The Empire's Corps: Book 04 - Semper Fi

by Christopher Nuttall

  And a third guard was about to lose his life ...

  He put both fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. One of the prisoners holding the guard down seemed to be completely out of his mind – blood was dripping from his mouth, none of it his – but the other two stared at the unexpected newcomers.

  “We’re here to bust you out of here,” Blake said, flatly. “But I need to ask that man some questions.”

  One of the prisoners eyed him suspiciously. “You opened the cells?”

  “Yep,” Blake lied. He hadn't opened the cells, which raised the question of just who had? The Lieutenant was a Slaughterhouse graduate, after all; could she have found a way to bust loose at the exact same moment the Marines had launched an attack to liberate her? They’d have to be very careful not to shoot her by accident. “You start heading up and out of the building. There are plans to get you out and away.”

  He reached forward and dragged the unresisting guard away from the madman, then stunned the madman and issued orders for him to be carried out of the building.

  “Now,” he said, to the guard. “We have a few questions that need answering.”

  ***

  “What the hell is going on?”

  Horn hadn't been so scared since the day he’d been called on the carpet by his superiors for overindulging himself during an interrogation. How had he been meant to know that his captive had a weak heart? He should have run a medical check first, Director Gunning had told him, because the precise nature of an interrogation depended on who was being interrogated. The old bastard had even threatened to put him in an interrogation cell just so he could have the pleasure of someone poking away at him without a medical baseline.

  It was one of his conditioned bodyguards who answered. “The building has been compromised,” he said, in his dull voice. “We must remain here until the crisis is over and fresh troops have swept the enemy out of the building.”

  Horn stared at him. “Compromised? By whom?”

  “Insufficient data,” the bodyguard said. “The internal security network has been taken down.”

  “By whom?” Horn demanded. “I issued no such orders ...”

  “The network was subjected to an attempted hack,” the guard informed him, consulting his terminal. “Operating under your orders, the security officers took the network down to prevent it from being turned against us.”

  Was he imagining it, Horn asked himself, or was there a glint of pleasure in Horn’s troubles in the man’s dull eyes? The conditioned couldn't refuse to obey – the stronger the conditioning, the weaker their ordinary personality became – but there were always rumours of some who maintained the mental agility to subvert the conditioning in some way, even if it was just something as petty as laughing at his boss’s misfortunes.

  “Then get in touch with the Admiral,” he ordered. “She needs to dispatch troops at once.”

  “The main communications network is down,” the bodyguard reminded him. “It is possible that the Admiral will send troops on her own ...”

  Horn stared down at his hands. It was possible, true, but it was also possible that Admiral Singh had orchestrated the whole affair just to get rid of him. What if she'd decided that he’d become a liability and sent troops to kill him – and, just incidentally, create a martyr for her cause. The only objection to that theory he could think of was that few people would mourn him when he was gone.

  “Well, I’m not staying around here,” he said, finally. “You will clear the way to my personal helipad.”

  The bodyguard’s immovable face still managed to look puzzled. “You are far safer here,” he said, finally. “This part of the complex is secure.”

  “Not if it’s the Admiral behind all this,” Horn said. It wasn't paranoia if they were really out to get you, was it? “Open the door and start clearing the corridor.”

  After a long moment, the bodyguards began to obey.

  ***

  The third level held a number of female data-entry clerks, kneeling under their desks in a manner Jasmine decided must have been ordained by security. She honestly couldn’t understand, at first, why the girls were there at all; didn't they know what happened on the lower levels? And then she remembered what she’d been taught and knew that none of the clerks really considered themselves responsible for what happened to prisoners in the building.

  None of them seemed to have seen her, so Jasmine left them and ran up to the fourth level, where the administrators lived. A pair of burly bodyguards gaped at the vision of a naked girl carrying a small arsenal of weapons before Jasmine shot them both down, watching with grim amusement as their expressions melted into shock as they died. The map she’d glanced at was helpful; the first office held someone who was even more sadistic than Horn, which was a terrifyingly impressive feat. Jasmine looked into the antechamber and saw a blonde girl, so thin that her bones were clearly visible, trembling as she pressed herself into a chair two sizes too big for her.

  “Stay here,” Jasmine said, giving her what was intended as a reassuring smile. The girl didn't seem reassured. “Is your boss inside?”

  The girl nodded, too terrified to say a word.

  Jasmine opened the next door and rolled her eyes at the sheer luxury. Honestly, she wondered, was he trying to compete with the Grand Senators? The owner was screaming into a communications terminal, trying to get a link to someone outside the building, when he looked up and saw Jasmine. His mouth dropped open with shock.

  “I wish I had time to enjoy this,” Jasmine growled, as the man stared at her. He was shaking so badly that it was a miracle that he was still on his feet. Like most torturers, he was a bully and a coward when facing the prospect of physical harm himself. “I really wish I did.”

  She shot him through the head and watched as his body hit the ground. The nasty part of her mind, the part that had been pushed to the fore by the neural whipping she’d endured, suggested that she could mutilate his body. Instead, she turned and walked back out of the office, nodded politely to the girl and then hesitated right on the doorway.

  “You might want to get out of the building,” she said, wondering briefly how the girl had come to work for Internal Security. “This place isn't safe any longer.”

  The next few offices were empty, apart from one that held someone Jasmine recognised from the list of names and faces they’d put together. He’d been another sadist – and someone had stuck a knife in him when the chaos began. Jasmine puzzled over it for a few moments, then dismissed the problem. No doubt he’d been entertaining one of the prisoners when the alarms had gone off, distracting him for a few moments. It had cost him his life.

  She smiled as she made her way out of the office and back into the corridor. The next set of rooms belonged to Horn. He was in for a very unpleasant surprise.

  ***

  “She’s escaped, Blake,” Carl said, as they searched through the terminal. “I don’t know where she’s gone.”

  Blake winced. He should have expected the Lieutenant to try to escape – it was, after all, one of their duties – but the timing was inconvenient, to say the least. The isolated datanet used by the prison cells, however, made one thing clear. Jasmine Yamane was nowhere within the area it covered. Where had she gone?

  Assume she thought she couldn't get over the walls, he told himself. Where would she go after that?

  The answer was obvious. She'd go up, into the upper levels and try and inflict as much damage as she could before being taken down.

  “Get the rest of the prisoners out into the vehicle hall and then flood the cells,” he ordered. Sergeant Hampton would have to supervise the rest of their allies, while Blake and Carl went upwards. Or should he remain with the rebels? If this endless indecision was what command demanded, he definitely didn't want it. “If you don’t hear from us in ten minutes, assume we’re both dead and start phase III”

  “Understood,” Sergeant Hampton said.

  ***

  Horn’s bodyguards
were surrounding him as he made his escape, Jasmine saw; the conditioned men were clearly ready to take a bullet for their boss. If they hadn't been conditioned, would they have bothered? Horn was such a weedy little man, puny and almost laughable ... if it hadn't been for the power he held? Jasmine wondered, as she prepared herself, if he’d been treated badly as a child, before deciding that it didn't matter. Whatever the source of Horn’s sick fantasies of control, rape and torture, he was old enough to know better.

  She levelled the assault rifle and opened fire, gunning down the first two bodyguards before they even knew that there was a threat. Two others knocked Horn to the ground and lay on top of him, while three more jumped forward, weapons at the ready. Jasmine wished, desperately, for a grenade or even for a higher-powered weapon. The bodyguards had been enhanced as well as conditioned.

  “Take her alive,” Horn squealed, from under the other two bodyguards. “Make her talk.”

  “I’m talking,” Jasmine said, quickly. “And I’m alive!”

  The bodyguards stared at her, just long enough for her to bring up her weapon and shoot the first one in the head. Those unlucky enough to be heavily conditioned often had problems following orders that weren’t very clear. Judging by the way he stumbled backwards, someone had inserted armour plating in his skull, although he hit the ground in a manner that suggested the plating hadn't been good enough. The other two, shocked out of their puzzlement, came forward and knocked Jasmine to the ground.

  She could have taken them if she’d been at peak, but everything she’d done had taken a deadly toll. One of them pushed down on her chest, holding her helplessly in place, while the other tore away the belt and everything else she'd collected along the way. Jasmine gathered herself and launched a wicked kick into his groin, but he just kept plodding on. The conditioning, it seemed, overpowered even such a nasty dose of pain. Or maybe his nerves had been modified as part of the process. Could he even enjoy sex?

  Horn stumbled to his feet and walked over to her, although he was careful to stay out of reach. “How ... how did you escape?”

  Jasmine glared at him, but refused to say a word.

  “Her wrist, master,” one of the conditioned bodyguards said. “She crushed the bones in her own wrist.”

  Horn’s eyes glittered with amusement. “You crushed your own hand to get out of the cuffs,” he said, looking down at the ruined hand. “That’s ... impressive.”

  His face twisted into a smirk. “But futile,” he added. “Next time, you will be paralysed from the neck down, unable to feel anything from the rest of your body. Maybe then you’ll stay where I put you.”

  Jasmine looked at him, then down at his trousers. There was a very visible bulge there; he wasn't even trying to conceal it. Horn didn't just enjoy watching someone suffer, it made him sexually excited too. She felt sick as she contemplated all the young women – or men – in Landing City, the people who were his prey, helpless to resist when he sent his men for them. Compared to Horn, the bandits who’d plagued the outskirts of settled territory on Avalon were little more than a minor irritation, the pirates pains in the ass.

  “Roll her over,” Horn ordered, as his hands began to unzip his trousers. “I may as well indulge myself before ...”

  One of the bodyguards staggered and fell to the ground. Jasmine had only a second to realise that he’d been shot before the other bodyguards fell too. Horn stared in horror as two new black-clad figures appeared at the far end of the corridor, then crumbled to the ground in a dead faint. Jasmine allowed herself a snicker as she pulled herself out of the dead bodyguard’s grip and stumbled to her feet. Horn clearly didn't have the nerve to work as a torturer for long.

  “Lieutenant,” a very familiar voice said. “Are you all right?”

  Jasmine forced herself to remain upright. “Blake,” she said. “Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome,” Blake said. “I’d say you should be debriefed, but it would be a waste of time.”

  Jasmine stared at him ... then sniggered. “That’s fucking awful,” she said. Debriefed indeed! “Pick that bastard up and bring him with us.”

  Blake gave her an odd look. “You don’t want to kill him, boss? He was going to rape you.”

  “There are plenty of secrets locked within that man’s head,” Jasmine said. Revenge was tempting – but she had a feeling that the planet’s future would go smoother if they had a chance to put Horn on trial, after the Admiral was disposed. “Pick him up and bring him with us.”

  Blake nodded and obeyed.

  “We’ve been splashing flambé around,” Carl said, as he gave Jasmine his arm. It was hard for her to walk in a straight line now, although she wasn't sure if it was relief or her endurance finally coming to an end. If they ever saw the Slaughterhouse again, she’d have plenty of advice for how they could make the Crucible even worse. “This building will go up in flames when we trigger the bomb.”

  “Good,” Jasmine said, tiredly. “Let it all burn.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  This, we believed, would limit the ability of the central government to manipulate its member states for its own enrichment – or that of corporate masters. After all, even though most of the interstellar corporations had vanished from the sector, we knew that they would eventually reform. Denying the central government ground-capable military forces – at least in large numbers – would make it harder for the government to become tyrannical.

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

  “I thought I told you to stay still,” the doctor said, tartly. “This is hard enough without you moving around like a demented harpy.”

  Jasmine gritted her teeth as the doctor – the very civilian doctor – worked on her wrist. It felt weird trusting a civilian doctor, certainly not one who had come out of the vocational schools on Avalon; the Empire’s doctors had run the gauntlet between extremely competent and infuriatingly stupid. She didn't even want to think about how many civilians had died because their doctors hadn't deserved the title, or because of their medicines being contaminated or otherwise useless.

  “Do as she says,” Sergeant Hampton advised. “You smashed your hand pretty thoroughly – it will take more than an injection of quick-heal to make it better. Indeed, if we had time, I’d suggest a regeneration tank.”

  “There isn't one available on the planet without connections,” the doctor said, bitterly. “When I think of the patients who have died because they couldn't get into a tank ...”

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid that this is going to hurt a little, despite the nerve-blockers,” she added, as she pushed a medical manipulator against Jasmine’s hand. “Brace for it.”

  Jasmine winced as a shock of pain ran through her hand, followed by a blissful numbness. The doctor studied the datapad, allowed herself a quick smile and then injected a dose of quick-heal into the wrist. Jasmine felt oddly dizzy as it interacted with the nerve-blockers, then forced herself to relax. Moving about definitely wouldn't help her heal quickly.

  “You should have the hand and wrist in full working order by tomorrow, although I’d honestly recommend that you kept it bandaged for the next few days,” the doctor said, as she wrapped a bandage around Jasmine’s hand. “If you feel dizzy, stay in bed and relax – find a book or something to keep you from getting bored.”

  She scowled. “You were in excellent health when you were taken,” she said. “Thankfully, the neural whip lashings you received don’t seem to have done any permanent damage, although your skin is likely to be shedding more in the next few days. I’ve checked out your nervous system as best as I can with these crappy tools and I don’t think there’s even minimal damage, which is a relief. However, you may have to retrain your mind. Just as amputees have phantom limbs, neural whip victims have been known to remain convinced that they actually suffered physical harm.”

  “Oh,” Jasmine said. She didn't recall stumbling around because she was convinced – at the back of
her mind, if nowhere else – that she was a cripple, but she’d had too much else to worry about while fighting her way out of Internal Security. “And anything else?”

  “There was some minor scarring on your vagina and anus, but your enhanced body seems to be healing nicely,” the doctor concluded. “Overall, take a few days of rest and you should be back to normal – physically. Mentally ... I don’t know.”

  Jasmine watched the doctor pack up her tools and leave the room, then turned to look at Sergeant Hampton. “Mentally ... am I fit for duty?”

  “I would certainly advise you to take it easy for a couple of days,” Sergeant Hampton said, dryly. “You realise we took the torture records out of the building?”

  “Oh,” Jasmine said. It was funny how she didn't care if her subordinates saw her naked, but she disliked the thought of them watching as she was tortured. “And how many people have seen them?”

  “Just myself and Blake,” Sergeant Hampton assured her. “You told them almost nothing – certainly nothing of importance. Blake was very impressed.”

  “Good,” Jasmine said, remembering the moments when she’d come too close to snapping under the pain. If Horn and his goons had held her prisoner for longer, would she have broken? Even now, the pain seemed dreamlike ... but it had been very real. “Put the recordings under seal. No one else needs to see them.”

  She shuddered at some of the memories, then pushed them aside as she swung her legs off the examination table and stood up. Her feet tingled unpleasantly as she tried to walk, reminding her that she’d been lashed on the soles of her feet. She lifted her foot and examined it, somehow feeling surprised to see flesh and blood. Her mind kept insisting that she should be looking at a bloody mess.