Winged Hussars (The Revelations Cycle Book 3) Page 15

  The series of tests took almost a quarter of an hour. During that time, many of the crew came through and nodded or waved to him. Most seemed curious; they all looked at him differently. Rick was a little disturbed; he’d been in the galley for over a week, on display like a freak show.

  “All right,” Brad finally said, “you’re 100 percent. You can get up.”

  Rick was glad gravity was light, because he felt unsteady on his feet. He was dressed only in a pair of boxers, his skin covered in a light dusting of yellowish material.

  “Come on lad,” Brad said, and the two men took him, one by each arm, and helped him into the deck’s bathroom where they waited while he stripped and showered. He’d long gotten used to nudity in groups, so that didn’t bother him. As the slow-falling water washed away the yellow dust in lines down his body, he felt steadily better.

  When he was drying, he noticed the first of his souvenirs from the battle. Just above his left nipple was an almost perfectly shaped rectangular scar of pink tissue. There were numerous little pink flecks all around it. He reached over his left shoulder and found another, similarly shaped scar on his scapula.

  “Other than some lung damage,” Brad said, “that was the least of them. The little marks are from melted armor.” One of the other crewmen came in with some clothes from Rick’s locker. As Rick dressed, he saw the second scar on his right thigh. Shaped like the first, it penetrated mid-thigh, toward his inseam, and exited directly opposite on the back of his thigh.

  “Penetrated your femoral artery,” Brad said. “Luckily, the frequency of the alien’s lasers cauterized the damage. You still bled heavily, but you survived.” Rick shook his head at his luck. He didn’t see the last scar until he looked in the bathroom’s mirror after wiping away the fog.

  “Oh, shit,” he said.

  “I couldn’t do anything about the scarring,” Brad said, with remorse in his voice. The left side of Rick’s face had a line of pink scar tissue running from his nose to over his left ear. The hair that should have grown over his ear was gone, and he could feel the scarring on the back of his head. It looked like someone had tried to cut his fucking head in half. “It penetrated your cranium. But the extreme angle and speed of the trauma, coupled with the fact that it was a pistol and not one of those big rifles, means the damage was minimal.”

  “How minimal?” Rick asked.

  “It can’t say. It’s an alien-made autodoc, reprogrammed on Earth for Humans. It does a pretty good job, as you can tell. But the cerebral programming is the most complicated.” The other man shrugged. “None of your motor functions were affected; we confirmed that when you woke up. It says language, cognitive functions, and memory could be issues.”

  Rick sighed and bent over the sink. He hadn’t even been fighting for a merc company. It was just some kind of a damned pirate raid, or something. It wasn’t fair. He felt a strong hand on his shoulder.

  “You saved our bacon, son,” Captain Holland said.

  “Just leave me alone for a few minutes. Okay?”

  “Sure,” Holland said.

  “But—” Brad started to say.

  “Give the man some time,” Holland said and pulled his cook/medic out, closing the door on the small bathroom as they went. The ship was obviously under spin. Rick guessed they were in hyperspace. If they were between emergence point and stargate, they’d be under thrust. He looked back up at himself in the mirror. He’d always been good looking, he knew that. Girls in school chased him constantly, and he’d never had trouble finding a companion from the moment he joined Mickey Finn. The image that looked back at him was like something from a war film. What had happened to his brain? Everything seemed to be working, but a laser had burned through his skull. That had to have left some side effects. But there was no emotion. None. He didn’t feel mad, disappointed, upset, nothing. He just felt empty. He’d felt that way since waking up.

  He wanted to yell, to rage, to cry, something. However, nothing was there. It was like opening the door on a burning building, expecting to find an inferno, and finding a normal room. It didn’t seem right, or normal. He grunted and thought about an old friend. What would he think of him now? Who would think…wait. The scarred visage in the mirror crinkled its eyebrows in concentration trying to remember a name. He had a few scattered flickers of a fat kid laughing, of a Tri-V action movie, buckets of popcorn, watching spaceships taking off and cheering. But no name came to him, and he couldn’t focus on the face. Oh no, he thought, what else can’t I remember?

  Eventually he exited the bathroom, fully dressed in an undamaged pair of his merc camo BDU, his camouflage battle dress uniform. Whoever had brought them hadn’t picked a pair at the top of his duffle bag; these were the ones stuffed in the side. As he exited he saw it still had a Mickey Finn patch on it, a cartoon Irish man riding a dropship with a bottle of beer in one hand, while making a menacing fist with the other. As he came out, he tore the patch from its Velcro backing and stuffed it in a pocket.

  The galley was empty except for Captain Holland, who watched him with a critical, expectant look.

  “You okay, Rick?”

  “Yes sir,” Rick said and went to sit next to the captain. The older man pushed a steaming cup of coffee over, and Rick took a grateful taste. It was good, made with cream and two sugars, just as Rick liked. It gave him no real pleasure. “Tell me what happened?”

  Holland nodded and began his tale.

  The raiders had been terrorizing 82 Eridani for some time. Because New Mecca only had a couple of antiquated patrol boats, the raiders were difficult to catch. Of course, the planetary government was keeping it mostly quiet. Tramp freighters like the Coronado might well reconsider coming if they knew raiders were hitting ships regularly.

  The raiders’ MO was simple. Slip in close with a blacked-out ship’s boat and quietly board. Then neutralize any resistance, take anything valuable they found, disable the ship, and escape. So far only a few lives had been lost.

  “Who were they?” Rick asked. “I’ve never seen that race before.” Holland tapped on a slate and handed it to him. A picture of a felinoid just like the ones he’d battled appeared.

  “Pushtal,” Rick said, reading aloud. They were listed in the Galnet as a registered merc race. Sometime in the past they’d made the wrong enemies and lost their planet in a vendetta with the MinSha. Rick nodded, the praying mantis-looking aliens were major players and didn’t take insults or slights lightly. You could ask any Iranian about that, if you could find one still alive.

  Now the Pushtal survived largely by odd-job merc contracts, or out-right piracy. They didn’t own any worlds or colonies of record anymore.

  “You killed all four of the boarding party,” Holland said with a nod. “The survivor in the shuttle tried to detach and run. I dealt with that one.”

  “But you don’t have any weapons,” Rick said, then eyed the old captain, “do you?”

  “I’d love to, but the old girl doesn’t have the power output or surplus space.” He grunted. “I might have to just suck it up and add a missile launcher. Anyway, I might not have a weapon, but we fly with the next best thing.” Rick gave him a confused look. “The torch, son.” Rick’s eyes got wide. “Yeah. It’s why the raiders always disabled their victims. As soon as the shuttle detached, I could see it on the screen. I fired the torch and gimbaled Coronado so the plume was aimed right at him. It was like watching a plastic toy hit with a laser.” Rick nodded. Served him right.

  “What about their mothership?”

  “Never picked it up on the sensors. It was probably a few light seconds away. I’m guessing it’s a freighter too, or they’d have splashed us after losing the shuttle. After we’d made them, they couldn’t risk us getting sensor data and transmitting it. They just crawled away to lick their wounds.”

  “So, that was it?” Rick asked. “You just let them get away?”

  “Son, this is no warship. My sensors are second rate and older than sin. Even if I did fin
d the bloody Pushtal ship, what could I do? Try that trick with the torch? They probably had at least a few small lasers. No, we killed five of them and destroyed their shuttle. We lost Link, the purser, and you were wounded. Discretion was the better part of valor.”

  “I would have liked to get some payback,” Rick said.

  “You gunned down four.” Rick only nodded and felt the unfamiliar scar on his face. “There isn’t much more we can do for you on the ship,” the captain continued. “I used almost every nanite we had on board to save you and fix the head wound.” Rick nodded again. That would probably have cost the captain quite a bit. Nanite treatments weren’t cheap. The yellow fog had been nanites. Trillions of them. He’d probably washed fifty thousand credits down the drain.

  “Thanks for saving me,” Rick said.

  “What was I going to do, blow you out the lock?”

  “Some would have,” Rick said. “It would have been cheaper and easier.”

  The other man reached across the table and put a hand on Rick’s shoulder. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say you were right. But that isn’t how the Coronado operates.”

  Rick smiled a little. “Where are we now?” Rick sipped some more coffee. “And can I get some chow? I’m starving.”

  “We’re about a day out of Karma,” Holland said, taking Rick’s mug and getting up. He went over to the autochef and tapped on the screen to see what options Brad had cooked and stored. The machine took cooked ingredients kept in a freezer and mixed, reheated, and served them. Expensive models could start with raw meats and vegetables, or even protein cubes, and produce meals. This was a much cheaper model. He came back with more coffee for them and a plate of steaming chili for Rick, who dug in with a zeal. Like the coffee, the chili was good, but gave no pleasure. He frowned. “I’m going to transfer cargo, hit another colony, and go back to Earth. You’re welcome to stay on, or get off at Karma like we agreed.” Rick chewed the food and thought. Eventually, he told the captain he’d decide when they docked.

  Rick had to admire Karma Station as the Coronado braked with her ion drive. Compared to all the stations and habitats he’d seen in his home star system, it was tremendous. Three huge rings rotating around a stable central zero-gravity hub. Dozens of starships were parked around the station, many of them warships, with some freighters and a few ships of unknown utility. The planet looked a bit like Earth with huge oceans, white icecaps, brown/green land masses, and swirling cotton candy clouds. It was the most interesting place he’d seen since leaving home.

  “It’s quite the site,” Captain Holland said, coming down to the mess where the non-essential crew stayed during close approaches and docking operations.

  “Our first stop after the Alpha Contracts,” Rick said. A lot of Human history for mercs centered around this station and the city under its geosynchronous orbit. One of more unusual ships near the station caught Rick’s attention. He looked closer. It was a long tapering cylinder dotted with obvious weapons points. At the blunt point of her stern was a ring of modules, probably engines or fuel tanks. Several recent battle wounds marred its simple lines. “What’s that ship?” Rick wondered and pointed.

  “That ship?” Holland asked. “That ship is famous.”

  “For what?” Rick asked. “Surplus junk?” He’d seen images of lots of warships of both Human and alien design. They tended to be graceful looking affairs, with disks near the rear to provide stability and gravity decks, and extended booms for weapons. All of them were on the long side, and narrow, because it made for harder targets and thrust forces moved along straight lines. A spherical warship was a huge target, so only the biggest were that shape.

  “That is the Pegasus,” the captain said; “it’s the flagship of the Winged Hussars. One of the Four Horsemen.”

  Rick observed the wounded ship as they slowed into their parking orbit. The Winged Hussars, one of the Four Horsemen, was here, now. What were the odds? He knew what he was going to do.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 18

  Silent Meadow

  Sulaadar 3

  Sulaadar System

  Captain Geshakooka was stuck to a wall with his XO listening patiently as fleet commander Syshkyl vented in rage. The Maki clung to the office desk with its split tail, which allowed the little mammal to gesticulate wildly as it screamed in a most mammalian fashion.

  “The entire highguard squadron, devastated!” Syshkyl screamed and hit his desk, making him swing around by his tail in a most amusing manner. Geshakooka enjoyed the reaction openly, although only another Bakulu would realize he was grinning ear to ear. “My own sibling, Yackyl, is missing. His battleship, Ardent Grove, never reported in. After two weeks, it has been assumed lost.”

  “No debris was located at the stargate,” a tactical advisor said, “and the commander of the lone surviving interceptor reported seeing them make transition, but with an unusual visual distortion.” Syshkyl looked over at his chief engineer who sighed and shrugged.

  “We can only assume Ardent Grove was so severely damaged in the skirmish it suffered a hyperspatial failure after transition.” Every being in the room cringed or shuddered. No one liked to contemplate that great unknown. Many a grisly tale had been invented to explain what happened to starships whose hyperspatial nodes failed in hyperspace.

  “Thusly,” Syshkyl continued, “this entropy-causing Human merc ship Pegasus has cost us eight capital ships and forty-nine escorts.”

  “That doesn’t include my two frigates,” Geshakooka added.

  “To entropy with your pathetic frigates,” the fleet commander snarled. “I want your cruiser to assist in finding this Human ship.”

  “Personal vendettas are not our way,” Geshakooka said, then continued before the enraged Maki could interrupt. “In addition, our contract is over, and we have no intention of extending it. We’re expecting full payment plus the combat loss contingency of our frigates.” It would never replace the losses of the ships and crews, but it would blunt the blow. The fleet commander considered Geshakooka for a long moment. The Bakulu commander weighed the possibility the angered mammal would try to steal their ship or do him harm. But instead Syshkyl just made a dismissive gesture.

  “You are released,” he said.

  As if I need your permission, Geshakooka thought as he unstuck his foothold on the wall and fired a jet of air from his breathing vent precisely aimed to take him toward the exit. Back aboard his ship, Yushispa, Geshakooka was surprised to find he had a visitor waiting in the wardroom. He was even more surprised by whom the visitor was.

  “To what do I owe the honor of your visit?” Geshakooka asked after greeting the esteemed guest.

  “We are interested in your encounter with the Human warship, Pegasus.”

  “It possesses power and speed you would not expect from such an ancient design,” Geshakooka admitted. “And the drone fighters it employs…”

  “Yes?” the other asked. Geshakooka considered his answer for a time.

  “They are unremarkable in appearance, though of a design no one else employs. They are unique to the Winged Hussars. Their performance is within Union norms, but like so many things about those Humans, they have many little advantages.”

  “Can you explain?” the visitor asked. Geshakooka put his thoughts in order, then continued.

  “The drones operated as if they were manned fighters. Yes, I am aware of how this sounds, but my TacCom can show you the recordings. They act like they’re hive-minded. It reminds me of how the SleSha work, in what some call telepathy. They respond faster than a remote teleoperator would be capable of. Even if they were teleoperated, their tactical awareness is in the upper one-thousandth of a percent in both prediction, response options, and validity of action. It is as if all the drones were being operated by a pilot with many lifetimes of experience, and they work together in unimaginable concert! It is like watching a school of Glnsheel in the surf, darting around a predator in prefect formation.”

  “Any
thing else?”

  “The warheads on their ship-killer missiles are elegant. The missiles are standard affairs, produced by a dozen different races with little variation; they are made to be fired from standard launchers. However, the warheads are special, even unique. I have heard rumor the Winged Hussars call them ‘Squash-bombs,’ and they are a hybrid micro-sized nuclear device.”

  “Is that it?”

  “I hesitate on the last.”

  The visitor considered Geshakooka for a moment. “Please, share with me.”

  “It is, like the bombs, only a rumor. But on multiple occasions, adversaries of the Winged Hussars have claimed their ship can appear in a star system anywhere it chooses.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes, a strange, fanciful tale! While some warships do possess their own hyperspace shunts, despite the great cost and limited use on such a ship, it isn’t unheard of. However, to be able to appear at a place other than an emergence point? The very idea is outrageous. Only, it would account for much of their martial prowess, especially since they do not employ any ships larger than battlecruisers.”

  The visitor absorbed all of this in silence; Geshakooka observed the other being at the same time, allowing one of his three eyes to study her in detail. The visitor stared back with shaded eyes, whiskers twitching as she considered Geshakooka’s words. He was beginning to wonder what his visitor wanted, besides information. His ship’s repairs weren’t quite complete, and a fleet courier was due to deliver him new escorts any day.

  “These questions aside, may I inquire why you have come to me today?” Geshakooka finally asked.

  “Yes,” the being finally said. “We’d like to hire your company, Quigg du Snoo, to pursue and destroy Pegasus.”

  * * * * *

  Part II

  “The Winged Hussars, even from the beginning, were the most enigmatic of us. My Cavaliers, Asbaran, and the Horde were all less than thrilled with our treatment at the hands of aliens during the Alpha Contracts. It was more than the fact that we’d gotten our collective assess kicked. A good ass kicking is what it is—usually deserved and completely avoidable. No, I’m talking about the atrocities many of the damned aliens committed. From Besquith executing surrendering soldiers, to Tortantula feeding on the dead, it seemed the aliens had none of the morals we did. They acted like…well, like aliens!