Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  Felicity said nothing.

  -o0o-

  Jasmine had been chatting about nothing to Mandy—the girl, she had decided, could be pleasant company when she wanted to be—when her implanted communicator had gone off right in her head, sounding the general recall signal. She had been halfway to the door before Mandy’s mind had caught up with her eyes and the girl demanded to know what was going on. Jasmine gasped out an explanation, already preparing her body for the run ahead, and dived out of the door. She’d been a runner on her homeworld, years ago, but service in the Marines had honed her skills well past anything she would have believed possible. Running at top speed, she covered the distance from Mandy’s house to the rendezvous point in bare minutes. A handful of civilians stared as she ran past, a pair of teenage louts making out as if they were going to try to trip her up. She clipped them hard enough to leave them with broken bones and kept running. One of her comrades needed her.

  Gwen kept speaking through her implant, updating her on the developing situation. Blake was missing … and, worse, he was not answering his communicator. Jasmine knew that that meant trouble. Being late back to base was a minor offence, one that might be punished by washing out toilets or digging field latrines, but refusing to answer an urgent call was a far more serious offence. And, if his communicator didn’t respond to a ping, Blake was clearly unable to respond at all. He might not be dead—or so she kept reminding herself—but he was out of it.

  She ran around the corner, not even breathing hard, and saw Joe and Koenraad standing there, waiting for her. They wore civilian clothes, of course, but no one would have mistaken them for civilians, even without the weapons they had buckled on to their belts. Marines had automatic authority to carry loaded weapons anywhere, even in purely civilian areas. It was a precaution that Jasmine had never fully understood, until now. Whatever trouble Blake had run into hadn’t been prevented by whatever weapons he’d been carrying, but his team-mates might still be able to find him.

  “This is Stalker,” a voice said, in her head. “Track his movements and see if you can locate him. Inform me if you find anything.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jasmine said. The rest of the platoon, a quick check revealed, were still on their way. Jasmine doubted that they’d run into anything that three Marines couldn’t handle, but it was well to be careful. “Blake was in that bar, trying to drink them out of horse-piss. We’ll check there first.”

  She walked in as if she owned the place, one hand on her pistol. A handful of young bucks that had seen her civilian outfit and sweat-stained blouse took one look at the weapon and headed out in the other direction. Jasmine glanced around the bar, looking for possible threats, and then walked right over to the bartender. A number of customers decided that they had urgent business elsewhere and left at great speed. The room had probably never been so quiet since the bar had been opened.

  “I’m looking for a friend of mine,” Jasmine said, clearly. The bartender looked as if he would have liked to start running, but didn’t quite dare. “A massive black man, very tall, very well built…”

  “He went out with a girl,” the bartender said, clearly relieved that she had asked a question he could answer. Jasmine scowled inwardly. What was it with Blake and girls of easy virtue? “She’s one of the whores who have rooms in a nearby apartment block, where they take their men for everything they can get.”

  Somehow, Jasmine doubted that it was that simple. “Where does this girl … take her men?”

  The bartender rattled off an address. Jasmine exchanged glances with the other two and they departed. She didn’t think that he was lying, but if they found nothing, a team of Marines could arrest the bartender and put him through a formal interrogation. She had considered holding him prisoner, yet there was really no point. He couldn’t take the bar with him if he ran from the city.

  “A girl couldn’t block his communicator,” Joe said, as soon as they were outside and walking towards the apartment building. Even from a distance, it didn’t look welcoming, as if it was permanently on the verge of collapsing and a single strong gust of wind would blow it down, smashing lesser buildings in its wake. “It’s more serious than that.”

  Jasmine updated Captain Stalker and kept walking. If Blake was still alive, if Blake was there, they’d find him. If not, they’d find clues to his location. The search would go on as long as necessary. Marines didn’t abandon their comrades, ever.

  -o0o-

  “Inspectors,” Carl warned, as they headed out of the city. The Civil Guard normally established a roadblock on each of the four roads, if only to ensure that the farmers didn’t take anything in or out of the city they hadn’t bought legally, but this group seemed thin on the ground. The shake-up at the supply base must have been worse than the Crackers had realised. Perhaps it had been a wasted opportunity for an attack. “Remember, stay calm and we’ll get through this alright.”

  The Civil Guard didn’t bother waving down every vehicle that tried to get in or out of the city, but they normally checked out farmers and their vehicles. Felicity wasn’t entirely surprised when the van was pulled over and forced to stop by the edge of the road. Two Civil Guardsmen, their faces untroubled by any alert from within the city, sauntered over, allowing the farmers to get a good look at the guns they carried. They wouldn’t want to encourage any trouble if it could be avoided, but relations between the farmers and the Civil Guard had never been very good. It wasn’t unknown for unlucky inspectors to wind up stabbed to death.

  “Get out of the van and kneel down, hands on your heads,” one of them ordered. Felicity shrugged and complied, watching grimly as Carl explained to Julia what she had to do. The little girl was treating it as a game, but it was one that could turn deadly serious at any moment. “This won’t take a moment.”

  They were surprisingly professional as they ran their hands over Felicity’s body, something that bothered her. She didn’t like being groped, any more than any other girl enjoyed it, but a grope would have reassured her that she wasn’t dealing with professionals who might obey any orders to inspect the van’s contents, despite the stink. Julia protested loudly as one of the Guardsmen searched her gently, until Janice warned her to be quiet and wait until it was all over. It was humiliating, but it was also as gentle as it could be, a far cry from some of the horror stories Felicity had heard. There had been one teenage girl who, after having been rude to a Guardsman, had been strip-searched—even including her cavities—in public, or so the story went. It could just have been propaganda.

  “You’re all clean,” the lead Guardsman assured her. Felicity shrugged inwardly. Kneeling on the ground, she had the uncomfortable feeling that someone intended to shoot her in the head. “We’ll just check the van and then you can be on your way.”

  He pulled open the van’s door and recoiled. “Fuck me,” he said, loudly enough for Julia to hear and giggle nervously. “What the hell do you have in here?”

  “Rotting fruit,” Carl explained. If he was nervous, he didn’t show it. “The Council insists that we take it back for disposal.”

  “No wonder they all stink,” the second Guardsman said, with a disdainful glance at Felicity. “The stench has gotten into their very skin.”

  Felicity felt her cheeks flush, but said nothing. “I think that that’s just a way of keeping men like you off them,” the lead Guardsman said wryly. He slammed the door shut and turned back to Felicity. “I think you can go…”

  “But we have to inspect everything for the missing Marine,” the second Guardsman protested. Felicity braced herself. If it all went to hell …

  “There’s no point,” the lead Guardsman said. “If you want to go rooting through rotten fruit, be my guest.” He chuckled. “I didn’t think so.”

  He motioned for Felicity to stand up and relax. “You’re free to go,” he said. “Have a safe trip back home.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Felicity said, as they climbed back into the car. She spoke the age-old blessing w
ith genuine feeling. “May God bless you and your children and protect them from fear and harm.”

  She didn’t breathe easily again until they were well away from the Guardsmen. “They know about the Marine,” Carl said. “They could be tracking us now.”

  “And if they were, we’d be dead by now,” Felicity said. “It’s time to relax. We have a long drive ahead of us to the switch-over point.”

  -o0o-

  Jasmine braced herself as they slipped into the apartment block and headed up the stairs. Her nose twitched as the stink struck her, a mixture of piss and shit and helplessness that reminded her of the worst she’d seen on Earth. Mandy had told her that her mother was making friends with people who wanted to learn about the latest fashions from Earth, yet they didn’t want to hear the worst of the homeworld. If they had spent a few seconds in the Undercity, they would have been a lot less eager to have Avalon go the same way.

  “In there,” Joe subvocalised. Jasmine drew her weapon and moved into a support position as he inspected the door, and then picked the lock with a Marine multitool. The three Marines burst into the apartment, only to find it deserted. The scent of raw heady sex floated in the air, mocking her. “At least we know he was here.”

  Jasmine followed his gaze and saw the small pile of clothes on the floor. They matched the ones that Blake had been wearing before he’d left them at the bar. A quick check revealed that his personal weapon had been abandoned along with the clothes. Whatever had been going on, there was no sign of a struggle and only one thing would have made abandon his weapon willingly. She noticed red stains on the bed and leaned over, relaxing slightly when she realised that it wasn’t blood. It looked more like lipstick.

  She pushed the matter out of her mind and activated her communicator. “Captain, we have located the apartment,” she said, once the connection was established. “Blake was unquestionably here, but there are no clues that might lead us to his current location, at least none that we can see. We’re going to need a WARCAT team out here.”

  “We don’t have one,” Captain Stalker reminded her. A War Crimes Assessment Tribunal was rare outside sector capitals or major fleet deployments, yet at a pinch they could be pressed into forensic service and made to work as detectives. She rather doubted that Camelot had a local police department worthy of the name, not if they were using the Civil Guard to patrol the streets. “I’ve found two Marines who served as bodyguards to a WARCAT team on Han; they may be able to assist.”

  Jasmine winced. It was a long shot, at best. “Yes, sir,” she said. She shared a glance with her team-mates, coming to an understanding without speaking a single word. “We request permission to carry on with our own search.”

  There was a long pause. She knew what had to be going through the Captain’s head. Blake was already lost, perhaps beyond recovery … and risking three other Marines would be reckless, at best. Yet he, like all Marine officers, had come up through the ranks and he would understand her feelings. Blake was her brother and it was her duty to try to recover him—or his body—if it was possible. He would do the same for her.

  “Permission granted,” Captain Stalker said finally. “I’m diverting the remainder of your platoon to the spaceport, where they will pick up their armour before they meet up with you. Once you’re armoured up, you have my permission to investigate. And good luck.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Jasmine said. “We won’t let you down.”

  CHAPTER 39

  When held captive, according to the Articles of War, a captured soldier can only be asked for name, rank and serial number. It is well known, however, that most captors will ask more and back up their questions with proper interrogation measures, like torture. It is for such situations that Marines are trained to resist interrogation and, if it proves impossible to refuse information, to commit suicide at will.

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

  “So we found nothing?”

  “No, sir,” Gwen said, solidly. “2nd Platoon managed to follow a number of leads, but they all proved to be dead ends. The private eye we found”—Avalon might not have had a police department worthy of the name, but it did have a handful of private detectives—“suggested that most of the leads were intended to mislead us. The DNA traces found in the apartment could not be traced back to anyone in the database, apart from Blake himself, of course.”

  Edward winced inwardly. Blake Coleman, the report had made quite clear, had been seduced and then drugged. The Marines had treatments that were meant to counteract most sedatives and interrogation drugs, but there were limits, if only to allow medics to sedate an injured Marine. Blake had apparently not realised what was happening to him until it had been far too late, for the apartment hadn’t been shielded and an emergency call would have been picked up, if one had been made. He’d never live it down after he was recovered—if he was recovered. Edward hated admitting defeat, but at the moment, Blake Coleman was a needle inside a very large haystack.

  “It had to be the Crackers,” he said. The Council’s tactics had shown a degree of desperation that was lacking from the abduction. It had clearly been carefully planned and prepared. Their plan, he was starting to suspect, might have survived even if Blake had proven a tougher customer than they’d expected. Perhaps they’d watched the Marines, picked the one most likely to fall for the charms of a lady of easy virtue, and laid their trap. “He could be well outside the city by now.”

  “Unless that’s what we’re meant to think,” Gwen pointed out. “They could have hidden him somewhere within the city.”

  “Yes,” Edward agreed, slowly. There was no way to know for sure. Searching the entire city would be a difficult task, even if the Civil Guard helped out and the Governor raised no objections. He wondered if it could be used as an excuse to get inside the Council’s different houses and peek around, but the Governor would never agree to that. Edward could sympathise with the man’s position, but only up to a point. “I take it that all of the Company has been summoned back to their deployment positions?”

  “Yes, sir,” Gwen said, as if it had ever been in doubt. “1st Platoon is at the spaceport, 2nd Platoon is working on the search and the remainder are on Castle Rock, waiting for orders.”

  “Good,” Edward said. “We’re going back to the Rock ourselves. Inform the officers that I am calling a full Council of War and invite the Civil Guard to send a pair of representatives. We cannot allow this challenge to pass unanswered.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gwen said. She hesitated. “It is my duty to warn you that any hasty action we take may mean Coleman’s death.”

  Edward nodded bitterly. The Empire—facing an endless series of insurrections on hundreds of different worlds—had evolved a code for dealing with hostage-takers. The hostage would be counted as dead, even if they’d kept him alive, and his abductors would face the death penalty when they were tracked down, after failing to use their captive to gain any advantage. The Company would pay no ransom, nor would they make any political concession, whatever else happened. The abductors could not be allowed to think that the tactic would work, even once.

  And yet, Blake Coleman was one of his Company, one of the men under his command. He could not be abandoned, even on purely cold and pragmatic grounds, not when there were so few Marines on Avalon. They’d keep hunting for him until he was recovered, or until they located a body, but they couldn’t allow his position to prevent them from taking any action. It was a precedent, Edward knew, that could not be set. The war on Avalon would only get worse if he allowed Blake’s fate to affect his actions. He kept telling himself that … and yet, somehow it didn’t make it any easier. A clean death would have been easier to handle.

  “I know,” he said. Gwen was just carrying out her duty. “We’ll do whatever we can to get him back.”

  -o0o-

  “Big bastard, isn’t he?”

  Gaby looked up at Doctor White, a pale-skinned man with reddi
sh eyes. Unlike most of the other Crackers, Doctor White had been born in Camelot and graduated from the technical school, before discovering that Crackers were human too. He’d abandoned his position—and his massive debt, of course—to help one of the Crackers escape government custody and join them in their fight. He couldn’t be allowed to fight directly—a trained doctor was too valuable to risk—but his services had proven invaluable over the years.

  “Very big,” she agreed. Blake Coleman lay on the table, his hands and feet firmly chained down and a metal glove covering one of his hands. It looked like one of the dungeons the Wilhelm Family was reported to keep under their mansion, where they tortured any of their servants who displeased them, a comparison that galled her. If it had been possible to treat the Marine with any dignity, she would have done so. “Is that a natural growth?”

  “I think so,” Doctor White said. “He’s not a saner version of Giant Non, not as far as I can tell. Giant was a genetic freak from the Undercity, but this guy is merely at the peak of physical development, probably among the top point-one percent of humanity. There may be some genetic improvements in there, yet I’m inclined to think that he’s a pureblood human who has been training heavily since he was a teenager.”

  Gaby nodded. Giant Non had been an indent from Earth, a teenage boy with a massive oversized body—he had barely fitted into an apartment room—and the mind of a child. Despite his appearance, he had been gentle and kind to everyone and, unlike almost all of the other indents, had been well-liked by the farming population. No one knew how he’d ended up so large and yet so simple, although Doctor White had believed that he was the result of a genetic engineering program that had failed spectacularly. Giant had died four years ago and had been buried in a family plot, the highest honour that the farmers could bestow. He’d deserved it.