The Empire's Corps: Book 04 - Semper Fi

by Christopher Nuttall

  “If it will free my planet,” Canada said, “I will do anything.”

  “I wouldn't say that too loudly if I were you,” Jasmine said, dryly. She smiled at his puzzled expression. “We’re going to transfer you to a separate cabin; our interrogators are going to ask you hundreds of questions ...”

  “I can tell you everything,” Canada protested. He sounded rather indignant, as if he'd expected better treatment. But then, sending someone to face the interrogators suggested that someone wasn't believed to be innocent. “I ...”

  “Sometimes people don't know what they know,” Jasmine explained, patiently. It had surprised her, back when she’d undergone the Conduct After Capture course, just how much the interrogators had managed to pull from her mind. And she’d thought she’d managed to mislead them more than once. The only truly safe thing to do, she’d been told afterwards, was not to get captured at all. “The interrogators know more than I do about pulling information from a person’s mind.”

  She smiled at him. “And then we can decide what to do about Admiral Singh.”

  “Kill her,” Canada said. “It’s the only way to stop the bitch before she takes the Empire.”

  Jasmine privately doubted that was possible. Admiral Singh, at worst, had the entire sector fleet ... which would be badly outnumbered by the rest of the Imperial Navy. Standard procedure when dealing with such a threat was to assemble an overwhelming force and advance towards the enemy’s homeworld, crushing it in a single blow. Admiral Singh would be hunted down and destroyed.

  But what if the Empire was truly gone?

  The question had tormented her – and everyone else – since they’d discovered how rapidly the Empire had withdrawn from the Rim. Hundreds of planets had simply been abandoned, the lucky ones securing enough firepower to protect themselves against marauding pirates and empire-builders. Jasmine knew just how many faultlines threatened the integrity of the Imperial Navy; if they’d all exploded ... she had a vivid impression of battleships firing on their fellows as the more ambitious Admirals moved to secure their bases and set up their own empires. And there was no shortage of competent officers who had been kept down by their well-connected superiors. What would they do if the Empire was so gravely weakened?

  “We’ll see what happens,” she said, vaguely. She’d have to explain, at some point, what they really were. Canada would be shocked to realise that he wasn't talking to the Empire’s representatives. “Until then, you must answer our questions.”

  She hesitated, then added a warning. “You must stay in your cabin,” she added, flatly. He looked rebellious – no doubt he’d been confined to his cabin on his former ship, if he’d had a cabin to himself – so she explained the reasoning behind the order. “Your former shipmates won’t hesitate to kill you if they get a chance.”

  Canada swallowed hard, but nodded in understanding.

  Jasmine watched Blake lead him out of the interrogation compartment, then tapped the small console and replayed the entire conversation. If Canada was telling the truth – and that could be verified, even without drugs or less elegant forms of interrogation – they knew more about the coming threat. There would be war. Admiral Singh was hardly likely to tolerate a threat developing to her rear as she probed towards the Core Worlds. It was far more likely that she would attempt to deal with Avalon and the rest of the Commonwealth as quickly as possible.

  But what, Jasmine asked herself, does she know about us?

  It was impossible to say, she knew; even if the other prisoners were just as cooperative. For all they knew, Admiral Singh had captured traders from the Commonwealth – or sent spies to Avalon, checking up on the cloudscoop. Avalon didn't have the vast detection arrays orbiting Earth; it was quite possible that someone had sneaked into the system, carried out a brief tactical survey and then retreated, without being detected at all. And then ...?

  The Commonwealth had built up its navy over the past two years, but Admiral Singh still had a big head start. Could she take out Avalon’s defence forces and secure the high orbitals? If she had the sector fleet’s battleships, she probably could; Jasmine would have been surprised if she couldn’t. But then, she was capturing industrial nodes and transporting them to her base of operations, rather than using them in place. It suggested a certain insecurity ...

  The Colonel will have to decide what to do, she thought, and forwarded the recordings to Delacroix. The former Auxiliary had her own views on how the universe worked – and besides, she’d actually commanded starships. She might be able to deduce the logic behind Admiral Singh’s actions – or suggest questions for Canada and any other cooperative prisoners. The more minds working on a problem, in Jasmine’s experience, the greater the chance of finding a proper solution.

  The hatch opened, revealing the next prisoner. Jasmine blanked the display and turned to face the middle-aged woman, who seemed oddly relieved to see her. Or perhaps it wasn't so odd after all. Everyone knew what pirates did to their captives. The Marines had explained that the POWS would be well treated, but pirates made promises too.

  “Please, be seated,” Jasmine said, as the hatch hissed closed. The woman eyed her nervously, but did as she was told. “I am Lieutenant Jasmine Yamane, Terran Marine Corps ...”

  Chapter Five

  The rule of the strong causes hundreds of problems for humanity, some simple and some complex. If everything I own is mine only as long as I can keep hold of it, I am doomed the moment I show weakness. There are no such things as property rights in a state ruled by the strong – and the strong will rule only as long as they stay strong. When they grow old, their enemies will come for them with daggers drawn – and take all they can get.

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

  “Imagine,” Professor Leo Caesius said dramatically, “a single human marching towards a cliff.”

  He smiled at his audience and continued. “That human will see the cliff in front of him and come to a stop – unless, of course, he wants to commit suicide. He may stop and turn to the right, walking alongside the cliff, or he might turn back and walk away from the cliff. But he has successfully avoided death by walking off the cliff.”

  He paused. “Now,” he added, “imagine a massive army of humans advancing towards the cliff.

  “The people in the lead may see the cliff coming, but can they stop? Even if they do, they will be pushed forward by the people behind them – and, no matter how much they kick and scream, they will be pushed over the cliff. So too will the people just behind them; they may not even realise that the cliff is there until it is too late. How many people will fall to their deaths before the remainder manage to stop?”

  The question hung in the air for a long chilling moment. “A single human can turn right or left or even go backwards,” Leo said. “But how easy is it to change the direction of a colossal mass of humans? How many of you have learned to march as part of the Knights? Can an entire army change its route before it is too late?

  “It is incredibly difficult to alter course when there are so many humans involved,” he said, softly. “And that sums up the problem with the Empire.”

  He smiled inwardly at their reactions. History and Moral Philosophy wasn't an elective in Avalon University – and contributed nothing towards a student’s grades - but it was a surprisingly popular class. The youth of Avalon needed to understand what had killed the Empire and what might kill the Commonwealth, if they let it. In the end, the future was in their hands.

  “There were countless people, myself included, who saw the disaster looming over Earth,” he continued, “but they were ignored. The actions of hundreds of thousands of people could not save an empire that consisted of trillions of humans, or even warn them of their impending doom. Instead, the population of the Empire kept marching in step towards the cliff, largely unaware that it even existed.”

  The remainder of the lecture passed quickly, as he detailed just why the Empire’s population had be
en so unaware of the dangers. Several students stood up to ask questions – intelligent ones, unlike the timewasters he recalled from Earth – and he answered them as best as he could. The feeling of encouraging a student to actually think had been rare on Earth, but on Avalon he felt it nearly every day. It was hard, now, to remember how much it had bothered him when he had been exiled from Earth.

  “The core of the problem,” he concluded, “was that the vast majority of the population took their eyes off the politicians. This gave them free reign to build their political empires, enhance the civil service, take control of the media and gain a stranglehold on power. In the name of decency, they placed restrictions on all communications, making it far harder for dissident views to spread throughout Earth, let alone the remainder of the Empire. We shall discuss the results of such interference tomorrow.”

  He stepped off the podium, gathered up his notes and watched as the students filed out of the hall. It was smaller than the lecture halls on Earth – Avalon University’s entire population of faculty and students would have vanished without trace in Imperial University – but somehow that made it easier to use. Besides, the students here were almost scary in their determination to actually learn. The students in Imperial University, apart from a handful of rare exceptions, had always given him the impression that they were just marking time.

  But then, Avalon University was a practical university and placed a great deal of focus on discipline. There were no extensions for students who didn't finish their coursework on time, no tolerance of students who acted badly in class ... and a complete absence of worthless courses that gave the students an impressive-sounding degree and absolutely no job prospects after they graduated. Indeed, now that the technical colleges were up and running too, Avalon University was tending towards pure research, opening up new fields of study that the Empire had believed closed.

  Leo didn't know what would happen in the future, but he hoped that, in some small way, he had played a role in reopening the human mind. There were times when he felt slow and stupid compared to his students, the ones who questioned everything with a determination he could hardly match. Earth’s attitudes had sunk into his mind more than he had known, he’d realised, when he’d finally put his finger on what was bothering him. Everyone on Earth knew that a gravity shield could only protect the prow of a starship, but on Avalon the students were asking why ...

  He heard a cough and looked up to see Colonel Stalker leaning against the wall, waiting for him. Leo felt a sudden shiver running through his body; the last time the Colonel had come to see him unannounced, it had been to tell him that his eldest daughter was missing, presumed dead. Now ... Mandy was in the Commonwealth Navy and Mindy was a Knight ...

  The Colonel must have read his face because he shook his head. “Your family is fine, as far as I know,” he said. “Harrington just came over the phase limit – Captain Delacroix sent a message here as soon as she arrived.”

  Leo frowned. “A message?”

  “Code Theta,” Colonel Stalker said. “We may have some trouble on our hands.”

  Leo winced. He’d attempted to model the collapse of the Empire, but there were so many variables that all of his models ended up completely chaotic within hours. How could anyone hope to predict which worlds would remain loyal, which worlds would fall to warlords ... and which worlds would destroy themselves in civil war, once the Empire’s iron grip had been removed? The Commonwealth had discovered three worlds that had almost destroyed themselves through infighting ... God alone knew how much worse it was going to be towards the Inner Worlds. There were planets where bitter hatreds had only been held in check by the Empire’s superior force. But those hatreds had never been exorcised.

  Code Theta, however, referred to another contingency. Leo had predicted that the fall of the Empire would eventually lead to successor states; hell, Avalon and the Commonwealth was effectively one such state. Now, if Code Theta had been sent, the Commonwealth had encountered a second successor state ...

  “I see,” he said. “I take it that contact wasn't entirely friendly?”

  Colonel Stalker smiled, but it didn't touch his eyes. “You could say that,” he said. “I’ve called a meeting of the Commonwealth Council. Harrington has already sent a full copy of the records to Avalon. I would appreciate it if you attended the meeting.”

  Leo nodded. He wasn't a member of the Council, but he had served as an advisor – as well as one of the writers of the Commonwealth Constitution. It had been an interesting – and humbling – experience, one he’d enjoyed more than he’d expected. In the end, they’d ended up with ten pages and a government that – he felt – should work reasonably well.

  “I’ll come,” he said, wondering briefly why the Colonel hadn't simply called him. He knew the answer a moment later. His wristcom was always turned off during lectures. “This isn't going to be good, is it?”

  “It never is,” Colonel Stalker told him. “Ever.”

  ***

  President Gabriella Cracker looked around the Council Chamber as the Councillors, each one representing a single star system in the Commonwealth, took their seats. It still surprised her that the Council managed to work as well as it did, but they had learned a hard lesson about practicalities after the Empire had abandoned the Rim. The survivors of the war that had threatened to tear Avalon apart, or the Admiral’s reign of terror, knew better than to waste time with political games.

  No one was entirely happy with the Commonwealth’s system – which, she’d been assured, was the mark of a good compromise. Some star systems had wanted their entire populations taken into account, while other star systems were politically divided, each faction wanting the right to send their own representatives to Avalon. If the Admiral hadn't concentrated a few minds, Gaby suspected that there would have been no agreement – and no Commonwealth. As it was, the Council would never have the authority the Grand Senate had wielded at the height of its power. There was simply too much scope for misuse.

  She allowed herself a quick smile as Colonel Stalker entered the chamber, with Professor Caesius in tow. Their affair was common knowledge; surprisingly, it hadn't reflected badly on either of them. The media had been quick to portray it as two sides in a war coming together to build a better future ... which, in Gaby’s eyes, proved that the media was either tightly controlled or very silly. There didn't seem to be any middle-ground, although the torrent of new media organisations formed after the end of the Cracker Insurgency had finally given way to a handful that maintained reasonably good standards and a wide readership.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, be seated,” she said, as the door closed with an audible click. “This meeting is now in session.”

  She nodded to Colonel Stalker. “Edward, if you will begin ...?”

  Colonel Stalker stood up and walked over to the display. “Two weeks ago,” he said, “there was an encounter in the François System between CSS Harrington and a light cruiser formerly under the control of the Imperial Navy – and now in service to a rogue warlord ...”

  Gaby listened as he outlined everything that had happened, then showed them the sensor logs from Harrington. They’d assumed that they would run into multi-system successor states sooner or later, but no one had predicted a violent clash between the two navies. It would make it difficult to negotiate, she realised sourly. Once blood had been shed it was harder to convince both sides to sit down and talk.

  “I do not believe that Captain Delacroix could have acted in any other way,” Colonel Stalker said. “We could not allow them to just capture the freighter and take the prisoners back to their system ...”

  “Because the prisoners included one of your Marines,” Julian Waterford said, sharply. “Would your Captain have acted any differently if the freighter hadn't carried a Marine?”

  Gaby winced, inwardly. Julian had long carried a torch for her, even during the darkest days of the war on Avalon ... and he’d taken her relationship with Colonel Stalker badly. H
e was twenty-five and yet he acted more like a teenage brat when the Colonel was involved. Gaby would have sent him out of Camelot if he hadn't been a war hero and an elected representative in his own right. Besides, when the Colonel wasn't involved, Julian was more mature than he looked.

  “We had no way of knowing what was really going on,” Colonel Stalker said, quietly. “Even if there hadn’t been a Marine involved, we would have had to know the truth before we allowed them to recapture their prisoners. For all we knew, they could have been pirates. It wouldn't be the first time an Imperial Navy ship turned rogue.”

  “But this is worse,” Gaby said, dragging the conversation back on topic. “A hostile state, controlling the Trafalgar Naval Base ...”

  “And much of the industry in the sector,” Colonel Stalker admitted. “We could be badly outgunned.”

  “Right,” Councillor Yvette Quinn said. She represented Sangria, one of the worlds that had been occupied by the Admiral’s forces before the Marines had liberated them. Her homeworld was currently one of the Commonwealth’s strongest supporters. “Do we know anything about this Admiral Singh?”

  “I’ve conducted a search through the records,” Colonel Stalker said. “The closest match we have is Commodore Rani Singh, who was appointed to Trafalgar Naval Base two years before we lost contact with the Empire. Unfortunately, Singh isn't exactly an uncommon name and our records haven’t been updated.” He shrugged. “We think she’s the most likely suspect, but there is no way to know for sure.”

  He tapped the control and an image of a brown-skinned woman appeared on the display, staring down at the councillors. “Her file suggests a slow, but steady rise in the Imperial Navy until she was shuffled sideways into System Command at Trafalgar. Something must have happened to her career ...”

  Julian scowled. “What?”

  “It could be anything,” Colonel Stalker said. “The files are not precise, but at a guess I’d say she made a powerful enemy. Her files don’t suggest the kind of powerful connections most senior officers need to rise above Commodore, so she might just have been pushed aside by her superior. As to why ... there are too many possibilities. All we really know is that she didn't screw up too badly.”