Will do.Zaune wrote:Oh, right. That desperately needs either some clarification or to be dropped completely, because that kind of sentiment does not work coming from the hero.
Chris
The Empire's Corps
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Re: The Empire's Corps
Chris
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UrusaiKaimuki
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Re: The Empire's Corps
Sad that the story died, I was really looking forward to more.
Re: The Empire's Corps
Chapter Twenty-One
What is won by soldiers, at a high cost, is often given away by political leaders.
- Professor Leo Caesius, The Waning Years of Empire (banned).
Lucas Trent was a careful man by instinct and training, such as it was. He’d mastered the skills required to stay alive on Earth, in the Undercity, and many of them had proved applicable to Avalon when he’d been transported to the planet. Indeed, or so he told himself, he had never truly failed. The Civil Guardsmen who had arrested him had had no idea who they had caught. They’d thought he was just another thug. Some of his subordinates had thought that he took excessive precautions, but they hadn’t dared complain to his face. And, now, some of them would never have the opportunity.
His headquarters was in a secret location, known only to his most trusted subordinates and the guards he kept around him at all times. The slaves – the women the Knives had kidnapped from various homesteads over the years – were never allowed to leave, although few would dare pass through the badlands without weapons and armour. There were nastier things than human beings lurking in the undergrowth. The last slave who had tried to escape had stumbled into a mud hole and been devoured by a lurking crocodile-like creature. It seemed, now, that all of his precautions might have been insufficient.
“They definitely took out the entire camp,” Steven said, after the runner had been debriefed. Literally; the Knives hadn’t wanted to believe him at first. “They just walked right up to it and smashed their way into the camp.”
Lucas stared down at the table, unwilling to believe what he had heard. His local leader had known – he’d certainly been ordered often enough – to have scouts out on every possible angle of approach, watching for trouble. The Civil Guard might have been largely corrupt, but even they had their dedicated leaders and soldiers, men and women who might brave the badlands to hunt down the bandits. The Marines…the Marines were just inhuman. They’d slaughtered over a hundred gang members and if they’d lost anyone…
He looked up at the naked runner, seeing the sores covering his body from the whipping. The runner had claimed that a dozen Marines had been killed, but Lucas discounted that claim automatically. It was his experience that runners always lied, if only to avoid being punished for bringing bad news to the leaders, and in any case, the camp had had few heavy weapons capable of penetrating even light armour. He’d have to plan on the assumption that none of the Marines had been killed, which gave them a depressingly big advantage. If a handful of Marines could wipe out an entire camp, his grand plan was on the verge of coming apart at the seams.
“The idiot should have had scouts out watching for their approach,” Lucas said, trying to put a brave face on affairs. As sure as eggs were eggs, any sign of weakness would have his subordinates thinking about sticking a knife in his back. He trusted Steven, yet even he might be tempted by the prospect of supreme power. It was one of the other reasons for persistent gang warfare in the Undercity. The gang leaders knew that they had to keep their thugs happy or they might revolt. “Have we heard anything from our sources?”
“Nothing,” Steven said, calmly. The Civil Guardsmen who had been bribed should have warned them if the Marines were planning anything, yet the whole thing had been assembled and launched terrifyingly quickly. The last time the Civil Guard had attempted to make a showing in the region, it had taken those weekend warriors two weeks to get ready and the bandits had had a month’s warning, more than long enough to make preparations. And they’d never dared go into the badlands in force. “Either they didn’t know…or they simply didn’t inform us.”
Lucas frowned. Treachery was part of his daily existence and he always assumed that the same was true of everyone else. He’d had all of his sources warned that failure to deliver would be punished – if only by revealing their activities to their superiors, who wouldn’t hesitate to hang them for it – yet they were out of easy reach. One of them might have decided to withhold information in the hopes that the Marines would slaughter the Knives before they could betray them to the Empire. In that, Lucas was sure, they would be disappointed. He had taken pains to leave a dead man’s chest behind to make sure that any betrayer was punished.
“All military operations have to be cleared through the Governor,” he said, tightly. The Governor didn’t completely trust the Civil Guard – not an unwise position – and insisted on approving all operations personally. The sources he had in the Governor’s office insured that he would hear about all planned operations in advance. “Could the Marines operate without the Governor’s approval?”
“Perhaps the Governor didn’t mention it to his staff,” Steven suggested. “It’s not like you tell us everything you’re planning.”
“Oh, come on,” Lucas snapped. “That idiot of a Governor can’t even take a shit without polling his staff and taking opinions from anyone who feels that having a pulse gives them the right to have opinions. He insists on filling out requests in triplicate just to have new pencils forwarded to his office! He’d have run it past at least a few of his most trusted allies and one of them would have leaked.”
“And if the Marines can operate nearly independently, we may be in trouble,” Steven pointed out. “They could be anywhere.”
Both men looked upwards, towards the foliage that hid the base camp from intrusive eyes high above. Lucas had never considered the possibilities of satellite observation before he’d been transported to Avalon, but he’d learned quickly. Cold unblinking eyes, eyes that never tired or lost focus, were watching from high above. The old satellite network had been a joke, yet he was sure that no one competent would allow it to remain that way. The Marines still had a pair of destroyers in the system, according to his source in System Command. They could have rotated one over the badlands and used its onboard sensor suite.
“There are only a few dozen of them,” he protested. It might not matter. Horace Netherly had had nearly a hundred bandits under his command, but they’d been rapidly and quickly slaughtered. The camp the Marines had attacked had been built to stand off an attack, yet it too had been destroyed. It wasn't easy to admit, but he was starting to realise that his imagination might have been inadequate for the task at hand. If the Marines were really that deadly, the Knives might be totally outclassed. “They cannot be everywhere.”
“They can give the locals hope,” Steven reminded him. “That would encourage them to call in to the Marines and warn them of our movements. The whole plan might come apart.”
Lucas rubbed the back of his head, feeling a headache pounding away at his temples. A protection racket – and that was what government was; a large-scale protection racket – depended on two things. It had to be capable of carrying out its promises – both of protection and of retribution – and it had to be present. If a rival force entered the picture – and he saw the Marines as a rival force – it had to be destroyed before it could break the racket completely. If he pulled back into the badlands, the prudent course of action, the Marines would have all the time they needed to prepare for the next encounter.
“We can push at the locals when the Marines aren’t around,” he said, firmly. “We’ll see how many of those fucking idiot farmers support the Marines when we hit them after the Marines are gone.”
“Except that would force us to keep a presence in the area, outside the badlands,” Steven reminded him. “We might lose someone to interrogation.”
Lucas ground his teeth. Against the Civil Guard, that wasn’t so much of a concern, not when all prisoners had to be transported back to Camelot, if they weren't released by the jailers. The Marines might have taken the time to interrogate the prisoners themselves…no, that was wishful thinking. They had taken the time to interrogate the prisoners. The attack on the base camp proved that, if nothing else. And the thugs…the Marines could have used drugs, or bribes, or simply kicked the shit out of them until they talked, but it hardly mattered. Anyone could be broken, given enough time. The farm girls who now serviced the Knives as if they’d been born to be whores were proof of that.
And if the Marines captured someone who knew more than the bare minimum…the consequences didn’t bear thinking about. They could find their way to the main camp and destroy it. He could almost feel a rope around his neck already.
“We pull back,” he decided, finally. “Pass the word to the other camps. They are to pull back into the badlands and wait for the Marines to get tired and leave. Once they leave, we can remind the farmers who really rules here.”
He smiled. The farmers might be armed, but they couldn’t afford to keep a militia on permanent alert, waiting to be attacked. The Knives could choose the time and place of their attacks, striking hard against vulnerable homesteads. The Marines would be gone soon enough, but the bandits would always be there.
***
“How many prisoners did you take?”
“Fifty-nine,” Captain Stalker said. Brent stared at him, noting the calm confidence of the Marine. Fifty-nine prisoners…no one had managed to take so many bandits alive, not when they knew that most of them would simply be released by their gaolers. Most bandits who fell into the hands of the Civil Guard’s more competent formations didn’t survive the experience. “Four of them are wounded, but the remainder are fit and healthy.”
“Good,” Brent said, wondering if it really was good. He looked up at Linda, seeing the expression on her face. She was worried about how it would all play out in front of the Council. “We’ll have to hold a trial, of course.”
“There’s no need for that,” Captain Stalker assured him. “They were all captured in battle. We have interrogated their former prisoners and have a comprehensive case against each of them for terrorism and bandit-related activities. Under Imperial Law, they can be hung at once – and they should be hung at once.”
Brent opened his mouth, and then closed it again, rendered speechless. “You would simply execute them now?” Linda asked, stepping into the breach. “You don’t want to indenture them and put them to work?”
“Many of them started out as indentured workers,” Captain Stalker pointed out, calmly. He didn’t seem bothered at all by the implication. “There is no reason to believe that they will revert to being good workers, now that we took them prisoner. Justice needs to be done, Governor, and the punishment is laid down in Imperial Law. They are sentenced to death by hanging.”
His gaze sharpened. “And, besides, if we put them back to work, how long are they going to stay there?”
Brent stared down at his hands, and then up at the map of Camelot his aide had placed on the wall. It was a political map, rather than one reflecting the local population demographics, and it mocked him every time he looked at it. The Council wouldn’t be happy if he simply went along with the Captain, yet…if he refused to execute the bandits, he’d lose whatever remaining support he had from the middle class. They’d know that they had spared the bandits for political reasons.
“Captain,” he said, finally. “You must realise that there are political issues here.”
“There are none,” Major George Grosskopf said, coldly. The Civil Guardsman leaned forward, his dark eyes aflame. “Governor, with all due respect, the Marines have just handed out a decisive lesson to the bandits, one that they will not soon forget. We killed over a hundred of their raiders at the cost of one injured Marine. We tracked down and obliterated one of their bases, rescuing – in the process – nineteen women who were being used as sex slaves. This isn’t something we should hide, as if we were ashamed of our own success, but something we should shout to the skies. We beat the bandits and utterly smashed them!”
Brent winced inwardly, trying to keep his face blank. The Major was right, even though he was associating himself with the victory. The Crackers fought because they had a political ideology and a political goal in mind. The bandits looted, raped and burned because they could…and because it was easier than actually having to work for a living. They wouldn’t want to continue their activities if they were being hunted relentlessly, even into the heart of the badlands themselves.
“There is also another issue here,” Captain Stalker said. “A population will support a war as long as it seems that there is a chance of victory. The problem here is that your population doesn’t believe in victory. Executing the bandits will send a very clear signal that you, at least, believe that victory is possible. It will encourage people to sign up for the new army.”
He smiled thinly, meeting Brent’s gaze. “As for the fact that the captured bandits are still in debt…you should just forget it,” he added. “Those debts are never going to be paid off.”
Brent scowled at him. It wasn't Brent who cared about their debts, but the men and women who had purchased their debts off the ADC before it collapsed into a shell of its former self. Markus and Carola Wilhelm, among others, would certainly push the issue in the next Council meeting, even though Captain Stalker was right and they would never see any return on those investments. But then, Captain Stalker couldn’t be removed from office…legally, Brent couldn’t be removed either, but the Council could make governing the planet impossible. Again, he cursed his predecessor under his breath. The man had been a moron. Avalon was nowhere near ready for an independent Council.
“I take your point,” he said, finally. He had a nasty suspicion that if he refused his permission, the Marines were just going to go ahead and hang the captives anyway. Abigail had looked up the relevant section of the Imperial Code of Military Justice and had concluded that the Marines owned the prisoners, body and soul, until they chose to hand them over to local authority. “What do you intend to do with them?”
“Two days from now, it is market day in Camelot,” Captain Stalker said. “I intend to hang them publicly.”
“Are you out of your…there’ll be a riot,” Linda protested in disbelief. “The bandits have friends within the city!”
“All the more reason to hold the executions there,” Captain Stalker said. He sounded amused by her protests. “Their friends should learn the price of supporting the bandits.”
Brent stood up and paced over to the window, staring down over his capital city. It wasn't much, but it was his. There would be no other posting for him once he left Avalon, no other chance to make his mark in the history books. He had long since realised that even now, he wouldn’t have that chance. Avalon had a habit of taking dreams and sucking them out, leaving nothing behind, but the tired bitter shell of a man. Officially, there were no homeless on Avalon. There was enough work for all. Unofficially…things were different.
He looked towards the slums and shuddered. The reports were terrifyingly clear. Every year, a greater percentage of Avalon’s population found themselves homeless, so deep in dept that it was hopeless to even dream of escape. The conditions in the slums were appallingly bad. Only the foodstuffs provided by the handful of Church missions kept the population alive. It was a nightmare, one that could never end as long as Avalon remained unchanged. He had once hoped to change it, but now…all he could do was wait and see out his term. The next Imperial Governor might have more authority or backbone.
Oddly, the thought spurred him on. “See to it,” he ordered, without turning around. A fishing boat was coming into the harbour and he watched, feeling a moment of envy for the sailors who had so little else to worry about. They could set their sails of silver and sail over the horizon, vanishing to one of the unexplored continents or illegal settlements on the Golden Isles. They weren't bound to a city permanently on the verge of collapse. “I want them hung and I want you to make it very clear why they were hung.”
He ignored Major Grosskopf’s surprised look, or Captain Stalker’s half-smile. “If it is to be done, then it might as well be done properly,” he added. Perhaps showing the mailed fist inside the velvet glove would convince some of the Council to moderate their knee-jerk opposition to everything he did. “It may even serve a useful purpose.”
“Thank you, sir,” Captain Stalker said. If he was pleased at his victory, he showed no sign of it. But then, he barely had to care. “They will be hung on market day.”
Brent barely heard him. He was too busy watching the sailing boat as it docked at the harbour, unloading a silvery horde of fish. Haddock, Cod and other Earth-native fish competed uneasily with Avalon’s own native creatures. Some of them had to be carefully weeded out, for they were deadly poisonous. Others were a delicacy if prepared properly. His own cook was a past mistress at preparing proper meals.
“Thank you,” he said, finally. “And well done. Please congratulate your men for me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
One of the commonest signs of social decline lies in the separation of the elites from the masses. Where the elites – the leadership – share the concerns of their people, government proceeds smoothly. Where the elites are physically and socially separated from their people, they start designing policies that are actively harmful to the masses. This is nowhere clearer than it is in the issue of criminal justice.
- Professor Leo Caesius, The Waning Years of Empire (banned).
Market Day on Avalon had been intended as a special holiday, or so Michael Volpe had been told. The ADC had planned the day so that farmers on the outskirts of Camelot could bring in their produce and sell it directly to the grateful citizens of the city, while taking time to enjoy the city and spend time among its distractions. In reality, it hadn’t taken long before the vested interests took over the holiday and started taxing the farmers who tried to break the official monopoly on food transport, leaving Market Day as little more than just another day. Michael valued it only because it served as a chance to make some money on the sly.
He walked from stall to stall, offering his help to the dealer in exchange for petty cash. Some of them would need a strong man to help them set out their boxes; others stared at him suspiciously, as if they suspected he intended to steal their produce and vanish into the side streets before anyone could catch him. It was a depressingly familiar scene, yet what choice did he have? There was no other employment for someone like him.
At seventeen years old, Michael had come to the conclusion that his life was already over. The son of a indent mother and a colonist farmer, he had inherited some of his father’s debt, even though his mother had literally owned nothing, but the clothes on her back. His father might have abandoned the family just after Michael had been born, yet the debt sharks never forgot. The moment he signed on to work at any official job, they’d start tapping over three-quarters of his salary to pay the interest on the debt. Michael was far from stupid and had painstakingly worked his way through the math. If he got a good job, if he worked for over fifty years, he might just pay off the interest alone…by which point more would have piled up. It was a perfect trap. He couldn’t work without losing most of his salary; he couldn’t even refuse to pay. There was no escape.
He saw a young-looking farmwife with old eyes and paused long enough to help her unload her nag, before accepting a handful of coins in payment. It was dangerous to carry too much – the criminal gangs who also infested the marketplace might notice and take it off him before he could get back home – but a few coins probably wouldn’t attract their interest. The coins were the only untraceable funds on Avalon and there were laws against holding too many of them, even though most people simply ignored them. Paying money into the Bank of Avalon was a sure-fire way to lose most of it to pay a debt.
“Thank you,” he said, accepting an apple she tried to press on him as part-payment. Winking at her, he strode off, looking for others to help. He passed a set of farming tools that had been handmade by one of the local craftsman and cast an eye over some of the sharper blades, before the craftsman reached for an obvious shotgun under the table. Michael shrugged at him and walked onwards, feeling a tingle running down the back of his shoulder blades as the old man’s glare followed him.
An hour passed slowly, but he was in no hurry. His mother would be working herself – in order to survive, she sold herself to men – and his younger half-brother would be out with his gang. It was yet another thing to worry about. The street toughs hadn’t forced Michael to join them, as they had some of their other members, but one day he knew they’d call for him. He’d seen the results of gang violence and wanted to stay away from it, yet what other choice did he have? The Civil Guard would laugh at him if they heard his complaint. No one in their right mind would trust them to solve a problem.
As if his thought had called them forth, a group of men dressed in combat uniforms appeared at one end of the market, marching upwards towards the middle of the square. The wooden stage had been intended for live performances of plays, but now…now it was empty. Michael realised, with a shock, that someone had renovated it, adding a wooden construction he didn’t recognise. The soldiers weren't Civil Guardsmen, he saw, as they passed him, but something else. They held themselves with an easy discipline that shouted out that they ruled…and no one else could even challenge them. Their assurance was so powerful that Michael found himself backing away before his mind had even caught up with the thought. A thought seemed to echo through the crowd…
Marines…
Michael felt a sudden bitter surge of envy. The young men and women had everything he ever wanted and more, free of debt and the legacy of a father who had never cared for his son. They walked with their heads held high, as if they had nothing to worry about, without any trace of fear in their stance. He wanted to be them and knew that it would never happen. Avalon’s Imperial Navy recruiting station was moribund and had been so for years. Joining the Civil Guard would have been worthless.
And then he saw the prisoners.
***
Nelson Oshiro struggled against the shackles binding his hands and feet, even though he knew that it was useless. The chains were overkill, intended to make it very clear to both the prisoners and the watchers that they were prisoners and leave no one in any doubt as to what was going to happen to them. He tried to hold his head up high and face the sneers from the watching crowd with determination, but somehow he couldn’t maintain the pose. The crowd was hissing them as the truth sunk in. Here, in front of them, were some of the dreaded bandits who had been driving their food prices upwards. They were at the crowd’s mercy.
He pulled at the chains on his hands, but he couldn’t break them free, even with the crowd started throwing rotten food at them. He wanted to memorise names and faces, yet he knew it was futile. The Marines had interrogated him, drugged him and then interrogated him again, milking him dry of everything he knew about the Knives. They’d been dumped back in the same holding pen and had tried to come up with a shared story, but it hadn’t worked. The drugs had broken all resistance. A handful of prisoners bore marks from when they’d tried to lie and their interrogators had dealt with it brutally. They had betrayed the remainder of the gang. If the Marines let them go, which didn’t seem likely, they would be hunted down and killed by their former comrades for betrayal.
A young girl leaned forward, shouted a curse that was lost in the roar of the crowd, and threw a rotten egg right into his face. Nelson tried to twist, to evade, but it was impossible. The egg struck his chin and shattered, sending a horrifying smell wafting up towards his nostrils. He wanted to vomit, but somehow held it in. He had the nasty feeling that showing any kind of weakness would only make it worse.
The Marines pushed them up a ramp towards a stage and lined them up in front of the crowd. The hail of rotten food had faded away as a new air of anticipation settled over the crowd, with faces exchanging knowing looks that somehow made Nelson feel sick. At first, he didn’t understand what was happening, and then a Marine hooked a noose over his neck, drawing it tight. It was suddenly very hard to breath. He wanted to open his mouth to protest, but it was far too late.
***
Michael watched as the Marines slowly lined up the prisoners in front of the crowd, hanging nooses around their necks. The former bandits didn’t look terrifying any more, not after the crowd had shown their fondness for their tormentors by covering them in rotten food. They looked tired and desperate, staring around as if they expected someone to come free them at the last minute. The crowd was in an ugly mode. Michael sensed, somehow, that if the Marines had freed the prisoners and dumped them into the crowd, the prisoners would have been brutally killed by the civilians. No one had any mercy for bandits.
One of the Marines stepped forward, his voice echoing out over the crowd, somehow enforcing silence. “These men were captured in the act of pillaging their local townships, burning crops and raping innocent victims,” he said. Michael shivered. Rape was one of the local gang’s favourite pastimes. One day, it might be his half-sister lying on the ground as the assholes took turns. “They have been found guilty under Imperial Law and have been sentenced to death.”
The ugly note of the crowd seemed to grow louder. The prisoners, suddenly realising what was going to happen to them if they hadn’t realised before, started to protest, pleading for help and mercy. No one was inclined to give it to them. The crowd had no time for a loser. Michael had seen street thieves given rough justice at the hands of the crowd before and it made no difference that the new victims were from outside the city. They deserved to die.
“The sentence will be carried out,” the Marine said, somehow speaking over the crowd. “May God have mercy on their souls.”
***
Nelson wanted to panic, but somehow he held his peace, thinking desperately. If he could think of something important, something the Marines needed to know, perhaps they would spare his life…but there was nothing. The interrogators had pulled everything he knew out of him and drained him dry. There was nothing left to offer.
The Marines had attached the ropes to a single machine at the rear of the stage. It hummed to life, slowly pulling in the rope…and lifting the prisoners above the ground, slowly choking the life out of them. Nelson drew in a breath as the rope came tight, trying to hold on as long as possible. His legs started to stretch as the rope pulled him upwards; somehow, despite himself, he felt the life slipping out of his body…
Faces started to appear in front of him. His mother and father, the ones who had birthed him and abandoned him when he was ten years old, shaking their heads sadly as they walked away. Jenny, the first girl he had admired from afar, a tall brunette who had somehow maintained her smile in the Undercity…until the day he’d grabbed her suddenly and taken her brutally, convinced that that was what she wanted. She’d screamed and screamed, but he’d thought he'd known better, until he found out that she’d killed herself afterwards. He’d dismissed her from his thoughts until her face reappeared in front of him, mocking him, joined by his other victims. His vision was blurring as the faces merged together into one leering shape; a voice was whispering, right at the edge of his mind…
There was a snap, and then nothing. Nothing at all.
***
Michael watched as the bandits died one by one, their bodies jerking as their necks snapped. Some of them had clearly been trying to struggle, others seemed to have accepted their fate, but it hadn’t mattered in the end. They were all dead, hanging from the ropes like demented puppets. Silence fell over the crowd as it sank in, and then there was a roar of approval. Michael felt his own voice echoing as he joined in the roar. The rough justice suited the crowd. How could it not have suited them?
The Marines walked from rope to rope, cutting the dead bodies down and letting them fall onto the stage. They looked as if they had died in agony. A Marine pushed up a trolley and the bodies were unceremoniously dumped onto it, left to wait for disposal. They’d probably be taken to the mass grave outside town and buried there, unless they were fed to the creatures in the zoo instead. It was just possible.
“We fought the bandits and won,” the lead Marine said. His voice somehow silenced the crowd again. “We proved that they can be beaten. Now we have an offer for everyone. Your planet needs you; we need new recruits for the army we intend to build to exterminate the bandits and rebels alike. If you are interested in joining up with us, please go to the recruiting booth we have opened in the Imperial Office.”
He leaned forward, as if he were going to whisper a secret. “And we pay in cash,” he added. “Your salary can be paid each month, or it can be banked with the Imperial Bank, rather than the Bank of Avalon. You won’t have to pay off any debt-mongers if you don’t want to.”
A rustle ran through the crowd. He had just told them that they could earn their salary…and keep it, keep all of it. Very few of the city’s population had gone into debt willingly, but they had inherited their debt from their parents. Young men like Michael had had no hope, until now. He looked up at the Marines, watching calmly in their uniforms, and wondered if he could join them. Did he have whatever it took to be one of them?
Yes, he told himself. It was an opportunity that would never come again.
“It won’t be easy,” the Marine said. “It will be the hardest thing many of you will have ever done, but it is worth it. We will allow any of you a chance to come and prove yourself.”
Michael watched as the Marines jumped down and walked off, taking the dead bodies with them. The gallows they left behind, probably for the next group of captured bandits. He walked away, shaking his head; he’d seen death before, but watching an execution was something new. A thought struck him and he broke into a run as he ran towards the centre of town. If the word spread as fast as he expected, the entire city would be trying to sign up.
He reached the Imperial Office – a prefabricated building just north of Government House – and was unsurprised to discover that seventeen people had beaten him to it. Eleven of them were young men like himself, who had grown up on the streets; the remainder were young women, including two who had probably been forced into prostitution to feed themselves. It wasn’t uncommon in Camelot, not when prostitutes – too – were paid in cash. The women would have faced the same debt problem as Michael did when they tried to hold normal jobs. As prostitutes, the only person taking a cut of their income would be their pimp.
The queue stretched around the block by the time the doors opened, allowing three of the prospective recruits to enter at a time. Michael waited as patiently as he could for his turn, following a young woman who looked as if she had barely entered her teens into the Imperial Office. A smiling man wearing a uniform he didn’t recognise showed him into a private room, where he came face-to-face with a scarred man who scowled at him.
“So,” he thundered. “You want to join up, do you?”
Michael nodded, too terrified to speak.
“Take this,” the man said, passing Michael a small egg-sized device that he held in his hand. “Understand; the first time you lie to me, I’ll boot you out and you can forget about joining anything more worthwhile than the sanitation department. Now…”
He fired off a long list of questions at Michael, who stumbled as he tried to answer them. Some made sense, asking about his family and his father’s name, others made no sense at all. Why did the Marines want to know about his political leanings? What political leanings did he have anyway? It wasn't as if he’d ever be able to pay off his debt and claim the franchise. He found himself growing more and more impatient with the list of questions, and then it dawned on him that the questions were a test in themselves. The Marines wanted to know how patient he was.
“Good enough,” the recruiter growled, finally. He didn’t sound happy, which made him unusual in Michael’s experience. Most recruiters wanted as many young bodies as they could get, although he’d never met a military recruiter before. Perhaps there were limits to how many men and women the Marines could recruit. “Do you understand that you will be going into an area where heavy discipline is the norm, where you might be injured in training and where you will be expected to obey all orders, without hesitation?”
“Yes, sir,” Michael said. “I understand.”
“No, you don’t,” the recruiter said. “You just think you understand.”
Michael said nothing.
“Be at the spaceport in three days, with this card,” the recruiter said, holding out a piece of cardboard. Michael was somehow unsurprised to see his picture on the card. “Time and date are on the card. If you don’t show up then, don’t bother to show up at all. And, if you get your ass shot off, don’t blame me.”
Michael stared down at the card and then nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
…Increasingly, the young men and women of the Empire – those born to the Middle and High Classes, at least – are concentrating on living for the now and not thinking about the future. They sense, however dimly, that the Empire has no future.
- Professor Leo Caesius, The Waning Years of Empire (banned).
They heard the music long before they rounded the corner, a thumping beat that spoke of dancing and forgetfulness. Jasmine felt the beat reaching out to her as the four Marines strode down the street, glancing from side to side. The middle-class zone of Camelot was a study in contrasts; in the day, it was all staid and respectable, but in the night the party began. Lighted shops offered everything from pornography to drugs, while hookers waited at lampposts, accosting men and offering their services. The young and desperate thronged through the streets, taking little note of the Marines as they sought the next high, or something else that could make them forget their troubles for a night.
“It sounds like a party,” Blake said, cheerfully. Jasmine, who would have quite happily remained in barracks for the night, scowled inwardly. They might have been on leave, but platoon comrades never left each other alone – unless one of them got lucky, of course. Blake and Joe might want to look for suitable partners – and Koenraad had come along for the ride – but Jasmine didn't share their enthusiasm. A night of guiltless sex with someone who had no idea of what she did for a living didn’t appeal. “Shall we go gatecrash?”
“It could be fun,” Joe agreed, with a wink. “You want to bet on who comes home with the most panties?”
“After those bastards in 1st Platoon showed them that game, maybe not,” Blake said, with a leer of his own. One of the less endearing Marine traditions was picking up a girl each night, or maybe two or three a night, and stealing her panties afterwards to prove that they had scored. Jasmine privately thought that it was a silly tradition and had said so, more than once. “They were boasting about how Camelot girls were easy.”
“They probably want a handsome Marine to marry them and get them out of the slum,” Koenraad said, unexpectedly. He looked up at their bemused glances. “So I study local politics. You want to make something of it?”
Jasmine shook her head. Marines were expected to have hobbies in their spare time, even though it was the shared belief of every Marine that spare time was a delusion invented by a particularly sadistic drill sergeant. Koenraad had spent his time earning a degree in sociology from the University of Earth, although they had refused to grant him a doctorate as his work was hardly ‘non-judgemental and sensitive.’ A Marine who had spent his time in various hellholes being shot at by the natives – normally after the Empire’s vast army of bureaucrats had gotten something wrong and seriously hacked off said natives – would have a very different view of their culture than a high-browed academic who’d never spent a day of his life off Earth.
“All the better for us,” Blake declared, as they passed a line of street toughs. Jasmine braced herself, expecting a fist-fight, but the toughs somehow picked up on their true nature – even though the civilian clothes they were wearing – and wisely backed off. There might have been nine of them, but the Marines would have handed them their heads, even without weapons. “We can have all the pussy we want and no one will say boo to us.”
Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Do you ever think about anything apart from women?”
Blake pretended to consider it. “No,” he said, finally. “I guess I’m a naughty Blake. Mama Coleman would not be impressed.”
Joe chuckled. “Remember,” he said, in a passable impression of Sergeant Young, “a soldier who won’t fuck won’t fight.”
“And a soldier who fucks when he should be fighting won’t be fucking for much longer,” Jasmine said, in a rather less passable impression of her first Drill Sergeant. The fornication excuse for being late back to barracks worked once; after that, it was punishment duties for any repeat offender. “Just remember to pay them in local coins.”
“I am offended at your suggestion that I might have to pay them,” Blake countered, archly. “Why, there are women who pay me to have sex with them.”
Koenraad laughed. “If that is true, Blake, why are you still here?”
“Because without me, you’d all be dead by now,” Blake said. He snorted dryly. “Who has the local cash anyway?”
Joe reached into his pocket and brought out a roll of paper notes, produced at the Bank of Avalon. Jasmine hadn't been impressed when she’d first seen them. Any halfway competent forger could have produced millions of counterfeit banknotes and used them to wreck an already-unstable currency. They were, in theory, equal to the Imperial Credit and could be exchanged one-for-one, but the Bank of Avalon had tried to overcharge the first Marines who had attempted to exchange their money.
It had been Joe who had come up with the solution. He’d taken an inventory of the songs and tunes the platoon had brought with them from Earth, and then sold them to distributors in Camelot, giving them advance access to the currently-fashionable music from Earth. Jasmine disliked the howling racket that was the height of fashion on Earth – it sounded like an army of cats howling at the moon while being savaged by wild dogs, in her considered estimation – but it had brought the platoon plenty of local money. By the time the official releases reached Avalon, the music would already be old and forgotten.
“There’s enough here to wipe your bottom after eating in the mess,” Joe said, as he passed out bundles of notes. Jasmine took hers and stowed it in her inside pocket. “I’m not sure what else it will buy here. It won’t be long before they start producing million-credit banknotes.”
“Probably,” Koenraad agreed. “They’re in the middle of an inflation spiral right now and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.”
“Hey,” Blake said, as they turned another corner and saw the party. “We don’t want to know about economics and maths and boring shit like that. We want to go to a party!”
He slapped Jasmine on the shoulder. “And you can play the game too,” he said. “We’ll let you bring home underpants instead of panties and see who wins.”
“Get fucked,” Jasmine said, dryly.
“I intend to,” Blake countered. He smiled at her. “Come on; live a little. It might be fun.”
“I seem to recall that we end up being thrown out of places that that or being chased back to barracks by the wasps,” Jasmine said. “If we have to spend the next week cleaning toilets, I’m going to do something awful to you. Something so unspeakably awful that I haven’t even thought of it yet.”
Blake chuckled and ambled towards the party, followed by the other three. The party seemed to have started in one large hall and spread rapidly into several others. There were hundreds of young men and women dancing in the first hall, while others pushed in and out as they grew tired of the music. Jasmine rubbed the back of her temples as the noise grew louder. She’d been in powered combat armour under fire and that hadn’t been anything like so much of a racket. The rate of ear trauma on Avalon, she decided, had to be quite high.
A topless girl danced past with her breasts bobbling as she moved. From the dazed look in her eye, Jasmine guessed that she was on some kind of stimulant, probably something grown illegally in the countryside and shipped into the city. Her hard nipples seemed to mock everyone as she moved from boy to boy, kissing each of them before moving on to the next. From the laughter that followed her, Jasmine had the very clear impression that she wasn’t operating entirely of her own volition.
Sparkle dust, probably, she thought. Sparkle Dust was banned on almost every world in the Empire, with good reason. Properly prepared, it acted as a mild hypnotic, allowing someone who took it to enter a state where they would follow almost any suggestion they were given. The girl had probably taken it on a dare – or it had been slipped into her drink – and someone had suggested that she act the wanton for the night. She was going to be very embarrassed in the morning.
“I knew we'd have fun,” Blake said, as they pushed their way towards a makeshift bar. It looked as if it was going to topple over at any second, although that hadn’t stopped people from covering it with barrels and glass bottles of drinks. Avalon might nor produce much in the way of produce, but it was generally agreed that it produced excellent beer, although there was little point in exporting it to other star systems. It wasn't cost-effective. “I should have worn my uniform. That always brings in the girls.”
He leaned across the counter and smiled at the barmaid, a girl who looked as if she had seen too much in her young life. She couldn't be much younger than Jasmine herself, but her eyes were those of an old woman. “Four beers please,” he said, waving the wad of cash under her nose. “We’re thirsty and starving.”
“We take Imperial Credits only,” the barmaid said, tiredly. Blake leaned over and glared at her. Jasmine sighed inwardly, even though she knew that the barmaid deserved it. It was illegal – if good business – to refuse payment in local currency. “All right. I’ll pour you four beers.”
“And pour one for yourself as well,” Blake said, affably. He passed across some of his banknotes. “Please don’t try to short-change me. I’ll never live it down.”
Jasmine smiled inwardly at the barmaid’s expression. She didn't know it, but one of the many secrets implanted into the Marines was an implant that prevented them from becoming drunk, or even mildly inebriated. A pleasant buzz was the most they could expect from their drinks, even if they drank twenty pints each. She took a long pull at her glass and sighed in delight. The beer was cold and surprisingly good. She’d had drinks on Earth that should have been poured back into the horse.
“I’m going over there,” Blake said, pointing towards a table where several girls sat, giggling as they watched the Marines. “Come on; you might find one that’s into girls.”
Jasmine surveyed the girls and frowned. If what they wore was high fashion on Avalon, it proved that bad taste was truly universal. “I dread to imagine,” she said, primly. “You go have fun. I’m going to sit here and watch the crowd.”
“You don’t have to stay here, honey,” the barmaid said. “There are other places you can go.”
Jasmine shook her head as the crowd swallowed up Blake and Joe. Koenraad had vanished off somewhere, perhaps chasing a pretty girl. Blake and Joe might enjoy being in a party, but Jasmine felt out of place. Her strict upbringing hadn’t prepared her for such debauchery and her experience in the Marines meant nothing to the young fools on the dance floor. They would never understand what it was like to crawl through the mud, trying to sneak up on an enemy position, or the costs of her career. Her father had understood, the day she’d told him that she was leaving to go to Boot Camp, but few others outside the Marines knew or cared. They were the only real family she had.
An hour passed slowly as the dancing swirled around her. The music never seemed to stop – she suspected that it was produced by a computer, rather than a human band – and dancers joined or left at will. She caught sight of Joe, locked in an embrace with a pretty girl, and Blake, being...serviced by a girl in public, and recoiled, even though no one else seemed to care. It reminded her of the last days on Han before everything had gone to hell. No one might have said it out loud, but Avalon was a dying world.
She was turning sharply before her mind caught up with what she had seen. There was a girl, over at a table, surrounded by three tough-looking guys. Jasmine locked her eyes on them and realised in a sudden burst of horror that she knew the girl. Mandy Caesius’s red hair was almost impossible to mistake.
Silly bitch, Jasmine thought, angrily. The Professor and his family might have finally obtained housing in the richer section of town, but his silly spoilt daughter still had to get her kicks somehow, even if it meant coming right into the seedy area of town without an escort. Jasmine had privately wondered if the Professor had hoped that she’d play Mandy’s older sister, but there just hadn’t been the time. Captain Stalker wouldn't have bothered to pussyfoot around the issue; if he’d wanted Jasmine to baby-sit the girl, he would have issued orders and left it to her to carry them out.
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!”
What is won by soldiers, at a high cost, is often given away by political leaders.
- Professor Leo Caesius, The Waning Years of Empire (banned).
Lucas Trent was a careful man by instinct and training, such as it was. He’d mastered the skills required to stay alive on Earth, in the Undercity, and many of them had proved applicable to Avalon when he’d been transported to the planet. Indeed, or so he told himself, he had never truly failed. The Civil Guardsmen who had arrested him had had no idea who they had caught. They’d thought he was just another thug. Some of his subordinates had thought that he took excessive precautions, but they hadn’t dared complain to his face. And, now, some of them would never have the opportunity.
His headquarters was in a secret location, known only to his most trusted subordinates and the guards he kept around him at all times. The slaves – the women the Knives had kidnapped from various homesteads over the years – were never allowed to leave, although few would dare pass through the badlands without weapons and armour. There were nastier things than human beings lurking in the undergrowth. The last slave who had tried to escape had stumbled into a mud hole and been devoured by a lurking crocodile-like creature. It seemed, now, that all of his precautions might have been insufficient.
“They definitely took out the entire camp,” Steven said, after the runner had been debriefed. Literally; the Knives hadn’t wanted to believe him at first. “They just walked right up to it and smashed their way into the camp.”
Lucas stared down at the table, unwilling to believe what he had heard. His local leader had known – he’d certainly been ordered often enough – to have scouts out on every possible angle of approach, watching for trouble. The Civil Guard might have been largely corrupt, but even they had their dedicated leaders and soldiers, men and women who might brave the badlands to hunt down the bandits. The Marines…the Marines were just inhuman. They’d slaughtered over a hundred gang members and if they’d lost anyone…
He looked up at the naked runner, seeing the sores covering his body from the whipping. The runner had claimed that a dozen Marines had been killed, but Lucas discounted that claim automatically. It was his experience that runners always lied, if only to avoid being punished for bringing bad news to the leaders, and in any case, the camp had had few heavy weapons capable of penetrating even light armour. He’d have to plan on the assumption that none of the Marines had been killed, which gave them a depressingly big advantage. If a handful of Marines could wipe out an entire camp, his grand plan was on the verge of coming apart at the seams.
“The idiot should have had scouts out watching for their approach,” Lucas said, trying to put a brave face on affairs. As sure as eggs were eggs, any sign of weakness would have his subordinates thinking about sticking a knife in his back. He trusted Steven, yet even he might be tempted by the prospect of supreme power. It was one of the other reasons for persistent gang warfare in the Undercity. The gang leaders knew that they had to keep their thugs happy or they might revolt. “Have we heard anything from our sources?”
“Nothing,” Steven said, calmly. The Civil Guardsmen who had been bribed should have warned them if the Marines were planning anything, yet the whole thing had been assembled and launched terrifyingly quickly. The last time the Civil Guard had attempted to make a showing in the region, it had taken those weekend warriors two weeks to get ready and the bandits had had a month’s warning, more than long enough to make preparations. And they’d never dared go into the badlands in force. “Either they didn’t know…or they simply didn’t inform us.”
Lucas frowned. Treachery was part of his daily existence and he always assumed that the same was true of everyone else. He’d had all of his sources warned that failure to deliver would be punished – if only by revealing their activities to their superiors, who wouldn’t hesitate to hang them for it – yet they were out of easy reach. One of them might have decided to withhold information in the hopes that the Marines would slaughter the Knives before they could betray them to the Empire. In that, Lucas was sure, they would be disappointed. He had taken pains to leave a dead man’s chest behind to make sure that any betrayer was punished.
“All military operations have to be cleared through the Governor,” he said, tightly. The Governor didn’t completely trust the Civil Guard – not an unwise position – and insisted on approving all operations personally. The sources he had in the Governor’s office insured that he would hear about all planned operations in advance. “Could the Marines operate without the Governor’s approval?”
“Perhaps the Governor didn’t mention it to his staff,” Steven suggested. “It’s not like you tell us everything you’re planning.”
“Oh, come on,” Lucas snapped. “That idiot of a Governor can’t even take a shit without polling his staff and taking opinions from anyone who feels that having a pulse gives them the right to have opinions. He insists on filling out requests in triplicate just to have new pencils forwarded to his office! He’d have run it past at least a few of his most trusted allies and one of them would have leaked.”
“And if the Marines can operate nearly independently, we may be in trouble,” Steven pointed out. “They could be anywhere.”
Both men looked upwards, towards the foliage that hid the base camp from intrusive eyes high above. Lucas had never considered the possibilities of satellite observation before he’d been transported to Avalon, but he’d learned quickly. Cold unblinking eyes, eyes that never tired or lost focus, were watching from high above. The old satellite network had been a joke, yet he was sure that no one competent would allow it to remain that way. The Marines still had a pair of destroyers in the system, according to his source in System Command. They could have rotated one over the badlands and used its onboard sensor suite.
“There are only a few dozen of them,” he protested. It might not matter. Horace Netherly had had nearly a hundred bandits under his command, but they’d been rapidly and quickly slaughtered. The camp the Marines had attacked had been built to stand off an attack, yet it too had been destroyed. It wasn't easy to admit, but he was starting to realise that his imagination might have been inadequate for the task at hand. If the Marines were really that deadly, the Knives might be totally outclassed. “They cannot be everywhere.”
“They can give the locals hope,” Steven reminded him. “That would encourage them to call in to the Marines and warn them of our movements. The whole plan might come apart.”
Lucas rubbed the back of his head, feeling a headache pounding away at his temples. A protection racket – and that was what government was; a large-scale protection racket – depended on two things. It had to be capable of carrying out its promises – both of protection and of retribution – and it had to be present. If a rival force entered the picture – and he saw the Marines as a rival force – it had to be destroyed before it could break the racket completely. If he pulled back into the badlands, the prudent course of action, the Marines would have all the time they needed to prepare for the next encounter.
“We can push at the locals when the Marines aren’t around,” he said, firmly. “We’ll see how many of those fucking idiot farmers support the Marines when we hit them after the Marines are gone.”
“Except that would force us to keep a presence in the area, outside the badlands,” Steven reminded him. “We might lose someone to interrogation.”
Lucas ground his teeth. Against the Civil Guard, that wasn’t so much of a concern, not when all prisoners had to be transported back to Camelot, if they weren't released by the jailers. The Marines might have taken the time to interrogate the prisoners themselves…no, that was wishful thinking. They had taken the time to interrogate the prisoners. The attack on the base camp proved that, if nothing else. And the thugs…the Marines could have used drugs, or bribes, or simply kicked the shit out of them until they talked, but it hardly mattered. Anyone could be broken, given enough time. The farm girls who now serviced the Knives as if they’d been born to be whores were proof of that.
And if the Marines captured someone who knew more than the bare minimum…the consequences didn’t bear thinking about. They could find their way to the main camp and destroy it. He could almost feel a rope around his neck already.
“We pull back,” he decided, finally. “Pass the word to the other camps. They are to pull back into the badlands and wait for the Marines to get tired and leave. Once they leave, we can remind the farmers who really rules here.”
He smiled. The farmers might be armed, but they couldn’t afford to keep a militia on permanent alert, waiting to be attacked. The Knives could choose the time and place of their attacks, striking hard against vulnerable homesteads. The Marines would be gone soon enough, but the bandits would always be there.
***
“How many prisoners did you take?”
“Fifty-nine,” Captain Stalker said. Brent stared at him, noting the calm confidence of the Marine. Fifty-nine prisoners…no one had managed to take so many bandits alive, not when they knew that most of them would simply be released by their gaolers. Most bandits who fell into the hands of the Civil Guard’s more competent formations didn’t survive the experience. “Four of them are wounded, but the remainder are fit and healthy.”
“Good,” Brent said, wondering if it really was good. He looked up at Linda, seeing the expression on her face. She was worried about how it would all play out in front of the Council. “We’ll have to hold a trial, of course.”
“There’s no need for that,” Captain Stalker assured him. “They were all captured in battle. We have interrogated their former prisoners and have a comprehensive case against each of them for terrorism and bandit-related activities. Under Imperial Law, they can be hung at once – and they should be hung at once.”
Brent opened his mouth, and then closed it again, rendered speechless. “You would simply execute them now?” Linda asked, stepping into the breach. “You don’t want to indenture them and put them to work?”
“Many of them started out as indentured workers,” Captain Stalker pointed out, calmly. He didn’t seem bothered at all by the implication. “There is no reason to believe that they will revert to being good workers, now that we took them prisoner. Justice needs to be done, Governor, and the punishment is laid down in Imperial Law. They are sentenced to death by hanging.”
His gaze sharpened. “And, besides, if we put them back to work, how long are they going to stay there?”
Brent stared down at his hands, and then up at the map of Camelot his aide had placed on the wall. It was a political map, rather than one reflecting the local population demographics, and it mocked him every time he looked at it. The Council wouldn’t be happy if he simply went along with the Captain, yet…if he refused to execute the bandits, he’d lose whatever remaining support he had from the middle class. They’d know that they had spared the bandits for political reasons.
“Captain,” he said, finally. “You must realise that there are political issues here.”
“There are none,” Major George Grosskopf said, coldly. The Civil Guardsman leaned forward, his dark eyes aflame. “Governor, with all due respect, the Marines have just handed out a decisive lesson to the bandits, one that they will not soon forget. We killed over a hundred of their raiders at the cost of one injured Marine. We tracked down and obliterated one of their bases, rescuing – in the process – nineteen women who were being used as sex slaves. This isn’t something we should hide, as if we were ashamed of our own success, but something we should shout to the skies. We beat the bandits and utterly smashed them!”
Brent winced inwardly, trying to keep his face blank. The Major was right, even though he was associating himself with the victory. The Crackers fought because they had a political ideology and a political goal in mind. The bandits looted, raped and burned because they could…and because it was easier than actually having to work for a living. They wouldn’t want to continue their activities if they were being hunted relentlessly, even into the heart of the badlands themselves.
“There is also another issue here,” Captain Stalker said. “A population will support a war as long as it seems that there is a chance of victory. The problem here is that your population doesn’t believe in victory. Executing the bandits will send a very clear signal that you, at least, believe that victory is possible. It will encourage people to sign up for the new army.”
He smiled thinly, meeting Brent’s gaze. “As for the fact that the captured bandits are still in debt…you should just forget it,” he added. “Those debts are never going to be paid off.”
Brent scowled at him. It wasn't Brent who cared about their debts, but the men and women who had purchased their debts off the ADC before it collapsed into a shell of its former self. Markus and Carola Wilhelm, among others, would certainly push the issue in the next Council meeting, even though Captain Stalker was right and they would never see any return on those investments. But then, Captain Stalker couldn’t be removed from office…legally, Brent couldn’t be removed either, but the Council could make governing the planet impossible. Again, he cursed his predecessor under his breath. The man had been a moron. Avalon was nowhere near ready for an independent Council.
“I take your point,” he said, finally. He had a nasty suspicion that if he refused his permission, the Marines were just going to go ahead and hang the captives anyway. Abigail had looked up the relevant section of the Imperial Code of Military Justice and had concluded that the Marines owned the prisoners, body and soul, until they chose to hand them over to local authority. “What do you intend to do with them?”
“Two days from now, it is market day in Camelot,” Captain Stalker said. “I intend to hang them publicly.”
“Are you out of your…there’ll be a riot,” Linda protested in disbelief. “The bandits have friends within the city!”
“All the more reason to hold the executions there,” Captain Stalker said. He sounded amused by her protests. “Their friends should learn the price of supporting the bandits.”
Brent stood up and paced over to the window, staring down over his capital city. It wasn't much, but it was his. There would be no other posting for him once he left Avalon, no other chance to make his mark in the history books. He had long since realised that even now, he wouldn’t have that chance. Avalon had a habit of taking dreams and sucking them out, leaving nothing behind, but the tired bitter shell of a man. Officially, there were no homeless on Avalon. There was enough work for all. Unofficially…things were different.
He looked towards the slums and shuddered. The reports were terrifyingly clear. Every year, a greater percentage of Avalon’s population found themselves homeless, so deep in dept that it was hopeless to even dream of escape. The conditions in the slums were appallingly bad. Only the foodstuffs provided by the handful of Church missions kept the population alive. It was a nightmare, one that could never end as long as Avalon remained unchanged. He had once hoped to change it, but now…all he could do was wait and see out his term. The next Imperial Governor might have more authority or backbone.
Oddly, the thought spurred him on. “See to it,” he ordered, without turning around. A fishing boat was coming into the harbour and he watched, feeling a moment of envy for the sailors who had so little else to worry about. They could set their sails of silver and sail over the horizon, vanishing to one of the unexplored continents or illegal settlements on the Golden Isles. They weren't bound to a city permanently on the verge of collapse. “I want them hung and I want you to make it very clear why they were hung.”
He ignored Major Grosskopf’s surprised look, or Captain Stalker’s half-smile. “If it is to be done, then it might as well be done properly,” he added. Perhaps showing the mailed fist inside the velvet glove would convince some of the Council to moderate their knee-jerk opposition to everything he did. “It may even serve a useful purpose.”
“Thank you, sir,” Captain Stalker said. If he was pleased at his victory, he showed no sign of it. But then, he barely had to care. “They will be hung on market day.”
Brent barely heard him. He was too busy watching the sailing boat as it docked at the harbour, unloading a silvery horde of fish. Haddock, Cod and other Earth-native fish competed uneasily with Avalon’s own native creatures. Some of them had to be carefully weeded out, for they were deadly poisonous. Others were a delicacy if prepared properly. His own cook was a past mistress at preparing proper meals.
“Thank you,” he said, finally. “And well done. Please congratulate your men for me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
One of the commonest signs of social decline lies in the separation of the elites from the masses. Where the elites – the leadership – share the concerns of their people, government proceeds smoothly. Where the elites are physically and socially separated from their people, they start designing policies that are actively harmful to the masses. This is nowhere clearer than it is in the issue of criminal justice.
- Professor Leo Caesius, The Waning Years of Empire (banned).
Market Day on Avalon had been intended as a special holiday, or so Michael Volpe had been told. The ADC had planned the day so that farmers on the outskirts of Camelot could bring in their produce and sell it directly to the grateful citizens of the city, while taking time to enjoy the city and spend time among its distractions. In reality, it hadn’t taken long before the vested interests took over the holiday and started taxing the farmers who tried to break the official monopoly on food transport, leaving Market Day as little more than just another day. Michael valued it only because it served as a chance to make some money on the sly.
He walked from stall to stall, offering his help to the dealer in exchange for petty cash. Some of them would need a strong man to help them set out their boxes; others stared at him suspiciously, as if they suspected he intended to steal their produce and vanish into the side streets before anyone could catch him. It was a depressingly familiar scene, yet what choice did he have? There was no other employment for someone like him.
At seventeen years old, Michael had come to the conclusion that his life was already over. The son of a indent mother and a colonist farmer, he had inherited some of his father’s debt, even though his mother had literally owned nothing, but the clothes on her back. His father might have abandoned the family just after Michael had been born, yet the debt sharks never forgot. The moment he signed on to work at any official job, they’d start tapping over three-quarters of his salary to pay the interest on the debt. Michael was far from stupid and had painstakingly worked his way through the math. If he got a good job, if he worked for over fifty years, he might just pay off the interest alone…by which point more would have piled up. It was a perfect trap. He couldn’t work without losing most of his salary; he couldn’t even refuse to pay. There was no escape.
He saw a young-looking farmwife with old eyes and paused long enough to help her unload her nag, before accepting a handful of coins in payment. It was dangerous to carry too much – the criminal gangs who also infested the marketplace might notice and take it off him before he could get back home – but a few coins probably wouldn’t attract their interest. The coins were the only untraceable funds on Avalon and there were laws against holding too many of them, even though most people simply ignored them. Paying money into the Bank of Avalon was a sure-fire way to lose most of it to pay a debt.
“Thank you,” he said, accepting an apple she tried to press on him as part-payment. Winking at her, he strode off, looking for others to help. He passed a set of farming tools that had been handmade by one of the local craftsman and cast an eye over some of the sharper blades, before the craftsman reached for an obvious shotgun under the table. Michael shrugged at him and walked onwards, feeling a tingle running down the back of his shoulder blades as the old man’s glare followed him.
An hour passed slowly, but he was in no hurry. His mother would be working herself – in order to survive, she sold herself to men – and his younger half-brother would be out with his gang. It was yet another thing to worry about. The street toughs hadn’t forced Michael to join them, as they had some of their other members, but one day he knew they’d call for him. He’d seen the results of gang violence and wanted to stay away from it, yet what other choice did he have? The Civil Guard would laugh at him if they heard his complaint. No one in their right mind would trust them to solve a problem.
As if his thought had called them forth, a group of men dressed in combat uniforms appeared at one end of the market, marching upwards towards the middle of the square. The wooden stage had been intended for live performances of plays, but now…now it was empty. Michael realised, with a shock, that someone had renovated it, adding a wooden construction he didn’t recognise. The soldiers weren't Civil Guardsmen, he saw, as they passed him, but something else. They held themselves with an easy discipline that shouted out that they ruled…and no one else could even challenge them. Their assurance was so powerful that Michael found himself backing away before his mind had even caught up with the thought. A thought seemed to echo through the crowd…
Marines…
Michael felt a sudden bitter surge of envy. The young men and women had everything he ever wanted and more, free of debt and the legacy of a father who had never cared for his son. They walked with their heads held high, as if they had nothing to worry about, without any trace of fear in their stance. He wanted to be them and knew that it would never happen. Avalon’s Imperial Navy recruiting station was moribund and had been so for years. Joining the Civil Guard would have been worthless.
And then he saw the prisoners.
***
Nelson Oshiro struggled against the shackles binding his hands and feet, even though he knew that it was useless. The chains were overkill, intended to make it very clear to both the prisoners and the watchers that they were prisoners and leave no one in any doubt as to what was going to happen to them. He tried to hold his head up high and face the sneers from the watching crowd with determination, but somehow he couldn’t maintain the pose. The crowd was hissing them as the truth sunk in. Here, in front of them, were some of the dreaded bandits who had been driving their food prices upwards. They were at the crowd’s mercy.
He pulled at the chains on his hands, but he couldn’t break them free, even with the crowd started throwing rotten food at them. He wanted to memorise names and faces, yet he knew it was futile. The Marines had interrogated him, drugged him and then interrogated him again, milking him dry of everything he knew about the Knives. They’d been dumped back in the same holding pen and had tried to come up with a shared story, but it hadn’t worked. The drugs had broken all resistance. A handful of prisoners bore marks from when they’d tried to lie and their interrogators had dealt with it brutally. They had betrayed the remainder of the gang. If the Marines let them go, which didn’t seem likely, they would be hunted down and killed by their former comrades for betrayal.
A young girl leaned forward, shouted a curse that was lost in the roar of the crowd, and threw a rotten egg right into his face. Nelson tried to twist, to evade, but it was impossible. The egg struck his chin and shattered, sending a horrifying smell wafting up towards his nostrils. He wanted to vomit, but somehow held it in. He had the nasty feeling that showing any kind of weakness would only make it worse.
The Marines pushed them up a ramp towards a stage and lined them up in front of the crowd. The hail of rotten food had faded away as a new air of anticipation settled over the crowd, with faces exchanging knowing looks that somehow made Nelson feel sick. At first, he didn’t understand what was happening, and then a Marine hooked a noose over his neck, drawing it tight. It was suddenly very hard to breath. He wanted to open his mouth to protest, but it was far too late.
***
Michael watched as the Marines slowly lined up the prisoners in front of the crowd, hanging nooses around their necks. The former bandits didn’t look terrifying any more, not after the crowd had shown their fondness for their tormentors by covering them in rotten food. They looked tired and desperate, staring around as if they expected someone to come free them at the last minute. The crowd was in an ugly mode. Michael sensed, somehow, that if the Marines had freed the prisoners and dumped them into the crowd, the prisoners would have been brutally killed by the civilians. No one had any mercy for bandits.
One of the Marines stepped forward, his voice echoing out over the crowd, somehow enforcing silence. “These men were captured in the act of pillaging their local townships, burning crops and raping innocent victims,” he said. Michael shivered. Rape was one of the local gang’s favourite pastimes. One day, it might be his half-sister lying on the ground as the assholes took turns. “They have been found guilty under Imperial Law and have been sentenced to death.”
The ugly note of the crowd seemed to grow louder. The prisoners, suddenly realising what was going to happen to them if they hadn’t realised before, started to protest, pleading for help and mercy. No one was inclined to give it to them. The crowd had no time for a loser. Michael had seen street thieves given rough justice at the hands of the crowd before and it made no difference that the new victims were from outside the city. They deserved to die.
“The sentence will be carried out,” the Marine said, somehow speaking over the crowd. “May God have mercy on their souls.”
***
Nelson wanted to panic, but somehow he held his peace, thinking desperately. If he could think of something important, something the Marines needed to know, perhaps they would spare his life…but there was nothing. The interrogators had pulled everything he knew out of him and drained him dry. There was nothing left to offer.
The Marines had attached the ropes to a single machine at the rear of the stage. It hummed to life, slowly pulling in the rope…and lifting the prisoners above the ground, slowly choking the life out of them. Nelson drew in a breath as the rope came tight, trying to hold on as long as possible. His legs started to stretch as the rope pulled him upwards; somehow, despite himself, he felt the life slipping out of his body…
Faces started to appear in front of him. His mother and father, the ones who had birthed him and abandoned him when he was ten years old, shaking their heads sadly as they walked away. Jenny, the first girl he had admired from afar, a tall brunette who had somehow maintained her smile in the Undercity…until the day he’d grabbed her suddenly and taken her brutally, convinced that that was what she wanted. She’d screamed and screamed, but he’d thought he'd known better, until he found out that she’d killed herself afterwards. He’d dismissed her from his thoughts until her face reappeared in front of him, mocking him, joined by his other victims. His vision was blurring as the faces merged together into one leering shape; a voice was whispering, right at the edge of his mind…
There was a snap, and then nothing. Nothing at all.
***
Michael watched as the bandits died one by one, their bodies jerking as their necks snapped. Some of them had clearly been trying to struggle, others seemed to have accepted their fate, but it hadn’t mattered in the end. They were all dead, hanging from the ropes like demented puppets. Silence fell over the crowd as it sank in, and then there was a roar of approval. Michael felt his own voice echoing as he joined in the roar. The rough justice suited the crowd. How could it not have suited them?
The Marines walked from rope to rope, cutting the dead bodies down and letting them fall onto the stage. They looked as if they had died in agony. A Marine pushed up a trolley and the bodies were unceremoniously dumped onto it, left to wait for disposal. They’d probably be taken to the mass grave outside town and buried there, unless they were fed to the creatures in the zoo instead. It was just possible.
“We fought the bandits and won,” the lead Marine said. His voice somehow silenced the crowd again. “We proved that they can be beaten. Now we have an offer for everyone. Your planet needs you; we need new recruits for the army we intend to build to exterminate the bandits and rebels alike. If you are interested in joining up with us, please go to the recruiting booth we have opened in the Imperial Office.”
He leaned forward, as if he were going to whisper a secret. “And we pay in cash,” he added. “Your salary can be paid each month, or it can be banked with the Imperial Bank, rather than the Bank of Avalon. You won’t have to pay off any debt-mongers if you don’t want to.”
A rustle ran through the crowd. He had just told them that they could earn their salary…and keep it, keep all of it. Very few of the city’s population had gone into debt willingly, but they had inherited their debt from their parents. Young men like Michael had had no hope, until now. He looked up at the Marines, watching calmly in their uniforms, and wondered if he could join them. Did he have whatever it took to be one of them?
Yes, he told himself. It was an opportunity that would never come again.
“It won’t be easy,” the Marine said. “It will be the hardest thing many of you will have ever done, but it is worth it. We will allow any of you a chance to come and prove yourself.”
Michael watched as the Marines jumped down and walked off, taking the dead bodies with them. The gallows they left behind, probably for the next group of captured bandits. He walked away, shaking his head; he’d seen death before, but watching an execution was something new. A thought struck him and he broke into a run as he ran towards the centre of town. If the word spread as fast as he expected, the entire city would be trying to sign up.
He reached the Imperial Office – a prefabricated building just north of Government House – and was unsurprised to discover that seventeen people had beaten him to it. Eleven of them were young men like himself, who had grown up on the streets; the remainder were young women, including two who had probably been forced into prostitution to feed themselves. It wasn’t uncommon in Camelot, not when prostitutes – too – were paid in cash. The women would have faced the same debt problem as Michael did when they tried to hold normal jobs. As prostitutes, the only person taking a cut of their income would be their pimp.
The queue stretched around the block by the time the doors opened, allowing three of the prospective recruits to enter at a time. Michael waited as patiently as he could for his turn, following a young woman who looked as if she had barely entered her teens into the Imperial Office. A smiling man wearing a uniform he didn’t recognise showed him into a private room, where he came face-to-face with a scarred man who scowled at him.
“So,” he thundered. “You want to join up, do you?”
Michael nodded, too terrified to speak.
“Take this,” the man said, passing Michael a small egg-sized device that he held in his hand. “Understand; the first time you lie to me, I’ll boot you out and you can forget about joining anything more worthwhile than the sanitation department. Now…”
He fired off a long list of questions at Michael, who stumbled as he tried to answer them. Some made sense, asking about his family and his father’s name, others made no sense at all. Why did the Marines want to know about his political leanings? What political leanings did he have anyway? It wasn't as if he’d ever be able to pay off his debt and claim the franchise. He found himself growing more and more impatient with the list of questions, and then it dawned on him that the questions were a test in themselves. The Marines wanted to know how patient he was.
“Good enough,” the recruiter growled, finally. He didn’t sound happy, which made him unusual in Michael’s experience. Most recruiters wanted as many young bodies as they could get, although he’d never met a military recruiter before. Perhaps there were limits to how many men and women the Marines could recruit. “Do you understand that you will be going into an area where heavy discipline is the norm, where you might be injured in training and where you will be expected to obey all orders, without hesitation?”
“Yes, sir,” Michael said. “I understand.”
“No, you don’t,” the recruiter said. “You just think you understand.”
Michael said nothing.
“Be at the spaceport in three days, with this card,” the recruiter said, holding out a piece of cardboard. Michael was somehow unsurprised to see his picture on the card. “Time and date are on the card. If you don’t show up then, don’t bother to show up at all. And, if you get your ass shot off, don’t blame me.”
Michael stared down at the card and then nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
…Increasingly, the young men and women of the Empire – those born to the Middle and High Classes, at least – are concentrating on living for the now and not thinking about the future. They sense, however dimly, that the Empire has no future.
- Professor Leo Caesius, The Waning Years of Empire (banned).
They heard the music long before they rounded the corner, a thumping beat that spoke of dancing and forgetfulness. Jasmine felt the beat reaching out to her as the four Marines strode down the street, glancing from side to side. The middle-class zone of Camelot was a study in contrasts; in the day, it was all staid and respectable, but in the night the party began. Lighted shops offered everything from pornography to drugs, while hookers waited at lampposts, accosting men and offering their services. The young and desperate thronged through the streets, taking little note of the Marines as they sought the next high, or something else that could make them forget their troubles for a night.
“It sounds like a party,” Blake said, cheerfully. Jasmine, who would have quite happily remained in barracks for the night, scowled inwardly. They might have been on leave, but platoon comrades never left each other alone – unless one of them got lucky, of course. Blake and Joe might want to look for suitable partners – and Koenraad had come along for the ride – but Jasmine didn't share their enthusiasm. A night of guiltless sex with someone who had no idea of what she did for a living didn’t appeal. “Shall we go gatecrash?”
“It could be fun,” Joe agreed, with a wink. “You want to bet on who comes home with the most panties?”
“After those bastards in 1st Platoon showed them that game, maybe not,” Blake said, with a leer of his own. One of the less endearing Marine traditions was picking up a girl each night, or maybe two or three a night, and stealing her panties afterwards to prove that they had scored. Jasmine privately thought that it was a silly tradition and had said so, more than once. “They were boasting about how Camelot girls were easy.”
“They probably want a handsome Marine to marry them and get them out of the slum,” Koenraad said, unexpectedly. He looked up at their bemused glances. “So I study local politics. You want to make something of it?”
Jasmine shook her head. Marines were expected to have hobbies in their spare time, even though it was the shared belief of every Marine that spare time was a delusion invented by a particularly sadistic drill sergeant. Koenraad had spent his time earning a degree in sociology from the University of Earth, although they had refused to grant him a doctorate as his work was hardly ‘non-judgemental and sensitive.’ A Marine who had spent his time in various hellholes being shot at by the natives – normally after the Empire’s vast army of bureaucrats had gotten something wrong and seriously hacked off said natives – would have a very different view of their culture than a high-browed academic who’d never spent a day of his life off Earth.
“All the better for us,” Blake declared, as they passed a line of street toughs. Jasmine braced herself, expecting a fist-fight, but the toughs somehow picked up on their true nature – even though the civilian clothes they were wearing – and wisely backed off. There might have been nine of them, but the Marines would have handed them their heads, even without weapons. “We can have all the pussy we want and no one will say boo to us.”
Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Do you ever think about anything apart from women?”
Blake pretended to consider it. “No,” he said, finally. “I guess I’m a naughty Blake. Mama Coleman would not be impressed.”
Joe chuckled. “Remember,” he said, in a passable impression of Sergeant Young, “a soldier who won’t fuck won’t fight.”
“And a soldier who fucks when he should be fighting won’t be fucking for much longer,” Jasmine said, in a rather less passable impression of her first Drill Sergeant. The fornication excuse for being late back to barracks worked once; after that, it was punishment duties for any repeat offender. “Just remember to pay them in local coins.”
“I am offended at your suggestion that I might have to pay them,” Blake countered, archly. “Why, there are women who pay me to have sex with them.”
Koenraad laughed. “If that is true, Blake, why are you still here?”
“Because without me, you’d all be dead by now,” Blake said. He snorted dryly. “Who has the local cash anyway?”
Joe reached into his pocket and brought out a roll of paper notes, produced at the Bank of Avalon. Jasmine hadn't been impressed when she’d first seen them. Any halfway competent forger could have produced millions of counterfeit banknotes and used them to wreck an already-unstable currency. They were, in theory, equal to the Imperial Credit and could be exchanged one-for-one, but the Bank of Avalon had tried to overcharge the first Marines who had attempted to exchange their money.
It had been Joe who had come up with the solution. He’d taken an inventory of the songs and tunes the platoon had brought with them from Earth, and then sold them to distributors in Camelot, giving them advance access to the currently-fashionable music from Earth. Jasmine disliked the howling racket that was the height of fashion on Earth – it sounded like an army of cats howling at the moon while being savaged by wild dogs, in her considered estimation – but it had brought the platoon plenty of local money. By the time the official releases reached Avalon, the music would already be old and forgotten.
“There’s enough here to wipe your bottom after eating in the mess,” Joe said, as he passed out bundles of notes. Jasmine took hers and stowed it in her inside pocket. “I’m not sure what else it will buy here. It won’t be long before they start producing million-credit banknotes.”
“Probably,” Koenraad agreed. “They’re in the middle of an inflation spiral right now and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.”
“Hey,” Blake said, as they turned another corner and saw the party. “We don’t want to know about economics and maths and boring shit like that. We want to go to a party!”
He slapped Jasmine on the shoulder. “And you can play the game too,” he said. “We’ll let you bring home underpants instead of panties and see who wins.”
“Get fucked,” Jasmine said, dryly.
“I intend to,” Blake countered. He smiled at her. “Come on; live a little. It might be fun.”
“I seem to recall that we end up being thrown out of places that that or being chased back to barracks by the wasps,” Jasmine said. “If we have to spend the next week cleaning toilets, I’m going to do something awful to you. Something so unspeakably awful that I haven’t even thought of it yet.”
Blake chuckled and ambled towards the party, followed by the other three. The party seemed to have started in one large hall and spread rapidly into several others. There were hundreds of young men and women dancing in the first hall, while others pushed in and out as they grew tired of the music. Jasmine rubbed the back of her temples as the noise grew louder. She’d been in powered combat armour under fire and that hadn’t been anything like so much of a racket. The rate of ear trauma on Avalon, she decided, had to be quite high.
A topless girl danced past with her breasts bobbling as she moved. From the dazed look in her eye, Jasmine guessed that she was on some kind of stimulant, probably something grown illegally in the countryside and shipped into the city. Her hard nipples seemed to mock everyone as she moved from boy to boy, kissing each of them before moving on to the next. From the laughter that followed her, Jasmine had the very clear impression that she wasn’t operating entirely of her own volition.
Sparkle dust, probably, she thought. Sparkle Dust was banned on almost every world in the Empire, with good reason. Properly prepared, it acted as a mild hypnotic, allowing someone who took it to enter a state where they would follow almost any suggestion they were given. The girl had probably taken it on a dare – or it had been slipped into her drink – and someone had suggested that she act the wanton for the night. She was going to be very embarrassed in the morning.
“I knew we'd have fun,” Blake said, as they pushed their way towards a makeshift bar. It looked as if it was going to topple over at any second, although that hadn’t stopped people from covering it with barrels and glass bottles of drinks. Avalon might nor produce much in the way of produce, but it was generally agreed that it produced excellent beer, although there was little point in exporting it to other star systems. It wasn't cost-effective. “I should have worn my uniform. That always brings in the girls.”
He leaned across the counter and smiled at the barmaid, a girl who looked as if she had seen too much in her young life. She couldn't be much younger than Jasmine herself, but her eyes were those of an old woman. “Four beers please,” he said, waving the wad of cash under her nose. “We’re thirsty and starving.”
“We take Imperial Credits only,” the barmaid said, tiredly. Blake leaned over and glared at her. Jasmine sighed inwardly, even though she knew that the barmaid deserved it. It was illegal – if good business – to refuse payment in local currency. “All right. I’ll pour you four beers.”
“And pour one for yourself as well,” Blake said, affably. He passed across some of his banknotes. “Please don’t try to short-change me. I’ll never live it down.”
Jasmine smiled inwardly at the barmaid’s expression. She didn't know it, but one of the many secrets implanted into the Marines was an implant that prevented them from becoming drunk, or even mildly inebriated. A pleasant buzz was the most they could expect from their drinks, even if they drank twenty pints each. She took a long pull at her glass and sighed in delight. The beer was cold and surprisingly good. She’d had drinks on Earth that should have been poured back into the horse.
“I’m going over there,” Blake said, pointing towards a table where several girls sat, giggling as they watched the Marines. “Come on; you might find one that’s into girls.”
Jasmine surveyed the girls and frowned. If what they wore was high fashion on Avalon, it proved that bad taste was truly universal. “I dread to imagine,” she said, primly. “You go have fun. I’m going to sit here and watch the crowd.”
“You don’t have to stay here, honey,” the barmaid said. “There are other places you can go.”
Jasmine shook her head as the crowd swallowed up Blake and Joe. Koenraad had vanished off somewhere, perhaps chasing a pretty girl. Blake and Joe might enjoy being in a party, but Jasmine felt out of place. Her strict upbringing hadn’t prepared her for such debauchery and her experience in the Marines meant nothing to the young fools on the dance floor. They would never understand what it was like to crawl through the mud, trying to sneak up on an enemy position, or the costs of her career. Her father had understood, the day she’d told him that she was leaving to go to Boot Camp, but few others outside the Marines knew or cared. They were the only real family she had.
An hour passed slowly as the dancing swirled around her. The music never seemed to stop – she suspected that it was produced by a computer, rather than a human band – and dancers joined or left at will. She caught sight of Joe, locked in an embrace with a pretty girl, and Blake, being...serviced by a girl in public, and recoiled, even though no one else seemed to care. It reminded her of the last days on Han before everything had gone to hell. No one might have said it out loud, but Avalon was a dying world.
She was turning sharply before her mind caught up with what she had seen. There was a girl, over at a table, surrounded by three tough-looking guys. Jasmine locked her eyes on them and realised in a sudden burst of horror that she knew the girl. Mandy Caesius’s red hair was almost impossible to mistake.
Silly bitch, Jasmine thought, angrily. The Professor and his family might have finally obtained housing in the richer section of town, but his silly spoilt daughter still had to get her kicks somehow, even if it meant coming right into the seedy area of town without an escort. Jasmine had privately wondered if the Professor had hoped that she’d play Mandy’s older sister, but there just hadn’t been the time. Captain Stalker wouldn't have bothered to pussyfoot around the issue; if he’d wanted Jasmine to baby-sit the girl, he would have issued orders and left it to her to carry them out.
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!”
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UrusaiKaimuki
- Redshirt
- Posts: 6
- Joined: 2010-11-29 03:26pm
Re: The Empire's Corps
I think I just peed a little
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UrusaiKaimuki
- Redshirt
- Posts: 6
- Joined: 2010-11-29 03:26pm
Re: The Empire's Corps
Awesome story, although I wonder where this story is going. I find it hard to believe that the bandits are going to be the main antagonist in your story.