Strom looked almost apoplectic, but before he could say anything, an aide came running over. “Governor Cooper!”
Cooper turned to face his assistant. “What is it, Jon?”
“It’s the camp, sir.” The young orderly’s voice was tentative and cracking. “There’s trouble at the camp.”
The mob streamed from the camp toward Weston, a seething, boiling throng. They’d had hundreds killed – no, thousands – but they’d done it. They’d broken out. Every guard in the camp had been killed, literally torn apart by the starving, abused prisoners. A few had tried to run, but Jill’s people chased them down. The shattered wreckage of the camp was strewn with the dead.
Jill had been determined to lead the break the week before, but she’d seen the troop columns marching north and decided to wait. If Cooper was going to move the army away, so much the better. As long as his hideous little ass was still in Weston where she could get to him.
Her group had started small, targeting collaborators and informers and executing them in the night. The word spread among the desperate and broken inhabitants of the camp. Without other hope they latched onto the cause, and soon Jill Winton had thousands of followers. They became even more violent and extremist, determined to strike back against the federals and any who helped them.
“To Weston.” Jill screamed again, though she knew only a tiny fraction of the mob could hear her. “Death to the federals.”
“Death to the federals.” A hundred people shouted the reply, pumping their fists in the air as they surged forward, and the cry rippled outward until the shouts were deafening. The streaming mass of humanity was out for blood.
“And death to all collaborators!” Jill’s eyes blazed with fury as she held her rifle aloft. As far as Jill was concerned, all who aided the federals – even those who didn’t resist them – were traitors. Now they would pay. They’d been living in Weston, their comfort the spoils of their treason. Those who resisted, whose friends and families were in the field fighting, they had suffered the horrors of the camp. Beatings, starvation, rape, exposure, torture…they had endured every imaginable abuse. Now they would have their vengeance.
“To Weston!” she cried again, and the madness in her voice only inspired the mob more.
“Go, colonel.” Anton stood dead center in the rocky pass, holding an assault rifle in each arm. His shoulder was slick with blood, but he couldn’t feel the pain anymore. “This is my home. My job to hold here.” He had a dozen volunteers around him, mostly veterans who had settled on Columbia. They would be the last ones to leave Carlisle Island.
Jax looked doubtful, but he just nodded. He didn’t like it, but he respected Anton’s wishes. “OK, people. Let’s go.” He motioned for the rest of his troops – there really weren’t all that many left anyway – to head down the path to the beach. It was about a klick to the evac point. They’d held for a long time, allowing Marek to get the remnants of the army – and a lot of civilians too – to the relative safety of the Rock. Now that job would fall to Anton and his dozen. They had to hold just a little longer.
Jax was motioning for his troops to hurry. The faster they got out, the less time Anton had to hold. The giant Marine was last, and before he ran down the path he turned toward Anton one last time. He was standing in the gap, firing both assault rifles on full auto, spraying the approaches. Jax didn’t kid himself; he knew Anton’s chances, and they weren’t good. “Lucius! The Corps forever!” He ran down the rocky path, following his troops to the beach.
Anton didn’t turn, but he answered Jax’s call, his voice was loud and booming. “The Corps forever!”
The federals had launched another assault, and a full battalion was rushing toward the gap. Anton’s troopers started to go down under the massive fire. First one, then another…until the grizzled old Marine stood alone. He’d been hit, more than once…he wasn’t even sure how many times. He emptied his last clip and picked up a gun from one of his fallen troopers.
No one saw the last stand of Lucius Anton…no one but the attacking federals. Finally, he was hit again, this time in the chest, and at last even his herculean constitution gave out. He sank to his knees, covered in blood but still firing his rifle. He’d fought on dozens of battlefields all over occupied space, but he knew this was his last. He couldn’t feel the shots as he was hit again and again, but at last his riddled body fell backwards, and he lay still on the rocks. His vision was almost gone; there was only a hazy orange light from the setting sun. And the shadowy shapes passing by…federal troops pouring through the gap he had defended for so long. Finally there was only the darkness.
Jax was the last one to leave Carlisle Island. He could feel the sour taste of defeat in his mouth as he stood on the back of the barge, pulling away from the place they were abandoning. The rebels had fought well, but there were just too many federals. There was no miracle on Carlisle Island, no legendary victory by the underdog. In the end it was raw attrition, the relentless mathematics favoring the attacker. It wouldn’t make much of a song or a barroom tale, but it was the cold calculus of war.
They’d loaded as many civilians as they could cram onto the barges. It was foolish tactically; their supplies would just run out that much sooner. But everyone knew Cooper was a monster, and they could only imagine what reprisals awaited the people of Carlisle Island. Tactics are all well and good, Jax thought, but we have to stand for something too…or we’re no better than this lot we’re fighting.
He’d waited to the last, hoping against hope that Anton would come racing down the hillside. But he knew it wasn’t going to happen. Anton had known he would never make it out – he’d known when he insisted on staying and holding the pass. Jax had lost more comrades and friends than he could easily count, but no matter how many were added to the list, it never got easier.
He thought about Anton…on Carson’s World and other battlefields. There were no parades for the fallen hero, no salutes or other fanfare…just Jax’s solitary eulogy. There were a lot of things Darius Jax could have said about Anton, but in the end he just muttered one phrase, one sentiment he thought Lucius would have appreciated more than any other. “He was a Marine’s Marine.”
Jax thought about the rebellion too. They were close to the end; he knew that much. The Rock was a tough position, but if the federals wanted it badly enough they could take it. Not right away, perhaps. They were hurt badly in the fight for Carlisle, and they needed time to lick their wounds and resupply. But they didn’t need to attack at all to win the war; all they had to do was wait…wait until the rebels ran out of food and supplies.
Jax’s thoughts were somber as he watched the Carlisle coast recede. Every Marine’s road ends somewhere. Lucius Anton’s led to that pass…and a desperate battle on a planet he’d adopted as his home. Would mine end here, Jax wondered, on this chunk of rock with Marek and the remnants of his army? “Well,” he muttered softly, “if it is time to die, might as well do it in good company.”
Chapter 28
Compton stared at the stats coming in from the warp gate scanners. The fleet transiting into the system was big…a lot stronger than the rump force he still had under his command. The ships were being identified as they emerged, and it looked like all of them were vessels that had been transferred to the strategic reserve. These ships were supposed to be out of service, not crewed and ready for action. Compton was even more convinced that something strange was going on. Something very strange.
Jantz will join them, he thought, but I wonder if his whole force will go along. It’s one thing for them to repudiate my command authority and quite another to join with a force outside of the naval chain of command to attack navy ships.