“His was one of the first arrest orders I signed after we overthrew Lionstone and her people. I made sure he got the same cell he gave me, for old time’s sake. I wanted him hanged too, but he had a real good lawyer and a lot of connections. His kind always do. Even so, I was able to make sure he got life imprisonment, in solitary. No parole, no luxuries, no time off for good behavior. But now here he is, back in charge of a planet again. And I want to know why.”
“Please put the Councillor down, sir Random,” said Savage diffidently. “There are armed guards on their way, and I really don’t want to have to order them to take you down.”
“That’s right,” Ruby said easily. “You really don’t want to do that. It wouldn’t be wise.”
Savage considered the point. “Then may I at least point out that Councillor de Lisle can’t actually answer any questions while being strangled.”
Random nodded reluctantly and dropped de Lisle onto the tabletop. Savage let out an audible sigh of relief. De Lisle lay on his back, massaging his bruised throat and gasping down air. Random jumped down from the table and turned to face the other Councillors.
“I don’t know you, but I might just kill you all anyway for sitting with de Lisle. So sit tight and be quiet. Or I’ll have Ruby reason with you.”
“Yeah,” said Ruby. “I can be very reasonable when I put my mind to it.”
De Lisle resumed his seat behind the table. None of the other Councillors moved to help him. His face was very pale as he tried to pull the tatters of his dignity around him.
“Now,” said Random almost calmly, “talk to me, de Lisle. Tell me everything. Explain how you came to be here in a position of power again. Bearing in mind that if your answer isn’t extremely convincing, I am going to hang you from the city walls. In pieces.”
No one in the room thought he was joking. De Lisle cleared his throat painfully.
“I was Pardoned,” he said flatly. “The Empire needed someone with mining experience to run this hellhole, and candidates were, understandably, somewhat hard to find. I was offered the post on the condition I never leave this planet. I accepted. I should have known better. This planet is just one big prison.”
“My heard bleeds for you,” said Random. “I can’t believe they gave a scumbag like you a Pardon.”
“In return for a lifetime’s service here,” said de Lisle. “What’s the matter, sir Random? Doesn’t the great rebel hero believe in redemption through atonement?”
“Not in your case. But much as I hate to admit it, I’m going to need your local expertise. So, you’re going to be my second in command, arranging the things I need. I’ll take Peter Savage here as my liaison, if only because having to meet with you on a regular basis would undoubtedly turn my stomach. And don’t mess with me, de Lisle. I won’t be betrayed again.” De Lisle nodded jerkily. Random looked at the other Councillors. “Someone fill me in on the political situation here. Exactly who are the rebels, what are they rebelling against, and what in God’s good name led them to ally themselves with Shub?”
“My name is Bentley,” said one of the Councillors, after they’d all spent some time waiting for someone else to start. Bentley was a tall, slender man with a shaved head and eyes so pale blue they were almost colorless. “I’m in charge of Security. Our situation here is really quite simple. The rebel leaders are the ex-Planetary Controller Matthew Tallon, and the ex-Mayor of this city, Terrence Jacks. They led the rebellion that overthrew the old order here under Lionstone. Your comrades in the great rebellion, sir Random. After throwing out or executing Lionstone’s people, they put themselves in charge.
“However, they had no real experience in running a planetary economy, and were soon out of their depth, though they wouldn’t admit it. They gave the people of Loki the vote, and after a series of blunders and mismanagement that nearly bankrupted the economy, the people voted them out of office. Tallon and Jacks took this badly, blamed the whole thing on hidden elements of the old order. They retreated to the outer settlements and gathered a new rebel force around them, mostly people disillusioned that the new order hadn’t immediately made them all wealthy and powerful. It wasn’t much of a force, and they weren’t much of a problem. Until the Shub forces arrived to back them up. Apparently, in the last days of their power, Tallon and Jacks had secretly formed an alliance with the enemies of Humanity. And now Young Jack Random leads the rebel forces. Tallon and Jacks stay pretty much in the background these days.”
“So,” said Random. “I’ve been sent here to fight for the established order against old rebel comrades.”
“Got it in one,” said de Lisle, though he had sense enough not to smile when he said it. “Funny how things work out, isn’t it?”
“Don’t push it,” said Random. “At least now I know why Parliament wanted me here. They think coverage of me fighting rebel forces will tie me more strongly to them, distance me from any forces that might oppose Parliament’s authority. Well, we’ll see about that. Right now Ruby and I need some rest. No doubt your quarters are the most comfortable, de Lisle, so we’ll take them. You’ll have to make your own arrangements. Any problems, talk to my liaison, Savage, and he will officially ignore them on my behalf. Savage, we’re leaving.”
“Yes, sir Random. Please follow me.
Random nodded to the Councillors, Ruby nodded to the guards she was covering with her gun, and they stalked out of the room after Savage. And for a long time in the Council chamber, no one said anything.
Some time later, when everyone but the night shift was safely asleep, Savage, Random, and Ruby moved quietly through the narrow streets, hidden inside concealing cloaks. Savage had already arranged it so that the guards on duty at the main computer center were friends of his, and they looked pointedly away as Savage led Random and Ruby in through the main door, using his new security rating to override the security systems. Once inside, Savage searched out the right terminal, then set about calling up all kinds of files he wasn’t supposed to know about. If having Random staring over his shoulder made him nervous, he did his best to hide it. Ruby watched the door, gun in hand, just in case.
Random was surprised at how easy it had been. When he’d first explained to Savage that he wanted information only the main city computers were likely to have, he’d expected all kinds of problems. Instead, Savage had arranged everything with only a few quick calls to some old friends.
“Run the names and backgrounds of all the city Councillors,” said Random. “What brought them here, and who put them in authority?”
“Officially, the voters did,” said Savage, working his way past security blocks with the ease of long practice. “But since we’re all very new to democracy here, the winners tend to be those with the most money to spend during elections. As to their backgrounds . . . they were all Pardoned war criminals. How about that? All five of them were arrested and tried for crimes against Humanity, convicted and imprisoned, but later offered Pardons if they’d come and run things here.”
“And that includes Bentley, the Security chief?”
“Yeah. He was the first. Took up his position under Tallon and Jacks. Far as I know, he’s always done a good job.”
“Who authorized these Pardons?” said Random, frowning. “And whose idea was it to send them here?”
“That information isn’t here, sir Random. Or if it is, it’s buried so deep I can’t get at it. But only someone fairly high up in Parliament would have had the authority to set something like this in motion, and keep it quiet. I can tell you none of the colonists here knew about this. A lot of us took part in the original rebellion, and there’s no way we would have stood for that. Hell, maybe Tallon and Jacks had some justification, after all.”
“There’s no justification for allying with Shub,” said Random. “Let’s see what else we can find on the Councillors. Crack open their bank accounts. I want to see what they’re being paid to run things here.”
Savage had to use a lot of passwords he wasn’t supposed to know, but he finally got the answers he was looking for. Even the best systems will fall to an experienced hacker, and as Savage diffidently pointed out, there wasn’t a lot of things to do in Vidar when you were young and restless. Which was why Loki had the highest percentage of cyberats per population of any planet in the Empire. Random’s smile at that fell away as he saw the figures Savage had dug up for him. The Councillors were taking a percentage of Loki’s gross output. Not just a part of the profits, they were creaming money right off the top. They were also pocketing a large percentage of all tax monies, and every other public purse they could get their hands on, and depositing the money in banks on Golgotha. If this continued, the Loki economy would inevitably collapse, though no doubt the Councillors would have arranged their escape long before that became obvious.
Savage went from shocked to furious to a cold rage in a few seconds. “If the colonists knew about this, they’d drag the Councillors out of their beds and lynch them on the spot. But there’s no way these people could have set this up themselves, sir Random. Someone much higher up has to be covering for them. Someone on Golgotha.”
“Damn,” said Random. “Maybe I am fighting on the wrong side. If Tallon and Jacks knew about this . . . Look, is there any way we can contact the rebel forces? Secretly? If we could persuade them to settle their grievances through the system, with my support . . .”
“You don’t understand,” said Savage, shutting down his terminal and turning to face Random. “You haven’t seen what they’ve been doing. The rebels fight alongside the Ghost Warriors. They’ve been wiping out the outer settlements—whole towns and villages, murdered down to the last man, woman, and child. Afterward, the rebels help the Ghost Warriors collect the more intact adult bodies so they can be made over into Ghost Warriors. The other bodies . . . it’s not just Shub that commits atrocities. Let me call up some vid footage we have from their last attack.”
He activated a viewscreen, and Random and Ruby watched Shub and rebel forces destroy a town with fire and steel and horror. Savage watched their faces more than the screen. He’d already seen the vid footage, and knew he’d never be able to forget it.
Ghost Warriors went stalking through the street, killing everything that moved that wasn’t them. Corpses, with gray and blue skin, metal eyes, and grinning teeth revealed by cracked and rotting lips. Some so badly damaged that bones showed through tears in exposed meat, or loops of tattered intestine hung from slashed-open bellies. Computer implants moved servomechanisms in dead limbs, and men and women who had fallen nobly in battle were raised again against their wishes to fight in the name of Shub. Terror weapons, horror troops, they could not be hurt, argued with, or stopped. As long as the armored computer implant remained intact, whatever remained of the body would keep going, obeying its merciless orders.
They stalked their human prey with inhuman patience. Buildings blazed around them, the leaping flames fanned by the endless winds. The living went blade to blade with the dead, to defend their homes or perhaps only to buy time for their loved ones to escape, but they all died in the end. The Ghost Warriors would not stop till all that lived lay still before them, dead as they were. That was how they had been programmed. They dragged the last few women and children from their hiding places and put on a show for the camera, tearing their victims apart with inhuman strength. Afterward, the Ghost Warriors built strange constructions from human pieces, dozens of feet high, with human bones as support and eyeless children’s faces as ornaments.
The scene faded away, and the viewscreen shut itself down. Random let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He’d seen his share of death and slaughter and atrocity down the years, but this implacable, mechanical murder chilled his soul. He looked across at Savage.
“I saw people in there. Humans, not Ghost Warriors. They were killing too, and looting. Rebels?”
“That’s right,” said Savage. “They’re a part of everything that happens. That village was called Trawl. Population maybe five hundred. I had family there. They’re all dead now. Trawl didn’t even have any strategic value, but the rebels destroyed it anyway. Just because it was there. And they killed everyone to send us a message: that there was nothing they wouldn’t do, and that there was nothing we could do to stop them. I lost all that remained of my family in Trawl. There’s nobody else. I am the last of my line, and my name dies with me.”
“Yeah,” said Ruby. “There’s a lot of that about these days. I can’t believe humans would fight alongside Ghost Warriors of their own free will.”
Savage shrugged. “They’re desperate. A lot of them have old scores to settle. And maybe . . . they’ve developed a taste for killing. I don’t know. Sometimes I think the whole Empire’s gone crazy. The old order was bad, but what we’ve got now is worse.”
“It’s just a transition,” said Random. “There were always bound to be . . . difficulties in replacing one system with another. Things will get better in time.”
“I’m sure that’s a comfort to all those who die during your transition,” said Savage. “Or to those who have to watch them die. What happened, sir Random? I always believed in you. Watched your battle against Lionstone on black-market vids. Prayed that someday, somehow, you’d succeed. Now I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Have faith,” said Random. “Not in me, but in the people. They’ll put the Empire back together again and make it stronger than it was. All this will pass.”
“If you start talking about birth pains again, I may puke,” said Ruby.
“Nothing of worth is ever achieved without pain and sacrifice,” said Random, concentrating on Savage. “We owe it to those who have died to keep on fighting, to keep struggling, for what they and we believe in.”
“I want to believe,” said Savage. “I want all this death and suffering to have been for something. But what have we achieved if people like de Lisle can come back to power again?”