Woodwind glimpses the Tamarian firebase at Dead Hand Ridge for the first time.

    Nestled among massive granite boulders, high upon the barren height of a windswept hill called Dead Hand Ridge, stood a stout Tamarian firebase. Invisible from the valley floor, with only an overgrown and unmarked trail winding up to its gate, even long-time local residents were uncertain of its exact location.

    Hidden among hills and clustered around strategic passes accessing Tamaria’s heartland, many structures like this one provided defense for a thinly populated frontier. Every firebase shared a common plan: a sprawling, polyhedronal shape with thick, iron-reinforced concrete walls, measuring three hundred feet across on its first level, crowned by three additional odd-shaped floors. Several outposts and connecting conduits completed the design. The base, covered with native material, preserved the ridge line’s natural contour, making these fortifications difficult to detect without coming very close.

    Spaced within several thousand yards of each other, every shell keep lay within range of at least two other bases, so that the heaviest Tamarian rockets could be fired in defensive support of any one of them. In the event of an overwhelming assault, each base could be abandoned quickly through an underground rail network that also served as a resupply and transport system.

    Men and material, moved rapidly from one base to the next, allowed the Tamarian army to strike unpredictably from the flank or rear of an advancing enemy at any opportune time. After evacuation, any shell keep in danger of being overrun could be sealed to prevent entrance into the tunnel array, then attacked from within when the enemy was least expecting such action. In fact, however, not a single firebase had ever been successfully conquered, in spite of concerted attempts by the most numerous, well-armed and determined adversaries to face the Tamarian army in its history.

    A shout went up from one of the soldiers on watch, hidden among a series of firing ports built into the concrete at oblique angles. Three riders approached from the northeast--two of them military policemen. A small, green flare arced into the windy sky, high above the open center of the base.

    Woodwind, uncomfortable in his itchy, ill-fitting attire, hungry and bleary-eyed for wont of sleep, sat slumped in his saddle, following the lead of the black-bereted, junior military policeman who rode on mule back ahead of Woodwind's horse. A few strides behind the southerner, the policeman's partner maintained a watchful eye on the flanks of Shadow, Woodwind's magnificent ebon gelding--lest its rider succumb to the temptation of embarking upon an unscheduled change of course. This guest was, after all, his personal responsibility.

    The weary traveler thought nothing of escape. His belief in submission to authority made itself manifest in quiet compliance with whatever reasonable request these Tamarians made of him. Besides, he had become quite curious about the firebase since first seeing it, and, having never before encountered any fortification of such unusual design, wanted nothing more than to have a closer look at it.

    Even so, as he shivered in his saddle, the southerner longed for a good smoke to warm his insides. In thinking this he again remembered Brenna, who had asserted more than once that this particular habit, a most disgusting one in her view, had been acquired in response to Woodwind being deprived of his mother's breast as a boy. "It gives you something warm to stick in your mouth," she would say in jest. The memory of her inspired a smile, as it usually did. He missed her.

    All across the landscape the windstorm shrieked, howling through stately conifers, stripping away the remaining leaves from ancient oaks with unceasing fury. As his horse ascended the steep, narrow, leaf-littered, twig-strewn track, Woodwind felt grateful that the cold kept him alert, for although he needed sleep, a sense of perilous uncertainty required vigilance on his part. Rest would come, he assured himself, but whether in bed or in a grave he could not be certain.

The Red Flare