Jeremy shrugged. The Empire handed out handcoms and pocket terminals to its children, without seeming to demand anything in return. But using the devices left them ignorant of the basics of mathematics or handwriting – or, for that matter, how the devices actually worked. They were never taught how to produce their own, or even to repair them if they broke down. The students were kept in ignorance without ever truly realising it. Their tutors didn't help. If they couldn’t find the answers in a computer file, the answers might as well not exist.
He wasn't being completely fair to the tutors, he knew, or to the students. Some of them did manage a fairly good education, if they had the drive to learn by the time they reached university. Most students were content to absorb their tutor’s words without bothering to actually think about them, or anything else. If the protestors down below had been capable of thinking critically, they might have noticed that their list of demands was contradictory and their own narrative was confusing as well as inaccurate.
“I would hate to guess,” he said, and turned away from the window. The remainder of his inner council were already seated in front of his desk. “I was negotiating with the Grand Senate about the planned deployment.”
“You poor bastard,” Colonel Gerald Anderson said. “What did they have to say for themselves?”
Jeremy scowled at him. It was hard to blame anyone for speaking disrespectfully of the Grand Senate, but it was a bad habit as well as being bad for discipline. The Grand Senate were the lords and masters of the Empire, no matter how self-serving and grasping they were. And the Marine Corps was sworn to uphold the Empire.
“They’ve agreed to cut the number of Marines redeployed from Earth to Albion,” Jeremy said. He couldn't help smiling at the look of relief on Anderson’s face. “However, they have insisted on making up the numbers by stripping Marine platoons out of Home Fleet and redeploying them to the expeditionary force.”
There was a long pause as that sank in. One of their duties was to provide troops for capital starships who could serve as a boarding and internal security force – and a police force, if the shit hit the fan and the crew mutinied against their commander. Ideally, a platoon of Marines should be deployed to any ship heavier than a light cruiser, but there just weren’t enough Marines to go around. Home Fleet had over two thousand Marines scattered over five hundred starships. Other fleets and tasks forces had to make do with fewer Marines, if they had any at all.
“That might not be a bad idea,” Anderson said, reluctantly. “It isn't as if Home Fleet is expected to go into battle any time soon.”
Jeremy nodded. Home Fleet wasn't expected to do more than look intimidating – which was fortunate, as the fleet wasn't in good shape. The starships had been allowed to decay, while crewmen had been reassigned to other units – or encouraged not to waste money on basic maintenance. Officially, there was nothing wrong with Home Fleet and it was ready for deployment at a moment’s notice; unofficially, Jeremy would have been surprised if the fleet could have been redeployed in less than five years. The starship hulls were intact, but everything else had been allowed to wear down until it was no longer reliable.
“But the crews are not happy,” Chung said, into the silence. “They’re spending half of their time drunk, or cursing the payment delays – when their superiors haven’t stolen their salaries outright. The fleet may need the Marines to help keep order.”
“Civil Guard units will be redeployed to pick up the slack,” Jeremy said. “Or so I have been told.”
Anderson barked a harsh humourless laugh. The Civil Guard provided military police units when troops and spacers were on shore leave, but they were very unpopular and tended to suffer accidents when no senior officers were looking. Even Marines sometimes joined in the contest to see how many helmets they could steal off the Civil Guardsmen who were supposed to be supervising them. And that was on the ground or a large orbital station. Putting the Civil Guard on starships was asking for trouble.
Jeremy had been a Major during a deployment where Civil Guard units from one world had been rushed to another to provide additional numbers to keep the peace. The experience had been hellish; the Civil Guardsmen hadn't been trained for operations in space and several managed to kill themselves by accident. He still had nightmares about the officer who had proposed, in all seriousness, that opening both airlock doors at once would make disembarking much easier – and started directing engineering teams to do just that before Jeremy caught him. And that had been on a troopship. Who knew what would happen to the Civil Guard when they were deployed to a battleship?
If there isn't a mutiny planned already, he thought, one will be planned once the crews realise that the Guardsmen are likely to get them all killed.
Anderson put his thoughts into words. “How many crews are they prepared to lose?”
“Apparently, the Guardsmen will be intensely supervised,” Jeremy admitted. He wouldn’t have put money on it succeeding. Civil Guard officers tended to treat everyone else as the enemy, even people who were trying to help them. “However, that isn't our problem.”
“We need more Marines,” Anderson said. “Can we not launch another recruiting drive?”
“We don’t have the funds,” Jeremy reminded him. Even if they had the funds, it wouldn't have been simple to expand the yearly intake of new recruits. Marine Boot Camps were the harshest in the Empire, deliberately so, and plenty of prospective candidates were weeded out before they were assigned to the Slaughterhouse. “And besides, we’d have to drop our standards to bring more recruits to the Slaughterhouse.”
Anderson made a face. The Civil Guard’s standards were so low that they might as well not exist. Marine Intelligence had once conducted a survey and discovered that at least ten percent of Civil Guard recruits in any given year had criminal records, some of them quite serious. At least that wasn't a problem on Earth, where almost all criminals were exiled to a new colony world as soon as they were caught. Other recruits had drug problems, or medical conditions ... only a handful could really be considered decent recruits.
The Imperial Navy and Army had the same problem. They were so desperate for recruits that standards had been allowed to slip. At least the Army had a hard core of NCOs who were capable of bashing young recruits into shape, if they were allowed to do their job. Failure to push enough recruits through the training camps would reflect badly on them and their superiors, who were little more than bureaucratic beancounters, wouldn't understand their position. How could they?
“It is going to get worse,” he continued. “From what they were saying, both the Trafalgar and Midway fleet bases are going to be shut down within the next six months. The Empire will effectively abandon its authority over at least three sectors, simply because we don’t have the funds to maintain the bases.”
“They want to preserve the more developed worlds,” Chung said. “I don't think it will work.”
Jeremy couldn't disagree. The Core Worlds weren't in much better shape than Earth, while the Inner World’s deeply resented the Grand Senate’s economic dominance. Indeed, the underground economy was far more efficient than the official economy – and people were noticing. Marine Intelligence suggested that several entire sectors were slowly slipping out of the Grand Senate’s control. No wonder they were so determined to make an example out of Albion. Failure to keep one sector in the Empire would result in others slipping out of their grasp and forming their own economic alliances.
And if the price for maintaining control over the productive worlds was abandoning the colonies along the Rim, well ... you couldn't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
Jeremy could imagine the chaos spreading across the Rim as the Empire withdrew its remaining ships and men. HE3 supplies would come to a halt, forcing the colonists back on more primitive sources of power. Some of the luckier worlds would be able to set up their own cloudscoops, while others would have no choice but to become farming worlds. They’d survive – the standard se
ttlement procedure was to ensure that each new colony could feed itself without needing food from outside – but life would become much harder for a very long time. Few colony worlds would be able to return to space in the lifetimes of anyone who remembered the Empire.
But there would be other dangers. The Empire had driven thousands of discontented factions out of settled space, out beyond the Rim. Those factions would start probing back into the abandoned sectors, rapidly discovering that there was nothing left that could oppose them. They’d have a chance to build empires of their own ...
He shook his head, pushing the thought aside. “I’ll have to send a message – and a promotion – to Captain Stalker,” he said, bitterly. “They didn't want to send a ship to Avalon.”
“Sir ...” Anderson started to protest. “We don’t leave men behind!”
“I know,” Jeremy said. Marines didn't leave their own behind – and if a Marine died on the battlefield, his brethren would do everything in their power to recover his body and transport it to the Slaughterhouse for burial. Abandoning an entire unit on a distant colony world went against everything the Marines stood for, but there was no choice. There wouldn't be any recovery mission to Avalon. Or any of the other worlds where small units were going to be isolated indefinitely.
“Surely we could just send one ship,” Green said. “It wouldn't even have to be a long mission ...”
“Apparently not,” Jeremy said. He slapped the table before anyone else could speak. “I am aware of the ... betrayal and I have argued as strongly as I could with the planners. They are not going to arrange a starship to pick up Stalker’s Stalkers and that is final.”
There were other considerations, he knew. Captain Stalker – he’d have to put the paperwork through to promote him to Colonel – had enough supplies to build Avalon into a first-rank world ... given enough time without interference. They'd have to beat the insurgents on Avalon first, but Jeremy had read the file carefully and concluded that at least half of the insurgency would be willing to come to an agreement with the Marines. Ironically, the Empire’s decision to abandon the sector would work in Stalker’s favour. The insurgents wouldn't find it so easy to blame their woes on distant Earth when the Grand Senate had washed its hands of them.
“I think that we should re-examine the decision to pull Marines off the capital ships and away from Earth,” Chung said, changing the subject. “Marine Intelligence has been unable to follow all of the convoluted bargaining in the Senate, but it seems likely that some kind of deal was struck.”
“Undoubtedly,” Jeremy said. He’d puzzled over that himself. Logically, the last place the Grand Senate should want any kind of major explosion was Earth. “But then, they do want to win quickly on Albion – if it comes down to a fight.”
“It will,” Anderson predicted, grimly. “They have the choice between fighting or submitting to crushing economic demands from Earth, as well as rendering themselves helpless in the future. I think they’ll fight. And their Civil Guard is untrustworthy.”
“You mean it may be loyal to Albion rather than to the Empire,” Chung said. She looked over at Jeremy. “Intelligence tends to agree, sir. The Albion Civil Guard will be on the opposite side, as will the planet’s defences. I don’t think that the deployment force will be allowed to land peacefully.”
Jeremy nodded. Marines were hard to kill on the ground, but they were as vulnerable as anyone else on starships and assault shuttles. An entire platoon could be wiped out by a HVM that took out their shuttle, unless they managed to bail out in time. God knew that enough brave Marines had died during the hastily-improvised attack on Nova Taipei on Han, when there had been no time to soften up the enemy’s defences. Albion might not have the population of Han, but it did have the technology to be an order of magnitude worse for the newcomers. The invaders, as the locals would see them.
Albion was required, like all of the Inner Worlds, to pay for its own defences and Civil Guard. Unsurprisingly, the planet’s defenders were loyal to the planet rather than the Empire – and why not, when the Empire had been draining their planet’s resources ever since day one? The Grand Senate’s persistent ‘clarifications’ of Imperial Law had made millions of enemies in the Inner Worlds, particularly when they blatantly overrode rights granted to the Inner Worlds by the First Emperor. Jeremy knew that the Grand Senate had sacrificed long-term stability in favour of short-term gain. He didn't know if the Grand Senate knew it too.
“It is unlikely,” he said, finally. “And if the fighting does spread out of control, we might see other uprisings in the Inner Worlds. There just aren’t enough military units to run around on fireman duty.”
He scowled as he looked down at the ancient desk. It was a simple rule of insurgency and counter-insurgency warfare that the longer it took to respond to an insurgency, the harder it was to put the insurgency down. The insurgents would have time to strengthen their position, recruit openly and link up with others who had the same complaints against the occupying power. If Albion inspired other Inner Worlds to rebel, the Empire would take months to respond ... and by then it might be too late. On paper, the Inner Worlds wouldn't stand a chance; they would be massively outgunned. In practice ...
... The fighting might tear the Empire apart.
“Maybe they should redeploy Home Fleet,” Anderson suggested. “A few units in each of the Inner World systems might cool their tempers.”
“Or it might push them into open revolt,” Chung countered. “Besides, how long would it take to redeploy Home Fleet?”
Jeremy nodded. “That isn't our problem at the moment,” he said, standing up. “All we can do is try to keep the lid on and pray.”
He watched them leave his office, then turned and walked back to the window. The protesters below were finally dispersing, having made their point – a point that Jeremy knew would be ignored. The Empire couldn't avoid responding to the crisis on Albion, no matter what the protesters thought. Besides, what did the Grand Senate care about the opinion of a bunch of ignorant students?
Perhaps we should have recruited more on campus, he thought, sourly. It had certainly been proposed, years ago, but there was a ban on attempting to recruit students. They were allowed to walk into the recruiting offices and sign up, if they knew that the recruiting office even existed, yet they had to discover it on their own. The Marines weren't allowed to help them locate the office, let alone try to convince them that there was a genuine career in the military waiting for anyone with the determination to seize it.
But it wasn't too surprising. After all, the Grand Senate didn't want the Civil Guard having too many connections to the students. One day, the Guard might have to crush them ... and they wouldn't want sentiment getting in the way.
Bastards, Jeremy said, as he walked towards the door. His next appointment was in ninety minutes, just long enough for him to work off some frustration in the shooting range. Maybe then he’d feel better ...
... But the true condition of the Empire wouldn't just go away.
Chapter Eight
This combined with another major mistake to produce a highly dangerous situation. In order to fund the war, the Emperor had to make deals with various interstellar corporations, granting them future concessions that would be redeemed after the end of the war. These corporations allied with the Core Worlds and used their voting blocks to push through legislation that benefited them - and exploited the newer colonies.
-Professor Leo Caesius, The End of Empire
“This is torture,” Roland protested. “I’ll have you flogged! And then I’ll have you ...”
Belinda rolled her eyes at the young prince as he lay on the examination table. A quick check had revealed that the medical staff assigned to the Summer Palace were not expected to do anything more than basic treatment, so she’d had to call in a specialist from the Marine Corps infirmary to examine Roland’s condition. It had taken days to convince Hicks and Singh to allow Doctor Thorn to enter the Summer Palace; b
oth of them, for different reasons, had been reluctant to allow another outsider into their domain. Belinda had finally resorted to threatening to bring the whole matter to the attention of the Grand Senate, which had convinced them to change their minds.
“You should see what young recruits go through,” she said, although – to be fair – the examination procedure for new recruits was fairly basic. Boot Camp took everyone who met the minimum requirements and then put them through hell. Those who were overweight were streamlined into sections where they would lose weight and bulk up their muscles before rejoining the other recruits. “This isn't so bad.”
Roland’s face twisted unpleasantly. “You could at least hold my hand,” he said, crossly. “I can feel the machines inside me.”
“I highly doubt it, young man,” Doctor Thorn said. He had been one of the finest medical corpsmen in the Marine Corps before he’d suffered a nasty injury that had taken him out of the front lines for good. Serving on Earth just wasn't the same, even if he was helping to develop the next generation of military medical facilities. “The nanites are so tiny that they can pass through the cells of your body without resistance.”
“I can feel them,” Roland insisted. He sounded as though he were on the edge of panic. “They’re there!”
Belinda wasn't too surprised. Other Marines had reported the same sensation, at least when they'd known that there were nanites pervading their bodies. It was psychometric, according to the headshrinkers, but that didn't stop it seeming real. Besides, her augmentation was designed to pick up on and counter unwanted intruders in her body.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, reaching out to squeeze his hand. In many ways, Roland was still an immature child, someone who needed a father figure in his life. But all he had were the Grand Senators, who wanted to use him, and servants who had to do as he said. It wasn't a healthy combination. “Besides, it will all be over soon.”
The Empire's Corps: Book 03 - When The Bough Breaks Page 7
