Strange Company by Nick Cole (best ebook reader for ubuntu txt) 📕

“Ever thought about merc’n?” asked the First Sergeant like some used speeder salesman talking about a low down and high finance with E-Z credit. No payments for a year.

Guy shook his head and hustled on. He’d been warned by someone who knew better. Or he was just tired, had had enough war, and was hoping some hauler might get him “home” in sixty or so years. The bulk of all-star travel, and especially the haulers, is sub-light. Meaning it’s a long hop between worlds and home might not be there anymore. Especially if they paved over your neighborhood and put up a starport.

The First Sergeant went on that way for most of the line. Three guys joined though. Right there on the spot and the First Sergeant took ’em back to the supply crawler to see what they needed in the ways of gear and as much company indoc as he could shove into ’em.

“I’ll keep ’em with Voodoo, Sergeant Orion,” he shouted as he drove ’em off in a spray of mud and rain. “You got a lot goin’ on tonight. Don’t need new kids to add to the chaos.”

I drank the cold coffee I’d brewed up in my smart canteen that had stopped acting so smart about halfway through this war. It’s a drug and I needed drugs to keep doing my job.

I was feeling, even as the rain began to patter and I just sat there in my poncho trying to get ready to get it on, that there would be a lot more get it on tonight and I needed to be ready.

You know how it is.

I knew we were supposed to be moving soon, but I still hadn’t linked up with Reaper’s latest squad acquisition, the Monarch known as the Seeker.

Which was too much to even contemplate in the early evening rain and gloom with nothing but cold coffee and a smoke. Nox was now my driver. He was scrolling through his smart device and trying to get onto any net. They were all collapsing or dead. One was showing the standard Ultra battle flag, crimson and black with a silver Spartan’s helmet undulating. The words “Surrender and Prepare for Judgment” glared out from the tiny device.

“Well that’s just…” But I was too tired to finish and so I just inhaled the last of my smoke.

When she showed, it was both whelming and underwhelming. The Seeker.

As has been stated in this account she was like some otherworldly creature that walked among mere mortal men. She was tall and beautiful. Graceful and definitely used to being in charge. The huge green eyes, large, almost like a Katari’s, stared into you and glittered with intelligence beyond your imagining. It was hard, staring into them, remembering that somewhere back along the evolutionary tree both of you shared some kind of common DNA. You almost laughed at yourself for being a rube that would think such a stupid thing. Really you just wanted to stand there and drool and promise you’d kill anything for her.

Rumors swore that Monarchs had advanced pheromone control. But some women are just beautiful enough to cut a chump for regardless of chemicals. So, there’s that.

Her cheeks were sculpted. Hair a lustrous, almost arterial bleeding red. Curves in all the right places if you know what I mean. A face that could launch a thousand Battle Spires. If there were that many.

And I sure hope there aren’t.

“Sergeant Orion,” she began crisply. There was a passive use of some kind of tone that she was better than me as we stood there in the developing mud listening to the Ultra Marine gunfire get closer and closer. Street fighting was only blocks away now. House to house. It was time to move.

And she was better than me. She was a Monarch. Near immortal. Elite. Each of them owned their own world. They had seen and walked on ancient Earth. We worshipped them even if we didn’t admit it.

And I was just some soldier with my fair share of scars and bad tattoos. And that thought settled me right there. Drove off her chemicals. I blew smoke in her face and swallowed the last of my cold coffee from my not-so-smart canteen.

“That’s me.”

No comm from the captain yet. Were they recruiting more grunts looking for any port in a storm?

Yeah, no active use of superiority, but it was clear she was better than me. Which, like I said, ain’t saying much. But she was also better than everyone else. So much better, she didn’t need to make sure you knew it.

“We’ll be working together,” she began, “on this portion of the mission until we reach our first objective. I’ll ride behind you in this vehicle and advise you. You are in command of your section, and if you have orders for me, I’ll take them. I’m here to help, Sergeant.”

Well, that knocked a little wind out of my hardcore-tough-bro-soldier act for a moment. Truth? That’s other guys. I’m more of the beaten NCO who sighs and looks off toward wherever as you tell him the next problem he’s got to jump all over before everything catches fire and we explode in every direction.

She dumped her gear onto the cargo deck of the Mule and stepped in, long legs in tight Combat Skin, a type of nano-fatigue I thought was only for sci-fi end-of-the-universe movies. I’d heard it was rated to stand up to small-arms fire and stabbing wounds. It also did a bunch of other tricks I’d never find out about.

But on her it looked like she was camouflaged half-naked where her chest rig and battle belt didn’t cover.

But hey, no one knows anything as they say, I told myself as I ached with every move she made. Today I thought we were about to see the end of this contract in some kind of power position, and here we are running for our lives.

So be it.

I climbed in and it was