Just Compensation

by Robert N. Charrette

  “But the connections to Telestrian might be important.” Andy said, not understanding why Markowitz was balking. “Whoever put the watch on my personnel file in the Telestrian matrix had his agent set to report to a UCAS delivery address, a military address.”

  Markowitz looked up sharply. “What’s that?”

  “Didn’t I tell you I found that out?”

  “No. Anything else you didn’t tell me? Like whose address it is?”

  “I don’t know who.”

  “So you really got nothing but more smoke.”

  “It’s got to mean something! Doesn’t it prove the Army is involved? That could mean that Trahn was involved. He could be working with the Confeds.”

  “Trahn? General UCAS-Over-All? I don’t think so. To do what?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Let it lie for now, kid. We’ve got some thinking to do before we jump, and we’ve been running on near-empty for too long. I recommend some sack time. It’s what I’m planning on.”

  Markowitz suited his actions to his words by scraping his chair back, getting up, and tossing himself back down on the lower bunk of the bed. It didn’t take but a few minutes before he was snoring.

  Andy glowered at him. He didn’t want to let it lie. Believing that Tom had acted out of good will because he and Andy were related, gave Andy something to hang on to. He wanted to do something to help Tom back. He decided to tell Tom despite Markowitz’s misgivings. He’d let Tom decide whether the information was useful.

  He had to go in person. Markowitz was wrong about Tom, but he was right about one thing: Andy couldn’t use the Matrix to transfer this stuff, cutting into the MilNet was too dangerous.

  “You can’t go alone.” Kit said.

  Andy started. How had she known what he was thinking? She was a mage, but mages weren’t supposed to be able to read minds.

  “I could see it in your eyes.” she said. “You have very expressive eyes.”

  “This is my problem. I can’t drag you into it.”

  “Why not? A romp would be fun. Certainly more fun than sitting around here. Let’s go.”

  >WFDC LIVE FEED

  -[21:06:22/8-25-55]

  REPORTER: TAYLOR WEINGARTNER [WEIN-324]

  UPLINK SITE: GOVERNMENT ZONE, FDC

  Weingartner: “Fires light the skies of the Federal District tonight, stretching a long day of violence into the night. Sporadic outbursts of conflict continue throughout the Government Zone and surrounding areas. The police and military are struggling without apparent effect to stem what appears to be a rising tide of insurrection. Standing beside me here, deep inside a Compensation Army-held area, is Christian Randolph, leader of the Comp Army, with his first public statement in days.”

  Randolph: “When I and my fellow marchers for justice were dubbed the Compensation Army, I had no idea we would come to this day, a day when we were, by virtue of our common cause and our shared bloodshed, a real army. The real Army, for if anyone can lay claim to be the true Army of these united states, it is we. We are the ones standing up for the rights of the people. We are the ones standing against the lies and the hypocrisy of the entrenched, self-serving politicians and the uniformed lackeys. We are the ones fighting for freedom from tyranny and oppression.” Weingartner: “Mr. Randolph, what you’re—”

  Unidentified soldier: “General Randolph.”

  Weingartner: “Excuse me, General Randolph. What you're saying is a far cry from your peaceful message of only a week ago.”

  Randolph: “A week ago peace was possible. Now, that option has been stolen from us, ripped from our hands by the oppressive fascists who have infiltrated the nation’s government and its military. We came seeking justice and now we find that we must seize it with our own hands. What has begun here in Washington is only the start. They can disperse us. They can even kill us. But we will not die. We are the people, and we are the future!” signal interrupt<<<<<

  20

  “Gotcha.” Specialist Wallis crowed. The transmitted image from his GM-Nissan Swatter attack drone showed a lot of smoke and dust below. Frantic figures darted for cover. One brave soul wearing a Consie beret stood her ground and fired up at the drone. She passed out of the image area as the drone banked away.

  “That’ll shut the fragger up for a while.” Wallis gloated. “Too bad we didn’t have orders to do him.”

  “Him and all his damn blue-topped Consies.” agreed someone else on the commo line.

  Another voice, added, “I hear they’re roasting and eating FedPols down in the Metro tunnels.”

  “Heh. That ain’t nothing.” Wallis drawled. “You hear what the blue bonnets are doing to guys they capture? The cut their balls off, roast ’em, and feed ’em to the guys. I seen the fires. The fraggers use spells that keep the guys from dying, but don’t block the pain. It’s a Satanic rite thing. All them Compers are Satan worshi—”

  Disgusted, Tom killed the channel. He’d heard the stories. Anyone with a brain would know they were sheer fabrications. They had to be. There were no reports of the Compers actually managing to take any prisoners; all of the Army’s casualties were accounted for. But the troops kept repeating the stories to each other, believing them, and it didn’t seem as if any officer other than Tom was trying to shut the rumors down. Even he couldn’t do it all the time. Who had the energy for that nonsense after ten hours without let-up on the streets?

  Who did the troops think they were talking about? Tom had heard the same atrocities attributed to the Sioux Special Forces Wildcats and the entire Pueblo Council army back in Denver. This stuff was just as much drek. Tom couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t some foreign enemy out there on the streets. It was just UCAS people, a lot of them citizens, and most of them not even fighting back. Sure the Compers had armed troops and were resisting, but who had pushed them to it?

  Tom looked at the prisoners Lieutenant Hanley’s squad was herding in. Street people most of them, and mostly orks, though there was a full range of metatypes including a scruffy elf in old U.S. Army fatigues. That last was a Comper for sure. The old fatigues and BDUs were the closest thing the Compers had to a uniform, not counting the blue berets of the Consie faction. But were the rest of these people Compers, or just unfortunates who’d gotten in the way of Hanley’s house-to-house sweep? Who could tell?

  “Where do you want this lot, Major?” Hanley asked.

  “Put them with the rest, Lieutenant. We still haven’t got enough trucks to take them out to the camps yet.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Hanley was a good man, and proving better for this particular job than his commander, Captain Lee. Tom was ashamed of the thought, but he couldn’t help thinking that maybe it wasn’t all bad that Lee had caught one from a sniper.

  “Major, I’ve got Task HQ on line.” Sergeant Jackson shouted from the command car. The sergeant had a tendency to forget to use the tac channel when he got excited.

  “Patch it over.” Tom called back.

  The line was bad—the Compers seemed to have jamming equipment that was fouling commo—but Tom recognized Colonel Lessem’s voice. The task force commander talked faster than any other officer on the commo net.

  “Captain Black’s got trouble.” Lessem said. “The Compers are leaning on him hard. He reports a full company worth of Consies with heavy weapons, including assault cannons and anti-armor rockets.”

  The Consies were undoubtedly the best armed Compers, but Black’s report sounded more like overactive imagination than observation. “Fischer’s drones were in support.” Tom knew; he himself had pulled them off defense on the Langley perimeter to support Black’s team just two hours ago.

  “Both down.” Lessem reported. “You need to move your team to his support. Now.”

  “I’m waiting on transport for a couple of dozen prisoners, sir. I can’t move until they’re taken care of.”

  “Good point. We can’t afford to have them loose again. Take care of them and then get yo
urself over to Dupont Circle and bail out Black’s butt.”

  “Just what do you mean, Colonel?”

  “Apply your team to relieve Black’s anxiety. I don’t care how you do it, understand? Have Furlann fry the fraggers, or winkle them out with the drones, or send in the grunts. You’ve got Lee’s company, that should be more than enough. Just do it.”

  Was Lessem being deliberately obtuse? “I meant what do you want me to do about the prisoners, sir?”

  “I told you to take care of them.” Lessem snapped. “You know what I mean.”

  Tom wanted him to be very, very clear. “I can’t say that I do.”

  There was the soft hissing of static. The hesitation told Tom that Lessem understood the situation as well as he did.

  “It’s very simple, Major. You’re in a hot zone and they are hostiles preventing you from doing your duty. You’ve been tasked with eliminating all active opposition. Are you telling me you will not follow your orders?”

  Tom knew what he had to do, but it scared the drek out of him, even if he wasn’t going to go all the way with it. Not if didn’t have to. The consequences were more than he was ready to deal with. “I can’t do what you’re asking, sir. I hereby formally protest being ordered to kill prisoners, and request that you withdraw your orders.”

  Lessem responded without hesitation. “You do not have any prisoners. You have active hostiles in your area. Eliminate them.”

  “We do have prisoners, sir. The people we’re holding have surrendered under the expectation of fair treatment as promised by the Geneva, Bern, and Santiago Conventions. By the Conventions of War they are prisoners and due proper consideration as such.”

  For a long moment there was only the hiss of an open line. “I’d heard that you’re a regular barracks-room lawyer.” Not the phrase Tom would have chosen, but he knew an illegal order when given one. He also knew his career was over if Lessem didn’t back down. Hell, it was probably over even if Lessem did back down. They both knew what had happened, and Lessem wouldn’t forget that Tom could bring it up again.

  Tom was doing the right thing, but that didn’t make it easier. All his life he’d set his sights on a military career. He’d just crossed a line that could break a career. Since he was the junior officer involved, the career broken would likely be his, despite the fact he was in the right.

  Right or not, the colonel was done talking to him.

  “Stay where you are.” Lessem said, and cut the connection.

  Tom went back to the command car and stood leaning against its side. The Ranger TCV felt solid, immovable. He wished he felt the same about the figurative ground beneath his feet. There’d be another call soon. Ten minutes later, Furlann stuck her head out of the command car. “The general wants to talk to you.” she said, taking off her own headset and offering it to Tom.

  Not the open frequency. No surprise there. Tom doffed his helmet and snugged the headset into place. “Major Rocquette.”

  “Major, are you having trouble doing your job?” Trahn sounded calm, as if Tom might be having difficulty getting a computer program up at an office workstation.

  “I cannot obey illegal orders, sir. It’s my sworn duty to protest and oppose them.”

  “Who’s side are you on, Rocquette?”

  His grandfather’s suspicions of evolving factions in the service came back to him. “It’s not a question of sides, sir.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, son. It’s always a question of sides. You will report to my headquarters. As of now you are relieved of command. Captain Lee will take your place.”

  “Captain Lee has been taken to the aid station.” Tom told him. “Medics say he may not make it.”

  “Then find the next senior officer in your neighborhood and put him on the line.”

  Maybe Lee wasn’t such a bad idea. “That would be Captain Furlann.”

  “Fine. I prefer someone who understands duty.”

  Ignoring the slight, Tom handed the headset back to Furlann. “Your problem now, Ice Heart.”

  She smiled coldly, as befitted her nickname. “What can I do for you, General?” she said into the mike. Tom didn’t hear the rest, because she ducked back into the command car. That wasn’t his place now; he’d been relieved.

  When Furlann finished getting her marching orders from Trahn, she came out of the Ranger, trailed by Jackson.

  “Sergeant Jackson, escort the major to the trucks.” she ordered. “He’s leaving for HQ. I’m in charge here now. General Trahn’s orders.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jackson said without hesitation.

  The sergeant took Tom back to the truck park where they’d been trying to collect enough transportation for the prisoners. There were only three vehicles, too few for the dozens of people they’d rounded up, but any one of which was more than enough to carry Tom to perdition. Just one problem—there was no driver.

  “It’s all right, Jackson.” There was no point in running away. He’d been taught that you took the consequences of your actions. He’d done what had to be done, and now . . . “I won’t be going anywhere until the driver shows up.”

  “Just the same, Major, I’d better wait.”

  To keep your own butt covered, eh? Tom understood that. He couldn’t blame Jackson, couldn’t blame him at all. Drek, he’d have been better off if he’d kept thinking like Sergeant Jackson. The prisoners back there were all strangers. What did he owe any of them?

  “If you’re going to be a good soldier, you’d better call Furlann and tell her she needs to arrange for a driver.”

  “I will, sir.”

  But not just yet?

  The sound of machine gun fire echoed off the buildings around the truck park. Jackson looked back toward the command car. He ran his tongue along his lower lip, shaking his head slowly. Tom closed his eyes, wishing he could close his ears as well.

  What good had his protest done? He hadn’t saved anyone. All he’d done was frag himself.

  * * *

  Andy watched as the spotter drone swooped past on its circuit. He waited until he was sure its pickups weren’t oriented in their direction before giving the okay to run across the street to the barricades the Compers had set around the entrance to the Rosslyn Metro station. Andy hoped none of the Compers were trigger-happy, because although they didn’t look like soldiers, they weren’t Compers either.

  None of the men and women on the barricade opened fire. Neither did the drone turn back to see what was happening.

  “Good timing.” Cinqueda said when they were safely inside the Comper perimeter. They were the first words the street samurai had said to Andy since she’d simply walked out of the darkness as he and Kit neared the military cordon around the Rosslyn city center. Kit had smiled and greeted the woman by name, but there’d been no introductions. There had been no time because, as Kit pointed out, the patrols were tightening the noose and the three of them had very little time to get through before the opportunity was gone. The tall, silent samurai made Andy nervous, but since Kit seemed to trust her, Andy did too.

  As Kit had known Cinqueda, so did she know the two Compers who were apparently in command of the occupied Metro station: a slim scarecrow of a black man wearing a ragged “Native Washingtonian” tee-shirt under his US Army field jacket, and a bug-eyed ork who, unlike his cocommander found the weather too hot for even one layer above the waist, let alone two. The ork wore a blue Consie beret and scowled at the newcomers. The norm, however, seemed quite happy to see Kit.

  “Say and hey, little fox.” he said. “You looking good. Been missing Jimmy D?”

  “No more than I ever do,” Kit said, “which is to say not at all.”

  “She’s as smart as you said, Jimmy.” the ork told his crestfallen partner.

  “What would you know about smart, you old tusker.” Jimmy said. “Everybody knows orks don’t got no brains.”

  “Excuse him, Ms. Kit. He’s been diagnosed with projectaphilia. He’s always seeing his own conditio
n in other people.”

  Andy had never heard of projectaphilia, but Kit’s giggle said it was a joke. Jimmy D’s mock expression of disgust was part of the joke. Andy guessed that things couldn’t be all that bad if the Compers still had their sense of humor.

  The ork’s expression became serious. “All joking aside, Ms. Kit, you made it just in time. We’ve got a train almost ready to roll. Might be the last one. Been two days since we had rail power and the batteries are just about shot. It might be a one-way trip unless you’re willing to walk back through the tunnel.”

  “Might be a one-way trip anyway.” Jimmy D said just as seriously. “We been getting word that the sojer boys be working themselves up to come down hard on our heads. Might be no station to come back to, in an hour or two.”

  “All goes well, we won’t need a ride back.” Kit said.

  “Or if it goes bad.” Cinqueda added.

  There were nervous smiles all around.

  “All right, then. You and your friends is welcome to a ride on the People’s Free Underground Express.”

  So saying, the ork led them down the long, long escalator into the bowels of the Rosslyn station. The platform was a weird cross between an emergency medical station and a flophouse. The air was thick with the stink of blood, vomit, garbage, human waste, and too many unwashed bodies. People lay everywhere, most sporting one or more bandages and many moaning or crying in pain. Topside had been hot, but down below where it should have been cooler, the large number of people canceled the natural underground chill—and then some. Even Kit, who had stayed so bouncy throughout the hot summer night, seemed to be finally starting to wilt. No surprise there. Rosslyn station was, for all practical purposes, a cesspit.

  They boarded the one-car train. It was less crowded than the station platform, but it still stank. There were only a dozen others in the car, including the dwarf woman at the controls in front. It seemed that not very many people were interested in heading into the city. As the doors were cranked closed by Compers already aboard, Andy asked Kit, “How did you get them to agree to this?”