“Because that was the plan,” I said. “Your ship, and yours alone. You have safe passage from Roanoke to skip distance, back to your own territory, but you must leave now. This guarantee of safe passage expires in an hour unless you are on your way. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what your equivalent measure of time is. Suffice to say you should hurry, General.”
Gau turned and bellowed at one of his soldiers, and then bellowed again when it became clear they weren’t paying attention. One came over; he covered his translator and spoke something to him in their own language. The soldier sprinted back to the others, yelling as he went.
He turned back to me. “This will make things difficult,” he said.
“With all due respect, General,” I said. “I think that was the intent.”
“No,” Gau said. “You don’t understand. I told you there are those in the Conclave who want to eradicate humanity. To annihilate all of you as you’ve just annihilated my fleet. It will be harder now to hold them back. They are part of the Conclave. But they still have their own ships and their own governments. I don’t know what will happen now. I don’t know if I can control them after this. I don’t know if they will listen to me anymore.”
A squad of soldiers approached the general to retrieve him, two of them training their weapons on me. The general barked something; the weapons came down. Gau took a step toward me. I fought the urge to take a step back and held my ground.
“Look to your colony, Administrator Perry,” Gau said. “It is no longer hidden. From this moment forward, it will be infamous. People will want revenge for what has happened here. All of the Colonial Union will be a target. But this is where it happened.”
“Will you take your revenge, General?” I asked.
“No,” Gau said. “No Conclave ships or troops under my command will return here. This is my word to you. To you, Administrator Perry. You tried to warn me. I owe you this courtesy. But I can only control my own ships and my own troops.” He motioned to his squad. “Right now, these are the troops I control. And I have only one ship under my command. I hope you understand what I am saying to you.”
“I do,” I said.
“Then fare you well, Administrator Perry,” Gau said. “Look to your colony. Keep it safe. I hope for your sake that it will not be as difficult as I expect it will be.” Gau turned and paced double-time to his shuttle to make his departure. I watched him go.
“The plan is simple,” General Rybicki had told me. “We destroy his fleet, all of it, except for his ship. He returns to the Conclave and struggles to keep control of it all as it flies apart. That’s why we keep him alive, you know. Even after this, some will still be loyal to him. The civil war the Conclave members will have with themselves in the aftermath will destroy the Conclave. The civil war will weaken the capabilities of its races of the Conclave far more effectively than if General Gau died and the Conclave disbanded. In a year, the Conclave will smash itself to bits, and the Colonial Union will be in a position to pick up most of the big pieces.”
I watched Gau’s shuttle launch, streaking up into the night.
I hoped General Rybicki was right.
I didn’t think he would be.
ELEVEN
Data from the defense satellite the Colonial Union parked above Roanoke would tell us that the missile cluster that attacked the colony popped into existence on the gasping edge of the planet’s atmosphere and deployed its payload of five rockets almost instantly, blasting the weapons from a cold start into the ever-thickening atmosphere.
The heat shields on two of the rockets failed during the weapons’ entry, collapsing against the white-hot bow wave of the atmosphere. They exploded violently, but not nearly as violently as they would have if their payloads had been armed. Failures at their task, they burned away harmlessly in the upper atmosphere.
The defense satellite tracked the three other rockets and beamed an attack warning to the colony. The message took over every one of the newly reactivated PDAs in the colony and broadcast the warning that an attack was imminent. Colonists dropped their dinner plates, grabbed their children and headed toward the community shelters in the village or family shelters out on the farms. Out among the Mennonite farms, recently installed sirens wailed on the edges of properties.