The Earth was lit by fires.

Byrne was the only one in the room who studied the projection. But then, he was the only one who’d been born there. Even he hadn’t been back in a hundred years. He frowned, the globe spun around and a hex of map zoomed out.

His birthplace was dark in the penumbra of approaching dawn. No feeds were coming up to the station from or about the island and the satellites saw no movement. He could zoom in and do a house to house search, but he wouldn’t remember which one had been his home.

“Mister Byrne. The last of the Seeds reports it has passed the point of possible interception.” The young man smiled as he passed this on.

A thousand Seeds had been built in shipyards all over the solar system, launching nearly a hundred a year. A dozen had been destroyed early in their flight, six had gone silent far ahead of schedule and twenty of the most recent ships had been boarded and ransacked by pirates claiming allegiance to one warring faction or another.

Nine hundred and sixty two manned time capsules had been cast out into the universe in the hope of finding new homes for the human race. Byrne worried it wasn’t enough. “One last launch.” he announced.

The artificial gravity dwindled as the ring slowed. The jets fired to align it with a carefully planned trajectory.

Byrne watched the Earth projection as the control room buzzed with pre-flight noise. The surface was becoming blocky as feeds went down. Some areas were hazy because the satellites watching them no longer functioned. He might see the planet again, but it was unlikely he’d ever touch the soil.

The noise fell off. They awaited his command to launch. He nodded. A button was pressed and there was a deep rumble. The space station became a space ship and commenced a journey that would bring it back to spitting distance of Earth every ninety seven years for the next two millennia.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Heavensent

There were fires. The worst were along the Straight, but smaller pyres marked other battles. “Is this good or bad?” Aurile wondered.

“The Straight is a loss. I hope the fire does not spread, or there will be no city to defend.”

“Do you have any intelligence about conditions to the North? We plan to head that way as soon as possible.”

“There are forces primarily along the river. That is the main way they have been moving supplies, after all. It is the easiest and fastest way to head North, but there are others. The railway heads up the East of the plains, but it keeps getting attacked by guerillas. A wagon train across the plains themselves might be an answer. They have fortresses and outposts, but they are very localised. As their supplies are cut off they are going to fall one by one.”

There was a commotion beyond the walls, gunfire. Yet it was punctuated by cheers. “I believe these may be the first of the liberators.” Aurile observed.

“We should go to them. They will want to meet the heroes, after all.” Aylo suggested.

They headed down the main staircase. In the foyer on ground level Boran was at a table map of the city, marking out weapons stashes. He looked up as they passed, staring at Aylo.

The young spy was red faced as they left the building. “He is very thankful that you saved him.” Shara smirked.

The large gates had been swung open and a crowd led a softskin in. “That must be all of our men for blocks.” Aylo sighed, “I hope there is no counter attack.”

The crowd parted and the softskin rumbled to a halt at the foot of the entrance steps. The driver stepped down, then turned to help down a woman in an Air uniform. Behind the flyer was another woman. Aylo turned and stared at Shara, then back. “Twins?” he squeaked.

Aurile nodded at the last man out of the softskin, a tanned, leaner version of himself. “More complicated than that I am afraid.”

Technorati tag: Fiction, Heavensent

They had camped in a factory compound, an easily defensible position if the expected counter attack came. The morning brought something completely unexpected. There was a welcoming committee outside the gate. Shop keepers offered food from their stock, families had come to cheer and youths of both sexes wanted to join up- and if they couldn’t join up many still wanted to offer their bodies to the cause.

Sheel, Gimm and Bobb used the confusion to slip away from the force. They couldn’t escape Jayn, but she had a uniform that commanded respect from the liberated. She asked for a street map and was instantly obliged. The old man running the paper stall drew on the locations of all the known occupation bases and the supposed location of the seat of the Resistance- on the other side of the fjord.

A vehicle came around the corner at speed, screeching to a halt as it saw the crowd down the road. It was a three axled softskin loaded with occupation troops. A few in the rear spotted Jayn’s uniform, even closer at hand. Their weapons were close by, they thought about going for them. Sheel’s gun arm was locked and ready, but they wouldn’t have understood the significance. One by one they raised their hands in surrender.

With the troops disembarked from the softskin, Jayn gave the old man an autogun, and a lesson in how to use it, and entrusted the prisoners to him. With a grin he began marching them toward the factory. Gimm studied the controls of the softskin. There were two levers, one for forward and reverse and the other for five gear ratios. Gimm only took two false starts to get moving.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Heavensent

Boran had been listening to the sounds of battle, unable to judge which way things were going. It was certainly too loud to be just a defence against Janssen’s murder squads, perhaps there had been a full blown rising. The sounds of planes and explosions didn’t fill him with optimism for the rebellions chances. Either way, his chances were slim- rebels would hang him for being part of the occupying forces, the occupying forces would shoot him for helping the rebels.

There were noises from beyond the cell door. Other cells were being opened and, judging by the happy cries that followed, their occupants freed. The jubilation, and occasional shout of anger, drew closer The door two cells down opened, then the one next door.

Boran stood and straightened his clothes the best he could, he at least had to look presentable. Hands clasped behind his back he faced the door. A key turned in the lock and the door was pulled open.

It was dark enough in the corridor that Boran could make out the features of the man before him with ease. “Aylo?”

“Ah, good, you are still alive.”

“I….”

“I have a proposal for you.”

Technorati tag: Fiction, Heavensent

With guns taken from dead soldiers and little guidance from their commanders, bands of ‘liberators’ roamed through Cora and Munss. Debts were being settled all over the twin cities as suspected collaborators were rousted from their beds to be lynched and pross houses were looted of their profits. The few teams with a mission could do little to order the chaos. They had their targets, without which the whole exercise would be irrelevant.

One such target was the central command building. Aylo had pressed for inclusion in its liberation, pointing out his extensive knowledge of its layout. Now he stood with an autogun in his hands, regretting all the bravado. Shara stood beside him. She was his protector, but she looked like she wanted to slap him for his foolishness.

They were across the street from the main gates in the walled compound., which were invitingly ajar. Squads of snipers were rushing for the roofs of the highest nearby buildings to look down into the compound and ascertain what was waiting behind the walls. Whistles sounded as they reached their vantage points.

One whistle, the Western roof, directly above Aylo, had been taken. Two whistles, the Southern roof. Views from the east and north were blocked.

With the high ground taken, the ground attack could begin. Two groups of four ran across the street, to press against the wall by the gates. Shots rang out from the rooftops, windows shattered in the building. There was return fire, but it quickly died away. One of the teams by the gate pushed it wider and ducked through, covered by the second team. There was more gunfire. The second team pushed the gate even wider and went through it firing in all directions.

The second wave were at the gate before the firing had stopped, and rushed through to join the melee. The gunshots ceased and the last group, with Aylo and Shara, entered the courtyard. There were surprisingly few dead, one attacker and five defenders. The wounded were being treated and a number of the defending troops were gathered in a corner with their hands bound. Aylo studied the prisoners’ faces. He recognised many of them, though none looked up to register him. Their expressions were hard to read. Relief at surviving the battle was more than matched by fear of what would happen next. Aylo didn’t know either. The fate of prisoners had not been discussed at any of the Resistance meetings. But then, the concepts of casualties had remained foreign to them as well.

There were several entrances to the building. The main entrance opened onto the first floor, with grand steps either side leading down to ground level. There were barracks entrances to the rear and supply man’s doors in the side walls. Tactically they should probe to find the easiest entry, but the leaders of this raiding party were thinking more of their places in the history books. They had already decided they would enter by the main doors. Guards were placed on the other doors as fresh men appeared from around the city.

Sniper fire through the windows kept movement inside to a minimum as the squad crept up either side of the steps. Someone tried the handle on the double doors. Locked. They scurried back to safety, but no defensive fire came through the wood. The group were stumped. They hadn’t brought a battering ram and there was no way these heavy doors would give to simple kicking as the interior doors would.

Shara stepped up to the door. She levelled her arm at the handle, then lowered it slightly to where she estimated the lock was. She gave the familiar jerk and there was a whooshing cough from the door. The handle had given way to a gaping hole.
Again a team of four, a different four, went in first. There was no firing, so the second and third squads moved in. The entrance hall was deserted. Aylo recognised the security desk where he had signed in every morning. The leader of their force turned to him, “We need your knowledge now.”

“The barracks are on the floor below. There are two ways in from this level, down the stairs at the rear and through the kitchens, which are on two levels. The kitchen entrance is through the dining hall, which is that room.”

The commander stopped Aylo. He turned to two sergeants and relayed the information with terse commands and sign language. Resistance fighters were arriving from all over the cities, unable to stop the bloodletting they wanted to be associated with something that at least had a suggestion of glory. The two squads that were sent to clear the barracks level were each as large as the force that had initially attacked.
“The other levels? And the cells?” asked the commander.

“The cells are below the level of the barracks, but the only way down to them are stairs that start on the third floor. The second and third floors are the clerical offices, fourth is the commanding staff’s and the fifth is their quarters. I have never been to the fifth floor and only rarely to the fourth, so I do not know their layouts.”

“That is good enough. you can lead the team that clears the upper floors. You……” The commander had been ready to order Shara as he would any of his own men. He quickly thought better of it. “Can you guard young Aylo? He is a very important part of this uprising after all.”

“Of course.”

The commander assigned sergeants to Aylo and told them to assemble a squad from the newly arrived Resistance fighters. Aylo looked over his troops as they fell in. The senior of his sergeants had an old rifle, possibly an antique. Aylo studied his own unfired autogun, the grip damp where he had held it too tightly. He handed the autogun to the older man. “You should take this.”

“Sir?”

“I am a spy, not a soldier. This is no use to me.”

“Sir.”

“Of course, this does mean that you go first up the stairs.”

The old fighter smiled, “You could not have stopped me any how.”

There were secondary staircases, so they placed guards on them as they went up the main stairs. There were store rooms on the second floor- paper, typers, furniture- the small offices of those dedicated to distributing them. They called the guards up the secondary stairs and went on to the third floor.

They found clerks cowering in the third office on this floor, hiding as far away from the windows, and the body of a soldier who had ventured too close, as possible. Aylo recognised all of them, and some knew him. “Aylo! You…. You have to save us from these men, for the Tower’s sake!”

Every gun in the squad was raised on the pathetic huddle in the corner. They were all traitors and they could all die, but Aylo wasn’t sure he wanted to be the one who gave the order. He held up his hand to hold the firing squad. “They should be interrogated before we decide what to do with them. Take them out to the other prisoners.”

There was no-one on the fourth or fifth floors. Aylo left his men to plunder Janssen’s rooms and took Shara and the old sergeant aside. “We should empty the cells.”

Technorati tag: Fiction, Heavensent