For years, I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a book based on Lawman’s Brut, an extensive prose history written during the medieval period. I initially read sections of it while working on my master’s degree in history and actually own a copy. The Histories of Starfall is a science fiction version of the Brut in some ways, though it’s sadly unfinished but is a project I’d like to get back to at some point.
This is the first chapter of the Histories.
One
“It’s worse than we feared,” he said as he strode into the king’s command center. “The fleet is at least a thousand ships with full fighter and bomber compliments. I shudder to think of how many marines they might have brought with them for ship to ship and ground assaults.”
Old King Servaas looked up from the screen that illuminated his weathered face. He had seen more than sixty years, fathered ten children, and now he was brought low by the folly of his youngest son.
Worse yet, his people would pay the price for that folly and there was nothing he could do about it. The men and women of Illycriam would pay the price for the crime of one man, the crime of Eder Alantir, son of Servaas, King of Illycriam, last of his line.
“Give us some ray of hope, Jacob,” the king said quietly. “Can some of our people be saved? Have we time enough for any evacuation?”
Jacob Kelley took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. He exchanged a look with Hector, the king’s eldest son and heir. Hector’s jaw tightened and he shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“Whatever must be done must be done, brother. Anything to save even a fraction of the Illyrcians will be worth the cost.”
Jacob turned back to the king, his voice steady but heavy with remorse. “If the bulk of our naval forces head out face them, sire, there might be a chance of evacuating some of the population through the Postern Gate.”
Hector shuddered. “No one has flown through that gate in recorded history. It could go to nowhere. It may not even activate when you reach it.”
“I know that and so does the enemy. The other gates and waypoints are blockaded but the Postern Gate’s clear.” Jacob said. “We have no choice, it’s the Postern Gate or nothing. It’s our only hope. You said yourself—anything to save even a fraction of Illycriam’s people.”
Servaas stared at the pair for a long moment, his son by blood and his son in spirit, before he turned away, pacing across his command center to study the holographic maps of the known galaxy. “Jacob, find some volunteers to accompany you through the Postern Gate with refugees. Take ten destroyers and a carrier. Hector, gather a force and refugees and make for the Evangeline Gate. Take twenty destroyers and two carriers. Perhaps you’ll be able to thin the forces enough to open the way. I will have Edwin Millardo prepare a group to follow whichever of you is successful. Armena Caradine will lead the rest of our fleet against the main body of the armada. Hopefully, that will give each of you enough time to escape.”
They don’t stand a chance going through the Evangeline Gate. Jacob held his tongue and pounded his right fist against his left breast in salute. “By your leave, then, my king?”
Servaas turned back toward him again, smiling sadly. “We will miss your counsel in these final hours of Illycriam, Jacob. Take the Ascanius and take my grandson to safety. May the gods smile on you all the rest of your days.”
“I pray that they see all of Illycriam’s people through this, my king,” Jacob said softly. “Gods save you.” Because I know I cannot.
The old king nodded and turned away again. Jacob stared at his father-in-law’s back for one last, long and aching moment before he strode out of the command center for the last time.
By morning, it and the whole of the capital Illyrium would be nothing but ash.
•••
“Father!”
Jacob turned toward the sound of his son’s voice and felt his heart give a painful squeeze. Julian had the look of his late mother, gone these past two years since Eder’s perfidy. Amanda had been the king’s chosen envoy, sent to the Syprian Expanse to broker peace.
They’d sent her body home in a cyrotube, her throat cut and her eyes gouged out, a message for her father and her people. It made him sick to think of it.
Julian had the same troubled look in his gray eyes that his mother had the day she’d told them she was going to the Expanse. Jacob’s stomach dropped even further toward his boots as he took the boy by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shake.
“What’s wrong, Jules?”
“It’s Aunt Cass,” Julian said, his young voice breaking there in the corridor of Ecclesiastes Station. He was barely thirteen, far too young to know as much as he did of war and hardship. But he was the only grandson of King Servaas, and should the old king die and his sons pass from the world of the living without issue of their own, Julian Kelley would be the king of Illycriam.
Or would have been, if their world and way of life wasn’t about to be wiped from galactic memory.
Jacob’s heart fluttered into his throat. Cassiopeia was the very youngest of Servaas’s children and Julian’s favorite relative. “What about her?”
“They brought her in on the Tellurian. She—Father, she—” Julian swallowed hard, looking frustrated as he glanced away, then back to his father’s dark eyes. “The Syprians shot her down and captured her, Father, then they sent her back to us. They sent her with a message to us. Father they—they blinded her.”
He had to swallow bile before he could speak, thoughts flashing back to the ruin of his dead wife’s face in that cryotube. Cassiopeia was a fighter, a pilot of no small skill, much to the chagrin of her beloved father and king.
She was also reckless and perhaps not entirely sane. There were stories and rumors that she had a touch of second sight, a gift that had been lost to the Illycrian people long ago. Jacob hadn’t believed it until the day Cass had clutched his sleeve and told him that he’d never see Amanda alive again, the day they stood on the tarmac of Rydian Base and watched her transport lift into a starlit sky.
The only person Amanda had loved as much as her husband and son had been her baby sister.
All thoughts of getting his son to the Ascanius and evacuating evaporated. They couldn’t go without Cass—it was an impossibility. Jacob jerked his chin toward the corridor behind Julian. “Take me to her.”
Julian swallowed and nodded, then turned and dashed down the hallway, his father at his heels. The gunmetal gray corridors gave way to sterile white as they headed deeper, toward the heart of the station where the medical center was safely nestled.
“How long ago was it?” Jacob asked. It couldn’t have been that long ago. I was only here a few hours ago and I’m thinking they would have told me about something like this before I went down to the surface.
“Maybe fifteen minutes after you left the station.” Julian swallowed hard. “I—Father, I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. She—I—Father, it’s—”
Jacob squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll sort it out,” he said softly. It was little comfort, he knew, but it was all he had to give.
Julian met his gaze and nodded slowly. “Right,” he said. “Sure. They—they took her this way.”
The teenager led him down a side corridor and a moment later, both of them could hear the sound of a woman shouting—Cassiopeia shouting, cursing the enemy, cursing the medics, cursing anyone and everyone in earshot.
At least she’s alive to curse them. Jacob slipped past his son. “Go find Tacitus and tell him to start the evacuations. You get to the Ascanius with our gear and tell Carlos that we’re leaving as soon as I’m aboard.”
“Leaving?” Julian stared at him, brows knitting. “Where are we going?”
“The Postern Gate and whatever lies beyond it.” Jacob pushed him gently. “Now go. I’ll collect your aunt and we’ll both be there shortly.”
Julian cast one last look at his father before he nodded and dashed off in the direction they’d come from. Jacob took a deep breath and turned and continued on toward the sound of the curses that slowly turned to screams. His heart began to pound harder as he forged onward, heading toward the sound.
I never should have let Riley send her out there.
He shouldered open the door into a scene of chaos. Three medics struggled to hold Cassiopeia down as a third tried to inject her with something. Still dressed in the tattered remnants of her flightsuit, it was easy to imagine what had happened to her while the Syprians had her. Contrary to his fears, her eyes were still there, not gouged from their sockets like her sister’s had been. They were still there, huge and blue, the pupils shrunk to nothing and the irises filmed over with gray-white, angry red-purple marks radiating out toward her temples. Her mouth was open in a full-throated scream of rage and fear and she was fighting the medics with all her strength.
“Let go of her,” Jacob ordered, slamming the door. “And get the hell out of here.”
“General Kelley—”
“Go!” he roared, storming toward the bed. Cassiopeia had suddenly gone silent and still, her sightless eyes wide, chest heaving as she sucked in ragged breaths. One of the medics glanced at her strangely before all four skittered toward the door and out, not daring to look at Jacob as they passed. Cassiopeia sat up fully, swallowing and choking back a sob.
“Jacob?”
“I’m here, Cass.” He took one of her hands in both of his, wincing at the restraint marks on her wrist, her flesh raw and purple-red with angry bruises and welts. “I’m right here.”
“I tried to warn him, Jacob,” she said, clutching at his sleeve with her free hand. “I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen. I tried to warn all of them. No one listened. Why wouldn’t they listen?”
“I don’t know,” Jacob whispered, fingers tightening around her hand. “I don’t know why they didn’t listen. Can you walk?”
“Walk? Walk to where?”
“The Ascanius. We’re getting out of here. Can you walk?”
“I—”
He took her hesitation for a no and swept her up into his arms. She gave a little yelp and threw an arm around his neck to steady herself. “The king has ordered evacuations,” he said as he strode toward the door. “Hector and I are taking the first two groups. Admiral Caradine will lead the defense—she’ll buy us time to evacuate as many as we can and get away. Hector’s taking a group through the Evangeline Gate.”
“He’ll never make it,” Cassiopeia whispered, her head against his shoulder, her face half buried in his chest. “Doesn’t Father realize that?”
“Who am I to gainsay my king?” Jacob asked softly. “He’s given me leave to take a group through the Postern Gate. That’s where we’re going with the Ascanius.”
“No one’s flown through that jumpgate in recorded history.”
“You said it would work.”
Her tears wet the shoulder of his uniform jacket. “You’re the only one who believed me. You’re the only one who’s ever believed me.”
“You haven’t been wrong yet, Cass.” As much as I wished you were that day on the tarmac, I’ve never known you to be wrong when the sight’s touched you. He held her a little more tightly. “Now be quiet and still. Doc Andrews will have a look once we’re aboard the Ascanius. Does it hurt much?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.” She rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, exhaling a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to sleep because I know that there will be nightmares.”
“He’ll give you something so you won’t dream,” Jacob promised, ignoring the strange looks he received as he forged onward down the corridor, toward the docking rings where the Ascanius waited for its commander. “All things heal with time.”
“Illycriam won’t.”
“No,” he agreed softly. “It won’t. But whatever handful of her people that can be saved—they will. I promise, Cass, they will.”
Her face pressed against his shoulder, the king’s youngest daughter nodded, her eyes squeezed shut. “I believe you,” she whispered. “Gods help us all, Jacob. I believe you.”