John Ringo - There Will Be Dragons

“To those of you who find yourselves in current peril or facing famine, find a local community that is prepared to survive in these conditions. Do not despair, for despair will kill you as surely as famine, cold or injury. Prepare wisely, then move to safety. In time we will start to reclaim this world and all that was once ours. But we will never be able to if we turn over the reins of power to fascist madmen.

“Paul’s vision is ancient, as ancient as the slavery of the Hebrews and deaths by the hundreds of millions at the hands of a group called ‘communists.’ He says that it is for the good of all mankind, but then counters that, of course, a small group will continue to enjoy the conditions that everyone else has had stripped from them. Words such as this resound throughout history and in every case they have meant enslavement and death.

“Our faction of the Council could submit to Paul. The power would come back on, some of the normal amenities of life would prevail. For a time. Until he and his council of dictators discovered the next ‘path of righteousness,’ the next ‘true form’ of humanity.

“And all of us would be his powerless slaves.

“I choose not to be a slave. I choose not to enslave my sister’s children and the children of my friends. I choose to fight.

“On the shores of this land, once upon a time, was a great nation called ‘America.’ It is from the seeds of this nation that our present culture derives. The beliefs of the nation were simple: ‘We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’

“Through their vision, and their beliefs, the people of America, often alone, fought the tides of history and despotism and finally created our society, one in which all of those rights, and more, were protected.

“Paul Bowman, Celine Reinshafen, Minjie Jiaqi, Ragspurr and Chansa Mulengela stand in opposition to those beliefs.”

“I wish that it were possible to take an accurate poll of the feelings of all of you. But I cannot. I can only hope that you stand with me, and the rest of the Council, as this black night descends upon us.

“But I believe, together, that we can win through this night, and create once again that society that we hold so dear. The way will be long, but we will stride it together, one nation, one people, conceived in the concept of liberty and true to those philosophies that we hold so dear.

“Thank you, good night, and good luck.”

“Sheida?” Daneh said as the image winked out. “SHEIDA??? Oh, great. Not a word for your sister?”

“I guess she was just a little focused on her problems,” Rachel said, then snorted. “Not like anyone I know in the family.”

Daneh shrugged agreement at the same time as she gave her daughter a quelling look. “Well, if she’s in that much trouble, it means that the world is screwed .”

“It can’t be that bad, Mom,” Rachel said with a shrug. “Could it? I mean, it’s the forty-first century . Things like this just don’t happen !”

“Well, it’s happening,” Daneh said with a frown. “Right here and right now.” She sighed and shook her head unhappily. “Why now ? Why us ?”

“Well… why doesn’t one side or the other just give up ?” Rachel asked. “Mom, people are going to die . Some already have, ” she added, gesturing at the pile of blue dust.

“More than Marguerite, and more thoroughly,” the woman said, shaking her head. “I know delving geologists who work in the magma. They’re gone .” She shook her head. “Gone. Just like that. No warning at all…”

“Mom?” Rachel said after a few moments. “Mom. Why doesn’t one side just quit? Say ‘Okay, have it your way, it’s not worth fighting over?’ I mean, it’s not worth people dying, is it?”

“Some things are,” Daneh said after a moment. “It’s hard to explain that without understanding history. Sheida does understand history. But bad as fighting is, will be, the deaths that are bound to occur, as bad as that is, some things can be worse. I’d tell you to go look up things like the Cultural Revolution, the Holocaust and the Khmer Rouge, but there’s no way to look it up.”

“The Holocaust and the Khmer I remember from history reading,” Rachel said. “But people are going to start dying soon. I mean, the war is going to do the same thing that the Khmer did, in its way. We don’t have any farmers, Mom. Without farmers, we don’t have any food . And you don’t just pick it up . It’s a skill .”

“Good girl, now you’re thinking,” Daneh replied. “But there are some farmers.” She looked at her daughter significantly.

“That’s the point, Mom,” Rachel sighed. “There were farmers in Cambodia . But the Khmer and that guy… Pol something… he sent people from the cities out to farm. They didn’t know how and they were told how to do it wrong and millions died. Mom, I don’t know what day to start plowing, do you?”

“Oh.” Daneh thought about that for a moment and nodded. “No, I don’t, but Myron does, and so do his sons.”

“If you think I’m going to marry Tom or Charlie and settle down as a farm girl you’re out of your mind, Mom,” Rachel chuckled. “I’m going to be a…” Her eyes widened as she realized how much had been lost. “I was going to be a doctor, Mom. What in the hell can you do under these circumstances? There’s no nannites !”

“Uhmm…” Daneh said, her eyes widening. “Oh… damn. You’re right. Not only that, no… medicines. Those were chemicals that were used prior to nano-insertion techniques. No medicines, no tools.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know how you… I think the term is ‘suture’ a person, that is sew them up.”

“Sew?”

“It’s how they used to close wounds,” Daneh explained. “But if this is going to go on for some time, we need to get ready to leave. There’s not much food in the house. We… we need to get to Raven’s Mill.”

“How, there’s no porting!” Rachel said then shook her head. “You’re not thinking of walking are you? We don’t even have horses .”

“Yeah, I wish now we hadn’t gotten rid of Buck,” Daneh said. “Well, we might as well get used to it. We need to go find some of the Faire stuff. There’s… sacks and things. I think I’ve got some traveling food around…”

“Mom, it would take weeks to walk to the Mill!” Rachel practically shouted.

“Would you rather stay here and starve?” Daneh asked, grabbing her by the arm and shaking her. “Do you think that Sheida is going to just give up? How about Bowman? If they don’t, Nothing Will Work. No food. No water unless we dip it out of the river! We have to get to the Mill and we have to get there before our food runs out! And you’d better hope that the weather holds.”

Overhead, in the clear sky, thunder started to rumble.

“This is too complex,” Sheida said, shaking her head as she arose from Dream. “An elf couldn’t keep up!”

“We need to break it down in such a way as it is legs complex,” Ungphakorn said, spreading his wings. “We have control of generators but we are throwing groups into them willy-nilly. We need to form teams…”

“We need to be able to concentrate on one particular area,” Aikawa said. “We are starting to break out into regions again by taking the generators and controlling the power locally. We should start thinking about that.”