Ruins of the Galaxy Box Set: Books 1-6 Read online

  “Yeah, exactly. Only this house wants to kill us.”

  Flow was just talking splick. It was how they all processed the tension before a fight. But there was some truth to his words too.

  “A neutral planet certainly would have been a smarter choice,” Magnus said. “But no one expects jockeys to have street smarts.”

  “Copy that, LT.” Flow looked at his MS900 sniper blaster. “So, that request for overwatch never went through?”

  Magnus knew Flow would much rather be in a perch somewhere, picking out targets with his weapon. Command had asked for overwatch positions but was refused access since the Jujari would not permit outsiders to tread in ceremonially clean parts of the city. As a compromise, they provided “unrestricted access” to building files, which, as it turned out, were a joke. They have every known descendant of the first mwadim inked in blood on tanned gorangi skin, Magnus thought wryly, but they can’t keep track of how many floors are in their structures. Perfect.

  “Negative,” Magnus said. “Brass said the Jujari wouldn’t allow us access. Something about us desecrating sacred ground with our unclean feet.”

  “I’ll have you know that I wash my feet daily, LT,” Flow said.

  “And that’s exactly what I told Colonel Caldwell.” The idiom telling Colonel Caldwell had become a joke around the unit, inspired by Magnus’s familial and combat connections with the famed commander. It was Colonel Caldwell who’d gotten Magnus and his three best noncommissioned officers, dubbed the Fearsome Four, a shot at Recon Indoctrination School. “Clean feet, I said. None cleaner. Pretty sure that’s the only reason he let you attend RIP with me.”

  “And what were Cheeks’s and Mouth’s excuses?”

  “Good looks and muscle,” Magnus replied. “The Four have to stay well-rounded, but don’t tell them I said that.”

  “And what does that make you, LT?”

  “I’m the brains, Flow. Always the brains.”

  Magnus’s pulse quickened as his armor’s cooling system suddenly increased power consumption. It was fighting to keep its occupant comfortable under the sun’s oppressive heat. Magnus was sweating enough to fill his reclamation bladders every few minutes. He could even feel his short beard soaking up sweat. He’d maintained a beard since he graduated from RIP, taking full advantage of the elite unit’s more permissive grooming allowances, but now it was annoying him. If it hadn’t been for his helmet’s air-treatment capabilities, he wasn’t sure which would smell worse, his body or the capital city.

  While the men in his unit continued to scan every building with their helmets’ thermal imaging, tagging occupants with yellow indicators, Magnus cycled through the icons, checking floors and rooms against shoddy city records gifted to the Republic because of the “momentous exchange.”

  “Let’s just keep the emissary safe, let all the jockeys have their fun, and then get off this desert rock. Keep your eyes open and call it in. Own the mission, own the field.”

  “OTF. Copy that, LT.”

  Magnus closed the channel and turned from observing the buildings to see the Luma shuttle on final approach, matte gray and resembling a ferret—its slender crew module the animal’s neck and the command bridge cantilevering up and away like a head. The shuttle had a single vertical stabilizer in the aft and a narrow bridge window above the nose. Its engines vectored toward them to bleed off speed in a hotter-than-usual landing. Apparently, the pilots were as apprehensive as the Hunters.

  “SITREP,” Magnus called over TACNET to his team leads, asking for a situation report.

  “Good here,” Mouth said.

  “You know,” Corporal Miguel Chico said, “normally, I’m good for rolling in the sheets, but I don’t care if I ever see another set again.”

  “Can it, Cheeks,” Flow ordered.

  “Copy.”

  As one, the Marines braced themselves against the sand that blasted their helmets. The stuff had found its way into every crease in their armor, and they’d been on planet fewer than thirty minutes. The armor’s mag boots engaged, sensing slippage, as the shuttle’s thrust threatened to push each Marine off the platform. Magnus’s body vibrated, absorbing the ship’s ferocious energy. As soon as the landing gear touched down, however, the pilots killed the engines. It felt as though someone had shut off a midsummer Dustoovian cyclone just by flicking a switch.

  The Hunters in the platoon scanned their respective fields of fire with their MAR30s. This was the time for an ambush. Magnus looked to the ship’s hydraulic ramp as it lowered to the platform, awash in a swirl of white steam. The blue-uniformed flight steward came down the walkway at somewhere between a run and a walk, betraying just how nervous he was. He spotted Magnus, tapped the top of his head, then waited for the reply.

  “We good, Flow?” Magnus asked.

  “Still green, LT.”

  “Copy. Bringing out the assets. Eyes up, Hunters.” Magnus took a deep breath. Professional. Be professional. For as much as the Jujari repulsed him and as much as the Republic’s bureaucracy annoyed him, neither compared to how much he loathed the emissaries about to walk down this ramp. They’d cost him lives, lives of Marines who’d never be able to argue their case against the Luma’s methods. Careless leadership.

  Magnus motioned to the shuttle’s steward with a knife-edge hand chop in the air. The steward signaled up the ramp, and a figure emerged in the white mist.

  “Splick. That’s your asset, LT?” Cheeks said over TACNET. “Wanna trade?”

  2

  Awen hated atmospheric entry about as much as she hated raw Paglothian sorlakk; both made her vomit. The only difference was that she didn’t have to eat sorlakk on a weekly basis. Her hands scrambled for the small bag stowed in the seatback in front of her, but it was missing.

  “I got it,” Matteo said, reaching for his seat’s bag and handing it to her. Just in time too. Awen had purposely skipped lunch for that very reason, and there was still plenty of—whatever breakfast was—to fill the sack.

  “Thanks,” she said, wiping her mouth with the enclosed napkin. “Have I ever mentioned—”

  “How much you appreciate me?”

  “How much I hate entry,” Awen said.

  “Only every time we fly. But you could stand to mention the other a little more often.”

  Awen pursed her lips and gave him a nod. “Noted.” She stowed the sealed bag, sat back, and took a deep breath, grateful the light civilian cruiser was in calm air again. The passenger cabin was smaller than she liked, which made her motion sickness all the worse. She preferred the larger starships since they had better dampeners. Still, the compartment’s glossy-white walls and ceiling and comfortable chairs were in pristine condition, which she credited to the Luma’s fastidious standards.

  Matteo stared out the starboard window, and Awen followed his gaze to the vast expanse of sand below. It reached to the curved horizon, light yellow contrasting with the deep blue of the sky. She’d waited her entire adult life to come to this system, which wasn’t that long, considering she was only twenty-four years common. Still, Jujari culture had been her major at the academy—or was it an obsession?—and she’d become more knowledgeable in the history and affairs of the hyena-like species than any Luma before her.

  Far below, the capital city of Oosafar rose like a gleaming white obelisk in the late-afternoon light. It stood in stark contrast to the rust-colored dunes and low-slung mountains that surrounded it. While elegant, the city’s presence also felt defiant, as if the buildings stood as a bulwark against the seductive power of the Republic. Awen’s spirit couldn’t help feeling a strange kinship with the Jujari, though their cultures were light-years apart—physically and metaphorically. Still, she admired their ability to resist countless attempts to bring them into the Republic. Awen was drawn to their insistence that joining the Republic would compromise their heritage and that they would rather fend for themselves than eat lavishly from the Republic’s table.

  That said, she knew that the Juj
ari people suffered at the hands of their leaders. They were a violent species, prone to devouring their own as quickly as any unwelcome visitors—or even welcome visitors, for that matter.

  “Feels like we’re coming in pretty fast,” Matteo noted.

  Awen leaned over his seat arm. She absentmindedly clutched the Luma medallion around her neck—a flame carved inside a golden oblong disk at the end of a leather cord—and squeezed it between her fingers. “New pilot, maybe?”

  “Nah. I just think no one wants to spend more time in this system than they have to.”

  Awen let go of the medallion. “Attitudes like that have delayed meetings like this for centuries. You do understand that, right?”

  “Sure, sure, and the universe is all black and white, and everything can be solved if we talk it through. I get it. I get it.”

  Awen backed away from his seat and crossed her arms. “You know, Matteo, sometimes I wonder why you even joined the Luma.”

  He feigned a pain in his chest by clutching his heart. “That hurts, Awen.”

  “I’m just saying, if we keep going into these situations looking for a confrontation, then that’s all we’re ever going to find.”

  “Then you don’t think it’s the least bit strange that suddenly, after hundreds of years, the Jujari want peace talks? Come on.”

  Awen took in and let out a deep breath. “I admit it’s unusual, yes. However, if we don’t give them the benefit of the doubt, then who will?”

  Matteo shrugged.

  “Precisely,” she said, poking his arm. “This is our job. We can’t expect to find a blaster fight across every peace talk.”

  “What if that’s all these outliers want us to find?”

  Awen turned away from him, mumbling that he was an ignorant fool.

  Matteo pulled his attention from the window and looked at her. “What was that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on. You know you want to say it.”

  Awen shot him a wicked glance and raised her chin ever so slightly. Her words were slow and dripping with sarcasm. “I said that you sound just like an ignorant fool, and I have a Repub blaster for you in my overnight kit.”

  Matteo laughed and rubbed his hands together. “I knew you’d come around to my way of seeing things,” he said. He looked out the window again and pointed to something. “Hey, look at that.”

  “What?”

  “You have excellent timing,” Matteo said. Awen followed his finger to see a handful of troopers lining the perimeter of the approaching landing pad. “There’s my fire team now. Hand me my blaster.”

  * * *

  The landing was harder than usual. Awen smoothed her maroon and black robes as the engines cut off, hoping her stomach would settle down just as fast. But she wasn’t sure what was airsickness and what was adrenaline. She was finally here. She had dreamed of this moment for the last six years and never really thought she would get the chance to visit Oorajee.

  She ordered herself to stay calm. Savor the experience. Every sight, every sound. Take it all in.

  Through the window, Awen heard muted footfalls and loud orders then the whine of hydraulics as the ramp went down. The flight attendant typed on a wall-mounted keypad then descended out of view in a swirl of white mist. That was when Awen smelled it: her first deep breath of the Jujari home world. It was a strange mixture of curry, sour milk, lavender, and burnt fecal matter. She wrinkled her nose but still savored the fact that she was finally here. She’d made it.

  “You’ve been waiting for this for a while,” Matteo said. “Bet it feels surreal.”

  “It does,” Awen replied, unfastening her harness. “Doesn’t smell like I thought it would, though.”

  “Pretty sure no place in the galaxy smells like this.”

  Awen chuckled then stood up. It felt good to stretch. She turned around to see the rest of the entourage unbuckle and gain their feet. Some of the elders took longer than she would have liked, but this wasn’t a day to rush anything. Slow and steady.

  “Madame Emissary,” said the flight attendant in his deep-blue flight uniform. “They’re ready for you.”

  “Thank you,” she replied. Awen glanced at Matteo and the others then back at the flight attendant. “We’re ready.”

  The man nodded and gestured down the ramp. Awen took the lead and emerged from the shuttle’s shadow into the full force of the sun’s glare, a sensation that felt akin to plopping an ice cube on a hot frying pan. Her skin prickled, and the smells intensified as she got her bearings.

  “It’s even more incredible than I imagined,” Awen whispered to Matteo. She felt overwhelmed by the sight of the linens that hung in hundreds of windows. “The inook shrouds are stunning. Did you know their thread count correlates with the number of generations in each owner’s lineage? Some range into the thousands.”

  “That’s wonderful, Awen. Can we go inside?”

  Just then a gruff voice blasted her name from an exterior speaker. The person talking was the trooper closest to her, whose helmet looked like a bat head with a muzzled lion’s mouth. His armor was black and gray, and he held a large blaster at the ready.

  “Emissary dau Lothlinium,” the trooper repeated.

  Awen nodded toward whatever eyes lay behind the glossy black visor.

  “We need to get you inside. This way.”

  Awen gestured for the trooper to lead the way but could not bring herself to actually thank the bulky hulk. The trooper turned and walked across the platform toward the building’s entrance. He escorted her to a tall archway, stepped through the fabric, and held it aside for her to enter. A moment later, Awen was inside a large receiving room lined floor to ceiling with the white linens that made up the walls. Awen’s fellow Luma began to file in while the trooper remained at the entrance.

  “That’s better.” Matteo brushed sand from his robes and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  Awen, too, was immediately grateful for the temperature change. The separation from the outside world was dramatic. She noted just how thick the fabric was. A wide bolt of it streamed down from the center of the room and draped around a bowl of fladaria. She approached the table and felt the heavy fabric between her fingers then looked at the bloodred fruit.

  “What is it?” Matteo continued to dab his forehead with his sleeve and puffed out his cheeks.

  “It’s fruit, and a good sign for us,” she said softly, noting how the room swallowed her words. It felt as though she’d been cut off from the exterior world. “It’s the ceremonial food of welcome.”

  “So, what do they put out when they don’t want you around—bad eggs?”

  “No,” she whispered, “a severed head from that day’s public executions.”

  Matteo instinctively reached a hand to his throat. “Nice species. Say, where are they?”

  “They’re finishing prayers.” Awen had yet to see her first Jujari in the flesh and could hardly wait. “They won’t entertain us beyond this room until they are sure of their god’s will for the meeting.”

  “Heck of a time to figure that out.”

  Awen rolled her eyes at him then reached for the bowl. She took one of the oblong fruits and bit into it, a small red stream of juice flowing from the corner of her mouth. She knew that “bleeding” when eating was customary among all Jujari tribes, though the fruit was so juicy that she hardly did it on purpose.

  “It’s okay,” she said to the rest of her team as they continued to file in. She motioned toward the bowl. “You’ll like it. It’s sweet.”

  Matteo grabbed one of the fruits and tried it, a smile creeping across his wet red lips. Everyone else took a fruit and ate. As the juice was still streaming down the team’s faces, all sixteen troopers who’d been outside threw open the fabric doorway and entered with a blast of light and heat.

  “Excuse me, what are you doing?” Awen asked. “No military presence is required here.”

  “We have our orders, Emissary dau Lothlinium,” said
the trooper who’d addressed her outside.

  She noted for the first time how dusty his armor was. It was also devoid of any of the traditional military markings she’d seen, save for a small yellow insignia on the shoulder in the shape of a crescent moon cradling a combat knife. He had a pistol in his chest plate as well as several grenades, and he looked utterly ferocious in the dim light.

  “I don’t think you understand,” Awen insisted, planting her feet, though no one could see them through her thick robes. “The Jujari won’t allow this, and quite frankly, neither will I.”

  “Emissary, our orders are to escort you to and from your ship for the duration of your stay.”

  “And you’ve done that marvelously,” she conceded with no attempt to hide her condescension. “You may stand down now until we’re done.”

  “Negative.”

  “Excuse me?” Awen was sure her eyebrows had just hit an all-time high.

  “Negative. Our orders are—”

  “Listen, trooper,” she said, her face mere centimeters from his chest plate. “I don’t care what your orders are. You cannot be in here right now, and you certainly will not follow us in there.” She pointed to the far wall, which, she expected, opened to a corridor that led up to the mwadim’s council tent.

  “Our orders,” the trooper continued, “are never to let you leave our sight.”

  “Who has ordered this?”

  “A joint task force chaired by Admiral Isaacson and your own Master So-Elku.”

  Awen could feel the blood rising in her face as she clenched her jaw. So-Elku would never have agreed to such a breach of cultural protocol.

  All the troopers started to nudge each other as if laughing about something—probably a joke made over their comms. She’d met her share of soldiers to know the type. Their helmets kept the joke unheard by outsiders.

  Fine, she thought. Let’s play.

  “Awen,” Matteo pleaded. “Don’t. Please.”

  She cast him a dark look, one he’d learned not to cross. Awen took a calming breath and closed her eyes. She lifted her chin and began to separate her consciousness from the room, from those around her, and then from her mortal self. There, in the Unity of all things, she reached toward the energy that was already racing away from this place. She could see ripples, long strands of color and undulating shapes, flitting off to take their place in the infinite beyond. But she was faster than they were—not as fast as her masters, but quick enough.