Retreat Hell (11 page)

She smiled, inwardly.  No one could ever have called the Empire’s hordes of reporters
neutral
, interested more in reporting the facts than slanting them in a particular way.  But some of Avalon’s reporters genuinely
were
... oddly, she suspected the Marines would find that more useful than either sycophants or politically-motivated enemies.  There would be mistakes and setbacks, but the public would realise that nothing was being covered up.

“I’ll take that chance,” Emmanuel assured  her.  He shifted under her weight.  “Ah ... stand up?”

Jasmine concealed her amusement as she lifted her leg, then lay down beside him.  She'd known, intellectually, that between the training and medical treatments she was considerably stronger than the average untreated man.  But she had never really believed it, despite all the fighting she’d been involved in, until she’d started dating Emmanuel.  It would be alarmingly easy to hurt him by accident.

It was odd, she realised, as she watched him stand up and make his way towards the shower.  Logically, she should have been interested in a fellow Marine – although, she knew, such relationships were strictly forbidden.  Emmanuel and her just weren't anything alike.  But maybe that was the attraction; she didn’t have to keep her game face on when she was with him.  But what did he see in her?

“Perhaps he likes the thought of dating a woman who can kick his ass with both hands tied behind her back,” Mandy had said, during one of their talks.  Mandy had been delighted at Jasmine finding someone, going so far as to send Jasmine suggestions for underwear and date nights.  “Or maybe you make him feel safe.”

Shrugging, Jasmine swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat upright, reaching for her chronometer.  She’d supervised her subordinates as they prepared the ships for departure, then given everyone the traditional Last Night on Avalon.  In a few hours, they would be expected to board shuttles and return to orbit – or face disciplinary charges when they reported into the garrison and confessed they’d missed departure.  Jasmine wouldn't be merciful to someone who overslept and nor, she knew, would any of the other officers.

Grinning to herself, she stood and padded naked into the bathroom.  This time, Emmanuel was looking at the door when it opened.  Jasmine smiled inwardly – no chance to surprise him this time – and walked over to where he was standing under the water.  His penis stiffened when she touched it, growing harder within seconds.  She recognised the signs and smiled, openly.  Like many young men, Emmanuel was taking pills to enhance his performance in the bedroom.

“Sit down,” she said, throatily.  If she was going to be without him for months, she could at least enjoy herself before she left.  The memories would help keep her warm at night.  “Now.”

***

Lucy McGhee had operated her boarding house for years, even during the days of the old Council.  A combination of bribes and blackmail had ensured that the Civil Guard left her and her tenants alone, while her reputation for discretion had allowed her fame to spread far and wide.  She asked no questions, as long as her tenants paid in cash and upfront, and shared no confidences with anyone outside the building. 

But she had to admit that the tenant in Room 23 was behaving oddly.  He’d paid for three weeks, in gold, then moved into the room ... and hadn't been seen since.  Lucy’s cooking was just as famous as her discretion and her guests could have it in the dining room or have it sent to their rooms ... and yet her tenant had asked for nothing.  Indeed, as far as she could tell, he hadn't left the room once, not even for food and drink. 

She puzzled over the mystery, then put it out of her mind.  Growing up under the old Council had left her with scant respect for law and order, let alone people who liked poking their noses into her business.  Whatever the young man was running from, he’d paid for discretion and he would
have
discretion.  She would leave him alone until his money ran out or his corpse started to smell.  It was, after all, what she’d been paid to do.

Logically, the people in command of the deployment should have been given autonomy to act as they saw fit, without reference to Earth.  It would certainly have reduced the message lag between Earth and the Rim.  But there were reasons why commanding officers were rarely given that much authority.

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

“You’ve done very well, Michael.”

Michael Volpe glowed.  He’d been aware that the Brigadier had been watching him as he struggled with the paperwork, but in the end he’d sorted it all out.  At first, he’d thought that the smaller units that made up the CEF were supposed to submit their own paperwork, leaving him with nothing more than the task of ensuring that they all had the correct schedule for boarding the starships, but it turned out that he was supposed to sign off on hundreds of smaller pieces of paperwork, everything from time in the simulators to ammunition stockpiles and requisitions.  He had no idea how the Brigadier’s previous aide had handled all the requirements without driving himself mad.

“Thank you, Brigadier,” he said, finally.  He wished, now, that he’d turned down the job offer.  It would have been easy to return to serving as a junior Lt.  “Why ... why do we need all of this paperwork anyway?”

“To keep everything in order,” the Brigadier said.  “And to make sure we all know what we’re doing at the right time.”

Michael shook his head in bitter disbelief.  Even the schedule for embarking the troops – let alone loading their vehicles – had proven surprisingly complex.  The armoured units had insisted on boarding last, even though their vehicles were not scheduled for early deployment once the squadron arrived at Thule.  Michael had discovered, to his shock, that the Loading Officers were staging a small revolt, insisting on loading the armoured vehicles first rather than last.  It had required reserves of tact and diplomacy he hadn't known he’d possessed to sort out the chaos and ensure that both sides retreated, fairly content with their results.

“You need a small army of staffers,” Michael said, trying hard not to sound resentful.  There was much more to the job than he’d realised when he’d been offered the chance to take it.  “I can’t handle everything.”

The Brigadier snorted.  “Do you know what went wrong on Earth?”

Michael shook his head.  He’d been born on Avalon; his father had also been born on Avalon, while his mother had been an indentured colonist who’d found herself working for her husband rather than slaving in a brothel.  From what he’d heard of Earth, it sounded hellish ... but he didn't have the emotional connection to humanity’s homeworld that the final generation of colonists had.  Even the ones who had been kicked off the planet – or had foreseen the final disaster and made their escape before it was too late – practically worshipped the world.  But Michael felt nothing for Earth.

“They did as you suggested and built up a corps intended to handle military supplies,” the Brigadier said.  “To be fair, they did have an immensely more complex job than the one you’ve been handling.  God knows every single regiment attached to the Imperial Army had its own standards.  But the supply officers found themselves more insistent on actually taking care of themselves rather than doing their job.”

She gave him a wintery smile.  “They didn't have any proper experience of what it was like to be serving on deployment,” she added.  “So when a request would come in for twenty pallets of ammunition, they’d insist on sending only ten – because that’s what they believed would be necessary.  Never mind that soldiers on active service burn through ammunition at a terrifying rate ... they had to make do with what the supply corps insisted they could have, rather than what they needed.”

Michael nodded in agreement.  During his first trial of fire, against the Crackers, he and his mates
had
burned through ammunition alarmingly fast.  If the old sweats hadn't insisted that they all carry extra magazines, despite the weight, they might well have been overwhelmed and slaughtered by the insurgents.  What would someone who had never seen combat, never been within a hundred miles of a fight, think the military needed to do its job?

“The Colonel is very insistent that we will not repeat that mistake,” the Brigadier explained.  “Officers like you, officers who have seen the elephant, will spend a year or two of their careers in the supply corps, then return to their units before they go native.  Would
you
refuse a request for extra ammunition?”

“No,” Michael said.  “I know they might need it.”

The thought made him smile.  He’d already had to handle several such requests, mostly from units that had already burned off their training stockpiles on the exercise ground.  From what he’d heard, the Empire had demanded that each and every unit go through hours of paperwork before they could requisition training ammunition.  Avalon didn't have that problem.  If a company of soldiers wanted to spend a few hours improving their skills, they’d be able to draw the ammunition and use the training area without delay.

“When you have time,” the Brigadier said, “read through the story of Dork’s Defence.  It’s a cautionary tale the Empire forgot.”

“But the Marines learned their lesson,” a new voice said.

Michael looked up – and saw Colonel Stalker.  Hastily, he jumped to his feet and saluted.  “Sir!”

“At ease,” the Colonel said.  Despite his lowly rank, he was the senior military officer in the Commonwealth.  Michael had heard he’d refused promotion when it had been offered to him.  “I need to borrow your CO for a while.”

The Brigadier smiled.  “Return to work,” she said.  “No rest for the wicked, I’m afraid.”

***

Jasmine had to smile as her young aide hastened out of the compartment.  She'd had her doubts at first, particularly when it came to such a young officer, but he was showing definite promise.  Absently, she wondered if he realised that half the snarls he’d dealt with had been caused deliberately, just to test him.  It would be easier to return him to his unit – or another unit on Avalon – before the CEF departed the planet.

“He isn’t doing
too
badly, sir,” she said, once the hatch was closed.  “Joe did better, of course, but Joe has years of extra experience.”

“And a shot in OCS too,” the Colonel said.  Marine OCS was famed for being tough; it wasn't uncommon for almost all of the prospective candidates to be flushed out and returned to their units.  Jasmine wondered, sometimes, just how well she would have done, if she’d been given a chance to go.  “But he probably needs to study Dork’s Defence.”

Jasmine nodded, wordlessly.  Dork – his name hadn't been Dork, but it had stuck – had been an Imperial Army officer assigned to command a company of soldiers on Han.  The bureaucrats had insisted that he could only have a handful of pallets of ammunition and Dork had either failed to question them or hadn't had the connections to force the bureaucrats to disgorge more.  When the uprising had finally begun, Dork and his men had fought with reasonable skill and bloody-minded determination until his men had run out of ammunition, whereupon the outpost had been completely overrun.  The relief forces which had finally fought their way through to the outpost had discovered that the men had been beheaded and their heads mounted on pikes.  No one had ever found the rest of their bodies.

The Imperial Army, as far as she knew, hadn't learned a thing from the disaster.  Oh, the fighting men had probably understood the lesson, but the bureaucrats hadn't realised their role in the disaster.  And even if they had ... they’d probably have gotten in trouble for shipping all the ammunition the soldiers needed, no matter how desperate the situation had become.  That, she knew, was what happened when priorities were set by someone light years away from the battlefield.  They literally had no idea of just what was going on.

We have to do better
, she thought. 
The Commonwealth is growing larger ...

“I’ll make sure he reviews the records,” she said.  As her aide, the young lieutenant would be expected to remain with her, rather than rejoin his former comrades.  It was unfortunate that they would all be travelling on the same ships, but it couldn't be helped.  “And a few others that need to be examined, such as our most recent experience of actual combat.”

The Colonel nodded, then reached into his uniform belt and produced a datachip.  “Your sealed orders,” he said.  “Keep them with you; in the event of Wolfbane starting a war, you are to access the orders and then carry them out to the best of your ability.  If the situation refuses to allow you to follow them ... I’ll understand.”

“Yes, sir,” Jasmine said, feeling the weight of responsibility falling around her shoulders.  It was impossible for any reasonable person to believe she could send for orders and then wait a month for them to arrive, assuming they were sent at once.  Instead, the Colonel had given her permission to act as she saw fit.  There would be no need to refer to higher authority, but she would be responsible.  If she fucked up, the fault would be all hers.  “I won’t let you down.”

She smiled, rather tightly.  At least there wouldn't be multiple chains of command in the CEF, not after Colonel Stalker and his officers had carefully designed it to ensure that there was one recognised CO.  She couldn't help thinking that the CEF would have several times the power of an Imperial Army deployment, simply because it had a unified command structure rather than dozens of competing officers.  But they would never have a chance to find out.

The Colonel nodded, then stepped back and looked at the bulkheads.  “Do you like the ships?”

“Yes, sir,” Jasmine said.  “There’s room for improvement, of course, but overall they’re workable.”

They shared a look of silent understanding.  The Empire’s one great advantage – at least in its early centuries – had been logistics; the military had built up thousands of starships to rush troops from one trouble spot to another.  But, as the Empire started its decline, fewer and fewer starships had entered service.  The military transports had become massive starships, each one larger than a battleship, capable of carrying tens of thousands of soldiers ... and equally capable of losing them, should they be intercepted in flight.  Now, the Commonwealth had produced a series of smaller ships, hoping to recreate the flexibility the Empire had once enjoyed.  But only experience would show how well the concept would work in practice.

“Good,” the Colonel said.  “Look after them, Jasmine.  We may not get many more.”

Jasmine grimaced, but understood.  The Commonwealth’s shipbuilding capabilities were still slender, compared to the Empire’s vast network of industrial nodes and shipyards.  Even with the integration of Corinthian and the rest of Admiral Singh’s empire there was more demand than the Commonwealth could meet.  If something were to happen to the Avalon shipyards, the Commonwealth would be almost certain to lose the war.

“Sir,” she said slowly, “are the shipyards secure?”

“I believe so,” the Colonel said.  “But if something were to happen to them ...”

“Too many point failure sources,” Jasmine said.  The Colonel nodded in agreement.  “But do we have a choice?”

“No,” the Colonel said, bluntly.  “At least the modified cloudscoops are coming online.”

Jasmine smiled.  HE3 was the backbone of interstellar society, powering everything from fusion reactors to starship drives.  Avalon had been almost unique in the Avalon Sector for having a cloudscoop, built by the ADC when their projections had indicated that the sector would become the centre of a new industrial expansion program.  Ironically, Jasmine had to admit, they’d largely been right.  But they hadn't predicted the fall of the Empire.

Cloudscoops – at least the ones the Empire used – were expensive cumbersome objects, difficult to establish and easy to destroy.  Several pre-Empire interstellar wars had been decided, according to Mandy’s father, by the destruction of one side’s cloudscoops, ruining their economy.  As interstellar shipping had dried up in the years before the Fall of Earth, the shortage of fuel had crippled hundreds of planets along the Rim.  A new interstellar dark age had seemed on the cards.

But the Trade Federation had produced a far cheaper cloudscoop design – and, instead of keeping the design to itself, had shared it with every star system they’d contacted.  The new cloudscoops were even more fragile than the originals, but they could be replaced easily and expanded rapidly.  Given a few more years, Mandy had said once, and the Commonwealth would be drowning in fuel.

The Colonel cleared his throat.  “I have to get back groundside,” he said, the regret obvious in his voice.  This time, he would have to stay behind on Avalon while Jasmine and the CEF went off to do battle with the Commonwealth’s foes.  “Good luck, Brigadier.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jasmine said.  She hesitated, then picked up a datachip of her own.  “Can I ask you to pass this on, if I don't come back?”

The Colonel nodded.  “It will be done,” he said.

Jasmine watched him go, feeling oddly conflicted.  Once, her last wishes had been recorded at the Slaughterhouse, where her body would be shipped if she fell in battle.  Her family might have been shocked at her career choice, but she liked to think they were proud of her.  They would have received her ashes ...

... But now there was no contact between Avalon and the rest of what had once been the Empire.  It was possible, she knew, that her family had survived ... and equally possible that they were dead.  There was no point in asking that her body be preserved for return to a home and family that might no longer exist.  Instead, she’d asked for her ashes to be scattered on Castle Rock ... and for her possessions to be turned over to the remainder of the Marines.