The Empire's Corps: Book 03 - When The Bough Breaks Read online

  When The Bough Breaks

  (The Empire’s Corps: Book Three)

  Series Listing

  Book One: The Empire’s Corps

  Book Two: No Worse Enemy

  Book Three: When The Bough Breaks

  Christopher G. Nuttall

  www.chrishanger.net

  http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/

  http://www.facebook.com/ChristopherGNuttall

  All Comments Welcome!

  Dear Reader

  While this book is set in the same universe as The Empire’s Corps and No Worse Enemy – and helps lay the groundwork for future developments in the series – I wrote When The Bough Breaks to be largely stand-alone. Chronologically speaking, this book starts just after Captain Stalker and his men left Earth in The Empire’s Corps.

  You should be able to read and enjoy it without having read the first two books. However, you can download samples of the first two books – and many others – from my website and then purchase them on Kindle. If you like my books, please review them on Amazon – it helps boost sales and convinces me to write more in certain universes.

  As I am not the best editor in the world, I would be grateful if you email me to point out any spelling mistakes, placing them in context. I can offer cameos, redshirt deals and suchlike in return.

  Have fun! And if you want a fourth book, let me know...

  Christopher Nuttall

  Dedication

  To fight against bureaucracy is like fighting against a slow-moving tidal wave; it can seem an insurmountable foe, utterly impossible to defeat, no matter how irrational its thinking. And yet some people have fought and won. In winning, they helped maintain civilisation.

  This book is dedicated to those who fought.

  For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

  For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

  For want of a horse the rider was lost.

  For want of a rider the message was lost.

  For want of a message the battle was lost.

  For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

  And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

  -Traditional

  Chapter One

  It started on Han, although few recognised what it was without the benefit of hindsight. A single cramped world, divided by political, ethnic, religious and sexual apartheid ... tearing itself apart in a rage that threatened to consume an entire planet. Han was the Empire in microcosm ... and the Empire’s peacekeepers found it impossible to cope with the chaos.

  In Han, the death throes of the Empire found an eerie reflection.

  -Professor Leo Caesius, The End of Empire

  “I think that’s him,” McQueen said.

  Belinda looked up from where she was crouched in the dumpster. This part of New Canton had been abandoned by the forces of law, order and civilisation years ago, leaving it to sink into a state that drove away even the gangsters who existed on the margins of civilised society. The Pathfinders had been lurking in the area for two days and it felt like an eternity. If it hadn’t been for the augmentation and bio-enhancement worked into their bodies, she couldn't help thinking that the stench alone would have driven them away hours ago.

  “You think it’s him,” she repeated. “Are you sure?”

  “There are no guarantees of anything,” McQueen reminded her, as he dropped back down into the dumpster. “But it does very much look like Target One.”

  Belinda nodded. The Han Civil Guard had managed to identify a handful of the rebel leaders before the shit had hit the fan, but it had been completely incapable of actually dealing with them. If they’d been more competent, perhaps Han would never have exploded into chaos ... but there was no profit in contemplating what might have been. Right now, nearly a million soldiers and Marines were battling to suppress the insurgency and finding it hard going. Han had been a powder keg waiting to explode for years.

  The Pathfinder platoon had been tasked with hunting down what few members of the rebel leaders had been identified and taking them alive, if possible. Admiral Valentine, the Imperial Navy officer in overall command of the operation, had been insistent that the rebels had to be taken alive, but Major General Dempsey – the Marine CO – had been more realistic. The Empire never showed mercy to rebels and the rebels knew it. They could be expected to fight to the death. And in Canton City, there were too many armed men ready to ambush an imperial force intent on raiding their territory.

  She opened the hatch at the bottom of the dumpster and dropped down into the hidden basement. The other three Pathfinders glanced up from where they were checking their weapons, their hands automatically reaching for the MAG pistols they’d left within easy reach. Missions had been blown before by a sharp-eyed local noticing something out of place and the Pathfinders might have been forced to fight their way out. The rebels had tried to take imperial bureaucrats hostage to use as bargaining chips, but they wouldn’t try to hold Pathfinders prisoner. They’d kill them all once they realised what their prisoners actually were.

  “Looks like him,” Doug grunted, once McQueen had shared the take from his optical implants. They hadn't risked scattering sensors and surveillance bugs near the nondescript house the rebels used as a base, for fear of tipping them off too soon. Han wasn’t a particularly high-tech world, but the rebels had managed to import a surprising amount of advanced weapons and armour to support their uprising. “None of the others look familiar, though.”

  “Everyone on this planet looks alike,” Pug grunted. He skimmed through the rest of the recording, before putting it aside. “That’s what you get for having a clone population.”

  Belinda shrugged as she donned the rest of her armour. Han’s founders had wanted to boost their population size as quickly as possible, so they’d used cloning tubes as well as volunteer host-mothers and advanced fertility treatments. They’d succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, which was at least partly why Han had a population problem comparable to Earth’s – and, for that matter, why there was an eerie uniformity binding the population together. The intrusion of genes from outside the restricted gene pool the founders had deemed acceptable had yet to spread throughout the world.

  “Signal the navy,” Doug ordered, once they were all checked out. “I want supporting elements on alert, ready to move, the moment we launch.”

  “We can handle it,” Nathan objected, more for form’s sake than anything else. Once they had the rebel leader in their clutches, they would need to get him out of the city – and the quickest way to do that was to have them picked up by a Raptor. Getting him out of the city on foot would be a nightmare. “Really, boss ...”

  “Get on with it,” Doug ordered. “And check everything.”

  Belinda smiled as she checked her armour and weapons, then allowed McQueen to check hers while she checked his. Pathfinders had access to the best equipment money could buy, but they knew better than to take anything for granted. Everything had to be checked out before they launched the mission, or it might fail – and knowing their luck, it would fail at the worst possible moment. The cloaking field didn't even have to fail completely to alert the enemy that something was wrong.

  She donned her helmet and moved over to the door, ready to climb up to the abandoned house they were using as a base. McQueen took point, weapon in hand, and crawled up the ladder, ready for anything. Belinda followed him, her augmented eyes automatically adjusting for the dimming light as the sun vanished beneath the horizon. Han’s moons wouldn't rise until much later. She caught sight of a rat scurrying across the floor, chased by a small army of cockroaches, and shook her head.
The stench of death and decay seemed much stronger here.

  “Activate cloaking fields,” Doug ordered. “Move out.”

  Belinda’s first impression of Canton City had been that it was cramped. Thousands of buildings had been pressed close together, so close that walkways could be rigged up between them – and had been, as the population struggled to find more living space. There were hundreds of street children eking out an existence at ground level, while the richer part of the population avoided them like the plague. Signs advertising everything from soap powder to prostitutes were plastered everywhere, in both Imperial Standard and the local dialect of Chinese. Belinda had been told that the locals were kept deliberately ignorant of Imperial Standard, making it harder for them to find employment with interstellar corporations or the Empire’s military. Looking at the bilingual signs, she could well believe it.

  There was nothing distinguishing the rebel base from the rest of the neighbourhood, a wise precaution with the Imperial Navy high overhead, ready to drop KEWs on any rebels unwise enough to announce their presence. A handful of armed guards could be seen in position to intercept anyone who wanted to enter without permission, although that wasn't uncommon; anyone who could afford guards hired them. Besides, the rebels had converted a brothel into their headquarters. No one would question furtive-looking men heading into a brothel.

  There are innocents inside, Belinda reminded herself, as the Pathfinders took up position. Her upbringing on Greenway hadn't prepared her for the sheer ... hopelessness of parts of the Empire. The prostitutes had probably had no choice but to sell their bodies to survive; it was quite possible that some or all of them were actually underage. It was illegal, but what did legality matter when it was a choice between selling one’s body or starving to death?

  Doug sent a single order over the command network. “Go.”

  Belinda fired at once, targeting one of the guards and putting a bullet though his head before he even had time to realise that the base was under attack. The rest of the team engaged at the same time, wiping out the guards before they could fire a shot back. Even if they had time to react, they would have found it difficult to return fire; the Pathfinders were hidden behind their cloaking fields. The only real option would have been to spray the entire area with bullets and pray.

  “All down,” McQueen sent.

  “Inside,” Doug ordered “Pug, take point.”

  Pug ran forward and slapped a charge against the heavy wooden door. It exploded a moment later, reducing the door to splinters. Nathan threw a stun grenade through the door, triggering it as soon as it was inside the room. Belinda winced in sympathy as her implants picked up the detonation; anyone who wasn't wearing armour or had special enhancement would be on the ground, twitching, the moment they were struck by the blast. Pug dived into the room, his implants transmitting what he saw to his teammates. Belinda tracked him even as she moved up behind McQueen, ready to provide support.

  “Five guards, none of them listed,” Nathan reported. “One dead; I think the poor bastard caught a piece of flying wood. The others are stunned.”

  “Leave them,” Doug ordered. The sound of the breaching charge would have been heard for miles in the still air. They had to assume that the locals knew that they were there. “Search the rest of the complex.”

  The Pathfinders didn't take chances as they searched the building quickly and efficiently. Everyone they encountered was stunned and left to lie on the ground until they could be recovered, if there was time. Belinda pushed her personal feelings aside as she broke into the whores living quarters and stunned them, even though it was clear that most of the women were effectively prisoners. There was no sign of the rebel leader, she realised, as they compared notes over the command network. They might have missed him.

  She winced as she heard someone opening fire with a machine gun. The rebels were on the top floor and had managed to grab weapons, according to Pug and Nathan. Their leadership was probably making its escape over the rooftops while their guards sacrificed themselves to buy time. The Pathfinders launched high-explosive grenades up the stairs and scrambled up afterwards, determined not to give the rebels any time. Belinda brought up the rear as they burst into the rebel base and followed the ladder up to the upper floor.

  “Belinda, McQueen, run SIE,” Doug ordered, as he led the other two up onto the roof. “Orbital says that there are mobs forming outside.”

  “Understood,” Belinda said, as she sat down in front of the rebel computers and started tearing it apart, searching for the memory chips. “We’re on it.”

  Organising a rebellion, she’d been amused to discover years ago, required a certain amount of bureaucracy – and a surprising number of rebel leaders had forgotten basic security precautions when it came to gathering data on their recruits. The Marines were experts in getting captured enemy records back to base and using them to locate other targets – or identifying rebels captured in counter-insurgency sweeps. Shaking her head, she dug out the chips and stowed them away in her webbing, under the armour. They’d be safe there – she hoped – until they got back to base.

  “Got some too,” McQueen reported. “I ...”

  He broke off as the building shook. “That’s the mob,” Belinda said. The brothel was almost completely sound-proofed, but audio-discrimination programs in her implants could pick out rebel yells and chants. “Grab everything and up onto the roof.”

  McQueen followed her up the ladder and onto the roof. Canton seemed to have come to life suddenly; she could see thousands of people thronging through the streets, shouting and screaming death to the imperial intruders. She wasn't too surprised that this part of the city would be solidly behind the rebels, but she pushed the thought aside. The team would attempt to avoid engaging the mob, if possible.

  “We caught him,” Doug sent, from where the other three had followed the rebel leader as he leapt from building to building. “We ...”

  The signal broke off as a colossal explosion shook the city. Belinda turned to see a giant fireball rising up into the air, shattering several city blocks. The mob howled in pain and anguish as flying debris slashed through the air, cutting through human flesh and bone as though it were made of paper. Belinda felt a burst of pain as three termination signals flashed up in her retina display, informing her that Doug, Pug and Nathan were dead. Even a Pathfinder couldn't survive such an explosion.

  Behind them, the mob fought its way up onto the roof. Belinda didn't hesitate; she turned and ran towards the edge of the roof, triggering the boosting implants that had been inserted into her body. There was a rush of energy as she leapt across the chasm between the brothel and the next building; she landed on her feet and kept running, McQueen close behind her. The entire mission had failed spectacularly and all they could do now was break contact and hope that the death of three of their teammates hadn't been entirely wasted. But it was hard to imagine that one rebel leader was worth the death of three Pathfinders.

  She landed on the third building and realised, instantly, that they’d made a mistake. A settlement of dispossessed workers perched on top of it, the workers throwing bricks and glass bottles towards the two Pathfinders. To her boosted mind, the projectiles appeared to be moving in slow motion, but they were still dangerous. She kept moving, ducking and weaving as best as she could, slamming into one particularly angry worker who tried to block their path physically. Belinda felt his arm snap like a twig as they collided. She left him falling to the rooftop as she jumped to another building, heading towards the city walls. Once they were in clear ground, she knew they could outrun any pursuit.

  The entire city seemed to have gone crazy. The mob down on the street below were growing larger, while more and more rooftops were suddenly crammed with people intent on intercepting the two escapees. Belinda exchanged brief messages with McQueen and then started to launch stun grenades towards the next rooftop. The armour and augmentation protected her, but not the locals. She saw a number – including
a handful of kids who couldn't be even entering their teens – stagger over the edge and plummet to their deaths. But there were so many of them that the stun grenades couldn't stun them all ...

  She staggered as a local slammed into her, followed rapidly by others, their hands tearing away at her armour. Belinda stumbled and fell to the rooftop, grunting in pain as she struck the hard surface. Grimly, she boosted her strength again and started to lash out, her armoured hands tearing through her would-be captors with ease. Behind her, McQueen made it to his feet, his armour covered in blood. Belinda was no stranger to horror – she’d served on a WARCAT team, back when she’d been looking for a third MOS – but this was something new. It was something they’d done themselves.

  Her communications implant buzzed.

  “Devils, this is Alpha-Lead,” a voice said. “We’re inbound on your position.”

  “Understood,” Belinda said, brusquely. They couldn't stay on the rooftop and await rescue, not when the mob was still following them. “Get into position and be ready to fire suppression rounds.”

  “Ah ... strum gas is banned in urban areas,” the pilot said. “Orders from Fleet Command, don’t you know?”

  Not a Marine, Belinda realised, in surprise. The mission briefing had stated that the QRF was composed of Marines, but something had clearly changed between their departure and the actual operation being launched. Only Imperial Navy pilots worried so much about precise Rules of Engagement in the middle of an actual engagement. Even the Civil Guard wasn't that dumb.

  “We’re the bastards on the ground,” McQueen thundered. “Get that gas deployed now!”

  Belinda leapt to another building, then another. The Raptors were coming in over the city, drawing fire from the ground. She winced, wondering grimly if Intelligence’s claims that the rebels didn't have HVMs were about to be proven spectacularly wrong, before returning her attention to their escape. If they could stay ahead of the rest of the mob ...