Sunkiller Box Set: Complete Series by Chaney J.N. & Partlow Rick

Author:Chaney, J.N. & Partlow, Rick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Variant Publications
Published: 2022-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The Tamar shuddered, her landing gear sinking into their hydraulic mounts before raising up again to their full extension, and then she was down. Priyanka sighed and sagged back into her seat for a moment before she hit the quick-release on her safety harness.

“This place is a fucking dump,” Adrian Hill opined, propping a boot against his console while staring out at the view from the external cameras.

“Shut up, Adrian,” she said automatically, but the copilot wasn’t wrong.

At the center of the depot were the storage buildings, which weren’t much more than sheet-metal hangars, their roofs curved to keep the snow off, though there were huge piles of it on either side that no one had bothered to shovel away. Base housing and apparently all the admin offices were in Quonset huts, probably for the same reason, metal that had once been shimmering silver aluminum now pitted and corroded. A few dozen troops with wire brushes could have corrected the problem, but the job would have sucked, even if it hadn’t been somewhere below zero Fahrenheit outside.

One thing they did keep clean and well-maintained here was the landing pad, probably because everyone from the base commander down to the lowliest specialist-1 knew how badly they depended on the regular supply ships. It was a platform resting on dozens of pilings, each six feet across and fashioned from the massive conifers in the forest to the north, tall enough to keep it above the drifting snow. A catwalk connected it to the administrative and storage buildings, and by the time Pri was out of her seat, a crew was guiding a motorized pallet jack into position to handle the cargo.

“Remember what I said,” she cautioned Hill and Aguilar. “Don’t get trapped in specific questions. None of us know the latest bullshit from the Union Space Force, so don’t pretend you do. Talk about sports or movies or some such nonsense.”

“My hair hasn’t been this short in six years,” Hill complained, running a hand over his new buzz cut. “The girls back on Gateway are going to be crying bitter tears.”

“Naw,” Aguilar said, leering at him. “Your money spends just as good whether you got hair or not. I assumed you meant the girls for hire, because I ain’t seen you with any other kind since I’ve known you.”

Pri spun on the chief and stabbed a finger into his chest.

“No talking about Gateway. We’re Space Force. We don’t get to visit the joy girls on Gateway, and we don’t run cargoes to independent colonies. Earth, Mars, the Jovians, Farragut, Borealis, that kind of place.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Aguilar said, throwing her the first salute she’d seen in six years. “Will do.”

She wasn’t sure if he was being respectful or sarcastic. If it had been Hill, she would have been sure, but with Aguilar, it was more likely respect. She returned the salute.

“You gonna open up in there?” The voice coming over the PA speakers was different from the duty officer she’d spoken to before, this one older and not nearly as good-humored.

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