BOOK 0: FIELDS OF FIRE Chapter vi

King Lycasis stood in his throne room and gazed at a Nebular globe, crafted by Sengans, fine tuned by the Sturbin and used by all star travelers. Across its black surface prominent stars help locate and trace the movement of ships across the sea of stars. As their location changed, the three-dimensional star field on the globe changed accordingly, the location marked by computerized points for navigators to use. It was a beautiful as well as useful instrument, but his mind was awash in a swirl of thoughts and he did not really see the globe before him.

Of the one hundred thousand military personnel his throne once commanded, there were only fifteen thousand left. Of the one hundred and twenty thousand civilians of the original Thuringi populace, a little over twenty thousand remained to journey in the Armada and among that number, five thousand were children under twenty years of age. Thuringa was wiped out in the slim space of three years through war and the pestilence and plagues visited them by the ecological destruction the Shargassi dealt. Many key people were lost; the designer of the oceanic ship Freen among them when the project was only half completed. The ship had many problems needing to be addressed but time was against them and the magnitude of their shipbuilding requirements made for an unfortunate hurried process.

Many of the most experienced warriors perished including Lycasis’s son-in-law of four days, Maranta Shanaugh. The personal loss of Maranta was harsh enough. That he was Lycasis's trusted and able Warrior General was a fact approaching disastrous. Darien was not ready to be Warrior General either in training or in temperament. Lycasis reviewed the survivor's list with a heavy heart. He had so few warriors to guard so many precious lives; of the fifteen thousand who remained only ten thousand were in the Air Command. The other five thousand were inpatu, or inactive, Ground Command.

He glanced at a newly hung portrait on the wall, a portrait created by a talented young artist among the ranks. It was a portrait of Maranta in full dress regalia. Whoever painted it captured the strength and charm of the Warrior General well; the likeness gave Lycasis a lump in his throat. He wished his general were at his side to laugh in the face of danger and stir hope among the people, including Lycasis. Lycasis had hoped Carrol was pregnant and would carry on the Shanaugh name. Unfortunately, such was not the case. Carrol was so cautious about not becoming pregnant during her and Maranta's long love affair, fate abandoned the future of that particular line in the Shanaugh family. Many of the Shanaugh lineages would not continue. The bearers of the Shanaugh family name were all warriors and many died in battle and by plague released by the Shargassi. Many families were similarly wasted. Some were like the family of Duncans; as Lycasis understood it, only one carrying the Duncan name was left, from among a population of two hundred twenty thousand Thuringi.

Lycasis slammed his hand down on the Nebular globe in anger. How could this happen to them? How could he have let his people down? How –

He shook his head and regained control of his thoughts. It was too late; the past was the past and he could not change it. No one foresaw the cruel calculating plan of the Shargassi to rob the Thuringi world of its very lifeblood and force them to flee like the homeless vagrants they now were. The thought made Lycasis look again at the Nebular globe. He manipulated the controls to trace the stars far past the ordinary area of travel.

There in the distance was the habitable world of Farcourt, so far away from the wormholes of space their last half of the journey would be the longest. Far away from friendly worlds or even unfriendly worlds, this uncharted territory was unknown to the Stellar Council and unexploited by the Shargassi. The Thuringi would need to stock up for the journey and be completely self-sufficient before setting out on the final push. There was a small, inhabited world just on the edge before that stark last third. Somehow, the Thuringi would have to barter with its populace for provisions before going on. No one was even sure if they would be friendly. Well, thought King Lycasis as he straightened, at least we have our friends the D'tai, the Borelliat, the Thelan, and the Gali. Our aid to them in the past will be our bargaining leverage for provisions.

The daily pattern went a long way in helping the refugee Thuringi civilization become used to the new way of life. Ten hours of duty on gifted tasks, ten hours for free time in which they also performed their common tasks, and ten hours for rest. Everyone was assigned tasks as suitable to their abilities as possible. If some did not use their entire rest time to sleep, that was their concern and no one else’s.

All that was required was a conscientious performance during tasks, so if it only took five hours to perform an assigned common task of food preparation or zoological ship cleaning, then the other five hours were for themselves. If someone wanted to only get eight hours of sleep and use the other two to pursue a hobby or a relationship, it was their choice. The common tasks were rotated so no one was trapped into doing the same thing. Every Thuringi with flight training took turns patrolling the Armada from the most capable, seasoned Thuringi warrior to eventually include the newest warriors-in-training. The times were that desperate. The inpatu Ground Command warriors either became Naradi or helped pilot the service ships and GPQ’s, which left the Air Command to serve on the battleships and fighters.

Stuart Phillipi enjoyed his flight time. As a young pilot, he chafed with boredom if grounded for any reason. He learned early how to service and perform simple repairs on his ship, so he lost no flight time. He enjoyed learning about different aspects of whatever he came across. Stuart hoped his young son Erich would take an interest in the same things so they might share mutual interests. Stuart fondly remembered the way his own father inspired and encouraged him. Every jet race, every sword thrust, every festival event in which Stuart and Darien participated was supported by their enthusiastic father. When Lycasis’s responsibilities prevented him from attending Maranta was in his stead, a cross between surrogate parent and patient older brother.

Stuart tried to fill his fatherly role with Erich, when he was not on one mission after another for his father. But Erich did not have the same interests Stuart had as a boy; in fact, he did not have interest in much of anything. Erich detested playing Kellis, the penultimate Thuringi sport pitting two teams of players against the other. In turns and any means possible, each team fought to carry a ten-pound round ball past a goal post located at opposite ends of a field. The object purportedly was to have the highest number of points within a given time period, but most of the players and spectators knew the real point was to run, tackle, throw, shove, and pummel each other for the simple joy of physical exertion.

Erich played Kellis, but he never broke a sweat. He ran, but he did not tear down the field with the same wild abandon as the other players. He tackled and shoved, but without the kind of force usually exhibited by his teammates. It was not from lack of ability; it was more of the lack of personal interest, a sort of selective chill that began as a child and worsened during the bombardment of Thuringa. Erich was more like his mother Aura every day, which was possibly why he was increasingly distant.

Stuart was drawn to Aura precisely because she was the epitome of the Thuringi ideal. She was elegant and regal from a grand old Aquatic Thuringi family. Marrying her seemed the best choice a crown prince could have made. She was smart, she was proper, and she was beautiful to behold. She was as prudent in the way she conducted herself as her brother Brent Ardenne was unrestrained.

Whenever Stuart seemed troubled about his marriage, Darien always gave him a nudge with his elbow and reminded him, "I warned you not to marry that chilly little package, yet you did anyway. I knew Brent and Aura long before you met them, and I tried to tell you she was chill to the core. Will you never listen to anything but your heart? It is far too tender to risk like that."

It was more than that, but Stuart did not know, and Darien was reluctant to tell him the complete story. Darien and Brent had indeed been drinking buddies since their Academy days together. While Stuart was on missions and diplomatic assignments for Lycasis, Darien was assigned to duty on Thuringa. Lycasis discovered Darien’s penchant to steal away to learn of potions from the Hunda, which the king adamantly refused to allow. Darien was assigned to train in the Sea Command when the attractive Aura Ardenne first caught the Warrior Prince's eye. Darien was a natural flirt and made overtures to the young woman, the same overtures he made to other women. Unlike the others, she believed his words were meant only for her, with all her heart.

Mindful she was his friend Brent's only sibling, Darien warned her from the start he was trouble in boots and perhaps she should look about for someone more worthy of her. He was only seventy years old, far too young to settle down even if the idea should appeal to him. She was in her mid-twenties and still in Academy. But Aura's heart cried out for this naughty bad boy, and she pursued him until he caught her.

They were secret lovers for a time, but Darien could tell early on it were a poor match. She wanted a home and family someday and did not approve of her brother and father's drinking and ribald jokes. The latter details were the very things Darien thought made life so riotously fun. She detested violence and abhorred public embarrassment of the sort Brent created, two things that did not concern Darien in the least. He was a warrior who dealt with violence so often he regarded public embarrassment as being the needless concern of the socially correct. It amused him for anyone to worry about manners when life itself was something to be cherished and lived to the fullest.

Although Aura lusted after him passionately, eager for the pleasure his body gave her, it was not enough for him to want to throw away his bachelorhood. At last, the day came when Darien knew he had to end the affair. Being Darien, he was none too subtle about it.

"I do not know why you carry on so about the importance of my acting more dignified," he told her as he dressed to leave their trysting site. "Underneath your cool calm exterior, you are every bit as wanton than I. Why put on airs?"

"I do not put on airs," she told him. "And I am not wanton. That is more my brother Brent's behavior." He grinned at her and caught her up in a roguish embrace. "Stop it, silly," she protested. "You have had your pleasure for the now. Save it for the future and our superfluous First Night."

"First Night? Aura, I told you I am not one to settle down," he protested as he turned away to pull on his boots. "We have had a grand time of it but you have to return to your Academy and I have my own life to live. You will find another once you begin your task. If you will warm up a little, I daresay the lawn will be strewn with men dragging themselves to your door begging for attention."

She stared at him in horror, her mouth slightly open with shock. She looked so tiny and delicate in her pretty little gown he wondered momentarily if she would shatter. "What?" she gasped.

"Aura, be practical. You are looking for a proper man and I am not he. I warned you not to take me seriously, yet here you are speaking of First Nights and our future. You could never stand being married to a hazard like me, and I –" He paused, uncertain how he should word it.

"You, what?" she asked, as her eyes filled with tears.

"Well," he said as he went for the door, "You are very appealing, Aura, but I am not interested in dragging this out. Your bed technique is divine, but ultimately we are not right for each other. I do not feel it."

"Why not?" she pleaded. "Darien, I will do anything for you; I will change, become whatever you wish. Please do not leave."

"Oh, for the love of God, Aura, where is your dignity?" Darien burst out. "Do not beg after me like a trollop." He had not meant to say such a thing; in fact, he had no idea why that phrase came to mind. It was something he heard Brent once say to a drunken D'tai woman visiting in Gallina.

"You ghastly beast!" Aura picked up a decorative vase and threw it at him. "How can you say such a thing to me when you know how much I love you?"

Darien threw his arm out to deflect the vase and it crashed to the floor. "But Aura, I do not love you," he said, trying to make the ugly truth less harsh. "Why would you marry someone who does not love you? You would be miserable."

"Get out, you wretch!" she cried. "I hope you never darken my doorway again!"

"That is the whole idea," Darien replied, and left.

Any time she saw him afterwards, she grew cold and bitter. She was distrustful of any man and remained distant from those with whom she worked. Her talent in linguistics led to a task interpreting foreign communications when her superiors discovered she was able to detect even the subtlest nuances in dialects. Eventually she split her task between the com staff and Academy instruction.

Brent told Darien the entire Ardenne family including the cousins wished Aura would either bury herself in her gifted task or find a man to warm her cold virginal heart. She was being difficult.

Darien bit his lip and said nothing about the past to Brent. The Ardenne siblings were not close and Darien did not want to lose the friendship of the one he liked. Aura spurned suitors one after another with a chilly phrase and oddly enough, her cool drew more to her. Then Stuart appeared one night, and everything changed.

Stuart was attracted to her cool composure from the moment he saw her. After a hard night of drinking at the original Standard cantina in Arne, Stuart dragged a staggering Brent home. When they tottered into the Ardenne home in the wee hours of the morning, the two warriors on leave were confronted by a very perturbed Aura. She tapped her foot in an effort to control her temper and bade them enter in the coolest of tones. Stuart sobered quickly, aware of both her beauty in anger and his own state of disarray. It was the saving grace of being the Crown Prince of Thuringa and thus instructed since birth to behave with propriety and civility. Stuart pulled himself together to maintain his dignity. He thought it was the only reason she allowed him to call on her as a suitor later.

Brent hoped being courted by a Phillipi would loosen Aura up a little. "She has bound herself far too tightly, in my opinion," he snorted.

Stuart persevered in his courtship and eventually she warmed to him. To Aura's surprise Stuart was less like Darien than Darien once claimed, and she found herself actually smitten with Stuart's infectiously sunny personality. He was exceedingly respectful and seldom acted contrary to Elder opinion and royal expectations. Perhaps being married to this prince would be agreeable.

During the wedding reception, Darien had the uncomfortable task of dancing with his new sister-in-law. She smiled icily at him and told him a fact that tore his heart. "You love your brother Stuart more than dear, do you, Prince Darien?" she whispered in a voice that did not indicate kindness.

"Of course, I do; ours is an unbreakable fraternal bond. Why you are marrying each other, I do not know. He is as potentially obnoxious as I already am, and I warned him about your chill."

"Well, at least Stuart is much better behaved than you and he is apparently every bit as capable."

"It figures you would know that."

"I beg your pardon; I will discover it tonight," she said grimly through clenched teeth, "unless you want your beloved gentle brother or your dearest best friend Brent to know the truth about us and my marriage." Darien eyed her with growing doubt and dread. She continued immediately. "As you once said, who would want to marry someone who does not love them, it would only make them miserable? Forever and a day, for the next several hundred years."

"You... you do love Stuart, of course," Darien said, a statement as a question.

"I love you, you bastard," she hissed through a smile. "Let that be your punishment for breaking my heart." She abruptly left the dance floor and rejoined her adoring new husband. "I simply could not bear to dance with the brother when I have my wonderful Stuart here," she said sweetly, far sweeter than Darien ever heard her speak before. The worshipful look on Stuart's face was bad enough for Darien to endure, but Brent spoke up and unwittingly made it worse.

"See, I told you all she needed was to fall in love to bring out the gentleness in Aura," Brent told the wedding party. Everyone laughed and toasted the couple. Aura looked at Darien and smiled what appeared to everyone else to be the happy smile of a bride, but Darien knew it was a wicked warning, a forecast of things to come. Her smile slipped at the sight of Warrior General Maranta Shanaugh watching her with suspicious eyes.

She did not love Stuart the same way she hungered for Darien, but it certainly would not be unpleasant for her. It was a bonus for Stuart to discover the woman who always held him at arm’s length during courtship turned out to be quite willing on their First Night. For a brief time, they were both fulfilled in the happy state of marital bliss. The hot Ardenne blood flowed in her for a week, and then it began to cool. With a brother with the reputation of Brent Ardenne, she was determined she would maintain the dignity of her family name. She insisted on separate bedrooms and claimed Stuart’s ardor alarmed her. She could not get used to such a powerful masculine presence unless over time.

Of course, Stuart allowed it; he believed she was exceptionally virtuous, and the very thought of sex caused her to flush with excitement and purse her lips with genteel embarrassment the way she did. He wanted to please her in any way she wished despite his own burning desire for her. Lycasis and Oriel, as well as Searl and Ellis Ardenne, were quietly surprised at their extremely proper public behavior. Even the Naradi Famede was unaware Stuart’s study was actually his bedroom.

As the years passed by, there were whole days when Darien did not cross Aura’s mind, for Stuart was very appealing and loving. Traveling around Thuringa with him on crown business was entertaining. Still, sometimes in the middle of his lovemaking she reflected on how much simpler life would have been had Darien developed that same sweetness, and she grew aloof during intimacy. Stuart was left to wonder what he did wrong.

She allowed Stuart to have access to her from time to time and made sure somehow Darien heard of it. She realized soon enough Darien did not show jealousy in the least at the knowledge. He did not care that she made love to his brother. His only irritation was in the fact Stuart was always melancholy, so less sunny and carefree than his single days. She and Darien traded barbs, and the mutual dislike grew between them. She never forgave him for what she saw as abusing her girlhood's first love and he never forgave her for her continued cruelty to his brother.

Stuart found there were times when, if he flipped just the right mysterious internal switches in her, heaven could be found for a few hours in her maddeningly desirable body. He could have simply breathed on her gills, but he did not feel right in doing so. Aquatic gills were highly erogenous but using them for sexual foreplay with an unwilling partner was taboo. Once in a while Aura seemed agreeable enough for it to work and they enjoyed each other immensely. Then her inner frost formed the next morning and she would be at arm’s length again, and he was back in his lonely solitary bed. While Stuart was away on a mission, the Bishop visited the royal apartment and made a sharp comment about how ineffectual her reticence was toward the production of a royal heir. Chastised, Aura decided to share the bedroom.

The conception of Erich could be pinpointed to the Bishop’s stern order, in Stuart's mind: the moment he came home he found a welcoming bed and his wife actively seeking intimacy. He could not understand what made her go from hot to cold so rapidly. Likewise, he could not understand what made his son go from being a dutiful prince of Thuringa one moment to a willful, defiant hedonistic child the next. Stuart did understand it was just as lonely on his side of their marriage bed as it had been on his solitary couch.

Gareth’s dream was just a reflection of a day long ago, through the eyes of a census taker. The Duncan farm was the last one the census taker was to approach for the day, and he was ready to be done with it. He looked forward to going to the Carzon Inn for a glass of ale before he put his weary body into a nice clean bed. The King's Census, taken every hundred years, helped adjust hours throughout the kingdom world of Thuringa in order to properly distribute goods to its citizens according to the work they performed. Carzon was a friendly little farming community in the very heart of the singular Thuringi continent and the census taker was anxious to get it canvassed and done, in concert with his fellow census workers.

Four excellent looking gakkis grazed in the pasture upon approach; they looked like racers, not the standard work animal or mount for the Ground Command. This was a farm obviously well tended: nothing was out of place and the garden lawns were clipped with no weeds in sight. The rolling hills embraced pastureland around the tidy blue painted barn and unusually large farmhouse. Most Thuringi homes were A-shaped containing two or three bedrooms at the most. This home’s wide porch sported not one but two porch swings behind its bright white porch rails, and the extension of rooms in the back dwarfed the triangular shape of the front. Only the peak at the front of the house indicated it was once traditionally shaped. The census taker spied the farmer as he prepared his plow for a mowing session. He hailed the farmer.

"Sir, by decree of King Lycasis Phillipi de Trennon I must take a census of everyone living on your farm," he gasped. He saw the amused look on the farmer's face and realized he represented every city boy who ever came to the country. "That incline is steeper than I imagined," the census man wheezed. The farmer nodded, and suddenly began a series of small but persistent coughs that developed into deep hacking ones straining his entire body. Once he got his breath back, he straightened and acted as though nothing happened.

"You will want to see a medical," the census taker suggested helpfully.

"I have," the farmer replied with a calm, steady dignity. "They all look the same after a while."

"Oh." The census man realized the farmer was already aware how terminal he sounded. He referred to his notes. "Now then. I understand from your vicar that you are married. Do only you and your wife still live here?"

"No, we have children here."

"Well, when could you gather them together? I need to take a picture for posterity and for the census records."

"We can do that right now. You came at just the right time." The farmer led him to the fence by the barn, put two fingers in his mouth, and sent forth three ear-splitting blasts which startled the census taker. A woman emerged from the barn with a bridle in hand, and children spilled in from all directions on the farm. The census taker was agog at the tumult.

Thuringi families rarely had more than two children within fifty years; perhaps a third might come along unplanned later. The fact that the royal family just had twins astounded the people in the capital city of Arne, but apparently not many people came to Carzon. The census man twisted and turned and clutched his camera tightly as three little boys played tag around him.

"In line," the farmer said pleasantly, and the little boys trotted over beside him to line up along the fence. The farmer's wife climbed atop the highest rail and smiled down at the farmer in a way that told the census taker that yes, these were all their children by enthusiastic agreement of both parents.

A girl on the brink of adolescence rode up on a gakki bareback. She slid off the animal to take her place next to the three stairstep boys. Her hair hung down in two braids, and she removed her hat at her father's behest.

"What did I say about riding bareback?" her mother asked, the question apparently repeated often from the rote way it was asked.

"Why, Mother," the girl said impishly, "I knew you would prefer the gakki’s bare back, to mine." Her mother pursed her lips in disapproval, but then laughed.

A lanky boy a little older than the girl strode up with the cool air of a confident adolescent. He was the kind of lad that made the census taker glad he did not bring along his daughter as an aide. The boy’s good looks and relaxed manner appealed to young ladies, and to judge from the colorful “flirt-quirts” made of small braids of hair and ribbon laced around his shirtsleeves, he appealed to quite a few local ones.

His older brother got in place beside him, dressed in farm clothes but wearing a consue, or training, sword at his hip. The census taker blinked as he looked back and forth from the father to the oldest boy and back again. They resembled an object and its reflection in a mirror. Except for the weathered face of the father and the consue sword on the son, the comparison was remarkable, right down to the twinkle in their bright yellow eyes.

“All yours?” the census taker blurted, and the parents laughed in delight.

"Yes, they are! This fellow is here to take an image of us for the king's census," the father explained to his assembled family.

"It is well I am not older, when I might care," the girl muttered to the sky.

"I am, and I do," the lanky boy with the quirts said. "Will this take long? I am supposed to go into Carzon with Micki at any moment."

"She is a tramp!" the girl told him.

"Be silent. She is not," the boy said, his voice rising along with his defense.

"Ssh," their father ordered, and they fell silent.

"Ages?" the census taker asked. He had to step further back in order to get them all in the shot.

The father spoke as the mother pointed to each: "From the nearest, here: four years old, six years old; eight, twelve, fourteen and sixteen years old."

"No ten-year-old?" the census taker remarked wryly.

"We lost her before birth," the mother replied, and the census man coughed in embarrassment.

"I beg your pardon," he said. She waved it off, forgiven.

They all waited politely as the census man focus his image-maker. Through the lens he saw the six cheerful well-loved and well-cared-for children all in second-hand clothing, artfully mended and clean as far as children’s clothing went. The three littlest fidgeted but the older three were patient. The wind blew a sudden gust that lifted the mother's long hair out to the side and the father grinned widely at the sight. From behind the census taker, they heard the sound of a far-off vehicle on approach.

"Micki," the lanky boy whispered as he cocked his head to hear.

"Tramp," the girl taunted in a whisper.

"Be quiet, you two demons," the eldest boy warned. He smiled just like his father. The picture was taken, and the census taker realized he had not asked an important question before he snapped the image.

"Are there any more children?" he asked.

"Why," said the father as he helped his wife down from the fence to hold her lovingly close, "do you think we need some more?"

Gareth awoke on a couch in the pilot’s lounge near the Nesis hanger bay. He shaded his eyes with one hand as he made his way along the hallway. He hated to dream about his family. Dreams only made him think upon awakening they were still alive, and when he fully awoke, he was always left with a terrible emptiness inside. Such emptiness made him drink, and such drinking left him in a terrible state just like the one he was in now.

Glendon Garin smiled at the sight of the visitor at his door. "Well come on in, my friend," he greeted, and ushered Gareth inside. "How was your duty today? Did you survive the headache from yesterday's drinking binge?”

“Barely," Gareth said, with a restrained smile. "Even now I wonder if my head will crack open if I smile more than this."

“Borelliat brandy will not do that if you sip it slowly, but you down it. That is the problem," Glendon said as he guided his friend to a seat.

Janis Garin emerged from the bedroom, ready for work. "Hello, Gareth. How are you?" she asked. "Glendon said he saw you have quite a few rounds at the Standard yesterday." She sat down in a chair near him and patted his knee. "Poor old thing, I imagine you are going to have to re-consider the amount of your alcohol intake from now on."

"The amount of my intake is not at fault. According to your husband, it is my pacing that lacks finesse... along with every other aspect of my life that lacks it." He glumly sat with his face cradled in his palms, his elbows resting on his knees. Janis looked at Glendon with a concerned furrowing of her brows, and then back at Gareth.

"I am so sorry Lia wronged you, Gareth."

"It is not your fault. It is mine. What was I thinking, anyway? Someone so well-born would settle for some ill-educated country boy like me?"

"You are one of the better-read men I know, for all your ‘ill education’," Janis replied. "My sister is not so very high born that she should turn up her nose at such a good man as you."

"Whatever. I am done with it," Gareth sighed and leaned back with his arms along the back of the couch. "Well, your father can breathe a sigh of relief now; he will not have me as a son-in-law. He will have to make do with just that old tall drink of water, there," he said with a grin.

Glendon sat down with them on the couch. "Lezale likes you, Gareth. Just about everyone who knows you, likes you. Lia still cares for you, but she is a snotty little thing who does not know what she really wants. When she realizes what a mistake she made, she will come back to you."

"Well, I will not be there waiting for her," Gareth declared.

Echo Garin, the pride of the household, came in through the entry door and saw Gareth. She let out a shout of delight and raced to the couch where she plopped down on his lap and hugged him around the neck. "I am so glad to see you! When am I going to get to call you Uncle Gareth?" the twelve-year old asked excitedly.

"You are not, dear thing," Gareth told her, and privately wished the little hammers inside his brain would go ahead and burst through the skull.

"Why not?" Echo demanded indignantly. "She is not really going to marry that nasty Hellick man, is she?"

"Let go of Gareth's neck, dear, he is a little worse for a drink," Janis whispered to her daughter. Echo let go, but she was not about to let go of the subject.

"Do not worry, Gareth. I saw Aunt Lia this morning and I let her have it, for you. I told her there was not a better man in the whole fleet and she should stop being such an ist – er, a silly fool," she quickly corrected herself, as her parent's eyebrows rose in indignation over her potential choice of words.

"You did what!" Gareth groaned.

"I most certainly did, and that awful Hellick man was there. I told him he ought not to steal from other people that of which he cannot earn on his own." Glendon slumped against the back of the couch, astonished at his young daughter's boldness. Both of Janis's hands covered her own mouth as if the gesture could hold Echo's words back. "Then Aunt Lia told me I had best get used to calling him 'Uncle Tomas', and well, I will show you what I did," Echo declared.

"Uh... what?" Gareth asked, too drawn into her tale not to ask.

"I gave him this," Echo said, and gave a footstool a hearty kick with her foot, "and this!" She repeated the kick again and Gareth felt better, despite his pounding head. "Aunt Lia said she was going to tell Mother, and I told her to go right ahead and tattle to Mother. I have a right to speak my mind, the same as any Thuringi. Right, Mother?" she asked.

"You do not have the right to kick Tomas Hellick," Janis said, first things first.

"If not me, who does?" Echo asked. "The man is angling to be my uncle; let him get used to me as a niece. Anyway, I should think that if he wants to be married to Aunt Lia, he had better get used to being kicked around."

Glendon gave an unstoppable snort of laughter. Janis bit her lip and tried not to smile. Gareth gave the girl a hug. "My champion!" he chuckled. "Trust the daughter of two magnificent Naradi Famede to defend a weaponless mechanic."

"You are a prince among men, Uncle Gareth," Echo declared, suddenly tearful as she returned his hug. "When I grow up, I will also be a Naradi, and I will defend you."

"That will not be necessary." Gareth released her to rise and head for the entry door. "I may be cut adrift from marital hopes, but I am still able to defend myself against Lia Neo and that kiss-up Hellick. Well, I will go now. I really just wanted to stop by and see if Janis was still talking to me."

"Of course, I am; goodness, Gareth!" Janis went to him and held his hand. "You and Glendon and I have been friends for so long. I am not going to side with Lia just because she is my sister. She is wrong and I do not have to champion a fool." She gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Why not go to the dining hall with Glendon and Echo? I must go on duty, but you look as if you could use the company of friends."

"Perhaps, but my head is imploring me to utilize the company of a long sleep," Gareth laughed. "I will annoy them in the dining hall at another time. Good-bye, all; see you over the next plate of roasted friaks." He left with a friendly wave of his hand.

"Well, my!" Echo declared dejectedly. "I was looking forward to having such a fun uncle as Gareth. Now all I have to look forward to is Tomas Can't-Force-A-Smile Hellick."

"Stop belittling an elder," Janis scolded her. "Go on to your room, now. It is a hideous sight and I want you to clean it before I come home from my duty shift." Echo did as she was told, relieved that cleaning her room was all she was made to do. Possibly her mother did not relish the idea of having Tomas Hellick for a brother-in-law and wanted to kick him, herself.

Glendon embraced Janis. "I think Gareth will be all right," he told her softly. "He will bounce back as good as new."

"He had better," Janis declared. "If he falls any further into despair, I shall smack that sister of mine into a stupor and that goes for her pompous, ugly-acting new beau as well."

"'Stop belittling an elder'," Glendon mocked, and Janis smiled up at him.

Gareth Duncan stood at the Standard bar rail in an animated conversation with one of the designing engineers of the specialty ships. His hands and arms were in constant motion and he kept a constant stream of lively questions without pause before the designer. Sometimes laughing, sometimes serious, Gareth picked his friend’s brain for answers. The yellow lights gave off a warm glow throughout the room. It was cozy and relaxing in the Standard, and the muffled conversations and slight clinking of glassware added to the comforting atmosphere. There were many other gathering places throughout the Armada, but few had such a loyal following as the royal flagship’s Standard.

He saw Carrol Shanaugh when she entered the bar with another pilot. Carrol had been out on a routine patrol, temporarily rotated out of medical duty. With everyone taking turns flying, it was now her turn and like her brothers, Carrol relished it. It made her feel closer to Maranta, doing the work he loved. She appears much healthier than in the bleak days of her emotional uproar, Gareth thought. There was color back in her cheeks and the dark circles under her eyes were almost gone. She wore a grave smile when she spoke to her companion, as if unable to manage anything brighter. They sat in a booth with two other women friends and the four began to unwind from their day’s duty.

Gareth remained at the bar in a casual, jaunty stance with one leg crossed over the other as he leaned one elbow on the bar. Every now and then his gaze wandered to the booth where Carrol Shanaugh sat with her friends. They evidently discussed something do with flying from the way their hands swooped gracefully through the air as they spoke. Carrol glanced his way. He gave a nod and lifted his glass in a silent toast to her. He carried himself well, perhaps because he was so relaxed. Carrol was used to strait-laced, military code-attending warriors and pilots. Gareth Duncan’s attitude was anything but rigid: his breezy smile and ready laugh made it easy to like and accept his unorthodox nature. Even the way he stood at the bar, laughing and lounging, suggested a man who wasted no time in worry about how others perceived him.

His hair was cropped short for a Thuringi; it only came down to brush his shoulders in the back, and his bangs reached shaggily to the brow line. Because mechanics traditionally did not wear their hair long due to safety concerns, Gareth could not pull his hair back into a ponytail or a braid. It usually had a haphazard appearance, as if someone recently ran her fingers through it briskly.

Carrol wondered what it was like to be able to just relax and be free like him. Her life as a member of the royal Phillipi family was nothing but following rules and living up to higher standards of expectation than others of Thuringa. Her relationship with Maranta flew in the face of all that, but it was always tense and watchful with more energy spent in keeping up appearances than in the actual rule breaking. She found herself smiling as she lifted her own glass to return Gareth’s toast. It was a real smile, reflected in her eyes. How could anyone be glum with bright eyes like his before her, whose laugh lines crinkling ever so slightly at the corners so merrily?

One of her companions at the table, Dannar Hashone, noticed Carrol’s smile. Carrol was silent and stoic ever since she returned to duty. She was not unpleasant but even the term ‘understated’ was an understatement. Carrol was once a walking riot, full of good cheer and a zest for living. Having Maranta Shanaugh as a romantic interest was bound to make life exciting for anyone, and Carrol lost much of her joy when she lost him. Seeing Carrol smile again was like an open sunny window after a hard rainy night. Dannar followed Carrol’s sight line and saw the nice looking, hard-muscled mechanic in conversation with an engineer at the bar.

“Is that fellow on approach?” Dannar asked.

“No,” Carrol assured her. “He is just a flyover.” It was their terminology for an acquaintance.

“Hmm. He has a nice rudder.” They all burst into laughter.

Gareth abruptly turned his attention back to the bar. He did not hear what was said, but he did not care for the fact that they looked at him when the laughter commenced. He chatted with his engineer friend until a bartender put a glass of Borelliat brandy before him.

"From our fairer fighters," the bartender said. "They said, 'Give a glass to the one at the bar with the nice rudder.'"

Gareth smiled broadly at the words and pushed the glass over to his companion. "It cannot be me," he told them. "I was laughed at only moments ago."

"It cannot be me, either," said his friend. "How can they tell what my rudder might look like when I have been seated the whole while?"

Gareth peered again at the foursome. They lifted their glasses. Carrol pointed at him and saluted him with closed fist, its thumb upward in approval. His eyes widened slightly, and he quickly sat down on the nearest barstool. It was already occupied. Its claimant uttered an exclamation of ownership. He sprang up, to the vocal amusement of the four women.

"Oh, stop being modest," the bartender drawled. "You are obviously engineer material, Gareth. A pilot would have naturally assumed the compliment was for himself, whether it was or not."

Gareth picked up the glass gingerly and his engineer friend Kevin Renaugh sealed the topic. "'You learned all you can from me about the design of the Freen. Try a design or two on one of those pretty little pilots, now... with your nice rudder." Gareth gave him a look of amused irritation before he strolled to the foursome's table.

"Ladies," he greeted.

"Hello, Gareth Duncan," Carrol responded. "Is Borelliat brandy to your liking?"

"Oh yes, it keeps the rust off nicely," he replied, with a phrase that was typical in the Standard. It meant that brandy would do to ward off a growling stomach until the next meal. Their minds were still on his nice rudder, and three of them burst into a new gale of laughter. Carrol smiled but did not laugh aloud; in fact, she had not openly laughed the entire time but did wear a smile of high amusement this time.

"We are glad you like it," Carrol assured him as she noted the doubt in his expression. "Will you join us?"

"No, thank you just the same," he told her. "I am not a very good conversationalist, as you might know."

"On the contrary, I enjoy your conversation," she protested.

"Oh, do join us, Major Duncan," Dannar said, and moved to give him room to sit.

"Wait a moment there, major. I have a problem for you," called out someone who approached from the doorway.

He straightened with a weary look. "One only I can solve."

"Well, you built it," Keleigh Shanaugh pointed out. She was a tall noble-born warrior woman with hair that rebelled at the confines of a braid. Keleigh was a renowned fighter, even among the Shanaugh: bold, fearless, and resolute, she was occasionally called 'Maranta's twin by another mother'. She recognized the table occupants with a nod, for they were all her friends as well. She brightened at the sight of its royal inhabitant, with whom she was a girlhood friend in Arne. "Why, it is my good cousin, Carrol. How are you these days, Dame Shanaugh?"

"I..." Carrol could not utter another sound. It happened every time anyone called her by her title as the wife of Maranta, as his cousin Keleigh now did. Keleigh was delighted to call Carrol a name she had always wanted to use, and it rolled off her tongue without hesitation.

"She is well, until memory steals her voice," Dannar said with a warning frown.

"I am sorry," Keleigh sputtered her apology in dismay. "I forget how intensely you mourn."

"I am doing better," Carrol assured her, although to Gareth she did not look as she claimed. "My loss was grievous, but I cannot expect it to be singled out by an entire population."

"Normally, no," agreed Dannar, "But we speak of our former Warrior General. That is where I have seen you!" she exclaimed to Gareth suddenly. "You were his auxiliary."

"Yes, that is right." He set his glass of brandy before Carrol. "I think you need this more than I do. Drink it up, toast his memory, but do not start that crying business again. Do you hear me, Nibs?" He wagged a finger at her to underscore his mild scolding.

The nickname was lost on all but Carrol. She grinned ruefully at him. "Loud and clear, major."

"Good," Gareth said, and turned to Keleigh. "Well, some things never change; I will always have a Shanaugh bending my ear over some little detail. What is it now, a cracked dial?"

"It is only fair, Carrol," her friend Berryl Renaugh at the table said as Gareth and Keleigh turned go to the bar to talk. "After all, you were the one who sent it to him."

Gareth looked back at Carrol as she sipped at the brandy. She met his look, and one of her eyebrows lifted slightly over one eye. It was a cross between a quizzically innocuous Stuart expression, and Darien in usual naughty form.

Gareth tugged down on the bottom back of his tunic hem in mock modesty, and she almost choked on her drink when she laughed. He grinned, and he and Keleigh went on to the bar. He was again caught up in animated conversation. From time to time he glanced Carrol's way and whenever their eyes met, he felt comfortable.

"How is she really doing, I wonder?" Keleigh asked as she noted the direction of his frequent glances. "I am reluctant to see her. I am afraid I will trigger another mind snap."

"No, go see her as often as you can," Gareth said as he toyed with his glass of ale. "She is hardy; otherwise the general would have never sought her. She will be all right. She has an entire Armada looking after her best interests."

"It is nice that you are, too. Looking out after her, I mean," Keleigh remarked.

"She is Maranta's widow," Gareth explained. "He loved her beyond dear. It is as if I have a duty to look after her and see to her emotional repair. I want to maintain her spirits as best I can for the sake of his memory."

"Ever the mechanic; repairing and maintaining!" Keleigh exclaimed. "So, when are you going to look at my ship?"

"I have been looking at your ship every time you bring it in from the Sacret. You want more power on it? Why? Do you plan to enter some races when we reach Thelan?"

"I thought I might try to run over Tomas Hellick for you," she said, and saw the way her words made his face take on a stony expression. "You know they are to be married today?"

"Yes, I was made aware of it on several occasions by various helpful souls," he muttered, and drained his glass.

"That is why I came here. I figured you would be nursing a bottle in the Standard during the ceremony."

"And some say I have no tact!" Gareth snapped at her. "Name of All, Keleigh, I am the model of diplomacy next to you! Let us go see to your ship, I am still good enough to someone, for something," he said, regretting his last words even as they slipped out. He glanced one more time at Carrol. She wagged her finger at him in mock severity at his mood. The anger and irritation within him drained away. He grinned ruefully and left the Standard.

"Rudder aside, that mechanic has a pretty pleasant windshield, as well," quipped Berryl Renaugh as she colored in a beetle she had just drawn on the wall.

Keleigh was subdued as they headed for the hangers. “I only meant I would not blame you for seeking out a cantina at a time like this. Sometimes dulling the senses is the only way to make some pains subside.”

“I know. Trust me, Great Keleigh, I have had years of practice at such business. It probably overshadows your experience by several gallons.” He adjusted her ship controls.

Keleigh Shanaugh was a well-loved and well-respected member of the Air Command ever since her early Academy days and Gareth gladly did her bidding. If not for her proven bravery and resourcefulness as a warrior, Keleigh Shanaugh might have been simply regarded as a sort of mascot with a pet name ‘The Great Keleigh’. She grew up in the shadow of her famous numbered cousin and learned well under his tutelage. She enjoyed the Air Command as much as any Shanaugh and was now the highly decorated captain of the battle cruiser Sacret, although sometimes she flew a fighter just to keep her skills up.

Another mechanic approached them. "Are you pulling a second shift?" he asked Gareth in surprise. "Do you know how to use time off?"

"Oh Gareth, I am so sorry!" Keleigh declared as she smacked her own forehead with her palm. "You are off-duty; you should not even be here. Wait until your next time on."

"No, I have got it now," Gareth said as he stepped back and wiped his hands with a cloth. An alarm sounded, and warning lights flashed all around the hanger area.

"Gareth!" Stuart called out as he rushed to his own ship. "Thank the God of All you are on watch! We have problems ahead; stand by for a great deal of potential damage." Gareth followed him out to the ship. Stuart explained while he performed a necessarily brief pre-flight inspection with Gareth’s assistance. "The sun ahead of us is erupting a series of flares. We must alter the entire flight path of the Armada at once."

"Then, let the navigators do their work," Gareth replied.

"No no, my friend, it is more than that. The flares could give our communicators trouble and burn them out. But in order to change our course to avoid total com failure, we will be in the path of incoming asteroids for a short time."

"Oh, great day," Gareth groaned at the potential for disaster.

"It cannot be avoided, and we have to act fast. Those able to alter course can do so, but the Freen and the GPQs cannot maneuver enough to fly clear, and we must protect them," Stuart told him. "The bigger asteroids we will grapple and pull away, but some of them will have to be blasted. Be ready for all manner of damage that cannot be helped.”

"It will keep me out of trouble," Gareth told him. "Good hunting, Your Nib – Your Highness," he corrected himself. It was one thing to jest with the princess in order to try to lift her spirits; perhaps it was not wise to speak so carelessly to the Crown Prince.

Stuart jumped into the cockpit and grinned down at him. "You are singling me out?" he asked. "I am disappointed. I thought I was a Nib, too."

"Get along with you, Your Nibs," Gareth growled with a friendly smile. "You know you live for a challenge and cannot wait for the fun to start."

Stuart laughed and closed the hatch. Pilots from all over the Armada who were not already on duty poured into the hanger deck. They jumped into their ships and flew out to form up for the mission. Gareth caught a fleeting glimpse of Carrol Shanaugh de Phillipi as she scrambled back into her ship, her long hair down and going in all directions. He returned to his station to select tools that might best meet with the needs of the onslaught.

Stuart flew out to the Loue and turned his fighter over to another warrior and took control of the cruiser.

"Brother Stuart," hailed Darien from the Solenil.

"Talk fast; we have not long," Stuart warned.

"If we put ourselves and our ships too close together in order to form a shield for the Freen, we will not be able to safely maneuver around to effectively blast as we need. Let us stagger our ships so some can maneuver better by being slightly ahead of every other one, and so," Darien suggested.

"Good idea, that," Stuart agreed.

"Concentrate on shielding the GPQs and the Freen," Lycasis ordered his warriors over the com. "The cargo vessels and the Gallina supply ships are all able to maneuver out of the field of fire."

"So is the Insa," called out Captain Trapis of the botanical ship. "Trees do not care if they fly sideways or not; they cannot tell."

“The Tarque is safe,” said its commander, for it flew on the outer part of the Armada’s formation.

"The Daven Bau will be out of it as well," Sandan Medina reported from the medical ship. "Where will we rendezvous when it is over?"

"We will see when the time comes," Lycasis said, and hoped he did not sound as grim as he felt. A solar flare sailed out from the far away sun which made a beautiful brief dance on the sensor screens, like a flame on the tip of a match. Other flares licked around the edges of the sun, but the erupting ones were the ones that were most beautiful and the most damaging.

“ ‘Journey on, brave warrior, for great deeds were not done by the hearthside,'" came a voice over the com, and the warriors of the Armada were heartened. They wondered briefly who spoke the battle cry of Maranta Shanaugh. Whoever said it gave them the tonic they needed for the upcoming action, and they concentrated on the blackness before them and the detection screens in their cockpits.

Gareth closed the com microphone in the office of the main flight hanger of the Quantid. He had no idea what came over him to say those words; it was an impulse he was unable to resist. He belatedly hoped it did not shake Carrol Shanaugh. He need not have worried; it brought a great deal of comfort to her.

The fuzz and roar of solar static lashed at everyone with a com, and there was a frantic move to turn down the volume. Many and imaginative were the oaths sworn then. "Here we go, lads," Darien called out to his crew on the Solenil. "Whoever wins this target practice gets a visit with a Chassiren!"

"Yes, but when?" replied his navigator.

"Do not mire me in detail, boy," Darien muttered.

The Solenil, the Loue and the Morgan were the main ships protecting the GPQ ships Nesis, Moze Ginty, and Appala. The fighter ships flew before them in their pre-assigned patterns and moved aside what incoming asteroids they could. The main ships dispatched any rock that escaped past. The ships were battered and beaten on the hulls. The jets were nimble enough to avoid being struck but the dust from the disintegration sandblasted them. The battle ships and cruisers were hard pressed to finish off what the jets could not handle. The GPQ armament gave a last chance effort. The observation deck windows were closed off by thick metal shields, the view replaced by a large viewing screen on the inner wall. The inhabitants of the General Population Quarters were grateful they had boring thick walls instead of large clear but fragile windows they wished for only days ago.

Carrol was assigned to help protect the Freen, should other fighters fail to drag asteroids from its path. How small fighters were supposed defray asteroids from the mile-wide ship, she did not know. She did know every chunk of ore and stone and ice hurtling toward her looked bigger than the one before it, as she frantically blasted away. Because of its sheer bulk, the Freen had six battle cruisers and ships assigned to it; the Quantid and the Ellis quickly joined them. On and on through a field of stone the ships continued. The Freen collected an impressive number of pockmarks on her. If Brent Ardenne was especially fierce about flying out in front of the pack to fire at the largest, most potentially damaging asteroids, it was no surprise. The Freen was his ship and his watermen people he defended, and the waterman/warriors were right there with him, firing desperately.

The captain of the Freen maneuvered her ship out the rest of the asteroid belt. The ships in the field of fire gradually met up with the ones who were able to avoid the belt, and they continued on their way.