The Thin Blue Line (The Empire's Corps Book 9)

by Christopher Nuttall

  And he even looks like he stepped off a recruiting poster, Glen thought. There were no implants, nothing remotely comparable to Belinda’s augmentations, but that proved nothing. He wasn't foolish enough to believe an unarmed man was incapable of being dangerous. But we have no grounds to bar him from the station.

  He sighed, then waved the soldier through the gate.

  “Sir,” one of his subordinates called. “I think you should see this.”

  Glen shrugged, then walked through the door into one of the side rooms. Each piece of luggage was scanned, then physically searched. Glen had enough experience to know that the scanners weren't always reliable, particularly when weapons and other pieces of equipment could be dismantled, leaving them looking harmless to automated systems. It took a human eye and mind to spot a disassembled weapon.

  The officer was peering down at a large suitcase, which was open in front of him. Glen couldn't help noticing that most of its contents consisted of frilly underwear, all very definitely feminine despite the tag identifying the owner as a man. The officer was holding up a device that looked like a metallic octopus, complete with shiny tentacles. Glen shook his head in amused disbelief as he recognised it. It wasn't something he would have expected to find in a diplomatic delegation’s luggage.

  “Sir,” the officer said. “What is it?”

  “It's a sex toy,” Glen said. He looked down at the device, silently grateful that his people were wearing gloves. It wasn’t pleasant to consider where the device had been. “What else does he have?”

  “Thirty pairs of underwear, two pants and shirts, nine pairs of socks and a number of VR simulation chips,” the officer said. “They’re all unmarked, but they have a blue border.”

  “Which means they’re pornographic,” Glen mused. The Empire’s moral guardians hadn't even been able to put a tiny dent in sales of pornography, but they had managed to extract the concession that all pornographic datachips would be blue. Given that most porn was downloaded from the datanet, it was pretty much a pointless victory, but they seemed happy with it. “But it isn't something we can bitch about, really.”

  He shrugged. “Pack up the bag, then pass it on,” he ordered. “We’re not here to be the moral guardians of anyone. Their ... perversions are of no concern to us as long as they’re not actively harmful to Island One or anyone living here.”

  “Yes, sir,” the officer said.

  Glen nodded. “What else have you found?”

  “There's a complete list on the datanet,” the officer said, as he started to repack the bag, piece by piece. “Mostly clothes and a handful of pieces of personal equipment. The only really interesting discovery was several bottles of expensive alcohol, from Governor Standish’s batman.”

  “Probably planning to drink in private,” Glen speculated. It didn’t really matter. “Just keep checking everything.”

  He sighed as he walked back through the door. Security checks were a nightmare, even on a place as restricted as Island One. They annoyed visitors – he had no doubt that some of the guests were already planning to file complaints – while it was far too easy to miss something dangerous, or something that could become dangerous in the wrong hands. And the longer they worked, the sloppier his staff became. If he'd had more manpower he would have rotated them through on half-hourly shifts, just to ensure they stayed fresh.

  His wristcom buzzed. “Glen, the boss wishes to see you,” Marshal Sitka Singh said. “I'm to take over here.”

  “Understood,” Glen said. Marshal Sitka Singh was young, but she had enough experience and tact to handle the gates. “Tell her I’m on my way.”

  He passed her as he walked through the hatch and into the security complex. He’d taken it over completely, pushing out half of Island One’s staff to another office, and equipped it with everything he'd been able to requisition from Terra Nova. It felt astonishingly good to have a full budget for once, but it was frustrating too. The one thing he needed – additional manpower – was the one thing he couldn't have.

  Patty turned to face him as he entered the security lounge. Monitors were embedded in the walls, showing the live feed from hundreds of sensors scattered around the habitat. Some of them were in very intrusive places, leading him to wonder if they'd picked up his tryst with Belinda. Patty would have good reason to be annoyed with him if they had, even though relationships between superiors and subordinates were far from unknown in the Empire.

  “It seems to be going well,” Patty said. “I assume everyone will be on the station by local nightfall?”

  “I believe so,” Glen said. “So far, we haven't discovered anything dangerous.”

  “They hardly need it,” Patty said, jerking a thump towards the near-orbit display. “There's enough firepower out there to turn Terra Nova into a floating cloud of ash.”

  She shrugged. “The Governor will be hosting a dinner at nightfall for the guests, then they will get down to the nitty-gritty of actually trying to hammer out an agreement the following morning. You’ll be glad to hear you’re not invited to attend.”

  “Thank God,” Glen said.

  Patty gave him a thin-lipped smile. “I will be invited, of course,” she said, darkly. “Can you call me out after ... say, ten minutes?”

  “I think that would upset the Governor,” Glen said. He was fairly sure she was joking. As the senior Marshal on Terra Nova, her presence would be mandatory. “You’ll just have to grin and bear it.”

  “Rats,” Patty said. She shook her head. “You’ve done a good job, Glen. Just don’t let anything go wrong until the conference is over and we have a working agreement.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Glen said. He glanced at his terminal as it bleeped. “We have five new complaints about the security procedures.”

  “Copy them to me,” Patty said. “I’ll have a word with the Governor. Everyone agreed to intensive security procedures for entry and ... and these aren’t particularly intrusive.”

  Glen nodded. The security procedures for entering prison – or a secure military base – were incredibly intrusive. A criminal could expect to be striped, prodded and then scanned down to subatomic levels before being allowed to enter the complex. The paranoid side of Glen’s mind insisted that it wasn't a bad idea, but the practical side knew it would be a diplomatic nightmare. There had to be a compromise between security and a diplomatic incident that would derail the conference.

  “Keep an eye on things,” Patty ordered, finally. “And don't hesitate to alert me if you need assistance, even if it’s just superior verbal firepower.”

  “I won't,” Glen promised. He smiled as she rose to her feet. “This place is astonishing.”

  “And well beyond your expense allowance,” Patty said, “Enjoy it while you can.”

  ***

  “We will be attending the dinner, of course,” Augustus said. He’d been astonished, but delighted to hear from Belinda again. “Well, I will be. Violet will be with the children of Island One.”

  Belinda smiled. “There will be at least one other new child there,” she said. Helen had been invited too, somewhat to her surprise. Spacer or not, Helen was nowhere near as well-connected as the children who’d grown up on Island One. “Why didn't you keep Violet here?”

  “I wanted to keep her with me,” Augustus said. “Do you think I did the right thing?”

  “Parenting is a mix between too little oversight and too much,” Belinda said. It was possible to let one’s child grow up into a wild thing, but it was equally possible to smoother them with too much attention and oversight. “I think you gave her too much of the wrong oversight.”

  “Oh,” Augustus said. He cleared his throat, loudly. “Do you have any insights into the guests?”

  “None, apart from the fact they all want some kind of agreement,” Belinda said. She’d observed the visitors, but most of them were smart enough to know they were probably under observation and kept their comments bland and inoffensive. “But you can work with tha
t, I think.”

  “I sure as hell hope so,” Augustus grumbled. “The Governor is leaning towards nationalising everything belonging to corporations on Earth. We don’t have a choice if we can't save what remains of the interstellar economy. And yet that will open a whole new can of worms.”

  He shrugged, then changed the subject. “Will you do me the honour of serving as my escort tonight?”

  “I have my duty,” Belinda said. And besides, there was Glen. How could she expect him to understand what she was doing when she wasn't sure she understood it herself? “Ask me after the conference is over.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Worse, perhaps, the debts were impossible to repay. Everyone knew it. The economy was contracting, hence few could get a job and start repaying their loans. It was only a matter of time before the bubble burst and the economy collapsed.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. The Decline of Law and Order and the Rise of Anarchy.

  Stacy didn't mind her job on Island One.

  Sure, there was almost no privacy, and many of the wealthy residents would make passes at her whenever they thought they could, but she knew it was far better than a job on Terra Nova – if, of course, there had been a job for her. On Island One, she shared an apartment with another girl and could enjoy the facilities when she wasn't on duty – and she was safe. It wasn't like growing up on Terra Nova, where she’d had to sneak around for fear of running into a monster in human form. If she ever had children, she knew she would want them to grow up on Island One.

  But that wasn't likely to happen, unless she married one of the permanent residents. And that wasn't easy. She had no illusions about the difference between her, or any of the other staff, and the residents, all of whom could buy and sell the staff on a whim. They’d understand the reasons a young and beautiful girl would throw herself at them, all right, and while she didn't mind putting out, she would have liked some security in return. It was why she had traded two nights of duty in Home Sweet Home for a place supervising the children as the guests started their banquet.

  The children were sweet – sometimes spoiled sweet, but sweet – but that wasn't why she had taken the job. Several of the children had no mothers, either because the mothers were gold-diggers who had moved on to the next mark or simply because the fathers had simply bought some donated DNA and grown their children in an exowomb. If she could worm her way into their hearts, she was sure, their fathers would take notice. Someone had to look after the children, after all. And the fathers doted on their children.

  She cast her eye over the kids and smiled to herself. They ran the gauntlet from six to fourteen, boys wearing black suits and ties while the girls wore a whole series of fancy dresses that probably cost more than her salary for a decade. The girls looked sweet and the boys looked just adorable, although they would probably hate her for pointing it out. It was easy to like them, and easier still to consider playing mother.

  Calmly, she clapped her hands together.

  “The food is in the next room,” she said. The kids had been playing several different games, the older ones hanging back until – eventually - they’d let go of their dignity and started to have fun. “Let us go through and eat.”

  The younger kids cheered and ran through the door, the older ones following with less enthusiasm. Stacy concealed her amusement at their attempts to act like their fathers, then followed them. The sound of cheers could be heard as the younger kids saw the food laid out for them, the entire table covered in treats and sweet things. They probably ate the same food all the time at home, Stacy knew, but this was different. This was a party ... and food always tasted better at a party.

  She motioned for the older kids to take their seats – the younger ones were already grabbing for food – and did a quick headcount. Her blood ran cold as she realised there were nineteen kids in all, instead of twenty-one. It was unlikely that any of the kids had run into any real danger – Island One was safe – but it was still worrying. She’d be in deep shit if any of the kids decided to wander off back home. Shaking her head, she walked back into the playroom and looked around. She saw nothing.

  They’re probably in the bathroom, she thought. Both of the missing girls were old enough to be toilet-trained, thankfully. The boys and girls she recalled from her childhood had used to fling their own waste around for fun, but the children of Island One were far more civilised. She walked up to the door and checked inside, then glanced into the next room. The two girls were standing there, one stock still, the other tugging at her arm.

  Stacy walked into the room, relief flowing through her veins. “It's time to eat,” she said, softly. “I ...”

  She broke off as the older girl – Violet Augustus – turned to look at her. “She’s not moving,” she said, urgently. There was a faint hint of panic in her tone. “She isn’t moving!”

  Stacy leaned forward. Violet was older than she would have preferred, if she had to play mother, but her father was stupendously rich. It might have been worth the effort of trying to lure him into her arms. But she pushed the thought aside as she checked the other girl. She was standing completely rigid, her body as stiff as a board. Alarm bells rang in Stacy’s mind as she reached for her wristcom. If something was wrong, she would need to summon a medical team as quickly as possible and ...

  The girl spun around with blinding speed, one hand lifted up ...

  ... And Stacy knew no more.

  ***

  “They’re making the boring speeches,” Glen commented. They were seated together in the security booth, watching the show through emplaced sensors. “Is that normal?”

  Belinda nodded. “It's why people talk about the weather,” she said. “They’re breaking the ice without discussing something so controversial that they would have a falling out.”

  Glen sighed. Dealing with the entry procedures had been bad enough, but he’d hoped to have a break between the last of the arrivals and the dinner party. Instead, he’d had to deal with a dispute between two sets of bodyguards and another over which guest had the biggest guest house. It wouldn't have mattered to him if he’d been given the mansion with ten bedrooms or the mansion with fifteen, but it did seem to matter to the guests. Why they felt the urge to squabble over such petty things mystified him. The Empire was dying!

  “Let us hope so,” he said. On the display, Governor Hamilton was rising to his feet, readying himself to make a speech of his own. Another display showed a flight of Island One’s drone transports as they moved luggage from one mansion to another. “Have you ever met such badly-behaved guests?”

  Belinda smiled. “You should have seen the reporters we had to take to a hellhole called Blake’s Town,” she said. “The General in command thought he was going to win a staggering victory over the forces of darkness – he always called his enemies the Forces of Darkness – so he invited a few hundred reporters to witness it. I’d ... ah, pissed off my superior and I found myself being offered a choice between being flogged or helping to guard the reporters. If I’d known how bad it was going to be, I’d have taken the flogging.”

  Glen blinked. “Marine officers are allowed to flog their subordinates?”

  “I think he was joking,” Belinda said. “Marine regulations take a dim view of an officer who actually lays hands on his subordinates. That’s the sergeant’s job.”

  She smirked, then sobered. “I wasn’t joking. I would sooner have charged the enemy stark naked than put up with those assholes for another microsecond.”

  Glen had to smile at the mental image, then leaned forward. “Just how bad were they?”

  “Awful,” Belinda said. “They asked the most stupid questions, chatted up younger officers, three of them were seriously injured because they didn't follow instructions and one of them even tried to follow me into the bathroom. We had a couple of good ones, but they were few and far between.”

  She sighed. “And then the glorious victory failed to materialise, so the reporters were sent home and
I went back to my unit,” she added. “The reports of the campaign bore no resemblance to reality.”

  Glen shook his head. “If that’s true,” he said, “why has the Empire survived for so long?”

  “One of my Drill Instructors had a theory,” Belinda said. “He was a tough-minded old bastard, but he softened every time we passed a test and told us his thoughts while we were recuperating. His theory was that successive generations grew less and less able to handle challenges because they were never seriously challenged.”

  “I see,” Glen said. It sounded reasonable enough. “But there are all sorts of challenges.”

  Belinda looked down at her hands. “On the Slaughterhouse,” she said, “there’s a final test for recruits – the Crucible. Pass the Crucible and you’re a Marine, no questions asked. But no one, not even I, could have passed the Crucible without years of Boot Camp and then the Slaughterhouse. The Empire, collectively, doesn’t have challenges that force it to adapt, react and overcome. And now there is such a challenge, it is incapable of meeting it.”

  Glen sighed. “I hope you're wrong,” he said.

  “So do I,” Belinda admitted.

  ***

  Normally, there wasn't a guard at the spokes that led back to the hub. The residents rarely left the wheel unless they were leaving the station, while the staff knew better than to enter the hub without permission. But with so many visitors, the new Head of Security had felt it advisable to place a guard on each of the spokes. Corporal Lewis, who had drawn the short straw, bitterly resented it. The security officers didn't need an outsider to point out their problems, or to force them to drill and drill again. They were already prepared for anything.

  He sighed. Normally, guarding the residents directly was a good way to earn tips and make contacts. He had no intention of staying on Island One indefinitely and, with his savings and references from some of the richest men in the system, he could practically write his own ticket. He'd even seen the conference as a chance to meet contacts from right across the Core Worlds. But how the hell was he supposed to meet the visitors, something that would be hard enough at any time, without actually being near them? They’d be in the best possible mood after the dinner.