Retreat Hell (14 page)

“You should talk to her,” Buckley said.  “I mean ... more openly than merely speaking to your subordinate.  Ask her how she’s coping.  Woman to woman, as it were.”

Jasmine nodded.  “I intend to talk to her,” she said.  She checked her appearance, then headed towards the hatch.  “I suggest that you place Thomas in the reserve, for the moment.  And I’m sorry about the hassle.”

The hatch hissed closed before Buckley could reply.

***

Mandy had been surprised when Jasmine had asked, during one of their brief returns to normal space long enough to run location checks, if she could shuttle over to
Sword
for a conference.  She’d agreed, of course, and had then been surprised when Jasmine had come alone, without any staffers.  Not, to be fair, that she had
many
staffers.  One aide, Mandy had been told, was the maximum for any senior officer.  There would be no small armies of aides in the Commonwealth military.

She received a second surprise, a moment after Jasmine entered her cabin, when the Marine produced a small bottle of wine and placed it on the table.

“I think we should talk,” Jasmine said.  She picked up a pair of plastic mugs and poured Mandy a generous portion.  “How are you coping with the Commonwealth Navy?”

Mandy had to smile.  Jasmine was never subtle, not off the battlefield.  In some ways, Mandy had wondered if Jasmine was actually a lesbian, or a man trapped in a woman’s body.  She just didn't react like a typical woman.  And then there had been the way Jasmine had taken her in hand, after the Sparkle Dust incident.  It hadn't been until Jasmine had actually started an affair with a man that Mandy had realised that the Marine was merely trained and conditioned to a standard that admitted no trace of femininity.

“It’s a great career,” she said, slowly.  “Is this about me?”

Jasmine nodded, then plunged on.  “Are you recovering from your experiences?”

“It’s a little late to ask,” Mandy pointed out dryly.  After a brief session, Jasmine seemed to have decided to ignore the whole incident.  “It’s been four years, more or less.”

“Please,” Jasmine said.

Mandy sighed.  “I don’t get many nightmares now,” she said.  She sniffed, loudly.  “But I still think I smell the filth on this ship.”

She shrugged.  “I think I’m surviving, somehow,” she added.  “Was that what you wanted to hear?”

Jasmine leaned forward, meeting her eyes.  “Have you had a relationship since you returned home?”

Mandy knew she couldn't lie, not when Jasmine was watching her so closely.  “Not really,” she admitted.  “I ... I couldn't take it any further.”

The memory made her shiver.  On Earth, she’d enjoyed near-complete sexual freedom.  It had been fun to experiment, to see how many of the positions she saw regularly on the datanet were actually possible.  She'd had friends who had been just as interested, boys and girls alike.  She still recalled with a flush what had happened the day she’d found herself kissing her best female friend.

But things were more serious on Avalon.  And then ...

She’d been raped, to all intents and purposes, mentally if not physically.  She’d given it up knowing that it could be taken from her at any moment, knowing that it was all she had to bargain with for the life of her friend.  And it could easily have been worse ...

Since then, she'd never been able to get past kissing a man.  She’d panicked.  She’d fled the room.  Eventually, she’d just given up.

“I don’t have much faith in psychologists,” Jasmine said.  “But if you can find one, you should probably go speak to her.”

“I hated them on Earth,” Mandy confessed.  “They always asked such silly questions.”

Jasmine nodded, ruefully.

“You are in command of a squadron of warships,” she said.  “That would not have happened if there have been more experienced officers at our disposal.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “If you have problems when the shit hits the fan – and it will – I want you to surrender command at once.  Do you understand me?”

Mandy nodded.  She knew her XO probably had secret orders to keep an eye on her, but she’d never dared ask. 

“I understand,” she said, when Jasmine seemed to be waiting for a verbal answer.  “And I won’t let you down.”

“One week to Thule,” Jasmine said.  She stood, looking devastatingly intimidating in her skin-tight shipsuit.  “If you have problems, you can call me at any time.”

“I will,” Mandy promised.  “And thank you.”

A further problem was the sheer lack of military manpower.  On the face of it, this seems absurd.  At its height, the Empire disposed of over five billion soldiers (Imperial Army, Terran Marine Corps, Civil Guard (deployable).  However, this number became vanishingly small when weighted against the sheer size of the Empire and the number of trouble spots that required attention.

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

“They’re ready for you, boss.”

Pete Rzeminski nodded and stood, blanking the terminal and placing it carefully in his pocket.  Carrying the device was a risk, even with the Marine Corps-grade security programs he’d uploaded, but there was no alternative.  The only way for their backers to send messages was to insert them into the planetary datanet, where they could be recovered and forwarded to the terminal.  And the message that had just arrived was important enough to justify the risk.

He picked up his mask and pulled it over his face, then checked to make sure that he wasn't wearing something – anything – that might lead the security forces to him.  It was amusing to hear the young men who made up most of his fighting force brag about how they intended to resist interrogation, but Pete knew better than to assume they would be allowed to keep their mouths shut.  Everyone broke, either through drugs, mental conditioning or even simple torture.  The only way to keep a secret was to ensure it was shared with as few people as possible.

The living room was crammed with people, too many people.  If Pete hadn't been aware that the entire district was packed with people, half of whom had moved in with their families when the economic crisis had really started to bite, he would have been more worried about concentrating so many of his subordinates together.  He had no illusions about how effective some of the security forces could be, even if they were suffering problems from trying to expand too far too fast.  Given enough time, they would start working out who was part of the insurgency and then use that person to lead them to others.  And if they isolated a house ...

He shook his head.  One young man stood in the centre of the room, his hands cuffed behind his back.  Two others stood behind him, weapons in hand; the remainder gave all three of them some room.  Pete sighed, inwardly.  Why was it always the young
men
?  He couldn't help thinking that
he
hadn't been so stupid when he’d joined the Marines, although there was little room for youthful stupidity in Boot Camp.  The Drill Instructors would have forced it out of him or given up and sent him to the Imperial Army instead of the Marines.  But there was something about untrained young men that made them want to prove themselves, even if it meant breaking with the plan.  Or, in this case, committing a major security breach.

It was
easy
to discipline Marines ... or even soldiers.  There was a chain of command backing up any commanding officer, no matter how weak-willed and feeble.  If someone had decided to commit a military offence, if even the entire
unit
decided to commit an offence, the commanding officer would have support if he called for it.  But insurgencies – at least the smarter ones - didn't have such chains of command.  They could easily be penetrated and then used to take the entire group apart.  But it did mean that disciplining its members was harder than it might have seemed.

Pete sighed, then looked at the young man.  He
was
young, barely seventeen years old ... and clearly torn between righteous indignation and fear.  At least he wasn't a complete monster, thankfully; the quickest way for an insurgency to destroy itself was to prey on the local population to the point where the locals, desperate to escape their iron grip, called for help from the security forces.  He’d seen insurgencies that had tormented their host populations to the point where the hosts had risen up against the insurgents, no matter what grievances they had with the outsiders.  But this young man had just been an idiot.

“Tell me,” he said.  “Why are you here?”

The young man looked at him.  “They said I broke security.”

Pete allowed his voice to harden.  “And
did
you?”

“I only told one person,” the young man protested.  “I ...”

Pete interrupted him.  “Let me see if I understand what happened,” he said.  “You were trying to get into a certain girl’s panties, right?  In order to impress her, you bragged that you were a member of the Voter Liberation Army” – one of the subgroups that had merged into Pete’s unified force – “and that you were involved in a major operation against the government.  But the girl, instead of opening her legs for you, went straight to her father, who happened to be one of our coordinators.”

The young man gasped.  Pete rolled his eyes.  Honestly!  What was the point of having a brain if one didn't use it?  Girls might not, as a general rule, be as strong as men, but that didn't stop them from carrying out vital tasks for the insurgency.  The girl in question had served as a courier more than once, simply because she was less likely to be stopped and searched than a teenage boy.  And, unlike her paramour, she’d had the sense to keep her mouth shut about her involvement.  Pete made a mental note to ensure she was kept somewhere safe for a few days – the young man might seek revenge on her, rather than recognising that he was the one at fault – and then leaned forward.  The young man shrank back.

“You were told, time and time again, that certain details were not to be discussed,” he said, coldly.  “Or have you forgotten the oaths you swore, when you joined?  Not a word to anyone, from your parents to your closest friends, unless you received permission to talk about your role in the war.  Did you forget your oath?”

He took a step forward, and another, until their faces were almost touching.  “Or was the sight of a pretty face enough to make you forget?  Should we fear the government catching on and sending nude prostitutes dancing through the Zone?  Should we expect you and your entire cell to go dancing after them with your tongues hanging on the ground, walking after the bitches until you walk right into a prison cell?”

“I’m sorry, all right!”  The young man protested.  “I didn't mean to say a word!”

“No, you meant to brag,” Pete corrected him, rudely.  “Was getting laid so important to you that you had to open your mouth?”

He sighed.  The answer was almost certainly
yes.
  Men, particularly young men, found themselves growing horny at the prospect of danger, excitement breaking down whatever barriers common sense and strict orders might provide.  Pete still remembered the odd flow of excitement and anticipation that had gripped him, the day he’d gone into action for the first time ... and he’d had drugs to help calm his mind.  But was the lapse forgivable?

“You really should have gone to a prostitute,” he said, tiredly.  There was no shortage of prostitutes, in or out of the Zone.  Some of them had been well established when the crisis had hit, others had been forced into selling themselves when they ran out of money and goods to pawn.  “Do you understand what you did wrong?”

“Yes, sir,” the young man said.

Getting caught
, Pete thought, dryly.

He smiled.  “Are you prepared to submit to our judgement?”

The young man shuddered, but nodded.  Pete understood; they’d been warned, time and time again, that if they did something wrong, punishment would be severe.  A traitor – and the movement had had its fair share of traitors – could expect to be brutally murdered.  Several of the smaller groups had even targeted the traitor’s family too, something that Pete had tried to discourage.  The more they seemed like monsters, the more people would see the government as the lesser of two evils.  But he had to admit that it was an effective warning to other potential traitors.

He sighed.  Punishment was always a problem in an insurgency.  Punish too lightly and others wouldn't be discouraged, punish too harshly and he would have an enemy for life.  And if he killed the young man, his family would be outraged ... particularly as he hadn't actually betrayed the movement to the government.  Whatever oaths the young man had sworn, Pete doubted his family were completely unaware of his involvement in the movement.  Families tended to be more observant than their younger members realised.

“There is a group of trainees leaving the Zone tomorrow,” he said.  “You will go with them to the camp and stay there for a month.  While you are there, you will carry out whatever duties are assigned to you by the CO – and, let me assure you, there are no shortage of shit duties in the countryside.  You will carry out those duties without complaint, even when you are called upon to shovel shit and clean up the campsites.  If you serve well, you will be permitted to rejoin the movement.”

“Thank you, sir,” the young man said.

Pete concealed his amusement.  The idiot thought he was getting off lightly – and he was, in the sense he wasn't going to be flogged to within an inch of his life, let alone killed.  But shovelling shit for a week would be enough to determine if there was a useful person in there or if he was nothing more than a liability.  If the latter ... well, people vanished in the countryside all the time.  There would be a quiet execution and the body would be buried somewhere far from civilisation.

“In addition,” he added, “you are not to speak to anyone in the Zone, or attempt to communicate with any of them, without prior permission.  You will be allowed to write letters to your parents, which will be carefully read before they’re posted.  If you attempt to break this restriction, there will be no further chances.  Do you understand me?”

The young man nodded.  Pete wondered, inwardly, if he realised he wasn’t allowed to write to his girlfriend – his ex-girlfriend – or if that realisation would come later.  Not that it mattered, he suspected.  With her cover damaged, if not blown, the girl had already been hidden elsewhere within the Zone.  She would never see the boy she’d betrayed again, which was probably for the best.  A day or two of shovelling shit would probably have him blaming her for his punishment.

“Take him away,” he ordered.  The two young men behind the prisoner grabbed his arms, then turned and marched him through the door towards the cellar.  He would be kept down there until the following morning, whereupon he would be attached to the group leaving the Zone.  “Cell Leaders; stay.  Everyone else, go down to the lower room and wait.”

He waited for the group to sort itself out, sighing inwardly.  The Zone – hundreds of thousands of cheap homes, warehouses and closed shops – wasn't a pleasant place to live, even at the best of times.  In some ways, it reminded him of Earth, even though the comparison seemed absurd.  But there were too many people crammed into too small a space, most of them unable to leave no matter what they did.  If the Zone hadn't been so restive, he had a suspicion that most of the inhabitants would be homeless by now.  They didn't own their homes, after all.

And it felt cramped.  He would have preferred the farm.  But that was no longer an option.

“We received a message from our sources,” he said.  He suspected that most of his allies knew that they had off-world support, but nothing had been said openly.  “The Commonwealth has finally dispatched its forces to aid the government.”

There was no surprise or expressions of outrage from the group, merely a handful of muttered swearwords.  Most of the excitable members had been killed by the government’s forces or sidelined into places where they could do no harm.  Pete still smiled at the member of the Thule Socialist League, who’d managed to alienate half of their allies through promising to nationalise all property and distribute it to the population.  The government had barely needed to lift a finger to keep them from spreading outside the universities and college campuses, where the real world rarely intruded. 
They’d
allowed the beauty of their cause to get the better of them.

“We would be looking at five thousand highly-trained soldiers, including a number of Terran Marines,” he continued.  “I've reviewed what information there is on their prior deployment, the Battle of Lakshmibai.  Despite being caught on the hop” – he still wondered what sort of idiot hadn't realised that Lakshmibai was not going to be a peaceful deployment – “they fought their way over three hundred miles of countryside and urban areas and saved their fellows from a thoroughly unpleasant death.”

“That doesn’t sound like good news,” one of the cell leaders said.

“Five thousand isn't
that
many,” another objected.  “It certainly isn't enough to occupy everywhere.”

Pete nodded.  He was right; Asgard alone would require thousands of troops to secure, while the miles upon miles of sprawling development surrounding the other cities would be a nightmare for even a million-man army to handle.  But then, the government
did
have some forces of its own.  The CEF would probably serve as a quick reinforcement, then a rapid reaction force, buying time for the government to train up its own troops.

“I believe that their commander is a Marine,” he said.  There had been a considerable amount of information available, but it hadn't been very specific.  “She will go on the offensive as soon as possible, once her forces are deployed.  I believe she will certainly attempt to take us on here.”