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Author's Foreword

Since this is either the fourth or the seventh novel in the series, depending on how many of the earlier stories have been released, I must give a summary of what has gone before for new readers.

If you wanted to start reading at the beginning, Arrival is your objective. If you want to read this novel but would like to know how the situation began in Arrival you could read the chapter one posted on the publisher's site at http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-613-0. It gives the situation in the opening hours. Briefly, a starship full of technical experts from our world winds up in the wrong place - an analog of Earth called Gaia in an alternate universe. Instead of being able to help develop the infrastructure of the colony world where they were bound, they have to defy unexpected enemies to build a place for themselves in a pre-existing 17th century world.

As some readers have pointed out, Gaia seems to be at the end of a conduit that collects stranded star travelers. Two hundred years before the arrival of the Iskander the Trigons, a military caste, arrived in a star cruiser and conquered the existing European empire run by descendants of the Carthaginians. It seems that Carthage won the Punic Wars and the Roman Empire never got off the ground. When the Trigon star cruiser wore out they didn't possess the technological know how to repair it or even maintain themselves above the level of the natives. The central conflict in the Iskander series is between the established Trigons who attempt to prevent any developments that might threaten their supremacy and the newcomer Iskanders who want to build developments as fast as they can to create the kind of world they feel people should enjoy, and to establish themselves as an independent nation.

In the novel stories, this usually boils down to a contest between Gisel Matah, the foremost security officer of the Iskanders and Drago Zagdorf, the upwardly striving spymaster of the Trigon Empire. There are always more enemies than this, as well as old and new friends in each novel.

In Arrival, Gisel isn't anything more than a 16 year old starship brat, who grows into the security gig in the first turbulent 5 months of the contact. The story shows the Iskanders on the rough edge of learning that it doesn't matter how knowledgeable you are if you don't have the political and financial backing to make use of it. They check out the kingdom of Lingdon first (which is where England should be) and learn the Trigons are soon onto them and bearing down on the king before they can gain his permission to set up shop. He does pass them on to his son-in-law, the Autarch of Tarnland (Sweden) who is fighting against Whonmark (Denmark & Norway) and Lubitz (Prussia) to liberate his country. He welcomes their ability to produce new devices, tactics and weapons.

The next stories, following Gisel's career in order, have her first security operation to attempt to rescue a nobleman; her first military command as a young lieutenant where she and Iskander demonstrate they are a force to be reckoned with; a maritime expedition to places across the ocean to collect vital products, and pull the Trigons' beards in naval warfare. Then we reach "Deadly Enterprise" where the now 20 year old Gisel escorts Yohan Felger, the heir to a mercantile enterprise, to the city of Lubitz where they thwart a coup d'etat and convert the enemy city into an ally.

In "The Wildcat's Victory" Gisel and Yohan are a romantic item and the managers of a Felger-Iskander partnership, but not all is well because their respective bosses expect them to pull fast ones to benefit the home team. Gisel breaks out of the stalemate by accepting an offer to lead a cavalry unit in a daring campaign and in a month of whirwind action bloodies the nose of both the Trigons and a new peril from the east - the nomadic Skathian horsemen. Gisel is quick witted enough to set the Trigons and Skathians at odds, when they soon realize they both need a period of peace in order to figure out what the arrival of the Iskanders has done to their old rivalries and a two hundred year old peace treaty. Which is about where this novel starts - the fragile peace has held, but the undercover combat is only beginning.

The Wildcat's Burden

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you," Nietzsche

Chapter One - Riot

Major Gisel Matah, military governor of the city of Skrona in liberated Tarnland, stepped onto the concourse at the top of the Town Hall steps as the mob reached the Great Square. Her four Iskander security guards fanned out around them as the two officers accompanying her scanned the approaching crowd.

"You were right, Major." Captain Jans commanded the cavalry of the garrison, the same 3rd Light Cavalry she'd led in the last campaign the previous year. "The demonstration has turned into trouble, but my troopers are ready."

Gisel studied the crowd a moment, all displaced Lubitz settlers. They had genuine grievances, but she wasn't about to let them bring their anger into the streets. The mob streamed down the three major arteries into the square from Hagriche Park where their leaders had inflamed them with speeches. The words they shouted were incomprehensible but raised fists and brandished iron bars and pick helves told her everything she needed to know.

"Return to your squadrons, Captain Jans. Seal off all the exits from the square once the mob is inside. Leave the main avenue to the naval docks open. Keep your sabres sheathed unless I order otherwise. Your officers will herd the protestors south against the dockyard walls."

"Yes, Major, but I will leave you a half troop here to support your Peace Officers."

She turned her head to fix him with a fierce stare. Her men had started bending her orders of late - something they'd not presumed to do with her instructions before. Almost in the last month of her pregnancy, they treated her as a delicate flower instead of the fierce Wildcat. She scowled and shook her head. "I may waddle like a goddamned duck, but I can still shoot straight."

Jans grinned and saluted.

As he turned away she softened her tone. "I appreciate your consideration, Captain; a section will do. My husband will be grateful for your care of me while he's away." Yohan bitterly railed at her commanders, who refused to allow her maternity leave, but clearly they did not want the pregnancy to diminish her Wildcat persona. Ha! Thanks, guys.

The Lieutenant of the Peace Officers, once a sergeant of the town militia, regarded her expectantly. "My men are in the street behind the building, Governor. What are your orders?"

Gisel eyed the crowd that streamed into the square. Mostly men, but she could see women and a few children running between the groups of ruffians. "Form your men into a single line across the concourse, about fifty paces from the bottom of the steps. Hold firm to keep the mob from reaching the building."

He licked his lips. "Yes Governor . . .. There are . . . a lot of them."

"I see that, but I have backup for you." She scanned around the tiled rooftops of the tall buildings opposite, looking for visible heads. "My riflemen are waiting on the far side of the roofs for my order to move forward. You understand that I do not want to have them open fire, but if your men are threatened I will so order them."

"Thank you, Governor." He threw a loose salute, pivoted about, and marched away.

She had selected his detachment recruited from the Lubitz citizens to keep order against their countrymen. The Tarnlish Peace Officers were patrolling the rest of the city. The genocidal dissension between the two groups wasn't new - it had been ongoing ever since Iskander captured the city five years before. Forty percent of the inhabitants were from Lubitz and they disputed the inevitability of returning Skrona to the Tarnlish crown.

Their anger had caused this riot. A group of Lubitz citizens had accepted an offer to travel to new lands outside Tarnland where they would build new homes. It was a good deal for the new settlers, but their fellows remaining behind demonstrated against reducing their numbers and power.

She was as much a target of the anger as her fellows. Her first successful undercover mission had opened the main gate to let Lord Ricart's Iskander cavalry columns take the city. Since the stranding of the starship Iskander on Gaia seven years before, their technology had revolutionized the 17th century world. But the changes that had improved the lives of many had diminished the power of others. Those who had lost, hated them.

Everyone assumed her governorship had been a reward for her early success. She knew better ...