Singh felt his heart catch and then stumble like it was running down a hill. “May I ask what your orders are?”
“I’m to set an example, sir. Restore confidence in the safety of Medina and the gate network, and display what Laconian civilization stands for. Including that we who have accepted the burden of government hold ourselves and each other to the highest possible standard.”
Singh stood. His legs felt weak. This wasn’t possible. This wasn’t happening.
“But I was loyal,” he said. “I’ve obeyed.”
“You’ve given me an order to kill Laconian citizens who have not been found guilty of a crime.”
“But—”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t disagree with you. These people are scum. They don’t deserve or understand what we’ve brought them. For me, I think they never will. But their children might. Their grandchildren or their great-grandchildren. The story of Medina will be that Governor Singh mismanaged the station, lost his ship to a band of malcontents, lost his perspective. And when he let his wounded pride exceed the mandates of the high consul’s directives, he was removed for the protection of the everyday citizens in his care. You see the difference? If you kill an insurgent, you’re the enemy of all their friends. All their family. And then there’s an expectation. Precedent. Enemies for generations. Forever. If you kill your own—even the highest among your own—to protect someone powerless, they remember that too. It sows gratitude. It sows trust. Generations from now your sacrifice will lead to the peace, prosperity, and fellow feeling among all humanity.”
The air was gone. He couldn’t catch his breath. His mind rejected everything he’d heard. He was going to see Natalia again. He was going to hold the monster in his arms and hear her gabble on about school and the dream she’d had and whether they could get a pet for their apartment. All of that was still true. It couldn’t have changed. Not so quickly. Not so finally.
“Plus, it’ll put Governor Song on notice,” Overstreet said. He stood. “I’m very sorry about this, but it could be worse. You could be going to the Pen.”
He lifted the gun.
“Wait!” Singh said. “Wait. Do you believe all that? About what killing me is supposed to achieve?”
“I am an officer of the Laconian Empire, Governor Singh. I believe what I’m told to believe.”
Chapter Fifty-One: Drummer
It was three months before the Heart of the Tempest came to the transfer station at Lagrange-5. People’s Home arrived behind it, like a servant waiting for the right moment to bow.
In those long, surreal weeks, the system had changed past all recognition. Or at least it had for Drummer. The surrender of the union ships had let the EMC fleet follow suit. There were some signs that the Tempest had suffered from the pounding it had taken—fluctuations of its heat signature, a reluctance to turn to port, the decision not to burn at more than about a fifth of a g. It didn’t matter. If Laconia was bloodied, it was unbowed. Drummer couldn’t say as much for herself.
A new armada of ships that had followed the Typhoon to Medina paused there for less than a day before they burned through the Sol gate. They were smaller ships, of a more familiar design, and fewer than a dozen of them dominated the solar system. The newsfeeds had nothing but the names of the new Laconian Protector-class destroyers—Daskell, Ackermann, Ekandjo, Smith—and their locations in the system. Where they were and where they might go.
Ganymede and Iapetus, inspired by God knew what quixotic impulse, declared that whatever the union and the EMC had said, they hadn’t surrendered. Two of the new ships had gone to each station, and the defiant announcements had ended quickly after that. The independent feeds that called out against Laconia grew fewer and more tentative. Ceres Station had a welcoming committee when the Ekanjo docked there, and pictures of the governor of Ceres shaking the hand of the Laconian captain became the iconic image of the moment. Of the capitulation. Two smiling men. The end of one age, the beginning of something new.
The ship that came to escort People’s Home was named the Stover, and by escort, they meant occupy.
By then, People’s Home had gathered back most of
the citizens who’d fled before the battle. Not all, of course. Some of the evacuation ships scattered themselves out among the smaller settlements and asteroids. Got quiet in hopes that with just a dozen ships, Laconia would overlook them. Maybe it even worked. For those who came back to the void city, Captain Rowman Perkins became their new leader. He was an older Martian man with close-cut white hair and skin the color of stained oak, with a folksy Mariner Valley drawl, kind eyes, and a fire team of Marines in power armor ready to make his wishes into law. When he’d come to her office, he’d had the courtesy to sit in the chair on the opposite side of the desk while they spoke. It was a small politeness that nailed in as much as anything had how utterly defeated she was. Laconia wasn’t here to bully her or belittle her. It made no difference to Perkins whether he lost face before her. He’d come to take what he wanted—what he wanted was absolute authority—and he was going to get it. Gently was fine. Less gently was fine as well. The illusion of choice was hers.
She’d chosen.
House arrest was better than being in the brig. Her couch, her clothes, her files and access, though without any broadcast privileges and a Laconian censor looking over her data streams. She dreaded the moment when Saba reached out to her and gave himself away, but that message never came. She assumed that the detention and cooperation of the Transport Union president was useful to Perkins and Trejo and Duarte. Her confinement rooms, her escort to the gym, her meals delivered by Laconian soldiers were all part of the narrative of victory, broadcast through thirteen hundred worlds as a warning to behave well. Before Laconia even the union fell. Even Mars. Even Earth. What hope could any colony world have against them?
That was speculation, of course. Newsfeeds weren’t on her diet anymore. But she could watch old movies, listen to music, eat what she wanted, play games, sleep as much as she cared to sleep, exercise her way through all the routines she’d told herself she’d engage with if she ever had the time.
On the best days, house arrest was almost like an enforced vacation. For the first time in her adult life, she had no responsibilities. No long-term political aspirations to cultivate and attend to. No journalists or administrators or officials to spar with. The problems of who passed through which gate, of what artifacts were banned and which were taxed, of how to balance the needs of the colony worlds, all belonged to someone else now. Except for Saba’s absence, it was the life she’d imagined retiring to when her term was complete.
On the worst days, her rooms were a box of crushing depression and failure, and death would be the only release.
Her handlers dealt with all of her moods with the same equanimity and insincere kindness. They were good to her because they chose to be. If they chose otherwise, that would be up to them as well. Her opinions didn’t matter unless someone else decided that they did. And she had every reason to believe it was going to be like this—her rooms, the gym, her rooms again, under guard and cut off from humanity—for the rest of her life.
And then, three months after her surrender, the Heart of the Tempest came to the transfer station at Lagrange-5, and Drummer went with it.
Vaughn came to her like a ghost from a past life. If she’d needed any measure of how her isolation had affected her, it was how glad she was to see him. His face seemed to have cracked a few new crags down the cheeks and across his forehead. He held himself with the same formality, but instead of radiating his usual low-level contempt, he seemed fragile. Like bread that had been hollowed out inside so that all that remained was the crust.
Or maybe that was her, and she wanted to see how she felt reflected in someone else. To not be so alone with it.
He stood in her doorway while she gathered herself.