by Ashley West
Table of Contents
Title Page
Bonus Book
Prequel One: The Legend
Prequel Two: The Forgotten
Chapter One: Perks
Chapter Two: Fear
Chapter Three: Exploration
Chapter Four: On the Trail
Chapter Five: Resistance
Chapter Six: What Saviors Look Like
Chapter Seven: A Different Kind of Payment
Chapter Eight: At Any Cost
Chapter Nine: Putting in Work
Chapter Ten: Interstellar Chemistry
Chapter Eleven: The First Fight
Chapter Twelve: Feeling
Chapter Thirteen: Out of Danger
Chapter Fourteen: Second Thoughts
Chapter Fifteen: Into the Dark
Chapter Sixteen: Desperation
Chapter Seventeen: After it All
Chapter Eighteen: Feeling Redux
Chapter Nineteen: A Place to Come Back To
About the Author
Kratos
Defender of Earth
Ashley West
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Prequel One: The Legend
“Y’can’t believe everything you hear about The Kilan,” a man said, leaning back on his barstool and blowing out a puff of orange smoke that scented the air like burning flowers for a moment before dissipating. “Half of it is nonsense, and the other half can’t be true.”
Someone near him snorted, amused. It was always the older people who didn’t want to believe. In their day, battles were won by armies and structured groups of warriors with generals and a queen to protect. No one from the older generation wanted to believe that a merc group was doing the things people said they were.
“So none of it’s true, then?” the young woman behind the bar asked, wiping down the counter before going to fetch more glasses.
“I heard their ship could get from here to Jarobi in under three,” someone else chimed in, speaking over the older man when he opened his mouth.
“That’s impossible!”
“Not if they took the warp paths past Cincala.”
Another man, this one with horns coming out of his head, sniffed disdainfully. “That’s cheating, innit? Anyone can take the warp paths.”
“Yeah, but not just anyone can make it in under three. That scrap bucket you pilot couldn’t do it in seven, Hildaf. Not even with the warp paths.”
Good natured laughter rippled around them, and Hildaf growled under his breath. He was sensitive about his ship, and everyone who frequented the cantina on the Jilran moons knew about it and made fun of it.
"Their ship isn't better than mine," Hildaf grumbled, and someone snickered with amusement.
"Maybe it's doesn't look better, but it's faster."
"And smoother."
"And it's got cannons."
Hildaf gave up, throwing his hands up before busying himself with his drink again.
"Do you remember the time they went after Appal and his gang?" someone asked from one of the corners.
"And brought them, all tied to each other, to the prison? Yeah, I remember. I was there. The filth Appal was spewing that day, great nebulas, I've never heard the like. Cursed Milara to the void and back, and she just stood there holding him by the hair like he was telling her a Sunsday recipe."
"Milara's tough as Drilsing steel," someone else said, and no one mistook the longing tone in his voice for anything other than what it was.
"Don't even look that way. She ain't interested."
"How'd you know?"
The cantina roared with laughter. Everyone knew Milara's preferences by then. More men had been shot down by her than people could count at this point.
"What about Kratos and the Shishinshi?" called a woman from the back. "Took on those spiltricks all by himself. Killed most of 'em before they could even regenerate."
Everyone made the sign of safety, left hand moved in a slow circle over their chests, at the very mention of the Shishinshi. A terror group who had caused countless deaths and explosions all around the galaxy, with the nasty habit of regenerating limbs and even their heads unless you got them right in the heart with a laser cut.
"Don't know what void riddled pit those things crawled out of, but thank the stars for Kratos and Sanaal," the woman murmured, shuddering slightly.
"Kratos came in with that stars blessed giant sword of his, cleaved their leader right in two, sliced through the heart and then comes Sanaal with his laser gun, blam blam, two shots at each half of the spiltrick, and then no more. The rest of 'em crumpled like a body without a head, and they wiped them out. Took home a pretty sum for that, I'll bet."
"Worth every bit if those things never come back again."
They all made the sign of safety again.
This kind of talk wasn't rare throughout this part of the galaxy. It was impossible to frequent any cantina or fry house and not hear tales of The Kilan. They hadn't been around for all that long, but in the time they'd been active, they'd made quite a name for themselves. Everyone from children to the very old spoke their name with a reverential tone (except for those who didn't want to believe the stories), passing on tales of their exploits and admiring them for their courage.
"S'not courage," an older woman spat. She was gnarled and scaled, and she barely could totter her way up to the bar to pay her tab. "S'greed."
Several people nearby rolled their eyes.
"What are you talking about, grotil?" A muscular man by the bar asked, using the Common word for old woman and eyeing her with distaste.
"Y'heard me," the woman snapped back. "S'greed. They don't care about people or helping, they just want money. And if y'don't have it, they'll up and leave y'to rot."
"They never claimed to be heroes," someone else said. "They're mercs, grotil. Y'can't pay, y'go get a Peaceman to help ya."
Several people in the cantina spat onto the floor at the mention of the Peacemen. They were the law enforcement on most planets in the system, charged with keeping the peace and taking care of criminals, though they mostly used their power to hurt those weaker than they were and chased people down for personal grudges, rather than defending the peace as they were charged to do. Most of them took bribes and could be convinced to look the other way on things, and there wasn't a person in any cantina this side of the Tri-Belt who didn't have some manner of grudge against the Peacemen.
Instead of turning to them for help and risking making things worse, many of them would call in a small group of mercenaries to get things done.
It meant an expense, and usually a large one, but the people of a town would pool their money together and get enough to hire them to solve whatever problem they were having. Most mercs didn't care about the work as long as they got paid, and some of them were more kind hearted than others and would help for a lower fee if the people were in dire need.
The Kilan weren't known for their kind hearts, but they didn't have to be. They got results, and they had an almost perfect success rate. In the face of that, no one hesitated to find the money to hire them. Bandits, rebels, terrorists, thieves, they had taken down all sorts. There was even a story or three floating around about them having taken on a group of Peacemen who had gone rogue while still wearing the uniform.
They were exceptional fighters, warriors and brains alike, and they used their skills to help people when the price was right.
There wasn't a cantina in the system where they couldn't get a free drink. Not a fr
y house where they wouldn't have their meal comped. And while criminals and some of their fellow mercs might hate them, the common people looked to them like they were heroes, with only a few exceptions. There were always those who couldn't afford them, who were left to suffer their fate, and those people would curse their names more than likely. But for the rest, they were a symbol of what common people could do when they put their talents together, and a symbol of hope all the same.
"This is the worst."
"If you stopped complaining for even ten seconds, we could find a way out of here. But if you're happy staying in this squalid pit, then by all means, do keep flapping your lips."
Kratos made a face at Milara and blew air out of his nostrils, trying very hard not to breathe in.
'Squalid pit' was a good description, Mil had always been good at finding the words for the situations they found themselves in. It was dark and dank, and smelled like the bottom half of a muck slug, which was to say, it smelled terrible. It was going to take years to get the sludge out of his boots, and Kratos was pretty sure that he'd just have them incinerated and get new boots. Better for everyone that way, most likely. He'd walk out of this place barefoot once they got out of the pit.
The sides of it were slick with more of the foul smelling muck, and there were no roots or rocks to hold onto to get out. He didn't know what Milara planned to do to help them escape, but he snapped his mouth shut and then counted to ten slowly, waiting to see if she'd come up with something.
She didn't, and he snorted.
Always quick, Milara picked up on what he was doing and rolled her eyes. Or at least he assumed she was rolling them. It was too dark to really tell. "Very mature, Kratos. You're so good at things. So funny. So witty."
"You're mean when we're trapped."
"Oh, am I?" she snapped. "I'm sorry. Is that making this harder for you?"
"Actually, yeah," Kratos replied. "I can't think of a daring escape from this void riddled hole with you glaring me to death."
She threw her hands up in the air and stomped away from him as far as she could, her own boots making a sickening squelching noise as she moved away.
"Never change, Milara," Kratos said, sounding amused.
She replied with a string of words in the native language of her planet, which Kratos didn't have to be able to translate to know that they weren't very nice. He just chuckled under his breath. They both knew how this would go. Sanaal and the rest would lead the charge against the bandits they were supposed to be rooting out, and then Combo would find a way to get them out of the pit. He'd rant at them for a few agonizing minutes about their tendency to run into danger headfirst, and they'd look ashamed for all of five seconds before they all moved on to finish their mission.
The boss wasn't here, or so Combo's reports had indicated, and the job wasn't done until they had his head to present to the man who'd requested it.
"A little morbid, but okay," Kratos had said when they'd been given the task. It wasn't his place to ask questions about the jobs. He just carried out instructions and then got paid. Had been doing it since he was a midling, seventeen years under his belt and barely an idea of how to point a sword at someone.
He'd come a long way.
"Honestly?"
Kratos looked up, and there was Combo, standing at the edge of the pit, looking down at them with his black on black eyes. "Again?"
Milara just swore some more, so it was left to Kratos to shrug. "We killed the guards at least," he pointed out. "It's not our fault the ground was slippery. Or that this shastba decided to put a hole on his property."
Combo's blank look spoke volumes. He shook his head and motioned them back before he rummaged in his pockets and produced a thin silver rod that unfolded somehow into a ladder when he tossed it into the pit.
"Combo, I could kiss you," Kratos said as they climbed out. He took a moment to look appreciatively at Milara's backside, since she was ahead of him, having shoved her way forward, and got a faceful of muck from her shoes for his trouble.
"Please do not," Combo deadpanned. But that was just his voice. "Sanaal needs backup."
"It's that bad?" Milara asked.
"I believe our employer wasn't completely honest with us about the nature of this assignment," he replied. "There are significantly more bandits than we were told about."
"So someone's a liar," Kratos said, grinning. He accepted his sword from Combo who had picked it up from where it had fallen right before the hole had opened up under them. "I love liars. They're so much fun to hit."
"Let us focus on getting out of here alive first," Combo suggested, and they got moving.
The complex they were in was large and sprawling. Art and expensive looking decorations were on nearly every wall and flat surface, and Kratos wasn't buying that this place belonged to the bandits. More like it had been taken over by them and their employer wanted them out and didn't want to pay extra. Or some other plan all together. It didn't much matter. They'd kill the bandits and then go kill the businessman who'd hired them if they had to.
When they reached the part of the complex where the fighting was the heaviest, Sanaal was taking on three men at once with his massive axe, yelling loud enough that his voice echoed around the place.
"Take that, you rotten slug humpers! That's right! Cold Drilsing steel! What've you got!"
Kratos laughed and plunged into the fray, taking out two bandits of his own with a slash of his sword. "Started without us, Sanaal?" he called to his teammate. "I'm hurt."
"Did you get lost?" Sanaal called back. "I knew I should have held your hand on the way in."
“Will the two of your shut up?” Milara threw out as she dived in as well. And then there wasn’t really time for talking anyway because there was too much to do. The bandits, who seemed to be an eclectic mix of races from the outer moons of Thranop Four, just kept coming, and the Kilan just kept fighting.
There were more of them than just tall Kratos, taller Sanaal, slippery Milara, and tactical Combo. There were at least fifty in their number, and they were all spread out through the complex, fulfilling the terms of their contract in blood.
When the fighting let up enough that Kratos could catch his breath, he leaned on his sword for a moment, reaching a hand up to swipe hair from his eyes. He needed to get it cut. There were light wounds on him, and his shirt was going to need to be replaced because of the bloodstains, but he was happy to find that most of the blood wasn’t his. All around him was a pile of bodies in various stages of death and dying, and he considered it a good day’s work.
Milara dispatched the last of the bandits surrounding her and sighed, twisting her staff in the middle to retract the blades on either end.
She didn’t seem to be injured at all, since her weapon barely allowed people to get close enough to touch her. When she wielded it, she was a blur of motion, spinning her body and the staff and cutting a path through their enemies. With Combo sniping opponents from far away, an energy shield around him that let his attacks out but kept others from coming in, and Sanaal swinging his axe around while the rest of their team moved to and fro, killing what they could, they were a great team.
“Job well done, I’d say,” Sanaal boomed in his loud voice as he came over, shaking blood from the blade of his axe.
“And not done yet,” Milara reminded him. “We still have to pay someone a visit.”
They all smiled at each other, on the same page without having to do much to get there. Teamwork was their strong point, despite the fact that sometimes their personalities clashed, and they hadn’t yet met an enemy that was too much for them to handle.
Maybe they never would. Or maybe it was only a matter of time.
Prequel Two: The Forgotten
A scream and a crash echoed through the otherwise quiet house, and for a moment, there was no sound following it. And then, slowly, the cry built up, starting as a soft whimper before it grew into a full-fledged wail.
“It’s your turn
,” Amelia said as she sat at her vanity, putting on her makeup.
“It isn’t,” her husband Liam protested, his head in the closet as he sought something to wear for the evening. “I went last time.”
The two of them were going out to dinner that night. Their first night out in almost a year, and they were already counting down the minutes until they could leave. It wasn’t that they didn’t love their children, because they did. They definitely did. But there were four of them, and between the kids and their jobs, finding time for themselves was as hard as finding a needle in a haystack.
Sometimes harder.
The crying didn’t stop.
“Kirstie, stop crying,” came the voice of their only son, Keith. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
Amelia and Liam exchanged looks. They both knew how this was going to go.
“She shoved me!” Kirstie insisted in her high, thin voice, still sounding thick with tears. “She shoved me off the stairs.”
“Emily,” Liam muttered under his breath with a sigh.
“Wait for it,” Amelia advised, holding up a finger.
“She was following me around!” Emily shouted, and it sounded like she was in the kitchen somewhere. “I told her to stop, and she wouldn’t.”
“So you shoved her?” Keith asked.
There was a sullen mumble from Emily that neither of them could catch, and Kirstie was still crying. Amelia had heard enough, and she glared at her husband in the mirror as she got to her feet, face only half made up.
“I want the record to show that I’m going to deal with this right now,” she said. “So the next time it happens, which will probably be before we leave, you can’t say it’s not your turn.”
Liam gave her a grateful smile. “I’ve got the next one,” he promised. Amelia had heard that before. She pulled open the bedroom door and went to the top of the stairs to survey the scene. It was pretty much as she had pictured it.
Six year old Kirstie was on the floor, holding her arm and crying. Thirteen year old Keith was crouched down next to her, one hand on her shoulder while he tried to get her to stop crying. Eight year old Emily was nowhere to be seen, but now the sound of cabinet doors being slammed could be heard from the kitchen, and there was no sign of Lynn, newly sixteen and too old to spend time out of her bedroom, or so she seemed to think.