Fracture Lines (The Glass Complex Book 2) by John Hindmarsh Read Free Book Online

day.”
    Steg followed the captain out of the room, wondering where he was going, and what he had initiated with his defeat of the other man. The corridor’s dull metallic surface offered no clue as to direction or location. He was somewhere in the middle of a starship, if his assessment was correct. He could guess nothing more.
    The captain stopped at a door and entered a key code, hiding the details with his body. The door swung open and the mercenary directed Steg inside. He waited until Steg entered the room, and then closed the door and departed. Two men, uniformed, presumably mercenaries, were each seated at a desk. One, wearing sergeant’s stripes and holding an earpiece to his ear, was watching a video screen. Steg watched for a moment and realized the screen was displaying the room where he had been held. The second man, a colonel, was reading file notes. The officer raised his head for a moment and pointed, directing Steg to a chair beside his desk. He continued to read the file notes. After five minutes had passed, he pushed the files to one side.
    “You can handle yourself. You’re intelligent. Why’d you do something dumb like taking on ImpSec?”
    “Coincidence and the unknown, I suspect. I still don’t recall how I boarded xTaur , and my presence—unexplained and unauthorized— caused major worries on their part.”
    “There must have been more to it?” The colonel seemed genuinely curious.
    “I suppose.” Steg nodded his head. “A young ImpSec officer and the surgeon responsible for my treatment had a falling out. ImpSec, as a result, were obliged to court-martial their officer. He was dishonorably discharged and received a ten-year sentence. ImpSec used me for revenge.”
    “Hmm. We were monitoring the holding room. You’re fast. Efficient. Dangerous. What rank have you held?”
    “Captain in the Imperial Intelligence Agency, astronavigator and military shuttle pilot.” Steg was experiencing incremental although measured steps of recall as hidden processes increased the repair of his memory-tattered past.
    “Good. We need another captain. You’ll have as many as you select from this and a second load of another twenty when we make our next pickup.”
    Steg mentally shook his head, trying to clear his confusion. “What’s this all about? Who are you?”
    The colonel replied, “My name’s Ryan Attwood. I command a small battalion of marines. We’re mercenaries, operating under a private flag. We’ve been issued a letter of marque by Sicca—you know, the War Merchants. I’ve two hundred and fifty men, plus about fifty in logistics and support, mainly humanoid. Oh, and there’s the ship’s officers and crew, about a hundred or so with a small force of ship marines; they’re an almost balanced mix of Terran types and aliens. I recruit from wherever I can. Imperial prisons are one of my main recruiting sources. I buy bodies, those sentenced to death or never to be released. We get some good, some bad.” He shrugged. “We return the bad. If we can.”
    Steg’s immediate reaction was to class the mercenaries as pirates, even if they did possess a letter of marque. Such a letter allowed them legally to go into battle against other starships, as long as they were authorized under a properly contracted arrangement with a planetary government. Without that letter and contract, they’d be classed as pirates if they attacked another starship or engaged in planetary-based warfare. He needed time: to understand, to consider what his strategy should be, to benefit from this unexpected opportunity to gain his freedom.
    “Colonel, I’m exhausted. I think the drug’s still affecting me.” He rubbed his forehead. “Can we discuss this tomorrow?”
    “Certainly. I’ll get a corporal to show you to your new quarters. A captain doesn’t sleep on the floor.”
    Steg gave his cabin a cursory examination when he entered; there was a bed, two steel storage cabinets, a desk and chair, an