Peter Nealen's Blog, page 17

Incident at Trakan Part 1

I originally wrote this as a newsletter draw for the separate The Unity Wars newsletter.  Since I’m folding the series into my main author “brand,” I’m going to serialize it here.

Trakan System
Tyrus Cluster
4,400 hours since the fall of Oram Prime

Seventy-five starships hung in the black, only the faint starlight reflecting off their hulls.  Ahead, the star designated Trakan on most starmaps was little more than a slightly brighter pinpoint of light amid dazzling myriads.

The largest formation of ships was made up of angular, chisel-nosed battlecruisers, painted a bright blue, with the wreathed Sigma emblem of the Sparatan Space Force only dimly visible in the star glow.

Nearby floated two dozen broad, dumbbell-shaped star cruisers, their hulls a deep red that almost looked black in the dimness of deep space.  The characters etched on their flanks were alien; tehud symbols spelled out each ship’s name and its place in the Vergsegeilith Task Fleet, out of Bilbissari.

Two ships didn’t fit with either group.  The three-sided, coppery arrowhead bore no markings whatsoever, but was immediately identifiable as belonging to the Order of Shufa, one of the most secretive and rarely seen of the galaxy’s Military Brotherhoods.  The silvery spindle-shape of the Reliant bore the four-pointed star and crossed beam rifles on a blue shield of the Caractacan Brotherhood.

Aboard the largest of the Sparatan battlecruisers, the Ollianus, the command deck was a bustle of activity.  It looked calm, with each of the command officers strapped into his acceleration couch set around the central holo tank, but each man was absorbed in his tasks, preparing the mighty ship for combat.

An extra such couch was placed just behind the ship’s captain’s, where the task force’s strategos could observe the command deck and the holo tank where it hung from the overhead.

“Status?” the olive-skinned man in the strategos’ chair asked.  He was young, visibly younger than the thickset man in the captain’s chair, his lean, bullet head shaved bald and gleaming in the multicolored glow from the holo tank.  Most of the rest of the command deck lighting, a soft yellow, had been muted to allow clear visibility of the holographic symbols.

“All ships report vector-matching maneuvers completed, weapons checks hot, and green across the board to attack, Strategos Vakolo,” the comm officer reported.

“Good,” Geretesk Vakolo replied.  He looked up at the holo.  “Open a channel to the Sengseighelith Vallosgiath.”  He had no idea which of the two sounds was the Bilbissarii commander’s name and which was her rank.  So, he just used them both.

A window opened in the holo tank, revealing the long-nosed, horned visage of a tehud.  He was fairly sure she was the commander.  “All Sparatan ships report ready, Sengseighelith Vallosgiath,” he said.  “What is the Bilbissarii’s status?”

“The Gestiaaghieth is reporting a minor fault in its point-defense system,” the Bilbissarii commander said.  The tehud’s voice was strangely musical.  It was a sound that would have been soothing to anyone but Vakolo at that moment.

“Estimated time to correct it?” he asked tightly.

“Unknown,” she replied.  Her calmness grated on his nerves.

Trakan was deep in the only sketchily-explored parts of the Tyrus Cluster.  And it was smack-dab in the middle of the sphere that loosely circumscribed the last six M’tait attacks, which had been mounting in savagery since they’d appeared out of nowhere to ravage Oram Prime.

Oram Prime had not been the first appearance of the mysterious, powerful raiders in their strange, stone-like ships.  But it had been the first attack in this part of the galaxy.  And things were only getting worse.

Vakolo drummed his fingers on the armrest of his acceleration couch.  He’d had to spend thousands of hours traveling from system to system, planet to planet, arguing with other strategoi, generals, admirals, and other alien and offworlder ranks he couldn’t even pronounce, not to mention diplomats, politicians, and even interstellar traders, to put this attack together.  And now that they were staged, it seemed that delay after delay was leaving them sitting still, twenty AU out from their target, while their emissions raced inward at the speed of light.

“Please inform me when you and your task force are ready,” he said stiffly.  “Vakolo out.”  He blew out an angry sigh.

“Such mechanical problems are common, Strategos,” Captain Doran Koillako said from his own acceleration couch.  He did not look back at Vakolo, but kept his own eyes on the holo tank.  “We are a great distance from the target, yet, which means that there is a great deal of space for our emissions to attenuate.”  The Ollianos’ captain kept his voice low, intended only for his strategos.  He was repeating what Vakolo already knew, but the two of them had already served together long enough that he knew he could do so, when his strategos needed the reminder.

Vakolo, however, wasn’t convinced he did at that point.  “The M’tait are not likely to miss the neutrino signatures of seventy-five warships,” he retorted, “no matter how far out we are.  Time is running out quickly.  If we don’t launch soon, we will lose the element of surprise, and then the attack may as well be suicide.”

“We don’t actually know anything about the M’tait’s detection capabilities,” Koillako replied.  And he was right.  In fact, what was unknown about the M’tait composed a far longer list than what was known.  “M’tait” was not even their name for themselves; no one knew what they called themselves.  It was a sefkhit Jaihenese word, meaning “unreasoning predators.”

“Hail the Reliant,” Vakolo said.

Captain Samuel Redding was already in his armor, his face hidden behind the ridged visor of his helmet.  Unlike the Caractacan Infantry Brothers, his armor did not have the chameleonic coating, and was a spotless white.  It did, however, bear several scars, visible even in the small window, that bore testament to combat that had seen the captain’s ship holed, possibly even clear to the command deck.

“Yes, Strategos?” Redding asked.

No report, simply a, “What do you want?”  But I should have expected that; none of the Brotherhoods have yet accepted direct command from an outsider.  “We are ready to launch, Captain,” he said.  “Is the Reliant ready?”

“The Reliant and Century XVII are prepped and battle ready, Strategos,” Redding said blandly.  “We can launch at any time.”

Vakolo’s lips thinned, but he nodded sharply.  “We appear to be waiting on the Bilbissarii,” he said.

“Yes, I know,” Redding replied.  “Sengseighelith Vallosgiath informed me of their technical difficulties.”

Vakolo briefly wondered if the Caractacan captain knew the difference between the tehud’s rank and her name.  He dismissed the thought as irrelevant.  He probably does.  The oh-so-perfect Brotherhoods take such pride in knowing those sorts of things.

“We will be in contact again when everyone is ready,” he said.  “Vakolo out.”  He stabbed irritably at the control on his own armrest, and Redding’s helmeted head disappeared from the holo tank.

He hesitated to hail the Order of Shufa’s ship.  He wasn’t even sure how they’d found out about the mission; he’d never communicated with any representatives of the Order; in fact, he didn’t know of anyone who had.  They had simply arrived at the staging point, taken up station on the other side of the Reliant, and waited.

But he supposed he had better try.  “Hail the…” he paused, staring at the readout.  No, he had no idea how to pronounce that.  “Hail the Order of Shufa ship.”

“Hailing,” the comms officer replied.  After a few moments, he said, “No reply, sir.”

He heard Koillako grunt.  Well, what does one really expect from them?  If the Caractacans are aloof, the Order of Shufa is downright alien.

Wishing that they were under acceleration so that he could unstrap and pace, Vakolo settled back in his acceleration couch with a frustrated sigh and waited.

***

A surprisingly short time later, the Gestiaaghieth reported the fault corrected, or at least corrected for.  It was hard to tell with the tehud.  While the Bilbissarii included ekuz among them, as well, the majority were tehud, and thus their quirks tended to color whatever the Bilbissarii did.

Almost as one, the seventy-five disparate warships activated their Bergenholm fields, nullifying their inertia, and darted inward toward Trakan at a substantial fraction of the speed of light.

***

“Going inert in five, four, three, two…one.”  There was little sensation when the Bergenholm switched off, and what there was had been roundly put down to psychosomatic effects.  The crew had been in effective freefall during the inertialess approach, and they still were.  But the star had seemingly rushed toward them as they’d raced into the system, along with the dark sphere of their target, that now hung bare light-seconds away.

The target was a planetoid about one thousand seven hundred fifty kilometers in radius, its size putting it somewhere in the classification charts between an asteroid and a rogue moon.  It had an atmosphere, though a thin one, unbreathable by any known sapients.

There was also a source of low-level M’tait emissions somewhere on its surface.  They’d picked that up from the edge of the system, and it had led them all the way in.

“Two starships in orbit,” the tactical officer snapped.  “They are firing their drives and maneuvering.”

“Concentrate all fire on those ships,” Vakolo commanded.  If they were Hunterships, they could be in trouble.  Those monstrosities were terrifically hard to kill, and the few that had been destroyed had left dozens of destroyed ships in their wake before they’d finally been beaten into fragments.

Information flowed through the holo tank as the computer caught up with the sudden influx of emissions that had been picked up as they’d suddenly closed in.  The deep thrum of the spinal mount particle beam cannon warming up was joined by the faint vibrations of the powergun turrets deploying and the deeper thunks of the missiles and X-ray laser pods deploying.

There was a fine line to be trod when deploying for space combat.  All but directed energy weapons, such as the X-ray lasers, tended to be ineffective while inertialess; they reverted to their earlier vector as soon as they cleared the Bergenholm field, often leaving them far behind the ship that fired them.  That counted for the X-ray laser pods, as well; since they were powered by thermonuclear explosions, they were deployed as far from the ship’s hull as possible, meaning they were subject to some of the same limitations as missiles.

Therefore, the trick lay in determining just how close to get before going inert and deploying weapons.  Even over the vast distances involved, decision times measured in seconds—or less—could have lethal consequences.

“Higher ship is launching missiles,” the tactical officer reported, as a swarm of tiny red sparks appeared in the holo display.  “Cascade launch; it looks like she’s emptied her launch cells.  Count is…fifty five Mark V class ship-to-ship shots.  And…she’s going inertialess.”  The ship that had fired was suddenly accelerating away from the planet at hundreds of gees; without the Bergenholm, that kind of acceleration would have destroyed the ship, never mind crushing everyone aboard into a fine red paste.

“Deploy countermeasures,” Koillako snapped.  “And make sure the point defense grid is up.”

Along four tracks that ran the length of the Ollianos’ hull, laser turrets opened fire, pulsing beams of coherent light at distant specks assigned by the computer.  There were too many missiles in the sky for the individual tactical officers to pick out one by one, and they were closing at over fifty gees.

In the visual holo, tiny flares began to sparkle across the face of the planetoid as the point defense lasers found their marks.  The task force had more ships than there were missiles in the sky, and against that concentrated web of point defenses, there was no chance of a shot getting through.  The Sparatan ships had gone inert in a slightly concave formation facing the planetoid, and every single ship’s weapons were being brought to bear.

“Get an X-ray laser solution on that ship,” Vakolo snapped.  “Before it’s out of range.”

“It’s accelerating awfully fast, Strategos,” Koillako said.  “It will have to be a snap shot.”

“Do it,” Vakolo replied grimly.  “I don’t want them escaping.”

By that time, it had become clear that the ships in orbit over the planetoid were no M’tait Hunterships.  The fleeing lighter was a slightly convex cone, its hull scarred and scorched from too many hot atmospheric entries without refitting.  The cruiser still in orbit was a long, segmented cylinder, even more battered and streaked, its hull pitted by decades of micrometeorite impacts.

Vakolo didn’t care.  They had fired on his ships, so they would die.  His own frustration at finding pirates or scavengers—whichever they were did not matter to him—instead of the enemy he’d come looking for only intensified his determination not to let them escape.

The tactical officer’s fingers danced over the controls, running the necessary calculations.  Somewhere in the depths of the gap between the Ollianos and the Scarroko, one of the pods fired its attitude thrusters, turning and bringing its emitter to bear on the vector the tactical officer had input.  With an actinic flash, the pod detonated its thermonuclear explosive, immolating itself and funneling most of the energy into a collimated beam of X-rays.

The target ship was already nearly a light minute away.  Vakolo turned his attention back to the remaining ship.

Off in the distance, a brilliant flare announced the death of the fleeing pirate.  It had taken nearly two minutes for the laser to strike, and another two for the light from the explosion to get back to the task force.

 

The cylindrical pirate ship had already cut its drive, even before the X-ray laser had struck its sister ship.  It had still attained escape velocity, and was moving away from the planetoid, but not quickly.  A surrender message was being blasted on every imaginable frequency in Trade Cant.

“Have the Drogonok rendezvous with that ship and put a prize crew aboard,” Vakolo ordered.  The comms officer immediately moved to relay the message.  Vakolo was watching the holo tank carefully; with the immediate danger presently averted, he could take a moment to develop a more detailed version of the situation on the target.

That they had miscalculated was clear.  If the planetoid had been a M’tait base, there would not have been pirates anywhere near it.  Even the most desperate stayed as clear of M’tait presence as possible.

And yet…there was that signal to consider.

The Sparatan ships were rapidly closing in on the planetoid and beginning to brake, turning their drives toward the darkened sphere with the yellow-orange star behind it, maneuvering for orbital insertion.  The Bilbissarii ships had apparently gone inert before the Sparatans had; they were still several light seconds behind.

“Keep all weapons deployed and ready for action,” Vakolo finally ordered.  “And commence a detailed scan of the planetoid’s surface.  I want to know what’s down there, and I want to be prepared if this whole thing turns out to have been a M’tait trap.”

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Wuhan Coronavirus and IO

Not being an epidemiologist, I’ve generally tried to avoid talking about the Wuhan Coronavirus (go piss up a rope, Uncle Xi).  And the current disruption has got me wondering just how I’m going to continue the Maelstrom Rising series after this, when it comes time to pick it up again.  But that’s not what this post is about.  There are far more knowledgeable people to talk about the Wuhan Coronavirus itself (and how incomplete and inconclusive much of the data is).  I’m going to talk about the comprehensive Chinese Communist Information Operations campaign related to it.

The Wuhan Coronavirus first appeared in Wuhan, China, sometime in December, 2019.  It was not initially identified as such; there were inexplicable cases of pneumonia, and they were increasing rapidly.

Communist countries being what they are, the initial response was more geared toward keeping word from getting out.  After all, everything is always perfect in the Workers’ Paradise.  So, on January 1st, the Wuhan Public Security Bureau summoned Dr. Li Wenliang and accused him of “spreading rumors.”  Dr. Li publicly repented of his “misdemeanors” and promised not to commit further crimes, presumably after being worked over a little.  He wasn’t the only one, either; there are several known Chinese doctors and journalists who have gone missing, and are presumed either imprisoned or dead.  Furthermore, testing of the virus was ordered stopped, and all samples destroyed.

During this time, with the State authorities denying that there was any human-to-human transmission happening, hundreds of thousands of people continued to move in and out of Wuhan, and across international borders.  Japan’s first case was confirmed on January 15.  The first US case was in Washington State on January 21.  The Chinese finally started to quarantine Wuhan on January 23, but by then the cat was out of the bag.

We all know roughly what has come after that.  National Review has a much more comprehensive timeline.  But Beijing will not–cannot, given the Communist mindset–take any responsibility for denying the problem, suppressing research that could have headed things off before it got too bad, and allowing the infected to carry the Wuhan Coronavirus around the world.  Nothing is ever the Communists’ fault.  This goes clear back to the bad old days, when every problem in the world was due to “Western imperialism.”  Or starvation was because “the kulaks are hoarding all the food.”

So, we come to the Information Operations and propaganda (the latter being a facet of the former, but more blatant than some of what we’re seeing).

It has been noted by some in the field that Chinese online IO has shifted gears, taking cues from Russian efforts.  Russian IO tends to be geared toward creating confusion and chaos in the target population, while Chinese efforts have been somewhat more centralized, aimed at constructing and controlling a particular narrative.  Whether it’s embracing the chaos or simple desperation, the Chinese appear to be pointing fingers everywhere but Wuhan.

Only about a week and a half before this writing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian started spreading the rumor online that the US Army was responsible for introducing the virus into China.  That has become a continual drumbeat on Chinese television.  Elsewhere, rumors have been started that it really started in Italy (which has been hit brutally hard by the virus, with thousands dead already).  The fact that Lombardy, which is the epicenter of the epidemic in Italy, has a considerable population of Chinese nationals, of course, goes unremarked.

Now, here’s where it gets a bit more subtle.  Because shortly after the first accusations of US biowarfare came out, rumors began to circulate on social media that perhaps the bad sickness that went around during flu season, with some people suffering a linger cough for weeks, was actually the same as the Wuhan Coronavirus.  In other words, it was already here, and we weathered it.

This is, of course, ignoring the fact that confirmed cases of the Wuhan Coronavirus in the US have followed a similar pattern to cases in China, Italy, South Korea, and Japan, with high fevers and pneumonia, none of which matched up with the ailment during regular flu season.  Nor were there enough deaths or required ventilators to get American doctors’ attention.

And the timing has to be taken into consideration.  Only after Beijing started pointing fingers elsewhere, insisting that the virus didn’t start in Wuhan, did these rumors start to circulate.  Pinning down the source, at this point, would probably be next to impossible, but more than likely, they came from someone in the employ of the Chinese MSS.

This is how IO works.  It’s often not a matter of overt propaganda, though that can play into it.  It is rumor–often being spread by someone unconnected with the source–that gets spread because it resonates somehow.  In this case, I don’t believe that everyone spreading this rumor is sympathetic with the CCP; in fact, many of them hold considerable antipathy for the ChiComs.  But wishful thinking is easily preyed upon by the propagandist, and people really, really want this to be over soon, and not nearly as bad as the doomsayers keep saying that it is (it probably isn’t that bad, but that’s a whole different discussion).  So, the idea that it was already here, it was weathered, and this is all panic over nothing is an appealing idea.

But it’s a lie.  Furthermore, it’s a weaponized lie, being used by the Chinese Communists to deflect blame and, quite possibly, to prompt further destabilization among their strategic rivals.  After all, if they drag everyone down with them, they still have a chance to be a relative superpower.  (Yes, that thread might be worked into later volumes of Maelstrom Rising.)

 

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Getting Into Science Fiction

With the Maelstrom Rising anthology well in the works, Enemy of My Enemy also in the works, and several other projects in development (yes, including a possible new Jed Horn story), I’m preparing to re-launch The Unity Wars.  Some of you are familiar with my first science fiction work, but a lot aren’t (which is why the re-launch).  I published the following on theunitywars.com a couple years ago:

What is The Unity Wars?

Well, it’s an upcoming series of science fiction adventures.  The best description so far is, “The Clone Wars crossed with The Horus Heresy, with influence from the Lensman series, Hammer’s Slammers, and Farscape.”

Confused yet?  Hopefully also curious and a little excited.

I fiddled around with writing science fiction  for several years before I became an action-adventure writer.  It was mostly Star Wars and Wing Commander flavored at the time.  I’ve always enjoyed science fiction, specifically what can often be described as “space opera,” adventures in deep space and on distant worlds.  And I’ve also always wanted to go back to it.

A few years ago (before Disney Star Wars, which we won’t go into), I got a wild hair and asked myself, “What if the Star Wars prequels were better-written?  What if the Clone Wars were more like what was hinted at in the earlier Expanded Universe?”  I started to scribble some notes, but it was ultimately doomed to go nowhere, since I have no desire to get sued into oblivion by Lucasfilm/Disney.

Then Galaxy’s Edge happened.

If you’re not familiar with Galaxy’s Edge, go take a look at www.galacticoutlaws.com.  Nick Cole has described it as StarWarsNotStarWars.  It uses many of the familiar tropes and technology of the Star Wars universe, but is still it’s own setting, its own story.  It is also awesome.  And so the gears started turning again, and I turned back to “Alt Clone Wars.”

I’ve always enjoyed Star Wars (though largely limited to the original trilogy, the X-Wing games, and a few of the novels, most notably Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy).  But some things about it have always bugged me.  Why are all the starships either airplanes in space or naval vessels in space?  Sure, they look cool, but they don’t make much sense in space.  And the less said about the military aspects, the better.  (Clone troopers running at the enemy across open ground, firing from the hip…Bleh.)

Epic Science Fiction

So, I pulled out my old AltStarWars file and started tweaking it.  The end result is the beginnings of what promises to be a sprawling, galaxy-spanning science fiction epic.  There will be several intertwining arcs, aliens, vast fleets and armies, dark conspiracies, and all sorts of space opera goodness.  It’s not Star Wars, or Galaxy’s Edge.  It’s not Lensman.  The Unity Wars is entirely its own story, in its own setting, and it will be going places that no one else has gone.

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Announcing A Maelstrom Rising Anthology

That’s right.  There’s going to be an anthology of stories set in the Maelstrom Rising series.  And it’s going to have some pretty big names in it.

I got the idea the first night at LTUE.  Like I said, the interesting stuff there came from the discussions between panels.  So, though it won’t be a numbered volume in the series, SPOTREPS – A Maelstrom Rising Anthology will be coming out on Kindle and in paperback.

I will have at least one story in it, along with contributions from:

Larry Correia

Mike Kupari

JL Curtis

LawDog

Brad Torgersen

James Rosone

Mike Massa

Steven Hildreth, Jr.

David Reeder

Chris Hernandez

and Jonathan LaForce

It’s a fairly eclectic group: Larry’s a civvie gun guy and a hell of a storyteller; Mike’s been a security contractor and an AF EOD tech (and he and I have already written a story together); Jim Curtis is a retired Naval Aviator; Lawdog is a sheriff’s deputy who grew up in Africa; Brad is a National Guard WO; James Rosone is an Army veteran and a former contractor; Mike Massa was a SEAL (nobody’s perfect); Steven Hildreth is a former Army and NG infantryman; David Reeder is a former AF Security Forces and LEO; Chris Hernandez has been a Marine, National Guard, and LEO, and Jon LaForce was a Marine cannon-cocker.  So, we’ve got a wide range of experience to add to the series, fleshing out some events happening around the novels.

I’ve gotten one of the stories already.  Things are cooking along.  It’s also forced me to codify elements of the setting that I hadn’t had to think about yet, as the published novels haven’t touched on them yet.

Kev Granzow is still doing the covers, and we should have a preorder up sometime soon.

In the meantime, go check out some of the other authors’ work, if you haven’t already.  (Many of them are much bigger than I am.)

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Taliesin’s Riddle

Just got home from Life, The Universe, and Everything in Provo, Utah on Sunday.  It was a great weekend; got to hang out with Larry Correia, Jim Curtis, and quite a few others.  The panels might not have been that useful; it was the conversations around the panels that were enlightening.  Several new projects came out of it, including a  Maelstrom Rising project that I’ll keep under wraps for the moment, but it’s going to be cool.

For today, this is a bit of a blast from the past.  Since I mentioned in last week’s post that I’m delving into some Fantasy and Science Fiction again, I thought I’d put some of my short work up.  This story appeared in an anthology by Superversive Press entitled Tales of the Once and Future King.  Since Superversive folded recently, and the book is out of print, the story rights reverted to me, so here it is.

Taliesin’s Riddle

The spring rains had cleared away, and the morning of the tenth day after Pentecost was bright and green when Ercwlff, son of Cadwgan, rode out from his father’s holdings astride the horse he had received when he had taken arms at the Feast of the Resurrection.  Aderyn Ddu was a fine black gelding, powerful but even-tempered, and the young Ercwlff was as proud of the horse as he was of the gleaming helm, sword, and silver-trimmed shield he had received at his mother’s hands only a few short weeks before.

He whistled as he rode along the old Roman road, over hills and dells green with spring, the first leaves of the oaks, elms, and poplars fluttering against the blue sky and the puffy white clouds that floated like sheep in a celestial field.  He was young, he was strong, he had just taken his arms, and he was on his way to join Arthur’s Knights at Camulodunum.  There could be no grander life.  His mind drifted to dreams of fair maidens and great songs sung of his heroic deeds.  Arthur himself would look on young Ercwlff with respect, and praise him as the greatest of his Knights, indeed, the greatest that Britain had ever seen since Brutus!

So lost in his daydreams was he that he hardly noticed the man sitting beneath the poplar tree at the crossroads until he was nearly atop him.

“Hail, stranger!” the man called.  Ercwlff started and reached for his sword before he saw that the little, pale man sitting beneath the tree was unarmed.  In fact, he appeared to be little more than a beggar, dressed in a tunic of undyed wool, belted with rope.  He was hollow-cheeked and had a stoop to his shoulders; he looked slightly unwell.  He had a small bundle open beside him, with two crusts of coarse, dark bread and a crudely made clay jug.  “Will you share my repast on this fine morning?  There is enough for two of us.”

Ercwlff looked with distaste at the poor fare and said, “I think not.  I have far better to eat and drink, and far to ride.”

“Tsk, tsk,” the little man said.  “Such haste!  And whither are you bound?”

Ercwlff frowned down at the peasant.  Did the man have no sense of how to address a nobleman, one soon to be the greatest of Arthur’s Knights?  “And who are you to ask my business, fellow?” he asked sternly.

The pale man’s bright blue eyes flashed.  “In centuries past, boy,” he said, his voice suddenly bearing a depth and gravity that belied his humble appearance, “I would be the one who determined the nature of your immortality, whether you lived on as a hero or a scoundrel.  For know that you speak with Taliesin.”  As he spoke, he casually lifted the corner of his deer hide cloak.  The dappled sunlight beneath the tree glinted on the golden frame of a harp.

Ercwlff felt the color drain from his cheeks, and he gulped past a throat gone suddenly dry.  Even in these Christian times, no Briton wished to displease a bard, for a bard could make or break a man’s reputation, even as the little man had said.  And a man seeking to join King Arthur and his Knights would do well not to insult or offend the great Taliesin, Arthur’s bard, who had foretold the rise and fall of kings.

“F-forgive me, honored bard,” he stammered.  “I did not know it was you.”

“Indeed,” Taliesin said dryly.  He coughed.  “You are forgiven.  But since we have rediscovered our manners, come, alight and tell me whither you are bound.  It is yet early in the day, surely you can pass a few moments here beneath the trees.”

Shamefacedly, Ercwlff swung down off of Aderyn Ddu’s back and dropped to the ground.  He led the horse into the shade of the elm, looping the reins over a low-hanging branch before he sat on the ground next to Taliesin, reluctantly accepting the stale crust of bread the bard handed him.  A sip from the jug filled his mouth and nose with a thick, malty beer that nearly made him choke, so unready was he for its strength.

“So,” Taliesin said jovially, “tell me of yourself.  Where are you going, and what do you seek?”

Ercwlff gulped down the last of the beer’s fumes and said, “I am going to Camulodunum, to become one of Arthur’s Knights!”

“Ah, I see,” Taliesin said.  “And no doubt you will be a great one.”

“I will be the greatest Knight in the history of Britain!” Ercwlff declared, recalling his daydreams on the road.

But the bard merely raised an eyebrow as he took a sip of the heady beer.  “Indeed?” he said mildly.  “That is a noble goal to strive for.  But there are many great Knights in Camulodunum.  Could you best Bedwyr, for example, whose sword and shield felled hundreds at the shores of Tryfrwyd?”

“Perhaps not right away, but there is no longer any man among my father’s who can best me with the rudeus, and I am only sixteen summers old,” Ercwlff replied.  “Someday I will be able to best even Bedwyr.”

“Ah, but can you ride like Gwalchmai, who sits his horse Keincaled like a centaur of the Greeks, and who no man can withstand when he rides against the Saxons?”

Ercwlff was growing irritated by the other man’s sly doubts.  He looked the bard in the eye, noting how small and soft of body he seemed.  Bard or no bard, who was he to question the abilities of the son of Cadwgan?  That was for Arthur to decide.  But he answered, “I have won every horse race on my father’s lands since I was thirteen!”

“Impressive,” Taliesin said.  “But are you as strong as Cai, who can go nine days and nine nights without needing to breathe or sleep, and who beheaded the giant Wrnach with a single blow?”

Lifting his head high, Ercwlff declared, “I lifted the hero stone and carried it three paces this summer last!”  He stared at Taliesin as if daring him to suggest it was not enough, though deep in his heart he knew it was a very little feat, compared to the tales of Cai.

But Taliesin did not mock him.  Instead, he asked, “And have you the greatness of spirit of Trahaern?”

Ercwlff was about to protest haughtily that of course he did, but he stopped, a frown creasing his features.  He had heard tales of the other three, all famous heroes of Arthur’s Round Table, but he knew of no Knight named Trahaern.

Taliesin noticed his frown.  “Have you never heard the tale of Trahaern?” he asked.

Reluctantly, Ercwlff shook his head.  “Ah, well, it is a little-known tale, I suppose,” Taliesin said.   “But I cannot ask if you are comparable to Trahearn if you have not heard it.  Would you like to?”

Ercwlff nodded.  He could not very well refuse.

Taliesin took a deep breath.  “Trahearn distinguished himself at the Battle of Badon, cutting down many Saxons and fighting right at Arthur’s side, when Cadfael was slain.  So great was his bravery that Arthur raised him to Cadfael’s place at the Round Table that very night.

“After the Battle, Britain saw a time of peace, at least for a little while.  The Saxon invasion was thrown back into the sea, though a few small settlements remained on the Saxon Shore, where Vortigern the Traitor had brought the savage heathens Hengist and Horsa to our shores.  Fall came, the harvest was plentiful, and it was a comfortable winter, since the barns were full and the horses and cattle were fat.

“As winter waned, the days grew longer, and the snows gave way to rain, word began to come north to Camulodunum of a newcomer on the Saxon Shore, a man who had braved the sea even in the winter storms.  His name was Bordan, and he was said to be a giant, half again as tall as the tallest Briton.  They said that he wielded a great, iron-shod club, and that he feared no law of Man or God.  He slew men, women, and children alike, even of his own people, if they displeased him.  He was said to fly into such a frenzy in battle that no blade could bite him, and no shield could turn aside his blows.  The rumors said that he had sworn he would tear Arthur’s head from his shoulders with his own two hands.

“In the first light of dawn, on the Feast of the Annunciation, Trahearn came before Arthur, fully armed.  Sinking to his knees before his lord, he begged leave to ride south and challenge this giant.

“Arthur hesitated, for Trahearn was one of the youngest of his Knights, and he did not wish to see him risk himself in single combat against such a monster as Bordan.  But Trahearn had earned his place as a Knight at Badon, and Arthur could not deny him his request.  He gave his leave for Trahearn to go.  So the young Knight was shriven by the priest, heard the Mass, received the Holy Wafer, and rode out into the rain.

“He rode across a land turned grey by mists and sheets of driving rain, for the spring was yet young, and winter had not yet fully released its grip on Britain.  The darkness and the mist swirled around him, but he pulled his cloak about him and drove on.

“Finally, after a day’s riding, the dim light of the day was failing toward night, and he began to look for a place to shelter for the night.  Peering through the curtains of rain, he saw a dim, flickering light ahead, and he turned his weary horse toward it.

“He rode warily, for enemies both of this world and the Middle World are known to set traps for those seeking shelter in the wild, but he trusted in God as he rode toward the light.

“Yet when he reached the place where he had seen the light, all he saw was a poor crofter’s hut.  The thatch needed patching, and might have been rotting in places, and the daub on the walls was cracked.  Dismounting, he stood before the oxhide curtain that was all that covered the doorway and called out, his voice deep and strong in the dimness and the wet.

“’Hail the house!’ he called.  ‘I am a Knight of the Round Table, seeking shelter for the night.  I mean you no harm.’

“He heard stirring within the hut, and what sounded like the grunting of a pig.  Then the curtain was drawn aside, and a woman peered out.  She was old and homely, and there was a deep sadness in her tired eyes as she looked over the armored Knight standing without her threshold.

“’You are welcome to share my meager shelter, Sir Knight,’ she said, ‘though I have little else to offer.  My husband has died this last day, and I fear that soon his killers will return to slay me and steal our pig, which is our only remaining possession.’  She held the curtain open, and Trahearn stooped to step inside.

“The hut was small, with little in it except a straw tick where the old woman slept, a stone fire ring in the center, where the rain dripped down through the smoke hole in the roof to hiss on the sputtering fire, and a rude table and bench against one wall.  A pig was indeed tied to a stake in the dirt floor against the far wall.

“Trahearn doffed his helm and set his arms against the crumbling daub of the wall.  The ceiling was so low that he must needs duck his head when he stood anywhere but right next to the fire.  ‘How did your husband die, madam?’ he asked the old woman.

“’He had fallen ill over the winter,’ she told him, as she ladled a thin soup into a wooden bowl for him.  ‘But when Cororuc came to take our pig, he struggled from his bed and fought.  Cororuc and his men beat him to the ground and killed him.’  Her voice never broke, but was laden with a deep and lasting sorrow, tempered by a long life of poverty and suffering.  ‘Now Cororuc says that he will come back in the morning to take the pig, along with the last of our corn.  Then I will have nothing, and I will die.’

“Trahearn reached out and took the old woman’s hands in his.  ‘I promise you, Old Mother,’ he said, ‘that this Cororuc will take nothing from you.  On my honor as Arthur’s man, I will not allow it.”

“He then supped with the crofter’s widow, bringing some of his own provisions inside to add to the poor repast.  They prayed together, and then he rolled himself in his cloak and went to sleep on the floor beside the fire, as the old woman retired to her tick.

“In the morning, Trahearn broke his fast with the crofter’s widow before donning his arms and stepping out into the early light.  The rain had ceased, but the clouds still crowded the sky, lowering their gray bulk toward the green earth, where Cororuc stood waiting.

“The bandit was a tall man, sandy-haired like a Saxon, but with a sallow face and sloping shoulders.  No hero, he; he slunk around the borders of Saxon and Briton both, preying on those who could not defend themselves.  He was surprised to see Trahearn step forth, armed for battle, and his sly, cowardly mind immediately turned to the problem of escape; he had no wish to cross blades with a man greater than he.

“’Hail, warrior!’ he called.  ‘It gladdens my heart to see another come to the old widow’s aid.  We have all been worried about her, since her husband died so suddenly.  Such a loss.’  And he shook his head sorrowfully, letting his lank hair hide his face.

“’She told me that her husband was murdered,’ Trahearn said quietly.

“’Did she?’ Cororuc said, with mock surprise.  ‘Well, you know how women can be when they are distraught!  The loss has surely unhinged her mind.’  But his eyes shifted from side to side as he spoke, and Trahearn knew him to be false.  He drew his sword.

“’I name you liar, robber, and murderer, Cororuc,’ he said, his eyes hard as he stared at his foe.  ‘Stand and fight me here, or flee and save your rotten skin.  But if you flee, you must never return or disturb the old widow again.’

“Cororuc dared to look Trahearn in the eye only once, and he saw there only his death should he stand his ground.  With a snarl, he drew his knife, but then hurled it at Trahearn’s head.  The young Knight batted it aside with his shield, even as the robber turned on his heel and fled, scampering into the woods.

“Trahearn watched him flee, his sword still in his hand, his eyes narrowed as he gazed at the surrounding woods and fields, searching for his foes.  For despite his words, Trahearn knew Cororuc for the base and ignoble man that he was, and knew that he would not honor the bond that Trahearn had put upon him.

“Finally, he turned back to the hut, where the old woman watched from the doorway.  ‘I have pressing business in the south, near the Saxon Shore,’ he told her, ‘but I think that I might stay here for another day.  There is much that I might do to help you before I go.’  She said nothing, but only bowed gratefully.  She greatly feared Cororuc’s return.

“Stripping off his armor, though he kept his weapons close at hand, Trahearn set out to do what he could to repair the leaking roof and patch the worst cracks in the daub.  Always his eyes strayed to the surrounding lands, watching for his enemies.

“As night fell, he drew water from the well and watered his horse and the pig, before washing away the dirt of the day’s labors.  He once again shared his provisions with the crofter’s widow before they retired for the night.

“When he arose and donned his armor the next morning, there were three men standing a stone’s throw outside the hut.  They were dirty and ragged, with rusty axes and knives in their hands.  He knew at once that Cororuc had sent them.  In fact, he had been expecting them.

“He stood tall and straight in the door, the morning sun gleaming off his mail and his helm like fire.  He said not a word, but raised his sword in salute.

“With a wordless roar, as if to steel their courage to face the shining figure who denied them, all three of the ragged outlaws charged.

“Trahearn stepped to meet them, deflecting one man aside to stumble and fall to the ground with a blow of his shield, while his sword flashed in the morning sun to crash down upon the head of the next.  The dead man fell onto the last brigand, who staggered and fell.

“Stepping back to the doorway, Trahearn faced the first man, who had come back to his feet and swung his axe wildly at the Knight’s head.  He ducked beneath the blow and ran the man through before dragging his blade clear and pivoting to meet the third man.

“That one looked at his two companions, one dead, the other dying, then dropped his seax and fled.

“Trahearn waited until he was gone, then turned to the man he had stabbed.  He gave him water, pillowed his head on his own cloak, and prayed over him until he breathed no more.  Then he buried both brigands some way from the hut.

“’My errand in the south is still pressing,’ he told the widow, ‘but there is still much I might do to help you.  I think I might spare another day.’  For he still expected Cororuc to return.

“Once again, he worked about the croft, mending what he could, and kept watch.  In the evening, he supped and prayed with the widow, before she went to her straw tick and he to the floor.

“At the dawn of the third day, he once again prayed and donned his mail.  When he stepped out of the hut, his sword and shield in hand, he faced Cororuc and fully twenty men, all as ragged and filthy as the three he had faced the day before, armed with spears, axes, and bills.

“’It need not have ended this way, warrior,’ Cororuc called out.

“’Indeed not,’ Trahearn answered.  ‘Had you let the widow be, as I bid, you would have lived far longer.  Come now, dogs, and meet your judgement.’

“With a shout, they charged him, all twenty men at once.  But he held his ground, his back to the hut, and laid about him with his flashing sword.  He laid the brigands down in heaps, each blow reaping another robber’s life.  Yet he was badly outnumbered, and soon his mail was in tatters, and he bled from many wounds.

“The robbers fell back, and he leaned on his sword, surrounded by the bodies of his foes.  His breath heaved from his chest as he watched Cororuc and his remaining robbers.  He said nothing more.  There was nothing more to be said.

“But Cororuc knew that his men’s courage was faltering.  ‘Look!’ he exclaimed.  ‘The interloper weakens and bleeds!  One more charge will finish him!’  And he suited actions to words, lifting his pitted axe and running at Trahearn.

“Cororuc was a better fighter than his rabble, and their weapons clashed again and again.  Stroke and counterstroke fell on blade, haft, and shield, and the fields echoed with the noise of their blows.  Three times they fell back from one another, gasping with weariness and bleeding from their many wounds, only to crash together again three times.

“On the third clash, Cororuc swung low, and his axe slid beneath Trahearn’s shield, to bite deeply into his leg, even as Trahearn’s sword crashed down upon Cororuc’s unarmored head.  The robber’s spirit fled to its final judgement, even as his men fled to the woods in panic at the sight of their leader’s death.

“Trahearn knew he had taken his death wound at the last.  Looking up to Heaven, he prayed his act of contrition, before he lay down and died.”

Taliesin fell silent.  Ercwlff had been listening intently, his eyes afar off as he pictured the valiant battles of the Knight, but now he started, realizing that the story was over.  “But, he did not find and battle Bordan!” he protested.  “I thought you said that he was a great Knight!”

“He was,” Taliesin replied mildly.  “Can you truly not see why?”

“But he died for nothing!” Ercwlff protested.  “He died fighting some ragged robbers over a crofter’s hut!”  When Taliesin simply looked at him with a raised eyebrow, he suddenly had an idea.  “The old woman!” he exclaimed.  “She was a princess magically disguised, or a saint!”  He straightened ever so slightly, proud that he had figured it out.

But Taliesin only shook his head.  “No, she was no princess,” he replied.  “She was exactly what she appeared to be; a poor crofter’s widow.  And a rather ugly one, at that.  As for whether she was a saint?”  He rubbed his chin.  “It is possible, certainly, though I know of no miracles attached to her name.”

“She died?” Ercwlff asked, even more confused and upset.

“Indeed,” Taliesin said.  “That very night, she stumbled and struck her head on the hearth.  She never woke.”

Ercwlff threw his hands in the air.  “Then Trahearn’s death becomes even more meaningless!” he exclaimed.  “He fought and died for a woman who only died the same day anyway!”

“Meaningless?” Taliesin said, a stern note entering his voice.  “Do you really think so?”

Ercwlff racked his mind for the answer, growing somewhat desperate that he did not understand the bard’s tale.  He knew that it was a test, and one that he feared he was failing.  “The pig!” he exclaimed.  “The pig was enchanted, or, or, it was an Oracular Pig, that could speak prophecy!  That was why it was so valuable!  Trahearn must have known it, somehow, when he entered the hut the first night.”

Taliesin only shook his head sadly, looking down at the grass.  “No, the pig was only a pig.  In time, it pulled itself loose and ran off into the woods to root for acorns.  I imagine it is still there, unless a hunter or a wolf took it.”

He looked up and met Ercwlff’s eyes, and there was an icy fire in his gaze.  “Turn around, son of Cadwgan,” he said, his voice deep and ringing with authority.  “Return to your father’s house.  If you do not understand the lesson of the Tale of Trahearn, then you are not ready to seek Knighthood in Camulodunum.”

His head hanging, Ercwlff rose slowly and untied Aderyn Ddu, fighting back tears of rage and disappointment.  He had failed before he had even reached his destination, just like Trahearn.  He did not think of gainsaying the bard; one angered any bard at one’s peril, let alone Arthur’s bard.

As he swung into the saddle, however, Taliesin called out to him.  “Should you discover the meaning of my tale, young Ercwlff,” he said, “return here in a year and a day.  Then we shall see if you are ready.”

Ercwlff felt the bright blue eyes of the bard on his back as he rode away.

 

On the eleventh day after Pentecost, the next year, an older, more weathered Ercwlff rode along the same road.  The weather was not as fine, this time.  There was a chill bite to the breeze, and clouds scudded across the sky.  The sun still shone dappled gold on the land beneath the puffs of white and gray, though, and Ercwlff did not see the weather as an omen.  He rode with hope in his heart.

His arms and armor were perhaps more worn than they had been a year and a day before.  He bore scars on his arms that he had not that past day.  He hoped that he bore greater wisdom along with them.

Taliesin was waiting at the crossroads, beneath the same elm tree, with the same simple repast laid out beside him.  While Ercwlff was stronger and larger than he had been the last time, the bard seemed to have shrunken.  There was a sickly cast to his skin, and his eyes were now as sunken as his cheeks.  The fire in them was no less bright, however.

“Hail, honored bard,” Ercwlff called.  “May I join you?”

“Certainly, young Ercwlff,” Taliesin called jovially, though his voice was thinner and threadier than it had been.  “Come and share my dinner.”

This time Ercwlff held a sack from his saddle bows as he dropped to the ground and let Aderyn Ddu graze.  He opened it to draw out two apples, wrinkled from a winter in the barrel, but still sound, and a wheel of cheese.  He set them down next to the bard’s bread and beer, and sat on the ground across from the other man.

They gave thanks to God for His bounty, and ate.  Unlike the last time, there was a quiet contentedness to the meal.  Ercwlff felt a faint anxiety about the discussion to come, but his prideful impatience from the last time he had sat there was gone.

“Well, then,” Taliesin said, brushing the last crumbs from his tunic, “what have you learned since last we spoke, son of Cadwgan?”

Ercwlff had not asked how Taliesin knew his name or his father, even though he had, to his shame, realized after he had departed that he had never properly introduced himself.  He did not ask now.

“I believe I know the lesson of the Tale of Trahearn,” he said carefully.  He took a deep breath and met the bard’s bright gaze.

“It did not matter that the widow was only a poor widow who did not even live to enjoy the life that Trahearn had sacrificed his own to save,” he said.  “It did not matter that the pig was only a pig.  It did not matter that Trahearn died before he did great deeds of song and legend, fighting Bordan.  It only mattered that he was a Knight, and that the old woman was in need.  A Knight may not choose his quests based on the glory of this world.  It was right in the eyes of God, and therefore it was his duty.  So, he did it, unto his last breath.”

He waited for a moment, hardly daring to breathe.  But Taliesin smiled widely, and Ercwlff knew he had answered rightly.

“Very good, son of Cadwgan,” Taliesin said.  But he did not say more.

Ercwlff swallowed.  “And I know the other part of the riddle,” he said softly.

The bard raised an eyebrow.  “Indeed?” he replied.

Ercwlff nodded, hardly daring to meet the bard’s eyes now.  “I know why you told me the tale in the first place,” he said.  “Because of my pride.  Not my boastfulness, but my pride.  For I was rude to you.”  He forced himself to look the bard in the eye.  “Not to Taliesin, the Court Bard of King Arthur.  But I was a nobleman seeking to be a Knight, and yet I was rude to a poor man who offered to share what little he had.  Because I thought myself above him.”  He hung his head then, having given words to his shame.

But Taliesin nodded, and reached out to pat his shoulder.  “Indeed, you have learned much in a year and a day, son of Cadwgan,” he said quietly.  “’Many who are first, shall be last, and the last shall be first,’” he quoted.  He stood, looming over the young man suddenly.  Putting his fingers to his lips, he whistled, and a brilliant white horse trotted out of the trees from across the road.

“Come, young Ercwlff,” he said.  “Let us ride to Camulodunum.  You have many trials ahead before Arthur will make you a Knight, but I think that now, at last, you are ready to ask it of him.”

The post Taliesin’s Riddle appeared first on American Praetorians.

Some Writing Updates

Well, Crimson Star has been out for a little over a week and a half, and it’s doing pretty well.  A few reviews are in, and some of you have said it’s actually your favorite of the series so far.  Some of that seems to be because a lot of it is much more irregular warfare, more reminiscent of the American Praetorians series.  To that, all I have to say is that as the war drags on, and more expensive (and irreplaceable) assets get taken off the board, the more irregular this next World War is going to get.

I was planning for Hank and his section to head out into the Pacific after the Chinese following Crimson Star, but now that the first volume of his arc is done, it’s not looking quite so cut and dried.  The state of affairs CONUS is bad enough that the response is going to take time.  At any rate, we’ll be back to Matt’s Grex Luporum Team in the ETO with Strategic Assets later on this year.

Before that comes Brannigan’s Blackhearts #8 – Enemy of My Enemy.  That’s going to be fun (we may see a certain Russian mobster again from Fury in the Gulf).

However, there might be a little more time between now and Enemy of My Enemy.  And here’s why.

I spent all year on military fiction.  Not a bad thing, all told; most of you read my stuff for that.  But last year was the first year in which that was all I wrote.  No genre jumping at all.  And it told.  I really struggled to get Crimson Star finished, and in time.

So, I’m re-cocking and building in some anti-burnout time this year.  I’ll still be writing, and I’m going to be picking up on Brannigan’s Blackhearts soon, but I’m weaving in some other projects, both science fiction and fantasy.  (Yes, I’ve started outlining another Jed Horn novel; no, I don’t have an ETA for that one.)  I might also be attempting to relaunch The Unity Wars, just this time under my full name, since I’ve gotten several comments from readers who were interested, but didn’t know it existed, since I tried to keep it a separate brand.

The fantasy project, part of what Nick Cole calls “Tolkienism,” is going to be a bit of a departure for me.  Something of an experiment, if you will.  I’m still not sure exactly how I’m going to approach publishing it; I might serialize it online first, with an eye to publishing in ebook and paperback later on.  We’ll see.  Act 1 is outlined already.  Got to put some more thought into it.

But, the SF/F projects will likely be weekend projects once I get Enemy of My Enemy outlined, so that I’ll be working on them in parallel.  I did that a little bit in 2018, and it worked okay.

Now, back to the word mines.

Oh, and if you have finished Crimson Star and enjoyed it, please consider leaving an Amazon review.

The post Some Writing Updates appeared first on American Praetorians.

Signed Copies of Crimson Star

I haven’t been promoting my own shop quite as much as I possibly should have.  It’s there, though, with signed copies of all my books (as well as plenty of the American Praetorians patches from years ago), available.  I’ve even just updated the inventory.

The occasion for this announcement is, of course, the box with author copies of Crimson Star showing up on my front porch this morning.  So, those are now available, along with everything else.

Head over and give it a look.

(Note: while they’re unlisted at the moment, I do still have copies of the older editions, with the old covers, of several of my books that have since been updated.  If by chance you’re one of those kind of completionists, or just want what might, possibly, in a distant future, become a collectible, contact me and I can set up a temp listing.)

The post Signed Copies of Crimson Star appeared first on American Praetorians.

On the Author Stories Podcast

Just posting a quick link today.  A couple months ago, Hank Garner, who runs the Author Stories podcast, contacted me to invite me on the show.  He had picked up Escalation and was enjoying the series.  So, a few days before Crimson Star came out, we sat down and had a chat.

You can listen to it here.

It was really great to be on the show.  That somebody like Hank, who has interviewed far more high-profile authors than I, took an interest is gratifying.  If you’re reading this, Hank, thanks again for having me on.

The post On the Author Stories Podcast appeared first on American Praetorians.

A Volatile Situation Boils Over – Crimson Star is Out!

While Matt Bowen and his Grex Luporum team close in on their target in Slovakia, Hank Foss has a different set of problems.

A hotbed of unrest, rampant crime, and political violence, Phoenix has plenty for a Triarii Infantry Section to do. Especially when a narco capo starts forming his own revolutionary movement.

But things can always get worse.

The power grid goes down. Desperation mounts. Chaos intensifies. Blackouts bring coordinated attacks. The system grinds to a violent halt.

And the only source of help might be a Trojan Horse.

Because the People’s Republic of China only offers aid with strings attached…

With Crimson Star, we take a step back in time to events contemporaneous with Escalation.  We get to see just how bad things have gotten Stateside.  And we get to see the…event…first hand.

It’s live now on Kindle and Paperback!

The post A Volatile Situation Boils Over – Crimson Star is Out! appeared first on American Praetorians.

Crimson Star Chapter 2

He went in fast, going over the corpse in the doorway and stepping right.  There wasn’t a good place to move in the entryway; it formed a short hallway that opened up on the kitchen in the open central room, with a double door immediately to the left, that was currently closed.

The closed door wasn’t the immediate threat, though.  The two men and a woman in the kitchen, the woman coming out of the bedroom beyond with what looked like a semi-auto shotgun, were.

He stroked the trigger as he moved, driving forward and slowing just enough that he wouldn’t quite clear the short wall to his right before he dealt with the three threats in front of him.  His first shot took the tall, bald, heavily muscled man, covered in tattoos, high in the chest.  Red blossomed on the man’s white wife-beater and sprayed from his back, spattering the woman with the bobbed hair and red shirt in the face.  She blinked as the man crashed onto his back in front of her, then Huntsman put a bullet through her skull, the thunderclap of the report physically painful in the enclosed space.  Hank could already feel his ears deadening, but he hadn’t wanted to risk missing a vital audible cue while on the stalk.

He’d already started to transition as soon as a part of his mind that was almost completely subconscious had registered that his first shot had blown through the bald man’s heart.  His muzzle swung toward the third man, who had already figured out that things had gone sideways, and was diving to get behind the counter and the sink.  Hank’s first shot clipped him, and he staggered, then disappeared behind the counter.

That presented a problem.  Hank had advanced as he’d fought, and was now at the end of the short wall on his right.  There were several open doors ahead and to either side of him, but the space right next to him was the most immediate threat, simply because he couldn’t see into it.  And he was pretty sure that the wall wasn’t bulletproof, which meant that if there was anyone over there, they were going to start blasting through it in a matter of seconds.

Which, of course, was why he had a stack with him.  He felt a hand squeeze his shoulder as a muzzle was leveled past his ear.  One of the others was with him, and he had the go ahead.

He hooked around the end of the wall and ran right into another sicario.

The man was small and wiry, with a pointed, weaselly face and a scrubby, unkempt beard and mustache.  He’d been crouched behind the wall, an AR pistol in his hands.  Hank had a split second to recognize the threat, and kicked the smaller man in the chest, knocking the muzzle aside.  It smashed into the plaster, gouging a hole in the wall as the man toppled backward.

Hank stomped on him as he tried to wrestle the pistol back around while simultaneously trying to grab the AR-10’s muzzle.  The man folded around his size twelve boot, but didn’t stop trying to reach for the rifle as Hank lifted it clear, taking it out of his shoulder in the process.  He shifted his foot to stomp on the little man’s gun arm as the pistol started to come away from the wall and toward his face, and he saw the man’s expression, already stark with desperation, twist in pain as his radius and ulna snapped under Hank’s boot.  The pistol clattered to the floor, as muzzle blast slapped both of them over Hank’s shoulder.  He just barely saw another figure collapse backward against a couch in a welter of blood that splashed across the cream-colored leather upholstery.

The man beneath him was still fighting, trying to hook his legs around Hank’s and still desperately trying to get a grip on the rifle muzzle.  Despite the intense pain he had to be in with his broken arm, he was hardened enough to still realize that his life was on the line.  He was twisting and squirming, desperately trying to keep Hank from getting a shot at him, and so far, he was succeeding; it was a fight enough just to stay on his feet with the skinny sicario underneath him.

The man got a foot behind his ankle, and he lunged to the side, deliberately slamming his shoulder into the wall to brace himself before he pulled his foot back and planted it hard on the man’s throat.

The fight suddenly went out of the sicario for a moment as his eyes bulged and he gasped for breath.  It gave Hank the split second he needed to get his rifle back in his shoulder.  He barely aimed; his muzzle was almost touching his adversary’s skull when he put a bullet between the man’s eyes.  The crack sounded like the world’s biggest slamming door, and the man’s head bounced, his eyes bulging around the smoking hole in his forehead.  Blood splashed from the entry wound, spattered by the muzzle blast from less than a foot away, covering Hank’s boots with flecks of red.  A crimson puddle started to flow out from under the man’s shattered skull.

He stepped away from the corpse, snapping his rifle up and scanning across the room.  The alcove he’d stepped into had formed the living room, framed by three couches and a couple of easy chairs, with a coffee table—currently covered in porn and drug paraphernalia—in the center.  The other rooms of the house were arranged in a U-shape around the other side of the central, open kitchen.

The rest of his team was already half-finished clearing those rooms, moving clockwise around the rough circle of the house.  Even as he took in the situation at a glance, Huntsman and Faris kicked in the door across from him and went in.  He noted that Faris, who was Third Squad’s squad leader, let Huntsman go first.

That was an issue for another time.  Rifle shots slammed in the room, but he was already moving toward the nearest door, off to his right, with the man who’d entered the living room with him, whom he’d only just then seen was Calvin, falling in at his shoulder, rifle up and covering the uncleared door between them and the room that Faris and Huntsman had just entered.

The door ahead was open, and all he could see from his angle was another blank wall, with the jamb of another door just visible inside.  He didn’t pause at the doorway.  He could feel Calvin right at his back, the other man’s elbow pressing against his shoulder.  Instead, he simply flowed in, button-hooking around the doorjamb.

He hit the door itself, which was half-open, and rode it around, his weapon tracking across the master bedroom as he moved.  He took in the queen-sized bed, empty and with the covers thrown aside, as he swept across it.  Then he’d reached the limit of the door’s movement, pinning it back against the wall with his boot as his eyes and muzzle cleared the far corner.  The bedroom was empty.

He turned back toward the inside door.  That was probably the master bathroom.  And the door was closed.

He stepped wide, trying to stay out of the direct line of the doorway, but coming up against the side of the bed.  He still stayed as far over to the right as he could get.

A moment later, his caution was rewarded as a shotgun blast blew a fist-sized hole through the hollow interior door, scattering fragments over the plush carpet and rattling buckshot into the plaster of the far wall.

Calvin had held back, having taken up a position just inside the bedroom door, though he was exposed to the open area they’d come from.  Now, he put his back to the inside wall and donkey-kicked the bathroom door, sending the wrecked and splintered door crashing in.  It swung and bounced off the short interior wall inside, but that gave Hank his opening.

He didn’t run right in at first, but leaned out, clearing what he could see as he moved.  And he saw the man with the shotgun crouched in the toilet alcove beyond the sink and the counter, and his red dot settled naturally on the man’s head from less than three yards away.

His rifle had already been off safe, and it took a fraction of a second for his gloved finger to slip inside the trigger guard.  The rifle bucked in his shoulder as the rifle boomed in the doorway.  The man’s head jerked back, red spattering on the porcelain and the tan-painted plaster behind him, and he slumped off the toilet and fell on his face, crumpled into an unnatural position on the bloodied tiles.

Hank had only paused for a heartbeat to take the shot, and now he drove through the door, hooking around the short wall into the dressing alcove while Calvin moved behind him, going straight toward the dead man in front of the toilet.

The alcove took a brief glance to clear.  It was empty.  A moment later, Calvin called out, “Small room, clear.”

Lowering his rifle, Hank stepped out of the bathroom.  “Clear,” he called, just to make sure that none of the rest of his Triarii came charging into the room and misidentified the two men in desert tan and carrying rifles.  It was unlikely, given how hard they’d trained together, but combat gets men amped up like training can never quite simulate, and he’d seen some pretty boneheaded moves in training.

“All clear,” came the reply.  Hank’s eyes narrowed slightly as he recognized the voice.  Huntsman was stepping up that night, but it meant that Faris wasn’t.  Which was a problem when Faris was supposed to be the damn squad leader.

Hank stepped out into the great room, such as it was.  There was a skylight over the kitchen, and another over the living room, but it was the middle of the night.  Two of the floor lamps had been blasted to wreckage in the short, sharp firefight inside, but the recessed ceiling lights were still on, casting a warm, yellowish glow over the interior.

“Everybody shut up for a second,” he said, as he stepped back toward the open front door where they’d made entry.  He stuck his head out and listened.

A few shots still echoed across the desert, but they mostly seemed to be coming from outside.  A sudden fusillade of six 7.62 shots thundered from the south, and then everything went quiet.

“Calvin, get my radio out,” Hank said, jerking his support hand thumb toward his pack.

Calvin didn’t have to dig much; the radio pouch was MOLLEed onto the side of the pack.  He came out with the radio and handed it to Hank, who twisted the dial to turn it on.

“All Papa Two Four stations, this is Six,” he called.  “Status.”

“Target Two, clear,” Spencer replied.

“Target Three is clear,” Lovell said, sounding, as ever, more like a stereotypical surfer than a soldier.

“We had two squirters from Target Two,” LaForce said.  “Both are neutralized.”

“Roger,” Hank replied, checking his watch.  It had been a grand total of about fifteen minutes from when he’d left his position in the wash.  “Check the bodies, then rally at the exfil point.  I want to be off the X in ten minutes, starting now.  Six out.”

He stuffed the radio into a side pouch of his vest; he wasn’t planning on crawling again unless things really went south, and they’d hit the meeting hard enough and fast enough that it was unlikely that any Soldados de Aztlan QRF was going to get there anytime soon.  Certainly not within the next ten minutes.

He turned back inside.  The other Triarii who weren’t holding security on the two exterior doors were checking over the corpses, taking quick photos of dead faces.  Huntsman looked up as Hank came back into the main room; Faris was leaning against the wall on the other side of the kitchen, and only straightened up when Hank shot him a look.

“Doesn’t look like Muñoz was here, boss,” Huntsman said.  The young man had been a SWAT cop in Tucson until he’d joined up.  He was built like a fireplug, with fiery red hair currently covered by a tan do-rag, and a freckled ginger-kid complexion hidden by sand and loam camouflage face paint.  His green eyes stood out in the desert tones.  “None of them are matching the facial recognition pattern.”  There weren’t many photos of Muñoz available, and he was clearly heavily disguised in the ones they had, but a couple had provided a good angle to measure distances between eyes, nose, cheekbones, and chin.

“Damn,” Hank muttered, looking down at the weaselly man he’d shot in the face from less than a foot away.  “This was supposed to be the main meeting house.”

“We’ve got somebody, though,” Fernandez said.  Fernandez was every bit as wide as Huntsman, only standing a head taller.  With his black hair cropped short and a short goatee, he looked like a shaved gorilla.  “Check this out.”

Hank joined him and looked down at the body lying beside the bed in one of the smaller bedrooms.  The dead man had fallen on his face, but Fernandez had toed him over, and he was now sprawled on his back in a slowly drying stain of his own blood on the carpet.

Hank tilted his head to get a better look.  The face was somewhat distorted since a .30 caliber bullet had gone through it.  “Is that Cruz?”

Fernandez was tucking the camera back in his chest rig.  “Pretty sure it is,” he said.  “Antonio Eduardo Alonso Cruz, in the flesh.”  He shrugged.  “Well, not so much anymore.  He’s gone.  But that’s what’s left of him.”

Hank just snorted.  Cruz had been on their radar for almost as long as Muñoz.  He’d been a minor narco capo who had tried to run a coup against the leadership of the Sinaloa Federation, failed, and run across the border, taking up with the Soldados de Aztlan to try to save his own skin.  The SdA had a lot of known narcos in their ranks, and while they were nowhere near as brutal as some of the cartels running around Mexico and the Southwest, they presented enough of a threat to give Cruz some protection.

He’d rapidly become Muñoz’ right-hand-man, in large part because of his charisma and his cruelty.  That was over, anyway.

“Well,” Hank muttered, “at least it’s not a complete dry hole if Muñoz is a no-show.”

“Six, this is Five,” Spencer’s voice crackled over the radio.  “Dry hole.  We’re pulling off to the rally point.”

“This is One,” Lovell called.  Even over the radio, he still managed to sound like he was half asleep.  “We’ve got some minor players, but no sign of Sidewinder.”  Even with encryption, the Triarii didn’t necessarily want to transmit names, even of targets, over the radio.  Some genius had started giving all the High Value Targets around the Southwest snake code names.  Muñoz was Sidewinder.

“Roger,” Hank replied.  “No sign of Sidewinder here, either, but we got Massasauga.  Moving to the rally point now.”

“What about her?” DeVoto asked.  The skinny man was looking down at the woman who’d been blasted when she’d come out into the kitchen area with two shotguns.  She’d taken three rounds to the torso, but her face was otherwise untouched, except for a few drops of blood on her chin.  She was Hispanic, with black hair in a bob cut, wearing a tight, crop-top red and black striped t-shirt, now soaked in her own blood.  “She looks familiar.”

Hank shone his weapon light on the corpse.  She did look familiar.  But not from one of the narco/Soldados intel briefs.

“I don’t know,” he said, glancing at his watch again.  They had about two more minutes.  “Get pictures, then we need to be gone.”  Fernandez stepped up with the camera, and the flash flickered in the abattoir that had been an underground kitchen until a few minutes before.

“Time’s up,” Hank barked.  “Everybody out and back to the rally point.  Tactical column; let’s not get sloppy.”

A few minutes later, all that was left in the trio of houses were bodies, bullet holes, and bloodstains.

Crimson Star is now up for pre-order, going live on Thursday, January 30.  And, for a limited time, Escalation is only $0.99 on Kindle.

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