And killing was what he wanted to do.

The Jupiter is a humanoid ’Mech with autocannons in each arm, ER PPCs, and LRM launchers in the torso. When it walks, the ground trembles. It is both wonderful and terrible, the reason Stone wanted ’Mechs restricted, and yet the means he used to destroy the enemies who defied the restriction.

The Jupiter turned almost casually toward one of the Scimitars. The PPCs fired, thrusting blue energy spears into the tank’s right flank. Armor disintegrated and the chassis glowed white before it melted into molten metal puddles. The turret sagged and collapsed, before the SRM magazine touched off. A gout of fire flipped the turret into the air, where it was lost in the darkness.

The BSU troops began to withdraw, but their effort was too little, too late. Missile barrages struck at fleeing targets. One of the Fox Armored Hovercars simply ceased to exist when the Condors and Catapult deigned to notice it. The explosions left a crater where it had been, with its armor and shell reduced to shrapnel.

Of the BSU force, only two of the Foxes got away. Catford would have gone after the escapees, save for the intervention of other forces. The forces that came in were the Garnet Coast district Public Safety Department troopers. They arrived in helicopter and infantry carriers disgorging officers in battle armor. Before I’d left Manville I’d phoned an anonymous tip into Niemeyer’s division that something would be going down that night at the Resort. Their intervention meant that surviving BSU troops were rounded up for questioning, which was bound to cause the Germaynes some trouble.

It would also frustrate Catford, since I was fairly certain he’d have wanted to treat them as prisoners of war. I didn’t know what his thoughts were on proper interrogation techniques, but I’d heard rumors about Siwek that meant I wanted to keep people out of her hands. I doubted the fighters would have anything useful to offer and I certainly didn’t need them giving me up on the off chance they’d seen me at the Egg.

I watched the PSD officers round people up, and saw Catford descend from the Jupiter’s cockpit. Some of the PSD emergency medtechs came over to help him, but from his gesticulating I could tell he didn’t want them touching him, and he didn’t want the PSD on Emblyn property. Someone encased in metal—I would have guessed Niemeyer, but they all looked huge in that power armor—pinned him back against the ’Mech’s leg and Catford seemed to settle down.

In the distance a PSD helicopter chased the escaping vehicles for a while, but peeled off when lasers and machine-gun fire threatened it.

I watched a little while longer, then turned away. I’d have given my eyeteeth to see the live feed of Bernard’s face when this news flash ran over the Tri-Vid, but I refrained from finding a set and turning it on. After all, I knew I’d see the replay endlessly and, with that thought in my head, I found a bed and slept very happily indeed.

Manville, Capital District

Basalt

Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

16 February 3133

Despite the resort not being open, it did have all manner of amenities available to the casual guest. Before I left in the morning, I was able to download all of the news reports on items of interest. The two lead items in almost every journal involved the raid at the Palace and Bernard’s performance on live Tri-Vid.

Bernard actually handled himself better than I would have expected. While the host had poked fun at him, and Bernard had shot back with a few jokes that someone had scripted, the talk turned to recent events, and that brought up the whole BSU thing. Bernard had some remarks prepared that were wholly self-serving as far as the government was concerned, and constituted a nationalistic appeal to the citizens’ pride. It pretty much amounted to a call for folks to rally around the Germayne government.

“Our world has been a very peaceful one, where we have shaped a harmonic society.” Bernard composed his face into a mask of sincerity, which, for the most part, remained in place. “The Federated Suns always found us stalwart and a positive model. The Republic did, at the start, and made us part of their grand experiment because they needed our example. But now, as this experiment is weakening and failing, we need to look to ourselves, for no one from the outside is going to come rescue us. In fact, forces from the outside are here to destroy us.

“Our future is in our hands, and we must grasp it as tightly as we can, defending it mightily. The people committing these acts of terror, we know who they are. You wonder, but you will see among them those you thought were friends. You know who you can trust, you can see it in their open, honest eyes, in the clear voices with which they speak, and in their welcoming openness, not self-segregation. We must all band together to keep our home safe from outside influences that will tear us apart.”

His appeal soft-soaped the racist underpinnings of his philosophy, but the clues in his comments could not be missed. He directed his fellow citizens to keep their eyes on foreigners, and from what I’d seen, that meant anyone who didn’t have round eyes or who happened to be fluent in the tongue of their ancestors as well as English. His message was as subtle as he was capable of, which told me it had been scripted, and made me wonder, just for a moment, who put those words in his mouth.

If the host noticed Bernard’s restraint or slick delivery, he made no comment and went to a station break. In keeping with the show’s format, Bernard moved onto a couch as the next guest came out, and the next. Right after some local teen sensation had sung her heart out, the host provided Bernard a chance to comment on the news flash that the BSU had tried to destroy the Emblyn Palace. I could see a vein start twitching in the middle of Bernard’s forehead, but he refrained from exploding. In a moment of insight, he channeled his anger into his voice and denounced the BSU and its efforts. “I was just at that facility and I know why they wanted to destroy it. They are bitter people who cannot stand seeing others succeed. Basalt, which has been a peaceful place under my father’s guidance, and shall be again, welcomes success. We all work for the common good here, and just as we pulled together for the good of the people of Manville during the recent upsets, so we must unite against the BSU. We cannot let them win, and we will not. I will not. This is my vow to the true citizens of Basalt.”

In seeing the little clip on my noteputer screen as I rode the shuttle south again, I thought he’d done a good job—terrifying though it was. The Contressa and Manville media shared my assessment, but as I read other stories about it, from cities further flung and on other continents, the reviews were scathing. Some pundits suggested that he didn’t want the Palace destroyed because that was the only resort he’d not yet been tossed from. The further from Manville the source, the harsher the criticism, and his divisive comments did not go unnoticed. One editorial even suggested that Basaltines might want to look at what BSU was saying, to see if their world had not become stagnant and, in fact, needed a quickening of blood and spirit from outside.

It’s always that way in any society were power is centralized. The further one is from the locus of power, the weaker the grip. While the people in the outlying regions might not be disgusted enough to start a revolution, they could be induced to support one. Gypsy had already talked about salting journals and opinion shows in such outlying areas with shills who would accentuate the negative about the Germaynes. A lot of the material Elle had gathered could be leaked out there and would further weaken the Germayne regime.