by J. N. Chaney
Awen bowed again but noticed that the warrior refused to acknowledge her with his eyes. Apparently, the sexist assumptions were true, even for guests.
“Uh, Awen, what does any of that mean?” Matteo whispered. The corner of his mouth twitched. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d soiled himself.
“Right,” she said, turning to face her group. “The mwadim’s sorgil is inviting us to the next chamber, where we are expected to search our souls as to whether our motives are pure.”
“How do we do that?” one of the troopers asked over an external speaker.
The rest of the unit turned to glare at him. That was most likely out of line.
Awen took pity on him. “Fair question. But we don’t have time for a lesson in the finer points of Jujari etiquette, so you’ll just need to follow my lead. The good news is that our security guards are exempt, as long as they don’t intend to do any talking.” She knew the “security guard” jab would land somewhere on the lieutenant’s thick head.
Magnus had never seen a Jujari in the flesh before or imagined he’d get this close to one. No wonder the Republic had kept their distance for so many centuries: the beast seemed to embody a level of pent-up violence he would hate to meet without his MAR30. He decided to give this red-shouldered Jujari warrior the name Chief. The dog wasn’t the mwadim, but judging by the blood on his shoulders, he wasn’t a noob either.
The line of Luma followed Chief into the next room and down a long corridor. Magnus followed as tightly as he could without inviting Awen’s scorn. He didn’t like how close she was to Chief, but if he got close enough to protect her, she’d just chew him out again. That would look bad on the after-action review. But so would her headless corpse.
It didn’t take Magnus long to realize that Awen was going to be much more of a pain in the ass than he’d bargained for. It was one thing to have to babysit the Luma; it was another thing to get assigned Miss Jujari Scholar herself. Great, just great.
His private channel chirped. It was the rest of the Fearsome Four.
“What do you got, boys?” he asked.
“Man, LT, I gotta say, she’s quite the asset.”
“Easy, Deeks,” Magnus replied, using Sergeant Michael “Flow” Deeks’s real last name to get his point across.
“You afraid she’s listening to us right now?” Mouth asked.
“Negative,” Flow said. “She’s too focused on minding her manners so she won’t get eaten. She might be the Luma’s dog whisperer, but she’s just as tasty as any of the rest of us.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Cheeks added.
“Can it, Cheeks,” Magnus ordered.
“Sorry, LT. Just saying she ain’t hard to look at, you know? Especially for a Luma.”
“Eyes up, and keep the chatter down,” Magnus ordered and closed the channel.
His boys weren’t wrong. Awen was beautiful, surprisingly so. Her willowy features and pointed ears were unmistakably Elonian—Magnus had known his share of that humanoid species. She wore her black hair in a tight braid, revealing much of her pale skin and mesmerizingly purple eyes. He’d almost stumbled over his first words when she looked at him out on the platform. But Elonian or not, she was a Luma, and he didn’t trust them.
Magnus’s platoon followed the entourage to a spiral ramp that accessed the floors above and below. He pinged Wainwright again. “We’re at waypoint bravo two, Captain.”
“Copy that,” Wainwright said. “Ascend to bravo three. No sudden moves, Lieutenant. Orbital is reporting no unnecessary traffic and only a handful of Jujari battleships in stand-down. So we’re still green all around. Waiting for you up top.”
“Copy that, Captain.” The channel closed.
Magnus pulled a little on his MAR30 to feel the pressure of the sling against his shoulder. He knew he could get the weapon up fast enough but didn’t like that he couldn’t scan the room along the barrel. As any Marine knew, your blaster was your third appendage. It started in basic training and went with you to the grave, so going soft with it was just… unnatural.
As the group began ascending the ramp, he felt his nerves start to twitch. Easy, Magnus. One step at a time.
No one would have ever allowed a situation like this in the Caledonian Wars. Marines had been respected and able to keep their weapons in full ready position, or there was no deal. It was simpler back then. So much had changed in just a few short years. Now, it was all about kowtowing to this culture’s needs or that people’s wants, and good Marines got killed because of it. The Repub didn’t have a navy and Marines so that they could have tea parties with their adversaries, and he felt they’d forgotten that somewhere along the way.
Just thinking about the changes in the Republic made Magnus’s blood begin to boil. But at the same time, hadn’t he made compromises too?
I’ve got just as much blood on my hands. But he wouldn’t if the Republic weren’t so corrupt.
A loud bark came from one of two guards stationed at the top of the ramp. Magnus exerted all his will not to level his MAR30 at the beasts. Ahead, Chief conferred with the guards then indicated Awen and her male companion. There was a lot of growling back and forth. And head dipping, like dogs did when meeting alpha males.
“Anybody got ears on that?” Magnus asked over TACNET.
“Negative,” all the leads answered as they double-checked with their fire teams. Magnus’s own sensors were having trouble establishing the line-of-sight connection to the asset. He’d done a full body scan in the first room while they’d been talking, but without a tracker on the emissary, the dynamic data only flowed when he had a sight line established.
“How’s our rear?” he asked.
“Looking fine,” Cheeks said. “Mmm.”
“Tighten it up,” Magnus ordered.
Just then, the two Jujari guards stepped aside, and the Luma began walking again. The group filed past the sentries in single file until it was the platoon’s turn.
“It’s a choke point,” Flow said.
“Man, I don’t like this one bit,” Cheeks said. “Anyone else feel the sudden urge to MAR these dogs?”
“Shut it down, Recon,” Magnus interjected, not wanting anyone to answer Corporal Chico’s question. The Luma were halfway through, and Magnus knew he wasn’t the only one scanning the space with his entire sensor suite. “I don’t want any sudden moves. Eyes forward, and do not look them in the eyes. I don’t care that they can’t see past our visors. They’ll feel it.” His HUD pinged with everyone’s acknowledgment icons.
Magnus was in the lead, following close behind the last Luma. He had to set the tone, or this was going to go sideways in a hurry. While he couldn’t smell the guards, he could feel their violent energy. Thick bands of tightly knit muscles wound over their bodies like ropes, each ready to unwind in a flurry of tearing and snapping.
Magnus came even with the guards, knowing they were probably using all their restraint not to end his life. At least it’s mutual. He saw one of the beasts sneer at him. His MAR30 felt a hundred klicks away. Don’t do it, Magnus. He willed himself to let out a slow breath, targeting eight breaths per minute. And then, just like that, he was past the guards.
“Clear,” Magnus said over TACNET. “Keep it together, Hunters. Own the field.”
OTF acknowledgment icons lit up on his HUD. He knew the men were wound tight. But they’d make it through because they were Marines, they were Recon, they were the Midnight Hunters.
Magnus followed the Luma through a low-ceilinged corridor and into a wide anteroom with a basin and pedestal in the middle. Lamps lit each corner.
“Now, what’s this splick?” Flow asked.
“Guessing it’s another formality,” Magnus said.
Sure enough, the asset approached the basin at Chief’s insistence and lapped a mouthful of water. She tilted her head back and took a gulp of air to show the water had been swallowed.
“Awww, hell no,” Flow said. “We ain’t doing that splick. No
way, no how.”
“I don’t think we have to,” Magnus said, hoping he was right. “We’re not the ones speaking here. We didn’t eat the fruit, and they still allowed us in. Checking with command. Stand by.”
Magnus pinged the captain.
“Go ahead, Lieutenant,” Wainwright said.
“Captain, please tell me we don’t need to take off our buckets for this bowl ceremony.”
“That’s a negative, Lieutenant. They seemed fine with letting us pass without drinking it.”
Magnus let out a sigh. “Thanks, Captain. Just checking. Had some nervous boys here.”
“Understood. And don’t make any sudden moves in the long hallway either.”
“Captain?”
“It’s another choke point.”
“Copy that.” Magnus closed the channel.
Each Luma followed the asset as the Jujari led her into a narrow linen-lined passage wide enough for another single-file line. Magnus’s HUD lit up with warning indicators, and he switched to thermal imaging.
“You seeing this, LT?” Deeks asked, his voice tight.
“Affirmative.” Magnus’s pulse quickened. Thermal showed at least two dozen Jujari warriors along the other side of both corridor walls, each holding a long spear. Their heads were bowed. Magnus couldn’t be sure, but it almost seemed like their eyes were closed too. Then he noticed the asset: she was at the front of the line with her head back and arms splayed to her sides. His helmet’s AI brought up an audio feed: she was humming something, and then she sang something in Jujari.
“LT, what in the—”
“I don’t know, Flow,” Magnus replied. “Just play along. We’re almost there.”
“Copy.”
But Magnus could tell from Flow’s voice that he didn’t copy. None of them did.
Magnus entered the corridor after the last Luma and kept his head forward. He noticed that the Jujari with the spears were swaying back and forth. Are they in some sort of trance maybe? He passed pair after pair, bracing for an attack, waiting for something to happen. But nothing did.
Curtains parted at the end of the hallway, and the asset stepped through. The remaining Luma followed her and then the Marines. Magnus’s eyes widened as his platoon emerged into a massive ballroom nearly as tall as it was wide and covered in white linens. Translucent fabric of various colors looped from chandelier to chandelier and was tethered to wooden beams, then it plunged twenty-five meters to the floor where it pooled on lush rugs.
Lampstands dotted the perimeter of the room, as did a host of Jujari sentries—except for the far wall, which appeared to be a solid curtain of gold fabric. More translucent fabric acted as side windows to the massive cityscape beyond. From this height, the group looked down on every other building in the metropolis.
In the center of the room sat at least fifty ornate cushions, more than half of them occupied by Republican delegates and even a few key heads of state. The rest of the pillows remained vacant, presumably for the Luma. Between the pack of cushions and the outer guards stood Wainwright’s platoon.
“You made it through the drowsy pack of hyenas, I see,” Wainwright said, overriding Magnus’s need to accept the incoming audio.
“Yeah. I didn’t feel like waking anyone up from their beauty sleep.”
“Smart. They obviously need more than they’re getting.”
Magnus couldn’t be certain, but he was pretty sure his CO smiled. Wainwright had become famous during the Caledonian Wars and was one of the main reasons Magnus had wanted to apply for RIP in the first place. So the fact that the captain had immediately taken Magnus under his wing had been a career highlight.
“Our assets have been sitting here for over twenty minutes,” Wainwright added. “No one’s moved. Get your assets seated and see if we can’t get this circus going. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I have a holo date with my wife scheduled for twenty-three hundred.”
“Copy that, sir.” Magnus sincerely hoped the captain would make that date, but he wouldn’t bet on it.
4
Piper didn’t know what was wrong with her parents, but she knew it was bad. Her dad had been coming home late for several weeks, and her mom was spending more time in her room than usual. Piper didn’t need any help concluding that something terrible was going to happen.
At first, the little girl thought maybe the marriage was in trouble. Plenty of her friends’ parents at school had split up. She knew the essential ingredients of fights and affairs, though the motives still didn’t make sense. But this was neither an affair nor a fight because whenever her parents saw each other, they were attentive and affectionate.
Eventually, Piper started to wonder if she was the reason for their stress. She’d done plenty of things wrong in her nine years of life. Both parents had yelled at her for messes she’d made, things she’d broken, and attitudes she’d displayed. Again, however, their love hadn’t waned toward her. If anything, they’d been more loving in the past few weeks.
She sat balled up on her bed, playing a game on her holo-pad with a stuffed animal wedged against her chest. Her wispy blond hair danced around the edges of her freckled face, illuminated by the holo-pad’s glow. Despite their spacious apartment in the capital district of Capriana, Piper had preferred the close confines of her room these last few days. In here, she felt safe. The egg-shaped windows looked out on a rain-soaked evening, lights appearing like blotches in one of her watercolor paintings.
Piper heard the front door chime. “I got it!” she yelled, tossing aside the holo-pad but keeping the stuffed animal. Her mom was just stepping out of her own bedroom by the time Piper checked the view screen and swiped open the front door.
“Piper! Wait for me,” her mother scolded.
“Oh, hello.” A senate courier stood at the door, clearly not expecting a child to answer it. He was dressed in a white uniform and wearing a beret, both trimmed in light blue. “Is your father or—”
“Yes, yes, I’m here,” Valerie said, stepping around her daughter. “How can I help you?”
“I have a delivery for”—the man hesitated as he looked at Piper’s mother—“your husband.”
“A delivery? Couldn’t it be sent over—”
“Certified ahead of him. From the senate door. I mean floor, Mrs. Stone,” the courier replied while extending a tablet. Piper had seen many men trip over their words because of her mother’s beauty. “I assume you’re able to accept delivery?”
“Yes, of course.” Valerie pushed strands of blond hair behind her ears then hovered her hand over the screen and waited for the confirmation chime. When the screen floated an acceptance icon in midair, Valerie pulled her hand back and took the small orb from the courier.
“It’s coded to him,” the man informed her, smiling.
“I understand,” Valerie said while rolling the data drive around in her hand. “Thank you.”
“Have a good night, Mrs. Stone.”
“You too.”
Valerie stepped away and held the orb in her hands, staring at it. Piper swiped the door closed and looked at the orb too. “Mama?”
“Yes, my love?”
“What do you think it says?”
Valerie’s eyes moved from the orb to Piper then back to the orb. “It’s important news for our family.”
“Is it good news?”
Valerie hesitated again—too long for Piper.
“Mama, is it good news?”
“Yes. It’s good news,” she said. But for some reason, Piper didn’t believe her.
Darin, her dad, missed both dinner and her bedtime. But Piper wasn’t asleep when he finally came home. She wanted to get up and hug him but thought better of it. One more reason for him to be upset wasn’t what he needed at the moment. Still, she wanted to know what was on the drive, and she knew that her parents would be discussing it at any second.
Piper slipped out of bed, careful not to make a sound, and let a sliver of light stream through her door.
She looked across the sunken living room to the kitchen, where a lamp hung over the center island. Her parents sat on either side, holding hands across the counter. They looked so perfect together. They couldn’t get divorced; they just couldn’t. Her mother was so radiantly beautiful. Piper knew she’d never grow up to be as lovely. And her father was so handsome; she was convinced her mother had found the only prince in all the land.
Piper’s father reached out and activated the drive. The orb started to glow a soft orange and then message contents displayed over the counter. Piper’s eyes widened as a pale-blue planet spun between her parents. Below it blinked a departure date and three passenger icons with “D. STONE, V. STONE, P. STONE” in bold letters.
Piper closed the door and grabbed the holo-pad from her desk. The motion caused the main menu to light up, and there, floating inches above her hand, were the date and time. Her heart froze. Wherever that planet was, they were leaving for it the next day.
5
Awen sat on a plush poovla in front of the pack. The rest of the Luma were seated on the cushions behind her, except for Matteo, who reclined to her right. The head delegate from the Republic sat to her left, and beyond him sat a cohort of other notables. The seating arrangement was a more “civilized” version of the canine pack gathering, a nod to when the Jujari freely roamed the open deserts. Impromptu rallies around rock escarpments or under locust trees had been replaced with this, the mwadim’s jaree-jah. Awen sat with her legs crossed, attentively focused on the golden wall of fabric ten meters in front of her.
“To be honest, I’m a little surprised they sent you,” said Gerald Bosworth III, the Republic’s ambassador to the Jujari and every other outlying world not currently in the fold.
Awen knew not to look at him. Not only would it be a sign to the ever-watchful Jujari that foreign representation was impure, but more importantly, she loathed the man. She’d watched him betray the wishes of more than one civilization upon entering the Galactic Republic’s care, hanging their needs out to dry the moment they were committed. As far as she was concerned, Bosworth, with his fat jowls and bushy unibrow, was the incarnation of all that was wrong with the Republic—and the beastly ethos she was called to stand against.
