New story! Set in the same world as GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND. The title is a placeholder. You may also recognize the name.
People’s Defense Citadel #235
State of Riel
(Saskatchewan, Former Canada)
2103 AD
They decided to hang Danny the Deev in the morning.
Norm Baker (Corporal, People’s Liberty Corps) hoped that meant that the executions were over. They’d been pulling the PLC troops out of confinement three times a day for a week now to watch the hangings. At first, it was horrible, watching your own get treated like some kind of seccy rebel. After a while, you got numb. A while after that, you started counting how many of your buddies were still around and not kicking, and then it was horrible again.
But Danny was up there, all alone. And he was easily the worst bastard on base, except for the major who used to run this Citadel. Her, they had hanged right away. So maybe the worst was over? He figured they had to end sometime, unless the FSOBs were just gonna process the whole Citadel, right down to the foundations. And they could have done that any time they liked.
None of this showed on Norm’s face. He didn’t say a word about it, either. Not to any of the guys in his barracks, not to anybody in the chow line at breakfast afterward, and for damn sure not to anybody sitting at his table. He didn’t need the blinking collar around his neck to remind him to keep his damn fool mouth shut, except to shove food in. A lot of the guys who took a turn doing the gallows gavotte had talked themselves into the line. He wasn’t gonna do anything stupid, unless it wouldn’t matter anyway.
#commissionearned