Picking Up The Pieces (Martial Law) Page 2

  Muna was nodding. No shipping line in their right mind would have a starship come out of its wormhole in interstellar space. Modern drives weren’t as prone to burning out as some of the early designs, but it still happened and being stranded in interstellar space would mean certain disaster. Svergie would definitely benefit from increased interstellar trade, but only if there was a united government in place to deal with the Merchant Guilds and the shipping lines. Without one, the shipping lines would be able to name their own terms.

  “On a different note,” Daniel added, “we believe that the Independence Party has some links with off-world groups. The Freedom Alliance never went away and they’re currently opposed to what they call Fleet’s hegemony. They may be linked with the Independence Party, or it might be another government attempting to spread chaos, or even someone working for the shipping lines. There’s no clear proof yet, but if we find it…”

  I nodded. John Walker hadn’t made many mistakes in his coup, but one of them might come back to haunt him. He’d dictated terms to governments in a manner that would certainly cause resentment, even hatred. Fleet was still the strongest military force in known space, but it had limits, not least the lack of any major ground-combat force. The Marines couldn’t take and hold an entire planet. He had also agreed to leave internal planetary affairs strictly alone. Whatever happened on Svergie, Fleet couldn’t be seen to interfere.

  “I understand,” I said, without demur. The planetary government had hired me, not Fleet. Fleet couldn’t be blamed if something went wrong, although I was still unsure of what the planetary government wanted from me. I decided to ask. “Tell me something. Do you know what they hired us for?”

  Daniel shrugged. “Not directly,” he admitted. “The general theory held by Fleet’s analysts on the William Tell is that the planetary government wants you to serve as a deterrent to the Independence Party, although a minority opinion says that they want you to take out the Independence Party, or even support the Progressive Party.”

  “We do have minds of our own,” Peter protested.

  “Hush,” I said. I couldn’t dispute his logic. I was even rather insulted that someone would see us as nothing more than guns for hire, even if I wanted them to see us as mercenaries. “What does Fleet think is going to happen here?”

  “The Progressive Party may well win the next election,” Daniel said. “If that happens, they will probably push ahead with their program…and push the planet into civil war. The analysts have simulated the war extensively, despite our limited knowledge, and they’ve concluded that the most likely outcome will be absolute chaos. I doubt that the planet could afford two nations on one continent. We’ll be looking down from orbit at mass slaughter.”

  “Like a dozen other worlds,” Muna said, coldly. “What makes this one so special?”

  “Nothing,” Daniel said. “Our hands are tied, legally. We cannot interfere unless one side breaks the Federation Protocols. Even so, it would be chancy. The current situation is so unstable that if Svergie were to go under, it might have serious repercussions for Fleet…and the whole Federation. The best we can do is give you what information we have and hope.”

  He smiled, thinly. “Good luck, sir,” he added. “You’re going to need it.”

  Chapter Two

  The Government of Svergie was originally intended to serve as a limited government, but when the UN took control of the planet they turned it into a despotic government that was destroyed shortly after the Fleet Coup. The replacement was established on a wave of hope. It didn’t last.

  -The Secret History of Svergie

  I mulled over what Daniel had told us as we were driven into town by the local trooper, who kept eyeing our weapons with a bemused respect. I was used to that kind of treatment on Earth – the few times I had been allowed to go armed on the planet’s surface – but Svergie was a frontier world. It should have had a more robust attitude towards weapons, even ones that looked intimidating as hell. Even the UN hadn’t been able to come up with a non-threatening assault rifle.

  New Copenhagen was an interesting mix of styles. Some of the buildings looked as if they were built on stilts, although I was at a loss as to why, and others looked as if they were built out of wood. A massive wooden church dominated one corner and glowered at us as we drove past. I decided it had to serve a religious function, although I wouldn’t have trusted an entirely wooden building in a modern city if I could avoid it. Someone with a can of gasoline could have burned it to the ground. The locals looked to be surprisingly diverse; there were blonde-haired, blue eyed men and women, intermixed with short brown women and paler men. The latter had to be the results of intermarriage, which seemed to have had a happier result than on some other planets. It might cause them problems in the future, though; the economic report of the planet’s future was not encouraging.

  “This isn’t going to be an easy city to defend,” Peter muttered, low enough so that our driver couldn’t hear. “I wouldn’t care to defend it with anything less than a full army and even if we did, half the city would burn down around us. I wonder how much trouble they actually have here.”

  I shrugged. “That’s why they’re paying us,” I reminded him. As galling as it was to be thought of as nothing more than a mercenary, it did have its advantages. I didn’t have to pretend to be polite to assholes if I didn’t want to. “I wouldn’t want to take a tank through these streets if I could avoid it.”

  “You could take a tank through the houses,” Peter said, dryly. I nodded in agreement. The houses looked surprisingly flimsy compared to a tank. “The more I look at this place, the more I think that there are unpleasant surprises waiting for us.”

  “Look on the bright side,” I said. “We could be back on Botany.”

  The driver took us directly into the centre of the city and, for the first time, I was vaguely impressed. The governing complex had been built for defence and a few hundred soldiers could have held it easily. The UN had probably started using the original buildings and then found that they needed to be sealed off and defended, just to keep the bureaucrats from being lynched by the people they were trying to help. The handful of policemen on duty looked professional enough, but they carried nothing heavier than pistols. A single platoon could have wiped them out in a quick action. I just hoped that they had reinforcements ready and waiting somewhere out of sight.

  Or maybe they don’t have a real army, I thought, dispassionately. It boded ill for the future if that were true, but why else would they have hired us? Mercenaries didn’t come cheap these days, not when there was more work to do than there were mercenary organisations. The civilians hadn’t looked oppressed, or unhappy, but that might not have meant anything. I remembered the political briefing and shivered inwardly. That might be about to change, I decided, as we climbed out of the car and walked into the building. The planet wouldn’t be peaceful for much longer.

  “You’ll have to leave your weapons here,” a guard said. I shook my head firmly. I don’t leave my weapons anywhere, not for anything. “Sir, I…”

  “Let him through,” our escort said. “He’s not going to be going very far.”

  The interior of the building was suspiciously ornate, not entirely to my surprise. The UN bureaucrats loved luxury and good-living, as long as someone else was paying the bill, and they’d shown surprising taste. It still seemed overdone to my eyes, but everyone says that I have no taste at all. I can’t think why. They’d hung a series of portraits on one wall and I took a moment to study them. They were all of nude girls in interesting poses.

  “The Church wants to take those down,” our guide explained, “but this building is living history. Once the new Council Chamber is built, this place will become a museum.”

  “Wise of you,” I said, calmly. “Whoever fails to learn from history is condemned to repeat it.”

  He nodded and showed us into a smaller conference room, although it was nearly identical to the one that Daniel had used. The
UN bureaucrats had probably just copied the design for all of their buildings. It wasn't as if that had required much imagination. There were six people in the room; two women and four men, who rose to their feet as I entered. The President, at least, was obvious. I’d seen his image on the UN’s files, marked with dire warnings about how dangerous he was. He could command loyalty, a dangerous trait in someone opposed to the UN.

  “Mr President,” I said, and held out a hand. “Thank you for your initiation.”

  “You’re welcome,” the President said. His voice was surprisingly firm and charismatic. The UN hadn’t understated the case. Now that I had a chance to take a good look at him, I could see that he was underweight and probably under heavy stress, but healthy enough. He also looked relieved to see me. “I trust that you encountered no problems on your flight here?”

  “No, Mr President,” I said, calmly. If he wanted to make small talk, that was fine by me. “I imagine that the William Tell will wish to inspect us before we land, but that won’t affect our deployment.”

  “Of course, of course,” the President agreed. “I’m neglecting my manners. Please take a seat, all of you.” He waved from person to person. “Councillor Tindra Elmersson, Liberty Party, Councillor Albin Arvidsson, Conservatives and Farmers Party, Councillor Frida Holmqvist, Progressive Party, Police Chief Arne Johansson and General Lennart Fredriksson, Militia Commander. We are, to all intents and purposes, the government of the planet, gathered together in this room.”

  I winced, but said nothing. I’d seen nothing to impress me with their security so far and a determined fanatic could have smuggled a bomb inside without any problems. The two women were both stunningly good looking, but Frida had a nasty scar running down her face. The Progressive Party representative eyed me in a manner that suggested she didn’t like my face, but I refused to show her any response. The Police Chief and the General looked more impressive, but the former was beaten down and the latter was coldly furious at something. Us, perhaps?

  The President sat back and looked at me. “I understand that you brought your entire unit along,” he said. It wasn't a question. “We had to be a little vague about why we’d hired you, but rest assured that it won’t get you into hot water with Fleet. There were…issues involved that made it hard to be frank with you, yet we needed you here as quickly as possible.”

  “I understand,” I said, hiding my annoyance. If we weren’t being paid well for this, I’d have taken my ship and men elsewhere. I’d had enough of vague orders and politically-correct directives while I’d been in the UNPF. “I assume that this room is secure…?”

  “It is,” the President confirmed. “We have something of a political crisis on our hands, one that has been developing since the UN pulled back into their bases and allowed us to regain control of the planet. There are factions within our planet that want to break away from the remainder of the planet and others that want to break down our system completely. Every faction is arming to the teeth, ah…”

  “Call me Andrew,” I suggested.

  “And there’s a lot of talk about armed opposition to the government,” the President continued. “We don’t have much of an army here and the police are unprepared to deal with political agitation.”

  “If certain parties would stop trying to impose stupid policies on the farmers and miners,” the Police Chief said, “we would have less agitation.”

  “If the farmers would charge prices that the public can afford,” Frida snapped back, “we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  The President held up a hand. I felt a moment of sympathy for him. Whatever he wanted from the situation, it was neglected by having to preside over a Council that was divided against itself. I knew little about how the government worked, but I was already seeing the chaos. When there were two parties and neither dared back down, the results was a war. When there were more than two parties…the results were normally chaos.

  “As it is, we have no creditable deterrence to groups attempting to secede or take control by force,” the President said. “We hired you to build an army for us and take control of the spaceport. If it does come down to civil war, we will need you to lead your people and the soldiers you will have trained against the rebels.”

  “I see,” I said. Securing the spaceport would be easy, unless Fleet decided to object. Training an army would be simple enough, although I suspected that the various councillors would make it harder. Leading an offensive…that might be tricky. “What sort of opposition are we looking at?”

  “There has never been a full census of the Mountain Men up north,” the President admitted. “They had ties to the resistance, of course, but at the end of the war they refused to be disarmed. They weren’t alone in that, of course. We do know, however, that they overran two UN FOB installations in the area and took all of the supplies. They’re heavily armed enough to take the war to us if we give them a chance.”

  “Perhaps,” I said unhappily, recalling the map I’d seen before. If the Mountain Men lived in the mountains, digging them out wasn't going to be easy, yet the mountains were far too close to the mines, Svergie’s only source of outside currency. If they had taken an intact FOB, they’d have tanks and armoured cars – perhaps even helicopters – and the fuel to operate them. Crushing them wasn't going to be easy…and then there were the farmers, and the potential for urban insurrection.

  “There are other issues,” the President said. “If you can strengthen the state, it might allow us a chance to work out the political issues without a civil war. Can you build an army for us?”

  I understood what he was saying and what he carefully wasn’t saying. Daniel had warned that the Communists – who didn’t seem to be represented at the meeting – were building their own armed forces. The same was probably true of the others. It wouldn’t take long for one of them to think about a strike at the government and launch a coup. An intact and loyal army could deter them from trying that, yet they would understand that as well – perhaps better – than I did. They might move before my troops were on the surface and ready to operate.

  “Yes,” I said, wondering what kind of snake pit we’d dropped into. “We can build you an army. I assume that you will allow us to handle our own recruiting?”

  “Absolutely out of the question,” Frida thundered, furiously. It did interesting things to her jumper. “You have to take the people we send you for training.”

  “Not everyone who volunteers will be suitable,” Peter put in, from his position. “We may only accept a hundred out of a thousand volunteers. The training course is intended to separate the men from the brats and it does that extremely well.”

  Frida scowled at him. I could almost read her thoughts. If the Progressives had supplied most of the Army, it would be loyal to them, although I doubted it. Soldiers don’t get to indulge in wishful thinking and the training program was designed to help recruits separate wishful thinking from proper thinking. A politically-neutral army might be harder to accomplish, but it was what the President needed. It might even be able to disarm the factions and put an end to the threat of civil war.

  “You can open up recruiting booths in the cities,” the President said, firmly, “but you will give all the recruits a firm chance.”

  “Of course,” I said. We always did, after all. “What other military resources are available?”

  All eyes turned to General Fredriksson. “The Militia is formed largely from former resistance men,” he admitted, slowly. He looked ashamed, somehow. “In theory, we have ten thousand ready and willing to serve. In practice, half of them are permanently unavailable or absent without leave. What I have left is a light infantry force with only limited training, given by a handful of UN deserters. It isn’t suitable for anything other than light patrolling and I can’t send it into…political situations.”

  He rubbed his bald dome. “We have a large dump of military supplies that the UN left behind when they pulled out,” he added. “Some of it got stolen be
fore we managed to secure it all, but the remainder is at your disposal. It wasn't as if we had a use for tanks and armoured fighting vehicles. A UN officer offered to raise an armoured regiment for us, but we refused his offer. It wasn't as if we needed it.”