Picking Up The Pieces (Martial Law)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Right,” I said, pushing my concerns about Muna aside. “You’ve heard his words and reviewed the eyewitness testimony. We don’t have much to go on, but we need to make a decision fast. Your verdicts, please?”

  I carefully didn’t mention that we’d probably end up having to explain our decision to the local government. The girl had been released after she’d been checked by the doctor and would probably be filing a complaint now. The contract we’d signed with the local government, in happier times, was vague when it came to complaints against my men, but I doubted they'd be happy. Frida’s constituency would demand heavy punishment. For once, I agreed with them.

  “Guilty,” Russell said, without hesitation. “There was no need to hurt her so badly and she wasn't resisting him. Take the bastard outside and shoot him now. I’ll volunteer for the firing squad…”

  “Thank you,” I said, cutting off what promised to be a long tirade. Russell took indiscipline seriously, as I may have mentioned once or twice before. “Jackie?”

  “Guilty,” she agreed. Her voice was icy. “We’ve talked about this farce long enough.”

  “Not guilty,” Captain Erica Yuppie said. “We don’t know what was going through his head at the time. Soldiers do stupid things under fire sometimes, as you well know, and he might have thought that he was doing the right thing. We don’t always have time to be gentle when lives are at stake.”

  “Guilty,” Captain Robert McClellan said, glaring at Erica. “There is no excuse for his actions.”

  “Three guilty votes, one not guilty votes,” I said, flatly. My tone cut off another argument. Erica and Robert had never gotten along very well. “The sentence is passed as guilty.”

  “I formally request that my dissent be entered in the record,” Erica said, flatly.

  “Understood,” I said, nodding to Tim. The clerk nodded back and made an entry on his computer. “Sergeant, bring in the prisoner.”

  We didn’t bother with a black cap or other such nonsense, but Hershey knew the verdict from our grim faces. He quivered, but Peter kept one hand firmly on his arm, ready to knock him down if he tried anything stupid. I wouldn’t have blamed him for trying – he had nothing left to lose – but I couldn’t allow him to escape. Frida was going to be annoyed enough without an escaped molester on the run.

  “Private Hershey, this court finds you guilty of molesting one civilian girl without good cause,” I said, without preamble. The UN would have dressed up the verdict in flowery terms and phases, but I saw no need to mince my words. “You will be taken from this court, given one hour to put your affairs in order, and then you will be hung from the neck until you are dead. May God have mercy on your soul.”

  The next hour passed slowly. I spent it preparing a press release for the local reporters – or what were left of them after the Communists had slaughtered hundreds of them at the stadium – about the hanging and why it had been carried out. They’d probably misunderstand and misinterpret everything I said, but at least we’d get an explanation out there. Some of Private Hershey’s salary would go to the girl to compensate her for her experience, but the remainder would be sent on to his relatives, or wherever he wanted the money to go. I doubted he'd be leaving it to the Legion, as some Legionnaires, including myself, did.

  Peter had supervised the construction of the gallows and we called all of the recruits out to watch, again. They looked pale as Private Hershey stepped out in full dress uniform and was stripped of everything apart from the basic uniform, before being marched to the gallows. I spoke quickly to the recruits, explaining what had happened and why he was being hung, before offering him the traditional last words. He said nothing. The hanging took seconds, but it felt like forever. This time, more recruits fainted and had to be helped away. Hershey’s body was cut down and unceremoniously transported to an unmarked grave. No one would go to mourn at his graveside.

  “I’m glad that that’s over,” I said, afterwards. Peter had poured me a small glass of local whiskey and ordered me to drink it. The memory of a body dangling on a rope would be with me for a long time. “Now we get to make war.”

  Peter snorted. “Do you think that that’ll make it cleaner?”

  “No,” I said, “but at least when fighting the Communists, I know I’m doing the right thing.”

  The words ran hollow, somehow.

  Chapter Fifteen

  An offensive that is not carefully prepared beforehand already has one problem. An offensive launched ahead of time has another. The wise General refuses to bow to political pressure in timing and launching an offensive.

  -Army Manual, Heinlein

  From the air, Pitea looked like any other city on a Colony world, if larger than New Copenhagen. It was Svergie’s largest city and actually the second to be settled, although I doubted that the planners had the vast bands of slums and inadequate housing in mind when they’d created their plans. The UN’s shipments of refugees had spoiled the plan merely by existing; the planet’s economy couldn’t handle them, yet it couldn’t get rid of them. In their place, I’d have told them to work or starve, but successive UN administrations had preferred to squeeze the farmers to feed them, rather than admit that their plans needed changing.

  I studied the city carefully through the cold metal eyes of the William Tell. The Fleet starship’s orbit kept it over the main continent on the planet and we had access to the take, although perhaps not with the knowledge of the vessel’s Captain. The images were depressingly clear, yet even they had limits; the Communists could be doing anything at all under cover and we wouldn’t know anything about it until we had boots on the ground. The flow of refugees leaving the city suggested that Communist rule was Not Popular, but it was quite possible that much of the Communist leadership had already escaped, although I didn’t know where they intended to go to hide. After they’d nearly killed the President and had killed half the Council, the entire planet was up in arms against them. They would probably end up being shot on sight.

  “The best intelligence can suggest is that there are still upwards of six million people in there,” Ed said, grimly. I winced at the thought of so many people caught in the midst of a battle. They couldn’t all be committed Communists, could they? “We’ve established detention camps for people leaving the city, but there just aren’t enough soldiers to keep a full encirclement. There could be hundreds of people slipping past us.”

  I nodded. Pitea had seven heavy roads leading out of the city, towards the other cities, and we’d blocked them as soon as we’d moved light infantry units into the area, but there was little stopping people from walking out cross-country. Everyone who had relatives in the countryside, or good reason to know that the Communists wanted them dead, would be trying to escape the nightmare that had gripped their city. They’d be a plague of locusts ravaging the land, yet even if we held them all in detention camps, we couldn’t feed them all. UN MRE packs were little more than cruel and unusual punishment.

  “We’ve also been skirmishing with their patrols around the edge of the city,” Ed added. “We’ve killed several dozen fighters with snipers, but they’ve got their own snipers and a couple of my men got killed. I think they don’t want to come out of the city – I have teams in position to block any attempt to leave in force – but digging them out is going to be a bitch.”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking down at the map. Pitea was a confusing mixture of massive factory areas, slums and buildings that had once been warehouses, but had been converted into living space for the immigrants. Fighting our way through it would be a nightmare. “Any sign of heavy weapons?”

  “Nothing that we can confirm,” Ed said. “They’ve probably got mortars at the very least, but if they have anything heavier…well, we’ve been unable to catch a glimpse of it. Jock’s somewhere in the city, but I haven’t heard anything from him.”

  “He’ll be fine,” I said, with a confidence I didn’t feel. Terrorist organisations tended to be very good at filtering the trus
tworthy out from the untrustworthy – terrorist groups that weren’t rarely lasted very long – and if they knew who should be there, they’d probably realise that Jock wasn't one of them. The Specials were good at blending into their surroundings, and chaos was an excellent operating zone for them, but if Jock was located…he’d have to break contact and escape. “We’ll hear from him when he’s ready to hear from us.”

  “Doubtless,” Ed agreed, probably with as much confidence as I felt myself. “What about the President…ah, the Acting President?”

  “She’s decided to allow us to spend time preparing before we move into the city,” I said. It had taking a long argument to convince Frida that getting the army I’d built chewed to ribbons would be counterproductive. She’d wanted to move in at once and crush the Communists as quickly as possible, but I’d wanted to prepare first. I needed time to ensure that we reoccupied the city with as little damage to the infrastructure as possible. The Communists had already damaged enough infrastructure to force us to spend years rebuilding. “And the ships?”

  I hadn’t understood why they’d built Pitea where it was until I’d seen a map. North of Pitea, across the waters, was the Blue Island Chain, a set of small islands that housed a fairly affluent community. There was actually a surprising amount of sea travel on the planet and much of the carrying trade was done by boat; unsurprising, really, when all of the major cities were on the coast. The UN had actually tried to boost shipping by boat because of some halfwit theories about it being better for the environment…and, for once, the natives had agreed with them. Pitea was pretty much the shipping capital of the planet.

  “We used the helicopters to move men onto the boats and bring them into safe harbour,” Ed confirmed. “They’re not going to be a problem, although several of them wanted to fight rather than be returned to Pitea. It looks as if most of the pleasure ships and some of the industrial ships managed to get away before the communists could stop them, or place their own men onboard. We called for volunteers to man the ships and moved the remainder of the original crews to the detention camps. That’s not going to be a permanent solution, sir; we’re already running short of food.”

  “I know,” I said, rubbing the back of my head. It was a gesture I’d picked up in the UNPF and somehow never lost. “How many people do we have in the camps so far?”

  “Several hundred thousand,” Ed said. I swore. That was worse than I’d expected, yet everyone in the camps was someone who wouldn’t be in the way when we finally went into the city, someone who wouldn’t be killed in the crossfire. “We’ve got a few thousand in secure detention – the violent or the known Communists – and the remainder are in looser camps. Still, feeding them…”

  ”I’m having MRE packs sent over,” I said. It would do nothing for the current government in the polls, but I was past caring. “Once the local government gets its act together, we can probably start releasing most of them to their families, if they have families outside the city.”

  I didn’t mention the other concern. There had been no attempt to keep track of who belonged to a political party, or even which political party, but we did have a list of known hardcore Communist leaders who had to be arrested and removed from play. I didn’t want to let them go, yet I didn’t want to hand them over to the locals until we had sucked every last piece of information from them. They would know who else needed to be arrested and eventually shot, yet interrogating them was going to be a pain. The Communist Party was now officially banned…and the hardcore had nothing left to lose. They knew that they’d probably end up being hung from a tree until they were very unhappy.

  “The sooner the better,” Ed said. He paused. “There’s been no sign of Muna, but we interrogated a few policemen who fled – the remainder were apparently being purged by the Communists – and they’ve confirmed that the factories were among the first seized. She’s either a prisoner or dead.”

  “Yes,” I said. I changed the subject with an effort of will. “I need to inspect the defences. Show me what you’ve done.”

  The air near Pitea smelt of burning fuel and the by-products of industry. I was surprised to smell it when the UN had ruled – almost uncontested – for years, and then I remembered Earth and understood. Some bureaucrats had probably taken a few huge bribes and granted exceptions to the harsh laws against polluting the environment, forcing the UN’s publicity machine to come up with new lies and shit to shovel down the throats of the workers. Probably something about how the Colonies had to help Mother Earth by suffering and therefore tilting the cosmic balance, or some other nonsense like that. It was amazing what the UN could convince people to do with a little effort and a lot of lies.

  “This used to be a small town,” Ed explained. “We evacuated the population and took over. It was intended to be a storage place outside the city, I think, but somehow it never took off.”

  I nodded. The town was crawling with soldiers wearing our uniforms and the ones we’d designed for the Svergie Army. We’d managed to spend a week moving tanks and armoured vehicles into position, along with vehicles that protected their crew from mines, IEDs and other unpleasant surprises. I saw Sergeants – some of ours, some newly promoted from the Svergie recruits – chivvying the soldiers along, reminding them of what the Communists had done to their President and thousands of people. I winced inwardly. The last thing I wanted was a massacre caused by outraged soldiers, yet we had to remind them of what had happened, just to remind them of what they were fighting for. A world free of Communism looked mighty good just now.

  “This is Captain Hellqvist,” Ed said, introducing a man wearing a new insignia. It was always easy to tell someone who had just been promoted from someone who had been serving in the rank for a few months or years; they always looked just a trifle uneasy. “The Acting President promoted him personally and insisted that we gave him a platoon.”

  I saluted. Now I remembered him; Jörgen Hellqvist had been at the siege of the stadium and had served well during the defence. I should have been consulted about any promotions to Captain’s rank and above, but I couldn’t fault the decision. He was young and unformed and had barely been in the army for more than five months, but the same was true of all of them. How could we refuse to promote natives? It would have ensured resentment and hatred among the lower ranks, yet…someone ill-prepared for the role would get people killed, or worse.

  He returned my salute, almost perfectly. “Congratulations on your promotion,” I said, as I lowered my hand. “What do you think of the position?”

  Jörgen was clearly smart enough to recognise a test question when he heard one. “If they try to break out, we’ll chew them up and shit out the remains,” he said, finally. “If we have to break in…it’s going to be a stone cold bitch.”

  “Definitely,” I said, spotting Sergeant Rory behind Jörgen, keeping a paternal eye on him. If the new Captain was smart, he’d listen to the experienced enlisted man and seek his advice on all matters. Sergeant Rory had been taking young Lieutenants and turning them into Captains for longer than I’d been alive. “Keep drilling your platoon on urban combat, Captain; I have a feeling that we’re going to need it.”

  I spent the next hour inspecting the ring of steel we’d created around the city. We’d held most of our forces back to keep them out of artillery range – if the Communists had such weapons, which was in doubt – and were carefully preparing our forces for the advance to the city. The recon patrols were confident and clearly had high morale; one of them bragged that they’d slipped right up to the city and even entered part of it, without being detected. Others claimed to have sneaked up on their counterparts and cut their throats before vanishing again into the shadows.

  “They’re not good sneaks, sir,” one particularly pleased Lieutenant reported. “They keep blundering around in the countryside and I’d bet they’re not much better in the city. A few units of countrymen would cause us far more problems…”

  “One moment,” Ed said, key
ing his earpiece and listening to the message. “Forward patrols have just picked up a man from the city carrying a white flag. He claims to be a Communist Leader and wants to speak to someone in charge.”

  Shoot him at once, I thought, but pushed it aside. If we killed everyone who tried to talk to us, our opponents would only fight to the death. “I’ll talk to him,” I said, and pushed down Ed’s objections. “I’ll take an armoured car and meet him in the space between the two sides.”