She showed her teeth in a cold little smile.
"It didn't work. We picked them up in ones and twos over the last week or so as we've started making real progress on organizing the civilian population."
"What have you done with them?" Tatiana asked.
"For now, I've got them confined in solitary. As for what we do with them in the end, I think that's going to be a political decision, Tatiana. I know what I'd like to do with them." Her normally warm brown eyes were frozen as she looked steadily at her Vice President. "So far, by our count, the civilian death toll is somewhere in the neighborhood of six thousand, and every one of them was killed in fighting which never would have happened if these people hadn't chosen to violate the legal order of their superior officer to surrender. Under Federation law and the Articles of War, refusal of a direct legal order is a capital offense. Given how many people they got killed, I don't think there's very much chance that a court-martial would choose to show clemency in this case, either. But-"
"But every single officer and enlisted person in the Republic's armed forces is currently violating the 'legal orders' of their Federation superiors," Tatiana finished for her.
"Exactly." Magda grimaced. "From everything we can tell, it looks like Heart World public opinion is still a bit lukewarm-or, at least not incredibly optimistic about the eventual outcome-when it comes to supporting the Rump war effort. But that's not the case on the Corporate Worlds, which is where every one of these people is from. If we shoot them, or hang them, however justifiable our actions, the Corporate World propaganda machine will have a field day with it."
"They'd claim it was an atrocity," Tatiana said sourly. "Just like they did that strike on Galloway's World."
"Not quite the same," Magda disagreed. "I'm afraid the Galloway strike probably was an atrocity, however we want to slice it, Tatiana. I understand why whoever did it did it, of course. And no one is ever going to be able to claim the Archipelago and The Yard weren't legitimate military targets. But it was a nuclear strike on an inhabited planet by members of the Federation's own military. We can't deny that, and, to be honest, it was a godsend for the Corporate World propagandists."
Tatiana looked for a moment as if she intended to argue, but then she shrugged.
"Point taken," she conceded. "And I suspect, to be honest, that when the Rump finally gets around to declassifying the actual damage estimates and casualty counts, we're going to find out it was one hell of a lot worse than anything that happened here on Cimmaron. But just to keep the record totally straight, the Republic had nothing at all to do with that strike. We didn't order it, we didn't authorize it, and we didn't know a damned thing about it until the Rump media started reporting it."
"Of course not. But nobody in the Corporate Worlds is going to admit that. For that matter, the civilians probably don't even realize that that was the way it had to have been. But right now, as far as we know, we have a lot more Rump prisoners of war than they have of our people, and all of us, on both sides, are still trying to feel our way into some sort of code for the treatment of other human POWs. It's not," she said dryly, "something we've had to pay a great deal of attention to over the last few centuries.
"So, if we shoot these people as they so richly deserve, are we going to provoke retaliation against our own people in Rump hands? That's the immediate, tactical concern that I and other members of the military are probably going to have. But on a more fundamental level, if we're going to argue that our decision to reject what were certainly legal orders when they were given was a valid one, as a matter of conscience, then unfortunately, I think we're on shaky ground to deny at least the theoretical validity of that argument as a defense for these people's actions."
"Point taken," Tatiana said again. She leaned back once more in her chair with a heavy sigh. "I wish just one thing about this civil war of ours could be simple and straightforward!"
"I don't think civil wars come in that flavor."
"No. No, they don't." Tatiana shook her head and considered what the other woman had said for several seconds, then shrugged.
"All right, Magda. I'm sure Lad and the Congress are going to make any final decisions about your prisoners. For right now, though, on my authority, you are not to consider them prisoners of war at all. Lad may overrule me, but until he does, I want no legal precedent that could be used to argue that they come under the protection of the uniforms they abused. As far as I am concerned, they're terrorists, murderers-not soldiers. I intend to argue that they should be held as common criminals and prosecuted as such, under the civil law code of the planet where the murders were committed, after the conclusion of hostilities."
"The Rump is almost certain to insist that they be included in any future prisoner exchanges." Magda didn't sound as if she disagreed, only as if she were noting potential difficulties. "If nothing else, the Corporate Worlds are going to insist. They'll probably make it a case of 'protecting' their citizens from legalized murder at the hands of us barbarians."
"At the moment, my response to that is to go ahead and let them insist all they want. I'll recommend allowing contact with them, but only through civil lawyers serving as their defense counsel in a civilian court. And I'll also recommend that we make it very plain that we have no intention of proceeding with their prosecution until the termination of hostilities and that after we've won, they will be fully entitled to representation by counsel of their choice-from the Rump, if that's what they want."
"It's going to be a can of worms however we approach it," Magda said heavily. "And it may well be something we'll run into on other worlds, again, before this thing is over. Off the top of my head, I'd say what you're proposing makes sense. As the acting Cimmaron CO, I'll endorse it officially if you want me to."
"I think that would probably help," Tatiana said. "On the other hand, you might want to wait until your opinion is asked for. I don't see any way Lad, at least, won't ask for the input of the military commander on the spot, and if you wait until you're asked, it may seem less like I put you up to it before I ever sent my recommendation in. I suspect that some of the Senators and Congressmen are already a little unhappy over the 'Novaya Rodina clique's' undue influence on the formulation of national policy, so let's not throw any more fuel on the fire unless we have to."
"I hadn't thought of that," Magda said, eyeing the young woman with even more respect. Then she shrugged slightly.
"At least a partial change of subject, Madame Vice President," she said, then paused.
"What sort of change of subject?" Tatiana asked warily.
"It's about your request to tour the worst damaged areas. I don't think it would be a very good idea to proceed the way you've suggested."
"Magda, the citizens of Cimmaron are Fringers, and the Republic is a Fringer government-one the local planetary government has already asked to join. And I, as you may recall, am the Vice President of the Republic. I need to see the damage, the losses they suffered, with my own eyes. Because of my office and my responsibilities to the people of this planet, and because I-me, individually, on a personal level-need to see it. And, politically, so that the Cimmarons know that I've seen it, and that the Republic takes what happened here very seriously."