Calculated Risk Read online

  Calculated Risk

  Mercenary Warfare Book 4

  Zen DiPietro

  Parallel Worlds Press

  Copyright

  COPYRIGHT © 2017 BY ZEN DIPIETRO

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without express written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations for the purpose of review.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions. Distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

  ISBN: 978-1-943931-17-0 (ebook)

  Cover Art by Jack Moik

  Published in the United States of America by Parallel Worlds Press

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dragonfire Station Universe

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Message from the author

  About the Author

  Dragonfire Station Universe

  Dragonfire Station Universe

  Dragonfire Station Book 1: Translucid

  Dragonfire Station Book 2:Fragments

  Dragonfire Station Book 3:Coalescence

  Intersections (Dragonfire Station Short Stories)

  Selling Out

  (Mercenary Warfare Book 1)

  Blood Money

  (Mercenary Warfare Book 2)

  Hell to Pay

  (Mercenary Warfare Book 3)

  Calculated Risk

  (Mercenary Warfare Book 4)

  Going for Broke

  (Mercenary Warfare Book 5)

  To be among the first to hear about new releases, sign up for Zen’s newsletter.

  1

  Alarm klaxons blared and people rushed through the corridors. Dire warnings of a hull breach repeated every thirty seconds.

  Sadly, such events had become common occurrences on Dragonfire Station.

  Cabot Layne didn’t follow proper protocol for the occasion. Sure, he checked his warehouse at the back of his shop to make sure no panicked person had attempted to shelter there, even though it would have been impossible for anyone to get in without his knowledge.

  He also took careful visual inspection of his showroom to make sure no one lingered, although every bit of the space was visible in a single glance.

  Then, as procedure dictated, he made sure the door to his shop closed securely behind him. But rather than hurry away, he took the extra two seconds to lock it.

  Emergency evacuation or not, he wasn’t leaving his store vulnerable to thieves.

  He hurried along the designated escape path to Docking Bay 1. The proximity of his shop made it a short journey, and despite his leisurely pace, he was the first to arrive. As a designated emergency team leader, he logged every person the second they entered.

  When the final person arrived, Cabot slapped the panel to seal off the docking bay.

  “Four minutes, fifty-seven seconds,” Cabot announced. “Jenkins, you almost didn’t make it.”

  The lieutenant cringed. As a senior security officer on the station, Mat Jenkins had more reason than most to respond promptly to an emergency. “I was on Deck 5 inside an access conduit. I’ll do better for the next drill.”

  Considering that Jenkins had made it out of a conduit and down four decks in five minutes, he’d already made a Herculean effort. Cabot maintained his severe expression, though, because it was fun to have the authority—albeit in a very temporary way, under highly specific circumstances—to take him to task.

  It was the little things that made life fun, especially during such dire times.

  “Just sit tight, everyone. I’ve already reported in, and we should get the all-clear in a couple of minutes.” Cabot had only returned to Dragonfire three days ago, but this was already his third emergency drill. Or “doomsday drill,” as people had begun to call them.

  The Planetary Alliance Cooperative had gone into crisis mode when they discovered that the Barony Coalition had occupied the Zankarti system. The war had gotten very real, very fast.

  Maybe that was just the way of war. A threat remains imminent, small skirmishes ensue, and either it blows up into a major conflict, or everyone breathes a sigh of relief for having averted disaster.

  No one was sighing with relief this time.

  The klaxon cut off abruptly, followed by the sound of Captain Hesta Nevitt’s voice. “All souls accounted for. Please return to your regularly scheduled day.”

  Cabot waited in the docking bay so that people leaving it and the other bays could filter out. He didn’t have far to go, and had no need to hurry back to his shop. Business wasn’t booming these days.

  He sat on the floor and used his comport to flip through some of the latest trade requests on the ISO and LTS markets. The screen on the portable device was not ideal for the task, but it worked well enough to pass the time.

  Sadly, the marketplace was a shambles. A year ago, he could have picked and chosen through the proposed deals, making a tidy profit by creating a nexus between supply and demand. The trade business had been affected before, but since the Zankarti occupation, the market had gone to crap. All he saw were requests for basic supplies. In some cases, he could have made significant profits with some price gouging. He was neither a small-time hack nor a big-time ripper, though. He wouldn’t profit over people’s desire to survive.

  “Anything good?” A deep voice reached him from across the bay.

  Omar Freeborn approached with a lopsided smile.

  “Not unless I want to rob desperate people, and that’s where I draw the line.” Cabot stood and dusted off his pants, though the floor was perfectly clean. “So that means there’s plenty of work for a guy like you.”

  Omar only grinned bigger. Though he was perfectly happy to cheat—and under certain circumstances, steal—Omar wasn’t one to take advantage of people who’d fallen on hard times, either. “Hopefully the Planetary Alliance Cooperative and Ditnya take care of Barony before things get truly desperate.”

  “There’s a sentence I never expected anyone to ever say. But hard times will come sooner rather than later for some places,” Cabot pointed out. “Atalus started out desperate, thanks to a decade of civil war. Other planets with fewer resources already struggle to get what they need. Even wealthier places like Zerellus and Kanar will start to feel the pinch with the galactic economy disrupted.”

  “At least the PAC hasn’t restricted travel or instituted any new trade prohibitions.” Omar leaned against the bulkhead in the casually lazy way that he’d made into his trademark.

  “Yet,” Cabot added. “If it comes to that, we’ll be in a bad economic spiral that will be hard to pull out of.”

  “That’s what Ditnya predicted, right? Have you heard from her?”

  “Yes. She tried to offer me more money instead of second-in-command authority aboard her ship, so I gave her my final offer.” Cabot had been checking his messages every ten minutes ever since, too. He and Ditnya needed to come to an agreement before she and the Bona Fide were out of range. Besides, the PAC needed their help sooner rather than later. He wanted to get going with the plan to combine the PAC’s and Ditnya�
��s efforts, but, as always, money came first with her. Cabot, on the other hand, only wanted to be sure he could effectively perform the role set out for him. If he couldn’t, it would all be for nothing.

  “She’ll come around,” Omar said. “She has a vested interest in preserving the economy, and she’ll sense that you won’t budge on the authority thing.”

  “I hope so,” Cabot said. He didn’t have Omar’s faith in Ditnya, but Omar knew her better on a personal level.

  “You sure we need to bring Nagali, though?” Omar wore a long-suffering expression. “She and Ditnya are like a grenade with the pin pulled. You don’t know exactly when it will explode, only that it certainly will. And bystanders like you and me are likely to lose a limb or two.”

  Cabot grinned. Omar wasn’t wrong. “What am I supposed to do, leave your sister loose on Dragonfire Station? I happen to like these people. At least if she’s on the Bona Fide, she’ll only be annoying people I don’t care about.”

  “Oh, so it’s not because you two are now officially dating and you want to keep her safe?” Omar grinned like a buffoon.

  “Do not,” Cabot denied, pretending to be mortally offended. “You want to keep her safe.”

  Omar put on a look of outrage. “You take that back.”

  “Besides,” Cabot continued, “what does it mean to be ‘officially dating’? There’s been no signing of contracts, so what would be official about it? Isn’t dating the most unofficial of relationships? So we eat food together sometimes. Big whoop-de-doo. It’s not like we’re getting remarried.”

  Omar hooted with amusement. “That sure is a lot of words that sound like protesting too much. Fine. Keep telling yourself it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t know how you can date her, official or not. If there’s anyone in this universe more infuriating, spiteful, and thoughtless than my sister, I’d be amazed. I mean, I have to be related to her, by accident of birth, but you—”

  Cabot looked past Omar’s shoulder and behind him. “Hey, Nagali. Where are you headed?”

  Omar’s eyes bugged out and he seemed suddenly unable to breathe. He managed to mutter, “Dude, that’s not funny.”

  Cabot smiled his patented benign smile. “She sure doesn’t seem to think so.”

  Cringing, Omar turned and saw that they were alone. He let out a long breath. “Prelin’s ass. Nice bluff.”

  “Thanks.” Cabot’s smile morphed into the more wolfish one he’d been using of late.

  It felt good.

  Peering out, Cabot saw that a lot of the traffic had thinned out. “What are you doing today? Want to come by the shop?”

  “And watch you polish board games and dust paintings? No thanks, the thrill is gone. I think I’ll watch a holovid or something. Catch you later.”

  Cabot let him walk away while suppressing the urge to ask Omar if Peregrine would join him for the vid. The two of them seemed to be getting serious. Or at least, Omar seemed serious about her, which was a first for him. Ever. About anything.

  As soon as Cabot returned to his store, his comport alerted him to an incoming message. Rather than use the tiny screen, he hurried behind the counter to access the voicecom.

  Doony Kirk’s grizzled old face appeared, and he looked pissed. A deep furrow ran between his eyebrows. “Cabot, is there any chance you could put in a word to let me dock with this blasted station already? I’ve been hanging out here for over an hour, and there are no other ships docking or departing.”

  Cabot felt a pang of sympathy for his longtime friend. “Sorry, Doon. I have no say over that kind of thing. We had another doomsday drill, but it’s done now. You should receive permission to dock any minute.”

  Doony scowled. “Too bad all this war garbage couldn’t wait a few years until I was dead.”

  Cabot laughed. “Don’t sell yourself short. You could have another ten or twenty years in you.”

  “I sure hope not. I’m not in any hurry to die or anything, but I’d rather it be of natural causes than due to a containment breach or old-fashioned starvation, which is where things seem to be headed.”

  Cabot’s humor evaporated. Doony wasn’t being his usual crusty self. He meant it. “Come see me as soon as you get aboard. I have a proposition for you.”

  “A business proposition?” A hint of avarice brightened his eyes.

  Cabot smirked at him. “Well it sure isn’t a romantic one.”

  Doony snorted out a sound that was half derision and half amusement. “I’ll get there as soon as they let me.”

  The connection broke and his image blinked out.

  Forty minutes later, Doony arrived with his idiosyncratic strut. It always seemed to Cabot that Doony’s legs were a couple inches shorter than he thought they were, causing him to step a little too hard with each footfall.

  “Good to see you,” Cabot said, coming around the counter to greet him. “Want me to make some tea?”

  “Do you have Mountain Blue?”

  “Of course.” Cabot had a fondness for the blend from their home planet of Rescissitan, and always had some on hand.

  “All right, then.” Rather than sit at the table in the middle of the store, Doony began examining the items on display. No doubt he was appraising and mentally cataloguing everything, the shrewd old codger.

  Cabot kept his electric kettle below the counter so he didn’t have to leave the showroom to brew the tea. He wouldn’t have worried, though, if he had. Doony wouldn’t steal in such a vulgar and artless way. If he were going to cheat Cabot, he’d deliver fewer items than what Cabot had ordered, or some other transactional misdirection.

  Something worthy of them both.

  Cabot set the steaming kettle on a tray with two cups and took it to the table, where Doony joined him.

  “So,” Doony said, sitting and sipping his tea. “Doomsday drills, huh?”

  Cabot would rather speak of other things, but there was no avoiding the topic. “The PAC is preparing for the worst. Dragonfire is a strategic location.”

  Doony frowned into his teacup, as if seeing something he didn’t like. “I heard of the same thing happening on Blackthorn. Rough times.”

  “How’s the hauling business?” From what Cabot’s young friend Arlen had told him, it was getting tougher to make a decent profit. Fuel costs were rising as speculators bought future shares and governments stockpiled.

  “I can just about make enough to stay alive,” Doony groused. “Good thing I have my savings, but it just isn’t worth it being out there right now. I’m too old to be doing little more than breaking even.”

  Cabot shook his head in sympathy. A lifetime of hard work ought to be worth more in a man’s advancing years. Fortunately, he had the perfect solution. “Come work for me.”

  Doony squinted at him. “How’s that?”

  “I’m going on an extended venture. My previous assistant, Liam, has taken a job on Jamestown. I need someone who can do a good job with my store. Someone who can keep it profitable, but make sure the people on Dragonfire are getting what they need. And doing that without letting them realize that you’re looking after them.”

  “I reckon I could do that, no problem. Wouldn’t mind a comfortable place like this to stay, either. What’s the pay?” Doony wore a skeptical expression, but Cabot knew him too well to be fooled. This was exactly what he needed.

  “Five hundred cubics a month, plus you can live in my quarters for free. And I’ll cover your long-term docking fee, too.” Cabot kept his posture casual, but he mentally prepared himself for some fierce negotiation.

  “Done.”

  “Wait, what?” Cabot froze with the teacup nearly at his lips.

  “It’s a sweet deal and I’d be ten kinds of stupid not to recognize how lucky I am to live somewhere that’s as secure as it gets, and even make money while I’m at it. Yep. I’m in.”

  “Huh.” Cabot finally took the sip of tea.

  “When are you leaving?” Doony asked.

  Still surprised, Cabot said, “A
s soon as the contract is in place.”

  Doony nodded. “Right. Let’s start with the books. Then you can brief me on inventory, and customer profiles.”

  “Already? You just got here.” This was progressing far faster than Cabot had expected.

  “You know me. See a job, get it done.”

  Cabot smiled. “That’s true. It’s why you were my first choice to do this, actually. You have a work ethic as strong as Ditnya Caine herself.”

  Doony shuddered. “Don’t mention the name of the devil. It might appear and smite us.”

  Cabot wasn’t sure whether to be disturbed or amused by this, given that the “devil” was, in fact, the reason for his upcoming departure from Dragonfire.

  No, he decided, he’d go with amused. He made a conscious effort to feel entertained by the idea.

  “Wait.” Doony leaned forward and gripped the edge of the table with both hands. “I don’t have to manage Nagali as an employee, do I? I know you’ve been tight with her and Omar again.”

  “What if I said yes?”

  “No deal,” Doony declared. “I’d rather take my chances on getting blasted into space dust by the Barony Coalition.”

  Cabot laughed. “Well, rest easy. She’s coming with Omar and me.”

  “Is that big blond going with you, too?”

  Cabot shook his head. “Nope. Peregrine will either be here, protecting the station, or doing some other thing to take care of the PAC. They don’t share big important stuff like that with a peon like me.”