“The one true voice in a house full of corruption and lies. The voice,” he crooned at the last, “of us all!”
The crowd went nuts, and Syl Hamachi-Roi came forward out of her security cordon and to the front of the stage.
She wasn’t even supposed to be here. Or so it was made to seem. She’d come on a fact-finding mission whether the House of Reason had wanted her to or not. That was the reason she was on Detron, so far removed from the sector of space that had elected her its junior delegate.
Hers was one of the new voices that was the opposite of the old guard who didn’t comprehend the needs of the people of the galaxy.
She’d come here for them. In defiance of the old guard, and for the love of the people.
She started her speech. Telling them again that she heard them. And from there it was a short bus ride to a list of grievances that must be addressed. Demands she had recounted throughout her election campaign and on every holostream she’d appeared on after that. Demands that must be met.
Stop the endless wars.
Eliminate poverty.
Abolish ignorance.
Strip wealth from those greedily clinging to it.
Pundits would naturally give their counterarguments. She wanted to stop wars but had no plans to deal with the bad actors who constantly initiated them. The galactic standard of living had never been better, and the standard of living for those in poverty today—in the core worlds, at least—exceeded that of any time in known history. Ignorance was defined according to her definition and standards. And stripping wealth, well, that wasn’t much different from what the House of Reason had been doing for decades.
But those contrarian pundits weren’t on stage with her. She stood alone. It was the hour of the poor and she was their voice. She would give them everything. She had heard them. Now the galaxy would hear them.
“And if they don’t hear us,” she called to the crowd baying for the blood of their leadership, ironically mistaking her, one of the most political of animals in the House of Reason, for one of them, “then we will take their heads!”
The crowd didn’t just roar. They thundered. They would have their blood. They would have their demands. They would have it all. No matter the cost.
An hour later, while Tyrus Rechs had the building where Basement Six was located under surveillance, Lyra opened the hypercomm, and Gabriella fed him a video that had just hit the streams only fifteen minutes ago.
33
Rechs waited in the shadows across the street from Basement Six. It was after noon, and the heat was still rising. Overhead, marines flying fully loaded SLIC gunships crossed over the buildings and rioter-swollen streets. Looking like they were storming the sands at Aeroc all over again.
The bounty hunter noted the change in military posture. Something was up.
That was when Gabriella fed him the live stream hitting the galaxy.
“Here it is, Tyrus,” she said. She was every inch a pro at her job, but he could tell she’d been crying. Her voice was dry and husky. Hollow and angry. A small sniffle. Her words halted. “It’s… bad, Tyrus. Real…” She paused. “Bad.”
And then the download began to run in a corner of Rechs’s HUD.
The video shows one of the legionnaires. He’s been forced down onto a flat table in a nondescript room. His baby face—because don’t they all look like babies to a man who’s been fighting for two thousand years?—stares into the camera recording the scene. And yeah… there’s fear in his eyes.
That’s a part of being brave. Don’t let anybody lie to you about that.
“Absence of it just means you’re a fool,” an old sergeant major once taught Rechs long ago.
But the kid is scared. Two red-and-black Soshies are holding him down. Except these two only look like Soshies. They’re not. Or at least, not just Soshies. They’re trained. A third one comes into frame and loops a leather belt about the legionnaire’s neck. Then moves to the front of the table and pulls firmly, stretching the kid’s neck. Practically pulling him across the table.
Rechs can feel his hand tightening on the scatterblaster he’s about to use in order to bust his way into his latest objective along the trail to rescue. He’s seen these kinds of videos more than he cares to remember. They never end well. And Gabriella already gave him the spoilers with how shaken up she sounded.
He tells himself to breathe. To think. To capture every detail. He’ll need all of it later when it comes time to pay back. But he doesn’t want to breathe and be calm and make a list. He wants to set the galaxy on fire like he did once long ago. He feels that old hate welling up within him that he only ever really unleashed on the long-dead Savages.
It ain’t wrong to hate what’s wrong.
Words he once lived by.
Another Soshie, this one slight, small, and most likely female, comes into frame. When she turns to face the camera, though most of her face is obscured by the black mask she wears beneath her red hood, he can see that the eyebrows have been shaped. The lashes made up.
Definitely female.
Though he knows what’s about to happen, he somehow hopes it won’t. Even though it already has. The leej is struggling, but he can’t speak. They’ve gagged him.
Rechs makes himself remember the girl’s eyes. He commits every detail to memory and makes sure the armor’s HUD is capturing. Of course it is. He will watch this video many times, making sure he gets his targets right. Because everyone who owes is going to pay.
He consoles himself with what he knows he’ll do on the other side of all this. He doesn’t feel sorry for what they’re bringing on themselves. Brought, he reminds himself. This feed is fifteen minutes old at least. He doesn’t feel sorry
