Incursion
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Riptide Publishing
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Hillsborough, NJ 08844
http://www.riptidepublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Incursion
Copyright © 2012 by Aleksandr Voinov
Cover Art by Jordan Taylor,
http://bit.ly/uGAHFK
Editors: Kristen Osborne and Rachel Haimowitz
Layout: L.C. Chase,
http://lcchase.com/design.htm
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at
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ISBN: 978-1-937551-45-2
First edition
July, 2012
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Fighting with your back to the wall is all well and good—as long as you've chosen the right wall.
When the local authorities ask Kyle Juenger to hunt a shape-shifting Glyrinny spy, he can't refuse. After all, he can use the reward to replace his paralyzed legs with cyberware, and maybe even to return to his home planet. Besides, he hates the morphs—those invasive, brain-eating monstrosities whose weapons cost him his legs.
Kyle's best lead is the
Scorpion
, a mercenary ship armed to the teeth. Grimm, the
Scorpion
's pilot and captain, fascinates Kyle. He's everything Kyle lost with his legs, and he's from the same home world. He's also of the warrior caste—half priest, half savior. But Grimm's been twisted by life as a merc, and Kyle's stuck undercover as a criminal on the run.
That doesn't stop Grimm from coming on to Kyle, or from insisting he's more than the sum of his past and his useless legs. But Kyle has other concerns—like tracking a dangerous morph who could be wearing anyone's face. And as if things weren't complicated enough, Kyle can't tell if Grimm is part of the solution . . . or part of the problem.
For Jody. This one's for you. And for all real-life shape-shifters.
The Sector Commissar requests your presence.
The message on Kyle's comm scrolled into view, then blinked once, twice, to indicate the sender had flagged it as important. To annoy him more, it flashed red before bleeding back into black.
Lucky, then, that he was ready to go. He gathered his belongings from the sleep pod and stashed them in his pilot bag.
Kyle thumped his ID chip into the pod's terminal and asked for a refund of the pre-bought nights. He had a queasy feeling he wouldn't be coming back to this pod, which was a damn shame, because it was so close to the hospital. With that kind of summons, you only knew one thing: it would mess up all other plans.
When he emerged onto the street, the bustle was almost too much; vehicles buzzed by so fast that he struggled for balance, still unaccustomed to the prostheses encasing his legs despite having worn them the last six weeks. Not good. He steadied himself with one hand against the wall of the pod farm, and made for the nearest alley, ignoring the taxis flashing prices at him as they zipped past. People on foot were always fare-bait to them. He couldn't afford individual transportation; he'd used up his credits getting here from the spaceport a month ago. Authorities didn't believe in above-average mileage for people like him. Social security could be a bitch like that.
It took him half an hour to reach the public transport terminal and find a SocSecCredits machine to trade his fuel credits for transport credits. At a rate of two for one, he was being ripped off, as usual with official SSC terminals, but he hadn't had the time to tap the black market yet. If he'd been his normal, whole self, he could have walked. On Tamene, he would have. Home. A shitload of transportation credits away. He'd never save enough to make it there, not even if he cut back on everything but food for two hundred years.
The people crowding the transportation platform made way for him, as if he'd step on their feet otherwise. Kyle took position at the very end of the platform, where he imagined those poor bastards stood just before throwing themselves in front of an incoming train. He was beyond those kinds of thoughts, though, thanks to the shrink at the hospital, and the Tamenean idea that only cowards committed suicide. He'd left everything else behind—the elders, their customs, the land itself, and his ancestors—but had failed so far to rip those beliefs from his chest.
When the train glided in, he waited for the passengers to spill out, then joined the throng of people squeezing inside. He spotted an empty seat and met the angry stare of a suited guy in the crowd who pushed past him, jostling against his shoulder just before he plunked down and demonstratively balanced his briefcase on his knees. Kyle reached for one of the metal bars and widened his stance to compensate for the jolt when the train started. At every stop, people streamed first out, then in, most of them brushing him for lack of space, even ramming against him, clearly annoyed by the bulky, intrusive bag slung across his back. But in the tightly packed can, there was no way he'd be able to pick it up again if he put it down.
"Main Square," the computerized voice promised, and most of the passengers disembarked. Kyle followed, allowing himself to be washed out like a dead fish by the human wave.
When he touched out of the terminal, the system told him he was down to zero credits. If he needed more before his next allocation, he'd have to trade clothing or food credits. He spotted the triangular skyscraper at the east side of the vast square that doubled as the center of the universe as far as these people were concerned.
He stepped through the automatic doors and crossed a foyer decked entirely in green-veined polished marble, which made it look like the insides of a gutted leviathan. He blinked that image away (and the sense-memory of the
stench
) and approached the security guards manning a singular counter that sat there like a vertebra.
He slapped his ID down and pushed it toward the hard-faced woman on the other side of the polished marble surface. "I'm expected."
She swiped the chip across a scanner. "Kyle Juenger?"
"Same."
She raised her eyebrows as she quickly scanned his history, apparently impressed by whatever she read there, then tapped an access code into the system before sliding the chip back toward him. "Elevators to the left. Get off on the thirty-fifth floor, turn left, go to reception. The code will expire five minutes from now. You'd better be at your destination by then."
Don't linger, don't get off where you're not supposed to, and for gods' sake, don't dawdle.
Security forces were the same everywhere. Space Navy Sec Forces were all about shooting anybody even looking at the wrong ship. Trigger-happy bastards. The Glyrinny incursion didn't justify absolutely everything.
He snatched his ID and headed for the gates. The automated weapons platform on the other end stared at him with three barrels ready to spit subsonic ammo. Yes, the Commissariat sure meant business.
Kyle walked past the mechanized executioner and was relieved when the elevator doors slid open as he approached. "Scan your ID," the screen demanded, and he waved the card in front of the sensor field. "35 Floor" appeared on the screen. So how was he supposed to stray from the path? Did they really expect a Glyrinny infiltrator to crack the machine code in the time it took for the doors to close? Glyrinny were supposedly good, but surely not that good.
He almost lost his footing when the elevator stopped abruptly. Now, that would be an image—knocked flat by negative acceleration and struggling to get back on his feet while the weapons platform opposite the doors was aiming at him. It was enough to make his heart race, and to keep his balance, he pressed so hard against the elevator wall his fingernails turned white.
He staggered out of the cabin and shot the annihilator a nasty stare. Not that the machine cared; it definitely outgunned him. He turned left and passed another pair of sliding doors, and a matrix of blue lights scanned him quickly, then turned green. He walked up to reception, where a guy was clearly making a personal call. The smiles and laughter didn't belong here.
The receptionist's face turned serious. "I'll call you back later," he said and ended the connection. "Yes, sir, how may I help you?"