by Randy Moffat
The Militia had another father in mind. A nationalistic Freudian nightmare.
The head of the dragon of CCP marchers had by now entered the square to the tune of several hundred people when there was a concerted and coordinated movement by a hundred Militia members who sprinted forward out of the crowd in a body and elbowed their way forcefully through the neat lineup of the parade from each side cutting it into two pieces. Half of the Militia then stood there deployed across the entrance holding their swords across their thighs and glaring outward, facing off the twelve hundred people or so who made up the second half of the parade and were now cut off from their comrades. The people in that truncated tail of the dragon began to pile up on the obstacle the Militia now formed across the road and lose their neat linier continuity—turning into an uncertain mass of humans searching to advance and being stopped. More and more of them crushed into the street short of the square. Within two minutes they were shoulder to shoulder and unable to move in any useful direction. A lot of shouting ensued and it only got louder.
The other half of the Militia’s mates had performed an about face and were looking inward to the square in much the same pose as their teammates at their back. Simultaneously with the splitting of the parade in two, other small Militia teams cut off all other exits from the square in much the same way trapping the shopping crowd within. The front half of the Lau inchworm now in the square was at first quite unaware that they had lost about half their numbers and kept going forward. Near the front were the subordinate parade leaders who formed a clique of a half dozen men with bull horns. They had steadily extorted their followers by shouting slogans and a scripted effort to rile up the team. They drove their sheep a few hundred meters into the square until yet another group of Militia rushed up to them there and began shouting them down using cupped hands and plenty of belligerent excitement. The head of the column ground to a halt along with three or four of the official agitators whose rhetoric stammered to a halt with them. A couple of the bullhorns actually backing up guiltily and nervously attempting to hide their loudspeakers behind their thighs. Three of them were made of sterner stuff though. As they saw the thugs confronting them they half turned and shouted even louder through their bull horns, drowning out the exhortations of the Militia who lacked the enhancement of electronic gear and had to make do with their loudest human vocal settings. This give and take between Militia and pro-government lasted for a minute or two when a particularly stupid looking Militia man lost his temper and lashed out with his wooden sword smashing the bullhorn from an opposition organizer’s hand. It was the lever on a floodgate. Within seconds the Militia personnel rushed forward and began to lay about them with their swords, smashing arms, legs and skulls. A couple dozen Lau supporters rushed forward too, only to discover that their fists, placards and whatever objects that lay at hand were poor weapons against the Militia swords which gave the Hú Nationalists the reach. These natural leaders fell too beneath blows from Militia swords. Bereft now of leadership, most of the rest of the dragon disintegrated then, scattering and mingling into the now panicking shopping crowd who were desperately headed away from the violence. Their fear was infectious. Screaming and yelling the entire market crowd began to abandon the rules of law and order and follow the rules of survival, seeking a path out of the box they were now in. The Militia was maddened by their supremacy and by the sight of the flight of their rivals and they began to attack anything and anyone who came in reach… only partial discipline still existed. The Militia agitators eventually fanned out into a ragged line and laid about them.
As the crowd reached the exits on either side they were faced by even more hardcore Militia who began to swing their swords to and fro to drive shoppers and CCP members alike back into the heart of the square. The Militia behind this developing major action at the south gate let a few hundred people escape out their gate and jogged north. They saw what was going on and moved to bolster the line and soon a thin but continuous row of Militia stretched across the entire width of the square moving north by steps punctuated by sweeping swings of their swords. Blood flew abundantly and people backed away or ran in front of them. As the line passed the two side gates those Militiamen guarding them also reinforced the sword line. For most people fight was out so flight was all that remained as the mass of people began packing closer and closer together. The mob unconsciously turned toward the north gate. The growing frenzy of the crowd still in the street outside the square had also risen. The remainder of the Lau column that had tried to advance had begun to be beaten by the Militia who knocked down dozens only to find dozens more of the Lau people pushed forward against their desires by their comrades. The growing pressure from the parade remnant behind them was now choking the narrow street and jostling forward in outrage. For a moment the tough Militia members arrayed there held them back, but eventually Lau men at the front pressed in by their own supporters behind them desperately leapt over their fallen comrades already laid out by Militia swords and grappled directly with the Militia swordsmen at close range.
The Militia members behind them on the inside of the gate had been busy themselves using swords on the ever increasing numbers of the panicking crowd who were shoving their way north to escape the advancing Militia line behind them. The thin line of Militia men at the gate were just barely holding them back from being trampled and trying to escape out the north gate they guarded. The Militia leader stationed there realized his small team of members would soon be overwhelmed from both sides and had an inspiration. He shouted commands, yanked on sleeves and his people responded to his commands and abruptly fell out to both sides of the entrance maintaining something resembling discipline. This had the effect of releasing the flood of government supporters held up in the street until that moment to charge a ten meters into the square straight into the face of the mob within the square, who were still being goaded by hematomas from behind and trying to leave. The shoppers and panicky remnants of the mall crowd front ran smack into the tail of the dragon parade like a wave on cliffs of Moher. Order, already fading, utterly disappeared. Fists flew, people fell upon one another with random blows unable to tell friend from foe. Plenty were knocked down and trampled underfoot. Organization outside the Militia’s own disappeared and every man fought anyone in front of them now, always to escape the pressure of people coming from behind. It was the ugliest of stalemates for a time.
Cunning was working though. The Militia leader huddled at the side of the North gate was busy on a small radio fulfilling the promise of his sudden idea. He let the momentarily greater pressure of the governmental mob push twenty yards into the square while urging the leaders of the line behind the shoppers to drive their mobs towards the north exit at a faster pace. Disorganized people in those numbers become lower animals. They moved away from the source of greatest pain. Like beaters the Militia drove more and more of the mob towards the North. Men, women and children piled up on the now thoroughly spooked government demonstrators who closed shoulder to shoulder and tried to defend themselves from people who were now hysterical to escape what was behind them.
The Militia leader at the north gate kept smacking the three of his people he had selected as media recorders on the sleeves. They would respond to his pointing and wielded cameras to catch very nice shots of panicked government supporters as they beat people to the ground with their Premier Lau placards, trampled on them to the ground and kicked them aside. It was self defense, but pictures often lie and it certainly did not look like it. The whole mess lasted only eleven minutes from beginning to end. Before everyone except the Militia had turned and fled the square in a race for survival. Local hospitals were overwhelmed quickly with the injured and dead.
Militia video was edited and all over the net within two hours. Message—Premier Lau had lost touch with his people. Ordinary citizens were trying to escape from the square! They were fighting with CCP demonstrators who were bent on keeping them in and killing them. The Comm
unist party was beating and murdering innocent people. Grinding them into the dirt. Crushing them under their heel. Tianamen has come agian! The people were helpless. It was powerful stuff made stronger with twenty second interviews with weeping mothers and wives bent in tears and grief over the crushed bodies of their dead loved ones. In the last two minutes of the debacle the North Gate Militia leader had another epiphany and had teams of his own guys defend and protect a few screaming women and children writhing on the ground from the mobs stamping feet—stopping them from being trampled. Those shots were tacked on the end of the footage. Words would have ruined it. The only ones defending the helpless were the Militia. The Militia for work were the people’s friends. The North Gate Militia leader who put it all together on the spur of the moment was promoted instantly and given a reward of one hundred thousand Yuan from the Militia for Work coffers as an example to others.
The message of this spin was clear. China needed a strong man with a strong voice to stop these kind of high handed low down government tactics. That man was Hú.
Hú looked at his head of security yet again. His face flushed.
“The old man… Jeeter? He has died?” Hú asked trying to judge the dour look on the face around the scar.
His security man shook his head.
“Not as far as I know. I wanted to inform you that something else had happened. Premier Lau had a closed door meeting two days ago. It is significant that none of our people were invited to attend it. In the last twenty four hours there have been orders cut for military units in some military districts that come direct from the premier’s offices without passing through any intermediate headquarters. Our people over in the Ministry of State security report that several key personnel from that agency have also been moved about and have now dropped out of sight. This is in addition to his suddenly scheduled teleconference to all military units. I believe the pattern of planned riots are having wider results than we planned.”
Hú flushed. He was a canny man when not pandering to his schizophrenic nature. He had worked hard to have tentacles providing information in all the major and most minor government agencies. Something that suddenly bypassed all those channels of information spoke volumes. This all meant something sinister to his own plans.
“You suspect they have discovered our Operation Laofun? Or is there a hint they know about Operation Yuanjia?”
Security shrugged.
“You ask me now what I think? About Laofun? I think this old man is not really so important to Premier Lau. I think that the level of secrecy the Premier is showing suggests that he is more worried about something more important to him than a single aged pilot. I would think it is much more likely that they have finally woken up to our other plan. How much they know or suspect about Yuanjia I can only guess, but the fact that it there was a lot of state security at the meeting and no internal security was invited is damning enough.”
Hú considered.
“We will move up our timetable.” He said. “Meantime go and fetch Jeeter here.”
Premier Lau looked hard-eyed into a teleconference screen. He had seen the videos and reports from yesterday’s riots. He had immediately commanded that the People’s Army have its entire chain of command and all leaders down to battalion level come on line simultaneously. They were required to see this transmission and right now he had chosen to look into a large auditorium packed with uniforms down in the Nanjing district. A glance at his secondary screens reporting display showed him that the Lanzhou and Shinyang Military Districts were still dark. No one from those districts was on line. Lau’s order to attend this meeting to the military chain of command in those districts was simply being disobeyed there. Lanzhou at least had the good taste to claim technical difficulties, but Lau knew is merely a smokescreen. They were Hú strongholds and they had other orders. They had voted with their feet.
“My fellow Chinese and loyal party members… .” Lau began.
Apparently this opening statement was too much because Lau caught a flicker out of the corner of his eye and saw that the Chengdu district feed flicker off too. The lunacy was everywhere and now spreading. Now three out of seven districts had tacitly or directly declared for Hú by not hearing his words through this transmission. Lau’s face took on an even grimmer and more forbidding look.
Lau kept talking, extorting all local commanders to increased their vigilance. Warning them that there were counter-party elements working against the Chinese government and the Communist Party. All commanders except in the regions around the capital were to lock down their men in their barracks until specifically contacted by a personal liaison sent by Lau himself. Armories, arms rooms, and ammunition were to be placed under triple guard. Certain counter-revolutionaries and potential fellow travelers were to be clapped in chains immediately. Lau then began to enumerate the characteristics and names of the key reactionaries he needed in chains in a neat list.
Essentially the list included anyone with the Hú hint about them… or the Militia. After the riots. Especially anyone in the Militia or with a Militia connection.
The ranks of the People’s Liberation Army represented a cross section of the population of China itself. As such it straddled the fracture line between Hú and Lau, Lau moved to do what he could to cleanse the ranks on his side of the line and encourage those on the other side to join him on the side of right and light.
Even as he spoke arrests were occurring all over China.
Not all of them were his arrests.
CHAPTER 8
In science there are three classes of levers
In the beam of work lights she was an irregularly shaped gray blob of rock a kilometer and a half long by about three quarters of a kilometer around that was wandering in a ragged orbit around the sun. TESS had found her just inside Mars orbit quite by accident. The Gaia had come out of a Petrovski jump to take her bearings nine months ago and pinged out radar only to get a response from her a mere mile away. I remembered it had scared the hell out of me at the time. If we had not dropped out of drive when we did the ship might well have hit her and even though it would have been the drive field that would have impacted her first… I was still not sure whether the rock would have won or the ship. It had given me something to think about. We certainly hit small amounts of matter all the time and the field made short work of it—sending it away into the cornfields and releasing radiation in exchange. Big chunks of matter was another story. So far we had been lucky and missed the sun and planets. Outer space is mostly space after all. Big sky little bullet. We faced my fear, I put away my wet underwear for later and put the rock we’d found to use.
Her surface was a random selection of pits and craters that testified to occasional impacts over a millennia of millennia as she drifted about, bobbing along though the conflicted surf of gravity fields between Mars and Saturn. She was a result of chaos theory. Or had been. Now if you looked closely you could make out several objects that defied the fractal pattern of her surface and whose symmetry of rigid lines or too smooth curves testified that they were man-made rather than natural to space debris. Men had been at work. The race of man was changing her piece by piece. TESS personnel stationed on her had predictably nicknamed her “The Rock.”
She had originally been tumbling like a sneaker in a dryer—the result of imparted momentum from strikes with other random rocks over ages past, but the first thing TESS had done was emplace thrusters on her surface at key points and begun firing them as attitude controls. They were small second hand Ion drives we’d gotten cheap from NASA. Once mounted they began spitting out electromagnetically accelerated Ions which methodically slowed the tumble and finally stopped it altogether over the course of a few months. Her newfound stillness held the rock always in the same orientation to space so that approach and docking by TESS ships was now greatly simplified.
I was looking at her like I would any unlovely lump of non-lava. I realize
d I had been too long in space. Seen too many such lumps. The thrill was wearing off. Officially we called this particular lump L5 rather than the pet name “The Rock,” because we intended to park her as a space station ultimately at the L5 La Grange point. L5 was a fulcrum of gravity where the levers of influence from earth, the moon and the sun were precisely balanced. Anything placed there would theoretically stay there at the fulcrum of gravity’s balance for a long time without falling towards any of them.
I had hitched a ride out here on the SS Tellus and she hung beside the rock with three rigid bars connecting her to the rock and four heated umbilical cords crossing the space between the ship’s hull and disappearing into L5’s guts while the ship pumped water from her tanks into warmed holding tanks on the space station. Tethered on the opposite side of the rock was a small remnant of a comet that we had captured recently and pushed over beside her. We were experimenting with melting her down into water instead of hauling it all up here from Earth in ship’s tanks. So far the experiment was not going particularly well, but I figured it was only a matter of time until some smart recruit mastered a clever technique that would make it all practicable. That was my optimism showing again. I was probably doomed to be disappointed.
