by Eric Thomson
**
“I’m very troubled by the recent events, Colonel Harend.” Governor Cedeno looked up from the report with a frown on his pinched face. “I fail to understand how a rebellion that was supposedly weak and uncoordinated could carry out such a coup.”
“The individual who escaped with the Takan girl, variously known as Skeen or Whate, seems to be a highly trained operative, possibly even Fleet, sir. It’s the only explanation.”
Harend stood in the parade rest position in front of the governor’s desk like a junior officer about to be read the riot act.
“Perhaps.” Cedeno sat back and studied Harend’s face. “But that’s not what troubles me, Colonel. Nor are the casualties the man caused when he broke out, or the fact that he rescued the daughter of the first real lead into the independence movement’s leadership that we’ve ever had. No, what troubles me is how the rebellion was able to organize a well-equipped force to cover the escape and do so in the space of a few hours. Weak and uncoordinated? I doubt the assessment still holds true if it ever did. Five combat cars totaled. They were almost new and cost a fortune. The home world won’t be happy when I ask for more money to buy replacements.”
“We know from radio intercepts that this Whate character got in touch with the rebellion shortly after he escaped. That gave their leadership plenty of time to activate armed cells throughout the countryside, cells we didn’t suspect existed.”
“Obviously.” Cedeno’s irritation, never far from the surface, rang out clearly in that single, dismissive word.
Harend’s face tightened.
“It won’t happen again, sir. We’re searching everything and everyone along the escape route. I can assure you that we will find those who shot down our cars and bring them in. My intelligence officer is confident that we’ll be able to make a serious dent in the rebel infrastructure along the Yangtze River and in the Tianjin district in particular.”
“Take care that they don’t make another dent in your infrastructure, Colonel. If they can afford to abandon their weapons after turning them into IEDs for your troops to find, they must feel quite confident about their supply lines. And do try to keep Captain Kozlev on a tight leash. I’m well aware that her methods sometimes border on the illegal. A few questionable actions might pass. Too many of them and someone will take notice. Neither of us wants that. Nor do we want a growing population in your stockade, so make sure those you do arrest can actually be connected to the rebellion.”
“Yes, sir,” Harend replied, suppressing his growing anger at the governor’s didactic tone. “I can guarantee that they’ll be connected to the rebellion once we’re done with them.”
“I’m not sure I like your tone, Colonel.”
The two men stared at each other, neither willing to be the first to break eye contact.
“And I don’t appreciate your innuendo concerning one of my subordinates, sir.”
“It’s not innuendo when there have been at least three cases in the last month where a detainee vanished into your headquarters, never to re-appear.” Cedeno waved towards the door. “You’re dismissed.”
Biting back a sudden flare of rage, Harend saluted then turned on his heels with parade ground precision and marched out of the large office.
If it weren’t for Cedeno’s orders restricting his prosecution of independence movement supporters, the damned off-world pro might never have had the ground support that saved his worthless ass. They would have recovered Kari Takan, which would have made the current raids against suspected rebel cells that much more precise, less bloody and with less collateral damage.
On the other hand, blooding his troops might just provide additional motivation and draw in new recruits. It was an ill wind that brought no one any good.
He walked out of the governor’s residence just in time to see a freighter land at the spaceport south of Iskellian. It reminded him that there was still an armed starship in the service of the rebellion hidden somewhere in the highlands. If it weren’t for the need to deal with recent events, they might have found it by now and really hurt the bastards, perhaps even crewed it with their own people so he didn’t have to rely on mercenaries who ran the moment someone shot a few missiles up their skirts.
The idea that control of events might begin to slip from his grasp never occurred to Harend. For him, the rebellion was still a nuisance force made up of farmers, failures, and off-world adventurers, notwithstanding their propensity for good marksmanship and grasp of effective IED construction.
His militia, though its faults were many, was still a force with professionals at the helm, and it would get better at counter-insurgency faster than the insurgents got better at fighting back. He had staked his hopes of promotion on it and he would see it through, Cedeno’s delicate sensibilities notwithstanding.
His eyes were drawn to the arrival of a combat car across the square. It stopped by the side door of the main headquarters building and disgorged a trio of green-clad troopers who then pulled two struggling civilians from the crew compartment.
He knew Kozlev would let them marinate for a while before introducing herself. Perhaps he’d join her later today. His anger at Cedeno had woken a nasty streak within him that might only be assuaged by the sight of some rebel sympathizers laid low under Rika’s tender mercies.
THIRTY-FOUR
“You can lead a horse’s ass to facts, but you can’t make him think,” Decker grumbled after he and Talyn left the conference room after a particularly acrimonious discussion.
“I’ve never seen a bunch of people who were more frightened of their own shadows. If Verrill hadn’t shut that idiot Roste up, I swear I’d have reached across the table and throttled him myself.”
“That’s a tad harsh, Zack,” she chided. “You’re asking them to risk everything on a single gamble. And don’t tell me it’s a sure thing. You’re the one who keeps saying that no plan survives contact with the enemy.”
“Granted,” he said, trying to shake off his anger at the cold reception they’d been given by the rebellion’s command group. “But the longer they wait, the harder and bloodier it’ll get, something Ser Roste, for all his high and mightiness within the independence movement, seems singularly determined not to understand, no matter what I do.”
“I’ll remind you of something a Marine I sometimes sleep with likes to say.” She smiled at him, mischief dancing in her eyes. “You shouldn’t argue with a moron; he’ll just beat you down with experience.”
It was enough to break down the last bits of anger that still poisoned his mood and Zack put an arm around Talyn, hugging her.
“Trust you to use my words against me, sweetheart. I think if it hadn’t been for Roste, I might have swayed enough of them that we’d still be in there, looking more closely at the details. Maybe I should waylay the bastard tonight and take him out for a long hike in the woods that’ll see me come back by my lonesome.”
“No.”
“Just like that: no? So what do we do instead?”
“Focus on our mission. Remember, hunting and gathering? And once we have what our bosses need, we bugger off.”
He suddenly stopped and turned to face her, placing a hand on each of her shoulders.
“Want to try a bit of threat analysis, since we’re gatherers of disconnected facts that often merge into a coherent picture?”
“Dazzle me with your brilliance, big boy.”
“Not here. Let’s go visit the great outdoors.”
She gave Zack a surprised look but followed him to the back entrance, where a trail led to the mountain tarn they’d admired a few days earlier before.
When Decker figured they were far enough from indiscrete ears, he found a large rock and sat down, indicating with a nod that Talyn should join him.
“So?” She asked.
“Roste. He had the Jackals on his trail when we joined the other ships for the run to Garonne. They stuck with us until they were sure the weapons shipment would make it. Our a
nalysts figure the bastards sometimes do wet work for the Sécurité Spéciale, and those buggers have been known to do the Coalition’s bidding. Now, he’s the one arguing the loudest against a decapitation strike that has a good chance of working and ending this before it sinks into an all-out, drag-down war. Do you see what I saying here?”
“To use another one of your favorite expressions in vain, once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence. I don’t see the third item that’ll convince me it’s all due to enemy action. Correlation does not imply causation. Rule number one for any good intelligence officer.”
He shook his head, frowning while he replayed the discussion with the rebel leadership in his mind.
“Sorry. With all due deference to your greater experience, my instinct tells me there’s fire under that smoke. It may not be what I think, but my gut is willing to bet on Roste having reasons of his own to shoot down the plan; reasons that aren’t related to tactical difficulties.”
Talyn analyzed Zack’s suspicions in silence before speaking again.
“Okay. For some reason I still can’t identify, I’m willing to humor you for now. I’ll have a quiet chat with Corde. She strikes me as a sensible sort, and we’ve bonded over long hours of sifting through data while you were playing tourist with a gun. But for now, you will leave it be, Chief Warrant Officer Decker. Maybe Verrill will think some more once he’s away from all the noise of a full council meeting. He was interested when you first broached the idea.”
“Someone needs to remind him that a military organization isn’t a democracy. The commanding officer makes the final decision.”
She chuckled at his vehemence.
“That’s pretty rich. As your commanding officer, I spend way more time arguing with you than I should.”
“Yeah,” he grinned back at her, “but as my commanding officer, you shouldn’t be having sex with me either and you don’t hear me complain.”
**
“Sorry about how the discussion went, Zack.” Verrill held out a mug of coffee. “As a former military man, you’ll appreciate how hard it is to bring together a bunch of folks with little to no experience of working in a command-driven environment. Be thankful I managed to squash the idea of putting orders to a vote in the early days of the rebellion.”
“Thanks.” He took a sip, and then helped himself to more sweetener. “No offense but this stuff tastes like burning camelot dung.”
“What the heck is a camelot?” The rebel leader raised a hand. “No. Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.”
“I noticed that Roste was the most vocal in there,” Decker remarked, stirring in a glob of the syrupy stuff the mess hall had on offer.
“Yeah. He’s one of the more opinionated members of the inner council.”
“More opinionated?” Zack raised a skeptical eyebrow. “He’s got a stubborn streak and a mouth that would put the camelot I mentioned just now to shame. What’s his story?”
Verrill shrugged.
“Same as anyone’s. He came here from Celeste a long time ago to settle. The militia shut down his business on suspicion of spreading sedition when the independence movement started getting vocal. He lost nearly everything he worked for, and when I canvassed those in the movement willing to go beyond slogans and pamphlets, he was among the first to volunteer.”
“Military background?”
Verrill hesitated before answering.
“Yes. He and I served together in the Celeste National Guard before immigrating to Garonne at the end of our hitch.”
“Any chance either of you knows Colonel Harend personally from those days?”
Again, the hesitation, then Verrill nodded.
“We both do, but it was a long time ago when we were junior non-coms in the same regiment. He stayed in and went for a commission while Roste and I left the uniform and Celeste behind.”
“Neither of you was cut out for a military career?”
“Not in the National Guard at any rate.” Verrill grimaced. “But that’s all long in the past, well before Garonne turned into the latest case of home world oppression. Why the interest in Roste’s past?”
Zack stared down into his coffee for a few seconds.
“I’m trying to figure out why he was working so hard to shut down any discussion of the plan Hera and I presented. Most of the others seemed willing to explore the idea and see if it offered us a chance of ending the conflict before it got too bloody.”
“I’ll grant you that he was unusually aggressive, but he’s a bit of a hothead to begin with, and when a notion enters his mind, he takes it far more to heart than other people.” Verrill paused when he noticed Decker’s sardonic expression. “I’m sure that if he believed your idea had some merit, he’d have muted his opposition. None of us wants this to go on forever. We want our old lives back.”
Zack stared at the rebel leader with a raised eyebrow.
“Really? None of you want this to go on forever?”
“What are you trying to insinuate?”
“Insinuate? Verrill, doesn’t Roste’s vehemence sound suspicious, especially before we even discussed the details? We’re talking about the guy whose ship was trailed by the Confederacy of the Howling Stars all the way to the rendezvous and then to the edge of this system for all we know. I seem to recall you never got a satisfactory answer to that little incident. And now he’s afire to toss out something that just might short-circuit the militia’s idea of a small colonial war. I get that he doesn’t like me, and the feeling is mutual, but really?”
“Roste can’t be held responsible for the Confederacy and like I said, he’s quick with his temper.”
Verrill seemed to shrug the Marine’s words off, but there now was a spark of doubt in his eyes, and Zack figured it was time to change the subject to something more immediate: the on-going militia raids in every settlement within twenty kilometers of the Yangtze River and what the rebels could do about them.
It proved to be safer ground for both men.
**
Hera found Corde in the all-sources center, staring listlessly at a computer screen.
“Cred for your thoughts?” She asked, sitting across from the other woman.
“If it buys me something I can use to shut people up when they get thoroughly annoying, sure.”
“Roste?”
“Yeah. I can’t recall seeing him try to shoot down an idea with such vigor before and that’s saying something. He likes to think of himself as the conscience of the Movement’s armed wing. A lot of us think he’s more of a horse’s ass, but there you have it.”
Talyn related Decker’s earlier quip and Corde laughed.
“That just about sums him up when he puts his mind to it. Pity we can’t just write him off as a moron. He’s actually pretty smart in many respects.”
“Then why does he think, right off the bat, that the decapitation option has no redeeming qualities that might merit closer scrutiny?”
Corde shrugged.
“Beats me. My best guess is fear of failure and the consequences if we put everything we have in a single operation.”
“But you wouldn’t be doing that.”
“Sure, and I understand what you were getting at, but Roste and some of the others aren’t buying what you’re selling. It’s the whole recent arrivals telling us old-timers what to do syndrome.”
“Even though Zack’s a twenty year Marine command sergeant with more combat experience than any ten veterans you have in your ranks put together?”
“Human nature.” She met Talyn’s eyes. “I’m sure you know all about that.”
“So what do we do about it?”
“We?”
“You’re the number two in this outfit. Your voice should count for more with Verrill than any of the others, no matter how close they were before picking up a gun in the name of freedom.”
“And you?”
A faint smile appeared on Corde’s lips.
“I’m Zack Decker’s ke
eper. My job is to make sure his enthusiasm for a good fight doesn’t take us places we’d rather avoid and Iskellian isn’t one of them. In fact, it’s the only place we can’t avoid, either now or in the future. Only, the longer we wait, the harder it’ll get and the harder it gets, the bloodier it’ll be.”
“And the bloodier it is, the harder it’ll be to build a sane, free society afterward.” Corde nodded. “I’ve read the analyses of the Migration Wars and nearly every colonial conflict since the last one.”
“So why don’t you encourage Verrill to override the inner council and use his power as commanding officer?”
“If I thought it would do any good, I’d be nagging him until his ears fell off. It won’t. He respects the senior leadership and their opinions, and figures overriding them won’t be good for the Movement’s continued health.”
“A drawn-out war of attrition won’t be either. What’s going on right now is the first harbinger of the coming bitterness between factions. It hasn’t touched anyone beyond the river valley and the Tianjin district yet, but it’ll spread inexorably as the militia’s ranks and confidence grow.”
“What is the quaint expression I’ve heard so often from my late father? You’re preaching to the choir?”
“So? Let’s go out and convert some heathens, you and me.” Talyn grinned. “It beats sitting here, reading the latest depressing reports from the front lines.”
**
“Sergeant Steiger reporting to the Captain as ordered.”
“At ease.” Rika Kozlev waved towards the sole chair in front of her desk. “Sit.”
When Steiger had obeyed, Kozlev examined her in silence, head tilted to one side.
“You seem to have come through the mess of Ser Whate’s murderous rampage better than any of the others in my section.”
“I’ve been shot at often enough that the experience has lost some of its punch, sir.”
“Glad to hear it, because I’m about to send you into the closest thing we have to bandit country on Garonne outside of the highlands. The garrison commander in Tianjin has requested a qualified field interrogator so he can process more suspects on site rather than send them all the way to Iskellian under escort. With your counter-insurgency experience, it should be a good fit. I’ve noticed that you’re less than enthusiastic about the deeper kind of interrogation we practice here at HQ, and I hate wasting talent in a job that isn’t a good fit.”