Lord Banshee- Fairy Dust

by Russell O Redman

  Then we started to practice turning on and off each other’s comm units. This was more fun than a military assault had any right to be. It was easy, but boring, to stand face to face while toggling the comm units. Once we knew how close we had to be, we tried to do it surreptitiously, brushing past each other casually. We got more enthusiastic, swinging around in circles, linking arms, and finally putting on some music to coordinate our motions.

  Then, laughing and flushed, we called in the marines and began practicing doorway assaults. We would start with the door locked. Two marines would flank the door, one of us would approach just close enough to unlock it, and a second pair of marines would dive through. That still left us in front of the open door, so we changed the tactic to unlock the door as we flew past, with an armoured marine providing cover as the door swung open. The marines defending the hallway fought back with flashbangs to simulate grenades, targeting lasers to simulate weapons fire, and smoke canisters to simulate gas. The gas was the hardest to deal with because we had to retreat into an airtight bag that they carried in a backpack. We could unlock the door from within the bag if we anticipated the gas, but that made the maneuver slow and awkward, inviting gunfire.

  Then the rest of the team went out into the hall to practice opening airlocks, which were heavier and slower to open, but otherwise similar. I stayed in our quarters. Marin and Toyami placed themselves between me and the door while we discussed the kinds of casualties they could expect to treat after this hare-brained scheme inevitably went awry.

  Molongo showed up with Morris and Singh, ushering everyone back into the room. If we were going to speak on behalf of the Council, it was essential that the Council tell us what to say.

  “Before we receive our orders,” I started, “I wonder if I might ask General Molongo a question? I expect my point will become clear very quickly. It concerns the three MI operators who were interrogated yesterday. Were they actually Martian turncoats, or did they still believe they were acting on behalf of the Council?”

  Molongo started to speak, paused, and started again, “If you believe a word they said, two of them took orders from the third, and they all claimed their orders came from someone very senior in MI. They did not know the name, but spoke of a growing conspiracy to overthrow the Council, which they had to stop before it came to fruition. From the details, I believe I know who they meant, and I intend to start proceedings as soon as we have reliable communications.”

  “General, is it possible that the person you suspect is also an innocent dupe, perhaps aware of the impending Martian attack and its preliminary campaign of corruption and recruitment, but unaware that the advisors who supply the information are themselves Martian agents? Or is it possible that this person knows that the Council has already been subverted and is trying to forestall any resistance?”

  “Either is possible, as well as numerous other possibilities. That would be the entire point of the proceedings. We are wasting time. Get to your point.”

  “My point, Sir, is that many of the agents and operators we are facing as opponents may be acting on orders that they genuinely believe come from officers loyal to the Council. If we want them to listen to and obey our new orders, we must make those orders consistent with loyalty to the Council, even when they contradict their current orders.

  “As we all know, there is a prominent and vocal lobby within the Council for Martian independence under their own Council. I suspect that key members of that lobby have already been recruited to support the Imperium. They will form one voting block within the Council. Another block will oppose the Martian cause in any form and will try to maintain the status quo. I fear that the Martian Imperium has enough experience with corruption, and has enough advisors experienced in Council politics, to play both sides as fools. In the middle will be the ignorant majority who are only barely aware that a problem exists. Given time, they would inform themselves about the issue and make a sensible decision, but I expect this crisis will develop so fast they will have to make hasty decisions based only on leaders they trust and their gut instincts. If the Imperium has done its preparations well, most of those people will declare for the Imperium as the scale of the economic and military crisis becomes apparent and before the real consequences are known.

  “My experience with Martian politics, dated and limited as it is, makes me concerned that the Council itself may be dissolved and replaced with an autocracy imposed by the Imperium. But Mars is small and lacks the sophistication needed to run the Earth. The Council has had three hundred years of practice in good management. We need the Council and so does the Imperium, even if they do not know it yet.”

  Molongo was getting angry and wanted to interrupt, but Morris held up his hand and allowed me to continue.

  “Remember that all the ministers on board are still officially on the ESK in medical care. They can deny any involvement in what we decide today, and that might be helpful in preserving their influence if events move against us. They will shortly return to the Earth to resume their duties in the Council. Whatever we do and say now, we must encourage people to remain loyal to the Council, even if it turns out to be a Council under the domination of the Imperium.

  “The Mao must remain as a servant of the Council, as must the rest of the TDF. If we are too strident, we will be declared as traitors, and the TDF may be disbanded or destroyed. If the Earth is to survive, the Council must survive and the TDF must remain strong enough to deter pirates and civil strife. And for that, we need to halt the violence without declaring our own preferences too clearly.”

  Morris finally put down his hand. “Very clever, Agent Douglas. That pretty much summarizes the conclusions of our discussions over the last two days, although I had not imagined that even the treacherous MI operators might in fact have been misguided loyalists. That is an aspect we need to think about.

  “To clarify a point, why do you believe the Martian cause is popular? It would seem to me that occupation by the Imperium would be universally rejected as a bad thing.”

  I replied with the confidence of a well-rehearsed argument. “Sir, that is simple. Most supporters of the Martian cause believe they are fighting for good government on Mars. If I had been fully informed at the start of my Martian service, I too would have supported that cause. Most will not notice that this very worthy cause has been subverted by the Imperium to its own political and military advantage, and to our destruction. They will be like the people who supported the international communist movement in the 1930’s without realizing that its purpose was to elevate Stalin to the dictatorship of the entire planet.

  “The Earth has given Mars bad government for a hundred years, with the Ghost as the most prominent symbol of the Earth’s domination. Agent Chou came back from Mars hating the Ghost, and he is no supporter of the imperial cause. Even I hate the Ghost, despite having committed many of the crimes attributed to him. In honesty, because of that. The gut instincts I mentioned will make many people vote for the Imperium, feeling that they need to take a public stand against the Ghost.”

  “So, your immediate concern,” Morris continued, “is that we may waste our efforts fighting against our own friends, when all we need to do is stop them from fighting against us? Since we have already reached many of the same conclusions, it does not change much of what we want you to say, but will change the phrasing.

  “We have a related reason to be cautious in what we say. Our bodies are nominally unconscious on the ESK. If we become too provocative, we blow that cover, perhaps giving our enemies reason to target the Mao.

  “Marcus, if shuttles from the Earth are no longer flying to the ESK, could we arrange some of our delegates to return to the Earth via the Deng? Are the inter-station shuttles still working? If so, we could arrange for our first contingent of ministers to join them on the way down, hiding in the crowd.”

  Molongo grumped, “At last we get back to the point where we should have started. Yes, I believe that the inter-station shuttles are sti
ll in operation. Agent Douglas, you probably have not heard yet, but Haliru and Thieu found a way to boost the signal so that the Mao’s internal comm can reach our crew in the docks on the Deng. With the portable repeaters that the marines carry, and the new encrypted channel, we will have limited but reliable communications throughout the whole station. We hope to be able to tap into the visual feeds for the security monitors, where they are still working. Unfortunately, StaSec seems to have turned most of them off at the advice of MI, which I do not understand, but we will take what we can get.

  “The admin of the Deng and several of the intelligence services seem to have succumbed to some version of the emoji attack. The admin itself is in chaos, MI claims to be fighting an insurgency, and Law Enforcement has declared themselves supporters of the Imperium, without apparently knowing what it is. In most other ways, the station seems to be almost normal. The port authorities are continuing to process incoming and outgoing ships, and the dock workers are being paid time and a half to keep the ships loading. Food services, laundry, shopping, entertainment, movement through the corridors, and public communications are all working, although people are worried about what they hear from the ESK. There are sporadic outbreaks of random violence, which I suspect may be emoji attacks, and random failures of newly installed equipment. Station security is receiving quite a few complaints about people being trapped in their homes, and most of those people seem to be wealthy enough, or important enough, to have had high-security doors installed recently. I suppose those may be token attacks.

  “This intel has clarified the nature of the mission to the Deng. We anticipated that they might need help against the emojis and tokens; now we know that they are in serious trouble. We must rescue the admin personnel and the security services from these attacks and give them the tools to fight back on their own.

  “We are still going to send you in as three squads, and each squad will carry one of the portable programming units. There are two operations assigned to virtual buttons in your comm interface labeled ‘macros’ and ‘filters’. The ‘macros’ button is configured to install our set of macros for turning on and off personal comm units and for opening doors, after which the recipient will be able to assist us in blocking the attacks. The ‘filters’ button installs our encrypted channel, which has filters to strip all emojis out at the user level. It should be given to the senior staff who need secure communications with the Mao. Simple enough?

  “The commanders of each squad have been supplied with the new encrypted channel, which I am happy to note does not depend upon the token system. This will allow us to maintain command-level communications throughout the Deng.

  “One squad will go directly to the DG’s office. The office was invaded by an angry mob of admin personnel from all over the station. StaSec claimed a mob was still present outside the doors, but that was several hours ago. There have been no reports out of the office since then, so it may be back under control, or it may be torn apart by violence. We suspect the latter. Senior officials issue statements and commands sporadically, but they are filled with inflammatory gibberish, and most people seem to be ignoring them.

  “A second squad will start with the administrative secretaries and accountants. They have stopped talking entirely to anyone outside, although there do not appear to be angry mobs involved. When the Admin offices are clean, that squad should proceed to Station Security.

  “The third squad will handle the smaller services, starting with Law Enforcement and proceeding through Commerce and MI.

  “Before we send anyone to the Deng, we will send a team to the Excalibur. The ship seems to be under full control, probably because they cut off all comm traffic when they got your original warning. The team will contain mostly eng and marine specialists, who have become practiced here in removing glue bugs. The Excalibur seems to be experiencing equipment failures that sound like token attacks. Agent San Diego is apparently going on that team, and will be accompanied by Com Thieu who has volunteered to accompany him to fix any problems that they find in the macros. She and Haliru have worked out a mechanism to get the modified macro code back through the laser channel, so the squads going to the Deng will have updated code.

  “Agent Douglas, have you had a chance to assign agents to the Deng teams yet?”

  Katerina broke in, “I believe I was intended to go to the DG’s office, but if Law Enforcement has declared allegiance to the Imperium, that sounds like my kind of problem. Could I take that one instead? I am not afraid to step into a fight, but the factional aspect of the situation in Law Enforcement may require more negotiation than calming a room full of people punching each other without cause.”

  “Sure,” Sergei replied, “and the current DG is Tatiana Eberhardy. Her family has been friendly with mine for a century. I have never met her, but I know enough about her family that I think I can win her trust. Afterwards, though, I expect you will still be wanted in the DG’s office for longer term efforts to pacify the station. Could you come up when you get done?”

  Evgenia looked relieved. “That would leave me with the secretaries and accountants. Probably just as well. I talk their language better than the higher levels of administration, although I confess to being intrigued by the legal aspects of the LE declaration. If you do not mind, I may come down to visit that section if I get done quickly enough.”

  I looked at all three of them. “I am willing to accept that revision of the assignments, but I would ask you all to be very careful. This will almost certainly be harder than Raul suggests, and a lot more dangerous. Stay close to your marines and always accept their judgement of where you can go and what you can do safely. I want you to keep in constant contact using the encrypted channel.

  “And remember, most of the people you will be fighting are not our enemies, they are just misguided friends and colleagues. Do everything in your power to avoid casualties, theirs and ours.”

  Molongo looked around. “Mahatma, Anastasia, have you thought about what the agents are authorized to say yet?”

  “Yes, we have been reviewing that,” Singh took over. “Maintaining our cover actually simplifies things, although not in a way we particularly wanted. Being officially in a coma in orbit has silenced us at a particularly inappropriate moment. We need to break that silence, but carefully, since our opponents will accuse us of being ill informed and irrational from our supposed injuries. Our delegations on the ESK know we are alive and at work, but are trying to maintain our cover. They do not know where we are for security reasons. We must get back to the Earth as quickly as possible, to take our places on the Council and demonstrate publicly that we are healthy and on top of the situation. Until then, there are two simple principles that we must maintain.

  “First, we must not suggest there is a split in the Council between down below and up here. There can be only the one Council, which is the only legitimate government of the Earth, whatever it decides to do. If we take a strident anti-Martian line, and the rest of the Council does not, we risk creating a split in the government in the middle of the crisis, which will play into our enemy’s hands. If anyone needs our help or advice, they must call us through our Council offices on the Earth.

  “Second, we must not cause divided loyalties within the TDF, which must remain absolutely loyal to the Council.

  “We propose making the following statement, nominally through our offices.”

  She popped up a document on a wall monitor. Some of the text jumped around as final edits were made by someone outside the room.

  The Terrestrial Council has become aware of a covert attack that is in progress with the intention of overturning the government of the Earth. Different branches of the government are starting to react to this emergency in uncoordinated ways that has been causing more damage and confusion than the attack itself.

  The Council is striving to restore order, justice and peace for all our citizens. To avoid further confusion, it is imperative that all officers of the government shoul
d examine every order they receive from any authority, to verify that it is consistent with the principles of justice and good management guaranteed in the Constitution, which are the basis of Council’s claim to be the legitimate government of the Earth. If any order seems inconsistent with those principles, it may not represent the true will of the Council, and should be verified carefully before any action is taken to implement it.

  The attack is real, and may become life threatening. Every citizen should prepare for an extended period of turmoil, and should stand ready to offer assistance to their neighbours in distress.

  Remember the founding declaration of the Terrestrial Council, ‘We are an orderly and productive community based on the principles of mutual respect, honour and love, bringing healing to the Earth, hope for the future, and help to everyone in need.’

  Our every action should be measured by that standard.

  “Please note that this statement addresses only the government of the Earth. If you meet any Martian sympathizers, assure them that the government of Mars is a topic for active debate, and that we value input from both Martian citizens and their friends on the Earth. If you are pushed on the issue, you can point out that the Moon is largely self-governing and might provide a better model for a future Martian government than what currently exists.

  “As Agent Douglas has observed, the government itself is confused on this issue. We do not need to mention that the Imperium is the most likely source of this confusion. It may be important to our future independence that we be able to draw the dissident elements back into the government with a minimum of disruption.