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  With Your Shield

  Book Ten of the Four Horsemen Tales

  By

  Chris Kennedy & Alex Rath

  PUBLISHED BY: Seventh Seal Press

  Copyright © 2019 Chris Kennedy & Alex Rath

  All Rights Reserved

  * * * * *

  Get the free Four Horsemen prelude story “Shattered Crucible”

  and discover other titles by Chris Kennedy at:

  http://chriskennedypublishing.com/

  * * * * *

  Do you have what it takes to be a Merc?

  Take your VOWs and join the Merc Guild on Facebook!

  Meet us at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/536506813392912/

  * * * * *

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  * * * * *

  Dedication

  I would like to dedicate this book to my wife Jennifer, without whose patience, understanding, and encouragement this book would not have even been started. I also want to thank Chris Kennedy, for spending the time on a new author even though he has a hectic writing and release schedule, exhibiting a lot of patience, and allowing me to write in the Four Horsemen Universe, and especially write in his sandbox, placing “With Your Shield” in the Golden Horde.

  – AR

  To my wife, for everything she is.

  – CK

  * * * * *

  Cover Design by Brenda Mihalko

  Original Art by Ricky Ryan

  * * * * *

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  Join the Merc Guild

  About Chris Kennedy

  About Alex Rath

  Titles by Chris Kennedy

  Connect with Chris Kennedy Online

  Connect with Alex Rath Online

  Excerpt from Book One of the Omega Wars

  Excerpt from Book One of the Salvage Title Trilogy

  Excerpt from Book One of the Earth Song Cycle

  Excerpt from Book One of the Kin Wars Saga

  * * * * *

  Prologue

  Medical, Horde Transport Ship EMS War Pony, Hyperspace, One Year Ago

  Sergeant Markus ‘Spartan’ Nicolos opened his eyes, then closed them instantly as the light threatened to make his head explode. He grunted and opened them a sliver to look around.

  “Take it slow, Spartan; you took a pretty good blow.” He heard a female voice he recognized—one of the medics—but he couldn’t remember her name.

  “Okay,” Spartan said and relaxed back onto the bed with a sigh. “Why are we back on the ship? What the hell happened?”

  “We’re in hyperspace on the way home, and you’ve been out for about a week. We kept you in a coma due to a head injury so we could give the nanites more time to work. You should expect to be groggy for a few more hours, but hey, at least you woke up. That’s a start.”

  He remembered being ambushed while on patrol and calling for backup, but after that…nothing.

  “The rest of my unit?”

  “I’m sorry, Spartan; you were the only survivor. From what I heard, you were hit with overwhelming force.”

  Another voice he recognized chimed in, “That’s enough, Hannah.” Lieutenant Jacob ‘Hazard’ Quinn, his platoon leader, added, “We’ll debrief him later.”

  He heard footsteps moving away and dared to open his eyes again. It hurt a bit less this time as he looked up at Hazard. “Sir, I don’t know what—”

  “We’ll cover it later, Spartan. Take a day to get back on your feet, then we’ll go over what we know. We completed the contract, and we’re on our way home. Contrary to what you might be thinking, you did just fine.” With that, he turned and walked out of the sick bay, leaving Spartan alone with his thoughts.

  Spartan worked back through the engagement. He was on patrol on the last day of the contract; it should have been a cake walk. There were no indications of an attack…and then they were ambushed. He remembered being hit from behind, but nothing after that.

  * * *

  A few days later, Spartan sat in the ready room and went over the after-action report. He shook his head. “How the hell did we not see them? I know we had active sweeps going, and there wasn’t supposed to be any resistance!”

  Hazard spoke up first. “Spartan, we don’t know. That’s the problem. They must have had some sort of jamming technology we haven’t seen before; even the sensors at base didn’t catch them, nor did we know we were being jammed. Second Squad managed to take half of them out before the primary force withdrew, but apparently there was another group that completely eliminated the squad.”

  Spartan looked down at his hands. “So, I’m responsible for the loss of two squads, and yet I somehow made it out?”

  “That’s enough! This was not your fault, and I don’t need you dealing with survivor’s guilt. You did your job. You are not responsible for this.”

  “Right.” He didn’t see how that could be. He’d lost people before, but always in a straight-up fight—never to something like this. “Is that all, sir?”

  Hazard sighed. “Dismissed, Spartan. You’ll be on light duty until we get back home and can get your head fully checked out. Meanwhile, the techs are looking over the information we gathered to see what we can do to prevent it from happening again.”

  Spartan nodded and stood—barely hearing anything else that was said—then exited the room and headed for his bunk. He spent the rest of the journey home handling the duties he was assigned, but his desire for combat was gone.

  * * *

  CASPer Hangar, Golden Horde HQ, Uzbekistan, Earth

  Spartan stood looking up at his CASPer, which had been cleaned and repaired. It looked brand new hanging from the lifter on the wall, along with the rest of the mechs for his new squad. He had been cleared for action again by Medical, but he didn’t feel ready for it. He looked at the cockpit, and all he could think about was the squad he’d lost.

  “Are you waiting for an engraved invitation, Spartan?” Hazard asked, his voice coming over Spartan’s pinplants.

  “I’m not sure about this, sir,” he commed.

  “Climb in, and let’s get you checked out. It’s just a few sims.”

  Spartan stood still for another moment, then put on his helmet, climbed into the CASPer, and hooked up his pinplants through the access ports in his helmet. Within a couple of minutes, he had the canopy clos
ed and dropped from the lifter. “Spartan’s ready to move,” he sent over the squadnet.

  Over the next hour, he went through several combat simulation but couldn’t find it in him to engage as strongly as he used to. He knew his performance wasn’t good; even he could tell he wasn’t ready for combat.

  * * *

  HQ Building, Golden Horde HQ, Uzbekistan, Earth

  “Well, Spartan,” Colonel Sansar Enkh, the commander of the Golden Horde, said, “I’ve got a request to end your contract. Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I just don’t have it anymore.” Spartan hated the idea of leaving the Horde, but he knew he couldn’t face combat again; in his condition, he would be putting his squad mates’ lives in danger.

  “Obviously, I don’t want to send someone into combat who can’t cut it, and your scores lately are, to put it bluntly, Besquith shit. However, I’m not ready to cut you loose just yet.”

  Spartan arched an eyebrow. “Ma’am?”

  Sansar leaned forward in her chair, propped her elbows on the desk and steepled her fingers in front of her. “What if we transferred you, instead? You may not be ready to be in a CASPer right now, but I think I know you well enough to know you’re not ready to be a civilian, either.”

  “Well, no ma’am, but as you said…” His voice trailed off.

  “I know you’re a closet hacker, Spartan. You know we monitor everything. The games you’ve modified are a hit among the troops, and your skills are solid. Even when you first signed up, you could have gone the intel route.”

  “Yes, ma’am…it’s a fun hobby.”

  Sansar grinned. “How about we turn it into a profession? How would you like to join the network operations center as an intel specialist? Maybe you can help figure out what happened to your squad and make sure it never happens again.”

  Spartan blinked—he’d never considered a non-combat job or that he had the skills to be an intelligence specialist.

  “You have an hour to think about it. If you want the job, report to Major Good. If not, we’ll cut your release papers, you’ll get a recommendation, a standard severance package, and your ‘plants will be deactivated.”

  Spartan smiled; he was being given a chance to stay with the Golden Horde—the only company he’d ever wanted to work for. He made his choice immediately. “I’ll take it. I’ll go let Major Good know right now.”

  “Very well. Dismissed.”

  Chapter One

  Computer Operations, Golden Horde HQ, Uzbekistan, Earth

  Staff Sergeant Markus ‘Spartan’ Nicolos stared at the Tri-V displays in front of him. The data scrolling over them would have been a blur to anyone else, but for him, it was a routine day. Unless he had to crack encryption, his pinplants—implants in his skull that allowed him to process data faster—made checking the data simple. He monitored the normal transmissions of trade ships and the refueling and re-arming of other mercenary companies’ combat vessels; none of it was out of the ordinary. The Golden Horde’s network operations center held the best hackers and hardware on the planet, and they paid the best rates to make sure of it. Nicolos was evidence of this policy.

  He could think much faster than most people with his pinplants, especially those who weren’t in the Golden Horde. Markus—and every other member of the Horde—had four implants instead of the standard two that most outside the Horde got. Spartan had a knack for it and could multi-task at the speed of thought. The added abilities the four pinplants gave him were one of the advantages of the Horde, and a major part of why people very rarely left the company of their own accord. His eyes swept the ops center. At any given moment, every person within view was analyzing multiple pieces of intelligence simultaneously and, just like him, effortlessly.

  The room was bustling, as always. Analysts moved from one terminal to another, cross-checking the data they were reviewing and comparing notes. Occasionally, someone junior would come to Markus with a problem decrypting a code or with a piece of intel that required further attention, and he would give them additional instructions. If it were a decryption problem, he would usually find the sequence quickly and take the time to explain how he did it. Markus considered part of his job to not only fix issues but teach those junior to him how he fixed them. No one knew why—not even him—but he had a knack for decryption, which was why his specialty had become communications exploitation.

  Occasionally, Markus would come upon something of moderate interest and would assign it to a junior member of the team to research further. His mandate was to look for things that would either mean a profit for the company or a competitive advantage in the mercenary industry. Having been a CASPer—Combat Assault System, Personal—pilot previously, he had a different view on what might be useful. He wished he were stationed on Karma or on a ship as an intelligence officer, where there was more action and an increased chance of intercepting something juicy, but for now he was happy enough on Earth. All Golden Horde ships caught every transmission they could and brought them home for further analysis, anyway.

  Rolling his head to the left and right, he felt a satisfying crack in his neck and sighed as he felt the release of tension; he was ready to be off. His mind strayed, thinking about playing the old video game he’d remastered for virtual reality in his spare time. He grinned to himself—that was the same programming hobby that had been responsible for his getting to stay in the Horde.

  Technically, with his ‘plants, he could play his game and still do his job, but that kind of distraction could easily get people killed. A red line on his screen and a dinging alarm in his head demanded his attention, and he sat upright. All thoughts of extracurricular activities vacated his mind as he focused all his processing power on the transmission. As he translated the symbols flowing in front of his eyes, he knew something was wrong. The automated decryption package recognized it as an already-cracked code and had started decrypting the message, but it hit a block as another encryption kicked in. This one was new. As he read through what was already decrypted, he frowned and yelled, “What the actual fuck!”

  He realized what he’d done immediately as several people around him glanced over, and a few chuckles could be heard. He shrugged and sent a call through his ‘plants to the major. “Sir, we have a situation that requires your immediate attention.”

  Major James Good, the center’s director, showed up with a look of annoyance on his face. “I gathered that, based on your outburst. What have you got?”

  “Sir, both platoons from Delta Company are leaving on contract soon, and I just intercepted a transmission from an outbound vessel which mentioned the Horde transport carrying them.”

  The major crossed his arms over his chest, sighed, and raised an eyebrow in a “tell me more” look. “Perhaps you’d like to start at the beginning and pretend I didn’t just join you in the middle of whatever thought you’re having. For example, yes, we all know they are going on a mission, and there are any number of transmissions that mention the Horde every day. What makes this so important, Spartan?”

  Nicolos’ eyes never left his screens as he handed a slate to the major and mirrored the data that was already decrypted to it as he worked on the new code.

  Major Good took the slate and frowned. As Spartan was well aware, it showed information that should not be there. It showed the exact times of the ship’s departure and intended arrival at their contracted system’s home world, as well as the loadout of the company embarked.

  “Carry on. Good work, Spartan.” Major Good nodded as he stored the information from the slate and put it back down in front of Markus. “Keep on it and get the rest of the message; I’ll alert the boss.”

  Markus nodded and activated the soundtrack of “Halo,” a video game from the past, with his pinplants. The music helped him concentrate, and his eyes lost focus as he dove deeper into the communications net and his decryption programs. He used his pinplants to track the communication’s origin and destination, as well as decrypt the rest of
the message. He no longer saw the world around him, just scrolling lines of code as he worked to untangle them.

  * * *

  Sergeant Carrie Baker, seated across from Nicolos, had overheard the conversation and frowned slightly. Carrie had been working under him since he came into the group as a decryption specialist, and she had gotten to know him fairly well. If Markus was that focused, this had to be pretty big. She also knew the look on his face and came around the console to set two bottles of water and a couple of protein bars in front of him, knowing he wouldn’t come out anytime soon. She stood over Markus, smiled slightly, and wondered absently if he would ever notice her. She leaned down to whisper in his ear, “Food and water are in front of you, Spartan.”

  She looked back as she walked away and smiled to herself as he nodded. He picked up and opened a bottle of water, left just where she knew he’d reach for it. Maybe one day he’d realize... but probably not. He was her superior anyway, so it couldn’t happen.

  Curious, she sat down and attempted to access what he was working on to see if she could help, and she found he had locked it down so only he could access it. Markus was like a dog with a bone once he started on something, and he never wanted anyone else messing with it. It was one of his quirks that were tolerated because he always produced results.