The Midnight Sun (The Omega War Book 2) Read online

  The Midnight Sun

  Book Two of The Omega War

  By

  Tim C. Taylor

  PUBLISHED BY: Seventh Seal Press

  Copyright © 2018 Tim C. Taylor

  All Rights Reserved

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental, except for the Red Shirts, who have given me their express permission to kill them in all sorts of wicked, nasty ways. The other characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  * * * * *

  The author would like to thank the following (largely disreputable) entities for their help in making this novel a blast to write: the advance reader vanguard, 4HU – The Merc Guild, Mark, antimatter, The Legionaries, Chris, anti-gravity, General Peepo, the authors artists editors and everyone I haven’t mentioned by name at Seventh Seal Press, and Messrs. Handley and Corcoran.

  * * * * *

  Cover Design by Brenda Mihalko

  Original Art by Ricky Ryan

  * * * * *

  Contents

  Part 1: RELICS OF AN ANCIENT WAR

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part 2: UTS EXUBERANCE

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Part 3: THE MIDNIGHT SUN

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Part 4: THE DARKNESS BEFORE THE LIGHT

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Part 5: THE COUNCIL OF VENGEANCE

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Excerpt from “The Mutineer’s Daughter:”

  Excerpt from “Assassin:”

  Excerpt from “Wraithkin:”

  * * * * *

  Part 1: RELICS OF AN ANCIENT WAR

  * * * * *

  Chapter 1

  As he watched the mercenaries sprawl over Kubar Park’s terraced hillside, filling it with an anarchic cacophony, Branco reflected for the thousandth time that signing up with the Midnight Sun Free Company was the most wonderfully stupid thing he’d ever done in a life filled with recklessness.

  His good mood soured. How would I know? When the identity of Saisho Branco had been invented for a covert op several years ago, access to his former memories had been welded shut. Only vague childhood recollections of Copenhagen leaked out.

  Whoever he was, Branco’s life was with these mercs now. And what an insane band of misfits they were! What wasn’t bizarre about this outfit was inexplicable, concealed by deceits skillfully crafted by the real powers behind the Midnighters.

  “Hey, Branco!” called a voice from a couple of levels lower down on the ornamental terracing. “Hurry up with that resupply. We’re almost out here.”

  He grinned, because he felt at home with these people. And as for those deceits, until he unearthed the truth, he preferred to call them mysteries. They weren’t his problem.

  “Branco!”

  “On it, Sergeant.” He estimated a range of fifty yards to the patch of terrace where his own Shock Squad mixed with the aliens of Vengeance Squad, the only personnel of the newly formed 2nd Company here at Kubar. With a hiss of releasing pressure seals, he opened the box of supplies. Grabbing one of the cold metal canisters, he lobbed it over the manicured hedges and down the hillside to his friends. Before it had even reached the apex of its trajectory, he hurled another. In all, he sent a volley of six, all caught expertly by his comrades below.

  The resulting hiss and fizz of opening beer cans merged with other sounds of celebration in the late afternoon air, which was rich with the resinous tree sap from the woods at the base of the hill and the mouthwatering odors from the sizzling barbecue, ably commanded by the tactical officer of the company starship, and her team of SleSha assistants.

  Today the big boss was throwing a hard-earned party. Other than those who’d lucked out and were pulling security duty, everyone not off-planet working active contracts was here to enjoy themselves to the max.

  Zuul yapping and snarls reached him from Kenngarr, one of the Vengeance aliens. Branco’s translator pendant rendered them as, “We’re thirsty too, female dog.”

  Branco shouted b
ack, “Then try some decent human beer while you wait, Fido. Gotta get the captain her champagne first. Show’s about to start.”

  He laughed off the good-natured Zuul protests and the flurry of insults that lifted from Tatterjee, the Flatar who sat ten feet above the ground on the back of his Tortantula partner. Flatars were only the size of an extra-large rat yet were the brains in the common Flatar-Tortantula duos. Cramming intelligence into such a small head must have called for serious design trade-offs when the Creator’d fashioned them. Clearly there’d been no room in the Flatar design spec for generosity, empathy, or a filter between their dark thoughts and their mouths. The stream of pure filth emanating from those tiny lips carried all the way up to the top of the hill and beat Branco’s translator pendant into silent submission.

  And this was Tatterjee in a good mood.

  Humping the wheeled cooler down the graveled steps, Branco made for one of the circular patios, which boasted a mosaic floor fashioned from polished and highly pigmented stone. Enticing smoke snaked from the gas barbecues that lined its edge.

  En route, he halted briefly as a stream of human caterers passed him on their way down the steps, carrying trays of whiskey and hors d’oeuvres. Liveried in mustard waistcoats over black silk shirts, they looked the part, but were a particularly sullen lot, and blanked him when he attempted to say hello. Nonetheless, they were a reminder that working mercenary contracts was far from the only opportunity for humans to earn good money light years from Earth. It was also a reminder that Branco was the newest recruit on the team. Why else would he be doing the beer run when the company had hired professional caterers?

  The tradition of giving the rookie pointless tasks stretched back into pre-history but wouldn’t be Branco’s job for much longer. Not after the shocking events on Earth that had forced Earth-registered merc companies to either flee or submit to judgment on Capital Planet. Here on the rich world of Tau-Rietzke, they were far from Earth. What was really going on? He didn’t know, but human mercenaries between employments were flocking to the safe havens of alien-registered merc companies prepared to take on humans. Companies such as the Midnighters. Most of the squads here to party were formed by human personnel, yet the Midnight Sun was alien registered. Mercenary Guild rules were strict about the registration of member organizations. Over half of a company’s mercs must belong to the same species. If they weren’t human, who the devil were they?

  And where?

  The company’s owner called herself Gloriana. If the captain knew her secretive employer’s race – or even what the alien looked like – she wasn’t saying.

  A clicking from alien mouth parts plucked Branco from his thoughts. From her command post by the sundial at the patio’s center, Lieutenant Flkk’Sss marshaled her SleSha team at their broiler stations, making occasional sorties in person, armed with tongs, spatula, and marinade, while hissing at the seabirds attracted the short distance inland by the cooking smells. Now, with an exaggerated blinking of her jeweled compound eyes, she wordlessly urged Branco to shift his ass with the delivery of more frozen meat for the barbecue.

  Flkk’Sss was a member of the same MinSha race who had helped to introduce humanity to the Galactic Union by means of a devastating nuclear strike on Iran and the subsequent pillaging operation to recover the costs of their munitions expenditure. Now this MinSha, ably assisted by wasp-like SleSha, was using her long praying mantis limbs to cook mean dogs and burgers for the humans. Alien tastes were catered to as well, with the broilers cooking delicacies that looked like skewered frogs, charred lichen, and metal pots in which Flkk’Sss prepared spicy poached jellyfish. The transformation from scourge of humankind to flipper of burgers had nothing to do with any change in the MinSha – given the same circumstances, there were hundreds of MinSha mercenary companies happy to deliver the same nuclear hell – and everything to do with the two most important changes in Earth’s history since the dinosaurs died out. First, humans had joined the Galactic Union. More importantly, as far as Saisho Branco was concerned, humans had become the 37th active race registered with the Mercenary Guild.

  And mercenaries earned big money. Happy times.

  After delivering the meat, Branco’s next stop was Captain Blue, who was at the next patio over, with its view down the steps and out through the 50-foot-high stone archway at the bottom of the hill. Gloriana had promised her company a spectacle like they wouldn’t believe. Whatever it was, the captain would have the best view. She deserved it too. Blue was unpredictability squared. The thrill addict who, just as you thought you’d figured her out, jumped off on an unexpected bearing. But there was no denying she got results, fulfilling contract after contract, culminating in the big payoff from the Itaneno Job that this party was celebrating.

  “…and I get to control the automata through this?” the captain was asking. “That’s so damned impressive.”

  Flanked by Commander Venix, her ever-present Zuparti XO, Blue was talking into an oversized slate that displayed a crude remote-control interface.

  “Impressive?” came a voice from the slate in English, but which presumably voiced Gloriana’s words. “A party trick, no more. Let me show you something truly impressive. This is what I want. This is what I need…”

  The slate switched to a video showing a 100-foot-tall mecha dancing through a sea of heavily-armed Tortantulas, with the music of the mosh pit blaring from its speakers. Missiles rippled from its shoulder-mounted racks as it crushed the giant spider-mercs beneath its feet.

  The captain swore under her breath. Clearly, she’d never seen this metal monster before, but in his previous covert role, Branco had been briefed with different footage of the same incident. The huge war machine was called a Raknar, and it had been piloted by the owner of Cartwright’s Cavaliers. These Raknar were supposed to be rotted metal carcasses, discarded after a war so ancient that humanity had sat it out, having been too preoccupied inventing the wheel at the time. How the hell had Jim Cartwright resurrected them? That was the question slowly leaking out to those in positions of power throughout the Union. Now, it seemed, that question had reached Gloriana.

  “Branco!”

  The voice of command cut with ease through the hubbub, snapping his head to the left. The tactical commander of the marine units stood amongst Branco’s Shock and Vengeance comrades, shaking her head at him under a heavy frown.

  Major Sun Sue was ferociously protective of all company personnel, but triply so for her younger sister, Captain Blue. Her meaning was clear: the captain is not to be disturbed.

  Branco shrugged and wheeled the cooler away, heading along the path to Sun and his buddies while trying not to gawp at the major’s appearance.

  Sun was most comfortable outfitted in a haptic suit with her Mark 8 CASPer wrapped around her – and weapons free for good measure – or, failing that, in her black company uniform with the gold oak leaf insignia on the lapel.

  Lately he’d witnessed a change working its way inside her; she was probing the dangerous notion that there could be more to her life than striving to keep everyone alive and protecting her sister from herself.

  Which had to be the reason she was wearing a powder blue summer dress. A dress! Even the alien personnel were staring at this astonishing sight.

  But Sun hadn’t yet mastered the off-duty look. If this were his native Copenhagen, a fashionable woman in a light dress might complement it with a wide belt, strappy sandals, and a feminine gilded wrist slate. Instead, Sun wore heavy lace-up boots that came halfway up her slender calves – the kind of footwear with a ferrous strip along the sole that could be magnetized aboard ship – her ruggedized wrist slate was as big as her hand, and the closest thing to jewelry about her person was the polished buckle of the webbing belt with which she’d cinched her dress.

  “Why would you give me jewelry?” she’d once asked him. “It’s an impediment, especially in zero-g, and we must be ready to face danger at any time and in every environment.”

  “Hey
, watch it!” Branco shouted at one of the caterers who knocked into him.

  “Sorry,” said the idiot as he rushed by, though Branco could tell he didn’t mean it.

  The music died.

  Branco had barely noticed it behind the excited chatter and chinking bottles, but its absence opened the way for a pounding noise approaching from the west, along the avenue through the woods…it sounded like a squad of CASPers, human mercs wearing the heavily-armed mech suits Branco now wore professionally. No, it was more like a company of them…a battalion. Enough to make glasses jump off their perches on the low ornamental walls.

  Gloriana had promised a spectacle, and it sounded like she was going to deliver.

  After the first big contract he’d played a part in, Gloriana had built a race track for her mercs to enjoy. She’d imported a ’63 Jaguar E-Type and a ’66 Shelby Cobra 427, both in pristine condition. They weren’t so shiny now. Boy, had that been wild!

  And that was Gloriana in a nutshell. A filthy rich alien collector of restored objects of beauty. The key to understanding her was a comment she’d made about the autos. “Racing cars are meant to be raced, and hard,” she’d said. “Not imprisoned in a museum.” She didn’t spare the blood of her prized mercenary company either.

  A crescendo of whooping, whistles, and excited clicks and buzzes rose from the hillside as Gloriana’s toys hove into view.

  They were the metal monsters from the captain’s slate! But the video he’d seen of the Raknar hadn’t prepared him for their sheer physical presence. They were headless metal gorillas towering over the trees, tearing chunks out of the ground with every step.

  Three of the ancient war machines were stomping their way along the avenue like…well, like badly animated monsters from an early 20th-century movie. They moved, but they weren’t alive. They lacked the essence Jim Cartwright had somehow breathed into his. Still, their polished bodies gleamed in the late afternoon sun like burnished copper. They were magnificent!