The Unchained

PART I – THE CHAINS ARE FORGED

The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.

- attributed to Bertrand Russell, circa eight hundred years Before Empire, a logician, mathematician, historian, writer, political activist and philosopher (note by Keifer Letrands, Chief Imperial Historian of the True Emperor’s Clerks of Records : although he was talking about slavery, many commentators have pointed to the fact that working and societal practices at this time were akin to slavery in another guise, through the application of reward and punishment based on a monetary system. We now have a more mature economic system, and the striations of the class system linked to it mean all but the criminals and other untouchables – which includes modern-day slaves - have a minimum form of income. Our feudalistic socio-capitalist economy means the financial success of the ruling House determines how the population lives, and ensures rewards are shared fairly within the striations. Only slaves, in those Houses where it is legal, receive no consideration for their contribution to society; not even in some cases, sadly, the right to exist once their usefulness has expired).

Chapter I

A few months after the death of the False Emperor

At the start of the Age of Secession

The large four-repulsor engine thrustcopter moved at a steady but fast pace through the sky, flying high so it would appear to be little more than a speck in the orange-tinted sky to any observer on the ground. It was a heavy cargo-lifter, a gigantic vehicle that could lift virtually anything short of a cargo-tank. White-grey clouds moved above it, and in the far distance they darkened into the midnight blue-black and purple of the gathering acid-storm.

The planet was large, so its curvature afforded those with the sight and vantage point greater than normal visibility along what appeared to be a level plane. Even at the height of the thrustcopter, where the curvature was just about discernible, the vista was breath-taking. The blue-tinged mossy plains stretched from the bluish-green acid ocean in the far distance, smoke vapour rising up into the weeks’ long evening-time of the second sun. Three moons tracked across the sky the thrustcopter travelled under, pointing towards the approaching darkness of the blindside in the absence of either sun, the storm-clouds harbingers of the changing weather patterns and the wet season about to deluge the entire continent in the weeks long night-time.

came the voice through the comms system.

the middle-aged man standing behind the pilot and co-pilot said. He leaned forwards, peering through the frosted metaglass as if he could spot them, his unshaven face reflected back at him against the thunderous storm-clouds. They are in so much trouble for this.

Beyond the mossy plains, the ground became parched and rocky, cracking into greater and greater canyons over the many thousands of kilometres of land which the thrustcopter currently travelled. The great canyons became so deep it seemed to some like they could reach into the very core of the planet itself, and then it became apparent in the far distance that the ground was going up as well as down. The great mountain ranges climbed and climbed, so they touched the distant, angry clouds of the blindside night. The acidfall was already building out in the mountain foothills, and soon would become a torrent, washing through and into the plains in great thunderous snap-rivers and short-lived lakes.

Neither of them that night knew how true that was going to be.

Head Estatesman, sir, one of the pilots suddenly said, We’ve got ping-back. The radar’s picked them up, at the lip of the Dragonsteeth Canyon Range, Section Forty-Three.

Deron Baum said.

The four-repulsor thrustcopter banked sharply, changing direction on little more than a pin-head despite its size, and dived quickly down towards the identified canyon.

The acidic water was already beginning to run in a trickle deep down in the looming darkness of the canyon, but it was impossible to see from the upper ranges of the Dragonsteeth Canyons. In a few hours it would be a deluge, running in the gulley and dripping from the teeth like blood. The Dragonsteeth Canyons were so named because thick, large, deforming outcroppings of rock, a geological oddity peculiar to the planet Stoneleigh III, struck up into the sky at the edges of the complicated maze of interconnected canyons.

The Cervantian-made CMBWv5 Quarrel battlewalker, in faded House militia colours with the Lockwood Agricultural Farming Range logo painted over its small chest-plate area, stalked along through the terrain. It was moving at mid-speed, upper body rotating from side to side as it constantly changed its fields of fire. The heavy-duty laserchine built into its left arm tracked in all directions, the long-tined ripper claw that formed the right hand with a small-bore Magnetic Accelerator Cannon built into the palm scraping along the rock as it passed.

All of a sudden, the quarry jinked between the rocks ahead, teasing.

The Quarrel reacted quickly, firing rapidly with the heavy-duty laserchine and vaporising vast outcroppings of rock. Rock dust flew everywhere, but the other walker vehicle avoided getting hit, the pilot of the agriwalker proving that he or she had phenomenal control. As it pirouetted with a grace it should not display at the mouth of a short, natural tunnel in the canyon lip, the agriwalker proved to be outfitted with non-standard weaponry, low-level lascannon firing back at the Quarrel. Shields flared, taking the precise hits.

The Quarrel’s pilot displayed anger, smashing the claw through a rock stalagmite at the mouth of the tunnel. As the agriwalker rapidly moved to exit on the other side, the claw tines extended fully and the barrel in the palm of the gigantic hand fired. The magnetic accelerator cannon boomed in the narrow confines, the ball-like projectile blurring silver as it smashed into the agriwalker’s shields.

The agriwalker should not have had shields either, but they flared and failed with the powerful hit. Green illumination panels on its hull suddenly flashed red. At the other end of the tunnel, back in the daylight, it suddenly stopped moving, turned around and held its arms up in the air in a universal sign of surrender.

The agriwalker was an ungainly beast, a workhorse vehicle created by man in almost his own image, but it had fairly danced in their contest so far. At a little over six and a half metres tall, it was small, certainly in comparison to the gigantic eight metre tall light battlewalker that strode up to it. Other battlewalkers were even bigger, with the heaviest versions nearing a hundred tonnes and towering over everything at twelve or thirteen metres in height. In the dying daylight the agriwalker and the light battlewalker stood side by side, and both pilots opened their hatches.

Seb! shouted the pilot in the agriwalker, revealing himself from his size to be little more than physically a fourteen year old boy. That was a lucky shot!

Luck had nothing to do with it, Jeb, pure skill, the other boy shouted back, a taunting grin on his face. The fact they were brothers was apparent from their features, sandy coloured hair and fair skin marking them out as related. If it were not for the obvious age difference, the older Seb being at seventeen, they could have been twins, with the light brown eyes and easy smile, identically small rounded nose and thin lips. They both had slightly above average physiques in terms of weight with naturally enhanced musculature further augmented with computronic-reflexive fibre, a fusion of genetic modification and artificial implantations required to live on this planet.

Their rounded noses suddenly flattened and closed, inner coverings within the nasal passages protecting them. It was just one of a few biologically engineered changes conducted on people who lived on this planet, this one to protect them from the suddenly all-pervading poisonous fumes in the air.

That’s a big acidstorm coming, Seb, shouted Jeb, holding his nose whilst his other hand searched for the oxygenator within the cockpit of his agriwalker.

The fumes are rising, alright, bruv, Seb shouted back, pulling his oxygenator mask down. His eyes had covered themselves with their protective implants, but even their organic augmentations were not enough.

We’d better get back! Jebediah Lockwood shouted, just as his ears picked up the sound of repulsor engines.

Sebastian Lockwood looked unhappy as he pointed upwards. Looks like we might get a lift.

With a warbling, harsh mechanical warning klaxon, the heavy-duty industrial thrustcopter suddenly descended upon them like a vindictive angel, searchlights stabbing down into the mouth of the tunnel. The symbol underneath was of the Lockwood Agricultural Farming Range, but it was emblazoned with the name of the Head Estatesman.

Jebediah said on the datasphere the farm maintained over the entire area.

came the voice of Deron Baum.

What the hell were they playing at? Ichariah Lockwood snarled.

They were being boys, rebellious teenagers, came the calm tones of his wife, who did not even look up from the scientific data she was reading. A sampler device was shining a light into her eyes from the advanced chemical dissection she was performing, and a small-scale holoprojection rotated slowly before her on the desk. Proving she was not paying attention to the ranting her husband was having in their office, she added, the readings from the storm are powerful, and the acid sludge sediment is highest grade of mix I’ve seen in a very long time. It’s going to be one of the harshest in year –

They’ve done it deliberately, Ichariah Lockwood snapped, to get his wife’s attention. They knew that with the storm coming grounding them was impossible. We’ll all be confined indoors for weeks.

Don’t let them get away with it, then, said his thickset, heavily built wife. Her form proved her an indigenous native through and through, as well as her common-sense attitude that was so typical of denizens of this planet.

I frikking won’t, Ichariah continued his rant, pacing in front of the metaglass windows. The blast shutters would not come down until the ranch shielding was up and the facility was locked down, so it afforded him a perfect view of outside. He could see the ranch-hands running across the farm courtyard, desperate to get everything secured and stowed, just in case there was a shielding failure. I’ll tell them they’ll be on double duties for a month after we have sun rise. I’ve told them, time and time again, no playing with the walkers! Especially not my House service battlewalker! It’s theft!

A month of heavy farm-work will teach them not to be rebellious, said Isabel Lockwood.

I know Jebediah is just following his brother, but for the Emperor’s sake, I wish he’d turn round and say no. He’s the more dutiful of the two, when he wants to be. Where this rebellious streak in either comes from, I don’t know.

They both have elements of their father in them, Isabel commented, a small smile on her lips as she watched the comment pass by. She straightened up. Here comes their lander. Give them their ass-whipping, then let’s have the evening meal.

Ichariah Lockwood snapped his head back to the metaglass windows. In the courtyard below and in the middle distance, at the landing pad near the far end of the ranch boundary which almost touched the facility-wide bunding, the four-repulsor thrustcopter was touching down. The landing pad lights went from flashing amber to a solid green as the support struts struck the base of the pad.

he announced on the datasphere, external loudspeakers picking up his voice and booming it across the farm for those few who were not jacked in.

For a long moment nothing happened, and then, as if watching a waterfall flow upwards, the energy fields rose in a uniform manner from the wall bunds. The emitter mast at the top of the main ranch building was the focal point, the force fields curving inwards to form a gigantic dome over the farm buildings. The long rows of pumping stations sat atop the immense tanks, which extended underground into massive storage bunkers, and warehouses also climbed high into the sky for the other almost equally valuable goods they harvested after acidfall. The landing pads, the numerous vehicle bays, the farmhand residential blocks, the main farmstead building, the equipment sheds and the repair bay all fit under the gigantic force fields, inside the rings of storage bunkers and warehouses, a main thoroughfare with tracks and gigantic walker footprints leading to the only gate..

The facility defence system was there not just to protect the workers and the Lockwood family from the storms, but from the occasional pirates and raiders, who were becoming more frequent nowadays. That was why sixteen automated defence towers ringed the inside of the facility, their turrets forever scanning the oncoming night sky, and every worker carried a sidearm of some description.

The eating hall within the main residence was the largest room in the entire facility. The lower floor had rows of suspensor-tables, the workers seated around each one. As an extra bountiful harvest was expected in a few weeks, a number of temporary workers had been taken on, so the hall and the workers blocks were full. Deron Baum sat at the head table downstairs, his more senior rangers to either side of him at the lateral table, facing all the rest of the workers tables lined at right-angles to theirs.

The great floor-to-ceiling metaglass windows behind Deron, and at the far end of the hall from the mezzanine, showed that the sky had gone almost completely dark, and the shields constantly flared with the beginning of the deluge of the acidfall storm. Worse weather would be coming, and by bed-time, the constant hum of the shields would be a permanent low-level noise.

For now though, the din in the hall was palpable and the main sign of activity. It was a reassuring background noise to the land-owners family, who sat at a smaller but more ornate and old-fashioned legged table on the mezzanine. Out in the space beyond in the centre of the dining hall, a holoprojected image showed the StarCom News Media broadcast, the House that owned the multi-star system territory they lived within having made the decision to continue using StarCom services following the collapse of the Red Empire of Mars.

In contrast to the noise of the workers downstairs getting to know each other, on the family mezzanine the farmer’s family ate, at least initially, in silence. As the three Lockwood children ate quietly with their eating wands, and their mother stared off into the middle-distance in patient support, the father glowered over his old-fashioned cutlery. The scar down his face, a war wound from the early days of the rebellion against the False Emperor, when House Underwall declared for the loyalist secessionists, seemed to throb with his muted anger. House Underwall was a minor House, the Lord of the House, Duke Underwall, having pledged a longstanding allegiance to the noble House Omdahl, who had declared early in the civil war for the True Emperors vengeful loyalists.

The civil war had been won, and as the news holoprojection showed, the promised peace had not followed. Dissolution had recently been declared by the Revolutionary Council, and now all the structures of the Red Empire of Mars were beginning to fall apart. Old hatreds were flaring, and Houses were beginning to fight amongst themselves.

It appears nowhere is safe nowadays, commented Isabel Lockwood, in what would transpire to be a misguided attempt to get a conversation going in the frosty atmosphere. It was warm in the hall, with the natural wood fire in the far corner performing miracles, but at the head table on the mezzanine it was colder than the most arctic of worlds.

We were supposed to free the colonised galaxy, Ichariah eventually replied, in a deep, gravelly voice. It looks like all we did is make it worse.

Why did you fight then, daddy? asked Emelia brightly, her young elven face radiating innocence. She knew how to play to how she appeared, that was true, and worse it seemed to work on her father. If anyone else had asked that, they would have been met with a wall of silence.

The False Emperor stabbed the True Emperor in the back, and was destroying the Red Empire, he said. It affected us little, but my House Lord called all reserves to fight when he declared for the Loyalists. So I did my duty.

Did you disagree with what the False Emperor did, then? asked Emelia.

On the contrary. Much of it I supported, said Ichariah.

So why fight then?

I ask myself that daily, Ichariah said, slowly.

He was corrupt, and tainted, and stole the throne, said Isabel, with typical straightforwardness. And that’s quite enough of that subject, thank you, young lady.

Awww, mum.

The table went quiet for a short while, and then without looking up from the food he was tractoring into his mouth with his eating wand, the older boy Sebastian said, We didn’t get much from the civil war. There will be more fighting, everyone knows it.

It’s starting already, Jebediah commented, opposite his brother.

Yeah, exactly, Sebastian said. That’s partly why I want to join the House Army, then I can become gamma-class, and –

No! Ichariah slammed his fist suddenly down on the table, his augmented strength making the entire mezzanine shake. Out in the dining hall, sudden silence fell, and the workers looked up at the farm-owner in fear or wonder or curiosity at the outburst.

Ike, his wife said gently.

No, he repeated, lower but no less dangerous. If that is what is behind your disobedience today, you can forget it. Joining the House Army is out of the question.

You did, Sebastian pouted, mumbling the weak retort.

And I regretted it ever since. Becoming gamma-class for a few extra Imperial Crowns in my monthly allowance was not worth it.

It gives you more rights to –

This is not a debate! snapped Ichariah. You were born delta-class and you will stay delta-class. You will not join the House Army. Challenge me again, boy, and I’ll –

Further discourse was prevented, as Isabel held both her hands up to quieten her husband and eldest son. Both of you, hush. Then on the datasphere, she said, It was the sudden tension in her voice that caught everyone’s attention, and the datasphere suddenly thrummed with the jacking in of people throughout the hall, all eyes cast towards the projection area.

The images being displayed on the holoprojection made a ripple of gasps sound throughout the dining hall. The planetary capital, Stoneleigh Third City, was seen from the distance. The departing second sun was still visible, disappearing towards the horizon, but the aerial view afforded a panorama of most of the capital.

It was burning.

What looked like two ships-of-the-line moved above the city, underhulls burning where they stroked the atmosphere. Lances of turbolaser light touched down from them, jabbing accusatory and destructive fingers into buildings. Explosions were detonating constantly, and the city was aflame. Even with the distance of the image, it was possible to see starfighters dogfighting above the city, and shields flaring as they tried to defend the inhabitants. Anti-capital ship fire stabbed back up from the city at the warships, but were having little visible effect.

A commentator was saying,

Head Estatesman Deron Baum said on the open datasphere.

Ichariah Lockwood commented grimly.

It’s a full-scale invasion, whispered Sebastian to Jebediah, with a mixture of horror and anticipation in his voice.

Do you really think? asked Jebediah.

Have you ever seen a raid start like this? Sebastian retorted. Raids were common, with the last one being less than a year before, but that had been fought off by the House navy, and had not even touched their farmstead except as they flew overhead. Out here at the far reaches of the southern mid-sectors, it was as good as being on the frontier or the boundary in other quadspheres of the colonised galaxy, it was that dangerous.

their father had stood up. His left hand was moving across his chest, pulling the strap down for the webbing on his pistol holster, the gun never far from his side.

The webbing had just mag-locked into place, energising with its small portable power-pack, people out in the hall beginning to stand and chatter and the noise rising rapidly, Deron Baum checking the power-pack on a powerful military-grade laserifle, Emelia Lockwood being picked up bodily by her strong mother, Sebastian standing with a grim, determined face, all dissolving into pandemonium as the holoprojection of state media showing the confusion of the large-scale invasion or assault underway, cities burning and towers falling, when Jebediah Lockwood suddenly pointed out of the mezzanine metaglass window. The dark acid-storm clouds above, visible through the thick deluge of poisonous acidfall, swirled rapidly, unnaturally. They began to glow, light building.

roared Ichariah Lockwood, diving for Jebediah and dragging him to the floor,

The clouds swirled faster and parted, the turbolaser beam stabbing down quicker than lightning, striking directly into the shielding around the farmstead. The light from the powerful laser beam, thicker than a person’s body, was so bright it was like watching the sun strike the ground. The flash of the dome-shield shorting out was completely drowned from visibility, if anyone could have withstood the tremendous, Armageddon-like destruction of the direct strike. The column of laser drove deep into the ground, into the courtyard, making the entire ranch suffer with earthquake, the metaglass windows struggling not to blow into shards as the all-pervading light spread like a new day. Moments later it was blotted out as the dust of the ground coated the metaglass windows completely.

Jebediah stayed where he was as his father sprang back to his feet. Jebediah would never forget that look, the anger on his face being like that of an avenging god.

was all he said, as he stalked away. There was a heavy humming making the building vibrate, which Jebediah would learn later was the sign of a heavy-duty military-grade lander passing at high velocity, while it disgorged its battledrones at speeds a normal, un-modded person could not withstand.

Jeb! his mother knelt by his side, grabbing him by the shoulder. Where’s your brother?

I – I don’t know, he was just here, Jebediah Lockwood replied, above the roaring from the people downstairs, equal parts anger and fear.

The fool. Take Emelia, while I go and find him, his mother said tersely, having guessed almost correctly what Sebastian was doing. Keep her safe. Now, Jeb!

Ichariah Lockwood scrabbled through the dust, the laser fire tracking just above his head. Some of it actually touched his personal shield, making it flare, and he was glad he had kept it as a relic from his military days. The people around him were not so fortunate, the stitching, precise blasts of laser bolts and beams shredding into the three hapless farm workers.

Under the cover of the overturned, and partially destroyed overlander, he would have given anything for his full House body armour. That was back in the main building, though. Acidfall was burning his clothes and skin, the destroyed shielding no longer protecting the open spaces of the ranch from the storm.

As his skin began to run, itching and burning, he said on the datasphere,

Deron replied.

Ichariah commanded, staring upwards as a familiar sound reached him. It was a strobing, humming throb, odd and mechanical and unnatural and evil. It took him back years, to another House war. It was so distinctive, it could not be mistaken, that odd, imperfectly timed menacing thrum.

roared Deron Baum.

A PDMIC-10IV Dziva was a medium-class battlewalker, entirely drone-driven, a semi-sentient war-machine that may or may not have a controller somewhere far above in command of it. Manufactured by the two noble Houses of Ptauh and De Waal, through their Ptauh-De Waal Military Industrial Corporation, some of their battlewalkers were renowned throughout the colonised galaxy for their effectiveness, as well as their comparative inexpensiveness. They only made drones, military equipment up to and including battlewalkers. It was distinctive for its unusual array of weaponry and tactics, and quite often appeared as a vehicle of choice for anti-riot or counter-insurgency operations, working in isolation. It was also much beloved by raiders.

The noise of the Dziva was terrifying, as it rose upwards and forwards, appearing through the night as it suddenly lit itself up with powerful lights, crawling out of the crater where it had landed, created from the laser blast that had torn the shields open.

The Dziva medium-class assault walker strode forwards, yet to fire its heavy weaponry, the small anti-personnel chaingun turrets located on its undercarriage firing in all directions. Anti-personnel grenade launchers on its legs coughed and spluttered, throwing out explosives which detonated with dull thumps to either side as it advanced.

Ichariah Lockwood looked up at the approaching Dziva. he commanded. As it approached, he realised the Dziva would stride past his position, unable to see him next to the overturned overlander. He knelt down in the dusty orange ground, opening the backpack he carried as he shrugged it off, already lifting out the component parts of the rocket launcher. It was risky, and he would be caught possibly in the blast, but he could fire straight upwards into its weaker sections behind the chainguns as it passed. It was his only chance.

Jebediah Lockwood turned sharply to his sister Emelia in the darkness. The power had just failed, and the underground basement was now pitch-black. Stay here, he told her tersely, voice cracking and wavering to rob it of the authority he hoped for, standing up and beginning to move towards the stairs back into the dining hall.

Mummy said you were to stay with me! she wailed.

Not now, Em, Jebediah waved a hand behind him, as he bounded up the stairs two at a time, the way he always did. His father was out there, his brother Sebastian had gone missing, and his mother had gone after him. Jebediah did not intend to stay here with the workers too frightened to fight, looking after his sister, whilst everyone else was out there fighting. They might be House Nkimbwa, or they might be slavers or pirates, or even privateers, but whoever they were Jebediah did not want to stand by whilst they destroyed his home, let alone the planet he had lived on his entire life.

He emerged back into the dining hall. Compared to the relaxed, festive atmosphere only minutes ago, now it was cast in darkness, the food still sending tendrils of steam up into the suddenly cold air in the half-light. The power had been cut, and the hall was deserted now. As he ran along the long tables, he looked around, as if he were going to find a weapon in the hall.

Jeb Lockwood was scared, and he wondered what he was doing, but as the lights of reflected laser-fire played throughout the hall, he ran on to the metaglass window at the rear of the room. He skidded as a sudden flash of light from a major explosion partially blinded him, and he fell to one knee before the metaglass. He was already thinking this was not one of his better ideas.

What he saw would stay with him for the rest of his life. He was ashamed to recall that he was frozen in place, his intentions of joining in the defence of the ranch already forgotten by this point.

A number of thrustcopters were coasting by, low overhead, shining lights down onto the ranch. The acidfall was heavy, and out in the wide, expansive yard, he could see from the flashes of laserfire, his father in the shadow of an over-turned overlander truck. He was kneeling partially, putting some kind of weapon together. He could not see his mother anywhere, nor his brother Sebastian, but he did see people running back towards the main house he stood in. Where they were crossing in the open, they were being cut down, drone soldiers stalking forwards out of the night. Some of the workers were returning fire, but it seemed futile and pitiful in comparison. He saw Deron Baum, closer to the ranch, just at the edge of the field of vision he had, waving and entreating the workers to pull back. The enemy were everywhere, but they bore no colours, carried no flags. There was no way of identifying who they were.

At that precise moment, as his father slotted the weapon he was working on together, highlighted in a flash of light as he stood, the vehicle storage unit suddenly burst open, the weak doors flying apart.

No, Seb, breathed Jebediah, assuming his brother was in the battlewalker that suddenly emerged from the vehicle bay. It was their fathers, the one Seb had been piloting earlier in the day, the one they had stolen. It looked like Seb was stealing it again, it could only be him. The rest of the people who could pilot it were out there, in the expansive yard.

The huge battlewalker he recognised as a Dziva from his years of pouring over technical schematics with his brother, had been striding forwards. It dominated the battlefield, and it was almost level with his father, but it reacted to the new threat to its side. Jebediah watched as its upper body rotated quickly and rapidly, it still walking away but changing its direction, the upper torso weaponry coming to bear.

The Dziva let a storm of missiles roar out from its chest, the short-range warheads slamming into the battlewalker Jeb assumed that Seb was driving. As explosions blossomed all around the Quarrel battlewalker, the Dziva targeted it with devastatingly accurate fire from its centrally-located plasmacannon, the orangey-red projectile stream punching out to slam into the Quarrel. Seb had not brought his shields up, so it began to boil away armour immediately, steam rising into the air. Even as the steam rose, the Dziva was firing with its superhuman speed, a heavy silvery ball flying out from its left-arm magnetic acceleration cannon, and the three-tined azure red collection of beams from its right-arm lasercannon adding to the ferocious damage it was meting out.

The Dziva was completing its turnaround, thrustcopters above and the lander reacting, joining their fire on the single greatest threat out there. The drones on the ground were firing upon the battlewalker too, desperate to prevent it firing, ensuring they were going to bring it down. It was all so fast, Jebediah had never seen the like.

He almost missed his father emerging, and firing desperately into the back of the Dziva, but he had missed his chance and was not inside its shields.

Two things happened at once.

The Dzivas chainguns rotated automatically, and their streams of anti-personnel fire tracked backwards, ripping Jebediah’s father Ichariah to pieces before his eyes. Those eyes were still going wide in shock, his mouth opening to scream as he watched from inside the ranch house, as a starfighter streaked by overhead, a heavy projectile of some description streaking away from it. The projectile drove deep into the stricken Quarrel battlewalker, that Seb had to be driving, and then it suddenly lost power, shaking and shuddering, steam rising in the acidfall before it suddenly began to fall forwards, going down. It had not touched the ground before the midsection exploded, in a scene and view Jebediah would never be able to forget.

In the space of a heartbeat, Jebediah had lost both his brother and his father.

With a shame he would never forget, the fourteen year-old was paralysed, and could do nothing but weep on the floor. It was where the slavers found him later, curled tightly into a ball.

Chapter II

Slightly over two years later, entering the third year of the Age of Secession;

Just after the Shadow invasion has begun in the eastern colonised galaxy

The Ghubayah star system was a quadruple system, and only one of those planetary systems was fully inhabited. The relatively young nation of the Athrikaansa Confederated States had a significant number of the population of Ghubayah based in that one inhabited planetary system; at least, the ones who were free citizens. The other three planetary systems were divided between a number of powerful commercial organisations, and whilst technically being mining, industrial or agricultural centres, it meant that they were run on the life-blood, the back-bone of Athrikaansa’s burgeoning power – slaves. A predominantly humanist nation, the slaves were all augmented borgs, mostly grown specifically from bio-vats for a life of indenture, or stolen and captured from raids or wars as Athrikaans had expanded its territory in the chaos of post-Imperial times.

The ornate, expensive private office was large, one entire wall opened up to metaglass windows that gave a view out of the bow of the private barge. The barge was an extravagance the waning Char Industries could not truly afford any longer, a secret only a few were aware of. The private office showed no sign of their distressed state, small, silent drones constantly moving around, cleaning the room which itself was large enough to operate as a small cargo-hold on other ships. The expansive window afforded a brilliant view of the Ghubayah System, the four stars all visible, including that most hated red one.

The red jewel in the crown, which had come close to spelling the end for the family of Char.

Char Ja-Kyung, three hundred and thirty-one years old, occasionally needed an oxygenator mask to breathe. The humanoid drone at her shoulder stood ready to attend to any need she may have, but at the moment she was not availing herself of its assistance at all. Her soft suspensor-chair floated gently behind the old-fashioned, antique Earth desk, keeping her facing towards the gigantic, all-consuming window.

With one last look, the elderly woman sneered without strength but plenty of spite, her heavily lined face wrinkling. She waved weakly at the drone, and it reached forwards with a mechanical hand, turning her seat around.

Mother, said the man standing before her desk. He was dressed as richly as she, but where her clothing was perhaps a century out of date, his was the up-to-date Nehru-collar suits that were still in vogue in post-Dissolution industry. Have you made your decision?

She reached out a hand, and the drone placed her dela Cruix crystal glass in her hand. The crystal glass was hewn from worlds owned by the resurgent Suul-worshipping heretics of the League of Suularitsaar, and was if anything even rarer since all trade with the Houses that now formed the League had come crashing to a halt. That was part of the reason for the dire straits some of the Char Industries companies found themselves within, the sudden cessation of trade overnight reversing their fortunes. Several Char Industries operations had already closed down, and the rest of the not-inconsiderable, star-spanning industrial powerhouse was hiding its distressed circumstances.

If you are rich and powerful, it is no longer enough in Athrikaansa to be a humanist, my son, she said slowly, ponderously, her voice crackling. You have to have the right surname here now, from the days when we were bound to one little, insignificant planet called Earth. Her bitterness was acidic, and could have cut through the strongest armour.

Char An-Kor did not lean forwards and throttle his mother, although she hid her amusement at seeing his hands twitch involuntarily, always a give-away with her only surviving son. The rest of the Char family beneath him was quite big, from three different marriages and two affairs which to this day were never spoken