Starship: Mercenary (Starship, Book 3)

“Just the kind of easygoing and unabashedly old-school space opera romp for which we’ve come to know and love [Mike Resnick] . . . whip-smart, fast-paced pure entertainment . . . simply pure escapism, impossible to resist by anyone who still remembers that good old-fashioned sense of wonder.”

—
SF Reviews

“Resnick’s writing is effortless, full of snappy dialogue and a fast-moving plot. . . . This is high-quality work. . . . There’s a veneer of quality and above all believability that makes this heads above many space operas. . . . It’s damn good fun.”

—
SFCrowsnest

Praise for Starship: Pirate

“A memorable ride with a handful of Resnick’s trademark oddball characters, a shipload of faster-than-light buccaneers, and a pirate queen to die for, all lightly seasoned by Charles Dickens. A rollicking good time.”

—Jack McDevitt
Award-winning author
of
Odyssey
and
Outbound

“Mike Resnick is one of the finest writers the science fiction field has ever produced, and
Starship: Pirate
is one of his very best works. A wonderful book.”

—Robert J. Sawyer
Hugo Award-winning
author of
Hominids

ALSO AVAILABLE BY MIKE RESNICK

IVORY

NEW DREAMS FOR OLD

STARSHIP: MUTINY
BOOK ONE

STARSHIP: PIRATE
BOOK TWO

Published 2007 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books

Starship: Mercenary. Book Three
. Copyright © 2007 by Mike Resnick. “Singapore Station: A Short Infrastructure History” and Duke’s Place Casino Schematic by Deborah Oakes. 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, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a Web site without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Inquiries should be addressed to
Pyr
59 John Glenn Drive
Amherst, New York 14228-2119
VOICE: 716-691-0133, ext. 210
FAX: 716-691-0137
WWW.PYRSF.COM
11 10 09 08 07 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Resnick, Michael D.
Starship—mercenary : book three / by Mike Resnick.
p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-59102-599-3

1. Space ships—Fiction. 2. Mercenary—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3568.E698S737 2006 813’.54—dc22 2006027555 Printed in the United States

To Carol, as always

And to absent friends:

Bob Bloch
Jacques Chambon
Jack Chalker
Hal Clement
George Alec Effinger
Kelly Freas
Jack C. Haldeman
Virginia Kidd
George Laskowski
Bea Mahaffey
Mary Martin
Bruce Pelz
E. Hoffman Price
Hank Reinhardt
Darrell C. Richardson
John F. Roy
Julius Schwartz
Bob Sheckley
Charles Sheffield
Ross H. Spencer
Lou Tabakow
Bob Tucker
James White
Jack Williamson
Ed Wood

“David,” said the disembodied voice on the
Theodore Roosevelt
’s communication system, “I don’t know where the hell you’re hiding, but we have to talk. You show up in my office in five minutes or the next thing this ship fires on is going to be
you
.”

“Five’ll get you ten the Captain has to go hunting for him,” said a crew member.

“I’ll take that bet, ten credits to five,” said the tall, redheaded Third Officer. “If there’s one person aboard this ship that you don’t want mad at you—besides me, that is—it’s the Captain.” Suddenly she looked amused. “Besides,” she added, “how the hell many places can you hide on this ship?”

“More than you think, or the Captain wouldn’t have threatened him.”

“The Captain’s in a bad mood,” said the Third Officer. “Wouldn’t you be?”

Suddenly a bulkhead panel slid open, and an odd-looking creature of vaguely human proportions, but dressed like a Victorian dandy, stepped out into the corridor. His eyes were set at the sides of his elongated head, his large triangular ears were capable of independent movement, his mouth was absolutely circular and had no lips at all, and his neck was long and incredibly flexible. His torso was broad and half again as long as a man’s, and his short, stubby legs had an extra joint in them. His skin may have possessed a greenish tint, but his bearing and manner were properly upper-class British at all times.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about me as if I wasn’t here,” he said.

“Right,” said the Third Officer with a laugh. “You just
wish
you weren’t here.”

“My dear Olivia . . .” he began in hurt tones.

“Call me Val,” she replied.

“A mere convenience for the crew,” he said with a shrug. “To me you will always be Olivia Twist.”

“I hate that name,” she said ominously. “You’d do well to fall in love with some other human author.”

“Other than the immortal Charles?” he said with almost-genuine horror. “There
are
no other authors. Just scribblers and dabblers.”

“David,” said the voice on the intercom. “You have three minutes to find out whether I’m kidding or not.” Pause. Then, ominously: “You want a hint?”

“I really must go,” said the alien apologetically.

As he scuttled away, Val held out her hand to the crewman. “Pay up. It serves you right for betting against the Captain.”

The elegantly dressed alien made his way to an airlift, ascended two levels, got off, and finally reached the Captain’s office.

“My dear Steerforth!” he said with false enthusiasm. “That was beautifully handled! Just beautifully! I can’t tell you how proud I am of you!”

“Shut up,” said Wilson Cole. “And stop calling me Steerforth.”

“But that’s your name!” protested the alien. “I am David Copperfield and you are my old school chum, Steerforth.”

“You can call me Captain, Wilson, or Cole once we’re on speaking terms again. I’ll continue calling you David, since you haven’t seen fit to give me your real name.” Cole stared at the alien. “I don’t think you can possibly imagine how mad I am at you.”

“But we won!” said David Copperfield. “There were five ships and you destroyed them all!”

“There were supposed to be two class-H ships!” snapped Cole. “We had to fight off four class-Ks and a class-M!”

“For which we were well paid,” the alien pointed out.

“What we were paid will barely replace the shuttle we lost and repair the damages we sustained,” said Cole. “David, I explained it to you after the last debacle: there’s more to this business than getting the biggest contract.”

“That’s
your
end of the business,” said Copperfield defensively. “
My
job is handling the financial arrangements. I get the contracts, you fight the battles.”

“And if they offered you ten times as much to take on a dreadnought, or face Admiral Garcia’s flagship, would you take it?”

“Certainly not,” said Copperfield. “The
Teddy R
can’t beat a dreadnought.”

“The
Teddy R
was goddamned lucky to come out of this morning’s skirmish in one piece,” said Cole.

“My dear Steerforth, if you want to be a mercenary, you must expect to fight in some pitched battles. It goes with the job.”

“I don’t think I’m getting through to you at all,” said Cole. “You’re our business agent. You are supposed to get us assignments we can handle. We’re lucky any of us are alive right now.”

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