Lord Banshee- Fugitive

by Russell O Redman

  Everyone on Earth was horrified at executions. Even the monsters who had murdered Diego and his father, brother and little sister had been sentenced to long-term psychiatric care. They had emerged repentant after several years. Their tearful apologies could not bring their victims back and I might never be able to forgive them myself, but their visible sorrow made it easier for the public to accept them back into human society.

  On the Earth, a major driver for the Martian independence movement was a desire to eliminate such vicious punishments. Executions were invariably described as a form of oppression, especially when the crimes being punished included offensive political cartoons, immodest clothing, and demonstrations triggered by previous executions. I seriously doubted that many people on the Earth realized that the policy of public executions was enforced on Mars by popular demand, because of the high rate of extremely violent crime. The Fatwa against the Ghost had teeth on Mars.

  As a spacer, the worst punishment I had ever witnessed was the arrest and deportation of drug and weapons dealers. Being sent back to the Earth for rehabilitation and forfeiting all the income that the offender had gathered was considered sufficient punishment in itself. Incorrigible criminals could be sentenced to permanent confinement, but I had never met one in person. Unless the rumours about Ochen Ngomo were true.

  I had never experienced the emotional impact of a public execution before I arrived on Mars. Under Asok’s tutelage, I learned to fear our rivals in the mines, to hate their perfidy, and to demand justice for the criminals who were attacking us. I had not recognized our own role in the system because Asok always stopped short of murder when the choice was his to make. I had felt self-righteous because of someone else’s restraint.

  When I finally saw my first public execution, in my second year on Mars, I had been carefully prepared. I joined the angry crowd screaming hatred at the criminal when he was dragged into the square. I had laughed at his humiliation when he was stripped and tied to a steel frame in front of a tall stake. I had cheered with everyone else as his head was chopped off and impaled on top of the stake. Afterwards, we all went out to drink bootleg hooch that left me with a bad hangover the next day and a warm feeling that justice had been served.

  Only later, years later, I came to understand that this was just part of an age-long cycle of murders, some private, some state-sponsored. It was the normal business cycle of the Martian factions in their winner-take-all fight for money and power. All the love I had felt for Asok, all the respect he commanded, all the compassion he felt for his family and employees, had been perverted into tools that were manipulated for corporate profit. I had worked with Legal Intelligence to trace the flow of weapons on Mars and the money that paid for them. The trails always went cold in the backrooms of wealthy companies. Guns and money were just two threads of power within a larger fabric of oppression and extortion.

  The governors always took a cut in return for their assistance, whether it was to look away when justice was needed, or to direct their enforcement against factions that were out of favour pending a larger bribe. The guilt or innocence of the accused was rarely a concern, at least until Ngomo’s depredations had triggered the Incursion. After that, successive governors had tried desperately to bring the planet back under control by the rigid enforcement of draconian laws, but a hundred years of cynicism, lies and treachery could not be overcome by more violence, no matter how savage.

  Governor Kigali looked to be on trial for his life, in a court that would accept only his damnation. From his appearance, he had been arrested some days before and interrogated to ensure that he made a suitable confession. He clearly did not speak classical Mandarin since a translator announced every sentence as he spoke. Faintly in the background, I could hear that he was speaking Russian. Having made an initial confession that he was indeed a follower of the Ghost and a murderer in the long tradition of Terran oppression, he was dragged to his feet and forced into the chair in front of the table, facing the camera. He then began a long and detailed confession to the entire population of Mars of his many and detestable crimes. I watched his lips, listened to his voice, faint in the background, and realized that the official confession in Mandarin did not match the words he was speaking in Russian.

  I immediately began to record the confession. I had no doubt that the Russian confession could be extracted from the background with proper processing. From time to time, he apparently deviated too much from the script and was struck with a staff by one of the soldiers. When he finished, the announcer decreed that for such endless and horrible crimes, the only possible sentence was immediate death by beheading. He was forced back onto his knees, his hands were tied behind his back, and his head pushed down across the low table. A burly swordzim stepped into view, carrying a heavy longsword. He positioned himself, laid the edge of the sword on Kigali’s neck and lifted the blade high above his head.

  For the first time, the Emperor intervened, halting the execution. He decreed that this hideous criminal had not personally ordered murders of Imperial supporters, and on that basis, with his great mercy and forbearance, the sentence of death would be commuted to eternal slavery in the state-owned mines of the Tharsis district. He would work double shifts, sixteen hours each day, until he died, and would be buried in the depths, never to see the light of the Sun again.

  I knew those mines. They quarried sulphurous deposits left by millennia of ancient volcanic activity. The sulphur was ultimately turned into industrial sulphuric acid, a state monopoly on Mars and a valuable commodity needed in mining operations across the planet and into the Belt. Conditions in the mines were dangerous and discipline had been savage when I had been there during my phase as the Assassin. I could only fear what life would be like now for a political slave.

  “Oh, Arvind. Mahatma, we have to stop this.”

  “Anastasia, we can do nothing. We are here in hiding and he is there under the control of the Imperium. I wish we had started this effort two years ago when you first raised your concerns.”

  “But what can we do?”

  I knew what she meant but was prepared to be more practical. “Minister Singh, we can save the Earth, and in that way, we can save Mars. Perhaps he will still be alive and can be rescued when we succeed. Did you notice that the Emperor can be merciful, that the Martian tradition of summary execution was set aside in favour of slavery? For myself, I might prefer execution, but slavery was never an option within Martian justice.”

  “Oh God,” she moaned, “I pray that you keep him safe until we can rescue him. He does not deserve this.”

  In the back of my head, the Assassin sneered at her fox-hole faith, only apparent when afraid, but the rest of me shut him down. I hated the Assassin, hated what he had made of me. I ignored the Ghost, who saw only the Mission, brilliant in my future, and wanted to fit the atrocity into his long-term plans. I, the Cripple, like Singh, needed to do something now.

  I mentioned that the Governor had been speaking Russian and that his words did not match the Mandarin confession. He might have been hinting at deeper secrets in Russian than he was permitted to say in the official confession, so I hoped we could extract his voice from the recording I had made.

  I asked Thieu what was happening in ACC. She replied that Master Com Tolstoy had sent some of the office staff to bring two of his colleagues into work. They had arrived back a short while before, exhausted from a night of desperate raving. Their terrified spouses and children had accompanied them and were astonished when the stricken officers stepped into the ACC corridors and collapsed in relief. Tolstoy himself cupped their cheeks in his hands and told them to turn off their private channels. Thieu reported that there had been a great deal of weeping and that not much had been accomplished since then, but at least they had been able to dispatch a Com and three Engs to assist at AHQ. The few switchboard operators in reception who had the new comm units had been instructed to turn off their private comm channels. After a quick break for stims they would try to
contact AHQ directly.

  Evgenia similarly reported slow but steady progress at AHQ. The sailors had been pulling in their senior colleagues who had comm units, giving them the warning to turn off unnecessary comm channels, telling them how to scan for emojis, and sending them out to spread the word. She had already thought to tell the staff to make no reference to Banshees in their reports, but only to thank the crew of the Mao for any assistance they had been able to provide. They had also managed to heal two more officers from the inner offices before being driven back by gunfire. Their plan was to wait until the Engs from ACC arrived, then to rush the MI office where the comm centre was located. The sailors did not have equipment to break open the doors, but on Evgenia’s advice had asked in two marines who were practiced in such forms of attack.

  I asked if any of the three officers who had been healed already had contacts in TDF HQ on the Earth, to see if they knew what was happening. Evgenia replied that two of them did. Although they were still nervous wrecks from their period in hell, they were willing to try to talk with their Earth-bound colleagues as a distraction from their own problems.

  A few minutes later, she reported that ACC had finally made direct contact with AHQ. The two officers in AHQ were now working with ACC to try to talk to TDF HQ on the Earth. They apparently encountered the same resistance and indirection that Wang had when he had tried to speak with ACC. Having been warned, they immediately diverted the request to speak with the office staff in the TDF Admiralty Liaison office, who would not have had the latest comm units implanted. It sounded like the same issues all over again, and by now the office workers were learning how to heal demented officers using language appropriate for military personnel.

  2357-03-06 08:30

  Pantheon

  I turned back to Morris and Singh. Somehow, we needed to rescue the delegations, but I was reluctant to interrupt Cap Wang while combat operations continued. Raul solved my immediate problem. He reported from the bridge that there were no further indications of incoming ordinance, although Cap Wang anticipated an ultimatum momentarily.

  He reported that Eng MacDonald had had some success in sorting glue bugs from acid bugs and was directing the glue bugs to fill the one serious hole we had received. The rest of the hole would be filled with foam and a crewmember was moving outside to repair the three deep holes in the meteor shield.

  The rods had struck end on and Raul speculated that each rod had a stabilizing mechanism to keep it aligned until it hit its target. At such enormous speeds, even iron exploded into vapour when it hit a solid obstacle, but the length of the rod forced the hot vapours forward into the target, resulting in a deep, penetrating explosion that had a strong likelihood of punching entirely through even a thick obstacle like the meteor shield. It would have been like a hot needle punching through wax if it had hit the relatively thin steel hull on the side of the ship.

  He added that Wang had been able to pass warnings to the other TDF warships in time. All of them had suffered a few strikes but none had been disabled. The ships were back on their stations or were returning to them as best they were able. The threat had apparently quelled the remaining mutinies and restored some sense of order within the fleet.

  The earth stations had been the primary targets and had sustained thousands of strikes, each penetrating deep into the occupied quarters in the north and south rings. The strikes were not randomly distributed but seemed to have been targeted within a few meters. Public spaces were the worst hit, along with administrative and government offices. The port authorities had been almost completely spared, along with most of the living quarters. Casualties were quite low, although every affected station had several dozen injuries and a few deaths.

  As we had anticipated, the Magellan and Kamehameha had been almost completely spared, with only a few strikes on the largest public spaces. After the long string of false economic reports, it was startling to receive these very public damage reports, and even more startling that they explicitly announced that none of the public spaces had been occupied thanks to the warning they had received from the TDF.

  As Raul finished up, Wang himself requested that I meet with him ASAP in his bridge office. I apologized to Molongo, who was being left in charge of the MI office again, but he just nodded curtly and resumed his quiet discussions with Morris and Singh. I passed Raul on my way to see the Cap. He looked a bit chastened but was returning to the MI office to assist with the implications of the decrypted documents.

  Wang ushered me into his bridge office, scarcely big enough for a few chairs that were clipped to the floor. He gave a large, theatrical sigh, and said, “We need to discuss some disciplinary issues, and that is somewhat ironic because you, Agent Douglas, are probably the one who most needs discipline. Every time something goes wrong in my crew these days, there seems to be a Banshee involved.”

  He shook his head slowly, then continued, “I have already interviewed Agent San Diego, who is not under my jurisdiction but has been at the centre of the worst breech of disciple I have faced in months. He maintains that he is entirely at fault for trying to seduce Com Thieu in defiance of both my and Doctor Marin’s orders, which I assume you supported.”

  I nodded, so he resumed, “He also stoutly defends her insistence on accompanying him to the Manila Bay, in defiance of her assigned station. He also says that you have already chastised both of them. I did agree that Thieu would be temporarily considered to be part of your team, so I cannot criticize, but I would like to hear your account of that discussion, and what you intend to do about it.”

  I summarized our discussions, emphasizing that the rearrangements of teams going to the Manila Bay was entirely justified, showed a sensible initiative on the part of a good officer. It had been critical to the ultimate success of what had turned out to be a desperate mission.

  The later infatuation was impossible to justify, although it seemed entirely human under stressful circumstances. I emphasized that nothing had happened except that their bed arrangements in the infirmary had been rearranged. The resulting conversation in the morning had led directly to a major intelligence breakthrough, which in turn had exposed the troubles in ACC. Our discovery of a continuing and very subtle emoji attack followed from that conversation. Com Thieu was capably and diligently working with Agent Ashura to relieve ACC and AHQ of their emoji problems and I did not want to disturb that essential work.

  I omitted entirely the episode of the near-kiss in the MI office. Raul had been under attack and had severely provoked Begum with his obvious affection. I was also unsure whether Begum might have been receiving emojis through a private channel. I saw no need to raise this as another issue.

  I did state my continuing concern about their relationship on both short and long timescales. In the short term, I believed that both offenders, despite their obvious repentance, needed to go immediately onto total sex suppressors, so they would not even be tempted to violate the orders against fraternization. I also believed that a week or so of separation would be good for them.

  In the longer term, I had serious concerns about romantic relations between two command-level individuals, which could turn with a single argument into a battle for supremacy. That could be catastrophic during combat and was corrosive to any marriage. I strongly recommended that if their infatuation survived the next few weeks they be put into a marriage preparation course. The military had done that to many other high-performance couples with good success, and it could be made mandatory in view of their infraction.

  Wang almost laughed at that. “Marriage counselling, after one day together? If that does not scare some sense into them, I do not know what will. And separation as well. I think you are going to like what I propose, but I need to discuss it with Com Thieu first. When she anticipates a break of maybe an hour in her work with ACC, send her to me, would you?

  “Now, onto the second item. I doubt you have kept track of Law Enforcement’s efforts to develop better protection against the emoji and toke
n attacks. They have made some very useful improvements in the emoji filters, including a much better distribution method. The new approach automatically applies a generic emoji filter to any active channel in the affected comm units, public or private, and filters all but a select few emoji’s out of any incoming message after it has been decrypted. It therefore works on our secure channels as well as on the more open ones. If we had had this filter the night after the Soiree, your nocturnal orgy would not have troubled anyone.

  “In any case, you can now open any channels you like, even ones with encrypted data streams and every message will be filtered before you receive it. If you store a message, it will still retain any emojis, so be careful about passing messages to other people.

  “Best of all, it can propagate itself to any unfiltered comm unit without the need for special hardware. Or worst of all, because this is a massive security hole that we could fly nuclear missiles through. It is a wonder the Martians did not find it first. We have retained the unfiltered channel for distributing tokens that you Banshees used to open doors. The new system works using a very complicated token, so I took the opportunity to implant it in your comm unit as we were speaking.”

  My jaw was working, but nothing came out. Then he laughed, long and hard.

  “No, I did not really do that! I would be court-martialled on the spot. But the look on your face was worth it. With your permission, may I send the new filter?”

  I gasped a few more times, decided I trusted him, against all the screaming fits of the Assassin, the Ghost and even the Agent, and agreed to accept the new filter software. Nothing happened.

  “Done,” said Wang. “It also works on most basic document types so long as they do not include binary blobs, so we can exchange text, serialized images and even most data feeds. There is a nifty trick that I had never previously heard about that serializes our medical data from the monitors. The resulting files arrive and are stored in serialized form, but I expect the doctors will be happy to get anything they can work with. Again, a giant security hole, but until we get better software it should make command and control much easier within the fleet. I am trying to send the patch to all the Com officers on duty through the laser system. Law Enforcement, of course, has sent it to their branches on all the earth stations already, and should have sent it to the Moon by now.