Merkiaari Wars: 02 - What Price Honour Read Free Page B

crapper so quickly?
    Certainly not he.
    Third battalion was exactly one thousand strong, of which no more than eight hundred and ten were line Marines. Eight hundred and eight now, he thought grimly. All Marines were rifleman first, and capable of fighting, but the odd one hundred and ninety were not truly meant for that. They were supply sergeants, cooks, and a hundred and one other things needed to keep a full battalion in the field for extended periods. He might need them all if this damn… if this President didn’t make a decision soon.
    “I just don’t know,” President Thurston said.
    Stein clenched a fist. “With all due respect, Mister President, you petitioned the Alliance for help. You do still want membership… don’t you?”
    “Yes but—”
    “Then I don’t see the problem.”
    President Thurston sighed deeply and stood from his place behind the authentic wooden desk. He gazed out of his blast-proof window at the bustling city below. “Look out there Major and tell me what you see.”
    Stein stood and joined the man. “I see buildings and streets. People walking… what more is there?”
    Thurston laughed. “What more he says. No, you’re right, but what I see is a future for my people. Did you know that less than twenty years ago this city would have been no bigger than a half dozen shacks?”
    “That’s hard to believe, sir,” he said respectfully.
    “It’s true, I promise you. My father lived in one. I did too for the first ten years of my life, but my father had a dream and managed to infect others with it.”
    Thurston stood silently gazing at what his father had wrought.
    “Dreams, sir?” Stein prompted.
    “Hmmm?”
    “You said your father had a dream.”
    “Yes he did. Anyone who was anyone was a miner in those days. My father arranged a meeting with the others and they agreed to build a consortium. They signed their holdings over to the company and became equal partners. Ships rarely came here back then, much rarer than today.” Thurston smiled. “I know what you’re thinking, Major.”
    Stein tried to look innocent. “I’m not aware of thinking anything at the moment, sir.”
    Thurston grinned. “That’s an amazing statement don’t you think? What I meant was, shipping is still infrequent, but back then we would be lucky to see a ship every five years. Now we have dozens. Anyway, he went off world and came back with the backing and machinery to mine the planet as it should be done.”
    “What has this to do with the terrorists, sir?”
    “The money he generated paid for the city out there, Major. It pays most of my people’s wages. Close to seventy-five percent of the population works for the company. The rest are in service industries, clothing, tools, food—things like that. More are starting up every year, but we are a long way from economic independence. Those terrorists, as you call them, are my employees.”
    Stein nodded. Now he was getting somewhere. “You are the elected representative of this world, sir. It’s your duty to uphold its constitution.”
    “Don’t tell me my duty. ” Thurston snapped with eyes flashing. “Who do you think wrote the damn thing? My father built this colony and the company from nothing; without him this world wouldn’t be what it is today, but for all of that he was still a dictator. The people elected me as their first president when my father died, and I wrote our constitution a week later. Do you really think I would betray that just to save money?
    “I promised them a voice, and by God they will have one,” Thurston ranted. “Those people you would have me kill, are not only employees of the one company keeping this world from barbarism, they are citizens. They have a right to a voice just as everyone else does.”
    “A voice yes,” Stein said angrily. “But they have no right to go around blowing things up and killing my people.”
    Thurston’s shoulders sagged. “I know.”
    Stein took a deep steadying breath