The Empire's Corps: Book 04 - Semper Fi

by Christopher Nuttall

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

  Layla felt the tension rising on her bridge as Harrington slipped into the Corinthian System. The crew knew that detection was unlikely, particularly as long as they stayed well away from any of the settled worlds, but a single mistake might reveal their presence. She watched the display, schooling her features to remain calm, as the sensor crews built up an outline of the system’s defences. It was starting to look truly intimidating.

  Avalon hadn't had any settlements off-world, apart from the cloudscoop and a handful of RockRat habitats. Corinthian, on the other hand, had settlements on all fourteen planets and countless asteroid mining facilities. It was impossible to tell just how heavily industrialised the system had become at such a distance, but the worst-case estimate suggested that Corinthian would have over ten times the industrial power of Avalon, probably a great deal more. The system had been settled for much longer, for one thing, and had benefited from investment on a scale Avalon had never been able to match.

  The passive sensors revealed hundreds of sublight ships moving from world to world, carrying raw materials to the industrial nodes orbiting Corinthian and transporting manufactured goods to the other worlds. There were dozens of interstellar freighters milling around, mostly heading out of the system on least-time courses to the phase limit. It was impossible to determine if they were independents or if Admiral Singh had conscripted them as easily as she had conscripted starship crews, but it didn't matter. Instead, it suggested that Admiral Singh ruled an empire of considerable size and power.

  “Launch probes,” she ordered, softly.

  Taking Harrington too close to the planet was risky; a single betraying emission could give them away. Pirates might ignore the odd flicker that suggested the presence of a stealthed starship, but they dared not assume that Admiral Singh’s sensor crews would do the same. She had enough starships to play cat and mouse with the intruder, trying to force it into an ambush ... and if they managed to get a close look at Harrington, it would be far too revealing. Instead, the Imperial Navy-issue probes would advance towards the planet – and if they were detected, they wouldn't raise any additional alarm bells.

  Hours passed before the probes started sending back sensor imagines through the undetectable laser links binding them to their mothership. Layla watched, feeling cold ice congealing around her heart, as she saw seven battleships in orbit around Corinthian, each one two kilometres of death and destruction. They were the most formidable starships in the universe, even if they did cost several times as much as a battlecruiser and required over three thousand crewmen to run properly. Admiral Singh had a hard core of force to support her empire.

  “They look to be in good working order,” Specialist Montez said. He’d been assigned to Harrington for the duration of the mission, a young man who had demonstrated a remarkable talent with sensor systems. “I don’t think that they’re poorly maintained.”

  He scowled. “Their sensors are stepped down,” he added, “but that’s standard for military starships. I don’t dare assume that they’re damaged.”

  Layla nodded, sourly. Military-grade sensors tended to wear down rapidly when operating at full power, a problem that the Imperial Navy’s beancounters had never seemed to understand. Most starships kept their sensors stepped down until they were ready to go into battle, conserving the equipment as much as possible. After all, if it was worked too hard, it might fail in the midst of battle – and the entire ship would be lost before it could withdraw. A blind ship would be almost completely defenceless.

  She scowled as she recalled the training exercises she’d gone through when she’d transferred to the Commonwealth Navy. One particular scenario, designed so that everything that could go wrong did go wrong, had ended up with her starships completely blind ... and trashed by enemy fire. It had been a humiliating lesson, but one she’d had to learn. The Imperial Navy training programs had their limits ... yet they were surprisingly informative if approached with a willingness to learn.

  The figures kept scrolling up in her display. Seven battleships, nineteen heavy cruisers, thirty-seven destroyers ... enough firepower to take the Commonwealth Navy on in open combat and utterly trash it. At some point, the imbalance would be great enough that training and discipline couldn't even the odds; Sword’s headlong attack on Avalon illustrated that nicely, for those who cared to learn. If the pirate ship hadn't been sabotaged, the results would have been disastrous. The Commonwealth would have been snuffed out before it even came into existence.

  “There are only a couple of orbital fortresses,” Montez said, out loud. “The files said that there were five.”

  Layla frowned, studying the images. Corinthian, according to the files, had had five fortresses in orbit around the planet, enough firepower and sensor arrays to make approach difficult, at least without being detected. But instead, three of the fortresses were missing and the battleships had taken their places. That suggested ... what? Had they been towed to one of the other settled planets to add to their defences, or had they been destroyed when Admiral Singh arrived to take control?

  A question for Mr. Canada, she thought. Several asteroids were also in orbit; the images from the probes suggested that they were being converted into makeshift fortresses to replace the missing units. The originals had probably been destroyed then, she decided; asteroid-based fortresses were tough, but they had their limits. And they could turn into disasters if the enemy hit them hard enough to knock them out of orbit. If there had been any other choice, Admiral Singh would not have risked using them at all.

  Piece by piece, the sensor crew built up an image of the planet’s sensor network. It was formidable, although nowhere near as tough as Earth’s network; sneaking into orbit without being detected would be almost impossible. The active sensors would be bad enough, but if Admiral Singh had followed standard doctrine she would have scattered passive sensor nodes around the planet, each one listening carefully for hints of a stealthed starship – and utterly undetectable, at least when restricted to passive sensors. An active sensor sweep would have given the game away in any case.

  Layla watched as the probes tracked a freighter that docked at one of the orbiting stations, attempting to determine how freighter crews were treated. There were brief transmissions between the station and the freighter, but none of them were more than orders and acknowledgements. The probes couldn't see inside the ships, which meant that there was no way to know how the customs officers were handling the newcomers. There were just too many possibilities. If the ship was just being unloaded, it would be safe enough to bring Lightfoot into orbit – but if the ship was being searched and the crews questioned, it would raise too many dangerous possibilities. Somehow, Layla doubted that the Admiral would just accept a sealed package. The Commonwealth was gentle, but questions were asked of all freighter crews who came in from outside explored space.

  Or should that be re-explored space? She wondered, absently. The star charts they used to navigate would be good for hundreds of thousands of years – stars moved, but so slowly that countless human generations could go by before the charts needed to be updated – but the political situation could change overnight. Instead of the comforting certainty of the Empire, there was no way to know what lay outside their sector ... or what threats might be lurking core-wards, waiting to pounce.

  She shivered as she realised that she might have discovered why so many people had been reluctant to believe that the Empire could fall. Everything about it had seemed solid, unchangeable, from the heavily-settled Core Worlds to the lightly-populated worlds along the Rim. The thought of the ties that bound the Empire together shattering was not only terrifying, it was inconceivable – or, rather, it had been inconceivable. If more people had taken precautions before the Empire had finally shattered ...

  Like what? She asked herself. What could they have done?

  “The freighter crew doesn’t seem to be getting any sho
re leave,” Montez said, as the orbital crews started to unload the freighter. There was no way to determine what it had actually been carrying. “Or maybe they’ll be allowed to move to a holding orbit once they’ve unloaded their hold.”

  “Maybe,” Layla agreed. It wasn't her decision, but in her view it would be too dangerous to risk trying to smuggle the Marines down onto the planet. Lightfoot could dock openly, as an independent freighter trying to find a new source of HE3; the Marines would have to find a different method. They dared not risk being trapped on an orbital station. “Assign a probe to monitor them, then swing the others over to get some good images of the planet.”

  She watched as hours ticked by, an endless tide of data flowing into her ship’s datanet. The planet’s surface didn't seem to have changed that much, apart from the impact zone of a dozen KEW strikes, presumably dropped by Admiral Singh to convince the inhabitants that she meant business. Compared to Han, where KEW strikes had been called down every ten minutes during the height of the fighting, it was remarkably peaceful. Too peaceful.

  Montez put his finger on it. “There's almost no civilian chatter at all,” he said, studying the live feed. “Just a handful of military-grade transmitters.”

  Layla frowned. Outside a low-tech world, there should have been a considerable amount of radio chatter – and no one would accuse Corinthian of being a low-tech world. Even during the early days of Avalon’s settlement, there would have been no shortage of radio transmissions; it was far easier to use radio than set up landlines the Crackers could have cut at leisure. The absence of radio transmissions from Corinthian was ... worrying.

  “They may have moved everything onto the datanet,” Montez suggested, thoughtfully. “The planet has been settled long enough for the net to be just about everywhere.”

  “Or it could be another way to control the population,” Layla mused. The datanets the Empire produced – apart from the ancient systems used by Earth and the Core Worlds – were orderly, simple to use .... and easy for the administrators to control. There would be no shortage of pornography, or mind-numbing entertainment, but if anyone dared show too much interest in politics it would attract attention.

  “It could be,” Montez agreed. He tapped a switch, altering the image. “There’s a lot of new construction here, near Landing City. That wasn't there four years ago.”

  “Looks prefabricated,” Layla said, after a moment. “You think that’s housing all of the immigrant workers?”

  “It’s probable,” Montez said. He ran a series of analysis algorithms. “The computers think that there’s no shopping malls there, or anything other than residential apartments.”

  Layla heard the warning in his tone and nodded. Computer analysis had its limits – and had been known to make terrible mistakes, even when reasoning from impeccable logic. If they misidentified something during the first sensor sweep, the mistake would throw off the rest of their analysis. On the other hand, it did seem reasonable. Layla had seen the soulless accommodation thrown up for immigrants on other worlds and they tended to lack shops and other facilities that the immigrants might need – or want. The Civil Guard had often ended up fighting in them after the immigrants, sick of mistreatment, had started to riot.

  She looked over at him. “What’s your population estimate for the entire planet?”

  “Roughly two to three billion,” Montez said. “There’s plenty of sprawl outside the cities to house people, but ...”

  He shrugged, expressively. Layla understood. Once again, there was no way to be certain.

  But if the population is truly that large, we are definitely in trouble, she thought. The Commonwealth’s entire population, counting children, was roughly two billion, scattered over thirty worlds and countless tiny settlements. It was impossible to be sure because the Commonwealth’s founders had deliberately shied away from the intrusive population surveys the Empire had conducted regularly, leaving such matters in the hands of local governments. But if Admiral Singh had a larger population on a single planet, she’d have a much larger pool of potential crewmen and soldiers to draw on. It would take a few years to set up training facilities, but once they were underway her power would rise rapidly.

  She scowled. “Can you tell if there are military deployments in the midst of civilian formations?”

  “It’s difficult to be sure,” Montez admitted. “There are no shortage of military transmissions, but they seem to be concentrated in some places and scattered in others. It may require further analysis.”

  “Understood,” Layla said. Overall, she doubted that they could pull much more intelligence out of the planet at this distance. It was frustrating – they still knew almost nothing about the situation on the ground – but there was no point in complaining about it. “Pull back the probes; position them so they can continue to monitor the planet from a distance.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Montez said. He tapped his console, issuing orders. Once emplaced, the probes would record everything that happened near the planet – everything visible, she reminded herself. It was highly unlikely that they would be discovered unless Admiral Singh’s forces had a major stroke of luck. “They’re on their way.”

  Layla looked over towards the helm. “Take us towards the cloudscoop,” she ordered. “I want to take a look at their system before we leave.”

  She settled back in her command chair, fighting the tiredness that threatened to overcome her, as Harrington inched its way out of the system. There were officers who had been able to sleep, even when their starships were sneaking through enemy-controlled star systems; she honestly didn't know how they’d done it. Even if she’d gone into her stateroom for a brief nap, she would have found it hard to sleep without drugs – and taking a sleeping pill while her ship was in danger would have been unforgivable. At least her crew could take breaks, once they were relieved by their seconds.

  Slowly, the system’s largest gas giant came into view. The Empire had been mining it for HE3 for over seven hundred years, but it would be millennia before the gas giant was depleted. Layla had once heard of a pressure group on Earth having hysterics about humanity accidentally sucking Jupiter dry, such an absurd concept that it could only have originated on one of the Core Worlds, where a loss of touch with reality seemed to be a requirement for political office. She had no idea what had happened to the pressure group, but given how important HE3 was to the Empire, she suspected that it hadn't been pleasant. Maybe they’d just been rounded up and exiled to a low-tech world.

  “I’m picking up a small network of defence stations and nine cloudscoops,” Montez said. “They’re running sweeps at random, Captain. I don’t think we should risk going any closer.”

  Layla nodded. “Hold us here,” she said, as the main display started to fill up with data, “and see what you can tell me about their system.

  She shook her head in disbelief. Admiral Singh must have dismantled the cloudscoops in the three nearest systems and transported them to Corinthian, she decided, ensuring that the Admiral had a near-monopoly on HE3. It would give her a stranglehold over the other planets, keeping them from rebelling against her too openly – or they'd simply be cut off from their supply. She’d need an entire fleet of transports to move the fuel, but that wouldn't be a problem for Corinthian’s industrial base. It only took a few months to construct a basic freighter.

  The Admiral was also paranoid about something happening to her system, she decided, as the sensors picked up a small defence fleet orbiting the gas giant. Two more battleships floated near the cloudscoops, where thirty smaller ships buzzed around, running random patrol orbits that would make it hard for any stealthed ship to get too close. Unlike the defence forces orbiting Corinthian, the force guarding the cloudscoops were running their sensor systems at full power. Nothing could be allowed to threaten the cloudscoops.

  But Avalon does the same, Layla thought. The cloudscoops were the linchpin of the interstellar economy. Losing even one of them would hurt; losing al
l of them would be disastrous. She considered a handful of possible attack scenarios before realising that it would require most of the Commonwealth Navy to break through the defences, exposing them to Admiral Singh’s fleet. Colonel Stalker was unlikely to authorise such a gamble.

  “Pull us back,” she ordered finally, “and take us back to the rendezvous point.”

  She fought down a yawn as the helmsman obeyed. Once they were away from the gas giant, they’d transmit everything they’d picked up to the other two ships – and then there would be time for a nap before they started the next phase of the mission. And then ...

  Layla tapped the console, bringing up the images of the cloudscoops. Admiral Singh’s industrial base was truly formidable. If it could be captured ... the Commonwealth would become a great deal more powerful very quickly. If ...

  She shook her head. The first priority was preventing her from taking action against the Commonwealth. Everything else could wait.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The issues facing any state, therefore, required a balancing act. A state must have enough power to overawe the strong; conversely, it must also have limits on that power to prevent the politicians from becoming the strong. At the same time, it must reward hard work without accidentally suppressing it – or ruining its own economy. It must also be capable of heeding the will of the people while, at the same time, ignoring the ignorant. Sadly, this balancing act is very difficult to maintain. For one thing, how does one actually define 'ignorant?'