Renegade Read Free Page A

you’re going to see them now?”
    “If I’m not there in less than fifty minutes, Mother will be calling Fleet Command asking where I am,” said Erik. Pantillo smiled. “She knows exactly how far a walk it is, she’ll be timing me.”
    As it happened, he didn’t have to walk — an uplink signal flashed on his inner vision, and told him that a cruiser was on its way to a local transition zone, ETA ten minutes. Courtesy of Debogande Enterprises, of course, and initialled KD. That would be Katerina Debogande, Erik’s eldest sister and CEO of Debogande Enterprises. DE in turn accounted for slightly more than half of Debogande Incorporated — the core company, handed down in family tradition to the eldest child.
    Erik rounded up two buddies from third-shift he knew had no family on Homeworld, plus one from Engineering second-shift, and ushered them toward the transition zone. As much as he looked forward to seeing his family again, a part of him dreaded it as well, and he did not want to be alone among the civilians. Besides, an invite to a Debogande family function could be a real boost to a young person’s life in any career, and all three friends accepted eagerly. They exchanged some more embraces and farewells as they left, but before they could properly depart, Erik was halted by Major Trace Thakur herself.
    “Got room for one more?” she asked him, eyeing his group of three.
    “Um… sure, it’ll be a big cruiser.” To put it mildly. “Why?”
    “The Captain feels you should have protection. Lieutenant Dale will accompany you.” She glanced at Dale, who was tall, blonde and dangerous. The marine dress uniform did its best to civilise him, but Erik had seen the man bite the head off a live tulik in a drinking session. He was a killer bare-handed or with weapons, or with innocuous everyday items that could be used as weapons. His displeased expression suggested he’d much rather have gone drinking with his marines, and wasn’t as thrilled at this invitation to party with the insanely wealthy as some might have been.
    Erik gave Thakur a puzzled smile. “Major, I’m just going to see my family, I really don’t think I need protection.”
    “The Captain feels you do.”
    Trace Thakur was a little below average height, had ethnicity going back to a more familiar-sounding Earth-place called ‘India’, and was kind of pretty but in no way delicate. Like all marines, she was the product of the best genetic engineering and bio-synthetic augmentations that money could buy. Unlike most marines, she was Kulina, the elite warriors from the world of Sugauli. Among other things, that meant she didn’t drink or gamble, and as far as anyone knew, hadn’t been screwing around either.
    Some non-marines were surprised that a man like Dale could take a teetotaller seriously at all, but Erik had learned that if you wanted to make yourself physically unsafe around Phoenix marines, you needed only say something negative about the Major. Dale was a thirty year veteran, and had an impressive row of medals on his chest, yet despite ‘only’ ten years of active duty, Thakur’s was larger. Foremost amongst them was the Liberty Star, the highest award the UF could give. Usually you had to die to get one.
    Erik smiled. “Of course. Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Dale.” Dale grunted. “And what about you, Major? Would you like to come too?”
    “There are many things in this life that I would like to do, Lieutenant Commander,” Thakur said cryptically. And she put a hand on Dale’s shoulder as she left, in thanks. It seemed to cheer him, but only a little.
    “Come on then,” Erik sighed. “Let’s do it.”
    The park perimeter was crazy with crowds, all the roads were shut to traffic, and the thronged pedestrians moved in a slow, shuffling sea, shouting, singing and shaking the hand of every uniformed person they saw. Erik’s crew cleared the park’s guarded exit just as the lights about the transition zone between