Eric Flint's Blog, page 167

The Spark – Snippet 02

The Spark – Snippet 02

You don’t need an animal to walk the Road, you can wear polarized filters. I’ve seen good ones of mica, though a Maker of any skill can build better ones out of raw sand. Seeing through an animal’s eyes works a lot better, though, and most people can manage the trick even if they don’t know the animal real well.

Carole had a fluffy white cat. Cats are supposed to be great, slipping along instead of ramming through rough patches the way dogs do, but they’re no good in a fight. You can’t control what they’re going to do, and if you’ve got to fight your beast as well as your opponent, you’re probably going to get the blazes knocked out of you.

Heyman, one of two merchants on the way to Dun Add, had a sleek gazehound that his pair of bearers used also. Heyman traded in textiles. He didn’t talk much, not with the likes of me anyway, but his bearers said that some of his fabric had been woven in Not Here.

Rilk, the other merchant, carried a pack heavier than I’d have wanted to heft on a long trek. It was pottery that he’d turned and fired himself. Nothing fancy, just undecorated earthenware, but I liked the shape of some of his mugs. If we’d been back on Beune, I’d have bought a couple.

Rilk had a mongrel named Sachem. There wasn’t a lot to choose between him and Buck, though Sachem was a good few years older.

I never saw the point of fancy breeds, but maybe that was sour grapes. You weren’t going to get hounds like Heyman’s on Beune; and if you had, I wouldn’t have been able to afford one. I’d sold the farm to a neighbor to get enough money to buy food for me and Buck on the way to Dun Add.

“Oh Pal…?” Mercy called, walking over close to me. “Is it true that we’re getting close to Dun Add, the way Carole says?”

“She ought to know, Mike,” I said, nodding toward Dame Carole. She glared back like she wanted to slip a dagger in me, though she must see that I wasn’t doing anything to encourage Mercy. “Duncan here tells me the same.”

Mercy looked like she wanted to come closer yet, but I clicked my tongue to Buck and we stepped out a little quicker. Seeing through Buck’s eyes, the Road was a stretch of poles laid edge to edge on the ground; in grays and browns, of course. We’d been pacing along comfortably; speeding up was clumsy and more tiring, so I backed off after I’d put the girl a step or two behind us.

“Pal, I wonder if we’ll see each other in the city?” Mercy called. “You know, it’s all new to me and I’d like to see it with a friend.”

“I guess you and your dad can hire a guide, Mike,” I said. “For myself, I don’t know anything about the place. I’m going to be real busy besides.”

Duncan stayed quiet until Mercy had taken her disappointment back to her father. Then he chuckled and said, “She thinks she’s old enough, lad.”

“That’s between her and God,” I said. I grimaced because I sounded like a right little god-bothering prig, which I’m not. But you shouldn’t be trifling with fourteen-year-old girls unless, I suppose, you’re fourteen yourself and you’re inclined that way. I hadn’t been inclined, and now I was twenty.

“Your choice, lad,” Duncan said, shrugging. “Carole settles as soon as we step onto the landing place, and I’ll pay you back right off.”

He grimaced much the way I just had. “I have to do it then,” he muttered, “because like as not I won’t have it in a couple days. I used’a tell myself it’d be different this time, but by now I don’t guess it will be.”

Duncan wasn’t a bad fellow. He’d helped me a lot when we stopped at way stations.

It was my first time any distance on the Road. Before I met Duncan–and the rest of Dame Carole’s crew–I’d been sleeping rough. I knew the innkeepers weren’t giving me fair quotes, but I didn’t know what was fair, so I couldn’t beat them down. Duncan got me in at better rates than any lone traveler was going to get, because he made it sound like I was another of Carole’s guards.

The lie bothered me a bit, but Duncan said that if we were attacked he bloody well expected I’d fight too–which I surely would. I guess it was all right.

Duncan had gotten an advance on his wages before they set off, but by the time I fell in with Dame Carole he was stony broke. I loaned him money for ale or whatever the waystations had; but not too much. He’d say things when I cut him off, but I think in his heart he was just as glad I was doing it. Like I say, Duncan wasn’t a bad fellow.

A couple more branches of the Road had joined ours since Duncan said we were getting close, but nobody was on them. I wondered where they went… and wondered if I’d be sent along those ways after I’d joined the Company of Champions.

Two of Dame Carole’s attendants had gone a bit ahead. The younger one turned and waved his hands. “We’re here, milady!” he called. “We’ve arrived!”

“I forget how many times I’ve come back this way,” Duncan said with a sigh. “It stopped being exciting a long time ago.”

“It’s exciting to me,” I said. “I guess I’m afraid too. A little afraid.”

It was more than a little and Duncan probably knew it; but I’d come to Dun Add because it was the only place where I could become part of making the universe safe for human beings. Making it the way things had been thousands of years ago, before the great collapse. Jon and his Champions were doing that, putting down bandits and monsters from their capital in Dun Add.

People talked about Jon’s dream even as far off as Beune. The more I thought about it, the surer I was that until it had been done, it was the only real job for a man.

There was nothing holding me on Beune after mom died; dad had been dead these past ten years. I sold the steading to Gervaise, my neighbor to the south, and spent three months preparing. When I decided I’d done everything I could to get ready, Buck and I set off for Dun Add.

And here I was. I took a deep breath and walked from the Road onto Dun Add, the capital of the human universe–

If there was going to be a human universe again.

***

The first thing I did on the other side of the foggy curtain was sneeze. Bright light does that to me, and it was cloudless noon on the meadow outside the landing place of Dun Add where the Road entered.

Buck always likes to come back to Here, though he never balks when I tell him it’s time to get onto the Road again. Now he started wagging at the new sights, and there were surely plenty of them.

The first thing I saw was the castle up the hill straight ahead. It took me a moment to realize that it was a building, not just a higher part of the hill. I’d seen pictures, sure, but I hadn’t really appreciated what it would be like to be close to something that big, something human beings had made.

“God save me,” I muttered. I suppose I looked like a hick from the back of beyond as I stood gaping at the castle, but in all truth that’s what I was.

“I was in the Commonwealth army for a couple years,” Duncan said. “Even though I’ve lived here, it hits me still every time I see it. There’d been a small fort on the hill for I dunno how long, but Jon built it to what you see now. It’s because so many branches of the Road come together here. The hinterland’s more than big enough to support the court too.”

 

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 15

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 15

Chapter Twelve: The Situation

Even though she was surrounded by possibly dangerous Skraelings, Ursel Keiler continued reading the letter from Duchess Regent Ulla Smead.

And Wannas Kittamaquand kept looking intently at her as she read.

Have I got a bug in my hair or something? Why does he keep doing that?

Never mind.

She needed to get to the bottom of this, and decide what to do.

The letter was addressed to her father, Earl Keiler, but Ursel knew Duchess Regent Ulla well. Just as Ulla knew that, aside from matters of war, Ursel ran Shwartzwald County for her father. The letter from Ulla was really meant for her.

The thing is, Lady Saeunn agrees with me about Wulf’s so-called quest. I’m sure of it. Wulf should answer the dragon-call, not set out into the wilderness on a wild hope. But Saeunn had been so ill, only awake a half-watch or less each day for weeks now, that she had not been able to put up any resistance to Wulf’s determination.

After Wulf heard Abendar’s suggestion to go to Eounnbard, he grabbed at it. Abendar had offered it very cautiously. But off Wulf went three weeks ago–it will likely be a month when you receive this.

He took with him a company of the Bear Valley levee commanded by that young bobcat man, Captain Jager, who Wulf met. He came to admire Captain Jager during the battle to retake Raukenrose.

Also along are Abendar Anderolan, the elf, and–at my request–Ahorn the centaur, a lore master and star gazer, who I ordered to act as my private agent and surrogate.

And there is yet another complication. Princess Ravenelle was determined to go to Vall l’Obac and find out the fate of her mother’s kingdom. She has also been studying healing under a renowned buffalo wise woman. Both of them have been nursing Lady Saeunn.

So the princess decided to travel with this company to the mark’s border with Vall l’Obac. Once there, she plans to separate from the group, and head southeast to Montserrat. My foster-brother–Rainer Stope–and Princess Ravenelle’s bloodservant bodyguards will accompany her the rest of the way.

That is the state of things at present. And so we–you and I–are left in a quandary. I will not send thousands of men and Tier to battle and grave danger until Wulf answers the dragon-call.

What if there is another way?

What if the dragon has been trying to reveal this to Wulf?

I know the dragon trance doesn’t necessarily work in such a way, but I am haunted by the prospect of ordering those men to their deaths–and then its turning out to all be a mistake that could have been avoided.

So I have sent Wannas Kittamaquand, this young Skraeling envoy, to you for two reasons. First, I think that if anybody can get through to my stubborn brother, Wannas, with his eyewitness account of the siege of Potomak, can. But Wannas will need help finding Wulf.

I know Wulf intended to cross the west valley and travel south through the Greensmokes. From the southern border, he planned to make his way through the wilderness trading paths to Eounnbard.

Without a native guide, there is little chance that Wannas will be able to catch up to Wulf. Your daughter, Ursel Keiler, would make an excellent guide.

The second is to deliver a personal postscript, appended to this letter, to my dear friend Ursel.

Your servant, etc.,

Ulla Smead, Duchess Regent of the Mark of Shenandoah

Ursel closed her eyes for a moment, trying to imagine Ulla sitting at her small desk in the Great Hall side room she used as an office. She’d converted her father’s old map room into her work space, although the maps still remained.

Ulla had dictated this letter. The script was too professional, even for Ulla, who had an artist’s hand for calligraphy.

And there it was. The postscript. It was a private letter, rolled up and sealed inside the outer scroll.

Imagining Ulla at Raukenrose brought back a flood of other memories. Memories she’d spent the past few weeks trying to get away from. They had dulled for the most part. All except one. The final one.

The last time she’d seen Wulf von Dunstig.

Chapter Thirteen: The Garden

They were walking in the Castle Garden. The name was a misnomer, because the garden wasn’t actually inside the castle keep. It was at the bottom of the hill Raukenrose Castle perched on. The garden also wasn’t just a garden, either. It was as much a place for trees as flowers. The Sandhaveners had cut most of the older trees down for firewood when they’d invaded. Wulf had ordered it replanted, but the new trees were only saplings now.

Wulf wore a light-blue tabard, with only a dagger stuck in his belt. Ursel had on her favorite green dress, trimmed in red. It was the start of summer, a hot, sunny day, so there was no need for cloaks or hoods.

“I’m wondering about your trip to the west, Lord Wulf,” Ursel said. “Considering the state of things over in Sandhaven. The problems with the Romans in the south. I mean, it’s a dangerous time to be going.”

“You’ve been talking to Ulla.”

“She and I have gotten to be good friends, I think.”

Ursel and Wulf walked through last year’s leaves. Over the winter they had turned to a soft meal. It looked and felt almost like ground coffee.

She planned to return to Bear Hall within the week. Her father needed her. She’d heard in a letter from her youngest brother that the house was in complete disorder without her around to keep it up. Also that the earl was holding off making major Shwartzwald County decisions until she got back. This included permission to marry for a dozen villagers up and down Bear Valley.

She wasn’t one to give up easily. After all, she’d stayed on the archery competition circuit until she’d won the Mayfield Championships against the best bowmen of the Shwartzwald when she was fifteen.

But she had to admit defeat when faced with a problem like Saeunn Amberstone. And of course she had come to really like Saeunn during the months she’d spent in Raukenrose. Who wouldn’t?

Wulf von Dunstig wasn’t going to fall in love with Ursel Keiler.

With me.

But, curse it to cold hell, Ursel Keiler hadn’t fallen the slightest bit out of love with him during all that time.

She was leaving Raukenrose. And so, apparently, was Wulf.

“I’m being stubborn. I don’t care,” Wulf said. “I believe in loyalty. You stick with your friends. You stick with family. You don’t do anything for the principle of the thing if it interferes with loyalty. Because it won’t be a real principle if it does.”

“Doesn’t being, well, the heir get in the way of that attitude?” Ursel asked. “I kind of thought that you’d put the mark above anything.”

“I have to put the land-dragon above everything else. It makes me sick–I mean, sick in my body and my mind–if I don’t. I guess the sickness might even kill me if I didn’t pay attention to the call long enough.”

“What if the dragon tells you to do something different?”

“It’s not like that. The dragon doesn’t tell me what to do. It doesn’t think like you and I do. It dreams about things. It’s old, but still a sort of baby. I feel the dragon-call and see the dragon-visions, but I still have to make the choice, whatever it is, myself.

“And you choose Saeunn?”

Wulf’s eyes clouded over. He turned from her, picked a beech leaf from one of the saplings in the garden.

“I really feel bad about hurting you, Ursel,” Wulf finally said. He stripped a side from the veined leaf. He let it go and watched it slowly drift to the path. It spun as it fell. Then he turned back to her. “You’ve told me more than once how you feel.”

Ursel smiled. “Forget about that. I wouldn’t ask now if I didn’t want to understand.”

“All right,” Wulf said. “Then yes. I choose Saeunn.”

“Out of loyalty?” Ursel knew she sounded pitiful. She got mad at herself immediately. “Partly, I mean?”

Wulf nodded. “That’s some of it. I’m all about loyalty with Rainer. He’s my best friend. We have each other’s backs. I even feel that way about Ravenelle. And that’s how it is with Saeunn.

“And she sacrificed her star to kill the draugar,” Ursel said.

“To an elf, her star is her life. There would’ve been no way for me and Rainer to take that thing on if Saeunn hadn’t done what she did. We owe her. Everybody in this realm owes her.”

“But that’s not all,” Ursel said. She sighed. “Is it?”

“She was always there for me when I was growing up.” Wulf paused. He glanced ruefully at Ursel. “You sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then,” Wulf said. He rubbed his forehead, glanced back at her again. “I’ve been in love with her since I can remember, Ursel. So saving her is an easy choice.”

“I get it,” Ursel replied. “Even if I don’t want to, I do. It’s just–”

“Just what?”

“If there wasn’t any Saeunn. I mean not that she died or anything horrible like that. But if she’d never come to the castle–”

“Would I have fallen in love with you when we met?”

“Would you?”

Wulf didn’t hesitate. “Instantly,” he said. “How could I not?”

How could you not? Ursel thought. Pretty easily, it turns out. When the other woman is elf royalty.

“So I hope you understand,” Ursel said. “That’s what happened to me. I fell in love.”

Wulf faced Ursel and looked her in the eye.

We’re both even the same height, Ursel thought. Perfect fit. Saeunn is a half-hand taller than Wulf. Not fair.

“You have the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen,” Wulf said. “You’re smart. The best pure archer I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some good ones.” He glanced down. “You’re also beautiful,” he said bashfully. “And you saved my life.”

“But she’s the one.”

“Yes.”

Wulf looked back up. He leaned over, pulled her to himself. Kissed her on the cheek. She put her arms around him. A final squeeze. She was just wicked enough to make sure he could feel her breasts pressing up against him as she did.

“Take care of her, Wulf,” Ursel whispered.

“You’ll be all right?”

More of a wish than a question.

“Sure,” Ursel replied. “I’m going home.”

 

Iron Angels – Snippet 23

Iron Angels – Snippet 23

The rumbling of running engines and chatter of police flooding the area faded into the background as Jasper concentrated on taking in all of the dead woman’s features. She was a slender young black woman sporting long straightened hair with a hint of scarlet.  Faded and tattered blue jeans clung to her legs, but flared out around her ankles. Her shoes were missing and she wore no socks. As a result, her feet were scraped up and covered in dried blood. Her abductor had taken off her shoes and socks, if she’d worn any. Was this woman homeless or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?

He knelt, careful to keep free of the glistening pavement beneath her. The back of her head had been smashed and a nasty bruise darkened her forehead. A thin line of blood had trickled from her nose, but had since ceased flowing and dried. Raw fingertips and ragged nails betrayed the struggle she’d found herself in, likely from scratching at the Astro’s floor in vain.

“I can’t tell if the head wounds are exclusive to the crash or perhaps from blunt force trauma from her kidnapping. The autopsy should provide more clues.”

“Perhaps this death was a blessing. She was alive for the trip, or at least part of it, look at her fingers.” Temple bowed her head. Her lips moved in what Jasper assumed was a prayer.

“Yeah, she fought and didn’t die peacefully.” Jasper’s fingers clenched into fists. “Damn it. We need to find the bastard who’s responsible. I don’t care if this is connected to whatever X-files crap you’re out here peddling. You got me?”

Temple stared up at him, and her face didn’t betray any hurt. Jasper was glad for that. He hadn’t meant to go off on her. This accident wasn’t her fault. She had a job to do, no matter how weird and foreign the ideas and the job.

“I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted. Now can we move on? Unless, of course, you’ve deducted something else from the poor woman’s corpse.” Temple cocked her head.

Jasper waved over the cop who had let them through. “You guys learn anything else about the woman here?”

“From Gary. Single. I’d say wrong place, wrong time. According to the sheet she’d been busted for distribution — ”

“We both know that’s bullshit, don’t we? A user, most likely,” Jasper said.

“Likely. I think she made a habit of being with the wrong people — ”

“And being in the wrong place,” Jasper said. “What are we doing wrong?”

“What?” the cop asked.

“Never mind. She have any relatives, friends?”

The cop shrugged.

“How about the driver of this piece of shit?”

“No clue, but I can tell you the van is registered to a little old lady.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“But she wasn’t driving it.”

“And?”

“She’s in the hospital at the moment.”

“So, stolen then?” asked Temple.

“That’s what we think at this time.”

“Any relatives?”

“We’re working on that,” the cop said.

“Thank you, officer,” Temple said, and grabbed Jasper’s arm, pulling him aside.

“Thank you,” Jasper said. “I was starting to lose it a bit there.”

“You have some anger, don’t you?”

He huffed. “Yeah, a little.”

Temple covered the woman once more with the sheet.

Jasper called over to the cop.

“Will you leave him alone?” Temple chided.

“No.” Funny how the roles reversed on this one. “Do you want the Bureau’s Evidence Response Team to assist on this one?” he asked the cop.

The man tensed, clearly irritated. “I’m guarding the scene, that’s all, so take your problem up with my so-called superiors.”

Jasper grinned. “Ah, a fellow lover of management.”

“You know how it is.” The cop hooked his thumbs into his bat belt, and relaxed his shoulders. “Anything else or can I go back to staring off into space?”

As if on command, East Chicago Police Department’s evidence people arrived at the scene. Jasper didn’t bother interjecting or offering the Bureau’s assistance. Maybe the locals had decided this accident wasn’t related to what they were investigating or hadn’t even considered the possibility. Or maybe they had reached out to SSA Johnson and the field office’s ERT Senior Team leader, Morris Chan, and they had begged off or outright dismissed the request. Besides, Jasper didn’t have the authority and saw no point in bothering his boss. Johnson would only react poorly if he hadn’t been asked by the locals and Jasper was interrupting his off time once again.

“We need to find the driver. He must have been hurt pretty badly.”

“Unless,” Temple’s eyes hardened, “like so many people under the influence of drugs or booze, he simply walked away unscathed.” She related the tidbit a little too bitterly, but Jasper didn’t intend to pry right now. Apparently they were both sporting the scars of life — one thing they had in common, at least.

“Let’s poke around here a little more,” Temple said. “Away from all these people, perhaps we’ll find something.”

They peered into the crumpled Astro mini-van. Blood had dried on the deployed air bag and dripped on and around the driver’s seat. They found no personal effects save for a pack of tissues and a cross on a chain shoved in the glove box. The registration gave them the name and address of the hospitalized woman — Jasper’d follow-up on the lead later, and perhaps poke around the house for more clues.

Temple knelt on the asphalt, peering beneath the wreckage. “Over here.”

“What?”

“I think he crawled out from under all this — ” She wiped her hands off on her jeans and stood, gesturing to the wrecked vehicles.

One of the cops nearby swore loud enough for them to hear. “It’s gonna be one of those nights. Hey, Charlie!” He pinched the bridge of his nose, and another cop ran up. “We have a disturbance. One of the houses nearby here is complaining of an animal attack in their backyard. Says there’s a horrible racket, like something dying.”

“For Christ’s sake,” the other cop said, “don’t we have animal control around here?”

“Hey,” Temple said, and the two cops turned their attention to her. “We’ll take the call. You guys have a lot going on and we’re getting in the way.”

“Sure thing there, Agent Scully. I’m sure the complainants will be quite surprised when a couple of fibbies come by.”

“I’m sure it’s a real X-file case,” the other cop snorted. “Little green men or something, I bet.”

“Your grade school creative writing teacher must be proud,” Temple said. “You jokers owe us a couple of cups of coffee for taking this off your hands.”

Jasper stared at Temple, surprised at how she was interacting with these guys. At least the locals had relaxed a bit and were just having fun with her now.

“By all means. We’ll even provide the pastries.” One of the cops doffed his hat.

“All right, just give me the address.” The cop jotted the information down, tore the page from a small notebook, and handed it to Temple. She turned and strode off toward Jasper’s bucar. Jasper shook his head and ran after her, catching up as her hand hit the door handle.

“The house is close by, we can walk from here, what are you doing?”

“Grabbing some pepper spray out of my bag.”

“Ah. Roger that.”

“There a problem?”

“No,” Jasper said. “None. Get in the car. We should have all my gear at our disposal. Flashlights, and I have an extra Kevlar vest in the trunk. I — let’s go, I simply hadn’t thought about grabbing extra gear. I haven’t carried pepper spray in a long time. The stuff is nasty during a scuffle.”

They both got in the Charger. He flipped on lights and siren for the quick jaunt.

Temple glanced over at him. “You’ve been in some street brawls then?”

“One or two — happens when you spend time with the great folks the locals round up and deal with on a routine basis. Pepper spray jacks up the good guys as much or more than the bad guys.”

“Right. Now, which way to this address?”

“It’s not far from the accident, a couple blocks south of here and a little west.”

They passed the accident and the gaggle of police and medical personnel. There were now a couple of fire trucks on the scene, also. Neither of the wrecked vehicles had so much as a whiff of smoke or flame, but the Fire Department showing was standard procedure. He managed to bypass the scene and cut through the intersection and toward the address of the attack.

“You have a reason for wanting to check this out?”

“A hunch,” Temple said.

“The hunch being someone’s dog worrying the driver of the Astro?”

“Something like that.” She smiled. “But don’t you find this a little too odd?”

The other animal attack… She was right. “We’re close to the area where the other attack took place,” Jasper said, “the one with the pile of meat for a corpse and this could be the same sort of thing?”

“Exactly.”

He rounded the corner of Ivy Street and saw a group of people standing in front of a house. He put the Charger in park, grabbed his ASP baton and a flashlight, and exited the vehicle, heading for the group of people. Temple followed.

A wail pierced the thick, damp air.

“What in blazes?” Jasper slowed up. His skin crawled, the sound reminding him of a wounded coyote out in the desert. He’d heard them often during his time in the Marines when he’d done a stint in the Mojave Desert — one of his more forgettable duty stations, but he’d never forget that sound.

“A problem?”

“Perhaps the complaint the cops handed us is legit.” Jasper trotted in the direction of the address, abandoning the leisurely pace of seconds earlier.

 

Chain of Command – Snippet 14

Chain of Command – Snippet 14

Chapter Seven

5 December 2133 (one day later) (sixteen days from K’tok orbit)

“Fillipenko, I appreciate you agreeing to step up like this to take over the tactical department,” Sam said.

Sam and Filipenko had travelled in silence so far, floating side by side down the central transit tube heading aft, banking from one wall to the opposite wall and then back again every three meters to avoid the half-bulkheads, tacking as if they were sailing vessels heading into the wind. Now Filipenko, the former communications officer and now acting Tac Boss, looked at him, surprise showing clearly on her face.

“You mean you don’t mind?”

“Mind? Hell, you’re saving my ass. The admin duties are overwhelming, especially with all this repair work. You wouldn’t believe how many forms I have to fill out.”

Marina Filipenko’s surprise changed to something close to disapproval. At least she had recovered from her distracted lethargy of the day before.  Sam mentally shrugged. A job’s a job.

“I’ve got some help for you, too. I got curious about our new engineering ensign when he told me his specialty was electronic warfare. Moe Rice looked through the personnel folders and noticed that Ensign Jerry Robinette is a rated line officer. He’s just serving a tour with engineering right now, but I’m moving him over to head up your EW division, give you at least one other commissioned officer to work with. Supervising and training him won’t hurt your resume, either.”

“Pretty odd, putting a line officer in engineering, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Well, that’s the Navy for you. Good for us, though. We need the extra body.”

He glanced over at Filipenko. She didn’t seem too curious about Robinette, which was just as well. No point in maybe souring her on the kid. It turned out he’d bombed out of astrogation school and then out of communication. He’d barely squeaked through electronic warfare school, and the Navy must have decided he’d fit better in engineering until–and if–he found his footing. He hadn’t even commanded a division of his own; he’d been deputy to Lieutenant (JG) Carlos Sung, commander of the Auxiliary Division–universally known as the A-gang, the people who handled the odds and ends of routine maintenance most of the time and damage control during and after a battle.

They drifted past a large yellow arrow pointing in the opposite direction, toward the bow. As with every compartment and stateroom on Puebla, the central transit tube had omnipresent visual cues indicating up and down, despite the absence of any such physical sensation in zero gravity. Everything toward the bow of the boat was “up,” and everything toward the stern was “down.” All pictures on walls, all signs, everything which suggested orientation rigidly followed that pattern. Without that it was too easy for people to lose their sense of spatial orientation in extended zero gee, and then it became more difficult to re-adapt to a normal environment afterwards.

“I think you’ll like Menzies,” Sam said. “She’s kind of a diamond in the rough–Quebecois from the wrong side of the tracks.”

“Wrong side of the tracks? There’s an expression I haven’t heard in a long time. I take it you’re from the right side?”

Sam thought about that for a moment before answering. “Originally, but we sort of moved over as I got older. My dad had a pretty good job at Presidio Collective, but when the collective collapsed, it took out most of his equity and he was a little old to get as good a job anywhere else. None of the big outfits were all that crazy about hiring a former collectivist anyway, so things got …austere.”

“It seems as if a lot of people moved across the tracks the last thirty years,” Filipenko said. “You ever think maybe it was the tracks that moved?”

Filipenko was alright, and she meant well, but Sam didn’t feel like talking about it. His family’s decline wasn’t really her business. He had described it as austere. Soul-crushing was more like it–his father’s unwillingness to bend with the growing wind, his mother’s slide into alcoholism and addiction and compulsive spending, trying to maintain the shabby façade of middle-class gentility in worse and worse apartment buildings. But the part of the process which at first confused and then frightened and then angered Sam most was the look of assessment in the eyes of strangers. It wasn’t judgment or blame or contempt. It was just that he and his family had once mattered, and then gradually stopped mattering.

Only his father’s decision to move his college fund into a separate trust early in the disaster, before the debts became overwhelming, had let Sam make it to UC San Diego and have a shot at getting back across the tracks. His younger brother Rico hadn’t even had that, nor had he wanted it. He was doing okay, he claimed, although he was careful never to explain to Sam or their parents who he worked for or what he did, and none of them asked about the growing coldness in his eyes

But Sam had pulled himself back across the tracks and up the lower rungs of the management ladder at Dynamic Paradigms, had gotten his MBA at night and on weekends, almost had his doctorate of financial management. If he could crack his way into the executive track at DP, his children would never not matter.

Anxious to change the subject, Sam remembered Filipenko’s origin.

“What I said in the crew briefing about K’tok’s biology–I never really thought much about it before all this blew up. But you’re from Bronstein’s World, right? Must be tough there.”

She thought for a moment before answering.

“Tough …but beautiful, too. Maybe that makes it worse. My parents emigrated from the US of NA before I was born. I have dual citizenship. It sounds exciting to live on an alien world, to build a new home for Humanity among the stars, but that’s just a romantic lie. It is hard, boring work, and it is dangerous in ways that are so mundane. My little brother …” She paused for a moment, looking away, and took a slow breath. “Well, it’s like hell’s garden. I finally had enough and the Navy would pay for my relocation back to Earth if I joined, so here I am.”

She didn’t say anything for a while and then she shook her head. “The Varoki knew K’tok was compatible with our proteins. You know what they were trying to do? Ecoform it to suit their body chemistries. The only place in the whole galaxy that doesn’t try to kill us, and they were trying to fix it so it would. What kind of people do that?”

Sam had the feeling Filipenko didn’t talk about this very often. There was a bitterness in her voice she must keep bottled up most of the time. He also realized with a start that he now knew why she sniffed every bite of food before eating it. Living her entire life in a toxic environment where food could become contaminated and poisonous by the slightest mistake probably made everyone sniff every bite, every meal, every day of their lives. There was no chance of contamination here on Puebla, but habits like that don’t just go away.

“Here we are.” Sam said. He keyed the hatch from the main access passage into the port missile room and eased it open a crack, Loud, rhythmic electronic music escaped into the corridor. “You’ve been back here before, right?”

“Only once, on the tour when I first came aboard. No reason to since then.” She squinted through the hatch and hesitated, as if afraid she would get dirty inside.

Sam nodded. As communications officer she never had to venture aft of officer’s country, seldom interacted with anyone but officers and her division chief petty officer. This could be an assignment even less well-suited to her than Sam had feared.

Sam pushed through the hatch and into the missile room and Filipenko followed. Newly promoted Acting Chief Joyce Menzies and two ordinary mariners were on duty, the mariners at workstation consoles and Menzies at the maintenance station with a missile secured to the anchor bracket and the housing open to reveal its guts. Menzies saw Sam and Filipenko and came to attention, her feet locked through a deck handhold.

“Attention!” she barked and the two mariners came to attention at their work stations. Menzies was short and not exactly stocky, but solid, with the look of upper-body muscles. She wore her dark hair short, like most of the crew, and her nose looked as if it had been broken once and had not set quite right. She was almost invariably cheerful, but was also one of the last people on the boat Sam thought anyone who valued their health would pick a fight with.

“As you were,” Sam said. “Someone want to secure the music for a couple minutes? Thanks. Just showing Lieutenant Filipenko around. She’s your new department head. Ms Filipenko, this is Acting Chief Menzies, the best missile technician in the whole squadron. Speaking of which, how’s it feel to be a chief?”

“Doesn’t suck, sir,” Menzies said, grinning. She turned to Filipenko, her face now blank, noncommittal. “Welcome aboard the Tac shop, Ms Filipenko.”

Filipenko nodded and looked around, again squinting. The missile room was a wedge-shaped section of the boat’s hull, about five meters across and over four meters fore-to-aft. Racks along the outside wall held fifteen missiles, with one empty set of clamps. That was the missile on Menzies’s maintenance station.

 

The Spark – Snippet 01

The Spark – Snippet 01

The Spark

By David Drake

DEDICATION

to Lynn Bessette

A fellow Arthurian Enthusiast

But he by wild and way, for half the night,

And over hard and soft, striking the sod

From out the soft, the spark from off the hard,

Rode….

Pelleas and Ettarre

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

A MAP OF THE TERRITORY

This one is different.

***

In the late ’80s, on a whim, I turned themes from Norse mythology into Adventure Science Fiction. The result was Northworld. Normally I use Adventure SF as a synonym for Space Opera, but Northworld was something else again; like nothing else that I’d written or, to the best of my knowledge, that anybody else had written.

The Spark is another whim, but a very different one.

***

A Twelfth-century French writer, Jean Bodel, referred to the three literary tropes,

‘Matters,’ that everyone (here meaning every writer, I believe) should know: the Matter of Rome, the Matter of France, and the Matter of Britain. These Matters are basically structures in which one can tell stories.

The stories which fall into the Matter of Rome include various forms of the Alexander Romance, which is full of remarkable literary inventions (I definitely hope to do something with it, though probably as embellishment to other stories rather than using the plot directly), and the whole cycle of stories about Virgil the Magician, a character based on the poet Vergil but as surely a fantasy construct as Paul Bunyan. Avram Davidson did a series of stories about this Virgil, and I used some of the mythos in Monsters of the Earth.

There are many other medieval tales in the Matter of Rome: those above are just two of my favorites. That’s the beauty of the Matters: they give a writer (now or a thousand years ago) any number of very different hooks on which to hang stories.

The Matter of France covers Charlemagne and his Paladins. Again, this is a treasure-trove for a writer. One of the earliest Chansons de Geste, The Song of Roland, belongs to this Matter, as do the huge, discursive Orlando Inamorato and Orlando Furioso of the Italians Boiardo and Ariosto. Poul Anderson in Three Hearts and Three Lions, and Quinn Yarbro in Ariosto, have done extremely different modern takes on the Matter; and one of these days I’m going to try something in that area also.

The Matter of Britain involves King Arthur. From the 11th century it has never ceased to be a major source and subject for writers. The Spark is one more example of that.

***

The background of my plot comes from the Prose Lancelot, a large work by (probably) three French authors which appeared in the early 13th century. The tenor of The Spark, and some of the specific business, come instead from the slightly earlier Arthurian romances of Chretien de Troyes.

The Lancelot is realistic in the sense of being non-fanciful. It may not make any historical sense, but there are no marvels to be found in it. Chretien is full of marvels and wonders, and that is the feel which I’m striving for.

The tone of The Spark is partly that of Chretien (who was, after all, writing romances), but I also drew from The Idylls of the King. There are various kinds of ‘realism’. The human sadness of, say, Merlin and Vivien, is every bit as true as the stark violence of The Dragon Lord, my first novel (which is also Arthurian).

Finally, I adapted some of the business from English folktales. I think Chretien would have approved. (The writers of Lancelot would not have.)

***

I said that The Spark used the same basic technique as Northworld, but to a different end. Northworld came from very harsh material, and when I wrote it I was just starting to climb up from the place I’d been since Viet Nam.

I’m a much more cheerful person now than I was in 1988, and the Matter of Britain, even at its darkest, is much less bleak than the sleet, snow, and slaughter of Norse myths. The Spark isn’t set in an ideal world, but it’s a world striving to be ideal. That’s a world of difference.

***

What really matters isn’t where a story comes from or what category it falls into but rather whether or not it’s a good story. I hope that you find The Spark to be a good story.

Dave Drake

david-drake.com

CHAPTER 1: Arriving at Dun Add

Neither my dog Buck nor me had ever been more than a day’s hike from Beune before, so I didn’t realize we were approaching Dun Add. There was a group of about a dozen of us by now, folks coming together on the Road as we got closer to the capital, and some of the others had been here before.

Dame Carole lived in Dun Add, as a matter of fact. She was in her fifties and had been making a pilgrimage to religious sites with six people; six servants, I suppose, though one was a priest and Duncan was a man at arms. A rich woman might want protection anywhere on the Road, but from what Duncan had said to me they hadn’t gone far enough out from Dun Add that trouble was likely.

Duncan pointed to the trees on the right side of the Road and said, “See how the Waste changes? It’s gotten reddish, you see? We’re near Dun Add.”

“I see something,” I said. I didn’t see red–it was all sort of gray/green/brown. What to me had been medium-sized broadleafed trees for at least the past ten days, however, was now brush that mostly wasn’t as tall as I was. “I wouldn’t have known what it meant, though.”

Folks didn’t see the Waste the same way, probably because there was nothing really there. Everything you see on the Road–and the Road itself, I guess–is in your mind. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t real, but everybody has a different reality.

Buck whined. He was feeling something different too. It made him jumpy, or maybe he was feeling me be jumpy.

I was going to Dun Add to join Jon’s Company of Champions. Beune is a nice place but it’s a long way from most everything–except for Not-Here, which in long past times spread over Beune too. Not-Here still wasn’t very far away.

If you haven’t been anywhere but Beune, then you know you’re going to be over your head in any real town. I sure did, anyway. Going to the Dun Add, the Leader’s capital, couldn’t make me any more lost than I’d have been in someplace smaller, and this where I had to be to become a Champion.

George was a farmer on a place called Wimberly. He must’ve been doing well because he was travelling to Dun Add just to see the place. He’d brought his daughter Mercy along, calling her Mike and dressing her in boy’s clothes. Mercy was fourteen and, well, well-grown. Despite the loose clothing.

I guess George was afraid of what the men they met on the Road might do to his daughter, but the truth is that Mercy was way ready to be done to. I don’t figure it had been any different when she was back on Wimberly. For myself, I called her Mike in public, and after the first time I saw to it that she never got me alone again.

It seemed to me that Dame Carole knew that Mike was a girl too and that she was a lot more interested in Mercy than I was. I didn’t like to think about that–Carole was so old, for one thing!–but it was none of my business.

On Beune we keep ourselves pretty much to ourselves. Besides being the way I’d been raised, it seemed like a good way to be.

 

Iron Angels – Snippet 22

Iron Angels – Snippet 22

Chapter 13

Pulsing lights, red and blue, struck them as they drove upon the scene in Jasper’s bucar, the Dodge Charger. He hadn’t gone lights and sirens as Temple had urged, seeing no need. At this time of night, traffic was negligible in this part of town. They had rolled for the spot of the abduction in Gary, but had quickly deviated when they’d heard of the accident near the Euclid Hotel.

“Got your creds on you, I hope?” Jasper regretted asking Temple the question as soon as the words left his lips.

Her eyes bored into him. He didn’t dare ask if she carried her firearm. “No need to be touchy, so many HQ types forsake their weapons — ”

“I don’t work in the Hoover building, remember?”

They arrived at the hotel and Jasper parked half a block away so as not to impede the rescue work. An ambulance was already on the scene along with a couple of cop cars.

Temple immediately got out. “Let’s go see what happened.”

Jasper approached the nearest uniformed officer and displayed his creds. “I work with Pete.”

The officer, a young Hispanic male, arched an eyebrow. “We have a few Petes running around, care to elaborate?”

“Pedro Hernandez.”

“Yeah, we have one of those. What do you want?”

Temple stepped forward. “We’re working a couple of sensitive investigations involving deaths, likely a murder, as well as kidnappings. Let us through.”

The officer gave way and gestured for them to pass, exaggerating with a sweeping motion as if treating them like royalty.

“You know,” Jasper said, “I do have to work with these locals. You won’t be here for much longer, but this is my territory and rebuilding a bunch of bridges you apparently know how to burn down with a certain kind of flair does not sound like fun.”

“Calm down, he’s a big boy, he’ll get by. They always do. Besides, he’ll keep quiet about a woman giving him a hard time.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“That’s probably the only time you’ll utter those words,” Jasper muttered, not thinking she could hear him.

She proved him wrong immediately. “I have excellent hearing and the words ‘I do’ have crossed my lips before.”

“Didn’t know you were married.” Jasper was embarrassed and regretted the barb.

“Yes, but it’s over and I don’t talk about it. You of all people should understand, right? Now, let’s figure this scene out before the night becomes morning. I’m tired and cranky.”

“You’re telling me.”

Temple’s head swiveled and her eyes had the don’t-push-it stare she’d probably mastered while still in the crib.

The scene smacked Jasper in the face, and Temple sucked in a startled breath. A body covered in a white sheet lolled from an opening on the side of what was once a mini-van. A breeze caught the sheet exposing for a moment the victim beneath. Jasper took in all he could — a piece of white cloth adorned her neck — a gag? Yes, a gag that had been pulled free. A thin rope, maybe twine of some sort, laced about her lifeless body, obviously cut free by the responding EMTs.

“Bound and gagged,” Jasper said. “African-American.”

“And now dead. You can say black, by the way,” Temple scowled.

“Sorry, just trying to be — ”

“Yeah, I know, politically correct. But what a horrible way to go.”

“Is there any other way?” Jasper shook his head in disgust. “I mean, all the deaths these past couple of days have been horrible.”

Would things get worse? Could they? People were dying daily since Jasper had assisted in the rescue of Teresa at the Euclid Hotel, which now loomed over the intersection like a beacon of death.

They worked their way into the twisted metal littering the intersection. Two EMTs worked on one of the crash victims sprawled alongside a crushed hunk of metal, presumably a Chevy Astro. The other vehicle, a sedan, had suffered as much damage as the Astro, including a blown-out windshield. The person lying on the ground next to that vehicle had flown through the smashed windshield. Jasper had a hard time believing some people still refused to wear safety belts.

“Hey!” Temple called out to the nearest East Chicago Cop, a young black male. He spun, searching for the word’s owner. He visibly scowled as they approached. Jasper kept his face neutral, and for once, hoped to see what Temple’s demeanor would do to the unsuspecting.

“Civilians are supposed to be outside the perimeter.” The cop turned away, expecting the encounter to be over.

“We’re FBI.” Temple thrust her arm forward and practically smacked the cop in the face with her credentials. He stepped back, and recovered quickly.

“So? This is an accident. Didn’t realize accidents fell under the Bureau’s jurisdiction.” He tried to turn away again, but Temple grabbed his shoulder and prevented the action. The cop glanced at her hand and then into her eyes. He was the first to break eye contact.

“I’m not here to make trouble,” she said. Despite the mollifying words, her tone made it clear that if the ECPD officer wanted trouble she’d be happy to oblige him. “But this accident is likely related to an ongoing investigation your department turned over to the Bureau.”

“All right, all right,” he said.

Jasper stepped forward and glanced at the cop’s name tag. “Officer Jackson, I’m Agent Wilde. Jasper Wilde, I work with Pete Hernandez.”

The cop’s features softened. “Why didn’t you say so right off? You have a question, Agent Wilde?”

“Not just yet, but I believe Agent Black here did.” He glanced at her. “Temple?”

Temple shook her head. Exasperated, perhaps? “There an ID on the black woman over there. The one that’d been gagged and bound. Also, how many people were involved?” She gestured at the hunk of sheet metal and plastic. “And anyone else in the van beside the woman who’s now mixed in with the mini-van wreckage? The driver maybe?”

The cop’s smile morphed into the deepest frown Jasper’d ever seen.

“We’re not sure about the driver of the van, but the driver of the other vehicle,” the cop pointed with his flashlight at the other hunk of twisted metal, “probably won’t make it. That’s who they’re working on now. The evidence you pointed out does suggest a kidnapping, but she was deceased when we arrived on the scene.”

“From the accident or other means?”

“We believe the accident killed her, and you know that’s not my call,” the cop said, “but what do you mean by other means?”

“May we take a peek?”

“She’s already been picked over and gawked at, the poor soul.”

“We insist.” Temple walked around the cop.

Jasper shrugged and hoped his expression came across as apologetic. If Temple persisted in approaching every situation in her brash manner, the potential of each day feeling like a week increased.

Jasper caught up to Temple and touched her shoulder. She spun on him and her eyes smoldered with anger.

“What’s wrong?”

“You don’t have to be so smug,” she said. “You know, every time I interact with someone you feel this need to rescue me.”

“I’m not rescuing you, I’m salvaging relationships you’re destroying. One of the reasons I’m here is to smooth over your liaison with the locals and anyone else we meet,” Jasper said. “I’m not trying to be an ass.”

“You’re well past trying.”

“Let’s not make this bad situation harder than it needs to be. How about this,” he said, and waited for her to calm herself.

“Go on.”

“Okay. If we have to interact with other law enforcement agencies, I’ll take the lead, please. I’ll tee them up for you, but you can’t come in here acting like we’re the big dogs even if we are. Perpetuating what these guys already believe about the Bureau does us no good.”

“All right, all right.” She sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”

“You’ve been around crime scenes before, right? I mean, messy, brutal scenes.”

“Too many. And not all with the Bureau, I’m afraid.”

“All right, just making sure.”

“You don’t need to protect me.”

“Pfft, as if you’d ever need protecting.”

Jasper edged past Temple, taking the lead and approaching the body. A breeze rippled the sheet resting on her body allowing a glimpse, but not enough to tear away the cloth, unlike the impact responsible for tearing the life from her. Jasper’s jaw clenched and the back of his head ached from the repetitive nature of the action. He loosened his jaw, working it back and forth.

“You okay?” Temple asked.

“Anger.”

“Oh.”

“This is senseless violence.” He lifted his chin and gazed at the stars poking through the clouds. “A pointless death. I’m tired.” He lowered his gaze on the rippling sheet, imagining the dead woman beneath. Who she was. If she’d been on the way to meet friends, or just coming back from a good time. He always imagined the best, even if what he witnessed most of the time was humans at their worst, but his imagination was no match for the truth laying at his feet. “Let’s see if this incident is related to the other kidnapping and get this over with.”

Unbidden, Temple stepped forward and whisked the sheet off the body, as if performing some sort of magic trick.

Jasper had seen many bodies during his time on the streets with the locals as well as during his time on the Evidence Response Team. The Bureau was routinely requested by other agencies to assist with evidence recovery since they were without peer when processing crime scenes from an administrative purity angle, not to mention the eventual testifying required.

 

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 14

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 14

Chapter Eleven: The Advice

Ravenelle Archambeault finished reading aloud the last chapter of The Pierced and Bleeding Heart of Julia Silves and closed the codex with a sigh and a shudder. Such a bittersweet ending. All of the stories she read tended to finish that way, true, but that never really bothered Ravenelle. She could will herself to forget when parts of a story were repetitions (and sometimes outright stealing) of the many dark romances she’d read before.

She sat, knees drawn up, in a chair at the side of Saeunn Amberstone’s bed in the Apfelwein Inn.

After tossing and turning for at least three watches, suddenly burning with fever, then just as quickly shivering with chills, Saeunn had finally fallen into a fitful sleep. Ravenelle considered going back to her own room to rest. Yes, she really ought to do that because she expected to be needed again soon.

Ravenelle moved her perception into the minds of her bloodservants, her retainers Harrald and Alvis Torsson. These were men who had once been commanders in a Sandhavener elite legion, fighting under the names Rask and Steel.

They had kept guard outside for as long as she’d been tending to Saeunn. She hadn’t compelled them to guard her, although she could have. They’d done it of their own will.

So strange that she even let them have a will. But things had changed a lot in the past year–including her attitude toward her religious faith, Talaia.

Ravenelle could feel her men’s weariness. Literally. She could share their viewpoints, their senses, their very thoughts if she liked. She could also force them to obey her will any time she wished. They were her bloodservants and she was their dominator.

Harrald, tell Jakka to turn back my bed and open the windows in my room to let the stale air out.

Yes, m’lady.

They communicated in Talaia thought-speak–which they could do at up to a half league distance–with no spoken words being exchanged.

And both of you go to bed. I’m perfectly safe here.

It isn’t that, Harrald explained. It’s just that we want to be near when you need us.

Well, I need you to get some rest now. If Saeunn can be moved, we will reach the border soon. And I will enter my kingdom.

Yes, m’lady.

Harrald’s hearing and touch sensations were acute. She could see nothing through his eyes, however. This was because he was blind. She was the one who gave him sight. She used her eyes and her thought-link with his brother Alvis. Harrald had adapted to these weird, displaced perspectives, and had learned to function very well. He even claimed to like having a bigger field of vision, from multiple perspectives. All the better to protect his lady, the one who had saved him and Alvis from mental domination by a terrible evil thing.

The Draugar Wuten.

Now dead. Dead and crumbled to dust.

He’d memorized the layout of this wing of the inn, and was able to find Ravenelle’s lady’s maid by touch and sound alone.

Before Harrald left to do so, he shook Alvis awake and grunted for him to take his place by the door. For a moment, his disobedience infuriated Ravenelle. She’d told them both to go. She would never have allowed even well-meant insubordination like this from her bloodservants before. But those bloodservants were all dead–killed defending her from attacking horsemen. And now this unlikely pair was all she had left under her domination. That is, if you didn’t count Father Calceatus. He was one of the dominates of her will and a bloodservant, true. But he had a special place and specific duties as a Talaia priest. Besides, he was back in Raukenrose.

She moved into the mind of Alvis. She felt him come awake and rub his eyes. He sat up from his slump, and looked through the hallway window of the inn, out at the town of Tjark. The town was a sea of neatly thatched and slated roofs. Its spread was broken only by a river-rock chimney here and there trailing smoke.

The town bell tower rose in the distance. Just then, the elder bell at the top of the tower began to toll. Beyond the tower to the north and west was the Shwartzwald Forest, where the leaves of the trees were just beginning to show their colors. It was late in the month of Anker, as the Northern barbarians, the Kaltemen, called it. It was named after the first anchorage of Leif Ericsson. He was the Northman, the Kalteman, who had left the Old Countries and crossed the sea to settle on the continent of Freiland.

For a moment she couldn’t think of the Roman name for the month of Anker. She hated when that happened. There was so much about being Roman that she knew she was just guessing at. She should be good at the things she had control over, at least.

Then she remembered.

“Septembres,” she whispered to herself.

Still in Alvis’s viewpoint, she counted three strikes of the village bell. That mean it was Melkin bell, the beginning of the morning watch.

She had promised herself to be on her way home by the month of Gilbfast.

Octobris.

She’d meant to leave earlier, but her foster-sister had begun to have her bouts of sickness, and she’d stayed to tend her.

I’ll have to leave soon, Ravenelle thought. Even though I’m terrified of what I’ll find when I get there.

There had been no word, not a letter or report, from her mother the queen in over a year now.

At least Rainer will be with me, she thought.

Rainer had promised to accompany her to Montserrat. They’d grown up together and he knew how to handle her worries and fears. Just being around Rainer had a calming effect on her.

What she was going to do about his feelings for her now she tried not to think about. She had decided to worry about that after they arrived in Montserrat.

And Harrald and I, m’lady, came the thought-speech of Alvis Torsson. We, too, will be there to protect you always.

She was embarrassed to have allowed her thoughts about Rainer to leak over to the bloodservant. She abruptly pulled out of his mind and back into her own single point of awareness.

It was a lovely town, she had to admit, filled with the kind of order a Roman could appreciate. At least, she thought so. She’d not been outside of Shenandoah since she was a year old. She had been sent from Vall l’Obac as royal hostage to enter the family of Duke Otto at Raukenrose castle.

Her secret fear was that she was as much a barbarian as any Kalte woman–and maybe her mother had finally realized this. That Ravenelle would never fit in down south.

Would never make a good queen.

No. She wouldn’t let herself think this way.

She was staying at an inn famous for its hospitality and comfort, but she hadn’t been to her room yet. Instead, she’d been sitting at the bedside of Saeunn during her latest spell of sickness. The spells had begun to come over Saeunn about three months before. They had grown steadily worse. They were also lasting longer.

“You should go,” Saeunn said. Ravenelle saw that she was awake.

“I’m not tired.”

“Go to Montserrat, I mean,” said Saeunn.

“I’m worried about my mother. About what’s happening there.”

“Yes, but that’s not why you should go now.”

“Okay, why then?”

Saeunn sat up wearily and looked Ravenelle in the eyes. “It’s time for you to decide what to do about Rainer.”

Then she collapsed into her pillows and fell back to sleep.

 

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 13

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 13

Not so scary.

Its legs kind of came to a point and didn’t have feet, but it could still walk.

“Thank you,” it bone-whistled. “That was good.”

“What are you doing here?” Marguerite asked. “Where’d you come from? What kind of thing are you?”

The shadow seemed to look around and check to make sure no one else was listening except Marguerite.

“The Magnificent Dark Angel Queen made me,” it said. “I’m a special messenger. I’ve got her crown in a sack, and I’m taking it to her daughter, the Dark Angel Princess.”

“You mean Queen Valentine?” Marguerite knew that the queen made special devotion to the Dark Angel. All of the kingdom did. “She has a daughter that lives up in the Kalte lands.”

Marguerite knew about this because sometimes Mamma put her to sleep with stories about what it was like to be lovely Princess Ravenelle among the barbarians. Barbarians were rough folks who didn’t properly appreciate the princess and were always scratching themselves because they had fleas and lice. Sometimes Marguerite imagined herself being the special bloodservant to the princess. She would get to eat all the treats at Montserrat Castle. One day when the princess returned, that’s where she would live.

“Yes,” said the shadow thing. “Bad ones come after me. Have to hide. That’s why I’m here.”

“Are they chasing you? Are they after the crown?”

“Yes,” said the shadow thing. “Had to hide the crown in a nest in the chicken coop. You get eggs there. Please leave it where I put it.”

“I will,” said Marguerite. “I’ll try to get you some more to eat tonight after supper or maybe in the morning.”

“Thank you, little daughter,” said the shadow thing.

“My name is Marguerite,” the girl answered. “I belong to Master and Mistress Robecheau.”

“This one does not have a name,” the shadow thing said. “Do you want to name me?”

“Okay,” Marguerite said. “But I’ll have to think about it.”

“Goodbye, Marguerite,” the shadow thing said. It walked to a nearby cabin on its pointy legs. Then it melted into the shadows under the porch crawlspace and was gone.

Marguerite spent all night trying to think of a name for the shadow thing. The next morning after everyone else had gone to the fields of tobacco and cotton to work for the master, she set out some food scraps and chicken feed for it. When it came, she told it that she had thought of a name.

The shadow thing waited expectantly. It seemed eager to learn its new name.

“Windy,” she finally said after drawing out the suspense a little. “Because you made that whirlwind that got the pigs to go away.”

“Windy,” it said. “Good.” Then it gobbled up the food she had set out and disappeared again.

The next day, the Romans came.

This was scary. The soldiers from across the sea marched right up to the master’s house and banged on the door. When he came to greet them, one of the soldiers grabbed him and dragged him out to the mansion’s big front yard.

Marguerite drew closer so she could hear. Nobody noticed her. The Roman soldiers said that something precious had been stolen from the queen, and that they were there to find it and bring it back. They said that they absolutely knew it was somewhere on this plantation.

The master didn’t know anything, of course, so he couldn’t tell them where the precious thing was.

Marguerite guessed that they were talking about the crown. She was probably the only person on the whole plantation who actually did know where it was. Even though she didn’t know exactly which chicken nest it was under.

When the master didn’t answer the way the Romans liked, they waited. Soon, a tall man in a black robe rode up. He got off his horse, which was a big black horse, too. Then he told the soldiers to tie the master to the sycamore tree in front of the plantation house.

Once they did this, he asked the same questions of the master that the soldiers had, only every time he asked a question and the master didn’t answer the way he wanted, he whipped him across the back with a cat-o’-nine-tails.

The master’s son had once hit Marguerite with a whip, and it had hurt really, really bad. That cat-o’-nine-tails looked like it had metal in the leather, too.

When they cut the master down he looked like he had a puddle of gooey red mud and flesh on his back. A puddle all chuffed up by cows walking through it.

Then the man in the black robe and red collar held up his hand. He sniffed. Was there something in the air?

Oh, no, Marguerite thought. He might smell Windy! Or even the crown!

The man in the black robe walked toward the bloodservant quarters, sniffing, sniffing. The soldiers followed him. He looked confused, like he couldn’t believe that whatever he was looking for could be in this rundown place.

Marguerite hid a smile. Windy had been right to hide it here. It was the last place people would look for treasure.

The man in the red collar stood in the middle of the servant quarters and gazed around. Finally his eyes alighted on Marguerite. He motioned for her to come over to him. He knelt and spoke to her face to face when she got there.

“Do you know anything about this precious thing that we seek?” he asked her. “Do you know what an orange is?”

“I saw my master eat one once,” Marguerite mumbled.

“This thing I seek. It is a smoky orange color. Have you seen it anywhere, girl? If anybody here is hiding it, I would have to hurt them very badly. That is, unless you tell me. You saw what I did to your master didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Marguerite. “But I don’t know where any jewels or crowns are.”

The black-robed man stood there for a long moment staring at Marguerite. He looked as if he sensed something was not right in her answer. For an eyeblink, Marguerite felt him in her mind, the way the master could get in your mind and dominate your will. But she was not linked to this man, and he hadn’t bothered to dominate Master Robecheau, just beat him.

The black-robed man was not her master.

He might get into the edges of her thoughts, but she would not let him into the deep parts. She got to work. She made it so whenever she thought about chickens and nesting, she thought about an egg. And whenever she thought about the crown, she thought about an egg.

She thought really hard about eggs.

Finally the man turned his head and faced away.

“It’s not here,” he said. “We’ll have to search the road to the Whitmore plantation. Two more leagues today. Let’s go.”

Marguerite sighed with relief. And somewhere in a nearby shadow, so did something else.

 

Chain of Command – Snippet 13

Chain of Command – Snippet 13

Chapter Six

4 December 2133 (one day later) (seventeen days from K’tok orbit)

“Coupling, arm, servo-mechanical, one-point-seven-four-meter, type alpha seven dash seven one,” Sam read.

“Um … right here,” Ensign Robinette answered and pointed to the twisted piece of metal, one of several hundred items floating tethered in long swaying lines in the storage bay.

Sam clicked the “verified” box by the part on his data pad. “Gain conduit, electro-thermal, twelve-kiloamp.”

“Over here. Ow!”

Sam looked up and saw Robinette sucking the tip his right index finger.

“Sharp edge. Cut myself,” the ensign explained.

Sam clicked the correct box.

“Plasma flux regulator, serial whiskey romeo one niner four niner.”

“Yeah, here it is.”

“Okay, Robinette, what the hell is a plasma flux regulator?”

The young engineering ensign looked up from his own data pad.

“Um, it says here it’s part of the magneto-plasmadynamic thruster’s magnetic containment system, sir. I think it keeps the plasma jet from touching the ignition walls, so the exhaust nozzle doesn’t heat up. That’s why the MPD thruster is low signature.”

Sam thought it was a little strange an engineering officer had to look that up, but Robinette was pretty young and new to the job–he was the only officer on Puebla who had arrived after Sam and Moe Rice had transferred over from USS Theodore Roosevelt. Being skinny made him look younger than his years, and his thin, weedy moustache younger still. His large ears stuck almost straight out from his head, like jug handles. If Robinette hadn’t been an officer and gentleman by act of congress, Sam was pretty sure his nickname among the crew would be The Jughead. Maybe it was and they were just careful not to let it slip near anyone in a white shipsuit.

“What’s your specialty, Robinette?”

“Oh. Well, electronic warfare, I guess,” he said and looked back down at his data pad. Sam was pretty sure he was blushing, but had no idea why asking about his specialty would be embarrassing.

“I thought we didn’t take any damage to the drives.”

Robinette’s head rose and he looked relieved at the change of subject. “No, sir, but one of the slugs went through a storage bay and damaged some of our replacement components.”

Sam nodded and stretched his neck. They had been at this component damage survey for nearly an hour and hadn’t made as much progress as they needed to. Engineering work parties were pulling damaged components and replacing them at a heroic rate, but every damaged item would have to be replaced, and that meant every single one had to be surveyed and inventoried by engineering, and then verified by the executive officer–Sam–before a requisition could be sent on to squadron support on USS Hornet. The fact that Hornet was in worse shape than Puebla and was in no position to get them the replacement parts at any time in the foreseeable future was–as Captain Huhn had pointed out to Sam earlier–not germane.

What bothered him most was the utter stupidity of the entire arrangement. There was no good reason for storing and stockpiling parts when the fabricators on Puebla and every other ship in the fleet could manufacture any part required. All they needed, other than the fabricators themselves, were electricity, the correct raw materials, and the part generation software. The software was the sticking point, and for a change it wasn’t Navy bureaucracy standing in the way. The suppliers wouldn’t release the proprietary software codes, so Navy ships (and boats) like Puebla had to haul around parts bays that looked like old-time hardware stores. Absurd.

Yes, having the parts on hand meant they could make urgent repairs more quickly. Yes, that was a possible advantage in battle. But the parts were vulnerable to damage themselves, as this plasma flux regulator thing showed, and if now the main one broke, then what?

His imbedded commlink vibrated and he heard the accompanying ID tone of the captain’s own commlink. Great. Now what?

“Yes, sir.”

How’s that damage survey coming?

“Finishing up the first part of it with Ensign Robinette from engineering now, sir.”

Well get it squared away. I’m looking at your revised watch-standing list. Some of this just won’t fly. I’m making a list of modifications

“Modifications. Yes, sir.”

I also need tomorrow’s plan of the day ASAP. I want to check the schedule of drills.

“Plan of the day. I’ll do it as soon as Robinette and I finish the damage survey.”

Okay, but don’t dawdle over it. One more thing. I decided I’m going to have Filipenko take over the tactical department from you. You’ve got your hands full with all the administrative stuff.

Sam didn’t answer for a moment.

“Filipenko? The communications officer? Sir, I don’t recall that Lieutenant Filipenko has any background in either sensors or weaponry.”

It’s covered in the line officer basic course we all took post-academy, and she’s a fast study.

“Yes, sir, but … if you want to move someone into that position, why not Lieutenant Goldjune? He did a deployment as leading sensor officer on USS Reagan.”

I need Larry in Ops. Filipenko can handle TAC.

And then Huhn cut the connection. So much, apparently, for their brief honeymoon as captain and XO.

“Trouble, sir?” Robinette asked.

Sam was still unused to ensigns calling him “sir,” even though he had two pay grades and about ten years on Robinette.

“Captain’s just giving me a hard time, that’s all. We don’t always see eye-to-eye. Look, I’m going to go out on a limb here and just check all the rest of these parts as verified.”

“Is that kosher, sir?”

“Based on my assessment of the efficiency of the engineering department and the chief engineer, I feel confident the list as submitted is a complete and accurate report of our damage situation–at least so far. I’ll append an explanatory note to that effect. These peacetime procedures don’t really take into account the kind of situation we’re facing here, so they’ll understand upstairs.”

Robinette looked doubtful.

“Or they won’t,” Sam added with a shrug, “in which case they can fire me and send me home. You’ll probably have another couple hundred parts to survey by the next watch change.”

“Yes, sir. I bet we will.”

“Okay, Ensign, get back to it and tell the repair parties I appreciate the job they’re doing. Oh, and uh … if you should run into him, no need to let the captain know how we’re expediting the survey, okay?”

Robinette glided out the storage bay hatch and Sam turned back to his data pad and the reports queued up for his attention. The first one was from Moe Rice:  an inventory of destroyed consumables–mostly rations. They had lost one of the water recycling units and several atmosphere scrubbers, but Moe had appended an estimate of how long they could safely put off repairs.

Sam also had a list of next-of-kins waiting for holograms. That was the captain’s job but he had delegated it to Sam.  What was he going to say to Jules’s folks?

Thankfully, he brought up the blank form for the Plan of the Day instead and began filling in the entries.

“Mister Bitka, have a minute?”

Sam looked up and saw the broad face and thick shoulders of Senior Chief Petty Officer Constancia Navarro, the Chief of the Boat, hovering in the storage bay’s hatchway. As the senior non-commissioned officer on Puebla, Navarro occupied a special, almost exalted, place in the boat’s hierarchy. In theory, every officer outranked her. In practice she had the ear of the captain and XO in ways few if any of the officers did. No junior officer, with the possible exception of the least experienced and most stupid of newly minted ensigns, would think to give her an order. Sam had spoken with her before and she had always been respectful, but she had never taken much notice of him beyond that, so her appearance took him off guard.

“Absolutely, COB, come on in.”

Her features showed her American Indian lineage without much evidence of either Spanish or Anglo genes. She was only a few years older than he but already had fifteen years in uniform, and gray streaks softened the stark black of her short, coarse hair.

“Thank you, sir.” She locked her feet through a handhold on one wall, looked around the cluttered storage bay and nodded. “Quite a job to have to tackle without much warning.”

Sam almost said he could handle it but stopped himself. Navarro was here for a reason but he wasn’t sure what it was.

“This is my first deployment out of the Solar system,” Sam said instead, “my first introduction to ship-board administration–and my first war. Any advice you have would be very welcome.”

Navarro continued to look around the bay, nodding slightly to herself, perhaps collecting her thoughts. She cleared her throat.

“I’ve seen some pretty good execs in my time,” she said, “and some … not so good. To be good, you have to understand that for most of the crew, you speak for the captain. So you need to understand the captain.”

“Easier said than done,” Sam said and he smiled, but Navarro didn’t return the smile. She didn’t look offended, just thoughtful to the point of preoccupation. She nodded slightly, in acknowledgement of the truth of what Sam said, if not exactly in agreement with it.

“The way the Navy uses the word captain,” Navarro continued, “…well, it’s funny, isn’t it? Captain’s a rank, O-6, but no matter what their rank, whoever’s senior line officer on a vessel, they’re the captain.”

“Sure,” Sam said, “the job, not the rank.”

“That’s right, sir,” Navarro said and nodded for emphasis. “The job. A ship captain is … well, as far as the crew’s concerned a ship’s captain is the navy. Admirals can tell captains where to take their ships, and what to do with them once they get there, but not how to run them. Captains are monarchs on their own ships, absolute dictators.”

“Subject to Navy regulations,” Sam added.

“Yes sir, subject to Navy regulations. But with that one limit, captains are always right. They’re infallible, and it’s official–you know, like the pope.”

Sam chuckled. “In theory, anyway.”

“Yes, sir, in theory. But people going into war, they got to believe in something, even if it’s just a theory, and on a ship that something is the captain.”

Sam began wondering how long Navarro had been outside the open storage bay hatch, how much of his conversation with Ensign Robinette she had overheard.

“Chief, what if it turns out the captain is, well …fallible?”

Navarro looked him in the eye for the first time.

“Sir, here’s the dirty little secret: they’re all fallible. There’s not a man or woman in uniform who can live up to that job and never stumble along the way. Some more than others. That’s why we have execs.”

“To keep them from stumbling?” Sam said. “That’s going to be a good trick. He won’t listen to a thing I say, Chief. You know that.”

She kept looking him in the eyes. “Yes, sir, that’s true. So all you can do is back him up, no matter what he does. Anything he does, according to you, is the smartest thing you’ve ever seen. Anyone disagrees, you bark ’em down. No matter what he does.”

Sam felt his cheeks flush, thinking again about what he had said to Robinette. He hadn’t said anything disloyal, had he? Not exactly. But he’d hinted. He’d tried to get the ensign to keep information back from the captain just to make his own job easier.

“Chief, how much of my conversation with Ensign Robinette did you hear?”

Navarro squinted at a ventilation duct somewhere above Sam’s head.

“Sir, the Exec and the Chief of the Boat need to have a close working relationship founded on mutual trust. So it’s important for you to know that I would never deliberately eavesdrop on a conversation of yours.”

Sam almost said that was no answer, but he stopped himself. Instead he said, “Fair enough. Go on.”

“Well, sir, here’s the hard part. You can’t just go through the motions. When the captain does something stupid, something petty, something the crew will hate, you have to defend it so convincingly the crew will think it must have been your idea, and you talked the captain into doing it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Up until now it had sounded difficult and unpleasant, but all in the line of duty. But this last bit made him feel momentarily dizzy. Sam liked most of the officers and crew, and he knew most of them at least didn’t dislike him. He wanted to keep it that way. He wanted to do his job and have people like him for it, respect him for it. But this …

“So you’re saying I have to look like such a flaming asshole the captain will look good by comparison?”

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind, sir. But that is one way of looking at it.”

Sam always thought people who lived only for the approval and regard of others were shallow and weak. Now the universe–through the agency of a US Navy senior chief petty officer–was calling his bluff. Put up or shut up. If Jules were still alive, he realized, this would have been a lot harder–making her dislike him along with everyone else. As it was …

“Well, a job’s a job,” Sam said.

For the first time, Navarro smiled. “Yes, sir.”

 

Iron Angels – Snippet 21

Iron Angels – Snippet 21

Chapter 12

The black woman Alan had snatched from a deserted street in Gary squirmed in the back of the borrowed Chevy Astro, whining and crying, despite her ample bonding. But the khâu ignored her, just as he’d ignored Rao’s caution to stay away from vans. Even though the police would likely be more sensitive to another stolen van after yesterday’s failed sacrifice to the nâga, the vehicle had been easy for him to snatch. The non-descript navy blue Astro had been sitting for quite some time behind the house of his elderly grandmother’s sister, Hazel. Auntie Hazel was in the hospital, so she wouldn’t be missing the vehicle. He’d headed over to Gary, and specifically a section of Gary more resembling nineteen-eighties Beirut than a modern American city.

But thoughts such as those were frowned upon in the Câ Tsang. Creativity had no place among the sticks of the group. The simple act of carrying out the Tip of the Horn’s orders would convey upon the sycophantic khâu a greater chance of attaining the rank of khäp, an adept.

Night snatched East Chicago as swift and certain as he’d taken the woman. Streetlights raced overhead as traffic lights turned green before him: Destiny was choosing him to reach the meeting place with alacrity.

“Praise the nâga,” he whispered.

Beneath the scents from the streets lingered the scent of a woman’s perfume — his great-aunt’s. The khâu pinched shut his nose, but the thought of sucking in the heavy musky stench through his mouth only urged on his queasy stomach. Damn the old woman for wearing such heavy perfume. The black woman he’d taken off the street reeked of fast food and sweat, which turned to the sweet smell of fear. He’d drugged her, of course, but the paralysis concoction given him by Rao had worn off quickly, and now she struggled.

The abandoned hotel was near. The police had departed hours ago, seemingly giving up their vigil. The master was livid over the incompetence of the two acolytes who’d botched the sacrifice and the unfettered glory of the nâga — who out of necessity had feasted upon the unpurified wretch of a man near the animal control facility up the road from the hotel.

This khâu volunteered to erase the failures of the other sticks, but doubt crept into his mind despite the ever-nearing hotel. What if the cops lay in wait for him? What if a trap waited for the Câ Tsang, the Iron Thorn?

But Rao would not purposely send him into the hands of the cops or worse, the FBI, would he? No. What would be the point? Glory was needed. Glory and redemption and power. The nâga expected compliance and steady Sha ‘Lu once the gate opened.

Lights peeked in and out of the Astro’s side mirrors. He checked the trailing vehicle’s silhouette, fearing the bumps riding atop the roof, but saw none. The khâu sighed in relief, but the cold fear returned, sending a shiver down his back. An unmarked police vehicle? Or an FBI vehicle, all of which were unmarked and not always a make or model easily recognized? He wouldn’t know until he reached the hotel, and what would he do if the vehicle behind him was the police? Would he keep driving or would he park and have to perform something drastic?

He released the vise grip he’d cinched down on his nose and instead white-knuckled the steering wheel. Being caught was not an option. He had no distinguishing features, no identification, and no fingerprints. The police would have no record of him either. The FBI though, what would they have on him? Anything? No.

The sound of his own rapid breaths filled the air and he tapped the button on the armrest, sending the driver’s side window down. The gushing air rushed by him, filling his nose with the scents of a town running on burnt chemicals.

He thought of the two khâu immolating themselves as an offering to the Iron Thorn, but in vain, as the nâga tore through only to find no sacrifice, no Sha ‘Lu, waiting for him. The nâga rampaged through the night in search of meat to extract bjang from.

Impure kill. Impure bjang.

The khâu failed in barring these thoughts from his mind despite the repeated attempts at tamping down any free thought. The meditations failed him and the mantra fled his mind.

The light ahead at the intersection of Euclid Avenue and East Chicago Avenue signaled the end of this stage of the journey. But the light was red where all the others ushered his rush to glory and flicked green before the speeding mini-van. He glanced in his rearview mirror. The car following him turned off — his fears unfounded after all.

Good. He’d continue on, and did not slow down for the red light before him. Two hundred feet perhaps. The light would change for a khâu of the Câ Tsang.

His foot pressed the accelerator into the floorboards and the speed shot up another five miles an hour. The red light refused to yield at fifty feet but a second later he sailed under the light — a flash of yellow appeared on the cross road, Euclid Avenue. Excellent.

The hotel loomed on the corner. He grinned wide, feeling the creases at the corner of his eyes deepen.

He was passing through the intersection.

Lights blared into his open window. The grin disappeared. He squinted and turned his head.

Eyes widened.

Metal crumpled.

His body flew across the mini-van and his vision blackened under the impact of something giving way stubbornly to his head, now coated in warmth. A ripping noise. Now a scraping noise filled his ears.

Something was dragging him along the blacktop. The mini-van appeared undamaged from this vantage point. What had happened? Where was the black woman? Still inside, but alive? Life was necessary for the ritual and more importantly, for the nâga to achieve their true power and form. The master would be sure to end him.

Grogginess and pain filled him and he ceased moving. Whatever dragged him released his broken body.

He yelped and grabbed for his head as he rolled over.

Nothing. He got to one knee and cried out in pain once more.

The hotel. So close. The mini-van.

He stumbled for the vehicle, but sirens pierced the thick air. So heavy was the air. He sniffed and blood tickled the back of his throat. A warm trickle dripped upon his cheek.

Accident. A vehicle had crashed into the van.

A chill overtook him and he stopped stumbling for the van. Get away from the van. Yes.

The tank farm was nearby. He could go there, or perhaps hide among the rows of houses not far from the hotel.

The khâu glanced down at his hands. Coated in a glistening substance, they shook. Blood, but in this light black rather than red, reminding him of chocolate syrup tinged with the scent of copper.

Screeching brakes and sirens filled the air and he stumbled into a run, more like a staggering drunk swaying side-to-side than an Olympic sprinter.

He dizzied, and darkness washed over his vision. His foot hit something solid and he tumbled. Cool moisture smacked his face. Blades of grass poked his head. He clenched shut his eyes.

Whoops and yelps were followed by the long agonizing wails of an ambulance. This khâu could not be caught, but movement hurt. Movement pained him.

He rolled on to his back and fought to open his eyes against the wooziness and pain forcing them shut.

Voices in the distance.

Yelling.

Doors slamming.

A long, slow hiss, like that of air releasing from a tire’s valve hit him from above. A metallic scent worked its way up his nose and into his chest — so different from the acrid and burning chemical-like reek normally permeating the air.

His eyes shot open and he lurched, gasping for air, but none came. He sat within a cloud, flying as if upon a magic carpet and touched the other side. He’d crossed over as a mere khâu, tasting gä, true power. Yes! He was so alive now and powerful.

The khâu’s face twisted —

— pain —

His jaw clenched.

— agonizing —

Eyes sealed shut.

— a faint puff of breath and the universe winked into black eternity.