by Jay Allan
“Yes, he is under a lot of pressure, but aren’t we all these days?”
“Indeed, we are . . .” He quickly fished around for the correct prefix for a governor’s daughter. “Lady Wells . . . I won’t detain you further. It was a pleasure to meet you.”
“Violetta.”
“Excuse me?”
“My name, Lieutenant. Please call me Violetta. ‘Lady Wells’ makes me feel so old.”
“You are certainly not that, Violetta,” he said. “Please just call me Damian. It’s been a while since I wore my lieutenant’s bars.” He extended his hand and said, “I hope to see you again, Violetta.”
“Indeed, Damian. I look forward to it.” Then she turned and walked into her father’s office, the door closing behind her.
“Yeah, baby! This is what I’m talkin’ about.” Lopez took the gun from the man and gripped it with both hands.
“You need to be careful with that, Lopez. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get these weapons in here?” Zig Welch shook his head as he looked at the excited prisoner. “No, of course you don’t,” he muttered to himself. Louder he said, “You don’t have much ammunition, and there isn’t going to be any more, so make every shot count when the fighting starts.”
“Oh yeah, I’ll make it count.”
Welch tried to catch his sigh, but most of it slipped out anyway. Not that Lopez would notice—the man was too into the object in his hands. It didn’t matter that Zig had taken a crazy risk sneaking the weapons into the mine. What mattered was that these prisoners now had guns, and that meant his highest priority was making sure imbeciles like Lopez didn’t go completely crazy and waste their ammo pointlessly—or worse, start killing each other.
“I’ll make sure he does.” The voice was deep, coarse. Gavros stepped out of the shadows, walking up behind Lopez. His face was covered in sweat and grime, and there was a long, jagged scar running from his hair all the way down to his neck. “Thanks again for the guns, Mr. . . .” He paused. “I never caught your name.”
“No,” Welch said calmly, “you didn’t.” He stared back at the prisoner, hiding his revulsion. He knew many of the inmates were victims of Federal America’s harsh justice system, but Gavros was a real criminal by anyone’s standards, and a bad one at that. The man had a lot of blood on his hands, and the only reason he had escaped the electrocution chamber was due to a shortage of prison labor on colonies like Haven and not any legitimate grounds for commutation.
But he’s exactly the tool we need . . .
The Society of the Red Flag had put considerable resources into this plan. A small fortune had gone into bribes to slip the weapons into the mine—and the guns themselves had been expensive, too. The Guardians of Liberty were buying every weapon smuggled to Haven, their acquisitions fueled mostly by John Danforth’s considerable personal wealth. The more radical Society had been forced to get by on scraps . . . plus whatever they’d managed to steal from the Guardians’ storehouses.
Gavros stared back at the operative for a few seconds, but then he lost interest and returned his gaze to the assault rifle in his hands.
“Listen carefully. You will wait until the government forces attack. Is that understood?” Welch stared at the murderer. Gavros had become the de facto leader of the uprising through a time honored method: everybody else was scared of him. Welch could understand that—he felt the same cold uneasiness. He kept his composure, though—the only thing that mattered was making sure the plan worked. And getting out alive.
“I’m getting sick of sitting here waiting,” Gavros growled. “I say we take ’em all out at the fence and get the fuck out of here.”
“No,” Welch said, trying hard to conceal his own impatience. “If you want more weapons later, more ammo—if you are expecting money and support once you get out—you will do as you are told.”
Welch could see the anger in Gavros’s face, but the prisoner didn’t lash out. Gavros was a psychopath, but he wasn’t stupid. And that was pretty much all he and the Society could hope for at this point.
“All right, we’ll wait. For now.” Gavros’s voice was sullen, and Welch could see he had made his point. He nodded. Then he turned and walked away.
He had to leave. Right away. He’d bought his way in, paid off one of the noncoms to slip him through the lines surrounding the mine, but he had to be out before daybreak. That gave him twenty minutes. He stared down at the small chronometer on his wrist. At most. He quickened his pace.
He thought about Gavros. The man had a certain intelligence, sure, but a lot of that was more street smarts than actually cunning. Because if the prisoner had thought about it, he might have actually questioned why Welch was helping him in the first place.
Hell, the imbecile was expecting more help, without even wondering why he got what he did.
Which was the whole point. While Gavros thought Welch was here to help them escape, the Society had a very different endgame in mind—and all Gavros had to do to serve it was die . . . along with as many of his fellow prisoners as possible. Because when the people of Haven saw the images of federal security troops unleashing deadly force, they would be outraged. It was common knowledge that most of the inmates working the mines had been sentenced on trumped-up charges and shipped to Haven to fill the work quotas.
They may not all be innocents, but they’re about to play that role on the vids.
“They have weapons, Major. More than can be accounted for by what they could have seized from the captured guards.” Lieutenant Dawn Keller stood next to Thornton on the dirt floor of the makeshift command post. “I can’t explain it.”
Thornton looked at her subordinate for a few seconds before her eyes dropped back to the large tablet on the table below them both. The layout of the mine was displayed, the surface showing, with a series of numbers to the side for the lower levels.
“They’ve got control of the admin sections now. Could they have raided the armory?”
Keller shook her head. “No, Major.” She turned and looked toward a cluster of the prison guards off to the side, making no attempt to disguise her contempt. “Warden Vinson assured me the autodestruct system was triggered and that all weapons on-site were destroyed.” Despite her words, her tone suggested she wouldn’t have believed Vinson if he’d told her the sky was blue. But then she added, with more certainty, “I checked the data logs myself, and the prison AI confirms that all charges were detonated. It is extremely unlikely the prisoners were able to obtain weapons there.”
Thornton just stood there, glancing out at the activity along the perimeter fencing and then back to the tablet. She reached down, toggled the map through the levels of the mine, though her thoughts were not on what she was seeing.
She didn’t think much of the prison guards, viewing them as a bunch of bullies in federal uniforms. She knew her own colonial troops had been little better when she’d taken command, but Thornton was a veteran of the real army, and she’d seen plenty of action in the last war. When she arrived on-planet, she quickly whipped the slovenly group of pseudo-soldiers she’d found into a respectable force. They were nothing like the regulars she’d served with in combat. But she’d made them as good as they could be, and learned to accept their limitations. And one thing she knew: they were far better trained and disciplined than the prison guards.
“I want to know what weapons those rioters have, Lieutenant, and I want to know now.”
“Yes, Major. We’re trying to gain control over the internal surveillance systems. We suspect the prisoners have destroyed a lot of the cameras, but they won’t know where the clandestine units are hidden. We should have some data shortly.”
“See that we do,” Thornton snapped. “Because the governor’s orders are clear. He wants this situation resolved immediately. If we’re going to have to go in, I want to know exactly what we are facing.”
“Yes, Major.”
CHAPTER 5
CARGRAVES FEDERAL PRISON
FEDERAL
COLONY ALPHA-2 (HAVEN)
EPSILON ERIDANI II
The cell was dark and cramped, a cube just over a meter in each direction. Officially designated Punitive Facility A2, it was called the “Pit,” by both the guards and inmates. No one seemed to remember who had first coined the name. Not that it mattered, really. Not to the federals who ran the place, and certainly not to Jonas Holcomb, who held the unofficial record for time spent there.
Holcomb sat twisted in the corner, breathing as deeply as he could, his body bent into the position he’d found to be least painful in his many hours in the Pit. His legs ached, and the pain in his back was like fire, but he’d been through it all before, and each torturous session only hardened his resolve and defiance. He knew they could hurt him only so much. They needed him back, or at least they wanted him badly, and that had spared him the worst forms of . . . persuasion . . . employed in the prison.
Holcomb didn’t look like a hard-core criminal. Indeed, he wasn’t a criminal at all, at least not by normal standards. He was a political prisoner, like everyone else in the Pit. The prison at the mines was a work camp; it existed primarily to extract ore. But Cargraves was different. Its purpose was detention, pure and simple. And punishment.
Federal America did not tolerate much in the way of dissent, and nothing at all that it considered truly subversive. In the months immediately following the end of the Great Civil War forty years before, the execution chambers ran night and day, as the victors crushed the last opposition, rooting out sympathizers—or anyone even suspected of sympathy toward the defeated antigovernment forces.
Holcomb’s parents had died in that purge, just two more bodies among the nearly one hundred million that had lost their lives. He owed his own survival to timing. His parents had been highly ranked, and they had been questioned—no, questioned was the wrong word; tortured was closer to the mark—for a long time, until every scrap of knowledge they possessed that might help the federals root out and destroy any of their former allies was pulled from their bodies and minds. By the time that process had ended, the energy of the immediate postwar retributions had waned somewhat. Holcomb’s parents still went to the scaffold, his father pushed there in a power chair, his legs too withered from repeated torture to carry him to his own execution.
But Jonas was spared as part of a campaign to show “the war was over.” He was made a ward of the state and raised in an orphanage, destined for a life of menial work . . . until his extraordinary intelligence became evident. He was educated and employed by the government, and he’d become one of the top designers of military-grade weapons systems in Federal America.
He remembered the years of resentment toward his parents, his shame and hatred at their “treason.” But now he knew that was all propaganda. The “history” of the civil war was largely a government-written fiction, he suspected, with the young indoctrinated from an early age to accept the official versions of events . . . and the old who remembered that time too terrified to dispute any of it.
So for the longest time, he’d considered himself the son of two criminals, mass murderers, and he had hated them. His position, his prosperity, all stemmed from Federal America, and that washed away any doubts he had about his government. For all his keen intellect, he had believed that nonsense for years. But then he woke up, and told himself, No more.
And now I’m in the Pit.
But he wasn’t alone—no, even that mercy had been denied him.
“Jonas, friend, I am here for our daily discussion. I do so enjoy our time together.” The voice—cloying, mocking—belonged to Davis Reid. As Holcomb’s interrogator, he was the man who, more than anyone else, sent him to the Pit, who determined what he ate—or, more likely, when he went hungry. Who sat and watched as the guards administered cautious beatings, careful to inflict pain without doing any serious damage. That wasn’t out of any ethical constraints—Holcomb was pretty sure there was no such thing at Cargraves. For the most part, the prisoners in the Pit had been sent there to rot away, to disappear, to die in the shadows. Holcomb was different, though.
Holcomb was there for attitude adjustment.
“Reid, I’ve told you a hundred times, I will not design any more weapons. I am finished.”
The federal interrogator knelt down, bringing his face to the same level as Holcomb’s. “You are a stubborn man, Jonas, that much is certainly true. And an unappreciative one at that. Who owes more to Federal America than you? The son of traitors, spared, educated, given a chance to live a life of wealth and privilege. You lived for years on the stipends the government paid you, did you not? You had an apartment in Washington, a beach house in Virginia. All because Federal America cared for your every need. And how did you repay that kindness?”
“Kindness?” Holcomb’s voice was a coarse rasp. “They provided me with that life so I would build weapons for them, make them more efficient killers. And to my shame, for years I did just that. Until I realized how my creations were used.” Holcomb twisted his body, struggling to hold back a grunt as he moved in the confined space. “No, Reid. Never again. No matter how long you put me in here, how many beatings you give me . . . how long I remain a prisoner.”
Reid sighed. “Surely you realize there are more . . . aggressive means of extracting cooperation. You have been spared these.”
If Holcomb could have mustered up the muscle strength to shrug, he would have. “Go ahead . . . do your worst. Cripple me, kill me . . . but you won’t get what you want from me.” His words were bravado. He had some idea of what went on in the lower chambers, and he didn’t fool himself into believing he could endure every torment they might throw at him. He was stubborn, but when he pushed his captors far enough, they would break him.
“Cripple you? Kill you? My dear Dr. Holcomb, how misguided you are. I have no wish to harm you. Quite to the contrary, it is my intention to return you to your life of comfort. I just need your cooperation.”
“Never.”
“That is such a strong word, Doctor. Let us agree to disagree for the moment.” Reid paused and looked into the Pit, shaking his head. “But for now, let us take you out of this dreadful place, shall we?”
He stood up and looked down the hall. “Corporal, please remove Dr. Holcomb from the punitive facility, and bring him to the infirmary, Section Z.”
He turned back and locked his eyes on Holcomb’s. “Since you have been so obdurate, I believe we must try alternate methods. You are a sick man, Jonas, and you need treatment. You need help to see things . . . correctly. I will provide that help.”
Holcomb’s stomach twisted into a knot. He knew they did all kinds of drug therapy and brainwashing in the Pit, but he’d always been spared from it. The feds didn’t want to mess with his brain. They wanted him back at 100 percent, working for them.
He had steeled himself against the pain, the discomfort they’d inflicted, refusing utterly to return to his former station. Indeed, he’d impressed himself with his efforts, with how the scared, bookish man who’d been dragged here three years before had remained rock solid for so long. He was different now than he’d been then, in ways he didn’t yet fully understand. Something new was driving him, more than the simple outrage that had spurred him to cease his research . . . and to refuse all demands that he resume his old work.
It was deep inside him, hot, like the fires of hell itself. Anger, rage. He’d disapproved of Federal America before, but now, after they had sent him here with the intentions of scaring and beating him into submission, those feelings had morphed into something terrible.
He heard the sound of the hatch sliding open. It was a noise that usually triggered a sense of relief that his time in the Pit was over, at least for a while. But for the first time in a very long time, he didn’t know what to expect. They hadn’t used drugs on him. Yet. Perhaps now, though, that barrier had been dropped. He always knew there would come a time when the authorities would give up, when they would employ more extreme measures, regardless of the risk
.
Had that time come?
He felt the hands grabbing him, pulling him out of the confined space, yanking him up. His legs dropped down slowly, his feet touching the floor. He was weak, feeling the effects of a day and a half twisted and hunched over, without food or water. He wobbled, but the guards held him up. There was pain in his legs, but also in his arms where the two federals held him firmly. And in his back, feeling the effects of the Pit, the agony was so intense he could feel the water welling up in his eyes as he gritted his teeth and endured.
“Let’s go, Doctor.”
It wasn’t Reid’s smarmy tone now. It was one of the guards. He felt the hands holding him, pushing forward, urging him on.
But on to what?
“I want better imagery. Retask the satellite and get me some good overhead shots.” John Danforth was sitting at his desk, barking at the cluster of nervous-looking employees standing in his office.
“Mr. Danforth, the governor has just issued an executive order prohibiting any but officially sanctioned coverage. That means no video, no photos—nothing. At least, nothing we don’t get from the government media office.”
“That’s bullshit,” Danforth yelled. His face was red, puffy, his frustration building with each passing second. The Danforth family had been one of the first to land on Haven, and John was the third generation to run the family’s media empire.
And I’ll be the last if I don’t watch my ass . . .
He wanted to slam his fist down on the desk, to shout out to his people to ignore the governor’s ban and to move their satellite with or without permission. But he caught himself. The authorities were already suspicious about his political leanings, and they were right to be. On the surface, Danforth ran one of the most respectable businesses on Haven, the closest thing the fledgling colony had to a true media and communications behemoth. And that was probably enough to make any government nervous. But he had a private side, too, a secret one. For in the shadows, Danforth was a revolutionary who believed only secession from Federal America could provide Haven the future it deserved. As the head of the Guardians of Liberty, he pulled the strings on a rebellious network and had spent a huge chunk of his fortune buying illegal weapons for their efforts.