The Iteeche gave Kris a shallow bow. “I shall await your surprises with interest.”
29
It turned out that it took two days to arrange for the surrender. The armed yacht with the arriving clan lordlings didn’t make it in on time and it took more time for all the city governors to fly to the capital.
It also took the Marines all day to secure the surrender site.
The Emperor Hedoto Civic Amphitheater was the chosen site. It could hold close to 150,000 Iteeche. To allow for Marines to be stationed strategically around the arena, seating was cut down to 130,000.
A large stage, in the human fashion, was erected at one end of the vast playing field. There, Kris and the new clan leaders would sit. The surrendering clan leaders would also be seated, though in the front row below the stage.
The arriving clan leaders would be permitted an appropriate number of axe men and snake wranglers . . . all located behind them and well away from those surrendering. Those clan officials were permitted only a single axe man for status, and no snakes.
Kris made sure that Ron passed the word to the arriving leaders. If there was any attempt to harm any of the old clan officials in any way, she’d have a Marine sniper shoot down like a dog, both the axe man, snake man, and their lordling.
Ron actually managed to raise his eyebrows at that, but he said nothing to Kris and the looks she got on stage from some of the new clan lords told her that quite a few were not happy with certain aspects of the ceremony they had been invited to participate in.
Kris opened the ceremony.
“The planet of Zargoth was the base from which eight thousand rebel warships launched themselves into the heart of the Empire. I and the ships of the loyal fleet met and defeated them, outnumbered, almost four-to-one. Everyone expected that we would face defeat. Instead, we annihilated the rebel fleet. Many of the sailors and officers guarding this stadium were victors in that battle. They deserve your appreciation and respect.”
The applause went loud and long. The population wanted their new overlords to see them as loyal worshipers of the Emperor and weren’t taking any chances that their response might be called weak.
Kris went on to say nice things about the rosy future of Zargoth in the Empire, knowing full well that these people were aware that unless more resources could be found, this place had no future at all.
While she smiled through another long bout of cheering, a thought struck Kris.
NELLY, WHAT KIND OF ASTEROID BELT DOES THIS SYSTEM HAVE?
A FAIRLY DECENT ONE, KRIS. WHY?
IS ANYTHING BEING DONE TO USE ITS RESOURCES?
WE DIDN’T SEE ANY ACTIVITY IN THE ASTEROID BELT WHEN WE WERE ON APPROACH TO ZARGOTH.
NELLY, DON’T LET ME FORGET TO ASK MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS. WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE DIRT POOR WHILE THEY’VE GOT ALL SORTS OF WEALTH ORBITING A COUPLE OF HUNDRED MILLION KLICKS ABOVE THEIR HEAD?
Thank heavens Nelly was able to help Kris get back on track to finish her speech. Done, she stepped aside and the important activities of the day for the Iteeche began.
Ron came forward, and in his position as Imperial Counselor to the Emperor, announced the name of the new Planetary Overlord the Emperor had ordained to bestow upon them. That he was of the Chap’sum’We clan spoke volumes. From here on in, this planet belonged to that clan.
The named Iteeche left his comfortable seat and strode to where Ron stood.
Meanwhile, a naked slave appeared from out of nowhere with a large red box which he held open for Ron. The Imperial Counselor withdrew a heavy golden chain composed of links of every different shape, all showing many precious jewels which made it shine with every color of the rainbow. Ron placed the chain around the new ruler’s neck, and he then bowed respectfully to Ron.
Then the crowd went wild for at least five minutes.
When things quieted down, Ron called forward the ten new chiefs of the clans on Zargoth. One after another, ten slaves produced small, richly-painted, caskets. From them, Ron pulled forth chains of office that were also bejeweled gold, though the colors were fewer and the shapes more limited from chain to chain. One had red rubies decorating gold circles and rectangles. Another alternated triangles with the points up or down, all inlaid with turquoise. There were rarely more than three or four types of jewels on the links or three or four shapes in the chain.
When Ron finished, they stood beaming as much as Iteeche could while there was another long round of applause.
Ron finally raised his hands and the applause cut off like a light going out. The new ruler and clan lords returned to their seats and now seventy-nine lordlings marched out from the seats arranged at the back of the stage. Each was accompanied by a nude slave who did his best to shrink into the floor.
The lordlings stood, all four arms folded across their chests, all four feet spread wide apart in a power stance and glowered at the crowd. In the front row, seventy-seven lord governors of the largest cities on the planet, and two junior stand-ins, shuffled their way around to one side of the stage and began to climb the stairs up to it. They filed across it. When they came to a specific lordling, they went down on their knees before him.
For a long moment, the stadium was silent, more silent than Kris ever thought over 120,000 Iteeche and humans could be.
Ron spoke commandingly into the silence. “Surrender your chain of office.”
Each of the kneeling Iteeche raised a complex silver chain of disks and plaques from around their neck. The naked slave slipped forward, eyes down, never meeting the kneeling man’s, to accept the chain of office. They then turned, eyes still down, to hand it off to the new lord governor of the city.
Those governors now lifted the chain over their heads and placed it around their own neck. Hurriedly, the slaves arranged the chain in place, then melted into the background.
Now, 130,000 Iteeche exploded in cheers and applause.
GUN! came tersely over Nelly Net.
Kris took three steps back as a shot rang out. A large caliber bullet whizzed by, just in front of her. She felt the wind of it.
Three sharp shots snapped out as rounds from smaller caliber rifles answered the first.
Kris could read the story in the shots fired. One large Iteeche rifle had spoken her death. Three smaller human rifles responded.
There was no second bark from the larger rifle. No doubt, the Marine snipers had done their job.
The stadium, awash with shouts of joy and applause a moment ago, was silent. Not one person so much as breathed.
Into the silence, Kris shouted commandingly. “The traitor has paid the price for his treason. Long live Chap’sum’We! Long live Zargoth!”
That must have translated fairly well. Of course, Kris also backed her words up by clapping her hands. Ron immediately followed suit. In a moment, all those on stage were applauding, and a breath later, the stadium rocked with shouts and applause.
“Anyone see any other guns?” Jack said on the general comm net.
“We’re watching for them. Nothing yet, General.”
“Keep it up,” Jack said, as he came to stand beside Kris.
Kris smiled. No doubt, if he could, he would have put himself between her and any possible gun. However, the stadium wrapped around the stage in a full 360 degree circle. He could have ordered Marines to surround her, but he knew, after all these years, not to try that.
This time, the applause went long, and no one made any effort to cut it off. The former city governors slunk off the stage, and the ninety new lordlings of the planet moved around the stage waving at their new . . . whatever. Were they slaves? Peasants? Cannon fodder?
Kris didn’t know enough about the Iteeche Empire to know what those in power considered of those below them on the last few rungs of the civic ladder. That was something she needed to learn, and likely would want to change.
She had to suppress a smile at that thought. The Iteeche powers that be had made a deal with the devil, or rather the humans . . . the
same thing from their viewpoint. They were losing a civil war with the rebels. If Kris could not pull out a Longknife miracle, they’d be all be dead soon. If she could, they’d likely rule for a thousand more years.
That was what they wanted.
What they didn’t want was the flip side of the coin. The humans were chaos from their perspective. The humans caused change. Iteeche hated change, at least those at the top did.
Kris had no trouble with change. Indeed, the more she saw of this place, the more she wanted to change things. Change things a lot.
Once this rebellion was over, there would be a lot of pressure from the clan lords to roll things back to the way they were. If Kris was to pull off half of the change she wanted, she’d have to do it while the fight was still on.
She’d done some of it right here, today. The planet had not been wrecked. There had been an almost orderly change of clan ownership.
Now, how to make some more changes?
Kris eyed the lordlings on the stage, and the Iteeche in the stadium who seemed afraid to slow their clapping. Now Kris began to see a problem.
The Iteeche had four arms and four hands. As she watched, people in the crowd would switch from one pair of hands to the other. Humans had to stop clapping sooner or later; their palms could only take so much. The Iteeche could switch off.
It looked like this could go on forever.
NELLY, LET’S TALK ABOUT ASTEROIDS. ARE THEIR ANY GOOD ASTEROIDS CLOSER THAN THE BELT OUT THERE?
AS A MATTER OF FACT, KRIS, THERE IS A VERY NICE METAL ASTEROID NOT ALL THAT FAR FROM THIS PLANET, APPROXIMATELY ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY KILOMETERS IN LENGTH. IT HAS SEVERAL BILLION TONS OF IRON, NICKLE, AND OTHER INTERESTING RESOURCES.
IS IT DANGEROUS?
IN A COUPLE OF MILLION YEARS, IT MIGHT HIT THE PLANET. IT’S IN A CRAZY ORBIT.
WHAT WOULD IT TAKE TO CAPTURE IT?
YOU COULD DISPATCH A TASK FORCE, SAY SIXTEEN BATTLECRUISERS. I’D SUGGEST HUMANS, THOUGH YOU MIGHT INCLUDE A FLOTILLA OR TWO OF ITEECHE. UNLESS THERE IS A MAJOR FAULT IN THE STRUCTURE, YOU COULD HAVE IT HERE IN A WEEK.
CUT THE ORDERS, NELLY. HAVE ADMIRAL KITANO PICK HER BEST SHIPS FOR THIS JOB. ASK JACK TO ASSIGN HIS BEST ENGINEERS, AS WELL. TELL COTH I WANT FOUR FLOTILLAS.
I’M ON IT NOW, KRIS.
THANKS, NELLY.
Zargoth was a worthless planet. It was barely able to feed its people and meet their most basic needs. The clans had wanted her to slaughter a couple of million peasants so they could choose more of their own spawn to fill in the vacancies.
To the Iteeche, everything was a zero-sum game. If I got a bigger slice of the pie, you got less. That was the Iteeche way.
The human way was to increase the pie. Maybe even bake two or three more. Humans had the resources, Iteeche didn’t.
It was time for the humans to teach the Iteeche the benefits of consumerism.
Kris continued waving back at the applauding masses. They didn’t know it yet, but before Kris boarded the shuttle that would lift her back to her flagship in orbit, 144 battlecruisers would be already breaking orbit.
They’d come to Zargoth prepared to slaughter millions from orbit. Now, they were off to bring billions of tons of resources to orbit.
Zargoth would never be the same.
30
Having captured a planet, and installed a new government, it was up to Kris to make sure the rest of the transition went smoothly.
Each of the newly installed officials had brought with him a number of civilians to help them manage their new fiefs. All of the clan princelings had armed clan retainers that stood ready to protect them with their life.
Of course, there were also armed retainers left over from the city lordlings who were now dead or unemployed. Kris strongly recommended that the new kids on the block offer those retainers jobs in their own guard force.
To back up Kris’s “recommendation,” she included at least one company of U.S. Fleet Marines with orders to work with a battalion of Iteeche Fleet Marines to keep things going smoothly.
It worked, with one exception.
A firefight broke out. It was a massacre, if you believed the locals, or a sneak attack, if you believed the new arrivals. Kris believed neither, but the Marines saw to it that no massacre occurred, nor did the attack succeed. Peace was restored quickly, and the message got out to all the cities, violence between the new and old teams would not be permitted.
Kris did accept Ron’s suggestion that the newly installed leaders might like to move some of the old team to jobs elsewhere in the Empire. Ron was soon back with a moderate list from both the new planetary overlord, the replacement clan chiefs, and the present city governors.
Kris and Ron fired off a memo under both their signatures asking the senior clan chieftains at the Imperial Capital to provide both replacements and a list of vacancies available for the displaced bureaucrats.
Over the next two weeks, Kris got replies back, both with replacements and offers for jobs widely scattered around the loyal planets of the Empire. Very widely scattered. Two weeks later the replacements arrived on a fast bi-quadrireme and a few days later, the replaced were on their way to the capital, and from there, to their new jobs.
However, Zargoth was already busy changing.
A week after the transfer of power, an army of 100,000 Iteeche soldiers arrived in orbit, escorted by nearly 500 battlecruisers. The Imperial troops were distributed among the existing army, one battalion for every three locals to form an expanded regiment. There were several demotions among the locals, but never more than one pay grade. Artillery and armored vehicles were locked down tight and placed under guard.
There were a few incidents of fragging. Jack checked into them and discovered that the last government had installed a lot of “political officers” into the ranks of the army. Some of those political types had been rather liberal in hanging traitors. The fraggings were regular army types getting back at the worst of them.
Kris got a list of all the army’s political types and offered them jobs off planet. They eagerly volunteered and were shipped off to the capital for those there to figure out what to do with.
Ron doubted their employment prospects were very good.
Most of the so-called invasion fleet of freighters loaded with sewage and refugees from the Imperial Capital had been sent on their way. Kris had rearranged the passengers to extract tens of thousands of craftsman and artisans, all from the clans represented on Zargoth. While 1,990 freighters headed out for four distant planets, 10 lingered in orbit.
The passengers did not have long to wonder why.
Eight days after the transfer of power, a huge asteroid was carefully and smoothly slipped into high orbit, just below Zargoth’s protective Vanguard Allen belt. Some combat engineers began making the place livable, while others began herding nanos to mine the metals from the new moon.
Within the week, iron was being smelted and converted to steel. Sheets and I-beams were soon flowing to the space station above Zargoth. The station had not been considered large enough to build anything. At least, anything large. It was, however, large enough to repair a battleship.
The workers in the yard were soon laying down 10,000-ton freighters. No sooner had the first one finished trials, than it was headed out to a large asteroid, loaded with miners who had optimism in their hearts, even if their stomachs were a bit queasy.
Ron invited himself over for supper the afternoon the first ship took off for the asteroid belt. Their dinner conversation revolved around how quiet things were going, “for such a recently pacified rebel planet.”
“You catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” Kris pointed out.
“Yes, a most interesting turn of phrase for you humans, and very helpful in situations like this,” Ron agreed while spearing a small fish and lifting the still-wiggling fingerling to his beak.
He swallowed before going on. “So tell me, is this expedition to the asteroid belt honey or vinegar?”
&
nbsp; “Actually, neither,” Kris said, happy that all the beating around the bush was over. Clearly, this was the question at the root of this dinner invitation.
“First,” Kris said, “how is it that the resources of the asteroid belt have not been exploited?”
Ron eyed Kris as if she had two heads. Since he was using four eyes, it was quite a look.
“How could we? We ship out settlers with just enough resources to get them started. They have to use what the planet has. Usually, we’re dumping more settlers on a planet before the first wave has even caught its breath. Then, there are their own choosings and, if a planet is not rich in resources, there is little left to go wasting them on rooting around stone rocks millions of mu away.”
Ron shook his head. “I know that you lucked out with this close-in rock, finding iron and other important minerals. Still, there are few chances that those that you have shipped out to the asteroids will even find enough fuel to bring them back. I have gotten some rather strong complaints from their clan leaders that you are wasting fine workers.”
“I fully expect that the asteroid they’re heading for will pay off for them,” Kris said. “There are also a few dirty ice rocks not too far away that they can use for fuel. That is not a suicide mission. Tell me, Ron, don’t you know how to identify the asteroids that have minerals in them? We just run a spectrometer over them and look for the right colors.”
Ron shook his entire body. “There are so many stories among our people of ships that went off to explore these asteroid belts and the crews ended up eating each other. These places are worse than the deepest, darkest pits of the ocean. Some of our older planets do use their asteroid belts. The asteroid belt of the Capital System has been just about mined down to bare rock. However, it is rare that a planet is rich enough long enough or has a close enough belt that they risk a mission to it.”
Kris Longknife Page 15