Red Company: First Strike!

Books by B. V. Larson: Star Runner Trilogy: Star Runner Fire Fight Androids and Aliens Rebel Fleet Series: Rebel Fleet Orion Fleet Alpha Fleet Earth Fleet Star Force Series: Swarm Extinction Rebellion Conquest Army of One (Novella) Battle Station Empire Annihilation Storm Assault The Dead Sun Outcast Exile Demon Star Starship Pandora (Audio Drama) Visit BVLarson.com for more information. RED COMPANY: First Strike! by B. V. Larson (Book #1 of the Red Company Series) The RED COMPANY Series: First Strike! Discovery Contact Copyright © 2023 by Iron Tower Press, Inc. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author. Chapter 1: The Rock-Rat A group of four Red Company marines marched by. “Marched” was possibly the wrong word, as under the low-gravitational pull of an asteroid, they appeared to be taking a series of leaps. Each step took them farther than an Olympic jumper could fly back on Earth. My eyes were drawn to them and away from my drill-bot. That was a dangerous thing to do, but I couldn’t help it. The marines were patrolling the perimeter around the mining rig, looking for danger. They carried stubby laser carbines and wore bulky armored vests. They seemed so superior to me, so organized, well-trained—and above all, dangerous. Their flying steps soon took them over the horizon of the asteroid and out of sight. “Starn? Dammit, Starn! Are you listening to me?” It was the foreman. A mean man with a quick temper. “I’m here, boss,” I said, keying my helmet’s comms. “I’m moving my drill-bot to—” “Shut up. Get your bot over to pit #3, on the sun-side. There’s a good vein over there. Move your ass.” “On my way, boss!” Moving my drill-bot when it was in the middle of a run was easier said than done. I had to practically lift the thing bodily out of the trench it was making. The laser head burned a smoking gash in the rock between my boots before I could get it to shut down. The AI on these things was stubborn. As I drove the bot toward the new pit the foreman had identified, I had time to ponder my life with all its ups and downs—and it seemed to me that the downs dominated the story. I’d been born with the cool-sounding name of Devin Starn—and that’s where my luck had ended. I’d spent my childhood navigating the labyrinthine streets of Earth’s sprawling giga-slums, never suspecting that I would one day find myself in the cold expanse of deep space. Yet, here I was today, an indentured, D-Contract rock-rat. This difficult, dangerous work had begun when I’d been confiscated as an asset related to a long overdue debt. When the state had sold me off as a partial payment, my contract had been snatched up at a bargain price by the shrewd Captain Hansen. She commanded the mining rig Borag, an aging but formidable vessel that prowled the darkest, most remote corners of the Solar System in pursuit of rare elements. Borag, with her patchwork exterior and mismatched components, had long endured the harsh realities of space mining, but she was our joint ticket to fortune—or so I hoped. I toiled away during my so-called “days”—a term that felt out of place when the sun’s light was no more intense than a full moon back on Earth—drilling and blasting through the rocky terrain of low-gravity asteroids. My goal wasn’t gold or silver, the metals that had captivated the imaginations of treasure hunters of the past, but rather metals like titanium and beryllium. These elements were far more precious in the unforgiving vacuum of space. The work was grueling and unrelenting. I alternated between sweating and freezing, as the temperatures swung wildly. The stale air I breathed was a stench accumulating within my solitary spacesuit, an ever-present companion. Each day, I couldn’t help but think of the steep price I’d paid for my parents’ unknown transgressions. Earth-Gov had never bothered to enlighten me about the nature of their crimes, but the consequences weighed heavily upon my shoulders. On the positive side, I’d been born on a real planet. That simple fact set me apart from most of the other miners whose contracts were purchased to work aboard Borag. Most of them had elongated bones with muscles like rubber bands. My stocky build was a gift from the gravity I’d grown up with, but it also made me slower and less agile than my colleagues in low-gravity conditions. As I drove my drill-bot to the brighter side of our chosen rock, I descended into pit #3 with the usual sense of foreboding. The constant danger of ice-slides and cave-ins weighed heavily on my mind. The hum of machinery came through my boots and into my scratched helmet, making it hard to think. Hours passed uneventfully. I took a deep breath and endured the itching sweat on my brow until the sun finally went to the other side of the rock, at which point I began to shiver. Still, it was ninth-hour, and my shift was winding down. I kept thinking about the four-minute shower I’d allow myself to purchase when it was over. As I glided my bot over a new hotspot—which glowed like lava after the drill-head was done—I noticed a fellow rock-rat sidling up close on my left. Charley was working nearby. I didn’t really know him well, but he seemed like an okay guy. I nodded in greeting and Charley returned the gesture. “Long day, huh?” I said, deciding to break the silence. “Always is,” Charley replied. “But it beats the alternative, I suppose. It’s the end of the shift, and that always gets