by Jay Allan
Chapter 4
Main HQ – Prime Base
Columbia, Eta Cassiopeiae II
Earthdate: 2321 AD (36 Years After the Fall)
“I want those formations ready, Colonel, and I do mean immediately. What I saw this morning was utterly unsatisfactory, and if I am forced to make an example of someone, I can assure you it will not be one of those sweating, undertrained soldiers out there.” Jarrod Tyler was angry…and over the years, if there was one thing the officers, ministers—even the people in the streets of Columbia’s cities—had learned, it was to take cover when their president was mad.
“Yes, General Tyler. We have pushed them as hard as possible, but…” Tyler’s withering gaze carried a clear message, one that stopped his subordinate’s words cold. Columbia’s senior military commander—and absolute ruler—did not want excuses, and he certainly didn’t want any responses that included the word ‘but.’ “I will do whatever is necessary to get them ready, sir.” The nervous officer stood at attention, unable to hide how much effort that took in the fearsome presence of Columbia’s dictator. Though his rule was mostly benevolent, at least in matters not related to planetary security, Tyler was also a feared leader, and few Columbians could stand up to his imposing presence.
Tyler hadn’t always been the frigid-blooded tyrant he’d become. In fact, he’d been an ardent supporter of freedom, a military officer who’d followed every order given to him by the duly-appointed civilian authorities. Then he’d watched his home world attacked and occupied multiple times, first by the Caliphate and the Central Asian Combine, and then by the xenophobic forces of the First Imperium. The Shadow Legions had come next, its clone armies killing tens of thousands of Columbians. Still, despite more than a generation of continued warfare and devastation, he’d watched the people lose their vigilance again, and vote the president—his wife, Lucia—out of office in favor of a new government sworn to dismantle the powerful but expensive Columbian military.
He’d railed against the short-sightedness of that approach, reminded anyone who would listen of Columbia’s violent history…but it had all been to no avail. He’d watched helplessly as his wife and her political allies were cast aside, and the splendid military he’d spent his life building was dismantled. Then, as if on cue from a universe that seemed determined to teach lessons to imbeciles, the First Imperium returned.
The Second Incursion had been an unmitigated disaster for Columbia, and the planet came closer to total extinction than ever before. It had survived only because Jarrod Tyler had rallied the remnants of its shattered military—and anyone else who would fight—and waged a guerilla campaign, fighting from the swamps and woods and mountains and protecting the terrified population from the xenophobic invaders, until Erik Cain returned with the Marines, and once again drove the enemy from Columbia.
That last war, however, had been enormously costly, for everyone on Columbia, and for Tyler in particular. Among the thousands dead in the desperate struggle was Lucia Collins, his wife, a woman he’d loved beyond words, one who’d grounded his humanity, who’d kept his growing anger restrained. It was then, after the war, counting the terrible cost, that something changed in him. He’d seen what the people had done with their republic, how quickly they’d forgotten all those who’d died in the wars that had come before. Never again, he had vowed, and without another thought, with neither the slightest doubt nor an instant of hesitancy, he seized power and made himself Columbia’s absolute dictator, a post he’d retained with an unwavering grip over the nineteen years since then.
His coup had been relatively bloodless, a fact that had been made possible mostly by the unmitigated devotion of the veterans of his victorious army. They shared much of his anger, the cost they had paid because of the lack of readiness had been in blood, theirs and that of loved ones killed when the First Imperium bots landed and swept through the planet’s cities, destroying all in their path. The soldiers had followed Tyler’s orders without question, seized whatever objectives he told them to take, captured whomever he commanded them to arrest.
Killed anyone he instructed them to kill.
Tyler had not been bloodthirsty, at least not toward the population at large. But he’d had no pity for the politicians, corrupt to the core, who had crippled the planet’s ability to defend itself and poured the diverted resources into their own pockets, and those of their allies. For them, there was no mercy, and Columbia’s army displayed its unwavering loyalty to its commander by the ferocity with which it sought out those proscribed, butchering them in their homes, in the streets, in whatever hiding places they sought refuge.
Tyler turned and watched the new soldiers as they continued to drill. They were doing well, better than he had any right to expect of such green troops. But he felt the familiar coldness, the foreboding feeling that his homeworld was once again about to taste the bitterness of war. The Black Flag was coming. He’d been to summits with other planetary leaders, listened to their wishful thinking, their arguments that the enemy could be contained, that they could be bribed, bought off. But Tyler knew better. He was sure, in a way he couldn’t explain but couldn’t deny either, that the enemy’s goal was nothing but the total conquest of Occupied Space. And if they wanted Columbia, they were going to have to fight like hell for it.
He’d always maintained a strong military, the largest and most powerful Columbia’s resources could sustain. But now he’d gone well beyond that. He’d strengthened his alliance with the Black Eagles, and he’d sold Darius Cain the permanent rights to the moon the mercenary had leased to house his Nest. It was a thinly-disguised way for Cain to funnel some of his vast treasure to his ally in a face-saving way, funds, Tyler realized, Darius would be only too certain would pour into expanding Columbia’s military. Tyler wasn’t fooled, but he still appreciated the face-saving gesture. And he took the money. This was war, and the choices were victory or slavery. Or death in his case. One thing he was sure of…he would not survive a lost war. He would be no man’s slave.
“General Tyler, the ships from the Nest have arrived.” An orderly came racing across the field, carrying a small tablet. “They will be entering orbit within thirty minutes.”
“Very well, Captain,” Tyler said, reaching out for the device. He took it and scanned it briefly before handing it back. “I want that cargo on the ground as quickly as possible. All other freight shuttle traffic is secondary. Advice Major Silman he is authorized to commandeer any transport assets he needs.”
“Yes, sir.” The aide saluted and turned abruptly.
Tyler stood for a moment and sighed. He’d been expecting the shipment, and there it was, right on time. Was there anything Darius Cain did in a disorganized or ineffectual way?
The ships carried arms and ammunition, and suits of armor, the very best ones in Occupied Space, straight from the Eagles own production facilities. It was all technically part of the price for the moon, but at its core it was Darius Cain, arming an ally, doing everything he could to maximize the fighting strength at his disposal. Tyler knew his forces were good. Not Black Eagle good, of course, but then who was? But if he had time to equip and train his elite troopers with the new armor, they would be ready to unleash hell on anyone who threatened Columbia.
He walked across the field, back to the sparse and utilitarian quarters he’d occupied since the day he’d seized power. He was one of history’s most atypical dictators. He detested the operation of the government, yet he saw over the minutest of details, leaving no decision of any consequence to anyone else. He was uninterested in power, but he held onto it with a grip as tight as any strongman who’d ever lived. It was the only way…the only way to prevent another disaster like the Incursion. Like the nightmare that had cost him his wife.
* * * * *
“You weren’t sleeping. Again.” Ana Bazarov reached out, putting her hand on Darius’s back. He flinched slightly, as he usually did. Her touch was one of the few things that relaxed him, but recently it seemed
she had lost some of her calming ability. The tension was too great, the burden of work Darius had taken on to himself more than any man could endure, even the great and terrible General Cain.
“If you noticed that, you weren’t either.” His voice wasn’t completely devoid of tension—she couldn’t remember the last time it was—but there was some bit of calm there too, and something else, a sound she suspected few outside this bedchamber had heard from the mercenary. Affection.
She wouldn’t go so far as to call it love, mostly because she didn’t know if he was truly capable of such an emotion. He loved his parents, of course, in a traditional sort of way, and his attachments to his oldest colleagues, like Erik Teller, were close ones. But Cain was so cynical, his view of the universe so dark, she wasn’t sure if his psyche would ever allow him to get too close to any lover. His defense mechanisms bordered on the psychotic, but none of that mattered to her. She loved him, of that she was certain, and she would accept whatever emotion he was able to give her in return.
He had done that much, at least, there was no question. When he’d first rescued her from the ruins of conquered Karelia, she had despised him. But he’d sent his soldiers to find her sister, and he’d given them both shelter and medical care, and took them away from a world that offered them only enslavement and ruin. He’d denied her nothing, and he’d treated her with kindness, something that had surprised her. And he’d forced her to do nothing. Indeed, her trip to his bed, when it finally happened, had been driven by her own initiative. He hadn’t made so much as an advance to her until she’d made her own interest known. She’d realized then, the feared mercenary was a far more complex man than people imagined.
“I think your insomnia is contagious.”
Darius smiled and turned his head, smiling at her, careful not to change his orientation enough to interrupt the backrub. “I’m a restless sleeper. I never could get through an entire night.” That was an understatement. If he got an average of three hours, four at most, by morning, she knew that was a lot.
Ana returned his smile, moving her hand to the back of his neck, to a spot she knew was the physical manifestation of his stress. The knot there was an epic one, almost Gordian in scale. Even as her fingers worked it, she knew it was more than she could handle. Short of the shade of Alexander coming out of history’s mists with his sword to chop it apart, she knew Cain’s tension would endure. She wondered if seducing him was a better route, but she knew it wasn’t a good time. He’d be bounding out of bed any moment now, heading back to the control room to check on the dozens of operations he had going on. His mind was there even now, she knew.
Darius had massively expanded the Black Eagles, and he’d taken every step he could to secure and strengthen allies for the coming fight. She’d watched, seen the effect the stress had on him, even as he took more and more onto himself.
She knew most of Occupied Space despised him, that his name was used as a bogeyman to scare children. She also understood that millions had died at the hands of his soldiers, though she’d come to realize that he hadn’t started any of the conflicts his soldiers had finished. He’d told her once, as he saw it, the Black Eagles had saved far more lives than they’d taken, that their swift completion of wars had prevented them from becoming extended, world-destroying struggles. That hadn’t made any sense to her at first, but now she understood, and she realized he had almost certainly been correct. It was a strange kind of logic, but that didn’t make it less true.
For all they curse his name, if any one man is likely to save them from the doom that is coming, it is him. She wondered if they would appreciate him then, if they would build statues of him, instead of making curses of his name. Probably not, she thought sadly, realizing just how much his cynicism had rubbed off on her.
“I have to go,” he said, as he slid to the side of the bed and sat up. “We’ve got weapons shipments I need to check on, and I have to do an inspection on the new recruits. Gray and Brown Regiments are looking pretty good, if I do say so myself, but they’re not up to Eagle standards. Not quite.”
Not yet, Ana thought, interpreting Darius’s true meaning from his words. She’d never seen anyone as convinced as him that anything was possible with enough effort.
“You didn’t get any sleep at all.” She was concerned about him. She was always worried when he went off on campaign, of course, but now she half expected him to work himself to death and save the enemy the trouble.
“I’ll grab a nap later.” A lie, she knew.
He leaned over the bed, putting his hand on her face and kissing her gently. “I’ll try to get away for an hour later. Maybe we can have a late supper.”
She smiled. “I would like that.” She sat in the middle of the bed and watched him walk through the door, his mind already deep into a dozen other things.
Darius Cain had kept a dozen mistresses when she’d arrived at the Nest, some of the most beautiful women from all the worlds of Occupied Space. They were all gone now, shipped off with generous trust funds, enough to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. She suspected that kind of generosity was something others wouldn’t believe, that they would imagine the terrible general disposing of those he tired of without so much as a goodbye. But she’d come to know the real Darius, at least as much as anyone could. And, to whatever extent anyone could claim this, he was hers, in his own way, as much as she was his.
She could deal with his idiosyncrasies, his emotional baggage, even the fact that he was so hated. She could deal with it all…except the dread fear she felt, the haunting, horrible terror that she would lose him, that he would die in the coming conflict and she would be alone again.
Chapter 5
Inner Sanctum of the Triumvirate
Planet Vali, Draconia Terminii II
Earthdate: 2321 AD (36 Years After the Fall)
The three ‘entities’ were restless. It was almost time. For two years, their pirate fleets had ravaged Occupied Space, destroying hundreds of ships and bringing commerce to a virtual standstill. The fleets of their enemies were hopelessly scattered, chasing raiders, escorting vital shipments, protecting planets from imagined invasions.
Hundreds of planetary economies had collapsed, and on those worlds that were not self-sufficient, society itself was on the verge of total breakdown. Once-wealthy mining colonies withered away for lack of food and other essentials. Resource-poor worlds saw their industry shut down, deprived of needed imports to sustain operations. Rampant crime and mobs of desperate, starving people ravaged many planets, and authorities had begun to crack down violently, resorting to any measures necessary in futile attempts to restore order, and maintain their own power. Only those worlds that had yielded, accepted the Triumvirate as their overlords, were spared the relentless assault on their economies. Spared the terrible specter of utter ruin.
All was going exactly according to the plan. The hundreds of raiders, the ships known to civilization now as those of the Black Flag, had brought humanity to the edge of despair…and yet they were merely the vanguard of the force that would strike. In orbit around Vali, and positioned throughout the Draconia Terminii system, were hundreds of warships. Not the fast, sleek—but relatively lightly-armed—raiders, but cruisers and battleships, and massive carriers filled with fighters, all technologically the equal of the best humanity possessed. No, not the equal…better, more advanced.
This fleet, the iron fist of the Triumvirate, stood ready to finish the job, to complete the project the entities had worked on tirelessly for three decades. The end goal was power…nothing less than the subjugation of all humankind. And vengeance, payback long overdue. Its fruition had taken longer than the shortened lifespans of the three Stark clones, but they had found a solution to that problem, as they had to all others. The Intelligence.
The sophisticated AI, millennia ahead of anything possessed by mankind, had been found buried in the sands of a world not far from Draconia Terminii IV. The clones had ordered it retrieved, r
estored. It was First Imperium, that much had been apparent at once. It had taken years to salvage the ancient computer, to restore it from its version of death. And it had repaid its benefactors. Within its vast memory banks was a procedure to download the essence of a living being into its core, to grant effective immortality. And so it had for the three clones of the Triumvirate. Now, the last obstacle, the deaths of their physical bodies, had been removed as an obstacle. They would see the plan through, monitor every facet of their operations, with a completeness and retention that would have been impossible before.
The Triumvirate remembered its purpose, the need for revenge, the driving quest to avenge the death of its progenitor. Yet, such thoughts were vaguer now, as was the individual nature of the three component entities. Even the name Triumvirate seemed odd. Yes, they had been three separate beings, men, who had often disagreed and debated fiercely on their courses of action. But that was back when their essences were encased in flesh. Now, there was less disagreement, and the separation between them, what had been that thing they’d called their personalities, had begun to fade away, at least partially, becoming more a cold recollection of data than anything else. Even the quest for vengeance and the lust for power were somehow…different. For thirty years, they had worked to bring all of humanity under their iron grip, yet now, as they stood on the cusp of attaining that goal, other thoughts began to surface, ideas that perhaps mankind needed a pruning, an elimination of all but the most productive elements of its constituent populations.
There had always been a willingness to utilize whatever violence and destruction was necessary to see the plan to fruition, but outright genocide had never been the primary intention. Until now. The Intelligence had provided more information, not mandates, but logical arguments. Most people’s existences were wastes of resources. They consumed more than they provided, placed burdens on society. They would always require surveillance, security to control them. The Intelligence was right. It was far simpler to eliminate those that were not necessary, reduce the problems of maintenance to the bare minimum.