The Fall: Crimson Worlds IX Read Free Page B

senseless acclaim he received wherever he went.  His own people were the worst offenders, and he’d come to dread that starry eyed look they gave him, the awestruck silence in the ranks as he passed by.  He’d long ago lost his taste for glory, far too familiar with its often heartrending price.  The victory against the First Imperium had saved humanity, but it had cost Garret his soul.  In his own mind he wasn’t a hero; he was a butcher, leading thousands to their deaths and worse.  The fact that those sacrifices were necessary, that they had saved millions, was enough reason to do what he had done, but not to forgive himself for the cost.  He’d sacrificed friendship, even love, to achieve his victories, and the taste was bitter in his mouth.
    He’d never forgive himself for what he had done in that final battle on the frontier, how he’d left his best friend and 40,000 Marines and naval personnel behind, trapped at the mercy of a massive fleet of First Imperium vessels.  His friends and comrades had told him again and again he’d had no choice, and Garret himself knew that was true.  But no one else seemed to understand it just didn’t matter.  Some acts were so horrifying, so soul-killing, no amount of justification could make a difference.  Some things you did killed the part of you that made you human.
    “The first waves will be launching in three minutes.”  Ali Khaled sat next to Gilson.  The former Caliphate commander, now a fugitive from his nation along with all his men, sat next to Gilson, staring at a bank of monitors along the wall.  Some showed live shots of the activities in the assault bays, while others displayed lists of stats and projected launch times.
    “Yes.”  Gilson nodded, her own eyes fixed on the monitors.  “General Heath is in command of the lead elements.”  Then-Colonel Heath had served well on Arcadia, when Gilson’s forces returned from the frontier and reinforced the battered Marines James Teller and Elias Holm had led to the aid of the locals.  She’d given him his star for it, and now he was commanding the advance elements of the invasion force, proof she thought grimly, that no good deed goes unpunished.  Heath’s people would be landing in the teeth of the enemy defenses, and they’d be outnumbered and under constant fire as they clawed to carve a foothold for the rest of the forces to land.
    James Teller would have been her first choice to command the vanguard, but he was off with Erik Cain, chasing Gavin Stark.  Teller was Cain’s protégé, much as Cain had been Holm’s.  When Erik decided to hunt down Stark, Teller had followed him without a second thought.  She had both men’s stars in her desk, waiting for them to return and claim them.  She’d wished more than once that they were with her, helping to lead the Corps into this new fight, but she understood why they had made the choices they had.  And, if they were successful in finding and killing Stark, perhaps they would do more to end this war than the entire strike force about to invade Columbia.  Maybe they could wear those stars again in peacetime, helping her rebuild the shattered Corps.
    Nevertheless, Gilson had tried to convince Cain to stay, and Garret had thrown his own efforts behind hers.  But Erik Cain was as stubborn as any human being who’d ever lived, and he grimly declined both their entreaties.  Killing Stark was not only vengeance for General Holm, he’d declared, but the best way to defeat the Shadow Legions.  Stark had been their enemy for years, secretly plotting against them before he declared openly and launched his Shadow Legions to conquer occupied space.  He’d been a cancer consuming the body of the navy and the Corps, even as they struggled against the robot legions of the First Imperium.  Stark had worked against them as far back as the Third Frontier War and the rebellions, engineering Rafael Samuels’ treachery that had almost destroyed the