Warrior Errant

By Harry Elliott

Humanity has moved to the stars; Earth is an old legend. Now the moons of Mitera are home: stormy Landbreak, bleak Avernus, verdant Ishra. These different worlds have shaped distinct societies.

A deadly insurgency has broken out on Ishra, and the military forces of these contrasting cultures combine to help fight it. They must overcome their differences and mutual suspicions or risk being destroyed by a hostile environment and a canny enemy.

Private James Dalton of Landbreak has questions. Why are they fighting? How can he work with the enigmatic Avernii Transhumans? What secrets lie in the depths of Ishra's vast jungle?

Follow Private Dalton and his squad as they experience the horrors of war, face their prejudices, and discover their own place in this conflict. As the Avernii say, "A warrior must know his fight." But James Dalton may not survive the answers he so desperately seeks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Guardbridge Books
• Release date: Jul 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781911486282

Book preview

Parting

Chapter One

The fist came crashing down.

Light bloomed. The world swivelled through ninety degrees. Hard as a hammer blow, the deck sprung into the back of Private Dalton’s head. The tang of iron swelled between his teeth. Groaning, he rolled off his back.

Still with us, James? The blur from which the voice was coming resolved into the grinning face of Private Colt Bridger.

Shove off, growled James Dalton, pushing off the deck. He came to his feet, swaying, and waved off Colt’s offer of support. Through the faint ringing in his ears he could hear the corridor echoing with jeers. Fucking mod can hit.

Then you better start hitting back, right? said Colt cheerfully.

Dalton spun on his heel, fists up. The jeers became cheers. He smiled at his opponent through bloody teeth. What else you got, mod?

Six foot five, lean and pale to the point of translucence, the mod simply stared back.

Get him, James, said Colt.

Dalton shouldered in, head low, leading with a hook aimed for the jaw. The mod leaned back, a casual motion, and left the fist to part air. Open-palmed, the mod planted a blow under Dalton’s missed punch, and drove the breath from his lungs. James staggered back five paces and would have kept going if not for Colt.

You’re not looking good, pal.

Do you want to fight the bastard? spat James.

Nah, I’m ugly enough as it is, said Colt and pushed, back you go.

James turned the forward momentum into a charge, shoulder first. The mod caught him under the arms and flung him like a rag doll into the corridor wall. Colt winced at the thud of flesh striking metal. James went down on his hands and knees. Vision blurring, he looked up at the mod. The tall man – if it could even be called a man – hadn’t moved a foot. It was still staring, expression unreadable. Through the pallid skin of that immaculately hairless scalp, James could see the traceries of sub-dermal implants.

The jeers were deafening now. He caught Colt’s eye and reached up to find purchase against the pipes which lined the wall. Instead, he found a fire extinguisher.

Fuck it, he said under his breath, and hauled the extinguisher out of its brace. Like a battering ram, he swung it straight for the mod’s face. The mod caught it two-handed and stopped it dead.

Fair enough, said James and shrugged.

He pulled the safety pin and crunched the levers. A plume of dry powder ejected from the hose and coated the mod’s face. The mod backed off, groping at its eyes. James dropped the extinguisher and ploughed in with a solid punch to the gut. The mod doubled over, and James put it on the deck with an elbow in the back.

The mods on the other end of the corridor stepped up. In turn, the cheering squad of troopers behind James surged forwards. Colt pulled him back to his comrades, while the mods lifted their own from the deck. The troopers – blood up, bristling – hurled abuse at the silent line of mods. Silent or shouting, both sides looked ready for a fight.

This is about to get bad, Colt shouted over the noise, still grinning.

There was a loud thunk and the corridor lamps blinked from white to red, bathing them all in ruddy light.

Stand down! bellowed a voice. Two officers shoved their way through the crowded corridor. One of them was a mod. The other – the one doing the shouting – was Lieutenant Killian, from the same regiment as Dalton’s crowd.

The mod officer went across to its soldiers and silently looked them up and down. Killian was more vocal.

What is this bullshit? he barked, already red in the face. Squabbling in the corridors like academy pups? Straighten up! We’re in this together! Do you see two armies here? Because I just see one. One army made up of the hardest bastards from across two moons, shipping out side by side to put the boot to some trouble-makers in our galactic backyard. You don’t like it? Deal with it or step out an airlock, because this ship is only going one way, and we’re all going together.

Killian let that settle, looking from face to face, then said, get back to your billets. I’ll deal with you all later.

The mod officer dismissed its own soldiers with nothing more than a glance. The corridor emptied, leaving Lieutenant Killian and his counterpart standing under the blood-red lights.

I thought that was very well said, lieutenant, remarked the mod officer. Killian grunted and crossed to a wall panel. He pulled a lever and the emergency lighting shut off.

It is good to see the spirit of co-operation being encouraged, pressed the mod officer.

Killian whipped round and made a beeline to the mod, coming up face to face, an inch apart.

Listen, you mod bastard, growled the lieutenant, keep your freaks in line and I’ll do the same for my troops. Outside of that, we don’t need to be friends.

Killian turned sharply and stalked away. The mod officer breathed deeply through the nose and released a small sigh. Then it turned and strode off in the opposite direction.

* * *

The ship was a Gulper–class Military Interplanetary Personnel and Materiel Carrier. No one called it that. Not even the strictest station-operator on the bridge was that prosaic. To the crew and the four-thousand strong complement of soldiers aboard, the ship was known as The Moongate.

Nine hundred metres of technological and engineering ingenuity, the carrier had been purpose-built to define a new era of warfare. Distance had never proved an obstacle to men when the time came for killing. When the open plains of Old Earth stretched too far to walk, ancient warriors broke and saddled beasts to carry them to violence. When beyond those plains were discovered seas and oceans that stretched to the horizons, ships were built that would cross the waves and deliver men to war on foreign shores. And now, not even the gulf between worlds could stand before humanity’s lust for blood.

The Moongate had been constructed in the orbital shipyards of Landbreak. It was not the first spaceship to be given life above that storm-racked moon; a substantial fleet of ships had been birthed there for the purpose of orbital defence from potential external threats. The Moongate was, however, the first ship built above Landbreak with the intention, not to defend, but to attack.

Landbreak’s geography had made natural sailors of its population. Hundreds of rocky islands separated by channels of churning water and violent seas had necessitated a society built around sailing. No matter how tumultuous the waters of Landbreak became, travelling by sea was always more preferable to its people than travelling by air. The fierce headwinds and frequent storms prohibited routine flying. Even the sturdiest of shuttles could be plucked from the skies by hurricane-force winds and hurled end over end into the crashing seas. It had not taken the Islanders of Landbreak long to eschew the skies.

Space travel, on the other hand, was perceived by the Islanders as being more akin to sea travel. They had many analogies to describe the similarity and the preference. A favourite went as follows: If you fall off your boat, you float. If you fall out your spaceship, you float. If you fall out your plane, you just fall. Naturally, floating was always preferable to falling.

Even so, what The Moongate represented was unprecedented. It was one thing to sail the seas between islands, but to sail between worlds was another thing entirely. Since the first generation of settlers, no Islander had migrated off of Landbreak. Even the Orbital Defence Fleet was poorly equipped to go beyond high orbit of the moon.

Now, for the first time in two hundred years, Islanders would go not just beyond the gravitational pull of Landbreak, but they would cross the void between moons and set foot where they had never set foot before. They would not be going alone.

The Moongate had broken orbit of Landbreak over a standard week ago. Now it sailed the dark matter seas, cresting the orbital tides of the gas giant Mitera, its course plotted between two of its six sister moons. First it had made the circuit to the moon of Avernus.

The Islanders had laid eyes upon Avernus from afar, through camera displays and observation domes. One soldier had held a keepsake up to the viewing port – a polished Old Earth coin, currency of their ancestors – and made the comparison. It had certainly been appropriate. Avernus was a silver circle against the speckled backdrop of space. Its surface was scored, as if engraved by a metalworker’s deft hand.

It had been beautiful and wondrous, at first, at a distance. Then The Moongate had docked with one of the orbiting space stations, and a closer look at Avernus had revealed its beauty to be nothing but a mirage. The moon had been barren. Wholly without natural life or the means to sustain it. No water, no plants, not even a breathable atmosphere. Just as Landbreak had shaped its settlers into Islanders, this moon too had shaped the settlers that had come to be known as the Avernii. This change, however, had been a more comprehensive one. A more transformative one.

The Islanders knew about the Avernii, of course. They had heard rumours, passed down from those who had facilitated the first instances of communication between the moons. They had heard about how the settlers – who had become all but stranded on Avernus – had been forced to adapt to the moon’s inhospitable environment. Not until that day, though, had an Islander seen an Avernii in person. A regiment-strength detachment of the Avernii Transhuman Forces, as they described themselves, had marched into one of The Moongate’s mass loading bays. The rumours had not been enough to prepare the Islanders for the truth.

The humans who had settled Avernus had been, physically, no different from those who had settled Landbreak. The humans that had marched on to The Moongate two hundred years later, well, it was difficult to be sure whether they could truly be called human anymore. The Islanders had all heard about the difficulties of life on Avernus, about how certain compromises had been necessary to survive on such a moon, but nothing could have prepared them for what the Avernii had become.

And what the Avernii had become was difficult for the Islanders to accept.

It wasn’t just their freakishly translucent skin. It wasn’t just their complete lack of hair or even their unnatural height. It was their uniformity. It was how difficult it was to distinguish between individuals. It was the way they communicated with one another, rarely with words, sometimes with gestures, but mostly with long, blank stares. And most of all it was their eyes. The iris was no longer present. In its place, extending from the pupil, was a network of lines, like the circuits on a chipset.

It wasn’t long before speculation became rampant amongst the Islanders. Some wondered whether those eyes were even real, or whether they were replaced at birth with bionics. Some went further, and claimed that the Avernii had swapped their brains with computers, and that’s what could be seen through their eyes. Whatever the truth of the matter was concerning the full extent of their modifications, the Avernii were stoically silent on the matter, evading questions or outright refusing conversation.

That the Avernii wouldn’t answer and that the Islanders wouldn’t stop asking didn’t help to foster trust for either party. It wasn’t long before unease had become unrest. The Avernii Transhuman Forces and the 2nd Privateers of Landbreak had barely been sharing the cramped corridors of The Moongate for two standard days when the first signs of friction had appeared. It was not a promising start, especially considering that there was still another whole week of travel to endure before they arrived at their destination.

Now The Moongate was beyond sight of bleak Avernus. Its thrusters flared, incandescent in the void, speeding the carrier onwards, to distant shores and war.

* * *

Do you think there are fish on… what’s-its-name again? asked Private Blake Leland, looking up from his tray.

Ishra, said Dalton, his voice muffled by the ice-pack he was holding to his mouth.

Eesh-rah, repeated Blake carefully. Yeah. Do you reckon they’ve got fish?

Hopefully not, said Colt, that way when we’re done cleaning up their mess for them, we can start selling them our catch.

Thinking of the future, Colt? asked Dalton.

I was a fisherman before I signed up, and I’ll be a fisherman when I’ve served the due, said Colt, sitting a little straighter, just like my Pa.

I appreciate the vote of confidence that we’ll be coming home from this, said Dalton. Blake gave a nervous laugh.

Well, I’m only speaking for myself, said Colt, grinning. Can’t vouch for the two of you, right? Couple of eel-handed bottom-feeders that you are.

Don’t make me beat on you, Private Bridger, laughed Dalton.

Yeah, Colt, you saw him put the mod down, said Blake.

Colt raised an eyebrow. Give me a moment to hide all the fire extinguishers, then I’ll be happy to fight you.

Dalton flicked a forkful of gruel across the table. It splattered on Colt’s forehead and the three men burst into laughter.

Enjoying yourselves, privates?

The three men scrambled off the benches and came to attention. Across the mess hall, the chatter died down.

Lieutenant Killian, sir, said Dalton stiffly.

Private James Dalton, that’s some nasty looking swelling you’ve got there. Mod get the better of you?

Uh, no sir.

Oh that’s right, because you assaulted a soldier of an allied military force with a fire extinguisher.

To be fair, lieutenant, mods aren’t natural. Private Dalton here was just levelling the playing field, so to speak, said Colt. James really wished the man would stop grinning right about now, and talking, for that matter. He still had a blob of gruel inching down his brow.

Well, maybe Private Dalton will remember that, the next time he decides to go twelve rounds with a bionically modified transhuman.

Actually, it was just one round, said Dalton, and then quickly added, sir.

Lieutenant Killian sniffed. James could see the man reddening at the collar.

The death sentence might have been outlawed, but I’ll make a damn good case for it to High Command the next time you bottom-feeders embarrass me like that.

Sir, there won’t be a next time, sir, said Dalton.

So you are capable of intelligence after all, what a surprise, sneered the lieutenant. He raised a finger and pointed it directly between Dalton’s eyes. You’re a soldier of the 2nd Privateers. Act like it.

Killian turned away so sharply it made Dalton wince. The three men sagged a little, relieved, grinning sheepishly with one another.

Oh, and you might want to finish up your meal, Private Dalton, said Killian, pausing to look over his shoulder. You’re on latrines from now until we put down anchor. And seeing as your friends are so eager to have your back, they can join you.

They watched Lieutenant Killian stalk away.

Blake raised his hands, incredulous. I didn’t even say anything.

Chapter Two

"Let me explain to you what the Assahi Territory is. It is eight million kilometres squared of dense jungle mass. To put that into perspective, that’s just about one tenth of Ishra’s entire surface area. If you were to uproot the Assahi Territory and somehow manage to plant it on Landbreak, it would swallow Firstfall, the biggest island we’ve got, thirty times over. This disgustingly huge swathe of jungle has humidity levels that could suffocate a rock. It’s got insects bigger than my boot. It’s got local fauna fatter than a tank. I’m told that even some of the plants can kill a fully grown man. This lovely jungle is spread across terrain that makes the sea cliffs back home look tame. It’s also the location that the Ishradi Separatists have chosen to make their home in. Lucky us. That means you’ll be getting to know the Assahi Territory in intimate levels of detail in just over a week’s time. Since none of you have ever seen a jungle, we thought it’d probably be a good idea to do as much basic acclimatisation as we can while aboard The Moongate. Now, before we begin, are there any questions?"

The squad were gathered in a corner of one of the ship’s many assembly halls. None of them stirred.

Right. Good. Now, we’ll start with something simple— Sergeant Broden stopped. A hand had gone up in the group. What’s that? A question?

Yes, sir, came a voice from between the bodies.

Who is that? I can’t see you, said Broden.

It’s me, sir, said the voice. A couple of the troopers stifled laughs.

Oh, for crying out loud, just spit it out, growled Broden, craning his neck to see over the front row of heads.

Will there be fish, sir?

What?

I think he asked if there will be fish, sir, said another trooper, also concealed in the crowd.

I’ve got a couple of fucking fish in this squad is what I’ve got, said Broden.

It’s just we’ve got a lot of fish back home, sir, said the voice. The laughter was less easily smothered this time.

Is that you, Private Leland? I thought I recognised that nasal voice. Up front please, private.

There was some pushing and shoving and Blake was expelled from the group to stand before Sergeant Broden. They were both short men, but Broden was twice as broad with arms thicker than Blake’s thighs.

Private Leland here thinks it’s funny to make jokes during briefing. The very same briefing that’s going to keep you all from getting killed out there. Who else finds that funny?

There was silence from the squad.

Tough crowd today, Private Leland, said Broden.

Seems so, sir.

Broden smiled indulgently. "It seems like you’re about to do push ups until you pass out, Private Leland. Isn’t that right?"

Point taken, sir, I’ll be quiet now, sir, said Blake, and made to rejoin the squad.

Broden caught him by the shoulder. "You misunderstand, private. The point is, you’re going to do push ups until your arms give out."

Blake groaned and got down on the deck.

Now, are there any actual questions? asked Broden, looking about the squad. The man had the look of a bulldog about him. Perhaps anyone who is feeling lippy wants to save the squad some time and join Private Leland on the floor? Maybe they can show him how to do a proper push up while they’re at it.

Why are we doing it, sir? asked another voice from within the crowd. James pushed to the front.

Why are we doing what, Private Dalton?

Going to fight them, sir, said James. The Ishradi Separatists. What makes them so bad that we have to cross space to kill them on behalf of the Ishradi Government?

It’s in the name, Private Dalton, said Broden bluntly. "They’re separatists. They’re enemies of the Ishradi Government, and the Ishradi Government is our friend. That makes the Separatists our enemy."

Yes, sir, said Dalton.

Good, now, if there is nothing else—

It’s just, why is it our problem, sir? asked Dalton.

Did you sign up to fight, private, or to ask questions?

To fight, sir. I’m just saying we’ve had civil wars of our own on Landbreak, pressed Dalton. We haven’t always been a united people, but we didn’t have the help of the other moons to do it.

That’s because we didn’t need their help, barked Broden, puffing out his chest. We’re Islanders. We’re tough as stone. We’re born on the seas, made in the storm. The Ishradi know that. That’s why they want the 2nd Privateers to get on a damn starship and cross several hundred thousand kilometres of space to dig them out of a rut. No one better for the job!

Several troopers in the squad agreed with cheers and hoots.

Then, why are the Avernii coming too, sir? asked Colt.

I don’t fucking know! shouted Broden. Maybe they want to see the sights. Last time any of them saw a tree was well over two hundred years ago, after all.

There was a thump. Everyone looked down at the deck.

There goes Private Leland, said Broden. The squad burst into laughter. Someone help him up for salt’s sake.

Dalton and Colt moved up to lift the panting man off of the deck.

And no more damn questions, either, said Broden. Don’t forget that the lot of you are from the new draft. You’ve had, what, nine weeks basic training? Some of you probably less than that. And now I’ve got a week to get you ready to fight a war in an environment you’ve never even seen before. So shut your mouths and open your eyes and ears and maybe I’ll get half of you back to Landbreak at the end of this. Now form up!

The squad scrambled about, pushing and shoving until they formed a line.

Broden sighed. I’ve seen sea-snakes swim in straighter lines. Right, face! Double time, march!

The squad turned ninety-degrees on their heels and began jogging the perimeter of the assembly hall. All the corridors and chambers of The Moongate had a newly finished look about them, plain metal walls and bolted deck-plates, utilitarian support struts and girders. Unlike some of the older and more renowned vessels in the defence fleet, there was no embellishment aboard this carrier. Dalton had once seen pictures from the interior of a defence fleet destroyer. They had layered the steel walls with lacquered panels of wood, and hung ornamental lanterns in the place of fluorescent light-strips. It had resembled the inside of a stately manor more than that of a warship.

Not so for The Moongate. She had been finished to a tight schedule and set loose from her berth the moment she was functional and ready to sail. Dalton remembered watching from one of the observatories as the carrier had passed between the arrayed destroyers of the defence fleet. They had assembled to see her off in parade ground fashion. The Moongate had dwarfed every one of the destroyers. She was the largest ship that the engineers of Landbreak had ever conceived of. Never before had the Islanders required a ship large and powerful enough to transport an army off-world, along with its support and armour elements.

Put me in the jungle already, gasped Blake, stumbling along behind Dalton. I’m ready! Anything to get me away from training.

I’ll remind you of that wish in a week’s time, when we’re up to our tits in jungle warfare, said Colt, up ahead.

Hey, Colt, what do you reckon the sergeant isn’t telling us? asked Dalton.

What do you mean?

I mean, he didn’t exactly answer my questions, said Dalton.

My bet is that he doesn’t actually have any answers for you, said Colt, glancing over his shoulder and almost tripping over the heels of the trooper in front of him. Broden is a career soldier. He’s in this for the long haul. I don’t think it matters to him why we’re doing it. Probably easier if he doesn’t know. Why the curiosity anyway?

You can’t tell me you’re not even a little curious? asked Dalton.

He’s right, said Blake, breathing hard. This is history in the making. No moon has ever interfered militarily with one of its neighbours. You’ve got to wonder about the precedent.

Is that why you two signed on then, to play detective? laughed Colt.

I signed on to see Ishra, lied Dalton.

This is history in the making, repeated Blake. I want to be a part of that.

What about you, Colt? asked Dalton.

Colt shrugged. Yeah, whatever, bit of both.

Dalton looked at the stout trooper’s back. Colt Bridger was a classic Landbreak fisherman. Medium-height, stocky, thick-jawed and heavily tattooed with the motifs that were seemingly revered by the fishermen: the waves, the sails and the anchors, the fish, the more obscure patterns of the things that lurked beneath, the things that the fishermen spoke of only when they were really, really drunk.

Colt Bridger was anything but secretive though. Dalton had only known him for the duration of their training, but this was the first time that Colt had given an elusive answer to any question, personal or otherwise. For that reason alone, Dalton decided not to press the issue.

Still, it’d be nice to know more, about these Separatists, about why they’re fighting, said Dalton.

Are you sure you want to know? asked Colt.

Why would I not?

Might make it harder to do your job, when the time comes, said Colt. It’s difficult to shoot a man you agree with, after all.

They lapsed into silence after that, but Dalton’s mind was unquiet. He found himself thinking back to that day, almost three months ago, when the course of his life had changed forever.

* * *

James Dalton was two minutes ahead of the storm. The thunderheads were rolling in behind him, darkening the sky. The hard wind driving them in was howling through the woods to either side of the road, whipping the branches into a frenzy. Ahead of him, dipping down over the horizon, was the huge, banded sphere of Mitera. Its ember-orange and white bands were bright against the evening sky. Three of the gas giant’s daughter moons hung beside her. One was no larger than a golf ball, half concealed by a crescent of shadow. The other two were smaller still, like pearls caught in Mitera’s pull.

He rolled on the throttle, building speed, leaning low over his bike as it tore along the road. It had been his father’s machine before it had been gifted to James. As a child he had loved to watch his father tending to it in the garage. The pungent smells of machine oil and petrol had become fond childhood associations to him. On occasion he had been allowed to ride on the back, though only when his mother’s head had been turned. His father had told him that the bike was a relic of their ancestry, that it had been brought over on the migrant starship that had delivered the first settlers to Landbreak. A heritage curator had once offered a great deal of money for the bike to be preserved in a museum, but Dalton’s father had just laughed, claiming that the best way to honour the bike was to ride it till it could be ridden no longer.

The road curved away from the woodlands, bringing him out along the coast. Beyond the tumbled rocks the dark waters foamed and thrashed. The big waves flopped in over the stony shores, sending the spray as far as the road, filling the air with the alkaline smell of salt.

Up ahead, the raised platform of Harrowton, his home town, came into view. Row upon row of five metre thick concrete columns rose up off the coast, supporting the broad platform upon which the town had been built. Landbreak was a moon of storms and shifting tides, wildly effected by the orbital cycles of its sister moons. The tidal range could change by as much as twenty metres along some coasts, and the storms could fling waves higher still. The first Islanders had learned their lessons early on. If a town had to be built on the coast, it had to be built high and sturdy, or Landbreak would drag it away into the depths.

As he sped towards the sloping access roads which led up to Harrowton, Dalton looked out across the water. On the sea’s horizon, he could see the lights from a fleet of construction ships, glinting around the base of a colossal pillar, visible even at this distance. It was said that the raised coastal towns would not last forever, not against the constant erosion of the tides. It was said that every year the islands of Landbreak lost another inch off their shores, that one day the moon would be nothing but one immense ocean. It was said that in fifty years they would all be living on floating cities that rose and fell in harmony with the tides. At that moment, Dalton was looking at the foundations of one such city. Even looking at it, he couldn’t bring himself to imagine what it would be like to live in a city built on the water, where the floor beneath your feet would never truly be solid.

Dalton looked back to the road as the access ramp joined up with the town platform. He passed by the warehouses and packing factories that reeked of unprocessed fish, the shipyards with their gangly cranes looming overhead and the steepled rooftops of the boathouses. The large workshops of the industrial sector gave way to the streets of commerce, where the shops and market stalls were finishing up their business for the day. James bled speed as the smooth access road was replaced by the cobbled streets of the inner town. As he was passing the Founding Square – the site where the first structure had been raised on the town platform – something turned his head.

That something, specifically, was a tank. A Seahound Class Amphibious Tank. It had been parked in front of the statue of the town’s founder, Benjamin Harrow. History remembered Harrow as a pragmatic man, with his eyes always focussed on the road before his feet. The statue had been rendered to respect this in a very literal way, with the founder’s eyes downcast. Now it seemed as though Harrow was looking down his nose at the tank, his brow furrowed in disdain.

James slowed to a halt. He wasn’t looking at the statue. The tank was ferocity defined. Its angled hull and prow were painted in a dark grey, blue, and black camouflage pattern. Its turret mounted the twin prongs of a railgun weapon, and they had been angled skywards to heroic effect. Draped across the hull was a banner.

"Join the Army! Serve your Home! See the Galaxy!" it proclaimed in bold font.

The storm caught up with him. The rain crashed down over the town without preamble. It hammered on the slate-grey roof tiles and gurgled down the gutters. James throttled the engine and hurried on. Before he turned away from the square he spared a last backward glance at the tank.

He turned onto one of the residential lanes and two minutes later was pulling in to his drive, hefting up the garage door and wheeling the bike in out of the rain. He pulled off his helmet and soaked leather jacket and hung them up before heading in to the house.

The smells of oven-baked potatoes and fried fish filled his nose. They led him to the kitchen, where his mother was leaning against the counter, a book on philosophy in one hand and an oven-glove in the other. She looked up and smiled as he came in. James had inherited that winning smile, along with his mother’s thick chestnut hair and green eyes, but his angled jaw, straight nose and brooding brow had all come from his father.

Just caught you? she asked, nodding at the rain clattering against the windows.

Still got soaked, James said, pulling a folder from his backpack and putting it on the kitchen table.

Your Pa will appreciate that, said his mother, checking on the glowing oven.

I do indeed, said his father, coming in from the hallway. He stopped in his tracks and made a great show of sniffing the air. Great salt! That smells something good, Ana.

He went over and gave her a kiss on the forehead, before turning to James. Thanks son, now we can get an early start on the Whitfield account.

Right, said James.

Oh, but you take the rest of the day off, said his father, picking up the folder. You deserve it for going all the way up to Ridgeton. I’ll get started today and you can pick up with me in the morning.

Yes, Pa, said James.

His father wandered out of the room, flicking through the folder’s contents.

Dinner’s in five, John, his mother called after him, and then turned those knowing green eyes on her son. James, sweetie, one of these days you’re going to have to tell your father how much you hate accounting.

He needs the help, he said.

No, he doesn’t, Ana said, but you do need to find something for yourself before time gets away from you.

Have you been into the market today? he asked, changing the subject.

Saw the tank did you? she replied and turned away.

Is that to do with all this Three Nations business?

Probably, she said, seems a bit counter-intuitive doesn’t it? Forming an alliance by starting a war.

That’s the only reason alliances are ever formed, said John, coming back into the kitchen. Someone has a problem they can’t deal with themselves, so they make friends to deal with their problems for them.

Only slightly pessimistic, said Ana, laughing.

Well, maybe, he said and started laying the table. Anyway, this is all a ridiculous business. Raising troops to fight a war on another world that has nothing to do with Landbreak.

Actually, said James, I was thinking I might sign on.

His parents went completely still, completely silent. Then his father laughed, as though it was a joke, but when his son’s face remained serious he faltered. What?

James, this isn’t what I meant when I said… began his mother.

When you said what? asked John. What ideas have you been putting in his head?

John!

It’s nothing to do with that, said James, cutting across them. I just, I don’t know, I want to join.

That’s exactly right, said his father, "you don’t know. You saw a tank and you got excited. I used to be like that as a young man too, but you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. This isn’t some kind of game, James, this is—"

I know it’s not a game, snapped James, and it’s not about the tank. I’m twenty-four and I’ve never even been off of Firstfall! I want to see things, Pa.

"Then why didn’t you ever