David Sherman & Dan Cragg - Starfist 03 - Steel Gauntlet

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PROLOGUE
“Tell me, Gunnery Sergeant Bong, is it true what they say about Marines?”
“What’s that, Madame Proconsul?”
“Call me !Tang’h, Gunnery Sergeant. Well, is it true?”
“Ma’am?”
“That they’re like their swords...?” She smiled seductively, then looked quickly at the ceremonial
sword fastened by its peace knot to his sword belt.
“A good Marine is always ready to stand tall for action, ma’am.”
“Gunny, I think you should take a look at this,” a small voice said in his right ear.
“Not now, Winterthur,” he whispered into the throat mike concealed in the high stork collar of his
dress scarlets.
“Gunny, it’s really important.”
“Excuse me for a moment,” Gunnery Sergeant Bong said with some frustration. The Honorable
Mistress !Tang’h looked even more ravishing than usual, Bong thought as he turned away from the
Second Assistant Proconsul from Kalari’h. She’d been flirting with him for several months, and he’d
finally managed to convince himself that a personal liaison on an official liaison mission might help in the
successful completion of that mission. He blocked out the sounds and sights of the diplomatic reception
that swirled around him.
“Take a look at what? This better be good!” he said.
“Ah, Gunny.” Lance Corporal Winterthur’s voice sounded nervously bemused behind the buzz of the
receiver in Gunny Bong’s ear. “Somebody just drove up with a bunch of tanks.”
“What kind of tanks?” Bong asked. “Chemical? Storage? Hydroponic?”
“Don’t know their model, Gunny, but they’ve got turrets with what look like projectile cannons and
plasma guns. Looks to be sixty of them.”
Bong blinked. “Armored vehicles?”
“That’s an affirmative, Gunny.”
“You sure they aren’t armored personnel carriers?” Bong was already walking briskly out of the
reception hall, the Honorable Mistress !Tang’h forgotten. Major Katopscu, the Confederation military
liaison, watched him leave.
“They’re not APCs; they look like something out of a history vid,” Winterthur replied over the
receiver.
“I’m on my way.” As soon as Bong reached the corridor, he broke into a sprint toward the main gate,
two hundred meters away. His left hand undid the peace binding that secured the hilt of his ceremonial
NCO sword to the sword belt so it couldn’t be drawn and shoved the binding into his trouser pocket.
Tanks? Where could anybody come up with sixty tanks? Where could they be made? Then Bong
stopped wondering about the wheres and started thinking about the whys of tanks at the gate.
Throughout history, whenever someone paraded cavalry, drove up in tanks, or surrounded an
embassy with infantry or artillery, it usually meant war. Three planetwide wars had already been fought
on Diamunde for control of its wealth—wars big enough that the Confederation Army had to be sent in
to fight along with the Marines who’d originally been dispatched to deal with the situation. The gunny
hadn’t fought in any of those wars himself but he’d served with plenty of Marines who had. Wars on
Diamunde were tough, and just then it seemed that he and his ten Marines might be all that stood
between the Confederation of Worlds and another war. He whispered a prayer to the nine Buddhas of
peace that Winterthur was mistaken.
“Allah’s pointed teeth,” he whispered as he rounded the final corner, the Buddhas of peace forgotten
and the god of a warlike people invoked. A dozen armored behemoths were arrayed under the lights
outside the compound, and a lone Marine, blaster held at port arms, stood at attention in dress scarlets in
front of the closed vehicle gate. One tank, probably the battalion commander’s, stood five meters in front
of PFC Krait. The muzzle of its main cannon pointed directly over his head. In the turret hatch the tank
commander casually stood looking down at the Marine.
Bong didn’t think there was a chance that none of the tankers were using night-vision devices, but he
took that chance anyway and kept to the deepest shadows he could find as he rushed the last thirty
meters to the gate house. “Winterthur, I’ve got your situation in sight,” he whispered. “Be with you in
about ten seconds.”
“Glad to have you aboard, Gunny.”
“What did they have to say?” Bong asked as he entered the cinder-block gate house through its rear
door and joined the corporal. Cinder block. A nice, cheap building material. The compound’s outer walls
were also built of cinder block, so neither the gate house nor the walls could stand against a tank’s guns
or even slow down a tank if its commander decided to drive over or through them. When the embassy
was built, nobody had considered the possibility of an armored assault on the embassy compound.
Winterthur shook his head. “Nothing, Gunny. Just a polite request that we open the gate for them.” His
mouth twisted in a wry smile. “He said,” he nodded toward the tank commander looking down at Krait,
“they left their invitations in their other suits.”
“Right.” Bong kept an eye on the lead tanker while he rummaged through the small storage areas of
the gate house. “Where is it?” he asked. Winterthur pointed at a drawer. Bong pulled the drawer open,
withdrew a holstered hand blaster and hastily strapped it on. A side arm wouldn’t be any use against a
tank, but having it would make him look more serious than the silly ceremonial sword would.
“What’s he doing out there?” Bong asked, nodding toward Krait. If one of the two Marines on the
gate was facing down the tanks, he thought, it should be Winterthur, the senior man.
Winterthur shook his head. “As soon as they arrived, Krait said, ‘I always wanted to be Horatio at the
bridge,’ and ran out before I could stop him.”
Bong shook his head. Typical of many young Marines, Krait had more courage than common sense.
And, compared to the tanks, he wasn’t any better armed than Horatio had been. He dismissed the
thought. “Is the guard mounted yet?” he asked as he gave his uniform and equipment a final straightening.
“I called Corporal Kovaks right after I called you,” Winterthur said. He looked down the street,
deeper into the compound. “I hear them coming now.”
Bong touched the mike at his throat to change the transmission frequency. “Kovaks, Bong. Hold back.
Get everybody out of sight.” The rest of the detachment was probably in chameleons and effectively
invisible to the eye. But those tanks most likely had infravision devices and could see the Marines’ heat
signatures. He shook his head sharply and wondered if there was any point in being out of sight. The
embassy Marines could take on an infantry battalion and win, maybe even a light armor battalion, but
they didn’t have any weapons that would be effective against heavy armor.
Satisfied that he was as ready as he could ever be, Bong stood at attention and faced the gate-side
door of the gate house. “Wish me luck,” he said softly.
“Good luck, Gunny,” Winterthur replied as he opened the door for him.
Bong marched outside to a position in front of PFC Krait and pivoted to face him.
Krait sharply twisted his blaster from the diagonal of port arms to the vertical of a blaster salute.
“Gunnery Sergeant, Post One reports all secure,” he said in a loud, firm voice.
Bong had to admire Krait; he wasn’t sure he’d be that calm himself if their positions were reversed.
“Post One all secure, aye,” Bong responded, and returned the salute. Krait returned his weapon to port
arms as sharply as he’d brought it to salute. “Who are these people behind me and why haven’t they
been dispersed?”
“Gunnery Sergeant, they say they are invited guests and forgot to bring their invitations.” A smile
flickered across Krait’s lips. “I couldn’t find their names on the guest list.”
“Is your weapon armed?” Bong asked in a lower voice.
“You know it is,” Krait answered just as softly.
Bong nodded. “I’ll deal with the situation,” he said loudly enough for the tank commander to hear him,
then dropped his voice again. “If anything happens, take out the man in the turret first. Understand?”
PFC Krait grinned. “Got it, Gunny. He’s mine.”
Bong turned around, clasped his hands behind his back, and casually looked up at the commander of
the lead tank.
“I am Gunnery Sergeant Bong, commander of the Marine Security Detachment. Can I help you, sir?”
The tanker leaned a little farther forward over his folded arms so he could look directly at Bong and
smiled wolfishly. “We want to go to the party,” he said in a voice that crackled with suppressed laughter.
“Certainly, sir. I’ll be happy to admit you to the reception. May I see your invitation, please.”
The tank commander barked out a laugh. “I don’t have an invitation,” he said, still grinning. “I want to
crash the party.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but the reception is by invitation only.”
“I’m quite sure the omission of my name from the guest list was inadvertent,” the tank commander
said. He wasn’t grinning anymore. “Do you know who I am, Gunnery Sergeant?”
“Nossir, I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“I am Major General Marston St. Cyr, commander of the Diamundian Armed Forces.”
“Sir.” Bong brought his right hand up in a crisp salute, but didn’t hold the salute for St. Cyr to
return—a very polite insult. “I’m acquainted with your name.” St. Cyr’s name figured prominently in
dispatches about the deteriorating situation on Diamunde, but Bong had never seen an image of him. He
was the head of Marketing and of Research and Development, and member of the board of directors of
Tubalcain Enterprises, the largest of the corporate powers on Diamunde. “Sir, if the distinguished head of
R and D will bear with me for a moment, I will place a call and attempt to secure permission to admit
you.”
St. Cyr gave Bong a sardonic smile and nodded. “By all means, Sergeant.”
Bong snapped to attention, snapped another salute, and executed an about-face. “Give a yell if he
does anything,” he said to Krait in a low voice.
“Aye aye, Gunny.” Krait maintained his position at attention, weapon at port arms, the beginning of a
smile niggling at the corners of his mouth.
Bong resisted the impulse to shake his head. He’s enjoying this, he thought. Krait really doesn’t
understand how wrong everything can go.
With a few parade-ground-sharp steps and turns, the commander of the Marine Security Detachment
was back inside the gate house. He breathed a sigh of relief. So far, so good. He touched his throat mike
to change frequencies again and said, “Top Cat, this is Bong. We have a situation at the main gate.”
“How so?” Top Cat replied immediately. Major Katopscu, the military liaison, wasn’t Bong’s
boss—the Marine commander reported directly to Minister Whithill, the ambassador’s chief of
staff—but “the situation” was in part a military matter, and Bong knew Top Cat had probably intercepted
the original exchanges between him and Winterthur. Besides, Top Cat was wearing his communications
set and, as a civilian, Whithill probably wasn’t.
“Marston St. Cyr is here demanding admittance, sir. And he’s got main battle tanks to back up his
demand.”
“Minister Whithill and I are on our way, we’ll be with you inside two minutes.”
Bong resisted the urge to fidget while he waited, because St. Cyr could see him through the gate house
windows.
Top Cat was back on his comm unit almost immediately. “Whithill says to tell him he can come in.
Unarmed. I don’t imagine he’s in dinner wear?”
“Nossir. He’s wearing a jumpsuit. What if he doesn’t want to come in alone?”
“He can bring his primary staff, that’s it. We’ll be there before that becomes an issue.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Bong drew himself to attention and marched back to St. Cyr and the tanks.
“Sir.” Again he saluted, and again failed to hold the salute. “The ambassador regrets the oversight.
You are most welcome to join the reception.” His voice betrayed none of the nervousness he felt; where
violence was imminent, any Marine noncommissioned officer worth his Eagle, Globe, and Starstream
could outdo any diplomat.
St. Cyr straightened up from leaning on his folded arms and with one hand signaled to the tank, which
immediately rumbled to life.
“Sir,” Bong had to shout to be heard over the noise of the engine, “there isn’t room inside for your
vehicle. If you will kindly dismount. Chief-of-Staff Whithill is on his way to escort you.”
St. Cyr gave Bong a surprised look, then said, “But you know how New Kimberly has gotten lately. If
we leave our vehicles out here, someone will surely come along and vandalize them.”
Bong made a production of looking to his right and his left, sweeping the armored vehicles with his
gaze. “Sir, the invitation is for you and your primary staff. Surely you have enough men to secure your
vehicles from theft or vandalism. And if your men are insufficient, my two Marines here on the gate can
easily do the job.” He paused to give St. Cyr a hard, pay-close-attention look. “When Marines are
present, nobody in New Kimberly is foolish enough to do harm to persons or property associated with
the Confederation Embassy.” St. Cyr could take that last as a challenge, but it could also serve as a
reminder that he was dealing with forces that were far stronger and ultimately more violent than he was.
St. Cyr glared briefly at the Marine, then threw his head back and guffawed loudly. “Gunnery
Sergeant,” he said when he recovered, “it appears that Confederation Marines are every bit as bold as I
have heard. Perhaps more so.” He looked to his sides, taking in the size and might of his tank battalion,
then back at Bong and the lone PFC standing behind him. He picked up a headset and murmured into
the mouthpiece, then put the headset back down. He bounded out of the tank cupola, to its side and
down to the ground. Quickly, four other jumpsuited men joined him. All five men wore side arms.
“Sir, if you please.” Bong made a gesture toward their pistol belts.
“But you are armed,” St. Cyr said with some amusement.
“I will leave my side arm in the gate house, sir.”
St. Cyr nodded. “That may be so, but you were wearing your sword inside.”
“Yessir, secured with this.” He pulled the peace binding from his pocket and held it up. “I will resecure
my sword before I return to the reception.”
“We can peace-bind our weapons as well.”
“Well, well, St. Cyr,” a new voice cut in. Chief-of-Staff Whithill stepped through the gate, followed
closely by Major Katopscu. “I see you are as determined as ever to be a thorn in the side of civilized
society.” As chief of staff, he felt he wasn’t always required to be as diplomatic as other members of the
diplomatic mission. He didn’t deign to look at the tanks.
“Whithill. So good of you to meet me.” There was no humor or friendliness in St. Cyr’s voice. “We
are coming in. And then the Confederation will recognize Tubalcain Enterprises as the sole legitimate
power on Diamunde and conduct all of its business with me.”
“We will do no such thing. You may come in, but it will be on sufferance. By appearing this way, you
will convince the few remaining undecideds how unfit you are as someone to deal with. Drop your
weapons and follow me.” He spun on his heel and began to stride back into the embassy compound.
St. Cyr glared after Whithill for a second, then raised his right arm and sharply brought it down.
Almost as one, the sixty tanks fired their main guns, then fired their engines to life and rumbled
forward, crashing through the cinder-block walls. St. Cyr jumped onto his tank as it began moving
forward and was climbing back into its cupola as it ran over the vehicle gate.
Almost as quickly as the tanks fired, Krait fired back, killing one of St. Cyr’s staff before the plasma
gun on the lead tank flamed him, Gunny Bong, Major Katopscu, and Minister Whithill. Lance Corporal
Winterthur wasn’t able to get out of the gate house before a tank ground it to rubble. Farther back in the
compound, Corporal Kovaks realized immediately that he and his seven Marines didn’t have a chance
against the heavy armor so he hurried them to the ballroom to attempt to evacuate the reception
attendees. But there were too few exits from the ballroom and from the compound. Very few of the four
hundred people inside the compound were able to flee before the tanks broke through. None of the
Marines was among those few. Nor was the ravishing Honorable Mistress !Tang’h.
CHAPTER 1
Marston St. Cyr was a man of direct methods.
He had been sitting patiently in the boardroom of Tubalcain Enterprises for the last hour as his fellow
executives discussed his most recent request for additional research and development funds. As vice
president for both Marketing and Research and Development, St. Cyr held the fate of the company in his
hands. As VP for Marketing, he had cultivated an impressive array of clients for Tubalcain’s gems, ores,
and by-products on dozens of worlds. Moreover, he had successfully tied major shares of those worlds’
economies to Tubalcain’s solvency.
But more important, as VP for R&D he was solely responsible for maintaining the corporation’s
technological edge over its only competitor, the Hefestus Conglomerate: The supply of natural gems and
valuable ores in the crust of Diamunde and its moons would last an estimated decade longer, at the most.
Tubalcain’s spies at Hefestus had reported its scientists were on the verge of a breakthrough in the
manufacture of synthetic gems and minerals. In the normal progress of business, whichever company was
first to develop artificial substitutes for the planet’s mineral wealth would survive the depletion of its
reserves. The board was dubious about giving St. Cyr any more money for research that thus far had
shown no results, despite his spectacular success in other areas. But very soon it would, he continued
assuring them. The promised “results,” however, would not be what they expected, and in just a few
moments they would find that out.
Now Tubalcain’s CEO, Mona Schroder, was arguing that the money St. Cyr wanted would be better
spent diversifying the company’s interests. If they started immediately, while they still had enormous cash
reserves and a top credit rating, she was saying, glancing nervously at St. Cyr as she spoke, within five
years the company would not have to depend on its mining ventures but could continue to show a
comfortable profit margin from a variety of other enterprises, as well as from the low-risk loans they had
been making to various entities throughout the Confederation. At that point she nodded at St. Cyr, a
sterile and reluctant acknowledgment of his marketing genius; he had engineered most of the loans. He
smiled back coldly. It was Schroder’s plan to convert Tubalcain from a mining and industrial giant into an
interplanetary banking system, and in that she was supported by most of the other members of the board.
She was opposed only by St. Cyr. She thought that at long last she was in a position now to force him
out of power, and her heart raced at the thought that in a few moments she would make the
announcement. A small rivulet of nervous perspiration trickled down her left side as she anticipated her
triumph.
St. Cyr was calm and confident. Actually, he had spent none of the money in his considerable budget
developing synthetic substitutes. The board members did not know that. Schroder suspected St. Cyr had
diverted the money to his own business interests but she had no positive proof. In a few moments it
would make no difference, because St. Cyr was about to be dismissed. He knew it was coming. He let
her rattle on for a few more moments, and then:
“Ladies and gentlemen,” St. Cyr announced suddenly, cutting the CEO off in mid-sentence, “you have
sat long enough.” He kicked the Woo crouching at his side beneath the table. “Briefcase,” he said in a
low voice, and the Woo obediently held up to him the briefcase he always carried along to these
meetings. St. Cyr snatched the case and slammed it on the table, kicking the Woo again, harder this time,
to discourage it from looking for a reward. Smiling wryly, he drew a pistol out of his briefcase and shot
the CEO where she stood.
The blaster was set on low power, and the bolt, instead of hitting Schroder square in the chest, merely
vaporized her right breast and shoulder. She shrieked and stumbled away from the conference table,
flailing her one good arm helplessly as the horrified board members leaped to get out of her way. She
staggered back into the table, leaving gobs of singed flesh on its highly polished surface, then fell to the
floor where she writhed helplessly. The room filled with the stench of vaporized flesh. Board members
gagged or vomited or screamed in terror while Marston St. Cyr sat quietly in his comfortable chair,
casually toying with the blaster.
The Woo at St. Cyr’s feet cringed even closer to the floor, moaning “Wooooo, wooooo.” It began to
glow brightly, as Woos did when experiencing distress or other strong emotion. “Stop it!” St. Cyr kicked
the Woo. Its glow faded immediately.
“Security! Security!” Tubalcain’s VP for Human Resources shouted into his wrist communicator. The
man should have been a Woo, St. Cyr had often said, always worrying about the health and welfare of
the company employees. He had vigorously, if unsuccessfully, opposed St. Cyr’s enormous budget,
arguing that the money would better be spent on what he called “social services.”
Marston smiled. “Paul, security is in my hands now.” He depressed the firing lever on his weapon and
the social services programs at Tubalcain vaporized along with the VP’s head. His body stood upright for
a few seconds before collapsing to join the CEO on the floor. St. Cyr regarded his pistol admiringly, as if
congratulating himself on the shot. Meanwhile, the board broke into pandemonium. “Gentlemen, I’d hate
to flame the rest of you,” Marston shouted over the screaming. “It’s getting a little close in here right
now.” Marston coughed politely. The surviving board members huddled in terror at the far end of the
conference room.
A door opened and several men in black uniforms armed with blasters trooped into the room. “Major
Stauffer, remove those,” Marston ordered, gesturing at the smoldering corpses.
“Yes, General,” Major Stauffer replied. He signed to two of his men, who grabbed the corpses by the
feet and dragged them outside. “Will there be anything else, General?” the major asked, looking at the
remaining executives, the beginning of a smile on his lips.
“No, Clouse,” St. Cyr said, and then added, “Oh, yes, one thing: have building maintenance scrub the
air supply in here, will you?” He turned his attention to the surviving executives. “Sit!” he commanded,
and they began to sit, staring apprehensively at St. Cyr’s blaster as they returned to their places.
“Gentlemen,” he began, “briefly, I am in charge of this company now. I am going to destroy Hefestus’s
management team and take it over as well. Those of you who wish to join me are welcome. Those who
do not may leave.” He paused. Nobody said anything or even moved a finger. “Good! You have
decided to go your own separate ways then. You are dismissed. Major Stauffer will see you out
immediately.”
A long moment of silence passed before the first shaken executive arose and stumbled out of the
conference room. Then, more quickly, as if they couldn’t wait to be gone, the others followed him. In the
hallway outside they were met by St. Cyr’s security guards, escorted to the parking garage and
summarily shot. The bodies were incinerated. Teams were dispatched to the executed men’s homes, and
their families and servants were murdered. Using lists compiled long before, the teams then spread out to
find the friends and business associates of the newly dead, and they, as well as their families and friends,
were shot. Before the day was out, the entire management elite of Tubalcain, along with a substantial
number of the corporation’s lower-ranking management, were dead. A student of ancient Roman
politics, Marston St. Cyr knew he could leave no one alive who might oppose him.
“Clouse,” St. Cyr said to Major Stauffer after the doomed executives had departed, “I must change
now for the embassy reception.” They both laughed. “Is everything ready?”
“All is ready, General. Your commanders are waiting.”
St. Cyr absently swatted the Woo crouching at his feet, his briefcase dangling from an appendage. The
creature cringed and uttered a mournful sigh. Stauffer had worked for St. Cyr for forty years and was
prepared to do whatever his boss demanded, but the way he treated the Woos disturbed him. Once,
many years before, when Stauffer had been recovering from injuries sustained during a mining accident,
St. Cyr had come to visit him in the hospital. It was the only time his boss had ever done anything so
remotely human, and Stauffer had been impressed. Still woozy from painkillers, Stauffer had been bold
enough to ask him why he treated the Woos so inhumanely. “Because, my dear Clouse,” St. Cyr had
answered, “I can’t treat people that way. Yet.”
Now, St. Cyr said, “Since all is ready, my dear major, let us proceed. The hors d’oeuvres will be
getting cold. Oh, you are now Colonel Stauffer.”
Marston St. Cyr had not spent Tubalcain’s money on the synthetic gems project or even mining R&D.
He had not spent it on himself. He had spent it building armored fighting vehicles.
CHAPTER 2
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Cynthia Chang-Sturdevant said, “it is my decision, after extensive debate and a
voice vote of all the members of the Congress present, having obtained a quorum of votes, that we
commence military operations immediately against Diamunde and Tubalcain Enterprises.” A chorus of
angry shouts and denunciations rose from the floor of the Confederation Congress, but they were
countered just as loudly by Madame President’s supporters on the floor. fistfights erupted. “Sergeant at
arms! Sergeant at arms!” Madame President Chang-Sturdevant shouted. It was twenty minutes before
the delegates could be quieted down and put back into their seats.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she began again, “I will overlook this disgraceful conduct—”
“Madame President, Madame President!” The delegate from Cinque Luna rose to his feet. “No more
disgraceful than this decision of yours to make war on a member world! I demand—”
“Madame President!” the delegate from Gimel Ghayn protested. “The honorable gentleman from
Cinque Luna forgets that it was our ambassador this monster murdered! We cannot let his crime go
unavenged!”
“Madame!” an opposition member screamed. “If this war goes sour, we’re all finished!”
There was more shouting, but this time the delegates remained seated. When they had quieted down,
President Chang-Sturdevant tried again. “We have discussed this in the Council and on the open floor of
this congress. We have discussed this decision endlessly. Each of you has had his turn to speak. The
talking is now over. By the authority invested in me under the Confederation Constitution, I hereby
declare that a state of war now exists between our member worlds and Diamunde.” She slammed her
gavel on the podium, caught her breath, stepped down and out the door behind the platform into the
private chamber behind the podium.
“Jesus God,” she sighed, “I’ve never seen the bastards so riled, Marcus.” Marcus Berentus, the
Confederation Minister of War, smiled and handed her a towel, with which she wiped the perspiration
from her face.
“This war will upset a lot of members’ egg baskets, Madame. But you had a quorum. Your decision is
legal and binding. We go to war. The other ministers support you one hundred percent in this, and the
Combined Chiefs are unanimous that we can defeat St. Cyr quickly and with minimal casualties.”
Under the Constitution, the President of the Confederation Council was empowered to make certain
binding decisions on behalf of the entire Confederation, providing a quorum of votes could be obtained
from the Congress. That was because even using hyperspace travel, it could take six months or longer for
the delegates to obtain instructions from their home worlds. These decisions were never taken lightly,
however, only in cases of the gravest emergency, because if they proved mistaken, impeachment
proceedings could be initiated.
“The war you served in, Marcus, the First Silvasian?” She tossed the towel down a disposal chute,
glancing briefly in a mirror and straightening her hair. There were more strands of gray. Madame
Chang-Sturdevant had been a beauty in her youth and she still remained a very attractive woman, but
there were crow’s-feet under her eyes now, brown spots on her hands, and the beginning of wrinkles
around her neck. She couldn’t remember having any of them before she became President of the
Council.
“Yes. I flew a Raptor.” He shrugged. “It was a piece of junk, compared to what the boys fly these
days, but still a good atmospheric fighter craft. I was shot up but never down.”
Cynthia Chang-Sturdevant smiled wryly. She appreciated Marcus’s self-deprecating sense of humor
and sage advice. Of all her ministers, he truly understood the human cost of war.
She stood for a moment before a mirror and straightened her clothes. The small chamber behind the
podium was equipped with a full bar and other amenities but she decided against indulging. There was
just too much work to be done.
“During your administration we’ve intervened on Elneal and Wanderjahr, Madame,” Berentus said,
“for humanitarian reasons. You overcame the opposition to those operations too. St. Cyr is a threat to all
of us because he can project his military force to other worlds in the Confederation. We don’t know how
far he’s spread his coils throughout the member worlds with his loans and investments either. He can pull
a lot of strings among our delegates. He attacked our embassy, for heaven’s sake, killed our people. And
besides that, he’s a goddamned murderer! Those worthless bastards!”
“Don’t talk about our—” She hesitated slightly. “—Congress-persons that way, Marcus,” she
murmured, leaning over and kissing her Minister of War affectionately on the cheek. “But you know,
Marcus, what that delegate shouted from the floor? If this war goes sour, we’re all finished. It’s
happened before.”
“I know, Madame, I know. But in the navy we used to have an expression for such things: Fuck ‘em if
they can’t take a joke. Besides, I’m ready for retirement. There’s only one thing—”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Marcus, you old gunfighter, I don’t give a damn about this job, or all
the trappings of this office either. There are plenty of people out there who’d willingly take over my
responsibilities, and most of them would do a better job than I ever could.” She waved her minister’s
protest to silence with a hand. “But that ‘one thing’ that bothers you bothers me too. I don’t want to
sacrifice the lives of our fighting men needlessly.” She shivered involuntarily. Madame Cynthia
Chang-Sturdevant had a son and a daughter serving as ratings in the fleet. “Marcus, let’s hope and pray
the brass hats have it right this time.”
Admiral Horatio “Seabreeze” Perry, Chairman of the Confederation Combined Chiefs of Staff,
thought he had it right, as he always thought he had it right every time in his career since he’d been an
ensign. The briefing he’d arranged for Madame Chang-Sturdevant the week before had gone off
superbly, except for one annoying little detail.
“Madame President,” Admiral Perry began, “allow me to introduce General Markham Benteen,
commander of the Hefestus Conglomerate’s armed forces.”
A white-faced man in battle-dress uniform stood and bowed politely. President Chang-Sturdevant
couldn’t help noticing that the general’s hand shook ever so slightly as he sat down and placed it back on
the conference table. He looked exhausted; “defeated” was the word that came to her unbidden. She
realized suddenly that the admiral had spoken of his command in the present tense, obviously a
professional courtesy, because everyone knew his forces on Diamunde had been wiped out and he was
now a political refugee, along with the few surviving members of Hefestus’s management staff.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
In terse, clipped sentences the general told her how St. Cyr’s forces had attacked his with a ferocity
thus far unmatched in the many wars Diamunde had suffered as her corporate rulers vied for supremacy.
Most of the Hefestus corporate management were killed in St. Cyr’s attack on the embassy, but Benteen
and his staff had managed to survive. By the time they could rally armed resistance it was already too
late; St. Cyr’s aircraft had demolished Benteen’s air force on the ground, knocked out his headquarters
complex, and heavily damaged his depots and garrison installations before the rubble at the embassy had
even cooled.
“We could have resisted,” General Benteen concluded, “but it was the tanks that got us.”
“ ‘Tanks’?” Madame President asked. She thought she hadn’t heard him correctly. She glanced at
Berentus and Admiral Perry for confirmation. They nodded.
“Heavily armored fighting vehicles—” General Benteen said.
“Yes, ma’am,” General Hanover Eastland, Chief of the Confederation Army Staff interrupted. He was
afraid Benteen was on the verge of breaking down. “They have not been used in warfare for hundreds of
years. I believe St. Cyr built them in secret, funneling Tubalcain’s R and D money into their construction.
He called them ‘tractors,’ and said they were to be used in the company’s mining operations. We’ve
prepared a full intelligence briefing for you.”
“We couldn’t stop them,” Benteen went on as if he had never been interrupted. “They’re monsters.
They weigh up to sixty thousand kilos and move as fast as a landcar. Only concentrated plasma bolts are
powerful enough to penetrate their armor, but they wouldn’t stand still long enough for our gunners to hit
them. Our artillery just bounced off their hulls. When they didn’t blow my men apart with their guns, they
just, just....ran over them where they stood—”
“Ma’am,” Admiral Perry said hastily, cutting General Benteen off again, “I’d now like to introduce
Admiral Hank Donovan, our intelligence officer. Admiral.”
“Madame President, this is our enemy.” An image flashed onto the vidscreen at one end of the
conference room. It showed a middle-aged man of indeterminate height with close-cropped brown hair
and a prominent nose. His jaw was square, with a marked cleft in the chin. His eyebrows were dark and
bushy. He seemed to be staring out of the vidscreen speculatively. There was just the slightest hint of a
smile on his lips—or perhaps a nervous condition that drew up the muscles on the right side of his mouth.
At any rate, it gave him a somewhat sardonic expression. Overall, though, his visage was rather
handsome, not the face of a megamaniacal killer.
“That is Major General Marston Moore St. Cyr,” Admiral Donovan intoned.
“Excuse me, Admiral, ‘Major General,’ did you say?” Madame Chang-Sturdevant interrupted.
“Yes, ma’am. Oh, yes, I see. He picked that title because his idol, Oliver Cromwell, achieved early
fame as a cavalry commander, and in European armies of Cromwell’s day the major general commanded
the cavalry. St. Cyr fancies himself a dashing cavalryman.” Donovan smirked. Madame
Chang-Sturdevant had the impression Admiral Donovan might be seriously underrating the man. “To
continue. He was born on Diamunde eighty years ago. He has never seen military service. He was
offworld, on Carhart’s World, studying engineering at the University of M’Jumba, when the decisive
battles took place on Diamunde that left the Hefestus Conglomerate and Tubalcain Enterprises the
dominant corporations on the planet. During the many skirmishes and turf battles that have characterized
business practice on Diamunde since then, St. Cyr was working his way up through the corporate
management team at Tubalcain.”
“Then how’d he get so damned smart about military affairs?” Madame Chang-Sturdevant asked
suddenly. She was beginning to dislike Admiral Donovan.
“Well, ma’am, there’s a lot of similarity between duty on a military staff and work in a corporate staff.
Look at how many retired flag officers go on to head up corporations, for instance. Besides that, St. Cyr
is a genius of sorts. It is said he has based his life on three books: his politics on Niccolo Machiavelli’s
The Prince, his personal relationships on Shakespeare’s Richard III, and his military expertise on Heinz
Guderian’s Panzer Leader. That’s probably oversimplifying it a bit, but the man is very well read and a
natural, if totally ruthless, leader. There are many examples of men like him in history, ma’am, who took
naturally to soldiering. Nathan Bedford Forrest and Oliver Cromwell are two such. As I mentioned
earlier, St. Cyr admires Cromwell a lot. You know who they were, I presume?”
“Yes, Admiral, I do,” President Chang-Sturdevant replied sarcastically. She was beginning to dislike
the Admiral a lot. “I suppose like Forrest, his motto is ‘Get there first with the most,’ and he’s fashioned
his forces on Cromwell’s New Model Army, prayer services and Puritan self-denial and all?”
摘要：

PROLOGUE“Tellme,GunnerySergeantBong,isittruewhattheysayaboutMarines?”“What’sthat,MadameProconsul?”“Callme!Tang’h,GunnerySergeant.Well,isittrue?”“Ma’am?”“Thatthey’reliketheirswords...?”Shesmiledseductively,thenlookedquicklyattheceremonialswordfastenedbyitspeaceknottohisswordbelt.“AgoodMarineisalwaysr...

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