by Jay Allan
“That fucking coward, Strom.” Arlen Cooper had gotten himself on one of the escaping transports. He was packed in, surrounded by filthy, sweat-soaked Alliance soldiers. Command and control had broken down entirely. There were several thousand federal troops fleeing Carlisle for the mainland, but there was no authority, no discipline.
Most of the transports landed on the original embarkation beaches. They were overloaded, damaged, and low on fuel – very few of them could have gotten much farther. The mass of men and women on the beach was no longer an army. Most of them had thrown down their weapons when they ran for the loading hovercraft, and now they streamed inland, mindless, terrified, lost.
They didn’t get far. Jill’s refugees from the camp were everywhere, armed now and hunting down any federals they could find. They fell on the fleeing Alliance soldiers, most of whom tried futilely to surrender. But the mob had no mercy, no pity. They massacred every federal soldier they found…all save Cooper. The governor had the misfortune to be recognized, and he was taken to Weston in chains and dragged before Jill Winton. He was a pitiful, broken wreck, and he groveled and begged for his life.
Jill just stared down at him and laughed as he cried and screamed for mercy. Arlen Cooper had lived his entire life as a sadistic bully, and now he’d reached judgment day. Jill pulled her knife from the sheath on her belt and did the deed herself. Cooper’s end was neither quick nor pleasant, and when she was done Jill sat in the middle of the bloodstained street and laughed hysterically.
Chapter 31
Confederation Hall
Ares Metroplex
Sol IV - Mars
There was a din in the air, the confused cacophony of a dozen separate conversations melding together. The meeting hall was vast, a magnificent testimonial to Martian engineering and wealth. The low gravity presented challenges to the health and day to day life of the Confederation’s citizens, however it was nothing but a gift to its engineers and architects.
The talks between the Alliance and its rebellious colony worlds had been going on for weeks, and finally they were close to agreement. Both sides had entered with hardline positions. The Alliance refused to recognize any level of colonial independence, insisting that each world had to submit to any federal authority it elected to impose. That position wasn’t supported by the military situation, but Alliance Gov had many ways to pressure its colonies beyond pure military force.
The colonies, so recently on the verge of total collapse, also entered with an aggressive position. Bolstered by the recent defeat of the federal forces on several of the major worlds, they insisted on total and immediate independence. Admiral Garret had rallied the navy, and after his experiences at the hands of Alliance Intelligence, he declared openly for the colonies. His forces hunted down and destroyed the well-equipped but inexperienced Directorate naval units, establishing total dominance over Alliance-occupied space.
Generals Holm and Cain had rallied the Marine units they were able to reach, leading them into action against the Alliance forces on Armstrong, Columbia, and Arcadia, winning total victories on each world. And the Directorate attacks on Marine garrisons were generally failures, the Marines emerging victorious in most of the encounters. With Garret’s fleet and Holm’s and Cain’s Marines standing with them, the colonial representatives felt strong, and they made harsh demands of the Alliance diplomats…demands that just led to a bitter impasse.
That’s where Vance and his diplomats came in, pointing out to both sides the enormous weaknesses they were overlooking. The Alliance faced disaster without its colonies; even from a protracted stalemate. Stripped of the flow of extraterrestrial resources, the already tottering economy would collapse utterly, with severe and unpredictable consequences. The death throes of a Superpower, especially one as large and powerful as the Alliance, could even destroy the Treaty of Paris and start war on Earth again, and that was something no one wanted.
The colonies had their own problems as well, which Vance’s team pointed out in great detail. They had the Marines and the navy backing them; that much was true. But the Marine Corps was shattered, its widespread garrisons unsupplied and demoralized. It would take time – and considerable resources – to rebuild it back to its former capabilities. Those resources – the weapons, armor, and ammunition a modern fighting force required – could only come from Earth. The colonies lacked the manufacturing capability to produce such high-tech items in any quantity. A Marine Corps backing the colonies without Alliance support would quickly find itself starved of almost every material item it required to function.
The navy was no better off. Garret had been forced to hunt down and destroy the Directorate-controlled ships, suffering considerable losses in the process. The massive post-war surplus of ships was gone, and there were barely enough functional vessels to patrol and provide basic defense…if they were lucky. There were shipyards in the colonies, most notably in the Wolf 359 system, orbiting one of Arcadia’s sister planets. But those shipyards were assembly areas, and they still required sophisticated weapons, computers, engines – systems that could only be built now in Earth factories.
The colonies and the military could become self-sufficient, but it would take years, probably decades. And that was time they wouldn’t have. Already, the other Superpowers, especially the CAC and Caliphate, were ready to pounce on newly independent worlds…planets without the resources to mount a sustained defense. Without the strength of the Alliance behind them, the colony worlds would be picked apart by the other Powers. They would win freedom only to lose it again almost immediately.
The Confederation Agreement was Vance’s brainchild, patterned loosely after the structure of the Martian Superpower’s own founding documents. It was a solution that made almost no one happy, which he considered a good sign.
The Alliance’s colonies were to be guaranteed immediate and permanent self-rule. The Alliance government would have no involvement whatsoever in the internal affairs of the colony worlds, provided the new planetary republics adhered to their obligations under the Agreement.
The colonies agreed to recognize the authority of Alliance Gov to negotiate with all foreign powers, and to be bound to such policies as it may establish. The colonies would be allowed limited trade with each other, but all other interplanetary commerce was regulated by the Alliance.
The Marine Corps and navy were to be reformed. The Marine Charter was reaffirmed and strengthened, explicitly setting forth the rights and obligations of the Corps in greater detail. The navy, which had not been governed by such a document, would henceforth have its own charter, clarifying its rights and obligations. The two services would no longer be part of the terrestrial Alliance Joint Chiefs of Staff. A civilian oversight panel would manage the two services. Initially, half of the members of the group would be named by Alliance Gov, the other half by the colonies. In ten years the ratio would shift to 2/3 named by the colonies. The top military command would be a new board, consisting of two senior officers from each branch. The first Chairman would be Augustus Garret, elected by unanimous vote of the senior officers in both the navy and the Corps.
The colonies were to elect a Confederation Council, which would manage all inter-colony affairs not governed by the Alliance under the Agreement. The individual planets would form their own local governments, subject to the terms of the Colonial Constitution, which was set to be negotiated on Armstrong as soon as the Confederation Agreement was signed. But before it could be signed there were days and days more ahead, filled mostly with useless prattle and arguments. Such is the way diplomacy grinds slowly forward.
Vance sat in his office and considered how things had worked out. The end result was, in no small part, the result of his machinations. The colonials would have lost if Mars hadn’t intervened, of that much he was certain. Gavin Stark’s plans were masterful, and if they’d been allowed to continue, he would have controlled the navy and destroyed the Marine Corps. The Alliance would have ruled its colony worlds with an iro
n fist, strengthening its position even further from the preeminent status it had achieved in the last war. All of the Superpowers would have been threatened by the disruption to the balance of power.
Now the Alliance was weakened, forced to constantly negotiate with its unruly and partially independent colonies. Its armed forces were severely degraded. Indeed, in a perverse twist of fate, its navy had been compelled to hunt down and destroy many of its newest ships. And the Marine Corps was shaken to its very foundations by the treachery of General Samuels…though Vance didn’t doubt that General Holm and his able commanders would quickly restore the morale and effectiveness of the organization.
He was satisfied overall. A dangerous situation had worked itself out, at least temporarily, and some level of stability had been restored. It was all short term, of course. The Alliance Directorate was already taking steps to build its own interstellar military, which they would undoubtedly use to force a rematch with the colonies one day. And the colony worlds bristled at their continued ties to Alliance Gov, no matter how much they knew deep down they needed them. One day, they too would revisit the Confederation Agreement and look to assert true independence. But that was at least ten years away, and probably longer. Neither side had close to the resources and capabilities to defeat the other in the near term.
Perhaps the greatest master stroke was the seizure of Epsilon Eridani IV. The Martian forces took control and immediately invited all of the Superpowers to send a garrison and a scientific team. Vance could only imagine Gavin Stark’s rage when he got the word. But there was nothing Stark could do. Mars had immediately opened the system up to all, and if the Alliance wanted to take back sole control they would find themselves facing the rest of the Powers, all unified. It was brilliantly handled, and even Vance had to give himself credit for the flawless execution.
He looked through the dome to the untamed Martian surface. They had been terraforming the planet for fifty years, but he would be dead and gone before men could leave the domes and walk on those reddish hills without breathers and pressure suits. Technology, he thought…we are so advanced in some ways, yet in other it feels as though we’ve so far to go. Where would Epsilon Eridani IV lead them? Stark had been promulgating the absurd idea that the massive facility was some type of religious shrine, but Vance knew that was propaganda nonsense.
His intelligence was clear. In all likelihood, the structure on Carson’s World was an anti-matter production facility…a big one. Man could produce anti-matter too, but in miniscule quantities and at prohibitive cost. But by all accounts, the alien artifact had once produced massive amounts, harnessing the planet’s seismic energy to do it. It was as far ahead of mankind as a mag rifle was from a sling.
Someone built that, Vance thought with equal amounts of wonder and trepidation. We need to harness that technology, and we need to do it for all mankind, not for Gavin Stark’s power games. Someone built that, he thought again. “And we have no idea what else is out there.” His words were softly spoken, just for himself. “No idea at all.”
Chapter 32
Astria City
Armstrong - Gamma Pavonis III
Jack Winton walked out into the bright sunshine. It was spring on Armstrong, and the weather had been perfect. He’d never been to the massive Marine hospital before, and it had been a sight to see. As big as it already was, there was construction underway on a massive expansion. Armstrong had been chosen to host the combined military establishment of the new Alliance Colonial Confederation, and there was construction everywhere.
Jack was smiling, for the first time in a long time. Jill was responding to her treatments, finally. She had a long road to full recovery, but when he’d first seen her in Weston he had given up hope his daughter would ever come back from the psychotic break she’d suffered. He struggled whenever he thought of how she must have suffered in that camp, what horrendous deprivation and torment it must have taken to turn her into what she’d become.
The mobs had killed thousands – innocent Columbians as well as federals. They had branded any who lived under federal rule as collaborators, and hundreds of people, whose only offense was living quietly and staying unnoticed, were dragged into the streets and murdered.
When the rebel troops and Holm’s Marines liberated Weston, they found the city a ghost town full of horrors. There were bodies everywhere, lying unattended where they’d been killed. The mob had started to come apart, people wandering around in a state of near shock. They were broken men and women, driven past the point of rationality by Cooper’s brutality, and in their despair they had acted no better than the hated governor himself.
Jack found his daughter, sitting alone against a half-wrecked building. He ran to her, but she looked at him without emotion, without recognition. He kept calling her name, but she just stared at him, through him really. Finally, Sarah Linden and her people began tending to the refugees. They weren’t trained in psychiatry, but they did the best they could until Admiral Garret was able to land specialists from the fleet.
There was no liberation for the camps in the other areas of Columbia. When the rebels reached the facilities in Hampton and Southpoint they found everyone dead. Cooper’s orders had been carried out with ruthless efficiency. The camp guards were gone by then, but General Marek had issued a death sentence on all of them, and he dispatched a large portion of the rebel army to hunt them down. It would take months, years maybe, to get them all, but he vowed they would pay.
But Jack Winton wouldn’t be there to see it. He felt he had to get away from Columbia…start new somewhere. And he couldn’t imagine going back to operating a transport business, no matter how successful it was. Admiral Garret made him an offer to rejoin the reorganized navy at flag rank, as head of logistics and supply, and he accepted immediately. A massive new job was just what he needed, and he’d be posted on Armstrong, where he could be near Jill and help with her recovery.
The navy was restructuring in a number of ways, rebuilding, moving facilities. Things were likely to be very busy for a long time. Jack would have more work than he could handle, which meant less time to think about what had happened. And that was just the way he wanted it.
Armstrong’s yellow primary had just about set, and the capital city was beginning its extended twilight – the three hours before the red secondary also slipped beneath the horizon and the real night began.
The great Marine hospital had long been the only major installation on the planet, but the war years had seen a massive development boom. Armstrong wasn’t as big as Columbia or Arcadia, or even Atlantia. But it was on the verge of taking its place as one of the major worlds of the new Colonial Confederation. Its new role as home to the main Alliance/Colonial military headquarters would insure its continued progress into the top tier of worlds.
Its ranking just below the planets of the first order made it an ideal place for the Constitutional Convention that was set to convene the following month – large enough to host the delegations, but small enough to prevent rivalries between the major worlds.
The Hotel Armstrong had been about to open when revolution swept the planet, forcing commerce to a halt. Now the damage it had suffered during the street fighting had been repaired, and the Armstrong was ready for business; at least most of it was…there was still last minute work going on in one of the wings.
The dining room hadn’t opened yet, though for one night a private suite had hastily been put into use. A group, mostly old friends and some new, were gathered together. Responsibilities and duty would soon call them off in different directions, but for tonight they were all in one place. They were there to celebrate the end of the fighting and to bid farewell to other friends, for this war, like those before it, had left its share of empty chairs at their table.
“I am glad you could all be here tonight.” Elias Holm wore a brand new gray dress uniform, and on each collar was a cluster of five platinum stars, the rank insignia of the Commandant of the reconstituted Marine Corps.
The uniform wasn’t all that different from the old one, but the design had been tinkered with a little, as if the slight changes somehow announced that things were different now. “There is an old quote; I read it long ago at the Academy. I have always remembered it, and I think it serves particularly well now. I’d like to share it with all of you.” He paused for an instant. “It is not tolerable, it is not possible, that from so much death, so much sacrifice and ruin, so much heroism, a greater and better humanity shall not emerge.”
He looked around the table, a grim smile on his face. ‘That passage always resonated with me. Not only because of the sentiments expressed, but also the context. The quote is three centuries old, and I think most of us would agree, a better humanity did not emerge. At least not on Earth.” He paused briefly, allowing those present to consider what he had said.
“We have fought and struggled and bled together, but we are not the first to do so, nor shall we be the last.” He looked around the room, at those assembled, all warriors in one way or another. “Let us remember as we go forward from this day that we must fight, not just here and now, but always…each and every day…so that a better humanity emerges at last. Let us never forget that words alone achieve nothing lasting, and only our ceaseless vigilance can safeguard the future we so earnestly long for.”
Holm raised his glass. “To a new future.”
“To a new future,” they all repeated, holding glasses high.
Cain spoke next, his voice somber. “The chance for that future was purchased, as always for such things, by blood and sacrifice. Thousands died so that the colonies might have this chance at freedom. William Thompson, my first friend in the Corps.” He glanced over at John Marek, who was sitting silently across the table. “Lucius Anton, one of the finest Marines…and men…I have ever known.” His eyes moved further down, settling on Jax. The big Marine was wearing his own new uniform, just like Holms’, but with a single platinum star on each collar. “Edward Sawyer, another hero of the Corps.” He paused, his voice wavering slightly. “The cadets, faculty, and staff of the Academy.” The room was silent. To die in battle was one thing, but the horrific attack on the Academy seemed so pointless, so wasteful, it had been especially difficult for them to accept. Cain raised his glass above his head. “To the honored dead…and to friends lost.”