Democracy's Might

Chapter Twenty-One

“You need to wake up,” Gaunt snapped. “This base may have been compromised.”

Adeeba snapped awake. Thankfully, she’d slept in her clothes. One hand picked up her pistol from where she’d placed it beside her mattress, the other grabbed for her emergency pack and slung it over her shoulder. Frandsen, unsurprisingly, was already awake. The Marine managed to look disgustingly alert, despite the hour.

“Joy,” Adeeba muttered. A glance at her watch told her that it was three in the morning. “What happened?”

“Someone probably got caught,” Gaunt said. She turned and strode towards the door. “The imps would have made them talk, then killed them. If that person had an inkling of this base’s location…”

Adeeba could fill in the rest. The imps had taken longer than she’d expected to realise that there was a coordinated sabotage campaign underway on Earth. but once they’d cottoned on they’d started to tighten security and start hunting for underground bases. Security forces had been sweeping the lower levels, while new procedures had forced underground agents to go silent in the hopes of evading detection. Earth was the one world where the imps couldn’t risk excessive brutality, but they seemed mad enough not to care.

Gaunt led them out the door and down a long concrete corridor. Adeeba felt her ears pop as the air pressure changed suddenly, then winced as they reached a solid wall. Gaunt snorted at her and pressed her hand against a certain place. There was a clicking noise and the wall moved out of their way, allowing them to step through into the next section. Inside, there was a long metallic pipe heading into the darkness.

“Take these,” Gaunt said, opening a hidden compartment and producing a handful of night-vision goggles. “Do you know how to swim?”

Adeeba blinked in surprise. “Swim?”

“We need to swim further on,” Gaunt said. The ground shook, suddenly. “And if you don’t know, I suggest you get ready to learn.”

“I can swim,” Adeeba said. She’d learned at the academy, along with a number of other skills she’d deemed useless in space. “But why…?”

“Officially, this complex ends here,” Gaunt said. “Unofficially, there’s a link between this one and the next. But only if you can swim.”

The ground shook, again. “And they’re on their way,” she added. “Some of our people are going to sell their lives dearly. I just wish I was with them now.”

The lower levels of the city had always given Lieutenant Jackson Robertson the creeps. It was impossible to tell that humans had once lived there, not when the area was damp, smelly and largely abandoned. Sure, there were people who eked out an existence in the lower levels, but he couldn’t understand how they could bear to live like that. But their presence provided cover for the underground…

“Sweep carefully,” he ordered, as the Blackshirts led the way into the complex. The charts they’d downloaded before commencing the raid were inaccurate, they’d already discovered the hard way. Someone had been changing the interior of the complex, redesigning it to suit themselves. “And watch out for traps.”

He cursed under his breath as the Blackshirts moved further down the corridor, poking through metal doors and inspecting the hidden rooms. Blackshirts were brave, no one doubted that, but they were also hard to control once they got the scent of blood. Jackson would have preferred more disciplined troopers; his superiors had told him, when he’d asked, that there were none available. He would just have to hope that the Blackshirts obeyed orders during the raid and took prisoners, rather than slaughtering everyone they encountered who wasn’t wearing a uniform.

The rooms looked to have been abandoned a long time ago, he realised. Anything that might have been decomposable had already decomposed. It didn’t look as if anyone had been down in the complex for decades, perhaps hundreds of years. But the sniffers were reporting the presence of human DNA traces, suggesting that the rebels might have established a base further down…

There was a click, loud enough to be heard over the communications network, then a colossal explosion. The three Blackshirts who had taken point were blown backwards, their armoured bodies tossed out of the passageway like ragdolls. Their successors opened fire, raking the burning corridor with bursts of plasma fire. As far as Jackson could tell, there was nothing there now the IED had detonated, but they were trained and conditioned to respond to any provocation with maximum force. It helped deter future attacks, their conditioners had claimed. Jackson had his doubts.

“Cease fire,” he snapped, angrily. He didn’t manage to keep the anger out of his voice. “Hold your fucking fire!”

The Blackshirts slowly stopped firing. Their shots had left the corridor scorched and pitted, but otherwise undamaged. Jackson muttered another curse under his breath, then detailed the Blackshirts to start advancing forward again, carefully. The first IED probably wouldn’t be the last and, unlike operating in the open, the corridors ensured that the Blackshirts would follow a predicable course. It would be easy for the underground to mine all the approaches to the complex.

A second explosion blasted out ahead of him as the Blackshirts stumbled over another IED. This time, no one was hurt. Jackson let out a sigh of relief as they broke into the complex and looked around. It seemed deserted, but closer inspection revealed that someone had definitely been in the complex not too long ago. There was almost no dust on the floor. In fact, he decided, the signs suggested that there had been quite a few people in the complex.

“This seems to have been an operating base,” he said, keying his radio. If something happened to the advance teams, their commanders would know that a rebel base had been uncovered. By now, every exit route should have been firmly secured. Either the rebels had abandoned the base… or they were frantically preparing to make a last stand. “So far, all we have encountered is traps, but there might be live rebels further down.”

“Understood,” his CO said. “If you can take some rebels alive, Jackson, there will be a promotion in it for you.”

Jackson nodded, then directed the Blackshirts to fan out. It was time to search the entire complex piece by piece. And if they found the rebels… they’d give them a nasty surprise.

Adeeba gritted her teeth as they came out of the pipe and found themselves looking at a vast reservoir. Once, she recalled, the city’s water supply would have been drawn from this huge tank of water, then pumped up through a network of pipes and then recycled after use. Now, the tank had been walled over and forgotten by the city’s officials. The only source of illumination was a faint glow from high overhead. She caught a glimpse of something moving under the water and wondered, suddenly, if entirely new forms of life had had time to evolve. Or if the rebels, trying to ensure a secure food supply, had introduced fish into the tank.

“Here,” Gaunt said, passing her a breathing mask. “Stick your shoes in the bag, then put the mask on and get ready to swim.”

Frandsen scowled. “Where are we going?”

Gaunt gave him a brilliant grin, her teeth shining in the semi-darkness. “There’s a passageway under the water,” she informed him. “We can use it to get out.”

She checked Adeeba’s mask, then smiled. “You have two hours worth of air in the mask,” she added. “If we don’t get out by then, they’ll never find our bodies.”

Frandsen gave her a reassuring look as Gaunt turned and jumped into the water. There was a loud splash — deafeningly loud in the silent compartment — and then Gaunt surfaced, waving at them to follow her. Adeeba hesitated, standing on the edge of the water, then felt a push on her back. She tilted and plummeted into the water. It was cold, cold enough to make her shiver; her clothes suddenly felt very heavy. Frandsen joined her a moment later, then nodded to Gaunt. The underground fighter dived under the water and vanished.

Adeeba took a breath, even though she knew the mask should take care of her, then followed. It was hard to see Gaunt in the gloom; tiny fish swam nearby, confusing her. Dark shapes appeared as she swam deeper, some of them unrecognisable and others familiar enough for her imagination to fill in the details. She couldn’t help shivering again as Gaunt led her towards a pipe, then dived right inside. Adeeba hesitated — she was no claustrophobe, but the pipe seemed too small for anything human — and then followed Gaunt, trying not to think about where she was.

It felt like hours before they finally came out of the pipe. The darkness pressed around her like a living thing; it was a relief when they saw glimmers of light in the distance. Gaunt swam upwards as soon as they reached the end; Adeeba followed her, gasping as her head broke the surface. They seemed to have come out in a giant swimming pool, although it looked as disused as the reservoir. But there were working lights in the ceiling…

“Get out of the water,” Gaunt ordered, as she clambered up the ladder and out of the pool. “We’ll need to dry ourselves, then run for it.”

“Understood,” Adeeba said. The whole experience seemed to have become a nightmare. She would sooner have been on a starship hulk than go swimming through the pipes again. “Where are we?”

“This used to be a famous resort,” Gaunt said. “That was centuries ago, of course.”

“Of course,” Adeeba agreed.

Jackson was starting to think that the rebels had definitely abandoned the complex before the Blackshirts had arrived. Apart from a handful of IEDs, they’d found no one — and nothing that they could use to find other rebel bases. Indeed, it looked as though the underground had been very careful to strip out anything that could be used to locate other bases. They were normally careful, but there was usually something. This time, there was nothing.

“There are forensic teams on the way,” his CO said. He’d been logging onto the command network and nagging for results, then logging off before Jackson could work up the nerve to point out that nagging him wasn’t exactly productive. “Secure the complex, then clear the way for them.”

“Understood,” Jackson said. He checked his HUD — the Blackshirts had swept the entire complex — then nodded. “We’ll wait for them here.”

He couldn’t help wondering just what the underground had been thinking. Sure, life on Earth wasn’t good, but they could easily emigrate to another planet. There were colony missions departing all the time. Or they could get proper jobs. Jackson himself hadn’t whined about unfairness when he’d finally grown old enough to seek employment, he’d gone out and looked for work. And when they’d decided that he was suited to be a Blackshirt supervising officer, he’d been certain of a good career. There was no reason the underground couldn’t do the same.

Probably they prefer to whine instead of actually doing something to improve their lives, Jackson thought, as the Blackshirts returned to the centre of the complex. It had been certified IED-free after a quick check. Or knock us down rather than build themselves up…

There was a dull rumble in the distance. Jackson blinked in surprise, wondering if someone had discovered another IED, then frowned as he realised that the rumbling was actually getting closer. Had the bastards managed to collapse the ceiling? It was solid, according to the briefing; the city’s designers had made it’s foundations out of the strongest material they’d had at the time. It would take a nuke to do real damage…

And then he saw the water, rushing through the corridors and coming right at him.

There was no time to sound the alert or to grab hold of something solid. The water struck with the force of a tidal wave, picking him up and effortlessly slamming him against the far wall. He heard his armour crack, the impact stunning him; moments later, he felt cold water drifting up his body and into his mask. There was another crash…

And then there was nothing. Nothing, but darkness.

“There was an ancient water storage chamber down there,” the security officer explained, reluctantly. “They must have had it mined, ready to explode. Once the Blackshirts relaxed, the underground triggered the explosives and dumped a few thousand tons of water into the complex. Any clues left behind will be gone now.”

“Along with several thousand Blackshirts,” Tiberius said. He’d watched through the network as the Blackshirts invested the rebel base. By the time the water had reached its zenith, most of the investing forces had been drowned. “This will cause interesting problems for us, won’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” the security officer said.

Tiberius masked his reaction with an effort. The underground had not only pulled off a successful campaign, they’d managed to lure a vast number of Blackshirts into a trap — or at least that was how they were certain to explain it. They might have been inconvenienced, but the Blackshirts had taken a bloody nose. It was quite likely that the underground would get thousands of new recruits on Earth — and probably hundreds more off-world. The sabotage campaign had already spread to Mars, Titan and Io. How bad could it get in future?

He disconnected from the network, then looked at the report from Admiral Foster. The aged Admiral was trying, at least, to clean out the corruption in Home Fleet. But it wasn’t an easy task when telling the difference between patronage and outright corruption was difficult. And, unlike Admiral Wachter, Admiral Foster’s victims had the Families Council on Earth to complain to. Their patrons had to intervene on their behalf.

We need a unified front, Tiberius thought. If we all made the same response, the clients would behave themselves. We could move them to safer places and keep them out of the front line.

But it was the age-old problem. A patron had to support his client or the client would take his services elsewhere. Tiberius’s assistants had told him that they’d received several offers from senior officers who felt betrayed by their former patrons. It would have been a good time to expand his own networks if he hadn’t been more worried about the state of Home Fleet. By his most optimistic calculations, the rebels were three months away. If they realised just how weak Home Fleet was, they might bypass Morrison altogether and strike directly at Earth. They might win the war easily.

Admiral Foster had proposed swapping one of his superdreadnaught squadrons for one of Admiral Wachter’s squadrons. Reading between the lines, Tiberius suspected he meant that he intended to give Admiral Wachter the task of reassigning or relieving the corrupt officers while taking advantage of Admiral Wachter’s purge. In theory, it wasn’t a problem; in practice, it was likely to pose a major headache. What if Admiral Wachter objected to losing a squadron he had trained into something resembling acceptable condition?

“Damn it,” Tiberius swore, out loud. He picked up the datapad in frustration and threw it across the room, aiming at the portrait of a nobleman with an impossibly firm jaw. It missed, slamming against the wall and crashing to the floor. “Damn it all!”

Sharon stepped inside, one eyebrow raised. “Are you all right, My Lord?”

“Just… frustrated,” Tiberius said. “Why is it that every time we find a solution to one problem it brings another couple of problems in its wake?”

“There is no such thing as a perfect solution,” Sharon said. “And people tend to react to what you do.”

Tiberius placed his head in his hands. Morrison needed to be prepared for war, so they’d appointed someone with an unprecedented amount of authority — and now they had to worry about his reaction to their decisions. Home Fleet needed to be prepared for war — and now they had to be careful how they treated their clients, for fear of rebellion or even just accidentally destroying the patronage networks. Earth needed to be secured against the underground — and now everything had slowed down to allow security checks to take place, just when they needed to ramp up industrial production. And they had to clean out corruption… while knowing the officers they needed to keep were also the ones they needed to remove.

“It’s too much,” he said, bitterly. “Is there any way we can actually win?”

“Admiral Wachter might pull off a victory,” Sharon pointed out. “And besides, just how badly has the underground hurt you?”

Tiberius considered it. They’d been hurt — but they’d been embarrassed more than hurt. All of the major families had been targeted, which made it harder for them to point fingers at Tiberius in particular…

He shook his head. Normally, they could just pick up the pieces and rebuild. But now they had to do several things at once, in the midst of a war. He had no idea how the Empire had managed to do it during the First Interstellar War. But then, the Empire had been new then, barely established. It had taken years for the rot to set in.

But he had to deal with the rot.

“Badly enough,” he said. “Perhaps we should offer more colony incentives.”

“Perhaps you should relax,” Sharon said. “You’re taking too much on yourself.”

“And if I rely on others, they’ll try to steal the family out from under me,” Tiberius countered. He shook his head. “Call a pleasure slave, then hold my calls. I’ll try to relax for an hour.”

But he knew, no matter how much he tried to forget, reality wouldn’t go away.