I mulled it over as we explored further into the strongpoint. The dead had been stacked like cordwood in one place; hundreds of men and women, just abandoned and left to rot. I gagged at the stench and muttered orders for us all to be decontaminated after we left the strongpoint. We’d probably have to send in a chemical warfare team in full masks and gowns to recover the bodies, or perhaps it would be better just to bury them all below the wreckage of the building. A flamethrower would set them all on fire, but the stench would only grow worse. The city stank quite enough already.
“They were definitely running short of ammunition,” Peter said, as we inspecting an inner bunker. It had once clearly stored thousands of rounds of ammunition, but was now almost empty. I wondered where they’d gotten all of the weapons and if there actually was an off-planet supplier involved, but it didn’t look if anything here had come from anywhere apart from the UN. The only exception was a hunting rifle that looked almost homemade, although it was clearly serviceable enough.
“Mine,” Ed said, firmly, clutching the weapon. “I claim it as the spoils of war.”
I laughed. “That probably counts as looting,” I said. I don’t understand how some people can be so mad over guns. They’re just tools, as far as I am concerned, tools used to fight and win a battle. I had a commanding officer once who had an antique weapon from the pre-space era and always chose to use it in combat. The paperwork must have taken him hours to complete, every time he used it — the UN frowned upon private ownership of firearms — but he hadn’t hesitated. “Pay the locals a reasonable price for it and then keep it, if you insist on having it.”
Ed nodded. I don’t approve of looting under normal circumstances, but if the owner of the weapon was dead or a traitor, Ed might as well have it. If it could be traced to a person who was still living, however, he would have to return it or pay for it.
“Yes, sir,” he said, finally. “I’ll put it in the sack for the moment.”
We reached another room under the strongpoint. It was bare, apart from a card table strewn with documents. “I want TechnoMage down here as soon as possible,” I ordered. “I want him to go through everything here and find out just how far the Communist influence actually stretched.”
“Yes, sir,” Ed said. “I’ll call him as soon as we’re out of this place.”
I took the hint and nodded, allowing Peter to lead us back towards the surface, keeping my thoughts to myself. Daniel had suggested that the Communists and Progressives had had strong ties — and that Frida might be a Communist, or once have been a Communist. I wasn’t sure what I would have done if she had turned out to have planned the entire insurrection… and she’d definitely used it to get rid of some of her political enemies. If she was guilty… what the hell would we do? It would be a grey area.
First, we find out if she really was a Communist, I thought, finally. If she is one, or was one, then we can decide what to do.
The fresh air of the city was a relief, even though it still stank of fire and burning flesh and hydrocarbons, an unholy cocktail that would probably linger in the air for years. We sucked in deep breaths as we walked back to the Command Post to confirm that the remaining Communist strongholds had been searched, emptied and disarmed. The city was probably still mined in any number of inventive and unpleasant ways, but given time, we’d disarm them all. The soldiers were spreading out now, looking for any rogue holdouts, but it seemed that the Communists had accepted their leader’s orders to surrender. I’d known UN Infantry units with less discipline than that.
We drove through the streets back towards the detention camps outside the city and I found myself, once again, sickened by the realities of war. Here, there was a burned-out house with a family staring at it, unable to understand what had happened to their lives. There, there was a string of looters trying to make away with their new possessions before the soldiers caught them, placed them up against a wall and shot them. Hundreds of thousands of tired people, their faces blank and worn, barely had the energy to glance at us. Some shied away from the soldiers, others welcomed them; I saw young girls flirting openly with some of the local infantrymen. The pregnancy rate in the town was probably going to rise sharply over the next few months.
And there were plenty of silent testaments to the barbarity of the Communists. I saw a man hanging from a tree with a sign saying EXPLOITER, although it wasn’t clear what he had exploited. He could have been anything from a pimp to an industrialist. There were mansions built by the wealthy that had been burned down long before we had started to bombard the city, schools and colleges that had been destroyed and as for the city’s government centres… there was nothing left, but ashes. The Communists hadn’t confined themselves, either; they’d burned down churches and other religious sites without even a hint of discrimination. The priests who’d tried to appeal to their better natures had been slain beside their former parishes; the Communists, after all, regarded religion as nothing, but the drug used to keep the masses in their place. I wondered how many of them had gotten religion in their final hours. There’s no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.
“Jesus, boss,” Peter said, suddenly. “How long is it going to take them to rebuild the city?”
“Years,” I said, my mind racing ahead to the problem. We hadn’t even put out all the fires yet, let alone anything else, but now the Communists had been disarmed we could bring up aircraft and drop water and fire-retardant foam into the mix. How long would it take? I wondered if it would take more resources than the planetary government possessed; after this, their off-world credit wouldn’t be very good at all. The political unrest would discourage investors from investing in the planet, knowing that the Communists might take over and nationalise all of their property. Even if Fleet intervened, the costs would still be enormous…
And I didn’t envy Frida at all.
“I want to inspect the detention camps,” I ordered, as we started to drive out of the city. The plumes of smoke still rising up behind us had a way of focusing the mind. “After that, we’ll have to see how much we can hand over to the locals without getting anyone lynched.”
There wasn’t much to each of the detention camps; they were really just a massive patch of ground encircled by barbed wire and supervised by men who had permission to shoot if they felt the situation mandated it. There was no protection from the elements for the prisoners, apart from a handful of UN-issue sleeping bags; they were still naked. It was a vital part of convincing them that they had been captured and were completely helpless, but I suspected that they were taking it a bit too far. The prisoners didn’t have a hope of escaping unless a strong outside force attacked the camps and liberated them. The guards were watching carefully, but as far as I knew, the Communists no longer had a fighting force left.
I watched carefully as yet another prisoner was processed and thrown into the camp. The small wire attached to their forehead was linked to a lie detector that informed us when the suspect lied. The guards asked questions and watched the responses carefully, before either accepting them or demanding better answers. We’d build up a database of people we’d arrested and, bit by bit, separate the smaller fry from the leadership and those responsible for atrocities. The leaders had been moved to a separate camp and isolated for their own safety. We’d put them to death nice and legally.
The thought made me smile as I inspected the camps. The prisoners had been told to dig latrines and prepare for a long stay, but most of them just sat there, trying to hide themselves from our gaze. The men and women who had been caught up in the excitement of being a Communist now discovered that those on the wrong side — i.e. the side that lost — faced the uncertainty and doubt of the future. If things had been different, that could have been me behind the fence…