THE DALLAS MORGAN CHRONICLES

BOOK I: THIEF

PROLOGUE:

The room screamed around him with the sounds of twisting metal and combox alerts. Flashing red lights and the acrid smell of burning plastic, wire, steel and flesh filled his nostrils as the falling room flung his buckled, helpless body about in the control chair. Training was useless without the ability to think or focus, and he knew luck alone in the next few seconds would decide if he lived or died.

The spinning stars and red terrain outside his front viewer changed direction as something new hit the side and spun him, reeling, in a completely new direction.

His ‘mech groaned again as it toppled. Slowly at first, but then the red mountains and dirt sped into a blurr, racing up to meet him as he remembered the last few months…

****

Dallas Morgan sat in the cushioned chair in the opulent room, his feet tapping and bouncing while his hands fidgeted. He recalled how his knuckles had been rapped again and again for that by virtually every tutor he’d had growing up, from piano to 23rd century literature to basic astrophysics. You *must* focus! His teachers had said again and again.

Focus.

Well, he was focused now, and ready to argue for what he hoped was the last time.

The old-fashioned clock ticked with a loud, ominous beat as he surveyed the waiting room for the thirtieth or fortieth time since he’d entered. How many times had he ended up here, he wondered, when he was in trouble? Waiting to have a talk from his father, followed inevitably by a consequence. Sometimes they were small as a cuff on his ear, sometimes as harsh as cleaning out the pig yard every day for a month.

That was a bad month, he remembered, and looked around the room again. The family portrait was old-style as well, painted with actual 2-D pigments and hung on the wall instead of holo-art. It had Pater, his father, in the top center wearing the dress military uniform he’d been awarded after the war had ended twenty earth-years ago (‘and it still fits!’ he’d brag after dealing with some corpulent family head who had to waddle through the room and sit ponderously at the negotiating table). He also still sported the short, dark haircut and goatee-beard that most all adult men sported in their house. His Mater was at Pater’s right, her own swirled-up hair and elegant white gown denoting her status as head of the family, and his brothers Houston and Austin at his parent’s right and left, their own short hair and stubbly, immature beards acting as signposts for the direction in life they would both be taking, Huston one day as head of the interests of House Morgan, Austin as Commander In Chief of the House’s armed forces.

Both were trained, ready, able to take on their positions despite any feelings they might have to the contrary. Dallas, on the other hand, was…

Dallas.

“Hello, Pater,” he whispered to himself, playing out the speech he’d been practicing for hours, days, ever since he’d received the notice that Pater would agree to his request to speak to him. “I’ve wanted to discuss something with you that’s been on my mind for quite a while lately…I’ve decided I want to-to…I want to… I want to seek your permission, to…”

He stopped, sighed and rubbed his smooth-cheeked chin, unburdened as of yet by either stubble or serious responsibility. He took another look at the family portrait, and then at the trophy case below it that held his family’s ancestral laser-sword, the one Dallas’ great-grandfather had used to kill the Baron of the Gold-Dragon Corporation in the Wars of Secession fifty Earth Years ago, and that Pater had carried into battle against the Corporate invasion force as he’d piloted the Galatine against the Corporates, twenty E.Y.s back. Dallas had heard the story again and again about how he’d been born in the lower levels of the family fortress as Pater had valiantly led the troops to honorable victory over the cowardly-

No, not now. Time to shut out the noise of the thoughts of his History tutor and focus on the job at hand.

He looked over again to the stylized family crest that hung over the doorway of his Pater’s study. That was holo-art; the pupils of the of the white-headed, snarling horse’s eyes seemed to follow you wherever you were in the room, the family motto in the ancient and noble language of Latin written in stylized, bent text over the horse’s head, and the corona-surrounded sword dangling down just far enough that anyone entering just felt that it would almost brush the top of your head as you entered the room.

Damocles, Dallas remembered, the story of the king who used a sword dangling above his head to describe what the pressures of running a kingdom were like.

Dallas wondered if Pater did that to remind himself of his responsibilities, or to intimidate the few who entered his study these days. Pater certainly seemed to almost revel in the job that he’d been chosen for. He’d often said that the instincts he’d had to hone on the battlefield were very applicable to fighting as an Earl for the best interests of House Morgan. Pater was such an able negotiator! True, sometimes folks called him manipulative. But it was never to his face, and even Dallas with his limited view had seen the nigh- impossible challenges a man like his Pater sometimes had to face. Any administer of a mid-to-small House in the Artorian Confederacy would have difficulties, with larger Houses always trying to make deals with them that would say ‘ally with’ but really meant ‘annex and absorb.’ House Morgan had it doubly so, with their resources and reputation as able fighters with both Swordmechs and airborne means.

In the middle of Dallas’ thoughts, the door to Pater’s study clicked and swung open, outwards.

Pater stood in the doorway, his formal, shoulder-padded suit and the proj-resistant greaves on his forearms and calves polished to a high, dark, perfect sheen.

“Dallas?” he said, locking eyes on his youngest son, “come in.”

Crut. His voice was short and sharp as one of Austin’s training swords. That meant Pater’s last conversation had left him unhappy and wanting to smash, kill or at the very least dominate something utterly.

Dallas stood up and patted the beads he’d slipped into his pocket, whispering a prayer under his breath as he passed under the motto, horse and sword, and through Pater’s doorway.

Pater’s study wasn’t as opulent as some House-heads Dallas had seen. On trips to other House territories disguised as family vacations, the decorations had been ornate with trees from old earth, or war trophies or relics from the dominant religions of the territories in In trophy cases that ranged from deliberately understated to thoroughly ostentatious.

“Sit down Dallas,” Pater said, slowly circling his large oaken desk with a deliberate heel-toe, heel-toe clicking by his boots.

“I prefer to stand, Pater. And please, stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“That slow, clicking walk of yours,” Dallas said as his father seated himself. “I’ve seen you use it every time you think a negotiation’s going to be tough, and it puts your opponent on edge.”

Pater looked at Dallas with a blank expression.

“That, too, Pa. The stare. Puts them on the defensive. I’m not some fat head-of-House like Honshu, or a flunky like the one the Red Star coalition sent last week to negotiate the price of wheat or tea for a trade deal.”

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At that, Pater did smile, and raised his hands palms-up while looking down. “I’m sorry, my Dallas. You are correct, here. Et tu es meus tertius filius, not some rival house servum who I have to put in their place. Stand or sit as you wish. I, however, have had a very challenging morning, and I will need to sit.”

“As you wish, Pater. But what I have to discuss with you is very, very important to me, and I need to stand to stay alert. Y’see, I’ve come to a decision in my life.”

“Have you, now?”

“Yes! An important one!”

“Do tell. Is it concerning your grav-ball friends, or something of greater import?”

“Pater!”

“Well, Dallas? The last time we had a talk like this, one you initiated, it was over the colors of your team jerseys. You’ll forgive me if I first consider this talk to be of similar gravitas, then?”

“No, I mean- well, look. It’s- well, Pater, my Pater dilectus meus, here it is: I- I’ve watched my brothers grow up. Houston is destined to administer our House, Austin our Armed Forces. The third son is often seen as- extra in houses of our size.”

“True. And?”

“Well- we’ve had it drummed into us that we must - always put our wants and needs second to those of the House of Morgan.”

“Omnes familiae primum et semper.”

“Exactly, Pater! The first part of the family oath! Our family motto! Our Family, First and Always! But-”

“There’s always a sed tamen, isn’t there, son?”

“Pater, my brother Huston doesn’t want to take control of the House, he prefers the world of science. Austin doesn’t want to run the military, he prefers the arts.”

“Sed tamen, they will do it anyway. Because they are needed there.”

“Yes, exactly Pater! They are needed there! But I? I’m a lowly third son- I’ll only be needed if (Non Vult Deus!) something terrible happens to one of them. But in the meantime, I had a thought.”

“That can be both profitable and dangerous- to have a thought unguarded by wisdom.”

“So true, Pater! And so-”

“Son,” Pater said, forgoing the Latin he loved so much and raising his hand, “Son, please, wait. I have heard you thus far. Will you hear me, and then I will hear all you have to say?”

Dallas breathed deeply. Could his father see how- excited he was? How upset, joyful, fearful and all the rest he was, all at the same time?

Still, what could it hurt? This was the first time Dallas could ever recall his father actually being interested in something he had to say, or asking Dallas’ permission in anything.

So, Dallas nodded his head.

Pater stood up and pointed at the mountain range in the distance. “Do you know why those mountains are important to us, meus filius?”

“You- you led our forces there, when the Corporates attacked.”

“Not only that, my son. You are dear to me in a very special way. You know the surface details of the story, but you’ve never known the horror of war itself. That day- I had never taken a life before that day. But when we were attacked, I had- I had to act in ways that our ancestors may have seen as- unbecoming of a Morgan.”

“Unbecoming? You mean, dishonorable? Civilians?”

“No, but near as bad. On that day, Dallas, your Pater killed a dozen men. The first two died from my missiles, fired from the right arm of the Galantine. The next one fell from the laser batteries from the mech’s left arm, and I heard him scream as his cockpit blasted open and the flames took his body.” He paused for a few seconds, looking out in the distance, lost in memory. “The fourth died when I split his mech in two with the sword in the Galatine's arm. Our opponents- some of them were matched against me, some were not. But some that we had defeated- Some- some pilots, they…” he breathed deeply, stood, looking out at the mountains again “Some of them, unable to rise their mech again, left the safety of their mechs and were running from us, trying to reach the fortress on foot.”

“I- I don’t understand. Why? There’d be no chance of success.”

“They were ordered to breach our defenses at any cost, or their families would be executed in shame. Such is the motivational technique of the Corporates.”

“That’s brutal. Horrible.”

“Yes, Dallas. You know, you were born that day, but you do not, cannot understand the fear I had for your safety, and that of your mother, birthing you a mile beneath the ground of our family’s terrestrial fortress.”

“You? Afraid?”

“I was, Dallas. When I was little, your grandfather drummed into me the unshakable courage of our ancestors, the cowboys, men of iron will who rode the horse in Texas on old Earth. Told me how they were the most rugged, brave and able individuals our homeworld ever produced. The kind of men who could look a tyrant in the eye and say ‘Come and Take it’ when told to lay down their weapon and surrender.

“And yet, that day? When I saw those pilots running in the sand, screaming their blood oaths into our comlinks of what they hoped to do us, to your mother? Instead of the bravery of the cowboy, I felt instead the anger of the blackhat, the villain of the Texas stories. I hated them, beyond anything I ever felt before or since. I hated them so much that I…”

“You shot them?” Dallas’ voice sounded very loud in the empty office.

“No, son. I crushed them. I crushed those pilots, like bugs beneath the feet of our flagship mech, our Galatine.”

Dallas inhaled.

“That day, Dallas, I used our ancestral mech, your legacy, the Galatine, named for a sword that chose kings in old Earth myths, a name, a machine made noble by the deeds of your grandfather and his father before that. And I sullied that name by dishonorable combat.”

“What happened to the others? The ones in your group who fought with you?”

“Sworn to secrecy. And they have kept it, one and all. None blamed me, but my blame still haunts me. The shame of it, Dallas, wakes me every night. I hear their screams, the crunch their bodies made as the fifty-ton feet of the Galatine crushed them. The only truly noble thing I did that day was cut our servant Gareth out of his mech that had fallen and drag him to safety, cut him out with your great-grandfather’s laser sword. Ironic, that the sword I should have used to fight the pilots with became nothing more than a welder’s torch.”

Dallas sat quietly. He had never heard his father use so many words at once in his entire twenty years of life.

“It is for this reason, Dallas, I would have you wait on your ambitions. I’ve been told you have been spending more and more time in the sims, training yourself to be a mech pilot. And I wish to tell you that the sims and the vids make the life of the military man look glorious and full of adventure. But, my son, it’s not one you should chase after, not one you should-”

“Wait, Pater, wait- you think I want to take Austin’s birthright from him?”

His father paused, confused. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“No!”

Pater looked again outside. He spluttered slightly, breathed quickly. “Then…” he started, turning back to Dallas, “Then why? Why did I just bare my soul with my deepest secret to you? Why are you here, in my office?”

Dallas smiled. “Pater, I’m getting married!”

TO BE CONTINUED….