Shadow Fall (The Shadow Saga) by J. L. Lyon Page B

you unfortunately made more complicated with your discovery. Orion completed your investigation and convinced the emperor to pull the trigger, but he left without Specter. Needless to say, the others are not happy to see a weapon like that left in Napoleon Alexander’s hands.”
    “Who will take the position of Chief of Command?”
    “I have heard rumor that Sullivan intends to give the Imperial Guard to Elizabeth Aurora.”
    They stopped again in front of the altar of St. Peter, where a great stained-glass dove had once adorned the back of the old church. Now that place was boarded up, as the dove had become yet another casualty of war. Drake turned back to Councilor Holt and saw that his face was white, “Yes, my initial reaction was the same. To entrust this war to someone so young and inexperienced just because of the weapon she carries…it curdles my blood.”
    “It’s not her youth that worries me,” Holt said. “Alexander himself was not much older when the World System was born. Then there are others: Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar, Ahmed al-Zarif. Despite their youth, all made to conquer the civilized worlds of their times. Zarif was little more than nineteen when he rose up to lead the Persians to war.”
    “And how did that end?” Drake asked dryly. “With him exiled and the world in ruins. Forgive me if I don’t see that as a shining example.”
    “The Persian generals bear the blame for that,” Holt’s expression darkened. “Wars are won by the strength and ambition of youth, but kingdoms persist in the wisdom of those who lead. In their lust for power they sealed their own doom, so forgive me if I don’t see that as our shining example.”
    “Your concern is noted, Christopher,” Drake snapped. “None of us can say what the future will bring with certainty, though I would caution you not to speak openly about this democratic sentiment you have recently procured. You are a great leader, and the ICC would be sorry to lose you.”
    Holt gave Drake a level look. The threat was plain. “And I would caution you and the emperor both, Gordon, not to hold on too tightly to power lest we all go the way of the Persians.”
    Drake smiled and dropped his thinly veiled frustration for a lighter tone, “Let’s win the war first, Councilor. Then we can decide how our new world will be governed.”
    Holt nodded in acquiescence, but Drake saw something stir behind the man’s eyes…something that promised this conversation was not done by a long shot. Drake shook his head and frowned. He would have to keep an eye on that man. As the recent separation proved, the greatest threat to a government always came from within.
    And as the most respected member of the former Ruling Council, Holt could make a formidable threat indeed.

9
    L INES UPON LINES OF pylons stretched out across the field in front of 301, each home to thousands of vials of the translucent liquid that had sparked civilization’s last Golden Age. Before dawn of that day the liquid had been worthless, a complex chemical compound of no practical use that some might mistakenly throw away. Better that they cast aside a black rock and miss the diamond within.
    After five hours in direct sunlight, three ounces of that liquid were worth more than ten barrels of oil at the height of the petroleum age. It had been the lifeblood of the Old World in its final years and was now the same for the World System—perhaps the only thing the two civilizations shared.
    Solithium. The discovery that saved a nation and destroyed the world. It may have led the struggling Old World into a Golden Age, but it also led to the reconstitution of the Persian Empire. Persia, who unleashed her armies upon the world and laid it to waste; who completed her conquest only to be annihilated in the very hour of her victory; who left the void into which Napoleon Alexander and the World System were born.
    Riches and destruction. Power and collapse. Salvation and annihilation.