The Collected Lancer Volume 1 Read online

  THE COLLECTED LANCER

  Volume One

  An Arek Lancer Collection

  By Troy Osgood

  Contents

  DELIVERY TO ORSO

  KINN’S PIRATES

  THE EUROPAN SWITCH

  THE LAST CHILD

  ARMAGEDDON THEFT

  ASTEROID RETURN

  Author’s Notes

  About The Author

  DELIVERY TO ORSO

  Originally Published:

  Available for free from the Ossy Writes Mailing List

  The ramp lowered and I saw the busy port of Buhin.

  Lights, bustle, activity. And lots of it.

  Bright and strobing lights, large shining signs in Tradelan and a ton of other languages. Lots of noise. Lots of languages but mostly Tradelan, the default and somewhat galaxy wide language. Buhin was one of the busiest ports, being on the edge of the Inner Worlds and Deep Space. The planet’s sun would set, but the port never did.

  Which was why I was landing and unloading at this horrible hour.

  I should have been asleep in my bunk on board my ship, the Nomad’s Wind. Instead I was impatiently waiting for the ship’s ramp to lower so I could unload. I had the first polyplas crate on the maglift and pushed it down as soon as I heard the clang of the metal ramp hitting the metal port deck.

  Time was fluid. Each planet had its own system of telling time and pilots, like me, operated on whatever one worked best for them. That was one reason why a planet’s port was never closed, there were people up at all hours as they were on their own time schedule. Adjusting to a new one was always a pain in the ass. It had been just my luck that the timing of the hops to Buhin worked out to be at a period when I would normally have been sleeping.

  I got a good look at the city itself when I stopped at the bottom of the ramp.

  The city was built on top of a very tall cliff with the landing deck hanging out over the dark water that was so very far below. It was structurally sound. Or so I had been told. Truthfully I had no issues, had never felt the deck shake even though others swore they had. But it still made me uneasy when it was full like it was now. There was a lot of weight on it.

  Ships were arranged in a half circle around mine, all with ramps facing inward. There was a limited number of spots on this dock, one of three such landing pads ringing the cliff’s edge of Buhin. The entire planet was giant cliffs and mountains, and nothing but raging water below. The city was built on one of the few flat spots and in two levels. Elevators went up and down between them. I’d never been to the top level, there was nothing there that I needed.

  All the good stuff was down here.

  Gambling halls. Bars. Jobs.

  At least for an independent hauler like me.

  Buhin is on the edge of the Inner Core, the more populous and richer worlds. It’s the last spot before entering the wilds of Deep Space. That makes it a busy trading stop. Where the trading collectives of the Inner Worlds walk alongside the independents like me. And we try not to kill each other.

  That doesn’t happen. Not very often anyways.

  I leaned against the maglifter watching four beings walk my way. Three were Buhini, dressed in gray and black uniforms. Dockhands. The natives were short, about five foot six or so, but very stocky with long arms and legs. Muscular. They had to be, as they spent most of their time climbing the many mountains and cliffs of the planet. They were all dark skinned, shades of gray with almost pure white hair. Dark black tattoos were visible on their exposed skin. Two of them were pushing maglifters of their own.

  The fourth being was a Kry. Light brown skin, red eyes, dark hair. Perfectly groomed and dressed. He walked slightly behind the Buhins and glanced around as if everything was beneath him. Which was true as far as the Kry were concerned. They were one of the most arrogant species in the galaxy.

  Shrewd businessmen. Their entire culture revolved around it.

  The Buhini stopped just in front of me, looking bored with everything, the Kry walked around them to stand closer. He looked me up and down and I could just feel the disdain. This one probably didn’t like that he had to deal with someone like me. An independent from Deep Space. He probably felt dirty just associating with me. Probably cursing or whatever it was a Kry did that Buhin was an older port and didn’t have the automated cargo storage and hand-off that a lot of the newer space stations and ports did.

  This particular Kry was really unhappy to be here.

  I just had to remember that their credits were good.

  “Captain Arek Lancer,” he stated.

  “Yep.”

  He paused, expecting more. Like I was supposed to say how honored I was to be there or some such thing. I had to remember that this job was a favor for another Kry, Tesk Un Lil. One of my regular customers and maybe, kind of, probably a friend. He’d done something to get himself exiled to Deep Space. That was how the Kry saw it, exile. He was making a fortune there though, probably one of the riches Kry around. But he was still in Deep Space and been exiled, so he was still looked down upon by the rest of his people.

  But everyone needs something and there’s always someone that has it available. In this case, someone somewhere in the Inner Worlds needed something that Lil had to offer. And here I was, midway there in Buhin.

  I could have gone to whatever Inner World it was but that would have almost doubled or tripled the transit time and this was a rush job. So well I was hopping to Buhin, this Kry was hopping here as well.

  “And the other crate is,” the Kry asked after waiting for me to say more and I didn’t.

  I pointed behind me, up the ramp.

  The Kry nodded to the Buhini with a maglifter and I led him up the ramp. No one boards another ship without permission or tour guide. It’s just not done. Behind us I could hear the other maglifter connecting to mine. Once the two were joined, the Buhini could easily slide the large crate onto his lift.

  Once up the ramp and in the Wind’s cargo hold I led the Buhini to the right crate. It wasn’t hard, there weren’t many. I could see him looking around, clearly not impressed.

  Whatever.

  This was a long haul with a time limit. Not like I could have taken on extra cargo. Lil’s money was good, too good to pass this one up. I was hoping I’d be able to find something here needing to go to Deep Space.

  The Buhini adjusted his maglifter and got the crate on it. I followed him out the Wind and down the ramp. The Kry had the courtesy to actually wait until I was down the ramp before sending the credits. He hit a couple buttons on his tablet and I heard a ding on my wristcomm. Looking down I saw the announcement that the sale had gone through. I’d see a transfer of credits from Lil soon enough.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” I said and looked up but the Kry was already walking away.

  Shrugging, I grabbed my maglifter and brought it back up into the Wind.

  *****

  I walked through the crowded streets of the city. I could have been back on the ship sleeping and out job hunting in what passed for morning at a reasonable hour, but it had been awhile since I’d been planetside on any planet and Buhin was a city that was up all night.

  Even at this hour of it’s night cycle it was crowded. Almost every shop was open, the taverns were packed, street vendors were out in force. Beings from all over were everywhere. All shapes, sizes, sexes. No other humans though.

  Terrans, humans, earthlings. We’re not well liked.

  We were the newbies, only been in space outside our galaxy for about thirty years. And what did we do when we first got to other solar systems? What do humans always do? Just look at our history. We expanded and claimed them. We had allies at least, ones that wanted
us to expand.

  The Thesans had come to us, had given us the tech we needed to expand beyond our own solar system, because they wanted and needed us. They needed our help to protect their own expansions. They were going up against another empire, the Tiat. They wanted our aid in the fight. The Thesans thought by giving us the means to hop systems, they could control us. They didn’t do their homework on humans. But it still worked out for them, they found willing allies in their fight.

  Terrans are not well liked. The Tiat are hated. By everyone.

  But they’re the strongest race in the galaxy.

  We banded together with the Thesans to fight the Tiat. There are some complicated reasons for it all but it basically led to the Third Galactic War.

  So us upstart humans helped start a Galactic War. No surprise there. That’s kind of our thing.

  It lasted a while. Cost a ton of lives on all three sides and beyond. We’ve been in a cold war with the Thesans and Tiat since. That’s how I got involved in the whole mess.

  I spent some time with the Earth Expeditionary Force, the 2Es. Special operations. I did the scary stuff, the wet work, the stuff no one knows about.

  Out for three years now and I just needed to wander. I bought my ship, a Castellan Light Cruiser Model F497 that I named Nomad’s Wind, and I’d been a vagabond every since. I went wherever the jobs took me. Got a cargo, went and delivered it, picked up a new one and delivered that one. So on and so on. Never in one place for longer then it took to drop off cargo and pick up cargo.

  It’s a good life.

  I may have been out a couple of years but I still possessed enough situational awareness to know I was being followed.

  Dammit.

  Why couldn’t this have been easy? Just deliver, grab a new cargo, leave. Nice and simple. I should have been sleeping right now.

  But that’s not the way things usually worked for me. Nothing but bad luck.

  Casually I adjusted how my dark green jacket, left over from my EEF days, was hanging so I could get quick access to my blaster.

  I couldn’t spot the follower. Too crowded and well the walls of all the buildings were shiny metal, they weren’t that reflective. All the polycarbonite windows were the same. Dark and unable to see anything using them.

  It was all instinct.

  You know when someone is staring intently at you. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you just get this feeling.

  I had a destination, or I used to have one. There was a hauler’s guild hall down the street and I hoped to find some work, but going there was out of the question. At least for now. I needed to lose my tail but I really wanted to find out who was after me and why.

  Considering where I was, I had a couple guesses.

  I could rule out random mugging attempt.

  I’m not the biggest guy around but I’m told I look pretty intimidating. Six foot, black hair and beard starting to gray even though I was only in my low thirties, muscular. People said I had a look to me though, one that said ‘don’t mess with me’.

  Besides, I’d seen about a dozen easier marks that I could have easily mugged.

  The next choice was an old enemy from my military days. I had a few of those. I’d done things I’m not that proud of but my record was sealed. Most of that was still secret.

  Next option was a trading company. As an independent hauler, I wasn’t liked by the various guilds and unions. They wanted everyone operating under their charters. Guys like me mucked up the works. That was fine in Deep Space, for now, but here on the edge of the Inner Core?

  Finally there was the local criminal gang.

  That was my guess.

  I started looking, by not looking, for places to confront my follower when I saw a group approaching towards me from down the street. I quickly turned and pretended to be looking at the assorted goods in a store window, trying to position myself so people around me were hiding my very noticeable jacket. I also started revising my guess on who was following me.

  Coming down the street with six Earth Expeditionary Forces soldiers circled around him, all heavily armed, was the esteemed Terran ambassador to the Planetary Council. I knew General Frank Coulson from my military days. We ran into each other a couple of times and it never went well. I hated the bastard and he wasn’t fond of me.

  It had to be a coincidence.

  I wasn’t arrogant or paranoid enough to think he was here for me. He was here himself, so it had to be official. He was not the kind of guy to get his hands dirty with a little nobody like me. I knew some of his secrets but I still wasn’t worth a personal appearance.

  Had to be some official business. Buhin was a hub afterall, so he was probably on his way to Thost, the central planet where the Planetary Council met.

  The Council tried to exert some control over the galaxy but they didn’t have much. It was more of a symbolic organization, a way to show that we were trying for a unified galaxy when everyone knew it really wouldn’t ever happen. The problem, one of them anyways, was that some species were too powerful. The Tiat controlled six systems, the Thesans had three and us Terrans had three. Lots of others had two systems they controlled. So really, the Council spent most of its time trying to stop the Tiat from gaining anymore control.

  That was a full time job.

  I glanced at good ol’ Frank as he walked by. Looked the same as always. Hair perfectly cut to military standards, but now all gray. Clean shaven, square jaw. Blue eyes in his pale skin. Wore a dress uniform with lots of medals.

  I had some of the same medals. Mine were somewhere in the Wind, couldn’t remember exactly where.

  General Coulson was ambitious and had lots of little side projects, but he was purely Terran-first. Not the best appointee to a group like the Planetary Council. A tactical genius, he was a hard ass and compromise was not something he knew how to do. He was as old school as his name.

  As Coulson and his escort walked past, I took the opportunity to turn and look that way. No one could blame me for watching my species walk past. They actually were the first humans I had seen here since I arrived.

  My eyes followed Coulson and his escort but I searched the surrounding crowd. Beings moved out of the way of the armed escort and I was able to spot my tail in the parting wave. Short, covered in long brown fur with bright blue eyes, long arms that hung past it’s knees. A Ghini.

  I knew it was my tail, too far away to see if it was male or female, because of the way it tried so hard to not be noticed. The trick to tailing someone is to be natural about it. Never stare directly at them and if they turn around, just continue walking like nothing was the matter. The Ghini had stopped and was also staring at a store window, well at the same time glancing my way quickly.

  I had the urge to wave.

  There didn’t appear to be any other followers, just the Ghini. I didn’t know much about the race. They were fast, strong and the long arms were an advantage when in close. For that reason they were usually employed as snatchers. It was kind of odd that this one was tailing me and not waiting further ahead.

  Weird.

  As I walked I started looking for places to duck into. The lower city of Buhin is tucked into the small shelf between cliffs. Not much space and every available inch is taken up by some kind of building that turns some kind of profit. The streets are narrow, not wide enough for hovercars. Foot traffic only. Not that many places to pull off.

  So I continued walking, adjusting my pace now and then. Slowing down, speeding up.

  I didn’t get a chance to look behind me, but figured the change was driving the Ghini crazy. This was a trick I had learned during my special operations days. Varying the pace makes it difficult for the follower to keep the same separation. Are you stopping to look at something? Has the follower been made?

  Following someone through a busy city is not easy.

  I made sure that Coulson and his entourage were far enough away. I didn’t want anything I might do to catch their attention. I was small
potatoes for Coulson but no need to push myself back into his focus.

  Walking further down I found what I wanted, a small alley off to the side, cutting between two buildings and heading towards the cliff. I shifted through the crowd, slowing as the alley approached. A dark space, barely five feet wide. It would do nicely.

  Without looking behind me I quickly turned into the alley. It appeared to be a last second change in direction. Walking almost past and then turning quickly I was inside the alley. Now the Ghini would either continue walking by and try to catch me leaving the alley, which is what I would have done, or stop at the entrance and follow me down.

  Which is what the Ghini did.

  It stood at the entrance looking confused. The alley wasn’t long, just the depth of the buildings and ending at the edge of the cliff. And it was empty. No me. The Ghini moved quickly down the alley, heading for the edge. I could understand what it was thinking. The buildings weren’t tight against the cliff, so maybe I had moved behind one. Crazy but possible. It slowed as it got closer to the edge, hugging the building and holding onto it for balance. Leaning out, it looked behind both buildings.

  Turns out his guess had been right.

  The Ghini’s head poked around the corner and got a face full of my Sig Sauer T1700. He was startled and I was able to push him back. And I could now see that it was definitely a him. Off balance the Ghini fell to the ground rolling to the side away from the cliff edge. The water far below could be heard crashing against the rocks.

  Now came the tricky part. I didn’t want to kill the Ghini, but I would if I had to. I was counting on him just being ordered to follow me and not kill me. Stepping away from the back of the building and into the alley I had my back to the cliff and I was standing pretty damn close to it. All the Ghini had to do was kick out or roll into me and I’d fall over the edge.

  Calculated risk.

  “Back up,” I ordered.

  The Ghini tensed, shifted a bit.

  “Don’t think about it,” I said and made sure he heard the clicking as I shifted my blaster from stun to kill. “Back. Up.”