Exodus: The Orion War Read online

  Gold braid in willow and maple leaf-clusters rests lightly on her high collar and low shoulder boards. Tendrils of silver filament wind down her tunic sleeves. The effect gives her dress uniform a slightly organic and shimmering appearance, like silver vines climbing a strong oak. Her belt is a deep canary yellow, bright against the grainier uniform cloth that reminds of the cut of a Toruń oak table or a wheat field waving gently in a summer breeze, before the war.

  She stands on a slightly raised dais to outline the War Government’s plan to her fighters gathered below, huge vidscreens carrying her stern yet organic image on smoothly polished sides of tall wooden towers that frame and form the square. She broadcasts also across the city, into other towers crammed with civilians. With Toruń electronically sealed and the Berm Gate closed to all but military traffic, there’s no fear of leaks to ‘locust” besiegers squatting outside.

  A crowd of 800,000 fighters and their families pack into the square and connecting streets. Another 17 million civilians are watching indoors or underground in bombardment bunkers, or in packed lakeside camps. They’re the last freefolk left on occupied Genève.

  Except for Madjenik Company, but neither the general nor anyone else in Toruń knows that Jan and Zofia and Madjenik are out there still, trekking slowly through ash toward the city.

  Constance decides to pass out a little packet of hope where there’s really none at all. She keeps darker thoughts to herself, hidden behind steel-gray eyes and a stern, official tone.

  “Attention fighters of Genève! I will give out operational details later, and only to those few who need to know, only to those who must see to execution of the War Government’s plan that I am about to outline for you all. For the rest, listen closely. I shall say this only once.”

  Her tough words float out over the crowd not as a blast of war but as a slow and smoky smolder. Like a Southland shepherd’s careful turf-fire laid flat on the great plain, waiting for a load of friends and wood to come to rise into laughter and high orange flame. Even though no friends are coming, the days of easy laughter are over on Genève, and only flame remains.

  “All of us native to Toruń, those who came here under duress from across Genève, all Krevans everywhere share one great thing. We evince a powerful will to resist this great evil that comes uncaused and unbidden into our lives and homes. We rage against this barbarism descending over free and peaceful planets, our beautiful worlds of Brno and Katowice, Lwów, Aral, and our beloved Genève. And have no doubt, to all Krevan worlds before this war ends.”

  Murmurs of angry agreement rise above the square. She ignores them. She hasn’t time for their anger. She must get them to agree to carry out the hard orders she will give them.

  “We feel righteous fury that millions of our people already, and billions more to come, must suffer invasion, rapine and murder. That they are scattered from their families and driven from their homes and farms for no fault or cause or sin of theirs or ours. We are peaceful folk.”

  More murmurs of sad agreement, of melancholy mixed with defiance floating up from the square below. Listeners focus on a personal tragedy, moved by her passion and precision to pity of themselves and terror of their foes. Others move directly to fury. Then she comes to it.

  “Our last small warships will depart Genève, to join many more that will also leave all other Krevan homeworlds. Under my authority as military governor, I decree that any and all civilian craft in Toruń Shipyard with bohr engines are commandeered to this Exodus fleet.”

  That’s just two more ships, unarmored liners. All the rest are too small, just in-system craft that can’t make a bohr-jump out. It’s all she has to carry out her hard orders from Aral.

  ‘It’s not enough. It’s nowhere near enough.’

  The crowd is restless, unsure whether to cry or cheer. So most stay silent, thinking what the last ships’ leaving means for them. For their families. To the city. Is this confirmation of an older rumor making the rounds, that the last warships protected by Toruń’s shield and batteries will make a suicide run against the Kaigun fleet orbiting above? Is the end so very close”

  There’s a smatter of confused applause, mostly from jacks and jennies eager to get back into space and back into the fight. A fight from which they were chased down to the surface by a vastly more powerful fleet. The rest, soldiers and families, feel only silent pity or sudden fear.

  Constance thinks: ‘Too many of us lack hard conviction after months of wear and war, while the worst of us are too weighed down by passionate despair. I must firm the first, lift the second, and add a third portion of acceptance. But how to get them to agree?’

  “As of this moment, all KRN ships and KRA fighters in Toruń are under new orders. Fresh orders, just arrived from the War Government on Aral.”

  It’s as if the crowd leans forward as one, holds its breath as one, anticipating what’s coming next. A decision about their very lives and fate, made by strangers on a distant world.

  “We are to help secure one of five sanctuaries inside the Calmar Union, to hold it open to receive civilian refugees and as many of our armed forces as can escape the homeworlds and reach that old ally’s space, a friend in the ‘Auld Alliance but now a silent neutral in our war.”

  A low moan as realization sets in of what they feared and secretly already knew: no new alliance yet exists, no Calmari fleets or armies are coming to their aid. This is not the last war. There is no ‘Auld Alliance this time. Even Constance falters for a moment, but only inwardly.

  ‘An old ally, yes. And a mighty power, unlike weak and defeated us. But an old ally and a power that remains blind to its own grave danger and thus neutral in this terrible new war.’

  “I repeat: we are leaving the homeworlds to find sanctuary in Calmari space, by order of the War Government on Aral.”

  The news is greeted by relief and disappointment, the latter greater than the former. The excited rumor-monger is crestfallen. Someone pats him helpfully on the back. It doesn’t help.

  “So it’s all a lie. I’m a fool! I believed my friend in Coms on Aral!”

  “It’s not a lie! Calmaris will give us aid and sanctuary. They’re good people, mostly.”

  It’s a tough but distressed young marine, his young eyes glistening with moist hope.

  “Quiet! Listen to the general.”

  “Once there, we will protect the Aral government once it also moves into exile. Then we will guard and aid all Krevans who try to reach asylum in the five sanctuaries.”

  “The Calmari will surely give us weps, too, to defend ourselves.”

  “Maybe they’ll still join with us, remake the ‘Auld Alliance?”

  “That’s not what the general said, she said...”

  “They must join us, else all this death and loss and burning has been for nothing.”

  It’s another young marine. She’s crying. A month ago she lost her best friend in combat.

  “We’re all alone, kid. Better get used to it.”

  The chider is an older veteran from Silver Division. He’s been wounded, badly burned all up one side by an armtrak spandau’s near-miss. Printed skin grafts poke out from under his weaves, riding up his neck. They’re still rough and pink and raw-looking.

  “Shut up all a ya, godsdamn it! The general’s not done talking.”

  The crowd settles as Constance continues. “Our ships will cram in soldiers, sailors and marines, as many as each can carry. They’ll dash past Kaigun heavy patrols in high orbit and any phantoms lurking at the Lagrange points. Then they’ll tear out-of-system on fast quantum jumps, carrying free fighters on free ships who will ensure that our war goes on from exile.”

  In the city towers a cold civilian fear takes hold. ‘Are they really going to leave us, undefended? The military means to run from Genève and leave us to the Grün occupation!’

  The crowd of soldiers and sailors also breaks into loud, undisciplined chatter. It’s only to be expected. Six months ago they were farmers or w
orkers or students. Only a handful are lifers, professional military. And most of those are sailors in the long-service prewar flotilla.

  “So, we’re running after all? Leaving Genève to the locusts? Damn it!”

  It’s an angry soldier. Last of his squad, he retreated all the way from the MDL to Toruń and is tired of running. A platoon mate who hobbled all the way alongside tries to calm him. Another young soldier nearby shouts out his defiance. It provokes more shouting and debate.

  “We’re not running! I’ll never run!”

  “You’re right. The general said we’ll keep on fighting.”

  “With what? Where?”

  “On the berm!”

  “It’ll soon be breached.”

  “We’ll stand there anyway.”

  “The Calmaris aren’t coming to help like we thought.”

  “They’re abandoning us.”

  “No, we’re going there! Who would’ve thought it?” shouts a plain jenny.

  She joined the KRN on her 20th birthday to see faraway places and meet queer farfolk. That was a year ago, and she still hasn’t been off-world, She missed the opening fights for the system outer LPs and Genève’s moons, before the last and smallest ships of the system flotilla were forced to ground under the protection of Toruń’s shield and great plasma batteries.

  “We’re gonna get our people off-world and fight on for Krevo. Huzzaaaahhhh!”

  It’s a young soldier yet to see combat, who still thinks of war the way he read about it in old stories. Who understands nothing of the real war. That it’s lost. Or what’s going on now. Or does he? Is that what the future holds for Genève’s fighters, more combat and death in a long and bitter exile?

  ‘Better than the awful deaths coming soon outside the berm or after, in the burning streets of conquered Toruń.’ A pretty marine mimes threading her tears onto a thin bracelet of fine brown hair. She has no pearls. Now just a soldier going to the fields of battle, she knows she never will.

  Standing stern and silent on the podium General Constance lets all the low, gravelly grumbles move around the square. Let’s them echo then subside. She lets news of defeat and retreat and abandonment sink all the way to the bottom before reaching down to teach them.

  “The War Government, the Aral garrison and last fleet in the capital system, will fight their way out soon. But not before every other Krevan world has sent its fighters to one of the five sanctuaries. Aral will hold to fix the enemy’s fleets, to let the rest of us slip away to exile.”

  More murmuring, mostly in dissent. Some in confusion. She must speak over the low rumble, raising her voice to match its rise.

  “Aral orders us to form shuttle fleets from all available craft capable of making-bohr. The KRA is under strict orders to limit fighting to rearguard and protective actions, as we are already doing along the berm here on Genève.”

  “Why? What’s the point?”

  The solitary cry is so piercing it rises up to her on the podium. She looks down to the man who yelled it, straight in his eye. She answers him and all other doubters in the crowd.

  “The plan is to send out Exodus fleets, get as many of our people as we can off the homeworlds before the Kaigun shuts down our spacedocks and blocks access to all system LPs. The job of ground forces who stay behind will be to hold off RIK assaults until the ships leave. After that, this beloved city will fall to the enemy.”

  The crowd is tense, wary and uncertain, especially when Constance utters the key phrase “shuttle fleets” and speaks of mass evacuation. Like the wiser civilians sheltering in the towers, they know that there just aren’t enough ships. Not even a fraction of enough.

  The realization finally sinks in: they are to be divided into the saved and the soon to be conquered. Crying among scared civis all around the edge of the square is drowned out by louder shouts of anger and defiance from the massed fighters at its center.

  “No retreat! Never!”

  “We won’t leave Genève!”

  “This is madness! We have to defend our homes.”

  “We won’t leave! We won’t!”

  Two buddies from school start a chant, defying their general and governor.

  “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

  The crowd is confused, moving in two directions. At least as many fighters think of their families first, of a last chance to get a loved one off-world. They shout back:

  “Long live Genève! Vive General Constance!”

  The competing chants grow louder, rising over the square, until one defeats the other: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

  Tens of thousands of voices chant it now, pumping fists into the air to mark their fierce defiance. Staring down their general. Willing her to join them, to lead them all in a vulgar last stand of exploding blood and bone and death and vengeance, a raging fight outside the berm.

  She stares back down at them. Unmoving. Not speaking. Waiting. Little local arguments get louder all across the packed square, underneath the chant. A recent newlywed, now separated and lost, desperate to find and follow a leader, shouts out:

  “It’s a good plan! It’ll work,”

  “Whadda you know? You’re just a dumb kid. You don’t know squat about exile and evacuations and political shit.”

  “You shaddup, old man. I know as much as you!”

  An older woman in KRA weaves has three children sheltering under the lake, waiting for her to return this night.

  “What about our families?”

  “They expect us to fight, not run.”

  “Do you have children? Do you want them to die by fire in burning Toruń?”

  “Of course not! But dyin’ is better than runnin’ from locusts.”

  “I’m not go’in neither. Godsdamn it, I’m gonna stay ‘an fight!”

  “We should trust the general. She knows so much more than we do.”

  “Yeah? Ya trust her ta decide who goes an’ who stays, ev’n fur yur fam’ly?”

  “I do, yes. She’s got a good head and better heart.”

  “Yur a damn fool, den. Ya don’t trust nobody in a war!”

  Pushing. Arguing. Crying. Shouting. Cursing. It’s about to turn real ugly in the square. Constance waits until the hubbub subsides just a bit, then inserts herself into the lull.

  “Proud fighters and citizens of Genève, I agree with you!” She says it in a firming and commanding yet oddly calming voice. The voice of their general, born and bred to their world. The voice of a leader rising to her moment in history.

  “It’s better that we die fighting than to live as slaves. So know this. All my orders and those of our War Government will be obeyed. You will leave here when ordered to do so. But I do not propose surrender. Neither does our War Government on Aral. I say to you instead that we Genèvens, that all Krevans, shall fight on. That we shall make peace no more, forever.”

  “Krevo! Krevo! Krevo!”

  The unified chant thrums through the wooden echo-canyons between Toruń’s towers, vibrating along thick oak floors, thrilling everyone from small children to great-grandparents. Boys and girls think about older siblings or parents in uniform at the berm and swell with pride. Old men and women remember their own youth, when they too wore silver or gold sheaves and stood a proud turn at guard. The throng roars out approval, embracing this defiant general and a new War Government that at last rises to match its plans to their own stark resolve.

  “Krevo! Krevo! Krevo!”

  ‘They still don’t understand. My people resist nihilism as the day resists night, losing each time yet always fighting back. Rising each day newly defiant in the face of the last defeat. Yet defeat is coming, as sure as night. Only this night may never see another dawn.’

  Their general’s face is unmoving. She waits so long this time that the cheering finally subsides, surrenders to her more powerful silence. Then she gives it to them hard and straight.

  “Genève is cut off. There’s no time left to set up a fast shuttle service from here as there is still on
those of our worlds as yet unoccupied, or like Aral holding onto at least one system LP bohr-zone. Nor can we hope to board our families on the few ships remaining to us, small ships that may carry only a few of us into exile, to one of the five neutral sanctuaries.”

  Silence. Complete and total silence. Except for low sobs. Mothers mostly, who weep to part from a loved child. A few daughters, too, standing beside mothers they will soon abandon.

  “You shout that you want to fight. So do I. So do all true Genèvens and Krevans. But if you will fight tomorrow and forever you must do it from exile. We cannot stay here and fight.”