by Rachel Ford
She blinked back the moisture that formed in her eyes, and tried to concentrate on Giya’s words. “Let’s begin with elections. I have proposed that, one month hence, we hold an empire-wide election for all levels of government. Including, but not limited to, supreme leader. We left, yesterday, with the motion on the floor, made and seconded. Today, we will discuss.”
Smatterings of applause met the statement.
“Is it enough time, though?” one of the members asked, an interim MP named Davis Telari. “We’ve identified the need to double our polling places in most locations, and triple them in more urban districts, just to meet voter demand. That’s about ten thousand new polling places across multiple planets. Is a month enough time to find locations, train people up, prep ballots and so on?”
“It will be a tight timeline,” Gretchen Mira, another of the MP’s, offered.
“But doable,” Giya said.
“We want a full election as soon as possible,” Nikia put in. “If the people are to have confidence in this body, they must choose it – not just Central, but all the people, from all the regions and districts and planets.”
“I concur wholeheartedly,” Davis nodded. “But I would emphasize the first part of your statement: as soon as possible. Rushing into an election we can’t sustain will destabilize the government.”
“He’s right,” Gretchen agreed. “We’ve promised fair and representative elections. If we can’t deliver, we’ve not only failed our promise, but we’ve missed the entire point: confidence in the elected body.”
“Which brings up another point,” MP Ven Dul said. “This is an entirely new chapter in our nation’s government. Is a month enough time for candidates to declare, to make their pitches to the people – to be heard and recognized?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter if you have the vote, if you have no idea who the candidates are or what they stand for.”
“It is a delicate balance,” Giya conceded, “between time and efficiency.”
“Yes. But we have to get this done right more than we have to get it done fast,” Ven urged.
“Well, I would certainly entertain a motion to amend the timeframe as the body thinks fit.”
“I move to amend the motion,” Gretchen said, “such that the date reads the seventh of Redstar.”
“The seventh of Redstar? But that’s almost six months from now,” Giya protested.
“I second the motion,” Davis put in. “Six months will give us the time we need to meet our promises. We can do no less for the people.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tal glanced around the room at Nees’s security detail. It was a scrappy band with a distinctly amateur look.
And what does that say about you, his mind kicked in, getting your ass kicked by them? It was a fair point. But, still, there was something in the nervous twitching, the uneasy postures, the sideways glances that told him that these were not men and women accustomed to being in uncomfortable situations.
The source of their discomfort was no mystery. The frequent side-eye he was getting told him all he needed to know on that front. Whether they thought he was a dirty cop or an imperial spy, he wasn’t sure. But that they mistrusted – and resented – him was clear as day.
Governor Nees, though, seemed not to notice. At least, she pretended not to notice. Unlike her ragtag posse, she had a keen eye. Tal doubted she was oblivious about what was going on under her nose.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” she was saying. “Many of you have met Mister Tal Imari. The rest of you have heard that he’s joined our team.” A few grunts of acknowledgement sounded. “We’ll do full introductions later, but that’s actually not the reason you’ve been called here.”
She drew in a deep breath. “I just got news from Central. Supreme Leader Velk is dead.”
Silence filled the room. Tal spoke first. “What?”
“There’s a revolution going on. Or concluded, I guess. We were mostly cut out of the interplanetary network, once Trapper’s declared independence. The last we heard, there was marching in the streets. The new government has been restoring communication, and messages started coming in this morning. And…apparently, a few days ago, the primary palace was taken, and the supreme leader…well, he was executed.”
“Executed?” someone said. “My gods.”
“Good,” another voice chimed in. “That son-of-a-bitch was happy to let Halford kill us. May he rot in hell.”
Halford was the former governor of Trapper’s Colony, a man who – before the planet’s own revolution – had been brought in by Velk to increase oil production. Thousands had died under his short-lived leadership, so it didn’t surprise him to see the scowls and hardened glances that his name evoked.
“But this changes the situation,” Nees said, guiding the conversation back to whatever point she was trying to make. “With Velk permanently out of the picture, we don’t have to worry about him restoring control.”
“Good.”
“But that doesn’t mean that whoever succeeds him will have any lesser designs on our planet.”
“Trapper’s is oil rich,” Tal nodded. “A new government may find that kind of resource hard to pass up.”
Nees nodded too. “Or they may respect our claim to independence and open trade negotiations. Which, of course, would be the ideal situation. The point is, we don’t know what’s going to happen. And while we can all hope for the best, we need to prepare for the worst.”
“Invasion?” someone asked.
“Yes, potentially.”
“How did you prevent an invasion in the first place?” Tal wondered. During the worst periods, Velk had been willing to countenance dozens of Tribari deaths a day to keep production up. He couldn’t imagine what had prompted a sudden merciful bent.
Nees spread her hands. “A little bit of dumb luck, to be honest. The timing of the uprising on Central certainly worked to our advantage. But we also have a trump card.”
“What’s that?”
“We can destroy the oil deposits, if we need to.”
He blinked. “You can?”
“Yes. You’ve heard of garbonite?”
He shook his head. “No. I mean, maybe, but I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s a substance used in drying, usually. Abundant on this planet. It breaks down hydrogen molecules in liquid form.”
“So when you say destroy the deposits…you literally mean destroy them,” Tal whistled.
“I do.”
“And…would you? If it came to it, I mean?”
“You bet your ass I would. Oil’s the only thing Central wants on this planet. It’s the only reason they keep killing my people.” She shrugged. “If it comes to destroying the oil fields or seeing more of my men and women dead, the oil goes.”
The governor, it seemed, was not above playing hardball. He nodded. “Good.”
“But that doesn’t mean we’re safe,” she continued. “If they want it enough, they may be willing to take more drastic measures.”
“More drastic than invasion?”
“Now that comms are back, I heard from one of my contacts on Central. The new government is releasing a lot of classified intel.
“And it turns out, Velk was working on plans to take Trapper’s Colony. They had a planetary bombardment scheme, to try to wipe us all out within five minutes. It was deemed too high risk. It left us enough time to release the garbonite.”
The lines of her mouth grew grimmer, and he had a feeling that the supreme leader had been working on something else. Something darker. “Was that it?”
“No. There was another. It was in its beginning stages, but...” She shook her head. “They were going to release something in the atmosphere. Some kind of lethal toxin. Takes a while to activate, but, when it does, it’s fast acting. They were going to send a diplomatic ship in, to talk peace. The idea being, we wouldn’t suspect they were actually entering the atmosphere to poison us. They’d get out, a
nd then the toxin would activate. Before we knew what was happening, we’d be incapacitated.”
“That’s genocide on a planetary scale,” Tal said. It seemed unconscionable, even for Velk. Even with everything he knew of the supreme leader.
“Yes,” Nees agreed. “It is.”
“How do we know it hasn’t already happened?” someone asked. He was one of the men Tal had met yesterday, a Ki Rigar.
“What?”
Ki shrugged. “Well, we let an imperial ship into our airspace, didn’t we?”
Nees glanced between Ki and Tal. “Tal is an outlaw, Ki. Same as us.”
“Is he, though? An escaped prisoner sure makes a good cover story. Let’s not forget that he was a protector, from Central no less.”
“And,” someone else put in, “when’s the last time you heard of someone getting off Zeta?”
“Never.”
Tal crossed his arms. “You’re welcome to check my ship, gentlemen. I’m afraid you’ll find it uneventful. Other than a lot of empty ration wrappers, there’s not much there. And the closest thing you’ll find to a biohazard will be the prison uniforms we ditched there.”
Nees smiled. “We did check, Tal.”
“You did?” He wasn’t surprised, exactly, but it still felt something like a violation of his trust.
She shrugged. “Of course. You’d expect nothing less from the governor of a colony, I hope.”
He frowned. It was a standard safety precaution, given the circumstances. As annoying as it was to find himself the target. “Of course not.”
“Air control did full scans of the Genevieve, and then – knowing what we were looking for – our atmosphere. We’re clean.”
“What if they used something else? Something that wasn’t in the plans?” Ki persisted.
“We did a wide range scan as well. It was all good.”
Ki crossed his arms, as if unconvinced. Tal shook his head. Nees, meanwhile continued, “But the point of all of this is, we need to be twice as cautious. We know what Velk was capable of. We know what he was planning. Now, we’re dealing with complete unknowns.”
“Hope for the best,” he repeated, “and prepare for the worst.”
“Exactly. Let’s get to work, gentlemen.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was after dusk by time Brek stumbled into camp. The grounds were empty, which meant the shifts had already changed. He headed for the foreman’s trailer.
To his surprise, it was empty, and only a solar light lit the interior. Still, he headed for the desk, and sank wearily into the office chair. He punched the comm button.
Nothing happened. Brek frowned, pressing the button again.
His frown only deepened, though. The button moved, but he heard no click of engagement, no buzz to signify that he was connected to the network. He tried punching in a pager number – Head Daj’s – with the same result.
What the hell? He turned his attention away from the comm panel to the computer. It was dark, and he tapped its input console to bring it out of sleep mode.
The screen remained dark, the buttons unresponsive. Now he toggled the power button, wondering if someone had forgotten to turn it on.
But as with all of his attempts so far, his efforts resulted in no change. “What the hell?” he repeated, this time aloud. It was as if there was no power here.
That didn’t make sense, though. This was the site foreman’s trailer. If there was no power here, the grounds would be alive with scrambling feet and frenzied activity. At least, they should be.
Yet, the grounds were empty, and the trailer was dark. With a groan, he shoved onto his feet. He headed for the nearest lamp. It was unresponsive. One by one, he flipped switches and toggled levers. Nothing responded.
He felt a slick of cold sweat form on his skin. What had happened in the interval since he’d gone missing? There should be something – some telltale sign, some indication of what had happened.
Even if there’d been an accident – and wouldn’t he have heard it, or felt the tremors? – there’d still be people nearby. There’d still be power.
A more pressing concern pushed this one aside, though, as he noticed the icebox. He was ravenous. In all his time away, he’d eaten one meal, and chewed on a handful of berries he’d discovered on the last leg of his trip.
He pulled the door open, and sent a silent prayer of thanks to the gods above that it was still stocked. There was milk and boiled phigon eggs, and sandwiches. The cooling unit was as dead as the rest of the trailer, but the temperature inside was low. Low enough, he hoped, to preserve the food.
He wasted no time finding out. Popping the stopper on the carafe of milk, he sipped gingerly. Detecting no foul odors or tastes – it was rich and sweet, and quite chilled – he drank more heavily. Then he moved on to the rest, popping eggs into his mouth between bites of sandwich.
Shaking with hunger, he worked his way through the entire top shelf, devouring everything there. Finally sated, he slowed his pace, picking at a crisp as he searched for some manner of sack or bag. He didn’t know where everyone was or what was going on. But he’d be damned if he found himself without food again.
The compensation package passed unanimously. It included a baseline for wages, a cap on weekly hours employees could be expected to work, and laid the groundwork for overtime compensation. It also ensured that election days were paid days off.
The public utilities bill passed, too. Effective immediately, all private utilities were the property of the public. Former owners would be compensated at a rate one retka per resident served, twice every six-month for a period of eighteen months. Some of the contributors impacted protested, of course, but the council was unmoved. It was fair compensation – and better, Giya had said, than they deserved. They’d packaged and sold the City’s waters, depriving the poor of the most basic necessities if they couldn’t pay the often-exorbitant fees levied. It was more than fair.
Still, now electricity and water could be provided at cost to residents. They’d allocated a special fund to provide for those residents who couldn’t afford the cost. And they’d done it in a way that would ease the consciences of men like Captain Elgin.
“Alright,” Giya said, “that brings me to the final item on today’s agenda: independence for Trapper’s Colony.
“As you know, prior to the arrest of former leader Velk, Governor Nees of Trapper’s Colony declared the planet an independent planet-state, no longer under jurisdiction of the empire.
“And you know the lengths Velk was willing to go to to reassert control over Trapper’s Colony.” They’d only just started decrypting the former supreme leader’s files, but they’d made what they found public. Velk was a man with a great deal of Tribari blood on his hands.
“It’s an oil-rich world,” one of the MP’s put in. “There was no greater crime, to the old regime, than standing between that bastard and profit.”
“I move,” Nikia said, “that we recognize the colony’s independence. After everything Velk put them through, if they want to manage their own affairs…well, I can’t say I blame them.”
“I second the motion,” Giya said.
Davis Telari pursed his lips. “I sympathize with their plight. I really do. But they wanted independence from the old regime. This is the new Tribari Empire. We do not exploit our people. Every world, every colony, every planet is an equal member of the empire.”
“But if a planet wants its independence,” Nik said, “we should grant it. What were we doing, but marching for our own freedom not two weeks ago? I won’t deny another world its freedom too.”
“I don’t think Davis is proposing we deny it,” Gretchen put in. “I think merely that we revisit the situation with Governor Nees. Things have changed now. With Velk gone, the situation is very different. I think we can all agree on that.”
Nik nodded slowly. “Yes. But I think we need to be willing to accept their independence, if that is what they want.”
Davis nodded slowly, and Ven Dul spread his hands. “I think we need to be careful here. We are guardians not just of Central, but of the empire; and not just the empire, but Central. Is it in the empire’s interests to lose a world like Trapper’s Colony? Is it in Central’s?”
Nik frowned. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I mean, we’re in a period of transition. We all bring something to the table. And if one of us leaves, we all lose that. We are stronger together – as an empire, and individually.”
“Are you saying we should not allow Trapper’s Colony independence?” Giya asked.
“Of course not,” Ven returned. “If that’s the only way to move forward, well then perhaps we must consider it. But I would propose we explore other avenues to keep our empire, our family, together and strong before capitulating and fragmenting.”
“I agree,” Gretchen decided. “Better to promote unity than encourage division.”
“I move,” Davis put in, “that we table Nik’s proposal, and instead reach out to Governor Nees to foster reconciliation.”
“Seconded,” Ven offered.
Nikia nodded slowly. She could see the logic of his argument, though she felt it unlikely that Governor Nees would be persuaded from her stance. Not after everything her world had suffered. “I concur,” she said, “with the understanding that the colony’s wishes, ultimately, will be paramount.”
Chapter Thirty
Brek had passed the night in the foreman’s trailer, shivering in the unheated shell even under a pile of blankets. Still, the walls kept the wind at bay, and the night passed more easily than his last few evenings had done.
His stomach ached after his overindulgence the night before, and so when he breakfasted, he did so with more moderation. Then, in the morning light, he found the first aid kit and wrapped his injured ankle.
Finally, throwing the rest of the medical supplies into his bag – who knew if he’d need them? – he set out again.
The camp was empty. No hum of equipment sounded from the mines, no bustle of bodies buzzed back and forth. What was more confusing, though, were the heavy gates drawn over the mine tunnel entrances.
