Snippet – The Prince’s Alliance (The Empire’s Corps)
Prologue I
From: An Unbiased History of the Imperial Royal Family. Professor Leo Caesius. Avalon. 206PE.
Prince Roland did not have an easy life.
He was raised a spoilt brat, to use his own words, and was incredibly lucky to survive the series of disasters that culminated in Earthfall. His escape – with the aid of Specialist Belinda Lawson, a Terran Marine Pathfinder – lead him straight to the Terran Marine Corps, an act that put a political hot potato in their collective lap. Legally, Roland was the Heir to the Imperial Throne; practically, his family had surrendered most of its authority well before his birth and, even if they had continued to rule effectively until Earthfall, the Empire was effectively gone. The various successor states believed Roland to be dead and even if they had thought otherwise, the warlords and planetary governments would not have handed power to a young boy they believed to have nothing, save for a name.
The Marine Corps chose to accept Roland’s request for basic training, while waiting to see how the situation would develop. It was quite possible, as was explained to me later, that Roland would either play a role in rebuilding the galaxy, or be simply encouraged to shuffle off the galactic stage, or vanish into the military and, as far as anyone outside the Corps knew, remain legally dead. This would serve multiple purposes. It would make a man of Roland, ensuring he didn’t fall back into the bad habits of his youth, and it would give him a solid grounding in practical military tactics and strategy, which he would need if he were to return to the public eye. However, as Roland neared the end of his time in Boot Camp, it was difficult to determine if he should be permitted to continue his training, at the replacement Slaughterhouse, or sidelined into a more political role.
It was decided, eventually, to send Prince Roland – now Roland Windsor – to New Doncaster, as part of a military training and assistance scheme. It was not believed he would face any major problems. He would be under the quiet mentorship of a team of experienced soldiers and under the direct command of Marine Captain Michael Allen, who had orders to override Roland if it seemed he was overstepping his authority or making serious mistakes. It should have been a decent training ground for a prospective soldier, a chance to make mistakes and learn from them without having them blow up in his face.
This turned out to be misguidedly optimistic.
New Doncaster’s civil unrest turned rapidly to outright civil war. The rebels, all too aware of the danger posed by the development of a proper army, struck first – and hard. Captain Michael Allen and his men were blown up in a terrorist strike carried out by a deep-cover infiltrator, while large bodies of rebel troops were landed on Kingston – the capital island – and marched towards Kingstown. Roland led his men in a defence of the capital, eventually defeating the rebel offensive … only to discover that, while they’d been battling for the major islands, the rebels had overrun the rest of the contested zones. The war was very far from over.
Roland was appointed, somewhat to his surprise, as commander-in-chief of the government’s forces. (It is unclear if he realised how much political manoeuvring went on behind the scenes, or if some of his backers only backed him because they thought he could take the blame if the war was lost.) He rose to the challenge, building an army by reaching out to dissatisfied communities and offering major political concessions in exchange for loyalty, something that gave him the numbers to take the war to the rebels. It did not, however, win him any friends among the government, some of whom suspected Roland was intent on either reshaping their society or taking power for himself. They saw his steps to rationalise the military as directly threatening, and started planning their counteroffensive. They soon had their chance. The fighting rapidly grew worse, with early victories giving way to a long and slow grinding conflict. Roland knew he had to act fast.
Putting together a strike force, and carefully misleading his superiors (and rebel spies) about where the offensive was targeted, Roland led a strike aimed directly at capturing or killing the rebel leadership and destroying their command and control network. It would, he reasoned, buy time to build up his forces and establish political settlements that would slowly being the simmering conflict to an end. He was not to know his enemies were already putting their own plans into action, launching a coup to seize control of the government for themselves even as the war seemed almost won …
… And, in doing so, guaranteed that the war would continue indefinitely.
Prologue II
(Former) Porter Plantation, Baraka Island, New Doncaster
“I suppose the real question,” Steve said, “is if we should do anything.”
Sarah Wilde kept her thoughts to herself, silently gauging the mood of the rebel leadership as they listened to Steve. It had been sheer dumb luck she’d survived long enough to regain her freedom and forge a brief, although limited, alliance with General Roland Windsor. The outsider general had come very close to killing or capturing her when his men had landed on the island – she was still awed he’d led the mission in person – and, if his own people hadn’t turned on him, he might have won the war overnight. Sure, there would still have been a lot of rebel forces out there, but with the command and control network shattered beyond repair the government would have been able to deal with them one by one. And Sarah herself would be dead.
Steve pressed the issue. “The government stabbed its own troops in the back, but it’s not like those troops loved us,” he said. “They’re townies. They should have been with us from the start. Instead, they traded their services for a handful of baubles and got fucked. Why should we do anything?”
“A valid question,” Colonel Lopez said. He’d sailed from his home base to attend the conference, despite the risk. A single bunker-buster missile could obliterate two-thirds of the rebel leadership … if the government had the nerve to take the shot. It was galling, in a way, that the mansion’s greatest protection was the government’s reluctance to piss off the plantation’s former owners by blowing the property to hell. “Why should we do anything?”
Sarah sighed inwardly, gathering her thoughts as all eyes turned to her. It had taken every last scrap of political capital she had to convince the leadership to go along with the truce, even though they’d had little choice. The government would have been delighted if General Windsor had been forced to continue the war against the rebels, despite being stabbed in the back. And he’d have had no other option, if the rebels had tried to force him to surrender unconditionally. Sarah might have done it anyway, if she’d calculated the rebels would win without major losses. She doubted it. Too many townies believed they’d be lucky to survive if they fell into rebel hands.
“Right now, our enemies have split into two factions,” she said, slowly. “The townies – and General Roland – are prepared to be reasonable …”
“Because they don’t have a choice,” Steve injected. “They’ve been bent over and …”
“Quite.” Sarah kept her face expressionless with an effort. Steve was a brave man, and no one doubted it, but he had no head for politics. “They tried to stay out of the fighting. They only agreed to join the government because the government agreed to address their legitimate concerns, to cancel debt and restore political rights in exchange for service. I think we can reasonably say those promises have been broken. The townies have been betrayed by the aristocratic factions, by men who want to return to the days of yore. We have an opportunity, a very brief opportunity, to reach out to the townies ourselves.”
Lopez leaned forward. “But we could also let the aristos and the townies fight it out, then deal with whoever comes out ahead.”
“We can’t,” Sarah said, quickly. Too many leaders already agreed with him. “General Windsor does not have the shipping, after the betrayal, to get his armies to Kingston. The government effectively controls the seas. Without our help, and our own naval forces” – a grandiose term for converted freighters, sailing ships and motor torpedo boats – “he will effectively remain stranded until he runs out of supplies and his troops start to starve. At that point, he will either have to surrender or start pillaging the islands for food.”
She paused. “And in the meantime, the aristos will be building their own forces and readying themselves for the final conflict with us.”
“So he can surrender to us,” Steve said. “Why should we even think of entertaining an alliance?”
“Because the townies were trapped between the aristos and our demands for a complete reworking of society,” Sarah said. “The townies were – are – frightened of losing what little they had, either legally stolen by the aristos or simply repossessed after we won the war and took over. It made them vulnerable, when the government pretended to take their concerns seriously. We can at least try to recognise their concerns.”
“And we don’t have to keep our promises,” Lopez pointed out.
“That would set a terrible precedent,” Sarah countered. “If the aristos had kept their promises, when this world was settled, the current crisis might never have arisen.”
She forced herself to wait and listen as the rebel leadership argued the question, hashing out the same arguments and counterarguments time and time again. It wasn’t easy to refrain from speaking, to let them argue themselves, but she had no choice. Her leadership position was nowhere near as solid as she might have wished, even before she’d been briefly captured by General Roland and his men. The rebel leaders were both proud and practical men, reluctant to give up their power and fearful of the consequences if they did. Sarah didn’t really blame them. The rebels had always been a decentralised structure. They didn’t dare risk the destruction of one cell leading rapidly to the destruction of the rest.
And yet, that limited our ability to take the offensive, she thought. They’d worked hard to mount the offensive that had kicked off the real fighting and still lost. It had taken months to get organised on Winchester and if the government had struck sooner … she shook her head grimly. We have a chance, now, to win the war. But only if we act fast.
“It’s time to vote,” Sarah said, finally. “Do we ally with the townies, and General Windsor, or do we stand aside and hope for the best?”
She let the words hang in the air. Time wasn’t on their side. She was fairly sure the rebels had rounded up all the spies and informers on the island, but she didn’t dare assume they’d got them all. The databases they’d captured could easily have a few names excised from it. The aristos had been fucking careless to leave such priceless intelligence lying around … not, she supposed, that they’d ever believed they’d lose control of the island. Idiots. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t have encrypted the databases, or rigged the datacores to self-destruct. The carelessness was enough to make her wonder if they were being misled.
“It’s risky,” Lopez said. “What if they turn on us afterwards?”
“Then we’ll be in a position to fuck them,” Steve said.
“Charming,” Sarah said, curtly. “Yes, there’s risk. There’s always risk. Anything we do, even nothing, has risk. But this is our one chance to forge an alliance that might actually win the war. We cannot let this opportunity pass us by.”
She waited, silently tallying the votes. It really wouldn’t be easy. There’d been no time for debates over the post-war world, when victory seemed as far away as the end of the universe itself. Now … if they won, they’d finally be in a position to make their dreams come true. Sarah suspected she’d be fired, as soon as the war was over. And then … she sighed inwardly, wondering how long it would be before the rebels started fighting each other over the future. They were capitalists and communists, socialists and fascists, legalists and anarchists and theocrats and hundreds of other political aspects, some so different from the others they were completely incompatible. What would happen, she asked herself grimly, after they won the war?
But we have to win first, she thought. Or else the entire debate will be worse than useless.
“We will ally with General Windsor,” she said, when the voting was finished. Some of the leaders were more enthusiastic than others, the latter probably planning fallback positions just in case things went to hell, but they’d go along with her for the moment. “And while we will hope for the best, we will prepare for the worst.”
“Yeah,” Steve said. “If they betray us, we’ll make them pay.
Chapter One
Lighthouse #472, New Doncaster
Rachel is going to kill me, Roland thought. I didn’t have to lead the mission myself.
He gritted his teeth. He’d never been prone to sea-sickness – his genetic enhancements were top of the range – and he’d done a lot of water training during Boot Camp even before he’d been assigned to New Doncaster, but the boat was being thrown around so badly he was starting to think he was going to be sick anyway. The storm was mild, by the standards of New Doncaster, but the combination of wind, waves and twilight was getting to him. He knew himself to be a brave man and yet, he was starting to think he’d made a mistake.
The boat shifted again as a giant wave lifted them up before dropping them back down again. Roland swallowed hard. Night was falling rapidly, the weird eye-aching twilight so complete that the rocky island ahead was almost completely invisible. There was supposed to be a lighthouse on top, as well as a radar station and landing pad, but the light had been turned off long ago. Roland understood the logic – the lighthouse was positioned along a major shipping route, now used by rebel ships as well as government vessels – yet it still chilled him to the bone. The risk of running aground, miles from help, was just too high. He doubted anyone would survive if they fell into the churning waters, tides and currents threatening to throw them against the rocks if they didn’t drown first. On paper, the mission had seemed perfectly reasonable. In practice …
Rachel really is going to kill me, Roland reflected, as the boat crashed into another wave, drenching him in cold water. If I survive long enough to get back to base, she’s going to kick my ass.
He forced himself to stay calm as the boat continued to inch towards the rocky island, the helmsman carefully picking his way through the rocks and shoals. The fishermen swore blind that the best pickings were always close to the lighthouse, sheltering amongst the underground pools and overhangs that provided a degree of protection from the storm outside. Roland had believed them – the fishermen were the best sailors on the planet – and yet, it was hard to believe they were going to make it through. The wind grew louder as they inched closer, the rock funnelling the cold air into his face. He shivered, despite himself. New Doncaster was hot, almost unbearably so. Here, though, it was cold.
The fisherman glanced at him. “Nearly there,” he whispered. He was shouting, but his words were snatched away by the wind. “Are you ready?”
Roland glanced at the rest of the team, who nodded. The rebels had raised their own marine division, something that had struck him as funny until he remembered most of the wretched planet was covered with water. They might have lacked the training Roland – and full-fledged Terran Marines – took for granted, but they were tough and experienced fighters who knew how to get the best from their weapons and equipment. Roland hoped he’d have a chance to recruit them for the corps, when they finally got back in touch with Safehouse. It still worried him the detachment had heard nothing from his superiors. Captain Allen’s death – and that of his entire company – seemed to have passed unnoticed.
The Commandant has too many other things to worry about, Roland reminded himself, curtly. New Doncaster was important to the New Doncastrians, but the planet was a very small and largely unimportant world in the grand scheme of things. Whatever happens here is unlikely to affect the galaxy at large …
He swallowed, hard. Earth was gone. It was a disaster so immense he couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around it. Eighty billion people dead … he couldn’t grasp the sheer scale of the loss. They were just numbers. He tried to think of the people he’d known, back when he’d been the Childe Roland, but few of them had made any great impression on him. It was difficult not to feel ashamed of the royal brat he’d been, only a couple of years ago. He’d had servants, a lot of servants, and he didn’t even remember their names!
And you have no time to worry about it now, he told himself. You can fret about it later.
“Take us in,” he ordered.
The rocky overhang grew in front of him until it cast a long shadow over the boat. Roland snapped his night-vision goggles into place, cursing under his breath as he saw waves crashing against the rock. The island was deceptively large and yet, it felt almost painfully small. He wondered, as he studied the rock to pick out handholds, just how the government had built the lighthouse in the first place. His mind tossed the question around and around, then dismissed it as the boat bumped against the rock. Up close, the island seemed impossibly huge. It was difficult to believe it wasn’t that tall, not compared to the mountains he’d climbed during basic. But then, it was all just a matter of perception.
Mount Easy is huge, but it is a very simple climb, so easy even a complete notice can walk to the top, his instructor had said. Mount Doom is half the height of Mount Easy, yet it is so treacherous that even experienced climbers can get into trouble very easily and have to be rescued.
Roland took one last look at the boat, then clambered onto the rock and started to climb. The fishermen had sworn blind it was easy to find handholds – they’d clambered up to catch seabirds, they’d assured him – but it felt slippery and unpleasant to the touch. He forced himself to keep going, keeping his eye on the prize and careful not to look down. The rest of the team followed, their grunting hidden behind the howling wind and outraged seabirds. Roland cursed under his breath. They should have expected the birds. He hoped the enemy guards weren’t paying close attention.
There’s always something that goes wrong, something unexpected, he recalled. The trick is to pick up after the unexpected hits you and keep going.
He inched upwards, step by step. It felt as if he was constantly on the verge of losing his grip and falling to his death. He had no illusions about his chances, if he fell to the rocks below. Even if he survived the fall and landing, the waves would sweep him off and dash him against the rocks before he could recover or be rescued. The fishermen had told him they did it all the time … he kicked himself, mentally, for not asking how many of them died in the attempt. New Doncaster wasn’t Earth, where the middle and upper classes lived – had lived –in blissful safety, wrapped in bubbles of cotton wool. The locals risked their lives every time they went on the waters and some of them never returned. Their bodies were never found.
The top caught him by surprise. He almost lost his grip and fell as he scrambled onto the rocks and caught his breath. His heart was pounding like a drum, beating so loudly he was sure it could be heard over the gathering storm. Lightning flashed in the distance as the rest of the team joined him, their faces grimly relieved. It had been a nasty climb … Roland promised himself, grimly, that next time he’d listen to his instructors. Taking the lighthouse intact was a worthwhile goal, but not at the cost of a dozen lives.
He forced himself to stand and check his weapons, then inch forward until the lighthouse came into view. It was crude, like something out of the dark ages, but he had to admit that building the station on the rocky outcrop was a remarkable feat. The station was bigger than he’d expected, a pair of small barracks flanking a radar station, a helicopter pad and the lighthouse itself. His eyes swept the complex, looking for guards. There were none. Roland didn’t really blame them. The odds of anyone trying to climb up the rocky walls were very low. It was far more likely their enemies would either carry out an airborne assault or slam a missile into the station from a safe distance. The lighthouse wouldn’t survive, but the government would know something had happened. Roland hoped, as the team prepped for the assault, they could take the station without sounding an alarm. It would make the war a great deal easier if the station fed the enemy comforting lies, rather than being replaced by airborne or ground-based sensor stations.
His eyes sought out the lighthouse high overhead as they inched closer. No one was visible on the balcony, unsurprisingly. The winds were just too high. Anyone who stepped outside ran the risk of being blown away, of being sent falling to their deaths. The lower buildings were in a hollow and yet, the shape of the surrounding rocks would make life dangerous for anyone who tried to go out for a walk. Roland wondered, idly, just how well the government paid the lighthouse keepers. He hoped they paid well. The risk of cabin fever would be just too high for minimum wage.
They always were cheapskates, he reminded himself. Underpaying the lighthouse keepers would be hardly out of character for them.
The wind howled louder as they reached the door. The walls looked as if they belonged to a bunker or a pillbox, so solid he wondered if they were expecting attackers after all, before deciding it was intended to keep the lighthouse keepers safe. He glanced at his team, then drew the multitool from his belt and pressed it against the lock. There was a long pause – his heart skipped a beat, knowing the clock had started to tick down to zero – before the door unlocked. He pushed it open, motioning for his team to sneak inside. If there was an alarm on the door …
A gust of heat struck him as they piled through the outer chamber. It was a bare room, save for a pair of heavy coats hanging from the walls. It looked like an airlock … Roland heard someone moving in the next room and motioned for the team to push through the door. A young man stood on the far side, gaping at them. Roland zapped him with a jangler before he could get over his shock, wincing in sympathy as the man collapsed to the ground. The poor bastard was going to be sore for hours … Roland shook his head. There’d been no choice. They dared not let anyone have a chance to sound the alarm.
“Call the chopper,” he ordered, keeping his voice low. “Tell them to come in when they’re up to it.”
He glanced around the chamber, shaking his head in wry amusement. It was more like a genteel – if shabby – sitting room than a military base. A pair of old-style computer consoles rested against the far wall, linked to a flatscreen through a mélange of wires and adaptors; one wall was covered with pin-ups, some so old he couldn’t help thinking the models they showed were dead and gone. There were no windows … he put the thought aside as he led the way into the kitchen, spotting a man bent over the stove. Roland zapped him in the back, then caught him before he could land on the heat. Behind him, he heard a crash. He swore and spun around, dropping the man to the floor. A door slammed before the slammer could be zapped or shot down.
Shit. Roland forced himself to run. Surprise was gone. The enemy might have been caught off guard, but … how quickly could they send a message? Roland wanted to believe they were lazy, that they were so confident they couldn’t be caught by surprise that they hadn’t bothered to set up emergency procedures, yet he dared not assume it was true. If he’d been in command, he’d have made sure everyone knew what to do if the shit hit the fan. If he gets to the command centre before it’s too late …
He kicked down the door and ran through the corridor, quickly updating his mental map of the complex. It was small and yet it felt surprisingly large. A man stepped out of a side door and stared at him; Roland slammed his rifle into the man’s chest, sending him doubling over in shock, and hurried onwards. Alarms howled, the deafening racket shaking the complex as he crashed into the next chamber. A pair of technicians dived for cover. Roland shouted at them to stay on the ground – the rest of the team would take care of them – and ran through the next door. A flight of stairs led upwards, into the darkness. Roland swore as he felt running footsteps, clattering down fragile metal stairs. The runaway was fleeing to the lighthouse itself. He was up to something.
Roland hesitated – there would be almost no room to hide in the lighthouse, no cover if the runaway had a gun – and then inched up the steps, moving as quickly and quietly as he could. The alarms were still howling – he suspected the rest of the lighthouse keepers had awoken to discover it was already too late – but his footsteps shook the stairs. He forced himself to keep going, wishing he’d thought to bring stun grenades despite the risk of damaging equipment they needed to take intact. Right now, the mission was teetering on the brink of outright failure.
The world blazed blindingly bright as he reached the top, so bright he thought someone had called in a missiles strike after all, then plunged into a darkness so absolute he thought he’d gone blind. The runaway had come up with a plan … Roland barely had a second to sense the incoming body before it crashed into him, sending them both slamming into the metal safety walls. Roland felt a flash of panic as the walls seemed to shift under the impact, convinced at a very primal level they were about to plunge to their deaths, before catching himself and pushing back as hard as he could. His vision was blurred, but … he blinked hard, thanking his ancestors for the enhancements spliced into his eyeballs. He would have been blinded for good, without medical treatment unavailable on New Doncaster, if he hadn’t been enhanced. As it was, his eyes hurt.
He growled, punching the runaway in the chest and bringing up his knee to strike the man in the groin. The enemy soldier howled in pain; Roland drew back his fist and punched him out, knocking him to the ground. Roland ducked down as the giant light hummed, then found the emergency switch and powered it down. The lighthouse would remain dark until they’d finished searching it from top to bottom, then determining if the enemy crew had managed to get a warning off before it was too late.
His earpiece buzzed. “Sir, the storm is picking up,” the operator said. “The helicopter cannot reach you until tomorrow morning.”
Roland nodded, picking up the unconscious man and carting him back down the rickety stairs. It was unfortunate, but hardly surprising. He’d devised his plans on the assumption the helicopter wouldn’t be able to reach them at all. The rest of the station crew were lying on the floor in the sitting room, their hands duct-taped behind their backs. Roland frowned as he counted the prisoners. The lighthouse had clearly been reinforced at some point … if reinforced was the correct word. He handed his prisoner over to the team, then glanced at his second. The man’s face was very grim.
“They shipped a top-of-the-line radar and sensor kit into the lighthouse at some point,” he said. “It’s light-years ahead of anyone they showed us.”
“Joy,” Roland said, sarcastically. Radar had never been particularly reliable on New Doncaster – the planet’s atmosphere was a boon to smugglers and rebels and a curse to everyone else – but a modern sensor platform might be able to see through the storms as if they simply didn’t exist. Might. “Where did they get it?”
“Unknown,” his second said. “The spaceport?”
Roland shrugged, putting the issue aside for later consideration. The sensor platform was in their hands now. The lighthouse had been neutralised, ensuring the rebels could start opening up the sea channels again. Even if the enemy knew what had happened – and he hoped they didn’t – they’d have problems doing something about it. The lighthouse would be blown to pieces if they tried to take it back.
His body ached, but he forced himself to walk through the rest of the complex anyway. The barracks were surprisingly comfortable, the beds larger than anything he’d seen during his own training. There were more pin-ups, more computer games and VR headsets … he rolled his eyes as he spotted a pair of virtual experience discs, each one so pornographic he’d been told that bringing one to boot camp was guaranteed expulsion. Someone had either gone a little overboard, when they tried to make the lighthouse keepers comfortable, or they’d turned a blind eye to what the keepers had brought with them. Probably the latter. Roland had been taught there were times when an officer should look the other way and times when the rules should be enforced to the letter. The lighthouse keepers weren’t brewing alcohol …
He returned to the command post, where he was hailed by one of his team. “Sir, I think we have a problem. The lighthouse network sent us a request for an authorisation code. We don’t have it.”
Roland cursed. The prisoners presumably knew the code … he wasn’t above ordering a field interrogation, if necessary, but even waking the poor bastards up would take time, time they didn’t have. And that meant …
“We’ll assume the worst,” he said. It would have been nice to turn the lighthouse into a lie factory, confusing the enemy commanders until it was too late for them to react, but he hadn’t counted on it. “Signal base. Inform them we have secured the lighthouse and we’ll be moving again as soon as the storm allows.”
“Aye, sir.”
