The Ramal Extraction
Read The Ramal Extraction Online
Authors: Steve Perry
Meet the Cutter Force Initiative
COLONEL R. A. “RAGS” CUTTER: A career military man, Cutter left the GU Army when he ran afoul of Army politics. At large, Cutter realized that there was a need for his kind of expertise and created a fighting force for specialized, smaller-scale actions.
JO SIMS: A former PsyOps lieutenant in the GU Navy, Sims is drop-dead gorgeous and as adept with small arms as she is with her mind.
TOMAS “DOC” WINK: A former ER doctor, Wink is an adrenaline junkie who doesn’t feel alive unless he is on the razor’s edge defying death.
ROY “GRAMPS” DEMONDE: Previously the PR director for a major corporation, Gramps lost his family in the revolution and is always looking for a way to stick it to the GU.
FORMENTARA: A
mahu
and cybernetics whiz adept at installing and maintaining all kinds of bioengineered implants.
MEGAN “GUNNY” SAYEED: A master weaponsmith and expert shooter. If it throws any kind of missile or a particle beam, Gunny can use it, upside down and over her shoulder.
KLUTH
FEM “KAY”: A Vastalimi who can kill using only her bare hands, feet, or fangs—even though at heart she is a pacifist.
Praise for the novels of Steve Perry
“A crackling good story. I enjoyed it immensely!”
—Chris Claremont
“Heroic…Perry builds his protagonist into a mythical figure without losing his human dimension. It’s refreshing.”
—
Newsday
“Perry provides plenty of action [and] expertise about weapons and combat.”
—
Booklist
“Noteworthy.”
—
Fantasy and Science Fiction
“Another sci-fi winner…Cleanly written…The story accelerates smoothly at an adventurous clip, bristling with martial arts feats and as many pop-out weapons as a Swiss Army knife.”
—
The Oregonian
“Plenty of blood, guts, and wild fight scenes.”
—
VOYA
“Excellent reading.”
—
Science Fiction Review
“Action and adventure flow cleanly from Perry’s pen.”
—
Pulp and Celluloid
Other Books by Steve Perry
THE MAN WHO NEVER MISSED
MATADORA
THE MACHIAVELLI INTERFACE
THE 97TH STEP
THE ALBINO KNIFE
BLACK STEEL
BROTHER DEATH
THE MUSASHI FLEX
SPINDOC
THE FOREVER DRUG
THE TRINITY VECTOR
THE DIGITAL EFFECT
THE OMEGA CAGE
(with Michael Reaves)
MEN IN BLACK
STAR WARS: SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE
STAR WARS: MEDSTAR I: BATTLE SURGEONS
(with Michael Reaves)
STAR WARS: MEDSTAR II: JEDI HEALER
(with Michael Reaves)
With Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik
NET FORCE
NET FORCE: HIDDEN AGENDAS
NET FORCE: NIGHT MOVES
NET FORCE: BREAKING POINT
NET FORCE: POINT OF IMPACT
NET FORCE: CYBERNATION
With Tom Clancy, Steve Pieczenik, and Larry Segriff
NET FORCE: STATE OF WAR
NET FORCE: CHANGING OF THE GUARD
NET FORCE: SPRINGBOARD
THE RAMAL
EXTRACTION
CUTTER’S WARS
STEVE PERRY
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa • Penguin China, B7 Jaiming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
THE RAMAL EXTRACTION: CUTTER’S WARS
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Ace mass-market edition / January 2013
Copyright © 2012 by Steve Perry.
Cover art by Kris Keller.
Cover design by Lesley Worrell.
Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-61882-0
ACE
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
| ALWAYS LEARNING | PEARSON |
This book is for Dianne,
and how could anybody who knows me think otherwise?
And for the musical jam groups the NFUs and the CMs,
where I finally began learning how to play nicely—
more or less—with others…
Thanks go this time:
To Ginjer Buchanan and her team at Ace/Berkley/Putnam/Penguin, with whom I’ve had a long and lucrative relationship, spanning several decades.
To the adept crew at the Jean Naggar Literary Agency.
To the Thursday gang in Cotten’s garage, who bang shins and thump ribs in an effort to learn
Maha Guru
Stevan Plinck’s improvement of the Javanese-based knife system
Pukulan Pentjak Silat Sera Plinck
, which continues to be the centerpiece of my martial arts training.
To master bladesmith Chuck Pippin, for the knife that Doc Tomas Wink carries for chores other than healing surgery.
To artist Ubin Li, who gave me a working image of Kay.
To the faithful readers of my two weblogs: the general one, at www.themanwhonevermissed.blogspot.com, and the more martial one, silatseraplinck.blogspot.com. You’re in the neighborhood? Drop by and sit a spell.
And to my space opera fans who have stuck with me all these years, a special thanks for your loyalty. Couldn’t have done it without you, folks.
Fog, like moonlight, obscures and distorts an army’s vision, causing things to appear other than they actually are.
—CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ (
FILTREPROPRE
, V3)
ONE
Quasi-serious death blew past Cutter’s helmet, the sharp and hard whistle of a hypersonic rifle round.
The shiftsuit’s tacticals IDed and tracked the bullet, backwalked the angle, and a red enemy-sig lit on Cutter’s heads-up display.