When Augustus, Raynor, Sergeant Faraday, and over twenty Revolutionary Army fighters arrived at Janine's, the place quickly ran out of room.
Janine's Bar was a clean-style saloon—more refined, with soft lighting instead of glaring bulbs, and no blaring music.
Augustus sat at a table with the listless Raynor and Sergeant Faraday. They drank port wine—Augustus's personal favorite. Raynor wasn't exactly in the mood, but he never said no to alcohol.
At first, Raynor sipped absentmindedly, uninterested. That changed the moment a tall Mar Sara girl walked into view.
She was probably just a little younger than him—slim, dressed in light-colored pants and a windbreaker, her skin the shade of light tea, tanned by Mar Sara's burning sun.
She was stunning. Her natural beauty hadn't been covered up with the heavy makeup common in the colonies, nor did she bear the unnatural traces of cosmetic laser surgery like the noblewomen from the Core Worlds.
She was truly beautiful. She immediately caught Raynor's full attention.
"I swear I've seen her somewhere before," Raynor murmured to Augustus, eyes fixed on the girl by the door.
"She's exactly my type. How would Tychus put it again?"
"In a shithole like Mar Sara, even the outhouse grows roses."
"Hey! You at the door, sweetheart!"
Augustus clapped Raynor on the arm, laughing heartily.
"My friend here wants to know your name!"
"Lidya Elizabeth," the girl replied with a natural, effortless smile.
"Welcome to my town, cowboys."
Her golden hair flowed loose around her shoulders. When she smiled, her white teeth gleamed in perfect rows, and her sapphire-blue eyes were brighter than the sky.
...
Echo Town, in front of the Colonial Police Station.
2489.8.28, 09:00 sharp.
Putting aside humanity's instinctive yearning for blue skies, the pure orange-gray firmament of Mar Sara held its own kind of alien, hallucinatory beauty: the vast desert, scarlet thorn forests, seas of dust, deep canyons, riverbeds lined with ocher sediment long dried up, lush farmlands between giant irrigation machines and subterranean aqueducts—and the jagged little towns nestled among it all.
The architectural style of Echo Town differed starkly from the limestone and marble structures Augustus had seen on the similarly desolate Kel-Morian planet Meinhoff. It was hard to find even a single standard modular building here. The bizarre and haphazard illegal constructions stood as constant reminders of just how little Augustus understood about the artistic extremes of human architecture.
Right outside the low two-story courtyard-style Colonial Police Station stood a crooked cylindrical tower, like someone had stacked a dozen circular plates on top of each other with no rhyme or reason. Every time the wind picked up, the steel frame would emit a jarring tremor, making people wonder when exactly it might finally collapse.
A dainty little house with white walls and gray roof tiles functioned as the local post office for paper mail and freight deliveries. Several capsule-style hostels with chimney-like spires stabbed straight into the sky.
Just a few hundred meters from where Augustus now stood was the local bar—an establishment shrouded in violet and pink hues even during daylight. The whole thing looked like a bisected starfish. Hovering above it was a massive holographic projection: a sultry, curvaceous pink-haired woman wearing a Star Confederacy–style corset and nothing but a one-inch-wide ribbon covering her lower half.
As Augustus jumped down from his Vulture bike's seat, the people in the vehicles behind him followed suit, stepping up to stand behind him. This time, he wasn't parading around with dozens of Revolutionary Army soldiers. Only a few followed: Raynor, Tychus, Corporal Faraday, and a newly transferred sergeant from the Revolutionary Army's training camp—Mira Han.
At this point, Augustus had officers and commissars managing operations at all three mines on Mar Sara. The Revolutionary Army's think tank was composed of staff officers and Umojan advisors, while junior officers made up the command corps. He no longer needed to shoulder everything himself or lock himself in an office all day pushing paperwork.
As he pushed open the police station's old-fashioned, swing-type composite wooden door, Augustus immediately saw dozens of wanted posters nailed to the wall—some even had red Xs drawn over them in ink.
As expected, the wanted posters of Augustus and his father Angus had been placed front and center, defaced with graffiti-style insults from the police: Scum, Traitor, Instigator of Rebellion.
Of course, the image on Augustus's wanted poster no longer resembled how he looked now. It would be hard for most people to connect the bearded middle-aged man standing in front of them with the military officer in the poster.
Inside the station, a few officers sat behind their desks. They wore khaki uniforms with hats reminiscent of cowboy hats, decorated with a badge featuring an eagle and a five-pointed star.
"If you're here to file a report, follow standard procedure—go through our operator and let the AI handle it. But if you're here to cause trouble, we're authorized to shoot you on the spot."
A short-haired officer with sand-gold hair approached Augustus. His face was marked by several scars and showed not even a hint of a smile.
This was Augustus's first day on the job.
Although the Colonial Police Station had surely already received news of his appointment and had a photo of him on file, it was clear the officer standing here hadn't recognized the new sheriff.
To be fair, Augustus didn't look much like someone arriving to assume office—especially with Tychus looming behind him like some bloodstained outlaw with multiple murder cases under his belt.
"I'm the new sheriff, Caesar. Here are my badge and ID," Augustus said calmly, not the least bit offended. He handed over his credentials without hesitation.
His circular badge bore a golden-bronze five-pointed star at its center. Around the edges, neat English letters were engraved: Federal Marshal – Mar Sara.
"Apologies for not recognizing you, Marshal. Sheriff McAllen is in the back office," the sand-gold-haired officer replied.
"What's your name, young man?" Augustus asked as he passed by.
"Chris. Chris Eld," the officer answered, meeting Augustus's gaze without flinching.
"You've got potential, Mr. Chris. If you stay grounded and put in the work, you'll get your shot at becoming a proper officer someday." Augustus patted him on the shoulder, then glanced back at Raynor and the others.
He wasn't trying to be theatrical. In fact, he said something similar to nearly every Revolutionary Army soldier who exchanged a few words with him—it had become almost second nature by now.
"These are a few recruits I've recently brought in. Time waits for no one—I started scouting for new candidates even before I officially took office. Some of them were subordinates of mine back when I served as sheriff."
Then, as Augustus led Raynor and the others past Officer Chris, each of them offered their own unique greeting to the man standing stiffly at attention.
"Feeling lucky today, you little bald bastard?"
Tychus shoulder-checked the young officer with enough force to send him stumbling backward.
With the exception of the rookie Mira Han, everyone else had undergone facial modification via nano-masks—darker skin tone, a few more scars, even altered bone structure.
But no matter how much their features had been tweaked, they all ended up looking noticeably more intimidating.
"That guy's a dick. Just ignore him," Raynor said with a grin, clearly in high spirits.
Raynor had been in a great mood these past few days. After a chance encounter with Lidya Elizabeth at the Janine's Bar, he'd first won her over with a free glass of lemon juice. Then, almost casually, he dropped hints about a few "minor details" from his time in the Confederate military.
Even with the nano-mask disguise, Raynor now looked far more like the man he would be ten years from now. And for any Mar Saran girl his age, his humor and steady, determined expression would've been plenty attractive.
Unsurprisingly, Liddy had taken a liking to him—and Augustus and the others now lived in constant fear that her father might burst in at any moment, fists first.
It was clear: given a little more time, Raynor would win Elizabeth's heart.
And from what Augustus knew of Raynor, he was probably the loyal type.
"You've pissed off the Big Bad Wolf of Mar Sara. You're in serious trouble," said Mira Han. She wore a multi-pocketed vest, her pink hair held back by a pair of sunglasses meant to block out the planet's blinding sun. Her sharp eyes darted restlessly.
"Our commander doesn't bother with trivial nonsense," said Faraday, unusually solemn. "The man who just walked past you is a titan destined to shape a new era. He's a giant standing thousands of meters tall—his vision stretches far beyond anything we can imagine. He wouldn't spare a thought for a pebble like you beneath his feet."
"..."
Officer Chris stood dazed, watching his newly arrived superior disappear into the inner office flanked by such a bizarre entourage. Even if he ruffled his own hair into a mess, he still couldn't make sense of what had just happened.
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