Confederacy’s navy. That was why many people were still in a state of denial even as the Ramanthians destroyed the last ships sent up to oppose them.
But not everyone. As the newly formed sun was snuffed out of existence, Margaret not only knew that thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people had died, but what would happen next. Because her husband, Charles Winther Vanderveen, was a senior government offi?cial presently stationed on Algeron. And her daughter, Christine, was a diplomat, and more than that, a survivor of many months spent in a Ramanthian POW camp. That meant the society matron not only knew what was coming, but what to do about it, starting with the very thing that most of her wealthy Napa Valley neighbors would be most reluctant to do. She must leave the lovely three-story Tudor-style house, not to mention all of the treasures within, and run like hell. Because if safety lay anywhere, it was to the northeast, along the border with what had once been the state of Nevada. A place where the Vanderveen family had a rustic vacation home. The problem was that the potential refuge lay hundreds of miles away. And while the vast majority of the population were still in a state of shock, that wouldn’t last for long. Once they went into motion, all the freeways and roads would be transformed into hellish parking lots. So even though Margaret’s heart was heavy with grief for those who had given their lives attempting to defend Earth, she knew it was important to get moving. And do so quickly. The family had six full-time servants. And having polled them, Margaret discovered that while four wanted to join their families, two preferred to remain with her. They included Thomas Benson, who served as the estate’s maintenance man, and Lisa Qwan, a young woman who was married to a naval rating currently serving aboard the Epsilon Indi. Wherever that ship might be . . . And, since John, the family’s domestic robot wasn’t sentient, he had no choice but to come as well.
So in keeping with the needs of her party, as well as the likelihood that they would be on their own for a sustained period of time, Margaret chose the estate’s sturdy four-wheeldrive pickup truck as being the best vehicle for the trip. Her employees were instructed to load the truck with food, tools, and her husband’s gun collection.
Then, having already selected a pistol for herself, Margaret went upstairs to the master bedroom. The safe was located at the back of the closet. She and her husband typically kept a few thousand credits on hand, which should be spent fi?rst, since they could be rendered worthless later on. That was when Margaret’s jewelry, and her husband’s coin collection, might very well come into play. Then, having slipped a computer loaded with all of the family’s records and photos into her pocket, the society matron took one last tour of the house in which her only child had been raised. There were dozens of beautiful vases, boxes, figurines, hangings, mementos, and paintings to choose from. But in the end it was the carved likeness of Christine that Margaret chose to take with her. Not only because it was beautiful but because Captain Antonio Santana had given it to her. And, if the legionnaire managed to live long enough, he might become her son-in-law one day.
With the box clutched under one arm, and towing a suitcase loaded with toiletries with the other, Margaret left through the front door. The air in the entryway was thick with the odor of spilled fuel. The heavily loaded truck was waiting in the driveway. A big horse trailer was hooked up behind it. “Are you sure about this?” Benson wanted to know, as Lisa took charge of the suitcase. “What if we’re wrong? What if the bugs never come?”
“Oh, they’ll come,” Margaret predicted darkly. “And looters, too . . . So let’s get this over with. We need to cover a lot of ground before dawn. The Ramanthians will be hunting by then. . . . And a lot of people are going to die.”
So Benson lit the old-fashioned lantern that had been sitting in the barn for generations. The buttery light served to illuminated his craggy, weather-beaten face from below—
and made his normally benign features look stern. Having walked up to the front door he threw the lantern inside. There was an audible whump as glass shattered and the open fl?ame made contact with the fuel-soaked carpet. The smoke alarm began to bleat as fi?ngers of fi?re explored the interior of the house. Soon the entire house was engulfed in fl?ames as a lifetime of memories went up in smoke.
But the truck was on the road by then, and Margaret refused to look back, as the headlights bored twin holes into the night. “Look!” Lisa exclaimed, as she peered through a window. “Shooting stars!”
Margaret knew that the bright streaks weren’t shooting stars. They were pieces of wreckage that, having hit the upper atmosphere, were starting to burn. The battle for Earth had been lost.
ABOARD THE BATTLESHIP
Everyone aboard the battleship Regulus had something to do. Everyone except the Queen, that is, who stood with her back to the ship’s wardroom, looking out over the planet below. Based on reports received by hypercom, the Mars colony had been destroyed, efforts were under way to hunt the Jovian prospectors down, and not a single Confederacy ship had been sent to help Earth. And, as far as Earth orbit was concerned, the former moon base was little more than a radioactive crater, two of the battle stations had been bypassed, and two had been destroyed, thereby opening a path along which her aerospace fi?ghters and troop transports could safely reach the surface. Thousands of these ships were already entering the atmosphere. During the next few hours, they would begin a systemized attack on the planet’s surface installations. Military bases fi?rst, followed by civilian power plants, and targets of opportunity. Because without electricity, the humans would quickly turn on each other, thereby saving her troops a lot of casualties, and hastening victory. Which, based on preliminary reports, would come within a matter of days.
There had been grievous losses, of course, well in excess of the more optimistic estimates. Not the least of these were the troopships that had been destroyed along with the human battle station, the loss of two destroyers during ship-toship combat, and the almost incomprehensible destruction of the carrier Swarm. It had been rammed by a Class III container ship nearly twice her size. Not a military ship, but a civilian vessel, named the Maylo Chien-Chu. The freighter had been destroyed, but more than a thousand Ramanthians had also been killed.
Even with those losses in mind, the attack was still a success given that Earth was not only exposed for the taking, but the Queen’s larger goal had been realized. Which, when complete, would eventually turn human beings into an endangered species. With little more than a few million of the disgusting creatures eking out a marginal existence along the rim, and constantly on the run from the Ramanthian navy, as they were pushed farther into the unknown. The thought brought the monarch a moment of pleasure as a bright light blinked down on the surface and half the city of Chicago disappeared.
8
My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open fi?eld between the bullet and the hospital.
PLANET GAMMA-014, THE CLONE HEGEMONY
