They were more recent,
dating from Poictesme's second brief and hectic prosperity, when the
Terran Federation's Third Fleet-Army Force had occupied the Gartner
Trisystem during the System States War.
* * * * *
Millions of troops had been stationed on or routed through Poictesme;
tens of thousands of spacecraft had been based on the Trisystem; the
mines and factories had reopened for war production. The Federation had
spent trillions of sols on Poictesme, piled up mountains of stores and
arms and equipment, left the face of the planet cluttered with
installations.
Then, ten years before anybody had expected it, the rebellious System
States Alliance had collapsed and the war had ended. The Federation
armies had gone home, taking with them the clothes they stood in, their
personal weapons and a few souvenirs. Everything else had been left
behind; even the most expensive equipment was worth less than the cost
of removal.
Ever since, Poictesme had been living on salvage. The uniform the first
officer was wearing was forty years old--and it was barely a month out
of the original packing.
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