Free Renegade by Joel Shepherd Page A

deprived of her outlet for rage, pain and grief, she suffered.
    And so on this momentous leave, she’d sought this place — a small hotel by the beach, well down the coast from Shiwon, to sit with a view and meditate to the sound of waves. And she struggled, as she always had of late, to find any particular peace of mind. But here at least, she found far more than she would have, in other surroundings.
    There was a knock at the door. Trace unfolded herself and went, taking the pistol from the table on the way. An uplink view of the outside balcony showed her marine uniforms at the door, and a familiar face raised to the camera. Trace smiled and unlatched the door, tucking the pistol into her waistband so she could namaste the visitors, both palms together, pointed fingers at her chin. They replied in kind, all three of them.
    “Friends,” she said. “Svagata mitraharula. Please enter.”
    “Bahini,” said marine Colonel Timothy Khola with a smile. “Good to see you. These are Majors Naldo and Kriti, from the warships Glory and FarReach .”
    He entered, presenting the two majors behind him. “Yes I have met Major Naldo,” said Trace with another namaste, “we served at Pacamayana together.”
    “Bahini,” said Major Naldo, “good to see you again.”
    “And Major Kriti, I have not had the honour.”
    “Third class of Capricorn,” said Kriti behind pressed hands. “Fifteen years ahead of you, yet only the same rank.”
    “It is as nothing,” Trace gave the usual reply, with a dismissive wave, welcoming them both inside. “Forgive my informality, I was meditating. Can I make you tea?”
    “Tea would be perfect,” said Colonel Khola, removing his shoes and placing them in the hall, as the majors did likewise. “We shall join you. A pity we do not have time to meditate together, but from what you have told me, we have much to discuss.”
    Trace made her three fellow Kulina tea, while they sat shoeless on chairs that did not make cross-legged sitting easy. The posture was in breach of all marine protocol in uniform, but for Kulina the marines had long ago learned to make allowances. Tea presented, Trace retook her low seat before the windows, and sipped.
    “And how goes the meditation?” Colonel Khola asked her. Khola was pushing eighty, still young and fit. He’d seen more combat in the war than seemed reasonable even for a Kulina legend. These days he taught at Fleet Academy on Homeworld, and had declined further promotion as it would take him too far from his greatest love — the mentoring of marine officers, and Kulina in particular. Of only eight living marines to hold the Liberty Star, half were Kulina, and half of those Kulina, between Trace and the Colonel, were here in the room. Kulina made up barely one percent of total marine officer strength, but no one was surprised that they won nearly half the top combat awards. That too was tradition, nearly a thousand years old.
    “Not so well,” Trace admitted. It was so good to talk with fellow Kulina officers. Here she could be honest, and be sure they would understand and not judge. “It is hard to fight a war without rage or fear. But we strive.”
    Khola smiled. “Bahini, one cannot fight in a war such as this and not expect sleepless nights and peaceless meditations. If our paths were easy, we would not need to meditate at all.”
    “I saw the combat reports of the Moana Junction action,” said Major Kriti. She was tall and lean, hair trimmed short like Trace… fifteen years older, she’d said. That would make her forty-seven. “That was some impressive fighting. Paralim Station is a monster, you took it with minimal damage or losses.”
    “That station was defendable,” Trace said sombrely. “If the tavalai had been prepared to booby trap it properly, and lose parts of it to save the whole. They were not. It was an important facility for them, and they do not like to destroy what they have built.”
    “I once saw an infantry squad of