General Branford lifted a pistol as the Marines burst into the office, but he wasn’t hopped up on battle drugs and Neil knocked it from his hand before he could do anything. The General looked… as if he didn’t want to surrender, yet didn’t want to go on fighting anyway. There was something cold and hard in his gaze, as if he thought he could get out of anything. Neil looked at him and felt sick. The ordinary Blackshirt was drugged, to the point where he could never be justly held accountable for his actions, but the General… the General had known all along what he was doing. When Neil had faced such a choice, he had refused; the General… had carried out his orders.
Neil reached out with one armoured hand, ignoring the General’s protests, and crushed his head like a grape. It felt as if he was cleansing the Empire, crushing all that was rotten and unwholesome within it… and it was personal. Branford had carried out the orders Neil had refused to obey.
“It’s over,” he said, with a sigh. Without their leader, the remaining Blackshirts would be unable to coordinate any resistance. The locals could deal with them, at least until reinforcements arrived from Camelot. By then, the rebels would have quit the system. “We’ve won.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“I wish I could say that this was rare,” Hester said, in her whispery voice. She had insisted on accompanying the fleet, despite Colin’s objections. “I wish I could say that Jackson’s Folly was the only world to suffer in such a manner.”
Colin nodded, hiding his own shame. He hadn’t understood until it had almost been too late. If Percival had given him the rewards and patronage he’d wanted, that he’d earned, he would never have allowed himself to see the festering corpse the Empire had become. His petulance — there was no other word to describe it — had opened his eyes to the truth, and yet… even then, he had never allowed himself to see the full horror of the Empire.
Jackson’s Folly had a population of six billion souls, scattered over the system; its daughter colonies, between them, had another ten billion. Under the Empire’s iron heel, at least a billion had died, either through the bombardment, the fighting, hostage executions, starvation or plain outright sadism. The Blackshirts had crushed resistance as harshly as they could, yet it had continued, flaring up whenever they thought that an area was pacified and the forces there could be moved elsewhere — at which point they discovered that the region was not pacified at all. They had prescribed horrible punishments, for everything from owning a weapon to giving Blackshirts dirty glances, but still the insurgency had continued. Perhaps they would have won in the end, with a commander willing to permit the most barbaric acts against the insurgents and those who sheltered them, yet most of the planet would be shattered. The industries that Stacy Roosevelt had wanted so desperately would be destroyed in the crossfire.
It added a certain kind of piquancy to Colin’s dilemma. If he destroyed the industries before he withdrew from the system, he would also destroy the only thing standing between Jackson’s Folly and a scorching. Yet, if he left the industries in place, they would be used against him and the other rebels. He had wrestled with the issue for several hours before deciding that he couldn’t countenance destroying the industries, not if the price was opening the way for a scorching. Jackson’s Folly had suffered enough.
“Yes,” he said, finally. “I understand.”
Hester gave him a sharp look, but said nothing… or perhaps she understood better than she cared to let on. Her own homeworld had been treated in a comparable fashion, after she had founded and led a rebellion against the occupying troops; God alone knew what had happened to most of her friends and family. She’d survived when so many others had died, spared by the whim of fate. No wonder she was feeling guilt. Looking down at Jackson’s Folly was like looking down into the past.
Colin looked up as the hatch opened, allowing a pale-faced man to stumble into the starship’s interior. Speaker Brenner Java was the last surviving member of Jackson’s Folly’s Government, the only one to evade the Blackshirts as they swept for political leaders and men who might breed dissent. Jackson’s Folly had hidden most of its leaders, but the Blackshirts were very good at extracting information from unwilling donors. Java had only survived because he’d been paranoid; legally, he was the First Speaker, at least until new elections could be held.
“Welcome aboard,” Colin said. Java stared at him, almost as if he didn’t quite believe that Colin was real. “We need to chat.”
Java’s eyes fixed on Hester. “You,” he said. “Why are you even here?”
Colin concealed a smile as he led the way into the conference room. He’d ordered some food for the fugitive Speaker and anyone he brought with him, although Java had insisted on coming alone. Colin guessed that he’d designated others to succeed him if he died, just to ensure some degree of continuity. The security scans had picked up some items of uncertain purpose on the man’s body, suggesting that he had also come prepared to kill himself if necessary.
“We came to win you some time to regroup,” Hester said, as they took their seats. “The Blackshirts can be removed from your world, but they will be back…”
“God damn you,” Java burst out. Colin reached for the weapon he wore on his belt before realising that Java was confining his outburst to shouting. “Do you know what they will do to us when they come back?”
“They won’t scorch your world,” Hester said, calmly. Colin nodded, but said nothing. He understood Java’s point of view. They couldn’t build a flicker drive powerful enough to move the entire planet away from the Empire. “We decided to attempt to win you time to regroup.”
Java glared at her, but nodded reluctantly. “Very well,” he said, sharply. “What do you want?”
“The Empire intends to make use of your trained manpower,” Hester said. “We want to take them out of reach, into the Beyond, along with their families. I think that that will make it easier for us, in the long run, to defeat the Empire.”
Colin listened as Hester outlined the Popular Front and what they hoped to achieve. He wasn’t too surprised to learn that Java hadn’t heard of the Popular Front. Jackson’s Folly wasn’t part of the ICN and wouldn’t be until it was properly subdued, which would take years at this rate. Java sounded interested, but he was also unwilling to commit himself or his world. Colin couldn’t blame him. The Empire would be furious when it learned about the rebellion and any world with known coordinates that could be blamed for the crisis would be scorched. Even Jackson’s Folly’s immunity wouldn’t last forever.
“I see,” Java said, finally. “And you cannot uplift the entire population?”
“I’m afraid not,” Colin said. Earth, with its orbital towers and rulers determined to exile as much of the population as possible, was still a teeming mass of humanity. Even the entire Imperial Navy would have been unable to transport billions of humans from one star system to another. Evacuating an entire planet was well beyond the capabilities of the Popular Front. “We can take those who can help us liberate the Empire and, eventually, free your world.”
Java turned his gaze on Colin. Despite himself, Colin almost flinched, realising that that man had seen terrible things. Like Hester, he had been permanently scarred by his experiences, even if the scars were invisible. Colin felt a flash of guilt. Even during the exile Percival had forced on him, he had lived comfortably, if not well.
“I do not believe that that is possible,” Java said, finally. “We fight on because there is nothing to live for, no hope of freedom or even life under the Empire.”