Part 19 (1/2)

”There isn't much to decide. Their IDs were all forged, so we ran their DNA through the system. It turns out that they are all in the database. They're citizens of the Union, every one. So, they're not enemy combatants, to be treated as prisoners of war. They're not neutrals, to be sent to a labor camp for five years or so and then repatriated. They're traitors, plain and simple. Fils de putain.”

”Why would anyone do such a thing?”

”Thirty pieces of silver. The same old low treachery repeated down through the ages. A man takes his n.o.blest loyalty and sells it to the highest bidder for a greasy bag of dirty coins. They didn't do a very good job of covering their tracks in the s.h.i.+p's computer. On delivery to a Krag cruiser just inside their s.p.a.ce, the freighter captain was going to get 3 percent of the gold and the rest of the crew, 1 percent.”

”What were the Krag going to buy with the gold anyway? Don't they typically use their pharmaceuticals and high-speed computer cores for foreign exchange?”

”They're not going to buy a thing. They have plenty of purchasing power. What the Krag don't have plenty of is gold. I mean the actual metal-it's an accident of geology that most of their planets are poor in heavy metals: gold, mercury, and so forth. They need gold for industrial purposes, mainly for electrical contacts in precision equipment on their wars.h.i.+ps. Intelligence says they have a real shortage, even to the extent that it is becoming a bottleneck in their industrial production. And a little goes a long way. Forty-two metric tons is at least a year's needs for their whole military industrial complex. Taking this cargo will put a real dent in their plans.”

”But if gold is so precious, why would the Krag pay the freighter crew with it rather than something else that is less valuable to them, like Romanovan Sestertii, notes from a neutral bank, or pharmaceuticals that are readily sellable on the black market?”

”My guess is that the freighter rats wouldn't have been paid at all. Once that freighter got into Krag s.p.a.ce under the guns of their cruiser, the Krag would just kill the crew and keep the gold. The s.h.i.+p too.”

”I cannot say that they would not deserve it. So, what's to happen to the freighter crew?”

”I will be consulting with Major Kraft and completing some doc.u.ments in a few moments, but it's all just a formality.”

”You mean that you... that they...”

”Yes, Doctor. They die. Firing squad. Right before breakfast.”

”Sudden death tends to ruin my appet.i.te.”

”It never did mine much good either.”

CHAPTER 18.

05:59Z Hours, 30 January 2315 Like all but the smallest naval vessels, the c.u.mberland had a shooting range, so the crew could acquire and maintain proficiency with firearms in the only way possible: shooting real weapons with live ammunition. The range was not very large, and the maximum distance between shooter and target was only fifteen meters, but most shooting by naval personnel takes place in close-order combat, often at arm's length or even less, so this limitation was not considered much of a problem. When not being used for firearms, the room doubled as a small gymnasium.

This morning, however, the armed men arrayed on the firing line were not going to be shooting at targets. They were going to be shooting at their fellow men. Men with mothers and fathers and wives and children. Men who, like them, were citizens of the Terran Union but who, for reasons that the men holding the M-88 pulse rifles could not fathom, had decided to betray the human race to an inhuman enemy bent on the annihilation of mankind.

For that, they would die. Today. Minutes from now.

The five condemned men stood in a line against the armored back wall of the range, looking mostly dead already. Pale, drawn, unshaven, bleary from lack of sleep, eyes vacant. Two appeared to be in a near stupor, perhaps from the injections they had received from the doctor because they were shaking so hard they could not stand or walk. These were not military men, hardened to danger and long accustomed to the idea that death might claim them on any given day. They were freighter rats, and not particularly successful ones at that, whose slippery sense of honor and loyalty allowed them to sell out the human race for a few credits. But this payoff was more than they'd bargained for.

Go to bed with the devil, you wake up in h.e.l.l.

The prisoners stared at the line of armed men in unconcealed horror. The Navy did not believe in blindfolds or hoods; more than thirty years of brutal war had taken away whatever squeamishness the service may once have had about death. The shooters looked into the faces of the men they were killing, and the condemned men saw death coming to meet them.

The only sounds were the faint hum of the air handlers, weaving an almost subliminal, ba.s.s-clef harmony with the distant thrum of the engines. All present stood in grim silence: five condemned, fifteen shooters, the commanding officer, the executive officer, the chief medical officer, the Marine detachment commander, the nonent.i.ty a.s.signed to the s.h.i.+p as chaplain, and-for their education and instruction-the three chiefs who had tried to sabotage the atmosphere manifold.

The shooters had been selected at random by computer from the 116 men on board who had qualified as ”Marksman” or higher with the M-88 pulse rifle. Eleven s.p.a.cers and four Marines. The rifles were not loaded with the standard expanding/tumbling rounds used for Krag, but with old-fas.h.i.+oned full metal jacket ammunition. The wounds would be neat. No unnecessary blood would be spilled.

At precisely the stroke of 06:00, Kraft hit a comm switch already configured to pipe sound to every comm unit in the s.h.i.+p and video to whoever wanted it. Max produced two pages from his tunic and began to read.

On 28 January 2315, as evidenced by the affidavits of a commissioned officer of the Union s.p.a.ce Navy and a commissioned officer of the Union s.p.a.ce Marine Corps, which affidavits are attached hereto and made a part hereof for all purposes, the five men present here today: George M. Tremonte, Hikaru Akazaki, Alexander Wong, Mohammed Bahir, and Seamus O'Leary did give aid and comfort to the enemy by knowingly transporting cargo useful as materiel of war for the purpose of selling, bartering, or otherwise transferring said materiel to the enemy, the accused being citizens of the Terran Union and the Union being in a state of war at the time.

Under the Fourth Revised and Supplemental Articles of War of 9 September 2312, by the authority vested in me as an officer of command rank in actual command of a Rated Wars.h.i.+p on Detached Service in a war zone, I hereby sentence the five men named above to death by firing squad, said sentence to be carried out immediately on this day, the 30th day of January in the year two thousand three hundred and fifteen. May G.o.d have mercy on their souls. Signed, Maxime Tindall Rob.i.+.c.haux, Lieutenant Commander, Union s.p.a.ce Navy, commanding the USS c.u.mberland.

”Chaplain, have the prisoners been given opportunity for the religious observances a.s.sociated with impending death in accordance with their respective faiths?”

”They have,” responded the chaplain. None had wanted so much as a prayer.

”Chief Medical Officer, are the prisoners of sound mind and competent to stand for execution?”

”They are,” responded the doctor. Not much competence was required. So long as a man understood that he was about to be shot and why, he was fit to die.

”Advocate Officer, have these men been given the protections and legal process that they are due under the circ.u.mstances?”

”They have,” responded Major Kraft, the vessel's legal expert. For traitors caught in the act these days, under the rules of ”due process,” very little process was due.

”Executive Officer, have all procedures required for the execution of these men under the Articles of War and Naval Regulations been fully and completely carried out to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief formed after reasonable investigation?”

”They have,” responded the XO, whose job it was to ensure that if men were to be shot, they would be shot according to the book.

”Does any officer present know of any reason why these men may not be executed by firing squad here, on this day, at this time?” Everyone stood silent for the prescribed count of five.

”Hearing none, we now proceed.” Max took a deep breath. He had never done this before. He had seen this done before only once: when he was twelve and a mids.h.i.+pman on the old Agincourt. He had thrown up on the deck.

”Detail, ready your weapons.” The shooters raised their rifles to their shoulders and worked the charging handles, each mechanism stripping a 7.62 51 mm round from the rifle's box magazine and pus.h.i.+ng it into the chamber.

”Aim.”

Fifteen index fingers moved from ready positions alongside the trigger guards, pushed the safety mechanisms forward into the fire position, and came to rest lightly on the triggers. Fifteen men aimed, three shooters for each condemned man, each framing the tiny bead at the top of his weapon's front sight in the round aperture of the rear and then aligning both with the center of a condemned man's chest.

Unbidden, a line from a centuries-old film-he could not remember the name-came to Max's mind-a line shouted by a condemned man to his own firing squad: ”Shoot straight you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Don't make a mess of it!” Don't make a mess of it, indeed. He took a shuddering breath.

”Fire.”

Max clearly heard fifteen separate weapons discharges, despite his hearing protection filters. The echo seemed to hang in the air for an eternal instant, after which all five men, with five separate thumps, fell to the deck like puppets with their strings cut.