Brianna
My name is Brianna Meranda Kenzie of the Narhaven Kenzies. I come from a fringe planet on the outer rim of the wilderzone, a cold but beautiful place. Last year my family was wiped out by a Griever attack, leaving me alive with nothing but painful memories and a whole lot of survivor's guilt. I didn't want to hang around moping and lapping up little scraps of pity from my holdfast neighbors, so I joined Ur-Warlord DiVaragas's call to fight the Blood Eagle. See new worlds, fight the bad guys, that sort of thing. That's how I ended up on the world of Ymir, a newblood with nothing to call her own but her armor, a blaster, and an old spinfusor that had belonged to my brother.
Ymir was a totally new experience for me. There were so many other people, more than I'd ever seen in one place before, that I had a hard time fitting in. Still, I tried, and I thought I'd been doing OK.
Until I met the Blood Eagle, anyway.
If I hadn't smiled at the wrong time in front of the wrong person, life would have been a whole lot easier. Or maybe not. Lachris would probably still have found an excuse to go after me. Some people just need enemies, I guess.
I was in a cadre of newbloods headed out to a perimeter base for training exercises. Two Turbograv Personnel Carriers carried the eight of us. Our trainer was a grim-faced Sergeant we'd met only that morning. He hadn't said much, just ordered us into the T-gravs before climbing into the tailgunner slot on one carrier and nursing a sipcup. Our pilots hugged the ice as we left town so as not to burden air traffic control further. Shuttles were going around the clock, ferrying goods and troops between planet and orbit. Rumors said this was the largest muster in the tribe's history. We were going to take out the Eagle once and for all, but we had to go through Fury first. She was supposed to be a real ogre, so the Ur-Warlord wasn't taking any chances.
I took a deep breath and tried to enjoy the ride. Ymir was the kind of world only a Starwolf could appreciate. Glaciers everywhere except for huge lichen-blanketed reefs sticking out here and there. Some of the reefs were supposedly giant mountains of frozen salt. Underneath everything was a deep salt water ocean. Things swam around down there, the locals said, monster predators like razor hags and jotunfish. The snowy heights reminded me of Narhaven, even though the sky was different, there were no forests, and a salt tang filled my nose no matter where I went. It made me homesick somehow, but I didn't have anything to go back home to, not since the Grievers killed my family and blasted my holdfast to rubble.
The sky was dark with clouds. I leaned into the harness that held me in the carrier and focused on the day ahead. I'd fought the Griever raiders back home, but we were shipping out to face the Blood Eagle soon, so we had to be ready. The Blood Eagle were another level of threat entirely.
"Hey, check out the butchers!" a loud voice cut in across my private channel. It was Lachris Tremane, the big blond fem from Priam III who'd grabbed the leadership role in our cadre. She stood next to me in the other starboard carrier slot, pointing at a group of laborers up ahead. "See the Assault-class standing sentry? Those are Blood Eagle prisoners, Kenzie," she continued. "Hope the bastards freeze their tattoos off out here. It's a waste of effort to keep them alive."
The prisoners were working hard cutting and loading blocks of ice, so they were probably keeping warm enough. A Assault-class with a chaingun stood nearby on a block of ice. I could see the restraint collars on the prisoners. Lachris and the others made catcalls and obscene gestures as we passed. I just hung on and took a good look. I was curious; I'd never seen any Blood Eagle before.
They were a lot like us, only with darker skin and hair. Not the blood-covered berserkers I'd heard tales about. One guy in particular caught my eye. He actually stood and bowed as we passed, a devil-may-care grin on his face. Not what I'd expected from what I'd heard of the butchers. I hit my visor's zoom for a closer look as we sped off. He definitely wasn't bad-looking, and I was surprised to see he wasn't much older than me. Light brown skin, beautiful green eyes, a crew cut so short his hair was a shadow on his scalp, pierced ears with empty holes where earrings had been. He watched us go with that lopsided grin lingering on his face. Actually, he looked right at me. Me! My heart sped up. Despite myself, I grinned back. It'd be easy to get lost in those eyes.
"Like what you see, Kenzie?" My reaction hadn't escaped Lachris, and she sounded like she'd just turned over a rock and found a nest of chig-slithies. I turned off my zoom.
"Just curious," I stammered, trying to look nonchalant. I could feel the blush creeping up my face, though. I wasn't fooling her.
She banged an armored hand on the carrier plating in mock alarm. "Ohhhh, dear! Brianna Kenzie's found a butcher boyfriend!" The other newbloods laughed. I looked up at the sergeant, but he wasn't paying attention. I wasn't going to run to him for help, anyway.
"I hear they bite your tongue off when they kiss, Kenzie!" chimed in Tevyan Biragan, a stocky boy who made no secret about being smitten with Lachris. He practically yapped when she talked to him. "Be sure and report back to us, aiya?" he added.
"Wonder what Ur-Warlord DiVaragas would say if she knew about your crush on a butcher?" someone else yelled.
Led by Lachris, others jumped in with additional jabs. I tried to laugh with them, but the teasing really hurt, especially the stuff Lachris said. Her family was rich and famous, people talked all the time about how good a warrior she was, and she looked like a hero from the vids. Tall and muscular, she was also gifted with a large chest and holostar features. All the males in Skyrholm turned their heads when she passed by. I, on the other hand, looked like a gangly kitten next to her. I didn't have enough chest to notice when I wore armor. Not that it should matter, but I was seventeen and I wanted Lachris to like me. Right now she kept ragging me about the Eagle, so it didn't take long for me to start wishing I'd shot the scrof instead of returning his damn smile.
Fortunately, when our pilot took us upstairs, everybody laid off. We were a kilometer out of town, and the view was spectacular. Skyrholm Holdfast and its crowded fraytown faded quickly behind us.
It didn't take long to get to the training area, a rock-studded, hilly place in the glacier where floating grav platforms and thick ice columns encircled a moderately-sized base. A small pyramid floated directly over the base, and a narrow beam of light ran from the bottom of the pyramid to the flat base summit. I wondered what it was. Some kind of beacon? We landed and lined up next to the foot of the base. The Sergeant came down the line for a cursory inspection. Then he jetted up onto a platform about three meters over the ground.
"Alright, newbloods!" he called. "Pay attention! Today you get to demonstrate situational awareness and agility, not teamwork. This exercise is called Hunter. High scores get first crack at command in your cadre, low scores get clean-up duty in the mess tonight. Understood? I hear only one of you has seen live combat." He turned toward me. "You go easy on these punks, Kenzie." Then he gave me a thumbs-up sign!
I swallowed in disbelief. He just made me the number one target! I'd practiced a lot back home on Narhaven, but mostly cooperative fire team simulations, not solo. I glanced at Lachris. She was watching me with a tight little frown. Some of the others darted their eyes my way as well. I made a show of examining my weapon, hoping to look nonchalant, but my heart was pounding.
Why did he single me out like that? It wasn't fair!
Lachris leaned over. "May the best warrior win… Eagle-lover." She flashed a friendly smile like it was all a joke, but her eyes were colder than Ymir's glaciers, and I knew this wasn't just an exercise any longer.[1]
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