They stepped off the shuttles to find themselves in the middle of a grassy plain dotted about with blocks of shipping containers. It was a familiar site to most of them.
“OK, here we go.”
“Yeah. Same shit, different planet.”
“What? Where the hell are we?”
“Never been first-in, huh? Well, if you want a tent to sleep in tonight, out of the rain, you’re gonna have to pitch it yourself.”
A big man in a Marine Combat Uniform (MCU) bearing sergeant major insignia – but, curiously, no Imperial Marine badges – stepped out from behind the nearest block of containers.
“About time you guys got here,” he bellowed. “OK, this is Block One. Most o’ ya know what that means. The rest o’ ya are gonna have to learn as you go. And the major will be comin’ in this afternoon, and he don’t like sleepin’ outside. So you need to get your asses in gear. Sergeants, divvy up squads. First thing is to get your men into MCUs. That’s Block One, Container One. OK. Let’s be about it, everybody.”
An hour later, with everyone in MCUs and organized into squads, they began opening the other containers of Block One, and setting up a Marine field base camp, quantity one.
By the time Major Michael Dunleavy and the rest of his staff got there at 16:00 hours, his command tent was set up, and there was food cooking in the mess tent, a generator humming nearby.
By nightfall, everyone had their barracks tent assignments and a barracks tent to sleep in.
Before retiring for the night, Major Dunleavy came out of his command tent to survey the progress. The from-scratch encampment had already taken on the air of an Imperial Marine field deployment. He turned to Sergeant Major Brennan Dempsey (Imperial Marines, retired), standing nearby.
“Looking good. Nice work, Sergeant Major.”
“Thank you, Sir. They haven’t forgotten everything, Sir.”
“So it appears, Sergeant Major. So it appears.”
Over the next several days, the camp grew as the initial contingent continued building it out. Once the next contingent arrived, the camp would be built out enough to accommodate them.
From that point, training would begin. It would all be simulator training, but training is training, and dormant skills needed to be polished back to readiness before the real deployment began.
In the heavy manufacturing building of Interstellar Arms & Munitions on Malchis, in the Accordia Sector, there was consternation on the outbound loading dock.
“Hey, Frank. I don’t get this bill of lading. That’s not what’s in this container.”
“What’s the stenciling on the container say?”
“Oh, it matches the bill of lading, but you know damn well that’s not what’s in this container.”
“Well, let’s just let that be our little secret, eh?”
“But–“
“Hey, I got my orders. That’s what the boss wants, that’s what he gets.”
“All right. But it seems fishy to me.”
“Just make sure the destination is right.”
“Yeah. Julian. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. That’s right. Either Julian or Verano. One or the other.”
The Resistance
The one thing frustrating Kersey was they had not made contact with the Julian resistance yet. They needed to know what percentage of the population was involved, how ready they were to help, if at all, and to let them know not to oppose their effort to overturn the government.
That last seemed improbable, but humans were funny creatures. When faced with what appeared to be an outside threat, they could unite across seemingly intractable differences to fight against the outsider. Rather than being a potential big help to the ouster effort, the resistance could become a huge hindrance.
And one of the things she was trying to avoid was large losses of life on either side. Running up a big blood debt would make the aftermath harder, and the aftermath would determine the possible paths the future could take. It wasn’t enough to win. That part was easy. Then what?
Gulliver couldn’t do it. He was actively working with the Security Ministry. Boardman couldn’t do it. The dam project was too important a part of their plans. So it was up to Kersey.
She had been building social contacts very slowly. The waitress in the cafe, such as it was, down the street from the hotel. The bartender in the bar where she got a late afternoon drink every day after her afternoon walk. The cab driver she occasionally hired to drive her around the city. Not much in the way of contacts, but this was hardly a bustling metropolis.
She got more nosy, made more inquiries as to how people felt about the government and the economy, pushed harder to find out about any opposition party to the ruling Mielanders.
Then, one day in their fourth week on the planet, a battered sedan pulled up to the curb in front of her as she walked along the sidewalk. She was taking a side street back to the hotel, and there were few other people about. A man got out of the front passenger door and pointed a pistol at her.
“Get in the car, please, Ms. Kersey.”
The back door on the curb side was pushed open from the inside and she got in.
Boardman contacted Gulliver just before dinner that night.
“I can’t raise Kersey.”
“You can’t raise her?”
“Her VR doesn’t respond.”
“So, Secret Police, do you think, or the resistance?” Gulliver asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m worried.”
“Let’s give it overnight. If we don’t hear from her, I’ll make inquiries at the Security Ministry tomorrow.”
“All right. Tell me not to worry,” Boardman said.
“Don’t worry.”
“Somehow that didn’t help.”
When Kersey got in the car, she tried her VR, just to check. As she expected, there was a VR suppressor in operation in the car.
The other occupant of the back seat was a thin, older man with graying hair and a small mustache.
“If you would please face away from me, Ms. Kersey, I need to blindfold you.”
Kersey turned her head and he tied an opaque flesh-colored blindfold over her eyes and around her head. Its color meant it wouldn’t be so obvious from outside the car that she was blindfolded.
They drove for a time, and then apparently into some kind of building, as the motor noise of the car became louder, as if it were in an enclosed space. The engine was shut off, and she could hear someone close a rolling garage door.
“All right, Ms. Kersey. You can take the blindfold off now.”
Kersey pulled the blindfold off over her head, and the car was indeed in a garage attached to a house or business. The man from the front passenger seat opened her door and waved her out of the car.
“Come with me, please, Ms. Kersey.”
He led her through a communicating door into the kitchen of a small house. At the kitchen table sat two men, one in his fifties, one perhaps ten years younger. The older waved to a chair across from him.
“Have a seat, please.”
Kersey sat in the indicated chair, faced him, and waited. The mousy housewife air she had feigned for her cover was gone now.
“Who are you?” he asked her.
She looked around the room, at the other three men standing around.
Without looking away from her, he said, “Leave us.”
Everyone else left the room, leaving just the three of them, and he repeated his question.
“Who are you?”
“Imperial Marines.”
“Officer or enlisted?”
“Officer.”
The forty-something man Kersey thought of as the assistant leader lifted an eyebrow, but the fifty-something leader didn’t change expression. Instead, he pulled a semi-automatic pistol from a shoulder holster under his jacket, ejected the magazine, and placed it on the table between them.
“Prove it.”
Kersey glanced at the pistol. It was a c
ivilian model of the weapon she had carried as a sidearm for over twenty-five years. She caught the eye of the leader and held it.
Kersey picked up the pistol and ejected the round he had left in the chamber, catching it in her slide hand. She set the round on the table, then field stripped the weapon, smoothly and expertly, laying the parts out on the table before her. She set the frame down in its proper place among the array of parts, and moved her hands to the sides. She then picked the frame back up and reassembled the weapon just as proficiently. She hand-loaded the one round back in the chamber, ensured the safety was on, unlocked the slide, and set the gun back down on the table between them.
Throughout all of this, she never broke eye contact with the leader sitting across from her.
“You can do that with your eyes closed,” the assistant leader said.
“Sometimes you have to do it in the dark,” Kersey said, without looking away from the leader.
“Imperial Marines. I thought the Empire wasn’t supposed to interfere in the colonies,” the leader said.
“Retired.”
“Ah. Much becomes clear. The Empire isn’t interfering. At least, not officially.”
“Something like that.”
“And what is your goal, Ms. Kersey?”
“Much the same as yours, I imagine.”
“To wrest control of Julian from Mieland, his partisans, and his cronies, and pursue a different path.”
“But which path?” Kersey asked him.
“Classical liberalism. Civil rights. Economic self-reliance. Private investment. We’ve had all the central-planning, police-state socialism we care to have and more, Ms. Kersey.”
“Then it seems we’re on the same side, Mr. ...?”
“Jefferson. Tom Jefferson. It’s an alias, of course – like Fran Kersey, I suspect – but it will do. I’ll give you a mail address that will relay messages to me.”
Kersey raised an eyebrow.
“One of our number is in self-exile, Ms. Kersey. Deep in the Empire. Well out of the reach of Mr. Mieland, he’s our mail exchange. Our central clearing house, if you will. It means we need not know each other’s true identities.”
That’s clever, Kersey thought. Relaying mail through a contact thousands of light-years away was only possible because of the Empire’s QE radio system, but it solved the age-old problem of revolutions: the revolutionaries must perforce know each other. Not with this method, however.
“And this is Jim Madison,” Jefferson said, with a wave to the assistant leader. “You can reach him the same way.”
“Ms. Kersey,” Madison said and nodded.
“And now, Ms. Kersey. What is it you plan to do?”
“Let me ask you something first, Mr. Jefferson. You have, I suspect, an inner circle and then outer layers?”
“Yes, of course.”
“We must restrict this information to your inner circle. For the time being, at least. We are currently appearing to work with the government, and that cannot be disrupted. It would make the job much harder, and more dangerous.”
“I understand, Ms. Kersey.”
“Given that caution, then, here is what we are planning, and what I need you to do.”
They talked for two hours, and Kersey refined her plan as they talked. Timing, numbers, disposition of forces, training, objectives.
One of the things Kersey promised to do was send the weapons training simulations to the mail intermediary for distribution to those who needed it. The weapons themselves would come in with her forces.
When they were done, Kersey had one last item.
“Mr. Jefferson, I have a parting gift for you. I have obtained a payroll listing for the Security Ministry, including the Secret Police.”
“You have their payroll listing?”
“Yes, and don’t ask how I got it. I’ll send it to your mail intermediary, and I suggest you have him check it against the actual identities of your resistance members, looking for the inevitable spies. Cut them out of critical communications and activities for now, but take no direct action against them. Not yet. It would compromise us and could signal what is going on to the government.”
“I understand, Ms. Kersey, and we will comply with your request. But, when the time comes, I can guarantee most of them will come to sad ends.”
“At that point, it won’t matter. Very well, Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Madison. Until next time.”
They all got up from the table and shook hands, then Kersey walked back out to the garage, where the pickup crew was waiting. She got into the back seat and, without being asked, put the blindfold back on.
“Thank you, Ms. Kersey,” the thin man said.
They drove in silence for a time, then the thin man sitting with her in the back seat spoke up.
“You can take the blindfold off now, Ms. Kersey.”
Kersey took the blindfold off and looked around. They were driving down the side street on which she had been picked up several hours before.
“When we stop for the stop sign, please get out there, Ms. Kersey. Your hotel is just around the corner.”
When they stopped at the intersection of the side street with the through street, Kersey opened the door and got out.
“Good evening.”
“Good evening, Ms. Kersey.”
The thin man pulled the door shut, and the battered sedan turned the corner and drove away.
“Did that really happen?” Madison asked Jefferson after Kersey had left.
“Yeah. Imperial Marines. Imagine that.”
“So you think she’s for real?”
“Oh, she’s for real, all right. She knew that gun like the back of her hand. She’s probably general staff. Field commander. Desk jockeys don’t carry sidearms.”
“General staff? Really?”
“Yeah. Not many women in the Imperial Marines. All officers. And the way she talks, she knows exactly what she’s doing with this operation. Colonel, anyway. Posture. Confidence. That air of quiet authority. It all fits. She’s been there and done that. This is definitely nothing new to her.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. We lucked out. This could actually work.”
Jefferson ran a hand through his hair, then turned and looked Madison in the eye.
“We’d finally be rid of Mieland and his Secret Police. Wouldn’t that be something?”
Kersey made motions like she was straightening her hair, but she was actually mussing it as she walked to the hotel entrance. She was a little wobbly as she crossed the lobby toward the stairs.
“Mr. Boardman’s been looking for you, ma’am.”
She dismissed the desk clerk with a wave of her hand.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Kersey unsteadily made her way up the stairs and to their room.
“There you are. Where have you been?” Boardman asked.
“Out.”
“I’ve been worried sick about you.”
“I’m sure.”
They got ready for bed in a sullen silence. Once they were in bed, though, they connected in VR.
“I really was worried about you,” Boardman said.
“I know. The resistance picked me up to find out why I was poking around. Which is what, in fact, I was trying to accomplish.”
“We should get Gulliver on here.”
They sent a meeting request to Gulliver. He was already in bed, working in VR, and joined them right away.
“Ah, you’re back,” Gulliver said to Kersey. “We were growing concerned.”
“The resistance picked me up to find out why I was poking around about them. We had a great meeting.”
Kersey outlined to Boardman and Gulliver how the meeting went, and how her plan had evolved while talking with the resistance leaders.
“Having them available is going to make this much easier, I think,” she concluded.
“Oh, I agree completely,” Boardman said. “And I think the changes make it a better plan. Of course, you couldn’t do it t
hat way without them.”
“That’s an interesting trick they’re playing with the QE radio system,” Gulliver said. “Having a common switchboard that’s off the playing field and out of reach.”
“Yeah,” Boardman said. “Normally that’s a suicide move, because if that guy gets picked up, then everything is busted wide open. But not if he’s a thousand light-years way. It’s pretty slick.”
“It also means there is one person who actually does know who everybody is,” Kersey said.
She turned to Gulliver.
“Do you have any objection to me giving him the Security Ministry payroll listing?”
“No. Not if, as you told them, they hold back on reprisals for now. Do you think they’re disciplined enough to do that?”
“Oh, yes. Mr. Jefferson is a sharp cookie, and he has nerve. He knew damn well if I was an Imperial Marine I would know he’d left a round in the chamber. That was his tell that I was for real. My field stripping and reassembling the pistol was just icing on the cake. So I expect he has a very clear-eyed view of his own organization. If he committed to holding back, it’s because he knows he can.”
“Good,” Gulliver said. “No issue then. It plugs a hole for us, in terms of premature news getting back to the government. The resistance will know who it can’t trust with information.”
“Exactly. Now how do I send him the training simulation without it getting back to the government that they have it?”
“I don’t think there’s any way to do that. Resistance movements are always riddled with government spies. We know who most of them are, from the payroll listing, but people are also going to talk to each other. People who we can’t tell, ‘Hey. Don’t talk to that guy. He’s a government spy.’”
“So what do we do?” Kersey asked. “Without training, the equipment will be useless to them.”
“What form is the access?” Gulliver asked.
“A pointer into an open-access account. There’s no way I can vet each person and give them access individually.”
“OK. I think the way we handle that is we give that pointer to the government as well. We know the government will be riddled with resistance spies as well. So, even if it doesn’t leak into the resistance – even if you give the resistance the pointer directly – it’s pretty clear it could have leaked from the government. Just let me give it to the government first.”
EMPIRE: Intervention (EMPIRE SERIES Book 13) Page 6
