Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  He made an effort to sit back on his bed. “Gaby … I know you care about our people, and I know you want to end this peacefully if possible, but we’re well past the stage when we could call the operation off,” he said. “We have no choice.”

  “I know,” Gaby snarled. “I understand that. I also understand that our timing has been incredibly poor!”

  She shook her head, pacing over to the window and staring out at the apartment blocks that some unimaginative engineer had designed and some equally unimaginative city-planner had ordered built. She had never seen Earth, but if half the stories were true, the designers had clearly based their plans on Earth’s massive mega-cities. The community had no shops, no entertainment and no life. No one would want to live in such buildings if they had a choice. They were infested with the debris of the Council; the permanently unemployed, the drug addicts and the thousands of single-parent families. It wasn’t the worst that Camelot had to offer, but it was pretty damned close.

  And all of it could be removed, with a little effort. If the Council had even bothered to care, they could have done much to improve the lot of the people trapped in walls that might as well have been made of cardboard. The homeless children could have been farmed out to the farming communities, where children were valued and loved and taught how to behave. The older men and women could have been taught new skills; their debts could have been forgiven, giving them the chance to build a new life for themselves. But the Council didn’t care. They would sooner see the entire planet decay into rubble than give up one iota of their power.

  “Pass the final word,” she ordered, feeling cold rage overwhelming her. Rage at the Council and at herself, one for creating the nightmare that she lived in, the other for pressing ahead with the war. “Tell all the teams that we move, soon.”

  “Of course,” Julian said. He made a manful attempt to hide his delight and relief, but Gaby saw it anyway. “I’ll see to it at once.”

  -o0o-

  “Would you mind explaining, just for the benefit of an old and tied man, just what you thought you were doing?”

  Brent Roeder had never been so scared in his life, yet somehow he managed to cover it up with bluster. No one—not the Marines, not the Civil Guard, not even the media—had informed him that the raids were going ahead until they were already over. Armed Civil Guardsmen had raided the houses belonging to fifteen Councillors, taking them and their guests into custody … all without a warrant from his office. Over five hundred people, including a cross-section of the wealthy and powerful, had been taken into custody. They’d all been shipped out to a new detention camp near the spaceport …

  And no one, absolutely no one, had told him what was going on.

  “Damn it, George,” he thundered, ignoring Captain Stalker’s blank face. It was inscrutable, yet he thought that he detected a hint of amusement. “Purging the Civil Guard was bad enough, but this … are you trying to start a civil war?”

  “We already have a civil war,” Grosskopf observed, calmly. “We’re actually trying to prevent it from getting worse…”

  “Well, you failed,” Brent snapped. “I know we’ve had our differences, but really … why didn’t you bring this to me?” The suspicion that had flowered in his mind earlier returned with a vengeance. “Or are you planning to unseat me and take the post of Governor for yourself?”

  Grosskopf winced at the suggestion. “No, sir,” he said, tightly. “I believed—we believed—that it would be better to act fast, leaving you with the option of disowning us if everything went completely to shit. I might add that I have broad authority to operate under certain circumstances.”

  Brent switched his glare to Captain Stalker, who appeared unruffled. “And what, exactly, do you have to do with this?”

  “Several days ago, we discovered evidence that a prominent member of the Council was visiting a brothel, one that used small children as … sexual toys,” Captain Stalker said. There was an undeniable twitch in his jaw, leaving Brent wondering just what had happened. If that was the complete story, he would eat his hat. “We picked him up—as we are authorised to do under Imperial Law—and sweated him. He confessed to involvement in the Council’s plan to unseat you and replace Imperial Government with their rule. Using this new evidence, we moved rapidly to capture the traitors before they could escape or put their plans into operation.”

  “You should have cleared it with me,” Brent said, coldly. It was hard to keep a grip on his temper with the ground sliding away under him, but somehow he managed to keep his voice reasonably even. “Was that too much to ask?”

  Captain Stalker met his gaze evenly, but when he spoke, his voice was very gentle. “We know that they had spies within Government House,” he said. “If we had discussed the issue with you, it might have warned them and forced them to strike first, launching their coup while we were unprepared. We had to move fast to pre-empt them.”

  “My aides are completely trustworthy and above suspicion,” Brent said, angrily. “Or do you have reason to believe otherwise?”

  “A spy who was not above suspicion would not be much good to his real master,” Captain Stalker pointed out. “We’ll run all of the prisoners through interrogation and find out who here is reporting to them, at which point we can remove them from their post and deal with them as seems appropriate.”

  “But you don’t understand,” Brent protested. “The people you arrested practically run the planet! They certainly run the industries, the orbital station and God alone knows what else. We can’t do without them!”

  “Funny, that,” Grosskopf said. “I spoke to their foremen at the factories … and, well let’s just say that they’re not too fond of their masters. They agreed to keep working for us, at least until we can get the final disposition of the factories sorted out. Let’s face it, sir. None of the people we arrested actually ran anything. They merely owned it. The real work was done by others.”

  Brent snorted. “So what do you suggest we do, then?”

  “Deal with the traitors publicly,” Captain Stalker said. “We have the evidence, so we hold a trial. You can do that in your role as the Emperor’s Viceroy out here. We can confiscate everything they own now and put them somewhere out of the way, at least until we can report their arrest and trial to the sector capital. Once their property is confiscated, you cancel all of the debts.”

  Brent blinked. “All of them?”

  “All of them,” Captain Stalker agreed. His face darkened. “Let’s face it. None of the original money is ever going to be repaid, is it? All the debts are really good for is keeping people down and that just throws people into the arms of the Crackers. If we cancel the debt, all of the debt, this instantly becomes the most popular government Avalon has ever had.”

  “That may not be legal,” Brent pointed out. “Can we … ?”

  “Of course we can,” Captain Stalker insisted. “Think about it; the property of a convicted traitor is forfeited to the Empire, which effectively means you out here. And you can dispose of your property any way you like.”

  Brent considered it. “I suppose it’s workable,” he said. “I’ll have to give it some thought…”

  “There isn’t time,” Captain Stalker said, flatly. He waved a hand in the direction of the Mystic Mountains, barely visible in the distance. “Out there, the war is still raging on. The Crackers are pushing us as hard as they can. If we cut the ground from under their feet, perhaps we can end the war before the entire planet goes up in flames.”

  He leaned closer. “Governor, the Crackers see you as being part of a corrupt administration that holds the people in bondage,” he added. “The longer you sit on this, the harder it will be to separate yourself from the remains of the Council. You have to act now, because the Crackers are just as capable of making that argument as I am. How long will it be before they start pointing out that you could free the people … and have not done so?”

  -o0o-

  Rifleman Polly Stewart was sile
ntly grateful for her armour as the sun rose ever higher into the sky. The heat was already overpowering, even for someone who had spent weeks in a desert combat environment on the Slaughterhouse; the noise was even more so. The protesters outside consisted of people who had seen their relatives arrested in the purge and wanted them freed, whatever the cost. Some of them, Polly knew, were probably innocent. They still had to be held until the innocent could be separated from the guilty.

  She glanced from side to side—the movement invisible behind her helmet—as the crowd seemed to grow larger. Counter-protesters had been marching on the other side of the barricades the Civil Guard had thrown up, threatening to attack the original protesters with naked force. They carried primitive weapons—everything from broken bottles to clubs—but she didn’t care for the thought of what would happen if they tore into the protesters. The Imperial Charter guaranteed the right to protest peacefully, but both sides were already pushing the limits of ‘peaceful.’ A handful of bricks and stones had already been exchanged and worse was probably coming.

  “The Old Man shouldn’t have held the meeting here,” Rifleman Chung muttered, through the dedicated channel. The four Marines who were serving as the Captain’s close-protection detail had been horrified to discover that Government House was under siege. The two AFVs that the Civil Guard had parked in the street hadn’t deterred them at all. “They should have held it at the spaceport.”

  Polly could only agree. The spaceport was secure; Camelot, without any real attempt to secure the borders, was not. The Governor should have moved operations into a bunker, just to make it harder for any prospective attacker. The Civil Guardsmen defending Government House might have been the best of the best, but she wasn’t impressed. None of them would have lasted long on the Slaughterhouse.

  “The Old Man’s call,” Corporal Feingold reminded them. He was the current fire team leader, commanding the other three … his ears still ringing with dire warnings from Sergeant Patterson about what would happen if Captain Stalker got so much as a scratch. “The Governor wishes to try to show everyone that everything is normal, so as long as the Captain is prepared to tolerate it … we tolerate it as well.”

  He looked over towards a pair of particularly odd protesters, women wearing tight shirts and nothing below the waist. Polly rolled her eyes inwardly. She’d grown up in a socially liberal society and even that would have been remarkable if done in public. They had to come from the upper class. No one who was not utterly convinced of their own superiority would have taken the risk.

  “Man, I got to get me one of them,” Chung said, dryly. Polly rolled her eyes. Chung wasn’t quite up to Blake Coleman’s standards as a ladies’ man, but he spent most of his off-duty time chasing orgasmic relief. “Just look at them.”

  “Keep your eyes on the crowd,” Feingold reminded him. The whole atmosphere was growing nastier. Polly didn’t envy the Civil Guardsmen, who weren’t wearing armour, at all. A handful of rocks were thrown from one side to the other, which retaliated in kind. “There’ll be time enough to chase girls after the fighting is over.”

  Polly scowled at the reminder. Most of the Marines were out in the countryside, backing up the Civil Guard and the Army of Avalon. Her friends—her family, in every way that mattered—were out there, fighting to hold the line against a series of increasingly complex and dangerous attacks. She, in the meantime, was stuck in a city that was run by corrupt lunatics. Even though the Council had been arrested, she had no confidence that anyone would make it better. Perhaps the Marines should just take over directly, she thought. They could hardly do a worse job.

  “Contact,” Chung said, suddenly. A massive truck had just turned the corner and was coming straight at the protestors, who scattered to get out of its way. No one—of course—had bothered to close the road. If they’d been in a city on any one of the Core Worlds, there would have been a hundred accidents by now. “It’s coming right at us.”

  Polly swore as she brought her MAG up to firing position. The driver was gunning the engine, racing right towards the gates. He had to be insane, or intended to ram right into them. Feingold was barking orders, but there was no longer any time to hesitate. They squeezed their triggers as one, pouring fire into the truck … too late. The truck exploded and the entire world vanished in a blinding flash of white light.

  -o0o-

  The entire building shook violently. Edward heard crashing noises as items fell off walls and desks, while the windows blew in and a fine mist of plaster fell from the ceiling. Government House had been very well-built, unlike most of the other buildings in the city, but that hadn’t been a tiny explosion. Part of his mind whispered that it had been a massive bomb, far too close for comfort. His ears were still ringing, but he was sure that he could hear more explosions sounding out in the distance.

  The Governor was pulling himself up from the floor, staring at the wreckage of his office. “What … what’s happening?”

  Edward already knew the answer. “The Crackers,” he said. There weren’t any other suspects. No one else, now the Council had been neutralised, could have launched such an attack. “I think we left our reforms too late.”

  The Battle for Camelot had begun.

  CHAPTER 51

  The two most deadly weapons in the entire history of man are surprise and intelligence. A military force that neglects either or both of them is doomed to eventual defeat when it faces an opponent who studies both of them intensely, even if the unprepared are—on paper—the stronger force.

  - Major-General Thomas Kratman (Ret), A Marine’s Guide to Insurgency.

  Armstrong Base was the largest Civil Guard base on Avalon, situated on the outskirts of Camelot itself. It played host to Alpha and Beta Companies, the primer Civil Guard units, as well as a handful of supporting units and various military vehicles. It was also currently playing host to the 1st Avalon Infantry—as the new unit had been designated—which had been pulled back from the war to give its soldiers a chance to catch their breath and pass on their lessons to the newcomers and retrained Civil Guardsmen. The war was far away, but its impact was not.

  Colonel Watanabe stood in the Command Room and surveyed the map with grim disapproval. It said something about the Council’s—the former Council—priorities that Armstrong Base possessed a reasonably modern command and control system, which was barely usable outside Camelot because the Council had been unwilling to invest in sophisticated communications systems that would keep it in secure communication with the outlying settlements. As the purge of officers and men continued, it was becoming increasingly clear that one reason the Civil Guard had failed to destroy the Crackers was because the Crackers had the Civil Guard quite effectively penetrated. Their spies had operated in low-key posts, but they’d been more effective than an entire brigade of armed troops.

  Still, the Colonel allowed himself to feel hopeful for the first time in years. His command of Beta Company might have been brought to a halt by the bandits, who had managed to shoot him in the leg and cripple him for a few months, but he’d rapidly been ordered to take command of Armstrong Base, where a busted leg wasn’t so much of an impediment. The former commander was currently stuck in the stockade, awaiting trial for gross corruption and theft of government funds. It offered him a chance to learn to command on a strategic level and make sure that his former Company—and the other fighting units out in the field—received what they needed from the men in the rear. He’d had to relieve several REMFs in his first week—two of whom would be joining the former commander at his trial—but since then, the base had started to shape up into an effective fighting unit. Hell, he’d even been promised that new Civil Guard units—who would be paid in cash, rather than electronic transfer, as would the old units—would be raised and trained at Armstrong Base. He was looking forward to the chance to place his stamp on a whole new generation of Avalon’s martial history.

  He was still looking forward to his chance when the main board lit up like a Chri
stmas tree.

  “Report,” he barked, unwilling to panic. He might not be in direct command of anything outside the base, but he had faith in the new generation of leaders. “What’s happening?”

  “Multiple reports coming in from all over the city,” an operator said. “We’re picking up reports of bombings and shootings, concentrated around the government and military sector of town. The fusion plant is reporting armed men inside the control centre and then went off the air. Sir, we’re under attack!”

  “You don’t say,” Watanabe said, dryly. The problem with promoting newcomers in to replace the men he’d relieved or sent to less sensitive duties was that the newcomers were inexperienced and he hadn’t had the time to run emergency drills. “Get me a direct link to the Major and inform…”

  He broke off as the entire building shook. A moment later, the lights flickered and dimmed. “We just lost main power, sir,” the operator said. “They cut the link to the fusion plant. Backup systems are coming online now, but they’re not capable of handling the entire load.”

  “That might be the least of our worries,” Watanabe said. He hit the emergency key, knowing that the base itself was under attack, but the emergency alarms failed to sound. “What are we getting from outside?”

  The building shook again. “I’m not sure, sir,” the operator said. “Security cameras are reporting armed men within the perimeter, attacking the base, while hostile forces are moving in from all directions. Half of the security systems have been knocked out!”

  Watanabe saw it, too late. As the purge moved closer and closer to wiping out the Cracker penetration altogether, they had moved from spying to active sabotage, operating as a fifth column within the base to assist their allies on the outside to penetrate the defences. The explosions had been close enough to suggest that they’d somehow managed to obtain weapons from the armoury, which meant that his military police and infantrymen were likely to find themselves outgunned.