Sic Semper Tyrannis: The Chimera Adjustment, Book Two (Imperium Cicernus 5)

by Caleb Wachter

  Kotcher grinned, but he was quite certain it appeared more like a savage grimace due to his horrific facial scarring. “Captain Mohrmann…why am I not surprised to hear this request come from you before the others?”

  “You know my ships are the only ones in this allied fleet with the mobility and defensive systems to survive the position long enough to legitimize the Gonfaloniere’s overly simplistic formation,” Captain Mohrmann continued. “And we both know that this battle is important; my squadron gives this fleet its best chance for victory.”

  Captain Kotcher nodded slowly, knowing the other man’s words were true. The Fusi-Corp vessels were the closest thing this ramshackle formation of corporate warships had to a coherently-led unit. The rest had been last-minute requisitions from several of Hadden Enterprise’s partner corporations, and only through sheer force of personality had Kotcher been able to exert anything resembling operational control over them.

  Of course, when faced with the option of following a prancing fool like the Gonfaloniere or following a proven commander like Kotcher, even those Corporate Captains who were none too fond of the whole operation would prefer to submit themselves to his will than to the so-called military commander of Rationem.

  “Captain Mohrmann,” Kotcher grunted, his voice barely more than a harsh whisper, “your squadron is ordered to provide support to the third point of the Rationem triad. Blanco’s fleet will come hard and fast,” he said grimly, “and your ships will get the worst of it at the outset.”

  “You aren’t the only one who knows a thing or two about military strategy, Kotcher,” Mohrmann said with a thin sneer. “You just keep that princeling from soiling himself while I show his people how to properly execute a pincer counterattack.”

  “Good hunting, Captain Mohrmann,” Kotcher said with a curt nod.

  “Mohrmann, out,” the other Captain nodded before severing the link. Within seconds, his ships moved out of their previous position in the formation, and Kotcher snickered as he saw that Captain Mohrmann had taken the precise course and speed that he would have taken in the other man’s shoes.

  “Captain,” the Comm. officer began again, prompting Kotcher to shoot the man an angry look, “I’ve got an incoming transmission from the Alexander; it’s being broadcast across all frequencies.”

  This was the only part of the operation which made Captain Kotcher even the slightest bit trepid. But he had been given his brief, and he was as ready as he could be for the meeting he was about to take.

  He opened a document which contained several pre-crafted statements and, when he had drawn a breath, nodded to his Comm. officer, “Put him through.”

  The face of President Han-Ramil Blanco appeared on the Sun Jian’s main viewer, and the smoldering anger on the angular visage of the Capitol System’s President was a nearly palpable thing.

  “This is President Blanco,” he declared, clasping his hands on the desk before him with admittedly impressive, stately dignity, “all vessels within the Rationem System are hereby instructed to heave to and await lawfully-appointed inspection teams. We are here, at great expense to our citizenry, to provide much-needed stability to one of the Chimera Sector’s most vulnerable Star Systems in this time of crisis. We will not allow the citizens of Rationem to be tyrannized by the same corporation which stands responsible for the massacre at Philippa.”

  “President Blanco,” Kotcher rasped when it was clear the President was waiting for him to reply, “this is Captain Mike Kotcher of the Corporate Security Vessel, Sun Jian. On behalf of Hadden Enterprises, Fusi-Corp, Ghost Tech Inc. and Virtu-Plaza, I must inform you that the Rationem Star System has formally requested our lawful trade convoy’s assistance in repelling the battle fleet which your flagship now leads. Turn your ships around and leave this sovereign Star System in peace, in accordance with the Sector’s laws.”

  “Hadden Enterprises is no longer recognized as a legal entity,” President Blanco shook his head contemptuously, “it was dissolved in accordance with the Sector Security Act, which went into law two weeks ago. Your presence here, as a result of Hadden’s dissolution, is treasonous. Stand down, Captain, and submit yourself to the learned justice of the Sector Judiciary—which serves as the only true dispenser of justice in these dark days.”

  “I was there when you tried to dissolve me, Mr. President,” Kotcher rasped, gripping the arm of his chair furiously with his still-good hand. “It’s a shame that your capacities for tyranny and self-aggrandizement are matched only by your capacities for narrow-mindedness and legal ignorance.” The President’s face scrunched into an irritated look of haughty indifference, and Kotcher glanced down at his screen before reading off the first line there, “Under Chimera Sector law, the dissolution of multi-System corporations like Hadden Enterprises must be unanimously agreed to by every Star System which has made legally binding agreements with those corporations—”

  “The Union of Stars has satisfied that requirement,” Blanco interrupted with false patience and a dismissive gesture, “by voting unanimously to dissolve Hadden Enterprises and its subsidiaries.” He leaned forward and said, with an air possessed only by the most elite of statesmen, “The Star System of Rationem is hereby invited to formally join that Union, but an alliance with your unlawful organization will preclude Rationem’s inclusion in the Union of Stars at this time. Your warships are here illegally, Captain Kotcher, and you will be charged with war crimes against the citizenry of Rationem if you do not stand down and cease this incitement of the good people of this Star System.” Blanco shook his head with a well-practiced politician’s veneer of solemnity, “You do not want their blood on your hands, Captain Kotcher.”

  “Your so-called Union’s legality is considerably more tenuous than that of the newly-formed Corporate Security Fleet which I lead,” Kotcher continued reading down to the second point which had been prepared for him by Hadden legal counsel. “Under Chimera Sector law, Corporations are permitted to assemble tactical assets for the purposes of mutual defense against threats foreign and domestic, and Star Systems are well within their rights to incorporate such auxiliary forces into their respective SDF’s for local operations which are normally restricted to SDF’s.”

  Blanco’s eyes narrowed dangerously, “If you want a fight, Captain, then I will have no choice but to indulge you. Understand, however, that I only do so with the heaviest of hearts.”

  Kotcher dearly wanted to make a jab about the fact that his own heart was now little more than a shriveled mockery of its former self, and that the chair beneath him was providing over 90% of that organ’s original functionality. But he had been given directives, and he would complete them before indulging in any personal agendas, so he proceeded to the third and final item on the list.

  “Your so-called Union Fleet, Mr. President,” Kotcher continued, “has not been introduced for consideration, let alone ratified, by a majority of Star Systems in the Chimera Sector. Under Sector law, it is therefore to be considered an unlawful collection of tactical assets—assets which are deployed in a manner directly opposed to our most fundamental laws, which unlawful deployment may subject its leaders to sanction by our most sacred tenets—“

  “Save your rebellious speeches, Captain Kotcher,” Blanco interrupted with a sneer. A glance at his chair’s com-link showed the Sun Jian’s commanding officer that the entire system had just been blanketed in a jamming field that would prevent all but point-to-point beam transmissions. “No one can hear them now.”

  Kotcher nodded slowly, closing the file which had contained his unfinished declaration, “Thank you, Mr. President; that was most helpful.” At Blanco’s brief look of well-concealed confusion, Captain Kotcher allowed himself to sneer. “The previous exchange has been recorded onto twenty seven hard copies,” Kotcher explained, “which will be disseminated throughout the Sector as soon as courier ships can carry them to each System’s major news outlets—along with, of course, my unfinished ‘rebellious speech’ and several highlight
ed passages of the Sector Bill of Rights which outline the illegality of your acts here…and at H.E. One,” he added, letting the full weight of his righteous fury pour from his eyes as he did so.

  There was only a brief pause before the connection between the Sun Jian and the Alexander was severed, and Kotcher allowed himself a self-satisfied smirk for a few moments before straightening himself as best he could with what remained of his body, which now sat ensconced within the heavily-modified command chair—a chair which he had little doubt would serve as his tomb, quite possibly in just a few hours.

  “Report!” he snapped, knowing that the battle to come could very well be as bloody as the massacre at H.E. One.

  Chapter XIII: A Two-fer?

  “There we are,” Jericho said after unlocking the third story flat’s front door. The flat was tiny—barely eight feet wide by twelve feet deep—but everything was precisely as he had left it nearly a year earlier.

  “How many of these places do you have?” Shu asked after he closed the door behind them.

  “A few,” Jericho shrugged as he knelt beside a fold-out bed, which was the lone piece of furniture in the unit. After lifting up the mattress, he retrieved a slender, deceptively powerful rifle and ran through a well-practiced set of checks on the old, dependable weapon. “How long until our window?”

  “Twelve minutes,” she replied promptly.

  “You’d better get on the net and make sure the evidence all stacks up,” he said as he finished breaking down the weapon, finding everything to be in order. He then began to reassemble the weapon while Shu popped open her portable data center and positioned a satellite uplink mini-dish near the flat’s lone window. “Something doesn’t feel right about this one,” he muttered after putting the rifle back together.

  “Which one?” Shu asked after establishing a link with the planetary data net.

  “I don’t know…” he replied as he retrieved a tripod from the same hiding place as the rifle, “these Adjustments shouldn’t be simple, but neither of these seems like anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Don’t look a gift bike in the pipes,” Shu sighed, “some people just can’t accept when things come together for them.”

  “You don’t really believe that,” he said flatly.

  “No,” she admitted, “I guess not…I’m re-running the evidence packets for the first case right now.”

  “Good,” Jericho said distantly as he sighted in his cheap optical scope using a false cartridge which projected a laser line down the barrel. With just a few seconds of adjusting, he was confident that his chosen tool would do the job he was about to ask of it.

  “Ok…here’s the first one,” Shu said as Jericho finished setting up the tripod near the window. A quick check showed a clear line of sight to the diner on the opposite side of the street, so he turned and crouched beside his diminutive operator to examine the file’s contents one last time.

  “William N. Cox,” Jericho mused, “also known as ‘Kid Nate’ in some virtual circles.”

  Shu nodded, “Forty six years old, twice divorced, three kids from the first marriage and one from the second. He has twenty six years of consecutive service in the Virgin Peacekeeping Forces—including the last four as the head of Material Asset Acquisition for the entire planet-side military.”

  Jericho scrolled down the document until he came to a highlighted passage, “He made several major changes to the standardized gear packages for personnel deployed in combat zones…most notably regarding a so-called ‘streamlined’ protective gear complement.”

  “He cut the costs of body armor by nearly 30%,” Shu said, pulling up dozens of corroborative documents which had been independently verified by at least half a dozen separate oversight agencies, “by adopting a model produced by an old academy friend’s company. The newer model provides for greater mobility, agility, and grants 97% of the protection of the older, heavier gear—but it has one peculiar weakness which, it seems, which Mr. Cox knew about beforehand: fire.”

  “Does the money trail lead back to him?” Jericho asked, grasping at straws and knowing that he was doing so.

  Shu shook her head, “Not a single credit; he hasn’t even seen the head of the company supplying the armor in over eight years—including during face-to-face negotiations and formal contract signings.”

  “Smart,” Jericho grudged, “he keeps the trail cold and makes it harder to connect the dots.”

  “But, as we know,” Shu pulled up the next set of documents, which prominently featured casualty reports from theaters of urban pacification where the armor’s lone weakness—fire—had been exploited to deadly effect by the insurgents, “the old armor was phased out gradually until the soldiers had no choice but to wear this stuff into zones and tactical situations for which it was ill-suited.”

  “The death count from fire-related injuries sustained while wearing this gear is nearly six hundred,” Jericho mused, “and that number would have been less than a hundred had the old armor been used.”

  “This seems too obvious,” Shu shook her head, “why wouldn’t they at least keep the old armor around for these types of situations? The insurgents of the Eastern Bloc, where these casualties were sustained, are infamous for preferring improvised incendiary devices and makeshift flamethrowers—why wouldn’t their commanding officers insist on keeping a few of the older units around to deal with this type of insurgency?”

  “That’s the wrong question, Shu,” Jericho shook his head as he rubbed a fast-forming knot out of his neck. “The correct question is…” he said leadingly.

  “…If this is so obvious, why didn’t Obunda Adjust him already?” Shu correctly concluded with a hint of embarrassment in her voice.

  “Right,” he nodded. “It seems that we’re being given a piece of bait that we’re supposed to take…but Newman knows we won’t be able to resist the opportunity to sweat Mr. Cox. If this guy has a connection to Obunda, we need to figure out what it was.”

  “What a slimy asshole,” Shu cursed, “how could he stoop so low?”

  “If you’re referring to Obunda,” Jericho allowed, to which she nodded in annoyance, “I’m guessing he had his reasons for doing as he did—or not doing, as the case may be. Benton knew he could beat Obunda in a battle of brains, but he was the only person in the Virgin System who gave Benton pause when it came to bringing virtual resources to bear.” Jericho shook his head slowly, having considered the matter at some length in recent weeks and failing to arrive at a satisfactory explanation for Obunda’s inaction, “Someone with the amount of information at his fingertips that Obunda possessed, and the ability to acquire said information, wouldn’t back down from Blanco. He must have known that Blanco wasn’t acting alone…and if it’s possible that this Cox fellow is in any way associated with Blanco, we need to explore that possibility before Adjusting him.”

  “What about the other one?” Shu asked, pulling up the second dossier which she had independently collected for their third Adjustee.

  “Lucas Thomas?” Jericho asked incredulously. “That one’s open and shut: during the last few years he has actively suppressed the right to civil assembly on no fewer than nine occasions in his precinct—even going so far as to use urban pacification measures when the crowds refused to disperse. Nobody has died as a result of these forced dispersals, but more important than that is the fact that the assemblies in question were never permitted. Each assembly’s organizers had arranged for expensive guest speakers which were never given the opportunity to speak to the crowd. In each case he’s successfully satisfied the Internal Affairs investigation, but it seems the populace is fed up with his abuse of power. Though it’s thin on any individual case,” he admitted, “the fact that there is such a pattern of abuse makes this more or less automatic—even though his tyranny can’t be measured in RL.”

  “This seems…harsh,” Shu said hesitantly, “I know there’s plenty of precedent for Adjusting tyrants who haven’t actually killed anyone, but s
till…”

  “It’s in the charter, Shu,” Jericho said heavily, “Thomas has refused to permit lawful assemblies which were conducted according to our Second and Third Rights. All the necessary permits were applied for by, and granted to, the assembly organizers in the proscribed interval; this guy simply doesn’t want to have to clean up when things invariably get messy. But that’s democracy,” Jericho said with a shrug, “there isn’t a much messier system of government available, but there also isn’t one which grants its citizens as much control over their own fates. He denied his constituents the opportunity to inform each other, and that’s tyranny of information—I would have thought that censorship would hit a little closer to home with someone of your intellect and skillset.”

  She gave him a sour look before sighing. “So how do you want to proceed?” Shu asked, glancing at the chronometer before adding, “We’ve only got a few minutes before they’re both seated in the diner.”

  Jericho considered it for a moment before making a last-ditch effort to invalidate the Cox Adjustment. “Pull up the documents which supposedly prove that Cox knew about the fire susceptibility of the new armor,” he instructed, “and then run a check on the evidence packets for each of these cases.”

  “What do you want me to look for?” Shu asked as she went to work on her portable console.

  “Any similarities,” Jericho said with narrowed eyes as he considered the fact that he was supposed to Adjust one of these, but had reason not to do so. Given Newman’s penchant for the dramatic, it seemed entirely possible—even probable—that the other Adjustment would have an inverse issue that would somehow preclude it from being valid while making Jericho want to execute it that much more. “Something’s not right here; I’m guessing there’s a link between the evidence collection and submission packets for these two.”

  “Running…” she acknowledged, and tense silence filled the tiny flat while she directed her virtual resources to do as he had instructed. Eventually she recoiled in surprise, “It’s faint, but I think there is a link between some of these pieces of evidence.”