The Guardsman: Book1-HotF: Yesterday Afternoon:

Welcome to the adventure!

This page is for those who wish to READ the full Guardsman book series here for free.

If you would like to listen to the author-narrated version OR own your copy please click HERE…

Enjoy!

The Guardsman, Book 1: Honor of the Fallen: Yesterday Afternoon

“Alright, what do you want to do first? Today we have stacks of fun, personal signatures on volumes of paperwork, or unit strengths and status reports, or intelligence estimates, or profit and loss statements, or subordinate corporation issues?”

The massively muscled man in the impeccably tailored suit counter-mocked, “Oh, gee, thanks Thomys, you make it all sound so appetizing.”

His second quipped, “I’m all about cherries and whipped cream on top of these bastards, you know that.”

Phyllip Chroynos, CEO, Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Chroynos Mega-Corporation, and Emperor of the Chroynos Stellar Hegemony grunted at his Senior Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, “What would your little lady say if she knew you talked like that?”

Thomys countered, “Never happens for two reasons. First, I am careful enough to watch my language in front of her and the girls. Second, mine does not care if I do. She knows I’m a big boy and unlike Celine, she does not have a troglodyte barbarian and foul-mouthed old soldier to tame.”

Phyllip mumbled, “I’m not a troglodyte…”

Before his friend could finish collecting thoughts to finish the retort Thomys cut him off, “Yes you are.” Thomys adjusted the stack of hard copy folders on his lap. His leather shoes and silk-wool blend slacks were supported by the massive desk. “You are the Chief Executive Officer, Director of the Board, single largest equity holder, and I might add debt holder, in the Chroynos Stellar Hegemony Power and Utilities Holding Corporation. Thanks to the devious maneuverings of your grandfather and his hostile takeover expertise, and then steadfast consolidation efforts of your father, we control an Empire too. You also just happen to control the entire block of voting stock for the holding company that controls our Military Corporations that secures our interests on, what is it now, on fourteen hundred, residential, agricultural, resource, and industrial solar systems?”

Phyllip corrected in a grumble, “Fourteen hundred and seventy-three.” His own feet were up on his desk too. Since he was facing the same direction Thomys was, he could watch the traffic, occasional light lift transport and freight tenders, flitter past the enormous window in his office, like they were so many insects.

Thomys grumbled as he tossed a folder over the expanse of the desk, leaving it to spin across the smooth surface, “Some days I do not even know why you keep me around, with a memory like that.”

As the folder slid past the pitcher of water, into his lap, Phyllip’s hand swatted down on the top of the moving folder. He had not looked away from the window, but still caught it before its contents could spill onto his lap and the floor. “I do it to torture and piss you off.”

Thomys steadied the stack of folders in his lap. He arched his brow with a smirk and retorted, “Thanks. Some friend you are.”

Phyllip sarcastically shot at his second, “I live to please.” Phyllip easily squared the folder on his desk without really looking at it.

Thomys blandly corrected his oldest friend, “No, you do not. You live to torture me. You just said so.”

Disgusted with Thomys, Phyllip snapped, “Oh please…” Phyllip rolled his eyes before he continued, “You would be a… I do not know… lemonade vendor if you didn’t work with me.”

Thomys rebutted, “Go to hell. I hate this job and you know it. Besides, I would be the best lemonade vendor on the planet; I’d buy you out. And then set you to work in a cute little apron and frilly white hat, selling my lemonade in the deepest darkest hole I could find on this planet.”

Phyllip replied sarcastically, “Right. You would still need to pay your electric bills to me, and I’d charge you extra. I’d call it a jerk tax.”

Shaking his head dismissively Thomys corrected, “See, you are a troglodyte barbarian. No manners at all, inconsiderate to the point of rude, and not even a comm in your pocket. I cannot believe you made it this far in life without even a terminal in your office! You are the definition of a troglodyte.”

Phyllip toyed with the folder in his right hand, as he watched traffic passing his window, “I do not like them.”

Thomys retread the same ground, “I do not care if you do not like them. You are still a troglodyte barbarian, and you just admitted it in your own words.”

Phyllip grunted as his fingers played over the folder snapping the edges of its pages together, like a deck of cards. He did not even have to look; he knew what he had under his hand. “Why in Hade’s name did you give me this stack of crap to sign?”

Without missing a beat, after their decades together, Thomys snapped, “I picked it for several reasons. First, it has been piling up in your box for the last five weeks. You never pick it up. It kept magically sliding off the top of the pile while everything under it was moving. It even ‘fell out’ when I tried to hide it in stacks of other stuff. It was starting to grow roots. Second, you are the only person who can sign the certificates and since you refuse to allow use of your auto-signature, you’re stuck with the job, by your own decision, I might add. Third, they graduate next Friday. I need to courier the packet to the Guardsmen Academy and Line Officer graduations as is So get your pen out Phyllip Chroynos. You do not get to leave no matter what is bothering you today, until those are all signed, and returned to my sweaty little hand.”

Phyllip sneered with barely controlled anger, “How do you know something’s on my mind?”

Thomys began with a frustrated sigh. “Phyllip, we have been friends for three decades. I was the best man at your wedding. And you were mine. We fought on twelve different worlds together…”

Phyllip interrupted editing, “Eleven, you were late on that one and you know it. We have had this discussion a thousand times before.”

Thomys snapped, “Shut the hell up, listen, and let me finish.” Phyllip stopped talking, without even a grumble, and kept staring out the window, while Thomys continued. “And in all those years you have never once been able to bluff me out of a hand of poker.”

Phyllip’s eyes snapped to narrow slits as his attention was drawn to bore into his friend. His losses at cards were a major raw spot for the Empire’s CEO.

Thomys took the opportunity to press his advantage, digging deep into Phyllip’s pride, “I never bothered saving for the girls’ schooling because I knew I could just take your money at the poker table. If you lose two or three more times at poker, all three of my babies will attend school on the credits I’ve squeezed out of you. I’ll have the hat trick. I know when something is running through that head of yours.” Thomys demanded. “What is it?”

Phyllip took one last look out the window at the crystal domes of the buildings that ran as far as he could see to the horizon. The clouds and air vehicles flowed between the massive structures like water between rocks.

From his vantage point at the top of the highest structure on the planet, he could see over most other buildings to the clouds that would probably mean rain for the evening. They looked like they were hanging at his eye level, and those clouds would soak the lower levels of the structures.

This planet was one of the rare gems that maintained a perfect climate, Earth’s normal gravity, and a stable orbit that allowed the Earth-based Terraforming Commission to authorize full ‘Earth style’ terraforming. That package allowed transplantation of every species of life native to Earth, from simple grass, through bugs, and livestock, to trees, to ‘once-upon-a-time’ extinct large sea life like the Blue Whales. Now all these species thrive on tens of thousands of pristine blue and green human-manufactured worlds.

The near-perfect twenty-four hour, and a few seconds remainder, planet rotation created a day that was perfect for humanity’s biorhythms. Not to mention an easy calendar and planting season synchronization.

Combining the stable orbit, perfect rotation time, and excellent terraforming results, the world was valuable to ever-expanding humanity beyond any credit calculation. That was why it had eventually become the capital world of an empire. Chroynos had not settled this world, but through shrewd acquisitions over the two hundred years before Phyllip’s father’s birth, the conglomerate had gained control and never let go.

The world was not entirely covered in ‘city’. That forever city joke was entirely pervasive though.

This particular city was so large it appeared to run off into the horizon in every direction. Several hundred years before, when it was a relatively new colony, settlement had started in seven cities within a reasonable traveling distance of the planet’s spaceport. Over the decades the cities had grown until they eventually merged into the current mega city.

The outlying land was mostly controlled by tourist corporations and massive farming groups. The exception to that mostly was the truly enormous basic training facilities of the three Chroynos allied military corporations, housed in a single joint training area. Since the arrival and departure of interstellar freight were regulated and still arrived in the same area as the original spaceport urban sprawl was prevented by competing economic forces. The early industrial magnates wanted the shortest supply lines to their markets and supplies. The developers between the urban and outside landholders, wanted to protect the value of their investments. They did this in two ways. First by not over-developing and decreasing market rates through quiet gentlemen’s agreements among the oldest land-owning families on the planet. The landowner consortium strictly maintained control of their holdings. Second by keeping the urban sprawl out of sight of their resorts by owning everything between their resorts, and along the horizon. It was a massive capital investment but deemed worth it to keep the city’s residential, commercial, and industrial towers and space traffic out of sight.

Since there were no formal property taxes, holding the land indefinitely while its value perpetually increased was a sensible investment.

The result was that the resorts were fantastically expensive, because ‘vacationing’ on a capital world was such a rarity. The majority of the population spent most of their lives in a city that was so large it ‘seemed’ like it covered the whole planet; thus, the bad joke. Because it had been like that for so long most of the population ‘just assumed’ that the whole world was a city. A citizen could live their whole life and never have to leave the building where their apartment was located; everything they needed was available in the building where they lived.

That same population, combined with the heat from industry, breathed out so much warmth, moisture, and carbon dioxide-filled air that the city itself was always shrouded in fog at the lower levels. The sun never penetrated long enough to evaporate all the gathered moisture. A rich green alga found its way onto the lower levels of all the towers, consuming that carbon dioxide and moisture. Then the addition of that much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere meant that the outside ‘green spaces’ grew so fast that the forests were lush and rapidly expanding, as they devoured the carbon dioxide and converted it into biomass material.

That was part of the reason so much of the world was left with verdant forest, natural and farm. The exchange of the natural gasses balanced could benefit both flora and fauna, and the biologists used their fancy computers to determine the optimal balances for this world.

Phyllip grumbled and kicked his feet off the desk to the floor while flipping the top cover of the folder open. The pen he had tried so desperately to forget, found his hand and it started moving down the top page. He read it quickly, he had seen thousands of these files, and stated “Honor Graduates on the top as usual I see.”

Thomys nodded once. The confirmation was unneeded. The commissioning documents were always ordered like that. Phyllip ripped his signature into the top document, flipped to the next page, and ripped the next signature. This quarter’s commissioning cycle had only five hundred new officers. But each was represented by a beautifully carved Certificate of Commission.

Phyllip read all of the Honor Graduate Commissions, that top ten percent represented the most qualified officers and he liked to be familiar with their names. He didn’t remember them all, but it never hurt to try, and he did.

Phyllip signed as Thomys watched and shuffled several thick folders in his lap.

The last four hundred fifty moved as quickly as the first fifty.

Phyllip tried to slam the folder closed but it just drifted softly into place without a sound. He palmed the documents and slid them back across his desk to Thomys. Neither action satisfied his frustration, so once his feet were comfortably back on top of the desk, he threw his expensive pen across the room at the window. It made a very satisfying clattering whack on the window, ten meters away, before falling silent to the thick carpet.

Phyllip’s nose wrinkled as he sneered at the unsatisfying conclusion. Thomys interrupted his foul mood, “Ah, so that’s why you’re being such an ass today.” He pulled the certificates off the desk and slipped them perpendicular under his stack. He pulled on one of the bottom folders and glanced at the cover before pushing it across the desk to Phyllip. “I guess that explains why you didn’t want to sign the things this quarter or last.”

Phyllip wondered if someone had finally invented a ‘weather generator’ and plugged it into his chair as he watched the storm rolling off the horizon in his direction. “Why did ‘he’ have to go off the reservation? I do not understand it… He was third for his year. Not quarterly, like these guys, but for his full-year group. What happened to him? ‘John Smith’… I do not understand it, Thomys!?” The name left a distasteful bite in his mouth.

A distinguished name was everything for them. There were so many billions stacked upon billions that a man without a great name all his own was nothing but forgotten scenery.

After several seconds Thomys finally replied quietly, “I do not know either, it was all so… bizarre. Samson, of all people! How is it that he loses his clothes and goes running around naked? It would have been funny as hell if it was anybody else.”

In the blink of Thomys’ eye, Phyllip had the next folder in both hands, crushed in his vice grip, bent and twisted ready to throw or tear whichever came first.

Thomys shouted “Do not you dare! If I have to have another one of those ‘Unit Strength and Status’ reports printed, I’m going to kick you in the teeth.”

Phyllip just looked blankly at his taller but much thinner friend. He could probably reach high enough to kick him in the teeth, but Phyllip would rip him in half after.

Phyllip took a deep breath and allowed the adrenaline surge to taper out of his body. His nanobots far exceeded civilian issue bots, and even superseded the premium packages that scrubbed most executive’s bodies.

The higher up the social strata the more ‘toys’ an individual could afford. There were nanobots that could take care of just about anything. As long as the brain functioned, blood still flowed and they could reach their target they could help the body’s natural functions fix anything from sore muscles after a workout, to the common cold, to even periodically simulating pathogens to stimulate the body’s natural defenses while training the white blood cells and ‘inoculating’ the host against the diseases the nanobots were programmed to mimic.

Because of Phyllip’s background in the Empire’s most elite military force, the Guardsmen, he was one of a very small cadre in the entire Empire who was authorized the exceptionally expensive ‘Guardsmen Nanobots’. They were only available after extensive multi-year preparation, and custom tailored to suit his personal physiology. Over the last years of the Guardsmen Academy, Nanobots were slowly added to a candidate. The lamination of nanobots permeated every level of his exceptional muscular skeletal development. The final addition was a very secret and very powerful component that allowed the Nanobots to become greater than the sum of the parts.

They made Guardsmen almost impossible to kill. They did everything from expelling chemical weapons attacks, to physically strengthening the body by adding to bone density and muscle tone, and even helping pinch off blood flow from major injuries. The last was a hell Phyllip never wanted to visit again. He could feel everything, but the catatonic shock state was like screaming inside his own skull, and unable to move or do anything to stop the pain. The little bastards in his blood were powered by his adrenaline. When injured and the threat had passed, the grievously injured Guardsman slipped down from his adrenaline high… the shock state kicked in to protect the brain functions and stabilize the rest of the wounds. Destroying a Guardsman’s brain and severing the spinal column at the cerebral cortex along with completely destroying the upper half of their body, were more or less the only ways to finish the deed. Even a minor injury to the heart could be mitigated with enough time that medical staff could collect the patient at a relatively leisurely pace, transport the patient, completely rebuild the organ, and allow the Guardsman to recover.

Guardsmen were multi-million credit investments. Twelve years of training, plus the year of officer training, plus all the improvements, made them well worth the investment and the expense of keeping them alive and rebuilding them, even when they were catastrophically damaged.

Since the median wage for the Empire’s average worker was a few hundred credits every two weeks, the Chroynos Corporate Guardsmen were an expensive proposition. The one hundred twenty-five that he had just commissioned, for the quarter, represented a larger investment than most corporations could scrape together in several years of operations.

That massive annual investment was required. The casualty rates in those Elite units were still high enough to require that many commissions, since a great many were killed outright, and unrepairable. As to the rest, the rebuild hospital could fix almost anything up to brain dead and damage to the cerebral cortex and major brain damage.

Phyllip controlled the power utility monopoly on this world and over two hundred other worlds, admittedly they were smaller and less productive worlds, but each of those worlds still housed and employed over five billion people. He owned the infrastructure and had some of the best reactor design patents in the galaxy. Phyllip could undercut even the most determined competitor if they drew his ire.

Phyllip was formidable physically but his years of training and fighting in his family’s wars left him hard. On top of the mental and physical temperament, he spent time every day in the gym and was enormously strong. All on top of the Guardsmen’s upgraded strength.

“Samson… Damn!” Phyllip cursed Thomys, “Now you have me saying it! ‘John Smith’ just pissed me off, I guess. And you!” Pointing at his friend, “You know the rules. He is a dishonored man with no name, administratively stripped in the central records repository. ‘John Smith’ is the only identifier he possesses until Hades takes his rotten decadent soul.”

Thomys just nodded once to his boss, but remained silent, after the correction. They both knew it was a trite theatrical make-believe, but that’s how things worked with so many people anymore. An honorable name was the only way anyone recognized you in this brave new world.

Phyllip smoothed the folder on his desk and pulled the slightly less wrinkled report into his lap. Thomys started babbling from memory all of the highlights. Phyllip shook his head at the number of troops they had deployed around their arm of the galaxy. The Genesis Wars were supposed to be in a state of truce. But he could not tell from the numbers of troops they had occupying their various worlds.

That name was a joke.

‘Genesis Wars’, which implied there was some greater guiding hand, instead of the piranha feeding frenzy that it actually was! The notion of megacorps gobbling up worlds, the Terraforming Commission casually tossed like so much meat, to enhance their own standing, strategic position, and security interests was a galactic joke.

Phyllip wanted to go back in time and find the clod who first uttered that stupid name all those centuries ago and beat the idea out of him.

Thomys’ rattling derailed the counterproductive brooding, “You will be pleased to know that the officers you just commissioned replenished all our line officer and Guardsmen losses from that last campaign on JU-X53-blah-blah-something-or-other.”

Phyllip drawled sarcastically, “Yeah. How long did it take us? Three years to recover from that meat grinder?”

Shrugging easily Thomys agreed, “About that. We did pick up those detailed resource surveys, finally. The iron and heavy metal deposits will make us a pretty penny. With surrounding systems in our control, defensive measures will cost less. And the troops are happy. The surveyors located a dense gold vein that was missed in the initial surveys.”

Phyllip flipped the page, and agreed noncommittally, “Lucky them. That will make a nice addition to combat bonuses and profit sharing for the campaign veterans. Maybe they can get that hellish inferno out of their memories before long… Why can’t accessible heavy mineral planets not be right next to their suns? Or twisting helplessly and defenselessly in pulverizing asteroid belts?”

Thomys knew it was a rhetorical question. The Terraforming Commission did what it could to modify the atmosphere of the planets to allow human industry and as often as possible habitation and agriculture. Heavy rocky worlds that contained many of the accessible minerals were barely habitable wastelands, regardless of the Commission’s propaganda to the contrary. The atmospheres were added just to make accidents more survivable. Heavy elements naturally settled into the central planets when solar systems formed. And ‘Green worlds’ were just too valuable to strip mine. Any planet that could support Earth-like conditions was jealously nurtured and coveted. Population and food pressures were too great to ignore or despoil the pristine worlds that could comfortably support life.

Thomys smoothly changed tracks, and shared, “Our mechanical maintenance rate in our units is along where it should be. We are coming back up to standard training levels on our infantry and armored line units. Most are at or near full strength. Home Guard is flush with applications and not enough slots for all the applicants. Most importantly that batch you sighed brought our Guardsmen ranks up to strength.”

Phyllip cheered slightly and agreed, “Well that’s good news for a change, I hate seeing our units so battered. What about our capital ships? What is the news from Indomitable?”

Phyllip’s mention of the carrier that had been the bane of Thomys’ existence for the last thirty-two months, made him wince. “She is still broken. The major holes are finally filled in. The drives are online finally. They are still chasing some power faults…”

Phyllip interrupted, “Well get their asses back here!”

Thomys shook his head in the negative, “No-can-do. They found a crack in the hull when they installed the third engine. The repair ships are on it and the tugs are still dragging the whole mass back in our direction, but it is slow going. They need to accelerate painfully slowly.”

Shaking his head at the bane of their Naval Corporation, Phyllip allowed a little relief in, “Well at least they are not being hounded by enemy frigates and raiders anymore. Escorts?”

Thomys was trying to make the best of the festering wound of a capital ship too, and agreed, “Yes. We have a heavy battle group, built around twin battle cruisers and five cruisers. We keep them rotating on month cruises, with Navy Corporation cadet trainees for their certifications cruises.”

Phyllip nodded at the practical benefit of the teetering disaster. “How the hell does a carrier Captain, allow his ship to be hit by a meteor!? Granted that one was sent his way but… How? I wish I could just…”

Throwing his hand up to stop the rant, Thomys consoled, “I know! I know! ‘Wish you could just get your hands on him and squeeze until his head pops off’. Not going to happen, and you know it.”

Phyllip vented, “If we lost that carrier, it would have taken us decades to replace the experienced crew and material investment!”

Thomys scoffed at the hyperbole, “Phyllip you know as well as I do that our share of that world’s iron deposits alone will pay for that Carrier, in full three times over. Even with the expense of Indomitable’s repairs, we will be in the black on that world in five months. The miners are already moving and breaking ground.

Remembering the incompetent moron who snuck through the ranks to command that capital ship, Phyllip growled, “Dead or not… I still want to.”

Thomys grumbled at his lifelong friend, issuing a jab only he could get away with, “Stop pouting. The engineers estimate that with current security and repair assets, their worst-case arrival is two months. Probably three weeks. They have a dedicated repair tender peeling back the hull and mending the keel. The electrical and mechanical faults are the most time-consuming now that most of the large component repairs are complete.”

Phyllip thought aloud, philosophically, obviously reviewing facts that bothered him on a strategic level, “I cannot believe we had to build those components and ship them out there. The success of those commerce raiders picking off our resupply ships was just… uncanny. How many times did we build the engines for that stupid thing?! We do need to track that down. That many successful raids is just… frustrating and abnormal.”

Thomys spoke what he thought, “Agreed.” The two men pushed folders back and forth to each other. “On a related subject our intelligence estimates here. There is not much about commerce raiders, but our core systems are clean. Our patrols are swatting the ones that do show up. There are the occasional raids on resource worlds. It is nothing that we cannot handle. Pleasantly it is nothing that we are not covertly making up with our raids. Standard fun and games.

“There are a few blips here and there. I spoke to General Zastphere, and he feels the same way I do about them. Most of them look like places where we could send a few light battle groups on a fly-by and show the flag. There are a few places Zastphere would like your permission to prepare some ‘obvious’ heavy defensive weapons.”

Phyllip shrugged as he thumbed through the report. “Our military corporation is his division. I won’t tell my General how to run the wars. That’s why I pay him, so I do not have to play with model ships all day long.” Phyllip paused as he reread something that caught his attention before continuing absently, “He knows his job. And he knows I hate retaking the same ground a second time. If it wins the war with a comfortable profit margin remaining, and we benefit long-term we all do well. I think he has a good policy of preventing the fight as opposed to dealing with it once it starts. We need time to let our miners work and break those rocks down, or the campaign will have been for nothing.” He slapped the intelligence report shut and pushed it back to Thomys. “What’s next?”

Thomys spoke immediately like he figured he expected the response, “The last quarter’s Profit and Loss statements.”

With an overly bland practiced response, Phyllip muttered, “Oh good…” He asked blandly, “Am I still the richest guy on the planet?”

Thomys corrected the stupidity, again, “In the Incorporated Empire. And yes, you are.”

Phyllip caught the report and flipped to the first page. Unenthusiastically he mumbled, “Yeah me!”

Feigning disinterest, Thomys added, “Lady Celine did well, again.”

Phyllip smiled, and called Thomys’ bullshit, “I know that tone of voice. She beat you again. Didn’t she?”

His voice raised an octave and Thomys complained, “I do not know how she does it!? I thought I had her this year! I grew seven percent and some, she was under me by more than a whole percent, but she still edged me out on the list! I hardly closed the gap!”

Phyllip offered a wane little smile, and agreed, “Ah yes, my little prodigal financial advisor and wife. Some days I think Celine makes it look like she doesn’t even try just so she can get under your skin.”

Thomys snapped, “Well she succeeds nicely. I’m not going to hear the end of it until next year’s list comes out. And she will probably beat me again,” Thomys sighed in exasperation.

The running contest between himself and his best friend’s wife had been amiably fought over the last two decades, but Celine was pulling ahead over the last several years. Celine and his wife had teased Thomys relentlessly over his lack of progress.

Realistically, none of them cared about money. They weren’t playing for any form of currency. They were playing because they loved the game; the hunt, the thrill of the chase, and the unrelenting drive to win.

Thomys snapped more self-deprecating humor, with his wry smile, “I should just quit, give everything away, and become a monk on some moon somewhere.”

Phyllip grumbled a correction, “You know I won’t let you quit.”

Thomys grunted at Phyllip and drained the water pitcher into a glass.

Before he could take a drink, Phyllip stopped him, “Hey! Put some of that back!”

Thomys shook his head as he exhaled his frustration, before pouring a splash back into the pitcher. “You know, paranoia is not a good trait in a sovereign CEO.”

Phyllip corrected for the thousandth time, “It is not paranoia if they really are after me, my friend.”

Thomys fought back a sigh as he reminded, “Phyllip, you have some of the best security in the galaxy. You are more secure than the Terraforming Commission’s patents. And as you have proved on many occasions during our younger days, you are very difficult to kill. Do you really think that keeping water in your pitcher, so that you can see the ultrasonic vibrations from your anti-bugging field shaking the surface, is absolutely necessary?”

Phyllip’s eyes narrowed before he snapped, “Yes.” He continued his reply flatly, “You know as well as I do that overlooking the little stuff can cause the biggest problems.”

Thomys nodded, as he was reminded of his philosophy, he could only agree.

Phyllip continued, making an uninterrupted turn for the macabre, “I have buried four children. Persephone is my last. I will not be careless with her or Celine.”

Thomys was silent for a moment before quietly agreeing, “I guess that’s true. After,” he paused and chose his phrasing, “’The incident’ I guess that makes more sense. And putting those two statues of yours to watch her will likely help.”

Phyllip agreed, “They are good men, solid, stable, and reliable. I have worked with them both before. And they are the most duty-bound and boring mules I have. They can keep each other honest.”

Thomys gently reminded, “Thanatyos is still pissed off about you going over his head…”

Phyllip snapped fiercely, “To hell with my little brother!

“I am over his head!

“That is not opinion, which is reality, just facts! He picked the last one, and we both know how well that turned out.” Phyllip tossed the Profit and Loss statement back to Thomys. “Maybe this time, two will work better than one…

“Why did it have to be ‘him’ that went off the reservation?! He was our best… he could have been anything! Why could it not have been that rabid dog that Thanatyos keeps around? The Guardsmen had two hundred years of a spotless record until… him.”

Thomys shook his head at the reminder of Thanatyos Chroynos’ disagreeable and vicious Guardsmen Alexios. “The man is intimidating. Just think about it, how many Guardsmen favor a giant ax over a sword? Think about it though, he is a jerk, loyal, but still a jerk.”

Phyllip deliberately changed the subject, “You mentioned something about subordinate corporation ‘issues’, Thomys?”

Perking up at the reminder, Thomys sat a hair straighter and offered, “Yes. This one is sort of odd.” Thomys dropped the stack of precious paperwork onto the floor as he leaned forward. It was something he only did when his mind was fully engaged in something that was bothering him. “The investigation at our Research and Development Division determined that it was ‘Pure-Human’ university groups just making trouble for our nanotech. The reports call it simple vandalism and such.” Thomys pressed his steepled fingers together in front of his mouth as he leaned forward in the chair, staring off at nothing, another bad sign. “You know that Research Corporation, and specifically ‘Design Division’ are my babies and I love them like any one of my little girls. I toured the facility before I let them clean up, and… it… well, it just felt ‘wrong’. Like I had seen something contradictory somewhere else from earlier.

“I authorized them to rebuild the lab to inventory and we won’t miss production, which was at another site. The reports confirmed that nothing was missing per the equipment inventory. I could not get the nagging feeling that something was missing out of my head, so I spent about two days locked in my office and file room looking for a specific hardcopy report from that section. I finished this morning. I had it printed for you about four months ago; we went over it quickly. You had wanted to know about the process between sections, and how the expensive components we were buying tied together and such. We spent some time actually doodling on that report, making our various connections.”

Phyllip’s eyes were narrowed as he was suddenly very glad for the anti-bugging field he had activated. His gut was sinking, and he did not like where this was going. After the first portion of the prompting, he stated directly, “I remember it.”

Thomys absently nodded before continuing, without looking up. “The things we draw on I generally keep in a secure vault behind my office. I like to have them in case you ask to see them again.”

Phyllip nodded, recalling several times Thomys had done just that and produced, weeks later, things they reviewed when the following questions had arisen.

Thomys continued with icy seriousness in his voice, “My copy of the investigation report appended the materials inventory to the report. Since no one bothers me in my office, I just locked the door and turned on my sound field before I came up. I had the digital inventory open on my terminal before I closed off the connection to the outside world and just laid the hard copy next to the investigation digital copy. I had on my monitor that said everything was accounted for, which prompted the investigators to rule out theft, causing them to state only ‘vandalism’ on their report.

“Well, here’s the hook. The lists are different. No purchases were authorized, and no equipment is to leave that facility without my express written approval for disposal or repair at a certified vendor. It is a top-secret secure research facility after all.

“That insult added to the injury of them penetrating our security for their little ‘prank’, really started me digging. The discrepancy list is short, and I won’t bore you with technical details, other than the two that are bothering me. First, the items missing from the list are small and portable. The components are untraceable in other words, once they are gone. If they find a half-decent tech and some simple off-the-shelf electronics, the missing components can be used to custom-make Nanotech.”

Phyllip didn’t like the sound of that but was already guessing where the second issue was pointing.

Thomys continued, “Second, someone accessed our asset logs in a top-secret facility, deleted items, organized the theft, followed by the vandalism to cover the loss, and all while leaving no digital traces of their efforts. This resulted in the ‘official’ false results ruling out ‘theft’ as the motive.”

Phyllip sighed as he leaned back in his chair. Suddenly he was very tired. “I hate technology.”

Grinding his teeth while restraining his anger, Thomys let out, “The only reason I caught it was because, by pure chance, I had that printout for you saved.” Thomys shook his head in frustration and restated, “The only thing that saved us from being completely unaware of the theft was that I had that hard copy that no one but us two knew about.” Thomys paused and stated the obvious, “Phyllip, someone has penetrated our security, at a level above our top-secret Research and Development Security levels.”

Phyllip shook his head, restating his mantra, “You are only paranoid if they are not really after you. I guess I’m not paranoid because they really are after me.

“Keep this between us, Thomys. Do not tell the investigative services. They may be compromised. I do not know where they’re compromised, and I do not want to draw any attention to you personally. I want you to quietly investigate this on your own. I know it will be a long shot but maybe you can find something if the thieves think they are safe because nothing is coming out of our intelligence services about them. At this point, I do not think we can trust anyone.

“How in Hades’s vast domain did they penetrate our intelligence network?”

Restrained but ferocious anger rippled through Thomys’ voice, “I do not know Phyllip. It pisses me off and scares me to death.”

Staring off into space, Phyllip absently agreed, “You and me both.” Phyllip looked at the very slight vibrations in the water, and relaxed some knowing his sound field was operating normally, then stood and walked over to the window. Without looking away from the stunning cityscape view, he ordered, “Send my attack dogs back in. I need to think this through.”

Thomys accepted the order, “Understood.” Thomys questioned again for the thousandth time, “Are you sure you need eight? You have a whole squad of Guardsmen. We must have better uses for at least some of them. Maybe we could extend the perimeter out a little farther?”

Phyllip reminded Thomys, “They really are after me, my friend. I’m not even sure that eight Guardsmen will be enough when they come for me. We have an extensive perimeter. That many guards should keep the unit honest. A mastermind would need to buy eight Guardsmen outright to get close to me. Hopefully one of the eight will be loyal enough to let me know he was approached. It is also much harder to hit me with that many moving shields in an assassin’s line of sight. Send them in and deactivate the security fields.”

Phyllip heard the field pop out of existence as usual when the outer door to his office opened for Thomys.

The sun was disappearing behind the approaching storm outside, high above the cloud-piercing mega structures. The massive tower tops, glittered in a thousand crystalline shades like miraculous gemstones piercing the clouds. The constant press of humidity from so much densely packed humanity kept the clouds in place as permanent fixtures, before natural weather patterns could sweep the microenvironment temporarily away and into the fields of crops outside the city limits.

The approaching storm was much higher than the megacity’s microenvironment. With the setting sun angling down, shooting sunlight down the city’s vast aerial boulevards, they only turned the sky an angry red, orange, yellow, and purple mix as it backlit the flashing thunderheads and their natural fury.

His black and gold-clad Guardsmen assumed their typical positions. Two by the door and the rest spread a respectful distance around him, silently waiting.

The storm was approaching.

Thank You!

Thank you for reading this chapter!

Your next chapter is HERE.

If you liked what you read and you are interested in the full book the links are HERE on the Honor of the Fallen book page…

However, if you are more interested in the narrated version, you can catch the start of your author-narrated series HERE:

Enjoy!