the Conqueror.
Across the table, greenish, pale-skinned Mocains dressed in DefCorps khaki regarded us through hooded eyes. Beside them, in USICOM blue, were Ormans from the Inners, a stunted race from a lost world, clinging to life and power like parasites, surviving by guile and deceit, riding to the stars with the Mocains. They controlled USICOM, and functioned as reliable political advisors to the Mocain.
Also present were a host of mortals from conquered worlds: Luytenians and Pherdans and Dardans and Elidians and many others, wearing DefCom khaki and USICOM blue and STRATCOM red and Starfleet white and Alliance gold.
Coldmarker USICOM officials refereed the encounter. The racial tension in that room was palpable.
“We demand a public apology from the System for this blatant act of aggression, and an immediate explanation for these unprecedented actions. We also demand reparations from the System for all damage done to Andrion 2 as a result of its aggression, and an immediate exchange of prisoners.” Val hated the Systies. He was from Angaroth, a world savagely brutalized by past Systie atrocities, and that was all the reason he needed.
We sat on steeply banked rows of seats opposite each side of the long conference table. The room was packed. Information flunkies from both sides snapped away with their solscans, and vidmons recorded the procedures. After today, we would all have files opened on us by DefCom Information. I did not care; I was only there for one reason.
I glanced over at Gravelight, a pale princess clad in black, with hair like golden sunlight. Some of the Legion girls had worked on her prior to the meeting. Gravelight normally did not worry much about her appearance, but the conference was a big psywar opportunity for us. Our delegation was projecting immortal youth and beauty and raw, confident Outworlder power. We were everything the System desperately wanted to crush, a direct threat to the corrupt, dead heart of their petrified interstellar empire. We wanted to make sure the message got out. Oblivious, Gravelight coldly glared at only one person, a sallow Orman girl with stringy black hair and a weary face. That would be one of the Systie psychers, and a silent battle would be raging between those two as the negotiations continued.
“Take a good look, Thinker,” Coolhand said softly. “We don’t often get to see these people so close while they’re still alive. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” He smiled cheerily.
“I really feel privileged, Coolhand. This is indeed an honor. Those Greenies make my skin crawl.” We called the Mocains Greenies because of the faint green tint of their pale flesh.
“Scope out the giant at the end of the table. That’s an Inner from Picos. If I was his size, I wouldn’t let any Greenie push me around.” Coolhand held a datascreen. There was so much information flashing around that room that I half expected our screens to start blowing out.
Psycho leaned toward us, interrupting. “Coolhand, can I shoot that slimy bald Greenie with the gold on his shoulders? Can I?”
“Now settle down, Psycho. We’ll tell you when to start shooting. Not yet!”
“Please? Just one guy, the green slime. Just one, tenners?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Have you girls heard enough of this nonsense? If so, we’ve got work to do.” Snow Leopard seemed anxious to get moving. Gamma had already filed out. Every move we made had been planned in advance. If we accomplished nothing else, we would keep a lot of Systies very busy. The negotiations would continue for days, maybe weeks. Beta and Gamma would be busy elsewhere.
Outside, our aircars hovered right at the entrance to the Government Center, metal skins shining silver in the sunlight, armored plex all black.
It was a bright, clear day. Crowds of scruffy Coldmarkers lined the tall wire mesh fences surrounding the compound, and a ragged shout went up when we appeared. Coldmark militia stood around nervously, armed with local SG clones, while DefCorps troopers stood guard by the doors, whispering into their wristcoms.
We entered the first car and Gamma took the second one. As I got in, two more Legion aircars flashed across the sky, followed moments later by two Systie aircars. Our day had begun.
Redhawk grinned at us from the pilot’s seat. He was the only troopie I knew crazier than Psycho. The assault door sealed shut abruptly. “Strap in, kiddies, or you’ll be sorry!” Redhawk slammed the thrust forward and we shot away from the compound at blinding speed, powering up into the sky at a steep angle. Since nobody had strapped in yet, this caused us some distress. Warhound landed on my face, and all our loose equipment shifted position immediately to the rear.
“Will you kindly remove your knee from my throat?”
“Sorry!”
Redhawk laughed madly. He hit the sounds, and the cabin filled with wild lektra music, shattering our ears. “They’ll never catch us!” he screamed over the music. He arced the aircar into a steep dive.
“Strap in, girls!” Snow Leopard ordered. We knew Redhawk, and we didn’t mind his driving. We knew he was the best. I settled into a seat and strapped in. Psycho found a seat next to me. He always enjoyed these little rides.
Now we flashed at treetop height right over Coldmark City, only there were no trees and it wasn’t much of a city. As the aircar bounced and shuddered through rough air and sunlight exploded across the darkened plex, the entire panorama of Coldmark slid by below. We saw a seemingly endless slum, hundreds of thousands of squalid little shacks constructed from trash, wood and plastic and metal scraps, set in a smoky, cratered wilderness full of slow-moving people, looking up in surprise as we flashed overhead. A city of mud and burning garbage, inhabited by slaves. Down below, a bewildering variety of groundcars bounced over rutted roads, and in the middle, a tiny child ran gleefully away from a furious old lady shaking a broom.
We flashed over a polluted green canal. It looked like people were urinating and defecating on one side and washing clothes in the other. Off in the distance, Government installations rose from the sea of shacks like islands, surrounded by high wire-mesh fences.
Snow Leopard sat next to Redhawk, shouting into his ear. “Can you turn down the music!”
“What?”
“The music! Turn it down!”
“What?”
“Turn down the bloody music!” Snow Leopard’s face was bright red.
Redhawk pointed to his earphones, and leaned over close to Snow Leopard. “I can’t hear you! The music’s too loud!”
Grimacing, Snow Leopard turned it down himself. We were so low I thought we were going to collide with some of the shacks. We darted over a sea of mud, full of naked laughing children, chasing a ball through the filth. Priestess tapped my shoulder. She sat just behind me, and she was upset. “Thinker…how can they live like that? What kind of a world is this!”
“It’s a world of rich and poor, Priestess. You read the sitrep. This is just what it said.”
“But I…but…I didn’t think they would live like this! In filth! What is the matter with these people? Don’t they know about public sanitation? Or personal hygiene? Isn’t anyone watching over those children?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
Priestess trembled, glaring out the plex. “This is criminal! What kind of a government is this! They don’t care! It’s treason! High crimes against humanity! Nobody should treat human beings like this, not even mortals!”
“Keep that Manlink away from her, Psycho.” I did not know what else to say.
“You want me to kill somebody for you, Priestess?” Psycho was no help at all. He loved to drive people over the edge.
“Filthy scum! We should put a strike in on every one of those Government compounds. Antimat the lot!” Priestess really meant it, I could tell. “Kill them all! Blow away all those wire fences and let the mob in to tear them apart! They’re subhumans, Thinker! Subhumans!”
“You got that right!” Her fingers dug into my shoulder. She stared fixedly out the plex, convulsed. She came from a Legion world, a very sheltered existence.
“Is anybody back there?” Snow Leopard asked the pilot.
“Oh, yeah. Big ten on that. We got one Systie aircar way, way back there, still on us. But not for long! Hang on!” Redhawk whipped the aircar around in a wicked tight turn. The gravs pulled at us as the car arced dizzily in a great circle.
