The Rebel Faction

The Litany of Loss occurs congruent with Spheres of Influence: The Space Between

This is dedicated to Micheal "Zark" on his Birthday!









Truth transcends space and time. The perception of reality may vary from one man to the next, may shift according to his own preconceived notions about the-way-things-are but there will always remain key truths unchanged by the dimensions of man. Brilliance, be it the in the glow of a distant star or the eye of a child, remains constant. So too does its polar opposite, so too does darkness prevail...

Among the Colonies of Gestalt crime was rearing its ugly head for the first and only time in their brief history. To a people unaccustomed to deviation, among a society so dedicated to order that they would sacrifice their own personal freedoms in favor of structure, this event would forever change their perception of their own place in the Galaxy.

Under the direction of Vice Commodore Lance Story Shipwright the citizenry of Gestalt continued to enjoy a near Utopian existence, of sorts. Elections assured the plebes a voice in their future even if the candidates had to meet certain, strict requirements before being granted the privilege of running for public office. Trade and a booming economy put food on their tables and clothed their children and in exchange they worked, toiled for a better tomorrow. Shipwright had summoned a culture so regimented that, of its own free will, had chosen to strike out against the typical templates that dominated the various sectors of civilized space and in so doing offered itself up to the guiding hand of a single man. Crime and dissension were unheard of, had never been seen and had no public face in their media. Poverty did not exist, it simply had no room to operate. The same was true of disease and sickness. Life in the Gestalt Colonies was, by and large, unparalleled and it cost them deeply...

... but in the end; it was all worth it.

*

They called it Far-point. They had named it aptly.

Far-Point Colony was, for all intents and purposes, on the very edge of the Gestalt Star System. It was the last stop on any outbound voyage and the first stop for any inbound traffic. And it was large.

The skeleton like structure that was Far-Point Colony extended for some thirty kilometers in every direction but at it's thickest point the spindly, hexagonal shape stretched some thousand meters at best. Like some many-jointed worm, the body of Far-Point coiled around a cluster of asteroid bodies which had, at some expense, been hauled out of the systems Oort cloud and installed in a stationary position near the jump-terminus of the system itself. Beset by landing docks, stowage slips and full capital scale berths, the Colony was equipped to handle and process a far greater volume of traffic then it actually experienced or had ever been subject to. It's counterpart, at least in designation if not appearance, New Kashan, was half a star system away and, unlike Far-Point, was the primary kick-off and landing area for traffic making the Gestalt-Kashan trip. And, unlike New Kashan which was heavily policed, Far-Point was left wanting in terms of patrol and observation. It was that lack that would spell disaster.

*

Proctor Bevan was a good man. A strong man was Proctor Bevan, and unfaltering in the administration of his duties as Chief of Operations for Far-Point Colony. The job, despite its mundane title, meant that the buck, metaphorical or otherwise, stopped with him. Once, during a transfer of live, three-antlered nerf from cargo to processing, he had been forced to wrangle one of the beasts down with his bare knuckled fists and the jokes wrote themselves. Proctor Bevan, they said, could tackle any problem you threw at him, bucking, kicking and goring.

So, when roused from his bed chamber during the wee hours (though time was subjective, this far from the glow of Gestalt; the system primary) it was with some practiced ease that he donned his surcoat and, dragging a damp cloth across his face, sauntered in to the Operators Center. Despite the late hour the place was virtual hive of activity. Whatever had called Proctor Bevan from his dreams had been of sufficient concern that someone had sounded the general call. He scrunched up his brow and called for attention.

“What's all the hubbub?”

Adjutant Leslie, a dwarf of a man but built on the best of intentions, pushed forward. “We have a serious problem down in processing...”

The dwarf seemed ill at ease to go on and only after much prodding did he continue.

“Well it seems that one of the workers, well... He flipped out sir. We're still gathering details but it seems pretty certain of; he was on spice. The rest of his crew say everything was fine, nothing out of the ordinary until this man started screaming in to his vacuum helmet about insects and his skin before tearing open the emergency seal and exposing himself to an almost lethal dose of radiation...”

Proctor Bevan was a good man. He was a strong man but just now, he was a very confused man. A look of dismay mingled with outrage, twisting his features and causing his cheeks to blush. It was not that one of his men was near deaths door that had him upset, it was not the fact that he had been roused from bed...

His jaw dropped and he said only one word, asked it aloud. He said, “Drugs?”

“Regardless,” declared Proctor Bevan resolute, “we have a chain of events here…”

Adjutant Leslie cast a furtive glance at the corkboard. Even in that cursory look at the information pinned up he could see a clear series of events that seemed to indication an obvious connection between the deaths of Jean Renault and Guy Kleinstock.

In his old life Bevan had been a town magistrate in some one-horse town on a back water world populated strictly by farmers and miners of such low stock that even the galactic mega corporations and crime syndicates had not bothered investing in their future, or the exploitation there of. To that end he and his people, of whom Leslie was one, had come to accept the profusion of technology throughout the colonies begrudgingly. Computers still baffled Bevan, master of logistics though he was, so for the majority of his occupation he avoided it where he could.

The corkboard was a prime example.

“Kleinstock and Renault went through boot together,” Bevan mused aloud while tracing a course through the assembled information. “We have reports from their instructors that, to the best of their recollection, the boys never really mingled with one another but here…”

He tugged at a incident report filed from the academy during their time there, “Here we have a report filed by their senior drill instructor that he handed them simultaneous severe reprimands for ‘conduct unbecoming’ when he busted the pair doing god knows what hours after lights out.”

Adjutant Leslie asked needlessly, “But what were they doing?”

They both knew the answer. Or more to the point; they both knew why the answer they had was not satisfactory. The following documents, those containing the substance and cause of the DI’s consternation, had been classified. It was a joke.

“Don’t ask,” started Bevan.

Leslie completed, “don’t tell.”

They both shrugged.

“I don’t buy it,” stated Bevan plainly. “If they were dandy’s I don’t think… Look, I don’t know how those people think but if it’s anything like us I can tell you that love got me busted more then once in life when I was young. Everything was so tidy and then…”

“A lie of convenience,” answered Leslie. “You have to guess they investigated. If they bought it, why shouldn’t we?”

Momentarily defeated Bevan did not immediately reply. Absently he looked around the room but the imitation wood panel walls offered him no comfort nor did the stars visible through the window of their office calm his nerves. It occurred to him that the odd contrast of would-be-wood and the starscape surrounding Far-Point Colony had been the source of much scuttlebutt amongst the lower ranks. He smirked.

“It was covered up. We leave that alone,” he paused, “for now.”

Bevan used the break to fish a packet of cigarettes out of his pockets.

“What about the rest?” He asked, lighting up.

Adjutant Leslie fixed his hands upon his hips, a disconsolate grimace on his face.

“Start at the beginning,” proposed Bevan behind a cloud of smoke. “That is where every story starts, Leslie”

At the very top of their compilation were two documents pinned side-by-side. “Documentation of Citizenship,” he read aloud. “They are from different offices, different signatories. I’m not seeing it, Boss. What’s here?”

“Look at the dates. They are exactly the same all the way down,” to illustrate his point Bevan indicated with a digit. “They requested refugee status on the same day and they even pledged their allegiance to the Colonies on the same day but at both times, different offices.”

Leslie shrugged. “Are you sure that it’s not just coincidence? We are talking about the boom and all. There have got to be hundreds of people with the same dates…”

“That’s true,” admitted Bevan unconvincingly. “But none of them died under mysterious circumstances with the same chemical connection as our two boys… we’ll leave that alone just now.”

“Go down further,” he added. Bevan had a way of leading people and Leslie was prone to being led. “Look at their enlistment papers and tell me what strikes you as fishy.”

While Leslie searched the aforementioned papers Bevan took a moment to search the contents of his desk drawer. Whatever the source of his explorations, he was elbow deep in the lower drawer of his desk with his chin almost pressed against the faux-wood surface when Leslie spoke up.

“That’s odd.”

“Hmm?” Bevan looked up while continuing the relentless search of the contents of his desk.

“Their apps’ are the tidiest I’ve ever seen. Clean handwriting, no errors not even spelling…”

“None?” Bevan interrupted, “Are you sure there are no errors at all?”

Leslie blinked. He blinked then slapped a palm against his forehead. “Well paint me in pink and call me Betsy, I can’t believe it.”

Bevan smiled because he knew exactly what his Adjutant had just seen; a pair of scribbled out mistakes on two separate documents both meticulously written, so subtly done were they that Bevan himself had to look twice. Both men, Kleinstock and Renault had check the box marked “Siblings” and then attempted to erase the same and check the box that affirmed negative. In the first days the Colonies had been without an excess of technological facilitators like data-pads and computer storage capacity and so much of the documents from that time were hand written, often in pencil. As they moved ever forward these documents were being increasingly digitized for storage convenience but these had yet to be destroyed, and had they been, this subtle clue may have been lost to antiquity.

“They were brothers.”

“No,” replied Bevan. “We can not confirm or disprove that yet. This is a question we cannot answer here.”

“Where are we going? We’re leaving Far-Point?”

Proctor Bevan grinned triumphantly and pulled the profits of his search from his desk and plunked it, or them, down upon its surface. His standard issue sidearm and badge sat squat on his desk. “You better believe it.”

A day later the pair were aboard the Proctors personal shuttle bound for the gem of the Colonies, bound for Gestalt I.

Bevan had sat along side his trusting counterpart Leslie in the cab of their air car in silent contemplation for a long, a very long, time before reaching a decision. Finally and at long last he knew what he had to do.

The road to this point, he realized, had been paved for him by someone with great talent and great power of manipulation and while he had previously thought himself the intrepid detective uncovering clues hidden from him he had in fact been following a series of carefully planted directives that had lead him to this point. At first he had refused to accept it, considering the alternative options that freed him of responsibility, of obligation but quickly concluded that this was a fools effort and he would only do himself a disservice by attempting to deceive himself in to believing anything but the obvious facts. It was a repugnant idea; that he had been played like a fiddle and that the end result still remained hidden from him but one that he knew he would have to accept. So he had opted instead to accept the facts. He had made a career out of facts, he had to remind himself, and a man of tradition neither of which, particularly in consort, would allow him the bliss of ignorance. It was said that there were generally a number of acknowledge stages of acceptance. Proctor Bevan had did not hold with that idea and in the matter of an hour he had chosen the outcome of the rest of his life.

He had turned to Leslie, his faithful Adjutant, and said, “You have been a faithful companion and friend to me, Leslie. I thank you for the many long years we have worked together.”

As a matter of course and modesty, Leslie had tried to object but Bevan would have none of it. He insisted, “I have but one last thing I would ask of you Leslie. I want you to leave me now, to forget the life you lived before, and retire to the countryside. Forget this case, remember nothing following the demise of young Jean Renault because if you don’t, if you try to follow me where I have to go now, I know it will be the end of you and I cannot have that upon me.”

It had taken some additional coaxing to bring Leslie round to his way of thinking, to make him see the horrible truth that he must now and forever forget but eventually he had submitted to the will of Proctor Bevan as he had done for much of his life. The old ways were slowly vanishing within the Colonies, slowly being replaced with a more favorable and unified norm and, cajoling Leslie, he had convinced his friend that it was time to move on, to adapt.

Then, placing his badge of rank and pistol upon the dash, Proctor Bevan had exited the air car. He dared not turn back lest his friend should sense some doubt in him inspiring him to do something foolish. Out of all of this two men were dead, the first men to die within the Colonies under questionable circumstances and he was hopeful that Leslie would live on, peacefully.

It was a long walk across the courtyards that stood between the monolithic towers of the Seven Cities leaving Bevan time to think. He recalled the words of infamous Jedi when walking in to a trap, what shall we do? Spring it, and so he intended to do. Even in the face of the obvious he refused to simply stumble along like the play piece of some megalomaniac deity in some game of chance playing with the lives of those below. There was no reason he had to play along.

Inside the lobby of the building which was his destination he was surprised to find the cavernous space devoid of human occupants. This was extremely unusual. The Office of the Vice Commodore was literally a fortress usually populated by his personal security personnel and staff but today it stood open and seemingly undefended. This again gave Bevan pause. It was not only a confirmation of what he already knew to be true but it was a testament to the power that had been exerted over him to so accurately time his arrival. He momentarily regretted having left his sidearm behind though contemplating retrieving it now was utterly pointless, so he pressed on.

Nearing the bank of turbo-lifts, super-fast elevators that could shuttle people from the basement levels to the highest floors numbering well above a hundred within moments, he was both shocked and dismayed to see that one of the lifts stood open, waiting for him. Someone was watching. Impishly he considered instead attempting to summon one of the other lifts in an effort to frustrate his host, but decided against it.

He boarded the lift and was treated to a spectacular view of the Seven Cities Area as the lift shot up and out an external tube towards the penthouse. The musical selection was fitting and Bevan chuckled despite himself as the singer, a local Colonial artist, sang in his country twang, “My Honey Done Played Me (Like A Fiddle)”.

It was a short ride and he arrived, much as anticipated, in the atrium opening on to the private offices of Lance Shipwright. A woman was there to meet him, but the way that she stood with her hands folded over her belly, eyes towards the floor, told him that she was little more then one of his house staff but even then he would give no quarter. She bowed.

“Welcome,” her voice was soft. “Follow me.”

He did. She conducted him to one of the series of inter-connected open air balconies that ringed the highest peak of the tower belonging to Colonial Technologies and the Office of the Vice Commodore. Bevan gasped at the height taking a moment to dispel the touch of vertigo that swam at the edge of his vision.

“It is impressive, no?”

Bevan spun, he spun so quickly that he toppled one of the reclined seats arranged around a bubbling fountain. And then he said, “I knew it.”

Lance Shipwright, the Vice Commodore smiled. “I knew you would.”

This was Bevan’s first introduction, his first meeting with the Vice Commodore and he was totally underwhelmed. The man was utterly unimpressive. He had handsome enough features but not the sort of strikingly beautiful sort of the Adonis the media painted him as. His build was totally average he realized. Out of uniform Lance Shipwright was an average man but a consummate master of misdirection. He stood in the towering doors that opened on to the balconies draped in a robe the variety of which was generally reserved for baths, though cut from a fine silken fabric of the richest, deepest crimson and bordered by thick black swaths of onyx. Beneath this he was wearing a similarly colored set of what Bevan could only describe as pajamas, though as noted, decidedly higher fashion.

The dawning realization that the Vice Commodore he had seen in the media, in public, was not the same man standing before him then must have been evident for Lance Shipwright seemed to pick up on this. He spoke.

“Yes,” he affirmed. “It is me.”

“I, um,” Bevan stammered. “What is going on, exactly?”

Moving, much as his clothes, like silk Lance Shipwright descended in to one of the reclined, artistically crafted seats before gesturing to the chair beside his own though Bevan declined, with a politely upheld palm. “What is going on, exactly,” he said with a casual air, “is the truth.”

“I want you to know the truth, Proctor Bevan, and then I want you to make a choice.” As an afterthought he added, “You really should sit.”

Again, Bevan declined. “I will have the truth.”

“Or death?”

Bevan blinked.

The off-duty Vice Commodore filled his confused silence. “The truth is that nothing is what it seems save for those things that are. Do you understand?”

Bevan said nothing, did nothing. He stood like a pillar of marble, unmoving.

Shipwright smirked at this but went on regardless, “Sometimes the truth is best told in riddles. It softens the blow.”

“Did you murder those two men?” Bevan was shocked to hear the words come from his own mouth but he had regained his composure and gave no sign of it. Steer the course. He’d had enough of the enigmatic bullshit that had brought him here. He wanted answers. “Were you responsible for their deaths?”

“No,” answered Shipwright evenly, phased not even in the slightest by Bevan’s directness. “But I was aware that they were going to die.”

Bevan nodded. “Where did the drugs come from?”

“Criminals,” he shrugged. “Don’t they always?”

“They are a vital element of any successful society,” added Shipwright.

“Why?”

Rolling a shoulder he extended a hand towards his glass (Bevan had failed to notice it upon arrival, just another reminder that he had been caught with his foot off the base). “To quote a famous fictional character…”

He sipped his drink.

“You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fucking fingers, and say ‘that's the bad guy’.”

Replacing the drink in its place, he finished, “Without the bad, people will forget what is good. Without crime there is no justice, without adversity a people cannot overcome. The Colonies must have these things to replace the fragile façade of Utopia.”

Speaking up, Bevan asked, “What the hell does all this mean?”

“If you will not sit down,” snipped Shipwright sounding mildly annoyed, “then I shall have to stand.”

Eyes locked, Lance moved very close to Bevan. In that proximity they both knew that Lance had exposed himself to potential physical harm. The good Proctor had an easy twenty kilograms and fifteen centimeters on the Vice Commodore and where Bevan was trained and experienced in the use of martial arts, Shipwright was not.

“What this means Bevan is that the Colonies are not immune to the human condition. If the Colonies must have these things then they will be controlled, regimented and overseen.” They remained dangerously close to one another. “If there is to be crime it will be by my hand. If there is to be adversity it will be by my hand.”

“You’re insane,” stated Bevan and he meant it.

“No,” Shipwright shook his head. “I am methodical.”

“There will be crime and it will be manipulated to the advantage of the people. Do you not see?”

Bevan shook his head in disgust, “You want to allow these things in to our society? How is that not insane?! The people are happy now. The people are safe now!”

“And what of twenty years from now, a hundred years?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It is a constant in the human condition,” Shipwright moved then, towards the edge of the balcony and placed his palms upon the rail. “There is a weakness down there and amongst the Colonies; we live in a paradise of our own devising but how long can this bliss last? All honeymoons come to an end, and when we move towards that twilight, what then?”

“I will tell you what then. Reality will catch up with us and we will not be prepared for it. It will ambush us and it will destroy us because we, as a people, will not have the strength to over come. So I will show the people, I will remind them of the harsh reality that resides beyond the borders of our territory and I will lead them to overcome it, to crush it down in to near nothingness where it will serve as a constant reminder that we cannot take for granted this,” he spread his arms to indicate the full expanse of the Colonies including those hidden by the daytime ambiance. “Every day that we move ahead we do ourselves harm in forgetting that there really are monsters and bogeymen and I will not allow the people of the Colonies to find themselves unprepared for their inevitable arrival, we will be equipped to deal with these things.”

He turned towards Bevan at this point, “And that is why you are here because events have unfolded which are going to continue to unfold.”

“What do…” Bevan was stumped.

“As I see it you have a couple choices. One, you can do what your sense of morality is telling you to do, you can go to the media and try and out me as some sort of monster. Two, you can allow your basic instincts to take over and cast me off this balcony seeing that Justice is served yourself. Three, you can throw yourself off of this balcony. Four… and I quite like four, you can admit the truth of what I say, see the logic behind it and do exactly as I had hoped from the beginning… you can help me.”

“I am prepared to place you in a position of authority over the elements of Law, to make you the single authorative voice on matters of Crime and Justice.”

Reeling, Bevan was still struggling to keep up with all this but showing nothing of his struggles outwardly and indeed this was part of the very reason Shipwright had selected him. Still he managed to object, “What kind of sham position would that be when I know for certain who the real criminal is, who the Kingpin is?”

Shipwright smirked, “That depends on you because it would be you.”

Sensing that Bevan was coming to a conclusion of his own Lance pressed on, “You would be both night and day, Justice and Crime and it would be your task to command a very clandestine organization designed to do just that, regulate and create.”

“David,” cursed Bevan. “I need to sit down.”






Much later, in the subterranean annals of a labyrinthine complex buried somewhere in the mountains of Gestalt…

Bevan studied himself in the mirror and told himself, “Yes, it’s me.”

In the past months he had changed, he knew it and he wondered at the parts of himself he was leaving behind. Nothing about it had been gradual. They said that it was a slippery slope but he did not hold with silly ideas, to him it was bottomless pit.

Something had died inside and had been replaced with… he did not know.

Maybe it was reality, the thing which Lance Shipwright had spoken of. Idealism is easy, safe. A person could live forever inside an ideal without any real understanding of the universe beyond that stupid belief. Reality was less forgiving and it killed the soul like a drug. He’d made his choice but…

“Bevan,” called a husky male voice.

Snapped back to the very reality which was the source of his contemplation Bevan turned slowly away from the mirror. Standing in the door to his office was a man dressed in a matte black suit, totally indistinguishable. His eyes were hidden by the light reflected in his eye-glasses, the lenses catching the glare just so and clutched under his left arm he carried a hat, a simple gray affair with a curled brim. The man had a name, once.

“Yes?”

The agent was a stark contrast to Bevan who wore a tailored suit cut to complement his build. Upon his breast, clipped to the lapel, was a badge new to the Colonies which identified him as Coordinator Bevan, Chief Officer of the Colonial Commission on Crime (or simply the Commission as the agents called it).

“Our friend in sales has been relocated. He will enjoy his vacation.”

Bevan nodded. He was perhaps one of a dozen or so men in the entirety of the Colonies who understood the cryptic message. “Enjoy your fishing trip,” countered Bevan.

The agent nodded but remained.

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes, sir,” the agent stressed the latter. “You are due in court shortly. If you leave now you should arrive on time.”

Bevan nodded, the agent withdrew.

This was how things were done now. For better or worse…


*


In the long months following the official formation of the Colonial Commission on Criminal Activities crime rose a full thirty percent as compared to prior to the formation of the same leading people to wonder. Was the creation of the Commission responsible for the increase in criminal activities? Some said yes, others dared even voice their aggravation in public forums but it was a short lived trend.

Within a month of that painfully steep increase however, the Commission announced publicly that all levels of criminal activity had been reduced to their previous levels. Called out for his polices and procedures during this tumultuous period, Bevan finally, having restored the peace, made a public statement to the citizens of the Colonies regarding his actions.

He explained that the Commission had be formed just in time. He explained that the Colonies had allowed themselves to become susceptible to a known criminal element, that the Utopian bliss they had all come to take for granted had been in jeopardy of total collapse and that was why, acting swiftly, the Colonial Government had authorized the formation of the Commission. He detailed a carefully outlined plan, as followed by him and his staff, to obliterate this known criminal element and reduce it to it's smallest possible value and told them how that plan had been an utter success. But, he reminded the people of the Colonies, that suseptablility would not be allowed to resurface, that crime would forever be a part of any complete society but that he, and those like him, would swear upon their lives to give service, to safeguard the security of the Colonial citizenry.

It had been an impressive speech, written in fact by one of the Vice Commodores own speech writers, that had won over an uncertain crowd and reaffirmed the sense of unity, of simpatico that was synonymous with Colonial success. But, it did not end there. With the weight of sincerity he informed the people of the Colonies that from this day forth all crime, no matter how small, would not go unpunished, that the Colonies would begin construction of their first and only correctional institution and that, in the style of Colonial expansion, that facility would manifest itself in much the same was as the rest of their society; colonially.

The truth was much darker, but the people would chose to believe what they wanted and so long as the propaganda machines continued to function, would believe in the heroic sacrifice of those who would put themselves in the line of fire for the sake of Justice, Law and Peace.

Justice...

Law...

Peace...



















Fin