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  Stars on Fire

  WAR OF THE THREE PLANETS (Book Seven)

  First Edition

  © 2018 by Justin Bell

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  The wind is warm on my pale skin, and my hair is brushed back from my face, exposing my broad, round forehead. It's a warm, soothing breeze, the kind of late mid-year wind that makes you forget the problems of the world. It's calming, like an invisible gentle embrace, holding me tightly, even though I can't see the arms pressing around me.

  I'm not sure if it's just the wind, the warm air, or if it's the grass, too. Tall, tan stalks crawl up my legs and brush lightly against my sides and arms, surrounding me. Pleasant memories of my childhood are held within each blade. Comforting memories coat the surfaces like an early morning dew, brushing off onto my skin and clinging there.

  Sure, I grew up in Adroxis, the largest city on Athelon, but my parents often took me out to a place just like this, with wide, sprawling meadows penned in by rolling mounds of pale, green trees and pools of calm water reflecting the rippling round suns reclining on a blanket of green sky. How many summers did I spend in places like this? How many peaceful seconds ticked away with my back pressed against soft ground while dozens of blades of grass wrapped around me, holding me in place, working in concert with the summer breeze to keep me there.

  Memories play tricks on you. Those vacations we took in the summer felt like punishment back then. I was convinced my parents were tearing the fabric of my world apart, ripping me from my friends and my technology, and force feeding me this ridiculous wilderness. I was choking on the organic realness of it all. I didn't want the realness, I wanted to be immersed in my wonderful fabricated world, surrounded by people who would tell me they like me or love me and by media that broadcast how perfect life was. Life wasn't perfect back then, but I thought it was...isn't that all that matters?

  No, it's not all that matters. Life wasn't perfect. Life isn't perfect now. It is far from it. This pretty, frill-covered cloak of confusion and misdirection is tearing away, shredding day by day and revealing the filthy surface underneath.

  Memories can take you away from all that. You stand in the meadow with the tall grass brushing your legs, and your mind convinces you that you always felt at home here. These fake pictures of a blessed life dig into your brain like worms and paint a false picture that you desperately want to believe is true. Eventually, the time comes that you've seen too much, learned too much, and no matter how deep and rich the painted picture is, you can't see it as anything but colors slapped on a canvas. It is meaningless.

  That doesn't stop the warm breeze from shifting through my hair and touching my cheek. It doesn't stop that momentary burst of warm contentment in my heart as the long, tall grass reaches up to surround me, hiding me, and convincing me I'm wrapped in a pleasant memory rather than on the cusp of yet another violent, stark nightmare.

  I glance up at the suns, perched in the sky and from this angle, with this view I can almost convince myself I'm that child again, a rambunctious girl dragged to the wilderness by her eager parents.

  ...her dead parents.

  Dead doesn't quite cover it, though, not by a long shot. Dead is just a word; it doesn't appropriately describe what happened to them. ...what the explosion did to them. ...what it did to me. ...to the entire planet.

  Nothing is the same. It happened two months ago, yet the wound still feels open and raw, like a slash of exposed flesh that is bared, wet, and glistening. The slightest warm breeze digs sharp agony into it. The warm breeze reminds me of childhood and of all that I've lost. I press my fingers against the cool metal of the locket around my neck. It contrasts to the warm breeze, but the resulting memories are still the same.

  I try to focus my attention on the rippling lake ahead. It is a vast expanse of calm water, rippling lightly under the wind, and curling into white-capped waves against the rough, stony surface of the island that is stuck in the center of it as if a large child dropped it there.

  From here, the building on that island looks small, though I know it's not. It's a two-floor facility of rock and mortar, with a few windows carved into the stone in haphazard fashion.

  Just to the left of the structure, a tall, round dish points up towards the sky as if it, too, is immersing itself in a fond, but fake, childhood memory. The artificial construct looks strange surrounded by nature. It's stark, straight lines are a distraction from the rolling grass meadows, throngs of thick trees, and the rippling surface of the lake's water.

  Even with that structure in the middle of this picture of nature, I'm still immersed in my surroundings, listening to the faint squawk of birds and leaves shifting in the wind, smelling raw dirt mixed with pollen, and feeling warm wind on my face as the suns looking down from the pale, green sky. Childhood memories and cold, hard reality are slamming together into one strange, distorted image that I try to rationalize.

  I fail, miserably. The world around me is one of peace and untapped wilderness. Even the structure is unblemished, smoothly sculpted, and pristine (for a chunk of thick, sculpted concrete, anyway). If only my world itself were still as untouched.

  "Incoming!!!"

  The scream is shrill and sharp, a verbal knife razor-cutting the quiet, warm air, and adding an instant chill. The false sense of peace shatters around me as the sky itself bursts apart as roaring, rumbling motors belch into the once-peaceful air.

  For two months I've been here on the surface of Athelon. For two months I've been doing the bidding of the Yarda Resistance, recruiting followers, stealing weapons and armor, and taking pot shots at the Athelonian military regime. In the two months since my parent's died, I haven't even had a chance to mourn them, with one fierce conflict after another.

  There was the briefest moment just now that I remembered what things were like before. Before I knew what kind of galaxy I lived in, before I knew what kind of person my father was, and before I knew the truth.

  Sometimes I think I'd be happier in a life of lies.

  A sharp stab of green energy laces through the air and crackling ozone sends a wave of rippling heat over me as it arcs low, twists, and plunges into the once-calm waters several yards short of the structure. The water sizzles and steam blasts up into the air just as the plasma beam dissipates.

  "C'mon, Brie, we're up!" A hand slaps my shoulder with a swift and sudden whack. I turn my head, nodding towards Luxen as he skims past my right shoulder with a weapon cradled in his hands. It's been less than a year since I first met him, but he seems to have aged five.

  "Yarda Resistance, move in!" Drewsk sho
uts. We thrust ourselves up out of the long grass where we'd been ducking low, just out of sight, watching the building and waiting for the right time to strike.

  As I emerge from the grass, pressing the blades aside, I see a massive, angular shaped vehicle leap up over the rounded hills, smashing the foliage into crumbled pulp underneath thick, rolling treads. By now I can tell just by the design of the vehicle that it's a Reblon assault truck with an armored canopy connected to a rectangular compartment by a swiveling universal joint. Treads are mounted underneath both sides, but the joint system allows it to turn and maneuver swiftly. A long, cylindrical cannon is mounted to a rounded turret on top of the compartment which also doubles as a troop carrier.

  All around the carrier, Reblon foot soldiers charge forward. Some of the tall, fur-covered commandos are wearing elaborate skulls for helmets. All of them are wearing tightly twisted body armor and carrying double-barreled projectile launchers in their clawed fists. I glance over towards the building as we rush forward. The Athelonian research station looking especially vulnerable under the assault of the huge cannon. We were expecting this, but I'm not sure we were expecting this. Flanking the first group of lumbering commandos is a quartet of Reblon Crashers, huge armored mechanized battle suits with weapon-mounted arms and reinforced armor plating. They're not messing around.

  The last two months of small skirmishes, tiny raid missions to steal Athelonian armor, and a few larger tangles to liberate (and recruit) some prisoners have not prepared me for the scale of this. The sheer size of the Reblon division launching this attack makes me think it's safe to say we're officially caught with our pants down.

  "What's going on here?" I bark into my comm unit.

  A burst of static replies, then breaks apart with Drewsk's voice scrambling beneath. "Proceed according to plan! Nothing has changed!"

  "I beg to differ," I reply, glancing over at the at least three dozen Reblon commandos pressing their way through hip deep grass. Twin barrel launchers bark fire and smoke, splashing incoming fire towards the building.

  To my right, Luxen roars off a swift series of plasma shots that send screaming yellow energy to scorch dried grass and slam into one of the lead Reblon commandos. He twists and falls backwards, and three others peel away from the crowd, angling towards us with weapons raised.

  Behind us I hear the loud, warbling blare of some kind of echoing trumpet. The call to battle which even stranger against the backdrop of mechanized suits and armored trucks, but the sound is loud and long, overriding the crunching treads of the enemy vehicle ahead. Chasing the horn is the rapid drumbeat of thudding hooves. The thick, rumbling quake of pounding feet rattles the ground underneath my feet.

  "What is that?" I cough into my ear piece, a half-shout over the oncoming din.

  Then I see them. Vague, dark shapes forming up out of the tall grass and trees to my left. A horde of sleek, leather-skinned quadrupeds I've seen countless times on farms and in captivity on Athelon, but never in these numbers, and never with this purpose.

  These large creatures, called Lorks, stand as tall as a normal Athelonian, but they run on four long, muscular legs. Their hairless hides cover bulging muscles that make them some of the strongest creatures on this planet. They are often used on the more rural farms of Athelon where technology has not yet made its presence so widely known. The creatures have seen in the past have always been docile and calm.

  Not these! Their angled heads are lowered, their snouts are expelling a fine mist, and their blunt hooves are making the ground shake as they run. Dozens of them are charging from the trees and over the grass towards us. On each bony spine, sits an Athelonian rider desperately clutching leather reigns with two lower hands while wielding a plasma launcher with the two higher hands. The oncoming wave is both chilling and inspiring, but is it a match for these Reblon forces?

  I guess we'll soon find out.

  #

  Seeing the farm animals join the battle makes me think back to our arrival six hours ago. The sun was barely rising and the pale green sky was a strange shade of burnt orange.

  Leaning left, I glanced out the narrow window of the shuttle as it drifted down closer to the rolling meadows below. I spotted a small farmhouse with a wide expanse of fencing stretching out towards the thickening trees. Several docile Lorks roamed in the lush grass of the pasture. The tall, lizard looking creatures, plodded along, step-by-step, with their heads down and their large eyes glistening in the low light of pre-dawn. It seemed peaceful enough to convince me that perhaps the intel was wrong.

  Looking at the farm house below I found myself praying it was wrong. The idea of a mechanized unit of Reblon commandos stomping through the waving grass below made me feel sick to my stomach.

  As the farm passed beneath us and behind us, the shuttle banked left, then angled down to come around, with thrusters bursting to life to coax the narrow craft into a wobbling landing position. The grass flattened in a circular pattern under the pressure of the landing thrusters and within moments of settling on that flat grass, the door slid open to release us. There were only three of us on this particular mission. We were, after all, just the advance team.

  "Are we sure about this?" I asked as our feet left the ramp and settled into the grassy meadow.

  "Segaris still has his contacts," replied Luxen. "He seems pretty certain."

  "It's as quiet as a tomb," I replied, immediately thinking better of my choice of words.

  "It is quiet now," Kleethak said, "but the sun is still rising. There's plenty of time for the noise to come."

  I knew he was right. If I'd learned nothing else over the past two months it was that things can turn hairy very quickly, and my shift to full-time rebel commando had been eye opening for sure, especially since...

  ...since what? ...since they died? ...since the explosion? Sometimes it was more comforting to think of it as "the explosion". That felt less personal and more general. ...less about my parents and more about the event itself. The "event" changed the entire face of this once secret war.

  Once the infamous Redax Northstar was dead, the Athelonian hierarchy used that as a launching pad, a reason to aggressively sanction Reblox and to send battle cruisers into space, fearing for their planet's safety. The War of the Three Planets no longer had to be secret. It was all out in the open.

  Reblox responded in kind.

  While Athelon put Northstar on every television station and took advantage of his death to increase defense emergency funds, Reblox latched onto Senator (INSERT NAME), the politician who joined the Yarda Resistance, but didn't even survive to see our headquarters. Clearly, Athelon was behind his death just as, clearly, Reblox was behind Northstar's. Because of "the audacity" of assassinating political leadership, the brute force of both armadas was being unleashed.

  The battle wasn't just happening in space. In spite of the massive blockades set by Athelonian cruisers, select Reblon ground squads made it through, hitting Athelon in a series of strategic strikes meant to disrupt communications, thwart military coordination, and throw the space forces into chaos.

  The hard truth to admit was that it was working.

  Now the Yarda Resistance was in the difficult spot of siding with Athelon, at least temporarily, as we struck back against Reblox, trying to keep the score even. How it got to this point, I don't know, but that's where we were.

  It's where we are, but, hopefully, not where we'll stay.

  After all, the delicate relationship with Athelon had the potential to shatter and explode, especially once they found out that the Resistance might have had something to do with my father's death.

  ...something? ...or everything? It's a question I've battled with every day since the explosion. ...my eternal conundrum.

  I was the only person besides my parents' personal security detail who had known where they were going. ...until I told Drewsk. ...until he told the Resistance.

  "Brie, stay with us."

  I looked up, catching Kleethak's
eye, shining in the dim light of dawn, and I nodded slowly.

  Luxen, Kleethak, and I walked silently through the tall grass, stopping every few steps to survey the area. With their excellent night vision, the Bragdons lead the way, making sure no surprises awaited us in those tan stalks.

  "It's there, up ahead," Luxen said, pointing out towards a shadowed shape in the distance.

  'It'. The infamous 'it'.

  Segaris' intel identified the structure as a long range listening post, an Athelonian defense structure with prototype technology allowing surveillance into deep space. An early warning system of this sort, allows the planet to spot and isolate incoming forces a light year away. Revolutionary!

  Also, a hot target. According to Segaris' contacts, a Reblon strike force hit the ground twelve kilometers from here, and they're dead set on leveling this structure. And of course, because of the need to keep this place's location a secret, security is sparse to non-existent.

  That's where we come in.

  I glance behind me, looking into the darkness just as the shuttle lifts off gently from the rounded hill and turns to drift up into the sky.