“Good, good,” Merrick said exuberantly, much like a man receiving unexpectedly good news. “Let’s move on, shall we. Ah, yes, Councillor Polk. Your report on industrial productivity, please.”
Merrick sat back as the last of the councillors filed out of the Council room. Dear Kraa, when will they ever learn? he thought as the headache that had lurked half-felt throughout the Council meeting suddenly blossomed into full flower, the pain hammering at his temples. Why was every meeting the same? Why was the blindingly obvious so hard for Polk and his crew of misbegotten whores to accept? Kraa’s blood! Each week they tap-danced around the simple fact that corruption was the core problem facing the Hammer and would destroy them all if they didn’t do something about it.
Still, Merrick consoled himself as he massaged his aching head, in the end he’d gotten some of what he’d wanted.
Herris had been summoned, his first step to a short encounter with a DocSec firing squad.
Marek had been put on notice, his first step to dismissal from the Council.
And Councillor Polk had been given a very rough time over the Hammer Worlds’ continuing problems with industrial productivity, allowing Merrick to remind him that the interests of the Hammer of Kraa would be much better served if he focused his attention on his own affairs rather than meddling in the business of other departments, intelligence, for example. Sadly, if he was honest, it was not much of a step to anywhere, but it was satisfying nonetheless.
Well, Polk was going to go on learning the hard way that Jesse Merrick was not a man to be fucked with. When the time was right, he had every intention of fashioning the miracle of Eternity into a very large blunt object that he would enjoy shoving right up Polk’s ass.
Giovanni Pecora’s neuronics chimed softly. With a quick apology to his dinner guests, he closed his eyes to take the comm.
It was the intelligence minister, Andres Suchapon. “Giovanni. Just thought I’d let you know. Department 24’s people on Commitment have had a result on the Mumtaz business. They don’t have absolute confirmation, but the agent’s report confirms that there is only one large black Hammer project under Merrick’s direct control involving a significant amount of off-planet activity. And Digby is the man responsible for day-to-day management. That all fits what we already know. Department 24 has graded the report Alfa-2.”
Pecora was silent for a moment before he responded. Intelligence graded Alfa-2 was almost as good as it got. “Okay, Andres. Thanks. I guess we are marginally better off if the Mumtaz hijacking really is some lunatic scheme of Merrick’s, so it’s good to have that confirmed. But whether or not it really makes that much difference, I don’t know.”
Suchapon nodded sympathetically. The major risk of Operation Corona was not the loss of life on that day. It was what the Hammers might do in retaliation, and pinning the blame firmly on Merrick was key to limiting their response.
“We can only hope that it does, Giovanni. In any case, I don’t think it changes anything at this end. We must get our people back, and if the Hammer chooses to cut up rough afterward, so be it. We can take care of ourselves.”
“Right enough, Andres. Okay. Valerie’s up to speed?”
“She is. Not a happy woman. Anything else?”
“No, that’s it for tonight. I’ll see you on Monday.”
“You will. Night, Andres.”
“Night, Giovanni.”
Monday, September 21, 2398, UD
Hell Central
Prison Governor Costigan stood on the low catwalk above the milling group of orange coverall–suited prisoners.
The grim-looking man was flanked on either side by men in closely woven black stab-resistant one-piece plasfiber jumpsuits topped off with lightweight plasfiber close-combat helmets, also black. Hard faces devoid of even the slightest traces of emotion watched the mob over the barrels of crowd-control stun guns, eyes flickering restlessly behind closed plasglass faceplates.
One week, Costigan reflected. One week was all it had taken to turn proud independent human beings into meekly submissive convicts, feedstock for the driver mass mines and plants that were Hell System’s only reason to exist. The depersonalizing combination of numbers instead of names, convict haircuts, strip searches, confiscation of all personal possessions no matter how innocuous, cold, sleeplessness, hunger, and random acts of brutality, topped off with a cocktail of drugs that paralyzed the power of speech, never failed. And for the group below, there were two added shocks. The first was being dragged from the comfort and security of the Mumtaz without the time normal convicts had to adjust; the second was losing the feeling of connectedness that their neuronics gave them—now just so much electronic junk embedded in their brains. And perhaps there was one more. For these people, the Hammer was the devil incarnate, but here they were, helpless in the hands of the people they most feared.
The guards on the holding cage floor finally got the group into a semblance of order, and Costigan stepped up to the rail.
“I am Prison Governor Costigan.” His voiced boomed from the huge flat speakers mounted on the wall behind him, and as one the heads of all the people below lifted to look him in the face. “I won’t waste your time. You have work to do. But understand this. If you work well, you will receive two rewards: You’ll stay alive, and you will eat well. If you do not, then you will die. That’s all you need to know. Forget the future. You have none. This is all the future you have. And forget the past. It’s gone, and you will never get it back.” There was a moment’s pause while he looked for dissent, for anger, but there was none, just shock, disbelief, and fear.
“Staff Sergeant Williams. They are all yours.”
The large black-suited man beside Costigan, stun gun cradled casually in his arms, nodded. “Look down at your chests. All of you with a black tag around your neck, move to the door marked A. Yes, that’s it, black tags to Door A. Yellow tags to Door B at the back. And red tags to Door C. Black to A, yellow to B, and red to C. Now move.”
Williams paused as the group, encouraged by low-power shots from the stun guns, slowly separated into three smaller groups, each huddled around its respective door.
“Good. Now, when your door opens, walk through that door and keep walking until you come to the next door. When that opens, walk through. Keep going until you are told otherwise.” With that, the doors silently slid open, and after a momentary pause the three groups slowly disappeared from sight, leaving behind only the faint sour smell of fear and six black-suited guards.
As the doors shut, Williams turned back to Costigan. “That’s it, sir. A total of 160 altogether: thirty-five to Hell-5, twenty-nine to Hell-16, and the rest, ninety-six in all, to Hell-18.”
“Ninety-six to Hell-18. That’s a lot. Why so many?”
“They’re a bit shorthanded, sir, ever since that incident with the runaway pellet processor.”
Costigan nodded. He remembered, though there were so many deaths that it wasn’t easy. He supposed it was a stretch to call the deaths of forty-three convicts, with another thirty-six so badly hurt that they had been euthanized, an incident, but in truth that was all it was in the greater scheme of things. An incident and one not even worth remembering. The Hell system held more than 57,000 convicts, so the loss of seventy-nine had caused scarcely a ripple. The head office back on McNair certainly didn’t care. His weekly status report, complete with a short account of the incident, had been received without comment by the Prisons Administration Authority, and Costigan knew why: The magic phrase “without adverse impact on driver mass production schedules” never failed to demotivate even the most inquiring prisons administration bureaucrats, all of whom would have done almost anything to avoid having to come to Hell to follow up on a problem.
“Okay. Let’s do the last group.”
Williams muttered into his whisper mike, and Costigan, flanked by ever-watchful guards, made his way along the catwalk, pausing as the heavy security door slammed open before going through into the next holding
cage. The crash of the door shutting solidly behind him was a reminder that this was a risky place to be.
As he came out onto the catwalk, Costigan could sense the difference. Despite the week’s softening up, the group below him was still dangerous; that was not surprising given that every one of them was ex–special forces. Every man probably had been through worse in his training, much worse than anything Hell could dish out, Costigan realized. A quick glance at Williams told him that he wasn’t alone in sensing the difference. Williams was visibly tense, and the guards down on the cage floor were, too, standing farther back with stun guns leveled at the group rather than cradled loosely. One guard stood even farther back with a knockdown gas launcher at hand in case things turned ugly.
As Costigan studied the group, one man stood out. Comonec, that was his name, the team leader. He could almost feel the hate blazing off the hard-faced young man with the dark gold stubble clinging tightly to his head.
He whisper-miked Williams. “The man at the front, in the middle.”
“The fair-headed one, 381123-J, sir?”
“Yes. If he moves even so much as a centimeter, you have my authority to hit him and hit him hard.”
“Sir.”
Costigan launched into his standard speech of welcome, but he could see that his words had no impact. The Mumtaz group had been hunched, beaten men, every one of them. These men held themselves upright, loose but still alert and in control. Let them feel they are in control, Costigan thought as he finished up. They’ve still got no fucking chance, no chance in the world. A month on Hell-20, the toughest and least forgiving of all of Hell’s sites and the only driver mass plant that had no production targets, would pound the fight out of them.
Until it had and until they’d won the right to be transferred to a softer mine, they would be given not the slightest bit of slack. Hell-20’s regime was carefully designed to take hard men to the point of death. An eighteen-hour day, a punishing workload, barely adequate food, plascrete sleeping benches with no mattresses, and only one thin blanket even though the temperature barely rose above freezing would break even the strongest and best trained of them. That was, if they survived at all, and even with the best will in the world, many didn’t. Not that he gave a shit. There were plenty more where these came from.
As Costigan stepped back and handed the group over to Williams to move them out, Comonec made his move. Even though he must have known how pointless it was, he made an explosive lunge for the nearest guard. He got surprisingly close before the guard, casually and moving with an elegant economy of effort, stun shot him full in the chest. Comonec dropped in agony, hands clawing at the plascrete floor in a vain attempt to get at the guard. Nice one, Costigan thought. Enough power to stop him but not so much that he was knocked unconscious. And he was pleased to see that Williams’s full attention and that of the rest of the guards stayed on the group, not on Comonec.
Slowly, Comonec’s tortured nervous system recovered from the gross insult it had received, and his writhing subsided. Casually, the guard dialed down the power and stun shot him again, left leg first and then right, ankles first, then calves, then thighs. A real artist, Costigan thought admiringly, such sadistic finesse. He liked that.
Five agonizing minutes later it was all over. Comonec’s body had given up trying to stay conscious, and the man lay limp and unmoving at the feet of his tormentor.
Williams leaned forward, eyes running across the sullen faces in front of him. “Don’t fuck with me, don’t ever fuck with me. 712-M and 978-B, pick up that piece of garbage.” A gentle tickle from his stun gun made sure 388712-M and 239978-B knew who they were.
“Now go to Door A, and when it opens, keep walking. You’ll be told what to do next. Now move.”
As the group shuffled out, helped on its way by a last touch from the guards’ stun guns, Costigan nodded his approval. “Impressive, Williams, impressive.”
“Thank you, sir. We’ll escort this group all the way to Hell-20, so you can rest easy.”
“I’ll rest easy when they are actually on Hell-20, safely in the hands of Major Perkins, and not before.”
“Sir.” A short pause, and Costigan knew that the question Williams had been bursting to ask ever since he first had laid eyes on what were without doubt the two most unusual groups of convicts ever to be processed through Hell Central was coming. If he’d been Williams, he would have wanted to know just who those people were and where they had come from.
As Williams started to ask the question, Costigan’s hand went up, stopping him dead, his voice surprisingly gentle. Embittered and disillusioned though he was, Costigan was not all bad, and Williams had been one of the very few people he felt he could rely on. This was as good a time as any to repay the man for his unswerving loyalty.
“Staff Sergeant Williams. I know what you want to ask me, and I strongly advise you not to ask. I suggest that you forget the question. I suggest you even stop thinking about why you wanted to ask the question. It’s not your business to know some things, and if you want to live a long and happy life, I advise you to forget that you ever even saw the groups we processed this morning. Understand?”
Williams’s face changed, puzzlement replaced in an instant by the blank face of the professional survivor. A few beads of sweat were the only telltale signs of his sudden realization that he had almost crossed a very dangerous line. “Sir. Sorry, sir.”
Costigan waved a dismissive hand. The man would do as he was told. “No problem, Williams, no problem. Just let me know when that particular consignment has been safely delivered.”
Thursday, September 24, 2398, UD
HWS Myosan, in Low Orbit around Eternity Planet
Digby sat back in his chair, physically and mentally exhausted but strangely exhilarated after another grueling day.
By the time he was born, the pioneering days of terraforming new planets and mass migration were long gone and almost forgotten. But now, seeing the promise a brand-new planet offered, he understood for the first time the excitement and vision that had driven millions of Earth’s people to look for a new beginning hundreds of light-years from home.
In front of him, the holovid showed Eternity in all its primal glory as it passed below the orbiting Myosan. Its atmosphere was the characteristic cobalt blue of all methane/ nitrogen/carbon dioxide worlds, interrupted here and there by smeared orange-brown-gray stains of high-altitude photosynthetic methane smog shot through with dark streaks of hydrogen cyanide and other exotic organic compounds, all the product of the intense ultraviolet flux that flayed Eternity’s upper atmosphere. Where clouds and methane smog permitted, Digby could see the planet’s surface, a mass of blues and browns of every shade imaginable; to the south, a mass of swirling blue-whites and grays wrapped around a black core announced the arrival of yet another huge frontal weather system coming in off the ocean to dump its load of rain onto the raw and scoured rocks that made up Eternity’s surface.
But after a lifetime orbiting the inhabited planets that made up the Hammer Worlds, Digby found it unsettling to see not even the tiniest speck of green.
That would change, Digby thought, wondering not for the first time at the extraordinary progress the Feds’ technology had allowed them to make. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he never would have believed the speed with which the former passengers of the Mumtaz were building Eternity Base, though he had to admit that if it were not for the AIs that managed and directed the entire process, progress would have been very slow. He thanked Kraa DocSec was not there to see the AI abominations at work, but it wasn’t, and what DocSec didn’t know wasn’t going to hurt him.
The first day had been the worst; getting the first lander down safely onto a planet without a decent runway and no precision navaids was always an interesting exercise. But the ex-convict pilot had done a beautiful job, encouraged, no doubt, Digby thought cynically, by the considerable incentives he had not to fail.
To minimize weight, the lander h
ad been stripped nearly bare, its only cargo a one-man survey team and two laser rock cutters together with their integral microfusion power plants and their two-man crews. After a series of careful low-speed fly-bys to confirm that he hadn’t been given a swamp to land on, the pilot had put the massive machine down nearly vertically. Digby had watched with his heart in his mouth as the huge flier had touched down amid huge clouds of sand and gravel thrown up and out by belly-mounted hover control mass drivers firing vertically downward.
Within days and thanks largely to the brutal power of the Feds’ massive laser rock cutters, Eternity was the proud owner of a fully serviceable spaceport, with a single vitrified runway, laser cut out of the living rock and capable of withstanding the huge shock of a fully loaded lander putting down, complete with a milled antiskid surface, a microwave precision landing system, runway lights, crude storm drains, and a small plasfiber shed housing the air traffic control team. From that moment on, the flow of materials dirtside had never stopped as night and day heavily loaded landers thumped down to be unloaded quickly and then sent back into orbit for the next shipment.
And now, not even two weeks into it, Digby had every right to be pleased with the progress. He was especially glad finally to have downloaded the last of the passengers and crew of the Mumtaz. While they never had posed a threat, Digby felt a lot more comfortable now that the Feds were planetside and finally off that damnable mind-control drug Pavulomin-V. Nasty stuff and not recommended for prolonged use, especially in kids. They were better off where there was real work to be done even if Eternity Base had little to offer by way of recreation other than spectacular sunsets, nice beaches, and safe swimming in a sea whose biggest life-form was harmless cyanobacteria.
No, it had been a good week, and things were going well.
Eternity Base was well advanced even if still a bit crude. The comsats, navsats, and high-definition optical and infrared imaging satellites were ready to be commissioned. Downloading the terraforming support equipment would start in two days. According to the master terraforming AI’s schedule, the biomass plant responsible for the mass production of geneered bacteria, vastly more efficient at photosynthesis than their native cousins as well as the first of the methane-tolerant plant stock, would be operational in under a month. Even better, the carbon sequestration/oxygen production plant would be up soon, relieving the Mumtaz of the not inconsiderable chore of giving the 1,200 or so people now planetside the 2 to 3 kilos of oxygen they needed every day. It didn’t sound like much, but it all added up to more than 100 tons of oxygen a month.
Helfort's War: Book 1 Page 18
