The Halls of Montezuma

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “There’s a datapad in the compartment under the bunk,” her escort informed her. “I’m afraid it’s currently disconnected from the starship’s datanet, but you can play games on it if you wish.”

  Or start writing my report, Julia thought. She’d tried not to think about it while she’d been held in the cell, but now ... now she had to work out what she wanted to say. It wasn’t easy to imagine something that wouldn’t get her disowned, if not sent into permanent exile. What the hell am I going to say?

  She shook her head. “What time are we leaving?”

  “Five hours, they say,” the young man said. “But we just don’t know.”

  Julia nodded as she sat on the bunk, her head brushing against the upper compartment. She looked up, puzzled. Was the section meant for two people after all? Or ... she dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand as her escort bowed and retreated, the hatch closing softly behind him. She had a nasty feeling she wouldn’t be welcome, if she left the tiny cabin and headed for the bridge. A chill ran through her as she remembered the former POWs she’d seen below decks. What would happen if they rioted? Could they take the ship? She wondered, for the first time, if she’d made a mistake. Should she have stayed behind and accepted asylum?

  You have a duty to your family, she told herself, severely. And you damn well have to live up to it.

  ***

  “I haven’t done this since training,” Perkins said. “Are you sure this is safe?”

  Bonkowski snorted, rudely. “I thought we were Marine Pathfinders, not Junior Cowards.”

  “They do a hull scan, they’ll know we’re here,” Perkins said. “It isn’t as if we’re riding on the hull in suits.”

  Phelps glared at the pair of them. “We’re safe enough, as long as they don’t overhear you two arguing,” he said. “We’ll just have to put up with each other’s company for a week.”

  Rachel snorted as she settled back within the compartment. The giant troop transport had been a warren even before she’d been battered and forced to surrender by the spacers. The engineers had patched up the worst of the damage, allowing them to hide the Pathfinders in what was supposed to be a vented and isolated compartment right next to a gash in the hull. They’d done a good job of both isolating the section and linking it into what remained of the ship’s datanet, ensuring the Pathfinders would have plenty of warning if someone decided to search the depressurised sections. Rachel silently prayed they wouldn’t even think of trying to make repairs while the ship was in phase space. The Pathfinders would have to abort the mission if they were discovered.

  She looked around, concealing her displeasure. She’d been in tight spaces before, but not for very long. There’d always been a sense she could get out for a walk, even when it ran the risk of attracting enemy fire. Here ... there was too great a chance someone would realise they didn’t belong and raise the alarm. The spacers had done a good job of mingling enemy personnel from a dozen different units, in hopes of giving the Pathfinders some cover, but it was too risky. She sighed, inwardly, as she reached for her datapad. They’d downloaded copies of all the interrogation reports, including the more pointed questions aimed at enemy personnel who’d requested asylum. They probably guessed the marines intended to infiltrate Onge. Why else would they ask for details that made little military sense?

  Someone might not realise something is wrong if they don’t recognise us, she mused, but they’ll sound the alarm if they realise we’re not wearing the right uniforms.

  “It feels like being in prison,” Bonkowski said. “Which one of us is the snitch?”

  “In prison, you meet a better class of person,” Perkins said. “I have to share a room with you?”

  “I’m being punished for something,” Phelps mused. “I’m a ruddy kindergarten teacher.”

  Bonkowski snickered. “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

  “Don’t make me come back there,” Phelps said. “Tony, I want you keeping an eye on the sensors. The moment anyone comes near the compartment, I want to know about it. Rachel, keep monitoring the enemy personnel. We don’t want them starting a mutiny in the middle of the flight.”

  “No,” Bonkowski agreed. “For once, it wouldn’t work in our favour.”

  Rachel nodded as she picked up a datapad and started to flick through the live feed from the sensor nodes. The entire ship was wired to a degree that bothered her, even though she’d given up on privacy since she’d joined the marines. A person couldn’t so much as pass wind without alerting the sensors and triggering an automated investigation. She had the feeling the system could be simply overloaded, with a little effort, but that would probably set off more alerts. The corprats claimed it was for the good of the workers ... she rather doubted anyone believed it. The system was designed to head off rebellion before it ever got off the ground.

  She felt her eyes narrow as she peered into the POW compartment. The former prisoners had only just arrived - the transport hadn’t so much as left orbit - but it was clear that trouble was already brewing. Men were bickering, despite the best efforts of the handful of repatriated officers. Rachel wasn’t surprised. They’d lost a lot of their authority, when the fleet had been bested in space and the infantry smashed on the ground. Perhaps it would have been better to leave the officers with their firearms ... she shook her head. The transport was too close to the planet for anyone’s peace of mind. They couldn’t risk a well-timed mutiny leading to utter disaster.

  “The hatches are solid,” she said, more to herself than to her comrades. “They can’t get out.”

  “Not without the right tools,” Phelps agreed. “You got the feeling this ship was designed to do double duty as a prisoner transport?”

  “I guess so,” Bonkowski said, seriously for once. “The entire ship is a honeycomb of sealed compartments. I don’t think they intended to give their troops the freedom of the vessel.”

  Rachel shivered. She’d spent her entire career in the corps. She’d been treated as a responsible adult from the moment she’d passed through Boot Camp and entered the Slaughterhouse. She was expected to follow orders, even if she didn’t understand them; she was expected not to go wandering when she was onboard a transport or MEU. The enemy soldiers, however, were treated like overgrown children. Or prisoners. She was fairly sure such treatment would breed resentment. There’d be a chance to take advantage of it.

  “I’ll tell you what else they didn’t bring,” Bonkowski said. “Porn! The WebHeads didn’t find so much as a single naked photo in their datafiles.”

  Phelps snorted, rudely. “Do you ever think about anything else?”

  “Sir?” Bonkowski struck an innocent pose. “Is there anything else?”

  Rachel laughed, then returned to work.

  ***

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Tomas said. “We have established solid communications links with the Pathfinders on Botany Bay.”

  Kerri nodded. “Keep forwarding the results of the interrogations to them,” she ordered, calmly. “And do your level best to keep us off their sensors.”

  She leaned back in the command chair, feeling a pang of guilt. Any spacer knew the danger of fiddling with the sensors while underway, let alone deliberately weakening them to create a blindspot. Havoc could hide within the blindspot and shadow the transport all the way to Onge, hopefully without the enemy crewmen knowing they were being followed. In theory, they could emerge along the phase limit behind the transport and remain undetected ... if, of course, anyone was watching. There was no solid data on what communications or sensor capabilities the enemy possessed. The analysts had assumed the worst. Onge might be as heavily defended as Sol itself, before Earthfall.

  And if we’ve buggered their sensors too far, they might just run into something they should have been able to see, she thought. Weakening the sensors was one thing, but actually corrupting the datanet codes ... she shook her head, sharply. She understood the reasoning behind the act. She just didn’t like it. At wor
st, we’ll have to break cover and warn them if they’re about to crash.

  “Captain,” Ensign Susan Perkins said. “Major-General Anderson has cleared us for departure. The transport is powering up, ready to leave orbit.”

  “Helm, prepare to leave orbit as planned,” Kerri said. She felt a thrill of excitement banishing the guilt. She was mistress of her ship, but - as long as she flew in company with two Major-Generals - not in sole command of her destiny. As long as the mission lasted, she - and she alone - would be in command. “Tactical, establish the sensor mask once we’re clear of the high orbitals.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Kerri smiled as she studied the display. The troop transport was a lumbering brute of a ship. She hadn’t even had a name until some marine with a sense of humour had dubbed her Botany Bay. Havoc could run rings around her with ease, although the transport wasn’t entirely harmless. A ship that size could do a hell of a lot of damage if someone rammed her into a planet. The marines had taken the precaution of rigging a nuke to blow the ship to atoms, if the crew tried. Kerri doubted any of them were suicidal, but ... they’d agreed to go home to a government that was unlikely to welcome them with open arms. Perhaps they were suicidal.

  You’d go back to the corps, even if you were staring down the barrels of a court-martial, she told herself. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but it was true. If she failed so badly ... she’d owe it to the corps to help them learn from her failure. She wondered, idly, if the enemy personnel felt the same way. Why would they not?

  A low thrumming echoed through the ship. “Captain,” Commander Joaquin said, formally. “We are ready to depart.”

  “Take us out of orbit,” Kerri ordered.

  The thrumming grew stronger as Havoc glided out of orbit and fell into position behind Botany Bay. Kerri couldn’t help feeling they were so close to the other ship that the enemy crew could see them with the naked eye, although she knew it was impossible. Havoc was a big ship, but she was tiny compared to the sheer immensity of deep space. A chill went through her as the ships picked up speed, her vessel quivering as if she wanted to rush past the transport and burst into FTL the moment she crossed the phase limit. Kerri resisted the urge to do just that. They had to remain in the blindspot if they wanted to be sure of not being detected.

  Shadowing a ship through phase space isn’t easy at the best of times, she thought. She’d spent a chunk of her pre-Earthfall career chasing pirates, but - even with the best crew and sensors in the known galaxy - she’d rarely been able to track a pirate ship back to its homeport. Even a comparatively primitive ship could escape, just by random course changes and dropping sensor decoys in the right places. We’ve rigged everything in our favour and we still might lose the bastards.

  She put the thought out of her head and forced herself to wait. It was unlikely, the analysts agreed, that the enemy would assume their system hadn’t been probed. There were probably enough ships coming and going, even in the post-Earthfall days, for an intruder to sneak into the system. Hell, a sufficiently determined intruder could drop out of phase space well short of the limit and make his way into the system, in the certain knowledge he could not possibly be detected. It would take weeks, if not months, but it could be done.

  We have to assume their sensor net is good, she reminded herself, sharply. And that they’re just as paranoid as we would be, if we were in their shoes.

  Shaking her head, she settled down to wait.

  Chapter Six

  The lumberjack goes to the forest, cuts down a tree and lays claim to the trunk. We will say, following the classic rectal extraction method, that the trunk is worth roughly ten credits. Does the lumberjack have, therefore, ten credits?

  - Professor Leo Caesius, The Rise and Fall of Interstellar Capitalism

  Haverford had probably looked better, Captain Haydn Steel thought as the company marched towards the edge of the city, before two successive invasions and an insurgency had torn the city to bits. A number of districts had been reduced to rubble, their inhabitants either killed in the fighting or forced to flee. The all-seeing planetary datanet had been a shadow of its former self before the new government had ordered it dismantled, the massive files of surveillance data on every last member of the population unceremoniously deleted before someone could try to argue for their retention. Haydn was fairly sure it was just a matter of time before someone would've done just that. It was easy to make a claim that spying on everyone was good for public safety.

  But it might be a while here, he thought. The snoops had been lynched, when it became clear the datanet was a thing of the past. People who’d enjoyed spying on their neighbours had discovered, too late, just how much they were loathed. It’ll be at least a generation before they start forgetting the downsides of limitless surveillance.

  He put the thought out of his head as they reached the edge of the city and marched onto what had once been a bowling green. Haydn wouldn’t have known, if it hadn’t been flagged up on the final mission briefing. The green looked as if someone had driven an entire brigade of tanks over the grass, turning it into mud before crashing into the buildings and smashing them into the ground. It was hard to believe it had ever been anything other than a sea of mud. He shook his head as he slowed, the marines forming into a ceremonial march. His opposite number from the planetary militia was waiting for him.

  “I relieve you,” the planetary officer said. “And I thank you for your service.”

  “I stand relieved,” Haydn said, wondering who’d introduced the militia to military formality. “And I wish you good luck.”

  They exchanged salutes. Haydn held his a moment longer than necessary, then led his men off the field. The planet had welcomed the marines - mostly - but he was fairly sure there were a lot of locals who resented them. The people who’d been on top a few months ago, of course ... the people who’d lost friends and family in the fighting. The two invasions had killed hundreds of thousands of people, directly or indirectly. It wasn’t fair to expect the people who’d lost loved ones to be thankful. Haydn just hoped they wouldn’t seek revenge or turn into bitter-enders. Either way, it would end badly.

  He frowned as they marched onto the road, passing a company of drilling militiamen. The locals were enthusiastic, and a bunch of them had military training and experience, but they still struck him as being woefully unprepared for modern war. There was a shortage of experienced officers who could be trusted. The planetary government had offered amnesty to anyone from the enemy force willing to sign up and share their experience, yet ... could they be trusted? Haydn had his doubts. Betrayal tended to be habit-forming.

  “I’m sure there was a spaceport here,” someone muttered behind him. “Once upon a time ...”

  Haydn nodded. The spaceport had served briefly - far too briefly - as a Forward Operating Base. He and his men had left the planet when the enemy reinforcements had arrived, taking the last flights out of the spaceport before incoming missiles and shells had turned it into a pile of rubble. Good thinking on their part, he acknowledged sourly, although a little too late. Major-General Anderson and his staff had already decamped when the missiles came roaring in.

  I guess we weren’t the only ones learning as we went along, he thought. They could have killed our CO and decapitated us if they’d moved a little quicker.

  He put the thought out of his mind as they walked towards the shuttles. The enemy POWs had cleared what remained of the landing pads and runways, allowing the shuttles to come and go without hindrance. A command vehicle had been parked on the edge of the spaceport, surrounded by a pair of mobile defence units and a sensor truck. It would be enough to handle traffic, at least until the local government started to rebuild the spaceport into something usable. Haydn figured that day was a long time off. The locals simply had too many other problems right now.

  Colonel Foster met them as they reached the edge of the spaceport. “Captain,” he said, once they’d exchanged salutes. “Your shuttles wil
l be arriving shortly.”

  Haydn nodded. Saluting was as clear as sign as any that the command staff believed there was no longer any serious danger, not on the surface. They weren’t allowed to salute in combat zones. He relaxed, slightly, and watched as more marines flowed towards the shuttles, their officers and sergeants organising them for departure. They’d be back on the MEUs by nightfall, then ... they could take a break. It wouldn’t be much - the MEUs were hardly pleasure boats - but it would be something. The men could unwind and relax, while Haydn and the other officers planned their next move. Haydn had heard the rumours. There was practically no chance they were going straight back to Safehouse.

  He waited, feeling sweat trickling down his back as the day grew hotter. The military was fond of ‘hurry up and wait,’ and the marines were no different. He ignored some grumbling from the ranks, as long as it stayed low. They could have stayed on patrol, partnering with the militia as they learnt the ropes, or found somewhere to relax on the surface. Haydn suspected the brass feared an incident, although they would have been hard-pressed to put their feelings into words. It wouldn’t be the first time a peaceful exit deal was ruined by an idiot acting like an idiot.

  A flight of shuttles roared overhead and landed. Hatches snapped open, allowing their occupants to march out. Engineers, military and civilian. Haydn had helped rescue some of them personally, before the marines had been ordered to Hameau. He hoped they’d find it easy to blend into their new homeworld, or - if they didn’t - that they’d have no trouble leaving and going somewhere else. Trained personnel were worth their weight in gold, these days, but they couldn’t be forced to work. Resentful people in sensitive places could do a hell of a lot of damage before they were stopped.

  “Good luck, Captain,” Foster said. He waved at the shuttles. “They’re all yours.”

  Haydn nodded and led his men through the hatch and into the shuttle. It was designed to carry an entire company of marines, although - normally - the unit was spread out over two or three shuttles to ensure that one hit didn’t take out the entire company. Another sign, he supposed, that the brass felt relatively safe. There were no snipers with HVMs lurking close to the spaceport, or what remained of it; there was, he assumed, very little enemy presence at all. He gritted his teeth as the shuttle rocked, the hatch banging closed and the pilot starting his wretched prattle. In his experience, it was very hard to exterminate an entire enemy force. The snipers he’d chased down earlier might be nothing more than the tip of the iceberg.