The Empire’s Corps: Book 01 - The Empire's Corps

by Christopher Nuttall

  Her gaze sharpened as she realised that Mandy was in real trouble. One of her male friends was holding up a tab and reaching out towards Mandy’s neck, while the other two were holding her arms and pawing at her body. Mandy was laughing, but it was the nervous laugh of prey, caught in the predator’s net. Jasmine didn't even think about leaving the girl to suffer whatever fate they had in mind for her. Marines existed to protect people like her and, even if some of them weren't worth the effort, the creed of the Corps wouldn't allow her to walk away.

  She stood up and stretched, checking out the area. It was hard to be sure, but the thugs holding Mandy might have more allies in the nearby area. They might have been a street gang, like the ones back on Earth, or they might just have been friends, out to see just how far they could go before someone stopped them. No one was going to stop them, Jasmine knew, unless she intervened. There was no sign of the Civil Guard at all. She glanced around, looking for any of her comrades, before walking right up to the lead thug and yanking the tab out of his hand. Whatever it was – and she had nasty suspicions – she couldn't allow him to inject it into Mandy.

  “Hey, bitch,” the thug said, wincing. Jasmine hadn't been gentle and had applied considerable force to his hand. He was lucky she hadn't broken it outright. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  He meant to be intimidating, but after an endless series of Drill Sergeants, Jasmine had long lost her fear of anyone lesser. “Mandy,” she said, ignoring him, “we’re leaving. Now.”

  Mandy looked up at her, astonished. “I...”

  “Shut the fuck up, bitch,” another gang member said. He looked at his mates, eyes glittering. Jasmine realised that he’d popped a tab of a different drug. “We can have some fun with this one too.”

  “No,” Jasmine said, pushing all of her authority into her voice. Wiser men, or men who hadn't addled their mind with drugs, would have backed away. “I’m taking her out of here. You can fuck off and find a few whores to satisfy your appetites...”

  The gang leader roared at such a challenge to his authority and threw a punch. He might have thought that he was tough, but Jasmine saw him as if he were moving in slow motion and she had plenty of time to think of a counter. She stepped to one side, reaching up to snap his arm as he fell past her, before shoving him down onto the ground with a kick. Mandy stared at her as she twisted before a second gangster could grab hold of her, neatly placing a kick right in his groin. The young man folded over and crashed onto the floor. The others howled in rage and closed in. Jasmine braced herself, just before one of them was sent flying right across the room by Blake.

  “You should have called,” he said, as he turned to flatten a second thug. There was nothing elegant in his punch; he simply smashed the thug right in the face. “I had just finished my business and...”

  “We didn't wish to know that,” Joe said, appearing out of nowhere. He was grinning a toothy grin. “How much did you have to pay her?”

  The gang closed in, unable to retreat. Jasmine instinctively bunched up with the other three, leaving Mandy in the centre, and fell into a combat stance. The thugs had no idea what they were up against. Used to picking on defenceless and drugged girls, or isolated victims, they had no conception of organised violence. The four Marines sliced through them, knocking them all down one by one. Blood flew as several of the thugs drew knives, only to find themselves targeted for immediate suppression.

  “You’d better get her out of here,” Blake said, over the private communications channel. The crowd was starting to panic, breaking up as the music was mercifully drowned out by screams. The young men and women were trying to run in all directions, knocking each other over as they fled. The injuries would be horrifying on an advanced planet, but on Avalon, comparatively minor damage could be fatal. “What was she doing here anyway?”

  “Fucked if I know,” Jasmine said. She caught hold of Mandy’s arm and hauled the girl up, throwing her over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Mandy yelped once and fell silent. “I’ll get her back to her home and then ask her specifically.”

  “Good,” Blake said, all business suddenly. A thug came at him, waving a length of chain, and he caught it and used it to knock its former owner to the ground. “Go!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Empire needs to ensure that its young are brought up to understand, embrace and propagate the values of the Empire, yet over thousands of planets, this simple truth is no longer heeded. They are taught, instead, that there are no consequences to anything they do. The Empire-mandated curriculum has, by replacing the parents, produced a generation of sheep and wolves.

  - Professor Leo Caesius, The Waning Years of Empire (banned).

  Jasmine held herself together as she ran out of the hall, heading towards the nearest street. A handful of people tried to get in her way and she knocked them down, snapping into close-protection mode. It had been years since she had ever had to serve as a bodyguard to a civilian – rather than a Marine officer, who could be relied upon to know what to do in an emergency – but she hadn't forgotten. The health and safety of passers-by was of no concern compared to the safety of her charge.

  “Idiot girl,” she growled, as the cold night air struck her in the face. Merlin, orbiting high overhead, seemed to laugh at her in the cold night. The planet’s single moon was far more pronounced than Luna had ever been to the early generation of humans. Perhaps it wouldn't have taken so long for humanity to reach the stars if the Moon had been closer to Earth. “What were you thinking?”

  Mandy made no reply. Jasmine half-guessed that she might be in shock, but there was no time to stop for a medical emergency. She could hear sirens as the Civil Guard’s local force finally responded to the growing riot and hoped that Blake and the others would have the sense to vanish before they could be arrested. Captain Stalker would not be happy if he had to bail them out of some local jail, if they survived so long. The gang probably had an ally in the local service who would help them to take revenge on the Marines. The stream of people fleeing was growing stronger as the Civil Guard finally arrived, too late to do anyone any good. Jasmine took a breath and ran right towards the first car. The officer who climbed out of it stared at her in surprised. He had enough military training – even if it had been supplemented by civil police service training – to know when he was looking at a fellow soldier.

  “Marine Corps,” Jasmine said, flashing her Rifleman’s Tab at him. The golden badge was unique. It had been made for her specifically when she had graduated from the Slaughterhouse and would be stored there after her death, if it survived whatever killed her. There were a handful of badges in private hands, even though it was illegal. “I need your car and a driver.”

  “But...you can't be serious,” the officer said. “I have to deal with the riot!”

  “Take it up with the Governor,” Jasmine said, as the Civil Guard began to spread out and head towards the growing riot. “I need your car, now!”

  The officer blinked owlishly at her, and then got out, allowing Jasmine to put Mandy down onto the rear seat. Unsurprisingly, the car was luxurious, even though it had been prepared for military service. She closed the door behind her and barked an address to the driver, who clearly hadn't dared to object to her sudden hijacking. The car’s engine roared as it slipped into gear and headed away from the chaos.

  Jasmine glanced down at Mandy and keyed her implanted communicator. “The Civil Guard is here,” she subvocalised. The driver couldn't be allowed to hear her words. “Get out of there and I’ll meet you back at the barracks.”

  There was no response, so she turned her attention to Mandy, picking through her utility belt for her medical bracelet. The device was centuries ahead of anything Avalon could produce for itself – which had worrying implications for when they ran out of supplies – but it should suffice to run a basic medical diagnostic on the young girl. Mandy looked as if she were in shock, perhaps because of the attempted rape and ultra-violence, y
et Jasmine feared that there was more to it than just that. The bracelet had no baseline for her – an oversight that would have been corrected, if there had been anything official about her voyage on the Sebastian Cruz – but it didn't matter. The results blinked up in front of her and Jasmine swore. Mandy had taken at least one other drug and quite a lot of alcohol.

  “You’re young,” Jasmine told her, as she pulled a small tab out of her belt. “This won’t be pleasant, but you should be able to take it.”

  She pushed the tab against Mandy’s neck – hearing a moan of disbelief from the girl – and injected her with a broad-spectrum cleanser. It was a distant relative of the civilian sober-up pills, but where sober-ups were concentrated on alcohol, the cleanser was concentrated on everything. Marines used it to clear their systems of battle stimulants or painkillers and they were never a pleasant experience. Jasmine privately suspected that the whole process was painful just to prevent Marines from becoming addicted to the rush.

  Mandy thrashed, half-gagging as her whole body convulsed, but Jasmine held her tightly as the drug worked its way through her system. Mandy had no immunity at all and it was hitting her hard. The car pulled up outside Mandy’s new house and Jasmine’s eyes narrowed. She had hoped to pass Mandy over to her parents and return to barracks, but there was no sign of life in the building. She helped Mandy out – the cold air had probably come as a relief to her – and thanked the driver for her services.

  “Mandy,” she said, as the car drove away, “where are your parents?”

  Mandy’s eyes were still defocused, but her voice was steadier. “They went out to a party,” she said, brokenly. “They didn't care about me. All mum cares about is her social status and dad just doesn't care. And Mindy’s fucked off somewhere else with her new friend. She doesn't care either”

  Jasmine frowned and checked the girl’s pockets, finding a set of primitive keys. “Your parents care a great deal about you,” she said, as she opened the door and helped Mandy into the living room. The Professor had bought a good house, but it would be a disappointment after their home on Earth. She clicked on the lights and gently pushed Mandy onto the sofa. “Stay there. I’ll fetch you some water.”

  She checked the medical bracelet before she found the kitchen and poured Mandy a glass of water. When she got back into the living room, Mandy was staring off into the distance, her entire body shaking. The bracelet had reported that she wasn't having an adverse reaction to the cleanser, but she clearly hadn’t been taking care of herself. Mandy, Jasmine realised, had never had to learn discipline.

  “My parents don’t love me,” Mandy said, between dry sobs. “Dad gets us all kicked off Earth, away from my friends and everyone I knew and love. Mum doesn't give a damn about us. She just wants to be the woman in charge of everything.”

  “Your father may have saved your life,” Jasmine said, quietly. She had liked the Professor, even if babysitting the family had been one of the weirder duties she’d faced. “Earth isn't a safe place...”

  “It was my home,” Mandy snapped, angrily. “I had friends, I had a life...and suddenly I'm exiled to this fucking dirty rock at the edge of Empire, a place so primitive that they barely have anything remotely fun!”

  Jasmine gritted her teeth, wishing that she’d put in for the Training Badge rather than the Sniper Badge, back during her third year at the Slaughterhouse. She had no experience of training recruits, even if she did have some experience with her sister’s children, long before she had gone to Boot Camp and never looked back. Dealing with a crying child-woman was a little beyond her. Her homeworld wouldn’t have tolerated such an adult baby.

  “And so you went out and got stoned,” Jasmine said, tightly. She didn't want to snap at Mandy, but the words came out. “What were you thinking?”

  “I wanted some fun,” Mandy said. “Why shouldn't I have fun? What right did you have to interfere?”

  Jasmine controlled herself with an effort. She hadn’t had much experience with the middle-classes on Earth, but their world was a safe one, barely even disturbed by terrorists or natural disasters. They barely even knew about the Undercity and, when they thought about it, considered it a kind of daring place to visit. It did a gentleman’s reputation no harm if he could drop the odd hint of roguish dealings. Mandy could have gone out and gotten stoned in the Middle City and the worst that would have happened would have been a headache the morning after. On Avalon, the results could have been far more disastrous.

  “They were going to inject you with Sparkle Dust,” she said, sharply. There was no way to be sure, but she thought that it was fairly likely. “Do you know what that would have done to you?”

  Mandy shook her head, her defiant eyes meeting Jasmine’s eyes and refusing to look away. “I’ll tell you, if you like,” Jasmine snapped. “It would have turned you into their slave! You would have done anything they told you to do while you were convinced that it was a good idea all the time, or that it was your idea, or some other self-justifying crap! You could have found yourself being gang-raped or fucked by the entire group of bastards, or you could have been sent off with orders to fuck any guy who even looked twice at you. There is a very good reason that that stuff is banned!”

  She sat down next to Mandy and put her arm around the girl’s shoulder. “What happened to you?”

  The story came out in-between sobs. Mandy’s new friends from the rich part of the city enjoyed slumming and they’d taken her to a handful of bars in the seedy area. For one reason or another, they hadn't thought to take escorts, trusting in their names to keep them safe. They might have been right, but Mandy didn't have a famous name or a reputation to protect her. The gang who’d picked her up had gently, but firmly pressured her into coming to the party, giving her free sniffs of several drugs to help make her pliable, and kept pushing away at her. By the time it had entered her dulled brain that she was in trouble, it had been far too late. If Jasmine and her comrades hadn't gone to the same party, she would have been raped and murdered.

  “You’re an idiot,” Jasmine said, flatly, when Mandy had finally finished talking. “You wanted to get some pleasure and walked right into a trap. Why...?”

  “You cannot understand,” Mandy snapped at her. “You’re surrounded by handsome men who would do anything for you. I’m...I’m just the daughter of a political exile.”

  Jasmine blinked at her, profoundly shocked for the first time. Mandy could not have been more wrong. It was strictly forbidden to have sex with Marines from the same Company. It had been hammered into their heads time and time again. Sex within the same Company destroyed unit cohesion. There were breaches of regulations that would be winked at, with the regulations considered guidelines rather than hard laws, but the no-fraternizing edict was not one of them. A Marine who was caught breaking that particular regulation – and it was impossible to keep something like that a secret for long – would be lucky if he or she wasn't dishonourably discharged from the Marines. The idea of sleeping with Blake, or Joe...she had to admit that they were handsome, but they were her brothers in arms.

  “So you went off and went looking for someone to fuck,” Jasmine said, feeling her mind reeling. Didn't Mandy have any sense of responsibility at all? Or, for that matter, a sense of self-preservation? “Why couldn't you find someone from the upper crust here?”

  “Because they all laugh at me,” Mandy cried, shaking Jasmine’s arm free. “They think that mum is a social climber, even if she is from Earth and knows all the fashions. They just laugh at me and treat me like a silly girl...”

  “You are a silly girl,” Jasmine said, dryly. A few years at the Slaughterhouse would teach the girl discipline, if she managed to pass through Boot Camp. Mandy probably didn't have the determination to even get through the entrance exams. “You have no idea how lucky you are, yet you’re bitching because your life has changed...your father might have done you a favour when he brought you here. Earth won’t be safe for much longer.”

  The mem
ories of the Nihilist attack and its aftermath rose unbidden in front of her eyes. “What do you think,” she demanded, “will happen when Earth collapses? People like you will be butchered as blood runs in the streets. Out here, you have at least a chance of a future.”