Star Force: Marauders (SF63) Page 8

  There had been three that they discovered, all of which were out of armor and either base support or fighters that had been caught off guard and couldn’t get to their armory in time, which the Marauders had already emptied and loaded up on some trucks to take back to the ship. They had four altogether, tucked inside the 17s bay along with the tank, Valerie, and some other craft they hadn’t needed to use, and had found on previous occasions that it was better to haul their own loot out rather than to have to rely on the locals to assist them, for on occasion there were arguments and the Marauders didn’t like giving other people leverage on them.

  And today was one of those days.

  There was a flurry of words between the translator and the Batarank representative, who wasn’t the same one that had hired them. That often caused complications, but in this case it was the local government who had done the contracting, so technically it was the same party they were dealing with.

  “They insist,” Le’han’trel said from behind his helmet faceplate, “that the prisoners face justice.”

  “Meaning they want to kill them?”

  “I think that’s a safe bet…or worse,” he added as an unpleasant afterthought ran through his head.

  “If there’s any killing to be done it’s at our discretion,” Mason said. “Remind them of that fact.”

  The Protovic issued the translation to the translator, who intentionally kept his own voice as neutral as possible, as per standing Marauder orders. If there was to be any intonation it would come from the mercs themselves, which Le’han’trel added by removing his helmet and staring the shorter Batarank down with his almost tattoo-like glowing facial patches giving him an intimidating visage as the translation was carried out.

  There was a back and forth that followed, with Mason out of the loop as Le’han’trel handled whatever was going down. Eventually the client backed down, or at the very least he stopped talking, which Mason assumed meant he was capitulating.

  “Care to clue me in?” he asked when the talking had stopped.

  “We need to pack up and go sooner rather than later,” the Protovic suggested. “They refused to give us the remainder of our payment until the prisoners were turned over to them. I informed them that if they didn’t make the payment we’d take it ourselves, in a manner of our choosing. I think I called his bluff, but I wouldn’t want to give them extra time to get brave…or stupid. I think local politics are also coming in to play, with some of these idiots thinking they can gain traction by making an example of the militants.”

  “Remind him that our contract gives us the right to do with the prisoners as we wish and that we expect payment before we leave the spaceport, then walk away with me.”

  Le’han’trel did as he was told, then when the translator issued the order the three of them turned and walked across the building they were in that had been used by the Marauders to store captured gear that the Bataranks were now inspecting to make sure it wasn’t native to the planet. Outside was one of the trucks being loaded up, but there was still enough odds and ends to fill two more, which they’d have to wait on since they were already headed back to the ship with some of the prisoners.

  There were 78 in total, most of which were wounded, some badly enough they might not survive anyway, but Mason wasn’t going to let them remain here to suffer further injustices. One didn’t right the other, and the Marauders were about preventing such things. If they couldn’t stop them from happening then they’d avenge them, but that never involved torture or reprisals of the sort that many ‘peaceful’ civilizations resorted to when they had a chance for some payback against their former victimizers.

  The galaxy was a very harsh place, especially outside the ADZ, but the Marauders were never going to succumb to such barbarism, under any circumstances. They may have left Star Force for a variety of reasons, but the righteousness of their warfare principles was something that would forever linger on with them and the others that no longer served. The difference with Brayden’s mercenaries was that they still continued to embrace righteousness rather than leaving it as an ignored internal conscious. The galaxy was harsh indeed, but they intended to fight that harshness in their own way, and no matter what these militants did, they weren’t going to leave them behind to be torn to bits by the locals.

  Leaving the impression that the Marauders were in charge, which they were, considering their military might exceeded that of the militants which the Bataranks couldn’t handle, Mason and Le’han’trel began roaming the few locations in the base where they still hand people, informing them of the situation and goosing them on a bit. He didn’t know if the Bataranks would try and force the issue, counting on the good will of the Marauders as a weak point for them to leverage, but if they had to play bad guy briefly then so be it. They’d hold them to the contract whether they liked it or not, even if they had to loot the local facilities themselves to get their payment.

  One thing Mason had learned out here was that weakness invited predation, and the last thing a mercenary unit wanted was clients to think they had the option of not paying up after the fact. They’d already received a 25% down payment, but future clients had to understand that they were not to be trifled with, so they couldn’t let one get by without paying, even if it meant going to extreme measures to get it.

  He didn’t know how much of the Marauder’s reputation had reached the Bataranks, but if they pushed this then they were going to get a lesson one way or another. Best option right now was to spirit away the prisoners quickly before they had a chance to plan something, but they still had to wait on the trucks, so he commed the ship and had the Valerie take to the air…a little added disincentive for the locals to get too arrogant in their new position.

  Either way this went down, the Marauders would not be taking a second contract with these people. Anyone who even hinted at not paying was scratched off their list automatically, and these guys had just crossed that line.

  Fortunately the empty trucks returned within the hour and Mason was able to cram the last of the booty in along with the remaining prisoners, who were the least injured of them all and could suffer through the cramped positions, which had them laying like logs on top of each other bound up in order to make them all fit. They deserved that small measure of discomfort anyway, but Mason wasn’t going to wait around for another truck regardless. He and the other Marauders didn’t have room to board it for the ride back, so they formed a double file column behind and followed on foot, getting a bonus workout run in with the truck going slow enough not to leave them behind.

  It also made for a show of strength, for they were wearing their armor and carrying their weapons as they headed back to the spaceport, making it clear that no one was going to stop the truck and take the prisoners away from them. The others had made it back fine without more than a pair of infantry riding along as escort, but with this being the last one the extra show of force was a good, inadvertent addition, not to mention the Valerie that was casually circling above.

  It was too far for them to run the whole way, being some 90 kilometers distant, so Mason had them running in formation until an empty truck was able to return. When it did they loaded up and drove off at normal speeds, getting through the Batarank streets without incident, for the locals made way for them well ahead of their route, probably due to the local broadcasts, for there were cameras everywhere now that they were out of the base that would now return to being a livestock processing facility.

  Part of Mason wanted to leave it in rubble, but that wasn’t part of the mission. Despite leaving Star Force, neither he nor any of the other Marauders could bring themselves to eat meat, and a facility that was purposed with slaughtering herds and processing their bodies into foodstuffs was an outright abomination, but there was only so much the Marauders could do to tidy up the galaxy, and their efforts on this planet were now done.

  That was something about this job that Mason hated, but that he’d had to force himself to get used to wit
hout it becoming apathy. No matter how many injustices they attended to, there were always more just sitting on their doorstep. He had to keep his mind partially numb to it or otherwise it would have driven him insane, and more than a few ex-Marauders couldn’t take it, having to return to the ADZ where things were more civilized.

  Mason told himself he was out here to seek out problems and fix them, and even one taken care of was better than none if he hid away in the ADZ. He had to pick and choose when to intervene, while never allowing himself to stop caring about those within sight that he couldn’t save.

  When they got back to the spaceport they ran the trucks up into the bay of their ship and sealed up the main door, putting a final stamp on the proclamation that the militants would be going with them, after which Mason found the local representative and asked for the remainder of their payment.

  There was no refusal, fortunately, and the Lieutenant made a quick inspection of the cargo crates that had the various goods they’d agreed to in the contract. The 17 opened its bay door up once more and the mercenaries took their payment onboard, along with the Valerie that finally came back in once the deal was concluded, then the ship took to the sky, saying goodbye and good riddance to the planet.

  9

  July 7, 2735

  Noop System

  Tieor

  The Marauder’s small jumpship returned back to their primary staging base on the commerce planet after taking a detour to a nearby star system where Mason offloaded their prisoners. The merc unit had a long-standing agreement with the locals on Tryion, who operated a respectable prison facility that the Marauders typically dumped their captives into. They’d be kept there for several years minimum, but after deposit the Marauders had no further say in their fate.

  They might run into them again down the road, but that was just part of the business. And more often than not, anyone that surrendered to or was captured by the Marauders didn’t want to have anything to do with them again and spread the word to others, which only added to the mercs’ rep in this region. Regardless, the unit couldn’t be tasked with housing prisoners, so the ability to offload them somewhere they knew they wouldn’t be mistreated was more than worth the occasional freebie mission than ran on Tryion.

  It was a poor world that couldn’t afford mercs so the agreement was mutually beneficial to both parties, but especially so to the Marauders. They didn’t want to be forced into fighting engagements where they didn’t have the ability to take prisoners. Brayden had stated up front that they were never to become a ‘kill only’ organization, so securing a means to offload captives was a priority for the Marauders.

  That meant that after dropping this load off on Tryion Mason didn’t have to devote men to guard them, foodstuffs and medical supplies to sustain them, and keep in the back of his mind the possibility of them getting loose and doing damage to his crew or ship. The mercs could handle short stints like that, but not never-ending ones, with the second leg of their return trip to the commerce world being relaxed and boring downtime that some of them used to rest, others to do some training in the limited facilities onboard ship.

  They made the slow jump back to the planet as was protocol, to not give away the full strength of their engines to onlookers, but as soon as they braked against the gravity well and the comm signals and sensors began to register normally they knew there was trouble.

  “What the fuck?” the helmsman said, getting dozens of warning beacons from across orbit. “Get the Lieutenant, now!”

  “What’s wrong?” another bridge officer asked.

  “Just get him…go! Don’t ask questions.”

  “Going,” the Protovic said, leaving the helmsman alone on the bridge. A little over a minute later he returned at a run along with Mason and a few others.

  “What do we got?”

  “Major trouble. Looks like there’s someone attacking the planet.”

  “What the hell,” Mason said, walking over to a side station and pulling up the sensor feeds. “Who?”

  “Best I can tell it’s a hodgepodge fleet, and they’re not broadcasting any ID. We’re not close to any of them now. They don’t seem to care about the jumplines. They’re clustered around four orbitals and making hits on selective ships in orbit. Where do you want me to put her?”

  “Keep your eyes on them and keep your distance until we figure out what’s up,” Mason said, his eyes on his own display screen. “Get a comm link to base and check on their status.”

  One of the other Marauders slid into the comm station and made the connection as the others lingered around, waiting to see what the Lieutenant would have them do. He didn’t say anything, studying the information feeds crisscrossing the planet and pulling up every news report, emergency bulletin, and military chatter that they’d broken the codes for earlier. Mason realized that there was also a ground war going on, with Lethol already having been taken and two other major cities currently under assault.

  “Base,” the Marauder at the comm station announced, tossing a headset over to the Lieutenant.

  He slid it on as he continued to study his screen. “Mason here. Report.”

  “I’m very glad you’re back,” Krivan said genuinely. “Tieor has gone berserk. 18 days ago this fleet shows up in orbit and takes a manufacturing orbital. Didn’t even try anything fancy, just blew their way in the front door. Planetary defense force intervened and promptly got their asses kicked, though they did take down a few of their ships in the process. They’ve owned orbit since then.”

  “Who are they?”

  “No one knows. A mix of races, a lot of them local, and they’re all using different equipment. Different uniforms too. Best guess would be a mercenary coalition, based on the way they fight, but none of the pieces has been identified. Either they’ve been real quiet around here or they’re from pretty far away.”

  “Is the base secure?”

  “Other than some looters snooping around, we’re fine. The major fighting hasn’t gotten here yet, but the local population is causing almost as much damage as the invaders. It’s a mix of panic and opportunists, with every criminal band and drunken nobody out tearing shit up and grabbing hold of whatever they can. They know the defense force can’t patrol the streets and fight the invading army…and they’re getting the crap kicked out of them anyway. One city is down, and we expect another three will be in their hands within two days.”

  “How many are currently under assault? I’m digging through what news reports I can now.”

  “Allow me,” Krivan said, transferring the Marauder’s database up to the 17. “I’ve been having our guys pull recon runs across the planet while canceling current assignments. The defense force has put out a call to all merc units and anyone with combat training to help in the ground fighting. I haven’t given them an answer, but price wasn’t an issue. They’ll pay pretty much anything within reason.”

  “How many troops do these guys have?” Mason said, running through the Marauder numbers and seeing that this enemy was fighting not just in two more cities, but had fingers out into 18 currently. There were more than 2,000 the size of Chrandor, which is where the Marauder base was located, and it looked like this army was hitting the largest and/or most strategically important locations first.

  “We have current estimates at over 50,000 infantry, but more troops ships continue to arrive on a regular basis, so we have no idea how large this is actually going to get.”

  “What the hell is going on…” Mason whispered, getting up to speed quickly thanks to the professional sitrep he was reading rather than sorting through the civilian grid mess.

  “Lieutenant, are we getting involved or should I start packing up shop?”

  “How many other merc units have responded?”

  “A lot of the smaller ones, but they don’t have anywhere to run to anyway since they’re based on planet. A couple of the big names have sent piecemeal forces in, but the rest are like us and waiting to see what’s going on before they
commit to anything.”

  “How much longer do you think the defense force is going to hold out?”

  “They’re not holding onto anything right now. It’s all a fighting retreat.”

  “I mean how long before they’re all dead and they’ve only got mercs and police left to fight with?”

  “Maybe a few more weeks. I don’t know, they’re not being stupid about it and standing their ground pointlessly. They’re just outmatched.”

  “Equipment?”

  “Everything we know is in the report I sent you, and it’s largely unimpressive…but better than what the locals have by far. Decent personal armor, no shields that we can tell, and enough tank and air support to shut down any large groupings of the defense force infantry.”

  “What happened to their toys?”

  “Targeted and taken out in the first two days, many still sitting in their bays in other cities. Whoever this is, they’re not hitting targets blindly. They planned this out well in advance.”

  “What’s the status of our spaceport?”

  “I’ve locked it down with a few of our people supplementing the locals. The looters haven’t been able to get to it, but it’s been busy with traffic seeing that it’s one of the few reliable ones left on the planet.”

  “Good work. Make us a hole, we’re coming down.”

  “Already got a slot reserved for you. Not sure how the enemy fleet is going to respond though, they’ve been picking and choosing what ships to go after. Nothing predictable to my eye.”