God's Dogs Book 2
50

Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The cleanup after the finale took a few weeks. Moss was busy with the medics he recruited to bring healing to the minions on two planets. Quinn and Pax showed up aboard Satya and helped with the locals. River concocted a story that wasn’t too far from the truth – they short-circuited the evil shaman’s energy and it blew him apart.

The surprising debrief was with Maria. She invited River for a stroll along the river front promenade.

Two civilian-clad marines were before them, and two trailed them. River and Maria were also in civilian garb over combat skin-suits.

The walkway was like a bike path and meandered through the ground-hugging foliage and widely spaced, not very tall leafy trees. Benches were situated beneath the trees where a few people rested.

“First of all,” Maria said, “I want to express our gratitude – the marines, Consul Singh and his people, but especially me. It was the second time in as many days that Coyotes saved us from ambushes.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am, and you know it was just us doing our jobs.”

“I’m aware of that and your need to deflect attention away from yourselves. I do, however, request that you tell me what really happened after Lord Driscom froze us. My memory is pretty fragmented.”

“Well, Moss and I dealt with him,” River began. “There was a lot of trans-rational energy slamming around, but we prevailed.”

Maria chuckled. “Is that just another way of saying you were just doing your job?”

“Pretty much,” River smiled as she answered.

“In that case, let me share a little of me doing my job.

“Now that we know a dark shaman was running this organization, the many illogical or inexplicable strategies and tactics the Cass employed makes better sense. We assume Driscom did want a pirate base, but knew it would be short-lived. His deeper agenda was maximum chaos, which is fertile ground for evil to flourish.”

“The nuke,” River said. “The embassy frame-job, the coup attempts, the suicide mission at the court.”

“There have been other equally inexplicable operations that Congress’ clandestine services were investigating as well. And, as I said, all of it didn’t add up to a coherent strategy, except for wanton, unthinking destruction.”

“Which is something high on an evil shaman’s list of things to do.”

“It’s fortunate he chose to deal with us himself. Otherwise we wouldn’t have figured it out. Evil shamans aren’t the first choice for villains in the Congress.”

“Well,” River said thoughtfully, “you can count on their arrogance, so it probably wasn’t luck he chose to confront us. Even so, I’m surprised it was a Durani. The ones we’ve met expressed a fearful aversion for the trans-rational realms.”

“We suspect that is because all they know about are the dark shamans. It may also have to do with their dour personalities. I don't know.”

River nodded, then sighed and shook her head. “That’s a sad state of affairs.”

“Even on Earth, there were cultures that only promoted evil shamans. But, yes, it is a sad state of affairs, but it isn’t our concern now. It is in Congress’ hands.” She paused before continuing, “My concern is for you. I have it on good authority, since I’m not skilled in these matters, that defeating a dark shaman as strong as Driscom takes its toll.”

River smiled. “I slept for sixteen hours afterward. My team took me to the cathedral of light for a lengthy session. Then I slept for another twelve hours. I suspect, when we get back to Penglai, Master Lu will have something waiting for me and Moss.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You should be leaving in a day or two.”

The Satya landed at the pad near the Coyote wing of Shentong Temple. The team disembarked to be met by acolytes who dealt with their gear. One of them instructed the team to proceed to Master Lu’s office.

They hustled upstairs to the office. Master Lu rose from his desk with a bright smile and waved them to the alcove by his desk. He noticed the signs of spiritual fatigue in them.

The sun was shining outside the bay window, and radiant fall colors clothed the mountains in the distance.

“Welcome home,” Lu said as they settled in. “This was a difficult assignment, but you performed well. At least, if I judge from the reports I’ve received.”

“It was one unexpected crisis after another,” Quinn said. “Everything we planned for didn’t happen. We were reacting to events we didn’t understand most of the time. Of course, it all made sense when we found out a super bad guy was running the show.”

“So I gathered,” Lu said with a wry smile. “Now, in retrospect, what have you learned?”

Moss answered, “It was all over for the bad guy when River empowered her swords.”

“River?” Lu prompted the young woman who was glaring at Moss.

“It was an intuitive hit to use them, and the energy flowed into them. It’s a blur after that. I think I went berserker.”

“Quinn?”

“The ambassador has it right, I think. It does makes sense when you know it’s one of those super bad guy shamans in charge.”

“Pax?”

“We need to be able to read who a minion might be. I haven’t figured that out yet, but reading that energy would tip us off to this type of problem sooner.”

“That’s a good start. What else?”

The exploratory questions and answers went on for a while before Lu changed topics.

“One way to distinguish between traumatic memory and normal memory is that normal memory has all the emotion drained out. We intend to keep you around until we’ve drained you of emotion, insight, lessons, and whatever else.

“Okay, Pax, Quinn, you can go. I need a moment with these two.”

They left, and Lu said, “We don’t have much of a profile on evil shamans. We’ll have you talking to a variety of people to help build more of a profile.”

“So,” Moss queried, “psychologists, spiritual directors – that kind of people?”

“Yes. Plus, you’ll be getting acupuncture treatments daily for a week or so.”

“Sounds good,” River smiled. “Nothing like getting acu-stoned.”

Then they left Lu’s office. It was nearing lunch, so they headed for the cafeteria. Once there with Quinn and Pax, their implant A.I.s alerted them to their updated schedules for the short-term.

Over the ensuing weeks, they followed the resident routine of meditation before breakfast, eat, form training and sparring until lunch, eat, outdoor weapons training and physical conditioning until dinner, eat, and socialize until lights out at 2300.

Periodically, they would meet either as a group or individually with the people they needed to.

River met with Rosalind McKearney, PhD, clinical psychologist. She was a stout, middle-aged woman that boasted the muscle tone of someone that pumped iron. Her face was square, eyes wide-set with a matching mouth showing a comforting smile. Her black hair was shot with gray at the temples and secured in a bun.

River had met with her before, after she had been a captive and tortured rather brutally. Today, Rosalind was dressed in a collared blue ship suit that contrasted with her light brown eyes. She welcomed River into her office in a different wing of the monastery.

Once they were seated on sofas facing each other, Rosalind began, “Sounds like another near-death experience.”

“It wasn’t that, exactly,” River replied. She knew Rosalind well enough to see her opening remark was one River would probably disagree with, which was a sneaky way to get her talking. But Rosalind was easy to talk to. “What freaked me out was the prospect of getting consumed by evil. It still gives me shivers when I think about it.”

“Talk to me about it.”

On a different day, Moss met up with Rand, who was now a monk-trainer in residence. Rand invited Moss for a walk in the garden.

“I’ve fought two super bad guys in the twenty-five years I was active duty,” he told Moss.

“Then you know how intimidating it is. These guys clawed their way to the top. They are probably stronger because of that.”

“Yes. Our strength derives from the group. We are each as strong as we can be, but the synergy of the group is how we get the job done.”

Moss sighed. “I’m glad I didn’t have to face him alone. Then River flipped a switch and chopped him up.”

“At some level, she could do so because she knew you had her back.”

After three months, the entire assignment became ‘normal memory,’ as Master Lu predicted. He called them back to his office.

Sitting in the alcove, he announced, “How about a training mission to Amazonia?”

Grins lit up their faces.

“You’ll help with setting up the final years of their Coyote training program, and when that’s done, you should be ready for block leave.”

They grinned even more.