What Needs Defending Page 5

  “That’s right. I suppose I should have told you from the beginning,” said Maydeen, as though he’d just remembered. “We wish to seek asylum.”

  “Who do you mean by ‘we’?”

  “Everyone apart from the inmates. The employees and their families. There’s also a small number of shopkeepers and other civilians.”

  “But why!?”

  “I think you know why.”

  “Because the prisoners might revolt?”

  “Correct.”

  “But you guys are armed, aren’t you?” said Samson. “Can’t you put down any revolt?”

  “I believe we could. But our ammunition isn’t limitless, so we couldn’t keep the peace indefinitely.”

  “You should just import more,” he replied matter-of-factly. “The Empire’s not particularly fussy about arms deals where the weapons are for surface conflicts. You can import as many as you like.”

  “And build a mountain of corpses out of the inmates?” scowled Maydeen.

  “The revolt would peter out before getting to that,” said Samson, not backing down. “It might not even build enough steam to begin with. You’ve managed the prisoner population all this time, haven’t you? So long as you keep getting more weapons and ammo provided to you, all you need to do is proceed as usual.”

  “It’s not that simple. Spare some thought toward the guards who’d have to live the rest of their lives here with no change of post on the horizon. Many among the leadership are here with their families, but the lower-level guards are mostly living by themselves, having been deployed here for two-year terms. To them, this dismal prison planet — yes, I say prison, not correctional center, otherwise I’d be a hypocrite — to them, this place is just a temporary stopover. The pay and benefits are ample, and if they serve without committing any gross errors, their resumés gain prestige, and their pensions slightly increase. I guess you could call it a stepping stone to a brighter future. If that stepping stone were to become the end point, I don’t think morale could be maintained for very long.”

  “Yeah, well, maintaining morale’s the job of the guy in charge,” whispered Samson, so only Jint could hear.

  Jint agreed, but he did acknowledge it was a tough job, and he didn’t feel right putting all the blame on Maydeen, either. That said, he wasn’t about to shower the man with praise, either.

  “This landworld is already Empire territory. I don’t think you can receive ‘asylum,’ technically,” said Jint.

  “If asylum is the wrong term, then I don’t care what you call it. You can call it emigration, evacuation, anything you want. Given I’m now calling this place a prison, there couldn’t be a more trifling concern.”

  “Emigrate, you say? Where to?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest. Anywhere but here.”

  “Ah...” Jint’s mood turned despondent indeed. “How many people?”

  “I’ll hand you a detailed register of names later, but if I recall correctly, around twenty thousand.”

  “Twenty thousand...” Maybe I ought to sleep on the Basrogrh until the official magistrate and their staff members make it here on assignment.

  He’d have to settle on emigration destinations for twenty thousand people, scrounge up some way to get them there, all before sending them out from this landworld. And as if that wasn’t enough on his plate, doing all that wasn’t likely to tackle every hurdle, either. Moreover, he didn’t have any staff capable of handling all of the intricate and confusing work necessary to pull it off. The crews of the Basrogrh and each of the supply ships would try to help, but a lady agent’s duties weren’t in their job descriptions. They could regard the Basrogrh as a temporary garich Cfarér (Lady Agent’s manor), but the only two people who’d officially belong to that manor were him and Lafier.

  “Your request is noted and appreciated.” Jint had been feeling tired since before undertaking this task, so that came out stiffer than he’d intended. “I’m going to consult with the Lady Agent, Her Highness the Viscountess of Parhynh, and we’ll then decide whether to take it up.”

  “Are you sure we can afford to take such a leisurely pace?” Maydeen protested. “They could spark the riot at any moment. Is that what the Empire wants?”

  “But from what you’ve told me, the chances of civil strife wouldn’t go down, whether or not you all venture away.”

  “In fact, since all of the people who’ve been overseeing them would be out of the picture, the chances would only increase,” said Samson.

  “You could look at it that way. Actually, that’s fairly perspicacious of you,” nodded Maydeen. He seemed surprised that the young Abh noble before his eyes had the insight to piece together the very real possibility that the prisoners might vie for power among themselves.

  “My gratitude.” But he wasn’t too pleased he was being flattered over such an obvious conclusion. “We don’t plan to keep you waiting for long. But we do need to gain a better grasp of the situation before making our decision.”

  “I’m more than willing to cooperate in any way.”

  Goodness, I forgot; we’re having them cooperate?

  Chapter 3: The Soprhoth (Rationing)

  “That’s a whole lot of food,” said Jint, scanning the surroundings inside the vessel.

  “But I fear it’s still not enough,” replied a woman named Lana Fazzin, the “Rationing Corps Chief Officer.”

  With the provisions brought aboard the amphibious ship Dacsaith inspected and sorted, it was time to apportion them to the prisoner population. Jint requested to come along, seeing this as an opportunity to see the conditions on this landworld up close and personal.

  The Rationing Corps was made up of six airships, five of which were cargo freighters filled to the brim with food provisions. The sixth was the commanding vessel, aboard which rode Jint and the Chief Officer. Also aboard ship were more than thirty of Lohbnahss’s armed guards, as well as Samson and his makeshift Bodyguard Unit. Jint didn’t know what kind of gun the prison guards were wielding (probably some type of stungun), but he did know he didn’t want to see any of them fired... especially not at him and his people. Including Jint, the Empire contingent numbered no more than eight. There was no way they could win a scuffle.

  Ugh, I’m such a worrier, thought Jint, shaking his head. Lohbnahss needed the Empire for the food, and its government employees were seeking asylum to boot. They had no latitude to be butting heads against the Empire.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Fazzin, with inquiring eyes.

  She had a machine translator on, perhaps so as to pay Jint’s group some mind. Yet the presence of such a device was not always welcome. Neither Baronh nor the official language of the UH, Ricparl, were Jint’s mother tongue. From what he’d been taught at the Quartermaster Academy, Ricparl was much, much easier to learn than Baronh, and its grammar was fairly similar to Martinese, too. For Jint, who still thought in the language of his homeworld, Ricparl was the tongue with which he had a greater facility. But now that the other party was using a translation device, he was forced to speak Baronh despite that fact.

  “Oh, no, it’s nothing.”

  “I see. Well then, let’s take the air.”

  The airship hovered upward, and slowly swiveled. Looking down below, he could see the zone with the Administrative Building was built like a fortress citadel. At the center lay a park, with the office building towering beside it. Tall walls encircled the perimeter of the residential dwellings that surrounded the tower. The walls were double-layered, with some kind of mechanism installed within. Their fear of the prisoners, that had them so outnumbered, rang loud and clear.

  With security that strict, what need is there to emigrate? thought Jint.

  The vast stretch of ocean was visible, too, and though he hadn’t noticed them when he was looking down from the amphibious ship, there were spire-like structures standing in a ring around the island.

  “What’re those?” asked Jint.

  “They’re observation p
osts. Not even a single scrap of wood floating on the water can escape our sight,” answered Fazzin.

  “Seems to me like it’d be pretty tough to escape even if they do manage to make it across the ocean!” laughed Samson.

  “They could make it to other zones,” said Fazzin, eyes locked straight ahead, “which would invalidate the whole point of them.”

  “It’d put those big ol’ walls to waste, that’s for sure,” said Samson, pointing at the ramparts that divided the Correctional Zones into three distinct areas. They looked just as formidable as the walls that closed off the Administrative Zone.

  “If you ask me, you ought to have just divided them across different planets,” Samson murmured.

  Fazzin heard that. “Inhabitable planets are a precious resource.”

  “Then do it like the Empire and make orbital prisons.”

  “And have them spend their whole lives off-planet?” she said, looking Samson’s way for the first time. “That would be inhumane.”

  Samson laughed again, telling Jint: “Guess a war was bound to happen. Look how differently they think from the Abh!”

  “But you don’t want to live your whole life out in space, either, Mr. Samson,” said Jint.

  “Of course not. If anybody ever told me I’m not allowed back on a landworld, I’d stoke a rebellion myself.”

  Fazzin looked surprised, but she didn’t get into it, instead changing the subject. “Look, that’s the East Correctional Zone.”

  They cast their eyes down toward where the Rationing Corps Chief Officer’s finger pointed. The wall wound tortuously across the low verdant hills, which were smattered with bushes and shrubberies. The vista was so idyllic that the lack of cattle lying peacefully on the green was difficult to swallow.

  “Going by His Excellency the Warden’s words, a rebellion could ignite at any moment,” said Jint. “But it sure doesn’t look like it.”

  “The rebellion is already underway,” said Fazzin.

  “Huh?”

  “The Distribution Center was completely destroyed due to organized looting.”

  “Are there people in the Distribution Center?” asked Samson.

  “No. Not since it was automized. You see, this isn’t the first time rioting has broken out. And thankfully, because of that automation, no one was hurt.”

  “You said the looting was ‘organized,’” said Jint. “Was it that Anguson guy leading them?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered bluntly.

  “Wait, if there’s no distribution center, then what’re you going to do?”

  “We’re going to airdrop.”

  “But then how are you going to make sure everyone gets their fair—”

  “It can’t be helped,” interrupted Fazzin testily. “This is what their actions have gotten them. We can’t be responsible for how they behave.”

  “Ah, if I’ve touched a nerve, I apologize. It’s just that I’ve always been the curious type.”

  “It will take more than that to offend me.”

  From around halfway up the hills to the seashore, structures that looked like boxes from above were closely packed together. They could only be the prisoners’ housing.

  “Those domiciles were originally pure white. Now look at them,” frowned Fazzin.

  Taken together, they appeared to be black. But the closer the airship drew, the easier it was to tell that that black was in fact a mix of various different colors. There were still some white buildings visible here and there, but the majority of them were painted over. Drawing closer still, one could see how most of the dwellings were decorated with bright hues. Some even boasted palettes that one might think more fitting for a little girl’s bedroom than a male prisoners’ detention zone. However, thanks to how crowded in the boxes were, and how there was no overall pattern or order to the colors, they seemed black-ish from afar. And while Fazzin clearly disapproved, Jint thought the place was beautiful in its own way. He suddenly recalled that time his foster parents yelled at him for tossing his toys all over his room.

  “Whoa there, why the long face?” asked Samson.

  “It’s nothing.” As of late, thoughts of his days on his homeworld rarely ever bubbled to the fore, but when the memories did surface, he still felt that twinge of pain. “Seems like they’ve got more than enough paint lying around.”

  “You said it. Wonder if we’ll have to supply them with more paint if it runs out, too.”

  “They made the paint themselves,” said Fazzin. “They’ll smash rocks or what have you and mix the stuff with glue.”

  “Wow, you’ve got to admire their effort,” said Samson. “I just hope it stops at things like paint.”

  “Do they make weapons, too?”

  “They do. Though all they can make is the type that needs gunpowder.”

  “Then there must be murders happening every day, right?”

  “Not exactly. They have something akin to a self-governing body, and a level of public security is maintained as a result. That being said, there are deaths under mysterious circumstances every once in a while. We suspect they’re victims of execution by the self-governing body, but there’s no proof.”

  “So the prisoner representatives didn’t just pop out of nowhere,” said Jint.

  “Right. Those representatives have been around for a while, and they each seized on this chance to declare themselves the Premier of the star system.”

  “I see.” Finally, some heartening news, thought Jint. After all, if the prisoners had such high self-governing capabilities, then a functioning star system government might come together more smoothly than he’d feared. He’d been worried what would happen once the jailers all fled the coop, but now he was thinking it just might be easier to govern with them gone anyway. Though he didn’t much care to contemplate how a landworld comprised solely of the criminal element would evolve over time.

  “There’s a bigger fish to fry than the weapons: the drug manufacturing,” said Fazzin, dashing the ray of hope Jint had worked so hard to find. “And by ‘drugs,’ I don’t mean cold remedies.”

  “I figured,” he said. I’m not stupid, lady. “You mean narcotics.”

  “Narcotics manufacture is the biggest industry on this planet. Not that it contributes to the planet’s economy at all.”

  “And you’re not clamping down?”

  “Our policy is not to. Nothing would come of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The UH doesn’t believe in capital punishment. Getting sent to this place is the most severe punishment there is. So no matter how much more crime they commit, it’s all a wash in the end.”

  “But aren’t there in-prison punishments?” said Samson. “Like solitary confinement? They have that on my homeworld.”

  “There’s another reason we don’t clamp down: we’re short-staffed,” she stated succinctly.

  The airship had descended so low that they could now make out the prisoners that were milling about with their naked eyes. Once the airdrops commenced, the inmates went on the move, with more pouring out of the dwellings. Jint’s eyes tracked the falling boxes. He assumed some mechanism would activate on the way down to slow them down, but no — there was some air resistance, but still they plummeted as gravity dictated. And then they crashed... smashing a domicile or two in the process.

  Sure hope nobody was in there, thought Jint.

  “That’s... that’s some merciless rationing,” decried Samson.

  “What other choice do we have?” snapped Fazzin. “Nobody ever expected we’d have to airdrop their provisions.”

  “You could’ve at least hitched them to parachutes...”

  “There are no parachutes in the inventory list. On this planet, we’ve no access to even the most unsophisticated gear. But worry not. We’ve already calculated the impact on the food. Ninety percent ought to still be good to eat. And the other ten percent can be made edible with a little elbow grease. All they need to do is pick out the wedged shra
pnel.”

  Jint considered telling her that he hadn’t granted the cargo aboard the Dacsaith, and that he was planning to have the bill reimbursed later, but he ultimately decided not to say anything. The jailers would all be leaving Lohbnahss soon, and the obligation to repay would be taken up by a landworld administration made up of the prisoner population.

  And now the headache’s back. Paying for one’s purchases was the most sacred custom among all of humanity, let alone the Abh. But would a planet full of criminals respect that?

  “Ms. Fazzin,” said the airship’s pilot, turning around, “we’re under attack.”

  “What did you say!?”

  “Looks like you’ve miscalculated,” said Samson, arms folded.

  Fazzin ignored him. “Damage report?”

  “No damage as of yet. All they’ve done is peel off some of the paint job.”

  Jint did hear pinging sounds strike the hull. He looked down at the surface and strained his eyes, but he couldn’t tell who was firing. When Jint drew even closer to the window, something slammed against the pane separating him from the outside world. He ducked involuntarily. That he didn’t yelp with fear was a feat to be proud of. When he looked behind him, Samson was there, smirking at him. Jint smiled sheepishly back, then resumed looking through the window. He touched the glass; there were no cracks. It looked as though being “under attack” wasn’t a life-threatening predicament. Nevertheless, as long as he didn’t know what kinds of weaponry the prisoners had in store for them, it was best to remain on the alert.

  “Is the airdrop almost over?” asked Jint.

  “It’ll be over shortly. This airship doesn’t have an airdropping apparatus, so we’re employing the most primitive means,” said Fazzin.

  “Why don’t we stop for now, and turn back?” suggested Jint.

  “Everything’s okay. You saw how their weapons have no effect on the airship, didn’t you, Your Excellency? Though I also shudder thinking how we’d end up taking their fury outside the airship.” She stopped at that at first, but then couldn’t resist adding: “Or are you afraid?”