I am serialising my dystopian/retro-futuristic sci-fi story here. Here is the eleventh chapter, titled “The Colonel”.
All chapters can be found here.
I will be adding a new chapter every Friday (when I don’t forget, sorry!).
Chapter 11 – The Colonel
Lieutenant Prass and the Milpol colonel stood in a room aboard the Kantary freighter high above the planet below. The room was industrial and lined with hibernation pods. Prass looked grim-faced, and the colonel looked uncomfortable.
A light illuminated on the front of the hibernation pod they stood in front of, and the doors opened with a puff of vapour. Prass puffed his cheeks, looking anxious, stiffening himself.
A sickly-looking man with a slight build sat up. He had a patch over one eye and a shaved head. He had pale skin, covered in scars, as though he had been hacked apart and then crudely sewn back together. He blinked his one eye.
“Water…” he demanded.
Prass handed him a canteen that he drank from.
“Where am I…?” he said, coughing and drinking more.
“Planet B, in the Proxima Centauri system,” said the Milpol colonel.
“Why am I on Planet B, in the Proxima Centauri system?” he said, his voice irritated, terse. “I gave strict instructions before going into hibernation at Terra that I was not to be woken up until arrival at Ross 128.”
“There has been an…incident,” said the Milpol colonel, stiffly.
The man’s eye moved to the Milpol man, where he stared for a moment, then moved slowly from the colonel to the Prass.
“Where is Captain Smith, Lieutenant?”
“Captain Smith, sir, is…dead…sir,” said Prass, stiffening himself again.
The man blinked.
“Give me a biosync,” he demanded, and Prass handed him a cable that he connected to a jack at the back of his head. He sat, motionless, his one eye unblinking, and then he spoke.
“Get my uniform.”
“Yes, sir,” said Prass, snapping to attention and then hurrying off.
He climbed out of the pod, wearing only paper underwear.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“I am the commanding officer of Planet B. I am Colonel…”
“Colonel…” he said firmly, cutting him off. “I am relieving you of your command. I am Riker, the commanding officer of Secpol Special Operations. Secpol now controls Planet B. You are dismissed.”
And he strode off to get changed.
* * *
Riker sat in the VIP hospitality suite, smoking a cigarette and drinking freeze-dried coffee. He was dressed in a black shirt, black tie, and black boots. He wore a black full-length jacket and an officer’s cap on his shaved head. Opposite him stood one of Guus Hendrix’s assistants.
“What did the deputy director and your boss discuss?” he said, his one unblinking eye fixed on and unnerving the young woman who stood before him. She had been crying and looked exhausted.
“I don’t know,” she said weakly, eyes lowered.
He puffed his cigarette and sipped his coffee, his eye fixed on her.
“Now, for you, is not the time to be coy. What did they speak about?”
“About…the reporter…” she offered.
“What about ‘the reporter’?”
“There was a report…in the media…about this planet…and the people.”
“And what do you think that Guus and the deputy director had to say about this ‘report in the media’?”
“Mr Hendrix, Guus, had arranged for illegal material to be placed in the reporter’s home, and then tipped off the authorities, and he was arrested and fired. The deputy director had told Mr Hendrix to take care of this reporter.”
Riker puffed his cigarette.
“Who else at Kantary knew about Hendrix coming here with the deputy director?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I work with Mr Hendrix on media relations. We were instructed to attend a meeting, where the chairman informed us that Mr Hendrix had to come to this planet to meet the deputy director. The chairman said a media event was planned, and a ceremony at the company’s compound to mark the signing of the new contract, followed by a buffet lunch. We were immediately placed in hibernation and woke up on the freighter…”
And she began to sob.
Riker puffed his cigarette and sipped his coffee, and gestured to Lieutenant Prass, who took the woman by the arm and led her away.
Riker stubbed his cigarette out and lit another one.
“Did any of the vidcam footage get off before their equipment was seized?”
“Yes, sir. Two crews sent an entangled quantum transmission of their footage back to Terra Centre.”
“That is unfortunate…” he said, raising his one eyebrow. “If the footage hadn’t gone off-world, we could have liquidated the Kantary personelle and the media, and no one would ever need to know. Bring the next one in.”
Prass left and returned with Blanche Pike, her hands cuffed.
“Ms Pike,” said Riker, smiling unpleasantly.
“Riker,” she said, sneering. “I thought I recognised your unpleasant odour.”
He leaned back in his chair and puffed on his cigarette.
“Quite the shit sandwich you’ve been left to eat, Riker?” she said, smirking. “How’s the Space Directorate going to explain this blood bath away?”
He grinned, unpleasantly.
“How did you come to be here, Ms Pike?”
“I demand to be immediately released. I am an accredited member of the media, and I demand…” she started to say, but Riker cut her off.
“Lieutenant Prass,” he said, quite calmly. “I am going to ask Ms Pike again how she came to be here. If she doesn’t answer, kill her.”
Prass drew his sidearm and aimed it at the back of the news anchor’s head.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
Riker smiled, puffed his cigarette, while all defiance and hubris left Pike’s face, and her lip trembled. He stubbed his cigarette out and lit another.
“How did you come to be here, Ms Pike?”
“I…we were told to come, with the vidcam crew, to a meeting at the Kantary chairman’s office…he told us we were being given exclusive access to an important event. We signed waivers and were then placed in hibernation, and we woke up on the freighter.”
“And does anyone else know where you are?”
“No…I don’t know…”
“What don’t you know?”
“I don’t know who else knows we are here. When we were put in hibernation, we didn’t even know where we were going.”
He considered this, puffing his cigarette. Then gestured to Prass with a flick of his wrist, who holstered his weapon.
“You are a fucking shit, Riker,” said Pike, tears dripping from her eyes.
“Charming as usual, Ms Pike,” he said. “I want you to send a message to your producers back in Terra, telling them that the footage you transmitted is fake, and that your equipment was compromised.”
“Fuck you,” she said, her back stiffening, regaining some of her composure.
“You are such a long, long way from home, Ms Pike, and such a long, long way from such distant concepts as media freedom and laws.”
More tears leaked from Pike’s eyes.
He shrugged and puffed his cigarette, gesturing to Prass, who dragged Pike away.
“You are fucking scum, Riker, you hear me?” she said, looking back at him as Prass manhandled her. “You are fucking scum!”
Prass returned and stood smartly before Riker, who then began pacing.
“What do you want done with the Kantary personnel and media, sir?” said Prass.
Riker thought about this for a moment.
“Place all the Kantary personnel, the deputy director’s party, and the media in hibernation. If necessary, we can liquidate them later. But for now, let’s just get them out of the way.”
“Yes, sir,” said Prass.
Riker continued to pace.
“Tell me how this visit for the deputy director to this planet came about?”
“Secpol were informed by the Terra Space Directorate Military High Command that the deputy director of minerals and mining was requesting close protection support. You assigned Captain Smith operations command, and Team 10 was assigned the duty.”
“I know all that,” snapped Riker. “I mean…the deputy director was speaking to someone at Kantary, probably the chairman, and they agreed on this stupid plan to come here, and sent Guus Hendrix and his assistants out here, and invited the media to come along for the ride.”
He continued to pace.
“No one who came to this planet knew where they were going, except the deputy director and Secpol…”
He paced, smoking.
“Someone in the Kantary chairman’s office who was privy to the chairman’s discussions with the deputy director passed this information on to someone else.”
He stopped pacing.
“Send an entangled message to Terra Centre Secpol from me. Inform them that the deputy director, Captain Smith, Sergeant Vaz, and Hendrix have been killed in a terrorist attack, and I have command. Advise them of the media footage of the blast. Tell them that there is a mole in the Chairman’s office. Instruct them to find the mole and find out who they have been talking to.”
“Yes, sir,” said Prass, and he snapped to attention, turned and hurried away.
Riker stubbed his cigarette out and lit another.
* * *
They were at the base of the cliffs on the west side of the quarry, where the deputy director and the rest of the party had been standing when the bomb had exploded.
Colonel Riker was looking up, smoking a cigarette.
“Bodies?” he said.
“They will start the excavation to recover whatever remains when we provide authorisation, sir,” said Prass, standing behind Riker.
“And the device?”
“Initial analysis indicates an anti-grav device. It set a chain reaction, exciting the Gravitite in the cliffs, hence the devastation,” said Prass.
Riker puffed his cigarette.
“Some might say that is ironic,” he said to no one in particular. “And the trigger?”
“Seismic, sir.”
He turned, looking contemplatively with his one eye out across the vastness of the quarry.
“This…is the Squadron’s work,” he stated.
“Yes, sir,” agreed Prass.
“The Squadron got a tip from an insider at Kantary that the deputy director and the media were coming to ‘The Slave Planet’, and they put boots on the ground here.”
“Yes, sir,” said Prass.
He spun, turning back to the fractured cliff face looming above them, puffing on his cigarette.
“But how did the Squadron know that the deputy director was going to be standing up there?” and he pointed up at the top of the cliffs. “And how did they know to place an anti-grav bomb in tunnels there?” and he pointed at the base of the cliff. “And how did they know to rig a seismic trigger that would detonate when the deputy director blasted a cliff over there?” and he spun, pointing to the far side of the quarry.
He puffed his cigarette, thinking.
“The Squadron came here…to plant their bomb…” he said vaguely, as if just realising this.
He flicked his cigarette away and lit another.
“Check at the train terminal in the ghetto. We are looking for probably two operators, and they were here recently. Bang some heads together, ask some questions, and find some footage of these two.”
“Yes, sir,” said Prass.
“Outside of Secpol, Kantary Chairman’s office, the deputy director’s bodyguard and android, who had access to the Deputy Director’s complete itinerary?”
“The Milpol liaison, sir.”
“And where are they?”
“Dead, sir. Behind you, sir.”
Riker spun again, looking at the pile of white and blue rock, and puffed his cigarette.
“Lieutenant,” he said. “Find out everything you can about this Milpol liaison. The Squadron is on this planet and had a helping hand from someone. Whoever helped them is close to this Milpol liaison man.”