between government and governed-prosperity and stability from the government in exchange for unquestioning acquiescence from the governed-started to unravel, it was up to DocSec to restore the status quo.
DocSec could deal with thousands of protesters: divide the mob up, kill any that stood and fought, track down those who ran, shoot some, imprison the rest, exile their families, and harass their friends and associates to remind them of the benefits of staying in line. The formula worked, as hundreds of neofascist governments had proved over the centuries. He just hoped it kept working long enough for him to die quietly in his own bed.
If the formula failed, DocSec would find itself facing millions of protesters. When it did-and Polk’s instincts told him it would happen sooner rather than later-it was just a matter of time before the whole rotten edifice that was the Hammer government collapsed. Something told him that the Worlds were closer to that day than anyone was prepared to admit.
Polk dismissed the problem; if the day came, it came, and when it did, why would he care? He would be dead, left to dangle by one leg from a streetlight. He sat back as the flier cleared McNair’s smoke-smeared skies. Without much success, he tried not to think about the day ahead: one meaningless public event after another, every second filmed by the holocams to demonstrate to the Hammer people that he, Jeremiah Polk, Chief Councillor of the Hammer of Kraa Worlds, was master of all the forces shaping the Worlds’ destiny.
Which he was not, as anyone with half a brain knew after the fiasco at Devastation Reef.
From the largest down to the smallest, his capacity to influence events was limited, laughably so. Kraa! Despite all his pushing, the Hammer of Kraa was unable to get even one miserable piece of Fed filth off Serhati, a planet that owed its day-to-day survival to Hammer largesse. How pitiful was that? Anyway, he consoled himself, at least he could make Helfort’s life miserable. That much he could and would do. Money slipped to a venal trashpress, money used to suborn Fed spacers with lavish hospitality-together they would make Helfort’s life hell. Polk told himself to be patient. One day, the relentless pressure would make Helfort careless, flush him out into the open, where a Hammer hit team would find a way to get to him.
Much cheered by that prospect, Polk found to his amazement that he was actually looking forward to the rest of the day.
Monday, May 7, 2401, UD
Thanks to one of Fleet’s postcombat stress teams, Michael was coping a damn sight better than he had after his escape from Commitment the last time around, but it was not easy.
The board of inquiry into Operation Opera was into its umpteenth day, and still he had not been called; he had yet to say a single word. The suspense was getting to him, though it was nothing compared with his concern for Anna; the worry was like an animal, gnawing away at his guts, hour in, hour out. True, she was alive, but she was in the Hammers’ hands, and he had learned the hard way that they were never to be trusted.
If that was not bad enough, the trashpress was having a field day. His clash with Perkins was the scandal on everyone’s lips; he could not say for sure who was feeding inside information to the trashpress, but somebody was. He would have bet good money it was one of Perkins’s legion of dreadnought-hating supporters.
For the trashpress, it was a story they would sell their firstborn for. Apart from sex, it contained everything they wanted: the future of the Federation, age and experience versus callow youth and unthinking rashness, ambition, decisions made in the heat of battle, insubordination, death, and destruction. It could not have been much more appetizing if the whole business had been scripted to order.
Angry and frustrated, he pushed back from his desk. He commed the legbot that supported his injured left leg into life-the doctors might think the leg was getting better, but it still hurt like hell every time he moved it-before lifting himself carefully to his feet. It had been an unproductive day sitting in the offices of the Warfare Division, updating the Fighting Instructions; it was not the best place for him to be. To a spacer, the division was an implacable enemy of dreadnoughts, its staff not slow to let him know that over and over again.
He needed to get away. A few beers with the crew of the
Michael set off, limping heavily despite the best efforts of the legbot to compensate for a left thigh still a long way from complete recovery.
Three hours later, Michael found himself ensconced comfortably behind a table in one of the bars popular with Fleet spacers. Beer in hand, he was happy to let conversation wash over him, the talk ebbing and flowing over the issues that engaged most Fleet spacers most of the time: stupid politicians, amoral lobbyists, greedy defense contractors, shortsighted civilians, the pressures placed on family and friends by the demands of Fleet service, what the Hammers might do next. Around the table sat the rest of the crew of
“Well, well, well.” A sneering voice slashed through the conversation; Bienefelt and everyone else talking stopped dead. Heads turned. The speaker was a man a few centimeters shorter than Bienefelt, with close-cropped white-blond hair and a heavily muscled body struggling to break out of clothes two sizes too small. Seven more spacers, all big enough and ugly enough to cause a lot of grief, flanked him. Michael grimaced. He had seen enough bar brawls to recognize trouble, and Snow White and his seven overgeneered-far from small-dwarves were trouble, alcohol-fueled trouble.
“So what have we here?” the man said. “The fearless crew of the
A low snarl of approval greeted Snow White’s suggestion, the Seven Dwarves swaying forward. Michael commed the bar manager to get the shore patrol fast. He stood up. “I don’t know who you guys are, and I don’t much care. So just go. That’s a direct order, and I’m comming you my ID to make sure you know who I am.”
“Oh, we know who you are,” Snow White sneered.
“Do yourselves a favor and leave,” Michael said. “Now!”
He might have been talking to himself. Snow White refused to move.
“Tell you what, sir,” Bienefelt said, standing up, mashing a fist the size of a small ham into the palm of her left hand, “I’ve got a better idea. Leave the bastards to me. I’ll move them along.”
“No!” Michael snapped, “and that’s an order, Matti.” His voice softened. “I won’t see you disrated for scum like these. Please. Just sit down”-reluctantly, Bienefelt took her seat, her face like thunder-“and you lot, go and we’ll forget what’s happened.”
“Forget it? Forget it, after what you did? What’s the matter, frightened?” Snow White taunted. “Is that why you turned and ran, you dreadnought pissants? It is; it damn well is. That’s why you left so many good spacers and ships to die, you cowardly sacks of shit.”
“Take that back,” Bienefelt hissed, her voice pure menace as she stood up.
Michael swore. If the patrol did not turn up soon, blood would flow. Ferreira and Sedova were on their feet; Michael waved them back down. Things were bad enough without commissioned officers getting involved.
“Take it back?” Snow White’s finger stabbed Bienefelt in the chest again and again and again. “Make me, you cowardly … gutless … dog turd.”
“You should not have done that, my friend,” Bienefelt said gently, only centimeters from Snow White’s alcohol-flushed face. “You really should not have done that.”
Something deep inside Snow White snapped; he and the Seven Dwarves made the mistake of throwing the first punches. In an instant, chairs went back and the crew of the
