Star Force: Marauders (SF63) (9 page)

The galaxy was a very harsh place, especially outside
the ADZ, but the Marauders were never going to succumb to such barbarism, under
any circumstances. They may have left Star Force for a variety of reasons, but
the righteousness of their warfare principles was something that would forever
linger on with them and the others that no longer served. The difference with
Brayden’s mercenaries was that they still continued to embrace righteousness
rather than leaving it as an ignored internal conscious. The galaxy was harsh
indeed, but they intended to fight that harshness in their own way, and no
matter what these militants did, they weren’t going to leave them behind to be
torn to bits by the locals.

Leaving the impression that the Marauders were in
charge, which they were, considering their military might exceeded that of the
militants which the
Bataranks
couldn’t handle, Mason
and Le’han’trel began roaming the few locations in the base where they still
hand people, informing them of the situation and goosing them on a bit. He
didn’t know if the
Bataranks
would try and force the
issue, counting on the good will of the Marauders as a weak point for them to
leverage, but if they had to play bad guy briefly then so be it. They’d hold
them to the contract whether they liked it or not, even if they had to loot the
local facilities themselves to get their payment.

One thing Mason had learned out here was that weakness
invited predation, and the last thing a mercenary unit wanted was clients to
think they had the option of not paying up after the fact. They’d already
received a 25% down payment, but future clients had to understand that they
were not to be trifled with, so they couldn’t let one get by without paying,
even if it meant going to extreme measures to get it.

He didn’t know how much of the Marauder’s reputation
had reached the
Bataranks
, but if they pushed this
then they were going to get a lesson one way or another. Best option right now
was to spirit away the prisoners quickly before they had a chance to plan
something, but they still had to wait on the trucks, so he
commed
the ship and had the Valerie take to the air…a little added disincentive for
the locals to get too arrogant in their new position.

Either way this went down, the Marauders would not be
taking a second contract with these people. Anyone who even hinted at not
paying was scratched off their list automatically, and these guys had just
crossed that line.

Fortunately the empty trucks returned within the hour
and Mason was able to cram the last of the booty in along with the remaining
prisoners, who were the least injured of them all and could suffer through the
cramped positions, which had them laying like logs on top of each other bound
up in order to make them all fit. They deserved that small measure of
discomfort anyway, but Mason wasn’t going to wait around for another truck
regardless. He and the other Marauders didn’t have room to board it for the
ride back, so they formed a double file column behind and followed on foot,
getting a bonus workout run in with the truck going slow enough not to leave
them behind.

It also made for a show of strength, for they were
wearing their armor and carrying their weapons as they headed back to the
spaceport, making it clear that no one was going to stop the truck and take the
prisoners away from them. The others had made it back fine without more than a
pair of infantry riding along as escort, but with this being the last one the
extra show of force was a good, inadvertent addition, not to mention the
Valerie that was casually circling above.

It was too far for them to run the whole way, being
some 90 kilometers distant, so Mason had them running in formation until an
empty truck was able to return. When it did they loaded up and drove off at
normal speeds, getting through the
Batarank
streets
without incident, for the locals made way for them well ahead of their route,
probably due to the local broadcasts, for there were cameras everywhere now
that they were out of the base that would now return to being a livestock
processing facility.

Part of Mason wanted to leave it in rubble, but that
wasn’t part of the mission. Despite leaving Star Force, neither he nor any of
the other Marauders could bring themselves to eat meat, and a facility that was
purposed with slaughtering herds and processing their bodies into foodstuffs
was an outright abomination, but there was only so much the Marauders could do
to tidy up the galaxy, and their efforts on this planet were now done.

That was something about this job that Mason hated,
but that he’d had to force himself to get used to without it becoming apathy.
No matter how many injustices they attended to, there were always more just
sitting on their doorstep. He had to keep his mind partially numb to it or
otherwise it would have driven him insane, and more than a few ex-Marauders
couldn’t take it, having to return to the ADZ where things were more civilized.

Mason told himself he was out here to seek out
problems and fix them, and even one taken care of was better than none if he
hid away in the ADZ. He had to pick and choose when to intervene, while never
allowing himself to stop caring about those within sight that he couldn’t save.

When they got back to the spaceport they ran the
trucks up into the bay of their ship and sealed up the main door, putting a
final stamp on the proclamation that the militants would be going with them,
after which Mason found the local representative and asked for the remainder of
their payment.

There was no refusal, fortunately, and the Lieutenant
made a quick inspection of the cargo crates that had the various goods they’d
agreed to in the contract. The
17
opened its bay door up once more and the mercenaries took their payment
onboard, along with the Valerie that finally came back in once the deal was
concluded, then the ship took to the sky, saying goodbye and good riddance to
the planet.

9

July 7, 2735

Noop
System

Tieor

The Marauder’s small jumpship returned back to their
primary staging base on the commerce planet after taking a detour to a nearby
star system where Mason offloaded their prisoners. The
merc
unit had a long-standing agreement with the locals on
Tryion
,
who operated a respectable prison facility that the Marauders typically dumped
their captives into. They’d be kept there for several years minimum, but after
deposit the Marauders had no further say in their fate.

They might run into them again down the road, but that
was just part of the business. And more often than not, anyone that surrendered
to or was captured by the Marauders didn’t want to have anything to do with
them again and spread the word to others, which only added to the
mercs
’ rep in this region. Regardless, the unit couldn’t be
tasked with housing prisoners, so the ability to offload them somewhere they
knew they wouldn’t be mistreated was more than worth the occasional freebie
mission than ran on
Tryion
.

It was a poor world that couldn’t afford
mercs
so the agreement was mutually beneficial to both
parties, but especially so to the Marauders. They didn’t want to be forced into
fighting engagements where they didn’t have the ability to take prisoners.
Brayden had stated up front that they were never to become a ‘kill only’
organization, so securing a means to offload captives was a priority for the
Marauders.

That meant that after dropping this load off on
Tryion
Mason didn’t have to devote men to guard them,
foodstuffs and medical supplies to sustain them, and keep in the back of his
mind the possibility of them getting loose and doing damage to his crew or
ship. The
mercs
could handle short stints like that,
but not never-ending ones, with the second leg of their return trip to the
commerce world being relaxed and boring downtime that some of them used to
rest, others to do some training in the limited facilities onboard ship.

They made the slow jump back to the planet as was
protocol, to not give away the full strength of their engines to onlookers, but
as soon as they braked against the gravity well and the
comm
signals and sensors began to register normally they knew there was trouble.

“What the fuck?” the helmsman said, getting dozens of
warning beacons from across orbit. “Get the Lieutenant, now!”

“What’s wrong?” another bridge officer asked.

“Just get him…go! Don’t ask questions.”

“Going,” the Protovic said, leaving the helmsman alone
on the bridge. A little over a minute later he returned at a run along with
Mason and a few others.

“What do we
got
?”

“Major trouble. Looks like there’s someone attacking
the planet.”

“What the hell,” Mason said, walking over to a side
station and pulling up the sensor feeds. “Who?”

“Best I can tell it’s a hodgepodge fleet, and they’re
not broadcasting any ID. We’re not close to any of them now. They don’t seem to
care about the jumplines. They’re clustered around four orbitals and making
hits on selective ships in orbit. Where do you want me to put her?”

“Keep your eyes on them and keep your distance until
we figure out what’s up,” Mason said, his eyes on his own display screen. “Get
a
comm
link to base and check on their status.”

One of the other Marauders slid into the
comm
station and made the connection as the others lingered
around, waiting to see what the Lieutenant would have them do. He didn’t say anything,
studying the information feeds crisscrossing the planet and pulling up every
news report, emergency bulletin, and military chatter that they’d broken the
codes for earlier. Mason realized that there was also a ground war going on,
with
Lethol
already having been taken and two other
major cities currently under assault.

“Base,” the Marauder at the
comm
station announced, tossing a headset over to the Lieutenant.

He slid it on as he continued to study his screen.
“Mason here. Report.”

“I’m very glad you’re back,”
Krivan
said genuinely. “Tieor has gone berserk. 18 days ago this fleet shows up in
orbit and takes a manufacturing orbital. Didn’t even try anything fancy, just
blew their way in the front door. Planetary defense force intervened and
promptly got their asses kicked, though they did take down a few of their ships
in the process. They’ve owned orbit since then.”

“Who are they?”

“No one knows. A mix of races, a lot of them local,
and they’re all using different equipment. Different uniforms too. Best guess
would be a mercenary coalition, based on the way they fight, but none of the
pieces has been identified. Either they’ve been real quiet around here or
they’re
from pretty far away.”

“Is the base secure?”

“Other than some looters snooping around, we’re fine.
The major fighting hasn’t gotten here yet, but the local population is causing
almost as much damage as the invaders. It’s a mix of panic and opportunists,
with every criminal band and drunken nobody out tearing shit up and grabbing
hold of whatever they can. They know the defense force can’t patrol the streets
and fight the invading army…and they’re getting the crap kicked out of them
anyway. One city is down, and we expect another three will be in their hands
within two days.”

“How many are currently under assault? I’m digging
through what news reports I can now.”

“Allow me,”
Krivan
said,
transferring the Marauder’s database up to the
17
. “I’ve been having our guys pull recon runs across the planet
while canceling current assignments. The defense force has put out a call to
all
merc
units and anyone with combat training to
help in the ground fighting. I haven’t given them an answer, but price wasn’t
an issue. They’ll pay pretty much anything within reason.”

“How many troops do these guys have?” Mason said,
running through the Marauder numbers and seeing that this enemy was fighting
not just in two more cities, but had fingers out into 18 currently. There were
more than 2,000 the size of
Chrandor
, which is where
the Marauder base was located, and it looked like this army was hitting the
largest and/or most strategically important locations first.

“We have current estimates at over 50,000 infantry,
but more troops ships continue to arrive on a regular basis, so we have no idea
how large this is actually going to get.”

“What the hell is going on…
”
Mason whispered, getting up to speed quickly thanks to the professional
sitrep
he was reading rather than sorting through the
civilian grid mess.

“Lieutenant, are we getting involved or should I start
packing up shop?”

“How many other
merc
units
have responded?”

“A lot of the smaller ones, but they don’t have
anywhere to run to anyway since they’re based on planet. A couple of the big
names have sent piecemeal forces in, but the rest are like us and waiting to
see what’s going on before they commit to anything.”

“How much longer do you think the defense force is
going to hold out?”

“They’re not holding onto anything right now. It’s all
a fighting retreat.”

“I mean how long before they’re all dead and they’ve
only got
mercs
and police left to fight with?”

“Maybe a few more weeks. I don’t know, they’re not
being stupid about it and standing their ground pointlessly. They’re just
outmatched.”

“Equipment?”

“Everything we know is in the report I sent you, and
it’s largely unimpressive…but better than what the locals have by far. Decent
personal armor, no shields that we can tell, and enough tank and air support to
shut down any large groupings of the defense force infantry.”

“What happened to their toys?”

“Targeted and taken out in the first two days, many
still sitting in their bays in other cities. Whoever this is, they’re not
hitting targets blindly. They planned this out well in advance.”

“What’s the status of our spaceport?”

“I’ve locked it down with a few of our people
supplementing the locals. The looters haven’t been able to get to it, but it’s
been busy with traffic seeing that it’s one of the few reliable ones left on
the planet.”

“Good work. Make us a hole, we’re coming down.”

“Already got a slot reserved for you. Not sure how the
enemy fleet is going to respond though, they’ve been picking and choosing what
ships to go after. Nothing predictable to my eye.”

“If our people aren’t geared up, get them so. We’ll be
there shortly.”

“Good luck,”
Krivan
offered
before Mason deactivated the headset and tossed it back to the
merc
at the
comms
station.

“Caught the last part of that,” Le’han’trel said,
appearing behind Mason. “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

“What am I thinking?” he said, continuing to read
through the detailed reports. “Take us down,” he added to the helmsman.

“That we can’t do anything about their navy, but we
could make a big impact on the ground.”

“Depends how many more troops they keep bringing in.”

“And it’s possibly the biggest payday we’ve ever
seen.”

Mason half smiled. “That thought had occurred to me.”

“And?”

“And I also know that if this force takes the planet,
it’s going to destabilize the entire region. That means a lot of trouble, and
our previous clientele list is going to dry up real fast…save for jobs probably
fighting against these guys at some point or another.”

“You think they’re after more than a full planet?”

“I have no idea, but so much cargo goes through this
system that it will wreck the economies of at least a dozen other worlds if
Tieor falls.”

“Chaos usually means good business for
mercs
.”

“For the unscrupulous ones maybe, but remember that
our clients have to have funds to pay us with, and if their cash flow gets
disrupted their ability to hire will disappear when their bank accounts run
dry.”

“Point,” Le’han’trel conceded. “So, you want in on
this?”

“We’re going to take on some small missions just for
the payday, but there’s no way we can handle an invasion this size on our own,
even if the local defense force doesn’t totally fold.”

“If you call in other units from the surrounding
systems we can make one hell of a dent.”

“That I’m not doing,” Mason said firmly. “This is
Brayden’s Marauders, and Brayden will have to make that call.”

“That’s a long delay.”

“Which is why I’m recalling every unit under my
command to have them standing by just in case he does give the go ahead. Damn
it, get base back again,” he said, motioning for the headset. Once the
merc
keyed up the transmission, he tossed it back to Mason.
“How many ships do we have insystem, and have any been sent out with word of
what’s going on?”

“We’ve still got the
13
parked in the spaceport, and the
29
came back with Nevil’s squad, but no one has gone out to spread
the word, at least not from us.”

“Get the
29
prepped for takeoff with a minimal crew as a courier. Have every bit of data
you’ve collected onboard and I’ll add a final message once we hit planetside.
Headquarters has to know what’s going on.”

“They’ll be ready before then,”
Krivan
promised.

Mason took the head set off and tossed it back to the
comms
station as the planet grew rapidly larger on the vid
screen in front of them. “How do we look?”

“No one is heading for us yet,” the helmsman said
noncommittally.

“Get us down quickly, but not too quick. We don’t want
to make ourselves a priority target.”

“Speedy turtle, copy.”

Mason tapped Le’han’trel on the shoulder as he rushed
past him, with the Protovic dropping into step beside as he headed back to
where most of his team was situated, with him and the others in his wake making
a few detours to round up the others and bring them all into the main lounge, cramped
as it was with the full complement them in there.

“Listen up,” Mason said as the last few scurried in.
“Tieor is under attack by an invading fleet of unknown origin. They’ve already
taken orbit and are kicking the crap out of the defense force on the ground,
with several cities already under their control or soon to be. Our base is
secure for the moment, and while we’re sending a courier back to Brayden to see
what he wants to do about this we are going to take the local government’s
generous
offer for assistance and do
some trimming around the edges. It’ll be some quick credits, for these guys
aren’t all that well equipped, but they’re continuing to get more troops in
from orbit so there’s no knowing how far this will escalate.”

“Things look fairly bad now, but as most of you know,
taking a planet is a long, tedious process and it looks like that’s what these
guys are here to do. We’re going to slow them down a bit, make some profit,
then let Brayden figure out the rest. Those of you with wounds I want back in
base holding our little piece of real estate. The rest of you armor up
immediately. Once we set down in the spaceport we’re taking the shuttles and
heading out immediately. I doubt there’ll be much haggling over the contract
given present circumstances, and I expect to have it signed and confirmed
before we arrive at the periphery of the fighting.”