Robinson Silenced

[DeJaVu]

Officials Fear Worst as Blakist Forces Attack March Capital
[2 February 3071; FSNN] The following excerpt of a personal letter from a soldier in the Robinson Rangers to his family on Exeter has been reprinted with the permission of the soldier’s family and the AFFS.
They came in two waves.
First were the aerospace forces. Robinson didn’t have a WarShip, not since the Civil War, and with the Duke offworld wherever the Princess-Regent is hiding the defenses are as low as they ever get. New Avalon gets all the news, or New Syrtis. Never mind that we’ve been fighting all those years, too. Never mind that we left thousands behind in the Combine when we pulled out, because it wasn’t “politically feasible” to go back in and get them. The dйtente is over, you know. It’s war on the Snake border. But I was talking about Robinson, wasn’t I?
The Word fighters came it on the orbital stations first, downing the Sharon habitat first. 11,000 souls aboard. No mercy, no surrender. Just boom. Their transponders were for civilian traffic—cleared civilian traffic. Then the other stations dropped off the nets, and the Marshal put us on alert.
Then came the ’Mechs. I don’t know if it was one of those Shadow divisions or not—the ’Mechs were white and sometime gray and sometimes weird-ass colors I couldn’t even see right. It might have been the ECM, I don’t know. My Hellspawn didn’t really run right during the whole action. I’m amazed the ejection seat worked. Hellspawn was right—damn thing nearly took me with it.
I don’t know if I’ll make it out of this camp—they say they’re not staying, but then every invader whose ever come always says that at first. It’s a lot easier to give up thinking they’ll be gone and you’ll be out of the camp in a month than it is when they say they’re staying forever.