Martial Law 1: Patriotic Treason

by Christopher Nuttall

  He paused, apparently inviting comment. None came. “Once we have secured the orbitals, we will start landing troops at once, concentrating on their largest cities,” he continued. “Once the cities have been secured, Infantry units will advance into the countryside and suppress rebels and insurgents there, before we begin working with friendly forces on the ground. After the locals see that our forces are capable of defeating the corrupt government, they will ally with us and the remaining insurgents will be rapidly weeded out.

  “In addition, Marine units will seize their largest orbital installations and production plants. Once secure, those plants will be turned over to supporting the invasion and producing items needed to pay Earth for the liberation mission. I anticipate no real difficulty in carrying out the invasion, so once the troops have been landed, the majority of our fleet can be dispersed for other duties, leaving a light observation squadron and, of course, the Devastator in the system.”

  There was a pause. “Any questions?”

  “Yes,” someone said. I was surprised to see a Marine Major General sitting in the front row. Marines normally had little to do with matters outside their sphere. “Just how long do you expect the invasion and occupation to take?”

  “I expect that major combat operations will be completed within the first month,” Admiral Hoover said. “We should be able to pull out most of the infantry within the next year or so, depending on local conditions. The locals will see that we are resolute and firm in our determination to convince them to share what they have with all of humanity. We have a paternal oversight role to consider…”

  “I suspect it will take much longer,” the Major General said. “I was actually involved in a joint operation with Heinlein reservists and they were damned good. It will not be ended quickly…”

  “Thank you,” Admiral Hoover said, tightly. His voice became harsh and unbending. I knew what he was going to say before he spoke. “If I had wanted your opinion, I would have asked for it.”

  I scowled, despite myself. I’d learned that the Marines were far from stupid back when I’d been training with them. Overall, I’d trust a Marine’s opinion rather more than the Admiral’s…and, now that it had been pointed out to me, it was clear that the Admiral was being very optimistic. The war could drag on forever.

  It struck me, then, that we were going to invade another planet. We were going to bring them war and devastation in the hope that they would become more like us. I remembered what I’d seen on Earth and shuddered again. Whatever Heinlein was like – and I didn’t even know where the name came from – it could hardly be worse than Earth, could it? Somehow, I doubted it. Even Terra Nova was a paradise compared to Earth.

  But what could I do?

  I mulled it over as we were dismissed and I reported to Captain Shalenko, but the answer was all-too-clear. There was nothing I could do about it. History was on the march and I was nothing, but a helpless spectator. All I could do was watch, and wait.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The logistics of interstellar travel are, despite the best efforts of the UN, inflexible. Some items – foodstuffs, for example – cannot be transported economically under almost any conditions. The cost of transporting the food to another star would make it the most expensive food in the galaxy, particularly that almost every settled world grows enough food to feed itself. It is therefore clear that shipping anything apart from specialised items is not a economical proposition. This has a baleful effect on military operations as well. Any UNPF operation would exist on the end of a long supply line with massive time delays. It would literally take months to request reinforcements and months longer for them to arrive.

  -Thomas Anderson. An Unbiased Look at the UNPF. Baen Historical Press, 2500.

  “Captain, the remaining starships have finally logged in,” Lieutenant Marya Jadwiga said, from her position on the bridge. “They’re signalling that they’re ready to go.”

  “Finally,” Captain Shalenko hissed. I didn’t blame him for being frustrated. The Devastator had been ready to go at 1300, as we had been ordered, but the other ships hadn’t been anything like ready. I was silently grateful for the time I’d spent on logistics. It was becoming increasingly clear that the other ships hadn’t spent anything like as much time on it…and the Admiral had been chewing the walls. It was now 1500 and we were barely ready to go. “Lieutenant Walker, please take our guests to the observation blister.”

  “Aye, sir,” I said, tiredly. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to the reporters, but orders were orders. Besides, the sight of a wormhole opening at close range would be enough to shut them up for a while, I hoped. “I’ll get right on it.”

  The reporters, I was amazed to discover, had dressed up in their finery for the trip to the observation blister. I tried very hard not to laugh as I escorted them through the passageways – some crewmen were rather less discriminating – and took them into the observation blister. Space – and the sight of Earth, visible as a blue-green sphere in the distance – still took my breath away, but the reporters didn’t seem impressed. They’d probably seen it often enough that it was no longer a wonder to them, although I couldn’t understand why. It had never stopped being a wonder for me.

  “Tell me something,” Frank Wong said. Wong seemed to be the senior reporter, insofar as there was such a thing. “When are we actually departing? I was told to expect you at 1300.”

  I wasn’t going to explain all the problems to him. “There were delays,” I said, reluctantly. There was no point in elaborating. “I believe, however, that we will depart in a few moments. It really is a fantastic view.”

  “He’s trying to distract us,” Mytych Milan insisted. I had never been able to untangle where he’d come from originally, but he was a reporter through and through. From what I had been able to gather, he was under the impression that he was an investigative reporter, out to gather dirt that could be used to make the UNPF look bad. I doubted that he’d be long with us either. “We could be…”

  “Stuck in the stateroom with nothing to do, but drink and fuck,” Frank Wong snapped back, angrily. I was pleased to see that he had some sense, although in their place, I’d have been brushing up on my studies. There was always something to do on the ship. “Watch and learn. It’s your first trip out of the Solar System, isn’t it?”

  “Now hear this,” the Captain’s voice said, echoing through the starship. “We are ready to jump. I repeat, we are ready to jump. The wormhole will be opened in two minutes…mark.”

  “Watch,” I said, softly. This sight, too, never lost its power to thrill. “You won’t regret it.”

  Ahead of us, the light from the stars seemed to twist suddenly into a shimmering ball of light, which expanded rapidly into an open mouth, a rent in the fabric of space and time. The funnel grew larger, rapidly blurring through the colours of the rainbow, and seemed to rush at us. A moment later, we were inside the wormhole and flying towards our destination. The lights vanished and we seemed to be inside nothing, but darkness.

  “My god,” Mytych Milan said, stunned. “It…what was that?”

  “That was a wormhole,” I said, dryly. I’d feared that the reporters would throw up – it wasn't uncommon for first-timers – but they seemed to be holding themselves together. Two of them looked pale and wan, but the others seemed fine. “Heinlein is forty light years away, after all. That’s a months journey even with wormholes.”

  “I never even thought about it like that,” Lillian said. “What happened to the lights?”

  I took the opportunity to lecture them. “Technically speaking, we’re inside a private universe at the moment,” I explained. It wasn't entirely accurate, but so few people understood the Jump Drive that it was a worthwhile analogy. “There are no stars or other sources of light here, so there’s nothing, but darkness.”

  “What about the other ships?” Frank Wong asked. “Why can’t we see them?”

  “They’re not in our wormhole,” I said. “We�
�re all in separate universes of our own.”

  They still seemed subdued when I escorted them back to their stateroom, apart from Frank Wong, who caught my arm and pulled me to one side. He didn’t know how lucky he was. The Marines had taught me what to do with someone who caught hold of me with unpleasant intentions. I could have broken his arm quite easily.

  “You know that Ensign you had helping us yesterday,” he asked, with a leer. “What would it take to have her sharing my bunk for a night?”

  I couldn’t help it. I just stared at him. Ensign Gomez was beautiful, with delicate Hispanic features and a warm smile that seemed to light up the room, but I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. She was on her first cruise as an Ensign – she’d graduated from the class after mine, back at the Academy – and she was hard to think ill of, even though I tried. It was the job of a Lieutenant to toughen up the Ensigns. Had I ever been that young?

  “You won’t even think about it,” I hissed, angrily. It was all I could do not to knock his teeth down his throat, but the Captain would have been annoyed. I didn’t want to think about his reaction to this incident. “She’s an officer on this ship and not someone you can hire, understand?”

  Frank was either too stupid or too sure of himself to back down quickly. “When I was on the old Panama, the Captain sent two young Ensigns to share my bunk,” he said, his voice hardening. “You will send her to me or…”

  “No,” I said, flatly. I believed him – there were Captains who would quite happily do that, even though regulations forbade it – but this wasn't the Panama. “If you touch her without her permission, I will beat hell out of you, understand?”

  He wilted, perhaps finally sensing that I was serious. “I have powerful friends,” he called after me, his voice shaking. “You’ll regret this…”

  The hatch cut him off and I stormed away, shaking with rage. How dare he ask me to send him an Ensign for the night? It was quite possible that Ensign Gomez wasn't as innocent as she looked – she’d grown up in Ciudad Barranquilla, one of the worst cities on Earth – but even so, how dare he treat me as a pimp, or a procurer? I wasn't going to allow him to bully me like that, even if it cost me my career. I was still raging when I reported to Anna and made a full confession. I had to know where Captain Shalenko stood on such incidents.

  “I shouldn’t worry about it,” Anna said, once I’d explained everything. “The Captain will put him through a bulkhead if he tries anything like that on one of his crew.”

  “Thanks,” I said, more relieved than I cared to admit. “I just…”

  “It won’t be the last time,” Anna warned, slowly. “That kind of people will always treat us in the Peace Force as second-class citizens. We’re the ones who were foolish enough to sign our lives away, after all.”

  I nodded slowly. The Peace Force recruiting office claimed that most recruits enjoyed a high standard of living, and excellent job prospects after retirement, but they were lying, of course. The Academy had been hard enough and the starships had been primitive for the newly-minted Ensigns; I dreaded to think what life on some of the research colonies or military bases was like. Afterwards…well, it wasn't uncommon to set veterans on the streets, begging for money. A handful had even been burned to death by the gangs.

  “But if it happens again, report it at once,” she added. “I’d better have a few words with the Ensigns as well. We can’t forbid the bastards from chatting up the Ensigns, but we can promise them that if they do get…taken against their wills, they will be supported. The Captain won’t take that lightly.”

  “Thank you,” I said, again. “You’ve put my mind at rest.”

  “Mine isn’t,” Anna said, with a grin. “You’re on watch in thirty minutes. Go grab a cup of tea or coffee from the mess before you go on watch, or the Captain will throw you off the bridge for being distracted.”

  I nodded and left her cabin.

  The days wore on slowly, falling into a routine. I stood my watches – with the Captain or Anna watching me, at first – and learned more about the Devastator and her capabilities. Captain Shalenko insisted that we all be trained in operating every console on both the bridge and the Combat Information Centre – the Devastator had both, as did the Kofi Annan – just in case one of the regular officers was wounded. I hadn’t realised just how capable the Devastator actually was until I worked through the tactical simulations. We could strike and blow up an infantry unit on the surface below and never cause any collateral damage. We could dominate an entire planet from orbit. I began to understand, in a way, why the Admiral was so confident. He had weapons that no insurgents could hope to match.

  And yet, I wondered in the dead of night, if that were the case, why was Terra Nova still a running sore?

  “Because the weapons are only useful if they find a target,” Kitty explained, one night. We had taken to spending most of our off-duty time together, mainly playing chess or watching videos. One of the videos on the computer had been a documentary entitled The Liberation of Heinlein, which had apparently been produced before the fleet had departed to invade the target world. It seemed to be nothing, but poorly-cobbled together propaganda, without any mention of either violence or political upheaval. “How do you sort out an insurgent from a loyal citizen?”

  I blinked at her, almost missing her attempt to fork my king and queen. “That’s against the Laws of War,” I protested, horrified. I’d only seen a pirate ship before…and then I remembered the ambush on Terra Nova. I hadn’t really had a chance to take in the details, but had they been wearing uniforms. “They can’t do that, can they?”

  Kitty snorted. “I do wonder what he saw in you,” she said, dryly. “If a Law of War only benefits one side, why should the other one follow it?”

  I nodded in reluctant understanding. “And so they hide among the people?”

  “More or less,” Kitty agreed. “I bet you dinner somewhere expensive, perhaps on our next shore leave, that we’ll take the high orbitals all right, and then find ourselves trapped in a long insurgency, again. The Captain won’t permit random bombardment of the planet and even if he did, it wouldn’t solve the problem. We might never break the planet entirely.”

  “No bet,” I said, without hesitation. Kitty was almost certainly right. “I don’t understand, then. Why was the Admiral so confident of victory?”

  Kitty smiled. “How many Infantrymen are there in the troop transports?”

  “Two hundred thousand,” I said, automatically. The troop transports were among the largest ships in the fleet, converted colonist-carriers. The UN preached that Earth’s population problem would be solved by exporting the population to the colonies, but even I knew that the logistics would never work. We might be able to export maybe two million a year, perhaps more if we really worked at it, but in that time the population would grow again. “I don’t understand…”

  “They’re the dregs of society,” Kitty said, seriously. “The Admiral wouldn’t care in the slightest if half of them died to bring Heinlein back into the United Nations. Why should he? They’re pulled off the streets, given just enough training to make them dangerous, and then sent out to occupy resentful planets. Most of them will never be able to claim the patch of land the UN promises them in exchange for their services.”

  She paused and moved a pawn forward. “I don’t know about the enemy, John,” she said, “but by God they frighten me.”

  I lifted an eyebrow at her choice of words. Religion had no place in the UN’s brave new world, or so we had been told. It was illegal to discriminate against any particular religion, but practicing any religion was not encouraged. Muna had been allowed to keep her scarf for some reason, but she’d received no other encouragement. It simply wasn't allowed.

  “They’re hated on every world,” Kitty added, grimly. “Whatever hope there was that the worlds might come into the UN voluntarily, they destroy, just by behaving like complete bastards, looting, raping and murdering wherever they go. They’re not Marin
es, John; remember that. They’re monsters in UN uniforms.”

  She reached out and touched my icon the Senior Chief had given me. “Welcome to the Brotherhood,” she said. I felt my heartbeat racing suddenly. “The best we can do is try to prevent our honour from being tarnished any further.”

  “You’re in the Brotherhood?” I asked, astonished. I hadn’t even given any through to who else might be in the Brotherhood, although I would have bet good money that Captain Harriman was a Brother, and Captain Shalenko was not. “How did you know about me…?”

  “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” Kitty said, her green eyes very serious. I caught her meaning and nodded. The Security Department wouldn’t hesitate to subject us both to intensive interrogation if they realised that we were members of what they would regard as a subversive group. “You’re young, but the word was passed along to keep an eye on you. You’re not the first to have doubts.”