In the darkness, Tully grimaced. It didn't help that the Resistance was badly factionalized, with groups often falling out and fighting among themselves. Tully had spent most of his life since the conquest holed up in the Rockies with Resistance units under the command of Rob Wiley. Wiley's people were well organized, disciplined, and had the support of the local population. But since Tully had volunteered for the sepoy troops in order to gather intelligence for Riley, he'd been shocked to discover the hostile attitude that many humans in the occupied territories had toward the Resistance. Some of that was because Jao retaliation for Resistance actions often fell on bystanders. But, for the most part, it was because many people had had unpleasant experiences with the Resistance.
"Unpleasant" was putting it mildly, in some cases. Not all Resistance groups were as motivated and disciplined as the one Tully belonged to. Being honest, Tully admitted that many of them weren't really much more than bandits, who spent far more time and energy extorting and abusing human civilians than they ever did fighting the Jao.
Tully's mind went back to the young Subcommandant. Why had he bothered to confiscate the dice? And why hadn't the three of them already been punished? Put themselves "on report"? Kaul would never have bothered with that. In the Commandant's current mood, he might well have ordered all three of them immediately executed even for a petty infraction like gambling on the base.
The issue wasn't really the gambling, anyway, it was the rigid Jao attitude toward obedience. Granted, the Jao had no use for gambling, since it produced nothing beneficial, nor taught or honed any useful military skill. From their viewpoint, it was a worthless and distracting enterprise—like mountain climbing, horse racing, ornamental gardening, fine art painting—the list went on and on. Civilian humans could still do these things, although even they were no longer allowed to allocate major amounts of time and resources to them. Everything of value now belonged to the Jao.
Tully remembered how effectively the Jao had made their attitude clear. Fifteen years ago, the last expedition to Mount Everest went forward as planned, despite an edict by the Jao Governor of Earth that the expedition was a pointless waste of manpower and resources and therefore banned.
Thirty minutes after the climbers had begun their final ascent, the top few thousand feet of Everest had been vaporized by a Jao-guided rock from space, the same type of weapon they'd used to obliterate Chicago and New Orleans. The poor devils up on the mountain probably had never known what hit them. But the rest of Earth had, and the Jao had made their point as they always did: very bluntly.
Tully skirted the last of the Jao living quarters. Still no sight of the Pluthrak, but he could see the sweep of the landing field not far from the shore. The small ship that had come in earlier was still there. That was unusual, because few vessels docked here permanently. This one had evidently arrived with Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak. Was it perhaps still here because it was reserved for his personal use?
The ship, bathed in beams of blue light, was slim as a needle and looked highly maneuverable, more than any other Jao spacecraft he'd seen. The hair rose on the nape of Tully's neck. If the Jao had many more of these, it could be bad news for the Resistance. Part of their protection now lay in the fact it was too much trouble for the Jao to transport troops back into the Rocky Mountains where they had dug in.
But, again, Tully shook off the thought. Another thing that had become clear to him since he'd joined the sepoy army—much to his disgruntlement—was that the Jao really didn't take the Resistance too seriously. They would retaliate instantly and savagely against any Resistance actions, true. But they rarely bothered to send expeditions into the mountains to ferret them out so long as the Resistance was quiescent. So it was not likely, all things considered, that the Jao were starting to bring in special ships designed for anti-insurgency warfare. The design of the ship in front of him was probably due to other needs.
Their mysterious war against the Ekhat, perhaps. The Jao hinted at terrible things lying in wait out there in the universe that justified their harsh rule. The worst was said to be the Ekhat, a species that reportedly made the fiercest Jao look like kindly nannies. They were always predicting destruction that would rain upon everyone, human and Jao alike, if they didn't prepare and prepare and prepare. Most humans, even most collaborators, just thought it was an excuse—self-serving Jao propaganda to justify their conquest and their outrages.
Tully had thought the same himself, once. Now, he was no longer so sure. In the past few months, he'd gotten to know the Jao much better than he had observing them from a distance. As far as Tully had been able to determine, Jao felt no guilt at all over their brutal excesses. Shame just wasn't part of their psychological makeup. They did whatever they deemed necessary to keep control and made no excuses of any kind. So why would they bother developing elaborate propaganda schemes to keep humans pacified? Their standard "propaganda" method was uncomplicated and straightforward: do as we say or we will kill you.