There was a feeling before a battle, a feeling you couldn't get anywhere else. The Mongrel knew it well. How to describe it? It was a thrumming in his veins, a song in his blood begging to burst forth. It was a heady cocktail of mortal fear and utter excitement. It was the feeling of being deeply, vibrantly
alive, recognizing that vivacity because, in one minute or ten minutes or ten hours, you might not be. It was the purity of knowing that there were only two options before you: to take lives, or to have your life taken. It was a connectedness to every warrior who had come before.
And when the battle began... it was even better.
No matter how many times he tasted that feeling, no matter how many battlefields he trod and how many kills he racked up, The Mongrel never tired of it. It was something that the soft Core Worlders, trudging to their meaningless little jobs or sitting numbly in front of their holoscreens, could not possibly understand... but
he understood. When the laser bolts started flying and the vibroblades swung, when air strikes blew apart the earth and frag grenades filled the air with shrapnel, that was when warriors became anchored in the present, living from instant to instant.
Only in risk and struggle was there real
meaning.
He was about to find that meaning again. All along the northern perimeter of Port Sorrow, beyond the electrified fences and heavy repeater emplacements that kept slaves from making a run for it, the forces of the Eternal Empire were lining up. Evidently the CIS had solicited the aid of their western neighbor, or perhaps the Imperials had volunteered, still hungry for revenge after the raid on Batuu. Whatever the reason, they'd come in force. Walkers, speeders, elite troopers... artillery. The Mongrel hissed at that last one. To him, it was a craven coward's weapon.
A
real warrior had the courage to face a foe up close.
He was eager to do battle with these so-called Eternals again, eager to test himself now that he had grown so greatly since his last time crossing blades with them... but his attention was soon drawn away. The Mongrel looked up as Port Sorrow's air defenses opened fire, missiles streaking into the sky to target enemy fighters and dropships. The CIS were making their move, just as the Sorcerers of Rhand had foretold... though it didn't take a dark mystic's precognition to guess that they would try to capture Port Sorrow. It was the only major settlement on the planet.
As air raid sirens whined and missiles crisscrossed the clouds, the process of loading slaves onto the space elevator continued. Any captives who so much as looked up at the battle brewing above them were struck with stun baton and rifle butts. They had to learn to keep their eyes downcast sometime, and it might as well be now, when it would also teach them not to hope. Two hundred more stepped onto the platform, men and women snatched from across the galaxy, Chiss and Tianese and fringers from the northern edge of Alliance space. Now they were all made one in bondage.
They drank in the sight of desolate Rhand as if it was fine wine, for these cloudy skies and barren prairies might well be the last planet they ever set foot on. Then the great doors of the elevator closed, and the lift whisked them upward, into the middle of the battle brewing high above. Hundreds down, thousands to go. The emptying of Port Sorrow would take time, time they might not have if the enemy was fast enough. But the Dark Voice always had a plan. The Mongrel knew this to be true, and he trusted in the will of the Avatars as filtered through their prophet.
They would find some way to punish the invaders.
CIS transports, under heavy air cover by potent stealth fighters and their heavy missile barrage, were landing outside of Port Sorrow, no doubt to flank the town with the EE forces advancing from the north. They had no intention of allowing any Mawite to escape, or of leaving behind any slave. They were determined, certainly, and ready to unleash the full might of the kind of arsenal a government spanning a third of the galaxy could afford to buy... but they were not invincible. That much was proven when one of the dropships, struck by a surface to air missile, listed sideways...
... and crashed hard, near the space elevator.
Haphazard structures crumbled as the dropship plowed into them. A guard tower cracked in half, spilling a screaming marauder thirty feet to land in a broken heap on the ground. A cage full of wailing slaves was smashed flat as the hulk rolled over, leaving behind little more than smashed wood, crushed durasteel, and red paste. The shuttle gouged up a huge swath of dirt street as it skidded along, bounced off of a duracrete-bottomed missile emplacement, and finally came to rest. Behind it was a long furrow of destruction, several buildings cleanly halved by its impact.
"You two," The Mongrel said, pointing to two of his warriors,
"make sure everyone in there is dead." The marauders nodded, spinning up their
underslung rotary repeater carbines. It was unlikely in the warlord's mind that anyone had managed to survive the brutal crash, but it paid to be thorough, especially so close to the space elevator; nothing could be permitted to interfere with the slave-moving operation. As the warriors moved alongside the wreck, they casually opened fire into it, pouring scorching bolts through every rupture in the hull as they stalked toward the doors...
... which they wrenched open, ready to fire inside.
Meanwhile, Braygar's little helper was getting the slaves back under control, moving those not currently in line for the elevator or freighters to their pens. The Mongrel watched him even as he directed his forces, preparing for whatever the next enemy push would be. He was clever and persuasive rather than strong and forceful, unusual talents for a Mawite... and ones that were unlikely to garner him much respect amid their warrior culture. But they
did seem to be effective, for he was getting much done without having to use his weak-looking frame to do it. Impressive.
Perhaps he
could be a Scar Hound.
Ingrid L'lerim
Kahne Porte
