[h3][b]Office of the RSI Spokesperson, People's Proletarian University, Brouges[/b][/h3]

Jeannette Jaurès listened intently to her Usonian guest, nodding or adjusting her glasses occasionally but mostly keeping still out of absolute attention.  She did not say a word until Gerald finally ended his story.  She was not an easy person to unsettle, and it was just an extra furrow in her brow that communicated her deep sense of concern.

“My deepest condolences to your people,” she began.  “This is the worst we could have suspected of events in Colongo.  I cannot imagine your sorrow, not to mention how difficult it must have been for you to make the journey here.  Know, Comrade Veron, that whatever disagreements between Revolutionary Syndicalists and Usonian Communists, we consider you friends and allies in the worldwide revolutionary struggle.  This horrific attack on Usonian workers and peasants is also an attack on the Syndicalist International and all that it stands for.  Now is time to end the colonial regime of economic extraction, political domination, and cultural genocide.

“Now,” she continued with a more matter-of-fact tone, “the fact that reports have stopped arriving from Usonian RSI members can no longer be considered a mere anomaly or hiccup.  We must presume them dead or captured.  This limits the International's breadth of unilateral action in Colongo.  In other words, if we Syndicalists are to act in support of Usonian self-determination and workers' liberation in Colongo, we will need to act with and through the UCF.  Since you are the only member of the Front we can communicate with at present, this means you have a grave and heavy responsibility.  You must tell us how, when, and where we can help.

“We have arms and supplies ready to send, armies ready to deploy, and member-unions around the world ready to act in solidarity with their Usonian comrades.  How shall I ask the Revolutionary Workers' Congress to direct them?”

__________

[h3][b]Rural Outskirts of Uson, Colongo[/b][/h3]

One 48-round drum, half empty.  Two cocktail bombs.  One knife.  Would it be enough?

The plantation was just outside the range of usual army patrols, but the owner was clever enough to have special arrangements for private security.  He picked favorites among the farmhands -slaves was more like it, since he never payed them enough to cover the “fees” he charged for using his equipment.  But he was kinder with the few he picked out from the rest: They got to live in the guest-house, received extra pay enough to shop in the city, and even had motorbikes they were free to ride around on.  All as long as they carried guns and batons for the boss.  They would put down strikes or slowdowns with force and beat the occasional “dangerous element” into submission, but they were mostly there simply so the workers would know they were being watched.  It was sick: Usonian overseers for Usonian wage-slaves, turning the oppressed against one another.

And now, in the dead of night, Brianna Goldman was planning to take them on.  She didn't have much to work with, and she was outnumbered, but she had a few advantages too.  As long as she conserved her twenty-four bullets, her SMG was probably better than anything the Ereatian cheapskate was arming his lackeys with.  And she had the proper military training to use it: An undercover Revolutionary Guard sergeant had passed down the discipline and the knowhow to her and the entire cell.  If she was quiet and careful enough before she started shooting, she could have line of sight on all five guards and down them all in a matter of seconds.  Then, if she were quick, she might be able to torch the mansion before the Ereation boss and his family knew what hit them.  Make an example of collaborators, kill an infamous plantation boss, and burn down a symbol of oppression all in one go.

But would she be able to do it?  As Brianna crept through the fields, gun loaded and eyes on her targets, something inside her knew that a lot would be up to sheer chance.  But better to play the odds and die fighting the oppressors than stay alive by abandoning the cause.