The Szuiltan Alliance (The Szuiltan Trilogy) Read Free Page B

taken, his daughter had died of Meningitis. It was a disease that had been eradicated centuries ago on most of the colony worlds, but the billions put into the war effort on Earth had to be taken from somewhere, and the only healthcare the government were willing to fund was that which treated the injuries of war. There were always enough surviving children to provide the military machine with its next generation of soldiers.
    He gripped his rifle, praying to Larn that the treaty they had all heard rumours about would finally finish this seemingly eternal war between themselves and the ex-colony world of Aks.
    His pre-military studies told him that the exact cause, the spark that ignited the hostilities, was unclear but dated some hundred years previous, at the end of the Great Cultural Collapse that had spread like a barbaric plague through most of the known galaxy. Aks had gained independence almost two hundred years before, but as the relatively peaceful reign of the academics and artists had fallen and the might of the military, politicians and priesthood had risen, effectively smothering the Galactic Renaissance in its all embracing fist, a general antipathy between the two worlds had deteriorated into all out war. His military tutors during training pointed to Aks as the aggressor, but Martin had been in the minority of academics attending one of the few universities left standing by the religious, political and military machine before his compulsory five year term in the armed forces, and his own studies indicated a much more even-handed sharing of blame.
    He missed the freedom of academic life, hated military routine, but was far too smart to show anything other than complete obedience and patriotic devotion to his duty. He had three months of his term left. He just hoped he could survive them.
    Flipping to the back of his photo-wallet, he smiled at another image, older than the first, reviving memories of an earlier, less troubled time in his life.
    Three boys on the edge of their teens, standing, arm in arm, on the bank of a river. Sharon had taken that picture, that's how long he had known her. He looked at the faces and remembered the names easily. They had been friends almost since they were born. How could he ever forget?
    Martin stood in the middle, in love with Sharon even then but too shy to tell her. His smile broadened as he remembered how he had refused to swim in the river, not because he was afraid of the water but because he was embarrassed to reveal his slowly developing body in front of Sharon. On his left, looking serious as always, was Jack Holt. He, too, had refused to swim in the river, but they had always just put that down to him being a miserable sod. On his right, laughing at the camera and dressed only in swimming trunks, was Steve Drake. Steve and Sharon always swam together and Martin had been insanely jealous. But Steve was his best friend, had been right through school, and nothing, not even Sharon, could change that.
    It was funny, looking back on it, but he had always assumed that Steve and Sharon would get together, but then Steve and Jack had left Earth for the romance of the Traders and he had headed for academia. No one had been more surprised than he was when Sharon followed him, although, he remembered with a quiet laugh, it had still taken him more than three years to pluck up the courage to ask her to be something more than just a friend.
    "Prepare to disembark."
    The metallic voice snapped through the whine of the engines and Martin closed the wallet and fastened it into his breast pocket.
    Around him, the thirty men and women under his command were performing last minute checks on weaponry and the air masks they needed to breath the thick atmosphere. He hurriedly checked his own. Everything seemed in working order. That at least gave him an edge in surviving this raid.
    A screen above his head crackled and flashed and showed him brief glimpses of their target.
    Milos IV was the