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Chapter 107[]
Can you tell me where can we start over?[]
Coalition forces, North America
Terra, Sol System
Word of Blake Protectorate
January, 3079
"...there's a difference between 'destruction' and 'genocide', Mister Stone." Orders from Peter removed the fiction that Elizabeth was a subordinate in LCN's 2nd Fleet. "There is also a difference between recoverable collateral damage, and genocide. Nobody is going to be recovering from what hit Alarion. There's no rebuilding from the extermination of an entire people."
"Is that icewater in your veins?" Stone argued.
"You asked for Lyran Commonwealth help in removing the Blakist hold on Terra. We Helped. The Word of Blake as an international threat is now knocked down to about the level of a Kiwanis club or most of the minor bandit organizations infesting the outies. The core of their power has been removed, their defenses neutralized, and the people they were oppressing freed." she shrugged, "Mission Accomplished. barring new orders from Tharkad, my people are packing up to go home, because you assured everyone you could make this 'republic' thing work."
She gestured, "Look? The atmosphere is still breathable, there's no phylum-jumping superplagues loose and even with all the loss of life. The population's still viable and mostly intact-by way of comparison, we were very gentle and delicate in dealing with this."
She continued walking to the shuttle, and Devlin hurried to keep up.
"Why are you leaving then!?" demanded Stone
"Because, Mister Stone, the Lyran Commonwealth agreed not to interfere in the affairs between Terra and the SLDF in Exile, aka the Clans. Non-interference means we're not going to be here. If-and-when Vlad Ward, Marthe Pryde, Tseng, and McKenna decide to make a play for your lovely planet, the jewel of your republic, and so on-we were here to stop the Word. It's been, for all practical purposes, stopped. Therefore, I can order my people to pack up ship and go home...which we are doing. If you wanted us to stay you should have presented a more compelling argument to the Archon."
He drew his pistol, "You can't leave!!"
"Watch me." she said without breaking stride, "Pull the trigger or don't, Devlin. If I die, they're still going to leave. If I leave, they're going to leave. I'm already almost ten years past my expiration date. I've accomplished all of my childhood dreams and most of my adult nightmares."
He hesitated and lowered the pistol.
She paused in the hatchway. "You should work on your negotiations. a Clanner would have cut you down where you stand for drawing on her, and you'll be dealing with them soon enough."
"Why, Duchess?" he asked, "Why did you do this?"
"They were a threat, and I won't have my children grow up in a world of ignorance and climate of fear." she met his eyes, "It's what every parent wants. A better world for their children, Devlin. Your man Lear isn't offering that, and letting those edifices remain didn't allow for it. My children won't be living in a world where they're fighting constantly over, or for, the rotting corpse of the Terran Hegemony." she palmed the lock, "The future, Devlin Stone, isn't in the moldering corpse of mankind's past. It's out there, where no-one has gone for centuries."
The hatch slid closed and hissed with pressurization.
So Devlin stone watched the shuttle roll to the taxi-way and lift off.
FINI - The Story is completed, but the next story arc of the Altenate Ngo continues in Silent en inter arma: Tribunals