“Welcome to Le Cafe Latrine,” he said. “Would you like something shitty, something foul, or something ...”
“Something edible,” Jasmine said, tartly. Maybe the staff had been on lockdown for too long. “Something we can actually eat.”
“I’m afraid we don’t serve edible food,” the staffer said. He dropped down and opened up a hatch, producing a pair of sealed meal packets. “I’ve got steak and chips, hamburger and fries, curry and rice ...”
“Steak will be fine, thank you,” Jasmine said. She grunted in annoyance. The base was isolated, surrounded by prime hunting territory. There was nothing stopping the base’s personnel from going out and bagging a deer or rearing their own chickens. “Just bring it over when you’re done.”
She sat down, eyeing Haverford thoughtfully. He was still trembling, his hands twitching so badly that she was relieved he didn't have a sidearm. She’d seen a couple of people who’d breathed in too much riot control gas - it did long-term nerve damage, if the victims didn't seek medical attention at once - and they’d looked more in control of themselves. It had to be frustrating, very frustrating, to no longer be in command of one’s own body.
“You’ll get better,” she said, firmly. “It won’t last forever.”
“I hope not,” Haverford said. “You do realise I’m a little old for such treatments?”
“The medics cleared you,” Jasmine said. Haverford wasn't a marine, but he wasn't exactly in poor condition either. “And it’s better than being caught.”
“I suppose,” Haverford said. He gave her a sharp look. “Does Singh have any samples of your DNA?”
Jasmine made a face. It was possible, she had to admit. There were marine records in each sector, records that might not have been destroyed when Governor Brown took control. And Admiral Singh had excellent reason to remember Jasmine personally, after what had happened on Corinthian. The Admiral might even have kept the records from Jasmine’s interrogation session under her lair. Jasmine had her DNA altered a little, just enough to escape a casual scan, but she knew a deep scan would sound the alert.
They’d know I changed my DNA, she thought, glumly. And they’d know I had something to hide, even if they didn't know what.
“I have had my own DNA rewritten, slightly,” she said, finally. “None of the others ever had any contact with her.”
“Good,” Haverford said. “There’s no point in taking unnecessary risks.”
The food arrived before Jasmine could formulate a response. She removed the tin foil, then stared down at a blackened lump and a mass of soggy chips. It was a law of nature, she reminded herself, that military bases had bad food, even if one was heading off on a suicide mission. She poked the lump carefully - it looked as though the steak had been burned to charcoal - and then tasted it. Surprisingly, it tasted better than it looked.
“As long as we can make contact, the mission should go well,” she said, nibbling on a chip thoughtfully. It didn't taste bad, either. “And if we can’t ... well, we have contingency plans.”
She looked up as the door opened, revealing Stewart and Patrick. There was no sign of the other two, something that made her wonder if they were together. She’d thought she’d detected sparks between Meade and Parkinson ... and technically, a relationship between them wouldn't be against regulations. But it would be, once they left ... maybe she was just being silly. There was no proof they were actually together.
“It tastes better than it looks,” she said, as the other two joined them. “Really.”
“The bar isn't set very high,” Stewart said. He stole one of her chips and nibbled it, grimacing in disgust. “Are they trying to convince us that ration bars are actually worth eating?”
“It’s as good an explanation as any,” Jasmine said. She had no idea what the food would be like, on the freighter, but it would probably make her yearn for ration bars after a couple of weeks. The freighter would take on as much fresh food as it could, she was sure, yet it wouldn't last. “Or maybe they just don’t have a proper chef on the base.”
“They should have let us cook,” Stewart agreed. He stalked over to the hatch, demanded two more meals, and hurried back to the table. The food arrived two minutes later. “I could do better than this ...”
Jasmine shook her head, then finished the steak. “We’ll be on the shuttle in half an hour,” she said, checking her wristcom. She’d have to replace it with a civilian model before she left the base. “Make sure you’re ready to go.”
“I’ve only got four bags of luggage,” Patrick said. “Can I book some extra storage space, boss?”
“Hah,” Jasmine said. “You only get one bag. You’ll have to repack.”
“It’s that collection of souvenirs,” Stewart said. He shot Jasmine a mischievous look. “I told him not to go mad in the shop. He bought mugs and tacky t-shirts and chocolate bars and ...”
Jasmine snorted. Marines were usually restricted to one carryall, whatever their rank, but other services weren't always so well organised. She still smiled whenever she recalled the army LT who’d arrived on base with two giant bags of luggage and a collection of hunting rifles. The bastard had somehow gotten away with it, too. Of course, he had been well-connected and the uprising on Han had started a day or two later ...
“You marines,” Haverford said. “I don’t understand you.”
“Of course not,” Stewart said. “You’re not a marine.”
“Right now, we’re a team,” Jasmine said, firmly. She understood Stewart’s point - even agreed with it - but this wasn't the time. “And I hope you only have one bag.”
“I do,” Stewart said. He finished his meal and pushed the foil aside. “It’s a crappy piece of crap from a long-gone spacer’s guild, but it’ll work.”
“So will the papers,” Jasmine said. She hoped ... they’d been easy to forge, too easy. The Wolves might regard them with a degree of suspicion, even without suspecting that they had been forged. It would have been simple enough to get papers from the Trade Federation, but that would have attracted the wrong kind of attention. “It’ll get us a foot in the door, at least.”
“Give them an inch and then a foot,” Stewart misquoted. “And then pretty soon you won’t have a leg to stand on.”
“As long as they don’t have a leg to stand on either,” Jasmine said. Her wristcom bleeped, once. The shuttle was coming in to land. “Grab your bags, please. It’s time.”
Meade and Parkinson met them at the shuttlepad, both carrying their bags slung over their shoulders. They looked very civilian, Jasmine decided, as she looked them both up and down. It wasn't just their outfits - multicoloured shipsuits, without any starship tags - it was their general attitude. They didn't quite slump, but it looked very much as though they wanted to.
“Make sure you dump everything that can point to Avalon,” Jasmine said. She checked her bag, one final time. Everything she’d packed - from clothes to a handful of cosmetics and tools - could have been found in any spacer’s market. “I don’t want anything that might lead them straight back here.”
“They might be too desperate to care,” Meade pointed out. She finished checking her bag and slung it back over her shoulder. “They’re already paying well above the odds for trained personnel.”
“There’s no point in taking chances,” Jasmine said. She removed her wristcom, locked it and passed it to the nearest staffer. She’d take the replacement out of her bag once she was on the freighter, then slave it to the freighter’s computer network. “We cannot afford to take risks.”
“Of course not,” Meade agreed.
“We can’t,” Haverford said, quietly. “The slightest mistake would get us tossed into the fire.”
Jasmine nodded in grim agreement. Wolfbane was a police state. She knew, all too well, that police states had their limits, but they’d be passing through too many chokepoints for her to feel entirely comfortable. There would be an underground, there would be a criminal network they could use t
o undermine the state, yet it would take time to find it. Until then ...
We have to be above suspicion, she told herself, firmly. They cannot be allowed to take a careful look at us.
“Get on the shuttle,” she ordered. “It's time to go.”
She took a last breath of air, peering down towards the fence - and the forest beyond. A faint plume of smoke could be seen, rising up in the distance, but otherwise there were no signs of human life. It was strange to realise that Avalon, for all of its new significance, was still a very under-populated world. The giant CityBlocks of Earth had each held more people than Avalon ...
But the CityBlocks were too big to be comfortable, she thought, grimly. She would never stop giving thanks to God that she hadn't been born on Earth. And they eventually started to crumble.
Avalon wouldn't go like that, she thought. Earth had been the centre of a very centralised Empire, ruled by people who had alternatively coddled and repressed their population. Very - very - few people on Earth had dreamed of something better ... and those who had dared to dream had often been exiled or killed. Avalon was different, populated by men and women who had fought for their independence and would fight again - if necessary - to keep it. She couldn't imagine it becoming a clone of Earth.
And yet, things can go wrong, she thought. She’d never studied history formally, but she had picked up enough to know that very few people learned from history. We might repeat all the mistakes of the past.
Stewart cleared his throat. “Jasmine?”
Jasmine sighed and stepped through the hatch. “Let’s go,” she said. “The sooner we’re on our way, the better.”
Chapter Eleven
“The troops are boarding now,” General Mathis said. “I’ve distributed the marines over the troopships.”
Ed nodded as he peered down towards the spaceport. Lines of uniformed men - a handful looking the worse for wear after their last night on the town - were walking forward, boarding shuttles with the calm precision of men who’d done it a hundred times before. Sergeants and military policemen strode from line to line, trying to keep everything carefully organised in hopes of avoiding confusion. Ed knew there would be confusion - he’d handled enough deployments to know that something would go wrong - but his subordinates had the authority to fix problems without screaming to their superiors. Hopefully, everything would be solved without him having to get involved.
He turned to face his subordinate. General Mathis looked surprisingly old, compared to some of the other officers on Avalon, but there was no doubting his competence. He’d commanded a regiment during the Battle of Camelot, then served as Ed’s second on Corinthian. Maybe he wasn't the most imaginative officer - the Civil Guard hadn't encouraged its personnel to think for themselves - but he was solid. He needed to be solid.
“Our equipment has been loaded?”
“Yes, sir,” Mathis said. “I installed everything on Chesty Puller. Taking it all the way to ... to our destination may be a waste.”
“But we’d regret not having it if we needed it,” Ed pointed out. He’d been on enough campaigns where the beancounters had refused to allow the troops all kinds of supplies, pointing out that the plans didn't call for them. Inevitably, they’d missed the supplies when they actually needed them. “I assume the equipment all checked out?”
“Mostly, sir,” Mathis said. “A handful of combat suits were deemed non-functional. The engineers believe they can be repaired during the voyage.”
“Let us hope so,” Ed said. He’d conserved as much of his original stockpile of equipment as possible, knowing that some marine kit would be very hard to replace, but they needed it now. “We’re definitely going to have to start building it for ourselves.”
“If we have time, sir,” Mathis said. “And if we can afford to spare the resources.”
Ed nodded, irked. The Empire, for all of its flaws, had had a massive industrial base. The industrial nodes on the Slaughterhouse alone had been sufficient to supply the Marine Corps with everything it needed, from simple bullets and rifles to armoured combat suits and heavy plasma cannons. There had been a time when they’d been drowning in supplies, despite the best efforts of the beancounters. But now ...
We have to compromise, he thought, sourly. There were too many demands and too few resources, even now. The industrial nodes that could turn out armoured battlesuits are needed elsewhere.
He turned back to peer down at the spaceport. A line of armoured vehicles was being driven into the giant shuttles, their drivers waving and cheering as they vanished into the darkened interior. They’d be unloaded again once they reached orbit, the AFVs moved into the vehicle bays and locked down for the voyage. He smiled humourlessly, remembering weeks and months spent breaking down similar vehicles and then putting them back together, learning how they worked on a very basic level. The marines had always been good at repairing their gear on the fly, even during wartime. Their counterparts in the army had never been permitted to learn how to repair their vehicles.
Although they did learn quickly how to bolt additional armour onto their vehicles on Han, he recalled. They had no choice.
“The loading should be finished in two days,” Mathis said. “Unless something goes wrong ...”
“The schedule will slip,” Ed said, flatly. He’d known senior officers who’d exploded with rage when they’d discovered that loading wouldn't be completed on schedule after all. They hadn't had any real experience of military affairs. Ed had been careful to add some slippage to his schedule. “But we should be able to depart as planned.”
“Yes, sir,” Mathis said.
Ed nodded, sucking in his breath as he saw a group of men cantering towards a shuttle. They looked young, painfully young ... he knew, just by looking at them, that they had never seen the elephant. They’d probably just been entering their teens when Stalker’s Stalkers had arrived on Avalon, too young to fight for either side. Some of them still didn’t look old enough to shave. And yet, they’d volunteered for the CEF instead of joining the militia ...
Some of them will not come home, Ed thought, grimly. He felt a pang of guilt, mingled with the grim awareness that he couldn't allow himself any sentimentality. I might have to send some of them to their deaths to save the others.
He couldn't help feeling a stab of bitter envy. Avalon had been a primitive world, once upon a time. A stage-one colony, barely capable of feeding itself ... and yet, it had given its population a lifestyle beyond the wildest dreams of most of Earth’s population. Being independent, being responsible ... it had been fantastic, even though he knew that it came with its own price. There were no government agencies on Avalon helping people cope with their lives ...
But those agencies didn't really help on Earth, he reminded himself. And Avalon is all the better for their absence.
He saw two young men laughing and felt another flicker of morbid envy. There was something open and honest about them, something that would never have been possible on Earth. They didn't have to keep their feelings hidden, they didn't have to fear attack at all times, they didn't have to make the choice between being victim and victimiser ... they were healthy, truly healthy, on a level few could match. And yet, they probably considered their farms to be boring prisons, they probably feared spending the rest of their lives watching the back end of a mule ... they didn't know how lucky they were.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill, he reminded himself, dryly. And you’ve been at war for too long.
Mathis cleared his throat. “Sir?”
Ed scowled, silently glad that Mathis couldn't see his face. “I’m sorry, I was miles away,” he said. Light-years would be more accurate. “What was that?”
“General Grosskopf is on his way up,” Mathis said. “I think he wants a word with you.”
“Understood,” Ed said. A pair of shuttles were taking off, their pilots flying in perfect formation. He made a mental note to remind the air traffic controllers that the pil
ots shouldn't be showing off, even if they had flown through rather more unfriendly skies. Ed was no stranger to danger, but there was nothing to be gained by running unnecessary risks. “Let him in when he arrives.”
The door opened, two minutes later. “Ed.”
“George,” Ed said, turning to face the older man. “I trust you’re ready to take command?”
“Not much left to do here,” Grosskopf said. It wouldn't be the first time he’d assumed command on Avalon while Ed and his men headed off to fight elsewhere. “But yes, I’m ready.”
“And in a good position to give any attackers a hard time,” Ed pointed out. “I think you’re in command of the toughest fortress in known space.”
He smiled, rather coldly. Once, command of the high orbitals was enough to convince a planet to surrender. Anyone foolish enough to refuse to surrender could be hammered from orbit until they gave up or were overthrown by their own people. A planet lacking orbital defences was as helpless as a naked virgin in the Undercity. It simply couldn't put up an effective resistance against a determined enemy.
Wolf's Bane (The Empire's Corps Book 14) Page 11