The Rhumgold Sagas: The Curse of the Harvest Moon

By Tim Conley

The Curse of the Harvest Moon is part of the Rhumgold Sagas. Chimera can't support a robust population without infringing on the other planets and moons in the system for harvest support. This has happened to Aires. The population are not happy and have voiced their opposition to the Guild in such a way that they are considered a threat to the status quo. The Guild determines to wipe out the farmers and replace them with other more subservient farmers.
The Guild sends squads of enforcers to eliminate the population on Aires. Little do they imagine that anyone will be able to slip between the cracks, much less mount a retaliation against the Guild Masters. Read & Enloy!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tim Conley
• Release date: Aug 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005026257

Tim Conley

Hi, my name is Tim Conley. I live in Philadelphia, MS with my beautiful wife, Carmela. My son,James (JD) is in the Air Force and has a son Joshua who is 21/2 with another boy on the way. Carmela's son - Enrik just graduated from Mississippi State University with a degree in Teaching.I have been writing for over twenty years and have published 67 books so far - two recently with Amazon/Kindle. I'm currently working on a fantasy anthology of 28 books called The Rhumgold Sagas.I have always been interested in publishing via eBook format but just haven't found the venue until now. I'm really looking forward to participating in the eBook experience. There are 22 e-books available now and 16 more that are being prepared for release in 2020. Read, explore and enjoy!

Book preview

The Rhumgold Sagas:

The Curse of

The Harvest Moon

TIM CONLEY

Copyright © 2016 Tim Conley

Dragon’s Breath Publishing

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1-5440-7332-1

ISBN-13: 978-1-5440-7332-3

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

About the Author

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Other Books

C1 Combine Alert

ProdMaster Abe Jamison strode into his office with a sheaf of stats in his left hand. He now had an idea of the total production of the farms that surrounded his homestead on Ares. They had a bumper crop this year and should have just enough to see the population through to the next crop cycle. He slammed the paperwork down on his desk and walked over to the wide window that looked out onto fields laden with grain as far as his eyes could see.

Laborers were already in the fields – their backs bent in toiling against weather and the caprice of nature. Each mind was centered around one thing – getting as much of the crop brought into the silos as possible before the rains came down out of the Aryan mountain range. Only days existed between the time the grain was fully ripened and the advent of the storms that would flatten everything.

Jamison understood their need for haste. They would work through the night – taking rest breaks only when they needed them. He turned back to the paperwork on his desk – still stumped as to how he was going to cook the figures so the Combine didn’t discover the fact that he was keeping a measure of the produce out for next year’s planting and his people.

The Combine Guild showed up every year to take the major portion of the production of small Ares. They didn’t care a fig that he needed to keep enough food to keep his people from starving. They arrived with empty holds and departed fully loaded. No thought was ever given for the overbearing consequences of their actions. It would only take one harvest for the population of Ares to starve to death – the Combine could care less.

The interstellar comms unit suddenly blared. In spite of himself and the fact he had been expecting the notification – Jamison jumped out of his chair – the back of his legs sending it flying to crash underneath the window. His pulse was racing so hard that he had to lean on his desk to keep the dark spots from completely enveloping his field of vision.

Slowly, he regulated his breathing and marshalled his body to support walking over to the Combine’s device to send out the appropriate message that said he had received their arrival time and would be ready to upload upon arrival. Then he stepped back and looked at the date of arrival. He had less than three weeks to get everything in the holds and ready.

His hands fluttered as his heart sank. He had been expecting more time than they were giving him. Three weeks would give him little time to pull everything together. He was glad the workers were already in the fields. They had little time and now he must warn them that their time was now not their own.

He stoically walked over to his own comms device and typed in a message that he dreaded to send. But it was necessary that he do so. They had to know the time frame they were working against. The Combine was not into giving extra time. Their schedule became that of Ares.

Avril Newson looked back over her shoulders as the fireworks exploded in the air above the Jamison compound. A bright yellow sign lit up the early evening dusk. She straightened up and read the date. A coldness went through her. There was no way they were going to get everything ready in that amount of time. They didn’t have the population to fulfill their duty in that amount of time.

She was raking blueberries into a sieve that would load the crop into a storage unit while sifting all the sticks, leaves and floss back onto the ground. She had started her shift over two hours ago, and now had three filled to the brim units standing behind her. She looked back up at the time that was burned into the early evening and gulped as realization set in that this night was going to be a long one.

Avril was now sixteen – of mature age and able to add her vote to that of her fellow population of Aries. Her ancestors had adopted the farming world as their own centuries ago. Farming had flourished and they had offered their produce to Chimera and Rhumgold.

There was only one problem with their arrangement – the Combine and the Guild. They decided to take instead of paying.

The first indication that something was wrong was when the ships of the Combine arrived and threatened to torch the entire crop if the people didn’t load the ship’s holds to the brim with Ares produced goods. They had come back at the same time every year following. The pattern became so monotonous that the people of Ares just knuckled under and accepted that there was nothing they could do to break the cycle.

Avril threw down her rake and stood with her hands on her slender hips for so long that the other women began to murmur. They had worked all their lives with the threat of retaliation on their heads. Avril was being very foolish to decide to choose this time to become a rebel. She looked around her and saw the looks in their eyes. Slowly she reached down and picked up her implement – she returned to work, but the set of her shoulders said she wasn’t pleased with what was transpiring.

They finished their part of the gathering around midnight and returned to their homes. Avril walked into hers after taking a notice off the door. She was being dispatched to the apple orchards the next day. She crossed to the sink and poured water down the spout to prime the pump. A couple of strokes produced cold water from the aquifer that was only a couple hundred feet beneath the homestead.

She washed her face and undressed. Using a cloth, she washed the dust and grime from her lithe body and then shrugged into her white nightgown. She wasted little time climbing into bed and was asleep almost at once.

The morning came quickly – too quickly for her liking but she knew they had little time to waste. The wagon destined for the orchards showed up as she was finishing her morning gruel. She left the bowl in the sink with some water in it and reached up to one of the men who pulled her up into the wagon.

The day became a blur as they strove to surpass the harvest of the previous day. Time slipped away as they tripped over themselves to gather enough for the taxation. The Combine was not forgiving so the people of Ares had to produce.

Three weeks passed quickly, and the ships pulled into orbit right on time to begin uploading vans filled with produce. In their place, they left empty containers they would fill up next year.

ProdMaster Jamison shunted certain loads to the empty containers to tide the population over during the lean time of the year. The Combine allowed them to set aside a percentage for replanting.

Finally, the Combine departed – their holds full with the produce of a farming world that could not stand up against the fire, power and might of a technologically superior master race.

The people of Aries were at a disadvantage – having no techno gear of their own that wasn’t dedicated to producing crops. But they were a proud people, nonetheless. They still had autonomous control of their world. The autonomy just didn’t extend to them getting due process for their goods and services.

Avril returned to her farmstead with a heavy heart and a chip on her shoulder. Rain was pouring from the eaves of her dwelling as she stored away part of her payment for all the work she had done. She would have to dole it out for the twelve other workers who lived on her farm. There would be little enough to last through the cold part of the year. They would have to do a lot of foraging and their belts would have to be tightened as the snow followed the rains.

A scratching at the door alerted her to a visitor. She was expecting no one – especially with the rain being so hard in pounding against her roof. She cracked the door and a large tufted ear cat slunk into the room and went over to curl up by the fire.

Oh, no you don’t! You can’t stay here! You and your mangy kind are not going to mooch off me this year. I have little enough to last through the cold times. Now leave!

Misty Relande was one of the original inhabitants of the planet and as such took up residence wherever she desired. That their folks blessed humans with their presence was a given. They asked little and gave back very little in exchange for having a pleasant place by the fire. They became familiar with the human they adopted for the cold times. Often that person really benefitted through the association.

Avril knew that and allowed the beast to settle in. Rats deserted the farmstead for other more conducive places that didn’t have a cat. Weeks passed and the snows came as everyone settled in.

Aries swung around Rhumgold and time slipped away as it always had. Avril became filled out in spite of having to cinch up her waist. She would be eligible to choose a mate in the spring and began looking forward to the passing of the seasons.

C2 Captured

Your orders were plain. Capture the bitch and throw her in the hold for the pleasure of the Grand Master. You couldn’t even do one simple thing. I am displeased and when I’m displeased – you can guess how the Grand Master feels. What do you have to say for yourself, Lt. Orbison?

Lt. Orbison felt his sphincter tighten up. He was sweating from every pore in his taut body as he tried to stand calmly at attention, but there was no such thing as calm. His very nerves jangled as he vainly tried to find something succinct to say.

If the Commander will recall – we did capture her. She just didn’t stay captured. I turned her over to Sgt. Romaine and watched as he chained and threw her into the holding cell. Neither of us expected her to be gone in the next cycle. And we still haven’t located her life scans. I’m lost for a valid explanation. I think we should go back to that filthy moon and make examples of the population until they give her up.

Commander Greer rubbed the back of his head as he often did when he was at a loss for explaining a given situation. He stepped away from the lectern and approached his subordinate. He didn’t like the direction his thoughts were taking him in. The only logical explanation was that his men were having him on. They were deliberately trying to have his goat. But that didn’t make much sense either. They all knew how important it was to get the produce from Aries back to the factories on Chimera and Rhumgold before undue spoilage set in. They surely would not jeopardize that part of their mission.

Rowan Greer was one of the most distinguished Combine pilots in the fleet – having never made a mistake in commanding his personnel, nor was he over-indulgent on the side of the Company. He had commanded the collection for over thirty-five years now and this was the first time they had even the slightest hiccup.

Lt. Orbison. The scan you showed me as we left orbit showed the presence on the surface of one of the Changelings. Is that not so?

Yes, sir. It stood out on the monitors as bright as day. We still have the documentation of the event. You know we couldn’t make that up. There was one of the filthy creatures inside her home when we landed and took her into custody.

But you didn’t bring it back with you. Why was that? Greer was standing a couple of feet to the side of the man.

Orbison couldn’t shrug in uniform, but his physical demeanor told the Commander that he wasn’t proud of what he had to admit.

The damned thing just disappeared, sir. It was there when we left the lander and wasn’t when we busted down the door. My away team was frustrated to the max once we got inside. And the woman didn’t help us at all.

You really expected her to? the Commander looked sharply at