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  Terry looked at the two gold bars on Doc’s collar and his still heavily-suntanned face. The man looked a little older, somehow. “Why did you join a merc company?”

  “For this,” Doc said, and held out a credit chit.

  Terry took the plastic Union credit chit and examined it. In school they’d learned a little about them, in particular how to understand one of the more common Union numerical systems. “A thousand credits? Holy crap, that’s $35 million dollars! They paid you that much?”

  “No, they paid me and my team $4 million credits for the first contract, $2.5 million for the second one, and a $1 million credit bonus after we finished up.”

  Terry was as flabbergasted as he ever remembered being. He added it all up in his head. “$7.5 million credits in just a couple months?”

  “Merc work pays really good, kiddo. If you survive, that is.”

  “The other SEALs who came with you went too, then?”

  “Yes, there were eight of us.”

  “Were?” Terry asked, knowing the answer.

  “Yes, two didn’t make it. But the money’s what we needed.”

  “What for?”

  Doc grinned and winked. “You’ll find out in a little bit.” Terry went to hand the credit chit back. “No, that’s yours.”

  “What for?”

  “Your mom told me how hard you’ve been working. You deserve something for that.”

  “This is too much,” Terry said, and tried to give it back to him again.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not on Earth anymore. That doesn’t go as far out here as you might think. Tell you what. Let me finish up a few things, and tomorrow we can go over to Karma Station. How does that sound?”

  “Mom said nobody from the ship was allowed to go there,” Terry said.

  “Yeah, well, we’re back now, so leave has been granted.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 7

  Karma Star System, Cresht Region, Tolo Arm

  October 2nd, 2037

  “I don’t entirely approve,” Madison said, scowling.

  Terry knew better than to get involved in such a conversation. He’d learned over his short life that opening your mouth at the wrong time when grownups were having a discussion involving something you wanted to do often resulted in things not working the way you wanted them to.

  “I’ll be there,” Doc said, “and my men are there as well.”

  “Karma Station is a den of killers,” she insisted, her mouth set in a thin line.

  “Mercs,” Doc corrected her. “Am I a killer?” Caught off guard, she looked away, and Terry knew he’d scored. “You’ve got four million credits at your disposal, thanks to us. Call it what you will, but merc life is a reality to humanity now, and will be forever. It’s no different than all of our history, really. People have always sold their swords for money.”

  “But why does my son have to be exposed to that?” she insisted.

  “I’m not making him part of the company,” Doc said. “I need to meet the men, and afterward Terry can see some of Karma Station. The station is a huge transportation hub. Merc business is only a percentage of the commerce that goes on there.”

  “Commerce,” she said and snorted. Doc sighed.

  Terry decided to play one of the only cards he had. “Mom, my birthday is in 10 days.”

  “And I suppose you think a trip to a...a...mercenary den is a suitable birthday present?”

  “Merc pit,” Terry corrected, then cringed. Shit. His mom looked at him, then turned her head to glare at Doc.

  “Madison, the kid’s been confined to three freighters for months, exercising every day to avoid losing bone mass. Don’t you think he deserves a chance to feel some gravity and maybe see some of the Union before we’re off again?”

  She looked at the former SEAL for several moments before sighing, and Terry knew he’d won. “You won’t let him out of your sight for even a minute?”

  “Promise.”

  “Okay,” she said, looking at her son.

  “Woohoo!” Terry crowed.

  “You be careful,” she said, and gave him an awkward zero-G hug.

  “I will, Mom.”

  “I’ll be sure one of the assistants takes up your jobs today, but you still have to do your studies tonight. Understand?”

  “Yes, mom,” he yelled over his shoulder, because he was already heading back to their shared compartment.

  “Take good care of him,” she told Doc.

  “Guaranteed.”

  In their room, he grabbed his backpack and a light jacket. He’d read that often space stations were cooler than most Humans preferred. Afterward, he rushed to Teddy Roosevelt’s hangar deck. Doc was waiting in the lock, a bag on his back and a gun around his waist.

  “Ready, kiddo?”

  “You bet,” Terry said.

  “First, a word.” Doc moved so he was only a short distance away and face-to-face. “If I tell you to do something, you do it. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Second, alien mercs are dangerous. Some are simply hostile for the sake of being hostile. Humans are a new factor in their trade, and we’re already getting a rep of being trouble. Don’t talk to any aliens unless I say you can.” He pointed to the translator fixed to Terry’s coat.

  “Got it.”

  “And last,” Doc said, “don’t spend all those credits on the first interesting thing you see.”

  Terry laughed and nodded. “I won’t.”

  “Good, now come on.”

  They boarded the shuttle through an airlock. Inside, one of the Teddy Roosevelt’s pilots was already working at the controls. The woman looked back as Doc and Terry entered and found one of the dozen open seats. Two other people were already on board; Terry didn’t recognize either of them.

  “All set?” the pilot asked.

  “Good to go,” Doc said. Terry said he was, and the other two did, as well.

  “Undocking, buckle up,” the pilot said. There was a bump and a dull clang through the hull, followed by the sensation of the shuttle rolling around. “Thrust,” the pilot said, and they were gently pushed back into their acceleration couches.

  “How long to Karma Station?” Terry asked Doc.

  “Oh, an hour or so.”

  Acceleration built up until Terry guessed it reached a half a G. He glanced at the uniform and other accoutrements of Doc’s gear, in particular the gun. He’d never seen anything like it. “That’s not a Human gun, is it?”

  “This?” Doc asked. He drew the pistol, checked its condition, and removed a cassette from the handle. “Here.” He handed it to Terry. “Safety’s on, it’s unloaded.”

  “Uhm,” Terry said and took the weapon, “are you sure it’s unloaded?”

  “Smart kid,” Doc said. “Never take another person’s word for it; no matter how much you trust them, check yourself.” He pointed at the controls. “Pull that back and look at what the display says.”

  “There’s a red zero,” Terry said.

  “Then it’s unloaded.”

  Terry examined it. It looked like a gun; the basics all seemed the same. The barrel didn’t end in a hole, but rather a strange piece of glass. There were several controls on the side and the handle, along with writing he didn’t recognize.

  “This isn’t from Earth,” he realized.

  “No, it isn’t,” Doc agreed.

  Terry continued to examine it. “And it’s not a firearm.”

  “Correct again. It’s a laser pistol. One of the lessons from the alpha contracts was that our weaponry was sadly insufficient. We have cartridges that can kill most alien mercs, but you just don’t get many shots.”

  “So this is an alien-made gun?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “How many aliens have hands like ours?” Terry asked.

  “Not many,” Doc confirmed. “Only one merc race is really close.”

  Terry gripped it in his hand and tested the feel. It w
as too big, of course. He was about to turn 12, but his hands weren’t as long as an adult’s. Even so, the handle looked rough. “It looks like it’s homemade.”

  “Pretty close,” Doc said. “My friend Janet Cross, who’s in our unit, is an armorer. We got ahold of a case of Pushtal laser pistols.” Doc saw the confused look on Terry’s face. “Pushtals look like Bengal tigers, though luckily not as big, and tend to be black and white instead of orange and black. Anyway, the handles were all wrong. Janet used an alien machine called a manufactory to take the Pushtal guns apart and make new handles for these.” He held up a hand. “Bonus is we sold a bunch to another Human unit we ran into.”

  Terry handed the gun back and watched Doc’s movements. Just like he’d shown Terry, he verified it was empty, then slid the cassette back in place. Terry guessed it was a power pack. Doc flicked a control and slid the weapon back into its holster. “They’re serviceable,” he said. “Someday an alien manufacturer will be making new ones for us.” He shrugged. “Maybe even a Human manufacturer.”

  Doc changed the subject, and they talked about Terry’s studies, passing the time in conversation until they finally arrived at Karma Station. Terry watched the multi-wheel shape of the station approach from his tablet, linked to the shuttle’s cameras, with awe and wonder. It just kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger!

  “How big is that thing?” he finally asked Doc.

  “Just over five kilometers across the outer ring,” Doc replied. Terry whistled. “Yeah, and a couple hundred thousand beings live there.”

  The closer they got, the more traffic Terry spotted. From tiny darting shapes like their own, to huge donut- and egg-shaped transports, and even dart-shaped warships. It was like when they’d looked at a drop of pond water in a petri dish; everywhere there was life.

  “Is this the busiest place in the galaxy?” Terry asked.

  Doc laughed and shook his head. “No, Terry. Karma’s in the middle of nowhere, just like Earth. I’ve heard about systems in the center of the galaxy, known as the core, where a trillion beings live, and you have to wait weeks for a chance to use the stargate.” Terry kept gawking.

  The shuttle soon got so close to the station that Terry couldn’t see it all on the tablet, and he truly realized the scale. He thought of the old movie Star Wars as they flew toward the Deathstar. Three concentric rings were spinning around a central hub. The hub stayed unmoving in the center, where dozens of starships were docked. Their shuttle was heading toward a rectangle of light. After a few moments, he could see it was a big open space with ships hanging on all the walls.

  “Docking bay dead ahead,” the pilot told them. The shuttle had been coming in tail-first for some time. The pilot increased thrust for a few seconds, then it cut altogether. They drifted slowly until Terry could see they were inside. The shuttle’s maneuvering thrusters fired several times, and there was a jolt. “We’re docked. Stand by for boarding collar.”

  The pilot came out of his chair and floated back to the airlock. He watched the displays until there was an audible beep, and a status light turned green. “We’re good to disembark,” he said and cycled the doors open.

  An elSha in a spacesuit floated there, looking inside the shuttle. “Cargo?” it asked the pilot.

  “Passengers only,” the pilot answered.

  The alien floated inside and looked around. It had a slate it tapped on, and after a minute, the alien nodded in approval. “That will be 25 credits docking fee. Fuel is extra.”

  “Refill the tanks, please,” the pilot said and handed the alien a card. “Purified hydrogen, if you would?”

  “No problem.”

  “Come on, Terry,” Doc said, and Terry realized he’d been staring.

  “Sure,” he said and floated toward the door.

  The connecting collar was a big metal reinforced plastic tube designed to dock with hundreds of different kinds of shuttles. Terry thought he saw rust and cracks in the plastic and tried not to think about why the elSha wore a spacesuit. Not encouraging. He didn’t breathe until they passed through the lock at the other side and entered Karma Station proper.

  “Where’s the pit?” he asked Doc.

  “Out in one of the gravity rings,” Doc replied. “Glad your mom didn’t hear how eager you are.” Terry gave an embarrassed grin in reply.

  Doc took him through a series of corridors that led them to something he called a glideway. To him, it looked like a plastic tube.

  “When you get in, the air will lift you up. After you get in, spin around so you’re going feet first.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re going to be basically falling to the higher gravity areas of the station. If you go head first, it’s gonna hurt when you try to get off.”

  “Oh.” He did as Doc said, and a gust of air pushed him up. As soon as he was moving, he spun around feet first. It was a little like a water slide, without the water. For a second, as he began to accelerate, he was afraid it would go bad quickly. Then he felt Doc’s hand on his arm.

  “Don’t worry, it’s only scary the first time.”

  Terry tried to relax and look around. They were passing between decks, and he saw other tubes nearby with a variety of aliens. One or two he recognized; most he didn’t. There were tubes where the occupants were going back the way he’d come, too. The glideway was kinda fun.

  “We’re getting off on Ring B, Deck 12.”

  “How do I tell where that is?” Terry asked.

  “Right, I forgot you don’t read the lingo yet. I’ll pull us off, don’t worry.”

  They passed through a long section without decks, or even windows. He was aware that now air was blowing up at him, keeping his pace from getting too quick. A couple of signs went by in glowing languages he didn’t recognize, and he felt Doc gently pulling him to the side. Before he realized it, they were on a cut off, like a train moving onto a new track. A floor appeared below their feet, moving with then. Their feet touched, and the floor slowed them to a gentle stop.

  “That was cool!”

  “Told ya,” Doc said.

  “What if the air goes off, or the floor doesn’t work?”

  “It could get messy, I guess. But the tech is actually kinda simple.”

  Doc led him out of the station where they’d landed. You could get on or off a glideway there. Outside was a long, wide avenue lined with shops and a myriad of aliens moving in all directions. Above them was a continuous window through which he could see the ring closer to the hub. He was somewhat aware that the floors curved upward in the distance in both directions. They were standing on the floor of the spinning station. Unlike when Pegasus had spun them, he didn’t have a slight dizzy feeling, either. Karma Station was beyond massive.

  “There are bigger stations, aren’t there?” he asked.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, every time I think I’ve seen the biggest thing around, I’m wrong.”

  Doc laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, this is big, but not huge. Come on, it’s not far.”

  They walked along the promenade, as Doc called it. He said there was one on all three rings, and they served as a big business district. You could buy anything from food to missiles, according to him. Terry had a hard time understanding what any of the little shops were selling, or if they were selling anything at all. The bigger ones were sometimes two or three stories tall, reaching up to the glass roof. The scale had him dizzy in just a minute’s walking.

  “Here we are,” Doc said outside a doorway with a symbol over the top. It looked like a gun, a sword, and diamond, and again he couldn’t read the other writing.

  “What’s that mean?” Terry asked.

  “Symbol for the Galactic Mercenary Guild,” Doc said. “The place is called the Pit of Occo.”

  The doors opened, and a spider the size of a family sedan came skittering out. Terry squealed and jumped out of the way. It was one of the Tortantulas he’d read about, but there was no chipmunk o
n its back.

  “Move it, meat sack,” the Tortantula said. Well, it made clicks and rasping sounds, but its translator said the words.

  “Pardon the hatchling,” Doc said, and the Tortantula trundled past without another word.

  “Is that one of the dangerous ones?” he asked after the spider was out of sight.

  “Very,” Doc confirmed. “It didn’t have a Flatar, so that probably means it’s a small one, likely a courier.”

  “D-did you say small one?”

  Doc took him by the shoulder and guided him into the pit. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. Maybe the Star Wars cantina crossed with a wild west saloon? It turned out to be a big open room with a service area off to one side, Tri-V screens in the center showing all kinds of data, and small private rooms all along the walls.

  “This is a pit?”

  “Yup,” Doc confirmed. A man, the first Human Terry had seen since they’d left the shuttle and its other occupants, popped out of a private room and waved.

  “Yo, Doc, over here, Captain!”

  Doc waved back and patted Terry on the shoulder. “Come on, kiddo, meet the crew.”

  They walked over to the room, and Doc went in first. Inside, five men and a woman sat waiting. They all greeted Doc, then looked at Terry.

  “Men, this is Terry Clark. I’ve been telling you about him.”

  “Who the hell you calling men?” the woman asked.

  “Don’t let her fool you,” one of the men said, “she’s got a bigger dick than any of us.” Terry turned bright red, and everyone laughed uproariously.

  “That foul-mouthed lady over there is Tina,” Doc said. “Watch your mouth, Sergeant.”

  “Sorry, sir,” she said. “Hi, Terry.” He smiled and said hi back.

  “That’s Honcho,” Doc said. A dark-skinned man with a cowboy hat touched the brim and nodded. “Over there is Toothpick.” A man smiled back, missing several teeth.

  “Why do they call you Toothpick?” Terry asked. The man pulled out a pair of shiny knives, grinned, and made them disappear. “Okay,” Terry said, and more laughter broke out.

  “That’s Piano,” Doc said. A thin Asian man with sharp, hard eyes nodded slightly. “And the two who can’t stop playing cards are Hutch and Peyto.” Two men wearing ballcaps who looked like brothers waved without looking up from their cards. One hat was the Boston Red Sox, the other the Chicago Cubs. They both looked more like football players, with necks thicker than Terry’s waist.