Behold Leviathan


" Vercingetorix Lays Down his Weapons before Caesar " by L. Royer

The ebb and flow of the armies across her borders had ravaged the nation. Then Texas - emboldened by a huge wealth of her natural resources - had seceded. The bold Texans had everything in their favor: diplomatic friends abroad, wealth at home. They were a strong, independent people with a rich tradition and a diverse economy. If anyone could make it on their own, they could!

No one could have foreseen the turn of events, though; the horror that happened when the Union began a brutal campaign to halt the flow of drugs through Texas' borders from points South. Washington was willing to sacrifice a whole state for the chance to stem the flow of hard drugs into the balance of the Union.

Kase had been just a child while all of this was happening. Watching from his hometown in south Louisiana was a surreal experience. At first he could not distinguish the war from the holograph TV shows, so much violence had even his favorite cartoons. Then he started first grade. Slowly, it dawned on him that some of the shows on the video were for real. Not that he could even understand it then, but he tried.

The War was at first remote, real only because of the terrible destruction wrought Texas by the tactical nuclear weapons, the no-bombs, and the satellite laser weapons. Sometimes the battles were quite close to home, and the bitter smells wafted with the wind. The nighttime radio shows cracked with static from the high-energy lasers discharging in the stratosphere like Aurora Borealis. The burnt orange glow was from fused water vapor, caused by the fission no-bombs. It was a spooky sight. First time he saw it, little Kase had gone screaming scared to his mom.

Then there were the satellite images in the video papers, showing the ground war: whole communities wiped out, entire columns of troops vaporized. The land was ravaged, and lush farmland had been turned into a bleak desert overnight. The wildlife was mutilated and the radiation had driven nature's best right back down the ladder of evolution. Civilization had ceased to exist. Simple survival was the law now. The holocaust had driven the Confederate States, Louisiana among them, to virtual extinction.

Eventually Kase began to notice all the uncles and family friends who had enlisted over the years in the cause, never to be seen again. Worse yet, if you could believe it, were those who returned alive. They were different somehow. You could sense a dark almost evil thing within them, and Kase had a profound, instinctive fear of what that was.

By the time he was in high school, Kase could puzzle out a general picture of the war and the involvement of his state, from the tales. He remembered softly spoken fireside conversations, tearful reminiscences and sadly hollow accounts. The barest details meant for his young ears were only a superficial glimpse of what had really happened. Only later, years hence and a lifetime apart would he know the whole truth, when he was more capable of coping emotionally with its implications.

It had been a different kind of war, in Louisiana. It was a conflict so sublime and subtle as to be unnerving. The destruction so prevalent throughout Texas was strangely lacking in the Delta. A casual visitor would see - even in the midst of the War - a still untamed but hauntingly beautiful landscape, full of wildlife and the bounty that is nature. That is Louisiana, still.

What Texans gave in material destruction, the people of Louisiana gave in psychological chaos. Many of the former lost their lives, most of the latter their minds.

They were proud, afterwards, to have at least salvaged their homeland. They were confident that it would return their sense of self lost on the battlefields of their hearts and minds. The Land is their soul projected, their promise of a better life to come, their heritage and their future.

Kase grew up a part of that tradition, that tragedy. There were the bizarre shadows that came back home with the survivors from the war. There were the stories they told and told again - enough to crawl the skin deep - the stunning union victory in Texas was enough to sway the youthful naivete; of a young, impressionable boy. The mystery of the personal aftermath all around him was enough to focus his attention and interest upon things military, but subtle enough not to frighten him away.