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Sky of Diamonds

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Overview

2356 CE

A tense but long-lasting peace followed the First Galactic War. While diplomatic relations were established between the Confederacy and the Grugell Empire, the relationship remained tentative.

Aided by the newfound ability to calibrate scanners to function during subspace transits, cross-border traffic became somewhat more enthusiastic. In a robust display of market economics, each side swiftly discovered that the other had commodities worth trading for. An illegal but brisk trade developed, with Grugell wines, art, weapons, and other goods coming into the Confederacy, and Confederate electronics, computers, and other high-tech equipment flowing into the Empire. The Confederate Navy set up a regular patrol along the Grugell frontier, but intercepting smugglers along the billions of cubic light-years of space was hopeless. More disturbing, the Navy had for some time suspected that cloaked Grugell ships routinely violated the border.

The Navy still patrolled the area, with Task Force 947 maintaining a presence at "Alpha Station," an area of space between the closest settled worlds on either side. To support this operation, a major naval base was established on New Wichita, an agricultural world on the Confederate side of the line.

It was a Confederate Navy medical cruiser, the CSS Charity, which was present at the incident that first gave evidence to an ancient, almost forgotten legend, and provided the first hints that there was a guiding influence that may have manipulated events in human society for a thousand years.

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Author Information

Bio of Anderson Gentry

Born and raised in the Midwest, Anderson Gentry's life has been shaped by wartime service as an Army officer, years as a business owner, and a lifetime of writing. This is his first major work of science fiction. Anderson Gentry now makes his home in the heart of the Rocky Mountain West with his wife and three daughters. .

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Additional Info

Imprint

Double Dragon Publishing

Filesize

835.30 KB

Number of Pages

N/A

eBook ISBN

1554046319

Excerpt from: Sky of Diamonds by Anderson Gentry



Chapter One
"I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane." -- Bram Stoker
Wallachia, 1462 CE
It was a bright day in early spring, with a hint of winter's chill still in the air. The Carpathians brooded over the tiny village as they had for centuries, caps of white still glinting on their peaks this April day. The wind regularly brought whispers of war to the valley, but to a teenage boy, the talk of war was a distant matter, hardly of any concern at all.
"Belos!" It was his mother, calling for him from the back door of their tiny hut, a rude, thatch-roofed, two-room affair down a side alley of the tiny village. "You must go to the well for water! Hurry, boy!"
"I'm coming, Mother!"
As he hurried towards the hovel he shared with his mother, he heard the drumming of hoof beats. Riders frequently came and went through their tiny village, but this sounded different. Many horses were pounding down the road.
Belos ran to the hut, retrieved the bucket from his mother's proffered hand. "Mother! There are riders coming into the village!"
His mother shook her head. "And your father away, fighting in Vlad's Crusade," she spat and cursed. "Evil plagues the land these days, Belos!" She stepped out, listened. "They're stopping in the village square. Well, come on, boy, let's go see what they want of our poor town."
In the village square, a rider in mailed armor was just now unrolling a scroll, which he read in a booming voice:
"The Lord Vladimir Tepes commands that all males aged fifteen summers and older are to join his army under the banner of the Dracul to war against the infidel Turks, against the army of the barbarian Suleiman Bulut. All of you such, in this village, will join our march at once. You will gather here in one hour." He rolled up the scroll and tipped up his helmet's visor to reveal a hawk-like face, long moustaches dangling. "Well, what are all of you looking at?" he snapped. "Get moving!"
Belos walked his crying mother back to their rude hut. "But, Mother," he assured her, "Father is in Vlad's army. I will find him and fight at his side, and when the Turks are beaten we will come home together!"
"I will pray for it to be so, my son," his mother sobbed.
But it was not to be.

***