[b]New Concordia - Day 3[/b]

Rene did not so much fall asleep as collapse into unconsciousness. Disturbing dreams plucked at the edge of his pshyce. Amellia stood before him in a white courtly gown. With a gloved hand she beckoned him closer. Something in the twisted logic of dreams warned him not to approach but the same logic impelled him towards her. As he neared a red stain began to spread across her abdomen discoloring the dress with the slow but relentless spread of blotting in. Suddenly it was Solae not Amellia, their features transposing like the after image of a holograph. Solae/Amellia sagged against the unremarkable background of the dream landscape, falling into the pose that he had seen years ago in Amellia’s blood stained bedroom. 

When he reached her side she was Amellia again, raven haired and sharp chinned. Lightning flashed in the dream and in its instant of illumination he saw figures standing around him. The Gid sergeant nearly decapitated by the razor wire, his two companions gunshot and dripping blood, Bowie features distorted by the blast of the tanks shell. His hand touched the dead woman. The gaping wound in her belly began to close and her features began to run in a slow transition until the dream Solae took a shuddering breath and sat up. Her hand lifted and touched his cheek.

“Wake.”

Rene sat upright in bed. He had fallen asleep fully dressed, although he supposed that even given the choice he woul have kept all but his boots on for modesty’s sake. Solae was pressed against him breathing softly. If she dreamed he hoped they were more peaceful than his own. Instinctively he brushed a lock of hair from her face. The bedroom didn’t have a chrono but Rene’s body told him it was around five in the local morning. Stand to. The hours just after dusk and just before dawn were traditionally held to be the most dangerous. The marines stood to their weapons every morning and night regardless of how unlikely attack was.

Taking care not to wake Solae he slipped out of the bed. The room was dark save for the occasional flash of lightning refracted through a deluge of tropical rain. The storm had passed into the east now and the lightning was distant, out of sink with the slight tremble of vibration which made the glass dance. Rene moved to the window and peered out over the manicured forest which surrounded the estate. It was hard to see, with only the intermittent witchlight of the distant storm and the curtain of rain.

“Mia, open the room please, seal it once I’m out, if Lady Solae wakes, reassure her that all is well and that I am nearby,” he whispered. His words were barely audible but the sophisticated AI didn’t suffer from the same limitation of hearing that humans did. A faint circle of green light on the wall beside him pulsed acknowledgment and the door open with a whisper of air and a momentary increase in the volume of rain. Rene stepped through and closed the door behind him.

There was little chance that Rene would spot anything that Mia couldn’t have detected but he made a circuit of the house regardless. It hurt to move and his body was stiff but forcing himsef to do it now meant he would be limber later. As he walked the marbe hallways his mind turned to what their next move should be. With the Embassy PEA destroyed or in enemy hands they needed to get off New Concordia and get word to the Empire of what had happened here. The Stellar Empire wasn’t perfect but it was the only alternative to anarchy. Even a small scale rebellion could, if left unchecked, inspire others until human civilization shook itself apart in feudal fragmentation that might lead to a large scale collapse like that which had destroyed the dominion of Earth. Rene had read the histories that survived as a child. The collapse of trade in the Earth Rebellions had caused catastrophic food shortages across most of the human galaxy. Nine out of ten people had starved to death as the knock on effects of a galactic economy collapsed in on themselves. Civilization had only survived on distant and relatively rich worlds like Capella and even then it had been a near thing to a new dark age. Exploratory vessels were still probing areas that had fallen out of contact during the collapse.

They had to warn someone and he didn’t see anyway to do that without getting off planet. Of course that meant sneaking of planet during the aftermath of a masterfully planned and executed coup. It meant getting to the spaceport with a highly recognizable high value target, getting her onto a ship and off planet when the entire security apparatus was set to prevent just such a predictable action.

“Mia,” he asked, pausing as a thought struck him.

“Are their any weapons in the building?” he asked. A green light lit up but, surprisingly, the AI didn’t answer immediately. Rene frowned, with the computing power even a basic AI needed to function their shouldn’t be any hesitation.

“Lord Armon’s family sword is in the private gallery Sir Rene,” Mia purred. The voice came from over his right shoulder and it felt eerie even though it as only an artefact of the nearest available transmission circuit. 

“Take me there.”

The private gallery was on the top floor of the mansion. Soaring ceilings of synthetic diamond would have made the place brilliant even under starlight. The didn’t baffle sound as effectively as the rest of the house however and the rain drumming down was like a distant stampede of horses. Statuary and artwork stood around. Much of it had been knocked down or defaced with crude knife slashes. A marble statue of a woman whose beauty must have been breath taking lay on the ground in two pieces. Her eyes, breasts and genitals had been defaced with some sort of heavy hammer like objects, perhaps crowbars. The destruction of so much priceless artwork at the hands of a drunken mob saddened him despite his attempts to cultivate a cynicism appropriate to an Imperial Marine.

“Mia where is the sword?” he asked, puzzled that it hadn’t been carried away by the looters as an obvious trophy. A marble block set into the wall recessed and rotated with perfect silence dispite weighing several hundred kilograms. Behind it stood a simple looking sword on a velvet backing. It was just over a meter long with a straight blade that seemed dull gray save for a slight shimmer along the working edges. Its hilt was plain and used, some sort of darkly polished wood, perhaps terran ebony with slight silver inlays. It was plain compared to the defaced art and Rene realised that its very simplicity had saved it. The sword wasn’t pretty enough to be on display, but precious enough to warrant a place here. He reached into the case and drew the sword free with a slight click as friction hooks released it. 

The weapon was Kalderi workmanship and must have been three hundred years old if it was a day. The enigmatic Kalderi were an alien race that dwelled on the eastern edge of the Stellar Empire. Most of their interactions with humans were difficult to interpret and many were shrouded in mystery. Such a weapon would have been a gift when some ancestor of Armon’s performed some service for the Kalderi or impressed them in some way. It was beyond priceless. Rene felt the impeccable balance of the weapon as he lifted it and thumbed the activation stud. The weapons silver edge grew brighter and their was a slight rhythmic thrum. Monofilament blades rotated around the edge at high frequency, the precisely aligned microblades interlocked to create a cutting edge that could pierce steel.

The air seemed to hum as the marine swept the blade through a series of exercises the master at arms had shown him as a child. It felt good and alien in approximately equa parts.  Rene had the momentary urge to try to sweep it through a marble column as he had heart was possible but the idea of adding to the destruction filled him with disgust. He turned the weapon off with a flick of his thumb. Solae had mentioned Armon had off planet family, such an heirloom should be returned to them. That was assuming he or Solae survived to get off planet of course.