Madame Guillotine

factions were leveraging the event in their attempts to consolidate or gain power. The usual cycle.
The following day, day three of the civil disobedience outbreak, began with unsubstantiated rumors that a mysterious Legion squad was operating among the protesters, denying civil liberties and threatening violence. Despite a world dominated by visual media, no one had managed to get a holorecording of any such squad, but the rumor stuck—and by noon parts of the city were on fire, full anarchy in effect. A war zone. Soon the Soshies were claiming that hundreds of peaceful protestors had been murdered by “out-of-control” marines and a detachment of “psychopath legionnaires.”
This time, however, there were pictures. Pictures of bloody protestors. And despite the Repub marines’ insistence that they’d had no such engagements—that these were doctored holopics of actors wearing makeup, or perhaps injured by their fellow rioters—every holofeed used that picture of the bleeding protestor.
“Out-of-control marines.”
“Psychopath legionnaires.”
The rioters tripled in number the next day. Today.
But Reaper Actual’s problem wasn’t that either. It wasn’t any of that. Her issue was… sight picture.
Reaper Actual’s job was to provide fire support overwatch from an airborne platform. Overwatch for an advancing line of Repub marines in riot gear wading into the streets to clear a path for the government to pull back from its office towers until the riots could be dealt with and good governance restored. But shooting from an airborne platform was no easy trick. And the old SLIC relics from the War of Psydon the marines used for fire support bounced around in the hot thermals coming up from the boiling streets of the city. It was late summer on Detron and the city was simmering.
“Got one,” she murmured over the comm. Her N-18 locked in and tagged a target below. “Looks like we got a player.”
“Holding,” said the pilot of Reaper 66, the SLIC Reaper Actual was operating out of. The pilot switched over to general comm with the shotcaller and declared, “Undertaker, this is Reaper Oh-Two. Reaper Actual says she’s got a player. Feeding you her cam. Reaper Oh-Two standing by for confirmation and authorization on trigger pull, over.”
Reaper Actual said nothing from her shooting position on the aft cargo deck of the stabilized SLIC. There was no one else back there and so no one to talk to. And she was a marine of few words. She did her job and didn’t waste time talking about it. Being talkative and being a military sniper didn’t go well together. Part of the personal profile that got you into the Reaper program.
She wore standard marine fatigues, light armor, and combat boots. She was small. Muscled. One eye back from the high-powered scope of the N-18, studying the man she was about to shoot.
She’d spotted him in a third-story window along the avenue the marine convoy below was taking into the heart of the city’s government and financial district. The streets were throbbing with rioters, faces covered by balaclavas they’d purchased from high-end shopping sites—they all seemed able to afford it. Their backpacks were loaded like the rucks of leejes and marines getting ready to go into combat deep in the jungle. Or lost in the desert. Only it was bricks and the fruits of looting they humped through the streets, eager to have a thrilling showdown with a marine and then return to their homes to post about it on social media and maybe stream some holos as they enjoyed their new free datapads. Liberated from the greedy corporations that built and sold them.
Power to the people.
Reaper Actual thought about how they must think it seemed fun to be playing soldier as long as you didn’t have to sign an oath or do what anyone told you to do. Or any of the other hard realities of actual military service. The galling thing to many of the marines was that in prime-time interviews the rioters made a point of comparing themselves to marines and legionnaires. Claiming they were somehow serving the Republic by resisting the legally elected officials. They were the heroes, if anyone cared to listen.
Detron was on a core world, hence the House of Reason’s reluctance to send in the Legion to KTF everything and walk out. That kind of force was fine out on the edge and the mid-core, but it would have repercussions in future elections if it happened on a core world. A civilized world. For a civilized people. A world where weapons were illegal.
Of course, somehow those weapons still turned up in the crowd. Always. And always held by the wrong people. The pros. Usually on the giving end of a dead marine or a burned-out APC.
And that was her problem, too.
“Damn,” she whispered over the comm, the howl of the SLIC’s turbines pitching to hold position while the repulsors thumped out their pulsing beat.
“What?” asked the pilot.
“He’s out of picture,” she replied. “Went back inside the room. Can you lose a little altitude to reacquire?”
“Can do,” replied Reaper Oh-Two.
The skies over the smoke-filled city were swarming with other marine drop craft. Smaller birds were inserting specialized quick reaction teams that might be needed in certain situations. Pilots were making daring landings onto narrow rooftops to insert the teams who’d hold there until needed. Heavier gunship versions of the SLICs—still ancient—were over the main body of the marine convoy with hullbusters and weapons hanging out. Though they were not to use those weapons, even to return fire, unless first granted approval.
And it was obvious from how bold the Soshies had become that they knew exactly how much the military couldn’t fight back. Which, according to the general chatter, was turning everything into a big Day of Stupid.
“Someone’s going to get hurt today,” squawked a voice over general chat. It was a marine staff sergeant running an indirect fire team from a crumbling apartment block tower.
“So, same as every other day,” another voice replied.
Which was true. But today seemed like it was going to be the big one. The start