Two hours later, I was marching up to the second merc outfit I’d been to this week, and this time I was both ready for a fight, and hopefully, far less likely to get one.

I’d brought Gunther up to date on everything that had happened, and I’d been weirdly touched when the old fart had sworn that if I needed him, if I was going back after those asshole mercs, the Errant Mergers, he’d be there.

It was kind, but honestly? Fuck no. Most of the mercs, I had no issue with. But the bosses and the guards? I was gonna fuck them all up. And as nice a guy as Gunther was, it’d be fifty-fifty he’d be dead in the first volley.

No, this time I asked for his help in a different way. He helped me narrow down the merc guilds that actually hunted specters, and we narrowed it further, searching by reported fatalities and bounties handed in, coming up with a single name that was most likely to take me showing up on their doorstep with a smile and arms thrown wide open.

The Vigilant Heart mercenary guild advertised that they took on the specters to “protect the city and its people.”

They all did that. Admittedly, even for mercs, “fuck you all, we just love credits” was unlikely to be a motto, publicly at least—but these guys seemed serious about it.

They’d also suffered some serious losses recently, leading to them desperately recruiting experienced mercs to replace those lost, before they lost their contracts.

I’d paid Gunther back the fifty creds he’d lent me for the registration fee with the Errant assholes, and I’d bought some decent gear.

It felt a bit ridiculous, considering that every time I went to him I bought new gear, but this time, it was an order of magnitude better.

I started off logical: good boots, the soles electrically dampening and fitted with a stealth field that projected a noise-canceling effect. I’d seen them in practice before. Scouts wore them generally, and although they needed a dedicated battery, they weren’t that expensive at fifteen hundred creds.

New pants, again. Armored, lots of pockets, and fucking waterproof as well as including a basic heating element—I was sick of being cold and wet—for another hundred and ten.

Two tops, both for under body armor, thin and heat regulating. Thirty credits a pop.

Body armor, this time a full upper body kit rather than just the chest, and that came in at a thousand.

A jacket, reflective layer underneath the outer one to deflect laser fire, reasonably non-flammable, waterproof, and with a “hard shell.” Basically, it was a form of smart fabric: it bent, it was flexible, and on detecting an impact, it’d harden to a solid frame.

It’d not take many hits, and hell, close range from a heavy round? Little chance it’d stop it. But fléchettes or a normal slug thrower at range, or the rotting nails of specters?

It’d give me the time I needed to fuck them all up, well worth it at three thousand.

Tactical gloves and a gorget—a section of armor that was specifically designed for the throat—that was made of the same hard shell as the armor, the pair for five hundred each, and boom.

All I needed was the helmet.

I chose one that covered my whole face, a black gently curved arc that covered my head entirely, for two thousand. And it even gave me limited vision on all sides like I was used to in the APS. The gorget tucked into it. And with that, I was ready, save the guns.

I’d gone from fourteen thousand and change to around five and a half by now, and on general principles, I refused to buy a new handgun to replace my revolver.

I was getting that fucker back.

Instead, I got a new gun kit, a better one than I had before, trading in the one I’d looted against it, with most of the parts I’d need to fix my damn shotgun, and a new rifle.

The gun kit set me back two hundred, and the assault rifle? It was a slug thrower, but still a damn good one, made by Pinnacle Assault Systems. Cost me fifteen hundred. It came with three magazines, as well as a box of two hundred bullets for another four hundred credits.

I was down to three thousand and change after the three hundred credit was applied as well, but that was fine. The last things I picked out were a new vibro-blade at two hundred and fifty, a canteen, two frag grenades, and an expandable bag to carry any “salvage.”

Two thousand, five hundred and eighty-seven credits left, and as I marched into the front door of the Vigilant Heart mercenary guild, the difference was insane.

Not only was I one of the few individuals in there who didn’t look pissed, exhausted, or downright filthy, but I was also one of the best equipped.

My gear practically shone compared to theirs, and although shiny gear was certainly no demonstration of fitness, the fact that all my gear, although mismatched, was chosen to work together with the minimum of issues—the way my magazines, my frags, flash-bangs, handgun, rifle, and shotgun were all racked—made it clear I knew what I was doing.

To any professional, my gear “fit” at a glance, meaning that if needed, I could access all of it, as far as was realistically possible, including the vibro-blade on the reverse tactical grip on my chest. None of the various pockets, straps, or gear blocked access to another. And at even a cursory glimpse around the room before me?

I could see that easily three-quarters of the wannabe mercs in there hadn’t learned yet that a magazine pinned in place by a gun strap might as well be back in the armory when you needed it in a firefight.

A quick look around the room told me all I needed to know. There were easily two dozen people, maybe more, hanging around, on uncomfortable seats, reading from job boards and with the glazed look of people using implants. They were mainly off to the left, while there were a collection of desks behind armoring on the right.

Between the two groups I mentally tagged as wannabes and staff were a few others, here and there.

Someone walked out of the back as I entered, holding up a job card, and called out in a loud voice that carried well over the low-level grumbling.

“I need a single melee specialist—no, I said a single one, not you two!” he snapped as a pair of half-orcs stood at the back. “Melee specialist,” he repeated. “Hundred creds up front. Once the advance is paid off, you’ll get…”

Shrugging and dismissing the recruiter, I strode up to the front desk, rifle on a sling, and removed my helmet, nodding to the woman behind it as she silently pinged me for my ident.

My RI responded at a thought from me, attaching my military records, and she glanced it over for a few seconds, before smiling warmly and directing me to take a seat to one side, as someone would be with me “shortly.”

I did as I was asked, hand on my fucking rifle this time, and ready should it turn out that, maybe, just fucking maybe, Scott had slept with this entire merc company’s wives or something.

Two minutes later, though, a tired-looking figure in dented but well-serviced body armor opened a door in the far wall and called out for me by name.

“Sergeant Kabutt?”

“Aye, sir,” I responded automatically, standing at attention, and getting a grin from the man as I did it without thought.

“Good man. Get in here.” He jerked his head at the room behind him.

I hurried across the room, passing a handful of others who had been waiting.

“I’m Julius,” the man who’d called me in said by way of greeting, waving me to a comfy seat in what I instantly recognized as a ready room.

There were a dozen seats around the room, two desks set out for weapons maintenance, a couple of vending machines, and a whiteboard. Everything was covered in a low level of dirt, battered and scuffed, with an overflowing garbage bin, and a few people scattered around the room looking utterly exhausted, one even asleep.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Directly outside was the public view of the merc company, all calm and polished, professional. Although not high-end, clearly they spent a bit on appearances.

Back here? This was where the actual mercs hung out, getting briefed, recovering and shooting the shit.

“Good meeting you, sir.” I nodded to Julius.

“So what brings you to us, Sarge?” He threw himself into a chair and picked up what looked to be a cold cup of coffee by the grimace he made when he sipped it.

“I need credits.” I sat in a chair near him and cradled my rifle.

“Yeah, that’s why we all do the job. But I mean why us, specifically. You’re APS. Top guilds will take you and pay for the privilege. Hell, the Armed Brigade will give you a slot.”

“You don’t want me?” I lifted an eyebrow in question.

“Oh, no. We want you. We’re just not sure if we can afford you, and certainly not whatever issues you’re bringing.”

“Issues?”

“Everyone has issues, Kabutt. You know that.”

“I was mustered out after an accident—nothing to do with me—took down my transport. The cred-counters decided it was cheaper to pay me up and let me leave early, rather than replace the full range of mods that were broken, as I had papers in already,” I explained. “That meant that they gave me shitty mods, and I need to upgrade them. I earn enough credits to pay for the proper mods again, and I can use my armor to earn real paydays.”

“You’ve got your armor?” He sat up, staring. “You’ve paid it off?”

“It’s being repaired. Major in charge of my mustering out said they’d fix it up then send it, so I’ve got a few months.”

“Damn,” he whispered, shaking his head. “For a second there, well, I thought we must have all been good little boys and girls.” He settled back in the chair. Its plastic creaked under his armored weight as he scrubbed at his eyes with tired fingers.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I thought the gods of blood and chrome were giving me a fucking lifeline,” he admitted, before sitting forward and forcing a smile. “Okay, look. You want to earn, and I desperately need mercs to do the damn job. Most won’t fight specters, think that they’ll catch whatever creates specters…”

“Can you?” I asked.

“Not as far as we know,” he said. “Get taken by a ghoul? Who fucking knows. We’ve got unconfirmed reports of higher-class specters dragging people off, and then those same people returning as specters, but nothing proven. The simple truth is, more than ninety-nine percent of the specters you’ll come across in any sweep are literally brain-dead.

“They’ll wander in and out of the zones we cover, totally without aim, and they’re not hard to take down. The issue comes when a ghoul or higher turns up. They control the others around them, and a random mass that we can easily deal with, provided we’ve got the ammo, is suddenly a tactical mess.

“We need to clean out nests as they form, and before they reach critical mass. Once that happens, they seem to spawn higher-class specters. This could be a coincidence. It might be that the specters are better at hiding than we are at finding them, and they come out when they think there’s a decent size group to control. Or it might be that enough of the bastards together creates them…doubtful, but hey. We don’t know. Studies are ongoing.”

“Studies?” I asked, and he nodded.

“The Vigilant Heart works with several research groups. We provide escorts for their field trips, capture when they ask, and we bring them samples. If you join us, there’s a standard bounty for any ghoul and it’s tripled if you can bring it in alive.”

“What’s the bounty?”

“Ten thousand credits per ghoul, and it’ll net you thirty thousand, if you can capture it. Like I say, tripled.”

“Anything higher than that?” I asked. “Like, there’s supposed to be higher than ghouls, right?”

“In the depths?” He shrugged. “In theory, yeah, there must be something above a ghoul. There’s been sightings of some that are willing to make trades, asking for specific things, like transport containers of pure nanites. One that hit a chop shop a few years back was nicknamed a banshee, ’cos when it screamed, all the electrics in the area went fucking mental. Realistically, though? You see anything like that, you fucking run. I’ve lost entire teams in the depths the last few months, and yeah, that’s why I’m desperate right now.”

“Desperate, eh?”

“Desperate enough that I’m willing to be honest with you, because you could be either a great asset or a fucking waste of my time, and I’ve neither the time nor the energy to figure out which you are.” He scrubbed at his face with one hand, then sighed. “Look, you get a chance to capture a ghoul? Great. Grab that fucker. We’ve brought a few in of late. It’ll get you a decent payout, but that’s split across the team. You kill standard specters? Each one is worth a hundred credits. Each, again split across the team. You go in with four others, you get twenty credits per confirmed kill.

“You all try to grab a ghoul? You’ll probably lose a few people, and you’ll be hit over and over again by specters as you try to extract them. I’ve seen it. Instead, you kill the fuckers, take down a swarm of specters with a team by your side, and you’ll earn a fuckload more in the long-term. Trust me, unless the opportunity to take the ghoul is a guaranteed easy one? It’s not worth it.”

“So, you want me to grab them, but don’t grab them?”

“I’d rather have a live team without a ghoul, or with a dead one, rather than a dead team who tried to grab one that was still functioning,” he admitted. “We’ve had to turn down contracts this morning because we just can’t cover those areas. That’s not happened in years, and the specters are growing in numbers. Most mercs won’t touch specter hunting. As I said before, they think they might catch something.

“That means that we’re getting more and more nests popping up. They kill people or drag them off. Most of the time, they just leave the weak flesh bits, only interested in the mods, but hey. Still sucks for the one who’s grabbed.

“Word spreads, and then those areas shut down. Factories fail and that’s thousands of people out of work and starving. We’re paid to go in and clear the area out, and we’re doing that, but we can’t be everywhere. We’ve lost teams, and now, rather than sweeping the area and keeping it at manageable levels, we’re reduced to sending teams in to flatten nest after nest. It’s much harder and more dangerous.”

“And this is where you tell me how much extra you’ll pay for me,” I said flatly.

“And this is where we talk credits,” he agreed. “You’re a sergeant with a background in leading assault teams on fortified areas. With you leading a squad, much more likely we’ll not suffer losses, or that they’ll be manageable.”

“You’re giving me a squad?” I asked incredulously. “I just walked in the fucking door.”

“And if I had a choice? No, I wouldn’t be,” he said. “But the simple truth is, if I give you a squad—of green recruits, to be clear—I don’t have to give that squad two of my experienced people. I can give you one of them to watch over and assess you, and then I’ve got one more body here to rely on when the next nest pops up.”

“How green?” I winced.

“You see those wannabes out there?”

I groaned.

“You’re kidding me?”

“We get ten to twenty applicants a day. Even as things stand right now, we’re refusing most of them. There’s no point in doing it differently. If I send in thirty idiots to a fucking outbreak, chances are they’ll shoot the good ones in the back, drop frags at the wrong point, or just plain run off with our guns.”

“You give them guns?”

“The good but poor ones. Yeah, they’re loans, but we salvage what we can down there as we go.”

“Salvage…”

“As a squad, you get sixty percent of the value. Squad leader gets twenty; rest of the squad shares what’s left. Four members? Ten percent each. Eight? They get five percent.”

“I can do basic math.” I grunted, shifting my rifle around and running my finger around the barrel, checking for dirt unthinkingly.

“Yeah, well, you were army after all…can’t be too careful.” He grinned.

“You a flyboy or something?” I asked, getting a glare.

“Fuck no, I had standards. Navy all the way.”

“Standards in the navy? No wonder you left.” I grinned. “What, didn’t you want to cuddle with all the others?”

“Fucking army.” He laughed. “Look, I’d happily point out the shit you ground pounders do to farm animals in training, but I don’t have the time…”

“Farm animals?” I pretended to be excited. “Real ones? Where!”

“Exactly!” He grinned, before sighing and straightening. “Look, you want in? We need you, so yeah, great. You join us, and we’ll make you a provisional squad leader. You’ll do a few sweeps with a more experienced merc with you. I don’t doubt you know your shit…” he said quickly, holding one hand up as I opened my mouth to speak. “But this isn’t fighting humans—you’re fighting specters. You done that much outside of an APS?”

“No, only a handful of times,” I admitted.

“Exactly.” He nodded. “You’ll lead the squad, but we’ll send…Hey, Reign!” he called to a body slumped across three seats at the back of the room, snoring in a seemingly deep sleep.

“Uh? Wassit?” An elf or thin human jerked upright, before falling off the chairs she’d apparently been sleeping on. She had blonde hair tied in a tight ponytail, and was presumably called Reign.

She sat up and wiped a hand across her mouth in about a second, a gun in one hand, staring around blearily as she surreptitiously scrubbed the drool off her other hand and on her plate carrier.

“You seen Pinot?” Julius asked her, and she blinked confusedly.

“I saw the inside of my eyelids,” she said slowly. “But Pinot? He was heading for his rack.”

“Damn.”

“Why?”

“This is Kabutt.” Julius introduced me. “New join. He’s an APS sarge. Giving him a squad, but I need someone to ride herd.”

“When?”

“Now?” he suggested.

I opened my mouth, about to refuse. I’d been planning to hit Lucky’s first target, but after a second’s hesitation I shut my mouth and shrugged. I could always do it later.

“I’m…—yawn—free.” She covered her mouth with one hand, and I nodded to her as she looked me over.

“Appreciate it,” Julius said with a smile. “I’m thinking the southeast quadrant, wall section five?”

“The bio-farms?” She stood, and I got a proper look at her.

Tall, half-elven, judging by the eyes and narrow build, and yeah, a massive sniper rifle. Elves had fantastic vision, naturals with ranged weapons, much as orcs were at fights where they could get up close and personal.

“Yeah, a sweep under there. They’ve been spotting a lot of movement and want a check over. I’d been putting them off, and honestly, I was going to just tell them to do it themselves. But hey, today’s their lucky day.”

“Sounds fun,” she said sarcastically. “What squad are we taking?”

“A new one.”

“New?”

“Green.”

“Ah, fuck, boss, you didn’t say that before!” she complained.

“Because you’d have been too busy,” he said.

“I was busy.”

“Sleeping.”

“Three patrols in the last twelve hours,” she pointed out. “One nest cleared out.”

“And the reward for a job done well?” His tone made it clear this was a common comment.

“Is another goddamn job,” she finished with a grumble, looking over at me. “Well then, Sarge? You coming?”

“Yeah.” I stood as well, fist bumping when Julius offered me his knuckles.

“Welcome to the team,” he said.