Sleeping Giants
a preview
I’m e rathke, the author of a number of books. Learn more about what you signed up for here. Go here to manage your email notifications. For the month of September, I’m offering steep discounts on subscriptions.
This upcoming Thursday is the release of the next episode in The Shattered Stars saga! As a reminder, these are all standalone books with the same cast of characters. And so if you’ve been on the fence, this is as good a place as any to begin!
It’s one of my favorites of the eight we’ve written so far.
The pre-order is up now and you’ll receive it immediately on the 21st. The paperback will be available to order the morning of the 21st.
Below are the first three chapters, just to give you a taste.
Tanning
Fatch had never stood atop the Burning Apollo. All the countless hours spent inside it had the strange effect of erasing its physicality for her. In many ways, it had simply become her home. Her body accustomed to the subtle pull of space flight to the point that she no longer felt it. When she thought of the Burning Apollo, she often recalled her impressions of the Academy as a student: a large building housing her whole world.
The Burning Apollo was massive. The flat disk that made up most of the habitable space of the ship stretched far longer in every direction than she thought possible. Inside, it was all corridors and rooms, so even though it took her about an hour to get from one end to the other at a leisurely pace, she had never thought of the physical size required to house all that.
From the center of the disk, she couldn’t see the body behind and below her. The massive thrusters stretched out from that body on arms raised high in the air. Turning back and squinting at the dual suns of Pelinor, she saw their silhouettes like immense tubular buildings suspended on their side. Eighty meters in length. Each the length of a handball pitch, that game that was once so popular in her childhood on Emrys yet she’d nearly forgotten the rules.
Another of Pelinor’s strange wooden ships passed in the distance, its sails filled by wind. The head of some snarling beast thrust from the prow, reminding Fatch of those ancient drawings in Academy archives where the history of Earth rested dusty and ignored. The gunwales rested low on the long flat body of the ship, but the carpentry was astounding. The prow came to a point as if it needed to cut through water; the body curved out wide enough to seat dozens of people, stretching aft to the sternside cabin. So smooth and graceful as its wings arced over the Burning Apollo. So quiet, as if propelled by the wind itself.
It was a marvel. Viking. That was the word. Something they had studied at the Academy. A type of warfare defined by raiding and mobility. Fatch looked down at the cold metal of the Burning Apollo beneath her bare feet and shook her head.
It was beautiful in its own way. A brute kind of beauty. But this galaxy had always belonged to the brutes. The Burning Apollo could take on a dozen fleets of the Pelinor ships without sustaining any damage to its hull.
Dr Neku, lying there with nothing but her sunglasses on, said, “What?”
Despite baking in the shine of two suns for the last three weeks, the Burning Apollo remained cool to the touch. Fatch stood in the full light of both suns while Dr Neku remained on the blanket she’d spread over the cool surface and continued sunbathing. “Nothing.”
“Getting antsy.” Neku snorted, nodding her head as if answering the question she didn’t ask. “When’s the last time you’ve been planetside anywhere this long?”
Fatch took a breath and sighed. “My first tan in five years.”
Dr Neku smiled. “You can tan inside, you know. The sun lamp isn’t just aesthetic either. You need Vitamin D.”
“Take a supplement.”
Dr Neku tsked. “We’re humans. We need sunlight, even when it’s artificial. Only the sun lamp replicates that in a psychologically and physiologically significant way. You spend too much time without sunlight and you start to lose it.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Dr Neku pushed up so she lay back on her elbows. She took her sunglasses off so Fatch could see her raised eyebrows.
“Sorry,” Fatch said. “Just feel useless.”
“Captain and Baltier?”
“I should be there.” Fatch slapped her bare chest. “I’m the comms officer. For all Harken and Baltier know, they’re being lied to right now or having their own words twisted into lies.”
Dr Neku’s eyebrows remained up.
“Fine.” Fatch paced back and forth, arms crossed over her chest. “But it is a serious problem. Yes, I’m sure their translators are fine and doing an appropriate job, but I should still be there. This is my core duty in the crew.”
“You got lots of duties, Fatch. If Baltier hadn’t showed up, you’d be first mate right now.”
Fatch slashed her hand through the air. “It’s not about that. Or, well, maybe it is. But it’s not about Baltier or the captain. This place is on the cusp of a civil war and we’re grounded and I’m sitting here tanning like…like…”
“Like a tourist?”
“For example!”
“Leslie, honey.” Dr Neku tapped the blanket spread beneath her. There was room enough for another person Dr Neku’s size but Fatch was not Dr Neku’s size.
Fatch took a breath and sat beside her anyway. Half her ass on the blanket, half on the cold skin of the Burning Apollo.
Dr Neku said, “What if you spent the time here just relaxing? There’s not shit for you to do, by your own admission, so why not chill?”
Fatch looked out into the bright day. So high up all she saw were the highrises of the capital in the distance and the enormous fungal structures the giants of Pelinor called the Bishu, but which she and the crew had begun calling the hives. “What you make of those?”
“Hm?” Dr Neku put her sunglasses back on. “Oh, the hives.” She shrugged. “Nothing to make of it. People are allowed to have their own customs even if they don’t make sense to us. I heard of people who live underground their whole lives on some moon or planet or whatever. You might think they do it because of increased radiation or something dangerous on the surface, like the storms on Janus, but, no. They just lived underground and thought it was strange that I found it strange.”
Fatch still hadn’t told anyone about the DNA results from Crum but she wondered if the people of these frontier planets were all less human than those closer to the center. The people of Pelinor towered over everyone, including her. Fatch had never encountered a human subspecies so consistently taller than her. Though Fatch herself was only average height, she towered over everyone she’d met elsewhere, except for the rare anomaly. On Pelinor she was, for the first time in her life, decidedly short.
Short but also likely the heaviest human on the planet. The Pelinorians were so thin that they appeared more like trees than people, especially with their swaying gait like branches in the planet’s constantly blowing wind.
Fatch said, “I’ve never heard of people building such massive structures without at least some eye for design.”
“Look around you.” Dr Neku yawned. “The architecture here is fascinating. Often even beautiful. Just not the hives.”
“That’s what I mean. Almost like they’re a hold-over from an ancient civilization.” Fatch chewed her lower lip and turned to Dr Neku. “What if we’re wrong about life in the universe? We’ve always believed that humanity was alone, but what if—”
“The Pelinorians are 100% human. The analysis has been done.”
“What if they were not the first inhabitants here? I was talking to Harvie and he said they didn’t terraform Pelinor.”
“You’re fishing, Fatch. These are nice, albeit strange, people.”
“Nice?”
“Who cares?” Dr Neku laughed. “They’re just people like anywhere else. Some are nice and some are assholes and they’re covetous of their power and sovereignty.”
“I just—”
“You need to fuck.”
Taken aback, Fatch giggled but then broke into full throated laughter. It took over her whole body. She laughed and laughed until her stomach hurt, until her eyes filled with tears.
“Harvie said three more weeks,” Dr Neku said after they had calmed.
“Three fucking weeks,” Fatch said.
“That’s my suggestion. Three fucking weeks.” The way she emphasized the word made Fatch giggle. “Three weeks you can spend holed up in Baltier’s cabin.”
Fatch smiled but tried not to. “Stop.”
“Never seen you be so consistent with anyone. You like him or something?”
Fatch shook her head, still smiling. “He makes me laugh.”
“Uh oh.”
“Shut up.”
“You’re still smiling.”
“You’re the worst.”
Dr Neku put a hand on Fatch’s shoulder. “Enjoy the time we’re stuck here. You don’t know what’ll happen next. Baltier could be reassigned or given his own ship.”
Fatch snorted. “Baltier’s not rich enough to get his own ship. Not decorated enough either.”
“Girl, sometimes you’re dumb as shit, you know that?”
Fatch elbowed Dr Neku away.
Dr Neku lay all the way back down, arms folded behind her head like a pillow. “Star Fleet’s not about ability or even money. Well, a lot of it’s about money and ability, true. Sometimes, though, it’s about who has the skills they need in that moment. And Baltier is a lot of things. Not the best at anything and only half-competent at most things, but sometimes that’s the kind of person you need for a mission.”
Fatch ran a hand through her hair. She’d begun letting it grow out. Always felt odd, feeling her fingers swallowed by her thick mop of hair. “Just a bit of fun, Neku.”
“Mhm.” Dr Neku yawned again. “That’s how it always starts. Bit of fun and before you know it, some bitch is pregnant.”
Fatch laughed again and Dr Neku laughed with her.
Then shouting in the distance. Fatch launched to her feet.
Dr Neku said, “Ain’t got shit to do with you.”
“I’m in charge while captain’s gone.”
Dr Neku waived her along. “Go then. You’re standing in my sun.”
Fatch got dressed and hurried back down to the surface.
To Live
Harvie’s hand split open and released a dozen tendrils that snaked through the air to connect to different terminals. A thick slab of the Burning Apollo’s armor was leaned against a nearby crate of supplies. Harvie held his face just a hand’s breadth from the repairs, his attention so fixated that he hadn’t seemed to notice the screaming match drawing the attention of everyone at the park.
But Fatch saw it. Because Pelinor didn’t have a space port—or not one operational in centuries—the Burning Apollo rested in a vast park outside the colony’s capital. Unfortunately, this park wasn’t just popular; it also seemed to have some religious significance. This certainly hadn’t helped when it came to making peace between the crew and the locals.
It didn’t help that Lieutenant Honza, for all his many gifts, was the least curious person Fatch had ever met.
“I don’t know what the fuck that is,” Honza shouted at one of the local Pelinorians. “And I don’t speak your whispering language, but I swear to all the bulls in hell that if one of you so much as thinks about touching my boy Harvie there and I’ll bend you in half and fuck you.” Tattoos like vines crisscrossed Honza’s face, flexing and bending as he scowled. They signified some talisman or devotion to some god, but Fatch could never remember. Not that she’d ever asked, but Honza was the type who rarely kept a thought to himself.
The towering willowy Pelinorians surrounded Honza, whispering back and forth.
Honza gripped an enormous titanium wrench as long as his leg in both hands. Knuckles tight, hands situated just as they might have been on a handball bat, and he looked ready to do the same kind of damage.
Fatch called out, hurrying up. “What’s the problem, lieutenant?”
Honza jolted slightly. He took a step back, lowered the wrench, but his shoulders didn’t relax. “They’ve been watching my boy Harvie here too fucking closely.”
“He is a demon.” Bald up top but with a long curtain of yellow hair falling down their back, the Pelinorian spoke directly in front of Honza. The words had been whispered in their native language, but this was the first time Fatch had seen a fist raised at the crew.
Fatch jumped right into the dialect. “You mean our robot?” She gestured towards Harvie. “He’s harmless. Almost human.”
They swayed backwards at that, terror painted over their faces. “You must kill it or at least remove it back to your vessel. This land is sacred,” they said. “Our True Mother gave us this land once the demons had been expelled from humanity. We do not mourn their loss, as some do. Rather, we long to kill the demiurge.” This whisper came out jagged, almost a hiss. Others clenched and unclenched their long, pendulous fists. Fatch could not imagine these willowy people capable of hurting anyone.
It reminded her of their wooden ships. Beautiful and ornate but powerless.
Fatch nodded along, taking it in, watching the bald Pelinorian’s narrow mouth, though the lips barely moved as it formed the words. “You believe our Harvie is related to the AI that abandoned humanity?”
“Abandoned!” The pale one with thin black hair whispered in the Federal tongue, showing the hollow inside of their cavernous mouth which made them appear somehow transformed, furious. “Our foremothers banished the demiurge after a decade of sacrifice!” They gestured as the crowd of Pelinorians tightened around them. “You come here knowing nothing of us or our history yet you go so far to take the mantle of righteousness upon yourself.” They pointed at Harvie. “That thing will be the death of all of us.” They paused for a moment. “I have seen it in the stars.”
The dozens of giants gathered around them muttered, nodding their tiny heads atop their long bodies. Some made swinging hand movements in Harvie’s direction.
Honza said, “Tell them to back the fuck up, sir.” He lifted his wrench again.
Fatch raised her hands in a calming gesture. “Listen to me, we have no demons or demiurge here. Our boy Harvie is not sentient. He’s only a robot. A machine shaped like a man to do the bidding of men.”
“Lieutenant,” Honza gasped.
“Fuck off, Honza.” Fatch continued lying to them, calming them. After half an hour of arguments and peacemaking, sometimes in their dialect, sometimes in Federal, the Pelinorians left them alone. Left Harvie alone.
Honza stared at her with cold fury.
“What?”
“How could you say those things about Harvie?” The pleading in his voice shocked Fatch. Honza had tears in his eyes.
Fatch sighed. “Put the fucking wrench away, Honza. If you could keep your temper, this would’ve gone away before I had to say anything.”
Honza looked down at the wrench in his hands and grunted. “Still, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.” His voice broke slightly as he turned to Harvie and watched him working quietly and tirelessly. Then, back to Fatch. “He’s not a thing, lieutenant. He’s as much a man as I am.” He stalked away, dropping his oversized wrench on the ground with a dull thud, wiping at his eyes.
Fatch approached the ship and called to Harvie.
Harvie turned. His skin glistened strangely and his pupils were white instead of black, but he could have looked like any human from a planet that had dabbled in bioengineering. “Good morning, lieutenant.”
“How goes it?”
Harvie’s expression was a constant pleasant placidness. “Repairs are proceeding in a satisfactory manner. We should be complete within three weeks, unless something extends our timeline, such as a riot.”
“You heard that.”
“It would be difficult not to, lieutenant.” He smiled.
“Sorry about all that.”
Harvie held up his hand and shook it slightly. Like an animal dressed in human clothing. “I take no offense, lieutenant. You were keeping the peace. It is the action I myself would have recommended. They only fear me because I am new to them. Either the universe will change and my kind will become more common or they will change. Either way, the future remains to be decided.”
Harvie had that quality. A calm wisdom that, Fatch believed, came from the detachment he had from humanity. He was not born but built, though he did have a father who had gone on to make what he described as Wet Models: versions of Harvie grown in a lab rather than created as something between a hobbyists enthusiasm for novelty and a researcher’s propensity for recreating the distant past of the Federation. “Well, I’m still sorry, Harvie. Truly.”
Harvie bowed. Only Harvie would fucking bow. “Think nothing of it, lieutenant.”
“Can you tell me something about this demiurge?”
Harvie’s eyes went blank for a moment before reanimating. It was one of the more unsettling aspects about him. He seemed so human for so long and then he’d do something to remind you that he was, in fact, a machine. “There is no record of this entity pre-collapse. Inference would lead us to assume that the demiurge came about as a myth to explain the dissolution of the Federation. The AI were, in a way, like gods built as a model of humanity’s aspirations. When they left, the Federation began to fall apart, planet by planet. I imagine this changed the hue of this god for the people here. Rather than a god to model their own species on, the AI became a god bent on humanity’s destruction.”
Fatch nodded. “Guess that tracks.”
Harvie smiled. “Glad to be of assistance.” Then he bowed again.
Fucking Harvie.
“Now, excuse me, sir, but I must return to these repairs.”
Fatch thanked him and left him to his business. When she turned, she saw Harken and Baltier approaching.
Harken’s grim expression could have meant anything, but Baltier’s resigned smile told Fatch things had not gone well.
The Federation and the Barbarians
Harken clenched one fist as he took his usual position behind his desk. He took a deep breath. “I grow tired of these deciduous people.” He spoke flatly and quietly but Fatch nearly flinched. Slowly, Harken’s fist unclenched and rested flat on his desk before rising to join his other hand. The fingers folded together before his face. That old familiar pose. “What now, Commander?”
“Sir.” Baltier stood beside Harken’s desk like a boundary between the captain and Fatch. His constant half-smile showed slightly as he said, “You have to admit. This place is really quite hypnotic.”
Harken shook his head. “Three weeks. Three weeks of their inane whispering.”
“They’re not buying what we’re selling, sir.”
Harken’s eyes narrowed and rolled. Almost comical coming from him. His gaze settled on Fatch. “Do you know what they told me, lieutenant?”
“Sir?”
“They told me,” his head titled forward over his hands, “that they are the Federation. That they never left the Federation. That we—us—should be asking them for readmittance.”
Fatch swallowed and didn’t look at Baltier, who had explained this to her that very morning when they were lying in bed. But Fatch saw that she had a role in this conversation so she filled it. “Then who are we to them?”
Harken flipped a hand towards Baltier who said, “I believe the word they used was—”
“Barbarians.” The word came from behind Harken’s gritted teeth. It seethed out of him. “They want ships. I offer them ships. I ask for one thing.” He flipped his hand to Baltier again.
Baltier, always smiling. “That they rejoin the Federation.”
“And they ask me—” The emphasis on the final word made Fatch’s eyes open wide. “They ask me what use our frontier Federation could be to them here.” He flipped his hand to Baltier again. It was a strange performance, but Baltier behaved as if he was born to play this role.
He said, “We offer them mobile citizenship—”
“Citizenship to dozens of worlds.”
“—and military protection from pirates—”
“Twelve ships. I’ve offered them twelve ships I don’t have from the fleet.”
“—and access to our technological improvements—”
“They won’t have to fly their little boats along the wind.” Harken flapped his hand, dangling his fingers. Something about the comical movement clenched like a fist in Fatch’s chest. They had pushed Harken too far.
“—and full recognition of their sovereignty rights to all the land, seas, and skies of Pelinor, including their moon—”
“Rich in titanium.” Harken inhaled sharply through his nose.
“—and—”
“Still they refuse me. They can’t even access their moon, which could be mined to build a literal fleet of star ships. A true fleet. Not the ramshackle one we’ve thrown together. Hundreds of ships like the Burning Apollo. This moon truly contains an impressive quantity of minerals. Its value can scarcely be estimated.”
“They’re fortunate we don’t annex it anyway,” Baltier said.
Harken folded his hands once more and turned slowly to Baltier. Baltier, still looking at Fatch, hadn’t noticed the changing atmosphere in the room. “We are not barbarians, Gene.”
Baltier’s smile slipped from his face. Flushing red, he swallowed and turned to Harken. “My apologies, sir. Was only a joke.”
Harken glared at Baltier long after Baltier had looked down and stared at the space between them. The tension stretched and Fatch knew where such moments ultimately led.
“If they’re the true heirs of the Federation…” Fatch glanced out of the corner of her eye at Baltier. And there it was: the return of his grin, the faintest glance back. One she appreciated more and more now that Kralen was often excluded from these briefings. “If they’re the Federation, what do they want with us outsiders?”
Harken’s gaze turned to her, pulling the cold fire away from Baltier. “What people always want: power.”
“The Pelinorians have been members of the Federation for seven hundred years, since the very founding of the Federation,” Fatch said. “That’s what their records claim. Harvie confirmed it.”
Baltier said, “Though they lost contact with every single planet in the Federation at some point, they never severed ties. Rather, in their view, the AI caused the rest of the universe to go dark. A decimation, as they call it. They have believed for hundreds of years that they are not just the heirs of the Federation, but a central remnant of the Federation.”
“Bioengineers,” Harken sighed, “and priests. Does that sound like the Federation to you?”
Fatch cleared her throat. “Sir, with due respect, that’s exactly what the Federation has become.”
“That’s right,” Baltier said. “Even on this ship, we’re crewed by former pirates, modified humans, and those who believe in any number of gods or spirits. Just this morning, Lieutenant Honza was—”
“Point taken,” Harken folded his hands before his face once more.
“We have to consider it, sir.” Baltier paused. “How can we reintegrate them into the Federation when they believe they never left?”
Fatch just barely resisted the impulse to step closer to the desk, even as her fist clenched by her side. “These people aren’t like us and yet they’re just like us. They’re frightened of Harvie. And we have to remember: they’re not trying to bring the AI back. They think—”
“Frightened of Harvie.” Harken’s eyes looked far off, settling briefly on the wall behind them. He blinked and sharpened his gaze on Fatch. “How so?”
“Just before you returned, sir, they called Harvie a demon. They wanted to destroy him.”
Harken’s eyes went wide. “Demon.” The word hung in the air. Harken’s eyes darted back and forth as if completing some difficult calculation in his head. He lowered his hands to his desk and tapped on the display. A map of Pelinor appeared on his desk. “Seven hundred years of glorious history have left these people with primitive superstitions.” A slight smile came to his face. Only a touch at the edge of his mouth, but there it was: Captain Harken smiled.
Fatch shivered.
“It’s comments like that—” this time Baltier’s voice was careful, subdued, as neutral as Fatch had ever heard it, “that kept them from wanting you to come back, sir.”
No one breathed. Fatch’s breath caught in her chest, restrained.
If this were anyone else—especially Kralen—she might have reveled in this. Smiled, maybe even said something to help it dig in.
But Harken didn’t respond with anger. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.
Unbalanced. The casual joviality of Harken’s posture struck her as oddly terrifying. She felt as if a slow moving asteroid approached but she couldn’t move out of its way. Couldn’t even avert her eyes.
“That’s right, number one,” said Harken. “This is a delicate period. We must proceed carefully.” And then he smiled wide.
Fatch said, “Sir?”
“Yes, lieutenant?” His smile faded but his expression remained placid.
Fatch’s mouth hung open, and she cleared her throat. “Commander Baltier has kept me up to date. My understanding is there are three primary factions on this planet.”
Harken turned to Baltier. “I’d like to hear this rundown as well.”
Any other man would have wilted before Harken. Fatch herself struggled to breathe with this almost friendly turn in the conversation, but Baltier was so at ease. Baltier was at ease with everyone. It steadied Fatch, seeing his smile, his unflappable confidence. “Three factions.” He raised a finger. “The first is why we’re here in the first place, even before our little jaunt into the asteroid field. When we made contact, they saw an opportunity to improve the standard of living for all people on Pelinor. These are the social radicals with both the largest grassroots support but the least material backing. They’re represented by Vlakis of the Greens in the Diet. The second,” he raised another finger, “want absolutely nothing to do with us. This is Ladriel and the Pinks. But, like Vlakis, she sees an opportunity. What they want more than anything is our weaponry. They have the least support among the populace but the most material backing. The third,” Baltier dropped his hand and the count, “are an insurgent group that was initially quite minor, but they’re soaring since the terrorist attack and our presence here. They’re represented by Enrias and the Reds. Their goal is to turn the Pinks Red. They, too, have little public support but a great deal of financial support, though it’s unclear from where. They’ve also been able to use the terrorist attacks as a wedge, which has made their popularity rise rapidly in a way that the Greens and the Pinks are having difficulty counteracting.”
“Very good, commander.” Harken turned to Fatch. “Now that we all have the same information from Baltier, we can move on.”
Fatch felt it like a slap. She knew that the captain knew they were fucking but she also knew he would never speak of it.
Baltier, however, seemed nonplussed by the pleasantly given rebuke. He said, “These people don’t care about us or the Federation we represent. They’re thinking purely of the political dynamics here on Pelinor. Inadvertent as our presence is, we have become a tool that all of them intend to use to gain the most advantage for themselves.”
“How could they want otherwise,” said Harken in a dry voice, “when they can hardly stop droppings bombs to listen to our proposal.”
Baltier said, “Lieutenant Fatch may be just what we need, captain.”
Fatch jolted to attention. Back straight, legs braced beneath her.
Harken’s eyebrows shot up. He seemed genuinely surprised, something Fatch had rarely seen. “Go on.”
“You saw them, sir. Ladriel was done. She didn’t want us here and doesn’t see any advantage to be gained from us due to your, uh, intransigence.”
“Well worded, commander.” Harken spoke dryly.
It nearly made Fatch laugh, if only for the shock of it.
“She’s gone off to the mountains, won’t be back until this ceremony they’ve mentioned. Enrias is a bit of an enigma. We haven’t gotten a straight answer out of her this entire time. But Vlakis—you could see it. He’s lost support and may be the least influential within the Diet, but there’s still a chance. He’d just—”
Baltier hesitated before saying, “It’s just, he’d likely respond best to a new voice from the ship. In my case, I’ve already attended these negotiations. I’ve lost my chance to make a first impression.” Or, he didn’t say, he’d accumulated guilt by association. “But this is Lieutenant Fatch’s job. She can talk to these people for us. And in their own language, I might add.”
“Sir,” Fatch said, in a voice which she hoped disguised the violent beating of her heart. “The commander is right. I’m briefed and ready to go. I could be off the ship in ten minutes.”
“The problem is,” Baltier said, “when we came to this planet there was disagreement. We thought we could use the disunity to our advantage, but that has not gone well, to put it gently.”
Harken leaned forward, hands folded before his face again.
“They’re unhappy to have our ship here. Not only the Diet but the average Pelinorian walking the streets. They’re afraid after these recent terrorist attacks. They’re beginning to see us as an enemy, and that means they’re uniting against us. If we don’t do something now, the Federation may never gain a foothold on this planet. We’ve seen it already. Doing things our way doesn’t work.”
“More importantly, sir,” said Fatch. “The Great Silence is in only two days. It won’t be long and no one on this planet will speak for a week. But first they’ll provide their topic of contemplation. The Visra in Misradal will announce what the people should focus their minds on. We need to get a sympathetic word or we’ve got no chance, and this Vlakis might be the key.”
Harken had been silent for too long. Fatch felt the imbalance in the room, still shifting as Harken said, “Commander, did you get a sense over the last week that Enrias wants everyone to believe that we are responsible for the terrorist attacks?”
“Don’t see how it could be ignored, sir.”
“Not us, sir,” said Fatch. “But our presence. Can you imagine, someone just shows up and—”
Harken’s eyebrows lowered. “What I’m saying, lieutenant, is something must be done. Do you truly feel you’re up to this task?”
Fatch nodded. “Of course, sir.”
Harken nodded and said, “Very well. I’ll have a shuttle prepared for you and Lieutenant Kralen. It will be ready soon, so—”
“Sir.” Fatch shook her head so forcefully her jaw clenched. “Respectfully, I think—”
“You must remember the importance of this mission,” said Harken, “and with that in mind—”
“Not Kralen, sir.” Fatch near shouted the words, her fingers clenched behind her back. She felt a ropy tightness in her arm, as if she had thrust into a bucket of snakes. “He’s not right for this mission, respectfully.”
“Lieutenant Kralen has proven on many occasions that—”
“He has the tact of a warhead, sir,” Fatch said, and shook her head again. “These people are gentle. They want—well, I don’t know what they want. But we’ve seen that force and threats don’t work with them. What we need to do is see things from their perspective, and that’s not Kralen’s skillset.”
“The lieutenant has a point, sir,” said Baltier. “Lieutenant Kralen has many fine attributes, but subtlety is not one of them.”
Harken’s eyes moved from Baltier to Fatch. Fatch to Baltier. This was a purposeful scrutiny. Without saying a word, Harken was telling both of them that he knew what they were up to and that he did not appreciate the intimacy, especially when used against him.
“That’s right, sir.” The idea had burst into her head so suddenly, so powerfully, that there was no fighting it. But Fatch didn’t care, she knew it was right, even if only darkness laid ahead. “Request to take Lieutenant Lumo instead.”
My novels, whose paperbacks are all $9.99 for the month of September:
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.
Some free books for your trouble:
I liked the blurb very much, enticing! Downloaded Colony Collapse #1 through KU just now. It was wonderful to see your books were in KU. Thank you! 🧡