The Thin Blue Line (The Empire's Corps Book 9) (v5.1) (49 page)

“A pleasure to meet you, Marshal Cheal,” an unfamiliar voice said. Glen turned to see a short man wearing an urban combat uniform, with a single golden star pinned where his rank stripes should be. “You did well, I am told.”

“Thank you,” Glen said. He wasn't in the mood for games. “And you are ...?”

“Major General Jeremy Damiani, Commandant of the Terran Marine Corps,” the man said. “Perhaps the
last
Commandant of the Terran Marine Corps, but we will see.”

Glen shrugged, unimpressed. He’d heard that the Marines practically worshipped their Commandant, but he'd worshipped Patty – he’d liked, trusted and respected Patty – and she'd turned out to be a traitor. The Governor had made noises about offering Glen her post, something else that had prompted him to go with the Marines. He didn't want to be tied down to a desk. It was quite easy to wonder if
that
had driven Patty mad.

He looked down at Helen, instead. “What have you done to her?”

The Commandant looked up. “Doctor?”

A thin brown-skinned woman emerged from the rear of the compartment, carrying a datapad in one hand. “The patient is currently stable,” she said, “but she’s going to have a very nasty few months. We need to remove most of her augmentation before she starts her next growth spurt.”

Glen winced. Children grew up rapidly as they entered their teenage years. But Helen’s bones, replaced or enhanced by solid metal, wouldn't grow with her body. She would be doomed by her own growth, if something wasn't done first. Whoever had turned her into a cybernetic killing machine had known she would die, if she somehow managed to wander away from the Nihilists – or Glen. Her implants would probably destroy themselves – and her – before she grew up.

He looked up at the doctor. “
Can
you remove the implants?”

“We can break most of them down,” the doctor assured him. “A combination of tailored nanomachines and various ....
classified
... treatments will take care of them. The remainder will either have to be removed surgically or simply left in place, for fear of doing worse damage as we try to take them out. But none of them should be
dangerous
. Belinda crippled the processors that took control of her.”

Glen looked back at Helen. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” the doctor said. “We scanned every inch of her body as soon as we brought her into the sickbay. There isn't any room for a single piece of hardware to hide.”

“Glad to hear it,” Glen said. “Will she survive?”

“We think so, but it’s never easy to judge with mental trauma,” the doctor said. “She may blot it all out of her mind or she may be completely traumatised, assuming she wakes at all.”

The Commandant frowned. “We will give her the best care we can muster,” he said, quietly. “You have my word.”

“Thank you,” Glen said.

A hatch opened behind him, but he didn't look round.

“You’re out of uniform, Specialist,” the Commandant said. “Is there a reason for that?”

“Yes,” Belinda said, as Glen turned to face her. She was wearing a shirt and long trousers, rather than the BDUs worn by the other Marines. “I’m off duty.”

The Commandant gave her a sharp look, then motioned for them both to follow him into the next room. Belinda winked at Glen as soon as the Commandant’s back was turned, then followed the Commandant. Glen brought up the rear, taking one last look at Helen before the hatch hissed closed behind him. They walked through a handful of unmarked corridors until they reached a small office. It had to belong to the Commandant.

“The conference failed,” the Commandant said, without preamble. He waved them towards the coffee machine in the corner, then sat down behind his desk. “Ships from New Washington were reported in the Trinity System, presumably ...
convincing
Governor Heston to join New Washington. There are several other reports of military manoeuvres, but we have yet to receive confirmation. I am not hopeful they will prove false.”

Glen shuddered. Transit times between the Core Worlds were measured in days, not months. The failure of the conference would be common knowledge everywhere by now. And the surviving delegates had presumably left with nothing, but bitterness towards Terra Nova and the idea of saving what remained of the Empire. All hell was about to break loose.

“Yes, sir,” Belinda said. “We underestimated our enemy.”

“We don’t know who our enemy is,” the Commandant said. “Or do we?”

Glen leaned forward. “I have a theory,” he said. “But I don’t have any real proof.”

“Go ahead,” the Commandant said.

“The question facing any criminal investigator is means, motive and opportunity,” Glen said. “How the crime was committed, why the crime was committed and when the crime was committed. Means and opportunity we have. I started to wonder about motive.

“The Governor has no motive for destroying his own conference,” he continued, remembering how Belinda had thought it
was
the Governor. “He doesn't benefit from shattering any trust the rest of the Core Worlds might have placed in him.”

“If any,” Belinda said.

“If any,” Glen agreed. “Nor do the other delegates have much to gain from sabotaging the conference. At best, they'd start a war, a war that could easily see their own power bases destroyed in the fighting. My belief is that whoever attacked the conference wanted to start a war – and believes himself immune to discovery or reprisals.

“And then there was the weapon herself,” he added. “Helen had to have been modified some time prior to the conference being held. I think they knew, perhaps through Patty, about the conference as soon as it was planned, maybe even ahead of the rest of the delegates. And Helen was a trader, from a trader family, a family that hasn't reappeared since leaving Terra Nova. That much about her origins checks out.

“I think our enemy is numbered among the traders – or perhaps the RockRats,” he concluded, slowly. “They could have taken Helen and turned her into a weapon, then used her own parents to deliver her. A war that tore the Core Worlds apart would leave them alone, without having to suffer under repressive regulations that cripple their activities.
And
, perhaps most telling of all, Patty was involved in an attempt by a large interstellar corporation to drive independent traders out of a particular system. She was trying to defend the traders when she was reassigned to Terra Nova.”

“You think she was sympathetic to them?” The Commandant asked. “It seems too thin.”

“There's no one else who has a plausible motive, as well as means and opportunity,” Glen said. “The Nihilists would never have lured Patty into their clutches – and if they had, they could have depopulated Terra Nova by now. They weren't involved, I suspect, apart from being used to force the Governor to ramp up security. Patty could get away with a lot under martial law. No one would think to question her.”

He paused. “She once talked to me about our role in the Empire,” he added. “I think she might have been trying to recruit me.”

“Good thing she failed,” the Commandant said.

Belinda coughed. “Wouldn't the traders suffer if the Core Worlds were destroyed?”

“They’d have a chance to survive, if they tended to the worlds outside the Core,” Glen said, slowly. “The Empire was strangling the life out of them. This way, they get some breathing space.”

“While hundreds of billions of people die,” the Commandant said. He looked down at the empty table. “They have to be mad.”

Glen shook his head. “Their community is quite democratic, to the point where they even have a tradition of collective punishment,” he said. It was impossible to apply their system to anything larger than a small town, but it hardly mattered. People from one society rarely understood that other societies could be different. “From their point of view, holding the entire population of the Core Worlds accountable makes a great deal of sense.”

“I see,” the Commandant said. “What do you suggest we do about it?”

“I was planning to leave Terra Nova,” Glen said, frankly. He had no real intention of returning. Everything he’d left behind could be replaced, if necessary. Isabel was dead and he’d built up no real ties to anyone else. “I intended to go with Helen and become a trader, but I could go alone. Given time, I could hunt down the people responsible for the disaster ...”

“If you had a ship and a cover story,” the Commandant mused. “It might be workable. We could see to getting you a ship. And Helen would be able to join you, if she recovered.”

“Yes, sir,” Glen said.

The Commandant looked up, meeting his eyes. “You do realise you might be completely wrong?”

“I know, sir,” Glen said. “And I might never work my way into their counsels. But I cannot think of anyone else who has the means, motive and opportunity.”

“The Traders have always tried to push the limits of technology,” Belinda added. “Helen’s implants weren't exactly Pathfinder-grade, but they were alarmingly close. What might they have become if they’d been merged with a willing brain?”

“Something like you, perhaps,” the Commandant said. He keyed a switch. “Molly, please show Marshal Cheal to his quarters. He can dine with us tonight.”

“Marine-issue rations,” Belinda said. “Men have cut off their own toes rather than eat them.”

Glen smiled, then stood as Molly entered the room.

“You’ll have my decision soon enough,” the Commandant said. “Until then, I suggest you get some rest. I’ll see you tonight.”

Glen nodded, then left the compartment.

***

“I would like to resign, sir” Belinda said, as soon as the hatch was closed. “My conduct has not been in line with the traditions of the service.”

The Commandant held up a hand before she could start enunciating her failures. “You saved many of the delegates,” he pointed out. “Given how badly we were blindsided, it could easily have been a great deal worse.”

“I know, sir,” Belinda said. She felt the sudden urge to throw a tantrum and stamped on it, hard. Her emotional control was also slipping. “But I am starting to lose myself.”

“If there was a way to help, I would take it,” the Commandant said. “I told you, when this started, that I would prefer to keep you on the sidelines.”

“Yes, sir,” Belinda said. She took a breath. “I am becoming dangerous, to myself as well as my fellow Marines. That is not a good situation.”

“No, it isn't,” the Commandant agreed. “Do you believe the Marshal?”

“I think he has a point,” Belinda said, slowly. “But I was prepared to blame the Governor for everything. I never really considered the possibility of someone
else
plotting to blow up Island One and kill everyone onboard.”

She sighed. Augustus and Violet had survived, at least. God alone knew how long that would last. Terra Nova had a considerable amount of industry orbiting its star and the various warlords would definitely want to get their hands on it, even if the Governor didn't become a warlord in his own right. She'd considered sending them both a message, telling them to get out while they could, but she'd known it would be far too revealing.

“I am minded to let him take a starship and go,” the Commandant said. “We have no other leads to follow.”

Belinda looked at him. “Does it actually matter?”

The Commandant lifted his eyebrows. “Explain.”

“The conference failed,” Belinda said. “The war is about to begin, if it hasn't already started. Is there any point in hunting the people responsible down? And if we caught them, where would we try them?”

She’d seen enough High-Value Target snatch missions to know they were rarely effective. Often, the person captured would be replaced by another, who would promptly declare the previous person a martyr and use his name for propaganda. The war was about to begin. It seemed pointless to hunt the people responsible down, no matter how much revenge she wanted for Helen. There was no way they could be tried in front of a court.

“They have to be stopped before they do something worse,” the Commandant said. “I believe they attacked the Slaughterhouse too. What will they do
next
?”

Belinda gritted her teeth. It made sense. The only people who would willingly destroy an entire biosphere were people who weren't dependent on biospheres of their own. RockRats or traders, they’d consider themselves independent from planets – and if the Core Worlds decided to use planet-killing weapons on each other, so much the better. Attacking the Core Worlds to encourage the others to retaliate against the suspected culprits might help make the war worse.

The Commandant sighed. “I would like you to accompany him,” he explained. “You will be effectively on detached duty. I imagine it will take months or even years to pick up a trail, of there is one to find. And if you find something, you will have the pleasure of dealing with it – or calling for help, if necessary.”

“If there is help,” Belinda said. How long could the Marine Corps survive in hiding? It wasn't in their nature to hide. “It would be workable.”

She considered it. It wouldn't be the same as being on active duty, so she could relax and slowly fit into her new role. There would be less at stake, at least at first, with no real deadline. And she would be able to spend time with Glen. He wasn’t a Pathfinder; hell, he wasn't even a Marine. But that didn't matter.

“Very well, sir,” she said. “I will accept.”

“Then you will depart in a week or so,” the Commandant said. “You may as well give him the good news.”

“Yes, sir,” Belinda said.

Good for you,
Doug said.
You get to have your cake and eat it too
.

Belinda sighed as she walked out of the hatch, then ignored the voice as best as she could.

***

Glen looked up as the hatch bleeped, then opened. His quarters on the ship were best described as tiny, with hardly enough room to swing a cat, although he was alone. The presence of other bunks suggested the room was intended to hold at least four occupants, when the ship was at full capacity.

“Glen,” Belinda said. “I see they’ve put you in the guest quarters.”

“I’m glad I’m not claustrophobic,” Glen said, as he turned to face her. “What are the
real
quarters like?”