Lord Banshee- Fairy Dust

by Russell O Redman

  Chandrapati listened to this diatribe with a gentle smile. He asked if I knew any other rapscallions who nevertheless deserved an award. I allowed that I did, but I was not amongst them. For what I had done, no awards would ever be granted.

  We then turned to business. He asked first what I thought our ultimate goal was. I wanted to say salvation, but that was too abstract at a moment when we needed clarity. I started with the five criteria I had set yesterday.

  We still did not know the scale of the threat we faced. If the Martian fleet of stealth ships turned out to be a test of a novel transportation system for refined metals, we might not face an interplanetary threat at all. We had reason to believe that the tokens and glue bugs were both designed here on the Earth. From what I could tell, the recent attacks were being deployed by amateurs who did not understand the weapons they were using. The glue bugs were troublesome, but we already had effective tools to eliminate them. The emojis were potentially devastating, but a master could have used them to gently nudge the Earth into a different course without anyone realizing what was happening.

  This struck me as typical of Martian factions, fighting with purchased weapons they did not understand well enough to use properly. They learned from their mistakes, and would use them more effectively in the future, but we needed to avoid overreacting to these provocations, because they had the hallmarks of minor faction trying to make a name for themselves, like Mindy attacking the Mao in search of personal glory.

  The real attack, orchestrated by professionals, would happen soon, but we had not seen what it was yet. To survive that attack, we might have to avoid the fight entirely. I would prefer to surrender to the Imperium immediately rather than fight a war that would leave another two hundred million dead.

  The real fight, for the soul of humanity, would happen after the war was over. The Imperium was almost certainly going to impose a Martian aristocracy on the Earth, fighting for revenge rather than justice. When I left Mars, hardly anyone there had believed the Incursion was real. Most declared it was a propaganda lie by the Governor. The Counterstrike had left fifteen million dead on Mars. Most Martians called it the Genocide, an unprovoked atrocity, and the Ghost carried the blame for supplying the target list. I would have to discuss more recent events with Sergei, and even with Mindy if I could, but I felt a sickening certainty that the Imperium was coming to avenge the Genocide. They would reintroduce to the Earth the ancient cycle of atrocity and revenge that characterized modern Martian society and filled most of the Earth’s older histories.

  That was where we needed to join the battle, as a third force between the Imperium and the inevitable Terran Resistance. The resistance would fight for freedom and victory over the Imperium, just as the people of Mars had fought against the Governor. Neither side could win without destroying what they fought to capture. We needed a different war and a different victory. We needed to fight for virtue, with justice as our reward. To defeat Mars, we needed to fight for justice on Mars.

  Chandrapati was looking more sceptical as I went, so I reminded him of Gandhi, the ancient Indian hero who had defeated the English at the height of their imperial power, driving them from the subcontinent. Gandhi had never picked up a gun, fighting instead with laws and moral virtue. His method was to shame the English into leaving by convincing them of the intrinsic injustice of their continued occupation. He had recognized that the English were a moral people, and he was right. They did, in the end, leave of their own free will.

  “So, you want me to become like Gandhi?”

  “Yes, like Gandhi, like the Buddha, like Jesus, and like Kong Zi. None of these men held high office or led armies, all of them taught that we should live our lives guided by benevolence and virtue. The movements they started now guide the lives of most of humanity. That is exactly what Mars is missing, what the last hundred years of rule by the Governors has completely failed to promote. The governors were primarily interested in the office as a source of personal wealth, and their governance demanded obedience, not honesty. Mars needs virtue and justice, not just courage, prowess and authority.”

  “You do not want much, do you? Remember, there are seven of us. We hardly make an army.”

  “Ah, Chandrapati, look at that clip again. Those people saw Katerina and Evgenia for a few minutes, and read a short, platitudinous pronouncement from the Council, but they wanted to believe what it said and only needed an example to follow. The Earth today is filled with courageous, virtuous people who want to live in harmony, but they have little idea and no experience of how to face a real crisis. They will need leaders.”

  “So, am I to be a politician? Not likely! I am a lawyer and an agent. I hunt criminals and throw them in jail. In my spare time, I am an amateur priest in a small temple. LE will fire me if I become too visible.”

  “But Chandrapati, you surely remember that Gandhi was a lawyer, only secondarily a politician and philosopher. Besides, you will not be alone. You do not need to be a front man. What we need immediately is a safe place to stay, to organize and to reach out to the community. That is what I want you to do first. We will need a place to live in quiet obscurity, with good global communications. I know it is a contradiction. We will also want good access to travel. And we will need it very soon.

  “I do not recommend that you rely on Law Enforcement to find the place. If LE on the Deng is any guide, they may soon become part of our problem. I expect that you already know a few good places, off the beaten path but not too far off.

  “So, I am to become a hotelier, a politician, and an activist for peace and justice. Will I still be employed by Law Enforcement, or by the Terrestrial Council in this grand vision?”

  “I understand why you are being facetious, but the correct answer is ‘I do not know.’ Much depends upon the next few days or weeks. I still hope to work for the Council, but we may all be forced into retirement. If the Imperium wins, I personally expect to be chased all over the planet, captured and executed. You will want to be well hidden and far away when that happens.”

  Chandrapati almost choked. “Your plan is to be executed!?”

  “Not a plan. I do not see a realistic way to avoid it.”

  There was screaming in my head again as I got too close to the Mission. But it was true. If the Imperium won, there would be nowhere in human space that I could hide.

  We stared at each other for a few minutes. He finally said, “So I am to find hotel space for six of us, and a racetrack for you to run on in Soam?”

  “I would be less conspicuous in Noram, but basically, yes. Do not forget that you will want a deep hole to hide in if things get too grim. Probably two or three.”

  Leilani reported that she had arrived at MI, dispatched the promised marines to join Manager Troong in Law Enforcement, and sent a Com and an Eng each to Sergei and Evgenia. All three detached parties were carrying sets of short range communicators for use during the comm blackouts. She added that one of the marines had told her this was the first combat mission she had ever served in where she felt like a hero rescuing her fellow citizens and not just a warrior.

  Chandrapati and I were quiet for a few minutes, watching the news feeds, especially the ones from brave and foolish reporters close to the entrance to MI. It was not a secret location, but they normally forbade people to loiter around the entrance with cameras. Regardless, the team from the Mao ignored them, silently splitting into four different groups, three of which sped up the road while the rest wheeled into MI. One of the reporters claimed to have been present when the first Angel had arrived, the one who had been injured. Since then, MI had announced that it would treat civilians and not just military personnel. As the word spread, there had been a growing stream of badly injured people arriving, carried by coworkers, friends, and occasionally the regular ambulance services. The reporter wondered aloud how bad things were when two more Angels and another whole squad of soldiers were needed inside.

  Inside, Leilani reported that MI R&R was in chaos
as the number of injured overwhelmed the staff. Katerina was in a medically induced coma, but was expected to make a complete recovery in a few days if she could get adequate attention. Unfortunately, the doctor who had tried to strike her was their Head Doctor, Marin’s position on the ESK. He was now sedated, suffering from post-traumatic stress, and the generous decision by their second-in-command to assist the civilian community was taxing their organizational resources.

  Marin, still in her Banshee uniform, presented her credentials from the ESK and took charge. She started by gathering Katerina and the few military personnel who were injured, packaged them in opaque body bags, and had them whisked under escort back to the transports for temporary shelter on the Mao. She told me to inform Captain Wang that we would need the available surgical theatres on the Mao, except for one that would be needed for me tonight, as well as the services of any surgeons who were free from other duties.

  She did not clarify why I was going to need surgery tonight. I wondered if she was anticipating what Sergei, Leilani and all the others intended to do once the immediate crisis was past. I sent the request on to Wang, who commented wryly that there were very few people in the TDF more imperious than a battlefield surgeon in a crisis. He suggested that I hide in a place that she could not get to, like the MI office, but I was curious and still trusting enough to want to find out what she had in mind.

  I told Leilani about the reporters outside. She immediately called in the Public Safety officer and told him to find the reporter who had seen Katerina arrive and invite just that one reporter to enter the foyer for a voice-only statement.

  While they waited for his return, they identified one of the injured MI officers who was willing and able to guide them to the comm centre. Too junior to have the new implants, he had heard terrible rumours and was happy to see that someone was working to restore discipline and civil order on the station. He was also impressed by the credentials Leilani presented from General Molongo as the commander of MI, and from the highest offices of the Terrestrial Council.

  The reporter arrived in the foyer, gawking like a tourist, although he could have entered that foyer any day had he wanted to. Leilani started to broadcast audio for the sake of the record, and went out to greet him. She ordered him to ensure that video was off and to stop transmitting because this was now a secure location. He should leave the audio record on, saving it to local storage. She then administered the Oath of Secrecy and deputized him to take initial statements from the injured. The doctors were far too busy and there were no other representatives from Law Enforcement or Station Security, so his record could have important legal ramifications.

  She then told him to turn on his transmission again for audio only while she made a public statement. There was a pause as he prepared his network for the live transmission. The image in that feed popped to “Breaking News!” and an image of the Council statement released such a short time earlier.

  “This is Long Dahua for World Chatter News, inside the security perimeter at Military Intelligence on the earth station Deng. I am speaking to two Banshees of the Terrestrial Council, who are authorized to make the following statements.”

  Authorized be damned, we had never discussed any such thing. I was watching both the news feed and the comm transmissions, so I recognized Leilani even though she had disguised her voice using one of the synthetic voices in the mask. She sounded confident and concerned, with a rich contralto that commanded respect.

  “Citizens of the Earth and all who are faithful to the principles of peace and fellowship in the Terrestrial Constitution, I have been titled a Banshee because I am authorized to bring you warning and healing. The specific warning that I bring is of a technical flaw in security software for medical implants containing the communications units with model numbers CZK231 and CZK232, which allows a third party to affect the emotional and rational balance of the person using the implant. These attacks have been implemented using a rogue set of emojis embedded in otherwise normal messages, sometimes in the message body but often in headers that are hidden from the user. They can be added to a message in transit and do not necessarily originate with the sender.

  “Immediate relief from the attack can be had by turning off the comm unit. There are also filters that can strip the emojis out of messages upon reception. These are currently under development and will be made publicly available at a later date. Let me repeat, immediate relief can be had by TURNING OFF THE COMM UNIT.

  “We request any citizen who observes irrational behaviour in one of their neighbours to assist them gently in turning off their comm unit, if that proves to be the problem.

  “A similar flaw exists in any device control system that uses either of these model comm units. Tokens embedded in control messages can arbitrarily change the behaviour of any affected device. For example, doors can be locked and their manual controls disabled, trapping occupants within a room or house. Motors can be activated; lights turned on and off unpredictably; almost anything that requires distributed processing can be affected.

  “Citizens should not attempt to turn off the control devices, which can have unpredictable consequences, but those with the responsibility to oversee the operation of the devices should educate themselves in the token system and be prepared to correct the behaviour of the devices with a personal intervention. Unfortunately, the same comm units that contain the flaw are required to make these corrections, so they must be carefully firewalled to ensure their own proper operation.

  “Again, we intend to make further announcements regarding the security flaws in the near future.”

  There was a pause as a different voice took over, who I identified as Doctor Marin.

  “Because of the disturbances these attacks have caused, many people have been injured. We would ask those with first aid training to attend to their neighbour’s needs for minor cuts and bruises. Only if the injuries appear to be more serious should people come to the nearest medical facilities. These facilities are being overwhelmed with new cases. The MI facility on the earth station Deng has been opened to treat badly injured civilians, and we implore all other medical facilities, public and private, to open their doors to their fellow citizens in this hour of desperate need.

  “We also warn that this crisis is not over. We anticipate further attacks over the next days and weeks, and urge everyone to look to their emergency preparations. As the immediate crisis fades, there will be a temptation to celebrate. We urge everyone to stay close to their air-tight rooms, to avoid large crowds, and to be prepared always to offer assistance to those in need. Institutions like restaurants, bars and workplaces must not accept more people than can be held safely in their airtight rooms.”

  The transmission ended. Authorized be damned! Now every hacker, political crank, and social enthusiast on the planet knew which models of comm unit to target. I hung there, stunned.

  Chandrapati stirred. “Well,” he started, “they have faith in the virtue of the Earth. I have spent the last hour thinking you were an idealistic crackpot, but Leilani is pretty solid. So is Marin. If they have that kind of faith, maybe I need to think about this some more. It will be interesting to see what reaction we get from the ministers. I personally think that was the finest example of civil disobedience I have ever seen. So, let us discuss strategy and tactics in a bit more detail. How do you conceive that I am supposed to change the world single-handedly?”

  “Opportunities pop up all the time,” I said vaguely. “You just saw one. The whole game is to recognize an opportunity when it occurs and to understand enough that you can toss the right pebble into the right pond. The ripples will spread by themselves.”

  I had changed Mars vastly and for the worse, but had never been allowed to restore what I had broken. Listening to Leilani, watching the bruised young couple, talking with Chandrapati, I began to feel a weird hope that the Ghost was right, that salvation was still possible. It was not so much a light at the end of a tunnel as the first glimmer of dawn o
n a cold night.

  Our new order of battle on the Deng was far better focused, and proceeded like a brutal clockwork. Leilani and her team struck right through MI to the comm centre. The doors were locked, but she popped them open with the macro. Inside there were two MI operators, cowering in terror and whimpering, along with a corpse. The senior operator had shot herself through the head, but the other two had not been able to reach for the gun before the marines had stormed the door and cornered them. She turned off their comm units, and then, with the assistance of their local guide and the comm from the Mao, turned off the comm centre itself. They installed new filters and turned back on communications for plain messages without embedded binary, emojis or tokens.

  Marin picked up the report, saying that as soon as the comm centre was turned off, she had heard shrieking, moaning and hysterical laughter all through the hallways. She dispatched teams of secretaries and office workers to gather the newly freed officers into a conference room where Leilani could address them all at once. She described Leilani surrounded by a phalanx of marines with stun guns armed and ready. She was still winged by a bullet across the skin of her arm, but the shooter was knocked down and arrested. The rest were cowed enough to listen to what she had to say and one by one agreed to have the new filters installed in their comm units. A small team of MI agents and managers agreed to have the macros installed as well, and sent a request for the required ID-reading antenna to be fetched from their stores.