He jerks, startled. A horrified laugh escapes him. “Gods, no. I didn’t kill them to eat them, Farli. I killed them because they were the enemy. Or I thought they were the enemy.”
“Because you were military,” I say, trying to piece this together. My mind cannot comprehend killing a tribesmate, much less hunting them.
“It’s complicated and probably very hard to explain to someone who doesn’t know what war is.” His sigh is heavy. “I envy you that. But let me try to explain so you can understand. So…let’s say one of your brothers decides he is going to make his own cave. He does not want to follow Vektal’s leadership anymore, and he takes half of the tribe with him. What would Vektal do?”
I think for a moment. “He would be sad that the tribe is not happy and work harder to ensure the rest of our people are pleased with his leadership. It is not a fun job to be leader. He is responsible for all of us, and it weighs heavy on his heart.”
“Right. Now let’s say that he does not want the others to leave and will do whatever he can to force them to stay. That is what war is. People disagree and they get so angry at each other that it becomes a fight that ends in bloodshed.”
I gasp. “Killing?”
“Killing, yes.”
“That sounds horrible!”
“Itishorrible. No one likes war, except for the people that don’t have to experience it first hand. The chiefs make the decisions, but it is the hunters that must carry them out. And the tribes are not just ten or twenty hunters, but hundreds. Thousands. More hunters than you can possibly imagine, all fighting each other, not because they want to, but because their chiefs make them.”
I feel sick to my stomach. “This sounds like a terrible thing to do.” I cannot imagine a chief that does not put the well-being of his people first. “If they want to leave, why does he not let them?”
“A variety of reasons.” He sounds tired, my mate. Tired and heartsick. “Sometimes it is pride. Sometimes it is not that people wish to leave, but a different reason. Maybe they look different or believe different things. Maybe they are on land that a chief wants for himself. Maybe—”
“This is awful,” I tell him, stunned. “Attacking people because they look different? Killing them?”
“Or worse.”
I cannot imagine worse, but judging from his grave face, there must be. I do not want to hear more of this, and yet I told him to confide in me, so I must listen. “And your chief made you hurt people? Kill people?” My poor Mardok.
He nods. “I didn’t join the military because I believed in my chief’s cause, though. It was just…well, a way out. My mother died with a huge pile of debt, and she wasn’t married to my father. They were long separated, so due to the law, it passed on to me. I was just a kid, fresh out of mandatory schooling when I got hit with that. The only way I could pay it off was to enlist in the military, which was offering to clear personal debts for soldiers that took on high-risk positions. When you’re young, you think you’re invincible, so I signed up. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” His expression grows distant. “There were things I liked about the military. Mostly the camaraderie and sense of brotherhood. I didn’t have siblings, so it was nice to be part of something bigger. To feel like you belonged. And I liked the physical exercises and the opportunity to work with my hands. It was just…everything else.”
I remain quiet, waiting to see if he continues talking.
“I was in for a few years. Managed to get by all right. Had my friends, my debts were paid, and if I didn’t always like the jobs I was assigned, they didn’t bother me much. Then war broke out on a colony planet—Uzocar IV. The local militia was attacking and killing everyone from Homeworld. My regiment was sent to secure the situation. That’s what we did, you know? We were the high-risk group, which meant we got sent in on the dangerous shit. And most of the time, we were okay with that because our pay scale was a lot higher. Thistime…” He shudders.
I rub his back soothingly. Some of the things he mentions—‘pay’ and ‘militia’—do not make sense to me, but I do not interrupt. He needs to get this out of his head, and I do not want to distract.
“By this time I was squad leader of my group, which meant that I was in charge. Kind of like a chief of a hunting party, I suppose. And right after I became leader, we received a mission. A risky one. Our instructions were to land outside of one of the villages, attempt to subdue the rebels, and use it as an example to the other villagers that things could be solved peaceably.” He laughs, and the sound is hard, bitter. “Except it didn’t work out that way at all. They were waiting for us. Maybe they had some sort of scanner that could pick up the frequency of our ship, or maybe they just managed to eyeball it, even though we landed a good day’s hike from their village. Whatever it was, the moment we set foot on the soil, they attacked. I ordered my men to take cover anywhere they could—bushes, trees, whatever. It was a bad call. I guess I was so caught up in the fact that we needed to do this mission that I didn’t stop to think about what I was sending us into. Uzocar’s not a very green planet. It’s scrubby at best, and there weren’t many places to hide. Within moments, half my men were slaughtered. Guys I laughed with, joked with, knew about their families. Gone in a flash of laser fire. Just…gone.” He sucks in a ragged breath. “I told the rest of them to retreat, to race back to the ship and we’d get the kef out of there. Abort mission. Except…the ship that sent us? The pilot got scared and retreated. Just headed back into space to the transport ship and left us all on the surface to die.” He closes his eyes. “I see that just as clearly as yesterday. Just that awful, sick feeling when you see your only chance taking off the ground and leaving you behind. My men running for it, hoping that if they get to it in time, maybe they can catch that keffing coward of a pilot. Instead, they just got mowed down.” He rubs his face with a big hand. “My fault. I should have called an immediate retreat. I watched my men die right in front of me, knowing that I’d killed them with a bad call.”
“It was not your fault,” I say soothingly.
“Actually, it was.” Mardok’s voice is raw. “I made the call to land there. Then I told them to go back. Any other leader would have stuck with one decision, but I just sent them running. And I was the one that chose the pilot for the troop ship that day, even though I knew he was a coward. Funny thing, I put him in charge of piloting instead of our regular guy because he was a keffing coward and I didn’t want him to break lines and cause a problem on the ground.” His mouth pulls up in a hard, angry version of a smile. “Funny how a decision can haunt you like that.”
“What did you do?” I ask. “How did you escape?”
“I didn’t. Not really.” He pats his discolored side. “Our entire squad was mowed down. I had a hole blown through my middle and my arm sheared off. I think I also got struck in the head, but I don’t much remember that.” He touches his temple, and I see a small, silvery scar just below one of his horns. “They must have thought I was dead, because I woke up half-buried in the pile of bodies they’d left behind on the plains.”
I shiver, horrified.
“It was night. I remember that. I remember looking up at the stars and smelling the dead. There’s no smell quite like it. I remember lying there, too weak to move, stuck between the rotting corpses of my friends.” He closes his eyes and gives a small shake of his head. “Oddly enough, that wasn’t the worst part about it. I couldn’t move, but I could look up at the stars. And as I did, I saw the transport carrier overhead. They’dkept it low enough to be visible to the naked eye—I guess because of a change in maneuvers—and I remember staring up at it and feeling so abandoned. I’d been left to die.” He shudders again. “Took them three days to find me. Still not sure how I lived through it.” He meets my gaze and manages a small smile. “They patched me up and asked me if I wanted to continue my contract. I didn’t, though. I bailed out. Got a pension, and I had it set up as a trust for the families of the guys in my squad. Didn’t seem right that I take the money.”
I rub his shoulder, hurting for him. “I am so sorry, Mardok.”
His hand covers mine. “I think that’s why I have issues with the thought of being left behind somewhere. It all goes back to that night. The moment I hear a ship taking off without me, I just panic. I think Trakan’s words hit a little too close to home.”
I feel sick to my stomach. He’ll never stay with me, I realize. Not here. Not when it is his worst fear to be left behind. And I am full of sorrow for what he had to go through, but also heartsick for him, because I love him.
I cannot leave him.
If it means choosing between my people and the man I love, the mate I am destined to have, I pick him. I touch his face, gently turning him toward me. “I will go with you when you leave.”
