The Tinderbox

Chapter 1-2

“They are lethal. They are impenetrable. But they can be stopped. This is the extent of the Manolithic arsenal. Our military dominance has not allowed their technology to advance further. It is now time for the Indirans to occupy Mano in order to maintain peace between the planets. Make no mistake, it is a noble mission.”

A battle was already brewing inside Everson. He didn’t want to be here, but he knew that he would have to focus if he was going to survive.

“Nucruits,” Giza said to Everson’s unit of soldiers conscripted for less than a year, “magnetize your broadswords to full. The Manoliths have no such application and it might give you an advantage. But, for the love of Light, wait until you’re clear of the transport lest you find yourself pinned and powerless…”

How Giza’s laser eyesight found him even among the camouflage of his comrades, Everson didn’t know, but find him he did. The commander’s gaze bored straight through him.

“I would also caution you to keep your weapons away from the heads and metal helmets of your comrades,” Giza added.

Everson’s cheeks tingled, but he did not want to give Giza the satisfaction of looking away. He stared straight ahead as several snickers tickled his ears. He had gained instant notoriety within days of putting on the uniform when his magnetized broadsword had become ignominiously stuck to the helmet of another nucruit during a mock duel.

“I think I’d rather you die than engage in such an embarrassing display,” Giza deadpanned before mercifully shifting his gaze. “Post conflict, we will march to Front Tier and secure it. Infantry, double-check that you have a full supply of hydreeds. It is a desert planet and you will dehydrate without them.”

Everson gave the pouch secured at his waist a cursory grope. Through the fabric, he could feel the jumble of odd pods. They seemed unimportant to him at the moment. Just something else he had to carry.

Commander Giza stopped in the center of the screen, his baleful eyes burning with purpose.

“Raza has armed you. Raza has defined you. Now prepare your minds to fight.” The screen filled with the image of King Raza the Forty-Seventh. Regal. Dignified. Intelligent eyes that also conveyed wisdom and humanity. Most of the soldiers had never actually seen him in person, but the projected image alone was enough to inspire absolute loyalty and sacrifice.

“Indira in Dignity. Indira in Death.”

A single, massive clap resounded through the transport as the troops brought their hands together and bowed their heads to touch their clasped fists. The standard Indiran salute.

Everson followed suit simply because not doing so would have drawn more unwanted attention to himself. As he did, he glanced out the window at the passing stars, at Femera and Amali floating brightly in the void. He recalled his childhood astronomy lessons and his studious readings of the Predeciders, wondering if he would be on Mano long enough to see the fabled Aurora Constellation.

Or if he’d die before he got the chance.

Perhaps it was due to the hypnotic drift of the stars, but Everson lost track of time. He was shaken from his reverie by the sudden dimming of the transport lights, a signal that landing was imminent.

Everson felt the surge in his stomach that came with rapid descent, followed by the tooth-rattling jolt that marked touchdown. Within seconds, the soldiers all around him rose to their feet and moved like sleepwalkers through the darkened transport. Wordlessly, they shuffled to their respective posts and prepared to disembark.

Finally, Everson left his seat and drifted to the back of the transport, nearer to the stack of Javelins, where Commander Giza had personally told him to go. He could only assume that it was a judgment by Giza of his combat skills and that Giza did not want him cut down in the first wave. Everson was not offended. In fact, he was somewhat grateful for Giza’s unintended kindness. He could feel an electric energy in the air that literally made his skin tingle. His senses were heightened, his body attuned to every sensation as the knowledge of the inevitable violence overtook him.

He heard the metallic snick and clank of hundreds of broadswords being removed from their racks, and he dutifully attached his own to the magnetic scabbard on his back. Now, he could hear the oily clicks of automatic weapons being checked. The shadowy transport echoed with the sound of accelerated breathing and the quickened cadence of hundreds of hearts beating like battle drums. Everson’s nose was assaulted by the coppery smell of adrenaline. A vein ticked in his temple as if counting down the moments.

And then the iris door of the vessel began to open, allowing a blistering ray of light to fill the transport. Everson sensed the mass of troops leaning forward as one, as if collectively pulled by the gravity of inescapable Fate. The circular door continued to open, flooding the interior with light, and Everson couldn’t tell if he was instantly flushed by the wave of heat blasting into the transport or by the blood rushing to his face. After a few blinks, his eyes adjusted and he could see the future.

Thousands of Manolith warmen were amassed in the near distance, awaiting their arrival. Everson was horrified. With a thunderous roar, the foremost Indiran soldiers charged, spilling out of the transport and onto the foreign soil. Contrary to his every rational instinct, Everson rushed forward with them. The Indirans and Manoliths came together like the turbulent waves of opposing oceans, determined only to obliterate each other and lay claim to the sand between them. The clash of swords and the repetitive reports of handguns were shortly joined by the seemingly ceaseless screams of the wounded.

In the midst of the melee, Everson flailed madly about, defending more than attacking, his frantic maneuvers more a reflex of desperation than expertise. Though his training had been intense and immersive, it could not have possibly prepared him for the blood orgy that was close-quarters combat. Men much more capable than he died all around him.

Everson had never met a Manolith. At the moment, he wished he never had. He was surrounded by them. They seemed innumerable, like a swarm. Their pale complexions were shocking to him, their expressions of hatred made all the more frightening by the fury with which they fought, as if the very fires of creation burned within them.

Somewhere in his terrified brain, Everson recognized that his anonymous enemies seemed to be no older than he was, young men barely beyond the threshold of manhood. An earsplitting battle cry turned him in time to see a warman rushing at him, his sword held high above his head and ready to strike. Everson crouched instinctively and thrust his sword toward the attacking Manolith. He was sickened at how easily the blade impaled the young man’s body.

The fair-skinned Manolith looked right at him. The ferocity drained out of his face. He was the first enemy combatant to make eye contact with him. The moment seemed to expand, and they stared at each other with an almost identical degree of surprise. The warman fell away from Everson’s sword, stricken and dying.

There was no time to mark the kill, either with relief or grief. There was another assailant close behind with another to follow that. And then another. Everson fought on because he had no other choice.

* * *

Shortly after the flood of troops poured from the transport, Commander Giza rumbled out of the convoy atop a massive fighting machine called a Marauder. His second-in-command, Colonel Canaan, grimly surveyed the brawl before them while Giza scanned the near distance through his field glasses. Neither was pleased with what they saw. Much to their mutual chagrin, they were outnumbered.

A thought occurred to Commander Giza and he instantly hoped that he would never be forced to share it. I made a mistake. He had prepared no other strategy than to overwhelm his enemy with superior numbers, and now he realized that he had seriously miscalculated. To add to his consternation, the Manolith forces were not behaving as expected.

“Why haven’t the TRAUMAs engaged?” Giza wondered aloud. A phalanx of TRAUMAs sat as if dormant well beyond the fray.

Colonel Canaan’s eyes flitted skyward. “And why are there no birduns?”

Suddenly, a squadron of birduns erupted upward like cinders spewing from a volcano. They had been hovering far down in the chasm, hidden by the hazy heat of distance, and now they emerged from behind the transports, the element of surprise fully realized. Commander Giza turned as the birdun warmen began throwing their HEXes, and the chaos and decibel of battle escalated.

“Javelins, now!” he barked.

Swarms of Javelin missiles jetted from the transports and dispersed to engage the birdun cavalry. With greater speed, agility and advanced firepower, the Javelins quickly turned the tide of attack. Giza allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction. It might have lasted longer—except the world started blowing up around him again.

* * *

The Manolith leader General Bahn was seated at the controls of his TRAUMA, unmoving, unblinking, stoically waiting for the orange blossoms of bombs that would signal the attack on his enemy’s rear. Though the battle was about to commence in earnest, Bahn was calm, almost content. This was where he wanted to be. This was the reason for his very existence.

The general’s unflappable demeanor was as renowned and obvious as his towering height, but his patience had been sorely tried as of late. He was only here, at the edge of the Grand Schism and the edge of conflict, because he was following an order from the only person he couldn’t defy—his sovereign, King Xander the Firm.

The king believed in an ancient prophecy, a dire warning that put Xander in fear for his future and dictated his every decision. Only recently, King Xander had removed every soldier from the capital city of Mist Tier and dispersed them to the outlying tiers, in spite of General Bahn’s vehement protests. The pragmatic general put no faith in fairy tales and was infuriated that his king’s childish beliefs could subvert his ability to competently carry out his sworn duty, to protect the kingdom.

Now General Bahn had to concede that sometimes a wrong turn could still lead to the right place. Because of King Xander’s unfounded and unprecedented decree, the general was in the exact place that he needed to be, sitting in his TRAUMA, facing down an invading force. His only regret was that he wasn’t close enough to see Commander Giza’s dumbfounded expression when he unleashed his next surprise.

As his birduns dotted the sky and the first sparkle of HEXes preceded the percussive explosions, he forced himself to wait even longer, mentally maximizing the destruction he was about to deliver. Bahn calmly keyed his communicator.

“TRAUMAs, volley incendiary grenades now.”

* * *

Commander Giza instantly registered the rattling blast of cannon fire followed shortly by the buzzing whistle of incoming incendiary grenades. As this latest barrage rocked his Marauder, he spun around with the most shock that had ever graced his face. The smoke still swirling before the immobile TRAUMAs left little doubt as to the origin of the projectiles, and Giza knew immediately that they had exceeded their expected range.

“Commander, I dare say that our intel was incomplete,” Colonel Canaan said.

“Obviously. The TRAUMAs have been retrofitted with greater firepower.” As if to punctuate the point, the TRAUMAs launched a second volley. The devastation was indiscriminate, obliterating Indirans and Manolith warmen alike.

Several of the transports took direct hits, suffering massive damage. The TRAUMAs finally advanced, moving forward at an alarming rate made more frightening by the array of weaponry that suddenly sprang from their metallic hulls: blades, buzz saws, drills.