Nothing was going to end well.
Lanthanide is dead. The rebels are fled. The loyalists await their death in the room. They tried their hardest to save the Alliance even on its lowest levels, but already a crisis is underway.
They will not be alive to see it conclude.
Then the last minute ticks by. A series of fireballs engulf the Allfield government building's top floor, killing all remaining members of the board, their bodies blasted to shreds. The floor caves in, and the building's top leans and falls down through the lower floors, as the entire main building falls apart. Smoke rises from burning ruins as a small spacecraft heads outside of range of the planet. Allfield will survive without the board for a while. It will have to. Hundreds will die in the ensuing chaos, more than died in the collapse of the building, at any rate.
Security forces move in to clean up the mess. Allfield becomes an embarrassing blip in an otherwise generally good record of Alliance controlling of rebel situations. In time, the events will be largely forgotten, at best confined to a few biographies about the time the escapees spent there, assuming they evade the inevitable assassination attempts, by poison, by bullet, and by other such things.
Some weeks later, in a long-unused boardroom in a space-station office, built in space more for the prestige than actual use, some Political Officer Captains, including Lanthanide's replacement, gather.
Colonel Valdragon opens the meeting.
Four of you are against me. One spying on me, sent, no doubt, by my commander. Three who will be moving to aid that spy however possible. I intend to find out which ones those are, and remove you. Bloodily. Know only that I cannot afford to merely replace all of you, and that is the only reason I haven't had you all shot yet. So, what are you going to do about it? I'll tell you what I'll be doing about it. I'm cutting you all off from the Alliance until I can find the traitors. I will be screening your work for coded messages, and when I'm done, I'll know exactly who among you are betraying me.
Lanthanide is dead. The rebels are fled. The loyalists await their death in the room. They tried their hardest to save the Alliance even on its lowest levels, but already a crisis is underway.
They will not be alive to see it conclude.
Then the last minute ticks by. A series of fireballs engulf the Allfield government building's top floor, killing all remaining members of the board, their bodies blasted to shreds. The floor caves in, and the building's top leans and falls down through the lower floors, as the entire main building falls apart. Smoke rises from burning ruins as a small spacecraft heads outside of range of the planet. Allfield will survive without the board for a while. It will have to. Hundreds will die in the ensuing chaos, more than died in the collapse of the building, at any rate.
Security forces move in to clean up the mess. Allfield becomes an embarrassing blip in an otherwise generally good record of Alliance controlling of rebel situations. In time, the events will be largely forgotten, at best confined to a few biographies about the time the escapees spent there, assuming they evade the inevitable assassination attempts, by poison, by bullet, and by other such things.
Some weeks later, in a long-unused boardroom in a space-station office, built in space more for the prestige than actual use, some Political Officer Captains, including Lanthanide's replacement, gather.
Colonel Valdragon opens the meeting.
Four of you are against me. One spying on me, sent, no doubt, by my commander. Three who will be moving to aid that spy however possible. I intend to find out which ones those are, and remove you. Bloodily. Know only that I cannot afford to merely replace all of you, and that is the only reason I haven't had you all shot yet. So, what are you going to do about it? I'll tell you what I'll be doing about it. I'm cutting you all off from the Alliance until I can find the traitors. I will be screening your work for coded messages, and when I'm done, I'll know exactly who among you are betraying me.
End of Party To Treason One.