Note: Part one has seen some minor editing to reduce the number of commissioned officers under Naija's command.


Uprising
Part Two

4 July

"Now, eez very rare for raiders to vear 'eavy armor. Zey prefer zee mobility of zee lighter suites. 'Owever, eet is important zat you learn zee difference."

Naija sat in the corner of the room, behind the table from which Andrej lectured the first group of newly formed militia. She had ordered the room set up for mission briefings, but it easily filled the role of classroom as well. The lesson itself was basic stuff, meant to familiarize recruits with the order of modern ground combat. They had already gone over the common types of weapon, their role and limitations, and if all went well, actual training would begin in a day or two. First, though, armor.

As in any battle waged since the dawn of civilization, the goal was to bring the best possible counter-force to bear on against a group of enemies. Even the various Alliance-based manufacturers produced a wide variety of armors, with an extensive range of features. A skilled soldier had to be able to identify and react to those features on the field, choosing the proper weapon and, if necessary, leaving a target to a better equipped comrade. Prioritize, eliminate, and move on.

Observing her new militia carefully, Naija noticed that two of them were paying more attention to her than the lecture. One was a rebellious-looking woman by the name of Marian Alexander, the youngest of only five to volunteer for the thirty-man group. She might have been attractive, if not for a perpetually angry scowl, and the streaks of crimson that ran through her long black hair. A major in the Alliance navy could make for a powerful example for an independent-minded woman in a patriarchal society, though Naija had no insight into resisting oppression; she had never felt biased against, by the Alliance as an institution, or her fellow officers.

The other was Andrew Davis. He simply stared at her with a flat stare, as emotionless as she'd ever seen him. It had started when she'd planted his face into the mat for the second time, after he demanded a rematch. She had delighted in her victory, at the time, mocking his defeat, but then, she had expected him to accept his failure and, well, man-up about it. Train, hard, and challenge her again. This, though, was disturbing. Resentful. Had she some idea what it felt like, she might even have gone so far as to call it stalkerish.

It was also the reason why, if she were honest, she was beginning to despite New Texas. The weather, unpleasant as it was, she could endure. The men… not so easy. Well, when she said easy…

As far as she knew, none of her former lovers had any complaints about her methods of seduction. Her technique, perhaps, but… she had never raped anyone. Force ran counter to everything she enjoyed about sex, from the first daring flirtation to the morning after. Yet she found herself wondering if she had taken advantage of Andrew. Not by physically forcing herself on him, but using subtler means, and maybe she had damaged something he found important. His innocence, or… something.

She found the thought disturbing. Sex was a mutual pleasure, at its best when shared, and even the possibility of coercion seemed to taint an already mediocre experience.

Straightening in her chair, Naija forced her attention back to Andrej's lecture. He was in the middle of describing tactics to counter biotic enemies. Not for the first time, she found herself wishing that Admiral Hackett had assigned someone else to protect the backwards planet.


8 July

Andrew tossed back his fourth shot of Uncle Joe's Ol' New Texas Whiskey. It burned going doing, and he coughed, grasping the neck of the half-empty jug. It burned, but it didn't help. Grey eyes continued to occupy his thoughts; grey eyes, and a mocking smirk on dark lips. She had laid him out on the mat in the practice ring with more obvious pleasure than she'd displayed during sex. She enjoyed humiliating him, taking his virtue first, and then his manhood. If only she'd kept his defeat private, but everyone seemed to know. He could see it in their eyes when they looked at him.

He poured himself another drink, splashing rich brown liquid over his hands. The bartender appeared to wipe up the mess, giving him an eyeful of her ample cleavage, and he snarled at her, pushing her away. Sex was an act both sacred and sinful; sacred, because God chose it as the means of bringing new life into the world. Sinful, because lust was a tool of Lucifer for bringing down righteous men.

He should have remembered that, and that no man was as strong as he believed. He had failed to open his heart to God when it mattered, and succumbed to temptation. Then, instead of purifying his soul with repentance, he had followed his lust into a crush. It had been that damnable weakness, and his fear of Naija seeing it, which had stopped him from joining the militia, and lead to his humiliating beating at her hands.

He found—he felt the ineffectuality of prayer. God had abandoned the coarse creature that he'd become, trapped by his lust and resentment. He dreamed of hurting Naija, of taking revenge, in a hundred different ways, but… something inside him still hesitated to follow that path. It was the road to hell, to final and complete damnation, without even the hope of redemption.

Andrew believed in redemption, not just for the righteous, but for all who willingly submitted themselves to Jesus Christ. Through him, the Lord God had sacrificed Himself, tasting the temptations that drew mortals to sin. Suffering and Understanding, they were the key. To be human was to bring pain to others, for the most part inadvertently, but to give pain deliberately—that, God did not forgive.

People such as himself, they walked a fine line. He tried, and didn't always succeed, to bring death quickly. He trusted God to punish slavers and murderers as they deserved, and never wanted to add to their suffering, even if he had to stop them. Why did he not feel the same about Naija? She was just a flawed human, and though she had clearly enjoyed defeating him, he didn't think she meant harm by it.

Yet, he felt that harm. Had God forgiven Pontius Pilate, or the traitorous Jews? Had they not been cast into the deepest pits of hell? They deserved nothing less. Naija did not deserve his forgiveness, but justice remained the sphere of the Almighty. Flawed humans could only ever have revenge.

And he wanted revenge, even knowing the consequences for his immortal soul. He wanted to hear her beg for the pain to stop. By God's law, she deserved it; she had forgotten a woman's place, subservient to man. She did not belong on the battlefield, but in the kitchen. He could do nothing alone, but—if he let her train him. Studied her weaknesses. Then he could strike. Consummate the sin of wrath in her flesh, just as he had the sin of lust.

He prayed, incoherently, that god would stop him. Or help him stop himself.


12 July

"I know it is difficult to be reminded of our limits, both as people, and as a species, but it is an essential step in our social evolution. We are responsible for these attacks; the Systems Alliance is our government, which we legitimize by voting, fund by paying taxes, and defend by serving in the Navy.

"This is the moment where we have to decide what Humanity's place in the galaxy will be; an Empire, dressed up as democracy, but intent on war without end, or something better. A galaxy where words like freedom and equality are more than empty rhetoric. First, though, we must do whatever we can to delegitimize the system in which we live."

"Somebody aught t'put her in the ground," muttered Erik Peterson, his thin scowl even more hostile than usual. He was uninspiring as the Aranjuez's first officer, though he kept the ship in good operational order.

Mordi concealed a frown. That was the third time he'd seen Spectre Shepard's speech, and he still wasn't sure what to make of it, or her. She was something else, quiet, but surprisingly intense, and he couldn't shake the feeling that she was addressing him directly. He needed time to separate her rhetoric from his own doubts, and the mocking attitude of the ship's command staff didn't help at all. They didn't have doubts, or didn't want to admit them. All the moral certainty of an inquisition, and he could feel it sweeping him along.

"I am sure Cerberus would appreciate your enthusiasm, Commander," said Captain Litonya Ryu, a sharp edge to her usual, deliberate tone. Her round face and grey eyes gave no other sign that the situation had effected her.

"I'm just sayin'—"

"I know… what you're saying," Ryu frowned. "We don't call for assassinations on my ship."

Nearly a month and a half had passed since Parliament suspended the Defense Committee's authority, pending investigation, and no replacements had been appointed. That was a good thing, Mordi believed, as Hackett's aggressive pursuit of pirates and raiders had done much to keep the colonies from erupting. The fleet had lost some good ships and their crews, but it was a risk that they'd signed on for. It was better to fight, and accept the losses, than to go on as things were, and lose everything.

"Our new orders just came through," the captain continued. "Admiral Hackett has imposed a blackout on the news, but there have been riots on several of the outer colonies. The admiral believes that Shepard's announcement will make things worse, and I agree with him. She's given the batarian claims credibility."

"'Credibility'," Peterson snorted. "She's a fucking traitor."

"That's not our concern," Ryu said. She'd been a captain for almost twenty-five years, when she'd taken command of a ship during the Battle of Shanxi. Her current ship was only five years old, though, a three-hundred and fifty meter long patrol cruiser, not a ship of the line. For the most part, they were a match for raiding parties on their own, taking out any ships in orbit while deploying combat shuttles full of troops to secure any opponents on the ground. "We've been assigned to secure New Texas, in the Cooper's Basin."

"Captain, by secure, do you mean—"

"Yes," Ryu sighed. Cooper's Basin marked the current official 'north eastern' border of Alliance space, a wide cluster with just three relays and a half dozen systems. There were human colonies further out, but they were independent, and frequently little more than mining colonies, or free ports used by raiders to pick up supplies, and sell their spoils. "Parliament quietly pushed through a martial law degree last night. It's begun."

Mordi closed his eyes, and tried to steady his breathing. This wasn't about raiders anymore, but a desperate attempt to hold the Alliance together. He might be asked to fire on civilians, and not with an active denial system. They weren't equipped for riot control. He had sworn to protect the Alliance from enemies foreign and domestic, just as every other officer had—as Kara Shepard had—but could that even extend to its own civilians? How did he prepare his men for that possibility? How did he prepare himself?

"I'd better go prep the men," he said, though he thought to go spend some time alone. To think. He had to think this through, to decide what was important to him. Captain Ryu would, he suspected, be doing the same.


13 July

"This had better be important, Andrej," Naija said, marching irritably into her office. Between the twenty-eight hour New Texas day, and her own routine, she felt hardly coherent enough to recognize the time; mid afternoon, according to Alliance Standard Time. It was also dark outside. Fuck space; it kept the wrong hours. She wanted her bed.

"Yes, ma'am," the commander said, ignoring her incoherence. She scowled at him. "One of zee men brought in a man from zee bar. She said he vas speaking subversion. Ve ran 'is ID, and traced him back to Commander Shepard."

Shepard, fuck. That was enough to drive the fog from her exhausted brain. The last thing any of them needed was a self-righteous meddler stirring up trouble with the locals, potentially forcing the very confrontation she'd spend the last month working to avoid. "What's his name?"

"Keyx Demas."

Actually, that was familiar. Command had send out a bulletin about an officer who had abandoned the Normandy more than a month ago. While the ship had been docked at the Citadel, she thought. So what was one of Shepard's disciples doing on a backwards hellhole like New Texas? "Bring him to me. And a fucking pot of coffee."

Andrej's smile was amused, as he threw her a salute. "Yes, ma'am." She wondered what time it was. Probably early, or at least just after the bars had closed. She had gone to bed shortly after her shift ended, in one of her occasional periods of adjustment.

She scowled at the officer, rather than returning his salute. Combat worked according to rules that she understood, but politics was something else, too deadly and too serious for her. They should have sent someone better suited to hold New Texas. It needed a diplomat or politician, and she was neither.

"Major," said an unfamiliar man, appearing in the doorway, with Andrej close behind him. He was a fine figure, tall and strong, his rough feature darkened by thick beard stubble. His hands were bound together with a nylon strap. "You have no legal authority to detain me. I insist on being released."

Naija waited for Andrej to pour black coffee from a thermal container into a mug, and immediately took her first sip, closing her eyes and trying to enjoy the taste. It was an instant blend, without much depth of flavor, but at least it had plenty of caffeine. "He insists, Andrej," she smirked. "Isn't that impressive?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Lieutenant, you've been charged with treason, along with the rest of the Normandy's crew. I can hold you pending deportation to Arcturus Station for trial, and I don't even want to know what 'subversion' you've been spreading, but I can hold you for that, too. You see, this colony is under martial law."

Officially, it was true. Unofficially, the decree had come through quietly, and she didn't have the troops to enforce it, so she had let it pass unmarked. Opposing the vote had been the only sensible thing Prime Minister Zhuang had done in the last three months, but that had only served to spur the authoritarian wing of his own party into joining up with the Conservatives and Terra Firma loons to push it through. Even so, they had barely scrapped together a majority.

"I know," Keyx said, and from smug the look in his eyes, he knew he had her, too. "When were you going to tell the colonists?"

"Shit," Naija muttered. That was all she needed. New Texas was still a lightly populated world, but even a hundred angry citizens was too much to suppress without bloodshed. The militia, which now included forty-three people at varying stages of training, most of them equipped only with guns, was more likely to side with the colonists.

If it came down to a confrontation, the colonists could be held off, militia and all. Her troops were fully equipped and well trained. What seemed obvious to her, however, did not occur to Keyx or Hackett; any bloodshed by Alliance soldiers would undoubtedly make the colony impossible to hold. "Do you realize what you've done?"

"What Kara would want; made sure everyone knows the truth." It took Naija a moment to realize that he meant Spectre Shepard. "You can't hide from orders, Major. Follow them or don't, but be sure you can live with your choice."

"What choice?" she snapped. There would be none, and if Keyx believed otherwise, then he was as young and foolish as he looked. She couldn't ignore orders and abandon the colony. Even if she wanted to, there was nowhere to go. They didn't have the supplies to survive in the unpopulated expanses of New Texas, and no ship to transport them through space. The same chain of command that was slow to respond to problems on the frontier had quickly sent a team to collect the Hajime and its crew. The Aranjuez was set to arrive in four days—they could evacuate then, if things got tense, but her instincts told her the crises would arrive before then.

When it came down to the choice the rogue officer spoke of, it would be between sacrificing her men, and a massacre. In her opinion, her responsibility to those under her command outweighed her duty to the colony. They had to be allowed to defend themselves, even though it would mean drowning the streets in blood. It would be a disaster, in every way she could think of.

"Lock him up," Naija ordered, still glaring at Keyx. Under the circumstances, she was tempted to have him put in front of a firing squad and shot, preferably in the city square. Martial law allowed for summary execution of traitors, and the example might make the locals think twice before causing trouble. It was a decision that needed serious thought, not rash action, and she was too tired and too angry to make it.

Keyx stood his ground, shaking Andrej's hand off his arm. "You're not shutting me up 'till I've had my say, Major," he scowled, his jaw set defiantly. Andrej looked to her for confirmation, and she nodded shortly. "My baby daughter was killed in a raid on Tiptree last month. I blamed Kara for it, because I was angry, and that's what I heard on the news. I forgot that Ambassador Udina chose not release the Normandy, and he chose to confront the Council after we left. Blame me for what happens here if you want—I'm man enough to take it—but don't claim that you have no choice. The people out there have been fucked over by the Alliance, not by me, and not by Kara Shepard, and you're making plans to kill them for it."

"Are you done?" Naija asked, keeping her tone cold and flat to conceal her uncertainty. He was suggesting that she follow Shepard's path, and abandon the Alliance, but that was no better a choice than evacuating. Her small force could not protect New Texas against a proper raid, or worse, invasion by the batarians.


16 July

Andrew waited. The man's voice echoed in his ears, low and angry, full of conviction and self-doubt. He supposed that was true of madmen, as well as saints, and probably liars. He believed because he wanted to, because it shored up his righteous illusions, and fueled his wrath, but that was the world as it existed; no one could ever weigh all the evidence, and measure every situation.

He hadn't been the only one to believe. The situation had degraded around him with little need for his assistance. Alliance supporters attacked in the streets by an angry mob. A prominent critic found dead in his home. Protesters had camped out in front of the barracks last evening, and though only a dedicated few had held out over night and through the day, their numbers were set to peak in about an hour. He had put in long hours himself, but would not be joining them again. He had other plans. A cruiser full of marines was supposed to be arriving in the few days, and he intended for them to find a disaster.

He intended turn New Texas into a funeral pyre for the Alliance and its corrupting amorality. He freely put aside his own revenge to achieve that goal; he was God's hand, a sacred implement. No prophet, but a sword.

Drawing a deep breath her hot summer air, he looked down on the crowd below. People were already starting to gather, their voices raised in a song that waifed up to his rooftop perch. He could not make out the words, but he had heard the melody all his life; it was the colony anthem, a song of liberty and freedom, recalling old Texas, and the independent spirit that had carried settlers to the stars. They were good people, and god would lift their souls up to heaven.

In the courtyard of the barracks compound, another sort maintained a vigil of their own. Naija's marines had an anxious look, as they watched the protestors. The major had chosen to deploy them in full combat gear, which almost made him wonder if he would even be needed. All it would take was one aggressive move from the crowd, and one moment of panic.

He dropped back out of sight. An hour, maybe an hour and a half, and things would be ready. He hated waiting. Idle thoughts were the devil's playground, where doubts could be sown, and righteousness questioned. It helped to remember that even the Son of God had faced temptation and doubt before his trials. They were not a sign of weakness, but rather, a trial in themselves, and he would not be found wanting.

He would spend the time praying, he decided. He closed his senses to the world outside, and focused on the quiet whisper at the back of his mind. That was the voice of God, and it spoke to him of faith and courage, and of the eternal reward that awaited him. It told him that he would not fail.


It was dusk when he decided to make his move, the heat of the day already fading as the sun finished its journey through the clear sky, slipping beneath the distant horizon. There were some fifteen thousand people gathered below, filling the square and spilling out onto the adjacent streets. It was more than he expected. Some clumsy local band was belching out an incomprehensible tune, upon the amphitheater stage. Those closest to the barracks were waiving signs and chanting under the light of several flood lamps.

Andrew frowned, and checked his rifle one final time. It was a sniper model, taken from the Alliance's stores, and extremely lethal. He preferred a submachine gun, with their high rate of fire better complimenting his imperfect aim, but the people below were packed so tightly that it didn't matter.

He took up position carefully, and scanned the marines for the tensest-looking face he could find. One of the younger men seemed a likely candidate. He took careful aim, intending the shot to be non-lethal, and fired. Though he could hear what was said, the marines reacted perfectly, forming a line with their weapons ready.

Next, he scanned the protestors nearest the barracks for a likely target. Most were solidly-built men, far from the sympathetic victim he was looking for. Finally, he found a young woman, thin and attractive. Perfect, he thought, aligning the crosshairs over her heart. With a prayer on his breath, he squeezed the trigger.

She collapsed, a look of surprise and horror twisting her face. As the crowd began to react, Andrew noticed another prime target, this one a young boy standing next to his father. Women and children. Another whispered prayer, and another corpse.

By then, a middle-aged man with a medical kit knelt over the dead woman. Andrew recognized him as one of the colony's more dedicated doctors, and the man who was often first on the scene after a raid. If anyone could assess the scene, and determine not only the weapon used, but the position of the shooter, it was him.

Andrew really had not choice. Fortunately, killing 'first responders' was a despicable tactic, used by terrorist and thugs; just the sort of thing he wanted people to attribute to the Alliance. He fired again, missing his target. His second shot took the man out with a pleasing spray of blood and brains.

Then he ducked out of sight. He could hear angry yelling, almost overwhelming the shouted orders or Naija's lieutenant, Andrej, for his men to hold their fire. News of the killings would spread through the crowd, rapidly. Blame would be squarely placed on the panicked marine. When the time was right, another incident might be necessary to really kick things off, but he was confident in his ability to manufacture one.

He had certain made a good start.


"Shit. Shit." Naija repeated the expletive several more times, but it provided none of the usual satisfaction. The situation called for something far more drastic than a few muttered curses. Had her questioning managed to determine which of her marines had been foolish enough to murder a child, she would have thrown them to the mob herself, but none of those on duty would admit to seeing anything, and certainly not to the crime itself. She had set Andrej the task of investigating the incident, as she turned her own attention to finding a way to extract her men from the situation.

It was too late to flee. The crowd would never allow it, and could not be held back without more killing. She had spoken to Governor Allen, who expressed false sympathy for her predicament, and lectured her about how she'd let the situation get out of control. As if she could be blamed, when half of his police force was rioting along with the citizenry, and the other guarded his residence. Had he given the order, they could have provided a buffer that would have limited tensions.

Anyway, counting the things they had done wrong was both futile and aggravating. She needed solutions, and there were only two; hold, and hope the situation calmed enough to work out something more permanent, or attempt an evacuation despite the risk.

No, the first was the only real option. At present, the people's fear was enough to hold them back. If nothing happened to rile them up, their fury would cool to more rational anger, and justice could take the place of revenge. She needed to have the shooter identified, and ready to put on trial, before that happened. She could not afford to give the impression that she was protecting her own.

She stood, stretching as best she could in her armor. If she was right, then the best use of her time was in helping Andrej with his investigation.

Almost as if summoned, he appeared at the door, rapping lightly on the door frame. "Major?"

"Come in, commander," she said, sitting on the edge of her desk. His lips were twisted, and she read deep concern in his eyes. "What have you got?"

"Zee shooter vasn't on zee line, ma'am," he said, meeting her gaze as he walked past her, towards the window. "I checked everyzing. Suit cameras, veapon stats. Private 'Amand deed fire, in response to a shot vich struck 'is barriers, but eet came from be'ind 'im."

If it came from behind, when the private was facing the crowd, then it came from the barracks. If it came from the barracks, it had to be one of her soldiers. She knew that some of them shared the colonist's grudge against the Alliance, being from vulnerable border worlds themselves, but to put the rest of them at risk, and kill innocent people; that took a disturbed mind. If any of hers were that far gone, and she had not seen it, then the blame for what happened rested squarely on her shoulders.

Unfortunately, it had to be one of hers. She had ordered the compound locked down, when the protests started, and no breach had been reported. Shit. "Find out who it was, Andrej. Check the roof. Check the lockers. Go through their files. Anything, just get me a name."

Andrej turned away from the window, pausing only to salute her before marching out of the room.

Naija intercepted him halfway across the floor with a hand on his arm. "Sorry. Do you have a list of suspects?"

"All zose who vere outzide, and zee six zat vere in zee mess with me," he sighed.

"Okay," she muttered. She drew a deep breath, and let it out slowly. That discounted twelve out of twenty-two soldiers. "Ask around, and see if you can't narrow that down. I'll check the roof."

"Yes, ma'am," Andrej said. He might have an easy time of it. The building was not a large one, and they were trapped inside of it. Privacy was not an easy thing to come by under such circumstances, and anyone who could not be traced would be immediately suspect.

She hoped to find more concrete evidence above. The converted warehouse that had become their barracks was about seven meters high, with main floor facing the compound gate where the shooting had taken place. No one could have fired from the second-level windows, none of which opened anyways. The roof, lightly sloped and with a half-meter high barrier around the edge, was the only available position for a sniper.

She picked her pistol up off the desk, and slid her headset over her ear. Frowning to herself, she detoured to her locker, behind the desk, and collected a spare rifle.

When had she started expecting the worst? A good soldier prepared for anything, but she found herself assuming that not only would she stumble into a confrontation with the sniper, but that he or she would refuse to surrender. A corpse was no substitute for the PR show of a trial.

Naija left her office, and followed the narrow corridor to the balcony, turning left towards the maintenance closet. The tiny room was filled with tools and janitorial supplies, with the ladder to the roof in the far corner. She climbed up it, passing through a trap door into the rooftop shed. Like most of New Dallas, the building was powered by equatorial-mounted photovoltaic panels. Power conduits ran from them into a breaker-box, and from there to the rest of the building, and the capacitor bank and generator room the basement.

She pushed open the small door that exited to the roof proper. The hinges squealed, but the noise was drowned out by the sound of shouting, which drift up from below. The crowd was getting restive again.

Worse, she realized—they were shouting for blood. She almost turned around, but her presence on the line would do less to help her troops than evidence that would calm the locals. Using the IR enhancement filter on her headset, she scanned the front border of the roof. A sniper rifle lay next to the barrier. It's thermal discharge coils were glowing, proof that it had been fired in the last few minutes. She saw no sign of any person, though they could not have gone far.

The sniper had clearly anticipated her arrival, and planned to ambush her, but she had no time for caution, and approached the scene openly.

The attack came without warning, a harsh blow to the side of her head that sent her reeling. Someone shouted, loudly—not from the crowd below—"Assassin!"

Andrew. The accent, and the deep, booming tone, were unmistakable. "Listen, Andrew, I would never—"

"Liar! Murderous bitch. I saw you!"

No, he hadn't. Naija pressed her hand against her throbbing head. She couldn't tell if he had drawn blood, but—

Shit. Her headset, with its built-in wide spectrum camera, was conveniently missing, depriving her of that dispassionate witness to events. She switched on her wrist lamp, and shined it up at the man. He was wearing a civilian-make of IR goggles, which lacked recording capabilities, and no armor. How had he even gotten up on the roof? "You. Fuck. Why are you doing this?"

"Someone had to," he grunted. "Corruptin' us with yer off-world filth. Selling us out to the bat'rians. Gotta show y' fer what y'are."

It seemed terribly brief for the usual maniac's expository speech, but she got the message. This wasn't about the Alliance, or the colony. Just her, and him. If she had just controlled her lust, then the entire situation might have been avoided. Right—just ignore all the raids and revelations, and lay the blame on her nasty female desires, because that surely made sense. The New Texans' backwards morality was clearly beginning to seep into her consciousness. "You've turned into murderer because you lost your virginity with me?" she sneered. "That's pathetic."

"You tried t' corrupt me!"

She had just wanted a good lay, and she hadn't even gotten it. "Fuck you."

"Nev'r agin," he snarled, launching himself at her. She still felt dizzy from his opening blow, so she concentrated on keeping his assault away from her head, and let her armor absorb the rest, while strategically falling back. He couldn't keep it up for long, bruising her bare fists on ceramic plates.

Finally, he pushed them apart with a kick to her chest. She staggered backwards, until her foot came in contact with barrier. She struggled to maintain her balance, and not tumble to her death.

Andrew raised a pistol—her pistol, she realized—and began to fire as he walked towards her.

Naija pulled her rifle from its clamps, and fired. With no armor or barriers to protect him, the tiny fragments of metal tore through his chest and stomach. His black clothes did not darken with blood, but in the light of her wrist-lamp she could see the spreading, reflective wetness, and, most disturbingly, he grinned at her. As she stared, dazed, he stumbled towards her.

She did not even think to stop him as he bumped into the barrier and turned. He leaned backwards, still grinning, and fell over the edge.

Shit. Fuck. Gods, they were fucked. An angry mob would not be interested in hearing her side, but would leap to the conclusion made obvious by Andrew's clever manipulations and their own anger. She opened a command channel on her omnitool, and prepared to give the evacuation order.

Shit.


17 July

Mordi walked slowly down the shuttle's ramp to the grass meadow. His heart was pounding, driven by anxiety more intense than anything he'd felt since his first combat mission. That had been an assault against hardened raiders, a significantly more potent threat than what he faced now.

A mob of angry civilians. Human civilians, the same people he was supposed to protect. Back on the Aranjuez, a small cluster of eighteen marines had gathered around one of his better lieutenants, and refused to be deployed on moral grounds. He wished he had joined them, but it would have meant letting Peterson assume command of the troops.

The news from the New Texas colony had been universally disturbing. It had been sixteen hours since the last transmission from Major Herrero's command, a frantic message that described a situation out of control, and that they were attempting to flee New Dallas for the safety of the unpopulated wilderness. From the lack of news, he could only assume that they had failed, and were either captured or dead. Captain Ryu had dutifully reported to Admiral Hackett, who reported to Prime Minister Zhuang.

Contain the uprising. He sighed. Those were the orders they had received. So much meaning seemed packed into those three words. They admitted that the situation was out of control, and acknowledged the danger that it might spread to other worlds. He could understand why. The local news bureau was still transmitting, and the narrative they offered did not conflict with Herrero's on the main points. Someone had opened fire on peaceful, civilian protesters, in two separate incidents, killing five.

This had lead to a rooftop fight, during which Major Herrero shot and killed a sixth local, who she claimed was the sniper. The colonists, however, had broadcast a conversation between the man, Andrew Davis and his father. In it, Andrew claimed that he had snuck into the barracks, and was about to confront the real shooter.

Mordi could make no sense of it. Why would an Alliance officer shoot civilian protestors? For that matter, the marines' claim did not make much more sense. It didn't really matter, though. Either way, the colonists were by and large victims, and the marines were mostly innocent.

As for the present situation, he considered it dire. The colonists remained furious, and sent demands that no troops be landed. They were also armed, and had some experience with fighting off armored invaders. From the reports coming in, they were fortifying the borders of New Dallas, rather than making an aggressive move.

That was sensible of them. His marines had superior training and equipment, not to mention surveillance reports from the Aranjuez, all of which could be mitigated by the use of urban cover and an eight to one advantage in numbers.

It was going to be a nightmare.

END


Note: In my original conception, this story ended in a completely different manner. Still, the tone is as intended, and there's plenty of room for future developments. Even if I don't think it's my best work ever.

Resolution is the (working) title of the next story, and it will not be so grim. I'm hoping to put most of my writing time into Interstices, rather than the revised Antiheroine, at least for the present.