Read Online Polity 2 - Hilldiggers by Asher Neal - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Asher Neal
Ads: Link
themselves so bewildered by what was happening they were unable to negotiate terms of surrender. I rather suspect Fleet would have ignored them anyway during the assault on Brumal itself. Absolute surrender ensued when communications were finally restored.
During the twenty years from then until now, the Sudorians established bases down on Brumal and kept a close watch on the remains of Brumallian society. The hilldiggers were used twice more: once after it became evident the old enemy was building nuclear power plants, and again when a nuclear explosion destroyed one of the Sudorian bases. Subsequent investigation revealed that the explosion was caused by a Sudorian terrorist group who felt sympathy for an old enemy they considered as oppressed as themselves. That was a sure sign of attitudes slowly changing under a regime becoming more liberal after the oppressive restrictions of a century of war. Advanced human societies, go figure.
Our own ship would continue decelerating around Brumal for the next ten hours, before coming in to dock with Ironfist. I chatted for a little while longer with Duras, then headed first to the refectory for something to eat—finding myself ignored as usual by the Fleet personnel there—then to my cabin to get some sleep. Later, as we came in to orbit Brumal, I stood again at those windows observing those mountain ranges rucked up along shores where cities once bored deep into the ground, beside the blue-green oceans over which storms now swirled—the environmental fallout from the carnage still evident.
I didn't see the approaching missile, for the armoured shutters slid closed. The impact buckled the floor, flinging me from my feet, and fire sheathed the ceiling before air screaming out of a nearby breach sucked it away.
I didn't need the wasp-lights to tell me we had a problem.
3
So what are Brumallians? If I declare they are utterly alien to us, will that make us feel better about killing millions of them? It is their very alienness that made them less of a threat to us, for as a place to live our world is irrelevant to them, and its resources would be harder for them to obtain than those lying available in extra-planetary asteroids. But despite their strange appearance, they are not really that alien. They still have wives and mothers, fathers and children, bawling babies and sulky teenagers, millions of whom were crushed or suffocated under billions of tons of rock and earth. What did they do wrong to suffer that fate? They communicated with us, but those who ruled us at the time saw only a people that could be portrayed as a threat and used to open the coffers of our society; then they defended themselves when attacked and died fighting to protect their world. And in the end they were martyred by Fleet, and sacrificed to our illusions.
—Uskaron
McCrooger
The lights and the klaxon indicated a level-three emergency in my current location. Really, you don't say. I ran along the buckled floor, the breath issuing from my lungs in one continuous exhalation as the pressure dropped. As I rounded the corner, the bulkhead door in the corridor leading inward was just six inches from the floor. I stooped down to catch hold of its lower rim and heaved up. Something thumped behind a nearby wall, and when yellow oily fluid began flooding out of cracks between riveted panels, I realised I'd just burst the hydraulic ram closing the door. After ducking underneath, I then pushed the door all the way down to the floor, where the vacuum developing on its other side sucked it back against its seals. The next bulkhead door was also closing. I treated it in the same way and moved on further into the ship, fortunately approaching my cabin without having to wreck any more hydraulic rams.
“We have been struck by a missile fired from the surface of Brumal,” the ship tannoy announced. “All crew to stations. Don survival suits. Bulkhead doors from Green Five to White Three closing.”
On the other
During the twenty years from then until now, the Sudorians established bases down on Brumal and kept a close watch on the remains of Brumallian society. The hilldiggers were used twice more: once after it became evident the old enemy was building nuclear power plants, and again when a nuclear explosion destroyed one of the Sudorian bases. Subsequent investigation revealed that the explosion was caused by a Sudorian terrorist group who felt sympathy for an old enemy they considered as oppressed as themselves. That was a sure sign of attitudes slowly changing under a regime becoming more liberal after the oppressive restrictions of a century of war. Advanced human societies, go figure.
Our own ship would continue decelerating around Brumal for the next ten hours, before coming in to dock with Ironfist. I chatted for a little while longer with Duras, then headed first to the refectory for something to eat—finding myself ignored as usual by the Fleet personnel there—then to my cabin to get some sleep. Later, as we came in to orbit Brumal, I stood again at those windows observing those mountain ranges rucked up along shores where cities once bored deep into the ground, beside the blue-green oceans over which storms now swirled—the environmental fallout from the carnage still evident.
I didn't see the approaching missile, for the armoured shutters slid closed. The impact buckled the floor, flinging me from my feet, and fire sheathed the ceiling before air screaming out of a nearby breach sucked it away.
I didn't need the wasp-lights to tell me we had a problem.
3
So what are Brumallians? If I declare they are utterly alien to us, will that make us feel better about killing millions of them? It is their very alienness that made them less of a threat to us, for as a place to live our world is irrelevant to them, and its resources would be harder for them to obtain than those lying available in extra-planetary asteroids. But despite their strange appearance, they are not really that alien. They still have wives and mothers, fathers and children, bawling babies and sulky teenagers, millions of whom were crushed or suffocated under billions of tons of rock and earth. What did they do wrong to suffer that fate? They communicated with us, but those who ruled us at the time saw only a people that could be portrayed as a threat and used to open the coffers of our society; then they defended themselves when attacked and died fighting to protect their world. And in the end they were martyred by Fleet, and sacrificed to our illusions.
—Uskaron
McCrooger
The lights and the klaxon indicated a level-three emergency in my current location. Really, you don't say. I ran along the buckled floor, the breath issuing from my lungs in one continuous exhalation as the pressure dropped. As I rounded the corner, the bulkhead door in the corridor leading inward was just six inches from the floor. I stooped down to catch hold of its lower rim and heaved up. Something thumped behind a nearby wall, and when yellow oily fluid began flooding out of cracks between riveted panels, I realised I'd just burst the hydraulic ram closing the door. After ducking underneath, I then pushed the door all the way down to the floor, where the vacuum developing on its other side sucked it back against its seals. The next bulkhead door was also closing. I treated it in the same way and moved on further into the ship, fortunately approaching my cabin without having to wreck any more hydraulic rams.
“We have been struck by a missile fired from the surface of Brumal,” the ship tannoy announced. “All crew to stations. Don survival suits. Bulkhead doors from Green Five to White Three closing.”
On the other
Similar Books
