Underground Movement

"Underground Movement" Quantum Series: Book 7

Action, Adventure, Robots ...& Vampires?!

Deanna, a small backwater Terran colony generally known as an idyllic tourist-magnet (if watching jet propelled birds blow up if they fly too high is your kind of thing) had just hit a speed-bump on the highway of life called 'the Deannan Un-civil War'.

Fascists were in charge now, a foreign, imported clandestine group calling itself the 'Deannan Service League' - and it appeared to have support from much higher up the Terran political food chain. In the cities, people desperately tried to make sense of their lives under the draconian new government, and hoped for better days - while in Skeggs Valley, a loyalist militia began to form around the deposed fugitive Governor Landry at an uncanny pace. Whichever way you looked at it, the signs were pretty clear - civil war was inevitable.

But while General Albert McIntyre-Smythe (recently re-un-retired) gingerly accepted the role handed to him by destiny, he harbored nagging doubts about just how 'civil' it was going to turn out. He knew the loyalty and dedication of the volunteers - and many of their names and faces, all too well. After all, a lot of them were fellow members of the Skeggs Valley Dynamite Fishing Club. Not that Smythe considered himself to be old - thanks to his monthly fishing trips, he could still duck for cover like a twenty-year-old - but, even so, he was enough of a realist to accept that the majority were just like him - angry, sleep-deprived, creaky old farts who were veterans of every action fought by the Terran Empire over the last three-quarter century, and a good stretch past their sell-by dates. Retraining them had to be the first priority, just to get them back into the swing of things. Cue the verbose Sergeant Andersen, a.k.a. Sarge, a legend among NCOs - and in his own lifetime. 

If he could, say, train them to chuck explosives in the same direction, it would be a major improvement, for a start. Not forgetting the immense contributions by the motley crew of the loderunner 'Celeste' - and special Time Agents (whatever that was supposed to mean) Beck and Winter. 

In the meantime, while the Militia relearned the art of breathing faster, the D.S.L. entrenched its positions in the three largest cities on Deanna, where they thought they were safe - and tried to repair the new Chancellor's three crippled patrol ships as quickly as possible. Thanks to Timaset Skooch and the loderunner Celeste's uncanny knack for being in the wrong place at the right time. Chancellor McMillen's eyes in the sky had effectively been bandaged shut. Landry and Smythe desperately needed to capitalize on this advantage - and prove them wrong. What Deanna needed most just then - badly, was a resistance movement.

Cue another ally, who until that point had been living in the shadows on the edges of the stage: Deanna's vampire community. Being a secretive subculture that existed on the fringes of Human society, the vampire underground already had a well-developed intelligence gathering network - and combined with their natural abilities for stealth and speed, a resistance movement would be right up their alley. They realized they were in an ideal position to help - and after all, the Humans had asked for it. The only obstacle was - well, history. The last time Humans believed vampires were real - not some storybook fantasy, the outcome was a series of vampire hysterias - and that hadn't ended too well. This would be an enormous calculated risk on their part - but since the most adverse reaction so far had just been one or two Humans needing to change underwear, it seemed to be the right call after all. 

Entrusted with the responsibility of setting up the resistance and making the cities ungovernable, the VC looked for someone with the right sort of mindset, motivation and qualifications. Their gaze fell on a certain Marla De Bris – who, despite having been around long enough to have actually worked for the original C.I.A., found the task handed to her more than a little daunting. Guerrilla warfare and sneaking about had never actually been her forte' - but well, someone had to buy time for the Loyalists to prepare themselves to take on the formidable, well-drilled and snappily-dressed Deannan Republican Army - and to get as many innocent people as possible out of harm's way before the 'hot' war really got going. It might as well be her.