Honor the Threat by Kevin Ikenberry

Author:Kevin Ikenberry [Ikenberry, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Seventh Seal Press
Published: 2018-03-13T04:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Eighteen

Weqq

MinSha Compound

Raleigh paced along the north wall of the compound between the CASPers who stood watch in two-hour shifts. Their first iteration was just about complete. Twelve CASPers, their sensors and weapons aimed at the raw jungle, surrounded the hexagonal structure. Inside the compound walls sat eight unmanned ones. They ranged from Mk 3s to Mk 6s. His newer Mk 7s were destroyed in the MinSha’s hastily-constructed minefields. The only Mk 8 in his company belonged to Tara Mason. Raleigh snorted and spat over the wall. When Mason returned, maybe he’d get rid of her and take her ride for himself or auction it off to one of the smarter mercenaries in his company. Maybe he’d take back a little of the money he’d paid them for their work over the years. They’d had good days in the past, and more than their fair share of bad ones. While the overall purse for completing this mission was more than enough to pay his expenses, he wanted more.

Every mission in his thirty-year career, from the time he was a wet-behind-the-ears ammunition bearer for Mk 2 CASPers, had an element of profit. He’d learned early that being a mercenary and fighting someone else’s wars was damned profitable work, but what he took away from the mission through pillage or plunder was even more profitable. His forces looted from every operation. Yet, the work didn’t dry up as some people might have guessed. There was always a job for someone willing to do anything for credits. Some commanders simply did more than others. Raleigh Reilly figured the top of that list was the place to be. Experience taught him to craft hideouts for his forces all over the galaxy and maintain the best logistical operations under the cover of legitimate shipping. He owned half a dozen businesses on Earth and Luna, but the urge to retire and sit back doing nothing every day wasn’t there, so he stayed in the void.

Around the unmanned CASPers, the pilots gathered in groups of two or three, smoking and joking. Doing nothing. They’d been ordered to search the compound for anything usable. Other than the usual computers, weapons, and power components, there was nothing. While the MinSha had many talents and were proficient in the sciences, they wouldn’t have chosen this humid, train wreck of a planet to live on. There were reasons they were on this planet. There was a mission.

There was always a mission.

Raleigh stomped to the nearest ladder and slid down, his hands and feet on the outside of the alien-built contraption. When his feet hit the decking of the central compound, he thumbed off the safety release on his pistol. He stared straight ahead and felt the eyes of his troops on him. They wanted action, and he didn’t want them to have idle time during an operation. Strange things happened when hands were idle. Mutinies and insurrections took down some of the best-equipped and most-talented mercenary companies in the days of the Alpha Contracts.

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