Tom walked into the room and began stripping off his suit. “How did your day go?” he asked Illoia.
Her ‘day’? They’d been back from the night’s troop for two hours. But… “I’m trying to organise a party,” she said, “but I can’t figure out when to hold it.”
“Hold it any time you please,” he said.
“Our training schedule makes it hard.”
He stopped pulling down his undersuit and humming simultaneously. “I must have miscommunicated. You may have any time you need for social events. Just communicate them to me at least a day or so in advance, if possible, and I will release whoever you need.”
“Oh!” she said. “I thought… I didn’t want to disturb your training.”
“You will not be disturbing my training unless you take a significant amount more time then I imagine you will. And I will tell you if you start to. What else do you need?”
“I don’t need anything except some time off for me and some of the lasses. And I haven’t been to town yet.”
“Ah, yes, an excellent idea. You should take two troopers with you.”
“What?”
“A Mid Ranker and a ranker will do fine. Perhaps a Top with kids… well, I guess all of our Tops have kids.”
“But why?”
Tom turned to look at her, “Anarchists. This planet has a fairly large share. It seems insane to me, but there you go. Didn’t you have bodyguards?”
“Well, yes, sometimes. Probably more often than I knew.”
“Same thing. You will all be armed but, still, it will be good for everyone to see you protected. The anarchists would love to see you assassinated… the daughter of a sector governor and wife of a hero.”
Illoia sent off the text to the Top Ranker, the one that had come with them. She was not yet ready to deal with any of the others. Seconds later he had texted back a one word reply, “Coming”.
And come he did. He and two rankers, all in their full uniforms. Along with four women and ten children… young ones and littlies.
“Hello, my name is Eugenia,” one of the women said, coming up and kissing her. “I was just taken as a seventeen since your boys arrived. My husband was killed in a battle a few weeks ago, and it was time, so your Top ranker arranged it. I understand we are going to town? He asked me to come, as I have been here quite a while and know the town quite well.”
Illoia’s mind boggled at this… this… this incredibly casual way this woman had of saying that she had just married a brand new ranker half her age, and her husband had just adopted these children. She couldn’t really tell which ranker it was, as she didn’t have her helmet on, but, still, her mind boggled.
“Let’s get going,” the Top Ranker said, and he started off toward the skating cooridor. Not something Illoia was looking forward to, skating.
Illoia came out of the shaft, her legs shaking. She supposed she would get used to skating eventually. She hadn’t gotten a dozen feet when a quick, chill breeze threw her hair back. She was glad she was wearing her military oversuit.
Not that anyone she passed looked cold. They were all, men, lasses, and littlies, dressed bizarrely. They were dressed in what looked like several layers of leather!
“Eugenia?” she asked, “you have lived her for a while, is that… are they dressed like it looks? Leather?”
Eugenia gave a light laugh, “Yes, altho it isn’t quite what you think. That ‘leather’ is from some very common birds that we have here. It cures and looks just like the leather from a beast, as you might have seen in a jacket… or a saddle. But it doesn’t feel like that at all! It’s light but warm, warmer than cotton. And sturdy.”
Illoia suddenly realised that though they had come out at the ‘town’ exit, there were almost no actual buildings visible. Just some odd patterns on the ground, which everyone seemed to be avoiding. “Where is everything? All the stores and everything?”
“The stores are underground,” Eugenia said. “Mostly. There are loading docks and the like.”
Illoia pointed at the ground, “And what are…” she started to ask, when she heard an odd growling sound and turned around, “What is that?!”
‘That’ was about twenty feet long, shaped like… like nothing she had ever seen. Overlapping metal plates almost touching the ground in front and then rising and completely covering the whatever it was before descending again to the ground.
“That is what passes for a truck on most of the border planets,” Eugenia said. “Not only is it very well armored, but it has an escape system that lets the core, with the driver in it, drill into the ground. We lose several trucks a year to enemy attacks, but almost no drivers.”
“So… how do we see the town?” Illoia asked, not much wiser.
“We walk along here,” Eugenia said, indicating a smaller path besides the large path the ‘truck’ was lumbering down on its ground effect jets. “We walk until we come to whatever we want to visit. We could do all of this underground, but most of us relish some time in the open air.”
As did Illoia. She was spending lots of time outside, but this was a relaxing walk, not having to practically jog through the forest, listening to the various sounds of the enemy and her own troops and wondering every minute if they were going to be attacked or something.
“Well, what shall we look for? We don’t need clothes, certainly,” she said, fingering the skirt of her outersuit.
“Well, there are some very nice artists,” Eugenia said. “Laser art, layered glass art…”
“Layered glass?” Illoia mused. “My father hated it, so I never could have any growing up. But he isn’t here. And I doubt Tom cares one way or another. Let’s go look.”
They walked along, passing people along their way, and with two of those ‘trucks’ passing while they walked, one of them turning off into a fortified hanger. “He’ll unload there. The top all peels back.”
Illoia nodded, uninterested in the details of trucks unloading and loading. She was much more interested in the people. A very young crowd, with a lot of littlies. Not many infants, she supposed they were mostly at home with their mother or wet nurse… or even wet sister. She had heard that that was popular in the colonies.
Everyone was armed. Sidearms were universal, but many of the civilians were also sporting long rifles, almost identical to the one she and the other soldiers and dependents were carrying. Illoia was pretty confident she could get hers out and actually shoot something, too.
“The art store is down here,” Eugenia said, pointing to a covered stairway, a mini-bunker in itself. The group descended the stairs, passing between several sets of automatic doors, and came into a shaft, Illoia narrowly missing a young lass skating with a group of her friends.
‘Art Decor’, the sign on the front of the door said and Illoia paused and stared at the front window. “Wow, this is impressive glass art!” She said. The picture was a military jungle scene, a group of men advancing through the jungle, rifles at the ready… all etched into hundreds of layers of glass. “I guess they have a lot of military in their art.”
“Yes. The military are supremely important to new colonies like this. Even the civilians live every day knowing they might be attacked. And they are almost all related, in one way or another, to a military family. Indeed many military families retire here.”
—
“Well, what shall we visit next?” Illoia asked when they made it back out into the sunshine.
“Do you like fish?” Eugenia asked her.
“Well, yes… we’re not exactly near the coast.”
“No, but they have a very good system for shipping out the fish, and they deliver what you ordered right to our dorm.”
She turned their party to cross the ‘street’ and then down a stairway. Illoia smelled the fish as soon as they reached the ‘ground floor’.
“Oh!” She said, wrinkling her nose and staring in amazement. This was an incredible store! It had hundreds of fish laid out on beds of ice, each bed with one kind of fish. “Where do they get these?”
“The fishing fleet. Very profitable work, if rather difficult. It is all done in submersibles, you understand.”
“And, look, there’s the fish house,” a lass said, pulling on her sleeve.
“Oh, a restaraunt?”
“Yup. Quick dipped fish and fried potatoes with lots of different sauces.”
“Well, let’s do some fish shopping and then we will go there, if the other lads and lasses…”
The general cry from the lads and lasses convinced her that, yes, the other lads and lasses did like quick dipped fish. And potatoes. With lots of different sauces. The value of each being loudly debated.
Article 17
Article 17 is a military science fiction story with aliens and romance. It is set in a future reminiscent of Napoleon era Britain. The war was going very poorly until the military installed a dictator. This story follows one of the dictator’s great men: Cladin Tomirosh, Leader, and thrice decorated hero.
—
Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!
Being ‘restacked’ and mentioned in ‘notes’ is very important for lesser-known stacks so… feel free! I’m semi-retired and write as a ministry (and for fun) so you don’t need to feel guilty you aren’t paying for anything, but if you enjoy my writing (even if you dramatically disagree with it), then restack, please! Or mention me in one of your own posts.
If I don’t write you back it is almost certain that I didn’t see it, so please feel free to comment and link to your post. Or if you just think I would be interested in your post!
If you get lost, check out my ‘Table of Contents’ which I try to keep up to date.
Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books are published by Wise Path Books and include the children’s/YA books:
The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid
and
As well as GK Chesterton’s wonderful book, “What’s Wrong with the World”, for which ‘Arthur’ wrote most of the annotations.
Arthur also has a substack, and a website. On the substack you can listen to some of his published books. Free.
Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von
Other Stories
Article 17 is not my only story on Substack. I have another light dystopia, or cultural sci-fi, about a girl who goes to a new planet with her mother. And a Sci-Fantasy, with elves and dwarves. And a Morality Play, ala Aesop’s Fables.
Contract Marriage Intro
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Prologue IP0
Island People is a young adult fantasy book centring on a young prince. The book starts with his kidnapping and follows his adventures as he not only escapes from his kidnapper but gains critical allies and friends.