“Do you believe that human nature has changed in any appreciable way since the beginning of our species’ recorded history?” Blanco asked in a clear challenge.
“No,” Jericho shook his head firmly, “I don’t. That’s why the passing of every microsecond of time demands an increasingly greater focus on the study of history on each of our parts. Each passing sliver of time expands humanity’s record, and history is the only unbiased lens through which we can look to fully understand our strengths and weaknesses. If we understand ourselves, we can learn to better ourselves. That’s why documents like the Magna Carta, the American Declaration of Independence, the First Trans-Solar Accords, and the Chimera Sector Bill of Rights are more than just sacred, Mr. President—they’re worth dying for.”
At this, Blanco’s eyes hardened but Jericho wasn’t about to stop halfway through his speech now that the moment had finally come for him to deliver it.
“Each and every time in human history that a more perfect declaration has been written regarding the simple, inalienable truths which bind humanity together—a binding of one individual to another as well as each past generation to those of the future—someone comes along and tries to undo it while genuinely thinking that he or she knows best. Usually they act insidiously toward that end,” Jericho said, having practiced this speech in the mirror for over a decade and finding the words falling from his tongue more fluidly than he had ever hoped they would, “but in the cases of men like you—who are too impatient for the changes you unilaterally deem necessary to take place—even the average citizen can recognize the danger of your destructive agenda. Enacting their collective will against such tyranny is my duty, my privilege, and my destiny, Mr. President,” Jericho said, drawing the pistol up in his good hand and training it between Blanco’s eyes, “and I, too, will gladly die fulfilling it if it’s necessary that I do so.”
“My successors will not stop my work after I am martyred,” Blanco said with fierce defiance as a violent scene began to play out on the stage below them. “They will continue to carry out my mandate long after I am gone; your killing me will only add to the chaos and bloodshed our Sector will experience in the coming days.”
Jericho nodded knowingly, feeling a surge of what could only be described as righteous fury unexpectedly well up in the pit of his stomach. “I’m counting on it, Mr. President,” he said as his ruined arm began to twitch, “because I won’t be stopping my work after you’re dead, either. I intend to rid the Sector of everyone who supports tyrannical abuses like yours—the difference between us is that I actually have a mandate to do so, and that I’ll abide by it.”
“You can’t win, Mr. Bronson,” Blanco sneered, “the board has been set against you. It is only a matter of time before those who share my beliefs reshape the Sector in accordance with my vision. I have already won, and my death will serve as a standard which the Sector’s populace will rally beneath.”
Jericho knew that, in a sense, President Han-Ramil Blanco was right. He had already succeeded in dividing the Sector in two, and all that Jericho could hope to accomplish was a relatively even division of resources between those halves before all-out war commenced between the Chimera Sector’s sovereign Star Systems.
Even Stephen Hadden had not believed it possible to persuade more than half of the Sector’s Star Systems to stand against Blanco’s tyranny, and Stephen had been one of the few remaining humans who had lived during the Forge Wars. He had seen more of human history with his own eyes than anyone else in the Sector and he had done his best to devise a plan which would counteract the inevitable rise of a tyrant like Blanco.
But just because they were playing at a material disadvantage didn’t mean that Jericho’s side of the conflict couldn’t win. Still, Blanco’s political prowess had made the job a lot harder than it might have otherwise been—which meant a greater death toll to retain the Sector’s freedom from men like Blanco’s iron fist wrapped in the softest velvet.
“Spoken like the consummate politician that you are, Mr. President,” Jericho said with a sigh. “I suppose that brings me to a confession—”
“I am not your priest, Mr. Bronson,” Blanco spat as the volume and tempo of the music echoing throughout the theater suddenly became louder, and was accompanied by mock explosions, “so spare me your attempt to attain absolution for the murder you are about to commit.”
“There’s no absolution for people like us, Mr. President,” Jericho said grimly as he slowly pressed his finger against the trigger while waiting for the perfect moment to discharge his duty.
“If not for absolution,” Blanco growled as the band below neared the moment for which Jericho had waited, “then what possible purpose could be served by—“
Ignoring Blanco’s words as he maintained his focus amid increasingly painful spasms in his ruined arm, Jericho focused on the timing of the music. Without consciously directing his finger to do so, it squeezed the trigger and the pistol bucked in his hand at the precise instant that one of the mock explosions took place on the stage.
When he lowered the pistol from his field of view, he saw the ruined skull of President Han-Ramil Blanco oozing grey matter and the occasional squirt of blood over the back of the chair. The shot had been perfect, with the Sector President’s entire brainstem—and most of his cerebral cortex—having been turned to a spray of brain and bone on the wall behind Blanco’s chair.
“I’ve never cared for politicians,” Jericho grunted as he snapped the pistol’s breach open and ejected the spent casing onto the floor beside the Mark of Adjustment. He reached down and placed his wrist-link beside the Mark of Adjustment before pressing the eye-shaped icon at the Mark’s center, and a stream of data populated the wrist-link’s screen before an icon appeared showing the download of the encrypted information record of the Mark had been complete.
Removing the Mark would have been preferable, but Jericho knew that a record taken directly from the Mark itself would satisfy the tribunal—he had asked Lady Jessica that precise question, and she had affirmed such after a few days of consideration and reviewing of the data harvest program’s particulars. Leaving the Mark at the scene would leave no doubt as to why Blanco had been killed, and at this point in the Sector’s growing conflict clarity was of paramount importance.
Jericho turned and made his way to the door as the play continued on the stage below, and it seemed that not a single soul had noticed what had taken place in their midst. It was, for lack of a better word, the perfect Adjustment. Even if Jericho failed to reach the theater’s front door, he knew that he had struck a blow for the people of the Chimera Sector and could die without regrets.
But his job was far from over, and he made his way to the front of the theater as quickly as he could without attracting undue attention. There were several people milling about the lobby, though they seemed to pay him no heed as he walked out into the street.
He took a deep breath of fresh air as he reached into his false tuxedo’s left side pocket to withdraw a compressed overcoat. The night air was cool, and he could smell the coming rain that would surely fall in just a few minutes. After drawing the overcoat around himself, he produced one of his favorite cigars and chopped the end before realizing he hadn’t brought along a lighter.
A flicker of light at the periphery of his vision caught his attention, and he turned to see one of the nearby buildings’ marquees change from its previous advertisement for a ‘cleaner, safer alternative to those diet pills you’ve been taking.’
“Mr. Bronson,” he heard an oddly familiar voice call over his shoulder, and Jericho felt a chill run down his spine as he saw the words which the marquee now displayed.
He turned slowly to see a man who was clearly wearing a suit of light armor beneath his own trench coat, and Jericho immediately recognized the man’s face.
“Mr. Jackson,” Jericho said slowly, his eyes darting from right to left as he saw every other virtual billboard in sight flicker in a cascade which spread
outward from his present position, “aren’t you dead?”
“Not yet,” the Esmerelda Empatica’s security officer smirked, “but that could change in about forty seconds.”
“It could change faster than that if you don’t explain what you’re doing here,” Jericho said, his hand moving to grip the spent pistol in his pocket. It was the only weapon he had available to him, but even without ammunition it would serve as a reasonable club in a melee.
Jericho looked up to see the theater’s marquee had also changed its previous message welcoming President Blanco to the same one on every digital display he could see. “Do I have you to thank for that?” Jericho asked dryly, gesturing to the message.
“Not me,” Jackson said before placing a hand to his ear, where a sleek earpiece was lodged. “We have to move, sir; they’re coming.”
“Who?” Jericho demanded, uncertain if he could trust the man. It was a functionally impossible coincidence that Jackson would be on PSH after the affair back on Virgin—which clearly meant it was no coincidence at all.
“Them,” Jackson said, tilting his head down the street and Jericho turned to see what the other man had indicated.
Like a swarm of enraged hornets, hundreds of attack drones filled the sky over the street which Jackson had indicated and were clearly headed in their direction. Less than surprisingly, they had already begun firing on nearby buildings as the swarm of attack drones careened toward the theater. Vehicles exploded and buildings were struck by rocket impacts as the drones unloaded their potent arsenal on the unsuspecting citizens of PSH Prime.
“Take my ride, sir,” Jackson said grimly as he produced an ion rifle from beneath his coat and took cover behind the corner of the building’s entrance. “We’ll cover your escape while you make for the Tyson. Lady Jessica and Miss Blanco should be there when you arrive. But you need to move, sir; I’ve got an EMP inbound ASAP to bring those drones down before they can tear into the rest of the city.”
Jericho looked to see a hover bike parked nearby, and he noted that the motivators were still running. He wanted to ask how Jackson had found him, or who comprised this ‘we’ which the man had just mentioned, but he knew that he—and the residents of the city—didn’t have time so he ran over to the bike and climbed aboard. A quick check of the controls revealed a configuration with which he was familiar, so he sped off in the opposite direction of the oncoming horde of drones just as he heard the unmistakable sizzling crack of ion weaponry unloading behind him.
As he raced down the street, he saw what looked to be unconscious citizens lying haphazardly across the sidewalk with a few even having collapsed in the street. He could not be sure they weren’t dead but after seeing the nearest police barricade filled with equally incapacitated law enforcement officers, he concluded that whoever Jackson was working for had neutralized them.
And every single sign and digital billboard he passed presented the same three word message which he had read on the marquee above the theater, and that message created more than a few questions in Jericho’s mind.
Who outside of his team could have known about Blanco’s pending Adjustment? But more importantly, how could they have known about the President’s death before a public alarm had gone up?
Whoever it was had apparently decided to help him, and he or she had known more about the Adjustment’s immediate repercussions than even Jericho had known.
“Who are you?” he growled as he passed by the last digital billboard to bear the three words:
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Chapter XXX: The Fledgling Phoenix
Jericho pulled the hover bike into the gorge where the Tyson was parked, and experienced no small surprise when he saw that a team of Hadden Security personnel had taken up defensible positions around the gorge. Their armaments were much like Jackson’s had been, with a heavy representation of ion weaponry and even a few embanked light anti-aircraft guns, but they waved him in as he approached so he brought the bike down into the gorge.
“Mr. Bronson,” the apparent commander of the twelve man team said with a curt nod, “we have inbound hostiles arriving in three minutes. I’m under orders to hold this position until you and the other primaries are cleared to evacuate aboard your shuttle.”
“You’re under whose orders, Captain?” Jericho asked pointedly as he hopped off the hover bike.
“That’s compartmentalized for operational security, sir,” the Captain shook his head in negation. “I advise you to get aboard the Tyson; we can hold this position for twenty minutes before being overrun, and the last member of your team’s ETA is eight minutes. I can call in an EMP and evac my team if you lift off in twelve minutes or less.”
“Which team member are we waiting for?” Jericho asked, vaguely remembering this Security Captain’s face but failing to recall his name. Jericho thought he had read a casualty list with his face on it, but his name continued to escape him.
“Masozi Blanco, sir,” the Captain replied as a sharp series of alarm beeps sounded from his helmet. “Sir, enter the shuttlecraft,” the Captain said tersely as he made a series of hand gestures to the other members of his team, “this is about to become a live fire zone.”
Jericho turned to see a swarm of attack drones in the distance—the same type of drones that he had seen outside the theater—and he decided to take the Captain’s advice. His arm had cramped terribly during the flight back and he was in no condition to fight, which ignored the fact that he was presently unarmed.
Upon entering the Tyson, he saw Lady Jessica was already strapped into one of the copilot’s seats. Her face was a bruised mess and she was missing her left arm just below the shoulder, but she appeared lucid—which very probably was a result of the myriad medical devices connected to her and arranged neatly on the floor of the shuttle’s cockpit.
“Was this your idea of an escape?” he asked darkly as he strapped into the pilot’s chair, still uncertain who was pulling the strings behind the unexpected pick-up.
“My own extraction team was neutralized shortly before I entered the theater,” Lady Jessica replied icily. “I suppose I should be grateful for the efforts of the Hadden team which neutralized the Agents conducting my interrogation and brought me here.”
Jericho stopped his pre-flight checklist and turned to see the cold resolution in the woman’s face and nodded grudgingly, “Then it looks like we’re lucky we’ve got a mutual benefactor.”
“They are Hadden employees,” Lady Jessica said archly as the sound of weapons fire commenced outside, and Jericho closed the door with a flip of a switch to provide maximum possible protection for them. “Do you expect me to believe you know nothing of their agenda?”
“Despite our protestations to the contrary, Hadden was functionally dissolved—at least on a temporary basis,” Jericho said flatly. “The majority of the corporation’s sentient assets escaped persecution, and a significant amount of our material assets were secreted away in the months leading up to the massacre at H.E. One. But we’ve been unable to contact any of the designated fallback point administrators…which seemed more than slightly ominous but we haven’t exactly had time to investigate,” he admitted, knowing that the most likely figure behind this unscheduled evacuation support was the same one who had pre-empted the Zhuge Liang’s collection of, and coordination with, Hadden’s resources at their various fallback points.
“Hadden’s security forces seem competent,” she grudged as the fire outside intensified, with the occasional strike landing against the hull.
“’Competent’ isn’t the word I’d use,” Jericho said grimly as he heard a man’s muffled death cry outside the shuttle. “Half of them have trained seven hours per day for every combat situation imaginable since they were twelve years old, and the other half was handpicked from the best of the public military forces throughout the Sector.”
“The best which could be bought,” she muttered.
A flashing yellow icon appeared on the tactical screen, cutti
ng their banter short as Jericho saw that the new icon represented Masozi’s Infiltrator suit. A quick check of the suit’s telemetry showed that Masozi’s vital signs were weak but stable, and before he could initiate a com-link Jericho saw Eve’s avatar appear on the comm. screen.
“Did you guys start the party without us?” Eve asked in a scolding tone.
“What’s wrong with Masozi?” Jericho asked as he continued working through the last of the shuttle’s pre-flight checklist.
“She’ll live,” Eve replied more somberly, “but her other leg got burned pretty badly; I had to induce a chemical coma to prevent excessive damage due to unwanted muscular contractions in the affected limb.”
“Will she lose it?” Jericho asked as the engines thrummed to life with palpable vibrations. Masozi had already been crippled due to her involvement in the Chimera Adjustment, and Jericho felt more than a little responsibility for her condition.
“That depends on how quickly we can get her to a fully equipped grade one trauma suite,” Eve replied matter-of-factly. “But with the Zhuge Liang already gone—“
“What?!” Jericho snapped. He had heard nothing of the warship, and had assumed it would be rendezvousing with them as scheduled in low orbit of PSH Prime less than an hour from their pending takeoff. “What do you mean ‘it’s gone’?”
“I thought your wrist-link would have received the update,” Eve said simply. “We received a message confirming the Kongming made the Phase Threshold twenty two minutes ago; they were being pursued by Union warships and were actively repelling some sort of boarding action.”
“At least they got out,” Jericho muttered as the ETA for Masozi’s transponder counted down to twenty seconds remaining. “Which is more than we can say for ourselves…unless you also had an off-world extraction route planned out?” he said with a pointed look at Lady Jessica.
“I made no such plan,” she said with a firm shake of her head as Masozi’s transponder moved so close to the shuttle’s that it seemed to merge with it.
Sic Semper Tyrannis: The Chimera Adjustment, Book Two (Imperium Cicernus 5) Page 44
