Better to Beg Forgiveness-ARC Read online

  Better to Beg Forgiveness-ARC

  Michael Z. Williamson

  Advance Reader Copy

  Unproofed

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Better to Beg Forgiveness: Copyright © 2007 by Michael Z. Williamson

  A Baen Book

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN 10: 1-4165-5508-0

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4165-5508-7

  Cover art by Kurt Miller

  First Baen printing, October 2007

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  t/k

  Printed in the United States of America

  CHAPTER 1

  "Basically, I'm in it for the money," Aramis Anderson said. "Who can turn down entire weeks' worth of pay per day?" He sat back in his couch and sipped his drink. He'd already finished his lunch, and the sandwich must have screamed in terror, seeing and then disappearing down that voracious maw.

  "Yeah, but I figure they pay that for a reason. This won't be easy." Former Captain Alex Marlow, USMC, remembered being young and stupid. That's why he was former captain. Granted, he'd gotten the job done, but Anderson's ego was larger than his had been and potentially a problem, despite all his training and experience.

  "No, not easy," Anderson agreed. "But it's better pay than the infantry, better rules of engagement than the infantry, and better gear than the infantry."

  Anderson kept bringing up the infantry, by which he meant the U.S. Army infantry. "All Marines Are Riflemen First," but the Army's riflemen were often condescending to the rest of their servicemates.

  I'm probably being too harsh, Alex thought. I was much the same and grew out of it. He's well trained, and he follows orders. He didn't need to let immaturity and abrasiveness cause tension. You had to get along with your team even if you didn't care for them socially. The kid did well at the Academy, did have limited real world experience, and was quite bright. He'd keep an eye out, and say something if he needed to. After all, he'd agreed to bring the kid along as muscle with brains.

  "I've never guarded a head of state before," said Eleonora Sykora, leaning back in her couch and clearly enjoying the smooth flight of the luxury aircraft. The plane was soundproofed, and even her soft tones were audible. She was a Czech from Earth, but spoke good spaceside English, if a little rough on pronunciation. She was female, slim, and elegant looking, not exactly the image of an executive security professional.

  Of course, Alex reflected, that understatedness probably was to her advantage. She was not a small woman, but didn't come across as imposing, either. She had good credentials and Jason, his deputy and friend, spoke highly of her. They'd been on contract together.

  "So we do what we always do. Bound to have some advantages and disadvantages," he said.

  Ripple Creek Security sounded very sophisticated and classy. They charged accordingly, and paid their operators likewise. But if need be, that sophistication devolved to six or eight nasty operators with guns, who carried their principal to safety while shooting anything in their way. Their primary clients were governments and multinational and multisystem corporations. It was said they rarely lost a principal, but of principles, they had none.

  "So what would be each?" Sykora asked.

  "Oh," Alex replied, and engaged his brain from peripherally alert to responsive. "Likely to have decent quarters for us, and lots of indoor time. Likely facilities to check incoming individuals. Likely to have good control of vehicles and facilities . . ."

  "Likely someone has a ChiNaTech Mark Fifteen missile with a microburst remote control aimed at the palace, a few planted informants in the existing indigeneeous security, bugs and a horde of savages outside?" Sykora asked.

  "Elke, you've been doing this enough months that's a rhetorical question, right?" Alex asked back.

  She nodded with a wry smile. She ate steadily and neatly from the tray, not in the ravenous fashion Anderson had. She was always methodical and thoughtful. You had to be to work with explosives.

  Bart Weil had sat next to her when Anderson hadn't. Weil was poring over maps of Celadon, their destination. Weil was a big, grizzled German, a wet-navy vet turned bodyguard. This was a different mission from guarding idiot musicians and their retinues, but Weil did both well. He could be as polite or intimidating as necessary. He had the most actual security experience, and Alex aimed to exploit that. The man was quiet but not slow. He recalled their duty together during the meteorite strike on Novaja Rossia, keeping a starving mob in a blasted wasteland from looting supplies that had to be issued in a proper program. It wasn't easy telling families with hungry children to wait, or threatening fathers who were trying to see that those children did get fed when they cut the fence. At least, it wasn't easy for Alex. Bart was coldly professional.

  Across from Bart, occasionally pulling the screen flat to see better, Shaman read the same maps upside down. He was slim and looked the part of an executive. He was also a damned fine doctor with lots of combat experience during Liberia's Third Civil War (or Eighth, depending on who did the counting), more than once using rigger tape, rags, and a pocketknife to perform lifesaving surgery. Horace "Shaman" Mbuto might leave you a scarred mess when done, but you'd probably be a living scarred mess, and reconstructive biosculp was covered under Ripple Creek's generous benefit package. Alex wasn't sure if the native rituals Mbuto used alone and on patients were a religious matter for him or simply an act meant to disturb and creep out observers, and wasn't going to ask. The man was one hell of a cutter and one hell of a shooter with years of experience.

  Last on the couch was Jason Vaughn, with his attention focused on his computer.

  "What are you writing, Jason?" Alex asked.

  "Letter home," Vaughn said tersely. Vaughn had a wife and kids on Grainne Colony. He'd probably memorized the maps already, and his eyes kept flicking up and forward toward the flight deck, in nervous habit. Vaughn was a pilot if need be, an armored vehicle driver if need be, a mechanical master, and very professionally paranoid. He swung from reticent to lecturing, and if he said something was so, it almost always was. Alex was glad to have him along. Great operator.

  They were all great operators. That's why they got paid better than doctors, lawyers, and most corporate mid execs. If you wanted someone with that skill set and talent, who'd put themselves between their employer and an incoming bullet, you had to pay. Contractor had been the polite term for a long time now, but the proper term was mercenary.

  They were on contract to guard Balaji Bishwanath, the incoming temporary president of Celadon on Salin. Celadon was a backwater haven for terrorists and pirates, and enough events had finally happened to draw notice to those facts. The UN Forces were pacifying it, at least on paper, and the Bureau of State moved in the interim president selected by the Colonial Alliance while a new, functioning government was created. Many of the gangs, syndicates, clans, and tribes didn't want the peace Bishwanath promised. Contingents from every faction on the planet wanted him dead.

  That wouldn't really matter in the long run. More troops would come until the UN/Alliance's goal was accomplished. But as with common criminals, there was a mind-set with certain people that such fights were "winnable." It was only fair, and professional, to give Bishwanath proper security presence while things settled down. The fact that he was seen as such a figurehead was, in fact, a boost
to his credibility.

  "Do you think we can get other contracts here, boss?" Aramis asked. "We've got diplomats, Assemblypersons, CEOs, and executives. I figure this could last a decade."

  Money was one of the big appeals, Alex admitted to himself.

  He replied, "The execs want to invest in—by which they mean exploit—a developing economy, and need protection from the exploited. There's an occasional correspondent who can afford our rates for a few days who might sign on, too. That's Corporate's job. We're Operations. We beat on enraged peasants and dedicated assassins, and cash our checks. Do it well, I'll give you a good review, Corp will find you jobs."

  "I'll do my best."

  Bishwanath rated more than six guards. They were just his immediate circle of "civilian" guards. Around and outside were plans for eighty-four more, four platoons of what were called Long Range Reconnaissance troops. At one time, such were called "Special Operations," but the euphemisms were all designed to make the military sound not quite so violent to an increasingly sensitive culture. A decadent, wimpy one in Alex's opinion.

  Alex, Bart, Elke, and Jason all knew a cross section of those Recon soldiers. They'd served with them or across from them. Shaman Mbuto and Aramis Anderson hadn't moved in that circle, but Shaman had an existing history and was respected. Anderson was the new guy and took it personally. At the same time, youthful troops were valuable in part because of their need to prove themselves. They could be prevailed upon to perform suicidally dangerous tasks, and sometimes survive. Older, more cynical personnel were not so image driven. Not that Alex intended to waste the kid cavalierly, but if heroics were called for, it was Anderson he was going to call upon to jump on the grenade.

  For now they were en route to Celadon and casually dressed. Much of this contract would be in suits, in limos and offices but it would also be outside at times, though, and Mahore, the capital of Celadon, was in a tropical latitude near sea level. It ran warm and muggy. Vaughn and Anderson fit suits right off the rack and looked great, wonderfully photogenic. Elke needed hers tailored, but with her short, fluffy hair and fine features she looked like an executive or a personal assistant, not a bloodthirsty bitch with kilos of high explosive. Weil needed suits specially made and bulged out of them, looking like some legbreaker with his broad features and chest. Mbuto just looked silly in them. He looked comfortable and respectable in shorts or casual clothes, and even in robes or ritual garb that would fit Carnivale, but a suit on him was out of place. Alex in a suit was just a guy in a suit.

  That rogue's gallery effect was another useful feature of his team. Hide the discipline and weapons, look like showpieces, and be prepared to deal out wholesale death if there was a problem.

  He turned his attention back to the shifting landscape below. The Broadwing aircraft had a stately, fuel-efficient speed and flew at a low enough altitude to allow a good view. That wasn't intentional, but Alex and Jason were both taking advantage of it now.

  The landscape was patchy jungle of mixed Earth and native growth, with farms, ranches, and mines hacked out geometrically here and there.

  "Fewer roads even than the Hinterlands on Grainne," Jason said without looking in.

  "Mostly hardpan dirt, some fused. I don't see the highway."

  "It is not visible from here," Bart said, indicating the map screen.

  Things looked slightly odd in the orange-tinged light of Bonner Durchmusterung +56°2966, which was far too complex a name for a very unremarkable K3 star. Many settled people just called their local star "the sun." Some had shortened versions of the star's Earth name, like the Grainne Colony, which called Iota Persei "Io." But "Bon" or "Durch" wouldn't work well. That was a catalog name. The declination number or whatever it was wouldn't work. Here, for some reason, the star was locally known as "Bob." There was no figuring that, so Alex watched the terrain.

  Scattered villages dotted the farm areas, or sprouted around crossroads. There were few towns. Little of the local life was compatible with Earth life. That was good and bad. Bad, because it meant nothing local was edible. It also meant, in this case, that the pheromone- and smell-driven local predators took no interest in Earth life. The only threats were those man brought along, mostly himself. Not that his team should ever be stopping in the remoter areas, but it never hurt to scout things out.

  The buildings in the settlements were prefabs and huts of native materials. Prefabs marked the "official" buildings and those sponsored by investment. Peasants had huts. Sunlight, or Boblight, was polarized by and reflected from water bodies, but not from glass or metal structures, or polished plastic. There weren't any. This place had started drab and run-down and then slid.

  Stretching, he took a sip of water. The seat was very comfortable, covered with a finer fabric than most commercial liners, and powered to support his neck and back automatically, shifting as he did. Military flights didn't rate such expensive but spine-saving hardware.

  Alex wouldn't admit it was his first trip off planet. The star flight had been smooth enough, and there wasn't much to say, so he ignored it. Both Elke and Jason had been off Earth, and Jason now lived off Earth, retired to a wealthy colony. He'd retired from the military, not from working in the field.

  Anyway, it made sense to soak up the view, get firsthand intel. There was nothing wrong with being a paid tourist, either.

  Salin was just a planet. It had analogs to much of Earth plant life, and a few lower animals. Not much local was above very simple amphibians, though the seas were fairly active. There were a few reptiles including some flying types. That meant a lot to the scientists who studied such. To him, it meant few nonhuman threats, which was fine, as there were enough of those. Salin was smaller than Earth, but had similar gravity and lots of metals in its core. Bob was a flare star, with periodic outbursts that weren't dangerous to a human with good UV block or a hat, and barely noticeable for their small violence. As with everything else around here, it was unspectacular. There was also a certain amount of metal in the asteroids here. Those were potentially profitable, being easy to transport through jump points, but the two large and one small nations on Salin had never been able to come to an agreement about them, so they remained unexploited. Planetary exports tended to be technology, foodstuffs, tourism, or rare minerals or gems. On the planet itself there were few people with education to create new tech, there was nothing rare here, barely enough food for subsistence and certainly nothing exotic, and the ongoing tribal wars and desolate or uninteresting terrain prevented any kind of tourism.

  What a hole, he mused.

  He tensed slightly as they landed. This mission was still being put together and the Ripple Creek oporder did not have much information on infrastructure. It lacked details such as whether the port was automated, or if pilots had to manually land and if there were even navaids. All these intelligence holes were information he needed to get the job done, but he'd have to make do. The landing was uneventful as it turned out, and they taxied up to a very basic, sheet-roofed building that served as the terminal. That summed up what this place was like.

  As soon as they rolled to a stop, he said, "Okay, debark, Elke and Bart, grab our weapons, and let's meet our principal at his new home."

  * * *

  Their craft was a civilian Skylifter, but was on contract to the military. Again and again that was happening, and Bart Weil didn't like it. He remembered when everything had been done at great expense with armor and combat craft. This was allegedly cheaper, but it was not safer and contractors weren't always reliable. He hated using them. Then he caught himself and laughed inside. He was a contractor and wouldn't be here otherwise. He'd done executive protection for years, but only been on military-type contracts a few months, like most of the team, and was still adapting to the mind-set.

  He walked aft, out through a wave of heat and down the ladder rolled against the fuselage. They were debarking on the apron, which said what was needed about this backwater. He started sweating, but it was only from the weat
her, not from any threat. Yet.

  There was a crew already unloading the hold, but not in the briskest fashion. That might be partly diet and climate—they had starvation-and-manual-labor physiques, even in this lower-than-Earth gravity—but he suspected a good part of it was laziness. Why work harder if it would not pay off?

  Their pallet came out on the forks, and he waved to the operator for attention. There was a moment's mixup as he used a hand signal he thought meant "down" that the operator understood as "tilt forward." Bart was almost responsible for the pallet dropping and shattering, because it was the ground guide's job to direct; the driver couldn't see anything at that angle. Bart hated being in charge, or having to rely on someone, so neither side of this was good for him. He also knew there'd be a lot of that this tour. He was already tense from it. The operator, at least, had been competent if not industrious.

  But he managed to guide the load down, and he and Elke snapped the wheels out from where they served as dunnage, to proper road position. The pallet could be driven by attached or remote control for as long as its ampacitors lasted, towed as a trailer, or pushed if it had to be. By itself it was an expensive piece of equipment, and what it contained . . .