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

by Christopher Nuttall

  Lucas braced himself. Here it came. “You’re hooked up to a lie detector,” the Marine warned. “Lie to us once and the deal is off and you will simply be…disposed of once we no longer need you. Start talking.”

  They had him in a bind, Lucas realised. He didn’t understand why they hadn’t moved to use the truth drugs at once, yet if their offer was sincere the Marine was right; it was the best offer he was going to get. His allies should have freed him, but it was becoming increasingly clear that they weren't going to be able to help him, let alone save themselves. They were expendable now. He gathered himself and mentally composed his words. Perhaps he could keep a few surprises in reserve.

  “I came to this planet a few years ago,” he began, “and…”

  ***

  Edward listened carefully as the bandit – the supreme bandit leader, according to his testimony – started to talk. It stuck in his craw to make deals with such scum, but lives were at stake and truth drugs had their limitations. Even a skilled interrogator could miss something while digging into a subject’s mind, for while drugs encouraged a person to be honest, the subject needed to be led to the right issues. He hadn’t realised just what a gold mine had fallen into their hands until the man began to speak, but now…now he knew just what they were up against. The Knives hadn’t just been attempting to organise a government; they were working with elements of the official government, even before the Marines had arrived. Treachery on such a scale was appalling, yet it seemed to be merely the tip of the iceberg. Just how far did the rot go?

  It was easy to accept that the Civil Guard had plenty of bad apples, for Edward was used to dealing with such issues. It was far harder to realise that at least seven senior officers had not only been subverted by the bandits, but had been actively assisting them. At least one reasonably honest officer had been assassinated, just to allow one of the corrupt officers to take their place and assist the bandits. A handful of bandits had even gone through Basic Training with the Civil Guard, before deserting back to the badlands! It was unbelievable.

  George will have to be warned, he reminded himself, realising just how dangerous the entire situation had become. It was far more than just another bandit plot; it seemed to him that the mysterious backers had managed to subvert part of the Civil Guard, giving them enough firepower to take over the Government. If they had intended to ambush and wipe out both Alpha and Beta Companies – along with the Marines – they would have controlled the single strongest military force left on the planet. With that, and their bandit allies, they could have taken over Camelot and declared themselves the new government. It should have had no hope of success, but with the Empire in such disarray, they might just get away with it.

  “All right,” he said, as the prisoner paused. He had told the truth – or, he had to remind himself, the truth as he knew it to be. His backers could have easily lied to him. A lie detector could only recognise a lie when the speaker knew that it was a lie. “I assume you knew who you were dealing with. Who were your backers?”

  The prisoner looked up and paused, a faintly cunning smile spreading out over his face. “You’ll never guess,” he said, and named a string of names. The lie detector confirmed it. “I had half of the Council on my side from the very first day.”

  Edward felt as if someone had punched him in the chest. He had had his suspicions after realising that the heavy weapons could only have come from the Civil Guard, yet he’d hoped that he’d been wrong. Legally, he could do pretty much whatever he wanted to the prisoner, but it was far harder to deal with political leaders. It would require absolute proof to convict even one of them and testimony from a bandit leader, even under a lie detector, might not count. They would certainly refuse to be interrogated without a warrant and one couldn’t be granted on such grounds.

  “Shit,” he said. He’d have to speak directly to the Governor. His authority could open doors, if he could be convinced to use it. Edward stood up and looked at the interrogators. “Keep working on him,” he ordered. “I want to know everything he knows by evening.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  It is an undeniable fact that Marines have been known to make life better wherever they go.

  -Major-General Thomas Kratman (Ret), A Civilian’s Guide to the Terran Marine Corps.

  Jasmine stood outside Professor Caesius’s house and contemplated the note in her hand. It had been delivered through Avalon’s postal service and she’d picked it up at the spaceport, just before her and her platoon had been sent on leave. Or perhaps it hadn’t been leave at all, not in the conventional sense; they’d been told to keep their weapons with him and their armour had been stored at a safe house on the edge of the city. It sounded as if Captain Stalker was expecting trouble and was placing his Marines in position to deal with it, yet it was unlike him not to warn them of what they might be facing. He’d even told them to have a good time on leave.

  She read the note again, puzzled. It was simple enough; Mandy had invited her to visit when she next had leave in Camelot. Jasmine hadn’t expected to hear anything from the girl; indeed, she hadn’t seen the girl since the last time she’d been on leave and rescued her from being raped and murdered. It had taken a certain kind of courage for Mandy to write to her at all and she knew that it would have been disrespectful to allow it to pass, yet…what did she want? Despite herself, Jasmine seriously considered turning about and heading back to her platoon, before steeling herself and walking up to the door. She knocked firmly on the knocker and, a moment later, Mandy opened the door.

  The girl had changed, Jasmine realised, or perhaps she was just seeing her without her fashionable make-up and perfume. Her eyes were just ever-so-slightly apprehensive as she realised that Jasmine had actually heeded her note, leaving Jasmine wondering just what she had wanted. None of the ideas spinning through her head seemed to make sense, even when Mandy smiled nervously at her. What did one say to a girl one had spanked a week ago?

  “Come on in, please,” Mandy said. She sounded rather more respectful as well, leaving Jasmine wondering just what her father had said to her after Jasmine had left her last time. “I wasn’t sure when you would be coming.”

  “Your note did ask that I came on my next leave,” Jasmine said, slowly. Mandy looked…as if she was working up to something bad. No, perhaps not something bad, but something she might be denied. “How are you feeling?”

  Mandy’s hand twitched, half covering her rear. “Weird,” she said. “I’ve barely been out of the house since” – her face flushed bright red, in a manner Jasmine found rather endearing – “well, you know.”

  “I know,” Jasmine agreed, patiently. She might not have had any kids of her own, but she had worked with enough teenage girls to know that the key was patience; they would come to the topic on hand eventually. The more awkward a topic was, the longer it would take. “Have you been focusing on your studies?”

  “It’s not easy to do that here,” Mandy said, seemingly glad of the change in subject. “I was going to go to the University of Earth once I turned eighteen, but there is no university here and my father says that it will be years before one is founded, if it ever is. The most advanced school here is a technical school for the handful of engineers and places there come with strings attached.”

  Jasmine could guess. Avalon had a permanent shortage of trained personal in all fields, from medical care to construction engineers. They had the facilities to train new experts in any given field, but at the price of putting those new experts into debt, a debt that would be piled on their old debts. The relative handful of youngsters who grew up without debt wouldn’t be keen on taking it on, not against such poor odds of ever escaping permanent debt. It was a badly flawed system. Children would get their mandatory eight years of schooling, as laid down in Imperial Law, and would then be cast off and ordered to find their own destinies. Avalon’s population was therefore both literate and ignorant, a dangerous combination.

  “I see,” she said, fin
ally. “You couldn’t just pay in advance?”

  “It’s not just the money,” Mandy said, flatly. “If I tried as an orbital engineer and passed the course, I would be expected to spend at least five years working where I was told to work, perhaps longer, at whatever wages they chose to give me. I spoke to a few people who did go through the technical school and they all warned me against it.”

  Jasmine frowned, studying Mandy carefully. It was obvious that she was building up to something, yet Jasmine didn’t have the faintest idea of what it might be. She felt an odd wave of almost sisterly feelings towards the younger girl, yet she wasn't related to Mandy and the girl was certainly not in her charge. Saving her life once didn’t actually make her permanently responsible for Mandy’s future.

  Mandy shook her head. “Thank you for saving my life,” she said, nervously. “I didn’t realise just what I was getting into until you pulled me out of it.”

  “And you didn’t recognise what was getting into you,” Jasmine agreed. If the girl had just wanted to thank her, surely she could have just written that on the note. “That is pretty much the story of the human race.”

  Mandy nodded. “I haven’t been out of this part of the city since…you know,” she added. “I just couldn’t leave. It wasn't something I could do.”

  “So you came face to face with a danger and escaped,” Jasmine said, wryly. “Just think about how many people aren’t so lucky.”

  “And I wanted to thank you for…everything else as well,” Mandy said, as if even getting the words out was a struggle. “I deserved everything you gave me.”

  Jasmine smiled in sympathetic understanding. “If it’s any consolation, I got the same treatment or worse as a child myself,” she said, seriously. “No one ever taught you real discipline. Your life among the middle class on Earth didn’t prepare you for the real universe. I grew up on a world where children had to learn discipline from a very early age.”

  “My father said the same,” Mandy said. “My mother doesn’t know. She didn’t even notice that I winced when I sat down. She’s too occupied with her new friends.”

  She looked up, suddenly. “Would the Marines be willing to sponsor me through the technical school?”

  Jasmine blinked. That was a reverse. “I have no idea,” she said, honestly. She’d never heard of such a program, although she knew that the Marines did encourage newly-minted Marines to learn additional skills, ones that might come in handy on deployment. “What do you think that we can do for you?”

  “I figured that I had to do something with my life,” Mandy admitted. “Just before I sent you that note, I attended a party – no, don’t worry, the party was in this district. I looked at the young men and women there, really looked at them. They were indolent, people who would never amount to anything in the future, just living off their parents. That could have been me.”

  “It is you, at the moment,” Jasmine said. On her homeworld, children were encouraged to work from a very early age, even if it was just a tiny job. Money didn’t come from nothing, after all, and learning to handle a budget had been an important step towards maturity. Mandy had grown up in a world where, even if her family ran completely out of money, they could just go on welfare and spend the rest of their lives at government expense. “Tell me something. Just how serious are you?”

  Mandy looked up and met her eyes. “Very serious,” she said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get into the school without going into debt.”

  Jasmine smiled. “I really wouldn’t mention that to Blake,” she said, dryly. Mandy flushed bright red. “If you’re serious, I will mention it to my superior officers and see what they make of it. They may reject it out of hand. They may tell me to go back to you and tan your hide again. Still want me to mention it?”

  Mandy’s eyes went wide. “Do they know about…you…disciplining me?”

  “They might,” Jasmine said. “Sergeants know everything there is to know about their units.”

  Mandy’s flush deepened. “They’re going to be looking at me and thinking about it,” she said. Jasmine snorted. It wasn't really that important. “Yes, please talk to them about it and let me know what they say.”

  Jasmine smiled. “I’ll do my best,” she said, “but you might want to remember something. If you make a deal with the Marines, you will be held to that deal, whatever it is. Do you understand me?”

  ***

  Felicity Bardwell adjusted her dress before stepping into the bar, ignoring – with the ease of long practice – the wolf whistles from the young wolves who had gathered outside the bar. They would have been inside the bar drinking if they had had any money, yet without it all they could do was wander around the city, unless they had the nerve to sign up with the Marines. At other times, she would have been fearful for her safety, but after the Marines had arrived the city had become much safer. The gangs had pulled back rather than risk losing more of their thugs to the Marines.

  She smiled nervously, trying to project the image of an innocent young girl stepping into a place of sin, even though everyone would know that it was a lie. Almost every teenage girl in Camelot, apart from those born to the upper class, had at least considered turning tricks for cash, creating a glut on the market. Felicity had always found that amusing, even though she had never prostituted herself until now. It was a step from covert intelligence gathering to actual operations and, despite herself, she was nervous. Everything could go wrong terrifyingly quickly.

  The Governor would have been horrified to know just how deeply his city had been penetrated by the Crackers. The intelligence network – of which Felicity was a tiny part – had been watching the Marines ever since they had arrived and worked hard to identify as many as possible. There had been no way to access their personal files, but they were hardly needed; the Crackers knew which Marines could be approached safely and which ones wouldn’t be interested. At least, unlike some Civil Guardsmen, they didn’t seem to be interested in rough or sadistic sex.

  She adjusted her smile slightly and headed towards a Marine who was standing at the bar, quaffing down beer as if it was going out of season. Up close, he was massive, far larger than she had realised from the photographs…and every inch of his exposed flesh was muscle. The media had been making snide remarks about Marines having muscles on their muscles ever since they had arrived, but Felicity was starting to realise that the newspapers – purely due to the laxity of the editors, no doubt – had actually gotten something right. Just for a second, she considered backing away and retreating. She didn’t delude herself that she stood a chance if something went wrong.

  The Marine looked down at her, taking in her dress in one easy glance. Felicity knew what he saw; a young girl wearing a sweater that exposed the tops of her breasts and a skirt that barely reached halfway down to her knees. Her dark hair fanned out around a heart-shaped face and a pair of lips that – in her own considered opinion – were very kissable. She saw the spark of attraction in his eyes and smiled at him, adjusting her position slightly to give him more of an eyeful.

  “Hi,” the Marine said. There was a note of confidence in his voice that she found oddly repulsive, before she realised what it was. He didn’t think that he was God’s gift to womankind, but he was very confident in who and what he was. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Felicity said, with a glowing smile. He smiled back at her. “A single drink would be fine.”

  Their eyes met in silent communication as they found a table and sat down. Felicity had taken a stay-sober tab before entering the bar and the beer had little effect on her, but the Marine – his name, he'd told her, was Blake – kept drinking without showing any ill effects. Playing her prostitute persona, Felicity enquired lightly if he would still be able to perform when the time came and Blake assured her, with a wicked grin, that he was all man. Felicity giggled as they chatted for the next hour, neither of them keen to move too quickly. Under other circumstances, she could almost
have enjoyed herself. The Marine was a far more fascinating person than she had realised, back when she’d planned her mission. Eventually, she stood up, walked around the table, and kissed him neatly on the lips. His arms went around her and she was suddenly very aware of his strength. He could have broken her in two without even trying.

  “I have a place nearby,” she whispered, trying to sound as seductive as she could.. “Would you like to come and have a drink with me?”