Martial Law 1: Patriotic Treason (11 page)

“You all had a taste of a Lieutenant’s duties,” he added, “but you will discover that you never even scratched the surface. It depends on where you go after this ship, but you may discover that you will have harder work to do than you have ever faced before, or perhaps you’ll find that you are unable to face up to the challenge. I think that you can handle it. Do you want to try and prove me wrong?”

“No, sir,” we said, together. I was confused and conflicted, excited and terrified, all at the same time. I couldn’t have explained it, but somehow I was rooted to the spot, unable to move.

“Good,” the Captain said. He picked a folder up from his desk. “Roger Williamson?”

“Yes, sir?” Roger said.

“By the power vested in me as Captain of this vessel and the United Nations General Assembly, I hereby promote you to Lieutenant,” the Captain said. He stepped up to Roger and carefully removed the Ensign’s rank bars he wore, replacing them with a silver pair of stars. A moment later, he pulled away the pins Roger wore to mark his time in grade; as a Lieutenant, his seniority would return to zero. He was the most junior Lieutenant in the service. “Muna Mohammad?”

“Yes, sir?” Muna said.

“By the power vested in me as Captain of this vessel and the United Nations General Assembly, I hereby promote you to Lieutenant,” the Captain said. He altered her rank bars as well and then turned to me. “John Walker?”

I was as tense as a bridegroom on his big day, but the Captain didn’t seem to notice. I barely felt his touch as he removed my rank bars and replaced them with something new. I felt as if I could walk on air, all of a sudden; I was no longer an Ensign!

“You will be spending the last two days in your Wardroom, I’m afraid,” the Captain said. His lips twitched into a faint smile. “I should warn you not to use your new rank too much in the first few days, until you get used to it. You’re not secure in your rank until you set foot on your next ship.”

I understood the subtext. If we bullied the other Ensigns – the Ensigns, now – we might be demoted on the spot. I wasn't sure if the Captain had the power to do that, but I wouldn’t have bet against it. We left the Captain’s cabin with our orders and didn’t burst into cheers until we were well away from Officer Country. It was absurd, in a way, but I felt silly wearing my new rank bars. They didn’t feel quite real, yet.

Roger opened his orders and peered at them. “Kofi Annan,” he said. “A battleship. What about you two?”

“Lover,” Muna said, puzzled. She frowned at her orders. “That’s not a standard name, is it?”

“It could be a specialist research platform,” Roger suggested. “John?”

“Devastator,” I said, almost as puzzled as Muna. “A Monitor. What’s a Monitor?”

Roger laughed at me. “It’s a planet-bombarding ship,” he said, amused. “They’re supposed to be a new class of ship; they only entered service a few years ago. No one likes to talk about them, for some reason.”

“I see,” I said, finally. We had reached the Observation Blister. “I’ll catch up with you later, all right?”

They waved goodbye and I stepped into the blister. The Senior Chief was standing there, waiting for me. “John,” he said, gravely. “Congratulations.”

I scowled at him. “Do I deserve them?”

“Perhaps,” the Senior Chief said. He waved a hand towards the unblinking stars. “Do you think that they care for a second if you deserve what you get or not?”

I touched the new rank badge. “They’re sending me to a Monitor,” I said, bemused. “What did I do to deserve that?”

“Caught that shipload of information hoarders,” the Senior Chief said. “You have seen the newscasts, haven’t you?”

“I haven’t had the time,” I replied, crossly. I was sick of playing games, yet I was sure that any attempt to use my new authority would be futile. The Senior Chief had known me as a lowly Ensign, barely worth the oxygen needed to keep me alive. “What have they been saying?”

“You’re their golden boy,” the Senior Chief said. He grinned, humourlessly. “You’ve been their poster child for the face of the United Nations, you know. You’ve got the right attitude to make it ahead in the service too…”

“I didn’t mean to,” I protested. “Chief, I didn’t…”

“So you said,” the Senior Chief said. “And, as I keep telling you, reality is what they make it. By now, you – and every other young officer who did something like it themselves – has had their past rewritten to make you heroes. You’ll be whatever they want you to be. The media will see to that.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I admitted. I touched the silver bars on my shoulder. “Did I earn these?”

“You played the game their way, quite by accident,” the Senior Chief agreed. “You must have realised by now that your ignorance is one of their weapons.”

I nodded. “And, the Senior Chief continued, “if you have the rank, you’ll be well placed to help others in the same position. Years from now, perhaps, you’ll be consoling the younger generation of officers. They’re going to need you, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” I admitted, grimly. “Thank you for everything.”

“I haven’t finished,” the Senior Chief said. He reached into one pocket and pulled out a small golden badge, shaped like the Jacques Delors. “Do you know what this is?”

“An icon,” I said, puzzled. “Why…?”

“Here,” he said, passing it to me. “You may have noticed that the Peace Force doesn’t really care for traditions at all, but this one even the Political Officers can’t ban. A memento of your first starship…and perhaps something else.”

He held up the badge and showed me the tiny computer chip built into the underside. “There are those of us who try to keep the system from screwing up our lives and that of everyone else,” he said. I felt a numb burst of shock. “You wouldn’t be seeing this if I didn’t feel that you were trustworthy. The Brotherhood would kill the pair of us if they felt that they had a security breech. Take it.”

I took it, staring down at the golden shape. “Why…how?”

The Senior Chief grinned. “Take it to a terminal, one disconnected from the main starship’s computer, and use it,” he said. “You’ll find it very useful indeed. If you want to drop me a message…well, did you know that there’s a regulation that all electronic messages have to be a particular length?”

I understood. Anything could be hidden in the right place.

“Thank you,” I said, surprised. “I’ll be careful with it.”

“Make sure you are,” the Senior Chief warned. “Now…what are you going to be doing on your week of shore leave?”

“I’m going to go home,” I said, seriously. “It’s been three years since I set foot on Earth.”

The Senior Chief frowned. “Good luck,” he said. “Earth is not quite what it used to be.”

Chapter Nine

It is difficult for anyone to comprehend the state of Earth under the UN. The once-great cities are crumbling away into dust. The lives of the ordinary citizens are controlled by thousands of bureaucratic laws and regulations that attempt to dictate every aspect of their lives. Crime is permanently on the increase and law and order is a joke – indeed, the criminals have more rights than their victims. Unemployment, always the curse of history, stands at 70% and rising, worldwide. The tragic irony of the UN’s attempts to legislate a perfect state into existence is that it has, with the best will in the world, created a nightmare.

-Thomas Anderson. An Unbiased Look at the UNPF. Baen Historical Press, 2500.

I had forgotten what Earth felt like, but I was reminded the moment I stepped off the shuttle from Orbit Nine onto the North American Orbital Tower. The two security guards – armed with nothing more intimidating than stunners – insisted on frisking me twice before reluctantly allowing me passage to the surface. The orbital tower itself was showing signs of decay – it was over two hundred years old and the paint was fading away, along with most of the machinery – and I couldn’t understand why a team of engineers hadn’t been assigned to fixing it. If we had left the Wardroom in a comparable state, the Captain would have had us all on punishment duty for the next month, but here…no one seemed to care.

It wasn't a particularly reassuring thought, I realised, as I took my seat on the elevator. I had forgotten how much everything cost as well and I was immensely grateful for the foresight that had convinced me to bring my UNPF credit card as well as a handful of paper money. Very few people used paper money these days – the odds of being mugged and robbed were too high – but the bartender was glad to have it. I purchased a small sandwich and a drink and discovered, very quickly, that the meat in the sandwich had probably been slightly unhealthy. There was no point in complaining – the customer was never right – and I put the rest of it aside. My drink was flat, but at least it didn’t taste funny. The ride down the orbital tower took hours and I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t because of the music several of my fellow travellers were playing. I hadn’t caught up on the latest music since I had gone to the Academy and there was definitely nothing to recommend it; the undertones of rebellion in the music seemed to suggest a definitely hopeless slant. I couldn’t understand why the singer hadn’t been banned yet, but perhaps it was just another example of what the Senior Chief had called harmless rebellion.

“People need to let off steam from time to time,” he’d explained, during one of our long discussions. “The UN is very good at identifying something they can do without causing real problems for the state.”

I studied my fellow travellers with some interest, although most of them were minding their own business with an intensity that surprised me. We’d been taught to help out our fellow Ensigns if they needed help, but few people on Earth would lift a finger to help someone else unless there was something in it for them. The vast majority of them seemed to be businessmen with interests in space, but others seemed to be nothing more than thugs, or perhaps even a handful of colonists visiting the mother world. Somehow, I suspected that when they got home, they’d be telling them how much better Terra Nova was than Earth…and they might even be right. It had been too long since I’d set foot on the planet.

A group of young women were chattering away and I eyed them with interest. Spacers developed new standards of beauty after a year away from accessible women and they were beautiful by any standard I cared to name, but the giggles! They giggled about everything, from the worlds they’d visited on the Grand Sneer – whatever that was – to the servants they had tormented down on the ground. I couldn’t understand why they were on the orbital tower at first, and then it dawned on me. The girls were slumming it with the rest of the population. The dank smell of urine touched my nostrils and I grimaced, but the girls only giggled louder. They were touching real life, but not in any way that could get them hurt. Even the most unpleasant gang of thugs would think twice about hurting girls from the upper class. It wasn't as if they were just common or garden citizens. There would be consequences if they were harmed in any way.

The capsule finally hit the ground and I allowed myself a sign of relief. It really wasn’t that different from an elevator. It could have drawn thousands of tourists who wanted to see outside, but there were safety regulations that prevented the capsules from having any viewing ports. I didn’t understand it. Modern materials could keep the passengers safe and people didn’t have to look out if they didn’t want to, but the beauecrats had triumphed again. I was on the verge of composing a letter explaining just how foolish this was – and how much money could be made from selling the ride as a tourist attraction - but I knew it was pointless. Safety came first. It was something that had been hammered into our heads from early life.

“This way to the exit, please,” someone was shouting. The doors were hissing open and I caught my first whiff of Earth. It stank even worse than I remembered, the sour smell of automobiles, machinery and thousands upon thousands of human beings. The population of Earth, according to official figures, was dropping every year, but the Senior Chief said otherwise and I believed him. The Welfare State provided food for each new child that came along and there had been a massive population explosion. “Follow me to the exit.”

They didn’t just let us out onto the planet, of course. That would have been efficient. Instead, there was a long passage through a handful of overworked security guards – I was searched again, not particularly well – before we were allowed out onto the concourse. I looked back at the orbital tower, stretching away into the sky, and felt a moment of dizziness that I tried hard to suppress. I had seen more impressive sights out in space, but the tower was something special. It had been built in a very different age.

I wanted to take a taxi, but I knew better than to make any conspicuous display of wealth, so I walked down to the railroad station and boarded a train to my home city. I had been brought up in Albuquerque since I had been very young and I hadn’t seen anything of the rest of the planet. I’d seen more of Terra Nova than I had of Earth. The UN kept telling us all about the fantastic improvements it had made in defending the Earth’s biosphere, but if that were the case, why was the air so polluted? I didn’t want to think about what was powering the train, but it seemed to move all right, even though it was packed. I dreaded to imagine what would happen if I had been a pregnant woman. No one cared on Earth.