Madame Guillotine Read online

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  Epilogue

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  Other Galaxy’s Edge Books

  About the Authors

  Honor Roll

  MADAME GUILLOTINE

  BY JASON ANSPACH

  & NICK COLE

  Copyright © 2019

  by Galaxy’s Edge, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  All rights reserved. Version 1.00

  Edited by David Gatewood

  Published by Galaxy’s Edge Press

  Cover Art: Trent Kaniuga

  Interior Design: Kevin G. Summers

  For more information:

  Website: GalacticOutlaws.com

  Facebook: facebook.com/atgalaxysedge

  Newsletter: InTheLegion.com

  In Memory of Mandie Patterson-Almond

  01

  Reaper 66

  The skies over downtown Detron were turning into a hot and muggy stew—a fitting atmosphere for a long, swollen day that seemed to be on the cusp of something violent and dangerous. In the streets below Reaper 66, Republic marines were engaged in heavy riot control action, trying to keep order against the Soshies—who had taken to the streets to air an unending litany of grievances against the Republic, the powers that be, and the forces that protected those powers. The irony that those forces also protected the Soshies themselves was apparently lost on them.

  The protests started three weeks ago. A series of anti-government marches that blossomed into something that looked too much like a full-blown war zone. Sections of the city were no longer under control of the planetary government. Arson, rampant looting, and a spree of homicides—“payback killings” between rival gangs and cartels—all went unaddressed. It was sensational, and the media took notice. Opinion pieces demanded Republic action, each with a slant aimed at pointing out the failings of whichever House of Reason faction they didn’t quite agree with.

  Below Reaper 66, everything looked tired, burnt-out, and spoiling for a fight. Masses of people in makeshift Soshie ninja gear—black pants and shirts, black fabric wrapped around heads to conceal identities—and marines in full kit angled toward each other along the streets and broad avenues, the marines in orderly columns, the Soshies in the chaotic spacing of a mob. Each side had their preferred form, and those struggling for power had their preferred solutions. Education and shared standards of living for some, austerity and no-tolerance crackdowns for others.

  A few had been pushing for the Legion to come in and make peace. Everyone knew they could do it. But nobody wanted them there—not really. When the Legion showed up, things got too final, and odds were no one would end up happy.

  But none of that was Reaper Actual’s problem. Not at the moment.

  The Soshies in their red-and-black gear, waving banners demanding everything they could think of—more pay, more services, and lots of free everything—they weren’t the problem either, as much as they truly wanted to be. Not for Reaper Actual, and not for the marines below. A lot of them were students. Young kids convinced that only they knew and could do the right thing. That kind of fire burned out with heavy doses of reality. And time.

  The kids weren’t the reason the marines sent frantic exchanges over the comm system warning that things might be going from bad to worse. As the NCOs drove their hullbusters forward, the marines were well-prepped for the maelstrom of thrown debris and homemade incendiaries they encountered. They had shields and inferno-quenchers capable of putting a fire out almost instantly.

  No, the real issue was the professionals mixed in with the idealistic marchers.

  The pros.

  The professional agitators could be counted on to show up whenever and wherever there was dissatisfaction with, and disobedience against, the Republic. It was the pros who made things dangerous for those playing out their little tableaus on the street, tableaus featuring such familiar roles as Chanting Rioter and Tip-of-the-Government’s-Spear Enforcer. The pros came with toys, training, and violent intent.

  Three days earlier a marine spotter had been shot from the roof of a building by a sniper using a military-grade weapon. The sergeant had died on the scene, despite the riot gear protecting him and the medevacs on demand in the air above.

  A day later, a marine officer had been wounded while sitting in the command cupola of a wolverine. That one was avoidable. The officer should have been inside with the hatch sealed, but the guy was a point and had been acting as though this were some victory parade over the local quelled populace. Arrogantly playing the role of Conquering Military Commander instead of witness to a riot growing rapidly out of hand and getting worse by the hour.

  The point’s wolverine, a tank that still sported jungle camouflage from its training exercises on Cononga, took an RPG to its rear driver-side. The kind of weapon not usually doled out to the Soshie picketers. The blast wounded the officer, but even that probably wasn’t the shooter’s goal.

  The crowd, who had no sense of familiarity with war or the weapons of war, assumed that, somehow, the marines had used the rocket. Never mind that it was a marine tank that was now smoking, partly crippled from the blast. Some responded by running, but a lot of them grew feral, almost savage, and surged into the stunned marines who had busied themselves with seeking to give aid to the wolverine’s crew.

  As the crowd engulfed the marines, that emboldened others, who pressed in at the smell of blood. But rioters don’t match up well with marines in a straight-up fight. And despite the overwhelming numbers, the marines were able to beat back their attackers, who crumbled with each punch or swing of a weapon—or sometimes at just the threat of being hit.

  The marines had requested permission to open fire with their N-4s.

  The request was refused.

  Eventually another u
nit came in and dispersed the mob with House of Reason–approved tear gas.

  Several marines had been wounded, some critically. But no one died. Not even the point. But he did make all the news streams that evening. And soon House of Reason delegates and Senate factions were leveraging the event in their attempts to consolidate or gain power. The usual cycle.

  The following day, day three of the civil disobedience outbreak, began with unsubstantiated rumors that a mysterious Legion squad was operating among the protesters, denying civil liberties and threatening violence. Despite a world dominated by visual media, no one had managed to get a holorecording of any such squad, but the rumor stuck—and by noon parts of the city were on fire, full anarchy in effect. A war zone. Soon the Soshies were claiming that hundreds of peaceful protestors had been murdered by “out-of-control” marines and a detachment of “psychopath legionnaires.”

  This time, however, there were pictures. Pictures of bloody protestors. And despite the Repub marines’ insistence that they’d had no such engagements—that these were doctored holopics of actors wearing makeup, or perhaps injured by their fellow rioters—every holofeed used that picture of the bleeding protestor.

  “Out-of-control marines.”

  “Psychopath legionnaires.”

  The rioters tripled in number the next day. Today.

  But Reaper Actual’s problem wasn’t that either. It wasn’t any of that. Her issue was… sight picture.

  Reaper Actual’s job was to provide fire support overwatch from an airborne platform. Overwatch for an advancing line of Repub marines in riot gear wading into the streets to clear a path for the government to pull back from its office towers until the riots could be dealt with and good governance restored. But shooting from an airborne platform was no easy trick. And the old SLIC relics from the War of Psydon the marines used for fire support bounced around in the hot thermals coming up from the boiling streets of the city. It was late summer on Detron and the city was simmering.

  “Got one,” she murmured over the comm. Her N-18 locked in and tagged a target below. “Looks like we got a player.”

  “Holding,” said the pilot of Reaper 66, the SLIC Reaper Actual was operating out of. The pilot switched over to general comm with the shotcaller and declared, “Undertaker, this is Reaper Oh-Two. Reaper Actual says she’s got a player. Feeding you her cam. Reaper Oh-Two standing by for confirmation and authorization on trigger pull, over.”

  Reaper Actual said nothing from her shooting position on the aft cargo deck of the stabilized SLIC. There was no one else back there and so no one to talk to. And she was a marine of few words. She did her job and didn’t waste time talking about it. Being talkative and being a military sniper didn’t go well together. Part of the personal profile that got you into the Reaper program.

  She wore standard marine fatigues, light armor, and combat boots. She was small. Muscled. One eye back from the high-powered scope of the N-18, studying the man she was about to shoot.

  She’d spotted him in a third-story window along the avenue the marine convoy below was taking into the heart of the city’s government and financial district. The streets were throbbing with rioters, faces covered by balaclavas they’d purchased from high-end shopping sites—they all seemed able to afford it. Their backpacks were loaded like the rucks of leejes and marines getting ready to go into combat deep in the jungle. Or lost in the desert. Only it was bricks and the fruits of looting they humped through the streets, eager to have a thrilling showdown with a marine and then return to their homes to post about it on social media and maybe stream some holos as they enjoyed their new free datapads. Liberated from the greedy corporations that built and sold them.

  Power to the people.

  Reaper Actual thought about how they must think it seemed fun to be playing soldier as long as you didn’t have to sign an oath or do what anyone told you to do. Or any of the other hard realities of actual military service. The galling thing to many of the marines was that in prime-time interviews the rioters made a point of comparing themselves to marines and legionnaires. Claiming they were somehow serving the Republic by resisting the legally elected officials. They were the heroes, if anyone cared to listen.

  Detron was on a core world, hence the House of Reason’s reluctance to send in the Legion to KTF everything and walk out. That kind of force was fine out on the edge and the mid-core, but it would have repercussions in future elections if it happened on a core world. A civilized world. For a civilized people. A world where weapons were illegal.

  Of course, somehow those weapons still turned up in the crowd. Always. And always held by the wrong people. The pros. Usually on the giving end of a dead marine or a burned-out APC.

  And that was her problem, too.

  “Damn,” she whispered over the comm, the howl of the SLIC’s turbines pitching to hold position while the repulsors thumped out their pulsing beat.

  “What?” asked the pilot.

  “He’s out of picture,” she replied. “Went back inside the room. Can you lose a little altitude to reacquire?”

  “Can do,” replied Reaper Oh-Two.

  The skies over the smoke-filled city were swarming with other marine drop craft. Smaller birds were inserting specialized quick reaction teams that might be needed in certain situations. Pilots were making daring landings onto narrow rooftops to insert the teams who’d hold there until needed. Heavier gunship versions of the SLICs—still ancient—were over the main body of the marine convoy with hullbusters and weapons hanging out. Though they were not to use those weapons, even to return fire, unless first granted approval.

  And it was obvious from how bold the Soshies had become that they knew exactly how much the military couldn’t fight back. Which, according to the general chatter, was turning everything into a big Day of Stupid.

  “Someone’s going to get hurt today,” squawked a voice over general chat. It was a marine staff sergeant running an indirect fire team from a crumbling apartment block tower.

  “So, same as every other day,” another voice replied.

  Which was true. But today seemed like it was going to be the big one. The start of the real trouble.

  Aboard Reaper 66 in overwatch fire support position, Reaper Actual again had a good picture inside the room she’d been eyeballing through her scope. Oh-Two had lost a little altitude, coming down closer to the tiered rooftops of the housing district they hovered over. Residents and students snapped images on their datapads of her on the hovering SLIC, N-18 clearly aiming at something.

  Through the third-story window she saw the Soshie in full gear, minus mask. The specialized scope she used for her work was identifying military-grade body armor, rather than the typical Soshie black leather jacket. He also had flashbangs on a carrying harness. Not a shootable offense at this stage of escalation, but something the shotcaller watching her feed should have spotted. The shotcaller would interface with a Legion point sent in by the House of Reason to make the decision on trigger pull.

  But so far…

  Then she saw it. A Type 92 Steiger Arms subcompact blaster.

  And… a sniper rifle against the back wall.

  “Got a Mulotti high-capacity leaning against the back wall. He means business.”

  There could be no doubt about that rifle. It was a specialized weapon system that kept ending up in the hands of terrorists and insurgents on various worlds. It was excellent at killing legionnaires at medium range, and could kill marines and Republic Army effectively at long range if the shooter had some chops. It used half a charge pack per shot, but it could be loaded with up to ten micro-charge packs that gave it an excellent sustained rate of fire for a shooter in a target-rich environment at close range.

  And for shooting down into the streets at exposed marines supporting an armored convoy… yeah, it’d do the job just fine.

  “Bingo!” whooped Oh-Two ove
r the comm, hoping to alert the shotcaller’s attention back at Command. “We have a player. Confirmed banned weapon system. We good to shoot, sir?”

  No reply as the SLIC hovered in closer. Oh-Two nudged the craft forward over an apartment building to get out of an updraft coming up off the oddly empty street below.

  Both pilot and shooter aboard Reaper 66 heard the whooooosh.

  One of the crew chiefs in another bird called out, “Incoming!”

  Alarms began beeping inside the SLIC but just as quickly died down as it became clear that Reaper 66 wasn’t the target.

  A few streets over a rocket streaked up from an alley and smacked into the side of one of the matte gray marine SLICs over the main convoy at the front of the riot. A moment later the bird was trying to climb, spinning and spilling black smoke at the same time, then autorotating down into the seething streets not far from the clash of forces.

  “Bird down! Bird down!” Oh-Two was calling out over the comm as the day went from bad to South of Worse in an instant.

  02

  “We are en route to secure the crash site, over.”

  “Copy that, Switchblade. Pulling marines back to Thirty-Second and Park. Be advised drone feed says the rioters are approaching the wreck.”

  The assault shuttle carrying the Legion quick reaction force identified as Switchblade lifted off from a small apartment building rooftop inside the district known as the Prosperity Sprawl, west of the main riot.

  The Prosperity Sprawl, or simply the Sprawl, had once been the neighborhood of choice for shipyard workers who assembled the massive power plants of the old battleships, which were then disassembled and shipped to Tarrago for installation. Back then the place had been called the Boilermaker District—a solid middle-class suburb with nice houses, new speeders in garages, good schools, and well-maintained parks. Now it was little more than a zone of eroding and lifeless streets controlled by a violent gang that specialized in the distribution of the dangerous drug H8.

  The gangbangers knew the legionnaires were there, on the roof in their hood. But they didn’t bother them. Because you don’t pick a fight with the Legion. Not if you have anything to lose. And while the Sprawl wasn’t much compared to the still-affluent sectors of the city, those who owned the streets lived like kings. And none of them wanted to be dethroned by taking on a Legion that was pretty much minding its own business.