She opened it before either of the children could get there. Her heart almost stopped beating when she saw a grim-faced man wearing a security uniform, then she relaxed as she realised that it was one of the Marines she’d seen earlier. He gave her a very brief smile, then scowled at her – and at the girls, when they came to see who was at the door.
“I'm afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come to the station,” he said, in a grim voice that sent shivers down Danielle’s spine. Both of the girls looked appropriately terrified. “Grab your bags and come with me.”
The girls didn't seem to realise, in their panic, that their mother had already packed their bags. Danielle, privately relieved, passed them each a bag and motioned for them to head down the path and out onto the street, where a van was waiting for them. The Marine helped the girls into the back of the van, then pressed something against Amber’s arm. She yelped in shock, too late to stop him; Danielle had to hold Rochelle so he could do the same to her.
“Blood sample,” he muttered, as he pushed the device against Danielle’s arm. There was a brief stabbing pain and then nothing. “Stay here.”
The door clanged shut and locked. Danielle, praying silently that she wasn't making a mistake, could only wait and see what happened next.
***
Jasmine watched Danielle and her two children through the hidden monitor as Blake returned to the house, noting the panic on their faces. She gritted her teeth, trying to fight down the guilt at scaring the children so badly; it might be years before they recovered from the trauma. Jasmine had pulled kidnapped children from bandit hideouts and pirate lairs before and the children had never been in very good shape, even when they hadn't been physically abused. Now, she was putting two young girls through the same kind of nightmare ...
Blake closed the house’s door and walked back, climbing into the van beside her. Jasmine started the engine as he closed the door, giving him an enquiring glance. “It’s all set,” he said, shortly. “The house is going to go up like a bomb.”
Jasmine scowled. One fire that obscured evidence was one thing; two ... might start someone wondering if it had been a coincidence. There might have been nearly two hundred miles between the guardpost and Danielle’s house in Landing City, but it was still worrying. And it wasn't their only problem. If the kids had really been taught to worship Admiral Singh, it was quite possible that they couldn't be trusted completely.
The thought made her shudder. No one had realised how deeply the hatred was sinking into Han until the planet had exploded, with millions of insurgents concentrating on wiping out the hated settlers from off-world – and then turning on each other, when the Empire had been forced to pull back and concentrate on guarding a handful of outposts. Men and women had slaughtered each other in vast quantities, but it had been the children who had been truly horrifying. Boys as young as five had picked up weapons almost as big as themselves to aim at their enemies, while girls – equally young – had emplaced landmines and IEDs.
Would Danielle’s children be equally poisoned by hatred and blinded by propaganda?
She drove off and headed down towards the building they’d taken over, hoping that they could keep the children under control without having to resort to force. Luckily, it was easier to get people out of the city than into it – and once the children were on the farms, they would have to work or starve. It wasn't a good solution, but it was the best they had.
“Time’s up,” Blake said. He craned his neck around, trying to see behind them. “I set the food processor to explode ... there she blows.”
“Let's just hope that there isn't much evidence,” Jasmine said, shortly. “Were there any bugs?”
“Only a couple, both quite ancient,” Blake said. “I don’t know just how much surveillance she was under.”
Jasmine nodded. Surveillance and counter-surveillance – hadn't been part of either of her MOS courses at the Slaughterhouse, but she’d taken refresher courses as they travelled to Admiral Singh’s empire and she knew just how easy it could be to watch someone if you controlled the infrastructure. Done properly, the target would never even know that they were being watched. There would be no tails following them throughout the day.
But that left her with a worrying question. Was Danielle really being watched - or was she being paranoid?
She scowled. They’d just have to take every precaution and hope.
Behind them, she saw a pillar of smoke start to rise above the city.
***
Horn preferred to sleep alone, no matter what pleasures could be had from a pair of nubile volunteers – of course, it spoilt the fun sometimes if they were really volunteers – and he disliked it intensely when someone woke him up. On the other hand, it ensured that his subordinates would only wake him up if it were truly urgent. When the buzzer rang, he rolled out of bed and snatched up his wristcom. Maybe the Admiral demanded his immediate presence.
“Yeah,” he grunted, as he keyed the wristcom. “What is it?”
“An old surveillance flag was tripped,” a staffer said. “There’s been a fire and the home was on our watch list.”
“Oh,” Horn said, silently promising the staffer a very uncomfortable few weeks. “And you saw fit to consider this urgent?”
“There’s a note in the file that any activity related to that flag was to be reported up the chain as soon as possible,” the staffer said. He didn't quite point out that it had been Horn who’d put that flag there in the first place, but the implication was there. “I had to notify you at once.”
Horn muttered a curse under his breath, then staggered over to the chair and picked up his dressing gown. “I shall be there in a moment,” he said. “Have the data ready for me on the big screen.”
Buckling his gown, he strode out of his chambers and walked into the control room, his bodyguards following him like silent hounds. He noticed a number of backs stiffening as he entered and wondered, absently, just who had been slacking off while he’d been sleeping. They might consider monitoring duty stupid, but Horn had never been able to understand why. Monitoring duty was the key to learning what unwanted elements had in mind before they knew it themselves.
“Danielle Chambers,” the staffer said, eyeing his boss nervously. Horn believed in indulging his subordinates, particularly the ones with ... interesting tastes, but he also punished stupidity, laxness and anything else he chose to dislike. “She was a junior member of the Democratic Underground, a very junior member. Her husband was a hard worker, so we just kept an eye on her for a while instead of arresting her.”
Horn sneered down at the picture. If it had been up to him, the entire family would have been arrested – but it would have demoralised her husband’s friends. Pity really, he decided, as he inspected the pictures of the girls. It was amazing how few people could hold out when they realised that their children were about to be tortured in front of them. And then they could have some real fun.
“There were traces of their DNA discovered in the remains,” the staffer said. “We presume that they are all dead.”
“Maybe,” Horn said. It was an odd coincidence that the second set of victims from a fire caused by a malfunctioning piece of equipment happened to include a known Democratic Underground activist. His paranoia suggested that something wasn't entirely right. On the other hand, it was difficult to lay his finger on just what wasn't right. “Have her husband picked up and sweat him a little – level one only, I think. The poor man is bound to be upset, so don’t push matters too far.”
“Yes, sir,” the staffer said.
Horn flicked through the rest of the file quickly. Danielle Chambers had been a very small fish indeed, but she’d also been the senior surviving member of the Democratic Underground – the senior known survivor of the Democratic Underground, he reminded himself. Subversives bred like rabbits, he’d been told; given a few weeks of uninterrupted activity and there would be hundreds of the little bastards, ready to upset the Admiral’s p
lans. They would have to be hunted down quickly.
But as far as anyone knew, Danielle Chambers had never returned to the fold.
“Have the wreckage of the house searched thoroughly,” he added. It had been searched, back before the decision had been taken to leave Danielle Chambers alone, and nothing had been found. Maybe she’d been experimenting with a detonator that had exploded accidentally and set fire to the house, or perhaps she had been trying to rig up an IED without knowing what she was doing. It did happen. “And then ... all we can do is watch and wait.”
He brought up a list of other suspects and made notes of the ones who might be vulnerable. “But we can be proactive about it,” he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. “See who jumps when we call.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
We have, in short, summed up the problem with developing a political system. The politicians have interests of their own – which may not align with the interests of those who voted for them (let alone the interests of those who didn't vote for them). And yet, anarchy, that glorious state where there are no laws, rules or regulations, rapidly gives way to the rule of the strong. We have walked in a circle.
-Professor Leo Caesius, Authority, Power and the Post-Imperial Era
Mandy Caesius hated feeling vulnerable.
She’d never really felt vulnerable – or threatened – until her father had been fired from Imperial University. Earth had seemed a safe environment to her – but that had only been true of the cityblocks that were patrolled constantly by the Civil Guard. When they’d been forced to move into another block on the edge of Imperial City, it had rapidly become clear that they were in grave danger. And then there had been the time that Jasmine had upended her and pulled Mandy over her knee, or when she’d been on the pirate ship knowing that she could be raped or murdered at any moment ...
“Two destroyers incoming,” Jones said. The sensor officer looked worried himself, even though he was nearly twenty years older than Mandy. “They’re ordering us to cut our drives and heave to.”
“Comply,” Mandy ordered. She hadn't expected the Admiral’s forces to allow them to enter orbit without searching them first. They were about to find out just how carefully they’d wiped the evidence that the Marines had been onboard her ship. “And step down the sensors. We don't want to alarm them.”
On Earth, she wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between a ship with a competent crew and a ship with a crew that barely knew how to replace something if it broke. Now, she looked at the two approaching destroyers and saw starships handled by trained officers, officers who weren’t wasting a single erg of energy. She had no doubt that if they ran into trouble, the crews would respond splendidly – and her freighter couldn't give them any real trouble. Even the most heavily-armed freighter in the Commonwealth would be no match for a warship.
One of the destroyers held back, settling into a watching position just outside missile range. They weren't taking that for granted, Mandy realised, as the other closed in, launching a pair of assault shuttles. Both of them looked more advanced – and dangerous – than the shuttles the Marines used on Avalon, but apparently that wasn't uncommon. Jasmine had grumbled about front-line forces often being last to receive new equipment before they’d lost contact with the Empire. It made no logical sense, at least to Mandy, yet it seemed to be commonplace.
“They’re demanding that we open our fore and aft airlocks for them,” Jones said. “And they want you to meet them at the fore airlock.”
“Understood,” Mandy said. “I’m on my way.”
She resisted the temptation to buckle her pistol onto her belt, despite the butterflies in her stomach. A single pistol – the only weapons they’d kept onboard were a handful of pistols and a couple of rifles – wouldn't be enough to keep the boarders out, even if they didn't have two destroyers close enough to blow Lightfoot apart before she could escape. Hell, given how poor Lightfoot’s acceleration curve actually was, they could give her a two hour head start and still overrun her before she reached the phase limit.
There was a dull clunk as the shuttle locked onto the airlock, followed rapidly by a hiss as the pressure equalised. Mandy knew that all Imperial Navy airlocks were standardised, and the Empire had worked hard to ensure that civilians used the same basic standards, but it wasn't uncommon to encounter a freighter with a different model of airlock. The boarding shuttles were designed to latch on to almost any kind of freighter. A moment later, the hatch hissed open, revealing a trio of men in light combat armour.
They didn't seem to be Marines, Mandy realised, feeling an odd sense of relief. Jasmine had confided her fear that the Marines on Trafalgar were working for Admiral Singh now, after the Empire had abandoned them, but the newcomers seemed to move differently. Their combat suits held rank badges and a handful of medals, blazoned onto the black armour. It was yet another sign that they weren't Marines, Mandy noted. Terran Marines never marked their armour, certainly not where someone else could see the markings.
The leader seemed to be studying her from behind his mask, then one hand reached up and undid his helmet, revealing a young male face. He gave Mandy an approving glance that almost made her flush, then looked at the Captain’s insignia she wore on her shoulder. His surprise, Mandy considered, was almost understandable. The youngest commanding officer in the Imperial Navy’s long history had been twenty-seven, not counting the ones who had succeeded to command after their superiors had been killed. Mandy looked younger than her eighteen years.
“Welcome onboard,” Mandy said. “I’m Captain Jayne Richards, Mistress of Lightfoot.”
The leader remembered himself and stepped forward. “Lieutenant Tam,” he said, holding out a hand. Mandy shook it, carefully, recognising Tam’s display of skill. Shaking hands with someone wearing combat armour could be very dangerous. The suits magnified pressure to the point where it would crush a hand into powder. “I’m afraid that we need to search your ship and interview your crew before we allow you any closer to our world.”
Mandy pasted a reluctant look on her face. “Is that actually necessary?”
“I’m afraid so,” Tam said. “We don't know anything about you, you see. Please order your crew to cooperate and we can get it done as quickly as possible.”
“Right,” Mandy said. No merchant skipper would be happy about having outsiders crawling through her ship, but there was no choice. “I’ll pass on the orders at once.”
Tam’s crew were very well trained, she noted, as they went through the ship with a fine-toothed comb. They knew most of the hiding places and inspected them, one by one, making sardonic noises when they discovered the small horde of credit coins any freighter crew would have stashed away for a rainy day. Tam pointed out, a little less gleefully than Mandy would have expected, that the credit coins would be worthless on Corinthian. Admiral Singh, it seemed, had started her own currency.
Mandy wasn't entirely surprised. Her father lectured often on how the Empire’s currency had been upheld by faith in the Empire – and without that faith, even the most trusting person would hesitate before accepting Imperial Credits. Luckily, Avalon had established a reasonably solid economy before the Empire’s withdrawal had become public knowledge and the shift to a new system had been undertaken with a minimum of pain. Still, for a freighter crew that had been stranded on Gordon’s Pride for several months, it would be an unpleasant surprise.
“They may be prepared to extend you a loan,” Tam said, when she asked him, “but I don't think that anyone would just take the money. It’s pretty much valueless on the planet below.”
She mulled over his words as the team completed the search, turning up nothing more interesting than a handful of high-tech components that might be saleable, and then started to hold interviews. Mandy was silently grateful that they’d worked out the original story in such detail because Tam was skilled at asking probing questions, starting with how they’d become stuck on such a low-tech world in the f
irst place. Her rather shamefaced confession that they’d believed there was no other choice made him laugh.
“I promised I’d take them some HE3,” she said, once he’d finished bouncing questions off her. “Can I buy some here?”
“Only if you have some currency to trade with,” Tam said, dryly. “I have no idea what the higher-ups will make of it, but I doubt that Gordon’s Pride has anything that they might find interesting.”
Mandy couldn't help nodding in agreement. Gordon’s Pride had no gas giant, no belt of rocky asteroids ... and an inhabited planet settled by religious cultists who had been exiled from the rest of the Empire. The only thing they had to offer outsiders was food, drink and women – and Admiral Singh wouldn't need any of them from the isolated world. Pirates, on the other hand, would probably have raided Gordon’s Pride by now. It wasn't as if they could fight back.
“We’ll see,” Mandy said. There was a brief pause as the rest of the team checked in with their leader. “What happens now?”
“Well, we found nothing of interest, so you’re cleared to dock at Orbit Station Three,” Tam said. “We have to remain with you until you dock, then you’ll be rid of us – and you can talk to the officers there about opening up a line of credit. Do you really want to go back to Gordon’s Folly?”
“Gordon’s Pride,” Mandy corrected, automatically. From what she'd seen in the records, Tam’s name was more than apt. “Not particularly, but I did give them my word. Is there a better offer here?”
The Empire's Corps: Book 04 - Semper Fi Page 21
