Retreat Hell (21 page)

He wanted to shout questions, but he didn't quite dare.  Instead, he and the rest of the crowd watched as Colonel Stalker climbed into a vehicle and was driven off in the direction of the Main Hospital.  Behind him, the security forces did their work, dragging out the body of the shooter for transport to the nearest police station.  Emmanuel turned to look at the man, etching what remained of his face in his memory, then watched as the crowd moved forward threateningly.  If the shooter hadn't already been dead, he might well have been lynched on the spot.

I don’t know who you are
, he thought coldly,
but you’ve won everlasting infamy for yourself
.

***

Ed felt oddly helpless.  Command and control had been surrendered to the civil police force, although both the Marines and the Knights of Avalon had been placed on alert, ready to provide help and support if the police needed it.  The intelligence service was already rushing its best men and women to the police station, where they would start the long task of identifying the shooter and trying to determine his motivations.  There was nothing for Ed to do, but wait and pray that his lover survived.

He looked up as the doctor appeared and beckoned to him.  Ed stood and followed the doctor through a door into an observation chamber.  Peering through the window, he saw his lover lying on a bed, hooked up to a life support machine.  The left side of her head was covered by a medical pack, one of the newer inventions from the Trade Federation.  They’d taken standard medical nanites, Ed recalled, and improved the design considerably.

“She was lucky,” the doctor said.  He was a civilian, but like all of the planet’s doctors he’d had considerable experience in battlefield medicine.  “The bullet only grazed her skull, rather than penetrating her brain.  However, her skull
was
damaged and there may be long-term mental health problems.”

Ed swallowed.  The feeling of helplessness grew stronger.  He’d seen soldiers who’d taken head wounds ... and how some of them had been unable to heal after being discharged from the military.  Head wounds were dangerously unpredictable, even with the best medical technology available.

“Will ...”  He took a breath and tried again.  “Will she recover?”

“We will try to wake her up within a few days,” the doctor said.  “We’re keeping her under at the moment, allowing us to monitor her condition, but brain damage can be difficult to handle.  She may make a complete recovery or she may never wake up at all.”

Or anywhere in-between
, Ed thought, mutely.  He recalled one of the tours they’d taken on the Slaughterhouse, where they’d been introduced to retired Marines who had been medically discharged out of the corps.  Some of them had seemed almost normal, others had had to be restrained for their own safety.  Several, he’d been told, had killed themselves, unable to bear being trapped in their wounded bodies any longer.  And it could be worse, he knew, for soldiers and Civil Guardsmen. 
Their
superiors rarely gave a damn.

“Do the best you can,” he said.  Gaby looked so ...
helpless
on the bed, her chest rising and falling as she breathed in and out.  “And keep me informed.”

“This raises a political point,” the doctor said.  “Who’s in charge until she recovers?”

Ed gritted his teeth.  “Councillor Jackson,” he said.  Gaby had appointed him as her second, if she left Avalon for any reason.  At least it wasn't Councillor Travis.  “He will be President
pro tem
.”

He turned and left the room before the doctor could say another word.  The political nightmare was only just beginning.  If Gaby was out of office permanently, there would have to be an election to choose a new President.  And Councillor Travis would be well-placed to run for office.

Shit
, he thought.

Some merely charged for the food (when it was supposed to be free), while others refused to supply food to their rivals, hoping that their rivals would drop dead from starvation.  Instead, their rivals mounted constant challenges to their power.

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

“Violet,” her father called.

Violet Campbell straightened up from her desk, where she was trying to put a primitive spacesuit back together with inferior tools.  Her father had told her that if she succeeded, to the point where the spacesuit could be used in a vacuum safely, he would support her when she applied to join the RockRats for a course in space engineering and habitation.  But now ... he sounded worried.  She hadn't heard him sound so worried – and angry – since two little brats from Earth had managed to get lost in the station's storage compartments.

“Yes, father?”  She said, turning to face him.  He looked worried.  “What’s wrong?”

“There are two security officers here who want to question you,” her father said.  “You need to answer their questions.”

Puzzled, Violet allowed him to lead her through the corridor into what had once been the briefing room, back when the ADC had operated Orbit Station.  Now, it was empty, save for a single large metal table.  Two people, a man and a woman, stood at the far corner of the room.  The woman’s eyes went wide when she saw Violet.  Clearly, Violet sneered mentally, she’d expected someone older.  But spacer children learned to take care of themselves – and to work as soon as they could – even if groundside children remained ...
children
until they were adults. 

“Thank you for coming,” the woman said.  She was pretty enough, Violet decided, with short red-brown hair that looked like she hadn't bothered to comb it.  Her voice suggested that she was a native of Earth, rather than Avalon.  “My name is Kitty.”

The man grunted, but said nothing.

“We need to ask you some questions about this man,” Kitty said, passing Violet a terminal.  It showed a standard Immigration ID, complete with a picture that made the subject look simultaneously mad, bad and dead.  “I believe he passed through your part of the station.”

Violet gave her a reproving look – there were no other parts of the station – and then examined the picture.  She'd always had a good memory, but the picture was so bad it took her several moments to recall when they’d met.  He’d been one of the newcomers from Bohemia, if her memory hadn't failed her, the one who’d claimed to have saved the recruiter’s life.  And he’d been fast-tracked to Avalon by the recruiter’s company.

“He did,” she confirmed.  “He had an ID that was already cleared, so I sent him down to the shuttle.”

The man leaned forward, suspiciously.  “Already cleared?”

Violet nodded in confirmation.  “He said that he’d saved the recruiter’s life,” she said.  “It sounded like a nice story.”

“Someone cleared the way for him,” Kitty muttered.  “What can you tell me about him?”

“He was exhausted,” Violet recalled.  “His clothes were ill-fitting, his eyes looked tired ... I thought he would have managed to catch up on his sleep, even if he’d spent most of the voyage in a stasis tube.”

Kitty’s lips twitched.  “It doesn't work like that,” she said.  “Did he pay any special attention to you?”

Violet shrugged.  She was young enough to draw attention from adult groundhogs, old enough to draw attention from teenage groundhogs ... some of whom had probably heard rumours and lies about sexual freedom in space.  Not that she had any intention of taking up some of the offers she’d had over the years.  God knew she hadn't even started her period.  And if her father had heard some of them, he’d probably ban her from talking to groundhogs altogether.

“No,” she said.  She struggled to put her feelings into words.  “He just seemed ...
there
.”

Kitty lifted her eyebrows.  “There?”

Violet glanced back at her father, then looked at Kitty.  “Some newcomers resent having to wait in line and show their ID cards,” she said.  “Others seem excited to see the station, even though” – she waved a hand to indicate the gunmetal grey decor – “it isn't that interesting.  But this guy showed no reaction at all.”

She looked down at the deck, wondering just how much trouble she was in.  “What did he do?”

“Shot the President,” the man explained.

Violet gaped at him.  “Shot the
President
?”

“Yes,” Kitty confirmed.  “We’re trying to retrace his steps now.”

***

The Situation Room on Castle Rock hadn't been used much since the end of the Cracker War and the foundation of the Commonwealth, Ed knew.  It simply wasn't central enough to the capital for Gaby and her Councillors to reach, while it was too obvious a location for an emergency command installation.  Indeed, if an enemy
did
gain control of the high orbitals over Avalon, he fully expected Castle Rock – the home of the Marines – to be the first target they blasted with KEWs.  Only an idiot would engage the Marines on the ground if there was any alternative.

He took a seat at the head of the table and waited for Gwen, Kitty Stevenson and a handful of other officers to take their places.  Kitty looked as young as ever – intelligence officers had access to rejuvenation treatments denied to the vast majority of the Empire’s citizens – but her eyes were tired.  Ed smiled, silently grateful that the Empire had seen fit to abandon such an intelligence officer on Avalon.  She'd served the Commonwealth very well.

But she looked scared, he realised, as she turned to face him.

“I was expecting to find a rogue Cracker,” she said, softly.  Not
all
of the Crackers had accepted Gaby’s decision to come to terms with the new order and join the government.  Some of them had gone underground, threatening revenge at a later date.  But none of them had ever resurfaced.  “But what I found was far more frightening.”

Ed tapped the table.  “Please get to the point,” he said.  He was tired himself ... tired and desperate to get back to the hospital.  Maybe he could do nothing there, but at least he would be with Gaby.  “What did you find?”

Kitty tapped a switch.  A holographic image appeared in front of them, showing a young man wearing a standard uniform.  “Private Mathew Polk,” Kitty said.  “Born seventeen years ago on Avalon ...”

Ed recognised the name.  “Son of a bitch!”

“Yes, sir,” Kitty said.  She looked down at her terminal.  “Born seventeen years ago in Camelot City, Avalon; exact date unknown because his birth was never registered.  Apparently orphaned; grew up in an orphanage run by various concerned civilians.  Spent a year in a work camp at after being caught stealing from a factory owned by Councillor Wilhelm.  Released as part of the general amnesty that followed the fall of the old Council.  Joined the Knights of Avalon when he turned sixteen; apparently, he did very well and was assigned to the CEF.  Missing, believed dead, on Lakshmibai.”

“Shit,” Ed said.

It was a precept of the Marine Corps – one he’d introduced to the Knights – that no one was left behind, dead or alive.  Battlefields had been combed for the remains of fallen soldiers, enemy records had been scanned and enemy prisoners had been interrogated, just to get a hint of what had happened to missing soldiers from the brief bloody war.  But several soldiers had vanished completely on Lakshmibai, so completely that their bodies had never been found.

Ed had concluded, finally, that they’d been killed by their captors and their bodies burnt to ash or simply buried in an undisclosed location.  Lakshmibai was covered in mass graves, after all, and there had been no time to open them all up before they’d vacated the cursed world.  But to see one of the missing soldiers here ...

“Wolfbane,” he snarled.

Kitty nodded, one hand rubbing her tired eyes.  “No one else could have got him off the planet,” she said.  “But if they
did
have allies on the surface, someone could have handed Polk over to Wolfbane and then buried their tracks.”

Ed nodded, remembering the explosion that had killed Blake Coleman.  Had that been a fanatic’s last attempt to harm his enemies ... or had Wolfbane killed off their allies on Lakshmibai, preventing them from being interrogated?  Now, there was no way to know.

“His behaviour was indicative of someone who had been conditioned,” Kitty said, quietly.  “From the trail we’ve followed, he basically stayed out of sight as much as possible until the time came to act.  Someone, I suspect, smoothed the way for him as much as possible.”

She sighed.  “His arrival clearance was processed by Theodore Smith Immigration Services,” she continued.  “Violet Campbell told us that he claimed his path had been smoothed by a recruiter in gratitude for saving his life.  As far as we can tell, that story is nonsense – but it’s impossible to be sure.  The recruiter who went to Bohemia was killed in a bar fight two days after Polk arrived on the planet.”

“Someone was burying their tracks,” Ed commented.

“So it would seem,” Kitty commented.  “We traced him to McGhee Boarding House, an establishment with a reputation for discretion going all the way back to the days of the old Council.  When we arrived, we found Lucy McGhee dead on the floor, apparently the victim of a break-in gone badly wrong.  Her other tenants claim to know nothing about Polk’s presence in the building.  But then, several of the bastards had quite a bit to hide themselves.”

She shrugged.  “Logically, he must have had a support network on Avalon waiting for him,” she added.  “But, so far, all ties to them have been broken.  We don’t know who they are.”

Ed nodded.  Conditioning ensured that the victim was literally incapable of betrayal – or of betraying his former comrades, if the conditioning was applied until the victim could do longer separate right from wrong.  Whatever he might have been, he wasn't any longer; Polk would, eventually, have done whatever his new masters wanted him to do.  But it also interfered with a person’s ability to respond to unexpected situations.  A person who had been heavily conditioned would be noticeable.  No wonder Polk had stayed out of sight until the time had come for him to act ... and that his masters had ensured that he’d had assistance to remain unnoticed.

“Then we have to find them,” he said, although he had no idea how they could proceed.  It wasn't as if Avalon was Earth, with the civilised parts of the planet subject to constant monitoring.  “Before they do something worse.”

He glared down at his hands, thinking hard.  The picture of the dead assassin had been splashed all over the datanet; it wouldn't be long before Polk was recognised, even though most of the people who’d known him were currently on Thule.  And when they did find out ... there would be a demand for war.  Gaby might not have been liked by everyone, but she
was
respected ... and even if she'd been hated, Wolfbane had pulled off an assassination attempt that had killed nineteen innocent victims, directly or indirectly.  There would be war.

But there was simply too much about it that didn't make sense.  He could understand kidnapping a Commonwealth soldier for interrogation and conditioning – Polk might have only been a very junior soldier, but even a junior soldier saw more than a civilian – yet why turn him into an assassin?  Unless the idea was to try to blame Gaby’s death on the Commonwealth military?  But that struck him as thoroughly absurd.  Too many things could go wrong.

And besides
, he thought darkly,
everyone knows Gaby and I are lovers
.

Wolfbane was the prime suspect.  But the sheer nature of the whole plot practically
shouted
that Wolfbane was involved.  It wouldn't have been too difficult to insert someone completely new to Avalon, someone who couldn't be identified the moment his DNA was checked against the Commonwealth’s records ... someone with no visible tie to Wolfbane.  Ed could imagine a psychopath or a megalomaniac doing something so blatantly obvious – they’d practically signed their names to the crime – but everything they knew about Governor Brown suggested he was cold, calculating and not given to rash moves.

“I have to brief the Council in an hour,” he said, standing up.  “I want you to coordinate your efforts with the police in Camelot, but do whatever it takes to catch the operatives here.  We need to be rid of them before it’s too late.”

Gwen frowned.  “It may already be too late,” she said.  “The assassination attempt might be the first shot in a war.”

Ed froze, chewing himself out mentally.  He'd been so focused on Gaby – and the conditioned assassin – that he hadn't realised that the shit might have hit the fan elsewhere.  If Wolfbane had been lucky – very lucky – they might have managed to coordinate the assassination attempt with their forces streaming over the border and attacking the Commonwealth’s member worlds.  It would be tricky to manage the timing, he knew, but interstellar distances ensured that there would be some room for slippage.  They might just get away with it.

“Place our forces on full alert,” he ordered.  At least no lurking enemy fleet had appeared in the Avalon system, bent on attacking the shipyards.  But it was only a matter of time.  “And send an emergency signal to every planet in the Commonwealth.  A state of emergency exists – and war might break out at any moment.  All forces are to move to Case Theta-One.”