Retreat Hell (7 page)

We may be about to find out
, he thought.  He hadn't hidden anything from the Council; it was quite possible that Thule would prove a very different challenge, even with support on the ground.  And with the other factor ... somehow, he knew it was going to be nasty.  But they had no choice.  Thule could not be allowed to leave the Commonwealth.

***

“I suppose you’re wondering,” Councillor Travis said, “why I voted in favour of the deployment.”

Emmanuel Alves
could hardly disagree.  He and his fellow reporters, who were now surrounding Councillor Travis outside the Council Chamber, had expected him to vote
against
the deployment.  The whole matter had been intensely debated on the datanet and the general consensus had been that the Councillor would oppose the deployment tooth and nail.

“A man’s word is his bond,” Councillor Travis continued.  “We – the Commonwealth – gave our word to our member states that we would provide military support upon request.  I do not believe that we can discard our word, merely because we don’t want to actually uphold it.  The treaties
will
be rewritten, I suspect, but not now.  Now, we have to uphold our word.”

There was a long pause.  Finally, one of the female reporters stepped forward.  “Councillor,” she said, “you have based your opposition to the Commonwealth on your son’s death.  What would you say to the parents of a son or daughter killed on Thule because of your decision to support their deployment?”

Emmanuel winced. 
That
was a nasty shot, even by the standards of the Empire’s media.  It shouldn’t have been considered permissible ... although he did have to admit that it was a reasonable point to raise.  Certainly, grieving families would raise it after their children were delivered home in sealed caskets.

“I would say,” Councillor Travis said tightly, “that I honoured treaties that were created to support a new order.”

“But that won’t be any consolation,” the reporter pointed out.  Her voice seemed to grow stronger as she pushed onwards.  “They’ll have lost a child!”

Councillor Travis balled his fists, then visibly forced himself to relax.  “It is never easy – and I speak from personal experience – to lose a child.  However, I am forced to put such feelings aside and consider the matter as coldly and clearly as I can.  In this case, refusing to honour the treaties would have ensured that other states
also
refused to honour the treaties, something that could easily rebound on us.  The commitment to send military support upon request was, I feel, a mistake.  However, it is one we are obliged to honour until we rewrite the treaties.

“I have the deepest sympathy for anyone who loses a child, particularly on a foreign world,” he added.  “It is my intention to have those treaties rewritten as soon as possible.  Until then, people
will
lose children and I
will
grieve for them, because of commitments that were made without careful forethought.”

He turned, then strode away from the reporters.  Emmanuel watched him go, wondering if any of his fellows would be so gauche as to give chase.  But none of them did; instead, they talked briefly amongst themselves or headed off to the nearest datanet terminal, where they could start filing their stories.  He wondered, absently, just what the newspapers would say in the evening.  What sort of spin would they put on the vote?

The papers that support the Councillor will probably say he did what he had to do
, he thought, answering his own question.  It hadn't taken long for the newspapers on Avalon to take sides, even the ones that called themselves neutral. 
Those that are against him will call him a hypocrite.  Perhaps they’d both be right
.

Shaking his head, he strode off to find a terminal for himself.  He had a story to file.

These disasters – and many, many more – took place because the Empire rarely attempted to come to grips with the underlying causes of the conflicts.  Instead, the Empire attempted to bring peace at gunpoint, order backed by the threat of force.  But the force was clearly insufficient to prevent the conflicts from breaking out again when the force was withdrawn.

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

Jasmine had never been quite able to escape the feel of being called into the headmaster’s – and then the Senior Drill Instructor’s – office when her superior officers had called her into their offices.  It was absurd; she was a grown woman, a fully-trained Marine and had been serving as a Brigadier for the last seven months.  But the feeling persisted, no matter what she did.  She’d never dared to ask her superiors if they felt the same way when confronted with
their
superiors.

“Please, be seated,” Colonel Stalker said.  “I assume you’ve read the briefing packet?”

“Yes, sir,” Jasmine said.  She'd gone through it in cynical detail, noting all the questions that were left unanswered.  “It looks like Avalon when we first arrived, only worse.”

“Almost certainly,” Colonel Stalker agreed.  “But there is a further complicating factor I left out of the briefing packet.  Did you deduce it?”

“No, sir,” Jasmine said.  “I did find quite a few unanswered questions ...”

“The leader of the insurgency – or at least one of the most powerful insurgent groups – is a man called Pete Rzeminski,” Stalker said.  He pressed his fingertips together as he leaned back in his chair.  “Does the name mean anything to you?”

“No, sir,” Jasmine said, puzzled.  “Should it?”

Stalker laughed, humourlessly.  “You weren't even born when he was a serving Marine,” he said.  “He retired from the corps thirty years ago, according to his file, and chose to live on Thule.  I rather doubt the name is a coincidence.”

Jasmine stared at him.  “This insurgency is being led by a retired Marine?”

“Yes,” Stalker said.  “What do you make of
that
?”

Jasmine hesitated, still trying to come to terms with the concept.  The media might create retired or rogue Marines as stock characters, but the former rarely involved themselves in politics and the latter were very rare.  Not rare enough, in her opinion, yet she’d only ever heard of a handful of cases during her time in the corps.  For a retired Marine to be serving with an insurgency, let alone leading it ...

She shook her head.  “Does he have good cause?”

“I don’t know,” the Colonel confessed.  “What I do know is that this insurgency will have
professional
leadership.”

Jasmine swallowed.  Most insurgencies underwent a steep learning curve, discovering how to do everything the hard way.  It was uncommon for military veterans to be involved, unless the entire planet was rising in rebellion.  But a Marine, armed with the collective knowledge and experience of the Terran Marine Corps, could ensure that the insurgency skipped most of the learning curve.  She'd done much the same thing on Corinthian.

“I see, sir,” she said.  Part of her found the whole concept offensive.  How
dare
a Marine betray his oaths and side with the insurgents?  The rest of her wondered just what had happened to convince him to join them.  “This could get nasty.”

“I’m afraid so,” the Colonel agreed.  He looked up, blue eyes meeting her gaze.  “How long would it take for the CEF to board ship and depart?”

“I sent out the warning order yesterday,” Jasmine said.  “Assuming we start at once, we might be able to depart in five days if we work like demons.  And if we can call on support from the crews in the spaceport.”

“You’ll have it,” Stalker assured her.  “You will probably be called to testify before the hearing, though.  Make sure your XO is ready to take over at a moment’s notice.”

“Yes, sir,” Jasmine said.  She hesitated, then reminded herself that Colonel Stalker had never bitten anyone’s head off for asking questions.  “How did it go today, sir?”

“We have agreement that the CEF is to be deployed,” Stalker said.  “But the real hearing will start tomorrow.”

“It wasn't your fault, sir,” Jasmine said.  She liked and respected the Colonel.  He didn't deserve to be raked over the coals by a council he’d helped create.  “They shouldn't be blaming you for it.”

“But I was the one in charge,” the Colonel said.  He tapped points off on his fingers.  “If I didn't know what my subordinates were doing, I damn well should have done; if I made the decision based on poor data, I damn well should have taken precautions in any case.”

Jasmine nodded, recognising the quote.  It had been made by the last Imperial Navy Admiral to retire early, without staying in grade long enough to collect a massive pension.  But Admiral Vancouver had always had a sense of integrity his peers had lacked.  His career, she’d been taught at the Slaughterhouse, should be held up as an example to be emulated.  One poor judgement call shouldn't be allowed to override all of his successful decisions ...

But people always remember the failures longer than the successes,
she recalled.  They’d been taught that too. 
A failure can never be removed from the record.

“In this case, I made a decision that plunged us into a full-scale war,” the Colonel continued, seemingly unaware of her inner thoughts.  “If I’d objected to the security demands they made, if I’d insisted on keeping even a single starship in the system, it wouldn't have happened.  Even if I am blameless, we still have to go over the whole affair, just to ensure that it never happens again.”

Jasmine frowned.  “But wouldn't that mean that people would hesitate before making a decision?”

The Colonel shrugged.  “There are some decisions that have to be made quickly,” he said, “decisions when being half-right is better than being completely wrong.  But the decision I made could have been made more carefully, after much contemplation.  Better to hesitate then, I fancy, then get into trouble I might have been able to avoid.”

He shrugged again.  “In any case, your orders are as follows ...”

There was a sharp knock on the door, interrupting him.  “Come in,” the Colonel called.  “Now.”

The door opened, revealing Mandy.  Jasmine felt a warm smile spread across her face as she saw the girl she regarded almost as a little sister, now looking very grown up in a basic Commonwealth Navy shipsuit and uniform.  The uniform looked a little larger than Jasmine recalled, hiding the shape of Mandy’s body, but it wasn't too surprising.  After what Mandy had endured as a pirate slave, she had never been able to have a proper relationship.  At least she had managed to tough herself out of some of the other reactions to enslavement.

“It’s good to see you again,” Jasmine said, allowing her professional demeanour to slip, just slightly.  “I heard about the successful test.”

The Colonel cleared his throat, meaningfully.  “Commodore Caesius will command a support squadron attached to your command,” he said, “but she will also have another mission.”

He tapped a switch, activating the holographic display.  “We have good reason to believe that Wolfbane is supplying the insurgents on Thule,” he said.  “That, combined with the other reports, leads us to believe that Governor Brown is not feeling friendly.  Depending on the assumptions we use, he may have decided to take us out before facing any threats from the Core.”

“Assuming that anyone is left alive there,” Mandy said.

Jasmine couldn't disagree.  No one knew what had happened to the Core Worlds – or the Slaughterhouse – apart from rumours, each one wilder than the last.  It was possible that they’d all been destroyed, wiped clean of human life ... or that someone with enough firepower at his command had taken over the remains of the Empire.  But with Wolfbane blocking their advance towards the Core Worlds, there was no way to obtain accurate data.

“I don’t think the entire sector will have been wiped out,” the Colonel said.

Jasmine had her doubts.  Earth and the rest of the Core Worlds, all hideously overpopulated, had been dependent on their infrastructure for survival.  If there had been a major war, it was quite likely that billions of humans had starved to death, if they hadn’t been slaughtered by nuclear strikes or orbital bombardments.  The Empire had kept one hell of a lot of tensions under control, but now the Empire was gone.  Who knew what had happened, thousands of light years away?

The Colonel smiled, tightly.  “Once the CEF has been delivered to Thule, Commodore Caesius and her command will be responsible for scouting the stars known to belong to Wolfbane,” he said.  “You will
covertly
enter their star systems, make passive sweeps near their planets, then withdraw without being detected.  In the event you
are
detected, you are to break contact as fast as possible, preferably without being identified.  Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Mandy said.  She sounded excited, rather than nervous.  “It should be doable, unless they’ve made a breakthrough in sensor technology.”

Jasmine remembered the little brat she’d been and smiled inwardly.  Mandy had come a long way, even if her mother was still horrified at what her daughter had become.  But it was her own fault, Jasmine considered, for refusing to recognise what a wonderful daughter she had brought into the universe.  Or maybe not ... Mandy had been a typical spoilt brat for much longer than she’d been a responsible starship commander.  Her mother might not be in the best condition to realise that her daughters had finally grown up.

“Should you discover anything threatening,” Colonel Stalker continued, “you will dispatch a courier boat to Avalon at once, then return to Thule and take what actions seem necessary, should the planet come under outside attack.”

They were vague orders, Jasmine knew, and the Imperial Navy wouldn't have tolerated them for a moment.  Their senior officers would have insisted on writing out a plan for every contingency – or at least every contingency they could imagine – which tended to result in disaster when something happened that wasn't covered in the contingency plans.  But the Commonwealth Navy knew better.  As the officers on the spot, Jasmine and Mandy would be expected to use their own initiative, within the broad outlines laid down by their superiors.

She leaned forward, thoughtfully.  “Sir,” she said, “do you think it will be war?”

“I would like to believe otherwise,” the Colonel said.  “But we shall prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

“Yes, sir,” Jasmine said.

“You are to start embarking the CEF as soon as possible,” the Colonel said.  “If you can locate anyone with local knowledge, feel free to ask them to join you.”

He hesitated, then looked at Mandy.  “Our best estimates suggest that Wolfbane will have started with twice the tonnage of the Commonwealth Navy,” he said.  “We have no idea how ... active that tonnage is, however.”

Jasmine nodded.  In theory, the Imperial Navy had deployed hundreds of thousands of warships; in practice, half of them had been classed as part of the reserve and placed in storage orbits around isolated military bases or cannibalised to keep the rest of the fleet operational.  There was no way to know how many of the ships within Wolfbane’s sphere of influence remained operational – or what they might have built, since leaving the Empire.  If Avalon could make real progress on indigenous designs, there was no reason why Wolfbane couldn’t do the same.

“That leads to the very real possibility that they will attack in sufficient force to take Thule,” the Colonel continued.  “If that happens, if there is no prospect of saving the planet, you are to fall back and avoid engagement – if possible.  I do not wish to see you throw the lives of your crew away on futile gestures.”

“I understand,” Mandy said.

Jasmine wondered, absently, if she really understood what that meant.  Mandy had been in danger herself – as a pirate slave, she ran the risk of being raped or murdered at any moment, even though she’d been one of the lucky ones – but she’d never had to cope with a situation where people under her command were at risk.  How would Mandy cope when the time came to face an impossible situation? 

“Good,” the Colonel said.  He looked over at Jasmine.  “I will add sealed orders for you to open, should the shit hit the fan.  Until then, good luck.”

He passed a pair of datachips towards them.  The Empire had insisted on writing out operational orders on old-fashioned paper, but it was one tradition the Commonwealth had no intention of retaining.  Electronic orders were much simpler to use.

“Thank you, sir,” Jasmine said.

“One other detail,” the Colonel said, looking right at her.  “I need you to give it back.”

Jasmine knew, without having to ask, what he meant.  She sensed, rather than saw, Mandy’s puzzled look as she hesitated, then reached into her pocket.  The Rifleman’s Tab felt uncomfortably cold against her bare skin, the gold sheen discoloured by the explosion that had killed its owner.  It should have been returned to the Slaughterhouse, Jasmine knew, but God alone knew when – if – they would see the Slaughterhouse again.

I’m sorry, Blake
, she thought.