The Mongrel: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Hunter's Moon Book 1) Read online

  Truveau offered the two some water. They gladly accepted and returned the chrome bottle. In return, the older of the two reached into a pack and produced a small wheel of bread. All three sat in the grass surrounded by the rams and ewes of the Serapti lazily walking around them. “Vasga?” Truveau asked.

  “A welcome distraction, Mara Kal.” The weathered man offered.

  Truveau looked up in surprise.

  The two males smiled. “The Nakoda family all know the marshal who came to help. We teach our children of you. People should know to recognize a friend when they see one.”

  She gripped both Tyth by the forearm and nodded in turn. She had just been paid a large compliment. Even though these men were probably not elders in their family, she appreciated their respect and would show them the same.

  “This is very good.” Truveau smiled as the soft bread and spices cleared teeth and tongue.

  The herder spoke between bites. “Flat bread with spices similar to cinnamon and honey. You have this before?”

  “I have. It's a personal favorite.” Mara chewed slowly, trying to affect a feeling of savoring the treat while not gobbling it so fast as to leave the herders with nothing. The younger of the two took out another wheel and began to wrap it in another cloth. “I couldn't take more.”

  “We insist,” the herder said, wearing a wry smile without showing his teeth, another trademark Tyth mannerism. “And by wrapping it in this cloth, we hope you will return it to us. It would honor us to see you again.”

  “You honor me and give me a reason to smile on a day that I am sad.” Mara genuinely liked being on Tythian's steppe lands. The people were warm and honest, which was a stark contrast to most of the places she deployed. If this was any other day, this encounter would have been perfect.

  The older nodded and brought his thin mouth into a grim line. “We were sorry to hear of the other marshal. We had heard she was tough and fair. This is a loss to all.”

  “Thank you. If I continue on my course, will I come to the Kahbi Valley?”

  The smile returned to the two. “Your intentions betray you, Marshal. With your gear, you know exactly where is the valley. You came for the bread.” He winked at her.

  The three shared a laugh. She could gauge they understood her intention. She wanted to see if the area she was traveling through was hostile. The bread and company of non-violent folk was a pleasant treat.

  After a time of sitting quietly and watching the Serapti, she gathered her things to leave. A Sezi Shepherd dog came from behind and ducked under her cloak, sniffing places normally reserved for intimate company. The three shared another laugh as Mara patted the dust off the coat of the immense canine.

  Marshal Truveau climbed onto the skiff and handed two more bottles of water to her new friends. The bottles from the lancers were highly sought after by the Tyth. They could have their condition adjusted or controlled to keep their contents at a certain temperature. “I'll come for the bottles and return the scarf.”

  “It would make us happy. Please be careful, Marshal. Storm is coming, to people as well as to the steppe.”

  She understood his meaning and a sense of dread filled the pit of her stomach, right beside the Vasga bread. Sayings like this were reserved for large tribal politics going bad. With a slight bow, she said, “May the stars light your way.”

  “Safety and peace be upon you, Marshal.”

  Marshal Truveau brought the skiff to a slow stop. Gliding over the grass, she brought it just around a corner that opened into the river. The ravine was taller than she had expected, given the surrounding steppe being so open. Walls that were roughly fifty meters high bracketed the hurried river she now sat beside. The water brought along a nice breeze that was moving over it.

  Across from her was an overhang of the rock, forming a shallow cave just above the waterline. The marshal moved slowly to the edge of the skiff, her mouth slightly open in disbelief at what she saw. Formed in a semi-circle that filled the rift in the stone wall, twenty-four graves marked by stacked rock stood silent guard over a twenty-fifth. Also marked by piled stone, the last grave was set apart from the rest.

  She pushed the throttle slightly, moving over the fast-moving water. It was not deep, but she didn't want to take a chance of crossing on foot and being pulled over by the current. She brought the skiff to hover just outside of the cave mouth. Stepping from the vehicle, she went to examine the graves.

  Each one was piled with care. Atop the mounds were the helmets of the fallen troopers. The rocks looked to be placed so that strong winds or an errant splash from the river wouldn't dislodge them. The topmost stone had the lancer's name and rank engraved into the stone.

  The final grave held the body of Marshal Siladriel Ferrand. Her tomb was marked by the plasma sword she carried in life, sticking straight up from it. All the surrounding graves had their helmets facing inward, a warning to anyone who happened to notice the monument. She was guarded from beyond the grave.

  Tears welled up in Truveau's eyes. She brushed them away with the back of her glove. Quick sniffs cleared the sadness from her face and helped her steady her breathing. She squinted away further encroaching tears to notice the engraving on the blade of the sword, just above the stones.

  “Live today, so you may be proud tomorrow.”

  She absently reached for the holder on her belt where her own sword should be. Cursing herself for leaving it at the fort, she made a mental note to punch Lasher someplace squishy for dragging her out like this.

  The marshal soberly took in the names of each of the fallen. She reached into her belt to produce her cell-com. Activating the camera, she took a slow panning video of the shrine. She also took individual stills of each grave marker, checking her evidence for clarity and accuracy to ensure the dead were honored.

  This was not the work of a mad dog. Feral killers don't construct complex eulogies in the form of honorary monuments to the fallen. This took real work. From all accounts, Lasher was hurt when he fell into the water. He would have had to track his way back to the site of the battle, find a way to recover the bodies, and then hide them here to be recovered later so that scavengers and weather wouldn't have their way with them.

  This was an act of love. This was not self-serving. It was not aggression. He loved her like a mother, and her lancers like his brothers.

  It was then she could sense the pain in what he had built. She could picture each stone slamming into place as Lasher relived every blaster bolt that was shot that day. She could picture him connecting the sound of each stone locking into place, like a part of a plan to track down who had done this to them. Every rock was an admonishment to himself that he had failed to protect her. The helmets were a promise he wouldn't forget. Her sword was poised like a promise of vengeance.

  This was not only a shrine to the fallen, it was a precursor to terrible violence. A requiem to the dead and dirge to his enemies. This was a declaration of war.

  A strong ingot, forged in the hottest fires, gleams in its strength when the Forge is done.

  This event was the last tempering of the sword that was Orin Lashra. The Marshals Templar had forged a terrible weapon and now it was loose on an unsuspecting enemy. How much collateral damage would follow in the wake of every swing? How much blood would he spill to avenge the woman he called mother? Would there be honor?

  Marshal Truveau looked out to the sky, watching High Sun approach. What good is honor in the absence of justice? “What have we done?”

  The sun began to sink into the horizon, when Truveau realized she was sweating like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. She chuckled at the thought. The simile was one her mother used to use to lighten a mood. People in the Frontier town where she grew up would look at her strangely when they heard it. Mara smiled at the thought of her mother enjoying the attention the phrase would bring her. She loved to laugh. The marshal could use some laughter now.

  She dropped the last rock from the monument that
Lasher had built. She had spent the day removing bodies from their makeshift interment. As she uncovered each body, she had placed them in neat rows along the skiff with their hands folded across their chest. Their blaster-ravaged forms had long passed the stage of rigor, and then bloat. Burns and grievous injuries were plainly visible on each trooper. The stones had worked wonders to keep most of the scavengers and predators away, but insect life had found their ways into the nooks and crannies of the graves to begin their grisly work of stripping the corpses.

  The marshal wiped another rivulet of sweat from her brow. She had spent the early afternoon during High Sun, using the Way to move most of the stones. Unfortunately, using the power of the Crucible was not a magical get-out-of-work-free card. The strain of separating the stones and moving the bodies through the hovering rock soon took its toll. While it was faster than moving everything by hand, she was soon too fatigued to continue in this fashion. She took a short break and then got back to her work, one stone at a time.

  She was thankful many times during the day for being next to the river. The breeze that cut through the valley, along with the spray from the water, kept her mostly cool during her work. The wind was amazing at removing most of the smell. Although the fallen troopers had been through several High Suns, some of them still had small pockets of gasses and goo that lent a torturous aroma to the marshal's toils.

  During one part of the day, she had encountered a particularly smelly trooper. At first, the marshal dismissed the nasal assault as natural decomposition. On further investigation, she saw that some of the insects had eaten through a meal packet the trooper had stuffed into a pouch. The packet was partially exposed, but the stew-like concoction within had spoiled, turning to a noxious paste that beckoned flies and sought to repel anything with any real sense of smell. The marshal had reached into a pouch on her belt. She opened a ball-like container, exposing a white gel. She dabbed some of the gel under her nose, the resin containing strong mint that masked the smell. It was a trick she learned after several battles during her training.

  The marshal stood and arched her back. This was killing her worse than the time she helped settlers dig out a latrine pit in the desert on the planet Takova. Kalizhad was not far from where they were trying to settle, but the people insisted on an independent camp. The marshal had been dispatched to check on them and decided to help out with several tasks that were instrumental in helping them get established. She had meant to go back to check on them. Life had gotten busy. There was a lot of corporate interest in the Frontier recently that had kept the marshals moving.

  Mara sorted herself from her ruminating stretches to look at the last grave marker. The polished alloy of the sword served to highlight the dark engravings of the metal. The grave had been set in the center of the monument. Working to maximize time and energy, she should have moved the body from this grave first. Sentiment gave way to avoidance. She had left this one for last, as if in doing so, she could deny the loss of her friend for a bit longer.

  The moonlight over the rushing water cast reflected accents of light into the overhanging cave where she stood. The flickering radiance only served to accent the austere blade marking the remains of her friend. Her sister.

  Live today, so you may be proud tomorrow.

  She took in the power of the Crucible, bringing the world into sharp focus. She basked in its energy, allowing her senses to push out through the Way into the world around her. “I'm not some third-rate space wizard or fortune teller.” She tilted her head back a bit like an exasperated parent, loath to turn around fully to take note of a child's malefaction. “If you're going to hover, get your overly holy backsides over here and help me move some rocks!”

  The sound of repulsors splashing against the river came into earshot. The usual thrumming from older repulsor emitters were nearly silent in the engines she now heard. They sounded more like a high gain jet engine with a whisper buffer installed. She knew the sound of the engine. It was the latest version of combat skiff used by several mercenary companies in the Alliance. It was rare for those in the Frontier to be able to afford the latest gear from more civilized areas of space, such as the Core Worlds. Of course, the forces of San Verone were hardly beholden to the norms of the rest of the Frontier.

  Marshal Truveau drew her lips into a slight sneer. She could feel the presence of the monks through the Crucible. If they were here, things had not gone well after she left the fort. It meant that Lasher was still at large. He had possibly even hurt or killed some of the Devil Hunters Brand had brought into this. The leaders of the Templars and the Monks were often at odds, even when their agents worked together just fine. She decided to play things calmly.

  “Apologies, Marshal. I did not mean to offend.” The monk's voice was deep. Every word was a calculated exercise in control. Each sound was enunciated so that no part of what was said could be misconstrued. The depths of the voice also had a rich timbre to it, making it warm and inviting, like a favorite blanket. “We had received word that you had taken up with the fugitive. We took the liberty of tracking you in hopes we could ask you about this.”

  Truveau turned., wearing the same annoyed parent expression in case they had missed it the first time. Her head was tilted, her arms slacked and hanging, all while wearing an exhausted look that begged to be left alone. “To ask me?”

  The man was tall. He looked to be just about two meters. The radiant waters reflected just enough to allow Mara to get a glimpse of his face. It was kind. Wrinkles on the side of his eyes told of being old enough to know better, but just young enough to occasionally break the rules. He wore a relaxed smile on one side of his face. On the same side, he had a tattoo that appeared as a line that started just over his eyebrow and continued over the horizon of his shaved head.

  Under the long, black duster-style jacket, he wore a wide belt in charge of securing his robed shirt. The grey robes hinted at red medium-armor underneath. It was shaped to form, as though it were made specifically to the wearer. While it resembled the armor worn by the lancers, it had none of the amazing tech that made them more formidable than any five men without it.

  “How do I address you? Is Your Holiness a good enough title? What about Master? That must be a favorite.” Mara asked.

  The monk moved himself a bit closer. His hands were folded in front of him and plainly visible. He moved slowly and deliberately, like his speech. He allowed a smile to tickle the corner of his mouth. “I know there are political ramifications for me being here. I assure you, Marshal, I brought none of it with me. As for what to call me, I would prefer ‘friend.’”

  The harrumph that escaped the marshal's lips could have registered on devices that were keyed to detect seismic activity. She regarded the sword marking the final grave. It stood straight from it, its ornate pommel like a brilliant headstone carved by a master sculptor. The grave was simple, defiant, solid. Just like the woman it entombed. Seladriel was a friend. She had yet to discover if that label could be applied to the newcomer.

  “May I help you?” The monk's hand gestured to the grave. His face was a mask of concern. Either he was a good actor, masking his actual scorn for her faith, considered a rival to his, or he was genuine in his desire to make the situation better, not worse.

  Mara nodded to him, her shoulders slumping a little. Although the appearance of what was obviously a Gauntlet Team of monks supported by Elysian military was a total surprise, she was relieved that someone, anyone, had offered to help her shoulder the burden.

  The monk made a gesture with his hand, no doubt operating a holographic interface that only he could see. A single breath later, a new combat skiff floated around the bend in the river to rest beside the one that had been moored to the cave. A squad of Elysian Army soldiers locked their CR-51s to the ride, hopping onto the cave floor. One came over, and with a quick flip of the wrist, a series of rods and a piece of durable canvas became a camp stool, a place for the marshal to sit. She gratefully took the offered seat, a
wave of relief washing over her tired limbs as the canvas took responsibility for her weight.

  Mara had been working in armor until she had exhausted her ability to use the Crucible to cheat away from the work. She had shed the armor in order to be more mobile and save the environmental systems for when she really needed it. The soldier had set the seat beside her armor. She went to reach for a water bottle but was interrupted by the trooper offering her a fresh one and a field meal. “Eat something, please.”

  There was something kind but hard about him. It was like talking to a father who was stern but fair. A person who was used to being obeyed. “I guess that makes you the medic?” Mara asked.

  “Something like that,” he said with a smile that curled just one side of his mouth. He was human, slightly older than one usually found in the youthful military of Elysium. He had close-cropped hair with the first weeds of gray looking to ruin the thick black lawn atop his head. Ice blue eyes were surrounded by plenty of laugh lines as though they were making a last stand for youth against a vaulted enemy.

  Both marshal and medic turned to see four more monks drop from the cliff above, onto the skiffs. The largest of the monks walked forward to the one who had greeted Marshal Truveau. Speech, measured and deliberate, flowed from him like orders, but Truveau couldn't make it out. She figured it was one of the several languages that were a specialty of the Faith Revere. A piece of language that was difficult for translators to cypher and allowed the Faith more separation from those they ministered over. Separation so that only the initiated could administer the faith. More politics that Mara had no time for.

  “No need for that, Brother Berezin. We are all friends here. Please, again for the benefit of the marshal.”

  The large monk bowed to Truveau. He was very tall for a human. His eyes were an eerie green that seemed to take in the light of the lanterns that the soldiers were setting up. The marshal guessed they were probably cybernetic. Tattoos on his face seemed to cover scars near his eyes where there should only be creases. Arms that were probably massive in life had been replaced by sleek bionic limbs that looked as dangerous as they were powerful. Despite the trauma that had possibly led to his current state, the monk smiled. Although the gesture seemed genuine, there was something predatory about it. It was there, hovering in his cybernetic eyes. Anyone who could get emotions to pour from something synthetic was someone to admire or fear. Truveau hadn't decided which yet.