The Thin Blue Line (The Empire's Corps Book 9) (v5.1)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I see,” Glen said. It sounded reasonable enough. “But there are all sorts of challenges.”

  Belinda looked down at her hands. “On the Slaughterhouse,” she said, “there’s a final test for recruits – the Crucible. Pass the Crucible and you’re a Marine, no questions asked. But no one, not even I, could have passed the Crucible without years of Boot Camp and then the Slaughterhouse. The Empire, collectively, doesn’t have challenges that force it to adapt, react and overcome. And now there is such a challenge, it is incapable of meeting it.”

  Glen sighed. “I hope you're wrong,” he said.

  “So do I,” Belinda admitted.

  ***

  Normally, there wasn't a guard at the spokes that led back to the hub. The residents rarely left the wheel unless they were leaving the station, while the staff knew better than to enter the hub without permission. But with so many visitors, the new Head of Security had felt it advisable to place a guard on each of the spokes. Corporal Lewis, who had drawn the short straw, bitterly resented it. The security officers didn't need an outsider to point out their problems, or to force them to drill and drill again. They were already prepared for anything.

  He sighed. Normally, guarding the residents directly was a good way to earn tips and make contacts. He had no intention of staying on Island One indefinitely and, with his savings and references from some of the richest men in the system, he could practically write his own ticket. He'd even seen the conference as a chance to meet contacts from right across the Core Worlds. But how the hell was he supposed to meet the visitors, something that would be hard enough at any time, without actually being near them? They’d be in the best possible mood after the dinner.

  There was a click. He looked up, in time to see someone step into the station. The lights flickered and failed a moment later, casting the entire complex into darkness. Lewis groped for the flashlight hanging from his belt with one hand, cursing his decision to secure it to the leather for greater security, then flicked it on. He saw nothing ...

  ... And then something crashed into his head with staggering force. He was dead before his body hit the ground.

  ***

  Belinda had always disliked waiting. Patience had been hammered into her at the Slaughterhouse, but she'd been taught that she would probably never make a sniper or even an observer, let alone a deep cover agent. Indeed, being a Pathfinder had been hard enough. But now, all she could really do was watch and wait as the delegates made speech after speech, each one so bland that it made her grind her teeth in irritation. Even Glen had fallen silent after the speeches had started to blur together into a single mass.

  Fuck him again, Pug offered. You liked it last time.

  Don’t be fucking stupid, Doug snapped back. You’re on duty.

  Fuck the pair of you, Belinda thought. Somehow, she wasn't surprised that the ghosts had returned. This is serious.

  That would be against regulations, Pug pointed out. You don’t have anything stopping you from making love to him.

  Belinda rubbed her forehead, resisting the urge to groan. She'd wondered, once, why someone she’d known had put a gun in his mouth and killed himself, after having mental problems. She understood now. The ghosts were always there, even if they were just figments of her imagination. And she refused to accept the possibility they might be real. Outside bad flicks and worse stories, there were no such thing as ghosts. Or the Slaughterhouse would be haunted by the remains of thousands of dead recruits.

  You like him, Pug urged. And what is going to go wrong?

  Shut up, Belinda thought. Pug had been famous for chasing woman – and, as a Marine, he was up against some pretty stiff competition. But he'd known better than to violate the regulations banning Marines from developing sexual feelings for one another. He’d certainly never made a pass at her. You’re just a figment of my imagination.

  And how, Pug asked, would you know?

  You’d be encouraging me to chase women instead, Belinda thought. Pug had been aggressively heterosexual. But you’re encouraging me to chase man.

  She’s got you there, McQueen put in. You always hated the thought of dipping your wick in a man.

  Belinda smirked, then stood up and started to pace. The dinner was still going on ... and would be going on for hours to come, unless the guests started fighting. She rather hoped they wouldn't, knowing it could mean war. The hundreds of starships outside could do a great deal of damage to the system – and smash Island One to rubble – before they left. If, of course, they were forced to leave. A handful of them might already have made alliances to work together if the shit hit the fan.

  Glen looked up at her. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so,” Belinda lied. She didn't want to confess to any form of mental instability. Once, she'd mocked films featuring crazy or homicidal Marines. They didn't seem so funny now, as the voices in her head grew louder. Imagination or not, having them as part of her was more than a little worrying. “Just bored.”

  “It’s always boring on stake-out too,” Glen commented. “You feel the urge to do something – anything – to relieve the boredom. But almost anything you do would only alert your target. All you can really do is watch and wait.”

  “How very reassuring,” Belinda said.

  An alarm started to bleep on the console. Glen looked over at it – and froze. “There’s an emergency alert,” he said, straightening. “It's coming from the nursery!”

  Belinda froze. “Helen and Violet are there,” she said. She checked her pistol as she headed for the hatch. “Coming?”

  “Marshal Singh can take over the observation booth,” Glen said. “I’m right behind you.”

  ***

  Luke Doyenne knew, without false modesty, that he wouldn't have earned his job if he hadn't been related to one of the owners of Island One. It wasn't a post that could be trusted to anyone who wasn't a relative, not when staggering amounts of wealth and intellectual capital were based on the giant spinning wheel. There was too much risk of corruption, even of subversion, no matter how much the security officers were paid each month. And, to be honest, he knew he hadn't been bad at his job.

  But you never really expected to host a diplomatic gathering, he reminded himself. His security precautions had been geared around preventing undesirables from entering the wheel. Much of the vetting was done before the prospective recruit ever saw Island One, let alone passed through security. And you got lax.

  He sighed. Marshal Cheal had been arrogant, obnoxious and unpleasant, but he'd also been right. It wasn't easy to admit it, yet there was no alternative. The worst Luke and his staff had ever faced was a handful of drunkards who’d had too much to drink and ended up acting like idiots. Compared to the multiple challenges facing the police on a planet’s surface, it was almost nothing. And he ...

  The hatch hissed open. Luke spun around in surprise. The compartment was meant to be completely sealed, no one permitted in or out without the proper codes. Indeed, even most of his staff didn't have the right codes. Marshal Cheal had insisted on changing them every day, just to be certain they weren’t copied and stored by the guests. They could cause trouble, he’d warned, even without weapons. But the person standing in the hatchway was no diplomat ...

  There was a brilliant flash of light, then Luke knew no more.

  ***

  Glen ran down the pathway towards the nursery, forcing himself to run as fast as he could, despite the growing stitch in his side. Belinda paced him, holding her pistol in one hand, somehow giving the impression she could easily have outrun him if necessary. He wanted to urge her to do just that, but the words wouldn't come by the time they arrived at the nursery. A young boy, barely old enough to be considered a teenager, was standing at the entrance, his face pale.

  “Stacy is asleep,” he said. “And Violet is freaking out.”

  Asleep, Glen thought. He had a very bad feeling about the whole affair. Stacy hadn't struck him as someone likely to sleep on duty. A
sleep – or dead?

  He pushed his way into the room and froze. Stacy was very definitely dead. The side of her head was caved in, allowing brain tissue to leak onto the floor. Violet trembled in a corner, unable to take her eyes from the body. Belinda knelt down next to her, wrapping the younger girl in a hug. Glen blessed her silently as he looked down at Stacy. The damage to her head looked to have been done by something small, like a closed fist ...

  The lights flickered, then failed. Glen straightened up, then peered out of the window. Apart from the dull glow of bioluminescent plants, the lights had failed everywhere. The houses and mansions of the rich and powerful were as dark and silent as the grave.

  “It was Helen,” Violet said, suddenly. Her voice was terrifyingly shrill in the darkness. “She ... she hit Stacy and ran.”

  Somehow, it didn't occur to Glen to doubt her words.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  And so there was no longer any respect for the law. Why should there be? The law-makers had long since abandoned any pretence of being on anyone’s side, but their own.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. The Decline of Law and Order and the Rise of Anarchy.

  Belinda helped Violet to her feet, then stepped over to inspect Stacy’s body. Up close, it was clear the murder weapon was nothing more than a human fist, driven with augmented strength. She’d seen similar wounds in people she'd killed herself. Her implants clicked to life, examining the damage and comparing it to her observations of Helen. There was a strong chance, they concluded, that Helen was indeed the killer.

  “Helen,” she mused. “Helen of Troy. A Trojan Horse. The threat was hidden in plain sight all along.”

  Glen was staring down at the body, almost in shock. Belinda didn't blame him – he'd felt a fatherly love for Helen ever since she’d entered his life – but there was no time for him to snap out of it naturally. She braced herself, then slapped him lightly across the face. Glen started, swung around to face her with his fists clenched, then forced himself to calm down.

  “We found her at the warehouse,” Glen said. He sounded furious, yet there was an undertone of despair that worried Belinda. “And with so many weapons and supplies waiting there, we never gave a second thought to Helen.”

  “The diversion can be bigger than the actual threat,” Belinda said. She’d been on enough operations where a company had launched a frontal attack, hammering the enemy’s front lines, while a platoon had crept around the enemy positions and launched a flanking attack from the side. “But she’s clearly augmented ...”

  She broke off as she remembered Helen’s nightmare. Someone had taken a young girl and cut her open, turning her into a weapon. But who? Pathfinder-level tech wasn't available outside the Marine Corps or Special Operations Command. Even Prince Roland hadn't been granted any form of physical augmentation. And yet, the evidence was undeniable.

  “Patty,” Glen said, slowly. “She knew.”

  Belinda looked at him. “What ...?”

  “She was the one who told me to look after Helen, she was the one who told me about this job and she was the one who told me to take Helen with me,” Glen said. His voice steadied, after a chilling moment. Betrayal was never easy to take. “We took the weapon through the defences ourselves, then closed the barn door after the horse had fled.”

  “So it would seem,” Belinda said. She tried to ping the nearest processor node, then swore under her breath as it rejected her intrusion. Someone – Helen, no doubt – had uploaded subversion software into the system and taken it over. And there was only one place it could be done. “She’s in the Hub.”

  She thought rapidly, running through all the plans she’d downloaded into her implants. The only way to reach the Hub was through the spokes – and the spokes would be closed. And then ... she gritted her teeth. There was another way to get through to the Hub, but it would be risky, even for her.

  “I’ll go after Helen,” she said, fighting down the fear she felt for the girl. Helen was no Pathfinder, no volunteer for her work. She hadn't known about her augmentations or she would never have told them about the dreams. And ... Belinda shuddered, recalling how young Helen was. It was quite likely that her next growth spurt would kill her, if the augmentation wasn't designed to keep her permanently young. “You need to go back to the delegates and warn them.”

  She thought, fast. Helen was one person, augment or no. Were there others on Island One, ready to join her? Or was she truly alone, with reinforcements on the way? Or was she already looking for a way to kill everyone on Island One? Her augments would drive her forward remorselessly until she was dead. And then Belinda realised the next step of the plan.

  “I think she’ll try to take control of the drones,” she said, softly. “They could be turned into weapons, Glen, and most of our weapons aren't designed to handle them.”

  “I’ll go for the weapons stash,” Glen said. He looked down at the body, then towards the room where the children were waiting. “What about them?”

  “There's nothing we can do right now,” Belinda said. “Tell them to get into the shelters, then see to your weapons.”

  She turned and walked out of the nursery, her sensors scanning the surrounding landscape for anything she could use. There should have been hundreds of network nodes, just waiting for access, free to all. But none of them were active, save for one that was beaming out vast, impossibly-complex signals. Belinda frowned, then gave it a wide berth. It was just possible that Helen was trying to infiltrate neural links and subvert their owners. Most military-grade models were impossible to take over, but she knew that some civilian designs were vulnerable to direct attack. It was one of the reasons why they weren't in common use outside the very wealthy.

  The Governor can't be behind this, she thought, as she broke into a run. He’d have to be completely out of his mind, because his life is at risk too.

  She almost tripped over the next body on the pathway, then halted long enough to take a look at the corpse. It was beheaded, the head itself missing, probably lying somewhere within the forest surrounding the path. Belinda absently noted the position of the body, then resumed her run. Judging from its location, Helen had been running too and simply slammed her augmented fist into the man’s neck, slicing right through his neck. Or maybe she had a weapon of some kind.

  But that might have been detected, Belinda knew. It wasn't impossible to fool a security scanner – she'd done it herself – but secondary systems might realise that the primary system had been subverted. No, whoever was behind this was very clever ... and wanted to snare everyone in the habitat.

  She kept running through possible scenarios as she made her way up to the spoke and slipped inside. It was as dark and cold as the grave, but her implants rapidly saw through the darkness, revealing a sealed hatch blocking access to the transit tubes and another dead body on the ground. Glen had left someone there to watch for intruders, she recalled, something that had struck her as properly paranoid. There was no shortage of stupid things people could do, if they didn't know the rules for where they were. Opening an airlock without wearing a spacesuit was the least of them.

  She checked the body, removing the flashlight and anything else that struck her as useful, then turned her attention to the hatch. But no matter what she did to it, the hatch refused to budge. Helen had scrambled the entire system, then depowered it completely, making it impossible to gain access to the tubes. And the whole system was made of hullmetal, which could only be damaged by starship-level weapons. She had nothing that could burn through the hatch. Cursing, she found an emergency door and pecked at the handle, then kicked it with superhuman force. It shattered, allowing her to slip into the maintenance shaft and climb upwards, into the parts of the station that were rarely seen by outsiders.

  Darkness pressed around her like a physical thing. It was so dark that even her implants had to struggle to pick up on anything. Cursing, she unhooked the flashlight from her belt and turned it on, then shone it up as she climbe
d up the shaft. The gravity field seemed to get lighter as she rose higher, but never faded completely. Belinda wasn't surprised; Island One’s gravity was natural, generated by spinning the wheel. It wasn't a proper antigravity generator.

  It felt like hours – her implants informed her that it was ten minutes – before she reached the top of the shaft and pushed open the hatch. The tube opened up into a set of passageways intended to carry goods from one part of the wheel to another, well out of sight of the rich residents below. Belinda glanced out the window and looked down towards the landscape below – dark and shadowy, barely illuminated at all – then looked up at the stars overhead. Some of them were moving rapidly, suggesting that the starships outside were changing position. Someone had clearly realised that something was very wrong.

  If she has command of the network, Doug pointed out, she could open fire on the starships outside, starting a war.

  Belinda shivered, then paced over to the maintenance hatch and tried to get into the tube. It wouldn't open. She bit down a curse, then walked over to the airlock and hunted for a spacesuit. Legally, there should be at least one general-purpose suit on hand at all times, but there was none. She cursed out loud at the thought of having to walk in space without a spacesuit – it hadn't been fun the last time she’d tried – and then opened the airlock. Inside, a man was lying against the far hatch, a spear rooted in his body. Beside him, a drone spun to life. Belinda threw herself back as it came right at her, waving its manipulators around as it tried to end her life. She drew her pistol and looked for a target, then realised the robot was too tough for her pistol to hurt.

  She jumped backwards again, then threw herself up in the air with augmented strength and clung on to the ceiling. The drone buzzed underneath her, seemingly unable to think of a way to reach her, which suggested there wasn't a human mind in control. Someone had probably wiped the Asimov Protocols that all robots were required to have, by law, and uploaded something a little more aggressive. She considered the possibilities, then clambered over to the hatch leading down to the station. The drone snapped below her all the way like an angry crab.