The Ashes of Worlds

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “A group known as Freedom’s Sword is a poison to humanity. There can be no doubt of this after their recent failed attempt to assassinate Chairman Wenceslas. Fortunately, the plotters of this foul murder have been apprehended, thanks to the diligence of my people.” He raised his hands in benediction.

  After the young King had finished, a lesser functionary came forward and in a ponderous voice read the names and crimes of the eighteen bound prisoners. One of them was a man still wearing mime’s makeup.

  Cain listened to charges of “unspeakable” crimes, alleged proof of involvement in the assassination plot. He doubted any of them were genuinely members of Freedom’s Sword, but they made convenient scapegoats. No doubt they had been caught speaking against the administration. That was good enough to condemn them.

  As soon as the assassination plot had failed, Cain knew the reactionary response would set in. He had been so careful to cover his tracks, to hide every hint that he or Sarein or McCammon might have been involved. He had left no evidence, no proof.

  Chairman Wenceslas, however, didn’t need any evidence or proof. He simply made up his own mind.

  “We can all rest easy, now that the perpetrators have been brought to justice,” Basil said.

  The cleanup crew backed away to leave the group of prisoners standing in full view. As Colonel Andez unshouldered her jazer rifle and the other dark-uniformed soldiers did the same, the “conspirators” were herded together.

  The knots grew tighter in Cain’s stomach. Sarein seemed about to faint, and he reached over to steady her. Basil’s eyes were fixed on the eighteen prisoners. One of them lurched against the group and tried to push toward the crowd despite his restraints. His movement was the trigger Andez had been waiting for. The cleanup crew fired their jazer rifles in a buzzing lightning storm of ozone and blinding light, flashing webs of disintegrating energy.

  All eighteen prisoners were chopped into smoking hunks of meat. The carnage was over in seconds, but the reeking smoke curled upward long after. People in the crowd screamed. Basil smiled. He seemed to hear it as cheers.

  With well-practiced moves, Andez snapped orders to her fellow guards. They shouldered their rifles and stepped back in perfect ranks. King Rory swayed uncertainly on his throne, as the silence hung for a long moment.

  “Why doesn’t he speak?” Basil muttered. “He knows what he’s supposed to do.”

  Finally the boy remembered himself and got to his feet, starting out with a stammer but growing stronger. “Please don’t make us do this again. Be loyal to your government. Help us achieve our victory. That is all I want, as your King.”

  Basil seemed impressed with his delivery. “Not bad.”

  “He’s right,” Sarein said in a raspy voice. “Let’s hope we never have to do this again.”

  90

  Sullivan Gold

  Two days after the horrific public executions, Sullivan opened the door to find a crisply uniformed Colonel Andez and six of her thugs ready to pounce. Lydia, standing in the kitchen, said sourly, “Tell them to leave.”

  “Please don’t get in our way, Mr. Gold.” Andez’s voice was cold.

  Wiping her hands on a towel, Lydia stormed forward, her face pinched. “Demand to see their search warrant, Sullivan. We don’t have to let them in here. There are laws — ”

  Her ill-advised words seemed to incite the cleanup crew, and they pushed past Sullivan. “Wait a minute,” he said. “This is private property. I’ll call the police.”

  “We are the police.”

  Lydia got in their way. “No, you’re not. You’re a gang of hoodlums.”

  Sullivan grabbed his wife and physically restrained her. He had already seen how coolly they had gunned down the supposed accomplices in the assassination attempt on the Chairman. “Lydia, stop this.”

  “Tell them to stop it. Why are you letting them walk all over you?” She looked hurt. “We have to stand up for ourselves. We can’t just let this happen. It’s not right!”

  The uniformed men and women overturned the furniture, upended an entire bookshelf, opened the cupboards in the kitchen, and began to fling dishes, pots, and pans everywhere.

  “Please, just tell me what you’re looking for!” Sullivan cried.

  “Evidence,” said Andez.

  “Evidence of what?”

  “Whatever we can find. We’ve had reports about you, especially your wife.” Andez smiled as they stood the dining room table on end as if they expected to find a secret transmitting device underneath the spindly wooden legs.

  The previous day, his son Jerome’s restaurant had been looted, the windows smashed. Other family members had had their homes and places of employment terrorized. The cleanup crew had gone to his daughter Patrice’s private accounting office and placed an electronic lock on the door, posting that the business was “closed until further notice.” Two other daughters and a son had been “detained,” and his teenaged grandson Philip had a prestigious scholarship inexplicably revoked.

  Now, as the uniformed men and women ransacked the home, going out of their way to overturn as many objects as possible, Lydia reached the boiling point. Sullivan saw it coming, but could not react quickly enough to stop her. She threw herself upon Andez, using bony fists to pound the woman’s shoulders and back. In a flash, the others pounced on his wife. Sullivan shouted for them to stop, genuinely terrified that they would shoot Lydia. Instead, they put her in restraint cuffs.

  “You can release her,” he said, trying to get in the middle. “She won’t cause any more trouble.”

  “She’s caused far more than enough trouble. The Chairman gave us orders.” Andez narrowed her eyes and looked at him. “He is still not pleased with your refusal to take over the Golgen skymines, Mr. Gold.”

  As they whisked Lydia away, she struggled like a tigress trying to protect her home. They didn’t even bother continuing their search, and Sullivan felt that the whole event had been staged. He realized it must have been designed to provoke Lydia so they had an excuse to arrest her.

  They had done it on purpose, just as they must have been selectively targeting his other family members. This was all about the Chairman showing him what the Hansa could do to him unless he agreed to cooperate.

  He waited at home for almost a day, sure that Chairman Wenceslas would contact him with an ultimatum, and this time Sullivan would have no choice but to change his mind. But he heard nothing, and so he took the initiative and went to the Hansa HQ.

  The door guards wouldn’t let him inside, citing “security reasons.”

  Worse, he heard rumors that another round of executions would soon be scheduled. Though he never saw any list of proposed names, he felt a heavy dread in his chest. All of his family was in custody. He needed to see the Chairman. This was more than his own life and career on the line.

  The first two times he begged for an appointment, his request was politely filed and then ignored, sent into a bin of low-priority items that some functionary far down in the chain of command would eventually review.

  After days of being denied a meeting, Sullivan grew increasingly frantic. Finally, he tried a different administrative chain and managed to talk his way into one of the lower halls of the Hansa HQ. Fortunately, he bumped into Deputy Chairman Cain, who came through on his way to a meeting. “Please, Deputy, I need your help.”

  The pale-skinned man recognized Sullivan, and in a rush Sullivan explained what had happened. Cain looked grave. “Obviously you need to speak with the Chairman.”

  “I know. I’ve tried for days.”

  “Come with me.”

  Sullivan stumbled along, barely able to believe his luck. Cain walked right past the moat dragons, administrators, appointment keepers, and guards. “Mr. Chairman,” he said loudly as they entered the penthouse office, “you need to hear what this man has to say.”

  In the spacious room, Chairman Wenceslas looked up with a scowl, recognizing Sullivan. “In due course. I have not yet replied to his
requests.”

  “I’m happy to expedite matters for you, sir. This should take only a few moments to straighten out.” He gestured Sullivan inside, as if he knew the Chairman was playing some unacceptable game, then turned smartly around and left.

  Not sure what to do, but determined, Sullivan stood stiffly in front of the Chairman. “My family has been taken. I don’t know why, and I don’t know where they are. I . . . I was hoping you could help me, sir.” He inhaled deeply. “Please.”

  “I’m sure there must have been some reason for their trouble.”

  Sullivan decided to cut to the chase. “All right, dammit. If you insist that I take over the management of the Roamer skymining complex on Golgen, then I will do my best. If you give me military support, I can probably handle a hostile workforce. Send me there immediately, if you like. Just please, leave my family alone. Keep them safe.”

  “These are dangerous and uncertain times, Mr. Gold. Who can guarantee anyone’s safety?”

  Sullivan leaned close to the other man. “You can, Chairman Wenceslas.”

  The other man smiled at the comment. “So I always believed, but recently I’ve had to take measures that I don’t particularly like. I comfort myself with the knowledge that in the long run, history will see the wisdom in what I’ve done.”

  “I would see more of your wisdom if you released my family,” Sullivan countered. “They have caused no harm and certainly meant none.”

  Basil tapped his fingers, aligning the fingerprints with other smudges on the polished projection surface of his desk. “The EDF base on the Moon would be a safe place to keep your family. Don’t you agree? We can provide them secure housing on the base. Commandant Tilton will be a proper host. So long as your cooperation and performance at Golgen are acceptable, your loved ones will remain entirely unharmed.”

  Sullivan felt cold drops of sweat on his back. He couldn’t believe Wenceslas was so blatant about holding hostages. The carefully honed edge of the man’s political skill had been dulled by wielding his power with a heavy hand. “I suppose that’s the best I can hope for, Mr. Chairman.”

  “Good. The Roamer skyminers on Golgen should be ripe for the picking. I’ll assign an EDF squadron to help you assert your new authority.”

  Sullivan had little bargaining power, but he pushed as hard as he could. “Then please arrange for my family’s transfer as soon as possible. Get them out of prison, or wherever you’ve kept them, and I will see them safely settled on the Moon — just to say goodbye and to comfort them. You understand.”

  Chairman Wenceslas apparently didn’t understand, but he did not argue.

  Sullivan pressed the matter as far as he dared. “Once I see them in place and I know exactly where they’ll be, then I’ll do as you say.”

  The Chairman called up papers on his screen. Apparently, he had already drafted the order. “Of course you will.”

  91

  Patrick Fitzpatrick III

  Leaving Theroc after his grandmother’s murder, Patrick and Zhett returned to the main skymine at Golgen, but his anger and shock did not diminish.

  Maureen Fitzpatrick had never been a particularly warm person, but she had raised him to be strong. Patrick respected her, and now he began to realize how much he owed her . . . and how much he hated Chairman Wenceslas.

  He and Zhett sat together in their bright and airy quarters aboard the skymine. The ever-resilient Roamers had gotten their ekti-processing operations back on track. With work shifts continuing around the clock, stardrive-fuel production was beginning to make up for what the EDF had stolen. Patrick doubted the General would be stupid enough to come back again so soon; on the other hand, he couldn’t fathom anything the Earth military did anymore. Del Kellum vowed that he would rather jettison full canisters into the clouds than let the Eddy bastards have them.

  King Peter had promised to send at least one of Admiral Willis’s cruisers to Golgen for protection once they returned from Pym. However, Roamer skymines were now in place on dozens of gas giants, and the Confederation’s fledgling military simply didn’t have enough ships to patrol them all.

  Patrick drew a deep breath. His voice hitched. “That should have been the most important act in her lifelong career. My grandmother could have changed things for the better — and she died for it.”

  Zhett’s eyes blazed. “We’ve got to do something about that, Fitzie.”

  “Damn right we do.” He slipped his arm around her. He had felt tangled in skeins of emotions — outrage, disbelief, a need for revenge, and horror at what the Hansa had been willing to do. He finally clarified his scrambled thoughts by trying to imagine what the old Battleaxe would have done. Then he knew.

  He went to the broad window and stared out at the endless gas clouds. “Remember how my grandmother said I’ve become sort of a folk hero among the protesters? Well, my little confession was nothing compared to what we’ve got now. Vid images of EDF Mantas blasting the former Chairman’s ship. And raiding the skymines here, stealing all that ekti. And the strike on the Osquivel shipyards, all those civilians killed.”

  “You can bet none of that was broadcast on any official Hansa channels,” Zhett said.

  “We have plenty of demonstrable proof of illegal activities. It’s about time we share some of that proof with people on Earth — maybe link up with Freedom’s Sword and help them overthrow the Chairman.” Patrick set his jaw, imagining how his grandmother might have said the words. “I’m going to Earth, and I’m not going to come back until I’ve brought down Chairman Wenceslas.”

  Del Kellum could deny nothing to his daughter or his son-in-law. Son-in-law! Patrick still hadn’t entirely wrapped his mind around that concept.

  They gathered on the lower landing deck where cargo escorts, supply ships, and small inspection pods came and went. The breezes that filtered through the atmosphere-containment fields had an especially sour tang today, a chemical smell that indicated a new plume of gases bubbling up from below.

  “All the resources of clan Kellum are at your disposal. It’s time to teach the Big Goose a lesson or two, by damn. By now the Chairman’s managed to piss off ninety percent of the population in the Spiral Arm.”

  Patrick said, “It’s a critical mass. There’s got to be an explosion soon.”

  “Just be careful. I’m way too busy to plan another couple of funerals.” Kellum turned away, but not before Patrick saw the man’s anxious expression. At the beginning of the war, the hydrogues had killed his fiancée and partner, Shareen Pasternak, and many years before that, Zhett’s mother had also been killed in an accident. “Do what your Guiding Star says, my sweet.”

  “Don’t worry,” Zhett said, kissing her father’s bearded cheek. “If I can handle Fitzie, the rest of Earth should be no problem.”

  92

  Deputy Chairman Eldred Cain

  When the battered remnants of General Lanyan’s assault force returned from Pym, the acting commander explained how the Klikiss had defeated them. Conrad Brindle finished his report in Basil’s Hansa office, while Deputy Cain diligently took notes.

  Brindle pulled no punches. His clipped tone clearly expressed his disapproval as he laid the blame squarely on Lanyan for instigating the debacle. “There was no need for this to have happened — none whatsoever. The Confederation ships willingly offered their assistance. If we had joined forces, we could have annihilated the breedex.”

  “Instead, the General failed to complete either task,” Basil growled. “He turned one sure victory into two total failures.”

  Brindle remained ramrod straight. “Yes, Mr. Chairman. Because of him, the EDF lost three Mantas, the Thunder Child, and a great many soldiers, including General Lanyan himself.”

  “And the Confederation military remains unscathed. That idiot probably thought he was going to impress me.”

  Cain finished with his notes, and kept his silence. He did not ask whether the assault had been a good idea in the first place, any more than the naïve plan t
o send Admiral Diente with an ancient translating device had been. While the Chairman searched doggedly for conspirators, Deputy Cain had attempted to be quieter and more unobtrusive than ever.

  The Chairman had called up an intricate expanded grid of the command structure of the Earth Defense Forces. Many boxes in the upper tier remained empty, whole ranks decimated after the black robots’ original turnabout. Now the top rank of General was also vacant.

  Basil stared at the display. “Pike and San Luis are our only remaining grid admirals, and I’m not overly impressed with either of them.” He barely paused before making an impulsive decision. “Brindle, you’ve demonstrated your capabilities and your loyalty — several times, in fact. I’m making you the new commander of the Earth Defense Forces.”

  The older man was startled, as was Cain. “Sir?”

  The Chairman made an amendment to the command grid, used his authorization, and posted it. “Your rank is hereby raised to General, the highest military officer in the Earth Defense Forces.” His face remained blank, his expression distant for a long moment before he seemed to remember to give a congratulatory smile. “Deputy Cain, arrange for an immediate ceremony. I want King Rory himself to pin on General Brindle’s stars.”

  The next day, resplendent in spectacular robes and a crown that gleamed with gems, the young King confirmed Conrad Brindle as the new commander of the EDF.

  Brindle knelt in front of the King in his crisp new uniform. The older man had served in the military all his life and now seemed amazed at his good fortune. Rory made additional pronouncements, praised Brindle’s brave and loyal actions, and applied new rank insignia to his shoulders. Natalie Brindle, his wife, sat in an honored position near the portable throne, also wearing her EDF uniform.