Hellfire Stars

Prologue

Prologue

Ten Years before The War

"You remember how to shoot it?"

The flurries weren't too heavy that afternoon, a light powder sprinkled from the skies above down onto the Great Forest, the largest forest on Savki, easily the snowiest planet in the Crimson System. The trees in the forest stretched upwards and touched the sky, a feat seen quite rarely on planets, as these trees were the tallest ever recorded, some of these trees nearing 150 meters tall, the perfect vantage points in the forest, something the Savage Watch had discovered years ago.

"Monica, do you remember?"

Monica Mellan heard the booming voice ripple through her body, entering her left ear, into the bloodstream, and all the way down to the veins in her legs. She was terrified, to say the least. Her light blue eyes were dilated and her dirty red hair was sparkling with snowflakes scattered in it, shaking as she held her father's StarGen cylinder rifle, she had only ever used it once on a hunting trip a year ago for her twelfth birthday. Monica slowly and awkwardly nodded her head, her breath heavy and visible in the icy air. The temperature was nearing double digit negatives in the Celsius, and her white fur coat only covered up her milky skin, not the terror in her body. She was thirteen now, but she was still that bad at masking her true feelings and her father could easily see how frightened she was.

He hated it.

He knew there was nothing he could do to make her feel better, no amount of "It's going to be okay" would be enough to satisfy Monica. Instead, he put his hand on her shoulder, kneeling down onto the crunchy, dirty sludge that you couldn't even call snow beneath him. Between the warmer night and the cold not being as bad that day, last night's rain made plenty of mud. This morning's snow only mixed in and made it worse. She shriveled up when she felt her fathers hand, watching the empty forest through the scope of her rifle. Nothing. Absolutely nothing, not even the birds were out chirping today. Monica's father, Belross Mellan, found it quite unsettling, as it surely meant the Watch was near. His large figure towered over his young daughter, his gray beard flowing all the way down nearly to his breastbone. He had lost the hair on his head years ago, but the beard always stayed. He shared the same color eyes his daughter had, a piercing light blue, that of the sky. His skin was littered with burns and scars, mementoes to a past life he once entertained hellishly. He wore a large white coat as well, furry and soft, it protected him well from the chill. He scanned the horizon, also equipped with the same rifle, just for a trace of something, anything.

"Monty. What do you see?" he asked aloud, his voice a soft murmur and yet still so commanding as to frighten his daughter once more. Montague Mellan was also a taller boy, taller than his sister and nearly as tall as his own father. He donned short black hair that was a complete opposite of what his sister had, after all, Montague was known for taking after his father. He had hazel eyes, unlike his father and sister as well, both being traits of his mother. He was growing the faint traces of a beard and mustache, but nowhere near the level of his father. He had a scar or two on his arms, but not due to the same reasons as his father, usually from training at the Academy.

Montague was perched about twenty meters above his father and sister, in a makeshift crows nest attached to a Greatwood tree. He scanned the trees with such precision and collectivism, with excellently controlled breathing to keep him calm. His own coat also assisted greatly in maintaining a good body temperature for focus. He didn't say a word at first, he had to be absolutely sure there was not another soul besides him, his sister, and his father. He studied the tallest points of the trees, to the trunks that were rooted deep into the ground. He saw nothing, which he also noticed was suspiciously unsettling.