Picking Up the Pieces

Chapter Fifteen

From the air, Pitea looked like any other city on a Colony world, if larger than New Copenhagen. It was Svergie’s largest city and actually the second to be settled, although I doubted that the planners had the vast bands of slums and inadequate housing in mind when they’d created their plans. The UN’s shipments of refugees had spoiled the plan merely by existing; the planet’s economy couldn’t handle them, yet it couldn’t get rid of them. In their place, I’d have told them to work or starve, but successive UN administrations had preferred to squeeze the farmers to feed them, rather than admit that their plans needed changing.

I studied the city carefully through the cold metal eyes of the William Tell. The Fleet starship’s orbit kept it over the main continent on the planet and we had access to the take, although perhaps not with the knowledge of the vessel’s Captain. The images were depressingly clear, yet even they had limits; the Communists could be doing anything at all under cover and we wouldn’t know anything about it until we had boots on the ground. The flow of refugees leaving the city suggested that Communist rule was Not Popular, but it was quite possible that much of the Communist leadership had already escaped, although I didn’t know where they intended to go to hide. After they’d nearly killed the President and had killed half the Council, the entire planet was up in arms against them. They would probably end up being shot on sight.

“The best intelligence can suggest is that there are still upwards of six million people in there,” Ed said, grimly. I winced at the thought of so many people caught in the midst of a battle. They couldn’t all be committed Communists, could they? “We’ve established detention camps for people leaving the city, but there just aren’t enough soldiers to keep a full encirclement. There could be hundreds of people slipping past us.”

I nodded. Pitea had seven heavy roads leading out of the city, towards the other cities, and we’d blocked them as soon as we’d moved light infantry units into the area, but there was little stopping people from walking out cross-country. Everyone who had relatives in the countryside, or good reason to know that the Communists wanted them dead, would be trying to escape the nightmare that had gripped their city. They’d be a plague of locusts ravaging the land, yet even if we held them all in detention camps, we couldn’t feed them all. UN MRE packs were little more than cruel and unusual punishment.

“We’ve also been skirmishing with their patrols around the edge of the city,” Ed added. “We’ve killed several dozen fighters with snipers, but they’ve got their own snipers and a couple of my men got killed. I think they don’t want to come out of the city — I have teams in position to block any attempt to leave in force — but digging them out is going to be a bitch.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking down at the map. Pitea was a confusing mixture of massive factory areas, slums and buildings that had once been warehouses, but had been converted into living space for the immigrants. Fighting our way through it would be a nightmare. “Any sign of heavy weapons?”

“Nothing that we can confirm,” Ed said. “They’ve probably got mortars at the very least, but if they have anything heavier… well, we’ve been unable to catch a glimpse of it. Jock’s somewhere in the city, but I haven’t heard anything from him.”

“He’ll be fine,” I said, with a confidence I didn’t feel. Terrorist organisations tended to be very good at filtering the trustworthy out from the untrustworthy — terrorist groups that weren’t rarely lasted very long — and if they knew who should be there, they’d probably realise that Jock wasn’t one of them. The Specials were good at blending into their surroundings, and chaos was an excellent operating zone for them, but if Jock was located… he’d have to break contact and escape. “We’ll hear from him when he’s ready to hear from us.”

“Doubtless,” Ed agreed, probably with as much confidence as I felt myself. “What about the President… ah, the Acting President?”

“She’s decided to allow us to spend time preparing before we move into the city,” I said. It had taking a long argument to convince Frida that getting the army I’d built chewed to ribbons would be counterproductive. She’d wanted to move in at once and crush the Communists as quickly as possible, but I’d wanted to prepare first. I needed time to ensure that we reoccupied the city with as little damage to the infrastructure as possible. The Communists had already damaged enough infrastructure to force us to spend years rebuilding. “And the ships?”

I hadn’t understood why they’d built Pitea where it was until I’d seen a map. North of Pitea, across the waters, was the Blue Island Chain, a set of small islands that housed a fairly affluent community. There was actually a surprising amount of sea travel on the planet and much of the carrying trade was done by boat; unsurprising, really, when all of the major cities were on the coast. The UN had actually tried to boost shipping by boat because of some halfwit theories about it being better for the environment… and, for once, the natives had agreed with them. Pitea was pretty much the shipping capital of the planet.

“We used the helicopters to move men onto the boats and bring them into safe harbour,” Ed confirmed. “They’re not going to be a problem, although several of them wanted to fight rather than be returned to Pitea. It looks as if most of the pleasure ships and some of the industrial ships managed to get away before the communists could stop them, or place their own men onboard. We called for volunteers to man the ships and moved the remainder of the original crews to the detention camps. That’s not going to be a permanent solution, sir; we’re already running short of food.”

“I know,” I said, rubbing the back of my head. It was a gesture I’d picked up in the UNPF and somehow never lost. “How many people do we have in the camps so far?”

“Several hundred thousand,” Ed said. I swore. That was worse than I’d expected, yet everyone in the camps was someone who wouldn’t be in the way when we finally went into the city, someone who wouldn’t be killed in the crossfire. “We’ve got a few thousand in secure detention — the violent or the known Communists — and the remainder are in looser camps. Still, feeding them…”

”I’m having MRE packs sent over,” I said. It would do nothing for the current government in the polls, but I was past caring. “Once the local government gets its act together, we can probably start releasing most of them to their families, if they have families outside the city.”

I didn’t mention the other concern. There had been no attempt to keep track of who belonged to a political party, or even which political party, but we did have a list of known hardcore Communist leaders who had to be arrested and removed from play. I didn’t want to let them go, yet I didn’t want to hand them over to the locals until we had sucked every last piece of information from them. They would know who else needed to be arrested and eventually shot, yet interrogating them was going to be a pain. The Communist Party was now officially banned… and the hardcore had nothing left to lose. They knew that they’d probably end up being hung from a tree until they were very unhappy.

“The sooner the better,” Ed said. He paused. “There’s been no sign of Muna, but we interrogated a few policemen who fled — the remainder were apparently being purged by the Communists — and they’ve confirmed that the factories were among the first seized. She’s either a prisoner or dead.”

“Yes,” I said. I changed the subject with an effort of will. “I need to inspect the defences. Show me what you’ve done.”

The air near Pitea smelt of burning fuel and the by-products of industry. I was surprised to smell it when the UN had ruled — almost uncontested — for years, and then I remembered Earth and understood. Some bureaucrats had probably taken a few huge bribes and granted exceptions to the harsh laws against polluting the environment, forcing the UN’s publicity machine to come up with new lies and shit to shovel down the throats of the workers. Probably something about how the Colonies had to help Mother Earth by suffering and therefore tilting the cosmic balance, or some other nonsense like that. It was amazing what the UN could convince people to do with a little effort and a lot of lies.

“This used to be a small town,” Ed explained. “We evacuated the population and took over. It was intended to be a storage place outside the city, I think, but somehow it never took off.”

I nodded. The town was crawling with soldiers wearing our uniforms and the ones we’d designed for the Svergie Army. We’d managed to spend a week moving tanks and armoured vehicles into position, along with vehicles that protected their crew from mines, IEDs and other unpleasant surprises. I saw Sergeants — some of ours, some newly promoted from the Svergie recruits — chivvying the soldiers along, reminding them of what the Communists had done to their President and thousands of people. I winced inwardly. The last thing I wanted was a massacre caused by outraged soldiers, yet we had to remind them of what had happened, just to remind them of what they were fighting for. A world free of Communism looked mighty good just now.

“This is Captain Hellqvist,” Ed said, introducing a man wearing a new insignia. It was always easy to tell someone who had just been promoted from someone who had been serving in the rank for a few months or years; they always looked just a trifle uneasy. “The Acting President promoted him personally and insisted that we gave him a platoon.”

I saluted. Now I remembered him; Jörgen Hellqvist had been at the siege of the stadium and had served well during the defence. I should have been consulted about any promotions to Captain’s rank and above, but I couldn’t fault the decision. He was young and unformed and had barely been in the army for more than five months, but the same was true of all of them. How could we refuse to promote natives? It would have ensured resentment and hatred among the lower ranks, yet… someone ill-prepared for the role would get people killed, or worse.

He returned my salute, almost perfectly. “Congratulations on your promotion,” I said, as I lowered my hand. “What do you think of the position?”

Jörgen was clearly smart enough to recognise a test question when he heard one. “If they try to break out, we’ll chew them up and shit out the remains,” he said, finally. “If we have to break in… it’s going to be a stone cold bitch.”

“Definitely,” I said, spotting Sergeant Rory behind Jörgen, keeping a paternal eye on him. If the new Captain was smart, he’d listen to the experienced enlisted man and seek his advice on all matters. Sergeant Rory had been taking young Lieutenants and turning them into Captains for longer than I’d been alive. “Keep drilling your platoon on urban combat, Captain; I have a feeling that we’re going to need it.”

I spent the next hour inspecting the ring of steel we’d created around the city. We’d held most of our forces back to keep them out of artillery range — if the Communists had such weapons, which was in doubt — and were carefully preparing our forces for the advance to the city. The recon patrols were confident and clearly had high morale; one of them bragged that they’d slipped right up to the city and even entered part of it, without being detected. Others claimed to have sneaked up on their counterparts and cut their throats before vanishing again into the shadows.

“They’re not good sneaks, sir,” one particularly pleased Lieutenant reported. “They keep blundering around in the countryside and I’d bet they’re not much better in the city. A few units of countrymen would cause us far more problems…”

“One moment,” Ed said, keying his earpiece and listening to the message. “Forward patrols have just picked up a man from the city carrying a white flag. He claims to be a Communist Leader and wants to speak to someone in charge.”

Shoot him at once, I thought, but pushed it aside. If we killed everyone who tried to talk to us, our opponents would only fight to the death. “I’ll talk to him,” I said, and pushed down Ed’s objections. “I’ll take an armoured car and meet him in the space between the two sides.”

The Communist stood on the road, waiting patiently for me. I was surprised to discover that I recognised him; Councillor — ex-Councillor — Daniel Singh. His family history had been more complex than most of the other prominent Councillors; he’d been the child of a mixed marriage that had fallen apart, a year after he’d been born. He’d drifted into Communism because racism was anthemia to the Communists — in the same sense that it was anthemia to the UN, but also useful for divide and conquer — and ended up their first Councillor. He’d also lost his seat to the Progressive Party and had taken it badly. Up close, he was a light brown man, with eyes that were cold and hard. He looked like someone who was prepared to fight and die.

“Captain-General,” he said, when I stood close enough for a friendly conversation. “You are surrounding territory belonging to the People’s Republic of Pitea, an extremely unfriendly act.”

I had to admire his chutzpah, if nothing else. “Blow it out your ass,” I said, rudely. “You took the city from the elected government and are currently holding it down by force. Dare I hope that you’ve come to negotiate a surrender?”

“When we spoke before, you were the leader of a group of mercenary army trainers,” Singh said, as if my words hadn’t affected him at all. “Now you’re the General of the entire planet. How your positions have grown.”

“They have,” I agreed, tightly. He was trying to get under my skin and succeeding. “You’re not a military man, Singh, but even you must agree that your position is hopeless. We’ll take the city back even if…”

“You have to destroy it to save it?” Singh asked, amused. “You certainly didn’t leave much of the Industrial Complex standing in New Copenhagen, did you?”

“I didn’t turn it into an armed fortress and kill half the planet’s government,” I said, angrily. “If you’re going to try and convince me that you’re only acting this way because we made you act this way… save it. The age-old cry of the terrorist; look what you made us do! You’re not going to get out of this alive if we have to retake the city by force.”

“We’re not going to get out of this alive anyway,” Singh pointed out. “Darling Frida will want to kill us all, just to ensure that her own connections with us are buried beneath our dead bodies. Would it surprise you to know that she was once a Communist in good standing?” I shrugged. “Or do you care, seeing that you are just a mercenary with no sense of what you’re fighting for?”

“Not really, no,” I said, ignoring his insults. Removing him and the rest of his gang suited both sets of orders. “Are you going to offer me a bribe?”

He smiled. “Bring your force over to our side and I’ll pay you twice what Frida and her government are paying you.”

I laughed, loudly enough for him to know that he was being mocked. “If I accepted that bargain, and I don’t believe that you could or would keep it, no one would ever hire us again,” I said. “There’s a whole string of mercenary companies out there and all of them would gleefully point out that the Legion of the Dispossessed had turned on their backers when a better offer came along. Fleet would probably forbid us from moving around if they viewed us as bearers of chaos… what can you offer us to make it worthwhile?”

He looked as if I’d struck him. “You could come work with us…”

My laugh grew louder. “Communism has never worked,” I said. I’d studied history enough to know that to be true. “The best you could create is a prison camp for your planet; the worst would be another civil war. Even if you became the government of the planet, you couldn’t make communism work — it simply doesn’t work.”

“There are communist planets out there,” he protested. “They work.”

“They were all created by committed believers,” I pointed out, in response. “And even they didn’t remain stable when their children learned about different worlds, did they? Some will probably go capitalist soon enough; others, the worst ones, will probably have a civil war. You have to force communism on people who don’t want it. You’ll be lucky if you last a year.”

His gaze darkened. “We have some of your people prisoner,” he snapped, forgetting his manners. “If you attack us, they will be killed.”

I felt a knife stabbing into my heart, but pushed it down angrily. “Anyone who joins the Legion knows the score,” I said. “If they die on active service, they die on active service… and we will hunt their killers to the ends of the universe.”

I watched as he stumbled away. If they weren’t going to give up…

We’d have to attack.