Note: Well, this is the chapter when the Spartan conflict is resolved. Sorry about what happens. It was going to happen later on, but I felt Deirdre was overdue for a nervous breakdown, and I am feeling cruel today. Well, tell me what you think.



Santiago sat on her throne.

The thought struck through the chaotic whirlpool of panic and anger that had seized her mind. How could she have been so blind? Abdim wasn't incompetent he was a Spartan traitor! The obvious weeks Santiago had spent in her palace made her growl within her. All Gaian emblems had been taken from the walls, and now the Spartan insignia had been nailed to the floor.

"Greetings, my lady Deirdre. Nice of you to finally join me. Abdim and I have waited for weeks for you to pay your regards. Now, shall we do this the hard way, or the easy way? I quite like the hard way. You escaped my pleasure before; you shall not do so again. When I have finished you, I will not destroy your faction. No, Deirdre. I shall corrupt it. I know how that will make you writhe in torment, to see you beloved pacifists screaming for blood with as much lust as my council. That would be a great day. Punishment spheres constructed within Gaia's Landing, thermal boreholes outside in the xenofungus plains, and the foolish strand of white oak used for a trophy in Sparta Command. I could go on for hours about your faction, Deirdre, and how I will ruin it!"

Deirdre whitened. The people behind her could not shoot the Spartan leader down, for just as surely as her troops kept guns locked on Santiago, so too did the Spartans have guns locked on Deirdre.

"Why do you hate us so, Santiago?"

Santiago laughed. "What is this, no pleasant little quip from the Gaian? No last minute heroics from the Council?"

Deirdre bowed her head. "I am defeated, Santiago. What more is there for me to say? My ideals, everything is gone. Tomorrow, it will all be ashes."

Santiago laughed louder, now shaking with joviality. "What," she said when Deirdre glared at her. "Did you expect me to feel sorry for you? Yes, you are defeated. And it is through your mistakes that have allowed me my final victory."

A wave of sorrow met her. Deirdre knew the Spartan was right. She had precipitated defeat. She had been stubborn enough to carry the fight to the Spartans. By Planet, a negotiated peace would have been possible, and war would never have mutated her faction almost beyond recognition. Santiago claimed to want to corrupt her faction, but Deirdre knew there was nothing that beast could do to it, that Deirdre had not already done. By her own hands, her faction was dust.

"Santiago. At least grant me this last request, please. For all the honour you claim to have. Why my faction? What have we done to you, what were we ever going to do?" Santiago stood, her eyes blazing. "You do not know, whore? You stand there, supreme in your intelligence, snubbing me with your airs, and you profess to have no idea whatsoever?"

Deirdre opened her mouth, but Santiago roared. "It was back on Earth, you bitch! On Earth. You and your kind, you weak-willed politicians, you bumbling pacifists. You lacked the discipline to save my mother! My family! My friends! Killed out of violence, bred by mistakes made by your kind, by the high-handed, idealistic methods that the government used."

Deirdre felt a sudden surge of pity. Santiago was mad. It had been cunningly disguised of course, behind discipline and a sure method to everything she did, but with those words, Deirdre knew there would never be any reasoning with the woman. She was mad. Pure madness had allowed her to grow this bitter.

"Santiago, I assure you. Nothing democrats or greens did could ever have killed your parents. This I sw-"

Santiago screamed. "No! You do not swear! Where you there? Where you there! Did you see her as she was raped, as she died, as her throat was cut! Did you see my father, peaceful as ever, restrained by the law not to defend himself! No! No! No! You did not, you could never have experienced what I have! It was your laws, your rules! Democracy! Democracy and pacifism have done this!"

Deirdre choked back a sob. Santiago had watched, only a young girl, and had been forced to watch as her mother was raped and murdered? Deirdre blinked back a tear. All the hatred she had ever felt towards this woman had gone. The fates had been cruel to her, to turn what was a clever woman into a snarling, almost rabid wreck. By Planet, Deirdre could have turned out like that. Dim memories, of her parents' divorce, of the uncaring, almost callous nature of her father in Scotland. How he had pushed her into being academic, how he had forced her into a university she hated, how he had sent her mother away sobbing when Deirdre, then aged twenty-one had invited her to her birthday gathering.

The degree in xenobiology had been an attempt to get back at her father, an attempt to state that she was independent. Because of the isolation she had suffered, she could sympathise with Santiago, who now stood, tears streaming down a face that had seemed so distant, a face that inspired hatred and disgust.

"Planet keeps you, Santiago. I am sorry for you."

What could have been a grateful look sparked dimly, but then it was buried behind vehemence and a raging tempest. Quick enough to be disturbing, the face of Santiago lost all emotion, becoming cold and hard once again, devoid of emotion, or even the barest flickering of life.

"I shall enjoy watching you beg for mercy, Deirdre. I shall have fun with your city and its people, and then I shall keep this base as a reminder. War City, I think I shall rename it, so that you may know that for all eternity, all of Planet will remember the defeat of pacifism as it should always have been. War is reality, Deirdre. War is life."

Deirdre shook her head. Somehow she found the voice to speak. "No, Santiago. War is death. Peace is life. The people that live for war are doomed to die. Peace is hope, and hope.hope is what makes us human. Without hope, peace, love.whatever you call them, there is nothing. What are we, machines? You feel emotion, just as I. I have seen it. Gods, without emotion, you would not be seeking vengeance."

Santiago shook her head. "Your prattle goes nowhere. In fact, your argument loses strength as you go along. What has vengeance to do with peace, Gaian?" She waved her hand. "No, do not speak. I grow bored. In fact, spending a long time over your torture does not hold the relish it once did. You'd probably talk to me as I administered to you my arts. It is time for you to die, Deirdre."



Gaia's Landing. The Spartan forces had arrived from outside, and now the city lay under the iron fist of Santiago. All throughout the city, the Gaians still refused to surrender. They remembered the price of New Glasgow, and they refused to let the Spartans win.

Santiago had seized control of the walls, and now endless numbers of her troops were entering the city. Millions and millions of them. Deirdre wept. She had believed Santiago weakened, but now she watched as the full might of Sparta claimed her oldest city, without much of a struggle.

She stood now, surrounded by Spartans, on the podium in the centre of the city, normally resolved for meetings of the Senate. The people of Gaia's Landing had been forced at gunpoint to the Oval, where they were expected to watch their leader burn. Santiago had decreed that Deirdre's death would mark the end of her faction, and so oil had been strewn all over the white strand of oak, that ancient tree from old Scotland, a memory of earth, of their mistakes. It had meant to horrify Deirdre, but in reality, she was grateful. If the tree was burned, Deirdre would prefer to burn with it, than to live. It had been said that the Tree was the soul of Gaia, that if it burned, or fell, so too would the Gaian Faction.

"People of Gaia's Landing. Today, you are a defeated people. Behold, I hold your city, your leader, and your tree!"

The voice she spoke in belied the scorn in which she held the gathered people, and as she spoke, her upper lip curled in disgust. Rough Spartan soldiers grabbed Deirdre by the arms, dragging her towards the tree, where she was crudely tied with leather straps studded with pins that dug into her wrists. Seized by a strange feeling, Deirdre laughed, she was tied to a tree by her wrists. By Planet, she would be dying almost like Miriam's God. Long forgotten memories returned to her, of sitting in a church, a Methodist Church, singing a hymn which made her eyes water with pity. Were you there, the song rang, when they crucified the Lord?

Every man, woman and child of Gaia's Landing would be able to say yes, if they were asked that question of today. Were you there, when Deirdre died? Were you there when her blood ran onto the whiteness of the tree? Were you there when everything she had hoped to achieve fragmented and shattered into tiny shards of what it had once been? Were you there to witness the defeat of peace, the ending of life, the failing of Planet?

Yes.

Were you there when the Gaians were forced to spit at their leader, to laugh, and mock their Tree? Were you there when grove after grove was set alight? Were you there when the copper towers of the city fell?

Yes.

Were you there when the guns finally fell quiet, the only sound the hopeless, broken sobbing of a once proud ruler? Were you there when Diehl was beheaded, and his head flung into the river Theins, along with the heads of every Gaian bearing arms? Were you there when the river ran red?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Deirdre closed her eyes. It had finished. The scent of smoke was in the air. Gaia was burning. Planet and its loud, clumsy voice screamed in her ears, pounding through her head. A young child, bawling for its mother, craving comfort.

earthdeirdre. you suffer. great city burns, great pain we feel.

Deirdre could not answer. Oil now leaked into her river, and in turn leaked into the sea, hideous black blood, blood that bespoke an ending, and ending of sorts. At least, it was an ending of conservation, a doom that had been placed on Planet.

Burning.

Trees, groves, bridges, towers. Metal and wood and stone. People screaming with fear, tears drying almost before they leave their eyes. The entire city was burning now, everything burning.

Deirdre fell to her knees, and shrieked as the pins dug deeper. Her blood ran hot and sticky over her hands, and she thrashed as she suffered. Santiago was laughing crazily, stabbing Deirdre into the shoulders and in the knees. Blood ran everywhere, and the Gaian leader felt her strength ebbing away, ebbing like the tides of Planet.

Her senses became dimmer, and she felt a distant calling. Memories flooded back. Memories of cold waves crashing upon the rocky shores of Scotland, of the humid yet beautiful tropical rainforest. Of the beauty of Earth that was lost forever to her.

Yet more memories struck her, and now Planet entered her memories, a beautiful place, an alien landscape, of pink xenofungus, almost green seas, and two suns. Two gleaming orange jewels in a turquoise sky. Such majesty, such unparalleled glory, and it was going to be cruelly discarded, cast aside by the uncaring attitude of Sparta.

Screams and gunshots.

Gunshots? Where were they coming from?

"The Council comes, the Council comes, and we are saved!"

Ah, a memory. New Glasgow was a ruin now. Gaia's Landing dying. Gaia was gone. Planet was doomed. Deirdre closed her eyes, and allowed the peaceful, comforting blackness rushed in. One thought rang through her head. Death was peace.



Note: Well.now I have depressed myself. I shouldn't have done it, should I? Gaia's Landing.now I am going to cry. After all the effort in creating it, and making nice descriptions of it, it is finally gone. Join with me, and cry, for Gaia's Landing had been lost. Well, yeah, I'm sad, but it is the most beautiful city in the world, and I think even Santiago feels sorry for the city. Well, maybe not. Anyway, let me know what you think. Thanks for your support, Feye. And for yours, Johnny. (if I have gotten the name wrong, sorry) No, its not over yet. Lots more stuff left to go. Deirdre finally grows up in the next chapter.