The Halls of Montezuma

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  The scene outside the elevator base was chaotic. Soldiers and spacers ran everywhere, shouting loudly to make themselves heard over the din. Rachel saw a handful of trolleys crammed with supplies being pushed down the corridor, although it looked as though the orderlies didn’t have the slightest idea where they were going. Senior officers were trying to restore order, but they didn’t seem to be having much luck. Her lips quirked as they were marched through a pair of secure airlocks and dumped into a barracks. The corprats had probably carried out hundreds of emergency drills, but drills - no matter how detailed - always left out the emergency. She guessed the chain of command was pretty badly fragmented.

  A mid-ranking officer stood on a chair. “Everyone who was in the command core, step through the blue airlock,” he ordered. “Everyone else, stay here.”

  Rachel nodded to herself as she followed Commander Archer and the others through the airlock into another, smaller, chamber. A large holographic display dominated the room, a section darkened to indicate the absence of any live data. Rachel hoped that meant the invasion force had captured, blinded or destroyed the sensor platforms. Someone might be trying to be clever, but there was a time and a place and it wasn’t when the entire plan was under attack. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the display. It looked as though groundside facilities had also been attacked.

  General Gilbert stepped into view. He looked to have aged a decade overnight, his face so haggard that Rachel almost felt sorry for him. His superiors would not be pleased, if they survived long enough to demand answers. The corprats seemed to feel that someone should get the blame for everything, even if they’d done everything right and still lost. She felt the general’s eyes lingering on her and tensed. Commander Archer had a roving eye and wandering hands, but General Gilbert had seemed a far better person. If he was taking an interest in her ...

  “What happened?” General Gilbert looked straight at Archer. “How did they hit us?”

  Rachel concealed her amusement as Commander Archer stumbled through an explanation that was long on technobabble and short on anything useful. The wretched man was completely off his game. General Gilbert was no civilian who could be blinded by a barrage of military acronyms and corporate double-speak. He’d see right through the nonsense and be singularly unimpressed. Commander Archer’s voice trailed off as his superior started to glare. He’d realised his mistake, too late.

  General Gilbert looked at her. “And what do you think?”

  “They tricked us,” Rachel said. It was obvious, in hindsight. She wasn’t saying anything the enemy post-battle assessment teams wouldn’t say. “They used drones to keep us looking in the wrong direction, while sneaking up from a completely different direction. And they thought outside the box and converted a battlecruiser into a kamikaze ship.”

  “Madness,” Commander Archer said. “They’d have to be insane!”

  Rachel leaned forward. If she impressed the general ... there was nothing the commander could do to her. His command staff had to have been fragmented, his subordinates scattered across the planet or trapped on the anchor station ... he might need someone new.

  “Sir, they practically threw the battlecruiser at the battlestation,” she said. “It was no accident. They made no attempt to change course or even reduce speed. Instead, they closed the range to zero as fast as they could and rammed the battlecruiser into its target. The ship was probably under remote control.”

  General Gilbert raised his eyebrows. “You do realise that would be difficult?”

  Rachel chose her next words carefully. “Sir, all they had to do was get the ship moving in the right direction and firing on every target that presented itself,” she said. “They never planned to fight a conventional battle.”

  “True.” General Gilbert looked at Archer. “This young lady is assigned to my staff. So are you. Bring two other orbit-qualified officers too. We’re going to the command centre.”

  Rachel kept her face blank as Commander Archer favoured her with a nasty look. He wasn’t pleased. Rachel had embarrassed him in front of his ultimate superior. She’d have to watch her back. If she was any judge, Commander Archer was too petty a man to let that pass unanswered. He’d start looking for a way to get back at her soon enough.

  Commander Archer snapped commands at two other operators, both young and pretty, then strode down the corridor. Rachel followed, eyeing his back for the knife. She could probably arrange some kind of accident, perhaps rig evidence to suggest he’d screwed the pooch deliberately ... she turned a handful of possibilities over and over in her mind as they walked into a giant command centre. It was larger than the command core on the anchor station, but considerably more chaotic. The holographic display showed hazy red icons on the surface. It was hard to be sure, but they looked alarmingly close.

  They managed to land, then, she thought. She’d known there would be landings, but she hadn’t been given any real details. What she didn’t know she couldn’t tell. And they’ll be advancing on the city soon enough.

  General Gilbert was a blur of activity, snapping out commands to operators as he paced the room. Commander Archer stood by the airlock, looking like a sulky little boy. Rachel wondered, idly, if he had any idea how he looked. No one would be impressed, if they saw him. But then, he didn’t have anything to do. He had no duties, no nothing. It was just a matter of time until he was ordered to report to the personnel pool.

  And that would be great for us, she thought. He’ll run for his life the moment the invaders start shooting.

  She put the thought out of her head as she studied the reports blinking up on the main display. The enemy had been caught by surprise, but they were rallying. She guessed anyone who didn’t have duties elsewhere was being redirected to the personnel pool. If there was one advantage to the all-encompassing surveillance state, it was that they knew who was still alive and free. She’d have to do something about that, she decided as she was steered towards a console. The command and control systems were still unlocked. She nodded to herself as she took control of the system and studied the live feed from orbit. Given time, she could cause some real chaos. Given time ...

  ***

  Thaddeus had never been in a war. He’d never even been close to a war. His father had made it clear, when he was a young man, that there was no hope of anything resembling an exciting career. Thaddeus was doomed to enter the corporate ranks and climb to the top. He knew he’d issued orders that had killed people and stolen their lands - or worse - but he didn’t much care. It was hard to comprehend, at times, that the numbers entered in the ledgers represented real people. They were just ... numbers.

  He felt numb as the aircar flew towards the megacity. His mansion, his home, had been violated. The marines had smashed their way into the mansion’s hallowed halls and torn it to pieces, stamping their boots across his childhood home. He wanted to scream at the universe for allowing such an indignity to happen, but he knew it was completely pointless. There was nothing he could do about it. Or anything. He glanced at Julia, her expression grim as she steered the aircar onwards. She’d saved his life. Probably. There was a bunker under the mansion, but it lacked a direct connection to the megacity. The marines might not have caught him, yet they would have trapped him as surely as a lobster in a pot.

  The aircar dropped to the ground. Thaddeus gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to groan even though it felt as though his stomach had been left behind. The vehicle slowed and landed neatly, far too close to a group of armed soldiers for comfort. It dawned on Thaddeus, suddenly, that law and order might have completely broken down. There was no shortage of people on the planet who detested him, just for being who and what he was. If he fell into their hands ...

  Julia stepped out of the aircar. “Take us to the command centre,” she ordered. “At once.”

  The soldiers checked their ID implants, then hastily passed them to a senior officer who helped them into a groundcar and drove them into the megacity. The streets were
churning with people, from civilians staring at the skies to refugees who hadn’t been assigned to apartments and workplaces before the marines arrived. Thaddeus hoped they’d have the sense to stay out of the fighting. The marines had given his people a black eye - he conceded the point without much rancour - but they hadn’t won. Not yet. Thaddeus promised himself, as they reached the command centre, that the corporation would retaliate. They couldn’t have lost everything in a single, catastrophic battle.

  He composed himself as they were shown into the command centre. General Gilbert looked about as bad as Thaddeus felt, but at least he was alive. Thaddeus was gloomily aware the Board of Directors was probably already looking for scapegoats - they’d put the search ahead of everything else, including planetary defence - yet right now they needed the general. He simply didn’t have time to go looking for a new commander. And besides, it wasn’t clear - yet - who was to blame. None of the tactical projections had included an invasion force landing within moments of its arrival ...

  “Director.” General Gilbert looked tired, too. “If you’ll come with me ...”

  Thaddeus followed him into a side room, Julia trotting at his heels. Something would have to be done to reward her, when he had the time. He briefly contemplated a selection of possible rewards, then dismissed the thought. Right now, they had more important problems. General Gilbert closed the door, darkened the lights and activated the holoprojector. The image of the megacity and the surrounding countryside was covered with red flecks of light.

  “Fifty-two minutes ago, an enemy force crept up on our orbital defences and opened fire,” General Gilbert said. “Through unprecedented tactics, they managed to take out Battlestation Alpha One, PDC Three and nearly everything else capable of hitting their ships; through copying our tactics, they landed a sizable body of troops on the surface.”

  “I know,” Thaddeus said, harshly. He’d seen the smoke behind them as they fled. The mansion was burning. The bastards had probably done it deliberately. “They chased us here.”

  “Yes, sir,” General Gilbert said. His finger traced a line on the map. “Right now, we think it’s just a matter of time before they advance on the megacity. We can’t stop them.”

  Thaddeus glared. “Are you telling me you don’t have enough troops to keep them out?”

  “Right now, the command network has been seriously degraded,” General Gilbert said. “We never expected invasion, not like this. I’m in touch with a number of units, and they’re readying themselves for deployment, but they’re either out of place or simply unready for action. What forces I do have in the megacity are simply insufficient to the task.”

  Julia cleared her throat. “Why don’t you ask the civilians to assist?”

  “The average civilian is completely unarmed,” General Gilbert reminded her. “There is no time to distribute weapons, even if we had them on hand and we trusted them to handle the weapons responsibly. There’s certainly no time to make preparations for an insurgency.”

  Particularly one that could wind up aimed at us as easily as them, Thaddeus mused. He knew how to read a map. The marines were already on their way. And we can’t trust our own people to behave themselves.

  He looked at the general. “How do you intend to proceed?”

  “I’ve deployed forces in hopes of slowing the marines long enough to rush most of our core personnel out of the city,” General Gilbert said. “Everyone with some degree of military training, everyone who isn’t already needed on the front lines, has orders to join the flood and head west. They’ll be taken in by the army as it assembles to push the marines back out of the megacity. We can hold them, sir. We can hold them long enough for the remainder of the fleet to return.”

  “And then we crush them,” Julia said. There was a hint of heavy satisfaction in her tone. “It sounds like a plan.”

  “I need your permission to destroy as much of the city’s infrastructure as possible,” General Gilbert added. “If we shut off water and power supplies, the marines are going to find it hard to govern the city ...”

  Thaddeus considered it for a long moment. He could see the logic. But he could also see hordes of starving people spreading across the land. There was no way they could get more than a tiny fraction of the population out before the marines sealed off the city and moved in for the kill. He’d heard all kinds of stories about cities that had been turned into death traps, bleeding the invaders white, but ... they’d relied on the defenders having enough ammunition and time. He shook his head. The war was quite bad enough already.

  “No,” he said. “Destroy anything the marines can turn against us, if possible, but don’t kill the civilians. We don’t want to slaughter our own people.”

  “Yes, sir,” General Gilbert said. He glanced at Julia, then back at Thaddeus. “You and your ... assistant will be on the first transports out.”

  Thaddeus nodded. His assistant. Julia might like that. He’d discuss it with her when they had a moment. Right now, it wasn’t important. “What about the rest of the board?”

  “A handful have reported in,” General Gilbert said. “I’ve advised them to refrain from making contact over the airwaves. The enemy has shown a terrifying willingness to target our leadership. They’ve also been inserting propaganda into the datanet. If you believe them, they represent the empire and they’re here to liberate the planet.”

  “The empire is gone,” Julia said, sharply.

  “Yes,” General Gilbert agreed. “But people can insert whatever damnfool nonsense they like into propaganda broadcasts. They’re gleefully telling our entire population what happened at Hameau.”

  “I see.” Thaddeus made a face. They’d been rumours, of course. A lot of rumours. And they’d all been suppressed, suggesting to anyone with an insightful mind that there was some truth in them. Now ... the marines were telling a mixture of truth and lies and people would believe them because the corporate news was all lies. “Can’t you push them out of the datanet?”

  “I have teams working on it,” General Gilbert said. “Unfortunately, we’ve had to unlock parts of the datanet to keep our systems online. It’s not easy to boot them back out without booting ourselves out as well. Given time, we can isolate our command networks and then shut down all the other systems, but ... it will have unfortunate effects on everything from communications to production.”

  “Either we hold out long enough to mount a counteroffensive or we try to come to terms with them,” Thaddeus growled. He had no qualms about opening negotiations and stalling long enough to muster the fleet, but they weren’t in a good position to do it. The marines didn’t have to let them draw talks out as long as possible and they knew it. “We have no choice.”

  “No, sir,” General Gilbert agreed.

  His wristcom bleeped. He keyed it and frowned as he read the message, then looked up. “Sir, the enemy are moving towards the city limits. You have to go now.”

  Thaddeus nodded. “Make them pay,” he said. He felt the anger bubble up within him. “General, whatever you do, make them pay.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It does, again, to those who have never dealt with the problem at first hand. They see the wealth, the profits, and do not see the effort and expenditure that goes into creating that wealth. Indeed, it is capitalism that creates and maintains wealth. What is the difference between a piece of paper and a bank note? The answer is that society, as a whole, is convinced the bank note represents wealth.

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

  Major-General Gerald Anderson braced himself as the shuttle fell into the planet’s atmosphere, flying through the gap in the enemy’s defences. The latest reports suggested the enemy were trying to move more air defence vehicles and MADPAD teams into the cleared zone, but they’d clearly been caught by surprise. Gerald was pretty sure the marines would have done better, if they’d been jumped. If nothing else, they would have had a coherent plan for dealing with a full-scale
invasion.

  And no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy, he thought. The enemy, that dirty dog, has plans of his own.

  He forced himself to relax as the shuttle flew lower, then bottomed out a few seconds before it would have slammed into the ground. The compensator field twisted unpleasantly around him as it straightened out, then faded as the shuttle crashed to the ground. Gerald unstrapped himself and hurried for the hatch, followed by his staff. The reports from the ground suggested the enemy hadn’t managed to start shelling the LZ yet, but it was just a matter of time. It was what Gerald himself would have done.

  The mansion loomed over him as he double-timed it inside. There was no time to appreciate the building or the many fine artworks littered around the complex. The locals were lucky the marines weren’t given to looting, although - if the reports were accurate - there weren’t many local communities for thirty miles. He hoped the building would have enough value to the enemy they’d hesitate to fire on it ... personally, he would have preferred to command the division from a hole in the ground. But they were short on options.

  “Sir.” Colonel Taggard nodded as Gerald stepped into the giant hall. “The first scout units are ready to go. Follow-up units are taking up position now.”

  “Good.” Gerald studied the display for a long moment. It looked as though the enemy was trying to evacuate the megacity - it didn’t even have a name, something that amused him more than it should - although it was hard to be sure. “How much resistance do you expect?”

  “Unknown, sir,” Taggard said. His finger isolated points on the map. “The enemy has been establishing defence lines, but they’ve clearly been thrown together at short notice. It looks like they don’t have anything like enough firepower to do more than slow us down. We’ve captured maps of the city itself and located targets. Once the power stations and suchlike are in our hands, we can hold the rest of the city in an unbreakable grip.”