The Empire’s Corps: Book 01 - The Empire's Corps (66 page)

***

Gaby sat on a bench in her prison cell, waiting. The Marines had been surprisingly civilised about holding her prisoner, but they had been very firm. She’d been taken to a different room, drugged and interrogated, and then returned to her cell, several times. The effects of the drugs had taken their toll, including making her lose track of time. She had no idea how long she’d been in the cell, yet she was convinced that it hadn't been very long. They’d certainly treated her better than she’d treated Blake Coleman.

The door opened and a pair of Marines arrived, wearing the same featureless black armour that they always wore. One of them beckoned her to her feet and they escorted her out of the cell. They didn't bother to cuff or shackle her, a gesture of contempt; there was no way she could escape from even a single armoured Marine. There wasn’t even any dignified way she could offer resistance. They led her through a series of featureless corridors and finally pushed her into a room. It wasn't the standard interrogation chamber; it had a table, three glasses of water and two men sitting, waiting for her. One of them stood up and held out a hand. She recognised him.

“Captain Stalker,” she said, taking his hand out of habit. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but the Marine Captain was impressive, even if he didn't have quite the same striking appearance as Blake Coleman had had. She reminded herself, as she was waved into a chair, that he commanded the respect of some very dangerous men and women and warned herself not to underestimate him. She had no idea why he had called her, but she doubted that it was good news. “What can I do for you?”

“You will be pleased to know that we recovered Rifleman Coleman from the farmhouse you had converted into a prison,” Captain Stalker said. His voice held traces of an Earth-accent, but they were fading into the melange of Avalon’s dialect. “Thank you for not abusing him.”

Gaby felt oddly relieved. She’d come to respect Blake Coleman, even if they had been enemies. “We tried to treat him decently,” she said, with a flash of guilt. They’d treated him as they had to prevent him from escaping...and few reasonable men would have called that decent. “I’m glad to hear that he is alive.”

Captain Stalker leaned forward. “You were interrogated quite heavily, as you know,” he said. “We know that you were reluctant to move ahead with Operation Headshot and that you didn't intend to cause so many civilian casualties. We also know that you wanted to try to seek a peace deal before continuing the war. Do you still want to try to create a peace?”

Gaby snorted. “I’m in prison,” she said. “What do you think I can do to create peace?”

Captain Stalker smiled. It was a genuine smile, one that touched his eyes. “We have an offer for you,” he said. “The Council has been disbanded...and its corrupt members have been dealt with. Their possessions, including the debts they owned, have been claimed by the Government. It is our intention to simply forgive those debts. There is no way that they could ever be repaid and they just kept the planet down, preventing the development of a proper industry. Keeping them serves no useful purpose.”

“I see,” Gaby said. Desperate hope warred with fear in her breast. “You do realise that that will give the right to vote to the entire adult population? Avalon will become an autonomous world.”

“I do,” Captain Stalker said. His smile grew wider. “I understand that that was what you were fighting for all along?”

“...Yes,” Gaby said.

“So we have an offer for you,” Captain Stalker said. “You get what you want; we get, in exchange, the end of the war. There will no longer be any reason for the Crackers to exist and fighting the Government...”

“We will be part of the government, if the elections are fair,” Gaby pointed out. “Doesn't that bother you at all?”

“I read the transcripts of your interrogation,” Captain Stalker said. “I know that you meant every word. I suspect that not all Crackers share your...idealism, but it’s a start. Anyone who wants to carry on the fight after winning the war can be...dealt with.”

Gaby frowned. “It sounds wonderful,” she said. Captain Stalker chuckled. “And what happens when the sector capital says that you’ve overstepped your authority?”

“The blame will fall on my shoulders,” Captain Stalker said, firmly. He met her eyes squarely. “I don’t know how all of this is going to work out. There’s a lot of hatred on both sides, a lot of relatives wanting revenge for the dead. The peace may be broken within the year. We may not even be able to create a new Council by the time war breaks out again. But if we don’t try, we’ll never know.”

He held out a hand. “So,” he said. “Are you going to join us?”

Gaby took his hand. “We can, but try,” she agreed. She felt an odd flicker of...attraction deep inside, something she hadn't allowed herself to feel since she’d been pushed into a leadership position. “Welcome to Avalon, Captain.”

***

Afterwards, Edward watched as the three Raptors lifted off from Castle Rock, transporting the remaining Cracker prisoners back to the mainland, where they would be dropped off outside Camelot itself. Gaby would be going with them to pass on the message that the war could end and that the Crackers had won. Or, at least, they’d been offered what they’d claimed to be fighting for. Who knew how it would all end up?

“You took a risk,” Leo observed. “Is it really worth it?”

Edward shrugged. “This is the fourth rebellion I’ve been involved in,” he admitted. “They always get worse the longer they are allowed to drag on. Both sides decide to commit atrocities at will. If we can end this one now...it’s worth taking the chance. If not, the Crackers will be facing a united population and little support at home.”

He smiled. “And who knows?” He added. “It may all work out.”

Epilogue

Two months after the elections, an Imperial Navy destroyer appeared in the Avalon System. It waited long enough to confirm IFF signals with the orbital station, and then transmitted a long and encrypted message into the planetary communications network, before turning and heading back out towards the Phase Limit. It ignored all attempts to hail it and left the system before the message could be decrypted. It wasn't encrypted according to any of the Empire’s standard codes.

On Castle Rock, Edward downloaded the message into his private terminal and, after disconnecting the terminal from the main network, inserted the golden cross that Major General Jeremy Damiani had given him, through Leo. His hunch paid off and the message unscrambled itself, revealing hundreds of terabytes worth of data...and a single recorded message. Puzzled, Edward tapped the key and opened the record. A moment later, Damiani’s face appeared in front of him.

“Captain Stalker,” Damiani said. There was a flat tone to his voice that was curiously unlike him. It was odd to realise that the message had been created and transmitted during the fighting against the bandits. Earth didn't know, yet, that he’d concluded peace with the Crackers, or that he’d created a new government. “I'm afraid I have bad news.

“As we talked about the last time we met, the Empire has finally made some hard decisions about funding,” he continued. “I'm afraid that they’re pulling the Imperial Navy out of both the Trafalgar and Midway Fleet Bases; Midway, in particular, which should supply Avalon with Imperial Navy support, should it be required. The assistance of some of my friends” – he held up a golden cross identical to the one he’d given Edward – “has proved insufficient to convince the Imperial Navy to swing a ship through the Avalon System to recover you, or other units scattered along the Rim. By the time you receive this message, Captain, the Imperial Navy will be shutting down Midway and placing the base’s components into long-term storage. Certain Admirals believe that they will be back within the next decade, but I would be astonished if that were true. I think that these cuts are only the beginning.

“I don’t have to spell the consequences out for you. This message includes the final Marine Intelligence report on the sectors near Avalon, with what units we believe to have been abandoned and cut off by the Grand Senate. I suspect that the Secessionists will move in rapidly and try to pick up the pieces; the systems are already facing a colossal rise in piracy and related activities. We’re not sure if the Grand Senate has bothered to inform local governments about the funding cuts and the closed bases – I had to call in a lot of favours to get this message to you – but I think that as the realisation sinks in that they’ve been abandoned, the results are unlikely to be pleasant. Just how much you tell the Avalon Government about this is up to you. I’m sorry to dump all this on your shoulders, but I have been left with no choice.

“I’ve also included your promotion to Colonel,” he concluded. Edward winced at the shame in the Major General’s voice. “I’ll try and get other support out to you, but it’s not going to be easy. All I can do is wish you luck.”

An hour later, Edward convened a meeting of the new Planetary Council.

“I decrypted the message,” he said, grimly. “I’m afraid it’s bad news.”

His gaze moved from face to face. “The Grand Senate has spoken,” he continued. “They’re pulling out of this sector. We’re on our own.”

The End

A Short History of Avalon

Avalon was discovered by a scoutship in 2795 and formally claimed by the Williamson Combine, one of the Empire’s most powerful corporations. The ship’s captain, an admitted fan of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, asserted his authority and named many of the world’s continents after that era. Avalon’s one moon was named Merlin, the three main continents were named Arthur, Lancelot and Galahad and the system’s sole gas giant was named Genevieve. The planet was rated as a 97% - i.e. extremely suitable for human habitation – with only a handful of dangerous creatures. The Gnasher, a dog-like creature, was discovered to be the planet’s highest life form.

The Combine created the Avalon Development Corporation the following year and began the process of settling the planet, along with the construction of First Landing (later renamed Camelot). Stock in the ADC was purchased by several other corporations, a religion faction (the Reformed Church of Jesus Christ) and a number of private individuals. Once the landing zones were set up, the first settlers were shipped in and assigned to their homesteads. Following standard procedure, settlers who paid their own way were granted considerable territory on the planet, while those who signed settlement contracts with the ADC – and had their shipping costs met by the corporation – were given much smaller land grants or simply assigned to work for the first settlers. In addition, several thousand convicts were transported in from Earth and set to work as slave labour, doing the hard labour that early settlement required. The convicts were supervised by a handful of mercenaries hired by the ADC.

Everything proceeded smoothly until the ADC overextended itself heavily in 2825. Believing that the Empire intended to invest heavily in settlement and development within the Penelope Sector, the ADC had invested in a cloudscoop for Genevieve and an asteroid settlement in the asteroid belt. Unfortunately for the Corporation’s Board of Directors, the Empire’s ongoing political crisis – the aftermath of the struggle between the Grand Senate and the New Men was still sending shockwaves throughout the Empire – and the promised investment failed to materialise. A cloudscoop was simply an untenable expense without a guaranteed market and the ADC realised, grimly, that it had purchased a white elephant. Funding intended to bring in further colonists had to be diverted to maintaining the scoop, which served no useful purpose other than building up a reserve of starship fuel that might be useful one day.

Unluckily for Avalon, the ADC made a second mistake when it appointed Tom Cromwell as Governor in 2830. Cromwell was a financial analyst from Earth and lacked any experience of life along the frontier. His position was intended as a reward for service to the corporation, but the ADC would soon have due cause to regret its decision. Cromwell spent the first week of his governorship studying the situation on the ground, before beginning massive and painful budget cuts. This provoked immediate protest. A wiser man might have listened to the colonist protest groups – led by Peter Cracker – but Cromwell dismissed it. He added insult to injury when he invoked a rarely-used clause in the settlement contracts and unilaterally altered the contracts, effectively making it impossible for any of the indentured settlers to work themselves out of debt. Finally, he brought in thousands of additional convicts and treated them as slaves. Avalon’s political situation deteriorated until 2832, when all hell broke loose.

Cromwell had, perhaps wisely, decided to concentrate on building roads leading deep into the interior of Arthur, the settled continent. The methods he used for this, however, were deeply flawed. Not only were thousands of convicts used to build the roads, but indentured settlers were requisitioned and told to spend some of their work-week on the roads, rather than working towards paying off their debt. The result was inevitable. A number of convicts, exiled from Earth, escaped their supervisors and ran into a newly-settled town. The menfolk of the town were away working on the roads and the convicts didn’t hesitate to take advantage of the opportunity before them. They looted, raped and burned their way through the town. By the time the men returned and slaughtered the convicts, it was too late for their women and children, including those of Peter Cracker.

Cracker had been one of the leaders of the colonist protest groups, as well as a union organiser. He sent messengers to other towns and rapidly found himself leader of a rebellion against the ADC. The settlers took up arms and turned on the convict camps and their supervisors. The chaos spread across the continent to the point where Cromwell, far from ruling the entire system, could barely keep Camelot under control. A year after the rebellion broke out, the ADC’s carefully-planned system was in ruins and the rebels were marching on Camelot. It looked as if nothing could prevent them from hanging Cromwell and ending corporate rule once and for all.