A man Santana had fi?rst seen back on Algeron, when General Booly and the others showed him the video of POWs being marched through the jungle, including shots of Christine Vanderveen. And more recently he had learned even more about the man named Tragg from media specialist Watkins, including the nature of their private feud.
The cyborg would be overjoyed to learn that his nemesis was still present on the planet—but the company commander had other concerns. Why were the prisoners being mustered he wondered? And more than that, who was the person sitting behind Tragg, in the gazebo-like structure?
The binos were powerful, but the target was a long ways off, and no amount of fi?ddling with the zoom control was suffi?cient to bring the fuzzy image into focus. That was the moment when Tragg pulled a pistol and shot one of the POWs in the face.
Vanderveen had just fi?nished her breakfast, and was about to leave the gazebo, when Tragg returned from the HQ
building. The overseer was limping, and judging from his expression, extremely angry. “Stay here,” he ordered curtly. “We’re going to have some fun when this is all over. Or, at least, I’m going to have some fun. You’ll be sorry you were ever born.” And with that he was gone. The threat was frightening enough, but when all of the POWs were ordered to assemble at the center of the compound, the diplomat knew something bad was about to happen. What she didn’t anticipate was just how bad it would be. That became clear once the prisoners were assembled and Tragg stood in front of them. The everpresent monitors amplifi?ed his voice and produced a slight echo. There were no preliminaries. Just a straightforward demand that left no doubt as to how much the overseer knew. “One of you is President Marcott Nankool. . . . You will step forward now.”
After months of confi?nement, the POWs were far too sophisticated to respond to a statement like that one. But they stiffened, as if waiting to receive a blow, and it came as Tragg shot Corporal Karol Gormley in the face. The right side of her skull exploded outwards, showering those beyond with blood and brain matter as her rail-thin body collapsed.
“Marcott Nankool is male,” Tragg emphasized, as he tilted the gun upwards and a wisp of smoke trickled out of the barrel. “That means I can shoot every single female present without any fear of making a mistake. So, I’ll say it again. One of you is President Marcott Nankool. You will step forward now.”
There was a pause, followed by a mutual gasp of consternation, as a heavily bearded man took one step forward. “My name is Marcott Nankool,” he said in a loud clear voice. “Please holster your weapon.”
FORT CAMERONE, PLANET ALGERON,
THE CONFEDERACY OF SENTIENT BEINGS
In spite of his hard-won reputation for fi?stfi?ghting, and his undeniable strength, Quickblow Hammerhand was afraid of the dark. And the ex-legionnaire wasn’t all that fond of enclosed spaces, either. Which was why the trip from Naa Town into Fort Camerone required every bit of the courage and self-discipline the warrior possessed. The journey had begun in the local funeral home, where Hammerhand and three other volunteers had been required to lower themselves into MilSpec coffi?ns that had been preloaded with weapons and ammunition. “I always fi?gured I’d wind up in one of these,” Fastspeak Storytell said cheerfully. “But I assumed I’d be dead!”
The comment was worthy of a chuckle and got one from the other veterans, but something blocked Hammerhand’s throat as one of the undertaker’s sons closed the coffi?n’s metal lid and began to fasten the latches. The ex-legionnaire wanted to scream but wasn’t about to reveal the weakness he had worked so hard to conceal for more than forty years, and thereby run the risk that they would leave him behind. A fate even worse than dying inside a pitch-black coffi?n. So the Naa bit his upper lip and focused on the pain.
Hammerhand could hear the sound of muffl?ed conversation as the supposedly empty coffi?ns were loaded onto a wagon—followed by a period of extended silence as a hardworking dooth pulled the heavily loaded conveyance up toward the fort. That delay was bad enough. But, unfortunately for Hammerhand and his companions, other vendors were already lined up in front of the open gate. The result was a long, and for Hammerhand torturous, wait.
Eventually, after what seemed like a week, the wagon drew level with the guard station. Although many of what Vice President Jakov and his staff considered to be critical security functions were presently being handled by marines, the fort was still being run by the Legion. A necessity given the fact that they outnumbered the jarheads a hundred to one. So the Sergeant of the Guard knew the undertaker’s number two son, and having seen him at least a couple of times a week for many months, nodded politely. “Good morning, Citizen Bodytake. What have you got for us?”
“Four coffi?ns,” the Naa replied, as his breath fogged the air. “And a horrendous hangover.”
The sergeant knew a thing or two about hangovers and smiled sympathetically. “I know what you mean. . . . If you would be so kind as to eyeball the scanner, and place your thumb on the sensor pad, we’ll process you in.”
Bodytake removed a glove, thumbed the pole-mounted pad, and knew that his retinas were being scanned as he did so. It took less than a second for the fort’s computer to compare the incoming biometric data to the undertaker’s fi?le and approve it. “All right,” the sergeant said, as he waved the wagon through. “As for the hangover . . . Drop a pain tab into a cup of hot caf, add a half teaspoon of gunpowder, and chase it with a beer. It works for me!”
Bodytake thanked the legionnaire for the advice and held his breath as the wagon rattled through an ice-encrusted framework. The purpose of the device was to detect common explosives, radioactive materials, and large quantities of metal. And that raised an important question. Would the small arms stored in the coffi?ns trigger the detector? But no alarms went off as the wagon rolled through, so the undertaker felt free to take a deep breath as he neared the gate. Meanwhile, less than two feet away, Hammerhand was at war with himself. He uttered a whimper as the wagon began to move—and took comfort from the gun in his hand. Though never a pleasant place to be, the pit had gradually been transformed from a reasonably well-run military detention facility into a badly crowded prison where murderers, thieves, and deserters rubbed shoulders with noncoms, offi?cers, and government offi?cials who had been arrested on trumped-up charges and jailed so that Vice President Jakov and his toadies could consolidate their power without fear of opposition. That meant the political prisoners were vulnerable to all sorts of predation, or would have been, except for the presence of Legion General Bill Booly. Because, contrary to what seemed like common sense, the vast majority of the criminals interred in the pit were still willing to take orders. So long as the orders came from someone they respected.
Realizing that, Booly and the other offi?cers who had been arrested for purely political reasons quickly went to work reorganizing the prisoners into squads, platoons, and companies, and thereby restored them to a system of discipline they were familiar with. And most of the legionnaires not only welcomed the newly imposed sense of order but the feeling of purpose that accompanied it, because even the least sophisticated prisoners could see that the vice president was abusing his power. There were exceptions, of course. Psychopaths and the like, who were soon confi?ned to a prison-within-a-prison, where the other convicts kept them under lock and key. The new warden didn’t approve of the arrangement—but was powerless to stop without triggering a full-scale riot. So as the days passed, the prisoners were systematically reintegrated into the Legion as the marines looked on. Which was a step in the right direction but brought Booly very little peace because he knew that with each passing day, Jakov’s grip on the bureaucracy, and therefore the government, grew tighter and tighter. And with the vote to confi?rm him being held in a couple of weeks—rumor had it that many senators were ready to accept what they saw as inevitable.