The Four Chapter 13

IN THE THIRD YEAR OF THE NEW ERA
"Well, I think yesterday's events spoke for themselves," Remus said. The words could have easily had a smug tone attached to them, but Remus was much to serious for that. "Let there now be no doubts about where the food is going, or what result our kindness is having in Marram."
"We've only been sending ships into Marram for about a week," Romulus protested. "It's premature to say anything about our effect on them."
"Oh please tell me your not going to fight about this Romulus. Give it up, you've lost, even you must know that."
"I'm fighting for what's right and I won't give it up, not even if the odds are ten times greater against me."
"After what Marram did, you're still considering helping them?"
"Make no mistake, Remus, I was just as outraged by their actions yesterday as you were. We were trying to help them, and they attacked us. It's something that can make us all mad."
"You got that right," Julius responded.
"But we have to see through our anger. We can't let our anger control us. Yesterday's events changes nothing. The fact is that there are still starving people in Marram, and we still have the responsibility to help them. We can't let the evil government stop it's people from receiving food."
"But Rom, you saw where that food was going," Remus said in a frustrated tone of voice. "I could understand your position before in a twisted sort of way, but now we know for sure that Marram is using the food to further its soldiers. Surely even you must admit that. And how can you possibly support Marram's soldiers?"
"My sole responsibility is too feed the hungry," Romulus answered. "Anything after that is beyond my control. We've been through all this before."
"How can you even work in Marram now? You know if they attacked you once, they'll attack you again. How can you put our volunteers at that risk?"
"We were caught off guard yesterday. It will not happen again. In the future we can check with the Teacher before we land and make sure there are no armies anywhere near us."
"Rom, Philan was almost killed yesterday. That would have meant the end of the Kalka project right then and there. You know we would have lost all support after that. Katina was almost killed too. So was Stee. Rom, I was almost killed. I took the sword that was meant for you. If it hadn't been for me, you would have been killed."
"It won't happen again I said."
"Romulus, what does it take to get you to change your mind? If what happened to us yesterday isn't enough, then your even more of a fool then I thought. You're the most idiotic, stupidest,-"
"Shut up Remus!" There was silence for a moment after Romulus' outburst. "You can be replaced you know. I'm really sick and tired of debating this stupid thing with you. I don't want to hear another word about, you hear me? Not another word. Because if I do-"
"You'll what?" Remus voice was filled with angry sarcasm.
Romulus smiled, but it was not at all a pleasant smile, or a happy one. It was a menacing, vicious smile. "Like I said, you can be replaced."
"Go to hell," Remus responded. The two exchanged hate filled stares for a minute, then Romulus gave a short, challenging laugh, and walked out.
Remus stared angrily after him as Romulus boarded the super elevator and was whisked away to his destination. Then, as soon as Romulus was gone, Remus dramatically underwent a transformation. The anger was still there, as present as ever, but it was now acting as a fuel, moved to the back of his actions. "He's gone too far," Remus said. "He's gone too far and this time we have to stop him."
"What do you mean," asked Julius.
"I mean, we need to take the only solution that's open to us. We can't allow him to continue on like this, and we know he won't compromise. Therefore, we must remove him from the Kalka project. He is to be excommunicated, so to speak."
"You mean, impeach him from his leadership?" Julius questioned.
"That's exactly what I mean. We're going to remove all authority from him."
"We don't have the power to do that," Andrew protested.
"You leave that to me," Remus responded. "Power is what you make it."
Andrew and Julius exchanged glances. "What are you talking about?" inquired Julius.
"Never mind, just trust me. If the three of us band together, we have more than enough power to kick Romulus out. The question is, are you willing?"
Julius was about to accept on the spot, but he stopped himself in a rare moment of consideration. "Romulus is going to take that hard," he said. "He isn't going to forgive us easily if we do anything like that."
Andrew agreed. "He's so wrapped up in this Kalka Project. For the past month, it's been the only thing he thinks about. We can't take it away from him."
"Unfortunately," Remus argued, "the stakes we are dealing with here are higher than Romulus' feelings. We're talking about the prosperity of whole nations."
"Romulus isn't hurting anything," Andrew said. "We ought to just let things slide for a while."
"Isn't hurting anything? He almost killed the project yesterday. Julius, you know better than anybody how he reacted." Julius nodded slowly. "Why he almost killed everybody, when he grabbed your laser gun in the middle of the battle. In the middle of the battle for Deka's sake, has the man no sense at all? And now he wants to go back?"
"I agree with Andrew," Julius said. "Things are moving too fast. We need to give Romulus some time to just calm down."
"Has he shown any signs of calming down?" Remus asked.
"He hasn't compromised yet because he hasn't been given that option," Andrew perceived. "If we would all just stop getting so upset about it, and stop getting on his case all the time, he wouldn't need to be so stubborn. We need to give him a way to back down without damaging his pride."
"Stop it both of you," Remus said. "You both saw what happened yesterday. Do you want to see something like that again? Now you know for sure that Marram is only using the food to help its armies."
"What about all the starving people we helped," Andrew asked.
"They were chased away by the Harpies," Remus answered. "Now Romulus isn't the only one who cares for the Kalka project. He may have started it, but I know you both care for it immensely, as do I. I know you both can't bare to see it hurdling towards destruction in Romulus' hands. I know neither of you would want the actions of Marram's armies on your conscience. We've got something special here gentleman, something almost magical, and it's something that Romulus has no monopoly on. We have to save it for future generations. We have to preserve a democratic management in its leadership. We have to make sure it doesn't spiral into trouble so soon after it took off. You know as well as I do, something has to be done, and it has to be done now. Perhaps it will hurt Romulus a little, but in light of the consequences, we have no other choice."
Andrew watched Julius to see what he would do before answering. Julius looked at the ground, sighed, and shook his head. "I hate doing this to Romulus," he said, "but your right, we have no choice. I guess you can count me reluctantly in."
Andrew decided to agree. "You can count me in too," he said softly. "I just hope Romulus forgives us."
"Good, if one of you will be so kind as to tell Romulus to meet us here tomorrow morning, we can tell him then." Remus boarded the super elevator, but paused briefly before shutting the door. "One more thing, be sure you tell Romulus nothing concerning the subject of the meeting. If he wants to use a monitor to check up on us, there's no way to avoid that, but tell him nothing."


Romulus was the last to enter the meeting the following morning. Remus had planned it that way, arranging for Julius and Andrew to arrive with himself fifteen minutes ahead of time. "Well Remus," Romulus said, as he stepped into the room, "what's the subject of todays meeting. Something useful for a change, I hope."
"Very," said Remus. "We took a little vote, Romulus, and the three of us unanimously voted to impeach you. Kick you out of the Kalka project, to put it bluntly."
"What?" Remus frantically searched the faces of Julius and Andrew for signs of help. There was none. "Sorry Romulus," Julius said. "It's for the best."
"You can't do that," Romulus stammered. "I started the Kalka project. You can't kick me out."
"We just did," Remus answered.
"But you can't. I'm the head of the Kalka project. I can kick all of you out."
Remus stood up. "Very interesting. We seem to have two separate groups which claim to be the Kalka project. Which one is right? I guess which ever one has the support of the President." Remus took a piece of paper out of his breast pocket, and tossed it to Romulus. "That's us. We have Van's official endorsement as the Kalka Project. We are the Kalka Project, and you are voted out."
Romulus' hands began to shake. He felt a little dizzy, and he sat down. "Alright, you guys win. We'll pull out of Marram."
"Already done," Remus answered. "In fact, today's ships to Marram have already been canceled."
"And we'll start a democratic leadership of the project," Romulus added.
"We already have," Remus said. "And your not in it."
Romulus took a deep breath, looked away from the group for a minute, and then looked back. "Guys, I know I've been a little unreasonable lately. I know we've had some hot tempers in this room for the past few weeks, but I'm willing to work with you know. You've got to let me back in. Just give me another chance."
"Your through, Romulus," Remus said, starting to walk toward the super elevator.
Romulus leaped to his feet. "But this was my idea. This was my fucking idea."
"Yeah, we know," Remus answered.
Remus continued walking toward the elevator. Romulus ran up and grabbed Remus shoulder. "Listen to me. I only want to talk about this. Just let me talk about this with you guys a little bit. Surely we can work this out."
After stopping for a brief moment, Remus whirled around and struck Romulus in the face with his fist as hard as he could, knocking Romulus to the ground. "Get your hands off of me!" Remus screamed. "Your through." Remus boarded the super elevator and left, leaving Romulus shaking on the ground with rage.


Romulus was still blinded by his rage that evening. The whole day he had spent simmering in anger. He could not lose the Kalka project, he could not. It meant everything to him, it was his respect, his work, his greatest achievement.
Dangerously mad, Romulus replicated a laser gun and ran toward Remus' house. One way or another, they would work things out.