The Empire's Corps: Book 04 - Semper Fi

by Christopher Nuttall

  She walked towards the second door and stepped through, smiling as she saw Blake standing there. His constant presence was still a little irritating, but as she’d recovered she’d felt better for having him there. The doctor had insisted that she take plenty of rest – and Blake had threatened to sit on her, just to make sure she did – in-between plotting the Admiral’s defeat. It was irritating too, but what could she do?

  Blake leaned forward, as if he hadn't been listening to the conversation. “Mission accomplished?”

  “I think so,” Jasmine said. “He should do as he was told.”

  It had taken liberal use of the CYA code as well as Patterson’s servitude to get most of the cell members primed to go to orbit. The plan was going well and Jasmine distrusted it; every time a plan was going perfectly, she’d been told, it was about to go spectacularly wrong. Horn had told her that the various security forces had been badly disrupted – and Jasmine had worked hard to make that disruption worse – but what if Admiral Singh was quietly preparing her retaliation?

  “I hope you’re right,” Blake said. “What about the rest of the cells?”

  “They can get their advanced training in the next two weeks,” Jasmine said. Luckily, the CYA code could make people disappear from the records – or appear to be part of the security forces. As long as they didn't attract the attention of the Admiral’s senior officers, they should be fine. “And they should be ready by then.”

  She scowled. Most of the Marines outside the city had been brought inside to help plan the final offensive, but she’d left Sergeant Harris outside, tasked with finding the hostage camp. Once located, the camp could be taken – and then the hostages could be used as bargaining chips. If everything went well, most of Admiral Singh’s followers would sit on their hands and wait to see who came out on top.

  And if it doesn’t, she thought, grimly, we will just have to improvise.

  Her lips quirked into a smile as she stepped outside. If nothing else, Admiral Singh’s self-confidence was about to take a nasty blow.

  ***

  Lukas stepped inside the lobby and, out of habit, took one of the masks from the basket and donned it before walking further into the building. A masked man nodded in approval and motioned for him to enter a large room, big enough to hold nearly a hundred young men. There were at least fifty people standing inside, he realised as he walked through the door, all wearing masks. Their faces were hidden, naturally, but he was sure that they all seemed both excited and nervous. Just how many of them, he asked himself, had been involved in the riots that had consumed the red light district.

  “Welcome,” a voice said, after the rest of the group had assembled. Another masked man stood at the front of the room, standing on a small stool that lifted him head and shoulders above the crowd. “You should all be aware that you are now officially trainees for the security division, a subset of Internal Security. Your ID cards will be passed out as you leave – just show them to any recruiting officer and they should leave you alone.”

  Lukas smiled. He had no idea how the plotters had managed to obtain the cards – although the crime lords might have helped, as they couldn't be pleased with how they’d been attacked over the last few days – but they’d be very helpful. If they seemed to have an official excuse for not being conscripts, it was unlikely that they would be hassled too much. Or so he hoped.

  “The purpose of this meeting is to teach you how to use the SI-56 and prepare you for action,” the man continued. “You will probably not have received any formal weapons training in your lives prior to Admiral Singh’s arrival. The SI-56, thankfully, is a very simple weapon and with a few days of training you should be able to use it with reasonable competence. Do not attempt to take any of the weapons out of this building. They will be prepared for you when the time comes for action.”

  Lukas groaned – and heard several others making the same sound. They wanted the weapons, they wanted to feel powerful – as powerful as the guardsmen, when they were pushing the civilians around. But the tutor was right; if they happened to be caught with the weapons, they would be arrested and interrogated savagely. He’d heard enough since he’d joined the rebel cells to doubt his ability to remain silent indefinitely.

  The tutor knelt down and picked up a simple cloth bag, opening it up to reveal the assault rifle. “This is the Standard Issue Assault Rifle, designed originally for soldiers who could only be given a few weeks of training before being thrown into battle,” he explained. “You will notice that the rounds – the bullets – are supplied in sealed clips. This was intended to allow magazines to be interchangeable and – more importantly – to prevent idiots trying to mess around with the propellant. The Civil Guard was full of idiots who thought that trying to dissemble a loaded clip was a good idea.”

  There were some faint chuckles, but most of the crowd were just staring at the weapon.

  “You take the weapon apart, like so” – the man demonstrated – “and then clean every last component using the oil that we will supply. Thousands of years of workmanship has gone into designing and building this weapon, which will all be wasted unless the user remembers to clean it every so often. Whenever you have a free moment, strip down your weapon, clean it and then put it back together again. Later, once you have the hang of it, I will personally whip anyone who fails to keep their weapons clean.”

  He put the weapon back together and held it up. “You insert the magazine clip here, through the handle,” he said. There was a sharp click as it slotted into place. “The weapon is now loaded. If you see the lever here, you’ll notice that it has three settings; safe, single-shot and rapid-fire. Keep your weapon on safe unless you are about to use it. Anyone stupid enough to ignore that instruction will be beaten half to death and then thrown out. And I am not joking.

  “When using single-shot, you fire one bullet at a time,” the tutor continued. “When switching to rapid-fire, you can burn through your entire clip in seconds. You should be aware that accurate aiming is almost impossible under such circumstances ...”

  Lukas listened as the explanation wore on, trying to commit everything to memory. They said that it was a simple weapon – and yet there was so much to learn, backed up by threats of grievous bodily harm if they made a single mistake. By the time they were allowed to finally hold a weapon for themselves, he was too keyed up to enjoy it.

  “The green-coloured magazine clips contain training ammunition,” the tutor explained, once they’d practiced taking the weapon apart and then putting it back together. “It provides all of the experience, without actually firing bullets. The Civil Guard used to believe that was sufficient for actual training and only issued live ammunition when the guardsmen were sent into actual combat. We’re not that foolish, but it will allow you a chance to get used to pulling the trigger without actually firing off real bullets.”

  One of the boys hesitated. “Sir,” he asked, “what if someone hears us?”

  The tutor chuckled. “It took you long enough to ask,” he said, dryly. “This building is soundproofed, fortunately. Later, when you’re outside, firing off weapons will probably attract attention.”

  Lukas felt himself flushing. It had honestly never occurred to him to question their security – and it should have done. What if they’d been caught because they didn't check for sound-proofing? Or what if the ammunition produced a smell that could be easily detected – and recognised? Or what if ...?

  He looked over at the tutor, but the man didn't see his look.

  “Now, load up the training ammunition,” the tutor ordered, instead. He seemed disinclined to discuss the issue of security further. “And then we can try out some real bullets.”

  Chapter Forty

  Only when the governed feel that they have a stake in how their society is governed can society survive, no matter how much ‘legitimacy’ it claims. It took centuries for the lack of that stake to eventually destroy the Empire. How long would it take for the far smaller Com
monwealth to be destroyed if that stake didn't exist?

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

  “Is the weather this bad on Avalon?”

  Sergeant Chester Harris looked over at Kate as she crawled forward, the endless downpour soaking its way through chinks in her waterproof garments. Like him, she looked like a drowned rat, rather than one half of a happy couple enjoying a romantic walk in the countryside.

  “It can be worse at times,” Harris shouted back to her, as they slipped and stumbled onwards. “You should see the Badlands.”

  Lightning flashed, followed rapidly by a wave of thunder that blotted out her reply. Harris gritted his teeth and pressed onwards, reminding himself of the origin of the term ‘Marine.’ It had been a very long time since the Marines had been a wet-navy service; indeed, outside of intensive swimming and water operations courses on the Slaughterhouse, he’d never used a boat. But hadn't there been Terran Marines who had?

  The pathway grew treacherous as they inched their way between the two mountains, heading into the hidden valley. Water ran down from both sides of the valley, washing past them and threatening to send them falling helplessly towards the lake at the bottom of the valley. Chester was only dimly aware of small furry animals running past them, a handful squeaking in dismay as they sensed the two humans. From what he’d been told, the animals made good eating, if they could be caught. Seven hundred years of settlement had taught the animals that it was a good idea to stay well away from humans who might want to kill and eat them.

  Kate found brief shelter under an overhanging rock and, after a moment, Chester joined her, taking advantage of the pause to wring as much water as possible out of his sodden clothes. They had planned to tell anyone who caught them that they were on a romantic walk, but somehow Chester found it impossible to believe that anyone would believe that story, not when they were completely drenched in water. Smart couples would probably have holed up somewhere and waited for the rain to stop. It wasn't an option for them.

  He looked over at her and saw her manage a smile. “I think we can go onwards now,” she said, reluctantly. “The rain will cover us, won’t it?”

  Chester nodded. If the camp they were approaching was anything like as important as Lieutenant Yamane had suggested, the enemy would have it constantly patrolled and monitored by distributed sensors. Even the best of them, however, would be disrupted by the rain, making it harder for the enemy guards to sense their approach. And in this weather, drones would be even more unreliable. He re-donned his plastic hat, smiled at her, and stepped back out into the rain. In the few seconds they had used to rest, it seemed that the path had managed to become even worse.

  A final volley of thunder echoed across the sky and then the rain slowly began to come to an end. Chester grinned at Kate and led her onwards, finally reaching a vantage point they could use to peer down into the valley – and see the camp that Admiral Singh had hidden from prying eyes. Chester lay down on the ground, motioned for her to do the same and pulled his binoculars out of the bag. Thankfully, the bag had lived up to its promise and protected his tools from the water.

  “All right,” he muttered to himself, as he put the binoculars to his eyes. “Let’s see what we have here.”

  For a moment, the sight of the camp confused him. Marines knew how to establish POW camps; they really needed little more than some wire, a few tents and a handful of guardposts. Even the Civil Guard would have had little difficulty in establishing a basic prison camp. But this was weird. The wire surrounded a handful of small houses, several with their own private swimming pools. If it hadn’t been for the guard towers, with the guards clearly staring inwards, into the camp, he would have wondered if he’d made a mistake.

  “That’s a very odd prison camp,” Kate said, in disbelief. “Do you think that the prisoners even want to leave?”

  Chester snorted, rudely. No doubt Admiral Singh had plenty of unpleasant penal camps for people she wanted to keep prisoner, but the men, women and children in the hostage camp were people she needed to keep reasonably sweet. The camp – it had probably been a luxury resort before Admiral Singh had arrived – would keep everyone in decent shape; hell, given enough food, drink and entertainment, they could probably forget that they were hostage, held prisoner to ensure the good behaviour of their relatives.

  He scowled as he tried to contemplate how many people might live in the camp. It was easily large enough to accommodate over a thousand hostages, but that wouldn't have been very comfortable, let alone luxurious. Each of the houses, he calculated, could probably hold around twenty to thirty hostages; it would be cramped, but survivable. No doubt the younger children saw it as an endless vacation rather than a deadly serious prison camp. He panned his binoculars over the lakeside, studying the small barracks that presumably held the staff. If they were being used to hold prisoners too ... it would add another hundred or so to the overall figure. It seemed surprisingly low, somehow.

  “Kids,” Kate said, softly. “They have kids held hostage.”

  “Best sort of hostage,” Chester grunted. Man’s inhumanity to man no longer surprised him. “And Admiral Singh wouldn't miss such a simple trick.”

  He scowled as he saw the children running down towards the lake. Children were less experienced than adults, less capable of thinking up workable escape plans ... and it was harder for anyone short of an outright sociopath to purposely put their lives in danger. All of Admiral Singh’s unwilling allies would be very reliable indeed as long as they thought that their children were under threat.

  The younger kids looked happy, as if they were unaware of the true nature of their accommodations. He looked at the older kids, including a number of teenagers, and scowled again as he realised that they knew the truth. There was something in the way they moved that suggested that they knew their lives hung by a thread, no matter how much they enjoyed being surrounded by luxury and playing on the lake. Absently, he wondered if the local doctors were prescribing rebalancing treatments for the children. It might have helped keep them under control.

  “Poor bastards,” he muttered. “Trapped in a luxury prison camp.”

  He studied the rest of the camp, paying careful attention to the guards. There were eight towers, spaced out around the perimeter; their weapons were pointed inwards, towards the prisoners. The camp itself was surrounded by two layers of wire, each one designed more to keep people in than out. Typically, there was only one entrance, guarded by a blocky guardhouse and several emplaced machine guns. It just didn't look very secure to him.

  “Three men in combat suits could take it out in moments,” he said, wishing that they had combat suits. Unfortunately, their raids on armouries hadn't yielded anything more dangerous than grenades and mortars. Admiral Singh seemed to believe that her garrisons in the field didn't need anything more to hold their positions and keep the countryside under control. “Failing that ...”

  A thought struck him and he panned the binoculars across the camp again. “Where do the guards live?”

  “They could live in the guardhouse,” Kate said. She shook her head a moment later. “It’s too small, isn't it?”

  “Yeah,” Chester said. “Even if they’re doubling up, it’s still too small to house them all.”

  He studied the camp, trying to solve the mystery. No matter how he looked at it, the camp just didn't seem to have enough living space, not enough to keep both the guards and the hostages sheltered from the rain. Maybe there was a smaller camp, a place for the guards, not too far away. That would make a certain amount of sense; the guards could be rotated in and out of the region every so often, as well as keeping reinforcements within shouting distance.

  “We’ll have to find out,” he said. “Or it will explode in our faces at the worst possible moment.”

  It wasn't hard to devise an attack plan for the camp, he realised; the wire just wasn’t designed to keep out a serious attack. They’d have to check for landmines an
d other unpleasant surprises, but judging from what he could see, there weren't any scattered between the two fences sealing the camp off from the outside world. Not that mines were meant to be visible, of course; they'd have to shake the ground before they risked transporting the hostages out and into the countryside. But the mystery of where most of the guards actually slept kept bothering him until they inched away, further down the valley.

  “There,” Kate said, with heavy satisfaction. “That’s where they sleep.”

  Chester nodded as he studied the second camp. It was much more like a proper prison camp, making him wonder if the enemy commanders were ever tempted to move the hostages into their camp and use the luxury camp for themselves. If they were anything like some of the Imperial Army commanders he’d met, they’d probably been tempted to move themselves into the luxury camp ... the thought made him smile as he surveyed the camp, considering possible angles of attack. Overrunning the camp would be costly, but it would be simple enough to keep the guardsmen pinned down until it was too late for them to intervene.

  “Tell me,” Kate said, “have your Marines ever had to guard a camp of hostages?”

  “No,” Chester said, stiffly. “Marines are just too damn capable to be wasted on guarding prisoners. Once we take them prisoner, we send them to the Civil Guard.”

  The thought made him scowl. Abusing prisoners was against regulations – which hadn't always stopped the Civil Guard abusing prisoners in their custody. A number of prisoners who had been handed over to the Civil Guard on Han had vanished, suggesting that they had been murdered by the guardsmen; eventually, the Marines and Imperial Army officers had taken to demanding receipts for the prisoners, ensuring that prisoners who had been killed in custody didn't vanish without trace.

  “And that doesn't always work out for us,” he added, remembering some of the teenage girls in the hostage camp. “I wonder what the Admiral does to keep them in line.”