by Jake Elwood
Closing her eyes, she used her implants to instruct a bot to swoop into position in front of her. She turned her back on the Parliament Building, then checked the framing of the shot. She nudged the bot up and over until she filled most of the projection, with the crowd and the gleaming golden dome of the Rotunda in the background.
She didn't try to include the holo projections in the shot. They were dramatic, but the angle was all wrong. Besides, she didn't want her viewers distracted.
Satisfied with her camera setup, she turned back to the crowd, careful not to stray from her spot on the grass. She surveyed the seething mass of people, then looked up at the giant politicians floating above.
Acton looked magnificent in the projection, broad-shouldered and heroic, and Janice felt her lip curl. The man was a fear-monger of the worst sort, the kind who needed a massive crisis to have any chance of power. While Saretsky, the freshly-deposed Statsminister, was pleading with the population to set aside their differences and unite, Acton was doing his best to whip his followers into a frenzy of hate.
He seemed less concerned with the Hive than with assigning blame here on Earth. The heart of his message seemed to be that he was angry, and his anger would somehow make everyone safe. He was promising to strike at the aliens, and to strike with equal zeal at anyone who failed to rally behind the flag. He spoke of taking back control of Earth's colonies so all of humanity's wealth and resources could be united against the alien threat. He talked of putting troops in major industrial centers all over the Earth, to make sure everyone really was doing their share. The aliens were his excuse to seize humanity in an iron fist, and billions of voters were eating it up.
Janice had started out amused by his bombast, his ridiculous rages, his diatribes against colonists and United World nations he said weren't pulling their weight. It was thinly-veiled racism and xenophobia, and it struck an unfortunate chord with terrified people who just wanted someone to do something—anything—about this terrible alien threat.
Some Saretsky supporter was using a holo projector to paint the word 'FASCIST' just under Acton's face. A mix of cheers and angry yells greeted this witticism, and Janice saw a ripple in the crowd as Acton supporters tried to reach the offending projector. She felt her pulse quicken, but the crowd was simply too dense to allow the angry Acton supporters to push through. The person controlling Acton's holo projector jerked the man's image sharply to one side, leaving the offending word hanging in empty air. This made Acton's image lean absurdly to one side, which triggered a round of ironic applause from Saretsky supporters.
Saretsky had put up a spirited defense over the past two weeks, pointing out the impossibility of predicting an alien invasion and presenting the public with a solid plan for refitting the fleet and launching a new line of cruisers. Janice could only pray it was enough.
The word 'FASCIST' began to creep through the air, edging closer and closer to the image of Acton, who leaned away like a housewife terrified of a spider. The text became stretched and distorted by the angle, until it was barely readable as it finally reached Acton's image. A moment later, though, Acton's image vanished.
A fresh image appeared, a woman in a business suit. Janice recognized the Parliamentary spokesperson, Shannon Gallant. The whole attitude of the crowd changed as thousands of people activated their implants, searching for the feed.
"Hello, citizens of Earth and citizens of the united colonies." Gallant's voice, muffled by the crowd, boomed from speakers set in a holo projector somewhere in the press of bodies. "Votes are still being tallied, but enough delegates have reported in that I can make a definitive statement about the results of this historic election."
Janice held her breath, and a strange silence fell as thousands of people stopped chanting, shouting, arguing, and talking.
"Jeff Acton now has 50.4% of the delegate votes in the United Worlds Parliament."
Gallant kept talking, but Janice didn't hear a word of it. No one did. Pandemonium swept the crowd, cheers and jeers, angry shouts, whoops of delight. Janice shook her head, then took a deep breath and activated the camera.
"This is Janice Ling, reporting live from Moot Point, where Jeff Acton has just claimed a majority of delegate votes in today's Statsminister election." She suppressed the urge to add, And may God help us all. "The crowd behind me is equal parts jubilant and outraged. Emotions are running high here, as they are across the world and throughout United Worlds space. However you may feel personally about the election results, I hope you can find the strength to set aside any frustration and resentment and join the rest of humanity as we present a united front in the face of the Hive threat."
She let a bit of a gallows grin touch her features. She knew her viewers, and they didn't want a strictly impartial report. They appreciated a bit of a human touch, and it simply wasn't in her nature to pull her punches. "Unity," she said, "may be the very last thing Jeff Acton wants from the electorate. Let's give it to him anyway, shall we?" She smoothed her features into a professional mask and said, "This is Janice Ling with Pan Galactic News. Watch this feed for more updates."
A red light on the nearest bot went dim, telling her she was no longer broadcasting to Pan Galactic. She let her shoulders slump and turned to survey the crowd one more time.
By the sound of things a riot might break out at any moment. Well, if it did, there was plenty of press on hand to cover it. The whole world was a powder keg. If she wanted anything remotely exclusive, she would have to get away from her fellow reporters.
She moved down the hill, passing knots of people chattering excitedly about the announcement. Some wore yellow to show they were Saretsky supporters. They tended to be either angry or quietly worried. Acton's supporters wore red, and they gathered in jubilant clusters, clapping each other on the back. It was difficult to make generalizations about such a mix of people, but she had the impression that Acton's supporters were older, more conservative, less thoughtful. Saretsky had always appealed to intellectuals and professionals. Acton was presenting himself as the voice of the common man.
"Voice of the common thug is more like it," she muttered, and one of her bot cameras came to life. She turned it off with an impatient flap of her hand.
The sound of distant singing caught her attention, and she turned in that direction. The ground levelled out as she left the hill known as Moot Point behind her. The dome of the Rotunda disappeared from sight as she moved behind a row of buildings. The sound of singing grew louder, until at last she could make out the words. She felt her eyebrows climb her forehead in disbelief.
All we are saying is give peace a chance.
She rounded a corner and saw a procession coming toward her, a dozen or so men and women all in a line, each one holding a candle and singing. In their free hands most of them held placards with slogans like "Talk First, Shoot Later", "Enemies Are Friends We Don't Know Yet", or "We Are The Monsters".
"Unbelievable," she murmured. She'd heard of these groups, people who believed humanity should somehow be trying to make peace with the Hive. The peace protesters believed people like Hammett—and Janice herself—were lying about what had happened when humanity first met the aliens. They accused Spacecom of starting the war, and claimed the poor misunderstood aliens were only defending themselves.
The least idiotic of the protesters accepted that the Hive had started an unprovoked war, but claimed it wasn't too late to negotiate, communicate, and find common ground. They were damned fools, and she started to turn away. Acton loved to lump the peace protesters together with Saretsky and her supporters and tar them all with the same brush. Janice didn't want to fuel his rhetoric by catching more footage of morons with candles.
The tramp of footsteps stopped her. It was a strangely ominous sound, like an army on the march. It sounded like hundreds of people coming toward her, and she had a vision of faceless cops behind plastic shields heading toward Moot Point to stop a riot.
But it wasn't cops who came down the center
of the street, advancing grimly on the peace protesters. It was men and women, mostly men, all of them dressed in red. They marched in perfect lockstep, booted feet coming down in unison with an ominous thump-thump-thump. They sounded like an army, but there were only about thirty of them, marching three abreast in a perfect column.
It wasn't a uniform they wore. Not quite. They wore dark trousers and red shirts, but none of it quite matched. Each person wore a black armband, though, with 'EDF' stenciled on it in stark white letters.
Janice quickly activated her cameras and pointed them toward the marchers. The Earth Defence Force was one of Acton's worst ideas. He had promised to create a militia of sorts, dedicated to protecting the people of Earth. Of course, to Acton, protecting the people meant intimidating and controlling anyone who seemed to lack zeal.
His most rabid supporters had jumped the gun, organizing themselves into local paramilitary groups. Janice had dismissed it as a handful of fanatics playing dress-up, but apparently she'd underestimated the movement.
The gap between the peace protesters and the EDF column closed rapidly. Janice pressed her back against a storefront as the column marched past her. One face after another went by, and she shivered. She saw fanaticism and battle lust in every face.
This was not going to end well.
She followed the column, keeping to one side so she could see past them. She expected the peace protesters to shrink back, but they just kept walking down the sidewalk, fear mixed with determination on their faces.
One man in the front rank of the EDF column wore a black sash across his chest. He seemed to be an officer of some sort, and he raised an arm, gesturing toward the sidewalk. The column changed direction, marching straight toward the peace protesters.
Janice found herself trying to do several things at once. She called the police. That seemed like the best choice for a first priority. Then she sent her cameras forward to capture the action. The sight of a camera bot could have a calming effect on violence, she knew. Breaking the law lost its appeal when you had a camera recording your every move. So she instructed the bots to move in close, and had them dart around a bit, attracting plenty of attention.
She parked one bot in front of the officer at a range of two or three meters. If anyone had the power to stop things before someone got hurt, it was him. The view from that bot appeared in a small window in the corner of her eye, and she saw the officer give the bot a single, snarling glance.
After that he ignored all three cameras, chopping at the air as he directed his followers forward. The EDF column exploded against the line of peace protesters, and Janice screamed. Her voice was drowned out, though, by bellows and shrieks and screams of pain.
She'd expected a confrontation, harsh language, perhaps some pushing and shoving. What she saw was a vicious attack. EDF thugs in red shirts tore into the line of protesters, fists swinging. Candles dropped to the pavement as protesters fell back, hands coming up in a hopeless attempt to protect themselves.
A woman in pale lavender fell before the onslaught, and a plump man bent over her, trying to protect her. EDF goons yanked him back and knocked him sprawling, and boots flashed as the goons started to kick.
"No!" Janice squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, blotting out the horror a dozen paces away. The bots had an emergency setting that would transmits footage of a crime in progress directly to the police, and she activated it. Then she started forward, knowing it was foolish and hopeless, but filled with a desperate need to do something.
Strangely enough, the violence seemed less awful up close. She found herself behind a wall of red-clad backs, unable to see the victims, able to hear only groans and stomach-wrenching sounds of impact as boots met flesh. A very large man loomed in front of her, his back to her. She stretched up until she could reach his shoulder with both hands, and she tugged. "You're on camera. You have to stop. The police are coming!"
He turned, carelessly, and his elbow hit her chest. His upper arm hit her jaw and she staggered backward, then fell to a sitting position.
He stood over her, and for a moment she thought he would apologize. His face was hard and emotionless, though. "If you're not with us, you're against us."
She scrambled to her feet, frightened and furious. "This is wrong! They're pacifists."
"We're at war. Pacifists serve the enemy." He turned away, leaving her staring open-mouth at his back.
Sirens wailed in the distance, but she doubted anyone else heard. The redshirts were stepping back from the scene of the beating, re-forming in a triple rank. She watched as one of her bots, guided by a simple AI, drifted along just above the column. She would have a record of every face. Justice would be done, though it would be cold comfort to the victims.
The officer with the black sash made a gesture with his arm and the column resumed marching. Janice stared after them, wishing she could find a brick to throw at their retreating backs, wishing she had the courage to throw the brick if she had one. Then she turned her attention to the peace protesters.
Blood speckled the sidewalk and the street. Not a single protester was standing. Some lay curled in a fetal position. Others sat huddled, arms curled protectively around their heads. The plump man who had tried to protect a woman lay sprawled on his back, arms wide. She knelt beside him.
He still breathed, and she murmured, "Thank God." His face was a bloody mess, one eye swollen shut. Blood bubbled from his mouth every time he exhaled. She slid a hand under his neck, checking for spinal damage, then turned his head to the side to let blood drain more easily from his mouth.
Emergency vehicles began to touch down all around her. A uniformed paramedic knelt across from her. "It's all right, ma'am. I've got it from here."
Janice stood and backed away. She wanted to scream or burst into tears, or just sink down on her haunches, close her eyes, and push the whole awful scene out of her mind.
Instead, she checked the bots. All three of them were doing a good job of collecting background shots, following motion or pointing their cameras at anything shaped like a human being. She left them to their work and called Pan Galactic.
"J-Doll," drawled a bored voice in her ear. "Whatcha got for me?"
"Calvin. It's-" she spent an awful moment looking for a combination of words that wouldn't reduce her to tears. Finally she said, "Check my cameras."
"One sec." When he spoke again the boredom was gone from his voice. "What the hell happened?"
She told him, retreating into professional detachment like she was putting on armor. "Run it now," she said. "I'll get ready for a live recap."
"Right. Stand by."
She took several deep breaths, steadying herself, and thought about what she would say. She turned her back to the carnage and got a bot positioned ahead of her, just above eye line, so the paramedics and injured victims would be visible behind her. She was superficially calm, but she knew some raw emotion would show through.
That was just fine with her. The situation was awful and outrageous, and she wouldn't pretend otherwise. Bloody gang of bullies. Beating on pacifists? It must have seemed pretty safe. But you made a mistake. You're going to pay. I'm going to see to it.
A long minute crawled past, and then another. She glanced over her shoulder and saw paramedics lifting a stretcher into an ambulance. A couple of protesters climbed in as well, one woman holding a bandage to her face. Janice frowned. She was losing her dramatic backdrop.
"Calvin? I'm ready."
Silence.
"Calvin? We need to strike while the iron is hot."
Calvin said, "Um …"
"What you mean, um?"
There was a long pause, and then Calvin spoke, every word pained and reluctant. "Janice? We're not going to run the story."
"What?"
"Criticizing the EDF isn't exactly the most … prudent thing we can do right now."
"What the hell? They just beat the crap out of a bunch of hippies with candles! We can't NOT report this!"
> When Calvin spoke again he sounded embarrassed. "We have a lot of staff at the head office. I've got their well-being to think of. And my own. And yours."
Something squirmed in her guts, a worm of fear that told her things were much, much worse than she'd ever imagined. She remembered the sound of boots hitting flesh. The goons had ignored her this time. Next time, they might not. Maybe I should listen to him. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut.
"No bloody way, Calvin. We have to run this story. We have to."
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Then Calvin said, "Sorry."
She cut the connection, spent a moment glaring at the bot in front of her, then told it to record. "This is Janice Ling, freelance journalist. I'm just down the hill from Moot Point, at the scene of a vicious attack on a group of innocent peace protesters …"
CHAPTER 5 - HAMMETT
Hammett held his breath as a wormhole opened and his tiny fleet dropped into normal space. He didn't exhale until Kaur said, "We seem to be alone."
They were on the edge of the Naxos star system, four light hours from the star. Ariadne, the planet containing the colony, was much too distant to see in any detail. With any luck it meant the three corvettes could also not be seen.
Hammett kept his back straight and his face expressionless, but he wanted to sag in relief. He had imagined popping out into the middle of an enemy fleet, with twenty long minutes before he could jump out again. Now he found himself strangely with nothing to do. He had given his orders before the last jump. The ship was focusing its scanners even now on the distant colony. There was nothing for Hammett to do but wait.
"There's something in orbit," said Sanjari. She tapped an icon, and a blurry image appeared on Hammett's screen. The planet was nothing more than a fuzzy blob. The object in orbit was a speck on the near side of the planet, ringed in white to keep it from being lost in the image of the planet.