Manna

by Lee Correy

  I didn’t feel any different, and I wasn’t certain I wanted to be Sendi Boldwon. But if the rules required it in order to play the game, I’d go along. When in Rome…

  “Okay, make a public announcement that I’m in charge,” I told him.

  “Why? You are.”

  “You ought to know why from your management experience that assumption of command is impossible without an authoritative announcement from a person known to have the power to delegate the responsibility. People must be told who’s in charge.” That was straight out of the Aerospace Force leadership manuals. I didn’t want to waste time and energy convincing the Commonwealth space forces that I was in command. Time was of the essence.

  Ali made the announcement.

  While he did, I tried to organize my thinking and lay out a plan of action. I took over the comm console and punched-up Jeri Hospah. “This is Induno Boldwon,” I told him.

  “Congrats, sir! Who do we kill first?”

  “We’re going to find out. Get me a circuit to Vershatets.”

  “Uh, fearless leader, the blasted freqs are jammed,” Jeri reported.

  “Is the lasercom installed yet?”

  “It is, but we haven’t checked it out yet. It may be useful only as an expensive flashlight.”

  “Try it. If the r-f spectrum’s unusable, Vershatets knows enough to monitor lasercom.”

  Lasercom was practically jam-proof. A low-power lasercom beam would be less than 3 meters in diameter at a distance of 386,000 kilometers. Outside the beam it would be undetectable. If it was undetectable, it couldn’t be jammed.

  It was working well enough for military use. I got through to Induno Kivalina Moti. She looked haggard but brightened when Ali told her he’d put me in charge at L-5. “Good! We’ve got somebody running the Spaclmpy! Eloy Chervit was caught in the Karederu Center round-up.”

  “Explain, please,” I asked.

  Karederu Center had been rebuilt following the fire, and a rededication party had been scheduled. Kariander Dok and his gang used the gathering as an occasion to launch the coup because it was an easy way to round up the Commonwealth leaders. But one of the last heavy storms of the season prevented some from getting there from Vicrik and Kulala.

  A coup d’etat is like any other large operation: once the go-ahead is given, it’s practically impossible to delay it for 48 hours. This is particularly true if there’s no contingency plan for adelay, and the Kariander triumvirate apparently didn’t have one.

  That told me their strategy was shallow and therefore vulnerable.

  When the coup happened, Kivalina reported, a large number of people had been captured at Karederu Center. But the triumvirate hadn’t gotten all the key people.

  “Things are still confused,” Kivalina admitted, “but it looks like they got the two Chairs of the legislature, Justice Silut of the Jurisprudence Board, Commissioner Abiku, Airlmpy Induno Dati, Spaclmpy Induno Chervit, Shaiko Stoak of Commonwealth Glaser, and Wahak and Vaivan Teaq of Landlimo.”

  “How about The General and Tsaya Stoak?” I asked anxiously.

  “They’re here in Vershatets,” Kivalina replied. “We don’t know yet where President Nogal is, so The General’s acting as pro tem chief executive until we find the President.”

  I was partly relieved. “We have a good chance of winning this thing, Kivalina! The Commonwealth leadership’s been truncated, but it’s basically intact and functional.”

  “Right! And without The General, the triumvirate can’t take over the country. In fact, they’re trapped in Topawa.” The leader of the citizen army went on, “I never issued a call-up to the Citlmpy. They came out in a levee en masse after Dok announced the takeover.”

  “What’s the current tactical situation, Kivalina?”

  “Vicrik and Vershatets are secure. The rebels tried to send an armed force up Dekhar Gorge in marginal weather without tacair. Our tacair flew anyway. The river ran red,” she told me with understatement. “We’ll retake Oidak and the rectenna tomorrow. Pahtu’s pouring Landlmpy troops up the Manitu-Oidak road and down Dekhar Gorge. I might add that she’s doing it over my objections because it’s softening the defense points at Morosabi, Tewahk Pass, and Sidamu Pass. We’re leaving ourselves wide open to the Malidoks.”

  “Don’t worry about them,” I advised her, “or about the Kulala region, either. The Kulala operations were diversionary feints to distract us from Kariander Dok’s activities right under our noses. Kivalina, we never considered a scenario where the strike comes from within! Everyone was so sure of our internal integrity that we forgot there were some citizens who could still be tempted by greed.”

  “I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand it at all,” Kavilina admitted. “After three generations educated under abundance economics…”

  “Von Undine wasn’t,” I pointed out. “He’s an outlander. He never adopted a Commonwealth name, did he? Incidentally, I think we’ll discover Kariander Dok’s an outlander.”

  “Didn’t you know that?” Ali asked. “He came from Basrah and married into my family through my aunt on my mother’s side, Tanyo Nogal.”

  “The Spaclmpy and our Ell-Five facility here is secure,” I reported. “We can mount a mission to Vamori-Free.”

  “We’ve probably lost Vamori-Free temporarily,” Kivalina announced. “The mercenaries went after the major input facilities-—the Oidak rectenna, Pitoika harbor, Topawa International Airport, and Vamori-Free. Nobody enjoys air superiority right now, so Topawa International’s unusable. We’ll get the rectenna back, and we can operate without the rest except Vamori-Free.”

  “If you and Pahtu take Oidak and the rectenna,” I pointed out, “that will cut off power to Vamori-Free. I can take it back with a space envelopment if you and Pahtu keep them busy on the ground. If Dati’s Airlmpy can control the skies over Topawa International Airport and Shokutu’s Coastlmpy can bottle-up Pitoika harbor, that prevents mercenary reinforcements from coming in. Then we’ll go after Topawa. Does the strategy sound reasonable?”

  “Yes, but let me get Pahtu, Shokutu, and The General in here. This has to be a closely coordinated operation, and there’s a lot of staff work to do.”

  “Have the staff sit in,” I advised, “then turn them loose to do their thing against whatever deadlines we set. We don’t have much time.”

  I pulled together Ali, Ursila, Omer, and Jeri.

  I was greatly relieved to see The General on the conference screen. I wish Tsaya had been there, too, but she was busy with the wounded from the Dehkar Gorge Massacre, as Pahtu called the engagement.

  “I was worried about you, General,” I told him with obvious relief. “Too bad we still have to fight our own greedy people to keep them from looting what your teachings built.”

  “Sendi,” he replied with the vowel shift that indicated he’d seen Ali’s announcement, “I never maintained we wouldn’t have to defend our belief or our Commonwealth. Even after everyone understands there’s plenty for all, it’s going to take time for people to realize all the consequences. It’ll take even more time to achieve the commonwealth of humanity because that doesn’t mean the existing wealth’s spread commonly, but that everyone is commonly wealthy. But right now we have to save ourselves.”

  We went over the strategy Kivalina and I had discussed.

  “How’re your internal communications?” I wanted to know.

  “As long as we hold the Dilkons and space, we’ve got the high ground,” Landlmpy Induno Pahtu pointed out. “We control communications, not the triumvirate. As long as we do, we’ll beat them.”

  “We couldn’t get through on r-f spectrum because of jamming,” Jeri pointed out.

  “We’re doing it,” The General told us. “We’ve deliberately left holes in the jamming so the mercenaries will be forced to use them. That saves us a great deal of time monitoring a broad spectrum.”

  “That’s the only thing standing against us,” I pointed out. “Time. The triumvirate used time in
the form of surprise. We have to use time against them by acting faster than they think we can. What are we missing or neglecting? Anybody got a critique? Can anybody shoot holes in this?”

  “Yes.” The General did. “We don’t know where the triumvirate is holding our people, and we don’t know if they’ll use them as hostages.”

  “They will,” Pahtu growled. “Dok comes from a culture that’s utilized hostages often in the past century. As for Von Undine, I’ve got to believe he believes in Kriegsraison. I’m sure Dok has had a strong influence on his nephew, Kokat. If they don’t hold hostages, the Freedom Army probably will because these mercenaries they brought in through our openports of entry seem to be the dregs of most of the underdog cultures of the planet. No offense intended, Sendi, but some soldiers of fortune are pretty brutal.”

  “No offense taken. I’m no longer a soldier of fortune,” I pointed out.

  “They’re holding my twin sister,” Ali said darkly. “I know her as well as I know myself. I want to find her. I just feel she’s in deep trouble.”

  “Ali, that’s your job. You work on that,” I told him. That would keep him busy and out from underfoot. For some time, Ali would be ineffectual because he had personal matters at stake which warped his judgement. I wasn’t letting myself do that, although I had personal matters at stake, too.

  We got our various responsibilities and duties settled and established a schedule based on the speed with which Omer could get our skalavans from Luna. I’d then have to be in the right place at the time with the five packets we could pull from various Commonwealth space facilities. The retaking of Vamori Free Space Port would be a combined ground, air, and space operation, and everything hinged on the timing of the space armada coming in from L-5.

  “As for the triumvirate’s prisoners, the rescue will have to be a commando mission once we find out where they’re being held and what’s being done with them,” I pointed out.

  The General was considering all of this pensively. He looked around at his people in the Vershatets redoubt, then at the rest of us on the lasercom link. “We must be prepared to deal with another unknown. Kariander Dok and his cohorts aren’t acting alone. I’m certain they have covert backing. In Santa Fe, the Tripartite and the PetroFed were unsuccessful in bringing us into a controlled-market, and they’ve been unsuccessful in their try to squeeze us out of space commerce by economic pressures and military space threats. We’ve countered and won at every turn. So they attack us in a blind spot: internally through the financial contacts they control. I want to keep my eye on those external factors. Sendi, when did Dok say he’d talk with you again?”

  “We’ve got five hours.”

  “They’ll offer to parley,” The General said, “because in five hours they’ll know they’re going to lose the Oidak rectenna. They may offer to negotiate. They’ll try to do it through you since they have communications with you and not with us. They’ll want to bargain. I think they’ll offer the prisoners as part of the deal.”

  “Do you want me to parley with them?” I asked.

  The General nodded. “Yes, please.”

  “I won’t negotiate with human lives, General,” I snapped.

  “I don’t ask you to. But I must remind you this is an internal armed conflict in which the various Hague, Geneva, and Manila conventions don’t apply. There are no rules, Sendi. Do what you feel you must. Promise them anything but deliver them nothing, anything to stall for time and information about where they’re holding our people. We’ll be monitoring. In the meantime, let’s proceed with the strategy we’ve developed, keeping in mind we must be extremely flexible. Many, many lives are at stake. If we make a wrong move, this civil war can still escalate into a worldwide general war. The Chinese have told me they’re waiting to see what happens before they do what they feel they must.”

  I was apprehensive and anxious in anticipation of Dok’s return call. I worked hard toovercome this and fear as well because I felt was balancing the whole world on the honed edge of my iklawa. To keep cool, I worked on the planning of our Vamori-Free recapture mission.

  I also delved deep into my memory, recalling what I’d been taught about wars and the causes of wars—the great miscalculations and mistakes as well as the high-risk chances that had become victories or defeats.

  I had to keep reminding myself that this war—and that’s what it was, not a euphemistic “armed conflict”—would be totally different from any war fought to date. In recalling the lessons of history, I had to be careful I didn’t fight it like any war in history. Analogies from the past wouldn’t have a one-to-one relationship to the realities of this very different time.

  Kariander Dok, Tonol Kokat, and Heinrich von Undine contacted me right on the dot at 1100 hours Universal Time. They weren’t in the same place they’d been before. Wherever it was, there was a stone wall behind them. The lighting was bad, and the audio echoed as though they were in a very large, acoustically-hard room.

  “Well, Alichin, have you decided to relinquish your people and facilities?” Dok asked at once.

  I took over. “Since you’ve precipitated an internal conflict, Dok, this is out of Ali’s hands now. As the senior Commonwealth military officer here, I’m in command until this war is over.”

  “So you’re the hired mercenary who’s taken over? Another Colonel Chase, eh? Well, we can deal with you…”

  “Induno Boldwon is no Colonel Chase,” Ali snapped.

  “It makes no difference. Boldwon, what is your answer?”

  “No surrender, Dok,” I said vehemently. “By the way, how’s your ‘Freedom Army’ doing at Vamori Free Space Port?”

  “I told they’d have it in their hands by this time. And they do.”

  “And Oidak?”

  “The Freedom Army already holds the rectenna. They’ll cut the circuit on my order. That will leave a lot of people in the dark.”

  “Including you,” I pointed out.

  “This is wasting time,” von Undine put in hastily. “Since you won’t surrender, we’re forced to use other methods. We hold a number of people of importance whose welfare is of concern to others including yourself. Do you know where we’re transmitting from?”

  “Not yet.”

  “It will become obvious, because this is where we’re holding our prisoners.”

  “Hostages, you mean!” Alichin snapped before I could stop him.

  “Call them what you will,” von Undine said with a smirk. “But we have something to negotiate with. In exchange for your surrender, Alichin, no further harm will come to our prisoners.”I looked at Ali and scribbed him a quick note: “Stay out of this!”

  And I replied to Dok’s screen image, “You make threats and allegations, Dok. Who have you got and where are they?”

  Kariander Dok replied. “We’re prepared to show you what we have to negotiate with.”

  The video pickup left the three of them and panned to the left.

  As if on cue, someone screamed.

  It was a scream of pain and terror.

  What we saw on the screen was something ten centuries out of the past.

  Ali gave vent to an incoherent curse of rage.

  Until that moment, I didn’t know of the existence in the Commonwealth of dungeons and torture chambers.

  Chapter 18

  Honor and Revenge at GEO Base One

  “As you can see for yourselves,” Kariander Dok’s voice said over the muffled moans and painful screams of that grisly scene, “your friends and family are still alive.”

  This was a type of terrorism widely practiced In the Middle East and the Orient. It hadn’t been common in Middle Europa since World War II although people there were capable of it. The purpose has always been brutal and subtle: coerce by threatening friends and loved ones. It was worse than barbaric; it was inhuman. This was the middle of the twenty-first century, and people shouldn’t be doing this sort of thing!

  But there it was on the screen.

  As
the camera panned from person to person, I almost got sick to rny stomach.

  I forced myself not to look at what they were doing to Vaivan.

  Ali was almost incoherent. “I’ll wash my iklawa in your blood for this! I will slit your dead body open for the jackals to feast upon! I would not poison myself by eating you!” The old curses tumbled out of him.

  “I believe we have something to negotiate with,” Dok’s voice came smoothly through.

  I deliberately took a very hard line. “Dok, you can’t keep those people in that condition very long. If they die, you’ll have nothing to negotiate with. All I have to do is delay, and you’ll lose your leverage and any popular support you may have. All I have to do is broadcast the tape of this to the world, Dok, and you’re finished!”

  “This is an internal affair. There have been things of this sort in other places; no one bothered to react. The world is full of pain and death. The verdict of world opinion means nothing; we’ll be feared and respected instead. This is nothing new. Commonwealth law itself requires violent punishment.”

  “Law shows justice and mercy. You don’t.”

  “You’re prolonging the agony of these people,” von Undine’s voice broke in. “Surender your space forces.”

  “Not without negotiation,” I told him. I wanted to draw them out of Topawa into a meeting on neutral ground. “I want assurances you’ll release these people if I surrender and assurances I won’t end up in your dungeon, too. But I’ll talk only if you start treating your prisoners humanely. Otherwise, I won’t be able to control what the Commonwealth people will do to you.”

  “You’re in no position to threaten,” Dok’s voice replied. The video panned back onto the triumvirate, ending the horror show.

  “Neither are you. By rights, I shouldn’t agree to negotiate, but I’ll compromise if you’ll give a little, too.”