by Allen Ivers
Riley flipped to the cover page again.
‘Aaron Havenes // Convicted of Capital Murder of a Peace Officer in the Year of the Traveler 2237 // Transferred from Fort Augustine Prison in 2239 // Began Indentured Service in the Vanguard Copper Mines 2240.’
His biographical information was limited even by Correctional standards -- even previous profession and educational marks were absent or redacted. All that remained were the quotations from his Trial Defense.
The whole proceeding had lasted seventeen minutes before the tribunal rendered a verdict. A full transcript along with written affidavits and sworn statements collected by fellow Peace Officers waited in the tail end of the file.
It was a rock-solid case, almost unusually clean-cut. Aaron was a murderer caught with the blood still wet on his hands and a dozen witnesses lined up to testify.
The sensational Greenglad Bomber that had captivated criminal justice diehards for two whole years only had three witnesses, and one of them had been expunged due to the history of institutionalization. And that was a case that positively reeked of a Ministry scapegoat.
So what did Aaron do to deserve such a thorough burial?
And despite all of that, Aaron had proven himself a perfectly proficient soldier. Had the Ministry found him during his youth, they might’ve trained a useful officer.
Although, to be completely fair to his incompetent colleagues, they eventually found him; it just happened they found him standing over the corpse of a Peace Officer.
His door barked at him, as a clenched fist hammered on the steel frame. There it was, that urgent entitlement that sang with the infuriating music of a haircut in search of your superior.
A few voices chattered on the opposite side, but that banshee bellowed over the others: “Riley, open the damn door.”
Riley slumped in his seat, regretting the coming expenditure of energy he just didn’t have available today. He thumbed a switch on the tablet computer mounted on his wrist, “Lieutenant, can I see you for a minute?”
Talania slid through the creaking doors as soon as there was enough space for her tall frame, “How could you do this?!”
Two officers rushed in behind her, trying to pull her back out the door, but Talania backed them down with a bulldog’s stare. This woman had all of the finesse of an orbital bombardment.
Riley waved the officers back out the door, before gesturing for Talania to take a seat in the only other chair, “I see the honeymoon period is over,” he said, flipping back to the front of the file for the eleventh time. “You're welcome, by the way.”
“Very cute, Riley,” she snapped back, “You can’t fire me. The Ministry is going to have your head for this!”
“The Ministry is occupied with the other side of the galaxy,” Riley intoned, “And they’ve wanted my head pretty much since I graduated with suboptimal marks. Trust me when I say, in our line of work, you only survive this long if you know how to duck.”
Talania leafed through the papers on her clipboard -- was she the one carrying the torch for these heinous artifacts? She began reading from a branch of statistics longer than her arm, “Six accountants, three policymakers, twenty-three--”
“I know all of this, Ms. Dedria.”
“Twenty-three community outreach officers, and my entire communications office!”
“You know how I know all of this?” Riley groaned, hoping beyond hope he could make her stop, “Because I wrote the memo.”
“You’re diverting one hundred and sixty pounds of rations specifically to the Orbital detail?!” Talania barked, “That’s like fourteen people, but you’re starving entire families in this breakdown!”
“For Orbital, that is starvation rations,” he said, “With all our upgrades, we cook a little hotter than you do. It's a military situation, Talania. I'm sorry, but these are difficult decisions with harsh realities.”
She reached forward, ripping Aaron’s file from his hands, “You can’t just melt the Colonial Administration because it's annoying."
"So you admit it's annoying?"
"Oh, granted freely!" Talania nodded, but she wasn't going to be turned aside, “But these are critical -- and might I add Constitutional -- offices. The Governor, the Statesmen: they won’t stand for it!”
He pushed out a breath, trying to push the growing anger out of his chest with the same action, “And Daddy’s got your back, does he?”
Her nose twitched but she stood her ground. Political power, much like physical power, came from the foundation. Any equivocation weakened the stance. Talania learned that lesson early and applied it well, often finding strength when there was nothing to back her by just standing hard.
It was an illusion that made her an effective politician. But the quiver of her lip betrayed the truth her otherwise immaculate poker face tried to hide: that imitation of power had been silenced.
A shape at the door, answering Riley’s summons. “Lieutenant Holmst,” Riley asked, “Would you find Governor Dedria and bring him to my office? His daughter has some questions for him and I would like to minimize the injuries from the judicial duel to follow.”
Holmst nodded and marched off down the hall. Riley gestured to the open chair, as he plucked the file back from Talania’s grasp. Such shows of civility had never calmed her before but giving ground might reduce the amount of violent attitudes in his vicinity.
There wasn't a whole lot of ground for him to give her. Riley's office was marginally larger than a tin can, and Talania's high ponytail was already brushing the roof. A small porthole behind Riley offered a little natural light, but it only served to highlight the lack of decoration adorning the bulkheads. His desk was bolted to the floor, no pictures on the blue-gray walls, and a small cot that folded up into the bulkhead
The only real art to speak of he had hand-painted over the door jam: "Service to the People" — a reminder.
Talania took what little was on offer, easing herself into the open aluminum seat. She looked like a child, her knees crooked up higher than the armrests. Space travel was not made for the statuesque.
“What’s to become of us?”
“A skeleton crew will maintain the necessary administrative functions,” Riley droned, “They will need proper management, and I know you’re looking for work.”
“So you shove me into a corner where I can do the least harm?"
“Where you can be the most helpful, actually,” Riley said as he reopened the pages to resume his study. “Talania, you’ve a brilliant organizational mind and it would be a shame to sideline that."
The compliments felt strange in his mouth, almost chewy. False. And he couldn’t shake the feeling of her stare, that she was well aware of his discomfort. Talania’s fleeting patience had been exhausted and she had resolved to stare at his head until his thinning hairline retreated back over the horizon.
“Has anyone ever told you, you look like you tortured animals as a child?” Riley mused.
“Better to look like it than have two Naval Medals in the field,” Talania shot back.
“I’ve only got the one,” Riley said, “And it's an Academy Merit, not a Medal.”
Talania leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees, “What do you gain by establishing martial law in Vanguard?”
“I don’t have to do two and half hours of stand-up material in front of career morons in order to justify saving your life,” Riley said, “These aren’t normal circumstances, Ms. Dedria.”
“And what about tax collection?” She asked, “Road maintenance? Will your office be handling law enforcement too?”
“There’s a reason you still have a job. If you even want it.”
“So building you a throne is left to Stage Two?” She taunted, with a raised eyebrow.
“No thrones, Ms. Dedria,” Riley assured her, “One day, I'm going to lead from the bridge of Eisenclad Dreadnought. But today, I chose to stay here, ever the servant.”
She scoffed, retreating back in her cha
ir to study and hate him from the safety of a few extra feet. Her ivory tower had crumbled under the weight of her own righteousness and she blamed a so-called despot on the neighboring unrelated high ground.
This was too perfect. If the Princess pouted any harder, she might regress back into Grade School. Fitting, for a woman who never left that esoteric cradle where all conflicts are conceptual.
He had no doubt she felt for those that were hungry but had never been truly hungry herself. She had never missed a meal, and not once had she eaten some stale shards from a can.
It was all well-intentioned, to be sure, but it rang hollow.
He leaned back in his chair, “Ms. Dedria, if you expect humility from your authorities, you’re in for a very depressing adulthood.”
She didn’t miss a beat. “Maybe my leaders should start measuring up.”
For all the annoyance she provided, her pure gumption went unrivaled. He wanted to put it behind glass to preserve it for future generations to dissect. It would be such a shame to watch it extinguish in a gasp of smoke.
“Tal?” The Governor peered inside, the fat man leaning against the doorframe, a hollowed-out remainder of a once powerful man now sapped of stature and vitality.
She didn’t even move, her eyes still locked onto Riley, “You agreed to this, didn’t you?”
Riley almost laughed out loud, incredulous and amused all at once. She had gone sniffing for a fight before she had even shored up her support. No wonder this political bulldog had never gone beyond the charity arena -- she couldn’t keep her own house in order, let alone convince a dissenter to fall in.
The ashen man took the few steps over to his daughter like he might collapse along the way. Riley could swear his hair had gone grayer since this morning, the experience of the last few days showing their toll.
The Governor scooped up his daughter's hands in his own, “If we all die down here, does it really matter if we died standing up? We’ll still be dead.”
Her eyes flashed, back and forth from Riley to her father. She had drawn the conclusion, that her formerly impressive father was now repeating someone else’s words, a hollow echo of his previous power. Didn’t much matter that this was Christopher’s genuine opinion on the matter.
Her opinion of her father was higher than that; the notion had to come from some outside corruption.
And with that breath of air, the fire in her kindled anew, “Do you really think you can crown yourself a monarch so easily?”
Riley fought the urge to speak, pinching the bridge of his nose as though he might stem the flow of acid pumping up his throat. The burn in his chest and neck forced a cough out of him.
“Tal, please--” The Governor tried to refocus her but she swatted his hands away.
“No, I think I deserve an answer. You abolish everything that makes us a Republic, you defy the Ministry and the Consul-General, and you assure us that it's for our own good. You draft the miners with promises while offering their deaths; you invoke curfews and starvation rations. But we should be grateful because the very nice man who just wants the best for us might leave us all to die if, say, one little girl raises her voice at him? Oh, please!”
“Well, not when you put it like that,” Riley blurted back.
Riley’s desk chirped, indicating an incoming message from a secure channel. For the briefest moment, he didn't know what to do with all of this asinine paper, before sweeping it gingerly to the side and out of the way.
He flicked the newly exposed toggle, allowing several console monitors to rise up from the desktop surface on a single crane arm. The fact the whole apparatus could vanish into his desk had never stopped surprising him. It was as though the whole thing existed in an alternate dimension but phased in just to give him his mail.
“Do you really think you can invoke monsters under our beds, and we will just happily surrender our freedoms to a man like you?”
“Talania! He’s the only reason you’re still alive!” The Governor’s objection was both empty and too late. He had long since lost any muzzle on his daughter, likely around her thirteenth birthday. This late and futile effort was so weak it didn’t even deserve appreciation for the attempt.
“So what, do I kiss the ring now, or did that window close?”
“I have a security briefing being relayed through two satellites,” Riley said without looking up, his eyes scouring the monitors, snap reading the by-line of the message and studying the video. He pointed toward the door. “If you don’t mind?”
The Governor tried to pull his daughter out, but Talania refused to stand from her chair. “What is it, Colonel?”
Pursing his lips, he pinched the video message wider on his screen and spun the console arm around for them to see.
A smoking homestead. A silo burning. Bodies littering the ground. Some still twitching.
Blood staining a camera lens.
“I told them…” The Governor murmured, “I told them to evacuate the outer homesteads. I did!” His head whipped from Talania to Riley and back, waiting for someone to absolve him of responsibility.
Riley tapped the edge of the monitor, scrolling the image to a man lay splayed out in the dirt, his body torn in half through the midsection. He was still breathing.
“This is what happens when you don’t listen to me.”
8
Aaron
The Howlers were like something out of surrealist art, and two of them together flying in formation had often been depicted in patriotic posters slapped around the city, usually against some backsplash of blue and white of the Imperial flag.
On Earth, those posters were mystically immaculate amongst the debris and grime surrounding them in the streets, as though frequently cleaned or replaced. Never a tear at the fringe or bleached by the sunlight. People kept a fair distance away from them, the healthy concern one gives around curses or predators.
Those posters were holy.
The birds depicted were another matter. The DH-55 DeHaans suborbital military transport, to be particularly accurate, was a nightmare-inducing silhouette. The primary engine socketed in the tail, with two maneuvering jets slid into the stubby wings, all wrapped around a bulbous fatted chassis, like the big metal bird bore a disquieting burden.
The smooth skin of the hull more resembled something organic than the alloy it was, and the engines -- where the metal birds got their ‘Howling’ nickname -- confused the ears. They sounded more like someone had fired them up deep in the back of a cave, and all that could be heard was their echoes. It came from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Jensen told him it was because of the sound buffering, the way the hull slowed and absorbed the impacting air to prevent a supersonic boom. The weirdness of the engines’ signature sound was an engineering feat beyond Jensen’s instinctual read, but the Gearmaster had expressed his fascination with them on more than one occasion during this inaugural flight.
Twelve tons of military hardware could sail right over a residential district at Mach 2 and nobody on the ground would suspect a thing unless they looked up. What a frightening sight that would be. Who wants to see this metal beast lancing over their heads, heralding the arrival of the Empire’s finest?
Aaron picked at the collar of his uniform. The one-size-fits-all jumpsuit was fine, but the tactical rig had been made for someone a few sizes smaller and the chest strap was riding up his front, with some devious plans to choke him out in a moment of pique.
Jensen nudged him, checking in. Aaron could only hope the stupid smile on his face was a result of paralyzing anxiety. Or the Gearmaster was falling in love with his new ride.
The ground beneath them blurred together into one sandy color palette. The city’s spires stretched up behind them, three towers reaching toward the sky like outstretched fingers. It was so far away behind them, it appeared to be stenciled onto the horizon. The bulky frame of the original Aurora colony ship could barely be made out against the apartments, warehouses and cranes surrou
nding it.
Vanguard: A Beacon for the Empire.
And just like that, the Wall whipped past, as if racing to join that distant tableau. It was an intimidating sight itself.
Seated easily twenty miles off the city proper, it had to be thirty feet tall and likely another twenty straight down into the ground. Permanently fixed cranes nested along its length, with solid steel tubes hung high over the ground. The craters beneath illustrated what happens when one was dropped from their heights, the artificial quakes crushing any attempted burrowing monsters.
He shivered at the thought of seeing them in action.
This was a fortress, an intimidating levee built to keep an alien flood at bay. Aaron could pick out the few soldiers walking its length, from pillbox to pillbox. The gray jumpsuits of the Capitals stood out from the green and brown of Army Regulars.
One Capital looked up and waved. Maybe it was someone he knew.
His headset crackled, and a voice snapped off as clear as if they were yelling directly in his ear, “Two minutes!”
Aaron nodded, slipping the magazine out of his rifle, counting the rounds before slapping back in the action. Sitting across from him, Quinn tried to ape Aaron’s smooth behavior, not comprehending the purpose to it, let alone how.
Aaron nodded to catch his attention, then trigger his throat mic, “Grip it like normal, push with your thumb. Just let it fall, don’t pull on it.”
“Chatter!” The voice scolded him.
Quinn shriveled, the Squirrel ready to apologize to the God on the other end of the radio, but Aaron smiled, shaking his head.
Quinn had never gotten comfortable with his weapon after his first disastrous experience. Aaron needed that boy to get comfortable right now. He raised two fingers to his eyes, drawing Quinn’s quivering face forward. And then Aaron raised and lowered his hand, directing the boy to breathe slow and heavy.
Get a rhythm established.
Lord knows what Aaron would have done if Quinn didn’t need the direction. He might be the one freaking out instead, overwhelmed by his own fried nerves.