HRVST, Ch.5: The Moon's Faces Of Power
HRVST, Ch.5: The Moon's Faces Of Power
Tokens of the past were burned and melted down into the next present.
Rome circa 200 B.C. - Luna circa 2100 A.D.
Tokens of the past were burned and melted down into the next present.
When a young Republic defeated Tarquin, last king of Rome, and his Latin League, they made new coins in honor of the Moon Goddess. The new coins of the Roman Republic were marked by Luna on a chariot with 2 horses, or in her other aspect, Diana on a Chariot with 2 stags, as the patron goddess of charioteers. Her status befitted one of the oldest revered deities, rivaled only by her sibling, Sol, the Sun.
One of man’s most ancient deities, worshipped long before the time of the written word, was in the fullness of her power when the moon was a circle of light at night.
The cycle of the moon’s birth, life, and death mirrored the fertility of mortals, she was a constant in the pantheons credited for the life and death of the fields sown by man.
Worshipped long before Romulus and the 7 kings of ancient Rome, she remained revered after the last king fell under the Fasces of the Republic.
The triform Goddess was known by many names: Artemis Luna Diana Selene Hecate
Her celestial interface on Earth was Diana, and in the netherworld it was Hecate.
The name Luna remained, millennia later, when chariots were made to cross the dark to touch her face. The old gods were gone, but she was still credited with the wind, rain, and tides, when new truths displaced ancient rituals. The truths in an age of flying chariots confirmed that the tides were still under her sway.
An invisible thread for a goddess, frayed by time, still remained, uncut by the Fates.
Luna, Aitken Basin, Armstrong Base Central Administration
Aleksander looked around his office, picked up a holo of a family, and out the window with a view of the main square, filled with tents and emergency shelters.
“Where to now?”
“To protect your family.”
The captain put the black card, etched with “HRVST”, in an inside pocket of his vest.
“I don’t want them to find her and the kids.”
“Aleksander, I leaned on you, just a few moments ago.
I also know you want to make this right. Your old boss, the guy who had your job before you, he wanted to do the right thing too but he didn’t have help.
They send people like me to do things, it didn’t matter if it was right or wrong, it got done. I’m here, doing a favor for a friend. All she had to do is ask, I said yes. But right now, that’s not the thing to get done, not yet.
Right now, the thing to do is protect your family.”
“They’ve found the team members who resisted. I haven’t said anything but maybe….”
“They won’t. I won’t let them. We won’t let them.
They have security but they’ll double, triple up at the first sign of the wrong kind of trouble. We’re going to do this in quiet, with the help of some friends.”
“Friends? So, that’s what you meant when you said, ‘who says I’m the only one here’.”
“Where do we go?”
“The shipyards, I know one of my friends should be there. We start there.”
Luna, Aitken Basin, Crater Rim Shipyards
“Is Tommy here?”
“Who’s asking? We’re busy here.”
“Can you let Tommy know that Ed Lawrence is here?”
The shipyardie sheathed in an augmenter looked at the captain for a moment, and seemed to recognize the administrator, but said nothing. Work not words moved ships.
Someone else wearing an augmenter walked towards them.
“Ehhd… waarrd… Llaaww…rreennccee…. Mr. Lawrence. Why are you here?”
“Good to see you Tommy, how have you been?”
“Why are you here? I told you, after I was discharged with no pension airdrop, with nothing, that I would let you know how I have been, if I ever saw you again.”
“Tommy, you know they wanted to lock you up for 20 years. I had it knocked down to an honorable discharge and a waiver of benefits.”
“He had it coming, what he did in that town. Officer and a gentleman. You know that, the whole unit knew what he was. The service knew it. They were cowards.”
Tommy bounced right for the captain, with the wrench in both hands like a battle axe. The captain dodged aside, and caught one of his friend’s boots, setting off a messy cartwheel in lunar-G into a pallet full of boxes.
Arms from the shipyard appear out of nowhere, grabbing the captain, who broke free.
“Alright, that’s it, enough! Tommy. Kids, people in danger. This time, we can do something. No waiting for orders that never come. No one getting away with it.”
The captain extended a hand, Tommy was about to knock it aside, paused, and accepted a hand up.
The captain turned to the administrator to make introductions.
“Aleksander, this is Tomassina Agroterre, one of the finest members of the service ever recruited and then discharged for reasons kept under seal.”
“This is your friend?”
“Yes, this is my friend because if I wasn’t, I would dead right now or need a doctor before then dying anyway.”
The captain turned to his friend, and gestured at the administrator.
“Tommy, I don’t know how much you know about what’s going on but I need your help. To keep some families hidden and safe from unwanted attention. From the looks of your operation here, it looks like you know about avoiding unwanted attention.
Once they’re safe, I need your help for the reason I’m here. If we don’t take care of it, then nobody is safe in the long run. It’s out there.”
The captain nodded towards an invisible place outside the main domes.
Sergeant Agroterre took in a deep breath and a slow exhale. She looked at the administrator, the captain, and then the shipyard. The shipyardies looked at them. As soon as Agroterre turned her eyes on them, they scattered back to work.
“Get back to work! We’ll need help. I know where we can find the others.”
The captain smiled.
Notes: AI image via Lexica
AI art Lexica prompt:
1 via Lexica
2 Zaha Hadid city with Noraman foster dome and mosque in a Fantasy world and photo inspired by Where weird things happen by Daniele Gay on art station , le corbusier model on the ground inspired by Mining by Risa lin on art station
3 futuristic berlin under construction with great blue glass buildings, working around, huge roundabout, hyperdetailed, artstation, cgsociety, 8 k
4 technology, glass antikythera, silver, sci - fi, beauty portrait, futuristic complex 3 d render by ikya kuvshinov, simon stalenhag, ryohei hase, wlop, kinkade, greg rutkowski. octane render, 8 k, sharp focus, luminous, intricate, highly detailed. post processing, ray tracing