A Shadow of a Doubt

Feb. 1 - Shadow

"They made a desert and called it peace." - Tacitus

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Shadow.

The scene of the crime.

The sky was blanketed by a thick covering of cloud. The wind was fierce. There was nothing to obstruct it now. No trees. No buildings.

I carefully negotiated the burnt and broken ground. Listening to the sound of my own breathing in my pressure suit.

I had come here to Shadow to fit the pieces together. To review the facts as presented.

-----

November.

A hither to unknown group known as the Volunteers of the Browncoat Resistance detonated a nuclear device on Londinium in the heart of an urban slum. The death toll was horrific.

Two persons were apprehended - a man, Sentry Swashbuckler, and a woman, Mikie Rhiadra. They were charged and convicted in a flurry of justice. The evidence, against the man at least, was circumstantial at best.

Then these two felons, found guilty of one of the most heinous crimes against an Alliance world in recent memory managed to escape from one of the most secure holding facilities in the Verse.

Right.

Okay, we can come back to that.

They were pursued to Shadow, a planet orbiting the Protostar Murphy in the Georgia system. Population 13,300 according to the last official census. The planet was destroyed in the process. Both criminals were assumed dead.

The officer who ordered the attack on Shadow, Commander William T. Faith, using the body of an Alliance soldier, tried unsuccessfully to fake his own death. He would go on to publicly proclaim his own godhood and leave the 34 Tauri system for family estates on Al Raqis, outside of Alliance control.

Later, Mikie Rhiadra would also show up in the Mu Draconis system. She would be seen taking orders from Sedrick Ascott Faith, the father of William Faith.

That was their mistake.

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Mikie Rhiadra.

During the course of my investigation, I learned that Ms. Rhiadra was what one might call a controllable tactical asset. Brooke gave me some of the details. Mikie was a human with accentuated qualities and hidden programming that could be activated by a voice command. Increased strength, rapid healing. She was a weapon.

The key here was 'controllable'.

Commander Faith was assigned to watch her.

Retired General Sedrick Ascot Faith was seen giving her commands after the events of Shadow.

Mikie Rhiadra was convicted in our own courts in the Londinium incident. During the trial, she was in a daze most of the time. Possibly an indication of recent control.

While this was not hard proof that one of the Faiths had ordered Ms. Rhiadra's actions, it did form a tangible link between Sedrick and William Faith and the bombing of Londinium.

If they had just quietly disposed of Mikie Rhiadra, I may never have seen that connection. Parading her around on Al Raqis, that can’t be ignored.

But why would Alliance officers, retired or otherwise, bomb Londinium?

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April. Last year.

Shadow declared itself independent from the Union of Allied Planets. The same Mikie Rhiadra stood on this ground and sent the Central Government packing.

Now that was a woman I would have liked to meet. Not some mind controlled weapon, but the woman who stood up to the Alliance and declared her world free.

She would have made a fine adversary.

Almost immediately after the declaration, UAP sponsored local militias launched an immediate attack in an attempt to strangle the rebellion in its cradle. When that did not work they continued with a series of actions intended to destabilize the fledgling government.

History is full of such examples. Nothing new there.

Nevertheless, the government of the independent Shadow endured.

Moderates within the Alliance began to shift their position. Zenobia, the Government of Albion, even opened a diplomatic trade mission, seen at the time as a first step towards official recognition by a member state of the UAP.

Others, not so moderate in their views, waited and planned to retake the colony. Let’s call them Hardliners.

And that was when the seeds of the destruction of Shadow were planted.

They still wanted a reason for the use of overwhelming force though. The bombing of Londinium gave them that.

The fact that Sedrick knows Mikie’s command codes and that Sentry and Mikie could escape so easily adds to the argument that this was a manufactured opportunity.

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Commander William T. Faith.

He was an instrument sent to deliver a message.

Just as I am the instrument sent to collect him.

We are the same in that way.

He had proven himself violent and unhinged. He murdered a man at his own wedding. I wouldn't be surprised to learn if that charming characteristic was part of the reason he had been given the assignment. It would increase the chance that he would go to extremes.

We will catch him eventually. He will be called to answer for his criminal excesses. As for what will happen to him after that, I do not know.

He must have known it could go in this direction. Why else try to fake his own death? Sure, to hide from the families of his victims. But he must have realized he would be the one to take the fall for this. Especially if he failed to retake Shadow, if that indeed was the objective.

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And what of the planners of this little tragedy?

The Hardliners.

The men in the shadows. The Shadow Men.

They will shuffle their papers. Publicly, they will blame William, abhor his excesses. Privately, they may fume over the loss of choice agricultural real estate.

But secretly, I am sure, they will be quite satisfied that the message was delivered.

Because in the last analysis, it didn't matter whether Faith had captured Shadow or destroyed it like he did. Either way the purpose was still served.

Just as the armies of antiquity had scorched the earth and poisoned the wells when they were forced into retreat, Shadow had been turned to glass and cinder.

The message was clear. Independence minded Rim worlds take note:

If we can't have it, no one can.

Same as it ever was.