Persepolis Rising

Chapter Twenty-Four: Singh

Singh’s monitor lay flattened on the desk in front of him. Above it floated a 3-D projection of Natalia and Elsa smiling back at him. It wasn’t a great shot of them. He’d photographed it himself, and it was a little out of focus. But it was taken at the park where they’d had the monster’s second birthday party, and his daughter grinned out at him with cheeks covered in vanilla frosting, and Nat positively glowed with happiness. It was one of his favorite memories.

Once the Typhoon arrives, I will be able to move to the important work. It also almost certainly means this posting at Medina will be made permanent soon. I want you to start thinking about relocation. Your work was always about helping the colony worlds establish stable food sources, and this is the hub of everything. They’ll welcome your research here with open arms. And I promise, the water issues should be fixed by the time you and Monster would arrive. Nothing but clean water for you guys, or I’ll tear the station down one bolt at a time and rebuild it myself. I also—

“Governor,” a voice said from the monitor, startling him.

“Yes?”

“Major Overstreet is here, he says it’s an emergency.”

“All right,” Singh replied, then shut down the image and saved his letter to finish later. “Send him in.”

Overstreet was almost the physical opposite of his predecessor. Where Colonel Tanaka was tall almost to the point of rangy, he was short, thick-necked and broad, with fists the size of boxing gloves. His shaved head was the palest skin Singh had ever seen, and his eyes were an icy blue. Among Martians, that combination was fairly exotic.

“Governor,” Overstreet said with a sharp salute.

“At ease, Major.”

Overstreet shifted his feet apart and linked his hands behind his back. Where Tanaka had been all arrogant insouciance, Overstreet was every bit the disciplined Marine. Singh liked working with him.

“Governor, I’m sorry to report another terrorist incident. Unfortunately, this one also included a loss of life.”

Loss of life only meant one thing in this context: a Laconian fatality.

“Thank you for keeping it off the wire, Major,” Singh said. Following the assassination attempt, he’d ordered that any further terrorist activity be kept as quiet as possible. They needed the population of Medina to feel like they were safe under Laconian control. “Who and where?”

“Second Lieutenant Imari, an enviromental support specialist. She was tracking an air-filtration error and wound up in a crawl space on the outermost level of the drum. A small improvised explosive device was remotely detonated. Lieutenant Imari was killed instantly. One of her techs received minor injuries and is being treated on the Storm.”

“Imari,” Singh said, concentrating until he could place a face with the name. He’d only met her a few times. Pleasant and professional in all their interactions. And her skills with environmental systems would be sorely missed in Medina’s refit. “Do we know who?”

“I had bomb techs on the site within minutes of the blast,” Overstreet said. “The chemicals used to manufacture the explosive were traced to a storage compartment on drum level two. I pulled the logs. The majority of those with access have been identified. Marines have already begun rounding them up.”

“That is excellent work, Major,” Singh said. Overstreet brought him a solution with every problem he reported. It made his own terrible misstep with Tanaka feel like a blessing in disguise.

“The rules of engagement allow us to treat active terror cells as enemy combatants,” Overstreet said. “But unless one of these idiots has a hideaway gun, I’m betting we’ll bring them all in alive. So, it’s your call, sir.”

Overstreet looked like he had no opinion one way or the other. If Singh ordered him to go to the holding pens and shoot every single person in the head, it would just be the next thing he did that day. No lectures on how he’d fought Belter cells back in the day, no subtle digs at his lack of experience.

“We’re going to need to start holding trials at some point,” Singh said. “This seems as good a time as any. We’ll need some time to form a civilian justice system for Medina and the colonies. Something less encumbered than the local habits.”

“Yes, sir,” Overstreet agreed with a nod. “I’ll have my people put together all the evidence we’ve collected and forward it to the advocate’s office. We’re not police, but whatever we can do to expedite the trial process, we’re happy to help out.”

Singh leaned back and pointed at one of the visitor chairs next to his desk. “You’re doing outstanding work, Major. You’ve slid into Colonel Tanaka’s role without a hiccup. I appreciate it.”

Overstreet stretched out, relaxing but without the aggressive informality of his predecessor. “Tanaka was a great mentor. She left me detailed files on … the duties of this post. Give her credit for the smooth transition.”

“Mmhmm,” Singh said. “Anyway, I’ve sent in my recommendation that you be promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, as befits the posting you now hold. We’re just waiting on word from Laconia to make it official. You’ve certainly got the years in, and your record is exemplary. I don’t foresee any difficulty.”

“I appreciate that, sir,” Overstreet started, then looked down at the monitor on his wrist. “That’s fast work. The detachment reports that all seven of the suspects have already been rounded up and taken to a holding area, awaiting your orders. Shall I have them taken to the open-air cells, pending trial? Let everyone on the station see them locked up? Sends a message.”

“Yes, I—” Singh began, then rethought it. “No. If that holding area is private, keep them there. I’d like to speak to them.”

“Of course,” Overstreet said. Into his monitor he said, “Triphammer oscar mike. We need transport and escort to level four, compartment one three one one echo bravo. Ready to move in five.”

Singh had studied detailed files on the history of Medina, from its aspirational beginnings with an Earther religious faction to its outright theft by the OPA and conversion into the universe’s worst battleship before finally settling in as the hub of human expansion through the gate network.

Singh found the idea of a generation ship fascinating, in a morbid sort of way. He could understand taking great risks for your children. He was doing that right now. Trying to help build the well-regulated human empire that his monster Elsa and her future children could thrive in. There was a romance in the idea of setting out on a journey you’d never see the end of so that your grandchildren might live a better life. But all the numbers he’d seen on how a hundred-year voyage like that would play out were fairly horrifying. It was, to say the least, a very high cost and very low probability of success. Singh assumed there was a faith element to the risk that he was just missing. In his opinion, faith was generally for people who were bad at math.

Compartment 1311EB turned out to be a former storage compartment for animal feed. Another of the many structures built into Medina Station back when it had been the Nauvoo and had interstellar colonization as its purpose. Medina was filled with these relics of the station’s original purpose even as they had been converted over to new uses. Seven Belters sat on the floor, hands zip-tied behind their backs. Four men, two women, and one person who could be any gender or none and who looked far too young to already have decided on a career in terrorism.

Singh entered the room flanked by two Marines in power armor and Overstreet taking up a position by the door. The four Marine guards in the room snapped him a salute, then went back to watching their little gang of prisoners. With fifteen bodies in the room, it felt very cramped.

“I am the station governor, Captain Santiago Singh,” he said, taking time to stare each of the seven prisoners in the eye as he spoke. The youngest stared back with a fierce rage that looked entirely out of place on their beautiful, genderless face.

“No one fuckin’ cares,” one of the men spat back at him. The Marine closest to him casually kicked him in the ribs. Singh waved him back.

“I need you all to listen to me very carefully,” he said. “A bomb was made using chemicals from the warehouse you seven work in. That bomb killed a Laconian naval officer, and injured another.”

“Good,” said one of the women.

“Not good,” Singh replied, without changing his tone. “Because the penalty for this criminal act will be death by firing squad. At this point, there is no reason to believe all seven of you aren’t in collusion. You are either working with terrorist cells, or you are in fact the cell that planted that bomb.”

“Better to die a free Belter than live a slave,” the young one said. They had a singer’s voice, high and clear.

He started to wonder if it might have been better to have seven different conversations with the prisoners rather than one with all of them. They were performing for each other now. Each of them signaling their loyalty to the others. It made it more difficult to know what their actual flexibility might be.

“We can debate the benefits of centralized government later,” Singh replied. “For now, I have one offer to make, and only one. When I leave this room, I am going to ask that an appointed judge review the evidence from the bombing and find all seven of you guilty of terrorist acts. You will then be taken to a public place, and shot.”

“Not much of a fuckin’ offer,” the first man said, rubbing his bruised ribs.

“While the judge reviews that evidence, I am going to have you held in private cells. The first one of you to cooperate in our investigation of terrorist activity on this station, lives.”

“Turn traitor to save our own necks,” the young one said. “You don’t know Belters at all.”

“I know humans. I know that staying alive and keeping one’s family safe is not a trivial reward for valued service to the empire. It is the only choice you have left in your lives. Make the right one.”

Before they could shout any defiance at him, Singh turned and left. As they walked away, he said to Overstreet, “Put them in separate cells, far enough apart that they can’t hear each other. Then make sure there’s a guard outside every door. Just in case someone decides to take me up on my offer.”

“Copy that,” Overstreet replied. There was a hint of skepticism in his tone.

Singh stopped. Overstreet turned to face him, a puzzled look on his broad face.

“Something troubling you, Major?”

“I didn’t intend any disrespect, sir.”

“Our mandate from High Consul Duarte is to win over the population of this station, as a first step in winning over the population of the colony worlds. We do that by entangling our interests. By teaching them that what they think of as ‘informing’ is actually just good citizenship. This is just a first step in building what will hopefully be a network of cooperators to help us.”

“Understood,” Overstreet said. “Marines make terrible police, sir. We’re not trained for this sort of job. If we could build up a security force made up of local cooperators and Marine elements, it would help a lot.”

“Good. Make that part of your mandate going forward. You have full authority to offer amnesty to people you think might be useful.”

“I’ll pass it down the ranks,” Overstreet said. He began gently pushing Singh back up the corridor toward their little convoy of carts.

“The other thing,” Singh said. “I think it would be appropriate to make a complete audit of the security protocols. Call it a supplemental security review.”

“I can do that if you’d like, sir,” Overstreet said. “Can I ask what function the review would fill?”

He meant Am I being called on the carpet? This was also the fallout of letting Tanaka go. There would be a period where his people trusted him less. Suspected that he would blame them for failures in the system. Punish them for things that weren’t their fault.

“We need—” he began, then caught himself. “I need to look over the complete system of security we have. Things are going to change simply because we are here, with these people, and not in a classroom at the academy. I don’t know how yet, but I think it’s inevitable. I am trusting you to tell me not only what we do but why. And whether you think it should be altered.”

“Comprehensive, then,” Overstreet said, but he sounded more pleased by the implied trust than put out by the extra work. “I’ll see to it. Back to the office, sir?”

Singh almost said yes, but a thought stopped him.

“No,” Singh said. “No, take me to Carrie Fisk’s office. And notify her we’re coming.”

On the ride to the Association of Worlds’ offices, Singh thought back to his letter home. The idea that being able to hold the ring space meant they’d won the war was optimistic. Or simplistic, at least. Laconia could absolutely control access to the worlds through the gates, but every single world could decide this didn’t mean they were conquered. And even if they placed a Laconian governor on every world, and a Laconian naval ship in orbit and Marines patrolling the streets, every individual might decide they personally had not been conquered. Establishing the empire was an endless series of microscopic magnifications into greater and greater granularity, and every grain was a potential renegade. Medina was just a microcosm of the problem they’d be running into everywhere. Political opposition considered as fractal geometry.

He had been sent as a governor, and the more he saw, the more he came to understand what that assignment actually was. Not just a bureaucrat to oversee the smooth functioning of the station and the traffic it controlled. He was creating the template for making every other human world into a new Laconia. Seven Belters had decided that killing a single low-level officer was worth risking all their own lives. That wasn’t a rational position. An enemy that bad at basic math might do anything. The colony worlds might decide that throwing a few hundred people with rifles onto a transport ship and trying a suicide attack on Medina made sense. He only needed to hold the station for a few more weeks until the Typhoon arrived and rendered any such foolhardy attack plan irrelevant. Carrie Fisk could help to carry the message that would dissuade any such error before it could happen.

The office complex occupied by the Association of Worlds sat inside the drum section of Medina, surrounded by farmland. It consisted of three blocky structures of prefab fiberglass sheets, painted a gentle off-white, and sporting the interlocking honeycomb banner of their organization. Singh suspected the design was intended to symbolize the interconnected rings of the gate network. For the headquarters of an organization whose goal was the centralized governance of thirteen hundred worlds, it looked cheap, shabby, and hastily erected. Nothing like the massive stone structures Laconia built to house the future government of mankind.

Carrie Fisk occupied an office on the third floor of the largest of the three buildings. She had a lot of empty space, a single desk with four chairs, and flaking light-green paint on her fiberglass walls. He wondered what their first meeting would have been like if he’d come to her office instead of bringing her to his. Seeing all of this, he might have recommended against working with her at all.

“Madam President,” Singh said as he entered, taking her hand in his own. “I’m glad you could take the time to meet with me on such short notice. This is Major Overstreet, the Marine commander on Medina.”

Carrie shook his hand, and gave Overstreet a baffled nod. “Of course, Governor, anytime,” she said, and gestured to her chairs. Singh sat, Overstreet did not. “Tea?”

Singh declined with a wave of his hand. “I’m afraid I don’t have much time to socialize. I have an important message for you to send to the association worlds, and to the local governments on those worlds that have at this point elected not to officially join you.”

“Okay,” Carrie said. She really was a frightened little mouse of a person, Singh decided. He found himself wondering how such a person could become the leader of anything, much less the nascent government for a galaxy-spanning republic. But she’d had a following before he came, so maybe there was more to her than he saw. Failing that, she could be made into the sort of person he needed.

“It occurs to me that while the Heart of the Tempest is engaged with the fleets in the Sol system, and additional Laconian forces have not yet arrived to secure Medina Station, some ill-informed members of your association or other prospective members who haven’t officially joined you yet might view this as a moment of weakness for our occupation.”

“I don’t—” Carrie started.

“But it’s important that everyone understand that such a view is both inaccurate, and dangerous,” Singh continued over the top of her. “You will send a message, as the president of the new Laconian Congress of Worlds, to every planet in the network.”

“The what?”

“The change of name will more closely join your group with the empire. It’s important that they recognize you as a legitimate and trusted representative of Laconia. You will tell them that any hostile action taken through one of the ring gates, be that a ship full of soldiers or an angrily thrown rock, will result in the total sterilization of the inhabited planet on the other side of that ring.”

Carrie went still for a moment. “Jesus Christ. Are you serious?”

“It’s come to my attention that many of the social organizations of the old human power structures show a shocking inability to do risk analysis. They may foolishly attempt a doomed assault, thinking all they’re risking is their own lives. Reason doesn’t work with this kind of person. I need you to make them understand, on an emotional level, the price for such an attack. I will kill every single person on their planet. I assume even former OPA radicals have family members they care about, and whose lives they are less willing to risk on a romantic notion of a hero’s death.”

Overstreet’s bright-blue eyes were on him. Singh felt the man evaluating him.

“I can’t be part of something like that,” Carrie said.

“You can,” Singh insisted. “Because I’m making that the rule of engagement for our occupation here, whether you warn people or not. I think it’s best if everyone understands that before they do anything with such a terrible price. Don’t you agree?”

Singh stood up, and Overstreet opened the door for him. Carrie Fisk stared at him from behind her desk. Singh didn’t see the fear he expected on her face. More a sort of simpleminded confusion.

“Please get the announcement out before the end of the day,” he said. “I leave the wording to you, as long as all the details I laid out are included. Good day, Madam President.”

He left the room with Fisk still reeling from the shock. Overstreet fell easily into stride behind him.

“Permission, sir?” Overstreet said, his tone reserved and formal. Distant, almost.

Singh felt a moment’s chagrin. He should have called Overstreet by his given name. He’d forgotten that, and it seemed late to change their habits now. He needed to be more careful about that. “Proceed, Major.”

“Are we going to order those attacks?”

“Only if we have to,” Singh said.

Overstreet didn’t reply at once, and when he did, his tone was flat. “Understood,” he said.