by Adam Vance
He thought about the old saw – there are always two people in the relationship, the lover and the loved. Weapons, Cruz, was clearly the lover. It hurt him more than it had hurt Kaplan to break it off.
The Captain filed a mental note on that – he doubted it would be a problem. Cruz was a consummate professional, and if he had feelings, he’d sit on them, hard, if that’s what it took. Still. Something to think about. Later.
“Captain,” Engineering said thoughtfully. “If we can get into the mine. Get to the tunneler…”
Comms laughed, a bright sharp sound. “We can tunnel right under their defenses and into the compound.”
The Captain nodded. “Eng, do we have time to get to the mine before the colonists do?”
“I’ve got two sliders on their way, that’s all we have. It’ll be an intimate encounter for three of us.”
“Okay, Eng and Weapons, you’re with me. Comms and Medical on the other one.”
The sliders hummed up the hill, sailing frictionless two feet above the ground. Before they banked to a halt, their passengers were already jumping on. The Captain took the handlebars, with Engineering and Weapons riding bitch behind him.
“Just like old times,” Weapons cracked as the three of them scrunched together to fit on the seat. He was in the middle, with his ex lover’s arms wrapped tightly around him.
“‘You can ride my tail anytime!’” they shouted, laughing at the old joke. The Captain smiled. They would be okay.
“Punching it,” he warned them, though it wasn’t much of a warning as he punched it as he said it. Weapons held on tight to the Captain’s torso, and Engineering held onto his as they went from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds.
“Hug the south ridge,” Comms’ voice shouted through the Captain’s earcomm. “That’ll keep us out of visual range.”
They pulled up together at the entrance to the mine. “Ditch the sliders,” the Captain said. “Out of sight.”
They ran down the tunnel, Engineering in the lead, holding the disc in hand as it presented the route to the tunneling machine.
When they got to it, Medical burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Engineering asked, looking for signs that something was wrong with the tunneler. It was basically a two story bullet laid flat, whose point was a glittering screw. On the side, just under the operator’s cabin, a cartoon character had been painted on.
Medical shook his head. “I find your lack of 20th century cartoon knowledge disturbing. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Tasmanian Devil.”
The Captain laughed, getting the joke. The old cartoon character would tunnel just under the surface at a crazed rate of speed, pushing up the ground above him, and then emerge to eat everything in sight.
“That’s us today, folks. Let’s go.”
They were lucky. There was a failsafe system, so if the electronic guidance systems on the tunneler were to crash, it could still be operated manually. Engineering plotted their course and speed before crashing the ship’s nonessential electronics systems, as everyone deactivated their comm and visual interfaces.
“O Mighty Seed Sower,” the Captain prayed out loud to the local god in the local language. “If you exist, a little help, please.”
“The Best Seed Prevails,” Comms replied, giving the proper ritual response. “And that’s us, bitches. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER THREE – YOU CAN’T CONQUER CULTURES
The Captain had five minutes to think while they pushed through the soil towards the compound, running just deep enough to avoid leaving one of those Tasmanian Devil-like trails on the ground above.
The Captain suspected that the colony leader, Doctor Samuel Caughlin, PhD, was a bit of a racist. It had happened to him back on Earth, sometimes, that look of startled confusion when people saw the Chinese name CHEN emblazoned on the uniform of a six foot four, blond haired, blue eyed Teutonic Übermensch. That shock was still typical in isolated, homogenous populations.
But only when it was followed by an appalled look of distaste would he call it racism. The Doctor was swift to conceal that flicker of confusion and disgust. Having racist tendencies didn’t suit the leader of a colony on a world with pre-existing native populations. The Captain charitably chalked up his reaction to the Australian national memory of multiple Chinese military invasions. Still, even that much racism could be the seed for a growing disregard for the natives’ well-being.
Until now, the colonists had done everything by the book. As Interim Colony Leader, the Doctor had established a functional republic. Its institutions had been analyzed and validated by Department 6C, after which the Doctor had been permanently elected Colony Leader. They had stuck within the bounds of their allocated land, grown the crops approved by 6C for this biosphere, raised the approved livestock, and hadn’t overhunted or overfished the local edible critters.
But now the colony had done what Department 6C expected every colony would do eventually, to try and break free of the bonds that restricted their lives back on Earth. Population control was a necessity on a dying planet, enforced by mandatory sterilization if it came to that. There wasn’t enough food and water that hadn’t been poisoned by global Kochism, there wasn’t enough living space for those evicted from coasts subsumed by rising waters.
Scarcity, always scarcity – it drove every decision back home, even the ones about how you would leave home. How much personal baggage could you take with you to your new world, how much building material, how much technology? “As little as necessary” was always the answer. Interstellar ships were expensive, and running interstellar flashspace drives expended huge amounts of energy, so ships had to be as small as possible.
Global infrastructures were collapsing – roads, tunnels, canals – because the world’s precious remaining resources were being diverted into the Arks. Everything was recycled, everything was rationed, everything was scarce.
Then the colonists landed on worlds with blue skies, not brown; with pleasant rainstorms, not world-devouring hurricanes; with room for people to build big homes, not Tokyo-sized apartments. They could have pets again, because there was enough abundance on their new worlds to feed adorable, inedible animals as well as themselves.
Obesity was a pandemic that had been harshly cured on Earth, a pandemic whose return was longed for like a relic of a Golden Age. It often emerged in colonies at alarming levels.
Scarcity wasn’t the problem on a new planet. Now it was Imperialism. Humans were a stubborn species when it came to accepting unpleasant truths, but the world’s military experiences of the 21st Century had finally driven home the lesson – the lesson enshrined in Department 6C’s very name, the acronym that now drove policy across humanity’s expanding galactic footprint.
“You can conquer countries, but you can’t conquer cultures.”
The thing about habitable worlds was, they were almost always inhabited. Where the conditions for life were right, well, life thrived. The lessons of history taught that conquest was the quick-and-dirty solution to dealing with the pre-existing populations – and the short-term solution, as well.
Conquest brought not submission, but insurgency; not pacification, but an immortal thread of resentment passed down from generation to generation. No empire on Earth had survived more than a few hundred years when its expansion had been rooted in subjugation.
The only alternative was mass extermination of the current tenants. Fortunately, while there were certainly currents of thought on Earth that endorsed this solution, the people in charge didn’t care for that idea, and the majority supported them…or at least, were too embarrassed to support the other idea publicly. And that would have to do.
He wouldn’t ask Engineering how they were doing – this ride was his version of the Captain’s shining moment with his carbobsid blade, the reversion to pure unassisted human skill. Their speed, their course, had been laid out on the tech, but with all tech off now, their pilot was running the math in his brain, feeding the numbers with
the sensations running through his body.
A few minutes later, there was a thump on the roof of the tunneler. Engineering revved down the engines.
“We just scraped the bottom of the compound walls. Not sure where we are exactly, but we’re in.”
The Captain slapped Engineering’s shoulder. “Good job. Okay, people, we’re coming in blind. Weapons check.”
They braced themselves for the upward grade change. Each soldier verified that their manual weapons were locked and loaded. The AK-47 had stood the test of time like no other 20th century weapon – it was easy to disassemble and reassemble, it never jammed or broke down, and it was fantastically lethal. Only its component metals had changed since its introduction.
That was another iron law that FJ lived by – Sooner or Later, Technology Always Fails. The lowest-tech solution was always the best backup.
Their high-tech weapons were slung over their shoulders, of course – once the advantage of surprise was lost, it would be time to go back online and unload the real firepower.
Light flooded the compartment through the pilot’s windows as they broke through. Engineering flipped a cover and punched a big red button, and the four windows blew out. Using the seats and dashboard as handholds, the squad scrambled out, ready to shoot anything that looked armed.
“The Mighty Seed Sower has answered our prayers,” Engineering said.
Indeed he had. They had broken through in the middle of a soccer field. The wooden stadium stands were high enough to conceal their arrival from any building’s line of sight.
The Captain took a moment to orient himself. The makeshift scoreboard was on the north end, he remembered. He’d been here as a spectator more than once, diplomatically applauding the efforts of both the Borroloola and Darwin clubs.
“We’ll go out through the player entrance.” It was the smaller, less conspicuous exit, since the main entrance had a plaza where they’d be exposed. They hustled down a dark tunnel to the double doors to the street.
It wasn’t as dreary as some colonies. Scarcity meant that colonies landed with only enough plasteel to shelter electronics from the elements. (In places where the local fauna was hungry for manflesh, there was also enough for defensible walls.) Buildings here were made from local stone, and brick, and wood, and precious sealant was used only where ingenuity couldn’t lock natural materials together tightly enough to keep out dust and drafts.
They edged down the streets, hugging the walls, stopping at corners to hold a mirror around the bend.
The natives were house-proud. Many of the two and three story buildings had been “painted” with extracts of various local mosses and lichens and flowers, which produced pastel colors. It was an odd contrast – they’d been chosen for this colony because its terrain, climate, even skies were similar to those of their Australian territory. But these colors were more at home on a Greek island somewhere. The Captain idly remembered that there was, after all, a large Greek émigré population in Australia. He shook his head, refocusing – the things he knew and the way they popped up at the worst time…
The streets were still dirt roads like you’d see in an old Western, and they were just as empty as they’d be right before an old fashioned shootout. Everyone here knew what was going on. There was no telling how many of them had endorsed the action, out of the six thousand inhabitants. He knew about five hundred of them had gone to war, which left too many potential rear guards for his comfort.
All the team had to do was activate their systems and they could heat scan the rooftops, “see” behind the closed shutters and around the corners. But the risk of the enemy being alerted, and zeroing in on them with overwhelming force, was too great.
Besides. The Captain wasn’t the only one who relished setting aside the comm tech, the smart guns, the warbots. Everyone who joined the FJ force received “attenuation,” a surgical sharpening of their hearing and vision. They prided themselves on working with nothing more when necessary. Especially given another FJ rule of thumb: “Software Gets Hacked.” You could never be 100% sure that the data on your lenses was correct unless you verified it with your own eyes.
The Captain had his mental map laid out as clear as a hologram. Two blocks up, one left, to the plasteel buildings that had to be Command for the colonists’ oper… No, for the enemy’s operation. They had to be where the electronics were, to have eyes and ears on the battlefield.
A wayward pair of colonists hurried around the corner carrying bags of food, and froze at the sight of the squad. They were unarmed, and the Captain waved them silently away. They ran.
Time was collapsing on them now. Those two could report them, or tell someone who would. He picked up the pace.
The plasteel cubes of the agricultural computer center hugged the colony’s inner defense walls, as close as possible to the fields. Scarcity again – the shorter the distance to the agrisystems, the less underground cabling was required.
Something was wrong. There was no guard at the doors. No…something else. Some sixth sense told him that this wasn’t the place. He turned to the others for verification.
“Seem weird to you?”
“Up there, Cap,” Engineering said. “Top of the roof. There should be a shimmer.”
That was it, of course – what he’d not seen that had triggered his doubt. The computers kicked out enormous quantities of heat, and the water-based cooling system turned that heat into some of the colony’s hot water supply. And on this crisp cool day, the output pipes should have been radiating heat.
“Fucking idiots,” Medical muttered. “That’s suicide.”
The colony had shut down their whole agricultural management system – irrigation control, pest management, everything – and hijacked the systems for their military purposes, moving them…elsewhere. Whoever was left behind after the ringleaders were sent to Eden One would be hungry this winter.
“We could shut down the power plant,” Engineering said, indicating the next plasteel building over, that resembled a bank. It had two huge steel doors, through which large components could easily be moved in and out. Like a bank’s, the station’s doors were sturdy, designed to make sure nobody got inside who didn’t belong. “Or we trace where they’ve rerouted the power…it may be time to reactivate systems, Cap.”
“Or, they’ve moved it all inside the power station,” Weapons suggested. He raised an eyebrow at Engineering. “If there’s room in there?”
“Right,” Engineering said. “Of course. They could use the reactor’s cooling systems for the computers.”
The Captain thought for a moment. He knew the layout of the power station, because it was his job to know everything, to be prepared for any eventuality. When colonists were partying and getting laid on a Saturday night, he was in bed, reading energy expenditure forecasts and reports on crop harvest trends.
“Okay. This was clever on their part. That’s a Kubrium reactor in there, so we can’t go in with guns blazing. Knife check,” he said, his hand instinctively going to his own carbobsid weapon.
The rest of the team confirmed theirs. Their faces were grim, the demeanors of men and women preparing themselves for hand-to-hand combat. They were unlocking something in themselves, something different from the skill set needed to fire a weapon – something primal, that sense that the Captain had when he’d fought the cyberaptors, only more intense.
“Okay. We have to assume that they can see us the minute we clear the corner. So as soon as we go, reactivate all systems, and blow the hinges off those doors with low-impact bomblets. Except you, Weapons, I want you taking out anyone hiding on the roof. Or any other snipers who light up.”
“Roger that.”
“You have authorization to engage all potential combatants,” the Captain said, a virtual death sentence for everyone inside. “Try not to kill anyone who doesn’t need killing.
“On my mark. Three, two, one…go.”
CHAPTER FOUR – FIXING A MISTAKE
They
brought their systems back online with a sharp flex of their facial muscles, a rictus grin that lasted an instant. The bills of their tan ball caps folded down and extended into transparent face shields.
They came around the corner, focused on the door display on their contacts, and flinched a target lock to their weapons. The guns were firing bomblets a second after the Captain’s “Go” command.
As soon as he saw four heat signatures lying prone on the roof, armed and waiting for company, Weapons fired. The snipers exploded in a shower of blood, bone and guts as bomblets detonated six inches inside their torsos.
The rest of the team fired bomblets at the doorframe, vaporizing it. The big steel doors, still locked together tightly, fell forward as a single slab. The sound of four carbobsid blades being drawn was a short, menacing motif.
The colonists had an advantage. The team couldn’t fire in, but the enemy could fire out, and they were doing just that, equipped with their own AKs – easily made right here on Tiamat.
The squad’s uniforms were designed to defend against projectiles. Their bodies still took the beating and bruising of impact, though. Head shots bounced off their face shields, and years of being shot in the face in training exercises had taught them not to flinch.
There were two fire sources in the room, and neither had been bright enough to find or build cover. The Captain flicked his sword and sliced the gun out of the first man’s hands – well, he sliced the hands off and the gun went with them.
In the event that the colonists also had protective unis, Comms threw her knife at the other shooter’s exposed neck. That might have been enough for a killing blow, but her training kicked in instinctively – the World War II manual “Kill or Get Killed” was still part of the curriculum. She withdrew the blade, shook it into a sword, and beheaded the man just as his hand clutched his gaping wound.