by Scott Moon
Fey crossed her arms.
Seccon smiled. “You are the smarter of the two. Aefel would have betrayed his plan moments after I pricked his FALD Reaver pride.”
“Why do you keep calling him that?” she asked.
“That is who he is,” Seccon said.
Fey shrugged and flared her nostrils. “Maybe this is true, but I still don’t know what FALD means.”
Seccon stared at her. “I could tell you the words, but they would mean nothing to you.”
“Try me,” she said.
Seccon considered his options. There were reasons not to tell Fey and the others the truth about Grendel or the Earth System Commonwealth, which had expanded its sovereignty over a dozen solar systems since the beginning of the space age. The main reason was that she would never believe him.
He wished he knew how much Aefel had shared with her. “FALD is just a word. It means he is a warrior of great skill.”
“He wanted someone to think you were dead, but left all the witnesses here to see the truth. What was wrong with him?” Fey asked abruptly. “That doesn't make sense.”
Seccon saw the tears in her eyes and wondered if he had judged her harshly. He reached for empathy, but found he still didn’t like the young woman. By association, he was developing a strong dislike for Aefel, who was a man he had been prepared to like and respect. The man would be his greatest ally or worst enemy. A smart man would avoid going against the FALD Reaver.
Seccon knew many soldiers like him. Bad news, every one of them. He opened his hand and stared at the oversized coin, reading the inscription quietly. “Humans sit Humanum.”
“What did you say?”
Seccon did not look up immediately. He knew what the words meant and thought they would be harmless to reveal, but wasn’t sure he wanted to communicate with Fey. She was overconfident. She made too many demands on him and others. Deep in his heart, he knew that the real reason he resented the small woman was that Fey and Borghild were rivals in the clan. Seccon liked Borghild. Perhaps he more than liked her. Many times, he awoke and was overwhelmed by the thought of her face and her smile and it was the only reason he decided to continue living.
“Humans sit Humanum. It means humans must be human,” Seccon said.
Fey cocked her head slightly and stepped forward, looking at him fiercely. Seccon could never guess if she meant to flirt or tell a joke or something else, although it was his general experience that she was about to say something caustic. Seccon sighed and tried to relax. He looked down, knowing it probably wasn’t the best thing to do around a woman who carried an axe and possibly had killed more men than he had. This mission was making him feel old.
“What does that mean, singer?” Fey put one hand on her hip. “Humans must be human. That does not seem like much of a challenge. Not a quest to sing about.”
Seccon rose to his feet, moving slowly so as not to startle her into a fight. He looked around the room — past Fey toward Borghild and the women outside. The village and the people in it were much cleaner and better organized than he had anticipated from a fake society built on poorly understood historical records of the Danelaw of Old England. In other circumstances, he might have visited this historical reenactment society and paid good money to retire here. But the place had been abandoned generations ago and was about to become a cathedral of death.
“It is time for me to go outside, Fey. There are people that will come after Aefel and try to kill him. These people are warriors more deadly than anything the Hawk Clan or the Arrow Clan or any of your other bad neighbors could send against us. You may not believe this now, but they have machines that can rain death from the sky. It will be as though the gods have ordered the destruction of your village.”
Color drained from Fey’s face. Her aggressiveness went with it. She stared at Seccon with the childlike expressions of need, anger, and resentment.
“Tonight, I will look for the enemy. If I decide it is time to move the Sky Clan, can you help me get people out of the village before the fire comes?”
Fey nodded and looked at the floor. At first, her body language was scared and submissive, but quickly grew angry.
“You don’t have to like me, Fey.”
“That is just as well, because I don’t.”
3
NIGHT
SKY CLAN VILLAGE
GRENDEL 0473829: SURFACE, HIGHLAND VALLEY 83A2T
MISSION CLOCK: n/a – FUGITIVE
Seccon waited until nightfall and then left the village. He hadn’t been on the planet long, by the standards of a regular campaign, but he was growing familiar with the peculiar sounds of this place at night. There was no way to know if it resembled Earth, but he suspected it was similar. Entrepreneurs never disclosed the setup atrocities to their shareholders when seeking financing for a historical reenactment world. There had been a planet dedicated to the early Roman Empire, for example, that required a race of semi-sentient dragons to be nearly eradicated. Those that were allowed to survive were removed and resettled in the nearby system, and subsequently developed many aggressive behavioral flaws.
A dragon slayer theme park arose from the fiasco, stock values in the spin-off venture skyrocketed and then crashed, never to be heard from again. Seccon wondered what happened to Draco 084321. Probably there were the bones of adventure tourists covering the planet’s surface. Probably it was what the FALD Reavers called a charnel house of hell.
He tried not to think about what had been done to Grendel 0473829 before colonists were allowed to make landfall. He understood that many of the first people on this planet were paid well and others were given deals they couldn’t afford to refuse. This generally meant there had been a statistically significant number of condemned criminals imported to bolster the population numbers. Sure they had their memories wiped and all evidence of their past erased, but that technology was never as good as advertised.
Maybe this allowed them to cheat destiny, change antisocial behaviors, wipe the slate clean, quit murdering, raping, and stealing on a planet where stealing was much the same as committing murder. Take a family’s cow and they wouldn’t survive the winter. Perhaps these men and women beat the odds.
Or not. Seccon wasn’t an expert on behavior modification.
His role for the last fifty years had been security. He was good at training guards to work as a team. Motivating men and women of action to stay alert during boring assignments was an art. Seccon did it well. He understood threat assessments and intelligence reports. He also realized that, in the field, the night belonged to the military.
Soldiers such as Aefel 70391 received intensive training for night maneuvers. Seccon’s own military training and experience occurred a long time ago. He understood, however, the elements of stealth and all the ways it could be defeated. Crouching low to the ground, he moved slowly. He cast no shadows, created no silhouette, and resisted the urge to move until he was certain he could take a step without crushing a twig.
He also understood that as part of the final analysis, getting caught would provide answers. Any man, woman, or beast that detected his movements would necessarily rely on advanced technology, and this was the sort of person he sought to find. There was a secret society on Grendel. He believed he knew their purpose. If he was wrong, he would die.
He had done a lot of research before assassinating the Emperor. He had learned much about things that were seemingly unrelated. His investigation into certain individuals associated with Grendel had led him down false trails. But one of the things he knew, and that his research confirmed, was that the early settlers wanted to forget the past. They wanted a new start. They believed in the historical reenactment a little bit too much.
Several centuries later, it was as though they had never been from Earth. They were Grendels.
Seccon moved farther from the village and looked back at the mead hall. He thought of the Beowulf story and how Grendel, a descendent of Cain, murdered King Rothgar’s people for havin
g a loud party. Nothing but smoke and silence arose from the main hall of Sky Clan village, so he did not fear immortal monsters or fairy tales.
A gathering of women argued good-naturedly beyond his line of sight, probably sitting near a fire with doors open to release smoke. The simple dwellings had abysmally poor ventilation, but they retained heat and that was what mattered in the land of ice and snow.
Seccon pulled his fur-lined cloak tight and took his time moving up the trail away from the village. He stopped again, searching the ground and the sky for evidence of an Earth System Commonwealth strike force. His ears told him nothing. He could smell only the evidence of simple living and nature. Snowflakes began to fall. A scarce wind caused him to shiver, slowly at first, but with increasing intensity. If he remained motionless, he might see something moving through the night that did not expect a sane man freezing under the branch of a tree to bear witness to.
He might also die of exposure — go to sleep and never wake up.
Time passed slowly and he doubted his mission. Grendel was not as cold as his home world, Saber 211455.
Put the strong in Strongarm, soldier. When he smiled at the thought, the thin gap between his lips admitted too much cold air and it took several minutes to bring his hypothermic shivering under control.
He mentally reviewed everything he understood about his self-imposed mission. When his eyes refused to stay open, he daydreamed of his wife, then of Borghild, then his wife again. A mental alarm, some part of his mind he retained after disconnecting from the servers that housed the software for his more advanced Internals, jarred him like an air raid siren. He awoke desperate, looked around fearfully, and settled into his chair in the cleft of a large tree.
He was alive, which proved something. I should just say “thanks” and go inside.
On the other side of a valley, near the crest of a hill covered with evergreen trees, a red light blinked twice before someone, or something, covered it.
Seccon smiled grimly.
“Welcome to Sky Clan village, you bastards,” he said without moving. Not so long ago, when he was the Chief Strongarm of the Emperor, Seccon could have given them a proper welcome. All of his soldiers had been battle tested, equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry, and trained by the best weapons masters in the known universe. He missed his team and wondered if they felt betrayed by his actions.
The light made no further appearances and he thanked whatever higher power ruled this bankrupt planet for his luck. Commonwealth Recon Teams rarely made mistakes. He had probably seen the single breach of tactics they made since arriving on the planet.
The time he spent shivering in the cold felt like penance, but it helped him think. Over the years, some of his hardest and best-made decisions came when under pressure. Freezing his ass off and wondering who had pounded his fingertips with hammers helped him to focus. All he needed now was for someone to light the proverbial fire under his ass and he would unlock all the mysteries of the universe.
He didn’t expect a large strike force. More likely, the Recon team would paint targets with an infrared laser and the village would be bombed from space. It would look to other Grendels like a meteor shower or punishment from the gods.
Moving quickly now, he reached the first row of buildings as the sun came up and young thralls emerged to tend cows and goats. He smelled a bucket of milk before he saw the first young woman duck out of a low shed that protected cattle from the elements.
“Good morning, singer,” she said, avoiding eye contact because she was essentially a slave, taken in a battle before Sky Clan came upon misfortune.
Seccon hurried past the woman, scanning right and left in search of Gunnarr or any of the older women who remained in the village. It disturbed him that Fey seemed to be in charge as much as anyone, but that made sense. She was the older sister of Sveinn, who was by all legal rights and tradition, the lawful Emperor of the Earth Systems Commonwealth. Although no one in the village understood his lineage, Seccon believed they felt the Blood Royal's authority.
An unusual gust of morning wind sent snowflakes into his face. For some reason, the cold bite against his skin and momentary blindness caused him to worry about an immediate attack from the Recon soldiers. They wouldn’t attack now; he was convinced of it. The time for a direct assault would’ve been at sunrise or shortly before sunrise. There was a slight chance, a very slight chance, that they were overconfident and would just waltz into the village expecting minimal opposition.
Seccon laughed grimly. The Recon soldiers had not seen the women of the Sky Clan fight. And they would be foolish to forget that Aefel was out there somewhere. If Seccon had to bet money, he would place his wager that Aefel had also seen the momentary red light that gave away the position of the Commonwealth force.
“What is your hurry, Sangerhinde?”
Seccon stopped suddenly, turned, and saw Fey stepping from between two buildings. He wondered where she was coming from, because her dwelling was at the other end of the village.
So much for avoiding the woman.
He wanted to speak to Gunnarr in private for two reasons. The Jarl was young, a boy by common-law standards, although a man in this place, and he seemed to listen when Seccon spoke. The conversations had been infrequent, but Gunnarr had taken his measure carefully, as a leader should.
Seccon didn’t want to stop and deal with Fey, but she dogged him, plucking at his sleeve and constantly moving in front of him until he stopped abruptly. He fixed her with his gaze and stood straighter, squaring his shoulders as though he were in the Emperor’s court doing official business. “I need to speak to Gunnarr.”
“You can speak to me,” Fey said. “What are you doing out from behind your girlfriend’s skirts? Do you plan treachery? Because I will see you dead first.”
Anger flared in Seccon’s breast. “This is no treachery, girl. I told you I was going outside to look for Aefel’s enemies. The stakes are bigger than you can imagine and you would be wise to consider your boyfriend’s true loyalty. Aefel comes from an army of soldiers that could conquer this entire planet in a matter of weeks. You would do best to listen to me.”
Fey put both fists on her hips and stood to block his path. “Then talk, singer.”
Seccon started to respond even as he stifled the urge to think of his dead wife, then surprisingly, Borghild. The memory of the first and the hope to see the second always brought comfort, but he heard a high-pitched whine in the distant sky and knew with conviction that his time of relative comfort was over.
He flinched at the unnatural sound. It wasn’t something he had experienced recently. Aefel, on the other hand, or any of the FALD Reavers, would know it well. Seccon wasn’t sure, but he thought an orbital assault had begun. Within minutes, there could be artillery shells pounding the area or drop-ships full of heavy infantry establishing a beachhead.
To his surprise, Fey sensed his alarm and put aside her own hatred of him. “Talk to me, Sangerhinde.”
Seccon stepped forward and grabbed her arm forcefully. He yanked her close and spoke his hot breath into her face. “The wrath of the gods is about to strike this village. Have you ever seen a meteor strike?”
Fey hesitated, but then met his gaze firmly. “I am not sure what that means, but I understand you well enough. When Aefel was sick, he spoke of meteors. I did not understand what he meant because he seemed to be talking about himself and the way he landed from his fall. I knew from the moment I saw him that he was different, because I saw him fall, but I didn't see where he fell from.”
Seccon nodded emphatically, despite caring nothing for her story. “That’s fantastic. Sometime we’ll talk all about it. A meteor is a big rock that falls from space. It falls so fast that it burns with fire and destroys everything it touches.”
Fey went pale. “Then I know what a meteor strike is. Every man and woman and child from Sky Clan has seen stars fall in the distance and the chronicles are full of descriptions of such things.”
> Seccon paused for effect and then spoke. “The people who want to kill Aefel can cause a meteor strike to happen. They have chosen this village as a target of their vengeance. If you want anyone to survive the day, you must get them out of the village and as far away as possible.”
Things happened fast after that. Unlike Borghild, Fey possessed great influence over the rest of the village. She ran like a graceful she-cat to Gunnarr’s dwelling and entered without knocking. Seccon was still catching up when she finished her conversation with the young Jarl. Almost before Seccon could catch his breath, the evacuation began.
It should not have surprised him that they could move so quickly. In this primitive society, raids were common and enemies were everywhere.
There was a moment of doubt after the first few minutes when no meteors or bombardments came. He wasn’t sure of how long it should be before impact and he began to second-guess what he had heard. He believed the sound had been the whining scream of a kinetic artillery shell entering the atmosphere. But if he had been able to hear it, then he assumed it had to be near enough to be dangerous.
As Fey and the others moved into the hills, choosing trails that led into a rocky mountain pass, Seccon watched the sky and saw numerous vapor trails. They were far too distant to identify, but he understood that the end was coming to Sky Clan. By the time Fey and Gunnarr had the villagers gathered in an upland meadow, Seccon had spotted the drones.
They were small and quick and nearly invisible. One stopped long enough for him to look at directly and, even then, he could barely see it. It seemed like a piece of the sky with its camouflage paint and high-tech camouflage. He had yet to see a true cloaking device as many companies had promised, but this was a very near thing. He looked around at the villagers to see if any of them noticed what would surely be magical creatures to them, and found that while they were confused and disoriented, none of them were panicked by magical pixie demons flying patterns in the cold sky — which meant they didn’t see them.
The closest device remained thirty or forty feet above his head. Some approached ground level, but stayed concealed behind trees and rocks. Seccon counted two dozen. When they suddenly disappeared, he braced for the impact of an orbital bombardment.