A Just Farewell Read Online Free

only a handful of warriors. I’m afraid the tribes leave us
no room for any kind of mercy.”
     
    “And you think unleashing our castles’ laser
cannons on them wouldn’t do any good?” Governor Spencer repeated
his question.
     
    “I believe it would be a waste of resources
at a time when we need to marshal our energies to support, protect
and expand our off-world settlement programs,” the general
responded. “The tribes know how to avoid the brunt of our guns.
Their tunnels burrow very deep, and they run very far away from the
reach of our orbiting space stations. We might burn out a tribe or
two, but it would come at a cost to our power reserves that I
strongly believe would be better invested into the efforts of the
colony worlds. However, no tribe would survive the execution of the
ultimate answer.”
     
    The governors mumbled and nodded towards one
another. General Harrison watched their pens scribble across their
digital notepads. He watched their office assistants hurry across
the political aisles to confer with the office assistants of other
governors. He was winning them, but was he winning them quickly
enough?
     
    The general cleared his throat. “How long
have we feared this moment when the tribes would realize their
ambition to deliver their bombs and their death beyond the confines
of the planet? The tribes have infiltrated our rockets. What
might’ve happened if those madmen waited to arrive at our castles
before detonating their explosives? I shouldn’t need to remind
anyone about how fragile our positions are here in orbit, about
what might happen the moment there’s any kind of breach in these
stations to expose us to the cold and killing vacuum of space.
     
    “What happens when those tribes infiltrate
one of our great starliners and ride it out to the Martian
colonies? Or what happens when the tribes stowaway on one of the
light-jumping freighters bound for the planet Regis? Then all the
ancient fears, hatreds and gods have spilled into the heavens,
leaving none of us any better off than we were before we braved our
first steps into the stars. We’ve invested far too much to discover
and reach peaceful worlds unblemished by superstition and bigotry.
I haven’t fought and bled against the tribes for my entire life
just so I can watch our dream for the heavens slip away thanks to
those zealots.”
     
    Governor Praxis leaned forward so that the
microphone better captured his voice. “But, General Harrison,
there’s no turning back, whatsoever, should we approve of your
proposal. Once we press that button, it’s all gone. All of it, as
incredible as that is to imagine. Are you saying that we have no
other options?”
     
    General Harrison’s voice didn’t waver.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
     
    Governor Aldrich’s microphone buzzed.
“General, I hope you understand why we feel the enormity of your
proposal requires unanimous approval before your ultimate answer
can be implemented. Are you willing to accept that?”
     
    “I am, on the condition that the governors
take two votes on the matter.”
     
    Another murmur of governors rolled through
the chamber, and the general recognized the moment for the first
vote was at hand as he watched governors hurry across the aisles to
confer directly with their peers. Governance between the space
stations was always an ugly mess of anarchy for most of the time,
because it in the end best represented the will of the people who
had braved a rocket ride to reach the castles’ sanctuary. He loved
to watch all the mumbling disarray, and he missed many a night’s
sleep for worrying that the system of government possessed by those
castles wouldn’t survive the clutches of the savage zealots and
their clerics who wasted old Earth. His nightmares screamed to him
that the unforgiving laws of the clerics was the natural way of the
evolutionary and cruel chain of survival. He loved the confusion
that surrounded him as the governors