Star Risk - 04 The Dog From Hell (22 page)

Two were destroyed, two surrendered to the glee of the raiders, and one managed to make its escape.

Von Baldur encouraged that�he wanted at least one survivor to, as Goodnight said, "let our Wally know what it's like to get a tit in the wringer."

Nowotny knew he was in deep trouble.

Star Risk was planning the next step in the slow humiliation of Cerberus Systems.

Neither of them had allowed for other agendas.

They should have.

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FORTY � ^ � The Right Reverend Rob Patson had some very negative qualities: he was short, overweight, had archaic dandruff decorating his thinning hair, fairly advanced halitosis, and, like most religious zealots, was heavily opinionated and poorly educated.

But he could hate.

And he could rouse the rabble.

He'd reached middle age before he discovered his two talents.

He'd never amounted to much before, not having a cause, and had had little more than seven children, a defeated wife, a dozen or so disciples and a storefront "church" in the city of Helleu.

But when the People started trickling down onto Khazia, he had his cause.

The People not only spoke a strange tongue, but dressed weirdly, were violence-prone, and almost certainly used drugs.

They also bred too fast, and, within a few generations�Patson knew anyone listening to him didn't have the ability to figure out how many�would breed the "rightful" citizens of the Alsaoud System into minority and then nothingness.

The existence and continued success of the pirates was grist for his mill, proof that the People had a Plot In Development, and he railed against it.

Pretty soon he had to give up his storefront for a much bigger auditorium.

He attracted half a dozen wealthy contributors who either bought into his nonsense or wanted followers on the bottom rung of society.

No mob can exist with just preaching, and so Patson used to take his rabble down to the People's quarter to jeer and pray loudly for their conversion to something acceptable.

Shouts are also weak tea, and so the odd idiot took to picking up a bit of paving or a bottle and hurling it at anything resembling an emanation of the People, from a business with an indecipherable or foreign-sounding name, to anyone "dressed funny," to whoever the idiot thought wasn't one of them.

A woman with two children got caught out, and stoned, fortunately not fatally.

That of course, sent Patson's horde into high glee, even though the good reverend deplored, deplored, such violence.

The rowdies among the People now had their feet held to the fire, and their boasting of manli- or womanliness called to account.

Rowdy they may have been, stupid they weren't.

The next time the noise of Patson's goons assembling filtered into the People's district, the young women and men were waiting, after they'd thrown up barricades that appeared flimsy and badly planned at first, but when the rabble filtered down them, they were proven to be most effective channels that put the mob at the end of a one-way alley.

And waiting in the buildings on either side were the rowdies. With guns.

Elders pulled them off after a dozen goons had been shot down. The mob fled in panic back the way they'd come. Bricks, bottles, clubs littered the alley, alongside the bodies.

"Tsk," one woman mourned, replacing the half-empty magazine in her black-marketed blaster. "Isn't it just like an Alsaoud to bring a club to a gunfight."

Alsaoud holos screamed, generally taking the line that "no one approves of Patson's murderous rabble, but someone must prevent further violence, and disarm the gunmen of the People. Violence of this sort settles nothing."

Actually, it settled the mob back on its heels for a week.

Scouts for the rabble reported that these hooligan youths had set up patrols around their district, and anyone who had business outside was escorted by armed guards. Police, ordered to stop such outrages looked at the determination in the eyes of these escorts and�being the cowards police normally are, unless they outnumber their opponents by the dozens�left well enough alone.

During this week, there was time enough for the elders in the Maron Region to meet.

And time enough for Star Risk to consider what they might do.

"We sit back and watch the bodies bounce," Good-night opined. "And see if it gives us a chance to further outrage Cerberus."

"Wrong." M'chel said flatly. "We're at least partially responsible for these mobs�if we hadn't stirred things up by using the People against Cerberus, none of this might have happened."

"I question your logic." Grok said. "The People were a-pirating before we arrived in the Alsaoud region."

"I'm a sentimental saphead," Jasmine King said. "I vote with M'chel."

"Who's advocating what?" Grok asked.

"Maybe," Riss said, clearly thinking aloud, "making sure the People down on Khazia have even odds."

"Which means what?" von Baldur asked suspiciously. "Running guns to them?"

"That's not a bad start," M'chel said.

"That's ridiculous," Goodnight said. "All that'll do is stir up�oh. I get it. More trouble for Cerberus, probably."

"That wasn't why I suggested it," M'chel said. "But it'll do for a reason. I vote yes on my own measure."

"I think I shall, too," Grok said.

Von Baldur considered. "It certainly won't make life any easier for Nowotny and company. Make it four."

"Hell's tinkling little bells," Goodnight said in disgust. "I'll vote with the sappy sentimentalists. Make it unanimous."

"Things like this," M'chel said, "warm the cockles of my little heart and make me proud of all of you.

"Of course, we're not going to give any guns away."

While Jasmine and Grok plotted on the theoretical aspects of street mobbing�that is, what kind of weapons one should give others to lug to a brawl�von Baldur consulted with Ganmore on just how they were going to get their varied bangsticks to the injured parties on Khazia.

"I am not sure," Ganmore said, "that I ever should have told you my title of Advisor," he said. "For now you are truly requiring me to play out my role, when it is supposed to be honorary."

"Star Risk," von Baldur said smoothly, "expects only that from its friends that which they have shown themselves very capable at."

Ganmore squinted warily at von Baldur. "I somehow feel I shall be paying for that compliment the next time you bring me a cargo for valuation. Nevertheless�"

There was an excellent conduit:

The People, having more than a passing familiarity with extraborder dealings in their wanderings across the galaxy, knew well the ways of customs officials.

When they moved onto Khazia, they realized they might need to provide certain items for their people from time to time, such as foodstuffs that were outside that planet's health laws, or people themselves who didn't wish, for whatever reasons, to appear on anyone's immigration rolls.

So, even though there was no maritime tradition among them, a dozen men and women suddenly took up the trade of ocean fisherman.

A commercial boat, beyond sight of land and the reach of radar, is an entity unto itself, and is seldom, without a tip, regarded as interesting to any regulatory agencies beyond a game department.

Von Baldur reported this to the others.

"Those poor wights," Grok said. "One of these centuries they will have their own planet and government again, and all of their citizens will be master scofflaws."

The first rule of running a successful uprising, whether a full-scale revolution or just minor banditry, is to use the same weaponry as your enemy. It makes resupply a lot easier, and helps add confusion to the issue when trying to determine where a bullet came from and who was responsible.

No one in Star Risk had paid much attention to what the local cops carried, and as the small Alsaoud land army was kept mainly out of sight, they didn't have much of an idea on what sort of gunnery to provide.

Since everybody was trying to keep hidden to conceal their presence from Nowotny and Cerberus as long as possible, Redon Spada had to do the eye-balling.

His casual investigation produced another interesting discovery�both police and military were armed with current-issue Alliance blasters and blast rifles.

"Interesting," Grok mused. "Between spaceships and pistols, they do seem to have an inside to the Alliance, don't they? I sense Cerberus's fine hand at work here."

Interesting�but the idea didn't seem to be immediately relevant, and did give Star Risk the way to go.

Using current weapons, though, was going to be a trifle expensive, and they weren't trying to bankrupt the People�at least, not until Cerberus was properly dealt with.

Goodnight and his compatriots had to go out and hijack a couple of small freighters for the front capital.

Then von Baldur went to Hal Maffer, who was surprised to hear from him.

"I thought you people folded your tents and started living the clean life. Glad to see you're still around," he said cordially. "I hope you settled that nasty business with Cerberus."

"No problem with that," von Baldur lied. He didn't trust Maffer�or anyone else�any more than he distrusted him�or anyone else. "We're doing an excellent business a long, long ways from any of their interests. And we're paying for these hem, tools, up front."

"That's good," Maffer said. "I always like dealing with you people. Keep me in mind if you need any other devices as the situation develops. So what do you need now�and do I deliver?"

"No," von Baldur said. "We'll pick up."

He gave Maffer the shopping list.

Grok and Jasmine had come up with a rather draconian inventory. Since they weren't combat veterans, they'd consulted with M'chel, who certainly was, to see if their logic and theories were too rigid.

She shook her head.

"No. You two are as hard-hearted as a pair of supply sergeants�but you're right. Or, at least, you're not very wrong."

They'd chosen blast rifles and blasters, ten with clip-on shoulder stocks, for each rifle. Of course a rifle is always more useful than a handgun, but a little hard to conceal, sometimes. At least with the rinky-dink add-on stocks, which have never increased a pistol's usefulness much, these guns would be a bit more lethal.

But not by much. A good rule of thumb with a pistol is to never deploy one unless you can also throw it at your enemy and do damage.

They'd allowed a dozen crew-served weapons, no more. These could be used for ambushes, but there deliberately weren't enough of them to encourage any development of positional warfare.

There was quite a lot of plastic-type malleable explosive, and various sorts of detonators, for ambushes and booby traps.

Finally, there were grenades.

Grenades come in two general types: offensive and defensive. An offensive one can be thrown at the charge, with a small enough exploding radius so the thrower shouldn't have to worry too much about getting caught in his own explosion.

Detonating grenades can be pegged from a nice, safe hole or wall to duck behind.

Again, because they didn't want to encourage their rebels down on Khazia to start thinking they had fortresses, there weren't any defensive bombs provided.

Spada and Goodnight picked up the cargo in the McMahon and brought it back to the Maron Regions.

Commo went back and forth, code words were arranged, and then the ship took them down to Khazia, rendezvousing with the fishing boats at sea, in the dark of the moons.

All the weapons were safely hidden in the People's district before the sun came up.

A few days later Patson's rabble got themselves stirred up with rhetoric and other, more concrete stimulants, and determined to make a stand for their own beloved streets, by burning down the People's quarter. But this time they'd give the scum a surprise, and since Khazia had fairly strict civilian gun laws, brought a scattering of sporting arms, various stolen weapons, and an assortment of antiques.

The People's district was well barricaded.

The mob, shouting brave slogans of Khazia for the Alsaoud and such, closed on it.

A few bravos with guns thought they saw targets and chanced a round or two.

There was no response until they got within ten meters of the barricades, and then blaster bolts cracked out in volleys. Even given the untrained and excitable aim of the People, thirteen Alsaoud sprawled on the pavement.

The mob fled at lightspeed, trampling another five of their brothers as they went.

Were the People "normal" rowdies, the next stage would have been police riot squads, the People's retreat back into pretended innocence, and everyone fuming and fretting for the next escalation. Or, conceivably, that might have ended things for a few years.

That was what Star Risk had been depending on.

Given that the People were sometimes, as had been noted, "a bit excitable," that was not what happened.

The People held firm behind their barricade, even after the mob had fled.

Police riot squads did show up, and advanced rather timidly.

Their armored lifters were charged.

The police opened fire.

The People didn't break and run.

Instead, they opened fire with all weapons, and, screaming their rage, ran on.

The police lifters wheeled and fled as the People were on them.

They hid back at their stations and barracks, claiming to be regrouping.

The People rioted happily that night, burning and destroying anything that looked profitable or inimical. Among the losses were both the reverend Patson's storefront and auditorium. Unfortunately, the reverend was not in them when they burnt.

He, his wife, and brood were able to flee to Tarabula, the system's third world, and vanished from history.

The next day, four of the People's most respected Advisors called on the presidential palace, to discuss and end the troubles.

Walter Nowotny considered the situation absurd. How could a minority, less than a fifth of the population of the city of Helleu, be able to cause such chaos? Utterly preposterous.