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Roland had to admit, as the aircraft circled the airport before coming into land, that Kingston was a beautiful island. It lacked the jungles, and the alien biology, of much of the habitable zone - the island had been intensively terraformed, in the first decade after settlement - but there was something about the green fields and blue lakes that appealed to him. Even the ever-present heat wasn’t enough to change his mind. He doubted he’d be allowed to stay on New Doncaster indefinitely, not unless he wanted to give up his name, but it wasn’t a bad place to spend his military career. It was certainly unlikely the corps would have any pressing need for him elsewhere.
His heart ached as the aircraft touched down and taxied to a halt. He’d expected something from Safehouse, in the weeks and months since the spaceport - and an understrength company of Marines - had been blown to atoms. Surely, the corps would react to the death of so many irreplaceable men. And yet, none of his messages - or Rachel’s - had received a reply. He was tempted to wonder if they’d gone astray, as if the merchants he’d paid to take the messages to the dead drops had forgotten them, or fallen prey to pirates, but it was hard to believe they’d all been lost. They were alone, even though ...
He shook his head as he unstrapped his belt, then headed for the hatch. New Doncaster might be important to the locals, for obvious reasons, but it was a very minor colony world to most interstellar powers. The Marine Corps might have wanted to commit a division to teach the rebels a lesson, yet there were just too many other demands on its limited resources. Roland knew he’d done well, but he had few illusions about his capabilities. He wouldn’t have been assigned to the planet, let alone been put in command of the training mission, if there’d been any better options.
Rachel caught his eye. “I’ll take our prisoner to town,” she said. “Good luck.”
Roland nodded as the hatch opened. A wave of heat struck him in the face, carrying with it the promise of a tropical thunderstorm. Roland took a breath, seeing the clouds growing over the distant mountains. The planet’s weather was dangerously unpredictable, as far as the meteorologists were concerned, but the locals seemed able to sense what was coming. Roland had learnt to respect their insights, over the last few months. They were certainly far more accurate.
He checked his pistol, automatically, as he jumped to the ground and hurried towards the security checkpoint at the edge of the airfield. The training base had mushroomed in the last six months, turning from a relatively small compound to a giant complex that would give a Marine Corps boot camp a run for its money. Rachel had pointed out, with each successive expansion, that security was turning into a minor nightmare. No one, not even the guards, knew everyone authorised to enter or leave the base. Roland had done what he could to ensure visitors were checked, before they were allowed inside the fence, but he feared it was just a matter of time until an insurgent managed to get through. Hell, the odds one or more of the recruits were rebels were alarmingly high. Roland was uncomfortably aware vetting of prospective soldiers was little more than a joke.
We’re short of manpower, he reminded himself. And we don’t have time to vet everyone.
The guards checked his ID, then waved him through. Roland nodded as he made his way to the command barracks, passing parade grounds and shooting ranges and recruit barracks, carefully avoiding lines of young men - and a handful of women - jogging from place to place. The drill instructors - many with little more experience than their charges - led the way, shouting orders in a manner designed to draw attention and command obedience without crossing the line into open bullying. Roland wished there’d been more time to season the DIs, before they’d been pressed into service. Marine DIs normally had years of service under their belts, to the point that - whatever their official ranks - they were actually quite senior. It was a rare CO who’d ignore advice from an experienced NCO. Here ... Roland gritted his teeth. There had been incidents, incidents that he’d had to deal with, that stemmed from simple inexperience. It would have been easier, he thought, if the men he’d busted had been malicious instead. He could have kicked them out and felt no remorse afterwards.
He paused by a shooting range and watched as the instructors put the men through their paces. They were expending thousands of rounds, and the penny-pinchers in the nearby city had been complaining about it, but Roland found it hard to care. Better they learnt how their weapons worked now, rather than trying to pick up lessons under enemy fire. Bullets were cheaper than soldiers. He recalled the horror stories about military bureaucracy in the old army days and shuddered. Making training officers fill out a stack of paperwork to obtain even a single case of ammunition was pretty much asking for a shortage of training, which meant the poor trainees would get their asses kicked when they went up against a real enemy. He had no intention of letting that happen here.
The command barracks loomed up in front of him. Roland allowed the guards to check his ID - again - and then stepped inside, breathing a sigh of relief as the cool air washed over him. The handful of staff - all middle-aged women trying to do something for the war effort - glanced at him, then went back to work. Roland hid his amusement as he made his way to the CO’s office, knowing they hadn’t recognised him. His combat battledress was unmarked. The rebels had good snipers. Wearing his rank badges in a combat zone was asking to be shot.
He tapped on the door, then waited. “Come!”
Roland smiled and stepped into the office. Master Sergeant (Auxiliary) Brian Wimer - de facto base CO - looked up from his desk, then smiled and stood. “Sir!”
“Sergeant,” Roland said. He wasn’t sure if Wimer knew who he really was. Rachel had been vague, when he’d asked her, and he didn’t want to risk asking Wimer himself. “I take it you heard the news?”
Wimer nodded, waving Roland to a folding chair as he poured them both some coffee. “It’s never easy to tell how someone will react to combat,” he said. “I’ve seen braggarts turn to cowards when the bullets start flying, and wimpy fops stand their ground even when I feared they’d turn and run, but shooting prisoners ...”
He grimaced. “She went through utter hell, sir,” he added. “Under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t have recruited her at all.”
Roland frowned. The Marine Corps believed anyone could become a Marine, if they were prepared to work their way through a training course designed to weed out the ones unable to take the pressure, making them quit rather than kicking them out. It was a point of honour the Corps never forced anyone to leave, allowing them to pass or fail on their own. And yet ... he grimaced as he sipped his coffee. The Corps certainly had had second thoughts about taking him on, when he’d recovered from Earthfall. It hadn’t let him proceed to the second stage of his training.
“We may be asked to account for it,” Roland said. “Were there any warning signs?”
“According to her file, very few,” Wimer said. “She was traumatised, but the shrinks thought the fact she wanted to join the military was a good sign, rather than curling up in a ball and refusing to move. She was still fighting, they said. Her DIs noted she was a good recruit. A handful of minor problems with the others, back when they weren’t used to having a young woman amongst them, but she coped well. She was on the list for accelerated promotion when she was shipped out. Now, of course ...”
“She’ll be lucky not to be hanged,” Roland said, curtly. “Do we have any other problem children?”
“It depends on what you mean,” Wimer countered. “We have too many recruits who want a little revenge, sir, and no way to screen them out.”
“And no way to ensure a slower transit into military life,” Roland added. “We can’t put the brakes on now.”
He sighed. The government should have started building a proper army years ago. Right now, there weren’t enough warm bodies in the pipeline to let him pick and choose the recruits at will. Hell, turning some of them down would provoke a political crisis the wartime government was ill equipped to handle. But it meant training was scanty, with worrying gaps at practically all levels, and a lack of specialists in dozens of different fields. Roland knew Wimer and his team were doing their best, yet ... he shook his head. There was nothing to be gained by harping about it. They knew the problem and were trying to fix it.
“We will revise the training course to ensure everyone knows what not to do,” Wimer said, grimly. “But we already told them, including Porter, not to commit anything resembling a war crime.”
“Tell them again,” Roland said. “And make it clear.”
He stared at his empty mug. Accidents happened in war. Civilians died all the time, from being used as human shields by terrorists to making the mistake of driving towards a checkpoint manned by jumpy soldiers unwilling to risk letting a potential IED any closer to them than strictly necessary. They were horrific accidents, but they were accidents. The mass slaughter of prisoners, on the other hand, was deliberate. It could not be allowed to go unpunished.
Wimer’s terminal bleeped. “Excuse me, sir.”
“Sir, Lady Oakley has arrived,” his secretary said. “She requests an audience with General Windsor.”
Roland blinked. “Sandra?”
“Yes, sir,” Wimer said. He smiled, although there was an edge to his expression that reminded Roland he didn’t approve of Sandra Oakley. “I dare say she heard you were coming from her father.”
“I’ll speak to her,” Roland said. He’d hoped to get a shower before heading into the capital for the appointment with the war cabinet, but ... he was torn between being pleased to see Sandra again and concern about why she might have come to greet him. “Once I’ve talked to the cabinet, we can discuss the next stage of the plan.”
Wimer raised his hand in salute. “Yes, sir.”
Roland smiled, then made his way to his office. Sandra was already there, sitting on a chair wearing a short skirt that showed off her perfect legs. Roland felt his heart begin to race, reminding him of just how long it had been since they’d slept together. He was no fool - he knew Sandra’s father had encouraged her to get close to him, something he’d seen on Earth before Earthfall - but he was a young man. It was all he could do to close the door behind him, instead of running to her.
Sandra smiled, as if she knew what he’d been thinking. “Dad wants me to drive you to the city,” she said. “Are you ready?”
“I suppose.” Roland took a breath, calming himself. Their relationship was ... odd, although - in all honesty - he’d never had a normal relationship. He’d been the Childe Roland, surrounded by aristocratic women who said they wanted him and commoner women who couldn’t say no. He felt sick, every time he thought about his past self. He wanted to go back and slap himself silly. “I take it you’ve heard the news?”
“About Angeline?” Sandra stood, brushing down her dress in a manner that drew the eye to her breasts. “Yes, we have. And we don’t know how to handle it.”
Roland met her eyes. “She committed a war crime,” he said. “We cannot allow it to stand.”
“I agree,” Sandra said. She looked back at him, evenly. “But others do not.”
***
Tell me, Angeline thought. Are you really that scared of me?
She’d been shackled for the brief walk to the plane, then manacled to the chair and forced to sit there, for hours, before the plane had finally landed somewhere on Kingston. There was no point in arguing, she’d discovered. Her escort, an unsmiling woman who was clearly an offworlder no matter what uniform she wore, had told her - flatly - that everything she said would be recorded and might - Angeline suspected she’d meant would - be used against her, when she faced a court. Angeline found it hard not to be bitter. After everything she’d gone through, she was the bad guy?
She kept the thought to herself as she was half-carried off the plane - her legs were too stiff for her to walk - and into a car, which rumbled towards the distant city. It was hard to so much as move her head, but she managed to spot some familiar buildings from the training base before her escort ordered her to keep her eyes to herself. Angeline resisted the urge to make a snide remark as the car picked up speed, crossing the ring road and only slowing when it reached the first checkpoint. She couldn’t hear what her escort and the driver said to the guards, but it was clearly enough to get them waved through without the vehicle being searched. It gnawed at her. The DIs had promised that anyone who just let an unsearched vehicle into the compound would be lucky if they were just yelled at by their superiors. An insurgent with bad intentions could cram a shitload of explosives into a car, they’d pointed out, and the driver might not even know he’d been turned into a suicide bomber.
The car slowed, then went down a ramp and finally came to a halt. Her escort opened the door and dragged Angeline out into an underground garage. Two men in black uniforms took custody of Angeline, searching her quickly before marching her into an elevator that went even further below the ground. Angeline felt her heart sink. She’d heard rumours of underground prisons, owned and operated by the secret police, but none of them had ever been substantiated. Now ... her gut churned with outrage. She was a prisoner in a complex hardly anyone knew existed, a prisoner who had been denied her rights as well as everything else. It just wasn’t fair.
She grunted as she was shoved into a cell and manacled to a bench, then told to wait. Tears prickled in her eyes as she looked around. The room was bare, nothing more than concrete walls and a solid metal door. The air stank faintly of piss and shit and hopelessness ... she wondered, suddenly, how she was meant to answer the call of nature. Did they expect her to wet herself, to soak her clothes as well as the cell? Or ...
The door opened. Angeline looked up. A figure stood in the light, staring at her. It was too bright for her to make out his face, but ...
“I need answers,” the figure said. The voice was unfamiliar, but the accent was very definitely aristocratic. No one, even a townie who married into the aristocracy, could fake it well enough to fool a real aristocrat. Angeline’s mother had been very clear on that point, when she’d been insisting Angeline had to master the accent herself or risk seeming countrified when she came out. “What actually happened?”
Angeline swallowed, hard. Her mouth was dry. “Water.”
“Fetch her water,” the figure called, then turned back to her. “What happened?”
“I ...” Angeline forced herself to think. Her feelings were a tangled mess. The rebels had been thieves, as well as rapists and murderers. They’d worn the evidence of their crimes right in front of her eyes. They’d deserved to die. The sheer hatred that washed through her was overpoweringly strong. They’d deserved to die and yet she was the one in jail? It just wasn’t even remotely fair. “I killed looters.”
The figure took a glass of water from someone and held it to her lips, letting her drink her fill. “Start at the beginning,” he said. “What happened?”
Angeline wet her lips, then started to recount the entire story. The invasion. The landing. The march to the airport. The victory. The thieves. And ... she clenched her teeth as she tried to put her feelings into words. The rebels had deserved it. They’d killed hundreds of people and forced thousands more to flee to safety, as if there was any safety. The only thing they understood was force. They deserved to die. She had no doubt of it.
“Very good,” the figure said, when she finally finished. “You will be taken to a more ... pleasant prison cell, where you can shower and sleep without shackles. As long as you behave yourself, you will be treated well. Quite what will happen to you is still in the air, but you’re not alone. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Angeline said. It occurred to her, too late, that the figure might have been gentle with her to get her to talk, that she might have made a full confession for anyone who cared to listen, but so what? She’d done the right thing. Anything else was unimaginable. “I thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” the figure said. “Do you have anything else you wish to say?”
“No.” Angeline tried to shake her head, but the shackles made it hard. She wanted to know who he was, yet she was sure she wouldn’t get an answer. “I’m just ... I’m just tired.”
“Rest now,” the figure said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”