"The limitation of tyrants is the endurance of those they oppose."
—Frederick Douglass
Joren Lang was furious. Bad enough to have an assignment like this, but the UN Senate was unsympathetic and totally useless. He wanted to tell them what to do with their "advice" from "committee."
"Create, implement and initiate procedures and policies designed to provide basic governmental infrastructure for the Grainne Colony," his orders read. He made a list.
There was nothing to work from. He'd have to start with a census.
He couldn't do a census while people shot at his forces.
The locals showed no desire to assist him. They cheerfully shot at anyone from the UN, in or out of uniform. They even shot at contractors, civil service employees and other technical noncombatants. Of course, proving those attacks were deliberate for a war crimes tribunal would be almost impossible.
There were no records for income, no medical records, no safety standards, no central air traffic control, no standards on anything. No basic safety standards on toys. No public medical records, driving records, consumer standards. Nothing. Well, military records, seized. Many of those were scrambled and most of the military were dead. No help there.
There were no records on weapons. When he'd insisted that the ownership rate was well above the five percent estimated by the committee and that most of the weapons were not simple sidearms, he had been rudely ordered back to his task.
He couldn't even find building plans or property records for most areas.
There were no bureaus to run any of this. The assumption had been that he'd take over with force if necessary and that the workers would assist him because it was in their best interests. There were no workers and no one with any training insystem. He'd have to import clerks, techs, everybody. There were civilian specialists, certainly, but almost none had accepted the offer to be hired and learn governmental procedures.
It was so disorganized he couldn't even make a list that made sense.
The rebels' best weapon might be the total noncooperation he was getting. They didn't want any of the basic necessities of civilized life. Utter selfish savages, every one of them. He wished them all quick voyages to hell.
The approach Kendra had suggested was enthusiastically embraced by a reserve Black Operations team in Jefferson. Lorin Neumeier, Kaelin Sudhir and Brent Rewers put it into effect immediately.
The three were dressed as joggers, and attractively so. Lorin wore a stretch top that emphasized her strongly built chest; the two men wore brief trunks and were lightly oiled to show their muscle tone. They ran along Commerce Boulevard, through territory the UN used as headquarters and billeting. It was fenced and walled for security and inaccessible to vehicles. Each entrance was watched by four guards outside, others inside at monitor stations.
They timed their approach to one entrance to coincide with intelligence from local observers. Seeing the moment they were waiting for, Neumeier increased her speed. Her teammates followed. As they closed on the target, she triggered the thought command that controlled "boost."
Boost, or Combat NeuroStimulant, was a combination of hormones, sugars and oxygen-releasing compounds. Each of them had an implant that generated and controlled the chemicals required and the appropriate thoughts triggered it. They shook slightly, vision blurring then becoming suddenly sharper. Combined with their training, they now could move considerably faster than an unenhanced human. They neared the gate, which had a staff car waiting for entrance.
Lorin shoved off on her left foot, met the first of the guards and kicked his near ankle. She seized his weapon, pointed it up and shattered his shoulder as she wrenched it around. He collapsed onto his ruined ankle, shrieking in agony. She turned to see Sudhir and Rewers tackling two other guards, and moved past them. She slung the first guard's weapon as she did so.
She collided with a fourth sentry and spun him around, sliding a hand under his chin, extending the neck and striking with her other fingers. He gurgled and fell, clutching at his throat. She turned, drawing a thin knife from the small of her back and felled a fifth. Her compatriots stepped around to the remaining troops and she closed on the car.
The window was closing, but she reached in and caught the driver, tangling him and punching the lock button. He was so slow, especially compared to her in her present state. She pinched a nerve, detached and slid back, opened the rear door. Inside was a very surprised-looking general. She hit his wrist, preventing him from attempting to point his drawn weapon and dragged him out by sheer brute strength. The others joined her and they carried him facedown at a brisk run. They wove through several streets and alleys, not stopping until they reached Liberty Park.
They stood him upright, seized his weapon and all ID and documents. While he stood dazed and confused, she pointed her commandeered rifle at his head. "I am a sergeant in the Freehold Military Forces. You are my prisoner."
"General Jacob Huff. UN Peace Force."
"I know," she said. "Strip."
"What?" he queried, confused.
"Take off your clothes," she repeated.
"Here?" he croaked.
In reply, she yanked the weapon's charging handle.
"Okay! Okay!" he agreed, taking his clothes off, dropping them. Sudhir gathered them up and left. She lowered the weapon, placed his hat back on his head and said, "You are released." She bounded sideways and disappeared.
Huff stood confused, then started to flush as he realized passersby were laughing at him. It wasn't his nudity they found worthy of hysterics, but his obvious discomfort. He removed his hat, unsure what to do with it but feeling silly wearing nothing else. Finally, he started walking in the direction he'd been brought.
Several hours later, one Binyamin Al-Jabr found himself assigned to guard duty, to replace David Morgern, who had been crippled and disarmed during the attack. He took his position at the gate. Twenty minutes later, someone shot him dead. Ballistics records later showed the bullet to have come from Morgern's weapon.
The war on Grainne had begun to get interesting.
In the Space Traffic Center at Novaja Rossia's Jump Point Two, Karl Borodin had been following the news of the war. He had friends in the Freehold and went about his task in tight-lipped silence. That work had doubled since a suicide squad had destroyed Freehold Jump Point One. Some lunatic physicist had flown a multihyper-capable ship into Earth space in phase drive, then entered the jump point from there, activating phase drive inside the point. The intersecting hyper waves had collapsed the point into itself, and incidentally taken a UN task force with it. Until a new point could be constructed, there would be no passage through that route.
So the additional traffic was taking the roundabout way through Novaja Rossia's system and then into the Freehold from there. Borodin arrived to find a huge schedule of tonnage to organize. He glanced over it and decided that being petty couldn't hurt and might help.
He started with a transport convoy and its escort from Earth. They might have military priority in Sol System, but this wasn't Sol System. They could wait. It was far more important that perishable goods, heavy equipment to support the colony effort on Shemya and medical research materials get through. Additionally, the three liners full of wealthy retirees would complain loudly if they were delayed. In fact, they already were. Better do something about that now.
By the time he was done gridding the schedule, the UN task force was in the queue three days back. He figured he could add another day to that through judicious shuffling. It might not help, but it couldn't hurt and it made him feel better. He also noted for the log that the liners' passengers had stopped complaining.
And if the UN didn't like it, they could take the additional ten days to cross the system to jump Point Three . . . or go through Caledonian space and in through Freehold JP3. That added twelve days.