Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  - Major-General Thomas Kratman (Ret), A Civilian’s Guide to the Terran Marine Corps.

  Lucas sat back against the wall of his cell and tried to make himself comfortable. It wasn’t easy. His leg had been firmly shackled to the floor and it could barely move, while a cold draft blew under the door and sent shivers down his spine. He was naked; the Marines, or perhaps the Civil Guard, had stripped him after he’d been stunned and then dumped him in the cell. Somehow, despite knowing about his backers, he found it hard to remain optimistic. He didn’t know how they’d done it, but they’d somehow identified him as an important person. How much did they know?

  The question ran around and around in his mind as he settled back, cursing the heavy chain under his breath. It was overkill—a short look at the door had told him that he wouldn’t be breaking out any time soon—but it wasn’t there to keep him imprisoned. It was there, he knew, to make sure he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was a prisoner and his fate was completely in someone else’s hands. Lucas had used similar techniques himself back when he’d been a gang leader on Earth, even before becoming one of the Knifes, for the human psyche often refused to realise that a situation was truly hopeless. He’d seen women, kidnapped from the homesteads, slowly fall into new thought patterns, one that allowed them to remain sane in the face of sexual abuse from their new masters. The thought of someone doing the same to him—making him think that he was where he should be, no matter how much it hurt—was intolerable, yet he was no longer sure that he was sophisticated enough to resist it. He knew what they were doing … and it was working anyway.

  He had no idea how long he’d been in the cell. It could have been bare hours since he’d been stunned and captured, or it could have been days or weeks. The single light, burning down from high above, never went out and there were no windows, depriving him of anything he could use to measure time. He’d tried to keep count of when he’d fallen asleep, yet he had rapidly lost track of time. The food supply, a handful of ration bars someone had placed in the cell along with a single water tap, didn’t provide any clues. Besides, the ration bars tasted suspiciously like someone had made them out of shit. He’d heard stories of farmers in the outlying regions who had starved to death rather than eat ration bars on a regular basis. Just now, trapped in the cell, the stories seemed quite believable. He had had to force himself to swallow even a single bite.

  His backers had failed to materialise, he realised, or perhaps they were in trouble themselves. There had been no way to conceal the fact that the Knives were deploying advanced weapons, weapons they could only have obtained from the Civil Guard, and their only hope of preventing investigators from drawing a line from their source to the backers was to kill the source before he or she could tell all. There was no hope that the source would remain silent, either; the Marines or the Civil Guard could simply have injected him with truth drugs, or perhaps they would have resorted to good old-fashioned torture. Lucas had tortured men and women himself back on Earth and knew that anyone could be broken, given enough time. They could be building a case against him right now … and there was nothing he could do about it. He’d shouted, claiming his rights under the Imperial Charter and demanding to see a lawyer, but there had been no response. In many ways, that had been more frightening than an official thug entering the cell and beating the shit out of him. If his civil rights had been suspended … how much could they do to him?

  I have things they want, he reminded himself, trying to remain optimistic. I still have room to bargain …

  The door to the cell clicked loudly as it was unlocked. Lucas looked up as the door swung slowly open, revealing two men wearing unmarked black tunics. There was nothing to say who they were or which particular organisation they worked for, but they had to be soldiers. They held themselves in a military manner, although he couldn’t have pointed to exactly what had tipped him off. They didn’t show any fear of Lucas either. Of course, he reminded himself, with one leg chained firmly to the floor, all they had to do was remain out of reach and there would be nothing he could do to them.

  “Well,” he said, as the two men rapidly inspected his cell. He’d assumed that there were pick-ups in the cell as a matter of course, just to see if he said anything incriminating while alone, but perhaps not. “Are you going to take me to my lawyer?”

  “No,” one of the men said. His accent was very clearly not an Avalon accent, which suggested quite strongly that he was a Marine, rather than one of the Civil Guard. Lucas felt his blood run cold. He had allies among the Civil Guard, men who would risk their lives to save him rather than risk him blowing the whistle on their covert activities, but he had no allies among the Marines. For the first time, he realised deep inside that he might not be able to get out of the trap. “You have a different appointment.”

  The men finished their sweep of the cell and drew back. “Stand up,” the leader ordered, “and place your hands on your head.”

  Lucas glowered at him for a long moment, and then reluctantly complied. It wasn’t as if resistance would have gotten him anywhere. They could simply have produced a stunner and stunned him, and then dragged him wherever they wanted him to go. It was better to be awake and aware, he told himself; perhaps he would see something that he could use to leverage his escape. A moment later, one of the men moved behind him and cuffed his hands firmly behind his back. The cuffs were so tight that Lucas rapidly lost all feeling in his hands.

  “You will come with us,” the leader informed him, as he unlocked Lucas’s chain. His companion took one of Lucas’s arms and started to push him towards the door. Helpless, Lucas allowed him to keep pushing at him, looking around with interest as they stepped out of the cell and into a darkened corridor. It took him a moment to realise that he was looking at a prefabricated building; a new prefabricated building. His heart sank. The only place on Avalon that could be expected to have new prefabricated buildings was Castle Rock, the home of the Marines. “Do not attempt to escape.”

  The warning was unnecessary, for Lucas had already realised that escape would be impossible. The building should have been a simple design, yet he lost track of just where they’d taken him very quickly, as if they were leading him through a maze. The corridors were so interchangeable that they could have been taking him in circles and he would never have realised it, or perhaps the building was larger than he had thought. The only other prefabricated building he’d seen had been a colonist barracks, back when he’d first came to Avalon. It had been dingy and decaying; this one was new and apparently massive. Even guessing what they had done provided no relief. There was still no hope of escaping his captors, let alone finding his way off the island. He would have to remain calm and focused on the only chips he held. They were his only hope.

  A door opened up in front of them on an unseen command and the Marines marched him into a small room. At first, Lucas thought they’d simply returned him to his cell, after giving him some demented version of exercise, but then he saw the chair that had been placed in the exact centre of the room. His escorts pushed him into it and secured his cuffs to the back of the chair; a second later, before he could do anything, they locked his legs firmly down as well. A band went around his throat, making even the smallest movements uncomfortable. He could barely move.

  “Good work,” a new voice said. Lucas blinked in shock. There had been other men in the room and he hadn’t even noticed them in the shadows! Marines, it was rumoured, had enhanced eyes, allowing them to see in the dark like cats. Even if it wasn’t true, they might well have far better eyesight than Lucas or any of the Knives, allowing them to fight in the dark as easily as fighting in daytime. “Let’s see what we’ve got, shall we?”

  The new speaker came into view, a tall man with short blonde hair and an expression of cold, dispassionate fury that reminded Lucas of his first Gang Boss. That man had been as safe to play with as unstable explosives and had once ordered one of his whores to be lowered feet-first into a vat of acid f
or some imagined slight. Lucas had been terrified of the man and even when he had managed to carve out an independent existence for himself, thoughts of his first master still haunted him. The newcomer wore no insignia, yet Lucas was somehow sure that he was looking at the Marine CO. He held himself, not only as if he expected to be obeyed, but as if the issue was completely beyond argument.

  “You,” Lucas said. It was hard to talk with the band around his throat, which made him wonder if they simply intended to execute him, rather than interrogate him to find out what he knew. Had they drugged and interrogated him in his sleep? “I want to deal.”

  “Yes,” the Marine said. His voice was cold and flat, yet there was a hint of underlying amusement, as if he were a cat playing with a mouse. Lucas swallowed his pride and lowered his eyes, knowing that he couldn’t afford to play his cards poorly. He had never been in so much danger in his entire life. “You want to deal.”

  He waited. Lucas wanted to out-wait him, but he didn’t quite dare. “I know information that you need to know,” he said, realising that there was no way he could out-wait the Marine. “I also know that you cannot interrogate me using drugs or torture. You have to bargain with me for the information.”

  The Marine smiled. “Really?”

  Lucas shivered at the tone. “I have a nerve-burst implant in my head,” he said. “If it detects that I am being interrogated by force, it will kill me and you will be unable to learn anything from my body. It is impossible to remove and…”

  “We scanned your head when we brought you in,” the Marine said. His smile suddenly had a very cruel edge. “You have no such implant. You have nothing, apart from a handful of colourful tattoos on your body and an Indent ID number tattooed on your ass. You have no way of preventing us from draining information out of your head by force.”

  His lips twitched. “As if a gang lord would have access to such technology,” he said, mockingly. “I doubt that you were ever that important.”

  Lucas scowled inwardly, struggling against a tidal wave of despair. If Earth’s Civil Guard had known who they had arrested, he would have been lucky to have been merely dumped on a hellish world with minimal supplies and no hope of survival. But they hadn’t known and his records, of course, had shown him as just another indent, perhaps a little smarter and healthier than most. His few chips had been knocked from his hand.

  “We know that you were important because you had a radio and were giving orders,” the Marine said. Lucas flinched as he realised how easily he had been caught. “You know what we need to know, so we’re going to make you an offer. Tell us everything—and I mean everything—that you know and we’ll indenture you again rather than tossing you off a boat and leaving you to the Dagger Fish.”

  Lucas blinked. Being indentured again wouldn’t be any fun, but it would hold the possibility of escape and a return to the badlands. It had to be a bluff, a cruel way of making him talk.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said, stubbornly. “You’re lying.”

  “I swear to you, upon the honour of the Marine Corps, that you will merely be indentured, rather than executed,” the Marine said. Lucas heard the sudden shift in tone and realised that he was serious. “It’s the best offer you’re going to get, but…”

  Lucas braced himself. Here it came. “You’re hooked up to a lie detector,” the Marine warned. “Lie to us once and the deal is off and you will simply be … disposed of once we no longer need you. Start talking.”

  They had him in a bind, Lucas realised. He didn’t understand why they hadn’t moved to use the truth drugs at once, yet if their offer was sincere the Marine was right; it was the best offer he was going to get. His allies should have freed him, but it was becoming increasingly clear that they weren’t going to be able to help him, let alone save themselves. They were expendable now. He gathered himself and mentally composed his words. Perhaps he could keep a few surprises in reserve.

  “I came to this planet a few years ago,” he began, “and…”

  -o0o-

  Edward listened carefully as the bandit—the supreme bandit leader, according to his testimony—started to talk. It stuck in his craw to make deals with such scum, but lives were at stake and truth drugs had their limitations. Even a skilled interrogator could miss something while digging into a subject’s mind, for while drugs encouraged a person to be honest, the subject needed to be led to the right issues. He hadn’t realised just what a gold mine had fallen into their hands until the man began to speak, but now … now he knew just what they were up against. The Knives hadn’t just been attempting to organise a government; they were working with elements of the official government, even before the Marines had arrived. Treachery on such a scale was appalling, yet it seemed to be merely the tip of the iceberg. Just how far did the rot go?

  It was easy to accept that the Civil Guard had plenty of bad apples, for Edward was used to dealing with such issues. It was far harder to realise that at least seven senior officers had not only been subverted by the bandits, but had been actively assisting them. At least one reasonably honest officer had been assassinated, just to allow one of the corrupt officers to take their place and assist the bandits. A handful of bandits had even gone through Basic Training with the Civil Guard, before deserting back to the badlands! It was unbelievable.

  George will have to be warned, he reminded himself, realising just how dangerous the entire situation had become. It was far more than just another bandit plot; it seemed to him that the mysterious backers had managed to subvert part of the Civil Guard, giving them enough firepower to take over the Government. If they had intended to ambush and wipe out both Alpha and Beta Companies—along with the Marines—they would have controlled the single strongest military force left on the planet. With that, and their bandit allies, they could have taken over Camelot and declared themselves the new government. It should have had no hope of success, but with the Empire in such disarray, they might just get away with it.

  “All right,” he said, as the prisoner paused. He had told the truth—or, he had to remind himself, the truth as he knew it to be. His backers could have easily lied to him. A lie detector could only recognise a lie when the speaker knew that it was a lie. “I assume you knew who you were dealing with. Who were your backers?”

  The prisoner looked up and paused, a faintly cunning smile spreading out over his face. “You’ll never guess,” he said, and named a string of names. The lie detector confirmed it. “I had half of the Council on my side from the very first day.”

  Edward felt as if someone had punched him in the chest. He had had his suspicions after realising that the heavy weapons could only have come from the Civil Guard, yet he’d hoped that he’d been wrong. Legally, he could do pretty much whatever he wanted to the prisoner, but it was far harder to deal with political leaders. It would require absolute proof to convict even one of them and testimony from a bandit leader, even under a lie detector, might not count. They would certainly refuse to be interrogated without a warrant and one couldn’t be granted on such grounds.

  “Shit,” he said. He’d have to speak directly to the Governor. His authority could open doors, if he could be convinced to use it. Edward stood up and looked at the interrogators. “Keep working on him,” he ordered. “I want to know everything he knows by evening.”

  CHAPTER 36

  It is an undeniable fact that Marines have been known to make life better wherever they go.

  - Major-General Thomas Kratman (Ret), A Civilian’s Guide to the Terran Marine Corps.

  Jasmine stood outside Professor Caesius’s house and contemplated the note in her hand. It had been delivered through Avalon’s postal service and she’d picked it up at the spaceport, just before her and her platoon had been sent on leave. Or perhaps it hadn’t been leave at all, not in the conventional sense; they’d been told to keep their weapons with him and their armour had been stored at a safe house on the edge of the city. It sounded as if Captain Stalker was expecting tr
ouble and was placing his Marines in position to deal with it, yet it was unlike him not to warn them of what they might be facing. He’d even told them to have a good time on leave.

  She read the note again, puzzled. It was simple enough; Mandy had invited her to visit when she next had leave in Camelot. Jasmine hadn’t expected to hear anything from the girl; indeed, she hadn’t seen the girl since the last time she’d been on leave and rescued her from being raped and murdered. It had taken a certain kind of courage for Mandy to write to her at all and she knew that it would have been disrespectful to allow it to pass, yet … what did she want? Despite herself, Jasmine seriously considered turning about and heading back to her platoon, before steeling herself and walking up to the door. She knocked firmly on the knocker and, a moment later, Mandy opened the door.

  The girl had changed, Jasmine realised, or perhaps she was just seeing her without her fashionable make-up and perfume. Her eyes were just ever-so-slightly apprehensive as she realised that Jasmine had actually heeded her note, leaving Jasmine wondering just what she had wanted. None of the ideas spinning through her head seemed to make sense, even when Mandy smiled nervously at her. What did one say to a girl one had spanked a week ago?

  “Come on in, please,” Mandy said. She sounded rather more respectful as well, leaving Jasmine wondering just what her father had said to her after Jasmine had left her last time. “I wasn’t sure when you would be coming.”

  “Your note did ask that I came on my next leave,” Jasmine said, slowly. Mandy looked … as if she was working up to something bad. No, perhaps not something bad, but something she might be denied. “How are you feeling?”