Retreat Hell

by Christopher Nuttall

  I'm sorry, she thought, directing her thought towards the coffin, now buried under a thin layer of earth. I’m so sorry.

  In the days of the Empire, she knew without false modesty, she would be lucky to have risen to Lieutenant by now. Promotion was slow, even within the Marine Corps – and a brevet promotion could be cancelled without affecting her career. It was worse, far worse, in the Imperial Army, where officers were often promoted based on their connections, rather than their actual competence. But Avalon needed experienced officers more than it needed to adhere to a strict promotion timetable and Jasmine had been promoted – faster, perhaps, than was wise.

  She looked over at Colonel Stalker, standing on his own in the rain, and wondered how he managed to seem so impassive. Didn't the deaths bother him? He’d been in the Marines since before Jasmine had even entered Boot Camp, let alone the Slaughterhouse; hell, she rather suspected he’d been in the Marines long before Jasmine had even heard about them for the first time. Was he simply too experienced to truly feel each and every death? Or was he merely hiding his feelings and concentrating on the living?

  Jasmine had known people died from a very early age, ever since her aunt had been killed in an accident on her homeworld. She’d served beside Marines who’d been killed in the line of fire, leaving their former comrades to mourn their deaths and move on as best as they could. But she hadn’t had anyone die under her command until she’d been promoted for the first time. And yet, losing the young men and women of Avalon hurt worse than losing fellow Marines.

  She puzzled over it as the preacher assured his audience, once again, that the dead had gone to a better place. Jasmine didn't doubt it. Lieutenant Travis had been a good officer, one of many young men to enter the army after the old Council had been sidelined ... and his promotion had been well-deserved. Jasmine vaguely recalled meeting him once, during a review of the CEF’s infantry companies. In hindsight, she rather wished she’d paid more attention to the young man. She’d had to look at his file to remember his face, before she’d even come to the funeral. The picture someone had placed on the coffin, before the pallbearers had lowered it into the ground, had been of the Lieutenant as a young child, smiling happily as he ran through the field. There had been endless promise in his smile, something that had made her start to tear up before she pulled herself firmly under control. Somehow, the picture hadn't been him.

  He wasn't just young, she thought. He was uncommitted.

  Maybe it wasn't fair, but Marines were committed in a way that few soldiers and civilians could grasp. She’d left her homeworld, spent seven months in Boot Camp and another two years at the Slaughterhouse, then signed up for a ten-year hitch as a Marine Rifleman. She had left her previous life behind, knowing that when she returned to her homeworld she would have nothing in common with her brothers and sisters. Hell, the Marines were her brothers and sisters now. But Lieutenant Travis could have gone home any time he liked – and no one would have looked at him as a potential monster in human clothing.

  She shook her head, running her fingers through her short dark hair, cropped close to her skull. The Empire had had barely a percentage point of a percentage point of its vast population in uniform, even counting the vast number of uniformed bureaucrats and REMFs who added nothing to the military’s ability to fight, but detracted from it at every conceivable opportunity. It was unusual for anyone on Earth to know someone who served or had served in the military personally, a pattern that was duplicated on most of the Core Worlds. Few of them had any real idea what the military was like, allowing themselves to be influenced by entertainment movies rather than reality. It had given them a skewed idea of what it was like to defend the Empire.

  But on Avalon, almost everyone had served in the military, various local defence forces or knew someone who had served. There was little dispute over the value of the military ... or the need to keep a formidable force at the ready. And yet ... she couldn't help thinking that Councillor Travis was likely to cause real problems. What would it mean for the Commonwealth as a whole if the CEF concept was to be grounded without further exploration?

  It was selfish of her, she knew, but she almost wished that she’d died instead.

  When the service came to an end, she walked out of the churchyard and headed back to the apartment on the outskirts of Churchill Garrison. As the CEF’s commander, she was expected to be near the base at all times, rather than sleeping on Castle Rock. And besides, it had other compensations. Some of them made sleeping away from her fellow Marines almost worthwhile.

  ***

  Councillor Gordon Travis waited until the preacher shooed the remaining witnesses out of the churchyard, then walked over to the gravestone and knelt beside the hard stone. The muddy ground soaked his trousers, but he found it hard to care. His son was buried below the soil, his one and only son. What did a little discomfort matter compared to that?

  Gordon knew he’d been lucky. His father’s ticket to Avalon had been purchased by his father, who had gifted his wayward son with enough Imperial Credits to avoid the debt peonage that had blighted so many unwary colonists on Avalon. Gordon had grown up earning money without having to worry about it draining into an endless black hole of debt, money he’d swiftly invested in a shop when he'd finally realised he didn't want to spend his life staring at the back end of a mule. His father’s farm might have been permanently hovering on the verge of bankruptcy, but Gordon’s store had been a runaway success. It helped that he didn't have to save money to pay back loans he’d never taken out.

  But when his father had been killed by bandits – and the old Council had done nothing – Gordon had sworn revenge. He’d joined the Crackers, funnelling money and resources to them, helping to keep the insurgency alive. It had seemed a dream come true when the Marines had arrived; they’d defeated the bandits, overthrown the old Council and come to terms with the Crackers. Gordon hadn't even raised any objections when his son had decided to join the Knights of Avalon. Every young man wanted to join.

  I should have said no, he thought. God knew he’d had endless fights with his father over his reluctance to stay on the farm, fights that had resulted in them not speaking to each other for years. He’d known better than to bar his son from joining the military. How could he say no when the new elite were those who wore a uniform? But now ... he knew he should have forbidden his son to join. Elman might have been mad at him, he might have stormed off and done something stupid, but at least he would have been alive.

  Bitter hatred curled around his heart as he started to weep. Elman had been his only son and, as such, had been special in his eyes, even though his daughters had taken over the family business. Losing him hurt; somehow, Gordon knew he’d always assumed that he would die long before his son. But instead ... he clutched the gravestone, feeling the cold stone against her bare skin. The Commonwealth had seemed a great idea at the time, one that would ensure that Avalon would never again be at the mercy of faceless bureaucrats thousands of light years away. But now ... it wasn't worth his son’s life.

  And he didn't even die in defence of Avalon, he thought, bitterly. He died on a world we should have known better even than to visit.

  Angrily, he stood up. It would not happen again, he vowed, as he marched away from his son’s grave. He would make sure it never happened again, whatever it took. No more sons would die on foreign worlds.

  Chapter Three

  This should not be surprising. The Empire did not provide solutions to most of the flashpoints within the Empire’s vast territories. Unsurprisingly, the best the Empire could do was keep a lid on the trouble ... which tended to flare up again when the Imperial military was withdrawn.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. War in a time of ‘Peace:’ The Empire’s Forgotten Military History.

  In her slumber, Jasmine looked beautiful – and deadly.

  Emmanuel Alves carefully – very carefully – lifted himself out of bed and moved away from her. Jasmine slept very lightly, he’d
discovered, and making too much noise near her could have alarming and painful results. She'd been trained, she'd admitted after the first incident, to snap awake at the slightest hint anyone might be near her. Emmanuel hadn't been able to avoid asking how she’d managed to sleep in a small compartment with her fellow Marines, only to be told that was different. He wasn't sure how.

  He looked back at her and smiled. She looked shorter, somehow, without her uniform, but there was no disguising the sheer strength of her body. Muscles rippled along her arms and legs, while her small breasts stood out against her flat chest. Longer hair might have set off her face nicely, he considered, but he knew she would never grow it out. All Marines, without exception, had their hair shaved close to their scalps or removed their hair permanently. It just made it easier to wear a combat helmet during fighting.

  His smile grew wider as he stepped into the shower and turned on the tap. The apartment was small, but neither of them really cared. Jasmine was used to a Spartan existence, while Emmanuel himself had hidden from the old Council’s goons in the badlands more than once, back before the old Council had been removed. Maybe it wasn't as heroic as service in the Marine Corps or the Knights of Avalon, but he had served a useful purpose. He’d kept people informed of what was going on before the end of the war.

  He jumped as he felt a hand touch his shoulder, then heard a very feminine giggle. Jasmine moved silently, even on a hard wooden floor, so silently that he’d never heard her coming even when he was listening for her. She pushed him to the back of the shower, then directed the water to splash over both of them. Unlike him, she didn't seem to have any problems waking up in the morning. He felt himself harden as she washed the water over his member, then grunted as she pushed him against the wall and impaled herself on him. Somehow, her silence made it all the more exciting ...

  Afterwards, they dressed together, Jasmine donning her undress uniform rather than the civilian clothes she'd worn the previous day. Emmanuel had to admit that she looked better in her uniform, as shapeless as it was, rather than in civilian clothes, which looked rather ill-fitting on her. Unlike his previous girlfriends, Jasmine didn't seem to want to cuddle or talk after having sex, as if she was unwilling to open herself mentally as well as physically. It puzzled Emmanuel more than he cared to admit, but it wasn't something he wanted to share with anyone else. As far as he knew, he was the only person on Avalon dating a female Marine.

  “Councillor Travis has requested my presence in two hours,” he said, as he finished pulling n his jumper. There was no standard appearance for a reporter on Avalon, not like there had been on Earth – or so he had been told. But then, Earth had been a heavily stratified society for so long that most of its population was unaware there was any stratification. “Rumour has it that he’s going to make a run for President.”

  Jasmine looked up, her face almost unreadable. Emmanuel had spent long enough with her to be able to read the signs of worry, almost concern. No one could escape hearing about Councillor Travis’s campaign to build political influence in the month since they’d returned from Lakshmibai – or the speculation about what it might mean for the Commonwealth. The President of Avalon wasn’t all-powerful, but Avalon was one of the most important worlds in the union. If Avalon started to pull away from the Commonwealth it had created, it was hard to see how the Commonwealth would survive.

  “Pity you can't talk him out of it,” she said, finally. Someone who didn't know her very well would have missed the self-recrimination in her tone. She blamed herself for the political disaster threatening to overwhelm the Commonwealth, even though no one else believed it was her fault. “Do you think he can win?”

  Emmanuel hesitated. He’d followed Avalon’s politics since the old Council had been defeated and exiled, but he had to admit that hardly anything was set in stone. It had been barely five years, after all. The Empire had taken nearly a century to settle all the issues that arose when the human race was united under one banner – and then started to ossify. But all that meant, he knew, was that someone with sufficient determination and political backing could rewrite the rules to suit himself.

  “I don’t know,” he confessed, finally. “But he does have quite a following.”

  He mulled it over as he kissed Jasmine goodbye and strode out of the apartment, walking down towards the gate that led out to the city itself. Their relationship was an open secret, at least among the Marines, some of whom had teased Jasmine for sleeping with the enemy. Emmanuel had found that more than a little insulting at first – he’d supported the Marines ever since they’d disposed the old Council – but Jasmine had explained that reporters from Earth normally couldn't be trusted. And, even if they were experienced enough to produce reports that actually bore some resemblance to the truth, their editors would often rewrite them to suit their political leanings before the reports were published. Few in the military cared for reporters.

  Outside the gate, Camelot seemed to have grown even larger and more populous overnight. He shook his head; between the Commonwealth bringing skilled workers to Avalon and farm children trying to move to the city to get in on the economic boom, the city was just growing larger and larger. His contacts had already told him that the Council was considering emergency legislation to limit the number of people who could move to the city, although Emmanuel suspected that would fall flat on its face. There were just too many people who wanted to share in the economic prosperity the Commonwealth had brought to Avalon.

  Enough, he asked himself, to prevent Councillor Travis from trying to separate us from the Commonwealth?

  The thought nagged at him as he made his way into the core of the city, the mansions that had once belonged to the old Council. Given Avalon’s relative poverty before the collapse of the Empire, the mansions were nothing more than gross displays of conspicuous consumption on a colossal scale. Of the ones that had survived the Cracker War, one had been preserved as a museum, the remainder had been turned into government offices or emergency housing for some of the new immigrants.

  He walked past the largest mansion and down towards a smaller block that served as the city homes for councillors. Unlike the Empire, which demanded the physical presence of Senators on Earth, Avalon insisted that the Councillors spend most of their time in their constituencies. Indeed, only the President and the four Councillors representing Camelot itself remained in the city more or less permanently. It was just their bad luck that Councillor Travis represented the business interests in the city.

  There was only one guard at the gatehouse when he approached, something that always amused him after the old Council’s paranoia about their safety. No one wanted to actually kill the new councillors, not when they could be recalled by their constituents. Politics on Avalon might be down and dirty, but they were safe. The victors certainly didn't take bloody revenge on the losers.

  But they might soon, he thought, as the guard searched him thoroughly. How many vested interests are tied up with the Commonwealth?

  “You’re clean,” the guard grunted. Judging by the way he moved, he’d been injured during the fighting and hadn't been able to reach a regeneration machine in time to recover full use of his leg. Probably a former Cracker, Emmanuel decided. “How surprising.”

  “I did shower this morning,” Emmanuel said.

  The guard snorted, then waved him into the apartment block. Councillor Travis owned one of the larger apartments, which doubled as his office as well as his living space. Emmanuel stepped through the door and nodded to the secretary, who waved him right into the Councillor’s office. It was pleasant – and yet somehow worrying – to note that the secretary was a middle-aged woman with an air of formidable competence, rather than a young girl with more on her chest than on her mind. Councillor Travis didn't seem inclined to abuse his office.

  And when, Emmanuel asked himself, did I start taking a side?

  “It's always a pleasure,” Councillor Travis said, as Emmanuel closed the door behind him. “I
believe strongly in freedom of the press.”

  He meant it, Emmanuel knew. Unlike some of the other new businessmen, Councillor Travis had never tried to silence the newspapers or sue them into bankruptcy. But then, the privacy, libel and slander laws on Avalon ensured that the newspapers only printed the truth.

  “Me too,” Emmanuel said. It had been his cause ever since he had first read about the great crusading reporters in the Empire’s past. He’d clung to it even after discovering that most of the great crusaders had been anything but independent seekers after truth. “And it is always a pleasure to speak to a councilman.”

  “We never get tired of saying that,” Councillor Travis joked. He smiled, then nodded to a small chair. “Please, be seated.”

  Emmanuel sat and looked around the office. It was surprisingly bare, save for a series of photographs of the Councillor’s children – and a large black-framed portrait of his dead son, wearing his military uniform. Emmanuel couldn't help wondering if the councilman had become more than a little unhinged by his son’s death, although he had never lost anyone himself. Even his grandparents were still alive, down on the farm.

  I wonder if Jasmine will want children, he thought, irrelevantly. And would she want them with me?

  “Tea, coffee? I have some sweet biscuits, if you’d like.”

  Emmanuel looked up, broken out of his thoughts. “No, thank you,” he said, quickly. It felt odd to have a politician prepare food and drinks personally. “I rarely eat anything before lunch.”