32 A Dragon's Bite - Part III

14th March

Old Settlement, Artemis, Freehold territory

I had a productive talk with the US President, finishing up a run of mostly positive conversations with many world leaders. It seems that with the exception of APEC, the world and its' biggest players, are mostly on my side, or remaining out of it.

The call ended after all of ten minutes. The President might annoy me, but at least he's efficient. We successfully reached a deal. The United States will recognise Artemis' independence, Tycho will be open to monorail travelling along the Main Line, in return for ten thousand colonists on Mars within the next twenty-five years. The twenty-five year deadline might be difficult to achieve, but hopefully with some technological advancement, it will be attainable.

All of a sudden, I don't feel like thinking about it anymore. I just feel relieved something went well for once. I stand up, and pace around the office, stretching as I go. I'm going to have to give in and make a cup of coffee. Even though I don't want to think about it, I don't have a choice. This is my life, at least for another week or so. I'm going to have to give in and make a cup of coffee. The taste of the artificial stuff is poor, but at least it's something to keep me going.

My cup is half empty when there's a knock on the door, and Yohn walks through.

"Yohn, it's good to see you," I greet him.

I wait for him to reply, but as usual Yohn stays relatively quiet. It isn't at all surprising, really. He's always like this after all.

"I guess if you're here, then Jinshan must have gone well?"

Yohn looks uncharacteristically surprised, "you haven't heard? I thought you would've heard in advance."

I sigh and spread my hands, "I've been stuck in an endless cycle of calls, meetings, press releases, and briefings. Sadly, I haven't been able to keep up with anything else. So tell me, what happened?"

"The colonists refused to surrender, so we had to force our way off the train. It ended pretty quickly once we got onto the platform. It seems there were only a few who were really committed to fighting us, the rest surrendered. Eleven died, including the settlement's leader, and four of our force."

"Whose security forces did the deaths on our side belong to?"

"Two of our own men, and one each from Fort-Lieher and Ingprad."

Good. One less each is far too small a loss to have either of the tigers lose their faith in the independence movement. Even if all four deaths had belonged to one of the transnationals, it probably wouldn't have mattered, but as they say the devil is in the detail. Anyway, it's good our losses were so small.

"Did you station anyone at Jinshan?" I ask.

"Yes. Fifteen of our own, ten from each of the transnationals."

"I see, that's good," I nod, "is there any other resistance?"

"Only Tycho Station."

"No, that's no longer an issue. I've made arrangements with the American President," I smile to myself, "I guess the Battle of Jinshan wasn't much in the end, huh? Not that that's a bad thing."

"Don't talk about it like that, Frank. I knew some of the people who died today," Yohn's usually calm demeanour is gone. He sounds completely different without it. Quite terrifying in fact.

"Sorry you're right. That was rude of me."

I turn and look out the window. He is right, I should have been more respectful, if only to keep up a pretence. It isn't like being respectful will bring the dead back. They can't hear or us, or take revenge on us. It's sad, but I don't have any time for the dead. I'm sure those eleven won't be the only ones who die because of my actions. I have to have the resolve to accept that people will die because of my actions. The thought of that puts an image of a corpse in my head. Its' limbs sprawled out at unnatural angles. That body... it looks like Aria. That image makes me feel sick.

I dry retch for a couple of minutes, but nothing comes out of my stomach. When was the last time I ate? I can't remember. Too long ago probably. Dribble comes out of my mouth as I retch yet again, and it falls slowly into the toilet seat. I think I'm done now, though. Sometimes you feel even worse than you did before you vomit, other times you feel awake, and somewhat refreshed. This time, it is definitely the latter. I can't remember the last time I vomited. It isn't the kind of thing that you want to remember. I know that when I first came to the moon, I got sick from the gravity. It took me weeks to get used to it. I walk back out into my office after washing out my mouth, and cleaning my face.

"Sorry about that, Yohn. Thanks for waiting for me."

"Don't worry about it," Yohn replies, the same as usual. I had been hoping for at least an 'are you okay', but I shouldn't expect that much from Yohn. People aren't really his area of expertise.

"Well, I suppose since you're here, we might as well go see Mr Jianmin. Now that Jianyang is gone, maybe he'll be more talkative."