Democracy's Right

Chapter Sixteen

Colin paced the command deck, feeling the seconds ticking away.

It was irrational, he knew, yet he couldn’t stop feeling as if some great unseen doom was rushing towards him. Seeing the images from the planet below — he’d had them put on the open datanet, allowing the entire crew to see what they were fighting against — had reminded him of his certain fate if he were to lose the war. And, if he’d had any doubts, it was also proof that he was fighting on the right side. Colin wouldn’t have lost any sleep over the deaths of serial killers or paedophiles, yet the Empire had placed such abominable people in with rebels and others who had merely wanted a better life for themselves. It was a chilling reminder of the true nature of the Empire. It was a system that just didn’t care.

The records they’d recovered from the orbital station hadn’t been that detailed, not entirely to Colin’s surprise. Hester had given them a list of names she wanted recovered, yet Colin knew that it would be as much a matter of luck as judgement. The Marines had dispatched shuttles on recon missions to search for unregistered settlements — the Empire hadn’t bothered to keep close track of the prisoners, hence the shortage of data on the planet’s vicious wildlife — but there was no way to guarantee results. Colin was mildly surprised that the planet hadn’t been turned into a hunting world for members of the Thousand Families — there were several worlds with unpleasant wildlife that served in that role — yet they were over six months from Earth. Or perhaps someone senior had conspired to hide the data in order to save them having to find another penal world.

He glanced up at the display as another of the small freighters broke orbit and headed down towards the planet’s surface, summoned by one of the Marine teams. The smaller freighters had one advantage over the other transports; if worst came to worse, they could flicker out from within the planet’s atmosphere, escaping any vengeful Imperial Navy fleet. Colin had reinforced their crews with Marines — some of the prisoners they rescued were likely to fall into the category of people who had thoroughly deserved their sentence –yet it was something else that worried him. He had already privately determined that if they did happen to recover a genuine criminal, that criminal would be escorted to an airlock and ejected out into space. It was harsh, but if they released a real criminal, the Empire would get a hell of a propaganda victory out of it. Besides, he had grown up on a world where criminals had often been free to do as they pleased. A quick decompression was almost merciful.

“Admiral, we may have a problem,” Flag Captain Jeremy Damiani said. Colin looked up sharply. Damiani would not have been human if he hadn’t resented the elevation of a mere Commander over his head, even though he hadn’t been part of the rebellion, yet he’d carried out his duties well. Even Anderson, a compulsive paranoid, had admitted that. “The long-range sensors picked up traces of a flicker emergence.”

Colin brought up the display on his own private console and frowned. Something had definitely emerged into the system, out beyond the orbit of the outermost world. It wasn’t charging at them and spitting out missiles, which suggested that Percival hadn’t anticipated their movements and had a superdreadnaught squadron of his own in a position to intercept them, but it was worrying. Who were they and what did they want? It was possible, he knew, that they might be pirates or free-traders, yet Colin didn’t believe in coincidence. Besides, the interrogation of Commander Fox hadn’t revealed any links to free-traders, a depressing burst of honesty on the part of an otherwise deeply corrupt man.

“They’re watching us,” he decided. It made sense. None of the nearby stars had a force capable of meeting his superdreadnaughts and destroying them, so they’d sent a single ship in to watch his force and attempt to track them when they flickered out. He ran through the calculations in his head, but there was no way to tell which particular system had sent the observing starship. If it was an observing starship and not just a free-trader trying to hide, or a pirate crew plotting their latest raid. “I want you to detach two of the battlecruisers and send them on a recon patrol. We might as well try to scare them out of concealment.”

“Yes, sir,” Damiani said. He hesitated. It was the job of a Flag Captain to raise any concerns he might have, yet his previous commanding officer hadn’t thought highly of anyone who dared to question her. “The enemy ship will have cloaked. They may not find anything.”

“Possibly,” Colin said. He shrugged. “It’s still worth a try.” He keyed his console, bringing up the link to the landing parties. “Inform the Marines to try to speed things up, if possible. We may be running out of time up here.”

Simon looked around his hut, marvelling at how little there was that he truly cared for, or about. The small collection of clothes — made from local materials — could be left behind without causing his heart to turn over, while the handful of tools they’d made could be abandoned to the tender mercies of the bandits. The blankets Alice and he had used when they’d snuggled together against the cold — the planet’s variable star ensured that some winters were colder than others — were nothing more than a reminder of everything they’d lost, including two children. Alice had miscarried twice before they’d finally given up trying to have kids. It was just another example of how the Empire didn’t care. They claimed to want a colony created by Simon and his descendents, yet the conditions they’d created seemed designed to prevent them from having any descendents.

Shaking his head, he walked out of the hut, leaving the door open. It had never really been locked anyway, not when locks had been beyond their capabilities to produce. The bandits could take Haven, if they wanted it; the entire settlement had chosen to leave and head off into orbit with the Marines. The rebels had promised that, if they didn’t want to fight, they could go to a more survivable colony somewhere past the Rim. They hadn’t given details, and not all of the involuntary settlers trusted them, but it was the best offer they had. Besides, the Empire wouldn’t waste time with an imaginative pretence, not if they wanted to rid the planet of human life. They would just have dropped a tailored virus and exterminated the settlers.

The shuttles had lifted off for a moment and used their drives to scorch the sand, preventing the sand-crawlers from breaking through to the surface and coming to attack the humans as they walked out onto the sand. The Marines had spread out and were maintaining a perimeter, although Simon privately suspected that some of them wanted trophies to take back to their base. One of the crawlers — a spider-like creature that they rarely saw openly — had been yanked out of its nest and torn apart by one of the Marines. Simon envied them their powered armour. Without it, they would probably have been forced into stony ground too, not unlike the settlers.

“Hurry,” one of the Marines ordered. At Simon’s request, a small party had been sent to contact the Crabs and invite them to leave as well, although he’d detected little enthusiasm for the job. Humans had been told for so long that they were vastly superior to any alien race that even the decent ones believed it. “We may not have much time.”

The women were already onboard the shuttles. Given their condition, the Marine CO had ordered that they be sent up first, in order for the doctors to take a look at them. Simon wondered if Alice would want to stay with him, if she discovered other options, yet it didn’t matter. Restoring them all to health would take time and effort. Simon turned to look back towards Haven and smiled. The town probably wouldn’t last a month without the humans attempting to maintain it, and then there would be no trace that they had ever lived on the surface of the godforsaken world. The bandits would be all that was left of humanity on the penal world.

He looked back towards the shuttle as he stepped through the hatch, climbing into the ship’s interior. It felt wonderful to be in an air conditioned compartment again, although it was a mocking reminder that he and his fellow settlers stank. Once they were in orbit, who knew what would happen to them? He hadn’t had a proper shower in years. Swimming in the planet’s lakes and oceans was nothing more than a quick way of committing suicide.

And then he heard the howling.

Neil watched, keeping his expression blank with an effort, as the aliens marched into one of the shuttles. Actually, calling it a march was being generous, he decided; it looked more like a scuttle. The Crabs hadn’t believed the Marines at first — why should they, when the only Marines they had encountered beforehand had been the ones who had boarded their ships — yet the sight of the shuttles had convinced them. Only a few had chosen to leave the planet though, much to Neil’s surprise; the remainder had chosen to remain in their underwater colony and stay away from the human race.

His head snapped up inside his helmet as his audio receptors picked up the howling. It was coming from human mouths, yet there was nothing human in it, as if an alien was speaking through their vocal cords. His sensors picked them up a moment later, tall figures sneaking through the jungle, heading right towards the shuttles. Before he could do more than raise his weapon, the jungle parted, revealing the bandits in all of their glory. Neil shuddered. Whatever they had once been, they had forsaken it long ago; they had even forsaken their humanity. They were monsters.

The bandits were naked, carrying nothing, but spears and a handful of projectile weapons that they carried as if they intended to use them as clubs. Their eyes were bright with madness, a madness that sought to devour everything on the planet. The Empire had dumped thousands of criminally-insane men on the surface, yet being on the planet — surviving when so many others had died — had only made their condition worse. He understood, now, why the women of the settlement had been so scared of the bandits. These weren’t just evil men; these were men for whom the concept of right and wrong had faded away long ago, if they even had the intellect to understand how far they had fallen. The human beast, stripped down to its essentials, was not a pretty sight. The bandits only wanted to survive. They had literally nothing else to live for.

“My God,” one of the Marines breathed. “Sir…?”

“Hold your positions,” Neil ordered, over the secure channel. The howling of the bandits was growing worse, as if they were posturing over an issue beyond the comprehension of a sane human being. They lifted their primitive weapons and waved them at the Marines, stamping their feet and howling their feelings; they weren’t, as far as he could tell, actually speaking in any language. They might have lost their grasp of the human tongue long ago. “Let the Crabs get into their shuttles and then we can fall back…”

One of the Crabs, just for a second, came into view and all of the bandits stared at it. A moment later, their howls grew louder, as if the mere sight of the alien had brought on a mental shift. They seemed, almost, to be shouting out a word, although Neil’s suit couldn’t translate it. That was odd — as far as he knew, few had been on the planet long enough for it to develop a dialect of its own — yet it was the least of his worries. The lead bandit had lifted a primitive stone axe, held it to the sky as if he expected the local star to bless it, and then hurled it right at Neil’s armour. It glanced off, of course, yet it was the signal for the bandits. They all started hurling their axes at the Marines and, past them, at the Crabs.

“Shoot the axes down,” Neil ordered. His weapon interlinked with the suit’s systems, spitting out bursts of plasma towards the axes, destroying them in flight. He half-expected the bandits to realise what they were up against and start running, but instead they charged — right at the Marines. Neil didn’t have a moment to act before one of them landed on top of his suit, clawing at the armour. He saw the man’s eyes through the visor and shuddered. There was no sign of any rationality there. “Take them out.”

He plucked his attacker off his armour and threw him towards the edge of the sand, where the crawlers were lying in wait. The bandit didn’t have a moment to scream before a crawler appeared and gnashed his head off, dragging the remainder of his body under the sand. The other bandits were rapidly disposed of by the Marines, yet none of them had the sense to run, to flee the gods in invincible armour. It dawned on Neil that, just perhaps, the bandits had wanted to die, that they hadn’t wanted to remain alive on the penal world. Or maybe not; if they’d wanted to die, their world offered many ways to do it, some almost painless. There were already signs of life stirring in the jungle, drawn by the smell of blood and dead bodies.

“Get into the shuttles,” he ordered. He took a moment to check in with the other Marine parties. Between them, they’d liberated nearly a hundred thousand prisoners. It looked impressive, but he knew that the Empire had funnelled over two million prisoners onto the penal world. What had happened to the others? There was no way to know for sure, but it was easy to guess. Their penal world had killed them. “It’s time to get the hell off this planet.”

“And thank god for that,” one of the Marine said.

Neil didn’t bother to argue. He shared the same sentiments.

“The shuttles are returning to their ships now, Admiral,” the communications officer reported. “The freighters are already preparing to flicker out to the rendezvous point.”

“Clear them to depart when they’re ready,” Colin ordered, not taking his eyes off the display. Shadow and Thunder Child, two ships from the former Observation Squadron, were still hunting for the unknown ship, yet they’d found nothing. Colin wasn’t too surprised — it had been a search for a needle in a haystack — but it had been worth a try. Besides, it allowed him a chance to see how the starship crews coped with the mission, after he’d resorted the crews to make it harder for any surviving Imperial Intelligence agents to put together a counter-mutiny. “The remainder of us will be along soon enough.”

He’d given his word that Commander Fox and his men wouldn’t be harmed and he intended to keep it, if not completely. They’d interrogated the women who had been kept on the orbiting station and they’d testified that many — indeed, most — of the crew had been abusive, more than willing to hurt the women if they refused to cooperate. Colin didn’t intend to allow that to pass unpunished; besides, Commander Fox had no information Colin needed. Once the interrogations had been completed, Colin had transferred them into a pod and left them there. Unlike the Empire, Colin had included a supply of medical equipment and even some weapons, although they wouldn’t last forever. Once the power cells ran out, they would be gone.

“Launch the pod,” he ordered. A moment later, Commander Fox’s pod fell out of orbit and started falling down towards the planet’s surface, near one of the few settlements that had refused to leave the planet. There had been times when the pods had burned up in the atmosphere, rather than landing on the surface, but Colin’s engineers had checked the pod. It should deliver its contents to the surface relatively safely. “Helm; power up the drive and prepare to jump us out of here.”

He took one last look at the network of orbital defences covering the planet, and then he tapped a code into his console. Their self-destruct systems activated, destroying the defences and leaving the wreckage falling down towards the surface of the planet. If nothing else, the Empire would have to replace all of the facilities before they repossessed the planet and started shipping out new convicts. It was just another nail in Admiral Percival’s coffin.

“Take us out of here,” he ordered. “It’s time to go home.”

Commander Fox had run out of curses long ago as the pod headed down towards the surface of the planet. It was no smooth shuttle ride, but a bumpy fall towards the surface of the planet, disaster averted only by the parachute deploying and dumping them somewhere on the main continent. The shock of the impact left them all stunned for a few moments, before he finally managed to free himself from the webbing and stagger towards the hatch. It took another few minutes of wrestling before the hatch opened and he half-fell onto the surface of the planet. The stench hit him at once and he wrinkled his nose, feeling vomit bubbling up from inside him. He swallowed hard and looked around. They were lying right on the edge of a massive patch of sand, near a jungle. In the distance, he could see smoke…

And there was something moving, just below the surface of the sand.

“Come on,” he shouted.

And then he started to run.