Marrch 21st, 2421
Mother's landing now. Father and I can only watch from orbit with the other civillians. We hugged mother really tight just before she went to her landing station, and now Father's pacing the corridor and I'm writing in my journal and hoping writing about it will help with the fear and worry.
Her transport's almost down now. Vulcan 2 is the last forward Meklar military base, and they've got fifty-five batallions waiting to face us. We have overwhelming numbers, but I don't even want to look at the figures for expected casualties.
She could die tonight in a firefight. She could die in a vengeance ambush when we've all but pacified the world. I'm not the only one with a parent down there or a child or a sister or brother, and lots of us will lose people they love. Every time I see an explosion in our ranks or a laser beam cutting through us, I'll be wishing and hoping with all my heart that Mother is in another part of the fighting. Maybe it's selfish to hope that someone else will have to mourn instead of me, but it's not that I want someone else to die; I just don't want to lose Mother! Please....
June 3rd, 2421
We won. We won, and mother's safe, and now we're down here with her, sheltering in the ruins of a Meklar spacecraft hangar from Vulcan's burning white-hot rays, watching a sandstorm in the distance while we wait for the cool of night. The soldiers haven't even finished cleaning up from all the fighting, but we couldn't wait to finally hold Mother in our arms again. It was such a good, good feeling to squeeze her and feel her strong arms safe around me! For a few minutes, talking to her, holding on tight, tight, tight, I didn't even think about the corpses being buried in the sands nearby - buried with great military honors that can't begin to make up to the families of the fallen for the loss of loved ones' lives.
On the way across the landing pad after our reunion, I walked right past the the remains of a battle Mek. Its robotic arm was still twitching as if trying to grab and kill us though its joints were damaged beyond repair and its built-in laser weapon shattered. I picked up a piece of its mechanical leg that had fallen beside it, and smashed the arm just to be sure. It sparked and fell motionless. There was a little bit of smoke. Mother said this was where the last fighting happened, and maybe she said something more, but smashing the arm made a part of the cracked and damaged torso fall away, and I saw the little brown creature bolted inside the machine, its tentacles all askew, caked with its own dried blood, its hours-dead eyes staring. It looked like something that might have been soft and cuddly when it was alive, if not for all the surgical attachments to its armored suit. I dropped the piece of its metallic leg, and reached down and closed its eyes for it. I felt better after that, and sadder. I don't know exactly why.
Septemberr 5th, 2421
Colonel Jasarria had a big demonstration today, showing off the technology we've managed to reverse-engineer.
We captured enough intact pieces of the planetary shield generator here to finally figure out how to duplicate it. Copies are going to go up all over Mrrshan space pretty soon, especially on potential fronts - like here. The sublight drives we reverse-engineered from the blasted, half-built hull that would have been an Ajax cruiser aren't of much use compared with our fusion engines, but you never can tell what's going to help or how. There was a celebration afterward, but I thought of it as a kind of going-away party. It won't be long before the next set of transports launches, and we head up toward Mu Delphi. A lot of people are staying to rebuild this world as a Mrrshan colony, and there are more civillian transports on their way over, but almost a hundred batallions are due to hit Mu Delphi from other stars, and Mother's job is to help them take the planet, whether we like it or not.
I can't tell mother this, but I want to just stop the fighting. I want to settle down someplace - maybe someplace without such a burning, white-hot sun - and be together as a family without worrying about the next invasion, no matter where or by whom. I know the Meklar won't let us; I know they refuse to make peace with us and the only alternative to fighting them at their worlds is to fight them at our own ... but there must be some way, somehow.
May 21st, 2422
Word through the hyperspace channel is that the diplomats are facing more setbacks.
They've all but given up on even talking to the Meklar, but Meson is no more willing to see reason. They tried to convince him he shouldn't vote for Hissa when the High Council election comes around, but he tried to get concessions instead of taking it as advice, and his demand was for fusion drives, which we can never afford to give him. Any morning, he might announce that his pet sea snail told him to declare war on our people, and at that point if his ships are moving around at warp 4, there's no telling how much havoc they could wreak. Our best defense is our early-warning network of scanners and spies, together with the mobility of our defensive fleets. The faster an enemy starfleet moves, the more that defense would be negated.
Januarry 19th, 2423
Our fast-moving fighter and bomber fleets are in orbit above Mu Delphi 2, and we're going to outnumber the enemy batallions by more than two to one. The older, slower Mrrnicat 2s were left behind at Vulcan, where I hear they defeated an incoming Ajax cruiser earlier this month. It won't be long now before the assault transports head in. I hope Mother somehow makes it through again okay....
Aprril 28th, 2423
It's enough. At last, it's enough.
The Meklar have no more advanced technology for us to claim and reverse-engineer, and we can't send our transports any further; we don't know where to safely send them without scouting reports on Zhardan or Meklon itself. We've conquered all but one of their military outposts, leaving only the longest-standing of them all way up at Zhardan and the population of their home world of Meklon IV. Surely they'll be looking for peace - peace and the chance to vote in two years to establish a galaxy-wide, multiracial RBO, as a much, much better alternative than supporting their still-hated enemy, Hissa. If they fight us for much longer, their entire empire is going to be a single, independent colony anyway.
Mother's survived by two near-miracles now, but a third or a fourth would be too much to ask. Surely, surely, TVC-15 will be ready to talk peace now!
Oh, who am I kidding?
Januarry 24th, 2425
We're trying everything we can to deny Hissa a quorum. All our worlds are fully populated - even here at Mu Delphi 2 - and we're even building another new colony in the far corner of the galaxy, just in case it pushes us over the top somehow on one extra vote. And even though we know it's too late, even though TVC-15 would have responded by now if it were going to respond at all, we're taking our best shot at gunboat diplomacy.
We've scouted its final extra-Meklon military base, and it knows if it fails to make peace, more assault transports will be departing before the year is out to take the base by storm. We've had two good years here on Mu Delphi, with the whole family together and no new battles hanging over us like deaths-heads in our future. I was imagining a memorial rising out of the desert here to the people - Mrrshan and Meklar alike - who fought and died on the sands of this world.
I guess I should have known it was too much to hope for.
Marrch 1st, 2425
We've done it. With a total population of almost one and a half billion, the united Mrrshan colonies had 14 votes between them at the Council, more than enough to prevent a quorum even without Grunk's two-vote abstention. What's more, if only TVC-15 had seen reason and made peace, we could have united everyone in the galaxy!
Not only did our Darlok friends vote for a galactic RBO-37, Meson apparently saw something in a roadside cola advertisement that convinced him Hissa was a snake in the grass. So Meson broke their alliance on his own and then voted RBO at the election! If things keep on at this rate, there might be real hope for the future ... at least, if everyone makes it to 2450....
Octoberr 5th, 2425
Just in case the Meklar decide to attack Morfane again - we don't want to endanger our friends if we finally manage to get peace with TVC-15 - we're teaching the Darloks about the advanced deflector shields we discovered here at Mu Delphi. There's another reason though: Their scientists are teaching us something really important in exchange.
Mother will be issued a personal deflector shield of her own by the end of the year, along with all our other soldiers. It might save her life - it might save a lot of lives. I hope it does, or doesn't have to. We're being dispatched to Zhardan, to the last Meklar military base outside of their home system.
Aprril 16th, 2426
I ... I think something's changing in the galaxy. Ever since the election last year, I've had this sense of hope ... and then those personal deflectors to protect our troops, and then the news earlier this year about the Nemesis going down over Berel - yes, it was the biggest fighter fleet we'd ever assembled, and yes more than half were the latest Clipper 4.0s, but that doesn't change the fact that the Nemesis was burned before it could reach the surface - where we lost a single pilot instead of millions of Mrrshan civillians. And now, word just came to the battallion commanders on our most secure top-secret hyperwave channel - and she shared it with the troops to boost morale.
The point isn't one less base at Meklon, though I think the commander's idea was we'd be impressed our spies could penetrate their homeworld's computer nets at all. It definitely isn't the scouting report of their world, with a hundred and twenty million civillians on the ground. There are two points here: One is the other combat transports on their way to Zhardan. They're coming from much closer than we were, and they're already on their way. It's selfish but I'm still so happy I could cry: We're not the main assault this time! We're going in to reinforce the defenses of what should be entirely our own colony by the time we arrive!
The second point, the second piece of good news, is the quote we got from the agent on the ground - the quote, and the sense of joy and daring we could hear in her voice. She said not to rush the extraction. She said, "I'm going to try something." And then she winked and disappeared into the night.
Septemberr 4th, 2427
It's easier to cheer a victory when you don't have to see the carnage. It's especially easy when it means the carnage won't include your family. I don't care. We've been on the ground for enough battles already. I'm cheering for all I'm worth today!
The Meklar had been developing a mark V battle computer at Zhardan, and finally had a breakthrough just as our forces hit. The soldiers from Uxmai and Whynil and Bootis captured the computer lab intact and now hold the entire Zhardan military base, already starting to terraform it in preparation for our arrival. If GNN is to be believed, the other galactic powers are even getting ready to join us as independent colonies, guided and advised by a representative body much like our RBO-37. They've seen that, when we're united, truly free and independent colonies can dominate the galaxy.
If only they saw that two years ago when they could actually vote on the thing!
December 1st, 2427 We had a real celebration today! Most of us couldn't believe it! We saw the whole discussion with TVC-15. I was terrified we would have to land on Meklon and fight their hordes of war-meks there, and figure out some way to deal with their civillian population. I didn't even want to know what would happen when we arrived. TVC-15 was intractable as always, scary-crazy and threatening ... and then suddenly when it rose to give its final answer, its voice circuits seemed to glitch out, and then it was speaking again, and it still was crazy TVC-15, but suddenly silly instead of scary. It said nonsense words and non-sequiters the way it sometimes does, but not in a threatening way for once, and it even made me laugh once or twice. And then we made our offer and it said the most important thing.
We're trading now - just 55 BC per year, but it is trade at least, and we're able to trade because we are at peace! Finally, finally, after fifty-five years of grinding war, the Mrrshan and Meklar peoples are at peace! It even inaugurated the new peace with a silly speech that was half nonsense words and made everybody laugh, even if it was more just from happiness than because of anything TVC-15 said - some of it was really just utter silliness like, "Home now, byebye, see you soon. Ra-ra jay-rin yay!" - and then it sputtered a little with another sound glitch or something and blinked its mechanical eye at the peace deal and trade agreement it had just signed, and scratched its head and shrugged its mechanical shoulders and wandered off as if it were feeling dizzy. I have a feeling all the Meklar diplomats and merchants are relieved about it too. I have a feeling everyone was just waiting for TVC-15 to get its electronic brain on straight.
I asked Mother's commanding officer what she thinks about that though, and she said something I didn't quite get: "For someone to straighten out that thing's electronics anyway!"
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NEXT: No Rest for the War Weary
