by Jay Allan
News from the Caliphate came quickly. The lords and generals who’d been so afraid to present the Caliph with the treaty terms now had to explain how they’d been unable to wipe out a small contingent of Marines, despite suffering over 2,000 casualties in the effort. They chose an alternate route, one less likely to end badly for all of them. Caliph Mehmet was strangled in his bath and succeeded by his six-year old son, a pudgy child who had shown no signs yet of the rabid insanity that had so ravaged his father’s judgment. The nobility and military quickly forgot about the disaster on Persis and took solace that they now had a leader who promised to be far easier to control.
The peace held, despite the fact that the Alliance had reneged on the terms Dutton promised. The truth was a stark one. Neither the Caliphate nor the CAC had the capacity to continue the war. The failure of the Janissaries to crush an outnumbered and beleaguered force of Marines sapped the already shaky morale of the Caliphate military. The elite soldiers themselves were unbowed, aching for a rematch, but the colonial nobility and the line troops were demanding peace.
The Alliance was in rough shape too, but not as bad as its enemies. The war would have ended on Persis anyway, even without the twisted bargain that sold my Marines’ lives to the enemy. Dutton’s devilish deal had done nothing to change the outcome…except to sacrifice 500 veteran Marines…and to fracture the bond between the Corps and the government back home. That suspicion and distrust would grow over the years, and the Marines would slowly shift their loyalty to the colonies they defended and not the Earth government they would come to distrust more and more. That process culminated in the colonial rebellions, when the Corps would side with the insurrectionists, but that was more than 30 years after Persis, and another story entirely.
The joy of peace was bittersweet. We had paid heavily, both in the war itself, and in emotional impact of the disgraceful affair on Persis. We had lost so many friends and comrades, it was difficult to focus on the benefits of war’s end, at least initially, when empty chairs and absent voices were so noticeable. The treachery of it all was profoundly disillusioning. To me, it was on Persis we lost our innocence. Until then, the Corps considered itself the space-based ground force of the Alliance. But afterward, the colonies began to think of themselves differently, and so did the men and women of the Marines. We had crossed a Rubicon, one that would be decades in realizing its full effect, but a profound change nonetheless.
General Worthington’s death had been a shock. He’d sacrificed himself to save what was left of the battalion. On a spreadsheet of military effectiveness, his life was a bad trade for the tattered remnants of one shattered unit. But as tragic as his loss was, I can’t imagine a better way for a Marine to die…saving the lives of hundreds of his men and women. He’d only have faced court martial and disgrace if he’d returned, and I can’t imagine a more tragic injustice. Dying a hero was a better end, at least for his legacy…and I think for the man too. Being stripped of his rank and ejected from the Corps – that would have hurt him far more deeply than those hyper-velocity rounds that ended his life. They killed his body on Persis, but the horror of being paraded around as a traitor would have killed his soul.
I have only come to respect Charles Worthington more over the years. We’d all looked to him for strength for so long, we never considered the toll it took on him. I would come to know that strain myself, the constant pressure of command that hollows you out day by day, year by year, until there is nothing left. But that was still years ahead of me, and it would take another war, larger and more terrible even than the one just concluded, before I truly understood. I’ll always be grateful to General Worthington and will revere his memory for the rest of my life…as a true hero of the Corps and one of the best men I ever knew.
Colonel Thomas survived his wounds, and he retired to a new colony world settled primarily by Marines mustering out of the service. They’d named the place Tranquility, and I’ve never been sure if that was supposed to be a hopeful prediction or just an inside joke in the Corps. I never knew exactly what transpired with Thomas after the battle and, even years later, I never asked him. I know the Commandant had intervened with Alliance Intelligence and the government on his behalf. In the end, his part in Worthington’s actions cost him his career. But he was discharged honorably and avoided prosecution. And the general’s reputation was intact, his insubordination – treason to some –washed away in the sanitized records. Alliance Gov had more to gain from the worship of a dead hero than the memory of a disgraced traitor.
Admiral Clement had rounded up a hundred Alliance Intelligence operatives and held them captive while he launched the rescue operation. I know there was talk of prosecuting him, but nothing ever came from those rumblings. I suspect Dutton would have liked to see Clement punished, but it simply wasn’t worth the trouble. The admiral was old, and as disillusioned as we were by what had happened. He served another year, mostly overseeing the mothballing of part of the fleet and the return to a peacetime footing. Then, sure his retiring naval personnel had received the benefits they’d been promised, he also mustered out, immigrating to a beautiful new colony called Atlantia. It was peaceful world that resembled his original home along the Maine coastline…or at least what that had been like centuries ago, before mankind ravaged her natural beauty. Near the end of the Third Frontier War, I got word that he had died, at home and of natural causes. He’d spent the nearly thirty years of his retirement walking the rocky coastlines and exploring the peaceful blue oceans of his adopted homeworld. Clement had been a sailor his whole life, whether he navigated the salty ocean spray of Atlantia’s seas or the frozen blackness of space.
But my clearest memory of Persis…the face I will see for the rest of my life, the true image of the brutality and disillusionment of those days in hell, is that of Danny Burke, crying in agony, calling to me in bewildered fear as his lifeblood poured out through the breeches in his suit and into the yellow sands of an enemy world.
He died young, far from home, terrified and in pain. I remember the feeling of futility, the miserable lack of comfort I had to offer that boy. I will have those memories until the day I die. For me, that lost private will be an eternal reminder of the darkest side of what we do…of the horrendous cost of holding the line, so our people back home can live their lives and watch their children grow on a hundred different worlds. If mankind is to have a new beginning among the stars, it will not come cheaply, for we are our own enemy and bring our demons with us as we have done throughout history. The forces of conquest and oppression will always be there, wearing down the resolve of men, creatures so easily led and manipulated. When that line is held; when civilians sit in their homes and enjoy the freedom so dearly bought, I hope they think of Danny Burke and the thousands like him, at least occasionally while they build their lives and families…that they appreciate the sacrifices that other men and women make every day to preserve all they value.
But whether they do or not, we will guard that line, my brothers and sisters and I, and all those who come after us; it is not for gratitude that we do what we do. I came close to retiring myself in those terrible days after Persis. I was disillusioned and angry, despairing of truly making a difference. It was Sam Thomas who convinced me to stay. My work wasn’t done, he said simply. I had more to give, and it was my obligation to those Marines who had come before me, who had given their all on Persis and a hundred worlds before that, to stay the course, to follow my destiny.
The Corps Forever.
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www.jayallanbooks.com
Marines (Crimson Worlds I)
The Cost of Victory (Crimson Worlds II)
A Little Rebellion (Crimson Worlds III)
The First Imperium (Crimson Worlds IV)
The Line Must Hold (Crimson Worlds V)
To Hell’s Heart (Crimson Worlds VI)
The Shadow Legions (Crimson Worlds VII)
Gehenna Dawn (Portal Worlds I)
The Dragon's Banner (Pendragon Chronicles
Upcoming
Even Legends Die
(Crimson Worlds VIII)
(April 2014)
The Ten Thousand
(Portal WorIds II)
(June 2014)
The Farthest Stars
(Crimson Worlds: Refugees)
(July 2014)
