Indomitable (42 page)

“Mr. Bond, begin scanning.”

Promise forced herself not to think about Maxi. Cellerman knew what she was doing, and worrying about him wasn't going to make a bit of difference. Her worry was like an angry hound on the edge of wide-awake. Oh, how Promise wanted to kick it in the ribs, but she knew if she did it would just bite the hand trying to feed it.

Promise's HUD tagged something in the ash near the boundary between Gamma-332 and Gamma-334, and a small claxon chimed over her mastoid implant. She walked over and knelt in the ash, stirred with her gauntlet until she struck something metal. The plate of articulating armor rippled as she pulled it out of the char. Her HUD matched the remains to Private First Class Jon Ream. Ream had been a friend of Bohmbair's. Promise wondered if the two men were having drinks in the next life. The plate was rounded and probably a piece of shank, she guessed. She turned it over and found parts of Ream fused to the shank, almost retched in her helmet. More bits of Ream turned up and went in the crates. She tripped on his faceplate several meters later.

Combat Outpost Danny True looked a lot like Ream. Fires, ash, and death surrounded her. Victor Company had fared slightly better; only sixteen casualties, fifteen of them KIAs.
Beyond the stasis collar and beyond this life,
thought Promise as she walked the scorched earth. Thirteen had been directly under her command and she had pieces of four of them on her gravsled. Two full platoons hadn't even made it to the fight. Every private and PFC, corporal and sergeant, jane and jack gone.
Just gone … when that abomination went off in the dropship.
Promise looked around in shock.
They can't be gone.
They. Can't. Be.
Bohmbair and Staff Sergeant Go-Mi and Sergeant Dvorsky and …
Promise felt the shakes coming on. She couldn't chain her grief into something useful like a hat or a scarf—her knitting supplies had been in the dropship.

Her armor felt too tight to breathe in. Strange, that. A mechsuit was a Marine's outerwear, a jane's second skin. Promise had logged over a thousand hours in armor, and not once had she experienced claustrophobia.

Deep breaths, P. Breathe. Do it again. There you go. Just keep it together a little longer.

Her dead never stayed that way for long. She'd heard the first accusation hammering on her skull in the shuttle. Maybe it was Maxi's ghost.
Why?
Why?
WHY? Now it was multiple voices.
Why didn't you save us? Why didn't you do more? Why not you?
The whys became a riotous crowd, the last one by far the worst.
Why not you?
Survivor's guilt left her with no clear answers, just like it had in times past. Why had her father died at the hands of murdering pirates? Why had she survived then and why now? She hadn't been in the Fleet Forces when the pirates struck her home on Montana. She knew enough now to realize their ship had had scanners. Her thermal print might as well have been a signal flare shot high into the sky. They'd overflown her position, and left her to watch her father's murder from what she'd believed at the time to be a safe distance. Her home had burned to the ground.

Her father had believed in more than this life, and a world beyond the grave. Problem was she couldn't test the theory without getting killed, and in the deepest-down she was scared to death of giving up this life. Because if there was a God surely His scales would weigh her deeds and find them wanting. And if there wasn't a God all she had was this life, and much of it was unfinished. She had innocents to protect and madmen like the Greys to hunt down for their crimes. That she knew she could do.
Harbinger of death. Here I come.

“I've got a few more sections to go. Kathy, how about you, over?”

“Just finished mine. I'll be glad when this day is over
.” Kathy sounded close to tears.

“Understood. Retrace your steps. Make sure you didn't miss anything. Let's bring them home.”

“Copy that. Circling back now. Prichart, out.”

 

Fifty

MAY 25
TH
, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 1149 HOURS

THE KORAZIM SYSTEM, PLANET SHEOL

SOMEWHERE IN THE RAHAT MOUNTAIN RANGE

Julius “Walker” Greystone sat
with his feet propped up on his desk and a thick Johansen smoldering in his mouth. The overhead filter had broken down again and the room was as hazy as the sky above Korazim's capital city, Procyon. Walker was puffing on his second Johansen of the meeting, much to the consternation of his number-two man and his most trusted assassin. Two more cigars lay on his desk like parallel tracks, for later that afternoon. Like the one in his mouth, they were unfiltered and peppery because why bother otherwise. Walker smoked with his whole face and his thick brows rose happily as he puffed out a series of rings into the unpurified air.

“A good cigar is like making love,” Walker said in a gruff, convivial voice. “It's a slow burn, all the way to the end. Isn't that right, Bella?”

Bella Antonescu was perched on Walker's desk, her legs crossed and her face schooled to hide her true feelings on the matter. She wore a tan jacket, fitted slacks, and black stiletto boots. A conventional pistol hugged each hip. Both barrels were cold but inside she was seething mad. Everyone in the Grey Walkers knew she was Walker's woman. He didn't have to make the point by embarrassing her that way. He didn't have to smoke up the room either. But that was Walker. She was his. The room was his. Forget that and you wouldn't live long in the outfit. Thankfully, Antonescu barely noticed the peppery bite of Walker's breath anymore. How could she, considering the quality of the air on Sheol? At least he'd switched to the mint-flavored Johansens during what passed for Sheol's spring, at her insistence. She'd pitched the others and presented him with the minties, and then turned her cheek and tried her best not to flinch. The blow hadn't come like it had so many times before.

“Bella, you've got the biggest pair in the world,” he'd said. He'd leaned forward and cupped her hand in a rare display of affection. For all of his sixty-plus years, Walker had looked like a deprived child in the grandest department store imaginable. Years of sharing his bed had hardened Antonescu against the smell and aftertaste, even against the blows of her common-law mercenary. She didn't dare call him hers, though that's how she felt about him. Not on her life did she do that.

If Walker had an addiction, it was her: lips, hips, and barrel. She was the woman he reached for at night and the woman who listened to him snore. She'd earned the right to elbow him at twilight. Usually, he slept like a baby in her presence, and that spoke volumes. When there was a mark, Antonescu took care of it. Discreetly. She'd stopped counting her marks years ago, somewhere in the high sixties, maybe low seventies. She'd done more than a few doubles, and that wedding party Walker couldn't stand. Rigging the stretch limo's engines to fail over the water had been ingenious, all for a man who couldn't be bought.

“Commander, you better put that out before you suffocate Mouse.” Antonescu leaned forward on Walker's desk and planted a kiss on his forehead.

“He's fine, aren't you, Mouse?”

Cato Tate was the outfit's small-arms expert and Walker's second-in-command. Like an ordinary house rodent, Cato liked to sit in the corner with his back to the wall, where he could see everything. Only Mouse was on his feet and leaning against the wall of the pop-up honeycombed office looking rather pale, and trying very hard not to breathe the air.

“Sure, chief,” Mouse said, cupping his nose and mouth. He was small of stature and wore a too-thin mustache.

Walker kicked a wastebasket across the floor in time to catch the contents of Cato's stomach. “Fine,” he said as he came to the end of his cigar and put it out on his desktop.

“You said never to do that.” Antonescu was genuinely surprised. He'd nearly beaten her once for doing the same thing.

“I did, because you ruin the smoke. Letting it go out on its own is about as bad. It will never taste the same either way. Mouse, you owe me twenty-five.”

“Just take it out of my pay—” Cato wiped his mouth on the handkerchief he'd pulled from his coat pocket. “—like you always do.”

“Done. Open a window so I can breathe,” Walker growled out. “And comm Marcus. We need to discuss some things.”

Humid air rushed into the small office from a darkly lit outside. The sound of lapping water wasn't far off. The sky was black and starless. Unnatural. It had taken Antonescu weeks to adjust to living inside the dormant volcano that served as the Grey Walkers' base camp on Sheol. The lamps weren't strong enough to bathe the rocky overhead in light. They were about a kilometer underground and far enough from an active hot spot to enjoy relatively cool weather by Sheol's standards. The subterranean lake had been a bonus. They'd constructed their base by the lake's shore, because the water acted like a natural heat sink, keeping the days and nights consistent.

“Don't worry,” Walker had said when they'd moved in. “There won't be activity here for at least a hundred years. The RAW will never think to look for us in a planet-sized zit.” Never say Walker wasn't one for words.

It wasn't long before a broad-shouldered man approached Walker's office. Antonescu watched his outline draw near through the now-open window, and her hand slid to her sidearm. He was almost to the door before she could see the stubble on his chin and upper lip. Marcus Shoup didn't bother to knock or wipe the soles of his boots at the door. Antonescu knew he didn't bother using the safety on his weapon either, in spite of Cato's explicit orders. When you had close to one hundred armed mercenaries working for you, in close quarters, in low light, underground, upon ground that was known to shift, you didn't leave safeties off. It didn't matter if you had one in the chamber or charge in the cell. Keep it simple. Keep it safe. Marcus believed the rules didn't apply to him.

Antonescu eyed the pulser on Marcus's hip and the only empty chair in the room, which would put Marcus directly opposite Walker and Walker squarely in the sights of the barrel when Marcus sat down. She pushed off the desk and spun the chair to straddle it, which left Marcus to stand. His scowl could have stripped the smoke damage off Walker's office walls.

“How many did we lose?” Walker asked.

“Not one,” Marcus said.

“How many did
they
lose?”

“Impossible to know.” Marcus shrugged his massive shoulder.

“And the mechsuit?”

“Heavily damaged, but intact.”

Antonescu thought she saw fear on Marcus's face. There for just a rare moment. It disappeared so quickly she couldn't be sure.

“The driver is stabilized in Medical,” Marcus added. “She's got a mouth on her, that one. Keeps switching between Terran Standard and a language I don't recognize. What is an overgrown
pen-day-hoe?
”

“You mean
pendejo.
” Walker threw his head back and roared. “I haven't heard that word since I was a child.”

“Fits too,” said Antonescu. Walker frowned and shook his head at her, message loud and clear.
Don't.
“Well, it does,” she said, and emphasized the point with her eyes.

“Say that to my face again.” Marcus's weight shifted forward and both hands were clenched.

“Pen-day-hoe.”

“Say that to my face one more time and I'll—”

“Enough!”

Antonescu jumped in her chair. Even Marcus blinked and took a step backward.

“Did the Marine scrub her suit before you took her?” Walker's tone was deadly calm.

“Not as far as we can tell.”

“Good.” Walker rocked forward in his chair. “The Lusitanians won't pay for it otherwise.”

“We've hooked the armor up to our scanners but it's going to take time to crack it.” Marcus looked from Walker to Antonescu. “We could try to crack the Marine instead.” It was one of the few times Antonescu could remember seeing Marcus smile, and it sent chills down her spine.

“Might have to. Leave that to me.” Walker gave Antonescu the look, which told her he was leaving that to
her.
Killing wasn't the only thing she was good at. Antonescu dipped her head in acknowledgment and stood to leave.

“Keep at it. The RAW-MC has developed a field infantry cloaking device.” Walker stood abruptly. “Hopefully we snatched a suit with one of those because it doubles the price. I can think of more than one government that will pay handsomely to get their hands on the tech. Maybe we'll get ourselves a bidding war.”

“Double-cross the Lusitanian Empire?” Antonescu said.

“No.” Walker leaned forward on his desk and glared at her. “Do you take me for a fool? The Lusies funded this operation.
They
arranged the welcoming committee at Danny True.
They
gave us the pirate drive Mouse installed on the
Black Weasel.
”

The
Weasel
was the outfit's only jump-capable assault-class LAC. The pirate drive made a hyperjump inside a planet's atmosphere possible. Only a madman would try something like that.

Walker's lip began to twitch. “Be that as it may, I still intend to make the Lusitanians pay for my armor.” He stared at Antonescu until she looked away, before he returned his attention to Marcus. “Tell our technicians to proceed cautiously. I don't want to trip a fail-safe and end up with a lobotomized suit of armor. We're playing the Lusitanians against the Republic. But we don't want the queen mad at us. Bella, go have a chat with our Marine. Don't come back until you have what I need.”

 

Fifty-one

MAY 25
TH
, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 1222 HOURS