Toma huffed, lips pursed in respect. ‘He does this every month, entertains the locals, earns some schills, then gives most of it away to the chief and the clinic. He also drops by with regular supplies of wood, wool, and meat for us. He even makes his own charcoal that keeps the our generators burning throughwinter. He’s the ultimate mountain man who’s taken upon himself to watch over us.’
‘Where’s he from?’
‘No one is sure, but he lives up on a holding high up on the cliffs in a wild, remote existence with his animals and his farmhand Lago. That’s the young man you saw who dabbled as his snake wrangler.’
Brad leaned back against the dented dura-steel of the bar’s back wall.
‘The mining consortium, Rhixon, has illegal concessions to mine these parts. They first dispatched a collection crew to extort protection credits from the villagers and the medical center. Idan evicted the thugs. He left them with shattered ribs and pride in the dirt. The syndicate returned a week later. With pulse rifles in hand and murder in their eyes. However, those men got snatched away by some invisible force. They vanished into the permafrost of the wadi in winter before they could squeeze a trigger. Two site foremen and a handful of enforcers remain missing to this day. More Rhixon crews harassed the villagers, demanding they move from an identified mining lode. Rumor has it that Idan reached their base camp under the cover of a mountain gale. By dawn, the quarry was destroyed, excavators decimated, and heavy machinery sheds reduced to a smoldering, skeletal pile of blackened steel. Then, about a month and a half ago, the locals reported that Lord Tiberius Si’Rhix’s ship and a battalion of dozens of armed mercs targeted Idan. They subsequently disappeared from a cliff ridge near his acreage, lost to the sea. We owe a lot to Idan; however, the man scares the shit out of me. I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side.’
Sheba stared at the stack of notes and coins gleaming under the bar’s lights, her pulse racing.
‘Fokkme,’ she whispered, and this time it wasn’t admiration alone that tightened her chest.
It was the unmistakable sense that yet again, she had just witnessed a rare, dangerous, and intentional life force.
5
A Hard and Dirty Fight
Sheba woke to a light wind kicking in under the bed.
The gray-green tarpaulin walls surrounding her also stirred, lifting and flapping.
The gust swept in the scents of damp earth, antiseptic, and wood smoke from the burners outside.
Pale light filtered through patched seams overhead, the sun still on its rise, the sky washed in soft pinks and mineral blues.
Sheba remained motionless beneath the covers, absorbing the cadence of the clinic hospital as it transitioned into its morning rhythm.
One month on Tansinia Minor, and she was still learning its sounds and ambiance.
Its unique symphony began to coalesce. Ranging from the rhythmic crunch of boots on the perimeter gravel to the melodic exchange of greetings and the distant, mechanical drone of a generator cycling up.
Her previous experience as a combat medic and nurse meant she was used to the rudimentary camp-like atmosphere of a field hospital.
Still, she missed some of her luxuries back home like cocktails, hot showers, and air conditioning. Nonetheless, she compensated for it with a French press percolator, a mattress topper for her air mattress, noise-canceling headphones at night, and her favorite books and movies on her comm tab.
She rose, brushing her teeth at the small steel basin bolted to a crate next to the rudimentary shower.
She splashed her face with water drawn from the filtration tanks and braided her hair into a long ponytail.
Her practical trouser uniform hung from a hook, clean and pressed, and she pulled it on, then grabbed her bag and stepped out of her tent.
Sheba navigated the primary corridor of the demountable complex.
The facility sprawled from the central administration hub in a tactical grid.
To her left, the surgical bays were anchored by reinforced polymer ribs.
Stacked triage hover beds sat stashed under heavy canvas awnings. The stacks were secured with industrial cables againstthe violent gale-force winds that often battered the eastern perimeter.
She side-stepped into the mess hall, waving to the staff on duty in the kitchens beyond prepping lunch service.
With a plate of thick, buttered toast and a mug of steaming brew in hand, she retreated to the admin block’s shared office to organize her day.
She perched at her scarred metal bureau, reviewing the caseload and notes left by the Head Night Nurse, Eliza Mann.
She had barely finished her final bite when a group of junior nurses crowded into the doorway, their eyes lighting at the sight of her.
