First To Fight (The Empire's Corps Book 11)

by Christopher Nuttall

  I watched, from my position, as the driver and his two companions - he claimed one of them was his sister and the other was his sister-in-law - were searched by the fire team, who then searched their vehicle as thoroughly as possible. They complained, loudly, using words I hadn’t heard before, even at Boot Camp. The fire team ignored them, completed the check and waved the car onwards. I shook my head in grim disbelief as the next car rolled into the killing zone; if it took five to ten minutes to be reasonably sure there was nothing dangerous inside the vehicle, there were going to be tailbacks stretching back for miles.

  We rotated positions after thirty minutes; Singh supervised as we searched the vehicles, then waved them onwards. I swiftly got used to the torrent of abuse - they weren't as unpleasant as some of the Drill Instructors - and did my best to ignore the humiliation clearly written over the faces of the women and children I had to search. Several of them were carrying weapons, but we ignored anything smaller than an assault rifle. Too many people wanted to defend themselves to make confiscating weapons a viable option ... although that hadn't stopped the Governor from decreeing a zero-tolerance approach to weapons in private hands.

  “This is going to cause too many problems,” Lewis predicted, as we rotated to the back and took the opportunity to drink some water. “Bet you this just makes everyone madder.”

  I couldn't disagree. The line of waiting vehicles stretched back for miles, as I’d expected, and countless people were hopelessly late for their appointments. Several cars were even reversing course and heading back to their homes, their drivers probably concluding that it wasn't worth the time to wait. My ears were ringing; the drivers just kept blowing their horns, as if that would make the checkpoint magically vanish. And to think I’d thought that live rounds were bad.

  A car passed through the checkpoint and screeched to a halt in front of me. I looked up, alarmed, as the driver jumped out and glared at us. “Hey,” he shouted, as we jumped to our feet. “Who’s going to pay for my spoiled produce?”

  I looked at him. “What produce?”

  His glare deepened; he opened the side door, revealing a number of crates containing fruits and vegetables. I was no expert, but it definitely looked like at least half of them had turned rotten. On the other hand, they did look better than the slop we were served in Boot Camp, when they weren't feeding us ration bars. (I was told that there are regiments of the Imperial Army where the soldiers are deliberately fed something horrible, just to make them mad enough to kill their enemies and anyone unlucky enough to be standing close to their enemies when the shit hits the fan. Unfortunately, it sounds quite plausible.) I exchanged a look with Lewis, then shrugged.

  “I can't sell these,” the driver protested. “I’ll be lynched!”

  I keyed my radio. “Sergeant,” I said, “we have a situation.”

  There was a pause. “Give him a compensation chip,” Singh ordered. “And tell him to present it and his produce at the garrison to have it honoured.”

  “They always underpay,” the driver complained, when I gave him the chip. “I grow these fruits myself and ...”

  “It’s that or nothing,” I said, tartly. I understood his feelings, but it was hard to care. He wasn't the one wondering if the next vehicle that entered the killing zone would be the one with the bomb hidden underneath the driver’s seat. “Go to the garrison and they’ll give you something, at least ...”

  The ground shook violently as something exploded on the bridge. I cursed and ran for cover, while the driver - showing remarkable presence of mind, if not common sense - hastily closed the rear doors, jumped into the cab and drove off. There was no time to worry about him; I peered past the cover and saw a handful of flaming vehicles on the bridge. The enemy must have realised that destroying the checkpoint was futile, so they’d settled for weakening the bridge instead. Idiots; if they’d waited, they could have taken out three marines and weakened us quite badly.

  “Incoming fire,” Lewis snapped, as bullets started to ping off the walls. “They’ve taken up position on the other side of the highway.”

  I nodded, already searching for targets. There wasn't much concealment on the other side - the royalists had cut down all the trees year ago - but the enemy had had plenty of time to prepare themselves. I fired a round at an enemy fighter who showed himself for a second, yet I don't think I actually hit him. The first RPG round soared in a moment later and spent itself harmlessly against the checkpoint. A second, fired from a different position, overshot and came down inside the city itself. I hoped no one was hurt, but there was no time to check.

  “Hah,” I said, as another enemy fighter appeared. This time, I saw him fall as my bullet struck him. “Scratch one tango.”

  “Scratch two,” Rifleman Parker said. “There are too many civilians in the area ...”

  The skirmish rapidly turned into a stalemate. We couldn't get to them, but they couldn't get to us. Hundreds of civilians, caught in the middle of a firefight, stayed as low as they could, praying they weren’t hit by one side or the other. We watched them carefully, knowing that some of them could be dickers ... and that there was nothing we could do to help the wounded. If we’d sent medics out, they would have been targeted too.

  “Helicopters inbound,” Singh said. “Brace yourselves ...”

  Two helicopters, their stubby wings loaded down with weapons, swooped overhead, their machine guns opening fire on enemy positions. The enemy, undeterred, fired a handful of RPGs at the helicopters, then melted away into the undergrowth. Singh snapped orders and we abandoned our position and ran forward, searching for targets. I saw an enemy fighter running for his life and shot him in the back, then ducked as a bullet snapped over my head and vanished somewhere behind me. The remaining enemy fire slackened off and came to an end, leaving us alone ... with the civilians. A number of cars were burning brightly, their occupants either lying by the roadside or dead in their vehicles. Others were turning and heading away as fast as they could.

  “I’ve called for medics, but they’re not going to be here for hours,” Singh warned, over the radio net. “Parker, set up a triage station; fire team three will hold the checkpoint while the other fire teams collect the wounded.”

  Over a year ago - it felt like decades ago - I’d been told that anything could be healed, as long as it wasn't immediately fatal. Now, those words seemed like a sick joke. We’d been taught how to triage the wounded, how to separate the dying from those who could be healed quickly, but I’d hoped never to have to do it. I carried a dying girl to the roadside - her father was already dead - and left her there to die, then helped a nine-year-old boy to where Parker was providing emergency treatment. His burns looked nasty, but they were purely superficial. The girl, on the other hand, was doomed unless she was shipped to a modern hospital and I knew it wasn't going to happen.

  “This is all your fault,” an elderly woman raged, as I carefully pulled her adult son from his car. He’d taken a bullet in the side of the head. “If you weren’t here, this wouldn't have happened.”

  I shrugged - the planet’s problems had started a long time before the Grand Senate authorised military intervention - and placed the body by the side of the road. The elderly woman kept shouting at me until I walked off, leaving her behind. What else could I have done? Nothing I said to her could have made the slightest bit of difference. Her son was dead, his children - if he had any - were fatherless, his wife was a widow ... what could we do to fix it?

  And the redshirts were completely useless. They’d hit the ground as soon as the shooting started and stayed there, even though they hadn't drawn any fire. I couldn't blame the enemy for not shooting at them, not when they posed absolutely no threat at all. Now the fighting was over and the enemy had retreated, the redshirts got to their feet and started pushing the civilians around, as if they could make up for their cowardice by mindless arrogance and brutality. We eyed them with increasing anger; indeed, if a regiment of soldiers hadn't arrived to ta
ke over, I think something nasty would have happened.

  “Sergeant,” Lewis said as we made our slow way back to the FOB, “wouldn't it be easier if something bad happened to the bastards?”

  “There’s plenty more where they came from,” Singh said. The bastard didn't even sound tired, somehow. Everyone else looked as though they would collapse if the wind blew a little harder. “Kill every currently-serving Redshirt and there would be hundreds more tomorrow.”

  He was right, I suspected. The Redshirts didn't serve for love of king or country; they served for money and the chance to push their helpless fellows around as much as possible. Maybe they weren't quite as bad as some of the more extreme rebels, but they were still quite nasty enough. Give a coward and bully a taste of power and he’ll turn into a monster. And, like most cowards and bullies, he’ll run when he comes face to face with someone who can actually fight back.

  And that, unfortunately, is what is so badly wrong with the Civil Guard.

  “What a day,” Lewis said. He sounded no better than I felt. “And just think! Tomorrow we get to do it again and again and again. Isn't that just swell?”

  “Fuck it,” I said. The thought seemed unbearable, somehow. I’d killed men for the first time and it was getting to me. And I’d seen innocents caught in the crossfire and cut down by one side or the other. “Maybe I should just call in sick tomorrow.”

  I didn't, of course. Like everyone else, I went back out and did it again.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The Civil Guard - and the Redshirts were counted as Civil Guard units on the muster rolls - was always a mixed bag. On some planets, they were a tough and professional volunteer force, with the unspoken purpose of defending those worlds against the Empire if necessary, while others were nothing more than thugs, as dangerous as the insurgents they faced. As always, strong leadership and political structures made the difference between viable military units and cannon fodder.

  For the Empire, though, they did have one great advantage. They were cheap.

  -Professor Leo Caesius

  I’d like to say things got better after that, but it would be an outright lie.

  We went out each day for a month, patrolling the streets, manning checkpoints and carrying out the occasional raid on an enemy target. It didn't get any easier. The population hated us, the insurgents hit us regularly and then faded away before we could catch them and we grew more and more frustrated. Two marines were badly wounded by an IED and a third was killed when a sniper managed a lucky shot before we could drive him away. By the time we were finally rotated back to the spaceport for some leave - or what passed for leave on Moidart - we were pushed right to the limit.

  “I want you to go in pairs, even when you're inside the wire,” Singh ordered. “Make damn sure you have loaded weapons with you, because you can't trust anyone who isn't a marine.”

  We groaned, but he was right. The spaceport was supposed to be secure, but between the number of locals working various roles and the poorly-paid security forces, it wasn't too hard for the rebels to slip men and weapons through the wire. A bar had been blown up last week, we’d heard, killing a dozen REMFs. No doubt our combat efficiency had improved enormously. It would do them good, Lewis had said, to actually feel the war ... and no one else had disagreed.

  The armoured cars drove us back to the spaceport. I couldn't help thinking it was even less welcoming than the FOB, although that could have been because I knew how poorly it was guarded. The FOB might have been more uncomfortable than an Undercity school, but at least it was heavily defended by competent soldiers. We clutched our rifles tightly as we passed through the first set of checkpoints, Singh chewing out a couple of local guards who wanted to take our weapons before we entered the spaceport. I couldn't believe the sheer stupidity of the guards - and the officers who oversaw the defences. If the spaceport was vulnerable, wouldn't it be better to arm everyone so that any threat could be countered as quickly as possible?

  “The brothel isn't bad here,” Lewis said, as the armoured cars passed through the second checkpoint and parked beside our barracks. “Or you can go gambling, if you like, but remember the golden rule.”

  I nodded. We weren't allowed to gamble with more than half of our salary. It stopped us getting into debt, first to gambling houses and then to loan sharks. Unlike the army, the marines saw to it that we were housed, fed and watered; there wasn't a real chance of getting into debt with anyone else. The army, on the other hand, found itself acting as a collecting agent far too often. Bastard loan sharks lend money to soldiers at high rates of interest because they can rely on the army to collect their money for them.

  “Keep your weapons with you,” Singh said, again. He’d harped on it throughout the trip, even though none of us really needed the reminder. “And don’t try going into any of the secure zones.”

  Lewis smirked. “They had us raiding the base to test the defences,” he said. “We practically waltzed through them.”

  We scrambled out of the armoured cars and looked around. The barracks were designed for marines on leave and were the very height of luxury; the showers were private, there was real paper in the toilets and there wasn't any requirement for one of us to stand watch. (We did anyway, as Singh’s warnings had sunk in.) Beyond the inner fence, we saw the spaceport strip; a line of bars, brothels and entertainment complexes, broadcasting loud music in all directions. I’d seen something like it on Mars - Liberty Town on the Slaughterhouse was surprisingly demur in comparison - but an air of desperation hung over the whole complex, as if everyone knew it was just a matter of time before they had to leave.

  “Hey,” Joker called. “Coming to explore with me?”

  “Definitely,” I said, grateful. We really hadn't had much time to exchange more than greetings since joining the company. The policy of putting CROWs in separate platoons had seen to that. “Let’s see what we can find, shall we?”

  “Food first,” Joker said. “And then we can see what else there is.”

  I grinned and followed him through the gate. The music grew louder as we walked past a bar, clashing horribly with music from a different bar. I looked inside; my eyes widened as I saw three women dancing around a pole, wearing nothing but their hair. A crowd of uniformed men - and not a few women - were watching the dancers, their faces glazed with lust. A terrorist squad could launch an attack and kill half of them before the rest realised they were in danger. I shook my head in disbelief, then followed Joker to a fast food place displaying giant pictures of burgers, fries and hot dogs. Joker had better taste than me - the Undercity isn't the place to be snobbish about food - and I was happy to let him take the lead.

  “I’ll get the burgers,” Joker said, as we stepped through the door. “You find a place to sit.”

  “Sure,” I said. It was quieter inside, much to my relief. “Get me a” - I scanned the menu quickly, then gave up - “get me something you think I would like.”

  Joker nodded and hurried towards the counter at the front. I looked around, saw a plastic table firmly bolted to the floor and hurried towards it. An officer in a uniform that hadn't seen a day of combat in its life stared at me, as if I were a wild animal that had just walked up to him and sniffed his crotch. In no mood to put up with nonsense, I stared at him until he turned and staggered away, looking pale. I knew I was wearing my BDUs instead of dress blacks, but I'm pretty sure I didn't look that bad.

  I sat down and studied the patrons ... and realised, to my growing horror, that I truly was out of place. Most of the eaters wore clean uniforms and looked snappy, too snappy. We’d been taught that we could either look good or be good - that it was impossible to be both - and I was looking at the proof. The uniforms they wore marked them as REMFs, definitely; they certainly weren't combat troops. And none of them carried any weapons. Hell, a handful of them were even staring at the rifle on my shoulder as if it were a spider crawling up my back.

  REMFs, I thought in disgust. Don’t they know
there’s a war on?

  I’d heard stories, but I’d never quite believed them. One man was boasting, loudly, about being in a building when it had come under attack - apparently, a bullet had missed him by centimetres - while another was complaining that the refectory had a shortage of ice cream. Ice cream? We’d been eating ration bars and drinking water in the FOB and we’d been glad to have them both. A third man had a girl perched on his knee and was feeling her up in public, marking his territory in a way I hadn't seen since the Undercity. The girl was wearing a uniform also, one that marked her as a data-entry clerk. I couldn't help noticing that it was carefully tailored to display her ample charms.

  No doubt she wants protection too, I thought. And she doesn't give a damn about her professionalism.

  “If there’s anyone here who’s actually been shot at,” Joker said as he sat down facing me, “I can’t see him.”