The Halls of Montezuma

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “It would be unwise to count on it,” Gerald said. “So ... they’ll know in a week. What will they do?”

  “It depends.” Kerri looked at her hands. “We just don’t know enough to make any real guesses. They may have enough ships to risk launching a second invasion, as you said, or they may pull in their horns and concentrate on home defence ... all the while trying to locate our base. Right now, our only real advantage is that they don’t know about Safehouse. That will change.”

  “So, we’ve got them off balance,” Foxtrot asserted.

  “They know we attacked this world,” Kerri said. She waved a hand at the bulkhead and the planet beyond. “They’ll have to assume we might attack their world next.”

  Gerald nodded, feeling the weight of the universe resting on his shoulders. “And where are they?”

  Kerri smiled. “They did manage to destroy a lot of their records before we secured their ships,” she said, “but they didn’t manage to destroy everything. Sloppy work, if you ask me, even if it would be expensive to put the ships back into working order once their datacores had been destroyed. We know where they’re located ... or, at least, where the enemy ships were before they came here.”

  She tapped a console, bringing up the holographic starchart. “Inconnu,” she said. “Officially, at least. The planet was discovered a few hundred years ago, apparently; settlement rights passed through a network of shell companies and suchlike before the incorporation of the Inconnu Development Corporation. We cross-checked with records on the surface, such as they are; the IDC is a subsidiary of the Onge Corporation. The spooks think the Onge took the planet and developed it as a refuge, just like Safehouse.”

  Foxtrot shook his head in amused disbelief. “And none of the beancounters even noticed?”

  “There’s a bunch of tax breaks and suchlike to development corporations,” Kerri said. “Or there were, at least. As long as no trouble came out of Inconnu, there shouldn’t have been any reason for the beancounters to take an interest. I suspect the Onge were secretly pulling strings behind the scenes all along, just to make sure no one did take an interest. The Imperial Revenue Service was underfunded for decades before Earthfall. I imagine they had plenty of easier and more worthwhile targets to go after.”

  Gerald nodded. He’d been in the corps long enough to know the score. Development corporations with big budgets had no shortages of friends on Earth. Getting in on the ground floor of planetary development could be a very solid investment, if one didn’t mind waiting a few decades for it to mature. It didn’t matter, he reflected sourly, that the colonists themselves were often dirt-poor, even when they weren’t being exploited by their masters. As long as the developers had the money, they could do whatever they liked. And the marines often had to clean up the mess.

  “So, it’s basically just like Hameau, except on a larger scale,” Gerald said. “It might be too big a target for us to handle.”

  “Quite possibly,” Kerri said. “The Onge have - had - practically limitless resources. They owned industrial nodes and shipyards, including a bunch of facilities that built weapons and supplies for the Imperial Navy. If the defences here were pretty tough, I dread to imagine what they’ll have emplaced to defend their homeworld. There’s no hope of them feeling the urge to hide now.”

  “Yes,” Gerald agreed. “They can defend themselves openly now.”

  He felt his heart sink. Hameau had been defended beyond the bounds of sanity for any normal colony world. The Empire had never cared for colonies having the means to defend themselves. He was still astonished the developers had gotten away with it. Surely, someone would have noticed. But it probably wouldn’t have mattered. The whistleblower would have been bribed or threatened into compliance, if he didn’t wake up one morning to discover he’d been declared a criminal and sentenced to immediate transportation. The IRS had been so badly riddled with corruption that it was practically a criminal organisation in its own right. Gerald wouldn’t have been surprised to discover its managers had been subverted long ago ...

  And they’re all dead now, he thought, with a flicker of vindictiveness. The IRS had been blamed for everything, even when it hadn’t been at fault. The taxmen had always proven convenient scapegoats. They were blamed for doing their jobs and not doing their jobs. They all died on Earth.

  “We need hard data,” Kerri said. “And most of the prisoners are unwilling to talk.”

  “We could encourage them to talk,” Foxtrot pointed out.

  “They surrendered,” Gerald said, sharply. He had no qualms about forcibly extracting information from terrorists, insurgents and enemy forces that refused to adhere to the laws of war, but the Onge had fought a remarkably clean war. “We cannot force them to talk.”

  “Even when the information in their heads might make the difference between victory and defeat?” Foxtrot leaned forward, playing devil’s advocate. “They might know something we need to know.”

  “I’d be surprised if they did,” Kerri said, before Gerald could formulate a reply. “The vast majority of captured crewmen and soldiers knew very little, at least as far as we could tell. Their superiors didn’t invite them to the briefings.”

  “And even if they did, what they know lacks any context,” Gerald said. The prisoners might talk freely and truthfully, yet unintentionally mislead the interrogators. “If they talked about Landing City, who knows which Landing City they mean?”

  Foxtrot grimaced. “I’m sure they can fill us in on a few basic details,” he said. “If nothing else, they can tell us how their society works.”

  “We already know how their society works,” Kerri said, sharply. “No privacy. No freedom. A giant nest of worker and soldier and police ants, with strict enforcement and little hope of promotion. And that’s what they intend to export to the rest of the galaxy.”

  “It has to be stopped,” Gerald agreed. He couldn’t believe the corprats would succeed - the larger the system, the greater the chance of its inconsistencies tearing it apart - but they’d leave a ruined galaxy in its wake. “And that means we have to act fast.”

  “We take the war to them,” Foxtrot said. “And quickly.”

  Gerald studied the display for a long moment. “How quickly can we get there?”

  “It’ll take a few more days to finish reloading the transports,” Kerri said. “The majority of the newcomers” - she nodded to Foxtrot - “are already on their ships, along with their equipment. There’ll be a lot of grumbling about the lack of shore leave, but ... too bad. The squadron itself is ready to go. However, we will be running the risk of leaving Hameau uncovered.”

  “And the Onge have already shown they can land an army relatively quickly,” Gerald agreed, sourly. The dumpster trick had been brilliant, if one didn’t mind running the risk of being unable to withdraw in a hurry. He supposed it said something about the corprat mindset. They’d treated their soldiers as expendable. “Can they retake the high orbitals?”

  “It depends on what they bring to the party,” Kerri said. “There are gaps in the defences, thanks to us. We’re tightening up the holes, again, but it won’t be enough if they send an entire fleet. They were certainly rich and powerful enough to operate an entire squadron of battleships.”

  Foxtrot raised an eyebrow. “Would they? I always thought the Imperial Navy’s admirals were overcompensating for something.”

  Kerri smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “Back in the old days, the battleships were of purely limited value. Maybe not quite white elephants, but certainly grey. There wasn’t a peer power ... there hadn’t been a peer power for centuries. The battleships were good for intimidation, but anything else they did ... well, smaller ships could have accomplished their tasks just as well. Cheaper, too. Those battleships were money sinks. But now ... I don’t know. Their plans must assume that, sooner or later, they’d encounter peer powers.”

  “And it doesn’t take a battleship to fry an entire planet,” Foxtrot pointed out. “A hand
ful of c-fractional strikes would be quite enough to do that.”

  “If they wanted to kill everyone on Hameau,” Gerald said. War or no war, the planetary population was one of the best-trained in the galaxy. They’d already started finding ways to expand beyond the corprat limits. Given time, Hameau might become a jewel of the new universal order. “They wouldn’t commit genocide.”

  “Desperate men do desperate things,” Foxtrot said. “Time may not be on our side.”

  Gerald considered it for a long cold moment. The path to hell was paved with good intentions. Hell, he’d always preferred dealing with power-hungry warlords because they could be relied upon to do what was in their best interests. An insurgency could find itself going down the path to madness, to mass slaughter and even genocide, before it realised what it was doing. Desperate times bred desperate measures ... and, with each successive decision, it became easier to do the next. And the next.

  The Onge aren’t fanatics, he thought. They’re corprats, with one eye permanently fixed on the bottom line. They won’t cross the line into genocide.

  He shivered. He hoped he was right. Corprats often made the mistake of regarding people as interchangeable and disposable tools - Human Resources had much colder implications than Personnel Department - and they might just decide that, if they couldn’t have the trained personnel, no one else could have them either. Hell, Gerald himself had blown up ammunition dumps and equipment sheds to keep them from falling into enemy hands. He’d never sentenced millions of people to death, but human history was a liturgy of atrocities that had been considered unthinkable ... at least until someone had not only thought of them, but carried them out.

  “We need intelligence,” he said. “We’ll continue the interrogations, of course, but it is unlikely we’ll get much of anything from the POWs. We also need to at least try to talk to them ...”

  “They may stall long enough to prepare their haymaker,” Foxtrot warned. “It’s happened before.”

  “Yes.” Gerald took a breath. He was a veteran of politically-charged negotiations that no one had expected to go anywhere, except the distant politicians who’d been trying to look good in front of their fellows. The enemy had often used them as a chance to rearm their troops and plot their next move, while the marines had had their hands tied by their political masters. That, at least, was no longer a concern. “We agreed we’d send back the POWs if they refused to join us. They can take a message back to their superiors for us.”

  “And we’ll follow in its wake,” Foxtrot said.

  “Quite.” Gerald allowed himself a tight smile. “We’ll let them keep one of the freighters. Kerri, you’ll escort her home. That’ll give you a chance to carry out a tactical survey of the system, before sneaking out and linking up with us outside detection range. If they refuse to discuss terms, we’ll find a way to take out their orbital defences and land troops.”

  “We can take the remainder of the enemy fleet with us,” Kerri said. “They can launch missiles, if nothing else.”

  “Yes,” Gerald said. “I also want to insert a Pathfinder or two. We’re going to need more intelligence, particularly things we can’t learn from orbital observations. Who’s in charge, what are they doing ... that sort of thing. The higher-ranking prisoners have been able to tell us some details, but not enough. We may be able to win the war overnight if we can get our hands on the people who can order a surrender.”

  “As long as their subordinates don’t have standing orders to ignore orders from captives,” Foxtrot pointed out. “We do.”

  Kerri laughed. “Have you ever known a corprat who’d agree to issue such orders?”

  Gerald had to smile. Corprats loved being in control. The idea of diluting their authority, let alone conceding that there might be a time when their authority no longer mattered, was anathema to them. And while his subordinates had standing orders to ignore anything he might say if the enemy held him at gunpoint, he doubted his opposite number had anything of the sort. Who knew? Gerald trusted his subordinates. He doubted the corprats felt the same way.

  “No,” he said. “But there’s a first time for everything.”

  He leaned forward. “We have orders to finish the war - and quickly,” he said. “And that means taking the offensive. At the same time, we may discover that we’ve bitten off more than we can chew. We will certainly try to talk to them, all the while preparing the first and hopefully final blow.”

  “We cannot afford to get bogged down,” Foxtrot agreed. “We’ll have to take some risks.”

  “And learn from our mistakes,” Gerald said. In hindsight, they’d grown far too used to being the best. They’d made a whole string of mistakes during the operation, from unspoken assumptions of technical superiority to their training making up for the shortage of numbers. Gerald hated to admit it, but they’d been luckier than they deserved. “The post-campaign assessment is going to be a pain in the ass.”

  “Let us admit it freely, as a civilised people should,” Foxtrot quoted. “We have had no end of a lesson, which will do us no end of good.”

  “Quite,” Gerald agreed. “Kerri, prepare your ship and the transport freighter for departure as soon as possible. Once we finish the interrogations, we’ll transfer the prisoners who want to go home to the freighter and send them off. There should be enough starship crew to handle the ship. If not ...”

  “We can arrange for our crew to fly her home, then jump ship before the enemy realises we’re there,” Kerri said. “I’ll arrange it.”

  “I have to write an updated report to the Commandant,” Gerald added. “And then we’ll be getting back to work.”

  “No rest for the wicked,” Foxtrot agreed. “I’ll start drawing up invasion plans immediately.”

  “Just remember to credit your staff,” Gerald said, dryly. “They’re the ones who’ll do all the work.”

  He smiled. Foxtrot would supervise the work, perhaps even sketch out a vague idea, but it was his staff who’d turn the concept into an operational plan. Not, he supposed, that it would be a very detailed plan. They simply didn’t know enough about the enemy homeworld. The files were untrustworthy. He was all too aware that everything in the databanks, beyond basic planetary details, might have been made up out of whole cloth.

  “Yes, sir,” Foxtrot said. He stood, then paused. “Can I nominate myself for ground commander?”

  Gerald laughed. “Is it a reward or a punishment?”

  Foxtrot pretended to consider it. “It depends,” he said, finally. “Which one will get me on the ground?”

  “Wait and see what we find,” Kerri advised. “For all we know, there’ll be no defences and the entire operation will be a walkover.”

  “It might,” Gerald agreed. The corprats could have spent trillions, literally, on securing their homeworld. They’d had a budget the Imperial Household would envy. “But I wouldn’t bet money on it.”

  Chapter Three

  The capitalist, some say, is little better than a robber baron, little better than a feudal lord. He takes from those who don’t have enough already and hoards it to himself, leaving the poor to starve.

  - Professor Leo Caesius, The Rise and Fall of Interstellar Capitalism

  It was, all things considered, the worst place Julia Ganister-Onge had ever been.

  She scowled as she sat in the hard metal chair and looked around the chamber. It was very clearly a prison, even if it was a little more comfortable than she might have expected. The bed was uncomfortable, the clothes were itchy and the toilet very crude. She’d asked the guards for her cosmetic supplies, or even for a basic eReader, but they’d said no. She was a prisoner, and prisoners had no rights.

  She’d heard all the horror stories, when she’d first started to work for the family. Her mother had wanted Julia to put her ambition aside and marry someone from the corporate ranks, someone who would be boring and utterly useless ... someone she’d rapidly grow to loathe. Her mother hadn’t hesitated to point out the danger
s, if Julia fell into enemy hands. The corporate world had been poisonous well before Earthfall. Julia might be killed, or enslaved, or raped, or even brainwashed. It was funny, Julia reflected sourly, that her mother had never talked about the threat of boredom. She would almost sooner have been put in front of a bulkhead and shot.

  Her stomach churned with the bitter bile of failure. Recruiting Admiral Nelson Agate had been her mission, and she’d been willing to do whatever she had to do to get him onboard, but staying with him had been her choice. Her gamble. Admiral Agate had been on the way up and, with her clearing his way and handling the politics, he would continue rising until he was right at the very top. Or as close to it as an outsider could come. Julia had had no concerns about developing a relationship with him, about - eventually - becoming his wife and bearing his children. It was her duty, both to the family and herself. But now the dream was ashes in her mouth. She hadn’t seen Admiral Agate since he’d surrendered. She had no idea what had happened to him.

  And it won’t matter, she thought, savagely. We failed.

  She stared down at her hands. She’d gambled and lost and ... there was no way in hell they’d ever allow her another shot at the golden ring. The corporation was good at isolating incompetents, at putting them in places they could do no harm. She was family, so she was fairly sure she’d wouldn’t be thrown out the nearest airlock, but she wouldn’t have a chance to reach the heights again. There was no room for failure at the very highest levels. The entire corporation relied upon its leadership being the best it could possibly be.

  The blank walls seemed to mock her. She knew she was being watched, even though she was alone. She understood, too late, how the starship crewmen must have felt. She’d been their political commissioner. She’d controlled the monitors that watched them, every hour of every day. She’d never abused her power - she hadn’t watched them undressing or making use of the privacy tubes - but ... she doubted they’d feel the same way. Her skin prickled every time she used the toilet. She couldn’t even turn out the light.