The Line of Duty (Duty, Honor, Planet Book 3) by Rick Partlow

Author:Rick Partlow [Partlow, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-06-08T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty Four

Yuri sipped his drink thoughtfully, listening to General Sergei Antonov mutter incoherently in his sleep. The Protectorate dictator was strapped down to a cheap, plastic cot and heavily sedated; it was the only way to control him when he hit these manic phases. The two of them were alone in the old park building, with all the rest of Yuri’s men scattered, doing the things he should have been doing but couldn’t because of the hunt on for him.

Yuri held the shot glass up to the portable lantern hanging from the ceiling, swirling the centimeter of vodka still left in it as he read the inscription: “Denali National Park, Alaska.” He’d found the glass in what was left of a gift shop, abandoned with the rest of the clutter and garbage nearly two centuries ago in the panic and chaos that had followed the war.

“Ironic, is it not?” Yuri asked, half to the semiconscious Antonov and half to himself. “We two relics of the old world squatting here in the ruins it left behind.” He shook his head. “I wonder, my friend, if you are ever sane enough to wonder why I do this.” He chuckled softly. “I’ve often wondered myself, you know. At first, it seemed simple: confusion and hurt to our old enemies, profits to be made in the chaos as always. But somewhere along the line, General…somewhere along the line, it became something else.” He downed the last of the vodka in the glass, then reached for the bottle and filled it up again. He didn’t immediately take another drink, though; he leaned forward in his chair, staring at the cracked and fading plaster of the wall in front of him.

“But these days…I don’t find myself thinking about the money any more, or even about the power.” His mouth twisted with a look of bitter rage. “All I can think about is our people. We once ruled half the world, General; you once ruled half the world. We led the world into space; we led the way to exploiting its resources to save human civilization. We united a splintered Europe and gave them peace from the ethnic discord. We rescued them from an economic collapse and brought them prosperity.”

“And when we came into conflict with Chairman Xiang’s expansionism, did the West take our side? Did they come to our defense when the Chinese attacked our borders? No, they sat on their asses and made noises about peace.” He spat on the floor. “They talked of peace while our world burned and our people died by the tens of millions. And when it was over, when our nation had died, did they try to help those who’d survived? Did they lift a fucking finger for us? No, they left us to rot. They were generous enough to let those who could make it stay in the lands they’d abandoned, to live in their ruins…these ruins.”

Yuri stood, downing the shot of vodka in a single gulp. “The

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