Prologue
“I see you!” screamed Skunk from the turret above as the ancient pulse pounder belched a volley of ionized slugs in rapid succession. “C’mon, now, get some!”
A steady stream of used thermal cartridges tumbled into the cramped cabin of the skimmer.
The old ground hugger bounced and bucked from the recoil of the giant cannon as the hover engine struggled gamely to keep it afloat. Up front the driver swore in some language only he knew.
Nobody on this rock was from this rock.
Jolly sure as hell wasn’t, and right now he was seriously considering his life choices.
He leapt up and swung his pulse rifle into the firing port on his side of the skimmer. The two screw-ups next to him did the opposite, both ducking their heads in unison. Considering they were stoned, Jolly was surprised they’d reacted at all. He wished he was stoned right now.
Up top, Skunk was still firing orgasmically.
Jolly peered down the cracked scope of his worn-out rifle. It was secondhand garbage, just like everything else he had. An ancient heads-up display projected into his mind. His embedded AI was off-the-shelf, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
An image from the skimmer’s big battle drone, floating somewhere overhead, formed in his mind. He couldn’t control it, but he could plug into it, and could probably get a second view from one of the tiny grasshopper drones making periodic sweeps. But he didn’t need it.
He spotted two miners running away from the remnants of an old rover engulfed in a cloud of kicked-up dirt and rock. It was one of the company rovers, indistinguishable from any of the other ubiquitous shit-colored gear here. At least two bodies were mashed into the twisted mess.
Jolly sighted on the closest of the fleeing pair and squeezed off a pulse, just as the skimmer bucked. In a blink, the running miners disappeared, replaced by huge steaming divots in the dirt.
“Those were mine, asshole!” Jolly screamed up at the turret. Skunk was just a selfish bitch with a cannon.
“Private Skunk!” exploded the snarling voice of Sarge from the front of the skimmer.
The shooting stopped.
“Yeah, boss?” came Skunk’s innocent reply.
“What the hell are you firing at?”
“Saw a disturbance, sir. Had to act fast,” Skunk said unconvincingly. He popped his head down from the turret, ear flaps hanging halfway to the steel-grated floor. “Probably saved our lives.”
Sarge sighed. “Jolly?”
“Definitely looked like they were up to something,” Jolly lied, aware Sarge knew he hadn’t seen a damn thing.
Sarge sighed again. “File a report when we get back. Again.”
Paperwork was the company’s latest attempt to rein them in and save the lives of a few miners in the process. Jolly had to admit it kinda worked. He’d even broken up a bar fight last week without killing anyone.
Maiming was more fun anyway.
Skunk’s smile evaporated. “Aw, Sarge, c’mon, man.”
Sarge wasn’t really a sergeant, of course, and Skunk wasn’t a private. Jolly didn’t know their real names, and didn’t care. Soldiers always talked about dying for the guy next to them. Jolly wouldn’t get off the shitter for anyone in this crew.
But Sarge was the boss. The mining company gave them the titles and set the hierarchy. On their paychecks it said only security detail.
To be honest, even that was a stretch. To quote the company’s certified headshrinker, they were “mostly a group of armed lunatics with nothing to do, on a small planet full of migrant miners who never really did anything at all, and definitely nothing worthy of a full security detail.”
A short time after that report was filed, the shrink died in a small arms accident at the shooting range behind the security hut. Tragic.
But the company paid on time, and in the mighty Union of Merchant Settlements, that was almost unheard of. Jolly heard the Union wasn’t even paying real soldiers anymore, but they heard lots of strange things these days, particularly about the military. Especially about the home world. Jolly was starting to believe it wasn’t just gossip.
As if to prove his point, the man in combat armor sitting next to Sarge put his hand firmly on Sarge’s shoulder.
This creep was military. Union Marine. The genuine article.
He’d shown up this morning at the security trailer wearing his shiny black armor, flanked by fifty Union soldiers. Faster than you could take a piss, they were suiting up and jumping in the skimmers and heading out to … well, somewhere. That was need to know, or something.
The soldiers were behind them in the other three skimmers.
That’s us, thought Jolly. Private security. Tip of the spear.
“We need to hurry,” the creep said in a monotone voice that absolutely wasn’t hurried at all. “Let your men do as they please.”
Sarge looked at the meaty hand on his shoulder, then nodded. He looked back at Skunk. “Just go easy,” he said, as the hand slid slowly off his shoulder.
Skunk blew him a kiss and pulled himself back up into the turret.
It was the creep’s eyes, Jolly decided. They were just completely dead. Unreadable. It was unnerving as hell.
Gnarly kicked Jolly in the shin. The stoned asshole was still on the floor of the skimmer, his helmet bouncing against the grating. His buddy Dash was next to him, a guy whose life mission appeared to include following Gnarly around and agreeing with everything he said.
Jolly sighed and bent over, his own helmet falling off. He hadn’t bothered to clip it, and watched distractedly as it rolled to the far end of the skimmer. “What, Gnarles?”
“Those guys,” he said, waving in the direction of the creep. “They’re everywhere on the home world. My sister told me. Well, her friend told her. But still. Like, everywhere. Like, they’re starting to run security for, like, the City of Light.”
The City of Light was the capital. It was a great name, since there was no light and barely any city.
“Security,” Dash squealed. “Like us!” He laughed out loud, then realized the creep was looking straight at him, so he tried to pass it off as a cough.
A moment later, Jolly felt the skimmer shudder as it passed over a ridge.
Skunk let loose a string of obscenities and popped his head back down from the turret. He looked like he was in shock. “Sarge, are you seeing this?”
Sarge was staring out the skimmer’s front window. He didn’t say anything, but his broad shoulders suddenly slumped.
The driver swore again in his peculiar tongue.
“We’re here,” announced the creep.
The skimmer juddered to a sudden stop.
With the engines off and the rattling floor finally still, the silence almost hurt Jolly’s ears.
“That … can’t be,” Sarge whispered, his voice faltering. “Can’t be.”
Jolly turned and looked out his firing port. It took a moment to understand what he was seeing.
A mountain? Out here? No way.
Mountains didn’t just appear. Not nestled in the base of craters.
But it wasn’t a mountain. The angles were too perfect. It was artificial.
It was some kind of structure covered in grey ore, as if it had been sitting in a huge cave for centuries collecting mineral deposits, yet the shape was unmistakable once you saw it.
It was a starship.
A massive starship.
It was way bigger than the Union freighters Jolly’s mother used to fly between the inner worlds. Way, way bigger than the military transports that flew to this godforsaken rock. There were huge symbols on it, visible even at this distance. Alien symbols.
Jolly felt a tingle of excitement. He had seen pictures of alien artifacts before, but he’d never imagined he’d actually get to see one with his own eyes. Sure, maybe if you were born in the Empire or the Alliance or the Cardinal Order, this wouldn’t be such a big deal. They dug them up all the time. Even the Asiatic Rings had found them.
But out here in the Union? On the edge of the void? Never.
The doors to the other skimmers were already open, and soldiers were streaming out. Their lines were ragged, but they were being shepherded along at pace and with purpose by commanders in their ranks. A cluster of weaponized drones took up positions to support the advancing group.
As the hatch to their own skimmer popped open, the creep stepped out and strode toward the alien ship, as if it was something he did every day.
Jolly looked around. “What the actual hell is going on?”
No one spoke.
“Should we follow him?” asked Gnarly, pointing after the creep. He was still sitting on the floor of the skimmer, oblivious to what the others had seen.
“I’m gonna go with a big fat no,” Skunk replied as he dropped down from the turret.
“What do you mean, no?” Jolly realized he was talking too loud and too fast. “It’s a spaceship. An alien spaceship!”
Skunk nodded. “Yeah, and?”
“And let’s go check it out!”
Skunk shook his head. “You think these apes are gonna be cool with us being here?” This last question was aimed at Sarge.
“Hey guys,” Gnarly said.
Everyone ignored him.
“We were ordered out here,” Sarge said. “What can they say?”
“I’m more concerned with what they’ll do.”
“Guys,” Gnarly repeated.
Jolly turned to him. “What?”
Gnarly pointed. “What’s that?”
The ground near the ship had started to shimmer, but before anyone could speak, the sky lit up with blinding blue light as a bolt burst forth from the base of the ship.
It seemed to wash over the gathered soldiers, swirling around them like angry storm clouds.
Their drones went dead and dropped from the sky.
In unison the soldiers started messing with their headgear, almost struggling, like they were desperate to pull off their goggles or something.
“What’re they doing?” Gnarly asked.
Jolly squinted. “I can’t tell,” he said. “Skunk, can you—”
“It looks like—” Skunk started, then stopped. “Holy. Shit.”
Sarge leapt into the cockpit’s jumpseat. “Get us out of here!”
“Wait, what?” said Jolly, perplexed. He didn’t understand, and was suddenly jerked around as the skimmer leapt up off the ground.
They were turning, but the old rust box could only move in long wide arcs. They swung around close to the soldiers, who turned as one.
Now Jolly could see it.
Blood poured down their faces.
They had gouged their own eyes out. Pulpy chunks of flesh hung loose from their fingers.
“Go, go, go!” screamed Skunk.
The soldiers began marching in perfect crisp lines, heading back to the skimmers. No one stumbled or faltered.
Jolly was numb. He spotted the black combat armor of the creep that rode with them. He was near the alien ship, his cold eyes conspicuously intact.
“You are needed,” he boomed in an impossibly deep voice, which somehow still managed to be monotone. “Bring the others. Our time has come at last.”
The creep glanced casually at their retreating skimmer, like he’d just noticed a pesky fly. He pulled out a small curved weapon of some kind. It looked like a toy.
“I’m wasting him!” Skunk yelled and leapt back into the top turret, ready for a fight.
But it was over before it started.
A blue stream of energy poured from the creep’s small weapon, like water from a hose, and where it struck the skimmer, it sliced straight through. In a blink, the old pulse slugger was split in half along with the gun turret, Skunk still inside.
The split continued along the length of the skimmer. Sarge tried to dive out of the front cabin, but was too late. The driver screamed. The front windshield exploded, and the skimmer ripped in half as its structural beams collapsed. It fell to the surface with a deafening crunch, skidding along the dirt.
Jolly was thrown around the main cabin, bouncing off the ceiling before faceplanting on the grated floor.
He staggered to his feet, blood spurting from his busted nose. Dazed, he stared, mesmerized as a stream of blue light weaved lazily around him, slicing through hardened steel like a knife through potter’s clay.
Gnarly slammed into him and thrust him out the open hatch, just as the energy stream completed its loop and the engine core of the skimmer exploded.
Waves of scalding metal fragments screamed past Jolly’s face. His eyes burned. Something sharp pinched his side. “I’m hit—”
He rolled over to face Gnarly. A piece of metal was lodged in the middle of his face.
Jolly scrambled to his feet. His side was wet, but he couldn’t feel anything. A voice told him he was in shock.
He squinted through the hot smoke billowing from the burning skimmer and found himself staring into the dead eyes of the creep. He was standing nonchalantly a hundred yards away, weapon at his side.
Jolly felt a jolt of adrenaline shoot through his body.
He jerked his pulse rifle to his shoulder as he rushed straight at the creep, screaming through the tang of salty blood on his lips.
He pumped pulse after pulse directly into the creep’s central mass, as if he was shooting cans off the fence outside the security trailer. “Come on!” he screamed, squeezing the trigger again and again.
The creep didn’t even flinch, every pulse bouncing off his armor.
Jolly kept running forward, willing the rifle to do more damage, still screaming in rage. “Come on, come on, come—”
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