Apparent Catastrophe

by Michael Stackpole

  Richard’s expression hardened. “I would have not only rejected any offers, Chairman Presumptive, but would have reported them to the authorities.”

  Ivan shook his head. “I have no doubts about your loyalty, Richard. I never have. But the question here is why anyone would agree to conspire against me? And I don’t mean me per se, but against the structure which was maintaining life here.”

  “Ivan, it goes to the factions.” Sophia waved a hand at the map. “One large faction is simply those who are not part of the power structure and see no hope for the future. They feel they have been cheated out of what is their due, and don’t believe they will ever have a better life. Despair and worry leaves them hollow inside, and even false hope will fill that void. It’s very easy to turn their despair into anger, and anger into action, especially when they are told that taking action will prevent or reverse an injustice. That sense has been simmering for a long time among the people.”

  Richard opened his hands. “That isn’t too far from the sentiment present in some of the First Families—especially those whose fortunes have flagged in the last few centuries. They see themselves diminished by someone else’s success. The fact that your mother was a soldier, not from a First Family and not even from Maldives, was enough to mortify First Families whose daughters were passed over and to suggest that none of you are legitimately Dhivi.”

  Ivan frowned. “But destroying the system just makes everything die, it doesn’t promote reform. What did they think they would gain?”

  “No way to answer that question, Spurs, except to realize there are as many motives as there are people. And, well, some people just want to watch the world burn. As much as there are plenty of people here who could have engineered this, you can’t dismiss extra-worldly players.”

  Abigail’s eyes narrowed. “Maldives is hardly a rich world that would inspire others to control it.”

  “Forgive me, Abigail, but Maldives would make a nice addition to the Capellan Confederation.” Walter shrugged. “You also can’t forget that to some off-world corporate interests, there might be intellectual properties held by some of your First Families that would make a lot of money on other worlds.”

  Sophia shook her head. “That makes no sense, Walter, because they could just license those things.”

  “Greed and sense have little to do with each other, in my experience. And remember, this is the Collective. Each splinter faction likely has its own motivation . . .”

  Ivan’s eyes widened. “Ah, back to the idea of the Collective. You think disparate players agreed on a strategy to get to this point, and that the original alliance fractured after the initial success because the factions secured their goal, and started looking for more?”

  “That, or several of them had hidden agendas that weaken the Collective.”

  Concentration creased Richard’s brow for a moment. “How do we confirm your supposition?”

  “Learn as much as we can from our enemies.” Walter nodded toward the map. “Then, once we’ve figured them out, we pit them one against the other and pick up the pieces.”

  Chapter Five

  Rivergaard Rangers Interim Headquarters, Green Nova Proving Grounds

  Maldives

  19 November 3000

  While he greatly disliked the disruption of moving headquarters around, Walter had to admire the speed with which the Rangers and their auxiliary managed to get the job done. The Angels had always used the Vulture’s Egg as a mobile command and communications post. Not only could it defend itself, but the ship’s ability to deploy into a hot zone to tip the balance made it invaluable.

  The Rangers worked with a different system. They had a small network of locations that they moved between—small facilities or hovertrucks with trailers. Data was duplicated and moved to the new locations while the people traveled separately between the facilities. It meant none of them slept in the same bed two nights in a row. Even though the Collective didn’t seem terribly interested in hunting them down, Walter had no issue with the Rangers’ focus on security.

  The quality of intelligence, on the other hand, left a lot to be desired. The Dhivi Planetary Board had operated with a distributed computing plan, where records were held in regional centers and parceled out to local centers as needed. The regional centers reported back to the Central Records office in Rivergaard. The general system functioned well, but it wasn’t unheard of for a record created in a local office to take several days to reach the central office.

  During the takeover, the Collective had designated the Central Records office in Rivergaard as a place to be secured as quickly as possible. That made sense, as the lack of those records would cripple any attempt at administration. However, that center also contained all criminal records, legal records, real estate records and, of special interest, records of any planetary law enforcement investigations both ongoing and past. In terms of extortion, the records office was a platinum mine. Opposing forces all sought to secure it and, when they realized they were going to be thwarted, resorted to razing it.

  Of course, the secret Litzau family records project contained all of that information and more, but Ivan had agreed with Walter that to reveal the project’s existence would cause problems. “If the people are willing to believe baseless stories about how my family was taking unfair advantage, providing the Collective with actual evidence of same would be a disaster.”

  Walter wiped sweat from his forehead with his forearm. The heat turned the boxy container which they were using as a computer center into a hothouse. “I think you’re right, but the one thing it would give us is a way to get everyone’s attention. “

  “It would focus their hatred on us.”

  “I know, which is why I’m not in favor of even attempting to tap into it.” Walter rose from his chair, uncertain if the creaking came from it or his spine. “Everything is so splintered that no one can really muster a threat against the Collective. If we could gather everyone together to oppose them, we might be able to win, but it would be a long and bloody slog.”

  “Together is not a word much heard in Dhivi political discussions.” Ivan sat back, his face glistening with sweat. Since joining the Rangers faction, he’d shaved off his scraggly beard, but elected to keep his modest mustache. Walter thought, at turns, that it made him look heroic and ridiculous. He figured that Ivan saw it as an external manifestation of his maturation—August Litzau had worn a big walrus mustache after all—and if that gave him more confidence, Walter wasn’t going to counsel against it.

  Ivan had matured, but the process begun in the Final Vetting hadn’t even approached completion. Ivan was very smart, and his political analysis of the Maldives situation now exhibited both insight and a keen sense of nuance. Walter wouldn’t have expected that from the young man he’d met a month before. But understanding something, and formulating a strategy to deal with it, is still a far cry from leading people to accomplish the mission.

  Ivan brushed fingers over his mustache. “The simple fact is that all the factions are telling the people that they will take care of their needs. The Collective and other groups have opened up storehouses of food, have dropped rates on water and power, and have opened up mobile medical clinics in an effort to keep their promises. And as long as people have a full belly, water, heat and light, they have a certain level of contentment. And even though most everyone is sure that those conditions will last for only as long as it takes for their faction to die or kill off everyone else, they’re willing to buy into it and help because that gives them some hope.”

  “Their leader may be a jerk, but at least she’s their jerk.”

  “Exactly.” Ivan sat forward again, elbows on his knees. “And there is no easy way out of this because there’s no fairy godmother who is going to come along and make everything good again. We have a stalemate in general, and will have bloody outbreaks to punct
uate things.”

  Walter pointed skyward. “Unless CapCon or the Fed Suns decide to back a particular faction with people and money.”

  “But if one moves, the other has to counter. And the systems of the Aurigan Coalition might be motivated to back smaller players so they have a hand in whatever Maldives becomes. Of course, there could be outside backers for any of the factions already, but we Dhivi cherish our independence. To actively solicit outside support is political suicide. I mean, House Liao and House Davion both have offered us military support; it’s one of the reasons we hire mercenaries.”

  “I get that, but to absolutely rule out searching for help beyond even the Coalition is foolish. But back to the point you seem to be circling.”

  “Which is?”

  “If contentment breeds complacency, and if contentment is based on the free services the factions are providing, the only way to shake support for a faction is to prove their promises of care are false. In short, you have to make people hurt so they’ll look for an alternative. How do we do that?”

  “Doing it is simple, Walter.” Ivan jerked a thumb at the holographic scroll of economic data. “We destroy enough food to cause a famine; crush enough power stations to make homes and factories non-functional.”

  “Talk about politically suicidal.”

  “That’s the fast way.” Ivan shook his head. “The slower way is to just let the economy collapse in on itself, which it will. Couple that with sharing information that shows the excesses of groups like the Collective. If we can get holovid content showing the reeducation camps and work details and other abuses of power, we will get people to see what’s really going on. No one likes to be fooled, and they especially don’t like seeing their government lie to them to hide horrible things.”

  “But waiting comes with its own price.”

  “Having to let people who are counting on me seriously hurt and maybe die.” The young man looked up. “What would you do were you in my boots?”

  Walter glanced down. He knew what he should say, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t going to be useful at all. “I think you are on the right track. Richard, Abigail and others see the coup as a military problem because it was conducted as a military operation. And because their power is based in military weaponry. Nice power base, but what they have isn’t enough to do the job here. At least, not directly. What it can do is serve to curb excesses. But that means it has to become a reaction force, punishing those who are hurting people.”

  “So we need to be peacekeepers that everyone will hate.”

  “Not everyone. If we succeed, various factions will come around to support us in hopes we won’t hit them. Once we’re acknowledged as a brake on extrajudicial executions and the like, we gain legitimacy as a force.” Walter sighed. “While this is a strategy, I don’t see Colonel Oglethorpe supporting it, do you?”

  Aaron Doukas appeared at the open end of the container. “Gentlemen, it’s time.”

  Walter glanced at Ivan. “Ready?”

  “As I will ever be?” Ivan stood and followed the mercenary from the container. They walked along a paved parking lot to a low, ferrocrete building that could have benefited from sandblasting and two coats of paint. Down a narrow corridor, then they entered a small briefing room. A dozen folding chairs had been set up in rows of four. They faced away from the doors and toward three chairs behind a table at the far end of the garage. Armed guards flanked the table and the doors, as well as the front row of chairs. Two women and a man—Lieutenant Galarza—sat centered facing the table.

  Walter drew aside and let Ivan take his place behind the table. Richard Oglethorpe and Abigail joined him. Walter had been surprised when he’d learned that the two of them had gotten married. He wouldn’t have called that shot, but given how thoroughly political Maldives was, he realized he should have seen it coming.

  Walter took a seat on the far side of the back row. He looked at the doors as the guards closed them, hoping Sophia would join him. She didn’t, and her staying away didn’t surprise him, either.

  Richard Oglethorpe rapped his knuckles on the table. “I call this tribunal to order. Lieutenant Calvin Galarza, over the last two days we have heard evidence from multiple witnesses that you did willfully execute prisoners taken during the operation at August House, and that you also ordered your men to execute prisoners. You did this without even the slightest pretense of a trial. You have stated in your defense that because the Rangers declared a state of emergency and instituted martial law, that your action was justifiable. The tribunal has rejected that defense. You do understand that.”

  Galarza, his face impassive, nodded.

  “And, upon your return to our base, you attempted to murder two witnesses against you. We have taken this as a sign that you knew what you had done was wrong.”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  The woman next to him stood. “If it pleases Your Honors, my client would like to make a statement.”

  “Thank you, Captain Hammond.” Abigail pointed at the defendant. “The floor is yours, Lieutenant Galarza.”

  The infantry man rose and stood at attention. “First I would like to apologize to Lieutenant de Mesnil and the Chairman Presumptive for my actions. At that point in time I do not believe I was wholly in my right mind. I had, I thought, avenged my wife and our children. That you might see it differently, and that what I had seen as a noble act would become a dishonorable thing, drove me past all reason. And yet, as Colonel Oglethorpe has stated, I was also acknowledging my guilt. I did know that what I had done was wrong.”

  The man bowed his head. “I can only hope that neither you, Chairman Presumptive, nor you, Captain, feel in the death of your mother the sort of pain and fury that seized me. To be there, to see the dead bodies, to imagine that somewhere in those trenches, beneath those other bodies, lay my family, I . . . ah . . . I ceased being a rational human being. In my mind, the guilt of those we’d captured could not have been more certain. In a heartbeat I convicted and sentenced them, then carried out that sentence. I thought then, and yet believe, it was justice. I will not lie to you. I do not regret the deaths. I regret ordering my troops to join me. I don’t care what happens to me, but I want you to know I am taking full responsibility for my actions and hope that you will hold them blameless for what they did.”

  Galarza began to sit again, but Captain Hammond caught his elbow and kept him on his feet.

  Richard looked at his two co-judges. “The court is willing to pass sentence?”

  Abigail nodded. Ivan did as well, but in a muted fashion.

  “I, Richard Oglethorpe, through the power vested in me as the leader of the Rivergaard Rangers, and in accordance with the Dhivi Code of Military Justice, do sentence you to death.”

  Abigail took her cue from him. “I, Abigail Litzau-Oglethorpe, likewise sentence you to death.”

  Ivan slowly stood. “I, Ivan Litzau, Chairman Presumptive, would beg my colleagues to reconsider the sentence.”

  Galarza’s head came up, his eyes wide.

  Ivan balled his hands into fists. “In a time when we have already all lost so much, on a world where order has been overthrown and injustice has become a guiding principle, I cannot sentence a man to death. It does not matter that you, Lieutenant, offered no credible defense of your actions. You have acknowledged here and now that what you did was wrong. But killing those captives did not bring back your wife or your children. Nor will killing you bring back your victims. But in exercising restraint, we might encourage restraint in others. If we show ourselves to be no better than the enemies we oppose, then we not only execute a man, we execute hope. And without hope, there’s no winning the struggle to bring justice back to Maldives.”

  Silence fell in the garage. A chill ran down Walter’s spine—not because of any fear that Galarza might somehow finish what he’d started, but because
he couldn’t have imagined Ivan giving that speech. Three days previously Ivan had hesitated when it came to making a life-or-death decision about rescuing his sister precisely because he didn’t want to take responsibility for collateral damage.

  But now, he accepts an even more difficult responsibility. Walter wasn’t certain if this was somehow the culmination of Ivan’s maturation, or a rash choice, but the words showed deliberation. It also surprised Walter that Ivan hadn’t confided in him his thinking on the matter. That’s okay. It was his decision, and he’s shouldered the burden.

  Richard and Abigail exchanged glances. She nodded, then looked at Galarza. “The sentence of death must be a unanimous decision of the tribunal. Because we do not have unanimity on that point, you are hereby sentenced to twenty-five years to life, with the possibility of parole in a third of your sentenced time. I hope you understand and appreciate the mercy that has been granted you today.”

  “I do. Thank you.” Galarza bowed his head and screwed his eyes tight shut, but tears came nonetheless.

  The armed guards conducted him from the garage. Richard and Abigail trailed after, and Ivan approached Walter. “Did I do the right thing, Walter?”

  “You made a very tough decision, Spurs.” Walter shrugged. “Right or wrong, I have no idea; but it is a decision that makes me damned proud to know you.”

  Chapter Six

  Guerrillas never win wars but their adversaries often