Edward

by Marcus LaGrone

  Edward

  by

  Marcus J. LaGrone

  Edward

  © 2012 by Marcus J. LaGrone All rights reserved.

  Cover artwork was done by Minna Sundberg. http://www.minnasundberg.fi/ © 2012 held by Marcus J. LaGrone. All rights reserved.

  The resemblance of any character in this book to any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole, or in part, without the author’s explicit permission in writing except for brief excerpts which may be used for the purposes of writing reviews for publication.

  For more information on this title or other titles by the author, please visit: www.HighlandsOfAfon.com

  A brief introduction to the races can be found at the end of the book.

  1

  Edward stared back at the letter as his fur bristled and his tufted ears twitched absentmindedly. It was the fourth time that evening he had read it. It wasn't like it was going to change. Just a single page, so little and yet so much. There in that one page was the last communication he had with his brother David before he was killed. David Silverglade, dead in combat. That still haunted him even five years after the fact. He had been barely thirteen when he got the first letter from his older brother and then, less than a fortnight later, the second, and more painful letter arrived: the one informing him of David's death.

  Edward held his head high and took a deep breath as he fought to get his bobcat-like fur back under control. He was the youngest of seven children, the youngest of four brothers; all had gone places and made something of themselves. His eldest sibling, his sister Helen, was now Ambassador at Large for the Highlands of the home world of Afon. His two older living brothers, Llewellyn and Penn, were both High Silvers. All the boys in the family had previously served, like David, alongside the Shukurae in their protracted fight against the Shukurae’s former slave masters, the Gelkin.

  High Silvers... David had been a High Silver. David had discovered that and then gotten killed, all within ten days. Edward was just a Silver. “Just” a Silver! Many Highlanders would have swapped their furry tails to be a Silver. He could change the color of his fur coat like the best of them, growl and pass almost entire conversations empathically, and despite his age, was already a legend for his skill with Live Steel. Live Steel, what a misnomer. Steel, wood, titanium, it didn't matter, he could summon almost any weapon or armor he needed in a flash just by thinking about it. Just a Silver. All his older brothers had been High Silvers; they could do more than change the fur color, they could fade to all but invisible, they could fold space-time and create a dimension door and send themselves home in a flash, they almost seemed to eat and breathe Live Steel. Was he a High Silver just waiting to come out of his shell? Was he, or was he just fooling himself... No, all the others were High Silvers, he had to be one as well. He just needed to push himself harder. That's it. Push harder until it all just broke loose.

  The red light flashed over his bunk. Time to get ready for insertion. The Shukurae ship was getting ready for its assault and he needed to get to his station. He carefully folded the letter, returning it to a box under his bed and then raced out the door and down the long hallways. The hallways on Shukurae ships were huge, well, they had to be, the Shukurae themselves averaged easily three meters tall. Their leathery almost scaly hide was menacing, their soft pupilless eyes were creepy, and their razor sharp boron carbide teeth and tusks rounded out their monstrous form. Yet Edward knew under all of that were honest and pure hearts, brave and loyal, ready to go into battle at the drop of a hat.

  Edward’s own form, while square and solid by Highland Taik standards, was readily dwarfed by the Shukurae and their ship. His only comfort was that at least he was average in height compared to the humans on the ship. Although his heavy fur coat, cat-like face and long tail were in sharp contrast to the furless and tailless humans. Humans! Edward tried not to laugh but they always made him giggle. They were just so naked looking! He knew it was juvenile but they were so strange compared to what he grew up with. Human societies weren't too strange, they were much like Lowland Taik for that matter. An almost even male/female ratio and everything, just like the Lowlanders. Edward as a Highlander, on the other hand, had grown up with four mothers and one father. First Mother, head of the house, ran the family business. Second Mother raised the children and did their schooling. His Third and Fourth Mothers both supported the family business. An average family. Well, average save for having four boys, much less three High Silvers! No. Four. Edward was certain of it.

  Edward rounded the corner just as Jake, one of the humans on his team, came tearing down the hall.

  “Looks like a live one today!” called Jake. “You ready for it?”

  “Been looking forward to it since I woke up!” beamed Edward back. He enjoyed the humans on his team. Not that he didn't passionately appreciate the opportunity to work alongside the Shukurae, but the humans, naked as they may look, at least were fun to talk to. And boy did they have a sense of humor! Where the Shukurae seemed to have a deficit of humor, the humans made up for the loss in spades. Shukurae were always so utilitarian and reserved it was hard to be around them. He had been told that away from the front lines, they could be far more approachable and sociable, but here on assault ships, not so much! “Race you to the planet surface?”

  Jake shook his head as the two jogged along down the halls past an increasingly large number of Shukurae, “I'm slated for the second strike team today, so no-can-do.”

  “Aw, that's no fun. You know what is going on today, or do we just get the briefing on the descent?”

  “Option two! All I know is I'm here to make people keep their heads down.”

  Edward nodded. Jake was a sniper, and a good one at that. He excelled at long range shots with directed energy weapons as well as kinetic weapons. He was a good man to have around. His eyes were sharp even if his nose was lame. That seemed to be common for humans. “Well, I guess we'll talk planet side!”

  The pair turned into a large staging room. Edward ran over to where his Shukurae partner was already armored up and was settling herself into their insertion capsule. Partner, more like nanny at times. Nanny and ride! Kadu was her name: she was fast on her feet and had exceptional situational awareness and her job, outside of carrying Edward on her back, was to keep him safe until he was needed. Half the time that meant they got stuck in the rear, but when things got hot, the pair of them would close with almost reckless abandon. Close quarter combat. That is what Edward excelled at. With his exceptional skills with Live Steel, he could clear a room in a heartbeat. One didn't want to think how fast he could finish off something small like a train car. Edward was just itching to get in and show them all what he could do. What a High Silver could do.

  “Buckle up, I'm ready to close up,” came the weird voice from Kadu. It was a deep baritone voice that always came as a chord. Not unlike two people talking at once, each at a different pitch. All Shukurae did that. It was a little disturbing but it did actually make it easier to understand them when things were exploding all around them.

  “I'm on it!” Edward was eager to go. Too eager most would say, but his detractors would have to wait for another day. Today was live! He settled himself into the straps on Kadu's back and tucked his tail in and forward, well clear of the capsule door.

  “We are slated for a hop insertion. I've set the retro rockets to sustain at a maximum of 5.5 of gravity.”

  “I was able to handle 6.5 in the tests earlier this week,” objected Edward.

  “Negative. Simulation has you at a 40% chance of blacking out at 6.5. Time to target difference in only twelve seconds, we go in at 5.5,” rebuked Kadu.

  Nanny. Edward knew it was pointless to argue with her bu
t at least he tried. He settled himself in as the narrow door closed behind him. It was going to be a rough ride. The assault ship would separate from the mother ship and hurtle toward the planet. Standard procedure was to eject from the assault ship just on the edge of the atmosphere. The rockets would kick in and blast them on a ballistic arc straight toward the planet's surface. Once through the upper atmosphere the retrorockets would kick in to slow their descent. They’d then pull 5.5 times the force of gravity for twenty-two seconds. It was rough, but he knew he could do it. He'd done it a hundred times before.

  “D-tack.”

  “Hear you five for five, Kadu.”

  “We are pushing away in twelve... eleven... ten...”

  Edward ignored Kadu and just focused on his breathing. Slow and steady. Calm. Must maintain calm. He could almost hear the voice of his eldest brother, Llewellyn, over his shoulder. Calm is the most important thing. Just go and let it happen. The world is your tool, concentrate on the job not the method. Edward didn't know how much of that was just garbage and how much was really important, but listening to his brother had kept him alive in some pretty tight spots. Llewellyn, he was off and married with a kid and another on the way. Why did he leave all the excitement behind? He was one of the best if not the best. Why go? Well, for one thing, he had nothing left to prove. Edward had a long shadow to fill.

  Wait a second! Why hadn't the ship separated yet? Edward knew that for orbital insertions there was a very narrow time window and they had to be going way out of that window by now. “Kadu, what's going on? Why hasn't the drop ship separated?”

  “Unclear. Nothing on comms.”

  Man, was she calm. She was always calm. How could she be so darn calm when their window was most likely shot? At best it would be forty minutes to get the window back. Forty! Edward gnashed his teeth. What bureaucratic glitch had hit the system? This almost never happened! He could only hope there weren't people on the surface in desperate need of reinforcements. If he wasn't careful Jake was going to beat him to the surface after all.

  “517th, we have a recall. Please stand down. All units of the 517th please stand down,” barked the intercom.

  “What happened?” demanded Edward, livid.

  “No data,” replied Kadu, calm as ever. “Stand by, releasing the door.”

  The door to the capsule opened and Edward vacated with a snarl. All around him others were exiting their capsules and starting to down armor. Kadu soon exited their joint pod and stood beside him trying to show some level of support, “Sorry Edward. I don't know what happened.”

  “High Centurion on deck!” came the bark of one of the Shukurae. They all snapped to attention. Well, Edward, the other Taiks and the humans moseyed to attention. They weren't exactly in the chain of command, but respect was given where it was deserved.

  An old-looking Shukurae, his hide leathery-white from age, entered the room. His shoulder armor was solid red signifying his rank as not just a High Centurion but a Grand Centurion. Toch was his name. Edward had met him before. He was an old battle horse and had served alongside his elder brother Llewellyn. He scanned the crowd until he made eye contact with Edward.

  “Edward,” he called as he approached. “We have been asked to gather you and as many will volunteer for a special assault and rescue mission.”

  “I'm confused, sir. What is so important that the present mission was scrubbed?”

  “Your sister, Ambassador Helen, and most of her family were just killed. Their youngest daughter, Dawn, is the only survivor and she has been kidnapped. They are looking to put together a rescue and reprisal mission. Are you interested?”

  “Yes! Yes, sir!”

  2

  Edward stared at the building in the distance through the image-stabilized binoculars. It was one and a half kilometers away, but the image in the eyepiece was large and sharp. It was a plain building, nothing remarkable about it, as it stood there in the pre-dawn glow. Nothing, save for its contents. They had been waiting, watching for over three hours. Under cover of darkness they had moved into position and now they all sat, waiting, watching. All of them. The Grand Centurion had asked for volunteers and volunteers he got! The entire 517th was on the ground there with Edward. No one had batted an eye at the opportunity to help the Highlanders. Helen and most of her family had been killed in a bomb blast. That much he knew. Members of the old Viceroy's troops were the suspects in the bombing and abduction. Viceroy of Ramidar… whatever… Edward didn't know much about the planet's local politics and he didn't care to learn. All he knew was his niece was down there along with the murderers of his sister.

  “I expected you to protest the remoteness of the operation,” began Kadu. “I anticipated that you wanted to be the one kicking down the door to rescue the little girl. I'm impressed with your patience.”

  That was about as close to a compliment as Edward was going to get from Kadu, but he took it as it was meant. “Thank you. I would love to be in the heat of it, but my brother Llewellyn is the right man for the job. He's the best, and I know it.”

  “How the heck is such a small team going to find the little girl in that big building?” asked Jake. “They cannot afford the time to go room to room and search. It's too big.”

  “My brother said he can find our niece and I have no reason to doubt him. He's the best.”

  “And you are just chopped liver?” joked Jake. “Come on, how good could he really be compared to you?”

  “Flattery works better with the girls, eh?”

  “No, seriously. I've seen you in action. You are pretty darn amazing.”

  Edward sniffed, “Llewellyn is... well... you just have to wait and watch. Everyone set on kinetics?”

  Those nearby nodded in unison.

  “So does this mean we are going to see a 'Forest Wall'? I've always been curious about viewing one in person,” inquired Kadu.

  “Odds are you will get your chance. The electromagnetic pulse will probably fry everything within five kilometers if all the High Silvers go off in sync. I have no clue how far the greenery will go.”

  “Greenery?” asked Jake, more than a little confused.

  “High Silvers can create a localized distortion that rips space out of phase. The shock wave produces a sizable EMP. An ancillary effect is the second wave of energy that tends to rip up the local terrain and replace it with a wide variation of arboreal flora consistent with that of the Highland regions of the planet Afon,” explained Kadu. “It is supposed to be quite lovely.”

  Edward laughed, “What she said.” The laugh was partially due to Kadu's sterile but technically correct description, and partially due to the thought she would find anything 'lovely'. There was more to this Shukurae than he knew.

  “So they get weird and we get a forest that springs out of the rocks and pavement?” asked Jake.

  “That is the short of it,” concurred Edward. “We have motion!”

  “Confirmed,” replied the suddenly professional Jake. “We have activity at the building.”

  Kadu grunted into her microphone and then tossed it aside, “All units, we are in motion. Scrap the electronics. Rely on kinetics. Out.”

  Jake chambered a round in his high power rifle as he started to survey the terrain more closely.

  Edward glued himself to the binoculars. The image stabilization would go south in a hurry, but until then, he got to watch his brother at work. Brothers, plural, actually. Both Llewellyn and Penn were down there somewhere along with all the other known High Silvers. There were a couple hundred thousand Silvers in all the known worlds and colonies. There were eighteen known High Silvers, and they were all down there, somewhere. This wasn't going to be even a remotely fair fight, and they didn't care. Their ambassador and her family had been killed by a coward's bomb, and people were going to pay.

  Edward winced as he watched the front of the building suddenly erupt in flames. Fireballs quickly blew out all the windows and doors. Thermobaric grenades most likely. They produce
d massive heat and overpressure which was good for cleaning out buildings. Heck, they were good for leveling buildings. Hopefully the explosion was covering the extraction of his little niece. He knew he didn't need to hope; his brother was down there and Llewellyn left little to chance. Suddenly he could make out the form of his brother walking out of the remains of the front of the building. Flames and debris were still raining down but Llewellyn walked out of the building unconcerned and unharmed. A few unfortunate guards who had witnessed the explosion and had come out of the hiding spots now decided to confront his brother. The rapid fire of a pulse rifle didn't even upset Llewellyn's fur. A split second later a quick blue flash of Live Steel greeted them; they weren't going to be getting back up.

  “Whoa! I take it that is your brother,” whistled Jake.

  “Llewellyn. If you see the one on the far right, just coming into view, that is my other brother, Penn.”

  “It looks like they are just gathering to chat. Hey, there is another one that is dressed like a Highlander.”

  Sure enough a small group of Highlanders formed in front of the remains of the building. All the while they came under fire from a cornucopia of weaponry. None even seemed to notice.

  “Grav tanks. Kedar Mk IIs or IIIs, not sure which. Two of 'em. Shouldn't we warn them?” asked Jake.

  “I'm not sure the guys in the tanks could hear you, much less believe you,” replied Edward sarcastically as he watched the tanks fire a pair of rounds into the crowd. Twenty kilograms of tungsten at around mach six burst from the rail guns on the tanks. The rounds ricocheted harmlessly off of the individuals as their armor momentarily flashed into existence. Edward growled as he looked away. Some day he would be able to do that. Not today, but some day. Suddenly his head hurt as a voice raced through it. Instinct told him it was sound, but it had bypassed his ears and gone straight to his brain. It was a uniform chorus, all the High Silvers in the distance called out at once. Forest Wall.