Dawn of the Eagle (BTech)

[MarshalPurnell]

Part I: The Collapse of Empires
“I relinquish every participation in the administration of the State.  Likewise I have released the members of the Austrian Government from their offices… The happiness of my peoples was my aim from the beginning.  My warmest wishes are that an internal peace will be able to heal the wounds of this war.”
-Abdication Proclamation of Emperor Karl I

Schönbrunn Palace,
Vienna, Austria
11 November 1918,
Old Terra

Captain Ferdinand di Montecuccoli shivered in the bitter winds of the day, naval greatcoat only partly blocking the cut of the chill air. But it was not truly the weather that was at the root of his unease, nor the eerie feeling of desertion in the palace grounds. There was a palpable feeling of malignance in the air, one he had first noticed on his arrival at the palace in late October, with Trieste about to fall to the Italians. The Allied blockade had pushed the people of the capital to the breaking point, and they were surly, malcontented; the mood was ugly, and he fancied it had felt the same way in Petrograd last year. No, his disquiet was that of a man watching not only his life but his nation come apart at the seams, and there was absolutely nothing that he could do about it.

He looked up at the imposing structure of the Gloriette, a monument of an earlier age, before Napoleon, before Garibaldi, before Masaryk; it represented the aspirations of universal monarchy, a united Christendom, and the glories of an Empire that could (with a little fudging) claim descent through Charlemagne, Caesar, Romulus, and Aenas; to the very dawn of Western civilization. It may as well have been in ruins.

He pulled out a silver cigarette holder from his coat’s right pocket, cracking it open and taking out a slim, white stick. The damned blockade had starved Austria-Hungary, and had led to a revolution in Germany, but it never quite managed to choke off every avenue of commerce, and his family was rich. He placed the cigarette in his mouth, hanging low on his lips, and placed the holder back in his pocket. The matches were in his left pocket…

He sensed another person moving into his frame of reference, extending a hand, with a pair of matches held between the thumb and forefinger. Ferdinand looked down, and saw the pike-gray uniform tunic and trousers of a soldier, topped with the kepi of an officer. “Do you need a light?” the man asked, in what had recently been unfashionable French. The voice let Montecuccoli place him.

“Thank you, Oberst Marik,” he replied, and took the pro-offered match.

Joseph Marik, eldest son of the Duke of Marik, had been recovering from a wound suffered at Isonzo and had been assigned administrative duties at the Palace. Ferdinand had met him during his own mission to remove parts of the archives of the Imperial and Royal Navy to Vienna. Both their families were members of the Hochadel, the highest levels of the nobility of the Empire below the Habsburg family itself. Marik, being a technically sovereign Duke of a small holding in Bohemia not held in fief to the Habsburgs, was of sufficient rank and pedigree to be allowed to marry into the reigning family itself. The Montecuccolis, descended from Tuscan counts and Frankish warriors through the female line, were not as illustrious but still had important holdings and a tradition of service to the Empire.

None of which would count for one bit in a very little while.

“I’m surprised to see you around here, Joseph,” Montecuccoli said. “Those ‘national government’ lackeys of Britain have declared independence. We handed over the keys to Prague to them two weeks ago. I should think securing your own estates would take priority over hanging out here, waiting for the Empire to die.”

Joseph shook his head, slowly. “The Marik family has obligations to the house of Habsburg that could not be discharged. And at any rate the socialist hooligans have already made clear their intention to dispossess the nobility. They view us all as traitors to the Czech race,” he stated, with his disgust at that prospect evident. “They, who foreswore loyalty to their legitimate Emperor, accuse me and mine of treason.” He laughed bitterly. “But their rootless liberal ideology cannot unite peoples where faith and tradition have failed to do so. They will gain nothing they did not already have, and lose it all when the Germans and Russians devour them after they turn on each other.”

Montecuccoli looked at Marik now, and saw the bitterness contorting his features. “We will have to see if the victorious allies leave anything left of Germany,” the naval officer reminded Marik. “Still, the Hungarians are already at everybody’s throats, the Croats and Serbs are already squabbling. With a Danube region fragmented and feuding among itself, Masaryk and Benes and their ilk will see what a real policy of Germanization and cultural extermination is like. And who knows what my distant cousins in Rome will do with all the Slavs in Trieste, but I doubt anything that particularly respects their rights of self-determination.”

“I would place my bet only on a generational armistice,” Marik cynically predicted. “A strong hand is needed to keep order in the Balkans, but it needs to be impartial. Without that it’ll just be tribe against tribe. And that attitude is present enough in Germany as it stands. Without the moderation of the nobility, the mobs there will run wild.”

A servant came rushing by, clutching a pamphlet in his hands and waving it to anyone in sight. “The Emperor has resigned! He won’t stand in the way of a republic!” The man rushed down the garden path, shouting and hollering to anyone in earshot, and no one in particular.

Montecuccoli was momentarily stunned by the news of the abdication, though he had been expecting it for days. He actually staggered back on his heels in shock. “God help us all! The Empire is dead.”

Marik shook his head sadly. “It seems the Emperor has finally discharged us all from our oaths and duties. If he had been a little firmer, if the Magyars had not walked off the front lines… if we had only abandoned the Germans in time. But it’s too late for all that.”

There was a quiet interlude as both men looked into the darkness that obscured the coming days. Finally, Montecuccoli stirred. “The chill is getting bitter. I have a bottle of Schnapps in my quarters to warm us up. If you’ll drink one last toast to the Empire…”

“Hoch Habsburg!” Marik replied, a thin smile appearing on his face. “The first sensible suggestion I have heard in weeks. But you, my friend, must also toast to the future. The Empire is dead, and so is the world that we have lived in. Let us hope against hope that what follows is better than what came before.”

“There is nothing left to do but to hope for the best,” Montecuccoli admitted. “I accept your terms, sir, and the spirits await.”

[MarshalPurnell]

Part II: Flight of the Eaglet
“The leaders who, for many years, were at the head of French armies, have formed a government. This government, alleging our armies to be undone, agreed with the enemy to stop fighting…. But has the last word been said? Must hope disappear? Is defeat final? No!... The destiny of the world is here... Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished.”
-Appeal of June 18, Charles de Gaulle

Montecuccoli Estate,
Outside Grenoble, France
7 June 1944,
Old Terra

Crisp mountain air greeted Antonin Marik as he stepped outside of the guest quarters to welcome the rising sun as it appeared over the Alps to the east. It was the first time he had stepped out of the small cabin he had been sequestered in, a dangerous indulgence but one that he was certain was required to keep his sanity. Since having bailed out of his Spitfire over Normandy three weeks ago he had been hustled ever further south by the French Resistance cells that had taken over the mission of getting him safely over the Pyrenees. It had been a dangerous trek, with the Gestapo and Vichy collaborators on his tracks for the greater part of it, both eager to capture another RAF flier, particularly now that the Allied forces were paving the way for the great invasion of Fortress Europe.

That Marik knew nothing about the plans for the coming invasion would not save him from a gruesome fate at the hands of the Germans if he was captured. But for the time being he was safe, and comfortable, and with the remains of breakfast behind him, well fed. Save for some… interaction with the earthy peasant girls around Grenoble, he could not wish for much more. Well, being able to paint a few more kill marks on the tail of his plane would be nice, he admitted to himself.

He spied the Kübelwagon driving down the road towards the Montecuccoli estate, and suddenly his pleasant reverie was shattered. The squat, gray-green German “jeep” flying the hated Swastika from the front grille was unmistakable; and Marik could only leap to one conclusion. Betrayal!

He headed inside, slowly, trying to act normally even as his heart seemed ready to jump out of his throat. It was a nerve-wracking ordeal simply to close the door. Marik locked the door behind him, bolting it before turning over a small table in the dining room and pushing it up against the entrance. The small lodge had no back entrance to fortify, so there was nothing else for him to do save to retrieve his service pistol by the side of his bed, and wait for the inevitable. Antonin resolved that the Nazis would not take him without a fight.

Time passed, slowly, tensely, without the expected beating on his door and shouts in harsh, guttural German. The stillness of the room was palpable, manifested in the explosive fall of tick-tock from the grandfather clock in the right corner of the cabin. Antonin had nothing to do but watch the hands pass in rotation, twiddling nervously while awaiting a fatal confrontation. As minutes seemed to pass into an hour, and later, he finally grew frustrated enough to get out a pack of cards that Carlo had given him the day he arrived. A few rounds of solitaire would help calm his nerves.

A dozen rounds later, he heard a knocking at the door. Marik checked the clock; it was half an hour later than Carlo said he would be checking in. Antonin drew out his pistol, safety off, and slowly approached the cabin’s front window. He crawled down on the floor, peering out through the drapes at the front door. From the angle he could make out Carlo, and an elderly gentleman with him. The older man carried himself with a stiffness and dignity that suggested military background, but he clearly wasn’t a Wehrmacht officer, much less a Gestapo agent. Antonin carefully raised the window up, creating a small slit through which to speak.

“Carlo,” he whispered, getting the younger man’s attention. “Are there Germans with you? I saw some, driving by towards the estate.”

The elder man, within earshot, chuckled lightly, and addressed him in French. “Group Captain Marik, you are presently on the grounds of a recuperation station for German officers.” The man scowled, just a bit. “Not entirely by my choice, but it does offer advantages. Who would think to look for a fugitive airman here?”

Carlo looked uneasy, but nodded in affirmation. “Sorry I didn’t tell you, old chap,” he told Antonin in English. “That’s why we’ve had to keep you indoors so long. And there have been some developments we think you need to be appraised of.”

Antonin looked at them warily, especially the elder man. “I have a pistol,” he warned. “I will let you in, but if you have betrayed me to the enemy…” He left the threat hanging, and crawled away from the window.

Marik lifted the table upright and moved it away from the door, and slowly undid the locks and latches securing it closed. He then stepped back, and leveled the pistol at the door. “Come in, one behind the other,” he ordered. The door creaked open slowly moments later, squeaking a bit on its hinges, and grating on the already frazzled nerves of Antonin.

Carlo di Montecuccoli, youngest son of the current count, his contact in the Resistance, entered first. He held up his arms to show that he was unarmed. He stepped into the room hesitantly, looking Marik in the eyes as he cleared the door for the elderly man who followed him. That man simply entered at a measured pace, appearing to display no heed to the dangerous situation he was in.

The older man bowed politely to Marik. “It is a pleasure to finally meet the guest I was not supposed to know about,” he stated slyly. “Count Ferdinand di Montecuccoli, at your service.” As he leveled up, the old man glanced over the RAF pilot. “I knew your father, a long time ago. Back when this madness started.”

Antonin nodded, recalling the correspondence his father had kept up with a Count Montecuccoli, finally curtailed by the Duke’s death seven years ago. “Carlo told me you weren’t a supporter of the Resistance.”

“That is true,” Ferdinand noted. “The maquisards around Grenoble are mostly Communists.” He seemed to spit out the name. “And Pétain is more to my liking than this opportunist De Gaulle. But I am an outsider. Not a French citizen, not an Englishman, not a German, and the Lord knows that Mussolini and his ilk have gone to great lengths to make it known I am not an Italian. I do wish to see some end to this madness before European civilization is completely destroyed. Hitler will finish what Princip started, unless stopped.”

“I thought you said you didn’t support the Resistance, though?” Marik looked at him, blankly. Carlo looked slightly embarrassed.

The Count shook his head again. “Because they are rascals and Bolsheviks, and this is not my fight. I am too old to be hiding out in the hills and shooting at the police. My boy Carlo thinks he is fit for such a life, and it is his decision to make. And I tolerate his activities here, even if he thought I didn’t know about them. But now they come in handy, Duke Marik.”

Carlo spoke up again to forestall Marik’s objections. “It may help end the war soon. And save many lives, with the Allies now landing in Normandy.”

Marik felt a rush of excitement surge as he heard the news. “How are they doing?” He also felt the first part of apprehension, not for himself but for a number of his friends in the RAF and British forces.

“Radio BBC reports they have established a secure beachhead,” Carlo told him. “The Germans are claiming that their panzer units are pushing a diversion back into the sea. I know which source I trust, however.”

“That is great, wonderful news,” Marik choked out. Soon, soon, his Bohemia might be liberated from the Nazi yoke. And by having taken up the call to fight first, before Benes and the rest of the nationalists who had hounded his family and stolen their lands, he would be in a position to change things. House Marik would rise again.

“You will be in Spain within the week,” Ferdinand stated. “Courtesy of a Major Steiner of the Wehrmacht.”

Marik turned and looked askance at him, and his pistol began to rise a bit. “What sort of game are you playing, old man?”

“Put that damn gun down before you hurt someone,” the Count ordered, “and I will explain everything.” Marik did lower it to his side, though his eyes betrayed his wariness. Ferdinand considered it good enough, though, and began his promised tale.

“My estate was taken over a recuperation station for the German army, as I mentioned. And several of the officers have found it to be a discrete place to discuss their… dissatisfaction with the state of the war. And several of them have come to know me, many of them veterans of the last war or conscripted from the Austrian territories of the Reich. My medals have some currency among such people, and they are also not enthused by that Viennese roustabout destroying their country from Berlin.”

“Hitler is just another piece of gutter trash, aping that oaf Schörner.” Ferdinand snorted in contempt. “The old Emperor knew how to deal with such uncouth vermin. Even that boar Wilhelm would never have let such a base-born thug and demagogue into the Reichstag.”

Montecuccoli sensed he was losing Marik in his nostalgia for the past, and so cleared his throat. “At any rate, you get the idea. There is much disillusionment in certain quarters with his failures and brutalities. Richard Steiner is one such officer, and he has contacts on the staff of Field Marshal Rommel himself. There is a plan underway that will change the political situation in Germany, and the Allies must be aware of this. So, with all of that in mind, I asked him to provide you with identification as a Spanish citizen, to act as courier. It will get you over the border without any serious questions being asked, as long as we hurry.”

Antonin evaluated the situation carefully. Of course, if it were an elaborate ploy to betray him to the Germans, he would already be in custody or worse. If it were disinformation… the boys in SOE or SIS could handle it. “Alright,” he conceded. “What sort of message is this?”

The Count shrugged, a Gallic affectation he had picked up over his years in exile. “It is a microfilm message they wish you to deliver, and which cannot be read here. Nor have they told me of any the details, but I frankly imagine that they mean to carry out a coup. Most of Hitler’s bodyguard SS are on the Eastern Front, and they believe they have support in Germany as well as in Army Group West.”

“The Allied policy is the unconditional surrender of Germany,” Marik noted. “They are deluding themselves if they think they can avoid that. But this does come with those documents?”

“I will drive you over the border myself,” Carlo broke in.

Antonin had already decided on his course of action. “When do we leave?”

[MarshalPurnell]

Part III: A Death in Venetia
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe… The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control…”
-“Sinews of Peace” Address, Winston Churchill

Crossroad clearing,
North of Vicenza, Italy
18 March 1945
Old Terra

The road by Vicenza passed through Padua and from there, to Trieste and into territory still held securely by the Reich. The Garibaldi Brigade commander of the region had decreed that an ambush would be set up for a German convoy passing through the area. Carlo di Montecuccoli had been in the area on OSS business and was drafted by contacts in the partisans into taking part on the raid. It was odd, something seemed to be off, but there was nothing he could do to get out of it without raising suspicions that would be difficult to deal with. And so he had cleaned his M3 “grease gun” and loaded up on extra cartridges before slipping out of the partisan camp with the other men assigned to the operation.

Several times isolated German traffic had passed through, unmolested, to avoid alerting the Nazis of the ambush. Peasant carts had clattered by as well, and the whole situation would have been terribly boring were it not for the certainty of mortal peril that existed. He reclined down on the soft earth, looking up at the clear night sky peering down, tracking the constellations he recognized as a means of keeping his mind busy. Falling asleep would be distinctly hazardous to his health amid this company; the members of the main regional group, which he had gotten to know over the last week, were still fairly amateur, but there was a mysterious section of four men over by the road, men he didn’t recognize and who didn’t speak very good Italian. They had come with a pass countersigned by the head of Brigades for the Veneto region, and were to participate in the action.

Montecuccoli was interested in seeing them in action. The Brigades were a Communist partisan group, at least in the upper echelons, and there was some debate over just how tight their ties to Moscow were. The Soviets were still allies against Nazi Germany, but OSS was beginning to look to the future, and the station chief in Switzerland, Alan Dulles, had some definite suspicions about the extent of their activity in Italy. Carlo had already noted the presence of “advisors” from the Yugoslav partisans operating under Tito, but so far there were no confirmed Russians around.

Still, the primary mission tonight would be killing Germans.

The sound of an approaching motor in the distance spurred him to stand up, submachine gun in hand and ready to bring into a firing position. He looked to his left; one of the local partisans, clad in dark clothing and hiding behind a tree closer to the road, was only just visible. The partisan raised his hand, palm open, signaling him to be ready. Per the instructions before camp, his side of the ambush would only engage the lead truck of the convoy, while the other side would shoot out the last and lead an attack on the car in the middle.

Carlo tensed as the moments flew by and the German vehicles got closer. “Here they come”, he whispered, and stepped out from behind his tree, ready to fire. And then slipped right back behind it.

The lead vehicle was not a truck at all but an armored car. Montecuccoli recognized the wicked short 75mm gun it mounted, and which made it deadly towards infantry. The machine guns it boasted were an afterthought. At the back of convoy, too, there was a German halftrack, and from the brief glimpse he caught, men dressed in camouflage fatigues. He gulped as he cycled through the implications; they were attacking a high value target guarded by nothing less than a detachment of a Waffen SS Panzer division.

He was still wondering what the hell was going on when the other partisans on his side opened fire on the armored car, their pistol rounds simply clanging off its armor. The turret rotated in the general direction of the side of the road, and there was a loud explosion and flash of light, and heat…

The machine gun pintle-mounted on the halftrack opened up as well, flaying the treeline. Montecuccoli heard screams of agony as he dived down on the ground, huddling behind the tree. Another flash lit up the night as the armored car fired again, the convoy stopping to allow the infantry to rush out of their halftrack, rifles at the ready to counterattack into the face of the ambush. Good counterinsurgency tactics, and the weight of firepower was forcing the partisans to keep their heads down. The SS soldiers could overrun them in minutes, finish them off, and the convoy would be back on its way…

The armored car suddenly and violently exploded as a shaped-charge warhead slammed into its right side; designed to penetrate the armor of heavily protected tanks like the Tiger, the light steel plates of the armored car were no match for the PIAT round. High cracks of fire were also heard over the din, as a heavy anti-tank rifle punched rounds through the engine block of the half-track and the other half of the ambush sprung into action. The SS man handling the half-track machine gun turned to swing his weapon around, desperately, but he was too late as the first of several grenades landed into the open top of the vehicle. He was blown out of the side of the machine, flying like a rag-doll through the air and landing limply by the side.

The SS men were fatally distracted as the surviving members of the left-side force opened up on them again with their rapid-fire weapons. Carlo sprung out from behind the tree and fired a long burst into the group of German infantry, as more grenades rained down on them, from over the side of the halftrack. Within the minute, none of the German combat personnel were on their feet, and the whole partisan band swept in on them, finishing off the few wounded. The driver of the Mercedes auto that had been between the two military vehicles then emerged, hands behind his head; the leader of the attached group, sporting a Soviet model PPsh submachine gun with drum magazine, waved him over. He shouted, in imperfect German, for everyone in the car to come out.

Carlo in the meanwhile circulated around the battlefield, trying to locate wounded partisans and begin first aid. He chanced upon the mangled remains of the local cell leader; he had been caught too close to one of the shells put out by the armored car. Montecuccoli tried not to be sick at the sight.

“What the hell happened here?” he asked, speaking to himself in the emptiness of the night. This sort of surprise should never have happened. But the other partisans had come equipped to take down even an armored escort; it was almost as if his group had been used as a distraction, with no regard for their lives…

A shot rang out from the crossroads, and he turned around to see the leader of the special detachment standing over the corpse of the German driver. Two men had gotten out of the car; one, dressed in the black uniform of the Gestapo, was standing around and seemed to be talking to another member of the detachment. The second man was a grey haired civilian, dressed in an old-fashioned suit, looking vaguely familiar.

The scene was broken up when one of the surviving local cell members approached the other partisans, screaming wildly. “What the hell, Comrades? You… you were using us a distraction! This is not egalitarian struggle! This is… murder!”

The leader of the detachment, a burly, dark-featured man, with straggly beard and air of menace about him, turned to confront the upset partisan. “We required a distraction to successfully recover our two Comrades here.” There was a deliberate quality to his speech, and a strong accent to it. “We requested that your Brigade commander assign the least trustworthy members of his group to provide it. Socialist discipline has long been ignored in your cell. Class enemies and lackeys of the capitalist powers have been allowed to flourish within it.”

Montecuccoli had some knowledge of how the Soviets operated, thanks to friendships among the Russian émigré community. And the man was speaking with a vaguely Russian accent. It was time, to put it mildly, to retreat. He carefully, slowly began moving into the forest.

“I do not think so, your grace.” The Russian accented voice was aimed at him, and there was a mocking tone to it. “Comrade Carlo is an agent of the American secret services, here to subvert the revolutionary zeal of the movement.” Montecuccoli could feel sharp gazes, and pistols, being leveled at him.

One of the surviving locals cut in to the tense atmosphere. “And who the hell are you to make such accusations?”

The Russian looked at him squarely. “I am Captain Ivan Nikolaievitch Tikonov, of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. You should, I think, have that courtesy, even for a petit-bourgeois sentimentalist. You and the rest of the right deviationist subversives of this Garibaldi cell have been sentenced to death. Know that at least you served the Revolution in it.”

The cell of Soviet operatives, having known that the mission would come down to an execution, opened fire on the stunned members of the left-side ambush force. The locals who had been assigned to thicken out the Soviets on the right side had turned their backs to the slaughter. They had been apprised of the nature of the mission, after having been chosen for their loyalty to the Party, and had no qualms about the extermination of traitors.

Montecuccoli felt a sharp pain in his thigh, and slumped down, bringing the machine gun to bear as he did, and firing into the crowd of partisans without aiming. The Soviets had caught the rest of the force off-guard, and had apparently not expected any sort of return fire. They turned their full attention back to Carlo, even as he continued to fire towards them. An explosive hammer-hit slammed into his chest, and he dropped the gun and collapsed forward into the dirt. His eyes, groggy and uncooperative, still made out the civilian “comrade” recovered in the ambush fall back, bullet shot through his head.

The pain was numb, odd. His hands refused to obey his directions to lift him up. He could hear boot steps approaching, harsh and demanding along the road surface. That harsh accent was present in the voice that addressed him. Anger was palpable in it.

“You, feudal relic, have served your masters well. Center will be very disappointed in my results, da.” There was some muttering in Russian. Finally he switched back to Italian. “This is more mercy than you deserve, American dog.”

He heard another high-pitched pistol shot, and then, nothing.

[MarshalPurnell]

Part IV: Revenge, Served Cold
“The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God… Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
-Inaugural Address, John F. Kennedy

Saint Thomas Church,
Outside Berlin, German Democratic Republic,
November 17th, 1962
Old Terra

The more a nation stressed its democratic nature and popular legitimacy in its name, the less of either it really had. Joseph mused on that irony in the heart of the German Democratic Republic, which had at least omitted the rather clichéd “People’s” from its title. Not even the ruling elite of the Socialist Unity Party convinced themselves that the GDR belonged to its people; it, more than any other Warsaw Pact nation, was a creature of the Soviet Union. It was the forward base for the world socialist revolution, which in practice meant the massive Russian armies poised to drive into the heart of Western Europe, and as such its capital of Berlin was second in importance only to Moscow itself. But where Moscow was deep in the heart of the Soviet Empire, Berlin was bisected, with a secure (until war started, anyway) outpost of Western territory conveniently nearby. Berlin was the spy capital of the world in most respects, where the hidden conflicts between Western intelligence and their Eastern counterparts bubbled closest to the surface, and where the free world obtained much of its espionage results.

Unfortunately, things had gotten rather more complicated recently with the shutdown of links between the two halves of the city. A wall was going up, supposedly as an obstacle to an American invasion, but in reality to shut off the rather free flow of refugees from the worker’s paradise to its capitalist neighbor. And the Soviets and their East German puppets were perfectly aware of the successes that the CIA and its allied European services were achieving; the wall would also seriously narrow the number of ways out of the country. At the same time, a new KGB commissioner had been appointed to oversee counterintelligence in Berlin, dismissing the ineffective KGB resident and putting pressure on the East Germans to subordinate their own domestic intelligence service, the Stasi, to direct Soviet command. All of this was of concern to the Western espionage agencies, and they had responded with a series of innovative ideas and methods to get around the danger posed by the wall and increased domestic surveillance within East Germany.

Then, three months ago, the first bodies had started turning up. Agents missing for weeks were dumped outside of West Berlin safehouses, or dragged out of the Spree River by East German fishermen. Someone in East Germany had decided to stop playing by the unwritten rules of the Great Game, and the results had been devastating to the American, British, and French intelligence services alike. The CIA had called for a joint task force with the other friendly agencies operating in Berlin to coordinate a response to the recent murders, while avoiding escalation that could threaten its vulnerable position in Moscow. It had been obvious to Joseph that they had a star agent in the Soviet capital and would pay the price of bodies in Berlin rather than risk a full-scale hidden war with the Russians. The British, as usual, went along with the Americans while seriously scaling back their illegals in the East German capital, instead concentrating on a scheme with the Americans to tunnel under Berlin.

Joseph had remained quiet at that meeting, hosted by the CIA station chief in the American embassy, and implied that his agency would follow the American lead. The Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage had its own sources of information and own intelligence on the situation, including an agent in the Kremlin that the General had ordered the Americans told nothing of. That source had indicated the new head of the Berlin mission was acting in contravention of his orders; Khrushchev, it seemed, wanted no provocations directed at the Americans in the wake of the near-disaster of the Cuban crisis. This new resident commissioner, one Ivan Tikonov, had powerful allies in the hardliner clique of the Politburo and a blind eye from the director of the KGB, but there was no broader consensus favoring his methods.

Joseph had recognized the name, of course. And he had talked to his superiors in Paris. With the information the SDECE had from Moscow, it was apparent that Tikonov was acting beyond his authority. At the same time, there was the threat that his actions, if they obtained consistent results, might convince the KGB to apply them more widely. They had approved direct action to eliminate the problem.

He looked out of the belfry of the aging, abandoned wooden church, an excellent observation point for the surrounding countryside. The chill wind seemed to blow through the heavy overcoat he was wearing, but it was bearable. A quick glance spared to the graveyard beside the church picked up the open pit that he had helped dig earlier, with extra-large sized coffin waiting beside it. The rest of the men of his squad were invisible, hiding in prepared cover positions, ready to spring the ambush he had carefully plotted. He would have his own role in that fight; an aging, but well-maintained Mannlicher model 1895 rifle, a family antique adjusted with the finest Swiss optical scope that money could buy, rested within reach. There would be a hearse coming by, soon, one carrying a coffin that was filled with nothing but dirt, as bait for the target. Tikonov wouldn’t know that, and who he thought was in that coffin made this “mission” far too sensitive to allow to be handled by a subordinate. Joseph had seen to that.

Minutes passed by, until the hearse finally appeared on the ill-maintained dirt road running by the church. It was far easier to get from East Berlin to the surrounding countryside than it was to get to West Berlin, and the abandoned church was close, very close to the environs of the capitalist outpost. The hand of the Stasi was light here, in an area still somewhat depopulated by the passage of the Red Army in 1945, and later by the emphasis of the new Marxist regime on heavy industry. It was, in short, the perfect place for a tunnel; if one did not count on such an obvious location being far too vulnerable to cursory scrutiny. Tikonov wouldn’t be examining his biases or double-thinking, though, not when he would be relieved to have “discovered” the basis of the Western escape route.

An escape route the man who had saved him from Stalin’s wrath, and had been his lover, was supposedly going to use. As a matter of fact Joseph had put a bullet in the head of the retired NKVD general and wartime SMERSH commander Boreshevsky the night he had been kidnapped. But Tikonov wouldn’t know that either, and he was undoubtedly panicking at the thought of the old man who knew so many of his secrets defecting to the West. Also at the threat of the exact nature of their relationship being exposed to the Politburo; while the Soviets might tolerate that sort of thing, it would keep him from ascending to the highest levels of Soviet power. So, naturally, it would have to be handled by Tikonov in person to prevent rumors from getting out, especially since he had married into a family of Party elites. Tikonov had to be sure that Boreshevsky did not survive the “defection”; his retrieval would be as disastrous as his escape, as far as the KGB commissioner was concerned.

Two of the ubiquitous East German Trabants, with a black Russian ZIL armored limousine squeezed in between, followed within ten minutes of the hearse. Two of his agents were hauling the coffin inside the church when the automobiles pulled up, Rather than drop the coffin weighted down with dirt, they continued to struggle up the steps to the church door, redoubling their efforts to get inside. More direction, more staging. Joseph picked up his rifle, ducking down to present a less visible profile. He urged the two agents below to get the coffin inside, quickly. He was relieved when they struggled through the heavy oak doors before the Tabants came to a stop. Once inside they would take up the FN-FAL assault rifles secured right by the doors, and when the signal was given, would break out the stain-glass windows and spray the assembled KGB or Stasi agents with gunfire.

Joseph watched as men in black trenchcoats got out of the cars, and began to mill about, waiting for some leader to take over. Finally, he saw someone getting out of the back of the ZIL, and raised his rifle up to observe through his scope. His heart pounded as he swung the rifle in the direction, looking intently at the face of the heavyset, grey-haired man stepping out and standing up from the car seat. He recognized the man as Tikonov, and brought his rifle down, kneeling on his knees to get the appropriate shot; Joseph licked his lips, tried to clear his mind and still his breathing, then fired. The recoil was intense, but his shoulder absorbed it and his right hand moved smoothly off the trigger to jerk back the bolt mechanism in a gesture so practiced as to be ingrained. The smashing of the Church windows followed, with the high pitched, constant firing of the automatic weapons followed. Other men, kneeling in their concealed blinds, added their own fire to the ambush, while a shatteringly loud retort announced the actions of the other sniper on the team, firing a WWII-vintage anti-tank rifle into the engine blocks of the cars from a position hundreds of yards away in the woodline.

The enemy had come armed, but obviously hadn’t expected anything like the ambush they fell into. The result was a massacre, and after squeezing off a second snap-shot at one of the black-clad figures, Montecuccoli stopped firing altogether. He began instead policing up the scene on the belfry, even as the sounds of firing died down and then stopped altogether within moments. Screams now punctuated the still air, going on as he emerged into the church proper. He slung the rifle over his shoulder with the leather strap, and walked down the aisle towards the entrance, motioning at the two agents inside to follow him.

Joseph stepped over the coffin and pushed the oak doors open, striding out into the scene of carnage and blood, flanked by the other two agents who maintained a wary watch on the writhing survivors. Their rifles were leveled cleanly at the ground, ready to finish off any threats as soon as they made a move or Joseph ordered it. “Finish them off, except Tikonov,” he ordered, pointing to the one man slumped down in the dirt by the ZIL.

Three sharp shots rang out, and it was over as Joseph approached the limousine, standing before the wounded Tikonov lying in the dirt, struggling to breath and suffering from massive blood loss by way of his ugly chest wound.

“I was aiming for your gut,” Joseph stated plainly in fluent Russian to Tikonov. The older man’s eyes, glazed as they were, seemed to roll over to the right. Joseph acted swiftly, stamping his foot down on that arm, eliciting a sharp yelp from Tikonov. He kicked the Tokarev pistol off towards the church, away from the reach of the mortally wounded man. “Now that just wouldn’t do.”

Tikonov was beginning to slip away; that wouldn’t do either. He motioned his two agents over, and gave the signal for the other three to emerge from their blinds. “André, help me carry Tikonov to his coffin. The rest of you, start policing up rounds and make sure everyone here is dead. Pile the bodies in the cars. We’ll use the hearse to tow them to the disposal site, as we planned.”

André grabbed Tikonov’s legs, as Joseph gripped him between his underarms. The dying man had put on weight in his middle age, and his body was slick with blood. At one point Joseph nearly lost his grip, but barely avoided sending Tikonov to the ground. At last, they reached the open grave and its coffin, and brought Tikonov over it before dumping him in rudely. His fall was broken by another body.

“Oleg,” Tikonov sighed weakly, guessing at who lay beneath him.

Joseph nodded, and smiled grimly. “It was only fitting you two be buried together. We had to kidnap him to get you out here, but he had no value to us.”

“Killing him made him unable to escape,” Tikonov heaved. The setup was ruthless, his style of ruthless. “You murdered Dietrich, too.”

Joseph shrugged his shoulders. “He wouldn’t have abandoned his new boyfriend if he was really going to defect, non? I felt badly enough about that, he was more of a boy than a man; your blood, and Borachevsky’s, though, I welcome on my hands.”

“Personal, then.” Tikonov was certain of that, as certain as he was of the impossibility of his survival.

“Very personal. My name if Joseph di Montecuccoli.” If Tikonov recognized the name, he gave no indication. “You murdered my brother Carlo, nearly twenty years ago.”

“I don’t…” Tikonov began hacking up blood, not finishing the sentence.

“You don’t remember, do you?” Joseph asked. It was a rhetorical question given Tikonov’s state, and Joseph asked it for his own benefit. “A monster like you, too many people killed at your hands for you to recall them all. Fair enough. Give my regards to Satan.”

Montecuccoli lowered the lid down on the coffin. It was nailed in place with efficiency by Joseph and André, before they both left to help the other agents arrange the scene. They brought back a couple of other hands later to lower the coffin into the ground, and cover it with dirt.

“Are we still gonna send those love letters we took outta Borachevsky’s house to Moscow?” André asked, as they got into the rhythm of shoveling. “That’ll sure see his family kicked out of their Party housing and into the streets.”

Montecuccoli thought about it for a minute, but only a minute. “No, I think not. We’ve done enough for one day, and better to leave this whole incident shrouded as much as possible. If little Oleg Tikonov can make it in the Party after this last failure by his father, he doesn’t deserve any more obstacles in his path.”

[MarshalPurnell]

Part V: The Royal Hunt
“The deprivation of the Russian people is only a symptom of the rapacious capitalist disease that has infected the world. The so-called globalization of the neo-liberal clique is only the latest term for theft, oppression, and deceit. There can be no salvation for humanity save through the workings of the material-historic dialectic, which will bring about the triumph of the proletariat and a Worker’s Socialist Paradise on Earth. Arise, ye Russian people, and cast off the capitalist puppets forced upon you by the Western plutocrats, and restore the noble Union of Soviet Socialist Republics! Do this not merely for your own advancement, but in fraternal solidarity with all of the people of the world groaning out under the capitalist yoke.”
-Oleg Tikonov, Red Square Address of June 9th, 2007.

Outside Karlsbad,
Soviet Occupied Bohemia,
June 17th, 2013
Old Terra

Shrapnel arced out from the rapid-fire bursts of the Russian flak vehicle, filling the air with a deadly metal sleet slicing through the skies. The Mirage 2000D jinked upward, freed of the weight of satellite guided bombs now arcing to the earth on a Soviet divisional headquarters, and hit its afterburner. Normally this would have begun a level acceleration back to supersonic speeds, abandoned for the earth-hugging attack run, rendering the plane all but impossible to hit. With NATO air power assuring no Soviet fighter dared to poke its head up into the clouds, and with every SAM site within a hundred miles of the German border cratered by previous attacks, that should have been enough to get the plane well out of danger. Unfortunately for the crew of the French fighter, one of those flak bursts hit just below the craft and sent fragments of lethal steel slicing into the belly of the plane.

Captain Phillip Montecuccoli felt a sudden, violent shaking in the airframe as suddenly it seemed the entire panoply of warning signals and lights broke out in the cockpit. He immediately tried leveling the plane off, but the fly-by-wire system was unresponsive, and the plane continued flying straight towards a belt of trees along the river Eger below, speeding up as it began to enter into a terminal dive. Montecuccoli spared a glance at the side; the right wing of the plane had been savaged by the shrapnel, that much was obvious, and there would simply be no recovery. “Jules, Jules,” he spoke aloud, trying to get his weapons system officer to reply. “We have to eject!” he shouted urgently, trying to prepare the other man in the man in the cockpit for the violent demands of the high-gee exit.

There was no response, and so Phillip twisted painfully in his seat to check on the other man. Jules was slumped forward in the cockpit, limp as if boneless, and there was a trace of blood coming down his neck. Somehow a piece of the flak burst had sliced through the plane’s frame and into the weapons officer. Phillip crossed himself in reflexive horror at how close he too might have come to death, and in shock at the freak occurrence that had claimed the life of his comrade. But there was nothing that he could do for the younger officer, and the plane was now tilting down steeply, leaving Phillip no more time. He reached for the red ejection lever under his seat, and pulled.

The transparent canopy popped off first, detaching on hinges and being caught in the rapidly flowing winds around the aircraft. The extra drag slowed the plane down somewhat, though it was only a second before the canopy broke off and went hurtling through the sky, far beyond the plane. Then the rocket boosters of the ejection seat cut in, booting Montecuccoli upwards with a force of 14gees, slamming him into the back of the seat while bone-chilling winds cut through the insulated pilot suit. It seemed an eternity, though it was only seconds, before the rocket engines cut out and the parachute system deployed. Phillip’s head lolled to his right shoulder, and his eyes were drawn down at the onrushing ground. Out of the corner of his eye he saw an orange fireball blossom as his plane struck the ground and exploded, and then the chair fell away, leaving him floating through the sky and feeling weightless.

He hit the ground hard. He crumpled up into a roll to take the shock, trying to avoid breaking his legs or otherwise suffering incapacitating damage. The parachute descended down over him, covering him over and leaving him struggling for his belt release as his surroundings disappeared behind the synthetic silk canopy. He pushed in the button, and sloughed the pack of his parachute off his shoulders, sending it tumbling to the ground. Montecuccoli worked out the survival pack before lifting off the synthetic cloth and stuffing it back into the parachute. He couldn’t afford to leave any clues as to where he had come down, not if he wanted to evade capture. The Soviets would know that his fighter had been shot down, and would invariably send a patrol to check out the wreckage and run down survivors.

Which reminded him of the homing beacon in his survival pack, which Allied and Soviet units alike could pick up. Darting into the woods, he slid behind a tall pine tree and nervously looked around for any sign of a human presence. He pulled out the survival pack and opened it up, looking over the contents; medical pack including morphine and antibiotics, a few hundred euros and about 100 euros in gold currency, emergency beacon, survival knife, bandages, compass and map. A hand-held GPS locator would have been included a year ago, but that was before Soviet anti-satellite weapons had been used to take out massive chunks in the coverage. Montecuccoli made certain the locator beacon was turned firmly off, for the moment. It might bring a NATO search and rescue team, but was more likely to bring capture at the moment.

The birds flocked back on the branches they had abandoned in the commotion of the crash, and began starting their songs again. Montecuccoli fought the adrenaline surge in his body, demanding that he get as far away from wreck as possible, right now. He squatted, and laid out the map on the ground, placing the survival kit on it to keep it from being blown away by a gust of wind. He used the compass to align the map to north, and tried to work out his approximate location, and where he should try to reach. West, towards the German border, seemed like the best direction; once Montecuccoli was closer to the front lines he could activate the beacon and be fairly sure that allied search and rescue would reach him.

Reassured, and with an object in mind, he folded the map up and put the survival pack back into its pouch. He couldn’t use the main road through this stretch of wilderness, heading towards the city of Karlovy Vary; it would be too heavily used, especially by Soviet logistics personnel. That left the game trails and perhaps some backwoods roads to stumble across. At least he had a general direction, and didn’t feel any damage, and having taken lunch before the sortie had a full stomach, and the weather was nice…

Several hours of stumbling around later, Montecuccoli finally stopped himself and leaned against a pine. A stream burbled nearby, but he’d failed to find any trail. He pulled out the compass again to get his bearings. “The moss always grows on the north, doesn’t it?” he asked himself. At least one of those stupid American films had said so.

The stillness of the forest invited paranoia. Phillip had lived his life in Paris or Marseilles, barely ever bothering to go out to the estates near Grenoble. He was not a skilled woodsman, but even he was beginning to pick up on being watched. Of course, by that time, the camouflaged personnel were emerging into view, Kalashnikovs swung in his direction, shouting something guttural and with too few consonants to be spoken by NATO forces.

Montecuccoli raised his hands. There was little point in resistance. One of the men, wearing forest camo BDUs and a black ski mask, approached. “I surrender,” Phillip said out loud, this time in English.

The man lowered the gun and shook his head. “No, we are partisans! Friends!” The rest of the band cried out too, and tried their best to look non-threatening.

“Remerciez à Dieu,” the pilot muttered. Phillip lowered his hands and leaned back up against the tree. “I am relieved to see you then,” he stated aloud. “I am Captain Phillip Montecuccoli, of the French Air Force. I was shot down attacking the Russians. I am trying to evade the enemy and make my west.”

The man in the ski mask restrained himself from laughing openly; they’d picked him up and tracked him with pathetic ease. “Your way with the woods is not… skilled. You should be thankful we found you before the Russians. They are sweeping these woods and we need to spread out. Follow us, and try to be careful. I will get you to an extraction point.”

“Of course.” Montecuccoli gingerly made his way forward, trying not to disturb the scene further. The partisans were amused, nonetheless. “How close are the Russians.”

The partisan shrugged. “Near enough. You can call me Karel, by the way. We’re going to be taking the logging path to the south. You want to go west, but the Russians are sending strong patrols that way; it’s too obvious. So we’ll skirt them, part of the troop going directly to Karlovy Vary, while I take us to a farmhouse so we can get you clothes, documents, and such. We’ll go into the city tomorrow, and you can be on the way through the escape line by that evening.”

“Wonderful,” Phillip replied, relief evident in his voice. “Anything more that I need to know?”

“No, no,” Karel assured him. “The farm has plenty of transient labor, and the owner is close to our movement. My old man has given us the run of an old and ruined manor house on the property, so we’ll be isolated. Just let me do all the talking, if we should run into anybody. Now, just stay relaxed and it will all go better.”

Phillip tried to follow his advice, but his stomach knotted itself regardless. It would stay that way until he was safe and sound on German territory.

[MarshalPurnell]

Part VI: Bohemian History
“A great war in Europe, destroying the lives of millions, has ended. It is the third such war in a century, a grim reminder of the failure of the people of the West to come to terms with one another. Now, with tyranny once more in ruins, with democracy triumphant, but with tens of millions desperate to piece together their lives, will we repeat the mistakes of the past? We avoided the nuclear holocaust by the flimsiest of circumstance; if we do not change, if we do not create a better world, then the lives lost in the past four years will have been in vain. The survival of the human race will still be in question. Future generations, however many there are, will never forgive us.”
-President Arnold A. Wagner, State of the Union Address, January 15th, 2015

Outside Karlsbad
Czech Republic,
July 17th, 2014
Old Terra

It was an early winter this year; volcanic activity in the Western Pacific had sent up impressive volumes of dirt and debris into the atmosphere, and in Indonesia had added over a million casualties to the already disastrous death toll of the Year of Our Lord two-thousand fourteen. What was left of the Greens in Europe was already blaming the “global cooling” on the nuclear destruction of Vladivostok, Kiev and Almaty in the final tactical nuclear exchange between NATO and the holdout Soviet generals. Phillip chuckled at the reminder of what some foolish people would believe. But at least the dénouement of the war had finally broken the French Communist Party and destroyed the appeal of socialism in Europe.

The orangish-haze of the Sun had stopped being breathtaking weeks ago. Its dim light cast upon the ruined heap of what had once been an ostentatious manor house. The roof was marred by exposed holes, beams poking through, and windows had been smashed out. The front facade was pock-marked with bullet holes, and the paint scheme on the porch was faded to a mere suggestion that it had once been a pristine white. Vines curled around pillars and grew into cracks in the brickwork of the house, while rotted timbers made a trip up the steps hazardous. The whole effect was something out of a Gothic horror novel, something Shelley or Byron might have conjured in an opium dream.

Montecuccoli remarked as much to his companion as they entered through the shattered door. The partisan he had known as “Karel” had reintroduced himself as Roman Hasek when the Frenchman had sought him out. Thank yous had turned into reminisces, and the Czech irregular had invited him on an extended tour of his home region.

“When I was a boy, I took a dare to spend the night here” Roman began. “We thought it was haunted. To prove I was brave I accepted the challenge to overnight in the old mansion with the ghosts and witches and such. The old house had creaks and other noises, and spiders and rats and even bats that flew out around midnight. I was scared, I tell you my friend, when I heard this…”

A loud wooden squeak followed by the creak of ancient timber groaning back into place interrupted the former partisan. He turned to look at Phillip, motioning the other man to be quiet even as he fell back into a guarded stance. Roman pointed towards a room on the left, past the entrance hall and its decayed staircase. “The ballroom,” he stated tightly, and proceeded towards the source of the disturbance. Phillip fell in behind him, after checking his service pistol in the holster at his side.

Roman peered into the ballroom, then rushed in and began screaming and (Phillip presumed) swearing in a guttural language that Montecuccoli recognized as the man’s native Czech. The French officer followed carefully, peering into the veil of gloom inside the decrepit and unlighted ballroom, and stepping in slowly. The iron skeleton of what had once been a chandelier, long looted of any valuable crystal and gold work, stood by the broad entrance. Ahead, walking across the wooden floor he recognized a man in khaki, turning to confront the incensed Roman.

“C’est un Anglais!” Montecuccoli called out. “A Briton, Englishman,” he followed after the initial instinctive shout, trying to calm Roman down. “I am Captain Phillip Montecuccoli, with the defense forces! Do not be alarmed!” The other man, clearly a soldier of some kind, could still escalate the matter.

The intruder stepped back, abashed at the screaming protests of the younger man. “Major Jan Marik, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, attached to the peacekeeping headquarters in Prague,” he offered. “This mansion once belonged to my family, I was looking through it for some heirlooms, papers, and such.”

“Like hell!” Roman spat out. “This land has been my father’s since the privatization. The deed is at the farmhouse, all signed out properly and correctly. The damn Soviets couldn’t pry it away from us when they came back.”

“And before the Communists, it belonged to my grandfather,” Marik insisted politely. “The Germans requisitioned it after he fled, and the Communists collectivized it after they came in. But it was built by the Mariks in the 1740s, and renovated in the 1890s, and the very land it sits upon was ours by right of Imperial grant in the 14th century.”

“Ah I see,” Montecuccoli stepped in, moving into the ballroom and trying to calm the tone of the confrontation down. “There’s no reason to fight over this ruin is there? At least discuss the matter like civilized men.”

Roman still seemed riled up, but Marik visibly deflated. “You’re right, you’re right. The house is in ruins. And everything important seems to have been looted. I was hoping, just maybe to find the land patent but it is hopeless.”

“As I thought, another aristocrat trying to press claims of old days,” the native replied with contempt. “The deed to this land says Hasek on it, not Marik, and you will never prove otherwise. How many Hussites did your ancestor kill to earn your lands? And that your family kept them is answer enough to which side they were on at White Mountain.”

“I don’t want to be a farmer,” Marik replied bitterly. “But my grandfather dreamed of seeing his homeland once again. He fought the Germans over Britain and the Soviets in Whitehall, and died before Czechoslovakia was free. I wanted to vindicate him by having our claims and service acknowledged.”

Roman still looked suspicious. “And you need a land-title for that? If it ever existed in the first place, it does not today. And if your family was victims of the Communists, there are rehabilitation committees to go before.”

“My family was expropriated under the authority of the Benes Decrees,” Marik responded. “My great-grandfather was a thorn in the side of that sniveling coward. But his sin was having supported the Habsburgs and being an aristocrat, not the absurd charge of being a German sympathizer. The Soviets used the powers granted to strip everything he owned left in Czechia, but there is no reconciliation committee for that and I can’t sue in the Human Rights Court without standing.”

“And you have no standing without proof that your family’s property was expropriated,” Montecuccoli observed. “He needs the land title, Roman, to prove that the authorities injured his rights so that he can go to court and clear the family name.”

“The parish records were confiscated by the Soviets,” Roman admitted, now pondering the question of how to give the man what he needed without compromising his own family’s claim to the land. “God knows where they are now. But I tell you, there are no documents in this house. It has been poured over and looked in for decades now.”

Marik slumped in defeat. “It was a vain last hope. It won’t matter in a few years, when grandmother passes away. She’s the one who has kept our ties to the homeland alive.

Montecuccoli nodded in sympathy; his own family had been able to enter Austria again only from the 1990s. “I have a camera here,” he offered, pulling out the latest specialized Japanese digital model. “Perhaps you can at least take some pictures for your family while here? That’s what I was doing here, documenting the escape route Roman led me through last year for my fiancée.”

“Pictures…” Hasek mumbled guiltily. He seemed to come to a decision as the two foreign officers talked on. “There is something I can do for you after all,” he admitted. Roman moved further to the side of the room before bending over and pulling up a rotted timber. He pulled out a large leather-bound book, before standing and offering it to Marik. “I discovered this hidden away that night I spent here as a boy.”

Marik took the heavy volume and opened it up. He flipped through the first few pages, and then looked in the back. “That’s my great-grandfather here… maybe that is my grandfather as a boy. And the people in the front are maybe Victorian in dress. It is a family photo album, I’m sure of it!”

“Take it, then.” Roman shrugged. “But I’m afraid that’s all there is here for you.”

“More than I had hoped for,” Marik answered, grateful for the book. “It is something after all. Thank you, thank you for this.”

“I will send copies of my photos to you as well, if you want them,” Montecuccoli offered. “They should cover most of the area around this mansion, if I remember that couple of days a year ago well enough.”

Marik looked up from the book. “Yes, that would be welcome. I have a card with my account at the headquarters in Prague…” Marik shifted the weight of the book to his left hand, while pulling a business-style card out of his right pocket. “I should be leaving now, but thank you again.” He passed the card off into Phillip’s hand, again profusely thanking him and Roman on the way out.

[MarshalPurnell]

Part VII: The Old City
“The formation of this ‘Western Alliance’ is a mortal challenge to all of the undeveloped and unprivileged nations of the world. In the United Nations we have secured an absolute majority and the prospect of a world government responsive to the demands of the people to overturn the Eurocentric capitalist order that impoverishes the rest of the world. Is it a coincidence that only now the wealthy exploiter nations of Europe and North America band together in a military and political alliance that can defy the will of the oppressed majority of humanity? We must be vigilant against the imposition of a rapacious neo-colonial order on the Nonaligned World by the same white faces that raped our nations under the banner of the old colonialism.”
-Kalvita Sen, Address to the Central Committee of the All-India Marxist Worker’s Communist Party, March 16, 2015

Prague,
Czech Republic,
January 23rd, 2018
Old Terra

Prague had been devastated in the street fighting of the neo-Soviet invasion of 2009, and then again in the NATO liberation of Czechoslovakia in 2013. The end of the war had seen a surge of investment in the country, with reconstruction proceeding energetically. Construction cranes towered above the skyline, lit up at night by the businesses and offices of the city’s modern exterior sections. There were still empty spaces amid every block of the old city, where the rubble had been cleared away but where funds had not yet been allocated for rebuilding. On the whole, and despite the stiff cost in lives the occupation and liberation had exacted, the Czech Republic was booming.

The fluorescent lights of the downtown club district attested to the levity and pleasure of the inhabitants now long-freed from the deprivation and horrors of war. Phillip Montecuccoli took in the energy, presenting such a striking contrast from his tour in the NATO headquarters during 2014. Then even the sky had seemed perennially gray, with the pallor of barely-dodged mass starvation hanging over the city and its population.

How times had changed!

“There it is, honey.” His wife Helene waved across the street, at the nondescript whitewashed brick and taverna style portico marking Bruno’s. The talented German chef Bruno Weiss had moved to Prague to open his first restaurant in 2007, and had survived through the occupation by serving the Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front headquarters. The utility of the arrangement for the Resistance, which wound up providing all of Bruno’s staff from doorman to maitre‘d to dishwasher, had kept him from being summarily executed after the liberation.

As they crossed over the street, Phillip offered his arm to her, which she took unselfconsciously. Lithe and blonde, Helene was wearing a classic version of the Little Black Dress that accentuated her classical features. For his own part he was wearing a conservative business suit, and uncomfortably at that. Civilian fashion was new to the former military pilot.

“Sir, madam” acknowledged the doorman in Czech, as he stepped aside and opened the entrance for them. Phillip nodded to him as he passed by. They were met at the entrance by the maitre’d, an outrageously stereotypical figure in the traditional costume, clutching the reservations book on his podium.

“Bonjour, monsieur et madame,” he greeted the couple. “Do you have a reservation?”

“Phillip and Helene Montecuccoli, we’re meeting Jan and Alena Marik.” The use of English was common in Prague these days, as it was across Europe. The Gallic sympathies of Phillip despaired, but only just; his family was no stranger to multilingualism and the use of foreign tongues as a common medium of communication. “That was at eight o’clock,” Phillip prompted.

The maitre’d flipped over to the appropriate place in his record book and found the reference. “Yes sir. Monsieur and Madam Marik are waiting for you.” He motioned over at a waiter passing by. “Take the couple to table 14, Anton,” he ordered.

Anton led them through the restaurant. Lighted only be candle, the interior was furnished with heavy oaken tables and red-plush lined chairs, in the model of the minimalist comfort chic imported from California. Towards the back he stopped, and extended his hand towards a table with four chairs, two of them already occupied. “Mister and Mrs. Marik, Mister and Mrs. Montecuccoli.”

“Thank you, Anton.” Phillip, ever the gentleman, held out the empty side chair for his wife. She daintily stepped by him and sat down. Phillip stepped back before his own seat. “Jan, great to see you again. This is my wife Helene.”

“The pleasure is mine, Helene,” Marik replied. “This is my wife Alena. We met a couple of months after that time on the estate.”

“Enchanté, madam.” Phillip sat down himself, introductions exchanged.

Anton handed over two new menus. “We have as specials tonight the honey-glazed duck breast with lotus root, served with a radicchio salad and our house ginger-miso dressing, and the lemongrass tilapia with rice pilaf, also served with radicchio salad and house dressing. The house soup tonight is a Potage Oignon ala Languedoc.”

“A bottle of your finest red,” Marik requested. “I usually drink stout, but tonight demands something special.”

Anton nodded. “I will be back shortly with the wine and to collect your orders.”

In the meantime the two mens’ wives were getting to know one another. Helene, clearly the more outgoing of the two, was the first to start the pleasantries. “How did you and Jan meet, Alena?”

The darker, shorter Czech woman was shy in her response, though her English, like that of most of her countrywomen, was tinged with only the slightest of accents. “I was passing by the Karl V Bridge when I saw an English soldier looking around. I thought he was lost and asked if he needed directions. Jan here was just playing tourist. Before the war I was an intern with the city’s antiquities department, so I knew the history and locations, and he was just so enthusiastic. I spent the day with him, going around town. We were both working at the NATO headquarters, so we saw more of each other later, and got to know one another better.”

“She is too modest,” Jan broke in. “I would have gotten very lost in the old city without her. And with her, for the first time, I felt a real connection to this land and its people, to my people. I fell in love with Prague, and with her.”

“How charming,” Helene replied. “When I met Phillip, I was the tourist. That was before the war, back in 2011. I was vacationing in Grenoble with my girlfriend Julie and her husband Fernand. I met Phillip at a riding exhibition. I thought it was all so reactionary, this wealthy aristocrat showing off on horseback, but Fernand introduced us and I saw Phillip really wasn’t like that at all.”

“Grandfather Joseph was maybe a little like that, a little,” Montecuccoli conceded. “But the times have changed, and so have we. It was a slow courtship, though.” He smiled lazily. “She was so insensible and insisted on having her career in New York…”

Helene playfully kicked her husband on the shin under the table, and Phillip made a show of responding in pain. “So maybe he is a little reactionary after all.” Helene shook her head. “The long distance relationship was trying, but then came the war, and Phillip’s unit was called up… It made me reconsider my priorities, and so I proposed before he went off to fight.”

Alena seemed a little shocked at the unconventional and assertive touch. Jan merely laughed politely. “The times have changed quite a bit, old chum.” He grew a bit more sober. “Before we get down to business, I wanted to tell you that I turned up some copies of the correspondence of your great-grandfather Ferdinand with my great-grandfather Joseph. They were among my grandmother’s effects. I can return them to you, if you want them.”

“Oh, I doubt they’re of more than historical curiosity,” Phillip dismissed. “But I am fascinated to learn our families once knew one another. We were both Austrian nobility, but what are the odds of that?”

“From what I’ve seen of the letters the common bond was dispossession and exile,” Marik commented. “But yes, nothing more than a historical curiosity.” He changed tack afterward. “I understand that you were released from military service recently?”

“Very recently”, Phillip acknowledged. “I’m now a military consultant for the Western Alliance. We’re back in Prague to bring the Czech Air Force back into existence and to help the integration of Czech forces into the Alliance command.”

“We are preparing to wage a new war so soon after the last war?” Alena Marik asked, disappointedly. “I thought the Western Alliance was supposed to bring peace and cooperation so we could free up money from the army for reconstruction.”

“That was the idea,” Phillip responded, and shrugged. “Some of the Asian and African states are not taking the eclipse of the United Nations by our Alliance well. The prospect for conflict is, alas, still rather high. But as the Western Alliance becomes more integrated, and proves that it can provide a framework for world peace and cooperation, that will change. In the meantime, he who wishes for peace had still better prepare for war.”

“No politics here, please,” Helene pleaded with her husband. “We fight over that enough at home.”

“An excellent suggestion,” Jan concurred. “We are all friends here. And if you will be in Prague we simply must keep in touch more.”

The conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the maitre’d, with Anton following with a green glass bottle in hand. “Monsieur, for you inspection,” he addressed Marik. Jan sniffed the cork as the maitre’d removed it, and tasted a sample glass of wine.

“Yes, excellent,” he pronounced. “The officer’s mess of the British Army does teach a few social skills” he explained jovially to his companions. The maitre’d left Anton to pour out the wine into the glasses of the guists. Helene declined the drink.

“I was going to tell you this later tonight, honey, but I’m pregnant,” she announced warily, in explanation.

Phillip looked shocked for a minute; Marik was the first to break the silence afterward. “Wonderful news, my friends!” he positively roared. Alena looked up brightly as well; she and Jan had been trying for a couple of weeks.

Montecuccoli regained his composure and the glaze dropped from his eyes. “That is… wonderful news, dear. I am so happy…”

Anton waited patiently until the initial flurry of congratulations subsided. “You have my congratulations too. Would you care to order now?”

[MarshalPurnell]

Part VIII: Spring Thaw
“A 35 hour work week is capitalist slavery. We have to smash the statist chains that bind our proletarian brothers in the semi-conductor industry, and use the momentum to work up a real revolution. We’ll drive the damn yanquis right out of the Western Hemisphere! Oh, uh… Yanqui go home? No, we need something new. Most of the troops are slant-eyes anyway. This was so much easier when it was only Washington keeping us down. How about… ‘Terrys go home!’ Does that sound any better to you guys?”
Anonymous Black Brigades group leader, at an organizational meeting of the Sao Paolo Anarchist Alliance as monitored by Terran Alliance internal security, July 8th, 2098.

Grenoble,
Sixth French Republic,
March 8th, 2090
Old Terra

Spring in the foothills of the Alps came suddenly, producing a dramatic transformation of the snow covered landscape, threatening the ancient villages around them with flash floods. Winter the world over was harsher than ever, the summer more temperate and changeovers in the seasons more drastic than any time since the Little Ice Age. What had been hopefully dismissed as an aberration caused by volcanic reactions in the aftermath of the devastating Soviet Civil War had been the leading wave of a new global cooldown. The French, for all the damage to their wine vintages and the increased dangers to the mountain villages had it relatively well; they could still feed themselves quite comfortably. There was famine in strife-torn Ireland, in a now an even less hospitable Russia, and in a Balkans still unruly despite decades of occupation by Terran Alliance peacekeeping forces.

In spite of famine in Europe, pestilence in Africa, war in Asia, and political instability throughout, the Terran Alliance was holding on and so too were the Montecuccolis. William Montecuccoli savored a glass of chardonnay produced from the family fields to the south, closer to the Mediterranean. The family had only ever produced a mediocre vintage and in small yields, but with frost having wiped out most of the vineyards in Burgundy and parts north, it had trebled in market value. It hadn’t made the wine any better, but it might now be worth investing in a serious effort to improve the quality, now that French vintages were far rarer.

He held the wineglass up to the sunlight, looking at his own reflection. He still seemed to be well preserved in his late late forties, with all of his own (albeit dyed) hair and a toned physique that spoke to an active lifestyle. He was in fact seventy-two years old; the best that money could buy had kept getting better still.

On the other hand, that hadn’t saved his sister Alena from the aggressive cancer that had spread from her lungs into the greater part of her body in a matter of three months. That one still had the doctors baffled. Lung cancer had mostly disappeared with the introduction of genetically engineered tobacco in the 2030s, and the removal of asbestos and other carcinogens from building materials decades earlier. He’d put $4 million into a research foundation and half that again as a scholarship endowment for promising students from underprivileged backgrounds to attend the medical research universities of North America. In the face of the unexpected and undesired reminder of his mortality, it seemed such a small gesture.

“The young master Marik has arrived, sir.” Claude, the family butler and lately major-domo, had entered into the garden room. He was dressed, as always come rain or shine or heat, in the full classical uniform of his profession. With his bulk, and eye-patch over his right eye, and scars on his face, the effect was disconcerting.

Montecuccoli nodded in recognition. The meeting had been scheduled in advance, and it seemed the young Marik was right on time. “Please show him in. And tell the kitchen to bring up a light platter, and to be ready to fix lunch if called for.”

“Very good, sir.” Claude gave a light bow and stepped back into the mansion with surprising grace for a man of his build. He had come from the DGSE special action forces, which had been disbanded with the fall of the Fifth Republic and the decision of the Sixth Republic to fully integrate with the Terran Alliance. William had taken advantage of his own generous retirement package to leave his position in the French intelligence bureaucracy, and had managed to obtain the services of a number of people like Claude. It had worked out rather well all around.

Several minutes later Claude returned, accompanied by a very young man clutching an attaché case. “Marshik Marik,” he announced.

“Thank you, Claude.” The butler took his dismissal in stride. Montecuccoli waved over to the young Marik. “Marshik, you must be… eighteen now?”

“Nineteen, sir,” the Marik corrected. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.” He was, despite the difference in their ages, quite confident.

“Please sit,” the older man requested, pointing to a bench across from his own seat. “I admit to being intrigued by your message,” Montecuccoli said. “And of course our families have some ties, here and there. So what brings you, alone, all the way out to my humble estate?”

“It’s not so far with a EuroNet life pass,” Marshik replied offhand while sitting down. “I was hoping that you would ah, be willing to recommend me to University of Prague physics department. I applied there last summer but they need more, ah, I believe they said proof of reliability…”

“Ah, your uncle Anton.” Montecuccoli smiled thinly. “Well, being the nephew of the chairman of the Czech Nationalist Party is a disadvantage. What is it he called the Alliance in that speech before the Prague bread riots? Something like an inflamed boil on the cheek of the degenerate Western civilization?”

“It loses something in translation”, Marshik responded nonchalantly. “My grandfather disowned him and my father won’t speak to him. Slavophile philosophy is a relic of the 19th century. If it wasn’t for the increasing price of food and stagnant wages his party would be a joke.”

“It should be anyway. Your family has as many Slav ancestors as mine does,” William commented. “Which is not to say none, but not that many either. The inanity of nationalism obscures the cosmopolitan reality of life, especially in a family as distinguished as yours used to be. It is sad but only to be expected, considering your uncle’s rejection of the Church and his heritage that he should look to an artificial and false ideology to provide his life meaning.”

Marshik shrugged. He wasn’t religious himself, and the reactionary political sentiments of most of the family circle of friends was wearying. “That might be the case,” he replied noncommittally.

“Yes.” William took another sip of the wine, categorizing the complex of flavors. It was a useful exercise for clearing the mind. “So why then does this science program resist your entry? I don’t see any political implications, and with the world all but united espionage is not a serious concern. Would you defect to the likes of Zambia or Greater South Africa?”

The Marik looked up, glad to have a question he could answer without hesitation. “The university is involved in a project of some kind. The high energy particle physics division has been working with the papers of these cranks, Kearny and Fuchida, and well, something does seem to be there after all. I did my doctorate dissertation in the area of exotic particles working with some of Kearny’s less controversial theorems, and am perfect for a position in the program, but they won’t let me in.”

William nodded, trying to follow the conversation. “So, what exactly does this work involve?”

“They’re building a high energy dynamic state plasma accelerator to create the conditions for observing the exotic muon development theorized as a precursor to…” Marik droned on in like fashion for the next quarter of an hour.

The older man finally gave up. “Alright,” he held up his hands in surrender. “I don’t understand a word you are saying. So what is it that you expect this to lead to?”

“Well,” Marik hesitated. “The original series of papers by Kearny and Fuchida suggested that ah, one might manage to create an artificial event horizon in which…” He saw he was losing William again. “Well, sir, it hopes to prove the potential for faster than light propagation of particles across planetary system scale distances.”

“Like in Star Trek?” Montecuccoli asked incredulously. “Of all the wastes of tax dollars I have seen the Alliance commit…”

“That’s why they want recommendations for my reliability,” Marshik explained. “They’re afraid that bringing aboard someone with anti-Alliance sympathies would lead to leaks. With the political situation as charged as it is, there might be, ah, some bad press if this project were revealed too openly.”

“Riots in the streets,” William cynically extrapolated. “And you believe there really is something here?”

“Not like space travel and such,” Marshik shook his head. Actually he thought that might very well be possible, but he had read his audience. “The potential for ah, supercomputer applications and positronic networks is very, ah, significant. Also high energy weapons development, but with the Alliance so dominant that isn’t really a major concern.”

Gears clicked in William’s mind. “It might become one,” he muttered. “Alright, I take it you want me to assure the project director, as a close personal friend and a connected individual that you are no security threat?”

“I would appreciate it if you could,” Marik replied.

William mulled the matter over quickly. “I can do a bit better than that. If you want to join the Lycée Curie, I can put a word in directly to the Education Minister. He owes me a few favors for keeping his mistresses from meeting each other, and I play racquetball with his father every other week. Prague University is naturally a second-rate institution compared with the finest physics department in France.”

“Tha, that’s most generous of you, sir.” Marshik was momentarily stunned by the offer. He hadn’t expected it, and hadn’t come prepared to deal with it. But he only briefly considered it; no, he wanted into the Kearny-Fuchida program, and for whatever reason French institutions were being shut out of it. “I don’t think I could accept.”

William looked a bit disappointed. “Is the Lycée not good enough?”

“No sir, of course not sir!” Marshik responded, now clearly nervous. “It’s just that… I can’t leave Prague!” He blurted out the last line to buy him time to think of a good excuse for turning down Montecuccoli’s offer, and it was working; William was clearly surprised. “You see… ah…. I have a girl…”

“Aha!” William interjected, his eyes now clear with understanding. “Say no more. Of course I understand. Well, you wouldn’t be the first young man to reject an opportunity under the influence of the fairer sex. No point trying to talk you out of it. If you’ll leave me the contact information I will speak to whoever you need me to. I may have a favor I can call in with Terran Alliance intelligence if it comes to that.”

“Oh, thank you very much sir!” Marik gushed. “I really appreciate you doing this for me. His name if Doctor Ivan Pawlinski, he’s the head of…”

“All in good time, Marshik,” William said. “Now there should be refreshments out here any moment, and I should be pleased if you will join me for lunch here while I enjoy this spring day...”

[MarshalPurnell]

Part IX: What Rough Beast
“The voyage of the Pathfinder is as historic as the voyage made five and quarter centuries ago by Christopher Columbus. We have found a New World. The scientific aspects of the Deimos Program pale before that fact even for me. The effects for the human race will be profound, not merely among us particle physicists in the ivory towers of academia. Let us hope that what results will not fall prey to the catastrophes and loss of life that followed the last such triumph of exploration.”
-Marshik Marik, Interview on Terran Alliance News Channel 3, December 7th, 2108.

Ilê de France,
Sixth French Republic,
July 9th, 2105
Old Terra

Paris was burning.

The thick, acrid black smoke of burning rubber and garbage lingered in the air even in the fashionable left-bank arrondissments as the city went to hell. In the ubiquitous concrete housing project, the banlieu, the sons and grandsons of immigrants from Morocco and Algeria, Senegal and Gambia, Niger and Vietnam, and the other parts of the former French colonial empire, had festered for generations. Ringing Paris and the other great metropolitan centers of France, the urban hellscapes had decayed and been overrun by gangs before the turn of the 20th century; in some parts of Paris the police had not set foot for nearly a century. Now they had heard of the massive uprisings underway throughout what was still colloquially called the “Third World”, and were determined to demonstrate their solidarity with the poor rejecting the unjust taxes and brutal contempt of the Terran Alliance.

Of course, rioting through the city center and the tourist districts also provided certain material benefits. Josefa had seen one ridiculously obese street thug in threadbare clothes carrying out bottle after bottle of perfume from a boutique across from the café she’d been at not twenty minutes before. There’d been a mob of similar fellows organizing around him, and they’d looked at her with ugly, appraising stares. She knew she’d been sheltered for most of her life, but any woman would have recognized the implicit threat.

Fortunately uncle Nicholas had showed up in time, armed with a military grade assault rifle. He’d dared the gang; “Just try it”, he’d shouted menacingly, as he ushered her and the rest of the patrons over to Claude. Grandfather’s aging butler had always frightened her, but his scarred visage had been almost angelic this time. The two men, armed to the teeth as far as Josefa could see, had escorted the vulnerable women to a Terran Alliance military checkpoint and safety before taking her to the Hotel de Chevalier.

“We’ll be safe there, Jo,” her uncle had reassured her. And when they’d pulled up to the front in Nicholas’s Citroen, there had been a swarm of men and women in the Black and Tan uniforms of the Terran Alliance Para-Cavalry entering and exiting. There was still a valet, though, and Nicholas had checked the car, after Claude had taken a small overnight bag from the back trunk. They’d checked in fairly quickly despite the unmistakable hub of the military in the background.

In the elevator she’d asked about what was going on. Nicholas told her the Alliance had taken over the whole first three floors and was using the hotel as a temporary headquarters for the troops sent to suppress the rioting. Once they got to the room Nicholas handed her the keys, telling her he needed to look after some things. Claude stopped in to give her the overnight bag.

“I will be staying just next door if milady should require anything”, he had promised. And then, Josefa was alone.

She laid down on the bed, curling up into a fetal position for warmth. She could see the stares again, and she shivered. This wasn’t the civilized city she had come to visit. If her uncle Nicholas hadn’t been in Paris today she would have been robbed, roughed up, maybe raped, or worse.

How had he known she was here, anyway? Her mother Maria was the oldest child of William Montecuccoli by over twenty years, and from the first marriage where Nicholas had been from the second. Her mother had never been close to her erstwhile brother and hadn’t approved of her father’s remarriage after the death of her mother. He was closer to Josefa’s age, though there was an age gap of a decade and half there too; he had been at most a remote presence except on those occasions the family had visited the estate outside Grenoble.

The adrenaline was already beginning to ebb out of her system, and the tension of the day’s events had been straining. The bed was also comfortable, so soft and welcoming…

There was a loud rapping on her door. Josefa opened her eyes hesitantly, then glanced over to the clock by the table beside the bed. Three hours! She hastily arranged her hair, kept in a short and shoulder-length in summer, before getting off the bed and heading to the door. She peered through the provided peephole, and seeing only Claude she undid the locks and opened the door. “What’s going on?” she asked groggily.

“Mademoiselle Clermont has been invited to attend the Officer’s Mess of the 15th Alliance Paracavalry Regiment, along with her uncle and other civilian guests of the hotel.” Claude looked her over with a critical eye. “There is time for milady to shower, and there are suitable evening clothes packed in the overnight bag.”

She considered making her excuses and staying in the room. Her stomach felt a little empty, so her appetite was returning, but she could just order room service. But no, this was the sort of thing she’d been born into. “I’ll take the shower, thank you. Can you wait for me out there?”

Claude nodded. She really hadn’t needed to ask. She closed the door, going over to the overnight bag. She found a generic, low cut and bright red evening gown, the price tag still attached. Josefa frowned at the price, it was well above her allowance, but the size was right. Her mother must have called him, she realized. Well, there was no escaping the long arm of Maria Clermont, even a continent away.

After the shower she followed Claude to the hotel restaurant on the ground floor, where a wide open space had been cleared and banquet setting established. Claude took his leave at the entrance, handing his charge over to a dark-featured, handsome young lieutenant; “Nico Halas, milady. I will be your host for the evening.” He offered her his arm with a display of exaggerated gallantry, which she accepted giddily. The evening was already looking up…

He escorted her to the table for the junior officers, even taking her chair out for her. It was a bit anachronistic, but charming. “Thank you Nico, you’re a real gentleman.”

The lieutenant replied with a warm, toothy smile. “The pleasure is mine, Miss Clermont.” He then introduced her to the other people around their seats. He was sitting on her right side; to the left was another civilian, one of the sons of de Chevalier who owned the hotel, and he was with a redheaded female second lieutenant. They were wrapped up in each other, and proved to be unengaging conversationalists.

“Ana Sorenson,” the blonde officer across the table from her offered. Nico was handsome, but she was a knockout, with honey-blonde hair framing a heart shaped face and deepest blue eyes. “It’s nice to meet you, Josefa.” She turned a bit to her side to introduce her guest. “This is Frederick; he’s one of our contractors.” She sounded deeply bored with that part of the ritual.

Small talk commenced until the President of the Mess, far ahead of them at the back of the room, called their attention by clanging a spoon against a half-filled wineglass. “Gentlemen and ladies, honored guests, I call the mess of the officers of the 15th Paracavalry Division to order. I am Major Hiro Kusanari, G-3 to the regiment, that’s operations for our civilian guests and friends here. Shortly the hotel staff will be bringing out the salad course, then the soup course, then our main entrée and dessert course. First however I should like all of the assembled to rise for the toast of the regiment.”

The assembled, including Josefa, rose with their wine (or water) glasses in hand. She caught a glimpse of her uncle at the very head of the table, near the senior offices of the regiment as she did. But Major Kusanari had already raised up his own wineglass. “To the fittest! Urrah!”

Josefa and the other civilians failed to replicate the battlecry. Her throat felt raw after trying, and she coughed a bit. Both Nico and Ana looked at her with concern, though she shook her head at the implied offers of aid. The guests sat back down, as Kusanari went on for a little further about traditions of the regiment and the values of the Alliance that it defended. Finally he stopped talking and the hotel staff came in, delivering the first course.

“A toast, to short and succinct speeches”, Nico proposed in a low voice, mockingly. Josefa smiled encouragingly at the little display of wit. Across from her, Ana frowned almost imperceptibly. She did, however, raise her glass to meet that of Halas. Frederick seemed largely out of it, in his own shell.

The night continued in similar vein for the next hour and half, as courses arrived and were cleared off. It was clear Nico and Ana both wanted to get to know her a little more intimately, and she did nothing to discourage either lieutenant. On the balance she leaned towards Nico, but when Ana slipped off her heels and began to rub her foot up against Josefa’s leg, the brunette only smiled enigmatically. Oh yes, Josefa was getting very happy that she had come to the mess…

From the head of the room Nicholas Montecuccoli glanced over at his niece, but his attention was elsewhere. One of the battalion commanders had brought up work at the mess, normally an offense punished by contribution to the unit tab, but Colonel Fuchida was in a reflective mood. He had asked for opinions on dealing with the riots, and had been obliged.

Major Robert Cameron had pounded his fist down on the floor, and growled in his that “Regimental artillery must be turned on banlieus. As long as the unemployed youths pour into the center of this city, the riots will continue. Therefore,” he reasoned, “if we attack them in their homes they will be too busy to riot and we will regain control over Paris proper.”

“My God man!” Kusanari had exclaimed in horror, a bit louder than he should have. “You’re talking about shelling women and children.”

“Precisely,” Cameron replied coolly, as if he were discussing some mathematical formula. “The pool of rioters will not abandon their mothers, wives, sisters, and such just to loot the tourist districts. Right now they’ve nothing to lose by what they’re doing. Even if we shoot them on sight, they’ve got the immigrant clerics telling them they’ll go to paradise for waging jihad to aid their African cousins. But if we shell their homes it will send a strong message and give them more pressing concerns to deal with.”

“It would violate the rules of war,” Kusanari objected. “And what would it do in the long term to support for the Alliance among those people?”

“I should think that’s a matter for the Frogs,” Cameron said dismissively. “Our orders are to break this riot as quickly as possible. Shelling the outer districts is the way to do it, and insure it doesn’t flare up again without sending our troops to clear Paris street by street.” Montecuccoli saw one of the other battalion commanders, a Major Kelswa, nodding grimly in agreement.

“I appreciate your concerns, Hiro,” Fuchida finally interjected. His eyes were hard as stone as they glanced over Montecuccoli on their way to spear Major Kusanari. “But Major Cameron is correct. This riot must be resolved quickly. So far only backward states in Africa and Latin America have risen in rebellion. Continued instability in Paris threatens a reaction among the more advanced democracies. This issue must be settled now. If you have qualms about this course of action, I expect you to make them known now.”

Kusanari, clearly realizing himself outmatched, shook his head. “I will have the plan worked out for you tonight. We should be able to attack by 0600 if necessary. I would suggest,” he began timidly, “that we at least provide some sort of warning about the attack. Give people time to flee the targeted area.”

“We will make that concession to keeping down civilian casualties,” Fuchida conceded, albeit with little grace. “But one way or another, this riot will be broken. The rule of the Alliance will not be challenged without consequences.”

Montecuccoli overheard, and despite his own allegiance to the Alliance, found it very hard to swallow anything afterward.

[MarshalPurnell]

Part X: The Hour Come Round
“This is not a riot. It is not a revolution. It is a holy war against the infidels who have defiled our homes and women. They massacre our brothers and sisters in Africa with impunity. Injustice proliferates under the guise of this Terran Alliance and its satanic science programs. This talk of physics and space is a deception, from the Father of Lies, to deceive the faithful from the truth. Our world is in the grip of ad-Dajjal, and the appearance of the Mahdi and return of Isa, falsely called Christ, is nigh. All believers must rise in defense of the ummah, and fight the soldiers of Dajjal without fear, for the joys of Paradise await all who die in defense of the faith.”
Imam Abdul-Malik ibn Fahd, Street Address at Rue Abu Mumia, July 10th, 2105.

Ilê de France,
Sixth French Republic,
July 17th, 2105
Old Terra

Nicholas peered through his Zeiss binoculars across the Seine, though the thin haze of grey smoke, at the concrete apartments lining the city’s outer edge. They had been an eyesore before the riots over the Deimos Project had started, a graffiti ridden urban hellzone dominated by gangs of chronically unemployed “immigrant” youths, often many generations removed from their homelands but still not Frenchmen. In the rare occasions the state had tried to assert any authority before in the banlieues, for the past decades it had relied on heavily armed gendarmes on paramilitary raids. Even in full riot gear and armed with submachine guns the agents of the French state would be pelted with stones and desultorily shot at. The emergency services had stopped going into the areas even before the police, and so it was a miracle that the regions were not plague ridden fire-traps.

Well, it had something to do with God, Nicholas observed cynically, curling his mouth in distaste. A shadow state had emerged in the areas, with the Islamic clergy its respected leaders, organizing religious charities and self-help associations. The gangs, though far from religious as individuals, showed respect and deference to the bearded, robed Imams and their outwardly pious followers. When news of the uprisings in Africa reached the banlieues, something had finally brought together the gangs and the religious community in a common cause, if not exactly for the same reasons. And then Colonel Takeo Fuchida had ordered the bombardment of the projects…

He could see ant-sized streams of men still crossing over the Seine, even as the heavy artillery available to the Terran Alliance pounded the banlieus. The squat, modernist concrete apartments made excellent bunkers, it seemed to Montecuccoli. Only a direct hit from the large 8” howitzers, the new Long Toms, would bring down a building. Leave it to the French to turn Le Corbusier into an agent for the revolution.

The top of the Hotel de Chevalier was an excellent vantage point to view the work of the Terran Alliance in (and to) Paris, and Nicholas was not the only one to take advantage of it. He sensed someone behind him, and so reluctantly put down his binoculars. The Colonel himself was approaching, flanked by several aides. Nicholas nodded respectfully to the older man.

“Enjoying the view?” the Colonel asked nonchalantly, as though he were bringing up the weather.

“I’ve spent better days in Paris,” Nicholas replied diffidently. He was in fact horrified that this was happening to the center of art and culture on the continent. Not even the Nazis had shelled Paris! Granted, the banlieue was not the Panthéon, and something had to be done to bring the city back under control, but this had only made things worse.

“We will have this situation in hand shortly,” Fuchida promised. “The rest of the 3rd Paracavalry division is arriving tonight. We will surprise the rioters and sweep them back across the river. Then XII Corps and its heavy armor will reduce the fortified districts outside the center center, in conjunction this division and the gendarme reserve forces.”

“More hard fighting, it would seem.” This had gone on too long already. And bringing tanks to slug it out in the streets of Paris? “Napoleon III rebuilt Paris with broad avenues, but I fear the terrain in the banlieues will be rather constricted.”

Fuchida shrugged in disinterest. “The operational conduct of this campaign is now being carried on from XII Corps headquarters. But nothing the street scum have can dent the paint on a Merkava. Any visible rebel positions will be smothered in firepower.”

“I trust President Lacroix has been notified of this change?” Montecuccoli was serving as an unofficial liaison between the Élysée Palace and the Terran Alliance forces. As a political outsider from a family long associated with the bureaucracy and pro-Terran positions, he had been a natural choice. Objective, credible, but also dispensable.

“Paris has been placed in a state of siege by the authority of Geneva,” Fuchida reminded the civilian. “It falls entirely under the jurisdiction of the Terran Alliance until it is lifted. I do not know if General Radanov is in contact with your authorities, but at this point they are irrelevant.”

Montecuccoli nodded sullenly. The state of siege had kept him from getting his niece Josefa out of Paris for ten days now. Her mother, his half-sister and never particularly close before, had been hectoring him about it for just as long. Of course, there was more troubling him than that mere personal hassle.

His father William had helped effect what had been a coup by bureaucracy to bring an end to the chaotic shifts of policy towards the Terran Alliance and even the United States of Europe. But maybe the Socialists, whatever their other flaws, had it right. France was not gaining anything by being part of the Terran Alliance; nor in truth was in anyone, not even the Yankees. Only the upper elite running the Alliance were truly getting anything out of it, and France was underrepresented there because of the Fifth Republic’s attempts to hold it at arm’s length. On the other hand, the Terran Alliance hadn’t been responsible for French immigration and social policy that had created the banlieues…

The awkward silence persisted for a few minutes. Nicholas lifted up his glasses, turning back to give a final glance at burning Paris. “I will notify the President of your intentions, if you do not object.”

“It does not matter at this point,” Fuchida replied. “Go ahead, contact Lacroix. I want the French Air Force to deliver some cluster munitions across the bridge approaches anyway.”

Montecuccoli pulled out his mobile PADD from his coat pocket, already dreading the call he was about to make. Underlining the powerlessness of the French state would not earn him any credit with the government. And the prospect of French aircraft bombing Paris was awful to contemplate. But the Sixth Republic, as mankind as a whole, had made its bed. It would have to lie in it. He opened the flip covering of the PADD and pressed the hotkey for the Élysée connection…


Several levels below, Josefa Clermont stirred in her bed, arm gingerly exploring for the body of her lover from the previous night, and most of the week. Her hand grasped empty silk sheets. She wearily opened her eyes, looking around the suite for any sign of her guest. The bathroom door, opened and with light shining into the room, presented an obvious explanation, and as her eyes adjusted she saw a black and tan Terran uniform folded neatly on a chair beside the bathroom entrance. She glanced down from the bed, seeing her own clothes strewn all over the floor. It had been an eventful night, and she smiled coyly in satisfied remembrance.

Josefa stood up, striding with almost feline grace towards the open door, intent on surprising her paramour. But a uniformed officer of the Terran Alliance strode out, almost running into Josefa, who stopped herself and looked bemusedly at her guest. Her dark brown eyes found deep blue, and they held in a gaze of almost uncomfortable intensity. Josefa finally broke the deadlock by leaning forward and passionately kissing Ana Sorenson on the lips.

After several tense seconds, Ana finally broke the embrace. “I can’t, Jo. I have to be on duty in fifteen minutes.” The Nordic blonde smiled salaciously. “And didn’t you get enough of that last night?”

Josefa sighed, reluctantly backing away from Ana. “You are mine tonight, love,” she promised. As she had been every night since they had met on the 9th. What had started as typical recreational sex was taking on more passionate, and perhaps obsessive, overtones.

Ana fiddled with her uniform belt, adjusting it nervously to give herself something to focus on. “I’m bewitched. You and your brown eyes and perfect skin and charming accent… Thank Freya that my platoon is here guarding the headquarters instead of off fighting in that mess outside.”

Josefa couldn’t help but giggle. “I will keep you in here past fifteen minutes if I start listing what drives me crazy about you. I’ve never felt this way before with anyone. I just want to lie here in this room with you, and…”

Ana threw up her hands in defeat. “My mind is going to be elsewhere the whole watch, you minx. Why couldn’t Nico have attracted your ravenous attentions?” she asked in mock-exasperation.

Because he spent the time at the open bar after the Officer’s Mess getting plastered, Josefa thought harshly. “Well, if you think Nico would appreciate me more…”

“Gods no!” Ana shouted, alarmed. “Josefa, I want nothing, no one else to come between us. I want to be with you forever.” The earnestness in Ana’s voice was a surprise even to the Terran lieutenant herself. There was a note of longing, and of fear, in her heart even that gently mocking response had touched raw.

The brunette stopped, mildly shocked at the admission. She tried to laugh the matter off. “It was just a joke, Nico isn’t blonde enough and female enough and Ana enough for me, love.” She stopped, though, seeing the vulnerability displayed openly on Ana’s face. “We need to talk about this,” Josefa conceded, now level and serious. “About like where we can go, and what this means to us. Tonight, tonight. But you need to get downstairs.”

Josefa gently shooed her lover out the door. Claude was standing by the door, alert as an old guard dog, but he gave no show of noticing the couple as they took a goodbye kiss. Josefa was grateful, but then Claude could scarcely not have known, given how loud Ana could be…

After she had left, Josefa collapsed dramatically back on the bed, trying to get her mind clear. “Mom would have a fit if she knew what we were doing,” she said to herself. Ana wasn’t her first premarital lover, not even the first female one, but Maria Clermont was old-fashioned even by the conservative standards of her father. Josefa remembered the first time her mother had caught her making out with a cute boy from the academy, she’d totally flipped out. She was fifteen! And mom had grounded her for a month, took away her PADD and vidphone, and made her go to mass every day the whole time.

“I’m grown up now,” Josefa told herself. She could do what she wanted. Mom might disown her, but grandfather gad always been fond of her. And push come to shove, she didn’t need this life. She could be happy with Ana, a soldier’s wife, supporting her beloved at home… Couldn’t she?

She laid her head in her hands. It had been pure lust and excitement driving her the past week. Boredom, too, perhaps, she couldn’t leave the hotel or get out of Paris. She’d only just met Ana anyway. Didn’t she want to graduate college, hold a career, travel, have children? In the cheap romance novels and ‘vids searching your heart always led to happiness, but Josefa found no settled answers there. Only indecision and conflicting emotions, and fear was becoming more prominent among them. But she saw a vision of Ana’s face, so beautiful, with their deep blue, so expressive eyes, laughing as she had on their first real night together.

There was so much to think about, to sort through, before Ana returned. But they would discuss the hard matters together and see where it took them. Josefa resolved that whatever happened, she would never regret what she had had with Ana.

[MarshalPurnell]

Part XI: Slouching Towards Jerusalem
“When Neil Armstrong first set foot on the Moon, he had spent weeks thinking about an appropriately weighty thing to say to the millions watching at home on Earth. And he still flubbed it. Well, at least I don’t have to worry about a live broadcast. So I’ll just say it’s aboot time, eh?”
-Captain Norm McKenna, unaired first landing on New Earth, January 28th, 2109.

Grenoble,
United States of Europe,
September 4th, 2128
Old Terra

The anti-static cloth of the engineers working in the secured section presented a sea of white, white smocks and white hairnets and white face masks, all necessary to avoid damage to the sensitive components making up the navigation computer of the new Kearny-Fuchida jump drive. Only recently had scientists refined the production process to allow for the mass construction of faster-than-light drives, freeing mankind of the bottleneck of what were effectively handcrafted prototypes like the TAS Pathfinder.

Nicholas Montecuccoli stood back outside the transparent plastic security door, watching the work proceed. His business suit was the exact opposite of anti-static, and there was no point to taking a tour through the room anyway. Beside him, his teenage son Albert was already getting restless, looking forward to getting away from a deeply boring morning. Even the facility’s manager stood over his shoulder, eager to conclude the pleasantries of a factory tour in favor of getting down to business. Nicholas nodded in satisfaction, and allowed the woman to take him and Albert towards the front of the factory.

They passed by the core assembly area on the way to the administration offices. There was even more so off-limits. The exotic rare-earth metals involved in the first K-F Jump Drive cores had been replaced with the more common and benign Germanium, but exactly how was still being kept secret. Oh, the basic principles were known to anyone who had the interest and resources to look for them, but the newly emerging private production facilities all had different techniques for assembly. Even a small percentage advantage in efficiency could be worth billions of dollars in the long run and a leg up on the burgeoning competition.

“At the turn of the century Germanium was selling for $200 per kilogram,” their highly ranked guide noted, making small talk. “The price has gone up eight times that in as many years. Some of the cranks who used to support a gold standard for currency have started calling for a Germanium backed currency.”

“That will be the day,” Nicholas chuckled. “The ease of electronic credit systems will insure their use on any advanced colony, while one can hardly carry about a gram of Germanium in one’s pocket.”

“Investing in Germanium refinement is one stock market tip I can give out here,” the woman replied. “This factory is the first of its kind in France, merely the sixth or so in all of Europe. But there are a dozen more nearing completion in the next year. Demand really is expected to be that high.”

Nicholas nodded in agreement. “The Liberator incident certainly proves that a great many people want to get off of Earth in a hurry.” Earlier in the year, in April, the Bolivar Foundation had selected a group of volunteers thousands strong to colonize a new world. It had been a front for malcontents in South America, still occupied by the Terran Alliance in the wake of the Deimos Project Tax Riots. They had made one last defiant call for resistance to the Terran Alliance, and then had disappeared into the depths of space.

“Who can blame them?” Albert piped up. “The Terran Alliance is rotten to the core, totally. Just look at what they did in South Africa! Haven’t you paid attention to the scandals there? It’s no good for anyone.”

Nicholas looked slightly embarrassed at his only child’s outburst. Not that he fundamentally disagreed. “Albert, I know you have these opinions but you are a young man, without knowledge of what the world is really like. Unregulated colonization will lead to all sorts of terrors. Unprepared and undersupplied expeditions will die horribly from committing mistakes that Terran oversight would have prevented. And for good or ill the Terran Alliance has banished full scale war for generations now.” Their guide shifted her eyes downward, politely ignoring the scene.

Albert, rebuked, grew sullen. “You don’t understand anything, dad,” he whined plaintively. People his dad’s age had messed up the world. It was full of injustice and bleakness, benefiting only the people at the top while grinding everyone below the masters down…

Nicholas shook his head, knowing it was pointless to argue with an intelligent and self-assured fourteen year old. And in truth he felt guilty chastising the boy for expressing sentiments openly that he agreed with secretly. And of course since the divorce his capacity to act as disciplinarian had evaporated. After an awkward silence he nodded to the facilities manager to continue on.

They reached the administration offices without further incident. Albert was made to wait in the anteroom lobby, where he plopped in a plush chair and picked up a pile of magazines to read. Montecuccoli checked his watch as their guide left to notify the waiting CEO of his arrival. He had to be at the EuroNet rail hub on the other side of the city’s outskirts in an hour. There would not be much time to discuss matters of fiscal and political importance.

As he entered he noted with approval the elegant but restrained furnishings of the office. Behind the antique desk that was the centerpiece of the room sat a slim, tall red haired woman, in her late 30s he guessed, in a business-casual skirt and tunic ensemble. She stood to introduce herself, using the international language of English. “Mister Montecuccoli, I hope you enjoyed your tour of our facility here at Grenoble. I’m the Chief Executive Officer for the Dassault-EADS Jump Systems Group, Valerie Sukhanov.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Sukhanov” Nicholas replied in the same language. Not altogether his first choice, English was so lacking in lyricism but the Anglo-Saxons had indisputably imposed their tongue as the most popular in the world for decades now. It was the only language of the Terran Alliance in practice, whatever the three-dozen “official languages” suggested. “I hope you can excuse me, but I will need to leave by the hour. My grand-niece is arriving via EuroNet, she lost both her parents early this year, and the matter has been sorted out such that I have custody.”

“My condolences,” Sukhanov offered. “We here at Dassault-EADS certainly understand the importance of family. It is at the heart of our corporate responsibility program.” She glanced over to a framed picture on the right corner of her desk. “I have young children myself, and I can’t imagine what it would be like for them to lose me and Francois.”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Montecuccoli replied. “It was several months ago, so the tragedy is not as near, but… well, the situation is complicated.” He shook his head sadly. “To business, I think, given the short time I have here with you. While this facility is quite impressive and the growth models your people have presented intriguing, why should I invest in Dassault-EADS instead of your competitors in Lockheed/Martin? You have a dozen factories ready to come online within the year, they have two dozen already operating and the largest assembly orbital yet completed.”

“I’m glad you asked that,” Sukhanov said, insincerely. She had been a low-level saleswoman and did not appreciate having to bring forward the skills necessary for success there. But it was important to win over Montecuccoli, not so much for his investment capital, which was significant but not exceptionally so; rather more important were his contacts with the transnational bureaucracy of the Alliance. “As you have seen, our facilities are more modern than those of Lockheed, using the cutting edge procedures only developed in the last two years. Lockheed is overinvested in the earlier methods of productions and will require significant time to upgrade its facilities to the new standard, and doing so will require them to cut off production capability for months at a time.”

She slipped her hand underneath the desk, feeling for a switch hidden there. It activated the room’s viewscreen, in power-standby mode masquerading as a van Gogh on the right side of the wall. She used her PADD to bring up market share projections through 2138. “As you can see, we expect Lockheed to start upgrading in fiscal year 2130, causing a significant dip in their available production while our planned twenty facilities with more advanced technology will be able to make up and exceed that deficit. As our production costs are lower than those of the old style Lockheed facilities, we will have more profits to plow back into research and development. By the time Lockheed has completed its cycle of upgrades in 2134 we will be entrenched in an estimated fourth of the projected market. We already have contracts with the Terran Alliance to provide a line of jump drive craft to completely replace the fusion drive transport infrastructure providing materials from the asteroid belt, so Dassault-EADS is assured of profitability through 2136.”

“The main demand for the new drive ships is projected to be colonization missions,” Montecuccoli pointed out. “The new directives passed after the Bolivar Foundation made their move are significantly more restrictive. That will cut into effective demand by bottlenecking the approval of colonization missions, and limiting them by the availability of armed escort craft.”

“Well if certain parties were to have an… incentive to take the most liberal interpretation of the colonization directives, demand would not be restrained so much as might appear at first.” There, Sukhanov put her cards on the table. If the Terran bureaucracy were benefiting fiscally from the spread of colonization missions, they would encourage them. If not, the Terran Alliance’s restrictive, control-oriented policies would strangle off colonial growth to a trickle, and make the Dassault-EADS Group’s investments so much dead weight.

Montecuccoli was impressed at the brazen suggestion. “A time honored alliance between bureaucracy and business is good for both parties, surely. And in this case good even for most of humanity, I think. You may be overestimating my influence if you think I could forge such an… understanding myself. The fall of the Lacroix administration and the submergence of France into the USE has somewhat damaged my family’s standing,” he admitted.

“We know that you aren’t in the upper echelons of power anymore,” Sukhanov conceded, “which is why we are not merely approaching you with our investment deal. Dassault-EADS, and for that matter Lockheed, Boeing, Honda, and the other major aerospace consortiums are working together and we all have our old friends. They nearly beat the regulatory bill in the Alliance Parliament back in May. What we need you for is sort of a lobbyist… just not to the politicians.”

Nicholas wagged his finger in the air. “Paying me to advise regulatory officials is quite illegal, but offering stock at advantageous prices is not. And if I should happen to alert my friends of similar opportunities for their families…” Montecuccoli frowned. “Well, that is also very illegal, but no one enforces that sort of thing anymore. If they did three quarters of the bureaucrats in Paris would be in jail, and the other quarter would be as soon as they tried opening their golden parachutes to retirement.”

Sukhanov’s eyes flashed brightly in triumph. “That is what I understand to be the case. Now, for a $5 million investment, we can offer shares at $40 apiece, about ten dollars under market price, though we can do a bit better for very dear friends.”

“We have a little longer,” Montecuccoli said after checking his watch. “I should very much like to hear more about this fascinating proposal…”

An hour later, Nicholas owned 125,000 shares of Dassault-EADS, and purchase options on a pair of Kearny-Fuchida jump drive craft. The latter was a concession he’d won before walking out, and formed the seed of an idea in the back of his head. Marshik Marik had called him last week about an interesting proposal of his own, and even if that went nowhere, options were always nice. And if nothing else there was money to be made extracting raw material from the outer system, where the fusion drive craft had never seriously been able to reach and where the Terran Alliance had never had a chance to establish a monopoly.

But for the time being more immediate issues were at hand. He waited patiently on the unloading ramp for the 14:00 EuroNet overnight train from Goteburg in Scandinavia. The occasion was not a pleasant one, not in the least.

“Be kind to Ulrike, and no sulking,” he had warned Albert as they had arrived at the station. “She has lost her parents, and the last thing we should do is remind her of that. This situation is bad enough for her without anything making it worse.”

His niece Josefa had run off with a lieutenant in the Terran Army she had met during the siege of Paris. Josefa’s mother Maria had been horrified that her daughter had entered into a marriage with a partner who was not Catholic, not wealthy, and not male. Josefa had subsequently been disowned by her parents. Her parents had also blamed Nicholas for the situation. The death of William Montecuccoli and the fighting over his estate had made things between the older Montecuccolis even worse, though in the end Nicholas had secured the vast majority of the patrimony in accordance with the ancient rules of succession.

Of course, William had also written his granddaughter out of his will, though Nicholas had seen to it that she had would have a comfortable stipend. They had been in intermittent contact, but Josefa had surprised even him when, in 2113, she sent him and his new bride an invitation to the baptism of a daughter. A little further investigation of the situation revealed that Josefa and her wife had successfully gotten the Terran Alliance military to pay for her “parthenogenesis” pregnancy. Creating a genetically recombinant embryo with DNA contributions from both parents had been feasible for decades, though generally limited to wealthy couples dealing with infertility or God’s neglect to make it possible for homosexuals to have children. Well, no one had ever said the Terran Alliance military was not good at looking out for its officer corps…

That had been the last straw for Maria Clermont, and Nicholas admitted that he was extremely uneasy at the prospect himself. But Maria had absolutely refused to even meet her granddaughter, and decried it as some sort of soulless abomination, proof that her daughter had given herself over to Satan. When Josefa and Ana Sorenson were killed in a terrorist bombing at their Moroccan base, Maria had refused to take custody of a now fourteen year old Ulrike Sorenson. On Ana’s side of the family, only a nephew was known to have survived the famines in Scandinavia, and Daniel Sorenson was a crewman on one of the explorer ships well away from Earth. That left Nicholas as her legal guardian, though it had taken months to sort things out.

He straightened up as patrons started exiting the newly arrived maglev train. He had sent old Claude to pick up Ulrike in Sweden, where she had been staying at her parent’s home while custody was adjudicated. The aging butler could have driven her to the estate, but Montecuccoli thought it important to meet her at arrival. She was family, after all.

“Is that her with Claude?” Albert pointed over to the familiar form of the major-domo, accompanied by a lithe, young blonde haired teen, dressed in black. She was reserved and shy, keeping close to Claude and giving little sign of the vivaciousness and energy that Josefa had talked to him about.

“Yes, that is her. Spending all that time in her parent’s house has not been good for her.” He had paid her expenses, but the law had not allowed him to send anyone to look after her until custody was settled, much less doing so himself. But he felt guilty for not visiting more often in the interval. “Well, we shall go and greet your cousin, Albert. Remember, she doesn’t speak French, so use English. Don’t stare or make her feel uncomfortable. She’s had enough of that.”

Not that Nicholas had spoken forcefully enough to his half-sister on that account. Nor had he really extended himself to quash the disapproval clucked around the Montecuccoli family circle and which had driven Josefa so far outside its orbit. Seeing her daughter here, so obviously crushed, manifested all the guilt and regret that had been building for months. I will do better now, he vowed as he approached to meet his grandniece.

[MarshalPurnell]

Part XII: The Artifice of Eternity
“I have traveled the belt of Saturn, and gazed in the eye of Jupiter. I have seen the footprints of a giant on New Earth, and those of a man on Terra’s faithful consort. The sparse beauty of the Draconis Rift, the celestial dance of the Centauri orbs, seas of grain on New Avalon, and piles of radiant gems on Marik, stallions running in the wind under an alien sky on Liao… Those are a barest piffle of what I have seen in my journey among the stars. One might think us gods, to stride so confidently, to make our way without care or concern among the elemental darkness. But even gods must return home.”
Martin Chang’s Soliloquy, from Act 2 Scene 2 of 'The Star-Childe', performed for James McKenna at the State Theater of Geneva, December 11th, 2322.

TAS Raimundo,
LEO Over Terra,
January 24th, 2134
Terran Alliance

Zero gravity was an inconvenience in many things, but adjustment made it remarkably less so. A seasoned spacer could live aboard ship and perform all of the tasks that anyone on the ground would do. There were also any manner of diversions available in the periods when not in transit, when gravity had let go its grasp entirely, so of them more wholesome than others. After long enough in space, despite calcium supplements and rigorous schedules of exercise, the veteran sailor would become all but incapable of standing terrestrial conditions. Such men and women were doomed to travel the cosmos until they died, never having set foot back on the homeworld that had spawned them.

Increasingly, many of the humans fleeing Terra were quite happy with that prospect.

Nicholas Montecuccoli wondered if his son might become one of those colonists, disconnected from Terran roots, devoted instead to some patch of land light years from the family estate. He was musing this as he floated in his room, marveling at the prospects the JumpShip represented while enjoying the feeling of weightlessness. It was his first time in true orbit, a rare genuinely new experience for the world-weary and disillusioned older man. The mind-expanding spiritual understanding that some spacers waxed rhapsodically about was absent, but he did feel an innocent sense of the possibilities of the human race opened by this marvelous new technology. And there were the opportunities for his family, and even for him, though his time was growing very short indeed.

The buzzer to his private room, which was to say cell, sounded. Nicholas opened the door, expecting a crewman in jumpsuit bringing him the personal communications interface unit. He was not disappointed.

“Thank you Andreas,” Nicholas responded as the veteran spacer handed off the interface. The spacer grunted something that might have been an acknowledgement before leaving Montecuccoli to his privacy. Nicholas was too absorbed in setting up the interface to notice the jealousy the arrangements had garnered him. Accommodations on a JumpShip were sparse, to say the least, but as owner he rated the best.

There was barely enough room to stretch out, and orienting the device was a problem. In the end Nicholas strapped himself to the wall-bed and held on to the device with his right arm, using the left to put in the communications request. Thanks to the integrated satellite communications network in orbit the window of opportunity was not limited by the position of the ship. At least, not in this sidereal realm.

The Raimundo would be jumping to New Earth in a half-hour, bringing Nicholas to the first off-world colony to investigate the prospects of uprooting the family. Fortunately, despite his plan to leave Terra, he still had enough contacts and favors owed to get both of the family owned ships classified as “auxiliary cruisers” for the Terran navy, getting around the restrictions on interstellar travel imposed by the Parliament years ago. Though it was, Nicholas admitted, costing a huge amount of money to divert the ship from its usual service as a merchant freighter in the outer system. But he was a man with money to burn, and could indulge his whims for the years left to him.

The interface monitor flickered on, revealing the familiar face of his personal physician, Lucien Brouset. He was wearing the traditional white smock, and even had a small stethoscope hanging around his neck. He was, as usual, in his personal office in Toulouse. “This is the first time any of my clients have sought my advice from orbit,” Brouset noted. He grew more somber as he imparted the news that Nicholas had dreaded.

“It took the Boston lab a little longer than usual to finish the work on your profile. If it had taken any longer, you might have had to wait until your return.” Bourset looked a little worried. “I should probably not tell you this, but it seems someone in Terran intelligence took an interest in your health. The Americans told them to go to hell, at least officially, but you know as well as I the Terrys have a lot of money, and human weakness being what it is, I can’t guarantee what I am to tell you isn’t known in Geneva.”

Montecuccoli nodded absently. Why would anyone in Geneva care about his health? There were, to be sure, a few bureaucrats and some politicians who would find some relief in not owing him any more favors. His tentative plan to leave Terra might upset some people, but he was one of only millions potentially interested in the looming Exodus…

Bourset, meanwhile, had gone on ahead discussing the results, with Nicholas listening with only half a mind. Finally the space tourist heard something that alarmed him into paying attention. “You are saying this, syndrome was responsible for the death of my aunt Alena?”

“That is the jist of the report,” Bourset confirmed. “I’m afraid you may have only a couple of years left before the deterioration of tissue becomes acute. We still don’t know why or how this happens, though we have located the associated genetic profile. There is some speculation that the condition is linked to exposure in-utero to certain environmental contaminants released last century by the Soviet Civil War. It is highly disproportionately found in people from Russia and Eastern Europe more generally. I will schedule an appointment to go over the implications and treatment options with you and your son once you arrive back on Terra.”

“My son?” Nicholas asked in a hushed tone. “Albert is affected too?”

“You both share the associated genetic profile,” Bourset replied. “Unfortunately, the option for a total genetic profiling of the embryo was not available until a couple of years after he was born. If we had caught it before then, a round of gene-therapy could have dealt with the problem. But as for now, I am afraid it is simply too late.” Lucien shrugged impassively. “He will have four or five decades ahead of him still, at least. The rest of his genome is quite healthy, save for a tendency to high blood pressure. That would also have been fixed, naturally.”

Nicholas fought down the bile crawling up his throat. “But the condition can be fixed for the next generation afterward, if I understand what you are telling me?”

“Well, not on New Earth,” Lucien noted. “The gene-fixing process is still rather expensive, as is the total genetic profile, and there are large parts of Terra that don’t have the facilities for it, nevermind the colonies. Nor would there be any prospect of getting the state health care service to pay for it. They won’t even shell out to fix Down’s Syndrome, though they will pay to abort such children. Albert would have to pay out of pocket to protect his children, but on the bright side, it only has to be done once per child. They would pass on the fix to their children, and so forth.”

“Yes, we will need to discuss this in person and soon,” Nicholas replied. “I will be back in four weeks, two weeks in transit and two on New Earth. I would like an appointment the first week of March. Let my man Claude know when you are available, and he can confirm the date for me. Was there anything else?” Montecuccoli’s stomach curdled at the thought of what else there might be.

“No, not as such,” Lucien hesitantly replied. “Well, it’s nothing serious. But your niece Ulrike. You had us do a profile on her, and the results are… interesting.”

“Dear God, spare at least one of us,” Montecuccoli implored.

“Oh, you have nothing to worry about there,” Bourset chuckled. “She is very remarkable. You said previously that she was the product of the Cheong-Lee Parthenogenesis technique? But the genetic engineering here makes Cheong-Lee look like in-vitro… no, like the proverbial turkey-baster. There are no genetic abnormalities whatsoever in her profile, and it looks as if the most advantageous combinations of genetic material from both… partners were arranged.”

Nicholas looked quizzically at the monitor, trying to read Lucien. “What are you saying? That she was some sort of clone?”

“No, no, no” Bourset shook his head vigorously. “Not even close. Nor was there any introduction of outside genes, so far as we can tell. It was much more subtle. Ah, how can I describe this?” Lucien stroked his chin, clearly trying to come up with a simple enough metaphor. “Well, despite Cheong-Lee nearly everyone has two parents, and all of their natural potential comes from the combination of genetic material contributed by those parents. This, depending on various factors, might be described as a range, from low to high, for intelligence particularly, health, and so on. In every area we can examine, her natural potential has been switched upward to as high as feasible. It is like gene-fixing, but rather than introduce healthy genes rather the existing genes have been tweaked to improve their potential. I’ve never seen anything like it, and of course the lab refuses to tell me if they’ve seen the like before.” He looked hurt at the lab’s adherence to privacy dictates.

“I know nothing of this,” Montecuccoli confessed. “Josefa arranged the procedure through the Terran military, as part of their health benefit system. Do keep this quiet, though. She has had too many people making her know how… special she is, as it stands.”

“Of course,” Lucien nodded. “Though if you do find out more, I should like to know. I would recommend whoever was the gene-therapist for Ulrike to a number of my clients, if I knew who she was.”

“Send the results of the profile to Claude as well,” Montecuccoli ordered, ignoring Bourset’s interest. “Use a courier, of course. He will be reimbursed as usual.” He had noticed the ship status light in his cabin blink from green to yellow. “I am afraid I must end our conversation, Lucien. Good day to you.”

Nicholas did not wait for the doctor’s response before turning off the interface. In the cool, sterile atmosphere of the JumpShip he was bathed in a cold sweat, which felt as though the hand of Death gripping him. He hardly registered when Andreas returned to fetch the interface ahead of the Jump, or the litany of procedural announcements taking up the minutes afterward. The sudden feeling of being wrenched from his body, the dissociation of the Kearny-Fuchida transition to zero-time caught him unaware, and then…


“I am sorry to have to deliver this news to you,” the uniformed Lieutenant Commander told Albert Montecuccoli after taking an offered cup of coffee.

The young man being addressed, barely in his majority, merely looked on in stunned silence from the seat he had taken in the intimate study. Behind him, his cousin Ulrike was standing, her hands down on his shoulders, and her face as pale as the porcelain cup the Terran officer was drinking from.

“Your father, and the crew, would have suffered nothing.” The Terran officer left unvoiced the collective we think held by the Navy. “There is any number of reasons that a jump drive could malfunction, but I assure you a thorough investigation will be taken. As an auxiliary cruiser the Raimundo had some reserve spacers aboard her, and the Navy looks after its own. For what it’s worth, the standard Lloyd’s policy for JumpShip insurance should cover anything except faulty maintenance of the drive.”

“So, so, that’s it?” Albert stammered. “You don’t know anything else? Did you search for survivors? Could someone have caused this deliberately?”

The officer shook his head. “There really isn’t much left when a drive fails to transition properly back into realspace. It certainly wasn’t piracy, not in the New Earth system, but someone could have sabotaged the drive. Or it could have been a flaw in the germanium matrix, or insufficient maintenance or simple wear and tear damage to the computers controlling the drive. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.”

Albert slunk down in his chair, covering over his face with the palms of his hands. He couldn’t believe this. Wouldn’t believe it.

“If there are not remains to examine, how can you conduct an investigation?” Ulrike asked the Terran officer pointedly. “How can you discover what happened?”

The naval officer’s eyes narrowed for a moment at being called out by a civilian. But she had asked a very pertinent question, and was clearly a sharp customer. So much for grief counseling. “To tell you the truth, ma’am, our investigation will probably only be able to determine whether or not the fault was with the crew. That’s the main focus for liability issues. We’ll examine reports on the state of the vessel filed with the Merchant Marine and Reserve Navy, interview former crew, customs officials and dock authorities, to try and eliminate the possibility of fault on the part of the spacers. If we can prove that, you should be able to collect on your insurance. And I’m afraid that’s most of what the Navy can do for you. We can send over a chaplain or a professional counselor if you require…”

“Thank you,” Ulrike replied to the offer. Albert was clearly in no state to make decisions at this point. “We may require one later.” She was biting down her own grief, trying to be clear headed. “I… We appreciate the difficulties of your position. We want answers, though.”

Albert nodded then. “Answers, yes. Anything you can give us.” He leaned back in the chair, as though all his muscles were cut. Ulrike stepped over to his side, taking his hand in her own to reassure him.

“There’s no telling when the report will be finished, but you will receive a copy.” The lieutenant commander set his cup aside on a coffee table, before standing up and pulling a card out the pocket of his uniform coat. “This number is for our counseling services,” he said as he handed it over to Ulrike. “In your case it’s for our base at Toulon. I will leave you two to your mourning. The Terran Alliance Navy shares your grief sir, m’am.” He quietly left the study, and Ulrike and Albert were left alone.

[MarshalPurnell]

Part XIII: The Broken Temple
“The Church, recognizing with utmost humility that its members have not always acted in full amity with the senior branch of our shared religious heritage, appeals to the conscience of the faithful to aid the refugees of Israel. It is a duty of humanity to provide comfort and support to the uprooted, the oppressed, the widow and the orphan; but it also a command from the God of Abraham, a Truth that is revealed in Christ and the Torah. He would sin grievously who denies this article of Faith…. Accounts of the atrocities in the state of Israel have horrified the world and weigh heavily upon the spirit of the Holy Church. Justice and Humanity and History demand that efforts are made to halt the brutal slaughter that has echoed in such shameful periods of mankind. The nations of the world who have hardened their hearts against the Jewish people beloved of the Father and the Son serve falsehood and do wickedness.”
-Pope John Paul IV, Encyclical “De Populis Iudaicae”, June 3rd, 2108.

Quai d’Orsay, Paris
United States of Europe,
March 15th, 2140
Old Terra

“You’re too much of an idealist,” Etienne reproached as Albert finished up his appeal. “This is all ancient history, over three decades ago. The refugees have resettled, mostly in an America that has embraced the Jews to its bosom. The Middle East has known peace ever since, and the Arabs have been valuable partners in our struggle to maintain the unity of humanity. So what if Geneva did look the other way at the destruction of the former Zionist country?” The bureaucrat shrugged. “I would say the benefits outweigh the cost, only a hundred thousand dead or so. Anything more is just yid propaganda, and if they had never stolen the land in the first place this issue would never have arisen.”

“But Etienne, the Israeli radio intercepts!” Albert raised his voice in shock, a betrayed expression spreading across his face. “The USE was funding the Arabs. We destroyed that nation. And we’ve never accounted for more than half the population among the refugees. Surely you don’t believe the Potemkin villages the Arabs have set up and called kibbutzim! The pictures the American team took last September…”

“The Americans this, the Americans that!” Etienne cried in exasperation. “If the Yankees love the Jews so much, let them pay compensation. Do you want to be the one to announce to the banlieus that not only are their benefits being cut a third time in as many years, but that the money will be going to pay off Jews? We would have to shell Paris a second time to put down the rioting. No, no, no, there is nothing that I or the Terran Alliance can do for you. Drop this quixotic nonsense, Albert, before it burns up all the goodwill and favors that your father and grandfather earned. That is my advice to you.”

It was an unmistakable dismissal, but a stunned Albert took a few moments to recognize it. He started to argue on anyway, but realized that it would be futile. He turned and left out into the hall without a glance back at his father’s friend. The security guard outside stood back, watching warily as Albert tramped along the corridor to the exit. The secretaries at the entrance did not even look up as he signed out and left, feeling defeated and frustrated.

A breeze off the Seine hit him as he left, and the proud needle of the Eiffel Tower confronted him. The Arc de Triomphe and Hotel des Invalides were in the VIIe Arrondissement as well, forming the heart of what tourists thought of as Paris. They were all symbols of a faded French glory and spirit; the Quai d’Orsay, now the headquarters for the Terran Alliance Permanent Representative to the French Department of the United States of Europe was an even stronger symbol of the depths to which the country had fallen. Albert looked over the street artists, the laborers enjoying a smoke break on the side, the tourists coming to and fro, all enjoying the pleasant day, and his mood brightened somewhat. This wasn’t a defeat, merely a delay, and the appeal would have to be made to the people…

It was a short walk back to the open air café where Ulrike was waiting, and Albert soaked up the Parisian atmosphere as he made it. The sense of culture and vitality was welcome after the momentary but real feeling of defeat. He had walked across the street in a fugue before noticing his wife had been joined by a much older, white-haired man in a well tailored suit.

“Albert, dear” Ulrike waved him to take the seat at her right. “You remember Marshik? He was a friend of your father’s.”

The older man, having put his coffee on the table, extended his hand to the young Montecuccoli. “Your grandfather did me a rather large favor, many, many years ago. The last time I saw you, Albert, you were knee high. That was back in Grenoble, before the… unpleasantness.”

Albert vaguely recalled the older man, one of many “friends” of varying closeness his father had kept up with. He took the man’s hand, and then recognition set in. “Oh, Director Marik! It’s quite a surprise to see you again. I thought you were in Geneva with the colony licensing board.”

“I’m afraid I left public service for private life a couple of years ago. The political squabbling left me pining for the quiet challenge of applied mathematics.” The old man smiled slyly, as if letting Albert in on a private joke. It impressed the younger man as to his sincerity.

Albert sat down, and a waiter delivered him a cup of espresso. Ulrike, as usual, had anticipated his wants. “Thank you, dear,” he whispered to her. ‘So, what brought you to Paris, Mister Marik?”

“Please, call me Marshik. Our families go back… well, a long time. But this day, I was mere visiting some old colleagues, here and there, when I happened to stop in at this café and your wife here recognized me” he replied. “From what she tells me, much the same as you were doing.”

“Other old family friends,” Albert confirmed. “I’ve been trying to get some justice for the people of Israel. The Jewish Refugee Agency has evidence the USE directly funded the Arab armies! How could we pose as neutrals afterward then? And this American team went into Palestine last year, infiltrating the Germanium mines… shocking! Can you believe that Europe would turn away from this?”

Marshik shook his head. “I was absorbed with the Pathfinder project at the time, but several of my colleagues were Israeli. A bad business, that was. But I am surprised to hear that you suspect Geneva of having a hand in it.” Of course, he wasn’t really surprised in the least, but the Marik had gauged up the young man pretty accurately. The earnest young idealist with a cause and no head for business, politics, or science. His days with the Deimos Project had acquainted him with the type, typically taking the most extreme position in favor of it or the most extreme position short of violence and sabotage against.

“I will have to send you the details immediately after I return to the estate!” Albert was excited. Marshik Marik knew people and had influence and clout. “There is a lot of information and propaganda and history to sort through, but…”

Ulrike squeezed his hand, her signal that he was being overly enthusiastic. “Now dear, Marshik here was enjoying Paris.” She smiled sweetly. “Let’s not spoil the day by bringing up business with him. You will have enough time to pester him once we leave.”

“Nothing can spoil an early spring in this city, I’ve found,” Marshik replied jovially. “But please send me these materials when you can. I am interested in this situation, though there is only so much that can be done after all these years.” And much of it was being done by Marik already. But he had to work quietly, behind the scenes, lest the Great Project be disrupted. Still, Montecuccoli could be useful as a public face, and his wife was even more useful. Little question who had the brains in the relationship, he thought. “But yes, as I was telling your wife earlier, the Terran Alliance is already beginning to degenerate. I’ve seen it myself over the course of my work. This only provides more evidence.”

“Before you returned Doctor Marik was discussing the prospect of emigration,” Ulrike brought up. “He’s looking for a promising world, and to put together a development corporation to buy settlement rights. It’s really all so romantic and forward looking.” She knew her husband well, and pushed the progress button for him. Of course, the meeting was no mere coincidence, though letting Albert think that way was preferable. He was lovable and protective and safe, but he really needed to be more practical; but she was practical enough for both of them. “It’s only a small investment now to build up capital on the interest, and if we do roll it over into land-shares we’ll have joined early enough to have the best land to chose from.”

“You’re charming wife makes a better pitch than I could, Albert,” Marshik replied. “The dole keeps the downtrodden masses at bay, and if they don’t the gendarmes and Terran military does. Political corruption is omnipresent, even in the theoretical science projects. The Deimos Project would have cost less than one trillion Euros, twice that for Alliance Credits, just going by the cost of materials, salaries, and other germane costs. Instead the true cost was officially three times as much, and I suspect it went as high as six times as much. As well as requiring rationing even in Europe, and worse in Africa. God knows where all the money went, most of it disappeared in simple waste and inefficiency and low-level embezzlement in every part of the project. And that was three decades ago.” He shook his aged head sadly. “Things have only gotten worse. Which is why I am prepared to cut my ties with Earth and look into a new world, where we can get things right once more.”

“That’s crazy!” Albert staggered under the weight of this revelation. “How… how could anyone waste that much money? But…” He looked at Ulrike automatically, seeking some sort of clue or support, as he usually did. “That’s just too pessimistic. We can change things. If someone of your stature were to speak out, the political system would have to take notice. We could rally the middle classes and seek solidarity with the reformist elements in the American government.”

Marshik was amused at the young man’s energy and earnestness, but he knew better. “I don’t see much prospect here. If the middle class had any power they wouldn’t be paying an average 70% tax on their income, would they? And that, my friend, is why moving off world is such a viable option. The world won’t get better, and anyone with ah, the Americans would say, ‘gumption’, they will get off this world. There are many planets in the stars and thus as many opportunities to be seized. The Old Families finally have an opportunity as well, to assert their leadership now that the gods of Marx and Wilson have failed.” Then he shook his head, as if in concession. “But you are a youth, still. I was your way, once.” Well, not really. “If you think you can change the world, perhaps you can. I wish you luck there. But I’m afraid I must excuse myself now…”

“Oh, of course Doc… Marshik.” Albert rose to shake his hand again as he left. “It’s very nice meeting you again. And I will send that information to you as soon as I can.”

Marshik mumbled something in reply before leaving. Ulrike took Albert’s hand, bidding him to sit down again. “Honey, don’t ever give up.” She leaned in and kissed him. He was just so sweet, and so hopeless. After breaking the shallow contact, she whispered into his ear, “But don’t ignore such advice from such a distinguished man, either.” She leaned back out, and put her hands on the table. “Let’s have a backup if things deteriorate here on Earth. We can liquidate the assets held in the Amsterdam bourse, cash in some bond holdings, it wouldn’t need to be more than a few million at this point.”

Albert sighed. He wasn’t good with this sort of thing. “Well, I guess that sounds reasonable. I…” The he looked as if he had an Idea. “Why don’t you talk to Charles about this?” Their financial agent was there for a reason, after all. “I trust you to handle our money and the estate. Always have, my dearest love.” The city beckoned him. “Let’s finish up here and enjoy a stroll.” He pulled out some Euros from his billfold, laying them down on the table to cover the espresso. They rose and left to walk through Paris arm in arm, like all the other young lovers in the most romantic city on Earth.

[MarshalPurnell]

Part XIV: A Sunk and Shattered Visage
“The plight of the people remains the struggle against hunger. Throughout Asia, Africa, India, and South America, the lives of the masses have changed in one thing only; now technology makes them aware of how wretched they are. Any street urchin in Katmandu knows of the physical principles that allow faster than light travel, but what does this triumph of the human spirit matter to him? What can it matter? Enough! The emancipation of humanity depends on radical change, an alteration to the power structures that condemn so many people to alienation and atomization. The state must be a family, uplifting those left behind, molding them into a class of Citizen fit to participate in the Greater Humanity yet unborn. But to institute a new system of justice, the destruction of the old patterns that maintain this state of injustice must be accomplished. The foundations of decrepit liberalism and capitalism that sustain the abominable Terran Alliance must be razed! Cynthiana is right, only I am fit for this great task of Celestial reordering…”
-Elias Liao, unpublished diary held in the Liao Ancestral Treasury, undated 2181 entry.

Badiet et-Tieh,
Islamic Republic of Egypt,
August 2143,
Old Terra

A robed Bedouin took the reins of his camel, stopping the filthy beast to allow Albert to dismount. The camel turned to look at him, and Montecuccoli could have sworn they blazed with contempt. And then it spit at him. He stepped down into the loose desert sands, wiping his face off with his hand. The attendant had drawn out a small stick and threatened to commence beating the animal. Montecuccoli stepped uneasily forward and raised his hand, asking the man to stop.

The Bedouin obeyed, though he muttered “Only a foreigner would love a camel.” But this infidel was a guest of the tribe and as such owed the full respect of their strict hospitality etiquette. “This way,” he said, after handing off the reins to a nephew. The Bedouin pointed towards the tent of the Sheikh, the head of the Khawalid tribe. As they approached, Albert’s temporary guide shouted out to the black slave standing outside, alerting him to the presence of the visitor.

Albert stopped, google-eyed at the scene. “You have slaves here?” he asked the Bedouin in Egyptian-accented Arabic. “I thought the rumors in Sudan were false.”

His guide tensed up for a moment before relaxing somewhat. Other Bedouins passing nearby had started at Albert’s exclamation. “You should not speak the city-dwellers’ tongue here,” he replied in English. “We have no love for those people. Most of our people will speak the English tongue, and you may use it here.” He shrugged. “As for your question, the trade has never died, but it began freely again after the famines in your last century. And why not? Man cannot forbid what Allah has permitted. Our Sheikh has many enemies and too few sons, so he needs servants. Eunuchs are also no threat to the virtue of women and so suitable for many special tasks. The blacks are saved from starvation and are saved from idolatry, inshallah.”

God willing. It was like something from the Dark Ages, but Albert merely nodded. Showing indignation would be bad form, and he needed these people. “Yes. English is fine. Why do so many of the tribe speak it? You look too young to have been a part of the old Jordanian army.”

“The Sheikh attended Sandhurst before the impious Palestinian dogs overthrew the King and our tribe fled to sanctuary here in the Sinai. He realized it is important in the outside world, and he would rather use it than the debased tongue of the men who act like women. So our tribe uses it with outsiders.” He then pointed to a satellite dish sticking out from a nearby tent. “Also we watch Lifeguard Academy.”

The black eunuch had opened the tent’s flap and was talking to someone inside as Albert and his guide bantered. He received the answer, and in obedience summoned forward the two men. In a striking deep baritone he said “The Sheikh bids you welcome, Albert of Montecuccoli. He waits inside to greet you personally.” The slave then opened up one flap of the tent, standing to the side as Albert bent down to enter. He closed the flap behind the European, and returned to his watchdog function as though nothing had happened.

Inside, the light from dim battery lamps illuminated plush furnishings, creating a scene rather like a clichéd Hollywood movie. The Sheikh sat towards the back of the tent on a huge fluffed purple pillow with yellow tassel, while a couple of veiled women waited modestly beside him. The leader of the tribe was a wiry, weathered looking man in a vigorous old age, with a closely trimmed grey beared, and clad in the white desert robes of his people. “Come, honored guest,” he spoke, and pointed to a pillow by his side. “Will you have tea?”

Montecuccoli sat down gingerly, his rump still smarting from the camel ride. It had been a long journey on badly maintained trails, and then through the wilderness of the Badiet et-Tieh, the Biblical “Desert of Paran” where the Hebrews had wandered for forty years. It had taken many bribes simply to get a visa to visit Egypt and its tourist sites given his own “notorious” efforts on the behalf of that tribe. A visit to the “military security zone” in the Sinai and Gaza had been out of the question, officially. More bribes had paved his way to get here unofficially.

“Yes, thank you, honorable sheikh,” Montecuccoli replied as one of the women offered him a beautiful ceramic teacup and poured in the warm liquid. Montecuccoli sipped, something cold would have been nice but after his time in the desert any liquid at all was a relief. “I appreciate your hospitality to this weary traveler, sheikh.”

“It is as nothing,” the old man replied. “Few are those who seek out the sons of the desert in these evil times, and our code on this matter is clear. You are under our protection, and no ill may befall you without a loss of honor. But I understand you come here for business and not simply to learn of our ways, like the last few graduate students I have hosted?”

Of course the old sheikh knew exactly why Albert was here, but tact prevented him from being too direct. Even this approach would be considered rude had the Sheikh not absorbed some Western culture as a cadet in England. Albert knew this as well. “I have brought some water purification equipment and some other goods for sale or trade. But I find myself, o sheikh, in need of an escort to the town of Mitzpe Ramon that I might fulfill a mission that I have been charged with.”

The Sheikh stroked his beard, seeming to fall into deep thought. “You wish to see the yahud yourself, perhaps to take pictures? My people have no love for the Jews. But they left the Bedouin of this place alone. The Palestinians and Egyptians and our other so-called ‘brothers’ harass us and try to drive us from the desert. Sisters, more like it! I would rather raid their towns and take their women, but if this causes them trouble, I will permit some of my tribe to aid you in this task.”

“You are most gracious, sheikh,” Albert replied. “It may be more profitable to dispose of my wares to your tribe, if it will speed me on my mission. I have three Terran Alliance military portable water purifiers, as well as a variety of decorative items suitable as gifts or for display. Jewelry and fine gold as well. I can offer this to you for 50,000 Alliance Credits, in recognition of your tribes’ aid to my mission.” It was an excellent price, a mere fraction of the cost of one of the purifiers. Albert wrote off the cost without concern, necessary to secure his mission, and it was indirect charity anyway. The Bedouin would have been insulted if he had offered them as gifts for his sanctuary among them, as it suggested their hospitality had a price. But a deal for services to be rendered was something else.

“You are a part-Jew yourself!” the Sheikh exclaimed merrily. “You wish to sell me this equipment sight-unseen. No more than 25,000 credits of this poor and impoverished tribe can I depart with. Show mercy to my poor people, I beg you.”

“With this equipment your people can use the oases that were contaminated in the war with Israel. Your grazing range will be quadrupled and you can support double your herds.” Montecuccoli had picked up some knowledge of haggling (his wife wouldn’t exactly call it skill) along with Arabic in the bazaars of Cairo. “You will make back an investment of 40,000 credits and more in a single year!”

“You are trying to gouge my poor, oppressed people. The tax collectors will take that 40,000 and even more in bribes,” the sheikh replied. “I can do no better than 30,000 credits, and only because you are a guest.”

Albert mulled over going to 35,000 credits, like a trader would. But the haggling was a sham and he had no real desire to take the money of the sheikh. “Very well, o sheikh. I am in a great hurry, and if you wish to take advantage of me, God alone judge you. The equipment will be delivered by unorthodox means. Smuggled in by certain criminal elements over the beaches to the north.”

The sheikh was pleased to have won the round of haggling. “Oh, yes. The Egyptian authorities would not like us to have them. They want to drive us into their towns, where they can steal from us and abuse us more easily, and collect bribes for every beating they don’t give us. One of these days there will be a reckoning.” He shook his head. “But I forget myself. You are a guest. A tent shall be put up for you, and a slave assigned to your comfort. There will be dinner tonight, and music. You infidels seem to like that very much. And tomorrow, I will send you out with some of my most skilled riders. They will get you to the labor camp without being seen, right up to the barracks window of those worthless sons of pigs without anyone knowing.”


The sheikh had been good to his word, ordering a feast and entertainment for Albert that night. A bonfire of driftwood had lit up the starry night, with wild desert music an edifying accompaniment to a large meal of goat, rice, chickpeas, camel’s milk, figs, and other typical fare. As picturesque and exotic as it had been, there were no belly-dancers or seductive veiled princesses. The sheikh had taken over the tribe in the wake of a revolution in Jordan, and had had to recreate some aspects of desert life after several generations of settled service to the Hashemite dynasty. But the sheikh’s use of Hollywood clichés only went so far as decorating and other rather mundane matters. That said, the women weren’t wearing the full burqas that had been ubiquitous in Cairo and appeared quite a bit more independent and equal, though Albert knew any untoward behavior would still be throwing his life away. Not that he was tempted, and had never been tempted since he had realized how much he loved Ulrike. The lack of alcohol was a bit of a trial, though.

At least he wasn’t hung over the next day as he started out on horseback with a dozen of the best riders in the tribe. Most were fit young men, with a family resemblance to the sheikh, carrying old Kalashnikovs and in two cases vintage Lee-Enfield rifles in their off-hand as they rode their camels. Albert was wearing the same Bedouin robes they were decked in, though no one would have mistaken his clumsy ride on a camel for that of a native. The tribesmen were amused at the occasional flailing of the foreigner and cracked many jokes at Albert’s expense when they stopped for rest in the day.

At one point, while at a small oasis, Albert had asked about the surveillance of the suspected labor camp in the Ramon Crater, their destination in the Negev. “Surely they have Alliance drones with infrared seekers, so how is traveling by night useful?” he had asked.

Their leader, a young son of the old sheikh, had merely laughed. “You do not know the Palestinians. If the government laid out money for drones that did not go into a bank account, and the drones were actually delivered, the drones would be out of action in a week. The worthless dogs have no idea of maintenance, and their officers would want to write them off anyway so they can sell the electronics on the market and pocket the cash. No, there will only be patrols on foot or with vehicles, and those as punishment details.”

That had been three days ago. It was a week from the time that Albert had arrived at the Bedouin camp when they reached the outskirts of Mitzpe Ramon. The small tourist town had been massively expanded, but the new construction was mostly flimsy looking Quonset huts. It was sitting on the rim of the Ramon Crater, which was clearly being excavated on a massive scale. It was a simple matter for Albert to set up and take pictures of the environmental damage. Those would be useful for showing the truth behind the rumors of a massive germanium find. The forced labor, though…

The Bedouin leader had slipped up beside Montecuccoli without the slightest sound, only alarming the photographer by tapping him on the shoulder. Albert started, trying to leap up into a defensive stance. The Bedouin only laughed heartily. Finally, he got to the point. “We have found something you should be most interested in. It is back at the camp.”

Albert tried to draw him out, without success. So he packed up his equipment after taking a few more shots, and followed the Arab back. In the middle of a site, a slight man clad in rags writhed in the sand. Two of the Bedouin stood guard over him, and one of them kicked him to look in Albert’s direction. Montecuccoli waved them off.

“Please, don’t kill me, I…” the man pleaded, speaking an Arabic that sounded off to Albert’s ears. “I got lost in the mines, that’s all, I didn’t try to escape…”

Albert walked over, grabbing the man’s hand and pulling him up. “I am not an overseer,” he answered in English. The man’s eyes suddenly widened, but they seemed hopeful now, not desperate. “I apologize for the rough handling, but the Bedouin are not fond of taking risks. Tell me, what is this place? Who are you?” Then Albert took a look at the man, closely; his lips were parched and peeling, his body sunburnt. Montecuccoli brought out his own flask and opened it for the man. “Slowly, only a little, you don’t want to hurt yourself.”

The survivor took a few slow sips of the water, relishing the wetness they provided to his dehydrated throat. Finally, and not without some hesitation, he handed the flask back to Albert. “My name? No, not the Hebrew.” He seemed dazed. “Israel is gone again and our people dispersed. My ancestors were Sephardi. My name is Jacob, my ancestors were Sandovals. I will use that name again.” He seemed to fade with decision, but remembered the other question. “They use us as slaves in the mine.” Albert moved to support him as his knees wavered. “Germanium. There are deposits throughout the Negev. Our people have been used to work it since… for decades.”

“We can stay here only for another hour,” the Bedouin leader broke in. “A patrol will come by and we must be gone. Do you need to be closer to the camp?”

Montecuccoli looked over the rescued Jew. “No, we must get this man to safety. He needs to rest and recover. Do you have a problem with that?”

The Bedouin shrugged. “The jihad ended decades ago. He does not belong to anyone that I know, so it is not helping a slave to escape. The Quran commands mercy in these cases. But what about your mission?”

“He’ll do.” Photos, after all, could not talk back. They could tell a tale, but not literally. And the sooner Jacob could be treated for his exposure, the better. Getting out of Egypt with him would take… more bribes, but it wouldn’t be too difficult. “Let’s get out of here.”

[MarshalPurnell]

Part XV: The Quickening of a New Age
“Mother Terra gave birth to the new colonies of humanity that dot the stars. And as dutiful sons and daughters of Terra, the colonies are bound to deference to the leadership of their parent. We will protect them and guide them while they are too immature to take care of themselves, and the bonds that tie them to the Alliance will be filial. No political arrangements, no economic theory, no coercive measures can replace a loyalty of blood forged by love. When we pass the torch of leadership to our children, we will do so without reservation, motivated only by our affection and certitude that they will behave as we have raised them to do.”
-Janice Alouwanga, Keynote Speech of the Expansionist Party Annual Convention, September 18th, 2190.

Castle Vysehrad, Prague,
United States of Europe,
June 2nd, 2144
Old Terra

Vysehrad did not look like a stereotypical fairy-tale castle. It was built on top of a solid grey outcropping of rock on the Vlata river, and it’s short, squat walls of cut stone made it clear that it had been constructed for war. A back entrance had been hewn into the rock, leading up a winding stone staircase into a conspicuously open courtyard, well covered by what had been firing platforms. Despite its functional appearance it was linked by local legend to the romantic story of Princess Libuse, the beautiful daughter of a Slavic chieftain who had married a humble ploughman and given birth to the Premyslid dynasty and the Czech people. Vysehrad was widely believed to have been her castle on the Vlata, where she had given a prophecy of the glory of the city that would emerge. Their hosts claimed blood descent from that union, though it was as hollow a claim as their Ducal title.

Ulrike had looked up some information on the castle, above and beyond the tourist scripts parroted by their welcoming guide. The site had been fortified since the 10th century, some two hundred years after Princess Libuse, and the existing castle had been rebuilt in the 17th century after the Siege of Prague by Swedish forces in the Thirty Years War. She had smiled thinly when she had read that, reminded of her own Nordic heritage, but it had been a passing fancy. The Mariks were rather more verifiably related to the dynasty that had rebuilt Vysehrad, and Marshik’s purchase of the estate, disguised as a charitable foundation for its upkeep, said interesting things about how he really saw himself. She had never suspected the old academic had a streak of overweening pride, but in retrospect it did take someone with a full measure of… self-confidence to go about settling another world. She had filed away that impression for use later in the negotiations with Marshik that her dear, impractical husband had delegated to her.

The reception for the elite investors of the Marik Colonization Group, LLC was held in the New Provost’s Residence, a late 19th century Victorian house with attached chapel built near the Vlata river entrance and a medieval well, the so-called Baths of Libuse. It had been renovated fully and was commonly used for social functions at the castle, and the select nature of Marik’s guests left plenty of room for everyone invited. Ulrike flitted around the floor, introducing herself and talking briefly with the other guests in turn, until she found herself in a group with several of the younger investors. Se took a flute of champagne from the silver plate of a passing attendant, sipping it while listening to Friedrich von Starhemberg describe his exploits in game hunting in Africa. To her mild surprise, the champagne was indeed Dom Perignon, and a vintage older than she was.

The tall, dark-featured twenty-something aristocrat beside her evidently picked up on the surprise. “Marshik would only serve the best with this list of guests,” he whispered to her in a low voice accentuated with a vaguely Russian accent. “Friedrich there, Josef Esterhazy, Prince Schwarzenberg, Prince Franz von Liechtenstein’s youngest daughter, and I know I saw a couple of Furstenburgs outside…” He smiled thinly. “And there is one Prince Bagrationi, feeling quite a bit out of place. I don’t recognize you, milady, so allow me to introduce myself as Ivan, and hope that I am finally not alone in this collection of black and yellow bluebloods.”

Ulrike recognized the look in the Russian noble’s eyes, and it caused her to blush just a little. But that stood out on her fair Nordic skin, something she silently cursed her ancestors for. “I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m here representing my husband, the Count of Montecuccoli.” She put some emphasis into husband. Though Ivan was handsome in that dark, brooding Slavic way, and the attention was flattering…

“Another group of old Habsburg stalwarts,” he said, feigning horror. “And not an honest Slav in sight,” he said, exaggerating despair. “Not that milady Montecuccoli disappoints in anything.”

Ulrike shook her head, covering her amusement. “Prince Bagrationi…”

“Ivan, please. It would sound so pleasant if you said it.”

“Ivan.” Her voice was flat, the traces of lilting Swedish usually present in her English deliberately suppressed. “You are trying to be charming…”

“And failing, it seems,” he responded lightly.

“And failing,” she repeated. “I’m sure you’ve had a lot of success with other women, but I really am happily married.”

“A virtuous woman,” Bagrationi said, jesting. “A proverb of my home country, which is not Russia, says that they are more valuable than precious gems and gold. I try to do my part to assure their value by promoting their rarity.”

Ulrike was not quite able to suppress a laugh. “So you do have some wit. Perhaps we should start over?”

“Gladly,” Ivan replied. Then he straightened up, and extended his hand. “Prince Ivan Bagrationi, a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

She took his hand, shaking it gingerly. “Countess Ulrike Montecuccoli, likewise.”

“Enchante, madam.” He winked playfully at her. “So what brings you to this meeting? A droll commercial investment, or do you and your husband share some of the barely suppressed dreams of old country this and nobility that, I sense among so many of our fellow investors?”

“Albert would never think that way,” she responded. “I handle the investments and finances and it seemed like a good one. But the way things are going here on Earth, having an estate on another world to escape to might be an even sounder investment.”

“Ah, Albert Montecuccoli, now I recognize your husband.” Bagrationi looked chagrined. “The gadfly of the Terran Alliance cocktail party circuit. Not that I think his perspective wrong, but he doesn’t seem to be doing anything productive. That’s probably why he gets ignored by our real masters in Geneva.”

Ulrike agreed herself with the estimate but wasn’t about to let it go unchallenged, but she was pre-empted by a servant in livery who called out from the bottom of the staircase by the hall. “The meeting shall begin presently, ladies and gentlemen. Chief Executive Officer Marik welcomes your questions and will present a full update on the activities of the company to date. This way, please, in orderly fashion.”

A line of privileged and mostly dissolute youths followed up the stairs. Ulrike was at the end of the line, following everyone else. She made a rough count while doing so, coming out at twenty guests, or about everyone that had been invited. Marshik had stressed to her that he had important news, and he must have done that for everyone else as well. Ulrike suspected the old man had finally found a suitable planet and arranged for purchase, which meant the corporation was on the threshold of beginning space-based operations. Of course, the formal board of the company would meet later to approve the purchase of colonization rights, but the people here today represented 80% of the investment capital and their support would be the true deciding factor.

They were directed into a spartan meeting room, with fold-up steel chairs lining the walls and facing a central podium, where someone had set up a tridee projector. The extension cable ran along the left side of the room to a cracked window and then outside. It was a far cry from the more elegant surroundings downstairs, a contrast that was probably deliberate. Marshik was waiting at the head of the room, an elderly, scholarly looking man with anachronistic pince-nez and tailored grey business suit. He was projecting his authority as a distinguished intellectual in a setting that resembled an informal lecture more than a stockholder’s meeting. Ulrike thought the manipulation was a little obvious and clumsy, but most of the rest of the group were settling in and many leaned forward, as if eager to hear the professor discourse on a topic.

Marshik used a small remote to turn on the projector, which caused a three-dimensional representation of a dusty brown world to wink into existence. The outline of continents were clearly visible against a much small area of blue-green seas, and there were far fewer white clouds than a representation of Earth would have included. “Thank you for attending today,” Marshik began. “This is registered planet #12-387-19, in the spinward sector of operations for the Terran Alliance Exploration Service. As you can see, it is a drier and hotter world than Earth, though the brown color is somewhat deceiving. The preliminary report from the exploration service indicates that chlorophyll based Terran life will be able to push aside much of the native vegetation with sufficient irrigation. It is also somewhat denser than Earth, despite having minutely smaller dimensions, which indicates that it may possess considerable mineral wealth.”

“So why should we work with this world instead of holding out for a more Terran style world, closer to Earth?” The question came from Prince Esterhazy, one of the more serious investors in colonial enterprises. “We can surely do better than a higher-gravity, dusty planet that may or may not have some mineral wealth. The asteroid belts of a system are more important sources of minerals and ores in any case, and nearly any system should have sufficient resources for a return on investment.”

“I’m glad you asked that,” Marshik replied. “First and foremost, we can obtain the colonization rights for this world cheaply and quickly. The commander of the spinward exploration district has been exceptionally helpful, and is willing to downplay reports on the habitability and potential wealth of the planet. We cannot expect such cooperation in the coreward districts, I am afraid. And while this planet is far away from Earth, is that not the point of our efforts? The further away from the homeworld, the more autonomy we will have. And as for mineral wealth, it will take decades, perhaps a century to develop the intersystem infrastructure to mine asteroid belts. Colonization corporations have faltered before when they refused to recognize this. With terrestrial mines we can begin operations within a mere decade, beginning a return on investment much earlier than most corporations can expect. Those are the advantages of choosing this world.”

The room was not entirely devoid of skeptics, and Esterhazy continued to lead them in prodding Marshik to make the case for purchasing the rights to the world. It readily became apparent to Ulrike that Marshik had his hooks into a portion of the Terran colonial bureaucracy, especially in the proposed sector. He obviously wasn’t going to spell out exactly how much clout he had there, and was probably not being entirely open about every reason he wanted this planet. What could it be?

“Doctor Marik, a question,” she begged sweetly. “You’ve said the biological survey was positive, but how much terraforming will the planet actually require? We’ve all heard about what happened at New Liberty.” That colony had been settled unofficially, after a mere cursory survey that had failed to pick up the absence of potassium in the seas and planetary food chain. Over several months the colony had been decimated, and the survivors reduced to the functioning level of the mentally retarded. And New Liberty wasn’t the worst colonization horror story, not by a long shot.

Marshik chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. “I do think I’m a little more careful than that, at least! No, no, the water supply has been extensively tested and it does not even need purification equipment. That eliminates another major cost, of course. The survey team reports the native fauna and flora are rather unimpressive, so we will have to seed the world with Terran forms, and that will take about a decade. For the original colonists, supplement packs will provide nutrition they cannot receive from the native species, though I do not vouch for the taste or variety of such a diet. I doubt many of us wish to play pioneer and find out, so it will be a matter for the first immigrants.”

Discussion continued on for another hour, but consensus favored Marshik by the time the meeting was brought to a close. Esterhazy wanted and got assurances that the corporate structure would remain intact even after the settlement had begun. Exactly how settlers would be attracted, and the land of the world divided up, had been deferred until after the corporate board approved the purchase. Nonetheless, the wealthy Prince had not refrained from bringing up a final piece of business.

“So let us call the planet Marik, in honor of the leading role of glorious leader here,” he had remarked offhandedly, in sarcastic manner. The whole thrust of his complaints had been the way Marshik and his family monopolized key positions on the board and were acting very independently in running the corporation. It was a parting warning that he intended to continue to press for more investor oversight.

Marshik had smiled, and whimsically stroked his grey beard. “I think I like the sound of that.” He was replying humorously, but Ulrike just happened to be looking up at his face, and into his eyes. He wasn’t kidding at all.

[MarshalPurnell]

Epilogue: The Tales we Tell...
“My brother gave his life for the greater good of the peoples of our worlds. He, no less than the honorable Member Karseigan, valued the autonomy of our many distinct cultures. But his fate demonstrates why this world requires a government strong enough to defend our Republic from the predatory savages who infest our space now that Terra has withdrawn inward! In memory of Josef, I remain committed to the principles of autonomy and noninterference, and so cannot vote for the Klondyke proposal. But in memory of his sacrifice for our family, and all the other families of this world, I will vote for the Constitution that insures we will never again be so unprepared for violent assault. That is why I throw my support behind Charles Marik and his Constitution today.”
-Roberto di Montecuccoli, August 27th 2240, Marik Republic Parliament

Montecuccoli Estate,
Szentgotthard, Marik
March 22nd, 3112
Marik-Stewart Commonwealth

A fire crackled at the end of the study, throwing embers into the air and shining a dull light on the tapestries above it. An elderly man was seated in a well-worn leather plush chair, gripping the arms tightly and basking in the natural warmth. Sweat glistened on his brow, but he paid it no heed; he had been a ‘Mechwarrior, and that sensation was too familiar to draw any notice. He was haunted by the voices and images of the past, and could find no respite even in his retirement, even in these times of peace, so many years since the horrors of the Jihad. Rest there was in plenty, but there would be no peace for him until death.

His hearing was still good enough to pick up the pitter-patter of little feet down the hall. He reluctantly tilted his head to look at the entrance to the study, and for his effort saw two children running in, a brunette girl being chased by a blonde boy, both looking to be around eight or so. The latest generation of the family, he recognized them. The boy would be his great grandnephew, the daughter a surprise grandniece, both being raised here on the Marik estates as tens of generations before them had been. They were evading the weapons-masters, he had no doubt. This room had been his favorite place to dodge the demands of the fencing instructors and his French teacher, in an earlier, far more innocent time.

Arturo had no children, had never had another relationship after he had watched Kimiko burned alive in her cockpit on one of the countless battlefields of the First Marik during the Jihad, one he could never forget. Her screams, sounding over their shared radio channel, still had him waking covered in sweat in the middle of the night.

The ghastly reverie was interrupted by the most incongruous thing he could never have imagined. The sound of giggling resounded in the room, as the children rolled around on the floor, now wrestling with each other on the lion-skin rug by the door. That trophy, taken centuries ago by a forgotten ancestor before mankind had left Terra and preserved through techniques even more ancient, had also been a favorite of his. He studied them in play, allowing a moment of repose, free from the ghosts of the past. And then his lungs, damaged by exposure to one of the Blakist chemical weapons, began acting up. The hacking sensation wracked his body as he began another coughing fit, and the result was as a thunderclap in the still room.

The children leapt up, looking terrified as they finally realized the presence of the old man. He waved his left hand, even as his body shook with the sustained cough, trying to tell them not to be worried. They remained still, standing there, waiting for chastisement. His wrinkled skin and gaunt frame scared them, his brother and sister had both aged far better than he had and they had never seen someone so obviously advanced in the process of dying. As his coughing fit subsided, after what seemed like minutes, the boy finally screwed up enough courage to stammer out a question.

“Who are you?” he haltingly asked Arturo.

Secluded in his own quarters, the elderly man had been more of a wraith than a presence at the Montecuccoli estate ever since he had returned to Marik. Had it really been three decades? All that time, alone. There were servants to look after his needs, of course, but the last time any of younger generations had visited him had been… about the time of the baptism of the boy; Arturo’s mind dredged up the name Eduard. His nephew had tried to get him involved, but Arturo had had none of it. The horrors of the Jihad had broken any faith he had once had.

“Who am I?” he found himself repeating, pondering the question. His voice, though hoarse, had a strength that surprised him. “I’m an old man who wants to be left alone.”

The boy looked unsatisfied with the answer, even as the little girl tugged at his sleeve, eager to leave the room before they got in trouble. That simply caused Eduard to look Arturo straight in the eye, more defiant and determined than ever, daring him to call the servants to take them away. Arturo was amused, despite himself; that stubbornness, that unwillingness to back down, was so like him at that age. The girl, whose name he could not recall, which caused him to frown in an outward show of frustration, was rather more timid… or conscientious, depending on your point of view. Rather like his sister Anna had been.

Meanwhile, Eduard had been straining his memory, trying to remember something one of the servants had said, shooing them away from this part of the estate weeks ago. The girl whispered something into his right ear, and his eyes widened.

“You’re great-uncle Arthur! The war hero!” There was an unabashed fascination evident now on the boy’s face, as he strained to make the shadowy relative he had heard so much about.

Arturo, for his own part, was perturbed by the nascent hero-worship, which he had never sought from anyone, and which was a painful reminder of his experiences. “I’m your great-great uncle Arturo”, he conceded, surprising himself. He sighed; for some reason he wasn’t eager to dismiss them as he thought he would be.

The questions came out in a rush from the boy, breathless in anticipation. “How many Blakists did you kill? Is it true you saved the Duke of Oriente? That you slew a Blakie Zombie barehanded?”

Arturo held up his hand, begging a measure of peace. “Such questions.” He coughed into his hand again, phlegm resettling in his chest cavity. “I don’t talk about the Jihad. Now, what about your playmate? Does she want to sit around in this dusty room with a scary old man?”

“But she’s just a girl…” the boy began, before the girl shoved an elbow into his chest. It wasn’t painful, but it did shut him up.

“I don’t want to go back to mean Mister Hernandez!” she shouted out.

The old man in the chair chuckled, amused. He nearly stopped when he realized what he was doing. He hadn’t laughed in… a long time. He waved the two children over. “Sit over here, by the fire. What is your name, grandniece? And what do you want, then?”

“I’m Elena.” She looked at him suspiciously, wondering why this relative didn’t know her. “I want…” she started, then stopped. She looked down at the floor, and her brow tightened, as she thought about it some more.

“Tell us a story!” Eduard interjected, having recovered from his surprise. “A good story, with action, and fighting, and a hero!”

“Let her answer,” Arturo told him, speaking firmly but not harshly.

“I want a story, too” she finally replied, after an uncomfortable silence accentuated by the dancing flames and shadows in the room. “I want it to be a true story!”

The boy rolled his eyes and made a sour face. He might as well have sucked a lemon as heard his cousin’s response. True stories were boring, everyone knew that.

Arturo frowned a minute, and considered what to tell them. He was getting in the spirit of things now. Even his chest seemed to be revitalized, and his usual raspy voice was clearer than it had been in years. But he needed inspiration. Then he saw the girl glancing at one of the tapestries on the wall, and he knew what to say to them.

“That is Josef, a member of our family, long ago,” he said, referencing the girl’s interest. “We Montecuccolis are an ancient family, older than even the Mariks. We came to this world with them, and Josef came of age as the Terran Alliance fell apart.”

“Oh! Oh!” Eduard squirmed. “Does it involve the evil Kerensky cyborg?”

Kids these days, thought Arturo. They watch too many ‘vids. “That’s later. In those days, the Free Worlds League hadn’t even formed. Our world was subject to attack by raiders, pirates, fierce men driven by need to take what wasn’t theirs. Some driven by other needs.” He had seen plenty of those other needs during the Jihad, and not just from the Blakists.

“Like Redjack Ryan, or Cutlass Sally, or Hendrik Grimm, or the Red Corsair?” the boy asked, excitement now building. Elena looked a little more dubious about the direction of the story.

“Worse than them,” Arturo said. “They’d just lost all connection to home. Terran deserters, colonists from worlds rendered uninhabitable, starving men and women, petty warlords out to take what they wanted. It was a mess, because there was no one to stop them without the Terrans. That’s what Marik faced in those days.”

“Is there a princess in the story?” Elena asked, half-whining, bored by the prospects so far.

“Yes, there is” Arturo replied, for history, at least the Montecuccoli family version, would oblige her interests. “A very beautiful one, from a noble family, a girl named Jelena. She and Josef were very much in love, but Jelena was promised to another, and they could not be together. This made him very sad, but he worked to help the people of Marik and was involved in setting up our militia, putting his troubles away. He led the units that rounded up the Terran officials on our world when it declared independence, and convinced his father to support the provisional leaders. He and Jelena tried to forget one another and make separate lives, but they met one last time, in the middle of the biggest pirate raid in our world’s history.”

The children were both paying attention now, engrossed by the story that promised them both of what they wanted. Arturo continued after a brief pause as he felt another cough come on, and stifled it.

“They met at the bluffs of Karadorde, on the border between our landhold and the Serbian settlements of the New Syrmia region. Her children were at the estate of her husband outside Ragusa, right in the path of the pirates. That was a dirt-caked plain, full of howling winds, home to some of the germanium and platinum mines that brought so much of this planet’s wealth in those days. These pirates were killing everyone in their path, and the planetary forces weren’t enough to stop them. She begged him, in memory of their love, to lead what forces he could to delay the pirates and save her family. They say the first Edelweiss on the range bloomed where she had cried out her grief that day.”

He took another pause, unable to avoid the deep, dry cough wracking his body. The children waited patiently as he recovered his wind. The fire seemed to flicker all the more fiercely, and shadows danced about the room.

“Did he go?” the girl finally asked, after Arturo had been silent for a minute.

“Ah, ho, yes,” he responded disjointedly. And then picked up the thread of the story he had almost lost. “Josef gathered up volunteers from the Szentgotthard militia, and most of our personal household guard, and went out to meet the pirates. The path of the pirates in the desert narrowed where the Adriatic depression nearly met the Njeges range. Josef got there first, but he and his men were outnumbered ten to one. The pirates stopped, though. They didn’t know how many men Josef had, and the terrain favored the defense.”

“Why didn’t they just make a combat drop on the mines? That’s what the Red Corsair would have done,” Eduard insisted.

“In those days they didn’t have ‘Mechs or DropShips,” Arthur responded. Elena stuck her tongue out at the boy, who was embarrassed to be corrected. “In those days,” Arturo continued on, “every JumpShip had a maneuvering engine and was more like a WarShip itself, and they used shuttles to get down to a planet. It took a lot of them to land an army, too many to use that way. The pirates landed, and they had to get where they were going on foot, or on APCs. And in those days, the colonies couldn’t produce the fancy anti-tank rockets the Terrans had, so any sort of armored vehicle as powerful as an Atlas. And these pirates had a whole lance of tanks and more APCs. Josef and his men didn’t have anything but their rifles and the trucks they used to get into position.”

He let that sink in, and the children were suitably impressed. He also had to recover his breath, again. Then he continued.

“Josef had his men dig in trenches, make Molotov cocktails, do everything they could to make some weapons to hurt those pirate tanks. They weren’t able to put much together, and so Josef called his men to assemble near him. He released the armsmen from their oaths, and told everyone that if they wanted to leave, they could. Only one man left, which is the only reason we know this happened. He then received a parley request from the pirate commander, who met him just outside the trenches. The pirate leader was huge, almost two meters tall and built like an Elemental, and he was scarred from countless battles. He sneered at Josef, who was still young and had never seen combat. He demanded the militia surrender and turn over their arms and all valuables if they wanted to live. Josef replied with ‘molon labe’”.

He then stopped again. He caught his breath, a process more difficult than it had been a moment before. The infirmities of his age and condition were catching up with him.

“That means, come and get them,” Arturo informed the children after noticing their confusion. “You’ll start reading classics in a couple of years. The pirate leader had no more idea of what he had said than you did. He didn’t care, though. At that time the pirate lines surged, and they started bombarding the trenches. This pirate leader planned to attack during the truce, and he reached with a blur towards his sidearm, but even faster, Josef used his sword to cut the man’s arm off.”

“Cool!” the boy exhaled, impressed. The girl looked a bit disgusted at the turn of events.

“Josef cut the pirate leader’s head off too, and ran back to his lines ahead of the pirate attack. That head was put on a stake near his command trench so the enemy would see what he had done to them. But it was no use. They tried Molotov cocktails and satchel charges, everything to disable the pirate tanks, but nothing worked. Most of what they tried wouldn’t have worked for more than a century, but they were brave, and they killed many pirate infantry overwhelming them. Finally the last survivors fell back on Josef’s trench, and he led them in a desperate final stand only smothered by point blank fire from the tanks.”

“But that’s not romantic!” Elena interjected.

“Maybe not,” Arturo granted. “But the time the pirates took to fight him let the planetary militia prepare. They had their own tanks ready for the pirates afterward, and managed to beat them three days later. Josef had saved the children of his beloved, and upheld the honor of the family name.”

His own personal past threatened to overwhelm him once more. “That’s enough for one day,” Arturo decided. “This story is why you train with the weapons-masters. You need to go back to them, before anyone gets worried. I won’t give away your hiding place, I like it too much myself.”

Both frowned and looked ready to stamp their feet, but finally Eduard relented. “Let’s go, Elena. But will you tell us another story tomorrow?”

“A romantic story,” Elena demanded; Eduard had gotten his way a little too much with the last one for her tastes.

“I will try to think of another one,” Arturo promised them, and then lapsed back into his black thoughts. The children left, quietly, after he had been silent for another couple of minutes, pondering the encounter, and what he would say the next time the children came around. But there was little to worry about keeping their interests, at least. The family had many stories, and some of them were even true.

[MarshalPurnell]

Author Notes:
This is actually an older work, a serial piece that I was running on the CBT forums a while back. I had originally intended to tell the story of the Montecuccoli family through the Succession Wars, in short snippets, with the pre-spaceflight history a bit of prologue. Reception to those snippets was encouraging enough that I expanded, and kept expanding on them, dragging out the process of getting to the settlement of Marik and fighting with the big stompy robots. Eventually it just got too much, and I had other interests, and so I gave up on updating it. Now very recently I had a request from one of the other prominent fanfic authors to put it back up, now years after it was abandoned. I looked at it and realized that, after a fashion, I had told a story. Not necessarily a very tightly wound story, one that meanders through these short vignettes, but nonetheless, manages to convey the origins of the Republic of Marik and thus of the Free Worlds League. I haven't edited or proofread thoroughly, I haven't adjusted for obsolete content (the second Holocaust was accommodating a third fanfic writer's setting), and if I were writing it over it would be very different indeed, but I think it still holds up enough to provide some enjoyment. If nothing else, it's my take on just why the BTech universe is as "screwed up" as it is, and hopefully presents a realistic enough take on the setting.

[Slacker]

Fantastic read, you bloody toaster lover.