The Empire's Corps: Book 04 - Semper Fi

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Four direct hits,” the tactical officer said, a moment later. “Captain, she’s steaming air – and plasma.”

  Layla smiled, coldly. The enemy cruiser was too small to soak up damage like a battleship and keep fighting. One of her laser heads had dug deeply into the enemy hull; her drive might not have been disabled, but the damage would make it harder for her crew to continue the fight anyway. And if they’d lost their phase drive, which was quite possible, they wouldn't be able to escape the system, whatever happened. They’d have no choice, but to surrender.

  “Broadcast a surrender demand,” Layla ordered. “Tell them that they will be well-treated.”

  “They’re switching fire to the freighter,” the tactical officer snapped. “Captain ...”

  “Continue firing,” Layla ordered, although she knew that it was almost certainly too late. “Angle our counter-missiles to try to cover the freighter ...”

  “Too late,” the tactical officer said.

  Layla watched it unfold; five missiles slammed into the freighter, smashing through the hull and detonating inside. It was overkill, she knew, but it was effective. The freighter vanished inside a tearing blast of plasma, utterly vaporised. Moments later, her missiles struck the enemy cruiser and crippled it. But it was still too late to save the freighter.

  “They’ve lost their drives, Captain,” the tactical officer said, softly. He sounded bitter; they’d done everything right, but they’d failed to save the freighter. “They’re drifting helplessly in space.”

  “Raise them,” Layla said. They hadn't responded to her earlier demand for surrender, but now they had no choice. Even if she’d left them alone, they would have drifted helplessly though space until they ran out of air and suffocated. “Tell them that we will treat them well.”

  She scowled, inwardly. The Imperial Navy’s habit of regarding anyone who fought against it as an illegal combatant didn't encourage enemy crewmen to surrender. After all, everyone knew that illegal combatants could be shot out of hand – or tortured, or treated as slaves, or whatever else their captors felt like doing. There had always been rumours about the fate of some enemy crewmen during the Unification Wars or captured insurgents who’d tried to rise up against the Empire. Layla had never actually seen proof, but rumours had a power of their own.

  “Picking up a low-level transmission,” Reynolds said. “They’re offering to surrender.”

  Thank God, Layla thought. On the other hand, it offered a new headache for her crew. She’d had to leave the Marines and half of the Scouts with the captured pirate ship when she’d gone to rescue the destroyed freighter.

  “Have the Senior Chief form a boarding party to support the remaining Scouts,” she said, cursing the timing. If the freighter had arrived an hour later, she would have had the Marines back on Harrington, ready to capture the crippled enemy ship. “And send a signal to the cripple; any resistance will result in the destruction of their vessel. We don’t have the manpower to take the ship by force.”

  She settled back in her command chair and skimmed through the preliminary report from the damage control teams. None of the damage was major, thankfully, and the internal network had already rerouted itself to compensate for the damage. No pirate ship could have matched that performance, she knew; it demanded a crew who actually knew how to maintain their ship. There had only been one injury, a crewman whose arm had been caught in the airlock when the emergency systems sealed the ship. He was in sickbay and expected to make a full recovery, once the doctor cloned him a new arm.

  “Captain,” Reynolds said, suddenly. “We’re picking up a distress beacon!”

  Layla looked up. “Where from?”

  “The freighter must have launched a lifepod,” Reynolds said. “I think they must have deactivated the beacon until we actually emerged as victors.”

  “How terrible,” the tactical officer observed archly. “That’s in violation of the regulations.”

  “I think we can forgive them, just this once,” Layla said, relieved. “Order a shuttle to pick them up, but carefully. We don’t know why they were running ...”

  She watched the display as a shuttle was rerouted towards the lifepod. At least they might get some answers from the refugees, as well as the remains of the enemy crew. God alone knew what sort of answers the captives would give, if only because they couldn't be interrogated by Layla’s crew. Mistreating crewmen from another state, as odd as the whole concept seemed, would only encourage the mistreatment of Commonwealth personnel.

  “The Scouts have picked up thirty-seven enemy crewmen,” Reynolds reported, breaking into her thoughts. “Seven of them are quite badly injured.”

  “Have them put into stasis tubes,” Layla ordered, wondering if they had enough tubes to go round. The pirates might have to be transferred into the hold and the hatch firmly locked. “And order the Marines to return as quickly as possible. We’re going to need them.”

  She turned as a new report came in. “Shuttle Seven has recovered the lifepod,” the tactical officer said. “There were nine people crammed inside.”

  Layla scowled. Nine people ... in theory, a freighter could be operated by two or three people, but that never worked in practice. Most freighters really needed at least twenty crewmen to handle any problems that might arise. It was quite possible that the freighter has lost most of her crew.

  “They’re requesting to speak with you, urgently,” the tactical officer added.

  “Have them searched, then brought back to the ship,” Layla said. “Tell them that I will speak with them as soon as possible.”

  She shook her head. “Once the enemy ship is empty, have Engineering put together a crew to see what they can pull out of her,” she added. Standard procedure was to purge the computers and then destroy them physically before surrendering – and the enemy crew had been alarmingly professional – but it was worth a try. “I want to know as much as possible before we have to abandon her to interstellar space.”

  “Understood, Captain,” the tactical officer said. “Two of the damage control crewmen have SSE experience. With your permission, I will send them to join the team.”

  Layla nodded. Hopefully, she told herself, they would get some answers soon.

  And, she added silently, they should also hope that she hadn't just started a war.

  Chapter Three

  The threat of force is worthless unless the person (or country) making the threats has both the demonstrated will and ability to actually carry out those threats. Talk is cheap; action rather less so. Indeed, the more threats a person makes that are ignored (and not then backed up) the more credibility they lose. Eventually, they reach a point where carrying out the threats becomes imperative, if only because no one believes that they will.

  -Professor Leo Caesius, Authority, Power and the Post-Imperial Era

  “They certainly don’t look like pirates,” Blake commented.

  Jasmine nodded as she surveyed the row of prisoners propped up against one of the shuttlebay’s bulkheads. The mystery cruiser’s crew looked surprisingly professional, very unlike the pirates they’d captured from time to time; they sat as calmly as they could, only a handful of them looking at the Marines nervously. Being captured was always a disconcerting experience – Jasmine remembered the Conduct after Capture course she’d undergone at the Slaughterhouse – but it was worse for pirates.

  “No, they don’t,” she agreed, finally. “Did we manage to take anyone senior alive?”

  “The highest-ranking person the Scouts took off the ship was a Lieutenant,” Joe Buckley said. “Of course, someone here could be the Captain and claiming to be a lower-ranking officer ...”

  “It’s possible,” Jasmine said. The Marines gave the prisoners one last look and then headed out of the shuttlebay, allowing the Scouts on guard to close the internal airlock. If the prisoners gave trouble, they could simply be ejected into space – and they knew it. “And there were Marines on the other ship ...”

&
nbsp; She mulled it over as she dispatched most of the platoon to Marine Country and headed down towards the brig. Captain Delacroix had installed the refugees in the brig, pointing out that they didn't know who or what they really were; Jasmine found it hard to disagree with her, even if the refugees were Marines. Rogue Marines were rare, but they did exist – and it was surprisingly easy to condition someone into a homicidal killer. Marines were supposed to be resistant to such techniques, yet no one dared take that for granted.

  “The leader has the right implants, as do two of his men,” Joe observed, skimming through the preliminary report. “But we don’t have access to our records here.”

  “We can confirm their identity on Avalon, if the implants are not sufficient,” Jasmine pointed out, stepping into the brig. It was a small compartment with only four holding cells, currently holding the refugees – and the senior pirate. “For the moment ...”

  She stopped in front of one of the cells and straightened up, showing her uniform. “I’m Lieutenant Yamane, Stalker’s Stalkers,” she said, identifying herself. “And you?”

  The men in the cells stood up and saluted. “First Sergeant Conrad Hampton, retired,” the leader said. “And believe me when I say that I am very pleased to see you.”

  “You too,” Jasmine said, studying him carefully. Hampton definitely had the right build for a Marine – and he certainly moved like one. Even the most capable officers and men from the Imperial Army walked differently, while the Civil Guardsmen generally slouched along. “I’m afraid that we need to ask you some questions.”

  “I understand,” Hampton said. He shook his head, tiredly. “Are you from the Empire?”

  Jasmine hesitated, then shook her head. “We’re from Avalon,” she said, softly. “And you?”

  “Greenway,” Hampton said. “It’s something of a long story.”

  “Escort him to the interview compartment,” Jasmine ordered, as she opened the door. Blake and Joe braced for trouble, but Hampton offered none. “I’m sorry about this, but ...”

  Hampton surprised her with a smile. “I understand,” he said, again. “But do you have some coffee?”

  The interview compartment was marginally more comfortable than the cells, but at least it had a coffee machine. Jasmine poured Hampton a cup personally and passed it to him, then sat down facing the retired Marine. His hair had grown out in the years since he’d retired, but he seemed to have kept himself in shape otherwise. Greenway wasn’t that far from the Rim, one of many planets that would be glad to get a retired Marine as a colonist. But it was still several hundred light years from Avalon.

  “I retired five years ago,” Hampton said, sipping his coffee. “The wife wanted to homestead somewhere away from the Core Worlds; she felt that society was pressurising her into becoming a useless lump of flesh sitting in front of the entertainer all day. Greenway was looking for retired soldiers to serve as marshals and help train the Civil Guard. It seemed like a good idea at the time and for five years it was – and then the ships just stopped coming.”

  Jasmine nodded, reviewing the data on Greenway through her implant. It wasn't a deliberately low-tech world, but the settlers wanted to farm and hunt without creating a modern civilisation; the report stated that there was only one real city on the planet and almost nothing in the rest of the system, apart from a handful of industrial nodes. There were probably a number of RockRats as well, she decided. The report’s writer hadn't seemed to know or care.

  “It didn’t really bother us,” Hampton admitted. “We weren't really dependent on importing anything from the Empire, even HE3. The moon had enough deposits to meet our needs for thousands of years. There was some trouble from a handful of indents who had been told that they could go back to the Core Worlds after they finished their sentences, but we coped with that well enough. Everything seemed perfect until the next ships arrived. They told us that the Empire was gone and that we were now subjects of Admiral Singh, who had assumed power in the wake of the Empire’s fall.”

  Jasmine’s eyes narrowed. “Admiral Singh?”

  “She was apparently a Commodore assigned to Trafalgar,” Hampton explained. “Our last set of records were a little outdated, so we didn't know for sure. What we did know was that her ships were in orbit, demanding our immediate surrender. When we balked, they dropped KEWs on Landing City until we rolled over for them.”

  Jasmine grimaced, remembering how the Admiral had almost taken control of Avalon’s high orbitals. If the team she’d lead hadn't managed to capture the enemy ship, Avalon would have had no choice. They would have to surrender and hope that the Admiral’s rule wouldn't be that bad. Greenway wouldn't have had a chance.

  “They landed exploitation teams, conscripted everyone with any technical aptitude ... and started to round up anyone with actual military experience,” Hampton added, grimly. “I ... decided that it would be better not to stick around and be captured, but my escape plan went wrong. Someone had a son taken into custody and betrayed me in exchange for the son being released, or so I was told. Me and most of the others were taken off-planet the same day and held on the freighter. I think we were due to be transferred to Penance.”

  “That makes sense,” Jasmine agreed. Penance was a hellish world, even by the Empire’s lax standards; convicts were given a handful of supplies and dropped onto the surface, where they could either work to settle the planet or die. The Empire didn't care what happened after they were down on the surface. “How did you manage to gain control of the freighter?”

  Hampton looked down, embarrassed. “Kate – she was a militiawoman – seduced one of the guards,” he admitted. “She got the drop on him, forced him to open the rest of the cells and then we took the ship. We hoped we could get across the phase limit without them realising that something was wrong, but they caught on before we could make our escape good. They chased us all the way here ... the freighter was so badly damaged that there was nowhere else we could go. And then we ran into you.”

  “Luckily for you,” Jasmine said. They’d been very lucky. Converting a freighter into a prison barge was easy and, with minimal precautions, even the toughest soldiers couldn't escape. “What did ... Admiral Singh actually want?”

  “I think she wants the Empire,” Hampton admitted. “From the way her forces were acting on Greenway, I’m pretty sure she has a long-term plan to do just that, if she can. What happened to you?”

  Jasmine hesitated, then filled Hampton in on everything that had happened since Stalker’s Stalkers had been exiled to Avalon. He’d hoped to hear something of Earth and the remains of the Empire, but she had to admit that all they had were rumours, some of them more absurd than shocking. What sort of idiot would believe that there had been a giant bird growing inside Earth, let alone that it’s hatching had destroyed the planet?

  “So it’s just you?” Hampton asked, finally. “What can we do now?”

  “We do whatever we have to do,” Jasmine said. She scowled inwardly at his expression, although she knew that he had a point. It was a vague statement, something that Marines tended to distrust. And not without reason. “For the moment, we will have to arrange for you and your men to get proper quarters.”

  “Your brig is better than the freighter,” Hampton assured her.

  Jasmine smiled. “Until then, I need you all to write down a full report for the Colonel,” she added. “He’s going to want to know everything you know.”

  “Which isn't enough,” Hampton warned her. “Lieutenant, if Singh has control of Trafalgar ... she might have most of the sector fleet too.”

  “I know,” Jasmine said. They’d been outgunned when they’d faced the Admiral, but the pirates hadn't been very competent and the Marines had managed to take advantage of their flaws. It would be a great deal harder if they were facing a trained Imperial Navy officer. “But we will have to do what we can.”

  ***

  “Trafalgar was the linchpin of the sector fleet,” Layla said. “If Admiral Singh ca
ptured all of the fleet ... she’d have us heavily outgunned.”

  She flicked through the records, cursing – once again – the Imperial Navy’s lax approach to updating the files. Even before the withdrawal, the fleet lists had been in a terrible state; she doubted that the records were even fifty percent accurate. Some starships had been secretly decommissioned and sold, the profits flowing to the bureaucrats who were attempting to feather their own nests; others had been redeployed on short notice and no one had bothered to update the records. At worst, Admiral Singh might have two entire battle squadrons under her command ...

  It was possible, she told herself, that the ships were poorly maintained. God knew just how many ships had had to be put into long-term storage because the money and trained crewmen to maintain them didn’t exist ... even the starships on active duty suffered heavily from lack of maintenance. Layla had heard of a ship’s crew that had been forced to produce their own replacement components, which had caused no end of trouble when the replacements had been given to a crew that didn't know how to deal with them. But that, she thought angrily, was wishful thinking. They had to assume the worst.

  “We can leave the pirate ship here,” she said, “and then head back to Avalon.”

  She looked up at the starchart, running through the possible scenarios in her mind. If they assumed that the occupation force on Greenway didn't know where their cruiser had gone, they might take weeks or even months to realise that she was missing. On the other hand, if they assumed the worst, it might take only two to three weeks before the occupation force realised that the cruiser might have run into trouble. What did they have to send after her?

  “We could interrogate the prisoners gently,” Lieutenant Yamane suggested. “Some of them might be willing to talk.”