Never Surrender (The Empire's Corps Book 10)

by Christopher Nuttall

She sat down by the bulkhead, resting her head in her hands. Gary hesitated, then closed the hatch and sat down next to her. She froze as his arm brushed hers, then visibly forced herself to relax and lean against him. Gary shivered, wondering just what she might have endured in the POW camp, knowing it would be a long time before they could touch each other intimately once again. Kailee hadn't just worn an overall, she’d buttoned it up so tightly he couldn't see anything below her chin.

  “I was always scared,” she said. “Scared of being caught, scared of being alone, scared ... scared of being used, like a dishrag. And now, I am still always scared.”

  Gary nodded, cursing the Wolves - and Barry - under his breath. He’d known life wasn't easy for girls, but he’d hated them too, hated them for sticking together and trying to protect one another when no one had ever protected him. In hindsight, he saw it for what it really was, just another way to divide and rule the population of Earth. If everyone was at everyone else’s throats, they weren't going to be uniting against their masters.

  “I don’t know what I want to do,” she admitted. “Would it bring an end if I stepped out the airlock?”

  “It would be the end,” Gary agreed.

  He swallowed. He’d tried to commit suicide twice, but he’d failed; the knives he’d been forced to use were poor at cutting human flesh, while he hadn't been able to find enough pills to end his life. Or had that been his own reluctance to end his life? Now ... there was no shortage of weapons on Meridian, yet would he be able to pull the trigger if he put the gun to his head?

  “That's the point,” Kailee told him, waspishly. “It would be the end.”

  Gary stared at her, trying to think of something - anything - he could say that wouldn't be either useless or condescending. But what could he say? There was no real hope for either of them. Kailee wasn't strong enough to make it on Meridian, nor was she technically inclined to work in space ... what could she do? And even if she tried, she would still be at the mercy of bastards, bullies and assholes. What could he say to convince her that life was worth living? What could he say when he was half-convinced his own life wasn't worth living?

  “There’s always hope,” he said. “You’re young and pretty ...”

  “Not that young,” Kailee snarled. “And am I pretty on Meridian?”

  No, Gary thought.

  He kept that to himself. Meridian loved girls who were competent and capable, rather than decorative. Austin had even said as much, when he’d pointed out that beauty faded, but the ability to do everything required on a farm just got better and better. His girlfriend hadn't been pretty, by Earth’s standards, yet she’d had a zest for life that Gary knew Kailee would never be able to match. Kailee’s dark hair, slim body and pale eyes didn't pass muster on Meridian. It made her look like someone who couldn't stand up for herself.

  “You’re not stupid either,” he said. “You could learn to teach in school or ...”

  “I wouldn't be able to stand up to the children,” Kailee said. “Could I?”

  “I don't know,” Gary said. He had a vague idea that schooling on Meridian was different to schooling on Earth, but he wasn't sure how. “What else can you do?”

  “Nothing,” Kailee said. She laughed, bitterly. “I couldn't hope to become a movie star, could I?”

  Gary sighed. He’d known Kailee had dreams of stardom - every girl did - but there was no point in clinging to that dream on Meridian. Hell, from what Darrin had told him, there had been little hope on Earth too. Yates had pointed it out to Darrin, coldly and precisely; Kailee’s dreams had been almost certainly beyond any hope of coming true. But on Meridian, they weren't even faint hopes. The only people who acted were amateurs who put on plays during the winter months.

  “I don’t think so,” Gary said. He paused. “There is a teaching machine here, isn't there? You could use it ...”

  Kailee looked at him. “And do what?”

  “Find something you’re good at and do it,” Gary said. “We’re in space now. You might not have to return to Meridian ...”

  “Janet was a soldier,” Kailee said. “And so is Jasmine.”

  Gary blinked. Janet had always intimidated him, while he had some problems wrapping his head around Jasmine’s femininity. If she hadn't been introduced by name, he would have thought she was definitely a young teenage boy, not a grown woman. But where had that come from? Janet had barely had any time for any of them since the Wolves had landed; she’d gone undercover at once, hoping to remain undiscovered.

  “I should ask them,” Kailee said. “They might be able to suggest something.”

  “Maybe,” Gary said. Greatly daring, he put an arm around her. Kailee froze, again, and remained still until he removed his arm. “Kailee ...”

  “It's not your fault,” Kailee said. “It's me.”

  She rose to her feet, her body’s curves hidden behind layers of clothing. “I’m useless, Gary, utterly useless.”

  “No, you’re not,” Gary said. “I ...”

  “You can do repair work,” Kailee said. The bitterness in her voice shocked him. “I can't do anything, beyond looking pretty. And I'm not even pretty on Meridian!”

  “You are pretty to me,” Gary said, thinking hard. Kailee needed help ... but who could give it to her? There were no therapists on Meridian, where the locals prided themselves on handling their own problems. “Kailee ...”

  “You’re not to blame,” Kailee said. She placed a hand on his shoulder for a long second, then marched towards the hatch. “But I need to talk to someone else.”

  Gary watched her go, unable to work up the nerve to go after her or even to call her back. He honestly didn’t know what to do ... he’d never understood girls and women, despite the hundreds of thousands of texts available in the school’s database. It hadn't taken him long to realise that most of the texts were contradictory, as if the writers had disagreed on just about everything under the sun. They certainly hadn't been any help to him.

  He stared down at the deck, feeling helpless. What could he do? The cold-blooded part of his mind insisted that Kailee was right; she couldn't do anything. Only a handful of schoolchildren on Earth ever had any real potential to become anything more than the parents of the next generation of useless children. But the idealistic part of his mind knew better. Kailee wasn't useless, merely ... having problems finding her vocation. She might stumble across something tomorrow that would determine the rest of her life ...

  I’m sorry, he thought, but I don’t know what to do.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A law can only be enforced by a power both capable and willing to enforce the law. A law against gambling, for example, only holds force if the local police are willing to enforce it. If the police are unwilling to enforce the law, either through corruption or fear, gambling may proceed unmolested.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. The Empire and its Prisoners of War.

  Meridian, Year 5 (PE)

  “Most of the station should last long enough for us to capture a freighter,” Watson said, once Jasmine had entered her new office. Halcyon hadn't been a decent commanding officer, not by her standards, but at least he’d kept his private office neat and tidy. “After that ... I think we should probably blow the station once we leave.”

  “Understood,” Jasmine said. They’d moved forty of her people from the camps to the station, but the remainder would have to wait until the freighter arrived. “There’s no point in leaving it intact.”

  She sighed. The station would need to be replaced, once the war was over, but that wouldn't be difficult. Wolfbane would have to replace it themselves, if they wanted somewhere to tranship POWs to the surface; the locals had little interest in the station, certainly not enough to demand that Jasmine should leave it intact. Besides, even if they had, they certainly understood that the station was useless until the war was over.

  “I’ll be happy to see to it,” Watson said. He’d earned a MOS in demolitions while he'd been on the Slaughterho
use and had lots of fun on active service, putting his training to good use. “I think we’d be better off shattering it - or hurling it out of orbit into the sun. We don't want to leave pieces of debris raining down on the planet and doing damage.”

  “Plan out a way of launching it into the sun,” Jasmine ordered. Chunks of hullmetal probably would hit the planet’s surface - and if they were large enough, they might do real damage to the settlement. “But make sure you don’t actually set the charges until we have a starship.”

  “Of course,” Watson said. “I ...”

  The doorbell chimed. “You have a visitor?”

  Jasmine shrugged, then tapped the switch on her desk. The door hissed open, revealing Kailee, looking rather out of place. “Excuse me,” she said. “Do you have a moment to talk?”

  Jasmine eyed the stack of paperwork she needed to go through - mainly older files from Wolfbane - then nodded. “I’ll speak to you later,” she said to Watson. “Let me know if anyone else from the surface volunteers to join us.”

  “Stubbins is coming up on the next shuttle,” Watson said. “I bet he wants to join us.”

  He saluted, then turned and walked out of the hatch, which closed smoothly behind him. Jasmine looked at Kailee, who was wringing her hands together nervously, then pointed to a comfortable chair placed in front of her desk. Kailee sat, reminding Jasmine of Mandy Caesius in a way she didn't really like. Mandy had been a brat when they’d first met, but Kailee ... was a traumatised soul. It wasn't really the same at all.

  “I may not have long,” Jasmine said. There was too much to do that required her direct attention, even though she trusted both Stewart and Watson implicitly. She would have sold her soul for a team of technical experts from the Commonwealth - or the Trade Federation. “What can I do for you?”

  Kailee looked down at the deck. “I want to become a Marine,” she said. “How do I join?”

  Jasmine stared at her, shocked speechless.

  “I mean it,” Kailee insisted. “Please.”

  “I see,” Jasmine said, schooling her voice to remain calm. She’d never been a recruiting sergeant, nor had she ever really wanted to become one. Even if she had, she would have needed at least ten years service and a surviving Empire. “May I ask why?”

  Kailee met her eyes. There was something in her eyes that suggested she was on the far end of her tether. “Because I want to be useful,” she said. “And because I am sick of being so scared all the goddamned time.”

  “I’ve been scared,” Jasmine said. It wasn't something she would have admitted normally, certainly not to one of her comrades, but Kailee needed to know that Marines weren't fearless. “I ...”

  “You were dumped in a camp,” Kailee said. “I was there for five years; you were there for four days. You managed to put together a plan to get out, then actually did it while I sat there uselessly. I want to be like you.”

  Jasmine sighed, inwardly. It was tradition that no one was turned away, if they arrived at a recruiting centre and signed on the dotted line. Boot Camp and Hell Week did an excellent job of rooting out the people who simply weren't suited for military life, while ensuring that seemingly unprepossessing recruits were allowed a chance to shine and grow into their roles. Indeed, relatively few committed offences that would get them kicked out. They tended to quit themselves before matters got out of hand.

  But a recruiting sergeant had an astonishing amount of discretion, if he thought there was something genuinely wrong with the would-be recruit, or if he thought the recruit didn't have a hope of surviving the first day. Kailee ... the more Jasmine looked at her, the more she was sure that Kailee wouldn't last the first day at Boot Camp. She wasn't built for the role, nor was she in the best of health. The facilities that would have helped her to build up her muscles - and confidence - no longer existed.

  “Kailee,” she said, slowly. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one,” Kailee said. “I think ... somewhere around twenty-one, anyway.”

  Jasmine frowned. “The youngest we can take someone is eighteen, without parental permission,” she said. It was, in theory, possible to take a sixteen-year-old, but she’d never actually heard of it being done. “There’s no upper limit, but ...”

  She sighed, then told herself to be gentle. “Kailee, right now, we don’t have the facilities to train new Marines,” she admitted. Rebuilding something akin to the Slaughterhouse, along with centuries of traditions, would take years. “Even if we did ... I would have grave doubts about recommending you for training.”

  Kailee’s eyes flashed. “Because I came from Earth?”

  “Because you’re not suited to the life,” Jasmine said, honestly. “The purpose of Boot Camp is to separate the quitters from those who just won’t quit, no matter what is thrown at them.”

  “I won’t quit,” Kailee said.

  “Listen,” Jasmine said, sharply. “Do you know what I had to do?”

  She took a breath. “They made us march eight miles from one hidden marker to another,” she said. “Then they made us march another eight miles. And then they made us march yet another eight miles. Can you imagine how tired, sore and pissed off we were when we found the fourth marker?”

  Kailee glowered at her. “I’ve walked long distances before,” she insisted.

  “Carrying a full combat load?” Jasmine asked. She went on before Kailee could answer. “So there we were, at the fourth marker, watching as the Drill Instructor rode up in a truck and smiled at us. And he told us that we needed to do another fucking eight miles. Some of us quit on the spot! I kept going. And going. And going.”

  She met Kailee’s eyes. “You have to keep going whatever gets in your way,” she said. “Your feet will be covered in blisters, your legs will be aching, your arms will feel numb, your eyes will be in pain and your vision will be dimming out ... and you will still have to keep going, because you have to complete your mission. And at the end, you will be expected to deploy, attack your target and then retreat the way you came, knowing the hounds of hell will be snapping at your heels. You will go through hell.

  “It gets worse. You will be expected to follow orders that will make no sense, or seem dangerous or pointlessly humiliating. You will be yelled at every time you fire your rifle and miss a shot. You will be beasted every time your rifle is inspected and found to be less than one hundred percent completed. You will be dropped in a swimming pool and expected to swim miles in full combat uniform. You will be taken up in an airplane and tossed out, hoping and praying that the parachute doesn't fail on the way down. You will go into space and be exposed to hard vacuum, or worse. You will be trapped and cuffed to a chair and beaten halfway to death to harden you against interrogation techniques. You will ...”

  Jasmine met Kailee’s eyes. “By the time you have that Rifleman’s Tab pinned to your shoulder,” she concluded, “you damn well will have earned it.”

  “I can do it,” Kailee said.

  “I don't think you can,” Jasmine said. “Kailee, I understand the impulse. I understand what you’re trying to do. But it won’t help you to take on an impossible challenge, even if you could.”

  Kailee looked downcast. “Is there no hope?”

  “There's always hope,” Jasmine said. It was a belief that had kept her going, even when she’d been trapped in a foxhole all night and she was wet, cold and miserable. “But there’s also such a thing as taking on too great a challenge.”

  She met Kailee’s eyes. “Why didn't you try anything on Meridian? The Scouts let girls join, don’t they?”

  “I was too old,” Kailee said. “I ... they thought I was stupid.”

  Jasmine winced. A child on Meridian would be expected to know how to hunt, shoot and countless other skills that were practically unheard of on Earth. To them, Kailee had to seem a silly and ignorant girl, someone absurdly focused on the immaterial over the material. It wasn't unknown for recruits to arrive at Boot Camp with a similar degree of ignorance, but the Drill
Instructors knew how to deal with it without making the recruits feel stupid or useless.

  She closed her eyes and thought, rapidly. She wasn't a training officer of any stripe, let alone someone capable of turning a raw recruit into a marine. Kailee would be hard to train in any case, if only because her life had taught her that if something was too hard, either someone would give it to her or it wasn't worth having. She might well give up at the first hurdle because she couldn't see it as being attainable.

  And I couldn't have passed the Crucible the day I entered Boot Camp, Jasmine thought. I wasn't anything like as fit as I became.

  “I may need someone to serve as an aide,” Jasmine said, slowly. It wasn't something she wanted - and she would have needed someone with more technical expertise - but it was something Kailee could do. “In exchange for that, I will give you some basic training - and, if you manage to stay the course, recommend you for training when we get back to Avalon.”