Winged Hussars (The Revelations Cycle Book 3) Read online

  On the other side, the big bay door slid open. The residual atmosphere was expelled, taking the 37 caskets with it.

  “Squad…ready!” Sergeant T’jto ordered. The surviving marines all aimed specially tuned laser weapons and fired them at the barrier. The beams were low power—for visual effect only—to salute their lost and didn’t cause any damage to the barrier.

  Afterwards, back in her wardroom behind the bridge, Alexis looked at the damage reports, both material and personnel, and sighed. Paka sat in a chair on the other side of the desk. They’d been discussing the rest of the cruise. Suddenly Alexis tossed the slate on her desk and growled.

  “Seventeen months.”

  “Ma’am?” Paka asked, her whiskers twitching in curiosity.

  “That’s how long we’ve been out, seventeen months. Four contracts fulfilled. I just looked up the details. Eleven combat actions in total. We’ve lost two crewmen to injuries related to combat action and one to an accident. Three crewmen killed, in total, from all those combat actions, including that running fight on the Topul’s Pride, and a little piece of shit frigate fires a couple of damned conventional rockets up our ass, and we lose 22 marines and 15 crew. On a fucking non-paying combat action, of all things.”

  Her rage spent, she sat back and sighed. Paka, long used to her captain’s moods, just waited. After a time, Alexis picked up the slate and went back to the matter at hand. Sometime later, Paka looked up and spoke.

  “Captain?”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “That last line you spoke? At the service? It wasn’t religious, at least not from your race. What was it from?”

  Alexis gave her XO a sardonic smile that might or might not have been wasted on the Veetanho. “That? It’s from an ancient Earth warrior.”

  “What was the warrior’s name?” Paka asked.

  “Tecumseh.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 9

  A1 Super Deluxe Inn

  Startown – Houston Starport

  Houston, Earth

  Rick tossed his two duffels onto the bed in the hotel room, the takeout box on the decrepit dresser, and fell into the tiny office chair. It promptly broke in half and spilled him onto the floor with a crash.

  “Fuck my life,” he said and rolled to his feet. He shoved the remnants of the Fedmart office furniture aside, put the duffels there instead, and sat dejectedly on the bed. A pair of mating cockroaches skittered away. He wondered if the tub worked so he could drown himself. He pulled out his Universal Account Access Card, or yack, and touched the little display embedded in the plastic. It lit up with 13.2 CRU. Thirteen union credits might seem like a lot to some. It was the equivalent of about thirteen hundred US dollars, after all. The problem was the economy around a starport was fed by off-world commerce and mercs, which consumed credits like hungry vampires. He could probably have gotten a room for a month back in Indianapolis with that; here, he’d paid 5 credits for this shithole for one night. Five hundred dollars a night. Cockroaches, no extra charge.

  The smell of food drew him to the dresser, where he retrieved the takeout box. A small squadron of roaches fled at his approach, already checking out what he’d brought them. He held onto the box while taking both duffels into the bathroom. After verifying that the tub appeared to have been cleaned, he dropped them in and went back into the main room. At least he wouldn’t get bedbugs in his bags that way. He hoped.

  Rick pulled out his slate, sat on the bed, and ate medium-quality Chinese food as he checked his email. He had an official mail from the mercenary guild informing him that since he wasn’t employed by a merc unit, he would have to pay his own dues next year (that will be 100 CRU please). He glanced at the little calendar icon in the corner that showed Union dates and their Earth equivalents. At least he had four months to worry about it. There was one offer of a credit card from OWBA, the Off-World Banking Alliance. They were affiliated with the Union Credit Exchange, which was part of the Trade Guild.

  He thought about that for a second, but quickly tossed away the idea. Without a job, or any prospect of one, he’d never make the payments. He knew their interest rates started at 20 percent and went up from there. No, he wasn’t going to make a bad situation worse. The remainder of the messages were spam, and he deleted them.

  The food mostly gone, he resigned himself to scanning the local hiring boards. Luckily, the roach motel included free Aethernet access, although the connection was crappy. He began looking for work. The first thing he noticed was that most jobs were computer-related; in particular, they wanted pinned operators. The implants inserted into your brain let you directly access the Aethernet and help you program computers. They were expensive as hell, too. Thinking about having pinplants got him thinking about his old friend Jim, and that made him set his own situation in perspective.

  Jim was the heir to Cartwright’s Cavaliers, one of the greatest merc units ever, but his mother had blown it all in shady credit swaps and off-world real estate deals. Even though he was unemployed, Rick reminded himself that his friend was much worse off.

  On the spur of the moment, Rick pulled out his phone and thumbed Jim’s number. It went instantly to voicemail.

  “This is Jim Cartwright,” the familiar voice said, “I’ll be unavailable for a few months. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  Rick hung up before leaving a message. Hard to say what it meant. Unavailable was about as ambiguous as you could get. With nothing else to distract him, he went back to looking for a job.

  It was around 11:00 p.m. when he finally gave up and admitted defeat. The facts were impossible to ignore. He couldn’t make money quickly enough to allow himself to stay even in the shithole hotel room, as well as feed himself and save enough to get an apartment. His phone was still sitting on the nightstand. Rick brushed a roach away, selected a number from the list, and dialed.

  “Rick?” the voice answered on the first ring. “This is unexpected.”

  “Hi mom,” he said with a sigh. “I’m sorry I haven’t returned your calls.” There was silence for a long moment, and Rick wondered if she’d hung up.

  “You should be,” she said, but he didn’t think she sounded as angry as he’d expected. “Are you about to be deployed?”

  “No,” he said, not sure how to proceed.

  “You’re still with those Mickey Fingers?”

  “Mickey Finn, mom,” he corrected with a chuckle. “No, they let me go.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, though it didn’t sound very sincere. “You have another job then?”

  “No,” he admitted. “The Cavaliers going down flooded the market.”

  “Your friend Jim’s outfit. I saw that on the Tri-V.” She sounded almost satisfied. That wouldn’t have surprised him. She’d never approved of Jim. In her mind, it was Jim that made her only son take up the mercenary life. Their family had been military pilots going back to WWI, when a long-dead ancestor had flown a Sopwith Camel. Your ancestors would be offended at the very thought of you becoming a mercenary! She never understood that he did it because he had to. Earth hardly had any militaries anymore. It was a calling.

  “Yes, that’s the one.”

  “So, what are you going to do now?” she asked. He didn’t know what to say. “You’re broke, aren’t you?” How did parents know stuff like that?

  “Almost,” he admitted.

  “Ricky, come home.” He bristled at her use of his childhood name, but didn’t say anything about it.

  “I can’t,” he said instead.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t have enough money.” That wasn’t entirely true. He could probably take a maglev to Indianapolis for around 10 CRU. Once more she was quiet for some time, and he was wondering if she was going to leave him to his own devices. It would be no more than he deserved. Then he heard a ‘Ping!’ from the nightstand and turned his head. His yack was glowing with a notice.

  Rick picked up the card a
nd looked at it. The “Receive Funds” green button was glowing. Surprised, he touched it without really realizing what it meant. The balance went from 13.2 CRU to 113.2 CRU.

  “Mom, why? That’s like ten-thousand dollars.”

  “We have it,” she said. “Don’t take the train, there was an accident just the other day.” He’d heard; it was a freight train not a passenger maglev. The maglevs were safer than cars or planes. “Grab a shuttle, be home tomorrow. We’ll talk then. Buy some clothes so I don’t have to see you in that mercenary garb.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say good night; it’s late.”

  After he’d said goodbye and thanked her about a dozen times, he chased the roaches off the nightstand and turned off the light. Outside the lights and sounds of Houston Startown reminded him of the old movie 5th Element he’d watched with Jim one Saturday. Flying cars mixed with horns, sirens, and a heavy overtone of technology. Somewhere nearby, music was playing so loudly the bass rattled his windows. It was serene compared to the Mickey Finn compound. He was asleep in minutes.

  The next morning, duffel bags carefully inspected for unauthorized travelers and showered with lots of the chemical-based soap the merc supply room gave out, Rick took public transportation to the starport. It cost a half a credit to ride as far as the line went, which dropped him about half a mile from his destination. He walked the rest of the way.

  The sprawling starport took up a large part of what had once been the eastern Houston industrial district. Now it was hundreds of ferroconcrete bays for ships of all shapes and sizes to land and lift off from. On both sides were runways for air breathers. Some were suborbital shuttles you could hop that would deposit you halfway around the world in a couple hours. The others were regular jets, usually unpiloted. Union robotic technology didn’t have a bad day and kill two hundred business travelers.

  Rick walked into the main concourse and past the first level of security. A squad of SPD, the Starport Police Department, were in light armor with battle rifles held on cross-body slings. Their helmets concealed their faces and likely held all kinds of scanners to examine those going by. As if to confirm his suspicion, one of them turned as he approached the security station and looked him up and down before looking away.

  “Business?” ask the screener.

  “Flight,” he said.

  “Ticket?”

  “Don’t have one yet.”

  “Yeah? Let’s see some ID and proof of ability to pay.” He grunted and produced his yack. The screener interfaced the card with his slate and examined a Tri-V display. “Merc, huh?” Rick nodded. “Thought you guys were all rich.”

  “Can I go?” Rick asked, holding out his hand.

  “Not far on that,” the man said, then almost grudgingly handed it back. Rick ground his teeth, took the card, and walked through the big tube-like scanner. He knew somewhere they were examining everything about him, probably down to the nanite modifications of his skeletal system. The weapon and armor in his bag would be noted and recorded. Earth had a love-hate relationship with mercs (mostly hate), and the weapons they used.

  After security, the main entrance broadened out into a wide concourse. The roof was easily 100 feet overhead, and shops lined both sides. Most sported flowing three-dimensional, Tri-V signs claiming the best duty-free off-world gizmos, or wetware upgrades for your pinplants (no questions asked). He saw at least four shops specializing in morphagenic tattoos before he got to the first branching of the concourse.

  At the intersection, the concourse split in three directions. To the right was domestic and local jet travel, to the left was international and sub-orbital shuttles, and straight ahead was off-world travel and access to the myriads of starship docking bays. He examined the flight boards, noting which were going to Indianapolis, then looked down the corridor toward the starships.

  There might not be any merc companies hiring on Earth, but he knew where there were. Only it would take a lot more than 100 credits to get there. And he wasn’t being honest with himself. He didn’t want to give up and go home. He’d wanted to be a merc since he and Jim were kids. Without another thought, he went straight ahead.

  Later that afternoon, Rick was aboard ECS Coronado, a Comal-class tramp freighter riding a launch laser into orbit. Captain Edgar Holland had offered him two hundred credits a week for manual labor and security, should it become necessary. In exchange Rick got a trip to Karma, though there would be multiple stops before they got there. Coronado was more than 70 years old, the second class of hyperspace-capable freighter ever produced by Humans. Holland assured him there were much older ships made by aliens. He didn’t worry, it felt right. He was following his dream.

  They refueled in orbit. While there, Rick used the ship’s Aethernet access to return his mom’s 100 credits, and to email her a letter apologizing and explaining where he was going. She didn’t reply before they left orbit.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 10

  EMS Pegasus

  Galactic Void Between Jesc and Tolo Arms

  Hyperspace

  The vast, unending nothingness of hyperspace was outside the two-foot-thick synthetic, transparent, ruby glass of Captain Alexis Cromwell’s wardroom. She stood by the window, observing. Many found looking at hyperspace to be disconcerting at best and disturbing at worst. She’d once heard of a small minority who were driven insane from spending endless hours staring at it. Scientists said there was nothing there, an absence of all light, sound, and energy. Humans weren’t equipped to see nothing, so your mind put something there. A pure white nothing.

  Hyperspace was four dimensions crushed to a pinpoint, then expanded to the infinite. Calculations suggested it should be possible to enter hyperspace and emerge on the other side of the universe; however, it didn’t work that way in practice. It didn’t work in any way Human scientists understood. Hyperspace navigation computers would take you to any star system within the ship’s range, and that range varied depending on what the Cartography Guild called hyperspatial conditions. Supposedly, the physics of normal space played a factor in how easy it was to travel through hyperspace, and the limit tended to be around 20,000 light years, with a few exceptions.

  The time spent in hyperspace, exactly 170 hours each transition, was usually a quiet time on ships where the crew conducted routine maintenance; there was always plenty to do on a starship. Things broke regularly and needed repair. When in hyperspace, one duty station was always manned, though—the reactor watch. The power had to stay on to operate the hyperspace generators. If they failed, the great unknown would swallow them whole, and they would never be heard from again.

  The reactor watch was kept on all shifts while in hyperspace. It was even more important on this transition, as Reactor Two was still down. Normal hyperspace procedure was to operate two reactors at 50 percent output each to run the hyperspace generators. Each reactor had enough energy at full power to keep the generators operating and the ship in hyperspace. If one began to fail or show strain, a third reactor would be powered up, the load shifted, and the questionable unit powered down. As it was now, there was no backup. If one of the two operational plants developed problems, they’d only have one left, and staying in hyperspace would take everything it had, with little left over. If that happened, the crew would finish the transition in space suits to save power, praying.

  Because of the inverse square law of power required to stay in hyperspace once there, the bigger the ship, the less power you needed. Ships like the heavy haulers required a shockingly small amount of juice, only a couple of terawatts. A medium-sized warship like Pegasus took more than 20 terawatts of reactor power to stay in hyperspace. Little frigates like the two she’d destroyed in the S.G. Skaa system probably took twice the power Pegasus needed to enter hyperspace. It continued to get worse until most of your ship was reactor space, consuming massive amounts of hydrogen fuel and needing F11 replenishment more and more often. That calculation of economy drove space
travel. Most escort ships didn’t even have hyperspace generators. It was simpler to clamp the smaller ship to the side of a bigger ship and hitch a ride; the increased mass even made it less costly for the bigger ship!

  As Alexis stared out at the nothingness, she thought of the untold millions of spaceships sharing hyperspace at that moment across their galaxy. Were they thousands of light years away, or close enough to touch? It took incredible amounts of energy to shunt into hyperspace, and that energy was gone; it disappeared from the universe. Where did it go? Were they responsible for a white hole feeding a new universe somewhere else?

  “” Alexis grinned and shrugged.

  “It isn’t a natural thing.”

  “”

  “Who can?” Alexis floated back and caught the edge of her desk. She could feel the vibration of the fusion reactors hundreds of feet away, transferred through the steel and composites of the ship’s spine. She felt the air of the life support system brush her face gently, stirring some of her white hair. The slates locked to her desk scrolled data on the ship’s operation, as well as ongoing repairs from the last fight. Sitting there, she could feel the ship breathing; its heart beating through the living thing which was Pegasus. It was comforting. There was a knock on the door.

  “Come!” she called. The door slid open, and Paka came in.

  “Captain?”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “There’s a problem in marine country.”

  The two floated into the lift in Section One, currently set for down, and headed aft. They hung onto the handholds as the lift began to move so they weren’t pushed against one end. The interior decks were oriented like slices of the shaft of a tree so that gravity was useful during thrust. The gravity decks extended from the spinning hull to provide some gravity during transition and non-powered flight. Since they were in hyperspace, two of the four gravity decks were deployed on their spokes and the ship spun up to give a half G on the decks. Alexis seldom found the need to visit them.