The Empire's Corps: Book 04 - Semper Fi

by Christopher Nuttall

“There might be,” Tam said. He grinned at her, suddenly. “And if you would like to join me for a drink on the station, later ...?”

  Mandy had to laugh. “Why not,” she said. It might be fun – besides, she needed to keep Tam sweet. “Once we get settled, though.”

  They returned to the bridge and resumed their course towards Orbit Station Three. It was orbiting in high orbit, Mandy noted, which was unusual; Avalon’s orbiting stations were in low orbit. Apart from adding a few extra minutes to the flight from the surface to the station, it didn't seem to do much else. Maybe Admiral Singh felt it offered a certain psychological separation between Corinthian and the freighter crews. Mandy honestly couldn't think of any other explanation.

  “Picking up a data package,” Jones reported. “I think it’s the rules and regulations.”

  “It is,” Tam confirmed. “I suggest you follow them carefully. They don’t like people who don’t follow the rules.”

  Mandy picked up a datapad and downloaded the data package into it, skimming through them quickly. It was shorter than the sample of Earth’s rules and regulations that she recalled seeing – for some reason, there was a complete copy loaded into the database the Imperial Navy had left on Avalon – but far longer than the one used on Avalon. But then, Avalon’s had been designed by people who weren't actually trying to cover their asses.

  She checked the price list first and sucked in a breath when she saw it. Unless Admiral Singh’s currency was worth less than she had supposed, it was going to be expensive to hold a berth on the orbiting station – and there didn't seem to be any option for a free orbit around Corinthian for an individual starship. Indeed, she realised as she looked at the display, there didn't seem to be any freighters holding their own orbits. A security precaution, she decided, but also a trick to extort more money or work out of the freighter crews. Admiral Singh’s people had a captive market, which would encourage the crews to find new contracts and ship out again as quickly as possible.

  The price tag for HE3 didn't seem to be as high as she had feared, she noted, and most of the other services an orbital station should provide were reasonably cheap. But there were also dire warnings; anyone who wanted to visit the surface had to apply in advance, while smugglers would be immediately dispatched to a penal colony. And, after that, there was a long list of goods that couldn't be shipped down to the planet. Mandy was somehow unsurprised to realise that they included weapons, encryption software and anything else that might have a military application.

  She scowled down at the final part of the document, thinking unpleasant thoughts. If a freighter crew ran out of money, the ship would be seized immediately and the crew pressed into service on other vessels until they had paid back the debt. Mandy remembered how conscripted crewmen had been forced to work on the pirate ships; none of them had been very keen to work, but the pirates had been happy to use neural whips until they complied. Mandy had only been whipped once, yet the pain had been so intense that she would have done anything rather than feel it again.

  “We’re picking up a beacon,” Jones reported. “They’ve opened a berth for us.”

  “Take us in,” Mandy ordered, sitting back in her command chair. “We want to impress them, remember?”

  “I’ll try not to bump their hull,” the helmsman said.

  Tam snorted.

  Up close, Orbit Station Three was a mass of modules that had been hastily jammed together; in some ways, it was more primitive than Avalon’s Orbit Station. Mandy frowned, wondering why a world that had been settled for nearly a thousand years made do with such a monstrosity; the design was serviceable, but hardly efficient. Maybe it was just another security precaution, she wondered, as the freighter drifted closer to the berth. If she happened to be carrying nuclear warheads that had remained undiscovered, the worst she could do was blow the orbiting station to dust. She had a feeling that attempting to enter low orbit without permission would result in immediate destruction.

  “Airlocks mating ... now,” the helmsman said. A shiver ran through the hull as he cancelled the last remnants of the drive field. “We have arrived.”

  “Welcome to Corinthian,” Tam said. He gave Mandy a brilliant smile. “If you will come with me ...?”

  It wasn't a request, Mandy knew. “Coming,” she said. She raised her voice as she looked at her bridge crew. “Stand down all systems, then start compiling a list of components we need to replace. Then we can think about shore leave.”

  She allowed Tam to lead her off her bridge, out through the airlock and onto the station, pretending to look around in wide-eyed wonder. The station was as crude inside as outside, with a handful of armed guards standing outside the airlock. She watched as they exchanged words with Tam, then shouldered their weapons and marched off down the corridor. Mandy sucked in a breath – the air had a faint scent she suspected belonged to Corinthian – and then followed Tam into a small office. Another man was seated at a desk, reading files on a datapad. It took Mandy a moment to realise that they were copies of Lightfoot’s files, the ones they’d forwarded to System Command when they’d come over the phase limit and entered the system.

  “You are not on our records,” the man said, without preamble. “How do you explain this discrepancy?”

  “The records were never complete,” Mandy said, refusing to allow herself to be rattled by his tone. Even before the Empire’s withdrawal, it had never been wholly successful in monitoring small trading ships, let alone pirates or mercenaries. “And we have never visited this world before.”

  “So it would seem,” the man agreed. He kept his eyes on the datapad. “You are aware, of course, that you have no serviceable currency – and little to trade?”

  Mandy nodded. The handful of goods they’d brought from Avalon – marked as having come from Gordon’s Pride – might make them some money in the novelty market, but there was no way to predict what they would earn. And Tam had already told her that Imperial Credits were largely useless on Corinthian.

  “You may pass your goods onto agents on the surface, who will attempt to sell them for you,” the man informed her. “Until then, we will open up a line of credit for you; there is no shortage of shipping contracts for a freighter crew willing to work honestly. We will also provide you with limited access to the planetary datanet. You will be contacted within the day.”

  No freighter commander would have been happy about turning his goods over to agents, particularly without a proper contract. There would be no reason why the agents couldn’t sell the goods, for a minimal sum, to themselves .... perfectly legal, if rather underhand. On the other hand, she knew that she wasn't in a good bargaining position. They didn't have much to offer the planet apart from themselves.

  “There are shore leave facilities on this station that you may enjoy,” the man concluded. “Or you may apply for permission to visit a pleasure resort on the moon. I should warn you that your line of credit will not extend that far, so be careful what you try to do. Should you overspend your line of credit, your ship will be summarily seized in payment.”

  Asshole, Mandy thought, coldly. She would almost have preferred him to stare at her tight shipsuit, carefully tailored to show off her breasts. The fair part of her mind pointed out that a freighter crew might just take what they could and then vanish once they crossed the phase limit, but she wasn't feeling fair. This man was a prime demonstration of why the Civil Service had led the Empire to ruin.

  “Welcome to Corinthian,” the man said, looking up for the first time. His face was bland, utterly inexpressive. He must have given the same speech thousands of times before. “And I trust you will enjoy your work for us.”

  We’re in the system, Mandy told herself, as Tam escorted her back to the airlock and gave her his contact code. We’re closer to where we want to be.

  She scowled as she stepped into the freighter. They’d have to check for bugs and other unpleasant surprises before they risked anything else. Tam and his men had had plenty of op
portunity to hide a few bugs on the ship. And then they could work out how to get in touch with Jasmine and her team.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Maintaining a political system, therefore, requires an endless tug of war between people and politicians – and an awareness that a person who becomes a politician is not automatically exempted from that rule, for any reason. Power corrupts, after all. Indeed, society itself verges between being permissive to being restrictive, often as a result of the actions of previous politicians. The battle is never truly won – the balancing act can only be maintained by maintaining the tug of war.

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

  “Is it safe to use a terminal for this?”

  Jasmine smiled at Danielle’s question, although she had to admit that it was a reasonable point. Most Imperial-produced computers were carefully designed to allow security officers to slip in through hard-coded backdoors and scan the contents, no matter what layers of security the user put in place. There was no shortage of justifications for such access, but in practical terms it made it extremely difficult to keep something a secret if it was loaded onto even an isolated system.

  “This terminal is special,” she said, seriously. It looked like a common terminal from the outside and even acted like one, unless the right codes were inputted. Once the secret features were activated, a user could access the hidden parts of the system without worrying about it linking to the grid and alerting the planet’s security services. “And if someone catches us ... I dare say we’re thoroughly compromised already.”

  The principles of overthrowing a government had been outlined in the files she'd studied while in transit – and they’d started with an instruction to ensure that she knew how the enemy government actually worked before she made proper long-term plans. It had taken a week of research, with Danielle’s help, to put together a chart of just how Admiral Singh’s government went together. There were still sections of the system that were hazy; Jasmine had a suspicion that there were other sections that were invisible, just because none of their sources had ever realised that they existed.

  At first, Jasmine had wondered if she was making a series of mistakes, for the government table of organisation seemed thoroughly absurd. Instead of straight lines leading from top to bottom, it looked more like a hodgepodge of different departments, some reporting directly to the Admiral and others reporting to other departments. There were no less than five different security services, three industrial manpower departments and four different military command authorities, a recipe for absolute chaos. It had been Sergeant Hampton who’d pointed out that it was actually a recipe to keep Admiral Singh in control. As long as her subordinates were bickering with each other, they weren't conspiring to overthrow their supreme commander.

  That had started Jasmine puzzling out the rest of it. Each of the subordinate commanders was building a small empire of his own, even though it was slowly becoming more and more inefficient. There was no logical reason for a connection between one of her internal security agencies and part of the planet’s industrial base, but the connection existed – and, she realised, it wasn't the only one. She’d thought that Avalon’s old councillors were masters of the art of kickbacks, corruption and keeping an entire planet in bondage. Now, she realised that they’d barely been journeymen.

  The oligarchs had gone over to Admiral Singh en masse, as soon as they’d realised that the old government was gone. It was a worthwhile bargain for both parties; the corporate masters gained absolute control over their workers, allowing them to make even more profits, while Admiral Singh gained an industrial base that could be fine-tuned to support her fleet and her growing empire. The more industrial nodes they transferred to Corinthian, the more power the oligarchs gathered, which meant that the other subordinate commanders had to reach for their own power ... it was a confusing nightmare, ruled over by a madwoman. In the long term, Jasmine was sure, it would collapse under its own weight.

  In some ways, the Civil Service was even worse. The number of bureaucrats on the planet under the Empire had been bad enough, but they’d skyrocketed under Admiral Singh, for just about everything had to be tracked and monitored. It produced yet another means of control – if everything needed a permit, even applying for a permit meant being entered in the files – as well as a subtle way to watch for trouble. Someone who purchased additional foodstuffs might be merely wasting food ... or they might be hiding someone illegally in their apartment.

  Earth had been a nightmarish hive of civilians kept under firm control too, but it had never felt so ... hopeless. Jasmine had walked the streets of Landing City, gaining a feel for the planet’s inhabitants, and she’d been struck by how many of them kept twitching and glancing over their shoulders, as if they expected to be arrested at any moment. Even in the richest parts of the city, there was still an ever-present sense of fear. Admiral Singh had to be out of her mind.

  But she’s trying to build up her position as quickly as possible, Jasmine thought, remembering how hard they’d had to work on Avalon to produce the Commonwealth Navy. She doesn’t have time to be patient.

  She looked back at the terminal’s outline, thinking hard. The Democratic Underground had been thoroughly penetrated long before Admiral Singh had arrived. Danielle had been shocked to discover that several of her most trusted comrades had actually been spying for the governor’s private security force, although no one had been arrested until after the governor had been removed and executed. There was no point in relying on it to build up a new network; the original organisers hadn't really thought about the consequences if their network was penetrated. They simply hadn't been very careful at all.

  But rioting on the planet wouldn't be enough to unseat Admiral Singh. Jasmine had studied the government’s position and she had to admit that it was very strong. The opposition in the city was almost completely disarmed, while it faced a loyalist garrison consisting of over ten thousand soldiers, armed to the teeth. Besides, if worst came to worst, Admiral Singh could fall back to orbit and call in KEW strikes.

  Or perhaps she can't, Jasmine thought, grimly. She needs the people in the city, particularly the trained personnel. If she calls down a bombardment at random, she’ll be hurting herself too.

  Jasmine had briefly considered trying to assassinate Admiral Singh, but all of their research had suggested that would be very difficult. The Admiral moved between the Governor’s Mansion – it was almost a fortress in its own right – and her orbiting battleship; she never seemed to show herself to her population. It was a wise precaution, Jasmine had to admit; breaking into the Governor’s Mansion alone would be almost impossible. All of their research had suggested that the Admiral was guarded by yet another security force, which had no connections to any of the others. She would have to be removed some other way.

  Or we just have to give her enough problems to stop her thinking about expanding towards the Commonwealth, she thought, as a plan started to take shape in her mind. Wolf’s contacts in the Civil Service had confirmed that Admiral Singh knew that she had lost a ship – and that she suspected enemy action. Jasmine had hoped that she would blame everything on the refugees, but that had been somewhat unlikely.

  “This needs some research,” she said. “How many people do you think are willing to rebel?”

  “Everyone,” Danielle said, quickly.

  Jasmine cocked an eyebrow and she flushed.

  “I dare say that most people would want to rebel,” Danielle said, her face still red. “But they don’t have any hope.”

  “True,” Jasmine said. “We have to give them that hope – and we have to do it without Admiral Singh realising that we’re here.”

  That was going to be difficult. On Avalon, the Crackers had staged the occasional attack inside Camelot itself, but they’d had to be very careful to avoid civilian casualties – casualties that might serve as a rally cry for the council to produce an effective army. If she stage
d an attack in Landing City, it was quite possible that she would alienate potential supporters ... as well as convincing Admiral Singh to start mass sweeps for unwanted guests.

  But if they didn't convince potential allies that they could win, the allies would either sit on the fence or betray them to Admiral Singh.

  “We’ll send a message to Sergeant Harris,” she said, a moment later. “I want him to stay outside the city and start making preparations to harass the security forces. Meanwhile ... we start making preparations here.”

  She stood up, leading Danielle into the next room. “The problem with the Democratic Underground is that just about everyone involved knew just about everyone else,” she explained. “Once the security forces had uncovered some of your members, it was relatively easy to uncover the rest, simply by liberal applications of torture and truth drugs. And because you didn't take any precautions with your recruiting, you actually brought some spies into the fold. They used the meetings to gather evidence against you.”

  Danielle flushed, again. “We didn't know what we were doing,” she said, crossly.

  “And you thought that the power structure you hated would fold when you made your demands,” Jasmine added. Power was addictive ... and besides, the Governor had had few illusions about the regard his people held for him. He would have been brutally murdered if he’d ever surrendered power to the Democratic Underground and knew it. Maybe he’d even seen Admiral Singh’s arrival as a relief, before she’d executed him to make an example. “You can't afford to make the same mistake twice.”

  She stepped into the next room, where Sergeant Hampton, Blake and Carl were playing cards, while Canada was watching a bland entertainment program on the datanet. “I have a working concept,” Jasmine announced, as the players put down their cards. “And I need you to poke holes in it.”

  “Ah,” Hampton said. “The dreaded self-criticism session.”