For a Few Credits More: More Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 7) Read online

  Johnny settled against the bulkhead, his armor already tuned and synced.

  He needed money; that was the first fact.

  The second was that Jessup Moran, one of his better mercs, had been arrested for murder. Some of his Ogres thought it was a frame job, and some thought Jessup had always been too quiet and had been storing up rage that had come out at the wrong time. The thing was, Jessup wasn’t the type to go rogue.

  He was responsible.

  Level-headed.

  Idealistic.

  So why had he run off to Calista at exactly the same time this mysterious, worth-more-money-than-a-battleship slate went missing? Johnny’d never seen a contract with this type of bounty attached to it—not for equipment recovery.

  “This would’ve been easier if Jessup’d come to us in the first place,” Davenport said. “You need better control of the men.”

  Johnny looked at him. “You’re my executive officer.”

  “And you don’t let me do things the way they need to be done. We’re all killers, Johnny. If one of our mercs disrespects either of us, we need to land on them with both feet. You know I’m right.”

  Johnny stared at the wall, concentrating on all the things that had to go right if they were to survive an assault on a space station.

  “You let Jessup off the leash. He stole a slate worth all our lives plus the price of a new house back on Earth, then got arrested for murder. Now you and me and the rest of the OFC have to break him out. Don’t get me wrong, it’s gonna be a good time, but some of us are gonna die,” Davenport said.

  “Says the Tactician,” Johnny drawled, then counted to 10 in his head. “Give the mission brief, XO.”

  “All right, listen up Ogre Fist,” Davenport said as he stood gripping a hand ring on the ceiling of the transport. “Everyone but New Guy over there has done this, but let’s review. We must have surprise. That means no shooting until I tell you to start killing people.”

  “That’s no shooting on this one,” Johnny said without standing or raising his voice. “Snatch and go. Like a hostage rescue except from a prison.”

  “Peacemakers call that a breakout,” Marney said, her voice scratchy from a nicotine lozenge.

  “That’s why we’re not going to make any noise,” Davenport said, winking so hard he dropped his shoulder and leaned forward.

  The Ogre Fist Company mercs laughed and closed up their CASPers. Davenport continued the briefing in a rough voice. The only non-human in the group licked his chops, sealed his clear wolf-head helmet, and slammed a chemical laser magazine into his back-up weapon.

  “Not so hard, Nightmare,” Marney said.

  The Besquith warrior growled but otherwise ignored her. Other members of the OFC jumped on the opportunity.

  “That’s what you say to Nightmare every night,” Lamart, the OFC engineer and mechanic, said.

  “That’s gross,” Marney said. “And true.”

  Chaos exploded on every radio link as Lamart stared as though he’d been hit on the helmet with a pneumatic hammer.

  “Settle down,” Johnny said. He leaned closer to Marney. “Really? Are you trying to make everyone lose focus?”

  “Sorry, Boss.”

  “Get ready, Ogres,” Davenport said. “Deploying in five, four, three, two, go…”

  The hatch opened.

  Johnny, despite knowing every detail of the plan he’d designed with Davenport and the senior team members, was surprised to see the inside of a landing bay. Even knowing the plan, he’d imagined jumping to the surface of the ultra-max station and cutting his way in with lasers.

  His feet remembered the drill from dozens of previous ship assaults, a rare skill few of the OFC possessed. Johnny Boss had learned his skills in some high-speed merc units prior to purchasing the OFC charter. Moving toward the primary objective, he led Lamart, Marney, and Nightmare at a run—which could injure a novice in the zero-gravity environment. Ultra Max Station had spin to give the illusion of weight, but no thrust as a starship might use.

  Without gravity, every magnetic step had to be perfectly timed. Too soft and you missed. Too hard, and you might give yourself a concussion from the kinetic force transfer releasing into your armor and your bones. A poorly-timed step could feel like landing flatfooted on concrete.

  “Marney, don’t forget the self-destruct timers on those relays,” Johnny said.

  She grunted.

  Nightmare growled.

  The hallway remained as vacant as his sources had promised. “Davenport, what’s your status?”

  “We’re standing guard. No one’s coming into your section. It would’ve been cheaper to clear this level the old fashioned way.”

  “Bribes have less consequence afterward,” Johnny said.

  Marney and Nightmare looked at him.

  “You’ll get paid. Don’t worry about it,” Johnny said, teeth clenched inside his armor. Keeping his battle lust under control was wearing him out. Worrying about money gave him a constant headache. “Stay cool. We get Jessup, we get the slate, and we collect the contract fee.”

  Marney and Nightmare smiled, her face invisible in the suit, and his mouthful of teeth disturbingly obvious through his clear helmet.

  Johnny moved ahead of his team in search of Jessup Moran, who was supposed to be in an exercise room with a single guard. None of his OFC mercs knew what he’d paid to make this happen, and he prayed they never would. Some currency meant more than credits. He wouldn’t have paid this price, not even for Jessup, if there was another way to save the OFC.

  “Contact! Contact! Contact!” Davenport shouted over the radio relays. “Forget the knee shots, hit ‘em in the torso. They can take it. Don’t worry about killing them; they ain’t worried about killing us!”

  Johnny cursed and rushed forward, muting his speaker so he could think. First into the room, he saw three guards with environmental suits on standing around Jessup. The prisoner didn’t have a suit on, though, and that was supposed to have been part of the deal.

  “Team One, stick to the plan. Kinetic weapons. Keep the engagement less lethal if possible,” he said, then fired 15 millimeter rounds at reduced velocities from his left arm gun as he moved. Three strides and three shots later he grabbed Jessup.

  “Nightmare, I need one of those suits.”

  The Besquith merc jumped on a guard and convinced him to shed his gear. Johnny tried not to watch.

  He prayed the low tech slugs he’d fired hadn’t penetrated and ruined the suit Jessup would need if prison controllers vented the atmosphere. He knew they shouldn’t, but things never worked according to plan in the heat of a fight. “Hurry up. We’ve got to go!”

  New guards responded in teams of two.

  Johnny pointed at the doorway to his right. “Marney, that’s yours.”

  He faced his own zone and fired at each new threat, conserving ammunition. “Headshots,” Johnny called out, stomach churning. Killing wasn’t new to him, but shooting from the wrong side of the law pressed inward on his ability to think clearly.

  “This sucks,” Marney said as she dragged a body clear of her position.

  Flash bang grenades tumbled into the room. Five guards in MK 8 armor rushed in followed by five more who went for Nightmare and Jessup like they had bounties on their heads.

  Johnny clicked the firearm to his leg plate and pulled his laser carbine from his back, firing before he finished aiming. Instinct served him well. The prison Special Weapons and Tactics team scattered.

  Marney staggered from an injury that pierced her left thigh plate. She fired her laser with one hand while trying to use a medkit with the other. Johnny ran across the room, posted in front of her to absorb and return fire, and grunted orders. “Secure your weapon and see to your injuries and armor.”

  Nightmare flanked the SWAT team and enfiladed them with laser blasts.

  Johnny switched out the chemical laser magazine and dropped the partially used mag in a large pouch on the opposite side of his armor
.

  “Team Two, we have the principal. Rendezvous at the ship,” Johnny said.

  Marney finished spraying nanite gel into her leg, and gave Johnny a thumbs up.

  “Nightmare, carry Jessup. I don’t care if he can walk on his own. Let’s move!”

  He bounded to the front of their formation at each intersection, then allowed Marney to do the same, although she was limping badly.

  “Is your CASPer damaged or are you hurt?” Johnny said.

  “Little of both,” she said.

  Davenport and the rest of Team Two burst into the hallway from a smoking intersection.

  Johnny cursed as someone bumped him hard enough to slam his MK 7 CASPer into the wall. “We’re bunched up. Get into the launch bay and get on the shuttle. Best possible speed.”

  Ten feet into the room, with the shuttle already hovering for launch, the prison guards made a massive assault...platoon strength or greater.

  Cheeto Briggs, the youngest of the Ogre Fist Company and part of Team Two, charged the guards with lasers in both hands. He drove them back but Johnny understood the effect would last only seconds.

  Ballistic rounds and lasers slammed and cut and chopped into Cheeto’s CASPer, knocking him off his feet three times. He rolled back to a fighting stance, twisted this way and that, and fought like an alley cat.

  “Crazy ass kid,” Davenport said as he stood on the assault ship ramp next to Johnny. “Get in here, Cheeto!”

  In response to the order, Cheeto fell flat on his face as his CASPer went into death throes.

  Johnny and Davenport ran to him, shooting guards and screaming the OFC war cry as they moved, then dragged the ruined mecha back to the escape ship.

  “Cheeto,” Johnny said as the ship fled the Ultra Max Prison.

  “Boss?”

  “You need to work on your technique. Having huge balls isn’t enough in the Ogre Fist Company.”

  UNGRATEFUL

  The ship dumped them on the first smuggler’s world they came to with both pilots cursing Johnny Boss and the Ogre Fist Company in three or four languages.

  It was hard to say what they said for sure. One pilot had foamed at the mouth, thick white goo flying on the wings of his profanity.

  “They can have the environmental suit, or what’s left of it after Nightmare ripped the guard out of it.”

  “I don’t think they want it,” Davenport said in a low voice. “It’s evidence.”

  “Make it work. I don’t have anything else to pay their extra fees.” Johnny left Davenport to deal with them and slept the rest of the trip.

  Later, when he’d paid the final bill and sent the pilots on their way, he parked his mecha in the first secure storage area he could find with an attached boarding house. He took a shower with real water and spent a considerable amount of time shaving. After that he ate two meals in one setting and went to check his wounded at the local clinic. Even a run-down smuggler’s hole like this had certain amenities available to mercenary units in good standing.

  Which he was, if not for much longer.

  Marney smiled from where she sat with nanite IV bags plugged into both of her legs and her neck. “Good to see you, Boss. I’ll be up and running in no time.”

  He patted her on the shoulder. “I know you will, Marney. That’s what I like about you and the rest of the OFC. You never quit, never surrender, and never use one bullet when two will do.”

  He stepped into the hallway to find Davenport waiting. The man chewed his fingernails like they were the only protein source left in the galaxy. “Give me the bad news, Davenport.”

  His XO stared at him and exhaled slowly. “I have to admit I’m surprised we lived through that debacle. I’d do it again, though; don’t get me wrong.”

  “Don’t dance around it, just tell me what you want to say.”

  Davenport looked at his boots, then stood, and stepped closer. “That punk kid we rescued has ditched us again. I don’t know what he’s so afraid of, but he’s on the run like no one I’ve ever seen.”

  Johnny slammed his fist into the clinic wall, and several people emerged from their rooms in search of the cause of the noise. The next several moments were a blur as Davenport, in a weird reversal of roles, tried to calm him and escort him from the facility.

  STARPORT

  Heat defined the disembarkment quarter of Nemis City, the second largest starport on Calista. The temperature was bad enough, but the constant roar of engines coming down on the landing pads could drive a person crazy. Johnny Boss and the OFC moved away from the pad as quickly as possible.

  Sweat weighed down the haptic uniform inside Johnny’s CASPer, causing him to wish he had his helmet on and suit sealed against the environment. One of Lamart’s biggest modifications to the Ogre Fist mechas was making them work with their canopies open—a jury-rigged power-saving mode.

  Johnny squinted through the glare of the late afternoon. The dry air made him thirsty, and the smog from the industry of a half million residents scratched at his throat. Sunburn cracked the exposed flesh where his scarf didn’t cover his face and his gloves didn’t cover his finger at the first knuckle.

  “I know we’re tired and beat up,” he said. “Just keep moving. I don’t want to stop here. Not until we find Jessup.”

  Johnny wanted to close his suit and turn on the internal climate control but didn’t have the extra fuel for such luxuries. Hauling his passenger was already draining his MK 7 CASPer, all the more annoying as he considered the six lane, elevated highway not far off, where ground cars raced away from the city. Probably heading to a nightclub or a cozy little baby factory in the suburbs while I drive this mecha toward the next contract.

  Down here on the ground, life felt primitive. Mercs like Johnny Boss and his company of hot-blooded fighters didn’t do sports bars or tract homes.

  Graffiti covered the support pillars. And nearby buildings. And ground cars that lingered too long in one place. Johnny smiled at an image of fictional street kids painting his company logo as they limped toward their objective.

  I need to sleep. Take in some calories. Forget about this mess for a day or three or twenty.

  “Where is the Merc Pit?” Cheeto Briggs said, his feet dangling from the back of Johnny’s MK 7.

  Cheeto had lost his entire CASPer after the Ultra Max battle and wasn’t too proud to ride. Facing backward seemed to bother him; Johnny felt the scrappy kid twisting this way and that to look around as the battered remnants of the Ogre Company marched toward the merc quarter.

  Everything was old and raw in this part of Nemis City.

  The first buildings had been carved from red rock with yellow veins of worthless minerals scribbling everything like the graffiti of a lunatic god. Walls were thick enough to withstand biannual dust storms that had been worse prior to terraforming attempts. There were prefabricated structures converted from temporary outposts to permanent facilities. Designed to last three years...why not use them for 100?

  He longed for the early days in Bartertown on Karma, much closer to Earth than this hellhole. The farther a merc went from Bartertown, the less likely he or she was to return.

  Everyone understood this fact.

  A fortress strong enough to withstand the assault of monsters who would never come and orbital bombardments that would never be allowed dominated the heights of each Nemis City quarter. Johnny Boss, Commanding Officer of the Ogre Fist Company, paused in the street. The shadow of Fort Mocarani should have offered a waft of cool air, but didn’t. Beyond what the natives called the First City, and everyone else called the Merc Ghetto, were highways reaching across the barren landscape to connect cities and mining towns and desperate farms. Mechas weren’t allowed on high speed thoroughfares. Calista wasn’t Earth, where human mercenaries were high rollers or rock stars.

  Traveling the planet at will in full battle regalia wasn’t allowed, which probably made sense. Johnny Boss wasn’t in a pro-cop mood right now. Jessup Moran, one of his quietest, but best,
fighters had been beaten within an inch of his life not far from here and sent to the Ultra Max for murder. One rogue cop had set this doomed odyssey in motion.

  Dirt stuck to his sweat. Copiously-applied grease leaked from the suits and the cheap wheeled conveyances he’d won in a bet three contracts ago. Which was good because a third of his people had their partial mechas loaded on the primitive flatbed trucks.

  His mechanic loved and hated the hunks of junk.

  “Everything sticks to this crap,” Lamart said.

  The man was a caricature of humanity. Balding—except where hair grew from his ears and nostrils—he sported one lazy eye, breath a man didn’t get without rotting teeth, and a laugh that could shiver paint from a mecha. His sun-damaged freckles made children cry, or laugh and call him a freak.

  He was strong as an ox, a solid fighter who took orders, and was good with a wrench. Ground vehicles were his responsibility.

  “Luck’in speed restrictions,” Lamart snort-grumbled.

  Johnny shook his head.

  The freckle-faced old man had been a kid like Cheeto once…a long time ago. He complained like a Giamidaq and could fix a power converter with spit and gum—or so he was fond of saying.

  “Dirt and grease, grease and dirt. Luck’in, duck’in, flim-flarin-filth.” Lamart dragged a stained rag over his gauntlets as though it might get them clean. He shuffled sideways, then forward, then sideways to keep up with the moving vehicle he was working on.

  That was the OFC way; never quit, never surrender, never use one bullet when two would do, and never stop moving.

  “Gotta lube the gears,” Davenport said, earning a laugh from the rest of the company.

  Same joke, different planet. Johnny Boss’s knees ached, even with his suit running at 93 percent efficiency. His ears wouldn’t stop ringing even with his canopy open. He didn’t look at his executive officer. The man wore him the hell out with his sleazy politics and self-aggrandizement.

  Gabriel Davenport was bandaged to his elbows—somehow able to act tough and show off his wounds at the same time. A less-seasoned performer would come across as a self-pitying whiner.