Chapter One: Fighters for Hire
"For the love of—” Galen broke off with a fierce curse, knocking the crossbow bolt that had headed right for his head out of the air with the flat of his sword. "I'm gonna kill every last one of those—” He swore again.
"Language," Cattilda said as she trotted past him, her own ranged weapon lifting in preparation to fire back.
"I'll watch my language when they stop trying to take my head off," he grumbled back, watching as she dropped to one knee in the dirt and let loose four arrows that burst into flame mid-flight.
They found their quarry, flying straight into the chest of one of the bandits they were up against and setting his body on fire.
That brought a smile to his face, and when Cattilda turned around to wink at him, he gave her a nod of admiration before he jumped back into the fray himself.
This was work that he enjoyed, honestly, and despite his low cursing the whole way from where he had ducked down to take cover back into the thick of the fighting, he was having a good time. Killing things he was good at.
A big ugly man with a huge axe came rushing towards him, a grin on his face. Galen returned the grin and then brought his sword down, cleaving him almost in two.
Another and then another came up to take the place of their fallen friend, and Galen gave them what for as well. It was an easy thing, fighting each one who rushed up at him, until they started to be wary and took their time instead of just coming at him.
He grinned wider.
"Oh," he taunted. "Now you want to strategize? What happened to 'you'll die here, scum' and all that? You were talking such a big game before."
"Galen," he heard someone sigh nearby, but he ignored it. The high of the battle was riding in him now, and he wasn't going to let them dampen that with their need to stifle his 'theatrics' or whatever they called it when they were trying to get him to stop doing it.
"No, no," he said, gesturing to the space around him. "Come on, if you want a fight, I'll give you a fight."
He heard one of them ask if this was really worth it and saw the dead look in some of their eyes as they surveyed their fallen companions. Being bandits didn't pay very well, he knew that much, so Galen had to wonder what it was that was keeping them going on this path. Maybe they were more than simple bandits.
The thought, now that it was in his head, wouldn't leave.
"Who's paying you?" he wanted to know. "I know someone is financing this whole...thing.” He waved his hands expressively. They were nice weapons for bandits, and they were wearing the cobbled together remains of some very nice armor as well. Someone had set them up here, but the question was why?
Unsurprisingly, none of the bandits wanted to answer that question. Galen didn't blame them. If he was a cut rate bandit that had to get money doing this kind of bottom of the crate work, he would keep his mouth shut, too.
So it was just a simple matter of killing them all from there. And honestly, it got dull after a while.
Galen had spent most of the last several years honing his fighting style. Each member of the Amakari had something that they did better than any other member, and it made them stronger as a team and made it so that they knew that if they didn't have a skill, someone else would have it and they would know who to go to.
When he'd asked what his was, most people had said it was being insufferable, which Galen had borne with his usual grace (he'd thrown a chair), but he had gotten it later that he was considered the strength person.
"Even when we're all exhausted and ready to throw it in, you somehow have this reserve of energy that makes it impossible for the rest of us to stop."
"Yeah, because we know you're going to taunt us if we do," someone else had muttered, but Galen had been flattered.
Also possibly a little drunk at the time.
But the point was, he was the one who had the energy to keep going, and even when everyone else was flagging he was there to keep things moving.
So he cut a path through most of the bandits, slicing and stabbing and laughing as they tried to take him out.
Cattilda wasn't far behind him, and he grinned brightly at her as she took down several of her own bandits, holding her own with him easily.
That was one of the things he liked the most about her. She saw everything as a challenge, and Galen spoke that language fluently.
"When this is over," he called to her. "I have something for you." He gave her a meaningful look.
"I've had that before," she called back. "Wasn't impressed."
Galen knew that wasn't true, and he just winked at her and continued to leave a bloody mess where there had once been a bandit encampment.
At the end of the siege, there were two main objectives: get paid, and raid the bandits to see what they had that would be of use to them. Technically, that last bit should have been left to the person who’d hired them, in this case a meek family who owned the land the bandits had been squatting on and wanted it back without having to get involved themselves. Galen was of the opinion that if they’d wanted whatever loot, weapons, or contraband that the bandits had brought with them, then they should have come and taken care of them themselves.
The Amakari had done all the dirty work, so they should get the best of the bounty.
It was a simple operation. Galen led a team to loot bodies and shelters, and Donlan took another team to go get their money. The last time Galen had been in charge of getting the payment, they’d ended up being short changed because he’d lost his temper and had slammed the man against the wall before they could get the payment.
It was just as well. He liked this part better, anyway.
“Their weapons aren’t much to look at,” Carro said as she came up behind him, poking at one of the bodies he’d been responsible for depositing in the dirt with her toe. “Not one spec beam or laser trigger in the lot.”
Galen rolled his eyes. “A weapon is a weapon, Carro. Can’t be picky.”
“He has a point,” Cattilda agreed. “A crossbow could save your life one day.”
Carro made a sour face. “One like yours? With the spec beam and flame assists?”
They all knew that Cattilda’s bow was her pride and joy. She spent more time working on its maintenance than she did with her lovers, and most of the time they all knew better than to tease her about it.
Carro could get away with it more than anyone else, mostly because she was a small, adorable genius that no one wanted to cross in case she stopped inventing things that made their lives easier. Galen definitely tried to get away with it more than he should, and it only worked about half the time, and he was usually buried to the hilt in Cattilda when it worked.
He liked to think that said something good about his prowess as a lover.
"Medical supplies," called Jonton from his place ahead of them, raiding one of the bandit's temporary shelters. They were made of a water and fireproof material that popped out of a box and formed a decent sized place to sleep, eat, or have injuries tended to. They didn't do much to keep out the cold or anyone who wanted to kill you, but they were popular among travelers and those who lived outside of the Imperials' reach.
"Grab 'em," Galen called back. "It’ll make Ashera’s day."
Their medic was always complaining about how many weapons they came back with compared to the things they actually needed like food and medical supplies.
The weapons, however old and unfancy, were useful. They could be sold or used to augment their own weapons, and Galen was of the belief that your weapon was a lifesaver and deserved to be treated as such.
So he, Cattilda, and Carro began taking their haul back to the shuttle. He was eager to pack up, get paid, and get off this hunk of dirt in the middle of nowhere. It was all farms and empty plots of land out here, owned by people with too much money and not enough skill to do anything useful with it.
People like the Amakari, his people, could do something amazing with that much space, with that much untapped potential. But they were left to scrounge together their living on their scrap moon while they fought to protect the rights of others to squander what they had.
Sometimes it made him angry, but then he reminded himself that he'd chosen his lot in life and it was much better than the life he'd been living before. At least he'd been free to choose what he wanted, even if the options hadn't been that great. He was free to do what he wanted every day and he didn't have to listen to a bunch of jumped up snoots tell him what they thought he should be doing while ignoring every question he'd ever asked them.
So this was fine. This was life. If it got a little stale sometimes, there were always jobs to take and places to go.
Donlan came back from the house on the hill shaking his head.
Galen was sitting in the open back of the shuttle, waiting for the other team to come back so they could close up and leave.
"What happened?" he asked, already anticipating bad news.
"All's well," Donlan assured him, lifting a calming hand. "We've been hired for another job, actually."
Galen lifted an eyebrow. "What kind of job?"
"Clean up," Donlan said, his voice dripping with distaste. "Of 'the mess we made'."
It was clear that he was quoting, and Galen made a face. "Dirt thumping questops can't even clean up their own land?" It just figured that they wouldn't want to get their hands dirty now that the job was done. "How much?"
"Almost double," Donlan admitted, and Galen understood why he'd taken it.
"Fine," he said and whistled sharply to get the attention of the others who were putting things away inside. They all came to the open hatch and Donlan addressed them.
"We're on clean up duty," he said. "Moving bodies and disposing of them. We're not to bury them on this land, though. Our esteemed employers think that it would be bad for the soil."
Carro snorted. "Like they know anything about soil quality."
Sometimes, with all her fidgeting with metals and odds and ends, it was easy to forget that Carro had grown up in a place like this. Only she'd known exactly how to maintain the land, from the soil to the grass to the animals that had lived on it. When she worked and had an audience, Carro would wax lyrical about the grasses of her home, and the way it had been just the right amount of springy and soft under bare feet. The way it had gone jewel green and fragrant after a rainstorm. The best way to tell if it was going to be suitable for animals to eat or if it would run right through them and be a waste.
Galen could probably pass a test on the difference between new and old grasses and how much residual needed to be left when an animal was done with a field, and it was interesting to listen to. Interesting to hear about that part of Carro's life before.
Before the Imperials had seized everything her family had called their own and killed her parents for reports of slander and treason, of course.
"Carro," Donlan said, tilting his head to one side. "Would you like to lead the operation?"
"Me?" she asked, surprised. "Why me?"
"What do you think we should do with the bodies?"
"Burn 'em more than likely," she replied. "Maybe bury one or two of them because they'll be good for fertilizer. Get some life into this dirt, strange as that sounds."
Donlan nodded and clapped his hands. "You heard her," he said to the assembled group. "Let's get this done quickly. I don't want to linger here longer than we need to."
"Already been here too long," Galen muttered under his breath as he jumped down and surveyed the mess they had to deal with.
"We have." Galen was always surprised when Donlan agreed with him. "What loot?"
"Not much. Some med stuff that will put a smile on Ashera's face and we took the weapons. Few spare credits between all of them, and some cooking stuff that Carro thought would be good. We took their shelters too."
Donlan cracked a smile. "Part of the cleanup."
"Exactly."
Four days later found Galen and Carro strapped into one of the speedier and smaller shuttles, heading for the outer belt of the nearby trade moon. They had a bunch of scrap metal and the weapons from the bandits in their haul. They were off to see how much they could get for them or what they could trade for.
They had also been charged with getting more food and supplies, and Galen had credits to spend and instructions to only get the things on the list.
He already had a plan to get something that wasn't on the list, but he figured he deserved a treat. After all, he worked hard.
Carro was babbling about something she wanted to make that would convert water that wasn't clear or drinkable into water they could actually use, and Galen was only half listening.
"It'd be like those things they have in the Allied planets, you know?" she was saying, gesturing with her hands.
He did know. His family had always had the latest model of every tech marvel that the planets came up with. The particular marvel that Carro was talking about was the Purifier. It had the power to take anything, water, urine, even soil, and pull the water out of it, rendering it cleaner than it would have been if it had fallen from the sky.
Every home had one, and they always put them to good use, recycling the waste water through it and then using the result to drink or bathe with, pumping it right back into the water system of the home.
The Allied Planets were all about being clean. They wanted to recycle and reuse, to turn old, dirty things into shiny new things that they could put to use.
It seemed dumb to Galen, and like they didn't want to admit that sometimes things were dirty and needed to be thrown out, but Carro was right. They really could use something like that on Alinsoth, at least to keep them with clean drinking water.
"If I could get a scrap one, an old model maybe, I could do something with it," Carro said. "I think the newer mods just have different filters. Maybe two so I could take one apart and see how it works, you know? I could probably build something better if I knew what I was up against."
She probably could, too.
"We can ask Llmyr when we get there," Galen said. If anyone would know, it was the Master of Trade on the moon they were headed to.
"You want Allied contraband?" Llmyr asked, and if he'd had eyebrows, then he would have lifted one skeptically.
"It's not contraband if it's been decommissioned," Carro argued. "Anything they don't use anymore is destroyed."
"For a reason," Llmyr said. "Because they don't want anyone else getting their hands on it."
"So? Do they always have to get what they want?" Carro wanted to know, and Galen was proud of her in that moment. "If you've got something, just tell me so we can get to the haggling, okay?"
Llmyr looked at Galen, who was grinning. "What?" he said. "You think I'm in charge here? I'm just the muscle."
Not strictly true, and Llmyr was familiar enough with them to know better, so he just shook his head.
The Master of Trade was an odd creature. He was nearly as tall as Galen, thin and serpentine in a way that was more elegance than the bulky reptilian nature of some of the other races that came from the same section of the quadrant that he did.
He had a forked tongue that put some sibilance on his 's' sounds, and narrow jade eyes that always made him look suspicious. Galen had never seen him without his hooded robe on, and his hands disappeared into the voluminous sleeves of the dark red garment, hiding what he knew to be long, slender fingers.
Galen and Carro had a bet going on whether or not Llmyr had a tail, and even after the years that they had been dealing with the Closmiron, they still had no answer.
Llmyr was the Master of that particular moon, handling everything that came in or went out and giving it his own stamp of approval before he let it leave his sight. He haggled, within reason, but there was no way to scam him. He knew the worth of everything his hands touched, and some said that that was just a Closmiron trait, since they were known to hoard things, but Galen didn't know if he believed that. Llmyr was just good at what he did and he'd been doing it for long enough that he knew what he was doing.
"We don't have anything here," Llmyr said finally. "And it isn't safe to be asking questions about Allied goods right now."
Galen frowned. "More unsafe than usual?" he wanted to know.
The Master dipped his head in a nod.
Now that was interesting. "Has something happened?" Carro asked, pitching her voice lower.
Llmyr hesitated for a moment, and then beckoned for them to follow him, taking them to the tall structure that overlooked the entirety of that section of the moon.
Once he was seated in his high backed chair, Llmyr lowered his hood. His hair was inky black and fell around his shoulders in shiny waves, framing his face. His nose was arched and small, and his mouth was thin and unsmiling. Even more so now.
"There have been rumors," Llmyr said after a moment's silence. "That the Imperials are on the move."
Galen frowned. "On the move to where?" he asked. "They're leaving the Allied Planets?"
Llmyr shook his head. "No, no. They would never leave their base of power. But the rumors say that they seek to collect more. More power. More land. More...workers."
Carro and Galen exchanged a distasteful look. They both knew what that meant. "More slaves," Galen said, sounding disgusted.
"Not slaves. The Imperials pay their workers."
He rolled his eyes. "Barely. It's not enough to live on. There's no way to get out from under their thumb once you take a job with them. Even if you aren't a laborer, you're stuck once they've got your print in the system."
Llmyr nodded. "As you say. It seems there's been some unrest in the Allied Planets of late, and the Imperials seem to believe that if they have more power, then they can put down any rebellions before they start."
"So they're what, finding other planets and conquering them?" Galen asked. That's what it sounded like, and if it was that, then the Imperials were going to have a lot to answer for.
Llmyr made a noncommittal noise. "Who can say?" he said. "I only know that they are on the move, and that any...unrest, shall we say, will not go unnoticed."
Galen and Carro exchanged a look. One of the things that made them such good friends was that they both knew what 'unrest' meant and how the Imperials dealt with it. Galen had had plenty of time now to think about what had happened to his father and what it might mean that the Imperials wouldn't tell him anything about it. And Carro...well, Carro had watched her entire family get slaughtered by people wearing Imperial white and green. She knew what they were capable of.
"Thanks for the info, Llmyr," Galen said. "But we should probably get back to the matter at hand, right? We've got a good haul for you."
The Master seemed relieved to be back on familiar ground. For someone who lived outside of the Allied Planets and ran a trade moon, he was strangely law abiding, and Galen didn't want to get him in trouble. Llmyr had always dealt fairly with them.
Carro nodded her agreement, but she was strangely quiet while Galen haggled and made deals for the things they had and the things they needed. She helped him load everything up into the shuttle and then sat in the cockpit with a frustrated look on her face.
"Sorry we couldn't get your Purifier," Galen said as he started the shuttle up, giving Llmyr a little salute as the bay doors closed.
"Hm?" she said. "No, that's alright. I didn't think we'd actually get one."
"You doing alright?" he asked her, side eying her as he prepared to take off. "I know talking about Imperial stuff is..." He didn't finish the sentence. 'Hard' didn't seem like the right word, and he wasn't sure what else would fit there.
Carro shrugged a shoulder. "It's fine. They're still out there, still doing what they did to my family to other people. Still covering it up. And people just eat it up, you know? They believe whatever they tell them because it gets said with those smiles and with confidence. Like whatever they're saying is in our best interests." She shook her head. "My family owned that land for seven generations, you know? Our blood and sweat were in that land. Everything we ever had we made ourselves, ever since the first of us landed on that rock all that time ago. And they decided they wanted it. Do you know what they used it for?"
Galen shook his head, punching in the coordinates for Alinsoth. "Do you?" he asked. "I didn't know you'd been looking into it."
She fidgeted and then sighed. "A little. I just. I couldn't stop thinking about it for a while. I was having. Having nightmares about what happened. And I just. I needed to know."
"That makes sense," Galen replied. "What'd they do with it?"
"Nothing," she whispered, voice as harsh as Galen had ever heard it before. "Nothing. It's just. Empty. Barren. Nothing's growing, nothing's being built. Sometimes they park their ships there when they have business in the area. And that's it. They just took it because they could. Not because they needed it for anything. Just to show their power. That's the kind of people they are."
"I know."
"I know you know."
They were silent for a bit, just watching space pass by out the windows and hating the Imperials for their own reasons. Finally, Carro spoke up again. "Do you think they'll come for us?"
Galen looked at her sharply. "You think they will?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I think they're angry some of us got away. I think if they have their way, they'll own the whole blighted system. Alinsoth's small, but it's not invisible. They'll figure it out. Or someone will sell us out."
"And then they'll have to answer to me," Galen cracked his knuckles.
"Won't matter if we're dead."
Carro wasn't usually the pessimist of the group. She had a bright outlook for someone who had watched everything she knew be taken from her right before her eyes.
“That’s not going to happen, Carro,” Galen said.
She just sighed and went back to looking out the window.
Honestly, Galen couldn’t say what would happen. For the most part, the Imperials had always seemed content to just stay where they were, ruling their stretch of the galaxy. They’d seized a lot of it over the years, called the planets ‘allied’ and told people that they were all together under the same government. Only the people who had lived there before knew of the hostile takeovers and the shady way things got done sometimes.
It was a sobering thought that someone might tell the Imperials about the Amakari. They had all escaped one way or another, and they lived on the small little nothing moon and did the best they could. But they did business with a lot of people. There were those who they took jobs from, and Llmyr, the shop owners and traders that they couldn’t avoid dealing with if they wanted to survive. Any one of them could point the Imperials right to them if they wanted to. Or if the price was right.
They were just going to have to be careful, that was all.
Easy enough for a group of barbarians, right?