The Hidden World

by Melinda Snodgrass

  “What Anselmo said. Do that,” Boho ordered.

  He broke the connection and studied the situation. There were a few police and military people wearing the red armbands, signifying they were traditionalists and backed Musa, but they seemed uneasy and confused about how to cope with what, by rough count, was some twenty thousand people and more arriving.

  “How are you going to be heard over this?” the SEGU pilot asked.

  “I’ll use the flitter’s PA system, and stand on the roof. Drop us down about ten feet. I want people to have a decent view of me.”

  “Don’t slip off,” the other SEGU officer grunted. “Little hard to lead the counter-revolution if you fall on your ass.”

  Boho gave the man a thin smile. “You don’t think I planned for this? My boots are magnetized. Now give me that microphone.”

  The pilot opened the door and Boho grabbed the edge of the roof of the flitter and chinned himself up so he could swing a leg onto the top of the vehicle. He stood, pulled the wireless mic out of his pocket. “CITIZENS. FRIENDS. PATRIOTS.”

  * * *

  “Are you willing to be a patriot?”

  “Shit! It really is the Infanta.” The shuttle pilot had turned away from Mercedes’ image on his screen and was yelling over his shoulder.

  A heavy-set girl in coveralls flew into the frame. From the way she cuffed the man on the shoulder and the cast of their features they seemed to be related. “Where are your manners, Papa?” The girl attempted a curtsey and a salute, which set her to bouncing. She had obviously been an hombre in the service. The man grabbed her ankle and hauled her down into the second couch. “Your Highness, we’ve been monitoring the reports from the planet. What do you need?” the girl asked.

  Mercedes quickly outlined the situation. “Once we broke off their remote piloting program, they knew we were on to them. They’re closing fast so we need to do this quickly. Assuming you’re willing.”

  “We know it’s a lot to ask, but will you help us?” Carisa asked.

  “We would be honored,” the man said.

  “Of course,” said the girl at the same time.

  “Thank you,” Mercedes breathed. “Might we know who is aiding us so you can be appropriately rewarded for your actions?” The formal words were incongruous under the circumstances. Her sister sat next to her wearing only her bra and panties ready to climb into a spacesuit once they had an agreement.

  “No reward is necessary, Highness,” the man said.

  “It is our honor to serve,” the girl added.

  “Still, I must insist,” Mercedes pressed.

  The father and daughter exchanged a glance then with a cough the man said, “Diego and Lirio Gonzales.”

  “Okay less talking, more doing,” Carisa said breathlessly and pointed at the chronometer ticking away the seconds and minutes. “We’ve removed our transponder,” she continued. The smudge on her cheek and her broken nails and dirty fingers were evidence of her frenzied efforts to break the device out of its housing. “I’ll bring it over to you.”

  “I’ll meet you halfway,” the girl said.

  “Lovely, thank you. It’s still signaling, you just need to get it rehoused as soon as possible.”

  “How did you manage that?” the man asked.

  “Hooked up my ring as an auxiliary power source,” Carisa explained as she climbed into her spacesuit.

  Diego nodded approvingly. “Clever.”

  “Once that’s done,” Mercedes said, “I need you to nudge us toward that missile battery. I’m sending over the burn length and trajectory to you now.”

  “Got it,” Diego said seconds later. “Don’t worry, Highness, we’ll be gentle as a mother’s kiss to send you on your way.”

  Carisa leaned into the frame. “Heading out now,” she said to Lirio. The girl nodded, unhooked her restraints, and kicked out of the cockpit.

  Mercedes released her own restraints and floated up to meet Carisa. She hugged her hard. “Be safe.”

  “Pfff, this is nothing.” Mercedes hadn’t argued when her sister insisted that she make the transfer. Mercedes was pregnant and the fetus had to be protected at all costs. “And I got to tell Mummy to stuff it. That was quite satisfying.”

  “I suppose we can’t get these bodies out of here,” Mercedes remarked, studying the floating corpses.

  “Not if we don’t want hysterics.”

  “If you would set me free, I could help the Empre—”

  “SHUT UP!” the sisters yelled. Guthrie subsided.

  They left the cockpit and headed to the airlock. As they passed Constanza she gave Mercedes a murderous glare. Carisa paused to kiss her father on the cheek. “Back in a jiffy, Papa.”

  “Once we broke free I was sure we would get a missile up our ass,” Carisa said just before she dogged closed her helmet.

  “I think the del Campos want you too much to just blast the ship,” Mercedes replied.

  Carisa sighed. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  * * *

  Boho had gone back and forth between trying for the sonorous call to arms, or the patriot paean, but once he saw the number of women in the crowd, and the people under the age of thirty, he realized he needed to make them feel concern for Mercedes as an expectant mother, and connected to him as an amigo. He had to paint Musa and Mihalis and Arturo as the arrogant out-of-touch FFH bastards that in truth they all were, but this crowd didn’t need to know that. Boho modulated his tone and volume.

  “Hell of a thing, isn’t it?” he said. “We’ve got friends and families separated because of one man’s bitterness and wounded pride and his sons’ ambitions. My wife, the mother of my unborn child, is right now fleeing agents of Musa del Campo. I can only pray she escapes, because we all know the outcome if she doesn’t.” He paused to let them think about that. “Musa will have her killed because she exists and she thwarts his ambitions. But that’s not the only reason he hates and fears Mercedes. It’s because she represents a new way, a sense of shared community allowing all of our citizens—” a sweep of his arm encompassed the crowd “—to have access to the training and benefits of service in the Orden de la Estrella. Your sons and daughters have come back from a tour with new abilities and the crown is even now putting in place programs to help these proud veterans to find jobs, open businesses, offer child support to working women.”

  “Parliament will be very surprised to hear about this pending legislation,” Anselmo murmured in his ear. The press spokesman was listening in on all the media platforms.

  “Make sure I’m the one to propose it,” Boho muttered into his throat mic.

  Projecting to the crowd once again he continued, “Because of all of you, our economy is growing, booming. But the del Campos think you’re all campesinos.” There was a stirring in the crowd at his use of the word peasant, rather than the more common word intitulado, which meant untitled or lowborn. “They’ll take us back. They’ll take you back because they don’t think you deserve to rise. So, I’m going to ask you now… will you help me? Will you help me retake the spaceport so our loyal and valiant troops can regain control and bring my Mercedes, our baby, and our beloved Emperor home?”

  There were growing shouts and cheers from the crowd, and also some worried murmurs. “I understand if you’re afraid. Hell, I’m afraid.” There were chuckles at that and nods of agreement, and then the cheers began. Truth was Boho’s guts felt like wobbling jello. He’d have to lead them initially, but find a way to drop back and let the crowd be bullet magnets if it looked like his gamble that the police and military wouldn’t fire on civilians hadn’t paid off. “They have guns, but we have numbers and right is on our side. So let’s go save the Infanta and the little prince or princess we will soon welcome.”

  The roar that went up probably carried for blocks. Boho hoped the politicians were taking note. He switched channels on his mic and said to the flitter pilot, “Head for the spaceport. Walking pace for my sake and so they can keep up.�
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  “Aye, sir.”

  The flitter began to move; the crowd bulked beneath them and trailed behind. Some younger men had rushed ahead. More people were coming in from side streets. From his elevated position, the crowd looked like a gigantic millipede snaking through the streets.

  Anselmo came on the radio. “Arturo has bolted from parliament. Guess he got word about the mob with torches and pitchforks.”

  “Great. Keep up the pressure. Try to get some torches and pitchforks over to parliament. Together with Rogers’ forces that ought to focus the members’ minds.”

  “On it.”

  * * *

  “I have to relieve myself,” Guthrie whined from where he hung, taped to the wall.

  “Pee down your leg,” Mercedes said. With her attention focused on the rear of the cockpit, Mercedes had no idea what elicited Carisa’s shriek.

  Jerking against her restraints, Mercedes whipped her head around to find a spacesuited figure pressed against the glass of the cockpit dome. She couldn’t control her own yelp of shock. The figure tapped the glass, pointed to his ear. The diffusion screen was down on the helmet so Mercedes couldn’t make out his features. This was the downside of powering down the shuttle to bare minimum: they hadn’t been able to do radar surveillance, so they had been taken off guard. She wanted to hope the man was from Boho’s ship, but had a feeling they wouldn’t be that lucky. Mercedes switched the shuttle’s equipment back on and a voice came over the radio.

  “Prepare to be boarded.”

  The statement caused Carisa to give a nervous giggle. She glanced at Mercedes. “Arrr me hearties, so, do we prepare to repel boarders? You do have a pistol.”

  “No, there’s nothing we can do now. We have to let them in and we won’t win in a shootout. At least it bought us a few hours. I just hope Boho made use of them.”

  She keyed the radio and said to the fusilero, “The airlock is open. We await your arrival.” His jetpack fired and he moved away from the shuttle. Mercedes then hit send and broadcast an all points emergency call that pinpointed their location and identified the sender as the royal family. As she suspected, it only broadcast for a few seconds before it was jammed.

  “Well, maybe someone was listening,” Carisa said.

  They moved into the main body of the shuttle. Constanza was shivering in her couch. The Emperor looked up. “I’m almost done with my speech.”

  “That’s wonderful, Daddy, but I’m afraid we’ve been discovered. They’ll be coming aboard momentarily.”

  “I shall not meet them like this,” her father said. He unhooked his restraints and pushed out of the couch. “I am their emperor. They will not forget their oath.”

  “I don’t care who they are as long as we get out of this terrible ship,” Constanza said.

  The daughters and their father ignored her, and propelled themselves to the airlock. The lock was filled with men, six of them. Mercedes watched the graph as the lock filled with oxygen.

  Just before the end of the cycle Carisa looked at Mercedes. “Do you think Mihalis himself will show up?”

  “I would be prepared for that,” Mercedes said.

  The inner door slid open and the soldiers entered. The helmets came off and Mercedes found herself looking into her cousin’s face.

  “Good trick, Mercedes,” Mihalis said.

  “Thank you, cousin. I liked it.” The normalcy of the conversation had her wanting to giggle.

  “I demand that you arrest this man,” the Emperor said to the five fusileros and he pointed at Mihalis.

  “Oh, shut up, you senile old pendejo.” Then all normalcy ceased. Mihalis casually pulled his pistol and shot the Emperor in the face. Brains and blood and bits of skull formed a macabre halo floating around the shattered skull.

  Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Oh God, Daddy! No! No! No! Shock, horror, a mind-numbing grief, shattered images of a little girl held in a father’s embrace as the sled raced down the snow-covered hill. A slightly bigger girl, her feet resting on top of her daddy’s feet as they danced. Her father leaning against the barn door smiling as she hugged the neck of her first pony.

  While Mercedes struggled to process, she was faintly aware of Mihalis giving the sobbing Carisa a thin smile. “Guess he won’t be able to give you away now. I’m sure my father will be happy to stand in for him.”

  Constanza was screaming, a throat-tearing sound that drilled into the ear. A few drops of blood spattered onto Mercedes’ cheek and her stomach heaved. Rage rose up on a pillar of bile and her vomit joined the detritus of her father’s head. Fighting for control, Mercedes remembered her hand-to-hand combat classes. She could hear Chief Deal’s gravel tones: “You get hot mad, you get stupid. Cold mad and that other stupid motherfucker better look out.”

  Mercedes met Mihalis’s gaze. She slowly wiped the vomit from her lips and then cleaned her fingers on the front of his spacesuit. His disgust was evident.

  It took every particle of control to keep her tone flat, calm, and emotionless as she said, “I expect that act of malice won’t work out all that well for you.”

  “Little princeling giving you problems?” And he punched her hard in the stomach, which sent her flying across the width of the shuttle. She managed to grab a handhold to keep herself from caroming back into Mihalis’s reach.

  Please, baby, please, baby, be all right.

  She knew that her life was hanging in the balance. Fortunately, it was still too early in her pregnancy for her to show, so there was a chance she could still bluff. She gave him a pitying look. “So you fell for that lie too? My my, Boho played you brilliantly.” She could read his objection rising to his lips. “The announcement? Timed to pull you out. Really, after twenty-three years and no baby you thought now I would get knocked up? How credulous you must be.”

  He gave a growl of frustration. “I should kill you on general principles.”

  Carisa’s sobs had subsided. Her tears hung in crystal drops around her face but her expression was cold and grim. She clutched his right arm. “Do that and I swear I will chop off your dick and choke you with it at the first opportunity.”

  “So, you’re not just a pretty face and fragile flower. Julieta and Tanis clearly gave me the wrong impression.”

  “Well, if you listened to them, you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought,” Carisa snapped.

  “As pleasant as this exchange has been, it’s time to repair to my ship and get married.”

  “What, no public spectacle?” Mercedes asked as one of the soldiers relieved her of her pistol and the knife.

  “Oh, we’ll do that, too. Now where’s my agent?” Mihalis asked.

  “Guthrie?” Carisa asked. “We have him trussed up in the cockpit.”

  Mihalis turned to one of his soldiers. “Take care of him.” Constanza was still shrieking. Mihalis’s mouth twisted in disgust. “And will one of you shut her up before I knock her out.”

  Carisa kicked off the ceiling of the shuttle and sailed over to her mother. Mercedes heard Guthrie gobbling out muffled words then the sound of a gunshot.

  “Interesting way to build loyalty,” she said.

  Mihalis shrugged, a gesture that set him bobbing. “He fucked up. I don’t reward failure.” The engines on the shuttle growled to life. “Now get in your couches like good little girls. We’ll be at my ship soon.”

  Mercedes pulled herself into her couch and strapped in. “I do hope you’ve been keeping up with events in Hissilek,” she said. “Boho and Kemel haven’t exactly been idle while you’ve been chasing us.” It gave her a small flare of pleasure to see his frown. She had made him worry, at least for a moment.

  * * *

  Tear gas, nausea grenades, and pepper spray filled the air. People were crying, coughing, screaming, and puking. Boho was wearing a mask that had been handed up to him by the flitter pilot. The crowd might have wanted to flee, but at this point there were too many and they were so tightly packed that the only way to move was forward. The troops and
cops trying to hold the spaceport were retreating step by step. As yet no bullets had flown.

  Boho’s radio pinged to life. It was Kemel. “We caught Arturo. He’ll soon give us Musa’s location.”

  “Great. Don’t kill them.”

  “Looking for a show trial, sir?”

  “Something like—” There was the sharp retort of gunfire. “Oh, shit!” Boho threw himself down, hugging the front of the shuttle. His magnetized boots were reluctant to release and he twisted his left ankle as he went down. “Owww, shit, fuck.”

  “Is that gunfire?” Kemel asked.

  “Yeah, it’s fucking gunfire!”

  “Have you been hit?”

  “No, I twisted my ankle.” Screams of pain and bellows of rage rose like a rolling tide. Panic hammered in his throat and his lungs seemed to have been replaced with stones. “Light them up,” he managed to croak out.

  “Sir, wait, sir. They’re turning on each other. It was only a handful who opened fire,” the pilot called.

  “And the crowds are rushing forward,” the other agent offered. “We open fire, we’ll hit our own supporters.”

  “Do you want us to advance, sir?” the pilot asked.

  “Not… not just yet,” Boho managed to say.

  A few more shots rang out, but the roar of thousands of voices was the predominate sound. The mob surged forward, flowing around the ships and service vehicles, beating Musa’s soldiers to the ground. Boho climbed to his feet, wincing a bit as he put weight on his left foot. A few more scattered shots and then cheers began to rise until they became a sustained roar.

  Boho started to open his mouth to order them forward, but the SEGU agents were already there. The flitter drifted forward over the dead and the wounded. Blood pooled on the pavement and the cries of pain and the calls for help were faint against the celebration ahead. They advanced another hundred feet or so, and found red armbands littering the ground, torn off by rebels deciding to pretend they had never been part of the rebellion, fabric echoes of the blood that ran in the streets.