Retreat Hell

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Fourth, the decision to take the CEF on the most direct route towards the planetary capital was the correct one,” Councillor Stevens concluded. “There was no time for a more careful campaign, no time to outflank enemy defences; there was no choice, but to take the CEF straight through the enemy defences. We do not consider that anyone involved should be punished for that decision.”

  Ed saw Councillor Travis’s face flicker, just once. He’d lost. Jasmine – or Ed himself – would not be forced to resign from the military, let alone be dishonourably discharged by the Council. There had been a reprimand, over the starships, but not enough to force him to hand in his resignation. That, too, had been something Wolfbane had demanded as part of the price for the talks. In hindsight, it suggested that Wolfbane had either underestimated the situation themselves or deliberately intended to give the locals a chance to slaughter the hatred off-worlders.

  “Overall ...”

  The first shot rang out. Ed dropped to the ground out of habit, his mind automatically calculating the number of shooters and their weapons as his hand groped for the pistol at his belt. Panic swept through the chamber as the shooter fired, time and time again, people fleeing for the doors rather than trying to tackle the shooter or get down on the ground. In hindsight – he couldn't help a flicker of dark amusement – it had probably been a mistake to largely ban weapons from the Council Chamber. Gaby had hoped to prevent her councillors from shooting at each other, but it had left them defenceless when someone else had started shooting at them.

  There was a pause. Ed calculated rapidly and concluded that the shooter was using a standard pistol ... and that he was probably reloading. Pistol in hand, Ed stood up and saw a young man taking aim into the crowd. He was wearing the grey overalls of an immigrant worker, something that would allow him to blend into almost anywhere in the city. Ed lifted his pistol, then called out a warning. The shooter swung round with astonishing speed, bringing his weapon to bear on Ed. Ed fired, just once. The shooter fell to the ground, blood spurting from a bullet wound in his temple.

  “MEDIC,” Ed bellowed, as loudly as he could. between the shooting and the crush, dozens of people were likely to be hurt. “GET MEDICS NOW, DAMN IT!”

  He reached for his wristcom as he headed towards where the shooter had fallen, keeping his pistol trained on the man’s body. It wouldn't be the first time someone had survived a wound that had looked fatal. But the shooter was very definitely dead, he discovered, as he prodded the body. Ed’s bullet had seriously damaged his skull as well as passing through the man’s brain.

  “Colonel,” Gwen’s voice said. Security forces, soldiers and medics were starting to pour into the room. The whole scene was one of complete confusion. “I’ve got the QRF on the way.”

  “Good,” Ed growled. He raised his voice, taking command. “Get everyone who isn't injured out of the building, then let the medics do their work.”

  ***

  It had all happened so quickly.

  One moment, Emmanuel Alves had been listening to Councillor Stevens babbling on about how everything that had happened wasn't anyone’s fault, the next he’d heard shots ring out in the Council Chamber. He’d had enough experience to know that the smartest thing to do was to get down on the ground, so he’d done it, just in time to see another reporter fall to the ground, a nasty wound on her throat. And then there’d been another shot and silence fell.

  Carefully, summoning up a tiny fraction of the courage Jasmine routinely displayed, he rose to his feet and beheld a scene from hell. People – ordinary people – were fighting to get through the doors, while others lay on the ground, dead or stunned. Colonel Stalker and his terrifying Command Sergeant were examining another body, one with a pistol lying on the ground next to it. The shooter, Emmanuel assumed, as he staggered forward. Somehow, the sudden transition from peace to absolute mayhem had undermined his composure completely.

  “Help the unwounded out of the building,” Colonel Stalker snapped at him. “Now!”

  The tone of command was so powerful that Emmanuel obeyed without question. Part of his mind silently took notes, plotting the story he would write later, while the rest of it concentrated on following orders. The audience seemed torn between panic and a strangely blasé reaction that bothered him, even though he knew that plenty of people on Avalon had experience in dangerous situations. But it had been five years, more or less, since the end of the Cracker War. People had had time to relax ...

  Outside, crowds were already gathering, watching numbly as doctors and volunteers started to carry the wounded out of the building. Thankfully, Avalon’s hospitals were designed to cope with a sudden influx of patients, at least once they were actually taken to the hospitals. A line of new ambulances appeared, disgorging more doctors and nurses, allowing the patients to be loaded onboard. Several of the unwounded looked very much as though they would have liked to join the wounded in the vehicles, but there was no time.

  “The President has been hit,” someone said. Emmanuel gasped as he heard the rumour, running through the crowd. He’d approved of Gaby Cracker, insofar as he approved of anyone who had moved from commanding an insurgency to trying to steer politics onto a steady course that would avoid future conflict. “She’s dead!”

  The rumour spread faster and faster, growing in the telling. Emmanuel replayed what little he’d seen of the shooting, but couldn't determine if the President had been hit or not. How had the shooter even managed to get a weapon into the Council Chambers? He shook his head a moment later, recalling just how little security there was around the building. Gaby Cracker’s insistence on avoiding the old Council’s paranoia about their security had, ironically, contributed to her own injury. But she’d never taken the threats quite seriously.

  Another ripple ran through the crowd as someone stepped out of the building. Emmanuel looked forward and realised, to his dismay, that it was Colonel Stalker. The Marine’s uniform was stained with blood ... he hadn't been bloody before, Emmanuel recalled. He’d touched someone who’d been injured ...

  He wanted to shout questions, but he didn't quite dare. Instead, he and the rest of the crowd watched as Colonel Stalker climbed into a vehicle and was driven off in the direction of the Main Hospital. Behind him, the security forces did their work, dragging out the body of the shooter for transport to the nearest police station. Emmanuel turned to look at the man, etching what remained of his face in his memory, then watched as the crowd moved forward threateningly. If the shooter hadn't already been dead, he might well have been lynched on the spot.

  I don’t know who you are, he thought coldly, but you’ve won everlasting infamy for yourself.

  ***

  Ed felt oddly helpless. Command and control had been surrendered to the civil police force, although both the Marines and the Knights of Avalon had been placed on alert, ready to provide help and support if the police needed it. The intelligence service was already rushing its best men and women to the police station, where they would start the long task of identifying the shooter and trying to determine his motivations. There was nothing for Ed to do, but wait and pray that his lover survived.

  He looked up as the doctor appeared and beckoned to him. Ed stood and followed the doctor through a door into an observation chamber. Peering through the window, he saw his lover lying on a bed, hooked up to a life support machine. The left side of her head was covered by a medical pack, one of the newer inventions from the Trade Federation. They’d taken standard medical nanites, Ed recalled, and improved the design considerably.

  “She was lucky,” the doctor said. He was a civilian, but like all of the planet’s doctors he’d had considerable experience in battlefield medicine. “The bullet only grazed her skull, rather than penetrating her brain. However, her skull was damaged and there may be long-term mental health problems.”

  Ed swallowed. The feeling of helplessness grew stronger. He’d seen soldiers who’d taken head wounds ... and how some of them had been unable
to heal after being discharged from the military. Head wounds were dangerously unpredictable, even with the best medical technology available.

  “Will ...” He took a breath and tried again. “Will she recover?”

  “We will try to wake her up within a few days,” the doctor said. “We’re keeping her under at the moment, allowing us to monitor her condition, but brain damage can be difficult to handle. She may make a complete recovery or she may never wake up at all.”

  Or anywhere in-between, Ed thought, mutely. He recalled one of the tours they’d taken on the Slaughterhouse, where they’d been introduced to retired Marines who had been medically discharged out of the corps. Some of them had seemed almost normal, others had had to be restrained for their own safety. Several, he’d been told, had killed themselves, unable to bear being trapped in their wounded bodies any longer. And it could be worse, he knew, for soldiers and Civil Guardsmen. Their superiors rarely gave a damn.

  “Do the best you can,” he said. Gaby looked so ... helpless on the bed, her chest rising and falling as she breathed in and out. “And keep me informed.”

  “This raises a political point,” the doctor said. “Who’s in charge until she recovers?”

  Ed gritted his teeth. “Councillor Jackson,” he said. Gaby had appointed him as her second, if she left Avalon for any reason. At least it wasn't Councillor Travis. “He will be President pro tem.”

  He turned and left the room before the doctor could say another word. The political nightmare was only just beginning. If Gaby was out of office permanently, there would have to be an election to choose a new President. And Councillor Travis would be well-placed to run for office.

  Shit, he thought.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Some merely charged for the food (when it was supposed to be free), while others refused to supply food to their rivals, hoping that their rivals would drop dead from starvation. Instead, their rivals mounted constant challenges to their power.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. War in a time of ‘Peace:’ The Empire’s Forgotten Military History.

  “Violet,” her father called.

  Violet Campbell straightened up from her desk, where she was trying to put a primitive spacesuit back together with inferior tools. Her father had told her that if she succeeded, to the point where the spacesuit could be used in a vacuum safely, he would support her when she applied to join the RockRats for a course in space engineering and habitation. But now ... he sounded worried. She hadn't heard him sound so worried – and angry – since two little brats from Earth had managed to get lost in the station's storage compartments.

  “Yes, father?” She said, turning to face him. He looked worried. “What’s wrong?”

  “There are two security officers here who want to question you,” her father said. “You need to answer their questions.”

  Puzzled, Violet allowed him to lead her through the corridor into what had once been the briefing room, back when the ADC had operated Orbit Station. Now, it was empty, save for a single large metal table. Two people, a man and a woman, stood at the far corner of the room. The woman’s eyes went wide when she saw Violet. Clearly, Violet sneered mentally, she’d expected someone older. But spacer children learned to take care of themselves – and to work as soon as they could – even if groundside children remained ... children until they were adults.

  “Thank you for coming,” the woman said. She was pretty enough, Violet decided, with short red-brown hair that looked like she hadn't bothered to comb it. Her voice suggested that she was a native of Earth, rather than Avalon. “My name is Kitty.”

  The man grunted, but said nothing.

  “We need to ask you some questions about this man,” Kitty said, passing Violet a terminal. It showed a standard Immigration ID, complete with a picture that made the subject look simultaneously mad, bad and dead. “I believe he passed through your part of the station.”

  Violet gave her a reproving look – there were no other parts of the station – and then examined the picture. She'd always had a good memory, but the picture was so bad it took her several moments to recall when they’d met. He’d been one of the newcomers from Bohemia, if her memory hadn't failed her, the one who’d claimed to have saved the recruiter’s life. And he’d been fast-tracked to Avalon by the recruiter’s company.

  “He did,” she confirmed. “He had an ID that was already cleared, so I sent him down to the shuttle.”

  The man leaned forward, suspiciously. “Already cleared?”

  Violet nodded in confirmation. “He said that he’d saved the recruiter’s life,” she said. “It sounded like a nice story.”

  “Someone cleared the way for him,” Kitty muttered. “What can you tell me about him?”

  “He was exhausted,” Violet recalled. “His clothes were ill-fitting, his eyes looked tired ... I thought he would have managed to catch up on his sleep, even if he’d spent most of the voyage in a stasis tube.”

  Kitty’s lips twitched. “It doesn't work like that,” she said. “Did he pay any special attention to you?”

  Violet shrugged. She was young enough to draw attention from adult groundhogs, old enough to draw attention from teenage groundhogs ... some of whom had probably heard rumours and lies about sexual freedom in space. Not that she had any intention of taking up some of the offers she’d had over the years. God knew she hadn't even started her period. And if her father had heard some of them, he’d probably ban her from talking to groundhogs altogether.

  “No,” she said. She struggled to put her feelings into words. “He just seemed ... there.”

  Kitty lifted her eyebrows. “There?”

  Violet glanced back at her father, then looked at Kitty. “Some newcomers resent having to wait in line and show their ID cards,” she said. “Others seem excited to see the station, even though” – she waved a hand to indicate the gunmetal grey decor – “it isn't that interesting. But this guy showed no reaction at all.”

  She looked down at the deck, wondering just how much trouble she was in. “What did he do?”

  “Shot the President,” the man explained.

  Violet gaped at him. “Shot the President?”

  “Yes,” Kitty confirmed. “We’re trying to retrace his steps now.”

  ***

  The Situation Room on Castle Rock hadn't been used much since the end of the Cracker War and the foundation of the Commonwealth, Ed knew. It simply wasn't central enough to the capital for Gaby and her Councillors to reach, while it was too obvious a location for an emergency command installation. Indeed, if an enemy did gain control of the high orbitals over Avalon, he fully expected Castle Rock – the home of the Marines – to be the first target they blasted with KEWs. Only an idiot would engage the Marines on the ground if there was any alternative.

  He took a seat at the head of the table and waited for Gwen, Kitty Stevenson and a handful of other officers to take their places. Kitty looked as young as ever – intelligence officers had access to rejuvenation treatments denied to the vast majority of the Empire’s citizens – but her eyes were tired. Ed smiled, silently grateful that the Empire had seen fit to abandon such an intelligence officer on Avalon. She'd served the Commonwealth very well.

  But she looked scared, he realised, as she turned to face him.

  “I was expecting to find a rogue Cracker,” she said, softly. Not all of the Crackers had accepted Gaby’s decision to come to terms with the new order and join the government. Some of them had gone underground, threatening revenge at a later date. But none of them had ever resurfaced. “But what I found was far more frightening.”

  Ed tapped the table. “Please get to the point,” he said. He was tired himself ... tired and desperate to get back to the hospital. Maybe he could do nothing there, but at least he would be with Gaby. “What did you find?”

  Kitty tapped a switch. A holographic image appeared in front of them, showing a young man wearing a standard uniform. “Private Mathew Polk,” Kitty sai
d. “Born seventeen years ago on Avalon ...”

  Ed recognised the name. “Son of a bitch!”

  “Yes, sir,” Kitty said. She looked down at her terminal. “Born seventeen years ago in Camelot City, Avalon; exact date unknown because his birth was never registered. Apparently orphaned; grew up in an orphanage run by various concerned civilians. Spent a year in a work camp at after being caught stealing from a factory owned by Councillor Wilhelm. Released as part of the general amnesty that followed the fall of the old Council. Joined the Knights of Avalon when he turned sixteen; apparently, he did very well and was assigned to the CEF. Missing, believed dead, on Lakshmibai.”

  “Shit,” Ed said.

  It was a precept of the Marine Corps – one he’d introduced to the Knights – that no one was left behind, dead or alive. Battlefields had been combed for the remains of fallen soldiers, enemy records had been scanned and enemy prisoners had been interrogated, just to get a hint of what had happened to missing soldiers from the brief bloody war. But several soldiers had vanished completely on Lakshmibai, so completely that their bodies had never been found.

  Ed had concluded, finally, that they’d been killed by their captors and their bodies burnt to ash or simply buried in an undisclosed location. Lakshmibai was covered in mass graves, after all, and there had been no time to open them all up before they’d vacated the cursed world. But to see one of the missing soldiers here ...

  “Wolfbane,” he snarled.

  Kitty nodded, one hand rubbing her tired eyes. “No one else could have got him off the planet,” she said. “But if they did have allies on the surface, someone could have handed Polk over to Wolfbane and then buried their tracks.”

  Ed nodded, remembering the explosion that had killed Blake Coleman. Had that been a fanatic’s last attempt to harm his enemies ... or had Wolfbane killed off their allies on Lakshmibai, preventing them from being interrogated? Now, there was no way to know.

  “His behaviour was indicative of someone who had been conditioned,” Kitty said, quietly. “From the trail we’ve followed, he basically stayed out of sight as much as possible until the time came to act. Someone, I suspect, smoothed the way for him as much as possible.”