They arrived at the brigade communications post, sandbaggged under a camouflage net awning. Radios were chattering, operators calling reports from consoles and battlefield displays, figures rushing excitedly among the tents and trailers. On one of the screens, Cade saw a flotilla of daughter vessels descending from one of the mother ships toward the basin that they had just been overlooking. Another screen showed the head and shoulders of a Hyadean in a military-style tunic. Gerofsky, breathless, was with two staff officers. He turned toward Cade and Marie as they approached.
“Word from the front is that all Union forces are standing down! Washington has called a truce!” he told them. The look in his eyes was still disbelieving. “The government on Chryse has collapsed. Their military here have disengaged. It’s over!”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
A QUERL LANDING CRAFT, looking something like the personal flyers but larger and sleeker, brought a deputation of officers from the command ship down to brigade headquarters after preliminary landings had ascertained its location. Since Querl were not accustomed to dealing with Terrans and had little experience of English, Nyarl acted as interpreter. It turned out that the news clips sent by the brigade’s communications unit to Los Angeles the previous evening had made it through Cairns and been received by the Querl relays. Querl intelligence located the military unit that the two Hyadeans shown in the recordings—Nyarl and Hudro—said they were attached to, and the Querl leaders directed the initial landing to the area where it was operating.
There was something more dynamic about the Querl compared to what Cade had come to accept as typical of Hyadeans. Their manner was more expressive; they walked with more bounce; their uniforms had more style. These were the bad guys? It dawned on him how much he and probably just about all Terrans had been influenced by the Chrysean propaganda image—practically as much as any unquestioning, xenophobic Chrysean. The commanding general of the Federation forces in the central area was being rushed by helicopter from divisional headquarters some miles to the rear. In the meantime, Nyarl summarized events to Cade and the others, along with a mix of weary, red-eyed staff officers, many still struggling to grasp that a last-minute reprieve had been granted them. Behind them, the Querl war craft hung like geometrically fashioned islands in the sky, while life began showing itself again across the hills and the plain below as news spread that the war was over.
“After the AANS attacks on Chrysean craft in orbit, the Chryseans began launching punitive strikes against China and elsewhere. It was a panic, overreaction, and ill-judged in the light of the other things that had been going on back at Chryse.” Nyarl paused to check something in Hyadean with a couple of the Querl officers. “We don’t have all the details yet, since these people have been here in your Solar System for the last week, but unrest has been sweeping over Chryse since the Querl started broadcasting what has been taking place on Earth.” He looked across to Cade and the rest of the group to address them specifically. His voice caught. “She did it! It worked the way Luodine planned—the way we carried on. It bypassed the controls that had always operated in the past. The Chrysean population learned the truth.” Nyarl indicated the Querl deputation. “Until just now, even these people didn’t know where the reports were originating from. But they caused an upheaval on Chryse that was unprecedented. The whole Chrysean system has fallen. The people are calling for the Querl to take over. Their ships are moving in there now, even while I’m speaking. A standoff between Querl and Chrysean military forces has been going on around Earth, the Moon, and as far out as the orbit of Mars, for several days now. But without political legitimization from Chryse, the Chrysean military here has ceased operations.” Nyarl finished with a helpless gesture that said he was having trouble enough absorbing so much in so little time, too. “And the same seems to be happening here. Deprived of its Chrysean backing, the Globalist Coalition is in disarray everywhere. Washington is on stand-down, waiting for terms from Sacramento. Europe is in chaos. Nobody has any idea where it might all lead.”