C f bentley, p.1
C. F. Bentley, page 1
Harmony
C.F. Bentley
Contents
Chapter 01 Chapter 02 Chapter 03 Chapter 04 Chapter 05 Chapter 06 Chapter 07 Chapter 08 Chapter 09 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 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Epilogue
Dedication Acknowledgments Copyright
Chapter 1
Swirling, turning, diving deep and deeper. Sissy let her mind follow the guts of the nav unit where it wanted to take her. There! That’s where she needed to place the final chip.
A yawning vacancy beckoned her to fill it with the black crystal grown in a matrix of Badger Metal.
Not yet, she told the opening. I can’t let you come alive until I get this last chip in place.
Sissy du Maigrie pu Chauncey hummed as she picked up the precious, fine-as-a-hair piece of silicon with Badger Metal tweezers. “Two more pieces to the puzzle and I can go home.”
She bent over her workbench in concentration, allowing her dark hair to swish forward and form a shield between herself and the rest of the world. Then she hummed a little louder, completing the barrier.
Badger Metal, a ceramic-metal alloy in a crystalline lattice, gave her tools the tensile strength necessary to hold steady the sliver of microscopic computer circuits as she rotated the navigational guidance system to the proper place. She adjusted the note in the back of her throat, seeking a harmonic vibration between herself, the unit, and the chip. When all was ready and sympathetic, she deftly dropped the chip into place. It nestled snugly in its proper location, precisely between two upright crystals.
Robots could make most of a spaceship. But only she and a very few others could assemble the tiny pieces of the interstellar guidance system. Someone had described the process to her in big words she didn’t understand. She just did what felt right. No exotic magnification. Just her and the nav unit.
Her ability made her one of the highest paid workers in the factory. The money she brought home meant that her extended family could all live together in two connected flats, as the Goddess Harmony ordained.
Sissy sat back and breathed deeply. A fine sheen of perspiration coated her face and back. The large workroom seemed brighter and noisier, jangling her nerves.
The dinner bell gonged. A raucous note that didn’t harmonize with the chips, or with her.
Quittin’ time. She sensed only a few workers clearing off their workbenches and heading out. Management, meaning Lord Chauncey, didn’t appreciate workers who left unfinished items overnight.
Sissy would have stayed even if management tried to push her out. She had to get the black crystal column in place and the housing fastened around it before she could go home. The High Council needed this last system to complete their upgrade of the military fleet.
She shuddered at the idea of alien invaders and predators pressing against the Harmonic Empire from every direction, threatening their sovereignty as well as their culture, religion, and prosperity.
If she had built the nav system on the Lost Colony’s ship, they wouldn’t have gotten lost in hyperspace.
“You done yet, Sissy?” her older brother Stevie da Jaimey pa Chauncey called. He was responsible for making certain the components were packaged and cushioned properly by other workers and getting them to the shipping bay on time. He couldn’t go home until she finished.
His caste mark, a brown X on his left cheek, the same color as his hair, stood out in stark contrast with his pale skin. Day shift Worker caste rarely saw the sunlight except in high summer.
“One more minute,” she called back and plucked the black crystal from its nest of cushioning material with a special padded tool. This final and crucial piece of the nav system anchored a ship to a homing beacon so it couldn’t get lost in hyperspace.
Scientists in a secret lab grew the black crystals very slowly with liquid Badger Metal thoroughly mixed in the growing solution. Temple caste supervised every step of the process with special rituals and chimes in the crystal nurseries, a different note in each room to guide the crystal formation to its final purpose.
She found a note within the crystal and matched it with her voice. All in harmony for the final insertion.
Gently she tapped a button on the floor with her bare toe. A wheel in her workbench began a slow rotation with the navigational unit fixed firmly in its center. Once around, and she spotted the precise place to anchor the crystal. A micrometer off and the nav system wouldn’t lock on to a beacon in hyperspace. Twice around, and she harmonized with the blank spot waiting for the crystal to complete it, to bring it into Harmony with the universe.
Third time around, she inserted the crystal.
The navigational unit slid a micron. She missed.
Hastily she jerked up the fragile column to avoid damage.
Three long heartbeats while she calmed herself. She had to check the crystal before risking another insertion. If the thing had even the tiniest scratch, no wider than a nano, the entire system would fail. The ship it guided could jump through hyperspace to an unknown point, lost, alone, drifting in hostile territory.
Her worst nightmare. To be alone. Lost. Without her family. Her heart ached for the Lost Colony. Gone some five years now and still an open wound in their society.
She pulled over an atomic microscope and inspected the black crystal. The facets gleamed back at her, begging her to look deeper into its core, to join with it and reach out to meld with the universe.
She jerked her vision away from the enticement.
Clean. She’d avoided touching the crystal to a chip.
She let out a long breath. She could lose her job for damaging a crystal.
“Come on, Sissy. I want to get home,” Stevie whined. “I’m hungry and Mama promised us roasted goat and yammikins for dinner.”
Sissy’s mouth watered at the thought of the rare treat. Pop’s birthday warranted a celebration of meat.
She cleared her mind and concentrated on completing the unit. The wheel within her workbench turned slowly. A note formed in her mind and her voice. She opened her mouth and let it slide over the nav unit. The proper place for the crystal, the only place for the crystal, appeared in her mind and before her eyes.
The table tilted, sending the navigational unit sliding three degrees to the left.
“Quake!” she shouted.
Even as she rose to run for safety, she took two heartbeats to put the fragile crystal into a protective sleeve, padded with air and gel. Then she tucked the cushioned crystal into the pocket of her brown coveralls.
“Quake!” she shouted again. “A big one.”
All around her, late workers jumped to their feet and began running for the nearest exit. Three children, twelve years old, the minimum working age, headed for the central tower.
“Not safe.” She grabbed the collars of two of them and pushed them toward the exterior stairs.
Inside the windowed core of the round building, she spotted several supervisors fighting to get to their private stairway, totally ignoring the fate of the people in the open space all around them.
The factory was made almost entirely of transparent bio-plastic windows, with a few clear Badger Metal pillars supporting each floor. Not enough of them. The windows would shatter, threatening the workers closest to them—the ones who needed the most light to perform their chores.
But if the central tower—also made of bio-plastic with little or no precious Badger Metal supporting it—should crack, the entire building would collapse.
They had to hurry.
Tremors vibrated against Sissy’s bare feet as she guided the children toward the outer rim of the building. Seven exterior staircases would take them seven stories down to the ground and safety.
Even as she herded the children outward, she felt the building sway.
“Gods above and below, and those all around me, hear my prayer,” she invoked the entire host of seven with a chant. “Please let everyone get out safely.”
The tremors in her feet struck a clashing chord against the rhythms in her body and mind.
A column sagged. Then another. Fully two thirds of her fellow workers remained inside. Trapped. Workers from the other floors above and below clogged the stairs.
She had to do something.
Her workbench broke in two and slid toward the tower. It clanged against the interior windows. A crack rippled and spread across the bio-plastic, clouding it. The supervisors couldn’t view the entire floor of the factory from there anymore.
Automatically, Sissy belted out another note, one that didn’t clash with either the groaning building or the planet screaming in distress.
Her feet ceased to tingle for half a heartbeat. She found another note, up a third from the previous one as she dashed toward the tower.
Did the building sigh in relief?
Her imagination was working overtime. She had to get out of here. If she died, the last nav unit would never be complete. The fleet would lack a crucial vessel. Harmony and her empire, everything that was good and right about Sissy’s home
A tremendous crash rocked the building as an upper story succumbed to the quake.
Sissy hummed an entire scale that complemented the notes she’d already sung. Still pouring the harmonies into the air, she knew what she had to do.
Ignoring the shouts and pleas of Stevie and her coworkers, Sissy planted her feet between two tower supports and placed her hands on the cross struts.
“Please,” she chanted. “Please, Harmony, find calm. Find peace. Stop your temper tantrum. Please.”
Over and over she sang. Over and over she pleaded with the planet to forgive Her people for digging too deep with their mines, for fighting natural weather patterns with satellites. For polluting Her air and water with their waste.
She sang of her love of her home, of the bounteous oceans, the mystery of the dark forests, the grandeur of the open desert. She sang of her family—all seven children, her parents—and their parents and how they all crowded into two joined apartments. How they fought, how they cried, and how they loved each other and protected each other. As Harmony said they should.
She sang of the six colony worlds, making a seven-planet empire and how each fitted a niche in their society.
She sang of the rightness of the seven castes and how each one served Harmony.
She sang to each of the seven gods, Harmony, Empathy, their children Nurture and Unity, balanced by their stepchildren Anger, Greed, and Fear. She sang to them in turn and then all together.
And all the while she sang, she caught the energies gathered by the planet and pushed them down, deep into Harmony. Deeper, broader, find places for them to run to the surface without harm. Find sympathetic vibrations. Find peace. Find harmony.
The energy that escaped she guided upward through far-flung channels. A little bit here, a little bit there. Not too much in any one place.
Darkness crept around Sissy. She drowned out the sounds of destruction with chord after chord of sound that sought harmony in chaos.
The crystal in her pocket vibrated. She found a sympathetic tone, matched, and joined with it. Together, they reached out beyond Sissy’s sense of self, beyond Harmony, out into the universe to find the threads that bound everything together. They sought the broken threads and a way to mend them. They found the connections to all life in all the far-flung planets, friendly and alien. Bit by bit they spliced them, stronger than before, until the entire web worked together so that Harmony could heal.
Chapter 2
Major Jake Hannigan monitored the schematic on his cockpit screen. He adjusted his wing trajectory a micron to keep in formation.
Bronze Squadron, based at Space Base III halfway between Zephron II and the jump point to this system, drilled endlessly to keep this sector of civilized space free of the marauding Marils.
For over one hundred years individual planets of humans had fended off malicious and unprovoked attacks by the winged aliens. Then a hundred years ago humans had banded together into the Confederated Star Systems, a loose alliance that needed to become tighter and more organized to better fight their enemy.
Drills. He hated drills. Flying in formation for endless hours, then breaking off in precise and predetermined patterns. Real flying, real fighting against the enemy wasn’t precise or predetermined. It was messy, chaotic.
And fun.
Right now, Jake could use some fun in his life. The Marillon Empire had retreated after the Confederated Star Systems fleet had whupped their ass at the battle of Platian IV right on the edge of the Harmonic Empire. He hadn’t seen any action since. Other than drills. Four effing Terran months of drills.
Not even any music over the comm to break the monotony. He hummed an old tune, tapping his fingers on his controls in a rhythm only he could hear.
Everyone wanted access to Harmony and their lock on Badger Metal. Aloysius Badger had joined the cult of Harmony when it was still based on Earth, then taken the formula with him when the religious fanatics went off to found their own world. Reverse engineering on his prototype just didn’t shield spaceships from radiation and the sensory disruption of hyperspace like the real stuff.
The aliens who congregated at Labyrinthe Space Station, otherwise known as First Contact Cafe, pretended they had good substitutes for Badger Metal. But Jake was sure they were just biding their time, waiting for the CSS, the Marils, and the Harmonites to slaughter each other, and then the other species would step in and take the leftovers.
So far, neither the Marils nor the CSS had broken the Harmonic border, either peacefully or militarily. And neither side was willing to team up with the other just to have a go at Harmony. Nor would either allow the other to breach Harmony’s borders to get access to Badger Metal.
Harmony had closed their borders and severed all contact with the rest of the galaxy fifty years ago. Before that, they’d only allowed a few selected merchants to trade in neutral space. The dribble of real Badger Metal they allowed out didn’t match the need for it.
Now, with the war claiming vessels right, left, and sideways, everyone was running out of Badger Metal. Wildcat scavengers made fortunes collecting battle debris for scraps of Badger Metal that could be recycled.
The effing vultures sold those scraps to the highest bidder. Even if the money came from the Marils.
Since the last battle, both sides had gone into holding mode. Neither one wanted to continue the war without fresh Badger Metal in their hulls. Neither side was willing to let the other have it.
And Harmony didn’t seem to care as long as they were left alone. No one had seen a Harmonite outside their borders in decades. Possibly longer.
And no CSS merchant or agent had entered Harmonite space and returned alive in fifty years.
So every person who wore a CSS uniform was trained to home in on any casually overheard conversation in a bar or marketplace, that mentioned Harmony in any context. The tiniest hint of a rumor coming out of Harmony captured their complete attention.
Jake ceased his rhythmic tapping and edged his fighter three degrees starboard out of formation just to see if the colonel would notice.
“Get back in line, Hannigan!” Colonel Warski barked over the comm.
“Yes, sir. Correcting for drift.” Jake adjusted his position. So much for that ploy.
“No time for drifting in combat, Hannigan,” Warski continued his rebuke.
“This ain’t combat,” Jake muttered with his comm off. “Not even close.”
Suddenly Jake’s screens exploded with data. It looked like a hundred Maril fighters had homed in on the squadron. And behind the fighters loomed a huge battle wagon. The Tactical Tech Team back at base had come up with a new scenario for target practice. And they’d waited until the flyboys were nearly asleep with boredom to spring it on them.
Jake picked his target quickly. On the starboard edge of the formation, he was responsible for making sure none of the bogeys slipped around behind them. Just like in a real battle.
“Sheesh, I hope this is only a simulation,” Lieutenant Marti James breathed. The rookie. A good pilot, on the verge of being almost as good as Jake, but untried in true combat.
Jake could almost smell the woman’s sweat. He keyed in a private comm line to her. “You know this is simulation because the TTT are all born and raised in gravity. They think in two dimensions. The Maril have wings. They are conceived and born in the air. They think in three dimensions. Their formations have depth. This one is flat.”
James breathed a sigh of relief. “Ever seen one of them critters?”
“Yeah, captured one two campaigns ago. His ship was damaged and he had a concussion so we could tow him in before he suicided. Small bodies, very lightly boned. Feathered wings tucked into an extra fold of skin at the back of the arms. Evolved down from real wings. They can still fly in atmosphere, though. Very dexterous hands, talons on the elbow joints that can tear a man in half. The warriors have black wings, hair, and eyes. Iridescent black. It shimmers and shifts colors in the light. Awesome. Beautiful. Terrible.”
“Heard about that one. Too bad his ship was so badly damaged we couldn’t reconstruct their nav system,” James replied.
“Cut the chatter. Close to two thousand klicks and pick your target,” Warski overrode Jake’s private line.
