Wolf's Bane (The Empire's Corps Book 14)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Reloading the squadron,” Mandy said. She kept her voice even with an effort. Mindy was the only person at the table who didn't know the truth. She’d be furious when she realised that Mandy had lied to her. “We’re going to Thule in force, once we’re ready to depart.”

  Mindy frowned. “There can't be much left there,” she said. “Or am I wrong?”

  “We might recover some of the industrial base,” Mandy said, although she knew it was unlikely. She’d devastated every industrial platform within reach when she’d been forced to abandon the system. The Wolves would make sure to devastate the rest when they were kicked out by superior force. “But it will also be a second blow to enemy morale. Thule was their first major victory, after all.”

  “And they’re sending you back there,” Mindy said. She sounded calculating. Mandy felt a shiver running down her spine. “I thought that wasn't allowed.”

  “I am a naval officer,” Mandy reminded her, stiffly. “I can put my feelings aside for the greater good.”

  “And we’re scraping the barrel,” Jasmine put in. “Mandy is the only squadron commander without a current assignment.”

  “We must be desperate,” Mindy teased.

  Mandy kicked her under the table. “They’re making you an NCO,” she pointed out. “The end of the war is in sight!”

  Jasmine coughed. “Remind me how old you two are meant to be again?”

  “She started it,” Mindy said.

  Mandy flushed. It didn't matter how old she was - and it probably never would. Being with her sister meant becoming a teenager again. Or at least acting like a teenager. She shuddered, remembering some of the tantrums she’d thrown ... she’d deserved to be slapped or worse, rather than her father’s soft rebukes and her mother’s screaming fits. But then, parents on Earth had had very little authority over their children. She’d certainly considered walking away more than once and going straight to a home for emancipated children ...

  And if the rumours from those homes are true, she thought grimly, I dodged a bullet.

  “We’re too old to be childish,” she said, finally. They weren't children any longer, no matter how they felt. They were adults, with adult responsibilities. “Perhaps we should talk about something else.”

  The food arrived before Jasmine could reply; three bowls of curry, a large pan of rice and a piece of bread so large that it blocked the table. Jasmine picked up one of the bowls, removed a warning sign and dipped a piece of bread into the curry. Mandy caught sight of the waitress watching from the counter as Jasmine put the curry into her mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. The smell wasn't unpleasant, but it was strong.

  “Not bad,” Jasmine said. The waitress looked astonished. “Could do with a little extra spice, but otherwise ...”

  She held out the bowl. “Try some?”

  “No, thank you,” Mandy said, quickly. “I’ll stick with something cooler.”

  “That’s the navy way,” Mindy needled. “You flee when the fire gets too hot.”

  Mandy scowled at her. “Poisoning myself isn't my idea of fun,” she said, as she took some of her own curry. “I don’t know how anyone can eat that ... that ... stuff.”

  “Modified taste buds,” Mindy said. “Right?”

  Jasmine shook her head. “My homeworld was pretty fond of spicy food,” she said. “And Joe ... well, he cooks by covering everything in spicy marinade and then adding extra sauce. No one can outdo him for food that tastes suspiciously like high explosive.”

  Mindy snorted. “Does cooking for the men bother you?”

  “We take turns to cook,” Jasmine said. Her face shadowed. “Or we used to, back when we were just a small platoon that was part of a larger company. The only people who didn't cook were the ones who volunteered to dig latrines instead. It wasn't much of an improvement.”

  “I would have thought not,” Mindy agreed.

  “Richard managed to give us all a bellyache, somehow,” Jasmine added. “The entire platoon had the galloping shits for days. And then we threatened him with physical violence if he even looked at the cooking pots. I don’t know what he put in his stew, but it probably violated a dozen laws on chemical weapons.”

  “Sounds a nice sort of bloke,” Mindy said. “Have we met him?”

  “He bought it on Han,” Jasmine said. “The bad guys got lucky and potted him as he crawled along a rooftop. He ...”

  She shook her head. “He was a good bloke,” she added. “But he did poison us all.”

  Mandy winced. “Can we talk about something else over dinner?”

  “If you wish,” Mindy said. “Have you found a new boyfriend yet?”

  “No,” Mandy said, swallowing a number of very nasty replies. “You?”

  “It’s a bit harder to find a boyfriend when you’re going to the wars,” Mindy said. “There was someone, but ...”

  “It didn't work out,” Jasmine said. “It rarely does.”

  Mandy sighed. She hadn’t exactly been raped, when she’d been trapped on a pirate ship, but she’d been pushed into surrendering herself. And if she hadn't been useful, if she hadn't had some engineering skills, she knew she wouldn't even have had that much choice. She could have been raped and murdered at any moment and no one would have given a damn. She’d broken up with her former boyfriend after returning to Avalon, then closed her heart. She couldn't bear the thought of letting someone else so close to her.

  She met Jasmine’s eyes. “And you?”

  “Our relationship may not last,” Jasmine said. “If we break up, we break up; if we stay together, we stay together.”

  “How very philosophical,” Mindy said.

  “Death can come at any moment,” Jasmine pointed out, dryly. “There’s no point in drawing up long-term plans when they might be completely useless - or worse.”

  “You want to wait until after the war,” Mandy said.

  “But there might be another war afterwards,” Mindy countered. “The Wolves, the Trade Federation and ourselves can't be the only ones left.”

  Mandy nodded in agreement. The Empire was - had been - huge. There had been thousands of inhabited worlds, with rumours of hundreds more beyond the edge of explored space. The Core Worlds - Earth, in particular - might be gone, but that still left countless thousands of worlds that might start the return to space. Mindy was right. The three known interstellar powers couldn't be all that was left of the Empire.

  Four, if you count Admiral Singh’s little empire, she thought. And five, if you count the RockRats.

  “We will see,” Jasmine said. She lifted her wineglass and took a sip. “I’d like to know what happened to my family, but I may never get any answers.”

  Mandy felt a stab of bitter pity. She’d been exiled, sure, but she’d been exiled with her family. Jasmine’s family were thousands of light-years away, if they were still alive. There was no way to know what had happened to them, save for going and looking. And while the navy had talked about dispatching missions corewards, the truth was that it would be a long time before they got off the ground. The Wolfbane War alone was consuming all of their resources.

  We might never see the galaxy reunified in our lifetimes, she thought, morbidly. And Jasmine may never see her family again.

  “You’re part of our family now,” she said, softly. “You’re my older sister.”

  “A thankless job,” Mindy teased.

  Jasmine looked oddly amused. “I am an older sister,” she reminded them, dryly. “It was a thankless task. I had nine siblings.”

  “Ouch,” Mindy said. “Did you have an extended family?”

  “One mother, one father, ten children,” Jasmine said. “They were busy.”

  Mandy shook her head in amusement. She’d known families on Earth that had had dozens of children, but they’d all been extended families. The government benefits had been the only thing keeping some of them alive, too. Jasmine’s parents had to have been mad ...

  “Very busy,” she said, softly. “And n
ow perhaps we can talk of happier things.”

  “And then go clubbing,” Mindy added.

  “Maybe not,” Jasmine said. “Being recognised would be embarrassing.”

  Mandy laughed, regretfully. “Let us just talk of happier things,” she said. “The war will wait a day or two.”

  “Unless Admiral Singh strikes first,” Jasmine said. “That could be the end.”

  “You’re not allowed to talk anymore,” Mindy said.

  Chapter Eight

  If there was one advantage to having a relatively new intelligence service, Ed had decided long before the Battle of Corinthian, it was that the spooks hadn't had a chance to put down roots yet. The Empire’s vast collection of intelligence and security services had been more interested in bureaucratic infighting and covering their collective asses than collecting, analysing and distributing intelligence to the military. He dreaded to think how many operations had gone spectacularly wrong because the intelligence staff had been ignorant, among other things, of their own ignorance. They’d cultivated an air of omniscience that had regularly bitten someone else on the behind.

  The Commonwealth Intelligence Service hadn't had a chance to build a spectacular headquarters either, he reflected, as he walked into Kitty Stevenson’s office. The spooks wouldn't have a fancy headquarters either, if he had his way. They would never have the chance to lose touch with the facts on the ground, or the men and women who depended on the intelligence officers for proper analysis. The building had an impermanent air, suggesting that the office could be closed down at a moment’s notice. Everything, from the desks and chairs to the secure filing cabinets, was designed for hasty removal.

  And a distributed service is harder to take out, he thought, wryly. The Empire had established three intelligence headquarters on Han, all of which had been obliterated in the opening moments of the war. The CIS won’t be crippled so easily.

  Colonel Kitty Stevenson rose to her feet as he entered, snapping out a salute. She was a tall, red-headed woman; her hair, very definitely not of regulation length, hanging down her back and brushing against her bottom. Her uniform was just tight enough to push the limits without infringing regulations, such as they were. Kitty had been in Naval Intelligence before being exiled to Avalon, but her staff were either drawn from civilian agencies or newly-recruited on Avalon. There was no real dress code for the CIS.

  And she could just take off her uniform and blend into the civilian world, Ed thought. Kitty was tall and strong, but that hardly made her stand out on Avalon. She wants people to look at her uniform, not at her face.

  “Colonel,” Kitty said. “Thank you for coming.”

  Ed smiled, rather ruefully. He was used to getting by on very little sleep, yet a baby’s cries - and demands to be fed - were alarmingly wearisome. He’d slept through incoming mortar rounds and shellfire - safe in the knowledge that the marines were hidden under a bunker - but his son demanded his immediate attention. He had the feeling he’d be going mad if he hadn't had plenty of experience in coping with little sleep. In truth, he had no idea how his mother - or Gaby - managed to cope.

  “I meant to visit earlier,” he said, taking the offered seat. “I trust that Operation Deception is proceeding as planned?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kitty said. She poured them both a mug of coffee, then passed one to him and sat back down behind her desk. “We’ve started spreading rumours about the squadron’s planned targets in all the usual places. Everyone knows that Commodore Caesius and her fleet will hit Thule.”

  Ed nodded, sipping his coffee. “And the remainder of the squadrons?”

  “Assigned to various reinforcement missions,” Kitty said. “Their CO’s have sealed orders, which will be opened once the ships are in phase space. The remainder of their crews have no reason to suspect that they’re going somewhere else. I hear they’re quite envious of Commodore Caesius’s squadron.”

  “Good,” Ed said. That spoke well for morale, even though the Commonwealth had taken a beating during the first year of the war. But then, his crews had been trained to think and plan for themselves, not follow orders slavishly. They knew they had the edge. “And our double agents?”

  He took another sip of his coffee, smiling inwardly at the sour taste. The CIS received the same coffee blend as the rest of the military, a foul brew that banished sleep and damaged taste buds. He’d made sure of it, knowing just how easy it was for the spooks to obtain their own black market coffee. They couldn't be allowed to think of themselves as anything special, not when they had to keep their ear to the ground. Hell, he was pushing things by allowing Kitty Stevenson to remain in her office for over a year.

  “They’ve picked up the message,” Kitty said. “Hannalore has been cooperating.”

  Ed felt his expression darken. Governor Brent Roeder - the former Governor of Avalon - had accepted his demotion with good grace, but his wife had never been resigned to losing her position as queen bee. She’d slipped into treachery, selling out the Commonwealth in exchange for a promise that her husband would be allowed to rule Avalon after the war. And she’d been a hellishly effective spy. Ed had never really understood just how many people talked freely at Hannalore Roeder’s parties, let alone how much could be coaxed out of them by a friendly ear. It had been sheer luck that Hannalore had been caught before she could do real damage.

  She did quite enough, he thought, grimly. And we can never forgive her.

  He scowled down into his mug. Hannalore had switched sides the moment she’d been caught, offering to send disinformation to Wolfbane in exchange for amnesty. Ed hadn't wanted to take the deal, even though he understood the necessity. The chance to mislead Wolfbane, to lure Admiral Singh into a trap, was one he couldn't afford to miss. But it still meant letting a known traitor get away with it. Hannalore would never be trusted again - she’d be exiled from Avalon once the war was over - but she’d be alive. She deserved to be put in front of a wall and shot.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he lied. He would have been glad of an excuse to shoot the wretched bitch. She’d sold out the Commonwealth for a pipe dream. “Did she send the message?”

  “Yes, she did,” Kitty said. She cocked her head, thoughtfully. “However, sir, we must face up to the possibility that her position has been exposed.”

  Ed looked up. “What do you mean?”

  “We used Hannalore - and the handful of other double agents - to convince Admiral Singh to launch her invasion of Corinthian,” Kitty reminded him. “And that didn't end well for Admiral Singh. She may take everything she hears from Hannalore and her fellows with a grain of salt.”

  Ed made a face. If Hannalore was useless ... he shook his head, angrily dismissing the thought. They’d made a deal. Perhaps it was a bad deal, perhaps it stuck in his craw ... they’d made a deal. And they had to keep that deal. Hannalore couldn't be blamed - fairly - for Admiral Singh choosing not to believe her in future. She had sent the enemy some pretty damning misinformation, after all.

  He took another sip of his coffee. “Do we have any reason to believe that Hannalore’s cover has been blown?”

  Kitty shrugged. “A smart intelligence officer would understand that Hannalore might have been misled herself,” she said. “They don’t have any easy way to touch base with her, not during wartime. We’d intercept any electronic message sent to her. But sir ... in intelligence, there’s always the risk that someone is playing games with you. I suspect they always took her intelligence with a pinch of salt. And now they have a good reason to discard it altogether.”

  “Ouch,” Ed said.

  “On the other hand, we have been seeding the idea of Thule pretty heavily,” Kitty added, thoughtfully. “Any other intelligence operatives on Avalon will probably have caught wind of it by now. The message might already have gone out.”

  Ed shook his head. There were hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions - of newcomers on Avalon, with hundreds of interplanetary spacecraft and starships entering and leaving th
e system every day. There was no way the newcomers could all be vetted, any more than the ships could be searched without imposing impossible delays. And even a good search party might miss a microscopic datachip or encrypted files hidden within a commercial-grade datacore. A spy who landed on Avalon might find himself in a position to pick up a great deal of intelligence, as long as he was careful not to walk into one of the secure zones.

  “As long as they believe it,” he said, finally. “But we can't guarantee that, can we?”

  “No, sir,” Kitty said. “Admiral Singh may choose to disbelieve the intelligence.”

  “Or she may decide that Thule isn't worth defending any longer,” Ed said. Intelligence was scarce, but it looked as through the insurgents who’d bedevilled the CEF were now bedevilling the Wolves instead. Thule’s industrial base, the prize that had lured the Commonwealth into dispatching the CEF in the first place, no longer existed. “She might just withdraw her starships and abandon the system.”