Sandino's Snakes: Part Two

The Snakes, a thousand Navy crewmembers, and the half-dozen remaining members of Inquisitor Zomosa's retinue languished in orbit. As the highest-ranking officer remaining, Colonel Sandino was in nominal command, and at first, he took measures to maintain the military discipline and disposition of the group. But as the months passed, the enforced isolation and exile began to fray the edges of his authority.

In order to maintain control, his disciplinary measures became more and more harsh. Corporal punishment became commonplace, and on several occasions executions were deemed necessary and carried out. And yet anger and resentment continued to brew and seethe within his command. Sandino himself was not immune, and became more and more embittered as time passed.

Some of the Navy crew wanted to try their luck at navigating the crippled destroyer back towards the Imperium, a voyage that would surely take years and with small chance of ever arriving intact. Some of the Snakes wanted to force their way off the ship (which most had now taken to calling The Tomb) and down to the planet.

Indeed, Sandino had considered several such ideas, including staging a coup d'etat against the monarchy, or perhaps carving out a kingdom for themselves somewhere else on the planet. But the simple fact was that with barely a thousand Snakes, and another thousand ill-trained Navy crew, they simply did not have the manpower to take on the entire Monarchy Defense Force and the Royal Guard. Instead, he came up with an alternative plan.

Accepting that they had little choice but to remain trapped aboard The Tomb in orbit for what could be years, or decades, Colonel Sandino decided he needed two things: an influx of new people, especially women, and a means of bleeding off the pressure that enforced confinement was building amongst his men. And he hit upon the perfect plan to accomplish both goals. Moral scruples delayed this plan for a full three years after the ship arrived in the system, but finally, very carefully and covertly, and with the utmost care to misdirect the blame... the Snakes began to raid the planet.

The first raids were on the most remote areas of the world. Outlying ranches and farms. A small mining operation in a distant mountain range. A tiny convent that had chosen a secluded location to cut themselves off from the world. Those who resisted the Snakes were killed. The rest, mostly women and children, were taken back up to The Tomb. And so expert were the Snakes at this sort of raiding and misdirection that the planetary investigators never once suspected the truth. Shuttle drops were carefully timed to avoid detection by the planet's primitive air traffic control systems. All evidence was cleaned up that could point to the Snakes was cleaned before they left. And occasionally, misleading clues would be planted to suggest that the attacks were the work of gangs of bandits hiding out in those same remote areas.

This continued for years. The raids began to grow bolder and more frequent, although they were still only in outlying areas all over the planet. As the authorities failed to stop, or even determine the source of the depredations, rumours began to grow amongst the population that this was the work of some horrible cult who stole victims for gruesome sacrifices. (And in fact, after the first few years, the Snakes, monitoring planetary newscasts, realized that there were more raids occurring than they were carrying out - others, perhaps, were taking advantage of the situation the Snakes were creating!)

Soon, Sandino faced a new problem. His men (and he now counted most of the Navy crew as Snakes, too) hadn't faced significant resistance in several years and had become convinced that they were the single most powerful armed group in the system. A growing faction revived the idea of taking over the planet, or at least carving out an empire of their own on the surface. Tensions mounted, and Sandino could feel his hold over the crew beginning to slip once more, but he knew that even now, if the MDF and Royal Guard managed to find a clear target for their wrath and frustration, even the Snakes wouldn't be able to withstand their numbers.

Sandino grew more and more desperate for a solution. And then, nearly 10 years after the Snakes arrival in-system, a Sage - one of the three remaining members of Inquisitor Zomosa's retinue - came to him with news. For 10 years, the Sage, Learned Cardenal, had been studying the artifacts recovered by the Inquisitor. Stored in the hold of The Tomb, they had been all but forgotten by the Snakes. These artifacts consisted of hundreds of featureless boxes that had proven impervious to Cardenal's efforts to examine them. Until now. That very day, Learned Cardenal took Sandino down to the hold, showed him the contents of one of the boxes, and explained what he had learned.

Sandino immediately called together his senior officers (collectively known amongst the Snakes as The Junta) and held a day-long conference. Rumours circulated through the Snakes, but nobody knew what Cardenal had found in the boxes, nor what The Junta was planning. And then Sandino delivered the following message over the ship's vox-hailers...

"Snakes... the time has come. For 10 years, we've been exiled, isolated, reviled by the regime that controls the planet below us. We've hit back at our oppressors, at the monarchy that keeps us penned up here like cattle, pin-pricks that have stung him... but now... now is the time when we take what should be ours. What is RIGHTFULLY ours! Now is the time when we STRIKE! Snakes... NOW IS THE TIME FOR WAR!"

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And I'll finish Part Three... later.