The Alliance
Authors: David Andrews
Tags: #First Born, #Alliance, #Sci fi, #Federation, #David Andrews, #science fiction, #adventure, #freedom
David Andrews
Eternal Press
A division of Damnation Books, LLC.
P.O. Box 3931
Santa Rosa, CA 95402-9998
The Alliance
by David Andrews
Digital ISBN: 978-1-61572-441-3
Print ISBN: 978-1-61572-442-0
Cover art by: Dawné Dominique
Edited by: Ellen Tevault
Copyedited by: Tim Marquitz
Copyright 2011 David Andrews
Printed in the United States of America
Worldwide Electronic & Digital Rights
1st North American, Australian and UK Print Rights
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To Diane Colman,
who made it possible.
Two hundred years made little difference to the beach camp. Dael accepted Torred building a shelter over the table and preserving its timbers with oil. Peter extended their sleeping nook to provide shelter for the children and Karrel built a second one to share with Gabrielle and their boy, Jack. A niche dug into the landward side of the sand hill and stabilized with sandstone blocks provided the final resting place for their friends. Torred, Samara, and Jesse slept there eternally, their graves tended by Dael.
She sat with them now, on the seat he had built for her, and he would join her as soon as their meal was cooked. Two centuries answered none of his questions about this reality. He still wasn’t sure that it existed outside his mind, the product of desperation, and not even holding Dael could banish that fear.
He woke in this world to find it controlled by a race of immortal telepaths, minds existing within human hosts, who banished war and imposed sustainability for so many thousands of years that history no longer existed, because nothing ever changed. Intrigued, he studied it from a vantage point he’d named Limbo, using the power it gave him to read minds without detection and transport himself mentally from location to location, where he could assume physical form at will.
A much decorated veteran of WWI, WWII and Korea with the American Army, with service in the French Foreign Legion between the wars, the loss of human freedom of choice in this world appalled him too much not to attempt change. Direct action was impossible against the telepaths, for they communicated in a group mind that pooled all information, so he chose guile, implementing a plan to introduce generational change to a race that had no means, or need, to reproduce.
The first stage of his plan produced a discovery that still haunted him. A thought could change this world, bringing in its train every ramification of the original thought. He’d merely wondered how telepathic immortals in an unchanging world avoided boredom and the telepaths started going mad and dying, not in great numbers, but enough to teach him caution in his thoughts.
Still, the change gave him the opportunity to suborn the individual who became Dael, coaxing her into creating a physical body that could bear his son, the saviour of both races, and falling deeply in love with her in the process.
Born with all the powers of both parents, Karrel tricked Belen into dying in Peter’s place on Earth, replacing a worn out body with one created by Dael from a single tear.
Wary of two individuals who could change things merely by thinking about them in a different way, he focused Karrel’s attention on the past, setting him a puzzle from the group mind’s memories that sent him back thirty-five thousand years to meet the future of Earth’s people.
Having trashed their planet, they scattered to the stars, huge colony ships following smaller scouts and settling habitable planets as they found them. Locked into sub-light speed, their travels took many generations. Earth was only a distant memory when they encountered Dael’s race, a scout ship commanded by Gabrielle making planetfall on their home world.
Karrel and Peter managed the confrontation, avoiding conflict and transferring Dael’s race to their present home, a planet so far beyond the galactic hub that it would remain undisturbed for many millennia. In the process, they had freed humanity from the tyranny of distance by creating a means of instant travel between the stars and Karrel fell in love with Gabrielle.
This left the scattered remnants of Earth’s people prey to many dangers, the worst of which was the successor of the original multi-national that trashed Earth to make the Diaspora possible. Still known as the Federation, they were the new enemy, overwhelming in numbers, but with weak points the few as he had at his disposal could exploit. He encouraged the others to call themselves the Alliance to boost their apparent numbers.
“Stop worrying, my love.”
Dael was sharing his thoughts and her mind encompassed him. “
You will do what’s right and find a way. You always do.”
She translocated from the graves to his side and her arms enfolded him. “Is our meal ready?” Physical speech was now possible.
“Another twenty minutes.”
“The oven can look after itself,” she said, drawing him to his feet. “I have just the diversion for you.” She led him to their bed beneath the stars.
Dael stopped bearing children after Anneke and Jean-Paul, replacing motherhood with caring for the trickle of her own race who chose to follow her path and create physical bodies to contain their minds, but had never lost the wonder of sex with her husband.
Anneke
Anneke watched as the Lord High Sheriff’s men-at-arms arranged the dozen Federation agents on an improvised scaffold. Eleven already had nooses around their necks and were standing quietly. Dusk was falling and the flaring pine torches gave the scene a surreal light. Peter had forbidden direct intervention, but she couldn’t stand idle while these fools died. She liked this world, had made friends here. Yet, to involve them would trigger a bloodbath. She had to depend on the Federation responding in time, even if it meant doing something to buy them time.
The redhead at the far end understood. She was resisting furiously, four men-at-arms inadequate to the task of restraining her. One was down already, both hands clutching a part of his anatomy he wouldn’t have willing offered as the target for a full-blooded kick. Another bled profusely from a torn ear, most of the earlobe bitten off.
The sergeant swore foully, damning the girl and the men-at-arms equally as he strode down the line and rapped the girl behind the ear with the handle of his dagger, dropping her in an unconscious heap at the men’s feet. “Lay her aside. We’ll hang her later.”
Anneke used the distraction to get closer. The Federation rescue party was close. She needed to be on the opposite side of the group when they arrived, ready to intervene.
“Are you ready?” The sergeant remained by the unconscious girl, looking back along the line, his sword raised to give the signal.
“Wait. I want to watch them dance.” Anneke’s imitation of the tyrant’s voice wouldn’t have passed muster under normal circumstances, but, coming from behind, it was enough to turn everyone to the darkness of the forest when she hid.
They were looking the wrong way to see four dark objects lob through the air to fall at the men-at arms’ feet. Recognizing them as stun grenades, Anneke translocated two hundred feet before they exploded, shielding her eyes and turning away. The chain mail jerkins would protect the tyrant’s men from harm, but they’d be stunned. Apart from the sergeant, none of them had ever faced explosives. She could leave the matter in Federation hands now.
The distance muted the crack of the stun grenades, but a flash grenade amongst them lighted the evening sky revealing the approach of at least fifty more men-at-arms. Fortunately, they skidded to a stop at the explosions. The Federation leader had time to release his people on the scaffold and then throw more grenades to cover his retreat. They left before Anneke realized the redhead wasn’t among them.
“Damn,” she swore, translocating to the girl in time to drag her into the safety of Limbo.
“Damn,” she swore again as the girl stirred. They must be back in real space before she woke.
The river was closest and its banks were steep. She plunged them both into the water where overhanging bushes would hide them. Peter would never understand her revealing the existence of Limbo to a Federation agent.
The cold water completed the girl’s revival and she bit Anneke’s hand when she tried to stifle her outcry. “Quiet, damn you, they’ll hear.”
“Sorry.” The girl understood. “Get these ropes off,” she whispered, turning to give Anneke access to her bound wrists. “Who are you?”
“A friend.”
“The others?”
“Safe.” Anneke shushed her with a finger to her lips. She could sense the approach of the men-at-arms. “Squeeze under that bank and cover your face with mud. If they use lights, close your eyes. Whatever you do, don’t look at them.” Anneke disciplined herself not to smile at the girl’s reaction to being instructed in basic field craft by the inhabitant of a planet regressed to medieval feudalism. She had a fiery temper, this one.
The men were good at their job, worst luck, probing every bush with spears or pikes, leaning far over the bank with raised torches to study the water. The girl should be safe, the undercut was deep here in the bend of the river, the current tugging at them, but there wasn’t room for two of them.
Anneke leaned close and whispered in the girl’s ear. “Stay here. You’ll be safe. I’ll come back for you when they move on.”
A nod answered her and Anneke let the current carry her away, diving deep and slipping into the safety of Limbo as soon as she was out of the girl’s sight.
“A good move
.
” Peter was waiting and she braced herself for a lecture. “Be careful. The Federation has tried to be smart. There’ll be bloodshed. Keep yourself out of its way.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze and left.
Anneke shook her head in amazement. Her father would never stop surprising her. She moved back to the portal into real space and watched over the redhead, scanning her thoughts to pass the time.