“Sir,” said the voice on the line, “the XO, he’s…he’s hurt, sir. I think it’s bad.”
#
“Austin!”
Huston’s voice carried down through the stairway down to the lower floor. Huston’s eyes were glued to the screen projected in the space about six inches from his face from yet another gadget on the table the size of a quarter. The miniscule projector was also beaming at the same time a keyboard onto the table, on which Huston was tapping furiously, his fingertips making hollow tapping noises on the table, the holographic keyes lighting up as his fingers broke the beams and made letters appear on the screen.
“What?” Austin yelled back, looking at his own screen on a folded-out, antique-style laptop computer. Where Huston’s space upstairs consisted solely of the projector, its screen and keyboard, Austin’s space at the commandeered dining room table had become steadily buried in scribbled notes on paper, hastily scribbled diagrams with bullet notes jotted beneath and virtual lost-city of books about warfare, strategy and history either piled high into towers around him on the desk or splayed open on the desk and floor near him to pages that in some cases hadn’t seen the light of day for centuries.
“Sending you a link,” yelled Huston. “Read it for a change.’
“Stuff you. Is it important? I’m figuring out the next action for Zeke and Joe to direct.”
“Yes it’s important, moron!” Yelled Huston rapidly with a sarcasm borne out of three days of little sleep and near-constant direction by messages. He’d long since banished guards from the house during the day.
“Better be,” Austin grumbled. “I was getting to the good part where Washington started using the Fabian strategy. How the blazes am I supposed to make a Culper ring with so many interruptions? True, it’s almost exactly like starting a gossip rumor with a bunch of bored socialites, really, and then-”
Austin was silenced when he clicked the link his brother had sent down to him.
MOREDED APPROVAL RATINGS DISCONTINUED, boomed the headline of the screen sheet. Below in slightly smaller type was a short story which claimed that, in the interests of public safety, all polls instant and otherwise were to be suspended until the ‘crisis’ of illegitimate leadership had passed.
Nice.
“He suspended polls!” Austin yelled. “You know what that means?”
“It means,” Austin said, stepping down the stairs, holding the tiny projector in one hand and typing with the other while still watching the screen, “...that he’s sunk so low he’s going to resort to propaganda, getting every talking head and VR bot he can get his grubby, incompetent little hands on in an effort to keep what he has!”
Austin watched his older brother come closer, the projected screen and keyboard bobbing and weaving in time with the motions of his hands. “You know,” Austin said as Huston plunked himself down into a nearby chair, “I think I recall a moment like this in the history books.”
“And that is?” Huston said, breathing deep. Though skinny, he was out of shape, and could run out of breath on a flight of stairs even when gravity was on his side.
“...during the French revolution, about…thirteen centuries ago? The revolutionaires thought they’d won. Know what happened then?”
“Made a government, and a constitution, just like our ancestors did in America, I suppose?”
“No, dear brother. They started that way. But where America made a government, courts, legislature and a Constitution, the French made those things, and then a new batch of yahoos had another revolution, killed all those who went before them, and then created a new government with all those things!”
“And then?”
Austin smiled. “Guess.”
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“They had another wave?”
“Yep. Three or four, depending on how you count. By the time it was done, they’d eliminated religion, but crowned a gal as the goddess of ‘Reason.’ Then, a batch of crazies called the Committee on Public Safety started the Reign of Terror, which didn’t end until they’d killed a bunch of nuns…”
“Austin,”
“Some as young as fourteen, some as old as…”
“Austin!”
“Sorry, sorry. Look, my point: It all ended when another fellow named Napoleon arose, fired cannon shots into the mob, and became a dictator and then an Emperor who almost took over Europe.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died in exile, looking at a Monstrance set in front of his bed, wishing he’d done things differently. My point is this, brother: Moreded is losing his grip and he knows it. He’s going to tighten that grip, and when he does…”
“We strike?”
“No! We have to move before that! Otherwise, it’ll be like the French, Russian, and so many other revolutions! Moreded’s no George Washington; he’ll become a dictator, and if we step in then, we just might have to become dictators ourselves to put this place back together. And if we do that, some little Napoleon could come in, settle us both before we know what’s happened, and then what?”
“So…we make our move. What’s that going to look like?”
“We’ve got two options right now: Option A: We knock out everything, not just the lights, but the infranet, the water, everything, and in the confusion we move in past Moreded’s flunkies and take back our house.”
“Option B?”
“We whip up a mob of innocent civilians with propaganda, convince them they’ve been utterly disenfranchised, get them to storm our home, and keep using the people as cannon fodder until Moreded’s head hangs from our balcony. Then we fight each other very publicly to the death like Romulus and Remus, since no pair of dictators has ever governed effectively. Then, whoever wins will have to become an iron-willed dictator, bring back Mater and Pater from Golgatha, and exile them to a villa on the outskirts of town and quietly arrange their-”
“Option A.”
Austin smiled. “You’re sure?”
Huston looked at his brother for a very long two seconds, then blinked and shook his head. “Shut up, Austin,” Houston said in a husky voice while looking at the ground.
“Just to be sure," Austin said with a widening smile, "you might stand a chance in single combat against me. There’s at least a mathematical chance of it…”
“I said, shut up and get to option A, before you make me take option B just so I can have an excuse to kill you and shut you up, permanently.”
“Can do, dear brother.”
#
“Gareth!”
Dallas ran through the irised door in the side of the salvage vessel. Gareth was sitting in the central command chair, holding his left, organic hand over the left side of his gut. His shirt covering his lower right gut was stained dark, and a puddle of liquid the color of rust was pooling at the base of his chair.
“Hey, kid. Heard you’ve been busy,” Gareth said, blood trickling out through both corners of his mouth.
“Get this thing airborne and get to my squad," Dallas barked to the half-dozen men around him. "Meantime, medic!”
“Right here, boss,” yelled a voice from behind. “Got da medbot raight ‘ere!”
The crewman who’d been the closest thing to a finance officer Dallas had met with earlier now pushed a hovering medbot close to Gareth; extender arms, awoken by the scent of unintentionally spilled human blood, had already begun unfolding and reaching for Gareth.
“Can you fix him?”
“Aw sure, ma man! We kin do that! Question is, will there be ‘nuff power left in this little bot to fix the rest of you crew once we touch down, after we get the XO stabilized.”
“What do you mean?” Dallas asked as the men scrambled and the engines began humming then roaring to life.
“Ah mean, we lost a lotta juice when that thing started chewing on the power and supply cables. After we fix the XO here, we just might hafta draw straws to see how many an’ just who’s gonna live an’ die today.”