When All Seems Lost

by William C. Dietz

  The POWs were standing cheek to jowl, front to back, dozens deep in the musty cargo compartment as the entire shuttle began to shake violently, a horrible creaking sound was heard, and somebody began to pray.

  Vanderveen no longer cared by that time, and would have been content to die in a fiery explosion if that meant freedom from the sick feeling in her gut, the panicky claustrophobia that made the diplomat want to strike out at the people around her, and the man behind her, who in spite of the disgusting conditions, was determined to rub his erection against her bottom.

  There wasn’t much room, but by lifting her right foot and stomping on the marine’s toes, the FSO forced the man to back off. Then the shuttle began to buck as it hit successive layers of air, fittings rattled as if the entire ship might come apart, and the pilot said something over the intercom. Unfortunately, it was in Ramanthian, so Vanderveen couldn’t understand it. A warning perhaps? There was no way to know as the shuttle continued to lose altitude, and the ride stabilized.

  What seemed like a month, but was actually only about twenty minutes, passed as the shuttle completed its descent. Then, after a tight turn to starboard, the ship came in for what even the Confederacy pilots had to admit was a very smooth landing. As the spaceship slowed, a human watched the shuttle turn off the main runway and taxi toward the apron where five similar craft were parked. Their passengers were already streaming out onto the hot tarmac. Both the airstrip and the long, low terminal building that adjoined it were temporary. Later, after the Ramanthians finished the Class I spaceport that was being constructed some thirty miles to the east, the whole facility would be torn down. Not that Maximillian Tragg cared what the bugs did with it so long as they paid him. Which, having accidentally acquired a thousand POWs, the Ramanthians had agreed to do. And the renegade had huge gambling debts that would have to be paid before he could return to the Confederacy.

  Tragg was an imposing man, who stood six-four even without his combat boots and looked like a weight lifter. Both a sleeveless shirt and the custom-made body armor that molded itself to Tragg’s wedge-shaped torso served to emphasize his muscularity. The fact that the human wore two low-riding handguns, and was backed by four heavily armed Sheen robots, made him look even more impressive. And now, as the POWs began to spill out of the final shuttle, the renegade’s real work was about to begin.

  Vanderveen felt a tremendous sense of relief as the shuttle finally came to a stop, the back ramp was deployed, and a wave of thick humid air pushed its way into the cargo compartment. Orders were shouted from outside, and boots clattered on metal as the first wave of prisoners stumbled out into the bright sunlight, where two dozen helmeted Ramanthian troopers waited to take charge of them.

  Once the bodies immediately in front of her began to move, the diplomat followed. Her head swiveled back and forth as she made her way down the bouncing ramp and onto the heat-fused soil beyond. But there wasn’t much to see beyond the thick vegetation that threatened to roll out onto the tarmac, a row of neatly parked Ramanthian shuttles, and the crowd of POWs, who were being systematically herded toward a slightly raised platform. Five figures stood on top of the riser, but they didn’t appear to be Ramanthian. And as the distance closed, that impression was confirmed. Hooks had taken up a position next to Vanderveen by that time and was the first to comment on the individual who stood out in front of the others. “What the hell is going on?” the official demanded. “That guy is human!”

  “That’s the way it looks,” the FSO agreed. “But his friends certainly aren’t.”

  Hooks might have commented on the robots but was prevented from doing so as Commander Schell shouted a series of orders, officers and noncoms responded, and began to circulate through the crowd. It took about five minutes to sort everyone out, but when the process was over, the POWs were standing in orderly ranks. Vanderveen found herself toward the front of the assemblage and less than thirty feet from the raised platform. President Nankool was standing a couple of ranks behind her.

  From her position in the second row, Vanderveen found she could assess the man in front of them. The first thing she noticed was his height. Of more interest, however, was the man’s bald skull, dark wraparound goggles, and horribly ravaged face. It had, judging from appearances, been badly burned. The man’s eyes were effectively hidden, but his nose was missing, as were his ears. The ridges of scar tissue that covered his face were interrupted by the horizontal slash of his mouth.

  And it was then, while Vanderveen was searching the man’s face, that his eyes came into contact with hers. The FSO felt the momentary connection as the black goggles came into alignment with her gaze and something passed between them. The diplomat felt something cold trickle into her bloodstream as the creature on the platform came to some sort of decision and went on to scan the crowd.

  Having chosen the POW he was going to kill, Tragg spoke for the first time. “Welcome to Jericho.” The renegade had a voice that would have done justice to a regimental sergeant major, and it was amplified as well. Not by a standard PA system, but by the four robots arrayed around him, all of whom had external speakers.

  “The Ramanthians see you as little more than domesticated animals,” the mercenary continued. “So, rather than force one of their officers to supervise your activities, they hired me to handle the task for them. My name is Tragg. Overseer Tragg. And you will call me, ‘sir.’ ”

  Tragg paused to let the words sink in before starting up again. “Because I am a paid contractor, and you are my work force, I need you in order to succeed. But by no means do I need all of you. Of course you may not believe that. So in order to prove that I’m serious it will be necessary to kill someone. Not because the person in question has done anything wrong, but because I believe their death will make a lasting impression, and ensure compliance with my orders.”

  Calisco stood on the opposite side of Vanderveen from Hooks. “The bastard is crazy,” the undersecretary said sotto voce, but Vanderveen wasn’t so sure. Because everything the man named Tragg said was logical if amoral. And, based on the contact experienced only minutes before, the diplomat was pretty sure that she knew which person had been chosen to die. Something heavy settled into the pit of her stomach. The diplomat felt light-headed and struggled to keep her feet. Vanderveen saw a mental picture of her parents, followed by one of Legion Captain Antonio Santana, and felt a wave of guilt. The two of them had agreed to meet on Earth, but she’d been called away to become part of Nankool’s staff, and there was no way to tell him. If only there had been an opportunity to see Santana, to let the legionnaire know how she felt, but now it seemed as though that opportunity was gone forever.

  “So,” Tragg continued conversationally, “while you consider the very real possibility that your life is about to end, let’s go over what everyone else will be doing for the next few days. Given the fact that our hosts are a bit strapped for ground transportation, most of you will be required to walk the 146 miles to Jericho Prime, where you will take part in a rather interesting construction project. More on that later. . . . Now that you know where you’re going, and why, it’s time to shoot one of you in the head, something I prefer to do personally rather than delegate the task to one of my robots.”

  A murmur ran through the ranks, and the assemblage started to shift, as some of the POWs made as if to attack, and others considered making a run for it. But the robots had raised their energy projectors by that time, and the Ramanthian troopers were at the ready, which meant neither strategy stood any chance of success. Seeing that, and hoping to avoid a bloodbath, Schell shouted an order. “As you were!” Surprisingly, the prisoners obeyed, as Tragg drew a chromed pistol, and aimed the weapon at the crowd.

  Some people flinched as the gun panned from left to right and finally came to rest. Vanderveen found herself looking right into the renegade’s gun barrel, knew her intuition had been correct, and closed her eyes. The diplomat heard a loud bang, followed by a communal groan, and opened her eyes to dis
cover that she was still alive. But the young woman who had been standing not three feet away wasn’t. Her body lay in a rapidly expanding pool of blood.

  The first thing Vanderveen felt was a sense of relief, quickly followed by a wave of shame, as the victim’s name echoed through the crowd. “Moya, Moya, Moya, Moya, Moya, Moya.” The sound of it continued, like the soft rustle of wind that sometimes precedes a rainstorm, and eventually died away as the name was repeated by the last rank of POWs. “Lieutenant Moya,” Hooks demanded incredulously. “Why?”

  More than a thousand beings were assembled on the tarmac, and while Vanderveen knew very few of them, she had been aware of Moya. Partly because the officer had been assigned to serve as liaison with Nankool’s staff, and partly because the young woman was so beautiful that she seemed to glow, which attracted attention from males and females alike. Because for better or worse, human beings were wired to pay attention to the most attractive members of the species and find ways to please them, a reality the diplomat occasionally took advantage of herself.

  And suddenly, as that thought crossed Vanderveen’s mind, the diplomat realized that she knew the answer to the question Hooks had posed. Moya had been murdered because of the way she looked. Had Tragg been rejected because of his face? Yes, the FSO decided, chances were that he had. So to kill Moya was to kill all of the women who had refused him. Or was that too facile? No, the diplomat concluded, it wasn’t. Because deep down Vanderveen knew that she had been considered, found wanting, and dismissed in favor of Moya.

  “Good,” Tragg said as he holstered the recently fired pistol. “Very good. I’m glad to see that we have been able to establish a good working relationship in such short order. Now, if you would be so kind as to follow the red remote, it will lead you to a pile of packs. Each pack contains a basic issue of food and other items that you will need during the next few days. You can leave your pack behind, consume all of your food on the first day, or ration it out. That’s up to you. . . . But it’s all you’re going to get until we arrive at Jericho Prime. And remember, the Ramanthian guards don’t like you, so don’t piss them off! That will be all.”

  As if on cue, a dozen Ramanthian sphere-shaped remotes sailed into the area from the direction of the low-lying terminal and immediately took up positions above the POWs. Each robot was armed with a stun gun, a spotlight, and a speaker, but only one of them was red. It led Schell, and therefore the rest of the prisoners, out across the tarmac and toward the jungle on the far side. Lieutenant Moya lay where she had fallen, the first POW to die on Jericho, but certainly not the last.

  4

  Peace is very apoplexy, lethargy: mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible: a getter of more bastard children, than war is a destroyer of men.

  —William Shakespeare

  Coriolanus

  Standard year 1607

  PLANET EARTH, THE CONFEDERACY OF SENTIENT BEINGS

  Having landed at Vandenberg Spaceport, and rented a ground car, Captain Antonio Santana drove north toward the metroplex that now encompassed what had once been the separate cities of San Francisco, Vallejo, Berkeley, Oak-land, Hayward, Sunnyvale, and San Jose.

  It had been a long time since the legionnaire had been on what some still referred to as “Mother Earth.” Having spent extended periods of time on primitive worlds like LaNor and Savas, it was difficult to adjust to the flood of high-intensity sensory input, as the skyscraper “skins” that lined both sides of the elevated expressway morphed into a single panoramic advertisement, and sleek sports cars passed him at 130 miles per hour. Meanwhile the onboard computer fed him an unending stream of unsolicited advice, which the soldier managed to escape by switching to autopilot and allowing the Vehicle Traffic Control System (VTCS) to drive the car for him.

  A not-altogether-comfortable experience since the computers that controlled the system were primarily interested in moving Santana through the metroplex as quickly as possible. He felt the car accelerate and gave in to the urge to look back over his left shoulder as the VTCS steered his vehicle into the fast lane. It was a scary moment since a single electronic glitch could cause a massive pileup and cost hundreds of lives. But there hadn’t been one of those in years, or so the onboard computer claimed, not that the assertion made Santana feel any better.

  What did make the officer feel good, however, was the knowledge that the Ramanthians wouldn’t be shooting at him anytime soon and that he was about to be reunited with Christine Vanderveen, the beautiful diplomat he had met on LaNor.

  There was a downside, however, and that was the fact that Santana was on his way to see both Vanderveen and her parents, wealthy upper-crust types with whom a junior officer from humble beginnings was unlikely to be comfortable. Of course, the fact that Vanderveen wanted him to meet her family was a good sign and suggested that the diplomat wanted to continue the relationship that had begun within the Imperial City of Polwa and eventually been consummated in the hills off to the west. And that, from his perspective, was nothing short of an out-and-out miracle.

  So as the enclosed highway dove under San Francisco Bay and made a beeline for the community of Napa, Santana felt a sense of anticipation mixed with concern. He’d been through a lot since LaNor, and so had she, so would the chemistry be intact? And what about her folks? They couldn’t possibly be looking forward to his arrival. Not given his working-class origins. But would they give him a chance? And assuming they did—would he be able to take advantage of it? Or wind up making a fool of himself?

  Those questions and more were still on Santana’s mind as what had mysteriously turned into Highway 80 surfaced just north of the hundred-foot-tall seawall that kept the bay from flooding the burbs and the traffic control system shunted the rental car onto a secondary road that led to the gated community known as “Napa Estates,” a huge area that included all of what had once been called “wine country,” and was protected by a twelve-foot-high steel-reinforced duracrete blastproof “riot wall.” Which was designed to keep people like him out.

  There was a backup, and Santana had to wait fifteen minutes before he finally pulled up to one of four inbound security gates. That was where an ex-legionnaire with a face so lined that it looked like one of the Legion’s topo maps scrutinized the officer’s military ID and shook his head sadly. “Sorry, sir, but I’ll have to put you through the wringer. No exceptions.”

  Santana nodded. The fact that the legionnaire had fought for the Confederacy on distant worlds, and been separated from the military with a retirement so small that he had to work, was just plain wrong—a problem only partially addressed in the wake of the great mutiny. “What regiment?” the officer inquired, as the veteran scanned his retinas.

  “The 13th Demi-Brigade de Legion Etrangere, sir,” the guard answered proudly. “We fought the Hudathans on Algeron and whipped ’em good!”

  “You sure as hell did,” Santana agreed soberly. “I’ve seen the graves.”

  “And if the frigging bugs make it to Earth, you’ll see some more,” the legionnaire predicted grimly. “There’s plenty like me—and we still know how to fight.”

  The comment raised still another issue, and that was the fact that with the exception of people like the elderly security guard, no one seemed to be worried about the war with the Ramanthians. In fact, based on what the officer had seen so far, it was as if the citizens of Earth were only marginally aware that a war was being fought. A rather sad state of affairs given all the sentients who had died in order to protect their planet.

  “Your invitation cleared,” the old soldier announced, and delivered a textbook-perfect salute. “Vive la Légion!”

  “Vive la Légion,” Santana agreed, and returned the gesture of respect. Thirty seconds later he was inside Napa Estates and driving north along a four-lane road that took him past all manner of formal entries, gently curving driveways, and mansions set back among the vineyards the area was so famous for. Many of the estates included their own wineries, which in the case of the larger oper
ations, were allowed to produce a few thousand bottles for sale. But those were the exception, since most of the residents made their money in other ways and preferred to consume the wine they produced rather than sell it.

  All of which seemed fine on the one hand, since Santana believed in free enterprise, yet bothered him as well since there were those like the security guard who had risked everything to protect Earth and been denied a respectable retirement. It was a fate that might very well befall him if he wasn’t careful.

  The common areas, like the broad swatches of irrigated grass that fronted the streets, were groomed to perfection. So each estate was like an individual element within a larger work of art. Nothing like the military housing in which Santana had spent his youth, prior to being accepted into the academy, where experts turned him into a gentleman.

  But acting like the people who lived in the mansions to the left and right of him was one thing—and being like them was something else. Just one of the reasons why Santana slowed the car as he topped a rise, spotted the house that Vanderveen had described to him, and looked for a spot where he could safely pull off the road.

  Then, having accessed his luggage, the officer did what any sensible legionnaire would do prior to launching an assault on an enemy-held objective. He took a small but powerful set of binos, waited for a break in traffic, and crossed the road. A camera mounted high atop the nearest streetlamp tracked his movements.

  The grassy verge sloped up to a waist-high stone wall that served to define the estate’s boundaries. And, judging from appearances, the Vanderveen property was quite large. As Santana brought the glasses up to his eyes and panned from left to right, he saw rows of meticulously pruned vines that were the ultimate source of the Riesling that the Vanderveen family was so proud of. He could also see some pasture beyond, a white horse that might have been the one the diplomat liked to ride, and a cluster of immaculate outbuildings. The house itself was a straightforward three-story Tudor, and Santana knew that it was within that structure that the woman he loved had been raised, prior to being sent off to a series of expensive boarding schools.