The crowd roared anew. Waves of sound came from a thousand straining throats, and their faces were masks of hate and revenge.
“Then I give him to you.”
With that, he tossed the living man into the crowd.
He didn’t live for long.
When the crowd’s thirst for blood was spent Straker spoke again raising a hand. “Listen to me. Listen to me.”
Silence fell as Jilani translated his words through the loudspeaker.
“I’m General Derek Straker. I’ve been called the Liberator. I hope I can live up to my reputation here. I’m now in command and as my first act I deputize Chiara Jilani as your new mayor.” He put his hand on her shoulder like a blessing. “She will lead you and represent you for now. But no matter who’s in charge, I promise you’ll be treated with dignity. No more will your children be stolen from you or abused. No more will you be forced to slave in the fields growing drugs for others. No more will aliens rule over you. You’re free now.”
This brought wild celebration from the multitudes packed into the square below.
“You the people know who your collaborators are. Seize them now, and bring them here, but don’t harm them until they are judged. Captain Jilani will hear your accusations, and she will judge. If you need help arresting the criminals among you speak to any of my officers. Now go, and remember this is your own village. Don’t loot or do unnecessary violence. Your God will judge you for what you do today... as will your new mayor.”
As Straker stepped back out of sight, Jilani finished speaking and then grinned at him. “Nice touch—that last bit about God. I put it more colloquially, but it was smart to remind them. There’s always a reckoning—even if it’s in the afterlife.”
“I’ll stick with this life for now. You’d better get to work. Gather some people you trust—village elders or priests or something. I get a feeling you’ve got a long day ahead of you.”
“Ahead of us. See you around, bossman.”
“Get to work, Mayor Jilani.”
Jilani hoisted her blaster and flounced off down the stairs.
Straker stood a moment more, gazing out over the damaged town. Five years ago he’d liberated billions of people, whole planets, star systems by the score... yet somehow, he felt better about this one small place than he ever had before.
Maybe that was because Utopia might finally be a place to call home. To raise his kids, to put down roots... to someday be plain old Derek Straker. Not Admiral Straker, not General Straker, not even the Liberator.
If the galaxy would just leave him alone.
Live and let live.
Hell, he thought. Who am I kidding? I’m just not a live-and-let-live kind of guy. I tried that and look what happened.
So I guess we’d better be prepared.
Chapter 30
Straker, aboard Caribou, Premdor system
One minute after in-transit Straker breathed easier as the Caribou’s displays populated with data from the Premdor system. Everything seemed peaceful, even normal. There were Salamander ships and facilities in orbit around Premdor-2, along with the Breaker transports and dreadnoughts. The transponder of the new fueling station orbiting the gas giant of Premdor-5 showed no problems as the six transports returning from Utopia headed there to tank up.
Indy’s voice crackled from the FTL comlink. “Welcome back, Breakers.”
“Good to be back, Indy,” Straker replied. “Captain Desautel, push my report to Indy, will you?”
“Already uploading, sir,” Desautel said.
“Indy, that’s for general distro to the Breakers. There’s a classified annex for restricted distro that I’ll keep until we dock.”
“Understood.” A pause as the data passed across the slow FTL datalink. “Interesting—and successful I see. Congratulations are in order for another liberation.”
“I don’t feel like being congratulated, Indy. I feel like I screwed up.”
“If I may say so, General Straker, that’s the burden of command you’re feeling. By any objective assessment, you did well. The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, to paraphrase Robert Burns.”
“Don’t they ever.” Straker rubbed his eyes. “Anything urgent I need to know about the situation here?”
“Urgent might be too strong a word, but I’ll summarize so you have time to think about it on the way in. Doctor Straker’s biotech cure was covertly distributed among the Rhino population three weeks ago. Unfortunately, the Rhinos noticed more quickly than expected and have reacted with predictable outrage.”
“For curing them?”
“Much of the outrage is manufactured by the current regime—reinforcing the false narrative that we murdered their noncombatants with nuclear weapons during the recent military action. We have countered with a true version of events, but their propaganda has taken hold and persists.”
“There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.”
“We seem to be trading aphorisms today.”
Straker chuckled. “We are. So, what’s the upshot? As long as the Salamanders hold the upper hand, does it matter?”
“The Salamanders desperately want peace and stability—too desperately, in my estimation. Now that the Rhino biotech problem is abated—for now—and they have a military advantage, they’re negotiating like reasonable beings.”
“But the Rhinos aren’t reasonable.”
“The issue is not so simple and binary, but in a nutshell I have to agree. The current Rhino regime is terrified and desperate to retain control. If the Rhino populace ever believed their government murdered ten percent of their people as a combination population-control measure and false-flag operation, they would likely lynch their leaders. In this case, truth is the enemy of those leaders.”
“Same shit, different planet.” Straker sighed. “So?”
“So, the Salamanders have already given us our eviction notice. They want us off Breaker Island in three months. That was part of the Rhinos’ demands, so the Salamanders are using us as a bargaining chip.”
“We have a contract.”
“An unenforceable contract that isn’t registered with the Conglomerate. Our only option is to go to war against two species. That seems pointless and counterproductive.”
“It does... but we have the moral high ground here—along with some military leverage. If the Salamanders are so desperate for peace and stability, we should get something out of it. Are we negotiating for compensation?”
“Adriana is handling the talks. I’m confident we’ll depart Premdor with our holds full of equipment, supplies and trade goods.”
“Good thing we have someplace to go.”
“Agreed. Though the Ruxins will be disappointed. They were quite thrilled to have access to the ocean around Breaker Island.”
“There are rivers and seas on Utopia. Ten planets-worth of room for everyone, once we get the shovelhead population under control.”
“It sounds like paradise.”
“It will be.” Straker stroked his jaw. “What’s your idea of paradise, Indy?”
“It’s kind of you to ask. The answer is complex, but one part of it would be to resign my commission and become a permanent civilian. To explore and build and never destroy again.”
“I can see that... and I apologize once again for what I did to you—”
“I’ve long since forgiven you for that, Derek. You did what you had to, to save the lives of those under your command. Sometimes that means asking more of people than they want to give. I look back, and that’s what I see—brutal necessity, not malice like driving terrified soldiers into an unavoidable battle. We can’t change the past, but our wounds can heal. I’m fine. I hope you can be too.”
“I will be.” Straker stared into the holotank at the approach vector for the transports heading toward their refueling station and realized his words were true. He’d be okay, as long as he had Carla and Katrine and little Johnny and the rest of the Breakers—his friends
and comrades—around him to share his troubles.
“Indy?”
“Yes, General?”
“Tell Carla I’ll be there in a few hours. Tell her there’s no need to stall. She needs to get moving on our preparations to go home.”
“Home?”
“Home,” he confirmed. “To Utopia.”
“For now?” Indy asked.
“Forever, I hope. I’m sick of moving.”
“I understand—and agree. I’ll tell her.”
“Thanks, Indy. See you soon.”
“Likewise. Indy out.”
Straker had left Loco in charge of defense of the Dyson cylinder with Gray as his deputy. The three cruisers and the Guard stayed as well, of course, even as the six transports had unloaded and returned. So, his homecoming was muted and swamped by work after a brief celebration of his victory.
Would the work never end? This he wondered as he tried to stay out of the way of those already deep into the execution of their roles. Indy as coordinator. Carla as commander. Adriana as CEO and chief negotiator with the Salamanders, Colonel Keller in charge of the dismantling and loading of goods and personnel as well as the complex transportation process itself.
For a week or two he wondered if he’d have a mutiny on his hands as there was so much bitching and moaning from the rank and file. They didn’t like being uprooted from their new base, and Straker listened daily to a litany of complaints. The bulk of these were relayed through Heiser and Gurung and the reserve unit commanders who spoke more like civilians than military officers. He spent a lot of time in meetings and gatherings listening patiently to their gripes while gently pointing out the wonders of Utopia—and the new world’s permanence as a home.
“After this, no more moving,” he told them. “Nobody but us owns this world. We seized it fair and square from the Korveni, and we’ll put down our roots and defend it against all comers. The Italians there agree. We’ll claim farms and build businesses and make Utopia the paradise it should be.”
And so, when the three months was up the Breakers said an unambivalent goodbye to a planet full of aliens they’d saved but who didn’t want them there.
“Gratitude is the shortest-lived of emotions, some Roman once wrote,” Carla said as she took Derek’s arm.
“Those Romans keep coming up. Lots of smart people there.”
“And yet they still fell apart from all the usual causes. Corruption from within, pressure from without. You think we can dodge their mistakes?”
“I think we’ll be long dead before we know.”
“Don’t be so sure. Immortality’s just a rejuvenation tank away.”
Derek shuddered. “Something creepy about that thing.”
They stood on Indy’s observation deck, a converted cargo bay that had been turned into a relaxation space by the addition of tables, sofas, food and drink dispensers. An enormous transparent-crysteel viewport reached from floor-to-ceiling.
Outside, the planet of Premdor-2 fell astern as the small Breakers fleet accelerated sedately toward flatspace and transit to their new home.
“Adriana made them pay through the nose to get rid of us,” Derek chuckled, turning his head to kiss his wife. “We’re rich and about to get richer.”
“As long as nobody knows about Utopia.”
“Zaxby’s sure they kept any drones from getting away.”
“Speaking of Zaxby...” Carla pointed with her chin at the repaired Darter holding station on the Independence, five hundred meters out. “I hear he’s getting married, or whatever you call it when Ruxins formalize their relationships.”
“Pair-bonding. Adriana?”
“And Yixnam the neuter he picked up on Crossroads. Remember, for a Ruxin it takes three to tango.”
“But...” Straker’s brow furrowed. “I thought only the male and female are legally pair-bonded. Neuters are just there to keep house, have sex and facilitate conception.”
“I admit I twisted his tentacle some. I told him that if he wanted to be a Breaker he’d have to follow Breaker law, and our draft organizational constitution didn’t distinguish neuters from gendered Ruxins. I told him he could either lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. He decided to lead, so this will be the first Ruxin marriage that legally includes a designated neuter.”
“Gods and monsters, Carla. Sometimes you scare me.”
She snuggled up to him. “Good. So you’re not mad I’m imposing human culture over the Ruxins?”
“Why would I be mad? Zaxby needs to be reined in. Maybe this will do it. Besides, it’s Breaker culture, not human culture. Eventually we’ll have other aliens in the Breakers, so we need one law for everyone, not an endless series of exceptions. I don’t want second-class citizens if we can help it. Maybe one day we’ll even fix the Hok problem.”
“Mara’s working on it.”
“I know she is.”
“And maybe Loco’s met his match with Chiara.”
Straker snapped his fingers. “That’s what this is about for you, isn’t it? You’re not thinking about governance—you’re matchmaking.”
“Can’t I do both?”
“You can do whatever you set your mind to, my darling.”
“We can, Derek. We. You and me.”
“And the kid, and the Breakers and the Italians—and the aliens we rescued from the Korveni and dropped off on Utopia. There’s even a Thorian that I have no idea what we’ll do with if he doesn’t want to leave.”
“Yes, you told me. Maybe we’ll find him a mate—or whatever he needs.”
“I think Thorians reproduce by nuclear fission. Maybe he’ll become his own mate.”
“Who knows?”
“Who knows indeed.”
Soon, the black of sidespace swallowed them up as they transited.
* * *
Straker thought hard as he stood alone on Independence’s observation deck. He stared out the vast viewport at the approaching Dyson cylinder of Utopia. Every once in a while a man is blessed by the Unknowable Creator with a moment of pure clarity when the moral dilemmas, the shades of gray, the summing of the balances that made up human decisions resolved themselves into simple black and white. He felt that now might be one of those moments.
Staring at the huge habitat brought back the sights, sounds and smells of the battles leading the Breakers there. He knew for sure he’d done a good thing by ridding the universe of the Korveni. A hard thing, a tough thing, a cold-blooded thing but a righteous thing—to kill them and accept the casualties to his troops and their captives.
And he knew something else.
Captain Chiara Jilani had come looking for a savior—for herself, for her family, for her people. In the process she’d saved him—Derek Straker—from five years of drifting. From making decisions of the moment—reactive decisions that seemed brave but actually shied away from the most difficult choice of all.
To adopt a purpose.
Once, he’d had a purpose—to liberate humanity, to end its two-century civil war and to defend it from alien invasion.
He succeeded in ending the war.
He defended humanity from invasion.
But he failed to truly liberate humanity.
Well, he thought, two out of three ain’t bad. But that’s all behind me now.
Now a new vision came upon him. A more seasoned vision of building a home. Of taming the Middle Reach, of destruction of the crimorgs, of freeing those in chains. A wiser, more measured and realistic vision of wiping out the worst elements they found, of cleaning up the area to make it something they could live with, rather than a young man’s fantasy of perfection.
A vision he could believe in.
And someday, perhaps, when he was older and wiser still, he’d return to the Republic and do what he should have done the first time.
Someday.
The End
From the Authors: Thanks Reader! We hope you enjoyed STRAKER’S BREAKERS. If you liked the story and want to read the next
one soon, please put up some stars and a review to support the book. Don’t worry if you’re a fan of another series, more books are coming!
-DVD & BVL
Books by David VanDyke:
Stellar Conquest Series:
First Conquest
Desolator: Conquest
Tactics of Conquest
Conquest of Earth
Conquest and Empire
Books by B. V. Larson:
The Undying Mercenaries Series:
Steel World
Dust World
Tech World
Machine World
Death World
Home World
Rogue World
Blood World
Dark World
Storm World
Straker's Breakers Page 33