Retreat Hell (2 page)

But they might be right
, he thought, numbly. 
The founders set out to avoid creating a dependent society, like Earth
.

He shook his head, angrily.  What good did it do to tell the unemployed to go get a job when there were no jobs to be had?  What good did it do to insist that the government should create jobs when there was no money to pay the additional workers?  What good did it to do to cling to the letter of the constitution when a crisis was upon them that had never been anticipated by the founders?  But the hawks were adamantly opposed to any changes while the doves couldn't agree on how to proceed.  And
he
was caught in the middle.

Daniel stepped over to his desk and looked down at the report his secretary had placed there before going to bed.  It seemed that the only growth industry, even after contact with the Commonwealth and the Trade Federation, was government bureaucracy, as bureaucrats struggled to prove they were actually necessary.  The report told him, in exhaustive detail, just how many men, women and children had been arrested at the most recent protest march, the one that had turned into yet another riot.  Daniel glanced at the executive summary, then picked up the sheaf of papers and threw it across the room and into the fire.  Maybe he should have offered it to the homeless, he told himself, a moment too late.  They could have burnt the papers for heat.

There was a tap on the door.  Daniel keyed a switch, opening it.

“First Speaker,” General Erwin Adalbert said.  “I apologise for disturbing you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Daniel said.  He trusted the General, insofar as he trusted anyone these days.  There were times when he suspected the only thing preventing a military coup was the simple fact that the military would have to solve the crisis itself.  “What can I do for you?”

“We received an intelligence package from one of our agents in the underground,” Adalbert said.  “I'm afraid our worst nightmare has come to pass.”

Daniel smiled, humourlessly.  Protest marches, even riots, weren't a major problem.  The various underground groups spent more time fighting each other and arguing over the plans to repair the economy – or nationalise it, or send everyone to the farms – than they did plotting to overthrow the government.  His
real
nightmare was the underground groups burying their differences and uniting against him. 

“They’ve definitely received some help from off-world,” Adalbert continued.  “There have been several weapons shipments already and more are apparently on the way.”

“Oh,” Daniel said.  “Who from?”

“Intelligence believes that there is only one real suspect,” Adalbert admitted.  “Wolfbane.”

Daniel couldn't disagree.  The Commonwealth had nothing to gain and a great deal to lose by empowering underground movements intent on overthrowing the local government and reshaping the face of politics on Thule.  Wolfbane, on the other hand, might well see advantage in trying to covertly knock Thule out of the Commonwealth.  Given that the closest Wolfbane-controlled world was only nine light years away, they certainly had an interest ... and probably the capability to do real damage.

“I see,” he said.

“We can expect the various underground groups to start working together now,” Adalbert added, softly.  “Their suppliers will certainly insist on unity in exchange for weapons.”

He paused.  “First Speaker, we need to ask for assistance.”

Daniel looked up, sharply.  “Remind me,” he said coldly, “just how much of our budget is spent on the military?”

Adalbert had the grace to look embarrassed.  “We spent most of the money on upgrading and expanding our orbital defences,” he said.  “It provided more jobs than expanding troop numbers on the ground.  We can expand our recruiting efforts, but we’re already having problems training our current intake ...”

“And we don't know how far we can trust the new recruits,” Daniel finished.

“Yes, sir,” Adalbert said.  “And most of our new recruits are trained for policing duties, not all-out war.  But that’s what the underground is going to give us.”

Daniel stared down at his desk.  He’d wanted to go down in history, but not like this, not as the First Speaker who had invited outsiders to intervene in his planet’s civil unrest.  The Senate would crucify him, safe in the knowledge that
they
didn't have to deal with the situation.  They’d voted him emergency powers, enough to call for assistance, but not enough to actually come to grips with the situation.

Damn them
, he thought.

“Summon the Commonwealth representative,” he said, finally.  He honestly wasn't sure if the Commonwealth
could
legally help Thule.  This was an internal problem, not an external threat.  But there was no choice.  “We will ask for help.”

No, there wasn't.  Peace is merely defined as the absence of fighting.  In actual fact, there were very few years in the Empire’s long history when the Empire’s military forces were not deployed into combat.  They might face rebels or insurgents, terrorists or freedom fighters, but they were never truly at peace.

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

It was raining the day they laid Lieutenant Elman Travis to rest.

Colonel Edward Stalker stood by himself, away from the handful of spectators, and watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground.  Traditionally, insofar as ‘tradition’ had a meaning on a world barely a hundred years old, those who had died on active service would be buried in a military graveyard on the outskirts of Camelot, but Lieutenant Travis’s father had insisted on laying him to rest in a private churchyard.  Ed had raised no objections, knowing that the grieving needed time to come to terms with the loss.  Councillor Travis, he suspected, had yet to truly believe his son was dead.

The preacher started to speak, his words barely intelligible under the driving rain.  Ed had never been particularly religious – a life in the Undercity, then in the Marine Corps had never predisposed him to believe in God – but he understood the value of believing that the dead were gone, but not
truly
gone.  Councillor Travis clung to the belief he would see his son again, drawing strength from his conviction.  Ed privately hoped he was right.  But he couldn't escape the feeling that dead meant
gone
. 

It had been his fault, Ed knew.  Lieutenant Travis had died on Lakshmibai, victim of a treacherous attack that had claimed the lives of over a hundred Avalon Knights.  Ed had looked at the files, such as they were, and decided that there was no reason to object to Wolfbane’s choice of Lakshmibai as a neutral world.  And really, what threat could Lakshmibai pose to two spacefaring interstellar powers?  It had never really occurred to him that the locals hated the outsiders so much that they would rise up against them, even under the threat of colossal devastation when the starships returned.  If the Commonwealth Expeditionary Force hadn't been deployed to Lakshmibai, Ed knew that he would be dead by now, along with the representatives from Wolfbane.  Who knew what
that
would have done to relationships between the two interstellar powers?

Ed was used to death, or so he’d told himself.  Being in the Marines meant the near-certainty of a violent death – and no one, not even the most highly-trained Marine, was immune.  He’d lost far too many people over the years, from Marines he’d considered friends to Marines who’d served under his command ... and then Avalon Knights and others who had joined the military and helped make the Commonwealth a success.  But those deaths had taken place before he'd screwed up, badly.  And he
had
screwed up.  In hindsight, always clearer than foresight, it was alarmingly clear that Lakshmibai was a disaster waiting to happen.

“Hindsight is always clearer,” the lecture had said, when he’d gone to OCS on the Slaughterhouse.  “You will always be second-guessed by people who will have access to a much more accurate picture than you had at the time.  The trick is not to let those people get under your skin, because they will find it very hard to filter out the information they gathered in hindsight from what you knew before the disaster occurred.”

He shook his head, bitterly.  There were just too many unanswered questions over the whole Lakshmibai debacle for him to relax, even if he had been inclined to let the dead go.  Had someone
aided
the locals, promising assistance that would prevent either the Commonwealth or Wolfbane taking bloody revenge for the slaughter of their people?  Had the locals believed that the starships would never return?  Or had they just been maddened fanatics, too enraged to consider the long-term consequences of their actions? 

The preacher finally stopped speaking and nodded to the friends and family, who stepped forward, picked up clods of earth and started to hurl them into the grave.  Ed watched dispassionately as the coffin was slowly buried, part of him wishing that he could join them and help bury a young man who’d died too soon.  But Councillor Travis had made his wishes quite clear.  Ed could attend the funeral, but not take an active part in the ceremony.  He blamed Ed for his son’s death. 

It was a bitter thought.  Ed had cared little for Earth’s cadre of professional politicians, from the mayors and managers of the giant cityblocks to the Grand Senators, who were – in fact, if not in name – an aristocracy that had succeeded, long ago, in barring outsiders from rising within the Empire’s power structure.  They’d known nothing, but politics; their actions were considered purely in terms of how they would help or hinder their endless quest for more and more political power.  It didn't take hindsight – as Professor Caesius had demonstrated years ago – to understand that Earth’s politicians were certainly part of the problems tearing the Empire apart.  And now the Empire was gone.

But Councillor Travis was different.  Ed and Professor Caesius had written most of the requirements for political service on Avalon – and the rest of the Commonwealth – and Councillor Travis qualified.  Indeed, part of Ed rather admired the man for what he had accomplished, even before the Marines had arrived on Avalon and disposed the old Council.  He was no professional politician ... which made his new opposition to the military – and Ed personally – more than a little heartbreaking.  But there was no point in trying to avoid the fact.

I never had children
, Ed thought, sourly.  It wasn’t uncommon for Marines to have children while on active service, but the children tended to be raised by their mothers while the fathers were moved from trouble spot to trouble spot.  But Ed had never found someone he seriously considered marrying until he’d been sent to Avalon – and they couldn't marry, not while they were holding important posts. 
What is it like to lose a child
?

Losing a Marine was always a tragedy, all the more so when he had been in command, responsible for the lives of his men.  But Marines were trained to the very peak of human capability before they were set loose on an unsuspecting universe and assigned to individual Marine companies.  Ed had never been responsible for training his men.  A child, on the other hand, was raised from birth by its parents.  There was a connection there that even the most loyal and determined NCO failed to grasp with his men.  How could he blame Councillor Travis for his grief?

He caught sight of the older man, leaning over the grave and shuddered.  Councillor Travis was older than Ed, his body carrying the scars of struggle with the old Council’s stranglehold on Avalon’s economy.  His hair had faded to white long ago, but there was a grim determination in his eyes that had carried him far.  Now, that determination was turned against the military itself – and the Commonwealth.

Ed sighed, bitterly.  The hell of it was that he believed that Councillor Travis was right.

***

It felt strange, Brigadier Jasmine Yamane considered, to be wearing civilian clothes.  She hadn’t been a civilian since she’d turned seventeen and walked right into the Marine Corps recruitment station on her homeworld.  At Boot Camp, she’d worn the khaki outfits the new recruits were issued by the Drill Instructors, while the Slaughterhouse had expected them to wear combat battledress at all hours of the day.  Even when she’d gone on leave, which had only happened once between her qualifying as a Marine and being exiled to Avalon with the rest of the company, she’d worn undress uniform.

But the instructions for the funeral had been quite clear.  No military uniforms.  None of the guests were to wear anything that could even remotely be construed as a military uniform.  And, for someone who had never really considered how to dress herself for years, even picking something to wear had taken hours.  It annoyed the hell out of her that she could react quickly and decisively on the battlefield, but found herself utterly indecisive when trying to decide what to wear.  There was no way she could talk about that with the other Marines.

She caught sight of her own reflection in the growing puddle of water on the grass and sighed, inwardly.  Eventually, she’d settled for a black shirt and a long black skirt that swirled oddly around her legs.  It was loose, but it still felt constraining.  The first time she’d pulled it on, she’d had a flashback to one of the nastier exercises she’d undergone at the Slaughterhouse, when she’d been chained up and dropped into a swimming pool.  It hadn't surprised her, afterwards, to learn that several recruits had quit when they’d realised what they had to do to proceed.

The preacher started to speak again, his words hanging on the air.  Jasmine had once been religious, religious enough to understand why Councillor Travis and his family sought comfort from their belief in God.  It had been a long time since she’d prayed formally, she reminded herself, although heartfelt prayers on the verge of battle were probably more sincere than anything she’d offered back on her homeworld.  But listening to his words was a bitter reminder that over a hundred young men and women were dead – and most of them had died under her command.

I'm sorry
, she thought, directing her thought towards the coffin, now buried under a thin layer of earth. 
I’m so sorry
.

In the days of the Empire, she knew without false modesty, she would be lucky to have risen to Lieutenant by now.  Promotion was slow, even within the Marine Corps – and a brevet promotion could be cancelled without affecting her career.  It was worse, far worse, in the Imperial Army, where officers were often promoted based on their connections, rather than their actual competence.  But Avalon needed experienced officers more than it needed to adhere to a strict promotion timetable and Jasmine had been promoted – faster, perhaps, than was wise.

She looked over at Colonel Stalker, standing on his own in the rain, and wondered how he managed to seem so impassive.  Didn't the deaths bother him?  He’d been in the Marines since before Jasmine had even entered Boot Camp, let alone the Slaughterhouse; hell, she rather suspected he’d been in the Marines long before Jasmine had even heard about them for the first time.  Was he simply too experienced to truly
feel
each and every death?  Or was he merely hiding his feelings and concentrating on the living?

Jasmine had known people died from a very early age, ever since her aunt had been killed in an accident on her homeworld.  She’d served beside Marines who’d been killed in the line of fire, leaving their former comrades to mourn their deaths and move on as best as they could.  But she hadn’t had anyone die under her command until she’d been promoted for the first time.  And yet, losing the young men and women of Avalon hurt worse than losing fellow Marines.

She puzzled over it as the preacher assured his audience, once again, that the dead had gone to a better place.  Jasmine didn't doubt it.  Lieutenant Travis had been a good officer, one of many young men to enter the army after the old Council had been sidelined ... and his promotion had been well-deserved.  Jasmine vaguely recalled meeting him once, during a review of the CEF’s infantry companies.  In hindsight, she rather wished she’d paid more attention to the young man.  She’d had to look at his file to remember his face, before she’d even come to the funeral.  The picture someone had placed on the coffin, before the pallbearers had lowered it into the ground, had been of the Lieutenant as a young child, smiling happily as he ran through the field.  There had been endless promise in his smile, something that had made her start to tear up before she pulled herself firmly under control.  Somehow, the picture hadn't been
him
.

He wasn't just young
, she thought. 
He was uncommitted
.

Maybe it wasn't fair, but
Marines
were committed in a way that few soldiers and civilians could grasp.  She’d left her homeworld, spent seven months in Boot Camp and another two years at the Slaughterhouse, then signed up for a ten-year hitch as a Marine Rifleman.  She had left her previous life behind, knowing that when she returned to her homeworld she would have nothing in common with her brothers and sisters.  Hell, the Marines were her brothers and sisters now.  But Lieutenant Travis could have gone home any time he liked – and no one would have looked at him as a potential monster in human clothing.

She shook her head, running her fingers through her short dark hair, cropped close to her skull.  The Empire had had barely a percentage point of a percentage point of its vast population in uniform, even counting the vast number of uniformed bureaucrats and REMFs who added nothing to the military’s ability to fight, but detracted from it at every conceivable opportunity.  It was unusual for anyone on Earth to
know
someone who served or had served in the military personally, a pattern that was duplicated on most of the Core Worlds.  Few of them had any real idea what the military was like, allowing themselves to be influenced by entertainment movies rather than reality.  It had given them a skewed idea of what it was like to defend the Empire.

But on Avalon, almost everyone had served in the military, various local defence forces or knew someone who had served.  There was little dispute over the value of the military ... or the need to keep a formidable force at the ready.  And yet ... she couldn't help thinking that Councillor Travis was likely to cause real problems.  What would it mean for the Commonwealth as a whole if the CEF concept was to be grounded without further exploration?