by John F. Carr
The woman looked stunned, but then thoughtful. “I had not thought of that.”
“Then, do me a favor,” A’isha said, “watch for any suspicious behavior and keep me informed. If I am not available, you can leave word with my staff. We cannot allow women to be mistreated.”
The woman nodded with thanks, and left.
There were three other interviews that went the same way, and also the report from a young woman who reported being grabbed on the street, and pulled toward an alley. Only by pulling out of her burqa, and running immodestly down the street had she escaped her fate, at the hands of men she could only describe as bearded and hard looking.
A’isha sent a messenger out, and later in the day the visitor she had requested arrived. It was Irfan, the Mahdi’s chief judge, who sat before her desk; his presence a sign of the influence she wielded. He was a somber man in dark robes and turban, and prone to stroking the long, grey beard that gave him an air of age and wisdom. The CoDominium governor allowed the Faithful to practice Shariah law among their own kind, as long as they didn’t try to impose it on others. Winning that concession was one of the Mahdi’s major political victories of the past few years.
“Thank you for coming,” she said.
“It is the least I can do for the wife of the Mahdi,” he answered, ever the paragon of modesty.
“Women are disappearing from the transportee camp. And not just any women. Those who are without family to protect them. And of those, the youngest and the prettiest.”
Irfan frowned. “I have seen no cases before me that indicate this is happening.”
“Because our constables are not catching anyone doing it. Which could be because they cannot find any evidence? Or it could be because they do not want to find any evidence, or they are being compensated for not finding any evidence.”
“Disturbing,” the old man said, his hand on his beard. “I must make inquiries among our senior constables. Discrete inquiries, of course.”
“Of course,” A’isha said. “We wouldn’t want to alert the wrong people.”
The old man said his goodbyes, got up and headed for the door, neither of them aware of the hidden microphone and transmitter that was already alerting the wrong people.
* * *
Captain Flint came out of his office, onto the porch overlooking the paddock, roaring in anger, “Smith! Bugler! Where the hell are you?”
A message was crumpled in his hand. Andre and the other officers, McKenna and Patterson, joined him, wondering at the commotion. Before long, First Sergeant Wakefield, and the two platoon top sergeants, Singh and Lee, arrived at their side.
Smith came around the corner on the run, bugle in hand. “Sound Assembly,” barked Flint.
As the call rang out, Flint looked at his officers. “BuReloc has a riot on their hands down near the transportee reception area. Colonel Trelawney has promised them our help. Never mind that we’ve had no training with crowd control. I want every man who can get his horse saddled and gear together in the next fifteen minutes to form up on the paddock. Pistols only, no rifles, no blades. Issue those blunt practice lances we’ve been fooling around with, they’ll certainly look impressive, and not do much harm if we end up bringing them down on someone’s head.”
The officers scattered, met with sergeants, and in a flurry of activity the Company began to gather. Andre went to his room, put on his pistol, grabbed his saddle, went to the stable and got Lizzy ready to go. He mounted up, and rode out onto the paddock. They were only at two-thirds strength when the Captain ordered them to ride out in columns. They were a bit ragged as they adjusted their formation to eliminate the empty spots. The Captain reined back, and as they passed him, gave out instructions. “Our horses and intimidation are our best tools, use them to keep the crowd away. Keep calm, don’t show any fear, and we can bluff our way through this. Only use force as a last resort.”
As they rode through Eureka, the Cornishmen who had been brought in to work the mines looked at them curiously. By the time they reached the bridge across the Isis, the Company was riding in good order, horses trotting proudly, the base of their two-meter wooden lances resting on their stirrups, with the streamers at the tops fluttering in the breeze.
Once across the bridge and on the streets of Medina, they were met with surly stares, an occasional insult, and a couple of times, rocks thrown by young boys trying to prove their bravery. At the sight of the horses, however, the crowds parted, and the Company reached the dock area relatively quickly. When they arrived, they found the BuReloc guards formed in a line, shoulder-to-shoulder, surrounding the piers where incoming shuttles were docked. The men were poorly trained, one step above street thugs, with helmets on their heads, wooden shields in one hand, and long riot batons in the other.
They looked scared and Andre could see the relief on their faces as the militia rounded the final street corner and rode in behind them. The horses took their places one by one and halted. Andre found himself next to the Captain, right in the center of things.
Captain Flint dismounted, and went to talk to the BuReloc officials who stood behind the guards. Andre couldn’t hear what they were saying. His eyes were on the crowd. It was mostly men, unarmed, but with sticks, rocks and an occasional shovel or rake brandished as a weapon. They were muttering, some arguing with each other, others shouting insults at the CD personnel. He felt queasy, his stomach knotted with fear.
Then the crowd parted. A man strode through the people, tall and regal. He was clad in a long cloak, a hood over his head. He walked to a crate, and stood on it, his back to the guards and the cavalry, as if dismissing the threat they posed. He threw back his hood, to reveal a head clad in a black turban with a long grey beard spilling down his chest. A whisper spread through the crowd. “Mahdi, Mahdi, Mahdi.”
Andre stared in surprise. Was this the leader of the Faithful, the man so many followed, and so many feared? As the turbaned man spoke, the crowd quieted, listening intently. Andre wished he could understand what he was saying. He knew a few words in Arabic, but this was too fast, too heavily accented, for him to follow. But even though Andre couldn’t understand his word, he found himself drawn in by the power of his voice and his intensity. The crowd followed every word, rapt with attention. Andre hoped the old man wasn’t exhorting them to attack, or the cavalry would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
* * *
A’isha stood near the Mahdi, staring at her husband with pride. When she had sent a bodyguard for assistance, she had no idea that he would respond personally. She had been working in the reception area, doing her best to process this latest influx of transportees, when fights had broken out. The transportees were demanding food and water, demanding to know where they would be sleeping tonight, demanding to know what they could look forward to. The workers did their best to give them support and information, but finally one had lost his temper. A fight had started and quickly spread through the processing area. Before long, BuReloc guards, brought in to calm things down, decided that their riot sticks were the best way to get compliance. And at that point the transportees and workers came together against the common foe. The violence had spread quickly, although both sides were filled with those trying to restore calm.
Now Laith and the other bodyguards stood beside her, beginning to relax since the arrival of the Mahdi. His voice was strong. The pitch was high, to carry through this large crowd. His diction and his gestures were exaggerated to make his points to the restive audience.
“The CoDominium brought us to this world to hurt us. To take us away from our homeworld. To exile us. They intend to hurt us. But they do not succeed. They are failing. They do not realize it, but they do Allah’s will. They take us from a spent world, a world they have raped and destroyed. And they bring us to new worlds, worlds we can make our own. They have exiled millions of the Faithful to this world. There are more of us on this world than all the rest of its people combined.”
A’isha looked around her. Th
e people were looking at the Mahdi with wonder in their eyes, listening raptly to every word. She knew how they felt. After all these years, she felt the same way herself.
“I know many of you who see these newcomers are afraid. You want answers to these questions: How will we feed these new mouths? How many people can our towns hold? Will these newcomers respect us, and respect our ways? But know that they ask questions as well: Will they be welcomed? Will they have a chance? Where will they go and what will they do?”
A’isha saw nods of agreement. These questions were a favorite rhetorical flourish the Mahdi used, to draw the audience in.
“The answer to all these questions is that Allah will provide. The time has not yet come to fight with these government officials. We have enough of a challenge in facing this new world, we don’t need to fight each other and make that struggle harder. Our God watches over us, and makes us strong. And he makes us strong as a people, when we work together. All life is a struggle, and each of us fights a jihad within our souls. But with Allah’s help, we will succeed. We will spread out over this world, and it will be ours! As Allah wills! It will be ours! As Allah wills!”
The crowd picked up on the repetition and joined in. “It will be ours! As Allah wills! It will be ours! As Allah wills! It will be ours! As Allah wills!”
Tawfiq raised his arms wide, “Now go in peace with Allah’s blessing.”
And as they moved to comply, another chant spread through the crowd. “Mahdi! Mahdi! Mahdi! Mahdi! Mahdi!”
A’isha’s heart swelled with pride. It was not his words that moved people; anyone could say the same words, but they would not have the same impact. Her husband had something special, something that, although it sometimes frightened her, she felt came directly from Allah. She saw Laith and the other bodyguards smiling and shouting along with the crowd.
Behind her husband, a young militia horseman caught her eye, a handsome young man, riding next to the man who appeared to be their leader. From his insignia, she thought he was an officer, but he was a very young one. His eyes were wide, and although he tried to hide it, he was trembling. As the crowd started to breakup, he began to relax. A’isha knew about the hidden military capability of her people, and not for the first time, wondered if there might be a way for them to find a way to live in peace with the Westerners. She hated to think of this boy, and so many others—on both sides—falling in battle.
* * *
Finally, the day came for Company A to deploy on their first patrol. Andre was weary from all the training, but felt he was ready. He had traded his Marine weapons for the standard Militia issue so that his ammunition would be compatible to theirs. Also, he saw some sense in their choice of shoulder weapons, a 7.62 mm rifle modeled on the old US M-1 Garand. It was a heavy rifle for a cavalry weapon, but—as the Captain had explained to them—the unit had not been designed to fight from horseback. The long vistas on the steppes called out for a weapon with accuracy at long ranges.
As breakfast was finished and the last chores completed, the orders they were awaiting finally came, “Boots and saddles!” and “To horse!”
This time the unit was ready, with none of the confusion and uncertainty that had marked their preparation for crowd control duties only a few days before. The unit mounted, and formed up by squads and platoons on the paddock, their train of pack mules behind them. Colonel Trelawney and Major Prichard each gave a short pep talk from the reviewing stand, and when it was over, the Colonel shouted, “Captain Flint, take charge of your troops, and carry out your orders.”
The Captain saluted, and spun his horse around. “Platoons. Form column by twos. Left wheel, harch!” He turned and headed for the gate, and platoon by platoon, squad by squad, the unit followed. Andre, as part of the headquarters element, rode beside the Captain.
Near the gate, two CoDominium Marines stood with tin whistles in their mouths. They were Shawley’s pipers. They began to play a jaunty marching tune.
“Are they mocking you?” Andre asked, finding their choice of instruments a bit surprising.
“I don’t believe so,” answered the Captain. “I recognize that tune, it’s ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me.’ An old cavalry tune, and not one that would sit well on the pipes.”
And then the pipers broke into another tune. The Captain smiled, “Now I know they aren’t mocking us. That’s the ‘Garry Owen,’ the marching tune of the old U.S. Seventh Cavalry.” As he came abreast the pipers, he smiled and saluted, and they nodded back politely, their hands busy with their whistles.
Andre grinned as well. There was something grand about this, a feeling of power being astride a horse, the spring weather balmy, the jaunty music, the pride in being part of a well-organized unit, the excitement of going out on patrol. And this was a first, a part of the history of Haven that they were writing with their actions.
That excitement soon paled to boredom. Andre found that cavalry spent as much time walking their mounts as riding them, giving each horse an hour without a rider for every hour they carried their troopers. The terrain around Medina and Eureka didn’t offer much interest, either, low rolling hills one after another that looked very much alike.
After midday, the farms around the cities ended and the road wound through barren land, with rough ground punctuated only by the dull green of Earth grasses, and the red tones of the native screwgrass. And pretty soon, the only folks they shared the road with were the occasional Bedouins, more often than not perched on the double-humped Bactrian Camels that had been exported from Earth along with them.
It was only at this point, far from listening ears, that Captain Flint revealed their destination to the other officers. They would be riding to the foothills of the Girdle of God Mountains, a long and arduous journey. There had been numerous reports of bandits in those foothills, well-organized bandits with high tech weaponry that shouldn’t be available on Haven, at least not to anyone except the Marines and the Militia. Colonel Shawley had recommended the mission, in the hope that it was too ambitious for the new unit. But Captain Flint was determined to prove that he was wrong.
The first few days into the march passed without incident, other than a passing rain shower that left them soaked and miserable for hours. The cavalry used a method of marking ‘days’ that was gaining acceptance throughout Haven, a compromise between human circadian rhythms and the planet’s odd day/night cycle. That cycle, driven both by the sun and by the gas giant planet around which Haven orbited, only repeated over a two hundred and sixty hour timeframe that was designated a local week, or H-week. This was divided into eleven days that were each just shy of being twenty-four hours long. Each day was different. Some were “brightdays,” lit by the sun, some were “dimdays,” lit by the gas giant, and two during the eleven day week were “truenights,” lit only by the stars, generally days of rest.
On the third day out, a dimday, the unit had their first action. One of the scouts came galloping back toward the main party. He reined in as he came alongside the Captain.
“Caravan on the road ahead, Cap’n. ’Bout three klicks ahead. Under attack by bandits, maybe twenty or so.”
The Captain turned and called out, “One squad from each platoon, stay with the supply train. Everyone else, follow me. Column formation. At a trot.” He raised his arm, and beckoned forward.
As they moved, the guidon unsheathed the pole for their swallow-tailed unit flag, screwing the three sections together as they rode. The flag of the Haven Volunteers was white over blue, with a red Cats-Eye in the center, a numeral 1 to the left for the regiment, and an A for the company to the right. The bugler, Trooper Smith, pulled his instrument out of its case, and Andre heard him making a raspberry noise as he loosened his lip. Officers drew pistols, while the troopers drew rifles from their long sheaths at the saddle bow.
They began to hear shots in the distance, and the Captain reached the crest of a rise, and saw their goal ahead, about five hundred meters away. He turned in his saddle, and waved his pi
stol to the left and right. “Deploy,” he shouted, his voice pitched high to carry.
The unit split to each side and quickly formed into a line of battle.
“Chaaaaarge!” yelled the captain, drawing both his pistols, waving one over his head and spurring his horse to a gallop. The rest of the troopers did the same. The bugler began to play the strident call to battle, the tune ragged as his horse galloped over the rough ground.
Ahead, Andre saw a column of wagons, perhaps ten or twelve, drawn by oxen. There were men firing to either side at a large party of mounted men in flowing robes, who fired back at the caravan. The bugle call caught their attention, and they turned in surprise. There were shouts and gestures, then they broke off their attack, galloping swiftly to the north.
As the unit got near the wagons, the Captain yelled, “Company, split!”
The unit broke, with one platoon riding to the north of the caravan, while the other rode to the south. Some of the troopers obviously wanted to pursue, but that was not in the Captain’s game plan.
The Captain hollered, “Company, halt!” He holstered his automatics and rode up to the lead wagon to find a stunned wagon leader, dressed, like the bandits, in long robes and turban.
“Who in Allah’s name are you?” the man asked, obviously confused.
He received a salute in reply, “Captain Kenneth Flint, First Cavalry Regiment, Haven Volunteers, at your service, sir.”
“I am Bilal bin Jaleel, a merchant out of Medina. You are government troops?”
The Captain nodded.
“On horses,” he went on, and received another nod. “Here to protect us?”
“Here to protect anyone who might be a victim of unlawful activities, sir.”
“Well then, you have done your duty, and you have my thanks. Where are you bound?”
“Our next stop is at Fort Abomey,” Flint replied.
“As is ours,” the man said. “Would it be too forward for me to ask you to travel with us?”
“Sounds fine to me,” the Captain said. “Especially if you could swap some food with us. We wouldn’t want to impose, but after even a few days, regular rations get old quick.”