Lost Harvest: Book One of the Harvest Trilogy by Joe Pace Page A

one of us. Goodbye, my friend. I do not think we will meet again.”
    Pearce left the alley, darting from shadow to shadow across the plaza, wishing his footsteps could be quieter. He expected each moment to be his last, to hear that awful hiss before the karabin struck, but his luck held. At one point, he turned back to catch one last glimpse of Arkadas, but the Cygni was gone. A moment later, Pearce reached the last small building at the edge of the plaza. Perhaps a hundred yards of open ground lay between him and the shuttle, and the slowly rising sun cast its new rays on a scene that would chill him forever. The shuttle sat, as it always did, in front of a small clutch of outbuildings the Drake ’s crew had erected as part of the camp. A crowd of blue jackets surrounded the small ship, forming a swarming mass held at bay, as far as he could tell, by ten Machrines and a handful of able starmen.
    Thank God the karabins take so long to reload their air chambers, Pearce thought, or they’d all be dead already. Arkadas had once told him that Cygni soldiers were trained to fire their karabin , taking advantage of the fear-inspiring sound as well as the deadly force, and then to engage in close combat with the short, iron-clad clubs they carried as well.
    Pearce saw a smaller cluster, a bit farther away. A tall figure was standing erect, firing with a hand laser like his own, while two Machrines methodically cleared a path ahead of them, trying to gain the encampment. It was Captain Baker, fighting her way back to her ship. Gritting his teeth, Pearce bolted toward them, and in moments was at her side.
    “Good to see you, Lieutenant,” she greeted, and Pearce was struck by her casual tone, as if they had met up on a hillside picking berries. Did nothing ever faze this woman? Coolly, she sighted her weapon and fired over his shoulder. A cry told Pearce she had hit her target, and he whirled around to find that more Cygni soldiers were still coming. Without thinking, he fired as well, and at that moment the sunrise began to blaze in full, and he saw clearly as his beam caught one of the blue-jackets squarely in the chest. It was the first time he had killed anyone, but there was no time to dwell on that.
    “Come on,” Baker was saying, and she pulled on Pearce’s arm. “I think we’re the last two stragglers. When we get to the shuttle we can get back to the ship, and maybe I can figure out how to negotiate a ceasefire.” She met his gaze, and for the first time, Pearce saw sadness there, and weakness. “I don’t want to kill any more of these people than we have to, Lieutenant.”
    Despite her statement she fired again, killing another onrushing Cygni soldier. Together, with the two robot Machrines before them, Baker and Pearce pushed forward. Somehow, they managed to find a seam in the crowd surrounding the shuttle, and Pearce was suddenly among the ables. One of them, Arash el-Barzin, grinned at him and fired into the blue crowd.
    “Welcome back, sir.” Pearce never forgot the way that smile melted off el-Barzin’s face like hot wax, becoming, in an instant, a mask of utter horror. Turning, he saw what his shipmate had seen. Captain Baker had been struck in the back by a karabin , and stumbled to one knee. One of the Machrines, Pearce thought it was one of the Alexander models, was by her side, trying to shield her from the blows that were raining down upon her, with limited success. He began to race back toward her, but el-Barzin seized his shoulder, holding him back. One of the clubs had struck her in the back of the head, and she was sprawled on the ground, unmoving. A cry ripped from his throat, but Pearce was being dragged backward, into the shuttle’s open cargo door, by el-Barzin and another crewman.
    “Fall back!” el-Barzin was shouting, though he was not in command. Somewhere in his mind, Pearce realized that he was the ranking officer on the ground, but his mind was frozen, watching as the Cygni left