A Rending of Falcons by Victor Milan

Author:Victor Milan [Milan, Victor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Roc
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

18

Near Alba, Antares

Jade Falcon Occupation Zone

8 December 3135

In the darkness, a sea of wavering torchlight, yellow and amber.

After Alba’s near-destruction by Khan Elias Crichell’s aerospace fighters, the Jade Falcon occupiers had rebuilt the capital, such as it was, in a haphazard, expedient way. In its seeming randomness it resembled a shantytown, perhaps most of all because of the rude spacers’ quarters that grew up like fungal forests around nearly every DropShip port in known space. Except that its structures were much more durable and blast-resistant: even in their temporary nesting sites, the Falcons built to last. And defend.

The one real exception, the single carefully planned element about which all the scattershot construction grew, was a vast paved plaza a kilometer on each side. Like all totalitarian cultures from the mists of pre-Kearny-Fuchida time, the Clans felt a need for grand spaces in which to exalt power itself in shared rituals of worship.

Here in scratch-rebuilt Alba the message ran: We care little for comfort and convenience. But we are here to stay, and our true mark is this shrine to the glory of Turkina.

A statue of the eponymous jade falcon rose from the center of the ferrocrete lake in green translucent stone thirty meters high, wings outspread as if in stoop, clutching a katana in her claws. Now two throngs surrounded it, torches held high, divided in two by canals of darkness.

Scaffolding stood beside Turkina’s likeness. Huge banners of the Hell’s Horses and Jade Falcons hung side by side, illuminated by floodlights. Giant bonfires blazed to either side, like pyres for an order now ending.

On a platform in front of the Clan banners stood three figures clad in white. Beckett Malthus wore long robes not unlike his customary garb. Before him stood Malvina Hazen and Manas Amirault side by side, dressed in identical tunics and trousers of white whipcord. The contrast was startling: Malvina tiny against the Horses’ ristar, who stood not much shy of two meters tall. But it would have taken a uniquely suicidal wit to comment on the potential comedy of the picture they made.

Nothing was further than humor from the minds of the Falcons and Horses assembled beneath a star-shot sky. They stood with faces and bodies molded into forms of solemn, even worshipful attention. Yet electricity seemed to charge the air like the muzzle of a particle cannon the microsecond before discharge.

All castes stood assembled there in separate ranks: laborers, technicians, scientists, warriors. Though such commingling was common in Clan Hell’s Horses, it was the first time, perhaps, in the history of the Falcon. It would not be the only such first.

The two young Galaxy commanders stepped forward. ‘‘Hail, Hell’s Horses!’’ cried Malvina. Her voice was amplified by a concealed microphone and discreetly placed but very powerful speakers to fill the whole crystal dome of night. In response, the Horsemen and -women whinnied their nasal battle cries.

‘‘Hail, Jade Falcons!’’ Manas’ baritone pealed like a great bronze bell. Fierce Falcon cries skirled skyward.

Malvina said: ‘‘I am Hell’s Horses.

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