“You cannot—” “I am a man of my word,” Varouforos interrupted. “I said that I would make you sign. There will be peace. It will come either by your signature, or by the death of your host. The choice is … Continue reading
Ewart’s command post had grown as his force did. Now, he stood at a map table in the middle of a ring of comms units, all of it protected from the weather by a tarp overhead, stretched between poles defining … Continue reading
Soon, his men were aboard, and he busied himself organizing their deployment, not noticing the growing chill amidst the bustle. Perun fought on. He drew the yashcherit ships away from Proti; now they were a few thousand stadia away … Continue reading
A pair of yashcheritsy appeared in the crowd ahead. When they saw Varouforos and Ippocampos, they leveled their weapons. Varouforos pushed Ippocampos behind a nearby stall and slid into cover with it. Plasma packets shrieked past them. There was a … Continue reading
Adalric Ewart watched his navarch disappear in a flash of light. That translocator had cost as much as Perun, but it had certainly proved its worth over the years. Nearly every yashcherit in the crowd produced a weapon of some … Continue reading
Varouforos opened his eyes, drawing his laser pistol. He relaxed. Only he and Ippocampos had come through. The reactive translocator clipped to his belt hummed and ticked as it cooled down. It would be of no further use for an … Continue reading
As a believer himself, Varouforos could hardly say this was a bad thing in itself. The particular form of the yashcherit Orthodox tradition, however, caused him no end of trouble. Their incense seemed to Varouforos to be chosen less for … Continue reading
They stepped out into a neatly kept park, all manicured lawns and paths marked by stately lines of trees. The sun had passed behind the limb of Abila, so through the dome overhead, only stars could be seen. Ahead of … Continue reading
The next day, Morana pulled into orbit above Abila Lysaniou. At sixty stadia—twenty kilometers, in the newfangled Gallic measure—he dwarfed every other ship there. The gigantic doors over her hangar bays rolled back, and four ships emerged: Perun, a battleship, … Continue reading
Morana tore through jump space at tremendous speeds, running for two days, then dropping to normal space for thirty hours while her reactors charged her jump capacitors. Two weeks of this brought him to the edge of the star system … Continue reading
