Rhodes woke up and let out a heavy sigh of deep relaxation when he stared up at the wooden planks and heavy beams of the ceiling. He sank a little deeper into the mattress. He was home. He could rest here.

  A shuffling sound made him glance to one side., but he only relaxed more when he saw his wife, Ora, working around the house. She glanced over, smiled at him, and then her cheeks colored when she saw him awake.

  Rhodes sank back on the bed, watched her for a little while, and then went back to staring at the ceiling.

  He didn’t need to think about anything. He was home. He was where he belonged.

  He knew exactly where he was, who he was here with, and what he needed to do—which was nothing right at this moment.

  Ora kept working for a while. Then she picked up a bucket and went outside. She left the door open.

  People walked back and forth up and down the road out there. Rhodes saw them working around their houses.

  While he lay there just letting the serenity of Stonebridge wash over him, he saw Fisher come out of the house across the road.

  Fisher headed off in a different direction, but the sight of his friend made Rhodes sit up. He couldn’t lie in bed when everyone else was already at work.

  He sat up and put his bare feet on the floor. The cold stone chilled his feet, but it felt good. He wiggled his toes and stretched.

  He was in the act of putting on his boots and tying the laces when Fisher stuck his head in and grinned at Rhodes. “How do you get away with it? Thara would kick my ass if I stayed in bed this long.”

  “I’m up,” Rhodes replied. “Do you still want to trade work on each other’s roofs?”

  “Sure,” Fisher replied. “I’m going down to the south pasture to move the cattle first. Do you want to come?”

  “I’m coming.” Rhodes stood up and followed Fisher outside.

  Rhodes glanced down the road, but he didn’t see Ora. He would have liked to say something to her before he left, but he would see her later when he came back home for the night.

  He and Fisher headed west along the main road leading out of Stonebridge. Everything around Rhodes breathed with familiarity.

  He knew every person, all their children, every house, every bench, and every tree and shrub. He’d lived here all his life.

  “Do you mind if we work on my roof first?” Fisher asked. “Thara will kill me if I don’t fix that leak above the hearth.”

  Rhodes laughed at him. “It’s a miracle you’re still alive at all. You could have saved yourself the effort by marrying a Ruterian warthog instead.”

  “A Ruterian warthog would be easier to please, but not anywhere near as nice afterward.” Fisher caught Rhodes looking at him and they both laughed. “She’s a better cook, too.”

  Rhodes slapped his friend on the shoulder. “I’m sure you can charm her. You can charm anyone.”

  “I must be able to if I’m still alive.” Fisher stopped by his own house on the way out of town, grabbed a long, thin stick that happened to be leaning against the wall, and he and Rhodes kept walking. “

  “You’re more than alive. She takes good care of you,” Rhodes pointed out. “You must be doing something right.”

  “It’s a delicate balancing act between sweet talk and knowing when to make myself scarce.”

  The two men laughed again, but they stopped talking about Thara when they came to the end of the village and met up with Oakes and Coulter.

  “What are you fellas doing out here?” Rhodes asked.

  “The same thing you’re doing,” Oakes replied. “We’re moving the cattle.”

  “The more the better.” Fisher glanced over his shoulder. “Here comes Lauer.”

  Lauer joined them and they all headed out toward the same herd of cattle in the distant fields. Lauer brought his three sons with him.

  The boys also carried long, thin sticks. The youngest one whipped his stick against the long grass by the side of the road.

  The men got to the south pasture, spread out, and started herding the cattle toward a different pasture farther west.

  Two of Lauer’s boys ran ahead, took down the split rails of the fence, and laid them aside so the cattle could get through.

  Rhodes went through the whole operation feeling a deep sense of rightness and certainty about everything he was doing.

  Everything about life in Stonebridge gave him this feeling. He always knew what he was doing here. He could keep doing it for the rest of his life and he probably would.

  He, Lauer, Oakes, Coulter, and Fisher laughed and talked on their way back into town. Lauer’s boys split off and ran away to go do their own thing.

  “Did you hear the Inviria are invading the Lotrum system now?” Coulter asked.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Then they’re someone else’s problem,” Lauer replied. “The Lotrum system is too far away for us to do anything about it. We have enough to worry about just defending our own town.”

  “I guess they didn’t learn their lesson here,” Oakes added. “They never will learn. They’ll keep setting up these colonies where they aren’t welcome. They’ll keep getting the same result.”

  The group returned to Stonebridge and Fisher stopped in front of his house. “We gotta work on our roofs. You fellas take it easy.”

  “Always,” Coulter replied. “Let us know if you want any help with that.”

  “I’m helping him,” Rhodes replied and glanced over his shoulder at Fisher. “I’ll just grab my tools and meet you up there.”

  Fisher nodded, got a ladder out of the nearest barn, and propped it against his house.

  Rhodes went to his own house and got his tool bag from under the bed inside. Ora was back, but Rhodes didn’t stick around to talk to her.

  She gave him a knowing look, though. He could just imagine how things would go when he came in this evening.

  He went back to Fisher’s house. Fisher was already on top of his roof using a pry bar to rip up old, rotten shingles from the spot near the chimney.

  Rhodes took his hammer up there and started doing the same thing. “Which parts of your roof do you want to work on first?” Fisher asked after a few minutes. “Which parts are the worst?”

  “None of them are as bad as this.” Rhodes picked up the crumbling remains of a shingle, wrinkled his nose at it, and threw it over the side onto the ground. “How did you let it get as bad as this?”

  “I’m busy.”

  Rhodes snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  “Besides, I didn’t have you to help me.”

  “Keep telling yourself that. It’s a good thing Thara kicks your ass so often. I would have to do it for her if she didn’t.”

  Rhodes stuck his hammer into his belt, climbed down the ladder, and got an armload of shingles from Fisher’s barn. Rhodes and Fisher had spent all last winter making these.

  He carried them up the ladder and he and Fisher started hammering the new shingles into place. They worked all day until the sun started to go down.

  Rhodes and Fisher climbed down, kicked all the old shingles into a mound next to Fisher’s woodpile where he would be able to use them as kindling, and Rhodes turned away to head for home.

  The door stood open across the street. The usual glow of firelight streamed from inside.

  Rhodes looked in on Ora and their children gathering around the table for the evening meal. A profound sense of peace and belonging clenched his heart when he saw them in there.

  He would go in there, sit down, and talk to them about what all of them had been doing all day.

  They would laugh and joke about the marital strife Fisher and Thara weren’t going through.

  Their relationship was a standing joke in Stonebridge. They got along so well, but everyone constantly gave Fisher a hard time and pretended that she mistreated him or at least drove him like a pack mule.

  Fisher startled Rhodes out of his thoughts by clapping him on the back. “You better go,” Fisher told him. “You don’t want to make Ora mad by spending all your time with me.”

  Rhodes shook his hand and nodded toward Fisher’s house. “Good luck in there. Come over to my house if you need somewhere to hide.”

  They both laughed and Rhodes started to walk away. He didn’t need to worry about Fisher. Thara would be thrilled that he was finally fixing the roof.

  The part around the chimney was already done. The roof wouldn’t leak on her head while she was trying to work.

  Rhodes turned around to face his own house. He wanted to go inside and shut the door. He wanted to shut out everything except the feeling that he belonged here.

  Ora and his children would be as happy to see him as he was to see them. They would all bask in the glow of how happy they were together. Nothing could ever be wrong with the world as long as they were together.

  He took three steps to cross the road when Fuentes came running over. He came from the east side of town—the side closer to the bridge.

  “Captain!” Fuentes panted. “We just got the order to deploy!”

  Rhodes stiffened. “What order? Stonebridge isn’t under threat. The Inviria are gone.”

  “It isn’t the Inviria. It’s some new army. They aren’t near Stonebridge yet, but they could be. We’re mustering with the rest of the troops near the Cravmore Gap. The order just came in for the battalion to meet up with the troops there.”

  Rhodes glanced over his shoulder. Fisher stood there listening.

  Right then, a door opened farther east along the road. Light flooded into the night and Rhinehart stepped out of his house.

  It only took one glance down the road at Rhodes, Fisher, and Fuentes. Rhinehart must have received the same order.

  Rhodes looked through the open door at his house. Ora stood at the table listening to them. Her eyes darted from one man to the next and then they locked on Rhodes.

  He and Ora shared a moment of deep, understanding eye contact before he turned away to join his subordinates.

  She went back to work, approached the door, and shut it from the inside.

  She shut Rhodes out in the dark and cold. He wouldn’t be going in there anytime soon. Duty called. He knew what he had to do.

  He, Fisher, and Fuentes strode off up the road, joined up with Rhinehart, and the rest of the battalion came out of their houses to meet their comrades.

  Van and Koenig came out of their house. Thackery slipped out of her own doorway and hurried across the road to fall in with the others.

  She still wore her long dress and her hair down to her shoulders, but that would change as soon as she went into action.

  The group crossed the bridge heading east. The minute Rhodes put his foot on the bridge, Fisher appeared in the corner of his vision. The Grid covered Rhodes’s field of view.

  “The enemy is setting up a fortified position across the Accono Mountain Range,” Fisher reported and showed Rhodes a long series of ships, troops, and cannon stations dotting the horizon. “Our orders are to muster here—at the Phorix Battery Station. We’ll get further orders there.”

  Rhodes nodded and said, “Let’s go,” to the rest of the battalion.

  He fired his boosters and took off into the starry sky. Night settled over the planet. He could only see where he was going by checking The Grid.

  The grid lines stretched and angled in different directions to show him hills, fences, and forests passing on both sides.

  The grid lines tilted upward ahead to show the mountain range jutting out of the landscape. The Phorix Battery Station sat on the planes below the mountains.

  A few thousand troops surrounded the station waiting for the word to assault the enemy position on the ridge.

  It was the worst possible position from which to assault anything. The enemy guns aimed directly down at the troops from above. The troops would get wiped out as soon as the assault started.

  Rhodes couldn’t let that happen. He hit his boosters to fly faster and brought his arms forward to aim his scourge guns at the enemy stationed on the peaks.

  His Vipers would do more damage, though. He targeted the enemy cannons, but before he got a chance to fire, the enemy force swarmed over the peaks and charged down the mountain at the troops on the valley floor.

  He caught one glimpse before a blast of fusion fire erupted from the big guns on the heights up there. That one shot belched down and smashed into the ground near the battery station.

  The light from the fusion blast lit up the landscape and all those enemy fighters unloaded their weapons at the troops on the ground.

  Rhodes skidded to a halt and stared at the battle unfolding in front of his eyes. Those enemy troops…….they all used Legion Jackhammers. Every one of those enemy fighters down there…..they were human. They were Aemon Legion platoons.

  The instant he made that connection, one of the big fusion cannons from the ridgetop swiveled upward and fired at the battalion.

  The shot clipped Rhodes and sent him flying backward. More fusion blasts punched through the battalion and everyone scattered.

  End of Chapter 22.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

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