Solar Kill Read online

  “Buy one? I can lift one.”

  “Buy one,’ Jack emphasized.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to know down to the slightest measurement from now on exactly how long I’ve worn the suit. And I want you to learn how to read the suit, too, until I get you out of here. I want you to learn to sense the life in it. Anything. Any twitch. Our lives are going to depend on it.

  Chapter 10

  Work?”

  Jack grinned, thinking of the late Marciane and his crew. “I like to kick ass.” At his back, was a long line of men, talking among themselves, taking little or no notice of him. All of them had been waiting since before dawn for the bar to open: it was hiring day.

  The grizzled man made a notation without looking up. “Skills?”

  This was the hard part. Jack hesitated a second before saying, “I own my own armor. Implanted weapons.”

  The man looked up then. Surrounded by his bottles of cheer, he looked anything but benevolent. Feral. Alert. Too alert.

  Jack scuffed a boot on the tavern floor. “Smithers recommended you,” he said. “I—ah—liberated a prototype of the stuff the Emperor ordered for his guard. He said you’d understand.”

  “You did, and he did,” the man said. His was the kind of lean expression that wrinkled vertically, running from mid-cheek to jaw, raying outward from the corners of his mouth. Then he looked back to his printouts. “If you’re discreet, I’m discreet. Take this disk. There’s an address on it. I understand they’re hiring fellows who like to … kick ass.”

  Jack took the hard disk and shrugged back through the line of men. Today was hiring day, obviously. He’d been in line since midmorning, waiting for the bar to open, so he could get in. He headed down the street to look for Amber. He found her inside a grocery store, trying to jimmy the automatic ordering machine.

  He grabbed her by the elbow and hauled her outside into the too bright, dusty and smuggy Malthen air.

  “Slag it, Jack! I almost had the access code.”

  “Amber, neither of us can afford to get arrested.”

  She puffed out her breath in exasperation. “We happen to be out of money. And I, for one, although I don’t eat much, I do eat regular. I’m hungry, Jack.”

  He brushed her errant bangs off her forehead. She’d left her makeup off today and looked about fourteen in the baggy blouse, cut-off knickers, and bow-tied shoes. “I just got a job offer.”

  Her expression changed instantly. “That’s great! When are we going?”

  “I. Me. I think this is one interview I’d better go it alone.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks on the walkway, even as he hailed a taxi skimmer. “I’m the official timer, remember?”

  As if he could forget it. But Jack shook his head. “I’m not wearing the armor. Look, Amber. These guys are sometimes legit but oftentimes not, and they don’t like witnesses to their deals. If I go in there, I’ll take the job, regardless of whether I like what I hear or not, because if I listen, turn it down and walk away—I’m a liability. Nobody stays in business too long with a lot of liabilities walking around.”

  “So if they hire you to murder somebody, you’ll do it.” She sniffed.

  “No. But they’ll never know I didn’t do it. Chances are, if they hired me, they hired somebody else, too. I just won’t get in the way. Beside, you don’t hire a soldier if you want an assassin.”

  “What will you get hired for?”

  He shrugged. A bright yellow beam headed toward them. He crumpled the last few Dominion credits in his pocket. Enough to get Amber home, if he took a line to get to the address. Maybe enough so she could order lunch from room service. He started to pull his hand out and answer her, as the taxi swerved over and the door opened out.

  “Amber!” the driver snarled, snatching at the cuff of her sleeve. She let out a screech and jumped as if she’d been scalded, and bolted.

  The driver threw himself out of the taxi, bowling Jack over, and took off after her. He was chunky, and his fat folds danced inside his bright yellow jumpsuit as Jack rolled to his feet and took off after the two of them. Jack panted. The driver he kept in sight, but Amber was nowhere to be seen, though the driver evidently caught a glimpse of her.

  Their steps echoed inside the concrete well of buildings. Shadow, then sunlight, blazed across them, and the driver’s balding head blossomed with sweat. Jack heard him wheeze as he pulled even, and drove his shoulder into the man’s ribcage.

  The driver went flying with Jack on top of him. His head slapped the side of the curb and he lay still, sweat bubbling out of his bulbous face.

  Jack got up slowly, panting. With any luck, the driver wouldn’t remember much when he woke. Unfortunately, the taxi’s memory banks would. He turned heel.

  “Amber!”

  His voice echoed back. The girl was as good as gone.

  Jack retraced his steps back to the taxi. Its dashboard lay open, gutted. Amber sat on the hood, waiting for him. She grinned at his expression. “What took you so long?” Then, somberly, “He knows Rolf.”

  “Then I better get you off the streets.” He looked at her. “And fed, too.”

  The bleak look brightened. “That’s a start!”

  The disk took him to an opulent home that was armored like a fortress. Fed into the gates, it led him into a tunnel entrance, where cameras clicked and servos whirled as they moved to keep at least one lens focused on his every move. Jack ignored them, figuring that anywhere he went to inquire about work was going to have a certain amount of paranoia and security. He would be surprised if it’d been any different. They wouldn’t find out anything about him, and he was certain that they had no intention of feeding their observations into the master system. The computer network here was likely to be very one-sided about the exchange of information. He faced a massive door with three balls balanced overhead. He pushed the hard disk into the slot, where it was promptly swallowed. After a moment’s pause, the door swung open.

  “I’m a moneychanger,” the woman said. Like its owner, the room was ample and cluttered with antiques and the spoils of a good life. She sat on a form-fitting chair, and her ample form more than fit it. It overflowed, a curve here and a dimpled hollow there. She was sensuous in a way he could not describe, until he realized that the music playing had a subliminal fetch to the tones.

  Jack felt ill at ease standing in front of her. When she saw that he had discovered the subliminal message in her musical background, she reached out with bejewelled fingers and turned the sound down. Another tap of a gold and diamond nail, and a second background selection filtered into the air. She waited for Jack to listen to it. In a second or two, he realized that he had a great deal of confidence in her and was inspired by her honesty.

  Then he grinned.

  “May I suggest we conduct our business without interference?”

  She smiled back. The remote brought the music to a sudden halt. “I have my little ways,’ she said.

  “All of them subliminal,” he answered. “Why waste them on me?”

  She shrugged. It was an odd movement, considering her dimpled and rounded shoulders left little room for her neck. “I’m hiring a crew.”

  “So I gathered. Moneychangers usually don’t fight wars, they finance them.”

  “That’s one way of making money,” she said. “Call me Sadie, please.”

  He nodded. “Jack.”

  “All right, Jack. I make more money if the money I lend out is repaid. That would be an obvious fact, would it not?”

  He nodded again.

  She uncrossed her ankles and sat up straight, indignantly. “Well, someone has overlooked his agreement with me.”

  “And you want your money collected?”

  “Precisely.”

  “And where is it?”

  Sadie smiled. She was pale of skin and her lips were tattooed a brilliant crimson. Her wise brown eyes crinkled. “The armored satellite of General Gilgenbush.”

 
Jack whistled. Even he had heard tales of the space station of the rogue general. He’d have better luck breaking back into the palace.

  “You are afraid, no?”

  “I’d be stupid if I wasn’t. Who’s captaining?”

  She moved and reached for a hard disk, similar to the one which had led him to her house. “I had hoped for Marciane, but he’s been retired lately. So the man you will be working under is called Tomcat.” She waited for a reaction and, getting none, smiled. “I’ll pay five thousand Dominions a man, with a half-time bonus for Gilgenbush’s balls.”

  Jack flushed, but asked, “How long will I be gone?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  He mulled that over. Accepting Sadie’s job meant that Amber could be alone for some time, and with Rolf hot on her trail … he swallowed. “I’ve had some hard times lately, Madame Sadie. It’s going to take a little front money to get my equipment ready—”

  She frowned. “That’s your problem, soldier.”

  “I understand that, ma’am. But I thought, since you’re in the loan business—”

  Her expression softened. “Well, perhaps something could be arranged. What have you got for collateral?”

  “Well … there’s my kid sister…”

  “You’ve arranged for what?” Amber’s voice went up with every word until it reached an ear-piercing high.

  “Now,” Jack said soothingly. “Once you’ve done it, it won’t bother you.”

  “I won’t be frozen like a slab of cold meat!”

  “Sadie has her own storage vaults. She has a full bank of people down under there. Think of it this way—you won’t even know I’ve been gone. No worries, no wrinkles.”

  “People actually leave other people for loans?” She pushed her wonderment aside to continue being indignant. “I won’t do it!” She shuddered. “I can’t do it.”

  “Rolf will never look for you there.”

  At those words, she quieted. She pulled her feet up onto the couch, and sat, curled into a ball, very still. Finally, dark lashes fringing her big eyes, she looked up at Jack.

  “I have to, don’t I?”

  He repeated, “Rolf will never look for you there.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “Like sleeping. Dreaming. Around and around in circles, dreaming.”

  She hugged her thin legs close. “I guess if you did it for seventeen years, I can do it for a couple of months.”

  He felt just a moment of sadness, but he covered it up and smiled, as she reached forward then, grabbed and held out a slice of that ancient Terran delicacy, pizza, and said, apologetically, “I saved you some, and it’s even good cold.”

  It wasn’t that good cold—but then, nothing ever was.

  Chapter 11

  Sadie liked to be prepared. In the sterile white prep rooms leading to the cryogenic bays, she had a rabbi, a witch, and a Walker waiting. Several other groups of people talked quietly and somberly to each other and, in one corner, a husband bid tearful farewell to his wife. As Amber clung, trembling, to his elbow. Jack checked the Walker over. He looked mild and ordinary enough, but the gold cross hanging from his neck was big enough to choke a Thrak. The walker saw him looking and tucked it inside the neck of his jumpsuit with a peevish expression. Amber chuckled. “He thinks you’re a thief.” Jack shrugged. “You stay out of this.” Eyes widening, she looked up at him. “But a bit of comfort before I get frozen …”

  “Touch his jewelry and I’ll have Madam Sadie leave you in cold sleep.”

  He felt an answering shudder and the girl said reluctantly, “I was just teasing. Besides, I kind of like Walkers.”

  Jack had only had the briefest exposure to them. Even as a Christian sect, they were rather aggressive, eagerly searching for the galaxies for proof that their savior had walked the worlds before them. They paused as a nurse approached.

  “Which one of you?”

  “Her,” Jack said as Amber went suddenly quiet.

  The woman frowned. “A bit young for this, isn’t she?”

  “Talk to your employer about it.” But as the hard-faced woman reached for Amber, Jack found himself prying her fingers off his arm. The nurse took a firm grip on her charge and began to march her away.

  Amber looked back, her face deadly pale, her eyes like sunken holes. “Jack!”

  “I won’t leave you alone. When you’re prepped, I’ll be back in. I’ll even hold your hand when you go to sleep.” He tightened his jaw, as the door closed behind Amber in midsentence, and he wondered if she’d heard him.

  As he gathered his gear and waited for transport, Jack found his jaw still clenched and stretched to relax it. Amber had little to worry about. If he died on this job, his death benefits were enough to cancel the debt and release her from Sadie’s vaults, plus give her something to tide her over. Rolf was another matter…

  The transport crew bitched as they picked him and his bags up. The case carrying his suit weighed as much as he did, probably, and one of them groused. “What th’ hell ya got in here, a body?”

  The other puffed, “Most o’ you guys carry your own gear.”

  Jack just smiled thinly as they staggered past him and loaded the rear of the vehicle. He got in the front seat, leaving the second man perching, doubled-over, in the cargo compartment, and ignored their thinly veiled comments about his ego and ancestry as they took him to the spaceport. He knew they’d deal with him soon enough, for they were old hands on Tomcat’s crew, and he was subject to “new man” hazing as soon as he set foot in their territory.

  As they unloaded, and he watched the ramp carrying the trunk into the bowels of the sleek warship, he spotted the outer accoutrements of the vessel. Stealth equipment, well-hidden, but unmistakable, met his eyes. Stealth in deepspace was a very risky venture. Jack wondered briefly where General Gilgenbush had his base, and if the stealth equipment could be used. Not unless there was mass around somewhere to mask their approach.

  The two crewmen bowed and said, “Come on aboard.”

  Jack grinned. “What’s Tomcat like, anyway?”

  They looked at one another. One, a tall black man whom deepspace had burned even darker, smiled widely. “What’s th’ boss like? Haven’t you heard of him, greenie?”

  “Heard of him, but never served under him.”

  The second man, a redhead with a mass of freckles over his pug-nosed face, flashed his teeth. “As long as he keeps you from coming home with your ass in a sling, he’s a good commander. Right?”

  Jack, though he did not voice it, thought to himself that there were other criteria. He paused on the gangplank, watching a dock across the far side of the bay. Then he ducked his head and entered the ship quickly, knowing he’d seen who he thought he had … Short-Jump, late of the Montreal, watching him from across the docking areas, hatred etched into his ugly face.

  They gave Jack a cubbyhole for a room, with a sleeping sling tied across it. He reflected wryly that Amber probably had more room in her cryogenic bay. It meant that he had no choice but to leave the suit in its trunk in the shop. He had it bagged there, with a refrigeration unit keeping it cold, causing much eyebrow raising, but if Amber was right and the cold retarded growth, then the eccentricity was worth it.

  He saw Tomcat come aboard, his lithe, compact form draped with gushing females crying sorrowfully at his leaving, and knew, with a small smile, why the man was so named. The commander, with silvery blond hair, narrow waist, and broad shoulders, was so good looking that Jack was willing to bet his life that it wasn’t the face Tomcat had been born with—or even his second face. Injuries were a common hazard, and cosmetic surgery an expected fringe benefit.

  Red-haired and freckled Barney had been standing behind him at the portwindow when Tomcat shrugged off his ladies. He grinned. “Now you know why we call him Tomcat.”

  “Never would have guessed it,” Jack answered.

  Barney’s eyes narrowed, wrinkling the bridge of his pug nose. He paused a moment an
d Jack left him wondering.

  But Tomcat earned his respect on the first day out, by calling an orientation meeting for all mercenaries, not in the mess, but in the Shop, where all men were to be stripping down their weapons and readying them for the sortie to come.

  It put them all on an equal footing, Jack thought. Not in display to impress anyone, but working shoulder to shoulder, professionals, though each had different talents. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched a thread-slender man with braided blue-black hair take apart and oil each one of his projectile guns, small lethal beauties that could punch a hole through a deepspace suit, and, in some cases, even Jack’s own armor. Tomcat sat on an empty ammo casing, his torso bare and smeared with soot and glistening with oil, as he worked on his own flamethrower.

  Shop had a smell and sound all its own. Sweat and oil, solder and metal, Jack could almost taste it as well. Tools made faint noises as they took apart bolts and stripped wires and reconnected tubings. Cloths silently rubbed lubrication along metal and plastic barrels. Screwdrivers and probes delicately adjusted sightings. There were no heroes in Shop … only mechanics.

  Still, Jack sensed the change in atmosphere as he pulled the suit out. He needed a cherry picker for the job. He’d already stripped and re-outfitted the suit, so it hung, glistening, in the light and he remembered what Marciane had said: “Like a baby’s first tooth.” It twisted on the hook, opalescent, limbs hanging.

  Tomcat got up from his seat and came over to look at it. He whistled between his impeccable capped front teeth. “Look at that. Now I’ve seen armor … but nothing like that. Sadie, for once, wasn’t exaggerating. Where’d you get it?”

  “I lifted it from the labs making the prototypes for the new guard.”

  The pale yellow eyebrows moved, arching delicately. “No kidding. How long you had it?”

  “Couple of years.”