Moving the Pieces Read online

  Moving The Pieces

  Book Four of Preparations for War

  Dan Melson

  Copyright 2021 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Moving The Pieces (Preparations for War, #4)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four | The Empire Under Assault

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Interlude

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  TO THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THE CALMENA ADVANCEMENT MISSION | THEY LIVED THEIR LIVES IN DARKNESS TO LEAD US INTO THE LIGHT. THEY WERE ONLY HUMAN AND MADE MISTAKES, BUT WITHOUT THEM WE WOULD HAVE SUFFERED AN ETERNITY OF DARKNESS. | MAY THEY FIND PEACE

  Imperial numbers and measurement

  Books by Dan Melson | Science Fiction and Fantasy | Rediscovery (Empire of Humanity)

  Preparations For War (Empire of Humanity)

  Politics of Empire (Empire of Humanity)

  Connected Realms

  The Gates To Faerie

  Non-fiction

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  Epsilon Indi A II (Calmena) Mass .96 Earth, mean radius 6108 kilometers, density 6020 kilograms per cubic meter, distance to star 74 million kilometers, Rotational period 25 hours 38 minutes (Earth). Revolutionary year 145.0 Earth days (136 Imperial or local). Surface gravity 10.27 meters per second squared, (1.047 Earth gravity).

  Two noteworthy moons, IIa approximately 1% Earth mass (roughly 80% the mass of the moon) mean orbital distance 204,000 kilometers. IIb 0.11% Earth mass, mean orbital distance 601,000 kilometers.

  Hydrosphere: seventy-eight percent of the planetary surface. Mean surface temperature 20.4 Celsius. Four continent sized land masses, three of them mostly north of the equator, one south, numerous islands. Sea level pressure 1060 millibars, nitrogen eighty percent, oxygen eighteen, argon, helium, water vapor, and carbon dioxide making up the rest.

  Chapter One

  It was hard to believe she was gone.

  For over an Earth century, Sephia had been the commander of Bolthole Base. She’d been the one constant, unchangeable thing about the mission on Calmena. The base was four times the size it had been when I started, Calmena itself was utterly changed, but Sephia was changeless – until this morning. She’d had a cerebral hemorrhage at some point overnight and died in her sleep. Her bright blue eyes were forever closed and I could have used a shot of her no-nonsense grandmotherly attitude. But her body had already been fed back into the converter as per standard Imperial procedure; she was one with the universe now.

  Section Private Kryphan was senior-most of those in the line of command; therefore he was interim commander. It was unlikely a successor for Sephia would be more than two days in coming – today’s courier run would have taken the news to Earth, almost certainly the new base commander would arrive tomorrow. But whoever it was, they’d never replace the grandmother hen who’d watched over us for the last century, kept us focused on the task, held us together through all the setbacks, and kicked us into action when it was necessary.

  It had been pointless to Portal back to Bolthole Base, but every single one of the twentytwo teams currently working the Advancement Mission nonetheless made the journey, each of us making a solemn pilgrimage to the door of the base commander’s office that had been hers for so long, just standing at the door looking in in silent farewell, bore executing tatzen, the Imperial gesture of respect, before turning and walking away silently. Tatzen was a variable gesture. Fingertips to chin was respect. Fingertips to upper lip was more. Nose to the joining of the ring and middle fingers was the limit of ordinary. Nose to wrist and palm to heart was all that and love and loss and you couldn’t get any higher. Anything more than that was simple pretension, and none of us would do that to her. Sephia’s absence was a burning hole in all of our hearts. She hadn’t had to do anything beyond her job as commander of Bolthole Base, but she’d done everything she could to make our jobs easier as well. She would be missed.

  Both Asina and I had last messages from her in our datalink queue. Likely a last farewell and whatever last message she’d wanted us to be reminded of. We’d play them back in Yalskarr. Speaking of which, we’d be missed if we lingered more than a few minutes. Sephia was gone, and not coming back, but we still had our work to do. After a quick chat with Arrel and Dildre, we portaled back to the Calmenan city that had been our home for over sixty Imperial years now.

  Yalskarr was a different place, sixty Imperial years on. It had been a port town when we arrived; now it was one of the busiest ports on Calmena as well as an industrial center rivalling anything Earth had had in the mid-twentieth century. Nearly a million people lived in the city itself and another four in the territory it governed, which included the oilfields to the north as well as enough farmland to feed them all. It had its growing pains but Asina as First Captain had done her best to help the area remain livable as well as defensible from demonic incursions. She was retired from that now but still consulted from time to time; administering the industrial conglomerate that built ships, airplanes, and automobiles as well as the engines to power all of them took all of her time while I worked on advancing the technology as fast as I could, largely using the blueprints from Earth’s Industrial Age. The time was coming when the lives of every human on Calmena would hinge on how fast we could upgrade.

  From the little copy of the Bleriot monoplane that had begun aviation here, Calmena’s aircraft industry was ready to transition into the jet age, but that was far from an unmixed blessing. For most of the things that would be needed in repelling large bodies of demonic troops, propeller driven aircraft were more effective. Jets were expensive; the only real need for jet fighters was fighting other jet fighters and I couldn’t see the demons fielding fighters that something of that era could fight. Either the demons would copy something like an Imperial Starbird in which case jets would simply be expensive targets, or they wouldn’t bother at all, in which case Calmenan jet fighters would be wasting resources that could more profitably be used elsewhere. But it was difficult to explain this to people who’d never been allowed to see Imperial starships and thought jets were the pinnacle of development.

  Fortunately, most of the military organizations of Calmena understood who their real enemies were. Thousands of years of oppression and regular waves of demonic legions attempting to reconquer human nations made that abundantly clear. Over on Wilmarglr Continent where we’d started, Bazhen had imperial aspirations but fortunately the demons kept graphically explaining the folly of attacking fellow humans when there were demons trying to eat both them and their intended conquests.

  Asina and I each had half an hour of putting out those routine little metaphorical fires that seem to sprout like magic when the boss is away even momentarily. Hers had to do with the supply of metals – both iron and aluminum – that our shipyards and plane assembly required in thousand ton lots. Taman, her assistant, was a good accountant who couldn’t be told we had access to more wealth than was apparent, and had tried to scale back or split an order of metal we needed immediately if not sooner. Mine had to do with a design issue on the proposed gunships. Makis understood why the main firepower had to sprout to one side, but Ghent, our liaison, was a former fighter pilot who wanted it all firing forward and tried to coerce a design change from him. I explained to Ghent for the seventeenth time that transports could keep one wing and therefore the guns aligned with it pointed at a target indefinitely, a feature that couldn’t be replicated fo
r any forward firing weapons. Ghent may have had experience using fighters to strafe demonic legions; I had access to records from an Earth he didn’t know existed, and from the Empire as well, although Imperial tech was tens of thousands of years past anything Calmena could produce. We looted technology from pre-contact Earth because there was no living memory of Imperial equivalents and few designs for their production. The Swass-class transports that were the basic design were an almost exact copy of an Earth transport plane called a C-130 Hercules, and the gunships based upon them had been known as Spectres. I’d been told the new guns for them would be every bit as effective as the original Spectre.

  Once the metaphorical brushfires were out, we retired to Asina’s office to play Sephia’s message on our datalinks. The basic message was what we’d expected – how Calmena was important to the upcoming war, how we were going to make an outsize difference to the outcome, how she knew we’d make her proud. The basic message was one she’d repeated over and over again in our time on Calmena, but it brought tears to our eyes hearing it from her mouth one more time, and we loved her for it. Her straight pale blonde pageboy cut was slightly longer than the last time we’d seen her – it wasn’t a recent recording. We checked the timestamp and it was almost ten years old. Asina had loved Sephia as a replacement for the mother she’d lost as a child. I wasn’t an orphan, but she’d become a beloved aunt, equal in my affections with Tia Esperanza and Tia Luz and Tia Grace. I made a point of copying the message to archive; I wanted to be able to play this message again someday, a cherished memory of a dear friend.

  The message had an update – numbered twelve. Evidently one through eleven had been deleted. It was short and to the point. The Sephia in this message looked a little thinner, her hair a little shorter, and her face more determined. She spoke straight into the screen, bright blue eyes blazing defiance. “Joe, Asina, and the rest of you. They don’t want me to tell you yet, but if you’re seeing this, I’m beyond any discipline they might impose. Believe me when I tell you that right now your most important concern is ammunition for the weapons you have. Make what use of this information you can.”

  The timestamp was three days old.

  Chapter Two

  So Armageddon was upon us.

  There was no point in contacting the rest of the Advancement teams; they’d all received the same message we had. They’d know what it meant, same as we did: The war we’d all been preparing for was upon us. Imperial Intelligence – the Eyes and Ears that were the reason for Bolthole Base’s existence – had discovered that the demons were on the move, and their armies would be pouring through the Seven Gates soon, as well as any other means of access to the Empire they might have.

  Asina’s hand tightened in mine. Thanks to our rapport, both of us knew the other was scared but determined. A few more years would have made an enormous difference, but we didn’t have them. Might as well wish for something we could get, or at least hope for. Any chance of getting action out of the Guard before the demons actually show up? After so long together, most of our communication was telepathic.

  I can try, but without evidence to lay before the officers it’s not likely to happen. Not to mention that without the other cities helping, all we’d be doing is making them a target.

  We don’t need them to take the field early. We just need them to be ready to take the field. With modern transport, Calmenan troops can outmaneuver most demonic armies.

  But the homefront is easy prey for any demons their nobles Gate around our interdiction.

  Suddenly, I had a realization. We’re talking here like we can defeat the demons in the field. If they’re bringing the massive numbers the Empire has been finding in their rear areas, our strategy is going to have to be survival, not victory. Try to defend the people of Calmena, and make it easier for the demons to find prey elsewhere. Yalskarr was barely an isquare from the Karnel Gate, closest of the seven permanent Gates the demons had built upon Calmena. Humans could walk that far in four days easily. If they had a reason for haste, a day and a half. Demons would move faster.

  I think our only chance is defense-in-depth. Start hitting them right away, trying to channel them away from the city while we build defensive lines to make it more difficult to reach the city with large numbers of troops.

  So how do we get the Guard to cooperate? There’s only a few square of them to defend the city. Their official complement as of right now was six legions of regulars and a dozen of reserves. A legion, true to Calmena’s history with the demons, was a sixty-four of sixty-fours – the humans of Calmena used demonic base eight numbers for everything because the demons had kept them as slaves, laborers, and food sources for thousands of years before the first humans had escaped or broken free, permitting them no other way of doing things.

  A good question. It costs money for them to take the field, so they don’t want to do it if there’s any doubt. Similarly, it costs money to build defenses, even temporary ones. Hard to explain extinction was expensive, too, if you didn’t have any evidence you could show them that it was coming. But it doesn’t cost much money to get ready so the Guard is in the field immediately when the evidence comes. If necessary, we can guarantee them the funds. Calmena was still on a precious metals standard for money. There was paper currency, but it represented real obligations of the government to come up with actual metal. Given that we had Imperial converters, we could produce as much of any element as we wanted.

  Asina was right, as usual. Politics of any sort wasn’t about good solutions – it was about making those in power happy. The only solution was to keep as much as possible away from government and therefore out of politics. Unfortunately, only government commands the resources for things like massive military. Even in the Empire, none of the House contingents could have challenged the Imperial military as a whole. Then better get to work on it. Do you want me involved?

  She shook her head. This isn’t your area, and you don’t know the people involved. I was the technical side of our partnership; she was administration, which included people. I’ll let you know if anything pops up.

  Do you have time to see how much ammunition Bustere can send us?

  I think that’s something you can do. You’d have better results batting your eyes at him than I would. She was teasing; although Bustere and his partner Kilman were gay. In the Empire, that was nobody else’s business, but here on Calmena they pretended to be only business partners. It made little practical difference; since they were both operant, they could teleport to each other’s homes unobserved. Yeah, it would have been nice if they could just go about their business, but in the face of keeping everyone on the planet from being eaten, sometimes you had to let other battles wait. I’ll instruct Taman to shut up and pay the invoices promptly.

  Her sandy hair was shot with gray these days if you looked. My dark brown hair was too. Her skin had cosmetic sags and wrinkles to pretend to be aging as time passed. We’d been here in Yalskarr over a hundred twenty of Calmena’s short planetary years. Crow’s feet bordered her eyes. But the eyes themselves were still the lively green they’d been when we met. The great thing about being operant was we could keep age at bay where it mattered. We were as fit as the day we’d arrived, none of the decay or infirmities of age. Assuming we both lived through the coming war, we could look like young adults again in no time. That was a perk available to everyone in the Empire, but as trained Guardians, we could do for ourselves.

  It suddenly hit us: Whatever else happened, this phase of our life was coming to an end. We’d both been barely adult when we’d met – I’d been twenty-two, Earth age, and close as we could figure, she’d been a little younger. Four assignments here on Calmena with a break to raise a family on Earth - just over 150 Earth years since we met – and once the war was over, we’d be done with our mission on Calmena, too. She was the first to say it. Any ideas what you want to do when this is over?

  A vacation. Our contracts had been good to us. We had enough money to l
ast us at least twenty years, more likely sixty. Given the income from renting our service points, we might never have to work again if we didn’t want to.

  I meant longer-term. Our next professions.

  I hadn’t thought about it, babe. Visit the kids, do some touristy stuff. I gave her a mental leer Maybe take a year and just rut like crazed weasels. That was intended as a joke, but even cosmetically aged, Asina was a petite fox. Let her go back to young adult in appearance like everyone else in the Empire, and I could spend a year in bed – a real Imperial sleeping field – just working off the urge. We’re both Guardians; we have time and choices. Did you have something in mind?

  Not yet. But you know me.

  Yes I did. You like vacations, but you can’t really enjoy them unless you have a plan for what comes next. A legacy of a childhood spent cold and starving. If money is what’s driving you, Tia Grace has made it clear there’s damned good money in piloting. Sixty years of that, and work becomes something we do because we want to.

  Joe...

  I know. It wasn’t really money. Or it was, but it was the thought of having more money going out than coming in that made her uncomfortable. Or more money going out than reliably coming in under our control. There would always be a little daimon in the back of her mind worrying about enough. It may have been a legacy from an abused and impoverished childhood that was now close to two centuries in the past, but changing that would mean she was no longer Asina. Besides, her need and drive kicked my lazy butt into action and made me a better person that I’d have been without her. I understand the idea of not working for a period of years is something you’re not comfortable with. I will give it some thought. We certainly have the money for any training we might need.

  Thank you. But you should know that ‘lazy’ is not a word anyone should use in describing you, Joe.

  That little bit of encouragement from her made my day. A quick smooch and we went about our tasks for the day.