The War for Profit Series Omnibus by Gideon Fleisher Read Free Book Online

loadmaster called, “There any military out there? I’m supposed to pick up three tank jockeys.”
    “Right here!” said Galen.
    “Come over here.”
    They pushed their way through the knot of civilians. The loadmaster gave them a skeptical look and said, “Show me some identification and some orders.”
    They reached in their pockets and pulled out credit markers, academy graduate I.D.s and their mercenary contracts. The loadmaster read all the documents carefully and handed them back.
    “Okay, get on.”
    As he walked down the boarding gantry Galen heard the loadmaster tell the other waiting passengers, “Sorry folks, my boat’s full. Better luck catching the next one.”
    The steward caught up to Galen and his two buddies and told them, “We’re really packing them in this time, what with that other ship breaking down. Anyhow, you three will ride in the upper weapons blister, for two reasons. One, you’re tank jockeys, so that means you know a thing or two about weapons. But we aren’t putting you there to use the damn things, understand that right now. The reason you’re being put there instead of civilians is so that if a weapon gets discharged, we can take legal action against you. You know enough about those weapons to make absolutely sure they don’t get fired. Or damaged. Remember that. Your cabin, gentlemen.”
    “Do you think they wouldn’t call us ‘gentlemen’ if we weren’t academy graduates?” said Tad.
    “I guess so,” said Spike. He strapped himself into the weapons control couch.
    Galen said, “That loadmaster, he probably still thinks we’re impostors. Did you see the dirty look he gave us, like we insulted the whole universe by calling ourselves military?”
    “No, spacers hate mercenaries. That’s what my uncle told me. He used to work at this spaceport,” said Spike.
    “No wonder you found your way around here so well, it runs in your family,” said Tad.
    “Talk about family, why your family...”
    “Let’s drop it. I’m in no mood to fight,” said Galen. For him, discussions about family and lineage were taboo. But with a comfortably retired mother and a big chunk of money in his own account, his family heritage would be quite respectable. But not until then, not for a while longer.
    “So Spike, tell us more about this spacer/mercenary complex,” said Tad.
    “Oh, it’s not so hard to figure out. Being in space, weightless or in control of your gravity is kind of comfortable. The only reason they have to come down is to get us. A necessary evil they have to put up with to earn a living. And in space this ship is quite a powerful weapon, but on the ground it’s kind of vulnerable to attack, dependent on ground units for protection. So they resent us for several reasons. Then there are the crews. Now they really don’t like us, but I don’t suppose we’ll ever meet any of them. We shouldn’t, anyway.”
    “Attention passengers,” the steward’s voice came over the intercom, “we will be lifting off in thirty seconds. Because of our tight schedule we will be launching faster than normal and will burn at a rate of three Gs while leaving the planet’s gravity well. Then as we approach the jump point we will decelerate at two Gs. We will, however, give you fifteen minutes of weightlessness between one G burns. I advise you to make the most of those times to prepare for the second leg of the flight. There will be no one or zero G breaks after the turnaround. That will be all.”
    “How long does this flight take?”
    “About six hours to the turnaround, where we coast for a while, and then maybe four hours as we decelerate to stop at the jump point.” Galen didn’t know, he was only guessing. The primary thrusters fired, gently lifting the drop ship into the air.
    “Hey, this ain’t so bad, can hardly feel the extra gravity,” said Tad.
    Spike said, “Yeah, you know the deal with them spacers. They just said that to scare us.”

Chapter Two
    Galen said