CHAPTER
23
Tolan won the Battle of Atwaan without leading a single charge. His victory was complete without a blow being struck.
The tales of war and battle told around campfires are things of violence and blood. Yet the story of Tolan’s victory was a favorite retold for generations. Though no sword was drawn nor arrow nocked, it was a model of valor and wisdom in the face of deadly peril.
At the van of Tolan’s advance onto the plain before the city of Atwaan, Ahrhi, the shield maiden of Rowath Hold, sat astride Tolan’s finest charger. To her left was the Master gnome Kairn, holding the reins of her mount, for as a girl of the mountains she had never ridden. To her right rode an apprentice armsman without rank—and here the listeners would exchange smiles around the campfire—with a marvelous blue being riding the pommel of his saddle.
Behind these came the vanguard, two elder gnomes— captainsin their tongue—flanked by four fours of battle gnomes. These wore strange and varied regalia, bristling with strange weapons and all manner of mysterious devices.
And well behind them, astride his second finest charger, came Tolan. At his back were mounted four sixty-fours of Master armsmen of the Tetrarchy with four times as many guardsmen afoot.
But it was not this show of force, nor the strangeness of the gnomes, which caused the armsmen and guardsmen of Atwaan to give ground. They fell back, opening a broad avenue to where the baron sat prepared to direct his forces at the sight of the two infants alive in their mother’s arms. Not one of them would have obeyed an order to attack.
Nor would Terant have given it. Even as the invaders marshaled themselves before him, he had eyes only for the two youngest People in all the world. Tolan had to speak his name twice before he looked away.
“Gather all of the women who are with child,” Tolan had said without preamble. “The gnomes will ensure their infants live. After that, we will talk.”
There was more to the story, of course. Every child, and there were many children, knew how the gnomes had cleansed the water and the air and most of all the birthing pools. The gnomes had calmed the accumulator which in ways mysterious had prevented the Giants—the crew —from waking and keeping the world safe and rightly on its path. And the crew had awakened and the world was safe and once again upon its path.
But the gnomes had left and the giants had returned to their slumber beneath the hills and the world was again home only to the People.
And it was their heroes the People remembered. Two warlords, each at the head of a mighty army and each with cheeks matted with tears at the sight of living newborns. Two leaders and one promise: “We will talk.”
On that foundation was the Alliance formed. With those words the last war of all the Journey ended.
* * *
“Do you suppose the Klingons will ever tell us how this ends?” Gomez asked.
She was standing to the right of Gold’s command chair, watching the screen as the People’s vessel—they had no name for it—spun in the darkness. The da Vinci was so close there was a definite sense of “down” to their perspective. The new navigational array swung into view, then off the screen in a matter of seconds.
“According to Kortag, it won’t end for another two centuries,” Gold said. “That’s how long it will take the People to reach the world the Empire is giving them.”
“That strikes me as uncharacteristically generous,” observed Tev from the aft stations.
“No exploitable resources, no strategic value, no animal life above trilobites, and it stinks of carbon dioxide,” Gold said. “It’s exactly the sort of world they’d want to give away.”
“Lieutenant Conlon reports that the plasma injectors are fit to carry us as far as Deep Space Station K-7,” Haznedl reported. “We can get under way at any time.”
“Any unfinished business here, Gomez?” Gold asked.
“Pattie?” Gomez passed the question to the structural engineer at the auxiliary science station next to Tev.
“Structural integrity fields and thruster network are both operating at optimal efficiency,” Pattie answered, her dagger ticking against her breastplates as she turned from the diagnostic display. “Our mission is technically complete.”
“Personally, I’d like to spend another month,” Gomez said. “Just to solve the mystery of where the People came from.”
“Spectral analysis of their artificial sunlight does not match any of the suspected source systems,” Tev said with the air of one pointing out the obvious.
“Occam’s razor indicates they are refugees from the Luri Cloud. More precisely, a planet orbiting the sun that exploded to create the Luri Cloud.”
“That would make the ship close to two thousand years old,” Gomez said. “Why would they lock their descendants into a medieval culture for two thousand years?”
“You’ll have to double-check with Abramowitz,” Gold said, “but maybe they thought that was a viable level of technology for colonizing an uninhabited world. Once the crew got them down, they could survive on their own. A higher tech society would need support till it was established.”
“Maybe.” Gomez sounded unconvinced. “But it left them helpless in the face of radiation poisoning.”
“The builders assumed the crew would always be on hand to deal with mechanical problems.”
“They also assumed neighboring solar systems contained uninhabited Class-M planets ripe for their colonization,” Tev observed. “Was that hubris or a lack of imagination?”
“More likely lack of choice,” Gold said. “They were building a lifeboat, after all.”
“Message from the Qaw’qay’, sir,” Shabalala said.
“They remind us we are fourteen minutes from Klingon space.”
Tev snorted.
“Wong, lay in a course for Deep Space Station K-7,” Gold said. “We’ve got work to do.”
About the Author
KEVIN KILLIANYlives in Wilmington, NC, with his wife Valerie and their three children: Alethea, Anson, and Daya. Kevin has been writing since grade school, and writing Trek since he first discovered fanfic in 1972. However, because he “knew” one could never make a living at writing, he never pursued it as a career. Instead, he earned his living as an actor, soil technician, photographer, bus driver, special education teacher, warehouse manager, and media distribution specialist (paperboy)—not necessarily in that order and often concurrently. During those years he did write, and since 1990 his essays and articles on topics ranging from race relations to education to spirituality have appeared in local newspapers, webzines, and (once) a national magazine. As the second half of his first century loomed, Kevin realized that writing was what he wanted to do with his life. When he told his wife, she shrugged matter-of-factly and said: “It’s your dream; make it work.” Today Kevin, who is also a minister with the Soul Saving Station, works for an agency that provides support services to people with special needs by day, teaches adult basic skills at Cape Fear Community College by night, and—during lunch breaks, long red lights, and predawn hours—writes. In addition to Orphans, Kevin’s stories have appeared in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Volumes IV, V, and VII. His short fiction set in the BattleTech universe will be out later this year.
COMING NEXT MONTH:
Star Trek™: S.C.E. #39
GRAND DESIGNS
by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
Tensions between two planets in the Rhaax system have abated to the point where the sides have agreed to disarmament. The S.C.E. crew on the U.S.S. da Vinci is sent along with a Federation diplomat to act as weapons inspectors to make sure that the terms of the cease-fire and disarmament are followed.
But soon the S.C.E. learns that neither side has any intention of truly disarming—and then Tev, P8 Blue, and Soloman are captured by one side. Captain Gold must find a way to rescue his crew, and keep the peace, before both planets explode!
COMING IN APRIL FROM POCKET BOOKS!
;
Kevin Killiany, Orphans
Orphans Page 11
