Imago had dark brown eyes that matched his skin, though the entire left side of his face was a patchwork of tiny scars, while the right had a serrated looking spiral tattoo that started at his tear duct and curled down his cheek to end at his chin. The mercenary smiled to reveal canines filed to points.
“You misunderstand my meaning, Hyst Samgir, but you are a man of Grotto, so I understand that my words are strange. I show you my face so that you may know me as friend.” His expression softened and he looked once more out over the colony as the birds squawked and descended to feast upon the dead for as long as they could before the salvage marines shooed them away, “When the Folken go to war it is because we have accepted a contract and are being paid to fight. There is no ideology at work in our hearts or minds, but a simple contract to be executed.
Those who live and die by the sword, those like you and I, Hyst Samgir, would die of heartbreak sooner than violence were we to attempt to place value judgments on the righteousness of one war over another. The Folken have seen this truth, and it armors us against the decay of mind, body, and spirit that plagues all men and women who go to war. We sleep very well at night, my friend, because there is no cause upon which we judge ourselves, only that we were paid and the contract fulfilled.
We rise to make ourselves equals to those who watch the Bottom Line by creating our own and fighting like devils for it.” Imago growled with obvious pride. “This is a hard universe, and the grim tide of war ever rises and ebbs upon the shores of everyone’s life. Even those who never see a battlefield are forever affected by it. Those balance sheets, the Bottom Line, is part of everyone’s life, and has been since humanity first took up sticks and stones.”
Samuel studied the peaceful face before him, no anger, guilt or loss was reflected upon the placid visage.
“When you speak of it like that, there is a poetry to it all, Imago, and thanks for sharing. I mean no offense when I say this,” Samuel nodded to the mercenary in acknowledgement, “But I still do not see the blood and dirt and individual life in your philosophy. I don’t see the man in the horned helmet, or my friends. It all sounds pretty textbook, like you’ve memorized this speech in front of a mirror over and over until you got it perfect.”
Imago nodded his head. He reached into his satchel to produce a slagged piece of helmet that that bore the unmistakable base of one of the horns from the helmet worn by the elite Samuel had seen cut down. Imago stood, and turned the piece over and over in his hands. He looked back at Samuel.
“The men and women who ride with the Folken are from many worlds, many cultures, but we when we fight we do so as one people, one tribe. The money is what determines when and where we fight, but once battle is joined, it is our comrades and our families that keep us striving for victory and survival.” Imago’s eyes suddenly moistened with emotion. “When the armor comes off, we are all just human beings. This is why I show you my face to speak with you thusly.”
Samuel watched without comment as Imago turned his attention back to the helmet fragment.
“His name was Costa Sagge. He was a veteran of many campaigns, the father of three children, the husband of two. He lived on a ship that perpetually sailed the oceans of Abzu,” Imago’s voice was solemn and grave, as if reciting an epitaph. He lifted the jagged remnant to his lips and kissed the top of it gently. “His tithe is paid.”
Imago placed the helmet fragment back into his satchel with a degree of finality and turned to face Samuel.
“As you know, the Merchants Militant maintain strict confidentiality when negotiating and executing contracts so that there is little to no direct contact between mercenary operators and corporate employers,” said Imago as he reached into a compartment in his armor withdraw two small data-coins with a symbol embossed on the surface that looked like a skull with a rifle and sword on either side of it.
“Makes sense, given that you sell your services to whoever can afford your rates,” Samuel replied. “I could see it being easy to make enemies out there. Grotto, at least, provides us with some sense of place, an idea of whose side we’re on.” Samuel’s voice was flat, devoid of the confidence in his words he might have felt just a few years ago. “Without the shelter of the corporate umbrella, we’re on our own and no better than the Red List.”
“This is the purpose of the Merchants Militant; it provides us with shelter, of a sort. Though we belong to no corporation or even hail from similar cultures, all registered mercenaries have a reasonable expectation of privacy,” Imago replied. “We arrive, we fight, we get paid, and we leave. There is a simplicity to that which is a shelter all its own.”
The mercenary then returned his helmet to his head and stood up. He tapped a locator beacon on his forearm and almost immediately one of the combat speeders approached the hill.
“Most of us live in the more remote places of the universe,” Imago said, “where we can use our wealth as a shield against corporate interests, to keep our homes wild, our hearts free and our families healthy,” The speeder pulled up near the hill and a hatch opened, revealing several other elites and an empty seat within.
“You don’t worry about being on the frontier? Even Abzu is on the edge of a pretty wild tract of unmapped space,” questioned Samuel as he stood politely to see Imago off.
The mercenary considered Samuel’s comment for a moment, then nodded towards the battlefield below them as he said,
“A philosopher and an economist might speak in agreement that they see the view below to represent both the best and the worst aspects of capitalism. What I see is truth. Two great houses competing for resources, their economic struggle expressed as a military conflict, and crushed between them are the Red Listed colonists.
They probably thought they were lucky to have discovered such a valuable resource, that is, before the tanks and the soldiers. To exist outside the system, but still be subject to its power, is a desperate sort of freedom. The Folken are still part of the system, though we live upon its fringes.”
Samuel frowned. “So you’re saying the only difference between your people and the Red Listed is the fact that you still fight for the system, even if you loathe it and keep yourself and your families apart from it,” he snorted. “It doesn’t seem like you hold civilization in much high regard.”
“There is time enough for civilization when we are at war,” replied Imago. ”As long as we are willing to pay the tithe when our times comes, it is a good life.” Imago offered Samuel the data-coins. “Hyst Samgir, each day as a soldier you risk your life. The wise man gets paid as much as he can, as fast as he can, so that he may retire before the tithe takes him.
Your deeds on the field were noticed by the Folken and we agree that you and your comrade Takeda Bengir have earned these. A coin for each of you, and once a second is earned, upon any field and by the hand of any wargir, you will be able to seek membership to the Merchants Militant. I hope that one day soon there will be a place for you among us.” He gave Samuel a firm warrior’s handshake. “Until that day.”
The mercenary nodded once to Samuel, then boarded the vehicle without another word. As the speeder rocketed out of sight Samuel could see that many other speeders and various planetside ships were leaving the area en masse.
Now that the hardest of the fighting was done the elite troopers were pulling out. It was the duty of the Reapers to mop up the last pockets of resistance, strip the dead, and begin the clean up and salvage operation. It was the battlefield clean up phase of the process that seemed to tug at Samuel’s resolve the hardest. It was one thing to fight and survive in the furious chaos of battle, but once the combat was over, Samuel found that the violence did not stop. There were corpses, both enemy and comrade, to be looted, cataloged, and incinerated. There would be a multitude of fires to extinguish and untold chemical spills, fuel leaks, and containment breaches.