Terminus Cut by Rick Partlow

Author:Rick Partlow [Partlow, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2019-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

“What are you supposed to be? The zero-g ballet?”

Lyta Randell ignored the question, concentrating on her form, bouncing off the gym’s padded overhead and twisting her body in mid-air to bring her feet back beneath her before she impacted the deck. She clicked the heels of her magnetic boots together just before she hit and the heels stuck to the deck, leaving her standing, facing the Supremacy Marine standing in the hatchway.

He was wearing standard body armor except for the helmet, which was hinged back off his head, resting negligently against the emergency air supply in his backpack. He carried a Gyroc carbine, meant for use in zero-g, a recoilless weapon that fired spin-stabilized mini-rockets. He had it slung across his chest, one hand resting on the optical sight atop the receiver. She immediately loathed the man—helmets were meant to be worn and weapons to be held at the ready, especially on a ship potentially full of hostiles. She loathed him even more when she saw the captain’s bars etched into his chest plate. Captain Jeffries, Pasqual R.

The man’s an officer and this is the sort of example he’s setting?

“Did you want something?” she asked, retrieving a towel from her belt and wiping away the sweat persistently beading against her skin in the microgravity. “Or have the Supremacy Marines never heard of free-fall combat training?”

Pasqual Jeffries had one of those faces, too handsome for his job and cocky enough to know it. She saw it in the smug tilt of his head, the way his eyebrow twitched up as he looked her over.

“Seems like an odd time to be training,” he judged, “right in the middle of a customs inspection.”

“Not so odd,” she told him, tucking the towel away. “You’re a waste of our time, and I don’t like to see time go to waste. You never know how much of it you have left.”

“Is that a philosophical observation or a threat, Ms…?” That tilted brow again, as if he thought he was being clever, or possibly even charming.

“Major,” she corrected him, stepping over to the lockers set in the wall. “Major Randell.” She pulled her fatigue blouse on, sealing it down the front. It didn’t say “Spartan Rangers” anymore, the sign and the seal replaced by the Wholesale Slaughter crest. For the time being.

“Major of what?” Jeffries wondered. “You aren’t a mech jock. You can always tell a mech jock by the way they walk, the way they stand. You’re a crunchie, like me.”

“We’re private military contractors,” she reminded him, stomping up to the hatchway, magnetic boots clacking loudly on the deck. “Gotta’ be versatile. Versatility starts on the ground.”

“Ooh,” he mimed clutching at a shot through his heart. “I think I’m in love.” He laughed at his own joke, another sure sign of a narcissistic asshole. “Any chance you got time for a little unarmed combat with a Marine?”

She was almost nose to nose with the man, only a few centimeters shorter than his meter-eight. She could smell the overly sweet musk of whatever he was using for cologne.

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