The Empire's Corps: Book 07 - Reality Check

by Christopher Nuttall

  “It isn't real,” Yates commented, quietly. “The elevator isn't on the outside of the tower at all.”

  Darrin nodded, feeling a strange sense of disappointment as he saw the other problems with the image. The weather had been dark and overcast when they’d landed – the orbital tower seemed to attract clouds – but the screen was showing a bright sunny day. There was no hint of the pollution they’d seen as they flew over towards the orbital tower. As they moved higher, the curve of the Earth’s surface started to appear and the cityblocks started to merge into an omnipresent greyness.

  Kailee, who had been scanning the crowd, let out a gasp. Darrin turned, just in time to see her pointing towards a handful of young men. “Who ... who are they?”

  “Soldiers from the Imperial Army,” Yates said. He sounded oddly irked by her question, although Darrin couldn't see why. “I think they’re from the First Horse Regiment, judging by their uniform badges. One of the better regiments out there.”

  Darrin studied the soldiers with undisguised fascination. They wore green uniforms and looked ... tough. He couldn't tell which of them was in charge; the golden stripes on their uniforms made no sense to him. And they kept their distance from the civilians, sometimes throwing them glances of barely considered disdain. The civilians seemed eager to return the favour.

  “They shouldn't be here,” Kailee said. “It isn't safe.”

  Yates gave her a look that made her shut up, sharply. “They’re better men than you or I,” he snapped. “And they put their lives on the line, daily, so you can enjoy the lives you do. Be grateful.”

  Darrin wondered, absently, if Yates had been a soldier himself. He certainly had the right attitude. Dismissing the thought, he turned away to look at the screen. They were passing through the clouds now; the atmosphere had become a hazy wisp surrounding the orbital tower, clinging to it as if the tower had its own gravity field. There was no way to know if the representation was accurate; right now, it looked as though Earth was growing smaller and smaller, while the tower was growing larger. It made his head hurt to think about the possible implications.

  One by one, the pieces of Earth’s giant network of orbital settlements and industrial nodes came into view. Darrin had learned about them in school, but seeing them now – so close to him – was something else. Earth had the largest industrial sector in the galaxy, he’d been taught, as befitted the planet’s role as the font of all civilisation. Each day, the planet produced enough goods to keep the entire galaxy going. Or so they had been taught. It was evident that some of what they had been taught was far from accurate.

  “There’s nothing permitted anywhere near the orbital towers,” Yates said, dryly. “Most of the orbital settlements are actually higher than the uppermost edge of the tower. You don't have to worry about an asteroid slamming into the building.”

  Gary looked disappointed. “So it’s all fiction?”

  “Not ...fiction,” Yates said, “just a misrepresentation.”

  Darrin nodded as the first starships came into view. Most of them were bulky, surprisingly crude; dull boxy shapes that suggested that their designers had focused on practicalities over aesthetics. A handful looked thoroughly nasty, bristling with weapons and sensor nodes; he recognised one design of battleship from watching Stellar Star strutting her stuff over the datanet. Somehow, he doubted that they would be travelling on one of those.

  He looked down, towards Earth. The planet was a blue-green sphere, hanging in the darkness of interplanetary space. It seemed suddenly small and fragile to him; he couldn't make out the towering cityblocks at all. But surely he should have been able to see the megacities ... something tore at his heart as he realised that the entire planet was nothing more than an idealised depiction of what Earth should have been. Now, the planet was so badly polluted that it was dying.

  The elevator jerked slightly, then slowed to a halt. There was a long pause – the floor shuddered slightly under their feet – then the doors opened, revealing another lounge. This one was barren, with chairs and little else; there was no form of entertainment apart from a single display screen showing what looked like a series of cartoons. Darrin hesitated as he caught sight of a group of men and women wearing bright orange overalls sitting in one corner, their hands and legs chained to make it hard for them to walk or escape. They had to be indents.

  “We have to wait again,” Yates said, after exchanging a few words with a uniformed man. “Sit down and be patient.”

  Sighing, Darrin obeyed. He took his seat, then looked around. The soldiers marched past them and headed into a door, which closed behind them as soon as the last one was through the gap. A handful of young children were running around, chasing one another with seemingly limitless energy; a older girl, around the same age as Kailee, seemed depressed as she sat beside her parents. Darrin guessed that she didn't want to leave Earth either.

  Surprisingly, Barry was quiet as he sat down next to Darrin. He seemed to be staring at the indents, perhaps wondering just how close he'd come to joining them. Darrin wondered the same thing himself; he’d never seen anyone punished for anything in the lower levels, but people did vanish all the time. What if they’d been arrested, sentenced and evicted from Earth, leaving their families behind to come up with a story to explain their departure? But surely the authorities would want to tell everyone that there was punishment ...?

  He shook his head. There was no telling what seemed logical to the authorities. After all, if they could fix a competition and give seats on a starship to four teenagers who didn't really want to go, surely keeping quiet would seem logical to them too. Or maybe they were just insane.

  It seemed as good a theory as anything else.

  Chapter Ten

  Unfortunately, when operated on a large scale, education tends to put other matters before educating children. This becomes all the more apparent when the decision-makers are separated from the actual educational process. Lacking any real understanding of what is going on in the classrooms, educational bureaucrats found themselves looking for ways to measure progress that could actually be quantified.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. Education and the Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire.

  Gary had seen enough flicks, he thought, to know what it was like when someone left Earth. There was a walk through a near-transparent tube, where the starship could be seen in all its glory, then a jump through an airlock into the ship. It was a disappointment, when the time finally came to board the starship, to discover that it was nothing more than walking down a corridor, passing their bracelets to a pair of uniformed guards, then stepping through an airlock into the ship. The only sign that they had actually boarded a real starship was a faint quiver in the gravity field, where the tower’s gravity had been replaced by the starship’s artificial gravity.

  Inside, the starship made him feel almost claustrophobic. The passageways were smaller than the corridors back home, making Yates and Barry bow their heads as they stepped through a series of passageways. Some of them were lined with enigmatic pipes, others were cold and completely sterile. The handful of crewmen they met cast distrustful glances at them, then ignored the newcomers completely. By the time they reached their compartment, Gary was wishing that he could go home. The environment was just familiar enough to be disconcerting. It was certainly nothing like Stellar Star’s starships, which had been bright, roomy and utterly unbeatable.

  He followed Yates into the compartment and stopped in surprise as he saw eight other teenagers and a grim-faced woman waiting for them. He’d known that the four of them weren't the only winners, but it was still a surprise to meet someone from another CityBlock. The woman rapidly introduced herself as Janet Livingston, their other escort; she looked friendlier than Yates, although there was a hardness in her voice that bothered Gary more than he cared to admit. She intimidated him.

  “There are six boys and six girls,” Janet said. “One compartment” – she pointed a long finger towards a hatch �
� “has been put aside for the girls, the other is for the boys. Boys will not go into the girls compartment and vice versa. Does anyone wish to argue about that?”

  Gary kept his mouth firmly closed. He would have preferred a compartment he didn't have to share with Barry, let alone four other teenage boys, but he knew he wasn't going to be that lucky. Quietly, he resigned himself to a month or two of hell. Maybe he could find a friend among the ship’s crew and explore her hull, keeping his distance from Barry and the others.

  “We have been told to remain in this compartment until the ship is underway, which is expected to be in four hours,” Janet continued, when no one spoke up. “Once we are underway, there will be tours of the ship and plenty of opportunity for you to keep up with your studies and learn from the crew. However, there are a number of safety precautions you are expected to bear in mind at all times. I have been informed by the XO that the Captain will not hesitate to lock up any of you who caused trouble or puts lives in danger.”

  I’ll bet, Gary thought, sarcastically. In his experience, no authority figure had been able to control Barry – and there was no reason to assume that the ship’s Captain would be any different. Barry would do what came naturally – and that was picking on anyone weaker than himself. He found himself looking at the other winners and wondering which of them could stand up to Barry. None of them looked very impressive, although the girls looked quite pretty. Darrin and Barry had to be in heaven.

  “For the moment, you are not to leave this section of the ship without an escort,” Janet informed them. Gary groaned inwardly. “You are to be extremely careful not to damage any part of the ship, no matter how insignificant it appears. You are not permitted to enter the bridge, the engineering compartment or any exterior airlocks without permission. Anyone caught trying to enter the restricted sections will be in deep trouble.”

  Gary listened as she spoke on and on, outlining a list of precautions they were expected to take at all times. Shipsuits were to be worn; if they heard alarms, they were to don their masks and scramble into the nearest safe compartment. Water was not to be wasted; their showers would last two minutes precisely, then shut off. Gary silently prayed that nothing would go wrong. Knowing Barry, he would probably push Gary out of the safe compartment and leave him to die as the air exploded out of the ship.

  “Interstellar travel is fairly safe,” Janet concluded. “But bear this in mind at all times. Space does not suffer fools gladly. Something that would result in minor injury on Earth could get you and others killed in space. And believe me, you cannot come back from the dead.”

  She glanced down at her watch. “Your bags should have already been placed within the compartments. You may go and inspect them now, if you wish.”

  Reluctantly, Gary followed Darrin and the other boys into their compartment. It looked like a military barracks, with bunk beds and small cabinets; he hoped and prayed that Yates would be sleeping in the same room, even though he knew it was unlikely. There were twelve beds in all, as if they’d believed that there would be other winners. Or as if they didn't normally bother to separate the sexes.

  “You take that bed,” Barry ordered, pushing Gary towards the bed that was furthest from the hatch. Gary winced inwardly, then obeyed. There was no point in trying to fight, not when all it would get him was a beating. Barry just seemed to get off on hurting people; Gary had seen him pick fights with other boys, boys who were almost as big as Barry himself. “I’ll take this one.”

  Darrin took another top bunk; the others chose their own beds in silence. They looked as unsure as Gary felt; they hadn't even bothered to introduce themselves. Quietly, Gary opened his bag and inspected it, quickly. Someone had gone through it, inspected the reader and the small computer, then placed them back in the bag. As far as he could tell, nothing was actually missing ...

  He looked up to see Barry leering at him. Gary shuddered, silently cursing whoever had rigged the competition. There was no way Barry should have won – and he had his doubts about both Darrin and Kailee. But whoever had rigged it had put him in the same compartment as a monster. Gary didn't even have the nerve to stand up and walk past Barry to get to the hatch. He was trapped.

  Damn you, he thought, unsure of who he was cursing. Barry, the person who had designed the competition ... or himself? Damn you to hell.

  ***

  Someone had pawed through her stuff, Kailee realised, as soon as she opened her bag. Aunt Lillian had packed everything neatly, then placed the reader right at the top. Now, the reader was at the bottom and all of her underwear had been pushed out of shape. The searcher seemed to have paid more attention to her lingerie than anything that might be actually dangerous ... Kailee scowled, barely able to repress her disgust, as she inspected the underwear piece by piece. The boys at school sometimes stole underwear from the laundry and did unspeakable things with it. She had to make sure it was clean.

  “They did it to me too,” a new voice said. “Bastards.”

  Kailee looked up. The speaker had dark skin, dark hair and darker eyes. Kailee felt a flash of envy; she looked exotic, compared to the girl-next-door image Kailee had tried hard to perfect. But there was something shy about the newcomer that reassured Kailee that she wouldn't be real competition. If, of course, there was something worth competing for.

  “I think they thought we wouldn't be returning to Earth,” Kailee said, crossly. Did the security guards really think that one bag of clothing was enough for someone who was leaving Earth permanently? But if the corporate-sponsored flick about Meridian was accurate, the corporation would provide everything the settlers needed. It wasn't a good idea to get too attached to anything on Earth. “But you’re right. Bastards.”

  The girl smiled, rather shyly. “I’m India,” she said, holding out a hand. “I come from Calcutta-Meg.”

  “Kailee,” Kailee said. Maybe she could try to be nice. “Pleased to meet you.”

  As if that were an opening, the other girls tossed in their names too. There was Samantha from Erie City, Honey from Mega Lumpur, Yuki from Edo and Li from Sino-Cit. They were astonished to hear that four winners had come from the same block; the remaining winners were apparently strangers to one another. Kailee wondered absently if Principal Rico had called in favours to ensure that four of his students were declared winners or if it had been random chance. But that didn't seem too likely.

  India seemed rather shy, she decided after ten minutes, even though she had taken the lead in opening conversation. Samantha and Honey, on the other hand, were as friendly and outgoing as most of the girls Kailee knew from back home, while Yuki and Li seemed more reserved. Li admitted that her family hadn't been pleased about her going at all; Yuki confessed that her family had asked her to scout Meridian, just to see if it was worth settling there. Kailee was surprised to hear that it was possible to leave without winning a competition, even though she should have known better. Yates had told her that the information for finding a colony development consortium and signing up as new settlers was available freely on the datanet. It just wasn't presented to them at school.

  “We have to stick together,” Samantha insisted, once they'd finished swapping stories. “Who knows what the crew will be like?”

  “Good thought,” Kailee agreed. And even if there wasn't the crew, she knew that Barry would cause trouble. She didn't know the other boys well enough to judge, but somehow she doubted that they were harmless. Few boys their age were harmless when confronted with something young, female and apparently defenceless. “We should ask Janet to stay in the same compartment.”

  She stood and looked into the washroom. It was tiny, but cleaner than anything back at school, where even the toilets reserved for the teachers stank terribly. The toilet itself seemed small, yet it was clearly functional. There was a tiny showerhead, just high enough to scatter water over her hair. Below it, there was a sign written in Imperial Standard. Kailee recognised some of the letters, but her attempts at sounding the words out en
ded in failure.

  “It says that there will be a buzzer thirty seconds before the water stops,” Yuki said. “I think we may have to cut our hair.”

  Kailee muttered a vile word under her breath. Long hair was in at the moment too – and she'd grown her hair out until it reached down to her ass. Taking care of it was a pain, but it was her crowning glory. But Yuki was right. If she kept her hair long, washing it while they were on the starship would be a major problem.

  She weighed it in her mind as she stepped back, allowing the other girls to inspect the washroom. Aunt Lillian had packed a small selection of pills in her bag, she discovered as she pulled out her clothes and shoved them into the cabinet. That was technically illegal but the searchers had concentrated on her underwear and ignored the pills. There were painkillers, a handful of broad-spectrum antibiotics and a number of menstruation pills. It was easy to forget them when schools normally provided blanket doses for girls every month.

  “At least your mother cared,” Honey said. “Mine just wished me good luck and let me go.”

  “My aunt cared,” Kailee said. It was strange to realise just how much her aunt had cared, now that she was hundreds of kilometres from the CityBlock and about to travel much further away. Tears stung her eyes as she carefully placed the pills in the cabinet, then buried them behind her underwear. “I never really realised until it was too late.”

  “Send her a message,” Honey advised. “There’s a communications console in the main room.”

  Kailee nodded and stepped out of the compartment. Yates and Janet were sitting on the sofa, talking in low voices. Kailee guessed that they were comparing notes on their charges, although as Janet hadn't met any of hers before they’d been picked up, it was hard to see what they might know about them. Schools were legally forbidden from keeping any records, apart from grades; employers, according to the Your Rights Class, weren't even permitted to ask about a prospective employee’s conduct while they were at school. But Yates might have been with them long enough to pick up an idea about their personalities ...