The Chinese colonies, the fences of Dark, endured. Though pressed to their last utmost need, many times beyond despair, the Chinese could not be broken. Help arrived as all courage failed, and the Enemy was driven back.
The assassination of Stone did not, if that had been its purpose, intensify the Constitutional crisis under which the Commonwealth labored. Its citizens, for the most part, knew Plant to be an intelligent and experienced politician. And if anything, after the disillusioning of recent events, and slow reawakening of the national conscience (though still riddled with blind-spots), most felt that their dilemma now rested in more competent hands.
But more than that, some intangible quality of the people themselves, indefinable, led the Americans at such times of crisis to rally around their leaders, united and prepared to act. Ironically, bitterly (to those who still remembered the evils of World War II), this was a German trait as well.
The entire military and intelligence-gathering forces of the nation were now mobilized to head off Hayes' disastrous charge, which had left such horrors in its wake. For now a full account of the Dracus incident had been received, and those with any conscience at all, realized that they had been party to a catastrophe that could never be set right, and whose wounds would fully never heal. And while the Americans were no more eager than any other nation to admit such atrocities—-the slave trade, and the genocide of the Native Americans spring to mind—-truth IS a naked sword, and its hard won freedom of the press made it impossible to deny. But the rogue (war criminal, psychopath) had not been caught, and the Pandora's Box of chaos and violence which he (along with others) had opened, was far from contained.
II
Somehow Hayes had kept the fantasy together. Though there were stirrings of discontent among his men, and an ever diminishing number were free of a doubt that bordered on bewilderment, no word of their true position had yet reached them. And though the destructive force of the Third Fleet had not grown, neither had it sufficiently diminished. And the wounded predator is by far the most dangerous. Hayes was desperate.
After six months of running, engaging only in minor skirmishes which could hardly be colored as 'the forward lance of democracy', of getting his information only from Hayes, Admiral Frank was tormented by uncertainty. Why was Congress still squabbling? When would reinforcements arrive? It was clear that the Soviets were astir, and what was worse, by the look of it were coming directly after them.
But more troublesome than all of this, to a loyal soldier who did not scare easily, was the thought that perhaps Hayes was not telling the whole truth—-that they were being used for some scheme of his which did not entirely align with the wishes of the President.
Why did Hayes continue to deny even the most basic military communications? They had had literally no sight or sound of their fellow soldiers in five full months. Granted they fought their battles along the frontiers, where lines of communication were stretched thin, and often erased altogether by the time factor. But to be so totally isolated, to feel cut off from one's own compatriots…..
That it took Frank so long to entertain even these simple doubts, showed just how deep his military training had gone. As intended, he was no longer an individual, no longer a thinking, questioning being, but merely an instrument, a cog in a runaway machine. But despite all efforts to the contrary, even a cog has a mind.