Read The Mandate of Heaven for Free Online

planet?”
    “Croesus was King of Lydia, a kingdom that once existed on Earth, about three thousand years ago,” I confirmed.
    “Cor, blimey!”
    “Nick, what was the news?”
    “What news?” he replied, confused.
    I took a deep breath, trying to hold back my scream of frustration at my easily distracted friend.  “The news that you came running up to tell me not five minutes ago, desperate to share with me, you know the news that you haven’t told me yet .”
    “Oh, that news.”
    “And?”
    “The SPC Orion intercepted a refugee transport heading into the System and according to the Tower there were thirty refugees on-board, including men, women and children.”
    I stumbled to a halt, deep in thought.  To describe the Orion as a system patrol craft was stretching incredulity to the breaking point.  It was a hurriedly patched up freighter with a few bolted on laser emitters, that fed directly from its ancient and extremely unreliable, ion engine.  I should know having spent several months making it flight worthy, or near enough.  Suddenly his words clicked in my head and I looked at my old school friend with sudden concern.  “What do you mean there were thirty refugees on-board?”
    “They’re all dead now.  The Orion opened fire on the freighter after they refused to turn back,” Nick’s response was muffled, as he was busy digging through a small rucksack that he had been carrying on his shoulder, finally withdrawing a sealed container with much delight.
    “They’re what?” I clenched my teeth, biting back my anger.  After all it wasn’t Nick’s fault, he was just the messenger.
    “Dead,” Nick repeated, unperturbed.  “I’m surprised that you didn’t already know, after all it was your father that ordered the Orion to intercept the freighter.”  He finally looked up, after managing to unseal the vacuum container that had stored the cream cake perfectly, but I was already long since gone.
    *****
    The sound of the door being flung open and slamming into the wall reverberated like a gunshot, and I winced at the sound.  They probably heard the bang back at the spaceport, almost ten kilometres distant.  While I could not take my ire out on Nick, my father was a different matter entirely, from what Nick had said he was likely to be the cause.
    The noise caused Lucifer to raise his head sleepily, giving me an indignant glare, before settling back down to sleep in front of the fire.  Lucifer was my father’s ever-present Wolfhound, a term coined by me from a young age, as nobody was quite sure of his pedigree, but I was convinced he once must have been a wolf after my father showed me a picture of one.
    The noise barely disturbed my father, pausing writing in his journal for a moment, before resuming.  “Close the door behind you,” he insisted, without even looking up.  “There is a terrible draught in this house.”
    “Well, perhaps it’s time you find a new, smaller one,” I snapped back, ignoring his subtle rebuke.  “What do you have, thirty-eight rooms, for just the two of us?”
    “Thirty-nine,” he grunted.  It was a long-standing disagreement between the two of us, if the twenty-foot square cloakroom counted.
    Ignoring his response, I stalked forward to tower over him, as he was still seated behind his desk.  The sun had set over an hour before and it was now dark outside, hence the only source of illumination in the room was the fire, which cast long, dancing shadows.  Not that my father seemed to notice the lack of light, or was particularly moved by it, as he had excellent night vision.  Eventually he sighed, closing his journal, putting his pen aside and giving me his full attention.
    It was another peculiar thing that I had noticed about him.  When others paid me close attention, they might look aside, fidget or interrupt.  My father never did any of these things.  He simply sat there, perfectly still and stared at me with his dark, troubled eyes, which so