Colin Hess (born 5/8/85; died 7/25/42) was the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Hessian Engineering and is the one of the principal antagonists of The Forbidden Army. Hess, who inherited the reins of the company from his father Johannes Hess, was one of the wealthiest and most influential people in the Human Alliance, with numerous political and military connections due to his company's history of defense contract work. However, in the early Forties, a scandal broke out regarding his company's longstanding use of mercenaries on unaligned worlds, its bankrolling of terrorist organizations that helped it sell weapons illegally, and various other transgressions leading to a government investigation.
Hess agreed to attempt to assassinate President Howard Paine of the Alliance to buy time to avoid being subpoenaed and potentially indicted, a plan that initially failed. With the help of his assistant Elijah Perry, Hess creates a new plan to blow up a security summit that Paine will be attending with the help of his Hudda Kugrall partners. Hess, who is implied to be mentally unstable, is secretly planning on blowing up himself and his co-conspirators so as to divert suspicion from himself and his company and save his family face. Hess is shot three times in the torso by John Gresham before he can set off the bomb, and his plan fails.
Background and Family[]
Hess is the son of Johannes Hess and the grandson of Albrecht Hess, a German immigrant to Mars who founded Hessian Engineering there. His family, despite their surname, originated in Hanover where they were gunsmiths. He was born on 5/8/85 in Pioneer City on Mars.
Both his father and grandfather were devoted to the rise of their contracting firm and had poor relationships with their wives - though never stated in The Forbidden Army, it is implied that Albrecht was divorced as he was "buried alone." Colin obsesses with the idea that both his father and grandfather were buried next to each other, without their wives, and that the company will bury him in the way it did them.
Colin was married to a woman named Julia, who in turn divorced him as well due to his marital neglect, largely stemming from him abandoning their honeymoon to service a business deal. With Julia, he had twin girls - Jennifer and Jessica - and a son, Benjamin. It is stated in the novel that Jennifer is soon to be married and that Julia has remarried since the divorce. Ben, who is himself married to a wife named Lydia, is next-in-line to take over the company.
Appearances[]
The Forbidden Army[]
Colin Hess appears in person as one of the main antagonists of The Forbidden Army. His company under siege from several governments for various illegal activities and with his stock value plummeting, Hess hatches a daring plan with the help of Elijah Perry to cripple the Alliance government and protect his son Ben from taking the fall, as Ben offered to do. Hess is mostly hands-off, letting Perry do the dirty work for him, but volunteers - to the surprise of his associates - to arm the bomb that will destroy the security summit on Catalina Island personally. His plan, however, is to blow up everyone, including himself, in order to permanently cripple the investigation into him and hopefully deflect attention from his company's misdeeds. He carries his son's wedding photograph in his pocket, leaving Gresham to deduce that Hess's real motivation may have been to protect his son in a roundabout way.
Hess obsesses over the prospect of being "buried alone" and his sudden ease of personally killing - he kills two staffers at the summit and several of his own men once the bomb is assembled - suggests mental instability. He is killed by John Gresham in the basement of the Catalina Convention Center when he is shot three times in the torso.