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

  He strained for a second of comfort, stopping when he heard something out of place.

  “Chit-Chit.”

  The sound snuck out multiple times from somewhere past the smell of rotting flesh. Well away from the whiny camera noise. When he tried to lean towards it to hear more clearly, the sound was replaced with a raspy voice.

  “I knew it. I knew you were awake.”

  Trade-2. It was based on the human language known as English. His former teacher used to hate speaking it. She had a hard time with some of the sounds. He liked it. It was a hard language that sounded like tapping out a rhythm. To him, it made more sense than Trade-1 or Trade-4.

  “Can you understand me?”

  The accent was native. This was someone from Tythian. Not an actual Tyth, but it was someone who grew up here.

  He swung his hip and shoulder to the floor. The metal bar in front of his arm and behind his back stretched past his elbows. By swinging his torso, he could tap the floor with it.

  “Are you tied up?” the voice cooed from across the unseen distance.

  Another tap.

  “Can you talk?”

  Two taps.

  “Is that one tap for yes and two for no?”

  A single tap.

  “YES! Success.” This voice sounded like he had just won at cards and was gloating around the table while collecting his winnings.

  “I heard some of the guards talking. Are you the man they hunted down for killing all those Storks?”

  A human slur for the Tyth. Whoever this person was, he had probably heard it from a spacer in one of the cities. The Tyth were slightly taller than humans, with slender bodies and arms that were longer than they should be for their torso length.

  A single tap.

  “You know, the soldiers who took you are calling you the ‘Mongrel.’”

  Even though the bit was snug in his teeth, he still found a way to sigh.

  One

  The hard clacks of sturdy boots echoed off of the rough shorn walls of the old fort. The air was musty and smelled of wet earth, an effect of the early morning air meeting the damp, warm stone. The smell and the clickity-clack of a fast pace were the only denizens prowling the structure at this hour.

  A figure rounded the corner, materializing from the darkness. Beneath a large, thick cloak, the form and fit of armor hinted at the man's profession. A blast of wind from one of the impact holes brushed over his cloak, pushing it from his face. Mailed hands were quick to replace the garment to keep the chill from the back of a shaved head. The armor creaked as he continued to pull the cloak tight, adding to the orchestra of sound. The wind, the creak, the echoes, and the clickity-clack pounding out the steps were defiant of the calm that was supposed to reign in the early morning.

  The armored cloak approached an entrance where a sealed pressure door, marked with alien script, stood closed. The click-clack never slowed. The door slid open with a loud fwoosh, spewing faint blue light in the dark hallway. Another figure inside the room regarded the cloak. He snapped to attention. The slender figure tapped his forehead with his fingers, bringing the same hand to his heart as a fist, before clasping the cloaked forearm.

  “Force Commander Hylaeus! Thank you for coming so quickly.”

  The Force Commander released the other man's wrist and let the cloak drop from his face. Salt and pepper hair descended to shaved sides in military fashion. A pockmark on the right side of his cheek, surrounded by stippling scars, pulled his face in a way that spoke of a grievous injury.

  A faint smile traced his jaw. “Good to see you, Tom.”

  Both men spoke Trade-1, a language spoken by many in the Core Worlds. Based on the French language from the birthplace of humanity, Trade-1 was characterized as melodic, even when folks were being nasty to one another.

  “Give me a situation report for the last thirty-two hours.” Hylaeus said.

  Tom turned back to the myriad displays in the security room. Four large screens rested on a makeshift table of crates and old wire spools. An ICOM rested in the center of the spool. The Integrated Communications and Operations Module produced a myriad of holographic screens in the air, spewing a dizzying array of information. The light shone off a graveyard of MRE wrappers and water bottles throughout the room. The commander surmised that Tom, and the two troopers here with him, had not left for some time.

  Tom brought one of the holos forward, depicting an area map. “After the assault on the Hidek tribal compound, he just walked back to Surando holdings, saying the contested space was theirs. He did this after showing all proper tribal respects and then placing the severed heads of the Hidek leadership at their feet.”

  Commander Hylaeus bowed his head and exhaled deeply. The flickering azure gleam from the displays revealed the fatigue from long years of command. He had presided over many such campaigns. Two tribes had had a dispute and asked a local marshal to arbitrate. As is often the way, one tribe didn't want to take a chance they would lose the ruling.

  The Hidek launched a preemptive strike against the Surando delegation. If the entire delegation was killed, the marshals and their small contingent of lancers would have left. Unfortunately, the Hidek War Leader decided to include the marshal and her unit in their tally of heads taken that day.

  There were some things here that didn't make sense to the commander. He was sure that Tyth tribal laws imposed heavy penalties to tribes that attacked at the negotiation table. Why would they risk tribal retaliations just to kill the marshal and her team?

  “Assuming that Marshal Ferrand and a platoon of lancers were killed during the raid, how did a single apprentice not only survive but do this much damage?” Hylaeus asked.

  “We're still gathering all the information we can. When news of this hit the tribal Hypernet, you can imagine that it was like kicking a hornet's nest.” Tom sifted through more of the screens. “Three large and fourteen smaller tribes joined with Surando and almost an equal number with Hidek. This was going to descend into a civil war. It was just a matter of when. But everything went silent after the three heads fell at the feet of the Surando.”

  The Force Commander absently rubbed the scar on his face. “The tech monitoring the marshal Battle-net was quick to send out an HDB to us. Kalizhad was the closest garrison. We dispatched the two marshals we have in command now, plus a Special Activity Platoon. It was when we were en route that we learned the apprentice had murdered the Hidek High Elders and the War Leadership.”

  Tyberian Hylaeus grabbed a small crate and swung it over to the back wall. He sat on top of the makeshift chair and held his breath until it stopped protesting his weight and that of his equipment. When he glanced up, he let it out, noticing the rest of the room was staring. They didn't care that he wasn't getting any new air in his lungs. They wanted to know what they had to do next. As the ranking marshal on the planet Tythian, he was now in charge. “How many did the apprentice kill?”

  Tom looked bleak. The thought of the atrocities turned his stomach. “Four Hidek soldiers during the battle before a grenade blew him over the cliff. When he reappeared several days later, he'd killed the leadership and two thousand Hidek tribesmen.”

  The statistics hung in the air like a grenade going off. If this had happened in the Core Worlds, it would have been declared a violation of the Hagen Accords and branded a war crime. Heads would roll. Careers would be ended. Even more lives would be lost.

  “How?”

  Tom shifted uncomfortably. He waved his hands at the holography that flitted through the air. Selecting an image, he pushed all other holograms into the room and brought forward the one he wanted. It showed a chemical signature. “He used poison. We assume he either found or manufactured the compound and then introduced it into the drinking water. All he had to do was wait. The leadership must have used filtered water, because they tried to fight when he came for them, although it didn't matter. He slaughtered everyone. It was just after the heads dropped that they caught him, sir.”

>   Tom was nervous about this part of the after-action report. He was a tactical operations officer. He was supposed to monitor tech so he could advise the marshals and their lancers of developing situations in their AO. On the surface, it looked as if he had missed the intel leading to the Hidek double-cross, forcing a Quick Reaction Force to clean things up. The truth of the situation was much worse.

  Commander Hylaeus detected the quiver in his voice. “Don't blame yourself for this, Tom. No one could have predicted yesterday's events. What matters is that you remained calm and called in the cavalry.”

  The door to the operations room slid open again. The two troopers inside who had been monitoring the feeds reached for wrappers and papers to keep them from blowing around the room. The door slid closed and the light in the room normalized. A man and a woman stood shoulder to shoulder, dropping their cloaks. Quick snaps echoed from the duo saluting the commander.

  The female had a scar that chewed into her hairline. Her hair was done up in a tight bun at the back of her head. A red braided cord on her right shoulder slid from under the cloak, drawing attention from around the room. The male had a re-breather over his nose and mouth. Two small metal nodes came at a downward angle from the sides of the mask. His head was bald except for a small tattoo at the back of his neck, of a scale balancing a feather and a sword.

  The commander saluted back and shook both of their hands.

  “Marshal Brand, good to see you. Marshal Truveau, I didn't expect to see a Lion on the steppes of Tythian.”

  “The Liau have an interest in this case.” The woman's voice was strong and resonant. “The apprentice was being considered for membership. We are interested in how such a promising recruit could become so savage. Although his actions taking on the Hidek directly, remind me of a certain commander who resorted to similar tactics during the Exo-Wars.”

  Marshal Brand lowered his gaze and glanced sideways. “Is that why you're here, Commander? Are you looking to question him about adopting your wartime tactics?” The rebreather barked his words in an electronic flutter, as though he were being heard through an old speaker.

  Hylaeus sat down on his crate and let out a long sigh. “I'm here to dispel any rumors that the Marshals Templar, a force that stands for law and order, would resort to committing atrocities to keep the peace.”

  Brand huffed through the speakers in his mask. It came out like the growl from a Praesian cave bear. It was all menace, no mirth. “The only thing that the kid has going for him is that he laid down his weapons and surrendered when he saw us. I don't blame him. A full platoon of lancers and a Marshal Templar coming at you can be fearsome. What scares me is that he walked up, announced who he was, and then handed me his weapons as though I were going to inspect them.”

  Truveau smiled at this. “It's that kind of fire that brought him to our attention. That and Marshal Ferrand, his teacher, was one of ours. Her loss is... There are no words. That's the other reason the Liau sent us. We're to escort her body back to the Athalon for last rites.”

  The room remained silent for a time. Only the flashing of scrolling data on screens and the occasional beep from the ICOM punctuated the room. Marshal Ferrand was a legend among the Templars. She was an old school marshal. One of the last of the gunfighter types. The gaping hole left from her passing could be felt by everyone.

  In the corner of the room, Tom sighed. Even as everyone told him he was not responsible, the loudest voice of blame was his own.

  Two

  “Chit-Chit. You still awake?”

  The annoying native-not-native was persistent. The prisoner could hear the man shifting back and forth in his cell. If he had to guess, Chit-Chit had been confined to a smaller space than his.

  “Here's the thing. I'm a pretty big deal here on Tythian. That was before this garrison of lancers took over the fort and decided I was more trouble than I was worth. I always told my people, ‘If I get nicked, don't come for me. I'll find my own way out. Just keep the business running.’ So I guess that's what they're doing. Keeping it running.”

  He chewed on the bit in his mouth and turned his head from side to side to see if he could remove the skull-cap wrapped around his eyes. If only he could shed himself of the thing, he might be able to use his abilities to knock the “chit-chit” man into a wall to shut him up. But, trying to remove the hood only intensified his headache and made him nauseous. He rested his head back on the cushion and prayed that he might pass out, just to avoid the man's continued nonsense.

  “So I got a plan to get us out of here,” Chit-Chit continued. “Listen. I fake being sick. The lancers bring me to the medic. They got the medic real close to the generator for this side of the fort. I knock it out. Give the lancers the slip, and bamo! I shut down the generator, cutting power to that inhibitor they probably got on you. I know if you were my prisoner, I would've definitely put you in one of those.

  “Take me with you.”

  Both prisoners, the bound and the chitter-man, froze in their cells. The voice that spoke to them was electronic. It fluttered in the way that a weak transmission does. It was broken and garbled, but clear enough for both men to understand.

  “Um. You got someone in there with you?” Chit-Chit asked.

  The static filled ghost echoed across the cells. “If you take me with you, I can help you escape.”

  The voice sounded as tired as it was electronic. The prisoner struggled to orient himself to the broken doll in the corner, wondering how long the robot had been here. How many prisoners had it been forced to watch? Did the thing remain conscious when in camera mode? He had a flurry of questions buzzing through his mind. When he got like this, his teacher would repeat the same mantra.

  “Focus your mind in the present. Let the lens of the 'now' inform the past that led you here, and frame the future formed by your decisions.”

  She was always wise. He would often mock her by repeating the lines while she recited them. She would smile, knowing how much he loved and appreciated her. She knew the lessons meant everything to him.

  The prisoner tapped the ground with the rod that bound his hands. It was a steady rhythm that alternated between quick and heavy taps with pauses between them. This went on for a moment before he became still.

  The android twitched. It cocked its head toward the door. “Yes. I understand. Kel Durado. If I were to open the door, could you incapacitate the guard?”

  The chitter-man sat quietly for a moment. “I don't know what you're talking about. I am awaiting transfer to Kevona so I can stand trial on the charges brought against me by the marshals. I wouldn't dare do something so crazy.”

  The android spoke again. “This is not a marshal trick. I can't free our new friend. If either of us wants out, there must be a measure of trust.”

  Her voice came out mostly garbled and halting, as though it took considerable effort to form them.

  Silence seemed the order of the day until the chitter-man, Kel Durado, broke it. “Say I could do what you ask. Do we have a plan after our little smash and dash?”

  Tapping filled the space for several minutes. When it stopped, the android's electronic flutter interpreted. “He wants to know if you can fly a star ship.”

  Corporal LaGarron stood outside the cell door, fidgeting from foot to foot. Joining the Force Majeure as an infantryman had allowed him to escape his humble beginnings. Leaving it for the lancers was one of the best decisions of his life. Considered special operatives, they resided a tier above the rest of the forces the Temple could field. He was given the best training, armor, and weapons. All he had to do was excel. He did so in every duty but one. Guard duty.

  Leading the QRF, Marshal Brand came with a Special Action Platoon of lancers and not much else. He didn't take any regular forces, which meant when it came time for guard duty on the prisoner, it was down to Private Steneau. Sten had held the post since they first arrived and Corporal LaGarron had volunteered to give the kid a break. He wasn't sure what the private had do
ne to incur the marshal's ire, but it had to be interesting to warrant continuous guard duty.

  Normally, the resident troops garrisoned at the fort would have drawn the duty. Marshal Brand had insisted it be one of his platoon since they routinely dealt with paranormal situations. Apparently, this apprentice had not only survived an ambush out in the steppe, he ripped up one of the tribes in retaliation for the death of his teacher. The main temple back on Elysium wanted to talk to this man in the worst way. Marshal Brand didn't want to take any chances.

  LaGarron could hear the other prisoner trying to talk to the apprentice. It wouldn't do any good as the man probably couldn't form a coherent thought with the Neural Distortion Projector on his head. The Marshals Templar were trained in a type of mysticism they called “the Way.” The easiest method to incapacitate one was to cut them off from their connection to it. Using an NDP for this was a better method than most. It wasn't often that a marshal needed to be curbed like this, but LaGarron was glad they had a plan for when they did.

  The armor of a lancer was a modified version of the type worn by many of the marshals. It was lighter but still fashioned of a composite plate. The armor had a myoprene undergarment beneath the plates. Once the helmet was in place, the lancers had access to the Battle-net. An interactive network feeding real time combat data and tracking algorithms, the Battle-net projected onto a heads-up display within the helmet. A helmeted lancer was sealed against his environment, linked into his comrades, and part of a unified overwhelming force.

  It was the auditory sensors in his helmet that first picked up the tapping. The sensors amplified the noise and began an analysis. The algorithm was quick in returning the unlocked cypher.