Chronicles of Kin Roland 1: Enemy of Man (2 page)

“Identify yourself,” Kin said, under his breath.

FLEET troopers occupied the area. Dozens of squads moved along the next street as Kin cut between several makeshift homes to avoid detention. He could no longer see Laura but thought she was moving away from him toward the most devastated section of Crater Town. She was doing her job. He surveyed the town and started doing his.

The first three houses Kin checked were damaged, but had already been evacuated. The next three were family dwellings, and by Town Protocol, the parents should have moved their children to fallout bunkers at the first sign of a meteor storm. He ducked inside each and looked around. Finding them empty, he hurrie
d to the home of Brian Muldoch.

Kin didn’t admire the man, because Muldoch had found religion halfway through his mandatory ten-year enlistment as an Earth Fleet trooper and decided he was a conscientious objector. After two years in a labor camp, Muldoch escaped and stowed away on the
Goliath
. When Fleet troopers found him, he was a dead man. The only thing that remained was how quickly they would identify him and carry out the sentence for deserters.

Kin told himself to focus on his job, find critically wounded survivors, make sure everyone in Crater Town did their part, and create a list of structures rendered unsafe by meteor strikes. He had no business interfering with the Fleet, especially since his status would earn him death, preceded by torture, yet he hurried toward Muldoch's home.

Though the man was a deserter, much of his Fleet training remained. He performed every task efficiently and kept his quarters squared away. He had helped Kin fight raiders who came down from the mountains. He had scoured the foothills to find a missing child. Kin often wondered why Muldoch refused to fight for the Fleet. He had shown bravery many times on Crashdown.

Several Fleet troopers surrounded Muldoch in the street near his small house. One shouted, “On your knees. Don't move.”

“I must report to the well to help with the bucket line. Can't you see the fires?” Muldoch asked, desperation in his voice. His eyes darted from one man to the next as color left his face.

The trooper nearest Muldoch had a new helmet, though the rest of his armor was scarred and scorched. “Don't move and don't
talk.” He pointed his rifle at Muldoch's neck where a Fleet labor camp tattoo marked him. “This is doing the talking for you, traitor.”

Two troopers, a corporal and a lance corporal, stood facing each other, heads bent as they listened inside their helmets to an electronic message Kin couldn’t hear. When they looked up, they nodded. FSPAA helmets didn’t reveal emotion, but Kin could sense the smiles behind the visors by the rhythm of their nods. They returned to the group.

“I have confirmation. This man is Brian Muldoch, a deserter and coward,” the corporal said.

Kin watched New Helmet elevate his weapon a few inches and fire one round before Mul
doch could beg for mercy. Blood splattered the street and armor of the men standing in a circle. Muldoch's body fell forward. Nothing above his teeth remained.

“Do you have a problem?” The corporal’s tone implied having a problem would be a problem for Kin.

“What did he do?” Kin asked.

“Deserter.”

“No trial?”

“No need.” He stepped close to Kin and looked at his neck and hands.

Kin focused on the body of Muldoch and exhaled slowly, steadying his anger and fear. His tattoos had been removed. The painful procedure cost a fortune. Muldoch should’ve done the same thing. Kin clenched his fists and hoped the troopers didn’t notice the tension coursing through his arms, shoulders, and neck. Before Hellsbreach, Kin always maintained control over his unit and forbade frontier justice, but he wasn’t their sergeant and they wanted blood.

New Helmet moved c
loser. “Does he have a marker?”

The corporal looming over Kin hesitated. “No. I thought he woul
d. He walks like he was Fleet.”

Kin
stared at Muldoch's body and said nothing. These troopers were as unprofessional and violent as any Kin had encountered, but he didn’t confuse their sloppy gear and mob mentality for incompetence. Killers who enjoyed killing barely needed a reason to pull the trigger.

“I asked you a question.”

“No you didn't,” Kin said.
Shouldn’t have said that. Shouldn’t have come here at all
.

The trooper stared at him, shifting the weight of his armor from foot to foot several times. Without
the armor, he might be Kin's size, but in full FSPAA gear, he was a giant. “Get out of here.”

The lance corporal, the smallest in the group, slid his hand back and forth on the barrel of his rifle with increasing intensity, as though stoking his courage. “Shoot him like you did that Reaper on Hellsbreach.”

New Helmet pushed the lance corporal aside. “He never shot a Reaper. A Reaper wouldn't hold still like this corpse and if it did, one bullet would only make it angry.”

“Don’t fucking touch me, Raif.” The lance corporal started to point his rifle at New Helmet, but lowered the weapon and backed away. Raif didn’t even look at him. He watched Kin like a hungry wolf.

The corporal stared at his men until Raif stopped advancing and the lance corporal walked back toward the rest of the platoon. A moment passed before the corporal seemed satisfied. He faced Kin, pointing his rifle at the sky with one hand. His elbow rested on his hip to support the weight of the weapon. “Start walking, dead man.”

Kin walked away, stopping once he neared the crest of the hill where the street twisted toward the center of town. He looked back. The Fleet troopers watched him. He directed his gaze toward Muldoch's house. Like many homes in this part of town, it was built into the side of the hill, jutting out ten feet. Rough-hewn beams of wood supported the metal siding scavenged from the wreckage of the
Goliath
. He remembered the day Muldoch had scrubbed the metal clean and painted it, despite Kin's warning that the paint would never adhere properly. Weather had taken a toll on the surface and the green color was uneven. Mixing touch-up paint from limited resources wasn’t an exact science, yet Kin recognized the effort put into maintaining the home.

The troopers continued to face him. How many were trying to decide if they knew him, wondering if they recognized him from past campaigns or security bulletins? The Fleet had probably buried his scandal deep, erasing every record of their failure—of his failure. That was what Kin hoped for. With his luck, the Fleet had
his picture on every security threat alert for the last ten years. What could he do? Flee into the wilderness of Crashdown?

A gust of wind from the sea blew sand, dust, and ash between them. Kin studied the red dragon insignia on each of these troopers and committed it to memory. He rested his hand on his pistol in the leg holster and realized the trooper was waiting for him to draw it. Holding his gun was a habit, unintentional, but now that the familiar grip was in
his hand, he wanted to use it.

He never liked Muldoch and told himself they were nothing alike. Their situations were different. Muldoch, despite the fortitude he had displayed since the
Goliath
crash landed, would’ve died within seconds of landing on Hellsbreach. Muldoch hadn’t been forced to choose between duty and his soul.

“Pull that pistol or go away,” the trooper said. The sound of his amplified voice came just as the wind vanished
, and Kin heard it clearly. He released his grip and walked away. There were others like Muldoch, none of them deserters, but men and women likely to run afoul of Fleet justice.

Kin couldn’t protect them.

Making his way toward the town meeting hall, Kin kept an eye on Fleet checkpoints. The people of Crater Town fought fires and moved wounded to the simple hospital. He slowed as he approached the town hall, realizing he was too late.

Fleet troopers escorted the council members, though Laura seemed to treat the troopers as her personal escort r
ather than her jailers.

Please, Laura, be careful
.

Love wasn’t the perfect
word to describe his feelings for Laura, but something burned hot and miserable in his chest as he stared after her. The Fleet was a juggernaut of violence—not an organization to be manipulated, not even by a savant of intrigue like Laura.

Strykers blocked the next s
treet. The engines of the eight-wheeled, light armor vehicles chugged. Exhaust fumes, from diesel rather than jet fuel, mingled with the cool evening air. The archaic technology remained a favorite among ground forces because fuel could be foraged or fabricated when resupply wasn’t an option. Diesel, jet fuel, moonshine—it didn’t matter. They ran on anything.

Kin crept forward until he saw two troopers arguing. Wind blew dust, obscured vision, and concealed him as he lurked in an alley near the conversation.

“We don’t have time for this,” the larger of the two said.

Surplus armor stamped with the standard Earth Fleet icon caught Kin’s attention, because the external armaments were expertly placed and easy to access in a fight, not the setup of inexperienced recruits. Elite commandos couldn’t have done better.

Strange. Why are two badasses like you slumming in that junk?

Something exploded.
The ground rumbled under Kin’s feet. Flames thrust skyward from a building nearby. Townspeople screamed for help, their voices ethereal and broken in the silence following the boom. Kin wanted to know why these troopers were in disguise. Were they saboteurs intent on destroying Earth Fleet, or were they merely high ranking officers spying on their troops?

“If Imperials came through the wormhole after the battle, we’ll find them. We have time. You’re such a pussy,” the smaller trooper said. The voice was familiar and possibly a woman’s, but Kin immediately doubted himself. FSPAA vocal filters were nearly gender neutral by default, thou
gh most troopers disabled them.

“You had to go there,” the larger trooper said. “Watch and learn.”

Imperials
. Whoever they were, Kin had never heard of them. His first impression was of a human, or at least humanoid, adversary. Until now, all enemy races of the Fleet had been monstrous—Reapers, Soul Catchers, Shape Shifters, and Cyborgs. War between human nations was ancient history.

Kin followed the troopers sprinting toward the burning buildings. They quickly outdistanced him. He’d forgotten how fast a trooper could move in armor. By the time h
e caught up, both troopers emerged from a building holding armloads of terrified children.

Cassie Davis fell at their feet, wailing for her babies.

Kin wanted to comfort her. He took a few steps forward, but stopped when the smaller trooper looked at him sharply.

Recognition.

Danger.

Kin broke eye contact, though he couldn’t actually see the trooper’s eyes, and yelled. “Cassie! Are you okay?”

The trooper watched him a moment longer before pushing free of the Davis family reunion. “Get a support team here on the double! We have collateral damage.”

Fleet medics and firemen arrived, helping the townspeople extinguish the flame
s and triage the wounded. The two mystery troopers took charge of the chaotic scene.

Ki
n took the opportunity to leave.

Something changed after the invaders rescued Cassie’s children.
The routine protocols of occupying strategic and tactical positions, detaining key people, and requisitioning resources seemed more benevolent. Kin witnessed Fleet troopers using war-fighting technology to rescue people. An FSPAA unit had to burn for a long time before the person inside became uncomfortable. Muldoch's execution remained vivid in his mind and he wasn’t swept away by the heroics of the Fleet.

Kin scoured the town for people who needed help or direction. Laura was in the hands of the
Fleet. She would either betray him or not betray him, regardless of what he did now. He faced a dangerous choice: flee the city while he had the chance or help the innocent victims of the invasion.

It wasn’t a difficult decision. Who
was he? What did his life matter? He had fought for it—lied, killed, robbed people to pay for a new identity—but was his existence worth more than Crater Town?

When the sun came up he was exhausted, but felt good. Crater Town had been a better home to him than he had known before or after the Fleet. He began a final circuit of the town, drinking water from a skin and nodding at people who seemed glad to be alive.

TIRED men and women wandered the town square, wiping sweat and soot from their faces with rags. Rows of Fleet troopers stood guard, seeming like statues come to life, if only briefly. The younger Crater Town folk played fiddles and pipes near the fountain. Celebration filled the air. Children played as though they would never grow up while the adults laughed and encouraged them.

Kin walked past guards flanking each intersection—avoiding looking at them when they turned their helmets to follow his progress. He doubted any of these men or women could have been on Hellsbreach, but they might have attended his court-martial.
That farce had been held in the bay of a Titan Class Battlecruiser with thousands of soldiers standing at attention. Nine generals and three admirals had presided over the hearing and passed judgment.