Crossroads

[jammi]

"Stay in line, do not deviate! Move forward in an orderly manner!" The tannoy blasted out again, cutting through the hubub of panicing voices. A mass of scared people had been packed into the sorting square, guided by modular crowd control barriers that slid from the floor. Very slowly, they were being fed towards a customs office. Riot armoured soldiers watched disinterestedly from gantries that ran between the rooftops, eyeing the crowd for trouble. Ryan Harper had no intention of causing trouble - he had every intention of getting on a transport and getting off the goddamn planet.

"Stay in line, do not deviate! Move forward in an orderly manner!" The rationing had got more intense over the last couple of months, as had the soldiers. On government orders, they'd been ruthlessly cracking down on dissent and insubordination. They were on edge, running scared. Everyone felt the electric tension in the air, the calm before the storm. They were coming. Leeds' population awoke every morning expecting to hear the warble of raid sirens, or see the explosive fireworks depicting the final struggle for orbital superiority. Then Gaul landing ships would fall like raindrops, plumetting through the atmosphere carrying cargos of death and destruction. Occupiers. Conquerers.

"Stay in line, do not devia-." The tannoy adruptly cut off, mid-broadcast. The burble of confused voices rose as people peered around, looking for the cause. Suddenly the announcement resumed, this time spoken by a different man. He had a rough voice, laced with menace. "Citizens, at the command of the Planetary Governor, you will cease movement and clear a path to the spaceport! Move now!" A file of soldiers carrying assault carbines forced their way into the square, pushing people out the way to clear a space. Their mirrored hazmat combat masks made them faceless, inhuman and terrible. Forcing compliance, the automated cue barriers began to shift, ramming people out of the way. Indignant cries of protest rang out as the royal dragoons formed a corden, lining a direct path to the other side.

The commanding sergeant snapped to a salute as a weathily attired man and woman wandered in. They were wearing small rebreather feeds that clipped over their noses, powered by discretely hidden filters. A hover-trolly of belongings was pushed along behind them by another soldier - they probably weighed seven times the weight allowance of a refugee's luggage, and were worth twelve times their yearly wage. Insults and cat-calls rang out as the priviledged were fast-tracked through. Bretonia had always been stratified by an oppressive class system. Ryan felt furious. He recognised the pair - franchise owners of a local supermarket chain which had increased their prices time and time again, well above the rate of inflation or common decency. War profiteering vampires, both of them.

The insults intensified. A stone bounced off the helmet of one of the soliders. Laser rifles were immediately charged and trained on the increasingly hostile crowd. The soldiers added to the din, bellowing at the crowd to get back. The man in front of Ryan made a jump for the barrier to try and get at the suits. With a cry of, "those bloody murderers!", he thudded into one of the soldiers, who crashed to the floor. Ryan lunged forward and tried to grab the back of his shirt to pull him away, to no avail. A carbine flashed, and the man fell dead with a smoldering hole in his back. A shocked silence fell, before the roar rose.

Carbines spat again and again and again.

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