissions—and the facility itself was fine—fire and bomb proof—but without simcode recognition the entire system relied upon keycards and passwords. Still, he wasn’t here to critique the security arrangements, though he had done that before. He had done pretty much everything before... many times. He was here to collect whatever Ken had stashed for him.

  The armed guard stopped at the last door after passing a dozen similar doors and tugged his uniform tunic straight. He inserted his card, rapidly entered a code while shielding the key pad with his body, and then stepped back as the door slid aside.

  “After you, sir.”

  Eric walked inside and waited for the guard to lock him in. The sound of the locks engaging were quiet but Eric’s enhanced hearing picked up the sounds easily. Good. He didn’t want to be disturbed. The guard would wait outside the door for hours if need be. They were paid for more than weapon’s proficiency after all. They were hired for their discretion and lack of curiosity too. He had pretended to be one once, he remembered. Long ago. It had been a cover for an assassination op. Not his favourite type of gig, but the guy had really pissed Burgton off by proposing to demobilise the regiment a few decades after hostilities with the Merkiaari ended. The guy’s suicide had been big news back then.

  Eric turned toward the opposite end of the barren room and located the interface. It was a small pedestal about waist height with a simple keyboard and card reader. He inserted his card and typed the password Ken had given him in his download.

  Velox et mortifer.

  It was the regiment’s motto in Latin. Swift and Deadly. Vipers were definitely that among other things, but at their most basic, swift and deadly described them well.

  The password was accepted and the sounds of machinery starting came to him from beyond the far wall. The wall was grey and featureless except for a panel painted with black and yellow caution stripes about a metre square. A minute went by. The brightly painted section of wall slid out into the room attached to a steel bench or table with a metal box sitting on it. Eric opened it and surveyed the contents.

  There was duffel like the one he already had and containing many of the same things. He pulled everything out and quickly inventoried what he had. Uniforms, toiletries, minicomputer, three wands topped up with funds each drawing on different banks, a Raytheon .50 semi auto pistol and a pile of loaded magazines, a small stash of hard currency in the form of platinum wafers—platinum was still universally accepted even if frowned upon by governments—and a shoulder rig for the pistol.

  He eyed the weapon unhappily, not having time to strip it now, but he did a quick visual on it. It was battered and old seeming, but that would be camouflage. He worked the action listening to its smooth sounding mechanics and nodded when he pulled the trigger. Eric knew Ken would not have supplied an inferior weapon, and Raytheon made good ones, but a slug thrower no matter how good wasn’t his preference. They had limited ammo capacity compared with pulsers, very limited when they were large calibre like this one, and had a low recycle rate. Vipers could pull a trigger repeatedly on the order of 0.18 to 0.25 seconds apart and do it all day if necessary. If he tried that, the Raytheon would jam. The regiment’s custom made weaponry was designed to stand up to such punishment; this thing would fire one round and break.

  Pulsers were more forgiving. They were generally fully automatic and a single trigger press could fire a three round burst or empty hundred round magazines in seconds depending upon settings. His new toy’s extended capacity magazines only held ten rounds. The standard for this weapon was six rounds he seemed to recall. He was pleased to have any weapon since he came here unarmed, but had to wonder at Ken’s choice. Maybe there was a reason for it, but give him a good pulser any day.

  Eric quickly unsealed his uniform, letting it hang from his hips, and put on the shoulder rig. It wasn’t a convenient way to wear it, but he wouldn’t go around blatantly displaying the rig either. He loaded the pistol and chambered a round, before holstering it and pulling his clothes back into order.

  He stuffed the clothing and toiletries back into the box along with the unwanted duffel, and swept everything else into his own already bulging duffel—he didn’t want to carry two. He wanted his right hand free. He slammed the lid closed and went to retrieve his card from the consol. The moment he did, the vault’s hidden machinery activated and the box slid into the wall to be whisked away to storage.

  Eric summoned the guard with a quick press of the call button next to the door, and moments later he was led out of the vaults and back to the bank proper.

  “Will there be anything else, sir?” the guard asked
when they reached the main floor of the bank.

  The guard’s hand didn’t stray toward the weapon on his hip even once on the trip back, though he was well aware Eric had armed himself. Eric appreciated professionalism like that. Alert but sensible was good for a position like a bank guard. No doubt he had warned his chain of command somehow, because although Eric hadn’t picked up anything on sensors on the way back, there were more security personnel suddenly in evidence just loitering.

  “I have everything, thanks,” Eric said with a small smile at the wary look he imagined he saw deep within the man’s eyes.

  The guard smiled professionally. “A good day to you then, sir.”

  “And to you,” Eric said and turned toward the doors.

  Eric orientated himself just outside the bank using his internal 3d map of the port and headed toward an exit and hopefully transportation to a hotel. He found a taxi outside easily; he was pounced upon by a driver before he could even raise a hand. Not many customers this time of day maybe, but Eric wasn’t in the habit of taking chances.

  Computer: initiate full spectrum security scan. Range out to 500 meters.

  >_ Sensors: full spectrum sweep in progress.

  Eric let the driver take his duffel and lead him to his taxi. He stowed the duffel in the trunk and even opened the rear door for him. Eric hesitated for just a second but shrugged internally and climbed in. He could rip the door off if the driver tried to lock him in.

  >_ Sensors: no threats detected.

  A bit late now he was in the car, but good news all the same. He didn’t need to attract attention before he was even settled in.

  The driver got in behind the controls and turned to lean over his seat. “Where to, my man? If you want me to take you to the mines, I can do that. Have to go airborne though. Will cost extra.”

  “No mining for me. Now if they were fighting a take over and needed some extra muscle?” Eric said easing into his role as an out of work merc. Corporations of all kinds had their own armies to protect their investments or they hired merc companies to ease the way in “negotiations” with rivals.

  The driver’s eyes narrowed. “Our companies are honourable, they don’t use or need mercenaries,” he said with distaste for Eric thick in his voice. “I guess you could try out for a security guard or something.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic.

  Eric didn’t laugh, but the driver’s instant dislike of him made that hard. It was cheering that decent people like him still existed; people who believed in a world where mercs weren’t wanted or needed. He was wrong of course, but that didn’t make the guy’s sentiments less warming. Maybe Thurston could stay clean of the corruption that lead to underground wars between mega corps, wars between hired armies fighting and dying not for a cause but for pay. Maybe it could keep the shadowy world of organised crime that infested the underbelly of the core worlds at bay, stopped at Thurston’s interface with the rest of the Human sector of the galaxy—the station. Eric doubted it. The Alliance grew, Human’s colonised new worlds in ever greater numbers, and things changed, but Human nature? That never would. Until it did, there would always be a need for people like him willing to fight violence with violence.

  “We’ll see,” Eric said. “Take me to a hotel; somewhere not too pricey but close to the action.”

  The driver nodded and turned back to his driving, and Eric entertained himself by watching the world go by.

  The road out of the port arrowed straight for Ashfield, the land between still untouched and pristine, meaning jungle covered it. Having such a large section of real estate left virgin was a conscious decision Eric suspected. The original settlers had planned things very well in other areas, why not this? It was a good idea regardless of reasons, but was probably done for safety. Shuttles were quite safe, but accidents still happened. Besides, Ashfield wouldn’t stay small forever.

  “Where did the name come from?” Eric said. “Ashfield.”

  The driver grunted and gestured out the window toward the direction they were travelling. “The mountain, it’s an extinct volcano. The survey people named it Mount Ebra after one of their guys slipped and broke a leg or something. Whatever. The point is the geologists say this whole place, the city, the port, the land all around here is the ash field left over after Ebra blew its top. So when they decided to build here the name was sorta natural, you know?”

  Eric nodded. “I like it.”

  The driver grunted.

  “You sure Ebra isn’t just dormant?”

  The driver shrugged. “The geologists say extinct, and they should know. Be a bit of a bastard if they were wrong though, eh?”

  Eric laughed. “Yeah. Ever heard of Pompeii?” Eric craned his neck to see the huge cone-shaped mountain. It was a big bugger, looming hugely over the city even at this distance. “Why do we Humans keep daring things like volcanoes to kill us by building in their back yards?”

  “Dunno, but it’s really pretty country here,” the driver said with a grin.

  Eric watched the jungle wondering what was looking back at him from under the trees. Something was. His sensors were active as always in combat mode, pretty much his default setting, and was picking up all kinds of unknowns. His data on Thurston was pretty good he would judge. Most new colonies in the border zone couldn’t or wouldn’t pay for the best studies, but Thurston had paid good money for what it did have. The surveys of its resources, and that included fauna and flora on top of the usual geological maps, were quite detailed he would judge. No doubt there were gaps, there always were, but the data was good and well presented. Eric remembered Desmatosuchos the super croc. Was ol’ Desmond under those trees watching dinner drive by? Some of the amber icons on his sensors could be dinosaurs of one kind or another. They were big enough anyway.

  “Any trouble with the wildlife?” Eric asked as he watched a herd of something on his sensors amble along parallel to the road hidden by the jungle. “Maybe you have safaris?”

  “We sure do!” the driver said enthusiastically. “Both I mean. Hunting is big here. Most of us do a little hunting when we get the time. Safaris, yeah we get them in the season. Brings in the tourists you know? Not around here though. Government pays for a cull every once in a while to keep the city safe, but some of the dumber dinos still come calling looking for a free lunch.”

  Eric smiled, imagining it. “Sounds like fun.”

  “Can be,” the driver agreed. “Mostly it’s a pain though. Road closures and waiting for a crane to carry the carcass away. They weigh ten even twenty tons some of them. Can bust stuff up before you know it.”

  The contacts on his sensors must be deemed safe enough, Eric mused. Maybe they were vegetarian or something.

  They entered the city and ten minutes later found them stopping outside the St James Hotel. Eric used one of his wands to pay the driver. He chose the one he brought with him, not those Ken had left. He didn’t know the usernames and passwords set on them yet. That information would be on the minicomp, or should be. He authorised payment and slid his wand out of the receptacle before climbing out of the car to get his duffel. The driver popped the trunk for him without getting out. Eric grabbed his duffel and closed the trunk. The driver raised a hand out his window and drove away.

  Eric watched him go, studied his sensors for a brief moment watching for threats and movement patterns that might indicate he was of interest to someone, but found nothing to concern him. Good enough. He entered the hotel to get a room and some quiet time to study his brief in greater detail.

  The St James Hotel was a three star establishment, it said so right on the door he passed through, but three star on whose scale? The award sticker and plaque didn’t say. Going by the decor and general feel of the lobby, Eric expected good food but nothing fancy, high prices but not extortionate, and generous sized rooms. Other facilities would probably come under the heading of extras. Eric had seen the best and worst that money could buy in his time; the St James Hotel would rate on his own scale as first c
lass but not top class. There was a difference, mostly in how much useless and fancy pampering a guest wanted or was willing to put up with. Eric had learned to put up with quite a bit but he had never learned to like it. He was a soldier first and his tastes were a soldier’s tastes. Good food, comfortable bed, and within walking distance of some action at a price he could justify come debriefing was all he needed. Not that the General ever asked him how much a mission cost. He had underlings to handle budgets. He just wanted to know successful completion yes or no. If yes what were the results, was a follow-up mission advised? If no, what the fuck was Eric doing back then?

  Eric grinned. He never went home to report failure. Not after the first time or two just after the war. That was something they had all learned. The General expected results and within reason didn’t sweat how success was achieved. Obviously the regiment’s exposure was out of the question and was mission critical. No mission could be called a success if it resulted in knowledge of Viper involvement getting out, but apart from that Eric had a free hand. He was expected to get the job done with minimal collateral damage and loss to the Alliance. Note that didn’t mean loss to him, or Thurston, or even Thurston’s citizenry—Burgton could be ruthless when needed—it meant what it said; loss to the Alliance was to be minimised. Eric left those calculations to the General. He decided what an acceptable loss was in the greater scheme, and losing Thurston was not an option.