The Blood of Patriots and Tyrants
Stormtrooper Shaest McCollum has seen the good the Imperial Army can do, and no misguided group of freedom fighters is going to undo it all… Not if he can help it.
"'A functioning police state needs no police'," Shaest McCollum quoted, watching the monitor above his head in the mess hall of the Imperial Navy's battleship Libera. The only other stormtrooper in the room threw a confused look over his shoulder. Shaest smiled wryly and nodded at the monitor, which showed buildings burning on the planet Gammada in the Outer Rim: "Guess that's not a functioning police state like we thought it was. Citizens never know what's good for them, do they?"
On the screen, Rebel soldiers in poor camouflage were too busy "freeing" the citizens (from what they had termed the relentless fist of the Empire) to notice that the once-orderly streets were being strewn with unnecessary byproducts of a guerilla war: Commodities, spilled from market stalls; sun-dried brick and mortar, fallen from collapsed buildings. Bodies, caught in a crossfire that shouldn't have happened. And the citizens were cheering them on.
Shaest remembered Gammada back when it was overrun by pirates and smugglers, drug-dealers and mobsters. He had been on the first Imperial Army ground suppression unit. He'd killed thirty-two actively resisting sentients, and had rescued fourteen compliant citizens from certain death. He was a suppression unit commander; that was what he did.
The Imperial Army had taken control of the planet as it had taken control of so many other planets in dire need. With a regular police presence – and equally regular suppression efforts – they'd lowered the murder rate by 76%, rape by 83%. The drug cartels had been blockaded and whittled down to a mere shadow of their old selves, and the mob families were imprisoned one by one and shipped off of the planet to serve time.
A white-armored body fell in front of the camera, and Shaest felt his heart contract. He probably knew that man that had just died. It had been a long time since he'd been planetside with those particular men, but it was likely, nonetheless, that he knew that man. He frowned as a street vendor lifted his arms triumphantly to the camera.
After bringing the noncompliant population under control, the Imperial Army had established effective policing in each of the planet's three small cities. They'd shipped in teachers, knowing that the best suppression effort was education, and prevention. School attendance in young sentients had gone up to meet Imperial Planet standards, then exceed them. Homeless shelters and orphanages brought the transients off of the streets and even back into productive society. The Army introduced more jobs; the cleanup and construction industries tripled. The streets, schools, marketplaces, and landing pads became neat and orderly. New buildings were created to replace buildings that hadn't been up to code several standard centuries ago. The Army began to enlist civilians and train them to be their own, self-sufficient army. For several years since, Gammada had been a model planetary turnaround; a success story used in the newest Imperial Academy suppression and prevention textbooks.
So much for that. Civilians had a short memory. Obviously none of them remembered the state of their planet before the Army had taken control – surprising, since Shaest had been a part of it, and he was still quite young. The Rebels' propaganda (pleading the so-called "corruption of the overreaching Empire", that "the best government was a small government", that the "socialist tax ideals" of the Empire would "tear the capitalist societies apart and destroy all free markets"). Clearly the citizens of Gammada preferred this tenuously-proposed and unsupported 'liberty' over the order established by the Army.
Well. That was their choice. Shaest crumpled up his can and spoke to the monitor. "Go ahead; throw in with the Rebels. Let them make a mess of your streets, your people, your markets and your government system. You'll be surprised when you wake up tomorrow."
They would be. The Rebels had been at it for a few years now – truly at it, not just grumbling and threatening –and they'd decimated a few rim planets in that short time. Despite increased border planet security, they had managed to secure a few victories. They came in, shot the place up, killed stormtroopers who were keeping the peace and order; they left buildings afire and streets strewn with the spoils of war. Then they got back into their rickety starships – ostensibly off to 'save' more planets – and left the planet to shift for itself. "The citizens were free, right?" the Rebels seemed to be saying. "What else could they need?"
Shaest wasn't stupid. He had been heavily schooled at the Academy and had a good deal of common sense besides. He knew that one could argue that the Imperial Army and the Rebels had done exactly the same thing to this particular planet. The difference, his military mind said, was post-suppression support, which the Rebels did not have. The Imperial Army had come in with not only ships full of soldiers, "enough gun", as they said, for the job… but they'd also had ships landing directly behind the soldiers. Ships full of food, water, medical supplies and medical professionals, fire suppression units and heavy rescue technicians. Enough laborers to clear the streets and remove debris in two standard days. Psychologists and doctors for the citizens, for their post-traumatic experience of regime change. Teachers followed days later, not only for the schools, but for the new local politicians (the previous mob-tied government having been prudently overthrown in the first day). The Rebels, as far as Shaest could tell by looking at post-incident reports, had brought none of those things.
Ah, the Rebels. Rebels always thought they were doing these planets favors. They thought they were freeing citizens who would wake up in a year with triumph on their faces, ready to face another bright, liberty-strewn morning. Shaest knew the truth. The Rebels had neither the money nor the manpower to keep order after their initial attack. The street vendor was still on camera. Would he be so happy tomorrow, as he found his market destroyed without the leadership, money, or manpower to return it to a functional state? Would he be sleeping on the street; returning to his home only to find it a blasted, smoking heap of rubble; discovering that there were no relief tents set up to house the displaced citizens? Would he even be alive tomorrow? Suppose he had received a cut from the battle (as undoubtedly he had) and it became infected? Suppose he looked all around for a medical unit, a surgeon, a medic, a physician; and found nothing? Suppose he starved or dehydrated to death?
Shaest shook his head, threw his water into the recycling machine, and picked up his rifle. The bridge of the Libera was calm, organized, efficient – everything the Rebel attack was not. And yet the Rebels were gaining strength; their grass-roots campaign was putting ideas – dangerous, incomplete ideas – into the heads of people who had no business trying to reform a planet. Soon, the Army would have to launch a full-scale assault on these warmongers, and he would undoubtedly be on one of the first ten ships; his reputation as a headhunter preceded him.
He didn't mind. Shaest cared deeply for the rim planets in particular; he came from one and he knew how they worked when they were controlled by corrupt, immoral citizens. When there was no order, there was no dignity of life. He was a particularly efficient and remorseless killer and commander; he believed in suppression and was good at it. If he didn't feel particularly strongly about the Rebels and their cause itself, he did feel strongly about their incompetent management of the citizens they were trying to 'free'. It enraged him to know that innocents were dying because someone couldn't be bothered to form a recovery plan for a besieged planet. When one vowed to overtake a planet, one committed to seeing their citizens through it all.
Shaest didn't believe in military ineptitude.
His time was coming.
The Rebels would soon see what true military competence looked like, as they stared down the barrel of his gun.
Part I: The Blood of Patriots and Tyrants
Part II: Libera On the Other Side
Part III: The Hammer and the Sickle
Part IV: Moral Code
Part V: Empire, Relentless
Reviews are fed to Shaest McCollum and his troopers. REVIEWS ARE MIGHT!