Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  She headed off down the hill and, after a moment, the recruit followed her.

  -o0o-

  “You lost,” Drill Sergeant Barr thundered, as soon as the recruits had mustered. They were all tired beyond measure, but he somehow expected them to remain on their feet and at attention. “You lost every single one of your lives up that hill. Do you know how you managed to lose so badly? You made mistakes!”

  Michael wanted to protest that it was only their second week and they barely knew anything, but somehow he was sure that interrupting Barr was a bad idea. There were times when he expected—demanded—that the recruits asked questions and answered them as patiently as possible, and times when he chewed the poor recruit out in front of the entire training squad.

  “You knew that the hill was held by the enemy, yet you walked right up to it,” Barr continued, singling out the former leader for special abuse. “What were you thinking? You got seven of your men killed along with your own worthless ass! What were you thinking?”

  The unfortunate squad leader quailed under his gaze. “I was thinking that we might have a chance to surprise them before they were ready for us,” he said, finally. It sounded reasonable to Michael, except it had failed. Badly. “We could have caught them out of place and…”

  “Bullshit,” Barr exploded. “You’re trying to stick a cherry on top of a bowl of shit and telling me its ice cream! Are you in the habit of lying when you fail at something, or are you just trying to get out of punishment duties?”

  The squad leader said nothing. “I shall assume that it’s the latter, as the former would be too horrible to contemplate in trainees,” Barr said. “Now…”

  His gaze slid across the recruits until it lighted on Michael. It felt like staring down two heavy gun barrels. “And what,” Barr demanded, “were you thinking when you took over command?”

  Michael braced himself for an explosion. “I thought that everyone else who was in the chain of command was dead,” he said. The chain of command within the training squads was fluid. Barr changed it every day, just to force them to keep up with it. A recruit who had been leader one day might be bottom of the heap tomorrow. It didn’t get any easier when they graduated. According to the training material they’d read, the rank of Corporal seemed to come and go at whim. “And someone had to take over command.”

  “How true,” Barr sneered. “And then you took horrendous risks. You could have got half of the remaining squad killed, for real!”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” Michael said. The recruits had fallen out of the habit of calling Barr ‘sir’ within the first day. “It nearly worked.”

  “It nearly worked,” Barr repeated. “It may interest you to know, recruit, that the most expensive thing to have in all of human history is the second-best army in the world. Being the second-best only means that the best will destroy you, does it not? It nearly worked … but it didn’t work. What were you thinking when you walked up to the girl wearing civilian clothes?”

  Michael flushed, despite the heat. “I was thinking that she needed help,” he admitted. “I was wrong.”

  “Well, at least you’re honest enough to admit it,” Barr drawled. “And now you have a chance to reflect upon it, what should you have done?”

  Michael had realised that a second after his suit had locked up. “I should have checked around first, before assuming that she was helpless and harmless,” he said, slowly. “If I’d checked, I might have been able to avoid being shot when she produced her weapon.”

  “Good,” Barr said. “At least you managed to learn from experience.”

  He looked up, his gaze moving along the line of recruits. “Understand this,” he said. “A person who looks helpless may not be helpless. A person who looks harmless may not be harmless. A weapon can be anything, or hidden anywhere. Back on Han, we lost several soldiers to women who hid monofilament blades up their cunts and produced them at the worst possible moment. There are an infinite number of tricks that an enemy force can carry out to lure you into a trap. Learn to recognise the signs when you see them and perhaps that trap won’t cut off your cocks when you fall into it.”

  Michael nodded inwardly, remembering some of the early training exercises they’d done. Even ground that looked untroubled might hide a nasty surprise; a mine, or an IED, or even something really inventive. A primitive weapon, used properly, could be utterly devastating even against the most powerful military force. A weapon was only as good as the person using it. He’d been told that Marines who went in for the Weaponmaster Badge were expected to be able to handle any weapon, without hesitation. He had already privately determined that he was going to try to qualify for it.

  “Report to the shooting range,” Barr ordered, finally. Michael winced; they were all sweaty and smelly, yet they still had to carry on with the training. “It’s time to shoot holes in a few more dummies!”

  The Marines, he had explained the first time they’d handled weapons, had a very progressive attitude to expending rounds during training. Michael, who had never handled a weapon before joining up, had fired off thousands of rounds during the first week alone, learning to handle the SAR. Barr marched from recruit to recruit, teaching them the value of fire discipline and careful targeting, rather than just pointing the weapon in the general direction of the enemy and opening fire. That way, he’d warned them, accidents happened … or, worse, nothing effective was done.

  “There are times when you have to force the enemy to keep their sodding heads down,” he’d thundered, “and there are times when you need to conserve ammunition. Learn to tell the difference!”

  Night was falling and Merlin was rising in the sky when the recruits were finally allowed to go for food and then hit their bunks. Michael had a private suspicion that the Marine food—which wasn’t actually bad and there was always plenty of it—contained drugs and vitamins designed to help build their muscles and flush their bodies clear of any past history of drug abuse. It was certainly healthier than anything he’d had before joining up with the Marines. If the Marines had promised good food and a proper diet, he knew hundreds of mothers who would have been delighted to urge their children to sign up.

  The barracks were air-conditioned, although they’d been warned that they’d soon have to start sleeping out in the open air. The bunks themselves were small, barely large enough for one person, although it wasn’t as if they were going to be sharing bunks. There were no girls around at all, even though he had run into a female Marine. If there were any homosexuals in the unit, they were keeping their heads low. He lay down, placed his head against the pillow and closed his eyes. Seconds later, or so it seemed, Barr started bellowing orders for them to get up and get out onto the parade ground. By now, dressing at a rush was almost second nature.

  -o0o-

  “They’re not doing badly,” Gwen observed, as they watched the recruits stumbling back out onto the parade ground. “We could probably start recruiting the second batch now.”

  Edward shook his head. “We’re going to be spread too tightly,” he said, checking the map. “I don’t want to recruit any more newcomers until we can afford to pull the platoons away from the badlands and we won’t be able to do that for a while.”

  Gwen scowled. “We don’t have enough, sir,” she said. “The ships are leaving tomorrow.”

  “I know,” Edward said. He was still mulling over his conversation with the Professor. “And then things get interesting.”

  CHAPTER 29

  As power and responsibility become ever more separated, those with power will act in an increasingly irresponsible fashion, perhaps even neglecting the very source of their power. Why should they not? Surely, they think, their power lies apart from any responsibility.

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

  “You are sure of this,” Carola Wilhelm demanded. “The starships have definitely departed?”

  Her informant, a man who worked part-time at the local System Command, s
uch as it was, bowed his head. “They departed orbit earlier today and headed out on a least-time course to the Phase Limit,” he said, with a bow. He owed his cushy position to Carola’s patronage and knew that lying to her would have unfortunate consequences. “We couldn’t track them once they were outside the satellite’s range, but there is no reason to believe that they remained within the system. I understand that Captain Yamato was eager to return to the sector capital and meet up with other Marine starships.”

  Carola nodded, staring out of her window over her grounds to the wall beyond, preventing any of Camelot’s less-advantaged citizens from finding their way onto her territory. A handful of men from her personal guard were roving through the grounds, watching for anyone brave or stupid enough to try scaling the wall. Carola knew better than to trust the Civil Guard to protect her and her property, despite the care and attention she had lavished on her clients within the Guard. Besides, her own personal guard had no divided loyalties between her and the Governor.

  “We cannot track ships outside the satellite’s range,” her informant continued, mistaking her silence for an order to carry on. “They could have doubled back and…”

  “That will be all,” Carola said, airily. “You may go.”

  She watched as the informant departed before looking up at the map of Avalon she’d placed on one wall and decorated with her own notes. It wouldn’t have made sense to anyone else, but to her it was easily readable, a reminder of everything the cartel had … and everything it had to have before they could become the absolute rulers of the planet. Between them, the Council—the important members, at least—owned most of the planet and controlled the rest of it through an unbreakable voting block on the Council. Once the Governor was removed for incompetence—and they had been working towards that end for years—they could put their own person into office and take control directly. Carola longed for that day. Avalon didn’t have much to recommend it at first, but given a few years of absolute rule, they could transform it into a first-rank world. The ADC had already made the heavy purchases before they ran out of money and collapsed. Carola and the Council would merely inherit their work.

  Carola and her husband had been born with enough money to make them part of the Empire’s upper crust, but not enough to make them part of the aristocracy. They might have been the richest people in the sector, yet their fortune barely registered compared to the Earth-based industrialists or the Grand Senators, who had unparalleled opportunities to loot. They could have been comfortable for the rest of their lives, but Carola wanted power … and she didn’t care what she had to do to get it. While others in their set had been spending money like water, Carola had been hoarding it and waiting for her opportunity. It had come sooner than she had expected. Desperate for money, the remains of the ADC had been selling off the corporation’s assets for years and Carola had purchased most of their debts. The mere possession of a strip of paper had made her the single most powerful woman on Avalon.

  It didn’t look like much, not when she was realistic enough to know that most of those debts would never be repaid, but it didn’t end there. Carola had watched with interest as the Empire’s investment in the sector declined and realised that the decay extended all along the Rim. There were fewer starship patrols, fewer troop deployments and fewer investments. Years ago, it would have only taken the Empire a few months to confirm the appointment of a new Sector Governor. Now … it had taken years, as if no one on Earth cared enough to put one of their proxies into power. The thought had been terrifying, when it had finally burst into her mind, yet it had been inescapable. What would happen if the Empire withdrew from the sector altogether?

  Working with her husband, Carola had studied the entire sector, looking for opportunities. There had been several possible worlds, but most of them were firmly controlled by various organisations already, or simply lacked any form of space-based industry at all. The ADC hadn’t been the only corporation to have financial trouble after the Tyrant Emperor had been assassinated. Avalon hadn’t seemed like a likely prospect at first, but it had opportunities and Carola and her Cartel were perfectly placed to take advantage of them, if they could get rid of the Governor.

  She looked up and out of the window, staring towards the haze on the horizon. Camelot’s climate lent itself to long summers and growing seasons, even though it was quite uncomfortably hot at the worst of times. Somewhere, hidden within that haze, was Castle Rock, the new home of the Marines and their trainees. Carola had bid for several of the contracts to expand Castle Rock’s facilities, but the Marines had turned her down, preferring to work with newer and hungry industrial concerns. Carola cursed that decision under her breath, as much as she cursed the decision to pay their workers and recruits in cash. Just by doing that, they had undermined the whole basis of the Cartel’s power, threatening everything Carola had built. Her plan to eventually become Queen of Avalon had been badly weakened.

  The Marines bothered her, and not just because they weakened her grip on her indebted assets. They were formidable—they’d proved that when they went up against the bandits—and they were beyond her influence. The Governor’s comments when she’d spoken to him suggested that they were beyond his influence as well, which was worrying. Even if he could command them, they weren’t … influenced by the Council, not like the Civil Guard. Carola had spent enough time and money putting her proxies into high-ranking offices within the Civil Guard to be fairly sure that the Guard would obey the Council—apart from the Major and his handful of loyal men—but the Marines wouldn’t obey her. A military force she could neither control nor influence was a dangerous force. She had no illusions as to how long her personal guard would last if they had to go up against the Marines.

  She felt, more than heard, the door open as Markus Wilhelm stepped into the room. Like her, he’d been born rich and determined to become richer. Their partnership was a natural one. They even still slept together sometimes, even though they both wanted power more than they wanted each other. She smiled at the goatee he’d cultivated since they’d arrived, knowing that he was under the impression that it gave him a faintly sinister air.

  “They just finished sweeping the house again,” he said. Mansion it might be, but Wilhelm always referred to it as a house, reminding her of the castle he intended to build once they held supreme power. They had grown up in the shadows of the houses owned by the local aristocrats on their homeworld. “We found three new bugs and stomped on them.”

  Carola shrugged. One of their advantages was that they had brought a surprising amount of modern technology with them when they’d moved to Avalon, including some devices that hadn’t trickled down from the Imperial Army to the Civil Guard. She wasn’t too surprised to learn that their house was being bugged, even though it was impossible to say who was trying to listen in on their conversations. The parties she threw every second week allowed too many people into her house.

  “Some of them were definitely military-grade technology,” Wilhelm added. “Our noble friends and allies in the Council couldn’t have provided them, but the Marines could have sent them here.”

  “Could be,” Carola agreed, as if it were a very minor matter. The Marines would definitely want to spy on them, but as long as they could keep the bugs out of the secure rooms, it wouldn’t matter. “Of course, if they had managed to gather evidence against us, they’d have come bursting in here by now.”

  She turned and looked up at the map. “I think we’re going to have to urge the Knives to move now,” she said, slowly. “The longer the Marines have to train new recruits, the harder it will be for them to make any headway at all.”

  “They lost the last time they went up against the Marines,” Wilhelm reminded her. “What makes you think that they will want to risk everything and move against them openly?”

  “There are only ninety-odd Marines,” Carola said. She’d taken pains to cultivate Fiona Caesius as an intelligence source, but the wretched woman simply hadn’t bo
thered to learn the fundamentals, or even gather information that could be useful. Her husband hadn’t been interested in spending time at Carola’s parties and had been bored stiff the few times he had attended. “They can be weakened if they are lured into a trap.”

  She smiled. “And besides, given what we have on him, I’m sure the Knife will want to move openly,” she added. “Just think of what we can offer him as a reward!”

  “A dangerous game,” Wilhelm said. “If it gets traced back to us, the next Marines we’ll see will be the ones breaking down the wall and coming to arrest us, dead or alive.”

  Carola looked up at him. “What do you think will happen if the Marines succeed?”

  She answered her own question before he could speak. “They already have more recruits signed up than they can handle,” she said. “They will be taught how to fight and given confidence, the confidence they will need to stand up to the Civil Guard and our proxies within the Government. Our power only holds as long as we hold on to the government and we will lose it if the people have the mindset needed for a rebellion. We’re not exactly loved out there.”

  Wilhelm nodded. If they weren’t the most hated husband and wife on the planet, it wasn’t for lack of trying. In order to build up their power, they had entrapped thousands of families in an endless web of debt and obligation, placing their investments carefully to ensure that they had influence everywhere. As long as they controlled the government and its monopoly on force, they were safe … which was why they had worked hard to prevent any threat to that monopoly. If the Crackers took over, they would both be the first against the wall.

  Working with the bandits had been a risk, but a worthwhile one, for the growing problem called the Governor’s competence into question. If the bandits kept pushing, there would be grounds to press for his removal, allowing the Council a chance to take complete control of the planet. The Knives themselves were expendable. If they refused to cooperate afterwards, the Council—which would be in full control of the Civil Guard—would see to their extermination. It was a risk, yet they had no choice.