Patriots in Arms Read online

  BEN WEAVER

  PATRIOTS IN ARMS

  For all those who have ever been

  Brothers, Rebels, and Patriots…

  Contents

  PART 1

  Heavy Losses

  1

  The news reports all that morning had focused on the…

  2

  “I’m still alive,” Halitov said over my private channel. “I…

  3

  Clearly, Ms. Elise Rainey had trouble with the damsel in…

  4

  Lieutenant Colonel Jean Sheffield, our regimental executive officer, entered the…

  5

  Halitov looked as dumbfounded as Ms. Brooks and the colonel.…

  6

  Ms. Brooks insisted that we keep the treatment’s failure to…

  PART 2

  Ice Age

  7

  Over two decades have passed since that fateful day when…

  8

  While Halitov and I typically had bad timing and worse…

  9

  There was no point in running. We would stand our…

  10

  They were killing childern.

  11

  Miners across five major colonies on Icillica had organized themselves…

  12

  With no time to wrestle the pilot out of his…

  PART 3

  The Blood of Patriots

  13

  Ms. Brooks’s face haunted me during the entire trip to…

  14

  Had I been in the same room with President Vinnery,…

  15

  Paul Beauregard had only wanted to save his mother, but…

  16

  I sat in my cell, digging fingers between the regeneration…

  17

  President Holtzman had loaned me four of his security officers,…

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by Ben Weaver

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Colonial Wardens

  Articles of the Code of Conduct

  Second Revision 2301

  (adopted from 17 System Guard

  Corps Operations Manual)

  ARTICLE I

  I will always remember that I am a Colonial citizen, fighting in the forces that preserve my world and our way of life. I have resigned to give my life in their defense.

  ARTICLE II

  I will never surrender of my own volition. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the will and/or means to resist.

  ARTICLE III

  If I am captured, I will continue to resist by any and all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.

  ARTICLE IV

  If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information nor take part in any action which might be harmful to fellow Colonial citizens.

  If I am senior, I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will uphold them in every way.

  ARTICLE V

  Should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, and willingly submit to retinal and DNA analysis. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability and will not consciously submit to cerebral scans of any kind. I will make no oral, written, or electronic statements disloyal to the colonies or harmful to their cause.

  ARTICLE VI

  I will never forget that I am fighting for freedom, that I am responsible for my actions, and that I am dedicated to the principles that make my world free. I will trust in my god or gods and in the Colonial Alliance forever.

  PART 1

  Heavy Losses

  1

  17 February, 2322

  The news reports all that morning had focused on the treaty violations and on the possibility that negotiations between the Colonial Alliance and Terran Alliances were about to break off. Nearly every correspondent on Rexi-Calhoon wanted to scoop the story, and even as I boarded my skipshuttle, bound for Rexicity and the capitol building, at least a dozen of them stood at the tarmac fence, hollering questions. Bren Dublin, senior officer of my personal security team, warded them off in his usual baritone, with about as much diplomacy as a man waving a particle rifle. “Colonel St. Andrew will issue a statement to the media at his convenience—not yours!”

  “What’s the matter, Bren?” I asked as he slammed the hatch and dropped his mammoth frame into the jumpseat beside me.

  “I don’t like these people,” he groaned, then scratched his graying beard. His tone turned deadly serious. “You can’t trust them.”

  Tat, Ysarm, and Jiggs, my other bodyguards, sat behind us, wriggling in their designer suits and probably wishing I hadn’t asked them to look their very best. The three officers, all in their thirties, all South Point graduates, had over forty years’ military experience between them, yet they, like Bren, had never seen real combat. I hoped they never would.

  “I’ll tell you why Bren doesn’t trust reporters,” said Tat, the tallest of the group, a dark-skinned bird of a man with eyes nearly as small and definitely as keen. “He’s never told you about his ex.”

  Bren gave Tat a fiery look that silenced the junior officer.

  “I don’t know,” I began. “I’m not sure if you can trust them, but years ago a reporter saved my life.”

  “Six-seven-niner, copy. Cleared for departure,” interrupted our pilot, who glanced back from the cockpit, his head draped in the translucent energy bands of his communications skin. “Colonel St. Andrew? ETA to the capitol building will be approximately nine minutes. Your tablet’s up and running, so if there’s any news you care to look at, it’s there.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant, but today I don’t plan on watching the news—I plan on making it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With a hum and an appreciable rumble, the skipshuttle lifted off. As the G force drove me deeper into my seat, I glanced through a window at the reporters, some of who were delivering remarks and observations to their floatcams. I suspected that as they spoke, images of me boarding the shuttle were beaming out to all nine hundred million people on Rexi-Calhoon and were also being tawted out to the billions of others watching on all seventeen worlds and in the Sol system. That kind of media exposure scared the hell out of me, but it came with the territory these days. I shivered and turned back to Bren, thought of querying further about his ex, but his head hung low, his expression dark.

  Ahead of us lay Rexicity, one of Rexi-Calhoon’s six primary colonies. It was situated fourteen hundred kilometers south of Columbia Colony, and its skyscrapers rose up from an expansive valley to pierce a mantle of brown haze. The downtown district reeked of something oily and burned, a stench that often had me reaching for my breather.

  “Aw, shit, look at that,” said Bren, cocking a thumb at his window. Just off our starboard wing streaked two news shuttles, their logos flashing on their fuselages. “They want to capture every moment—even our routine flight. They call this news?”

  “As long as they stay out of our zone, they have a right to be out there,” I said. “And Bren, are you all right?”

  “Fine, sir.”

  “I don’t believe you.” My tablet beeped. I withdrew the small computer from my seat pocket, keyed it on.

  My executive assistant, Davyd Marke, gaped breathlessly at me from his desk in the capitol building. “Sir, I’m, uh, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  Bren and the others leaned in, trying to catch a glimpse of my screen. I gave Bren a look, then activated my communications tac to take the call privately. Once m
y head was enveloped in the skin’s energy and the image of Davyd appeared in the Heads Up, I asked, “What’s going on?”

  “It’s just…I can’t believe it…it’s insane…”

  Davyd, fifty-two, a man who had spent his entire adult life working in colonial politics, had been with me for two years, and during all of that time I had never seen him as agitated.

  “Report!” I boomed.

  “Sir, less than a minute ago, thirty-nine capital cruisers from Earth tawted into orbit. They’re setting up a blockade.”

  I sat there a moment, playing out every reason I could conjure why the alliances would do such a thing. I was en route to Rexicity to put an end to the their treaty violations by suggesting four strategic compromises. For nearly six months, Terran corporations like Inte-Micro and Exxo-Tally had been holding the colonial tech market hostage by jacking up prices on tawt drive systems and navigational equipment vital to space travel. Many of the Sol colonies like Mars and those on the moons of Jupiter refused to charge the higher prices, and the Alliances had threatened their own people with military action, the same way they had threatened the extrasolar colonies when we had expressed our desire to break away to form our own alliance. Because it was in our best interest to do business with Mars and Jupiter, we saw their fight as our own, and had even offered them membership in the Colonial Alliance.

  “Sir, did you hear what I said?” Davyd asked.

  I blinked hard. “Yes, I did. I assume the president has been contacted?”

  “She’s on the line.”

  “Put her through.”

  Although my primary duty as security chief was to serve as liaison between the joint chiefs of the Colonial Alliance, the president, and the colonial congress, President Armalda Vinnery had asked me to deal directly with the Eastern and Western alliance security chiefs. In years past, President Vinnery would have met personally with them and with the presidents of both alliances, but given the many recent attempts on her life—three in just the past year—she chose to negotiate via satnet from her mobile command center aboard the capital cruiser Falls Morrow. Presently, she was working on matters involving human rights violations, the sharing of recently discovered Racinian ruins on Drummer Fire, and on the release of forty-seven Aire-Wuian missionaries being held prisoner on Earth by leftist guerrillas.

  Vinnery sighed at me from the tablet’s screen. Her steely gaze, well-kempt blonde hair, and perfectly smooth black business attire allayed my fears, if only a little. She looked powerful, monarchal. But that image shattered the moment she spoke. “Colonel, what the fuck is going on there?”

  “I’m not sure, Madam President. I haven’t even reached the capitol building yet.”

  “Well, we’re just outside Sol, and I’ve put in calls to President Holtzman and President Wong. We’ll see if those idiots have the balls to call me back.”

  Admittedly, I had seen the president upset, but I had never heard her speak as coarsely. “Ma’am,” I began tentatively. “I’m sure the other chiefs are either in the conference room or en route. I’ll contact them immediately and demand an explanation.”

  “You do that. And network me in.”

  I nodded and tapped for a contact list. A sidebar appeared on the screen with the tablet numbers of Eastern Alliance Security Chief Paraven Nasir and Western Alliance Security Chief Leanne Kashnow. I dialed Nasir first, not because his name came first in the list but because Kashnow was as curt as she was egotistical, and, given the circumstances, there was no way in hell I would tiptoe around her like I usually did.

  Nasir answered, and I could see he was on the move, heading down one of the capitol building’s long hallways toward our conference room. “Hello, Paraven. Standby please,” I said, then brought President Vinnery online. The screen divided to show both parties.

  Nasir frowned, and while he was in his forties like me, the political arena’s heat had not been kind to his dark skin. “Good morning, Colonel. And to you, too, Madam President. Is something wrong? Has our meeting been rescheduled?”

  “Why are thirty-nine of your cruisers blockading my capitol world?” Vinnery demanded.

  “What are you talking about? I know nothing of any cruisers.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Nasir!”

  Oh my god, I thought. I can’t believe she’s talking to him like this.

  “I repeat, I know nothing of any cruisers! Hold please. I have another call.”

  “He’s lying,” Vinnery told me. “He’s lying through his fucking teeth.”

  “Ma’am, if there’s anything I can do to help you calm down,” I began.

  “Colonel, I have every reason to be upset, more so because I’ve just ordered the entire Eighth Fleet to Earth.”

  Something deep in my gut gave way. “Ma’am, if you set up a counter blockade without congressional approval—”

  “When our ships reach Earth, the first thing our captains are going to do is contact the defnet authorities and notify them that we’re not setting up a blockade but are merely participating in a parade. So if congress wants to impeach me for ordering an unauthorized parade, let them try…”

  “Of course our parade will block any ships trying to make Earth orbit,” I said. “And this will escalate into a shooting war.” I shook my head, my jaw falling slack.

  “We can still salvage this,” she said. “They pull out. We pull out.”

  “All right, I’m back,” said Nasir. “I have President Wong. Linking him now.”

  My screen divided once more to include Vinnery, Nasir, and then Wong, whose face lacked color, emotion, pretty much everything that indicated he was actually human. But then, amazingly, his lips moved and his voice came in a reedy near-whisper. “President Vinnery, I share in your dismay regarding the blockade of your capital world. Unfortunately, we have just received requests for secession from all Mars and Jupiter colonies and provinces. Unfortunately, we must conclude that your alliance has been conspiring with these colonies to undermine our control of them. A treaty violation of this magnitude cannot go unpunished. We will keep our blockade of Rexi-Calhoon in place until the Colonial alliance officially rejects the requests from Mars and Jupiter. They are original colonies. They are properties of Terra. I assure you, that will never change.”

  “And President Holtzman concurs with this blockade?” Vinnery asked.

  “I do,” said Holtzman, appearing at Wong’s shoulder, his stocky outdoorsman’s physique and woodsy charm contrasting sharply with Wong’s cool intellect. “I don’t know what y’all were thinking, trying to get Mars and Jupiter to secede, but that was some dirty pool. And if you don’t shut this down, we’ll be putting you out of business.”

  Vinnery spoke to me across a private channel. “You believe these people?” she asked.

  I knew what it felt like to be a naïve soldier, but at that moment, I received my first taste of being a naïve statesman. I had no idea until that moment that when push came to shove, politicians would rely on the tactics and behavior of the playground.

  “Listen to me, Holtzman, and listen to me carefully,” barked Vinnery. “If Mars and Jupiter wish to become members of the Colonial Alliance, there’s nothing you can do to stop them.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” said Holtzman, who suddenly turned to an aide, a scrawny man who whispered something in the president’s ear. Holtzman’s expression grew long.

  “I see our fleet has arrived,” said Vinnery.

  “A very unwise decision,” warned Wong, a hand to his ear as he listened to report. “We’re not in the mood for any parades this morning.”

  I called up Vinnery on the private channel. “Madam President. They mean business.”

  “So do we.”

  “Let me talk to them.”

  She frowned. “You?”

  “I don’t believe they understand what’s at stake here.”

  “They’re big boys, Colonel.”

  “But they haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”

&n
bsp; “Negative. Gut-wrenching war stories won’t change their minds. We’ll issue the ultimatum. In the meantime, we’ll get the ambassadors from Mars and Jupiter up to speed and get a verbal commitment from them.”

  “Ma’am, please. Just let me try. You owe it to all those families who will never be the same because of the first war. We all owe it to them.”

  She studied me a moment, then closed her eyes.

  Within the hour, my security team and I were on board a heavily armed Colonial Warden gunship, a hunchbacked hawk of machinery that we could fly directly into Manhattan and land outside the Western Alliance capitol. Wong and Holtzman had reluctantly agreed to meet with me, though they insisted that as a security measure we tawt into Mars orbit, then travel the rest of the way via conventional drive so their fighters could provide escort.

  Once we reached Mars, we met up with those fighters and lumbered off. The trip to Earth would take about nineteen hours, so I settled back in my jumpseat, hoping to sleep away at least some of that time.

  Before I could close my eyes, Bren, who was seated across from me, took in a long breath, then sighed. “Have you figured out what you’re going to say to them? If I were you, I’d be thinking about three words: comply or die.”

  I was too aggravated to roll my eyes. “Last time I looked there was a balance of power between the three alliances.”

  “Yeah, but all their money is tied up with us. They need us more than we need them.”

  “Let’s get some rest. I’m betting the days ahead will be very long. Very, very long.”

  “All right. But you still haven’t answered me. What are you going to say to them?”