by John Carr
“But right now, it appears, that their shunning of technology has left them better prepared than anyone else for the next couple of centuries on Haven. Of course, the Empire could win the War and return.”
Colonel Leung gave out a hollow laugh that sounded as if it might have taken his last breath. Leung was a native of Haven and had no illusions about his home world’s importance either to the Admiralty or to the Imperial Council. “Look, General, those thugs are hijacking that beer wagon in broad daylight!”
The chopper was flying lower now and as Cummings looked down, he saw scattered muzzle flashes and men scrambling onto an overloaded beer wagon. Someone had shot the muskylopes and already looters were running out of houses to share in the bounty. One of the guards was firing back, but both the drivers and the other guards were sprawled on the pitted roadway.
“And they call this the civilized part of Haven,” Leung added, pausing as a series of coughs wracked his frame. He had contracted a nasty strain of Black Lung, Haven style. Even the Militia’s stock of medicines, which had the best pharmacy left on Haven, were impotent against the ravages of this slow virus. Leung was far past the infectious stage, but the disease would clog his lungs until he was bedridden, which might be no more than another two or three years. If Cummings’ hadn’t needed his administrative abilities, he would have put him on compassionate leave years ago.
“Castell is the center of civilization on Haven, Colonel - or was. I had hoped that maybe the Chamber of Deputies and our City Fathers had learned something during Steele’s reign. He was not a nice man, but he did stop inflation and put people back to work. Hell, he carved out a nice little kingdom for himself, even called himself King of Haven. If he had allied himself with the Sons of Liberty, instead of taking New Abilene. . . Well, he wouldn’t have had to fight both the Sons and the Rhinishers at the same time. And might still be on his throne.”
“I’ve never understood why we just didn’t take a couple of battalions into the City and clean the place up ourselves, General.” He pointed to the burning wagon below, covered with citizens’ prying loose barrels and casks. “We could hardly have done a worse job.”
“Maybe. But Generals don’t make good rulers. They’re not supposed to. Our job is to win wars. It’s the politicians’ job to start them. I never signed on to run Haven. Remember what a great job the Federales did on Diego? Not that anyone could have done much better. Sort of like here.”
“True,” Leung said, “and we don’t have many allies in the Chamber of Deputies.”
The general bit down on his pipe so hard it left teeth marks on the stem.”They’ve done a damn good job of turning most of the citizens against us, too. Made us scapegoats. Hell, scapegoats we may be, but sitting ducks we’re not.”
They both sat in silence as the pilot brought the copter down on the little pad on top of the General’s walled residence. It had been the Cummings’ home since the 77th “Land ‘Gators” had pulled out for good back in 2623, but it was where Laura had put down her roots. After decades of roaming the Empire, as Cummings and the 77th Imperial Marines had been rotated from one hotspot to another, Laura had sworn that once he’d retired from the corps, she would never move again. Sworn an oath to it.
She’d kept it too, despite his protests. Now he had to make her break it. Castell wasn’t safe anymore for the Militiamen or their families.
They didn’t have much of a marriage these days. How could it be, with him only aging a year for every decade she passed? Since Laura had turned seventy, he’d no longer been able to deny the obvious. Physically, he was in his early forties, while she was quickly becoming an old woman. Haven, with its extreme temperatures and harsh radiation, did that to people. Most people, but not him.
He could remember when Colonel Leung was a shavetail Looie; now he looked a decade older than Cummings. It hadn’t hurt their relationship, but it had played hell on his marriage, especially since it hadn’t been very strong to begin with.
Laura had been such a beautiful young girl when he’d first spotted her on the streets of Old Heidelberg during his days at the Marine Academy on Friedland. He had fallen for her like a gut-shot buck. It had taken him almost a month to learn her name and six more to get permission to ‘visit’ her at the family estate. It hadn’t helped that her father, the Baron, was the Marine Commandant of the Academy.
The war hadn’t yet started then, but there had already been clashes with the Saurons and Outie planets. After marrying, they had spent an idyllic year on Friedland, one of the oldest and most beautiful settled planets. Then he’d been transferred to New Washington as part of the 42nd Imperial Marine Division. Another peaceful and earth-like loyalist world; they’d stayed there almost six months before the 42nd shipped out to put an embargo on Meiji.
He and the 42nd had been shifted from hotspot to hotspot until the Succession Wars began with the death of David II.
All Cummings knew, for certain, was the Empire had been at one kind of war or another during almost his entire career.
Laura had liked it on New Washington. She had set-up permanent quarters there with most of the other 42nd’s officers’ spouses. Only a few intrepid wives had attempted to travel with the Division as it hopped hither and yon from one crisis to another. Their times together had been few, but good. True, like many space wives, Laura had grown to enjoy her independence and after awhile, almost appeared to enjoy his leavings nearly as much as his arrivals. They had had enough time together to bring two beautiful girls and one son into this chaotic period of history.
“Looks like trouble in Melody,” Colonel Leung interjected. Cummings peered down at Melody, the Harmony enclave - or barrio, depending on whom you asked - where several homes were on fire. The New Harmonies had been the original owners and settlers of Haven, until the CoDominium decided that any place that far away from Earth made an excellent dumping ground for political exiles, troublesome minorities and garden variety criminals. Haven was over a year from Earth by way of the old Bureau of Relocation deportee ships, and four Alderson Jumps from the nearest inhabitable world.
In other words, it had been the end of the line. Still is, for that matter.
The Harmonies had lost their world and most of their property in the following years. Now they only occupied a small enclave in Castell City, although there were still Harmony farming communities throughout the Shangri-La Valley. The Harmonies were non-violent - not pacifists, or they would no longer exist on Haven. They had developed certain castes, the deacons and bedes, who took the onerous job of violent confrontation.
He could see scores of them in their black robes scurrying around the burning houses, keeping the growing mob at bay. Cummings had always admired them for their adherence to a code of action that was, in its way, as structured as that of the military. The Harmonies also supplied most of the Militia’s grain and dairy products. They didn’t believe in taking animal life for any reason other than self-defense. He suspected the attack was directed as much against the Militia as it was against the Harmonies.
He tongue-keyed his tooth mike: “Sergeant Major Slater, call a company of troops into Melody, at the intersection of Concord and Peace.” He could see the Harmonies’ horse-drawn red fire wagons approaching as he spoke, “Send three of the Falkenberg 120’s. That will keep the streets clear.” The Falkenberg tanks were fifty years obsolete in the Core of the Empire, but here they were still the most powerful vehicles on Haven.
“Aye, General.” Cummings could hear his trusted aide in his earphone. The chopper had a line-of-sight laser comline to Fort Kursk so he wasn’t worried about it being intercepted. The last thing they needed was another confrontation with the locals just now. “If the locals ask where we’re going, tell them we’re escorting dependents out of a firezone. Out.”
The General heard the distant pop of gunfire as the copter settled onto the small pad on top of his residence. I haven’t been home in months, he realized with a guilty start. Well, there’s so much to do
...and we really don’t get along anymore...
A trapdoor took them inside the house, where they were met by the butler with a revolver in one hand, pointed toward the floor, as Cummings had taught him.”How are things, outside?” the butler asked.
“Not good, Wilson. Not good. Where’s the Missus?”
“She’s in the sitting room, sir,” the butler said, with a nod that let Cummings know she was already heavily into the sherry. But then again, when had she not been, especially when she knew her husband was arriving?
Even though he knew what to expect, General Cummings still wasn’t prepared for the sight that met his eyes. Laura was still dressed in disheveled nightclothes, and her thin grey hair looked as if it hadn’t been washed or combed in a week. Her face, a nest of wrinkles, looked twenty years older than her seventy years would have led one to expect.
My God, she has every reason on earth to hate my guts! He thought.”Darling, how are you?”
“Well enough, General. And, no, I’m not too drunk to know my own mind. It’s early yet. I had a dream about Robert last night, before we came here and this place killed him.”
It was an old argument and one that he no longer bothered to respond to. Their twelve-year-old son had died within a month of their arrival of a blood-clotting disease specific to Haven. She had never forgiven her husband for it. He, himself, had only come to terms with it through hard work and the words of the Brigade chaplain.
“Now that Helga is married and Ingrid is off with that pompous friend of yours, Baron Hamilton, I don’t have anyone left to talk to. The other officers’ wives are too young, and, anyway, most of them actually like this bloody Hellhole!”
“Most of them were born here, darling.”
“And they’ll die here, too. Just like I will. Only I don’t like it! But don’t worry, General, it won’t be very long.”
“Please, Laura, let’s not get maudlin.”
“You bastard. I should have never left Friedland with you. Now my daughters are gone and I’m left all alone.”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about, dear. It’s not safe for you any longer in the City.”
She slowly raised her head, turning her gaze on him for the first time since the conversation began. “How dare you! I stayed here during the time that dreadful man, who called himself King of Haven, ran roughshod over Castell, and I never had any problems. Why should things get worse now?”
“Because, for all of his faults, David Steele was not a fool. Steele knew better than to harm the wife of the man who was commander-in-chief of the largest military force on Haven. Unfortunately, these self-appointed Deputies at the Chamber don’t have half his common sense. I never thought the day would come when I’d miss that villain, but I do. These damn fools think they can bend the Brigade to their will by threats and intimidation.”
“Then they don’t know my Gary,” she said with cold sarcasm.”Now, do they?”
He sighed.”I don’t want anything to happen to you, Laura. Please, start packing. We have to leave now.”
“No,” she said sternly. “You’ve bullied me enough. This time I will not leave my home; it’s all I have left.”
The General felt his heart sink. He’d been afraid of this. It would only get uglier from this point on. He was tempted to turn around and leave, but the girl he’d fallen in love with still lived inside, under the wrinkles and wattles. It wasn’t Laura’s fault they hadn’t aged together like everyone else. He wouldn’t leave her here unless she absolutely refused to go. No matter what, Laura didn’t deserve the indignity of being carried off against her will by his own soldiers.
Let her preserve what little self-respect she has left, he thought. If Laura truly wanted to stay in their home, fortified by her familiar possessions and memories, let her stay. He owed her that much, at the very least.
Thirty-Three
I
Vessel Commander First Rank Galen Diettinger, of the Sauron Fleet Heavy Cruiser Fomoria, stirred slightly in the command seat, waiting for the lag effect of the Alderson Jump to wear off. As his vision cleared, Diettinger realized he could make out more details of the bridge surrounding him than he might have liked. Fire had blackened a third of the room, while smoke still drifted lazily in the red glow of the combat lights.
Somehow, they had made it. Diettinger stood, stretched, and stepped down on wobbling legs to stand behind Second Rank.
“Summon Weapons and Engineering to the bridge; wardroom meeting of all command ranks in ten minutes.” Second Rank Althene began calling the various personnel at their Jump stations.
“Positional fix,” he said to the Navigations officer beyond Second Rank’s duty station. Navigation shook his head.
“Nothing yet, Dicta - Sorry, nothing yet, First Rank. Very low energy emission signals from the system overall. Looks like a real backwater.”
Diettinger frowned. Good, and not good. A place to repair and refit the Fomoria would have been ideal, but would likely be heavily defended as well. And they had no strength to secure as such. Next best thing would have been an area in which they could hide, and this system seemed to fit the bill nicely. But after their escape from three squadrons of Imperial heavy fighters, that would mean two pieces of extreme good fortune in a very short time.
Diettinger might believe in luck, but he did not trust that much of it at one time.
The hatch behind him opened, and Engineering stepped through. The Weapons officer accompanying him was bleeding from an arm wound - not serious. Few injuries that did not kill a Sauron outright were.
“Status,” Diettinger said to the Weapons officer.
“Point defense systems at thirty-percent. Main armament intact, auto-mechanisms down. Repair estimate of thirty hours with materials and crew on hand.”
Diettinger almost smiled. This far from the Front, the presence of enemy forces should be unlikely. It would certainly have carried them far away from the front lines. So point defense didn’t really matter. But the main armament could shoot, if not yet aim. He had expected the news from Weapons to be far more depressing. On that account, Engineering did not disappoint him.
“Jump-Core failure. Total. Maneuvering fuel down to twenty-percent from a hull breach, four maneuvering engines down, one beyond repair.” That left Fomoria with two currently operational, out of six.”Internal systems now running on cells. Cells damaged. Forty-percent destroyed, twenty-percent damaged, forty-percent operative.”
“You have discretion on manpower and materials necessary for repairs,” Diettinger told Engineering. He turned to Weapons. “Dismantle half of the remaining point defense systems and pack them for transport. All repair is to be directed toward returning the main armament to ready status. Rig all ordnance for planetary bombardment. Calibrate beam stations for precision surface interaction ops.”
Weapons barely raised an eyebrow as he saluted and turned to follow Engineering out the hatch.
Diettinger turned back to Second Rank. She was frowning in obvious puzzlement.
“Wide scan status, Second.”
“No interplanetary traffic or communications, First Rank. An automated refueling station in orbit around an inner gas giant. Source of all non-automated signals and emissions is one of the same gas giant’s moons.”
“Position, sir.” Navigation announced.
“Speak.”
“Byers’ Star, the Haven System. The moon referred to by Second Rank is only settled body. Local name: ‘Haven.’ An old CoDominium relocation colony, Imperial since the Terran Exodus. We’re really on the fringes, sir. Files show no Imperial presence in this area of the Sector for almost a decade.”
Diettinger scowled. That makes three pieces of luck, he thought. Well, perhaps he was garnering some of the lost good fortune of all the billions of members of the Race left behind, on and above Sauron. The scowl became a rueful smile. Now he was really becoming superstitious.
He consulted the chronometer implanted in his skull: two minutes to th
e wardroom meeting. Diettinger turned back to Second Rank.
“When Engineering has maneuvering up to nominal, make for the automated refueling station. Approach from Haven’s blind side. Avoid at all costs any detection or other satellites. Inform me when on final approach to the station.”
Diettinger hurried through the hatch and down the hall. He was experiencing emotions rare among Saurons. Excitement. Anticipation. Out of sight of his fellow Soldiers, he actually grinned.
He was starting to feel lucky.
II
Lord John Claude Hamilton stood on the battlements, examining the patchwork of farms that stretched around the castle walls as far as the eye could see. Villages dotted the countryside and a small town was sprouting up outside the walls of Whitehall. This once decrepit country estate had grown into one of the major agricultural centers in the eastern Central Shangri-La Valley. Thousands of people now depended upon Greenswards’ military might and network of political alliances; it was a lot of responsibility. And someday, a voice whispered in his ear, all this will be yours.
John wasn’t sure that he was up to the weight all this represented. If only Raymond would come back from the War. He would know what to do, and do it without question. Raymond, following the family tradition - that John had successfully, albeit not happily, broken - was an officer in the Imperial Navy. A fighter pilot, at least that’s what Raymond had been seven years ago; his most recent message to reach Haven.
They hadn’t heard from Raymond since - or the Empire, for that matter - but that could mean anything. Maybe the Empire had forgotten Haven completely, which looked increasingly likely as the years passed without any official word. Maybe the Empire had lost the war and Raymond was a prisoner or stranded on some former Imperial outpost. Maybe Raymond was too valuable to muster out, or he’d retired from the Navy and couldn’t find passage back to Haven.
A lot of maybes, but there was one certainty; Raymond would never forget the family. He was definitely the ‘right’ sort. The verdict was still out on John, both in his own mind and certainly in that of his grandfather’s, the Baron.