Trevor, through the field glasses, watched a friendly tank crew abandon their mine-damaged smoking vehicle at the big intersection of 73 and Bonita Canyon Drive.
Prescott told Trevor, "My Captains tell me I.S. teams are taking custody of Witiko officers from forward positions. Pardon my French, but ain’t that a little off, you know?"
Trevor's binoculars dropped and hung from the strap around his neck. His eyes narrowed and he grumbled, "What did you say?"
"Internal Security has prisoner control and transport teams operating closer to the front lines than usual. They're bypassing military police and taking custody of Witiko-especially officers-right up by the front lines. Kind of out of the ordinary, don't you think?"
Trevor smelled the hand of Evan Godfrey. Internal Security had strong ties to the Senate and Trevor already knew how much Evan liked the Witiko. He sensed a plan to embarrass him or force an early end to the campaign.
"What about Governor Malloy? Where’s he at?"
Prescott scratched the back of his neck again. "Well, Intel says he’s held up at L.A. City Hall with a bunch of mayors and ministers. The top dogs, I guess, on the human side of the whole Cooperative thing."
Trevor told the Generaclass="underline" "Hit it."
"What’s that, sir?"
"Get on the horn to the Philippan and have them hit City Hall. Knock the whole damn building down."
Prescott said nothing but his face corkscrewed with confusion.
"What’s wrong, General, haven’t you ever heard of taking out command and control?"
"Well, yes sir. But those guys up there don’t have any freedom of movement. Or, I guess, they won’t after today. Shouldn’t we be talking to that Governor about surrender? I’m guessing he’ll listen and he’s still got clout with what’s left of the true-believers."
Trevor felt one part anger and one part fear with a spice of urgency. The thought of Evan slipping Witiko officers away made Trevor uneasy. The idea of Malloy and his top lieutenants-the human core of The Cooperative-remaining intact bothered him even more. In an instant he saw press conferences and debates, sad stories of dead Californians, protests against the military, and calls to rethink war strategy in the light of the ‘human’ toll. He did not want anyone with ‘clout’ left from California. They must be beaten in every way to clearly display the folly of siding with aliens.
He did not need to kill Malloy to win the war but a part of him-the cold calculating part that had made his doppelganger a dictator on another world-saw an ends that needed justifying and he knew he possessed the means.
"I said hit it. Don’t make me repeat myself again."
– Governor Terrance Malloy stared out from the Tower Room on the top floor of City Hall. In the old world, the large square room hosted banquets and awards dinners, meetings and other prestigious events enhanced by the panoramic views of Los Angeles.
Like most of that metropolis, during the war against the Witiko City Hall endured much damage. Several levels had been charred black by fires. Furthermore, chunks of the structure’s concrete-concrete made with sand taken from each of the state’s fifty-eight counties and water from each of its 21 missions-had been blasted away to the streets some thirty-two floors below. In other words, an important icon of Los Angeles and, therefore, California had suffered greatly.
City Hall had not been alone in that regard.
As if to emphasize the thought, the Governor’s eyes sought out and found the dusty hole to the north; all that remained of Dodger Stadium after a bombardment of Witiko rockets had struck that makeshift rescue center, killing more than five thousand refugees on a fine summer day during the first months of the alien invasion.
Whether those missiles targeted the refugees or, as the Witiko explained during negotiations, resulted from a malfunction, did not matter. That hole served as a symbol.
When that first war ended, Malloy worked to cleanse the scars, starting first with renovating City Hall. Similar projects in other cities erased some-certainly not all-of the wounds from that five-year conflict.
At the same time, the social structure underwent renovations. Their Witiko allies brought new technologies and new ways of thinking that might have repulsed small minds. But Malloy convinced his people that survival depended on re-thinking how they viewed government, work, and life in general.
The result? California survived. No easy task, particularly when the rest of the country descended into chaos ruled either by aliens overtly enslaving human survivors or dangerous wilderness with no laws, no organization, and no hope.
On long nights when the faces of the former Governor and others who had been in front of Malloy in the line of succession haunted his sleep, he admitted to himself that, yes, his embracing of Witiko ideals served as much his self-interest as the interest of California. Yet he also knew one truth: the peace deal had stopped the fighting.
In the years since, human and aliens rid the cities and suburbs of dangerous predators, re-established industry, and built a functioning society.
Certainly that society lacked perfection. The human population in California shrank with a slow but steady drop in life expectancy and a low birth rate. Malloy and his people agreed with D’Trayne that the best hope for prosperity lay with a smaller population base.
The Governor dropped his eyes to a closer sight: tents and tables cluttering a parking lot across the street. Lines of people waited for their portion from pots of bubbling stew made with vegetables, fish, wild game, and lots of water. Dinner time at the "Municipal Feeding Station."
Malloy felt a vague sense of pride in the station. These people lived. If the war with the Witiko had gone on, they probably would have been killed. The Governor did not buy Trevor Stone’s explanation that it had been the Witiko-not California-in danger of losing that war.
No, Malloy felt that his decision to seek peace, to share power, to accept new (alien) ideas resulted in survival for Californians while the rest of the world died. It was mere coincidence that doing the right thing helped make his life easier.
While food lines were not new, something else down there was: the presence of cameramen. Such pictures had not been transmitted across the state before the invasion by Trevor’s "Empire." To do so, Malloy believed, would merely hurt morale and paint an unflattering picture of life in The Cooperative. In contrast, with the start of the new war images of breadlines, homeless citizens, and poorly-functioning hospitals served a purpose, especially when subjecting the context of those images to heavy editing. As a life-long politician, Malloy understood the value of propaganda.
He sighed and walked away from the view.
Four men in fine suits and one woman in a business skirt hovered around several banquet tables. A half-dozen guards stood at the entrances to the Tower Room bearing assault rifles and dressed in black coveralls. No sign of any Witiko, officer or otherwise.
Witiko or no, so few people gathered in a room meant to hold so many did not sit well with the Governor. The emptiness of the chamber made him feel small.
A young courier hustled in. He wore a muddy uniform and sported bruises and cuts on his face and forearms.
"One of The Empire’s dreadnoughts is approaching. Spotters identify it as the Philippan. It’s out by San Bernardino. My commander sent a message to the airport."
Malloy knew the courier meant his commander had tried yet again to get the Witiko Cruisers at LAX to engage the approaching threat. The Governor also knew that with the regular air force destroyed, the Stingrays did not desire to engage the dreadnoughts head on, despite the advantages of their radar cloak. Apparently the mighty Witiko preferred the company of human jets as cannon fodder when flying into battle.
"I see," the Governor spoke. "What am I supposed to do?"