Genellan: Shadow of the Moon ( Book 2) by Scott G. Gier

Author:Scott G. Gier
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781932657586
Publisher: Third Millennium Publishing
Published: 1996-05-31T14:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-ONE

TAR FELL ATTACKS

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Above New Edmonton on retro-blasted ground beneath the cedar forest sat six planetary habitation modules. The huge vessels were arrayed with geometric perfection—the PHM farm. Two had been reduced to skeletons, their cannibalization contributing to the settlement's needs. One PHM had been transformed into a hospital-commissary, and one into a storage facility. The other two had been converted to power stations.

A gravel road led south through chaparral and grass. Two kilometers later it became the paved main avenue of New Edmonton. Cassy Quinn, wearing sturdy boots and a rumpled tropical rig of forest-green shorts and white short-sleeved blouse, stalked along that avenue. A spacer yeoman, making notes of her morning inspection, hustled at her side.

"Tell the engineers to stand down on the wall until the housing blocks are complete," Quinn ordered, watching a gravel truck trundle by.

"But Envoy Stark expects the wall—" The yeoman swallowed his words as his brain kicked in. Quinn fixed him with a knife-edged stare.

"I want those settlers out of the mud," she said, taking off her floppy cap and wiping perspiration from her forehead. "They work in the fields all day, and they come home to a tent knee-deep in a quagmire. That chickenshit wall of Stark's can wait."

"Aye, Captain," the petty officer replied, uploading the inspection directive. "I'll send this out right—"

The yeoman's admin unit beeped. Quinn had turned off her multiplex to escape badgering calls from Stark's mindless bureaucrats.

"Envoy Stark requests your presence, Captain," the petty officer said. "Urgent."

"I guess I've seen enough today," she muttered under her breath. She looked down the gentle grade, past planted fields, toward the distant ocean, a line of blue made indistinct by sea haze. Squalls marched on the horizon—the afternoon monsoon. She headed uphill, amazed that a place could be simultaneously so muddy and so dusty.

Dormitories constructed of yellow composite blocks were arrayed in rows within a grid of concrete. In the center square squatted the administration building. Ultimately there would be a park and reflecting pool, but for now the open space was mud and rubble. The admin building was near completion; Legion engineers had attempted to give it an architectural character approximating art deco, but the overall impression was that of a prison. Stark's yellow wall, running two-thirds of the colony's circumference and topped with concertina, only added to that affect.

Quinn walked gingerly across broken ground, trying to avoid puddles. Swirling clouds of gnats like tiny static tornadoes hovered over each miniature swamp.

"Get a work party to clean this up," she huffed. "Use the scrabble to build walkways. Grade it and set up drainage."

"Aye, sir." The yeoman's admin unit beeped again. "Strange," he said.

"What?" Quinn asked.

"There was a message that Mr. Hudson is waiting—" he began.

"About time," she snarled.

"—and then the net connection blanked out," the yeoman said, puzzled. "The carriers are all being overdriven."

"Excellent data," Dowornobb announced, checking uplinks from the Imperial Astronomical Institute. "It has taken a full moon cycle, but the simulation models have at last converged. Every unit of the human fleet was successfully triangulated and gravity indexed.

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