Uprising Read online

  Uprising

  Book Eight in the Chronicles of Alsea

  Fletcher DeLancey

  Heartsome Publishing

  When head and heart are in conflict,

  the body cannot move forward.

  ~ Lanaril Satran, The Book of Verity

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Map

  MONSTERS WITHOUT

  1. Even monsters have mothers

  2. Insult and injury

  3. Winning for losing

  4. Selfish

  5. Consequences

  6. Hate and hope

  7. Maneuvers

  8. Space elevator

  9. Dangerous love

  10. High Council

  11. Secrets

  12. Cage of choice

  MONSTERS WITHIN

  13. Last resort

  14. Catharsis

  15. No winners

  16. Conspiracy of silence

  17. Sanctuary

  18. Manipulation

  19. On target

  20. Lancer trainer

  21. Without a monster

  22. Forty-three percent

  23. Healing

  24. Bonding

  25. Secret exploded

  26. Not wanted

  27. Mercy

  28. Primitives

  29. Repairs

  UPRISING

  30. Ten

  31. Roots

  32. Bondlancer's choice

  33. Head of family

  34. Efficient packing

  35. Solace

  36. Unexpected guest

  37. Summer windstorm

  38. Strategy

  39. Explosion

  40. Fallout

  41. Avalanche

  42. Make them pay

  43. Scaling up

  44. Co-conspirators

  45. Vanished

  46. Spies

  47. Cellmates

  48. Ocean of color

  49. Return of the Bondlancer

  50. I will not ask

  51. March

  52. Targets

  53. Bricks and blades

  54. Warrior

  55. Symbols

  56. Serenity Bridge

  57. Tsunami

  58. Suspicion

  59. Uprising

  60. Mindstorm

  61. The last step

  62. Behind closed doors

  63. Aftermath

  64. Twisted

  65. Tallies

  66. Revelations

  67. Council vote

  68. Valkinon

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  About the Author

  Also by Fletcher Delancey

  Acknowledgments

  This book has been incubating for a long time. I wrote its first chapter three and a half years ago, while writing Outcaste. Then came Resilience, progressing from birth through its release into the wild, and still Uprising wasn’t quite done.

  It is epic in every sense: page count, scope of events, number of point-of-view characters, and time spent in creation. As a result, I owe thanks to quite a few people who helped me through the lengthy and demanding process.

  First and foremost is my Prime Beta, Karyn Aho, who had her hands full helping me with numerous psychological journeys (of the characters, not me). There were a couple of dozen threads to track and weave, not to mention a whole basket of sometimes conflicting motivations. Karyn was a human lighthouse as I navigated that emotional landscape, making sure I didn’t crash on unseen rocks.

  Rebecca Cheek provided her usual straight-talking feedback as well as offering a welcome fact check on the gardening and farming aspects of the story. She and I went through Master Gardener training together, but I will always consider her the Best in the West. It was quite a relief when she gave her stamp of approval.

  Rick Taylor is my “narrative artistry” check, being an excellent weaver of words himself. He helped me avoid several pitfalls that would otherwise have marred the whole, and I’m so glad I don’t have to look back at those and cringe.

  My thanks to Saskia Goedhart, who made sure I didn’t embarrass myself with the fight choreography; editor Cheri Fuller, who chased commas off the page (and who probably hates these semicolons); and Elle Hyden, who checked the finished manuscript for any escaped typos (and found one, because there’s always one).

  For one chapter in particular—the launch of the space elevator cable—I really needed someone to check my work. I had done a ton of research and collated information from approximately 1.3 zillion sources, but it’s not my field. Astronomer S.N. Johnson-Roehr read that chapter and pronounced it “just fine,” which is science-speak for “considering that you invented a ton of stuff to build an imaginary space structure, it’s logical.” And that is the great joy of science fiction!

  I owe special thanks to Dr. Carol Blenning, who stepped in at the last minute when my previous medical consultant had to reluctantly bow out. It is very hard for a consultant to come in blind on the eighth book of a series, but Dr. Blenning took a set of three PDFs, a few paragraphs of contextual narrative explanation, and a list of questions, and efficiently laid out all the answers. Best of all, she didn’t blink when I said I needed a life-threatening injury and could she suggest something? (Spoiler: she did.)

  Through it all, my tyree was always there and always encouraging. Maria João Valente is my heart, my sounding board, my mixologist, and, more prosaically, my page layout technician. If you like the way this book looks, thank Maria.

  And if you like the cover art, that’s down to Dane Low of Ebook Launch. He’s that rare artist who will do exactly what you ask, but then quietly nudge you a little bit to the left, whereupon the view suddenly looks different and one thousand percent better.

  Finally: thank you to the readers who have reached out to share their experiences of these books. I never dreamed that Alsea and its inhabitants would become real to people all over the world, much less that these stories could literally change lives. For those who find hope in Alsea, know that it will always be there for you.

  MONSTERS WITHOUT

  1

  Even monsters have mothers

  Rax Sestak, formerly Weapons Specialist First Class, Third Pacification Fleet of the Voloth Empire, crouched by the small plant covered in delicate blue flowers and set his satchel beside it. From the satchel he produced a wide-mouthed pot and a hand spade.

  With the precision he had once applied to firing mortars and missiles, he dug a line around the plant. His hand spade sank easily into the soil; there was only minor resistance from roots. Good. He had chosen the distance well and avoided unnecessary damage.

  Once a complete circle was cut, he wedged in the hand spade and began levering up the soil plug. A bit of pressure here, a bit there, and the column of soil rose.

  He stopped to wipe his brow. The unknown plant grew in full sun, and he was baking at the foot of this hillock. It was first spring, the annual burst of warmth unique to Blacksun Basin before the weather settled back to cooler temperatures and a more gradual shift toward summer. All over the Basin, the farmers—or producers, as the Alseans called them—had timed their plantings for this period to give their seedlings a boost of early growth. He had hoped to do the same but could find no one to sell him the seeds and starts.

  Another careful application of leverage raised the soil plug enough for him to capture. He dropped the spade and cradled his prize in both hands, examining it to be sure he had not cut any important roots.

  “There you are,” he said softly. “I promised I wouldn’t hurt you, didn’t I? Let’s make sure you’re protected.”

  The root ball fit the pot but needed more soil to fill in the narrow space around the edges. He gathered and po
ured soil from his cupped hand, then used his thumbs to tamp it down.

  Working more swiftly now, he scraped the surrounding soil into the hole he had dug to even it out, his father’s lessons echoing in his memory. We are stewards of the land. It provides, but only as long as we give it our care.

  That was a long time ago, before Rax turned his back on the land and entered a military life, for all the good it had done him.

  He brushed the hand spade clean, dropped it into his satchel, and dug out a water flask. Two deep draughts slaked his thirst. Though he wanted more, a third draught would empty the flask. He had too much military training to drink it all, even when a refill was a short skimmer ride away.

  The bare patch of scraped soil was the only sign of his presence here. Satisfied, he picked up the pot with its precious inhabitant and made his way back to the skimmer.

  To the south, verdant grasslands sloped down to the mighty Fahlinor River, its distant waters a shining silver ribbon in the late afternoon light. Round houses with domed roofs dotted the landscape, each far from its neighbors and centered in fields already bursting with new growth.

  Across the river, the land rolled away in broad, smooth undulations, a gentle terrain suited to the peaceful race that farmed it. There were more shades of green than he had names for, punctuated by broad strips of ancient forest that guarded waterways and defined borders. Far away, at the edge of his vision, the sea of green washed up at the feet of snow-capped mountains.

  Behind him were the first of the foothills that led to the Snowmount Range, the Basin’s equally mountainous northern border. East and west were still more mountains, all encircling this glorious bowl of fertile land that fed more than half the population of Alsea.

  His parents would love this valley. But they would never see it, nor would they see him again.

  The hum of insects lent the landscape a sleepy feel, their buzz accentuating a deep silence beneath. Though it held the largest city on Alsea, Blacksun Basin was still a place of open land and quiet sanctuaries, its palpable immensity soothing Rax’s soul. In his imagination, the Termegon Fields looked like this. Surely the mythical home of the Seeders could be no more beautiful than what lay before him now.

  He was nearly to the skimmer when a low rumble disturbed the air. Louder and louder it grew, thrumming through his chest, until it spiked in a heart-stopping roar as three Alsean military transports streaked overhead. Instinct dropped him to a crouch, protecting the plant as he stared after the transports trailing thunder across the valley.

  His vision wavered. Dread weighed his limbs, fear froze him in place, and he closed his eyes as the fading roar merged into a deeper, harsher sound: the motors and gyros of a pacifier, the most advanced heavy weapons platform in the Voloth Empire.

  The flashback took him effortlessly.

  Two curved display screens filled his vision, constantly updating with targeting data for the weapons at his fingertips. Behind him, the second weapons specialist watched the other two screens. Together they commanded complete coverage around their pacifier, raining death and destruction on their enemies. Their pilot operated the pacifier’s four jointed legs, walking the immense machine toward the city, while the engineer kept everything running smoothly. But it was Rax and his fellow weapons specialist who did the real work.

  A new target appeared on his screen, and Rax spoke to the slender, blonde woman standing beside him. “Enemy or not?”

  The woman could not understand his speech, nor did she need to. She consulted a portable scanner, then nodded and made a hand motion that simulated an explosion.

  Rax swiftly prepped a tube and fired. With a muted thump, the missile streaked away. It took six seconds to reach its target.

  In the seventh, a fireball lit up his screen.

  He recognized the ID of that pacifier. His friends were in it. One was his bunkmate, the other three played with him on the zero-G netball team. He had laughed with them, drunk cheap alcohol with them, occasionally fought with them.

  He had just murdered them in cold blood.

  Trapped in the back of his mind, the still-free part of him howled in horror and disbelief. But the rest of him craved approval from the woman. He was desperate for it, needing it for his very survival, and when she smiled at him, his blood burned with joy. He grinned back and turned to his screens, searching for another target.

  For her, he would kill them all.

  A new sound gradually broke through the motors and thumping missile launches: the harsh breathing of a terrified man.

  As another gasp was torn from his throat, Rax opened his eyes. He was not sitting in front of his targeting screens. He was crouched by the skimmer, still clutching the plant to his chest. Wildly he looked around, chest heaving, trying to reassure himself that what he had experienced was no longer real. There were no pacifiers here, no fireballs, no signs of war. Just the silence of a paradise, broken only by humming insects.

  A paradise he had done his best to destroy.

  He was a different man then, fully inculcated with the beliefs of the Voloth Empire. Obedience and service led to citizenship. Citizenship led to elevation. Elevated citizens went to the Termegon Fields when they died. It was the ultimate goal of all Voloth who hadn’t been born into citizenship: the slaves, who had no rights at all, and the hangers, whose handful of rights largely amounted to the ability to use and abuse slaves.

  He had been a hanger, working toward citizenship through military service. It was the only option for a son of poor farmers unable to buy their way in, and despite the brutal training and harsh conditions, he had done well. Citizenship was in reach—until the Third Fleet was ordered to pacify a primitive planet named Alsea.

  The so-called primitives had mental abilities no one could have predicted. With only their minds as weapons, they broke the back of the invasion, turned captured Voloth soldiers against their own comrades, and obliterated the assets of the Third Fleet. The two orbital invaders and four destroyers remained unharmed only because they were in space, well removed from the terrifying power of Alsean empaths. But one thousand pacifiers were either destroyed or captured, along with their four-person crews.

  All four hundred aerial fighters were wiped out in the second wave of the invasion, their hullskins disintegrating in the Alsean atmosphere. They hadn’t known about the nanoscrubbers, microscopic machines teeming invisibly in the air and breaking down harmful radiation. They broke down hullskin, too, turning the Empire’s most advanced fighters into rocks that fell from the sky. Not a single pilot or gunner survived.

  Never had the Voloth suffered such a total loss. Even the Protectorate, their technological equals, could not inflict that much damage. The closest thing to it had ironically occurred in the same place, when the famed and hated Captain Ekatya Serrado blew half of the Fifth Fleet to atoms while defending Alsea from the first invasion attempt.

  Of the nearly five thousand soldiers who tried to pacify Alsea, only four hundred and forty-six survived. More than half of those couldn’t even be called survivors. The horrifying mind-rape had shattered them, leaving behind trembling husks with no coherent thought, just an unending loop of terror. The Voloth Empire evacuated thirty before realizing how useless they were as soldiers. It promptly turned its back on the rest.

  Excluding the broken, insane shells, one hundred and seventy-two Voloth soldiers lived through that battle. Nineteen opted to return to the Empire. The others, like Rax, knew that nothing good awaited them back home. Soldiers who killed their own would not escape punishment. They had whispered amongst themselves of medical experimentation, because the Empire would want to see how their brains had been affected by the mind-rape the Alseans called empathic force.

  In desperation, they begged for sanctuary from the people they had tried to annihilate and thought it a great victory when their request was granted.

  After twenty moons of living under a constant cloud of hatred, Rax sometimes wondered if going home might have been easier. r />
  With a shaking hand, he set the plant on the ground, then pulled out his water flask and tipped it back. There was no use in conserving now, not when he could barely breathe without coughing. Flashbacks always left him sweaty and weak, but the dry throat was the worst. Soothing it, he had learned, was the fastest way to evaporate the last wisps of horror.

  He was reaching for the plant when a flicker of motion caught his eye. A fairy fly floated toward him, its broad, transparent wings reflecting the sun as it homed in on its next meal.

  Fairy flies were common in Blacksun Basin, but their mastery of camouflage made them a rare sight. Their wings could only be seen when the light hit them at the perfect angle, and their bodies were the same color as the dirt that stained his fingers.

  The fairy fly fluttered around his plant, between the outstretched hands he did not dare to move. Gracefully, it settled on one of the blue flowers and folded its wings.