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Boxmaster's Home
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
The alien fleet lurking at the edges of the Union of Stars has lost in its attempt to take over the Union of Stars by stealth, subtrefuge and conspiracy. Now the aliens attack en masse.
The war is hard and cruel. The Union of Stars is losing, retreating on all fronts before technological superiority. The aliens are invaders from another galaxy -- they can't retreat. They have nowhere to go. So they fight ferociously for the existence of their various species.
Yran's home planet, Kethsem, is among the first taken -- by a species that likes the environment humans can barely tolerate. Union of Stars defenders are falling back from that region evacuating planets as they go, abandoning Kethsem unless something is done.
Odirin and Yran, now a Boxmaster in his own right with his own ship, accept a covert assignment to retrieve their Boxes from Kethsem despite it being in enemy hands. The information may allow the Union fleet to take Kethsem back.
Everything goes smoothly on the mission until they gain possession of their Boxes. In retreat they are discovered and chased in a stolen ground car which they crash into a river.
Swimming away from the wreck, they hike up a mountain away from the spaceship they have hidden for their getaway. They acquire riding animals and flee into an unseasonable snowstorm, with their Boxes in tow, hoping to evade their pursuers.
Odirin is thrown from his animal and knocked unconcsious. Yran drags his unconscious body up to his own family's ancestral home, isolated at the top of the mountain. Unseasonably early snowstorms of unusual ferocity pound the mountain as other survivors of Yran's family arrive.
Yran manages the stresses in the family that had disowned him -- against the will of those who would throw him and Odirin out into the snow to die.
Odirin finally comes to, and gradually heals. They are not welcomed, but they are tolerated for their potential to rescue Kethsem from the invaders.
They spend the winter on that mountain juggling family stresses, and in spring, winning the respect of this shattered family.
Some of the family gather to follow Yran back to the stars to make their home. They travel together as a family, right across occupied territory.
Discovered, they make a mad dash for the hidden spaceship and manage to run the blockade and rejoin the Union of Stars battleship Hytril.
Meanwhile, Lii and his family including the infant Yran brought to Lii, have been engaged by the military as advisors on what to do about Kethsem and how to retrieve Yran and Odirin from the planet.
Lii and his whole family are waiting for them as Yran brings those of his birth family who are loyal to him aboard the military flagship.
By drawing on the skills, personalities and abilities of his entire extended family, Yran catalyzes a process that ends with a peaceful solution to the invasion. Kethsem is saved though other planets are traded off to the aliens, including the one where Lii had made his home.
Lii and the rest of Yran's patchwork family take land on a newly opened planet in exchange for the land Lii had owned before. They build a new house and found a new life which includes Yran and Odirin who has accepted a place in Lii's family, however peculiar.
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