We filed in and headed for a high table near the back, which gave us a good view of the small café. I levered myself up onto a stool, having to make space for the bulky armor vest.
From inside the café, you’d never know the city had seen any kind of attack. As long as you avoided sitting near exterior windows, or what was left of ’em, the owner kept the place immaculate. I’d expected a dusty old hole, but the interior had been worked in dark wood, and the tables had carved-in vignette screens sealed with polished epoxy.
I may not have known politics, but I knew people and popular culture in the Gulf. I could recognize trappings of both the Emirates in the scrollwork across wooden surfaces, as well as the Catalan Templars in the ochre-heavy paintings. Then again, most of the planet was vaguely ochre-colored. Still, I got the feeling this cafe had seen its share of regimes come and go in its years and kept a little from each one like a living timeline.
This planet had probably changed hands half a dozen times over the last century. A mush of the two empires’ cultures had developed over time on Tyunta, as it had on most disputed planets. Most of its residents spoke Catalan, Shil’habic, or both. While I had grown up on Teutonia where Dutchie and Catalan were the dominant languages, I had at least a passing knowledge of Shil’habic, too. It’s a complicated language if you’re not a native speaker, though. Easy to say the wrong thing if you miss an emphasis, and good luck ever learning to write it.
It also surprised me to see we weren’t the first patrons. A few other tables and several spots at the bar by the grill had been filled by Tyunta locals. Whether displaced or too stubborn to let something as trivial as an armed insurrection interrupt their routine, they huddled over steaming cups and watched a news feed of the southern outskirts the rebels had probed.
A graphic came up, showing the territory held by the rebels, which was most of the continent except Tyunta Central and some isolated pockets, where contract security defended the last bastions of Catalonian control. We’d been completely surrounded. At least the rebels had to watch out for long-shots hitting their own forces on the other side of the city. Small blessings.
I watched for a few more minutes before the owner came by with a decanter of coffee and four plates of bluish mush slopped over toasted cards of flatbread.
“What kind of eggs are these?” I asked, prodding the toast with my finger.
“Scrambled,” said the owner, fresh hand-rolled cigarette bobbing between his lips as he spoke. “Eat up.”
I waited until he left before picking up the flatbread and taking a trepidatious bite. Despite the pigment, they tasted similar enough to hens’ eggs that I was willing to chalk the discoloration up to the birds eating enough local seed to take on the hue. But I wouldn’t have put money on these eggs coming from anything I’d recognize as a bird, either. Some things are better left unknown.
Blitz watched me eat, expression caught somewhere between awe and disgust. He pushed back his plate, which Stag immediately slid to his side, digging in with undisguised relish. He was either a native, or had been on the planet long enough to not care about the coloration. Athena watched him over her steaming cup, fascinated at the rate the big guy inhaled his food and washed it down with scalding hot coffee.
The coffee wasn’t bad either. I’d gotten a taste for the local stuff; it’s got an aggressive jolt and is sweet enough to not need any sucra. A little cream wouldn’t have gone amiss. But then, reflecting on the hue of the eggs, perhaps its lack (and knowledge of the animal from whence it came) was preferable.
“So,” said Blitz. “Yesterday was crazy, right? That wasn’t just me?”
“Depends on how often you get shot down,” I said, wiping yolk off my plate with the last of the flatbread. “But yeah, I don’t typically get chased down by insurgents in armored trucks while driving a commandeered civilian vehicle.”
“I thought it was weird,” added Athena, “that no one was talking about how weird it was.”
“Definitely weird,” said Stag, reaching for the decanter to refill his cup. “Let’s not make a habit of it.”
“Crashing?” I asked. “Or getting chased by insurgents?”
“Flying.”
I leaned on the table, chin couched in my palm. “I wonder if the War Dogs found the rest of that column.”
“Surely,” said Blitz. “Just twisted metal by now.”
I tapped a finger on the table. Athena watched it bob up and down. She looked up. “You feel like they’re still out there, and the rest of them are looking for us?”
“Yeah, kinda,” I said. I stilled my hand with some effort. “It’s dumb, really.”
Blitz nodded. “Stress response, your monkey-brain thinks the threat is still lurking just out of sight.”
“He’s nothing but monkey-brains!” said Athena. I threw a napkin at her, which only made her giggle.
“If it would put your mind at ease, it’s probably not far from here. We probably saw the smoke walking over.”
I considered it for a moment. I wanted to. But I also didn’t want to find nothing. “Nah. Not worth it,” I lied. “War Dogs know their craft.”
Athena slid her coffee out of the way and pulled out a deck of cards. “In that case, we have time for at least a couple sets of Feedback.”
I rolled my eyes. Athena, ever the hustler. But I let her deal me in. One of these days I’d catch her cheating. But not today, apparently, as she swept the entire first run, capturing 60 points’ worth of cards in a suspiciously low number of turns.
Blitz swore. “Is she cheating? It feels like she’s cheating.”
Athena just grinned.
“Get used to it,” I said. Then, lower, “Serves us right for using her cards.”
I tossed down my hand in disgust and looked back at the news feeds. The casters had moved on to the gridlock in the city and briefly mentioned a security company VTOL that had crashed in a local memorial park of some significance. Oops. I glanced at Blitz, who retreated into the collar of his flight suit.
The first sun crept above the horizon, filtering into the restaurant in warm spiderwebbed patterns through the couple floor-to-ceiling windows that had only been cracked instead of shattered. The rising sun prompted the Emirati in the café to step outside for a moment of prayer, including both the owner and Blitz. I watched them prostrate themselves toward the rising sun, touching foreheads to the stretch of polycrete that had been swept clean.
When Blitz returned, I noticed a trio of Tyuntans, maybe a year or two older than me, whose gazes followed him back to our high-top. I met their eyes, unflinching, until they went back to their own table, where another three waited, and leaned in, speaking too quietly for me to make out. But their table was scattered with data pads and even a couple hard-copy books. Technical students then, from the southern district university. Soft civilians with hard expressions. Never a good combo.
“Didn’t take you for the devout type,” said Stag as Blitz took his seat and picked his cards back up.
Blitz shrugged. “I can’t see how you’re not, after yesterday.”
The three other locals at the table looked up and over at us, faces growing dark.
“Touché,” said Stag.
I saw the other table push back their chairs, but I was still on my feet before any of them, staring them down as they approached. The one leading their pack had a red face, and I don’t think the flush was from having his head pressed to the ground. The other Chevaliers finally took notice.
One of them opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.
“This is a private game. Find your own.”
The leader blinked, then scowled. “I'm not here to play cards.”
“Then leave,” I said. “We’re just trying to eat, not start a fight.”
“You’re mercs,” he countered, crossing his arms. “I recognize your patch. Off-world Templar guns for hire. All you do is stick your nose in other people’s scraps and stomp around the city like it’s your personal playground. You’re making things worse for everyone.”
“Acting under direction from the planetary governor.”
He sneered. “In name only. Everyone knows he’s going to cede the planet to the Princeps. The only thing drawing it out is you thugs and your mecha.”
I winced at the ignorant civilian slang for uprights. The local noticed and, hoping he’d struck a nerve, pressed harder.
“How do you justify all the innocents who die just to drag out your lost war?”
I clenched my fist. “I don’t have to justify shit to you. The Chevaliers took a contract, and we’re bound by law and honor to complete its terms. I swore an oath to—”
“Fuck your oath!” he spat. Actually spat. Even some of his friends backed off a step, knowing he'd crossed a line. I reached behind me, grabbed a napkin, and wiped off my face. Then I snatched the guy by his tunic collar and balled my other hand into a fist.
Athena was quicker on the draw. She had her arms locked around my elbow before I could seal the deal.
“Don’t do it, Vandal!” she said. “If you get brought up on charges for starting another fight with a civilian, it won’t matter how desperate the colonel is.”
I clenched my fist so tight the knuckles popped, the only sound in the now silent café, other than the soft hum of the ventilation. The guy in my grip hated me, despised me. Hatred born of fear and frustration.
The craziest part? I think on some level he wanted me to hit him. If for no other reason than to prove that I was the dog soldier he thought I was, pissing all over his home world just to mark my territory.
I pushed him back into the waiting hands of his friends, letting my fist relax until I felt Athena soften her grip.
The student recovered his wits fast, realizing Athena had given him a free pass. “That’s what I thought,” he said, straightening his tunic and eying each of us in turn. “Nothing but a pack of short-fused mutts on tattered leashes. Come on, brothers.”
Athena was right. Putting these assholes in their place would be my last act as a Chevalier. Even worse: he was right, too. We were prolonging the war. To what end I didn’t know. But it didn’t change anything. I’d given my word to the Chevaliers, and Swift had given her word to the Catalan governor. Two opposing, irreconcilable views. Neither of us would change. Neither of us wanted to.
None of the other students seemed keen to escalate after that display. I caught the eye of the café owner, and he tilted his head toward the door, eyes narrowed behind the thin plume of cigarette smoke.
No trouble.
Didn’t matter that we weren’t the instigators. Didn’t matter that I let the insult stand without blackening any eyes or splitting any lips. We’d always be the bad guys: the off-worlders. The mercs. I reached under my vest and pulled out a fold of local credit chits, tossing enough on the table to cover the tab. Athena scraped her cards together.
“Blitz, Stag, let’s go,” I said, when it looked like they planned on standing their ground.
I saw a couple of other heads turn when I mentioned Stag’s name, and heard it whispered more than a couple times as we made our way out. But the whispers weren’t as loud as Stag’s response. He didn’t say anything, but he squeezed his fists so tight that his knuckles cracked and turned white. I honestly worried that he would start something (and some part of me wanted him to).
“I can see why you want to get out of here so bad,” I said, after a few blocks.
“Yeah, well…” said Stag. I figured there was more coming, but he trailed off without saying anything else, looking out toward the sunrise.
I guess we all have our battles to fight.