Freehold

by Michael Z. Williamson

  Some of them refused or tried to. They were led away in chains and implanted. Some few were challenged by plaintiffs to duels they were unlikely to survive. Those would have to be appealed to the Council, but if the plaintiff refused to budge, a duel it would be. The outcome of those was almost certain; the defendant would be outclassed and die.

  The two worst cases Kendra witnessed, while waiting to testify yet again, were a pair of rapists. They were positively identified on a store security file, by witnesses, by the plaintiff and by genetic evidence. The poor girl in question was nine local years old, fifteen Earth years, and barely able to speak her testimony. Chinratana was judging the case and was gently patient with her, as was the defense counselor. Judges had no power to clear a court of any except disruptive influences, but many spectators elected to leave from politeness and consideration. That left the relevant parties and anyone in official capacity for the day, including Kendra. The trial was in- depth, complete and seemed to Kendra to cover all details. At the conclusion and sentencing, the two were convicted and fined Cr2 million each.

  The two were outraged and began yelling. "Man, this is boolshit!" one of them shouted. "A slottie walks out front, showing her punta, baring it all for us. You all know she was wanting it!"

  Chinratana banged his gavel. "Prisoner, your case is closed. Your sentence has been set. You may pay it, work it off for the rest of your—in this court's opinion—worthless life, or you may appeal for a duel."

  "Shit, yeah! I'll take a duel!" one of them replied. He pointed a suggestive finger at the young plaintiff, who quivered and began crying.

  "Ms Ronson," Chinratana spoke, "your current circumstances make your fitness to duel questionable. Will you do me the honor of letting me serve on your behalf?"

  "Y-yes, Citizen," she choked out.

  "Thank you. Bailiff, arm the defendant."

  The court guard drew her sidearm, cleared it, safed it and tossed it to the thug. As he fumbled with it, Chinratana whipped his own from its holster, cleared the bench and aimed in one effortless motion and shot him through the groin. The man screamed, thrashed to the ground and moaned briefly as he bled to death from massive hemorrhage.

  "Citizen, on behalf of my client, I protest most strongly! I demand charges against you!"

  Chinratana replied, "The duel was not handled according to protocol. If you have a power of attorney, you may charge me or his next of kin are free to. In the meantime, the court will recess for ten segs. Bailiff, detail a work party to remove this . . . filth from my floor and toss it in the nearest sewer."

  "Does the surviving defendant wish to dispute the sentence?" he finished.

  "No!" the kid snapped, his head shaking vigorously back and forth.

  Kendra felt Chinratana had overstepped his bounds, but the case was rather grisly. She was glad to be released shortly and was drained almost to illness by the last two days. She had a nagging fear that it was not over yet.

  Chapter 25

  "An Ambassadore is a man of virtue sent to lie abroad for his country, a news writer is a man of no virtue who lies at home for himself."

  —Sir Henry Wotton

  The press, particularly that from Earth, had a field day with the events. Chinratana's shooting made the headlines, as did the video of the military "brutally beating and murdering" the "peaceful" protesters. No mention was made of the fact that unarmed protesters, not blocking traffic, had been completely ignored or that the actual number of casualties among the rioters was about three percent. All focus was on a few replayed scenes of rioters being subdued or shot by soldiers, with their provocative assaults edited out, and on protesters who were professionals at sobbing for the camera eye.

  The damage was done, however. The Freehold government was portrayed as a fascist, plutocratic junta. No mention was made of the superior standard of living, literacy rate and unparalleled individual freedom. Instead, focus was made on the "lack" of franchise and the "denial of basic rights" of state-sponsored medical care, public education and free access to entertainment.

  There was nothing that could be done at the government level, although the issue was discussed at length. Chinratana was criticized for his outburst. "Morally right or not," Hernandez commented, "you were over the line and it's going to bite us badly. Even if I win the case for you, we lose."

  "I know," he agreed. "The unrepentant little sod just made me want to flush him. I would have considered it a fair trade to be indentured for life to remove him from the gene pool."

  Hernandez replied, "Which is exactly the purpose of the system we have, as we were taught in school. We as Citizens, however, have to be held to a higher standard.

  "Anyway, it's done. The 'Lawful Citizen's Committee for Justice,' as his friends call themselves, has asked Uddin to be your judge. I'm sure he morally opposes your actions, but he'll try it fairly. I'll claim that the duel was requested and accepted and that the defendant's ignorance of the procedures was an intentional lack on his part, since he decided to accept without counsel. I think we're solid."

  "If I could have done it again . . ." Chinratana began.

  "Yes?" Hernandez prompted.

  "I'd have shot him so he died slower."

  "I agree."

  Chinratana was acquitted of murder, the incident held to be a legal duel and it was mentioned once and ignored by the local press.

  The UN press, on Earth especially, hailed it as state-supported murder and demanded sanctions. Since sanctions were already in place and hurting the UN more than the Freehold, the shouts were meaningless. Behind the scenes, however, political gears were moving.

  Chapter 26

  " . . . the most expensive thing in the world is a second-best military establishment, good but not good enough to win."

  —Robert A. Heinlein,

  "The Happy Days Ahead"

  in Expanded Universe

  * * *

  Operation Swift was a total failure.

  For simplicity, one small, well-stealthed carrier, the Lyndon B. Johnson, had been chosen. It spent several Earth weeks on a circuitous route to Freehold's Jump Point Four. The troops aboard pulled maintenance and exercise shifts until they were bored with them; the crew was bored from the onset. The crew knew the destination, but had no idea what the mission was to be. The troops knew what, but had no idea where. The enforced segregation between them kept the operation a secret. Very few on Earth, even, knew what was to happen.

  Secrecy was not the stumbling point.

  Contrary to entertainment vids, there are no pyrotechnics associated with interstellar jumps. "The Big Johnson," as she was affectionately and illegally called by her crew, slipped out of the jump point and drifted in free orbit past Faeroe Station. She had been deliberately lightened, emitted virtually no radiation, and so went unnoticed among the heavy, noisy traffic between Freehold and Novaja Rossia. She decelerated on a long, slow curve, plotted to direct her well away from any sensor platforms. Shortly, she was in an approach to Grainne.

  The large vessel settled into a precisely planned orbit past the planet and back out of the system. Her mass was still masked and her dark hull went unseen. The ten assault boats she spewed out were encased in black, fuzzy clouds of polymer and used ultracompressed hydrogen to fall into a vector for entry. It would hide them until they entered the atmosphere.

  That was when the battle plan made contact with the enemy. It didn't survive.

  Ground Defense Station A-3:

  "Warrant, I'm reading multiple craft on atmospheric approach. Orbital confirms my readings," the corporal on watch reported. The UN planners had relied on a few moments' confusion to get the boats lower. The Freehold military conducted regular exercises and had occasional smugglers who were considered fair game. Either way, standard operating procedure was to assume a hostile craft and prepare to launch. There were bonuses for effective response, whether during exercises or actual events. The corporal slapped the button that sent her data into missiles, intercept craft and
Orbital Defense Command's parallel system, while her warrant attempted to communicate with the approaching craft.

  "Unidentified vessels on approach to Jefferson Starport, vector four point seven five, this is Freehold Military Forces Ground Defense. Imperative you respond immediately or be destroyed. If unable to communicate, roll your craft or use flare. Say again . . ."

  There was of course no answer and the multiple blips reinforced the probable military nature. The ground crew still did not know if it was a real attack or an exercise. It made no difference. They proceeded on a long-practiced routine.

  "Corporal, there is no response on any frequency. Do you have visual evidence of maneuver or flare from any craft?"

  "Negative."

  "Orbital has not restricted launch."

  "Do you restrict launch on your order, sir?"

  "Negative. Launch on firing solution. Prepare to abort if necessary."

  "Launching."

  Tens of small missiles ripped out of their launchers and headed into the stratosphere with a suicidal scream. Six of the incoming craft were below safe engagement altitude, but the last four were high up in steep approaches, surrounded by nimbuses of incandescence from atmospheric friction. The missiles' circuitry calculated the probable location of the vehicles behind the glowing beacons and swarmed in in an orgy of death. All four craft were obliterated.

  * * *

  The first craft touched down hard and the pilot used thrust, wheel braking and multiple drogue chutes to achieve a quick stop near the military terminal. He punched the button that dropped the tail and the troops in back shed their harnesses and hit the ground. Behind him, the second boat prepared to land.

  * * *

  A base engineer changing the processor on one of his maintenance bots watched the vehicles and running soldiers approach the terminal. The craft, he noted, had landed with total disregard for safety or procedures and wasn't a Freehold design. The uniforms were wrong, too, as were the trucks. He spoke quickly into his comm, slid for cover, drew his sidearm and waited. He saw the few flight techs on the ramp at this time of night scrambling for holes, also.

  * * *

  The UNPF 71st Special Unit lead elements pounded across the illuminated ovals the spotlights painted on the pavement. The sergeant in the lead raised his elbows and slammed the door wide, then jogged left and took the stairs two at a time toward what the map had indicated was flight control. There were supposed to be about twenty military and civilian technicians on duty and he anticipated total surprise and immediate surrender. Instead, he burst through the door at the top and took a fusillade of small arms fire. His armor stopped most of it, but some rounds took him in the thighs where it was thinner and a couple punched through his helmet visor. He was dead before he hit the ground in the high gravity. Those immediately behind him met the same fate and in seconds the force was backed up with Starport Security behind them and administrative personnel ahead, who, against all logic, were heavily armed and inhumanly accurate.

  The tenets of logic were different in the Freehold.

  * * *

  As the third boat landed, Senior Pilot Albro Mayaguez was just flying his Hatchet into the area. He'd heard the call and hoped to get into the action. He saw the boat roll toward the maintenance hangars, anticipated there were more on the way and realized that his next move was childishly simple, if he acted quickly.

  Yawing his craft hard and vectoring thrust, he slewed to a hover directly over the runway. Practiced hands dropped "Dewey's Revenge" into a hard landing or, more accurately, a controlled crash. He swiped his hand across two switches, covered but thoughtfully easy to reach and mounted side by side, then climbed out in a hurry and headed for the tall grass at a sprint.

  Shortly thereafter, the fourth boat landed, tires chirping, and the pilot attempted unsuccessfully to guide his grounded projectile around the blockage in the center of the runway. The boat smashed into the wrecked vertol at better—or worse—than four hundred kph. The switches Mayaguez had thrown had bypassed all safeties and armed all munitions, which detonated on impact. The multiple explosions engulfed the shuttle and all occupants, killing most of them instantly and all in seconds.

  The pilots of the fifth and sixth boats saw the explosion ahead and took what steps they could. For number five, just about to touch down, only the quickest and surest of pilots could have avoided the fireball. This pilot was neither and succeeded only in bouncing his craft off the surface, into a stall and almost directly down into the flames below. His remaining velocity dragged the maelstrom for several hundred more meters, ensuring the cleanup crew would be very unhappy with his charred corpse. Number Six's pilot had more time to respond and managed to abort his landing. Unfortunately, his craft had insufficient fuel for a departure, being loaded for fast assault. He made an admirable emergency landing in the grass of the Drifting Valley and he and his surviving passengers were "rescued" by a grinning squad of Freehold infantry reservists at dawn. The grins were not cheerful.

  * * *

  The surviving troops of the second and third boats had been rolling across the port at high speed, heading for various secondary facilities to reinforce them. Three vehicles were destroyed by small surface missiles and four more by aircraft, at which time the major in charge decided to concentrate on a different target. He spoke orders and a small element departed in the direction of the main gate. The main body continued toward the maintenance and navigation sections.

  Seeing the vehicles bouncing toward him, the guard first class at the gate made a tactical decision of his own. He keyed a command, called in a report on his comm and departed his shack at a sprint. He was clearly outnumbered and the gate should hold them long enough for support to arrive. Such support did, but not from the expected source.

  * * *

  Minutes later, one of the UN's most pessimistic sergeants had his appraisal of the situation confirmed. His squad was covering—more accurately, cowering—in a broad ditch while small arms fire came from the west. He had the grenadiers lob a few HEs in that direction and followed it with a few seconds of automatic fire, while screaming for backup into his comm. He was thankful for the lethal weaponry, which he'd tried to swap for standard nonlethal hardware at first. The idea of initiating killing he found distasteful. He'd been ordered to take the weapons anyway and didn't want to exchange them now. Three soldiers were down and their vehicle disabled. The comm was silent. The only response was more fire from the north. He risked a glance in that direction, switched to enhanced view in the moderate light provided by city lights and the local moon, then did a double take. He ducked back as a sustained burst chewed the edge of the slope. Four individuals with rifles were well covered and shooting very accurately and the two in the gully just outside the double fence were mounting a heavy machinegun on its tripod. He found that procedure totally bizarre and decided he never wanted to fight these people again. He elected to surrender at once.

  The machinegunners were civilians.

  "UNS Lyndon B. Johnson, this is Freehold Military Forces Gunboat Four Juliet Gamma One Seven. You are ordered to hold position and prepare to be boarded." The six-person crew of the gunboat waited anxiously for three segs, then sent again:

  "Lyndon Johnson, this is Four Juliet Gamma One Seven. We know your comm is operational and you are receiving. We will be alongside in two point one hours. We will board your ship and seize it as contraband under the Geneva Conventions of twenty-one-sixty-three and sections of the Freehold of Grainne Constitution. You will respond immediately. If you do not, you will be destroyed."

  This time there was a response. "Four Juliet Gamma One Seven, this is UNS Lyndon Johnson. You are ordered to surrender immediately. Your vessel will be seized under UN Code Title Five Hundred Seventy-Three regarding piracy. The only recognized authority in UN space."

  "Johnson, I don't have time for legal games. You are within the Freehold of Grainne, de facto and de jure. You can surrender and be sent home or I'll nail you with a thr
ee gig warhead. Attempt to escape and you will be stopped before reaching any jump point, all of which are closed and guarded. The George S. Patton and Robert E. Lee are en route to take your crew off. Personally, I'd rather blow the shit out of your cowardly ass, so please, crawl back to momma like a bawling child."

  There was a pause, then a different voice said, "Four Juliet Gamma One Seven, please use radius point seven airlock, one hundred meters aft. You will be met by our marine detachment."

  To his crew, the gunboat commander remarked, "Respond to an obvious psych ploy, then tell us you have nasties waiting. What an idiot! Well, at least he called our bluff." Raising his voice, he bellowed, "You ready, cargo?"

  "Ready," replied the senior sergeant who was leading the squad from 4th Mobile Assault Regiment. They'd been hastily squeezed into the aft section as the gunboat left Orbital Defense Station Seven.

  Nodding to himself, the pilot transmitted, "Understood, Johnson. We will dock in two hours."

  The theory behind this operation was that the Freehold Forces would act as if nothing unusual had happened. An illegal landing had been stopped and the ship seized. The gunboat had handled the routine matter during its normal operations. It was another game in psychological dominance.

  And it took incredible chutzpah.

  The warrant leader pulled his boat alongside with a single, high-gee correction of thrust on manual. His orders were to spare no effort to overawe all UN personnel. He met the snaking gangtube, latched in, then reported that status to the Johnson. His crew immediately donned breathing gear.

  The twenty-person squad from 4th Mob crawled through the tube, already in vac gear, and entered the Johnson. They were met by forty-three UN Marines in battledress, but not vac gear. No courtesies were exchanged and the two units stared warily at each other for several seconds. Finally, one of the marines spoke.