The ship is inspired by the Sea Orbiter, an incredible design that I hope someone builds someday, just so we can see it and know that humanity won’t be denied. Learn to live as one with the sea, for it cannot be dominated by brute force.
In this book you’ll see the influence of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. I love the science fiction classics and tried to give some of their ideas life with the Free Trader. Of course, there’s always inspiration from David Weber and Anne McCaffrey. I think it all came together in a story with more action than we’re used to seeing, but there’s always something going on, and you get to see this world through all kinds of different eyes.
As we are bombarded by the media with the worst the world has to offer, I bring to you the character Bronwyn, who is all about the freshness of youth and finding the good in people, no matter who those people are or what they look like.
Thank you to Stephen Lee for all of his work with the 77 Worlds concept. I’ve been honored to include some short stories in his anthologies, and hope that I can do the game credit at Gary Con IX! We are talking about some other things, too, and I hope we have good news to share some time soon.
I want to thank some readers by name as they are the ones who we look to when we’re feeling a little down. Diane Velasquez and her sister Dorene Johnson are incredible advocates and very supportive. Norman Meredith has thrown out a number of ideas that keep the creative juices flowing. The following people have also been very kind with their comments. Bill and Linda Rough, J.L. Hendricks, E.E. Isherwood, Heath Felps, Chris Rolfe, Barry Hutchison, Joe Jackson, Angela Hill, and so many more. It makes a day spent writing so much easier and more fulfilling when people appreciate the stories.
Humans and the Intelligent Creatures
The Hillcats (‘cat)
The Golden Warrior – also called G, G-War, and Prince Axial De’atesh, can share his mindlink with others
Fealona – from G-War’s home village and his mate
Treetis – A young ‘cat, very much like G-War
* * *
The Humans
Braden – The Free Trader
Micah – The Warrior, Partnered with Braden
Axial & De’atesh – Braden and Micah’s twin children
Bronwyn – Gifted child, able to speak with all creatures
Dr. Johns – a clone, leader of the survivors from Cygnus VI
Zeller – a Free Trader, from Trent, the same village as Micah
Young Tom – a blacksmith from Whitehorse, Zeller’s partner
Mattie & Caleb – Micah’s parents
The Professor – an ancient
* * *
The Hawkoids
Skirill – also called Ess
Zyena – Skirill’s mate, born on the RV Traveler, also called Zee
Zeeka – Skirill and Zyena’s daughter, first Hawkoid born in the south
* * *
The Tortoid
Aadi – First Master of the Tortoise Consortium
* * *
The Aurochs
Brandt Earthshaker – King of the Aurochs
Arnie – Zeller’s partner in trade, pulls her wagon
The Queen – Brandt’s queen that he rescued from Toromont’s Run
* * *
The Lizard Men (Amazonians)
Pik Ha’ar – Lizard Man from the ship RV Traveler and friend
* * *
The Rabbits
Ferrer & Brigitte – a Rabbit couple moved from the Traveler to Vii
* * *
The Dolphins
Chlora & Rhodi – genetically engineered creatures of the sea
* * *
The Whale
Rexalita – engineered from a Sperm Whale, the largest creature on Vii
Raiders!
Zeller’s wagon bounced lightly as it crossed the stream, until Arnie stopped to drink. The Aurochs was barely winded, even after the long day’s pull. The Old Tech wagon used the power of the sun to assist in turning the wheels, aiding the great beast as he trotted across the countryside.
Caleb rode in the back, sleeping, watching, and sleeping some more. The wagon’s padding made for an embarrassingly comfortable trip. They also carried fishing gear that Caleb intended to give to the new residents of White Beach, the village on the shore of the Western Ocean where the old inhabitants had been taken into the sea by vehicles of the ancients, operated by the Bots.
The new residents saw the potential in fishing, and the Bots had not been seen for cycles. Fear disappeared over time and the people migrated, looking to make their own mark in the world. They moved to the empty homes, finding serenity in sleeping near the beach, in eating the crabs and clams they easily found on the shore. They could see fish and other sea life, but they had no luck in catching them. They tried using gear that they found in the huts and homes, but nothing seemed to work.
The Free Traders carried word to the west, and Micah asked her father if he could help. He was powerless to resist, since Mattie wouldn’t let him turn their daughter down.
That was how he found himself on the long journey west, traveling across the south, from one ocean to the other.
He liked the padding of Zeller’s wagon, but he was also cramped among Amazonian rope, bags of mushrooms, sweetened pork that made him perpetually hungry, and special metal tools carried all the way from Old Tom’s forge. Zeller’s mate, Young Tom they called him, was building his blacksmith business outside River Crook. Old Tom’s tools would be put to good use as Young Tom started churning out the implements that farmers, hunters, shepherds, fisherman, and everyday people needed.
Caleb noticed a marked increase in the wagon’s speed the closer they got to River Crook and Zeller’s mate, usually a three to four turn effort from Bliss. Caleb wondered if she was trying to cut the time to two turns.
Arnie bugled his dismay at something unseen and bolted forward, only to slide to a sideways stop a few heartbeats later to avoid a barricade of logs blocking their way. Caleb was thrown about within the wagon, pummeled as the cargo dislodged.
“To arms!” Zeller yelled as she jumped from the wagon’s buckboard to the ground and with her sword, hacked through the harness to quickly free the Aurochs. He danced out of the fallen straps and ran to the right, to the north.
Caleb jumped out the back, brandishing a spare sword that Zeller kept in the wagon, just in case. He hadn’t practiced with it, but if nothing else, he was confident that he had a strong arm and a keen eye.
Neither the sword nor his fisherman’s vision protected him from the flight of arrows. He dodged, trying to get behind the wagon, but one arrow caught him in the calf and another, the thigh. Both thudded deeply, and he fell. Caleb crawled, furiously, seeking the wagon’s shelter to protect him from the onslaught. A hand reached out and grabbed him, dragging him onward, while the other hand whirled a sword, knocking two more arrows away.
“What the..?” Caleb stammered, sitting awkwardly against the wagon’s wheel to keep the arrows embedded in his leg from wedging into the ground. Four men with bows crouched behind a series of rocks, not far from the trail.
“Give us what’s in the wagon and no one has to get hurt!” a gruff voice called.
“Come and take it,” Zeller bellowed in reply. Caleb looked up at her, shaking his head.
“There’s not much we can do if they come for us. Sorry about getting myself shot,” Caleb told her, grimacing as she gripped the first arrow and yanked it out. The world spun before his eyes, then darkened to a pinpoint, before slowly coming back. She watched him and the wound, then quickly glanced under the wagon. The men had left cover and were spreading out, walking cautiously toward Caleb and Zeller.
She tugged the other arrow out with one mighty heave. Caleb howled in agony and gripped his leg. Zeller expected him to pass out, but he didn’t. He writhed in agony as she haphazardly shoved numbweed into the wounds.
“I need you up and ready to fight!” she pleaded, shaking him. Caleb was not a small man and wa
sn’t intimidated by other human beings, but he saw in Zeller a battle partner, fierce, not to be denied. The fisherman gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the sword. He used the weapon as a crutch to help him stand. There was no time for bandages, but the numbweed had slowed the bleeding.
Caleb and Zeller stood back to back, swords ready to fend off arrows, at least as much as they could. The men positioned themselves in a semi-circle around the wagon, keeping their distance from the armed Free Trader and her companion.
“We could kill you where you stand. Walk away and live,” the man attempted to negotiate. Zeller was furious. She’d heard stories about raiders on the trade routes, but chalked that up to desperate people and bad traders. She never believed such highwaymen existed, because she hoped she wouldn’t have to fight. On the journey she’d taken with Braden and Micah to Warren Deep, she’d seen ambushers and men who freely took from others. It grated on her soul, but killing them was even worse. She wasn’t Micah and didn’t find it easy to end another’s life, even if they asked for it, or maybe even demanded it by the evil of their actions.
She realized that she had no choice. Those men could not be allowed to interfere with trade. She hadn’t asked for the violence, but it came anyway. She wrapped her mind around the thought and became one with Micah and why she did what she did.
There and then, Zeller couldn’t allow thievery, not in the south, where her friends had fought a war to make sure that trade flowed from east to west and north to south.
“No,” Zeller said icily, barely above a whisper, flexing her knees as she prepared to fight. Caleb hopped on one leg, keeping weight off his injured leg, even though it no longer hurt. It felt like a dead stump.
The men seemed confused. It was a big step from raider to killer. They watched the Free Trader, understanding from the look in her eyes that she had already taken lives and was capable of taking more. The leader of the band loosed an arrow at her.
With a flick of her wrist, she deflected it, then lunged forward a step. The leader flinched and fell backwards. She laughed at him.
‘I’m coming,’ Arnie told her in his thought voice.
“Shoot her, you idiots!” the raider yelled while sitting on the ground. The others drew their bowstrings more tightly as their leader scrambled to his feet. “SHOOT!” he screamed maniacally, the sound of his voice disappearing in the approach of pounding Aurochs hooves. One man inadvertently let go, sending his arrow arcing high overhead and into the distance. Another turned and released an arrow toward the charging bull. He was amazed that he missed, but turned to run, too late as Arnie bowled him over.
The Aurochs angled sharply toward the second man, who stood dumbfounded. He held up his hands weakly as Arnie ran him down and continued running in a tight circle around the wagon.
When the men noticed the approaching bull, Zeller sprinted forward, observed only by the leader whose attention was pulled in two directions. He didn’t have an arrow nocked for a second shot, so he futilely swung his bow at Zeller. She cleaved the man nearly in two as his bow slapped harmlessly against her outstretched arm. She turned to face the remaining raider, checking her balance as she arced her blade through the air before her.
The man was aiming and then released. The arrow flew past her and into Arnie’s shoulder as he completed his turn. He snorted through the pain and thundered past her as the man threw down his bow and put his hands up. The Aurochs didn’t recognize the gesture. Even if he had, he probably couldn’t have slowed his stampede. The man tried to dodge at the last heartbeat, but Arnie was a big animal and ran him down, finally slowing.
Zeller ran after the bull, begging him to stop so she could tend his wound.
Caleb limped to the last man that Arnie had knocked down. The man was alive, but playing dead. The fisherman used the tip of his sword to send the bow a few strides away. Caleb kept his distance, in case the man tried something. With the tip of his sword, Caleb probed the man’s back.
“Turn over now. Let’s have a look at you,” Caleb told the face-down, would-be raider. The man groaned as he rolled over, holding a clearly broken arm. “Where are you from and how many more of you are there?”
“River Crook,” the man panted. Zeller made a fist, and her lips were white from clenching her jaw. She walked, with the Aurochs close behind, toward Caleb and the other. The arrow in Arnie’s shoulder had already been removed, and numbweed had been packed into the small hole.
“There are good people in River Crook,” she exclaimed, barely controlling her fury. “All these people come from there?” She didn’t recognize them as she looked from one to the next. She’d never seen their leader before.
“No. They came through nearly a moon ago, with promises of a better life. I was tired of digging in the fields,” the man gasped, struggling with the pain of his broken arm. It didn’t help that Caleb kept prodding the raider with his sword point.
“You shot Arnie,” Zeller said when she returned from checking the men, taking their weapons and pouches. She took the injured man’s items, too, without any concern for his injury. “I should kill you right here.”
Caleb looked harshly at her, and she bowed her head, then walked away to repair the straps on the wagon. She was also upset that the repairs would take product that was destined for trade. Caleb watched her go about her business, readying the wagon so they could continue their journey.
Zeller said they could still reach River Crook by nightfall off-handedly while she worked.
“Let me help you into the wagon,” Caleb offered, waiting for the man to agree, before offering an arm. “If you try anything, I will simply kill you and leave your body for the vultures with the rest of these vermin.”
The man nodded. “Darius. They call me Darius, and I surrender. I’ll take my punishment.” Darius looked at Caleb’s arm, but didn’t climb into the wagon.
Caleb knew Darius wasn’t going to attempt an escape. He’d made a mistake by joining the others. At least he’d survived to see another day, but his fear grew with each heartbeat. His arm was useless, and he needed River Crook to take him back if he was to heal. He started apologizing to Caleb and Zeller, even Arnie, sobbing as he did so.
Zeller was unconvinced by his remorse. She joined Caleb and Darius at the back of the wagon. She stopped them both and told Caleb to hold the man. He started flailing, thinking she was going to kill him, even though she dismissed his fear with a shake of her head.
“I’m not going to kill you,” she said calmly. He wasn’t reassured as Caleb wrapped two strong hands around the man’s elbows as Zeller seized Darius’s wrist in hers. He howled at the pain from his broken arm.
“Wait! Do you hear that?” Zeller waited for the man to stop screaming, then nodded over his shoulder. When he turned to look, she yanked his wrist straight out, using her body weight to stretch the arm’s muscles and tendons, pulling the bones past each other before letting them snap back into place. The man collapsed, taking the one-legged Caleb with him as he went to the ground.
Caleb pushed the man from him and glared at the Free Trader. “Sorry,” she mumbled as she helped him to his feet. The arrow wounds on his leg continued to leak. She packed numbweed in, then gathered more of her precious cargo, the Amazonian rope, to tie a bandage around Caleb’s leg and a splint around the young raider’s arm.
“We can’t leave them because other traders come through here. It just wouldn’t do to have dead bodies lying around.” She reluctantly agreed and methodically dragged them one by one to a dip away from the road. The leader was messy, so she dragged him by his feet, leaving a trail of blood and guts behind her. She tumbled the remainder of his body into the depression. She threw a few rocks on top of the men, declared it good, and returned to the wagon.
Caleb was leaning heavily against it, drinking water from a flask. Arnie had pulled the wagon around the blockade and forward until he was standing knee deep in the stream, also drinking his fill. Caleb limped around the wagon and stood upstr
eam of Arnie to refill the flask before offering it to the injured young man.
Zeller wanted to kick the raider. Arnie was injured and so was Caleb, Micah’s father. It wasn’t her fault that it happened, but there was a certain fire in that family that gave her pause. “You know, this wasn’t my fault?” she probed.
Caleb started to laugh, understanding the full reasoning behind Zeller’s question. “I’ll tell Micah and Mattie that it was my own fault for being old and slow and that you saved me!” The young man saw no humor in any of it. As the pain in his arm ebbed, he was more solemn and even angry, maybe with himself, but the Free Trader didn’t know and didn’t care.
“Get in the wagon,” she ordered the raider. Caleb helped the young man in and pointed to where he should sit. The older man climbed in after him.
“This could go easier on you if you cast aside your evil ways and return to the fold of the righteous,” Caleb intoned, feigning the speech of a preacher, although he’d only ever seen one of those in his life and that was a long time ago. The reference was lost on the young man and fear gripped him anew. “We’re not going to hurt you. Do you know of any other people like that, raiding the trade route?”
The young man shook his head.
“Well, Darius, I’m pleased to meet you,” the fisherman said more gently, seeing the other’s demeanor lighten as he submitted to his fate.
“I think I’m pleased to meet you, but not sure what my future holds,” he said resignedly.
“Your future is much brighter now than it was just a little while ago. You know that Braden and Micah wouldn’t allow thievery to go on for very long and you’re probably lucky that it wasn’t them who happened across your lot. You and your former associates would have all been killed before you stepped from cover, after your minds were scoured for every bit of information you had so any other raiders could be rooted out and destroyed. Now that you are living on borrowed time, tell us what you know.”
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