Department 9

by Tim C. Taylor

  “Holy shit, Lil’! That was totally unnecessary.”

  “I know!” she screamed excitedly.

  “For fuck’s sake! Please, Lil’. The last time you flew one of these, you crashed.”

  “Bite my ass.”

  The flier gained ten feet of altitude. “Not a chance. There isn’t enough beer in the galaxy to wash away the foul taste. I’ll get Hubert to bite you for me, assuming he’s survived Enthree’s tender care.”

  Darant’s screen showed nominal damage on the belly armor as a few bullets pinged their underside. He remembered he had an autocannon and was supposed to be shooting at people.

  By the time he’d reset his screen to targeting mode, the GAC had left the remains of the barricade behind and was following a curve in the road surrounded by four-story stone buildings.

  “Do you think this crazy scheme will work?” he asked. “I mean, Fitz sounded convincing, but I don’t like the trust we’re placing in that jack you tortured.”

  “Who cares?” Lily replied. “I got to fly again.”

  “Asshole.”

  “You’re just jealous. When this is done, you can sit up front on my lap, and I’ll teach you.”

  “I’d rather sit on Bronze’s lap,” Darant replied, but his retort died before he could think of a good punchline because the walls looking down on them as they flew into the heart of the city were making him itch. Kaylingen didn’t have proper military fortifications at the best of times, and the rapid response unit based just outside had been led away by a false trail.

  It wouldn’t take much to swat them out of the air.

  Even with the improved upper armor of the GAC-19a variant, autocannons on rooftops or SAM pods deployed at major crossroads could shred them.

  It really wouldn’t take much.

  Could they really make it to their target so easily?

  “Armor ahead!” said Bronze in Darant’s earpiece. “With squad level infantry support.”

  “Ahh shit!” Lily shouted.

  Darant wanted to turn and look, but he kept quiet and focused on his gun’s targeting display.

  “Two light hover tanks,” Bronze said calmly. “Aim at the weak rear armor over the powerplant vents. You’ll see it easier in infrared. Follow me.”

  Their GAC wiggled its butt as Lily adjusted position. Then the horizontal thrusters growled as the craft picked up speed.

  He could hear Bronze fire and then their GAC shuddered as Lily joined in.

  There was a sudden screaming pulse from the gravitics, and their craft jumped up.

  A tank round shot through the air just below them.

  The flier passed the tanks. Darant noted they were light reconnaissance models pressed into duty they weren’t suited for. One tank was on fire, and its crew was bailing out. The other looked badly scratched and scorched, but it was still very much in the fight. It was traversing its turret and elevating its main gun, expecting Lily to fly overhead.

  She didn’t.

  Lily brought the GAC’s nose up.

  And kept lifting it. They were ascending vertically, engines screaming to the accompaniment of blaster fire lashing them from the troopers on the ground.

  “Five Hells, Lily!” he said under his breath.

  Darant wasn’t built for this. It felt like his internal organs were shifting into unnatural positions, but he understood what Lil’ was doing.

  “Make it quick!” she yelled.

  The blocky rectangle of the tank took center stage on Darant’s targeting screen, surrounded by a score of shadowy humanoids with bright heat signatures on their chests.

  Brightest, by far, was a strip behind the tank’s turret—the exhaust vent.

  “Quick! I can’t hold it much longer,” screamed Lily.

  Darant tapped his screen to lock the targeting on the vent. Then he closed both firing grips and unleased a long burst at the tank at a full 3,000 rounds per minute cyclic rate.

  It was just as well he’d locked the targeting system, because the GAC bucked and writhed, hovering with its nose up in the air and twerking its ass at the tanks and support troopers on the ground. Whether it was the recoil, the gravitic craft reaching its limit, the small arms fire hitting their rear, or the sheer weight of the heavy rounds Darant was throwing off, it was too much for the hover flier.

  The engines cut out, and the GAC tipped over backward.

  For a long moment, it seemed to hang there, Darant looking down out of the top of his cockpit at the troopers who were looking up in astonishment.

  Lily screamed.

  So did the uniformed Militia troopers.

  Darant didn’t. He was too terrified.

  They fell, but the lateral engines and gravitics cut back in, pulsing in a carefully calculated sequence that caused them to loop the loop. They were accelerating away in level flight through a fan of flame when the tank Darant had shot up finally decided to blow up.

  “You beauty,” Darant said in wonder. “Neat flying, Lil’.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Lily replied in an unusually quiet voice. “Some kind of automatic anti-stall. I had no idea we had one.”

  Darant fired over the receding troopers to persuade them to keep their heads down. Firing at Militia troopers still didn’t feel right. He kept his bursts short because he’d expended half his ammo taking out the tank.

  He’d need every round soon; this was just a sideshow.

  The real business was waiting for them up ahead in Execution Square.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 49: Revered Leader In’Nalla

  “We can’t let the willfully cancerous dissenters destroy what we have built here.”

  The crowd filling Execution Square booed the WCDs.

  In’Nalla cocked an ear toward the crowd through the bullet-proof, transparent blast shield protecting the stage. “I can’t hear you,” she mouthed.

  The crowd went wild, screaming their hatred of WCDs.

  In’Nalla gestured at them to calm.

  “To the east of our great city awaits an army. Army? Hah! More like the discharge from a blocked sewer. In their ranks are communists, perverts, fascists—the filth of our world united in their intolerance of everyone who does not yield to their perverted ideologies.”

  She gave the throng a moment to cheer and howl their anger before pressing on. “These people—though I don’t believe they deserve to be called people, don’t you agree?—are united in their hatred. Hatred of us.” She picked out a screaming human woman in the front row and pointed her out. “Of you.”

  After letting the camera team fill the big screen with the woman’s face for a few seconds, In’Nalla pointed out other individuals, rapid fire. “They hate you. And you. And you.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re right? Do you think we should invite the WCDs in?”

  Execution Square went absolutely wild.

  Relayed through speakers on her side of the blast shield, the sound was an incoherent white noise, but it was music to In’Nalla’s ears, because it was filled with the passion she demanded of these people. Her people.

  The clamor soon took the form of a chant that echoed off the high walls surrounding the square.

  “Kill the WCDs.”

  “Kill the WCDs.”

  She raised her arms high in the air, her face wild with excitement. The chant grew in intensity.

  From stage left, Sanderson marched over to her. The new bodyguard had been waving at her with increasing urgency for over a minute.

  She put one hand out to ward him off, but he would not be deterred.

  So, she cut the mic. “Not now,” she yelled at the stupid man. “I need this moment. Can’t you hear their passion?”

  “Kill the WCDs!”

  “Kill the WCDs!”

  “An attack is imminent,” he said. “They’re coming for you.”

  “An attack? Sanderson, look at them. Four thousand people literally screaming to kill the enemy. Half of them are armed, maybe more. They’re not l
ike the scraps Major Lyssin allocated me. They’re an army. My army.”

  “Ma’am, with all due respect, I’ve served in a real army. What you see here is an armed rabble. Highly motivated. Dangerous and unpredictable. And no match for an army with proper training, discipline, and real machinery of war.”

  “Machinery of war.” She guffawed. “Such as what? More of those fantasy mechs?”

  He pointed at one of the approach roads. “Such as that, ma’am.”

  Two green-painted needle craft flew in from the approach road and circled the square.

  Several brave souls from the crowd below shot at them, flashes blooming on the underside of the fliers as bolts hit home and bullets ricocheted away.

  The fliers ignored the attacks and calmly blew away the rooftop positions where Lyssin sometimes deployed sharpshooters.

  “Come with me, ma’am,” urged Sanderson.

  He lunged at her and tried to grab her around the waist, but she ordered him to stop with such a force of command that he hesitated. She glanced backstage where six worried Militia troopers looked on. They were all Lyssin had managed to provide her.

  “No, Sanderson,” she said. “Major Lyssin promised me tanks. Instead, I have six nervous wrecks and you. If these aircraft want to kill us, there’s nothing we can do.”

  The fliers descended and blasted away one side of the stage, then hovered like oversized dragonflies with nose-mounted heavy blasters.

  Their fire, she noted, was meticulous. No one was injured, and the blast screen remained intact. In fact, the only injuries had come from ricochets and rounds fired by the crowd that fell back into the square.

  “Ma’am!” Sanderson was about to try to grab her again despite her Militia guards pointing their blasters at him.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, stand down, Sanderson. The rebels aren’t shooting at people, which means they’re here to play politics. Let them. Politics is a game I play to win.”

  The green fliers descended below the blast screen, hovering a few feet above the stage.

  “Surrender!” ordered a woman through an external speaker.

  In’Nalla could see her through the cockpit of the nearest flier. She shuddered at the sight of the woman’s hideously disfigured face.

  Lyssin’s troopers ran, the rebels content to let them go.

  Out beyond the blast shield, some of her bravest citizens were trying to clamber over the barrier to protect her.

  She let them come while she assessed her opponents’ next move.

  The rear cockpits hissed open, and two rebels jumped down onto the stage.

  One was a bear of a man wearing electro-dispersion chainmail and carrying an extra-large Militia war hammer. The other, an evil-looking human armed with a large blaster with twin rails below the barrel, looked more like a conventional killer.

  The beardless one shot Sanderson with an electro-dart by the look of it.

  Her big bodyguard went down and twitched on the stage.

  Pathetic.

  In’Nalla resisted the urge to kick the useless fool. If Sanderson had gone down so easily, he could never have been much good.

  “Well, gentlemen, what do you want?”

  “Your resignation,” said the man who’d shot Sanderson.

  She switched the microphone back on. “I don’t give in to demands from terrorists, or mercenaries, or whatever the hell class of scum you call yourself.”

  “We’re not demanding anything,” said the bear. It was difficult to be sure with all the bejeweled facial hair, but the man seemed to be grinning. He pointed at the crowd with the shaft of his hammer. “We don’t need to. They will.”

  Now it was her turn to grin in triumph. “My people,” she said into the microphone. “My brave and loyal people. I temporarily surrender myself to these killers. I will do what I can to prevent bloodshed. Please, get down from the blast shield. But do not go home. Stay here. Protect the approaches to the square. Occupy and fortify the buildings here. And above all, trust me. In’Nalla is your future.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 50: Vol Zavage

  “That filthy beast comes near my gear again, and I’ll pull the plug on this op, revolution or not.”

  Enthree looked up from her workstation and tilted her head toward the Slern. “Do you refer to the basten goat? I made a pledge to care for him.”

  Zavage’s kesah-kihisia was pummelled by the Slern’s indignation. Meanwhile, Enthree oozed amusement—she knew damn well who the rebel hacker had been talking about.

  Enthree, he was coming to realize, had many unexpected talents. Sarcasm was one of the least alarming.

  “Breaker,” said Zavage, “the bug’s messing with your head…uh…” Zavage wasn’t sure if referring to a Slern’s ‘head’ was offensive. Too bad. Everything was offensive on this world. “I mean, messing with your mind. Hubert knows he’s been bad.”

  “Hubert? Pah!” Breaker extended some flesh out of its shell to form a head which it promptly shook at Enthree and Zavage. “You two have been around humans too much. I can smell them on you. It’s just a damned animal, you idiots. And it was nibbling my gold-sheathed, duranium-enriched core data cables. My babies, guys. Please, have some respect.”

  Fighting to keep from laughing like a human, Zavage humbly bowed his head to the little hacker.

  The Slern, Breaker81, was in its tech-filled, musty basement in one of Kaylingen’s northern suburbs that the three of them were going to bring In’Nalla down.

  Zavage had never encountered the race before. In appearance, Breaker81 was a cross between a scaly lizard and a mollusk, with pseudopods emerging from beneath its shell to perform functions of manipulation, locomotion, speech and eating. Its shell was painted to resemble stained wood with a cream edge in a pattern Breaker81 called Les Paul Standard, which it claimed was an ancient human cultural reference.

  “Nah, you’re okay, guys,” said Breaker in perfect Standard. He extended a pseudopod toward Enthree. “I can forgive anything for a chance to work with her. You’re a goddamned genius, sister. And a moneyed genius too. Say, the revolution’ll be over by tonight. Have you any plans for after?”

  “Let’s concentrate on making sure the revolution turns the right way,” Zavage admonished them.

  Breaker had hit on a helluva topic, though. It wasn’t hitting on Enthree so much as being wowed by both her hacking skills and the funds she could access to bribe the system marshal to ensure the Militia had someplace else to be today. That had taken serious money. It certainly wasn’t her Militia pay.

  Who was Enthree really?

  “It’s spreading,” yelled Breaker. “Ye gods! She’s done it!”

  Zavage hurried over to Breaker’s work pod. Even Hubert pricked up his ears in interest. The Slern said it thought better inside its shell and had stuffed most of its body inside the wood-effect carapace. Then it had extruded a single, fat pseudopod from which it had extended a half dozen fingers and stalks that each held two eyes.

  Its displays showed the spread of the incriminating video footage Bronze had acquired from an insider. They had uploaded the recording to EB-Link in such a way that multiple influential groups were now sharing it like crazy, each believing it was one of their own members who had uncovered the footage they were obliged to make public.

  Within a minute, even the media conglomerates were following suit.

  “You’re right,” said Zavage. “We’ve done it. In’Nalla’s finished.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 51: Revered Leader In’Nalla

  In Execution Square, the crowd stood mesmerized by the video footage on the big screen as it looped once more.

  “I’m betrayed by trans-cos who are greedy and petty and led by utterly short-sighted assholes,” said In’Nalla, her face red and angry. “It would be better if we had fewer companies, and they were steered by a central authority.”

  The citizens studiously avoided eye contact with each other, shifting their attention back and forth
from the screen to their wrist slates as they scoured EB-Link, searching for someone to tell them how to interpret this.

  They needed their reality defined for them.

  Was the Revered Leader a traitor? A Jacobin socialist? Because that was wrong-think, wasn’t it?

  Or was she a victim of false news?

  The battle for the truth raged on EB-Link, but it was a battle she’d always won. She owned reality on this world. As the REEDs liked to put it, if the Revered Leader told you two plus two equaled five, to think of any other possibility was a thought crime.

  And to betray the Revered Leader was the biggest thought crime of all.

  It had to have been Asher who’d taken that footage. How could she possibly have dared?

  In’Nalla didn’t give a shit about why Asher had betrayed her. It was all damage limitation now. That and…maybe she could turn this betrayal to her advantage.

  First things first. Asher needed to pay. In’Nalla was about to order her sorry carcass dragged in and her secrets tortured out of her when she stopped. It was that damned Blayde Asher she would normally order to fix this sort of mess.

  Damn her!

  Slowly, ever so slowly, In’Nalla activated the comm link in her slate without getting more than a frown out of the killer who’d stunned Sanderson.

  She tried contacting her information shapers. The first three didn’t respond; they were off grid altogether. In’Nalla’s heart beat faster…this had never happened before.

  So, when the link to Sonep Mediaforce established, and the CEO answered, a wave of relief hit her.

  “Jennling? Why are you the only media controller who’s answering my calls?”

  “Because, Revered Leader,” said Jennling Sonep, worry so heavy in his voice that she could picture his fat hands sweating, “the others have been seized by the rebel army.”

  “Then you must work fast while you still can. Here’s what I need you to do…”

  * * * * *