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

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Recruit Ted Aardvark,” Captain Stalker said. “Step forward.”

  Michael watched as the first recruit stepped forward, allowing Captain Stalker to pin a silver badge on his collar and welcome him formally to the army. Recruit after recruit stepped forward in alphabetical order to receive the badge. Michael felt his stomach churning as his turn finally came and he stepped up, convinced that he would trip over his own feet. Captain Stalker shook his hand and pinned the badge on his collar, before smiling at him and pushing him towards the group of newly-graduated soldiers. Looking at him, Michael realised that he had gone through it himself and knew exactly how Michael felt about graduating.

  He studied the badge as soon as he could, surprised that Barr hadn’t immediately called them back to order. It was small, about the size of a ten-credit piece, with an etched image of a knight on horseback waving a lance in the air. If it was like a Rifleman’s Tab, it would have been made for him personally – a check revealed that his name had been etched into the underside of the badge – and would include a tiny amount of medical information on a hidden chip inside the badge. He knew the Marine traditions surrounding their Rifleman’s Tabs and hoped – knew – that the Army of Avalon would develop similar traditions. Their mentors had taught them well.

  “Form ranks,” Barr bellowed, at volume. Training took over and Michael found himself in line before he realised quite what was going on. “Present...arms!”

  Michael’s body clicked into position and he held his rifle at the ready. It dawned on him suddenly that he had not only passed his hump, the moment when all the torment and effort of the training course suddenly became worthwhile, but that he was also a graduated soldier. His mother would be so proud of him...and he liked to think that his father would have been proud, if he had any idea of what Michael had achieved.

  “Congratulations, all of you,” Barr said, once Captain Stalker had returned their salutes and left. “You will be transported to Camelot, where you will have twenty-four hours on liberty and then report back to the spaceport for deployment orders. Remember that one of us was abducted from the city and take extreme care of yourselves. Look after your buddies and remember...you’re in the army now and you represent it to the world. Good luck.”

  He dismissed them for the final time, urging them to make their way towards the landing strip to board one of the transport aircraft. It would only be the fourth time that Michael had been on one – he’d been up twice to in the course of parachute training, where he’d been tossed out of the aircraft with an automatic parachute – but it no longer felt strange. The training camp on Castle Rock felt...smaller, somehow, and then he realised why. He had surpassed it. He touched the badge again and smiled, tiredly. It had all been worthwhile.

  The trip back to the city passed in a blur and, before he knew it, he was standing with his platoon outside a bar. “Come on,” one of the new soldiers said. “Let’s go show off.”

  Michael smiled again, realising that he was still carrying his rifle. He hadn’t noticed that no one had made any attempt to take it away, for they were now allowed to carry arms anywhere, unless ordered otherwise by a senior officer. If the uniforms they wore weren't enough of a deterrent to any thugs who might want to rob them, the rifles – and the fact they knew how to use them – would put off all, but the suicidal. He checked his pockets and produced a handful of coins.

  “Why not?” He asked, as he led the way inside. The smoky interior of the bar was just like coming home. The thought reminded him that he would have to visit his mother at some point and reassure her that he was fine. Barr’s old phase, the one he spoke at every mealtime, rose up in his mind and he smiled. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.”

  The platoon chuckled as they reached the bartender and ordered drinks. Michael took his pint and gazed around the bar, wondering why it looked so...strange now. When he’d been younger and he’d earned some illegal money, he had often spent it in bars...or on cheap prostitutes, for there had been little else to spend it on. Now...he had plenty of money, yet he didn't want to waste it all. God help him...had he grown up over eight weeks?

  He caught sight of a group of upper-class boys, slumming it in a lower-class bar, and smiled inwardly. Once, he would never have dared pick a fight with them, for their parents controlled the Civil Guard and could make him suffer for anything he did, even if they started it. Now...now the power was elsewhere; it was no wonder the Council hadn't wanted to encourage the Marines to seek more recruits, or even to expand the Civil Guard. The skills they had been taught on Castle Rock would work just as well against the Council, perhaps better.

  They’re scared, he thought, and took another sip of his beer. It was an odd sensation. They are scared of me...

  Chapter Forty-One

  An insurgency, in contrast to any other military force, is limited by the nature of the war it fights. It must operate on a decentralised command structure, yet it must somehow also maintain a coherent force and a coherent military objective...or it will fission apart and eventually become little more than a bandit gang. This weakness is easy to exploit with luck; breaking one cell can lead, given time and proper interrogation methods, to another cell, breaking the entire network – hopefully.

  This does not, of course, address the fundamental issues that gave birth to the insurgency in the first place.

  -Major-General Thomas Kratman (Ret), A Marine’s Guide to Insurgency.

  The sky was dark, lit only by bursts of lightning that flickered out in the distance, followed rapidly by the noise of thunder, echoing off the mountain peaks. Gaby hunched down and pulled her coat tighter as cold rain washed down from high above, turning the mountainside into a nightmarish muddy swamp. Steams of water ran past her and down towards the lakes, feeding into rivers that wandered down towards Camelot and the sea. The Mystic Mountains had storms fairly regularly throughout the year, often enough that this one would pass unnoticed. They also made the perfect hiding place for the Crackers.

  Only a few hundred humans lived in the Mystic Mountains and most of them were isolationists who had moved there to get away from the ADC and, later, the Government. They built themselves huts, helped each other out when required and otherwise kept themselves to themselves. The area produced little of value and so the Council was barely aware of its existence. A handful of tax inspectors had tried to make their way up into the mountains and had never been heard from again. Gaby believed that they had been killed by the Mountain Men, who defended their homes from all possible enemies, but it was just as possible that they’d been caught up in a storm and swept away. The Mystic Mountains had their own weather system and sane people tried to stay away from it. Only a handful of climbing fanatics would challenge some of the higher peaks.

  I guess I’m insane then, she thought, as the rain broke, just for a second. The sky remained as black as ever and it was impossible to accept that it was the middle of the day. The heavy clouds would restart the downpour soon enough, but as long as they remained overhead they should be fairly safe from orbital observation. The Marines, or so they had been warned, had deployed their own orbital observation satellites high overhead, models far superior to anything the ADC had deployed on its own. If they were good enough to track individuals through the storm, the Cracker Rebellion was on the verge of being defeated, whatever they did. Answering the summons to the conference would have identified them to the Marines and signed their death warrant.

  She smiled wryly as the hut came into sight, half-hidden among the massive timbers that covered the mountain. Once, when she’d been in hiding from a Civil Guard sweep, she’d spent a few months in a similar hut, the reluctant guest of one of the Mountain Men. He’d told her, in the few moments he could bear to stand with her, that the trees were dug in so deeply that even the worst storms couldn't blow them over, helping to keep the soil in place. The hut was literally worked into the forest, using their strength to hold it in place with the trees. The younger Gaby had f
antasised about the hut growing out of the trees, but the older wiser woman she’d become knew better. It was still a fascinating sight, if not one someone who lived in a city would have understood, or appreciated.

  The skies opened again as they staggered towards the hut and she walked faster, cursing the rain under her breath. Despite the coat, she was soaked and knew that her two bodyguards would be in the same condition. It was hard to keep focused on the hut as the rain grew stronger, with the wind blowing cold sleet directly into her face, but somehow she made it. The solid wooden walls of the hut rose up in front of her and she pressed herself into them gratefully, before finally finding the door and stepping inside, careful to keep her hands in view at all times. The Mountain Man who owned the hut might have been one of the few who were willing to take an active hand in the struggle, but he still had the attitudes of his fellows, including a certain degree of paranoia where visitors were concerned. Unexpected visitors rarely meant well.

  “Welcome,” he growled, after checking her face. “Your friends have already arrived. Spare clothes are in that pile there.”

  He turned and stalked out, barely able to tolerate her company for more than a few seconds. Gaby shrugged and started to undress, pulling off the sodden coat and clothes gratefully. Whatever body modesty she’d once possessed had been lost long ago, living hand to mouth while avoiding Civil Guard sweeps. Her bodyguards did the same, although they allowed her to dress first and leave them to finish changing in peace. If it was a trap, as Rufus had pointed out when they’d received the message, they were dead anyway. She picked up her clothes and took a few moments to place them in front of the fire, in hopes that they would dry before she had to make her way back down the mountainside, and headed into the main room.

  The Mountain Men had no access to the planet’s electric network and relied upon burning wood and natural gas for lighting. It cast odd flickers of light over the faces waiting for her, five men and two women, the heart and soul of the Cracker Rebellion. The damage wreaked upon the network by the Imperial Navy – not the Civil Guard; never the Civil Guard – had fragmented the movement, forcing them to develop a cell structure that would prevent another disastrous defeat. Gaby was aware – Rufus had pointed it out, in exaggerated detail – just how dangerous it was to meet openly with her counterparts, even in one of the most inaccessible places on the planet. The Marines might have tracked them and were waiting, even now, to swoop down on the meeting place and scoop them all up as prisoners.

  “Welcome,” one of the men said. There were few names in the movement’s upper ranks, although Gaby was fairly sure she knew who at least three of them were, in their civilian roles. She tried not to think about that. Unlike their Marine prisoner, she had no implants or immunisations that prevented her from being interrogated. She certainly knew nothing about the location of their bases, or fighting strength, or anything else that might be useful to their hunters. “We did not intend to call a meeting on such short notice.”

  There were times when being Peter Cracker’s granddaughter had its advantages. “And I did not intend to spend two days travelling from where I was to here,” Gaby said, tightly. The new clothes felt uncomfortable against her skin and she was aware, too aware, that she looked like an overgrown scarecrow. “Your messenger said that it was important.”

  “It is,” one of the women said. “We have received two pieces of disturbing news from Camelot.”

  Gaby scowled inwardly. The different subsections of the Cracker Rebellion had their own intelligence sources within Camelot, officially so that if the Civil Guard cracked open one spy ring, others would remain untouched. It was something that annoyed her, for good and timely intelligence was often delayed before it was passed down through the network, which opened up its own risks. The more people who knew a given secret, the greater the chance that the Civil Guard and the Marines would know it as well...and be able to use it to identify the source, opening up the risk of false information being passed down the link. There were times when she envied the Marines and their ability to operate openly. If the Crackers had been able to act in the open, the war would be over by now and they would have won.

  “Our source is very well placed within the Governor’s office,” the other woman said. “The source became privy to a disturbing piece of information. The recent smashing of the bandits near Morgan” – there were some amused looks; the Crackers had never cared much for the bandits, knowing that they would have to be wiped out when Avalon gained its independence – “led to them uncovering links between the bandits and certain of the upper personages within Camelot and the Council. They were effectively using the bandit movement as a tool in their political struggle. They even gave them advanced heavy weapons to use against the Marines and the Civil Guard.”

  Gaby felt as if someone had punched her in the chest. She had known just how corrupt and unfeeling the Council was, how it manipulated local politics to their best advantage, but she hadn't realised that they were capable of running the bandits. It made no sense at first...and then it dawned on her. The bandits, just by their mere presence, kept the townships and homesteads scared, unwilling to commit themselves to the Crackers or even to start their own resistance groups. The Crackers had little penetration near the badlands, if only because of the bandits...all of a sudden, she saw the shape of a plan that someone had carefully put into place, using the lower elements of society to keep the vast majority of the population under control. No wonder the Civil Guard had never been able to wipe out the bandits. They’d been carefully hobbled right from the start.

  “The evidence of this was found by the Marines and brought to the Governor’s attention,” the woman continued. “The Marine Captain branded it high treason and demanded that the Governor deal with the matter, but so far the Governor has refused. We cannot place any faith in the Governor to deal with this matter.”

  “As if we ever could,” one of the men muttered.

  “I see,” Gaby said, slowly. She would have to consider the implications carefully and discuss them with Rufus and Julian. “And the other piece of news?”

  “The Marines graduated their first class of new recruits three days ago,” the woman said. “It is their intention to deploy forces out into the countryside and challenge us directly, hammering away at our support network. This is a challenge we cannot afford to turn down.”

  “Of course we can,” Gaby said. She would have smiled at their expressions, but she was too tired. “We pulled in our horns once the Marines landed and waited to see what they would do. Apart from the abduction stunt, we did nothing to incur their wrath.”

  “That alone probably puts us on their shit list,” one of the men said. “They don’t leave their fellows behind.”

  “We are strong when we are not losing,” Gaby said. “Let us pull in our horns and let them make their patrols in peace. They will lose interest eventually and we can regain lost ground.”

  “It may not work out that way,” one of the women said. “The Marines have been creating a new Army of Avalon, one that is far more...motivated than the Civil Guard, for they have been paying their new soldiers in cash. Assuming they continued to churn out new units, they will be able to rapidly deploy thousands of infantrymen to the countryside and shift the balance of power permanently against us. The Marines may be recalled to some other world within the Empire, as the Imperial Navy starship was recalled, but the Army of Avalon will remain, building up its fighting power and intelligence links. They may possess the ability to defeat us.

  “Worse, the Civil Guard has been going through its ranks and uncovering many of our spies, cutting off links that we have cultivated for years. They may soon cleanse themselves entirely of our intelligence sources, leaving us blind, while they also dispose of their corrupt officers and even their incompetents. They may soon become a far more dangerous enemy, one that knows the ground upon which they fight. How long will it be before they start paying their men in cash too? It will motivate them li
ke nothing else.”

  “And the locals will respond to that,” one of the men said. “They may feel closer to the new Civil Guard.”

  “Particularly if we do not terrorise the local population into supporting us,” another man said. “Perhaps we should use fear on those who might waver.”

  “No,” Gaby said, flatly. She had no words to express how disgusted she was. “If there is anything that will ensure our defeat, it is convincing the local population that we are a clear and present danger to them, far more than the debt sharks and the Council’s stupid laws. They will betray us to them and scream for them to wipe us out as dangerously insane terrorists – and they will be right.”