Consolidation
Even as the Spartans withdrew to loot and train, Snow Hart directed her followers to do the same. Having the vibe of the great festival harshed by the introduction of violence into their little Arcadia, the Anarchists might have then fallen into discord and disarray. Her more zealous lovers of liberty agitated for the chance to take the fight against the party-poopers. The deluge of new members- many of whom were awoken and brought in against her will, and their own,- frayed the society's cohesion.. But Hart had foreseen this, and thus introduced a new phase to the party: the chillout session.
After the obligatory speeches forbidding further unplanned thawing of passengers, and from expanding beyond the rear sections of the Unity, Hart bade her inner circle of the most trusted to bring out the last cases of primo hallucinogens. The finest of fungal teas were brewed and magical pastries were baked, and the people split into smaller coteries into laboratories, offices, storage closets, sensor rooms, observation lounges, and the corners of the athletic courts. At the direction of the inner circle guides, the coteries consumed their psychedelic morsels as synth-sitar funk to keytar punk rock piped through the rooms. Meanwhile, a second group of Hart's most trusted comrades, their sobriety broken only by revolutionary zeal, kept strict watch throughout the halls. Santiago's wolves out, Hart's flock in.
What followed was not yet another wild bacchanal but a more subdued experience. Each portion had been carefully measured twice by the finest pharmacologists that Earth had saved- and Hart had been able to recruit, so it was a tiny handful, but they would do. Under the direction of the veteran activists well-versed at sophisticated psychological techniques that gave Godwinson's own chaplains a run for their money, the guides spoke to each member under their care, asking them who they were, what they desired, what ailed them, what did they fear. They passed through countless vistas of their own psyche, into dreams and out of nightmares. Traumas of the late Earth from the personal to the biospheric were explored and conquered. Hoary divisive loyalties and petty agendas were discarded for the greater cause of freedom. Unknown possibilities of a new Planet came into tantalizing grasp. And under this conditioning, the coteries embraced the Society of Free Thought.
Hart deigned to partake. She stood at the hastily-improvised barricades with her militia, directing them on how to build the most effective fortifications for hallway brawls and stacking the empty storage cases and furniture herself. She collated reconnaissance on Spartan movements, studied the whereabouts of awoken runaways who had rejected her cause, and listened intently to rumors of scavengers clad not in ship-regulation uniforms but refugee rags. She waited for the inevitable Spartan counterattack- but instead found early opposition from another force.
Capital
The Anarchists' wild antics unwittingly awoke two forces that could not be more dissimilar to all that they stood for. Control, regulation, and conformity- all could describe the Dai Seung Heavy Industry conglomerate and the Roman Catholic Church.
The United Corean corporation had always had a reputation for employee training that blended discipline with initiative. The first to be roused was a construction foreman who immediately realized the tattered-looking mob standing over his cryo-tube wasn't welcoming him to Chiron, was not asking him to build a habitation complex, and was clearly intoxicated. While on the way to the athletic center, he and his fellow builders had made a break for it. And so several of Dai Seung's contractors adroitly evaded the Anarchists through the dimly-lit passages of the ship, their corporate-regulated morning calisthenics still fresh in their nerves. Hiding in mechanical subsections of the deck in lockers and storage lockers full of machine parts, they waited out the captors before finding the ranking executive: Dai Seung Special Vice President Young Kwan-Yong of Field Operations.
Rousing quickly and efficiently from cryo-slumber, Young immediately tried to establish contact with the rest of the Corean mission. Attempts to hail Chungsu leader Han Jae-Moon failed, and the Dai Seung contractors realized that the mission leadership was still in hibernation, or had been compromised. Wielding executive authority, Young awoke the rest of the nearby contractors, reasserting the corporate structure that had existed back on Earth. Though part of the Unity mission, Dai Seung, like many of the other support corporations, operated freely under its own regulations, and the people under its umbrella drew comfort from membership in an organization that knew itself.
For the next order of business, the Dai Seung managers scouted out and identified several key defensible sites. The company's construction workers went to work fortifying them with heavy crates. Meanwhile, the company's resource extraction specialists adapted their mining expertise towards scavenging equipment, survival rations, and medical supplies. Corporate security searched for whatever weaponry they could find, making do with wrenches and crowbars, sonic hammers and fire extinguishers.
Adhering to their ironclad corporate procedures with calm confidence, all executed their tasks with efficiency, drawing cautious interest from the other colonists at this group that seemed to know what they were doing. Some asked if they could join in. An impromptu memo was circulated and Young approved, declaring any passenger of the Unity who decided to work with Dai Seung would be deemed emergency contractors, eligible for protection and compensation if they swore loyalty to Dai Seung and agreed to operate under chaebol regulations. The special vice president then made plans to deal with the mutinous rabble.
Catholicity
Meanwhile, Roman Catholic Cardinal Julius Cerutti was awoken and swept up by an Anarchist coterie. Disheveled and bewildered, the Archbishop of Congo was taken captive alongside other random colonists, his captors completely oblivious to his identity. The prelate, originally tasked by his Holiness himself to bring Rome's reach to the stars, trudged through dark corridors to be brought into the Society of Free Thought's stronghold and indoctrinated into Snow Hart's worldview. Bound ironically in restraints as they were shipped to their freedom, the drowsy colonists found themselves surrounded by Anarchists dancing and babbling and writhing in ecstasy. They bade them to reject the strict dictates of the mission, tear down the false gods of earthly authority, and join them in their new society. Appeals to every passion were made. Wrathful former custodians roared against the command leadership's dictates, raising brooms and mops to the sky like pitchforks. Cadets and ensigns sang promises of untold glories once the revolution took control. One of the Russian Republic's last prestigious Bolshoi Theatre ballerinas and a flamenco world champion sensuously swirled and twirled around the captives, cooing about a future of primal expression.
The Holy Father himself had ordered the cardinal to Centauri to watch over the flock. Despite all of the tumult in the world and the widespread rise of rationalism and scientism, the Catholic Church had weathered the storm and retained its unique historical position and prestige. And so despite the misgivings of many in the mission selection board, a papal-appointed party went aboard the Unity, of several priests, nuns, an assortment of knights and chevaleresses from the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, and the cardinal himself, to provide guidance and to serve the faithful of mankind's first space colony. And Cardinal Cerutti would suffer no fools.
Still clad in the bare off-white jumpsuit of an unranked colonist, the color of eggshell, champagne, and cream, Cerutti stepped forward from the procession of prisoner-pilgrims and addressed the reveling Anarchists. In a clear, steady voice he spoke of the pledges they had promised and the oaths that they had all swore to safeguard the last remnant of man amongst the stars. Of the safeguarding of all terrestrial life was their mission, agreed upon both by the secular princelings but also by the holy catholic church herself. In turning away from their sacred duty to pursue petty grievances against authorities that they did not even know existed anymore they were indulging not only sin, but sheer stupidity.
The Anarchists paused in their celebration and glowered at this meddlesome priest. But no sooner did they approach him in anger did the rest of the throng of captives, colonists from Latin America and Southern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and Tagalog Oceania, gather around the cardinal in a protective barrier. Fighting broke out. Though unarmed and groggy from post-cryo, the colonists prevailed, beating back the Anarchists. Cerutti rallied them, and they withdrew to the aft medical center, where the cardinal set up a base around the Unity's small chapel.
While not all of the colonists were believers, the cleric brought his charisma, administrative experience, and the fear of God upon the ragtag bunch. In the days that followed, Cardinal Cerutti's awakened flock raided other Anarchist marches, rescuing other would-be prisoners in ambushes in the hibernating Unity's hallways. Though unarmed, they made do with improvised weapons- crutches as cudgels, scalpels as swords- and drove the luciferians off with morally righteous defiance. Those who were rescued were brought back to the chapel where a nascent counter-society had already begun to be organized along the Church's hierarchy. Acolytes became workers and sentries. Nuns served as healers. Priests gave psych care and guidance to those still disoriented from the experience of travel. And the knights of the Order prepared for just war.
Reaction
Even before the Anarchists had completed their chillouts, both the corpos and the churched would make their move. True to the extractive mission of their company, Dai Seung individual contributors staged daring raids on the outlying areas under the Society of Free Thought's control, stealing supplies and forcing intoxicated Anarchists to hand over their loot at the point of shock prods and fire axes. Several roomfuls of Hart's followers were dragged off to corporate safe zones to be deprogrammed by junior executives using psych techniques from the internal HR handbook.
Meanwhile, Cerutti's renegade Roman remnant had realized that the Anarchist forced awakenings had ceased. They too took the fight directly to the Society's holdings during their moment of chemical stupor, breaking into their lounges and literally throwing cold water distilled from the Unity's fluidics system and consecrated by priests onto the drugged Anarchists. In their wake the smashed up impromptu pagan altars, circles of candles, and the drug paraphernalia used by some of the avant-garde Anarchists. Several of these attacks were spearheaded by newly-awakened and recovered members of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, veterans of the Crusader Wars and other holy conflicts of Earth.
Despite their shared mission, the two incipient factions did not automatically seek alliance. Their first encounters were as full of misunderstandings and confusion as their respective awakenings under the Anarchists. Cerutti's clergy saw Young's salarymen as a band of jackals, taking advantage of the lawlessness to loot and to establish their own corporate fiefdom. In turn, the Dai Seung execs viewed the Cardinal's flock as impeding the efficiency of their mother corporation's leadership, irrationally following archaic, irrational leadership. Disputes over the ownership of supplies and custody of Anarchist prisoners began to spark.
The first recorded clash between representatives of the future Unicorp and the Holy See began in the wee hours one morning, around 0430. A Dai Seung tiger team had captured a coterie of Anarchists still drooling from their psychedelic high. An apostolate of lay believers led by a young Flemish priest in black uniform and Roman collar indignantly bartered with nothing more than a pallet of protein bars and spare ventilators. The corpos demanded the turning over of all the supplies for only half of the captives- while hooligans, the company had ways of converting into useful economic producers. The Catholics protested, insisting that the lost souls deserved proper guidance of the spiritual variety, not wageless-slavery as Dai Seung "involuntary contractors." Negotiations broke down, bludgeons were raised, and painful nonlethal rounds were exchanged amidst the smoke of a thrown gas grenade. The prisoners stirred from their drug states and wriggled away, taking many of the supplies back to the Society. By the end of Planetfall, such incidents would repeat dozens of times, often incorporating other groups that were yet to have awakened.
The Battle of Four Corners
Snow Hart remained impassive towards the multiplying reports of war in the aft sections. But she did do something. Cooly informing her most belligerent followers that the reactionaries of church and corporation were intent on destroying their freedoms, she steeled them for battle. Anarchist coteries were told to travel in alert formations, with at least several members armed with weapons-ready tools. Even the use of narcotics was discouraged when traveling too far from the barricades. But for the time, that was all, confident in that heightening the contradictions in their hidebound institutions would only lead the theocrats and the corpos to ruin. All of the while, conflict continued.
The skirmishes continued. The Society of Free Thought and the two hierarchies it had unwittingly unleashed each set their traps and made their raids. All the while, the marauders of Santiago, not content with merely making a mockery of the loyalists among the Unity security team or the few peacekeepers that had been awoken, dispatched another expedition towards the stern of the vast ship. This unauthorized scouting mission was led by veterans of the initial first contact with the Anarchists. They were armed with shredder pistols, psych-whips, and even assault rifles they were able to unlock from hacked storage compartments. Calling their rogue unit "Wolverine" in defiance of both their leader's orders to stay away from area, and the strange lunatics that had driven back their first mission, they sought to make the freaks pay. Instead, they chanced upon the biggest brawl yet.
Cargo Hold Alpha-Epsilon-3 was an immense repository of U.N.-stamped protein ingots, vacuum-sealed canned field rations, algal flour, and other vital foodstuffs. Young Kwan-Yong's Dai Seung supply chain analysts had discovered it while trawling the ship's datalinks for inventories, and a field acquisition specialist team had been dispatched, weaponized mining and construction tools at the ready. They entered the hold from aport. Among the followers of Julius Cerutti, an animal husbandry expert, formerly a shepherd from the mountains of Sardinia, supposedly had a vision of a place of great bounty near amidships. While this was later revealed to be an embellishment, a self-appointed inquisitor having previously divined their corporate rivals' plans by interrogating captives, it was good enough for the cardinal to send an apostolate of eager crusaders, backed up by several trained knights of the Order toting scalpels tied to the end of broomsticks and medical jet injectors filled with anesthesia. They came from abaft. Finally, a coterie of Snow Hart's own, smarting from past attacks and raring for a good round against the self-serious squares, had tracked the movements leaving both groups and followed them to the hold, clutching their own joker toy set of improvised arms from broken bottles to water balloons filled with caustic chemicals. They planned to enter the hold from aloft, via the maintenance vents above Alpha-Epsilon-3, to literally get the drop on the counterrevolutionaries.
The Wolverines entered from the ship's fore, drawn to it from the sounds of screaming and commotion inside. They breached the entrance and tactically entered only to witness the chaos of lay Catholic zealots in potato sackcloth smashing empty oxygen tanks at corporate-jumpsuited construction workers wielding wrenches and power drills, while the same madmen they had encountered earlier leapt at both from holes in the ceiling, swinging cricket bats and golf clubs. Frozen in awe by the most ridiculous battle they had ever seen, the commander of the rogue Spartans barked at his grunts to attack, only for the elite-posturing survivalists to confusedly ask at whom. Santiago or one of her more experienced commanders like Voki would have known that when your enemies are beset upon one another, they are the greatest weapon you can wield against them. Sometimes a wolf can snatch the food of a bear without a fight, if the bear is fighting a moose. But instead, the Wolverine leader pointed at one random direction into the thick of the conflict, and told his soldiers to fire.
This had the effect of scattering the three gangs and uniting their focus on these new lethal interlopers. As she dove into cover, the leader of the Catholic host, an Order chevaleresse, recited a battle prayer and exhorted her brothers and sisters to stand in faith against these new devils. Assuring them that Cardinal Cerutti had already prepared a plan for them, she ordered them to activate Strategy David and each holy warrior knelt to take out slings fashioned from rubber medical tubing. Loading ration cans into the sling's cradles, they stood and pelted the shooters at a distance when they reloaded. While their rate of fire was far slower, they had a near-endless supply of ammunition in the cargo hold, unlike the Spartans.
Likewise, the foreman of the Dai Seung workforce gathered his reports from behind a storage container. The field reconnaissance manager confirmed the locations of the new assailants, and the security equipment specialist produced an initial report concluding they were likely armed with nothing more than small arms. Synthesizing the information quickly, the foreman determined that as per Field Operations procedures signed off by VP Young, swift melee force could potentially overwhelm ranged attackers. He ordered his team to deploy ISO 990313 - a standard flank-and-attack from the rear. All had passed Dai Seung field fitness expectations and deftly followed the foreman as they wove behind piles of cargo crates as cover, emerging from behind the Spartan force to strike at them with crowbars and wrenches. A few were shot but some of the shredder rounds were deflected or blocked by the wall panel covers they wielded as shields.
Caught between the Catholics and the corporation, the surivalists were in an unenviable position. The visibility grew low as clouds of algae-synthesized flour and engineered golden rice filled the air from exploded bags of grain. Then the Anarchists descended upon them, having climbed piles of containers and cargo cranes to arrive at higher ground. They leapt down at the surrounded warriors and drove them to the floor, and to add insult to injury they threw pastry pies at them, baked earlier by Snow Hart's own cooks. Whipped cream blinded the Spartans. Low on ammo and beset from all sides, unit Wolverine beat a tactical retreat with tails between their legs, and a few of their members downed.
A Spartan Switch
The cargo hold was wrecked, much of the provisions ruined in the street fighting. The three sides sheepishly realized that the battle had been far more self-destructive than productive. And there was the matter of what to do with the captured Spartans, and the firearms they had left behind. An armistice was called to determine what to do next. A truce of exhaustion followed this needless food fight.
The defeated Spartans limped back to their operational headquarters, expecting to have to beg their leader for clemency and medical treatment. Instead, Santiago smoothly welcomed back the order-breakers. She had expected their return, and even more, knew of their fates. A watchvid had been sent to her quicklink by an anonymous source- internal footage from the cargo hold's cameras had been spliced together, documenting the entire battle and how Wolverine was vanquished. As to these would-be revengers, their commander was flogged once more for dereliction of duty and losing to amateur rabble a second time.
The soldiers who had followed him? They were stitched up to the barest minimum and marched back towards the Unity stern once again, without rest. (Following these events, Wolverine would later be redeployed to serve in some of the most dangerous Spartan operations during Planetfall, fighting on decks that were alternatively lit by electrical fire or exposed to vacuum. The unit would finally be wiped out at the hands of a peacekeeper squad led by the newly-awakened Force Commander Bolivar, its survivors integrated into Wolf, finally having gained elite status at great cost.)
Santiago had been intrigued by the footage of the battle. The original ragtag misfits was far more capable- and dangerous- than their imbalanced drug-addled nature had made it seem. And here were at least two more groups that had formed from survivors. War had come to the stars, and they hadn't even made landfall yet! And while she relished a fight, the Spartans could not sustain such a costly- and foolish- conflict even as they were in the middle of dealing against the actual crew as they made preparations for survival. So rather than the path of the arrow, she extended an olive branch.
The beaten, half-mended losers became her heralds. Accompanied by order-abiding troops, they were sent to the aft to present the three gangs with the proposal for negotiations. Not only did this punishment serve to humiliate these insubordinates before the very people that had just defeated them, it was a gesture of good faith towards those victors. Factionologists later discovered that any instance of the Spartans admitting any flaw or weakness- and defeat at that- was a significant concession. Neither Hart nor Young nor Cerutti realized it as they bemusedly met the bleeding, broken soldiers under white flags, but this was Santiago accepting that they had bested her- this time.
The Peace of the Garden
They met in Hydroponics Bay Zeta-Omega-Omega, another one of Mission Botanist Deidre Skye's nurseries. As they strode between the fresh water channels and under hanging racks of morning glories and pots claimed by the Society of Free Thought's psychoactive herbalists, the four leaders met for the very first time, guarded by retinues of their bravest fighters.
Vice President Young Kwan-Yong arrived in the finest corporate livery with a stylish Gangnam cut that a newly-defrosted executive assistant had scrounged up, surrounded by corporate security, some burly miners, and a few construction heavies.
His Eminence Cardinal Julius Cerutti appeared in a scarlet cassock, his peaked red biretta, and a dramatic ferraiolo cape thrown over his shoulders, accompanied by some assistant priests, nuns, even a hooded friar, and several knights of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, gallantly clad in the pontifical-blessed body armor they had finally recovered from storage.
Corazon Santiago came not in her discarded red security force jumpsuit, nor any dress uniform, but in jungle warrior camouflage that was perhaps ill-suited for the grey and silver walls of the ship. Flanking her were fresh new survivalists, lean and mean and scrapping for another round, impatient to get back to fore, where the real fight was. Despite the nature of the meeting, they carried rifles, unwilling to trust these former enemies and perpetual threats.
Snow Hart welcomed them all clad in a black environmental bodysuit, repainted and modded by Anarchist clothiers and garment specialists for shoulder padding and ballistics armor. Spent bullet shells stitched across the suit's middle adorned her like a bandolier, surrounded by parodies of medals made from bottle caps and scrap metal. Her face was powdered like a courtier of the Sun King, with faux mouche beauty marks scattered below her cheeks. Her crew was a loud and disheveled bunch of punks wearing surplus U.N. jackets with newly-added anarchist sign patches, some sporting mohawks, spikes, and curtained sidecuts, the hair buzzed off on one side. They, too, had driven studs into their clothing. A few wielded bats and chains, but others brandished the very weapons they had taken from the defeated Spartans earlier.
A defrosted public affairs staffer, an intimidated member of Hutama's team, shakily introduced each leader. When it came to Santiago's turn, she steely corrected him with the title of "Colonel" when the hapless man had said "officer." And when it was time for Hart, the man paused, at a loss for her title. She smiled, which only unnerved him further.
"Dame," she said. "Dame Snow Hart."
(Later, when told about the proceedings, Lieutenant Colonel James Heid had laughed derisively at these ninepenny kings and snorted at their pretensions. He declared that he might as well call himself an admiral with all of the self-promotion that was going on, and the nickname stuck.)
The summit itself was more of a meet-and-greet, and mutual acknowledgement of existence. After introductions were made, information was exchanged. Dame Hart explained that the Society's aim was the ultimate liberation of all humanity, which is why they had awakened earlier than the others. They still offered true awakening to any who would join them, but now accepted that those who wished to put on chains and pursue other paths should be free to exercise their self-limitations as well. This drew a furious frown from Cerutti and an eye roll from Young, but both refrained from retorting, going on to explain their own respective missions.
Santiago listened to all this intently, impassively, and finally spoke. She explained that the Spartans stood for survival, no more, no less. They fought for the sake of the fundamental freedom to live- that freedom could only be protected by the freedom to bear arms and take up arms against threats. She welcomed all those who would join her goal- and while doing so, she looked not at her fellow leaders but at their followings- but survival had no time for religious ritual, especially no tolerance for the decadent pursuit of wealth, and certainly no interest in frivolous, self-indulgent addictions pretending to be self-centered liberation.
Hart smiled again. And certainly no sense of humor either? What's the point of living without a little bit of laughter?
Santiago smiled icily, mirthlessly. At this time, living was far from certain. The greatest threat was not from each other- she had utmost confidence in her soldiers anyway- but from the ship that was falling apart. To the shock of Young and Cerutti, she had explained that not long ago, a micrometeorite had collided with the Unity. The crew was trying to repair the ship in vain, but the Spartans believed that survival rested in escape.
Hart nodded. She explained that during the chillout session, she did sense a great disturbance, that most of the Society had written off as bad trips. But she did figure that the damage of the Unity superstructure was a reflection of the failure of the mission. She looked at the others with an unexpected sharpness. That was inevitable. The old power structures had failed to save the Earth, and here they failed once more. Forces beyond the capabilities of petty authorities would always stymie them. The real answer is to escape those systems that kept them in complacency, and truly embrace life.
Santiago looked back with a pleasantly surprised expression of acknowledgement. They could speak in the same language.
The authoritarians were unconvinced. Cardinal Cerutti insisted that the Church had always supported the Unity leadership as the dutifully recognized temporal rulers of the mission. Church and state sought to work hand-in-hand here, neither could supplant the other. Render unto Caesar what was his. The Catholics must reestablish contact with the command staff and work to protect all human life of the mission to the very end.
Likewise, VP Young said that Dai Seung had signed a contract with the U.N., and that contract was bound until legal jurisdictions were no longer standing. As desperate at this time was, that was not yet- and if anything, this was not the proper time to dissolve all norms and structures they operated upon. The corporation had a job to do for the mission, and the mission had promised to pay them a lucrative profit.
While the hierarchs were displeased, the rogues found common ground. This would later provide for under-the-table agreements between Anarchist and Spartan, including the deciding that each other's territories bisected the length of the ship. And of course, these covert pacts would be broken by each, as Anarchist coteries did go to the fore, to wreak havoc against the crew directly.
But for now, a few common goals were determined between the four groups. Prisoner swaps would take place. No guarantees for free movement between the four, but the halting of defections would be undertaken at the individual level, and must not lead to further inter-group conflict. Nonaggression all around was the watchword. Each would divide up the remaining resources of the ship for each group. (Here, Hart gave Cerutti and Young skeptical glances- did these competing authorities really intend to submit themselves to the greater authority of the U.N.? Then why had they been hoarding their own supplies all of this time? Surely they weren't planning on submitting the proper paperwork to Garland.) Any remaining disputes, they agreed, would be settled on the surface. Each departed, assured that their respective faction would be the only one to make it there.
Crisis' End
For the rest of Planetfall, the Society of Free Thought and Snow Hart would prove to be an irritating and infuriating thorn in the side of the crew, and other groups that would spring up. While they eased up significantly on awakening more passengers, the Anarchists also organized and armed the Dame's Militia, the fanatical and half-crazed military arm of the Society, loyal to Hart to a fault.
They would continue to terrorize the Unity for the duration of the crisis, growing more desperate and unhinged as the chaos spread, even committing acts of wanton destruction. Uncharacteristically, some of Chief Botanist Skye's team were so incensed by the desecration of their gardens that they attacked the Anarchists, slaying several of their members.
Psych Chaplain Godwinson, Morale Counselor Kavitha, Governor-elect Barre, and Itala Palomino all approached the Society with peace talks, and they occasionally did result in truces. But always Hart waved them off as various tools for the same rotting authority, receiving them with different states of amusement and indifference. Thus, Chief of Surgery Lal, as the speaker of the provisional council, ultimately declared the Anarchists to be as undeniably adversarial as the Spartans themselves.
Executive Officer, then interim Chief of Security Yang, once confronted Hart in a standoff and dismissed her as a capitalist tool, a fake radical whose chaos burned away some segments of authority but only strengthened others. Being accused of being a controlled burn was one of the few times that Hart's perpetually amused demeanor seemed shaken, but she simply responded by ordering the Dame's Militia attack his reintegrated security force.
The Anarchists were also involved in the intrigue surrounding the mysterious disappearances of Captain Garland, and later accused of responsibility in his ultimate murder.
At the end of it all, Snow Hart had plenty of fun during Planetfall, and the Anarchists flourished in the chaos. But as all fun times come to an end, they too, loaded up in a spacious Landing Pod with plenty of supplies, having secured one even slightly before the Spartans did. So as the ship and the mission blew apart in Planet's atmosphere, Hart, her Society, and her Militia gently floated down to the surface.
Notes:
Chevaleresse is the French term for a female knight, and the title for female members of the modern self-styled Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem.
The Spartans defeated by pies is a reference to the (sadly lost) alternate ending to Dr. Strangelove.
