“You know the drill,” George ordered. “Spread out by platoon; arrest anyone you come across and secure them until they can be taken away. I want the entire base secured as quickly as possible.”
He followed one of the platoons as they headed into the HQ Building. The clerks who made the supply depot run stared at the heavily armed soldiers burst in, before being roughly rounded up and made to assume the position. Protests were dealt with quickly and brutally. The men on the front lines had little use for the clerks, even if one of them hadn't sold heavy weapons that had gotten far too many good men killed. The senior clerk, clearly recognising his ultimate commander, started to stutter out a confession that would have been very interesting, under other circumstances. George motioned for him to join the rest of his clerks and keep his mouth shut. They’d have time to interrogate him properly later.
The lead soldiers raced up the stairs to the main office and George followed them, no longer expecting any serious resistance from the REMFs. He glanced from side to side as they burst into the officers of high-ranking personal and scowled, taking in just how luxurious they were, even by Avalon’s limited standard. It was expected that some senior officers would be allowed to decorate their own offices, provided that they were decorated at their expense, but they’d taken it far beyond the permissible. The money they’d wasted in creating a comfortable working environment could have been spent on better equipment or recruiting new soldiers. He heard female shrieks up ahead and realised, to his horror, that some of the senior officers had brought their mistresses to work. What the hell had they been thinking?
“Put them with the others,” he ordered, when the women were finally secured and dragged out. He held up a hand as he recognised one of the women, a girl who served as Smuts’ private secretary. The few times they met, she’d struck him as dumb, blonde and barely fit even for whoring. She didn't possess the motivation necessary to reach such a post. “You; where is your boss?”
“I don’t know,” the girl said, shaking against the soldier who held her. “I don’t...”
“Don’t give me that shit,” George snapped. “Tell me where he is or I’ll have you injected with truth drug and then we’ll get an answer out of you.”
The girl wilted, cringing back against her captor. “He’s in his private office,” she said, bitterly. “He’s been in there for hours. I don’t know what he’s doing there.”
George could guess. Smuts had set up a private office that included dedicated phone lines, one linked directly to the Council Chambers. He was probably trying to get in touch with his patrons and beg for their support, although it wouldn't work; Alpha Company’s lead elements had cut the lines and isolated the base before moving into view.
“Good,” he said. He nodded to the soldier. “Cuff her to that sofa there and come with me.”
Leaving the girl behind, they walked up the third set of stairs towards the final office. George keyed his radio, listening briefly as reports came in reporting that the remainder of the base had been secured, and smiled briefly. The prospect of a bloodbath – or, worse, of civil war – had been averted, barely. His career might not survive what he’d done today, not if the Governor chose to disapprove, but his men would be safe. They had all followed his orders.
“Start moving the prisoners out to the camp,” he said, once all the units had reported in. “I’ll deal with Smuts personally.”
It wasn't wise, but he was determined, for if anyone had been involved in the corruption, it was Smuts. The man might have been useless for any military purpose – except perhaps as a live target, a nasty part of his mind whispered – but he’d been a past master at ruling a bureaucratic empire. He had to have known what was going on in his base, even if he hadn't been the prime mover. He had to have known...
The doorway was ajar and George moved in, holding his sidearm at the ready. A moment later, he lowered it as he took in the sight before him. Smuts was seated at his desk, a bloody hole blasted right through his head. One of his hands held a gun. He was very clearly dead.
“Took the easy way out, did you?” George growled. Even with Imperial medical science, there was no hope of saving his life. “I’ll find the rest of your friends and they’ll pay too.”
***
“It wasn't suicide,” the medic said, an hour later. The compound had been completely cleared and a group of logistics officers were going through the inventories and comparing the records to reality. “There was no trace of propellant on his skin.”
George saw the implications at once. “Someone killed him to silence him,” he said, flatly. “Who the hell killed him?”
“I don't know,” the medic said. “We don’t have a proper forensic team or even a WARCAT unit on Avalon. It may go down as a complete mystery.”
“Fuck,” George said, coldly. It wasn't hard to guess why Smuts had been killed. Logically, he could have led investigators all the way back to his backers. “Bag up the body and prepare it for transport to Camelot. I have to go see the Governor.”
“Good luck, sir,” Captain Bertram said. He looked uncomfortable. “Sir, after this...”
“Everything changes,” George agreed. They shared a moment of silent understanding. “I know just what you mean.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Marine Corps is a family. When one of the family dies, we all mourn, once we are free to mourn without being distracted from our work.
-Master Sergeant Jackson Hendry (Ret), The Meaning of a Marine.
The word had come down from the Drill Instructors; two days ago, a Marine had died. Michael had known that something had happened – the sudden spate of activity had been impossible to miss – but they hadn't been told what, not until Barr had called the recruits together and told them the truth. It had brought home to many of them just how dangerous their chosen profession actually was and Michael, along with most of the others, had found himself searching his soul for answers. When the shit hit the fan, he asked himself, could he truly stand up and fight? The armoured warriors who had boarded their Raptors had looked invincible. The bandits had just proven that they were not.
“You are invited to attend the ceremony in two hours,” Barr had said, in tones that had made it very clear that it was an order. “Until then, you should spend your time in silent contemplation, or weapons practice. One of the family has died.”
The odd contrast had made no sense at first, but as he’d sat on his bunk, he had started to understand. The contemplation was for coming to grips with the fact he could die; the weapons practice was to burn off steam afterwards. The lectures on what it meant to be a Marine had been empty words until he had finally understood just what Barr had been trying to teach them. The Marine Corps was a family and even bastard sons like the new recruits were part of something far greater than any of them were individually.
He’d never seen the parade ground so full, nor had he been allowed to wear his dress uniform in public before the tragedy. The unfortunate Marine’s platoon were standing on the front row, wearing a black version of their standard uniform, while the other platoons were wearing their dress uniforms with black armbands. Michael did a quick headcount and realised that at least two platoons were not taking part in the ceremony, although he had no idea why. The Company was a family, the only family most of the Marines had, and all of them would want to be present when they said goodbye to their brother. They had to be on deployment away from Castle Rock. He couldn't imagine anything else that would have kept them away.
The cap felt itchy on his head, but he’d been ordered to wear it and not remove it until the Sergeant ordered them to uncover their heads. Michael hadn't been religious in the conventional sense, but his mother had tried to develop a sense of religion in her children’s lives, sending them to church from an early age. He'd stopped going as soon as he’d been old enough to make his decision stick, having concluded that the money his mother paid the priest was better spent elsewhere. The church was never short of mon
ey and the family often barely had enough to eat. It just hadn't seemed fair. Now, staring at the silent Marines, he understood the depth of their faith. It wasn't in God, but in themselves and in the integrity of the Marine Corps. Barr’s comment – that some political leaders were terrified of the Marines – suddenly made sense. The Marines presented themselves as beyond corruption or intimidation. They could be killed, but they couldn't be scared.
He wanted to speak to his fellows, but the entire area was silent. No one had ordered silence; it had just fallen, with no one speaking aloud at all. He heard footsteps from behind him as someone entered the parade ground and twitched his eyes, catching sight of Captain Stalker and a short woman wearing a Sergeant’s dress uniform and a sword. Her stripes proclaimed her to be a Command Sergeant. Barr had told them that Command Sergeants were, in a way, the actual second-in-command of their units, whatever the Table of Organisation might say.
Captain Stalker marched up to the front row, paused in front of the casket, and then stepped around it, taking his place on a podium. He stared down at his men for a long moment and then, still silently, reached up and removed his cap, placing it nearly in his uniform pocket. A rustle ran through the air as everyone uncovered their heads, holding their caps in their hands. The ceremony, Michael realised, had begun.
“One of our brothers is dead,” Captain Stalker said. His voice was very composed, but Michael was sure he could hear...something behind the calm, a hint of bitterness and anger. The dead Marine might have served in Stalker’s Stalkers for years, developing relationships with his fellows that transcended the rights and duties of rank. The Marines seemed oddly informal at times. Perhaps the dead Marine had been Captain Stalker’s friend, as well as his subordinate. “He died on the field of battle, among his brothers and sisters, as a Marine should. His death will be avenged.”
He spoke for nearly ten minutes, speaking about the dead Marine in a manner that somehow made him alive again, if only long enough to say goodbye. Michael hadn't known him, not personally, but he felt a lump in his throat as he gazed at the casket. It had been sealed shut and there was no way to see inside, which didn't look good. Most injuries that weren't immediately lethal could be healed, given time, but Barr hadn't hidden the truth from them. They were training to be soldiers and soldiers sometimes got injured in battle, directly and indirectly. It wasn't unknown for Marines to survive as cripples, shadows of their former shelves, or to develop mental problems as they grew older. The Slaughterhouse tried to weed out vulnerable personalities, but it didn't always work. One day, Michael himself might be in a casket while his friends said goodbye. It wasn't a pleasant thought.
“It is traditional for a Marine’s body to be transported back to the Slaughterhouse, with his Rifleman’s Tab placed within the Mausoleum to be stored for all time,” Captain Stalker said. “We cannot transport the body back now, but I swear to you all that the body will be transported one day, so that he may rest in peace among the thousands of other Marines who have given their lives in the line of duty. The Honour of the Terran Marine Corps demands that we who knew him when he was alive do his corpse the final honour. We will stand on Flag Hill and pay our final respects to his soul.”
There was a long pause, long enough for Michael to feel uncomfortable. “I would like to read to you from the words of Major-General Thaddeus Carmichael, the founder of the modern Terran Marine Corps,” Captain Stalker continued. “Carmichael was appointed the first commanding officer of the mixed force that the Terran Federation had assembled from its most prestigious military units. It was Carmichael who, against all opposition, turned the ramshackle force the Federation had created into what we call Marines, the finest soldiers in the known universe. The Corps has changed over the years and he would no longer recognise our organisation or even our technology, but his wisdom still lives on.
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...we came together from across the world,” he quoted. “When we were pulled together, after the burning blaze of the Third World War, they told us that we were outdated, that there would be no need for the Marine Corps in the brave new world we had won for them. They were wrong. The world may have advanced, but yet it stayed the same and the values of the Corps – honour, loyalty and integrity – remain of value. When we were pulled together, we were just men, but when we fused together, we were Marines. To be a soldier is to be part of a world that a civilian can never understand or enter, to be part of a brotherhood that transcends time itself.
“And, as the years go on, we look to the past to remind ourselves of where we came from. The old guard – we who were there at the beginning – grow older, yet our memory lives on. And, as long as a single Marine remains alive, our memory will never fade. Out of a culture that practices democracy and self-determination, we embody the best of that society. We fail in that charge at our peril.”
He looked up, staring down at the assembled Marines. Just for a moment, his eyes met Michael’s and they seemed to share a moment of communication, of understanding. “We will not forget our brother, who gave his life so that we may live,” Captain Stalker said. “Sergeant, assemble your men.”
A Sergeant Michael didn't recognise stepped forward, followed by his platoon. Silently, in perfect formation, they marched apart and lined up on each side of the casket, producing their rifles and pointing them into the sky. Michael realised what was about to happen just before the Sergeant barked the first command and the rifles fired, so close together that it seemed that only one shot had been fired. The Marines fired a second volley, and then a third, before returning their rifles to their shoulders and picking up the casket. As a lone trumpet played, they carried the casket off the stage and out of the parade grounds.
“We will not forget,” Captain Stalker said. His voice seemed quieter after the shooting. “You are all dismissed.”
Michael followed Barr as he assembled the recruits and marched them back down towards the shooting range. Part of his mind realised that Barr wasn't giving them any time to brood, but he couldn't help thinking about the dead Marine...and about a tradition that had lasted for over a thousand years. Barr had made them study the history of the Marine Corps – someone, he expected them to read massive volumes in their abundant spare time – yet it had all been dusty words, until he’d realised what the tradition meant. It would never die, not as long as men like Captain Stalker kept it alive.
***
“Here’s to David,” Blake said, as 2nd Platoon gathered in their barracks. “God rest his soul.”
Jasmine took her own plastic glass and sipped the fine brandy carefully, enjoying the taste as it rolled off her tongue and down her throat. David Robertson’s wake wouldn't be the grand carouse it would have been on the Slaughterhouse, or on a more mundane deployment, but he would understand. The brandy had been shipped all the way from Old Earth, which made the bottle Blake had produced expensive as hell. The Marine who had donated it could have sold it to the locals and made a fortune – in local currency, at least – but instead it had been preserved for a wake.
“God rest his soul,” she echoed, as she took another sip. There was no hope of seeing another bottle like the one they were drinking until they returned to Earth, if they ever returned to Earth. The brandy was so far ahead of the local rotgut that it wasn't even funny. “May he always be remembered by us, wherever we may wander.”
There was a long pause as the platoon drank, remembering the dead. Jasmine remembered being partnered with Robertson for a brief scouting mission back on Han, when she’d been the new shrimp from the Slaughterhouse, convinced that she knew it all and didn't. Robertson hadn’t been interested in promotion, or graduating to become an NCO, but he’d been patient with the newcomer and taught her the tricks the Slaughterhouse had never shown her. Like the rest of the Company, he’d been her sibling in every way that counted, apart from biology. She would miss him.
She’d seen other Marines die, of course, but back on Han she hadn't had time to make
friends with her new comrades before the shit had hit the fan. Afterwards, back when she’d woken up and discovered that she was a veteran, she had bonded with the rest of her unit, only to lose some of them when they were killed in action. It never got easier. Jasmine had hoped that 2nd Platoon would have a chance to crack some heads when the Civil Guard hit their own supply depot, but the Civil Guard had handled it themselves. She held them in contempt – they’d met far too many Civil Guard units that broke at the first sniff of enemy action – but she had to admit that they’d handled themselves well, once they’d realised that they’d been ambushed.
The brandy aftertaste was fading and she took another sip. The aftermath of the battle had been confusion incarnate, but once they’d realised that it was all over, the Marines had settled down to hashing out what had happened and assimilating the lessons – getting their stories straight, as Blake had joked at the time. It was never easy to put together what had happened during a battle, but a comprehensive picture had slowly begun to emerge. The Civil Guard had followed a predicable path and walked right into an ambush, one that had threatened to snare the Marines as well. The lessons had been hammered home by the Sergeants; take nothing for granted, they’d warned, and watch for advanced weapons that shouldn't exist outside the Civil Guard, or the Marines themselves.
The Empire’s Corps: Book 01 - The Empire's Corps Page 34
