The Road to Damascus (bolo)

by John Ringo

  “My dear friends,” he began softly, in that deceptively gentle voice of his, “we have gathered today to consider the most important decisions this generation of Jeffersonians will ever make. Many of us are alive today because the Concordiat upheld its obligations to us, sending the means to defend our homes and our children. Before Simon Khrustinov and Unit SOL-0045 came to us, we faced almost certain slaughter. Their courage and brilliance not only saved thousands of lives and homes, they did what we had thought impossible. They showed our troops how to fight what we had thought was a hopeless battle, against a far superior enemy. They showed us how to win. The battles we fought that day, street to street and barn to barn, helped remind us that Jeffersonians are capable of digging in and refusing to give up, no matter what the odds.

  “With the help of Simon Khrustinov and his Bolo, we destroyed every Deng soldier, every Deng war machine that entered our atmosphere and touched our soil. Our capital city was damaged, but the vast majority of Madison was spared. Only fifty-five civilians in Madison lost their lives. Our agricultural heartland was gutted, but we fought back, killing Deng with every weapon we could lay hands on — including things no one had ever considered using as weapons.”

  Stefano flashed a grin at Kafari, who felt a flush rising to her cheeks. Aunt Min gave her a swift hug.

  “We lost much, but we saved more than we thought it possible to save. We have planted again and harvested the fruits of that planting, which means no one will go hungry during the coming winter. We have replaced homes. We are rebuilding factories, retail businesses. We have kept our schools open, helped our young people continue their educations, as part of our commitment to building a better future.”

  The president’s long, tired face tightened and his eyes turned steely as he looked squarely into the cameras — and straight into the heart and soul of every person watching. “And now, my friends, we must consider other commitments. Without the Concordiat’s help, we would not be gathered here, today, in this Joint Chamber.” He gestured to the room in which the entire government of Jefferson had assembled. “We could not be watching from our homes and shops and factories, sharing the momentous decisions now facing us, because we would not have homes or shops or factories. We would not have a capital city or farms or fishing towns or mining camps. We would not, in fact, be alive. Never forget this one, critical fact. The Deng sent a battle fleet strong enough to totally destroy us. And that is what they meant to do. Wipe us off the face of this lovely world, down to the last innocent child. If not for the Concordiat’s decision to honor our desperate need under the provisions of our charter treaty, our enemies would have done just that. And the Deng would be harvesting their crops and building their homes on our graves.”

  The hush in the Joint Chamber was so complete, the scrape of a shoe against the floor sounded like a gunshot in the silence. Kafari clutched her cider glass so tightly, her fingers ached. The stink of battle and the crashing, thunderous roar of titans at war momentarily blotted out everything in her awareness — except Abe Lendan’s face.

  “And so, my friends,” the president said, “we now face the moment in which we must decide what our future, what our children’s futures, will be. Our treaty with the Concordiat spells out our obligations. We cannot afford to lose the protection we have, if we hope to safeguard our homes from a very real threat. There is a wildly unstable battle front beyond the Silurian Void. All along that front, men, women, and children are being slaughtered like vermin. We know the Deng can and will cross the Void. And a new enemy from a world called Melcon is driving humanity off worlds we have inhabited for over a century, in some of the worst fighting the Concordiat has ever faced.”

  An uneasy stir ran through the Joint Chamber and through Kafari’s cousins and aunts and uncles, as well. She shivered, unable to imagine what could have been worse than the destruction the Deng had wrought in Klameth Canyon or Madison.

  “The only thing that stands between our children and the savagery out there,” President Lendan jabbed one finger in the direction of the Silurian Void, “is Bolo SOL-0045. We cannot — dare not — refuse to honor our treaty with the Concordiat. We either honor our obligations or we leave ourselves wide open to destruction. If we refuse to honor this treaty, we will watch our homes burn. Again. We will watch our children hunted down and shot in the streets.” Abe Lendan leaned forward abruptly, his voice suddenly harsh and filled with iron. “We will die like rabid dogs, knowing that we did it to ourselves!”

  Aunt Minau actually jumped. Cider soaked into Kafari’s knee, from her own glass or her aunt’s, she wasn’t sure which. Abe Lendan’s eyes blazed. He curled his fingers into claws around the edge of the podium as his voice lashed across the Joint Chamber, across the vast and lonely stretches of Jefferson’s inhabited landmasses.

  “The choice is ours, my friends. We can whine like spoiled children unwilling to part with outgrown toys, unwilling to face the realities of a grim, adult universe. Or,” he drew a deep and deliberate breath, steadying his voice, “we can stand on our feet and pay the price of freedom. The Concordiat has given us a future, a chance to survive and rebuild. If we refuse to honor this treaty, we will lose everything.”

  He paused, looked slowly and deliberately at the faces of the men and women seated in the Joint Chamber, as though by the force of his willpower alone, he could force sense into those men and women whose obstructionism was putting them in peril. “Every man and woman in this chamber has a solemn duty, a sacred responsibility, held in trust for those who died in order that we could live and rebuild. When you cast your votes today, my friends, remember what is at stake. The decisions we make today will either give us a future or destroy us.”

  Half the Joint Assembly was abruptly on its collective feet, shouting and cheering. So were several of Kafari’s cousins. Kafari was shaking. So was Abe Lendan. Ominously, nearly half of the Senate and House remained seated, faces cold and closed. What’s wrong with them? Kafari wondered angrily. Don’t they understand anything?

  The president lifted his hands and the tumult died down as senators and representatives resumed their seats. “I’ve given you an overview of the situation we face. My cabinet, the War College’s General Staff, Vice President Andrews, and I have met with Simon Khrustinov at length, going over defense plans. The Concordiat has agreed to sanction our decision to award Major Khrustinov the rank of Colonel in Jefferson’s Defense Forces, in recognition of the utterly critical role he and his Bolo will play in any future defense of this world.”

  Kafari blinked, stunned. Most of her family turned to stare at her, thinking she’d known and hadn’t said anything, only to stare again, seeing her dumbfounded shock.

  “Why did he see the need to do that?” Grandpa Soteris muttered. “I don’t like it, not one bit. What does the president know that he’s not telling us?”

  Kafari heard a whimper and realized it was coming from her own throat.

  On screen, the president’s voice was harsh with weariness and strain. “We’ve already seen what an invasion can do to us. Colonel Khrustinov was quite blunt in his assessments. We faced antiquated Yavacs and troops that were far from top of the line. A new invasion by the Deng would doubtless subject us to their top-line equipment, given the battle maps as they are currently drawn. An invasion by Melconian forces would be even more devastating, turning this world into a major battleground between the best the Concordiat can throw against the worst the Melconians can send against humanity.”

  Grandpa Soteris said a horrible word in Greek, which she’d never heard him do in front of the family’s children. Aunt Min wrapped an arm around Kafari.

  “The War College’s General Staff and I are utterly convinced that without Unit SOL-0045, Jefferson faces total destruction. Colonel Khrustinov has warned that the Deng may well have dropped passive spy-bots into our space, watching for troop movements, particularly for the callback of the Bolo. Without our own space-based warning systems, this star system is critically vu
lnerable to attack. Without the heavy firepower represented by Unit SOL-0045, we are utterly helpless and the enemy knows it. We can’t afford to blunder. If the battle lines shift the way Colonel Khrustinov fears they may, then we will find ourselves in the middle of an unholy war worse than anything we can even imagine. And if we fall, then Mali and Vishnu will fall — and that, my friends, will leave the back door to the whole of human space wide open.”

  A shocked murmur ran through the Joint Assembly.

  Abe Lendan paused again, skin waxen, waiting for the rumble of voices to fade into silence, once more. “That is what we face. That is what we risk, if we do not honor our treaty with the Concordiat. This morning, Colonel Khrustinov received a message from the Dinochrome Brigade’s Sector Command. Colonel Khrustinov is here, today, to tell us what that message said. I can guarantee you, my friends, that you will not like what you are about to hear. I can only say that you will like the alternatives far, far less.”

  Fear touched Kafari with icy, shuddering fingers. She watched her husband stand up, his crimson uniform looking like blood against the pallor of his skin. She knew that look in his eyes, knew the clenching of his jaw, had seen it one long-ago night on his patio, when memory of Etaine had passed across his strong features like a wave of death. He stood respectfully aside as Abraham Lendan stepped down from the podium, waited until the president had taken his seat before stepping up, himself. He stood silently for a long moment, a figure abruptly alien, a man she had never seen before, representing something she knew in that instant that she would never truly comprehend.

  The stranger she had married began to speak.

  “War is an expensive, dirty business. I’ve made it my business. Whether you like it or not, it is now your business. There are people in this chamber,” his flintsteel-cold eyes tracked like his Bolo’s guns, resting briefly and significantly on members of the House and Senate opposed to upholding the treaty, “who think the price paid already is far too high to justify more expenditures. Let me enlighten you.”

  The chill in his voice caused the ice around Kafari’s heart to thicken.

  “Under the treaty provisions ratified by this world, you are liable for the cost of maintaining certain defenses in fully operational condition. One of these is a system of military-grade surveillance satellites, to coordinate land-based and air defenses and to provide a long-range warning system, not only for Jefferson, but for the Concordiat as a whole. If you want to bury your heads in the sand, that is your business. But the Concordiat will not allow you to jeopardize other worlds for your own short-sighted, selfish motives. Under the treaty provisions binding Jefferson to the Concordiat, should you refuse to honor any clause of the existing treaty, at such a time as the Concordiat invokes that clause, you will immediately forfeit your standing as a Concordiat-protected world.”

  Those cold, alien eyes tracked across the room, again, a room still as death.

  “Should you choose that course, you will immediately be presented with a bill for remuneration of expenditures made on Jefferson’s behalf by personnel and mechanical units of the Concordiat. Failure to pay these charges is grounds for immediate confiscation of sufficient raw materials to equal the value of expenditures to date. To give you an idea of the size of Jefferson’s current indebtedness, the cost of one Hellbore salvo alone would require roughly a week’s worth of the gross planetary products — finished goods and raw mineral resources — from every factory and mine still in production on Jefferson. The battle for Madison, alone, would require remuneration in excess of the entire planetary economic output for the past six months. When Klameth Canyon’s costs are factored into the equation, the bill due — payable immediately, by the way, on pain of confiscation by the nearest Concordiat heavy cruiser capable of taking on raw materials — will literally bankrupt what is left of Jefferson’s economy and send this world plunging down a road you do not want to travel.”

  An outraged roar of protest from the Joint Chamber floor erupted, thick with shock and open hatred. Colonel Khrustinov — Kafari couldn’t bring herself to think of him as Simon, as he stood there in icy silence — waited out the tumult while the Speaker leaped to his feet, banging his gavel and shouting for order. When the uproar finally died down, again, Simon spoke as though the outburst had been nothing but the whining of an insignificant insect around his ears.

  “That is the least deadly of the choices facing you. The communique I received this morning from Sector Command was blunt and specific. Jefferson’s government has twelve hours, beginning,” he glanced at his wrist chrono, “with your official notification by the Brigade’s designated representative, to comply with the treaty obligations deemed most urgent by Sector Command, or to present remuneration in full for Concordiat and Brigade expenditures to date on Jefferson’s behalf. You have been duly notified as of now.

  “Compliance will be deemed initiated with a vote to expend funds for the immediate construction and launch of military-grade surveillance satellites and with the passage of legislation creating troop levies for each Assembly district on Jefferson. Compliance will not be deemed fully met until satellites are in place, troop levies have been shipped, and urgently needed war materiel has been mined, refined, and loaded onto Concordiat-registered freighters. This clause will require the replacement of Jefferson’s commercial space station.”

  Another howl of outrage erupted from the floor. The Speaker had to bang the gavel for nearly two full minutes, shouting for order. Again, Kafari’s husband waited in utter silence, his face chiseled from white marble, then he went on with the relentless recitation.

  “Given the extensive damage to this planet’s agricultural sector, war materiel required to fulfill treaty obligations will not consist of Terran foodstuffs, but what is left of the planetary fishing fleet will be expected to ship, within the next four calendar months, a minimum of ten thousand tons of native fish, processed for Terran consumption, to support the mines on Mali. The mines have been expanded three-fold under emergency-construction domes, as the refined ores produced there are critical to the defense of this entire Sector.

  “These obligations have been in place since the day I arrived on Jefferson with Unit SOL-0045. Each voting member of this assembly has known since that day exactly what Jefferson’s commitments are. Sector Command’s precise requirements were presented to you five months and seventeen days ago. Since this Assembly has failed to so much as vote on a single subclause during those five months and seventeen days, Sector Command has declared Jefferson out of compliance with its treaty obligations.

  “I have spent months requesting action from this Assembly. I have been stonewalled and fobbed off with one excuse after another. On the other side of the Silurian Void, the Deng and the Melconians are butchering entire worlds, while you sit securely in your homes with enough food to stave off starvation, roofs over the heads of every man, woman, and child on this planet, and sufficient resources to rebuild anything you decide to rebuild.”

  His face went even colder and more alien. “And just to give you a little more perspective, let me give you a little history lesson…”

  Kafari sat in numb shock while Simon’s voice, as harsh and mechanical as his Bolo’s, painted scene after horrifying scene of the hell he had witnessed on Etaine. She sat there in the midst of her family, cold and scared, tears on her face and tremors in all her limbs as he described the methodical slaughter, the towns incinerated with their occupants trapped in them, the cities reduced to smoking rubble, bits and pieces that had once been human blown literally into orbit. The faceless millions who had died, an incomprehensible number the mind could not fathom in its entirety, became brutally, staggeringly real, suffering and dying right in front of them. He spoke like a computer, inhuman, a man whose soul had blackened to ashes on a world whose sun Kafari couldn’t even see at night.

  She heard shocked weeping, realized Aunt Minau was sobbing. “Oh, that poor man, honey, that man you married is hurting down to the bottoms of hi
s feet…”

  I should have been there, Kafari realized with a sickening lurch in her gut. How could I have let him go into that room alone? She found herself hating the men and women in the Joint Chamber, the ones who had stalled spending bills in committees, who had tied up military allocations in technicalities and thinly disguised legal ploys designed to avoid payment altogether, hated them for putting the man she loved through the hell he was reliving in front of them.

  The silence when he stopped speaking was so sudden, so brutal, Kafari could hear the clatter of her own heartbeat knocking against her eardrums. Simon stood like a statue, pale and cold and silent, a man with nothing human left anywhere inside him. Then a slight shudder of breath lifted his ribcage, lifted the bloody crimson uniform he wore like a shield and set the ribbons of valor trembling on his chest, and the stone statue vanished in a single blink of his ravaged eyes. In its place stood a man, once again, an officer of the Dinochrome Brigade, a very real and threatening presence that no one who had witnessed the last ten minutes would ever underestimate again.

  “That,” he said softly, “is the choice you face. Whether you build or burn is entirely up to you. Mr. President,” he said in a voice filled with abrupt, deep respect, “I yield the podium to you.”

  Abraham Lendan rose to his feet, utterly ashen, hands visibly shaking.

  “Thank you, Colonel,” he said in a ragged voice, “for making our choices clear.”

  Jefferson’s president didn’t even try to make another speech. Whatever he or anyone else in that room might have planned to say had been seared into silence. “I would suggest,” the president said in a voice hollow with horror, “that we poll the delegation.”

  As the voting commenced, Kafari’s grandfather broke the ghastly silence in the Soteris family room. “Estevao, get the aircar. Kafari, get your backside into Madison now. That man is going to come apart, the minute he’s alone. And Kafari, child…”