Star Force: Marauders (SF63) (6 page)

“Just not in this direction?”

“Fortunately there are no lizards down here, but no,
this region isn’t a priority yet, and I doubt it will be for some time.”

“Good for business.”

“Bad for the galaxy. We can always move further as
needed, and even a single Star Force ship in this system would do more good
than we can.”

“I know, but we’ve still got bills to pay, my salary
included, and a unit like ours has to go where the trouble is to cover our
considerable overhead…and that’s just the small part that I’m number
crunching.”

“Brayden knows what he’s doing,” Mason assured him.
“He’s got enough resources put back to cover us if business suddenly dries up,
so don’t worry about that.”

“Good to hear. Don’t want to get back to the ADZ and
find out that I’m not getting paid.”

Mason laughed. “No worries there. Your account is kept
separate from the general fund. We won’t be raiding it even if things go
horrifically bad. You thinking of getting out?”

“And do what? Sit on a beach watching the sun rise and
set along with 50 billion other people? No thanks. It may be scummy out here,
but at least it’s not overcrowded. Axius worlds are too jam packed for my
tastes.”

“There are a lot of other options. The Clans, for
example.”

“Thought those were Human only.”

“They’re badass only. Get your skill scores high
enough and they’ll let you in.”

“So I’m assuming you got kicked out then?”

Mason raised a finger and pointed it at the green and
purple skinned Protovic. “Easy there. I’m still your commander.”

“Guess that’s just my question regarding why you
left.”

“I didn’t come from the Clans. I was born on Earth.”

Le’han’trel frowned, with his glowing facial patches
making the gestures stand out more than they would on a Human. “I thought you
served with Clan Sangheili?”

“I did at the end. I spent most of my time in a
mainline unit, then wanted to see something more specialized. The Clans offered
a bit of that, but not enough, so I eventually quit.”

“Quit?”

Mason smiled. “I took a leave of absence to try and
figure out what exactly I wanted to do, traveled around the ADZ, just lost
myself in the crush of people that you were talking about. That was when
Brayden found me and offered up the type of challenge I’d been needing. I was
never going to go truly
civie
.”

“Good. Thought you lost your head there, and maybe
your self-sufficiency at that. I could have
swore
I saw
a gray hair or two.”

“Stop listening to rumors. Hairs can malfunction for a
number of reasons, and they often fix themselves over time. It’s not a
tell-tale sign of degradation, and no, you didn’t see any on me.”

The Protovic shrugged. “If you say so. Never could
understand the hairy races.”

“At least we don’t shed skin layers.”

“Yes you do, just in tiny pieces constantly.”

“I guess, but you don’t see us doing it. First time I
saw a Protovic pulling his skin off it nearly made me puke.”

“Why? It’s just a thin layer. Looks the same
underneath.”

“It’s creepy. Like you’re a snake or something.”

“You don’t like snakes?”

“It’s just creepy,” Mason reiterated.

“So glad we could have this bonding moment,”
Le’han’trel said as the affiliate at the
comm
station
got his attention and the Protovic walked over to confer with him. “Mason,
we’ve got confirmation. Tomorrow morning in a private lounge at what passes for
a restaurant not too far from here. We’ve used that site before, and it offers
some concealed cover for backup if you want it.”

“Translator?”

“I’ve got three that speak their language, or rather a
communal one.”

“Good. We’ll take whoever’s the most reliable.”

“We?”

“You’re coming too.”

“Ok, but why?”

“Does he speak English?”

“Passable.”

“I’d like better than passable. Miscommunication has
cost us one payday already, I don’t want to risk another.”

“Alright, I’ll translate the translator for you. But
I’ll have to go in armor, unless you want a walking
glowlamp
drawing attention.”

“You can hide your ugly face, it won’t bother me,”
Mason quipped.

Le’han’trel grimaced. “Next time we’re eating
together, I think I’ll peel my arm just for fun.”

The Lieutenant stared at him for a long moment. “Hide
your beautiful face, then.”

“That’s better,” he said, pointing to the doorway.
“Don’t know when the last time you slept was, but tomorrow here begins in 4
hours, and our contact is set to meet us in just under 9.”

“I’d better catch a crash nap then. Do we have any
donuts on hand?”

“If the rest of your guys haven’t eaten them all up,
sure. If they have there’s more in packaging, but they’ll have to be baked.”

“Always the last one to the food,” Mason grumbled,
getting up off his stool and heading for the cafeteria.

6

May 5, 2735

Noop
System

Tieor

Mason, Le’han’trel, and a local named
Varsa
sat in a secluded booth listening to a potential
client explain to them what was happening in a nearby star system. Coming
through double translation, Mason wasn’t sure he was getting the gist of all of
it, but from what he could tell the number of militants had doubled since the
initial offer had been made that had prompted the Lieutenant to come out to
Tieor. They were set up in a confiscated complex that had originally been a
livestock processing plant, but had killed off the surrounding herds and were
using it for their headquarters while they raped and pillaged, literally, the
surrounding cities.

The local defense force had been killed earlier,
having gone up against the militants and been beaten badly over four years ago.
With no resolution to the matter and the militants gradually reaching out to
more and more distant cities, the locals had put together a fund to hire
someone to come in and clean up the mess before it got any worse.

Those
mercs
they hired, which
were on the very low end of the respectability ladder, took their money and
ran. It had been another two years since that point, with the militant base
expanding and setting up the planet as a haven for more and more
offworlders
to come to, escalating to the point where they
were running rough shot over most of the planet. The other cities’ civil
defense forces couldn’t stop them for more than a single instance before the
other militants would retaliate by blowing up a building or two, or perhaps
just strafing the streets from the air with one of their
aerofighters
.

Eventually the entire planet had banded together and
put together the funds necessary to hire a respectable mercenary agency, and
had come all the way to Tieor to do it, which was how they’d found their way to
the Marauders.

Mason had already known this wasn’t going to be a milk
run, and through his double translators he pressed for more specific details.
The Batarank that they were speaking to
produced
a
series of plastic sheets of paper with information and images on them from a
briefcase it was carrying, and Mason began to sort through it while Le’han’trel
continued with the questioning on his behalf.

The militants were
offworlders
,
but they didn’t belong to any faction known to the Marauders. They were
collecting more and more personnel, including some tanks that were giving the
locals all kinds of headaches. A few of the militants had been killed by
vigilantes, who were striking back despite the reprisals, but they couldn’t
scratch the tanks nor stop them when they often went in to wreck a local
village.

They also had four aircraft. Two were shuttles, one
was an orbital dropship, and the other was an
aerofighter
.
Or at least as far as the Bataranks knew. They’d only seen one operating at a time,
and from the markings it appeared to be the same craft, though Mason wasn’t
going to assume that as confirmed. All in all, there were probably some 2,000+
militants on the ground, but with the more recent updates it seemed that
several new ships had arrived to deposit more in the facility, of which the
Bataranks had no knowledge or counts of.

Mason dismissed their guesses, knowing that he’d need
to do a proper recon before committing any ground troops, but this didn’t sound
like something the Marauders couldn’t handle. Which only left the question of
payment remaining.

That wasn’t a straightforward deal, for there were
numerous currencies that didn’t all transfer between worlds. Eventually
Le’han’trel got it sorted out, using various materials in exchange for the
currency, and gave Mason the approximate credit value, were it back in the ADZ.
It added up to 12% above the posted rates that the Marauders advertised for an
operation of this scale, and as long as there were no additional surprises they
were set to go.

Normally, additional surprises included a surcharge,
but the type of operation this job had been solicited as hadn’t changed, just
the numbers involved and those were really inconsequential given the team he’d
brought. They needed the money for operating expenses, but beyond that they
weren’t going to try and squeeze more credits out of their clients as others
might do. That was a decision made on principle, but it also worked as a good
marketing rep as word of mouth got around.

A few more questions about the local geography and
weapons capability of the locals, which was almost nonexistent, and Mason
agreed to take the job. The Batarank was visibly relieved when they signed the
operating contract, which was unnecessary in mercenary work, but Brayden wanted
the agreements
officialized
if for no other reason
than to have a record of what the deal actually was rather than relying on the
clients’ memories in case something didn’t turn out as they’d hoped. It was
rare, but sometimes they’d ask for a small task and expect you to fix other
problems once you were on site, and the contract was good to have on hand to
point out what you were actually getting paid to do.

After a few more unnecessary words that Le’han’trel
didn’t bother to translate for Mason, the Batarank left in a hurry and the
Protovic, clad in a full body suit and face mask underneath his robe-like
garments, turned to the Lieutenant.

“We’re not sticking around to eat, are we?”

Mason glanced around outside the booth. “We’ll linger
a bit. They have anything good here?”

“Not that I can eat.”

“Your problem,” he said, smiling at the faceplate.
“Get us some snacks and whatever
Varsa
would like,
but nothing that will take more than half an hour.”

“Get you some snacks you mean,” he said, running
through the menu with
Varsa
.

Two weeks later the Mandoshan freighter arrived in the
Dechma
System, following the client’s ship by less
than a day. Mason’s small jumpship was much faster and could have arrived
within 34 hours, but he didn’t want to get there before the client did, which
would make things awkward. This way the Bataranks would know that they’d been
hired and weren’t here on some other action, and he hoped he might be able to
pull some live intel from them during the operation, given that they had eyes
and ears everywhere, and the Marauders needed to eliminate all of the militants
and not leave so much as one around to cause trouble after they left.

That would be sloppy business, and if the Bataranks
were going to scare off more poaching of their planet in the future by hiring
the Marauders, they need a clean and efficient sweep of the malcontents to drum
up the fear in anyone else that might think the planet an easy mark.

The jumpship was called the
17
, which simply meant it was the 17th interstellar-capable ship
that the Marauders had acquired. They didn’t name them like Star Force did, and
this one had been bought from the local market to make it blend in with this
region of the galaxy rather than bringing in an ADZ craft that would stand out
like a sore thumb. If they wanted to attract attention and intimidate someone
then that was the way to go, but more often than not the Marauders preferred a
less than auspicious entrance.

That said, the Mandoshan freighter wasn’t really a Mandoshan
freighter anymore. It had been hauled back to the ADZ and gutted, literally,
with everything interior being junked and sold for spare parts while
maintaining the outer shell. That shell had been used to build a new ship
within, using ADZ technology that was far superior to what the locals here
possessed. That meant the Marauders could use the Mandoshan freighter to move
about anonymously, but still have the muscle necessary if they needed to fight
their way out of a situation, or out run one. As far as they knew, their
gravity drives were considerably better than anything the nearest 50 systems
had to offer, meaning they could literally go where they wanted, when they
wanted, without anyone able to follow them.

The Marauders didn’t make use of that function often,
preferring to keep the capabilities of their ships a secret aside from the
‘foreign’ models they threw about every now and then, but this operation was
small scale enough to fit everything they needed in this 620 meter long/wide
freighter, though to make it a proper jumpship nearly a third of the internal
volume had to be dedicated to housing the engines and power core.

Mason had brought a crew of 8 with him to Tieor, then
grabbed another dozen or so personnel that were on station there, including
Le’han’trel, leaving the base in the hands of
Krivan
,
a junior but trustworthy member of the mercenary organization. With everyone
originating from within Star Force, finding people that could be relied upon
wasn’t a problem, plus they didn’t have local affiliations or history to muddy
the waters like some of their competition did.

When they entered planetary orbit of
Numchalla
, they took their time and made a thorough scan of
the surface using their own equipment before heading down to the largest spaceport
on the somewhat backwater world. It boasted a population of 23 million, but saw
those Bataranks scattered across numerous cities and villages, leaving them
without any one stronghold to work out of. The city of
Yiivala
was the largest, and where their client had informed them that they should land
their ship, for there were only a handful of slips large enough to accommodate
their vessel on the surface.

As they queried the local controller during the
atmospheric descent, they got a panicked message from their client indicating
that the militants were currently in
Yiivala
and were
demanding payment from the shippers coming and going. Mason replied that they’d
take care of it, then he told the pilot to land them as if nothing were amiss
before heading back to the equipment room via a detour through the lounge and
training area.

“Change of plans,” he told Le’han’trel as he was
working with a set of free weights. “There’s a reception committee at the
spaceport, so gear up. We need to introduce ourselves.”

“Meaning?” the Protovic asked, his face aglow as he
set the weights in their nearby storage rack as several other strike team
members did likewise.

“Our quarry seem to be taxing the shipping traffic
coming through the spaceport.”

“Ah,” he said, understanding. Le’han’trel was glad it
wasn’t an actual reception committee. Those political shenanigans were boring
as hell.

Mason led the way out and met up with the others in
the equipment room where a few of the
mercs
were
waiting rather than getting into their armor.

“You want all of us?” one of them asked.

“Better safe than sorry,” Mason said, opening his
locker and pulling out the pieces of the
Reen
-made
armor that had been custom fitted to his frame years ago. It wasn’t up to Star
Force quality, but since they didn’t sell military equipment to civilians,
others specialized in that market and the
Reen
had
the best personal equipment available. Despite the fact that they themselves
were huge quadrupeds, they knew how to make adequate armor for Humans and other
bipeds. “And I don’t want any of them getting away, so be ready to run down
multiple targets. Jackson, get the Valerie prepped. Their fighter is in the air
to intimidate the shippers to pay the price.”

“You want that captured or scrapped?” the ex-Star Force
Regular pilot asked.

“Preferably captured, so we can sell what’s left of
it.”

“I’ll try and be gentle,” he said, pulling on a
different set of armor than he would have worn had he been going in with the
infantry.

Mason clicked the various pieces of armor onto his
body, locking them in place then testing to make sure all the joints were
secured. He pulled the helmet on last, finding the fit reassuring, for he’d
spent hundreds of combat hours in this suit, and hadn’t yet had to replace the
headgear.

The others dressed in similar armor, all of which was
painted dark blue with red stripes going down the outside of the arms and legs.
Their weapons had also been painted the same color of red, with the plasma
rifles being custom fitted with an extra component slung under the barrel. A
typical modification, but whereas most individuals would have added a rocket
launcher, flame thrower, or some other type of area of effect weapon, the
Marauders had purchased a stun mod that gave them the ability to take down
targets without killing them, though it was nowhere near as effective as the
stun weapons Star Force used, nor could it pass through armor.

That meant most enemies they faced had to shot to be
disabled, with the stun mostly being useful against unarmored opponents.
Reports were that the militants wore a hodgepodge of armor, so it was likely
that they were going to have to be taken down the hard way or forced to
surrender…though without a translator handy during a firefight there wasn’t
going to be much opportunity to offer one, unless they bad guys just threw
their weapons down and their hands up.

Once he was fully equipped he and the others moved to
the internal hangar and three auxiliary exits, one of which was on the top of
the craft. They waited inside until the freighter had set down, then listened
to the communal
comm
channel for Mason to give the
word.

“I need a target count,” he said, looking at the vid
screen next to the closed hatch that showed what was outside before you opened
the opaque door. “I mark two to port.”