Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  “Keep your eyes on the road,” she warned, as the driver’s eyes began to slip. There was only so much training could prepare a new recruit for, and a tension-filled drive through hostile country, every nerve on alert, wasn’t one of them. “You never know what might happen if you take your eyes off the vehicle in front.”

  -o0o-

  Under other circumstances, Gavin Patel’s little hiding place was used to hunt for birds, mainly the ducks and other waterfowl that used the lake beside the road as a resting place. The ADC had introduced them to the local ecosystem and they’d taken to it like a duck to water—quite literally, in their case. Now, he lay in the hide and peered down towards the road, watching and waiting for the first military vehicles to come into view.

  The road itself was a remarkable achievement on Avalon. It had been ordered by the ADC and constructed over the years by indents and, later, by conscripted farmers and indebted slaves. It had survived the years surprisingly well, even though the farmers rarely bothered to do any maintenance work and the only people who did were indentured work gangs marched out of Camelot for a few days and then sent back to their normal working habits. It was the work gangs that had turned the young Gavin into a Cracker, after one of the indents had gotten free and cornered little Sabena Patel in a field. His sister’s death had radicalised him as nothing else could have, pushing him to join the Crackers and launching a series of attacks on indent work gangs. They were nothing more than brutes in human form.

  A flash of light alerted him as the first military vehicle appeared in the distance. It was a small AFV, bristling with machine guns and observation ports, suggesting that it could fire in multiple directions at the same time. The part of Gavin’s mind that had once hoped to be an engineer was impressed with the simplicity of the design, even as the rest of him hated its existence and mere presence in his territory. The next set of vehicles came into view and he identified them as transports, each one capable of carrying up to twenty soldiers. He counted them rapidly and concluded that over three hundred soldiers—counting the drivers of the AFVs—were heading towards Sangria. Three hundred soldiers would be more than enough to dominate the area and impede Cracker operations.

  “Damn you,” he muttered, as he keyed his camera and started to take photographs. All of the Cracker leaders he had met had been keen on gathering intelligence, but his cell leader was positively obsessed with collecting everything, even information that seemed to have no bearing on the war. The camera alone meant certain detention if he were caught with it, particularly once they saw the pictures he’d taken, but she had insisted. “We’ll fix you all, one day.”

  Once he’d finished taking pictures, he slid away from the hide, pausing long enough to set the anti-personal mine he’d emplaced to help conceal his secrets. If someone stumbled across his nest, they’d be in for a nasty surprise before they died. Taking a last look towards the advancing convoy, he turned and headed down towards the town. It was time to blend in with the townspeople again.

  Behind him, he heard the first shots ringing out.

  -o0o-

  Michael, despite himself, had been losing his concentration when the first bullets slammed into the LAV. The sound of them pinging off the armour jerked him back to full wakefulness, clutching the steering wheel as if his life depended on it. The pinging sound didn’t fade as someone hosed the convoy with bullets, but there was no danger, not yet. Shamefaced, he concentrated on steering, waiting for orders from the CO.

  “Just a machine gun, perhaps two,” the Marine said. She seemed unbothered by the shots, but then, she’d been in far worse positions. “I think it’s just their way of welcoming us to Sangria.”

  “I feel so loved,” Michael growled. His heartbeat was pounding madly in his ears. “I think they don’t love us very much.”

  “No,” the Marine agreed. Michael muttered a curse under his breath as he saw a bullet strike the ground ahead of the LAV, sending up a spurt of dust from the road. “Do you blame them?”

  “All units, this is the CO,” a voice broke in. “Hold your course; I say again, hold your course. There’s no reason to panic.”

  “Unless, of course, the bullets are meant to distract us from the minefield up ahead,” the Marine said. “Or perhaps we’re meant to go charging into the underground after them and running right into a field of fire. We’ve used both tricks in the past ourselves.”

  The sound of shooting suddenly creased. “They’ve stopped,” Michael said. “Do you think they ran out of bullets?”

  “They could have done,” the Marine said. She nodded towards the steeling wheel. “Keep focused on driving down into the town and leave the overall situation to the CO. It’s what he’s paid for. You’re paid to drive and command a platoon, nothing else.”

  Michael gripped the steering wheel so tightly his hands went white. “I’ve got a lot to learn, haven’t I?”

  “Yep,” the Marine said, with a grin. “On the other hand, you are smart enough to realise that you have a lot to learn. You’d be surprised how many soldiers never realise that, before it’s too late.”

  An hour later, they drove into Sangria.

  -o0o-

  “They weren’t deterred,” Julian said. “They kept coming and took up a position in the town.”

  Gaby shrugged. The images Gavin had taken had been carefully studied, although he had overestimated the enemy strength. They had ‘only’ two hundred and fifty soldiers. The odds hadn’t improved that much, although the missing fifty soldiers would be sorely missed by the enemy CO.

  “Did you think they would be deterred?” Rufus asked, dryly. “We just sprayed a few bullets at them. They get more of a threat from their own training exercises.”

  Gaby held up a hand before they could start arguing. “We wanted them to know that they wouldn’t be unopposed,” she said. She hadn’t been keen on the idea, but she’d agreed to it to prevent the young hotheads from going and doing something stupid. They had wanted to greet the military convoy with a hail of fire, just incidentally exposing themselves to the enemy. The Marines and their new recruits would have torn then apart. “Now they know that, it’s time to start hacking away at them and keeping them on their toes.”

  “Of course,” Rufus agreed. His hand traced out the new positions on the map. If the source in Camelot could be trusted, the Marines would be running out new bases daily, daring the Crackers to come out and fight. “When do we start?”

  Gaby scowled. “Tomorrow,” she said. “That should be long enough to get all of our people in place.”

  CHAPTER 43

  To understand just how poorly the educational system of the core worlds have failed their subjects, it is necessary to realise that of the children who go through the system, over half of them are unable to read, write or handle basic math. They are ill-prepared for a career as anything other than brute labour, let alone handle complex issues like voting and galactic politics. The erosion of the Empire’s skilled workforce has contributed to the decline in the Empire’s industrial infrastructure.

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

  “So you’re finally in command of a full-scale military deployment,” Leo said, as he was waved into the War Room. He wasn’t entirely sure why Captain Stalker had asked him to meet him there, rather than in his office or somewhere in Camelot, but he had to admit there was a certain kind of fascination about it. The historian in him looked at the big table, with the detailed satellite map of Avalon’s largest continent lying on top, and saw history in the making. “How does it feel?”

  “Stressful,” Captain Stalker admitted, studying one of the deployments on the map. “The urge to move forces around on the map is overwhelming.”

  Leo smiled. He’d studied areas of history where the leader, often a man isolated from reality by a sycophantic court, had believed that the map truly was the terrain. It might have worked where magic was concerned, but military deployments didn’t happen by magic, even
though he knew that members of the Grand Senate believed otherwise. At least Captain Stalker seemed free of that particular delusion, even if he was chafing at the bit to get out and see some action.

  “I never realised just how badly it affected the Colonel, or the Lieutenants who were rated as Not Suitable for Independent Command,” Captain Stalker admitted, looking up. “They found themselves in places where they had to give orders, and then sit back and wait for their subordinates to bring them victory or defeat. I would probably never have seen anything like this level of authority if I’d remained on Earth or the Core Worlds and all of a sudden I want to abandon it and go chasing Crackers personally.”

  Leo nodded. The urge to go after danger, rather than getting the hell out of its way, was something that he would never understand, but it was part of Captain Stalker’s character. Marines were Riflemen first and foremost, something that had made no sense to him until he had seen them in action. They were trained to stand between the civilised universe and the barbarism that threatened the survival of the Empire. It was hard to be optimistic, particularly for him, for he was aware of just how badly the Empire was falling apart, but as long as men like Captain Stalker existed, the Empire would not die.

  “Not that I can, of course,” Captain Stalker added. “The sum of my success is that I am now trapped on Castle Rock while my subordinates go out and take it on the chin for me.”

  “If this works, the Empire may assign more Marines to the planet,” Leo suggested. “You might find yourself outranked and back in the front lines.”

  “I doubt it, not with the Empire in such a state,” Captain Stalker said. “It’s far more likely that we’ll end up being recalled or sent somewhere else that needs a fireman deployment.”

  He shook his head and led the way out of the War Room, into his office. “There’s been little enemy contact over the night,” he said. “Apart from their greeting cards, they haven’t tried to impede our operation, which is worrying. It suggests that someone on the other side is playing it carefully and with forethought, rather than rushing into battle and trying to smash us by force of arms. I imagine that when we begin regular patrols we’ll run right into trouble.”

  “Perhaps they’ve decided to be reasonable,” Leo said. “If you keep producing new soldiers, won’t they find themselves outnumbered?”

  “All the more reason for them to act now,” Captain Stalker said, taking his seat and tapping the smaller map. “They cannot let us keep producing new soldiers and patrolling the countryside, or their operations will be impeded—we might even stumble over where they’re hiding Coleman.”

  Leo frowned. “Are you sure that he’s alive?”

  “In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, yes,” Captain Stalker said. He glanced out of the window towards the blue sea. Out there, Leo knew, fishermen were sailing the waters, catching fish and trying to sell them to Camelot, where they would be sold on to the population. “I received an odd request the other day.”

  Leo lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “Oh, indeed,” Captain Stalker agreed, his voice carefully even. “Rifleman Yamane—who escorted your family on your first day on the planet—has informed me that your eldest daughter wishes to use our sponsorship system. Do you have any feelings on the matter?”

  Leo blinked. “Your sponsorship system, Captain?”

  “We sometimes sponsor promising young men and women in exchange for first call on their services after they graduate,” Captain Stalker explained. “It’s not something we use very often and is generally only used for Marine Auxiliaries, men and women who have flunked out of the Slaughterhouse and still wish to work with the Marine Corps. There is no legal reason why we should not offer it to Mandy, although I confess I do have my doubts.”

  “She never mentioned it to me,” Leo admitted. The thought was galling, even though he knew that Mandy had told him almost nothing of her life since she had hit puberty. Part of him was relieved and didn’t want to know; the remainder knew how close Mandy had come to death or worse and wanted to lock her up for the rest of her life. “What does she want to study?”

  “Engineering and spaceship design, apparently,” Captain Stalker said. “The technical school here does offer a few such courses, although they won’t be first-rank Imperial Standard programs.”

  “Very few are these days,” Leo said, feeling his head reel. “If you pay for her schooling, she won’t have any debt afterwards, will she?”

  “I believe that that was her motive in making the request,” Captain Stalker said, seriously. “She would be in hock to the Marine Corps for a few years, though; we might call on her for service here or elsewhere. She might well go into danger.”

  “I thought that she wouldn’t be a Marine,” Leo protested. The thought of his daughter in danger … but then, she’d placed herself in worse danger than anything the Marines had ever done to her. “Would you have to take her?”

  “If we needed her, we’d have to take her,” Captain Stalker explained. “You might be surprised at how many different specialities we need from time to time. The premier brain surgeon in the Empire is a Marine Auxiliary who works for us when we need him. I must admit that we could use a trained engineer in the future.”

  “Ah,” Leo said. “So you are going to agree to this?”

  “I do not know,” Captain Stalker admitted. He looked up and met Leo’s eyes. “If she qualifies and does well, we could use her, but her history is not one to inspire confidence.”

  Leo wanted to defend Mandy, but the Captain was right. Mandy had done as little as she could get away with on Earth, while on Avalon she’d practically been allowed to wander free, at least until she’d received a sharp wake-up call. Mandy was smart and intelligent—the tests proved that, even if he’d doubted it—but she was untrained and naive. He’d failed her as a father, even though he might have saved her from being caught up in the chaos that would engulf Earth, something in the very near future.

  “I understand,” Leo said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I am disposed to agree to this, if she still wants to go through with it,” Captain Stalker said. “What must be impressed upon her—what you must impress upon her—is that she won’t be able to wiggle out of it. Once she signs on the dotted line, she’s committed.”

  “I understand that too,” Leo said. “I’ll make sure that she understands.”

  He looked down at the floor, trying to change the subject. “Tell me something,” he said. “You’re paying everyone in cash, right?” Captain Stalker nodded. “Which is good, because it’s giving the local economy a boost that it wouldn’t have if you paid them electronically, but what happens when you run out of cash? I don’t think you brought an entire transport starship of cash with you.”

  “You might be surprised,” Captain Stalker said. “During the campaign on Brace, cash was one of the main weapons of war, bribing people into staying out of the firing line until the rebels were crushed. It was more effective than shooting them, according to the General in command.”

  He shook his head. “Let me worry about that,” he added. “It’s not going to be an immediate problem.”

  Leo frowned. In his experience, financial problems rapidly became immediate problems, even if the people in charge chose to pretend otherwise. Still, it wasn’t something he wanted to push any further, not now.

  “That does leave the matter of the Council,” he said, changing the subject again. It was impossible to avoid realising that the Council had to be removed. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “So far, we’re still working on the proof we need to take to the Governor,” Captain Stalker said. “Once we have that proof, we can take action against them and arrest them before they do something drastic. If we’d caught the assassin … but we didn’t. We can’t pin Smuts and his death on anyone, not yet.”

  Leo frowned. “I thought that the base had been sealed,” he said. “How did the assassin get out?”


  “Oh, that would have been easy,” Captain Stalker said. “The bastard would have worn a chameleon suit. The Civil Guard isn’t generally equipped to watch out for them, so the assassin could have just walked out past them.”

  Leo smiled. “I was wondering,” he said. “You have enough evidence to convict them on a charge of treason, right?”

  “Not enough to convince the Governor,” Captain Stalker explained. “Treason is one of those charges that have to be proven and proven again before anyone will take it seriously.”

  Leo nodded. Over a hundred years ago, a junior prince had murdered his brother and become the Heir to the Throne, or so legend had it. No one knew for sure, because the whole affair was covered up, allowing the new Heir to succeed to the Throne and become Emperor. His faction at Court—the New Men, who had believed that the entrenched power interests in the Empire were dragging it down—had capitalised on his success and started a reign of terror that had paralysed the Empire. The Tyrant Emperor had crushed all opposition and had been on the verge of creating a new and bloody age when a lone assassin had breached the defences of the New Imperial Palace—a free-floating structure orbiting Sol—and blown it to smithereens with an antimatter bomb. The Tyrant Emperor was dead and the entire galaxy breathed a sigh of relief.

  In the wake of his rule, the Grand Senate had moved rapidly to secure the levers of power and prevent such an Emperor from ever ruling again. As the charge of treason had been used to break the Emperor’s enemies, they ruled that treason had to be handled by the Grand Senate itself and all such cases had to have absolutely ironclad proof before they were touched. They might have legislated with high ideals, but as the Empire started to crumble—at least partly because of the aftermath of the Tyrant Emperor’s reign—it had made it harder to legally deal with genuine traitors and secessionists.

  “Assuming that you can convict them,” Leo asked, “what happens to their property?”

  Captain Stalker frowned. “The property of a convicted traitor is forfeit to the crown,” he said. “Avalon’s government would take possession of it.”