Incursion (3 page)

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 other 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.

"This one's free. I'd offer you one higher up, but . . ."

"I'm not good at climbing." Kyle dropped his pack on the lowest bed. At least the two on top looked unused.

Winter shrugged. "Stuff's in the usual place."

Kyle sat down on the bunk and reached for the woven black straps that would hold him during take-off and landing. They were as wide as his hands and withstood a strong tug when he tested them. "Straps all in working order?"