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  Unknown Cargo

  The Meridian Crew | Book 1

  Blake B. Rivers

  Contents

  Unknown Cargo

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  Unknown Cargo

  Chapter 1

  Amelia Durand tucked the butt of the rifle into her shoulder, her skinny, eight-year-old frame struggling to support the weight of the weapon as she steadied it.

  “Aim!” called out the strident, cocky voice of Captain Ephram Drummond as he paced down the row of Geist operatives with his usual slow pace.

  Amelia complied, her sight trained down the blurry silver barrel of the gauss rifle, one eye squinted, the other focused on the human-shaped target that stood three-hundred meters downrange. She forced herself to calm, letting the stimulants and sensory-enhancing drugs running through her veins do their work.

  “Fire!”

  She squeezed the trigger. Gauss weapons hardly kicked, and the most she felt as the ceramic bullet fired from the weapon and launched towards the target at supersonic speeds was a vibration that buzzed through her hands and down her arms.

  There was a whoomp-crack noise as the bullet screamed through the air and connected with the target. Amelia snapped her head up, her pony-tail bouncing against the nape of her neck. The target, which was intact only a moment ago, was now punched through with a hole the size of a large fist, the perforation itself ringed with an orange singe that flickered and popped. The air in front of the target was lined with wavering blue circles that floated in the air for a moment before dissipating- the tell-tale sign of a recent gauss weapon shot.

  “Dead on,” said Captain Drummond, walking down the line of children that comprised the current class of trainees of the Federation Geist program. Geists were the black-ops wet work soldiers of the Federation, a group of soldiers handpicked from a young age for exceptional physical and mental ability.

  He continued, his heavy boots landing with thudding footfalls as he walked.

  “The R-88 Gauss Rifle is a weapon that you all will be using in the field for all manner of combat operations. Capable of firing at se-ver-al times the speed of sound, it can punch through all but the thickest armor.”

  He stopped in place and, looking up and behind her, Amelia could see his smooth, handsome face look towards the line of wrecked targets, an expression of something like reverence on his features, a small smile playing on his prim, womanly lips, his sandy blonde hair draped over the silver pauldrons of his Federation uniform armor.

  “Hell of a weapon, is it not?” he asked, his voice smooth and wistful, as if recounting fond battlefield memories.

  With a gentle press of his gloved fingertips on a candy-apple red button installed face-high on the jet-black steel wall behind them, the thin, florescent lighting above cast his face in eerie shadows. A mechanical whirr sounded from the line of targets and, within minutes, they were all taken from the shooting range on the same track they were brought in on.

  Amelia looked to her right and left, the youthful, fresh faces of her fellow candidates all tightened in the same look of fixed-minded concentration. Noticing that she was the only one not staring forward, she snapped her attention back towards the targets; getting called out for falling out of formation, even in a minor way like not facing forward as the Captain spoke, was a mistake that she didn’t want to get caught making.

  “But you all are getting on in years, and I have no doubt there isn’t a, ah, Geist-to-be in this room that couldn’t use this weapon with deadly precision.”

  He stopped in his tracks.

  “So, we’re going to try something different today. Something with targets you’re more likely to encounter during ops, to put it one way.”

  He pressed the button again, but this time, the track didn’t bring in a fresh set of training dummies.

  These targets entered on their own.

  Looking up from the stainless-steel barrel, Amelia watched as a line of a dozen men were led into the far end of the firing range, their clothes tattered, their hands bound in the jet-black manacles that the Federation was known for, their appearance that of those who’d been pulled out of the oubliettes that solitary prisoners were kept in. This last part seemed painfully clear to Amelia- the group looked like the white light of the target range was the brightest light they’d been exposed to in weeks.

  Within moments, black-armored Federation troops attended to each of the prisoners, fastening them in place against the back wall.

  “This is a long shot, as you all can see. Probably about five-hundred meters,” said Captain Drummond. “I expect you all to hit with the same precision that I’ve been seeing. And no squeamishness at the…soft nature of the targets. Each and every one of these prisoners is a convicted traitor to the Federation, and, as far as you’re concerned, as human as these dummies you’ve been firing at.”

  Amelia took a deep breath, settling into firing positon. She felt a little sick, scared, and unsure- the usual blend of feelings that swirled in her stomach whenever they fired at live targets. And they did it often- the fighting between the Federation and the random factions of uprising groups all referred to with the catchall term “dissidents” had gotten steadily worse in the last year.

  But, as she’d been trained to, she pushed aside the negative feelings that seemed to scream out to her, instead taking slow, even breaths, training her sight on the target.

  “So! Let’s not waste a second. Ready!”

  Amelia closed one eye, the squirming, weeping figure -a young man, possibly still in his teens, with ragged brown hair and a white face sheened with sweat- sharp in her vision.

  “Aim!”

  Amelia exhaled, letting the air slip from her lungs, now holding her breath to steady her aim, her tiny finger now curled around the cool, ridged metal of the trigger.

  “Fire!”

  And she did.

  ***

  “Amelia!”

  The voice seemed far away, like something from a dream.

  “Amelia! Jesus, she’s doing it again. Benkei, can you slap her or somethin’?” the voice was eager and brash, but feminine.

  “That sounds a little extreme to me, Sam; she’s just daydreaming again.” This voice was low, steady, male, sonorous.

  “Well, she can daydream all she wants after the drop-off. Here.”

  Amelia felt something strike against the side of her head and, just like that, she was jolted back into awareness.

  She was on the flight deck of her ship, the Meridian, the large trapezoidal shape of the flight deck window filled with the smooth disc shape of the Saratoga, the abandoned smuggler’s station where they were scheduled to meet with Arlen and the rest of his gang.

  Looking down at the floor by her feet, she spotted something next to the slim, black combat boots on her feet: it was a matchbook. Leaning forward, she picked it up with her thumb and forefinger. It
was a matchbook from some casino on Deimos, a cartoonish drawing of the potato-shape of the Martian moon surrounded by Federation Credit signs on its surface.

  “This better not mean you’re lighting your smokes with matches,” said Amelia.

  “Now what the hell difference does that make?” asked Sam, calling out from the pilot’s seat, a confused expression on her pale, freckled, pretty face.

  “Matches make cigarettes taste like garbage. And it’s bad luck.”

  “I’m going to take issue with both of those statements,” said Benkei, picking a stray piece of dust from the worn texture of his black waistcoat.

  Amelia shook her head, flicking away the last traces of her reverie.

  “Just trust me. Did we hear from that turd Arlen yet, or what?”

  “You kiddin’?” Sam asked, her gaze fixed on the readouts on the screens in front of her. “You know Arlen hates talking on comms.”

  “Right,” said Amelia, “always the paranoid one. If anything’s going to get stupid-ass busted, it’ll be his loud mouth, not staying off comms.”

  Benkei, his massive, muscular figure leaning against the cockpit wall, spoke up, his Oriental eyes narrowed.

  “Our friend is more of the cloak-and-dagger type. We get a drop-off time and place, and that’s where we meet him.”

  “Yeah, ‘cloak-and-dagger’ is one way to put it,” said Amelia.

  “And we’re docking now,” said Sam.

  With that, the ship slid into the narrow, red-light-rimmed outline of the docking station.

  “OK,” said Amelia, “let’s do this thing.”

  Chapter 2

  The job was simple: break into an abandoned Federation outpost, download some data, and bring it back to Arlen, who’d pay cash-in-hand for it. That’s what their contact on Venus said, at least.

  And they pulled it off without a hitch. The solar system was lousy with abandoned outposts since the Federation collapsed, and, depending on the condition of the station, and whether or not they’d already been raided by merc teams like the Meridian’s, they could be full of data that the right people would pay good money for.

  But Amelia hated fetch runs- the money could be OK, but there wasn’t anything to them. Just get in, get whatever data, get out, and hope whatever you took was worth anything. Sometimes it was skunkworks weapon data that’d be worth enough to keep the ship stocked and the crew paid for months, sometimes it was stellar cartography data on a sector of the solar system that’d been colonized for years. You never knew, and that’s what she hated.

  “Did Professor Cheekbones finish going over the data yet?” asked Amelia, rising from her seat and stretching her thin limbs.

  “That, you’d have to ask him to find out,” said Benkei, his thick arms crossed over his barrel chest, his tattooed forearms pressed against the fabric of his waistcoat. “You know as well as I do that once our handsome friend goes under, he doesn’t come up for air unless he absolutely has to.”

  “Then let’s see what he’s found out,” said Amelia.

  She turned to Sam, who was just as focused as she was a few moments ago, her face inches away from the screen in front of her, her profile lit with the white light of the readout.

  “Situation?” asked Amelia.

  “The situation is that there isn’t a situation. We’re docked fine; not like there’s anyone here to crash into. Other than Arlen’s godawful hot-rod ride”

  “You can make a fortune doing mercenary work, but you can’t buy taste,” said Benkei, referring to Arlen’s multicolored corvette loaded down with mismatched aftermarket parts that was currently docked on the other side of the station.

  “No kidding,” said Sam.

  “Shall we?” he said, chuckling.

  “We shall, indeed,” said Amelia.

  With that, the two of them left the cramped space of the cockpit and headed down the main hall of the ship, the tubular shape of the hall lit with long tracts of soft blue lighting that ran along the top and bottom.

  “Would it be an intrusion if I were to ask what your, ah, distracted spell a few moments ago was all about?” asked Benkei, his voice in its typical deep, patrician tone.

  “It would,” said Amelia, walking in quick strides, “but something tells me you’re going to ask anyway.”

  Benkei chuckled.

  “I hope you don’t think me nosy,” he said, “but it does seem that you’ve been having more and more of these little incidents. I worry about you, little one.”

  “Just the usual,” Amelia said as she entered the spacious, round, main room.

  “I can only imagine,” said Benkei. “When most adults look back on their childhood, they have fond memories. You, on the other hand, don’t have the luxury of nostalgia, just Federation black-ops training that would be too much for most adults.”

  “It’s nothing,” said Amelia, hitting the button on the elevator that would bring them down to the landing pad floor.

  “I’ll trust your judgement, as usual. Just try not to tell yourself it’s nothing, when it is, in fact, something.”

  “Mhmm,” said Amelia, the stainless-steel elevator doors sliding open with a hiss.

  “Weapons?” asked Benkei, surprised.

  “You know how Arlen is,” she replied, stepping into the elevator. “The guy gets all cagey if drop-offs don’t go exactly how he wants them.”

  “So, weapons,” he said.

  “What was that you just said about trusting my judgment?” asked Amelia, a smirk on her face as she gestured towards the rucksack strapped to her back.

  “Ah. Point conceded,” said Benkei, nodding and raising his large, ruddy palms in mock-surrender.

  The elevator moved down with a hum, the small space filled with whitish-orange light. Within seconds, the doors opened, revealing the black stretch of the landing pad. Amelia and Benkei stepped out of the elevator, the cool air of the climate-controlled landing pad rushing over them.

  “Why the hell do they have to keep this place like a damn freezer?” Amelia said, rubbing her toned bare arms with her hands.

  “Probably been years since anyone’s seen to the power plant on this place,” said Benkei, his breath coming out in soft white puffs.

  “And there they are,” said Amelia, looking towards a group of five men in ratty, patchwork clothing who moved towards them, all seemingly walking with the same cocky saunter that every pirate and smuggler seemed to have.

  “There’s my little bird!” called out the man in the middle, his voice a rough Yorkshire accent that sounded over the mechanical ambiance of the landing pad. “I’d recognize those tits anywhere!”

  “Charming as ever,” said Benkei.

  Amelia raised a hand to greet the group, her face impassive and steely. But before she could close the distance, a tinny beep sounded from the small satchel on her hip. Reaching into it, she pulled out her slate and saw that there was an incoming call from Sasha.

  “Couldn’t wait?” said Benkei, looking over at the clear, flat surface of the slate screen.

  Amelia waved her hand over the screen, bringing the call up. Within seconds, Sasha’s face was on the screen.

  Sasha Vasiliev -Ph.D., as he would be quick to point out- was the result of a Federation gene therapy program that was eventually scrapped. His genes manipulated from the moment of conception, he was intended to represent the next stage of humanity’s progress. To that end, not only was he endowed with a genius-level IQ, he was gifted with good looks sculpted to scientific precision. He had a wide, strong jaw; sensual, red lips; a sloping, aquiline nose; and blue-steel eyes that seemed to be in a perpetual glower. And atop his head was a thatch of hair thick and dark enough to get one’s hand caught in.

  Unfortunately, his genetic perfection didn’t translate to social skills.

  “Hey! What the hell are you two doing?” he yelled in his Slavic-accented voice. “I haven’t finished going over the data yet!”

  “I’ve got it,” hissed Amelia.

>   Sasha threw up his hands.

  “Why am I never in the loop? Just once I’d like to know what you’re pl-“

  Amelia ended the call with a quick swipe.

  “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t share the same sentiments,” said Benkei, looking down at Amelia.

  “Just trust me,” she said.

  The crew of men grew closer, and Amelia could now make out Arlen. Wearing a green trench coat that hung down to his ankles, a neon-pink undershirt crisscrossed with Asian characters, and his hair dyed jet-black and cut into a short mohawk, Amelia would recognize Arlen anywhere.

  “I was wonderin’ when you were gonna bring that little arse’a yours back around my parts,” he said, a cocky smile on his pock-marked face.

  The rest of the smugglers shared the sentiment, and Amelia felt her skin crawl as they eyeballed her. Out of the corner of her vision, Amelia could see Benkei’s fists tighten with anger.

  “You always manage to outdo yourself with charm and sophistication,” Amelia said.

  “’Ey, what can I say? Me parents didn’t send me to finishin’ school for nothin’,” he replied, the smirk still on his face.

  He looked up at Benkei, his posture tensing up as he scanned the mercenary’s substantial height.

  “And always a pleasure to see ya, big man,” Arlen said.

  Benkei grunted in response.

  “But enough of the pleasantries,” he said, his lips spreading in a wicked grin, revealing twin rows of chipped, urine-colored teeth.

  “Let’s make a deal.”

  Chapter 3

  “I trust your little station raid went according to plan?” asked Arlen.

  “Another haunted house,” said Amelia, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

  After the Federation collapsed, the hundreds of outpost stations across the system were cut off from the comms network. Some, those led by competent commanders, were able to evacuate according to protocol, getting their crews safely off-station and back to civilization. Others, those led by less competent or greener commanders, weren’t so lucky. With some, the top brass on board scrambled to the escape shuttles, leaving the enlisted behind to fend for themselves. Others simply went to chaos right away. That meant that when a mercenary team docked with a station, there was a good chance the scene on board wouldn’t be the most pleasant to look upon. Hence, “haunted house.”