The Prince (anthology)

A recurring theme through the stories is the result of the CoDominium's policy of shipping large numbers of voluntary and unwilling colonists from Earth to the colonized planets.

Shanghaied to the colony worlds by the Bureau of Relocation ("BuReLock") in an attempt to keep Earth's population down, they gather in city centers and shanty towns, reverting to their parasitical or criminal lifestyles.

Even without explicit knowledge of the agenda of the socialists, the productive members of each planet's society are outraged by encroachments and banditry forcing them to yield lands or businesses which they have worked hard to establish.

Forced out of the CoDominium Line Marines on a technicality, Falkenberg is a military genius with a flair for the bold and unconventional, often resorting to deception to win battles.

The governor had requested a regiment of military police (Garrison Marines) and a destroyer for fire support to deal with the numerous lawless bands in control of much of the countryside.

In a daring night assault using one company of airlifted troops, Slater takes the fort while Falkenberg marches the remainder of the newly organized 501st Provisional Battalion up the Jordan River valley to relieve him.

Governor Swale goes to Fort Beersheba to demand that Falkenberg's regiment go to the Allan Valley farm country to force the Mission Hills Protective Association (the bandit gang terrorizing the farmers) to honor their previous agreement.

Vowing to have them all broken out of the service, Governor Swale orders the Harmony militia (a poorly trained and equipped volunteer part-time military force) to march on the farm country, and accompanies them.

The story ends with now-Major Falkenberg explaining the facts described above to Slater, admitting that industrialization should occur in Arrarat to preserve civilization there; but not on Swale's terms, and not merely to enrich the clients of Earth politicians like Bronson.

Falkenberg, nominally working for Hadley's government to create its own army, begins recruiting and training his Mercenary Legion, with a battalion of officers and noncoms from his last command, the disestablished 42nd Line Marine Regiment, as the cadre.

The scene of the soldiers descending from the topmost level of the stadium, firing in volleys, is very like the classic Odessa Steps sequence in the movie The Battleship Potemkin (except that the readers' sympathies are completely reversed).

He is an engineer who understands the need to remove the population from the cities to the countryside, build a reliable transportation network, set the involuntary colonists to working the land, and stabilize the agricultural economy if Hadley is to survive at anything above the medieval level.

Later, "Crofton's Encyclopedia of Contemporary History and Social Issues" refer to the reports of excessive violence on both sides (an understatement, given the outbreak of widespread murder, arson and looting that was only ended by the stadium massacre), saying that "... the government of Hadley has expressed satisfaction with Falkenberg's efforts there.

Captain Peter Owensford of Falkenberg's Mercenary Legion recounts how, as a lieutenant in a volunteer brigade sponsored by the Earth Humanity League, he was part of an intervention on the side of Republican forces against the local rulers, a Spanish aristocracy known as Carlists.

[4] Because of the dumping of involuntary colonists from Earth, the Santiago colony on Thurstone has progressed to de facto slavery by debt bondage to maintain the social order.

A political officer in the Soviet zampolit style, parroting liberty and atheism instead of communism overrules Owensford's tactical decisions and impedes the training of his men.

In the end, after losing many troops, Owensford catches the zampolit and some cronies preparing to use an atomic bomb to destroy his command and provoke the CoDominium Navy to act against the Carlists.

Crown Prince Lysander of Sparta, heir to the throne of a planet founded with certain political ideals by the Constitutional Society, comes to Tanith to learn about Falkenberg.

At the same time the newly-activated Fifth Battalion of the Legion, commanded by the just-promoted Major Peter Owensford with Captain Ace Barton as his second-in-command, is dispatched on contract to the Dual Monarchy of Sparta to set up the Royal Army there.

The Friedlander tanks and Covenant infantry destroyed New Washington's citizen army, and Franklin's forces retaliated against the rebel population, burning ranches and towns to discourage further rebellion.

After a stealthy spaceborne insertion, Falkenberg and his forces attack the isolated loyalist town of Allansport to give him an operating base, from which his troops take the allegedly impregnable fortress of Astoria, capturing a number of Friedland self-propelled guns there.

After Astoria is taken, Falkenberg's units mount a "shock and awe" invasion through large areas of territory, leading the organized forces of the rebel government in another blitzkrieg.

The campaign comes to a decisive battle when a detachment of Falkenberg's forces, supported by the self-propelled artillery captured from the Friedlanders and from Franklin units in the path of the blitzkrieg, and a force of New Washington rebel militia guarding the guns and also operating as a vanguard, fight a battle within Hillyer Gap, the only usable pass through the Temblor Mountains between rebel-held country and Franklin territory.

Falkenberg's ad-hoc task force stops the advance of a brigade of Friedland armor and a regiment of Covenant Highlanders at the pass, inflicting devastating casualties on them with his captured artillery.

However, Colonel Falkenberg has decided to stay on New Washington – to settle down after his many wanderings and adventures, marry Glenda Ruth Horton whom he considers a fitting mate for himself, and sit out the coming disaster on and around Earth.

The Spartan Peoples Liberation Army is led by a woman, Skida "Skilly" Thibodeau, a native of Belize transported off Earth after arrest for criminal activity.

[14]) Much of the narrative is taken up with three bloody campaigns in which Skilly's Helot rebels employ artillery, missiles, rape, murder, poison gas, terror attacks, and civilian massacre in an attempt to undermine Spartan society.

At the same time, Skilly launches a general uprising by Helot elements in the capital to destroy the government and take Sparta City while the Spartans are fighting the 77th.

However, Lysander's father King Alexander, a longtime Lermontov ally, is killed when the palace is assaulted and he leads the Life Guard out to defend it.

With the CoDominium in collapse and all Earth authority vanished, the CoDominium Navy officers, the lieutenant colonel now commanding the 77th Line Marine Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Owensford of Falkenberg's Mercenary Legion, and the senior officers of the Spartan Army, notably General Slater, acclaim Lysander, Collins King of Sparta, as Imperator, in the hope he will bring the disparate sources of power together to preserve civilization.