Prophet and the Blood March (Prophet of ConFree) (55 page)

"You've got four fracs to apologize, shithead!" Arie said. "If not, I kill you! Four three two –"

The giant's buddy moved in, and I leaped up to counter him. I pushed him back violently with both hands, catching him off balance. Feint with my left, I thought, then right kick to the nuts.

"Whoa, whoa! All right, I'm sorry!" the giant said. "Sorry! I didn't mean nothing by it. Man, take it easy, all right?" Arie released his hold on the giant's neck and stepped back, still furious. The giant limped off with his friend. "Hey, I really didn’t mean anything, all right?" he called out, as they moved off down the corridor.

We resumed our seats, and the rest of the sunbathers settled down after the excitement.

"I would have killed him, too," Arie said. "I was going to roundhouse kick him in the left temple."

"You sure are one violent little kid," I said. "You weren't breast fed, right?"

"But you know, he was right. You do look like you got hit with an ugly stick."

Δ

"Quite a view," I said. Arie and I were sipping wine, lingering over a wonderful charsteak feast in the O Club. We were in our blacks and seated right under a giant simport with a spectacular view of the Gulf frontier, billions of lovely stars spangled like diamond dust over the cosmos, wreathed with silky nebulae reaching out to infinity. The
Tough Love
was in far combat orbit around Vulcan, cloaked and shielded and armored and ready to leap into stardrive at the slightest sign of trouble. The orbit was random, constantly changing. Any suspect ship that even hinted at a course change to head our way would be instantly challenged by scores of patrolling hunter-killer interceptors, and blasted to atoms if they failed to turn aside.

"Can we see Vulcan?" Arie asked, peering into the view, which looked like a giant hole in the ship's fuselage.

"Simport, identify Vulcan," I whispered. A tiny reddish speck lit up, labeled VULCAN.

"Man, we're quite a ways off," Arie said.

'The further away we are, the better I feel," I said.

"Yeah, except both Blondie and Honeyhair are on that little red dot."

'They'll be all right. Thing are a lot better now."

"What's the latest?" Arie asked.

"Nothing but good news," I said, hauling out a little pocket screen and propping it up on the table. "Legion Tacmap," I ordered. The latest issue appeared on-screen, composed in the
Legion Tacmap's
usual calm, conservative, low-key manner.

VICTORY ON VULCAN!

COMMUNE QUITS!

OFFERS TERMS, CONFREE REFUSES, DEMANDS UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER

COMMUNE FORCES FLYING WHITE FLAGS

DARKS AND DEMONS FLEEING VULCAN
UNDER FIRE

COMPLETE VAC-AIR SUPERIORITY
FOR ALLIES

HEAVY FIGHTING AS TRAPPED ENEMY
FORCES CONTINUE TO RESIST

Legion Tacmap
Special, With Legion Forces on Vulcan, 385/12/09. The Director of the ConFree Legion announced today that surrender terms proposed by Gulf Stellar Commune officials will not be honored and demanded that Commune forces surrender unconditionally to Allied forces. Absent that, allied forces will not honor the white flags being displayed by Commune forces and combat will continue.

The latest dispatches from Level Two reflect a bloody but complete victory for allied forces with Bright, ConFree, AC and Biogen forces smashing Dark, Demon and Commune units and chasing them down as the enemy retreats. Level One is now completely in Allied hands. Fleetcom reports total vac-air superiority has been achieved with enemy forces fleeing Vulcan without further resistance. Thousands of enemy starships and vac-air fighters have been destroyed. Numerous enemy forces trapped below on Level Two continue to resist but are surrounded and expected to be destroyed en masse.

Legion Command reports heavy allied casualties but estimates enemy casualties in the "hundreds of thousands." The Legion Director, General Dragon, states that he is humbled and honored to be associated with all the courageous allied soldiers who have tragically fallen in battle defending the women and children of ConFree. He vows that the fighting will continue on Vulcan until all Darks and Demons have been exterminated, and that Legion forces are under black flag orders to take no human prisoners until the "criminal Commune regime" agrees to unconditional surrender. He thanked Con-Free's gallant allies from Bright Haven, the Assid Confederation, the Biogen Solidarity Accord, and the United Mocain Coalition and vowed eternal friendship with ConFree's "brothers in blood."

"Sure sounds like good news to me," Arie said, sipping at his wine.

"So Blondie took care of you in the – where was it – Sixtieth Triage?"

"TLC. It took her awhile to find me. I'm not sure how I wound up there. You and I were shot down at the same place but wound up in different triage units. I guess it was a long trip up to Level Two."

"Did Blondie know anything about where the rest of Delta is? 'Cause Honeyhair doesn't know. And neither did Bees. She'd been snatched up by Legion Command, and had no idea where she was headed when she dropped in to see us."

"There's not much left of the unit," Arie said. "No, Blondie knew nothing. Far as I know Delta is still with Breakblade's outfit, but with Bees gone and the rest of us wounded it will be only the Prof, Saka and Ice. I'm sure the Legion will get Delta Research re-organized, however, soon as they can collect all the players."

"I wonder if it will dawn on them that they almost lost the entire unit," I said. "Perhaps a nice fat soft rear-echelon assignment is in the works. In the rear with the gear. I think I would welcome that."

"Prophet. One thing bothers me about that news article. Why did the Darks quit? They must have voluntarily decided to abandon ship. Otherwise we wouldn't be concerned with dealing with the Commune – we'd still be fighting Darks and Demons. We can defeat the Demons, sure, but I saw no sign that we were defeating the Darks face to face. Did you?"

"I think it was pretty close, Arie. Closer than I was expecting. But you're right. If this is a great victory it's not because we defeated the Darks. It’s because they decided to pull out."

"But why? After all the preparations they made? After all that effort?"

"I don’t know, Arie. I'm sure Satan knows. But he's not telling."

Δ

"Commander, Captain, welcome to Occupied Angaroth." Arie and I had just arrived on a Legion aircar from the starport of the capital. The grav was annoyingly heavy. The fellow greeting us was in camfax fatigues, but a glance at his collar confirmed he was a Commander. His nametag read HUNTER. All past Legion efforts to egalitarianize our rank structures had failed and the Legion made no further attempts to hide one's rank. We both saluted him. He had a large office in a glittering palace, which we understood had formerly been the People's Hall of the Stellar Revolutionary Union Party. It was undamaged, which could only mean that our far-thinking airstrike people had saved it for the future occupation. There were many desks in the room and Legion officers hurrying to and fro.

"Take a look at the map, gentlemen," he said, escorting us to a giant wall screen that depicted the city and its surroundings. "This was the capital of the Pegal Stelcom and later was one of the more important cities of the Gulf Stellar Commune. It was formerly known as the New Life Martyr's City. We've renamed it Phoenix. You may have noticed the starport was pretty much wasted, as Fleetcom struck and destroyed all major military targets in the city and the vicinity. Angaroth was under blockade during the Vulcan campaign and nothing got past us. We didn't try to destroy the place, though – we had more important things to do.

"You two – let's see, Commander Prophet and Captain Nitro – will be assigned to the detention camps. We've got thousands of confirmed upper level government, party and military officials and plenty of suspect politicized or subversive civilians, and we've got to make decisions about them all. Meantime, a famine is approaching, along with associated diseases. Their pretend economy has collapsed and reality is approaching. The people of Angaroth are going to have to deal with it, and so will we. Our main problem is we can't spend a single credit of ConFree taxpayer money on these enemy nationals. Not one credit. And we sure as hell aren’t going to rebuild their country. That's up to them. But what we can do is make the old government and party disappear, and replace it with something else."

It sounded interesting. When the call for volunteers came, Arie and I had signed up immediately. We were underway the same day. I didn’t even bother to notify our minders on the
Tough Love
. I knew they were busy and might not even miss us for a few days. Things get pretty loose in a war, and raiding for bodies was a fine art.

"Don’t worry about the food situation, we have others working on that problem. Your mission will be to briefly interrogate every one of the detainees and deal with them all. We execute war criminals and we look for promising detainees at mid or lower levels who look like they have relatively open minds and some life experience, who may serve as part of the interim government." He paused, perhaps to breathe. The three us were still standing before the wall screen.

"How's the interim government going to work?" I asked.

"It will be a non-partisan government, set up by us. We're also organizing a new national militia police force, but no army or star fleet. Once it's in place, we leave. And we leave behind a few advisors, and that's all they do – advise, if they want advice. What they do after that is up to them, but one thing they're not going to do is return to the past, because the past is going to be dead.

"Let's see – oh, yeah, the former Pegal Stelcom is now known as Zone Three. That's us. It's occupied by ConFree. The former Asumara Holy Commune is now known as Zone One. It’s occupied by the AC. And the former Gulf Union is Zone Two, occupied jointly by ConFree and the AC. The idea is we don't want a unified state here, especially in light of recent history, so we're breaking the Stellar Commune back down into the original three states. The biogens did not want to participate in occupation duty, and neither did the Brights, and neither did the UMC. The B's are evidently retaining their base on Stormhaven.

"Ground rules: You will be armed at all times. All occupation forces have the power of arrest. The locals have no rights at all. At present we are the only law in town. Martial law with a curfew for the locals. The AC and biogens do have a presence here, so salute your allies.

"All right, that was the five-mark standing briefing. Each of you pick up one of those infopacks from that desk there. It will tell you all you need to know. Your quarters are in the Paradise Hostel – formerly the Worker's Paradise Hostel. Report to Detention Hqs at 0600 tomorrow. It's in the book. Oh, one more thing. We have a strict no-fraternization policy. You will not interact in any way with locals. Unless it's in the line of duty. You will not speak to the natives – not even to children. You will not do business with the locals. You will not have sex with the locals. Violation of the non-fraternization regs will get you arrested. We come as conquerors, not as friends. We are here to cleanse their society of poisonous elements, whether they like it or not, and then we leave. What they do after that is up to them. All we can do is hope they choose wisely."

Δ

Arie and I had breakfast the following morning in the mess hall that was set up in the spectacular Paradise Hostel dining hall, which featured a glittering chandelier set way up in the ceiling. Worker's Paradise indeed. It was clear that this had been reserved for the government elite. There were no locals in sight; the cafeteria was manned by enlisted Legion troopers.

"Get a load of this," Arie grinned over his breakfast. "This must have been written by some rear echelon weenie back in Quaba." He was going over the infopack that Commander Hunter had passed to us. "'Assignment Zone Three.' That's the title! Catchy, huh? First sentence – 'Your assignment to Occupation Zone Three will give you the privilege and the opportunity of working with the Allied civilian and military units stationed there at the invitation of the Confederation of Free Worlds. Your home during your tour of duty will be either the planet of Angaroth or Kotazh.' Blah blah blah…it's a privilege, Prophet!"

I laughed, but Arie was just getting warmed up. "'You will be assigned to one of several different units depending on your specific job. About two-thirds of Occupation personnel work in Angaroth, with the remainder located mostly in Kotazh.' Fun facts, huh?"

"Here's the part I like best: 'Zone Three is one of the most challenging locations to which a person can be assigned.' Ha! Gee, I wonder if it's more challenging than Vulcan."

"Come on, Arie, let's find that detention center."

Δ

The Legion aircar dropped us off outside an imposing stone office building in the suburbs that looked kind of like a giant bunker. There weren't too many windows. The previous owners had carved their affiliation right in stone over the main entrance:

Stellar Revolutionary Union Party Metro Hqs
People's Militia Psymed Directed Service

The new owners had erected a bright armorite sign above the old inscription. There was a Legion cross, and the text:

Zone Three Angaroth Security Detention Camp 8.

It looked like the actual detention facility was a great field full of tents behind the building, surrounded by razor-wire fences. To one side of the building, there was a giant glowing billboard that showed a still holo of a grisly tangle of shot-up armored Legion corpses under a dark sky, the A-suits torn to shreds by a tacstar, the armor still glowing, leaking crimson blood. My adrenalin activated, just looking at that awful scene. The sign warned in bright red letters:

REMEMBER THE PAST!

NO FRATERNIZING!

"Good morning, gentlemen!" Our new chief, Commander Crash, was addressing a small group of new arrivals, including Arie and me. We were in a fairly large room that was just off the main entry hall. It looked like it had once served as the office for a high ranking police official. But it was now serving a new master. Commander Crash was a small, intense guy, a wired-up bundle of energy in camfax fatigues. That was the duty uniform on Angaroth. The Stellar Commune had surrendered unconditionally and we were now in charge. And we didn’t have to impress anyone.