Read Online Symbionts by William H Keith - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: William H Keith
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duralloy, sky-els have proven vital in the terraforming of prebiotic worlds, an inexpensive conduit from space to ground for the nanofactories and equipment necessary to rework a planetary atmosphere.
In the two and a half centuries since the first sky-el was demonstrated on Sol IV, there have been remarkably few system failures, even including those, like the one on Herakles, that were the result of deliberate action.
— Man and the Stars: A History of Technology
Ieyasu Sutsumi
C.E. 2531
The hell of it was, Katya had once damn near idolized the man. General Travis Sinclair was more than the leader of the Confederation in its rebellion against Hegemony and Empire. A member of the Confederation Congress from New America, he’d been appointed commander of the rebel army at a time when a unified army as such didn’t even exist. Single-handedly, he’d begun building that army… and a navy as well, recruiting key people like Katya and Dev Cameron and turning them loose with money, personnel, and equipment raised from God knew where.
Sinclair’s genius had, at the very least, avoided a crushing defeat by the overwhelmingly powerful forces arrayed against them. More important than that, he’d been the principal author of the Declaration of Reason, a document that, like another Declaration penned over seven centuries earlier, outlined the philosophy of the revolt. By condemning the evils of the centralized state and its attempts to unite disparate worlds and cultures, it had become the focus of the entire Rebellion. In many ways Travis Sinclair was the Rebellion.
Somehow, though, Katya’s hero worship of the man had gradually been transformed… not into hatred, precisely, but into a distance as cold, she thought, as the cold, political calculation that had led Sinclair a few months ago to abandon her beloved New America to the Empire. Oh, she knew the reasons, the rationale for the Confederation’s retreat from her homeworld. What hurt, though, were the friends, the comrades at arms left behind while a scant, chosen few had fled here, to Herakles. She’d just begun assembling and training the 1st Confederation Rangers on New America when Sinclair had issued the order to abandon the place for a secret base on this empty world. He’d brought with him a select handful of people, including Katya and Dev and a few others with experience or key skills, but the majority, of necessity, had been left behind.
How many, she wondered, were still alive, after months of guerrilla warfare against Imperial warstriders? While she was here playing war games!
Katya had met Sinclair on New America, where he’d recruited her to the cause. Her experience leading a Hegemony strider company had come to his attention, and he’d suggested that her talents might be best employed helping to create a Confederation armored unit that could replace the wide-scattered and poorly trained militias that were currently carrying the brunt of the fighting against the Empire. Local militias had won impressive victories early in the war, on Eridu, on Eostre, and on Liberty, but those victories had proven temporary. Eridu was again in Imperial hands after a brief period of self-rule; at New America, Imperial Marines now maintained a harsh and bloody peace while battle squadrons kept watch from orbit.
She thought about Dev, raiding the Imperial supply lines on the outskirts of the New American system.
No. Best not to think of that. Or of him.…
The hell of it was, moving the rebel government to Herakles hadn’t purchased much time. The Imperials had figured out where they were and sent a battle squadron in, coming that close to annihilating the Confederation Congress and the Rebellion in one swift strike. All that had stopped them was Dev’s bizarre union with the Naga lurking in the depths of Herakles’s planetary crust. Three months had passed since then, with no sign of the Imperials, but everyone on Herakles knew their return was only a
In the two and a half centuries since the first sky-el was demonstrated on Sol IV, there have been remarkably few system failures, even including those, like the one on Herakles, that were the result of deliberate action.
— Man and the Stars: A History of Technology
Ieyasu Sutsumi
C.E. 2531
The hell of it was, Katya had once damn near idolized the man. General Travis Sinclair was more than the leader of the Confederation in its rebellion against Hegemony and Empire. A member of the Confederation Congress from New America, he’d been appointed commander of the rebel army at a time when a unified army as such didn’t even exist. Single-handedly, he’d begun building that army… and a navy as well, recruiting key people like Katya and Dev Cameron and turning them loose with money, personnel, and equipment raised from God knew where.
Sinclair’s genius had, at the very least, avoided a crushing defeat by the overwhelmingly powerful forces arrayed against them. More important than that, he’d been the principal author of the Declaration of Reason, a document that, like another Declaration penned over seven centuries earlier, outlined the philosophy of the revolt. By condemning the evils of the centralized state and its attempts to unite disparate worlds and cultures, it had become the focus of the entire Rebellion. In many ways Travis Sinclair was the Rebellion.
Somehow, though, Katya’s hero worship of the man had gradually been transformed… not into hatred, precisely, but into a distance as cold, she thought, as the cold, political calculation that had led Sinclair a few months ago to abandon her beloved New America to the Empire. Oh, she knew the reasons, the rationale for the Confederation’s retreat from her homeworld. What hurt, though, were the friends, the comrades at arms left behind while a scant, chosen few had fled here, to Herakles. She’d just begun assembling and training the 1st Confederation Rangers on New America when Sinclair had issued the order to abandon the place for a secret base on this empty world. He’d brought with him a select handful of people, including Katya and Dev and a few others with experience or key skills, but the majority, of necessity, had been left behind.
How many, she wondered, were still alive, after months of guerrilla warfare against Imperial warstriders? While she was here playing war games!
Katya had met Sinclair on New America, where he’d recruited her to the cause. Her experience leading a Hegemony strider company had come to his attention, and he’d suggested that her talents might be best employed helping to create a Confederation armored unit that could replace the wide-scattered and poorly trained militias that were currently carrying the brunt of the fighting against the Empire. Local militias had won impressive victories early in the war, on Eridu, on Eostre, and on Liberty, but those victories had proven temporary. Eridu was again in Imperial hands after a brief period of self-rule; at New America, Imperial Marines now maintained a harsh and bloody peace while battle squadrons kept watch from orbit.
She thought about Dev, raiding the Imperial supply lines on the outskirts of the New American system.
No. Best not to think of that. Or of him.…
The hell of it was, moving the rebel government to Herakles hadn’t purchased much time. The Imperials had figured out where they were and sent a battle squadron in, coming that close to annihilating the Confederation Congress and the Rebellion in one swift strike. All that had stopped them was Dev’s bizarre union with the Naga lurking in the depths of Herakles’s planetary crust. Three months had passed since then, with no sign of the Imperials, but everyone on Herakles knew their return was only a
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