Martyr

They said it was a union, a means to bolster trade,
“Empire” never figured in their speeches.
The “common good” was cited why a treaty should be made
Between those at the galaxy’s far reaches.

No missile strikes or laser bombs had ever been employed,
The conquest had been courteously financial.
More than mere space dust linked those planets through the void,
And the benefits at first were quite substantial.

But then effusium subsidies attained an all-time low
And rumours came of unrest ‘mong the miners.
There’d been a lengthy boycott of the airport in Mondeau
When there’d been a blockade of spaceport liners.

Anti-Dongli slogans had been seared on Council walls
In worlds as far apart as Ska and Humming.
The promised large investment in the Aconada Falls
Had never, claimed the rebels, been forthcoming.

But though great hardship beckoned if secession should take place,
The Nationalists still spoke out for it strongly.
Cut the economic ties (the slogan grew apace)
You cut the chains that bind us fast to Dongli.

But there were Dongli citizens throughout the trade accord
And Dongli wouldn’t stop, said the Prefectum,
At deploying all the weaponry that it had wisely stored
For they would stop at nothing to protect ‘em.

And that, my darling children’s how your father lost his life.
On Ska they built a golden statue to him.
But sometimes kids amid the current economic strife,
I do not care a jot how people view him.