Read The Fall: Crimson Worlds IX for Free Online

come at its own cost.  Still, it had been weeks since he’d managed to sleep all night, and he wondered how any man could do this job for as long as Stark had.
    For years Warren had dreamed about being Number One, a goal that had seemed unattainable from his mid-level position in the massive spy agency.  Now that circumstance had made his wild ambition a reality, he longed only to flee from the crushing responsibility, to go back to his small office and his old manageable portfolio of work.  He’d once ached for the power he imagined Stark wielded, but now, with war raging across the globe and revolution and disorder at home, he saw nothing but endless obligation.  No matter what he managed to accomplish, another ten problems were waiting for his attention.
    Things were going downhill.  Fast.  He’d been Number One for ten months now, but he was still trying to rebuild an Alliance Intelligence ravaged by the nuclear destruction of its headquarters.  The personnel losses had been severe, and key agents were missing, even those who shouldn’t have been in Washbalt when HQ was destroyed.  There was something wrong, something he couldn’t explain fully.  He was sure of that.  But he couldn’t figure out what it was.
    The devastated and massively shrunken Alliance Intelligence had only a fraction of its earlier resources, and more problems than ever to address.  There was war raging across the globe, and the Alliance had suffered some key defeats, making its position ever more precarious.  Warren wouldn’t characterize the war to date as a disaster, but he couldn’t say things were going well either.
    The navy had gained control of the seas, largely as a result of Admiral Young’s extraordinary leadership, but the naval victories had been costly, and losses had been high.  The remaining fleets were strong enough to control the oceans themselves, but too weak to project force close to land, where the enemy’s ground batteries and missiles could come into play. 
    The Cog pacification program had begun to achieve some sporadic successes.  The initial implementation had been nothing short of a disaster, the Cog enlisted men disobeying their officers and refusing to execute their kill orders.  Warren had overestimated the discipline of the armed forces, assuming the Cog soldiers would do as they were told, out of sheer self-preservation if nothing else.  They’d all known the price of disobedience, but many of them had mutinied anyway, and the initial attacks against the rioting Cogs had been a stunning failure.
    Warren’s people had since reestablished control over the kill units, transferring in more crew from the middle classes and the lowest ranks of the political class.  His people had taken charge of the captured mutineers from the military authorities, executing them with extreme brutality in front of their fellow soldiers.  He knew there was a limit to what such harsh measures could accomplish, that if he pushed too hard, he would only feed rebellion.  But time wasn’t on his side, and if he couldn’t scare the soldiers into submission, all would be lost.  He’d actually had contingency plans to nuke several cities where the Cog rebellions were the most severe, but President Oliver had put those on hold.
    Oliver had a reputation for strength and intelligence, one Warren now realized was entirely undeserved.  The Alliance’s longtime president was a bully with some instinctive political skill, but nothing more.  He had maintained power for so many years through momentum and threats, and he’d been lucky not to encounter a capable adversary in that time.  The current crisis had entirely overwhelmed him, and he’d lost his nerve more than once when risky actions were called for.  Warren had thought about making a move to unseat Oliver, but he hadn’t pulled the trigger.  He had no doubt it was the move Gavin Stark would have made, but the last thing Alliance Intelligence’s new chief