The Fall: Crimson Worlds IX by Jay Allan Read Free Book Online Page A

to discount their chance of success.  They were worked up into a frenzy by the death of their leader, and Stark knew they would hit the ground on Columbia like avenging angels, slaughtering all who stood in their way.  But none of that mattered.  However the battle turned out, it would be a win for Stark, at least in the long run.
    Garret and the Marines were cut off from Earth, completely unaware of the disaster unfolding there.  The Alliance navy and Marines were the best fighting forces in space, but they needed supplies to maintain their effectiveness, and soon they’d be down to throwing rocks.  Stark’s plans were long term by nature, and he knew he could eliminate even a victorious Marine Corps and navy by forcing them to expend their supplies and cutting them off from any replenishment.
    The great Alliance shipyards at Wolf 359 had already been reduced to floating wreckage, and on every world the Shadow Legions had occupied, they had destroyed any facility capable of producing weapons or supplies for the armed forces.  Garret’s teams had already sabotaged the space-based shipyards and orbital factories of the other Superpowers, enlisting an unlikely team of traitors and deep cover operatives to achieve the goal.  When the struggle on Earth reached its inevitable final phase, the terrestrial factories that had long supplied the space-based forces of the doomed Superpowers would also be gone, reduced to piles of radioactive slag.  Then Garret would see what his vaunted fleet could accomplish with no weapons, no spare parts…and no hope of resupply.  The Marines who survived the impending battle on Columbia could fight their next struggle with sticks and stones.
    Stark sat silently, considering his plans.  His own fleet was hidden in Altair’s massive asteroid belt, ships powered down and running silent.  He knew they didn’t have a chance against Garret and his forces, at least not until the great admiral was out of ordnance.  Then he could send his fleet to engage Garret, using unanswered missile volleys to blast the Alliance admiral’s helpless ships to bits at long range…and destroy the “invincible” Augustus Garret once and for all.  But before that day, he had one mission for Admiral Liang and his hidden fleet, a single obstacle remaining in the way of his total domination.
    He was worried about Roderick Vance and the Martian Confederation.  He’d planned to deal with them once he’d finished off Garret and the Marines, but now he decided to move up the timetable.  Vance was enormously capable and, unlike the military leaders, he possessed the same sort of subtlety Stark himself did.  The Martian spy was dangerous, and Stark had become worried about what he might be doing in the shadows, how he was feeding information to Garret and the rest of the Alliance leaders.  Martian industry was still intact, and Vance could even supply Garret’s fleet if Stark didn’t do something about it.  No, the Martian problem couldn’t wait any longer.  Vance and the Confederation were the last variable, and it was time to eliminate that uncertainty from the equation.
    He reached out and activated his com.  “Admiral Liang, please report to my office immediately.”  He took a deep breath.  “I have a mission for the fleet.”
     
    Vance was walking along the esplanade, staring down into the water as it flowed beneath him.  One day, the Red River would meander unhindered across the plains of a terraformed Mars, but now it was little more than a decorative water feature running around the domed periphery of the Ares Metroplex.  A century of tireless effort had made significant changes to the Martian environment.  The nuclear engines at the poles ran night and day, melting the massive ice caps and releasing oxygen and water vapor into the slowly-thickening atmosphere. 
    A man still couldn’t breathe unassisted on the surface of the red planet, but the pressure had improved considerably, and