“Then help us,” Colin said, searching for the words that would touch the man. “Help us help you. We can work to liberate the entire Empire from their rule.”
“Perhaps you can,” Java said. “We’ll trade. You can take those who want to go and their families. In exchange, we want the remaining Blackshirts and their weapons.”
“We brought along weapons to transfer to you,” Hester said, quietly. “And as for the remaining Blackshirts… you can do what you like with them. We need their transports for your people.”
Colin nodded, keeping his face under careful control. The locals hadn’t waited for any permission to descend on the Blackshirts, who, trapped without orders from superior authority, had fought back savagely. Blood had run through the streets on Jackson’s Folly, yet without support from high orbit, they had been doomed. There were only a handful of survivors, for the bases that had been isolated from the civilian population had simply been picked off from orbit. Colin’s Marines had taken their transports with the intention of using them to add additional lift to take people off the planet.
“And I wish your rebellion luck,” Java added. “I do not feel that we should offer you any overt support. The reports on the planet will say that you kidnapped the workers and their families. I hope that you understand.”
“We do,” Hester said. “And if you want a place with us…”
“Maybe after my planet is free,” Java said, angrily. “I will not desert my post.”
Colin watched him leave, escorted back to the shuttle for transport back down to the surface. “Poor bastard,” he said, finally. “I wish we could do more for him.”
Hester smiled, creating a striking effect on her scarred face. “There is nothing we can do until the Empire is defeated,” she said. “His attitude is quite commendable.”
“Move along, calmly,” Neil ordered. “Don’t push or run; there are enough spaces for everyone.”
The line of refugees didn’t look calm, although they were at least resisting the temptation to run. The workers had known that their families were being held hostage for their good behaviour, yet they hadn’t known — or had chosen not to believe — just how badly their families were being treated. Neil had watched, through his armour, as husbands were reunited with wives and children, many of who were scarred or worse. Not all of the families had been happy to leave either. Some were scared of the Empire; others were scared of the unknown. The Blackshirts had told them, often enough, what the insurgents would do to them if they were captured. The fact that the insurgents were more likely to welcome the freed hostages than kill them seemed to have escaped their notice.
Or perhaps it was deliberate, Neil thought, trying to distract himself from the sight of a man and woman holding each other tightly, crying their eyes out. They hadn’t chosen to be separated; they’d missed each other dreadfully when they’d been apart. Their lives had been twisted and broken by the Empire… he looked away, towards a line of kids, and shuddered. The bastards who had casually hurt the children would suffer before they died. The Blackshirts didn’t understand the concept of restraint either.
Each of the Blackshirt transports carried nearly twenty thousand stasis tubes, each one capable of holding a grown adult or perhaps two children in suspension. They would be transported to the Beyond and decanted at one of the Geek-run facilities, once living quarters had been prepared for them. The other transports, the ones rounded up by the Freebooters League, had smaller compartments, but Neil was privately hopeful that they’d be able to lift out over two million workers and their families. It helped that the Blackshirts had done the hard work of rounding up most of their families and transporting them to orbit, saving time. Other families had declined the offer and scattered into the wilderness, hoping to remain undetected. Perhaps they’d make it if the rebellion succeeded, but if not… Neil felt a moment of pity. The Blackshirts would show no mercy if they caught up with the families.
He watched a pair of lovers walk into the compartment, share a final kiss and then climb into the tubes. A flickering curtain of blue light appeared, holding them suspended like flies in amber. They would be released — no time would have passed for them — when they reached their new home, where they would be welcomed and encouraged to work against the Empire. Some of the children were scared, despite everything their parents could say, and medical staff moved in with sedatives. They’d wake up after the transport had reached its destination.
“Quiet down,” he snapped towards a pair of men, who were pushing at others. One of them had been badly scarred by a neural whip, but that didn’t make it acceptable, not when there were women and children ahead of them. Neil knew that cold logic ordained that the trained workers had to go first, yet he’d chosen to ignore those imperatives and ensure that the children were suspended first. He doubted that Admiral Walker would object. “There is room enough for everyone.”
It took several hours to load up the transport, but Neil welcomed it, not least because it didn’t give him any time to brood. By the time the last of the refugees was loaded onboard, the Marines were tired, with their tempers beginning to fray. Neil sent some of them to their bunks, ordering them to get a good long rest before they went back on duty, yet he kept himself awake. There was just too much to do. He led the remaining Marines back onboard the shuttle and detached from the transport, leaving the prize crew to start the task of taking it into the Beyond. Neil was watching as it vanished in a flash of light, flickering away towards the first waypoint.
He yawned, despite himself, as another transport started to move over towards the orbital station. Some of the transports hadn’t come empty. Various rebel groups had been building armies and had insisted on deploying them to Jackson’s Folly, intent on having a go at the Empire’s finest. Neil had told them — as had Admiral Walker — that it was futile, but they had insisted. They’d wanted their own crack at the Empire and, eventually, the rebel leadership had given in.
Neil frowned as the shuttle docked with the new transport, allowing him to take command and supervise the loading. Could it be, he wondered, that Admiral Walker and his allies had decided that some of the rebel groups were expendable? There were certainly hundreds of groups that were effectively worthless, intent on throwing themselves into the Empire’s gaping maw. Had Admiral Walker decided to allow them to seek a glorious death, knowing that they would be killed? It would be unusually cynical for Admiral Walker, but Neil could easily see Hester Hyman or Daria considering such an action necessary.
And if the groups were willing — no, begging — to go face death…
He pushed the thought out of his mind as he strode into the transport. Time was ticking away and no one knew how long it would be before the Empire returned to Jackson’s Folly. They might well have less time than they thought.
Colin paced the command deck as the final set of transports completed loading up. He’d been surprised to discover — although perhaps he shouldn’t have been — that several native-built freighters had been hidden within the system, their drives and anything else that might attract attention powered down. They’d been rapidly reactivated and put to work, allowing him to transport out more people than he’d believed possible. Even so, time was ticking away…
They’d completed transferring supplies down to Jackson’s Folly hours ago, although that had been a fairly simple task. Colin had watched as Java and his various subordinates had taken delivery of the supplies, before fading back into the underground to prepare for the next invasion. If there was a next invasion… in Admiral Percival’s shoes, Colin would have refused to launch another invasion until he received reinforcements from the Empire. It was a shame that the rebels didn’t have any source close to Percival himself. Colin knew what Percival had to deploy against his forces, but what did he intend to do? Gauging intentions was an important part of intelligence work and Colin had no way of knowing what Percival was actually planning to do. Defeat the rebellion, obviously, before it got out of control… but how did he intend to do that?