by Roland Green
Dramatis Personae
The World
Asrienda—exiled from the wood elf settlement, this half-elven ranger lives at the Fox and Feather. She is a friend and companion to Drenin Longstaff.
Big Bilton & Little Bilton—Aston Point's blacksmith (Big), and his daughter (Little, though only by comparison to her father).
Seldra Boatwright—a retired adventurer, Seldra also acts as occasional harbormaster, and, later, sergeant of the watch.
Randu Dahan—a human adventurer from Gyotsol, embroiled in a blood-feud with Elda Ha-Gelher.
Captain Figul—master of Fairy Rose.
Sergeant Finlaysdotl—of the Aston Keep garrison.
Gerua & Sneyla—sirine sisters. The last of their kind in Paradise Lake.
Brinus Ha-Gelher—a well-born adventurer and expert climber. Brother of Elda Ha-Gehler.
Elda Ha-Gelher—sister and comrade-in-arms of Brinus, Elda is outstanding with a rapier.
Hellandros, Son of the Grove—a human wizard with some training in the ways of the druid. He's come to Aston Point in search of Drenin Longstaff.
Gredin Hundsmund—daughter of Orvin Hundsmund, Aston Point's stableman, Gredin is a superb rider, betrothed to Erick Trussk.
Nai K'del—a serving wench at the Grinning Gar, Nai's lover is the hulking Mongo.
Kunrel—a carpenter and lumber merchant in Aston Point.
Drenin Longstaff—-a druid with a grove near Aston Point. He is a werebear, and has fallen from grace with the Great Druid.
Mackree—the harbormaster of Aston Point who's usually too drunk for work.
Torgia Mel, the Lady Captain—commands the Aston Keep garrison.
M'lenda—a half-elven ranger trained in the clerical arts, M'lenda is an unskilled, but creative healer.
Mongo—a gigantic sailor with a taste for brawling, especially for the honor of Nai K'del.
Brother Morif—a monk at the temple of Aston Tanak.
Mother Naimese—keeper of the boarding house in Aston Point.
Brother Naestir—a monk at the temple of Aston Tanak, Naestir has become the temple's leader since the decline in the aged prophet's health.
Fedor Ohlt—master shipwright and former ship's carpenter, a widower, and the eventual leader of the companions.
Detrius Phailmont—a retired thief, Detrius works at Kun-rel's lumberyard.
Kalton Praug—a warrior-cleric, Praug is a Sword of the Patriarchy.
Rashandor the Swift—this wood elf is chief of the Khaim Mountain clan.
Skindulos of the Spear—son of Rashandor the Swift.
Chakfor Stonebreaker—of the Stonebreaker clan of dwarves, Chakfor is an expert prospector, assayer, and tool-maker.
Ithun Stonebreaker—a dwarf rumored to have elven blood, Ithun is an expert woodsman.
Khramil Stonebreaker—chief of the principal dwarven clan of the Khaim Mountains.
Cumbry Stoos—the occasionally honest proprietor of the Grinning Gar, a waterfront tavern in Aston Point.
Aston Tanak—a religious visionary who founded the monastic order from whose temple the town of Aston Point grew.
Grenna Tirmunt—wife of Rilmwick Tirmunt, owner of the Fox and Feather, the leading hostelry in Aston Point.
Phaye Tirmunt—daughter of Rilmwick and Grenna, and friend to Gredin Hundsmund.
Erick Trussk—soldier, later sergeant, of the Aston Keep garrison. Betrothed to Gredin Hundsmund.
Wylina & Marfa—the late wife and daughter of Fedor Ohlt. Killed in a street accident.
The Rael
Breena—the senior survivor of the crash of Fworta, Breena is a trade delegate.
Bruchs—a wounded, civilian Fworta survivor.
Bruegind—a tank commander from Kel-Rael.
Chandis—a computer expert, navy lieutenant from Kel-Rael.
Chemuk—a marine infantryman and Fworta survivor.
Gregis—a navy technician and survivor of the crash of Fworta, Gregis can fix just about anything.
Guinva—a wounded marine and Fworta survivor.
Hazlun—a wounded civilian and Fworta survivor.
Hulmot—retired (and probably deceased) marine tank commander from Kel-Rael.
Jazra—navy commander and first officer of Fworta. Later leader of the Rael survivors.
Kallae—leader of a Kel-Rael resistance cell.
Keegis—marine captain and senior military leader of the resistance to the Overseer.
Kutsav—civilian laboratory technician from Kel-Rael.
Krykus—marine infantryman and Fworta survivor.
Lurin—civilian computer technician from Kel-Rael.
Slussa—civilian electronics expert from Kel-Rael.
Soryega—marine infantryman and Fworta survivor.
Vorris—marine infantryman and Fworta survivor, cross-trained as a field medic.
Zolaris—marine corporal and first leader of the survivors of the crash of Fworta, expert with a magnum cannon.
Four
Fourteen
Prologue
Blaster strikes chewed bits of ceramic and metal from the bulkhead behind Jazra. If the Rael officer had not already been in battle armor, she would have taken penetrating wounds and burns, maybe lost an arm, or even her life. As it was, all Jazra had lost in the hours since the gate opened, spewing spider drones, Doomed, and most of the rest of the Overseer's mobile arsenal, was her peace of mind.
She thought it better to lose her peace of mind than pieces of her body.
Under her helmet, Jazra's long features twitched in what might have been a bitter smile. Most of the crew of Fworta had lost most of their bodies, and the ones unlucky enough to be captured alive had to be waiting for an assimilator to enter the gate and start turning them into Doomed.
Blaster fire sizzled into a pipe to Jazra's right. The pipe
ruptured, spewing liquid under pressure. The stench told her the source of the vapor, which at least wasn't toxic.
She suddenly realized that the spewing sewage was also fogging not only the compartment, but the passageway beyond. The passageway, until now commanded by hostile fire, that led to Escape Pod Bay Six; her goal.
Even once she reached the bay it would be a race between her and whatever command unit the Overseer had aboard. If Fworta's internal computer net was still functioning, she could plug into it through an escape pod's computer. At the very least she could buy her crewmates time to do more damage to the Overseer's assault force, before their ship fell apart around them.
She'd heard too many explosions in the last half hour, including some big ones from the direction of engineering, to be too optimistic. Emergency displays were showing every known j kind of malfunction, and a few she hadn't even heard of before. Her only consolation was that if the Overseer's forces destroyed Fworta, they'd be killing themselves the same as their enemies.
Jazra shuddered at the thought of a derelict ship crewed only by dead Rael and the shattered forces of the Overseer, careening through space until time, or some collision, or another explosion ended the nightmare voyage. It would be a merciful fate for the prisoners—compared to becoming one of the Doomed— but a harsh fate for the folk of any world that Fworta might crash into.
The ship had the mass of a small asteroid, and would blaze in like a meteorite. Civilizations had fallen from lesser disasters than Fworta's impact might inflict.
Liquid from the burst pipe was turning to steam as it struck hot metal. The steam smelled no sweeter than the liquid, but it further misted the passageway. Jazra drew her blaster pistol and looked at the charge-counter. Seven charges left. Probably not enough—unless she could find time and shelter to reload from her belt pouches—but
if she ended up in a firefight between here and the bay, she was probably dead anyway.
Now she crouched, every muscle and tendon stretched like wire. She came out of the crouch in a predator's leap that took her halfway down the last passageway in a single bound. Unfriendly senses still detected her movement in the reeking, gray-brown murk. Blasters fired, then a grenade clanged off a bulkhead and exploded. Fortunately it was a stun grenade, too far from Jazra to hurt her even if she had not been armored.
Her enemies were a spider drone and one of the Doomed, a Huilsyin as far as she could tell. It had risen on all four flipperlike limbs and was shooting wildly with its helmet-mounted, short-barreled blaster. The grenade launchers slung on both of its shoulders were mercifully empty.
Unlike many of Fworta's crew, Jazra had once been a marine, and was no stranger to firefights. She was used to identifying her targets and engaging them with the same thought, in the same moment. Her first blaster shot struck the spider drone as it was firing. Crippled, its shot went wild and struck the Huilsyin.
The Huilsyin bellowed and reared. Its head-mounted blaster fired. A ceiling panel tore loose in a shower of sparks, and fell directly into the path of the Huilsyin's next shot. The panel hurled the blaster fire in all directions, including back into the Huilsyin's face. It bellowed again and rolled on its side, crushing the spider drone flat to the deck in the process, so that it could claw at its blinded eyes with its forelegs.
Jazra did not stop to watch. There had to be at least one or two enemy command levels, beyond the isolated scouting party already aboard, that would soon learn what had happened to the scouts and send reinforcements. She did spare a moment to thank the Authority that she'd faced a Doomed Huilsyin. The flipperfolk were none too shrewd to begin with, at least off their homeworld, and being Doomed sharpened no one's wits.
Jazra slapped into the access panel the codes for opening the bay doors, then jumped through the gap the moment it was wide enough. She had the absurd notion that if she held her breath it would make her smaller. As she sprawled on the deck, the doors closed automatically behind her.
Now for a pod. The bay held twenty-three of them, one short of its full complement. The status displays showed that all of them were functional. Of course, the monitoring system itself might be having problems, but there was no time for her to inspect each pod for minor faults. If she tried that, the Overseer's reinforcements would surely include something with enough firepower to burn through the bay doors. Then, even if she did manage to get into a pod and launch it, she'd decompress the ship, killing her crewmates before the Overseer had the chance.
Jazra loped along the spiral platform, then jumped to an open pod hatch and pulled it shut behind her. As she sat down, the safety harness wrapped itself around her and the hatch sealed. She held her breath for a moment, until all the displays for the life-support system read positive and she felt the vibration of the air circulators through her seat.
Jazra activated the pod's computers, which came up nominal, then readied two commands. One was to override the block that normally kept communications one-way, Fworta's system to the pod's, to prevent accidentally jamming any navigational instructions transmitted from the main computer.
The second was another override, to cancel the Overseer's communications block. With part of the ship's computer net available to them again, Fworta's crew would be far more effective fighters.
Jazra used manual input, but found herself subvocalizing the codes anyway. With luck, she might even locate the Overseer's command unit and disrupt it so that her crewmates could take back the gate and stop the flow of—
Time itself seemed to stop. Jazra felt rather than heard the explosion. It was all around her, roaring and shuddering in the very fabric of the ship. She saw all her command codes go to NULL.
Then acceleration pressed her into the couch as the pod flashed down its launching rail. Steel blazed before her, then vanished as blackness took its place.
Only after the pod was clear of Fworta's hull did Jazra begin to see stars.
• • •
The clouds that had all day spilled rain on Aston Point blew away with the sunset, leaving the soldiers' lamps to shine on the wet cobblestones of Mill Lane. The street was steep and wet enough that they marched slowly.
From beyond the town limits, the night breeze carried the sounds of restless sheep. From closer to hand, water splashed, as someone emptied bathwater or perhaps a chamberpot.
Torgia Mel, captain of the Grand Duke's garrison in Aston Point, hoped no one was caught underneath the falling waste. Unlikely; the streets seemed deserted, with no one about to gape at the unusual spectacle of garrison soldiers marching at night toward the waterfront and its best-known tavern, the Grinning Gar.
The soldiers from Aston Keep seldom came down to the waterfront, let alone to the Grinning Gar. At least, not officially. Torgia Mel was too seasoned an officer not to know the wisdom of turning a blind eye to .. . unofficial visits.
When they did come, just often enough to remind the dockers, wharf laborers, and other denizens of the waterfront that there was law in Aston Point, they seldom came under an officer, let alone Captain Mel herself. She usually sent a six-man squad under Sergeant Finlaysdotl, who had grown up on the docks of Port Enkrimpe, and had the muscles, scars, and knowledge of dockers' cant to prove it.
He also knew, even better than Torgia, when to turn a blind eye, so Finlaysdotl was the obvious choice to be Torgia's second when she decided to visit the waterfront herself. She'd visited it only twice before, both times by day, and it was time to learn her way around it by night. Aston Point's shipping and trade were too scant to have created the kind of warren that sprawled along other waterfronts. But Torgia knew that even a nobleman's close-cropped front lawn looked different in the darkness than in the daylight.
They were only half a short bow shot from the Grinning Gar when they heard a scream. Then came a crash, something or someone heavy, falling hard, then the sound of breaking furniture.
Torgia swore under her breath. The soldiers looked as if they were both looking forward to a brawl, and unhappy about fighting drinking companions whose good will they might need for future waterfront visits.
Sergeant Finlaysdotl shrugged. "At least it can't be Mongo again," he said. "Fairy Rose isn't in port, and Nai doesn't play her flirting games without Mongo around to watch."
Fluent curses in several tongues joined the general uproar. The sergeant swept his eyes across the soldiers, and they quickened their pace. Torgia fell back, knowing that her rank made it prudent to enter places like the Grinning Gar only after the laying on of hands was well under way.
As the soldiers approached the faded green doors of the Grinning Gar, the doors flew open. One of them came right off its hinges and nearly pushed Finlaysdotl on top of the men behind him. A gigantic man lurched through the doorway and down the single, boot-worn step to the cobblestones. One man rode on the giant's shoulders, clawing barehanded at the brute's scalp and face. The giant carried another man under one massive arm as easily as he might carry a seabag.
It was Mongo: Nai K'del's lover, and the Grinning Gar's best-known brawler, about his usual business.
"So it can't be Mongo because Fairy Rose isn't in port?" Torgia asked sarcastically.
Before the sergeant could reply, Mongo disposed of his two attackers. The one under his arm he punched in the head with his free hand. Then Mongo lurched to one side, slamming the man on his shoulders up against the tavern's sign, a leaping gar with a broad grin that showed all its needle-sharp teeth.
The man toppled. He would have broken bones if Mongo hadn't caught him with one hand, then dropped him on top of his comrade.
"We didn't think to see you back so soon," Torgia said. If you could start a conversation with Mongo, you might get his attention long enough to make him forget why the brawl started. Unless some wildhead with a score to settle reminded the big sailor . . .
"Oh, me and the captain
fight over my pay. Didn't hit him, but I broke his favorite chair. Threw the inkwell all over the pay scroll, too. So I come home on South Wind's Daughter."
"It wasn't Nai the men were after, either," came a woman's voice. Seldra Boatwright stepped out of the doorway and contemplated the fallen combatants. "Those fellows weren't quite stupid enough to play for Nai. So they tried for me."
Mongo nodded. "They do it a bad way, so 1 fight. But they have a good idea. Older women, they are sometimes stronger in bed—"
"Mongo!"
That weretiger's scream was Nai, expressing her opinion of Mongo's praising other women. Mongo turned, just as the first of the fallen men lurched to his feet, drawing a push-dagger from a boot top.
The soldiers were alert, but all out of position to respond quickly. Besides, Torgia Mel hadn't been her old company's ces-tus champion for nothing.
She took three strides, and chopped the side of one hand across the back of the daggerman's neck, while punching him in the kidneys with the other fist. The man gasped, Mongo turned, and the giant's punch spun the man around just in time for Torgia's third blow to double him up like a clasp knife.
Torgia toed the fallen push-dagger toward Finlaysdotl, who picked it up and dropped it in the belt pouch he used to hold evidence and bribes. The captain turned back to Mongo.
"Mongo, it does you honor that you defended Seldra, but she doesn't need as much defending—"
"Because I'm too old?" Seldra asked. She was smiling, but her tone was as chill as a mountain stream.
Torgia sighed, "Because she knows as much about fighting as you do."
It was most desirable that Seldra Boatwright not take offense and become Torgia's enemy. Seldra did Harbormaster Mackree's work when he was drunk or hungover, which was most of the time. An honest harbormaster made the captain's life considerably easier. A dishonest or hostile Seldra could make that life miserable.
Seldra grinned, then snapped one arm out to full length. A dagger with an ivory hilt and a double-edged dwarven-work blade sprouted from her hand.
"Mongo, if this happens again, I'll start carrying my old spiked bracers as well," Seldra said. She stood on tiptoe to brush her lips across Mongo's stubbly chin. Torgia wondered how she endured his smell.
