Crimson Worlds Collection I

by Jay Allan

  "When?" Holm looked startled. "Do you really think it's inevitable?"

  Cain let out a sigh. "I don't know what I think, sir. But I know it is possible, probably likely." That was a lie. Erik knew in his heart he was right. "The last few years I've thought a lot about the day we get an order to start killing our own people."

  "He's right, sir." Sarah had been sitting quietly, just listening. Now her voice wavered with emotion. "My family was destroyed because of the whim of a politician's son. They will take whatever they want, and they will destroy anyone who gets in their way. It may have been opportunistic when the system was initially created, but now these people believe they are entitled to behave this way. If the worlds out here resist any directives from Earth, Alliance Gov will try to crush them. No other response would even occur to them."

  Cain and the general both turned to look over at Sarah. She sat in the edge of the chair, her eyes moist with memories of old pain. Erik knew just what she had gone through before she'd found her way to the Corps, and he rose from his seat and walked over to stand next to her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  Holm looked down at the floor, thinking about everything they had discussed. Finally he took a deep breath and stood up. "I don't know what is going on, and I certainly don't know what is going to happen. If General Samuels is being blackmailed or coerced in some way, we have a major problem...one I don't know how to address."

  Erik and Sarah listened quietly, the side of her faced pressed against his arm as he stood next to her. He looks very sad, Erik thought to himself. He wants to believe better of things; he wants to be positive, but he's realizing the truth. Cain was sympathetic, though he did not share the general's emotions. He had never believed in anything except the Corps and generally expected the worst from people outside that sphere.

  "We're not going to solve this problem today, but I think we need to be careful moving forward." Holm spoke slowly, deliberatively, as if he didn't want to say what he knew he had to. "We need to be able to communicate with each other without the political officers being aware of it. Erik, I want you to help me put together a list together of officers you think should be part of this discussion. If something crazy happens, I want more than one or two of us in the loop."

  Erik thought for a minute. "Jax, of course. And Anne Delacorte." He paused briefly again then rattled off several additional suggestions. Finally, he added, "How about the division commanders? They've been with you a long while."

  "Yes, I will have to speak with them. Honestly, if someone is coercing General Samuels, they could target another senior officer as well." He paused, clearly uncomfortable with the entire conversation. "I need to know if anything out of the ordinary is going on in I Corps."

  Cain rubbed his face with his hand. "General..." He paused until Holm looked over at him. "You know I'm very concerned about Alliance Gov and the future. But not about I Corps. Every man and woman in this outfit is 100% on the team. I am sure of that." He made a face. "Except these damned political officers. How are we going to communicate with them following us around everywhere? There's no way we're going to get two or three senior commanders together without at least one of their babysitters coming along."

  Holm twisted his lips into a troubled expression and looked over at Sarah. "We need a go between. Someone the officers can speak with who can relay messages. Sarah? I hate to involve you in this, but you would be perfect. You'll need to consult with them all regarding medical staffing for their units anyway, and that's just the kind of insignificant thing the political officers will ignore. And they don't seem to have assigned political officers to medical staff. You can transmit messages back and forth."

  Cain opened his mouth to speak, but Sarah motioned for him to wait. "General, I'm already involved in it. I'm a Marine, and the only people in the universe I care about are in it too. Whatever I can do, I will."

  Erik looked down, into her eyes. "Are you sure?"

  "Erik, love, if those people have their way and turn these colonies into replicas of Earth, what place is there for you and me? For any of us? You more than anyone should know I would do anything to stop that."

  "Thank you, Sarah." Holm's voice was warm and genuinely appreciative. "It's just about secure communications...a precaution until we can figure out what is going on." He looked over at Cain. "Erik, before I get the hell out of here and give you two some privacy, I wanted to ask you about Carson's World. Privately. You fought there, didn't you?"

  Cain turned to face the general. "Yes, general. It was my first assault. I'm afraid I was paying more attention to not tripping over my own feet than checking the place out. What do you want to know?"

  Holm exhaled loudly. "Can you think of any reason the place is worth all this effort? It's one transit off a dead end, and it's not even populated anymore."

  "Not really, sir." His brow was furrowed as he tried to remember his first assault. It seemed so long ago. "The locals fought like hell; they really impressed me. It's a shame what ended up happening there." He paused again. "The place was a pretty successful mining operation, but nothing all that irreplaceable."

  "That's what I figured." There was definite concern on Holm's face. "Someone has a reason to send a force as large as I Corps to a seeming backwater. I keep thinking abo..."

  "There was one thing!" Cain had spoken with startled recollection then realized he'd interrupted the general. "Sorry, sir. I didn't mean to interrupt."

  "C'mon, Erik." Holm flashed a grin. "You've got to know me better than that by now. If you have something useful to say just tell me the shut the hell up and say it!"

  Cain nodded. "Well, sir, I don't know what it means, but the CAC troops were using gas to hunt down the militia. Back then the locals really didn't have much protective gear, and the nerve gas was pretty effective. Remember this was before the war was even official, and way before it went nuclear." Cain closed his eyes and paused for a few seconds, thinking. "I remember how surprised the experienced guys were. There were some unwritten rules in those prewar skirmishes, and not using gas was one of them. When the battle was over and some of the CAC troopers tried to surrender, we just shot them down. I remember how odd it seemed that they would use that kind of weapon on a backwater raid. They had to know it meant no quarter if things went bad." He looked quizzically at the general. "Why were they so desperate to finish off the militia? It's not like the locals could have held out that much longer anyway. What was so urgent?"

  They stood there silently for a few seconds. "Whatever it was," Holm finally said, "I suspect it is the same thing at work here. I wasn't in the chain of command for the op you were in back then, but I remember the reports that the CAC had raided Epsilon Eridani IV." He snorted. "I guess 'raid' was what we called an attack before the politicians made the war official. I fought in half a dozen of those 'raids,' and the responses to them, and when my troops got shot they were just as dead. I wonder if they felt better or worse in their last minutes because we weren't really at war." He looked down at the table, lost for a moment in old thoughts, then he shook his head. "I'm getting off subject. As I was saying, I remember being surprised that the CAC went after EE-4, especially before hostilities had widened. It's not really strategic to them at all. It seemed very random, just like it does now." Another pause. "There's something about all of this we just don't know. But someone does. Is that General Samuels, I wonder? Or someone who is pulling his strings?"

  Cain sighed. "I don't know, sir. But I guess we're going to find out."

  General Holm put his hands on the arms of the chair and slowly rose. "I guess you're right, Erik. We can overthink this right now. Let's take things a step at a time." He walked toward the door. "But I think the war just got a lot more complicated."

  "Yes, sir. I think so too.”

  Holm walked up to the door and motioned for the AI to open it. He turned back and smiled. "Well, I've intruded here far too long. You two have better things to do than discuss government plots with me
." And with that he slipped out into the night.

  Chapter 11

  Marine Earthside HQ

  Camp Puller

  Near New Houston, Texas

  General Raphael Samuels walked down the long corridor to his office, his polished boots clicking loudly on the bare steel floor. The spotless white walls were sleek and utilitarian, the framed oil paintings of past Commandants the only concession to decoration. He wore a crisply-pressed gray duty uniform, with silver braid around the collar and four platinum stars on each shoulder. Samuels was a full general, second in command of the Marine Corps, and he was usually surrounded by a cluster of orderlies and assistants. But now he was alone, and the outer office was deserted, the staff very deliberately sent away on various errands.

  He barked at the AI to open his private office, and he walked in quickly, the door sliding shut behind him. His office was large and luxurious, as would be expected for the workspace of so lofty and celebrated an officer. The furniture was all antique, which was mildly anachronistic alongside the sleek walls and banks of computer equipment. He walked around the expensive, carved wood desk and dropped hard into the massive black leather chair. The seat creaked slightly under his great bulk - Samuels was a big man, tall and broad shouldered, and in the years since he'd last donned armor and crawled into a landing craft he'd put on considerable weight. Leaning back in the chair, he sighed and ran his hand through his mop of hair, mostly gray now, with just a few strands of black remaining.

  He glanced at the chronometer. Ten more minutes, he thought, as he turned his chair and looked out the large window at the massive Marine reservation sprawling out before him. The modern Corps - the spaceborne Corps - had been a huge experiment. In the early days, battles were small and strike forces operated independently, far from any reinforcements or support. It took a certain type of individual to excel in those types of campaigns.

  The system created was unorthodox, but it actually worked. Recruiting misfits, square pegs who weren't able to find their round hole in terrestrial society, produced a breed of rugged, independent, and resourceful soldiers. But the real surprise was the psychological effect of providing a place in the world for this cadre of troublemakers, which forged a tremendous loyalty and esprit de corps. Where one might have expected indiscipline and rebelliousness, there was excellence and morale. Because their officers were all plucked from the same gutters, and had all donned powered armor and made their first assault as privates, there was a strong connection between the enlisted men and their commanders. Any private could rise all the way to a general's stars based solely on merit. This was virtually the opposite of normal Alliance society, where birth or patronage was required for any advancement. Marines have traditionally been rabidly loyal to the Corps, which was the only home, the only parent, many of them had ever known.

  Times were changing, though. In the First Frontier War there were operations were a single platoon was dispatched on a mission, and the lieutenant in command was the only officer deployed...the only officer within light years. There were battles where senior privates ended up in command, yet in virtually all cases the units were still able to function. The tooth to tail ratio in these early conflicts was astonishingly low for a high tech fighting force.

  But man's presence in space had expanded massively, and the wars he fought to preserve and expand that foothold had grown as well. Today's campaigns had become substantial affairs, with taskforces of warships and combined arms on the ground. Samuels had lived these changes. He'd been a private once, a lifetime ago. He'd come up in the years just after the First Frontier War, and despite the formal peace there was still plenty of fighting to do back then. He still remembered his first assault, the fear, the anticipation, the determination to become a real part of the unit. Oddly, what he recalled most vividly was how cold the launch bay was when he was squeezing his naked body into his armor. There were about 100 troops in that assault, and they were transported to the target world on a single unescorted ship.

  Samuels wondered if the Marines' unique method of recruitment and training was outdated. Certainly there were those who thought so. To many in the government, a tiny frontier security contingent composed of an eclectic group of rebellious types was tolerable, but the demands of the Third Frontier War had expanded that small force into an army almost 300,000 strong, equipped with every manner of weapon. And that army existed almost entirely outside the control of the political class, something the politicians found increasingly unacceptable.

  He watched a group of recruits as they moved into his field of view on the training ground. They were heading out on a run, probably part of physical training for a batch of new arrivals. Marines chosen for assault units spent six years in training, but they all started the same way, running until they ended up doubled over, heaving up their guts, sergeants dogging them the whole time. Most of the recruits who came here thought they were tough, and job one for their instructors was showing them what tough really was.

  Samuels lost track of time gazing out the window, and he was startled by the AI's gentle, human-sounding voice. "Incoming communication, General Samuels."

  He took a deep breath and turned away from the window, laying his hands on the desk. "Establish link." A slight pause. "Encryption, code Matahari."

  "Link established. Encryption code Matahari in effect."

  Samuels found himself looking around the room, even though he knew he was alone. Satisfied, he picked up the headset and strapped it on. "Number Four, checking in."

  The Directorate conference room was quieter than usual. There had been bad news, and everyone present was concerned how Number One would react. As always, the mysterious Number Four was represented only by a hologram and altered voice. At the end of the table, on one side of the laser-generated image, sat Jack Dutton, quiet and impassive. He was the only person besides Stark who knew that the shadowy Number Four was actually General Raphael Samuels, though even he didn't know how Stark had managed to flip a Marine of such high rank.

  The seat on the other side of the hologram was empty. Alex Linden was on Epsilon Eridani IV, personally supervising the crucial excavation there, though with recent developments it now appeared she was in serious trouble. There had been no word from her for several weeks.

  Sitting across the table from Dutton, Andres Carillon sat quietly, his face impassive. He wondered how Alex was handling the situation on EE-4. Maybe the snotty bitch finally got what she deserved, he thought with just a little malice. Alex had rejected his advances several times, and he hadn't taken it well.

  The door slid open, and Number One walked in briskly. "Please accept my apologies for my tardiness. I'm afraid with the current situation it couldn't be helped." He slid the chair back from the head of the table and sat. "I assume you have all been briefed on the CAC's assault on Epsilon Eridani IV." He scanned the table, noting the general nods of assent.

  "I'm afraid we have very little information beyond that contained in Admiral Franklin's drone." He moved his eyes around the table as he spoke. "The lack of any follow up communication does not suggest a favorable outcome. The admiral indicated he was heavily outnumbered, though he acknowledged his hold at all costs orders." He looked down briefly, eyes fixed on the table. "We can only assume that his fleet has been destroyed and the planet taken."

  Everyone present already knew that much, yet hearing it said out loud emphasized the terrible importance of the development. "The one planet that we could not afford to lose," Stark said bitterly, "appears to have been lost. Every advantage we have gained in the war could be moot if we are unable to retrieve the situation."

  Stark had not raised his voice, but everyone here knew the intensity of his displeasure, and no one would speak until he had directly asked a question. No one except Dutton. "Number One, I believe that we can recover the planet if we act quickly enough. We must mount a major operation to retake the system as soon as possible." This was a bit of playacting; he and Stark had already devised a plan.


  Stark played along. "You are correct, Number Two, but first there is another development we must discuss, another disaster of which I have just now been informed." He paused for a second. "Admiral Liang has apparently ambushed the forces that Fleet Admiral Garret was moving to Eta Cassiopeiae for the resumption of Operation Sherman. As you are all aware, Garret's task force was heavily depleted and scheduled to resupply at Columbia." Every eye in the room was riveted to him. "We do not have many details, but it appears that Cromwell was targeted and destroyed by the attacking fleet. Admiral Garret is missing and presumed KIA."

  The quiet in the room was replaced by a series of gasps and other expressions of surprise. Augustus Garret had led a battered and demoralized navy from the brink of defeat to the verge of total victory. And now this? Killed in an ambush? Shock overrode their fear of Number One, and all at once the Directors started speaking in a confused babble.

  Stark held up a hand. "Please, please. Let us not lose our composure. If Admiral Garret is indeed lost, none will mourn him more than I. But we must consider next steps." He hesitated, trying not to sound too rehearsed. "The news, tragic though it appears to be, is not all bad. I had unconfirmed reports that the CAC intended something like this, and I arranged for a relief force to be dispatched to meet the admiral and escort him the rest of the way to Columbia. Unfortunately, the task force arrived too late to prevent the attack or save the admiral. They did, however, transit into the system just as Liang's force was breaking off from their attack. Our task force caught the depleted CAC ships on their way back across the system and inflicted a serious defeat. Admiral Liang was apparently captured."