Stephen Cora gave the evil eye to the monstrosity that invaded his world. The gigantic spider-like mining station continued to drill into the rocky facade of what was once a peaceful landscape. It hovered over a mountain pillar like an insect sucking the life of its victim. The work went off as if the blood of eight hundred citizens had never been spilled. This cosmic spider disturbed the peace of his world and shed the blood of its inhabitants. The tiny spark of fear burst and threatened to overwhelm him.

As the lord mayor of Solheim’s capital city, Solendal, it was his responsibility to see to the care of the refuges from these disasters areas. However, his resources were being stretched and requests for aid from the glenlords has gone unanswered.

He sat on the rock of which he’d been standing and poured tobacco into his pipe. He had a smoke while he thought what to do about the situation. He’d been the elected mayor of Solendal for seventeen years and a council member for eleven years prior. In all his experience, there never as a been a situation as dire to this. This was true more so when the Countess lived. The mayors of Solendal held precedence over all other civic administrators and officials on Solheim. Over the centuries, the Lord Mayor of Solendal had always worked with the glenlords of Solheim to support a cooperative harmony between the planetary municipal governments and the sovereign clan of glen’Sola. However, since the death of the last glen’Sola, that bond and working relationship seemed to have died with her.

Thinking about the late Countess brought his future liege in mind, the young heiress Lady Rheyn. Her absence from Solheim was one reason why his requests for help has gone unanswered. She was off trying competing in tournaments across the Union, perhaps unaware of the current circumstance of her people.

“Divine Sparks preserve us,” Cora said as he puffed a few times.

He didn’t like the young mistress exposing herself to danger in a dangerous sport as a tournament joust. She was so much like her mother. In another life, Stephen thought, Rheyn could have been his daughter. He too aware of the rumors saying he was her father. It wasn’t true, but that didn’t stop Stephen from behaving like a father towards her. In that sense, the rumors were true. Despite being married to an off-worlder, he had a close relationship with the Countess and enjoyed Rheyn’s visits to his home.

Many years ago, before she was the Countess, Ysobel Ignazio had been a beautiful smart woman full of life and the keeper of his heart. Stephen knew that they could never have an open romance, so instead they formed a lasting and unbreakable friendship that lasted until her dying day. He still loved her, truth be told, but used that love to protect what she cared about most, the people of Solheim. That included her daughter. When the announcement of her birth was made, Ysobel made him swear to keep the name of the father a secret. Stephen only agreed if she allowed him to care for and look upon the child as a beloved goddaughter.

But the city of Solendal was his children and the planet of Solheim his home, and now both were being invaded by outsiders.

“So what are we going to do about it?”

The voice from behind Stephen nearly sent him toppling over into the gorge. Stephen shuddered at the thought of ending up broken, bloody, and being buried alive. Shaking his himself and tapping his pipe on the rock beside him, Stephen turned to face his visitor.

It was Nikolai Cherbonov, Solendal’s young chief of police. Capable and dedicated to his job, Stephen sometimes forgot that Nikolai was not his apprentice anymore. As the second senior most law enforcement officer on Solheim, Cherbonov was doing an admirable job. There was still much for the man to learn, but he had the energy and the desire to do what it takes to uphold the law and keep the peace.

“I don’t know yet, Niko,” Stephen finally answered. “I’ve no word from the Lord Protector…”

“The Lord Protector… I won’t call the bastard that,” Cherbonov spat, “He is the very man who brought this God-forsaken spawn of the devil here!”

Stephen let the man stew in his own animosity for a moment. He felt the same about the Lord Protector but believed that if you couldn’t say a good word about someone you shouldn’t speak at all, Stephen stayed silent.

“I’m not sure this was supposed to happen…” Stephen said looking down a mess. The pristine landscape that leadership of Solheim worked hard to preserve was now in ruin and soaked with blood. “No one thought the man had the gall to wantonly destroy what was not his.”

The calamities visited upon the region by this device and the soldiers of another glenlord only served to ignite the rage inside Niko until it blew. He jumped to his feet and shook his fist at the mountain crusher.

“I told you, Mister Mayor, that that Lefebvre would be the death of us,” Cherbonov said, “I know he caused the death of the Countess! I can’t prove it yet, but when I do…”

“Quiet that talk Niko,” Stephen said, hushing the younger man.

One of the things that had changed since the death of the Countess was the increase of spies—all of whom were working for Lefebvre. There were a host of rumors about Countess Ysobel’s death and most of them Stephen quickly dismissed. However, a few of them had just enough truth to not be forgotten. He had Cherbonov investigating them without attracting too much attention and reporting to a small circle who believed the Countess was assassinated.

Conspirators, Lefebvre would call it, traitors even. Cherbonov grunted and kept the frown on his face as he sat next to Stephen, shaking his head at the continued destruction the mechanical spider created.

“He’ll use us up, spit us out, and if anyone’s left a live, he’ll leave to rot in the filth that’s left,” Cherbonov said, “We can’t let that happen, Mister Mayor, we can’t even wait the few more years Lady Rheyn has to go before she assumes the glenlordship. We had to do something!”

“And what would you have me do, huh, Niko?” Stephen shot back. “What would you have me do? I can throw a rock at it!”

Stephen picked up a rock and threw it at the mechanical spider, watching it harmlessly fall into the gorge. “See, Niko…see what good that does?”

Cherbonov hardened and that spark of fear Stephen felt earlier began to grow again. He knew he wasn’t going to like what the young man had in mind.

“I have an idea, your Honor,” Cherbonov said, “and I want your blessings.”

Stephen looked at the younger man with skepticism and quirked an eyebrow. “It doesn’t involve violence does it?”

Cherbonov did not answer for a moment and kept his eyes locked on Stephen. It nearly gave Stephen enough time to reconsider the need to know the details. The hardness remained in the younger man’s eyes and that made Stephen said. The loss of the innocence of youth was always harsh.

“So what if it does,” Cherbonov said, “It seems violence is the only thing these people seem to understand…and that thing…”

Cherbonov shrugged in the mechanical spider, “I say we send that thing back to the hell it came from.”

“Niko, you’re talking about treason,” Stephen warned.

“Treason? Forgive me, Mister Mayor,” Niko said with sarcasm, “But isn’t that monstrosity and the destruction is has caused to the people of this Glen, treason? We shouldn’t just hang the bastard in effigy, we should just hang the bastard and kick his damned horde of our planet!”

“Niko, I said—”

The younger man cut Stephen off before he could finish and pulled out his pulsed-EM pistol and cocked his ear to the side, listening for something. After while he jumped off the rock and headed towards group of rocks surrounded by brush. Stephen followed as best he could, given his age and the younger man’s agility.

“Niko?” Stephen as asked when he caught up with him, crouching low behind a group of rocks.

“Shhh…. here they come,” Cherbonov said and aimed his pistol at what looked Stephen like a four-man squad.

The patrol squad wore gray combat utility uniforms trimmed in a purple and white of Glen Vega. Stephen never got used to seeing them. They were so different from the Highlander checkered red and gold of Glen Sola. Each glenlord of the Union was allowed to have a contingent of personal guardsmen that functioned in many areas. Among them were tournament companies, police forces for rural areas without a municipal police department, and most often as the secret police force for the local glenlord.

Stephen was grateful that the Sola glenlords had chosen with care how to deploy the Highlander Guard units. The Highlander regiments always worked with the municipal peacekeeping forces to make sure the general tranquility of the Electorate as a whole. And they were fantastic tournament knights. He was always proud to see a Highlander knight finish well in the Union Tournament Circuit. But these are not Highlanders that was shooting at them, but invaders.

“Niko!” Stephen said as he hunched over Cherbonov. “Who are they?”

“They’re coming to arrest you,” Cherbonov said, “That’s why I came looking for you. I just got the notice an hour ago, and I refused any of my men to carry out the Lord Bastard’s order.”

Stephen looked shocked as he sat back on the ground behind him, dazed and confused. “Arrest me? What for what?”

Niko looked back at the elderly man with a sardonic smile. “Treason, Mister Mayor. Damn, the bastard must have followed me here.”

Leaving the mayor to the revelation of his pending arrest, Cherbonov activated his weapon and fired as soon as the squad came into range. With a shower of sparks, he hit the first one in the chest and watched his companions duck and scramble out of line of fire. His position was peppered with plasma fire as the troopers responded, sending volley after volley after them.

The weapon fire brought Stephen out of his stupor just as he was being tugged to the ground.

“Stay down,” Cherbonov urged before pulling out his comlink and barking orders into it. “Backup’s on the way.”

Stephen cringed as each bolt of plasma struck the rocks above them and singed the air, Stephen still had one question unanswered. “Niko, why?”

“Lefebvre blames you for the massacre, calling it a riot and insurrection against him,” the man hissed as he returned fire, ducking after he let off a shot.

“An insurrection?” Stephen whispered, the puzzle pieces finally coming together for him.

For a century, the glenlords of Vega had been trying to act on their claim on Solheim as their part of their ancestral possessions. Only succeeding glenlords of Sola had been able to fend them off until now. It was with great shock that the Countess agreed to marry the Lefebvre, knowing the animosity between the two Great Houses. Later, Stephen found out that the deal was brokered by the King himself and the Viceroy of Santera. The Vegans had finally crossed the line and are now taking matters into their own hands, by force.

After a few more fire exchanges, there came a second group of fire from the rocks behind the Vegan troopers. This drew the attention away from Stephen and Niko. Stephen guessed that the new fire was coming from Niko’s men. He should have known. The Chief of Police never travels alone. One of the few times they argued, it was over Niko’s attempt to provide for his own protection. Up until now, it was never an issue.

Cherbonov tapped Stephen on the shoulders and pulled them old man with him as they moved behind the rocks, down a narrow path that once was a dinosaur trail.

“Come with me,” Cherbonov said as he led Stephen into the woods, “They won’t follow us now and we’ll get you to safety. They may be Household Guards, but they don’t know this world.”

Silent and introspective, Stephen complied and followed the man to wherever he was leading him. As they moved deeper and deeper into the forests that populated the Glens of Sola, Stephen was still at a loss. He did not know what to do and feared that his home world will never be the same again. His world was literally falling down around him and the only person who could stop it was not here.

“Where is the Lady Rheyn?”

Next Chapter: Chapter 3: The Lord Protector