Authority Rejected
Part 2
Privates Reeman and Laine were good at staying cool under pressure. They had met at the edge of Confederate space when the Kel-Morian combine had been using guerilla tactics and sabotage to try and take back the mining operations the Confederacy had taken from it during the Guild Wars. Their unit had been assigned to one of the smaller camps, and that may have been why it was hit so hard. They came at night and killed the watchmen before they could raise an alert. By the time they had suited up, and repelled the attackers, the unit had been all but wiped out with less than ten people left alive. Command saw the unit as being finished, and in recognition of their sacrifice and bravery, sent them to Korhal. The two privates had become buddies, and were able to get assigned to the same base.
That's why the friends had no problem with the seething waves of people bustling just on the other side of the gates. Only a few metal bars stood between them and a sea of angry rioters. Other Marines were on their way to reinforce them.
"At least it doesn't look like they have guns," mentioned Reeman, his dark brown hair and lumpy face poking out of the top of his exosuit. Laine's intense blue eyes just stared back. Cdr. Norbert was running to the gate without his exosuit, he was more concerned with preventing a massacre. Col. Burns, also without exosuit, was right behind him.
Burns was a tall man, who usually wore a beret, his skin held only the smallest touch of tan. He had a way of holding people in his piercing gaze. If one got close enough, they could see the very beginning of crow's feet starting to appear beside his eyes. His long legs enabled him to easily catch up with Norbert.
"Hold your fire, hold your fire!" Shouted Norbert. The marines acknowledged him, and kept their rifles pointed to the side. "What are you doing here?" Norbert demanded of Burns with a spurt of venom in his voice.
"Part of my reason for being here is to see how these things are handled," Burns imparted with a scowl.
The air split apart with the concussive sound of a pistol going off, and Cdr. Norbert fell to one knee with blood flowing from one leg. He immediately rolled behind Laine and Reeman knowing their exosuits would stop any bullets from such low powered weapons. Col. Burns took a more offensive approach, and, ripping his own well oiled pistol from his holster, targeted the man responsible. Instantly the pistol discharged, causing it to pull his hand back slightly in recoil. The projectile found its mark between the man's throat and jugular, and the wound violently fountained his lifeblood before he disappeared beneath the crowd.
However, this time the crowd did not disperse in terror. From the look of them they were far more organized now. Some wore special pins or held matching signs demanding independence. The next thing Burns saw was many of these same angry people producing their own pistols and shotguns, even a few hunting rifles, and aiming them directly at him. Burns wasn't expecting this. The two privates repositioned themselves between Burns and the rioters, protecting Norbert and Burns with their bulky blunt suits.
A riotous cacophony of gunfire ensued. "Shit," was Laine's only sullen reply through his headset microphone. The multiple bits of hot metal ricocheted off of their suits, but there were a few dents beginning to appear in their armor, and a lucky shot on one of their clear bubble helmets would be all it took.
"Fire!" Burns yelled at the top of his lungs to be heard. That seemed to be all the marines needed. The ten or so marines that had managed to muster so far let loose with their weapons at the enraged mob. The metal spines either went between the bars of the fence, or through them as if they were nonexistent. Some shots made clean holes through their victims, some didn't resulting in large amounts of their bodies being shredded into chunks before dispersing into the space behind them. This had the effect of peeling the crowd away like pieces of an onion skin falling off, as screams and grunts emanated from it.
Now the crowd fled. Already almost 50 people had been ripped apart. They were citizens, not soldiers. Against Gauss rifles they were defenseless. At least the marines ceased fire once the mob turned tail. They were here to defend, not murder after all.
Norbert stood, placing his weight on his one good leg, "What the hell were you doing!" He berated Burns with his teeth gritted.
Burns responded by grasping Norbert's collar and pulled his face with its well defined cheekbones to his. "I'm the one in charge now, you do what I tell you to, I can make you disappear very quickly. Don't forget that," he said in a very low, gruff voice. He then shoved Norbert away, and he fell to the moist green grass below him after his bullet grazed leg gave out. "I'll talk to you two later," After pulling his platinum blond hair to the side, Norbert just stared at Burns as he walked away, with a glowing hate.
Laine and Reeman were quickly relieved of their guard duty and returned to their simple barracks. It was little more than a box with beds and storage trunks, but they had been allowed to put up personal items on the walls, and the beds were softer than most military ones. The walls were actually well insulated and were wood not metal. These were some of the perks of being on Korhal. Entering the equipment area, the two powered down all of their suits' functions, and extracted themselves from the metal casings.
"Smells like farts in there," indicated Reeman of the suit, noticing they were both dripping with sweat after the battle despite the suit's internal cooling systems. This was not an unusual thing.
"Of course it does. After standing in them for hours in the sun, they always do," Laine reasoned.
"I know," was Reeman's only belated reply.
They were about to use the showers, but they were interrupted by someone, "Hey, Col. Burns wants to see you, now." It was said in a way that meant "now" now. The two strode to the exit in their sweat drenched gray and white Alpha Squadron uniforms. They weren't sure what to make of Col. Burns. He was supposed to be taking control of the base, but he hardly said anything to anyone. Though he was tall his physical presence was not commanding, but they heard of what he would do to those who tried to challenge him.
To their surprise, Burns was just outside of the barracks. The privates assumed their proper stance, and saluted. Burns nodded, "Relax, I wanted to personally thank you for what you did at the gate. A lot of people wanted me dead, but you two thought ahead. You're good soldiers, and I can use you.
"Yes, Sir," acknowledged Reeman.
"There is a mission of the highest importance that is about to take place in a few hours. The Magistrate has been taking some liberties behind our backs. The mission is to eliminate the conspiracy against the Confederacy that he has been involved in. I want you to report to me at 17:00 hours regional time at the motor pool. If you perform, and get this done for me, I'll be sure to help you in return," promised Burns.
"Thank you, Sir," responded Laine in turn.
"Good, dismissed," said Burns as he returned to the main building of the base.
It had been about a week and a half since Angus Mengsk had asked Defense Secretary Buller to convene a meeting of the Magistrate's own secret government. He just hoped that they would use his idea of how to help stop the rioters. It had become obvious that time was only increasing their resolve. Angus entered the darkened courthouse building, climbing the white steps with statues of triumphant, noble animals on each railing before entering.
The last rays of sunlight left the main hall in darkness as he walked on its marble floor past the series of columns. Then he quickly made his way through the last smaller halls to the courtroom they had agreed on.
Buller, the Magistrate, and the others stopped talking and looked up at him, from their position in front of the judge's bench, as he entered, "You're late," said the Magistrate, "we were just talking about what to do about the rioter problem. If you know so much about how to put an end to it, then we are eager to hear your solution." Angus detected a subtle tone of sarcasm in his voice. Buller nodded at him, and joined their informal circle. Angus knew this council was critical of him. He was a senator, and that meant he was in close contact with the Confederacy. He knew they didn't trust him completely. Nevertheless, he continued to present his idea.
"The rioters are not going to stop their actions on their own. It has come to the point that we must make them back down before they provoke the Confederates and make things even worse for all of us. I know that the Magistrate has been constructing a secret army to use if the Confederates abandoned us or worse. We need to use them now,"
"What are you talking about?" One of the council members interrupted Mengsk.
"Let him finish," Buller insisted harshly.
Angus glanced at Buller and continued," Not as a force to make war with, but as a police force. We need to keep the rioters away from the Confederates. We can put our own forces between them."
"But then the Confederacy will know of our forces," reminded the Magistrate.
"We don't have the luxury of keeping them secret anymore, we have to act now," Angus pressed.
"Perhaps you're right. We need to discuss this Mengsk. You should go now, and use the back way this time, please," implored the Magistrate. Angus just nodded, not sure how successful he was. He walked toward the exit at the back left of the room.
The doors at the main entrance were smashed open and two marines entered. They greeted the council by hoisting their miniguns to their sides and causing a high pitched whine to fill the room. Their targets just stared at them in sudden horror. The guns bucked as they sprayed the council with an eruption of burning hot lead. As the projectiles lanced through them, their bodies were thrown into grotesque poses before the pile of ragged meat settled to the floor, the blood pool slowly expanding with no end in sight.
"Wow, that was fast," said Laine with his mouth open while the gun barrels stopped spinning.
"Hey, there's another one," Reeman pointed Angus out.
"Wait," yelled Angus covering his face with his hands. He heard the bullets being shot, but no whine from the guns. Removing his hands, he noticed he was still alive, and that the bullets were ricocheting off of the marine's suits. They ducked inside the doorway to take cover. Angus looked at the back exit and saw two men, one smaller and one bigger, firing machine guns at the marines. "Who are you?!" Angus demanded.
"Come on!" They hollered back. Angus remembered the situation and ran into the doorway.
"They don't even have Gauss rifles, just go out there and finish them off!" Laine told Reeman through the suit's com. Reeman nodded.
Pavel saw the two marines step well into the room, and kept firing at them, but the ammo just bounced off of the suits. They hoisted their miniguns up and he could hear the high pitched whine start again. "Uh oh," was all he said. Ben grabbed Pavel and Angus and dragged them inside the doorway as ammunition made bangs and whistles as it sailed through the air to hit the walls and ricocheted off in random directions.
Ben motioned that it was time to go, and Pavel and Angus followed his lead. As the trio ran through the halls they could hear that horrible, certain whine of death in the distance. They came out of the back exit, and dashed into the waiting car. Pavel took the driver's seat, powered up the vehicle's magnetic drive, and made it flee as fast as possible. The marines came out, and fired their weapons at the escaping car just as it turned the corner.
As the reality of their quarry's escape set in, the marines let their death machines calm down. "I guess he got away," said Reeman with mild shame. The marines went back to where they had killed the council, and looked at the pile of flesh that lay there. Almost half the floor was covered in blood, and there were splotches of it on the walls. Reeman stared at the remains. "Wait a minute," directed Reeman," I've seen that face before. That's the Magistrate!"
"What the hell," Laine wondered, sighting it in the carrion, "This is too political. We're soldiers, not assassins. They weren't even armed. Let's get the hell out of here." As the two left out the door they came from, there was a slight stir within the dead mound.
"Simon, good to see you. I've done what I could for the Confederate outposts. I thought I'd check up on you," explained General Duke's wide round face over the monitor.
"You'll be glad to know that the problems with the Magistrate are being taken care of right now, you won't have to worry about any other government leaders, now," assured Burns.
"That's good," agreed Duke, "How's the base holding up?"
"The rioters are getting more organized, but its nothing we can't handle. They can't stand against marines," reported Burns.
"Its going to get worse, Simon, but if we can take care of the leaders, like you have been, then we still might diffuse this situation. Keep it up and we'll pull through. Duke out."
A page buzzed, alerting Burns that Laine and Reeman were waiting for him in one of the lounges. Burns didn't really have an office, but he was used to it. He left the relatively small room he had been quartered in and made for one of the base's small lounges. He always felt a strange feeling at the bottom of his stomach when leaving his room. He knew it was because every time he went out, he might meet up with the unhappy Cdr. Norbert. Burns figured he could beat Norbert in a fight, but he also knew it would never come to that. Norbert would follow orders, Burns was just fed up with having to deal with the animosity, and the fake guilt trip he tried to drop on him. He didn't need people questioning him, no matter what their rank was.
The heavy metal doors to the lounge slid open automatically with hardly a sound. It was for the soldiers and so it was very bland. At best it was an unadorned metal room with one wall of nothing but windows that slightly slanted out as they went down. It also served as the military store, and there was a counter with a very bored looking man behind it who sold provisions to soldiers who had some extra pay to burn.
In the lounge he saw the two with sober looks on their faces. As he approached, they began to stand, but he gave a quick salute and nod before sitting with them. The table they were at was close to the window wall. The view was of the back part of the base, and was mostly of soldier's barracks, if people looked at the right angle they could see a little of the aerofield. It was named such because it accommodated space vessels as well as craft limited to the atmosphere.
"So, it was a success then," assumed Burns. The privates looked at each other.
"Yes, Sir, a success," Laine confirmed.
"You removed everyone there?" Burns asked again. They glanced at each other again.
"Yes, Sir," answered Reeman.
"You've done very well for me, and in return I plan on getting you stationed on Alpha Squadron's fleet marine unit, one of the best."
"We are grateful for everything, Sir, but we have a question," added Laine.
"Go right ahead," invited Burns.
"It's about the mission...well...it seems...not right," Laine stammered.
"We saw the Magistrate," Reeman blurted.
"Ahh," Burns replied, after pausing, "You see it was necessary. He was plotting against us, and in the long run you saved a lot of lives today. Sometimes we have to take these matters into our own hands."
It had begun to rain in the city of Augustgrad. However, that hadn't stopped Angus Mengsk from pushing open the door of the car he was in as soon as it had slowed down, and running from the two strangers who had just saved his life. The vehicle quickly halted, and the two men followed after him. Angus didn't get far running through the back alleys of Augustgrad. The old cheap stone buildings seemed to close in on him, and he found himself at a dead end. He slowed so that he slightly bumped the brick wall ahead, futilely hoping in the back of his mind that it would be enough to topple the wall. The series of recent events had caused his knees to weaken with shock, and he half fell, half sat on a pile of trash bags. He didn't care about the wetness and stink soaking into his clothes.
The two men caught up, and one asked, "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He had to yell to be heard over the roar of the sheets of pelting liquid projectiles that were almost drowning them.
"I don't know, I don't know what happened back there," Mengsk yelled back.
The same man assured him, "We're here to help you." Angus held up his hand and the smaller of the two pulled him up. He wanted to be standing when he talked to them. His legs already felt stronger.
"And who are you?" Angus demanded.
"Pavel," answered the first.
"You can call me Ben," informed the shorter one.
"How did you know where I would be?" Mengsk continued his questioning, still yelling while the water that was somewhat acidic from the nearby industrial plants irritated his skin.
Ben answered this time, "You kidding...that information was leaked all over the place. The Confederates probably intercepted your comsat signals. We came to save you."
Pavel continued, "We need your help, you're the only one left who can lead us against the Confederacy."
"Are you crazy?" Mengsk shouted at Pavel, "If we resist them, the Confederacy will destroy us all. Our only hope is to stop the riots before they force the Confederacy's hand!"
Ben spoke as lightning and thunder split the sky apart causing the effect of the surrounding mixture of gas that was Korhal's air to ignite for an instant above the three, "You don't get it, they don't care anymore."
"They just tried to kill you. There is no chance to negotiate, they won't listen to anything you have to say. There is only one way left to live on our world the way we want to, we must fight!" Pavel urged.
Angus understood what he meant. If he had been allowed to keep doing things his own way he would have been dead now, part of that horrible pile of death and decay he had fled from, but it was too much for him. How foolish he had been to use the comsat like that, the way that he had completely failed the people of his world. Still it was too much for him. He couldn't think straight, and he certainly couldn't make any kind of decision now. He could only despair, "There is nothing we can do."
"Its not just us two," Ben argued, "there are a lot of people with us, we're all ready to do what it takes...someone has to."
"I don't know, my mind isn't right, just take me home," Angus told them.
"That may not be a good idea, but we should go, we're out past the new curfew," mentioned Ben.
"I don't give a damn what you think! Take me to my home now!" Mengsk retorted. Ben looked over at Pavel, and he gave Ben the slightest of nods. The three men returned to their waiting vehicle.
General Duke was sitting in the captain's chair aboard the Norad. He always liked to sit in the captain's chair. His will and authority was best expressed here. The main control room of the ship had a few different areas. One had monitors that were constantly displaying different parts of the ship and monitoring its status. Another part was linked to every part of the ship that gave sensory information. Of course in the front center of the room was the Battlecruiser's thruster control station and weapons control, though Duke would commonly override that from his place above and behind it. Sometimes when the ship went into battle, Duke didn't trust anyone else with it and piloted the ship himself. The display in the front of the room showed what was in front of the ship, but also had smaller views from different sides of the Battlecruiser that could be toggled on or off. Right now, however, the screen displayed the tactical overlay of Korhal space. Being that Korhal had no space vessels to fight his fleet with, there were only groups of green symbols surrounding Korhal. The planet was effectively blockaded.
One of the displays on the panel next to his chair lit up, notifying him of an incoming message. Seeing who it was, Duke decided that it was better that he take it in his own rooms. Just down the hall from the bridge was the General's rooms. Again, they were not particularly opulent, just a few basic luxuries befitting a general. There was a nice soft bed in the bedroom that was its own separate room. In his main room was a large comsat monitor on one wall with a plush tan couch opposite. On the other end of the room was a set table with clean polished silverware. Aside from the cooking appliances, the greatest luxury was the refrigerator unit. In it were dishes like roast turkey (the Terran equivalent of turkey), fresh fruits and vegetables, and several components to make a decent sandwich. Most of those serving aboard the Norad had to eat the synthetic stuff from the mess.
Duke stood a few feet from the comsat monitor, and used a remote panel that was sitting on the couch to transfer the call. The blank screen was replaced with the face of the Tarsonian senator, Carol Warren. Her curly brown hair and long face would have seemed very neutral to the General, but now it was starring at him with a very unimpressed and businesslike expression, perhaps even anger.
"Why are you calling me now?" Puzzled Duke.
"Just because you declared martial law, doesn't make you the boss of everything, General," she answered in a clear tone. Duke already had an idea of the way this conversation was going to go. "You were supposed to stop the rioting, not take control of the planet," Warren insisted.
"Well, I'm deeply sorry, senator," Duke said as thick sarcasm mixed with his characteristic drawl, "but sometimes a man has to use his best discretion and do what needs to be done."
Carol didn't seem to like that much, and made no attempt to hide the sour look on her face, "The new Confederate Colonial Government is ready to assume power, and take sovereignty over Korhal. You need to end martial law and let us in." Carol was especially direct with the last sentence. Duke new that Senator Warren was all set to become the new leader of Korhal's government as soon as Duke relinquished control to her. He had just reported the news that Korhal had no domestic government remaining to his superiors just an hour ago, so she must be well connected. He also knew that any attempt to establish a new government on Korhal now would just result in it being wiped out. While the General wouldn't miss Warren, it was still his duty to clear the way for a new government, and Korhal was not prepared. Duke was still angry about that, if he could have ended this conflict fast, he'd have nothing but praise right now. However, it was clear now that this process was going to take time, and so he was receiving a speech from a foolish, pouting senator who he really couldn't care less about.
"Korhal isn't ready for you yet, the danger is still widespread," Duke told her plainly.
"You're just a little man, who believes he has some small measure of power," she informed Edmund.
"The same could be said of you," was Duke's retort.
"You'll be demoted for this Duke!" Warren tried to hide her anger this time, but her eyes betrayed her.
"Well, you go right ahead and do that," advised the General, abruptly cutting the comsat link. Duke knew that those few people who actually did have the power to demote him were far more reasonable than the senator, and that he had nothing to worry about. After laying down the comsat remote, he moved over to his refrigerator and placed some of its contents on the table. He felt like a big fat "turkey" sandwich and some fruit juice. Juice helped balance out his sugar levels, and that always made him feel better. He thought about having a drink a little later on too.
Angus Mengsk had arrived at his house after forcing the two men he had just met to take him. Even on the way they were trying to talk him out of it, taking alternate routes to make the trip as long as possible so they could continue to argue with him. They were afraid that returning would be the death of him, but Angus was stubborn, and after enough shouting they were silenced by him. The two men had promised to find him later. Right now Angus didn't really care, he was just happy to be walking up to the front door of his home.
Everything looked normal, and he could only hope nobody who was uninvited dropped by. Mengsk reached in his pocket to excavate his keycard, and noticed a few spots of dark hardened blood. 'But I was at least 10 feet away,' Angus thought to himself. Instantly the scene replayed itself in his mind; the doors bursting open, the metallic whine gaining intensity, the unnatural way the bodies of those he was just talking to jerking and spasming until they just congealed into one pool. He remembered now that the scene had been so violent that drops of blood had reached every corner of the room. With that thought Angus' body became incredibly fatigued. He was ready to fall to the ground and pass out, but he forced himself to remove the keycard, and extend it toward the slot.
Then, out of one of the tall bushes that stood on either side of the door, a figure clawed its way out, and fell on top of Mengsk. The wave of adrenaline kept Angus from losing consciousness, but he was still dead tired. Mengsk shouted unintelligible gibberish, and attempted to struggle, but his assaulter's weight was pinning his arms to the ground of his doorstep. The dark shape above him made no movement, and Angus collected himself and used the available light from nearby street lamps to see the man's face.
The once brown hair on the head above him was largely gray now, and the hairline was receding. Of what he could see of the face, especially the nose, it was full of pock marks. The chin was almost non-existent, straight down and then a 90 degree angle to the neck. The lips were thin, and his cheeks fat. The man's eyes could only be dimly seen in the shadows, but were obviously directing their burning gaze at Mensk's own.
Now Angus recognized the man, it was Defense Secretary Buller. Angus coughed out the name in a shocked whisper. That seemed to affect the man, who pulled himself off of Mengsk and sat on his rear. Slowly, almost painfully, Angus got to his hands and knees before slowly using his legs to push himself off of the ground. By this time Buller had made it to his knees, and stared up at him.
The light that glanced off of Buller was more now, and to his horror Angus could make out more of the man. Every part of the dumbstruck creature in front of Angus was covered with small chunks of grinded flesh as well as doused in the blood of several men.
Now Buller broke his silence, speaking very low in a cracked voice, "Oh, God, it.. it..was so..," his mouth hung open allowing spittle to mix with the blood, "when they came..and..and..... I knew," Buller seemed to hang on that thought. Angus was too terrified to do anything, and Buller continued with ragged breaths, "I was in the back, I dropped down...but they," Buller just shook his head, "All around.....so much..blood ," Buller started speaking through barred teeth now, "All..fell...on me," tears began to run down his stained face, "in..that....in.............it..............was so cold, warm, but...so coold, oh, God," he turned his face to the ground, the tears streaming off of his face.
The two men stood motionless, unable to do anything. Then Mengsk dropped to his knees and grasped Buller's shoulders. "Buller," he called clearly, "you have to stop this."
"But..I...it....was," came Buller's confused reply. Angus shook Buller so that his head rocked back, then he slapped him, hard. Buller rolled over on to his hands and knees. "Mensk...," Buller said, his voice now more stable. Both men stood and looked at each other. Angus could see the ghost of Buller's ordeal still haunting his eyes, but he seemed to be coherent.
"Are you going to be all right?" Mengsk asked with concern. Buller looked away, he seemed to have trouble saying anything more. "Its all right," Angus informed solemnly. He picked his card off of the ground, and slid it through the door's sensor. He realized, after entering, that the doorknob and his keycard now had blood on them from his hands that had touched Buller. "You had better strip down before entering," advised Mengsk.
Buller stripped to his underwear quickly. Angus showed him to an upstairs bathroom, and Buller knew the rest. Luckily, Angus saw no trace of blood on the carpet. Returning to the kitchen, he washed his hands, the keycard, and the doorknob. Using a paper towel, he bundled Buller's clothes and took them to the backyard where he placed them on the patio, emptied the pockets, dumped some of his whiskey on them, and dropped a lit match, promptly burning them. Mengsk knew nobody would ever want to have anything to do with those clothes again.
After scattering the ashes, Angus made it back up to the second floor bathroom door just in time to intercept his wife. "What are you doing, Angus, who's in the shower?" she inquired.
"It's Buller, let me explain," Mengsk held his hands up to stop her from interrupting him, "he had a little problem, and he just needs to stay here for the rest of the night."
"Its almost two in the morning, what happened?" His wife asked, concerned.
"The "meeting" held me up a little while longer then I had planned," Mengsk explained while he walked his spouse back to the bedroom.
"He was making banging noises in there, that's why I woke up," she told him.
"It would really be better if you waited 'til tomorrow before we talked," he advised, looking into her eyes.
She sighed, entering the bedroom, "All right, dear." Going to his bottom dresser door, he pulled out a pair of clothes. His wife looked at him strangely.
"Tomorrow," he promised her. Back at the bathroom door, Mengsk heard the water no longer running. He knocked on the door, which was opened a crack in response. Mengsk jammed the clothes through the crack, and felt them be taken.
Buller had taken a long shower. It had felt good to wash the gore from his skin, but as the hot water wash the physical memories of his ordeal from him, he continued to relive it in his mind's eye.
The doors slammed open violently, and all faces turned toward it. Nobody knew what to make of the two marines standing in the doorway, but once Buller saw the mini guns they were carrying from his position behind the other council members, he knew why they were there. He was the only one to fall onto his back as the bullets flew. Their blood and visceral matter splattered on every part of him like the water of the shower was now. Buller leaned on one side of the stall and pounded on it in anguish, remembering how the torn rags of what was once men all fell toward and onto him, flooding him with their contents. Buller knew it was death to move, nor could he. His body was petrified by the icy, penetrating cold of death, and at the same time it was warmed by the hot life fluids of some of his closest confidants, now no more. In that place time seemed to take on a different meaning, for it seemed like an eternity that he lay there.
Then Buller returned to reality. He finished his shower, and took the new pair of clothes Mengsk passed him through the door. He put on the green sweater and gray sweat pants. He realized that these were probably the only clothes that Angus had that fit him as he was large in the gut and the clothes were just elastic enough to fit him properly.
Buller found Angus back down in the kitchen/dining room area. He took a seat next to Mengsk. Two ice-filled glasses lay on the well- varnished wood of the table in front of them. As soon as Buller sat, Angus filled both with some of the whiskey he had used on Buller's clothes. They each knocked back a stiff gulp of the stuff, and it helped to dull the anxiety of the maddeningly silent house.
Angus broke that silence first, "How do you feel."
"I'll be all right," whispered Buller. Angus was concerned for Buller. He was normally an outspoken and opinionated man, now he responded in a nearly inaudible whisper.
"You're a lucky man," Angus encouraged, taking another sip.
"Am I," was all Buller said staring at his glass. Angus wanted to let Buller be, but there were too many things on his mind.
"Maybe there is still some way we can stop the rioters," Mengsk posed. Buller slowly brought his gaze up to Mengsk's level, staring right though him, like he had no focus.
"Are you a complete retard?" Buller posed in the same patient whisper, "They just killed us all, you think its time to negotiate? In case the two miniguns weren't enough to clue you in, then let me tell you," his voice was beginning to crack out of the whisper, "You being a senator doesn't mean jack shit anymore. They will find anyone who opposes them, and murder them. Then they will make every last grain of soil of this planet theirs. There is no more reasoning, only two things left, they die or we die, and it doesn't look like they are going anywhere for a while." Buller's voice had returned, but was still strangely quiet. This time he emptied his glass. Angus refilled it, finishing off the bottle.
"I know," Mengsk announced, resting his forehead on his hand, "I just didn't want to admit it to myself, but there's nothing to be done. They're all gone."
"You mean the army," Buller specified.
"Them too," nodded Mengsk, "The two men who rescued me said they were part of a group ready to fight, but they...,"
"What?"
"I would have been killed too, but two men put down enough suppressing fire for us to escape, they came from nowhere, and said they would contact me again. Said they needed me to lead them against the Confederacy. I didn't know what to think, but they couldn't stand against fully armored marines anyway," explained Angus.
Buller's interest perked up, "I don't know anything about the Magistrate's secret army, but... I do know where everything necessary to equip them was kept." Now it was Angus' turn to stare.
General Duke sat in his command seat in the control center of the Norad watching one of Korhal's news stations. Duke liked to keep up on what information the Kohalians found out. He knew most of it from far superior intelligence reports, but he liked to avoid any possible surprises that could result from the enemy (or in this case potential enemy) knowing something it shouldn't, sometimes he could pick out good strategic information from media leaks as well. For once this tactic actually paid off, he listened to the news story.
"A gruesome scene was found this morning in the Augustgrad courthouse building. Several mangled corpses were identified, including that of Korhal's own magistrate, who had uncannily gone missing last night. The killers have not been found, and nobody is sure who would have wanted to commit this act. Spent munitions found at the scene were conventional bullets which would suggest no Confederate involvement...," Duke shut off the display and retracted it into the panel beside his chair.
'Simon is getting sloppy' the General thought to himself. He was glad that Burns didn't make it too obvious, but he had expected there would be no trace. Usually Burns was clean about these sorts of things.
However, now was not the time to worry about that as the tactical overlay alerted and beeped a change in the situation. A new dot appeared that had just entered space from the planet's surface. The dot was yellow, signifying that its threat potential was unknown.
"Give me TacCom," Duke ordered sensory control. TacCom, or Tactical Communications, was in charge of keeping every part of the fleet's communication structure connected at all times so that orders could keep flowing, and the command structure remained intact. When cruisers talked to each other or a base, they went through TacCom, which was itself based on Duke's own battlecruiser. It wasn't that bases and cruisers couldn't talk to each other on their own, it was just protocol to have all communication going through a central hub. A communication not using TacCom was frowned on because it suggested that the message was trying to hide information from command. Duke could court-martial anyone who tried to do so. TacCom was far too big to fit in the control center, and had its own complex in another part of the ship. TacCom's other function was to monitor the tactical situation and keep it accurate to the minute. Usually transmissions automatically went through TacCom, but they also had all available tactical information. That's why Duke asked to speak with them.
"Sir," said one of the sensor techs to let Duke know that he was connected via the ship's com network to TacCom.
"What's the status with the UFO, TacCom?" Asked Duke.
"We think its one of the dropships that we lost from the outpost that was taken by the rebels," TacCom informed.
"Hmmm, let me try to get though to it, transmit visual too," asserted Duke.
"Affirmative, transmitting," alerted TacCom.
"Unidentified dropship, this is General Edmund Duke, commander of Alpha Squadron, respond immediately or be destroyed in five seconds," the pilot glanced back at Duke who nodded at him. He targeted the ship which was flying in a direct line toward the Norad.
That caused the pilot to respond, and the now blank screen was replaced with the image of a middle aged man with bloodshot eyes and wild hair, "So you're the dog they sent to make sure we acted like good little boys, but you don't get it, this time you are going to lose."
Duke was unimpressed, "Power down all of you systems, now, or you will be the one losing."
The man smiled, "You really don't get it, ha ha ha ha hahhahahahahaha." Duke's expression went slack. He fell for it, and had let himself be distracted long enough. Sitting down, Duke terminated the com signal, and brought up the tactical overlay. The dropship's yellow dot was on a collision course for the Norad.
"Get me TacCom, again," Duke commanded, "TacCom, the dropship is a threat, tell all cruisers to fire upon it." The dot changed from yellow to red, but no other ships were firing on it, it was too close to the Norad. The Norad's pilot tried to shoot it down, but the large laser beams were unable to lance it, the ship was within the Norad's area of fire.
The General saw all of this, and wasted no time. He ran to the door, hit the key pad to make the door slide open, and dashed away down the hall. The crew looked toward the door wondering why he was so scared, a collision from a dropship would not do much more then scar a battlecruiser. Duke continued running down the corridor that led from the control room embedded in the center of the ship's head to the neck of the ship.
The dropship sped toward the center of the Norad's head, and impacted with it, but instead of the dropship crumpling into pieces and floating off into space, it detonated in a small orb of heat. Duke could feel a small shudder move down the neck portion of the cruiser, but that was all. After realizing that the immediate danger was over, Duke stopped his sprinting, and looked about him. Some of the people that were walking down the main corridor of the neck section wondered what the shake was, but they were far more disturbed by the sight of Duke running like a rabbit. The short man simply glanced around, then continued his way down the hall. The distance between the head of the cruiser and the main body was about a mile, and by the time he reached the end, he could feel that mile. Duke found a secondary hub here. Secondary hubs were satellites of the ship's primary one. It contained all of the information and functions of the primary, but had less processing power. The secondaries existed so that if the primary was destroyed, the ship would still be able to function. The hub station was about the size of the ship's command center, but was surrounded by heavily tinted glass.
"General!" The head tech officer saluted him. All of the other techs followed suit.
The General returned the salute, "We've suffered some damage, can you bring up a damage report for me."
"Right away, sir," replied the officer showing Duke to one of the larger terminals. A schematic of the ship appeared, and was adjusted to show a small chunk of the ship had disappeared. "Some of the front center of the front quarter is gone," noted the tech, impressed, "What did that?" Duke remained silent. "That's where the restricted area of the ship is located," the tech officer added, "I'd give you a visual, but we don't have any cameras there."
Duke knew what was there, but very few others did. A while ago he had volunteered the Norad to be retrofitted with a prototype of a top secret project known only as "Yamato". The suicide bomber who hit the Norad couldn't of known this, but because it was still a very early prototype, and one that was experimenting with large amounts of weapons grade nuclear material, it was very unstable. Duke had been afraid that the bomber was going to get a bigger bang than expected, and that he was as good as dead. There was one thing he knew for sure though, it could go critical at any time.
Duke left the hub station without another word, and began moving toward the center bottom of the main section of the ship. The General remembered hearing that when the Battlecruiser idea was still on the drawing board, the idea of adding in enough escape pods was proposed. Upon further inspection the idea was found to be impossible to be implemented. The amount of pods, and the space they would require, would make the Battlecruiser idea worthless. Instead it was decided to have a few larger lifeboat ships in the ship's small docking bay, but Duke, and any officer in the higher echelons of the Confederate armed forces knew they were not large enough to house all of the ship's crew. If a battlecruiser was going to be destroyed, there was going to be a substantial loss of life. Duke entered a lift, and started it descending to the bottom level of the ship. Duke's personal shuttle was also in the docking bay.
Stepping out of the lift, Duke couldn't help but notice the people that he was passing. Some gave him solutes while others were too busy to notice. They were all likely to die soon, and even though the ship's status station would be on damage control it would have no idea what was going to happen. Duke entered the bay, and jogged to his shuttle. There were a few other smaller shuttles, and the lifeboats were in the back. They were put to shame by Duke's impressive craft. He entered the cockpit, and warmed up the systems. The engines whirred to life. Duke got on the comsat to docking control and requested to leave which he received instantly. The hover thrusters engaged, and the landing struts were retracted after lifting off. The deck below retracted, and the General cut the hover causing the shuttle to drop out of the battlecruiser and into free space. There was a lurch as the artificial gravity was adjusted, and he was away.
Duke looked at the com panel, and after a moment realized that even he had limits, and entered in his code to raise TacCom, "TacCom, this is Duke, tell the Norad's crew to evacuate ship, you had better do the same."
"But Sir, there's no emergency, the damage is minimal and..,"
"I said do it, and don't you argue with me, boy!" he glared.
As Duke's shuttle hurtled off, with the Norad behind, his prediction came true. In the damaged restricted section the magnetic fields and firing mechanisms went haywire. From the damaged head of the Norad appeared a point of light, then space became white. In that moment half of the cruiser was vaporized, the other half, the main section, was hurtled away at from the blast at a speed it could have never attained with its own propulsion. As the light dimmed the section could be seen barreling through the void. Its front half had been stripped and melted away, and the protruding wings were gone. It was as if it were a hunk of rock that had been eroded into a smooth rounded surface by a stream, but had only taken a moment to occur. Of the parts of the ship that did survive, there was no doubt that anyone in them had been either baked or more likely irradiated to death.
Duke knew that it would take a while to restore command, but what he now knew was that he had underestimated the situation. The destruction of his ship was accidental, and would be difficult to cover up, but the attack was not, and had surprised Duke. There would be no quick fix, and most likely the rioters would become organized rebels. This was going to become a nasty conflict. Nasty, because the rebels didn't stand a chance, but they would have to be slaughtered before they understood their place. Command would not be happy with him, but would understand the necessity. This time, everybody was going to lose.
Part 2
Privates Reeman and Laine were good at staying cool under pressure. They had met at the edge of Confederate space when the Kel-Morian combine had been using guerilla tactics and sabotage to try and take back the mining operations the Confederacy had taken from it during the Guild Wars. Their unit had been assigned to one of the smaller camps, and that may have been why it was hit so hard. They came at night and killed the watchmen before they could raise an alert. By the time they had suited up, and repelled the attackers, the unit had been all but wiped out with less than ten people left alive. Command saw the unit as being finished, and in recognition of their sacrifice and bravery, sent them to Korhal. The two privates had become buddies, and were able to get assigned to the same base.
That's why the friends had no problem with the seething waves of people bustling just on the other side of the gates. Only a few metal bars stood between them and a sea of angry rioters. Other Marines were on their way to reinforce them.
"At least it doesn't look like they have guns," mentioned Reeman, his dark brown hair and lumpy face poking out of the top of his exosuit. Laine's intense blue eyes just stared back. Cdr. Norbert was running to the gate without his exosuit, he was more concerned with preventing a massacre. Col. Burns, also without exosuit, was right behind him.
Burns was a tall man, who usually wore a beret, his skin held only the smallest touch of tan. He had a way of holding people in his piercing gaze. If one got close enough, they could see the very beginning of crow's feet starting to appear beside his eyes. His long legs enabled him to easily catch up with Norbert.
"Hold your fire, hold your fire!" Shouted Norbert. The marines acknowledged him, and kept their rifles pointed to the side. "What are you doing here?" Norbert demanded of Burns with a spurt of venom in his voice.
"Part of my reason for being here is to see how these things are handled," Burns imparted with a scowl.
The air split apart with the concussive sound of a pistol going off, and Cdr. Norbert fell to one knee with blood flowing from one leg. He immediately rolled behind Laine and Reeman knowing their exosuits would stop any bullets from such low powered weapons. Col. Burns took a more offensive approach, and, ripping his own well oiled pistol from his holster, targeted the man responsible. Instantly the pistol discharged, causing it to pull his hand back slightly in recoil. The projectile found its mark between the man's throat and jugular, and the wound violently fountained his lifeblood before he disappeared beneath the crowd.
However, this time the crowd did not disperse in terror. From the look of them they were far more organized now. Some wore special pins or held matching signs demanding independence. The next thing Burns saw was many of these same angry people producing their own pistols and shotguns, even a few hunting rifles, and aiming them directly at him. Burns wasn't expecting this. The two privates repositioned themselves between Burns and the rioters, protecting Norbert and Burns with their bulky blunt suits.
A riotous cacophony of gunfire ensued. "Shit," was Laine's only sullen reply through his headset microphone. The multiple bits of hot metal ricocheted off of their suits, but there were a few dents beginning to appear in their armor, and a lucky shot on one of their clear bubble helmets would be all it took.
"Fire!" Burns yelled at the top of his lungs to be heard. That seemed to be all the marines needed. The ten or so marines that had managed to muster so far let loose with their weapons at the enraged mob. The metal spines either went between the bars of the fence, or through them as if they were nonexistent. Some shots made clean holes through their victims, some didn't resulting in large amounts of their bodies being shredded into chunks before dispersing into the space behind them. This had the effect of peeling the crowd away like pieces of an onion skin falling off, as screams and grunts emanated from it.
Now the crowd fled. Already almost 50 people had been ripped apart. They were citizens, not soldiers. Against Gauss rifles they were defenseless. At least the marines ceased fire once the mob turned tail. They were here to defend, not murder after all.
Norbert stood, placing his weight on his one good leg, "What the hell were you doing!" He berated Burns with his teeth gritted.
Burns responded by grasping Norbert's collar and pulled his face with its well defined cheekbones to his. "I'm the one in charge now, you do what I tell you to, I can make you disappear very quickly. Don't forget that," he said in a very low, gruff voice. He then shoved Norbert away, and he fell to the moist green grass below him after his bullet grazed leg gave out. "I'll talk to you two later," After pulling his platinum blond hair to the side, Norbert just stared at Burns as he walked away, with a glowing hate.
Laine and Reeman were quickly relieved of their guard duty and returned to their simple barracks. It was little more than a box with beds and storage trunks, but they had been allowed to put up personal items on the walls, and the beds were softer than most military ones. The walls were actually well insulated and were wood not metal. These were some of the perks of being on Korhal. Entering the equipment area, the two powered down all of their suits' functions, and extracted themselves from the metal casings.
"Smells like farts in there," indicated Reeman of the suit, noticing they were both dripping with sweat after the battle despite the suit's internal cooling systems. This was not an unusual thing.
"Of course it does. After standing in them for hours in the sun, they always do," Laine reasoned.
"I know," was Reeman's only belated reply.
They were about to use the showers, but they were interrupted by someone, "Hey, Col. Burns wants to see you, now." It was said in a way that meant "now" now. The two strode to the exit in their sweat drenched gray and white Alpha Squadron uniforms. They weren't sure what to make of Col. Burns. He was supposed to be taking control of the base, but he hardly said anything to anyone. Though he was tall his physical presence was not commanding, but they heard of what he would do to those who tried to challenge him.
To their surprise, Burns was just outside of the barracks. The privates assumed their proper stance, and saluted. Burns nodded, "Relax, I wanted to personally thank you for what you did at the gate. A lot of people wanted me dead, but you two thought ahead. You're good soldiers, and I can use you.
"Yes, Sir," acknowledged Reeman.
"There is a mission of the highest importance that is about to take place in a few hours. The Magistrate has been taking some liberties behind our backs. The mission is to eliminate the conspiracy against the Confederacy that he has been involved in. I want you to report to me at 17:00 hours regional time at the motor pool. If you perform, and get this done for me, I'll be sure to help you in return," promised Burns.
"Thank you, Sir," responded Laine in turn.
"Good, dismissed," said Burns as he returned to the main building of the base.
It had been about a week and a half since Angus Mengsk had asked Defense Secretary Buller to convene a meeting of the Magistrate's own secret government. He just hoped that they would use his idea of how to help stop the rioters. It had become obvious that time was only increasing their resolve. Angus entered the darkened courthouse building, climbing the white steps with statues of triumphant, noble animals on each railing before entering.
The last rays of sunlight left the main hall in darkness as he walked on its marble floor past the series of columns. Then he quickly made his way through the last smaller halls to the courtroom they had agreed on.
Buller, the Magistrate, and the others stopped talking and looked up at him, from their position in front of the judge's bench, as he entered, "You're late," said the Magistrate, "we were just talking about what to do about the rioter problem. If you know so much about how to put an end to it, then we are eager to hear your solution." Angus detected a subtle tone of sarcasm in his voice. Buller nodded at him, and joined their informal circle. Angus knew this council was critical of him. He was a senator, and that meant he was in close contact with the Confederacy. He knew they didn't trust him completely. Nevertheless, he continued to present his idea.
"The rioters are not going to stop their actions on their own. It has come to the point that we must make them back down before they provoke the Confederates and make things even worse for all of us. I know that the Magistrate has been constructing a secret army to use if the Confederates abandoned us or worse. We need to use them now,"
"What are you talking about?" One of the council members interrupted Mengsk.
"Let him finish," Buller insisted harshly.
Angus glanced at Buller and continued," Not as a force to make war with, but as a police force. We need to keep the rioters away from the Confederates. We can put our own forces between them."
"But then the Confederacy will know of our forces," reminded the Magistrate.
"We don't have the luxury of keeping them secret anymore, we have to act now," Angus pressed.
"Perhaps you're right. We need to discuss this Mengsk. You should go now, and use the back way this time, please," implored the Magistrate. Angus just nodded, not sure how successful he was. He walked toward the exit at the back left of the room.
The doors at the main entrance were smashed open and two marines entered. They greeted the council by hoisting their miniguns to their sides and causing a high pitched whine to fill the room. Their targets just stared at them in sudden horror. The guns bucked as they sprayed the council with an eruption of burning hot lead. As the projectiles lanced through them, their bodies were thrown into grotesque poses before the pile of ragged meat settled to the floor, the blood pool slowly expanding with no end in sight.
"Wow, that was fast," said Laine with his mouth open while the gun barrels stopped spinning.
"Hey, there's another one," Reeman pointed Angus out.
"Wait," yelled Angus covering his face with his hands. He heard the bullets being shot, but no whine from the guns. Removing his hands, he noticed he was still alive, and that the bullets were ricocheting off of the marine's suits. They ducked inside the doorway to take cover. Angus looked at the back exit and saw two men, one smaller and one bigger, firing machine guns at the marines. "Who are you?!" Angus demanded.
"Come on!" They hollered back. Angus remembered the situation and ran into the doorway.
"They don't even have Gauss rifles, just go out there and finish them off!" Laine told Reeman through the suit's com. Reeman nodded.
Pavel saw the two marines step well into the room, and kept firing at them, but the ammo just bounced off of the suits. They hoisted their miniguns up and he could hear the high pitched whine start again. "Uh oh," was all he said. Ben grabbed Pavel and Angus and dragged them inside the doorway as ammunition made bangs and whistles as it sailed through the air to hit the walls and ricocheted off in random directions.
Ben motioned that it was time to go, and Pavel and Angus followed his lead. As the trio ran through the halls they could hear that horrible, certain whine of death in the distance. They came out of the back exit, and dashed into the waiting car. Pavel took the driver's seat, powered up the vehicle's magnetic drive, and made it flee as fast as possible. The marines came out, and fired their weapons at the escaping car just as it turned the corner.
As the reality of their quarry's escape set in, the marines let their death machines calm down. "I guess he got away," said Reeman with mild shame. The marines went back to where they had killed the council, and looked at the pile of flesh that lay there. Almost half the floor was covered in blood, and there were splotches of it on the walls. Reeman stared at the remains. "Wait a minute," directed Reeman," I've seen that face before. That's the Magistrate!"
"What the hell," Laine wondered, sighting it in the carrion, "This is too political. We're soldiers, not assassins. They weren't even armed. Let's get the hell out of here." As the two left out the door they came from, there was a slight stir within the dead mound.
"Simon, good to see you. I've done what I could for the Confederate outposts. I thought I'd check up on you," explained General Duke's wide round face over the monitor.
"You'll be glad to know that the problems with the Magistrate are being taken care of right now, you won't have to worry about any other government leaders, now," assured Burns.
"That's good," agreed Duke, "How's the base holding up?"
"The rioters are getting more organized, but its nothing we can't handle. They can't stand against marines," reported Burns.
"Its going to get worse, Simon, but if we can take care of the leaders, like you have been, then we still might diffuse this situation. Keep it up and we'll pull through. Duke out."
A page buzzed, alerting Burns that Laine and Reeman were waiting for him in one of the lounges. Burns didn't really have an office, but he was used to it. He left the relatively small room he had been quartered in and made for one of the base's small lounges. He always felt a strange feeling at the bottom of his stomach when leaving his room. He knew it was because every time he went out, he might meet up with the unhappy Cdr. Norbert. Burns figured he could beat Norbert in a fight, but he also knew it would never come to that. Norbert would follow orders, Burns was just fed up with having to deal with the animosity, and the fake guilt trip he tried to drop on him. He didn't need people questioning him, no matter what their rank was.
The heavy metal doors to the lounge slid open automatically with hardly a sound. It was for the soldiers and so it was very bland. At best it was an unadorned metal room with one wall of nothing but windows that slightly slanted out as they went down. It also served as the military store, and there was a counter with a very bored looking man behind it who sold provisions to soldiers who had some extra pay to burn.
In the lounge he saw the two with sober looks on their faces. As he approached, they began to stand, but he gave a quick salute and nod before sitting with them. The table they were at was close to the window wall. The view was of the back part of the base, and was mostly of soldier's barracks, if people looked at the right angle they could see a little of the aerofield. It was named such because it accommodated space vessels as well as craft limited to the atmosphere.
"So, it was a success then," assumed Burns. The privates looked at each other.
"Yes, Sir, a success," Laine confirmed.
"You removed everyone there?" Burns asked again. They glanced at each other again.
"Yes, Sir," answered Reeman.
"You've done very well for me, and in return I plan on getting you stationed on Alpha Squadron's fleet marine unit, one of the best."
"We are grateful for everything, Sir, but we have a question," added Laine.
"Go right ahead," invited Burns.
"It's about the mission...well...it seems...not right," Laine stammered.
"We saw the Magistrate," Reeman blurted.
"Ahh," Burns replied, after pausing, "You see it was necessary. He was plotting against us, and in the long run you saved a lot of lives today. Sometimes we have to take these matters into our own hands."
It had begun to rain in the city of Augustgrad. However, that hadn't stopped Angus Mengsk from pushing open the door of the car he was in as soon as it had slowed down, and running from the two strangers who had just saved his life. The vehicle quickly halted, and the two men followed after him. Angus didn't get far running through the back alleys of Augustgrad. The old cheap stone buildings seemed to close in on him, and he found himself at a dead end. He slowed so that he slightly bumped the brick wall ahead, futilely hoping in the back of his mind that it would be enough to topple the wall. The series of recent events had caused his knees to weaken with shock, and he half fell, half sat on a pile of trash bags. He didn't care about the wetness and stink soaking into his clothes.
The two men caught up, and one asked, "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He had to yell to be heard over the roar of the sheets of pelting liquid projectiles that were almost drowning them.
"I don't know, I don't know what happened back there," Mengsk yelled back.
The same man assured him, "We're here to help you." Angus held up his hand and the smaller of the two pulled him up. He wanted to be standing when he talked to them. His legs already felt stronger.
"And who are you?" Angus demanded.
"Pavel," answered the first.
"You can call me Ben," informed the shorter one.
"How did you know where I would be?" Mengsk continued his questioning, still yelling while the water that was somewhat acidic from the nearby industrial plants irritated his skin.
Ben answered this time, "You kidding...that information was leaked all over the place. The Confederates probably intercepted your comsat signals. We came to save you."
Pavel continued, "We need your help, you're the only one left who can lead us against the Confederacy."
"Are you crazy?" Mengsk shouted at Pavel, "If we resist them, the Confederacy will destroy us all. Our only hope is to stop the riots before they force the Confederacy's hand!"
Ben spoke as lightning and thunder split the sky apart causing the effect of the surrounding mixture of gas that was Korhal's air to ignite for an instant above the three, "You don't get it, they don't care anymore."
"They just tried to kill you. There is no chance to negotiate, they won't listen to anything you have to say. There is only one way left to live on our world the way we want to, we must fight!" Pavel urged.
Angus understood what he meant. If he had been allowed to keep doing things his own way he would have been dead now, part of that horrible pile of death and decay he had fled from, but it was too much for him. How foolish he had been to use the comsat like that, the way that he had completely failed the people of his world. Still it was too much for him. He couldn't think straight, and he certainly couldn't make any kind of decision now. He could only despair, "There is nothing we can do."
"Its not just us two," Ben argued, "there are a lot of people with us, we're all ready to do what it takes...someone has to."
"I don't know, my mind isn't right, just take me home," Angus told them.
"That may not be a good idea, but we should go, we're out past the new curfew," mentioned Ben.
"I don't give a damn what you think! Take me to my home now!" Mengsk retorted. Ben looked over at Pavel, and he gave Ben the slightest of nods. The three men returned to their waiting vehicle.
General Duke was sitting in the captain's chair aboard the Norad. He always liked to sit in the captain's chair. His will and authority was best expressed here. The main control room of the ship had a few different areas. One had monitors that were constantly displaying different parts of the ship and monitoring its status. Another part was linked to every part of the ship that gave sensory information. Of course in the front center of the room was the Battlecruiser's thruster control station and weapons control, though Duke would commonly override that from his place above and behind it. Sometimes when the ship went into battle, Duke didn't trust anyone else with it and piloted the ship himself. The display in the front of the room showed what was in front of the ship, but also had smaller views from different sides of the Battlecruiser that could be toggled on or off. Right now, however, the screen displayed the tactical overlay of Korhal space. Being that Korhal had no space vessels to fight his fleet with, there were only groups of green symbols surrounding Korhal. The planet was effectively blockaded.
One of the displays on the panel next to his chair lit up, notifying him of an incoming message. Seeing who it was, Duke decided that it was better that he take it in his own rooms. Just down the hall from the bridge was the General's rooms. Again, they were not particularly opulent, just a few basic luxuries befitting a general. There was a nice soft bed in the bedroom that was its own separate room. In his main room was a large comsat monitor on one wall with a plush tan couch opposite. On the other end of the room was a set table with clean polished silverware. Aside from the cooking appliances, the greatest luxury was the refrigerator unit. In it were dishes like roast turkey (the Terran equivalent of turkey), fresh fruits and vegetables, and several components to make a decent sandwich. Most of those serving aboard the Norad had to eat the synthetic stuff from the mess.
Duke stood a few feet from the comsat monitor, and used a remote panel that was sitting on the couch to transfer the call. The blank screen was replaced with the face of the Tarsonian senator, Carol Warren. Her curly brown hair and long face would have seemed very neutral to the General, but now it was starring at him with a very unimpressed and businesslike expression, perhaps even anger.
"Why are you calling me now?" Puzzled Duke.
"Just because you declared martial law, doesn't make you the boss of everything, General," she answered in a clear tone. Duke already had an idea of the way this conversation was going to go. "You were supposed to stop the rioting, not take control of the planet," Warren insisted.
"Well, I'm deeply sorry, senator," Duke said as thick sarcasm mixed with his characteristic drawl, "but sometimes a man has to use his best discretion and do what needs to be done."
Carol didn't seem to like that much, and made no attempt to hide the sour look on her face, "The new Confederate Colonial Government is ready to assume power, and take sovereignty over Korhal. You need to end martial law and let us in." Carol was especially direct with the last sentence. Duke new that Senator Warren was all set to become the new leader of Korhal's government as soon as Duke relinquished control to her. He had just reported the news that Korhal had no domestic government remaining to his superiors just an hour ago, so she must be well connected. He also knew that any attempt to establish a new government on Korhal now would just result in it being wiped out. While the General wouldn't miss Warren, it was still his duty to clear the way for a new government, and Korhal was not prepared. Duke was still angry about that, if he could have ended this conflict fast, he'd have nothing but praise right now. However, it was clear now that this process was going to take time, and so he was receiving a speech from a foolish, pouting senator who he really couldn't care less about.
"Korhal isn't ready for you yet, the danger is still widespread," Duke told her plainly.
"You're just a little man, who believes he has some small measure of power," she informed Edmund.
"The same could be said of you," was Duke's retort.
"You'll be demoted for this Duke!" Warren tried to hide her anger this time, but her eyes betrayed her.
"Well, you go right ahead and do that," advised the General, abruptly cutting the comsat link. Duke knew that those few people who actually did have the power to demote him were far more reasonable than the senator, and that he had nothing to worry about. After laying down the comsat remote, he moved over to his refrigerator and placed some of its contents on the table. He felt like a big fat "turkey" sandwich and some fruit juice. Juice helped balance out his sugar levels, and that always made him feel better. He thought about having a drink a little later on too.
Angus Mengsk had arrived at his house after forcing the two men he had just met to take him. Even on the way they were trying to talk him out of it, taking alternate routes to make the trip as long as possible so they could continue to argue with him. They were afraid that returning would be the death of him, but Angus was stubborn, and after enough shouting they were silenced by him. The two men had promised to find him later. Right now Angus didn't really care, he was just happy to be walking up to the front door of his home.
Everything looked normal, and he could only hope nobody who was uninvited dropped by. Mengsk reached in his pocket to excavate his keycard, and noticed a few spots of dark hardened blood. 'But I was at least 10 feet away,' Angus thought to himself. Instantly the scene replayed itself in his mind; the doors bursting open, the metallic whine gaining intensity, the unnatural way the bodies of those he was just talking to jerking and spasming until they just congealed into one pool. He remembered now that the scene had been so violent that drops of blood had reached every corner of the room. With that thought Angus' body became incredibly fatigued. He was ready to fall to the ground and pass out, but he forced himself to remove the keycard, and extend it toward the slot.
Then, out of one of the tall bushes that stood on either side of the door, a figure clawed its way out, and fell on top of Mengsk. The wave of adrenaline kept Angus from losing consciousness, but he was still dead tired. Mengsk shouted unintelligible gibberish, and attempted to struggle, but his assaulter's weight was pinning his arms to the ground of his doorstep. The dark shape above him made no movement, and Angus collected himself and used the available light from nearby street lamps to see the man's face.
The once brown hair on the head above him was largely gray now, and the hairline was receding. Of what he could see of the face, especially the nose, it was full of pock marks. The chin was almost non-existent, straight down and then a 90 degree angle to the neck. The lips were thin, and his cheeks fat. The man's eyes could only be dimly seen in the shadows, but were obviously directing their burning gaze at Mensk's own.
Now Angus recognized the man, it was Defense Secretary Buller. Angus coughed out the name in a shocked whisper. That seemed to affect the man, who pulled himself off of Mengsk and sat on his rear. Slowly, almost painfully, Angus got to his hands and knees before slowly using his legs to push himself off of the ground. By this time Buller had made it to his knees, and stared up at him.
The light that glanced off of Buller was more now, and to his horror Angus could make out more of the man. Every part of the dumbstruck creature in front of Angus was covered with small chunks of grinded flesh as well as doused in the blood of several men.
Now Buller broke his silence, speaking very low in a cracked voice, "Oh, God, it.. it..was so..," his mouth hung open allowing spittle to mix with the blood, "when they came..and..and..... I knew," Buller seemed to hang on that thought. Angus was too terrified to do anything, and Buller continued with ragged breaths, "I was in the back, I dropped down...but they," Buller just shook his head, "All around.....so much..blood ," Buller started speaking through barred teeth now, "All..fell...on me," tears began to run down his stained face, "in..that....in.............it..............was so cold, warm, but...so coold, oh, God," he turned his face to the ground, the tears streaming off of his face.
The two men stood motionless, unable to do anything. Then Mengsk dropped to his knees and grasped Buller's shoulders. "Buller," he called clearly, "you have to stop this."
"But..I...it....was," came Buller's confused reply. Angus shook Buller so that his head rocked back, then he slapped him, hard. Buller rolled over on to his hands and knees. "Mensk...," Buller said, his voice now more stable. Both men stood and looked at each other. Angus could see the ghost of Buller's ordeal still haunting his eyes, but he seemed to be coherent.
"Are you going to be all right?" Mengsk asked with concern. Buller looked away, he seemed to have trouble saying anything more. "Its all right," Angus informed solemnly. He picked his card off of the ground, and slid it through the door's sensor. He realized, after entering, that the doorknob and his keycard now had blood on them from his hands that had touched Buller. "You had better strip down before entering," advised Mengsk.
Buller stripped to his underwear quickly. Angus showed him to an upstairs bathroom, and Buller knew the rest. Luckily, Angus saw no trace of blood on the carpet. Returning to the kitchen, he washed his hands, the keycard, and the doorknob. Using a paper towel, he bundled Buller's clothes and took them to the backyard where he placed them on the patio, emptied the pockets, dumped some of his whiskey on them, and dropped a lit match, promptly burning them. Mengsk knew nobody would ever want to have anything to do with those clothes again.
After scattering the ashes, Angus made it back up to the second floor bathroom door just in time to intercept his wife. "What are you doing, Angus, who's in the shower?" she inquired.
"It's Buller, let me explain," Mengsk held his hands up to stop her from interrupting him, "he had a little problem, and he just needs to stay here for the rest of the night."
"Its almost two in the morning, what happened?" His wife asked, concerned.
"The "meeting" held me up a little while longer then I had planned," Mengsk explained while he walked his spouse back to the bedroom.
"He was making banging noises in there, that's why I woke up," she told him.
"It would really be better if you waited 'til tomorrow before we talked," he advised, looking into her eyes.
She sighed, entering the bedroom, "All right, dear." Going to his bottom dresser door, he pulled out a pair of clothes. His wife looked at him strangely.
"Tomorrow," he promised her. Back at the bathroom door, Mengsk heard the water no longer running. He knocked on the door, which was opened a crack in response. Mengsk jammed the clothes through the crack, and felt them be taken.
Buller had taken a long shower. It had felt good to wash the gore from his skin, but as the hot water wash the physical memories of his ordeal from him, he continued to relive it in his mind's eye.
The doors slammed open violently, and all faces turned toward it. Nobody knew what to make of the two marines standing in the doorway, but once Buller saw the mini guns they were carrying from his position behind the other council members, he knew why they were there. He was the only one to fall onto his back as the bullets flew. Their blood and visceral matter splattered on every part of him like the water of the shower was now. Buller leaned on one side of the stall and pounded on it in anguish, remembering how the torn rags of what was once men all fell toward and onto him, flooding him with their contents. Buller knew it was death to move, nor could he. His body was petrified by the icy, penetrating cold of death, and at the same time it was warmed by the hot life fluids of some of his closest confidants, now no more. In that place time seemed to take on a different meaning, for it seemed like an eternity that he lay there.
Then Buller returned to reality. He finished his shower, and took the new pair of clothes Mengsk passed him through the door. He put on the green sweater and gray sweat pants. He realized that these were probably the only clothes that Angus had that fit him as he was large in the gut and the clothes were just elastic enough to fit him properly.
Buller found Angus back down in the kitchen/dining room area. He took a seat next to Mengsk. Two ice-filled glasses lay on the well- varnished wood of the table in front of them. As soon as Buller sat, Angus filled both with some of the whiskey he had used on Buller's clothes. They each knocked back a stiff gulp of the stuff, and it helped to dull the anxiety of the maddeningly silent house.
Angus broke that silence first, "How do you feel."
"I'll be all right," whispered Buller. Angus was concerned for Buller. He was normally an outspoken and opinionated man, now he responded in a nearly inaudible whisper.
"You're a lucky man," Angus encouraged, taking another sip.
"Am I," was all Buller said staring at his glass. Angus wanted to let Buller be, but there were too many things on his mind.
"Maybe there is still some way we can stop the rioters," Mengsk posed. Buller slowly brought his gaze up to Mengsk's level, staring right though him, like he had no focus.
"Are you a complete retard?" Buller posed in the same patient whisper, "They just killed us all, you think its time to negotiate? In case the two miniguns weren't enough to clue you in, then let me tell you," his voice was beginning to crack out of the whisper, "You being a senator doesn't mean jack shit anymore. They will find anyone who opposes them, and murder them. Then they will make every last grain of soil of this planet theirs. There is no more reasoning, only two things left, they die or we die, and it doesn't look like they are going anywhere for a while." Buller's voice had returned, but was still strangely quiet. This time he emptied his glass. Angus refilled it, finishing off the bottle.
"I know," Mengsk announced, resting his forehead on his hand, "I just didn't want to admit it to myself, but there's nothing to be done. They're all gone."
"You mean the army," Buller specified.
"Them too," nodded Mengsk, "The two men who rescued me said they were part of a group ready to fight, but they...,"
"What?"
"I would have been killed too, but two men put down enough suppressing fire for us to escape, they came from nowhere, and said they would contact me again. Said they needed me to lead them against the Confederacy. I didn't know what to think, but they couldn't stand against fully armored marines anyway," explained Angus.
Buller's interest perked up, "I don't know anything about the Magistrate's secret army, but... I do know where everything necessary to equip them was kept." Now it was Angus' turn to stare.
General Duke sat in his command seat in the control center of the Norad watching one of Korhal's news stations. Duke liked to keep up on what information the Kohalians found out. He knew most of it from far superior intelligence reports, but he liked to avoid any possible surprises that could result from the enemy (or in this case potential enemy) knowing something it shouldn't, sometimes he could pick out good strategic information from media leaks as well. For once this tactic actually paid off, he listened to the news story.
"A gruesome scene was found this morning in the Augustgrad courthouse building. Several mangled corpses were identified, including that of Korhal's own magistrate, who had uncannily gone missing last night. The killers have not been found, and nobody is sure who would have wanted to commit this act. Spent munitions found at the scene were conventional bullets which would suggest no Confederate involvement...," Duke shut off the display and retracted it into the panel beside his chair.
'Simon is getting sloppy' the General thought to himself. He was glad that Burns didn't make it too obvious, but he had expected there would be no trace. Usually Burns was clean about these sorts of things.
However, now was not the time to worry about that as the tactical overlay alerted and beeped a change in the situation. A new dot appeared that had just entered space from the planet's surface. The dot was yellow, signifying that its threat potential was unknown.
"Give me TacCom," Duke ordered sensory control. TacCom, or Tactical Communications, was in charge of keeping every part of the fleet's communication structure connected at all times so that orders could keep flowing, and the command structure remained intact. When cruisers talked to each other or a base, they went through TacCom, which was itself based on Duke's own battlecruiser. It wasn't that bases and cruisers couldn't talk to each other on their own, it was just protocol to have all communication going through a central hub. A communication not using TacCom was frowned on because it suggested that the message was trying to hide information from command. Duke could court-martial anyone who tried to do so. TacCom was far too big to fit in the control center, and had its own complex in another part of the ship. TacCom's other function was to monitor the tactical situation and keep it accurate to the minute. Usually transmissions automatically went through TacCom, but they also had all available tactical information. That's why Duke asked to speak with them.
"Sir," said one of the sensor techs to let Duke know that he was connected via the ship's com network to TacCom.
"What's the status with the UFO, TacCom?" Asked Duke.
"We think its one of the dropships that we lost from the outpost that was taken by the rebels," TacCom informed.
"Hmmm, let me try to get though to it, transmit visual too," asserted Duke.
"Affirmative, transmitting," alerted TacCom.
"Unidentified dropship, this is General Edmund Duke, commander of Alpha Squadron, respond immediately or be destroyed in five seconds," the pilot glanced back at Duke who nodded at him. He targeted the ship which was flying in a direct line toward the Norad.
That caused the pilot to respond, and the now blank screen was replaced with the image of a middle aged man with bloodshot eyes and wild hair, "So you're the dog they sent to make sure we acted like good little boys, but you don't get it, this time you are going to lose."
Duke was unimpressed, "Power down all of you systems, now, or you will be the one losing."
The man smiled, "You really don't get it, ha ha ha ha hahhahahahahaha." Duke's expression went slack. He fell for it, and had let himself be distracted long enough. Sitting down, Duke terminated the com signal, and brought up the tactical overlay. The dropship's yellow dot was on a collision course for the Norad.
"Get me TacCom, again," Duke commanded, "TacCom, the dropship is a threat, tell all cruisers to fire upon it." The dot changed from yellow to red, but no other ships were firing on it, it was too close to the Norad. The Norad's pilot tried to shoot it down, but the large laser beams were unable to lance it, the ship was within the Norad's area of fire.
The General saw all of this, and wasted no time. He ran to the door, hit the key pad to make the door slide open, and dashed away down the hall. The crew looked toward the door wondering why he was so scared, a collision from a dropship would not do much more then scar a battlecruiser. Duke continued running down the corridor that led from the control room embedded in the center of the ship's head to the neck of the ship.
The dropship sped toward the center of the Norad's head, and impacted with it, but instead of the dropship crumpling into pieces and floating off into space, it detonated in a small orb of heat. Duke could feel a small shudder move down the neck portion of the cruiser, but that was all. After realizing that the immediate danger was over, Duke stopped his sprinting, and looked about him. Some of the people that were walking down the main corridor of the neck section wondered what the shake was, but they were far more disturbed by the sight of Duke running like a rabbit. The short man simply glanced around, then continued his way down the hall. The distance between the head of the cruiser and the main body was about a mile, and by the time he reached the end, he could feel that mile. Duke found a secondary hub here. Secondary hubs were satellites of the ship's primary one. It contained all of the information and functions of the primary, but had less processing power. The secondaries existed so that if the primary was destroyed, the ship would still be able to function. The hub station was about the size of the ship's command center, but was surrounded by heavily tinted glass.
"General!" The head tech officer saluted him. All of the other techs followed suit.
The General returned the salute, "We've suffered some damage, can you bring up a damage report for me."
"Right away, sir," replied the officer showing Duke to one of the larger terminals. A schematic of the ship appeared, and was adjusted to show a small chunk of the ship had disappeared. "Some of the front center of the front quarter is gone," noted the tech, impressed, "What did that?" Duke remained silent. "That's where the restricted area of the ship is located," the tech officer added, "I'd give you a visual, but we don't have any cameras there."
Duke knew what was there, but very few others did. A while ago he had volunteered the Norad to be retrofitted with a prototype of a top secret project known only as "Yamato". The suicide bomber who hit the Norad couldn't of known this, but because it was still a very early prototype, and one that was experimenting with large amounts of weapons grade nuclear material, it was very unstable. Duke had been afraid that the bomber was going to get a bigger bang than expected, and that he was as good as dead. There was one thing he knew for sure though, it could go critical at any time.
Duke left the hub station without another word, and began moving toward the center bottom of the main section of the ship. The General remembered hearing that when the Battlecruiser idea was still on the drawing board, the idea of adding in enough escape pods was proposed. Upon further inspection the idea was found to be impossible to be implemented. The amount of pods, and the space they would require, would make the Battlecruiser idea worthless. Instead it was decided to have a few larger lifeboat ships in the ship's small docking bay, but Duke, and any officer in the higher echelons of the Confederate armed forces knew they were not large enough to house all of the ship's crew. If a battlecruiser was going to be destroyed, there was going to be a substantial loss of life. Duke entered a lift, and started it descending to the bottom level of the ship. Duke's personal shuttle was also in the docking bay.
Stepping out of the lift, Duke couldn't help but notice the people that he was passing. Some gave him solutes while others were too busy to notice. They were all likely to die soon, and even though the ship's status station would be on damage control it would have no idea what was going to happen. Duke entered the bay, and jogged to his shuttle. There were a few other smaller shuttles, and the lifeboats were in the back. They were put to shame by Duke's impressive craft. He entered the cockpit, and warmed up the systems. The engines whirred to life. Duke got on the comsat to docking control and requested to leave which he received instantly. The hover thrusters engaged, and the landing struts were retracted after lifting off. The deck below retracted, and the General cut the hover causing the shuttle to drop out of the battlecruiser and into free space. There was a lurch as the artificial gravity was adjusted, and he was away.
Duke looked at the com panel, and after a moment realized that even he had limits, and entered in his code to raise TacCom, "TacCom, this is Duke, tell the Norad's crew to evacuate ship, you had better do the same."
"But Sir, there's no emergency, the damage is minimal and..,"
"I said do it, and don't you argue with me, boy!" he glared.
As Duke's shuttle hurtled off, with the Norad behind, his prediction came true. In the damaged restricted section the magnetic fields and firing mechanisms went haywire. From the damaged head of the Norad appeared a point of light, then space became white. In that moment half of the cruiser was vaporized, the other half, the main section, was hurtled away at from the blast at a speed it could have never attained with its own propulsion. As the light dimmed the section could be seen barreling through the void. Its front half had been stripped and melted away, and the protruding wings were gone. It was as if it were a hunk of rock that had been eroded into a smooth rounded surface by a stream, but had only taken a moment to occur. Of the parts of the ship that did survive, there was no doubt that anyone in them had been either baked or more likely irradiated to death.
Duke knew that it would take a while to restore command, but what he now knew was that he had underestimated the situation. The destruction of his ship was accidental, and would be difficult to cover up, but the attack was not, and had surprised Duke. There would be no quick fix, and most likely the rioters would become organized rebels. This was going to become a nasty conflict. Nasty, because the rebels didn't stand a chance, but they would have to be slaughtered before they understood their place. Command would not be happy with him, but would understand the necessity. This time, everybody was going to lose.
