The Sword and the Plough Read online

  The Sword and the Plough

  The story of the Megran rebellion of 2175 AD

  Carl Hubrick

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © Carl Hubrick 2016

  All rights reserved

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  SCIENCE FICTION

  THE SWORD AND THE PLOUGH

  Published by MIRO BACON PRESS

  Rangiora, North Canterbury, New Zealand

  2016

  © Carl Hubrick, 2016

  All rights reserved

  This book is copyright under New Zealand law and the Berne Convention. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations or persons is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or publisher.

  Cover by Foto2Art Kaiapoi, N.Z.

  by the same author

  Of Gods and Other Aliens (Five short stories with similar themes)

  Yesterday, Before the Sky Fell (A story of love, betrayal and murder)

  Target for Terror (Junior fiction adventure)

  For my wife and sons

  The Earth Commonwealth of Planets – 2175 AD

  Ruled by the monarchy since 2081 AD

  List of planets in order of discovery and settlement, and their ruling governors; all the governors are members of the queen’s extended family – the ruling aristocracy – and appointed by Her Majesty.

  Earth – the mother planet of the Commonwealth and home of the monarchy – some agriculture, highly industrialized. Current monarch of the Commonwealth: Queen Elizabeth V.

  Megran – a large planet, almost twice the size of Earth – similar in climate, rich in resources, and growing rapidly in wealth and power – highly industrialized; the choice of many migrants from the densely overpopulated Earth. Governor: Prince Ferdinand.

  Lumai – a frontier planet similar in size to Earth, but with a solid, black rock surface, requiring rock ploughs with their laser-shares. Primary economic activities include agriculture, forestry and mining. Governor: Lord Magnus Southern.

  Theti – a large planet with colder temperatures than Earth, its settlers forced to live underground during winter; rocky terrain, rich in minerals, and ores. Agricultural band at the tropics – rock ploughs required. Governor: Sir Richard Plantagenet.

  New Terra – a frontier planet, with dense volcanic rock surfaces at the poles. Primary economic activities include agriculture and mining. Governor: Lady Anne Windsor.

  Trion – a frontier planet, one and half times the size of Earth, with a hard volcanic rock surface, requiring rock ploughs. Primary economic activities include agriculture and mining; the last planet of the Commonwealth to be colonised. Governor: Sir Henry Tudor.

  Chapter 1

  Planet EARTH – ruling planet of the EARTH COMMONWEALTH of

  PLANETS – Ruling monarch – Elizabeth V

  Queen’s Guard Regiment base

  Greenwich Date: January 29, 2175 – 06:00 hours

  “Good morning, sir!”

  “Good morning, captain!”

  “Morning, sir!”

  Captain Johan De Vries of the Queen’s Guard Regiment, acknowledged the greetings and smiled back at the host of familiar faces that passed by him as he strode down the corridor leading to the regiment’s gym.

  Most were regulars of his regiment back from their pre-breakfast workout. They were wearing the assorted t-shirts and chinos of casual civilian attire, but here and there, the red jacket and black trousers of the queen’s colours stood out in the flow.

  There were less than six hundred soldiers in the queen’s exclusive Guard Regiment. The regiment took only the best.

  Captain De Vries was taller than most, with dark hair, a bronzed complexion, clever golden brown eyes, and a pencil moustache. He had been a member of Her Majesty’s forces for six of his twenty-four years. The red jacket he wore carried the gold crown of an officer in the Queen’s Guard Regiment on the shoulders and collar. The gold orb or globus on his epaulettes also marked him as one of the elite. Officially, he was Captain Johan Andreas De Vries, but his friends knew him affectionately as Captain Johnny.

  A burly young staff sergeant of African descent fell into step beside him. The three bar inverted chevron insignia of his rank stood out in gold on the shoulder of his scarlet jacket. The measured clack of the pair’s black boots echoed in unison down the corridor.

  Staff Sergeant Fofana grinned, his teeth ultra white against the polished mahogany hue of his skin.

  “Going down to watch Lieutenant York introduce the new recruits to the martial arts are you, sir?” the staff sergeant enquired.

  The captain laughed. “Yes, always a sight to take in when you’ve got the time.”

  Staff Sergeant Fofana nodded. “A short, sharp shock to tell them they’ve joined the military, eh sir?”

  “Yeah, ain’t it great?”

  The two men laughed.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Cheryl York stood at ease in the centre of the grappling mat, and regarded the latest army recruits in their pristine white martial arts uniforms with a dispassionate stare. The fifteen recruits, with their scalps shining through the bristle that was left of their hair, stood in a line down one side of the mat and gazed back.

  They were a mixed bunch of what had once been termed ethnicities, usually so identified by their places of origin. But no one spoke of such differences anymore. Such distinctions had largely disappeared in the melting pot that was The Earth Commonwealth of Planets.

  The grappling mat was in one corner of a large white-walled gym. The gym was full. All around, young men and women were engaged in combat training, fighting barehanded or with staves or sticks, swords or knives. Hard-line sergeants ranted and kept their charges hard at it. Harsh cries rent the air – the battle cry of each combatant – the kiai.

  Cheryl York was a young woman of twenty-two or twenty-three. The lieutenant did not impress by her size or muscle, as one might expect a martial arts instructor to do. But the petite female form beneath the martial arts uniform, the delicately formed features, the sparkling blue eyes, and the shiny brown hair tied back in a pony tail, had the rapt attention of her men. She was the girl next door most young men aspire to meet.

  Lieutenant York studied the group of young males silently for a moment or two, a slight frown crinkling her brow. When at last she did speak, her voice was as velvety and feminine as every recruit had silently prayed it would be.

  “I know many of you have joined the regiment to be captains, colonels, generals and the like,” she began. “Some of you may even have the higher ambition of becoming a cook for the officers’ mess.”

  The lieutenant paused, and there was a buzz of stifled laughter in the space. “But when it comes down to it,” she continued, “you now belong to the military, and the military will decide what your future will be.”

  The lieutenant pointed to one of the young men. “You! Private! What is the main purpose of the military? Yes you, the one turning round to see who I’m pointing at.”

  The recruit
spun back, his cheeks reddening.

  The tyro began hesitantly. “To protect our queen and The Earth Commonwealth of Planets against… against…” Then he remembered the brochure that had first introduced him to the military. “Against insurrection within or the enemy without,” he finished confidently.

  Cheryl York smiled. It warmed her men like the sun.

  “Right! And what must we do if we are called upon to protect our queen and the Commonwealth?”

  “Ah… fight?” the same recruit offered.

  The lieutenant nodded, though her look expressed a degree of disappointment with the answer.

  “Yes… if there is no other way,” she answered. “Certainly, we must always be prepared to do battle to protect the freedoms and rights our Commonwealth – our queen – has gifted to us. Unfortunately, on occasion, it is the only option we are left with.”

  The young woman paused, hoping to register the enormity of what she was about to tell them.

  “But to fulfil that purpose you must have the heart for it. You must have iron in your soul.” She drew in another pause making breath. This was something she needed them to fully understand.

  “And that is what we are here for today and every day you come to me for training. We are here to put iron in your soul.

  “It doesn’t matter whether you fight with your fists, your wits, or a spaceship with the fire-power of an exploding sun, you must have the heart for battle.”

  She fell silent then and fixed her gaze for an instant on each face around the grappling mat. The recruits held their collective breath.

  “Perhaps one day,” she resumed in a quieter voice, “you will need to give all that you are. See it as your duty to do so. If that time comes, you will need to know you can give everything, because you are the best…the best there is.” Her voice tapered into silence.

  Suddenly the young woman stormed forward and leapt into the air, launching a flying kick. The recruits reeled back in alarm. Then she dropped and whirled into a succession of high reaching round kicks, any one of which would have taken the head off the tallest male there, had she been the merest bit closer.

  She came to a halt, like the most agile gymnast, and stood almost toe to toe with the nearest recruit, her arms akimbo.

  “Right, which one of you will be the first to challenge me?”

  There was an anxious murmur amid the young men. Even the smallest of them probably weighed half as much again as the lieutenant, and they were fit and strong. They were the cream of the recent recruitment intake.

  They shuffled into a circle and muttered together, seeking a champion.

  “Well, who’s first?” the young woman asked again after a long interval, a trace of impatience in her tone.

  No answer came. Chivalry, gloriously, was not dead. To attack a woman was not part of their male code.

  The lieutenant turned to the officer and staff sergeant who were now standing, watching, a short distance away.

  “Captain De Vries – Staff Sergeant Fofana, I wonder if you might assist these recruits to select my opponent.”

  “It’s all right, ma’am, we’ve made a choice,” a recruit spoke out of the group before the watchers could intervene.

  The chosen one was shuffled out of the group like a rugby ball from a scrum, a dark-haired young man with copper skin toning. He was the smallest of the recruits; nevertheless, he towered above the lieutenant.

  “What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Burrows, sir – I mean, ma’am!”

  “Right Burrows, I want you to attack me in any way you think fit.”

  The recruit looked decidedly unhappy. “I couldn’t, ma’am,” he protested. “I’d murder you.”

  The lieutenant’s reply was blunt. She spun suddenly and unleashed a powerful sidekick that sent the young man hurtling backwards. He smashed into several of his fellows, scattering them like nine-pins.

  “Get him up!” the lieutenant ordered brusquely.

  The ninepins stood and lifted their champion to his feet. But he could not stand alone. He hung in their grasp, his wind gone.

  Lieutenant York swung round. Her scan pinpointed another.

  “You! Name!”

  “Tong, ma’am!’

  “Right Tong, attack me!”

  The young man advanced warily onto the mat. He was well muscled, and intended to use his strength to pinion the lieutenant and thereby end the match. His almond shaped eyes from his ancient Asian ancestry computed the distance to his adversary. He slid a cautious step forward.

  The lieutenant smiled, her look deceptively coy and demure.

  “Come on,” she said tauntingly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She advanced a pace. The recruit reacted quickly to close the gap and pin her tight.

  The young woman seemed overwhelmed at his sudden impetus and fell back, appearing to lose her balance. But as she did so, she thrust a foot into the recruit’s midriff and rolled backwards beneath him, her leg catapulting him forward over her head. It was a textbook throw, but the speed and sureness of it took the recruit and onlookers by surprise.

  In almost the same instant, the lieutenant was up and astride the dazed recruit, his head firm in her grasp and – had she so wished – his neck broken before he knew it.

  “Bravo! Bravo!” The captain and staff sergeant were applauding the match, their Cheshire grins stretching from ear to ear.

  Lieutenant York acknowledged with the slightest dip of her head.

  “Over there we have Captain De Vries,” she said. “He will train you in the use of a light-bolt rifle until it becomes like an extension of your own limbs, and as instinctive. Standing next to him, is Staff Sergeant Fofana, our man in charge of communications.

  “Staff Sergeant, shouldn’t you be eavesdropping in on military gossip somewhere?”

  Sergeant Fofana grinned, his white teeth gleaming. “Yes ma’am, and I have been so occupied.”

  He waved an electronic notepad at her and came over. “A deep space call coming in from the planet Megran for you, ma’am, at 0700 hours – a Megran General, General York, to speak to you.”

  Lieutenant York frowned. “My father – are you sure? I wonder what he wants. I haven’t spoken to that old bully for years.”

  She turned back to her task, her brow still wrinkled.

  She pointed a finger. “Right you! Name?”

  “Schumacher, ma’am!”

  “Attack me, Schumacher!”

  Chapter 2

  Planet MEGRAN – Military Space Docks – Orbit 10

  Greenwich date: January 29, 2175 – 06:15 hours

  Colonel Orlov, Commander in chief of the Megran military space- ports, shuffled forward nervously to the iron safety railing. He was not one for heights. From there, he could look down into the three large hangars of the orbiting space-dock from the vantage point of the dock’s bridge. The space-dock was a gigantic silver orb, 900 metres in diameter, its orbit, some 1200 kilometres above the planet.

  The hum and clatter of machinery rose up to meet him.

  The colonel was near sixty and gliding toward retirement. His main ambition now was to do as little work as possible. His corpulent belly and podgy red face were clear testament to the life he currently preferred to live.

  “Well, Tamati, you certainly seem to have everything in order. Yours is always the best run facility I have and the most thorough.”

  The colonel brushed a few imaginary flecks off his dark green uniform. The damned material seemed to attract every tad of lint wherever he went.

  Tamati Rehu, the dock supervisor, nodded. “Thank you, Colonel Orlov, we do our best.”

  Tamati, too, was nearing sixty, but his tall frame still looked lean and strong. His warm brown skin tone spoke of a heritage from the Polynesian Triangle of Old Earth. As a supervisor, Tamati wore the white-collar worker attire of white jacket, black trousers and black shoes. The dozens of blue-collar workers, who bustled like ants at their tasks on the decks belo
w, wore blue overalls with yellow safety panels, and steel-toe-capped black boots. Red safety helmets guarded their heads.

  “And how’s the family, Tamati?” Colonel Orlov enquired. “I hear you’re a grandfather now.”

  “Yes sir, I am, twice over. But you’ll know it’s been some weeks now since I’ve had a chance to see any of my family, including my grandchildren.”

  The colonel nodded. “True, Tamati, true – and I appreciate that. I know it’s been a rush job.”

  “What is all the flap, if I might ask, sir?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t answer that, Tamati. It’s not that I don’t want to, but I can’t. Nobody is telling me either. We’ll both just have to wait and see.”

  Tamati Rehu shrugged. “Oh well, anyway, I guess it’s the battleship you want to know about, sir.” He pointed. “You can see her from up there.”

  The dock supervisor led the way to the portside windows of the space-dock’s bridge.

  “There she is sir, a real picture.”

  Like a giant skyscraper lying on its side, its multitudinous portholes mirroring the raw morning sun, the battle grey Megran battleship hung in orbit. Heavy hawsers held her in place, and a dozen or so air-bridges afforded passage to her. Despite the huge build of the dock, she was too large to fit inside any of the hangars.