Chronicles of Kin Roland 1: Enemy of Man (3 page)

O
ne friendly face at his execution cried without wiping tears or moving from her position of attention. She hadn’t dared to look directly at Kin, because discipline demanded all eyes be directed straight ahead. He didn’t like to think of Becca that way. He walked toward the town meeting hall under the stare of soldiers—trained killers with the most advanced weapons known to mankind, men he understood, men who were just like he had been.

The last time Kin had seen Becca before Hellsbreach, she had been running through a wheat field with her hair down. He still saw the girl behind her intelligent eyes, especially when she was off duty and in a playful mood. He remembered her bright-blue dress dancing below her knees, the neck line modest but open, nothing like the high collar of her cadet’s uniform. Her shoulders and arms had been bare. The fabric of her dress fit her hips and body snuggly. He thought he could wrap his hands around her waist and touch his fingertips, but never worked up the courage to try. He smiled, remembering her looking over her shoulder and laughing. He wished he could chase her again and be in love.

They had hiked all day and sprawled in a meadow overlooking a green valley of Earth VI. Farmers worked terraced fields in small, open-topped tractors. The crops were distributed locally, not to distant colonies or industrial planets with barely enough plant life to photosynthesize oxygen, much less provide their own food. Countless agriculture colonies filled that need. Earth VI was a liberty planet, a place of rest and revitalization for travelers. A day on an Earth Class Planet healed humans with almost magical power.

In his mind, Kin sat next to her. She leaned back on her elbows, wriggling her toes in the grass. He smiled, gazing at her, speaking infrequently, attending her ever
y word as though it were music.

“I’ve been thinking of my father and brothers all day, my real brothers, not you, Kin,” Becca said. “I’m trying not to be sad. Trying so hard.”

“No one should be sad on a day like this,” Kin said. “So, I’m like a brother?”

She leaned toward him, freeing her left arm to swat his leg. “You know you’re beautiful, Kin. I’m going to have a long talk with the girl who thinks she can marry you.”

Kin tied a piece of grass in a knot, staring at each twist he made. “I miss your brothers.”

He
could have avoided mandatory enlistment, but it seemed wrong to enjoy the safety the Fleet provided without doing his part. He wasn’t from a military family like Becca was. His father had been a smuggler and had taught him two things when he wasn’t in boarding school; how to fight dirty and how to survive. Good lessons for boarding school. Good lessons for storming a hostile planet. Perhaps Becca’s father and brothers wouldn’t have been killed by Reapers if they’d learned the same lessons.

“I miss them so much I can barely breathe,” she said. Tears welled in her eyes. She turned them to the horizon, fixing them on something in the distance. “The Reapers tore them apart, Kin. I have nightmares.”

Kin held her and she leaned into him. They were silent for a long time.

“I’m going to volunteer for the Hellsbreach Campaign.” He spoke softly into her hair, but his heart raced.

“I don't want you to go, because no one returns from Betaoin. But I want vengeance. You’re the only man in the Fleet who can deliver it,” Becca said.

“I’m just one
man, but only the best are allowed to volunteer for this mission. If the Reapers can be wiped out, we’ll do it,” Kin said.

He didn’t want to go. He wasn't afraid. The reality of the battle to come was too far in the future. The danger seemed abstract. He didn’t hold the same
hate as Becca did. All men die. Some die badly. He didn’t need vengeance, but Becca did, so he would deliver it. If he survived, she’d be thirty by the time the Hellsbreach Campaign ended and ships traveled back to Earth Fleet controlled space. She’d be married and barely remember her childhood friend.

Memory was a cruel sorcerer. He held the vision of Becca in his mind, but the spell was destroyed by the fires of Hellsbreach and the sounds of gunfire and plasma bolts. He saw splashes of red, explosions of orange and gold. He smelled s
moke from the past and present.

He
fled the images in his mind and focused on what needed to be done. Fleet troopers watched as he walked. They towered above him in their assault armor.

Expression
less.

Menacing.

Kin examined the squad’s sergeant from a distance. There was something about the way he moved—arrogant and cruel. He towered over the other troopers, swaggering aggressively. They jumped when he said jump.

Kin shortened his stride when he saw the etching on the ceramic exoskeleton of the suit
. The design differed from what he remembered, but the style was familiar. Sergeant Orlan decorated his armor with etchings despite regulations forbidding it. Many troopers on Hellsbreach had done the same thing, putting notches on armor for every kill, carving pictures of loved ones or enemies or religious symbols to match the tattoos on their skin, or merely decorating the ceramic shell with art. Sergeant Orlan’s talent for ornamentation was impressive, despite his large, thick hands.

Kin knew he should go around the man, yet he moved closer and saw a lion's head skillfully engraved on the breastplate. On Hellsbreach it had been a wolf, but Kin recognized Orlan’s handiwork. It was unfair such a brute could create something so magnificent.

Kin abruptly turned down an alley. A guard noticed him and followed.

“You there, where are you going? Why are you armed? Do you have a permit?”

Kin faced the guard, taking another careful step into the shadow of the building. He glanced down the street, noting Orlan still faced the other direction. The worst danger was over, or so he thought. But then he realized this was the same trooper who saved little Kylee and Samantha Davis from the fire before recognizing him.

This guy is stalking me.

“I have a permit.”

The guard accepted the paper, pretending to not recognize Kin. The mechanized gauntlets looked too large to hold such a delicate object, but Kin knew the assault armor was capable of both fine motor skills and feats of incredible strength. He also understood the suits required charging, despite the solar power they gathered to
extend battery life. In time, the fierce machines would be men and women, mere mortals without shells of technology. Kin doubted this soldier would follow him into an alley alone without the armor, even if he hoped to collect a reward for capturing the Enemy of Man.

“Who wrote this permit?” the trooper asked. The depersonalized voice sounded neutered by the amplifier projecting it. The sound and deception it represented bothered Kin.

“All permits for firearms are approved or denied by the Crater Town Council. Councilwoman Laura Keen signed that particular paper,” Kin said. Prior to the arrival of the Fleet, Kin had been in charge of enforcing the permit laws, but never bothered. Crater Town was a frontier settlement on an uncharted planet. Life was dangerous. People carried weapons when they could find or make them.

“You are Kin Roland? Security officer for Crater Town?” the trooper asked.

“I am. Is there a problem?”

“Most people with that unfortunate name changed it after Hellsbreach,” the trooper said, studying his reaction.

Kin shrugged.

“Commander Westwood wishes to know who doused the lighthouse as we approached.”

Kin nodded. “I’ll ask around.” He turned away from the trooper.

“Wait.”

Kin faced the trooper again, who seemed to be listening to a command sequence inside the helmet.

“You are to appear before Commander Westwood and the Crater Tow
n Council in the meeting hall.”

Kin hesitated, but knew he couldn’t delay for long. “I need to check one more person, then I’ll head that way.”

The trooper shook his head and stepped closer to Kin, towering over him. “My orders are to bring you without delay.” Another pause. “Who are you looking for?”

“Sibil Clavender,” Kin said.

“Who is Sibil Clavender?” the trooper asked.

Kin pointed at the wormhole, discolored and turbulent from the disturbance of the planetary assault. “She’s the person who soothes the spirit of the wormhol
e.” Kin couldn’t hear if the soldier snorted without activating the helmet speaker, but he probably did. Kin held the trooper's gaze until the helmet slowly turned toward the pulsating wormhole.

The trooper faced Kin and waited for what had to be an order from Fleet Command. “You may look for her. I will escort you.”

Kin turned, stepping through the alley to emerge on a street not much wider than the path between buildings. He trudged up the steep dune, navigating twists and turns, avoiding the direct route in order to disorient his guard.

“
This is the wrong way,” the trooper said. “Our drones have already mapped this area. What are you doing?”

“Making a fool of myself, apparen
tly.”

“Don’t.”

Kin studied the reflective visor and searched for clues in how the trooper stood and how he chose to arrange the accessories on his armor. There were no engravings or unit markings beyond the Earth Fleet emblem. “Do I know you?”

Silence. They stared at each other.

“Please continue.”

Kin waited a few moments and turned away. He walked slowly, sensing it would annoy the trooper. This type of guard duty was a waste of time. A good soldier would resent it.

“I thought you’d be looking for Imperials,” Kin said.

“Why would you think that?”

“I heard some troopers talking about them.” Kin waited. He assumed Imperials blasted this Fleet Armada through the wormhole, but had never heard of them. Whoever they were, their presence in Earth Fleet controlled space occurred after Hellsbreach.

The trooper didn’t respond.

Kin led the unhelpful guard to a cottage set into the side of a dune. Little more than the door betrayed the location of Sibil Clavender's home. A gaggle of hopper birds loitered near the threshold. Fur grew around the faces and forelegs of the strange creatures. The hopper birds also possessed strong hind legs for running and multicolored wings in perpetual motion.

Kin squatted, waiting until each hopper bird scrambled to him and pecked his hands. “I am Kin Roland. I mean
no harm,” he said several times, making sure they recognized his scent and the sound of his voice.

“Why do you do that?” the trooper asked.

“They’re my friends.” Kin stood.

“They’re messenger birds.”

“They are.”

The trooper stood moti
onless while receiving an order Kin couldn’t hear, but could remember from a hundred missions.

Secure all forms of communication. You’re the tip of the spear, Trooper. Report success to Command and Control. Do you copy?

Roger that.

The trooper looked at Kin.
“They will be confiscated.”

“Good luck.” Kin ducked inside the dwelling, leaving the Fleet trooper to chase birds around the yard.

Dimly glowing stones illuminated the surprisingly large room. As his eyes adjusted to muted light, he noted simple items—a pitcher on the low table, a bowl of local fruit, and silver beads in a pattern representing the ring of moons around the planet. Glow stones were set in the walls, like oval windows or portals to unknown worlds.

K
in moved to the table. He studied a book Clavender never allowed him to open. Something like an angel graced the cover, with multicolored wings, noble beard, and the face of a warrior king. The eyes reminded him of Clavender.

His
fingers grazed the book.

“Are you well, Ki
n Roland?” Sibil Clavender emerged from the shadows in all her alien glory. She wore a silk tunic narrowly covering her small breasts and gathered at the waist by a decorative chain. The fine metal made Kin think he could hook one finger under it and rip it off. Her back, naked all the way down, gave room for white wings tipped in blue and dusted with diamonds. The hem of the tunic reached her ankles—slit up the sides to her hips. Her unruly hair was tied high enough to expose her slender neck. Her eyes, blue-green like a tropical lagoon, welcomed him.

Kin stepped away from the table and cleared his throat. “As well as might be expected.”

She smiled, moved closer, sent his heart racing. The exotic way she walked fascinated him. Her wings dazzled his vision. The silver beads in her hair seemed magical.

“Have you been outside?”

She nodded, pressing against him. Kin felt the warmth of her body.

Don’t move. She’ll disappear from this dream.
He held his breath.
Not everything on Crashdown is dangerous. A battle scared veteran like me could be healed in this room
.

“I have seen the strangers. They wear armor. Are we so dangerous?”

“I doubt they came here on purpose. Uncharted planets are always assaulted,” Kin said.

He forced himself to think. Few people could withstand Clavender’s presence for long without being enthralled. Crater Town people thought of her as some kind of spirit or goddess in communion with the weather and the worm
hole. She appeared young. For all he knew she was immortal.