Sheffali's Caravan

"And Mrissa accepts the warehouse and caravan contents." He signed the contract and had Ogami and Lorrenz sign it as well. "I will register this with the Mnemmesh Property Office tomorrow morning. If you could bring the caravan wagons to the Mrissa warehouses, we will unload them before we go to the Tarron estate."

Lorrenz nodded.

Henko looked at the blanket and frowned. "Now we have the matter of the bandit's effects."

"House Jakkan humbly drops all claim to these items," Ogami said with a generous smile.

Henko smirked. He didn't want the items either and wouldn't allow himself to look less generous than Ogami. "House Mrissa does as well." He looked to Lorrenz. "The items are yours."

Lorrenz and Lissan bowed in acceptance.

Zell watched as his parents linked the three teams of Druug in a chain, then tied the lead team to the back of their wagon. They dumped the bandit goods into their wagon.

Ogami's son, Kitow, discovered the bandits riding beasts. They were not healthy creatures, so Lorrenz removed their tack and released them to live out their final days in freedom. The riding gear went into the wagon for selling later. Then they all headed back over the pass to Mnemmesh.

The next time Lorrenz and Lissan came to the forest to speak to Zell, he learned that the Tarron estate had hired two elderly Druug wranglers who agreed to work for the Sheffalis for room and board. They would care for the beasts until the family took over those roles. With the ability to expand their business, it was now time for Lorrenz and Lissan to start their family.

Zell recalled the discussions they'd had regarding the possibility of encountering bandits again. Lissan was worried that Zell could be hurt. Lorrenz expressed similar concerns but believed Zell's hunting skills, stealth, speed, and strength made him more than a match for any bandit. It was situations when there was a team of bandits, better organized than the ones Zell had killed, that troubled him.

Lorrenz and Lissan now had weapons and trained with them out in the desert until they were both deadly accurate and could defend themselves in the wagons. For Zell, Lorrenz gave him one key instruction. If they were attacked by bandits, they could leave no witnesses. They could show them no mercy. This lesson Zell took to heart.

As the cycles passed and the Sheffali Trading House's fortunes increased, bandits targeted their caravans more frequently, but none survived the effort. The routes became safer as a result, and their business grew.

Lorrenz and Lissan grew their family at a rate of one child every cycle for sixteen cycles. That was the age offspring could join their parents on the caravans after training to be experts with the weapons Zell collected. Each subsequent cycle brought greater success, and Zell continued to protect them.

Now, he'd taken energy weapons from the bandits he killed. That shook him.

The sound of an injured bull pig stumbling by his hideout drew Zell's attention back to the present. He picked up the scent of its fear and blood and the pong of the rival who'd driven it away. The bull was no longer the strongest, so it could no longer lead its pack. The injury it had was severe. Zell would have to neutralize the spilled blood on his ridge to avoid drawing predators near his shelter.

Zell slipped outside and picked up its trail. He would chase it a few ridges away, then end its pain. Then he'd feed and not have to take another meal until he was called by his father to join the caravan once again.

He grinned as he was eager to return to that duty.

While he'd been doing it for fifty-three cycles, he loved every minute. He knew from the Ush book, his life expectancy should be over three hundred cycles... if he could avoid being shot by a bandit... who now had energy weapons.

Beetle dung!

Chapter 3

Fleet Commander Julla Gorresh was the new leader of Llevven's Planetary Battalion, headquartered in the capital city of Mnemmesh. Her rank had been reinstated to allow her to take on this role, though she was definitely overqualified for surface duty. It was a snub, but only those in the Borrelian military would understand that.

The previous officer in charge of the surface battalion had held the rank of Battalion Commander when he'd been killed by one of his senior officers in a gambling den shootout. Then the powers-that-be gave her back her military position and dropped her into his chair, likely hoping she'd follow in his footsteps.

It hadn't always been that way.

She'd been born on Aeolis, the second planet in the Borrelian home system to Accented parents. She matched them from birth, and her caste remained stable through the two changes. She had pale grey skin with attractive darker shading around her eyes and on her hands and feet. She was considered exceptionally beautiful by Borrelian standards. When her intense drive for excellence brought her to the recruitment office, the military saw they'd found their shining example. Her peak physical conditioning, academic assessments, psychological profile, energy, drive, and dedication all made her the ideal soldier. The Rulers of the Borrelian Empire used her image in their news releases and recruitment campaigns as she represented the best of the best. However, they downplayed her Accented caste, lightening those areas in their press and publicity releases.

Once she was assigned duties on one of their battle cruisers, she'd put her energies towards fulfilling her responsibilities to the best of her abilities. In that, she was spectacularly successful.

Julla saved the crew of her ship by detecting an Ush ambush before the trap was sprung. Her method for detecting the Ush hit squadrons was quickly taught to the other comm officers throughout the Borrelian fleet, and for a while, casualties dropped significantly.

When her Commander's error took them off course, and behind enemy lines, a missile struck the bridge and took out most senior officers, including the Commander. She pulled the injured Lieutenant Commander off the bridge as the breached level bled its air into space. The ship seemed crippled, and the sole officer was too shell-shocked to give orders. Julla got the engineers to pull off a miracle by rerouting power for life support through the emergency lighting circuits. She donned a pressurized suit to re-enter the bridge and saw it was open to space. Julla got the comms and navigation systems back online, ejected all the empty life pods as decoys, which successfully distracted the Ush fighters. As the enemy scrambled to fire at the bait, she sent a message burst and powered up the ship's jump system to make one last jump to safe space. The Ush chased the crippled ship to finish it off, but discovered they were facing several battle cruisers who decimated the Ush squadron quickly.

Julla quickly rose through the ranks and became one of the most highly decorated officers in the Borrelian fleet.

Her feats were spoken of in whispers, but with great admiration, on all planets of the Borrelian Empire, but never in the presence of non-Borrelians, and always avoiding the mention of the enemy. Loved ones came home because of her. She was the hero of the people.

When she became Commander, her strategies made a larger difference in protecting her people as they reduced the reckless actions that previous officers had been following. She was now receiving her orders directly from the senior-most military officers who passed them along from the Borrelian Rulers. She quickly learned neither group appreciated having those orders questioned.

She knew the war was over. The enemy's resources appeared to be exhausted. Full-scale space battles were becoming fewer and farther between, and the fighting on the planet surface had evolved into smaller-scale skirmishes and surgical strikes. The Ush changed their tactics to flee, not fight, yet her orders continued to be, give no quarter, hunt them down, and spare no effort toward eradicating the threat. She knew the Ush were no longer a threat. Despite that, the kill orders arrived.

She quickly became disillusioned by her leaders in the war effort as she became more and more aware of the true nature of their enemy. The truth was being withheld by the Borrelian Rulers, and the populace was being fed lies.

On her last mission in the war as a Fleet Commander, the highest rank they could give her before moving into the level of those who gave the orders, they came upon a single freighter containing Ush refugees fleeing their home system. Unable to justify complying with the vile order she'd received, she refused to fire upon and destroy the unarmed freighter. She was relieved of duty and confined to quarters on her ship. The refugee ship was destroyed, killing every soul on board.

Julla's crew were faithful to her as she'd saved them often and brought them victory. They revered her as she'd protected them and genuinely cared for them. Something that could not be said for many other officers.

When their ship returned to the orbital station above Aeolis, the crew leaked a story of their Commander suffering from battle fatigue. The rulers were blocked from having her quietly tried as a traitor and executed when a massive upwelling of compassion and support for Julla arose from the Borrelian people. This reminded the leaders that they'd put Julla up on a pedestal, and her war efforts made her the public's hero, so they had to treat her carefully.

So instead of an expedited trial and quiet execution, they put her on administrative duties on Aeolis, but that only lasted six months. Her popularity amongst the people continued to grow as they saw her as their protector. It didn't hurt that she used her new position to increase their quality of life and safety, regardless of caste. She'd also focused her attention on the corrupt members of the local administration.

She wasn't above getting her hands a little dirty to force these criminals into the light. If they fought dirty, she'd fight deadly, but also smartly, so she was never caught.

The Borrelian Rulers had the Military Senior Command move her to Casellion until she became a nuisance there too. Then it was Secco in the second planetary system, skipping Gibral with its Gate and Tik. When they'd exhausted the planets in the second system, she was moved to Dozany in the third system, bypassing Hessani, and further down the Chain of Significance she went. With each planet change, they'd park her in a low responsibility position. She'd always find a way to improve conditions for the common citizens. She'd continue to weed out corruption and abuse of power from the inside. It took longer and longer for her to make these changes on the planets they'd drop her on, but she was nothing if not tenacious. Everywhere she went, the people loved her because they saw her making a positive difference in their lives.

She took comfort with the thought that she left each planet a little better than it was when she arrived. How long it remained in that state was not up to her. The people remembered how things got better during her cycles with them.

Twenty-five cycles later, the war against the Ush limped along, the military somehow unable to flush out the remaining Ush resistance on their two planets. Deadly in a fight, impossible to locate, and having nothing to lose, the Ush were proving to be tenacious beyond the Borrelian Rulers' expectations. They couldn't migrate any Borrelians to the planet until all the Ush were gone, as their propaganda campaign had been too effective.

They also couldn't find the ones who escaped on the evacuation ships fleeing the planets. The desperate jumps they made into the unknown left them untraceable, and it wasn't known if they even survived. But Julla wouldn't count them out.

After being bumped from planet to planet, Julla found herself on Llevven, the end of the line, with a seemingly hopeless challenge ahead of her. This world was home to the discards from the military.

She realized the Borrelian Rulers and the senior brass of the army had reached the limit of what they'd take from her. With her so far from the primary worlds, it was finally time to end her interference. They likely expected her to be killed at the hands of the undisciplined soldiers, who wouldn't stand for her changing how they abused their positions. Even the senior officer who'd killed his commander hadn't been arrested for his crime!

As the planet's highest military authority in charge of its security, she submitted the request for sanctioning state of emergency measures due to the systemic corruption she'd discovered and documented. This report and appeal would be delivered to the Borrelian Rulers for their approval. As they were behind the corruption, Gorresh submitted the delivery via a hard copy mail bonded courier, which would take months to arrive on Borrelia. Using this method implemented security protocols that required the response return via the same delivery channel. She ensured the return mailbox address was incorrectly identified, so when the Rulers' response finally arrived, it would be returned to Borrelia for readdressing via the courier again. Until the required approval or expected denial returned, she could assume her appeal was accepted as defined by the current law and act accordingly. That play would give her over a cycle of absolute control and full authority. These laws had never been exercised, but they were on the books and maintained the legality of her actions, and she was making excellent use of them.

The Borrelian Rulers also hadn't considered that Llevven's military corruption was so rampant, they didn't bother to hide it.

In her first weeks in office, she identified and took out the top three ringleaders responsible for the worst violent abuses. These crime syndicate bosses in military uniforms were easily identified by their terrible reputations for vicious cruelty towards the populace they were charged to protect. They'd carved up the city into their own little kingdoms.

Using her new authority, she personally hunted, captured, charged, tried, and executed each on the spot with brutal efficiency. Then she seized the assets of their criminal enterprises as they'd made no effort to hide them. This money was immediately returned to the communities each crime boss controlled. She made sure her message was crystal clear for everyone down the chain of command in the dead criminal's enterprises.

Over the next few weeks, she repeated her actions on any ambitious lieutenant who thought they could pick up the reins of their dead bosses. By the end of the month, the syndicate collapsed, and over a dozen hardened criminals were off the streets permanently. The Commander's reputation for protecting the general populace was strongly reinforced, and her popularity soared.

Julla's latest goal was weeding the malcontents, incompetents, and the corrupt from her troops. This looked like a long-term project, but she wasn't one to settle for later when now was available. Good things didn't happen unless they were made to happen.

In the six months she'd been in her new role, she hadn't so much rocked the boat as torpedoed it, setting it ablaze. Everyone was nervously watching for her next move.

They didn't have to wait long, as she immediately disbanded Mnemmesh's City Guard in its entirety, citing they were unfit for duty. They'd abused their role for personal financial gain and harmed the citizens they were supposed to serve.

Julla was training their replacements from a hand-selected group of raw recruits. The ones she chose were young, fit, and completely dedicated to her, reporting only to her as well. She was filling their heads with the true meaning of the Borrelian Military's Code of Honor, something she experienced while flying through space on the battle cruisers with her fellow soldiers. She emphasized integrity, respect, duty, courage, and loyalty. Julla spent one-on-one time with each of her new commandos to assess them and earned their trust as they earned hers.

While this was going on, she reviewed the many distinct divisions she had under her command. Each was going to be squeezed to separate the diamonds from the coal. Soon she would begin.

As the military forces were the only means of enforcing laws on Llevven, they needed to earn the people's trust once more. To begin this effort, she was allocating some of her time to handle a few cases personally. This was an excellent training exercise for her new recruits as well.

She reflected this was going to be one of the most demanding missions she'd ever taken on, but then, she'd never turned away from a challenge.

-=-

Lieutenant Pinorra Heltas sat in his third-floor office, down the hall, and across the open atrium from his new commander's office. He swore he could feel her too-aware eyes staring at him through the walls right now.

He knew that was just paranoia, but he also knew it was just a matter of time before Fleet Commander Gorresh's purge caught up to him and discovered the crimes he'd committed for his own personal gain. The wicked acts he'd perpetrated to rise in the ranks to reach this top floor office with its garden view and a sightline to the Commander's office door.

He needed to escape Llevven before that happened. He already had one of the two things required for the journey.

A lucky young citizen was recently assessed as a Shaded caste, and her family purchased a pass to take the Gate system all the way to Borrelia for a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Alas, before she got to use it, she went missing--a case for the City Guard to investigate... if Gorresh hadn't sacked them all.

Due to an increase in night patrols of the Commander's new pets, Pinorra was forced to bury the young female's body under his basement. The money he took from her would pay for the intra-system flight from Llevven to Hessani, where he'd use the pass to take the Gate to Gibral, then to Borrelia. He didn't currently have enough to cover the intra-system space flight from Borrelia to Casellion. As a Mixed caste, he could live there if he wore the covering robes. He had no issues with that as he wore them now, aside from the face covering.

The next issue he had was that he couldn't afford to live on the more expensive planet, but he had a plan for that, too.

He knew he was smarter than the three idiots the Commander had planted in the ground, as he was far more cautious and secretive about his actions. He was also smarter than the ousted City Guard, six of whom should have contacted him by now on the comm he provided to them with the two energy rifles from the armory in the basement. He'd taken a colossal chance with this, as the Commander would eventually discover the missing weapons unless he collected them to sneak them back into the armory soon.

He saw a splash of late afternoon light on his ceiling and stood to look out his garden view window. Below were flower beds, some small ornamental trees, and benches for those who wished to appreciate nature. Seated on the bench was one of his informants with a small mirror to reflect the last rays of sunlight to his window. The old male stood and left the garden slowly.

Pinorra frowned. Something was wrong.

Leaving his office, he headed down to the ground floor and stepped outside. He set his course to the large plaza with a fountain and arrived only a few minutes later. He paused to watch the dancing water, its noise acting as a perfect sound block for nearby ears. The old male from earlier stepped up beside him and faced the fountain as well.

"You were asking for news of caravans arriving in the city today. There were only two. The Mrissa Caravan from the southern coastal city of Astellus and the Sheffali Caravan from the east coast villages. Both greeted the field workers with indications of success."