The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, Book One: The Man Who Had to Die is now available in Kindle. You may find it here at Amazon:
Kindle version of The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, Book 1
The Kindle version is $3.99.
Also, I've noticed that this past week the second largest group of viewers of this blog happen to be in Turkey for some reason. Maybe off-beat indie science fiction appeals to people in Turkey? Thanks for the views, and best wishes to readers in Turkey.
The first largest group of readers is in the United States. The third largest group is in Poland! Hello Poland!
peace, J
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Saturday, July 26, 2014
The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, Book One, Coming to Kindle
Good news! The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, Book One: The Man Who Had to Die is coming to Kindle. It is in the review process now.
In the meantime, you may find it here at CreateSpace: https://tsw.createspace.com/title/4907177...
and here at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Girl-El-Dorado-Star-System/dp/1500541907/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406384735&sr=1-1&keywords=J.+Allen+Wilder
Tom Aster doesn't know what he's getting into. He saw himself as a born loser. Then he just bumped into the most incredible girl. She proposed. He accepted. They plan to elope to the El Dorado star system and get married. But he doesn't know she's an agent for a covert government agency of the most powerful star nation in the galaxy. He doesn't know she's a little more than human. And he doesn't know she's stalking the most dangerous prey in the galaxy, a madman with superhuman abilities and no conscience who could easily kill him.
At times politically incorrect, satirical, quirky, sexy, dramatic, romantic, and humorous, The Girl From the El Dorado Star System is a science-fiction/future punk story about ordinary people (and some not-so-ordinary people) who are drawn together by events, chance, and circumstance, or perhaps by the Will of God, into a fateful rendezvous in the distant future. In the process unlikely relationships form, comic situations unfold with serious consequences, and lost souls find a path leading to redemption and new life.
The Man Who Had to Die is the first book of a multi-book novel. 18 chapters, 172 pages, with appendices for a timeline, list of abbreviations, and short glossary of some of the terms used in the story.
And, btw, the print and Kindle editions have a different cover from the Smashwords edition:
peace, J
In the meantime, you may find it here at CreateSpace: https://tsw.createspace.com/title/4907177...
and here at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Girl-El-Dorado-Star-System/dp/1500541907/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406384735&sr=1-1&keywords=J.+Allen+Wilder
Tom Aster doesn't know what he's getting into. He saw himself as a born loser. Then he just bumped into the most incredible girl. She proposed. He accepted. They plan to elope to the El Dorado star system and get married. But he doesn't know she's an agent for a covert government agency of the most powerful star nation in the galaxy. He doesn't know she's a little more than human. And he doesn't know she's stalking the most dangerous prey in the galaxy, a madman with superhuman abilities and no conscience who could easily kill him.
At times politically incorrect, satirical, quirky, sexy, dramatic, romantic, and humorous, The Girl From the El Dorado Star System is a science-fiction/future punk story about ordinary people (and some not-so-ordinary people) who are drawn together by events, chance, and circumstance, or perhaps by the Will of God, into a fateful rendezvous in the distant future. In the process unlikely relationships form, comic situations unfold with serious consequences, and lost souls find a path leading to redemption and new life.
The Man Who Had to Die is the first book of a multi-book novel. 18 chapters, 172 pages, with appendices for a timeline, list of abbreviations, and short glossary of some of the terms used in the story.
And, btw, the print and Kindle editions have a different cover from the Smashwords edition:
peace, J
Friday, July 25, 2014
Published Book One in Print
The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, Book One: The Man Who Had to Die is now available in print at the CreateSpace e-store. This is an edited version of the copy at Smashwords. Typos are corrected, and some of the content has been rewritten. Also, there are three appendices for an explanation of abbreviations used in the book, a timeline, and a short glossary. Notice that the timeline is actually missing a couple of dates! This is intentional. To put everything on the timeline in Book One would be to give away spoilers for the upcoming books. The print edition will also be available through Amazon.com in about 3-5 business days. It is not yet available on Kindle.
Book Two is still in the writing stage, though I'd say it's about 90% complete.
Book Three has been started, but has a long way to go.
Book Four is in my head.
I have to recommend CreateSpace for any indie writer looking to publish in print. There may be others who do this (Lulu.com), but this was a relatively pain-free process. They have a limited number of cover designs available, though, and this is one drawback to using CreateSpace, but if you have your own ready to print cover handy (I did not), then you're in good shape.
Look for The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, Book One in print at CreateSpace here:
https://www.createspace.com/4907177
Also, for anyone who wants to use CreateSpace to publish their work in print, you can start here:
https://www.createspace.com/
Also, I will have the edition on Smashwords updated soon so its many little typos will be gone and its content will match the content of the print edition.
peace, J
Book Two is still in the writing stage, though I'd say it's about 90% complete.
Book Three has been started, but has a long way to go.
Book Four is in my head.
I have to recommend CreateSpace for any indie writer looking to publish in print. There may be others who do this (Lulu.com), but this was a relatively pain-free process. They have a limited number of cover designs available, though, and this is one drawback to using CreateSpace, but if you have your own ready to print cover handy (I did not), then you're in good shape.
Look for The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, Book One in print at CreateSpace here:
https://www.createspace.com/4907177
Also, for anyone who wants to use CreateSpace to publish their work in print, you can start here:
https://www.createspace.com/
Also, I will have the edition on Smashwords updated soon so its many little typos will be gone and its content will match the content of the print edition.
peace, J
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Print edition of Book One coming
A print edition of The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, Book One: The Man Who Had to Die is coming soon at Amazon.com. Amazon has a subsidiary company called CreateSpace which aids indie writers who want to get their books in print and on Kindle. See https://www.createspace.com/. They offer a free book creation service with a step-by-step guided process to help writers get their books in print. The author retains all rights to he book, and can make changes to the book at any time. Book One is now in the proof stage. It should be ready to submit for publication by the end of July.
This has given me the opportunity to do some more editing (typos must spontaneously generate in my documents) and some minor rewriting. The print version of Book One will agree with the final digital version on Smashwords. So look for a new version on Smashwords soon. Once I'm done with editing Book One for print I'll go back to working on Book Two. It's getting close.
peace, J
This has given me the opportunity to do some more editing (typos must spontaneously generate in my documents) and some minor rewriting. The print version of Book One will agree with the final digital version on Smashwords. So look for a new version on Smashwords soon. Once I'm done with editing Book One for print I'll go back to working on Book Two. It's getting close.
peace, J
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Inside the Terra Arcadian Universe...
Book One of The Girl From the El Dorado Star System gives us some hints about what society is like in the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia and in the societies that lie both within and without the Commonwealth Sphere of Influence. A part of building the world of the Asters and the Kydervails involves building the social structures that they live in. Robert Heinlein did this kind of thing in his novels. Although some of us may not want to take our fictional worlds in the same directions that Heinlein did, there are still things we can learn from his example. One of those things is that any society in the future is not necessarily going to be like ours today. How might it be different?
One social convention that is mentioned in passing in Book One is marriage. There are multiple forms of marriage in the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia. Obviously monogamy is one form of marriage found in the Commonwealth. John Allen Aster's parents, for example, have a monogamous marriage. So did the Imperator, Harry Truman, before his wife died, and he has since been single (and he will continue to be single). Book One also makes passing references to polygamy and group families.
Martin Feldmann's ex-wife, Lisa Feldmann, left him to join a group family. Feldmann's wish that Lisa suffer the nagging of her "co-wives," and the reference to a "group family" indicates something about the nature of Lisa's new marriage.
John Allen Aster's conversation with his father Adam Aster gives us a hint at another type of marriage found in the Commonwealth. John's mother Felicity is concerned that her son is now a middle-aged adult and is still single:
"Really, John, your mother is starting to get a little concerned." Adam Aster was trying not to sound as if he were lecturing his oldest son. After all, John was forty-eight Commonwealth Standard now, the equivalent of fifty-five Earth years, and was just about to enter middle age, at least for a citizen of the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia. And he was more than old enough to have his own family and to be raising his own children. Just ask anyone about that, John thought. Ask the neighbors. Ask anyone at Muski's. Ask any casual observer on the street. Just ask my mother. That was what exactly what John's mother Felicity was worried about. At his age, he should have a good Zen Catholic wife.
Or maybe two.
And a son.
Or two.
And a daughter.
Or two.
Or more!
And he didn't.
John stifled a groan. He knew his father felt caught in the middle and would rather not be there, but to please Felicity he agreed to have this talk with John. As John looked out the window in the darkness he saw his reflection looking back at him, questioning, wondering. He wished his mother would just be content to let him live his own life, that she would be content to let him find someone and get married in his own time. But Felicity felt an obligation as a good Zen Catholic mother to encourage her sons and daughters when she thought they needed encouragement, and in her opinion, her oldest was very much in need of encouragement. She was convinced it just was not natural for a healthy man to remain single so late in life.
Different forms of marriage arise as a natural result of the freedom of voluntary association that is a constitutional guarantee for citizens of the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia. But what are the possible different forms of marriage available to a future society? That's not so different from asking what forms of (voluntary!) marriage are (and have been) possible on planet Earth. Robert Heinlein invented some forms of marriage for his stories, for example, the "line marriage." I decided to do some homework and came up with a few basic types of marriage practiced in the real world:
1. Monogamous heterosexual. This is the form or marriage people in modern western society would be most familiar with.
2. Monogamous same gender. This is something on the rise now in modern western society.
3. Polygyny: One husband married to two or more wives.
4. Polyandry: One wife married to two or more husbands.
5. Polygynandry: More than one wife married to more than one husband in the same family unit. This would be the type of "group family" that Lisa Feldmann joined.
6. Some form of same gender group marriage would seem to make sense in light of #'s 3, 4, and 5.
These are the forms of marriage found in the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia, "with some variations," as the story goes. Other forms of marriage than the six listed above may be defined based on different criteria than what I have used (how many people are in a defined relationship.)
Note that polyamory is not included as a form of marriage here. Polyamory seems too much like a form of marital anarchy, whereas the six forms listed above all involve clearly defined, committed, dedicated relationships within certain bounds. Polyamory has no bounds. That doesn't mean such a thing may not be practiced by some people in the Commonwealth, but it is not one of the recognized forms of marriage in the Commonwealth.
Note that portraying a society that practices multiple forms of marriage, or any sort of societal practice that is different from the "norm," does not mean that a writer is advocating that particular societal practice. It merely means the story is set in a society that is different from what we know. It also makes the story more dynamic, by adding new dimensions for plot twists and turns, and it may provide opportunity for social commentary.
Also note that six different forms of marriage would imply something about religion in the Commonwealth. Religion in the Terra Arcadian Universe will be discussed later. For now, let's just say that some religions, like the Zen Catholic Communion, have no problem with it, while others do.
It should be noted that societies outside the Commonwealth have varying marriage norms. As will be seen in a later installment to The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, the theocratic Eschaton, an independent star nation outside the Commonwealth Sphere of Influence where the state religion is Fundamental Baptochrislem, recognizes only heterosexual monogamy and polygyny as a matter of religious law. On the other hand, the Great Society of Terra Max, another independent star nation outside the Sphere of Influence, recognizes no forms of marriage whatsoever. (But then, the Great Society banns all forms of religion as well.)
The Human Relations Area Files (http://hraf.yale.edu/) is one place to research this topic. The Ethnographic Atlas identifies the forms of marriage practiced in 1,231 societies. Only 186 were monogamous. (! A surprise! Well, no...yes...no...yes...) 453 societies practiced occasional polygyny. 588 societies practiced polygyny more frequently. 4 societies practiced polyandry. (Other studies indicate that the number of societies that currently practice polyandry is over 53 [outside of the Himalayas].) In the real world, humans are open to a wide variety of marital arrangements.
In a real world, marriage can also involve divorce. In the Commonwealth, divorce can happen in interstellar fashion:
...Lisa Feldmann had left her husband, simply walked away from their life of twenty years together, joined a group family, and departed for a new life in the Montezuma star system outside the Commonwealth Sphere of Influence. She didn't even bother to file for divorce. Feldmann did though, six months after she left, citing abandonment, and mental and emotional cruelty. The divorce was unopposed, of course, Lisa being about twenty-five lyts away in a frontier star system, and he never heard from her again. May she bask in an abundance of nagging from all her co-wives, Feldmann thought.
Agnes Aster's husband, Calvin Aster, also got a divorce:
...Consider Aunt Agnes back in Barnstable. She was certifiably insane, and had driven Uncle Calvin away years ago. In fact, Calvin fled to another star system, an independent star system at that, outside of Commonwealth jurisdiction, and got a divorce.
In Book Two: The Girl Who Had a Mission, we learn details about Calvin Aster's escape from the tyranny of his mentally ill dominating wife. By fleeing to another planet in another solar system, he was able to file for divorce unopposed after filing for citizenship in a different star nation. He presumably has lived happily ever after.
Another aspect of marital relationships in the Commonwealth (at least between males and females) is that it is not at all uncommon for the woman to propose. Early in Book One: The Man Who Had to Die, Robyn Kydervail proposes to Tom Aster, and he accepts, and they plan to elope by going interstellar:
"Robyn? What are you saying?"
"You can leave this place and come with me. Start your life over again. We can have a place of our own. Start our own family. Raise our own kids. Live far from here."
"Robyn,...I...uh...are you proposing to me?"
"Yes." She smiled. "I am proposing to you. Tom." She stopped and turned in front of him to face him. "Let's get married. After I finish my current job. We can leave this planet, go elsewhere, and get married. We can be together for the rest of our lives. And that can be a very long time." ...
"Uh, I , uh, well,..." Suddenly he seemed to become certain, sure or himself, determined. "Yes. Yes. Let's do it. Let's get married." Then his face clouded over. "But not here. Not in Barnstable. It's just that my mother-"
"Don't worry about that. We don't need to get married in Barnstable. I was going to suggest we go somewhere else anyway," Robyn said.
"Where?" asked Tom.
"Oh, I thought maybe Morgan's Planet," Robyn replied.
"Where?" asked Tom. "I always thought my knowledge of astro geography was fairly good, but I've never heard of it. Where is it?"
"Not many people on Terra Arcadia have heard of it. It's an independent world in the El Dorado star system. A few lyts outside the Commonwealth Sphere of Influence," Robyn explained. "Well, actually it's more than nineteen lyts away from here. It's not that bright a star, but if you knew where to look at night, you'd see it about three quarters of the way above the horizon around midnight." Robyn stretched out her arm and pointed up to a spot in the southeastern sky. Tom looked up, although there was nothing there to see now but gray snow clouds. "Right about there. My family's from there," Robyn said. "We've been on Morgan's Planet for hundreds of years. Since the first settlement, actually."
And so life goes on in the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia. Hopefully the reader has found this discussion interesting and entertaining, not to mention thought-provoking. And if it should inspire and motivate someone to tackle the keyboard and start writing their own stories, then so much the better. Be sure to check out The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, Book One: The Man Who Had to Die at Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/451622). Book Two: The Girl Who Had a Mission is nearing completion. Books Three and Four are in the works.
peace, J
Cover design by diversepixel at http://www.selfpubbookcovers.com/diversepixel:
One social convention that is mentioned in passing in Book One is marriage. There are multiple forms of marriage in the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia. Obviously monogamy is one form of marriage found in the Commonwealth. John Allen Aster's parents, for example, have a monogamous marriage. So did the Imperator, Harry Truman, before his wife died, and he has since been single (and he will continue to be single). Book One also makes passing references to polygamy and group families.
Martin Feldmann's ex-wife, Lisa Feldmann, left him to join a group family. Feldmann's wish that Lisa suffer the nagging of her "co-wives," and the reference to a "group family" indicates something about the nature of Lisa's new marriage.
John Allen Aster's conversation with his father Adam Aster gives us a hint at another type of marriage found in the Commonwealth. John's mother Felicity is concerned that her son is now a middle-aged adult and is still single:
"Really, John, your mother is starting to get a little concerned." Adam Aster was trying not to sound as if he were lecturing his oldest son. After all, John was forty-eight Commonwealth Standard now, the equivalent of fifty-five Earth years, and was just about to enter middle age, at least for a citizen of the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia. And he was more than old enough to have his own family and to be raising his own children. Just ask anyone about that, John thought. Ask the neighbors. Ask anyone at Muski's. Ask any casual observer on the street. Just ask my mother. That was what exactly what John's mother Felicity was worried about. At his age, he should have a good Zen Catholic wife.
Or maybe two.
And a son.
Or two.
And a daughter.
Or two.
Or more!
And he didn't.
John stifled a groan. He knew his father felt caught in the middle and would rather not be there, but to please Felicity he agreed to have this talk with John. As John looked out the window in the darkness he saw his reflection looking back at him, questioning, wondering. He wished his mother would just be content to let him live his own life, that she would be content to let him find someone and get married in his own time. But Felicity felt an obligation as a good Zen Catholic mother to encourage her sons and daughters when she thought they needed encouragement, and in her opinion, her oldest was very much in need of encouragement. She was convinced it just was not natural for a healthy man to remain single so late in life.
Different forms of marriage arise as a natural result of the freedom of voluntary association that is a constitutional guarantee for citizens of the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia. But what are the possible different forms of marriage available to a future society? That's not so different from asking what forms of (voluntary!) marriage are (and have been) possible on planet Earth. Robert Heinlein invented some forms of marriage for his stories, for example, the "line marriage." I decided to do some homework and came up with a few basic types of marriage practiced in the real world:
1. Monogamous heterosexual. This is the form or marriage people in modern western society would be most familiar with.
2. Monogamous same gender. This is something on the rise now in modern western society.
3. Polygyny: One husband married to two or more wives.
4. Polyandry: One wife married to two or more husbands.
5. Polygynandry: More than one wife married to more than one husband in the same family unit. This would be the type of "group family" that Lisa Feldmann joined.
6. Some form of same gender group marriage would seem to make sense in light of #'s 3, 4, and 5.
These are the forms of marriage found in the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia, "with some variations," as the story goes. Other forms of marriage than the six listed above may be defined based on different criteria than what I have used (how many people are in a defined relationship.)
Note that polyamory is not included as a form of marriage here. Polyamory seems too much like a form of marital anarchy, whereas the six forms listed above all involve clearly defined, committed, dedicated relationships within certain bounds. Polyamory has no bounds. That doesn't mean such a thing may not be practiced by some people in the Commonwealth, but it is not one of the recognized forms of marriage in the Commonwealth.
Note that portraying a society that practices multiple forms of marriage, or any sort of societal practice that is different from the "norm," does not mean that a writer is advocating that particular societal practice. It merely means the story is set in a society that is different from what we know. It also makes the story more dynamic, by adding new dimensions for plot twists and turns, and it may provide opportunity for social commentary.
Also note that six different forms of marriage would imply something about religion in the Commonwealth. Religion in the Terra Arcadian Universe will be discussed later. For now, let's just say that some religions, like the Zen Catholic Communion, have no problem with it, while others do.
It should be noted that societies outside the Commonwealth have varying marriage norms. As will be seen in a later installment to The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, the theocratic Eschaton, an independent star nation outside the Commonwealth Sphere of Influence where the state religion is Fundamental Baptochrislem, recognizes only heterosexual monogamy and polygyny as a matter of religious law. On the other hand, the Great Society of Terra Max, another independent star nation outside the Sphere of Influence, recognizes no forms of marriage whatsoever. (But then, the Great Society banns all forms of religion as well.)
The Human Relations Area Files (http://hraf.yale.edu/) is one place to research this topic. The Ethnographic Atlas identifies the forms of marriage practiced in 1,231 societies. Only 186 were monogamous. (! A surprise! Well, no...yes...no...yes...) 453 societies practiced occasional polygyny. 588 societies practiced polygyny more frequently. 4 societies practiced polyandry. (Other studies indicate that the number of societies that currently practice polyandry is over 53 [outside of the Himalayas].) In the real world, humans are open to a wide variety of marital arrangements.
In a real world, marriage can also involve divorce. In the Commonwealth, divorce can happen in interstellar fashion:
...Lisa Feldmann had left her husband, simply walked away from their life of twenty years together, joined a group family, and departed for a new life in the Montezuma star system outside the Commonwealth Sphere of Influence. She didn't even bother to file for divorce. Feldmann did though, six months after she left, citing abandonment, and mental and emotional cruelty. The divorce was unopposed, of course, Lisa being about twenty-five lyts away in a frontier star system, and he never heard from her again. May she bask in an abundance of nagging from all her co-wives, Feldmann thought.
Agnes Aster's husband, Calvin Aster, also got a divorce:
...Consider Aunt Agnes back in Barnstable. She was certifiably insane, and had driven Uncle Calvin away years ago. In fact, Calvin fled to another star system, an independent star system at that, outside of Commonwealth jurisdiction, and got a divorce.
In Book Two: The Girl Who Had a Mission, we learn details about Calvin Aster's escape from the tyranny of his mentally ill dominating wife. By fleeing to another planet in another solar system, he was able to file for divorce unopposed after filing for citizenship in a different star nation. He presumably has lived happily ever after.
Another aspect of marital relationships in the Commonwealth (at least between males and females) is that it is not at all uncommon for the woman to propose. Early in Book One: The Man Who Had to Die, Robyn Kydervail proposes to Tom Aster, and he accepts, and they plan to elope by going interstellar:
"Robyn? What are you saying?"
"You can leave this place and come with me. Start your life over again. We can have a place of our own. Start our own family. Raise our own kids. Live far from here."
"Robyn,...I...uh...are you proposing to me?"
"Yes." She smiled. "I am proposing to you. Tom." She stopped and turned in front of him to face him. "Let's get married. After I finish my current job. We can leave this planet, go elsewhere, and get married. We can be together for the rest of our lives. And that can be a very long time." ...
"Uh, I , uh, well,..." Suddenly he seemed to become certain, sure or himself, determined. "Yes. Yes. Let's do it. Let's get married." Then his face clouded over. "But not here. Not in Barnstable. It's just that my mother-"
"Don't worry about that. We don't need to get married in Barnstable. I was going to suggest we go somewhere else anyway," Robyn said.
"Where?" asked Tom.
"Oh, I thought maybe Morgan's Planet," Robyn replied.
"Where?" asked Tom. "I always thought my knowledge of astro geography was fairly good, but I've never heard of it. Where is it?"
"Not many people on Terra Arcadia have heard of it. It's an independent world in the El Dorado star system. A few lyts outside the Commonwealth Sphere of Influence," Robyn explained. "Well, actually it's more than nineteen lyts away from here. It's not that bright a star, but if you knew where to look at night, you'd see it about three quarters of the way above the horizon around midnight." Robyn stretched out her arm and pointed up to a spot in the southeastern sky. Tom looked up, although there was nothing there to see now but gray snow clouds. "Right about there. My family's from there," Robyn said. "We've been on Morgan's Planet for hundreds of years. Since the first settlement, actually."
And so life goes on in the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia. Hopefully the reader has found this discussion interesting and entertaining, not to mention thought-provoking. And if it should inspire and motivate someone to tackle the keyboard and start writing their own stories, then so much the better. Be sure to check out The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, Book One: The Man Who Had to Die at Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/451622). Book Two: The Girl Who Had a Mission is nearing completion. Books Three and Four are in the works.
peace, J
Cover design by diversepixel at http://www.selfpubbookcovers.com/diversepixel:
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Excerpt from The Girl From the El Dorado Star System
Links follow this excerpt:
The Capitol Mall, Alexandria, Tidewater Province, planet Terra Arcadia.
Soon, Falleran kept reminding himself as he walked along the darkened streets. Very soon, yes.
The low cloud blanket reflected the glow of Alexandria's lights as Mikquell Falleran made his way northward along Constitution Avenue on the west side of the vast Capitol Mall. At the south end of the Mall, three kilometers behind Falleran, lay the Capitoline Hill and the Commonwealth Senate House. The immense dome of the Senate House, aglow in floodlights, rose high into the night sky and dominated the central city skyline, the statue of the goddess Liberty atop the dome pointing skyward with her torch.
It was very late, 24:20 Tidewater Time, forty minutes until the intercalary quarter in Terra Arcadia's twenty-five and a quarter hour-long day. It was a forsaken time of night in Falleran's opinion. In many other communities, Falleran's presence on the streets might have aroused suspicion at this time of night, but Alexandria was one of those towns that never sleeps. That was a consequence of being the capital city of both a major planet and the capital city of an entire star nation, and the largest star nation in known space at that. Winter only meant that the pace of the city's nightlife slowed down, but not by much. It was a Saturday night, after all.
A couple of late night strollers passed by Falleran but they didn't give him a passing glance. Neither did the dogs they were walking. Neither did the Alexandria Police when they silently passed him in their maglev cruiser at the intersection of Constitution Avenue and Independence Boulevard. Had it been spring or summer more people would have been out and about on Constitution Avenue, even at this late hour. After all, Alexandria never sleeps. But it was cold. Most of the people who chose to be out and about were a block over on Association Avenue where the restaurants, pubs, and nightclubs were.
Falleran's breath hung in the air. Winter was nearly over, and there was still a damp chill in the air. Falleran pulled his fedora as far down over his ears as he could get it. He had turned up the collar of his long great coat to cover his neck and he tugged it closer as he walked. Very soon, the Doctor would give the word to go live with Operation Khaos. There would be no going back then, and he will have helped his employer attain the place he rightfully deserved in the history of humanity.
The plan was to engineer chaos, to create mayhem and destruction on the capital world of the Commonwealth. Ultimately, the goal was to get revenge. The Doctor, as Falleran's employer was known to his associates, required revenge, and he would have it. The operation was aptly named. Khaos. When Operation Khaos went live it would be only a matter of days before planet Terra Arcadia, the capital world of the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia, the largest star nation in known space, a true superpower, would be crippled. The best part of all, thought Falleran, was that the Commonwealth's top leadership would be exterminated in the first hour of the operation.
In a few hours, Falleran would be on a cruise ship, an innocent traveler on an extended business trip en route to the Isis star system, a non-aligned and neutral nation outside the Commonwealth Sphere of Influence. From there he'd catch a flight back to planet Kerinda Tu in the Rhakotis star cluster. Back to his home. Back to his family whom he had not seen in nearly a year. When he went back home Falleran would be content knowing that he had done his part, and that the Doctor would reward him. And not long after his departure from Terra Arcadia, in just a few days, the explosives planted in the ancient Senate House would exterminate the Commonwealth Senate in session. All three houses of the Commonwealth legislature, meeting in joint session for the opening of the spring session, would perish in a single massive explosion.
Falleran had personally supervised the covert operation in Alexandria and it had taken many months, too much money, and the patience of a legendary saint to place the explosives without being caught. They were not nuclear explosives; nor could they be. The radiological signature of nuclear materials would have revealed their presence. In fact, it was doubtful any operatives could have gotten them from a civilian spaceport such as Langley Spaceport (especially when the said spaceport sat next to the Star Navy's Langley Space Field) all the way to the Senate House to begin with. Somewhere along the way, the Star Navy or some other branch of the Commonwealth's armed forces would detect the radiological signature, probably even before the Doctor's operatives could bring the materials down from orbit to Langley. But some conventional explosives are as powerful as a small nuclear device, and that was all that was needed. All Falleran had to do now was to pass on the detonator card to the agent who would actually set off the explosives. Falleran didn't know him by sight, and didn't even know his name. All he knew was that whoever his contact was, the Doctor had procured a type of Rhakotian special agent known as a kamikaze. The kamikaze was expected to give his life for the success of this mission. "For the good of civilization." What else did the Commonwealth deserve but total destruction in order to make way for true civilization?
A cold mist began to fall. Falleran pulled his fedora down again and kept walking along the avenue, toward the spire of the Haldorn Monument. It towered into the night sky, lit by spotlights, and from a distance appeared as a glowing white finger pointing up into the star-filled sky from which humanity came to this world. It all seemed somehow ironic and somehow fitting, not to mention very satisfying to Falleran that he should give the means of the Commonwealth's destruction to the kamikaze in the shadow of the very monument that celebrated the first landing of a human being on planet Terra Arcadia.
As he walked, he suddenly felt uneasy. It felt as if there were eyes watching him. He looked to his right out across the Mall. It was completely deserted. Up the street the sidewalk was now empty, the late night strollers, and their dogs, had gone off the street. The large public buildings to Falleran's left across the street stood silent and empty, their columns supporting pediments and their tympana decorated with ornate carving's depicting scenes from the history of human settlement on Terra Arcadia, the return to space, and the history of the Commonwealth. There at the Museum of Arcadian History was Henry Haldorn, the first human being to set foot upon Terra Arcadia, larger than life, right hand raised in the act of opening his helmet to breathe the planet's air for the first time. Liberty, depicted as a stylized goddess, was portrayed as bestowing her blessings upon the Founders, those first colonists who descended from the colony ship Independence to begin a new human society on Terra Arcadia. The blessings themselves stood forth in bold relief print on a scroll in Liberty's hands bearing the words LIBERTY, EQUALITY, JUSTICE, RESPONSIBILITY, INTEGRITY. Beside her was a sculptor's stylized depiction of Major Richard Moradian, the Marine who became the first President of the Commonwealth of Nu Virginia twenty-five centuries ago, holding in his hands the very first Constitution of the Nu Virginia Commonwealth. When the Arcadian Planetary Commonwealth was founded centuries later, after the Planetary War, its constitution was based on the old Nu Virginia constitution. And when the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia was founded its constitution was merely a continuation of the old one.
And that's the problem, isn't it, Moradian? It all goes back to you, Dmytryshyn, Franklin, Guy-der-Vaal, Yamamoto, Truman, and all the other scum, the so-called "Founders" who set up the whole corrupt society to begin with. If only you had gotten it right in the beginning. But you didn't. And now a cleansing is necessary in order for true Civilization to survive.
Falleran stopped underneath a clump of Arcadian elms growing at the edge of the Mall beside the sidewalk. Someone had set up an impromptu Zen Catholic shrine under the trees. It was a memorial to someone who had been recently struck and killed by a maglev car on the street. Falleran looked at it with momentary curiosity, amazed that no one had disturbed it or removed it.
Stupid Arcadian superstition, Falleran thought. It should be unthinkable that anyone who is properly educated would cling to such archaic, poisonous things as religious beliefs. Anyone who is sick of mind enough to express any such archaic and superstitious sentiments in the manner suggested by this shrine should first be punished, then re-educated, and then relocated to another population center. But they aren't. This is why cleansing is necessary. For the good of Civilization. This is why we will launch Operation Khaos. This will all end when we are in control and people are properly educated. Then there will be no more need for ignorant and primitive superstitions. And there will be no more tripe and drivel about liberty. Only with adequate and appropriate control over people's thoughts and actions from the cradle to the grave can true Civilization flourish. "Liberty" must die. "Freedom" must be exterminated. "Rights" must be extinguished. It is all but a mere illusion anyway, a myth to palm off to the blind, sugarcoated candy to feed the immature masses. The Commonwealth must die.
Hidden in the shadows under the trees Falleran stood beside the shrine looking about, listening and watching. It paid to know if one was being followed. It appeared that he wasn't being followed, but his instincts told him he was. It was a very disquieting feeling. As he surveyed the street, he saw that the whole area was deserted. He was completely alone. Yet he could have sworn that he heard the sound of footsteps behind him, and muffled voices. It had to be sounds carrying over from Association Avenue.
He checked his chrono. It was 24:30, half an hour until the Terra Arcadian "midnight," the intercalary quarter. Only ten minutes had passed since he last looked.
It seems like it's been much more than ten minutes. It must be nerves, he thought. And you should not be nervous. It is beneath you. That thought, however, did little to relieve Falleran of the feeling that someone was watching him.
He scanned the street for any signs that someone was following him and saw nothing. He rubbed his eyes. He must truly be tired. Somehow, the empty street didn't look right. There were blurry spots in his vision. Moving blurs that stopped and disappeared. Perhaps his eyes were tired. When had he last slept? It's been more than thirty hours. Once on board the space liner and on his way out of this cursed star system he could rest. There had been far too much to do the past seventy-five hours, and not enough time to do it. This late night errand would be the last task to accomplish before he could leave Alexandria and then, in a matter of mere hours, he would be off-planet. He would retrace his steps out of the Commonwealth. First, he would head for Calaverras. There he would board another vessel and travel to Isis, an independent non-aligned star system. At Isis, he would board another ship bound for the Rhakotis star cluster and planet Kerinda Tu. By the time he returned safely home Operation Khaos would be well underway. He looked up at the streetlights. They had misty halos around them as the cold mist thickened.
Of course. That's it. No one wants to be out in the mist and cold. That is why the avenue is so empty, even for this time of night. So much for the city that never sleeps, he thought. His suspicions satisfied, Falleran continued walking toward the monument. He would meet his contact at a park bench beside the monument, exchange signs and counter signs, pass over the detonator card and the activation code, and then be on his way off this miserable planet.
Another half kilometer up the avenue Falleran stopped again. From the shadows under another Arcadian elm, he examined the lone figure sitting on a bench a hundred meters away in the open space of the Mall. His contact. Whoever it was, his contact was wearing a hooded coat with the hood over his head and he had his back to Falleran. He could make out no details and could not see his face. Silently Falleran wished his instructions had contained more detail, and especially that they had included a physical description of his contact. But he also understood that the Doctor wanted to "minimize the risk to his operatives" and "safeguard the operational integrity of the mission." The Doctor had told him up front, "You don't need a physical description of your contact. Kamikazes are always nondescript anyway. They blend into a crowd better that way. But not everybody has the look of the kamikaze in their eyes. It’s a certain fierceness. A certain intensity. You’ll know it when you see it. As long as your contact knows the signs and counter signs, you will be fine. I won't tell you what your contact looks like. That way you will not be able to betray your contact should the enemy capture you prior to making the exchange. But you will know you have found your contact when the time comes." Falleran thought it only made his job harder, but then the Doctor was right. He always was. Who but the contact would know the correct counter-signs?
None of the other benches were occupied. Just this one in front of a plaque before the monument. Falleran scanned the Mall and the street. There was no one in sight. He was used to operating in public, under the very noses of the enemy, in the presence of many people whether it was day or night. Crowds had become the medium in which he naturally operated and he did so with ease. This was too easy. Too easy.
He still felt unsettled.
Finally, convincing himself it was time to act, Falleran ventured out from the shadows into the Mall. Haldorn's Monument loomed overhead. The monolithic monument glowed a ghostly pale gray in the floodlight-illuminated mist. The lone figure on the bench seemed unaware of his approach. The Mall remained deserted.
Falleran went over to the bench and sat down at one end. His contact sat at the far end, face hidden by shadow within the hood, his long black coat wrapped around him, his black trousers and soft black walking shoes non-descript. Whoever his contact was, that person appeared to be studying the plaque facing them. The words on the plaque were large and easily legible in the glow of the lights. A photo realistic portrait of a man in an ancient flight suit adorned the upper left corner.
The Doctor had no trust of electronic means of identification for his agents in the field. Advanced technology could be more of a liability than an asset sometimes. Transponder and microchip implants, even nanobot implants could be detected. They could also be neutralized and removed covertly, by means of counter-nanobots, magnetic fields, radiation, or overtly, by more blunt methods. They could be falsified, faked, and changed electronically, even remotely, without the knowledge of the agent carrying them. The Doctor thought it best to rely on a truly ancient method of identification straight out of Old Earth history. Let the decadent Arcadians rely on their technology. In the end, it won't help them. It will be their downfall. There are ways around it.
Falleran spoke the first call sign to no one in particular, in Rhakotian. "Obschestvo sivilizat immar es, quan perfecto rejimonat es." Society is always civilized when it is correctly ordered. He was quoting from Zhax Allerand's Philosophy of State. Allerand was a long-deceased Rhakotian political writer whose works were required reading in the Rhakotian educational system. The response was to be another line from the same work. The response was immediate, and in Rhakotian. "Bassi par sivilizasion, rejimon es." Order is the basis for civilization.
A woman! The Doctor had not told him the kamikaze would be a woman. A female kamikaze was a rare thing indeed. He looked over at her. Her Rhakotian was flawless. She spoke with a regional accent from Kerinda Tu with which Falleran was familiar. She sat perfectly still, face hidden by her raised hood.
Falleran cleared his throat and spoke the second call sign, also in Rhakotian, once more quoting from Zhax Allerand's Philosophy of State. "Stoimost par rejimon, vidsi del verni es." The cost for order is the lives of the faithful. The cost was high. The response, also in flawless Rhakotian, came from the woman without pause.
"Stoimost par rejimon, stoimost par sivilizasion es." The cost for order is the price for civilization.
The third call sign came from an obscure (and badly written, lacking plot and characterization, though thoroughly politically correct in the strictest Rhakotian sense) novel, one not well known outside of the Rhakotian Community, Atlas Arises, by Fillinni Saisyppo, an obscure author hardly known off of planet Kerinda Tu. The novel had actually been written on planet Argention III, Terra Parnassa, and had to be translated from Argentian into Rhakotian. The line Falleran quoted was, "Sivilizasion immar pod emmagar es." Civilization is always under threat. Its counter sign, which the woman spoke without hesitation, was a line from the same novel, "Communitat, pokrovitel solomonti par sivilizasion veratan es." The Community is the only guardian of true civilization.
The fourth and last sign and counter sign combination was derived from an episode in the life of Fillinni Saisyppo. "She was banished by a baron," Falleran said as if speaking to himself, though this time he spoke in Commonwealth Standard.
The woman gave the counter sign immediately, and gave it in Commonwealth Standard as well, with a Rhakotian accent. "He was pfat, corruption ate his soul, and he died of ze gout; but she was blessed by ze goddess Communitas and found favor in ze Rhakotian Community."
Exiled from the Barony of Argention for her political activism long before the Zaviar Revolution overthrew the last Baron of Argention, Fillinni Saisyppo had found a home on planet Kerinda Tu in the welcoming arms of the Community. The Rhakotian Community wasted no time in officially promoting the official version of her story, making her out to be a Hero-of-the-Community and Defender-of-Civilization against the evil forces of a corrupt and illegitimate pseudo civilization. In actuality, her official story bore little resemblance to real life. The Argention Baronial Court on Terra Parnassa had sentenced Saisyppo to exile for her political activism. She had been making threats against the Argention Baronial Government, banks, schools, and merchants, and encouraging people on the streets to riot. The Baron of Argention refused to grant her a pardon. He was thin as a rail and died in a boating accident about the time of Saisyppo's exile. It sounded so much better to enlighten the masses with the story that he was a bloated, corrupt, swaggering, evil pig. Moreover, it was even better to say that he had personally persecuted Saisyppo, and had even personally tortured her in prison. In reality he had never heard of her before her lawyer's appeal for a pardon crossed his desk, he didn't give the request more than a passing glance before dismissing it, and he never once laid eyes on her.
The woman sitting on the park bench had no problem giving the counter signs, and she spoke with an accent native to Kerinda Tu, the second world of the star Rhakotis A, one of the stars of the small Rhakotis star cluster. Clearly, then, this woman had to be the agent to whom Falleran must give the detonator card. After a moment's consideration, he reached into his coat and felt the thin case within his inside coat pocket. The case contained a small, paper-thin flexi-card bearing a small keypad, not unlike its technological cousin the netphone, but unlike the netphone, it had only one purpose. It would transmit a signal, once the user keyed the proper code number on its touch screen. The signal would detonate the bombs installed in the Senate House. The transmitter was short-range due to power constraints. Whoever detonated the bombs would necessarily have to be inside the Senate House. That person would no doubt die in the explosion. Hence the need for a kamikaze. In the Rhakotian Community, being a kamikaze was seen as a divine calling requiring years of special training, specialized education, testing, retesting, and more testing, and, most importantly, unique and unfaltering dedication. It was self-sacrifice for the all-divine State, the holy giving of one's life for the sacred Community and holy Civilization. The reward for this sacrifice, as every kamikaze knew, was the gift of mindless eternal nirvana from the goddess Communitas. It was proof of the Doctor's genius, as well as a sign that he shared a common cause with the Rhakotian Community that he had been able to procure a kamikaze from the Community. He had done much of his recruiting in the Rhakotis A star system with the blessing of the Committee of Organizers. Falleran was one of his best Rhakotian recruits. However, to convince the Committee of Organizers to provide a professionally trained kamikaze was another matter altogether. Not just anyone could have done that.
Falleran pulled the card out of his coat and held it toward the woman.
She seemed to sense his movement and looked around for the first time. Falleran saw an oval face framed by her black hood. Dark blue eyes stared out of the hooded shadow at him. Dark auburn hair fringed the edges of her hood. A prominent hawk-like nose implied strength of will and character, exactly what a kamikaze would need to complete a mission. She took the case in a black gloved hand. Without pause, she popped it open and examined the card. "Zere is input code, of course?" she asked in Commonwealth Standard with a Rhakotian accent. Falleran had not given her the code. Stupid of him? Or just cautious? It always paid to be cautious. He looked at her with calculating eyes, as if to make one last appraisal of her trustworthiness. She looked back at him from under her hood with fierce, intense eyes.
"You speak Commonwealth Standard almost as well as a native of this planet," he said.
"Me muso prepartat." I am well trained. She had to be from Dal Garrograd, an equatorial city on planet Kerinda Tu. Falleran was familiar with the accent. She spoke like a native.
Then, in Commonwealth Standard, spoken with a thick Rhakotian accent, she said, "I am ze kamikaze. My mission is holy, no? By my sacred death, I will bring order out of chaos in zis place. By my holy death, ze True Civilization will live forever. My death is but gateway to Nirvana. I will live forever in ze glory of ze Divine Community, world without end." She was quoting directly from the pages of a Rhakotian manual, The Kamikaze Mantra. She was the kamikaze. There could be no doubt in Falleran's mind. He was convinced.
He cleared his throat. "The code is zero-zero, zero-zero, zero-one, one-one. You will remember?"
She repeated the code. "I will remember." She closed the case and shoved it inside her coat. She returned her gaze to the plaque. Falleran started to rise. He did not see her bring her hand out of her coat or what she held in that hand as she placed it on her lap and covered it with her other hand.
"Do you think he really looked like that?"
"What? Who?" Falleran had not expected conversation with the kamikaze, male or female. He merely expected to turn over the detonator card and begin his journey immediately to Langley Spaceport to board a cruise ship away from this damned decadent planet.
"Captain Henry Haldorn. The first human to set foot on this planet more than twenty-six hundred years ago. Did he really look like that?" she asked, looking at the plaque mounted at the fence.
What does it matter now? The only thing that matters is the success of this mission. And success is within reach.
Falleran glanced at the picture of the man on the plaque. "Perhaps one day, after we have control of this planet, we will know. Until then..." He let his voice trail off, his right hand made a dismissive gesture. Casual conversation was not appropriate. The Doctor forbid it. Clearly, the kamikaze should know this. But then, Falleran had never met a kamikaze before, and who really understood the mind of someone who had volunteered to die, whose sudden, violent death was intentional, self-inflicted, and imminent?
Falleran made to leave and turned his back to the kamikaze. He froze in his tracks when he realized she was speaking in Commonwealth Standard again.
Flawless Commonwealth Standard. Without a Rhakotian accent.
"Every human being who is alive today within our Sphere of Influence, and a good many human beings outside our Sphere of Influence, are alive solely because of the sacrifices made by the settlers who came to this world on the colony ship Independence."
Falleran stared straight ahead into the dark emptiness of the Mall. Surely, he had not heard what he thought he had just heard.
Our Sphere of Influence.
"There was a reason the colony ship was named Independence. The colonists came to this world seeking independence from tyranny on Old Earth. We owe it to them to maintain the free society that they founded here."
Slowly Falleran turned around and looked down at the seated woman. Disbelief and the realization of what had just happened had momentarily deprived him of his speech. He had just handed over the detonator to the enemy. If he ever returned home, his life would be over. The Doctor was not forgiving of mistakes as gross as this one. The Doctor would find him. The Doctor would punish him. He would deserve punishment. And the punishment would be death.
The woman had not moved. She held her gloved hands folded in her lap, the left hand lying over the right hand. She was impassively facing the memorial plaque. "We cannot allow you to carry out your plan," she said in a calm, even voice. "You are threatening the lives, liberty, and property of Commonwealth citizens. We cannot allow that. We have arrested all your accomplices in Alexandria. Your kamikaze, of course, fulfilled his desire to die, though not in the way your employer intended, and if he has found Nirvana, well, as far as we are concerned he is better off there than he was here where he would be destructive. At this very moment, we are removing the explosives that you and your accomplices so laboriously planted at the Senate House. And we are taking your employer, Anton Sorokon, known to you as the Doctor, into custody even as we speak. You, of course, are under arrest." She looked around at him, eyes intense. "Your only options at this point are to surrender and come in peacefully, or...to come in otherwise. The only real question you have to face now is: can you make an intelligent decision?"
Falleran could only stare at the woman. He could not believe this was happening. This was insane. How could the decadent Arcadians have known? Every precaution was taken! Every safeguard! Every security measure! He looked around. There was no one on the street a hundred meters away. There was no one in the Mall for as far as he could see in the faint light. He rubbed his eyes again. His vision was suffering the effects of tiredness. Blurry spots wavered in his line of sight as he scanned the Mall. This was no time for sleepiness! He thought quickly. They were alone for the moment. The woman may be armed, but her hands are not in a position to reach a weapon. He can still retrieve the detonator. He can still escape. He would have to kill the woman, of course, but he could still warn the Doctor that the mission has been compromised. He reached into his side coat pocket for his gun.
"I really wouldn't do that if I were you," the woman said. Her hands were still folded in her lap. She didn't stand a chance. Stupid Commonwealth security.
"You are Intel and Security, no?" The woman just looked at him. "They send a single woman to play counter espionage and yet she does not have the good sense to adequately protect herself. How stupid of them." His hand moved in his pocket as he put his fingers around the pistol grip.
The woman sighed. "Like I said, I really wouldn't do that if I were you."
Falleran pulled his gun out of his coat pocket. Unnerved by this sudden change of affairs, he held the gun with a shaky hand and pointed it at the woman. He pointed at the park bench with his free hand. Can't shoot her yet! The detonator is somewhere on her person. Might strike it! "Place the detonator on the bench."
She didn't move. "Do it! Now! Put the detonator on the bench!" His nerves must be getting the better of him. That should not happen. He had been well trained. Well conditioned. Muso prepartat.
A blurry patch of something seemed to move at the edge of Falleran's vision. Instinctively he looked around and saw nothing but several faint blurred patches of air some yards distant. In that split second he finally realized what he must be seeing, and then-
Zipt!
The sound of a solid shot bullet fired from a coil gun emerged from seemingly empty space. Falleran fell over dead, a single neat, round bullet hole between his eyes, a nasty exit wound in the back of his head.
"My reputation stands, Dianna," a male voice called out from the darkness. "One shot, one kill."
"Why did you have to do that?" The woman looked into the darkness of the Mall. Five subtly blurred areas of darkness moved in toward her and the now lifeless body on the pavement. She stood up, revealing the small pistol she had hidden in her right hand all along.
"I was about to take him down myself. And, I would add, I would have taken him down alive, which is how I wanted him. Couldn't you have hit him in the shoulder? The arm? Simply disabled him?"
Dianna Falkin went to the body, turned it over, best not to look at the back of his head, and began searching through Falleran's pockets. She found his pocket-sized passport card and opened it like a small, thin book. The passport's two card-thin screens instantly lit up in a display of data. There was a photo of the dead man. His name was Mikquell D. Falleran. Unless it was an alias, which was probable. The passport identified him as a Rhakotian national, a native of planet Kerinda Tu, the capital world of the Rhakotian Community, resident of Basilograd. The passport listed his occupation as "Commercial Developer," whatever that was supposed to be on planet Kerinda Tu. Right. The Rhakotians have no such thing as "commercial development," hence they have no "commercial developers," Dianna thought. She saw that he had made his way on commercial flights from Kerinda Tu to Isis III, a non-aligned world, and thence to Calaverras in the Fortungunas, and finally to Terra Arcadia. Twenty-one days in flight, at least. Plus transition time at Isis and the Fortungunas.
It took him the better part of a month just to get here. And for what? A bullet in the head? Just to satisfy some damn insane "Doctor's" damn insane plan to cause senseless death and destruction?
Five areas of slightly blurred air continued to move toward the woman and the body on the ground. "Nah, it never would've worked," a male voice said from a patch of not-quite-right-looking empty space. "Too risky. He might'a got off a shot anyway. It was just bad choreography, Dianna. We really couldn't get a decent, clean kill shot, you know? Not as long as we were stayin' in the dark."
"That's what you say, Nick," another male voice said out of thin air. "I could have nailed him, easy, and took him alive."
Suddenly five people seemed to materialize out of thin air standing over Dianna and the body. Their shoulder mons bore a shield, stars, and lightning bolt on a field of cobalt blue below the letters ISA. Below the shield was the word TACTICAL.
"Doesn't matter," said Corporal Linsei Itokawa. "Tactical's reputation stands." She looked over at Goddard. "One shot, one kill."
They were wearing military style "Battle Duty Uniforms," including gloves and helmets with visors. They carried high-powered sniper rifles. Both their uniforms and their weapons made use of nanotechnology to blend them in with the surrounding scenery. Once they switched on their cloaking system, they became effectively invisible to casual observers. Even so, it still would have been best to stay in the dark. Had they maneuvered so that they were between the floodlights and the monument then not only would they have had the light in their eyes but also Falleran would have caught the strange sight of a blurring of the background scenery every time one of the team members moved. Not good. One day ISA would have to engineer a correction for that little problem.
Corporal Nick Goddard removed his helmet. "The moment he pulled the gun we were in the wrong place. We had to move around to get the best shot, otherwise any shot might go through him and impact you, you see. It took a couple of seconds to do that. And we had to get him with the first shot or he still might have gotten you."
"I said we should've taken him down while he was still on the street," said Sergeant Kepler Nimokoff. "We had a clear shot then. We could've taken the detonator off him, thrown a stealth cloak over him, and hauled him out of there. We bug off into the dark under cloaking and no one would notice us." And under his breath he added, "And I could have taken him down alive..."
"Nah," Goddard disagreed. "Too much potential for witnesses, collateral damage. Could be an innocent bystander walkin' a dog or somethin'."
"What? And you think we're well hidden here in front of the Haldorn Monument?" Nimokoff waved a hand in a grand sweeping gesture taking in the open Mall. "Yeah, well, it don't matter what time it is. How much you wanna bet someone saw what happened?"
"What does it matter? Bastard's dead. He got what he deserves." Itokawa spit at the corpse.
As if on cue a couple of individuals appeared out of nowhere under the street lights on Constitution Avenue and stood looking in their direction. From more than a hundred meters away, they wouldn't be able to see much, but thanks to the lights around the monument, they could no doubt discern people with rifles, and a body on the ground. One of them pointed. Someone shouted.
"There. You see?" Nimokoff said with an I-told-you-so tone of voice. "We did it out here in the open and someone saw it. No sense trying to hide it now."
"It's where he was supposed to meet his contact," said Goddard. "It had to be here. The mission briefing said it had to be here."
"I still would have preferred to take him alive," said Dianna, looking up at the two men. "The mission briefing said we should try to take him alive. And I still say I could have taken him down. Alive."
Nimokoff looked off toward the monument, mentally washing his hands of the enemy agent's termination. He hadn't pulled the trigger. He didn't want to deal with this. "You know, Goddard, I think your shot went through the guy's head and impacted the monument. You might be the first guy in history to shoot up the Haldorn Monument. Think I'll take a look. I'll have to explain in my report why there's a chunk of government issued tungsten imbedded in a national monument." He stepped over the small chain fencing into the grass and headed toward the monument, rifle cradled in his arms like a baby.
Goddard looked down at Dianna. "You know, that joker was about to shoot you. We had to take him down for your own safety." We? "I know at the briefing they said to take 'em alive if 'practicable.' It didn't seem 'practicable', you know?"
Dianna gave him a humorless look. "I'm skeptical, Goddard. This is going in my report. We could have taken the target alive."
"Just sayin'. Anyway, my reputation still stands," he said. He flashed Dianna a big toothy grin. "One shot, one kill."
They could at least have tried to merely disabled the guy. You'd think Goddard had gotten his training in Nu Moskva. And maybe he had, thought Dianna. Alive, Falleran would have been an invaluable catch. Dead, he merely ceased to be a threat. A siren could be heard in the distance. It seemed to be headed their way. Apparently, someone on the street had called the police. They could be dealt with easily enough.
Dianna stood and pulled out her netphone, still studying the passport. Mikquell Falleran. That was his name. At least on the passport. Now the face had a name. Now the enemy was more human. Like her, he had a life. Like her, he had a family somewhere. Like her, he was just doing his job. Like her, he had an assignment to carry out. Well, his assignment is over now, isn't it?
She jabbed a single numeric tab on the touch screen of the netphone with her thumb. It was a dedicated "in house" netphone. The single number she keyed called a channel on an encrypted band. Those sirens were getting closer.
"Sabertooth Alpha, this is Sabertooth Fifty-eight." Her breath froze in mid-air as she spoke. "Target Seven One Alpha has been terminated." Seven One was the code number for Alexandria. Seven One Alpha indicated the leader of the Doctor's cell operating in Alexandria. "Repeat. Target Seven One Alpha has been terminated. Request clean-up team at the Haldorn Monument. Detonator has been recovered. I say again, detonator has been recovered. No Sabertooth casualties."
She looked down at the dead body and listened to the approaching sirens. Goddard had slipped into sentry mode, with no more thought about the target at his feet, giving his attention to the gathering crowd some meters distant at the edge of the mall. The target, Mikquell Falleran, failed espionage agent, was now nothing more than a dead statistic.
Maybe he found Nirvana. Maybe not.
It was nearly midnight.
.jpg)
"The Girl From the El Dorado Star System, Book One: The Man Who Had to Die" is available at these retailers now for $0.99:
Barnes & Noble (Nook): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-girl-from-the-el-dorado-star-system-book-one-j-allen-wilder/1119876462?ean=2940046036312
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/451622
Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/j00allen0wilder
Available at these retailers soon:
Amazon
Apple
Kobo
Page Foundry
Baker & Taylor Blio
Baker & Taylor Axis360
Overdrive
txtr
Flipkart
Oyster
Watch for Book Two: The Girl Who Had a Mission, coming soon.
peace, J
Chapter Eight: One Shot, One Kill
Sometimes people shoot too well. Forget about bringing the target in alive then.
- Diana Falkin, Field Agent, ISA
Advice to new field agents.
The Capitol Mall, Alexandria, Tidewater Province, planet Terra Arcadia.
Soon, Falleran kept reminding himself as he walked along the darkened streets. Very soon, yes.
The low cloud blanket reflected the glow of Alexandria's lights as Mikquell Falleran made his way northward along Constitution Avenue on the west side of the vast Capitol Mall. At the south end of the Mall, three kilometers behind Falleran, lay the Capitoline Hill and the Commonwealth Senate House. The immense dome of the Senate House, aglow in floodlights, rose high into the night sky and dominated the central city skyline, the statue of the goddess Liberty atop the dome pointing skyward with her torch.
It was very late, 24:20 Tidewater Time, forty minutes until the intercalary quarter in Terra Arcadia's twenty-five and a quarter hour-long day. It was a forsaken time of night in Falleran's opinion. In many other communities, Falleran's presence on the streets might have aroused suspicion at this time of night, but Alexandria was one of those towns that never sleeps. That was a consequence of being the capital city of both a major planet and the capital city of an entire star nation, and the largest star nation in known space at that. Winter only meant that the pace of the city's nightlife slowed down, but not by much. It was a Saturday night, after all.
A couple of late night strollers passed by Falleran but they didn't give him a passing glance. Neither did the dogs they were walking. Neither did the Alexandria Police when they silently passed him in their maglev cruiser at the intersection of Constitution Avenue and Independence Boulevard. Had it been spring or summer more people would have been out and about on Constitution Avenue, even at this late hour. After all, Alexandria never sleeps. But it was cold. Most of the people who chose to be out and about were a block over on Association Avenue where the restaurants, pubs, and nightclubs were.
Falleran's breath hung in the air. Winter was nearly over, and there was still a damp chill in the air. Falleran pulled his fedora as far down over his ears as he could get it. He had turned up the collar of his long great coat to cover his neck and he tugged it closer as he walked. Very soon, the Doctor would give the word to go live with Operation Khaos. There would be no going back then, and he will have helped his employer attain the place he rightfully deserved in the history of humanity.
The plan was to engineer chaos, to create mayhem and destruction on the capital world of the Commonwealth. Ultimately, the goal was to get revenge. The Doctor, as Falleran's employer was known to his associates, required revenge, and he would have it. The operation was aptly named. Khaos. When Operation Khaos went live it would be only a matter of days before planet Terra Arcadia, the capital world of the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia, the largest star nation in known space, a true superpower, would be crippled. The best part of all, thought Falleran, was that the Commonwealth's top leadership would be exterminated in the first hour of the operation.
In a few hours, Falleran would be on a cruise ship, an innocent traveler on an extended business trip en route to the Isis star system, a non-aligned and neutral nation outside the Commonwealth Sphere of Influence. From there he'd catch a flight back to planet Kerinda Tu in the Rhakotis star cluster. Back to his home. Back to his family whom he had not seen in nearly a year. When he went back home Falleran would be content knowing that he had done his part, and that the Doctor would reward him. And not long after his departure from Terra Arcadia, in just a few days, the explosives planted in the ancient Senate House would exterminate the Commonwealth Senate in session. All three houses of the Commonwealth legislature, meeting in joint session for the opening of the spring session, would perish in a single massive explosion.
Falleran had personally supervised the covert operation in Alexandria and it had taken many months, too much money, and the patience of a legendary saint to place the explosives without being caught. They were not nuclear explosives; nor could they be. The radiological signature of nuclear materials would have revealed their presence. In fact, it was doubtful any operatives could have gotten them from a civilian spaceport such as Langley Spaceport (especially when the said spaceport sat next to the Star Navy's Langley Space Field) all the way to the Senate House to begin with. Somewhere along the way, the Star Navy or some other branch of the Commonwealth's armed forces would detect the radiological signature, probably even before the Doctor's operatives could bring the materials down from orbit to Langley. But some conventional explosives are as powerful as a small nuclear device, and that was all that was needed. All Falleran had to do now was to pass on the detonator card to the agent who would actually set off the explosives. Falleran didn't know him by sight, and didn't even know his name. All he knew was that whoever his contact was, the Doctor had procured a type of Rhakotian special agent known as a kamikaze. The kamikaze was expected to give his life for the success of this mission. "For the good of civilization." What else did the Commonwealth deserve but total destruction in order to make way for true civilization?
A cold mist began to fall. Falleran pulled his fedora down again and kept walking along the avenue, toward the spire of the Haldorn Monument. It towered into the night sky, lit by spotlights, and from a distance appeared as a glowing white finger pointing up into the star-filled sky from which humanity came to this world. It all seemed somehow ironic and somehow fitting, not to mention very satisfying to Falleran that he should give the means of the Commonwealth's destruction to the kamikaze in the shadow of the very monument that celebrated the first landing of a human being on planet Terra Arcadia.
As he walked, he suddenly felt uneasy. It felt as if there were eyes watching him. He looked to his right out across the Mall. It was completely deserted. Up the street the sidewalk was now empty, the late night strollers, and their dogs, had gone off the street. The large public buildings to Falleran's left across the street stood silent and empty, their columns supporting pediments and their tympana decorated with ornate carving's depicting scenes from the history of human settlement on Terra Arcadia, the return to space, and the history of the Commonwealth. There at the Museum of Arcadian History was Henry Haldorn, the first human being to set foot upon Terra Arcadia, larger than life, right hand raised in the act of opening his helmet to breathe the planet's air for the first time. Liberty, depicted as a stylized goddess, was portrayed as bestowing her blessings upon the Founders, those first colonists who descended from the colony ship Independence to begin a new human society on Terra Arcadia. The blessings themselves stood forth in bold relief print on a scroll in Liberty's hands bearing the words LIBERTY, EQUALITY, JUSTICE, RESPONSIBILITY, INTEGRITY. Beside her was a sculptor's stylized depiction of Major Richard Moradian, the Marine who became the first President of the Commonwealth of Nu Virginia twenty-five centuries ago, holding in his hands the very first Constitution of the Nu Virginia Commonwealth. When the Arcadian Planetary Commonwealth was founded centuries later, after the Planetary War, its constitution was based on the old Nu Virginia constitution. And when the Star Commonwealth of Arcadia was founded its constitution was merely a continuation of the old one.
And that's the problem, isn't it, Moradian? It all goes back to you, Dmytryshyn, Franklin, Guy-der-Vaal, Yamamoto, Truman, and all the other scum, the so-called "Founders" who set up the whole corrupt society to begin with. If only you had gotten it right in the beginning. But you didn't. And now a cleansing is necessary in order for true Civilization to survive.
Falleran stopped underneath a clump of Arcadian elms growing at the edge of the Mall beside the sidewalk. Someone had set up an impromptu Zen Catholic shrine under the trees. It was a memorial to someone who had been recently struck and killed by a maglev car on the street. Falleran looked at it with momentary curiosity, amazed that no one had disturbed it or removed it.
Stupid Arcadian superstition, Falleran thought. It should be unthinkable that anyone who is properly educated would cling to such archaic, poisonous things as religious beliefs. Anyone who is sick of mind enough to express any such archaic and superstitious sentiments in the manner suggested by this shrine should first be punished, then re-educated, and then relocated to another population center. But they aren't. This is why cleansing is necessary. For the good of Civilization. This is why we will launch Operation Khaos. This will all end when we are in control and people are properly educated. Then there will be no more need for ignorant and primitive superstitions. And there will be no more tripe and drivel about liberty. Only with adequate and appropriate control over people's thoughts and actions from the cradle to the grave can true Civilization flourish. "Liberty" must die. "Freedom" must be exterminated. "Rights" must be extinguished. It is all but a mere illusion anyway, a myth to palm off to the blind, sugarcoated candy to feed the immature masses. The Commonwealth must die.
Hidden in the shadows under the trees Falleran stood beside the shrine looking about, listening and watching. It paid to know if one was being followed. It appeared that he wasn't being followed, but his instincts told him he was. It was a very disquieting feeling. As he surveyed the street, he saw that the whole area was deserted. He was completely alone. Yet he could have sworn that he heard the sound of footsteps behind him, and muffled voices. It had to be sounds carrying over from Association Avenue.
He checked his chrono. It was 24:30, half an hour until the Terra Arcadian "midnight," the intercalary quarter. Only ten minutes had passed since he last looked.
It seems like it's been much more than ten minutes. It must be nerves, he thought. And you should not be nervous. It is beneath you. That thought, however, did little to relieve Falleran of the feeling that someone was watching him.
He scanned the street for any signs that someone was following him and saw nothing. He rubbed his eyes. He must truly be tired. Somehow, the empty street didn't look right. There were blurry spots in his vision. Moving blurs that stopped and disappeared. Perhaps his eyes were tired. When had he last slept? It's been more than thirty hours. Once on board the space liner and on his way out of this cursed star system he could rest. There had been far too much to do the past seventy-five hours, and not enough time to do it. This late night errand would be the last task to accomplish before he could leave Alexandria and then, in a matter of mere hours, he would be off-planet. He would retrace his steps out of the Commonwealth. First, he would head for Calaverras. There he would board another vessel and travel to Isis, an independent non-aligned star system. At Isis, he would board another ship bound for the Rhakotis star cluster and planet Kerinda Tu. By the time he returned safely home Operation Khaos would be well underway. He looked up at the streetlights. They had misty halos around them as the cold mist thickened.
Of course. That's it. No one wants to be out in the mist and cold. That is why the avenue is so empty, even for this time of night. So much for the city that never sleeps, he thought. His suspicions satisfied, Falleran continued walking toward the monument. He would meet his contact at a park bench beside the monument, exchange signs and counter signs, pass over the detonator card and the activation code, and then be on his way off this miserable planet.
Another half kilometer up the avenue Falleran stopped again. From the shadows under another Arcadian elm, he examined the lone figure sitting on a bench a hundred meters away in the open space of the Mall. His contact. Whoever it was, his contact was wearing a hooded coat with the hood over his head and he had his back to Falleran. He could make out no details and could not see his face. Silently Falleran wished his instructions had contained more detail, and especially that they had included a physical description of his contact. But he also understood that the Doctor wanted to "minimize the risk to his operatives" and "safeguard the operational integrity of the mission." The Doctor had told him up front, "You don't need a physical description of your contact. Kamikazes are always nondescript anyway. They blend into a crowd better that way. But not everybody has the look of the kamikaze in their eyes. It’s a certain fierceness. A certain intensity. You’ll know it when you see it. As long as your contact knows the signs and counter signs, you will be fine. I won't tell you what your contact looks like. That way you will not be able to betray your contact should the enemy capture you prior to making the exchange. But you will know you have found your contact when the time comes." Falleran thought it only made his job harder, but then the Doctor was right. He always was. Who but the contact would know the correct counter-signs?
None of the other benches were occupied. Just this one in front of a plaque before the monument. Falleran scanned the Mall and the street. There was no one in sight. He was used to operating in public, under the very noses of the enemy, in the presence of many people whether it was day or night. Crowds had become the medium in which he naturally operated and he did so with ease. This was too easy. Too easy.
He still felt unsettled.
Finally, convincing himself it was time to act, Falleran ventured out from the shadows into the Mall. Haldorn's Monument loomed overhead. The monolithic monument glowed a ghostly pale gray in the floodlight-illuminated mist. The lone figure on the bench seemed unaware of his approach. The Mall remained deserted.
Falleran went over to the bench and sat down at one end. His contact sat at the far end, face hidden by shadow within the hood, his long black coat wrapped around him, his black trousers and soft black walking shoes non-descript. Whoever his contact was, that person appeared to be studying the plaque facing them. The words on the plaque were large and easily legible in the glow of the lights. A photo realistic portrait of a man in an ancient flight suit adorned the upper left corner.
The Doctor had no trust of electronic means of identification for his agents in the field. Advanced technology could be more of a liability than an asset sometimes. Transponder and microchip implants, even nanobot implants could be detected. They could also be neutralized and removed covertly, by means of counter-nanobots, magnetic fields, radiation, or overtly, by more blunt methods. They could be falsified, faked, and changed electronically, even remotely, without the knowledge of the agent carrying them. The Doctor thought it best to rely on a truly ancient method of identification straight out of Old Earth history. Let the decadent Arcadians rely on their technology. In the end, it won't help them. It will be their downfall. There are ways around it.
Falleran spoke the first call sign to no one in particular, in Rhakotian. "Obschestvo sivilizat immar es, quan perfecto rejimonat es." Society is always civilized when it is correctly ordered. He was quoting from Zhax Allerand's Philosophy of State. Allerand was a long-deceased Rhakotian political writer whose works were required reading in the Rhakotian educational system. The response was to be another line from the same work. The response was immediate, and in Rhakotian. "Bassi par sivilizasion, rejimon es." Order is the basis for civilization.
A woman! The Doctor had not told him the kamikaze would be a woman. A female kamikaze was a rare thing indeed. He looked over at her. Her Rhakotian was flawless. She spoke with a regional accent from Kerinda Tu with which Falleran was familiar. She sat perfectly still, face hidden by her raised hood.
Falleran cleared his throat and spoke the second call sign, also in Rhakotian, once more quoting from Zhax Allerand's Philosophy of State. "Stoimost par rejimon, vidsi del verni es." The cost for order is the lives of the faithful. The cost was high. The response, also in flawless Rhakotian, came from the woman without pause.
"Stoimost par rejimon, stoimost par sivilizasion es." The cost for order is the price for civilization.
The third call sign came from an obscure (and badly written, lacking plot and characterization, though thoroughly politically correct in the strictest Rhakotian sense) novel, one not well known outside of the Rhakotian Community, Atlas Arises, by Fillinni Saisyppo, an obscure author hardly known off of planet Kerinda Tu. The novel had actually been written on planet Argention III, Terra Parnassa, and had to be translated from Argentian into Rhakotian. The line Falleran quoted was, "Sivilizasion immar pod emmagar es." Civilization is always under threat. Its counter sign, which the woman spoke without hesitation, was a line from the same novel, "Communitat, pokrovitel solomonti par sivilizasion veratan es." The Community is the only guardian of true civilization.
The fourth and last sign and counter sign combination was derived from an episode in the life of Fillinni Saisyppo. "She was banished by a baron," Falleran said as if speaking to himself, though this time he spoke in Commonwealth Standard.
The woman gave the counter sign immediately, and gave it in Commonwealth Standard as well, with a Rhakotian accent. "He was pfat, corruption ate his soul, and he died of ze gout; but she was blessed by ze goddess Communitas and found favor in ze Rhakotian Community."
Exiled from the Barony of Argention for her political activism long before the Zaviar Revolution overthrew the last Baron of Argention, Fillinni Saisyppo had found a home on planet Kerinda Tu in the welcoming arms of the Community. The Rhakotian Community wasted no time in officially promoting the official version of her story, making her out to be a Hero-of-the-Community and Defender-of-Civilization against the evil forces of a corrupt and illegitimate pseudo civilization. In actuality, her official story bore little resemblance to real life. The Argention Baronial Court on Terra Parnassa had sentenced Saisyppo to exile for her political activism. She had been making threats against the Argention Baronial Government, banks, schools, and merchants, and encouraging people on the streets to riot. The Baron of Argention refused to grant her a pardon. He was thin as a rail and died in a boating accident about the time of Saisyppo's exile. It sounded so much better to enlighten the masses with the story that he was a bloated, corrupt, swaggering, evil pig. Moreover, it was even better to say that he had personally persecuted Saisyppo, and had even personally tortured her in prison. In reality he had never heard of her before her lawyer's appeal for a pardon crossed his desk, he didn't give the request more than a passing glance before dismissing it, and he never once laid eyes on her.
The woman sitting on the park bench had no problem giving the counter signs, and she spoke with an accent native to Kerinda Tu, the second world of the star Rhakotis A, one of the stars of the small Rhakotis star cluster. Clearly, then, this woman had to be the agent to whom Falleran must give the detonator card. After a moment's consideration, he reached into his coat and felt the thin case within his inside coat pocket. The case contained a small, paper-thin flexi-card bearing a small keypad, not unlike its technological cousin the netphone, but unlike the netphone, it had only one purpose. It would transmit a signal, once the user keyed the proper code number on its touch screen. The signal would detonate the bombs installed in the Senate House. The transmitter was short-range due to power constraints. Whoever detonated the bombs would necessarily have to be inside the Senate House. That person would no doubt die in the explosion. Hence the need for a kamikaze. In the Rhakotian Community, being a kamikaze was seen as a divine calling requiring years of special training, specialized education, testing, retesting, and more testing, and, most importantly, unique and unfaltering dedication. It was self-sacrifice for the all-divine State, the holy giving of one's life for the sacred Community and holy Civilization. The reward for this sacrifice, as every kamikaze knew, was the gift of mindless eternal nirvana from the goddess Communitas. It was proof of the Doctor's genius, as well as a sign that he shared a common cause with the Rhakotian Community that he had been able to procure a kamikaze from the Community. He had done much of his recruiting in the Rhakotis A star system with the blessing of the Committee of Organizers. Falleran was one of his best Rhakotian recruits. However, to convince the Committee of Organizers to provide a professionally trained kamikaze was another matter altogether. Not just anyone could have done that.
Falleran pulled the card out of his coat and held it toward the woman.
She seemed to sense his movement and looked around for the first time. Falleran saw an oval face framed by her black hood. Dark blue eyes stared out of the hooded shadow at him. Dark auburn hair fringed the edges of her hood. A prominent hawk-like nose implied strength of will and character, exactly what a kamikaze would need to complete a mission. She took the case in a black gloved hand. Without pause, she popped it open and examined the card. "Zere is input code, of course?" she asked in Commonwealth Standard with a Rhakotian accent. Falleran had not given her the code. Stupid of him? Or just cautious? It always paid to be cautious. He looked at her with calculating eyes, as if to make one last appraisal of her trustworthiness. She looked back at him from under her hood with fierce, intense eyes.
"You speak Commonwealth Standard almost as well as a native of this planet," he said.
"Me muso prepartat." I am well trained. She had to be from Dal Garrograd, an equatorial city on planet Kerinda Tu. Falleran was familiar with the accent. She spoke like a native.
Then, in Commonwealth Standard, spoken with a thick Rhakotian accent, she said, "I am ze kamikaze. My mission is holy, no? By my sacred death, I will bring order out of chaos in zis place. By my holy death, ze True Civilization will live forever. My death is but gateway to Nirvana. I will live forever in ze glory of ze Divine Community, world without end." She was quoting directly from the pages of a Rhakotian manual, The Kamikaze Mantra. She was the kamikaze. There could be no doubt in Falleran's mind. He was convinced.
He cleared his throat. "The code is zero-zero, zero-zero, zero-one, one-one. You will remember?"
She repeated the code. "I will remember." She closed the case and shoved it inside her coat. She returned her gaze to the plaque. Falleran started to rise. He did not see her bring her hand out of her coat or what she held in that hand as she placed it on her lap and covered it with her other hand.
"Do you think he really looked like that?"
"What? Who?" Falleran had not expected conversation with the kamikaze, male or female. He merely expected to turn over the detonator card and begin his journey immediately to Langley Spaceport to board a cruise ship away from this damned decadent planet.
"Captain Henry Haldorn. The first human to set foot on this planet more than twenty-six hundred years ago. Did he really look like that?" she asked, looking at the plaque mounted at the fence.
What does it matter now? The only thing that matters is the success of this mission. And success is within reach.
Falleran glanced at the picture of the man on the plaque. "Perhaps one day, after we have control of this planet, we will know. Until then..." He let his voice trail off, his right hand made a dismissive gesture. Casual conversation was not appropriate. The Doctor forbid it. Clearly, the kamikaze should know this. But then, Falleran had never met a kamikaze before, and who really understood the mind of someone who had volunteered to die, whose sudden, violent death was intentional, self-inflicted, and imminent?
Falleran made to leave and turned his back to the kamikaze. He froze in his tracks when he realized she was speaking in Commonwealth Standard again.
Flawless Commonwealth Standard. Without a Rhakotian accent.
"Every human being who is alive today within our Sphere of Influence, and a good many human beings outside our Sphere of Influence, are alive solely because of the sacrifices made by the settlers who came to this world on the colony ship Independence."
Falleran stared straight ahead into the dark emptiness of the Mall. Surely, he had not heard what he thought he had just heard.
Our Sphere of Influence.
"There was a reason the colony ship was named Independence. The colonists came to this world seeking independence from tyranny on Old Earth. We owe it to them to maintain the free society that they founded here."
Slowly Falleran turned around and looked down at the seated woman. Disbelief and the realization of what had just happened had momentarily deprived him of his speech. He had just handed over the detonator to the enemy. If he ever returned home, his life would be over. The Doctor was not forgiving of mistakes as gross as this one. The Doctor would find him. The Doctor would punish him. He would deserve punishment. And the punishment would be death.
The woman had not moved. She held her gloved hands folded in her lap, the left hand lying over the right hand. She was impassively facing the memorial plaque. "We cannot allow you to carry out your plan," she said in a calm, even voice. "You are threatening the lives, liberty, and property of Commonwealth citizens. We cannot allow that. We have arrested all your accomplices in Alexandria. Your kamikaze, of course, fulfilled his desire to die, though not in the way your employer intended, and if he has found Nirvana, well, as far as we are concerned he is better off there than he was here where he would be destructive. At this very moment, we are removing the explosives that you and your accomplices so laboriously planted at the Senate House. And we are taking your employer, Anton Sorokon, known to you as the Doctor, into custody even as we speak. You, of course, are under arrest." She looked around at him, eyes intense. "Your only options at this point are to surrender and come in peacefully, or...to come in otherwise. The only real question you have to face now is: can you make an intelligent decision?"
Falleran could only stare at the woman. He could not believe this was happening. This was insane. How could the decadent Arcadians have known? Every precaution was taken! Every safeguard! Every security measure! He looked around. There was no one on the street a hundred meters away. There was no one in the Mall for as far as he could see in the faint light. He rubbed his eyes again. His vision was suffering the effects of tiredness. Blurry spots wavered in his line of sight as he scanned the Mall. This was no time for sleepiness! He thought quickly. They were alone for the moment. The woman may be armed, but her hands are not in a position to reach a weapon. He can still retrieve the detonator. He can still escape. He would have to kill the woman, of course, but he could still warn the Doctor that the mission has been compromised. He reached into his side coat pocket for his gun.
"I really wouldn't do that if I were you," the woman said. Her hands were still folded in her lap. She didn't stand a chance. Stupid Commonwealth security.
"You are Intel and Security, no?" The woman just looked at him. "They send a single woman to play counter espionage and yet she does not have the good sense to adequately protect herself. How stupid of them." His hand moved in his pocket as he put his fingers around the pistol grip.
The woman sighed. "Like I said, I really wouldn't do that if I were you."
Falleran pulled his gun out of his coat pocket. Unnerved by this sudden change of affairs, he held the gun with a shaky hand and pointed it at the woman. He pointed at the park bench with his free hand. Can't shoot her yet! The detonator is somewhere on her person. Might strike it! "Place the detonator on the bench."
She didn't move. "Do it! Now! Put the detonator on the bench!" His nerves must be getting the better of him. That should not happen. He had been well trained. Well conditioned. Muso prepartat.
A blurry patch of something seemed to move at the edge of Falleran's vision. Instinctively he looked around and saw nothing but several faint blurred patches of air some yards distant. In that split second he finally realized what he must be seeing, and then-
Zipt!
The sound of a solid shot bullet fired from a coil gun emerged from seemingly empty space. Falleran fell over dead, a single neat, round bullet hole between his eyes, a nasty exit wound in the back of his head.
"My reputation stands, Dianna," a male voice called out from the darkness. "One shot, one kill."
"Why did you have to do that?" The woman looked into the darkness of the Mall. Five subtly blurred areas of darkness moved in toward her and the now lifeless body on the pavement. She stood up, revealing the small pistol she had hidden in her right hand all along.
"I was about to take him down myself. And, I would add, I would have taken him down alive, which is how I wanted him. Couldn't you have hit him in the shoulder? The arm? Simply disabled him?"
Dianna Falkin went to the body, turned it over, best not to look at the back of his head, and began searching through Falleran's pockets. She found his pocket-sized passport card and opened it like a small, thin book. The passport's two card-thin screens instantly lit up in a display of data. There was a photo of the dead man. His name was Mikquell D. Falleran. Unless it was an alias, which was probable. The passport identified him as a Rhakotian national, a native of planet Kerinda Tu, the capital world of the Rhakotian Community, resident of Basilograd. The passport listed his occupation as "Commercial Developer," whatever that was supposed to be on planet Kerinda Tu. Right. The Rhakotians have no such thing as "commercial development," hence they have no "commercial developers," Dianna thought. She saw that he had made his way on commercial flights from Kerinda Tu to Isis III, a non-aligned world, and thence to Calaverras in the Fortungunas, and finally to Terra Arcadia. Twenty-one days in flight, at least. Plus transition time at Isis and the Fortungunas.
It took him the better part of a month just to get here. And for what? A bullet in the head? Just to satisfy some damn insane "Doctor's" damn insane plan to cause senseless death and destruction?
Five areas of slightly blurred air continued to move toward the woman and the body on the ground. "Nah, it never would've worked," a male voice said from a patch of not-quite-right-looking empty space. "Too risky. He might'a got off a shot anyway. It was just bad choreography, Dianna. We really couldn't get a decent, clean kill shot, you know? Not as long as we were stayin' in the dark."
"That's what you say, Nick," another male voice said out of thin air. "I could have nailed him, easy, and took him alive."
Suddenly five people seemed to materialize out of thin air standing over Dianna and the body. Their shoulder mons bore a shield, stars, and lightning bolt on a field of cobalt blue below the letters ISA. Below the shield was the word TACTICAL.
"Doesn't matter," said Corporal Linsei Itokawa. "Tactical's reputation stands." She looked over at Goddard. "One shot, one kill."
They were wearing military style "Battle Duty Uniforms," including gloves and helmets with visors. They carried high-powered sniper rifles. Both their uniforms and their weapons made use of nanotechnology to blend them in with the surrounding scenery. Once they switched on their cloaking system, they became effectively invisible to casual observers. Even so, it still would have been best to stay in the dark. Had they maneuvered so that they were between the floodlights and the monument then not only would they have had the light in their eyes but also Falleran would have caught the strange sight of a blurring of the background scenery every time one of the team members moved. Not good. One day ISA would have to engineer a correction for that little problem.
Corporal Nick Goddard removed his helmet. "The moment he pulled the gun we were in the wrong place. We had to move around to get the best shot, otherwise any shot might go through him and impact you, you see. It took a couple of seconds to do that. And we had to get him with the first shot or he still might have gotten you."
"I said we should've taken him down while he was still on the street," said Sergeant Kepler Nimokoff. "We had a clear shot then. We could've taken the detonator off him, thrown a stealth cloak over him, and hauled him out of there. We bug off into the dark under cloaking and no one would notice us." And under his breath he added, "And I could have taken him down alive..."
"Nah," Goddard disagreed. "Too much potential for witnesses, collateral damage. Could be an innocent bystander walkin' a dog or somethin'."
"What? And you think we're well hidden here in front of the Haldorn Monument?" Nimokoff waved a hand in a grand sweeping gesture taking in the open Mall. "Yeah, well, it don't matter what time it is. How much you wanna bet someone saw what happened?"
"What does it matter? Bastard's dead. He got what he deserves." Itokawa spit at the corpse.
As if on cue a couple of individuals appeared out of nowhere under the street lights on Constitution Avenue and stood looking in their direction. From more than a hundred meters away, they wouldn't be able to see much, but thanks to the lights around the monument, they could no doubt discern people with rifles, and a body on the ground. One of them pointed. Someone shouted.
"There. You see?" Nimokoff said with an I-told-you-so tone of voice. "We did it out here in the open and someone saw it. No sense trying to hide it now."
"It's where he was supposed to meet his contact," said Goddard. "It had to be here. The mission briefing said it had to be here."
"I still would have preferred to take him alive," said Dianna, looking up at the two men. "The mission briefing said we should try to take him alive. And I still say I could have taken him down. Alive."
Nimokoff looked off toward the monument, mentally washing his hands of the enemy agent's termination. He hadn't pulled the trigger. He didn't want to deal with this. "You know, Goddard, I think your shot went through the guy's head and impacted the monument. You might be the first guy in history to shoot up the Haldorn Monument. Think I'll take a look. I'll have to explain in my report why there's a chunk of government issued tungsten imbedded in a national monument." He stepped over the small chain fencing into the grass and headed toward the monument, rifle cradled in his arms like a baby.
Goddard looked down at Dianna. "You know, that joker was about to shoot you. We had to take him down for your own safety." We? "I know at the briefing they said to take 'em alive if 'practicable.' It didn't seem 'practicable', you know?"
Dianna gave him a humorless look. "I'm skeptical, Goddard. This is going in my report. We could have taken the target alive."
"Just sayin'. Anyway, my reputation still stands," he said. He flashed Dianna a big toothy grin. "One shot, one kill."
They could at least have tried to merely disabled the guy. You'd think Goddard had gotten his training in Nu Moskva. And maybe he had, thought Dianna. Alive, Falleran would have been an invaluable catch. Dead, he merely ceased to be a threat. A siren could be heard in the distance. It seemed to be headed their way. Apparently, someone on the street had called the police. They could be dealt with easily enough.
Dianna stood and pulled out her netphone, still studying the passport. Mikquell Falleran. That was his name. At least on the passport. Now the face had a name. Now the enemy was more human. Like her, he had a life. Like her, he had a family somewhere. Like her, he was just doing his job. Like her, he had an assignment to carry out. Well, his assignment is over now, isn't it?
She jabbed a single numeric tab on the touch screen of the netphone with her thumb. It was a dedicated "in house" netphone. The single number she keyed called a channel on an encrypted band. Those sirens were getting closer.
"Sabertooth Alpha, this is Sabertooth Fifty-eight." Her breath froze in mid-air as she spoke. "Target Seven One Alpha has been terminated." Seven One was the code number for Alexandria. Seven One Alpha indicated the leader of the Doctor's cell operating in Alexandria. "Repeat. Target Seven One Alpha has been terminated. Request clean-up team at the Haldorn Monument. Detonator has been recovered. I say again, detonator has been recovered. No Sabertooth casualties."
She looked down at the dead body and listened to the approaching sirens. Goddard had slipped into sentry mode, with no more thought about the target at his feet, giving his attention to the gathering crowd some meters distant at the edge of the mall. The target, Mikquell Falleran, failed espionage agent, was now nothing more than a dead statistic.
Maybe he found Nirvana. Maybe not.
It was nearly midnight.
****
"The Girl From the El Dorado Star System" is an off beat, quirky, future punk/science fiction story about a guy who
meets a girl, a girl who has a vendetta, an insane villain with an
agenda, and those who want to stop him. As the story develops, unlikely
relationships form, comic situations unfold with serious consequences,
and lost souls find a path leading to redemption and new life.
Barnes & Noble (Nook): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-girl-from-the-el-dorado-star-system-book-one-j-allen-wilder/1119876462?ean=2940046036312
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/451622
Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/j00allen0wilder
Available at these retailers soon:
Amazon
Apple
Kobo
Page Foundry
Baker & Taylor Blio
Baker & Taylor Axis360
Overdrive
txtr
Flipkart
Oyster
Watch for Book Two: The Girl Who Had a Mission, coming soon.
peace, J
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)