War of the Liberator (Taken to the Stars Book 2) by Rick Partlow & J.N. Chaney

Author:Rick Partlow & J.N. Chaney [Partlow, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Variant Publications
Published: 2023-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

Arborion looked like it might have been beautiful once.

I could see the remnants of it in the ugliness that had been grafted onto the place by the Anguilar. The Strada homes were part of the natural landscape, built into the trees, the rocks, the earth itself. I think once, back before the Empire had come here, I might have had trouble telling where nature ended and the Strada homes began.

Things were different now. The Anguilar buildings had grown like tumors amidst the splendor that had once been Arborion, squared off and brown and utilitarian and crowding out all else. They made the Strada city seem shabbier just by their presence, more like the jails they were than the homes they’d once been.

It was all laid out beneath us like a map here at the top of the hill, where the dirt and gravel road ended, and the broad pavement began. The Anguilar had constructed the throughway, that much was clear by where it led, how its twisting path wound through the imperfectly melded cities and outward in both directions up and down the river valley.

The farms were to the west of Arborion, their flat, regular squares visible even from miles away, trucks heading out with fertilizer and other supplies, trucks heading back to the city, to the spaceport, filled with food.

“The port was here before the Anguilar,” Wulf told me, standing at my shoulder as we stood beside the truck. “But they expanded it to handle the cargo traffic.”

That I didn’t need explained to me. The cargo shuttles were a constant rumble, unceasing background noise as they spiraled in a controlled descent or rose on columns of fire into the deep blue of the afternoon sky. The “port” wasn’t much more than a paved landing field, but the Anguilar kept it busy with the trucks coming in from the farms and what looked like a train track from the east into the hills where the mines were.

“What do they mine?” I asked, idle curiosity to relieve the deep sadness at the sight of what had been.

“Does it matter?” Wulf replied bitterly. “It’s enough that the work kills us, keeps us weak. Working in the mines is a threat to be held over our people, to keep them in line, grateful to be working on the farms or loading cargo.” He pointed across the city at what could be nothing other than a fortress. The brutal lines of the steppe pyramid rose above all else, dwarfing the other structures, at least as big as the Pentagon. “That’s their headquarters, the first thing they built once they took the city. That’s where they keep prisoners…the few that they keep alive.”

“Can we get closer?” I asked. I couldn’t tell much this far away except the shape of the thing.

“We can. But you’re not going to like it.”

“There are a lot of things I don’t like. Let’s get going.” I jumped into the back of the truck and waited for him .

“Take us down,” Wulf told the driver.

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