Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  It was a misquote—Marines were encouraged to study Kipling, even though his poems were unknown to the vast majority of the Empire’s population—but Edward didn’t mind. “They’ll call us back soon enough,” he said, firmly. “Until then … keep the faith.”

  “Yes, sir,” Young said.

  He watched as the officers filed out, leaving him alone with Gwen. “Tell me something,” she said. “Do you think they’ll ever call us back?”

  “I like to think so,” Edward said. He could relax with Gwen. They’d served together for years. She’d forgotten more about being a Marine than most of the enlisted men ever learned. “I don’t know, though. I really don’t know.”

  “It could be for the best,” Gwen said, frankly. “After what happened today, I doubt that Earth is going to remain stable much longer.”

  “No,” Edward said, grimly. “Forty billion people, most of them fed and watered by processes that might as well be magic as far as they’re concerned. Upwards of twenty billion people in city-blocks who have no concept of just how bad the universe can become, or what’s waiting for them in the Undercity. If the bomb explodes under them, all hell will break loose. Perhaps you’re right.”

  “Perhaps,” Gwen agreed. “Or perhaps they’ll call us back to deal with the chaos.”

  Edward said nothing.

  “Cheer up,” Gwen said, dryly. “It could be a lot worse.”

  CHAPTER 5

  One of the most dangerous signs of decline is the sudden reluctance to tolerate different points of view in political debate. Questions and issues that were discussed freely are suddenly forbidden, limiting the realm of political science. The reluctance to question the fundamental basis of our culture and society is, in itself, crippling free enquiry and freedom of speech.

  - Professor Leo Caesius, The Waning Years of Empire (banned).

  No one would have called the Sebastian Cruz beautiful. It was little more than a two kilometre-long block of metal, with a drive section flaring out to the rear. It was ugly, pitted and scarred by the strain of an existence right on the edge, yet to Professor Leo Caesius it—she—was the most wonderful sight in the universe. She represented escape from Earth, escape from the horror that had gripped his family over the last year, and he would have forgiven her anything. He’d accessed recordings of the interior of the Marine Transport—the designers, it seemed, didn’t have comfort or luxury in their dictionaries—but even though she was uncomfortable, she was safe! He couldn’t wait to climb onboard her and escape to the Rim.

  “We’ll be docking in two minutes,” the pilot said, from his seat at the front of the tiny shuttle. “When we dock, unbuckle yourselves and climb out the hatch, taking your bags with you. Don’t look back.”

  “Understood,” Leo said, nodding towards the young man. He hadn’t known if the Marine pilot knew who he was ferrying, not until now. A direct order from the Commandant of the Marine Corps might as well have been an order from God, as far as the very junior pilot was concerned, but he might not have been enthusiastic about it. “We won’t delay.”

  “I hope that there will be some proper accommodation onboard that … thing,” Fiona chimed in, from her seat. Her petulant tone made Leo wince. Fiona was the same age as himself—forty-seven—but unlike her husband, Fiona had never been treated with regeneration therapies that would have restored her lost youth. The first streaks of grey were appearing in her hair, no matter how much she tried to hide them. They reminded Leo of his own guilt. The entire family had been stressed to the limits, because of him. “I could do with a long soak in the bath.”

  “I’m afraid that there are no bathing facilities onboard the transport,” the pilot said, tonelessly. Leo was sure that he was trying to hide a grin. “The bathing compartments are restricted to sonic vibrations and the occasional sponge bath. Water is a luxury in space.”

  Leo said nothing, watching as the minnow of the shuttle slowly approached the massive whale. Two years ago, he had been a respected academic, teaching the Empire’s history to the best and brightest students from all over the Empire. The University of Earth, the most famous university in the Empire, had granted him tenure. A bright future had laid ahead, one where Leo, his wife and his two daughters could make a comfortable life for themselves. They had even been talking about having more children, or buying more comfortable accommodation away from the towering city blocks. The whole universe had seemed to be waiting for them.

  And then he’d been struck by the curiosity bug. One of his students, a young girl from the out-worlds, had questioned the very basis of the Empire’s mandate. Another Professor would have put her firmly in her place—it was an unquestionable fact that Earth was the political, social and cultural heart of the Empire—but Leo had been curious. He’d started to look into the past, and then into the present, constructing elaborate models of the future of the Empire. It had been an eye-opening experience. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, even to himself, but the Empire was starting to enter a pattern of terminal decline. Without a strong man on the Throne—and the Childe Roland was no such man—the Empire was doomed. The competing power bases would tear it apart.

  He’d made the mistake of regarding it as an intellectual puzzle. It had simply never occurred to him that his discoveries might have had real-life implications. If the level of social spending was cut, he’d discovered, the Empire would have more resources free to tackle the other problems, such as the upswing in piracy or terrorist operations. If measures were taken to limit Earth’s birth rate—expanding constantly, due to the free food and water provided by the Empire—the planet might have a chance to recover from everything humanity had done to it. Born to a safe time and place, he had seen no harm in publicising his results and attempting to draw the Empire’s notice to the growing crisis. He should, he knew, have seen it coming. The elite had responded harshly.

  Two months after his book had been published, and banned just as quickly, he’d lost his position in the University of Earth. The Dean had been quietly apologetic, but very firm; there was no longer any place for Leo in the hallowed halls of academia. Fiona had been horrified to discover that the family was suddenly without any means of support—apparently, they didn’t qualify for welfare—and shocked to realise that no one else would take her husband on. Shock had turned to fear when gangs of youths, encouraged by someone in the shadows, had started to harass the family, while their name was dragged through the mud by groups so diverse as the Pacifists League and the Crowned Throne. They’d had to move out of their comfy home, down to the very edge of the Middle City, and yet they were still not safe. If the Marines, for a reason known only to their leader, hadn’t offered them sanctuary, Leo had no doubt that they would all be dead by now, victims of a violent adult world they had never fully understood. The Empire’s masters guarded its secrets well.

  He looked back, towards his two daughters. An outsider might mistake them for twins, for Mandy and Mindy were both redheaded girls, wearing the same drab smocks they’d worn since they’d taken up residence in the Marine complex. Mandy, the oldest at sixteen, had been a constant worry; she’d developed crushes on a succession of Marines, although as far as he knew she hadn’t found the time to actually court one of the men. Mindy, thirteen years old, had had to grow up fast. Losing all of her friends and most of her family had hurt her badly, the more so because she couldn’t understand why the world had changed and they had to leave their friends behind. There had been no choice, not really. As soon as the word had gotten around, the entire family had found themselves abandoned by their former friends, men and women fearful that the taint would somehow slop over onto them. He should have expected that too. It hadn’t been an uncommon pattern in the past.

  A dull thump ran through the shuttle as it docked neatly with the massive transport. Leo unbuckled himself and stood up, feeling slightly queasy in the artificial gravity. He had never left Earth before, not even to visit the halo of asteroid stations and industrial nodes surrounding t
he planet, and the feeling was new and unwelcome. The Marines had assured him that it was perfectly normal, but it only underlined his own weaknesses. He was a husband and a father who couldn’t even protect himself, let alone his family. He was dependent upon a military force many of his former colleagues wouldn’t have given the time of day to, had they been asked. Leo had never shared their opinion—although, if the truth were to be told, it was because he’d never had to think about it—yet it was humiliating. He helped Mandy to unbuckle, sighing inwardly at her too-tight shirt that showed her breasts to best advantage, and pushed her towards the hatch. Fiona was already there, her face pale and wan. She was no longer the woman he’d married.

  “Go,” the pilot snapped. “I can’t stay here for long!”

  The hatch hissed open and Mindy led the way into the Marine transport. Leo felt the gravity field twisting around them as the transport’s gravity generator took over, smiling at Mindy’s clear delight. Fiona looked as if she were going to be sick. Like him, she had never been off Earth, believing implicitly that barbarians and monsters lurked outside Earth’s solar system. She preferred to look down on the colonists and their worlds, even though Leo knew perfectly well that the colonists were just human, as human as his family. A thousand years after the human race had started to expand into space, they had encountered no intelligent alien life forms at all. The highest creature the human race had discovered barely rated higher than a Chimpanzee.

  “Welcome onboard,” a man said. Leo looked up and saw a short man wearing a shipsuit and a Marine Rifleman tab on his collar. The entire crew of the transport, he’d been assured, were Marines. The Sebastian Cruz was not, technically, part of the Imperial Navy, but part of the Marine Corps. “Professor, the Major would like to speak with you as soon as possible. I have orders to escort you to his cabin and Specialist Nix will escort your family to the stasis tubes.”

  “Not stasis,” Fiona objected, at once. Nix, a tall dark-skinned man with a scarred face and roguish eyes, blinked at her. “I can’t stand being frozen.”

  “You won’t feel a thing,” Nix assured her, with a generous smile. “I’ve been in stasis many times and I never feel anything, not even time passing. You’ll just blink and you’ll be on Avalon before you know it.”

  Leo winced at his wife’s expression. When she’d heard that the family was being moved off-world, she’d tried to bargain for one of the older worlds, the ones settled directly from Earth before the Empire had been formed. The Marines had been quiet, but firm; the family’s tormentors would follow them to their new home and keep up the pressure until they were all dead. It was far safer to travel to a world on the edge of the Rim. He suspected that the Commandant had had some other purpose in sending them to Avalon, but he hadn’t even been able to guess at it. How could the Marines possibly benefit from his presence?

  He saw Mandy eyeing Nix and winced inwardly. Ironically, seeing that seemed to calm Fiona down. She caught hold of her daughter and waved imperiously to Nix to lead them towards the stasis tubes. Leo wanted to follow her, just to make sure that everything was all right, but there was no point. His guide was waiting for him.

  “I’m ready,” he said, as a hatch clanged shut behind his wife’s ass. He caught his own thought and smiled inwardly. Spending time with the Marines had made him crude, clearly. “Please can you escort me to the Major?”

  “Of course,” his guide said. “Follow me.”

  Leo had never been onboard a real starship before and, despite the gravity of the situation, found himself intrigued by the Marine Transport. Hundreds of men and women bustled about, performing tasks he couldn’t even begin to understand, while small dedicated robots prowled around, carrying out maintenance work on the ship’s interior. Senior officers were shouting orders that might as well have been in another language, for all the sense they made to Leo, ignoring his presence. Hatches and bulkheads lay open, exposing incomprehensible circuitry and components to his gaze. It was fascinating. It almost made him wish that he had applied for the Imperial Navy, rather than seeking a career in the academic world. Here, on the ship, men and women were doing things that mattered.

  “It is not a good idea to wander alone on this ship,” his guide said, when Leo asked. “If you want a tour, the Major will have to clear it with the Captain. The Captain has supreme authority on this ship, answerable only to the Commandant.”

  They reached a hatch marked OFFICER COUNTRY, which opened when the guide touched a key hidden in a bulkhead, revealing drab corridors and better lighting. “Normally, a commanding officer would bunk down with the men, but while on ship they get cabins,” the guide explained, misinterpreting Leo’s questioning look. “It isn’t something the Corps fully approves of, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Leo said. He’d sort it all out later. They reached another hatch marked STALKER. “Where now … ?”

  The hatch hissed open, revealing a small metal cubicle, barely large enough to hold a desk and a portable terminal. Seeing it, Leo was struck by the disparity between the University and the Marine Transport Ship; the Dean, back on Earth, had had an office large enough to hold a hundred students or lecturers, finely decorated with paintings and small artworks. The only decoration in the Marine’s office was a tiny picture of a pretty dark-skinned girl. There was nothing else. A week in the compartment, Leo knew, would have had him begging for mercy.

  “Welcome onboard,” a man said, rising up from behind the desk. He held out a hand for Leo to shake. “I’m Captain Stalker.”

  Leo blinked at him. “I was told I was going to meet a Major,” he protested. “Why … ?”

  Captain Stalker laughed. “Onboard ship, there is only ever one Captain and he’s the person in command of the ship,” he explained. “Any other Captain who happens to set foot in his realm is automatically given a courtesy promotion to Major or Commodore. There’s no extra pay, of course, just the new responsibility of answering to one step above your real pay grade.”

  “Ah,” Leo said. It sounded too complicated for him. “Thank you for clarifying that.”

  He sat down on the bunk when the Captain waved to it and studied his host. Captain Stalker was tall, with short blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He was wearing a Marine standard uniform and wore a Rifleman’s tab at his collar, the same as the other Marines he’d seen. He had an air of brisk competence and determination that suggested that anyone in his way was in for trouble. Leo, no great fan of the military until it had saved his life, was privately impressed. Perhaps everything was going to be all right after all.

  “My orders are to escort you to your new home and then see to your security, among other things,” Captain Stalker said. “I have other orders to carry out and, of course, there may be problems involved in balancing all of those responsibilities. The Commandant was, however, quite keen that you be preserved alive. Why, if I may be blunt, has an academic attracted so much interest from so many different factions?”

  Leo paused, gathering himself. Somehow, the direct question cut right to the heart of his problems. “I spoke truth to power,” he said, honestly. “They didn’t like it.”

  Stalker laughed. “So did I,” he said, seriously. “That’s why they sentenced me to exile.”

  He leaned forward, his eyes meeting Leo’s. “I have never read your book, although I’m sure that you have a copy or two in your luggage,” he said. “I do know that I will do my best to protect you and your family, subject only to carrying out my other orders. I don’t believe that your enemies will chase you as far as Avalon, but if they do, they will regret it.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Leo said.

  “Major,” Stalker corrected. He grinned, suddenly. It completely transformed his face. “As a fellow political exile, you can call me Edward. Now, tell me; just what did you tell them to get yourself marked for death?”

  “The truth,” Leo said, flatly. It still hurt to remember how all of his comforting illusions had been torn away, revealing the naked truth that un
derpinned the Empire. “I told them that if they continued on their current path, the entire Empire was going to explode like a powder keg underneath them. As for the specifics…”—he shrugged, expressively—“where would you like me to start?”

  Stalker lifted an eyebrow. “I started looking into the conditions in the more … recently established colonies, the ones established since the Tyrant Emperor was killed,” Leo clarified. “Most of them suffer under levels of taxation and debt they can never hope to pay off, not ever. Their children’s children will still be paying it off hundreds of years in the future. It made no sense to me so I started tracing the money and realised that most of it was being spent on social welfare to keep the underclass happy. Yet there were limits to how much the Empire could extract from its subjects and there were already small rebellions popping up, all over the Empire…”

  “I fought on Han,” Stalker said, dispassionately. There was a haunted note in his voice that made Leo shiver. The realities of violence, despite everything he’d been through, were still largely alien to him. “There was no time to think about how, or why, or if they had a cause worth dying for. It was kill or be killed.”

  “I know,” he said. It was scant comfort, but what did one say to a man charged with upholding an edifice that would come toppling down one day and bury them all under the rubble? “There are a thousand more such rebellions just waiting to happen.”

  “We’re going to be talking about this on Avalon,” Stalker said, slowly. “I want you to get into your tube now, Professor. We’re about to start loading the ship and we don’t need you getting in the way.”

  Leo shook his head. “I’d prefer to stay out of the tubes until we’re underway,” he said, slowly. He couldn’t tell the young Captain why, not yet. “Please…”

  Stalker stared at him for a long moment. “We’ll assign you a bunk,” he said. “It won’t be pleasant sailing, but it’s the best we can do. Stay out of everyone’s way.”