Louis Shalako
The planet was interesting in the political sense.
There was no single planetary government, just local
governments in the larger, more organized towns. Outside of that, there were
company properties, where their own rules and regs held sway, and then there
was private property. This was where the adage that a man’s home was his castle
held sway in every practical sense. Everything else was wide open, public land
and first-come, first-served, assuming some covenant with the natives. They
always had to be taken into account. The original treaties, for there were many
tribes, dated back hundreds of years to the era of first contact and initial
exploration. One might have expected problems, but there was plenty of room for
everyone. The really bad eggs didn’t last very long when virtually every adult,
human or Denebi, was armed and prepared to use it…more than one real asshole,
grossly over-estimating his importance in the world, had ended up in a shallow
grave in the hills. Assuming enough backstory, your neighbours just accepted
that so-and-so was no longer around.
Not too many questions would be asked once the best
man, or woman, had clearly won.
As for the Denebians, they seemed to accept new plants
and animals almost as a matter of course. The ethics of all of that sort of
thing was so far out of her field as to be almost incomprehensible. With
invasive species and attempts to develop products for export, there was always
going to be a cost, some real hard trade-offs between the old and the new.
It was one hell of a planet, but she liked it just
fine so far.
Having tapped into the closed-circuit camera system in
public areas and in the larger municipal buildings in Deneb City, her command
team was watching as the Unfriendlies took control of the place.
These were augmented by the views from the
Confederation’s own cameras and the pickups on individual fire-team members.
The satellite was always watching, but these were close-ups, street-scenes, and
interior shots.
Their lightly armoured patrol vehicles were similar to
Confederation vehicles, corresponding to a similar purpose. The soldiers seemed
disciplined, with small deployments at major intersections.
It was a display as much as anything, as they checked
papers and stickers, plates and vehicle registrations…we have the power now was the obvious message.
They were in the main public square, and they were out
in front of city hall and the police station. Their actions seemed calm and
unhurried, the facial expressions unreadable from long distance. They were just
blobs in vaguely humanoid form, moving about in a dry and dusty urban
landscape. On the edge of the desert, there were even fifteen or twenty-metre
palm trees up and down the main boulevards. That must have taken some real
money.
A small detachment entered each building, and there
were cameras watching inside. They were able to watch the transition from one
government to the next. If it could be stated in those terms.
So far, it seemed a bloodless transition. So far, no
one had been crazy enough to resist.
Other detachments proceeded by vehicle to the outlying
parts of Deneb City. They were setting up roadblocks on all major streets and
roads, some of which petered out into tracks leading into the hills. They were
blocking the two major highways and the short road leading south out of the
city towards the spaceport. Highway 17 proceeded northeast about twenty
kilometres before turning north, and Highway 3 originated and continued on from
there. It was an obvious roadblock, a classic choke-point in anyone’s military
handbook. There was an Unfriendly platoon there, with their vehicles and some
heavy machine guns. The airwaves were heavy with coded traffic.
The rioting, more of a demonstration, had faded as
quickly as it had broken out. A few minor injuries were being reported. Again,
the reporting was surprisingly objective. A dozen people had gotten themselves
arrested, and these were being held in civilian police headquarters. The
Unfriendlies were being nice, for the moment. Most of the grain trucks had made
it out of the city, and the first of them had already made it to the junction,
all of it on paved roads, twenty-five kilometres north on Highway 17. There
they were turning left and heading north, ultimate destination Ryanville, and
all according to plan.
The vehicles, fully automatic, had been loaded by
robotic machinery. They had the usual cameras and sensors linked by civilian
satellite to an autonomous but supervised control program. They were a couple
of kilometres out from Force H’s position, under Captain Herzon.
Sooner or later, the Unfriendlies must realize what
had happened—they were already patrolling the industrial sectors, which
included milling and storage facilities for grain, as well as meat-packers,
food processing operations and a couple of small breweries. The planet had its
own favourite soft drink, the sticky black fluid a clone of some old and
familiar cola standby. The city had all the usual industrial plants necessary
to support the planetary population. (Milo was a separate case, largely
self-sufficient in that it had direct imports and its own industrial base.) The
last few grain trucks had been held back at the facility, once the enemy got
moving properly.
They’d shut down the control system, but all her trucks had been pre-programmed. The
enemy had used bulldozers to stop the last two or three machines, which, upon
hitting or being hit by such an obstruction, had promptly shut down. The
Unfriendlies must shut the civilian satellite and the phone system down…sooner
or later. This alone would cause great disruption, which was one reason not to
do it except as a last resort.
The enemy would have their own basic plan.
They would stick to it as long as it seemed to be
working for them. They must have something in mind, no matter how crude or how
cynical, to win the hearts and minds of at least some of the people…they needed
cooperation above all else, and you couldn’t just massacre everyone. Even the
Unfriendlies knew that.
The Unfriendlies were just as prone, or prey, to guesswork as she was—something
to bear in mind.
Other cameras, deployed by their fire-teams on
rooftops and heights surrounding the city showed a pair of helicopters,
military, circuiting the city, equipped with missiles, guns and other light
weapons. It was a show of force for the local population. The helos hadn’t gone
much more than a couple of kilometres out from the city perimeter. They hadn’t
landed anywhere except the port and the city centre, where, presumably, senior
officers would be quartered. The enemy would have a headquarters, just as she
did. A juicy target—at the risk of sacrificing Team Three. The Unfriendlies
might be putting out some bait, but then so had the Confederation.
It was important to shoot first and shoot
accurately—bearing in mind the enemy would shoot back, perhaps just as accurately.
Wherever the enemy was, they would employ similar
trains of thought, and most likely such a building would be extremely
attractive from that point of view. Dona only had so many missiles. Every
single one had to count. The worst possible outcome would be for a
Confederation missile to hit a civilian building full of people and no
Unfriendlies in residence. It was a matter of importance not to do that.
Unfortunately, all of their sources so far were
civilians, enthusiastic and almost ecstatic at the thought of a missile
strike…but civilians nevertheless.
This was always going to be problematical.
Not heavily-armoured gunships, the helos could
nevertheless be mounted with quite a variety of battlefield weapons systems
according to their intel books.
A study of the literature on that particular model,
small and easily disassembled for transport, indicated the craft would be able
to reach Roussef, with a short loiter period of about forty statute minutes.
With a pilot and co-pilot, they could carry six to eight troops, still with a
small weapons-load of its own. Heavily-laden the range was much less. That’s
not to say they wouldn’t or couldn’t be used for hit-and-run raids…that was for
sure. Only two had been seen. How many they might have still crated or under
assembly, was another unknown. In addition to the spaceport, there were
civilian and commercial operations across the field at the airport. All sorts
of big loads had been taken out of the belly of the big transports. They were
crated and tarped and there was no real way to know what was actually in there.
There were a couple of dozen civilian craft available to the enemy, perhaps
more if they got desperate enough to grab pure sporting and recreational
models. These were being guarded, staked out in the open air, but otherwise
left alone.
Anything could be going on inside of those hangars.
So far, they hadn’t scouted very far to the north of
the city, in the direction of their eventual attack. They were aware of, or
must suspect that teams equipped with Barkers or other anti-aircraft capability
were out there. It was even possible that the helos were simply trying to draw
fire. Her people in the city were under strict orders not to take such bait, no
matter how tempting. There would be time enough for that when the enemy
actually began to move, which one would assume they must at some point.
Individual units were aware of their own particular time-lines.
Still, there would always be temptation.
The whole point of the exercise was to take control of
the planet—and until all Confederation forces had been eliminated or they had
formally surrendered, that would always be in question.
There were already signs that an attack was being
prepared.
As the day wore on, reports came in from civilians,
and much shorter messages from observers with the fire-teams. These confirmed
what the civvies were saying.
Having spent two and a half days in unloading and
prepping their weapons and vehicles, the Unfriendlies were forming up in
columns of armoured vehicles, weapons-vehicles, transports and scout vehicles.
The most impressive were the medium tanks of the
Joshua type.
She had a funny feeling that those were pointed right
at her.
Dawn was breaking, and there seemed to be an awful lot
of activity down there.
Troops milled around, sergeants and corporals mustered
their sections and officers stood in small clumps, waiting for last-minute
instructions and briefing on their respective missions.
The trooper beside her spoke.
“Hmn. It won’t be long now, Colonel Graham.” She gave
the Colonel a look. “Why haven’t they cut off the phone system? That’s kind of
interesting.”
“Ah. But they want us to know they’re coming—what with
all that overwhelming force and all.”
The enemy could monitor all kinds of conversations,
listen to what the civilians were saying, what they were telling the
Confederation, thereby knowing what the Confederation knew, (or might think
they knew), and even have their own agents plant information that might not be
strictly accurate. They would let it run and begin building a list of civilian
names—names that would no doubt receive a nasty-gram from the Unfriendlies at
some point, possibly even a home visit, and in some cases, an arrest and
detainment. The enemy would be recording everything.
There was no such thing as the right to privacy, or
civil and human rights under the Unfriendlies.
They had tried to tell more than one civilian source
exactly that, unfortunately it was like they just didn’t get it.
Maybe they just didn’t care. Didn’t think it would
ever apply to them—it was cold, it was hard, it was analytical.
It was also true—too true.
Now was the time—
“People are risking a lot to help us, and I want you
all to understand that.”
“Yes, Colonel Graham.”
The trooper bit her lip and nodded. It made a lot of
sense, and it was like a murmur going through the room.
The room was very quiet, as all eyes on shift studied
the situation.
(End of part fourteen.)
Previous
Episodes.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six.
Part Seven.
Part Eight.
Part Nine.
Part Ten.
Part Eleven.
Part Twelve.
Images.
Image One. Denebola-Seven Chamber of Commerce.
Image Two. Confederation Public Communications Office.
Image Three. CPCO.
Image Four. Collection of Louis Shalako.
Image Five. CPCO.
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