"Admiral, you can't do this!" Captain Rupert M'tana said yet again. "It's illegal! It violates all their civil rights!"
"Captain," Waldeck said savagely, "I will remind you-for the last time-that this planet is under martial law. And no one-I repeat, no one-rebels against the government, kills Navy personnel, and gets away with it on my watch! Especially not ignorant, backworld Fringe scum!"
"For God's sake, Admiral!" M'tana said. "You-"
"Silence!" Waldeck whirled on the dark-skinned officer, and his eyes snapped fire. "You will go to your quarters and place yourself under close arrest, Captain M'tana! I'll deal with you later!"
"I'm your flag captain," M'tana began angrily, "and it's my duty to-"
"Major," Waldeck turned coldly to a Marine officer. "You will escort the captain to his quarters!"
"Yes, sir!" The major had a thick DuPont accent, and his eyes were very bright. He saluted sharply, then jerked his head at M'tana as the admiral turned on his heel. M'tana could almost taste the Navy crews' confusion, but the Marine major tapped the butt of his laser meaningfully, and the flag captain knew it was hopeless. Sagging with defeat, he allowed the major to lead him away.
Waldeck didn't even watch him go. He had other things on his mind, and he mounted an improvised platform and turned to face the crowd of murmuring civilians. He gripped a microphone, his eyes bitter as he stared at them. The only way to avoid more bloodshed was to rub these stupid proles' noses in what happened when they rebelled. He looked at his own massed crewmen. Yes, and show them, too. Let them see what awaited those who defied them. He raised the mike.
"People of Novaya Rodina!" Fedor's head snapped around as the massively amplified voice roared. "You have rebelled against Federation law. You have harbored and abetted mutinous members of the armed services. Such actions are treasonous."
Fedor flinched from the harshness of the admiral's voice. Treasonous? Well, maybe technically-but a man could stand only so much. . . .
"By the authority of the Legislative Assembly, all civil law on this planet is hereby suspended. Martial law is declared. All public gatherings are banned until further notice. I now announce a curfew, to take effect at 1900 hours. Violators will be shot."
Fedor blanched. Shot! For walking the street?
"Before you stand the leaders of your rebellion against legitimate authority," Waldeck went on coldly. "As military governor of this planet, it is my responsibility to deal with these ringleaders."
He paused and glanced contemptuously at the prisoners.
"The Federation is just," he said then. "It extends its protection and support to those who obey our laws and justly deserved punishment to those who defy them.
"Now, therefore, as military governor of Novaya Rodina, I, Admiral Jason Waldeck, Terran Federation Navy, do hereby sentence these traitors to death!" A great silence gripped the crowd. "Sentence-" Waldeck finished harshly "-to be carried out immediately!"
Fedor couldn't believe his ears. This couldn't happen! Not in the Federation! It was a nightmare! It was . . . it was an atrocity!
He stared at the scene before him, unable to comprehend, as two Marine privates took Pieter Tsuchevsky by the arms. He moved slowly, as if in shock, but held his head high. As he and his guards moved away from the group, two more privates singled out Tatiana Illyushina. The slender young woman drooped in their hands as she realized she would be next, yet she fought for control and tried to stand erect.
Paralysis gripped Fedor. He was suspended in disbelief, unable to think, barely able to breathe. He watched numbly as Tsuchevsky was turned to face the crowd. Six Marines with autorifles marched smartly out and took position before him, weapons at port arms.
"Firing squad!" a Marine officer shouted. "Present arms!"
Weapons clattered.
"Take aim!"
Butt plates pressed uniformed shoulders. Fedor felt something boiling in him against the ice, but still he could not move.
"Ready!"
The pressure building in his throat strangled him.
"Fire!"
Six shots rang out on semi-automatic.
It all happened in slow motion. Fedor saw Tsuchevsky's shirt ripple, saw great, red blotches blossom hideously as the slugs tore through his body, and Pieter Petrovich Tsuchevsky, Chief of the Duma, President of the Provisional Government of Novaya Rodina, jerked at the impact, then toppled like a falling tree.
And as he hit the ground, the pressure in Fedor Kazin burst. His sustaining faith in the Federation died in an agony of disillusionment, and his hand flashed into his coat.
"Nooo!" he screamed, and the heavy needler came free.
For one instant he faced them all alone, one man with a pistol in his hand and rage in his heart. Then the pistol rose. It lined on the burly admiral as he turned angrily towards the single voice raised in protest.
He never completed his turn. The needler screamed, and Admiral Jason Waldeck's uniform smoked under its hypervelocity darts. He pitched to the ground seconds behind Tsuchevsky, and the crowd went mad.
Fedor never knew who struck the first Marine, but the guards never had a chance as the screaming, kicking mob went over them. Here and there an autorifle spoke, a laser carbine snarled. The Marines didn't die easily, and they didn't die alone-but they died.
Fedor wasn't watching. He was racing across the open space, needler in hand, dashing for the guards who were already training their weapons on the helpless prisoners. He slid to a halt, bracing the needler with both hands as a laser bolt whipped past him, thermal bloom scorching his hair. A guard saw him and turned, his jaw dropping, but too late. A stream of needles spat from the weapon, and the guards went down like autumn wheat before Fedor's reaper.
Screams and shouts were everywhere. Weapons fired. Men and women beat Marines to death with fists and feet. Navy personnel scattered-only senior ratings and officers were armed, and they were outnumbered by hundreds to one. They fought desperately to bring their weapons into play, but they hadn't known what Waldeck intended, and they were just as shocked as the civilians. Their minds needed time to clear and adjust, and there was no time.
Fedor ran to the manacled prisoners.
"Are you all right?" he bellowed as Magda Petrovna picked herself up off the ground. She stared at him for a moment with burning eyes, then nodded sharply and snatched up a dead Marine's laser with her chained hands. Her voice rang out over the tumult.
"The ships!" she screamed. "Take the ships!"
Some of the crowd heard. They seized the weapons of their fallen enemies and fell in behind her, and their discordant yells coalesced into a single phrase, thundering above the bedlam.
"The ships!" they roared, and foamed forward in an unstoppable human wave behind a mutinous ex-captain and a farmer who had wanted only justice.
IRONY OF POWER
Oskar Dieter blinked wearily and fingered the advance. The strains of a New Zurich waltz filled his office, but the soft music was at grim variance with the data on his screen, and he sighed and leaned back, pinching his nose and trying to shake himself back to a semblance of freshness.
It was hard. Catastrophe had followed disaster with monotonous regularity for months, and in his nightmares endless trains of courier drones whizzed towards Sol, packed with tidings of fresh calamity.
What was happening in the Fringe was bad enough, but affairs on Old Terra were little better. The Assembly had been stunned by the Taliaferro suicide, but not Dieter. His fellow Gallowayans might put it down to grief over the Jamieson Archipelago-which was a tragedy of staggering proportions-but Dieter knew better. Understanding, the terrible realization that the "game" had become real, had driven Simon's hand. Dieter almost pitied him . . . but only almost, and his face hardened as he wondered yet again how many others would die before the madness ended.