Never Surrender (The Empire's Corps Book 10)

by Christopher Nuttall

  There was another party last night, she thought, grimly. If the enemy spies followed their standard practice, there would be yet another message beamed to outer space the following day. She takes the recordings, puts them on a datachip and carries them to the orphanage ... Garston takes them there, then passed them onwards ... to whom?

  She altered course as soon as Hannalore was out of sight, walking back towards the apartment they’d taken over near the Governor’s Mansion. It wasn't perfect, but the landlady wasn't the type to ask questions and the other lodgers were out most of the day. Kitty had run a check on each of them, just in case; none of them had anything in their files that raised red flags. They were all just immigrants coming to try and find long-term employment on Avalon.

  Her radio buzzed. “He asked me for a date,” Six said. There was a hint of amusement in her voice. “I’m scheduled to go dancing with him in an hour; I just begged time to powder my nose.”

  Kitty rolled her eyes. “What happened?”

  “He plugged a datachip into a computer, then fiddled with it for a few moments,” Six said, slowly. “Once he was done, he dropped the chip into the disintegrator and asked me out.”

  “Have fun,” Kitty said. There was no harm in taking advantage; besides, it was starting to look as though Garston was definitely involved in the operation. They’d have to open up a file on him too. “There’s no hope of recovering the chip?”

  “He stood over the disintegrator until it was atomised,” Six said, flatly. “There’s nothing left of it, but dust.”

  Kitty swallowed a curse. It was astonishing just how much could be recovered from a datachip, even if the data was wiped and the entire chip rewritten several times in a row. Anyone who really wanted to keep something a secret would make sure the chip was destroyed, smashed down into dust. Even a commercial disintegrator would be more than sufficient to destroy all the evidence.

  “Very well,” she said. “Go with him, but be careful.”

  Nine entered the conversation. “One, target walked through the mansion gates and straight up to the house,” he said. “I can't go any further.”

  “Understood,” Kitty said. “Get back to base. We can leave the monitoring of the mansion to the probes now.”

  She finished her walk to the apartment, then poured herself a mug of coffee and sat down for a think. It seemed likely that Garston was the link in the chain between Hannalore and Wolfbane, unless there were others involved. She rather doubted it; Hannalore was in a good position to spy, but also in an excellent place to get caught. Garston would probably have no connections to anyone else, just in case he was snatched by Commonwealth Intelligence or slipped up badly enough to be arrested through sheer dumb luck. It had happened in the past.

  “Get me a workup of Garston,” she ordered, picking up her terminal. “Who is he and what is he doing?”

  There was a long pause. “He’s the son of Councillor Garston,” her coordinator said. “He was arrested briefly after the Battle of Camelot for throwing stones at the militia; he spent two years on a work farm, then was released with a warning. There were a handful of minor jobs since then until he got the place at the Rodeo Dwell, two years ago. He’s been there since then.”

  At roughly the same time Hannalore started having her parties, Kitty thought. The file blinked up in front of her and she skimmed it, quickly. He certainly has a motive to want to betray us.

  The file wasn't that detailed, beyond a note that Gaston had probably been beaten by the militiamen before they’d handed him over to the judges. There had been hundreds of cases at the time, so no one had bothered to do more than the bare minimum; they’d charged him with resisting arrest, then sent him to the work farm. He might have thought he was defending his family, but the militia had other views. Kitty couldn't help a flicker of sympathy; Gaston’s father had been executed, his mother had been exiled and his younger sisters had been happily adopted. He hadn't seen any of them since the day he’d been arrested.

  But it doesn't matter why someone chose to betray us, she thought, as she sipped her coffee thoughtfully. It was beyond her to correct every little injustice, every little incident that would leave someone seething with resentment. All that matters is that he did.

  “I think he’s definitely linked,” she said. “Can you see if he had any known contacts with offworlders?”

  “Unknown,” her coordinator said. “I don’t see any records suggesting he might have met someone from off-world, but that proves nothing.”

  “Assign Five and Seven to monitor Garston and his date with Six,” Kitty said. She wondered briefly if Six would go home with Garston - it would be an excellent chance to look inside his apartment - but pushed the thought aside. If Six went, she would be pleased, but she drew the line at forcing someone to put out on demand. “If it turns up nothing, I want him to be followed for the next few days; draw additional people from the Hannalore watch, if necessary.”

  She rubbed her forehead, then sat back in her chair.

  “Colonel, I have some information from local files,” another operative said. “There are only thirteen official residents at the orphanage, not counting the five caregivers. The youngest is fourteen, so they may be hoping the place can be closed in a few years. However, two of the caregivers are married and have young children. The suits she bought might have been intended for them.”

  Kitty nodded, slowly. “Why are the children still there?”

  There was an embarrassed pause. “The files suggest that the children have ... severe behaviour problems,” the operative said. “They’re only allowed to remain there on sufferance; five of them have arrest records, while three of them ... may have been abused while they were younger. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the problem was just swept under the rug.”

  He swore, just loudly enough for Kitty to hear. “These things don’t happen on Avalon!”

  “Evidently they do,” Kitty said. “If five of the children have arrest records, why weren't they sent to work camps?”

  “I don’t know,” the operative said. “The files are sealed; I don’t think I could get inside without a court order. They may have been flogged instead, or simply given stern warnings and sent home. Their exact legal status is a little vague.”

  “And so we allowed this problem to fester,” Kitty mused. She shook her head. “Get in touch with a judge and put in a request for a court order. I think they should grant it for us.”

  She closed the channel and looked at the files. There was little there, beyond a series of incident reports, but reading between the lines it was clear they hadn't been arrested. Avalon had a tendency to hold parents responsible for their children, yet the orphans had no parents, not any longer. She sighed, tiredly, then settled down to wait. There would be time to attend to the injustice later.

  “Garston and Six are heading to the Disco Infernal,” Five reported. He snickered, none too politely. “They look like a happy young couple.”

  “Good,” Kitty said. “Keep an eye on them.”

  She turned her attention to her work, but listened with half an ear to the stream of reports from the disco. Garston and Six danced for nearly two hours, then headed back to his apartment. It was another two hours before Six emerged, looking tired, and hailed a cab, which took her directly back to base. Kitty was waiting for her with a mug of coffee and a questioning expression.

  “He’s not bad,” Six said, with a grin. “He ...”

  “I wanted to know about his work, not how good he is in bed,” Kitty snapped. “What did he tell you about himself?”

  “Very little,” Six said, “but his apartment has quite a few books about chemical substances and how they can be mixed together. He gave me a story about studying chemistry when I asked ...”

  “He could be trying to build a bomb,” Kitty mused. Guns and ammunition were plentiful on Avalon, but explosives weren't so easy to obtain. “Does he have any hope of success?”

  “I don’t know,” Six
said. “He could have obtained the materials or ... he might have been unable to proceed past the design stage. I do think, however, that Wolfbane could have provided him with a real bomb.”

  “Assuming they want him to blow himself up,” Kitty pointed out. “What did you make of him?”

  “Repressed anger issues,” Six said. “He remained calm, but I could tell he was on the verge of exploding every time he was defied, even minimally. I suspect that might have been why he had problems holding down a job before now. I’d recommend primal scream therapy if I was a psychologist.”

  Kitty ignored her. “Wolfbane might wish they had someone more reliable in place,” she said, thinking out loud. Resentful people could be manipulated, but they could also be dangerously unpredictable. “Someone with anger problems might explode at the wrong time.”

  “I could jerk around with him a bit,” Six said. She shook her head. “He’s good at being charming and caring; I could have liked him if I hadn't been meeting him ... professionally. My feeling, though, is that he will quickly become a nasty controlling, if not abusive, boyfriend. I think he hasn't had a long-term relationship in the past because he’s driven his prior girlfriends away.”

  “It sounds likely,” Kitty agreed.

  She sighed. “I’ll talk to the colonel, if the message is sent tonight,” she continued. “We might have nothing to gain by leaving them both in place, seemingly untouched. I assume there was no attempt by anyone to touch base with him?”

  “I saw nothing to suggest it,” Six said. “But he wouldn't be stupid enough to tell me just what he was doing ... unless I posed as someone useful.”

  Kitty nodded. “You gave him your student identity?”

  “Yep,” Six said. “I could probably get files for him or some shit like that, but I don’t think he’d consider it helpful.”

  “Get some rest,” Kitty said, instead. “I’ll speak to the colonel in the morning.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Empire’s treatment of POWs was always a sticking point in the later days of the Empire. Unlike many pre-space human powers, the Empire never faced a genuine peer power. There was, therefore, no incentive to treat POWs decently.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. The Empire and its Prisoners of War.

  Passing Water, Wolfbane System, Year 5 (PE)

  “Transit complete,” Stewart reported. “We have arrived.”

  Jasmine nodded. It was silly of her to tense up as they dropped out of phase space, but she hadn't been able to help it. The sense of being in enemy territory surrounded her, even though she knew the Wolves were light-hours away. There was little chance of being intercepted as they emerged from phase space. Hell, it would be hours before they were even detected. But she still felt tense.

  “Send the pre-planned signal to System Command,” she ordered. “And then take us into the system.”

  “Bad idea,” Frazier said, quickly. “They won’t be expecting us to report in so quickly.”

  Jasmine gave him a sharp look. “You could have mentioned that earlier.”

  “Civilian freighters like mine resent having to declare themselves to anyone,” Frazier said. “Most will not send any IFF until after they are deep within the system - and some won’t announce themselves until they are actually challenged. You’re going to make yourselves look suspiciously efficient.”

  “Belay that order,” Jasmine told Stewart. “But keep a careful eye on the sensors for any signs of trouble.”

  She forced herself to sit back in her command chair as the displays started to fill with tactical data. Wolfbane was a busy system. Maybe not as busy as Earth, AlphaCent or Washington Prime had been, before the Stalkers had been banished from the Core Worlds, but busy enough to worry her. Countless freighters headed in and out of the system, while IFF signals pulsing through space revealed the location of hundreds of asteroid mining stations and industrial nodes. It was hard to be sure - civilian-grade passive sensors were pathetic - but she suspected that Wolfbane had two or three times the combined economic might of Avalon, Corinthian and Thule.

  “Got a trio of warships heading out,” Gary said, from the console he’d worked hard to learn how to use. “I think.”

  Jasmine stood and paced over to his console, peering over his shoulder. “Looks that way,” she said. “Three cruisers, at a guess. We got any matches in the files?”

  Gary shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “They could be reengineered,” Watson offered. “Not new-build, just changed enough to confuse the files.”

  “They could be,” Jasmine agreed. She rather hoped they were, but she knew better than to count on it. Avalon had achieved miracles by taking technology past the limits the Empire had believed to be unbreakable and there was no reason Wolfbane couldn't do the same, now they knew the impossible was now possible. They’d seen force shields in action at Thule, where they’d been a nasty surprise. “Keep an eye on them and let me know if their power curves change dramatically.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Gary said.

  Jasmine rolled her eyes, then turned and walked back to her viewscreen. New icons were springing into view all the time; some clearly identified, others nothing more than a radio source hooked up to something the Wolves considered important. Most of them were centred around Wolfbane itself, but a distressingly high number were orbiting the gas giant and several more seemed to be floating in interplanetary space. Jasmine stroked her chin as more and more data poured into the computers, wishing she had a proper analysis staff with her. It was impossible to escape the feeling that she was missing something, simply through being unable to interpret all the data.

  “He was talking about setting up extra cloudscoops,” Stubbins said, from where he was sitting against the rear bulkhead. “I think he must have done it.”

  “There’s nine separate structures orbiting the gas giant, if I understand correctly,” Jasmine said, slowly. “And it looks as though they’re building two more.”

  “They’re going to run out at this rate,” Kailee said. She was seated next to Gary, looking alternatively bored and nervous. “We kept being told to conserve natural resources on Earth.”

  “There’s enough gas in a gas giant to keep the entire sector powered for hundreds of thousands of years,” Paula snapped. She’d never seemed to like Kailee, for some reason. “Even Earth could have supported itself for millions of years, just drawing fuel from Jupiter or Saturn. They told you that to keep you from wondering why you weren't allowed infinite power supplies.”

  Jasmine shot her a warning look, then returned her gaze to the viewscreen. The constant inflow of data worried her, even though she knew the Wolves were unlikely to be concerned about civilian-grade sensors. She was used to covering her tracks, where possible; to see what looked like a blatant lack of concern for security was alarming. And yet ... she knew there was nothing that could hide the system from civilian-grade sensors, let alone a spy ship with mil-spec gear. The Wolves might be wise not to try.

  “I think that’s another warship,” Gary offered. “She just crossed the phase limit; she’s currently heading into the system.”

  “Put it on the main display,” Jasmine ordered. A new red icon snapped into existence. She sucked in her breath as she saw it, then shook her head. “If that isn't a battleship, I’ll eat my hat.”

  “It’s a battleship,” Watson confirmed. “Pity, really; I hear they infused flavours into our hats to make them easier to chew, when we ran out of rations.”

  Jasmine fought down the urge to make a rude gesture and, instead, looked at Stubbins. “I think the system has changed considerably,” she said. “How many of your contacts are still in place?”

  “I have no way to know,” Stubbins said. “I’d need access to their datanet and then see what names I recognised ...”

  “We won’t get that at this distance,” Watson said. He shot Paula a warm glance that made Jasmine smile inwardly. “I’d be surprised if they let us shoot queries into their datane
t from an asteroid - or a ship.”

  “Then we need to get down to the planet,” Stubbins said. “I should still have contacts there.”

  “We’ll see,” Jasmine said. They were still light-minutes from Wolfbane, but the sheer output of radio signals suggested the system was an order of magnitude more heavily defended - and policed - than Corinthian. Slipping down to the planet might be impossible, even for highly-trained Marines. “But I think we need a base camp in the system first.”

  A low chime rang. “We just got pinged,” Watson snapped. “Fairly standard challenge, doesn't seem to have changed from the pre-independence days. Send us your IFF or else, etc, etc.”

  “Send them the IFF,” Jasmine ordered. “And then keep a sharp eye on them. If they decide they want to inspect the ship, we will have no choice but to hope we can bluff it out.”

  She sighed, inwardly. The freighter hadn't been designed as a q-ship, which would make life easier if the Wolves did decide to board, but there was a great deal of equipment on the ship that would, at best, result in them having to answer a number of hard questions. She’d done her best to hide it, then rig up passenger manifests that would account for the entire crew, yet she knew a careful search of the ship would be disastrous. If the searchers proved too thorough to be tolerated, they would have to fight their way out ... and, in a lumbering freighter, that might be impossible.