The Good, the Bad, and the Merc: Even More Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 8) Read online

  The Good, the Bad, and the Merc

  Even More Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe

  Edited by

  Chris Kennedy and Mark Wandrey

  For a Few Credits More

  edited by Chris Kennedy and Mark Wandrey

  Published by Seventh Seal Press

  Virginia Beach, VA, USA

  www.chriskennedypublishing.com

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States’ copyright law.

  The stories in this collection are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used in a fictitious manner. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Editor: Chris Kennedy

  Co-Editor: Mark Wandrey

  Cover Design: Brenda Mihalko

  Cover Image: Ricky Ryan

  Copyright © 2017 by Chris Kennedy

  All rights reserved.

  The stories and articles contained herein have never been previously published. They are copyrighted as follows:

  ARGONAUT by Kal Spriggs Copyright © 2017 by Kal Spriggs

  SHELL GAME by Terry Mixon Copyright © 2017 by Terry Mixon

  THE LAST DRAGON by Terry Maggert Copyright © 2017 by Terry Maggert

  HERO OF STYX by T. Allen Diaz Copyright © 2017 by T. Allen Diaz

  THE BEACH by Philip Wohlrab Copyright © 2017 by Philip Wohlrab

  VELUT LUNA by Chris Smith Copyright © 2017 by Chris Smith

  KEEP THE HOME FIRES BURNING by Jason Cordova Copyright © 2017 by Jason Cordova

  VVREMYA by Mark Wandrey Copyright © 2017 by Mark Wandrey

  THE LAST GUARDSMAN by Stephanie Osborn Copyright © 2017 by Stephanie Osborn

  UNTO THE LAST–STAND FAST by Robert E. Hampson Copyright © 2017 by Rob Hampson

  THE DEMON OF KI-A by Eric S. Brown Copyright © 2017 by Eric S. Brown

  UNDER THE SKIN by Marisa Wolf Copyright © 2017 by Marisa Wolf

  INKED by Mark Wandrey Copyright © 2017 by Mark Wandrey

  ANGELS AND ALIENS by Jon R. Osborne Copyright © 2017 by Jon R. Osborne

  LIFE by Chris Kennedy Copyright © 2017 by Chris Kennedy

  LESSONS by Kacey Ezell Copyright © 2017 by Kacey Ezell

  Get the free Four Horsemen prelude story “Gateway to Union”

  and discover other titles by Mark Wandrey at:

  http://worldmaker.us/

  * * *

  Get the free Four Horsemen prelude story “Shattered Crucible”

  and discover other titles by Chris Kennedy at:

  http://chriskennedypublishing.com/

  * * * * *

  “And when He had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” And white robes were given unto every one of them, and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little while, until it was fulfilled that their fellow servants and brethren were killed, as they had been.”

  ― Revelation 6:9-11

  * * * * *

  Contents

  Preface by Chris Kennedy

  Foreword by David Drake

  ARGONAUT by Kal Spriggs

  SHELL GAME by Terry Mixon

  THE LAST DRAGON by Terry Maggert

  HERO OF STYX by T. Allen Diaz

  THE BEACH by Philip Wohlrab

  VELUT LUNA by Chris Smith

  KEEP THE HOME FIRES BURNING by Jason Cordova

  VVREMYA by Mark Wandrey

  THE LAST GUARDSMAN by Stephanie Osborn

  UNTO THE LAST–STAND FAST by Robert E. Hampson

  THE DEMON OF KI-A by Eric S. Brown

  UNDER THE SKIN by Marisa Wolf

  INKED by Mark Wandrey

  ANGELS AND ALIENS by Jon R. Osborne

  LIFE by Chris Kennedy

  LESSONS by Kacey Ezell

  EPILOGUE

  About the Editors

  Four Horsemen Titles

  Excerpt from Book One of the Omega Wars:

  Excerpt from Book One of The Psyche of War:

  Preface by Chris Kennedy

  This book was born in the same place as the rest of the Four Horsemen Universe—in a bar. Mark and I were talking about the universe, and where we wanted to go with it, and we realized the galaxy was a lot bigger than we were going to be able to flesh out on our own any time soon.

  We needed help.

  So we asked some authors we knew, and some we just sort of knew of, if they’d like to help us expand our universe by writing a short story set in the universe. We were overwhelmed at the response—this is the third (and final, at least for now) of the books necessary to accommodate all of the authors who said “Yes!” when we asked them to participate. Like us, they found the universe a lot of fun and couldn’t wait to jump in.

  We gave them a short primer on the universe and sent them on their way with only two points of guidance: it had to be set in the Four Horsemen Universe, and it had to be good. As such, these 16 tales describe the highs and lows of life on the battlefield, as well as in the streets and alleys of the Four Horsemen Universe. While some deal with mercenaries, others introduce readers to members of the other guilds, organizations, and races. “The Good, the Bad, and the Merc” not only gives you a look at some of the 4HU past…but a sneak peek at what lies in store, hidden like an Easter Egg for you to find.

  Like its predecessors, “The Good, the Bad, and the Merc” includes all-new stories by a variety of bestselling authors—and some you may not have heard of…yet. Edited by universe creators Mark Wandrey and Chris Kennedy, authors Kal Spriggs, Terry Mixon, Terry Maggert, T. Allen Diaz, Philip Wohlrab, Chris Smith, Jason Cordova, Stephanie Osborn, Robert E. Hampson, Eric S. Brown, Marisa Wolf, Jon R. Osborne, Kacey Ezell, Mark Wandrey, and Chris Kennedy take on various aspects of the universe, giving you additional insight into a galaxy where there are good races, bad races, and a whole lot of mercs!

  Mark and I are indebted to the authors who participated in this project for their time and talents, and to David Drake for the foreword.

  Why David Drake for the foreword to the third of these anthologies? Hammer’s Slammers. This is one of the best mercenary books, ever. One of the first scifi books I ever read was Hammer’s Slammers, and it is a major reason why you’re reading this right now. It also taught me the word cyan, which, as a guy, was a color I didn’t know existed. The bottom line is if you haven’t read Hammer’s Slammers, you should. Having been there, David Drake knows what war is all about, and we’re indebted to him for sharing his thoughts.

  Chris Kennedy

  Virginia Beach, VA

  Foreword by David Drake

  SOLDIERS AND THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT

  Anyone with a background in history knows that mercenary soldiers often have a difficult relationship with the government they’re working for. Mercenaries have sometimes overthrown the employing government, but from my reading I don’t believe that’s as common as national armies mutinying to p
ut their general on the throne. (Occasionally even against the general’s wishes; but once the subject is raised, the general has no option but to go along with the rebellion).

  A more common scenario is for a civil government to decide that it’s more practical to stiff mercenaries of their pay—and often, for safety’s sake, to massacre the former mercenaries.

  Some of the most famous figures in the classical world were involved in this sort of treachery. Aratus of Sicyon, the greatest leader of the Achaean League, decided that paying the League’s mercenaries after one of its wars with the Aetolians would cause the citizens of the League undue financial strain—so he simply dismissed the troops unpaid.

  The consequences for the League weren’t immediate, but they were serious nonetheless: the Acheans weren’t able to hire mercenaries the next time they needed them—and war was endemic in Greece of the 3rd century BC. In the slightly longer term, Aratus and the League might have been better off if they had behaved honorably.

  In a similar situation, the Carthaginians fought the First Punic War largely through mercenaries. (The most famous being Xanthippus, the Spartan soldier who trained the Carthaginians to defeat and destroy the Roman invasion force under Regulus.)

  Despite the victory over Regulus, Rome won the war and imposed heavy penalties on Carthage. The Carthaginians decided they were unable to pay Rome and also pay their mercenaries—and decided that cheating the mercs was the better option. They decided to disband the mercenaries in small groups and send them away with partial payment or less. The mercenaries figured this out and rebelled before the plan could be implemented.

  The result was an extremely vicious war which the Carthaginians eventually won by putting Hamilcar Barca in charge. He had been leading the mercenaries effectively in Sicily and due to Hamilcar’s skill, the revolt was suppressed. The mercenaries were largely slaughtered.

  In this case, there’s no question but that Carthage would have been better off treating the mercenaries honorably to begin with. That isn’t the way governments seem to think. Soldiers are, to civilian governments, basically disposable once the fighting ends.

  I’m not talking only about ‘mercenary soldiers’ who are, after all, hirelings and often foreigners. (“Often” but not by any means “always.”) Housman’s famous Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries referred to the professional soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914, who stopped the many-times larger German First Army’s drive for the coast, thereby saving France. To an upper class Brit they, though British citizens, were merely mercenaries because they fought for pay.)

  For an example of more personal interest to me, consider the way the United States government treated its soldiers during the Vietnam War. All the government cared about us—enlistees as well as draftees—was numbers.

  Robert S. McNamara, the technocrat who shaped the US conduct of the war, lowered the Army minimum intelligence test level for recruits by two points, adding another hundred thousand manifestly unfit soldiers (Project 100,000). He also began drafting graduate students. I don’t know how many bodies that added, but my estimate in 1969 was that a third of my Basic Training Battalion was white kids from Western North Carolina; a similar percentage of black kids from Detroit; and the remainder were college graduates.

  The first thing the army tried to do after drafting college graduates was to get us to sign up for a longer period of active duty than the two years we were required to serve. A lieutenant took me into his office and ran through a long list of special training that I could take. Except for the last, all the options involved me giving the Army an additional one or two years of active duty. (It would also involve my serial number being changed from US to RA—that is, enlisted instead of drafted. Keep that in mind when you look at figures on how many of the troops in Nam had been drafted.)

  The lieutenant also emphasized why I might want to do that: anyone with a college degree who didn’t sign up for a special school would be classified 11B—infantry—and sent to Nam as a grunt. (I took the last option, the 47-week Vietnamese language course in 30 weeks. I was still going to Nam, but this way I wound up riding armored vehicles instead of humping through the boonies on foot. That was just good luck.)

  Everyone knows the American public didn’t welcome returning Nam vets, but how did the US Government prepare us to return to the civilian lives from which it had ripped us for what Mr. McNamara later described as “a terrible mistake”?

  In my case, I got several weeks knocked off my tour in Viet Nam so I could return to Duke Law School (out of which I’d been drafted). Seventy-two hours after I left the Returnee Barracks at Long Binh, heading for my flight to Travis AFB in California—back to The World, as we put it in Nam—I was in the lounge of Duke Law School, preparing to start my fourth semester.

  There was no counselling offered (not that I wanted it; I just wanted out of the Army). The US Government didn’t care any more about its former soldiers than Aratus or the Carthaginian Senate had about theirs.

  I guess we should be glad they didn’t decide to massacre us. I’m very much afraid it may have crossed some governmental minds, though.

  The government left it up to me and other veterans to take care of ourselves. My way of doing that was to write stories which allowed me to describe the experience of a soldier in Viet Nam, using fiction as a distancing mechanism. I wasn’t writing history, I wasn’t even writing personal memoirs.

  I was, however, trying to tell the truth about what a soldier feels—and perhaps more important, what a soldier doesn’t feel. If you let yourself feel too much in a war zone, you go nuts. You do the things you have to do, and you keep on going. Or of course you die; and even if you walk off the plane without a visible wound on your return to The World, you may have given yourself up for dead months before.

  This sort of realistic appraisal of what it means to be a soldier was almost unique in the science fiction of the ‘70s when I started writing about Hammer’s Slammers. The stories didn’t sell for over a year, but I continued to write them: they were my counselling, a chance to tell the truth aloud—and let my anger out in a socially acceptable fashion.

  When the stories did sell, they gained a following—there were a lot of veterans out there. As a result it’s now possible to write military SF which realistically explores the cost of war, including the cost to the soldier. The book you’re holding is an example of that new appreciation.

  Dave Drake

  david-drake.com

  July 21, 2017

  * * * * *

  ARGONAUT by Kal Spriggs

  “This is bullshit,” Captain Schultz whined in front of the company formation. As far as I was concerned, that seemed to be his primary skill set. “We’ve got tons of combat experience! We’re geared up for war, sir! Why did they leave the Argonauts behind?”

  “I get you, Captain.” Colonel Julian Neubauer gave a smug grin, “But, think of it this way: we get paid for guarding the ambassadorial delegation and command staff while those no-necked thugs go spill blood. Trust me, I protested quite a bit, but this is just how things worked out. There was no swaying them.”

  “Damn, sir,” Captain Schultz growled, “I really wanted to get a piece of the action; maybe get some trophies, you know?”

  I had my doubts about the conversation, but I wasn’t going to voice them aloud. After all, I was a lowly staff sergeant and Colonel Neubauer ran the Argonauts. He had paid for our transportation out here, and it was his money that paid for our weapons, armor, and ammo. While I’d wager he squeezed every credit until it screamed, we were here on his dime, and I’d taken his money so I had to toe the line.

  “Staff Sergeant Azoros, how the hell do I get out of this chicken-shit outfit?” Private Reedie asked me in a low voice.

  The men can see these two are full of crap already, I thought. “Shut up Reedie,” I growled. The two officers continued their commiserating, oblivious to anything we might say.

  “Why didn’t I listen to my mum?”
Reedie whispered. “I should have gone into engineering.”

  “You ain’t got shit for brains,” I hissed back.

  “Actually,” Private Grimes spoke up, “Reedie tested really well for technical proficiency, I’ll bet if he put his mind to it--”

  “Shut up, Professor,” I snapped.

  “Yeah,” Corporal Gomez said with a giggle, “shut up, Professor.” I glared at Gomez. I needn’t have bothered. Gomez wasn’t afraid of me, and he thought too much of himself. “If this was my company, you’d both be out on your asses...”

  “Gomez...” I growled. Sooner or later I’d have to take Gomez down a notch, but I wasn’t looking forward to that. Not because I couldn’t win. Gomez was a fail-out from the Golden Horde, which meant he couldn’t pass their rigorous training standards, while I’d seen multiple combat tours back in my old mercenary unit. Granted, I hadn’t left on the best of terms, and I was a bit out of practice, but I still could wipe the floor with him. I just didn’t want to draw the wrong kind of attention to my squad...

  “Staff Sergeant,” Captain Schultz had turned to look over at us, “why are my men talking in the ranks?!” His voice broke a bit and developed an awkward squeak, almost as if he realized he was yelling at a six-foot-six mercenary who’d seen far too much combat. He continued in a more moderate tone, “Can’t you see the Colonel is briefing me on the situation?”

  “Yes, sir, sorry sir, I’ll take care of it, sir!” I gave the best, most crisp salute I could, as comically as I could. What can I say, I’m an asshole, I thought to myself.

  A couple of men in my squad giggled, but Captain Schultz gave me a serious nod. “Excellent.”