An Alternate History of the Netherlands (and more)

Spine Palm

2012-02-11T23:47:00.000-08:00

Spread across the Attenborough Plateau, the Spine Palm has proven a deadly plant. Its name is derived from the thousands of spines that are spread across the tree’s trunk. At the top of the tree, its leaves spread out in a similar pattern to Terran palms. The tree grows to heights of ten meters. It does not spread seeds like its name sake, but rather is a clonal plant. It propagates outwards in a radial pattern. The plant defends itself from herbivores with its thousands of spines. These narrow leaves are like pikes. Ay plant-eater that gets too close is tagged by the toxic plant. The spines do not invenomate, but inflict severe phosphorus burns on its victim. Though the palms might remind a visitor of home, it his highly advised to avoid the groves scattered across Attenborough. Only a few of the sloths have evolved defenses against the plant, keeping it from over running its plateau.

It Lives!

2012-02-11T13:35:00.000-08:00

I bought my new laptops, so I should be updating here pretty soon again. Now all I need are reading glasses to see the dinky screen. I'll be returning to Hypnale.

Updates

2011-12-25T12:03:00.000-08:00

I've been really slacking on updates, but for a fair reason. My laptop is several years old, and parts of it are failing. Parts like the keyboard and the hard drive, not to mention the software. The OS is easy enough to fix (wipe it and reinstall), but the rest of it... Unfortunately, they don't make them like they use to, and I'm attempting to save up for a new laptop. Since mine is so old, the cheapest I could buy today would likely outperform it.

Attenborough Plateau

2011-11-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

The first of the “islands” in the Galapagos Mountains is the northwestern most, named Attenborough. The island is roughly the size of France that sits on average some six kilometers above the Sunspot Desert, and divided by a ridge that rises 12 kilometers above sea level. The Diamond Mountains receive their name from large, exposed deposits of quartz and other clear crystals. They sparkle in the sunlight. Had Hypnale orbited a whiter star, the Diamond Mountains would shine like diamonds. As is, the Ruby or Garnet Mountains might have been a more apt name. The mountains are steep, with some sheer cliffs of over a kilometer. Animals similar to mountain goats, geckos as well as the mountain sloth live in the otherwise barren mountains. Because of the crystal deposits, little in the way of soil exists in the mountains, and only the hardiest of lichen can survive there.

The western side of Attenborough is covered in dry scrubland forest. It is far less “verdant” than the rain forests straddling the planet’s terminator, but it adds a dash of purple to the otherwise bleak landscape far below. The forest exists since most of the rivers of Attenborough flow to the west, before ending in evaporating waterfall, seldom touching the desert below. Like with the mountains, the Forest Shores are populated by the diversified descendants of animals trapped by one mean or another atop the plateau. As mentioned, dozens of rivers flow from the Diamond Mountains. The forest is most lush on the banks of the rivers, but quickly thins over distance. The constant bombardment of direct sunlight supercharges the plants. Only water supply limits their conquest of all land around them. Animals of the forest have sizes inversely proportional to the density of the forests.

The eastern side of the plateau is covered by a sea of purple ferns. The Scarpian Plains are similar to savannas of Earth, only without the grasses. Animals can grow large on the plains. Again, their limit is dictated by water supply, not food. At least not directly. Lake Vincennes sits on the western edge of the plains, separating it from the mountains. The lake is deep, formed by a fissure in the crust. It can sink as low as three kilometers. The lake is fueled by rivers from the mountains (which are in turn fueled by mountain springs) or by water bubbling up from within Hypnale’s crust. There are no gilled animals this high away from life’s original water source. Animals found within the lake evolved from land-dwelling animals trapped on the plateau.

Galapagos Mountains

2011-10-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

Siting near the southern coast of the Sunspot Desert is a rather tall mountain range, with some peaks exceeding ten kilometers above sea level. The mountain range is divided into four main plateaus, each over six kilometers high and covering over a hundred thousand square kilometers. From northwest to southeast, the plateaus are named Attenborough, Darwin, Hanzhou and Coppin. What makes the Galapagos Mountains of special interest is that at their altitude, the air is drastically cooler. Despite being in perpetual sunlight, the Galapagos have a relative comfortable temperature, something a kin to the Ethiopian Highlands.

They get their name from the islands on Earth, where life is extremely diverse over a small area. Like their namesake, the Galapagos Mountains are a workshop for evolution. They are oases in an otherwise inhospitable environment. Any lifeforms that can climb their steep slopes to the flatter area above the heat of the desert, quickly adapt and thrive. Parts of the mountains have surface water, mostly in the form of springs bubbling to the surface. Winds, which blow out from the desert, make rain extremely rare. Aside from the springs, the land is still rather arid.

The environment is mostly steppe in nature, with vast fields of purple spread out before the observer. Where water is plentiful, forests of drought-resistant plants grow. Several of the desert species’ seed were blown up the side of the Galapagos, but not all adapted. Some of the Sunspot Desert’s plants are so specialized, that too much water can kill them. Hunting pods will not be found in the Galapagos. For those plants that did survive, they grow far larger than the desert plants, and over the course of millions of years, one desert species can evolve into an entire family, with numerous genera and species.

Desert Sloths

2011-10-04T12:11:00.000-07:00

Pseudosloth (Pseudosloth family)

Description: The name is derived from the knuckle-walking feature of the animal, which protects long claws. The arms of the creature are parallel to the fossilized remains of Terran ground sloths. They are one of the large animals that can be found in the Sunspot Desert, nearly the size of a bison.

Head: They have a powerful beak that can slice through tubers and roots, and jaws that can grind them. Their teeth are lined with a thick enamel that prevents degradation by sand. Their long nostrils allow them to smell food through several meters of soil, as well as springs from kilometers away.

Body: Their short tail serves as a fat reserve, with it swelling up large enough to simply look like an extension of the torso. The rest of the torso is rotund, with thick skin to protect them against dust storms and predation.

Limbs: Their rear limbs are unremarkable, but their forward ones make up for this deficiency. Their forward limbs are longer than their rear limbs, as their fingers are twice as long as their toes. At the tip of each finger is a claw that can measure up to thirty millimeters in length. These powerful claws can be used for digging, as well as grasping at cliff faces and even trees in the Galapagos Mountains. To protect these claws, the animals walk on their knuckles. They shuffle along at a surprising speed for such an ungainly animal, with short bursts of 30 KPH.

Color: Various from species to species, though types of brown tend to dominate.

Internal Structure: Their stomachs are complex and multi-chambered. Given their size and the rarity of plants in the open desert, pseudosloths must utilize every scrap of food they can find.

Diet: Plants of all types. They eat leaves, roots, tubers, and anything their jaws can grind. They even feed upon hunting pods, whose spears can not penetrate the hides of adults. In return, hunting pods can feed on any young that stray too close.

Lifecycle: Pseudosloth of the desert live nomadic lives, constantly on the move. As such, they can not stay behind to protect their young. Eggs are laid in mass, and hatch around the same time. Thousands of hatchlings can emerge within an hour, overwhelming the stomachs of any predators in the area. Once free of their nests, the animals begin a lifetime of wandering. They reach full size in five years, and can continue grazing the desert and highlands for upwards to forty years.

Reproduction: Each female can produce up to fifty eggs. Their reproduction strategy is much like a sea turtle, in that they lay many eggs so that a handful can reach maturity. Females will lay all their eggs in a large, communal nest. The nest is surrounded by round rocks, that look very much like the round eggs. Large rocks in the ground make reaching the eggs more difficult for burrowing animals.

Sociability: Depending on the species, the size of the herd can range from twenty all the way to one hundred. Their size and sparseness of food limits the size. Given their friendly and docile nature, pseudosloth could form herds as large as those that roam East Africa. The instinct to herd is strong, and formed as hatchlings. Since the eggs are abandoned, the young must band together to increase their odds of surviving.

Habitat: Pseudosloths range across the desert, and have climbed into the Galapagos Mountains. Given the steep terrain leading to these mild plateaus, the pseudosloth is the dominate large animal in the region. The species evolved into a dozens of new species and genera to fill the vacant niches in these high mountains. Their development parallel the finches in Earth’s Galapagos Islands, and thus is why the mountains share the name.

Communication: Pouches in their noses inflate to produce a loud, honking noise. The noise is surprisingly high-pitched for an animal of their size. The calls are used more for locating each other than any form of information transfer.

Enemies: As adults, they have only a few; that being the largest predators. As young, all the predators feed upon them. If a pseudosloth can survive hatching and run the gauntlet of predators on the first day, their odds of long-term survival increase greatly. They grow larger every day, which means that many fewer predators can threaten them.

Salamander of the Sand.

2011-10-04T12:03:00.000-07:00

Sanphibian (Humupiscis serpentor)

Description: Sanphibians derive their name from the fact that they swim through the sand in the less rocky regions of the Sunspot Desert. They are between 1 and 2 meters in length and mass about fifty kilograms. They look much like salamanders and newts of Earth, though the appearance is superficial.

Head: Sanphibians have a strange head. At the very top of their head, upon small mounds, are a pair of eyes that only look directly above them. These eyes stick out of the sand and are sensitive to motion, though poor in resolution. They have very wide mouths, more than twice the width of the rest of their bodies. These mouths are tipped with equally long scent-receptors, capable of detecting scents at least ten times better than a vulture. Their mouths are lined with sharp teeth for grasping prey. Once caught, the powerful jaws crushes the life out of the prey before it is swallowed whole.

Body: Their bodies are a tan to red color, blending in with the sands where they are native. They are built much like a fish or an amphibian, best adapted to ‘swimming’ through the loose sand. Their backs are lined with poisonous spines, an evolved defensive mechanism. They do not work against their own species, and many smaller sanphibians can fall prey to cannibals.

Limbs: Limbs are stout and strong, used to propel the animal through the sand. They are also strong enough to support the animal on rockier lands, for when the sanphibian lays eggs.

Internal Structure: Sanphibian lungs are proportionally larger than most desert animals, suggesting they tend to burrow deep enough to require oxygen reserves.

Diet: Anything they can catch that will fit in their mouths. They are ambush predators, waiting for more active desert animals to stumble across their path. All their water is acquired from their prey.

Lifecycle: For the first Earth year after hatching, sanphibians stay in their rocky nurseries. While this small, they are easy prey for pretty much anything. While in the protected areas, the young feed on small desert bugs, either ambushing them, or burrowing after the subterranean arthropods. Once large enough to risk life in the open sands, they abandon their nursery, but do not head into the deep sands. They will continue to hover around rocky areas for the next two years, growing larger and stronger. If they survive these years, then they will head into the deeper sands. Sanphibians live for upwards to twenty years.

Reproduction: Though they might look like newts, they do not spawn. Mating takes place out of the sand in more rocky areas. Here, the eggs are laid in crevices to protect them from both sun and predation. The eggs are colored and textured the same as the rocks, and take two months to develop.

Sociability: They are neither friendly nor aggressive. Aside from instances of cannibalism, sanphibians are largely indifferent of their own kind. No truly social interactions have been observed.

Habitat: Loose, sandy areas of the Sunspot Desert, usually near rocky areas.

Communication: Communication is not understood. They do not communicate by sound, and being buried most of the time, not by sight. It is theorized they communicate by scent.

Enemies: The desert being extremely unforgiving, enemies of the sanphibian include anything large enough to eat them.

Desert Duck-bills

2011-10-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

Grover (Ansersaurus fossura)

Size: The grover is the largest animal to call Hypnale’s Sunspot Desert home. They are ten meter long herbivores, massing up to seven tonnes. In Earth-terms, they largely resemble extinct hadrosaurs in shape.

Head: The general layout of the grover’s head is streamline enough to allow them to burrow through the sand with minimal resistance. Their eyes and noses have flaps that close tightly while the creature is pushing through the sand. The nostrils are at the tip of the snout, which will stick out of the ground while they sleep out of the sun. They have powerful jaws that can grind any plant matter, including needles and thorns. Teeth are not replaced, but rather grow constantly. The act of chewing the tough, and often sandy food wears them down. Their lower jaw juts down into a plough-shape. It is not used for digging, but is rather a pouch in which the female stores the eggs.

Body: Their bodies are stout and rotund, with a large hump sticking out of their backs.

Limbs: Grovers have long, slender limbs, excellent for moving over great distances. Their rear legs are strong enough to allow the grover to rear up on their hind legs, and even to allow them to run for short distances. They have stubby feet that are tipped with hoof-like claws on their hind feet, and large bear-like claws. They use these to tear into the ground

Color: Their hides are tan with brown stripes. They are covered in rough, sand-like scales, thick enough to protect them from the harshest duststorms and to allow them to blend into the ground when they burrow.

Internal Structure: Their skeleton has a series of spines protruding from the backbone These support a fatty hump that can store twenty days worth of water.

Diet: Eating whatever plants they can find. They burrow into the sandy ground to escape the sun, and to root for roots and tubers.

Lifecycle: Both parents carry the share, and as soon as the eggs hatch, they are released to join the small herds of grovers. The hatchlings stick to the middle of the herd, sheltered from the worst of the duststorms and from any predators. If a grover can survive their youth, then are almost certain to live over fifty years, and even as far as eighty. Genetic material is exchanged between herds during the grover’s youth, when the hatchlings wander to far from their home herds and are adopted by passing herds.

Reproduction: As stated before, after the female lays the eggs, she scopes them up with her mouth and they drop into the characteristic pouch on their chins. Grovers mate for life, only taking on a new mate if their previous one dies. Their lifespan is long enough that old females will cease fertility around the age of sixty.

Sociability: Grovers travel in herds of up to fifty, mostly to protect the young. Grovers have a strong parenting instinct, where unrelated adults will care for another’s young. So strong is it, that should one herd’s young be separated and come into contact with a rival herd, that herd will take in the young.

Habitat: They do not range completely over the desert, but rather along the subterranean rivers that exist there, and bubble up into springs. They will move between these oases, or follow the underground rivers, never straying far from reliable food sources.

Communication: Grovers communicate with loud honks.

Enemies: Adult grovers have no natural enemies, but adults will compete over grazing lands. The young will be picked off by any predators capable of handling them.

Desert Crawlers

2011-09-24T15:24:00.000-07:00

Crawler (rutil-capitis repsi)

Size: One of the few predators in the Sunspot Desert, the crawler is a three meter long predator with an abnormally large head for their body size. They are light weight for their length, with a mass of only about one hundred kilograms.

Head: The head of the crawler is shaped like a shovel and is as wide as the body and comprises 30% of the total length. Most of the head is jaws, lined with serrated teeth. These teeth grown back constantly as the crawlers lose many in securing prey. Securing prey is the reason why they have so large heads. In the Sunspot Desert, prey animals are few and far between, meaning crawlers can not afford many failed hunts. Their eyes are small, and covered by a membrane that keeps out dirt and reduces glare.

Body: The name crawler comes from the fact that they crawl along the sands of Hypnale’s deserts. Because of this, their bellies have thick skin that insulates the rest of the body. Their bodies are water tight, not permitting any lose of water, not even through the mouths. Their scales are a parched brown, blending in with the eternally baked rocks of the desert.

Internal Structure: The digestive system of the crawlers is incredibly efficient. Not only do they not lose any water through it, excreting only dry, solid waste, but they are also buoyant. Their bones are hollow and filled with a hydraulic-like flood that supports their skeletons. It also serves as a fat reserve.

Diet: Their diet comes from whatever they can catch, and crawlers will band together to take down larger prey should the opportunity arise. Crawlers will on average eat only a few large meals per Earth year.

Lifecycle: Crawlers have short lives, only about twenty years. Their bodies are bombarded by the red sun above, and their rugged terrain wears down the animals in a hurry. Crawlers start life in clutches, the hatchlings banding together for the first half-year of life. They have little to fear from larger crawlers, since each animal has a strong instinct to not eat their own. This is largely due to the fact that the Sunspot Desert is a harsh enough place to survive without a species fighting amongst itself. When they grow large enough to take their own small prey, the clutch breaks up and scatters across the desert.

Reproduction: With no seasons and living on a tidally locked world, reproduction among crawlers is a sporadic affair. When a female is ready to mate, nearby males pick up the scent and investigate. They attempt to impress her by doing push-ups, and showing off their large heads. This is also used to intimidate rivals. After successfully mating, the female will lay a clutch of between eight and eighteen eggs. The eggs not only resemble rocks, but are as hard as them. With little shelter, and no peace around oases, crawlers lay their eggs out in the open. The thick shells are covered with a highly reflective mineral, keeping the developing hatchling from overheating. When ready to hatch, the crawler releases an enzyme a day before that begins to dissolve the egg from the inside.

Sociability: Crawlers are known to hunt in groups on a regular basis. Not as a pack, but only as a temporary cooperative hunt. This about covers their social grace; not ripping each other to shreds while feeding on a larger carcass.

Habitat: Despite their adaptation to living in the sun-baked desert, crawlers routinely ambush prey from oases. They hide beneath the water and wait, in the same manner as crocodilians. Crawlers have no set territories, as almost all animals in the desert are nomadic. The search for food drives individuals on long treks. At the end of their lives, it is not uncommon for a crawler to have crawled some ten thousand kilometers.

Communication: Crawlers communicate intentions through a series of jerking motions. The most obvious is nodding their head, which is meant as a threat.

Enemies: These are one of the few species on the planet where their own kind are not their own worst enemy. They seldom compete for food, and will share large kills. Their biggest enemy is the environment itself.

Killer plants.

2011-09-23T15:17:00.000-07:00

Hunting Pod (Vesicafolium insidious)

Size: One of the more insidious species living in the Sun Spot Desert is a black, shrub-like plant known as the hunting pod. The plants stand about one meter tall.

Appearance: Their trunk is shaped like a pod, hence their name. Branches extend underground, as far as five meters from the pod. They rise to the surface, bearing leaves and a speartip at the very end. This spear is used to skewer any animal that passes in range. Hunting Pod’s leaves are ultraviolet, appearing black to human eyes.

Internal Structure: The Hunting Pod’s main “body” consists of a pit in the top of its trunk. Inside this pit are the toxins and digestive juices the Pods use to kill their prey and extract the nutrients. They detect prey by hundreds of root-like tendrils that extend from the branches and are sensitive to the slightest vibration. The skewering branches are also covered with leaves as well as the pod. The spears branch out to a radius of five meters, and its roots extend ten meters directly into the ground in a spike-like shape.

Diet: So poor in nutrients and water is the desert, that these plants have evolved a way of extracting both from animals that pass to near. The prey is lifted into the air and dropped into the pod, where they are quickly poisoned and begin to dissolve. These predatory plants rely upon at least one far size kill every fifty or so days, but will take smaller prey that stubbles upon them. The Hunting Pod does not “eat” its prey, instead uses the nutrients taken from it, as well as the water, to power the photosynthesis that makes a plant a plant.

Life cycle: The lifespan of a Hunting Pod is not clear. Though they die when they release their seeds, they could have dozens of clones that have propagated off from the main body, and grown to full size. Afterwards, the clones produce clones of their own, making the genetic code of an individual effectively immortal.

Reproduction: Hunting Pods’ main way of reproducing is a method of cloning called propagation. Only once in a few decades will the plants produce flowers to attract insects. After they are pollinated, the pods begin to bloat and develop seeds. When the seeds are ready to spread, the Hunting Pod will explode, casting the seeds into the air. The seeds are light and have a large surface area, appearing like propeller blades. This allows the air to carry them far from their parents. Seeds will remain dormant until enough water is available for them to germinate. Unless they land next to a spring, a Hunting Pod seed will remain dormant for decades or even centuries.

Range: The Pods are found only in the Sunspot Desert, and only close enough to the springs and oases. They seldom live more than five hundred meters from sources of water. They do not necessarily take the water through their roots, though they do in times of low traffic. Instead they rely upon the nutrient-rich animals that venture towards the spring to drink or take shelter.

Enemies: Hunting Pods, at least their branches and leaves, are vulnerable to the larger herbivores of the Sunspot Desert, such as the Grovers. They can try to spear, but Grovers’s hides are thick enough that the spear can not penetrate. On the rare occasion that they do, the branches tend to be torn off when the grazer runs away.

Hypnale: The Sunspot Desert

2011-09-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

Directly beneath the sun on tidally locked Hypnale sits the most inhospitable piece of real estate on that planet, and most other biofaring worlds. The Sunspot Desert is constantly bombarded by Lalande 21185. In some part of the desert lowlands, temperatures hover around 350K, quite lethal to anything from Earth. As well as deadly for Hypnalaforms. Directly beneath the sun, virtually nothing lives. No free water flows anywhere on the surface of this desert. Underground rivers and lakes are a source of water. These sources have prompted the plants that grow in the less inhospitable regions of the desert to evolve deep roots, as well as vicious defense mechanisms to ward of herbivores.. The animals that make the desert home are all adapted to burrow to avoid the worst of the heat, as well as in search of food and water. Animals that can not go underground do not survive long. Where lakes are closest to the surface, natural springs offer their own form of shelter to the wildlife.

If not for the constant convection of air from the Starward Hemisphere, the desert might well exceed the boiling point. The desert helps regulate the planet’s overall climate. Heat from the desert rises, which forces air from other parts of the world to rush in and fill the void. The hot air flows on the atmospheric conveyer toward the darkness, where it sinks and cools. The heat it transfers prevents the Starward Hemisphere’s seas from freezing completely.

Ecological overview of Hypnale

2011-09-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

Life on Hypnale is some of strangest yet encountered. To start with, skeletons (in animals that have them) are based on cartilage instead of regular bone. This means fossils are virtually absent. The exact process of how the ‘bones’ form is not known, for cartilage alone would not support land animals. High pressure marrow also acts as a support. The hides of animals, especially in the terminator, are resistant to acid, as are leaves on the plant. They coat themselves with similar enzymes that are found within the stomach. Lack of iron in their blood does not stop them from taking oxygen from the air. Oxyginating yellow blood cells care oxygen from the lungs to the rest of their body. This gives their blood an oozing yellowish appearance, much like the innards of a crushed bug.

Vision on Hypnale, like any world, is dependent on the star. Hypnalaforms can see in the range of infrared to green. Blues and purples are not detected by their eyes, since the parent star emits so few of these frequencies. To their eyes, blue and purple would appear as black as ultraviolet light does to a humans’. Infrared plays a big role in plants. All the flowers are either infrared or red. These means they are slightly warm to the touch. Insects are attracted to heat sources since they are likely food sources. The plant eaters have evolved powerful jaw that are capable of making chewing motions. This allows them to digest the hardy plants easier. Another common trait in virtually all herbivores is that they have stubby feet that end with a thick, armored sole. Predators usually move about on all fours, and appear like a quadruped theropod.

Life on Hypnale are carbon based, with water as a medium and breath oxygen. They have adapted to make use of the chlorine in the atmosphere to generate chlorides within their bodies, such as producing their own salts. Plants on Hypnale have leaves that range from dark blue to ultraviolet. This is because they absorb infrared and red to use in photosynthesis, and reflect everything else.

A detailed map of the climate.

A useful, labelled map of climate.

Atmospheric Survey of Hypnale

2011-09-01T18:44:00.000-07:00

Temperature maps

Rainfall Map

The atmosphere is far denser than on Earth, and problems with oxygen toxicity can come into play, with more than 600 millibars of oxygen. For a Terraform, over 500 mb can become toxic. However, any non hypnalaform breathing in the atmosphere will be killed by the chlorine and fluorine, long before oxygen levels build too high in their system. Because the air is denser, winds feel stronger. Hurricanes on the sunward side are seldom weaker than a class four. An additional10 mb of methane keeps the atmosphere toasty warm, with a global average of 300K, even after factoring in the chill of the darkside.

The atmosphere of Hypnale works similarly to the oceans. Warm air on the sunward side rises, creating a pressure difference, which draws in air from the starward side. The warm air is then pushed by more warm air over the terminator, where much of the moisture falls, and into the darkness of the starward side. Here, it cools, falls back towards the ground, and begins the cycle again. This current causes the planet to suffer from constant breezes. Seldom is their calmness in the air. Wind speeds at high altitudes are greater than what are found on most F3 worlds, sometimes flowing twice as fast as Earth’s jet stream.

In the upper atmosphere, water vapor is struck by the feeble ultraviolet radiation of Lalande 22185. This breaks it into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen atom combines with 02 to form ozone. The hydrogen interacts with chlorine to form hydrochloric acid. Chlorine is constantly being washed from the atmosphere, only to be replaced by the acid begin broken into hydrogen and chlorine on the sunward side. Rain mostly falls in the terminator, but snow does fall on the starward side. Because there is so little land in the starward side, the snow falls into the ocean and melts. Temperatures on the starward side of the planet can be 100K lower than the sunward side. Only constant movement of the atmosphere maintains a balance able to support life.

Weather on Hypnale seldom changes within its given climatic zone. The Terminator always sees rain, and the Sunward Zone is always baked dry. However, the heat from the sun that constantly cooks the Sunspot Desert also heats the ocean around the desert. This causes evaporation and the convection of the atmosphere forces the moisture starward. However, the differences in temperature between air and water causes great storms, shrouding the sunward coast of the Terminator in an almost perpetual cloud cover, with daily rain in some places.

The sky of Hypnale varies depending on which part of the planet one stands. On the sunward side, the sky is a pinkish-white, with the orb of Lalande 21185 always glowing above. The terminator suffers from pink and red skies. The darkside is a dark midnight blue. Directly below the sun, it appears to be red and white at the same time. At sharper angles, such as from the Terminator region, the sun is a pulsating, never-moving red orb, bathing the landscape in a reddish glow.

Hypnale suffered from a tidally locked climate. This means the climatic zones are not from the poles to the equator, but rather from the sun to the stars. The sunward side of Hypnale is under constant bombardment from the sun. Lands directly below the sun are baked dry, with rain never falling. The only source of surface water comes from springs that bubble up from underground rivers. The desert is also hotter than the hottest deserts on Earth, with temperatures averaging 340K or higher. Directly under the sun, no life lives. However, further away, where shadows are casts, life clings on to existence in the desert. The oceans beneath the sun are home to continuous storms.

The terminator is where most of the biomass congregates. It is a temperate area covered in vegetation. The closer sunward one travels, the more drought resistant the plants become, with scrubland ringing the Sunspot Desert. Since the terminator is bombarded with rainfall, it is also home to many swamps. The terminator offers a band of purple and ultraviolet that separates the sun and the stars.

The starward hemisphere is locked in perpetual night. Any creature living here must navigate by starlight. More often, they use infrared, echolocation, electric currents and even smell to navigate. The few landmasses on the starward side of the planet are locked in thick glaciers. The snow that falls here never melts. Glaciers build up and are forced into the ocean, where the icebergs are eventually absorbed by the ocean. The air temperature is well below freezing. Only the constant flow of water keeps the ocean from freezing.

Voyage to Hypnale - part 1

2011-08-29T05:02:00.000-07:00

I will now be traveling some distance from the Netherlands and into a new, untitled project I've been thinking about. It'd borrow from AHN, Stardust and Wing Commander, but will be something entirely different. It will take place in the Year 10,000. For the moment, I'm just working on the background material, something to frame future stories.

Ok, onward towards the first planet humanity visited. It's also the first planet in the Lalande 21185 System. When humanity did visit its first oxygen-rich world, it was quite a shock.

Geological Survey of Hypnale

Hypnale is the first planet in the Lalande 21185. Discovered in 3013, the planet orbits its star at a distance of 0.11 Astronomical Units. So close that Lalande has robbed the star of its

rotation, leaving it tidally locked. Both day and year take 19.646 standard days to complete. The standard calender would be all but useless on this planet. It has no moons or any natural satellites. Orbiting closer to its star than Mercury does Sol, one might expect the planet to be useless. Not so; some years after its discovery, the planet’s atmosphere was analyzed, proving its has sufficient life to generate a large volume of oxygen.

The planet is larger than Earth in terms of volume and mass. Where its volume is almost twice that of Earth (1.979 Terran Units), its mass is only approximately 1.2 Terran Units. This stems from a low content of heavy metals in the planet, giving it a density of 0.652 Terran Units. Hypnale has plenty of titanium and aluminum to be exploited. This would prove a treasure trove, if not for the fact th at Luna alone provides more than enough of these light elements for human consumption. The planet has a small metallic core, surrounded by a mantle of silicates proportionally larger than Earth’s.

Plate tectonics have grinded to a halt on this ancient world, stopping the recycling process of elements such as carbon dioxide. Given that the world was tidally locked, it is not suspected to ever have been particularly geologically active. Many of the ancient mountain ranges that formed eons ago have erode. Hypnale’s acidic rain does more to erode the rocks and wash the minerals into the ocean than anything on Earth. The soil of Hypnale contains traces of many different types of chloride. Lack of an internal dynamo has also stalled the planet’s EM field. Fortunately, this will not prove a problem as it will take a span of time longer than our species will ever exist for the atmosphere to be stripped away by the star’s paltry stellar winds.

Oceans cover 77% of the planet’s surface. Do to the content of the planet’s atmosphere, hydrochloric acid exists within the ocean at trace levels. The acidity gives the ocean a slight electric current, not enough to kill an unprotected human (far more quicker ways to die on Hypnale than electrocution), but it would certainly be felt. Though the planet has virtually no EM field, the currents in the ocean act as a sort of guidance system for marine life. Almost all the life in Hypnale’s oceans have evolved methods of detecting electrical current.

Away from the center of the Sunward Hemisphere, the planet has a copious amount of rain to deal with, especially in the terminator regions. This produces a verdant– a poor choice of words, given that planets on Hypnale are purple to ultraviolet– a purple belt along its terminator, where rainfall is nonstop in some regions, as are storms. As already mentioned, the rain is acidic, forcing plants to have evolve defense mechanisms against it, usually in the form of enzymes that coat the leaves. These enzymes have a few parallels to those that line the stomachs of Terran lifeforms.

This map of the Sunward Hemisphere was not created by me. Don't know the real name, and only have the user name Shevek23 to go on. But, I must give credit where it is due.

These other two are all me.

Second Edition - Complete

2011-08-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

Having nothing better to do on my day off, I went through the remaining chapters of An Alternate History of the Netherlands and finished revising. Three hundred pages in one day? Not a problem. The whole concept of WWII has been removed, and in its place are the anti-communard crusades. As wars have the habit of doing, this one spills out of the Balkans. The Dutch and Japanese still go to war, but the U.S. is out of that one. In fact, the U.S. is only in so far as restoring their ally, the Kaiser, back to his throne. Much of this was done with the American Foreign Legions. If I ever start a Third Edition, it'll be refined even further.

As of now, An Alternate History of the Netherlands has only 13 chapters.

Second Edition - Chapter 6

2011-08-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

Chapter 6 feels a bit clunky, and is more a merger of other chapters and sections spread out across many AHN works. Merging them together was the whole goal of the 2nd Edition. The clunkiness is necessary, since the title of the chapter is Revolutions. This discusses the America, French and Brazilian revolutions, the later being non-violent.

One thought has occurred to me. As the Twentieth Century in the Second Edition will be drastically different, that would kind of alter the whole career of Clive Arnold. This means the whole Columbia Front short story/outline deal I've been written might be useless now. Don't know if I'll continue it or not. There hasn't been a whole lot of demand for it.

Second Edition - Chapter 5

2011-08-20T23:53:00.001-07:00

Chapter 5 has been revised. Not only have I went into a little more detail about the Swedish adventure, but I also gave it a new name. The Chapter is now called The Balance of Power. It still deals with the dynastic wars of the 18th Century, and how the United Provinces' alliance with the British keep on dragging them into said wars. Aside from the Seven Years War, which was not very dynastic, the Dutch gained little from the wars. This leads to the reopening of the rift between the two nations in Chapter 6.

State of the Union: Michigan

2011-08-17T13:38:00.000-07:00

The flag is not one of my own production.

Statehood: January 27, 1837
Population: 11,241,811
Area: 253,793 km2
Capital: Detroit
Largest City: Detroit
Crops: Grapes, hops, blueberries, sugar beat
Resources: Timber, fish
Industry: Automotive, agricultural machinery, machine tools

For much of its history the land that would become Michigan was fought over by the Americans and the British. During the Revolution, and again when the British conquered it during the Second Anglo-American War. Detroit was bombarded, and several coastal towns raided during the Third Anglo-American War. During the Great War, it served as a launch-off point for the invasion of Ontario, as well as naval bases for the naval war on the Great Lakes. Following the signing of the Anglo-American Permanent Peace Treaty, Michigan demilitarized.

Since the start of the 20th Century, Michigan, along with other states along the Great Lakes, are the industrial heartland of the United States. Today, Michigan is one of the largest producers of automobiles in the world. It suffered a slight recession during the 1960s when tariffs were relaxed for a time, and cheaper, more efficient foreign automobiles threatened the industry. By the 1980s, Detroit modernized and began producing the cars that the consumer wanted. Along with automobiles, various parts, such as engines and transmissions, are made in Michigan, along with agricultural machinery giants such as John Dear. Precision machine tools are produced in great quality and quantity at factories around Lansing.

Second Edition - Chapter 3 and 4

2011-08-16T04:47:00.000-07:00

Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 of the Second Edition of An Alternate History of the Netherlands is now online. The further along I go in the Second Edition, the more changes will be made.

Not much was changed in these chapters, but that will not be the case with the Fifth Chapter. The entire issue between Sweden and Russia has caused a great deal of flak from those who have read the First Edition. Swedish Russia will remain, but its conquest would not be so easy. Instead of a simple conquest (which was written for the sake of simplification), Sweden is going to spend decades to over a century bringing Russia under control. Since assimilation goes both ways, the less numerous Swedes are going to be impacted far heavier than in #1.

Second Edition - Chapter 1 and 2

2011-08-12T05:48:00.001-07:00

Chapter 1 of An Alternate History of the Netherlands has been updated to the new Second Edition, as has Chapter 2. In this second writing, I'm going to be making a few changes (in the case of the first chapters, very few) to this alternate history. So don't be dismayed if the AHNuniverse website is in disorder for a while.

State of the Union: Iroquois

2011-08-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

Statehood: November 15, 1791
Population: 3,301,136
Area: 31,253 km2
Capital: Oneida
Largest City: Albany
Crops: Apples, cherries, plums, peaches, potatoes, maple syrup
Resources: Timber, minerals
Industry: Military Academy, agriculture, forestry, mining, construction

The Iroquois Confederacy had long standing trade relations with the Dutch and British colonists during the 18th Century. When the British colonies rebelled, the Iroquois at first kept neutral. However, British incursions, and the fact that the Six Nations were tied far more closely to the colonists than Britains itself, the tribes threw in their lot with the Americans. The Iroquois sent delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. However, they were not admitted into the Union until 1791, after Vermont. Despite their alliance with the Americans, there was still some reluctance in Congress to admit an almost exclusively Indian state into the new republic.

During the mass of immigration from Europe, few immigrants settled in the state of Iroquois. The tribes were not eager to let in more white men, and to this day the state is more than 90% Native according to the census. Despite not wanting outsiders to move in, the state has allowed much exportation of its own population. With the start of the skyscraper boom, several construction companies of Mohawk and Oneida took to working high above the streets of New Amsterdam and Chicago, building the steel frames. The most famous denizens of Iroquois are the members of the 231st Regiment, which in turn is part of the 101st Airborne Division.

The admission of Iroquois as a state had a profound impact on Federal relations with other Indian tribes. Those Indians who were loyal allies with the Federal Government were rewarded, allowed to keep their lands free of settlers, and even appropriate the lands of their enemies. The plains tribes, and tribes forcefully relocated by the former Confederate government now form their own states of Lakoda and Oklahoma respectively. Those Indians who resisted the Federal Government were ruthlessly crushed, their lands stripped, and in some cases, all but wiped out.

Because Iroquois was largely bypassed by waves of immigration, it is the only state on the East Coast to still have large stretches of wilderness surviving to this day. The state is also home to the United States Military Academy at Fort Arnold.

On the Columbia Front, Part 5

2011-08-03T14:43:00.001-07:00

Former Canadian Trench

Columbia Front

August 18, 1913

Clive Arnold was starting to develop a distinct dislike of the Cashmere Valley. The geography of the valley was quite vexing. After storming a ridge held by the Tories for the past few weeks, he reached the top of it, minus a good chunk of his company, only to discover more hills and ridges beyond. This time, the enemy occupied a hilly ridge to the south of the Wenatchee River, as well as a rocky outcropping north of it. Any American push further west would be divided by the river, and caught in a crossfire.

If Arnold was in command of the Twenty-Third Division, he would have smashed the fortified hillside towards the north first. It was the lesser of two evils, and lightly manned. The only downside was that its hillside was lightly vegetated, giving advancing soldiers little in the way of cover. It was not a position worth keeping, and the Tories knew it. They placed just enough soldiers and machine guns among the rocks to chew up any advance towards the better developed trenches on the valley’s south side.

From what news he gathered of the outside world, warring fronts across the planet were turning into similar mazes of trenches. Virginia reportedly already had a lovely line of trenches leading from the Appalachians to the Chesapeake Bay. Kentucky was not a whole lot better off. The Ohio Front worried him the most. It had been a couple of weeks since he heard from his old man, the esteemed general. The old man was likely far enough from the fighting to be safe, unless some Confederate airplane lucked out and dropped a bomb right down his chimney.

As if thinking about airplanes were to make them appear, Arnold’s attention soon turned skyward. Inside a trench, even one dug by the Tories, gave him a narrow view of the blue sky above. The sky appeared to be the only part of his world not set ablaze. On either side of the ridge, as well as the river that flowed around it, once lush orchards were burned to the ground and reduced to toothpicks. With his duties to keep him busy, Arnold never once considered what happened to the people who worked the land. He heard a few made it to the relative safety of Cashmere, which only faces intermediate bombardment as of late.

He glimpsed briefly the aircraft, and its American stars upon its wings. A observation plane, probably flying out of the Francher Aerodrome. He still remembered a time before man took to the sky in powered flight. Unlike balloons, airplanes could evade fire from below. Of course, if they did evade, the observer would fail to receive accurate photography. He could not fault the intelligence the Twenty-Third. Reconnaissance did an excellent job on this ridge; too bad they did not say just how to take the position.

The past couple of days gave him a lull in combat. The enlisted men were far from relaxed, but their duties lightened up. Officers– as much as the enlisted man enjoyed grousing about officers, those grunts had a few good breaks. One of the responsibilities of an officer was to record the dead. It was one Arnold did not like. He could think of no officer who liked the task. Despite the lull, he sent out pickets to patrol for weakspots in the Tories’ lines. Three of them did not return.

Three more telegrams. Three more families about to receive the worst news. No, Arnold suppose it was not the worst. Those were the cripples. Still young, Arnold would rather lose his life than his limbs. At least dead, he would not have to live with it. He knew his own mother was one of the millions of mothers across the country waiting in fear for the Union Express. Arnold thought he should write each of the letters himself, but it was not the army way. Telegrams were easier to mass produce.

Arnold rubbed the throb within his temples. Here he was, sitting in a dirty trench, the summer sun pounding down upon him, with certain death waiting the moment he stuck his head out of the trench, and he was stressing over telegrams. Some officers would just let the system deal with it. Arnold felt he owed it to those families to personally write the telegrams. No, they were not letters, but the way this war was starting to drag on, the efficient way would prevail. He only hoped that the losses ahead did not callus himself to the point where he no longer bothered.

Site Construction

2011-07-31T13:19:00.001-07:00

The Wing Commander reboot site has undergone a bit of reconstruction, with each of the short stories being allocated their own section, and the Kilrathi War condensed in term of pages.

Plans have also been made for a Second Edition of An Alternate History of the Netherlands, though the reconstruction of that would take considerably longer as entire chapters may be rewritten and revised.

State of the Union: Cuba

2011-07-31T13:08:00.000-07:00

Statehood: July 14, 1852

Population: 22,314,555

Area: 110,861 km2

Capital: Havana

Largest City: Havana

Crops: Tobacco, coffee, pineapples, tropical fruit

Resources: Timber, oil,

Industry: Tourism, medical, biotechnology

Cuba was purchased along with Florida from the Spanish government in 1819. It was admitted to the Union as a slave state in 1852, but did not secede upon the election of Abraham Lincoln. Cuba remained in the Union during and following the War Between the States. During the Third Anglo-American War, Confederate sympathizers rose up and overthrew the state government, and invited the C.S.A. to ‘liberate’ them. Following 1885, Cuba remained a Confederate State until the Great War. In 1914, after fighting their way through the Bahamas, American forces landed on the island, and drove the Confederates from it. At the end of the war, the Union Government was reinstated in Cuba, and Cuba was readmitted to the Union in July of 1919. During the first weeks of World War II, Confederate Marines landed on Cuba and attempted to take the island, only to be delayed by American Marines long enough for reinforcements to force their surrender. Cuba acted as a stepping stone for the invasion of the Confederate Gulf Coast.

Today, Cuba is home to over twenty-two million Americans, nearly half of them over the age of sixty. It is the most popular destination for retiring workers, and this influx of old folks helps spur Cuba’s economy. It drove a great deal of research into medical technology, and even started a biotech boom in the 1990s. Cuba exports a few tropical cash crops, along with oil off its shore, however the bulk of its income comes from retirees and tourists.

State of the Union: Costa Rica

2011-07-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

Statehood: August 12, 1869

Population: 4,187,355

Area: 126,617 km2

Capital: San Jose

Largest City: Panama City

Crops: Coffee, Bananas, Sugar, Potatoes

Resources: Timber, Minerals

Industry: Tourism, Pharmaceuticals, Plastics, Panama Canal

Following the Mexican War, several private ventures by Americans into the Central American provinces of Mexico lead to military filibusters. By 1854, such an adventure under the command of William Walker created the Republic of Costa Rica, which immediately petitioned the Congress of the United States for annexation. Costa Rica was added as a free territory shortly before the Civil War. During the Civil War and Third Anglo-American War, the enemies of the United States made no serious attempt to seize Costa Rica. In the 1880s, France in their recently aquired Mexican colony began construction of the Nicarugua Canal. In 1903, the United States purchased the province of Panama from Grand Colombia and annexed it to the State of Costa Rica. During the following decade, a joint American, German and Dutch venture went into constructing a competing canal to the Anglo-French project in Mexico. During both the Great War and World War II, Costa Rica played a strategic role in allowing American victory in both wars. Following the war, ships grew in size, prompting the construction of a third set of locks to the Panama Canal, which were opened in 1979.

State of the Union: Cascadia

2011-07-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

Statehood: August 13, 1933

Population: 3,394,155

Area: 450,192 km2

Capital: Vancouver

Largest City: Vancouver

Crops: Wheat

Resources: Timber, minerals, fish

Industry: Forestry, mining, tourism, fishing

The State of Cascadia comprises of the Oregon Country lands between the 49th parallel and 54'40. The land saw little action during the Great War, but was nonetheless ceded to the United States as part of the Permanent Peace between the Americans and the British. The territory was sparely populated, and as with today, more than 60% of the population lived within Vancouver. It was admitted as the 51st state in 1933. During World War II, Vancouver served as a naval base, and as a staging area. The staging area was not so much for Americans, but for Canadians who went off to fight the Japanese in the Aleutians and aid their British cousins elsewhere in the Pacific.

Today, Cascadia is most a sleepy backwater. Much of its economy is based off the resources that are housed in its large area. The biggest industry is that of tourism. The wilderness of Cascadia attracts tourists and vacation-goers from around the county. In the summer, there is hiking and camping, and during the hunting seasons, hunters from both the United States and Canada try their hand. Winter sports keeps the tourists flowing on in, despite Cascadia being one of the coldest states during that time of the year. Its climate allows for less-than-ideal growing seasons, which means much of the state’s food is imported from warmer areas.

Battle for Yuma

2011-06-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

The fighting along the California-Jefferson border proved to be the only bright spot in the entire Confederate war effort. Even a month after the battle of Gettysburg and weeks after the disaster at Cairo, the Confederate western hook reached its apex. The advance across Jefferson was slow, not even reaching within a hundred kilometers of California by the time of Gettysburg. Battle was too strong a word to describe the conflict out west. Since the start of the war, the State of Jefferson has been nothing but a four-month long running battle, skirmishes between small units. The battles were mobile, but consisted of mechanized infantry and artillery. Only a few tanks were seen on either side of the battle. With a large portion of the aerospace industry in California, Americans had a decisive advantage in air power.

The start of August found the Confederate Army surrounding the city of Yuma. In the morning of August 5, Confederate forces stormed the town. For all day and night, both sides battled in street-to-street, and even house-to-house combat. By August 6, the Confederates had a firm toe-hold on the city. With more time, they likely would have crossed the Colorado River within a week. The battle ended that same day. It was not the fault of the local commander, Brigadier General Howard Wellington III, but the disasters back east forced Birmingham to recall all units out west.

The assault was abandoned after a day, and Confederate forces retreated across Jefferson. With American forces taking full advantage of the retreat, Wellington ordered a scorched Earth policy in his retreat. Railroads and highways were destroyed, any factories in the path of the Confederates were destroyed. Marginal farmlands were destroyed, along with the irrigation network built up by both American and Confederate settlers over the past sixty years. Wellington later stood trial at Charleston for his actions in the retreat. Unlike most Confederates at the Charleston Trials, Wellington was not sentenced to death. Instead, he faced ten years in a federal prison, and upon release he left the restored Union to become an advisor to the rebel government in Mexico.

Cuba in World War II

2011-06-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

On April 2, 1940, some forty thousand Confederate Marines, under the command of Brigadier General Holland Smith (an ironic name for a Confederate), serged across the Florida Strait. Landing at and around Havana was largely unopposed, save by a few irregular militia. The city fell without a fight, and a supply line was established between Havana and Confederate ports along the Gulf Coast. The lone U.S. Naval squadron in the city found itself victim of the Confederate Air Force. In one of the few clear-cut Confederate victories of the short war, the American squadron was sent to the bottom, with most of its crew.

The victory was short-lived, as Smith failed to carry up his attack and completely subjugate the entire island. Opposing him was but a small U.S. Marine garrison of ten thousand under the overall command of Colonel Marion “Duke” Morrison. Instead of fighting them straight on, and since a USMC unit has never surrendered, Morrison gave the order to break up his unit and take to the hills. The guerilla war lasted until badly needed reinforcements could come in from the north. In response to these attacks, the Confederates enacted harsh reprisals against the civilian populations under their control, including taking of hostages for each attack.

After a month of fighting, and slowly being bled, Smith ceased patrols in the countryside under platoon strength, and fortified his own positions within the cities. As the war entered its second month, the United States Navy began to take control of the waters around Cuba, severing supplies with the mainland. With the landing of the U.S. Army, under the command of Eisenhower, Smith soon found himself outnumbered and now the hunted. He fought a delaying action as Eisenhower slugged his way north and west from Guantanamo (which the Confederates failed to take).

Trapped in Havana and under siege, it was Smith who was forced to surrender along with his surviving Marines, thus ending the existence of the C.S.M.C. in October of 1940. His defeat paved the way for Operation Overlord, and the end days of the Confederate States themselves. For his own actions on the island, Morrison found himself promoted to Brigadier General, and put in command of a Marine Division in the Pacific.

State of the Union: California

2011-06-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

Statehood: September 9, 1850

Population: 37,463,102

Area: 567,366 km2

Capital: Vallejo

Largest City: San Francisco

Crops: Grapes, Citrus Fruit

Resources: Minerals, Lumber, Fish

Industry: Aerospace, Entertainment, Banking

California entered the Union without territorial status. During the Mexican War, Federal agents, such as John Fremont, convinced the Californios that they would get a better deal being one of the United States. Thus, they rose up against the central government in Mexico. Only shortly after gaining control of California by treaty, a gold strike in the Sierras brought in a flood of immigrants from around the world. Further gold strikes brought in more prospectors. Many returned home after they failed to strike it rich, but hundreds of thousands stayed and settled the Central Valley.

The influx of immigration by sea, as well as trade up and down the Sacramento River, lead for San Francisco, and its superb natural harbor to become the largest port on the West Coast. Other ports, such as Los Angeles and San Diego would grow in importance as the 20th Century progressed, with the latter being home to the Pacific Fleet prior the Great War. Los Angeles brought in hundreds of thousand of workers during World War II, and most of those stayed after the war was complete, turning the port into a sprawling urban complex. With the annexation of San Jose in 1947, and Oakland a couple of decades later, San Francisco reclaimed its spot as the largest city in the state, reducing parts of Los Angeles to ghost town status.

State of the Union: Florida

2011-06-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

Florida's population that would have existed within our own world migrated further south, to the State of Cuba, and a few still further south to the State of Costa Rica. Cuba is the most popular relocation destination for old folks in the AHN's United States.

Statehood: March 3, 1845; readmission: May 12, 1948

Population: 7,301,410

Area: 170,304 km2

Capital: Tallahassee

Largest City: Jacksonville

Crops: Citrus fruit, tropical fruit, sugar, tobacco, corn, tomatoes, strawberries

Resources: Timber

Industry: Agriculture, tourism, aerospace

Florida was admitted to the Union on March 3, 1845 as the 27th State. Its union with the United States was short as it seceded on January 10, 1861. Florida served as a strategic location for the Confederate States of America, and held several naval bases, as well as shipyards in the panhandle. Western Florida saw Operation Overlord in 1941, where the United States launched an assault against the Confederacy’s soft underbelly. Following the dissolution of the Confederate States of America, Florida was one of the first former Confederate States to be readmitted to the Union.

Today, Florida is demographically split between the populous north and vacant and largely rural south. The largest city in southern Florida is Fort Lauderdale, home to the 61st Armored Dragoons, with a population of 43,102. Most of southern Florida is given over to the Everglades National Park. Northern Florida holds 6.5 million of the state’s inhabitants along with the bulk of its agriculture and industry. Heavy industries, such as the aerospace giants, Lockheed, Convair and Boeing-Martin employ tens of thousands of workers in the Jacksonville-Gainsville area, as do Lockheed owned shipyards in Pensacola.

Confederate Disaster

2011-06-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

Battle of Cairo

Even more so than the events at Gettysburg, a couple weeks earlier, the events on July 17, 1940, sounded on of the death nails of the Confederate States of America. What occurred on that day was the most disastrous attempt at a river crossing in modern warfare. Lacking air support– in fact, the United States had its own Air Superiority over the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers– the Army of the Tennessee attempted a crossing of the Ohio east of Cairo, Illinois. American General Omar Bradley had his own 2nd Army dug into and around the city.

Confederate crossing of the Ohio was but a repeat of the American crossing of the Ohio at the start of the Great War, in 1913, up to the point of using the same technology. Open barges, riverboats, and anything that could float, were brought together by the Army of the Tennessee. Armor faced a more difficult challenge. Confederate riverboats were all the army had to escort it across the river. The gunboats were the first targets destroyed by American dive-bombers. After the gunboats were sunk, American air, river and artillery units chewed to pieces the Army of the Tennessee.

On that single day, Bradley succeeded in doing what Arnold failed to; he destroyed the enemy army. Not since the days of Rome had a single army lost so many soldiers in a matter of hours. More than a few companies within the Confederate Army faced casualty rates upwards to 70%. By night fall, what remained of the Army of Tennessee was in full retreat, in some cases unit discipline all but gone. Bradley faced disorganized resistance in his own invasion of Tennessee, mostly from dissolved units of Confederate who have fell back on bush-whacking and other irregular tactics.

Modern Battleship

2011-05-31T08:37:00.000-07:00

P-58 Firebat

2011-05-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

Type: Pursuit Plane

Crew: 1

Length: 13.6 meters

Wingspan: 11.1 meters

Max speed: 790 kph

Range: 3,000 km

Ceiling: 13.5 km

Armament: 4, 20mm cannon

up to 2,000 kg payload

First flight: 1942

Introduced: 1944

Manufacturer: Convair

Built: 2,500

The Firebat was the United States Army Air Corps’ premier fighter during the later years of World War II. It is one of the few swept-winged piston engine fighters to ever be built. The airplanes saw nearly exclusive combat in the skies over Europe. The aircraft was designed to serve as escorts to the B-23s and B-27s that bombed targets within Fuhrer Germany. Its role as an air superiority fighter was only surpassed with the advent of jet-powered aircraft developed in Fuhrer Germany to shoot down the bombers. Even then, against the primitive jet fighters, the Firebat still held its own. For every 10 P-58s shot down, 7 jets were downed. It is fortunate that the Fuhrer did not order the development of jet fighters in 1942 instead of 1944.

Along with escort duty, the P-58 saw action in close-air support. In the ground attack role, P-58s shot up rail and other infrastructure targets with unguided rockets. It helped smash the Wesser Pocket in early 1946. The aircraft was phased out following the war, and none remained in service by 1950. The P-58 was highly maneuverable and very able fighter; however, with the advent of jet technology, a piston-engine fighter could no longer compete on the world stage.

Air War over Pennsylvania

2011-05-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

In the first months of World War II in North America, a fierce battle took place over the skies of Pennsylvania. Both the U.S. and C.S. battle for dominance, though both sides took different approaches. The Confederates, with limited industry of their own, relied upon imported German fighters, and what was built in the south was often licenced from other companies. The Confederate Air Force was predominately a fighter and tactical bomber force. Fast Messerschmidt and Dixie-Martin fighters escorted dive-bombers and twin-engine bombers. Both were used to destroy U.S. Army targets and fortifications. The Confederates put only a token effort into destroying American industry. Those bombers that were not used by Patton on his march north, were often seen terrorizing Philadelphia. A few strategic raids were attempted early in the war; bombing runs on factories in Pittsburgh as well as docks and shipyards in Baltimore and New Amsterdam.

The U.S. Army Air Corp took a different approach. Fighters were used largely as interceptors, shooting down what few bombers the Confederates threw at American cities. Daily, over rural Pennsylvania and Maryland, fighters on both side circled in a deadly serious dance. Hundreds of fighters on both sides were downed in those first three months. The C.S.A.F.’s biggest disadvantage was that of numbers. They simply ran out of skilled pilots before the Army Air Corps. More Confederate bomber pilots were downed by ground fire than American interceptors. The same was said about the American Strategic Air Command. Four-engine bombers produced by Boeing and Convair targeted the industrial heartland of the Confederacy. Though losses were great, the bombers hit cities like Atlanta and Birmingham in daylight hours to great effect. Unlike night-time raids, the daytime bombers could zero in on industrial targets and destroy them, slowly eroding what little industrial capacity the Confederate States possessed.

In the end, the Air War over the Mid-Atlantic States was one of attrition, where the United States had far more pilots and aircraft.

Battle of Gettysburg

2011-05-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

At dawn, on April 1, 1940, the Army of Virginia forced a crossing of the Rappahanock river, thus beginning World War II in North America. General George Patton personally lead the Right Hook of his three-pronged war plan, aiming his army at Philadelphia. His original projections was to storm across Lincoln and Maryland, being in the U.S. Capital within a month. His plans relied too much upon the effectiveness of modern armor, most of which he commanded being imported Panzers. What he failed to calculate was the resolve of American militia and the long-term planning of U.S. General Clive Arnold. Patton drove relentlessly north, battling Lincoln and Maryland National Guard units the whole way. It was no straight-up fight, but rather a prolonged guerilla campaign. Arnold used these units to slow down his enemy, whose only real advantages were speed and surprise. Without either, war would bog down like it did during the previous war.

Arnold moved the 1st Army into place in southern Virginia, at a rail and road junction in the little-known town of Gettysburg. To take Philly, Patton would have to pass through this town. Both the railroad and highways passed through the little valley the town rested upon. Arnold fortified the hills and ridges around the town with bunkers and artillery. Tank traps and trenches were dug at the southern entrance to town, between Cemetery and Seminary Ridges, which in turn were dug in with anti-tank gun. Arnold had the traps camouflaged and relied upon Patton’s aggression to have the Confederate General trap himself. He was not disappointed.

On July 1, more than two months behind schedule, the spearhead of the Army of Virginia ran smack into the traps. Stuck tanks were quickly killed by anti-tank guns. The blunted spearhead upon State Route 76, caused a bottleneck of Confederate armor, a perfect target for the M-18 Badgers. Arnold used the tank destroyers to great effect, and Patton would later say it was those very tank destroyers that cost him the battle. Gettysburg was, at the time, surrounded by orchards, making armored movement precarious and unit cohesion difficult. Patton had little choice but to send in infantry, supported afar by tank guns, to storm each of the hills and ridges around Gettysburg.

Some of the bloodiest fighting was seen on July 2, when an entire regiment of Confederate soldiers was chewed to pieces storming the southern most hill, Round Top, where American artillery gnawed away at Patton’s flanks. Patton was a genius on the offense, but his defensive doctrine left much to desire. Confederate soldiers did take Little Round Top, only to be ejected by a costly American counterattack near dusk. At nightfall, both sides remained in stalemate. Night time attacks by Confederate commandos succeeded in capturing land between Cemetery Ridge and the Round Tops, cutting off the defenders there.

At dawn, Patton ordered the Round Tops suppressed by Confederate artillery and dive-bombers, while a full scale charge on Cemetery Ridge commenced. At the time and in his mind, his choices were limited between withdrawing south or charging forward. Never a man to back down, Patton gave the order to charge. For five hours, Confederate and American units slugged it out for Cemetery Ridge, with Confederates achieving limited gains. Had he another day, Patton may have taken the ridge, even after suffering 20% losses in his armor. That was not to be.

Arnold moved the bulk of his own armor, both tanks and tank destroyers, south. The flanking move took most of July 2, moving nearly thirty miles around Gettysburg. While Patton struggled to take Cemetery Ridge, Arnold’s own armor slammed into Confederate supply lines on the highway south. Arnold’s intent was not just to destroy Patton’s supply lines, but to encircle the Army of Virginia and either force it to surrender or to destroy it. With his supplies threatened, and encirclement imminent, Patton reluctantly gave the order to fall back– he never once uttered the word retreat.

The Army of Virginia’s retreat was less than orderly, with damaged vehicles and weapons forming a wake of litter than American fighters followed. It was the high-water mark of the Confederate invasion, and the beginning of the end of the Confederate States as an independent entity. Patton’s own aggression, inability to advance as fast as he planned, and inability to achieve air superiority over the battlefield that cost him the war at Gettysburg. It was Arnold’s own inability to achieve the same air superiority that failed to end the war then and there. Neither side utilized aircraft to their full effectiveness, but both sides did prove the value of armor and anti-armor weapons at Gettysburg.

Confederate War Aims

2011-05-22T13:56:00.001-07:00

Upon taking power, the Confederate Bund began planning to take back what it lost. The Confederate States were broken after the Great War, and were far from an industrial giant to begin with. Factories continued to function in the northern halves of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia, but beyond these regions the country was still largely agrarian. They were heavily dependant upon imported weapons from friendly regimes, especially the fascists in Germany that drove the Kaiser and his government into temporarily exile in Germany’s River Platte colony. With their own delusions of grandeur, the Bund, as well as the Confederate President, plotted their revenge upon the United States.

The Greater Confederate States of America.

1) To regain all lands and states lost to the Untied States in 1916.

2) To bring all the former slave states into the Confederacy, including Missouri, Maryland and Delaware.

3) For good measure, to bring Costa Rica into the Confederacy, along with the Costa Rican canal.

4) To evict enemies and former allies alike from the Caribbean Sea and Central America, turning it into a Confederate Lake.

5) To disarm the United States.

It was all but impossible to defeat an opponent with more than twice the population and as much as ten times the industrial capacity, even with aid from Fuhrer Germany. Most generals told Bedford that it simply could not be done. These senior generals were dismissed from their positions, making way for more ambitious generals. The foremost of the Confederate War Effort being one Brigadier General Patton from Georgia. He could only promise a quick victory; if the war lasted for more than six months, the odds rapidly turned against the C.S.A. His plan was simple.

Right Hook: A swift drive on the U.S. capital in Philadelphia, decapitating the American leadership.

Upper Cut: A drive to take Chicago and the railroad hub there, cutting the U.S. in half.

Left Hook: A drive into California to either capture or destroy the major naval base at San Diego.

Stardust: Towne, Chapter Fin

2011-05-15T10:50:00.001-07:00

Last chapter of Towne.

Chapter 11

Andreas cursed from his hidden location. He knew Katrina would get into trouble. He searched the town all day, with no sign of her. Just before sunset, he spotted a patrol of Knight and took cover in a bombed out house. To his dismay, he spotted Katrina, Matilda and a bunch of children being lead away. They must be headed to one of the detention camps, perhaps the one Andreas saw on the outskirts of town.

Those were, of coarse, the infamous processing centers of the Knights. Andreas only knew of rumors, stories told by refugees. They said that those who went in, never came out. They spoke of genetic purges, of the extermination of entire villages and towns. And eventually of colonization by Naveinans. Pi Showna was one such location. The Knights came in, cleared it all out, and The People built their new city on top of it. What would happen to those colonist when the original inhabitants liberated the area? Andreas could only speculate, but they would likely meet the same fate as the originals.

Not that any of that currently did Katrina any good. Her future suddenly got a lot shorter unless Andreas could bail her out. Again. It was starting to develop into a bad habit; she lands in hot water and he has to save her. Just once he would like to meet a woman who was a little more self-sufficient. No matter; he was not about to abandon her, especially to those savages. Something told him, waltzing into the camp with guns blazing was not going to work here. In Shownastadt, he had surprise on his side. Here– the Knights expected attacks, and would crush them swiftly.

Andreas had to think his way around this obstacle. He was up to the challenge, but found life so much simpler when he could shoot his troubles. Andreas made his way through the rubble and ruin of Contra, his mind focused on the devastation. He certainly did not want to have to clean up this mess. Would the town ever be the same again? Might just be easier to plough it under and plant atop it. For the time being, everyone would just have to move to the big city. Tropico City should be in more or less one piece, and with The State’s fleet moored at the bottom of the sea– this invasion will never reach the capital.

If he was lucky, they would not even hold on to what they have taken. The artillery has not moved all day. Andreas made his way out of town, keeping his head low. The best plan he can cook up was to take to the outskirts of town, stalking low through the corn fields. He did not like moving on his own, not when he could end up dead. As a rule, the Golden Hammers did not approve of its employees going solo. Too easy to land in an ambush. The more pairs of eyes, the more likely nobody could get the drop on them.

Andreas had little choice now. His buddies were probably still up in that plantation, sorting through the dead. Dwarves have their own ways of disposing of the dead. Sapiens follow the Ancient tradition of coming from fire and water and returning to it– at least the fire part. Water was not always available, but an industry grew up around that too. Shipping ashes to the seas was a small business, but it got done. Pygmaeus, on the other hand, lived beneath the ground. Naturally, they died below the ground as well. They buried their dead, in single plots. It seemed strange to Andreas, but some Sapiens have adopted the same practice.

For the moment, the dwarves were digging individual holes for each of the Knights’ victims. As far as he knew, they simply left the Knights to rot where they lay. Perhaps the ravens will get some use out of them. Andreas could not care either way. They would get whatever they deserved. As for the others. Andreas still had a hard time believing what he saw. He tried not imagine seeing Katrina’s body slumped over in one of those trailers.

Andreas shook his head. He was not sure when, but sometime along the line, feelings started to develop. He always did his best to keep detached from life. Too much pain and suffering came from attachment; a lesson he learned the hard way. Normally, he would bail anybody out of trouble with the Knights, or any other invaders. But now, his thoughts focused more on Katrina. At first, that was the case with her. He felt– he was responsible for her apprehension, and was compelled to bail her out. Since then, they did little but bicker and argue, and still he could not keep his thoughts from her. If anything were to happen–

Andreas did not want to consider it. He failed one he cared about before, he would not do it again. His own feelings are what shocked him the most. She was difficult, stubborn and plain irritating at times, but they were connected. If his actions were driven by responsibility, would he have put up with her for so long? No, he would have dropped her off in the first safe harbor and been on his way. He certainly would have caught his ship in time.

Andreas scowled at himself. He had a job to do, not a time to get all sentimental. He can sort out his mind after he freed her, and the rest of that camp. Katrina would have to come first, as for the camp– he knew he would need most of the gang for that. After what they saw in that coffee plantation, they will be more than eager to pay back the Knights.

Andreas kept to the shadows of dusk as he approached farmland. He was close enough to safety that he dared not gather attention. Nothing like getting caught right at the end to ruin a man’s day. Not to mention, if he should live, he would never hear the end of it. The nearest corn fields were already partially trampled. Others had the same idea as Andreas, though their tracks led east. He was headed more towards the north. There lay the only detention camp in town, at least he hoped so. Contra was small enough that one should suffice. If he were wrong, and Katrina was elsewhere–

No, Andreas learned long ago not to dwell on ‘ifs’. He kept his mind on the corn field. Aside from the trails already cut through, there was no sign of inhabitants. No farmers, no ground sloths coming down from the hills, not even squawking hobblers. Everyone must have left Contra at the foot of the Naveinan invasion. After all the fighting, the fields were too quiet. He walked gingerly to keep his shoes from crushing stalks beneath them. Tropicans were not use to this level of silence. Even at night, there was an ambient sound of bugs and birds. When the crickets kept quiet, that was a time to worry.

He picked up the Knight’s trail by the very same way. Vehicles and marching boots were the only sound detectable, and easy to track. He already knew the camp’s location, but this told him traffic would be heavy. The nearest corner of the barbed-wire fence orbiting the camp skirted the cornfield. It gave Andreas the perfect vantage point. He could see clearly towards the camp’s center. It was little more than a neighborhood of Contra, relatively undamaged, and encircled with fortification. He spotted no trailers or anything immediately noted as insidious.

Knights roamed the roof tops of a two story building. At one point or another, it must have been a shop, or a Tropican official building, but not now. Now it served as an impromptu lookout tower. The roof was sandbagged and Andreas spotted machine guns at each corner. They pointed down into the detention camp. They could hardly stop an attack, but most certainly would put down any uprising. There was one vehicle inside the camp, though many more on the outside, and that was a mobile surface-to-air missile launcher. Four missiles sat on a rack on the bed of a truck. It was hardly enough to stop an air raid, but it would be enough to shoot down a snooping aircraft.

No doubt that the Knights wanted to keep their practices secret. That made on thing self-evident; whomever went into a camp, they had no intention of releasing them alive. Andreas searched the crowd pressed into the former neighborhood square. Less than fifty gray wearing men walked in the crowd, and all of them were armed. Andreas estimated about two hundred in the crowd, two hundred Tropicans that it. He spotted no pygmaeus, but plenty of sleek and slender forms of elves. The Party had a special hatred towards them.

He also spotted some short folks, a few of those green. Goblins and gremlins were not even Terraforms, much less human, so Andreas was surprised to see them alive. The other shorties were children, both elf and sapien. Only a few redheads were in the mix, and only one had the dark red color of Katrina. His eyes locked on to her. She stood, humbled and nervous, but still protective. Five children surrounded and clung to her. One of those had to be Saul.

“Nice going,” he muttered to himself. “You found him alright, but you forgot the part about escaping.” Katrina sure caused him plenty of trouble. He was unsure what he would do without her. Probably be out with the rest of the Golden Hammers, resisting this invasion. Then again, he would only have himself to worry about; dwarves being more than capable of taking care of themselves.

Andreas’s attention drifted over towards the Knight with the fancy collar. He was no mere officer. He walked like he owned the place. Andreas could not tell his rank, but it was clear this was the man in charge. The only details he could make out were the gray uniform and one mean scowl on his face. He looked like the type who was just plain mad at the world, all the time. He was struggling to impose some sort of order on the camp.

“In line!” Andreas could hear the venom in his voice from his hiding spot. “Goblins over there!”

“What am I suppose to do with more goblins, Colonel Wood?” one Knight shouted over the crowd.

Wood turned to glare at the announcing Knight. “Process them immediately!”

Process– what a holesome word for it. Andreas had a fair idea what sort of process the goblins, three of them, would go through. The Knight commander, Wood, stomped over to an arrangement of Knights herding their latest catch into the camp. “How many times do I have to tell you, no goblins! Don’t bother bringing the vermin here. Deal with them on the spot!”

One of the Knights talked back, but Andreas could not make out the words. He could guess though. Something along the lines of; ‘if we shoot them on the spot, then the humans won’t cooperate because they’ll know what’s in store for them’. Times like this, Andreas wish his imagination was not so active. What sort of twisted person could come up with that, and the fact Andreas applied those words, certainly made him think less of himself.

Still, that must be what the Knight said. “Deal with it!” Wood snapped, before trudging back to inmates. Knights had an appearance as thugs and butchers, and it struck Andreas as ironic. The mafia in general is thought of as a pack of thugs in most countries. Only Tropico treated them anything like legitimate businesses. It appalled Andreas that the underground economy would be lumped into the same category. The Golden Hammers would never exterminate entire populations. They would only go after rival gangs, and only when provoked.

“Why are you here?” Wood asked the first man in the front line. He appeared to be an elf. The elf talked back to Wood, probably proclaiming his innocence. Instead of listening, Wood struck him down with his fist. “Wrong! You’re unnatural! You’re a freak of nature! You are an elf!”

Andreas shook his head. Since when was being born an elf a crime? Not like they had much of a choice in the matter. He watched as Wood moved down the line, asking the same question over and over, and always amending the answer, and always with a slap. He reached the first dwarf in the crowd, whom answered the question by spitting in Wood’s eye. In response, four Knight jumped him, beating him to the ground. The dwarf fought back with all he had, but outnumbered four-to-one.

In the end, he was subdued and dragged off in the same direction as the goblins. He would be dead in minutes. Not many could chose how to die, and dwarf decided to go out like a dwarf; stubbornly. As much respect he had for the dwarf, he had the same amount of loathing for the Knight. His pistol was beneath his jacket, and he could probably cap him now. He would too, if he only knew how the Knights would react. They might very well kill everyone inside the camp in retaliation. Andreas prided himself on never missing a target, but also with never harming a non-professional. He was not about to blotch his record.

He finally reached the children around Katrina. He asked the same question to the first one, and much to his surprise, received no answer. “I said, ‘why are you here’? Answer me!” Andreas squinted, trying to identify the boy. No, it was not Saul. At least he thought it was not. Why did he keep silent? Was he putting on a brave front? No, more likely he was just scared silent.

“Can’t talk?” Wood grabbed him by the head and jaw. He tried to pry his mouth open. “Don’t you have a tongue? Or maybe you’re just too stupid to talk. The world has no need of defects!”

“Leave him alone!” Andreas heard the familiar voice, and rolled his eyes. She just had to open her big mouth. Andreas could pick out her Naveinan accent all the way here. He leaned up against an old tree stump and sighed. He came all this way to rescue her, and Katrina went and shot her mouth off. He just hoped the Knight did not shoot her dead, otherwise this would be one short rescue mission.

“You! Why are you here?” Wood asked, but in a much different tone. He was not asking why she was in the camp, but why she was in Tropico. “You are one of The People! I can hear it in your voice. Why are you here? Are you a Red? A traitor to The State?” Wood was being rather forceful with his questioning. Both hands latched firmly to her shoulders, and the Knight tried to shake an answer out of her.

Katrina said nothing. Oh sure, now she was speechless. Seeing the Knight rough her up was almost enough to make him go charging in now. Only his cool professionalism stopped him from doing anything boneheaded. He will not go rushing in without a couple dozen heavily armed mobsters at his side. No, playing hero was a short career path.

Not everyone felt the same way. One of the boys did break ranks and charge Wood. He slammed into the Knight, and started pounding on him with clenched fists. Andreas shook his head. The poor fool had no idea what he is getting into. Andreas recognized him as Saul. He did not know the children of Contra as well as others, but he did recognize that one from a few days ago.

Wood responded viciously. He back-handed Saul with full force, sending him flying to the ground. Andreas waited for the Knights to come and take him away, but they just stood fast. Instead, Wood reached to his holster, drew his own sidearm and fired at Saul. For the first time in his life, Andreas actually flinched at the sound of gunfire. He heard only one shot, followed by a scream of horror, a scream from Katrina. She howled with shock before going limp, and fainting to the ground.

“That could have been Gus,” Andreas hissed through clenched teeth as his fist slammed into an old tree stump. “That could have been Gus.” He wanted to shout it, but had to keep it at a whisper. He was too close to the camp for that. The thought that those butchers would do anything to Gus, it made his blood boil. Perhaps the kid was lucky to die long before living through this.

Andreas withdrew into the safety of corn stalks. He only stuck around long enough to see what would happen to Katrina. If anything bad, he knew he would have to act fast. But no, she was not taken away by the Knights. Instead, the other inmates took her off to one of the crowded longhouses. They were all native to Contra, and word spread fast. They knew she was a Naveinan, but did not hold it against her. After so casually murdering a child, Andreas was surprised when he did not shoot Katrina. Perhaps he really was interested in knowing why she was in Tropico. When he questioned the others, it sounded more like a power trip on his behalf than an inquisition.

Andreas fumed in his hiding spot for the next few hours. He waited the night through, observing the movements of the guards. Knights on rooftop paid only the minimal of attention to the inmates. None where out and about during the night hours. He expected much more discipline out of the Knights. They were treating the dark hours as a long break. With no superior officers on patrol, perhaps they felt more lax. It would be a great time to attack. If the dwarves could come underneath the officers’ quarters, then taking the camp would be a snap– well, maybe if one discounted mounted machine guns above them.

Andreas waited through sunrise. There was a call for breakfast, but only for the Knights. If the inmates received any food, he did not see it. Perhaps they were fed in their longhouses, or more likely, were not fed at all. Why feed them when they were just going to be shot or gassed anyway? It was a cold, calculating way to run a camp. As far as Andreas, and the hole of the underground were concerned; it might cost quite a bit to take out a hit, but it did not cost a single dinar extra to be civil about it. Which of course meant no capping the target before breakfast or dinner.

Andreas inched his way towards the fencing. The camp was solemn, calm. After seeing dissent brutally crushed, the prisoners were reluctant to cause any fuss. They congregated in small groups, no more than ten each. Little talk filled the air. Andreas could not stand the quiet; it made anything he did all that much easier to detect. He waited until the groups became more vocal before moving towards the fence line.

He breathed easily once he spotted Katrina. She was curled up near the fence, which made it all the more easier for him to contact her. She sat curled up, her face buried against her knees. Andreas could imagine what went through her mind. He experienced the same when Gus died. He crawled his way close enough to touch her before speaking out.

“Katrina,” he whispered. No response. “Katrina!” He raised his volume by a notch.

Katrina slowly rose her head and looked towards him. “Andreas,” she said weakly. Her eyes were red and puffy, from a night’s worth of mourning. She did not sleep a second the night before, instead sobbing into her arms. The shelter around her life was leveled by a devastating attack.

Andreas nodded. “Yes, it’s me.”

“They killed him,” the moment she spoke, more tears ran down her face. “They killed him!”

Andreas cringed at her voice, too loud for his comfort. “Please, Katrina, keep your voice down.”

“They killed him, and I couldn’t do anything,” Katrina’s face lost any emotion. “They killed Saul because of me. I never came back–“

Survivor’s guilt. Before Gus died, Andreas wrote is off as a bunch of nonsense. How could anyone feel guilty about living? Andreas found out, the hard way. He already traversed the path she was now on. He could not think of any words to comfort her. Instead, he reached out and grasped her shoulder. “Just hang on Katrina, I’ll get you out of here.”

Katrina’s hands moved up and grabbed his. He looked into her eyes, and saw not the defiant, stubborn woman he escorted across Marasuania, but rather a vulnerable and hurt girl. “Andreas–“

”Just hang on,” Andreas repeated. “I’m going to gather up the gang, and we’ll be back before nightfall. We’re going to get you out of here.”

“Don’t leave me,” Katrina pleaded.

Her words and expression stung at his heart. “You have to wait, hold out a few hours. I’ll be back– I’ve lost too much in my life, and I don’t want to lose you.” His hand moved from hers and caressed her face. So soft, yet so sad. She was a tough one, and would recover from this loss– but she would never be the same. “I can’t do this alone. I promise I’ll get you out of here, but I have to leave for the moment, ok?”

Katrina nodded slowly. “I trust you.”

Of all the things she could have said, that put the pressure on Andreas. Now he could not fail. If the dwarves could not afford the help, then he would have to return alone. He did not foresee that happening, not when so much blood was between the Golden Hammers and the Knights. Andreas took his attention off Katrina and glanced around the roof tops. No Knights were watching. Why should they be concerned about a lone inmate curled up by a barbed wire fence. Nobody could get past the three meter tall barrier without cutting themselves to pieces and crying out in pain. When that happened, they would just shoot the escapee.

Andreas drew his hand back through the gaps in the fence. “Just hang on, I’ll be back.” He turned around without another look and began to slither his way through the cornfield. He could not look back; the heartbroken face and pain-filled eyes were just too much for him to take. He would be back, that much was sure. He only hoped he was not too late.

Andreas did not know if he should be surprised the tunnels still stood, or surprised that the Naveinans hold non-sapiens in such contempt, as to not bother sealing them. Whatever the case may be, the underground itself was still intact, minus a few collapsed entries. Andreas found his dwarven compatriots enthusiastic about this jail break. It was not so much freeing their fellow Tropicans, as it was to hunt down the Knights. A vendetta has been sworn, and vengeance must be taken. The Knights crossed a line sacred to mafia companies; the line between business and personal.

Andreas squinted in the darkness, trying to keep track of where he step. The war above might not have reached the city below, but its effects had. Pygmaeus received their electricity from the power plants on the hills or in the city, same as everyone else. The State cut it during its invasion. Whether it was intentional, who knew. One thing was known, and that was the invaders were indiscriminate in their destruction.

Word of the Knight’s massacre spread fast among the non-sapien populations. The Golden Hammers sent many of its foot soldiers to clear out these savages. To kill one’s nemesis is one thing; the mob does that all the time. But to target one’s enemy’s neighbors, siblings, parents and worst of all, their children, it went against every fiber in underground honor. It disgusted every dwarf to the core. Some ‘honest’ dwarves tried to sign on for a crack at the Knights. The Golden Hammers, obviously, turned them down.

As for the Naveinan Army– “Don’t worry about them,” Ghulam told Andreas. “The People’s Army’s been massing themselves east of Contra, waiting for the ships and airplanes to do their worst.” As it turned out, allowing The State to land was part of an elaborate trap. By allowing them on shore, then sinking the ships and destroying their supply lines, it was hoped to force them into surrendering. Or at least destroying them.

Andreas’s eyes darted every which way his flash light moved. Dozens of electric torches lit the way. Dwarves and sapiens in the gang were on guard. None expected any resistance on the streets of the underground city, but the streets were uneasily quiet. Most dwarves and gnomes, the non-combatant ones, are steering clear of the fighting. The streets were filled with dust and rocks, both broken off the low hanging roof during bombardment.

Andreas looked up at the smooth ceiling, five meters above him. It was odd to have a roof over a street. Pretty lousy for ventalation, but few autos ever drove here– and those all were electric. “I have to say, I envy you, Ghulam,” Andreas told the older dwarf. All dwarves were older than him.

“Why’s that?” the dwarf asked with a gruff tone.

Andreas shook his head. “Because I have no idea where we are.”

Ghulam’s flashlight shifted to a nearby street sign. “We’re on Granite Street. Happy?”

Andreas sighed. On the surface, he would know his location. He never had to rely on street signs, knowing instantly his location via landmarks. Whether it be a statue, a grove of trees or even an oddly painted house, Andreas always knew where in Contra he stood. Knowing where under Contra he stood– that left him at a literal loss. Though it was surely his job, he let Ghulam lead the way.

“This should be it,” Ghulam looked up at the steel staircase.

“Should?” Andreas replied. “You don’t know?”

Ghulam snarled at him. “Of coarse I know! But you didn’t give us a very good description of the place.”

“I gave you the address and number of Knights, what more do you want?” Andreas asked.

Ghulam shook his head, uttering something far from flattering about youth under his breath. “Suppose you walk up there, open the door, and find yourself in the middle of the Naveinan quarters? We’d get picked off, one by one.”

Andreas did some muttering of his own, but far from beneath his breath. He was in such a hurry to get Katrina out of this nightmare, he had not thought things through. His feelings were interfering with his abilities. In short, he was letting personal get in the way of business. A humiliating mistake that not even an Associate would make. “Tell you what, how about I go up first. If I get shot, take another route,” he tried his best to save some face.

Ghulam nodded. “A fine plan, but I’m sure this leads to the neighborhood store’s basement. From what you said, the guards should be atop its roof. We go up there, take them out and appropriate their machine guns. You all get that?” he called back to the other dwarves, some thirty in all. They cried out their ‘aye’ in unison. Ghulam turned back to the Sapien. “Lead the way.”

Andreas walked quietly up the stairs, not wanting to alarm anyone who might be in the same room as the underground entry. A needless precaution; since the dwarves are seldom quiet in their discussion. Their voice was one of confidence, that resonated deep from within. It was not that they were unconcerned about the dangers. Far from it; if they thought a trap was waiting, they would move as quietly as elephants through the jungle. Andreas knew from experience, that forest elephants could blend in with ease.

Andreas entered the store’s basement with all the stealth he could muster. No Knights were on guard, and the storage was already thoroughly ransacked. Where war went, looting was not far behind. Not that the store had much worth taking to begin with. It was a clothing store, and seeing how The State so loathed anything and everything Tropican, Andreas could not imagine them taking it. Perhaps the average soldier simply did not care about ideology and doctrine.

Andreas gave the go ahead, and dwarves began to file into the basement. “Andreas, take your men out into the streets, once we take the roof,” Ghulam told him. He planned to take the high ground, capturing the machine guns, before they even try to storm the streets.

Andreas agreed. He reckoned that most of the camp’s firepower sat on the roof. Take it, and the dwarves can turn those heavy guns on the oppressor. “Just make sure you fire on sight only. No strafing the houses, Secretary.” The aggressive dwarf glared at Andreas, but did not object. Andreas had no idea which buildings housed soldiers, and which inmates. Presumably, the nicest joints were preserved for the highest ranking Knights, but nothing was absolutely certain.

Kevlar, one of the most senior of Golden Hammers, moved first, knife drawn. He managed to fulfill hits long before Andreas was born, or his parents for that matter. Despite his advance age, the dwarf was skilled at quick, silent kills. He climbed up the stairs and pressed against the door. It swung outwards, quietly. Only one guard was visible on the ground level. Kevlar was quick. He reached up with his free hand, and clasped the Knight’s mouth. With his armed hand, he drove his trusty knife between ribs. The Knight thrashed for only a moment, before going limp.

“Clear,” Kevlar whispered.

“Good start,” Ghulam noted. “Now let’s finish this job and go home.”

Colonel Wood leaned back away from his desk. Purging was a slow, laborious business on this island. Back on the continent, he could muster far more resources and clear out this town in a day. With supply lines so extended, Wood knew he must be patient. With the supply lines cut, and the Tropican’s mutt army pressing against the front, it made his task all the more difficult. Soon, he would have to detach his Knights to aid in stopping the Tropican advance.

The hole situation infuriated him. How could the navy drop the ball like this? It was a major embarrassment that The People should lose to an island infested with defects, deviants and Reds. He had no idea when, or even if, reinforcements would arrive. Bombers could not drop bombs or paratroopers over the isle, thanks to those flying saucers. Tropico’s navy is doing its best to rule the seas around their island.

Wood had virtually no idea as to how many ships were lost. All he knew was that supplies were cut, and communication was tattered at best. The Tropicans were proving capable of jamming signals. Must have bought, or stole, the technology from a more advance island. He would say the same thing about circular winged aircraft, but not even a diehard like Wood could figure out who else came up with that idea. He refused to admit, or even consider it a possibility that Tropico might have developed weapons and tools of war independently. How could a communist nation do anything so enterprising.

The purges must be expedited, but he had more pressing business to attend to. That woman, that lone example of The People in a sea of filth, what was she doing here. He must know. As a Knight of The State, it was his duty. Was she a spy? Perhaps she worked with the pirates and thugs who smuggled illicit goods into The State at every opportunity. One thing was certain, she was working against The State. He could not fathom why, why anyone with sound mind would want to flee The State for this refuge. What was unclear was just how many accomplishes she had. No woman could pull off something so complex, so she must have contacts still in The State. He must learn of these, and try to get word back home. They would not go unpunished.

He would learn the truth in good time, but for the moment, a break was in order. Wood was not the type to idle on a whim. A long, hard task lay ahead of him. Perhaps he and his Knights were doomed, trapped on this island forever, but that changed nothing. If anything, it made completing his task that much more urgent. Wood refused to die leaving a job unfinished. It would make him look bad, and worse yet, brand him a failure. He yawned, fighting fatigue. There would be plenty of time to nap after the job was done.

Just as he closed his eyes, they flew open at the sound of mechanical chattering. Machine gun fire, in his camp. What were those Knights thinking? He heard no artillery in the area, not even as much as a low flying plane. All that action was further ahead, where the Tropicans threw themselves at the hasty constructed defenses. They could not break free this soon, and even if they could, the army would have sent him word.

Wood pushed his chair back and walked towards the window. A short burst might have told of attempted escapes, but not a prolonged one. Where it was just one gun, seconds later, all of the roof-top machine guns were firing away. They better not be killing off the entire camp. Strafing was terribly inefficient, more over, it wastes bullets. Wood marched over towards the window to determine just what was going on.

Much to his dismay, it was not prisoners being cut down, but his own Knights. What was once a minor irritant, quickly grew into full blown rage. He glared up at the roofs, seeing not gray-clad soldiers, but stout fellows wearing sharp suits. Dwarves. Dwarves were gunning down his own men. How did they get up there. Never mind that, he knew exactly how they were coming down.

He ran back to his desk and snatched the phone with enough fury that he thought it might snap in two. That was last thing he wanted, a broken phone. Without it, he could not contact the army. He planned to have an artillery barrage brought down on top of that building. That would silence the tunnel rats. He started to dial, when he noticed a low static hum in the phone’s ear piece. It was a dead. The line was cut. He threw the useless device against the wall.

Wood flung open his desk draw and drew out his sidearm. It was but an eight millimeter pistol, but it would kill just as well as any cannon. He took another look outside. No longer where his men being cut down; now they were fleeing. His own men, running from a bunch of tunnel rats! Wood roared in fury and turned towards the door. No Knight under his command would run, and no dwarf would best him. He would go out there and deal with them personally, or die trying.

“Andreas!” Katrina gasped, seeing him make his way through the panicked crowd. She stood, and threw herself at him.

Andreas caught her in his arms and held her close. “Who were you expecting? The golden jackalope?” Katrina did not reply, instead she sobbed into his shoulder. “It’s alright now. I’m getting you out of here.”

“When I heard the guns on the roof, I thought it was all over. I never imagined you would brave the massacre. I would have thought not even you would be so brazen,” Katrina leaned heavily on him, just barely recognizing her own growing fatigue.

Andreas smiled. “It’s no problem when it’s your own co-workers doing the shooting.” When Katrina gave him a quizzical looked, Andreas told her that he would explain later. “For now, let’s get out of here. The gang’s rounding up everyone, and we’re headed underground.”

The Knights’– in fact that hole State’s contemptuous view of Homo pygmaeus worked to the Golden Hammers’ advantage. By not cleaning out the underground towns, they gave a perfect avenue of rescue. Even the People’s Army is using the underground for their counter-attack, poking up long enough to cut down some Naveinans before taking back to hidden safety.

Andreas lead her through the crowd and back towards the mason building. He could see the muzzle flashes on the roof clearly, and the chattering was louder than any Luneburg Typist could muster. Every now and then, he spotted flashes aimed at the dwarves. A few Knights still put up resistance where most had sense enough to flee. In their flight, they left the gates open and unguarded. Andreas always took the Knights as a hardcore, vicious, yet well disciplined group of butchers. Now, they just seemed like a pack of bullies trying to save their own hide.

The two of them kept their heads low as bullets were traded by both sides over their heads. With each exchange, the Knights responded with fewer and fewer bursts. Slowly, the remaining Knights were cut down or just plain silenced. Some Knights took shelter in longhouses or any handy building. The dwarves responded by peppering the structures with bullet holes. Unwanted destruction was frowned upon, but after the Knights defiled this neighborhood, nobody was likely to move back into the houses. It would all come down once the invaders were dispatched.

Andreas made it back into store and out from the pulsing red sun’s insistent rays. Glass and wood, along with merchandise lay scattered everywhere. A few Knights managed to get close enough to lob grenades at the building. Andreas did not see any make it to the roof, but plenty came through the windows. Andreas was half surprised the defeated Knight did not call down artillery, or what little air power The State had in Tropico, upon them. He could not complain by its absence, but he still worried when things went too perfectly.

All the same, he would prefer to leave this camp as soon as possible, just in case the big guns are only late. He found the decent into the underground far more crowded than his way up. He kept Katrina near him, not wanting to lose her again. He left out a quick breath of relief once they reached the dimness of the pygmaeus streets. He pulled Katrina away from the streams of escapees.

“You’re safe now,” Andreas told her.

Katrina clung to Andreas. “They killed him–“ she spoke softly, barely audible.

“I know,” Andreas solemnly said. Though he still seethed with anger, he was too tired to be mad. All he wanted was a nice quiet place to lay down and not wake up for a couple of days. He filed the idea away in the recesses of his memory. He still had to make it to the Tropican side of the front before taking his vacation time.

Andreas waited a few minutes, with Katrina by his side, until Ghulam came stomping down the stairs and on to the subterranean street. He was the last Golden Hammer to arrive, as was his intent. A good leader always waited until his men were safe before tending himself. “We got most of them,” Ghulam told Andreas.

“What about their leader?” Andreas wanted that Knight dead, and if possible, twice over.

Ghulam shrugged. “You think I’m hanging around to identify them? Like I said, we got most of them. No telling if the rest will get their act together and trail us.”

Andreas nodded. “Right. Let’s get to a better defensive area.” If they tried to defend the door, the first few Knights falling will only convince the others to try a different route. Better to lure them all out, then whack them. With Katrina leaning against him, Andreas followed the senior mobster down the road, and away from that cursed prison.

Colonel Wood treaded through the wreckage of his camp. How many Knights lay dead? Too many, but at least they were Knights to the end. The ones that ran– those would see his wrath. They might be the only Knights left in the area, but Wood will still have them shot. They were all trapped here, and will all die. The Knights than ran, he would not permit them to die as men, to die as Knights of The State. He would hunt them all down.

That would have to wait. For now he must link up with more loyal Knights. Another camp was further west, in the farmland. As much as he loathed retreating, Wood was forced to admit that he would do the cause no good if he were dead. He would have to traverse hostile territory, and quickly. He was already regretting unloading every one of his clips into well fortified dwarves. How did they take the Machine gun nests so easily? Were there traitors within the Knighthood? Was that why so many ran?

What was clear to Wood, was that a Pygmaeus was not capable of pulling off something this clever on their own. This was something that required a sapien, and a well educated one at that. Wood put sorting out this mess at the top of his to-do list, right after returning to safety.

The streets, or what was left of them, were empty and quiet. With so many prisoners on the run, he expected to see a little chaos. The Tropican’s army had yet to arrive, but that was no surprise. They were far inferior to The State’s war machine. Nothing could match the might of The People. Nothing ever would, certainly not a mob of rabble.

Wood walked westward for a good fifteen minutes before seeing any active life. One of those flightless birds of prey, falconeers he believed they were called, stood on the carcass of a burned out auto. The bird’s eyes watched Wood intently, almost like a falcon eyeing a rat. The creature had sharp teeth, and nasty kicking claws, but he was no match for an animal more than ten times his size. Not only that, but Wood was far meaner than any feathered pest.

Wood turned away and continued his march. Three steps later, he heard a sharp caw. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the falconeer also took a few steps forward. Wood turned to the bird, “Scram!” he shouted loud enough to cause the falconeer to retreat to auto top. Wood cursed the animal before turning to continue his retreat.

Without even a step, he came face-to-face with an emaciated elf only a meter in front of him. Where did he come from? Wood glared at the elf. Where was not an important question; what mattered was how dare a non-sapien stand in the path of a sample of The People. Colonel Wood stepped forward, expecting the elf to move aside. When he did not, Wood grew angered. He snap back-handed the elf, sending him to the ground. Times like this he wished he carried extra ammunition.

He took a few more steps before another elf appeared on the street, stepping out from behind a partially singed hedge row. This one was much older than the previous, perhaps closing to the limit of elf’s lifespan. Wood thought it a shame such a waste of genes was allowed to exist so long. Like with the first, he knocked this one to the ground and continued.

He did not even manage two steps before more elves appeared. Wood tried to take in a quick count. They rose like weeds from inside ruined homes and behind piles of rubble. Elves were not the only ones to appear. Several dingy pygmaeus appeared. Wood could never tell the difference between gnomes and dwarves, but he knew by their beaten appearance that they must be escapees from the processing center. A few more rose to join the crowd, these sapiens. No, not sapiens, but traitors to their own species.

They weakly approached Wood, making to encircle him. Their eyes glowed with hatred, fury for what the Knights have done. Wood sneered. Too bad. The Knights of The State would continue purging this world of genomes unworthy of life. Did they think they could beat him? A pack of half-starved mongrels going up against The State’s best. Not likely. But if they wanted a fight, then Wood would put them swiftly into their place. Even without a loaded sidearm, he could still snuff out their lives.

Wood took a shot at the nearest elf, easily knocking him to the ground. He kicked him in the head for good measure before moving along. An elf woman took a lunge at Wood, but in her emaciated state, Wood easily dodged her and set his own elbow into her back. She crumpled and did not rise again. A third and fourth jumped into to take her place. Wood kicked one away, and knocked the other flat on his back. Each time he downed a target, two more would fill into place.

Soon one even managed to land a hit. It was not a precise hit, but one of fury. Wood launched his elbow backwards and caught the man, rather the dwarf, in the nose. His elbow crushed bone with a satisfying snap. The dwarf fell with an oof, but was quickly replaced. Before Wood fully understood his situation, the rabble and rift-raft escaping the camp enveloped him. Wood continued his struggle, convinced he was stronger, and he would win. Even as he fell to a knee, his conviction did not waver.

Bones crunched again, this time Wood felt a sharp stabbing pain in correlation with the snap. Soon, boots, shoes and even bare feet found their mark. Wood’s head began to spin and his vision lost focus. Pain coursed through his body. With each passing second, he grew weaker in body. Never during his fall did Wood ever consider he might be in the wrong. The last sound his conscious mind heard was the cawing of anticipation by the falconeer standing atop a burned out hulk.

Andreas was one of the lucky ones. His house was still in tact, and Sentry still stood watch. A lone crater tilled the soil of his garden, and the windows were all broken out, but aside from that, it was in good shape. He was glad, because after an astro of fighting for Contra, he was ready for a good night’s rest. A hot bath would be nice too, but he had the feeling that plumbing and electricity might not be fully functional. A crater in the packed dirt road, with a newly dug fountain in the middle, proved that running water was now flying.

Though the garden was stripped bare, likely by occupying Naveinans, the rest of his house was still mostly intact. He spent the better part of an hour going over it. His little library was untouched. Not surprising since he locked the door before leaving. Besides, books are not worth much as booty of war. However, his silverware was missing. Some soldier pilfered his silver, and burned Andreas. Under normal circumstances, he would have to hunt this guy down and whack him, but the past few weeks have been anything but normal.

His furniture was still mostly in one piece. He half expected the enemy, or more likely, the wildlife, to come in and make themselves at home. Looks like old Sentry did his duty and kept other falconeers at bay. Though, there was no telling how much time that bird spent in doors. His couch was still in one piece, and showed not even as much as a claw mark upon it. It would not have surprised him if feathers covered it, but no, just Katrina.

She stirred when she heard the door open. Andreas gazed upon her with deep sympathy. “How are you holding up?”

“I’ll live,” she said sadly. She watched Andreas crossed the room and sat a bag upon the counter. “Any luck?”

“Depends on what you mean by luck,” Andreas replied. A little bit of luck had surfaced a couple of days ago. The Naveinans in Fort Baxter surrendered after it was clear they could not escape. Some of the invaders are still fighting, in an ever shrinking pocked on the northwest coast of the island. “Rations are pretty pitiful. Some fresh-dried fish and canned corn.” The People’s Emergency Relief had only dried and canned foods. It was long ago stockpiled in case of an emergency. From what Andreas heard, they replace the food ever calender year, so this stuff should not be that old.

Katrina sighed. After a week of canned, she longed for some variety. “I guess we can’t complain.”

Andreas only shrugged. “But I do have a bit of good news for you. They found that Knight colonel, or at least what was left of him.”

Katrina’s attention perked. “What happened to him?” What she really meant to ask, was whether he suffered long and painful death.

“Beaten to a pulp,” Andreas told her. “They had trouble identifying what was left, but he had some items that captured Knights confirmed were his.”

“Did the mob get him?” Katrina wondered. She remembered the seen on the coffee plantation, the pain and anger surrounding the dwarves who found relatives among the victims.

Andreas shook his head. “No. This way ain’t our style. We have a problem, we just shoot him. More efficient that way.” Andreas was always callous when he spoke of whacking. To him it was just part of the job. No, he was certain the dwarves did not do this. For when something crossed from business to personal, they would not hesitate to beat him to death. However, dwarves, and even gnomes, would leave the corpse recognizable, as a warning to anyone else who might threaten their families.

“Best anyone could tell is that he ran into an angry mob,” Andreas continued. “He was found not far from that camp.”

Katrina cringed at the thought. “When is the government going to tear that place down.” Another second that place existed was another second to long.

Andreas nodded. “Already started. Rebuilding is just zooming along. Before you know it, Contra will be back to normal.”

Katrina frowned. Normal. Back to the way things use to be. Nothing in her life would ever be ‘normal’ again. Being dragged to Tropico opened up her eyes and gave her a new perspective on life, and tainted her old one. Life would never be the same, but it would go on. Katrina forced herself to sit up. She very well could not spend the rest of her life sleeping. “What do we do now?” she asked, or rather wondered out loud.

Andreas paused from unpacking their rations and took a gander around his house. “Now, Katrina, now we rebuild and get on with our lives.”

Stardust: Towne, Chapter 10

2011-05-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

Chapter 10

Colonel Wood looked on with disgust at the marshy land. Such soft, weak land kept his armor from moving forward. What good were Knights without their mounts? As enforcers of The Party’s will, the Knights were as well armed as the regular army. So well armed, they often received first pick of equipment. “I bet the communists flooded this field,” he muttered.

“Yes sir,” his adjunct, Lieutenant Haze, replied. He had no love for communists, and certainly no use for Tropicans in general, but he doubted they were capable of flooding the field. It was likely naturally wet. Of course, he thought them incapable of building a biplane, much less a jet. Their flying saucers proved everyone wrong.

Wood glared at the field in disgust. No telling what sort of diseases the elves might have introduced. Their kind has long since been known for poisoning wells, so why not an entire field? “They’ll get what’s coming to them soon enough.”

Haze thought it best not to answer. He knew his commanding officer went off on rants ever so often. He had a great deal of angry energy driving him. He was hardcore even by the strict standards of the Knights. Wood’s first solution is ‘kill them all’. Haze’s anti-elven was generic in nature, like most of The People. But Wood’s, his was specific and strong.

“Lieutenant, how many non-sapiens were in that village?” Wood asked.

Which village was not a question Haze needed asking. The State’s invasion has thus far only managed to capture one village, at least the eastern branch. The western branch pushed onward to Corona, its lagoon, harbor and most importantly, its airport. Soon as that was in their hands, Daggers can start manning the skies, and maybe clearing those bloody saucers from it as well. There were no airfields nearby, and the lone carrier constantly pounded Comrade’s Airforce Base in the capital–

“Lieutenant!” Woods snapped. He was not one to be patient when asking or ordering.

“We’re still in the process of rounding them all up,” Haze said, taking a second to think. What did the latest reports says? “The village population is fifty-seven, and thus far only twelve non-sapiens have been found. Most of them goblins.”

Wood’s face crumpled in disgust. “I thought I ordered those green things to be shot on sight.”

“Yes sir,” Haze agreed. “But protocol is quite specific on the matter. We must document the infestation, and keep track of processing. You know how Knight Command is about punctuation.”

Woods snorted at the joke. It has long since been standing that Command wanted every bullet accounted for, serial number and target. It was all ridiculous. Woods was not here to take a census. “Fine. Herd all the villagers into the market square and ring it with razor wire. We’ll process them all later.” Woods shook his head when he thought about that village. Dozens of longhouses, all government housing. It must be a den of communism. Yes, and a total purge would be required.

“Belay that,” Woods amended his command. As the man in charge in Tropico, he could do that at will. “I want them processed before nightfall. I can’t afford to waste any Knights behind lines once we reach Tropico City.” Or better yet, perhaps Woods himself would purge the village. If one wanted something done right– or sometimes at all– then one must do it himself. Unlike other high ranking Knights, he did not fear dirtying his hands.

“Yes sir,” Haze said with little enthusiasm. He enlisted in the Knights because he wanted to serve The People, not because of any twisted sense of joy.

“No more than two bullets a target,” Woods added. He did enjoy his work, more than any normal human should. The pain they caused him, it was nothing compared to what Wood would deal out. The elves laughed at him. Now, the elves of this pitiful village would never laugh again. Wood would have the last laugh.

Andreas glanced off into the distance. Towards the west, not a storm cloud lurked in the sky. He frowned at the realization. The thunderous booms rolling across the island were not bad weather, but the rumble of artillery duels. The People’s Army battle the invaders, giving ground only a few meters at a time, and not before coating it with the blood of the enemy. For the moment, big guns were not his chief concern. The smaller cousins were a more immediate threat.

Andreas ducked back down underground. The streets were not the only way to move about in Contra. The pygmaeus inhabitants were in the habit of living beneath the soil. Many lived in houses, but those were the dwarven equivalent of attics. The dwarves had their own streets, beneath those of surface dwellers. The Naveinans were not ones who caught on very quickly. Andreas would not be surprised if they were still unaware about the underground highways that cross most of the continent. When they collapsed one entrance, the pygmaeus would build two more.

Andreas took advantage of Contra’s underground. He lead three dwarves in a small squadron, trying to flank the latest picket. The State, still locked in a furious siege of Fort Baxter, already sent recon in force to scout ahead in Contra. Many of the locals walled themselves up inside their home, but the few gun totting ones have taken up partisan politicking. At least that was what the Tropican Government called it. It was little more than making a nuisance of ones’ self. The partisans would shoot from two or three story windows, picking off the pickets. As long as the enemy consisted of light infantry, they were safe. Once the tanks rolled into town–

Better to be underground. Andreas reached into his pocket and pulled out his watch. “The Secretary’s late,” he grumbled. It was so unlike that dwarf to be late to a fight. Andreas dropped the watch back into its pocket. “I hope you guys are ready for a hard day’s work.”

“We were born ready!” replied the lead dwarf, a red and gray bearded man. More truth came from his statement than Andreas cared to admit. Homo pygmaeus was quite literally born to work.

Andreas smiled as he poked his head out of the whole again. Still no Secretary. Guess this will have to go off without them. “Let’s go,” Andreas commanded. He picked up his own Luneburg Typist and climbed out of the whole.

The sapien and dwarves quickly took cover in the underbrush flanking Contra’s streets. The State’s scouts did not even notice them. They were too busy eyeing the houses for partisans. Excellent, with their eyes ahead, they will not see the threat from behind. Andreas rose his submachine gun and aimed into the thick of the crowd. He pointed forward, giving the dwarves the go-ahead.

Andreas squeezed off a one second burst, launching a fury of bullet into the mess. Two of the enemy soldiers fell without knowing what hit them. The rest quickly hit the dirt, evading bursts from Andreas’s fellow Golden Hammers. Naveinans began crawling for better cover, in the meanwhile firing back at Andreas’s general direction. Andreas watched as they were nearing shelter, a meter tall brick wall. With a final attempt to eliminate them outright, he held down the trigger and emptied the entire hundred round clip into the enemy formation. It took great strength on his behalf to prevent the Typist from turning into an anti-aircraft gun. He spent so much time focusing on battling recoil, he knew he could not have hit anything..

“Pin them,” Andreas told the dwarves, needlessly. Dwarves did not need telling when it came to their enemies. Andreas dropped the drum and slammed another clip into his weapon. His eyes darted around the wall, waiting for a head to pop up. Typists made for lousy sniping. He laid his heavy arms aside and drew out his Bison pistol. It had not the power of a rifle (though neither did a Typist) but it was something he could aim.

Against his luck, heads did not poke up. Only guns, atop the wall and along its side. They fired a few rounds, emptying clips into the brush. A few rounds whizzed by a hair too close for Andreas’s comfort. He pressed himself flat against the ground and hoped the bullets did not hit him. He cursed the invaders. “Alright, you guys try and cover me. I’m going to go around and hit their flank.”

The dwarves nodded, and fired blindly against the wall. Andreas was about to crawl off into danger when the screeching of wheels caught his attention. He looked up to see a Mark Two, a shoe box of an auto, come flying down the road directly at them, and at the opposite side of The State’s fortification. Not many would be out driving when the front was slithering closer to Contra by the minute.

This was no regular auto. Andreas could spot two barrels sticking out of the right, and a third out the left. On the left, a dwarf hung partway out the window, positioning himself to aim his Typist towards the right. As soon as the auto closed in behind the invaders, the three dwarves unleashed a hail of fury into the enemy. The few Naveinan guns sticking above the wall began to spasm, then fell silently to the ground. The auto came to a quick stop, and the four dwarves involved in the drive-by hopped out and charged the wall. Andreas recognized Secretary and his precious Typist.

He did frown at the dwarf’s enthusiasm. Even though the enemy was most certainly dead, Andreas heard the rapid type-like tapping of submachine guns. Andreas shook his head as he stood. They were already dead, no point in turning them into pulp– or wasting bullets. Of all the products vital to the Golden Hammers, bullets were the hardest to obtain in the People’s Republic of Tropico.

“You’re late,” Andreas said flatly.

Secretary smiled. “We were a bit held up,” he said, tapping the hood of his auto. Sure enough, several holes were once they were not. “You’re lucky they didn’t rupture the radiator.”

Or flatten the tires, or ignite the petro tank. Andreas was about to mention this to him, when the rumble of large engines caught his attention. He frowned as he watched two red armored personnel carriers rumble down the street. Both vehicles were battered and dented from several rounds of combat. From what little Andreas heard off the radio, Fort Baxter was already under siege, and taking a pounding. The State even went as far as to send bombers, as soon as the sun set.

“That’s the third time that’s happened today,” Secretary grumbled. He did not enjoy watching the People’s Army heading east; it meant fewer soldiers in the west.

Andreas approached the armored auto, waving his arms wildly. Only briefly did the idea of The State commandeering a Tropican vehicle cross his mind. The armored personnel carrier came to a slow stop. Its top hatch flew open an a head poked up. “What can we do for you– comrade?” It took him a second to figure out the only sharp dressed humans with guns in Contra must be mobsters, and thus fighting the invader.

“Why are you headed east? The fighting is that way,” Andreas pointed towards Baxter.

The soldier shook his head. “Not any more. The parts not already in Naveinan hands are being demolished.” The soldier’s face showed both fatigue and anger. “Makes me wonder what the navy is doing.”

Andreas stepped aside and waved on the armored autos. The soldier did make a good point. The State’s invasion fleet stood with near impunity off shore. They dared not sail too close to Tropico City, but they were still close enough to fire their high caliber rounds into and behind the front. A few battleship rounds landed near Contra, but as of yet, not inside the town. That could change at any moment.

The idea of indiscriminate bombardment took his mind instantly to Katrina. He brought her to Tropico because he thought she would be safe. If the Naveinans take Contra, how safe would she be then? Especially if– when they learn her true origins. Her accent would give her away, and Katrina was always one to quickly voice her opinion. Her defiance would only end up landing her into a mess of trouble, and when it came to the Knights, there would be no happy ending.

“Think it might be time to fall back,” Andreas suggested to his dwarven comrades. They would not fall back to Tropico City or any of the fortresses between here and there. The dwarves have plenty of safe houses above and below the ground. Beneath, they could use the tunnels to harasses the invaders. Not to mention deposit or withdrawal persons on a fly.

Secretary did not like the sound of those words. “But we are still winning.”

“We’ll be dead if the Naveinans overrun us,” Andreas told him. “Can’t do much typing then.”

Secretary frowned. “Very well.”

“Meet us north of town, in the coffee fields. You know the safe house,” Andreas commanded. “I have something to take care of first.”

The dwarf had a good idea of what, or rather who Andreas referred to. He still had no love for that sapien. “Don’t dwaddle.”

Andreas nodded “Alright, let’s get going,” he told his dwarves, who quickly fell in line.

Finding Katrina was not as difficult as Andreas expected. With Contra suddenly bursting into chaos due to retreating soldiers. Already artillery began to rain down on the country town, shattering the outer most housing. The State focused a lot of its firepower on the rail, and the industry built upon it. Factories stood with many holes in them. Andreas avoided the rails and headed for the first obvious place. Since Katrina was not in her longhouse, she must be at work. Yes, she would be stubborn enough to goto work in the middle of a war.

Sporadic machine gun fire shattered any illusion of silence. What should have been sounds of haggling and chickens, were instead felt with explosions mixed with the occasional cry of the dying. Andreas flinched each time he heard the thunder of exploding shells. That last one was certainly closer. Enemy soldiers or even tanks did not bother him, but how in the word was he suppose to wrestle a hundred millimeter shell?

Andreas kept his typist up to his shoulder, training it in each direction. When his eyes darted, so did the gun’s barrel. He was in a hurry, and as luck usually work, one hit every red light only when one was in a rush. The same could be said about ambushes; they will happen at the most inconvenient time. He kept his eyes on shattered shop fronts. People’s invested their entire lives into those stores, only to have glass broken and goods scattered about.

The looters would come soon, that much was for certain. Most of Contra’s trade was done in open markets, with only the finest of merchandise in permanent structures. One such store was Contra’s own corner drugstore. Since Katrina was not home, she must be in there. Andreas approached the three story brick building. Its windows, too, were missing. Across the street, a freshly dug crater provided the catalyst for the drugstore’s redecoration. Andreas scowled at the crater. Not only that, but that use to be somebody’s house. It was only then did he wonder if Sentry was alright.

Andreas pushed open the already ajar door. It was once a wooden frame with a painted glass body, but not anymore. Now it was nothing more than a wooden frame with a few shards still hanging to it. Andreas’s shoes crushed hundreds of glass fragments as he crossed the store. He only visited the drugstore when he had something to buy. The Golden Hammers left it alone, so he never paid a business call. Besides, if the mafia started leaning on everyone, the People’s Government might stop looking the other way.

“Katrina!” Andreas called out, half expecting her not to answer. She never was one to listen, but the same could be said about the females of most species. Did goblin males have the same trouble?

“Andreas?” a shaken voice replied. “Is that you?”

“No, it’s the Eternal Dragon,” he replied sarcastically without even thinking. “Yes it’s me. Who else am I going to be? Now where are you?”

“In the basement!” she called from below. Yes, the basement would be a safe place, provided a four hundred millimeter battleship round did not land on top of the place. Best of all, the dwarven streets connected to the basement. Dwarves of the honest type did business here, and they were a private bunch. They preferred to get their prescriptions filled without anyone else knowing. With those underground streets, Andreas would have no problem making it to that coffee plantation. It exited to the north as well as the west; the east hooked up with tunnels beneath Tropico City.

Andreas descended the stairs and shoved the basement door open with ease. Surprisingly, the place still had power. He could see Katrina huddled up in a corner, a notepad on her lap. “Doing your taxes?” he asked.

Katrina shook her head. “Just a phrase search. I can’t stand just sitting here waiting. I needed something to take my mind off this madness.” Naturally she would pick a game that required concentration to pass her time while the shells landed above.

Katrina was not alone in the cellar. The owner, and elderly man, along with several tenants from the upper floors, all stayed in the shelter. Andreas wondered why they were all here. The dwarven streets were not exactly a secret, and certainly the old man knew about them. He would not be much of a business man if he did not know how his customers kept getting prescriptions filled down here. Sure enough, the place looked similar to the store above, though in miniature. Dwarves and gnomes did not suffer from the variety of ailments a sapien was naturally cursed with; how could they and still have a natural life span of two hundred fifty years? Andreas noticed a lot of pain killers down here– goes with their choice of lifestyle he supposed.

“Why are you all still here?” Andreas asked the nervous crowd. “There are tunnels on the other side of that wall.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” the owner replied with a sharp tone. “They’ve been there longer than I have, but I have no clue where they go.”

“Why would we leave our homes?” one of the tenants asked. He was about as old as the owner, and his hair far grayer. “The People’s Army is still fighting, how can we run?”

Andreas shook his head and sighed,. “They’re fighting alright, fighting to the east. A bunch of soldiers headed that way tell me Fort Baxter is in Naveinan hands.”

Katrina flinched from the mention of her people. Yes, the suffering and pain brought upon these folk was the complete responsibility of The State. They would catch her. If one thing was certain in life, it was that The State always got what it wanted. As if on cue, several explosions erupted outside of the drug store. Each burst was accompanied by fierce shaking of the ground. Bottles fell from the shelves and dust through the floor boards above.

“And by the sound of things, looks like they’re not satisfied with just having Baxter,” Andreas said in a calm, cool and almost apathetic tone. He might be cold on the outside, but he was sweating bullets on the inside. With his Luneburg Typist in one hand and Bison pistol hidden beneath his jacket, he knew The State would not get him, and quite a few soldiers would not be returning to their families in the process. The dying part did not worry him, it was what would happen to the living.

The dwarves did not feel much like wasting any more time. They moved to kick open the door to their world and move out. After all, there was a schedule to keep, and Secretary was not one to be kept waiting. “Come on, boss,” the youngest of the dwarves called out.

Andreas pointed at the opening, a door just about as tall as the average sapien. The owner was a bit taller, and thus would have to duck. “You heard the man, let’s get going. I can’t just leave you here to fall into their hands.”

Most of the occupants muttered in agreement. Katrina still looked on with worry, and concern. Along with a great deal of confusion. She knew there were wars, and that The State conquered its neighbors, but never had she thought of her own people as invaders. She stood up and headed towards the exit. “Where do we go now?” she asked Andreas.

Andreas moved beside her. “North. The tunnel opens up in some farmland. There’s a safe house in the coffee plantations up there. Not much in the way of roads, and no rail, so I doubt we’d be bothered much. After that– I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on out there, only that we don’t want to be here any more.”

“Why did it have to come to this,” she softly muttered as she stepped on to the dwarven street.

Andreas knew the answer, and under most circumstances would tell her straight up that it was all because a certain set of somebodies just could not stay on their side of the fence. They just had to try and shove their ideology down the rest of the planet’s throat. Not this time. “It’s just the way the bomb bounces.”

Open skies and fields of green bushes was a welcome relief from the congestion of the underground. Dwarven streets were barely wide enough for four dwarves to walk abreast, and barely high enough to keep Andreas from smacking his head against the ceiling. In contrast with the echoes beneath the ground, the coffee fields were deathly calm. Off in the distance, artillery duels continued, but no shells fell anywhere near the field. And why should they; after all, there was no tactical advantage of blowing up a farm.

As long as The State continued looking down its nose at Tropico, seeing it as inferior as well as being blinded by its own ideology. It would not surprise Andreas if they knew nothing of the underground. Andreas exited that world with his fellow mobsters, and Katrina. The others hiding in the drug store took a different route, deeper into the underground city. They would be safe from the shelling there. Just as safe as if they were surrounded by coffee.

The snorting of several ground sloths caught his attention. Distant shelling left them nervous. Thunderstorms almost never hit Tropico City, and a few years passed since the last hurricane made landfall upon the island. Plenty of rain, yes, but seldom a thunderous storm. The shells were something different, something unknown. Ground sloths tended to ignore or tolerate known quantities, but they did not like the unknowns. The large, brown animals turned their dim-looking eyes off towards the distant booms.

Andreas pitied the soldier who tried to tackle a ground sloth. Even these human-sized ones had claws capable of removing an inconsiderate ape’s head with some effort. Though the noise left them nervous, they paid little attention to the various humans arriving on the surface. They continued browsing on the various trees, mostly ignoring the bushes producing coffee beans. A good thing too, since they could strip an entire plantation of its goods.

Through peaks in the foliage, Andreas could see the ocean and all its beauty. At least it would be, if not for dozens of warships parked off the shore. All of them flew the spear-in-circle banner of The State. Where was the People’s Navy and why was it not doing anything. They could not be defeated, that much was certain. Though the government might not release news of a defeat, they would still inform the families of the casualties, and that would not go unnoticed. They might have a working agreement, but the various mafia companies still kept a wary eye on the People’s Government.

Every few minutes, the guns on board the battleships and cruisers would flash into existence. The sudden burst of deafening noise spooked the sloths, and forced them to waddle away from the ocean. If it was just small guns off in the distance, that was fine, but when naval artillery started up– it was just a good idea to be elsewhere. Andreas covered his ears from the blast, and Katrina nearly jumped out of her pants– well her shoes anyway.

“Bloody cannons!” one of the dwarves roared over the gun fire.

Andreas agreed, but with a little stronger language in mind. He kept his silence in polite company. Still, the shells flew off towards the southwest, presumably where the People’s Army was holed up. Whatever they fired at, did not last very long. As abruptly as the firing started, it ceased, and relative silence fell back on the plantation. Andreas yawned, trying to clear out his ears when he heard a faint humming not too far in the distance.

“What’s that?” Andreas asked, more himself than anyone else.

“What’s what?” a dwarf answered. “I’m amazed you can hear anything after that display. You’d think they were recording sound-effects for the next moving picture.”

Maybe there were, Andreas considered it for a moment. Maybe it was just a show of force for propaganda films. Or maybe not. “It almost sounds like an engine.”

“I hear it too,” Katrina told him. The aftershocks of big guns slowly cleared and her hearing went back to normal. “A generator?”

Andreas shook his head. “Couldn’t be. There’s no petro generators up here.” True enough, none of the hill top plantations used generators. Fifty meter tall wind mills lined the cleared crest of hills all around Tropico City. The small turbines within those mills generated enough power for the scant needs of a plantation and its surrounding longhouses. In the cities, giant coal-fire steam engines churned out all the power needs. Fortunately currents hundreds of meters above the ground blew most of the smoke out to sea, otherwise, Tropico City would be one dirty place.

“Maybe it’s just an auto,” said another dwarf. “Sounds like its backfiring too.”

Andreas began to pick up the popping noises as well. They did not sound like an auto, but more like poppers used on plantations to scare away the wildlife. They sounded a lot like rifle fire, and that alone would make most animals avoid it. There was nothing more dangerous than an ape with a gun– okay, a honked off dragon, but one encountering those did not live long enough to learn avoidance.

Only a moment on the trajectory brought them into contact with a second group of dwarves. “Secretary!” Andreas called out to the mean looking dwarf.

“You’re not late,” Secretary grumbled with a hint of laughter. “Good for you.”

“Headed our way?” Andreas asked, jerking his thumb towards the engine-like sound.

The dwarf nodded curtly. “Ought to not be any engines up here, not this loud anyway. Sounds more like an airplane than an auto.” Dwarves as a rule were suspicious of anything out of place, and most things new– unlike their gnomish brethren, which embraced the new. But even they did not like routines to be muddled.

The two groups became one whole band of mobsters stomping west towards the engine. The pops continued, though more sporadically than before. If it was an engine back-firing, it was now dying down. One of them was an engine, that much was certain. Andreas could already see a large truck, the type used to transport goods on the continent. A large truck, with an even larger trailer, perhaps ten meters in length. They were not that practical on Tropico’s swerving roads.

“That’s no back-firing,” Secretary scowled, clutching his typist. “That’s gun fire.” He charged forth into the nearest clearing, leading his gang into the mess.

Andreas shook his head and cursed the dwarf’s enthusiasm. “Come on, let’s go back them up.” If that was gun fire, then who was firing them? If it were Tropicans, then they were firing at invaders. If it were invaders– then one should not go charging in, weapons blazing. Andreas lowered his head while running, bracing himself against slapping foliage. Lucky for him, rain had not visited this hill in a while, otherwise his suit would be drenched. A few of the red fruits were knocked off and landed in his pocket. He would just save those for later.

When he burst into the clearing right after Secretary, Andreas stopped in his tracks. It was gunfire, but not from a battle. The scene baffled him. A gray trailer and truck sat up against knocked down coffee bushes, its engine roaring. Andreas glanced it over, not seeing any exhaust. An engine of that design should be belching out the most foulest of fumes. There were exhaust pipes, but they were capped with tubes, tubes that lead into the trailer.

Andreas did not have much time to contemplate it. The dwarves opened fire with their submachine guns, cutting down gray clad sapiens. They were Knights of The State, and most were cut down. Any who resisted did not live long enough to explain themselves. Two of them hit the deck, dodging the deadly hail of dwarven fury.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Andreas commanded, shouting at the dwarves. “If you kill them all, they can’t talk!”

One by one, the dwarves ceased their fire. Secretary was the last to stop; most likely because he emptied the drum. He ejected the round magazine and loaded in a backup, but did not resume the attack. He stomped over towards the nearest living Knight, and pointed his weapon in the man’s face. “Alright, talk!”

The Knight did not look up in fear of his life, but rather contempt. He was not use to taking orders from any non-sapien. Quite the opposite, he was use to pushing them around. He just glared at Secretary. “What do I have to say to you.”

Wrong answer. The dwarf unleashed a short burst into the man’s face, turning it into pulp. He moved on before the corpse hit the ground. “What about you?” he asked the second Knight, who climbed to his feet.

He looked at the dwarf and spat in his face. Secretary did not even give him a second chance. He cut him down with a sickle of heavy metal. The Knight twitched and spasmed, and the dwarf fired another volley into him. Andreas ran up behind the dwarf and pulled him back. “That’s enough! If you want to shoot something, shoot that generator!” He turned to his own squad. “Go over there and check out what those Knights were doing.” Andreas pointed over to a grouping of dead gray-clothed men.

Andreas walked around the trailer, his own weapon aimed chest high. “Hold!” he commanded a Knight, who simply stood on the other side of the trailer, pistol in hand. “Better drop it.”

The Knight did not drop his weapon, but he did holster it. He glared at Andreas with an aura of arrogance, as if he were somehow above Andreas. “Well, are you going to cut me down?”

“Not yet,” Andreas said. He pointed his Typist at the generator. “Shut it off.”

The Knight complied, reaching up and slapping down a lever. The roaring of the engine quickly died off. “Happy?”

Andreas took another look at the engine and trailer. Yes, the exhaust was being piped into the trailer, but why? Andreas could think of no good reason. It made no sense. Now he heard of and seen houses in Tropico City that had generators hooked up to it. They fumigated those nice houses whenever bugs infested it. HE could think of no reason why a trailer would need it, much less why they would fumigate it way out here. It would make more sense to do maintenance back at their bases. Like all the fortresses ringing Tropico City, Fort Baxter had an excellent maintenance facility.

“We got a few big holes out over here, boss,” one of the dwarves called out.

“Empty?” Andreas asked. He suspected they would be, otherwise the dwarf would say otherwise.

“For now? Looks like a good place to dump these Knights,” the dwarf offered.

Andreas did not reply, leaving the dwarves hanging. Perhaps there was waste in the trailer, and they planned on dumping it. But why pump in fumes? The most lethal of exhausts from auto engines would be carbon monoxide. Andreas was no chemist, so he could not guess what good carbon monoxide would do to toxic waste. He was determined to find out what was in there, but it might be dangerous. Only one dwarf could handle this.

“Secretary! Open the trailer,” he ordered.

The dwarf grumbled, but complied. He shot off a few rounds into door, much to the Knight’s annoyance. “It’s not even locked,” he spoke down through his nose when he talked.

“Just open the bloody thing!” Andreas shouted.

Secretary grumbled as he did. When Andreas heard the door creek open, he also heard Secretary go silent. Andreas glanced over his shoulder, seeing a sight that made his heart skip. Secretary’s eyes were wide with horror and disgust as he stared at the contents. “By all the Gods of the Ancients, what is this?” he voice was weak, not the bombastic tone of a cold-blooded killer.

Other dwarves flocked to the trailer, their faces filled with disgust, then quickly with anger. Andreas dashed backwards, keeping his weapon trained on the Knight. His first glance into the trailer was not much. Fumes quickly escaped the trailer, revealing a crumpled mass of clothing. No, it was more like several masses of different clothing. The realization hit Andreas with simultaneous waves of nauseous and fury. They were people, and dead ones at that. The Knights were not fumigating anything, they were gassing Tropicans.

“We got another whole over here!” a distant dwarf cried out, his voice filled the same conflicting emotions within Andreas. They were all mobsters, most longer than Andreas had been alive. They were the most professional of businessmen, sometimes so cold blooded they might be mistaken to live off liquid oxygen. They have disposed of corpses in gruesome ways, but nothing in their lives ever prepared them for murder on an industrial scale.

Perhaps they should take comfort in the fact these victims suffered little. They were killed in the most efficient means possible. Perhaps they should, but not a single one did. Of the two dwarves scoping out the second hole, Andreas heard a distinct cry of anguish from one of them. Andreas whirled around, totally unaccustomed to dwarven emotions. They kept their feelings on the inside, only revealing bits and pieces to those closest to them, and only in private.

Andreas’s eyes went wider. One of the dwarves was in the pit, cradling a smaller dwarf in his arms. Andreas knew the dwarf, Arberald, had children of his own. He was the most junior of the dwarves, only forty years in age. Pygmaeus always believed children were for the young, so they raised their children before devoting themselves fully to their working natures. His youngest was ten, and still living in home. Andreas knew the bundle of still clothes in the dwarf’s arms was the size of a ten year old dwarf.

Andreas clenched his teeth and fists. His eyes burned with rage as he stared down the Knight. The Knight’s face was blank, stone cold. There was no remorse, no sorrow, not even pity. Nor was their any joy or satisfaction. Andreas used to think dwarves were the coldest of humans, but these Knights could poison so many children without even blanking an eye. It was a testament to absolute professionalism, and the monstrosity of humanity’s darkside.

Andreas knew The State was filled with butchers, but never did he imagine it on this scale. Their army had not even secured the area, and they already started ‘purging’ the area of unwanted genomes. Did this Knight have any children, could he imagine what Arberald was going through? Andreas would never know, but the Knight would not live long enough to have them, if he did not already.

“Have you nothing to say?” Andreas asked the Knight.

“No,” he said calmly. He had to know his fate, but with the same coolness he used on his job, he used to face down death.

“Andreas!” one of the dwarves, one who ventured into the trailer. “We got sapiens in here too!”

“What is this? What did they ever do?” Andreas asked, his voice soft.

“They are defective,” he said, with the same tone as a factory foreman removing a part not up to standards.

“Defective!” Andreas shouted. “Defective!”

“Hey, boss,” the dwarf in the trailer poked his head out. “I recognize one of the sapiens. You know that crazy old man who lives on Second Street North?”

Andreas shook his head, not in rejection but disgust. Yes, he knew the man. He was old, and a bit crazy. He always kept on about being Emperor of Tropico. The people always humored him, and his degrees. He often gave seals of approval to pubs and cafes he found to his liking. Those seals were coveted by the restaurant owners. Now he was dead– and for no good reason.

“What threat could an old man ever pose to your kind!” Andreas hissed.

“He was defective,” the Knight repeated his earlier prognosis. “Any aberrations effects the whole, and must be purged for the greater health of the species.”

Andreas knew what he was getting at. Natural selection, survival of the fittest. It was a fact of life. It was also the central ideology of The Party. But, The Party never believed in letting nature take its choice. “Who are you to decide that! That’s life’s decisions, not yours!”

“And you do not chose? Who is it who gives help to those too sick to live?” The Knight asked with a hint of passion, the first show of any emotion. He was a believe in The Party, all-in-all.

“You bloody fools. You run your mouths about natural selection, but you forget one thing. The most important trait of our species, our genus. Our minds! They might be born sickly, but they live, they survive! They have the will to overcome any obstacle and challenge thrown at them. There’s more to life than genes.”

The Knight snorted, and shook his head. It was the same sort of shake a mighty scholar might give to a confused pupil. The same sort of shake Katrina might have given to a misinformed student. She stood by during the whole exchange, just shocked beyond all belief. She knew The Party wanted to be rid of non-sapiens, but she always assumed they were expelled, sent elsewhere. She never could imagine anyone capable of slaughter on this scale.

Sure, wars produced many dead, but that was all hot-blooded. Spur of the moment. This, this was planned out, organized with calculating efficiency. Nothing in The State happened without layer upon layer of bureaucracy. Worse yet, what they said about that old man. Katrina saw him a couple of times during her short stay in Contra. She just wrote him off as a crazy, a popular, beloved crazy, but one nonetheless. She never had any ill feelings towards him.

Defects– Defects were not suppose to even exist in The State. Was that true? Once upon a time they must have, before The Party came to power. Did they meet the same end? Gassed and dumped in a distant field. That her own people could do this to the elderly and children, it left her appalled. She fought to keep her stomach contents down where they belong.

The dwarf who accompanied Arberald approached Andreas. “Boss, some of the dead have gunshot wounds in them.”

When Andreas turned his gaze back to the Knight, he received a quick explanation. “Not all were dead. You didn’t expect us to bury them alive, did you?”

His calm demeanor burned the dwarves. All seven off them dropped their gawking and searching and closed in on the Knight, surrounding him, pinning his back against the trailer. Each of them might have relations in the pit, or trailer, but they were dead. Dealing with the deceased can wait, the living were another matter.

“You have a lot to answer to,” another dwarf told him, pointing his stubby finger straight at the Knight’s chest.

“Yes, you do,” Andreas agreed.

While the mobsters trapped the Knight, Katrina’s gears began to turn. They kill defects. Would they consider Saul defective? From what the doctors say, there was nothing wrong with him. He just did not talk. ‘Normal’ sapiens talked, period. Those who did not, must be defective. Her blood chilled, and she shivered despite Tropico’s warm clime. She felt panic surge through her. Was Saul in the trailer? Was he safe, or were the Knights on his trail. She climbed up in the trailer and started searching frantically.

Minutes passed, and no sign of him, just dozens of terror-filled death masks. These people knew what was happening, some struggled. Guilt tore into her. She was one of The People, the same People who did this. Where they doing the same thing all over the world? How many, how many innocents died at their hands. The Knights were suppose to protect The People, not exterminate in their name.

“Andreas!” she called out as she left the trailer, her voice filled with panic.

“Coming,” he called back, zeroing in on her panic. He hoped she did not find anyone she knew in that place.

As he turned away and head towards her, the Knight tried to get his attention. “Aren’t you going to kill me?” He asked with a slightly snobbish air. Even in face of imminent death, he still felt himself above the rest.

“No. I am not,” he replied flatly. He leaned towards Secretary as he walked past. “Spot me a nickle will you? I don’t want the little lady to see any more than she already had.” Katrina seen enough for one day, and five minutes should be more than enough to get her out of ear shot. He doubted that even a Knight could hold back the cry of pain after the dwarves finished with him.

Much to his surprise, the dwarf agreed. “Sure thing. We’ll deal with him.”

Andreas did not even give the Knight’s existence a second thought. No doubt, fear began to creep into him. After killing so many of their kind, the death by dwarf would not be pleasant. Andreas spotted them, from the corner of his eye, laying down their ammunition and ejecting clips. They were going to finish him the old fashion pygmaeus way; by bashing him to death. Well, Andreas seen it only once before, during business, and that was enough. He would not wish that fate upon even those who betrayed the Golden Hammers.

“What is it?” Andreas asked, moving towards Katrina.

Her eyes were filled with tears and her face ashen. At first, he feared his own suspicions were true. No doubt Andreas could pick out a couple of more victim he knew. “We have to go back.”

Andreas shook his head. “Are you crazy. The butchers are swarming the place. No telling what they’d do to you.”

Katrina violently shook her head in protest. “We have to find Saul. We have to save him.” She cried. “They’ll kill him. He just like these poor souls. Just like Gustavus.”

Mentioning Gus was like pouring petro on a fire. It burned a new fury within him. Even the thought of these monsters laying a finger on Gus, rest his heart, was enough to make him want to join in on the dwarf’s beatings. Blast them all, it was not Gus’s fault, or anyone else’s that they were born as they are. It was certainly not another human’s right to decide if they live or die.

Andreas fumed, remembering time was short. In a few minutes, the dwarves would dispatch that Knight, and Andreas did not want to be around to hear it. Nor did he want Katrina around. “Alright, let’s go.” He dropped his Atlus Submachine Gun and checked his pistol. Marching into an occupied town heavily armed was a certainty for failure.

The two sapiens ran out of the field, heading straight for town. They made it not a moment before Andreas heard a large explosion out in the harbor. He and Katrina came sliding to a stop, Katrina nearly falling face first. Andreas quickly steadied her and dragged her towards the ocean. They pushed through thick growths of wild plants. Parting them gave both a quick burst of hope. The explosion was powder, but not that in a gun. The State’s battleship was in two, rapidly sinking. Flaming patches of oil spread outwards from the wrecked hull.

At first, he thought it an accident, a fire in the magazine or something. But not when the only carrier in the invasion force erupted like a small volcano as its aviation petro ignited. Flying low against the backdrop of flames were many red aircraft. The twin-boon attack planes flew in from every angle, firing anti-ship missiles into the enemy fleet. Merculite warheads penetrated hulls, and waited. The electrically ignited explosives were set at various times.

On the horizon, Andreas picked out flashes. The flashes were followed seconds later bu fountains of water jetting from the ocean. The People’s Navy and its Rhodesan allies were finally striking back, a couple of weeks after the invasion. What were they doing this whole time? With so much preparation, they better completely destroy the enemy. Watching battleships and cruisers ignite from missiles and shells should have sent him celebrating. In spite of it all, he could not help but think this attack came too late to help those up in the plantation.

Colossal explosions rocked the sea from behind The State’s fleet. The navy ignored the warships and was now destroying The State’s freighters and transports. Andreas saw the implication immediately. “Perhaps it’ll be over soon,” he muttered. When he turned to leave, he found Katrina nowhere to be found. A large weight suddenly dropped to the bottom of his stomach. “Or perhaps not,” he muttered. Great, now he had to find her before she got herself into trouble, again. At least he knew exactly where she was headed. Andreas took off towards Contra at a full sprint.

Katrina lost track of how many times she tripped or stumbled over debris. Chunks of earth and building littered the street. The entire neighborhood was rearranged; where there was once building, there were now holes, and where there was once open space, there was now pieces of buildings. The stench of freshly turned dirt, burning wood, and that of death. The latter was the worse. She had no words to describe it. The scent tripped her fight-or-flight instinct, a force she had to fight with each step.

No, she must find Saul. She can not just run away and hide. She would not be able to live with herself. After so many weeks on the run, she simply could not go any further, not without Saul. At least the other children had their parents to go home to. Saul, who did he have? Only the generosity of the Tropican State. She will never see eye-to-eye with their policies, but helping those down on their luck did not seem so bad. An orphan was out of luck back home, and helping those in need went against everything The Party taught. She always imagined a socialist state to be far more intrusive, but truth was, The Party controlled every aspect of The People’s lives.

She never thought much about freedom; she simply took the way The State runs for granted. After some time in Tropico, she knew what it meant to be free. She also learned that there was a price to being free. She had to accept and face the risks inherent with freedom. With that, she faced the dangers ahead to save Saul. She always loved children and working with them, and she did not want a single more to face the fate of those on the plantation.

Shock still flowed through her system. She still could not believe her own people would commit such a– such a crime. A grievous one at that. She felt her own pangs of guilt, for she was a product of that system. She never knew it was like this. The Party wanted non-sapiens gone, and everyone assumed that meant out the door– not in the ground. Her part in this crime, was that of ignorance. Intellectually, she knew there was little she could do to chance the world, but that did not stave off the guilt.

Katrina found herself lost quickly. She could have sworn her longhouse was in this neighborhood, but she could not find it. Though they all looked alike, finding one’s own place in Contra was a simple task. The place was now unrecognizable. Not a single longhouse stood in tact, or anywhere else for that matter. Artillery bombardment from afar churned up the dirt and turned the city inside-out. Nothing but kindling and glass shards remained.

Thunder continued to roll from behind her. The land forces might not even know about the big battle at sea. She saw the ships filled with her people explode and sink. She knew the invasion force no longer had any outside help. Worst case scenario; their supply lines were cut and the army was doomed to obliteration or surrendering. She could not imagine them surrendering to those The Party considered inferior. She left Andreas standing there, transfixed by the actions, and hurried back to town.

She knew not what The State was wasting its very limited supply of shells on, but she hoped they would soon exhaust their loads. She would never take silence for granted again. The sounds kept the natives in hiding, most of them anyway. A pair of falconeers ignored Katrina, as they feasted on the carcass of a bonehead. The poor animal looked sliced by a million splinters, almost certainly a victim to naval bombardment.

Katrina heard shouts from nearby, and ducked into some rubble for cover. They were not the welcoming calls of neighbors, but harsh, commanding tones. From her temporary hiding spot, on what might have once been her half of a longhouse, she watched several gray-clad Knights leading away slender humans, likely elves, down the street at bayonet point. Were they to be gassed too, or just shot? Katrina did not want to think about, did not want to have any more blood on her hands.

She continued to hide, even after the Knight vanished from view. She knew she should continue her search, but her instincts said stay put. Given the dangers now roaming the town, she agreed with them. Sure enough, voices came from where the falconeers stood. “Would you look at those,” a large, a gruff looking soldier pointed at the flightless birds.

“A couple of real bird-brains,” his companion joked. He was younger, and acted more reserved than the older one. Probably a subordinate. “Don’t they know they could get killed out here, Sarge?”

The Sergeant snorted. “Bah, they’re just birds, they don’t know nothing. Probably forgot about the bombardment the moment it stopped.”

The younger soldiers nodded, but not in agreement. “Too bad the same couldn’t be said about the underground. I’d like some of those battleship shells to collapse it. Speaking of which, why don’t we go in there after the dwarves? I mean, sure demolishing the entry points is all good and well, but wouldn’t a dwarf just dig another one?”

The sergeant eyed his soldier. He agreed in principle, but his duty was to keep his men alive. “A word of warning, soldier. Never question orders. If an officer ever heard you say that, he’d turn you in like that,” he finished with a quick snap of his fingers.

“I know that, Sarge. I was just thinking–“ the soldier went on.

“Don’t!” His commander snapped, this time without fingers. “Thinking will only get you into trouble.”

These were hardly the soldiers Katrina seen in the news reels. Those were always optimistic, enthusiastic and above all, nationalistic. She supposed all the news she watched the past few years was nothing but propaganda, stories made to keep the masses happy. What would the people back home think if they saw tired, cynical soldiers pounding the ground? They would think ‘that must be somebody else’s army’. Katrina might have thought it as well. These soldiers were almost doubtful about the war and the whole system.

She did see the danger in the underground, in ways she never had before. An armed band of dwarves or gnomes, or the People’s Army for that matter, could sneak right underneath the invaders, and pop up anywhere to take a few shots, before vanishing into the darkness. It made her wonder how many pygmaeus, be them dwarves or gnomes, still lived beneath The State.

“How did we get rid of the underground back home then?” the younger soldier asked. The two marched past Katrina without noticing her, much to her relief.

“Beats me,” the sergeant replied. “The Knights would know, but like I said before; don’t go asking questions. It just is not healthy.”

They continued their patrol away from Katrina in silence. Once out of earshot, Katrina slowly drew herself from her hiding spot to continue her own search. It was obvious by now, nothing or noone remained within the neighborhood. They would have been killed during the metallic rain or rounded up by patrols. Either way, their futures looked bleak. She could see no purpose in rounding everybody up. If there was nobody left, who would grow the crops? Then it dawned on her; colonists. The People colonize conquered lands, just as she was sent to Shownastadt. Was Shownastadt once like this? Were its inhabitants rounded up so The People could move in? Where they the ones now in the slums, and not the dredges of society that The State claimed? The thought only added more to her already burdened conscious.

Katrina continued her restless search. She was starting to learn her way around Contra before The State came. Now, it was simpler, for she could walk in a straight line over rubble and debris. No landmarks remained, nothing to let her know which street she was upon. Each of the piled of rubble looked alike, but offered handy hiding spots when a patrol was in sight.

She crossed into what she was sure was once the market place. The street use to be lined with stalls and stands. It was odd, and unsettling, to see the streets so quiet. They were just as cluttered, but without the life. Where there was once a zoo of smells, only that of smoke remained, with a faint whiff of death. A few fires burned, but not very fiercely.

Katrina came upon a part of town that was still standing. The large buildings stood, peppered with holes, all in a straight line. It must be the railroad. She could see beams of steel twisting and poking into the sky, like a skeletal hand rising from the earth. The train station was now a rotting giant, adding to the whole morbid scene. Katrina walked towards the warehouses and factories. They withstood the bombardment, so perhaps the locals have taken shelter within.

She thought it a bit obvious as she entered the dark shelter. Her nose picked up a familiar, savoring scent; that of coffee. She had not had a good cup of latté for a couple of days. The coffee plant reminded her off all the simple joys in life. She looked around the abandoned factory. Monestrous machines stood silent, its workers long since fleeing the city.

Hundreds of empty cans lay scattered carelessly about. A few even had traces of ground up coffee spilt from them. She did notice many, many bags of coffee lining the walls. They were almost sandbags in their appearance. Somebody must have arranged them as such. They would absorb a little bit of impact from falling shells, but not a whole lot. Perhaps enough to keep abject explosions from smacking those behind the bags with shrapnel.

Katrina rounded the wall of coffee bags. She poked her head around the corner and caught sight of many hiding in the shadows. “Hello?” she asked, not even thinking about her accent. The locals knew she was one of The People. Would they assume she would help her own? They already accepted her simply as Katrina, but with any immigrant, loyalty was always in question.

“Ah Katrina!” called an old, and tired voice. “You’re safe.”

Katrina sighed in relief. At least her neighbor made it out alive. “Matilda, I’m glad to see you safe as well. What are you doing in here?”

Matilda scoffed. “What are we doing in here? Doing our best not to get killed, that’s what. We obviously can’t go home, now can we.”

“We? Who else is here?” Katrina asked, coming into full view of the refugees.

“I found some of the neighborhood children and herded them to the safest place I could think of,” Matilda sounded more tired with each word. Her age would not help much in such a stressful predicament. “We had to move from the last warehouse after the Naveinans raided it. They caught a few of us, but most escape.”

The children all looked up at Katrina. One in particular. He jumped forward and threw himself at Katrina, wrapping his arms around her legs. “Saul!” Katrina said with glee. She knelt down and embraced the child. “I’m glad to see you’re safe. I was starting to worry about you.” As she uttered those words, the horrifying images of so many ‘defective’ youths twisted and contorted within the confines of that accursed trailer. How many of those rounded up during the last raid Matilda spoke of, ended up inside one of those trailers? Plenty of dwarven children did, though she seldom saw any in her little section of Contra.

The thought of patrols already out in force, jolted her. “We have to get out of here,” she said to Matilda.

“Obviously,” the elder woman said. “But we are not all in the prime of our lives. We certainly can’t out run them.”

“You don’t have to,” Katrina explained. “Pygmaeus streets are beneath us. We just have to find an entry.”

“Is that all?” Matilda said dryly, then sighed. “We all know about the underground. It’s a mirror of Contra, but like the image in a mirror, it is not so easy to reach. The entrances are well hidden, and any of them found were blown up by now. If we leave and search for one, we’ll be found.”

“And if you stay here, you’ll be found,” Katrina pointed out.

Matilda nodded. “I know. Quite the trap we’re in. You can still get out. Obviously you’ve evaded them,” Matilda’s voice almost had a hint of suspicion. No, Katrina much just be imagining it. She knows, just like the rest of the locals, that she already landed in trouble with the Knights– thanks to Andreas– back home. If they discover her identity, then they would send Katrina back to a short fate. Assuming they simply did not shoot, or gas her, the way they did so many others.

“No. I came looking for you, and I’m not leaving without you,” she said, but not to anyone in particular. She came to make sure Saul was safe and to keep him from the Knight’s clutches. They would kill him when they learned he could not, or would not talk. From her own experience, she knew the Knights were intimidating, so perhaps they may assume he is simply afraid.

Katrina sat down with Matilda and the children. No, she would not leave without them. All of them. It would not be right to just save one and leave the rest to uncertain fates. “Perhaps we can escape at night,” Katrina offered. She came to save Saul, and was not about to stay here until they were discovered. “They is plenty of debris out there to hide, and the patrols won’t be able to see us so well in the dark.”

Several of the children agreed with her. She smiled, knowing they did not fully comprehend the situation. Katrina did not even full comprehend it. She use to think life was so simple, black and white, but now she found countless shades of gray thrown into the mix. Life was so much simpler before that man crossed her path.

“Very well,” Matilda said with resignation. She, too, was ready to leave– to escape anyway. She lived in this area her entire life. After so many years, it was hard for one to just up and leave. Even with their home reduced to splinters and kindling, it was still hard. “We will wait until nightfall.”

Minutes passed like hours, and hours like days. Waiting for night was agonizing. She passed the time by watching the children play. It was hard for them to play while hiding. They had no ball to kick around, so instead, they chased each other and tried to land a tag. Even Saul joined in the games. He was just such a sweat child. It was beyond Katrina why anyone would want to hurt him. Maybe there was something wrong with his genes, and maybe not. His kindness and spirit made up for anything he might have lacked from birth.

Katrina found herself starting to doze off a couple hours before sunset. When she sat back and relaxed, she learned just how exhausted she was. Between a couple of days worth of shelling, and running all over the countryside, her energy reserves were sapped. She knew not exactly when she fell asleep, but she did know the moment she awoke. The sun was finally going to the horizon when the harsh footsteps echoed off the factory floor.

“Come on out!” a voice called.

Katrina jumped from her spot, her eyes wide with fear. She knew that tone. It was the same tone, told in rumor and tale, that came at the door in the middle of night. She was not the only one alarmed. All the children wore masks of fear, and even Matilda was left startled. “It’s them,” she muttered, barely audible.

A full range of emotions ran through Katrina. She rose to her feet and started looking around. Maybe they would not find them. Maybe they would just breeze over the place and move on. She shot down that idea instantly. If the Knights were anything, it was thorough. Perhaps they would move on if they found somebody.

Matilda thought the same thing. She rose from her seat and prepared to leave. “Watch the children.”

Katrina gasped when Matilda started to leave. “You can’t,” she said, grabbing her by the arm. The old lady was much stronger than Katrina, but she did not fight. Not right away. “Those are Knights of The State, there’s no telling what they’ll do. They’ll– they–“ Katrina could not even say it.

Matilda nodded. “My life is behind me, their’s is in front of them. If those monsters are going to catch somebody, it might as well be me. Make sure you get them to safety. As soon as they take me far enough away, I’ll give you a holler.”

Katrina nodded briefly. There was no convincing Matilda of her folly. She chose to give up her own freedom to save the children. As Matilda walked out of cover, Katrina was determined not to let her sacrifice go to waste. She could hear Matilda surrendering to the Knights. Katrina glanced over at the children. They were not sure what was going on, and Katrina envied them for that.

“Where’s Matilda going?” one of them asked.

Katrina did not have the heart to tell them. “Come on. We’re getting out of here. We just have to wait until the coast is clear.” The sooner the better. But something was wrong, the Knights had not left.

“Where are the others?” one of the Knights demanded from Matilda. Matilda insisted she was the only one. For a moment, she thought they might shoot her there and continue the search. No, they did not– not yet anyway. The lead Knight simply ordered some of his subordinates to take her away, and the rest to continue their search.

Katrina knew the hasty plan failed. She looked at all the children. “Get ready to run,” she told them quietly. Perhaps is she ran towards the Knights, that would buy the children time to escape. If not– she did not want to think about the alternatives.

“Surrender!” the Knights were convinced more hid in the building. Perhaps other groups tried the same trick. “If they run, shoot them,” one Knight said to his comrades.

Katrina’s heart sank. There would be no escape. Her eyes darted around their corner, looking for any nook or cranny to stash the children. If they could hide just a little longer– then what? Then they would be all alone in an occupied city. The State was ruthless with its enemies. Katrina pressed her back into the bag wall as she spotted flashlight beams sweeping the area off to her side.

Only one last desperate ploy crossed her mind. “Don’t say anything. No matter what,” she told the children. If none talked, then the Knights might assume they were afraid. It would not be the first time they frightened somebody into silence. Katrina tried to hide her own fear. The children all had brave faces. Katrina smiled weakly at that, with a hint of pity. They have no idea what lay ahead. Katrina wished they would never have to learn.

“Come on out!” the Knights said, their flashlights finally reaching the Tropican’s hiding spot. Katrina did not want to, but a lifetime of conditioning made her comply to the Knight’s commands. She knew now that she failed. She failed herself, she failed Saul, she failed the children, and she even failed Andreas. She ran off without him, and look what happened. It made her feel so worthless. She stepped forward, leading the children into custody. She would not waste her breath pleading for their safety. The Knights were machines, and they did exactly as commanded. “Come on, hurry it up,” one of the Knights commanded, his rifle aimed at Katrina. The only hope she had left was that of exploding ships. Maybe the war here would be over soon. Maybe they could hold out long enough for the People’s Army to free them. Would that not be ironic; the People’s Army saving Katrina from the grip of her own nation’s Knights.

Sentry and his kind

2011-05-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

The Falconeer

Description: One of the most common predators in Tropico is the falconeer. These flightless birds are some two meters in length, most of it being their tails.

Head: They have somewhat stubby beaks lined with very sharp teeth. They have sharp eyes, capable of detecting the slightest movement. Their color vision evolved with Towneform plants in mind, and they can be fooled by the shades of green that now cover the island.

Body: Their bodies are light weight and muscular. They are capable of jumping from the ground on to roofs of one-story houses, as they often do. They sport a sickle claw on their middle toe.

Color: The female of the species is cover in orange, while the males are a combination of orange and blue.

Diet: Falconeers travel alone, or in pairs. Before the coming of humanity, the hobbler was the falconeer’s primary prey. Afterwards, they took to eating the numerous rodents along with odd chickens.

Lifecycle: The falconeer starts life beneath one of their parents. Parents take turns siting on the nest, protecting the eggs and chicks from rain. As much as an astro will pass before the falconeer leaves the nest and follows the parent on the hunt. After a few astros, the family will break up and go their separate ways. Though falconeers do not actively teach their young, the chicks do pick up new ideas and skills relatively easy. They also learn what is edible and what is off-limits.

Reproduction: The falconeer mates for life, and during each mating season the pair seeks each other out. If one is dead, then the other will not mate that season. When a new season comes around, the survivor will seek out a new mate.

Habitat: Falconeers are found only on the island of Sardensti. They roam the streets of Tropico, much like stray dogs or feral cats. Falconeers nest around human houses, sometime underneath, and occasionally on the roofs. If a human comes close, the falconeer will call out, while spreading their small wings and extending the crest upon their heads.

Communication: Their calls of “caw-caw” often mistake them for crows.

Enemies: The falconeer can hold their own against large dogs and even some of the big cats introduced by the Atlantians. Falconeers that go after livestock and pets do so at their own hazard. As long as they do not get to territorial, humans will tolerate the falconeers living on their roofs; if for no other reason than they get rid of rodents.

Home of the Falconeers, Tropico Island.

Stardust: Towne, Chapter 9

2011-05-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

Chapter 9

Lieutenant Sharpe stared straight forth into the pink skies with a cold smile on his face. Finally, after all this time, they were moving against the Reds and gangsters of Tropico. They were a blight on the world, and the true enemy of The State. It was an island infested with elves, and their plans for world revolution. As one of The People, it was his duty to stop their schemes and keep the world pure of genetic deviants.

The whole concept of socialism left Sharpe disgusted. It was a system in sharp contrast The Party’s views. It was unnatural; Reds give everybody everything. They treat all humans the same. They constantly interfere in the natural processes of genetic selection. Sharpe was not handed his position. He earned it, worked hard and proved his skills and strength superior to other pilot candidates. After a life of proper struggle, he now found himself flying south to the staging area in Rhodes.

His Arrow was state-of-the-art in piston engine aircraft. The fact that jet engines were notoriously inefficient was all that kept them from flying south instead. Not only could they not make the round trip, Daggers could not even make a one way trip. It would not be until airstrips were built in Tropico, would the jet fighters rule the sky. Until then, The State’s swept-ring prop-driven fighters would have to escort the bombers all the way.

He glanced down at the dark, dank swamp below. He cursed the dragons and their hold over the swamp. Much of the fertile and potential productive lands across the continent was already ruled by the creatures. Even parts of The State were off-limits to The People. All because of some flying lizards. In the past, they were hard, if not impossible, to kill. Now, now he suspected his arrow could take down a dragon with ease. All in good time. One day, The People will put the dragons in their place. The People shall dominate the planet.

Sharpe glanced around to the rest of his flight. He was Atl Three, out of ten. A squadron of ten Arrows ruled the empty skies above the swamp. Fortunately for Rhodes, they saw the logic in complying with The State. If they had not, Sharpe would be swatting them out of the sky. He knew he would have to anyway, since their traitorous navy defected to the elves and gangsters. Of all the creatures of the world, he loathed elves the most. They flaunted their perfectly sculpted bodies and wealth for too long. They were leaches, and arrogant ones at that. They drained resources of The People, and would rule over them with an iron heel if given the chance.

Before The Party came to power, they laughed at and looked down upon Sharpe. Soon though, the human genome would be purged, and then we shall see who is laughing. They will be driven from lands that by all right belong to The People. They shall be forced into marginal and barren lands. Then it shall be seen how strong they truly are, how long a race that never worked a day in their lives would fare. The future would set itself right once The State comes out victorious.

“Atl Leader, Alt Five, contacts at zero mark fifteen,” called out one of his squadron.

“Copy that,” came the wing commander’s reply.

Sharpe’s eyes went dead ahead and elevated to see what Cobble saw. His eyes were clearly superior to Sharpe’s. He could barely make out several black dots on an approach vector. Something was approaching, but what? Surely it could not be Rhodesan aircraft. They have already fallen under The State’s control. Another enemy? Perhaps carrier-based aircraft. Yes, it would be like the navy to screw up a simple job as patrolling the ocean. They certainly were too small to be long range bombers. And if so, why would anyone fly over this swamp? It was a bit out of the way for the nearest enemies.

Perhaps they wanted to disrupt the convoys below– not like they could make out the lone road and rail snaking from north to south. That did strike Sharpe as odd; these roads would be stretching the range of Marlonian aircraft of any size. Flying the wrong way to be what was left of Endopia’s air force. Even the suggestion of those being Tropican made Sharpe laugh. Most likely, Rhodes’ traitorous fleet was making an attack.

“Are those ours?” this question came from the rookie in the wing, Atl Seven. Sharpe cursed his foolishness. Clearly the newbie did not pay attention to flight plans.

“Negative Atl Seven,” the wing commander replied. “I don’t know whose they are– but they are approaching fast. Prepare for evasive action, but don’t fire until I give the order.”

That was obvious. No soldier would dare to do anything without authorization. The State does not take kindly to lack of discipline. The colonel in charge of Sharpe’s air company made it painfully clear that no ammunition should ne extended. No combat was even mentioned. Lack of commands spoke as loudly as the command itself. A soldier was not suppose to think or suspect, only act and obey.

As the unidentifies moved closer, Sharpe could tell they were carrying something. A bomb? No, wrong shape for a bomb, or a missile at that. Certainly an odd shaped drop tank. With each passing second, more and more detail came into view. They were indeed black, with long tails. He could make out no rudder or aileron. The wings were oddly shaped too. Not swept, not delta, not even the lift-capable shape one might expect from an airplane. They were wings alright, but their leathery appearance gave them an organic feel. Almost like a–

Sharpe’s thoughts were interrupted as the fighter to his left burst into flames. “Break!” Came the sharp, crisp command of Alt Leader. Sharpe banked quickly, dodging bolts of white light. Of hot light, so hot it boiled the air around it as it passed. At lightning speed, faster than organically possible, the hostiles flew past. Sharpe made out every detail of his new enemies. The black leathery skin, the sharp talons, the ears flapping, and even the cold, bird-like eye piercing into Sharpe’s very soul.

They were dragons. Six dragons. Six dragons with guns! Once upon a time, somebody might say a dragon to be the most feared creature in the world. Then Sharpe would have agreed, but not now. He now saw armed, angry dragons were far more lethal.

Lethal or not, they were still just glorified animals. “Break and attack!” Atl Leader amended his order, and instantly all nine surviving Arrows made ready to avenge their fallen comrade. No way flesh and bone could handle aluminum and tin. Sharpe quickly lined himself up with the nearest dragon, and let out a burst of his four, ten millimeter machine guns. He roared as tracers spat ahead of the dragon. In the blink of an eye, the dragon pulled of a maneuver impossible for any airplane. The dragon folded his wings and dropped like a stone, easily dodging the metallic barrage.

Off to Sharpe’s right, he glimpsed one of his comrades attempt to line up a dragon. Too much speed. Even with his attention focused on his own kill, Sharpe could see his comrade had too much speed. The Arrow shot just beneath the dragon. At that same instant, the dragon lunged down, digging his talons into aluminum skin. Like it was nothing more than paper, the dragon ripped the skin right off the wings, revealing the Arrow’s glimmering frame. With no skin, the wings instantly lost lift and plummeted into a vertical glide. Sharpe could not see a parachute, but would not count on the dragons letting any ejected pilot live.

Sharpe managed to line up one dragon, who pursued Atl Two at unbelievable speeds. He was not sure how, but the dragons were flying as fast as the Arrows, which could top six hundred kilometers per hour. No matter how they did it, this one was not going to dodge Sharpe’s attack. While focusing on his prey, the dragon completely ignored the fighter behind him. Sharpe squeezed the trigger, letting loose a deadly hail of rounds into the dragon. This time the dragon did not dodge.

After several seconds of continuous fire, the dragon did not fall either. Sharpe knew the dragon was dead on in his sights. He knew bullets were going forward, for he could see the red tracer rounds mixed with the normal ones. He even saw many flashes of lights in the path of the bullet, but not a single drop of blood. Even if they lacked the strength to penetrate their hides, it should still cause great discomfort to a dragon. This one did not even look slightly fazed. Instead of evading, he simply lined up Atl Two in his own sights, and with a flash of white light, the Arrow transformed into a flying scrap yard.

Now the dragon took notice of Sharpe. He flipped over onto his back, losing a great deal of speed, and let Sharpe overshoot him. While overhead, the dragon’s head snaked back and snapped forward. Sharpe could faintly see spray coming from his mouth. The dragon spat at him. It was common knowledge that dragons were venomous. Now what did Blacks spit. Then it hit Sharpe, like a club. Their venom was highly acidic. Sharpe glanced over and saw the fluid crackling and popping across his wing. If he could not get it off there, it would eat right through to the fuel tank, and that would shorten his trip.

Sharpe dove and frantically waggled his wings. While engrossed with his own problems he failed to see the fate of Atl Leader. The squadron commander, too, overshot a dragon. Instead of spitting acid, this one dropped onto his Arrow. Talons dug into aluminum skin, and the dragon managed to get a grip on the canopy to his cockpit. With a quick snap, he managed to rip the canopy right off, instantly exposing the interior to several hundred kilometers of wind an hour. Whether the pilot was rendered unconscious or killed, Sharpe would never know. All he knew, was that Atl Leader went into a power-dive and shot past him as he tried to shake his plan free from dissolving.

Sharpe’s problems multiplied the moment his right wing burst into flames. Fuel combined with acid and produced a trailing fire. Had he not known better, he might have thought they installed a jet engine in that wing. No such luck. Along with the fire, the dial of his right fuel tank plummeted faster than a fallen aircraft. He dove closer to the treetops, hoping to bleed out the fire in the process. Not only that, but perhaps he could lose the dragons too. All he had to do was reach Rhodes and the lizards would not dare follow. Once over friendly territory, a hail of anti-aircraft artillery would detour any pursuit.

A blinding arc of disruptive light flew scant meters in front of him. Close enough and hot enough, he could feel the flames as they passed. They landed in the moist swamp, sending up a plume of steam in Sharpe’s wake. He just had to make it a little further. Just a few more minutes. If he could stay alive just a few more minutes, he would be safe. With all the burning hulks falling from the sky, survival was in doubt. Should he die today, his own regret would not being able to take a shot at the Reds, and he did not mean the species of dragon. He seen enough of their kind to last him for the rest of his life.

After hours upon hours of nothing but endless tracks of open seas, the sight of land passing beneath came as a relief. Tropico. The Green Island. Not even the slightest hint of orange beneath the lumbering, four-engine Anvil. Dozens of the bombers flew over the land of the new enemy. Yet another enemy to a long list of them. According to The Party, the Reds were the main enemy of all Sapiens. None of the racial and genetic ideology made the least bit of sense to Corporal Grune, and he was not happy about having yet another enemy to fight.

Unlike the hotshot fighter pilots, Grune was not here by choice. Like so many enlisted men, he was conscripted. One day, out of the blue, his notice came to show up at the recruiting station. Like so many under The Party’s heel, he reluctantly obeyed. Much to his surprise, he was not given a rifle and sent off as cannon fodder for the army. The Western Front was a nasty business; it turned healthy young men into dead men if they were lucky, and something much worse if not.

Instead he was sent up into the air. He was trained in the operation of a ten millimeter machine gun and placed as waist gunner aboard one of the feared Anvils. He survived many missions over Langoon and Endopia; probably due to lack of a decent interceptor on their behalf than any other reason. The Anvil flew high enough that only high performance fighters, or jet-powered ones, could reach it. It might make him safe from the enemy, but not the elements. At this height, his oxygen mask was his constant companion. As were several layers of clothes. How it could get so cold on a world as warm as Towne was beyond him. Perhaps flying part way to space had something to do with it.

He stared down at the Green Island. Was there really anything worth bombing down there? As far as he knew, Tropico was filled with lazy socialists and elves so obsessed with their own beauty that they did even less. Their top industry, aside from organized crime, was cigars and rum. Why fly all this way to bomb a rum distillery? Maybe they had a munitions factory. Grune did not know the mission, he only knew his part.

His eyes moved from the green back to the blue-green. Plenty of puffy white clouds, but none of the metal filled black ones. Did Tropico even have anti-aircraft artillery? Surely they could not have missiles. According to the media, they had nothing but horse drawn carts and sailing ships. He seen no sails thus far, but could not rule out horses from so far above.

“Anything?” a voice came from behind Grune.

“Not a thing,” Grune told the left-waist gunner. Giallo seen many more missions than Grune, and served in the air force a good two years longer.

Giallo sighed. “I don’t know why we’re looking. Not like the beach bums could do anything against us.” Giallo was a member of The Party, and ate up everything they said. “Maybe if the Rhodesans came down here– no, not even then. They would not waste their forces on this island.”

Giallo was more vocal than Grune. He learned long ago that it was best to keep his opinions to himself. However, with Giallo was an exception. “If you say so, general.”

Giallo snorted. He knew he was right, and was about to give his own two dinar, when a third voice shouted into both of their headsets. “Mouths shut, eyes open!”

“Yes sir,” both said to the pilot, a major in the air force. As far as they were concerned, the commander of the airplane had the same absolutist authority as a ship’s captain or a tyrant. And as far as the Major was concerned, anything less than one hundred percent concentration on their assigned duty only was a waste of time.

Grune’s eyes went back to scanning the skies. His eyes went over to the distant mountains in western Tropico. There he spotted a new color in the sky. A glistening red off in the distance. What was it? It was far enough away that he should not worry about it. Grune turned his eyes away from the distant objects and scanned the sky below them. Still nothing but green, some of it forest, some of it farm. Must be coffee.

He looked back up at the mountains, trying to pick up those red spots. They vanished from sight, perhaps they were just figments of his imagination. A few seconds passed before he spotted more red dots. No, not dots, but circles. They were red circles, and they were moving. Not just moving, but doing so impossibly fast. “Giallo, what do you make of those?”

Giallo glanced over, peering out Grune’s window. “Of what?”

“Those red circles–“ Grune never bother finishing his sentence. The circles were already gone.

“I think you need another bottle of oxygen,” Giallo reported as he went back to his own window and gun.

Grune cursed his luck. Maybe he was just seeing things. The thought went through his head only once. Another flash of red did appear from his window, towards the rear. It was not a disk, but a rapidly expanding cloud of fire. The bomber off to his Anvil’s right went up in a fiery explosion. The shock wave was enough to shake and rattle him across the room.

“Hostiles!” came the cry from the tail gunner, followed shortly by the burst of his own machine gun.

Giallo jumped back at the sudden whoosh of air. “Looks like you weren’t seeing things,” he said as his eyes slid off a red disk climbing in his view. The disk vanished outside of the gun’s arc before he could even bring it to bare.

“What are those cursed things!” The top turret gunner hammered away at the swift red discs. For all the good it did, he might as well try firing at the sun.

Another hostile came into Grune’s view. He wasted no time in trying to shoot it down, but to no avail. The disc– not the aircraft, flew too fast to allow him to lead it. At least, he thought it was an aircraft. In the middle of the disc sat a cockpit and a pilot. The cockpit was the only thing conventional about the flying object. Its wings were completely circular in design, making the aircraft an almost perfect circle. The enemy pilot heeded no attention to gunners. Instead, he focused on the bomber behind Grune’s. Grune caught a glimpse of trailing flames as one of the fighter’s air-interception missiles leaped forward.

“Looks like a bloody saucer!” Giallo called out, still trying to score a hit on one of them.

Grune could not agree more. They were flying saucers, something Tropico certainly should not have. Nor should they have missiles of any sort. They were suppose to be primitive, lazy and nothing but a bunch of gangsters. Instead, they fielded an aircraft far in advance of anything Grune ever saw. He doubted that The State’s own jets could match these flying saucers.

One of the saucers finally did pay him some attention. It charged straight at the Anvil’s midsection. Grune hit the deck, abandoning his one chance to shoot down the saucer, the moment he saw lights blinking out of its circular wings. An instant later, the sound of hail echoed through the fuselage as bullets punctured the bomber. Giallo shouted, not in pain but surprise as the bullets whizzed past his head. He tried his own luck once the saucer over shot him. Again, he score no hits. Could these planes be outrunning the bullets?

No, that was nonsense. If they did, they would run into their own ammunition. “Casualty report!” the pilot called out over the headsets. One by one, the Anvil’s crew reported in, and in perfect health.

“Maybe the infantry isn’t so bad after all,” Giallo told his gunning companion. “At least then we could dig into something.”

Grune nodded as he climbed back to his feet and re-manned his gun. “Can it, Giallo!” the captain commanded. “Stop crying about it and shoot those hostiles down.”

Giallo muttered just soft enough to go undetected– or ignored. Grune returned his attention to his view port. How was he suppose to hit one of them, much less down it. The flying saucers were in the middle of a deadly dance amongst the bomber formation. Trails of exhaust from their jet engines created an almost tapestry out of the sky. Above was a magnificent sight, below was one from a nightmare. Several bombers were plunging ground-wards, their engines trailing its own flames, and in a few cases– their engines and wings missing altogether.

A couple bombers had machine gun fire hit their bomb bays. The explosive force of a thousand kilograms of payload igniting did not leave enough left to crash. Their crews were lucky in a way, they did not have the chance to fall to their deaths. Falling from a plan without a parachute was the greatest fear of most bomber crews. Grune carried his at all times, but that was no guarantee it would open after he made that leap of faith.

Saucer pilots need not have such worries. The only concern they had was that of running out of ammunition before depleting the targets. It was a bet either way how that would end. Targets were rapidly falling out of the sky, and gunners quickly expending bullets. Once that happened, they would be defenseless. “I’m out!” called the turret gunner.

Grune frowned. So much for defenses from above. If a saucer dove on them, they were dead. Odds were, no matter which way they attacked, the crew was likely dead. Grune might run one of his own belts up to the turret. He was doing little good here. By the time the bullets reached its target, the saucer was long gone. The Anvil shook again. Grune had to almost stick his head into the jetstream to see the flash from below. Tracers filled the sky below, as did missile contours.

The Anvil shook again, but this time it was not an impact. It felt as if the Anvil lost something. Several somethings at that. Grune had enough combat experience to know when the bombs were dropped. Were they over the target? Grune had no idea. In fact, he knew not what the target was. Perhaps it was a retreat. Never in his time in the air force did he ever experience retreat. How could The State turn tail? The question was rhetorical today, seeing the Tropican flying saucers changed his mind.

Surviving bombers released their payloads soon after. They twisted in a sharp arc, turning northward. Grune braced himself as the Anvil rolled. His heart stopped for a second, fearing this was a death roll. After a sharp turn, the Anvil leveled out on its new trajectory. He was relieved to be heading home, but that was not enough to call off the attack. The saucers might be out of missiles, but they still threw plenty of metal Grune’s way.

He could only hope on reaching the continent, but then what? Would they be sent on another mission to Tropico? How many bombers fell today, and how many more could the Tropicans shoot down? Grune was in no hurry to learn the answers. He just wanted to get back to base, and never see the Green Island ever again. Even as he hoped, the losses continued to grow. As soon as the second-to-last bomber fell, Grune knew the next saucer would have his name on it. For once, he gave more hope to the other guy than himself. If they survive, then so would he.

Katrina looked up into the sky as soon as she departed Contra’s drug store. She picked out four of those red flying saucers fly overhead. She never imagined Tropico would have such sophisticated aircraft. Those circular wings were barely wings at all. Why did they not tumble out of the sky? Must be traveling too fast to fall. Aside from the saucers, only a flock of birds flew overhead, and headed somewhere in a hurry.

Katrina decided it much better to watch where she headed as opposed to sky-gazing. Nothing to see above of much danger. Those saucers kept the sky free of The State’s bombers. Some did try to attack a couple of weeks ago, and in fact dropped their bombs harmlessly on some distant plantations, but none have tried yet. They did not dare attacking at night either. Though the fighters might be limited, Tropican missiles had infrared sensors in their noses. High in the sky, in the chill of the night, engines burned as bright as flares.

Katrina assumed Tropicans would resent her, just for being one of The People. She was not even sure she could think of herself as such anymore. Sure, she received a few odd glances because of her accent, but once the initial shock wore off, Tropicans just treated her like everyone else. The last couple of weeks have been a very alien experience. She never lived in a place where everyone was treated equally. Sure, back home, The People treated each other as equals, but never would a sapien treat a pygmaeus as an equal.

She never seen the reason to do so, not before reaching Tropico. In truth, she never seen a non-sapien in person before the Golden Hammers crashed into her workplace. Her work sure changed in that astro. She went from a teacher to an account. Crunching numbers was simple enough, but she loved teaching. She wished she could catch such a job, but none are available. Socialism kept to its quotas rather stringently. That did not stop her from interacting with the town’s children during the nightly festivities. Tropicans sure did love a party.

Katrina made it back to her new home, half of a long house. Basic housing was provided by the government, and Katrina was stuck with it until her pay came in regularly. She was paid two hundred dinar an astro, smaller than her teacher’s salary. A country house costs fifty dinar an astro, same as an apartment. She spotted a nice looking apartment above Contra’s drugstore.

She shared the longhouse with an elderly woman, a former fish monger by trade. She was a big woman, one who was not to be trifled with. She was also one of the friendliest people Katrina ever met. She would do anything to help out a neighbor. Because she retired a couple of years past, she spent much of her time watching the neighborhood children while both parents worked. That was another oddity in her life; in The State, women only worked traditional feminine jobs until they marry. Then they are expected to do what their men-folk tell them.

Until she arrived in Tropico, Katrina never thought about any other way. She knew she was too spirited and stubborn to be a good housewife. Her love of teaching was a reason she was still single, even in her mid-twenties. Yet, in Contra, nobody cared, and that was not because apathy was rampant. Quite the opposite. The town had a vibrant carefree atmosphere, and Katrina was growing to enjoy it. That left her thoughts very muddled, and conflicted.

Everything that happened in the past astro struck her as very unsettling. So many old misconceptions were shattered. Tropicans were not lazy, but very industrious. Even after putting in a hard day’s work, they are still ready to celebrate all night. And the children, they were very lively. She could hear them through the thin walls of the longhouse. Irritating at times, but she still smiled when she saw them. One in particular. What she learned about Saul left her lifelong assumptions destroyed, and her heart heavy.

Back home, genetic health was expressed above all. Even one’s own feelings. Defects were not to be pitied, or have resources squandered upon them. They were suppose to not be born. There were tests, mandatory of course, that could determine if a fetus would be less-than-normal. A simple retrieval of DNA decided whether the fetus would develop into a baby, or terminated and the couple would have to try again. A mute would fall into this category, and that described Saul.

There was nothing physically wrong with him, at least that was what the old fish monger, Matilda, told her. Saul simply does not talk. The doctors do not know why. Would he be considered defective back home? How could they tell he would not speak before he was even born? She knew not what they would do to him afterwards. She never heard of any so-called defects that matured to birth. They simply do not exist within the boundaries of The State.

When she reached the drab exterior of her new place, Matilda stood on her side of the house, waving at Katrina. Katrina waved back. “Good day, Matilda,” she said, ever so conscious of her own accent.

“Day to you too, Katrina, have you heard the latest news?” She asked, waving around a newspaper.

“Can’t say I have,” Katrina had little time to read the paper while she worked. Matilda brought her, her copy of the People’s Times. Katrina new how socialism was suppose to be for the people, but Tropicans took the word ‘people’s’ to a ridiculous extent. Still, the People’s Times was not the strangest use of the prefix. That honor belonged to the People’s Fruit– that being what they call pineapples. Yes, there were certainly some fruitcakes around here. Katrina believed this, but kept her mouth shut.

The headline of the paper screamed ‘Invasion’. A week ago, The State landed an invasion force almost unopposed. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of militia were killed defending the beaches. She knew her homeland invaded its neighbors and tried to dominate the world, but it was not until now did she ever think of them as ‘invaders’. That aside, seems odd that Matilda would be telling Katrina about that. Invasion was old news, but the slowly advancing invasion force was not.

“Read here what the dragons gone and done,” she handed Katrina the paper after flipping it over. The invasion story did take up most of the front page, along with cries for the people to rise up against the marauding invaders. In the lower right hand corner, a headline boldly declared a different sort of invasion. ‘Terror From the Sky’ it read. Katrina glanced through it, picking up key notes about what the black dragons in that great swamp did.

Her eyes went wide. “Unbelievable!”

“My thoughts exactly,” Matilda said, but then quickly amended her words. “Ok, perhaps not exactly, I added a lot more color when I found out.”

The dragons made no press releases or anything of the such. So, what could only be assumed to be in retaliation of The State’s incursion into their swamp, the dragons razed every human settlement within thirty-seven kilometers of the swamp’s northern boundaries, including a staging area of The State. Though nobody may ever know for certain, the death toll is speculated to be around half a million.

“I can’t believe they could kill so many, so fast.” Katrina shook her head, handing the paper back to Matilda. Katrina did not want to believe it. She did not want to read any more about it. “Dragons aren’t suppose to care what we do.”

“I don’t know about those dragons up there in that big swamp, but the Blacks in Tropico don’t like us going into the marshlands. Far as I’m concerned, they’re welcomed to the malarial pits.” The black dragons were immediately descended from those of the swamp. Before the greenery of Terraforms conquered the island, dragons never lived in Tropico. Their populations were always small, but a boom thousands of years past forced many of the then youth to find new swamps to call home. Thus, they flew south. Tropicans got along well with their neighbor dragons, and an occasional Black might even fly into one of the cities to take a look around. Though they did not mind if the odd human came to visit them, they frowned upon masses of the apes flooding into their territories.

“Aren’t you worried they’ll do the same thing here?” Katrina asked. The dragons up north were quiet, until The State sent an army across their lands. If The State ventured into Tropican Black lands, the dragons might just repeat the action of their ancestors up north.

Matilda shook her head. “Not really. We’ll stop the Naveinans before they can get south enough to bother our Blacks.”

Katrina could only hope it would be. She would also hope that The State never reached Contra. She knew little about what happened in foreign wars, nothing in detail. Only that The State wins time and time again. In their wake came the colonist, which was exactly how she ended up in Shownastadt to begin with. She never really gave much thought that, that too was once somebody else’s home. “I hope so,” Katrina said as she turned for her own door.

“I’m finished with the paper, don’t you want to read it?” Matilda asked. She believed in not wasting anything. Tropicans, in general, did not like to waste. They had so little to begin with.

Katrina shook her head. “No thanks. I would just as soon not remember the troubles of the world.”

Matilda shrugged, as if to say ‘suit yourself’. “See you at dinner then.”

“Uh huh,” Katrina said, as she turned the knob and gave a might push on her front door. All the doors here were heavy, and reinforced. To keep the boneheads out is what everyone told her. She would not argue that, not after she saw one in action. The flightless birds had a bald spot upon their head of thick bone. She watched one same headlong into a parked auto at full speed. Most animals would be out cold after that, but not a bonehead. The Towneform just shook his head and moved along.

Katrina sighed as she took a look at her spartan room. Back home, it would have been called a studio apartment. It was one a couple of rooms, the second being a bathroom. It was nice to have a bathtub parked away privately. It was even nicer to have hot and cold running water, not to mention air condition. Since the window did not open, it saved her a lot of misery. She did not have much of a kitchen. Tropicans tended to have big dinners for the whole neighborhood. It was like a party every night.

Strange part was, it cost her nothing. The basic rations were provided by the state. If she wanted anything extra, naturally she would have to shell out some of her hard earned cash. She did every now and then, but since becoming poor, she pinched every dinar. She could survive on fish and corn, but every few days she wanted a little something extra. If for no other reason than to keep from going mad at the monotony.

Her new place was rather bland and empty. On the floor in one corner, was a mattress of sorts. It was more like a pallet with a cushion on top of it. It was not the prettiest thing she ever saw, but it was still soft. She slept enough. She wished it was not upon the floor. No telling what sort of bugs might crawl over her in the middle of the night. Along with the bed were two old chairs and a rickety table. The walls were blank, and a bit worn. This place was likely as old as the Revolution– not far from her own age.

The few dishes she owned she kept spotless. She used them for breakfast. No point in dirtying them when dinner was a community affair. That still struck her as odd, as did many aspects of Tropico. She was use to eating alone, in her apartment. And eating quickly. The natives took an hour to eat dinner, and talked more than she imagined possible for hungry people. Katrina sat upon one of her chairs and leaned back against the wall. It was only a five hour work day, but she was still tired. A couple of hours until dinner too. Maybe she will take a nap before heading out. Nothing much else to do until dinner.

A string of lights illuminated the neighborhood square. The sun began its quick decent over the horizon, and the locals were all pouring out of the surrounding longhouses into the square. Katrina did not know how many of these little squares were spread across Contra. She could not hear past the festivities or see past the glare of the lights to tell. Orange lights. She shook her head. Why would anyone need lights that bright.

Musicians began setting up their own craft off in one of the corners. It was like this every night. She wondered if they were paid for their services or simply played for the joy of it. She did not think it very prudent to ask. They would not play until after the food vanished. Katrina stood away from the crowd, as she had the habit of doing since arriving. From her distant vantage point, she could smell the corn boiling and fish frying.

Once dinner was cooked, she joined with the neighbors at the tables. Like always, they talked their lives away, taking even longer to eat than they should. As always, Katrina listened but did not add anything. Tropicans spoke of farming and of football, neither Katrina knew anything about. Many Tropicans were mad that the World Cup will be cancelled due to war. Just like the All-Nations Games, the World Cup is a once-every-ten-years event that brings all the nations of Towne together in friendly– or at least non-lethal competition.

Katrina could not remember ever seeing the All-Nations Games. The State, once The Party came into power, never sent competitors to the games. They called them decadent and corrupting. They refused to allow The People to mingle with foreigners and non-sapiens. Katrina did plenty of that now. The square was filled with mostly sapiens and elves, something Katrina was still not use to, and even a couple of gremlins. She could tell they were not goblins since they wore welder’s goggles over their eyes. The orange string of lights was a little too much for their photosensitive eyes to handle. Aside from that, they were as social as everyone else.

After everyone ate, and their food settled, the music started up. Many of the adults went out to dance to the music. Even Katrina could feel the groove of the tune, but she knew nothing about dancing. Or at least what Tropicans call dancing. Too jazzy to compare with the mellower waltzing back home. She never paid a whole lot of attention to them, but to the children. Some of the youth tried to mimic their elders by moving their feet. Their attempts were cute, but not very effective.

Most of the children ran around the far side of the square. There was some order to their mayhem. They kicked a round ball back and forth, trying to keep it from landing in areas behind them. Football normally had nets, but not here. These Tropicans could not afford nets. Instead, a couple of posts set three meters apart served as goal. Each side tried their best to keep away the other. Katrina could not make heads nor tails of the action. Only the children could tell each other apart in their team warfare.

Not all children were out playing football. One of the boys approached Katrina. She smiled at the charming youth. “How are you doing Saul?”

Saul smiled, and said nothing, just as Katrina expected. She really wish he would talk, to say anything. Some of the women in town almost liked his silence. If one can not talk, one certainly can not talk back. Saul could do neither. He was an orphan, perhaps that had something to do with it. Katrina was certain she learned how to talk from her parents.

She looked at Saul carefully. Both of his hands were behind his back. “Are you hiding something?” she asked in the same tone she might have asked a younger brother, if she had one. Saul looked up and made to whistle casually. Yes, he was hiding something.

“Well, what is it? Can I see?” Katrina asked, trying not to laugh. There was just something magical about children, and she could not figure it out. She just acted so warmly towards them.

Saul drew his hands from behind his back. In one hand he held a rose. A dark red one at that. Katrina seen very few of them, and only in public areas. The city paid for groundskeepers to tend them, and they were suppose to be for the enjoyment of the people. Saul went an picked one, and Katrina was not sure if that was allowed. He handed the rose to Katrina.

“For me?” Katrina smiled. “Why thank you, Saul. This is the sweetest thing anyone’s done for me all year.” Saying that brought her thoughts to Andreas. That bum. He dropped her off in a Contra longhouse and took off at the first chance. She only seen him a couple of times since. She wished he would drop by more often, if for no other reason than so she could sock him a good one.

Saul pointed at the rose, then grabbed some of his own hair between his fingers. “Yes, it is the same color as my hair. You are just such a sweetheart.” To this, Saul could only smile shyly, and look down in an ‘aw, golly’ expression. “It’ll add some much needed color to my place.” Saul certainly took a liking to her. It was nothing new to Katrina; some of her former students were the same way. Except they brought apples, not flowers. Not very many apple trees in Tropico–

“I see you got yourself an admirer,” a familiar voice made Katrina jump in shock.

She turned around to glare back at the voice. “Well look what the cat drug in,” she said in a dry tone.

Andreas bowed. “At your service as always.”

“Just think you can show up once a week and everything will be fine?” Katrina was happy to see him, yet furious all at the same time.

Andreas sighed. He felt like the dark cloud that just passed over a parade. “I’ve been up to my ears in work. I don’t like dropping everything before I’m finished.”

“And are you?” Katrina demanded. By now, she noticed that Saul made a speedy getaway. Figures; Andreas could scare anyone away.

“For today,” Andreas replied. “I’m sure I’ll be buried again tomorrow. I tell you, it never ends.”Andreas eyed the flower in Katrina’s hands. “You know, you shouldn’t pick the People’s Flowers.”

Katrina scowled. “I did not. It’s a gift. Unlike you, some males know how to act kindly to a lady.”

Andreas rolled his eyes and was about to say something about that. Likely a retort. However, for once he decided to keep his mouth shut. His attention drifted away towards the band. They were winding down one song and starting up a new one. One that struck Andreas with recognition. “I like this song. Come on, let’s dance.”

“What!?” Katrina protested as Andreas grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet.

“Let’s– dance–“ he said again, this time much slower.

Katrina was not amused. “I don’t know how.”

“It’s easy. It’s just a ten-step count,” Andreas told her in a way that convinced her, that he believed those words would explain all. “It’s very metric.”

“What isn’t,” she muttered.

“Just shut up and follow my lead,” he said with an exasperated tone.

For once, Katrina was inclined to do that. She kept a tight grip on her flower while trying to follow Andreas’s moved. She looked down at his feet, trying to copy the movements. Andreas laughed, and told her to move her opposite foot. Katrina snapped at him, but complied nonetheless. Many years had passed since she last danced, and certainly not in such close proximity. She watched many others danced as such, and knew it was not just Andreas. At first, her mind tried to resist enjoying the movement.

The resistance did not last long. Sure, she quickly grew dizzy from the spinning, but did not have time to complain. She had to focus with keeping up with Andreas. He was moving as if the tune had possessed his body. He was no longer in control, it was the music that commanded the dance. Katrina had no idea how to mimic that. When she tried, she ended up stepping on toes and almost tripping Andreas. Instead of his snappy comebacks, he only laughed at her follies. It was not a mocking laugh, but one of enjoyment. It was a bit contagious too, since Katrina found herself laughing.

Once the song wound down, a merciful couple of minutes later, Katrina tried to catch her breath. Catch her breath and walk straight. Andreas helped steady her back to her table. “Ok, that was a little fun, but only a little.”

“Told you so,” Andreas agreed with her. Out of the corner of his eyes, he spotted a pair of hobblers bobbing their heads up and down. They were scanning for any tidbits dropped by the humans. “See, even the hobblers agree.”

Katrina smiled as she watched the cute birds beg. “I bet they’d still be nodding even if I knocked you on your posterior.”

Andreas’s eyes went wide. “Ack! They might mistake me for a piece of food.”

Katrina laughed. “You have nothing to worry about. They’d take one bite of you and spit it out.”

Andreas gave her a wounded glance for her troubles. “That was uncalled for. Great, now I almost forgot why I came here.” Andreas paused to think for a moment. Katrina knew he knew, and had to wait. “Oh yes, Contra’s cinema is playing one of the Wildlife Warrior shows. It’s a few years old, but I bet you’ve never seen it.”

Katrina nodded. “You’re right.” She had not seen that show in ages, since The State forbade all outside media.

“But, if you’re not interested, I guess I’ll just have to go by myself,” Andreas said casually.

Katrina frowned. “Oh no you don’t! You’ve ignored me long enough. You’re taking me, like it or not. And you are paying for it too!”

Andreas grinned as her commands. “Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me not to act ‘difficult’.” He put heavy emphasis on the last word. He did not think as to whether she would understand it, but it had a double meaning in Tropico.

Katrina snorted. “You’ve been difficult since the day we’ve met. Alright, let’s just stop by my place long enough for me to put this flower in some water.” The day we met– little over two astros ago. Feels more like two calender years than astronomical ones.” Katrina paused before moving on. “One more thing, I expect popcorn.”

“Naturally,” Andreas muttered before leading her out of the square.

Katrina smiled as she walked down the packed dirt streets of Contra. It was late, and all the stars were out. She could see them clearer now than before. Capelleon was up there somewhere. She could not pick it out. Several other bright stars matched it in intensity. “I have to admit, I still like that show.”

“Who doesn’t?” Andreas asked rhetorically. Both have watched it for years, those Katrina had a wide gap in her attendance. “Though he got way to excited about hobblers.”

Katrina shook her head. “They are cute.”

“And annoying,” Andreas added. Tropicans had plenty of problem with hobblers eating their gardens. “But they’ll easier to scare off than boneheads.”

Katrina laughed. “You try and run them off, they’ll break your leg.”

“It’s not funny. I’ve know a few who ended up with broken hips on account of rutting boneheads.” Andreas had a few close calls of his own, including almost smashing his hand in the door.

Katrina could see Andreas’s face clearly enough to see his change in emotion. A tinge of pain flashing through his eyes. “Somebody you know get clobbered by a bonehead?”

Andreas shook his head. “Not something I want to talk about.”

“Was it Gus?” she asked, using the name for the first time. She heard it here and there, first from the cook in the People’s Pub.

Andreas stopped in his tracks and scowled. “Which dwarf couldn’t keep his mouth shut this time?”

“Did he?” Katrina pressed the issue.

“No. That’s not what happened,” Andreas was fuming from his revealed past.

“Who is Gus? Tell me, Andreas,” Katrina asked. It was something she wanted to know. She could sense it was.

“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it,” Andreas said sternly.

Katrina stood toe-to-toe with Andreas, having to stand on her toes to stare him down. “Tell me.”

Andreas let out a hybrid of a sigh and scowl. “Walk with me,” he said, continuing his journey down the road. No traffic was out at night, so there was little worry about getting ran over. “Gustavus was an orphan. In case you haven’t noticed, there are quite a few around here.”

Katrina nodded, thinking of Saul. “Yes, I’ve noticed. They are well taken care of.”

Andreas grunted in agreement, “Gustavus wasn’t like the other. Oh, he was physically healthy, but he wasn’t the brightest of boys. He was shunned by most, but I took him in. That really burns me the way he was treated. It’s not his fault he was slow, he was just born that way. Slow or not, he sure did love to have fun. If he wasn’t playing every second he was awake, he would be bugging me or one of the dwarves to play ball. He had a certain charm that just grew on you. The dwarves took to calling him Goofy Gus.”

“What happened to him?” Katrina asked, noting the word ‘was’. Something not good, she had the feeling. She knew little about mental impediments. Offspring with such defects would be terminated before birth, thus saving them from a life of the remedial.

“He got sick,” Andreas told her, pain in his voice. “At first, I thought they were just seizures. He had one in the middle of the night. He work me, his screams sounded like some sort of ghoul in the night. He went still for a few minutes afterward. I’m sure you can guess I how I felt. I’ve never panicked in the face of danger, but this– this was beyond anything I felt before. When he came to, I about passed out in relief. I thought it might have been a one time thing, but I made certain to take him to the hospital should it happen again.”

“And it did?” Katrina asked. She never imagined Andreas panicking. He was always cool in the line of fire. He did not even break a sweat when driving circles around the Knight on the savanna.

Andreas nodded solemnly. “It did, and I rushed him there as fast as he can. The doctors did their best, but it turned out I was wrong. It wasn’t seizures. Gus had heart problems, problems I never knew about.”

Katrina gasped. “Oh Andreas,” she reached out to touch his arm.

Andreas quickly shook her off. “He was dead before we made it. He died in my arms.” Andreas did not realize that his fist were clenched until his nails began to dig into his palms.

“Andreas, there was nothing you could do,” Katrina wished she never pressed the issue now.

Andreas laughed, but it was a cold laugh. “That’s what the doctors told me. But I know, if I would have taken him in the first time it happened, they might have done something about it. I didn’t. Instead, I waited to see what happened. I waited, and he died. He died because I didn’t act.”

“Andreas, you can’t blame yourself,” Katrina told him, trying to sooth his pain.

“Don’t you see, Katrina. I failed him. I was responsible for him, and I failed!” Andreas fought down his own pain, not liking to show it in front of anyone, least of all himself. “He brought so much joy into my life, and I failed him. When he died, they told me life just wasn’t fair sometimes. How true they are; if it were, I’d be dead, and Gus was still be here. He had so much more to offer than I ever did.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she muttered, thinking out loud. Andreas kept this anger, this guilt within him for so long. She could not imagine going throw that, or feeling so much pain for so long. No wonder he was so distant, so cold at times. If she lost somebody close to her– she did not want to think about it.

Andreas shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. It’s my pain, and something I have to live with. I guess that’s why I went after you. After Gus’s death I never dared to dodge responsibility. I landed you in a mess, and I just couldn’t live with myself if I walked away.”

Katrina grabbed his arm and leaned up against him as they walked. “I never imagined. I figured you were just some jerk who was looking for a reward.”

Andreas laughed, this time with a tinge of humor. “I would rather have gold. It don’t talk back.” Katrina rolled her eyes. She expected as much from him. This time, she knew why he pushed her away. “I’ll drop you off at your place, and head home. I have another long day of work tomorrow. I tell you, it never ends.”

Stardust: Towne, Chapter 8

2011-04-28T09:28:00.000-07:00

Chapter 8

Major Griever marched down the well lit hall with a mission. Under his arm he carried a briefcase, one that carried notes vital to the war effort. Union Austriaus was not in the war, not yet, but it could not stay neutral forever. Eventually the UA would have to enter against The State and destroy its genocidal dreams. Griever was a middle-man, a forty year old one of excellent health. He spent half his life serving his country, and did so well in the Special Services, the intelligence arm of the Union’s armed forces.

This was the part of his job he loved most; getting out of the office. Meeting new people was fine, but he really enjoyed the going new places. Like this hall for example. Before today, Griever never stepped foot inside Hallomoor University. Nor had he ever the chance to meet the legendary physicist, Professor Eindorf. Eindorf was apparently a recluse, for no pictures existed of him. Nor was there any description within the university’s personnel files. Another perk to his job. Legally, snooping as such without a warrant was a big no-no, but Griever always needed to know who he was going to deal with.

Going for to find Eindorf without any data irked him. He was a combat veteran, back in his younger days. He lead men into skirmishes along the border, and knew that leading men into the unknown was dangerous at best. Suicidal was a better work for it. If one did not know what one was going up against, there was a good chance that one would not walk away. Griever expected no firefight here in the hallowed halls of one of the most prestigious universities in the AU.

Griever stopped at a steel door. Above it lay a plaque with Eindorf’s name upon it. This must be the place. Griever pushed the door open and stepped inside the laboratory. He saw an impressive display of technology. One entire wall of the lab was coated in complex calculating machines. A few computer monitors were lit up in a series of numbers. Griever did not approach close enough to read them. He doubted he would understand them, for it was all in the language of mathematics.

Along side those computers stood many recorders. The sound of tape whirling through the machines, each bit of data being recorded, gave the otherwise silent room much noise. It reminded him of his own office building, where an army of typewriters clacked away all day. Lights blinked off and on, a swarm of fireflies within the machine. The machine was clearly processing something, but Griever saw nobody here, well nobody who could tend the machines.

He did see one fellow standing in front of him. The towering figure, at least two point five meters in height, stood looking at one of the rooms few blackboards. Those boards were a throwback, to a time before transistors replaced chalk. The giant fellow, a specimen of Homo giganticus, just stared at the complex equations upon the board.

Griever tried not to snicker. This janitor, for what else could an ogre be doing inside a university, could not possibly grasp these theorems. Griever had no idea what any of it meant, for he did not speak or read mathematics. He sometimes wondered if any of these numbers and characters actually meant anything, and if the theorist were simply not making things up as they went. More over, the janitor did look a bit silly in his overgrown, white lab coat.

They better not, for if the notes from Doctor Hawk meant nothing, then this operation was all a waste. Professor Eindorf and his fellow physicist were very fearful of any research The State conducted. The operative could not blame them; anybody with a gram’s worth of sense would not trust Naveina. Several elf scientist fled in the wake of the anti-aurumus rhetoric of The Party. They were against any non-sapiens, but really came down hard on the elves. A foolish move, for many of the brilliant minds belonged to elves. A few even now worked within this building.

“Excuse me,” Griever called out to the ogre.

The ogre slowly turned his head. He stared at Griever with thoughtful eyes. Something was clicking upstairs, but who knew what. “Yes?” he asked in a deep, resonant voice.

“I am looking for Professor Eindorf. Have you seen him?” Griever asked, or more like demanded to know.

Eindorf looked back at him with a hint of surprise, and even a twinkle of irritation. He paused to consider his answer, perhaps trying to recall where he last saw him. That would make Griever’s job easier. But that was not what the ogre had in mind. “Can’t say I have. Keep looking, I’m sure you’ll find him soon enough.”

Griever sighed. The ogre had no clue. Swell. That made his job that much more difficult. Curse Eindorf for not having a picture. Perhaps he will give him a piece of his mind once he found him– and after he concluded his business. Without giving the ogre another look, Griever turned on his heals and walked out the lab. Surely somebody would know where Eindorf stirred.

Professor Eindorf continued his consideration on his blackboards. Somewhere, somehow, Ultima Radiation had to fit into his equations describing the Weak Nuclear Force. It just had to. It obviously had nothing to do with the Strong Force, and despite its radiation tag it was not part of the Electromagnetic Force. As for Gravity– that was laughable. Gravity, despite its obviousness, was too weak to do much of anything.

Little was known about Ultima Radiation, except it came from a coating of dark particles surrounding the nucleus of heavy elements. The lay of Cantseeons emitted a force, dubbed Ultima Radiation, were somehow trapped between the nucleus and electron orbits. That lead some of his colleagues to hypothesize a connection with the EM force. Grant it, some Ultima Radiation, ‘magic’ as a laymen might call it, does display some EM properties, but only from yellow dyamascus. The five other colors displayed other universal attributes.

He knew he would never crack the secrets of how the six types of Ultima Radiation worked, but at least he could find out just what it was. That was his goal, his only mission in his remaining lifespan. It just had to be connected to the Weak Force, for those heaviest of elements were unstable, and did radiate EM radiation and neutrons. When either broke through the layers of Cantseeons, it must disturb them.

Eindorf glanced over at the computer console. Infernal machines, it was no help what so ever. Sure, it processed and double-checked equations at near light speed, but that was it. It had yet to give him a single idea, except replacing it with another board. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling another headache coming on. Or perhaps coming in. Behind him, he heard a nock at the door.

“Professor?” Eindorf recognized the voice as one of the gradstudents. Yes, he was a future physicist in the making, but he had a couple of decades to go before he could reach Eindorf’s level. The professor wished he had as much time as the young man.

“Yes?” Eindorf asked. His deep voice always startled those who first encountered him.

“You have a guest.” Eindorf turned away from his work reluctantly. His kind did not have time to waste. The gradstudent stood, reserved and ready to leave. He too had work needed finishing, and did not want to keep away a moment more than he must. Commendable. The other one– the guest, Eindorf recognized immediately. He saw the suited and well groomed man no more than ten minutes previous.

“Professor Eindorf?” the visitor asked.

Eindorf smiled, showing a row of large teeth. “I told you, that you’d find him.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” whether he was or not, Eindorf could not wager. He knew for a fact the man was rather embarrassed about his earlier mistake. “I had no idea that you’re–“

”An ogre?” Eindorf asked with a chuckle. “Not many do.” At thirty-six, he was an ogre approaching the end of his natural lifespan. Due to their large size, and the ancient engineering that created their genome, they seldom lived past forty. He knew the mysteries of Ultima Radiation would not be solved in four more years. That made interruptions all the more annoying.

“I feel like a fool,” the visitor told him. “Without pictures, how was I suppose to know?” He was not apologizing any more than he was explaining. Explaining to himself, trying to justify his mistakes. He was not one who error often.

Eindorf shrugged. “The university doesn’t like to advertise, for reasons you can surely understand.” Ogres were stereotyped into positions of remedial labor. Only a few ever rose above those low expectations.

He quickly reorganized himself. “I am Major Griever, from the office of Military Intelligence.”

Eindorf nodded. “So you are. Now if you have business here, Major, please get on to it. My time is short,” a slight smirk at his joke, “so make it snappy.”

Griever was not a man used to being talked down to, not even when his opponent was a meter taller and up to three times his mass. He picked up his briefcase and dropped it on the nearest table, careful not to disrupt the small centrifuge. He opened the case and drew forth papers. Eindorf could see a couple of binders within the case. “Your country needs you. I have here notes that my superiors would like you to look over.”

“I’m a Professor of Physics at Hallomoor University, not a proof reader,” Eindorf told him coldly. “Why do they want me to look them over?”

Griever gave him a smile. “They come from the office of Doctor Hawk. Now don’t ask us how we came into possession of them.”

Eindorf was still skeptical. The major came this far, he might as well glance at them. He flipped through the notes, not spotting anything unusual. A few formulas, and Eindorf recognized them. They were similar to the ones who worked on. Hawk’s work made him think the Weak Force approach was right. Hawk seems to believe that dyamascus atoms can be split, the same as uranium. More over– Eindorf’s eyes went wide.

“Professor?” Griever asked, after a minute passed.

“There are more of these?” he asked impatiently.

Griever nodded. “Two binders full. Hawk was a busy man.”

“You will leave them?” Eindorf asked, putting the notes on another table.

“I could, but I’d have to stay too. I have my orders to guard these–“ Griever explained.

“Fine, fine,” Eindorf agreed. He quickly reached for his telephone. The receiver was ridiculously small in his giant hands. He had to pick up a ball-point pen to push the buttons. His fingers were big enough to push four at a time. He quickly dialed his number.

“Trellor, please,” Eindorf said into the phone.

“Speaking,” the crackling voice on the other end replied. “Eindorf, to what do I owe this pleasure.” Trellor was one of the researchers who highly doubted the Weak Force approach, but a very competent mathematician. Eindorf would grant him that.

“Some notes were just delivered to my lab, courtesy of Doctor Hawk. It’s a breakthrough. I think you better get the gang together; they’ll love this.” Eindorf said, and waited for a reply.

“Astounding!” Trellor replied, after his third look over of Hawk’s equations. “Certainly crushes my theory, doesn’t it?” Trellor was as arrogant as a sapien scientist with two doctorate degrees could be, but was man enough to announce when he was wrong– after enough evidence buried him.

The shortest of the gang, a gnome quantum theorist named Deutron, gave his own opinion. “Well, this is amazing. Professor Trellor admitting a mistake.” The two went through graduate school together, which was testament to Trellor’s age. At seventy, he was second oldest. Only the gnome, at one hundred ten surpassed him. Deutron was in general physics until five decades ago, when quantum theory was first developed. He saw that as the coming thing, and changed careers. The luxury of a very long lifespan.

“There is plenty of merit to these works,” came one of the younger researchers, Mento. He only received his doctorate a few years ago, and was still treated like ‘the kid’. “The figures on decay do support Professor Eindorf’s hypothesis. A shame we could not trade notes earlier.”

“A shame they could not flee that cursed land,” though he was not the newest researcher, he was the most recent arrival in the AU. Evernaught was one of the few elves to flee The State as soon as The Party took over. The Party drove out many of its brightest minds. Evernaught did not worry about his former homeland, for in the AU he was treated no differently than any other scientist. From what he heard, Hawk willingly served The State, and attempted to recruit others to what he called the inevitable victory.

“Just telephone service would suffice,” Mento told him.

The elf shook his head. “No it wouldn’t. Those butchers do not deserve such theorists within their ranks.” Whenever an advance in science was made in The State, Evernaught worried. New technology in their hands would be another stab in the heart of the allies. “And I don’t like what these figures tell me.”

Griever stood against the wall, keeping an eye on the documents and an ear open. He only had a scant knowledge of the notes, only what his superiors decided he must know. “Then it is possible? They can split dyamascus atoms, just like uranium?”

Eindorf nodded. Fission was known for the past decade, and widely studied in experimental reactors. Due to Towne’s old age and low amount of heavy elements, there has never been enough uranium mined to do anything other than study. Not enough for a commercial reactor, not even enough to make a fission bomb practical. Just one such warhead would deplete an entire nation’s supply of the heavy metal. “I’ll have to run it through the computer, but yes it does look like a runaway chain reaction is possible. And perhaps with far less dyamascus than uranium.”

“An Ultima Bomb,” Griever muttered the ominous words. As if the possibility of a bomb splitting uranium atoms was not bad enough.

Professor Sellar, Eindorf’s old mentor, snorted. “A rather dramatic name, but not accurate.” This device would be a fission one. Once the nucleus split, it would unleash all that energy into the layer of cantseeons, which in turn would instantly liberate all the ultima radiation in one burst.

If that happened over a city– “You do know that we can’t let The Party get their hands on this,” Evernaught declared. He knew better than any other the foul schemes the enemies of mankind cooked.

Eindorf glanced over at the Major. “Major, we’ll have a report for your superiors before the week ends.” And Eindorf knew he had a letter to write. He wondered if the president would even read it.

Half a world away, beneath the tropical sky, a petrol-electric train came to a stop in an old, brick station. The only thing added in the past fifty years were skylights. All those usually did was give the thousand commuters a train a clear view of the rains from indoors. But not today, today the sun shone and turned the windows a dull red. As the train screeched to a stop, Andreas was one of the first commuters to stumble off the crowded car. He almost forgot how miserable the commute could be while away. Almost.

He did recall enough to book first class tickets for himself and Katrina. Otherwise it might take the better part of an hour to disengage from the masses. As it were, first class was cramped enough. He managed to escape that crowd, and land right in the middle of another. Passenger compliments were about a thousand, and the station would soon have twice that; half coming and half going. Andreas lead Katrina through the mess like a seasoned navigator. If this were any other country, pickpockets would be a concern. Andreas smiled every time he thought about common thieves. They would have to be either desperate or stupid to try and steel from the mob. The dwarves particularly do not take kind of others swiping their belongs.

It had not happened yet, at least not in Contra. In this scattered suburb, almost everyone recognized Andreas. If not by face, then by attire. The farmers and factory hands that comprised most the town’s populace wore common clothes, nothing nearly as tailored as Andreas’s suits. They did not bow nor tip their straw hats. They did, however, get out of his way as he moved. A few did greeted him, but Andreas was not interested in small talk today.

None were disappointed for none expected much out of him. Andreas kept on his mask of cool expressions. He always kept others at a distance, even his buddies within Golden Hammers. Andreas learned long ago about connecting with others. He also learned that those others tended to end up dead. How long would it take for Katrina to suffer the same fate. A long time by Andreas’s estimation. He was not trying to get close to her.

The two finally managed to break free of the station and began their march down Contra’s dirt roads. Only about six thousand called this mis-matched network of roads home. The town itself was evenly divided by the rail tracks. The train continued to make its ruckus, letting all know that it was ready to depart. On the immediate sides of the rail stood a row of factories. They went up within arm’s reach of their shippers. Government ran distilleries, canneries and a lone cigar factory, employed most of the town’s work force. The rest worked in the fields, the same farmland from which Contra sprouted.

Just like other small towns, an open air market jammed the main street. Farmers called out to passer-byers, trying to grab their attention. The People’s Government did not own everything. Though they subsidized basic nutrition, they did not provide everything. Farmers made up the rest, growing extra foods from watermelons to pineapples. Most of these foods are not exported, but rather spread around the island for domestic consumption. The bazaar was such a long standing tradition that not even the Tropican Worker’s Party could abolish it. And why should they? The People’s President often did his own shopping in the more sophisticated markets of Tropico City.

Unlike the capital, several kilometers away, the roads were only clogged by foot and cart. Horses, moas and even a lone paracophant with her dull green plumage, waited by their carts for their humans to call it a day. Katrina looked around and saw not a single truck However, she did notice a few autos. By their look, they were older than her. Those designs were even less sleek than the millions of AMCs crowding the continent’s roads. More over, the autos in Contra looked to have seen better days. Each one of them had at least a single dent in its doors.

“Terrible drivers,” Katrina muttered as she passed one rusted wreck. Did it even work any more? It certainly does not looks to have moved recently.

How could it? With so many Tropicans packing the streets, it was difficult for a human to move, let alone an auto. She quickly forgot about the stationary auto as Andreas lead her through the crowd. Andreas did not forget, he knew what made those dents. He was also glad not to own an auto. It would have its own dents in it shortly. That was the problem with living in the suburbs, dealing with the boneheads.

Where Andreas took the cosmopolitan attitude for granted, Katrina noticed every little details. Every species of human mingled in the crowd, both buying and selling. Even both species of gobli were available, trading just as freely with each other as with the humans. Katrina recognized the goblins with ease. In fact, one ran a little ice cart, peddling frozen fruit kebabs. A few gobli had darker green skin and larger eyes, and kept as far from the crowds as possible. Those must be gremlins, a species so rare that they might just be a legend.

They did not shrink from the light as ancient legends tell. In fact, they did not seem the least bit bothered by the dull, red sun. Though they may be shy by nature, they competed just as rigorously as anyone else. Tropicans prided themselves on treating everybody the same. Equality among species was a cornerstone in socialism. Whether they be sapien, pygmaeus or even a gremlin, the workers of the world must unite.

Such unity was widely advertised. Many posters lined the visible walls. Katrina took a look at one of the red posters. It had a picture of Towne’s globe, and the word beneath it read ‘Revolution’. Several revolutionary themed posters were scattered around the street, some on lamp posts, some in shop windows. Katrina knew propaganda when she saw it, and this was blatantly so. What shocked her more was the statue on the street corner. It was a likeness of that obnoxious man. Katrina pointed it out to Andreas.

“Oh yes, Niceto is quite popular,” he said, glancing at the statue of the People’s President.

“Megalomaniac is the word I’d use,” she muttered. After a life in The State, she knew better than to criticize loudly. She was a foreigner in this land, the locals might just turn her in. Andreas would not, but who could say about the rest of the Tropicans.

The two passed through the market without buying a single thing. The sellers did not seem to mind, in fact they hardly noticed. With so many customers, who would missed a couple of sapiens? Once clear of the street markets, traffic thinned out to a few locals going about their business. They did not go far from the rails. Furthest from the rails were the free longhouses, home to many Tropicans. Closer were the pleasant little country homes. They too were owned by the state, but those who lived their paid rent.

Andreas was one such resident. His was a green house, ideally matching the gardens sprouting in his small yard. Every house was like that. Unlike Shownastadt, there were no grass lawns here. Any space available to residents was put to good use. In Andreas’s case, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, chili pepper, carrots and various other produce that could not be determined from a distance.

Andreas opened the gate and walked down the stone pathway. Katrina followed him a few steps before stopping. She took a look around. It reminded her of a little farm house, like the ones that surrounded her old home. The house was a small one too, could not be more than a single bedroom. The front door was a bit battered, just like the autos. Above, on a perch sat a– Katrina was not sure what it was.

“What’s that!” she exclaimed, pointing towards the house.

Andreas did not even bother looking where she pointed. He just smiled. “That would be Sentry.”

“A pet?” Katrina asked, looking up at the creature.

Andreas laughed, “More like a roommate.”

Katrina continued to stare at the animal. He, at least Katrina assumed the bright plumage meant this animal was a male, sat on the roof, just like a chicken might sit on a perch. He just looked down at Katrina with a curious glance. He knew Andreas, but not this new human. The blue and orange Towneform, cawed like a raven as Andreas approached.

“I ain’t dead yet bird!” Andreas called at him. “Just ignore Sentry. Falconeers are great mousers, but lousy conversationalist.”

“They eat mice?” Katrina asked.

Andreas shrugged. “Figure of speech. But they do eat the birds that like to eat my garden, so we have a working relationship.” His gardens did look nice, even after his long absence. He can see the groundskeeper he hired did an admirable job. Guess that means he would have to pay him a bonus too. He even left the pile of leaves alone. The keeper knew just what Andreas wanted. “You see that pile of leaves?”

Katrina nodded. “I see it,” she said plainly. A damp pile of leaves did seem a bit out of place in his yard. Every other square meter was put to good use, except that corner of his house.

“Try and touch it,” Andreas told her. “Go ahead.”

Katrina eyed Andreas with suspicion. As she walked towards the pile, Sentry’s head shot up. His dark, eagle-like eyes locked on to Katrina. Did this human dare violate his space? Yes, yes she did. The moment she picked up a couple of wet leaves, Sentry hoped forward. He cawed loudly, his voice more like an angry rooster than a crow. Katrina dropped the leaves and spun around. Above her, the falconeer batted his stubby, flightless wings. He strutted around the roof top, his head bobbing fiercely.

Not too far from her, Andreas laughed. She took her gaze away from Sentry and bored into Andreas. “That’s not funny!”

“Yes it is,” Andreas dared to dispute. He looked up at Sentry, “Yes, yes, we know. Those are your leaves. Tsk tsk, Katrina, don’t be touching his leaves.”

Katrina’s face went red with fury. “You–“

”I couldn’t resist,” Andreas tried to wave away her anger. “Calm down, would you? The neighbors are going to hear you. Let’s go inside and fight; it’s cooler and dampens the sounds.”

Katrina’s anger simmered as she followed Andreas. While she walked towards the door, her eyes and Sentry’s kept an eye on each other. She did not trust that two meter long creature, and Sentry felt the same about this strange human. As soon as he was convinced his leaves were safe, Sentry went back to his perch above the door. Katrina was not convinced that he would not jump on her head, so she rushed indoors quickly.

“Did you get mad at your house?” Katrina asked, pointing at the door. “Perhaps forgot your keys and tried to kick down the door.”

Andreas nodded. “Oh yes, all the time. Except I tend to shoot the door.”

Katrina’s eyes narrowed. “Then why is their a dent in it?”

“Boneheads,” Andreas replied, as if that answered everything.

“I don’t see how your attitude did that,” Katrina sniped at him.

Andreas sighed. “No, boneheads,” he repeated. “Birds about the size of falconeers, but twice as massive. They like to ram things.” The bonehead was one of the largest Towneform still found on Tropico. Most of their bodies were covered in orange feathers, same as any other Towneform. However, their heads were bald. Instead of a crest, they sported a thick bone plate, up to twenty millimeters thick. When trying to impress a mate, the males will ram each other, or when startled, they will ram whatever scares them. In this case, Andreas. “I opened the door one day and a bonehead was in the yard. I scared him and he rammed me. I slammed the door just in time. Poor guy just stumbled away afterwards. I imagine Sentry got him eventually.”

That explained why all the doors in Tropico were so thick. She never seen such heavy doors in all her days. It was more like a portal to a fortress than a little homestead. Katrina forgot about the door quickly and took around what Andreas called home. The place was tidy and rather spartan, with just plain, bare walls. Beneath her feet was a thin red carpet, almost more for show than anything else. It did not look capable of handling moving furniture or any other heavy wear.

Only four pieces of furniture sat in the main room. She spotted a tan couch in one corner, and an old worn chair in another. Between them, a solidly sealed window displayed the yard outside. She noticed that too about Contra; no open windows. Andreas’s only modern technology was that of a bulky radio sitting near the chair. In the far corner, a metal locker leaned against the wall. The blue metal gleamed on the electric light above.

“Bright enough in here?” Katrina complained, squinting at the orange light above. It was almost brighter than the sun. Almost.

“I was thinking about installing a spot light,” he retorted as he opened the lid to his mailbox. It was built into the door, and had its own dent to boot. The mail box was full of an astro’s worth of mail. Most of it is probably junk, but he would sort it just to be sure. No telling when one of his coworkers might be dropping him a line from some far away station.

“It’s chilly too,” Katrina said. She heard the constant hum of air conditioning. “Can’t you just open a window?”

Andreas snorted. “Sure, if you want Sentry to wander in. Or worse yet, the hobblers. They’ll eat you out of house and home in no time.” Because of the native wildlife, most notably the little hobblers, not many windows in Tropico opened. Instead, the government provided air conditioners and generous electricity rations. Naturally, if anyone went over the limit, the difference came out of their wallets. The Tropican Worker’s Party made an effort to provide the basics, but Progressives, Centrists and Libertarians that made up the other forty percent of the People’s Congress fought to make luxuries available and cost.

Katrina stood in the middle of the room and took another look around. She could see the bare kitchen from where she stood. Its floor was wood, but aside from that, it was little different than the main room; just plain, tidy and bare. What did Andreas eat? Did he even cook? She did not expect it to be a mess, not when he has not even been home after so many days. Still, there was something unsettling about an unused kitchen.

Andreas noticed her watching the kitchen. “Get you something to drink? Have rum and Tropican Punch. I can boil up some water in a few minutes.”

Katrina shook her head. “I’m not thirsty. I– I don’t know. I just wish I wasn’t here.”

“That hurt,” Andreas feigned, clutching a phantom wound in his chest.

“Am I to stay here for the rest of my days?” As she asked, she looked for somewhere to sleep, somewhere that was not the floor. If that was his answer, she would sooner sleep with the falconeers.

Andreas shook his head. He lacked any desire to have her, or any other human to live with him. “No, we’ll go find you a place tomorrow. A place to stay and a job. I can set you up with one in the company.”

Katrina shook her head violently in opposition. “Out of the question. I will not work for a criminal organization. Say what you will, underground is still illegal.”

Always the purist. Andreas expected as much. She never did fancy the mafia, she held it with almost the same contempt she held the whole socialist system. “Suit yourself. I know a few people who owe me a favor. Perhaps one of them could use one with your skills.” Whatever skills those might be. He knew she was a teacher, and she could type and she could work numbers. What might pass for basic education for her, would be quite advance here. She should have no problem getting a skilled labor position.

Katrina smiled. “Thank you.”

Andreas looked back at her with shock. “You know, I think this might be the first time you thanked me.”

“It might be the last, too,” her expression turned back to her typical combative mode.

Andreas was content to just let it slide. “Nonetheless, I’ll find you a place. It might not be the most extravagant joint, but it’ll put a roof over your head. After you get some money, you can go rent your own house if you please. After that–“ Andreas could only shrug. “Perhaps when the war is done and over, you’ll get to go home.”

Katrina gave him an upside down smile in return. Just what was she doing in Tropico after all. This was a bad idea. Maybe she should have took her chances in Port of Dreams. She gave up on trying to wake up. If the nightmare has not ended by now, it was not likely to do so any time soon.

“After that, I’m not sure how much we’ll see of each other. I’ve got my work, and after the meeting today, I think I’m going to be busy for a while,” Andreas sighed, feeling defeated. Feeling like a failure. He wanted to fix all he damaged, but he was nowhere near repairing her life. “I’m sorry, Katrina. I wish I never got you into this mess.”

Hearing Andreas’s apologetic tone got her thinking about that lost puppy, and about what Petro said. She knew nothing of Gustavus, only that Andreas blames himself for what happened. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll manage.”

Andreas did not push her words away. He was too tired, too defeated for the day for that. Instead, he plopped down in his chair and leaned back his head. “It might take me a while, but I’ll make it better. I won’t fail this time.”

After a few days of working, Andreas fell back into his routine as if he never left it. Even with war looming on the horizon, there were still shipments to send, payments to collect and competition to squeeze out of Golden Hammer’s market area. They ruled the underground in Tropico City and throughout the northern half of the country. Anybody who wanted to make shifty deals in their zone had to buy a business license and pay a tariff. Bad things happened to those who did not pay. Andreas shut down more than one rival company trying to set up shop in and around Tropico City.

Every astro the other dwarven mafia companies try to franchise in Tropico City. And every astro somebody had to push them back. It was very precise work, these company squabbles. The one supreme rule, the constant for mafioso, both sapien and pygmaeus, was never, ever hit a noncombatant. As long as the mob kept the general populace out of the mess and only killed each other, then the People’s Government was content to look the other way– as long as “taxes” were paid.

It was a corrupt, yet well balanced system. Andreas sometimes wondered where he would be had he not hooked up with the dwarves about ten years ago. Probably some dead-end job in the factories, or maybe one of the state-owned plantations. However, his luxurious lifestyle did have its share of hazards; namely, the other guy always trying to kill him. In the factories, at least Andreas would not have to worry about some suave dwarves cutting him down in a drive by.

When Andreas started out enforcing tariffs, he never would have imagined landing his own office. Yet here he was, inside Golden Hammer Enterprises’ corporate headquarters. When he left for his last mission, he was but a made man, working under Ghulam. Since returning, the boss decided to put him in charge of his own crew. He was a captain now, in charge of the whole westside. All the operations from Fort Arnold, west across Contra and all the way to the western Croissant Hills ringing Tropico City.

It was not the biggest operational area, far from it. His only real responsibility was to make sure the tariffs were paid, the underground shippers had up-to-date licences and to make sure the unions pay their dues. In other words, he had endless reports to read, phone calls to make and very little time to go out and work himself. He suspected the only reason he was promoted is because he was a sapien. Dwarves, and their gnomish brethren, were notorious for avoiding management positions. Work was in their blood, and it was not their way to sit behind a desk while others bust their backs.

Then there was the meetings. The endless meetings. This was suppose to be the dwarven mafia! Dwarves never had time for meetings, that sort of thing got in the way of real work. Keeping operations organized was a necessary evil dating back to the dawn of human civilization. His secretary, yes he even had to employ one of those to keep his schedule in tact, stuck her head through the door. “Ghulam is here to see you.”

Andreas eyed his blonde assistant. If the dwarves were going to give him one, they should at least make her younger than he. This one had to have twenty extra years on him. “Let him in,” he told her. She might be getting old, but she always stayed on the ball. Talent and skill won out over looks.

An impeccably trimmed beard dwarf strolled through the door. Ghulam covered himself in Tanimo tailored wears these days. There was not classier suit on the whole of the planet. “How are you doing today, Andreas?”

Andreas gave him an exasperated look. “Buried.”

“That’s the spirit!” Ghulam called out. Being buried was never a bad thing, not to a pygmaeus. They lived underground. Every dwarf who owned a house, owned one on the surface, and one that was several times larger directly beneath it.

“I don’t mind pushing crates, but I can’t stand pushing papers,” Andreas told him, trying to bring him back into focus.

Ghulam nodded. “I know how you feel. But, it must be done. Like we always say, ‘no good work goes unpunished’.”

Andreas was starting to wish nobody ever noticed his own quality of work. “For an industry that’s theoretically illegal, there sure is a lot of documentary.”

Ghulam shrugged. Records must be kept and the numbers must be balance. He glanced back toward the entry. “I’m surprised that you don’t have that sheila working the door.”

Andreas had to think a few seconds before understanding. “Katrina? I offered to hook her up with a company job, but she declined. Told me she wanted to earn her money honestly.” Instead of a well paying job here, she landed one that paid half as much. She now worked as an accountant and assistant in Contra’s corner drugstore.

Ghulam laughed heartily. “Who doesn’t!”

Andreas stared down his old friend. “What do you want, Ghulam? I’m sure you didn’t stop by my office just for idle banter.” Dwarves were never really one for small talk. Wasting time was not in their blood.

Ghulam frowned. “I wish I did, but I have bad news. I just came back from the People’s Palace. Looks like The State’s already left the starting gate.”

“Figured as much,” Andreas told him as his eyes slide over to a copy of the People’s Daily. At the top of the paper, in bold characters, it read ‘Rhodes Falls’. Like all newspapers in Tropico, this was overseen by the state. Andreas wondered just how much of it was impartial, and how much hyped. From what he read, Rhodes gave up without a fight. They surrendered on the day The State crossed the border. Just crossing the border was an achievement of its own. A whole army had to drive down the Swamp’s western highway, and not get trampled by angry dragons, and that was just to reach the border.

Rhodes has fallen– or rather its politicians have. A few soldiers escaped, but more importantly, most of its navy sailed south and defected upon the surrendering. As stipulated in the treaty forced upon Rhodes (according to the People’s Daily), Rhodes was to turn every last ship over to The State. It appears the admirals and captains were not about to give up their ships. They sailed south, with two aircraft carriers, a battleship, several smaller ships, and countless aircraft fled to Tropico.

Andreas heard the drone of engines all morning. A majority of aircraft built could only make the flight one-way. Bombers could make a round trip, and fighters with drop tanks, but that was about it. That was what made the escaping carriers, the Capital and the Sovereign so important. Combined with the People’s Carrier Revolution, they could thwart any invasion. However, Rhodes had three carriers. No word was given on the third.

“From sources that I’m not at liberty to divulge,” when Ghulam said that, he meant Tropico’s global revolutionary network. “The State has massed its fleet with its captured ships a ways outside of Rhodes. They’ll be setting sail any day now, and you can guess where they are headed.”

Andreas sighed. Well, at least with a war, paperwork will take secondary importance. “Just let me know when they’ll be here. I’ll take every last foot soldier and even runners from my district and put a Typist in their hands.”

“Not so fast,” Ghulam held up his hand. “You can’t do that. Do you have any idea how much money we’ll lose?”

Now it was Andreas’s turn to laugh. “The State wants us gone. Being dead won’t help profit margins one bit either. Now a couple astros loss we’ll get over, being dead will take a bit longer.” It was only then did Andreas realize the folly of his rush to return home. He returned just in time for a war. For bombs to fall, shells to burst and homes to burn. If The State ever landed its army, Tropico was in a world of hurt. With only forty thousand regular soldiers, Tropico and all its people would have to rely on hundreds of thousands of citizen-soldiers, of the nation’s various militias– including the resident mafia companies.

“I know that,” Ghulam grumbled. Afterwards, he could just shrug. “The boss will decide what to do when the time comes.” That was a half-truth at best. Dwarves always thought ahead, and the boss no doubt already knew what to do on a number of occasions. All that remained was to find out which eventuality would pass

“If your sources are right, then that time will be soon enough.” Andreas went back to his reports without a further comment.

“Just be ready,” Ghulam told him before leaving to meet with others.

Andreas shook his head. Yes, war will be coming to Tropico. Of all the possible things Andreas could worry about, his mind focused on Katrina. He had work to accomplish and this was no time to think about her. She was not part of the company. Yet, he could not stop. He brought her all the way to Tropico after landing her in hot water with the Knights. No doubt, the Knights will be landing right behind the invasion force, dealing out their worlds of pain.

They would recognize Katrina as a Naveinan. Just her being in an enemy land with bring forth retribution. If they ever radioed in a background check and learned she escaped from them once– needless to say she would not be escaping twice. Terrific. He tried his best to fix the mess he caused, and in the end, he just delivered her back into harms way.

Andreas knew his responsibility in the matter. If anything happened to her, it would be on his head. He would have to live with that guilt, knowing he destroyed her life. Andreas did not want any more guilt laid on his shoulders. He already carried enough to equate the mass of a small asteroid. Yes, it was just a matter of responsibility. If she did something foolish and got herself killed, then he could forget about it and move on.

Or so he thought. She was a fine woman, and when she kept that mouth of hers under control, she was a rather charming one at that. Some feeling of affection did swirl around in his head, but Andreas swatted at them the same way he would flies. More than a year passed since his last date, not counting the whole trip with Katrina. That one, like the ones before, decided he was not worth knowing after all. She just wanted to meet him, get to know him. She had no intention on any of committing.

Given the chance, Katrina would do the same. She would hurt him the same as the rest. In the end, each woman in his life lied to him. No matter the pain, he always tried again. With a scarred up heart, what was one more cut? Nothing much. Just another chip of his humanity nicked away. Perhaps one day he will meet one who can say what she means and mean what she says. Andreas was not about to hold his breath.

Despite all the pain, he only blamed the women passively. He held most blame for himself. For his failings. After what happened to Gustavus, Andreas doubted he was even worthy of love. He was sick of the guilt, sick of the thoughts and doubly so of the memories. The only solace he held was that memory lasted only as long as mortality. Once he was dead, he would not have to remember anything. Of course he would not be able to dance when dead– but working in the Golden Hammers, he long since learned nothing came without a price.

After a few minutes of thought, he found his work less than lacking. He was like an old time steam engine out of steam. He would now have to trudge through the paper work half-heartedly, or less, than his normal low enthusiasm. Now, with his inner self in turmoil, he would do his best to reach tomorrow. After that– it was one less day to worry about. Maybe he should have stayed home to begin with, never traveling up north and never meeting her. As he well knew, it was too late for ‘should haves’. It was time to stop thinking about the past and start focusing on the future. At least with the future, he might have some say in it.

A thick canopy of orange and green passed quickly below. Numerous flowers were visible upon the lilies. Red, yellow, blue and even the shimmering of ultraviolet. Humans called the Towneform flowers black. Yamasee always considered humans funny little animals. Their limited range of vision limited them to the ‘visible spectrum’ as they called it. Yamasee never had to worry about that. His sharp eyes could see into the ultraviolet and even a bit into infrared. His altitude dropped by almost a meter, so he added another beat of his wide wings to keep him aloft for another instant.

Though black dragons spent much of their time at water level in the swamps, Yamasee could see new sources of prey from the air. He occasionally patrolled his own territory from above in search for concentrations, but not today. Today he flew with a purpose. Ok, every day a dragon took to the sky, it was for a good reason. The act of flying consumed enormous amounts of energy, which only meant he must eat that much more. Better to stay submerged, or stalk from the undergrowth than to waste energy being airborne.

Today, the normally solitary dragon flew to meet more of his kind. Every so often, dragons did get together in neutral ground, just to talk. To discuss events of the world, to ponder philosophically, and to exercise their minds. Being extraordinarily intelligent animals, they must converse and trade ideas. If not, the solitude would drive them crazy. They must have regular mental stimulation.

Some times dragons would speak to other animals. Few animals on the planet possessed languages. The various species of humans were one of them. Dragons often spoke with them– as long as the apes respect their territory. The giant ones, the ogres were often most environmentally friendly. But Blacks were a talkative lot, and would try to exchange ideas with sapiens and the short guys.

As for other species, the gobli were out of the question. Millions of years of history between the two genera was not forgotten so easily. Goblins and gremlins did their best to steer clear of dragons, and Yamasee was not sorry to never see them. He was, however, unusual for his kind. Though most Blacks were bilingual, he was trilingual. His territory lay on the edge of the ocean, in a mangrove swamp. Often the language-bearers of the sea would enter his waters seeking fish. Admittedly, the language of the dolphin was trickier to learn than one of a human, but he learned it nonetheless. Those marine mammals had the most interesting outlook on life.

Yamasee caught a glimpse of the opening. A small hill rising from the swamp. It was a relatively dry meadow in the middle of the dragon’s swamp. He easily spotted four other black outlines in the orange field. Each of the dragon’s heads turned upward to meet his gaze. His presence made them instantly uneasy, but only for a moment. They quickly overcame their territorial instincts and recognized him as bearer of news. Otherwise, their instinct would be to rise and confront the intruder– though it was only neutral grounds.

“What news have you brought?” asked the dragon nearest towards Yamasee’s landing spot. Kona continued. “I spotted another convoy of their armored vehicles driving south. The third in two days.”

“And I spotted their four engine aircraft flying south,” Tuli told the dragons. Her territory was closest to Rhodes than any of the others. “They keep landing in Rhodes.”

“Are they staying put?” Yamasee asked. He knew enough about humans, same as any dragon, to worry when they start moving in masse. Like the others, he also knew they fought a war across the continent, with increasingly destructive weapons.

“No,” Tuli hissed. “They are flying south across the ocean, destination unknown. Ever since Naveina conquered Rhodes, the newspapers and radio stations have stopped running. Honestly, these humans– how will they learn anything if they shut down information outlets?” The thought of controlling information never crossed a dragon’s powerful mind. Their intellect exceeded a human’s but they simply could not think like an ape. “No matter how imperfect their media may be.”

Krelko let out a low rumble. “These apes are doing their best to destroy each other. Normally I wouldn’t mind letting them, but as you know, technology evolves fast during war.” More over, humans had no shortage of warfare.

“If they existed as one, as they did when first arriving on Towne, then perhaps the technology would slow,” Tuli began her normal speculation. She loved to tackle what ifs and temporal problems. “All this competition only stimulates their growth.”

“Ah, but remember Tuli,” said the oldest dragon, Vango as he held up a talon. “They were significantly more advance when they arrived. That is until their empire ripped itself apart.” Vango knew much about the history of Towne, and maintained the computers within the Dragon Vault. He also kept methodical notes on every little event he noticed. Occasionally, he managed to haggle a book out of a human traveler. Perhaps he should have staked claim to land closer to Rhodes. It was a sound idea, as long as he forgot the fact Rhodes did not even exist when he settled down.

“They are aggressive with or without technology. The planet would be better off without them,” Kona noted. “As stimulating as it is to converse with them, eventually their populations will grow so large they will press against our lands.” The word ‘our’ was, ironically, a lone from the humans. A solitary animal had little use for a word that indicated possession by more than one individual.

Each of the dragons knew Kona spoke the truth. Where ever dragons do not live, the humans have already cleared away the landscape and built their cities, fields and pastures. Soon, they may turn their eyes to fertile dragon land. A hundred years ago, it would be no worry. Dragon’s hide was interlaced fibers, capable of stopping anything they could throw at them. But now, now with their aircraft firing armor-piercing rounds–

“We can’t stand by and let these apes continue to traverse the swamp. If we do nothing, these armies might get it in their heads that they can go where they please. They must learn respect.” Kona’s land was close to the highway, and constant traffic pumped noxious chemicals into his lands. The prey did not take well to carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfate.

“Disposing of vermin is the consensus elsewhere,” Yamasee told his fellow dragons. He already stopped at a few other gatherings today. He made himself a messenger, organizing the dragons to effectively eliminate the ape intrusions.

“I agree,” Krelko lowered his head onto an open hand. “We can not stand by and let these human run free any longer. They already have theoretical knowledge of quantum physics, and even built experimental fission reactors. How long until they start using what they learned against each other. Though the world has few fissile elements, it would be enough to trigger fusion reaction inside warheads.”

“Many others are prepared to enter the Dragon Vault,” Yamasee informer the eldest dragon.

As the oldest, he was in charge of the Vault. Vango let out a long hiss, a dragon sigh of sorts, “Who would have thought we’d ever have to use weapons again.” As such a naturally powerful animal, with an intuitive feel for the forces of nature, dragons were not accustom to taking up weaponry. Each dragon knew what it meant, it meant a danger came that they could not handle with talon or breath. Within the Vault, they maintained weapons of such power, they could easily wipe humanity off the face of Towne. For now, they will only use those that could destroy human machines of war with ease– and the devices that would protect dragons from artificial harm.

“Spread the word, Yamasee,” Vango told him sternly, the closest a dragon would come to commanding another of his species. “All of you, do the same. Check out all the meeting grounds, seek out other dragons. Let them know; we can no longer tolerate the human’s impudence, and the Vault will be open before sunrise.”

Niceto wished he were elsewhere, almost anywhere other than a war council. Ideally, with one or two of Tropico’s lovely ladies, traversing the pristine beaches, dining at the finest pubs. Alas, that was a pleasantry that must wait. From all those in the room have told him, the Naveinans are already on the way. He sat at the ‘head’ of a round table. As the People’s President, he did not want to be treated any different than the next man. With a round table, there was no head, even for the Head of State. Besides, these men knew far more about war than he. All Niceto knew about was how to run a revolution. Overthrowing the Traditionalist was rather easy– since they already managed to alienate the whole populace. Never before had he faced an opponent as heavily armed and determined as The State.

The People’s Commanders laid out several options before Niceto. Though they were all comrades, the constitution clearly labels the president as having final say after war has been declared. Even if war has not been declared; the People’s Congress would be convened after the meeting, where Niceto would tell them what the commanders are telling him. Obviously, war would not be declared until the first of the Naveinan bombs fell on Tropican soil. According to his generals, that might be tomorrow.

“Flights of A12F2s have spotted the Naveinan combined fleet,” declared General Neville, Commander-in-Chief of the People’s Airforce. “They’ve spotted four battleships, and the light carrier that was unable to escape port when Rhodes surrendered.” He held some of his contempt in check while addressing Niceto. All of them knew Rhodes was betrayed, its leaders gave into The State’s demands without even a fight.

The People’s Navy commander, Admiral Veign, spoke up. “We do have a slight edge on cruisers and destroyers from what recon flights say,” Navy men were by nature suspicious of the Airforce. Air power threatened prize-fighting battleships.

General Torus, People’s Army, saw the situation as for what it is. “If the airforce and naval air wing coordinate an attack on the enemy carrier, it will even the score. Without their air cover, The State would be forced to retreat, else our bombers will sink their big guns, and our ships will sweep away what’s left.”

Niceto nodded. “What sort of invasion force are we looking at?”

“Approximately sixty thousand,” General Grot explained. “Operatives still in Rhodes have reported an initial invasion of six divisions. They will outnumber our regular forces. I’ve already ordered seventy-five percent of our regular army into the capital.”

Niceto already consented to the deployment. “The militia will be called out in the event that we can’t destroy their fleet before they reach our shores.”

“The concept does have its merits,” Veign considered the idea as a risk. But not too much of one. Tropican carrier-based planes were little more than interceptors, but the two Rhodesan carriers were packed full of specialized bombers and torpedo planes. As for the Airforce’s A12F2s, they had both range and fire power to deal with ships.

Niceto eyed the head of the People’s Navy. “I sense some doubt in you, comrade.”

Veign nodded. “Destroying the enemy carrier would do little but chase the Naveinans away for the time being. Their invasion force and all its weapons would be free to return to the continent, and either launch a second, larger attack, or be deployed elsewhere. Our best course of action is to destroy the invasion force.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” Neville asked. As far as he could see, the enemy carrier must be sunk first, in order to keep their escort planes from guarding the landing force. “When we destroy their air cover, they will just as likely pull back same as if we destroyed the carrier.”

“Perhaps,” Veign was not as convinced. Naveina has always been, and may always be, a land power. They have few ships, and those they had were forced to sail around from the north of the continent. Only then did they link up with the more modern counterparts captured in Rhodes. “The transports would turn around, unless they have already landed their cargos. In that case, the transports are little more than empty vessels.”

“Surely you’re not suggesting we let them land on our shores?” Grot exploded. Just like the navy to dump their problem on to the army. “As proud as I am of the People’s Army and its fighting spirit, the Naveinan Army fields armor and artillery far in advance of anything we have. To them, our equipment is second hand from the last big war.” The last big was about thirty year past. When it ended, airplanes still had piston engines and wings covered in canvas, and tanks were little more than armored autos with machine guns sticking out the doors.

Grot continued. “Their armored cavalry has armor twice as thick as our’s, and a main gun of one hundred millimeters. Their field guns also sport twice the caliber.”

“They can’t possible land more than half the number of tanks we possess,” Veign replied. “It is a simple matter of outnumbering and outflanking them.”

“Yes, at first,” Grot pointed out. “But they will land more, and more until they overwhelm the People’s Army. And where will the People’s Navy be while this is happening? Guarding the pubs?”

Niceto listened as the two rival branches of the People’s Service argued. This was one of the reasons he so loathed meetings. Not once in all his years as president had a meeting gone by without an army-navy conflict. Niceto had to cool things down if anything was to be decided upon. “General Grot has a point. Not about the pubs, but about follow up landings. If they secure a port, they can ship in as many weapons as they please.”

Veign held up a cautionary finger. “If, Comrade President. If.”

His words caught everyone’s undivided attention. “What do you mean ‘if’?”

Veign smiled. “I do not propose inaction, just delayed reaction. They do not know precisely where the Free Rhodes’ Navy lays anchored. They may assume it fled south, but what if it did not?”

Niceto raised a brow. “You have something in mind.” He did not ask, he merely stated the obvious.

Veign nodded. “While the enemy lands, the People’s Navy will link up with its Rhodesan counterparts near the mouth of the Ola River. That would be far enough away to keep Naveinan eyes from spying them, until it is too late. We will wait until their invasion is in full swing, and the bulk of their forces are on land. That will be the point of no return. Then, we will strike their fleet and sever their supply lines. Thus trapping the enemy on the beach.”

“They’ll suspect a trap!” Torus immediately pointed at the flaw in his plan.

Veign shrugged. “Not if the People’s Airforce attacks with all its heart. You only have to damage them a little, make them think you’re trying.”

Niceto nodded in agreement. “It could work. The Naveinan leadership has such a low opinion of the Revolution that they may assume us incapable of diverting their attack.”

“And,” Veign followed up. “With their fleet destroyed and no hope of supplies, the invasion force will eventually exhaust its ammunition. Since most of our guns use fifty millimeter, as the Comrade General pointed out, is smaller than the enemy’s weapons can handle, they will be unable to rearm.”

Grot began to see the plan. “Some of our field guns use seventy-five, same as their medium tanks. That is an issue of great concern, as with them capturing our weapons. Their Party might not think much of us, but their soldiers will use our own weapons when it comes down to the choice of; use it or lose it.”

“There is danger, but think of the advantage of forcing an entire Naveinan army to surrender. Nobody has done that, and we will be the first,” Veign did love his own idea.

Niceto saw the logic in it, but there was more to being the People’s President than logic. “Is it worth the civilian death toll? I will not sacrifice the people to save the people. We all know some of their so-called Knights will be right on the heels of the army. And we all know what they will do.” The words need not be spoken. Tropico has a relatively high percentage of non-sapiens as citizens. They will be instant targets, same as any member of the Tropican Worker’s Party.

Veign frowned, his brow growing deep with wrinkles. “Comrade President, this plan is not without risks. No matter what plan we take, the people will be targeted. Destroying their fleet beforehand will only make them send wave after wave of bombers. Either way, the people will suffer. But, if Tropico is destroyed, then all the suffering will be in vein.”

“The admiral is correct,” Neville agreed, partially. “He is correct about suffering in vein, he is not correct about their bombers destroying our cities. Surface-to-air missiles will down many of their bombers.”

“Down them over our cities,” Veign corrected. “And our fighters will be marginally successful, assuming their infrared tracking missiles don’t turn around and blow themselves up.”

“If they make it that far,” Neville wore the smirk of a man who knew much more than he ever let on about. “Comrades, as you know, we have all been planning for the eventual attack. We all know The Party’s ideology leaves no room in the world for socialist solidarity. Where as you have been building more ships and more tanks, we in the airforce have been building new aircraft. I assure you that no enemy bomber would survive encountering the People’s new interceptor. In fact, when they face it, they won’t even know what hit them.”

It sounded a bit boastful to Niceto, but he knew General Neville was not a man to act smug unless he had something substantial to back it up. “I have your word on this?”

“Yes, Comrade President, naturally. The interceptors have already flown and outperformed anything on Towne. They shall keep the skies clear of bombers.” Mostly anyway. Nobody in the room believed every single enemy bomber would be downed before these new aircraft ran out of missiles and bullets. As with every attack, something always survives.

That wrapped up concern over threats from the air. Even if these interceptors did not live up to Neville’s boast, the distance enemy bombers must fly would limit their payload, and their sorties. “What of the ground element? There is still the issue of The Party’s butchers.”

Grot slammed his palm on to the table in a loud clap. “The People’s Army will make the enemy fight for every meter of Tropican soil.”

Niceto smiled, beside himself. “The fighting spirit of the People’s Soldiers is never in question. What is, is can you keep the enemy from reach the capital?”

Grot nodded slowly, as if to say yes– probably we can. “The Naveinan will have to fight pass fortifications and trenches, expending much of their ammunition. Despite their advance ground combat elements, attrition favors the defender.”

“Comrade President, I would like to deploy some of the militia along the northern beaches. At any point that could serve as a landing site,” Torus requested. He knew Niceto would agree with his analysis, but protocol always required permission. “The militia can delay the enemy on the beach, perhaps not stop them, but delay them long enough for the rest of our forces to be properly deployed. Without forward defenses, the enemy might grow cautious, but with it, they will grow overconfident.”

Niceto did not like the idea on principle. Torus was, in effect, willing to throw away the lives of those militiamen to trick the enemy. Niceto did not want to waste any of the people’s lives. The only thing worse than waste is to die for nothing. “Do it, but amend it. I want the militia to fight, but not to the last man. When they are in danger of being overran, they are to break into smaller units and harass the enemy.” To this, Torus nodded.

Niceto looked as the people’s top commanders. There was great risk in this plan. To allow the enemy to land would put the people in danger, and if the navy failed to defeat the enemy, reinforcements would pour onto the island. Niceto really disliked this part of his job. He now had to make a decision, one that would literally change the future of Tropico. His word could either bring a decisive victory or utter ruin. He drummed his fingers on the table, weighing all options. No matter which he chose, some of the people would die. Too bad ‘no war’ was not an option. He would pick that in an instant. Still, better it come now, then after Naveina has defeated its continental enemies and can turn its full might Tropico’s way.

What bothered Niceto most was that no matter what he decided, history would not be kind. If he does nothing and lets them land, then he will let some of the Tropicans die. If he does order their fleet destroyed, they will just return later, and kill more Tropicans. They would be rather vengeful after a defeat. In the end, he was forced not to think of Tropico, but to think of his enemy. Which outcome would hurt them most.

“Very well, Admiral,” Niceto said with finality. “I suspect you already have a plan formulated, so I want the four of you to work out the details. I expect a preliminary report by dawn’s light.” Niceto pushed himself back from the table and stood. Before departing, he leaned forward, “And General Neville, I want to hear more about these new interceptors of yours. You should not keep secrets from the People’s President.” Inside, Niceto hoped the army and navy had a few surprising secrets up their sleeves. The People’s Republic of Tropico is going to need every last trick to carry the day.