Come the Revolution (16 page)

“It’s related to the Munies. In fact, it’s essential, so if you want to scotch the Munie deal, say no to this, and the whole package goes out the window.”

I stopped and felt myself shiver involuntarily. The expression “out the window” suddenly had more significance for me than it used to and I didn’t think I’d be using it as much.

“Those Munies aren’t anything but a liability,” I continued, “unless we have the ability to communicate to the outside world.”

“
Da
,” he agreed. “And?”

“Earlier I noticed you’ve got a hard-fiber comm/data network. I got an idea how we can use it to get around the jamming.”

He sat for a moment thinking. “Is why electrical genius is here?” he said, nodding at Moshe. He said “genius” the way you’d call someone a “smart guy” and not mean it as a compliment.

I just nodded.

He looked back at the smart wall, at the Humans down around the burning ground car, looking like bugs from this distance. He took a long drag on the cigar and blew a slow funnel of smoke toward the wall, watched it curl and rise toward the ceiling, just like the thicker, blacker smoke from the ground car curled up around the maglev tracks above it.

It wasn’t tough to figure what he was thinking. We could play armadillo: curl up, lay low and do the absolute minimum to stay alive, make the fewest enemies possible, and hope things just blew over, got back to normal. Then we could all go about our business same as before.

Or we could play tiger, make something happen to save ourselves, even if that made us a bigger target.

One plan required faith in things just running down of their own accord; the other required faith in the active agency of people and institutions outside of Sakkatto City which had never gone to bat for Humans before. Tough call, and I wasn’t positive my idea was the best way to go.

He turned back to us and sighed. “Okay. Explain plan.”

Chapter Twenty

“People of Bakaa and the entire
Cottohazz
: I am Captain Arkerro Prayzaat, acting commandant of the Sakkatto Municipal Police. I am communicating from a secret and secure police facility. To the best of my knowledge I am the highest ranking police official who has not been taken into custody or executed by the Army mutineers who violently seized control of the government two days ago.”

Prayzaat sat behind a desk backed by a smart wall which was programmed to show a detailed map of the city. We’d put a bunch of arcane and important-looking symbols on it: geometric shapes in different colors and with a four-digit number below each of them. They were randomly placed and didn’t actually mean anything. Hopefully a bunch of Army intelligence officers would spend a few sleepless nights trying to decode them, rather than working on something important.

“The mutineers have told the
Cottohazz
they have restored order in Sakkatto City,” Prayzaat continued. “There is no order in the city. Aside from a few small areas in some of the arcologies there is only violence and anarchy.

“Hundreds of police officers have been executed by the mutineers and almost all of the survivors of the force have been arrested and are being held at secret locations. Their so-called crime was to use force to protect the lives of non-uBakai citizens of the
Cottohazz
against rampaging mobs. I call on the mutineers to disclose the location and identity of all police in their custody and release them to neutral parties immediately.

“Sakkatto City has been denuded of police and plunged into chaos. The citizen associations of Sakkatto must step into the breach and establish order in their own neighborhoods. To that end, and under my authority as commandant of the Sakkatto Municipal Police, I hereby officially deputize all members of the citizen associations whose names follow this address, and I empower them not only to take all steps necessary to protect the lives and property of their people, but also to resist the illegal gang of thugs who have overthrown our rightful government.

“We face a daunting task, but I call upon all loyal citizens of the Commonwealth of Bakaa to band together and forget whatever differences divided us before. What we fight for now is nothing less than the rule of law. I also call upon the
Cottohazz
itself to recall the pluralistic principles upon which it is based and to aid us in our struggle. This military coup cannot succeed unless the
Cottohazz
so allows it. If you will not stand against this shameful act, what will you stand
for
?”

“That’s a wrap,” the video tech said after two or three seconds of silence. The seven others of us in the room, who stood outside the arc of the holovid recorder, started moving and talking again. The list of community groups, which we’d culled from the comm lists of Katranjiev’s office, included a lot of Varoki groups as well as some of the ethnic community associations. It would scroll on the vid after Prayzaat finished, probably over a frozen ghosted image of him at his desk. That was up to the editor. The citizen groups were listed alphabetically so the Sookagrad Citizens’ League was well down the list, nice and inconspicuous—but it was still official.

As calls to arms go, I thought it was okay but nothing special: a bit wordy and long-winded, but that’s what a lot of the Varoki are like. I figured it was more important that the speech sound sincere than eloquent, and it did. Those were Prayzaat’s words, and he meant them.

The three members of the troika—Katranjiev, Zdravkova, and Stal—clustered around Prayzaat to shake his hand and work out our next move. I slipped out the door and headed toward the clinic, my temporary headquarters. I figured I was going to have to move somewhere else soon, probably into one of the ammo fabrication sites. The clinic was starting to get busy, and things were only going to get crazier there. I already felt like my admin folks were in the way.

I blinked as I came out the basement freight door into the darkness of the empty street, irregularly lit by distant fires and an occasional aerial flare. I heard a lot more small arms fire now, all over the city, but not much near us for the moment. From far off in the distance came the muffled thud of an explosion. So much for the Army restoring order.

In the last twenty-four hours the Varoki gangs had tested our perimeter in three places, tried to bluff or bully their way past the barricades, but so far the fighters had stood their ground and driven them off with a lot of noise but not many casualties. At some point soon that was all going to change, one way or another, and then we’d see.

Someone walked down the narrow street a dozen yards ahead of me, a woman, keeping close by the buildings to her right. People were already learning to stay out of the center of the street, where stray rounds were more likely to fall. Rain earlier had left the pavement wet and shining in the occasional flicker of light, but the clouds were clearing I thought. Maybe we’d have some sunshine tomorrow. I wondered what the weather was like at
The’On’s
place over in uKootrin territory. I wondered if they’d gotten rain, if Marr would feel sunshine on her face tomorrow. I wondered what she was thinking.

At least she knew I was alive. Once Greenwald spliced into the uBakai national data pipe, I’d been able to flash a single message to
The’On’s
residence there: “I am alive. Sasha.” No indication of where I was, of course, and no way for them to comm back—too dangerous to everyone else here if anyone figured out where I was in Sakkatto City.

I leaned against the street corner and yawned. I hadn’t slept in about two days, near as I could remember, but I’d gone a lot longer than that without sleep before. Of course, I’d been younger then, and the last two days I’d been on my feet almost the whole time. Too much standing around on foamstone pavement was starting to get to me in the joints, especially my knees. I ought to get a little rest, but first I had to get the ammo distribution points reorganized.

Ivanov had placed them where his ammo carriers could get to them, but too far from the perimeter. He was doing fine with fabrication so I let him concentrate on that and I took over ammo distribution myself until I could find some eager beaver to delegate it to. I’d half figured I’d have to step in there anyway so it wasn’t a big surprise. Better to get it squared away now than try to shift everything around when the fighting got heavy.

And I needed to get the soup kitchen better organized, with some volunteers to haul hot chow up close to the fighting line. And we still didn’t have enough dormitory space for the Sookagrad folks who’d been displaced, let alone for the Human refugees we’d been getting, a trickle at first but more in the last twelve hours.

And I had to convince the perimeter fighters to get a lot more serious about recovering and taking care of the spent magazines from their weapons. Almost every weapon we had was a gauss rifle or pistol of one sort or another. The
gauss
in their name meant they magnetically accelerated a composite metallic flechette faster than the speed of sound, but they needed electricity to do it. The batteries that provided the juice for the system were embedded in the magazines. We could fabricate all the flechettes in the world but if we didn’t have magazines to load them into, and recharge with power, we were out of business.

Where to start?

Ammunition distribution. Right. Make the pitch to the perimeter fighters about magazine recovery when I go around with word on the new ammo points. They’d like not having to go as far to get it, so they’d be more disposed to help us on the other thing. I stretched my left arm over my head, twisted from side to side to loosen up my back, and headed on to the clinic. Maybe Doc Mahajan could give me a shot or something for the joint pain.

I heard small arms fire in the distance. I’d gotten used to it lately, but suddenly I realized this sounded like a lot more than usual. The fog of my fatigue cleared and I started trotting. By the time I got to the clinic a couple sets of stretcher bearers were moving through the big double doorway to the trauma receiving station and Moshe Greenwald was yelling at a crowd of guys, trying to get them to do something.

“What’s going on?” I said as soon as I got to them. Moshe turned and his face showed relief.

“Boss! Boy, am I glad to see you! Big push at the southwest barricade. Don’t know what’s happening except our guys took some casualties and they need ammo and reinforcements.”

I looked at the half-dozen guys he had together. “You guys ammo haulers?”

“Yeah, but Zhang here is the runner for barricade four. We got our own guys to haul for, if they get in trouble.”

“If the mob breaks through the southwest, we’re all going to have a really bad night. Everyone grab one sack of magazines and follow me. Moshe, you stay here. Alert whoever’s running the perimeter—I think it’s Zdravkova. She might not be back at headquarters yet. We were at that studio you rigged up. But find her and get some reinforcements to barricade four. Then get a work party together and get ready to push ammo wherever it’s needed. These guys are now the first echelon reinforcements,” I said, pointing to the ammo party. I could see the whites of Moshe’s eyes in the flickering flare light. He was excited, keyed up, but his head was still screwed on straight.

“Got it, Boss. Good luck!” Then he was gone, running toward the HQ buildings.

“Saddle up, folks,” I said to the other six. “You’re all about to become heroes. Do what I tell you and you’ll stay live heroes.”

“How do we know which bags are which caliber?” the one called Zhang asked. “We need forty-four-thirty pistol, forty-five-forty carbine, and some forty-five-fifty RAG.”

“Just grab a bag and haul ass,” I answered. I did exactly that and hoped like hell they’d follow me.

Chapter Twenty-One

Twenty minutes later, after most of the excitement was over and I crouched beside a stalled ground car catching my breath, I heard Moshe call out to me.

“Hey, Boss. What are you doing this far forward?”

I turned and saw him emerge from the shadow of a building corner in a low crouch and stop. Four more reinforcements sprinted forward past him and then myself to thicken the firing line, although the Varoki seemed to have lost all their fight for now.

“Come on,” I said. “It’s pretty clear.”

“Fuck that. You come here.”

A single round zipped overhead and knocked foamstone chips from a wall. It wasn’t anywhere near either of us, but it did remind me that I was pretty far forward for an unarmed logistics chief with one broken wing. I used my good left arm to help duckwalk back to Moshe. We got around the corner and out of the line of fire. Moshe moved the worst of the trash out of the way with his foot and then we both sat with our backs to the metal wall of the shipping container building. Moshe lit a cigarette.

“Looks like the guys held,” he said. “How’d it go?”

“Like an Albanian town council meeting,” I answered. “Two of them, actually. Fortunately, the one on the other side was even more confused than the one on ours. Much more. But this so-called ammo distribution system we have just isn’t going to work. Jesus! Half the guys ended up back off the line rummaging through the bags, trying to find something they could shoot.”

I stopped and took a long, shuddering breath. I’d been really scared through the firefight. That wasn’t unusual; I’m always scared when there’s shooting, especially if I’m unarmed. I keep doing what I need to do, never freeze up, but that doesn’t make the experience any more fun. Moshe handed me a glass bottle, about a half-liter. The cap was off and I took a drink with trembling hand. Slivovitz—plum brandy—probably homemade, and pretty stiff.

“Moshe, you are a man of unexpected resourcefulness,” I said.

“Is that you, Naradnyo?” I recognized the voice as Zdravkova’s and saw her first as movement in the shadows, keeping to the side of the street near our wall. When she got closer I saw she was packing an old Mark 14 RAG.

“Hey, it’s the Dragon Lady! Thanks for getting the alert squad up here so quick. Your kids did real good up on the barricade, once they settled down. They had it mostly under control but the bad guys really packed it in when your reserves showed up.”

“What are you doing up here?”

I held up the bottle. “You know, having a nightcap, enjoying the evening. Think it’s going to rain some more?”

Without a word she stalked past us and dropped into a crouch as she went around the corner.

“If you were a little older and wiser,” Moshe said, “you’d appreciate mature women more.”

“I appreciate ’em fine,” I said and passed him the bottle, “especially when they’re packing military-grade firepower.” I thought about that for a moment. It was an odd thing to say, given my current elective nonviolent state, but old habits die hard.

“I’m married, though—and never had much of a wandering eye. Wish I was home right now.”

“Who
doesn’t
wish they were someplace other than here?” Moshe said. “I got an ex-wife on Bronstein’s World. Right now even
I
wish I was there. Your wife, she’s rich or something, ain’t she? Good looking, too?”

“Yup, and a lot smarter than me. Not a bad combination. But we never laugh anymore. We never go dancing, either. We’ve never danced, do you believe it? You know I can do a pretty mean samba.”

“That I’m having a hard time imagining,” he said and passed me back the bottle.

“It’s true. But all we do is plan and scheme and try to stay ahead of the bad guys, whoever they are today. Saving the galaxy, that’s us. Not always sure what we’re saving it from, or who for, but by God we’re savin’ the hell out of it.”

I took another drink.

“We’re so focused, so single-minded, day in, day out. Everyone needs a laugh once in a while. We used to laugh, until everything got so goddamned serious all the time. Someday some guy’s gonna come along and make her laugh again. Then what?”

I took another pull of brandy and handed it to Moshe. The evening had become so quiet I could hear Zdravkova talking to the perimeter guards, maybe a block away, but I couldn’t quite make out her words.

“Well, I remembered another physics joke,” Moshe said after a while. “This one’s great! Einstein, Newton, and Pascal are playing hide-and-seek. Einstein’s ‘it,’ so he closes his eyes and starts counting. Pascal runs off to hide but Newton just stands there and takes out a piece of chalk. He draws a line a meter long on the street, then another one at right angles to it, then another and another until he’s made a box. He stands in it and waits. Einstein gets done counting, opens his eyes, and says, ‘Newton, I found you!’ ‘No,’ Newton says, ‘I am a Newton over a meter squared. You found Pascal!’”

Moshe laughed.

“What the hell kind of joke it that?” I said. “It doesn’t even make sense.”

“It does if you know physics.”

But I obviously didn’t. Overhead I saw stars and one of Hazz’Akatu’s smaller moons. No clouds so maybe we were going to get some sunshine the next morning after all. We needed it.

What was keeping Zdravkova? I needed to talk to her before I turned in.

“Okay, you know physics,” I said. “This is the three hundredth anniversary of the invention of the jump drive. Did you know that? I went to a reception for it a few days ago in Katammu-Arc. I guess you could say we crashed the party.”

He offered the bottle but I shook my head. I was already about half-plowed.

“So what’s the deal with that?” I asked.

“With the slivovitz? A friend made it over…oh, you mean the jump drive. The deal is it’s the only way from star to star and the Varoki own it,
nu
?”

“Yeah, but how does it work? I mean, in general. No equations or my head will explode.”

Moshe laughed. “No danger of a head explosion tonight, Boss. I don’t have any idea how it works. Nobody outside the research departments of the big Varoki trading houses knows. It’s called a proprietary trade secret. It’s not even part of the patent description, is what I hear.”

“How do you maintain it on a starship if you don’t know how it works?”

“The components are black boxes: one jump cortex and from one to ten jump actuator units, depending on how big a ship. You fly with one duplicate of each component. If the component’s performance goes subnominal, you install the backup and replace the defective one at your next stop.”

“You never look inside?”

“Never, and I mean
never
. They’re factory sealed, and they better still be factory sealed when you turn them in. You know, you don’t own those components, you just lease them. Mess around with the seals, you violate the lease, get blackballed, and you’re done flying. Besides which, its antitamper device is listed as a level five biohazard, which is as bad as it gets.”

“Biohazard?”

“Yeah, you never heard the story of the
Rawalpindi
? This was about thirty years ago, before I was flying. A Newton tug coming in to dock at Boreandris Highstation had a malfunction. One of the lateral ACTs—that’s attitude control thruster—froze in the full thrust position, started yawing the tug. Before they could get it unfrozen, or the pilot thought to just fire the opposing thruster, they hit a maintenance gig and then plowed it right into the side of a Human star freighter, the
Rawalpindi
. Drove that gig through the hull of the freighter like a spike, right into the engineering spaces, and cracked open the jump cortex.

“Two of
Rawalpindi’s
engineering crew survived the initial impact, foamed the hull around the breach and got the pressure stabilized enough for the rest of the crew to crack the access hatch and get them out of there. Should have left them sealed in. Whatever was inside that cortex, some sort of neurotoxin they say, once it got out into the air it killed everyone else on the ship, something like twenty passengers and crew, including some rich Varoki who must have been out slumming. Couple of crew suited up but the bug ate through the seals, got ’em anyway.

“No rescue or recovery attempt once the bug was out—not allowed to board it or even take a remote sample afterwards. The
Cottohazz
ordered
Rawalpindi
hauled into a parking orbit nearby and waited ’til everyone died, then had a Newton tug give it a good hard shove toward the local sun. R.I.P.”

“Damn,” I said.

He nodded and took another sip.

“There was another accident like that, a freak meteor strike, I forget when. Bottom line: nobody outside their labs has looked inside a jump cortex and lived to tell about it.”

He screwed the cap on the bottle and stood up.

“I gotta get back to the clinic, look at the wiring on two of the autodocs. You coming?”

“Nah, I need to get this ammo thing worked out and, much as I hate to say it, the Dragon Lady and I need to put our heads together on it.”

“Why you call her that?” he said, hands on his hips. I got the idea he felt a little protective about her.

“I don’t know. It’s a nickname for a capable and dangerous woman.”

“Well, try her real one:
Dezi Oobiyets
. See you later.”

Now that
was
an interesting nickname. Dezi was obviously short for Desislava, her first name.
Oobivtsya
meant
killer
in Ukrainian. I was willing to bet
oobiyets
meant the same thing in Bulgarian.