Harmony had closed their borders and severed all contact with the rest of the galaxy fifty years ago. Before that, they’d only allowed a few selected merchants to trade in neutral space. The dribble of real Badger Metal they allowed out didn’t match the need for it.
Now, with the war claiming vessels right, left, and sideways, everyone was running out of Badger Metal. Wildcat scavengers made fortunes collecting battle debris for scraps of Badger Metal that could be recycled.
The effing vultures sold those scraps to the highest bidder. Even if the money came from the Marils.
Since the last battle, both sides had gone into holding mode. Neither one wanted to continue the war without fresh Badger Metal in their hulls. Neither side was willing to let the other have it.
And Harmony didn’t seem to care as long as they were left alone. No one had seen a Harmonite outside their borders in decades. Possibly longer.
And no CSS merchant or agent had entered Harmonite space and returned alive in fifty years.
So every person who wore a CSS uniform was trained to home in on any casually overheard conversation in a bar or marketplace, that mentioned Harmony in any context. The tiniest hint of a rumor coming out of Harmony captured their complete attention.
Jake ceased his rhythmic tapping and edged his fighter three degrees starboard out of formation just to see if the colonel would notice.
“Get back in line, Hannigan!” Colonel Warski barked over the comm.
“Yes, sir. Correcting for drift.” Jake adjusted his position. So much for that ploy.
“No time for drifting in combat, Hannigan,” Warski continued his rebuke.
“This ain’t combat,” Jake muttered with his comm off. “Not even close.”
Suddenly Jake’s screens exploded with data. It looked like a hundred Maril fighters had homed in on the squadron. And behind the fighters loomed a huge battle wagon. The Tactical Tech Team back at base had come up with a new scenario for target practice. And they’d waited until the flyboys were nearly asleep with boredom to spring it on them.
Jake picked his target quickly. On the starboard edge of the formation, he was responsible for making sure none of the bogeys slipped around behind them. Just like in a real battle.
“Sheesh, I hope this is only a simulation,” Lieutenant Marti James breathed. The rookie. A good pilot, on the verge of being almost as good as Jake, but untried in true combat.
Jake could almost smell the woman’s sweat. He keyed in a private comm line to her. “You know this is simulation because the TTT are all born and raised in gravity. They think in two dimensions. The Maril have wings. They are conceived and born in the air. They think in three dimensions. Their formations have depth. This one is flat.”
James breathed a sigh of relief. “Ever seen one of them critters?”
“Yeah, captured one two campaigns ago. His ship was damaged and he had a concussion so we could tow him in before he suicided. Small bodies, very lightly boned. Feathered wings tucked into an extra fold of skin at the back of the arms. Evolved down from real wings. They can still fly in atmosphere, though. Very dexterous hands, talons on the elbow joints that can tear a man in half. The warriors have black wings, hair, and eyes. Iridescent black. It shimmers and shifts colors in the light. Awesome. Beautiful. Terrible.”
“Heard about that one. Too bad his ship was so badly damaged we couldn’t reconstruct their nav system,” James replied.
“Cut the chatter. Close to two thousand klicks and pick your target,” Warski overrode Jake’s private line.
“Closing,” each pilot replied. As one, the entire formation moved closer to the swarm of Marils that were really only data blips on their screens.
Jake kept a wary eye on all of the data, including a real-time screen to the left of the simulation. No sense in letting a real bogey come in out of nowhere while they were occupied with data blips.
Of course the TTT team in the control tower of Space Base III were supposed to be monitoring for that.
He’d known them to slip up before. TTT tended to get caught up in the game of throwing rogue elements into the drills. All in the name of keeping the pilots on their toes.
Jake’s screens flashed white, then went black. Flickers of static pin-pointed with red continued. He cursed fluently as he shut down.
“Hannigan, get back in formation,” Warski growled.
“Propulsion overload,” Jake replied as his diagnostic flashed a solution. “Have to reboot the entire system. I’ll catch up.” This could be a bug programmed into his ship by the TTT. It could be real. Either way, he wasn’t going anywhere for the next six heartbeats.
He counted off the time, then powered up. Lights flashed on and off across his screens. Something . . .
“What’s that anomaly sneaking out from behind Zephron’s major moon?” Jake asked across the system as soon as he had comm. The glare from the minor moon almost masked the new blip on his screen.
Then it winked out.
Real or simulated?
“You’re imagining things again, Jake,” Warski complained. “Watch that bogey to your starboard.”
The anomaly blinked back on.
“You see that, Ron?” he asked his buddy in control back on the station, as he took out an imaginary bogey with simulated pulse weapons.
“See what?” Ron yawned.
“The unauthorized blip that just ducked behind the big moon.” The anomaly was gone again. His squadron had moved beyond range for picking it up. Jake still lagged behind with a trajectory to the blip.
“Yeah, I saw it. It disappeared. Not to worry,” Ron said.
“Whaddya mean not to worry? Is it part of the simulation or not?”
“Lemme ask.”
Jake counted to ten, then ten again while he waited for Ron to interrupt the TTT in their game. He fiddled with his screen resolution as an excuse to remain behind and out of the main action. There it was again.
And gone.
“Not part of the sim as far as I can see,” Ron replied. He didn’t sound excited or interested. “Must be a glitch in the program. Can’t find it now.”
“Bronze fifteen to Bronze one,” Jake called Warski. “I’m going to investigate an anomaly.”
“Stay in formation, Jake. No side trips are authorized. Control can’t find your blip. I never saw it. Must be a malfunction in your system.”
“But it could be the real thing, Colonel. It’s not part of the sim. You’re beyond the window to see it. I’m not.”
“Control says it doesn’t exist. They are in a better position to monitor the entire system than you. I order you to stay in formation.”
The blip appeared again. Bigger, closer. More dangerous.
“Bronze fifteen to control. Are you sending out someone to investigate the unidentified blip?” He held his breath. This could be it. The big push the Marils had put together while they seemed to retreat.
His heart raced with excitement.
“Boss man says to watch and wait,” Ron said. He sounded just as bored as ever.
Jake twitched nervously.
“I don’t think it’s a drone,” he said on an open channel. “It’s not flying a straight, preprogrammed path.”
“Stay in formation, Jake. Leave the thinking to those who are trained to do it,” Warski ordered.
The anomaly stopped wandering, paused as if assessing the risk, then began a straight and accelerating trajectory aimed directly at SB3.
“Bronze fifteen to Bronze one. I can take it out. I am within range. I can intercept before it takes out the base.”
“Base is armed and aware. If that thing truly exists. Which they say it doesn’t. Stay in formation, Major.”
“At that speed it will be on top of base before their weapons power up. I can take it out, Bronze one.”
“Stay in formation. You do not have permission . . .”
“Screw it.” Jake discommed and banked his fighter fifteen degrees to starboard and ten below his
horizon.
“Hannigan, get back here,” Colonel Warski shouted.
Jake shut off all communications. The blue comm light blinked at him accusingly, letting him know that people wanted to talk to him. “Well, I’m done talking to you.”
He powered up his weapons for real, watching the energy run up the scale as he closed with the blip. Five thousand klicks away, he switched to real time and overrode automatic targeting systems.
This bogey he’d take out with skill rather than overwhelming it with superior forces. In pitched battle the CSS fleet had only ever won when they outnumbered the Marils three to one. Today he had only himself to pit against the wily predators.
For that, he needed to see things as they happened and not with the nanosecond delay while the computers interpreted.
The black triangular vessel showed as a mere reflection in the dim glow from the sun and moon. No running lights. It flew by sensor. Who knew how good those sensors were?
Pretty damn good, based on combat experience. And pretty fragile. They’d never found enough parts in the wreckage to reconstruct one. Not even in the ship they had towed back to base.
Three thousand klicks and he was just outside his effective target range. The Maril fighter paid him no never mind and kept going. It looked like it would ram the station.
Jake chilled at the thought of thousands of people sucked out of their safe and secure world into vacuum without EVA suits. Little chance of rescue. Thousands of his buddies killed.
He’d already lost his parents and only brother to the Marils the year Jake entered the Academy. They’d been on land, with atmosphere. That hadn’t saved them. The bombs had wiped out an entire colony. EVA suits wouldn’t have saved them.
He closed to twenty-two hundred klicks and fired his laser cannon. Practically point-blank.
The bogey dodged to port at the last nano. It kept going forward.
Jake adjusted his aim and fired again, this time expecting a jog to starboard.
The bogey ducked under the blast of searing light. The laser revealed the sculpted feather markings on the wings as it passed. Then the vessel nearly disappeared again in the blackness of space.
Damn.
He knew Marils were smart. Bordering on telepathic in avoiding hits. Something to do with the flocking instinct of avians and the need to communicate while staying in formation.
Time to outthink the bogey without thinking.
Jake closed his eyes a nano and let his hands caress the controls, feeling with his entire body how they responded.
When he opened them again, he saw the Maril ship clearly outlined against the lights of SB3, now only fifteen hundred klicks away.
Too close to the station.
If he hit the bogey now, the blast would damage the hull at the launch bays. Any closer, and debris would rupture SB3 in the living section. He had one shot.
“Okay, God. It’s you and me. Let’s take this guy out. Now.”
Before he could think about it, he ducked under the Maril, flipped, and faced its belly.
He fired.
The laser raked the enemy fighter from stem to stern, right through the engine compartment.
Jake jerked his fighter to port and around the station in a tight loop. Debris pinged his tail. He kept going, right back around to his squadron.
A quick sensor check revealed minimal damage to the station. The debris blew outward, just as he planned.
“Major Hannigan, report to base,” Colonel Warski overrode Jake’s comm lockout. “The old man is going to skin you alive and hang your hide on the launch bay doors.”
“I got the bogey while you were minding your ass!” Jake protested.
“You took out one of our own. An operative returning with a captured ship for study. We’ve never had one with an intact sensor and nav system before, and now you just killed a comrade and our only chance to figure out how these things fly!”
CHAPTER THREE
"OVER HERE, MY LAUD.” The anonymous worker in a hard hat beckoned to Gregor da Ivan pa Crystal Temple, High Priest of Harmony.
“This had better be good,” Gregor grumbled. The eight-point-nine-magnitude quake had ripped Harmony City to shreds. Even the Crystal Temple had not been spared the planet’s wrath. Two of the seven great crystal columns that supported the open forecourt had collapsed, bringing the roof down with them.
Marilee du Sharran pu Crystal Temple, the High Priestess, had been trapped beneath. She lay gravely injured in Crystal Temple Hospital. Gregor should be at her side. He needed to be there should she pass so that he could control the political maneuvering to replace Marilee as Harmony’s avatar.
He prayed fervently that his partner would recover.
But he was also HP of all Harmony. Some emergencies outweighed politics. He made sure the ever-present media hover cam caught him picking through the wreckage on a mission of mercy. If the media wanted to separate from the Professionals and become their own caste, let them earn the right. And Gregor’s favor.
His acolyte Guilliam kept the hover cam at a respectful distance, occasionally speaking words of encouragement to the masses at the other end.
The reporter remained at a safe distance.
Thousands lay dead or dying. Large portions of the city crumbled. Fires raged. Broken water mains added rivers to the churning water table. That much moving water turned the land to a slurry of quicksand. The liquifaction had flooded low-lying areas. Riverbanks washed away to the sea.
And all around him, he heard the wails of the injured and the grieving. The stench of death rose like a poisonous miasma, ready to grab him, too, if he weren’t careful.
No caste had been spared. Harmony wreaked havoc on all of her children with equal fury.
“You shouldn’t be here, My Laud,” Guilliam da Baillie pa Crystal Temple whispered shakily so that the hover cam couldn’t hear. He looked back the way they had come. “You need to remain safe. With Laudae Marilee injured, Harmony needs you protected.”
“No one is safe anywhere in the city,” Gregor grumbled. He shuddered as flashes of prophecy from ancient times flashed across his memory.
And the time shall come
When Beloved Harmony
Lashes out in anger.
Out of the ashes of Discord
Will Rise
One who loves us all,
Appeases Harmony,
Brings Chaos,
And restores life.
Gibberish and nonsense. Prophecies only worked in retrospect, not in forecasting the future.
“Go back if you are that frightened, Guilliam. I am needed here.” Gingerly, Gregor picked his way through a field of debris that had once been a major factory with important Spacer contracts. Destruction here meant disastrous delays improving defenses on the frontier. And a disruption of Gregor’s plans.
Guilliam heaved a sigh filled with martyrdom and followed reluctantly. “May I remind you, My Laud, that this quake will be seen as a portent. Your leadership will be questioned. You need to call the High Council and maintain your role . . .” He droned on and on.
The only reason Gregor kept him on was because of his blood bond to Lord Chauncey, a member of the High Council. The only intermarriage between castes allowed was Temple to Noble. Both had small numbers and needed to keep the gene pool from becoming inbred. Intermarriage also allowed alliances to strengthen and grow. Not that Temple people needed marriage or alliances among themselves. Dedicated to Harmony, and only Harmony, their relationships remained as fluid as those of the Goddess’ plants and animals.
Gregor’s assistant also did a good job of organizing the HP’s office. Too much work to teach another acolyte how to do that. Too much work finding an adult acolyte with no ambition to raise to the priesthood and take over from Guillian.
The HP stepped gingerly around chunks of support columns and crunched through mounds of broken bio-plastic. The outside walls had shattered outward, taking huge sections of the twelve floors with it.
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Proof that no building should be allowed to grow beyond the sacred seven stories.
Strangely, the central supervisory tower remained intact. And so did the seven exterior exit staircases.
The ground beneath his feet rolled. He braced himself against a chunk of building as tall as he to ride out the aftershock. More debris rained down on him. He ducked and covered his vulnerable neck and head with crossed arms.
Guilliam cowered and trembled. “Really, My Laud, this place is too dangerous. It will wait until morning. You have no reason to risk your life for a mere Worker.”
“Get out that monitoring equipment we borrowed,” Gregor snarled at the toadie. He should have brought a scientist. Someone more fascinated with the quake than the safety of his own delicate butt. Outside the Spacer caste, true scientists were rare. Gregor had little authority to command the presence of a Professional caste scientist without going through multiple layers of bureaucracy. He should change that. Harmony’s High Priest needed more authority in case of an emergency.
This was definitely an emergency.
After the shock had spent itself, he asked the Worker who led them, “How many dead here?” If ever he needed proof that Harmony was angry with her people for accepting Marilee, a charlatan priestess, as her avatar, this was it.
By Discord, Marilee was convenient. She never questioned Gregor, never interfered, and managed the trivial details of ritual and protocol meticulously.
“Only seven died in this building, My Laud,” the worker said. He had the sharply angled features and long limbs of a higher class. He certainly spoke intelligently. Education had smoothed the rough edges of his accent. The brown X of his caste mark nearly faded into his dark skin. He probably had a noble in his family tree, but the lower caste mark, present at birth, always dominated.
Gregor contained a shudder of dismay. Interbreeding had become too common. It had to stop. Harmony showed her anger today at the many violations of the order set down countless generations ago at the beginning of civilization.
Harmony Page 2
