The Halls of Montezuma

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  Thaddeus met his eyes. “And you think you can do all that without taking troops off the defence lines?”

  “We may not have a choice,” McManus said. “Until we figure out what’s really going on ...”

  “And find out who’s responsible,” Thaddeus finished. Who was it? He could name a handful of people who could manipulate the datanet, or have their subordinates do it for them, but he didn’t think any of them would be stupid enough to try. The marines were breathing down their necks. “We need to warn people not to pay attention to the messages.”

  “We cannot have them questioning the datanet,” McManus warned. “If they stop believing what they see online ... sir, with all due respect, we have enough problems caused by trying to assemble a defence at very short notice. There will be further delays - or worse - if people lose confidence in the datanet.”

  “I see.” Thaddeus hadn’t considered that possibility. “Anything we do will only make it worse.”

  “Yes, sir,” McManus said. “The datanet is supposed to be perfect.”

  Thaddeus doubted that anyone really believed the datanet was perfect. He was all too aware of just how easily a simple mistake could snowball into a hellish nightmare, simply because a piece of data was taken on faith even though it was obviously untrue. And yet ... he gritted his teeth. Whoever had used the datanet to distribute propaganda, whatever their motives, had thrown the entire system into doubt. He felt a hot flash of paranoia. The datanet could send a message to each and every civilian on the planet. Why had so few people received the message? No ... why had so few people reported the message? His blood ran cold as he considered the implications. There was no reason the unknown senders would limit their reach to a few hundred people. They could have sent the message to everyone.

  “How many people received the message,” he asked, “and said nothing?”

  “We don’t know,” McManus said. “Everyone who reported the message was on a list of possible dissidents, but none of them were considered serious threats. The algorithms pinpointed them, sir, yet ... they weren’t guilty of much more than grumbling in the wrong places. However ...”

  Thaddeus cut him off. “So we arrest everyone on the dissident list?”

  “Sir, that would mean arresting millions of people,” McManus said. “Even if we limit it to the people with three strikes against them, which is normally when we arrange for a human officer to investigate, we’d still be arresting hundreds of thousands of people. Many of them are in vital positions and cannot be replaced quickly, if at all. The chaos and disruption would be immense. There’d be no way to fix the damage. I ... I could not advise it.”

  “The marines might be hoping we’d do just that,” Thaddeus said. “We’d be shooting ourselves in the foot.”

  “More like stabbing ourselves in the chest,” McManus said. “I think there’s nothing we can do, but watch and wait.”

  “And doubling patrols on the streets,” Thaddeus said. “Do it.”

  “Yes, sir.” McManus stood. “My staff is looking at ways to tighten up the datanet without damaging it. However, it may be impossible to fix the system before the current crisis is resolved.”

  “Do what you can,” Thaddeus ordered. He dismissed the younger man with a wave of his hand. “Keep me informed.”

  ***

  Julia had never liked paperwork - she knew no one who did, certainly not amongst the aristocracy - but she’d learned to appreciate its value. Whoever controlled the bureaucracy controlled everything, from the military to the corporation itself. And if senior officers gave up control, they risked watching helplessly as the bureaucracy mutated into a cancer that choked and eventually killed the organisation it was meant to help. Julia detested reading reports, but it was the only way to keep on top of things. It was also a good way to start rebuilding her personal power base. She was mildly surprised the director had let her get away with it.

  “Julia,” the director said, when he called her into his office. “I have a job for you.”

  Julia nodded. She was in no position to refuse. She didn’t want to be kicked out of his service, not until she had rebuilt enough of her position to find a decent post elsewhere. If she held out long enough, she was sure people would forget her failures. Corporate royalty had very short memories, particularly when they wanted to forget.

  “I need reports from the streets,” the director said. “I want you to go walkabout and see what you see.”

  “Sir?” Julia knew it was unwise to question orders, but ... this order made no sense. Did the director want to get rid of her? He didn’t need to resort to trickery. He could just order her to go and she’d have no choice, but to obey. “I don’t understand.”

  “You are trained in observing people, are you not?” Director Onge met her eyes. “There have been developments, Julia, and I don’t know who to trust.”

  Julia listened to the brief explanation, dropped a curtsey and hurried out of the office. She was trained to watch military officers, not corporate drones, but ... she supposed it was a sign the director had some faith in her. She changed into a simple suit - her regular suit marked her out as a high-ranking personage - and hurried through the security checkpoints. It was hard to remember, while she was inside the office, just how many layers of security were wrapped around the complex. She wasn’t looking forward to getting back inside. The security officers would insist on checking her thoroughly even though she was corporate royalty.

  She put the thought out of her mind as she began to walk. She’d never spent much time on the streets - she’d never rubbed shoulders with the drones - but the air felt ... tense. The pavements were lined with grounded aircars, all deactivated by the ATC system until the crisis was over. Soldiers and policemen were everywhere, guarding buildings or putting raw recruits through their paces. It was odd to see that inside a city, instead of a nicely-isolated training base on the other side of the planet. Admiral Agate had once told her that training officers and crew required total isolation, just to keep their minds focused on the job. And yet ... she pushed the pang of ... something ... out of her mind. The admiral had surrendered to the enemy. He might as well be dead.

  Her eyes narrowed as she spotted the wall-mounted viewscreens. Public Relations had been churning out endless news reports that bore very little relationship to reality, although it was hard to tell if anyone realised it. The defenders were pushing the marines back ... sooner or later, the cynic in her noted, someone was going to realise the marines had been pushed right around the planet. She glanced at the workers in their drab clothes, their faces carefully blank. It didn’t look as though they were enthusiastic about the news reports.

  Julia kept walking until she was passing through the apartment district. The children were still going to school, their mothers watching them worriedly. There were no older teenagers in view ... Julia frowned, then remembered most of them had been conscripted into the labour battalions. She’d read a report insisting the kids had taken to military discipline like ducks to water. She wasn’t sure that was true. Teenagers, in her experience, chafed under any form of authority. But then, the men in charge were authorised to do whatever it took to keep the conscripts working. Anyone who put up a fight would spend the rest of his life on a penal colony.

  She stopped in at a lunch hall and purchased a sandwich and a mug of coffee. The sandwich tasted bland, as if it had been put together from algae-based ration bars; the coffee was foul enough to make her want to spit. The music was so loud the security monitors probably couldn’t make out a word, something she was sure was intentional. She could see people - workers all - talking so quietly she couldn’t hear a word either. They didn’t seem inclined to invite her to join them. She was ruefully aware she stood out like a sore thumb. She was just too clean and tidy for the district.

  Unfriendly eyes followed her as she put the remains of her lunch aside and walked back onto the streets. There was no open dissidence, as far as she could see, but ... workers didn�
��t seem to be working with any real enthusiasm. They didn’t seem to believe the algorithms that monitored their working patterns would matter for much longer, if indeed at all. Her eyes drifted over a food store and noted how few items remained on the shelves, despite the paperwork claiming the city had plenty of food. Panic-buying was supposed to be impossible. The system monitored purchases closely. And yet ...

  There are plenty of ways to circumvent the system, she thought. She’d learnt, back on the battlecruiser, that people needed to have a little rebellion. They needed to think they were fighting the system and winning, even if they were claiming very petty victories that made no difference in the long run. The shopkeepers are probably trading something other than money.

  She kept walking, unable to shake the feeling that the entire city was on a knife edge. There was nothing overt, nothing she could put her finger on, but ... it was there. She was sure it was there. A hint of resentment, a hint of fear ... and, perhaps, the hope of a better future once the corporation’s power was broken. She felt her heart sink as she finally turned and started to walk back towards the centre of the city. She could still feel unfriendly eyes following her.

  We need to win quickly, she thought. She couldn’t allow herself any illusions. The comforting lies on the viewscreens were nothing more than ... comforting lies. We have to win quickly, or we won’t win at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  This point is never grasped by feudal lords or communist commissioners. They believe that setting impossible targets, and then threatening the proles with harsh punishments for failing to meet such targets, is the only way to convince them to generate a larger output. This is, of course, wrong. In the short term, it leads to either revolution or bitter resentment. In the long term, the effective brain drain leads to a complete lack of innovation and social collapse, stasis, or outside invasion.

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

  “Sir,” Mayberry said. “I’ve got movement.”

  Haydn nodded as he peered into the distance. The marines had kept advancing, locating and isolating enemy positions before outflanking the enemy and shelling them into submission. It wasn’t particularly fair, but he didn’t care. The enemy might be in retreat, yet they weren’t panicking and running for their lives. Instead, they were firing missiles or sniping at the marines, holding their positions long enough to land a blow and then retreating before the marines could return fire. Haydn’s company hadn’t lost many marines - two men had been killed, four more had been injured and handed over to the medics - but they were tired, cranky and sick of death of the endless sniping.

  He frowned as he saw the enemy position. The landscape was a curious mix of farmland, forests and artificial dams and lakes. The enemy hadn’t helped by flooding some of the terrain, reminding Haydn of the horror stories he’d heard from the final battles on Hameau even though they hadn’t managed to drown any of the marines. It just made life harder for them as they pushed forward. Haydn understood the importance of keeping the pressure on - he’d spent half his career chasing terrorists until they could run no more - but he couldn’t help feeling they were going to outrun their logistics at any moment. The logistics staff had pressed captured vehicles and enemy volunteers into service, yet it just wasn’t enough. His men needed a break long enough to prepare themselves for the coming engagement.

  Mortars cracked in the distance. He ducked as shells fell around them, then barked a command at the platoon. The machine gunners provided cover as the marines ran up the incline, forcing the enemy to duck. They’d dug a trench on the top, hiding their people from orbital or drone surveillance. Haydn would have been more impressed if they hadn’t been shooting at him. The marines didn’t give them a chance to react ...

  He froze, just for a second, as a handful of enemy troops threw down their weapons and raised their hands. Were they surrendering? Or was it a trick? Haydn was all too aware that terrorists and insurgents were fond of pretending to surrender, then picking up their weapons and opening fire when the marines got into range. Or their commanders would open fire on their own positions, mowing down their own men to get at the marines. It was never easy to tell if the surrendering men were really surrendering. Haydn had heard suggestions that some men were surrendering, only to find themselves used as bait by their fellows. The poor bastards hadn’t stood a chance.

  “Keep your hands in the air,” he barked, as his eyes swept the surrounding countryside for enemy positions. The position they’d just stormed appeared to be completely isolated, as if the enemy hadn’t really cared enough to provide any actual support. “If you touch anything, you will be shot!”

  He eyed the men thoughtfully as the marines came closer. They looked young, too young. Haydn had joined the marines at eighteen and yet ... the men they’d captured looked younger than the men who’d gone through Boot Camp and the Slaughterhouse with him. They looked younger than the lads he’d fought on Hameau, young enough to bother him. He’d seen children carrying grenades - and older kids carrying rifles - but he’d never expected to see it on Onge. The corprats had fought a surprisingly civilised war.

  The marines searched the men roughly, confiscated their supplies and then ordered them to sit by the side of the trench to wait for the follow-up units. Haydn kept a wary eye on them, even as his platoon prepared to continue the advance. They really did look young. The oldest struck him as being around sixteen, perhaps younger. Teenagers? Haydn had wanted to join the marines from childhood, but he hadn’t heard of anyone younger than seventeen getting into Boot Camp.

  He peered down at the enemy troops. “What are you doing here?”

  The oldest trooper peered at him, defiantly. “I can only give you my name, my rank and my serial number.”

  And anyone who went through the Conduct After Capture course would know better than to debate with the enemy, Haydn thought. He looked at the young men, suddenly realising they had very little training. Are they throwing raw recruits into the fire?

  “True,” he said. The spooks would get more out of them. They’d figure out how the lads had wound up in uniforms and ordered onto the front lines. “Behave yourselves and you’ll get out of this alive.”

  He studied them for a long moment, then stood back as the MPs arrived and escorted the prisoners into captivity. The question of just what they were doing there didn’t matter, not now. If they’d surrendered so quickly, perhaps it was a good sign. The corprats had lost a lot of troops on Hameau. They might be short of deployable manpower to throw at the marines ... or they might be planning something big. Haydn had studied all the great battles of old, from infantry charges across no-man’s land to fast-moving tank engagements as armoured monsters strove to break into the enemy rear. A calculating enemy CO might starve his front-line units of trained manpower, all the time preparing his masterstroke.

  When it comes, we’ll deal with it, he thought. It wouldn’t be long before they reached the next megacity. And then, hopefully, the war will be over.

  ***

  “It’s confirmed, sir,” Lieutenant Yu said. “The latest bunch of prisoners came from a labour battalion that was hastily thrown into the breach.”

  Gerald frowned as he studied the map. “They didn’t have time to withdraw?”

  “From what they said, when the spooks got to them, they were given weapons and told to hold the position as long as possible,” Yu said. “They didn’t really know what they were doing.”

  “Odd.” Gerald looked up at him. “No training at all?”

  “Only a little,” Yu said. “They were in their final year of school when they were yanked out of the classroom and told to dig trenches. They weren’t ready for a fight. They didn’t even have more than an hour or two of weapons training.”

  “Odd,” Gerald repeated.

  He stroked his chin. The days when a new conscript could be given a rifle, an hour’s training and then pointed at the front were long gone. Really, they had neve
r existed outside the fevered dreams of politicians and armchair generals. It took months to turn a civilian into a soldier, let alone a marine. The enemy might have found it necessary to put schoolchildren to work digging trenches, but ... he frowned. The poor kids were going to get killed, if they weren’t careful. There was a good chance they’d be caught in the open by a prowling aircraft and strafed before they could run or hide.

  His eyes wandered the map. It wasn’t easy to estimate just how much trained manpower the enemy actually had. Their home-grown units were stiffened by ex-imperial officers and men who’d been scooped up and transported to Onge well before Earthfall had shattered galactic society beyond repair. Given time, the enemy certainly had the manpower and equipment to give the marines a real fight. It was part of the reason he was pushing the advance so hard. They couldn’t afford to give the enemy a chance to get back on their feet and start punching back.

  “They’re up to something,” he said. He was no stranger to military incompetence, or the simple fact that things often went wrong on the battlefield through no fault of the people in charge, but putting so many untrained men on the front lines was worrying. Either the advance had overwhelmed the defenders or ... he had to assume the worst. “What are they doing?”

  He frowned. What would he do? His lips quirked, humourlessly. He’d do what the enemy was doing. Bleed the marines, while buying time for the defence lines to stiffen and the fleet to return. And yet, the enemy didn’t have much time. They could evacuate trained personnel from the factories, but they couldn’t dismantle them before it was too late. The enemy needed to stop him in his tracks, then go on the offensive. He had to prepare his men for the worst.

  “Push out more flankers,” he ordered, grimly. “And see if we can speed up the logistics deployments.”

  “Yes, sir,” Yu said.

  Gerald rubbed his forehead. The advance would continue - it had to continue - until it ran into something that forced it to stop. He was all too aware his logistics were starting to break down. The shuttles were working night and day to bring down more ammunition as well as equipment and supplies, but they were running up against some very hard limits. He was starting to fear he’d made a mistake in pushing the advance so hard. The enemy was luring him onwards. He knew they might be preparing a trap.