The Thin Blue Line (The Empire's Corps Book 9) (v5.1)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “But ... but you’re Marshals,” Doyenne protested. “You’re ...”

  “You didn't know we were Marshals,” Glen snapped. He let go of Doyenne and watched, with bitter contempt, as the man rubbed his throat. “You are going to be hosting a conference featuring the most powerful men and women in the galaxy or their designated representatives – and if one of them so much as breaks a nail, it could mean war. Your security is shit!”

  “We’re not supposed to be intrusive,” Doyenne said. “And we did have your IDs ...”

  “Shuttles can be hijacked,” Glen pointed out. “IDs can be copied or faked. You didn't know who we were and it could easily have gotten everyone killed.”

  And you missed Belinda too, he added, in the privacy of his own mind. It wasn't something he wanted to point out. Having an ace up his sleeve might come in handy, if the shit really did hit the fan. Besides, she needed to remain undercover until the end of the conference.

  “Now,” he said, after a moment to let Doyenne recover, “you can show us to our quarters. I will expect a full briefing on Island One’s security and current situation in one hour, after which I will take command of the station. You will serve as my second-in-command, but your main duties will consist of working with the various bodyguards to come to a mutually-acceptable agreement on what is considered acceptable. I believe you have done such operations before?”

  “I have,” Doyenne said. “But these aren't normal security officers.”

  “I know,” Glen said. “I hope your diplomatic skills are up to it.”

  He smiled at Doyenne. “You’ll need some time to recover,” he added, darkly. “You’d better find someone else to give us the tour.”

  “Of course,” Doyenne said. His voice sounded harsh, although Glen knew he hadn't inflicted any real damage. “Stacy will show you to your apartments, then assist you in unloading your shuttle.”

  Glen rolled his eyes as Stacy stepped into the room. She was young, barely older than nineteen, with long blonde hair and a shapely body her maid’s uniform was designed to show off to watching eyes. Glen privately supposed that if he had enough money to hire servants, he might well dress them as maids too, just to enjoy the view. But then, Stacy probably made more money than he did, as well as living on Island One. He didn't know many people who wouldn't put up with a humiliating uniform in exchange for being isolated from the chaos on the planet below.

  Stacy bowed low, exposing her breasts, then straightened up with a smile. “If you’ll come with me,” she said, “I’ll take you to the transit tubes.”

  Glen followed her, carefully keeping his eyes away from her dangerously short skirt. It was designed to distract as well as entice, he suspected, based on rumours about the lives of people so wealthy they didn't have to give a damn about the Empire’s laws. None of Island One’s permanent residents would ever see the inside of a courtroom, no matter what they’d done. It galled him to know that there were people even the Marshals could never touch, but he was used to it by now. There was no point in wasting time grumbling about the untouchables.

  Besides, they’re all up on Island One, he thought. They won’t be causing trouble down on the planet.

  He pushed the thought aside as they reached the transit tubes. Island One was large enough to require public transport, although the transit pods seemed surprisingly luxurious for vehicles that would only be used for a few minutes at most. Stacy started to play tour guide, outlining the vehicle’s functions, but Glen tuned her out. It didn't matter to him how the pods functioned, merely how they could be secured. The pod hummed as soon as the doors hissed closed and started to move. There was almost no sense of acceleration at all.

  “Pretty good compensators,” Belinda commented, from beside him. “And fast too.”

  Glen nodded as they broke through into the transparent tube. For a moment, his head swum as he tried to grasp the fact that they seemed to be racing upwards towards the ground. It was so confusing that he had to look away, but neither Belinda nor Helen seemed to be bothered by the view. The pod must be rotating within the tube, he decided, as they entered the giant wheel and the view vanished again. There was a faint quiver, then the pod’s doors hissed open again. He hadn't even felt the pod slow to a halt.

  “There are twelve spokes in all,” Stacy said, as they walked out of the pod. “Each one houses a transit station you can use to get back to the hub, if necessary. There are additional stations scattered around the wheel and under each of the mansions, but they’re not linked to the hub, so you have to change at one of the spokes. It was deemed safer for the children if the systems were separate.”

  “Clever,” Glen said, dryly.

  Stacy’s expression didn't change as she led them out of a door and into the midst of a forest. Glen stared, utterly charmed. There were trees everywhere, surrounded by flowers and grass; in the distance, he could hear the sound of birds and insects buzzing through the trees. A motion caught his eye and he reached for his pistol, before realising that it was a giant red butterfly. He hadn't seen one outside the zoo in his entire life. They were long since extinct on Earth.

  “This is fantastic,” Marshal Sitka Singh said. “I ...”

  “It does have that effect on people,” Stacy said, as she led them towards a grassy path. She pointed to a large tree with red and green fruit hanging from the branches. “I should tell you that you can eat just about all of the fruit – and anything else, if you have an enhanced digestive system. If you don’t, pick the fruit and check it against the datanet. That should tell you what is safe to eat.”

  “You actually eat food grown in the wild?” Marshal Gerry Alongshore asked. He’d grown up on Earth. “Really?”

  “The habitat is designed to be completely safe,” Stacy assured him. “Anything dangerous was simply not permitted to enter the biosphere. There aren't even any plants or animals here from other worlds, apart from Earth.”

  Belinda leaned forward. “No dangerous animals?”

  “None at all,” Stacy said. “Most of the animals we introduced to the habitat are small and harmless. The only dangerous critters allowed here are guard dogs, which aren't really part of the biosphere. It’s perfectly safe.”

  “Good,” Glen said.

  He couldn't help being torn between feeling impressed and a strange kind of contempt as they walked over a stone bridge – there were so many fish in the stream that it seemed to be teeming with life – and up to the shores of a silver lake. There were a dozen small huts, resting on stilts, with wooden staircases leading down into the water. He saw a large fish – a dolphin, if he identified it correctly – break the water, then vanish back under the waves. It seemed alarmingly safe and tranquil.

  “These are your quarters,” Stacy said. She seemed unaware of their astonishment as she led them over the bridge to the huts. “Each of them has access to the datanet, food distribution network and everything else you might need. If you want to swim, you can just undress and walk down the stairs into the water. There’s small boats and toys in the furthest hut ...”

  Glen cleared his throat. “We’re not here for a holiday,” he said, although he knew that part of him would be very tempted to simply relax. Maybe Doyenne had an excuse for his lax attitude after all. If the landscape hadn't curved slightly, it would be alarmingly easy to forget that they were on a space habitat. “We have work to do.”

  “Of course,” Stacy said. “But we were told to offer you our best guest accommodations.”

  Glen stepped into the nearest hut and shook his head. It managed to combine primitivism with modern luxury, pleasing both. There was a large double-sized bed, a smaller bed in a separate room he suspected was intended for Helen, a viewscreen, a cabinet full of expensive alcohol and a computer terminal. In one corner, there was a glass sheet allowing him to peer down into the water below. Hundreds of fish were swimming around the stilts, glimmering with light and life.

  “It's unnatural,” Belinda said, quietly. “And it may
not be sustainable.”

  Helen looked up at her. “Why?”

  “They only added the life they wanted,” Belinda said. “If they didn't copy Earth’s biosphere, even on a limited basis, there will be all sorts of holes. I’d expect the biosphere to fall apart without constant maintenance.”

  She turned to look at Stacy, who had been showing the other Marshals their huts. “Where do you stay when you’re not working?”

  “There's a section on the other side of the wheel for us,” Stacy explained. “It’s not quite as nice as here” – she waved a hand to indicate the hut – “but it’s pretty good and accommodation is free. We spend seven hours on duty each day, then the rest of the time is ours. The only real downside is that we can't go to the planet.”

  “That’s something of a blessing,” Glen assured her. “Right now, you should be glad to be here.”

  “I am,” Stacy said. “I could spend the rest of my life here.”

  Belinda leaned forward. “What’s it like working here?”

  “It isn't bad,” Stacy said. She shrugged. “I can't give you specifics, though.”

  “Of course not,” Belinda said. “But do you have fun?”

  “Mostly,” Stacy said. “There are always some issues, of course, that need to be handled. But otherwise we have fun.”

  “Thank you,” Glen said.

  “We’re always available,” Stacy assured him. “Just call if you need us.”

  Too much luxury, Glen thought.

  He rubbed his forehead as Stacy turned away. The sheer luxury surrounding them would dull their senses and leave them calm, too calm. It would be easy to lose their edge, which could prove fatal if the conference was attacked. He scowled, then reached for the datapad and glanced at the list of services Stacy had mentioned. They ranged from childcare, which was unsurprising, to massages and outright sexual services. There were no prices mentioned, he noted, which wasn't really a surprise. Anyone who could afford to visit Island One, even for a few days, would be rich enough to pay.

  “This place is strange,” Helen announced. “Like it’s in space but not in space.”

  “True,” Belinda agreed. She looked around the room, then smiled at Glen. “Where were you planning to sleep?”

  Glen felt his cheeks heat like a schoolboy’s. He hadn't told the staff to arrange a double bed; hell, he wasn't even sure how that had happened. There were several other huts, he knew; it was quite possible that one of them was intended for Belinda. And then he realised he was being teased.

  “You can have one of the other huts,” he said, stiffly. It didn't help when Belinda started to giggle at him. “And what about ... about S-C-H-O-O-L?”

  “I can spell,” Helen said, sounding offended. “And it wouldn't be so bad up here.”

  Glen sighed. Helen had watched a series of programs set in planetary schools and she’d been thoroughly horrified. The hell of it was that the programs hadn't been particularly exaggerated. If someone happened to be tough, good at sports and capable of looking after himself, schooling wasn't too bad. But if someone happened to be weak, unpopular and incapable of self-defence ... being in school on a planet would be a foretaste of hell.

  “No, it probably won't,” he said. The documents he’d seen had made school on Island One sound like heaven. “But we’ll see to it tomorrow.”

  Belinda elbowed him. “Growing lax already?”

  “Unfortunately,” Glen said. “Maybe we should sleep on the floor, just to keep ourselves in the proper vile mood for security work. And then we should not bother to wash either.”

  “I think there would be complaints,” Belinda said. She smirked. “Unless you happen to enjoy walking around smelling like recruits staggering off the training field for the first time.”

  “Yuk,” Helen said.

  “You have no idea,” Belinda said.

  Glen glanced at his watch. “We’ll eat, then go back to the security centre and start going through procedures, one by one,” he said. “And then we can hold drills until the attendees finally arrive. How does that sound?

  “Lazy,” Belinda said. She smiled, then turned to step out onto the balcony. “But it’s probably the best idea.”

  “Good,” Glen said. He followed her out and stared at the silver lake. Belinda was right. The more he looked at it, the more unnatural it seemed. “Where are you planning to sleep?”

  “I think I’ll stay here,” Belinda said. “It’s a comfortable floor.”

  Glen looked down at the wooden floor, then laughed nervously. “You have got to be kidding.”

  “Try sleeping in a swamp sometime,” Belinda muttered. She cleared her throat. “Besides, I really think we should stay close together.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  A rich man could buy his way out of trouble. Everyone knew it. Furthermore, there was no way a poor man could get out of trouble. This had always been true, but it was now utterly unmistakable. As rumours got out about how the Civil Guard treated prisoners, the general population hovered on the brink of revolt.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. The Decline of Law and Order and the Rise of Anarchy.

  Belinda didn't blame Glen and his team for being impressed with Island One. It was a remarkable creation, after all, even if the technology behind the space habitat was deceptively simple. But the more she looked at it, the more convinced she became that the entire system was simply not designed to serve as a secure conference facility. The residents might be rich and powerful, but even they hadn't designed their home to stand off a battlefleet.

  Not that they could have done so, she thought, as Doyenne talked them though the security system. The station that can stop a battlefleet hasn't been built.

  She allowed her mind to wander, probing the habitat’s datanet, only to discover that it was actually more secure than anything she’d seen on Terra Nova. There was a public datanet, accessible everywhere, that didn't seem to be connected to the private datanet; indeed, there seemed to be two private datanets. It appeared to be impossible to alter one of them without direct access to the computer core, while the second didn't actually seem to do anything. She made a mental note to ask why there were two, then she started to skim through the public datanet. Half of it seemed to be nothing more than entertainment, ranging from flicks and blue porno movies to VR simulations, while the remainder appeared to be centred around household management. The staff had regular access to the system.

  Maybe the second private network is for corporate staff, she thought. It was as good a theory as any. Or maybe there are more datanets out of my sensor range, one for each corporation.

  “You’re experienced,” Glen said, breaking into her thoughts. “How would you attack Island One?”

  Belinda considered it, carefully. How would she do it? And what would she actually want?

  “It would depend,” she said, finally. “If I wanted to take hostages, I’d try to surround the station with battleships and force it to surrender. But that isn't likely to work here.”

  Glen nodded. Each of the delegates would be bringing a small fleet of escorts with them, while Terra Nova’s defence forces were far from insignificant, even though Belinda had her doubts about how many of them were fit for action. The Nihilists – or whoever – would consider launching a direct military attack futile, assuming they had the firepower to try.

  “They’d have to get people onboard,” Glen mused. “And that would be difficult.”

  “Yeah,” Belinda said. Glen had revamped the security procedures as soon as they’d started work. No one else would be permitted to land on Island One without a full security sweep, even though it would put a lot of pressure on the staff. “And then they’d have to get away from the station afterwards.”

  She winced. Hostage-rescue missions were always tricky, even at the best of times, and dealing with hostage-takers was even worse. They would want to hang on to the hostages long enough to escape, while the security forces would want the hostages back as soon as
possible. It was never easy to balance the two competing requirements, even without the prospect of outright treachery. She'd been on the ground when a planetary governor had been treacherous and all five of the hostages had been killed in the crossfire.

  “But if they’re Nihilists, they’ll want to die,” Glen mused. “And if they can take the station with them ...”

  “They got a shitload of weapons from somewhere,” Belinda said, although that was no surprise. The Core Worlds might be thoroughly hoplophobic, but ask in the right place and almost anything could be purchased. “Maybe they could get a nuke. Or simply rig one up with the right equipment.”

  “Bastards,” Glen muttered. “Why are they never controlled?”

  Belinda shrugged. “Because making nukes is easy, because finding the raw materials is easy too and because there are plenty of people with both the skills to make them and the desire to use them for perfectly legitimate purposes.”

  Glen nodded. “But why aren't they secured?”

  “Because it can take years to get a permit to use a nuke for any purpose,” Belinda said. “It’s often quicker to build a nuke for yourself than apply for permission.”

  She shook her head, slowly. The blunt fact was that if the Nihilists managed to detonate a nuke onboard Island One, they were all going to die. Even a near-miss would be dangerous, despite the hullmetal sheathing the giant space habitat. They’d have to run through a whole series of emergency drills, just to make sure the population knew what to do if the shit hit the fan. It was quite likely that emergency drills had been reduced or cancelled altogether, just to keep the wealthy residents happy. No one ever paid any attention to the endless flight safety announcements made before shuttlecraft departed, in any case.

  “Wankers,” Glen said.

  Belinda paid close attention as they ran through an endless series of checks and rechecks, then finally headed back to the wheel for dinner. Marshal Singh didn't seem to like her very much, Belinda noted, although she was definitely competent. Belinda had a suspicion that Singh regarded either the Civil Guard or the Military Police as buffoons, a description that wouldn't have been too inaccurate. Her dislike certainly didn't seem to be personal. Her partner, Marshal Alongside, seemed quiet, but very competent. Belinda couldn't help feeling relieved, even though she would have preferred Marines. They wouldn't have bitched so much about adding extra levels of security to Island One.