The Empire's Corps: Book 04 - Semper Fi

by Christopher Nuttall

  Jasmine nodded and stepped backwards as the younger girl began to bark orders. Her crew might have looked unprofessional, but they clearly knew what they were doing. But then, freighter crews that didn't know what they were doing ended up dead. They just didn't have the manpower to cushion the impact of incompetent officers and crewmen, unlike the Imperial Navy.

  She felt a dull throbbing echoing through the deck as the phase drive came online, powering up for the jump into phase space. Mandy spoke briefly to the other two Captains, then issued the order. Jasmine felt space twisting around them – a more uncomfortable sensation than it would have been on a military starship – a moment before they lurched into phase space. Two of the other crewmen looked a little green; an uncomfortable transition could make less experienced crewmen sick, or worse. There were people who literally could not endure travelling in phase space and had to remain in stasis for the entire trip.

  “We’re on our way,” Mandy said, softly. “One month to Corinthian.”

  “Plenty of time to think and plan,” Jasmine agreed. The journey would be boring, but she had a feeling that they’d wish they were still in transit when they finally arrived. They would be completely on their own. “Let me know when you’re ready to spar.”

  With that, she walked back down to the Marine compartment. Like the rest of the platoon, she needed her sleep. Tomorrow they would start exercising in earnest.

  Chapter Eleven

  On the face of it, this seems absurd. How could politicians act against the interests of those who put them in power?

  -Professor Leo Caesius, Authority, Power and the Post-Imperial Era

  Corinthian was hers.

  Admiral Rani Singh stood in front of the massive window and stared out over Landing City, admiring the shining towers that surrounded the former Governor’s mansion. Corinthian had been settled for over seven hundred years and had been the sector capital for five hundred, giving its inhabitants an excellent series of opportunities to milk the sector for all it was worth. The governorship had been a prize for the Empire’s most well-connected officials; even in times of economic hardship, they’d still managed to make vast amounts of money through bribes and corruption.

  She smiled coldly as she remembered the previous Governor, a short fat man who had amassed a colossal fortune. He had never really realised the doom overshadowing the Empire – and his comfortable post – until it was far too late. Rani’s ships had arrived in orbit, seized the high orbitals after a brief battle and forced him to surrender, promising safe conduct back to the Empire. She hadn't had any intention of keeping that promise; as soon as the governor and his family had boarded one of her ships, she’d had them transported to Penance. The thought of the Governor, an aristocrat in all but name, struggling to survive on the hellish world never failed to keep her warm at night. And his family would be lucky if they were only forced into slavery by the convicts who had made themselves the rulers of the penal world.

  Once she’d imprisoned and exiled most of the senior civil servants – and the most deeply corrupt officials – she’d installed her own people in the system, ensuring that she held power firmly in her grasp. It hadn't been easy to do it without destroying the system, but her demonstrated willingness to use force had helped smooth the way. Most civil servants were little more than cowardly bullies; quite willing to pressure those without the ability to strike back, but folding as soon as they faced someone with real power. Splitting up the civil service into two competing entities had probably helped too. Both entities struggled mightily to embarrass the other, competing for her favour.

  And, as long as they were competing, they weren’t joining forces to oppose her.

  Trafalgar had had the fleet base, a small population of camp followers ... and little else. Her new base of operations had a vast population, a sizable industrial base even before she’d started raiding nearby star systems for their industrial facilities ... and no shortage of useful resources like HE3. It might not be able to match the massive industrial nodes built up in orbit around Earth, but given time it would provide the resources to conquer a small empire for herself. And her heirs, once she'd had them. She certainly didn't want her empire to break up after her death.

  She looked down towards the streets, watching as they slowly came to life. They looked like ants from the mansion, scurrying around ... every single one of them working, directly or indirectly, for her. It had been easy to win them over at first, to convince them that she had their best interests in mind ... and when she’d shown the iron fist under the velvet glove, it had been far too late for them to resist. Not that it would have mattered, in any case. As long as she held the high orbitals, her position was invulnerable.

  Her wristcom buzzed. “Admiral, Director Horn and Vice Admiral Sampson are here to see you,” Carolyn said. Her aide was one of the most faithful people she had – and well she might be, when anyone who overthrew Rani would kill her as their first step towards consolidating power. Carolyn had more power than her formal title suggested and Rani had allowed her to abuse it, just enough to make enemies. It kept her firmly under Rani’s control. “Should I send them in?”

  Rani turned, surveying the former Governor’s office. It was larger than the stateroom Admiral Bainbridge had enjoyed on his flagship, large enough to serve as a tennis court, and strikingly luxurious. Rani had considered herself thoroughly cosmopolitan and yet she’d been astonished when she’d seen the sheer luxury the Governor had surrounded himself with, no doubt funded by bribes. Even so, she was surprised that he’d had any fortune left by the time she’d overthrown him.

  “Yes, please,” she ordered. “I’m ready for them.”

  She strode back towards the Governor’s chair and stood in front of it, hands clasped behind her back at parade rest. A moment later, the door opened, revealing two very different men. Vice Admiral Sampson was tall and almost inhumanly handsome – like Rani, his family had spliced genetic improvements into their DNA for centuries – while Director Horn was short, mousy and looked like just another civil servant. Rani wrinkled her nose as the little man came to some semblance of attention. He was necessary, but that didn't mean that she had to like him. Besides, the air always seemed to smell unpleasant when he was around. Who would have thought that such a little man could be so depraved?

  “Be seated,” she ordered, and sat down on the Governor’s chair. It was almost an exact copy of the Emperor’s Throne from the Imperial Palace on Earth, an artefact that might no longer exist if the rumours were true. The Governor had clearly wanted to impress his visitors, suggesting that he had been overcompensating for something. Maybe he'd known, deep inside, just how fragile his position truly was. Or maybe it had been more basic.

  She met Sampson’s eyes. Genetic modification wasn't the only thing he had in common with her; he’d had his own career destroyed by a superior officer with more clout than common sense. He would have spent the rest of his career languishing on a cloudscoop mining facility if Rani hadn't discovered him, read his record and decided to offer him a vitally important role in her new empire. Sampson hadn't taken more than a few seconds to decide to throw his lot in with her, despite the oaths he’d sworn to the Empire. But then, the Empire hadn't bothered to keep its side of the bargain.

  “Report,” she ordered.

  “Proud is definitely missing,” Sampson said, flatly. “She chased the refugee freighter to François, a new colony world seven light years from Greenway ... and vanished. Commodore O’Hara conducted a brief survey, but found nothing.”

  Rani kept her face expressionless as she considered the possibilities. Any serving officer with a lick of sense knew that accidents happened – and that some starships vanished in phase space, never to be seen again. But Proud had been in hot pursuit of a freighter; her disappearance while engaged in such a mission might not be a coincidence.

  “If the ship vanished in phase space, there might be nothing to find,” she mused, out loud. “But we know there’s
another power forming Rim-ward, don’t we?”

  “Oh yes, Admiral,” Horn said. “Our intelligence assures us that it is there.”

  It was harder to keep her face expressionless when Horn spoke. Rani knew more than she wanted to know about his disgusting habits, even if those habits did make him very useful – and loyal, because anyone outside her circle who discovered the truth would execute him on the spot. And Horn had been opposed to her planned intelligence-gathering efforts, including allowing independent traders to operate in exchange for sharing what they saw with her intelligence officers. He’d seen it as giving rogue elements too much independence.

  She needed no display to visualise her empire – and the unexplored reaches of space surrounding the worlds under her control. What was happening core-wards? She’d heard rumours, picked up refugees ... but there was little hard data. And yet, if she’d taken power, why not other Admirals? There could be other empires forming out of the ruins of the Empire, each one a potential threat to her. Her fleet was powerful enough to overawe the sector, but it was tiny compared to the rest of the Imperial Navy. How much of it was still intact? There was no way to know.

  It was unlikely that any power forming rim-ward could actually threaten her position, she knew; they would be forced to build up an industrial base and a navy from the ground up. Depending on what they had available, it could take them decades – or more – before they posed a genuine threat. By then, she would have overrun them – assuming, of course, that stronger powers hadn't overrun her. It was quite possible that the rumours that spoke of outright civil war burning through the Core Worlds were accurate.

  “So it does,” she said, thoughtfully.

  “Commodore O’Hara reports that his squadron is ready for an immediate attack in retaliation,” Sampson added. “I believe that he intends to hit François.”

  “Denied,” Rani said, sharply. It would take nearly ten days to get the order to Commodore O’Hara; she'd given him specific orders not to press any further rim-ward, but he might well act on his own authority. She knew better than to try to direct his every move from seventy light years away. “Besides, if there was another ship, it wouldn't have come from François.”

  Sampson nodded. They’d both looked at the files; François was a newly-settled world, barely seventy years old. Indeed, lacking a gas giant, it had lagged behind most of the other worlds in the sector; it hadn't even been settled until a group of outcasts had been shipped there and told to make the best of it. Development corporations wouldn't waste their time with a world that could never become an industrial powerhouse. No, François didn't have anything more than a handful of in-system spacecraft. It couldn't have taken out a light cruiser on its own.

  “There is an alternate possibility,” Horn suggested. “The ship might have been sabotaged.”

  Rani had already considered that possibility, before dismissing it. Sabotaging a ship wasn't easy – and the fleet’s security precautions were extensive enough to make it impossible for a conspiracy to form without being detected. It would have taken a disloyal senior officer to destroy the cruiser single-handedly – and she had taken steps to verify their loyalty before promoting them.

  “We should enhance our security precautions on the starships,” Horn continued. “We need to ensure that the crews are loyal ...”

  “They won’t stay loyal if we push the precautions too far,” Sampson snapped. It was an old argument; like most bureaucrats, Horn wanted to expand his domain, while Sampson wanted to keep meddlers out of his own kingdom. “Even routine security checks can encourage disloyalty.”

  Rani smiled inwardly, although she was careful not to show any hint of approval or disapproval. Sampson was quite right; she’d been selected for random security checks and interrogations when she'd been a junior officer and they’d certainly helped convince her that rebellion was a good idea. On the other hand, she knew first-hand how easy it was for senior officers to lose track of what was going on. Random security checks might help break up a conspiracy before it became dangerous.

  “But the disloyalty is already there,” Horn protested. “We intercept countless messages on the datanet encouraging rebellion; the underground is still out there, no matter how many cells we bust. What if they manage to take control of some of our ships?”

  “That would be bad,” Rani said, “but do you have any proof that the underground is planning anything dangerous?”

  “No,” Horn admitted, “but that’s only because we’re riding them so hard.”

  “You think,” Sampson said. “But we isolate the fleet crewmen from the planet’s population. One won’t spread to the other.”

  Horn scowled at him. “Are you sure?”

  Rani held up a hand. “As always, we have to strike a balance,” she said. It was fun watching them compete for her attention and approval – and, like so much else, it kept them from uniting against her. “Director Horn; you and your department will review the files on all of the conscripts and flag up any that might demand more focused attention. I suggest” – she allowed some ice to slip into her voice – “that you don’t just concentrate on the young and nubile. This is too important to allow you to waste time.”

  Sampson gave Horn an icy look. Rani had put an end to powerful officers abusing the junior officers and crew, but security officers, upon being given an inch, took a mile. The thought of facing one of Horn’s ‘customised’ interrogations would definitely provoke a mutiny. It was bad enough that she had to indulge him with the wives and daughters of suspected underground activists.

  And to think that the man had a lovely wife, Rani reminded herself. The universe was truly strange at times.

  “Of course, Admiral,” Horn said. He didn't sound pleased, but he would do as he was told – or else. “I shall have my staff see to it at once.”

  Rani nodded, then looked over at Sampson. “Once Director Horn produces a list, have your staff review it,” she ordered. “If anyone is suspicious to both sets of reviewers, we may as well start interrogating them.”

  Sampson didn’t look any happier, but he nodded reluctantly.

  “In the meantime, have scoutships prepared to survey the stars rim-ward of here,” Rani added. “We can try and see who owns what, then prepare to move as we see fit. Tell the scouts that we want them to remain undetected; we may as well try to maintain the advantage of surprise.”

  “Assuming that we haven't already lost it,” Sampson pointed out. “We still don’t know what happened to Proud.”

  “That reminds me,” Rani said. “General Davis is to be relieved of command and recalled back to Corinthian. Losing a freighter to prisoners who should have been shackled to the walls was thoroughly incompetent and I expect a full accounting. We don’t have ships to waste.”

  “No, Admiral,” Sampson agreed. “However, the General did do a fine job of subduing the planet’s inhabitants.”

  Rani scowled. Corinthian’s shipyards could produce freighters, but most of them were being retooled to produce new warships. It said something about the general condition of the shipyards that the ones built from scratch were nearly ready – and it would be months before the retooled ones were active once again. If the Governor had spent his fortune actually maintaining the source of his wealth ...

  “That’s true,” Horn said, surprisingly. “The General put a vigorous security network into place as soon as he took control. Losing a freighter is a minor problem compared to gaining an entire planet with thousands of trained inhabitants.”

  “Maybe,” Rani said. Horn was right; they desperately needed more trained manpower. She’d started new training courses for vocational students, but staffing them forced her to take trained officers from their posts. It was yet another balance that had to be maintained. “But he did lose the freighter.”

  She relaxed, slightly. “Tell the General that I want a full accounting – and new precautions put in place to prevent it from happening again,” she said. “Once I’ve read his
report, I’ll make my decision about his future.”

  “Thank you, Admiral,” Sampson said.

  Rani smiled. She’d made one thing very clear to her senior officers – and the civil servants, although that had been harder. There would be absolutely no tolerance for bullshit; if someone screwed up and tried to hide it under a mass of weasel words, she would ensure that their deaths were thoroughly awful. On the other hand, if someone honestly admitted to a mistake she would be more lenient. Half of the Imperial Navy’s problems had sprouted from bullshit scattered around by officers trying to avoid the blame. Most of the rest had come from aristocratic officers and their clients – and she was already rid of them.

  “You are dismissed,” she said, standing up. “Report to me as soon as you have completed the security check.”

  She watched them leave, then turned to look back out of the window. Landing City was buzzing with life, all hers. She controlled the fate of every man, woman and child in thirty star systems. It was a heady feeling; she could do anything and there was nothing they could do to stop them. No wonder the Grand Senate had become so corrupt, so indifferent to the needs of the Empire, she realised. The power they’d commanded had been utterly intoxicating.

  In orbit, she knew, repair crews were struggling to rebuild the planet’s orbital defences and convert a handful of asteroids into additional weapons platforms. It was slow going, but when the project was completed it would require a full Imperial Navy fleet to break into the high orbitals ... and she doubted that one would be sent against her any time soon. Indeed, if the more extreme rumours were true, there was literally nothing left in the Core Worlds. They had been scorched clean by nuclear fire.

  Rani privately doubted that was true, although she’d ensured that the rumour leaked onto the datanet to convince the population that there would be no help coming from the Empire. Corinthian was hardly the first world to fall to a rebel faction, but they’d all been recovered – until now. Even if the Empire was still intact in some form, the withdrawal from the outermost sectors suggested that the Grand Senate no longer had any interest in trying to maintain the status quo. By the time they changed their minds, if they did, her position would be impregnable. They would have to negotiate with her on equal terms. They’d hate that, but they would have no choice. She’d ensure that they knew it too.