Rules of Engagement - A Short Dystopia: Sehnsucht Short Stories, #2

By Keyla Damaer

What happens when a cadet defies tradition in the name of duty?

 

A young cadet rebels against an arranged marriage to a privileged suitor. Desperate to remain a soldier, she confronts corruption within the military and a brutal encounter with the infamous Manderian Secret Service, the Black Squad.

 

Join her in a fight for justice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Keyla Damaer
• Release date: Mar 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224375554

Keyla Damaer

Keyla Damaer is the pen name of an Italian author. She enjoyed writing since she was a child. She travelled a lot, especially throughout the United States, where part of her family lives. That gave her the opportunity to deepen her love and knowledge of the English language, which she always cherished since she was a child. She was born and raised in Rome where she still lives with her husband and her turtle. During the day, she's a part-time accountant. The Parallels is the first book of The Sehnsucht Series and the first sci-fi novel published as an independent author.

Book preview

Rules of Engagement

by Keyla Damaer

https://keyladamaer.com

***

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or a used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. I really mean this. Totally not you.

All rights reserved. Any reproduction or unauthorised use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

I write in British English. Colour and leant aren’t typos. It’s the funny way Brits spell the words.

That said, even if several set of eyes looked for errors (aka horrors), and despite the great professional editing by Kerry Murphy, you may still find typos.

Some kind souls have reached out to me to warn me about them, and I promptly corrected them. You can do the same here: https://keyladamaer.com/report-an-error

Other kind souls who had an opinion about the story have left reviews. I thank them all and you for snatching a copy of this story. Feel free to leave a short, honest review.

This story is part of the Tales from the Sehnsucht Series.

Copyright © 2022 Keyla Damaer

www.keyladamaer.com

Halazar

Rules of Engagement

Manderian year 2462

Halazar rose from the wooden chair, tugging at her shirt. The green mourning band she’d wrapped too tightly around her left arm cut into her scales on purpose, distracting her from the grief that threatened to crush her spirit.

Danar was gone, his funeral over. She wished she could archive the event as she would a status report.

Her brother’s death meant not only pain and sorrow, but it also brought change. Something she was not yet ready to face. Perhaps this is part of my mourning process, she told herself, but the expressions on her parents’ faces made her gut move.

‘We must talk about the future,’ her father said, an omen of bad things to come. He stood by the polished wooden table in the common room of their farmhouse—a musclebound eighty-year-old carrying too much weight around his abdomen. The daylight streamed in through the wide windows, making the curtains dance in the warm breeze of the early Mander Prime afternoon.

A visceral hatred grew inside her, and she knew herself well enough to give it a name: rage.

Rage towards her brother for leaving her in this mess.

Rage towards her parents for bringing up the future.