Retreat Hell

by Christopher Nuttall

  “My son was like that too,” Councillor Travis said. There was an odd note in his voice, one Emmanuel couldn't place. “But I didn't call you here to talk about my son. I called to invite you to the first hearing on the Lakshmibai Disaster.”

  Emmanuel blinked in surprise. “The first hearing?”

  “I have convinced a majority of councillors to agree that we need to explore the circumstances leading up to the disaster,” Councillor Travis said, with heavy satisfaction. “We will study everything we knew about the cursed world, reconsider every decision made by the authorities and then pass judgement.”

  “I see,” Emmanuel said, fighting to keep his voice level. It wasn't quite the announcement he’d expected, but in hindsight it was more subtle. Instead of challenging the President directly, Councillor Travis would undermine her ... and, if the hearing failed to produce the results he wanted, he could back off without losing anything. “And what sort of judgement do you expect?”

  “It would be premature to rush to judgement,” Councillor Travis said. “But there will be judgement. We will learn from this experience. The dead will not be allowed to die in vain.”

  “Good,” Emmanuel said.

  “I understand that you were there,” Councillor Travis said, changing the subject slightly. “I read your dispatches with considerable interest. Do you have a view on the situation?”

  Emmanuel hesitated, caught between loyalty to Jasmine and his sworn neutrality as a reporter.

  “You may be called to testify,” Councillor Travis warned him. “Don’t leave the planet.”

  Emmanuel had to laugh. “I’ll try not to,” he said. “Who else are you going to call to testify?”

  “Everyone who can reasonably be called,” Councillor Travis said. “Do you have any questions?”

  “Just one,” Emmanuel said. “With all due respect, sir, your son died on that damned world. You are far from impartial. Should you be involved in the inquest?”

  “I have already stated that I will not vote, unless there is a tie,” Councillor Travis said. “It would be my duty, in that case, to cast a vote.”

  Emmanuel felt a flicker of reluctant admiration. If the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of one view or the other, Councillor Travis would either get what he wanted without voting or avoid being tainted by the unsuccessful attempt to condemn the Commonwealth. And, if he had to cast the decisive vote, he would look like he had been reluctant to make any decision.

  “It would be,” Emmanuel agreed, finally.

  “The inquest will begin in three days,” Councillor Travis said. “You would be welcome as my guest ...?”

  “Thank you, but I should at least try to be neutral,” Emmanuel said. It would be easy, terrifyingly easy, to slant his reports in favour of one side or the other. And his relationship with Jasmine would leave him open to suggestions that he was doing just that. “But I will attend.”

  “Please do,” the Councillor said. “And thank you for coming.”

  Emmanuel nodded, shook hands again and strode out of the office. Once he was back on the street, he reached for his wristcom and started to tap in Jasmine’s code, before hesitating in doubt. Should he call her and explain what had happened? She'd pass it on to her superior, of that he had no doubt. But how could he keep it from her? She needed to know ...

  ... And, it struck him suddenly, Councillor Travis might have assumed that he would tell her. But why? It wasn't as if anything he’d said to Emmanuel was a secret. There was no way the hearing could be held in private. By law, the media would be there along with public witnesses. Hell, if the hearing was already organised, it had probably been announced on the datanet by now.

  Grimly, he finished tapping in her code and lifted the wristcom to his lips. He’d tell her ...

  ... And, whatever happened, he'd deal with it.

  ***

  “I was blindsided,” President Gabriella Cracker said, sourly. “He got thirteen of the councillors to back a demand for a hearing before I even heard a whisper about it.”

  Ed nodded. “I think he must have assumed that you would automatically take my side,” he said. They’d been lovers for over three years. By now, he rather doubted there was anyone on Avalon who hadn't heard that the President and the Marine Colonel were lovers. “And they didn't have to inform you, did they?”

  “No,” Gaby said. “Bloody politics!”

  “You are a politician,” Ed reminded her. “And you’ve been one since birth.”

  Gaby made a face. Her grandfather had been the legendary Peter Cracker, the leader of the first insurgency against the Avalon Development Corporation. Her father had carried on his father’s legacy and, when he’d died, Gaby had been the only person all of the various factions could agree on to replace him. And, when the old Council had been defeated and the Crackers had come to terms with the new government, Gaby had run for President and won.

  “How long will it be,” she asked, “until we get a cadre of professional politicians?”

  Ed hesitated, taking the question seriously. One of the charges Gaby’s enemies threw at her, regularly, was that she was a hereditary politician. Never mind the fact, he considered, that she’d signed laws into the books that prevented partners, children and grandchildren of previous politicians from holding political office. Or that she’d already announced that she wouldn't attempt to run for President a second time.

  “I don't think we will,” he said, finally. “Travis certainly isn't a professional politician.”

  “I know,” Gaby said. “The bastard is almost admirable. Hell, he was admirable.”

  She stood up and started to pace her office, her tread shaking the wooden floorboards. “The hearing will start in three days, Ed,” she said. “I can't stop it. They will interrogate you thoroughly on everything that went wrong on Lakshmibai – you and your senior officers. And I have no idea what will happen if they vote to punish you.”

  “I will have to step down,” Ed said. It was odd to admit that a local government had the power to force a Marine to resign from his position. Yet another sign, in his opinion, that existence as he’d known it was over. “And they might take you down too.”

  “They might,” Gaby agreed. “And with the tension between us and Wolfbane ...”

  Ed gritted his teeth. Nothing had been decided on Lakshmibai – and, in hindsight, he had to wonder if Wolfbane hadn't wanted to decide anything on Lakshmibai. Had they agreed to allow the CEF to travel to the border world to see how the Commonwealth’s armed forces handled a challenge? They’d set the terms and conditions for the negotiations, after all. And all they had gained from the brief furious battle on Lakshmibai was a note of where the border ran between the two interstellar powers.

  “I know,” Ed said. The Empire hadn't had to worry about a peer power – but the Commonwealth’s intelligence department suspected that Wolfbane had enough ships and men to give the Commonwealth a very hard time. “We may have a distraction at the worst possible time.”

  Gaby looked up at him. “Do you think he’s right?”

  Ed didn't need to ask about what. “The mere presence of the cloudscoop makes us targets,” he said, simply. “We either try to impose our own order on the surrounding sectors or they impose their order on us. Isolation isn't an option.”

  “I know,” Gaby said. “So why does Travis feel differently?”

  Chapter Four

  For example, the conflict on Janus began when a large-scale drought afflicted half of the main continent, causing famine on a colossal scale. The planetary government failed to provide assistance; in fact, it made the problems considerably worse. It should not have been surprising that the starving masses rose up against the rest of the planet, causing bad feelings that continued to plague the planet long after the drought came to an end.

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

  They hadn't managed to remove the smell.

  Or maybe
it was just her imagination, Commodore Mandy Caesius told herself, as she settled into Sword’s command chair. None of the other crewmen, even the ones who had been liberated from various pirate strongholds, reported the stench of human urine and faeces pervading the ship. But for Mandy, who had spent several months on Sword as a pirate slave, there was no escaping the memories of the time her life hadn't been her own. Even now, as a confident and experienced spacer, the memories still haunted her.

  Sword, largely thanks to Mandy’s efforts, had been badly damaged when she’d been captured by the Marines. It had taken two years of hard work to replace most of the system’s she’d destroyed, two years and plenty of resources that might have been better spent building starships from scratch. But the Commonwealth needed as many hulls as it could produce and an ex-Imperial Navy heavy cruiser was too valuable a prize to scrap. When Sword had finally re-entered service, she’d been thoroughly cleaned and all of the evidence of pirate occupancy had been removed. Mandy still had nightmares.

  “Captain,” the tactical officer said, breaking into her recollections. “The freighter is in position.”

  Mandy nodded, then glowered over at the tactical display. A single light freighter, over five hundred years old, hung several thousand kilometres in front of Sword, waiting for the heavy cruiser. The freighter had been in a disgusting condition when she’d been captured, during a raid on a pirate-held asteroid; there hadn't seemed any point to refitting her, not when she was nothing more than a hull with engines. But now, thanks to the Commonwealth Navy and the Trade Federation’s advanced weapons research program, she would serve a useful purpose once again.

  “Confirm with the scientists,” she said. “Make sure they’re off the ship.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the tactical officer said.

  There was a long pause as he worked his console. Mandy smiled, remembering just how woolly-headed her father could become when he was working on a new thesis. He tended to forget everything from his wife and daughters to even something as simple as eating when he got hungry. Professor Caesius would have been happy in his ivory tower on Earth, if he’d been allowed to remain there. But, if the rumours were true, the family had been very lucky when they’d been expelled from Earth. Humanity’s homeworld had collapsed into war and anarchy only months after their departure.

  “The scientists have all left the ship,” the tactical officer confirmed, finally. “They’re currently on the observation barge.”

  Mandy allowed her smile to widen. She might be hellishly inexperienced compared to the Imperial Navy’s ideal, but she was about to do something that few of the Empire’s former commanders had ever been allowed to try. If there was one advantage to the fall of the Empire, it was that universities and research labs on the Rim had been able to escape the strictures and start genuinely original research. There were, she’d been told, all kinds of promise in gravimetric research, but the Empire’s established interests had always blocked research into such technology. Who knew what would be the results of a sudden improvement in the Empire’s technology?

  But now the Empire was gone and those strictures no longer existed. Who knew where that would lead?

  “Confirm that the shield generator is in place,” she ordered. “And then send the activation signal.”

  On the display, the image of the freighter seemed to distort, slightly. Mandy watched, feeling an odd chill running down her spine. It was simple enough for a powerful starship – heavy cruisers or battleships – to create a gravimetric shield they could swing around to block incoming fire. Hullmetal was tough, but it couldn't take everything. But all the enemy ships had to do was fire from multiple vectors and stagger their fire to render the shield useless. It had been one of the great limiting factors of space combat.

  But now ...

  “Shield in place,” the tactical officer reported. “Target locked.”

  Mandy sucked in a breath. “Fire one,” she ordered. “I say again, fire one.”

  Sword didn't even shudder as she launched a single missile towards her target. Mandy watched, her heart in her mouth, as the missile entered attack range and detonated, sending a single spear of energy towards the targeted freighter. The beam of energy hit the freighter’s shield ... and splashed. For a moment, the visual feed showed the freighter wrapped in a glowing bubble of light, which swiftly faded away to nothingness. The freighter, which should have been melted to molten debris, was intact.

  “My god,” the tactical officer breathed.

  Mandy understood. She’d never even considered working in space, let alone joining the navy, until after she’d been exiled to Avalon. The tactical officer, on the other hand, had been an Imperial Navy officer who’d been kidnapped and pressed into service by the pirates. He had enough experience to feel, truly feel, just how radically space combat had just changed. But Mandy took it in her stride.

  Not that we were ever in a major battle, she thought. Only pirates ... and raiders.

  The thought made her scowl. Over the past two months, more and more reports of incidents along the border with Wolfbane had arrived on Avalon. Starships disappearing, unknown starships detected inside various Phase Limits ... even reports of outside interference on a dozen worlds. It took a month to make the round trip from Avalon to Thule, which was on the border; God alone knew how badly the situation had changed by now. Mandy knew her father had hoped otherwise, but she had a nasty feeling that the Commonwealth Navy was about to face its first major test. Wolfbane, positioned between Avalon and the former Core Worlds, might well have conquest in mind.

  “Report,” she ordered. “Just how successful was the test?”

  “The shield generators held,” the tactical officer reported. “Projections indicate that the freighter would have survived at least five more hits before the shield generators overloaded and failed. Overall, the system is less effective than gravimetric shields, but more protective.”

  “Impressive,” Mandy said. In short battles, the shields would give her ships a decisive advantage. “And the power strain?”

  “As projected,” the tactical officer said. “Larger ships will presumably require more power to operate the generators, but will also be able to carry multiple generators to provide additional layers of protection.”

  “We’ll see,” Mandy said. She stood. “Contact Avalon; inform them that the test was a success. Then take us back to the shipyard, best possible speed.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the helmsman said.

  Mandy allowed herself another smile as she felt the heavy cruiser coming to life around her. It wouldn’t take more than a few months, she had been assured, for the entire navy to the fitted with shields, as well as modified missiles. By then, their combat power would be greater than an Imperial Navy fleet of comparable size. And they had other advantages too, she knew. Her crews actually knew what they were doing, while the average Imperial Navy repair technician barely knew anything more than how to take out one self-contained component and replace it with another. But the Empire was gone.

  She shivered as she headed off the bridge, walking into her office. The real question was more urgent – and it had no answer. Had Wolfbane advanced too? And, if so, what had they discovered?

  The hatch hissed closed behind her and she caught her breath, forcing herself to breathe through her mouth. Maybe, just maybe, she understood the strictures now. There was something terrifying about the thought of going into battle against an enemy of unknown capabilities, an enemy who might be armed with something so devastating that your entire fleet would be blown to atoms before you ever realised you were under attack. Maybe the Imperial Navy hadn't wanted to run the risk of someone stumbling over something that would render its thousands of hulls instantly obsolete. After all, most tactical innovations – she’d been told – tended to be modifications of weapons and technology that were already well understood.

  Sitting down at her desk, she composed a report to her senior officer, then opened her mailbox and discov
ered a brief note from Jasmine. It was a shame she hadn't been able to join the older Marine on a clothes-shopping expedition, but Jasmine seemed to think she’d done alright. Mandy carefully refrained from laughing at the picture the older woman had sent, then wrote back quickly. Sword was due back in Avalon orbit later in the week and they’d have time to meet up then. Perhaps they could go shopping again.

  ***

  “I just received a hand-delivered message for you,” Command Sergeant Gwendolyn Patterson said, knocking on the half-open door. “It looks alarmingly official.”

  “Pass it over,” Ed grunted. He’d been busy trying to determine just how many Marines he could pull away from detached duties to make up another platoon and it was proving a frustrating task. His Marines had been meant to fill in holes until civilians were trained up, but half of them didn't even have replacements on the way. “Is there anything from the local police?”

  “Apparently, the two missing soldiers were last seen entering a brothel,” Gwendolyn said, her voice heavy with amused disapproval. “I think the mystery of their disappearance is about to be solved.”

  Ed didn't bother to disagree. Last night, two soldiers hadn't reported back to their barracks after a night on the town. Camelot’s civilian police had been alerted – it hadn't been that long since a Marine had been kidnapped by the Crackers – but if they were last seen in a brothel, the chances were that they’d simply overslept or forgotten that they were meant to report back to the barracks. They’d face a week of punishment duties when they were found – unless, of course, something more serious had happened. But it didn't seem too likely.

  He took the envelope and opened it, slowly. Earth rarely used paper for anything other than official communiqués, but Avalon still used paper for almost everything, despite the growth of the planetary datanet. The old Council had controlled the system they’d installed, using it to maintain their grip on power. Even now, few people who remembered life under their rule trusted the datanet. It was something, Ed knew, that would only fade in time.