The Golden Horde (The Revelations Cycle Book 4) Page 3
Summary Meeting, Mercenary Guild HQ, Capital Planet
“This video comes from the Chimsa system,” the Veetanho Speaker said as the Tri-V screen came to life behind her. The lights dimmed slightly for the races with sensitive scanning organs, and a walled city came to life on the screen. An assault was already in progress, with defenders on the wall firing and receiving fire. The viewpoint pulled back to show a black mass approaching the city. Tortantulas. As the mass flowed forward, the focus shifted to the right, where a large gate in the wall was opening, as if to grant admission to the approaching mercenaries.
Before the wave of black could arrive, though, a 100-foot-tall machine strode forth from the gates of a city, and the speakers came on suddenly. “…let’s do this. Leeeerooooy…...Jenkins!” the giant mecha roared.
The picture froze for a moment, and the Speaker stepped in front of the screen. “For those of you unaware, this is a Raknar, a giant monstrosity created by our Dusman ancestors to deal with the Canavar created by the Kahraman.” She stepped to the side, and the video continued. A rippling wave of missiles lashed out from the shoulder-mounted racks, and horrific noises began emanating from the giant suit.
“Entropy!” the Goka representative exclaimed. “What is that?”
“Our experts have analyzed it, and they believe it is actually a form of Human music, not a psychological warfare tool, even though it seems to function as one.”
“Dear gods!” the leader of the Jivool contingent bellowed. “That is what passes for culture with the Humans?”
“I am sorry to say, but yes, that is the peak of Human culture,” the Speaker noted. “Shocking, isn’t it?” She left the “music” turned up so the attendees could hear it as the video continued. All the representatives had translators, and it was obvious they understood the lyrics as the chorus came around and “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” was screamed over and over.
“Not the most honorable of intentions, are they?” the Jivool delegate asked.
Several attendees gave various indications of negation, and the Speaker hid a smile. It was almost too easy.
On the screen, the Raknar rampaged through the ranks of the Tortantulas, stomping them into paste. The video slowed and focused on one of the Raknar’s boots as it descended on a hapless Tortantula, and a spray of bodily fluids burst out from under the foot of the Raknar as the alien’s body came apart under the enormous pressure at three-quarter speed. Although the attendees were all battle-hardened veterans, she could see the colors of several faces change in disgust.
“Shocking,” she said as she turned off the video. “What is even more shocking,” she continued, “is what the Humans did on Planet Moorhouse.”
Two of the Speaker’s assistants walked down the sides of the conference table, handing out old-fashioned paper documents.
“Take a look at the environmental data collected once the Humans left the planet. As you can surely see, the concentration of zinc-65 is much higher than normal, clearly indicating the use of an enhanced radiation weapon. We wondered how Asbaran Solutions was able to re-take Moorhouse so easily; now we know. Banshee bombs.”
Surprise was evident on the faces and in the body language of several of the attendees. Not only were nuclear weapons normally not used within a planet’s atmosphere, but banshee bombs were normally dropped from greater than 10 miles above the planet, which was illegal.
“Sadly, this is typical of the Humans,” the Speaker noted, clucking her tongue. “After recapturing their base, they then stole all the red diamonds from the Caroon mine nearby, then destroyed the site with a nuclear bomb to hide the evidence. Additionally, here are some of their other violations…”
She spoke for another 15 minutes, and she could tell the members were dismayed by the information she presented.
“In summation,” she said, “a number of members have asked for a ruling on the Humans’ ability to meet and maintain the standards required for membership within this guild, as well as their continued suitability for being allowed unsupervised access to destructive weapons.”
The Selroth member of the board raised a tentacle and was recognized by the Speaker. “I am confused by the Speaker’s last comment. Could you be a little more specific as to what you are suggesting, and its basis for being implemented?”
“Certainly,” the Speaker said, nodding her approval. She held out her hands, indicating everyone at the table. “The Mercenary Guild is responsible for regulating warfare, and everything that goes into it. While it has never been illegal to use nuclear weapons, per se, the indiscriminate use of them is bad for business, as is the implementation of widespread slaughter contracts. There is no opportunity to distinguish ourselves on the field of battle with them, and the continued need for mass reconstitution of people and equipment eats into profits, destabilizing the entire profession.”
She sighed and continued, “Let’s face it, distinguished colleagues; I don’t see how the Humans can be allowed full membership in the Mercenary Guild. Not now, anyway. They are far too rogue—they cannot be trusted to do what’s best for the guild and its members. As such, I have to ask you, do you really want them running around the galaxy unsupervised? Wouldn’t it be far better for all of us, and far more profitable, if we were to provide some ‘adult supervision’ for them? We wouldn’t have to do it for long, I don’t think, just long enough for them to learn the rules of civilized warfare.”
“So what do you propose?” the Selroth member asked.
The Speaker moved to the side and ran a five-minute Tri-V presentation, showing the tables of organization, proposed strategy, and the suggested outcome for the operation. Afterwards, she took a vote and was disappointed; it only passed by a vote of 8-1. She had expected the Flatar representative to be more open to the plan. They would bear watching. After the vote, the members filed out of the room, leaving the Speaker alone with the only active-duty mercenary who had been in attendance, and the person who had been hired to command the mission.
“How did I do, General Peepo?” the Speaker asked.
“You did well,” General Peepo confirmed. “Everything is proceeding according to plan. Well done, daughter.”
Downtown Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Earth
Daniel Walker looked at his slate in confusion, then he glanced back at the house. He shook his head; he was at the address shown on the slate, but it couldn’t be right. The address listed for The Golden Horde’s recruiting office was at the corner of Eshan Babakhan and Khuvaydo Streets in the center of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. That, in and of itself, wasn’t surprising. Walker had done plenty of research on the Horde prior to coming and knew its headquarters was indeed based in Tashkent; what was surprising was that the building, a house really, was in the middle of a residential neighborhood. To the left and right, as far as he could see, people were coming and going, attending to their normal daily lives.
The house at the stated address was unmarked and seemed little different from any of the others on the street. A single story tall, the brick building was painted a bright shade of yellow, just like its neighbors, and it had bars on all the windows he could see. The only thing that made it stand out at all was the fact it was free-standing; most of the other houses were connected to the ones on either side, while it stood alone.
What the hell was he even doing here? At least he knew the answer to that question—none of the other Horsemen would have him. The Cavaliers had declared bankruptcy a little while back and were still reorganizing. The Hussars didn’t need anyone with his ground-based skill set, and Asbaran’s personnel office on the Aethernet had a digital note on it that the company had implemented a “brief hiring freeze.” The notice was five months old; if the rumors were true, it didn’t look like they would be hiring again any time soon…if ever. What the hell was happening to the Horsemen?
So here he was, looking for employment with The Golden Horde. Long seen as the “poor little red-headed stepchild” of the Horsemen, the Horde had never had the
best reputation. Some people said they were all drug addicts, others that it was led by a group of inbred family members. Hell, he’d even heard they had ties to, or were actually part of, an organized crime ring. One of the Horsemen no better than common criminals? That couldn’t be true, could it?
He shrugged internally as he scanned his surroundings; all he knew was that everyone he had ever met from the Horde appeared to have at least one screw loose, and most had several. None of them would ever talk about their time in the Horde—it was as if they wanted to forget about it as quickly as possible. And if that wasn’t bad enough, nearly all the former Horde members he could think of were pinheads. Having jacks in their heads might work for them, but he had decided long ago it wasn’t for him. Admittedly, his guesses were based on a small sample size, as people rarely left the Horde. Lots of people signed on with them…but he wasn’t aware of many who had left the Horde alive.
It didn’t seem possible, because, for all their failings and weirdness, the Horde had also carved out a reputation for something else. Competence. When they built defenses, they held. He had fought from behind Horde-designed defenses once, and it was the best contract of his entire mercenary career. The Horde’s motto was, “We Hold What You’ve Got,” and they weren’t kidding. Their defenses were rarely breached.
But…if they were so successful, why did it seem like so many people went in and never came out?
Although afraid of the answer, he didn’t have anywhere else to go. There weren’t any more Horsemen, and none of the smaller firms would touch him with a 10-foot pole. It was the Horde or retirement, and he wasn’t ready to lay down and die yet. There were still too many bugs left to kill.
He reconfirmed the address—it was the house in front of him. Walker sighed as he walked up the pathway. At least his skill set matched the Horde’s mission. For what that was worth. He walked up to the large wooden door, which gave no indication of being connected to one of the largest mercenary organizations in the world. No signs, no doorbell, not even a knocker. It look impregnable, though; if the massive door was supposed to intimidate criminals into looking elsewhere for easier targets, it readily served that purpose.
After assessing the door for several seconds, Walker knocked, but the door absorbed the blows with very little sound. Steeling himself, he hit the door harder with his closed first then shook it out to numb the sting of the blows.
Although painful, the knocking was effective, and a few seconds later the door opened to reveal a woman wearing a traditional Uzbek robe with light trousers. The bright blue robe was similar to what he had seen the other local women wearing; the long, loose tunic had wide sleeves reaching to the wrists which made her hands hard to see.
Unlike the women on the street, though, the woman at the door had her hair pulled back, allowing him to see her pinplants. So it was true; the members of The Horde were all pinheads. Interesting.
The woman looked him up and down once and then asked, “Sizga yordam kerakmi?”
“Uh…” Walker stammered. “I don’t understand you.”
The woman smiled. “May I help you?”
“Uh, I’m not really sure,” Walker replied. “I was looking for the recruiting agency for The Golden Horde, but I can see I must have written the address down wrong. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”
“No, this is the correct address,” the woman said, looking him up and down again with a narrower, more professional gaze. She sized him up for a few seconds, then she gave him a brief nod. “Please come in,” she said, opening the door all the way and standing aside. “I am the Horde’s chief recruiter.”
Walker stepped into the house. Closed doors blocked his vision of most of the house, with the exception of a large office. The woman shut the front door, bolted it, and led him to the office. Walker sat in the chair she indicated, and she sat down on the other side of a large wooden desk. Bookcases covered the walls, packed with books in a number of languages. The ones he could read all seemed to be about the strategy and tactics of warfighting.
“How may I help you?” the woman asked.
“Well, I’m looking for employment as a mercenary.”
“That is hardly surprising,” the woman said. “Everyone who comes here is. Could you be a little more specific about the nature of what you’re looking for? We currently aren’t advertising any vacancies.”
“Ma’am, I’ll take whatever you’ve got. If you’ve got an entry level spot for a front line trooper with a lot of experience, I’ll take it.”
“A front line trooper? Isn’t that a little beneath you?”
“I don’t know what you mean, ma’am.”
The woman sat back and raised an eyebrow, her skepticism evident. “No? You don’t think a private’s position is beneath someone who previously held the rank of colonel and commanded his own mercenary force? Are you not Daniel Walker, formerly the commander of Walker’s Roughnecks?”
Walker looked down at his hands in his lap and sighed. He had hoped to avoid the subject. At least the shaking had stopped.
“Well? Are you or are you not?”
“Yes, I am,” Walker admitted. “How did you know?”
“Anyone who walks up the sidewalk to my house undergoes a facial recognition scan. You showed up as Daniel Walker, formerly Colonel Daniel Walker of the now defunct Walker’s Roughnecks. You have the walk and build of someone who has spent much time inside a CASPer, which seemed to confirm it. Since that is no longer in dispute, I will ask again. Isn’t a front line trooper position a little beneath you?”
“Ma’am, at this moment, nothing is beneath me. I lost my entire unit, and I honestly don’t feel like being in command. The urge to fight and kill, though…that, I still have.”
“How did you lose your unit?”
“I’m still not entirely sure how it happened. It was a surprise attack, but the only way they could have hit us with that kind of precision was if they had someone helping them. Goka troopers led the way.” His left hand began shaking, and he squeezed it with his right hand to stop it. “They hit our laser defenses and waltzed right through. They seemed to know where we were weak, and they exploited it without hesitation. Once the lasers were down, the Besquith poured through and made a beeline for our barracks, where they caught most of my troops just getting out of their beds. That’s where I lost most of them, and I have to tell you, it wasn’t pretty.”
“How sure are you the enemy had assistance?”
“It had to be an inside job; they knew where all the defenses were and the absolute perfect time to strike. The thing is, though, I would have trusted my life to any of the troops in the Roughnecks; hell, I had trusted my life to them on many occasions. It didn’t make any sense at the time, and it still doesn’t make any sense now.”
“How is it you survived the attack?”
“I was inspecting the defenses with my First Sergeant when the enemy hit us, and we were the first ones on-scene. Something explosive tore our suits apart, and they left us for dead in their hurry to attack the barracks. I was unconscious, but my First Sergeant was able to heal himself with his medkit nanite injectors. He then used all of my injectors on me and carried us out into the woods. We lived there for the next two weeks until he could arrange extraction. Either the enemy didn’t notice we were gone or didn’t feel like hunting us; I don’t know, but they never came after us.”
Walker shrugged. “In any event, I lost everyone but my First Sergeant and all of our gear, which put us into bankruptcy.”
“You could have started a new company.”
“I could have, but honestly, I hate the damn paperwork that comes with owning a merc unit.”
“Understandable,” the woman said. “My position requires far more than necessary. We have, however, come full-circle back to your visit here today. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any positions available in management or leadership. The Horde usually promotes from within.”
“I’m not looking for a leadership spot. I
told you; I’m happy to sign on as a trooper, especially if you’re going to kill any Goka. Hell, I would probably fight them for free.”
“Do you have a death wish?”
“Me? No. Quite the opposite, in fact. I want to stay alive long enough to kill as many of them as possible.”
“I suspect we’ll need to do an additional psychological testing battery on you to make sure you don’t have some sort of psychosis which will cause you to do something that will get Horde members killed, just to satisfy this need to kill Goka.”
“I’m happy to take any test you want to give me. I don’t have any sort of issues that would preclude service with the Horde or any other unit. I might have, when I first woke up from surgery and found out only one other person in the Roughnecks had survived, but I have put that behind me. All I have now is a nice healthy desire to go places and get paid to kill aliens. Like I said, Goka if possible, but I’m happy to kill Tortantulas, Besquith and MinSha as well. All of those fu—, all of those bastards just need to die.”
“Well, as it turns out, I do need a need a squad leader at the moment. It will take some adjustment to bring you in at that level, but I think it can be managed.”
Walker frowned at the way she phrased it. “Wait; you need a squad leader? With all due respect, can I ask who you are?”
“Certainly, I am Sansar Enkh; I am the commander of The Golden Horde.”
* * * * *
Chapter 3
Downtown Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Earth
“What?” Walker asked. “You’re the commander, and you do the interviewing?”
“Of course. How else will I know whether the people we’re recruiting are acceptable for our units?”
“We just met,” Walker protested. “You don’t know anything about me, and you just offered me a squad leader slot.”