The Empire's Corps: Book 03 - When The Bough Breaks

by Christopher Nuttall

  They fired on us, he thought, shocked. How had the students gotten weapons? Hell, why had the students obtained weapons? Did they really think that a handful of guns would be enough to push through the Civil Guard? But they might have been right; the barricade was shattered and the crowd was moving forward with incredible force, advancing right towards the unprotected Guardsmen.

  “Whips,” he barked. Regulations demanded that he request permission from higher up the food chain, but his superiors weren't the ones whose lives were on the line. He’d spent months training his unit and he wasn't going to see it wasted. Besides, handing out a thrashing to the students would be a good thing in itself. “Now!”

  He pulled the neural whip off his belt and cracked it threateningly towards the bare-breasted girls. They looked alarmed, but the protesters behind them were still pushing them onwards, even if they had thought better of it. Yang leered at them as his men formed up, then lashed out with the neural whip. The beauty of the device was that it caused brief intensive pain, enough to put anyone off trying to force the issue, without causing any real damage – at least unless the victims were lashed time and time again. Yang had seen hardened Civil Guardsmen dropping to the ground and begging for mercy after a single touch. He doubted that any students could endure even a second of such pain.

  “Fall back,” he ordered, “and strike!”

  The Guardsmen formed a ragged line lashed out with their whips. At least they were still obeying orders, Yang told himself, as students began to scream. Some Civil Guard units had fragmented into panicky masses when confronted by unexpected situations. His men were probably more scared of him than they were of the students. Besides, it was hard to take bare-breasted opponents seriously.

  He lashed out again and saw several girls crumpling to the ground, screaming in pain. The ones behind them were still coming forward; they trampled over their friends before they could stop themselves. Yang felt little pity as the next row were whipped and sent staggering backwards. They’d fired on his men and now they were going to pay the price. He knew precisely what they would do to the girls afterwards. His men would want to extract their pound of flesh and he wasn’t going to stop them. Hell, he wanted some payback himself.

  There was a dull roar from the crowd and a number of young male students charged forward. Several were lashed and sent howling to their knees, but their sacrifice shielded their companions, who crashed into the Civil Guardsmen. Yang stumbled backwards as a student slammed into his armour, knocking him to the ground before he could react. Hands clawed at the weapons on his belt, pulling them free. He tried to lift his hand, only to have someone jump on him and break every bone in his arm. Yang felt them all break before someone else started to stamp on his body armour, then slammed his foot down on Yang’s face.

  There was a moment of blinding pain ... and then nothing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The one exception to the general corruption of the Empire's military and civil services was the Terran Marine Corps. This should not have been surprising. To serve within the Corps, a Marine had to undergo two years of intensive training. And if he or she wanted to be a senior office, the prospective candidate had to have at least two more years on active duty and pass muster with the Corps NCOs. The Corps was not entirely free of officers with powerful patrons, but they did tend to be intensively loyal to the Corps. After all, they were Marines too.

  -Professor Leo Caesius, The End of Empire

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Emergency alert from the Civil Guard,” the dispatcher reported, as Jeremy burst into the command and control centre. “An unscheduled protest march in Imperial City has turned into a major riot. At least nine Civil Guardsmen are dead ...”

  “Show me the live feed,” Jeremy ordered. He’d been expecting the shit to hit the fan ever since Orbit Station Seven had been destroyed, but an unscheduled protest march in Imperial City ...? Normally, the students were very well behaved when it came to civil disobedience. “And pass the alert down the chain. I want every Marine unit on the planet ready to move to Imperial City if necessary.”

  “Aye, sir,” the dispatcher said. “Live feed coming online now.”

  Jeremy swore out loud as he saw the feed from the Civil Guard drones. The first barricades had been overrun; the students rampaging out of control. Dozens of bodies lay on the ground, several wearing body armour. Their weapons had been stripped from the Guardsmen, he noted. Someone had been thinking ahead.

  He quickly ran through the forces available to the Marines. The Grand Senate’s insistence that the force earmarked for Albion be dispatched as soon as possible had paid off – and backfired spectacularly. Jeremy barely had a thousand Marines to call on, most of whom were parcelled out over the planet. It would take hours, at least, to get them to Imperial City; all he had on hand were two companies, one of which normally served as a guard force for Marine HQ. The other had been preparing to return to the Slaughterhouse for a mandatory training cycle.

  “Admiral Valentine has declared a full state of emergency,” the dispatcher said, suddenly. “The Civil Guard is moving up additional reinforcements, the Grand Senators are evacuating the Imperial Palace and Senate Hall ...”

  Jeremy stared at the display, putting it together. The rioters were in a position to threaten the very heart of the Empire, although he doubted they could actually storm the buildings. They were all built out of hullmetal, naturally; the rioters could hammer on the walls to their heart’s content without actually getting anywhere. Unless they had some heavy weapons, of course ... the panicky uploads from the Civil Guard suggested that the rioters did have some weapons, mainly small pistols. The reports could be wrong – Jeremy would have insisted on checking everything the Civil Guard sent to the Marines – but the dead Civil Guardsmen argued otherwise. How many weapons did the rioters have?

  “The guard company is to seal the building, but remain on alert,” Jeremy ordered. If they were lucky, the rioters would ravage the grounds without doing any permanent damage. “Grey’s Greys are to armour up for riot control and then prepare for deployment.”

  “Sir,” the dispatcher said, “Admiral Valentine has not asked us to intervene.”

  “I don’t care,” Jeremy snapped. Cold anger raged up within him, only to be forced down. “What do you think will happen when the Civil Guard reinforcements arrive?”

  He sat down in front of one of the consoles and placed a call to Admiral Valentine. If they were lucky, the Admiral would be looking for something to cover his ass; he’d just taken control of the system, only to watch helplessly as the Senators fled Imperial City. He should grasp at any straw, even sending in the Marines rather than the Civil Guard ...

  Jeremy gritted his teeth as he waited. Whatever happened, one thing was clear. The coming hours were going to be bloody.

  ***

  Amethyst had thrown herself to the ground as soon as the Civil Guardsmen started lashing the crowd with neural whips, but they’d still managed to catch her for a microsecond. The pain had seared along her back, convincing her that they’d set her on fire before she realised what had actually happened; the pain had been so intense that she had come close to collapsing altogether. But she couldn't risk it, she knew; somehow, she managed to crawl to the edge of the crowd as angry students poured through the hole in the barricade and threw themselves on the Civil Guard.

  Richard had been clear; as soon as she’d fired her shots, she was to get the hell out of the riot and leave the protesters to attack the Civil Guard. She staggered forward, bleeding from her left arm – she had no idea when she’d been cut – barely able to process what she was seeing. The entire street seemed to have turned into a nightmare; protesters were rampaging everywhere, smashing windows and throwing rocks as they advanced upwards towards the Imperial Palace and the Senate Hall. Bodies lay everywhere, some of them bleeding onto the street ... she choked back a sob as she saw one of the protest organisers lying on the ground. Her head
had been crushed like an eggshell. The only way Amethyst could recognise her was through the outfit she'd been wearing.

  She reached an alleyway and stumbled down it, only to run right into a minor barricade. The four Civil Guardsmen manning it looked as terrified as Amethyst felt, although they were clearly not terrified of her. Thankfully, she had resisted the suggestion that she too should go topless; if she’d come at them with her bare breasts hanging out, they would have known that she was one of the organisers, or at least knew who the organisers were. The Guardsmen looked at her for a long moment and then clearly decided that she was harmless. One of them pulled a shield out of the way to allow her to pass.

  He caught her shaking arm before she could leave them behind. “Don’t stay here,” he hissed, right in her ear. “Get back to your apartment and stay there.”

  Amethyst, who had expected worse, simply nodded and started to walk. The sound of rioting was only growing louder; she turned and saw a great plume of smoke rising up towards the pale sky. She saw aircars racing away from the direction of the Senate Hall and wondered how many Senators were fleeing for their lives. Richard had been right; the Senators hadn't expected to hear about their population’s displeasure so loudly.

  But how many people were going to die because of what they’d done?

  ***

  “The Civil Guard cannot handle this,” Jeremy snapped. He'd finally managed to get through to Admiral Valentine, but the Admiral seemed to be vacillating between absolute panic and a jingoism that Jeremy found shocking. “You have to let us deal with it.”

  “I cannot put Marines on the streets,” the Admiral protested. “I ...”

  “Marines have operated on Earth before,” Jeremy snapped. “Admiral, right now, the Senate Hall itself is under threat. The Civil Guard is disorganised. Let my Marines deal with the crisis before it gets out of hand. Your men can back us up.”

  The Admiral stared at him. “Very well,” he said, finally. His face twisted into a sneer. “But you’d damn well better not fuck it up.”

  Jeremy closed the channel before he said something he’d regret. “Contact Captain Grey,” he ordered, bluntly. “The word is given. The streets are to be cleared.”

  ***

  Captain Tamera Grey cursed under her breath as the commandeered helicopters swooped low over Imperial City. Her company had been enjoying a little Intercourse and Intoxication at Earth’s premier spaceport before being shipped back to the Slaughterhouse and – naturally – their Raptors had already been assigned to a different unit. If their equipment had been gone as well, they might have wound up borrowing weapons off the Civil Guard as well as transport. Marines were expected to master all weapons, but using ill-maintained Civil Guard equipment would have been risky. The helicopter ride was bad enough.

  “Put us down in the Square of Honour,” she ordered the pilot, who was eying the crowds nervously. “Just hover a few meters above the ground and we’ll rappel down.”

  She would have preferred to put one of her Marines in the cockpit, but she couldn’t spare a single Marine. Even so, it was going to be tough. One full company – one hundred Marines – was hardly enough to impose order on an area as vast as Imperial City. All she could do was hope and pray that the Civil Guard was feeling unusually competent, although the reports she was picking up through the Marine network suggested that wasn't going to happen. The Civil Guardsmen who had been first on the scene had been scattered and most of their reinforcements were trying to set up a cordon on the edge of the city. It hadn't escaped Tamera’s attention that their cordon included most of the city, including the government buildings they were supposed to protect. As always, the Marines were expected to pick up the slack.

  The Square of Honour was massive, filled with towering statues, each one modelled after a great military leader who had helped build the Empire. There had been no new statues in generations, Tamera had been told; the Grand Senate committee that was supposed to approve proposals for new statues had been gridlocked for generations. Apparently, newcomers to the committee just kept on filibustering until everyone else had forgotten the military leaders the statues were supposed to honour. The rioters seemed to have largely ignored the square, apart from a handful of students who were spray-painting obscene slogans on the shorter statues. Tamera stood up, caught the rope as the jumpmaster started to lower it and swung herself down to the ground. Her armour absorbed the force of her impact as she landed.

  “DROP THE CANS AND RAISE YOUR HANDS,” she ordered the painters, as the remainder of the Marines followed her to the ground. The painters stared at them, unable to decide what to do. Tamera had seen that reaction before; the Marines just looked deadlier than the university cops or Civil Guardsmen. “NOW!”

  The painters offered no resistance as the Marines pushed them to the ground and secured their hands with plastic ties. They could be picked up later, Tamera knew; they weren't the real problem. As soon as all of her Marines were on the ground, she barked out orders over the command network and led the way out of the Square, onto the Avenue of Imperial Supremacy. She winced as soon as she saw the bodies on the ground. Most of them looked to have been trampled to death, rather than anything else

  “ATTENTION,” she bellowed, activating her suit’s megaphone. “STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND RAISE YOUR HANDS! THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING!”

  The rioters turned to stare at the Marines. Tamera hoped that they looked intimidating enough to stop the riot in its tracks. If not ... it was going to get bloody. The Marine body armour should protect them against improvised weapons, but no one knew for sure what the rioters had ...

  For a long moment, she thought that they would obey. Several students dropped sticks and captured weapons and raised their hands ...

  ... And then an emergency alert popped up in her display.

  Too late.

  ***

  Joachim had been delighted with the trust Richard had placed in him. His mission wasn't to start the riot, but to wait on the sidelines until the Marines arrived. The black-armoured figures were as intimidating as he had been warned – their armour would deflect blows, bullets and even small bombs easily – yet there were weapons that would hurt them. And Richard had given him one of them.

  His orders had been very clear. He was not to activate the weapon until the Marines arrived – the energy signature could be detected – and he was not to hesitate. The Marines would instantly recognise the threat and move to counter it. Quickly, he lifted the heavy pistol and fired the first pulse of energy towards the Marines.

  ***

  Tamera swore out loud as the plasma pulse burned through one of her men. Plasma pistols were rare in the Empire; like their larger counterparts, they had a nasty habit of overheating and exploding if fired too rapidly. In fact, she'd never heard of one that could fire more than four shots without starting to overheat. They were almost never used outside of training exercises.

  But the rioters had one ...

  Several Marines fired as one, blasting the gunman down; his weapon hit the ground and exploded in a sheet of white fire. Tamera swore again as the rioters started to panic and flee, or throw heavy objects towards the Marines. Most of them were harmless, but it made it harder for the Marines to avoid harming the rioters. The gunman’s body would be so badly burned that it would be impossible to identify him and track down whoever had sold him the weapon. But where had it even come from? The Civil Guard didn't normally use any kind of plasma weapon.

  “Marine down,” the medic snapped. “Captain, they killed Kenny!”

  “Switch stunners to rapid fire,” Tamera ordered. “Take them down as quickly as you can!”

  There was no longer any time to try to take prisoners the proper way, she knew. All they could do was stun everyone and let the courts sort them out. If they could sort them out. The latest estimate had stated that half of the university students in Imperial City had joined the protest, at least before it had turned violent. They couldn't all be indentured
and shipped to a colony world.

  Sticks and stones rattled off her armour as the Marines broke down into fire teams, searching for targets. Most rioters scattered in front of them, or fled into the nearest buildings and tried to hide. The Marines just didn’t have the manpower to search them all, let alone sort out the guilty from the innocent. Tamera had fought on Han, where it could be difficult to distinguish the insurgents from the local population, but that had been easier to handle. It was amazing how few people realised that firing a gun left residue that a basic sniffer could detect. Here, very few of the students would have guns.

  She glanced into an alleyway and saw a pair of Civil Guardsmen – having deserted their posts – raping a young girl. Tamera stepped forward, yanked the rapist back and slammed him into the wall with augmented strength. The rapist screamed as his legs shattered and he crumpled to the ground. His friend tried to run, only to be brought down by a stun pulse that struck his neck. He hit the ground hard enough to break his jaw.

  “Leave them here,” Tamera ordered. Their victim was still bent over the dustbin, so badly shocked that she didn't seem to be aware of where she was or what had happened to her. Tamera hesitated, then pressed her hand against the girl’s neck and injected a sedative into her bloodstream. The medics could take her to the nearest hospital as soon as the city was secure. “Take their DNA. I’m going to want to file charges.”

  None of the Marines argued.

  An hour passed slowly before the streets were finally clear. Thousands of prisoners lay on the ground, their hands tied behind their backs with plastic cuffs. Marines and Civil Guardsmen kept a wary eye on them, unsure of just what to do with so many prisoners. The medics had arrived in force and started transporting the wounded to the nearest hospital. Going by the updates, the closest medical centres were already overrun ...

  “Dear God,” Tamera muttered. Han had been bad, but this was Earth! Such things weren't meant to happen on humanity’s homeworld, certainly not in Imperial City. “Is this how it’s going to be like from now on?”