Psi Wars 2: Conflagration: A Military Space Opera Series by Rick Partlow

Author:Rick Partlow [Partlow, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2023-07-10T23:00:00+00:00

12

Hermes was a graveyard. It had only been a few weeks since they’d lost it, but it might have been years, or decades, by what Deke could see in the Bellerophon’s sensor readouts. He slumped over the control console, chin on his hands, staring at the tactical display with something between dread and anticipation.

There had been three huge space stations orbiting the world the last time he’d seen it: one military, one commercial, and one recreational, each of them constantly swarmed by shuttles, orbital transfer vehicles, and automated cargo capsules. The gleaming metal superstructures of the stations were still there, spinning resolutely for the moment, but no traffic surrounded them, and on thermal they were dark and dead.

No traffic control systems contacted them as they boosted toward orbit at one gravity, no military patrols challenged them, and no other ships were visible, not a single drive flare anywhere around the planet.

“This is fucking creepy.”

He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but the silence on the bridge was beginning to feel oppressive, as if everyone there was waiting for a giant hand to reach out from the darkness of Hermes’ night-side and swat them away.

“You’d think there would still be independent spacers out here,” Captain Emil Jacobson said in a tone that sounded like agreement.

The short, stocky mercenary was at the navigator’s station, mostly because it had been a convenient place to strap in during the Transition and it hadn’t seemed right not to have the commander of the Savage/Slaughter troops on the bridge. He was a pale, doughy-faced man who hadn’t struck Deke as overly imaginative or perceptive on short acquaintance.

“Raiders, if nothing else,” Jacobson went on. “I mean, with the military and the Patrol out of the way, it would be dead easy to loot the space stations or the moon base, even if you were afraid of landing on the planet.”

“Even Pirate World outlaws aren’t that stupid.” Randall Munroe had taken the acceleration couch at the Communications console, though they had as much use for communications at the moment as they did for navigation.

Deke eyed him sidelong, still unsure how he felt about the man. On some level, Munroe was everything he’d despised about the old order, the way things had been under the Corporate Council: he was the son of old money, privileged, powerful, and politically connected. On the other hand, Munroe had thrown away everything to join the Marines during the war, had led a resistance against the Tahni under maybe the worst conditions imaginable, and then had helped take down his uncle, Andre Damiani, and the Corporate Council with him. That should have bought him Deke’s trust, and maybe it would have, if the whole situation hadn’t ended with the man’s mother on top of what was left of the heap and Munroe smelling like a rose and living in luxury.

Whatever doubts he had about Randall Munroe’s motivation, he had none about the man’s competence and intelligence.

“Rich boy’s right,” Deke said. “The word’s out about what happened; everyone’s seen the vid from Belial, even out in the Pirate Worlds.

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