Cibola Burn

The shuttle sat on five squat legs, ticking with heat. The town waited in silence, too excited to talk. Then a ramp lowered to the ground, and a squat Earther with gray hair and a deeply lined face walked down it. It wasn’t Holden. One of his crew, maybe? But the man was wearing armor with the RCE logo on it, and Holden was supposed to be an impartial mediator.

The man stopped halfway down the ramp and smiled a humorless smile at them. Basia realized he was holding his breath, then realized everyone else was too.

“Hello,” the man said. “My name is Adolphus Murtry. I’m chief of security for Royal Charter Energy.”

Was it another RCE ship they’d seen braking into orbit? The man walked down the ramp, still smiling that predator’s smile, and as one the crowd backed away. Basia backed up with them.

“Because of the attack on the shuttle that claimed the lives of many RCE employees and UN officials, I am taking direct control of security on this world. If that sounds like martial law, that’s because it is.” Murtry whistled, and ten more people in security armor descended the ramp. They carried automatic weapons and slug-throwing sidearms. Not a non-lethal deterrent in sight.

“Please be aware,” Murtry continued, “that because of the attack on the first security team —”

“No one proved they were attacked!” someone shouted from the crowd. Coop, it was Coop. Standing at the back with his arms crossed and a smug smile on his face.

“Because of that attack,” Murtry continued, “I have given my people ‘shoot first’ authorization. They may, if they feel threatened, utilize lethal force to defuse the threat.”

Carol pushed through the crowd to confront Murtry at the bottom of the ramp, and Coop followed her.

“You’re not the government here,” Carol said, anger making the tendons in her neck stand out. Her hands were in fists, but she kept them at her sides. “You can’t just land here with a bunch of guns and tell us you have the right to shoot us. This is our world.”

“That’s right!” Coop yelled and turned to face the crowd, inviting them to join in.

“No,” Murtry said, his smile not changing, “it is not.”

The air was split with thunder as another ship dropped into the atmosphere and landed on the western side of town. Murtry barely glanced up at it. More troops dropping in, Basia thought.

Murtry began walking toward town, his people trailing out behind him, and the crowd moving in a loose cloud around them. Carol kept talking, but her words had no effect. Murtry just smiled and nodded and didn’t break stride. The ship that had landed on the other side of town blasted off on a column of white vapor and vanished from sight. The roar of its engines filled the world.

When they reached the center of town, Basia saw Jacek hanging around at the edge of the crowd. He grabbed his son by the arm, pulling him harder than he intended, and the boy gave a frightened squeak.

“Papa,” he said as Basia dragged him away, “am I in trouble?”

“Yes,” Basia shouted, then when he saw tears welling up in the boy’s eyes stopped and dropped to his knees next to him. “No. No, son. You’re not. But I need you to go home.”

“But —” Jacek started.

“No buts, boy,” Basia gave him a gentle shove toward their house. “Go home.”

“Is that man going to kill us?” Jacek asked.

“What man?” Basia asked, but it was a delaying tactic. He knew what man. Even his little boy could smell the death coming off of Murtry and his people. “No one’s going to kill us. Go home.”

Basia watched Jacek walk home, waiting until he saw the boy go inside and close the door. Basia was just starting to walk back toward the crowd when the shot rang out.

His first thought was, Jacek was right. They are killing us.

Not us, though, once he got back to the crowd. Just Coop, lying in the dust with a red hole where his eye should be, blood pooling under his head.

And Holden, jaw clenched and eyes wide.

Too late, Basia thought. Too late again.

~

People with machine guns walked the streets of First Landing.

Basia and Lucia sat on their tiny front porch and watched them pass by in the fading sunlight of early evening. A man and a woman, both in body armor with the red-and-blue RCE company logo on it. Both carrying automatic weapons. Both with hard expressions on their faces.

“I did this,” Basia said.

Lucia squeezed his hand. “Drink your tea, Baz.”

Basia looked down at the cup of tea cooling on his lap. All the tea the little colony might ever have had come down on the shuttles with them. To waste such a luxury was unthinkable. He sipped at the lukewarm cup and didn’t taste it.

“They’ll kill me, next.”

“Maybe.”

“Or put me in jail forever, take me away from my family.”