Loyal Soldier

by Jack Stornoway

couple minutes for movement but couldn't see anything through the sand so ran back to the motel airlock. He pulled off his mask and duster, and shook off the loose sand before casually walking back into the pub. The three Americans were sitting at one of the tables, and the waitress was explaining why the menu was so potato-based. There was no sign of the mercenaries. Rome sat at the bar in the same seat he was in earlier, and ordered another saskatoon-berry juice through the bar's menu-display.

  The waitress returned to the bar somewhat flustered by the Earth-borns' bewildering questions about foods they didn't have in Claritas, and poured Rome's juice before mixing the Americans' drinks. Rome took the juice and sipped it, before pulling out his com. He looked up Nuka Strange in the database, she was an Alaskan Inuit, the pale skinned woman with the western accent. She wasn't saying much at the table, neither was the brown woman with the New England accent. The tan skinned southern man seemed to be doing all the talking, mostly complaints about the storm and the food. None of the conversation seemed related to their destination, but if they were here, there was only place they could be going.

  The mercenaries reentered the bar and looked around casually. They were trying to look like locals just come in from the storm. It would have been more convincing if they weren't dressed like tourists. The Americans were dressed the same, they probably wouldn't notice. The mercenaries sat at the same table they were at earlier, and called the waitress by her name, which was apparently Joanie, asking for Red Swirls. They must have asked her name earlier because she wasn't wearing a name badge. The Red Swirl was the Vodka Raspberry mix Joanie had told Rome about earlier. It was apparently the local favourite; Rome had over-heard Joanie telling the Americans the same thing as he walked in. Nuka had ordered one, the other two had ordered straight vodkas after a lengthy explanation from Joanie as to why they didn't have any beer.

  The door to the motel opened and Rome's shadow walked in. That complicated things. The tall thin black man took a seat at the opposite end of the bar. He had been following Rome for years, although they never bothered talking. He was Martian born of African ancestry, almost as dark as the Guinean mercenary, but that faded shade of greyish-brown that differentiated the locals from the tourists. He'd heard the man's accent many times, he was Solisian, like Rome. He looked at the menu and ordered a couple baked potatoes and the Red Swirl that Joanie suggested. Another sign that he was Martian, as was the still-suit and duster he was wearing.

  Rome needed to expedite things, everything would go sideways if his shadow learned who the Americans were. He got up, slipped on his duster, and walk towards the airlock, then paused looking at the table of Americans. "You're lost, aren't you?"

  "Fuck off," the Southerner answered.

  "You know you're in Solis now?" Rome asked. "You'll get arrested if the Canadians find out you've crossed the border."

  "We haven't-" the Southerner started.

  "Thank you," Nuka Strange cut him off. "We got lost in the storm. The GPS was blacked out."

  "I recommend you cross back before the storm passes," Rome said walking over to their table. "Or you might get stuck here like the rest of us."

  "You're Arean?" Strange asked.

  "Yes," Rome answered, "but I haven't been in the Confederacy for years."

  "Why don't you just cross during a storm?" the Southerner asked.

  "I don't have a vehicle capable of making the crossing," Rome answered.

  "We don't have room for hitchhikers," the New England woman stated.

  "Fare enough," Rome said turning to leave.

  "We could make room," Strange proposed. "Where are you from?"

  "I have a house in Pickering," Rome stated, not actually answering the question.

  "The capital," the Southerner said in a tone Rome didn't quite understand. "Well ain't that special!"

  "The current capital," Rome observed.

  "You think the legislation will pass?" Strange asked.

  "I have no doubt," Rome said, sitting down at their table. "It's what we've been planing since the war."

  "Governments have no business building cities," the New Englander stated. "If cities don't grow organically around natural resources then they won't be economically sustainable, and will suffer from endemic unemployment."

  "You might want to keep that Smithian propaganda to yourself inside the Confederacy," Rome stated.

  "It doesn't apply anyway," Strange observed. "The Confederacy won't have an unemployment issue for centuries."

  "They'll never raise the credit to terraform this planet," the Southerner dismissed Strange's statement.

  "I don't think you understand resource based economics," Rome observed.

  "They don't need capital," Strange agreed. "Just people willing to work on an impossible dream."

  "It'll fail just like Marxism," the New Englander dismissed Strange again.

  "Maybe on Earth," Strange agreed. "But not here. The Martians have no choice but to make it work. They need a viable biosphere, and they believe in the dream."

  "The Confederacy will never get the colonial governments of Earth to go along with it," the Southerner stated. "And you can't just terraform part of a planet."

  "You're right, Avi," Strange agreed. "You can't terraform just part of a planet, and once this planet's biosphere starts to spread into the colonies, what do you thing will happen to the colonial economies?"

  "Total economic collapse," the New Englander observed. "But they'll never get the biota to pull it of."

  "They will," Strange disagreed. "There will always be someone willing to run a blockade for money."

  "And as the colonial economies collapse, the eco-revolution will spread," Rome added.

  "They don't have enough people," the Southerner named Avi argued. "They don't even have people to populate this new city they want to build."

  "They have an open door policy regarding immigrants, and no eugenics laws, meaning people who can't get permits to have children on Earth will flock here," Strange stated. "Assuming any country chooses to recognize them and open trade."

  "And no country will," Avi stated triumphantly.

  "America will," the New Englander said. "We have a population surplus, you know it's just a matter of time before the Confederacy agrees to formal relations with the new American government."

  "And those immigrants will find ways to smuggle in seeds," Rome added. "The revolution is complete. Now manifest destiny."

  "You sound like that windbag Dalton," Avi stated.

  "You might want to keep your opinion of Dalton to yourself as well, when you're in the Confederacy," Rome observed.

  "You're a fan of Dalton?" Strange asked Rome directly.

  "Why else would I have fought for him?" Rome answered equally directly.

  "Then why did you surrender?" Strange asked.

  Unusual. People didn't ask that question. They assumed the answer. "Why do you think?"

  "Survival," Strange answered. "But not yours."

  "What are you two talking about?" Avi demanded, bewildered by the conversation's sudden change in direction.

  "This is General Milburn Timothé Rome," the New Englander stated, clearly following the conversation.

  "It was unwinnable. The army was done," Rome answered Strange's question. "The economy was in ruins, industry stalled, no meds, no food. There was mass starvation and rampant cannibalism. We couldn't fight anymore."

  "General Dalton did," Avi stated rejoining the conversation.

  "Did he?" General Rome asked briefly turning his attention to Avi.

  "There were no major battles after General Rome surrendered," Strange observed.

  "Six months of fire fights, and then an armistice," Rome agreed.

  "So Dalton was done too?" the New Englander enquired.

  "Everyone was done," Rome stated. "The Americans, Chinese, British, and Russians had been driven off world, and the Canadians, Brazilians, and Sudaméricans hadn't sent reinforcements for over a year. There was nothing lef
t to the war but random bombings, and starving orphans."

  "So you're not a coward, you're a humanitarian!" Avi declared contemptuously.

  "Politics," Strange surmised.

  "Politicians," Rome corrected.

  "What?" Avi asked.

  "The Canadians needed a win to begin negotiations," Strange explained.

  "Something for the public," Rome added.

  "Spin? You surrendered for spin?" Avi demanded in disbelief.

  "Food, I surrendered for food," Rome stated. "The spin just allowed the Canadian government to formulate an exit strategy."

  "Sounds like retcon BS," Avi stated.

  "Sounds like truth to me," Strange disagreed. "Why you? Why not Dalton?"

  "I'm more pragmatic than Dalton," Rome answered. "He'd never surrender. For him it would be giving up on the dream."

  "Not for you?" Strange asked.

  "I wasn't the dreamer," Rome stated.

  "Can he be trusted?" Strange asked.

  "Yes, but he needs a lot of help," Rome answered.

  "I know. The Confederacy has no trade or diplomatic relations," Strange stated. "America tried to open diplomacy last year, and the Arean senate rejected it."

  "Areans still see America as the enemy," Rome explained. "I