by Damon Alan
“I already arranged it. We’re set up. I’ll be in Jerna a few days after you. ” she replied.
“You’re keeping tabs on me,” Peter said as he flushed. “I’ll have a surprise waiting for you. Hinden out.” He signaled Avella to close the connection and put the Captain on.
“Hinden, Corriea.”
“Lieutenant Commander Corriea,” Captain Dayson said in a way that emphasized his new rank. “How are things up there?”
“Great, sir. I’m happy to say there’s nothing to report.”
“No news is good news. The adept council has concluded for the day. I don’t know how long before they make a decision about forming a planetary government, but I did win one small victory for our team,” Captain Dayson said.
“Victory by small bites, Captain?”
Dayson laughed. “I suppose so, Mr. Corriea. I’ve secured mining rights on the mainland from Alarin. Near Zeffult. Our engineers might find some usable ore on this world with a mantle mine.”
“That would help. I’ll let the Fyurigan know, Captain,” Peter said. “Priority?”
“When they can get to it in the normal schedule. We can import from space for a while longer.”
“They’re finishing up Asteroid Farm Three now. A few more days is all.”
“Thanks, you reminded me of my other idea.” The captain paused as if she wasn’t sure. “Tell Fyurigan to take any additional farms off the schedule. Have the Yascurra get some small asteroids into Refuge orbit that we can build some defensive bases on.”
Now he knew why she paused. Because taking time away from other projects to build weaponry seemed like paranoia, even to Peter. “Expecting trouble, Captain?”
There was a longer pause. “A gut feeling. I’ve survived as long as I have because I’ve trusted my instincts. Make it happen. And I want to start production of anti-ship nuclear warheads as soon as we can.”
He didn’t know who the enemy was, they were twenty thousand light-years from the Hive. But Captain Dayson had saved his life enough times that he wouldn’t question her judgment on such matters. “I’ll hand your orders to Engineering, Captain.”
“While we’re doing that, I want some conventional ground missile batteries installed down here on New Korvand. If for some reason the adepts regress and turn against us again, I want to put any of their ships that are nearby on the bottom of the ocean at a moment’s notice.”
Peter almost laughed. He’d never have thought of that possibility, Alarin was a friend, and betrayal didn’t seem his style. But again, the Captain was who she was because she saw all the angles. “We have modular units that can be landed by shuttle, Captain. I’ll make that happen myself. Should be set up in a few days at most,” Peter said. “If you like we also have some surface to air modules that aren’t seeing any use. If we’re protecting orbit, should we also put those on the ground at New Korvand?”
Another stretch of silence, then, “That is officer’s thinking, Peter. Get it done.”
“Will do, Captain.”
“Good. I have more of this political crap tomorrow,” Captain Dayson replied. “I’ll be away from the fleet for a bit longer. Dayson out.”
“Hinden out.”
“Did you hear all that, Sergeant Avella?” Peter asked.
“Yes sir, every bit. You want me to set up the project schedule?”
Peter shook his head. “No, just have the Yascurra and Fyurigan coordinate to get it done. Tell them that for the ground batteries they have three days plus whatever time the Yascurra’s shuttles need to get here.”
That should let Captain Dayson know we take her seriously.
“I can do that,” she said.
After making the calls she needed to make, Avella grumbled to Peter. “You know, I still haven’t had my rotation to Refuge.”
“After two years? That’s terrible. Everyone’s stir crazy, but Captain Malveaux must consider you critical personnel here. Hang on a bit longer,” Peter answered.
“I haven’t even been given a time slot,” she said sullenly. “It’s hard to want to be here when all we hear are happy voices on surface comms.”
“Don’t let that get to you. Besides, most of the work on the surface right now is manual labor in heavy gravity. Find the bright side.”
Avella flexed a thin arm. “What, you don’t think I’m up for lifting concrete walls into place?”
Her smile said she’d survive a bit longer.
Peter laughed, then settled back into his gravcouch. He watched Refuge’s surface pass by on the main screen. Deep blue ocean and massive storms filled with lightning passed under them.
Only one thing dragged down the good feelings of the moment. Waiting two months to see Eris.
His fingers reached in his pocket to touch the bond bracelet he kept there.
Almost two years, Eris Dantora. I’m ready to make you mine.
Chapter 6 - Rebellion
Just after the start of Longnight
The full darkness of longnight fell on Zeffult as Faroo settled below the horizon. Jalai’s orb glowed overhead, woven of strangely twisting shades of orange and yellow that lit the night as if by torch. The landscape glowed a dim orange under the unusual appearance of the goddess.
Four men stepped over filth and detritus in the narrow streets of the north city, headed south. Occasionally they’d bypass homeless people as they lay sleeping on street cobbles, their meager possessions tucked close to protect what little they owned from theft.
One young girl sat up as they approached, eyeing the four suspiciously as she held a ragged bear close. Almost touching the girl a woman slept, dressed in torn clothing that indicated she was a prostitute.
Eislen lay a few mother-of-pearl scrit coins on the ground in front of the youngster as the men passed. The girl quietly scooped them up and nodded. Eislen assumed she’d played the “I see nothing” game before. The men crept by silently, leaving the girl and her still sleeping and oblivious mother to their squalor.
Overhead eaves edged out over the streets, and drops of water fell from them due to an earlier evening rain. Eislen’s senses were so on edge he felt the small compression waves in the air ahead of each falling droplet as if each were speaking with the voices of his ancestors.
After what seemed like an eternity of careful travel, and the good fortune of dodging several watch patrols, they reached the interior wall that signaled the change from slums to a middle class neighborhood.
Passing through the affluent neighborhood was much easier. Crime was actually punished here, and people seen by the watch would not make it by unquestioned. The streets were wider, and empty of pedestrians. The walkways in front of the shops were swept clean, and the remnants of the rain flowed away in underground pipes, not gutters cut into the center of the streets. Their only hindrance was the guard, all but one of which passed by in idle chatter, noticing nothing of Eislen’s party.
Not all guards were so blind to the world. Their first bout with real danger crescendoed when a guard patrol passed with six soldiers and, for the first time that night, an adept.
Talnari. Eislen recognized her, she was a young woman from the southern border, and talented in the gift. She stopped her patrol a mere four horses length from the hiding spot of the conspirators. She dismounted and looked into the darkness toward them.
Eislen wasn’t sure he was skilled enough to save his group, but this was his first test as leader.
He reached into her mind, carefully walking among the stones of her thoughts. He blew smoke into her gift enhanced vision, obscuring the darkness where he and his friends hid.
He added a stone to the pile. A thought of his creation, that with skill she would accept as her own.
There is a house just ahead, it houses a den of thieves. The same thieves that preyed on people after Merik consumed the priesthood. A street waif told me of them. It is my duty to end their predation on the people.
Talnari’s head jerked to the left, and Eislen used his
own gift to sense her eyes narrowing.
This is it. My chance to prove myself, she thought.
She jumped back on her horse. “This isn’t the place I was thinking of, guardsmen. The house we’re looking for is just down the street.”
“We’re looking for a house?” Eislen heard one of the soldiers whisper to a companion.
“Huh. First I’ve heard,” was the answer. “Nobody tells us anything.”
The patrol rode off to the north. Eislen’s men stepped from their hiding spots.
“How did she not see us?” Elvanik asked. “She was an adept.”
Eislen smiled. The test was passed. “Adepts have ways to confuse any situation. Alarin taught me what I need to know.” He put his hand on Bogner’s shoulder and pushed gently toward the south. “We need to go before she figures out she’s arresting an innocent family and returns.”
“None of these rich people are innocent,” Greldin said as they started moving again.
“These aren’t rich people,” Eislen said. “They work for the adepts just as you and I did. They’ve just had more success at it.”
“Nobody should live like this when others are—”
“—I argued this once before with a friend, he convinced me otherwise,” Eislen interrupted. They reached a larger wall that signaled the transition from the middle class area of east central Zeffult to the truly rich area of the city, the southeast quarter. Eislen had one more comment for Greldin before they scaled the wall. “We each earn according to our ability, and our opportunity. Tonight we take a first step toward improving opportunity for all.”
Greldin either felt this wasn’t the time to discuss it, or was satisfied with that answer.
Eislen patted the wall. “On the other side of this are those who are truly rich. There will be more patrols, and each will contain at least one adept who will kill us outright if we’re caught. There will be no chance to protest your innocence, the adept will rip through your mind and know immediately our intentions.”
Bogner gulped, Eislen sensed the man’s throat rising and falling.
“You will do everything I say, and nothing I don’t say,” he continued. “That is how you will live to see firstday.”
Elvanik moved between both men and tossed a wooden grapple to the top of the wall. “Greldin, Bogner. Do as he says. Let’s go.”
They climbed the wall and dropped into foliage on the far side. They were at the front edge of a small mansion. Its exterior was lit with oil lamps. House guards stood at the corners.
Down the street a much brighter light hidden around a corner reflected off wet cobbles. Newcomer lighting. That was their target.
“Move to the edge of the front fence, and we’ll cross the street. That will put us more in Jalai’s shadow,” Eislen commanded.
After waiting for a patrol to pass, they crossed. They moved along the front wall of another small estate before coming to a side alley.
“This way,” Elvanik said. “It will be darker.”
After skulking down the alley for several minutes, they came to a main street. Blazing white light glared at them from the far side. This was the building Alarin had given to Sarah Dayson’s people, and they’d filled it with their too bright lanterns.
It was their way. They’d made the place unpleasant for the eyes, as their ships had been. The newcomers called the house an embassy. Whatever that meant.
Eislen didn’t care. What mattered were the two guards who patrolled the outside, peering into the relative darkness of the city.
Greldin and Bogner approached the front wall of the structure, then crossed over in a flash once the guards were focused elsewhere. They sidled up to a dark section of the house quietly, backs up against a wall. From Eislen’s point of view they vanished in the glare, but his gift gave him the details. Once in position the two men were to wait for the signal to attack the guards.
“They’re in position. Let’s go,” Eislen said, “it’s our turn.”
The co-conspirators scurried across the street, slipping unseen into some hedges. They waited for one of the guards to pass by, then bolted over the fence and headed toward the front door of the house, stopping short to hide in some bushes. The second guard was hidden from view by the structure, but Eislen knew where he was.
After what seemed like ages, both guards came together to converse. They stopped next to each other and spoke in the guttural language of the newcomers. Eislen understood them. What they said made the task at hand a bit easier.
They spoke of a local girl as if she were a cow to be bred.
Angered, Eislen used his gift. His mind expanded, grasping the comprehension of the true state of things. This task was very hard to do, but after several seconds Eislen grasped the reality of the guards, the truth of their material existence. He then reached out to a house on the other side of the street and in moments the reality of that house was in his mind as well. He transferred some of the pull from Nula Armana that held the house on the ground onto the men.
It was the same thing Merik had done to the first newcomer ship she’s destroyed, although her effort was magnitudes beyond Eislen’s capabilities.
As a portion of the house’s weight hit them, the guards fell to the ground with a huff.
“Now,” Eislen said to Elvanik.
Elvanik whistled like an enchoto bird, then rushed with his formerly hidden accomplices to strip the soldiers of their possessions. Two of the long sticks the marines used to kill. Two of the weapons like Sarah Dayson carried on her hip. Small hard pouches with the arrows the weapons shot. As Eislen concentrated on keeping the men pinned, he told the others what to take.
Once the guards were picked clean, Eislen spoke to them in Galactic Standard. “I know your people, and despite how you idiots spoke of my countrywoman, I am sparing your life. Make sure you tell Sarah Dayson I have no argument with her. For your mistreatment of the woman with your words, I sentence you to the loss of these possessions. Your transgressions are thus forgiven.”
He studied the faces of the men, both barely able to breathe. One had eyes filled with fear, the other held only hate.
Eislen knelt down and touched the hateful man’s face. “You may despise me, but you live because of my mercy. Do not regard the women of this city as cattle for your rut.”
He turned the heads of both men so they wouldn’t see where the rebels escaped to, then the four thieves raced into darkness, disappearing into the city streets. Out of sight, Eislen released his grip on the guards, who in short order screamed for help. The sounds of alarm faded behind them as the conspirators dodged through a maze of darkened avenues and alleys. The newcomers were no threat now, and it would take time for the adepts to figure out what happened and respond. By then Eislen and his men would be back at their hideaway.
The only danger now was running into a patrol before they made it back to the slums.
Elvanik laughed as he ran next to Eislen. “That went well.”
Trying to fill his lungs with enough air, Eislen huffed. “Yes. That might be… the only time it does. They won’t be un…aware next time. There will be more guards… with better weapons. And maybe an adept… or two.”
“Good. We’ll need better weapons.” Elvanik tilted his head at Eislen and ran silently a moment before speaking. “You need to get in shape, my friend.”
“I haven’t done… honest work since Sarah Dayson’s people… took me to the sky last year. I spent a long… time recovering from my wound… and then was kept in a small place… as the newcomers dealt with Merik. It’s starting to show.”
“The house Salla hired for us is not far into the slums. You’ll make it. In the coming days we’ll work on your fitness.”
“Let’s,” was all Eislen could reply.
Running behind Eislen, Greldin and Bogner laughed.
Chapter 7 - Captain's Personal Log
19 MAI 15329
AI Lucy82A recording, Captain's personal log, personal archive: Galactic Stan
dard Date 17:11:24 19 MAI, 15329
Personal log entry #1019, Captain Sarah Dayson, origin Korvand, Pallus Sector.
Current Location: Moon Refuge, New Korvand Archipelago, Jerna City.
Another hurricane. I know the adepts were laughing when we asked for this archipelago as ours. The storms are brutal, there are thousands of miles of unbroken sea to the west. But we needed uninhabited land, and they had no use for these islands. But over the thousands of years Refuge has had life, some of it has adapted to this environment. We have built strong structures. We’ve created civilization. But it’s still not going to be an easy life unless the adepts come to their senses.
I fear the more distantly Merik’s union of the adepts fades into the past, the harder this task will be as individualism reasser—
[an explosion of sound, AI determined as lightning discharge]
Listen to the rain hitting these windows. As I was saying, my task will be harder as individualism reasserts itself among the adepts. I will encourage their free thought to improving Refuge once they are united politically.
[18 second pause, a noise similar to static]
We’re doing well with our own colony here, considering we’re not a colonial fleet. I’ve ordered the research teams on board the Gaia to report to me if any of the life on the ship will be useful here. Ensign Dantora is in charge there, and at some point I need to free her from that task and assign her in proximity to Lieutenant Commander Corriea. Those two have unfinished business, and I won’t have Peter at full capacity until it’s completed.
Our small city is still very dependent on space, an ironic twist since colonies are usually dependent on previously settled ground. But we need metal from elsewhere or soon we’ll be living as primitively as the natives, and in a much less hospitable location. The storms here regularly rip through our community, leaving a trail of light damage as they pass. Fortunately we build with the technology of the day, not with wood or marble.
Thea Jannis is looking through her DNA catalog. We still need and will build more asteroid farms, because we’re having a hard time finding edible plants that stand up to these storms. Hopefully, and with any luck, we’ll find plants and animals that can survive here.
