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Eventually, our cutter pilot loaded us on board, together with a team of 8 soldiers with their combat suits. They stood their suits against the bare wall in the back and sat in the seats that lined the side of the small craft’s cargo hold. We took the front two slots on the right side, which left the front two slots on the left vacant. The little ship lifted, Vectored as soon as it was clear of the hangar, and appeared perhaps two iprime from Calmena. Epsilon Indi was an orange light behind us. The pilot slowed us to a practical crawl – less than 12 isquare per hour, lest we scatter sonic booms over half the continent upon encountering atmosphere. We were coming in dayside, so we had a camouflage screen up as well as shields. The Calmenans didn’t have radar yet, but they had the means to develop it as soon as they needed to. Since Asina and I were coming to introduce airplanes to their world, radar would follow as naturally as sunset follows sunrise.
Our first destination was Bolthole Base, high up in the most inaccessible area of the Collision Range on Wimarglr Continent. A lot of work went into keeping natives from realizing it was there, from holographic projectors to avoidance fields and forbiddings with auros. In the long run, they’d find it, but the general thinking was the long-awaited rematch between the fractal demons and the Empire would be underway before then, rendering it a moot point.
There’s a moment on approach when you make a mental shift from thinking you’re in space getting closer to the planet to thinking you’re on the planet even though you’re not on the ground yet. For me, it’s when I start being able to make out individual features in the video feed. The nameless mountain in which Bolthole Base was embedded was usually it, followed by the small alpine meadow below the base. The mountain itself – second highest peak on the planet – was perpetually ice crowned, even though it was no higher than Mount Whitney in California and within a couple degrees of the planetary equator. There wasn’t time in Calmena’s short year of 145 Earth days (136 Imperial or local) for the snow that fell to melt. The lake below waxed and waned with the weather.
The pilot picked up the approach path, and slowing still further apparently headed straight towards the side of the mountain. At the last moment, the illusion of solidity melted and the viewscreen showed a massive cavern holding fifty or sixty Starbirds and cutters. The base and the cavern holding it had expanded in the time I’d been here, but it was still too small for anything bigger than cutters to land.
The base commander, Sephia, was waiting to greet us. Sephia looked like a blonde college coed of my youth, her white-blonde pageboy cut barely ruffling in the sheltered cavern. “Welcome back, my young friends!” she greeted the two of us. As soon as she opened her mouth, her attitude and manner of speaking betrayed the fact that she was old for a natural state human – perhaps a full square by now. I didn’t know exactly – what I did know was she’d held a higher rank than she did now at the end of the Reunification, three thousand Imperial years ago. Except for occasional leave, she’d been base commander for over an Earth century now, and she had no intention of applying for promotion. “This is where the next war with the demons will start,” she’d told me when I first arrived. Taking a promotion would mean leaving Calmena for her.
“Good to see you, grandmother!” I teased her in return. I was aware the base was busier than it had been in times past. There were more troops visible in the main cavern. I wasn’t sure why; it wasn’t any of my business. I could ask if I wanted, but I was certain Sephia wouldn’t give me a straight answer. The Empire has a habit of keeping operational information to those with a need to know, Asina concurred. I wasn’t aware that the combat soldiers were doing any more work but there had to be a reason the Empire had done it. Likely it had to do with the heightened sense that open war with the fractal demons was close. I’d heard rumors of more troops being assigned to Earth as well.
“Staying the night, or just heading on through?” she asked.
“The plan is to take the portal to Tabbraz immediately,” Asina responded, “But there’s no rush. If you’d like us to stay for some reason, there are ships heading to Yalskarr from there all the time.” Tabbraz was on the south coast of Hashiboor, from which passage on a steamship to Yalskarr, at the base of the Karnel Peninsula, would take a few days. We had to be a little more circumspect these days. Rather than just walking out of a portal or setting up a compound in the middle of nowhere, we had to leave something of an arrival trail and something of a departure trail. Calmena was getting civilized. Somebody might ask where we came from – it was important for them to be able to find something of a trail.
“I was hoping you’d stay for dinner. I’m curious about the news. How are your folks taking it?”
“Relieved more than anything,” I told her, “The U.S. Government never adapted to the new reality of the Empire and the contrast became too great to ignore. We had millions of people leaving the US for places that were poverty stricken hellholes before the Empire arrived. Even the most stubborn of those left behind were going to see the real problem eventually, and it finally happened. Barely a third voted to retain in the most recent plebiscite. Everyone else was outpacing us, and people finally came to the realization that despite their propaganda, the U.S. Government was the problem. Maybe now Mom will start expanding in what used to be the US.”
Asina chimed in, “The funniest thing was the political parties trying to file suit in courts that legally didn’t exist any longer. Not to mention there wasn’t anything to pay the judges or other employees.”
That did bring a snort of laughter from Sephia.
Yes, the citizens of the United States, last of the major pre-contact nations, had voted the government out of existence, and that was fine with me. The citizens of the Empire had far better protections than the Constitution – a ruling class that not only understood why it shouldn’t abuse its citizens, but expected to be around when the consequences of doing so arrived. Not to mention the viceroys’ pay was based upon economic expansion and the Empire intentionally kept their budgets too small to cover anything beyond the most basic functions of government. As a result, Imperial viceroys avoided abusing their citizens and their own superiors were the most aggressive enforcers of that doctrine. Maybe if you got some personal benefit that was large enough, you might find it worthwhile to abuse your office. Your superior, who wasn’t going to benefit nearly so much, wouldn’t tolerate it impacting their pay and their career, and their superior, who wouldn’t see any tangible benefit at all, would put a quick stop to it by replacing the both of you.
“So no trouble?”
“I didn’t say that. There were the usual idiots who didn’t understand the Empire plays by different rules, to the effect of minor annoyances and comic relief for a day or two. But when they abolished the US military to save money, they removed their last hope of resisting the Empire. Not that there would have been any chance in the first place. The Empire used six prime of troops to conquer North Korea, and that was overkill. The Empire has at least four cubes on Earth alone. The United States was a dead letter as soon as the votes were counted. The Secundus for North America is talking about preserving some of the buildings and monuments, but it’s gone, and at this point, that’s a good thing.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Evidently some of the Scimtars think there’s potential for tourist value. I was born in the US and I don’t understand why anyone would be interested.”
“I might,” Sephia said, “During the Reunification, there were damned few places that had even the beginnings of rational government, and that was with the example of the Empire. I can’t name another place with no common history that made any of the efforts made by the founders of the United States. That it lasted more than seven prime and achieved all it did is something Americans should be proud of, especially considering the obstacles it faced. It wasn’t an accident they lasted longer than any other major Earth nation, including ones with far more history and ethnic identity than they.”
Copyright 2019 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.
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