He felt a pang of guilt. He was tired, so tired. And yet, what had he done? He’d spent the day sitting on his ass in a mansion, while younger men did all the real work. It had been a long time since he’d led troops in combat, a long time since he’d felt as if he was pulling his weight. He’d been in danger on Hameau, sure, but he hadn’t been on the front lines. He understood why old-time generals had fought beside their men ... they’d commanded their respect, even if they’d risked losing everything when they died. His training told him the generals had been selfish bastards. His emotions told him something different.
“Keep me informed,” he said. Night was falling, but the war raged on. His men would snatch a few hours of sleep under the stars, then resume the march into enemy territory. “And alert me if anything changes.”
His heart clenched as he walked along the corridor - the eerily-empty corridor - and out onto the lawn. Hundreds of vehicles had torn the lawn to pieces, churning up the grass and grinding the flowers into the mud. Now, the remnants of the charming gardens were dotted with mobile sensor platforms, air defence units and a single command vehicle. High overhead, lights flickered and flared before flashing out of existence, a grim reminder that the battle in space was far from over. He wished, not for the first time, that he was commanding from a hole in the ground. There was something about the mansion that promoted indolence.
You just need a kick in the backside, he thought. His old Drill Instructor would have laughed in his face. And, when this is all over, perhaps you can ask for a demotion and go back to the front lines.
He snorted. He knew that wasn’t going to happen.
***
Lieutenant Simone Prescott shivered, despite herself, as she led the remnants of her unit back towards the front lines ... the new front lines. The old front lines had been torn to pieces by the marines, just like the remainder of the defence lines that had been put together in a hurry before the marines reached them. Darkness was steadily falling, making it harder to keep going despite her enhanced eyesight. They didn’t dare risk a light. They’d been warned the marines would fire on anything, even something as tiny as a cigarette.
She felt cold, even though it was a warm evening. Her men were falling apart. She’d never been trained to take command of a platoon, certainly not one that had been moved from garrison duty and thrown into combat. Her original company - and her commanding officers - had effectively been smashed. The men under her command were largely strangers, survivors of previous encounters that had been swept up and put under her command. She was uneasily aware their morale was in the crapper. They’d been through hell in the last few days. Some of them had even been muttering about deserting.
Gunshots echoed through the air. She looked back, spotting a handful of fires where towns and hamlets had once been. She’d heard the marines were destroying everything, setting fire to empty homes and burning farms to the ground. She thought she could feel them behind her, driving her on. She hadn’t slept in hours, perhaps days. She wasn’t even sure they were going the right way. The jokes about lieutenants who’d been issued maps - and led their men into enemy positions - no longer seemed funny. For all she knew, they’d gotten turned around in the darkness.
“We shouldn’t go back,” someone muttered behind her. She didn’t dare look to see who was talking. “There’s nothing for us up there.”
She gritted her teeth as she heard a mutter of agreement. The men had been through hell. None of them had been prepared for a high-intensity war. They’d expected time to prepare, not to shift from garrison duties to all-out war in the blink of an eye. She felt a sudden stab of fear. How many men were behind her? She knew several men had slipped away, into the darkness. And what would they do? They could desert, but what would happen after the war? They’d be hunted down and executed for desertion.
“They’ll just send us back into the fire,” someone else muttered. The voice was deeper, darker. “Why bother?”
Simone hesitated, unsure what to do. She was in command, technically. Half the men under her didn’t know her and the other half saw her as a stupid greenie lieutenant. She’d heard the sly suggestions she’d slept her way into her rank, even though she’d gone through OCS with the rest of the officers in training. And ... she felt her heart start to pound. Captain Dagon would have known what to say, if a bullet hadn’t taken his head off a day or so ago. No one would have dared ignore him ...
“If you desert, you’ll be hunted down,” she said, finally. It was the only argument that came to mind. She couldn’t promise them anything when they reached safety. The new CO would turn them around, giving the marines yet another chance to kill them. “You can’t leave now.”
She realised, too late, that she’d made a mistake. A fist cracked into her back, knocking her to the ground. Simone grunted and tried to roll over, too late. Someone landed on her back, hands grabbing hold of her belt and yanking down her trousers. She heard someone chuckle as his hands slapped her butt, then caught hold of her hands and pinned them against the ground. Panic ran through her as she struggled, helplessly. They were going to rape her. They were going to gang-rape her and then ... they’d cut her throat. They couldn’t leave her alive afterwards, not when they’d be hunted down and killed. Better to kill her and hope, if anyone discovered the body, that they assumed the marines had raped her. She heard someone opening his zipper, felt fingers stabbing between her legs and forcing her to spread wide for them ...
Something hit the ground, hard. Simone couldn’t see anything, but ... the weight on her back fell to one side and vanished. Someone cried out, swiftly silenced. The sound of running footsteps echoed in the air, then came to an abrupt halt. She wondered, suddenly, if she was dreaming. Perhaps they’d slit her throat and she was seeing things as her life slowly slipped away. They’d been completely alone. Who’d come to her rescue? And why?
“It’s over,” a voice said. Gruff, male ... but somehow reassuring. “How are you?”
Simone rolled over, cursing the bastard who’d pulled down her trousers. The ground felt cold and wet against her bare ass. She hoped she wasn’t sitting in a puddle of blood. It wasn’t easy to pull them back up, then stumble to her feet. The newcomer was a shadowy form, barely visible within the darkness. She couldn’t so much as make out his face.
“Fine,” she managed. She’d never realised she could be raped by her own men. She’d been warned, in gruesome detail, what might happen if she fell into enemy hands, but ... her own men shouldn’t have been able to threaten her. “I ... thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” the newcomer said. He gave her space, something that surprised her. “I have to report back to my superiors in the city. Coming?”
“Yeah,” Simone managed. She forced herself to calm down. “Who are you?”
“Commissioner Phelps,” the newcomer said. “And I think we’re going to be good friends.”
Simone nodded. She’d never seen the commissioners as anything other than interfering assholes who made normal assholes look bland by comparison. The rumours suggested they had no qualms about taking advantage of their positions, although the commissioner attached to her old unit hadn’t shown any interest in anything beyond his job. She eyed the shadowy form with a new respect. She’d certainly never expected a commissioner to be able to kill four men without batting an eyelid. He wasn’t even breathing heavily.
And if he’s going all the way back to the city, she thought, and he takes me with him ...
She smiled. In truth, she’d had enough of war.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The larger aspect of the problem, of course, is that corruption starts to rear its ugly head at once. Once you start setting targets, and threatening harsh punishments for failing to meet them, you can bet good money - as long as you have it - that your subordinates will start rewriting the records to ‘prove’ they succeeded. Your targets will rapidly become worthless.
- Professor Leo Caesius, The Rise and Fall of Interstellar C
apitalism
“And what did you think you were doing?”
Rachel winced inwardly, feeling a stab of sympathy as Commander Archer berated an unfortunate staff officer for a tiny mistake. It wasn’t even her fault, unless one counted following orders as a mistake. Rachel tried to keep her face blank as the asshole went on and on, reducing the poor girl to tears. It was easy to tell Commander Archer was enjoying himself. He wasn’t just an asshole, but a sadist. Rachel dreaded to think what he might be like in bed.
She did her best to ignore the racket as she returned her attention to her console. The messages she’d sent had clearly attracted attention, although the enemy counterintelligence officers hadn’t - yet - worked out where they’d come from. Rachel was fairly sure they couldn’t, not without taking measures that would alert her long before they found even a hint of proof she was involved. They’d been forced to resort to doubling and even tripling the security officers on duty, ensuring they were practically tripping over each other as they tried to monitor the staff for signs of disloyalty. Rachel was almost tempted to stop making mistakes of her own. The enemy system was so screwed up she didn’t need to bother.
“And you can report directly to HR for reassignment,” Commander Archer snarled. “Don’t think you’re getting back here!”
Rachel kept her face impassive as Commander Archer resumed his pacing. She didn’t know what would happen to the poor girl, when she reached HR, but Rachel was fairly sure it wouldn’t be anything good. She’d probably wind up being given a rifle and told to join the front lines. Rachel had monitored the enemy mobilisation and noted it wasn’t that efficient. She’d done her bit to make it a lot more inefficient.
The shift ended without further incident, much to her relief. Commander Archer dismissed them, then stamped off to make someone else’s life miserable. Rachel didn’t really care, as long as he stayed out of her way. She tossed a handful of ideas around to make sure he got the blame, if - when - she had to go active and do as much damage as she could before she fought her way out, but none of them were particularly good ideas. She shook her head at the thought as she walked into the barracks. The other staffers were heading down to the mess hall. She’d have at least half an hour to herself before the others came to get some sleep.
Not that it really matters, she thought. She could link into the datanet without doing anything that might alert the casual observer. But it’s well to be careful.
She lay on the bed, in full view of the security monitors, and closed her eyes as she opened the datalink. The enemy hadn’t set up more monitors, as far as she could tell, but she still felt nervous as she widened the link. They knew someone had hacked the datanet ... she was sure, despite everything she’d written in the messages, that a few people would have reported them to higher authority. They’d be too afraid to do anything else. Rachel shivered as she remembered meeting a pair of missionaries, back when she’d been on leave. They’d felt that God Himself would punish them for not spreading the good word. Here ... it was worse. The locals had no doubt they were being watched.
It didn’t look as though the enemy had traced her, but she took extreme care as she poked and prodded her way towards the isolated data cache. Her instructors had taught her that it was relatively easy, if one knew what one was doing, to peer into and around the cache without setting off any red flags. The enemy couldn’t take down their datanet without crippling themselves, but they could set traps to alert them if anyone opened the wrong file. Rachel allowed herself a moment of relief as she surveyed the cache, making sure it hadn’t been uncovered. She’d gone to a lot of trouble to hide it, and ensure that any replies went on a grand tour of the network before finally reaching their destination, but it had been impossible to be sure. Someone could have caught on to what she was doing. The average staffer might know little about how the datanet worked, and someone who intended to play both sides might not know how to watch the message as it darted around the system, but the enemy had plenty of WebHeads in their service. Rachel doubted she could fool a WebHead for very long.
She smiled, inwardly, as she noted just how many officers and civilians had plucked up the nerve to reply. She’d sent hundreds of thousands of emails and received a few thousand replies. More than she’d expected, but less than she’d feared. She worked her way through them, silently wondering how many people intended to play both sides of the field. The military officers would certainly know the battle was far from decided, not yet. She composed a set of replies and sent them out, hoping their targets would respond properly. It was easier to convince people to join a movement if the hard work of starting the movement looked to have already been done.
Strength in numbers, she thought. They can’t put the entire planet in chains.
The thought chilled her. She’d been on planets where slavery was legal, where men and women could be sold for a handful of coins, but ... this planet was in chains. There was no way to get a protest movement started without everyone involved being noted, logged and arrested when the demonstration finally broke up. As long as the population monitoring system remained intact, there was little hope of a real uprising. Something would have to be done about it.
She led her mind roam through the system, searching for intelligence. The marines had studied the captured enemy personnel, they knew how the system worked. The implants were little more than transmitters, too low-powered to be detected from orbit. She suspected it was a security measure, but ... it came with its weaknesses. Her mind jumped from datacore to datacore. The system had to be centralised, which meant there had to be a station somewhere within the megacity itself. Where? Her lips quirked as she traced the links and finally located the base. It wasn’t too far from the military HQ.
Getting inside might pose a challenge, she mused. Commander Archer didn’t have permission to enter the monitoring complex. General Gilbert probably didn’t have permission, either. The chances were good that anyone who did have permission would be known to the guards. They probably had orders to call their superiors and check anyone who turned up, even if they were on the approved list. If they start asking questions, I’m dead.
She kept her eyes closed as she considered the possibilities. There had to be a way inside, but what? She couldn’t pose as a guard. She couldn’t pose as someone with permission to enter the complex. She couldn’t ... or could she? An idea ran through her head. It would be difficult, and risky, but it might be doable. If nothing else, it would give the enemy a fright.
And I have to put into action quickly, before something else changes, she thought. It won’t be easy.
She started to fire orders into the system, silently thanking General Gilbert for keeping her nose to the grindstone. The system was easy to manipulate. The trick was to ensure that no one had a chance to put together the whole picture, then sound the alarm. She smiled as she watched the orders gliding through the system, then put the matter out of her mind long enough to get some proper sleep. Even if someone realised what she was doing, it was unlikely they could follow the path back to her. And ...
Her heart sank. She knew what she’d have to do.
Her implants woke her, five hours later. Her shift wasn’t scheduled to start for another four hours, long enough to go to work. She checked the security systems, making sure Commander Archer was in his suite. Alone. She raised an eyebrow, then decided not to worry about it as she slipped out of bed and donned her uniform. The commander wasn’t a very nice man. Perhaps he’d simply failed to lure someone into his bed.
Or perhaps he’s up to something himself, she mused, as she made her way through the corridors. It was early morning, the time when the human mind was least aware of its surroundings. Her old unit had always stood to at dawn, just in case the enemy was on the prowl. It had happened enough to convince her younger self that it was more than just paranoia. If there was anyone who’d switch sides, it’s him.
She tapped on the commander’s door, trying to look nonchalant. The officer qua
rters felt deserted. Rachel was fairly sure anyone who wasn’t on duty was trying to sleep before they had to go back to work. Good. A half-asleep commander was unlikely to be thinking too clearly. The door opened with a hiss. Commander Archer stared at her, his eyes blinking in confusion.
He found his voice. “What do you want?”
“I need a favour,” Rachel said. She fought down a twinge of disgust. Silk work had never been her forte. She lacked the aptitude as well as the body. “Can we discuss it inside?”
Commander Archer put his hand on her arm and pulled her inside. Rachel could have broken the grip easily, but restrained herself. The eagerness in his eyes bothered her at a very primal level. She wanted to break his neck. Instead, she allowed him to close and lock the door behind her. The sound of the lock was surprisingly loud. She wondered if he’d rigged it that way on purpose or if her enhanced senses were merely overreacting. It was certainly no coincidence he’d deliberately arranged his furniture to block the monitors. She was surprised no one had told him off for it.
He’s probably got friends in high places, she thought. Commander Archer’s behaviour represented a massive security risk. There has to be a reason he hasn’t been removed from office by now.
“Well,” Commander Archer said. “What do you want?”
“I need to send a message to my sister,” Rachel said. Lieutenant Hannah Gresham’s sister would be very surprised to receive a message from someone who was missing, presumed dead, but it hardly mattered. “I can’t do it myself.”
The Halls of Montezuma Page 24