The alarm bell rang sharply at 5 am, signalling the start of a full day of jobs that needed to be completed on the farm, but today the alarm also signaled the last day of my employment on the 300 miles of farmland that my family has owned since it had been first cultivated 50 years ago when my grandfather had moved to the colony to begin anew. Leaving behind his fortune, his name, and his reputation and starting his life again on this new land as a humble farmer raising his sons and daughter on the land he was now a part of, my aunts and uncles still lived close by, maybe a town or province away at best but my father, the middle of the three sons, stayed to continue farming the land my grandfather had bought.
His eldest brother, my Uncle Robin worked in the construction industry, he had never wanted to inherit the farm as he had never liked the quiet life of country living. His wife and daughter lived with him in the provincial capital, where he had worked his way up through the years to run his own construction firm which was often hired to construct more housing and tower blocks for the ever-growing capital city of the Suneh province. Whilst the youngest of my uncles, Uncle Rhy, worked in the military; having joined up at 18 much to my grandfather's chagrin, just as the Colonial Insurrection was getting violent. Uncle Rhy never saw any real action though as the insurrection had never been anything more than some disgruntled colonists who had missed the last of the "gold rush" for the best land the time they had arrived. Despite the lack of action Uncle Rhy had over the years gained a promotion here and there until his career settled with him staying at the rank of Staff Sergeant for the last twelve years based 10 miles from the capital city.
I didn't often get to see either of my uncles as much as I would like but that would all change after today, thanks to my Aunt Charlotte, through her persistent sisterly nagging of my father had managed to secure me a role at her husband's company, Zugrict Incorporated situated within the township of Sano just thirty minutes from my father's farm. But there would be no rest for me on the last day of 'real work' my father called it as I quickly dressed realizing that upon standing I had lazed in bed for twenty minutes longer than I should have.
"Alexander! Where are you boy?! I need you to help me get the livestock out of their pens now!" Cried my father from outside of my bedroom window. "Coming dad!" 'Must have dozed off' I muttered to myself. "I'll be right down!" I yelled back, hoping my way towards the door while tugging yesterday's socks onto my feet while gnawing down on the leather sides of my work boots. Much to my mother's shock and dismay, as she opened my bedroom door to see that I was indeed making a move, I tripped over my discarded pile of dirty clothes from the day before, sending myself and the clothes flying out into the hall as my mother made a hasty retreat into the landing to avoid being flattened.
Landing with an earth-shattering thud, she gawped for just a second before she scowled at me. "How many times Alex, have I told you! Don't leave your washing by the doorway! You're lucky at 18 you haven't broken any bones before now." She spoke rubbing her forehead her voice laced with a tone of annoyance but mostly was a tone of frustration. "Sorry mum, I'll take it down now," I said hurriedly scrabbling around snatching every loose garment of clothing I could find as my mother turned back towards the stairs shaking her head in. "One of these days you'll learn how to look after yourself." She stopped suddenly seeming to remember another thing she had meant to come upstairs for.
She turned and marched straight back up the two steps she had already descended, all the way down the corridor before banging loudly on the two opposite facing doors next to where my room was. "Richard! Lizzie! Time to get up the school bus will be here in half an hour, breakfast is on the table." She called to both my younger siblings. As always Lizzie was already awake and dressed as she flung her door wide open her raven hair flowing lazily down past her shoulders, bolting past our mother before hurdling me as I remained crouched on the floor, to land neatly a good metre ahead of me before continuing her mad dash downstairs to grab the best of the warm freshly cooked breakfast my parents would have already enjoyed.
Surprising Richard didn't need a further chorus of loud knocking on his door to awaken him as he stuck his messy blonde haired, sleep filled eyes and wide yawning head around the door to peer sleepily at or mother. "What was the banging for! I was already awake thanks to that oafs failed flying attempt." Richard asked grumpily pointing his chin sharply at me as he said this. "Now Richard there's no need for name calling at this hour, now hurry along and get washed and dressed or Lizzie will have eaten all of the breakfast." His face suddenly dropped as the realization set in that his sister would be helping herself to warm pancakes and crispy bacon, that was always in high demand in this house.
"Oh, come on!" He said swinging his door just as violently open as Lizzie had done but instead of heading in the direction of the bathroom her ducked under our mother's arm before trying to push his way past me as I stood their arms full with dirty washing. "Alex get outta my way! I can hear her eating my breakfast!" Richard shouted trying desperately to find a gap he could wrestle through to get downstairs to the kitchen. "Oi! Not so fast, mister, you know the rules, showered, dressed and bed made before you're allowed downstairs now move it, young man!" Our mother told him sternly looking inside his bedroom. "And an open a window to it stinks in there." Richards face comically tried to look annoyed and innocent at the same time.
"That's Alex's mouldy clothes it's not my room and hey why are you getting at me for my room look at his!" But by this point I had already started descending the stairs, but not before savouring the joy of stuffing a dirty sock down his pyjama shirt causing him to shriek in disgust. I had just managed to make it away before an enraged Richard and a rapidly infuriated mother both tried to take swats at me. "Why do you two always fight Alex? Can't you two just get along for once?" Came the voice of Lizzie, albeit muffled due to the fullness of her pancake filled mouth. "And what would dad do if he saw you talking with your mouth full eh Liz?" I responded while dumping my washing load into the washer, before turning to leave the house.
Lizzie's face went a little pink as she thought of the reproductions she'd face if caught, I winked mischievously at her while stealing a couple of slices of toast from her plate as well as a handful of bacon rashes from the centre bowl. She gave me the same scowl that our mother had so excellently perfected over her years as a parent, which was impressive but also terrifying that a six-year-old had managed to nail the look so quickly her deep blue eyes piercing into my soul, I smiled acting oblivious as I stuffed the hastily made bacon sandwich into my mouth while heading out onto the back porch still able to clearly hear my younger brother and mum arguing upstairs.
"What have you done this time Alex? Guessing that's why you're even later now." Asked my father from over by the livestock pens main doors. "Oh, you know old sock down the back of the shirt, I think Uncle Rob told me about that one," I said striding over to him smiling happily at his disgruntled face. "Urgh, I hated that one he'd always do that when he'd purposely worn a sock for a week without washing." My father said while shuddering at the thought. I laughed aloud at his discomfort only to be cut short by a set of quadbike keys being tossed at my head, flinching at the suddenness of the appearance of the keys I instinctively reached out to catch it but only proceeded in punching the sharp metal keys with my fingers.
"OW! Son of a!" I cried shaking my hand furiously to shake off the pain but to no avail. "That shut you, up didn't it?" My father said while chuckling to himself, to which I responded with a weak approximation of my mother's scowl. "Yeah yeah, pout as much as you like, now come on we have to get these cows over to pasture 26 jump on the quad and follow the herd I'll lead them out, you know the drill." He said opening the doors fully allowing the dozy bovines their exit towards the near 30-mile-long track we'd be herding them down, while I started the grubby quad bike up before returning to the barn doors ready to seal them once the herd had left, the two work dogs we owned stirred upon hearing the commotion and ran down barking happily at the prospect of a good run.
"Come on girls get yourselves moving gotta make that son of mine do a full day's work before he packs all this real work in for the city life." Came the light-hearted shout from dad as he stood atop his quad peering over his shoulder at the meandering cattle as they slowing streamed out of the barn before joining the others as they followed his lightly revving engine. Rolling my eyes, I gave the stragglers a quick shout accompanied by the barks and snaps the two dogs gave to chivvy them along before, sliding the great metal doors shut then hurriedly mounted the quad gunning the throttle to speed the slow cattle up to meet the rest of the herd. Pasture 23 was as the name would suggest 23 miles down the track and we needed to get the herd grazing and then check the remaining 29 pastures on this stretch of the farm.
I gave a sharp whistle and the two dogs sprang into action rushing to either side of the herd snarling angrily to scare the slow-moving cattle into a run. Together my father, the dogs and I kept the speed up marching the herd all the way to the paddock, upon seeing the last cow inside and dad bolting the gate shut he turned wiping his brow to clear the sweat brought on by the morning sun pouring down across the mountain peaks that flanked our farm. "Blimey, I hate these hot mornings." He exclaimed taking a large swig from his water canteen. "It's only 6 as well, now that I'm going to the town you can hire some more farm hands and Richard's taking on more farmyard jobs, you should kick back a bit dad you've been doing this since you were 38." He slowly started to nod before taking another large swig of water.
"Ah maybe you're right Alex, I had hoped for you to be here a little longer but I know that you need to go and experience life for yourself and there is so much to there to see, more cities to explore and countless planets up there with more with great cities and cultures of their own." He sighed heavily, climbing back onto his quad before glancing back across the paddock. "Huh, that's strange." He said looking puzzled, I too stood up on my own quad looking at what my father had spotted. There were several large military transports speeding along the road towards the farmhouse. "What's the military doing up this end of the world?" I asked looking back towards my dad only to see him starting his quad up, then gunning it back towards the farmstead.
When I finally made it back to the house I found my dad in a heated discussion with a tall man in a black uniform accompanied by a squad of troops all in full battle gear and weapons. As I parked the quad and told the two dogs to stay by it I headed over to stand beside my father. "What do you mean you're acquiring this land for military use?! That preposterous, my farm is the largest on this continent I supply nearly all its food! You can't just take my land and turn it into a military garrison!" My father exclaimed looking incredulous at the very thought of what this military man was saying.
"I'm sorry but who are you?" I asked the man in black, giving him the once over noting the lack of weapon at his side. "I am Lieutenant Hargate of the Colonial Garrison and I was just explaining to whom I presume is your father, that there is a severe need for a heightened military presence in the outer colonies and this farmland is extremely well situated within the mountain valley and the sheer size of this farm would mean that we would not suffer through the logistical nightmares of purchasing several farms to acquire the same amount of land from many different farmers." I stared at him equally as incredulously as my father did.
"We're offering your father 80% of all his current livestock priced at recent market value and 70% for all crops grown and 100% of the farmstead itself in Earth dollars which equates to $50 billion, your father and yourself would be able to purchase another smaller farm or retire from farming altogether, you would be doing your planet and government a great service." Hargate said looking dead serious as though what he was 'offering' in any way a fair deal. "My father passed up that much money just to move into this life sir, I would not wish to give up his wish just to return to such a life so I am afraid I must decline." My father said matter of factly, staring straight into the Hargates eyes.
Lieutenant Hargate sighed before motioning for the five soldiers behind him to move forward. "In case of sir, I'm afraid I have to inform you that you are under arrest under the 2148 Anti-terrorism Act for refusing a lawful request from a military officer, yourself and your family will be detained until further notice or a military tribunal overrules this arrest," Hargate stated as two of his troops moved to restrain us, while the others moved towards the house. I reacted by knocking the soldier's hand, who was advancing on me, taking a step towards Hargate. "This is illegal! You can't just arrest us for refusing you!" He looked indifferent at my outburst. "I can, from this moment onwards you and your family have been identified as Insurrectionist sympathisers and have been detained for the safety of the planet."
My hand tightened into a fist at his words, as I moved to throw a punch at Hargate my father's hand clamped tightly onto my wrist preventing me from raising it. "No Alex, I know you mean well but striking him would only validate his story." His defeated voice clearly should remorse as stopping me. "Lieutenant, please assure me that you will not harm my family in any way and that you respect the grave of my parents, please move the graves of my parents to outside the boundary of your new base." Hargrave looked sympathetic for a split second before looking up towards the house to watch my mother and two siblings being dragged kicking and screaming out of the door. "You can't!" My mother shrieked managing to land a solid boot-clad foot right on target of one of the soldiers' groins, he doubled over in pain and was violently sick. I tried to run over to the three of them but had the fist of the soldier who had tried to restrain me planted his own fist into my sternum, with an audible grunt of pain I collapsed to ground tears already streaming down my cheeks.
At this Hargrave barked an order to have us all thrown in the back of the personnel carrier with our hands cuffed. Richard put up a decent fight for a cuffed 15-year-old almost taking a soldier ear off with his teeth as he took bites at his captors. "Richard pack in, don't give them an excuse to hurt you," I spoke through gritted teeth as I was hoisted off the ground and placed on a sit between my mother and Lizzie, both of whom were in floods of tears. "Unlike you Alex, I'm going to put up a fight because I care about my family unlike you!" He snapped after being slammed into his seat next to our dad, who upon hearing those words turned to look at Richard. "Don't you dare speak to your brother like that! There is no more he can do then you can and he's older than you so keep that kind of talk to yourself!" Our father snapped sternly making Richard fall silent a permanent expression of anger set onto his face.