Sisterhood of Suns: Pallas Athena Read online

  Sisterhood of Suns

  Pallas Athena

  by

  Martin Schiller

  Edited by Quiana Kirkland and Heather Reasby

  Pantari Press, Seattle Washington, USA

  Copyright © 2014, 2016 Martin Schiller

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Illustration Copyright © 2016 by Martin Schiller.

  Photo Model: Ann Summy.

  ISBN-13: 978-0692753040

  ISBN-10: 0692753044

  For Roza Shanina--a young fighter, and Carlos--an old fighter

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  EPILOGUE

  Glossary of Sisterhood Terminology

  CHAPTER 1

  Outer Fields, North Sector, Newhearth Colony, Persephone, Demeter System, Sagana Territory, United Sisterhood of Suns, 1042.11|03|07:63:30

  Kaly n’Deena swore for the tenth time at the broken hydro-pump. It was bad enough that she was missing the Founder’s Day celebrations, but to make matters worse, the kekking replacement unit wasn’t fitting in its fekking slot. It was supposed to, but of course on this day, of all days, it wasn’t cooperating.

  “Ooo! You bitch!” Kaly cursed, “Get in there!” She had been a Repair Tech for the colony’s automated farm complex since turning 13, and after three years on the job, she knew that she had the right part for the unit. The problem was, the hydro-pump either didn’t agree with her assessment, or its innards had distorted with the passage of time. Whether she liked it or not, the new component was not going to work.

  “Deas dam va!” she snarled. She sat back and brushed away some of the sweat from her brow with the cleanest part of her hand. All right, fine, she thought, grabbing up her elzlate pad, I’ll double, triple check.

  Unfortunately, the part listed for the hydro-unit, and the part she had been attempting to install, were one in the same. The entire unit would have to be replaced.

  “Of course!” she said aloud, “Of kekking Mother fekking course!” As near as she could tell, the entire universe was conspiring against her. A full replacement would take a good hour, not to mention the time involved in driving her crawler back to the nearest maintenance shed just to get the new unit.

  By the time she had it in and online, the dance would be over, and with it, any chance that she would have had to get closer to Ayleen. And she had worked so hard on her dress for the Founder’s Day Dance!

  “Maarta did this to me on purpose!” she shouted, kicking a dirt clod into the air. “Ooo! I’ll get her for this.”

  Maarta had been her rival for the beautiful Ayleen’s affections for the last year. She was also in charge of scheduling who was on emergency call-out for repairs.

  She must have known that this would happen, Kaly decided angrily.

  Howling with frustration, she tromped back to her crawler. Whether she liked it or not, she was stuck with the situation. The colony’s huge farms were vital to its existence, and keeping their automatic units on line had a higher priority than one girl’s desire to attend a dance. Even so, she vowed that Maarta would pay dearly for her treachery.

  A loud hollow noise, high overhead, interrupted her plans for revenge, and she looked up through the crawler’s canopy, trying to spot the source. It took her a moment to find it, and another to put together what it was.

  A spaceship, she thought. The contrail that it left as it cut through the upper atmosphere was unmistakable. It also made no sense; the Colony was isolated, at the very fringes of the Sisterhood, and the monthly supply ship had come and gone a week earlier.

  Who could it be?

  Just then, something small and dark dropped away from the ship, and arrowed towards the ground. From the direction it was taking, it seemed to her as if it was going to land squarely on the Colony’s communications complex, several kilometers to the east.

  The object never reached the earth however. Instead, 300 meters from impact, it lit up from the inside, becoming a bright point of light.

  Suddenly, it became the sun itself, and Kaly turned away, unable to bear its brilliance. Then the shock wave from the detonation hit her crawler, sending it tumbling end over end like a dry leaf in the wind.

  ***

  It was full dark by the time she came-to. The crawler was lying on its side and her head felt like someone had been beating on it with a hammer. When she reached up and felt along her scalp, she winced as her fingers made contact with something warm and wet. Switching on the canopy light, she saw that her hand was covered in blood.

  A painful, sideways glance at the gory streak on the canopy told her the rest of the story. Somewhere in the explosion of the whatever-it-was that had gone off over the communications complex, she’d been thrown against it and knocked unconscious.

  Her reflection in the plexiglass also revealed a nasty looking gash and she gingerly re-explored her skull. She wasn’t any kind of medic, but it didn’t seem to her as if it had been broken.

  Reaching for the first aid kit, she discovered that it was just out of reach and she fumbled with her seat harness trying to get it to loosen up. For a moment, it refused to comply, and she pounded on the locking mechanism with her fist. After a few blows, it came open with a metallic “click”, spilling her roughly onto the canopy and sending a black wave of pain rolling down from the top of her head.

  Several minutes went by before her agony had subsided enough for her to pull the kit from its rack and begin treating herself. Once she had sprayed it on however, it only took a few seconds for the Medispray to do its job. Right away, the analgesic solution deadened the pain, and the nanites suspended within it went to work repairing the damage. A sterile dressing, impregnated with a skin sealant did the rest, and Kaly was finally able to take stock of her situation.

  I’ve got to get out of this thing, she thought, and go warn the Colony Mothers.

  When she punched the emergency release however, the canopy only opened a quarter of the way before it became jammed in the soft earth. The space that this offered was a narrow one, but she was small for her age and after a few contortions that would have made her gymnastics instructor proud, she was able to wriggle her way out.

  “Now what?” she asked the night around her. A few kzizka bugs chirped out a meaningless response, but beyond that, there was only silence.

  It was going to be a long, lonely walk back to the Living Center, she realized, and she wasn’t afraid to admit that she was frightened.

  ***

  A half-kilometer from the center, she spotted a vehicle coming towards her from the opposite direction. Just from the configuration of the headlights alone, she knew it wasn’t anything that the Colony used.

  Abruptly, a brilliant spear of light stabbed out into the darkness, and swung around towards her. Instinct made her dive into the nearest irrigation ditch—and just in time to avoid being cut down by a burst from an energy weapon. As she hugged the muddy bottom, she heard the vehicle stop, then the sound of the doors opening and heavy footsteps.

  Her heart pounding in her chest, Kaly kept low and prayed to the Lady, begging for Her to keep whoever was up there from finding her. Then the footsteps stopped, and a conversation began.

  The voices were deeper than a woman’s, and oddly nasal. They were also speaking in a harsh, guttural langua
ge that wasn’t Standard, or anything else that she could recognize.

  But she could still tell that the speakers were arguing about something. Then someone else barked out what was clearly an order. The discussion ceased and everyone returned to their vehicle.

  Kaly waited until the noise of the vehicles engine had grown faint before she risked climbing up the bank to take a look. By that point, the machine had reached the end of a neighboring field.

  Its searchlight came on again, and she thought that she saw someone running across the open field, but then the energy guns opened up, blinding her. When they finally stopped, the field was dark again and she couldn’t tell if her eyes had been playing tricks on her or not.

  Not that she was going to go over and find out. She had to make it back to the Living Center.

  Keeping to the shadows, Kaly reached the outskirts of the settlement an hour later. The first outbuildings seemed untouched, and her spirits momentarily lifted, but as she walked along, she realized that the entire Center was dark. Hugging herself for reassurance as much as warmth, she pressed on, trying to spot any signs of life.

  Her hopes fell when she saw the places where the fires had scorched the buildings. What had been once been one of the dwelling units was squashed flat like a kzizka bug under a giant’s heel. Another seemed intact at first glance, but a regular pattern of blast marks scarred the entrance, and its automatic doors hung off an odd angle. The signs of violence were everywhere.

  And when the Gathering Square finally came into view, she saw that the young trees that her primary class had planted there just a few years earlier were now nothing but charred skeletons. There were also piles of what looked like discarded clothing, arranged in odd little clumps all around them.

  Drawing closer, Kaly realized that they weren’t someone’s laundry after all. They were bodies.

  “Oh, goddess,” she whimpered, unwilling to go any further. But her legs had a will of their own and she found herself moving towards the square, unable to stop herself. With nightmarish slowness, the details became clearer with each leaden step.

  A girl roughly her own age was face down on the grass, her arm missing from the elbow down. The orphaned limb lay nearby, looking like a discarded part from a child’s doll.

  That was when Kaly recognized the dress that the girl was wearing. It was Maarta’s—she’d seen her working on it just a few days earlier in preparation for the Dance. The pattern was unmistakable.

  Ayleen was near her, lying on her back and staring up at the stars with an expression of surprise. And where her stomach should have been there was nothing but a blackened hole.

  Stupefied, Kaly stared down at the wound, unable to fully accept what her eyes were telling her. Then the smell of burnt flesh reached her nostrils, and she dropped to her knees and vomited until nothing would come up.

  In the midst of catching her breath, she heard someone calling out to her. This time it was in Standard.

  “Kaly! Get over here! They’re coming back!”

  She looked up and spotted the ragged features of Anna n’Gwyn peeking out from behind a broken section of wall. “Come on!” the girl cried, “They’ll kill us if they find us!”

  Kaly rose, and ran to her, keeping low and nearly tripping over another corpse in the process. “What happened?” she asked her.

  “Raiders,” Anna whispered, her eyes wide with terror and tinged with madness. “They attacked us during the dance. They k-killed everyone. Kaly—I’m afraid. What do we do?”

  “We hide,” Kaly answered, amazed at the strength in her voice. “We find anyone that’s still alive--and we hide.”

  With that, she pulled Anna to her feet. Back behind them, the harsh staccato of an energy weapon firing ripped through the darkness.

  Someone screamed.

  ***

  Just below the crest of the hill, Kaly got down on her belly and crawled the last few meters. One of the other girls was at the summit, lying prone with a pair of binoculars and peering out through the long grass at the valley below. Like Kaly, she was also a Star Scout.

  “Anything?” Kaly whispered.

  Susyyn n’Tina shook her head and answered in a hushed voice. “Nothing so far. One of their tanks went by just before you got here, but it didn’t stop. I think they’re going to keep on moving by us.”

  Kaly nodded and took the binoculars to survey the activity for herself.

  The invaders had not wasted any time consolidating their victory, she reflected bitterly. A group of automated earthmoving machines was at work down in the valley, carving out a kilometer-wide swath in the earth as they sucked up every ounce of valuable minerals from the soil. The land that they left in their wake was bare, and utterly devoid of life. That was what the invasion had been all about, she realized, the robbery of vital resources from a people that had no real means to resist.

  Not that there were many who could resist. Most of the colonists had been killed in the first hour of the assault, and to the best of her knowledge, only their small group remained, hiding out in a small pumping station. How long they could remain there before the enemy sent a patrol to investigate the building was anyone’s guess.

  They needed a survival plan, and they needed it fast. But with all of the adults either dead, or injured beyond being able to help, there was no one for her to turn to for advice. She was the oldest of her little group, and as the highest-ranking member of the colony’s Star Scout troop, she was now also the de-facto colony leader, and its military strategist.

  The problem was, she didn’t have the foggiest idea what to do, or how to go about doing it. The Star Scouts had trained her in the rudimentary aspects of leadership and survival, but nothing had prepared any of them for a full-on alien invasion.

  Kaly only knew one thing with any certainty; surrender was not an option. The invaders had systematically killed anyone that they had encountered, regardless of age, or ability to fight. And armed resistance was just as futile. The raiders had landed in force, and with heavier weapons than anything the colony had ever possessed.

  While the alien machines continued to move by, Kaly felt a cold thrill of fear and despair fill her to the core, and when she glanced over at her companion, seeing the same thing her eyes. It nothing new though. It had become a familiar sensation for all of them in the last few days.

  She took a deep breath and whispered the Star Scout motto to herself. As a new Scout, the ritual had seemed silly and idealistic, but since the invasion, it had taken on a much deeper meaning, lending her the strength and the focus that she needed.

  "I am a Star Scout," she said, "I am loyal, I am helpful. I am an asset to my sisters and my community. I am the shining star of hope when everything and everyone around me has been plunged into darkness. I am strong. I will persevere until I cannot draw another breath. I am a Star Scout."

  Susyyn heard her and began recite the litany herself. Gradually, their common fear retreated into the background—for a while at least.

  Once agian in control of herself, Kaly took brought the field glasses back up to her eyes and considered their options.

  But she she already knew what they were. The only solution that they had was to hide long enough for rescue to come.

  If it came, she thought grimly. Their survival hinged on the one, faint signal that they had managed to send off before the transmission had been jammed. And the odds that someone would actually hear it, was poor at best. They needed a miracle, and they needed it soon.

  Her sense of dread began to rear its ugly head again, but Kaly wrestled it down. “I’ll send someone up in an hour to take over for you,” she said.

  Returning the glasses to her companion, she backed herself down the slope and made her way to the pumping station. Her psiever told her it was 00:07:26, and as she re-slung her rifle, she made a mental note to send someone up to relieve Susyyn at 00:49:93.

  It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the dimly lit interior as she entered the small buildin
g. The little ones were finally asleep, huddled together in the corner of the tiny room on makeshift beds made from jackets and other garments, and Kaly moved past them as quietly as possible. She was glad that they were asleep. When they were awake, they were frightened and hungry, and there was nothing that anyone could do to alleviate this.

  For the hundredth time, she took stock of their resources. It was something that the Scouts had taught her to do; to know what was available and decide the best way to use it.

  They didn’t have much. What food there was, had been scavenged from emergency kits hidden at the edges of the settlement, and the few weapons that they possessed had come from those same caches. These were chemical weapons, and hardly a match for what the invaders carried. Ammunition was also running short, and medical supplies were almost non-existant.

  Water though, was not an issue. The pumping station helped to irrigate the colony’s fields and it offered this substance in abundance. But Kaly knew from her Scout training that once the food finally disappeared, water alone would only give them a metric week of life at the outside. Then starvation would begin to take its toll, and it would be the little ones that would go first.

  Somehow, they had to get more food. It would mean taking dangerous risks though. Risks that up until then, she had avoided in favor of the safety of concealment.

  I’ll go, she decided at last. I’ll be the one to go out and get what we need. If she succeeded, then she would save some lives. If not, then at the very least, there would be one less mouth to feed. It was a reasonable proposition, and exactly what a Star Scout was expected to do.

  She had never expected to live forever anyway.

  Propping her rifle against a wall, Kaly made her way over to Anna n’Gwyn. The girl was seated in a corner with a small remote diagnostic terminal on her lap. Before the raid, Anna had been the class valedictorian with an affinity for electronics. She had hoped to attend one of the great universities off-planet. But now, like Kaly, she was just another survivor, her life in ruins and the future looking more and more doubtful with each passing second.