By Blood Alone

by William C. Dietz

  Everyone had seen the clip by now, had seen Matthew Pardo pull the trigger, but the video played round the clock. Kenny used it as a buffer between longer stories, as what amounted to a station break, and any other time when it was convenient. It was the teenager’s way of needling Pardo—and reminding the resistance of what they faced.

  The scene shivered and came apart as government engineers tried to jam the feed. It was restored three minutes later. Chien-Chu looked up from his computer and smiled. Kenny had a lot of support—from the mysterious J.J. and the rest of Chien-Chu Enterprises as well.

  A third screen, which registered nothing but snow, was hooked to the company’s com net—a fully encrypted system that enabled Chien-Chu to communicate with offices all around the world. Although some of his staff had been arrested and placed in prison, the vast majority had escaped, and were back in business. After all, what is a company beyond the people who run it? Records? Those were duplicated and sent off-prem once every fifteen minutes. Processes? There were backups for those as well. The company had been attacked before.

  So, in spite of the facts that the muties had cost him some money, and that Noam Inc. had obtained some valuable intelligence, Chien-Chu Enterprises was very much alive.

  The blacksmith sat at the ancient desk and started to type. Not because he had to, but because he enjoyed the kinesthetic feedback.

  Thousands of miles away, in the basement of an old church, words jerked across a screen. Kenny read them and grinned. It seemed that the mysterious J. J. had thrown even more resources into the fray. Cool. The teenager wiped his nose on his hand, wiped his hand on his shirt, and composed his reply.

  The top floor of the building was reserved for Noam Inc. executives. It was quiet as a tomb. A broad, heavily carpeted hallway led to Conference Room 4.

  Qwan knew he should let the underlings wait for a while, knew that a mere ten minutes wasn’t long enough for someone of his seniority, but couldn’t muster the necessary discipline.

  He summoned an executive-style frown, blew into the conference room as if straight from another meeting, and offered the usual apology. “Sorry about that... The old man is on my ass again.” It wasn’t true, but the reference to Noam and the appearance of familiarity couldn’t hurt.

  The security officers smiled agreeably, knew the whole thing was bullshit, and waited for the meeting to start.

  Tumbo had a shaved head, serious eyes, and a degree in political science. He had huge hands, and a truly careful observer might have noticed the scars on his knuckles and wondered where they came from. But Qwan’s eyes were on someone else.

  Pacheck was five-five, blonde, and absolutely stunning. Heterosexual men, and that included Qwan, couldn’t take their eyes off her and she knew it. The nicely tailored red suit, tasteful gold jewelry, and matching accessories were frosting on an already mouth-watering cake.

  “So,” Qwan said, automatically claiming the chair at the head of the table, “what gives? Has she cracked yet?”

  Pacheck noted that the executive’s eyes were focused on her breasts rather than her face. It was a weakness... and therefore interesting. “No, sir. Miss Chien-Chu shows no sign of cracking. Quite the opposite, I’m afraid.”

  It was not what Qwan wanted to hear. He allowed his frown to deepen. In spite of the fact that the initial part of his plan had gone like clockwork, there were problems. Problems he had neglected to share with the old man.

  Chien-Chu Enterprises had thrown off money at first, lots of money, all of which went into Noam Inc.’s coffers. But the flow had lessened since then—more than that, dwindled to a trickle. Part of that could be blamed on the disruption of regular commerce.

  Where had the profits gone? Had they been diverted somehow? Or simply lost in the shuffle? Maylo Chien-Chu knew the answers—the business executive was sure of that, but had been unable to secure her cooperation.

  Qwan had been Mr. Nice Guy at first, but that hadn’t worked, so it was time for something different. He gestured toward the wall tank. “Show me.”

  Tumbo touched a remote, and the holo tank swirled to life. The footage, captured over an extended period of time, had been edited into a documentary.

  The first thing Qwan saw was an aerial shot from one of the transports that ferried prisoners into the Ideological Quarantine Area, or IQA-14.

  What had once been a good, honest gravel pit, with a lake at the bottom, had been transformed into a primitive open-air prison where inmates were free to do anything they pleased so long as they stayed in the pit. Not that they had much choice, since the sides were too steep to climb and weapons emplacements ringed the top.

  Thanks to the rebellion, there were thousands of what amounted to political prisoners, or “unreliables” as the governor called them. Some were true dyed-in-the-wool loyalists, but many were little more than street people.

  The aircraft circled, giving Qwan a look at the pit as well as three vertical structures, all of which were linked. Each tower had mounted lights and a single elevator—a small elevator capable of carrying no more than five or six people at a time.

  Then came a dissolve followed by a point-of-view (POV) shot from within one of the elevators. Qwan, who felt as though he was on the platform himself, watched the walls rise around him. What was that? A body? Yes, and one that had been there for a while, judging from the protruding bones.

  The elevator jerked to a halt, someone shoved the camera operator from the rear, and the shot dived into the ground. Qwan looked at Tumbo. The security officer shrugged.

  “We sent a borg in. One of the more expensive models that can pass for human. You’re looking through her pickups. The rebs tend to be suspicious, so we gave her some street creds.”

  Qwan nodded and turned his attention to the footage. The agent did a push-up, got to her feet, and panned the pit. There were hundreds of women. Some stood in groups, some kept to themselves, and some wandered in circles. A corpse floated facedown in the lake.

  One of the towers appeared, exited frame right, and swung back again. Qwan saw why. The camera zoomed, and the businessman’s fifty-credit lunch tried to jump out of his stomach.

  There were no trees in the gravel pit, only the steel towers, which explained why three bodies dangled from a crosspiece. Their skin was blue, and their bodies had been stripped.

  Pacheck saw the executive’s discomfort and felt a strange sense of superiority. She participated in the horror because she was too afraid to say no. Qwan did it for personal gain. That made her the better person. Didn’t it?

  Qwan turned his back to the video. “So? I asked for a report—not a tour of some god damned gravel pit! Where the hell is she?”

  A muscle twitched in Tumbo’s cheek. Vice presidents come and vice presidents go. God help this sonofabitch if he ever fell out of favor. “Yes, sir. Take a look at the women. Notice how they wear scraps of red and blue?”

  Qwan hadn’t noticed and was loathe to admit it. “Of course. What’s your point?”

  “The point,” Pacheck said patiently, “is that gangs have formed. The reds and the blues.”

  “Representing those who support us and those who don’t,” Qwan said brightly.

  “No,” Tumbo replied. “I’m afraid not.” The words “dumb shit” went unsaid but were clear nonetheless.

  “Then what are they?” Qwan demanded, his annoyance clear to see.

  “They’re equivalent to street gangs,” Pacheck put in, “created by us... and led by our agents. The whole idea is to divide the prisoners into groups and turn them against each other.”

  “Brilliant!” Qwan responded enthusiastically. “I love it!”

  “We’re glad you approve,” Tumbo said dryly. “Now watch what happens.”

  Qwan wasn’t sure he liked the other man’s tone, but was forced to accept it. As the camera panned left and right, the executive noticed that all sorts of garbage littered the ground. There were scraps of paper, items of cast-off clothing, and lots of empty meal paks.


  A crowd appeared up ahead. It parted slowly, as if reluctant to admit someone new. The camera-equipped cyborg pushed her way through. Qwan noticed that the women who passed to either side had red and blue cloth braided into their hair.

  An open space appeared, and there, at its very center, stood the woman he’d been waiting to see. Maylo Chien-Chu still managed to look both pretty and fashionable in spite of the circumstances. She wore a waist-length black leather jacket, tank top, and matching pants.

  Qwan noticed that every eye was on the businesswoman. Predictable, if the audience consisted of males, but none were present. So what was the ineffable quality that people like Maylo Chien-Chu had? It didn’t seem fair. The audio claimed his attention.

  “So,” Maylo continued, “where did the gangs come from? They were here when you arrived, right? Just waiting to recruit you. And what do they stand for? Truth? Liberty? Justice? Does anyone know?”

  The camera looked left, then right. No one raised a hand. “Exactly,” Maylo said soberly. “They don’t stand for anything. But they want things ... don’t they?”

  The former executive pointed toward a woman in the front row. “How ’bout you, Citizen? You’re wearing blue. What do the blues expect of you?”

  The woman was silent at first—so much so that Qwan wondered if she would speak. But she did speak, and in a voice loud enough for most to hear. “They told us to hate the reds.”

  “Precisely,” Maylo agreed, her eyes scanning the crowd. “And to the benefit of whom? Beyond the leaders, that is?”

  “It’s to their benefit,” a woman shouted, pointing toward the rim. “In order to weaken us!”

  The crowd roared its approval, little pieces of red and blue cloth fluttered toward the ground, and a klaxon sounded. Flares exploded overhead, a bullet struck the woman who was pointing upward, and the crowd came apart. Tumbo touched a button, and the holo faded to black.

  Qwan reflected on what he’d seen. The security agents had answered his question. Rather than making her more compliant, the pit had strengthened Maylo Chien-Chu’s resolve. He looked from Tumbo to Pacheck. “So? What would you suggest?”

  “Jerk her out of there,” the female officer responded, “before she leads an uprising.”

  Qwan nodded. “And you, Officer Tumbo? Do you concur?”

  “No,” the other man replied darkly. “I don’t. I suggest that you terminate Citizen Chien-Chu while you can. She’s too dangerous to live.”

  Though ruthless, and indirectly responsible for thousands of nameless deaths, the businessman had never ordered a murder before. Symbolic killings, yes, such as when he fired people to cut costs, but not the real thing. The fact that he could do so sent a shiver down his spine.

  He looked at Tumbo, a big man who looked as though he could administer a death sentence with his bare hands. Directly, personally, while he gazed into the victim’s face.

  Tumbo, his eyes steady, stared back. The challenge was obvious. I’ll kill at your command, or, given the right incentive, I’ll kill you. Could you do the same?

  Qwan knew that he probably couldn’t, not in anything that resembled a fair fight, but he knew something else as well. He had the power to say no, which Tumbo did not.

  “Thank you, Officer Tumbo, but no. Not because I doubt your judgment... but because she has information that we need. Pull the bitch out of IQA-14 and put her in solitary confinement.”

  The security officers nodded, waited for Qwan to clear the room, and followed behind.

  The microbot was the size of a period at the end of a sentence. Its storage banks were full. That being the case, it crossed the ceiling, slipped through a crack, and mated with its “tender,” an extremely small device that served a total of sixteen “bugs.”

  The tender charged the microbot’s power pak, accepted the data it had collected, and sent a quarter-second of code. It had no way to know who would receive the information or how it would be used. It didn’t even know that it didn’t know. Ignorance was bliss.

  It was dark, very dark, and there were no navigational lights to mark the transport’s progress, just the momentary sound of its engines as the aircraft approached the coast and sped inland.

  The pilot, a man named Padia, was none too happy. The mission had screw-up written all over it.

  A clipboard was velcroed to Padia’s right thigh. He checked the printout for the tenth time. The lights were dim to protect his vision, but the orange ink continued to glow. The instructions were clear. He was to land near Hatga, pick up a passenger, and haul butt. All without alerting the muties.

  Of course, that wasn’t the worst of it ... not by a long shot. Assuming the orders were correct, and not the ravings of a suit gone mad, the person he was supposed to collect was listed as Citizen Chien-Chu, as in Sergi Chien-Chu, a man who had disappeared more than fifty years earlier and should be dead.

  The navcomp beeped softly and projected a map onto the windscreen’s inside surface. The transport was five miles from the LZ and closing fast.

  Padia pushed a thought through the neural interface, felt the speed drop by fifty percent, and directed power to the bow-mounted searchlight.

  A blob of white light hit the ground and raced ahead. There wasn’t much to see, just rough-hewn rocks, clumps of hardy vegetation, and a herd of animals. They looked up and disappeared. Lights glowed on the horizon and hinted at a city.

  Padia pulled back on the throttles, monitored his progress on the HUD, and saw a road appear. Ruts suggested regular use. The navcomp beeped, and the light swept over a man. He held onto a bicycle with one hand and waved with the other.

  Padia made a wide, sweeping turn, saw no signs of an ambush, and came in for a landing. The skids hit with a thump. The pilot put the transport’s systems on standby, released his harness, and made for the back.

  The ship rated a copilot and a load master, but he left both of them behind. After all, why risk more people than was necessary? Not that they had thanked him.

  The wireless interface was subject to certain types of interference, which explained why many pilots preferred to use head jacks. But Padia felt differently and was glad he could monitor the ship’s sensors as he hit the door release and lowered the alloy stairs.

  Chien-Chu waited for the lowest step to hit the ground, made his way upward, and offered the bicycle. “Good morning ... Do you have room for this?”

  Padia was supposed to ask for a recognition code but forgot to do so. If the Confederacy’s first President had been famous at the beginning of the last war, his fame had doubled by the end.

  The pilot hadn’t even been born on the day that the industrialist had taken up residence in his current body, but he’d seen pictures of the original Chien-Chu, hundreds of them, and knew this was the man. More than that, he felt it-which might have seemed stupid, but wasn’t. He hurried to accept the bicycle. “Yes, sir! Welcome aboard.”

  Chien-Chu nodded politely. “Thank you. Do you want the recognition code?”

  Padia grimaced at his omission. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  “Mongol redux.”

  The pilot nodded. “Yes, sir. What does it mean?”

  Chien-Chu smiled. “It means that I’m back.”

  13

  There is no greater battle than the one a warrior must fight while denied his weapons, separated from his comrades, and robbed of hope.

  Mylo Nurlon-Da

  The Life of a Warrior

  Standard year 1703

  Planet Earth, Independent World Government

  The voice jerked Tyspin out of a deep, restful sleep. Her mind raced as her eyes sought the bridge repeaters, and her fingers fumbled for the talk button. What could it be? An attack? Fire? The numbers glowed red, and the readings appeared normal. “Yes?”

  “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but you’re required on the bridge.”

  She recognized the voice as belonging to Lieutenant Rawlings—the same Lieutenant Rawlings who kept her head throughout t
he mutiny. If Rawlings said there was a problem, then there was a problem. Tyspin’s feet hit the ice-cold deck, and she grabbed a shirt. “I’m listening, Lieutenant.... What have we got?”

  “It’s Rear Admiral Pratt, ma’am. His crew took control of the flagship.”

  “Any word on him?”

  “No, ma’am. And we aren’t likely to hear any. Not anytime soon. The muties took a hyperspace jump. Headed for the rim would be my guess.”

  The theory made sense. There wasn’t much law out on the rim... and the deserters would have a chance. Not to mention a fully armed warship, which they could sell or use for Lord knew what.

  Tyspin felt a flood of conflicting emotions. Anger at the mutineers, concern regarding the military situation, and yes, inappropriate though it might be, a sort of grim satisfaction. If any officer deserved to lose his or her command, it was Pratt. But not this way. She actually felt sorry for him.

  She pulled her pants on and wished they were a little less wrinkled. “I’m on the way, number one... five from now.”

  Rawlings was waiting when Tyspin arrived. The commanding officer accepted a mug of coffee and took a tentative sip. It was hot—the way she liked it.

  That’s when Tyspin noticed the strange, almost smug expression Rawlings wore. The rest of the bridge crew was way too solemn—as if trying to hide something. She blew steam off the surface of her cup.

  “So, Lieutenant, you approve of mutinies.”

  Rawlings feigned shock. “No, ma’am! Never.”

  The helmsman snickered. Tyspin looked from one face to another. “Really? Then be so kind as to let me in on the joke.”

  Rawlings shrugged. “The victory in Africa received a lot of attention. The loyalist commanders took a vote and placed you in command.”

  Tyspin frowned. Commanding officers are selected, not elected. If not by their superiors, then by the fortunes of war, according to rank, expertise, and seniority. Maybe that explained it. “Because I was senior?”