War World X: Takeover

by John F. Carr

  Wilgar led the way around the back of the burned barn. Carcass-mining still went on, and wagons and barrows trundled back and forth, carrying slabs of scorched, bloody meat to the Common Lodge. Wilgar skirted the corral’s fence, went behind the unscathed chicken coop, then approached the palisade through thorn bushes and mounds of reinforcing dirt. He slapped an upright pole and said, “I think it’s this one.” “This one what?” Kev asked.

  Wilgar only grinned and returned to the chicken coop. They entered, and he led the way to the rear corner. He moved some supplies and showed Kev the trap door. “A tunnel. My secret entrance and exit, leads to a sewer nexus.”

  Kev said, “Why show me now?”

  And Wilgar said, “Because we have a few things to do and we’d better do them right away. Come on.” And with that, he jumped down into the tunnel and vanished.

  Kev glanced back at the coop’s door, which he’d closed. It was warm in the coop, from the body heat of the chickens, and it stank as only chicken coops can stink. Clucking, ruffling of feathers and pecking were the close sounds, while outside the coop people worked, shouted, even laughed and sang. Kev sighed, shoulders slumped from fatigue. He brushed at the smears of soot and scorch marks and just plain dirt which soiled his robes. “Our balbriggans don’t suffice,” he quoted, citing one of the Reverend Castell’s first pronouncements regarding the Harmonies’ advent upon Haven.

  With that, Kev climbed down into the tunnel, dropped the trapdoor over himself, and crawled after Wilgar, who was whistling a fugue softly at the far end, as a guide. Echo, stench and blind faith defined Kev’s next few minutes, and then he came to the sewer which offered secret escape from the Harmony Compound.

  “Pre-positioning,” Cole said, “is essential in normal raids, but Haven doesn’t exactly have a communications network needing cut.” He surveyed the office. He sat at one battered collapsible field desk, while Ibansk sat at another. Each had before him a field-issue note-box, and each processed his report in his own way. As they worked, they chatted.

  Cole continued. “Vertical insertions usually involves paratroop units, but we’re not bothering here on Haven, because there’s not only no professional military, there’s also no expected resistance, outside the usual mob-scenes stuff and, hell, police can handle that. Our soldiers should slam down like a cast-iron toilet lid. And, as I said, without effective real-time communication, word of the presence of CoDo troops won’t spread much faster than the troops themselves.”

  “I know about Haven’s static, Byers is mostly too active,” Ibansk said, “but during lulls the indigs have used radio, for example.”

  “Sheer luck. Unpredictable. Hell if I’d want to lug around CBs or field-pack radios on the off-chance of being able to use them.”

  “What do the shuttles use during splashdowns?”

  Cole grinned. “Line-of-sight lasers,” he said. “They’re almost perfect. No side-band bleed, which means you can’t passively monitor it, and you can’t decipher a laser transmission unless you directly intercept it. Try doing that on a battlefield sometime. You’re infantry, aren’t you? If you were a tanker, or artillery, you’d know about such basics.”

  Ibansk pretended to be insulted, but smiled as he said, “Well, at least my family never had to sell a son into the slavery of spying.” He paused, made a note, then said, “But tell me, what do they do in heavy fog, for example?”

  “They have problems,” Cole said. “And if necessary they can resort to burst-repeaters. They call the system MOSAIC, just to be cute. It’s not an acronym, I mean. Same as a normal squirt radio, compresses the message, but it repeats at random and the receivers build up the complete coded message from multiple scans of what ever punches through the interference each time.”

  “Then why not issue those to field units?”

  Cole shook his head. He lifted his fingers from the keyboard long enough to spread his arms wide, palms facing each other. “Hardware’s too big, you’d need about an APC and a half just to haul them to the transceivers. Shuttles can carry them, but only a few bother.”

  Ibansk grunted, impressed. “Should’ve opted to fill in my professional military education gaps,” he muttered.

  Cole said, “Forget that. PME doesn’t cover this kind of stuff. Fact is, no one does. You just sort of learn it if you ever need to, and if you don’t, then you’ll probably never hear about it.”

  “You’re saying this information is classified?” Ibansk looked both startled and slightly frightened at the possibility.

  Cole put him at ease with a shrug. “Damned if I know.”

  Both men laughed, then continued processing their reports. Cole occasionally asked Ibansk for help with local nomenclature or map specifications.

  “That’s a quern,” Ibansk said, “it mills grains, hand-cranked.” He pointed to the diagram, then said, “Obviously not the one you’re seeking, eh?”

  “It’s these access binaries. Somebody’s got them scrambled. “Cole clattered a few keys and tried another, then sighed and slumped back as a diagram of a roller coaster came on screen.

  “What is it you want?” Ibansk said. “Perhaps my access is better.”

  “I’m arranging the evidence we’ll use against the Harmonies to revoke their settlement rights. We’ll find piles of ore on Harmony farms, proving they were in on the pirating. I got Kennicott and Dover miners to help with that, and they even pitched in some equipment, trucks and shovels. We’ll find a stockpile of cayenne pepper at the Harmony Compound, proving they intended to make pepper mace, an illegal weapon. I got that from the Docktown and Cambiston restaurants; good thing BuReloc’s sending out so many ethnic types these days.

  “We’ll find a rebel map, showing both the compound and Castell City and its environs. Drew it myself, with details to be added by the rebels we round up. And then that Janesfort thing shot my smuggled-arms wad; what a waste of good surplus. Old sonic stunners, experimental and not much good to combat soldiers trained in hand-to-hand, but still too fancy for this bigger provocation. What I wanted to add to this Harmony evidence package were a few weapon systems schematics, catapults and napalm and that kind of thing.”

  “Weapons feasible in this environment and culture.”

  “Exactly.” Cole leaned forward, watching Ibansk tap the keys this time. Again, they came up with inappropriate files.

  “Someone’s substituted these,” Ibansk said.

  “Well, we’ve got enough. The hell with schematics, I’ll just toss a few references into the confessions.”

  Ibansk stood up. His eyes twinkled as he asked, “And have you written them in advance, too?”

  But Cole, perhaps thinking of his retirement, returned weariness for his colleague’s mirth as he answered, “Why leave things to chance?”

  “If there’s always hope, then there’s always a chance,” Ibansk recited as he walked back to his desk. “And if there’s always a chance, then the unexpected can never be eliminated. And if that’s true, then plans are the folly of man.”

  “Gogol? Tolstoy? Zinoviev?”

  Ibansk sat down. “My father’s last letter from the Gulag, just before they stripped him of rank and made him a zek for having compassion for a young mother and her daughter. His crime? Giving them milk. Guards could give only watchfulness and bullets, you see.”

  “Those post-Unified years were shameful times,” Cole said, sympathy in his tone.

  Ibansk, however, only smiled sardonically. “Oh, indeed. And we’ve come so far since then, with this CoDominium.” He paused and looked at the room as if all of Haven could be seen in the dingy walls. “In distance, at any rate,” he added in a quieter, flatter voice.

  “Here, wear these,” Wilgar said, handing over coarse, crude trousers, a tunic, and a smock, all made of un-dyed burlap from Janesfort hemp fibers. It smelled of marijuana and scratched like a hair shirt.

  The boy changed from Harmony robes to nondescript city-garb in no time, demonstrating much practice. Kev held his ne
w garments for a few moments, hesitant. Then he smiled and muttered again, in a new tone of justification, “Our balbriggans don’t suffice, after all.”

  Although many Harmonies wore trousers beneath their robes to combat Haven’s cold, it had been years since Kev had even seen trousers. He fumbled them on, having to remove his boots despite the utter lack of tapering or tailoring which distinguished the pants. “Why are we disguising ourselves?” he asked, almost dressed.

  “Our robes, out there,” Wilgar gestured with his head, meaning everywhere on Haven outside the Harmony Compound, “serve only discord. They draw ire and disharmony results.”

  “When in Rome, eh?” Kev asked, as if to himself, as if trying out a new idea. “Well, I’m ready. What is it we must do?”

  Wilgar led, his motions confident, his manner stealthy. Kev followed through streets and alleys where rubble smoldered, where corpses lay abandoned, where stray pets claimed vengeful meals. From every doorway and lodge entrance baleful gazes watched them pass.

  They worked their way first southwest from Wilgar’s tunnel, then southeast, toward the Town Square, which they skirted on its north side. A minor construction project was going on in the square, and they paused to squint through the dark, to try to figure it out.

  “Looks like CoDo Marines,” Kev said, and Wilgar nodded, face sober, and moved on.

  Where Docktown, Castell City, and Cambiston meet, at the southeast corner of the Town Square, the biggest bordello/saloon/casino on the planet towered four stories high. It featured three underground levels, as well, and was called Cambiston Doxie’s, after the three-hundred-twenty pound woman who ran it, who called herself Doxie. No one knew her real identity: The place was notorious and when Wilgar moved as if to enter, Kev grabbed his arm and said, “What are you doing?”

  “We’ve got business—”

  “In there? I don’t think so.”

  Wilgar yanked his elbow from the older man’s grip. “Stay out here if you must. Act drunk, sit in the gutter. If anyone bothers you—”

  “Wilgar, what’s going on?” Kev stepped closer, looked at the boy closer. He frowned and backed a step away. In a quieter voice he repeated, “What’s going on?”

  Wilgar’s face showed no emotion as he said, “I’ve got a pretty good idea we’re about to lose Haven. An under strength regiment of the 77th CoDominium Marines are due any minute now, to put down the rebellion. This is one of my best intelligence spots.” And with that, he turned and strode up to the guards who smoked and guzzled booze at the main entrance.

  Kev hurried to catch up to Wilgar, and heard the boy mutter, “He’s with me,” and was surprised when both were permitted entrance. A huge lobby, lit by flaming braziers and sconced torches, gaped like pre-Harmony ideas of Hell. Craps tables, pool tables, blackjack, baccarat, poker and roulette tables strained under heavy use. Drunks shouted, laughed, or wailed. Women sauntered, some nude, others dressed as exotically as if there might be an interplanetary costume ball going on.

  Kev’s eyes never stopped moving, but Wilgar walked through it all nonchalantly without even a side glance. He marched to an unmarked brass door, touched it near the middle, and said, “It’s me.”

  The door slid back, revealing an elevator big enough to haul a yoked team of muskylopes to the roof. Kev jumped in after Wilgar, then said, “This place takes away my breath.”

  Wilgar, not looking away from the door, said, “Only after it’s taken everything else.”

  Pausing in its vertical ascent, the elevator seemed to sway for a moment, then twisted widdershins. Clamps and clunks sounded. The door opened, and Wilgar led Kev into an office.

  Behind a huge desk sat Doxie, chomping her cigar stub, one hand around a mug of ale. She belched, her froggy eyes glistening with the effort, then barked, “Who’s your shadow?”

  “First Deacon Kev Malcolm,” Wilgar said, and when Doxie’s eyes widened in pleased surprise, the boy added, “He doesn’t know.”

  “Ah,” Doxie grunted. She shifted weight and slurped some ale, letting the foam mustache it deposited upon her upper lip linger for an instant, before lapping it off with a quick, splotchy tongue.

  “We’ll ignore him, then,” she said. “Your instincts were right, kid. This planet’s in for a change of management. My people tell me there’s talk of a battalion or more, poised to strike even now. That’s confirmed. Irregulars are standing by, implementing phase one.” Doxie laughed, which sounded like someone trying to start an Earthside lawnmower under water and failing. “How’s that for jargon?” she asked, pleased.

  “We’ll be ready,” Wilgar said.

  “Hell we will, boy,” Doxie barked. “We’ll be swallowed whole like the cherry in a Shirley Temple.”

  Wilgar stood in front of the desk, while Kev stood nearer the elevator, unable to stop gaping as he shifted from foot to foot. In the shadowy corners of the office, several people of indeterminate sex, size, or function lolled or leaned, only their watchfulness evident. From other rooms both above and below the office came the sounds of revelry and debauchery. Kev winced at particularly loud squeals and whoops and thuds, and under it all music hammered like smithies in a factory forge; harmony seemed only grudgingly tolerated in the songs.

  “Will you do something against it?” Doxie asked, adding, with much heavy sarcasm, “Phase one?”

  Wilgar nodded. “Small things, token protests. We can do little more, but survival allows some room for resistance.”

  “Good.” Doxie scratched her shoulder, which sported a rainbow-hued tattoo of a guillotine, from which bounced a laughing head resembling nothing so much as a younger version of Doxie herself. She wore a sleeveless shirt patched together from other garments and her hair grew wild and tangled, with streaks of gray in its Stygian black tresses.

  Kev looked pointedly away from the huge woman, but jumped as she struck a sulfurous match with her thumbnail to ignite the tip of her cigar stub. Wilgar walked over to him, and whispered, “That means our business is over,” and practically pushed Kev into the elevator.

  They left Cambiston Doxie’s through a side door and made their way down to lakeside. As they faced south, gazing at Splashdown Island, the last of Docktown’s quays offered silhouettes on their right. On their left, Cambiston glittered with fires, most contained, some flaring into the dark sky. Starlight offered the slightest respite from the illusion of blindness, but Kev and Wilgar, acclimated to Haven, could see fairly well.

  A shout of surprise escaped from Kev, however, when several ragged children suddenly leaped into their path from lake’s edge bushes. “Hail,” one said, while the others tensed for trouble.

  To Kev Wilgar said, “My Irregulars,” then asked the children, “Are the turtles in place?”

  “They’re ready,” one of the children said.

  Kev asked what was going on, but Wilgar simply led the way into the bushes, which offered cover as well as any Earthbound laurel. The leaves smelled of lemons. Tiny blue berries left stains.

  At water’s edge they came upon a trench. It was hidden by branches and living bushes and once down in it, Kev found familiar building techniques evident. “Your irregulars learn well,” he said to Wilgar, who nodded. “They have to or they’re out,” he answered.

  “So why are they called irregulars? They look normal enough.”

  “Sherlock Holmes stories.” Wilgar paused, just long enough, then said, “Yes, more of that useless Earthish fiction I’m always reading,” in a sassy tone. Then he smiled. “None of these kids has a home, or much chance, without me. The only school on Haven is the one in our Compound and we only take Harmony children. That leaves them doubly orphaned, first by death and then by neglect. I offer them hope and structure. We work as a team, and get things done.”

  Kev said, “Your father would be proud.” He knew that the school had only been opened because Wilgar had nagged his father into it. Charles Castell had resisted until the boy had volunteered that the outsider, who ran Harp’s bar, had been te
aching him to read. That had been all the goad necessary for the establishment of Haven’s first school; Castell had then forbidden the boy to associate with Brodski or his companions.

  “My father wouldn’t acknowledge these people,” Wilgar shot back. “He ignored them as infidels; tell me how that’s harmonious?” The boy sneered that last word, making it a term of opprobrium. Softer, he added, “I may not have the feel for things Harmony, but I know what’s right and what’s not, and I know how to pay attention, and how to get things done.”

  And here he pulled something from inside his shirt. It was the leather book he’d stolen from the tangle of knotted ropes in which his father had hidden it. He held it up to Kev, the way a convert often thrusts a bible into the face of a nonbeliever. “Garner ‘Bill’ Castell’s diary,” he said. “My grandfather’s story in his own words, how he accomplished everything, all the practical advice and hard-nosed truth. He would have kicked my father’s sanctimonious ass if he had lived to see what a holier-than-thou fanatic the great Reverend Charles Castell became.”

  Kev gasped and leaned back against the trench’s wall. “What are you saying?” he asked. He frowned as indignation gathered in him.

  But Wilgar shoved the book back into its pocket and shoved a hand upward and said, “Look.”

  A trail of fire, then another, and then a third, marked re-entry for three shuttles. “They’re coming,” Wilgar said. To the children around them, he said, “The turtles are deployed?”

  “What are these turtles?” Kev asked.

  “Waterlogged logs,” one of the kids answered. “They float, but just barely. Can’t be seen, not even from a boat.”

  “But jeex when they hit one,” another boy said, smacking his hands together and kiting one high over the other in parody of a flaming crash.

  “My God,” said Kev. “What are you doing? That’s an act of war, Wilgar you can’t—”

  “Passive tactics,” Wilgar said. “It’s not our fault if they decide to come swooping down on our turtles. We have our own right to float what we will in Havenhold Lake and they have the right to wreck their splashships if they want.”