Fitz winked a violet eye and then the moment was gone, though it left Zavage stunned.
And hopeful.
A light flicked across the road a hundred yards ahead.
It was a checkpoint Zavage had been too distracted to notice. Two columns had been sunk into the edge of the road. Lasers fired from one to the other, the beams reflecting off the polished surfaces to form a barrier grid of coherent light. They didn’t look that powerful, but the truck was an unarmored civilian model. Driving through the laser gate would be a desperate gamble the truck—and possibly its occupants—would probably not survive.
A half dozen humanoid citizens wearing armbands and black hats manned the checkpoint. Four of them had rifles; the two who didn’t walked over to the truck.
“Who are you?” demanded one of them. He wore a blue armband and gray flat cap, and he acted like a leader. The armbands of the others, Zavage noted, were black. “What is your purpose?”
“We’ve been contracted by the Kaylingen Municipal Menagerie,” Zavage explained. “We’re transporting an adult Artraxa ensata, a spearheaded atraxian, caught in the jungles of Zone-75.”
They looked more disgusted by Zavage than worried by a dangerous animal.
“Your head is uncovered,” one told Zavage, himself wearing a half-brimmed green felt hat. “That’s disgusting, especially at a time like this when decent folk need to show solidarity. Cover up.”
“I shall not,” Zavage retorted. “My kesah-kihisia that disgust you so much are a part of my natural sensory organs. It would be both unnatural and unhealthy for me to cover them. I’m offended by your suggestion.”
“Don’t say another word,” the man in the blue armband warned his fellow. He released a heavy sigh. “Zykan, place yourself under arrest and surrender yourself to the nearest police registration kiosk.”
Zykan went wide eyed with rage and glared at his comrade. “Are you shitting me, DeRenzi?”
“Your words sounded to me like a potential speech crime,” DeRenzi answered resolutely. “During this crisis, we must be super vigilant. We must demonstrate faith in the system.”
Zykan looked at Zavage with sheer hatred before storming away, presumably to turn himself in to the authorities.
DeRenzi leaned through the open window of the cab and glowered at Zavage. “I will destroy you. This crisis has left Zykan overwrought. Normally, he would never commit speech crimes. I blame you.”
“If you hate my Kurlei friend so much,” said Fitz, “why did you ask poor Mr. Zykan to turn himself in?”
DeRenzi slid the full fury of his gaze to Fitz and held him in his glare. “I did it because the incident was seen, recorded, and uploaded on EB-Link. If I hadn’t spoken up, I would have been guilty of a speech crime myself, and right now, I’m needed here at the barricades and checkpoints.”
Fitz shook his head, confused. “But isn’t that…and I mean no disrespect to your local customs…completely batshit crazy?”
Although DeRenzi’s facial expression cooled into an impassive stony face, Zavage sensed surprise. Suspicion quickly followed, and it wasn’t difficult to figure out why. Off-worlders were assumed to be behind the fearsome Krunacao mechs.
“We’re off-world contractors,” Zavage explained. “Dangerous wild animals like our spearheaded atraxian in the back don’t catch themselves, you know.”
DeRenzi’s suspicion intensified. He looked back anxiously at the other men and women at the checkpoint. One made a show of charging their blaster rifle.
“We don’t understand,” said Fitz. “Could you explain?”
“If you see a crime committed, you must report it,” DeRenzi said coldly. “If you do not, you are guilty of the same crime you left unreported and face the same penalty.”
“So,” said Fitz eagerly, like a boy with a new toy. He made a pretend gun with his fingers and put them to Zavage’s head. “If I blow my friend’s head off, you have to report the murder. If you don’t, you’re guilty of murder yourself?”
“Correct. For which the penalty would be public execution.”
“But what if, after murdering my friend, I turn my pistol on you and tell you that if you report me, I will kill you and your family. Would you still be guilty of murder if you don’t report me immediately?”
“No, of course not. We’re not savages. But I would use all means to report your crime the moment it was safe to do so.”
“Fascinating,” said Fitz. “Why doesn’t anyone do anything about this insanity?”
“How dare you?” thundered DeRenzi. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Fitz grinned and reached for a cigar that wasn’t there. “We’re Chimera Company. Spread the word.”
“You’re what?”
“Ignore him,” Zavage begged. “He has a disorder. Anxiety makes him withdraw into an alternate personality, which makes him talk complete crap.”
DeRenzi narrowed his eyes and gave Zavage a predatory smile. “Everything you say is being recorded,” he said, tapping a circular patch on the lapel of his jacket. “I will report you to the authorities for potential speech offenses, but—” he screwed up his face in fake dismay, “—regrettably, the authorities are currently overburdened by multiple crises. Which is why I’ll also send it to the city menagerie. We’ll see whether your employer still wants to be associated with you once your comments have gone viral on EB-Link.”
“Do what you have to, pal,” said Fitz. “Now, this is a checkpoint, right? Are you going to do some checking or what?”
“Open up the back of the truck,” DeRenzi demanded. “I hope, for Zykan’s sake, I find something incriminating.”
Zavage got out of the cab. He walked around the back and opened it up.
“Easy, boy,” he told Hubert, who bunched his legs and bleated aggressively at DeRenzi from the cargo bay.
Enthree had been taking care of Darant’s pet, but in the little goat’s mind, it was he who had been protecting Enthree. Was Hubert going to wake his Muryani friend?
Enthree continued snoring inside her box. She’d been so excited last night that she couldn’t sleep. She kept saying something about dancing for some reason that made no sense to Zavage.
“It certainly sounds like a fierce beast,” DeRenzi admitted.
“You have no idea. Would you like me to open the box? It’s sealed to keep it dark inside. I warn you, though, sunlight will wake up the beast, and it will feel threatened.”
“No. No. There’s no need for that,” DeRenzi said hurriedly. “I hope I judged you wrong, off-worlder. Stay pure. Stay vigilant. These days carry great danger.” He nodded at Enthree’s box. “They are even more dangerous than your wild animal.”
The laser gate was switched off, and Zavage drove on. Fitz roared with laughter the moment they passed through the gate.
“Oh, that was beautiful,” he said when his laughter subsided. “To cover your smelly fish dreads would be an outrage! Bet that never stopped you wearing your battle helm when you armored up.”
As a matter of fact, Zavage’s kesah-kihisia did itch within the tight confines of his armor helm, but he didn’t feel like sharing that detail.
“You humans are crazy,” he said instead.
Zavage meant it as a throwaway comment, but it sobered Fitz.
“I can’t argue with that,” he said. “Humans are weird.”
“So, what are we doing here, Fitz? Really. The main objective of this trip is to smuggle Enthree in and get the intel on A-10 security out. But long term? If we depose In’Nalla, then what? Would the Panhandlers be any better? Would RevRec? Perhaps we’ll have a nice little civil war in which the ideologies get ever more extreme until we end up with the Cora’s World death camps.”
“We’re here to put the team together and get back to my real job. Find that mystery ship they dug up in Rho-Torkis and figure out our little mystery man, Lord Khallini.”
“What about the regular people on this planet? Are we going to abandon them?”
“You punched her in the face and told her she was a disgrace.”
“True, but I called her out for her military leadership. And because she left me to die. As a political leader, she’s the best hope for this planet. But we get ahead of ourselves. In’Nalla, for the moment, is still very much in charge. First, we must destroy her.”
* * * * *
Chapter 39: General Gzeiter
“It’s a goddamned lie!”
General Gzeiter frowned at the strategic map display in the middle of his operations room.
Eiylah-Bremah’s central continent was on display, color coded according to strength of support for the rebellion. The black, white, and red PHPA symbol represented force concentrations. Not that there were many. The Rebellion had few combat troops on Eiylah-Bremah. They weren’t here to win a war on this planet.
The strategy he’d been tasked with implementing was to wage a war of attrition. The Rebellion was to recruit local allies that would wear down the Militia troopers through guerilla warfare.
This was not a war of massed hover tanks and orbital drops. It was a stab in the back in some dark alleyway. Tired troopers ambushed by guerillas who would melt back into the local villages, indistinguishable from the local civilians because, in many cases, they were the local civilians.
Gzeiter got some satisfaction from knowing that Eiylah-Bremah already had a reputation in the Militia as a posting no one wanted.
And the cycle of attrition had become almost self-sustaining. The Militia controlled the rich asteroid mines, which meant they couldn’t afford to lose the system. So replacement troopers were constantly fed into the war. As their retaliation against the civilians grew more brutal—particularly in the jungles of the Zone 40s—fresh recruits swelled the ranks of the guerillas.
The orders from rebel high command were to keep the war going. Bringing down In’Nalla wasn’t the objective here. The purpose of Eiylah-Bremah and a dozen worlds like it, was to grind down the Militia until their situation was so dire, they would be forced to bring in the Legion.
For the Legion to suppress Federation citizens would be an unconstitutional outrage. Better still, it would expose the fragile Legion logistics for the pathetic lie they really were.
And when the Legion supply chain was stretched to the breaking point, the carefully hoarded Rebel Navy would strike at their logistics. The legionaries would be stranded behind enemy lines with top of the range military hardware that had no ammo, no fuel, no power, and no spares. The famous PA-71 railguns would be nothing more than high-tech clubs.
Until that skragg-bastard Trucker had come along and pissed all over Gzeiter’s neat war.
Now his map was meaningless.
The strategy was broken.
He deactivated the screen. “Might as well be staring at used toilet paper for inspiration,” he growled.
“Sir?”
Gzeiter rolled his eyes—he’d thought he was alone with his frustrations—turned around, and saw Corporal Woods looking embarrassed.
“It’s been a long day, Corporal. Go ahead.”
“Human male wants to see you. He checks out as Candor Shepherd, recruitment and subversion specialist.”
“Good. I wasn’t expecting him till morning, but this is better. Show him in and make sure no one disturbs us.”
“Yes, sir.”
Woods disappeared, and a friend from many campaigns took his place.
“I would have come even if you hadn’t summoned me,” said Shepherd.
Gzeiter embraced the old political warrior. “Thank you, Carnor. I could do with your input. My lieutenants all tell me the same thing: our campaign here is a success. Nothing has changed following that business with those goddamned mechs in Zone-40.”
“They’re wrong, of course,” stated Shepherd. “Everything has changed.”
Reluctantly, Gzeiter nodded in agreement, but then he brightened. From an equipment cupboard, he drew out his bottle of Swift Endeavor whiskey and two glasses. Silently, they savored the amber liquid and each other’s companionship as they sat beside the planning table.
Gzeiter switched on the map. “Tell me what you’re hearing, Shepherd.”
Shepherd drew himself up as was his way when he had a detailed explanation to deliver.
“Concisely, my old friend,” prompted Gzeiter with a grin. “There will be time to catch up properly when this business is done. Perhaps you and I can go fishing for sword trout along the banks of the River Kezell.”
“I’d like that.” The recruiter frowned. “The Krunacao Massacre the public is calling it. I assume it is a false flag operation?”
“Almost certainly.”
“Almost?”
“The obvious explanation is that In’Nalla is murdering her own civilians to shore up support among the public and to choke off the flow of recruits to our cause. And yet there are doubts. Where in the Five Hells did those damned mechs come from? And the outsiders? I’m informed that you encountered some of them near Kaylingen. Militia deserters. A Viking, a tattooed woman, and, of all things, a Muryani.”
“They match the group I saw. There was one more. A male human.”
“Was his name Trucker? A cigar-smoking pop-up folk hero with a cap that reads Bori-Alice Space Truckin’?”
“I’m sorry, General. The other man I met was called Darant. He was an introvert who reads novels and keeps a pet alien goat. No, I don’t think it can be the same man.”
“My intelligence says the group you interviewed knew Trucker. Did they speak of additional members of their group? Maybe someone they left behind?”
“No. They were closed to the idea of discussing anyone outside the group. It’s not uncommon. Deserting is psychologically traumatic. You’re literally removing yourself from your old life.”
Gzeiter felt Shepherd’s appraising look as he took a long drink of his whiskey and poured himself a refill. Damn that Trucker.
“As I said, General, Eiylah-Bremah is horrified by the atrocity and appalled by its mystery. The people of this world have lived regimented lives for generations. They crave certainty and boundaries. Tens of thousands die in the war every year, but they feel they understand why. The war’s body count is far greater than the number who died in this one horrible incident in a remote village. They don’t know why this happened. They don’t know who carried this out. And it is that very uncertainty that is driving them back to In’Nalla. For even those who hate her, at least, In’Nalla is the devil they know. One thing I will say with confidence. Whoever is behind this is likely to strike again. And again. Each outrage more shocking than before. Even our own natural sympathizers will eventually turn to In’Nalla if she promises security from this unknown threat.”
“My thinking exactly,” said Gzeiter soberly. “Our campaign here will fail.”
“It will. Which is why you are preparing a new strategy to turn guerilla warfare into conventional combat operations.”
“Who told you that, Carnor?”
“My own eyes as I walked through this camp. Our combat forces on this world are few, and it is obvious that what little we have are concentrating at this encampment. There is an unmistakable air of expectation about troops preparing for an assault, and it is rich in this camp. What is your target, General?”
“The capital.”
Shepherd’s eyebrows shot up.
Gzeiter’s heart sank. Shock wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for. “Do you think that’s too risky a move?”
Shepherd rubbed his chin for a few moments. “I’m not informed enough to answer that question. No, my surprise, my pleasant surprise, is that you have chosen such a bold step.”
“It doesn’t sit naturally, I can tell you, Carnor.
I know my reputation for caution, but Eiylah-Bremah balances on a knife’s edge. If we don’t seize the opportunities that present, someone else will.”
“Well said, General. If I may offer bold counsel, your previous campaigns have yielded victories that came too easily. Now, you must embrace the risk of failure like most generals throughout history. This Trucker you speak of, why does he bother you so much?”
“It is not only we who have limited conventional forces. Our RevRec allies are primarily a guerrilla force. We were secretly training an assault battalion as a reserve. The process was far from complete, but they launched an unauthorized attack on A-10. And now, under the new leadership of this Trucker—an individual I know nothing at all about beyond his physical description—they’ve called for an attack on the capital and demanded our support. It’s as if they’ve woken up and decided it’s their war now. After all we’ve done for them…”
“So, he’s a populist leader who also knows the off-world deserters. Yes, that is a conundrum. One of the deserters I interviewed was a former Militia officer. My guess is that the Trucker is also an ex-Militia officer. Do you fear the Trucker will seek to replace In’Nalla himself?”
Gzeiter drained his glass. “Damned right. And that’s what’s bugging me. Is the Trucker playing me for a fool? And what third parties are involved that I have no knowledge of, other than these damned mechs they left behind? My biggest fear is the Infection. I ordered everyone checked this morning. No sign of feathers or other strange growths. But the Infection could be rampant in the areas we control, hiding itself. We’ve seen this play out on other worlds.”
“I can’t speak about the Infection, but I don’t think this Trucker is the threat you fear him to be. He may have temporarily won the support of the civilian populace, but if he tries to take In’Nalla’s place, they will turn on him instantly. You have plenty of matters to worry about, General, but the Trucker’s loyalty is not one of them.”
* * * * *
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