Jagged Edge Read online

  JAGGED EDGE

  Book Two of

  The Mercenary Trilogy

  by

  Dennis Young

  Edited by

  Christine Williams

  Cover Art by

  Russell Caras

  © All story material Dennis Young 2019

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author(s), except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this book are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author.

  TO SINGLE MALT SCOTCH

  Sometimes it takes more than one bottle

  to get through a manuscript.

  JAGGED EDGE

  FROM THE FILM ARCHIVES OF COLONEL KELLAN WYLOH

  “You know, of course, I’m supposed to be

  at least a little bit nuts.”

  Dr. Eddie Jessup, from the Movie “Altered States”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Back to the Grind (Part One)

  Back in the Saddle Again

  “If, on the other hand, in the midst of difficulties

  we are always ready to seize an advantage,

  we may extricate ourselves from misfortune.”

  Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”

  Somewhere Under Fire…

  There was just one problem with being a former Marine, member of special-ops and hand-picked as a top-level officer after working your way through the ranks, then running your own mercenary team of crack former Marines. More often than not, you were still being shot at.

  Right now, Talice Wyloh was being shot at. And no matter how many times she was shot at, she never learned to like it.

  She slammed another magazine into her pulse rifle as she ducked behind a set of iron columns. You’d think I’d fucking learn this isn’t the safest line of work in the world. Why the hell couldn’t I be an accountant?

  The true, rightful, and honest crux of this entire situation lay in a single fact: Talice Wyloh was a Marine. The operative word: “Was.” As in past tense.

  Because of that single, infuriating, and soul-crushing word, Talice Wyloh was in the process of being shot at.

  Talice clicked over to All-Channel. “Briggs, Rory, where the hell are you?”

  “Twenty meters left, pinned down.” Briggs.

  “Thirty right, I’ve got Martin with me, but my SmartGun breach is jammed.” Rory’s breathing was labored in Talice’s ears.

  “Are you hit?”

  “Grazed. HE round exploded against cover, shrapnel penetrated a joint.”

  “Stay down, we should have drone cover within thirty seconds.”

  “Yuh…”

  “Martin, check on Rory. Stay low and do not engage.”

  “Hua.”

  Talice listened as rounds continued to chip away at her cover. Every impact rattled her back as she braced herself against the iron gratings.

  “Back of the knee, bleeding, but not bad. We’re pinned.” Martin’s voice was tight. A hint of fear had begun to creep into it.

  “Junior, report!”

  “Holding on your left flank, fifty meters. I don’t have a shot, Captain.”

  “Nikolay, Bělinka, stand by to withdraw!”

  Two High Explosive rounds arched over Talice’s cover and exploded in front of her, driving her back into the railings. Since they were iron, she didn’t go far. She simply bounced and landed face-first in the dirt.

  “Captain!”

  Talice’s ears rang. Her face was numb and she knew she was hurt. Half her Headup display was dead on her visor.

  “Still here,” she croaked. “Dosu, Ollie, can you see our marks?”

  “Negative, Captain, just the wall.” Ollie’s British accent was unmistakable.

  “Where is that drone cover you promised?” Briggs again.

  Talice scooched around facing the columns, peeking between them. Her team was in trouble. She was in trouble. This is stupid. Fuck this.

  She tongued her command circuit. “Mac, shut it down before we get killed for real! Enough!”

  “You said you wanted a challenge.” Jonie Macauley’s voice rang loud and clear in Talice’s ear.

  “I didn’t say we wanted to get our asses shot to pieces in a training exercise! Shut it down!”

  “You’re no fun.” Mac clicked off.

  The firing stopped. The silence over the training range was nearly deafening.

  Talice turned and sat with her back against the columns. “Everyone stay put for a minute.”

  “What the hell? We were winning!” Briggs again.

  Talice nearly chuckled. Her lips found the drinking tube inside her Heavy Combat Suit helmet. She drank the tank of super-hydration fluid nearly dry. Gotta stay hydrated. Gotta check my patch when I get back. Make sure I can live another day with these fucking bugs in my system…

  “Alright… fall back two by two. Briggs, monitor and confirm. Martin, you and Rory first. Get him to the medtechs. Niky, once they’re clear of the area, you and Bělinka follow. Everyone else, hold your position.” Talice toggled back to Mac. “Are we clear? All auto-weapons disengaged?”

  “Hua, everything is cooling down.” A pause. “Sorry about that. Maybe I set this up a bit too hot.”

  “Never mind, we’ll work it out. Right now, see that Rory gets attention.” She switched back to All-Channel. “Junior, get over here. Dosu and Ollie, wait one minute, then withdraw. Do not assume the guns are all cold. Do this by the Book.”

  “Hua, Captain. We are being careful.” Niky’s Russian accent was always dense under fire.

  Talice watched as Nikolay and Bělinka crawled behind a solid steel shield, then ran, crouched and low, not taking a straight line. They disappeared beyond a bunker.

  Junior squirmed his way to Talice’s side. “Geez, Captain, you look like you’ve been in a real firefight.”

  Talice swallowed her bitter retort. The kid was right. She toggled Mac’s channel again. “Confirm the team is safe. Junior is with me.”

  “Everyone is in. Dosu and Ollie just got here, Briggs following. You’re clear to withdraw.”

  Talice turned her broken visor to Junior. “Slowly. Carefully. I don’t want to get shot in the back trying to get away from automation gone amuck.”

  “Don’t worry, Captain. I’ll cover your back.”

  Talice grinned, even though he couldn’t see it. She rose to a crouch. “Okay, let’s go. This ceased being fun about an hour ago.”

  * * *

  The team waited for Talice and Junior at the loading ramp of their assault ship, Bird One. They assisted each other with weapons and armor as Jamal Orlando and Will Thomas, Engineer and Co-Pilot doubling as medtechs, helped Rory to the infirmary. Talice nearly laughed. Rory out-massed both of them, so all they could do was steady him as he limped up the ramp and into the ship.

  Talice tossed her shattered helmet to the deck. “Why the hell are my visors always breaking?”

  Briggs chortled. “Maybe you shouldn’t lead with your face.” He was rugged and tanned, white as Rory was black, and nearly as big. Dosu, the only man Talice knew personally with Olde Earth Kenyan ancestry, was the third of the man-mountain triad, bigger than either of the other two, but much more
soft-spoken.

  “Junior, Ollie, weapons detail. Rack ‘em and stack ‘em.” Talice locked the biometric safety on her pulse rifle and handed it to Junior. “Everyone, get cleaned up and we’ll meet in the ready room in two hours for debriefing.” She cast a glance to Mac in her hoverchair, listening. “We’ve got things to discuss.”

  “Talice…”

  “Later, Mac, I need to see a dog about a man.”

  Mac’s mouth hung open for a moment, then she nodded, turned her hoverchair around, and headed back upship.

  Talice entered her cabin and quickly stripped away her HCS armor. She sprayed the “pervert undies” cleaner all over, and the med-insert bodysuit melted away with a hint of… something. Maybe cinnamon this week. She toweled down and pulled on a nightshirt, then sat and peeled away the spent patch of Cemlac-12Plus.

  Well, they had to call it something, I guess.

  She applied a new patch on her opposite inner thigh, popped the top on a bottle of super-hydration fluid, and downed it.

  Fucking bugs. But Babs and her meds have kept me alive and kicking for five years. And I know she says they’re getting close to a cure, but still…

  Talice was a former Marine. A Grunt who rose through the ranks and became a top-notch platoon leader. Full Lieutenant less than half a year after. But, by sheer luck of the draw, karma had other plans for her.

  Never wanted to be anything other than a lifer, just like Dad.

  The planet Crius was one of seven in the Laberos system. It was there, on a critical Marine mission, disaster struck.

  Bugs. Literally.

  Talice’s physician, Babs, had dug the creature out of Talice’s bicep, but the damage was done. Whatever it had left threatened to kill her. Not just kill, but emaciate.

  Turn me into a husk of a human. Sop up every bit of moisture in my body and organs. Eat my damn innards. Take every bit of energy and life I have. I guess I should be flattered the damn bugs found me so delicious.

  She wanted a real hot water shower, but with thirteen people on board Bird One, she opted for a quick cleaning with her hand-sonic. Then toweled down again, slid into a bodysuit, then her camis, brushed back her hair, and exited the cabin, headed for Mac’s TacOps niche.

  Jonie Macauley was where she most always was on missions; in her hoverchair, monitoring TacOps screens and controls. Mac had been Talice’s, and a fair number of the team’s, drill instructor when in the Marines. She was stocky, black, and when needed, had a voice that could melt the brass plating off an insignia. She was the best damn DI Talice had ever known.

  “Hey, Mac.”

  “Talice, I’m sorry.”

  Talice shrugged. “No one died. Maybe we needed a bit of a scare. It’s been nearly half a year since our last mission.” She sat, bringing her eyes down to Mac’s level. “How you doing?”

  Mac’s mouth formed a grim line. “Still waiting on the clinic to call. They promised an update on my new legs twenty-four hours ago.”

  “I don’t know how the team is going to take things, you back on your feet.” Talice smiled.

  Mac was silent for a moment. “What happened out there?”

  “We’re rusty. Simple as that. Fawkes promised all the off-world work we wanted, but I haven’t even talked to him in… well, at least ten days. We were doing our ‘play-dates’ again, to get missions from him, but he hasn’t called.”

  Mac winked. “Maybe he has a real girlfriend now. You showed him how nice it is to be in a woman’s company again.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. Leading the way, then sending them on to have fun.” Talice sighed and sat back. “We need work. Not just for creditmarks, but to stay sharp, or someone’s gonna get hurt.”

  “Want to talk to Scarbach? We haven’t visited his office for a while.”

  Talice looked away, then nodded. “Let me check with Fawkes. Being a Light Colonel now, he’s got a lot more on his desk, but still… We need work. Yeah, Scarbach might have something easy. And profitable.”

  Mac glanced at the blank screens and controls, all showing green. “The team is bored to death. You’re right. We need some action.”

  “Let’s you and me go see Scarbach, then have a drink at The Olde Place. I’m buying.”

  “I thought you were off alcohol.”

  Talice winked. “I am… mostly. Get your party clothes on, girl, we’re goin’ downtown.”

  * * *

  Anchor Prime…

  They entered the office of Luis Scarbach, Advocate and Advice-monger. Sheila, his secretary, barely acknowledged them as they passed her desk, simply looking over her “I wear these to look studious and intelligent” retro glasses, nodding sideways to the office door. Talice didn’t knock, but she was careful to enter quietly. She never knew whose head she might find in Scarbach’s lap. This time, there was no one in the office but him, his ever-present phone in hand.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Scarbach.” Talice took a chair in the corner and Mac glided up beside her. She motioned Scarbach to join them, choosing magnanimously to ignore his heavy sigh. With a less than enthusiastic nod, he came around the desk and sat opposite the women.

  “We need a job.”

  “Have you checked the employment office?” Scarbach chuckled, then quieted at Mac’s scowl. He shrugged. “I can get you some labor work, shuttling cargo and stuff like that. But my guess is, that’s not what you have in mind.”

  “Don’t quit your day job,” said Mac. “Unless you want your ship back in the hangar sitting under a tarp and not enriching your accounts, stop trying to be a comedian.”

  Scarbach shook his head. “Your team is too efficient. Hostage-takers and insurgents have all gone underground. Your reputation has risen to the point of you being the boogey man.”

  Talice considered. “So how are they making their ill-gotten gains now? No hostages, drugs aren’t profitable with most stuff legalized, alcohol is everywhere. Wireheads? Pleasure inserts? Illegal organ harvesting?”

  Scarbach drew away, wrinkling his nose. “You think I’m some sort of pervert, and you’re wrong. I actually have legitimate business concerns. The hostage situation with my family and their friends was… well… a deal gone bad. You solved that very nicely. We all made creditmarks. And no witnesses were left.” He met Talice’s gaze squarely. “We’re all a bit dirty, but not that dirty.”

  Talice sat back, exchanged glances with Mac and nodded. “Point taken, but come on, you’ve got your fingers in a lot of things, Scarbach. Pun intended.”

  He considered. “Funny you should mention that… Look, some of the outlying cities… actually smaller towns… well, when miners and construction crews head into town on leave…”

  Mac shrugged. “What? Gambling? That’s legal, too, in most places. What’s left?”

  “Sex.” Talice grimaced, suddenly understanding. “They’ve gone from hostages for creditmarks to simply nabbing women. That’s where they’re making money now.”

  Scarbach nodded. “Look… I don’t have any real info, and all I can do is give you a couple of names. But keep me out of this entirely. They’ve gotten desperate with your team taking such a toll. They won’t hesitate to kill.”

  “They never did,” said Mac. “We’ve had more than our share of close calls.”

  Talice took a small notebook from her pocket. “Names.” She handed Scarbach a pen.

  “What’s this?”

  Talice rolled her eyes. “It’s called an ink pen. You write with it.”

  Scarbach shook his head. “I need to get some info together first. I’ll commtext it to you.”

  “Not a chance. I don’t trust the comm system on this planet.”

  “… You’re joking.”

  Talice gave him a look.

  “You’re not joking? You’re serious?”

  “Let’s just say I found out the hard way.” She nodded to the notebook. “We’ll be back in two hours. Have the info ready and write it down. No commtext. No messages. Just writing.”

 
; “Make it three. Come back just before closing and we’ll talk after the office is empty.”

  Talice nodded. “Fine. Just don’t put Sheila to her special duties later and forget. You need to focus for this. Mac, let’s go.”

  * * *

  The Olde Place was pretty much the same, although it had been nearly a year since Talice and Mac had been there. Bud the bartender hailed them as they entered, offering a table by the window. He served them quickly, dropping off a basket of fried crispy things and bread for dipping into a variety of sauces. And a pitcher.

  Talice offered a toast to “less sticky floors next time we come in,” and Mac laughed, touching her glass to Talice’s.

  They drank quietly for a bit, relaxing in the sunshine streaming through the window.

  “I need to run this by Fawkes,” said Talice. “If what Scarbach says is true, why aren’t civil authorities looking into it?”

  Mac sipped her brew and shrugged. “Same reasons as before. Not enough manpower, not enough firepower.”

  “So why haven’t they gotten Northland Base involved? Or at least the Army?”

  “Maybe they have. But yes, you need to talk to Fawkes about this. And other things.” Mac nudged Talice’s shoulder gently.

  “Don’t worry, my hormones have settled down. But I need to see Babs, too.”

  Mac set down her glass. “You okay? Bugs got you down?”

  Talice shook her head. “The new stuff is working better as long as I remember to drink the S-H and change the patch every day. That’s another thing… we’re getting lax on discipline. The team really needs better training facilities.”

  “Ask Fawkes if we can use their old facility now that the new field in the south is ready. Make him an offer.”

  Talice eyed Mac. “Like what? Do I miss sex? Sure, but I’m not—”

  Mac held a hand for quiet as three noisy men passed their table. “Maybe we could keep the place in order for him. Save him some manpower.”

  Talice nodded, thinking. “Rotate shifts for security, too. Good idea. Yeah, I like that.” She glanced at Mac again. “You okay? Worried about your legs?”