by Peter Grant
“During daylight, Sir? What if the Bactrians see you? They’ll be sure to fire on you.”
“Now that they’ve pulled all their forces back they don’t have any bases out there anymore. Besides, there’s General Carson’s message to their Commanding General. If his forces take any action against us, he knows it’ll bring retaliation – Dave made that clear.”
“OK, Sir, but shouldn’t you stay here where you can keep your finger on the pulse of everything? I can go out there instead of you.” The Sergeant-Major’s voice was hopeful.
“Yes, you can, and yes, I should, dammit! Let’s work out a couple of phrases to indicate success or failure, so you can let me know what’s happening. Get back here with the comms team as fast as you can, so we can coordinate our actions with General Carson’s.”
“Yessir!”
Laredo: May 13 2852 GSC, 07:25
MILITARY HEADQUARTERS, TAPURIA
“What d’you think he’s going to do, Sir?” the G-1 asked almost plaintively.
Brigadier-General Khan regarded him almost pityingly. “How, precisely, do you expect me to know that, Major Shadba? D’you think I’ve suddenly become clairvoyant?”
The major flushed as he shook his head. “No, Sir. Sorry, Sir.”
“Never mind, Major. We’re all on edge right now. None of us have had any sleep since the night before last. Stim-tabs are all very well to keep us functioning, but they don’t do a damn thing to reduce stress levels – and we’ve all got more than enough to be stressed about.” Around the table his assembled staff exchanged rueful nods and sighs.
The large display screen at the foot of the table suddenly flickered to life. It showed a mountain peak standing proud of the surrounding hills, tip gleaming in the morning sunlight. It was a peaceful scene, almost idyllic, like something out of a tourist advertisement.
“I see the feed from Camp Seven has been activated,” Lieutenant-Colonel Oxus observed unnecessarily. “Mount Sinclair looks just as it’s always done.”
“Yes, but they wouldn’t have told us to watch its peak between 07:30 and 07:45 if they weren’t planning on doing something fairly spectacular,” the General pointed out. He glanced at the time display on the wall of the conference room. “It’s 07:28. We won’t have long to wait.” He pushed back his chair and stood, carrying his coffee cup to the sideboard where he refilled it. Several of his staff did likewise, some taking more breakfast pastries before resuming their seats.
Khan picked up the handset at his place and dialed a code. “Communications, confirm that all units are displaying the feed from Camp Seven on all their public displays.”
The duty operator’s voice came over the line. “Confirmed, Sir. We’re pushing the feed to all units as you ordered.”
“Thank you.”
As he replaced the handset, he thought grimly, I can guess why General Carson told me to have all my units watching. He’s going to give all of us a demonstration of why continued resistance would be stupid. He glanced at the SS Colonel across the table. He knew the man had brought a full platoon of black-uniformed SS guards with him this morning. He’d expected something like that, and had taken precautions.
“Holy shit!” The exclamation burst from Major Hadda as he stared at the screen. Everyone swiveled in their chairs to look, and gasped in disbelief to see the entire peak of Mount Sinclair vanish in an eruption of dust and black smoke. There was no sound on the vid feed, so the column of debris towered into the air in utter silence, roiling upwards until it was thousands of meters high, looking not unlike the mushroom cloud left by a nuclear explosion. A huge curtain-like pall of dust and debris showered down around the peak, obscuring the entire mountain, drifting westward with the strong prevailing winds for which the area was infamous.
They watched for ten minutes in awestruck silence until the outlines of the peak became visible once more – only there was no peak as such any longer. Mount Sinclair was now at least a hundred meters shorter than it had been. The steep triangle that had surmounted it now resembled a saddle carved out between two smaller and much lower peaks. Debris flows had covered the once uneven, rocky upper slopes of the mountain in a thick layer of dust, dirt, gravel and rocks. The new surface was still very unstable, small avalanches starting almost at random across its surface as they watched, sliding a few hundred meters then petering out.
Brigadier-General Khan rose from his seat, crossed to a window, and peered out. The immense black cloud of dust and dirt over Mount Sinclair was visible as a faint dark stain on the horizon. He nodded slowly to himself as he turned back to his chair – and the comm unit rang sharply. He picked it up.
“Khan.”
“Sir, CommCen here. We have a direct call for you from the enemy General.”
“Put it over the conference room speaker system and activate the central microphone. Make sure all units receive the feed as well, so they can listen in.”
“Yes, Sir.”
As he sat down he told the others, “The rebel commander wants to speak to me again. I think we all know what’s coming.” Grim nods and dark looks of foreboding showed they understood.
The SS Colonel snorted, “How dare he style himself a Brigadier-General? He was a Captain when he left here!”
“He’s also now the President of their Government-in-Exile,” Khan pointed out. “I’ve no doubt his orders when he left here, and the office he later assumed, are more than sufficient authority for him to promote anyone he wishes, including himself.”
The rebel commander’s face appeared on the big vid screen. He hesitated for a moment as the return feed showed him that General Khan was surrounded by other officers, then nodded. “Good morning, General. I see you have your staff with you.”
“Yes, General. I felt it would be best to have them all aware of what we discuss, and provide input if necessary. I’m also sharing this feed with all our units.”
He saw what he thought was a flicker of understanding in his enemy’s eyes. “As you wish, General Khan. You saw the demonstration we’ve just provided?”
“We could hardly miss it. May I remind you that interplanetary conventions prohibit using weapons of mass destruction, including kinetic weapons, against the surface of a planet without providing adequate warning and sufficient time for those nearby to be moved to a place of safety?”
The rebel officer grinned. “First of all, those conventions apply to an enemy planet. Laredo is my planet. I’m President Pro Tem of its legitimate government, which is recognized as such by the United Planets. The conventions say nothing about a government bombarding its own planet. Secondly, the few inhabitants near the mountain were all evacuated last night by local forces. Some of them didn’t want to leave, but we can be very persuasive when we have to be. That ends the problem as far as I’m concerned. I’m pretty sure the United Planets will see it that way too.
“Let’s cut to the chase. There are three fully armed, equipped and trained battalions of the Resistance around your occupation area on Laredo as we speak. They’re ready, willing and able to stop your forces going anywhere we don’t want them to go. I brought with me another battalion of Gurkha mercenaries.” He gestured to one side, and a short, wiry, brown-skinned officer wearing a dark green uniform stepped into view of the camera, coming to attention. “This is Lieutenant-Colonel Gurung, their commanding officer. The Gurkhas use assault shuttles and weapons far more modern and capable than anything in Bactria’s arsenal. If you make it necessary, I’ll land them to spearhead our assault on your positions. However, there won’t be much left for them to assault, because if you continue to resist I’ll destroy your positions from orbit with more kinetic weapons. All our forces will have to do is bury the bodies of your soldiers – what’s left of them.”
The Gurkha officer moved out of view of the camera as Carson continued, “On the other hand, if you’re willing to be sensible and surrender, handing over all your equipment, weapons and installations in good working order without sabotaging them,
I’m willing to be reasonable. We’ll arrange to have you returned to Bactria as soon as your home planet can provide transportation. I’ll send you and your officers back aboard one of your ships currently in orbit, all of which we’ve captured intact. While you’re organizing transport at Bactria, your troops will be held in makeshift tented prisoner-of-war camps in remote areas of the interior. They won’t be comfortable during the hot season, but they’ll survive. If Bactria provides the necessary shipping, they’ll all be home within a matter of months. What do you say?”
“What about Bactrian civilians? There are thousands of them here – colonial administrators and bureaucrats, military support personnel, even some settlers.”
“They’ll all be imprisoned with your soldiers, and return to Bactria with you. You’ll have to send sufficient transport for them as well. I’ll probably send back each ship with a mixed complement of passengers, half military and half civilian, until they’ve all been repatriated.”
“And their possessions?”
“They can take what they can carry with them, to a size and weight limit to be determined. They’ll lose everything else. They can claim compensation from your government.”
“What if some of them want to stay here – the settlers, for example?”
“No. They can’t. They’ll all go, whether they like it or not.”
“And if they refuse? What if they won’t obey when we order them to assemble?”
“Then I’ll hold back some of your prisoners of war until they do. Sorry, that’s not negotiable. There will be no Bactrians left on Laredo, and that’s final.”
“What about the bodies of our dead? There are tens of thousands of them buried here.”
Carson hesitated a moment. “That will have to be worked out between the governments of Bactria and Laredo at a future date.”
“What about Laredans who’ve cooperated with us?”
“The fate of collaborators will be decided by juries of their peers through the court system once we’ve re-established it.”
Khan hesitated. “General Carson, I have a moral responsibility to them. What if they want to return to Bactria with us, for fear of retaliation if they stay here? Will you allow that?”
Now it was the rebel leader’s turn to hesitate. “I’ll have to consult with planetary commanders about that,” he said at last.
“I understand. How long do we have to decide whether or not to accept your ultimatum?”
“I’ll give you until noon today, local time, provided your forces don’t leave their present positions or make obvious preparations to do so. If they do, I’ll destroy them without further warning. While you’re making up your mind, I’ll talk to local commanders about the collaborator problem.”
“Very well. I’ll call you at noon on this circuit.”
“Thank you, General.” The screen blinked out as Carson’s image disappeared.
Khan looked around at his staff. “Well?”
The SS Colonel erupted from his seat. “How dare you even consider his demands? They’re outrageous! We’ll fight to the death rather than surrender! I’ll –”
His eyes bulged as a shot sounded. He clutched his chest, red blood appearing on his fingers even though it was invisible on his black uniform, then collapsed forward onto the table, sliding off it to the floor. On the other side of the table, Major Hadda laid his pulser on the mat in front of him. He looked at the General. “Terribly sorry about that, Sir. Accidental discharge.”
“That was very careless of you, Major. Consider yourself formally reprimanded. What about his escort?”
“With your permission, Sir, I’ll go and see to their needs right away.”
“Thank you, Major. Please return here once you’ve done so. Take your pulser with you. Who knows? You might need another accidental discharge or two.” The others grinned.
“Yes, Sir.” Holstering his weapon, Hadda headed for the door.
As it closed behind him, Khan asked, “Does anyone disagree that surrender is our only realistic option?”
Everyone shook their heads. Lieutenant-Colonel Oxus said, “Sir, we can’t fight orbital kinetic weapons even if we wanted to. Besides, our troops have all seen that demonstration, just as we did. After that, how many of them will obey an order to fight?”
“None of them with any sense, I should think.”
“Yes, Sir. There’s another thing. Remember Commodore Eschate’s last instructions? He said we had to get word back to Bactria about the rebel ships and their weapons. The only way we can do that is to surrender. If this General Carson keeps his word and sends us back ahead of the others, we can at least give our Navy early warning and more time to make what preparations they can to intercept any attack on our home system. I don’t see any other way to do that, Sir.”
“Neither do I. However, I’ll try to remain on Termaz until the last of our forces have been repatriated. I’ll leave with them aboard the final ship. I’ll send all of you ahead of me with news of our surrender, and to make the necessary arrangements.”
“What if the rebels won’t allow you to do that, Sir?”
“I think General Carson will understand. At any rate, all I can do is ask. Begin drafting orders for our units to preserve all their equipment and installations intact, return all their weapons – and I do mean all weapons, without exception – to armories or secure storage, and stand by for further instructions. Include the information that if they offer no resistance and make no trouble, they’ll all be repatriated to Bactria as soon as we can arrange it. Give me the draft for my approval by not later than eleven. Meanwhile, I’ll work out points for an agreement of surrender to discuss with General Carson. I suspect he’s going to be hard-nosed about them, but I’ll do my best to get the least bad deal we can out of him.”
~ ~ ~
REBEL HEADQUARTERS, IN THE FIELD, LAREDO
The assault shuttle, oddly shaped to eyes that had only known those brought to Laredo by the Bactrian forces, touched down in a cloud of dust in the center of the field. Its rear ramp whined down, and Dave strode down it to touch the soil of his native planet for the first time in over two years. He had to swallow a lump in his throat as he smelled long-familiar scents.
Major Tredegar was waiting for him ahead of his assembled staff. He snapped to attention and saluted, grinning hugely. “Welcome home, Sir!”
Dave laughed as he returned his salute, then hugged him. “It’s good to be back at last. I recognize some of your staff, but not others.”
“Let me introduce you.” Handshakes and mutual congratulations occupied the next few minutes.
At last Dave held up his hand. “Reunions are all very well, but we’ve got a hell of a lot to do. Let’s go somewhere we can talk. I’ll lay it out for you, then give you time to discuss things from your perspective.”
They gathered in the makeshift Operations Center. Everyone helped themselves to coffee, then sat down as Dave began to speak.
“Before anything else, let me congratulate all of you on your achievements here while I’ve been off-planet. Frankly, I’m astonished at how much you’ve accomplished, all without any outside assistance. When I left here two years ago the Resistance was on its last legs, with only a few hundred fighters left and virtually no reserve supplies. I’ve come back to three full battalions of soldiers, well equipped, and well on the way to becoming as capable as we were at the start of this war. I don’t think anyone else could have done even half as well as you have.
“General Khan has agreed to formally surrender all Bactrian forces on Laredo at noon tomorrow. I’ll accept his surrender in what was once Parliament Square in the center of Banka. After that we have an enormous amount to do. I’m going to lay out the high points alone, and leave it to you to decide how to implement them.
“First and foremost, for better or for worse, I’m the President Pro Tem of Laredo’s Government-in-Exile. Our planetary Government no longer exists. It was wiped out by the enemy, all except for Gloria Aldred
who, I understand, is no longer trustworthy. Am I right?”
“Yes, Sir,” Tredegar replied, frowning. “Did General Khan say anything about her when he discussed local collaborators?”
“He did, and I’ve agreed in principle to his suggestion. He wants to send her and all her principal collaborators to Bactria with the first shipload of his officers. He says it’s the only way he can be sure they’ll be safe, because no matter what official guarantees we give, there’ll be those among our forces who’ll want to shoot them out of hand as traitors, the first chance they get. I couldn’t argue with him. After all this is over, an elected government can consider whether and on what terms to allow them to return.”
“That works for me, Sir.”
“Good. Next, there’s the question of running this planet until we can organize elections. I’m going to insist that we wait at least one year from the surrender before doing that. There are two reasons. One is that we have an immense amount to do, interning and repatriating Bactrian prisoners, arranging food and other necessary supplies for our people from across the settled galaxy, preparing our defenses against any Bactrian counterstrike, and planning what to do if they won’t make a lasting peace. There’s also a complete lack of local infrastructure to conduct elections. We’ll have to set it all up from scratch, including registering eligible voters.
“I therefore propose that all of you, as the de facto Council of the Resistance, should constitute a temporary Administration for the planet under my interim authority, with the right to co-opt further members as and when you need them. I’ll make that a decree of the Government-in-Exile in my capacity as President Pro Tem if you agree, and promote all of you to appropriate ranks on a temporary, acting basis, just as my present rank is temporary and acting. All promotions will be subject to ratification by our first elected government. If they do, great; if they don’t, we’ll all revert to our substantive ranks, or become civilians again if we so choose.”