by Candy Rae
The self-proclaimed convict leader Elliot Murdoch and the rest of the ex-prisoners from the WCPS Electra rested at their camp for over two months, getting ready for their march north to search for the crew. It was late summer when he decided that they were ready, and some seventeen thousand men set out, loosely organised into groups of some five hundred each and led by their one-time block leaders from the ship. The day was hot; and more than hot, but this was normal had they known it for this time of year in the equatorial south. The men found that the heat sapped their will and their strength in a manner to which they were certainly not accustomed, acclimatised as they were to the cooler atmosphere on board the prison ship. The heat was purgatory to walk in and the least fit were unable to keep up with the pace set by Murdoch. He was forced, therefore, to reduce the planned daily mileage. He was not at all loath to do so. His captivity over the last eighteen years had made marching no easy matter for him either.
The men ambled along the riverbank in an undisciplined and chattering mass, stopping at frequent intervals to drink from the river to sate their overwhelming thirst. All the men, that is except for Murdoch’s immediate five hundred, who marched in a semblance of parade ground precision, much like a bunch of recruits, which was how their colonel saw them. Elliot Murdoch’s deputy, Smith, had received military training in his youth and he used this knowledge to good effect now. Smith had been an efficient soldier but hard on the men who had the misfortune to be under his command and had been court-martialled and expelled from the army after causing the death of three young recruits.
Even now, after nearly twenty years imprisonment and re-education he still considered that he had been in the right. Army life was supposed to be hard and cruel according to Smith; those who were inefficient, stupid or lazy must be considered worthless and therefore expendable. This five hundred were the nucleus of Murdoch’s army and were becoming known as Smith’s Regiment. Smith planned to organise the best of Murdoch’s other followers in the same way.
Each regiment would consist of some five hundred men led by a colonel and would be divided into five companies, each led by a lieutenant. There would be four fighting companies within each regiment, the fifth company being made up of specialists such as medics and other support personnel. It had been agreed the previous evening that approximately twenty-four regiments of five hundred would be available for the planned attack on the ex-crew and guards when they located them. The remaining five thousand men would be non-combatants and therefore would be kept down the pecking order when it came to dishing out the spoils.
Marching proudly at the head of his column, head held high, Smith felt very pleased with his achievements over the past weeks. He fully intended that his men would be the elite of all the regiments, and closest to Murdoch, who marched some twenty paces to his front, his bodyguard, led by an indomitable ex-convict called Cracov, surrounding him in a protective shield. Murdoch was under no illusions that he was secure in his position of leader. He was taking no chances.
They were in no hurry. The escapees would have to stop and make a stand against them somewhere, encumbered as they were with women and children. Murdoch had plenty of time to train the men, weeding out those incapable or unwilling to fight and welding the remainder into a cohesive force, an army, his army. To those who fought well and who obeyed him would fall the spoils of this campaign.
Those that could not follow due to old age or injury; those not prepared to obey; and the men who were of no use to him, he left behind without a second thought. This night he would call the prison block leaders, now his colonels, for a conference and explain his great plan in detail.
His mind was busy as he marched. He, like any good commander, was thinking ahead to the day when the campaign would be over and he would put down roots and begin to live the free life. Once the guards and male crew were disposed of and the women allocated to the most deserving, he would have to be strong and ruthless to keep his position. He was a general now. Smith had informed the other leaders in no uncertain terms that that was how he was to be addressed. As Smith had been fingering his lethal looking knife at the time, all took his words very seriously.
Murdoch did not want just to remain a general; that was only the first step. He wanted to be the undisputed ruler of their new society. Murdoch wanted to be a king. Anyone that stood in his way would be eradicated. No challengers to his position could be allowed to survive. It was not an army he was leading; it was a nation, his nation.
To that end, he had insisted that all those who could be of use must be brought along, even those who might otherwise have been left behind due to age or infirmity. They were finding the march almost impossible. There were only so many doctors amongst the ex-prisoners. They would later train others in their craft and so medicine would be available for those who needed and deserved it. Hi-tech specialists were few, Murdoch having realised early on that this new society must function on a low technological level. If these specialists were not able or willing to fight in his army they were left behind. He had cannily brought along all that were good with their hands; mechanics, metal smiths and woodsmen had been specifically selected, also tailors and shoemakers. He would use them all.
Cocteau, a dark swarthy man of southern European extraction, Murdoch put in command of this non-combatant and diverse group. An intellectual man, but also a hard and unforgiving one, he was well suited to the job, being able to talk to his men on their level whilst not giving away an iota of his authority.
All in all, Murdoch was feeling well pleased with himself when he called a halt that first afternoon out from base camp, where the unwanted had been left to fend for themselves.
“We’ll stop here for the night,” he announced, turning towards Cracov, who was, as usual, not six paces away from him. The man certainly takes his duties seriously, thought Murdoch as he walked towards an attractive looking copse of trees some twenty yards from the riverbank. He knew what drove the man; Cracov wanted a fair share of the booty and that included one of the women for his very own. He was certainly not the best looking of his followers; in fact Murdoch could only describe him as a brute, a man whose coarse face almost never broke into a smile.
Murdoch smiled to himself. An exceedingly good-looking man when in his twenties, his good looks had faded but little during the long years in jail. In those younger days on Earth, before the security police caught him, he had led a life of luxury, paid for by the high fees he commanded as a world-class assassin. He had owned a beautiful villa in the Mediterranean and women had chased after him like moths to the flame.
Even in those halcyon days, Murdoch had wanted more, more women, more riches, but above all, more power. He needed people to listen to him, to obey him.
It was because of this yearning that he was caught. In his late twenties, he had accepted a lucrative job from an unpopular head of state who had wished to dispose of one of his popular rivals. Murdoch had tried to double-cross the aforementioned head of state, had approached the minister in question and persuaded him to attempt a coup. If successful, Murdoch had intended to be the power behind the government.
The plotters’ security measures were as inadequate as a leaky bucket and before long the head of state knew all about it. He had informed the World Coalition Security Forces and Murdoch had found himself running for his life. After a month on the run (an experience he never wanted to repeat) he had been caught, tried and sentenced to life imprisonment.
During the long years of his incarceration, Murdoch had never forgotten the dreams he had had in his twenties.
When the news came to the prison that the long-term prisoners were to be exiled on a prison planet, he had pondered long and hard about how he could rise to prominence there, but this was far better. If he played his cards right he could make himself the undisputed dictator of this entire world and not merely of a small sector of people on the harsh prison planet.
His plans were panning out well so far. He was the leader of the convicts: now it was time for th
e next step.
Cracov walked heavily up to his mentor, breathing hard. He suffered from the problem of flat feet, not a comfortable disability when one was walking a set distance each day.
“How many miles to them hills?” he asked, gasping.
Murdoch squinted towards them and thought for a moment before he answered.
“Map is unclear about this area, but about another month’s march I should think, maybe more. Distances can be deceptive in this haze. No point exhausting ourselves. Six miles a day is probably as much as any of them can cope with and perhaps not even that.”
“Crew there?”
“They can’t be anywhere else. The tracks are clear.” Murdoch rubbed his hands together in anticipation of what was to come. “I can’t wait.”
Cracov grinned. He knew what the General was thinking.
They stood for a moment in silence before Cracov spoke again. “I’ll get you your dinner.”
Turning to the assembled bodyguard, some thirty strong, he issued his orders then sat down some distance away, thinking, correctly as it turned out, that Murdoch would want to be left alone to catch his breath and recover before he did anything else.
Once he finished his meal, Murdoch swept aside the crude dishes for his minions to pick up and turned to Cracov.
The man stood to attention at once. He had seen Smith approaching and wanted to make a good impression.
“Get the rest of the colonels,” Murdoch ordered. “Time to talk about plans and organise final training. Get Cocteau in on it as well. He’ll have to know what we are about.”
When the twenty-four colonels (and Cocteau) were assembled, Murdoch was ready and waiting for them, sitting astride a large tree trunk that Cracov had positioned under a shady branch. Smith and Cracov stood at once behind him, reinforcing his authority. With the bodyguard positioned nearby and Smith’s regiment armed and within call, it would be a brave colonel who would argue with Murdoch’s orders.
Unaccountably courteous, Murdoch asked them to sit down. This conference would not be a short one. There was much shuffling about as they did so, eyeing each other, their leader and warily wondering what this was all about.
Murdoch cleared his throat and began to talk. “No interruptions,” he said. “Hear me out and then if you want to ask anything stand up. Smith will tell you when it’s your turn.”
There were some mutterings at his didactic and peremptory tone but no one said anything. One look at Cracov’s threatening face was enough.
“We march each morning; six to eight miles a day. In the afternoons we train. It’ll take us at least three weeks to get to the hills, a bit longer to locate the crew. They will have tried to hide but we’ll find them. When we do, we’ll overrun their hideout and take the women and whatever they have with them – livestock, tools, clothes – everything; it’s as simple as that.”
He sat back, waiting for their reactions, eyes half-lidded against the sun and was, on the whole, pleased with what he saw. He noted two called Weiss and Gunnarsson who were looking doubtful. These were the men whom he would instruct Smith and Cracov to keep a closer eye on. These two could be a real threat to him.
“You may speak now,” said Murdoch graciously, opening his hands as a king would grant audience.
There was a moment of silence. Nobody wanted to be the first to speak.
It was the fox-faced Baker who took the bull by the horns and asked the first question. A tall, dark and angular man with three deep parallel scars on his left cheek, he was already getting the reputation of being a strict and forceful leader of his men.
“Do we all attack or just some of us?” he asked.
“The best only,” answered Murdoch with a smile. “I will only select the most efficient and well-drilled to take the crew out. To these regiments will go the spoils of the battle, and mark my words, I, and only I, will divvy out the women and the goods. No one else.”
“There’s still not enough women to go round,” said Colonel Duchesne. “Even if only the eight best regiments attack their hideout, there can’t be more than three hundred women there, if that.”
Murdoch nodded. He had been expecting this and he had the answer ready. “The women will be shared out – a woman of your choice. That is a promise. I get first choice of them all, Smith second, Cracov third. After them, the colonels of the regiments who did the fighting, then the other colonels. Some men who fight well may get one as a reward. Tell that to them. It will make them keen.”
He paused.
“What then?” came a voice from the back.
“The rest of the women? I think all the fighters should be rewarded, don’t you?”
They all laughed and on that high note Murdoch led them on to the more mundane topic of battle training.
Upwind, the Larg scouts were watching. They were for the moment content to watch, but plans were being laid, plans that would include Murdoch and his men.
* * * * *
