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It had been a risk, Sarah Wilde considered, to set up her headquarters - and the core of a new government - in a mansion that had once belonged to the island’s largest landowner. Certainly, she’d had second thoughts when the idea had been proposed to her. The original owner might be dead - he’d been lynched by his own workers, when the uprising had begun - but she had no doubt his heirs knew everything about the building, from the location of the bed and conference rooms to the underground tunnels leading to the outbuildings where the owner had kept his mistresses. It simply didn’t feel secure. Sarah would have preferred to direct operations from a base camp deep within the jungle, or perhaps an anonymous building somewhere within a city, but it was vitally important for the provisional government to take the reins of power. Or so she’d been told.
She scowled as she studied the paperwork in front of her. She’d never dared write more than the bare minimum down, when she’d been just another rebel leader, and even after she’d been elected overall commander she had been reluctant to use anything from paper records to electronic files. There was just too great a chance of the government’s troops overwhelming a camp before the records could be destroyed, handing them an intelligence windfall that might lead to dozens of spies, deep-cover agents and waverers who were hedging their bets by backing both sides. And yet, the provisional government needed good records in order to function. The ones they’d captured during the uprising were practically worthless.
Except as toilet paper, she reflected sourly. And propaganda.
It was hard not to feel a twinge of annoyance. The rebels had long suspected the government had done everything from debt manipulation to outright falsification of records in a bid to keep the planet under control. Hell, they hadn’t really hidden what they’d been doing. But the rot had clearly been far deeper than anyone, save the most paranoid, had ever suspected. She understood, now, why the planet was both rich and desperately poor. And why so many landowners had cheated on their taxes.
Which might be more useful if the aristos hadn’t brought the townies into government, Sarah reflected. The townies had never been that fond of the government, but - unlike most of the rebels - they’d had something to lose. They’d done their level best to stay on the sidelines as much as possible, although the more far-sighted had realised the balancing act was unlikely to endure indefinitely. There’s little to gain by exposing wide-ranging tax fraud now.
She put the thought out of her head and raised her gaze, meeting Colonel Bryce Ambrose’s eyes. He’d had a checkered career, and Sarah was all too aware he wasn’t entirely trustworthy, but there were few rebels with any proper military experience. They knew how to wage a guerrilla war, how to choose their targets carefully and hit them hard, then withdraw before the enemy managed to muster a counterattack. They didn’t know how to organise men to stand and fight, how to turn a rag-tag force into a tough and professional military that could take and hold ground. She’d read the books and manuals, as had most of her local commanders, but turning the words into reality was beyond her. Ambrose was the only person at her disposal who could do anything about it, at least before all hell broke loose. It was just a matter of time.
“Colonel,” she said. It hadn’t been easy to give anyone a rank, when they’d worked hard to ensure everyone was treated as an equal. The commanders had never enjoyed total authority over their cells, to the point that anyone who tried to boss his men around was likely to be fragged the moment he turned his back. “How’s it going?”
“Better than I hoped,” Ambrose said. They’d become close, at least partly because their fates were bound together, but he was professional while they were on duty. “There’s still a lot of resistance, from people who think they learnt everything there is to know before the war turned hot, but we’re making good progress by combining old and new tactics. We should be able to launch the invasion of Kingston soon.”
Sarah nodded, curtly. She’d gambled on overwhelming the government before it could muster a response, when the insurgency had turned into open warfare, but the bastards had been lucky. They’d managed to clear most of the insurgents out of their capital city, then launch a thrust at Kingsport that had threatened to break her grip on the port before she could bring in more troops and equipment to continue the offensive. Sarah hadn’t been wedded to the plan - she’d been honest enough to admit it had failed and signal the retreat before it became impossible - but it was still frustrating. The government had been gravely weakened, to the point the rebels had secured the rest of their targets without serious fighting, yet the war was far from over. Neither side could afford to let the stalemate continue indefinitely and that meant ...
She glanced at the map, gritting her teeth. It had grown harder to stay in touch with her spies on the government-held islands - their navy had become adept at intercepting and searching fishing boats heading into deep waters, where they could slip messages to their contacts - but the government hadn’t been able to hide their makeshift fleet. It had slipped out of Kingsport and gone ... gone where? The mere fact she’d lost track of it was worrying, although she had little doubt the fleet would be spotted if it approached the core islands. The government had told everyone it was a training exercise, but she didn’t believe it. They’d pulled that trick before. Besides, they’d put far too much effort into the deployment for it to be anything so minor.
Ambrose tapped the map. “We’ve got the crews training on the boats now,” he added. “We may not have as much modern tech as we might like, but we’ll give them a very hard time when they come for us. They can’t take many defeats.”
Sarah wasn’t so sure. There weren’t that many aristos, but the government had been recruiting amongst the townies. Whoever had come up with that idea - and she suspected General Roland Windsor, on the grounds the aristos weren’t that imaginative - had done well. She was sure the government wouldn’t keep its promises - she had a feeling many of the townies feared the same - but it was unlikely to matter. The strange alliance wouldn’t collapse until the government won the war, or - at the very least - drove the rebels back into the shadows.
“We shall see,” she said, finally.
She looked at the wooden table, remembering how easy life had been when she’d been just a local commander. Then, all that mattered was keeping her group intact while finding ways to strike at the enemy. Now, she was in charge of the entire war effort. She had to train her troops, many of whom had only signed up after the uprising had overwhelmed the island, while arranging for supplies of everything from food and vehicles to weapons and armoured vehicles. The islands had more industrial capacity than she’d realised - she’d been amused to discover one of the factories concealed a galactic-level fabber, a device on the import blacklist - but setting priorities and finding war materiel was incredibly difficult. It didn’t help they couldn’t rely on imports from distant allies. She had a nasty feeling they’d come with a price tag attached, now that the rebels had become a provisional government.
And those bills will come due, when we occupy Kingston, she thought. We may have to pay through the nose for what little they send us.
She stood, brushing down her pants as she looked around the chamber. The room had once been a garden of sybaritic delights, the walls covered in paintings that had been so erotic they’d shocked even her. She’d grown up on Earth, where - in the planet’s final years - all taboos had been thrown aside, but the original owner had crossed so many lines she couldn’t understand how his fellows had tolerated him. Even aristos had some standards. She’d had the paintings torn out and burnt, the gold and silver artwork melted down to pay her troops and everything else stripped out and replaced with cruder furniture, but the office still felt unwelcoming. She supposed that was a good thing. If she stayed in such a room indefinitely, what would it do to her? Would she become used to luxury? Would she allow it to corrupt her? Or simply turn her into a lazy brat?
The thought nagged at her as she walked to the window and peered over the square below. A handful of bodies hung from makeshift gallows, twisting slowly in the wind. Sarah grimaced. Two of the men had been aristos, who’d been hiding out in the jungle until they’d made a bid to steal a boat and flee; the others were looters, men and women she’d had to order executed to set an example. She regretted their deaths, if only because she understood why they’d turned to crime. Food wasn’t precisely in short supply, thanks to the algae-farms they’d captured, but the best of the grub was reserved for fighting units. She would have preferred to send the thieves to a work gang, where they could slave beside the former aristos who hadn’t been killed during the uprising, but too many people had wanted them dead. The mob needed to be placated. God knew the uprising, with all the pent-up savagery that had been unleashed on the island, hadn’t been enough to satisfy the mob’s demand for bloody revenge. How could it?
Her eyes wandered over the nearby streets. They were bustling with life, from newspaper sellers advertising their wares to merchants inviting passers-by to come into their shops. The old rules and regulations were gone, allowing anyone who wanted to open a shop to do it without splashing out thousands of credits in bribes, then paying more in punitive taxes. The people below knew the war was far from over, that there was more struggle to come, yet ... they were doing their best to enjoy the freedom and safety while it lasted. Her lips quirked into a smile as she saw a line of teenage girls walking past the square, assault rifles slung over their shoulders. A year ago, owning weapons without special permits had been utterly illegal. Now, everyone was armed and the streets had never been safer.
And if we’d been allowed to own pistols on Earth, she reflected, would the megacities have been safer for women?
There was a sharp knock at the door. Her hand dropped to her pistol as she turned, bracing herself. The mansion was heavily guarded, but she was uneasily aware an intruder might manage to get through the defences, either by tricking the guards or simply sneaking through a tunnel they didn’t know existed. Sarah knew, without false modesty, that she was far from irreplaceable, but it would be difficult for the rebel leadership to appoint someone to take her place. Her origins had made it easier, perversely, for them to accept her as their warlord and provisional president. Her successor might not have that advantage.
“Come,” she said.
The door opened. A young woman poked her head into the room, her eyes nervous. “Ah ...”
Bad news, Sarah thought. She’d done her best to convince her expanded staff that she wasn’t in the habit of killing the messenger, unlike some of the aristos, but only a handful actually believed her. Too many of the newcomers had clerked for aristocrats who’d had a habit of using their fists to express their displeasure. Whatever she wants to say, it isn’t good.
She made a show of relaxing, keeping her hand away from her pistol. “Spit it out,” she ordered, as gently as possible. “What’s happened?”
The young woman looked as if she expected to be struck at any moment. “Ah ... we just picked up a radio message from Mountebank,” she said, cringing. “The island is under heavy attack. They think they are about to be invaded.”
Sarah turned to look at the map, pinned to the wall. “Details?”
“Very little,” the young woman said. “I ... ah ... the message cut off abruptly.”
“I see.” Sarah wasn’t too surprised. The planet’s atmosphere played merry hell with radio signals. The government didn’t really need to jam transmissions or bomb transmitters to keep word from spreading - effectively instantly - from island to island, although she was sure they would do it anyway. Their off-world commander wouldn’t miss that trick. “Go back to your station, order them to keep listening for updates. If there are any, bring them to me.”
The woman bowed low, then retreated as quickly as she could without openly running. Sarah scowled as the door closed. She couldn’t blame someone for doing whatever she had to do to survive - she felt sick, sometimes, when she thought of the things she’d had to do - but the woman’s former master was gone. Dead, perhaps, or simply fled. His servant could afford to be more of a free woman now, couldn’t she? But it wasn’t so easy to get rid of habits that had made the difference between life and death. Sarah wondered, perversely, if her descendants would think of her as a weakling, for getting on her knees - literally - when confronted by superior force. If everything went as planned, her offspring would know freedom. The ever-present fear that had governed her early years as an involuntary colonist would be alien to them.
“That’s an odd target,” Ambrose mused, studying the map. “They can take the island, perhaps, but it won’t get them any closer to us.”
Sarah was inclined to agree. Mountebank had never been considered particularly important. The island was too far from the core islands for her to risk improving its defences, for fear the government would simply bypass the island and leave the garrison to wither on the vine. She was tempted to wonder if the invasion was nothing more than a raid, perhaps an operation intended to test the government’s forces while giving them the chance to withdraw if the defenders proved too stubborn to be easily overcome. The government’s expanded forces were as green as her own, although she knew they had a solid core of military veterans to stiffen their spine. They might see value in a probing attack they could convert into a full-scale invasion if victory seemed assured.
“We can’t get anyone out there to help,” Ambrose commented, grimly. “The gunboats would be operating without support, right at the edge of their range.”
“Yeah.” Sarah let out a breath. There was nothing she could do. The defenders had to win or lose on their own. She suspected there’d be a result quickly. Mountebank wasn’t a big island, not compared to Baraka, Rolleston or Winchester. “If they convert the island into a base, how much does it hurt us?”
“Very little, unless they’ve built long-range aircraft,” Ambrose assured her. “They’d be too isolated to have any real effect on the rest of the war.”
Sarah hoped he was right. Ambrose had had only a few months of military life when the balloon had gone up, more than she did or many others, but far less than their opponent. He was, at best, a gifted amateur. General Windsor was young, or at least he looked young, but he’d spent years in the military. And he lacked the short-sightedness of the aristocrats who’d tried to lead the militia into battle. He was a dangerous - and sometimes reckless - foe. She dared not assume the invasion wouldn’t weaken her position ...
The mere fact they pulled it off, if they win the engagement, will do wonders for their morale, she thought, crossly. And our morale will go down at the same time.
“They’ll have to fight as long as they can,” she said. There was no point in trying to direct operations personally. Even if it had been possible, from such a distance, it would have been worse than useless. The local commander would hardly surrender his authority to someone he barely knew, nor would his troops follow orders from the radio. “And then slip back into the jungle.”
“Unless there’s an opportunity to counterattack,” Ambrose said. “They might have a chance.”
Sarah let her eyes wander over the map, before shaking her head and stepping back. It might be hours, or days, before she knew what was happening ... no, what had happened. By the time she found out, it would be too late to issue any meaningful orders. The local commander did have standing orders, but ... who knew how seriously he’d take them? He might decline to fall back, if confronted by superior force, or ... she bit her lip. The insurgency had suffered defeats in the past, but none of them had been fatal. Now they were out in the open, a defeat might be far more significant.
“Contact the boats,” she said. “We need to expand our warning network. If they get a fleet close to the core without being detected ...”
“It’s unlikely,” Ambrose assured her. “They probably took a very evasive course to Mountebank, letting them get close without being spotted. Here ... there are a lot more inhabited islands and shipping between them and us.”
“Better to be careful.” Sarah knew he was right, at least on paper, but she hadn’t survived so long without taking basic precautions. “If they force a landing here, we may have trouble driving them back into the sea.”