Torch of Freedom

The Republic of Ma

What no one had expected—until the survey team the Alignment had sent to Felix under cover of the Jessyk expedition completed a thorough analysis of the system primary's emissions—was that there would have been plenty of reason to make the trip, if only anyone had known that Felix was associated with a major wormhole junction. Not on anything like the scale of the Manticoran Wormhole Junction, perhaps, but still considerably larger than most, with no less than four secondary termini.

They led to several interesting places (including the Darius System, which actually had been chosen as the site for the MAN's arsenal), and the Alignment had kept the Felix Junction's existence as "black" as they had the entire colony in Darius.

In fact, although the Alignment had known about it for better than two T-centuries, the MSDF had first become aware of it less than ten years ago. Officially, at least; many of the senior MSDF officers who knew about the Alignment had also known about the Felix Junction from the very begi

Fortuitously, from the Alignment's perspective, establishing that ownership was going to be complicated and (even better) time-consuming. Useless as the Felix System had turned out to be, colonization rights to it had been purchased by a Solarian corporation better than five hundred T-years ago. Since then, they had passed through the hands of at least a dozen levels of speculators—always trading downward, once the newest owner discovered how difficult it would have been to attract colonists to the system when there were so many other, more attractive potential destinations. By now, there were actually four separate corporations which claimed ownership, and none of them were likely to relinquish their claims without seeking at least some compensation to write off against their bad debt.

If Ma

So Ma

"To be honest, Sir," Captain Granger's voice was very serious, almost somber, "that's only part of the reason for my own reservations about this operation. We're not pla

What you mean, Addie, is there's no need to kill everything—and everybody—on the planet, Trajan thought, more than a bit grimly. And if I had the guts to openly admit it, that's really what's bothering me about it, too. We don't have to kill all those people just to use a wormhole terminus that happens to be associated with their star. At this point, there's no way in the galaxy they could possibly put together a force of their own that we couldn't blow out of the way without even working up a sweat. Once we do that, who cares who "owns" the planet? For that matter, we could take it away from them any time we wanted to. Or, at least, if they flatly refused to surrender, we'd be legally justified in sending down the troops or even bombarding them until they saw reason.

He knew the arguments in favor of the operation. Even agreed that the concerns behind them were well taken. The fact that the 'Kingdom of Torch' didn't have a navy now didn't mean it couldn't acquire one. Or, for that matter, even borrow one. There was that treaty Cassetti had negotiated with it, for example. And the Republic of Erewhon had shown clearly enough where its sympathies lay. So, yes, it was always possible a genuine military threat could evolve in Verdant Vista.

From that perspective, it could be argued that creating a situation in which no one lived in Verdant Vista anymore was the most economical way to protect the secret. And the advantage Verdant Vista would offer when the Alignment's military operations inevitably intruded into the Haven Quadrant were huge. A direct wormhole co

But would he have killed an entire planetary population to get it? Or, for that matter, to fend off a "threat" to it that would probably never materialize anyway? One he'd have plenty of time to factor into his plans later if it did look like materializing, come to that? Trajan asked himself. That's what sticks in your craw, Addie . . . and in mine. And it's the reason we're both so damned pissed off with Ga