Connection (11 page)

“You have few troops. How many cities will we have to erase on LesMa before you give Xale their freedom?” I turned to the resistance fighters. “Capture soldiers in smaller units elsewhere. I assume you are capable of doing that much.” I didn’t turn LesTo over to them because I thought they might fold and try to get concessions. You now have an armored vehicle so someone can remove the bodies. Please deal with them as honored soldiers as they were only following their orders. LeToms. Can you arrange lodging and food for us? LeAt should be here in another day and we need to begin technology trades.”

The resistance fighter was fairly quaking in his boots. “LesMa will now destroy us for sure.”

“You do understand that any of your freighters could do this to the biggest cities on LesMa and they could not stop it. Take the soldiers you capture here. Take them to the site of the base. Take photos. Take those soldiers back to LesMa and say that will happen to LesMa cities until they send a delegation to negotiate an independence and trade treaty with Xale. Put a few freighters with small asteroids between here and LesMa in case. Show what this man, LesTo, did to your people. Tell how they stole. Interview the young girls raped by his soldiers. Make it so the people of LesMa know what happened here. The government will try to show only their side of the argument. We will give the technology they need to defend this planet to the scientists coming here. Drop papers showing what they did to your people. Do that first.”

“PsyOps boss. You are a cold-hearted bastard,” Cassandra said.

“Uh Huh,” I said. LeToms stated giving orders and showed the first spunk I had seen. He wasn’t such a Weak Willie after all.

LeAt was furious when he landed. “LeToms. How could you let him destroy that base and kill all those soldiers? You know they’ll be all over us from now on. We only have five freighters and a couple of faster craft on all of Xale. You know everyone is not aligned with us – this madness has them terrified.” LeToms was trying to explain.

Robert walked up to the two brothers. “Welcome back Pilot. I want everyone terrified. That is the point of war. Anyone starting a revolution has to be terrified or it won’t work. You have to do it anyway because the alternative is giving in. Tell me – weren’t you horrified by what the butcher was doing to your people?”

“Sane people don’t kill a thousand people in a second,” LeAt said angrily.

“Sane people do not start a revolution. Sane people do not attack a large military base with half trained, half equipped civilians. Were you going to charge them again? How many died the last time with your ground attack? Are you saying it isn’t fair? Is it fair that trained soldiers rape your citizens, steal your food – your living? These people will never stop. My people have been through this before. We had two colonies,
Mars
and
Titan
. It was a nasty, drawn-out battle until the rebels destroyed two cities on my home planet.
Earth
, my home planet had wanted more and more from the ‘colonies’. The colonies were almost self-supporting but Earth wanted a ‘return’ – profit from their investment. Earth made them slaves to pay for their earlier support. It lasted two decades before the revolt. It was over quickly.”

LeToms spoke up, “I understand what my brother is saying. Everyone here is not supportive of a revolution. Many will try to help LesMa. We are not slaves.”

“That is always the way it is. You are not slaves – yet. You must sell the revolt to your people – now – and make everyone here know what LesTo was doing. You need photos – you need interviews with victims and you need to get organized. You need to do the same on LesMa. You provide fuel. I will drop pamphlets. They cannot stop me. I will be your threat to them IF they threaten you here. Cassandra has shown LeEck how to make powerful
lasers
for your ships. The targeting system will be crude by our standards but you will not be defenseless any more.”

“How can we do anything fast enough? We have no time,” Pilot said. “You called the light beams
lasers
? We have some equipment but don’t have your technology.”

LeEck had been working with Cassandra again and walked up and interrupted them. “I cannot believe it is so easy to direct such a powerful beam – it seems so simple when you do not have to guess. Pilot. We have a few manufacturing facilities here that have the latest machinery from LesMa. Cassandra has shown us how to make a thousand things – a thousand ideas that will make Xale rich. Your
lasers
…will be ready in two days. We have most of the materials for many of these items but we never combined them.” He held up the borrowed slate from my ship and flip through photos/diagrams of the lasers, explosives, medicine, engines, motors, LEDs, planes, air conditioners, and plastics with a thousand shapes and functions.

LeToms turned to his brother. “We have the first series of pamphlets ready…here…look at these,” He said and gave Pilot the papers.

LeAt looked at the photos, read a few headings, and started crying. “I had forgotten some of this…how could I forget. This is well done. Let us distribute these. My freighter can drop these all over Xale in a day. What about the small military posts here on Xale?”

“We have had most of the military outposts surrender and we have taken all but a couple on the southern lakes. We have but a few dead and wounded. The threat of a rock from space helped us with the two largest garrisons. This ship, Cassandra, has helped because it has knowledge of
PsyOps
.”

LeAt looked confused, “PsyOps?”

LeToms explained. “Psychological Operations designed to make us appear more powerful than we are and persuade LesMa not to attack us for fear we will retaliate…also as a means to get more talented people to immigrate because of technology jobs. We will start by showing what the military and Prath have been doing to our citizens and businesses. Then we will show photos of the destroyed base and imply we will do it to cities on LesMa if we are attacked. That is when we will show new technologies and explain we have clean air and jobs for talented people. Cassandra says it is likely LesMa will require a ‘demonstration’.”

“We will have to destroy cities?”

“No but we will target three or four sites around the planet – only on those areas supportive of attacking us,” LeToms said. “Cassandra has some inventive ways to get our message to the people of LesMa. Wait until you hear…”

                                                                          ****

“We have not heard from our garrison on Xale for two days general. It isn’t like General LesTo to keep us uninformed. His people said they were going to make a ‘big arrest’. We had a trade ship diverted to investigate. The Prath have not been cooperative. Their ‘big’ operation the other day turned up an empty airfield with no prisoners, no evidence, nothing… The Prath say they don’t have any ships in service right now. Our informants say they grounded their ships until an investigation is completed. Scattered radio traffic, from unconfirmed civilian sources, says the rebels have taken over all the military bases on the planet.”

“Don’t get so wound up. We know the ‘rebels’ had their back broken last year when they tried that ground attack on our garrison. They lost eighty and had that number captured and executed. LesTo had been…subjugating…the rebel strongholds. We have broken the back of their resistance – their businesses are ruined. We control their trade. They will come crawling back to us and we will squeeze them dry. Let’s wait ‘til that trade ship reports back.”

                                                                          ****

“He is not like other prisoners. He will not talk. I know he is listening – he can hear but he never answers. He is also handsome – like a model with smooth, light brown skin. He has no odd marks and a narrow nose. He has four fingers and a thumb. Some say they have seen him in the shower and he has… he is well equipped. They say he is here for smuggling Twasolo but they never found any so he has a shorter sentence. It is all very odd. What do I do?”

“Make friends with him. Get him to talk. He may be a foreigner from somewhere on LesMa. He is unusual. See what it takes to get him to talk. I would know more about him.”

                                                                          ****

“General. Look at these. These papers have been dropped by a Xale ship – all over the planet, in huge numbers. Look what it says about LesTo. His soldiers have been doing terrible things to the people of Xale. Did you know he has been raping their children, stealing their food, their trade goods? LesTo has destroyed whole villages and tied the people to posts in rows to die.”

“They were the ones that rebelled against us. Did it say that? These are the ones that attacked us?” the General answered.

“Yes. It showed how the civilians attacked the fortified base with hunting rifles while the soldiers defended their fortified positions with air strikes and artillery. It shows the armored vehicles and heavy weapons used on these people – there are photographs. It is detailed. Is this all true?”

“Well yes as far as it goes. We had to enforce our laws. They were not paying their fair share of taxes. We had to hold them accountable. We had invested in that colony for decades. We weren’t going to let them get rich when we had funded them getting them started.”

“But General. This says that they had to work double shifts with no pay or their families would be killed. The output of the factories was turned over to the military. LesTo was becoming personally wealthy from their labor.”

“He was just a shrewd businessman.”

“General. This says that they – the Xale demand independence and want to set up trade talks. There is information for us, and the Prath, in separate messages. We have had contact with these rebels and they are all over the planet. They have contacted us on the new wireless systems from over twenty sites here. We have not been able to trace them.”

“Colonel. Get a dispatch to LesTo and have him contact me immediately. We will turn his troops loose there and teach those traitors a lesson.”

“General. These messages say that all our military have been captured or destroyed on Xale.”

“That’s impossible. They don’t have the weapons.”

“General. Remember the trade ship you diverted. They sent these photos back before we lost contact with them,” the colonel said and handed the photos to the general.

“What is this? This is just a meteor crater somewhere. What is this a picture supposed to be?”

“General. This is a photo of our main, military base on Xale. We lost contact with that ship shortly after they sent these pictures. There has been contact with the rebels, General. They have sent a list. It is two lists. We received these lists two hours ago. We have not been able to trace the source. Xale has suddenly leaped ahead of us in technologies – we do not know where they managed to acquire them.”

“What lists? Give them to me…” the general said and jerked the paper from the colonel’s hand. “One of these is just a list of cities and the other is a list of outrageous demands. What are we supposed to do with these?”

“General. The Xale…”

“The traitors!” yelled the general.

“Very well…the traitors from Xale want us to honor this list of demands in exchange for the other list.”

“What? Preposterous! Why would they list these cities? These cities are the most loyal cities on the planet. They couldn’t possibly think these cities would revolt against the government here.”

“General. You misunderstand. The Xale say they will start destroying these cities on the list for every demand we refuse. We have two days General before they start.”

“Colonel. The traitors on Xale could not possibly have the means to do this act. This is an act of war. Don’t they realize that we can crush them?”

“General. We cannot possibly arrange a force to attack Xale in two days. We will be hard pressed to defend LesMa. The rebels can drop asteroids on all our cities and we can do very little to stop them. I recommend we look carefully at this list. It is not bad – it just allows fair trade and independence for Xale. It arranges immigration and customs protocols. It sets up mutual trade commissions and a Xale embassy. It is fairly conservative.”