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Chapter 1

When Governor General Right and Senator Jessica Kirk assassinated Sector Leader Jago they left Zone 2-A completely without leadership. The Reliance quickly filled the empty positions with officers who were even more incompetent. Officers who didn't know or understand the Zone, and personnel who had no idea how the rebels worked.

Taking immediate advantage of this total lack of competent leadership, RJ led her troops in one successful attack after another. Like dominos Reliance installations inside Zone 2-A fell before them. Within months the Reliance pulled out of zone 2-A altogether.

The Reliance never called it a defeat. Officially they simply decided that Zone 2-A had become an unprofitable venture, a liability. That it would cost more to make the zone functional for the Reliance than it was worth.

They offered the New Alliance a treaty that neither side ever signed. There was never a summit; the two sides never met. Instead there was a silent agreement. The Reliance would stay out of Zone 2-A as long as the New Alliance didn't attack Reliance installations outside the Zone. It was an agreement neither group trusted the other side to keep, so there was at best a guarded truce with both sides just waiting for the other to step even one foot over the border.

To make sure the work units outside the zone understood that the Reliance had actually won, the Reliance imposed harsh economic sanctions against the Zone. When it was obvious that the Zone didn't need them to survive, the Reliance built a huge studio housing a fake Zone 2-A and broadcast daily reports about how badly the free state was faring. According to the Reliance, people in Zone 2-A were starving, and disease was rampant.

The Reliance turned a liability into an asset. The unrest that had started to erupt throughout the work units around the world came to an abrupt halt when they believed they would pay for their freedom with starvation and disease. They put down their weapons and went back to work when they saw the horrible "realities" of freedom.

Of course the Reliance reports were far from the truth. Life had never been any better in the land the New Alliance called New Freedom. There was plenty of food, plenty of clean water, and the people were free to do as they wanted.

In fact that seemed to be their only real problem.

* * *

"I said," RJ repeated through tightly clenched teeth. "I abstain. As in I'm not voting."

"Why not?" Mickey asked. "We are all in agreement. If we do not set up a system of government soon, New Freedom will fall without the help of the Reliance. In the beginning the people ran around like they were crazy engaging in every form of debauchery and pleasure. Just when we were all sure that they would kill each other they got tired of playing, and now they just sit all day waiting to be told what to do. They are so used to being ordered around they don't know how to act. They need some guidance, some rules and a purpose."

"He's right, RJ," Topaz started. "These people don't know what to do with their freedom. The zone is in ruins; institutions must be rebuilt. We need schools and hospitals, and we need people to be trained as doctors, nurses, and teachers. Even you must agree that we need a military of some kind to protect what we have won, or we have no chance of keeping it."

"I know all that, but I don't have to like it. You don't need my vote for it to pass, and I don't want to vote on this." She stood up. "In fact, I don't want to vote on anything. I'm not cut out for any of this rule-making crap! You guys do it, and call me when we have a war to fight."

She walked out. Both Levits and David started to follow her. When they came up even with each other they stopped and glared at one another, each challenging the other's right to go after RJ.

It was a power struggle that Topaz was tired of and not in the mood to deal with.

"We don't have time for any chest pounding gentlemen. We have decisions to make," Topaz said. "RJ has made hers, and we all know that no amount of coaxing is going to get her to change her mind."

Both men nodded and sat down.

The meeting went on for hours. In the end they decided that since general voting was impossible to implement in a largely illiterate, mostly non-technological society, the inner circle would choose six people from each community to govern. Mickey was made President of New Freedom. He would solve problems that couldn't be solved at a community level with the help of the rest of the members of the inner circle and the super computer Marge.

Their first priority was civil defense. All citizens over the age of sixteen would be enlisted and armed. Once a week they would meet in the town squares across the country and drill to make sure that they were always combat ready. The six governors of each community would double as drill sergeants.

Each citizen would be required to give three days a month to community service in an effort to rebuild necessary military installations and power plants destroyed in the war. They would also build hospitals and schools. The first order of business would be to repair the viewing screens in each town. Then the viewing screens could be used to warn people of bad weather and other troubles and teach them necessary skills. Everything from reading to surgical techniques could be taught this way.

"I'll go tell RJ," David said as the meeting ended.

"I'll tell her," Levits hissed. "Why don't you go do what you're best at, turning good things into shit."

Topaz cleared his throat. "I'll tell RJ." For whatever reason they didn't argue with him.

Topaz took a deep breath and let it out. He thought he knew where to find her. He walked out of the ancient prison and out onto the wall that surrounded the old exercise yard. As expected RJ was standing at the very end looking out across the water at the site that had once been a great city.

Topaz often thought of RJ as a ghost that haunted this place. Right now as she stood staring at something he knew was gone, her expression unreadable and her white hair blowing in the slight breeze, she looked the part.

He walked up to her, and without waiting for her to acknowledge his presence he told her all that had been decided in the meeting.

"It sounds feasible," RJ said in a noncommittal tone.

"You want to tell me what's wrong?" Topaz asked, gently putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Everything is futile." She sighed. "I have just realized that in civilization there is no true freedom, only degrees of enslavement. That eventually, try as you might to set it up so that it can't happen, governments take away most, if not all, rights. It is a natural progression over which the masses have very little control because you have taken control away from them for their own good. Anarchy doesn't work, therefore you have to build a government. People run a government. People in power become aware of their power, and if they don't it's a sure bet that the ones who take over from them will.

"People have different likes and dislikes and different things that annoy them. They start out with obvious rules about not killing one another or stealing from each other, but before you know what has happened there will be rules about how fast people can drive, who they can drive with, what they can wear, eat, drink, watch. Who they can have sex with, who can reproduce and who can't . . . It's all just a matter of time. Governments start out doing just what's right, but "right" is subjective, and humanoids are easily swayed. Eventually, the New Alliance will turn into the Reliance, for no other reason than that each new group that comes to power would be annoyed by different things.

"Most type E planets develop many different races through natural selection, and those races develop even more diverse cultures, religions and governments. But sooner or later the more plentiful or more progressive races take over the planet. One by one they kill off the less powerful races until the planet is one race, one government. It happened on Argy, it happened here, and because of the Reliance and the Argy it is currently happening at an accelerated rate on dozens of worlds. They are killing off entire races and cultures, just as we killed off the different races and cultures on our own planet. We can slow them down, but we won't stop them because eventually our own people – the government that we are starting today – will finish the Reliance cause. They will, that is, if the Argy's don't win. In the end not even the entire universe is big enough for more than one race.

"Knowing the inevitability of history repeating itself. Knowing that ultimately nothing I do will change anything in the long scheme of things – how can I go on doing, anything?"

Topaz sighed, mostly because having lived as long as he had, he knew that all she said was true. "Because we have to try, RJ. That's what intelligent beings do. They try to make things better, make them different. They try to change the ultimate outcome."

"But they won't. No one can . . ."

"You can't know that, RJ. Perhaps no corrupt man will ever come to power in the New Alliance, we will utterly defeat the Reliance, and we will change the course of history," Topaz said.

RJ laughed then, though obviously not amused. "You forget what I am, old man. I know you don't believe what you just said any more than I do."

"True enough. But I do believe it's our duty to confound destiny, and if you and I can't do that, RJ, who the hell can?" Topaz challenged with very real determination. "Governments get huge, the people rebel and knock them down and the process starts all over again. We are doing our part by knocking down the Reliance. It's our part in history to be the ones to temporarily knock down the oppressors so that our descendents can become the oppressors. We are important, and what we're doing is important. We have to think about the here and now; we can't think about the distant future."

"How can you and I not think about the distant future? In all likelihood, barring some unbelievable disaster, we will still be around," RJ said looking at him for the first time.

Topaz smiled at her and had no problem at all holding her gaze, although most people quickly looked away. He rested his hands on her shoulders. "Then you and I may be able to make sure that it doesn't all go to hell in a hand basket. So what are you brooding about?"

RJ shrugged as Topaz removed his hands from her shoulders. "I . . . I don't know what's wrong with me, Topaz. I don't feel the way I used to feel about anything. I get confused; I never used to get confused. I find myself asking myself questions with no real answers. Some mornings when I wake up I don't want to get out of bed; I just want to lie there. I want time to stop and for me to be nowhere. I have no ambition to do anything. I've even gotten tired of looking for J-6. There was a time when I was consumed with revenge. When I wanted to see Jessica dead more than I wanted to live. Now, I think she's made a better hell for herself than I could ever make for her, and even if she hasn't I just don't care anymore. I know she's left the planet, and there is a good chance she and Right are on some third class planet right now drinking tea, ecstatically happy. And I just don't care. I want to. I want to be mad as hell. But I'm just not. Does any of that make any sense?"

Topaz took a deep breath and held it a moment before he let it out. It made perfect sense to him, but how did you explain to a genetically superior humanoid who was capable of not only great feats of physical strength but was also an empath with an IQ that was so far off the charts it wasn't measurable, that she had suffered a nervous breakdown? That she was probably never going to feel like her old self again. He took the easy way out. "I think you're just still mourning your loss, RJ. It hasn't been that long since Whitey and the others died. I think you finally realized that killing Jessica Kirk isn't going to bring them back, and like you said, she's made her own hell."

RJ looked back across the water at the bare land on the other side. "I hope you're right, Topaz. I don't know how much longer I can go on feeling nothing. Nothing at all."

* * *

New Freedom had been free for two years, its government was firmly established and was well on its way to running like a well-oiled machine. A machine that didn't need their constant attention and pampering.

The inner circle was quickly becoming unnecessary.

New Freedom had new leaders now, leaders that ran the country in as democratic a fashion as possible. It didn't need generals to run a war. They weren't at war. RJ was completely without direction and at least part of the reason was because there was really nothing that needed her personal attention. RJ was restless, and she was bored.

The others were perfectly happy to wallow in their success and freedom. They relished the notion of living out their lives here in the free zone, but then most of them weren't going to live as long as she was, and therefore didn't become bored as easily.

They also didn't seem to be worried about a simple truth that RJ was all too aware of. As long as the Reliance existed anywhere, in any form, it was only a matter of time till they came to reclaim zone 2-A. The Reliance was the embodiment of greed. They would never be happy with some; they had to have all. It was the reason they were constantly locking horns with the Argys; they didn't want to share.

Of course neither did the Argys.

RJ walked the wall of the ancient prison that now served as Capital for New Freedom. She looked out at where the city had once stood. Crews had bulldozed, burned and buried the debris. Now it was nothing but grass with a memorial to their fallen comrades where the building she had called home once stood. There were plans to start building businesses within the year, but for now there was nothing but plants and ghosts.

It had once been one of the most flamboyant cities in a free empire. It had once been the golden city by the bay, San Francisco. RJ had never seen the city in its heyday; by the time RJ had first seen it, it had already fallen into decay and become known as Alsterase. It had become a hole for Reliance outcasts to hide in. Everyone from the deformed and the discontented to the criminal had found a home in Alsterace – the last freehold in a repressive society.

It was here that they had started to build their army, and here that so many of their people had been killed. She'd almost died there, and her lover had. The scars on the outside of her body had healed, but the scars on the inside were still fresh and raw.

Looking at the place where she had once been happy made her heart ache. Thinking of her loss made her hatred fester. It was a self-inflicted torture that she endured on a regular basis because it pleased her to feed her hate. Feeling the righteous anger burning inside her was sometimes the only way that she knew she was still alive. It seemed to be the only emotion she was capable of sustaining for more than a few moments.

She could hear the roar coming from inside the building. No doubt yet another toast. Inside they celebrated two years of New Freedom. Out here she grieved for all that she had lost and wondered if she would ever feel like celebrating again.

It was hard to feel like cheering when your heart felt empty and cold. When you longed to talk to a friend who wasn't there, or hold a lover who was long dead.

She reached into her pocket and drew out a small resin cube. Embedded in the cube was Jessica Kirk's eye. The one RJ had knocked out with her chain when they had fought. She looked at the cube, and it looked back, and she felt strangely comforted.

It was high time that she tried to get back to her old self, quit mopping around and letting one day follow the next. It was time for her to do something even if it was wrong

* * *

The party roared all around him, and it was pretty clear that it wasn't going to wrap up any time in the near future. The "President" was stoned out of his gourd.

He slapped David on the ass, which was as high as he could reach, and screamed, "Come on, David, join the party!"

David just glared at him. Mickey shrugged as if to say that was as much effort as he was going to waste on David, and then he stumbled back into the middle of the party.

David wasn't in a party mood; of course he could scarcely remember the last time he was. There had been a time when he had been the life of the party, with a new girl every day.

Those times were long gone, and these days even smiling was an effort for him. His guilt wouldn't allow him any happiness, and it didn't help that most of the people who surrounded him didn't think he deserved any, either.

RJ had once told him that remembering everything was more a curse than a blessing. At the time he hadn't understood what she'd meant. Now he remembered things he couldn't forget no matter how hard he tried. How could he forget that it was through no small effort of his own that so many of his friends and comrades had died? He had trusted the wrong person and turned his back on RJ. They had all paid for his acts of ignorance and disloyalty. His sin of self-importance had been redeemed in the blood of the brave and the innocent.

He had lived.

Lived to feel the stares of his former friends boring into him like daggers filled with hate and loathing. Lived to see Alsterase on fire and RJ broken, battered and barely alive. She had healed, but there was something missing. The spark of humanity she had carefully cultivated had withered and died, and RJ had returned to the cold, calculating military bitch she had been when he first ran into her in the forest on the day of their fateful meeting. All business, all drive, with little patience or time for things she considered frivolous.

The only difference, in fact, seemed to be that RJ no longer possessed any sense of self-preservation. She would jump into a situation without being sure she could jump back out again. She just didn't seem to care what happened to her, or anyone else for that matter. She had become self-destructive, and God pity the fool that got caught in the fallout.

How could he forget what he had done when seeing her and what she had become was a constant reminder of the biggest mistake he had ever made? When he knew that she had neither forgotten nor forgiven. RJ now tolerated him; he had no delusions that she now harbored any warm feelings for him whatsoever. Levits was now clearly her right hand man, and while they fought and argued constantly, it was clear that if it could be said that she actually felt real affection for anyone living, it was for Levits. Topaz had become her confidant; the only one she ever really talked to, and they shared something the rest of them couldn't really understand – immortality. Her "brother" Poley took care of whatever other emotional attachments she needed.

There was no room for him in her life, and nowhere else for him to go.

David noticed that RJ was conspicuously, but not surprisingly, absent from the festivities. He knew where to find her. He tried to sneak out without being noticed. Unfortunately the drunken "President" noticed him moving towards the door.

"Where you going, David?" he asked in a slurred voice as David walked past him.

David looked down at him. "I'm not really in a party mood, Mickey. I thought I'd go find RJ," David explained.

Mickey looked around. Apparently he hadn't noticed that RJ was missing till David pointed it out.

"Maybe it's better to leave sleeping dogs lie, David," Mickey said in a moment of sobriety.

"Maybe," David shrugged and kept going.

* * *

Mickey watched David go with a frown.

"Where's David off to?" Topaz asked. Mickey jumped a little. "Sorry, Mr. President," Topaz said, a hint of laughter in his voice.
"It's all right; I was just thinking," Mickey said. "David went to find RJ. He said he wasn't in a party mood. I guess she wasn't, either," Mickey said sadly.

"They'll find their way back, Mickey," Topaz said in a comforting tone.

"How, Topaz? When? It's been years. RJ takes no joy in anything, and David can't forgive himself until RJ's happy. I used to believe that time healed all wounds, but I'm beginning to think that not even RJ has that much time," Mickey said.

Topaz thought he was awfully insightful for a drunken midget. "Enough already! No need for us all to be maudlin. It's a party, back to the celebration." Topaz shoved Mickey in the direction of the party and then went off in search of a woman who was easy. He didn't have to look very hard.

* * *

David walked out on the wall and joined RJ in looking at the mainland. If she had been pacing it wouldn't have been so bad. Pacing meant she was thinking. The fact that she was just standing and staring meant she was wallowing in her grief, and his guilt was immediately intensified.

He had been standing there quite awhile when she said without looking at him, "I've made up my mind about something."

David held his breath. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear. Finally he asked, "About what?"

"I can't stay here anymore. It's time I make my next move."

"You have searched the entire planet looking for Jessica . . ." David started.

"I've given up on that . . . At least for the moment. I have another plan in mind," RJ said thoughtfully, almost as if she was talking to herself more than him.

"What would that be?" David asked hardly daring to breathe.

"Well, first I have to get up there," she said pointing upwards.

"The moon?" David asked following the direction her finger indicated.

"Yes," RJ said nodding her head. "It's really not all that hard. All I have to do is break into a Reliance shipping base and hijack their trans-mat station for a couple of minutes." She had that look in her eyes that she got just before she went into battle. She was almost happy, and this made David smile. "It's all so easy I don't know why I didn't think of it before."

David was sure that there was nothing easy about it whatever it might be. He was just as sure that she could do it. But she wasn't going to do it alone. She wasn't the only one who was tired of sitting around and doing nothing.

 

 

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