Every Last Mother's Child
Page 210
Chapter 9: Traitor
Father Pierce had been working as a common labor at one of the salvage companies. He was now called Jonas Meeks, a refugee from the Theocracy. He was one of many people that the Kingdom knew about, but wasn’t certain who they were. The census by the Kingdom and backed up by Lady Hawthorne’s girls had been fairly complete. But no census was ever 100% accurate. There were always people who were missed, not counted, whose record appeared to be duplicated and thus suspect. Even as tight as the space port was people got in and out. Father Pierce was counting on that. He was paid in cash every day, and while his needs were meager, things were getting expensive in Trenaport. Simple meals were now ten times more expensive than what they had been on the day of the announcement. Yet if one wasn’t picky, he could live fairly cheap.
As he worked every day with either the load crews for the salvage companies, or occasionally with the evacuation load teams he became aware that his view about the Trenan people was changing. He had been told and taught all of his life that the people of Trena were devil worshipers, that they had no soul, and were godless. Before he left the Holy World, the Keeper of the Faith, the highest theologian of the Theocracy had explained to him that he was being sent to Trena to help the Lord bring the godless people of Trena to their maker. That the asteroids that will impact on Trena was God’s way of telling the people of Trena it was time to find the One God and to atone for their sins. His job was to help god bring God’s justice to the people of Trena. When he first got to Trena he was certain he was doing God’s work. Even when he blew the dam he knew that he was doing God’s work.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
It seemed to him if God really wanted these people to perish then they would not have the resources and people to help them. God had given them the Marshal, and his team. They had worked night and day to help the people of Trena. Some of his team had said that the devil had allowed them to succeed. But now; he wasn’t sure that the priests and the College of Cardinals were not working on behalf of the devil.
He had been reading Trena history. He spent considerable time in the libraries reading the history of the Free World relationships with the rest of the universe. He had found that the Free State was no angel as worlds went. He had found that in the past some of their dealings with others might have been questionable, but usually only when one of the worlds they were dealing with gave them a bad deal. They were tough, and usually didn’t go out of their way to harm anyone. He had found though that the version of history that he had learned in the seminary was not the same as that in the Free State and where he could get to the information that of other star nations it differed too. He had found in his reading that most of the rest of the galaxy considered his home world a bad actor. Even their ally the People’s Republic felt that they should be tolerated at best as neo barbarians. Yet Trena attacked no one. They had a live and let live attitude. It wasn’t until the damn break that Trena had made followers of the Church of the One God criminals, and even then they only demanded that the church leaders turn themselves in to the authorities. Once in Mounty HQD they interrogated the priests only to see if they knew where he and his team were. Several of his team, had been killed in a fire fight a few weeks ago when someone had given them up. Ever since blowing up the dam he had been keeping a low profile. Now as he sat eating his dinner in a quiet out of the way café he saw a familiar face. A face he hoped he wouldn’t see ever again.
“Outside” the man said, and left. Father Pierce sat there a few minutes and actually considered not meeting with the guy. But he would stay out there until the priest left the café. There was little to no chance he could avoid him, or the man’s team. Resigned, he got up and left the café.
“Let’s walk,” The man said. Both men knew that with all of the expert systems, and artificial intelligent computers around that there was more than a good chance they would be spotted by one of them, if not by them then the police. So they wanted to make it harder for the AIs by walking randomly around this part of the city.
“I have a job for you.” the man said once they started walking.
“What sort of job?” The priest asked.
“I have become involved with the abduction of Lady Wilson.” the man said, “I agreed to provide over watch for Captain Hozenbur’s safe house. I need some help.”
“What type of help,” The priest asked.
“I need the Evacuation Command distracted so they can’t look for her. Or if they get close to the safe house I need you to tie up their HRT and SWAT units so we can move the clone. If you can blow a couple of things up, spectacularly blow up a couple of buildings it will help. If you could cause a major crash at the port or from one of the EVAC LZ the day after tomorrow then it would help.”
“Why?” the priest asked.
“The republic is going to invade the free state in a couple of weeks, and they want the evacuation command so thoroughly distracted that they are unable to respond to the invasion force. So they figure to let Hozenbur have her fun with Lady Wilson, and to messily kill her so the Marshal will be so incapacitated by the loss of his wife that he won’t be able to command the militia as they respond to the invasion. The command team, the Marshal, the Queen, Chief Atomi are very close to each other. So the President figures that while they are grieving that we can attack.”
“Not a good idea Max,” the priest said, “Your intelligence people don’t know this command team as good as they think they do. Right now Chief Atomi is the Marshal Dejour. She is now in command of all military on the planet including the Black Guard, the Thonians, the Trena Militia, and the unit that just came in from the clone world. It also includes the attack carrier Majestic, and Rommel and all military assets in and about Trena. She is one tough lady.”
“But she’s only a cop,” the agent said, “What does she know.”
“She is advised by General Qoum of the Trena Militia, Princess Carol, commandant of the Imperial Marines, Commander Larenth Ahnian of the Thonian Defense force. She is liable to let them run the defense show if anyone attacks. Besides although they didn’t activate them during the emergency every adult over eighteen and still strong enough and healthy to carry arms will take them up and help their military. They may be losing this planet; but they are not about to let anyone take it from them.”
“But they will be unlawful combatants!” the agent said, “They’ll be killed or sent to prison. Only the uniformed military is allowed to fight an invasion.”
“No sir,” the priest said, “I can be arrested and executed as a spy and a terrorist; but the Trena Conventions allow planetary populations to take up arms to defend them and their world against an invader. You might want to send back an updated profile and advise them of all of this.”
“I did and they said they thought that because the population will be smaller and the militia drawn down that they have a good opportunity to pull it off. I have my orders, and the Republic has asked for the Church’s help. They gave me your contact information. They told me to use you. If they get close I want you to cause as much havoc around the site as possible.”
“Most of my team has been killed and those that are left are in deep cover I don’t know how to get a hold of them.” The priest lied. He could get a hold of them any time he needed. He just didn’t think this was the right task to bring them out. He didn’t think it was worth their life for an invasion that was doomed to fail.
“Here’s the safe house location.” The agent said, “I won’t see you again, but should you not help me and our plan doesn’t go on as planned I will be in touch.”
The priest nodded and watched the man walk on. He wasn’t going to participate in their plan, but he had to play along. There were a couple of places he knew he could blow up. There was a town with a brotherhood supply dump. It needed to be destroyed. Although he had been keeping a low profile, he was making sure that some of the Holy World’s property was disposed of, or if they could
point a finger back to the pope they were at least destroyed. Later as he walked to his sleeping room in the boarding house he knew he couldn’t do it.