by Ian Douglas
"You want me to try to head them off?" That was Simone's voice. The young hacker, jacked into the third shuttle control slot, was offering to intercede electronically, through the computer network linking the waiting shuttle and Babelport's space traffic control.
"Negative," Dev replied, a little sharply. "If they felt you in their system they'd know something was wrong. As it is, they might—"
"India Hotel Kilo Five-niner, this is Babelport Control. You are clear for immediate launch."
It had been a routine cross-check of their orders, nothing more. And Simone had already taken care of that aspect of things. "See?" he said simply.
"Babelport, India Hotel Kilo Five-niner," Anders said. "Acknowledged. See you again soon."
The melodrama of a prelaunch countdown had long ago been superseded by the silent and ultrafast musings of a ship's AI. Lara Anders gave the mental command, and the ducted jets whined to full throttle, lifting the ascraft out of the blast pit. The Moketuki's flat, squared-off nose came up, and a second later the hotbox ignited.
They rose skyward, balanced on a thundering tower of white flame.
In an observation lounge in the Babelport terminal, Katya watched the delta-winged ascraft climbing on its waterfall of fire and smoke and felt a small, inward shudder of relief. Casually, she reached up and touched the compatch behind her ear. "Sword, this is Watcher. The Eagle is aloft. Initiate Hope Eyrie."
"Copy that," Hagan's voice said, speaking in her mind. "Hope Eyrie is go."
It was time.
Aboard the Tokitukaze, Yoshi Omigato was indeed in a conference with senior Hegemony officers, but it was an electronic meeting rather than face-to-face, and those attending were linked from places as far apart as Babel, Winchester, and Boreal, in Eridu's north polar zone. Twelve uniformed men floated in a dimensionless space, observing a five-meter holographic projection of the Eriduan globe. The colors were accurately portrayed as seen from space—clotted masses of reds, oranges, and golds separated by violet seas—but the planet's cloud cover had been stripped away, and important installations, cities, and outposts were represented by color-coded symbols. The space elevator was a thin silver streak extending from Eridu's equator far out into the surrounding night.
Also displayed were numerous flashing points of light—green, blue, and white—each accompanied by a hovering data tag identifying it. Green marked Hegemony forces and blue Imperial; white lights represented probable concentrations of rebel troops.
To one side, beyond the globe, a three-D image presented a realtime view of the Babel town square, where nearly five thousand people were crowded together in a living sea, and more were joining them every minute. It was as though the dome had become a kind of magnet for every malcontent and troublemaker on the planet. Their chanting was muted to a rhythmic, lingering echo: "Tanis! Tanis Tanis!"
Obviously, Omigato thought, the campaign to blame Tanis on a few traitorous gaijin had failed. That still didn't matter, fortunately, so long as his version of events here was all that reached Earth.
What was worrisome was the rebels' selection of Babel as the site of their demonstration. A pitched battle there might damage the sky-el. Any serious interruption in space elevator traffic would sharply cut into the planet's productivity. It would also end any possibility for terraforming Eridu, at least until the elevator could be repaired. If the damage was serious enough, the delay might be measured in decades.
Omigato was patient, but not that patient. His campaign, the campaign of the Men of Completion, had been so finely timed, so precisely forged and balanced . . . like the blade of a venerable Masamune katana. He'd expected that the rebel rising, when it came, would be in Winchester or one of the other cities in the south, not at Babel.
Much hung on the events of the next few hours.
"Since Tanis," Chusa Barton, CO of the 4th Terran Rangers, was saying, "we've had a dramatic increase in the number of desertions." His words were hard and curt, bordering on insolence. Omigato doubted that the man could be trusted and already planned to replace him. "Whole companies have simply walked off base, taking weapons, even warstriders, with them. There have been several skirmishes already when security personnel tried to stop them. . . ."
"Yes, but where do they go?" Omigato demanded. "These rebel battalions you tell me of, they cannot simply vanish into jungle! They need shelter! Food! Power! Air they can breathe! Where are they hiding?"
"We believe they are using outposts near the major population centers," a HEMILCOM staff officer said. One of the outpost symbols, a few kilometers south of Babel on the holographic display, grew brighter. "This is Emden, my Lord, constructed forty years ago for fungus prospectors in the Equatorial foothills. By triangulation and through computer simulations, we believe this facility was the staging area both for the attack on the monorail a few weeks ago and for the raid on Nimrod."
"And what has been done about it?"
"We have it under close observation from synchorbit, my Lord." a HEMILCOM security officer said. "We have identified several people living there as probable rebels. When we—"
"Then take them!" Omigato exploded. "Or do I have to call in the Empire and show you how the thing is to be done? Take prisoners! Make them talk! They will know other rebels, leaders, hiding places! But take them!"
"It's not that easy, my Lord," a black-haired gaijin named Boudoin said. He was the commanding officer of the newly arrived Guard unit, the Centurians, and his image floated in space above the varicolored world with arms crossed, a dark expression on his face. "The civilian population is rapidly polarizing over the Tanis incident. Some support the Hegemony still, but AI projections estimate that sixty-five percent are siding openly with the rebels. They provide warnings of troop movements, shelter for deserters, supplies, recruits. Civilian workers on the military bases are leaking classified data faster than we can keep track of it. My staff believes that—"
"It is quite easy. Taisa," Omigato interrupted sharply. "Simplicity itself. You permit no civilian workers on your bases. You take hostages. You evacuate town domes and sequester their populations in holding centers. You shoot deserters. And if you can't maintain control, I remind you that the Tokitukaze alone has the firepower to destroy every habitat dome on the surface of this accursed planet! Is that understood?"
In the shocked silence, a staff assistant's voice sounded almost shockingly loud. "My Lord . . ."
"What is it?" Omigato was in no mood for interruptions.
"My Lord, please look at the realtime images from Babel. They . . . something is happening."
Omigato pivoted his point of view, staring at the mob scene illuminated in the empty space beyond the Eriduan globe like a theater stage. The crowd had grown still . . . almost expectant. A holographic public address screen had been erected, and Prem's image was towering over the mob, imploring them to disperse. Omigato's teeth ground with frustration. He would disperse them . . . and so thoroughly there would not be enough left to bury. But what . . .
At the mob's back, a warehouse door was opening.
Chapter 29
Article 10. Right of Revolution. Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the whole community and not for the interests or emoluments of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to, reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
—Article X
New Hampshire Bill of Rights
C.E. 1784
Katya consulted her internal time, then opened her tactical frequency. "Right. Let's go."
"Copy." Hagan's voice said in her head. "We're ready to move. Good luck. Katya."
"And you. Vic."
It was almost like being in the Thorhammers a
gain. Katya was jacking her Ghostrider, and the striders flanking her included Vic Hagan and Lee Chung in a pair of RLN-90 Scoutstriders, and Erica Jacobsen in a Swiftstrider. The fifth machine was Roger Darcy's Fastrider, and for some reason that reminded her of Rudi Carlsson. She missed the impetuous Lokan and wished he were here.
Several hundred leggers were also gathered in that building, foot soldiers of the Rebel Network. One platoon had been fitted out with complete combat armor, but the rest were still wearing partial armor, or none at all. The rebellion had grown tremendously since Katya had arrived on Eridu, but it still was having trouble providing arms and equipment for all of its members.
The miracle was that what they did have had been successfully hidden from the Imperials and their Hegemony watchdogs. These four warstriders, for instance, had been shipped to warehouse 1103 in crates labeled MACHINE PARTS and stored there for the past week, awaiting this moment. It would not have been possible without the active, the enthusiastic, support of much of the city's population, including especially those like Simone Dagousset who were willing to tweak the government's computer network.
"You take the pods," she told Georg Lipinski, in the LaG-42's number two slot. "But if it comes to a fight, watch what you're shooting at. It's crowded out there."
"Iceworld." Lipinski said, his mental voice steady. "Easy feed." The kid had grown a lot in these past few weeks and taken on the stature of a combat veteran.
The sliding doors to warehouse 1103 were wide open now, and white light splashed into the dusty building interior from the city center outside. Beyond, a throng of civilians stood in a dense-packed mass, waiting in eerie silence. Katya could see some of their banners and slogans. ERIDU IS FREE! one crudely spray-painted placard read. She sincerely hoped that the wish could be made fact, though the odds were still against it. Against them.
Katya's Ghostrider emerged into daylight filtered through the broad transplas expanse of the largest Babel dome, leading the way into the town's central square where the people had gathered in a vast, shoulder-to-shoulder mass. They made way for the line of warstriders, but they'd been resisting for some time the loudhailer demands of militia and Hegemony troops to break up, to go home.
A line of Hegemony warstriders was arrayed opposite the mob, blocking the way toward the Towerdown dome and the base of the sky-el itself. Behind them, the holographic image of Governor Prem, five stories tall, implored the populace to disperse. Katya enhanced her view and read the unit emblems and designations on the silent row of Ghostriders. Scoutstriders, and one massive, three-slotter Warlord. Chiron Centurians. Good troops . . . and not yet infected by the heady, antiauthoritarian air that had been filling the Eriduan domes for the past several weeks.
"People of Eridu." the enormously enlarged image of Prem was saying. "I promise you, your complaints, your dissatisfaction, your petitions have been heard! Return to your habs immediately. Otherwise, the government authority will have no alternative but to employ gas."
As the rebel warstriders entered the square, however, the Hegemony machines stirred and shifted nervously, as though wondering which side the newcomers might be on. Katya feared for the people between the two lines of giants. If a fight broke out . . .
Katya sought the Hegemony combat channels, her AI shifting through thousands of frequencies in a fraction of a second. There! She heard them talking—AI-coded. of course. "Join us." she said, speaking in the clear. There was a sudden, shocked silence. "Hegemony warstriders, join us! Or step aside and allow us to pass to Towerdown!"
"Who is this?" A man's voice, harsh with frustration.
"This is Captain Katya Alessandro of the Confederation." she said. She hoped she didn't sound as pompous as she felt. "Hegemony and Empire no longer govern here. Eridu is free. Allow us to enter the Towerdown dome."
She could see the entrance to Towerdown behind the warstriders and a line of Heglegger infantry. That dome had been heavily guarded throughout the past week, and if this rebellion was to have any chance at all. Sinclair's forces had to seize it. Besides the space elevator's base and power circuits, it housed the government-controlled transmitters and AI that connected much of Eridu with synchorbit. While government centers at Winchester and elsewhere possessed direct lasercom links with Babylon, the Hegemony's control of the planet's entertainment, news, and communications originated there, in Towerdown.
The biggest of the opposing striders, an old RS-64C Warlord, pivoted on its upper torso, the massive, blunt forearms housing megavolt particle cannons coming to bear on Katya's Ghostrider with unmistakable menace.
"Give it up, sweetheart." the voice replied, "before we squash you and your mincie friends here like bugs."
"Like you did at Tanis?" she shot back. "Another massacre? Start shooting and none of you will leave this plaza alive. Let us pass!"
The Warlord took a threatening step forward. The crowd, uncertain, wavered somewhere between panic and fury. Katya could imagine the sheer helplessness they would feel, faced by armored giants against which they were powerless. Some of them were shouting now, isolated cries, calling for the rebel striders to go ahead and attack.
She hesitated. Any overt force could trigger a firefight, and hundreds would die. She checked her internal time sense again. Sinclair had promised—
Yes! The vast image of Prem flickered, broke into dancing fragments, solidified once, then blanked out. In its place was a new figure, serene and cold and remote.
General Travis Sinclair, wearing an austere brown uniform with only a single star glinting at his throat to show his rank. The transmission, Katya knew, was being beamed into Eridu's communication system by hackers who'd managed to infiltrate the government's ViRcom network days before. She prayed they would be able to keep the tap open; everything depended on Sinclair's getting his message out now. The crowd, trembling at the brink of an all-out riot, grew still. Even the Heglegger troops around the perimeter turned to watch the screen.
"People of Eridu." Sinclair began, a simple and straightforward preamble. "As most of you know by now, the Eriduan Congress of Delegates has asked us to prepare a document advancing the New Constitutionalist position. We have done so. Congress has not yet voted to accept its provisions, but it occurs to us that, in a declaration of such import, in events of such import, a direct appeal to the people for ratification might best serve our cause. This is, after all, your world, and not Earth's. And, if you will it, it is your declaration.
"Therefore . . .
"We, the free peoples of a diverse and infinitely variable species, in order that our beliefs and the nature of our steadfast determination be set before the judgment of an informed and rational Humankind, do now publish this Declaration of Reason, establishing it as a covenant among those seeking relief from the burden imposed by Hegemony tyranny.
"A just and unemotional deference to the principles of reason demands that we explain our position clearly and without equivocation. Why should the rule of law given precedent by centuries of peace be called now into question? In explanation, then, we make these assertions:
"We hold that the vast distances sundering world from world and system from system serve to insulate the worlds of Mankind's diaspora from one another and from Earth, and that government cannot adequately bridge so vast a gap of time, space, and culture;
"We hold that the differences between mutually alien, albeit human cultures render impossible a thorough understanding of the needs, necessities, aspirations, goals, and dreams of those disparate worlds by any central governing body;
"We hold that the seizure of the wealth and property of our citizens on pain of imprisonment or suit is indistinguishable from armed robbery, that the forced servitude of our people on foreign worlds is indistinguishable from slavery, that the continued assimilation of diverse cultures into societal patterns determined by those claiming to represent popular opinion is indistinguishable from genocide;
"Further, we hold that human culture, economy, and aspirations are too va
ried to administer, regulate, or restrict by any means, but should be free, allowing each to thrive or fail on its own merits;
"That human rights derive neither from God nor from human government or institutions nor from precedent, but from a people's willingness to secure and maintain those rights for themselves;
"That every individual bears the responsibility for his own actions, and that personal liberty conveys no right to deprive others of life, liberty, or property; neither can what is regarded as morally wrong for the individual be considered morally right for government;
"That the only just role for government in human affairs is as defense against force or fraud;
"That when government no longer represents its people, that when government representatives advance their own interests at the expense of the people, that when legal attempts by the people to represent themselves and their interests and to redress the wrongs of the government prove ineffectual, that when government manifestly threatens the principles of individual liberty, then the people have not the right but the responsibility for reforming or, at need, changing that government. . . ."
There was more, a lot more, all of it following the same general thread, that people didn't have to let some amorphous and all-wise government think for them, but had the right . . . no, the duty to think for themselves. Katya wasn't entirely sure she believed all that was said. If there were no taxes—that line about seizure of wealth and property had caught her ear—how could the government keep open the trade routes between the worlds? If individual freedoms took precedence over public welfare, what was to stop someone from screaming "Fire!" in a crowded room? Or operating a groundcar or skimmer while a current trickled through the pleasure center of his brain?
Well, perhaps that line about individual responsibility covered that . . . but she still had the feeling that this Declaration of Reason was being just a bit glib on that point.
Nevertheless, she had a large, unyielding lump in her throat as she listened to the rest of the address, and she noticed that the crowd thronging the square was as silent and as still as if they'd been somehow suspended in time.