MERCS: Crimson Worlds Successors (23 page)

Darius stood stone still, anger pulsating throughout his body.  If any man had spoken to him thusly, save his own brother, he would have killed him where he stood.  But Darius Cain would not assault his brother, however much of a fool he was, whatever he said or did.  He wanted to—he felt the urge to choke the life from the man standing opposite him, to silence his forked tongue forever.  But Elias was his father’s son, and his mother’s.  And that stayed his hand.

“Perhaps I am a butcher, brother, but I am an honest one.  And it was not I who created the ways of the universe nor the failings of men.  Events will be dictated in some manner, and I proudly chose the road I have taken.  If it is at times brutal, it is at least never based on lies and deceit.  When my people come, it is because of a dispute, one that could have been resolved by the politicians long before, had they the time and the will to turn aside from their thievery and constant aggregation of personal power.  The Black Eagles do not serve would-be despots, nor conquerors seeking empire.  We contract only with those who have legitimate disputes, and we resolve those with greater speed and less bloodshed than any other means.”

He stared right into Elias’ eyes.  “Can you say the same, brother?  Are your laws honest?  They restrict speech, movement, trade, worship, relationships.  They intrude into the peoples’ bank accounts and their bedrooms with equal aggressiveness.  They control what people say, what they eat, how they raise their children.  You defend them to people with simplistic examples, claiming that without law there would be anarchy and widespread violence.  But does this justify the vast majority of what you enforce?  Are Atlantia’s courts and jails full of mass murderers and violent criminals, monsters all men would see prosecuted?  I think not.  For your political masters use the law to serve their own ends, and they jail their rivals and enemies—and those who resist them, and nary a thought goes toward anything that resembles true justice.”

Elias stared back at Darius, not retreating a centimeter.  “Tell yourself that brother, when your killers board their craft and depart a world, leaving behind despair and pestilence.  Convince yourself you believe in freedom, when no one has brought servitude to more millions than you have.  Say that your soldiers are not brigands and murderers, and forget that you serve no people, no world, no society, save your own overflowing coffers.  You are a modern day alchemist, my brother, for you have learned to turn blood to gold.  But in the end you have nothing but piles of wealth…and a human race that fears you and curses your name.”

“Stop!” a voice roared from the corridor.  “Enough.  Both of you.”  There were footsteps echoing off the hard floor and, an instant later, a tall woman came in, her blond hair, streaked now with gray, flowing behind her.  Roderick Vance had been walking beside her, but he paused at the entrance to the room, allowing her to deal with her sons alone.

Darius and Elias both fell silent, turning toward the hallway as their mother strode into the room.  They wore neutral expressions, and they looked toward Sarah without saying a world.

“I heard enough of that exchange to feel a sorrow as deep as any I have experienced.”  Her voice was sad, but it was energized with her own, not inconsiderable, anger.  “To hear my sons speak like this to each other breaks my heart.  When I first saw the two of you, newborn and so small and red, screaming so loudly, the both of you, as if you were already competing, I knew I would love you forever, and so I do.  But I don’t
like
either of you much right now, and I am ashamed to my core of you both.”

They both looked as if they were going to respond, but Sarah flashed them each a nasty glare, and they remained silent.

“Your father would be ashamed of you both too.  He would have been hurt deeply listening to what I just heard.”  Tears welled up in her eyes when she mentioned Erik, but her voice remained steady and strong.  “Erik Cain was a great man, and he deserves for his sons to live up to what he was.  And neither of you have done that.  You are both pale imitations.”

She turned toward Elias.  “Your father grew up in squalor you can’t imagine, as did I.  And that misery grew from generations of mindless obedience to authority, from people too weak to question the mandates heaped upon them year after year.  From a population more concerned with its own petty indulgences than in the difficult task of regulating government.  Atlantia is no longer the place Erik and I chose for our home, and I have left it behind, along with much sorrow and regret.”

She paused for an instant, taking a breath, but neither Darius nor Elias dared to speak.  “Your father would be ashamed of the way you have become so unquestioning of the laws you enforce and the will you impose on people.  Erik Cain was a Marine all his adult life.  He worked for the Alliance government in that capacity, but never once did he yield his free will and bow down unquestioningly before the bureaucrats who would have been his masters.  It wasn’t an easy path he trod.  Indeed, it came close to costing him his career, his freedom…even his life…more than once.  But he was a steadfast man, and through all his years he did what he thought was right.”

She turned and stared at Darius next, and her eyes bored into him like lasers.  “And you…your father would be ashamed of you as well.  What lesson did you take from his life to justify spending yours as a paid mercenary?  Whatever standards you think you apply in taking contracts, in the end, you kill people for money.  Your father and I were Marines.  We fought for good, to protect people, even when that required us to stand firm against our own government.  Never in the history of the Corps could anyone buy a force of Marines…however legitimate their dispute, however large their purse.  We fought for the colonies, to give them a chance to forge a better future than the fools on Earth who had preceded them.  And we never justified aggression by blithely declaring it inevitable, as if that washed all the blood from our hands.”

She stood between them, staring at one then the other.  They stayed where they were, but both of them averted her gaze slightly.  “I have spoken long with Roderick, and I believe mankind faces another threat now, one we know little about save for the great danger it represents.  You have gone down different paths, and used oversimplified morality to justify what you have done.  You have convinced yourselves your father would have approved.  Well, he would not…he would have looked at both of you with shame and regret.”  She paused for a few seconds. Her words were brutal, and they cut deeply.  “But there is always time to change your course.  The two of you can work together, cooperate, help to face whatever danger is coming.  You can stand against the darkness, fight for the good of the people, try to lead them by example, not by military force or suffocating laws.”

She sighed, and for the first time it was apparent how much pain she was feeling.  “You are both my sons, and I will love you until the day I die.  Will you set aside your differences and work together, fight together if need be?  If you do, it will be a gift to me, and I will not just love my sons, I will be proud of them.  And that is something I have not felt in many years.”

Darius slid his foot forward slightly, opening his mouth and closing it again.  There was no one in Occupied Space who could impact him with such force, no one save the woman standing in the room facing him.  Darius had run from the pain of his father’s death, and since then he’d been drawn ever more deeply into his new life.  He’d neglected his mother, abandoned her when she faced her own pain of loss.  Indeed, he’d made it worse, depriving her of a son as well as her husband.  Only now did he begin to realize how much guilt he had carried—and buried under his pride and arrogance.

“Come in, Roderick,” he said softly.  “Tell us what threat you have uncovered.”  He glanced uncomfortably toward his brother.  Elias hesitated for a few seconds, and then he nodded silently.  Darius walked toward the table, taking a seat.  Vance sat at one end of the table, and Sarah at the other.  Finally, Elias slipped into the chair opposite Darius.

The Cain brothers looked toward Vance, but the Martian just sat quietly, waiting.  A few seconds later the sound of footsteps came from the hallway.  Darius turned to see Augustus Garret and Catherine Gilson walk into the room.

Garret was the most revered hero in Occupied Space, widely considered to be the greatest naval commander in history.  He’d retired after the final downsizing of the fleet, but he’d come back to preside over the activation of the mothballed reserve and the second struggle against the First Imperium.  After the terrible enemy was again defeated, he’d supervised the decommissioning of the remnants of the fleet, now vastly smaller after the horrific losses sustained in the war.  When he had seen to the last of his duties, he retired again, handing the reins of the tiny active fleet to his subordinates.

“Sarah, it is such a pleasure to see you again.  It has been too long.”  Garret had attended the memorial service held for Erik Cain, but it had been thirteen years since he’d seen her.  He had disappeared, faded from the public eye, returning to his family home of Terra Nova for a time.  He put his arms around her, and gave her a long and warm hug before taking a seat next to her.  “Darius, Elias.”  Garret nodded, turning his head toward each of the Cain boys in turn.

“It is good to see you, Admiral.”  Darius looked down the table and nodded.  His eyes settled on Gilson.  “And you as well, General.”

“Yes, Admiral Garret.  It has been too long.”  Elias glanced down the table with a motion almost identical to his brother’s.  “It is a pleasant surprise to see you, General Gilson.”

“So, Minster Vance, you have gone to considerable trouble to assemble this counsel.”  Darius’ tone was professional, polite.  “It is my guess that many of us have come here with concerns, and I suggest we share these. Perhaps now you will begin, and tell us what caused you to call this meeting.”

Vance shifted in his chair.  “Very well, Darius.”  Vance took a deep breath and stared out across the table.  “I want to thank you all again for coming.  Some of you have been here before, when we faced the First Imperium and the Shadow Legions together.  We successfully met those earlier threats, though not, as we all know, without cost.”  He glanced at Elias and then Darius.  “Others are here for the first time.”

He sat upright in his chair.  “I must tell you that I have called you here as a private citizen and not on behalf of the Martian Confederation.  I will not mislead you.  What I have learned has come through unofficial channels, and I cannot guarantee the council will support any actions we discuss here.” He looked around the room, gauging reactions.  “However, I am prepared to utilize my own personal resources…”  He paused uncomfortably.  “…and do whatever is necessary to ensure that if there truly is a grave new threat we are prepared to meet it.”  Another pause.  “It is my hope that when all of you hear what I am about to tell you—and share your own information with us—you will agree to join me in doing whatever must be done.”

Vance glanced at Garret.  “Some of us have stood at this crossroads before, been compelled to choose the course of action that was right, even at great risk.  Without men and women willing to take such steps, it is my fervent belief none of us would be here.  Mankind would be gone, extinct, with nothing but slowly decaying ruins to mark that we’d ever been here.”

He stood silently for a few seconds, allowing his words to settle over his guests.  “I do not know if this new threat is as dire as those which came before, but I fear it may be.  And we will again need men and women to stand in the breach, to set aside personal concerns and face the darkness on behalf of the entire race.”  He looked around the table at each of them.  “The people in this room are cut from that cloth.  Sarah, Cate, Augustus…you have been there before, faced other crises.  Darius, Elias…your father was a great man, always the first to answer the call.  He fought the fight for humanity for decades…and he gave his life to it.”

Vance took a deep breath.  “As some of you know, the Confederation has operated a humanitarian relief program for a number of years, making drops of food, medicine, and tools to survivor settlements on Earth.  It is through this operation that I first noticed something of concern, and I decided to investigate matters more closely.  What I uncovered is horrifying.  Someone has been running a slavery ring on Earth, rounding up survivors and shipping them off-world…for purposes still unknown.”

The room was silent.  Whatever they’d expected to hear, that was certainly not it.  Vance continued, “A short time ago, one of the settlements we had been monitoring sent out a distress signal.  I sent one of my most trusted agents to investigate.  He found the village burned, its people gone.  He was able to track the raiders…and he discovered the terrible truth.”

Vance reached down and pressed a small button on the table.  “My agent also made contact with three villagers who escaped from the raid.”

Everyone turned toward the entrance.  There were footsteps coming from the hallway.  A tall man in his mid-fifties walked into the room.  His brown hair was neatly trimmed, and he was wearing a suit of Martian design.

Vance waited until the new arrival was halfway to the table.  “Allow me to introduce one of my guests from Earth.  This is Axe.”

A wave of greetings and nods worked its way around the table.  Axe stopped a few meters away and said, “It is a pleasure to meet all of you.”

“Please, Axe, take a seat.”  Vance gestured to the chair next to him.  “And then tell us about Jericho…and the events of the last several weeks.”