by Peter Grant
The shuttle’s rear ramp whined down and a Marine First Lieutenant emerged, followed by four more uniformed figures carrying heavy packs and rifles. The officer saluted Major Emory as he stood in front of the gate.
“Good to see you again, Sir! We’re your magic carpet ride back to the Battalion.” He turned to Steve and gestured to the Marines following him. “Sergeant O’Donnell and his people will stay here to tie the depot into our Marine communications network. We don’t want to have to rely on satellite comms alone in future.”
“That’s good news. I’ll let them take charge of our commcen.”
“Lieutenant-Colonel Battista sends his congratulations on your actions last night, Sir. He’s sorry he’s not able to convey them in person at this time, but promises you’ll hear more officially in due course.”
“Please thank the Colonel for me.”
“Will do, Sir.”
The Eksalansari and his bodyguard emerged through the gate, followed by the rest of the former hostages. The young Prince shook Steve’s hand. “I’ll endorse your actions unreservedly to the Governor and our military command. I hope my memorandum will help clarify them to your own chain of command.”
“I’m sure it will, Eksalansari. Thank you very much.”
“Come and see me when things calm down. The Governor has a rather good cook.”
Steve grinned. He liked this young man. “I’ll take you up on that.”
The Prince turned to the Qianjin chargé d’affaires, who had come out of the gate with the others to watch proceedings. “Mr. Jiang, I’m mindful of how much we owe your people. Without them our rescue probably couldn’t have happened. I don’t have my father’s royal authority to pardon offenders, but I do have the right to commute sentences in return for good and faithful service. Please tell your countrymen that as soon as this situation is resolved, I’m going to commute their sentences to time served, and I’ll have the Governor grant them permission to leave Eskishi. You’ll all be able to return to Qianjin within a matter of weeks.”
Jiang’s smile seemed to stretch from ear to ear. “Thank you very much, Eksalansari. That will make them very happy.”
Steve watched Major Emory and the others climb aboard the shuttle. It lifted off with a roar of reaction thrusters and turned back to the city, escorted by its three watchful companions.
As the noise died away in the distance, Jiang said thoughtfully, “We owe this commutation to you as much as the Eksalansari, Lieutenant. Without your actions he’d have died or been captured yesterday. I’ll make sure your good work is recognized by… those in a position to reward it.” He was still very careful not to publicly name the Dragon Tong, Steve noted.
“Thanks, Mr. Jiang. I appreciate the thought. However, if we all get off this rock safe and sound and in good health, I think that’ll be reward enough for me.”
“Perhaps.” He hesitated. “I noted your request for an official account of recent proceedings from my point of view. I’m sure it will form part of your report in due course, but I also sensed a certain… defensive attitude. May I presume that your actions may not meet with the full approval of some of your superiors?”
Steve sighed. “Let’s just say that we weren’t supposed to get involved in hostilities here, Mr. Jiang. Even though I had to rescue our hostages or see them murdered, my actions technically violated those orders.”
“I see. I hope your superiors will understand the exigencies of the situation.”
“So do I, Mr. Jiang. So do I.”
June 29th 2850 GSC
Bairam erupted to his feet, his face livid. “He WHAT?” His chair bounced noisily on the floor behind him.
His reaction rocked Robles back on his heels. “He… he took most of our people to the depot. He reckoned he’d need ’em for security while he negotiated with that Fleet officer. They’d guard the hostages, then ambush those inside as they left.”
“Dumbass! I told him – I told all of you – no negotiations with the enemy at all without my say-so! I knew they’d try to trick us any way they could!” Bairam raised his hands, fingers clawing up, face twisted into a grotesque mask of rage, upturned as if to ask the God in whom he didn’t believe why he’d failed him so badly. Seated at the table in front of him, three members of the leadership council looked on in stunned silence as they absorbed the magnitude of the disaster.
Bairam breathed heavily for a moment, fighting to regain his balance, then picked up his chair from the floor, repositioned it at the table, and sat down. He glared at the man standing before them. “And the next thing you knew, a bunch of Colonial Guards attacked you in the small hours of this morning?”
“Yeah. They hit all our positions at once, like they knew exactly where to find us. We killed a few of ’em, but they were too many for us – we only had twenty people left after Métin took all the others. Most were killed or captured. Far as I know, only me an’ three others from my team escaped. We found the Guards mortar team as we ran an’ shot ’em up. I took a look at those we killed. We’d taken them prisoner the day before when we captured the spaceport. I also recognized one of their mortars from a paint splash on its baseplate. We’d captured it yesterday morning, then sent it to the depot for fire support. That means –”
Bairam interrupted, “That means the people at the supply depot took out Métin and his team, freed the hostages, rearmed the Colonial Guard with recaptured weapons and sent them straight back to retake the spaceport. They musta figured there wouldn’t be many of you left there. Whoever’s in charge at that depot’s got a cool head on his shoulders. He’s too damn smart for my liking.” He shook his head. “Gotta be a Marine. The Colonial Guards ain’t that good, and they can’t move that fast ’less someone prods ’em.”
There was a long, appalled silence.
Luna broke it at last. “How’d you get here so fast? It’s not even eleven yet.”
Robles turned to face her. “The transporters the Guards used to get to us were parked next to their mortars. I disabled all except one, put my people aboard it and headed for town, using the back roads so we wouldn’t be spotted. By dawn we were within three clicks of this place, so we ditched the transporter in an alley and snuck in here through the back streets. Had to fight one Colonial Guard patrol. I lost two o’ my people, but the other two of us made it.”
“A Colonial Guard patrol?” Luna’s voice was sharp, questioning. “It wasn’t the Marines?”
“Naw. We killed a couple. I checked their bodies as we ran past ’em. Definitely Guards.”
She looked at Bairam. “That means they’ve pulled the Colonial Guard back into Surush already. They must have finished Ulvi and his people in the hills – they were trying to hold them there. If they’ve done that already, they’re getting better, and moving a lot faster than they have before.”
“Yeah,” Bairam growled angrily. “They’ve been learnin’ the hard way, same as us.” He turned to Robles. “You say this whole thing at the depot was Métin’s idea?”
“Yeah, Boss.”
“I don’t get it. One of the reasons I put him in charge of the spaceport assault an’ gave him the biggest group of our people was because he was steady. He wasn’t one t’ go off chasin’ rainbows. I can’t figure out what got into him, to go against everything I told him like this.” He looked narrowly at Robles. “You sure you didn’t have anything to do with this?”
Alarm showed on the man’s face. “Not me, Boss! After we took the spaceport he assigned my team all the shit jobs he could find. Said it was our fault Rioja screwed up an’ we didn’t get the Eksalansari. That’s why he didn’t let us come along last night. He reckoned he couldn’t trust my team not to screw up again, so he left us at the spaceport.”
“Uh-huh. If he didn’t trust you that was an odd way to show it, leavin’ you in charge there. I think you’re lying to me.”
Robles’ face turned white with fear. “W - whyinhell would I do that, Boss?”
“I dunno, but I’m gon
na talk to the guy who came in with you. He’d better back up what you told me!”
“He will, Boss.” Robles mentally wiped his brow with relief. The only other survivor from his group hadn’t been present during his conversations with Métin the previous day.
“We’ll see. All right, wait outside.”
“Thanks, Boss.”
As the door closed behind Robles, Bairam said sourly, “At least he partly made up for his screw-up with the Eksalansari by givin’ us early warning about this. Even so, we’ve lost the spaceport and our biggest combat team, not to mention the most important hostage on our list.”
“And your second-in-command,” Mariam couldn’t help observing waspishly.
“Yeah, him too.” Bairam waved a hand dismissively. “Métin screwed up an’ he paid the price, just like we’ll all do unless we use our heads.”
“I suppose the others who’ve died in taking the school, hospital, Governor’s mansion and communications center screwed up too?” Orhan’s voice was bitter. “What about the rest of this council? We were eight when we started this revolt. We’re down to just us four now. Did the others die because all of them screwed up?”
Bairam looked at him narrowly. “Get it off your chest, boy. You sayin’ I’m leadin’ badly?”
“Yeah, I am! Whenever something goes wrong, whenever one of us dies, it’s always their fault, or someone else’s fault. It’s never yours!”
“That’s ’cause every time I’ve led an operation, it’s succeeded, remember? Can you say the same?”
“No… but are you gonna be the only one left standin’ in the end?”
“Have you forgotten we all expected – agreed – to win or die? We were ready to fight to the death until Métin an’ Luna came up with the idea of tradin’ hostages for a ship outta here. Maybe that’s what made Métin so reckless. He might have reckoned the chance o’ takin’ the Eksalansari as a hostage made almost any risk worthwhile. Well, he found out the hard way he was wrong, but he killed a lot o’ good people learnin’ that lesson, an’ made the jobs o’ the rest of us that much harder.”
Bairam looked around the three faces glaring at him. Be careful, he mentally warned himself. They’re tired an’ angry. Don’t make things worse by cussing ’em. They need babyin’ right now.
“Tell you what,” he said abruptly. “If you reckon I ain’t got what it takes to lead any more, I’ll hand it over. Go on; pick someone – anyone – who you reckon can do my job better than me. They can have it, right here, right now.”
There was a long silence. The anger and frustration in the faces of his three subordinates slowly changed to a sullen acceptance of reality. None of them had his breadth or depth of knowledge and experience; nor could they command the loyalty of the other rebels as he did. They all knew it.
Bairam waited until he was sure they’d got the point, then said in as conciliatory a manner as he could manage, “I ain’t perfect. I’ve made mistakes, same as all o’ us – an’ yeah, Orhan, I gotta admit it; I’m maybe too quick to blame others when things go wrong. Still, fightin’ among ourselves won’t help. We took a big hit last night, losin’ Métin an’ the spaceport; an’ we don’t have the Eksalansari or the supply depot. That don’t alter the fact we got a pretty good hostage count at the other places, includin’ the Governor’s wife. They ain’t gonna move in on us if that risks harm to her, or the kids of Administration families, or nurses at the hospital. We can still bargain.”
“We’re gettin’ low on food,” Mariam pointed out.
“So we’ll tell ’em to send us rations! We warn ’em we’ll let the prisoners eat first, so if there’s poison in the rations they’ll find out the hard way. We’ll distribute the packs at random, too, so no-one will know what the prisoners get or what we get. I reckon that should stop them playing any stupid tricks.”
“And if they won’t give us food?”
“Then we send ’em a few body parts; the ears of a couple of the nurses, or the fingers of a few o’ the kids. That’ll change their minds.”
Luna shook her head vehemently. “Not the kids. Who you gonna get to cut off their fingers? I won’t do it, and I’d kill any of my people who did!”
“You’re too soft-hearted, gal. We may have to kill the kids anyway.”
“We got plenty of others we can use. Not the kids.” Her voice was flat, defiant.
Inwardly Bairam fumed, but he knew this wasn’t the time to put her in her place. Emotions were running too high. He shrugged. “OK, not the kids – at least, not yet. We’ll send a couple o’ toes from the Governor’s wife instead.”
“Put ’em inside one of her fancy high-heeled shoes, so they know who they belong to,” Orhan suggested. The others laughed.
“Yeah, that’ll get their attention!” Bairam agreed, chuckling. “Now, before you head back to your groups, there’s a few more things. I want all o’ you to set up a layered defense. Booby-trap your outer perimeter. None of us have enough people to guard that properly, so the traps may be our first warning that an attack’s coming. Remember: an obstacle only works if it can be seen and protected, so position each booby-trap in sight of an armed sentry. If you can’t do that, place two or three more booby-traps to cover the first one, and have them covered by an armed sentry. Be paranoid, people – they really are out to get you!” Nervous, subdued laughter greeted his sally.
He held up a small electronic box. “Everyone with a radio should have a voice modulator. If they don’t, take ’em from our dead an’ reissue them. Try not to let the enemy get voice ID on us, so they won’t know who’s talkin’. I’ve also got Philo preparin’ a list of authentication phrases for us. Use one whenever you send a message, and don’t trust any message from one o’ us unless it includes a phrase. I’m expectin’ the Colonial Guards to use fake messages to try to persuade us to release our hostages, or move ’em to where they can rescue them. If you get any message that’s supposed to come from one of us, and it doesn’t include one of the authentication phrases, it’s a fake. Also, use each phrase only once, an’ cross it off the list once it’s been used. If you see or hear one a second time, that message is a fake.”
“What if we use all of them?” Mariam wanted to know. “How do we authenticate our messages then?”
“I reckon by then we’ll either have won or be dead, so it won’t matter. Just don’t waste ’em in idle chatter!” There was another ripple of tense laughter. “Guard ’em with your life. Philo’s writin’ ’em on flash paper, so the smallest spark will make ’em burn. Eat ’em if you have to. It won’t taste good, but it won’t kill you either. Don’t just throw the paper away. We daren’t risk the Colonial Guards getting’ their hands on it.”
He looked around. “We’re still on top o’ the situation here. We got them reactin’ to us, instead o’ the other way around. Let’s keep it that way an’ not give them time to organize. I’ll call the Governor when we finish here to arrange the rations, an’ start talkin’ to him about a ship to get us all outta here. Stay strong an’ keep your people strong. This ain’t over yet, not by a long way!”
~ ~ ~
Steve waited patiently before the terminal screen. He’d put on his Number Two uniform – looking a bit the worse for wear after being planetside for so long – and smartened up as best he could using the relatively primitive facilities available in the depot.
At last Sergeant O’Donnell said, “Connected, Sir.” A green light glowed on top of the terminal, and the face of Captain Davis appeared on the screen. The Sergeant backed away out of frame.
“Senior Lieutenant Maxwell reports to Captain Davis, Sir.”
“Ah, yes. Maxwell.” The Captain’s voice was frostily formal. “I could hardly believe my eyes when I read your report of proceedings about last night. Do I understand that despite my express and repeated prohibition, you not only undertook negotiations with the rebels but initiated combat with them?”
Steve forcefully reminded himself of Senior Chief Petty Officer
Luculle’s advice when he’d joined the destroyer Achilles on his first tour as a newly-commissioned officer. She’d told him to never explain and never complain, letting his actions speak for him rather than his words. He’d learned the hard way on several occasions since then that her advice had been sound. Do the same here, he mentally reminded himself. Stick to the facts. Don’t make excuses.
“Yes, Sir, I did, due to unforeseen circumstances that couldn’t be handled any other way.”
“Why did you not contact me for additional instructions?”
“The enemy destroyed our satellite dish during a mortar bombardment, Sir. It couldn’t be repaired in time to consult you.”
Davis pressed his lips together for a moment in very visible irritation. “They are not ‘the enemy’ as far as we’re concerned, Lieutenant! As the Department of State has repeatedly reminded us, we aren’t a party to this conflict!”
“With the greatest respect, Sir, the rebels not only fired on us, they also threatened to torture to death several Commonwealth hostages, including Major Emory of the Marine Corps. They shot down the Marine Corps shuttle carrying him and the Eksalansari. I took those facts as conclusive evidence that as far as they were concerned, we were indeed ‘a party to this conflict’ whether we liked it or not.”
“Pshaw!” The Captain waved his hand dismissively. “That was just an accident, part of the ‘fog of war’. They’d never have killed the hostages. That was just a bluff on their part.”
“I respectfully submit that their later actions don’t suggest that, Sir. They set up an ambush to kill as many of us as possible after we’d left the depot. That hardly indicates a bluff, Sir.”
“You’ve no proof of that! They might have been there for other reasons, for all you know!”