by Peter Kenson
The freighter was lying on its side to facilitate access for the swarms of technicians. It was supported by an anti-grav cradle powered partly by generators embedded in the landing field and partly by the ship’s own generators. The field generators had obviously failed when the substation went down but the internal ship’s generators were still holding the freighter in place.
“If we can take out the ship’s generators or maybe even the fusion reactor itself, the cradle will collapse and the ship will hit the ground hard. At the least, it will buckle some plates and maybe damage the landing pad. At best, we may do some serious damage to the ship’s power train that will take months to repair.”
The only lights visible on the target were the small forward hatch providing access for crew and technicians, and the much larger cargo hatch towards the rear.
“How many shots have we got available?” Chaqi asked.
Anise checked the readouts before replying. “It’s got enough power for twenty pulses and it’s fired once. Should be nineteen left.”
“Okay, we’ll put one into the forward hatch, one into the cargo hatch and another into the loading dock which should be directly underneath. There’s a squad of guards there I’d like to take out. Then we’ll put the rest about three quarters of the way down the length of the ship. That’s where the power equipment should be. Let’s get started. I doubt they’re going to wait for us.”
The first shot took out a group of technicians who had been peering nervously out of the forward hatch. The second shot had little apparent effect other than the lights in the cargo hatch went out and the third shot hit something on the loading dock but they couldn’t make out the damage. They were six shots into the assault on the power equipment when Osman called over the comms link.
“Two flitters approaching fast. Wait, make that four, no five. Hell, they’re coming from everywhere. I think we’ve poked a hornet’s nest.”
Chaqi looked up. In addition to the flitters, lights of several ground cars could be seen bouncing their way across the field towards them.
“Anise, take the wheel of the car. Gun the motor and get ready to move. Rhamani, keep firing as long as you can.”
Osman was already firing at the nearest flitter as Chaqi raised his rifle and fired off a sustained burst. The searchlight underneath the flitter went out but he kept firing until the power cell on the rifle was exhausted. He flung the weapon away and grabbed one of the guardsmen’s rifles just as a massive explosion occurred behind him. Spinning round, he saw a gout of flame rising from a crack in the skin of the freighter. Moments later the ship hit the ground, sending out a cloud of dust and dirt. Screams of anguish could be heard from those unfortunate enough to be sheltering beneath the ship.
He slapped Rhamani on the shoulder. “Time to go.”
Chaqi ran round the front of the car and climbed in next to Anise as Rhamani threw himself in the back. “Take us round the front of the ship and then head for the largest piece of blackness you can find.”
Over the comms link, he ordered them to stop firing in the back. “Otherwise they’ll track us from your shots.”
The crippled flitter flew overhead and released a volley of fire where the car had been parked seconds before, but it was obviously losing power and turned away from the stricken freighter to land heavily near the perimeter of the field. The other flitters homed in on the guard post as the satchel charge which Rhamani had left behind sent fragments of laser cannon scattering in all directions.
The flitters spread out again in what was clearly an organised search pattern but, by this time, Anise was rounding the front of the ship and heading flat out for the far side of the field. There was no activity visible on this side and they reached the shelter of the buildings without being challenged. They went three rows deep into the maze of buildings before stopping the car to check on Osman.
“How’s he doing?” Chaqi asked.
“Leg’s definitely broken but it feels like a clean break,” Rhamani replied. “I’ve been trying to splint it but the damned car’s been bouncing around all over the place.”
“Yes, sorry about that. We’ll take five here. Get that splint in place and bound up tight before we move off.
“How are you feeling?” Chaqi asked Osman.
“Hurts like hell but I’ll live. Won’t be able to keep up much of a pace though.”
“I know what you mean,” Chaqi said rubbing his leg. “We’ll take…”
“What do you mean by that?” Anise interrupted. “Have you been hit?”
“It’s only a bit of shrapnel. It’s nothing.”
“Let me see. Where is it? Your leg? Drop your pants and let me see.”
“Anise! We’re in the middle of an enemy base, surrounded by I don’t know how many enemy soldiers and you want me to drop my pants.”
“What! Are you shy or something? There’s nothing in there I haven’t seen before; apart from some shrapnel. Now either you take them down or I will.”
“Under other circumstances, that might be an interesting offer,” Chaqi muttered as he unbuckled his belt. “Now as I was saying before I was interrupted, we’ll take this car as far as we can. We obviously can’t go out the way we came in but I have the coordinates of several boltholes on this side of the base. We’ll go out as close as we can to the nearest one to minimise the distance we have to go on foot. How many demolition charges do we have left?”
“Two,” Rhamani replied. “I used one on that cannon so we’ve got two left.”
“Okay. Is there any chance that one of them might have a longer fuse on it?”
“Yeah, I looked at them. I can see what the idiots have done. I’ll fix it.”
“Good. Then we’ll place the one with the long fuse against the fence here and head round close to the bolthole. When this one blows, hopefully they’ll think that’s our exit point and send everybody in this direction. We then make our own breach and slip away, or at least limp slowly. Ow!”
He looked down as Anise pulled the needle out of his thigh.
“Wuss,” she said. “You’ve had shots before.”
“Yes but normally they’re administered by a nurse with a kind and gentle hand.”
“You’ll get my kind and gentle hand somewhere else if you’re not careful. Now pull your pants up and let’s get the hell out of here.”
They waited impatiently as Rhamani adjusted the fuse and buried one of the charges at the base of a tower. Then they raced round the perimeter road on the inside of the fence, trusting that the normal perimeter patrols would all be involved in searches elsewhere in the complex. The point where they wanted to exit was quite close to the area where the main search was taking place, so they parked the car and spent a few minutes stacking crates around it to disguise the shape.
When the blast came, it initially caused very little reaction. Rhamani wanted to place the other charge right away but Chaqi told him to wait as one flitter broke away from the main search and headed towards the source of the explosion. When the flitter reported the breach in the fence, the effect was dramatic. All the other flitters and every ground car, broke off the search and headed towards the breach.
“Go now,” Chaqi said, tapping Rhamani on the shoulder.
To reduce the noise of this blast, they had removed half of the explosive and hung the satchel on the wire instead of attacking one of the towers. They had more work to do with the wire cutters after the blast but it did not appear to attract the attention of any of the flitters. Chaqi and Rhamani lifted Osman between them and carried him across the soft sand. On the far side they paused for breath while Anise crossed behind them, doing her best to smooth the sand over and disguise their tracks.
The climb up the hillside was slow and difficult but Chaqi led them at a tangent away from the breach rather than go straight up the slope opposite. By the time the Belsi found the breach, they were one hundred paces up and more than five hundred paces to the side. They w
ere forced to stop every few paces now as even Rhamani’s prodigious strength was starting to give out. They ducked down behind a rock as a flitter passed in front of them but it was searching too far down the hillside to spot them. There was, however, a foot patrol heading determinedly up the trail behind them.
“How much further?” Anise gasped.
“I’m not sure,” Chaqi admitted. “I’ve only ever been here the once but I don’t think it’s far. There should be a small clearing on this side of the hilltop.”
They came upon the clearing almost as soon as they moved out. As Chaqi said, it was small, less than four paces across and barely enough room for them all to squeeze inside. Chaqi paused at the entrance and strained his ears to listen. The sound of Belsi voices was clearer now and much closer.
“They stopped here again,” a voice said. “They must be tired or injured.”
“Which way now?” a second voice asked.
“This way,” the first voice replied confidently. “They’re not far in front now.”
Chaqi instinctively raised his hand to his head and, to his horror, found a Belsian helmet. The shape was similar; the properties were not.
“It’s me they’re tracking,” he confessed. “I forgot to switch helmets when we left the car.”
“Then, if this is the entrance, get us inside,” Anise said. “The gateway will be shielded. They’ll lose the signal.”
“Yes but they’ll find the clearing. They’ll know it’s an entrance even if they can’t open it. They’ll just blast through the rock.”
“Then we’ll just have to seal the tunnel. We’ve done it before. It’s a shame but if it’s necessary…”
Chaqi pushed through them to the inside of the clearing and searched the rock face for the crevice he remembered. It was barely wide enough for a hand and he skinned his knuckles as he felt for the lever. He pulled and a crack appeared in the rock face, following the natural contours of the rock. Rhamani pushed against the crack and a section of rock slid back to reveal a steel ladder leading down below the surface.
They helped Osman onto the ladder and he hopped down, one rung at a time, closely followed by Anise and Rhamani. Chaqi was the last to enter and he pushed the door closed behind him with a satisfying click.
Outside on the hillside, the patrol stopped. “I’ve lost him,” the sniffer said. “They’ve gone to ground. There has to be an entrance around here somewhere.”
Inside, the lights went on as soon as the entrance was sealed. Anxious faces appeared pointing laser rifles at the team at the foot of the ladder even as Chaqi was climbing down.
“Identify yourselves,” a voice spoke from out of the darkness.
“I’m Chaqi,” he called out from halfway down the ladder. “This is my team and the password is ‘Golden Harvest’”.
“Chaqi, is that you? Everybody’s been so worried about you.”
Chaqi dropped the last few feet to the ground and turned to face the grey haired elder who pushed through the crowd in front of him.
“We saw the attack on the freighter but we were worried you would not make it out alive.”
“You were worried, Thorson? You should have been there. But Osman’s been injured and I’m afraid I’ve led a patrol right to the entrance up there. We have to seal this tunnel.”
“All the entrance tunnels are permanently wired. Let’s get you down into the safe area and we’ll collapse the passage behind us. Then I’ll spread the word that you’ve survived. You struck a powerful blow for all the Ystrad tonight.”
Chapter 3 - Marmoros
David steepled his fingers in front of his lips as he looked around the table. Rachel looked horrified; Jeren looked puzzled and Falaise was… well, Falaise.
“Rachel, I assume from the expression on your face, that you have not discussed any of this with Jeren.”
“I didn’t know how to begin,” she confessed.
“Hm! I’m not exactly sure how many Imperial laws I’m going to break if I try to explain this but still...”
“What do you mean by Imperial laws?” Falaise interrupted. “What empire are you talking about? There is only the High King.”
“Falaise, if you will allow me, I will answer those particular questions as we go through. But first I need to ask you and Jeren something. You have the sun during the day and you have two moons at night. What do you know about how they move through the sky?”
“I know there are some scholars who study such things,” Falaise replied. “Astronomers they call themselves. There are none within our people but there is one, a very learned man at the court of the High King who says that the moons travel around our world even as the world moves around the sun.”
“And there are others,” Jeren added, “who say that the world is the centre of everything and the sun and the moons move around us.”
“So which theory do you believe?”
“I don’t know,” Falaise said. “I met the old astronomer once and he was very convincing but the church, in fact all of the churches, say that our world is the centre of the universe. The two sides argue incessantly but it is an argument that neither appears capable of winning.”
“And you Jeren. What do you believe?”
“I’m not very religious,” he admitted. “So I would like to believe the astronomer but there is no proof either way.”
“Okay Rachel, what about you?”
“The astronomer is correct,” she replied simply. “What people call the sun is actually a star. It’s just like all the other stars that you see at night only very much closer. This world is a planet which moves around the sun and the moons circle around the planet.”
Jeren and Falaise looked at her in astonishment. “How… how do you know this?” Jeren asked.
“Because many of the stars have planets of their own, circling around them. Some of those planets are similar to this one and people live on them. One of them is Ystradis, my planet and where my people come from.”
“So how did you get here?”
“There was a war. The Belsi attacked Ystradis and we couldn’t stop them. My mother gave birth to me in the middle of the final battle for the royal palace. Some of the family retainers smuggled me aboard a ship while I was only hours old and we escaped the planet.”
“Oh my poor child,” Falaise said, stretching out to take one of Rachel’s hands. “I’m so sorry.”
Jeren reached over to take Rachel’s other hand. “What happened to your parents?”
“The royal palace was destroyed and both my parents were killed. The ship that was carrying me was the finest in the fleet, built to travel the immense distances between the stars at incredible speed. But the Belsi pursued it and attacked. I am told the ship fought bravely for many hours against overwhelming odds. Finally, when defeat was inevitable, old Jubal carried me into an escape craft and we fled the destruction.
“I don’t remember any of this but Jubal told me that we fled for days while the Belsi examined the wreckage and then scoured the surrounding space, searching for us. Eventually, the escape pod crashed into the sea just off your northern coastline and Jubal swam ashore, carrying me in his arms. I believe we were the only survivors from the ship.
“Since then I’ve had no contact with any of my people until I met the ambassadors. Jubal said it was too risky to contact them as the Belsi had some way of tracking telepathic thoughts. So we settled down here among your people and made a living as traders.”
“And where is Jubal now?” Falaise asked gently.
A tear welled up out of the corner of her eye and trickled slowly down her cheek. Rachel hastily withdrew one of her hands to brush it away. “I’m sorry. Jubal died last year. He was very old. I buried him in a forest clearing and started travelling on my own. That’s when I met Josep and Agnes.”
“Don’t apologise for missing someone, my dear,” Falaise murmured. “We’ve all lost someone close to us in the last few months.” Sh
e looked over at David. “Did you know all this?”
“I knew about the war and the escape from the destruction of the royal palace. I suspected that Jubal had died but I didn’t know his name or any of the details. I’m very sorry, Rachel. You must have loved him very much.”
“He was all I had. The only link back to my people. He used to tell me marvellous stories about Ystradis and what life was like there before the war.”
“Well now we’ve heard your story, my dear, incredible as it seems. So I think it’s about time we heard David’s story and I suspect it’s going to be equally hard to understand.”
“Ah yes, I thought it was going to be my turn soon. But before I tell you my story, let me see if I can offer you a little proof of some of the things Rachel has been saying.”
He stood up, reaching into his belt pouch for an amulet similar to the one Jeren was wearing. “Falaise, I’d like to try a little experiment, if you would allow me to place this around your neck.”
“That’s one of those devices that we took off Duke Henry’s captains,” she objected. “That man Alcanzar was using it to control them.”
“Yes, but it’s quite safe now. And Alcanzar’s dead anyway. Rachel and Jeren have been using one of these to talk to each other, even when they’re not in the same room.”
Falaise looked at the two of them. “Is this true?”
“Yes, Mother,” Jeren replied, opening the neck of his jerkin to show the amulet. “As David says, it’s quite safe.”
“Very well then.”
She shuddered slightly as David fastened the clasp and walked back around the table to sit opposite her.
“Now Falaise, this is an exercise that I know Jeren has been practising with Rachel. I want you to close your eyes, concentrate on me and tell me what you see.”
Falaise obediently closed her eyes and frowned in concentration. Suddenly her eyes shot open and she jerked back as though startled. She looked round the table to find the other three all smiling at her.
