Libertatia, an excerpt:
The Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, my son’s birthday.
You can read more about my son at last year’s post. I could say a whole lot about the last year with my son, but I find that words continue to fail me. And so last year’s words must do, at least for all of you.
Today is also the release day of Libertatia; or, The Onion King, episode four of The Shattered Stars!
Order it here! Paperback coming probably next week.
Below, you’ll find the first three chapters.
I
Lieutenant Lumo’s voice came through the comms, “No word back from the Mars Volta or Lieutenant Kralen, captain.”
It was good having Lumo back in the pilot’s chair. After everything that had happened, Fatch still feared the captain would hold it against her. But rather than punish her further, it had solidified her position on the bridge as the semi-permanent pilot.
Harken didn’t bother to respond to Lumo. He swiped through the report Fatch brought him on Crum’s DNA. He didn’t seem to be reading it, only skimming through. She cleared her throat, “Sir, it says—”
“I’m aware, lieutenant.” He leaned back and raised his gaze to her. “Dr Neku walked me through these results already.”
“Dr Neku—”
“Last week,” Harken said. “I’ve already sent it along and Star Fleet has made their decision. The Banshee is en route to collect additional samples.”
“The Banshee.” Fatch swallowed, her mouth filling with acid. “That’s a bounty hunter, sir. They’re little better than pirates.”
Harken leaned forward, his hands folding before his mouth. “We’ve been over this, lieutenant. They’ve been contracted by Star Fleet for this mission, which grants them the authority of Star Fleet. It also makes them subject to its laws, and Star Fleet does not condone piracy.”
“Sir, those are Crum’s people.”
“Who?”
Of course. Fatch took a breath, forcing her hands to unclench. “Ensign Crum, sir. He came aboard a few months ago, after our mission on Janus.”
“Are you incapable of understanding what we’ve discovered here, lieutenant?” Harken’s cold eyes bored into her. His voice, though calm and quiet, revealed his mounting annoyance.
“All the more reason, sir, to use a proper Star Fleet ship and crew to conduct the, uh…collecting additional samples.”
“As I understand it, the Banshee is collecting ten people from Janus. They’ll be brought to Ziyou where the local Federation outpost will conduct their tests. Some may be sent via deep slow back to the Center.” Harken paused. “I can see you’re upset, lieutenant, but I suggest you take a moment to calm yourself before you respond to me. Perhaps Commander Baltier can coach you in his quarters.”
Harken stared at Fatch without blinking.
Fatch clenched her jaw so tight she wasn’t sure she could have spoken. With every word, her fury rose more and more, but especially at the insinuation in his dismissal. He had never demeaned her like this before. “Sir.” She turned to leave but couldn’t take another step. She turned back to Harken, “Captain, I—”
“Sir,” Baltier’s voice came over the comms, “we have a bit of a situation out here.”
Harken only stared at Fatch. “You had something to say?”
“Sir,” Baltier’s cheerful tone fell away. “You’re going to want to see this.”
“It seems another matter has arisen, lieutenant.” Harken raised an eyebrow at Fatch, beckoning her to voice her complaint.
Fatch felt it rising in her chest. All the pent-up fury of five years. She respected Harken. For all his faults, he was one of the most capable people she’d ever met. His insights were often brutal but they were never off. She had even grown accustomed to his inscrutability and saw it as an asset. If she couldn’t predict what he’d do, there was no way anyone else could either, which made her feel like the Burning Apollo and her crew always had the upper hand, or at least a whole arsenal of tools no one knew about.
Weeks later, she could even admit that her success on Pelinor came because she had chosen to do the unexpected, like Harken would have. She took another breath. “Sir, I have—"
The door opened with a sigh and Baltier leaned in. No smile or warmth on his face. That, more than anything, told Fatch it was going to be an awful day. He said, “Our away team is currently being held hostage by a pirate wearing an onion mask.”
Harken blinked, his expression softening behind his hands.
“He’s threatening to plant a bomb in Ensign Bracca’s eye.” Baltier’s expression hardened. “They’ve managed to subdue Kralen.”
Harken’s eyes went wide.
II
Fatch hadn’t thought much of anything when Baltier mentioned the onion mask. It was like her brain hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge the impossible detail. But there he was, filling up their cracked viewscreen. She wouldn’t have called it an onion exactly. A pale purple sphere covered the man’s entire head, more like a helmet than a mask. Two perfect circles etched onto the mask above a grotesquely wide and almost cartoonish mouth stretched in an unsettling smile.
He wore a grey leather coat with a wide folded collar encircling the helmet.
As soon as Harken entered the bridge, the onion mask’s voice filled the air. A rich voice, slightly modulated, as if using some sort of distorting equipment that masked his true voice. “Captain Anton Harken of the Burning Apollo. I’m a fan. Really, I am. Such a shame,” he tsked, “that you should become a dog for the Federation.” Onion mask turned back to, Fatch assumed, his crew. “Is that too much?” He turned back. “You’re not really dogs, after all. I like dogs. Everyone likes dogs!” He laughed.
Fatch didn’t know what a dog was, but she didn’t like the comparison.
Harken said, “State your name and purpose. Why have you taken my crew captive?”
“You’re jackals,” the onion mask continued, his voice sharp and abrasive. “Jackals feasting on the carrion of our once great unified species. Look at yourself.” The perspective shifted to reveal Kralen’s battered, bleeding face, focused in on his large horny crest of a forehead. “A shipload of freaks. An entire federation,” he spat the word, “full of bioengineered freaks designed to conquer, exploit, and control the remnants of humanity.”
The perspective shifted back to the grotesque face painted on the onion helmet. “Our business is our own, Anton, but you can call me the Onion King.” He laughed as he said it. “I’ll give you your monster. Let’s make a deal.”
Harken walked casually to his chair and sat. Elbows on the armrests, his hands folded before his mouth. “We responded in good faith to a distress call from the Mars Volta and you have now assaulted a Star Fleet officer. Tell me, how do you think this will go? Do you imagine we’ll ever allow your ship to trade freely again?”
“Oh,” the Onion King laughed. “You got it wrong, Anton.” The perspective shifted again to a tall, thin man with blond hair. His battered face was in much worse shape than Kralen’s. “Here’s your captain of the Mars Volta. Didn’t know he got that distress call out. Good for you, fella.” He slapped the man’s face hard enough to leave a read handprint. “Calls himself Wilkerson but I know for a fact this man’s name is Xingjian. Why you reckon this man gussied up all in his Star Fleet finery would give me a false name?”
Baltier and Fatch followed the captain to his seat on the bridge.
“My God,” the Onion King said, “that’s a big woman!”
Lumo said, “Pirates, sir.”
“Pirates!” The perspective shifted once more to the onion mask’s painted face. “Star Fleet has the audacity to call me a pirate! Fellas,” he turned to people Fatch couldn’t see. “We pirates?”
From out of view, a woman’s voice laughed. “We’re blue jays, captain. Says so right on your coat there.”
The Onion King tapped his lapel where a metallic blue bird was pinned. “Means hope, Anton. Means freedom." Emotion filled his voice as he said the word. “Or have you forgotten? Heard stories of you from back before you bent over for Star Fleet. Tell me, Anton, how’d it feel to throw your ideals away for a bit of security and money? Did it feel good? Does it feel good to force others to bend over the way it was done to you? Or does it rot your soul in that hollow chest of yours?”
Harken only stared straight ahead at the viewscreen. The crack from Kralen smashing into it had proved unfixable on Pelinor. It cut a jagged line through the onion mask.
Fatch and Baltier stood behind Harken, arms folded over their chests.
The Onion King leaned to the side and pressed the side of his helmet to his left shoulder. “This new Federation tech’s all shit.” He turned to someone out of view. “Josie, we still have communication?”
A man with a thin voice said, “Idiots wouldn’t even know an ansible if it wasn’t labeled for them.”
A woman’s husky voice said, “Connection seems fine.”
The Onion King turned back to the view screen. “You sure? Hey, Anton, you sitting real still or is the connection stalled out?”
Harken didn’t move. “Show me that my crew is alive and in good health and we can discuss your deal."
The Onion King laughed. “You know, I didn’t believe what people used to say about you. Lots of everybodies always said you was a hard man. A cold man. I even met your wife a ways back, if you can believe that. Josie, when’d we meet Anton’s wife?”
“Sir?”
“Must’ve been—say,” he leaned forward, shielding his crew from the viewscreen, “did you know she died? Must’ve been, what, seventy years ago?”
“It was 62 years, by the old Federation calendar.” A new voice this time. Deeper than the others. Calm and certain. “She found her eternal peace back at her home world. I dressed her body myself, captain."
The Onion King nodded. “That was a real good thing you done, Speaker. Real good. You hear that, Anton? Know what your wife told me before she died?”
Harken still had not moved.
“Damndest thing, I tell you. Her son—boy, does he look like you—held her hand whilst she was gasping her last. You’d like this part.” The Onion King giggled, then said, “Your son, Marty, he tells me to go fuck right the hell off. See, he still believed in his daddy. Didn’t like that I told him you’d been involved in the fall of Burmecia. And maybe he was right about you and it was all a sad coincidence, but I got a good nose for this kind of thing, Anton. I know we ain’t met, but I been catchin whiffs of you for a long, long time. And when I showed up at Burmecia in flames and smoke, I thought to myself, ‘This reminds me of the fall of Oolondria and the balefire of the Burning Apollo.’ Now, you don’t gotta come clean to me right here and now. As Speaker will tell you, that’s between a man and his maker. Besides, I don’t mean to embarrass you before your whole crew assembled there, looking all shiny and smart. But I tell you, Anton, your son was a believer in you and the stories you told about yourself all across the stars. Don’t know if Madelaine truly kept faith with you in the end, but you know what she told me while her strength was giving out?”
The question hung there but Harken didn’t acknowledge it.
Fatch had never considered Harken’s life before the Burning Apollo. Had never considered much about him.
A child. A wife. Both dead. Sixty-two years.
Fatch had experienced deep slow and spoken to her grandniece so she knew the effects of relativistic time and the way it separated her from the rest of humanity, but this meant Harken and these pirates had been crossing the galaxy for a long time.
The Onion King’s spherical head filled the screen and then there was only his eyes and that grotesque mouth. “She told me to forgive you. Now, what do you make of a thing like that?”
III
Honza had rarely been so pissed. This was all meant to be routine. He’d been working on starships since he was a kid, since his daddy went and drank himself into servitude and rather than spend his life paying daddy’s debt, Honza had slipped aboard the Cormorant and made it halfway to Elysium before he was caught.
They figured comms and engines were down which was the only reason he was even aboard the Mars Volta. He went to McCavoy and asked specifically to bring Ensign Bracca along. Told McCavoy that it’d be good experience. Hell, it was how he had learned his trade—watching his father work on ships.
Not that Honza considered himself the boy’s father, but he’d grown fond of the boy. He turned to him now, near shitting himself beside Honza. Arms bound, Honza couldn’t offer any physical comfort so he whispered quiet enough that only Bracca could hear, “We’re gonna be okay.”
Bracca nodded. “Sir, he said he’s going to put a bomb in my eye.” His whisper drenched with the tears he was holding back.
“Just talk,” Honza said.
“Shut the fuck up.”
A hand slapped the back of Honza’s head. He turned to see the big man chewing gum, wearing an absurd fur hat.
Honza had known damn near right away that there was nothing troubling the Mars Volta. Got him antsy, but Kralen, like always, blustered on in, picking up none of the obvious cues that things were not as they seemed and ignoring everything Honza or Bracca had to say. Could’ve been any other security officer and they would’ve hopped back to the Burning Apollo, but Kralen had to do everything himself, had to rush in instead of back down from every possible encounter.
Honza even told Kralen, “Don’t think we should go to the bridge.” Had the feeling he was being herded and pushed that direction when he should’ve been led to the engine room if there was anything for him to do.
Harvie had agreed. “It does seem unusual how uneasy the crew of the Mars Volta is, sir.”
Honza loved Harvie like a brother, but that sealed it. Kralen didn’t trust any artificial intelligence. Kralen, like Fatch, viewed Harvie as nothing more than a piece of equipment.
But Harvie was a man. Not a man exactly like Honza or Baltier or even Bracca, but a man all the same. He was a good man. Maybe the best man Honza’d ever known.
Honza turned to his dearest friend and nodded. Harvie smiled pleasantly back.
Almost made Honza laugh. Harvie knew no danger. Honza had known guys like that before. Guileless and so friendly and warm that they were often taken advantage of, but that’s why Honza always kept close to Harvie. He felt like his big brother. Despite Harvie looking like a middle-aged man, he was only a decade old.
But as soon as the doors to the bridge slid open and Kralen stepped through, the big pirate with the stupid hat thrust a thousand volts into Kralen while his buddy shoved a phaser in Harvie’s face.
Got him from behind. Kralen never saw it coming.
That settled it right away. Bracca was still waiting on his new hand. Harvie couldn’t fight. Honza wouldn’t fight. And so they allowed themselves to be bound along with the bridge crew of the Mars Volta.
Then Kralen woke up, shrieking like an animal, already tied so tight he could barely move. Took a dozen kicks to the face for him to finally shut the hell up. The two big men—enforcer types—took great pleasure in beating Kralen’s ugly face in until he did shut up. And that was worse. They didn’t know it yet, but Kralen going silent meant none of these pirates would make it out with their hands and feet, let alone their heads.
They’d known the Burning Apollo though. Knew it from the way their captain smiled before putting on that ridiculous helmet.
Honza couldn’t see the viewscreen from where he was bound but he got a good view of the pirates. A small skinny guy wearing oversized goggles on his forehead with thinning yellow hair was mated with the large woman dual-wielding old-fashioned guns that had actual metal blades on the end. She wasn’t nearly as big as Fatch but she towered over her mate and even their captain. With them were four big men, like the guy with the hat. All wielding various kinds of weaponry. They had a savage, sadistic feel to them, like they were just waiting to kick someone’s head to pulp. Then there was the Speaker, perhaps the strangest sight of all. Neat grey cornrows close to his scalp and a braided grey beard that he tucked into his belt, he looked exactly like Honza had heard a Speaker would. Honza had never been that far out into the old frontier of the gone away Federation, but their strange religion was known even in the Center. Not that he or anyone he knew had ever actually seen a Speaker, but their theology of peace and kindness and inaction was well enough understood.
It’s why Honza couldn’t stop staring at the enormous gun the Speaker held with both hands. He’d never seen anything like it, but he knew it must do some serious damage. Had an anti-starcraft look to it, which was literal insanity to shoot inside a starship. It’d punch a ten-centimeter hole through the thick plate of the walls.
But these were pirates and their captain was wearing that strange helmet with the nightmare face on it.
“Show me my crew and we can discuss your deal.” Classic Harken. Honza couldn’t see him but he knew he sat there with his hands folded in front of his mouth. Probably hadn’t blinked through the pirate’s whole damn monologue, even though it was tailor made to rile the captain up.
The pirate captain said, “Anton, Anton, Anton. It wounds me that you think so low of me. Your crew members are all safe. We haven’t hurt a single one of the humans.”
“My Korukian officer is human.”
“No.” The pirate captain’s voice was firm. “It’s not. You know, back when the Federation was a real federation, you outlawed these kinds of freaks. Some slipped through the cracks because if you give a man the tools to remake himself, he’ll dig around and make a mess. Even they had the sense to be ashamed of what they did and make their bizarre monsters infertile. But now there’s a whole planet full of this beast. A planet known for raiding other planets, stealing their women and children, killing the rest. A Federation that condones that shit ain’t one worth having, if you ask me.”
“If you don’t show me my crew, I’ll assume they’re dead. Commander Baltier.”
“Sir.” Honza had never heard that iron in Baltier’s voice.
“Prepare phasers.”
The pirate captain giggled. “You’d kill the whole crew of the Mars Volta along with your own crewmembers just to—what?—prove a point? That you’re the baddest man in the universe? No, Anton. Let’s not play around. I have no intention of keepin this clattering calamity somehow managing to drift between the stars, nor do I have any intention of keepin your crew members. You and the Burning Apollo mosey on off to Celsus’ orbit and then come along right back, and we’ll be gone.” The pirate captain danced his fingers through the air. “Like ghosts. We’ll have never been here and you can have your crew and this ship and its crew to do with what thou wilt.”
Honza knew Harken would never take a deal like that.
Baltier said, “Phasers ready, sir.”
Harken’s voice came quiet but firm. “Stand down, pirate. Release my crew and return the stolen cargo. This is over.”
The pirate captain sighed. “You want to see your crew?” His nightmarish face twisted towards Honza and though he couldn’t see the pirate captain’s expression, Honza went cold.
“Captain,” Honza called. “This is Lieutenant Honza. He’s telling the truth.”
The pirate captain approached anyway. “We’re going to do a bit of a demonstration for your captain. Cole, follow me.”
The skinny guy with goggles held up a tablet and followed his captain to Honza.
Hard hands grabbed Honza by the shoulders while two more pinned his ankles to the ground beneath him. A third set of hands clamped onto his chin and the top of his head, angling his face slightly up.
The pirate captain squatted before Honza, and the nightmarish smile painted on his helmet felt all the more sinister for the veneer of cold inhumanity between them. “What’s your name?”
“Lieutenant Honza.” Honza breathed through his nose. He wanted to be brave and show Bracca that there was nothing to fear from these pirates, but his skin crawled and his heart raced and a heaviness in his bowels threatened to fill his pants.
The skinny guy loomed behind his captain, holding the tablet up to get a better angle while his captain said, “No, your real name. What do your dog tags say?”
Honza had never heard the term. “What?”
The pirate captain’s head shook. “What was the name given to you at birth.”
“Commander,” Harken said.
The entire Mars Volta shook from the impact. The sirens started, the bridge went dark and then flashing red lights strobed the room.
In the darkness and flashing red lights, the spherical helmet became even more of a nightmare. Those sightless eyes, like two perfect circles above that cartoonish mouth, set Honza’s teeth to chattering. The pirate captain raised his voice. “Not cool, Anton.” Then, to Honza, “Your name.”
“Honza. Honza Hiroto.” It came out in a stuttering rush.
“Nice name.” The pirate captain said it quietly, then raised his voice. “Anton, I hope you’re watching.”
The Mars Volta shook again.
“Shields won’t hold,” Josie said. “This isn’t a battleship, sir.”
“It’ll hold,” the pirate captain said. He stood and grabbed Honza by his hair. His fingers dug in, yanking Honza’s gaze up to the flashing red lights, to that nightmarish face. “Anton,” the pirate captain said, “are you familiar with the Hashji-min?”
The Mars Volta shook again and Josie said, “It’s getting close, captain.”
“The Hashji-min,” the pirate captain stared down at Honza with those cold inhuman circles painted above that horrible mouth, “have this strange habit of placing carnivorous worms into the ears of their captives. Or, they did. They went extinct when your Federation arrived on Urdu a few decades ago.” He spoke loud enough for everyone on the Burning Apollo to hear.
This was a performance, Honza understood. Had nothing to do with him, except that it was going to happen to him.
The Speaker said, “Hundred years or more, captain.”
“Ain’t that something? Time has a way of flitting away from me.” With his free hand, the pirate captain wiggled his fingers through the air.
The Mars Volta shook once more and Josie only said, “Captain.”
He sighed and Honza said, “You don’t gotta do what you think you gotta do.”
The pirate captain slapped him lightly on the cheek. Gentle, like this was a game. “As I was saying, Anton. The Hashji-min liked to put these carnivores in people’s ears. Some now think it was a ritual religious in nature, but that’s just people talkin. I saw it happen once. My own daughter had her head eaten from the inside by these worms. Gruesome, brutal thing. Her skull looked like a rotting pumpkin when it was over.
“Now, you may be wonderin why I might bring up something like this when we’re havin such a nice, friendly chat. Well, Anton, thing is, I’m not liking your attitude. But I also mislike those Hashji-min fellas and how they handled my daughter. So me and Yasmin—you ain’t met her yet, but you’d like her—we come up with a whole new way, sorta inspired by the Hashji-min.”
The pirate captain leaned close to Honza and said, “Don’t move, Hiroto.” He raised his voice. “And Anton, you fire upon me again—”
The Mars Volta rocked and the ground lurched beneath them. The captain kept his feet and kept his grip on Honza, but he was the only one left standing.
For a moment, Honza was free of the many hands holding him, except for the pirate captain’s fistful of his hair. He lurched to the side, trying to get up and run, but the big men fell upon him. They got his shoulders and his ankles again.
His wrists locked behind his back, they forced him down into a kneeling position in front of their captain. He stared up into that inhuman face. “Please.” Felt the tears like a pressure at the back of his eyes.
Josie said, “No breach yet but the shields are down.”
The pirate captain said, “Anton, you hear me?” When Harken didn’t respond, the pirate continued anyway. “Cole, you get Anton a real good view.”
The skinny guy got back to his feet and held the tablet right next to Honza’s face. Honza didn’t know what was coming but he knew he would hate it. He wasn’t a soldier. He didn’t have some pride that needed to be massaged or held in check. “I’m just an engineer,” he said, the tears rolling out his eyes before they even had a reason.
“I know,” the pirate captain’s modulated voice whispered. “I know, Hiroto. But your captain, he ain’t playin nice with us so we need to show him.”
“Pirate.” Harken’s voice came like salvation. “Leave my engineer alone.”
The pirate captain sighed. “Told you not to shoot me again, Anton. I told you.” Almost a plea in his voice, like it was everyone else forcing his hand, as he turned that terrible face to the tablet Cole held. Turning back to Honza, he said, “Open your eyes, Hiroto.”
Honza shut his eyes tight as he could but those feeble lids couldn’t stop the pirate captain’s hand from digging in. Honza felt it. Felt the three fingers plunge into his skull, knocking the eye backwards before pressing it to one side so two of the fingers could slide around behind it. Then, in a single motion, he yanked his hand back out. Honza didn’t so much feel his eye being ripped out of his skull as he felt the cold air touch a part of his body that had never felt air before.
My novels:
Glossolalia - A Le Guinian fantasy novel about an anarchic community dealing with a disaster
Sing, Behemoth, Sing - Deadwood meets Neon Genesis Evangelion
Howl - Vampire Hunter D meets The Book of the New Sun in this lofi cyberpunk/solarpunk monster hunting adventure
Colony Collapse - Star Trek meets Firefly in the opening episode of this space opera
The Blood Dancers - The standalone sequel to Colony Collapse.
Iron Wolf - Sequel to Howl.
Sleeping Giants - Standalone sequel to Colony Collapse and The Blood Dancers
Broken Katana - Sequel to Iron Wolf.
Libertatia; or, The Onion King - Standalone sequel to Colony Collapse, The Blood Dancers, and Sleeping Giants