The Far Stars War by David Drake & Bill Fawcett

Author:David Drake & Bill Fawcett [Fawcett, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Event Horizon EBooks
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

WAR HAS many effects. It can make cowards out of otherwise reasonable men, and heroes out of the least likely candidates. During a war, science seems to surge ahead, and business booms. More than for anyone else, the Far Stars War was a personal quest for revenge for Chu Lee Macdonald. Born and raised on Castleman’s, Mac, as he was almost universally referred to, commanded the remnants of the fleet that tried to defend her. It is an indication of the man that he ordered his ships to remain in combat, outnumbered ten to one, until there was no hope of evacuating survivors. It is a further indication of his leadership, and the temper of those manning the ships, that his orders were obeyed at such a high cost.

Physically, Mac was not exceptional. He stood slightly taller than average and had a slight frame that masked his height. Mac had inherited from his mother hair of a particularly rich, glossy black. His features were regular, and those who knew him before Castleman’s said a smile once came easily to them. The admiral’s eyes were such a deep blue as to be almost black. Even on trivid recordings there is a riveting quality to those eyes, and a pool of sorrow that was never to drain away.

In the dark weeks after Castleman’s fell, Mac was an officer. He reorganized the surviving ships and used them to intimidate other worlds into contributing to his force. He drove the men, though no harder than he drove himself. The last survivors of their world, the men carried ghosts with them, and it was best that they fell exhausted into their hammocks. .

Mac had once had a family, though after the fall their picture disappeared from his desk. Even after the victories at Gemini and Klaremont, Mac would drive himself until he collapsed from exhaustion. War demands an exceptional leader; amazingly often one appears. In the past there had been Churchill, then Wainford and Ben Aleef, and Fleisher, who saved Earth at the beginning of man’s expansion. The Far Stars War created Mac, and in many ways Mac made the war his own—needed its all-encompassing cause to fill the emptiness inside himself.

Mankind needed a diplomat, and a trivid hero, to rally behind. Mac supplied this requirement with careful calculation. After his first victories, the need to unify humanity became as great an obsession as destroying the Gerin. Once he had wooed and coerced the League of Free Planets into joining forces with him, there was never any question who would really be in control: the homeless admiral became more ruthless in his insistence that every human world join his crusade. Sometimes his tactics were questioned; more often, they were ignored by men more concerned with surviving the next Gerin assault. Even when he destroyed thousands of colonists on Goldsack, the destruction was forgotten in the fury of the Battle of Ten Moons and the euphoria of that hard-fought victory.

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