The Fall: Crimson Worlds IX Read Free

increased his fearsome reputation.
    Teller looked at Cain, and he saw his friend had the same concerned look.  Gilson’s last communication had been two weeks before.  The Marines and their Janissary allies had liberated a few small colony worlds, mostly in systems that were strategically located to serve as forward bases of operation, but now Gilson was planning a move against Columbia.
    Cain knew the planet well, and his mind drifted back across the years.  He’d first served under Holm on Columbia, in the dark days after the Slaughter Pen, when the Alliance forces were on the run.  Cain had been a sergeant then, and a newly promoted one at that.
    They’d managed to defend the planet, barely, but the cost had been high…including Erik Cain coming as close to a nuclear explosion as a man could without actually dying.  He’d spent months in the hospital, and then another year and a half at the Academy, before he returned to the fight.  When he next led an assault, it would be as a captain…and the Alliance would be on the road to recovery from its earlier defeats.
    “You think the Columbia operation is underway?”  Teller tried to hide his concern, but he was only marginally successful.  Columbia was a crucial target, one of the Alliance’s biggest and most important colonies.  But Stark knew that too, and he’d sent a massive invasion force to take the planet.  There had been a few early reports from the defenders, but nothing since, and it was generally assumed they’d been overwhelmed and destroyed – and the Shadow Legions had been digging in for months.  There was little doubt in Teller’s mind – or Cain’s – that the liberation of the planet would be a bloodbath.
    “I don’t know, Jim.”  Cain’s voice was grim, somber.  They both had friends in that invasion force, Marines of course, but also some of the Janissaries.  The two forces, allies now after years as enemies, had fought together initially against the First Imperium and then again on Armstrong, where the Janissaries had saved Cain’s forces from destruction.  He felt a twinge in his stomach.  It seemed wrong for his friends to be going into a brutal fight without him.  But he knew he had no choice.  He had to follow through on what he was doing.  He had to kill Gavin Stark.
    He turned and stared at Teller.  “I just don’t know,” he repeated.   He took a deep breath and exhaled.  “But they’ve got their job to do, and we’ve got ours.”  He turned to face Teller.  “And that job is finding the man behind all of this.”
    He looked down at the floor for a few seconds, thinking, analyzing everything they knew.  “Things are coming to a head on Earth,” he said suddenly.  “If I know Gavin Stark, he’s going to do everything he can to push the Superpowers over the brink so he can come in and pick up the pieces.”
    “But Roderick Vance’s expedition destroyed his base.”  Teller’s voice was grim.  The Martian nuclear attack had obliterated Stark’s secret facility destroying almost a million of his Shadow Legion clones.  It had killed at least another million Alliance citizens as well, victims of radiation and fallout from the bombardment.
    “That was a help, but I seriously doubt Gavin Stark had all his Earth-based resources in one place.”  Cain had sworn he would never again underestimate Stark, and he was determined to make good on that pledge.  “Vance’s attack hurt him, no doubt, but it’s a certainty he’s got more clones stashed somewhere.”  He paused.  “And when he’s pushed the Superpowers to the final confrontation, he’ll release them against the last remnants of their armies.”  Another pause.  “And then he’ll rule Earth.  All of it.”
    Cain had a hunch, nothing but a guess really, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.  Stark was stalemated in the colonies, too afraid of Garret to do anything but dig in on the worlds he occupied and