The Forsaken

(The Empire’s Corps XXII)

Christopher G. Nuttall

http://www.chrishanger.net
http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/ChristopherGNuttall

Cover By Tan Ho Sim
https://www.artstation.com/alientan

All Comments Welcome!

Series Listing

Book One: The Empire’s Corps
Book Two: No Worse Enemy
Book Three: When The Bough Breaks
Book Four: Semper Fi
Book Five: The Outcast
Book Six: To The Shores
Book Seven: Reality Check
Book Eight: Retreat Hell
Book Nine: The Thin Blue Line 
Book Ten: Never Surrender
Book Eleven: First To Fight
Book Twelve: They Shall Not Pass
Book Thirteen: Culture Shock
Book Fourteen: Wolf’s Bane
Book Fifteen: Cry Wolf
Book Sixteen: Favour The Bold
Book Seventeen: Knife Edge
Book Eighteen: The Halls of Montezuma
Book Nineteen: The Prince’s War
Book Twenty: The Prince’s Gambit
Book Twenty-One: The Prince’s Alliance
Book Twenty-Two: The Forsaken

Contents
Prologue I – Earth, 101 Years Prior to Earthfall
Prologue II: Montezuma, 98 Years Prior to Earthfall
Chapter One: Mictlan, Montezuma
Chapter Two: Mictlan, Montezuma
Chapter Three: Mictlan, Montezuma
Chapter Four: Mictlan, Montezuma
Chapter Five: Mictlan, Montezuma
Chapter Six: Mictlan, Montezuma

Cover Blurb

They were loyal to the Empire, but the Empire was not loyal to them ...

Montezuma was an isolated world, of interest to no one, until an interstellar corporation discovered vast resources of rare materials under the surface, just waiting to be extracted and sold. The corprats legally stole the planet, crushed the native dreams of independence and brought in vast numbers of outsiders to mine the rough-hewn world, leaving poverty, pollution and deprivation on an unimaginable scale in their wake. 

But now the Empire has fallen and the corporation has betrayed its workers, abandoning them to fight or die on an unforgiving world …

Prologue I – Earth, 101 Years Prior to Earthfall

I am not a supplicant, President Martin Lopez told himself.

Sure, his own thoughts answered. And if you tell yourself that often enough, perhaps you’ll even come to believe it.

He stood in the antechamber and waited, trying to keep his angry and despair from showing on his face. The chamber was vast, large and ornate and completely impersonal, designed to make any mere human feel small and weak before the majesty of the Imperial Supreme Court. There were no table or chairs, nothing to make him feel welcome; his staff – his assistants and lawyers and even his mistress – had been denied permission to accompany him, leaving him completely alone as he faced his judges. No, his planet’s judges. Martin wanted to believe they still had a chance, but it was growing increasingly clear the fix was in. It had been in well before he’d left his homeworld to plead its case on Earth …

It was hard, so hard, to remain calm. If only … he kicked himself, not for the first time, for allowing the planetary survey. There had been no reason to think Montezuma had extensive mineral reserves, certainly nothing that might be of interest to offworld minding corporations. Oil and gas were great for planetary development, but it was hardly economically beneficial to ship them across the stars. It had seemed so safe, so simple … in hindsight, he’d been a fool. He should have wondered more about the corporation’s willingness to carry out the survey for practically nothing, almost at cost for themselves. It was all too clear they’d had a good idea of what they’d find, when the survey was completed. They had to have known.

He was too tired, after years of legal struggles, to feel anything but numb as he contemplated the past. Montezuma was a treasure trove of raw materials, some so rare that selling them on the open market would bring in enough money to turn the planet into an economic powerhouse. Martin had wondered, despite himself, if it was worth the damage the mining operations would inevitably do to the ecosystem, or the disruption such a vast influx of money would do to the planetary culture. Perhaps there was a way to compromise, to make use of the windfall without destroying themselves … but the corporation hadn’t been willing to negotiate. They’d laid claim to the entire planet, through a spurious legal argument, and appealed to the Supreme Court to back their claim. By the time Martin had realised what was happening, it had been too late. The corporation had shovelled enough money around to ensure the judgement went in its favour.

His legs buckled. He sat on the cold marble floor, his lips twisting at the calculated disrespect. The portraits of Supreme Justices gazed upon him disapprovingly … he fancied they would have been horrified, if they’d encountered such corruption while they’d lived, although he suspected otherwise. He was no expect in Imperial Law – few were, even the ones who devoted their lives to legal practices – but he’d read enough briefs, over the past three years, to know there were so many precedents that could justify almost anything, from slavery to stealing an entire planet from its inhabitants, if one had a particularly good lawyer. Martin wasn’t naive enough to think Montezuma’s political system was perfect, but even at its worst it was squeaky clean compared to the empire. The corporation was so wealthy it could buy and sell justices out of pocket change. And none of the men who’d be deciding his planet’s fate – who had already decided – had ever visited his world.

A man appeared and walked towards him, his lips thinning in disapproval as he saw a planetary president sitting on the ground like a wayward child. He wore the formal livery of a court-mandated escort, an unsubtle insult; Martin was all too aware the corprats had argued his people were unfit for independence, that they needed to be taken in hand like unruly children and taught civilisation. The escort’s face was bland to the point of being completely unremarkable, without the signs of a life truly lived. Martin couldn’t help thinking, as the young man stopped in front of him, that the poor boy was just a cog caught up in a much greater machine. If he’d wanted to make something of himself, he’d have gone elsewhere.

“The court requires your presence,” the escort said. His accent was pure upper-class, so deeply rooted in the homeworld that it was rarely heard outside Sol. The lack of honorifics was another calculated insult, perhaps a subtle way to tell him his title had been officially revoked. It wouldn’t be legal, as far as Montezuma was concerned, but the planet was no longer in control of its own destiny. “I am to escort you to the judgement chamber.”

Martin put out a hand. “Help an old man up, son?”

The escort looked, just for a second, as if he’d been asked to put his hand into an unflushed toilet. Martin didn’t try to hide his amusement as the escort helped him to his feet, letting go the moment he could stand on his own two feet. It wasn’t as if he needed the help, but … he felt a pang of remorse as the escort led him away, swiftly quenched by a growing apprehension. Montezuma had spent vast sums of money preparing a legal case, all of which might as well have been spent on fool’s gold and impossible lawsuits. They’d prolonged the agony, and prevented the court from ruling immediately, but he no longer had any illusions. The justices had known what conclusion the court would reach right from the start.

He followed the escort as the young man led him into the chamber. It was, surprisingly, smaller than the antechamber, but clearly designed to make very clear to the defendant that he was in deep trouble. The justices sat in front of him, flanked by the corporation’s lawyers – a tiny percentage of the vast legal army the corprats had at their beck and call – and a handful of reporters, none remotely independent. A pair of men in fancy uniforms flanked the dock – he couldn’t help thinking of the podium as a dock – clearly ready for trouble. Martin wasn’t a military expert, but it was clear the two men were trained and experienced. There would be other security precautions too, kept in the shadows until they were needed. There was no shortage of people who wanted the justices dead.

The Speaker stepped forward, the moment Martin took his place. “We are gathered here today …”

To witness the unholy marriage of raw greed and corruption, Martin thought, as the Speaker droned on, outlining the details of the case and the principal arguments both sides had put forward as the legal battle took shape. The formal conventions had been outdated long ago, and he wasn’t sure why the Court was bothering to uphold them, not when they could justify anything they wanted with a careful read of the countless legal precedents set over the last few centuries. When is he going to get to the point?

It was almost a surprise when it actually came. “On the question of planetary sovereignty, we find that the settlement rights were improperly transferred to the Aztec Revival Movement and as such the entire settlement program was highly illegal, and the planetary population illicit settlers and the descendants of same …”

Martin had known it was coming, but it was still a shock.

“Planetary sovereignty therefore belongs to the Isabella Interstellar Corporation, who laid claim to them legally,” the Speaker continued. Martin wondered, with a sudden burst of fury, just how much he’d been paid – personally – to ensure the vote went the right way. “The planet’s current population, who are there illegally, are ordered to vacate the planet or face indenture for a period of no less than …”

Martin couldn’t help himself. “You’re selling my people into slavery!”

“Silence,” the Speaker snapped.

It was slavery, Martin knew. Indents rarely worked their way out of debt, certainly not if their debtors wanted to keep them. There was no way an entire planet of five million people could be evacuated, even if the planetary assets that might have funded the move hadn’t been seized by the same legal judgement. He’d travelled to Earth a President and now …

“The corporation may take possession of the planet as soon as it wishes,” the Speaker continued. Martin barely heard him. “The illicit settlers are to be given one chance to leave and …”

Martin gritted his teeth, barely noticing the justices filing out the moment the speech came to an end. The kabuki play had one purpose – to put a legal gloss on the corporation’s snatch and grab – and it was over now, all done and dusted. There was no appeal. He wasn’t sure why they’d even bothered. It wasn’t as if anyone on Earth, outside the Grand Senate and the upper classes, cared one jot about the outcome. Montezuma was nothing to the underclass. He doubted one in a billion of Earth’s teeming population could even point to the planet on a starchart. Why would they care?

His escort led him through another set of corridors, the guards following at a safe distance, and into a smaller room. It was an office; a table, three chairs, and even a water jug and glasses, waiting to be used. Two corprats sat behind the table, wearing the expensive suits that were practically a uniform. There was little real difference in appearance between the expensive and slightly less expensive suits, or so he’d been told, but anyone who wore the former had to be taken seriously. The men in front of him clearly did.

“Mr. President,” one said. His accent was the same upper-class drawl as his escort, only stronger. “I would like to tell you that I am sorry about the court’s decision …”

“I’m sure you would,” Martin growled. He was sick of Earth, sick of the planet’s corruption, sick and tired of fighting a battle that had been lost before he’d realised it was underway … he just wanted to get home and … and what? Perhaps there had been a point to the judgement after all. If the corprats were the legal owners, they’d be entirely within their rights to call in the military to enforce their claims. “Get to the point.”

The suit looked surprised, just for a second. “It is very unfortunate …”

Martin leaned forward, raising his voice. “Get to the point!”

“We’d like to offer you a job,” the suit said. His tone didn’t change, even though it was clear he’d been planning to butter up Martin before finally making the proposal. “The planet requires a careful hand to integrate it into the corporate system and …”

Martin met his eyes and had the satisfaction of seeing the man flinch. “You expect me to collaborate with you, to sell out my people?”

“It would make it easier on everyone,” the suit said. He produced a datapad and passed it to Martin. “You would be very well paid, with plenty of vacation time and a guaranteed retirement on a vacation world, with pensions and health benefits for all …”

“And in exchange for this,” Martin said, “you expect me to be the Judas Goat leading my people into slavery?”

“It would make it easier …”

Martin threw the datapad over his shoulder, to distract the guards just for a second, and hurled himself over the table and at the suit. The man was so unused to physical violence he didn’t even try to move, not until it was far too late. Martin crashed into him, knocking him backwards and jamming his fingers into the man’s eyes, trying to kill him before the guards recovered and attacked. The other suit screamed – Martin could smell the piss – an instant before the guard jumped him. Martin lashed out with his foot, hitting someone – he had no idea who – before someone else jammed a shockrod into his back. His entire body convulsed with pain, his muscles twitching helplessly.

“Barbarian,” someone said. “He …”

Martin’s awareness ebbed and flowed as strong hands dragged him up and carried him out the door. He doubted he would ever see his homeworld again, not ever. The corprats would hardly have let him go home if he’d refused their offer, expecting – correctly – that his first move would be to organise resistance. But his planet didn’t need him to resist the invasion. His people would keep fighting, and one day they would be free.

One day …

Prologue II: Montezuma, 98 Years Prior to Earthfall

“No one wants to work anymore,” Director Heimlich Von Raubritter said.

Assistant Director Sharon McManus kept her face under tight control as her boss ranted about how the corporation’s efforts were failing, head office was starting to ask pointed questions and how everyone was plotting against him. Again. Raubritter was unbelievably handsome, thanks to the finest cosmetic surgery money could buy, but there was something oafish about his character that shone through his perfectly sculpted chin, perfectly clear skin, perfect blond hair, and perfect muscles that wouldn’t have been out of place on a flick action hero. She might have thought him attractive, if she’d seen him at a distance, but five minutes of conversation had been enough to convince her Raubritter was an empty suit. He was nothing more than a well-connected young man who had been parachuted into a post that called for a man with tact, diplomacy, and a certain willingness to compromise with the local population. If he hadn’t had close family ties to the Grand Senate, Sharon was entirely sure he would never have been allowed anywhere near the post.

Her lips quirked as the ranting continued. On paper, the post was an excellent one for a young corprat looking to get his ticket punched before returning to Earth to continue his climb into the corporate stratosphere. Montezuma was a world with incredible potential – vast mineral resources, an ecosystem that was already unpleasant, a population indentured to the corporation – and a smart man could probably use the post to make enough money to satisfy the dreams of his upper-class wife. In practice, the population was revolting – the nasty part of her mind insisted they were revolting in both senses of the word – and keeping them from sabotaging the mining infrastructure was a difficult, almost impossible, job. The corporation had summoned troops to teach the locals a lesson, but there was little they could do to keep the workers from causing trouble. They should have a secure outflow of raw materials by now, yet … they didn’t, and head office was getting antsy. They’d already invested far too much money into the mining operation to back off easily.

Perhaps we should try to come to terms with the locals …

She cut off that line of thought before it could go any further. The corporation had splashed money around like water to make sure the Supreme Court ruled in their favour, and then splashed more money around to ensure the former president was executed rather than being sold into indenture himself. In hindsight, that had been a mistake too; the gruesome details everyone on the planet took for granted might be untrue – the president had not been brutally tortured to death – but there was no denying the man was dead, which had turned him into a martyr. Ironically, the fact he’d died in a bid to save his world had absolved him of the mistake that had led to the corporate takeover in the first place.

“We need to do something,” Raubritter said. He waved a datapad at her, as if she hadn’t written the report herself. There were some details that simply couldn’t be entrusted to a secretary. “How can we raise production?”

Sharon assumed it was a rhetorical question. There were quite a few ways to raise production, starting with treating the locals with a shred of decency, but Raubritter wouldn’t accept any of them. He’d staked his career on exploiting the planet as much as possible, to the point he’d actually signed off on a project to develop the high orbitals, without realising that the planet’s cash reserves were falling rapidly. Perversely, Montezuma had never been a very wealthy world. The corporation could fund development, at least until the mining operation started to bring in the cash, but the beancounters would start asking questions. Raubritter would find his career spluttering to a halt if he didn’t find a way to increase production, and fast.

She watched him for a moment, wondering what he’d decide. She’d learnt the art of covering her ass a long time ago, and she would have no trouble demonstrating that Raubritter had made every decision from the moment he took office, if – when – head office started demanding answers. She was tempted to suggest a handful of options that would make even worse trouble for her boss, perhaps taking a loan from another corporation in exchange for future favours, but kept her mouth firmly closed. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t have to put up with him forever. Even if she wasn’t, she’d salted away enough cash to live well for the rest of her life.

“The problem is that the locals cannot be trusted to work for us,” Raubritter said, with the air of a child discovering two plus two made four. “We need more and better workers.”

“Quite,” Sharon agreed. There weren’t many locals willing to cooperate – collaborate – with the corporation. The ones who did were almost worse. Some were outcasts, hated by their peers; others pretended to cooperate long enough to get into position to do some real damage. “Do you intend to educate the locals?”

“No,” Raubritter said, an unusual burst of realism. “The educational program will not produce anything worthwhile for at least a decade, if that.”

Sharon nodded, slowly. She’d grown up in a corporate crèche, and she had little emotional attachments to her parents, but the locals took a different view, She didn’t pretend to understand it, yet she didn’t have to. All that mattered was that trying to raise the planet’s children to be good little corporate drones would make the situation even worse. If nothing else, they simply didn’t have the time.

“We’ll shut down the Delta and Gamma programs, for the moment,” Raubritter said. “Both of them can be placed on hold, without major disruption, and the funds rerouted to an incentive program. We’ll offer high wages and excellent benefits for people with the skills we need, people willing to immigrate and work in our facilities. If we can get enough offworlders, we won’t need the locals at all.”

Sharon blinked. “Do you believe you can recruit enough?”

Raubritter smiled. “If you throw enough money at a problem, it goes away.”

Sharon said nothing for a long cold moment. Raubritter was certainly wealthy enough to take that attitude, and the hell of it was that he had a point. The wealthy corporate families had covered up all kinds of bad behaviour, from the merely obnoxious to the illegal even to scions of the aristocracy, through paying out vast sums to their victims. She considered the figures thoughtfully. They really could offer all kinds of incentives, at least at first. The newcomers might discover that the rewards dried up, after a while, but by then it would be someone else’s problem. She had no intention of staying on the desert world any longer than strictly necessary. 

“It might work,” she said, finally. It would be very bad for the locals, and perhaps for the descendants of the newcomers, but that would be their problem. She could understand why the locals were so angry, yet she wouldn’t sacrifice her career in a bid to save them. It would be futile to try. “If we can convince enough to join us …”

“Make the preparations,” Raubritter ordered. “I want the project underway by the time head office tries to audit us.”

Sharon nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Chapter One: Mictlan, Montezuma

The air stank. As usual.

Felecia Kahn checked her mask as she scrambled onto the bus, pressed her fingers against the reader to confirm she was an authorised passenger, and found a seat, alone in the middle of a crowd. The other riders were a faceless mass, most wearing masks that covered their entire faces or hoods that made them look utterly inhuman. Even the handful of youngsters who only covered their mouths and noses looked strange, as if they didn’t quite belong. The air was always unpleasant near the mining complex, but today it was particularly bad. The corporation was working desperately to extract every last bit of value it could before time ran out. She couldn’t help wondering, as the doors slammed closed, if time had already run out. The entire planet was on edge …

The bus rattled into motion, the driver steering his vehicle through the hazy streets towards the checkpoint at the edge of town. Felecia breathed deeply, tasting the scent even through the mask, her eyes scanning the haze for potential threats. The town had been a nice place to grow up, assuming one never went outside the walls, but it had started to decay recently as the pollution got worse. Outdoor gardens and water parks, a sign of proper development on a world known for being dangerously dry, were being steadily ground down; the greenhouses, the only safe way to grow food so close to the complex, were half-buried in the dust. She had been assured the greenhouses were safe, but she feared otherwise. The planet hadn’t been a safe place to live, even before the mining operations had turned vast tracts of land into a polluted nightmare. It was easy, all too easy, to understand why the insurgency had grown and grown until it seemed the entire planet was waging war against the corporations. And the Huéspeds.

She felt her scalp itch and ran her hand through her dark hair. She was going to be dirty and grimy when she got to work, again. She might have time for a shower, if she was lucky, but it was impossible to be sure if they’d get to the complex on time. The road network was very busy at the best of times, even when the insurgents weren’t making life difficult for anyone who wanted to live outside the complex. She’d been so late, only a few short months ago, that she’d reached her workplace thirty minutes before it was time to go home. If her boss hadn’t been surprisingly understanding …

The bus drove through the first set of gates, paused long enough for the second to be opened, and then headed onwards into the desert. The contrast was startling, startling enough to jolt her awake even though she’d seen it a hundred times before. The sand dunes, endlessly shifty and treacherous, stretched as far as the eye could see. A distant shimmer on the horizon promised a sandstorm … she hoped, as she forced herself to sit back on her seat and wait, that it wasn’t heading towards them. Sandstorms meant trouble, particularly here. The insurgents excelled at using them to get close to the settlements and mining complexes, sniping or mortaring or even laying bombs along the roads and withdrawing before they were spotted, leaving deadly surprises for the next set of innocents to drive along the roads. The corporate pullback, abandoning large complexes as the galactic economy collapsed, didn’t seem to be helping. The insurgents, scenting victory, had redoubled their attacks until agreeing – reluctantly – to a truce. Felecia – and the rest of the Huéspeds – doubted it would last for long.

She glanced at her watch as the giant corporate complex – a spaceport, an administrative centre, a warehouse on a planetary scale – came into view. The shacks and shanties around the outer wall chilled her to the bone, as they always did. There were older women trying to sell their wares, eking out a living on a planet that cared nothing for its human occupants, and older men staring menacingly at the bus as it passed; young children ran around, their unprotected faces bearing scars from living too close to the complex, carefully avoiding the open channels that carried effluents and wastes down to the Dead Sea. There were no young women her age, or men either. She knew why.

The bus didn’t slow down as it passed the shantytown and made its way into the guardpost, where it came to a stop as soon as the gates closed behind it. The doors banged open a second later, allowing the passengers to stand and make their way towards the security checkpoints up ahead. The guards looked relaxed, Felecia noted, as they watched the new arrivals pass through the automated sensors. She hoped that wasn’t a bad sign too. She didn’t like being patted down, or being singled out for a random strip search, but it was better than the alternative. The insurgents had smuggled bombs through the gates before and, if the truce failed ahead of time, they’d do it again.

“Clear,” the guard said. He sounded bored as he checked her ID. “You may proceed.”

Felecia thanked him, and headed onwards. The corporation’s giant complex was practically a large town in its own right, the air a little cleaner inside through giant purifiers that swept the pollution out before it could reach offworld noses and lungs. The corporation could have kept its mining operations relatively clean, she knew, but it didn’t care enough to try. She was mildly surprised it had agreed to evacuate the workers, when it had become clear the mining operation would have to be shut down. But then, it had a legal obligation to uplift anyone who wanted to go. The corprats might bend the law into a pretzel, or a plate of spaghetti, but they didn’t break it outright. It wasn’t how they rolled.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she removed her mask, then headed towards her workplace. The crowds seemed more relaxed, as if they’d already forgotten the insurgency had been far from defeated. She spotted young children heading to playgroup and older teenagers making their way to the arcade, rather than school. She couldn’t help a twinge of envy. She’d barely had a chance to be a child, growing up in the settlement. She’d had to go to work as soon as possible, just to ensure that her family had enough money to live. She was very far from alone.

The office complex was warm and welcoming, the lobby dominated by a statue of Director Sharon McManus, the woman who had directed the Huésped program nearly a century ago and been assassinated for it. Felecia wondered, not for the first time, if the long-dead woman had known what she was doing, or even if she cared. It was unusual to meet a corprat who thought about anything other than the bottom line, who put anything ahead of profits and promotions. Felecia had even heard their marriages and affairs were arranged for them, something that always made her roll her eyes. What sort of marriage had adulterous relationships organised by the wife and mistress? It was just absurd.

She checked her watch again as she reached the office and had a quick shower, then changed into her work clothes and checked her appearance in the mirror before heading back outside to relieve her colleague. Anna Cameron winked at her as she entered, then stood and held out a datapad. Their work was never done.

“He’s got meetings all afternoon, some with people whose real names have clearly been blanked,” Anna told her. “Don’t breathe a word about them.”

“As if I would,” Felecia told her. She was one of the most highly paid Huéspeds on the planet. She wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise it, certainly not now. “Did you have a good morning?”

Anna laughed. “I was working, so no,” she said. “You want to cover for me tomorrow so I can see Darrin?”

Felecia shook her head. If she covered for Anna, she’d either have to stay with her overnight – which would be awkward for both young women and Darrin – or find a hotel. The latter would be expensive, even if she chose the one that expected its guests to sleep in tubes uncomfortably reminiscent of coffins. She didn’t have many other friends in the complex and none of them would put her up, certainly not without a few days of warning. Anna didn’t seem particularly put out as she stood, passed Felecia the datachips that opened the complex’s datacore, and headed for the door. Felecia felt a twinge of envy, despite herself. Anna had far more freedom than Felecia, even though they were the same age.

But her family is hundreds of light-years away, she reminded herself, as she tapped the console to bring up the director’s schedule. Mine is back in the settlement.

She sighed inwardly, then put the thought aside as she checked the appointment book. Anna had been right. There were seven appointments with clearly fake names, one probably the Caudillo himself and the rest his allies and semi-rivals. Her stomach twisted in disgust. The corporation’s official policy was never to negotiate with insurgents, particularly insurgents who could be easily classed as terrorists, but someone very high up had probably forced a change in policy. The corporation was pulling out, withdrawing from the planet and taking the Huéspeds with it. She supposed she could put up with the decision to discuss a truce with the insurgents, one that would last long enough to let the corporation evacuate the planet in peace. It was better than the alternative. If the war was fought to the last, hundreds of thousands on both sides would die.

The inner door opened, revealing President Dominica Lopez. Felecia stood and hastily curtsied, even though everyone knew the planetary president was little more than the director’s puppet. The older woman barely spared Felecia a glance as she stalked out of the room, not even bothering to be polite as she slammed the door behind her. Felecia resisted the urge to stick out her tongue at the closed door. It was hard not to feel sorry for the so-called president. If there was anyone on the planet who took her title seriously, he was alone.

Her boss stuck his head out of the office. “Have my next guest sent up via the private elevator, and hold all my calls unless they’re from the priority list.”

“Yes, sir,” Felecia said. Director Von Donitz wasn’t a bad boss, all things considered, even though he had a habit of talking to her as though she were a child. A great many people from Earth seemed to believe their planet was the home of all elegance, and anyone who grew up without attending a finishing school could barely be trusted to tie their shoelaces without getting into a terrible muddle, but she knew it could be worse. One low-ranking corprat had a small harem of pretty secretaries and another was notoriously abusive. “Do you require tea or coffee?”

“I’ll see to it myself,” Von Donitz said. “If anyone who isn’t on the priority list calls, take their names and I’ll call them back.”

Felecia frowned as her boss withdrew, closing the door behind him. It was her job to bring him and his visitors tea and coffee – and everything else, from little biscuits to full meals – and effectively wait on them … and yet, he was going to make his own coffee? It was out of character for the most powerful man on the planet, a man who couldn’t operate a drinks dispenser to save his life. Sure, anyone could put coffee grains and milk and hot water together, but …

He doesn’t want me to see who’s visiting, she thought. It was wrong, and having the thought made her feel uneasy, and yet it refused to go away. Didn’t he trust her? Who is he meeting … and why?

The unease nagged at her mind as she sat back down. She had never been quite sure why Von Donitz had hired her in the first place. She knew she was capable and competent and cheap, by corprat standards, but … he could get a second offworld assistant if he wished. Anna wasn’t paid anything more than Felecia, as far as she knew, and the director could pay a hundred offworlders like her out of pocket change. She had wondered, at first, if he’d had other reasons, but he’d never made a pass at her. Hell, he’d never even hired a high-class escort. She’d seen his personal accounts. If the man had any interests beyond doing his job, he kept them well hidden.

Her terminal bleeped. The guest had arrived. His escort had brought him through the secure corridors and they were now waiting for the elevator, the one that would take them into the office without walking past her desk. She tapped her console, informing Von Donitz that the mystery guest had arrived, then leaned back in her chair. Who was it? And what were they discussing? Her eyes lingered on the door for a long moment, then returned to her console. She could press her ears against the metal, if she wished, but she’d hear nothing. The room was completely soundproofed.

The unease grew as she surveyed his inbox. It was astonishing how much crap was forwarded to the director, and how much the director relied on his staff to separate the genuinely important messages from the spam. There were just too many people who had permission to send emails directly into the poor man’s box, not all of whom could be trusted not to take advantage of it. She put a number of emails into the low-priority box – they weren’t aimed at the director, merely copied to him – and rolled her eyes at the sheer pettiness displayed by officials who had to know their time on the planet was coming to an end. The infighting had never stopped, even as mortar shells rained on settlements and antiaircraft missiles were fired at shuttlecraft or helicopters. Perhaps it had just been a way of coping with the constant threat of death, she thought wryly. The officials couldn’t do anything about the insurgency, but they could fight bitter office wars over pointless issues …

Her lips twisted as she scanned an update from Sol, confirming – as if everyone hadn’t already known – that Earth was effectively gone. It was hard to wrap her head around the sheer scale of the disaster. There had been eighty billion people on the planet, including the Grand Senate and much of the Civil Service, and they were just gone. The orbital halo, the cluster of settled asteroids and industrial nodes that had turned the system into an economic powerhouse, lay in ruins. The destruction of entire colonies on Mars, or asteroid settlements being shattered, would have dominated news cycles a few years ago, but now they were barely drops in an ocean of blood. Felecia had been born on Montezuma, and she had never been offworld, and yet … losing Earth felt like the end of the universe. The old certainties were falling everywhere. No wonder, she reflected, that the corporation was preparing to abandon the mining world. Right now, they’d be lucky if they could stay in business long enough for the dust to settle and a new order to arise.

She frowned as she read a message from General Hampshire. The man had never liked her, or Huéspeds in general, but he had done a fairly good job of coordinating the defences well enough to keep the mines open. Her brother had had some choice things to say about the general, yet … she shook her head, eyes narrowing as she scanned the words. There was something oddly weaselly about it, a strange tone from a man who was often blunt to the point of rudeness. It was even stranger, she noted, that he’d done a spot of clerical work himself. Generals didn’t plan operations, certainly not in anything more than broad strokes. That was what his staff were for …

The plan was simple, the uplift schedule for departure … a month, more or less, from the present date. Felecia felt an odd little moment of regret, then frowned as something struck her. The evacuation plan was surprisingly vague in places, but it was clear that it was only intended to last a few days. Her frown deepened, her heart thudding as she kept reading. She was no military expert, and she’d never flown in a shuttle in her entire life, but even she knew there were hard limits on how many passengers could be transported to orbit in a single flight. Assuming a flight schedule that was probably unrealistic, without a single delay or technical failure, they couldn’t hope to get more than a few tens of thousands of people off world in the period. Unless they were bringing in extra shuttles or transports … she’d been told colonist-carriers were being arranged, but that had been a month ago. No one knew if the schedule was still in operation, or if it had been changed somewhere dozens of light-years away. The planet had never before been so isolated.

Odd, she thought. The truce was intended to give the corporation time to evacuate peacefully, leaving the world to the original population. How do they intend to get us all off?

It hit her in a flash, horror numbing her so completely she could barely move. She didn’t want to consider the possibility, even hypothetically, but the figures didn’t lie. The truth was right in front of her, barely concealed. There was no way to pretend she hadn’t seen it …

They don’t intend to evacuate us at all, she thought, stunned. They’re leaving us behind.

Chapter Two: Mictlan, Montezuma

“Remind me,” Rifleman Marcus Glantz muttered. He didn’t take his eyes off the sand dunes – and the poisoned oasis beyond. “How the hell did we get into this mess?”

Rifleman Johnny Glazebrooks smirked. “Would you like the long and complicated and very boring infodump, covering the galactic economy, or something that might actually be helpful?”

“Up yours,” Marcus said, without heat. “Next time, when someone comes looking for a few good men, remind me to tell them I’m still on sick leave.”

He took a breath, tasting the pollution in the air even through the mask. In hindsight, perhaps it had been a mistake to convince the doctors that they were fit for service after being badly wounded in a police operation, several dozen light-years away. They’d been declared fit for duty just in time to be swept up by a recruiting officer, looking for warm bodies to help with the situation on Montezuma, and – with no immediate way to get back to their original units – been authorised to join the new force. Perhaps it really had been a mistake. He’d seen some shambolic situations in the past, problems that wouldn’t have gotten out of control if the locals had had a little common sense, but Montezuma took the cake. The planetary corporation seemed hell-bent on manufacturing an insurgency, refusing to make any concessions whatsoever to the locals. The whole situation was tailor-made for disaster.

And the only reason they agreed to a truce was to get everyone offworld before it was too late, he thought. He had a nasty feeling the truce wasn’t going to last long enough for the evacuation to be completed. The corprats insisted it was possible to get everyone off in a very short space of time, but Marcus had been a marine long enough to know better. Do they have any realistic idea of how long it will take, or are they just clutching at straws?

The mask tightened against his face. It had been made by the lowest bidder or he was a REMF, someone who’d undercut his rivals by using the cheapest materials imaginable. The mask was hot and uncomfortable, but refusing to wear it was asking for trouble. He’d been through the Slaughterhouse, an environment designed to kill – or at least embarrass – anyone who made a single mistake, yet Montezuma managed to be worse. There were entire regions on the planet that had been rendered completely uninhabitable by the mining operations, the locals forced to flee if they didn’t want to die. The corprats didn’t care. They hadn’t even tried to help the locals, not that it would have made any difference. If Marcus had been on the other side, he’d have felt there was nothing the corprats could offer to compensate for what they’d done to the planet. The irony, he reflected tiredly, was that genuine malice would have been less dangerous to the locals than a complete lack of care.

“Heads up,” Glazebrooks said, quietly. “We’ve got movement.”

“Cover me,” Marcus ordered. He hopped out of the jeep, gritting his teeth as his boots squelched against the poisoned sand. Vacuum was less dangerous than the planet, and anyone who went out the airlock without protection was doomed to a short and unpleasant death. “If it’s an ambush, run for your life and don’t look back.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Glazebrooks said. “How would I get out, anyway?”

Marcus nodded, curtly. If they’d had an entire company behind them, with air support on call, he would have felt a great deal more comfortable. The local insurgents would have known better than to pick a fight with a hundred marines, backed up by tanks and aircraft, but here it was just the two of them. There were no other marines, not even retired marines, on the planet. The corprats had apparently put in a request for marine support, but the poisoned world was way down the priority list. Or something. Marcus wouldn’t have been anywhere near the planet if he hadn’t been wounded. Right now, his old comrades were somewhere hundreds of light-years away, probably having a better time. They certainly wouldn’t be out on their own, so isolated they could be killed and their bodies buried a long time before anyone realised they were missing.

He kept his eyes open as he moved towards the figure, who made a show of stepping away from the poisoned oasis and pulling back his hood to reveal his face. Marcus felt a twinge of respect, mingled with contempt, at the blatant showmanship. The locals had a very flamboyant culture, he’d noted despite spending most of the last two months in the spaceport complex, and they considered being called a coward a fate worse than death. Marcus had felt the same once, as a young man, but years of experience had taught him there was no point in playing out a losing hand. A fight to the death might look good, to the public, yet it was better to withdraw – if possible – and fight again, later.

Not that the locals are losing, he reflected, curtly. The only reason they agreed to the truce was so they could get everything they wanted without having to fight.

The local waved, then swaggered towards him. Perversely, the local culture worked in their favour. It was unlikely the insurgents would refuse the invitation to meet – that would be cowardly – or bring concealed weapons into the spaceport under a flag of truce. Up close, the insurgent leader wore bright clothes and an oversized hat, carrying two pistols on his belt and a rifle slung over his shoulder. It looked like a cheap copy of a very well-known design, a design so simple it could be duplicated even on a far more primitive world … the corprats insisted the insurgents were being supplied from offworld, but Marcus doubted it. The insurgents were certainly smart and knowledgeable enough to make the guns themselves.

“Greetings,” the man boomed. “I am the Caudillo.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Marcus lied. The Caudillo - Mario Joel Ruiz, Leader of the Aztec Resistance Front, was better than most insurgent and terrorist leaders he’d met, but that didn’t mean he was a good man. Most insurgent movements, in his experience, tended to be as dangerous to their friends as their enemies, often more so. The Caudillo was lucky in his enemies, really. The corprats treated the planet so badly the insurgent propagandists didn’t have to make shit up. “Let us have a moment to check you.”

“Only if you brought dinner and flowers,” the Caudillo teased. Marcus could see why he was popular, in an insurgency that had no clear structure or system enforcing the rules. The man’s bonhomie, and friendly attitude, reminded him of some of the better senior officers he’d met in the corps, although there was a faint edge to his words that suggested he could turn nasty very quickly. “I don’t get naked without them.” 

Marcus resisted the urge to make a sarcastic remark as he waved a scanner over the man’s body, then nodded curtly. There was no sign of anyone else, but his instincts were telling him they were being watched from a safe distance. The sandstorm, coming closer with a slow inevitability, was a grim reminder nowhere was truly secure, not when the atmosphere was so poisoned by mining by-products. The local defence force had spent hours pounding the approaches once, after an alarm, expending hundreds of shells on sensor ghosts. General Hastings claimed they’d wiped out an attacking force, but Marcus had his doubts. They hadn’t found any bodies.

“Hop in,” he said, indicating the jeep. “We’ll be there shortly.”

He kept a wary eye on the Caudillo as they drove back to the spaceport, following the road around the Dead Sea – deader, now the corprats had spent a hundred years pouring lethal waste into the salty waters – and into a gate that was carefully guarded by the corporation’s private security force. Marcus had been ready to hold them in absolute contempt, when he’d first landed on the planet, but he had to admit they were better than most private armies. The ones inclined to play at being soldiers had been killed very quickly, leaving a hard core of survivors who knew what they were doing. They didn’t come up to his standards, of course, but few did. They had never gone through the Slaughterhouse.

The Caudillo kept laughing and joking, trying to be friendly, as they passed through a pair of security scanners – the latter probing the man’s body right down to the atomic level – and headed up the stairs to the private elevator. The corporate complex was riddled with hidden passageways – there were times when Marcus thought the designer had been an overgrown child – designed to ensure certain guests could be brought in and out without being noticed. Or corprats could visit their mistresses when they were supposed to be working … he’d noticed far too many officials throwing caution to the winds, now that their service was coming to an end, and partying as if there were no tomorrow. There might not be, if they kept being careless. The spaceport was the most heavily guarded complex on the planet, but a single nuke would be enough to vaporise it. If he had been running the insurgency, he’d certainly have tried to get his hands on one.

“I’ll see you boys later,” the Caudillo said, as he stepped into the elevator. Marcus had been told, in no uncertain terms, that they were not to accompany the man any further. “Want to go for drinks?”

“No, thank you,” Marcus said. For all his genteel humour, the Caudillo was an insurgent only a few steps short of being an outright terrorist. “We’ll get you back to the oasis, then come home and get drunk here.”

The Caudillo smirked as the doors closed. Marcus relaxed, slightly. Very slightly. The security scan had revealed that the man’s weapons were unloaded, and he carried no ammunition, but that didn’t mean that letting him see the director alone was a good idea. A strong man could snap a corprat neck before his bodyguards could intervene, if the man had bodyguards. It was clear neither party wanted witnesses to their discussions, no one who might object or blow the whistle ahead of time. Marcus wondered, grimly, just how many people knew the meeting was even taking place. There couldn’t be more than a dozen at most, perhaps not even that.

“There’s no update from base,” Glazebrooks said, quietly. “Nothing, not even a recall order.”

Marcus winced, inwardly. He’d be delighted to be ordered to return to base and leave the planet behind. They could rejoin their units, or any unit, and fight beside their fellow marines to save what they could of the empire, rather than remaining on a poisoned world, trying to help the corprats survive the consequences of their own stupidity. Would it have killed them, really, to make some concessions to the locals? It wouldn’t have been that much more expensive to import eco-friendly mining technology, and it would have taken the wind out of the insurgency’s sails. Or simply share the profits … he shook his head. The corprats had never been interested in anything other than a quick buck, a lack of long-term thinking that had bitten their successors hard. And now it was too late to do anything other than evacuate the planet and hope for the best.

“We’ll get back in touch soon,” he said. It wasn’t as if they were deserters. Marines went on detached duty all the time. It wasn’t in their nature to sit around hospitals any longer than strictly necessary, not when there was work to be done. “If nothing else, we’ll be evacuated with the rest of the corprats.”

“Yeah,” Glazebrooks said. “And knowing this lot, that’ll be us jumping out of the frying pan and landing in the fire.”

***

Mario Joel Ruiz had never liked cigars, even though they were one of the few planetary exports that didn’t have anything to do with the corporation, but he pulled one from his pocket and jammed it into his mouth as the elevator doors opened, revealing a bland and boring office with a bland and boring occupant. Director Von Donitz wrinkled his lips in disgust as he spotted the cigar; Mario smirked, inwardly, as he lit the tip and inhaled. The corprats might insist smoking was bad for the human body, and he supposed they had a point, but it was very hard to take them seriously when they’d poisoned so much of the atmosphere with chemicals much worse than tobacco. If they actually cared about the planet, they wouldn’t have turned the surface into a post-industrial nightmare.

“Greetings,” he said, swaggering forward. It was his custom to do things in as straightforward a manner as possible, both because of the dictates of his position and because it annoyed the corprats. It was funny how they could casually sign off on mass slaughter, he’d often reflected, and yet never have the nerve to openly admit what they were doing. Perhaps that was how they got away with it. The right buzzwords could hide a grim reality under a mountain of utter nonsense. “How nice to see you again.”

The director eyed him, darkly. Mario let his smile grow wider. It defied belief that such a weak man had ever reached a position of power – he’d have been little more than the village idiot, anywhere else – but Mario could make use of it. A strong man, a brave man, even a man too foolish to realise how dangerous the situation had become … they would have posed problems. A weakling? He could be used, and he would be grateful. 

“And you,” the director said. “I trust you received our proposal?”

“We did,” Mario said. “We will honour the truce, as long as you honour your side of the agreement.”

He felt a flicker of disgust as the director nodded, shamefully eagerly. The man really was a worm. Mario knew better than to abandon his allies, certainly not without demanding some guarantees for their safety. The director … he just wanted to get his people offworld before it was too late, leaving everyone else to their fates. Mario knew better than to think there was any way to prevent a slaughter, after the last of the corporate security forces were evacuated, but the director had an obligation to try. If he’d spoken up for the Huéspeds …

“The evacuation ships will arrive in one month, according to the last update,” the director said. “At that point, the corporate staff will be evacuated and” – his voice stammered slightly – “the defence force will be disarmed. The planetary infrastructure will be turned over to you and … what you do afterwards is up to you.”

Mario nodded, hiding his exultation. The Huéspeds would be for the chop. His people had spent the last hundred years being second- or third-class citizens on their own world and the hatred was too deeply entrenched, rooted in the poisoned soil, for anything other than mass slaughter. There was no way for anyone, even him, to prevent it. The Huéspeds had never been welcome; keeping them around was asking for trouble. The corprats might make vague suggestions about maintaining the mining equipment and staff until the economy picked up, allowing the planet to become a net exporter again, but it wasn’t going to happen. A year from now, there would be no trace that the planet had ever been controlled by the corporation.

Apart from the poisoned air and water, he thought, coldly. The original planetary government had been far from perfect, but at least it hadn’t poisoned its own population. And all the other nasty little things they left behind.

“You will, of course, keep this a secret,” Mario said. He’d let the man think Mario was doing him a favour, although in truth it suited them both. “It will be hard to keep my people from acting, if they think the time has come to drive you from our world.”

The director nodded, quickly. “Of course, of course,” he said. The desperation in his voice was unmistakable, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. “We’ll make it happen.”

Mario nodded, too. It would be ironic – and irritating – if the truce collapsed at the very moment his side was on the cusp of ultimate victory. The director was a weak man, but even he would have difficulty doing nothing if all hell broke loose. A renewed outbreak of fighting could shatter the Front’s forces, destroying his power base and leaving post-occupation power up for grabs. Mario didn’t just want the offworlders gone, he wanted to secure his power in the aftermath. If he did it properly, the new government would be his for life.

“Of course you will,” he said. “I have faith in you.”

He didn’t bother to hide his glee as they discussed the details. The director was selling out his allies, ignoring promises made by his predecessors, just to secure his own safety and that of his corprat allies. Mario took a certain unholy delight in denying the man any chance to hide behind corporate doublespeak, even though he knew it was dangerous. It was better to be upfront about what one was doing, no matter what. But then, if the corprat wrote down the truth, someone would probably use it against him. He wasn't short of enemies back home.

“One month,” he said, after they’d hammered out a rough agreement. The precise details didn’t matter. Neither side wanted to be bound by a solid agreement, certainly not one that couldn’t be discarded at a moment’s notice. “That’s all the time you’ll have.”

“It’ll be enough,” the director said. “And thank you.”

Mario smiled. “No,” he said. “Thank you.”

Chapter Three: Mictlan, Montezuma

It was hard, very hard, to keep from screaming.

Felecia struggled to her feet, staggering slightly as she locked the outer door and stumbled into the private washroom. Her entire body was shaking as she locked that door too and collapsed onto the seat, staring at the marble floor. The world felt as if it were spinning, all the old certainties shattering beyond any hope of repair. She had worked for the director long enough, she’d thought, to know him. The idea he might simply abandon her, and the rest of the Huéspeds, was unthinkable. And yet, the facts didn’t lie. There just weren’t enough shuttles, or starships, to evacuate every last Huésped. They could barely lift a tenth of the population, if they were lucky.

Her hands shook violently. She wanted to storm into the office and demand answers … she wanted to wrap her hands around her boss’s neck and shake him, to shout and scream and demand to know what he was thinking. She’d felt the hatred directed at the Huéspeds, everyone had. If the corporation abandoned them, they’d be slaughtered. The numbers were unimaginable, but the faces danced through her mind; her parents and siblings, her cousins and friends, her schoolmates and rivals and people she barely knew … they were all doomed, if the corporation left them here to die. She had seen the medical reports from overrun settlements, she’d heard the elders talking in hushed voices about atrocities unthinkable to a civilised mind … ice ran down her spine as she recalled all the times she’d heard her peers sneering at the locals, mocking their pretensions to be like their ancestors. If she was irked every time someone looked down on her for being a woman, how much worse was it for someone who heard the same all the fucking time?

She felt sick and swallowed hard. They were all going to die. There was no point in demanding answers, no point in reminding her boss of her service … she’d worked for him for years now and yet he was abandoning her and everyone else, leaving her people to a fate worse than death. Did Anna know …? She was an offworlder … Felecia had thought Anna a friend, but she hadn’t said a word … did she know? Or did she assume, like everyone else, that the promises would be honoured? How foolish they’d been! The head office, hundreds of light-years away, barely cared about her boss. Why should they care about the Huéspeds? It wasn’t as if any of them mattered …

It felt like hours before she managed to gather herself, stagger to her feet and stare at herself in the mirror. She looked like a girl who’d gone through utter hell … she bit her lip, drawing on the pain to centre herself, and fixed her face as best as she could. It wasn’t much, but the director had never been particularly perceptive. Anna would be a lot harder to fool … thankfully, they wouldn’t be seeing each other until tomorrow. She’d have a chance to steady herself, by then … her heart pounded helplessly as she made her way back to her desk, the world feeling dark and shadowy around her. Nothing was real … she gritted her teeth and dug into the files, using access codes she wasn’t supposed to know to read spaceport schedules and updates. She’d hoped she’d been wrong, but … the numbers didn’t lie. There was simply no way to get the entire population offworld before the hammer came down.

She stared at the locked door, wondering savagely just who’d come to visit the director. It was clear it was someone she wasn’t supposed to know about, not when … a thought ran through her mind and she put it into action before she could think better of it, picking up a sealed packet and carrying it out of the room, heading down to the mailing office. She would normally rely on the messengers to carry it, but this time … it did say urgent on the packet, after all, and she had handled most of her work for the moment. Her heart raced, reminding her she could get in very real trouble if she were caught prowling around the underground sections, but she did her best to ignore it. The scheduled meeting time was drawing to a close. The mystery guest would be leaving shortly, as secretly as he’d come. She timed it as best as she could, making sure she was passing the semi-secret passageway as he left. She only caught a glimpse of him, but it was enough. She knew the man’s face. It was the Caudillo.

She handed the packet into the mailing office, and headed back to her workstation, carefully pasting a smile on her face. The director might not notice her absence, but … she dared not rely on it. The man couldn’t be distracted easily, either; she unbuttoned two buttons on her shirt, showing a little cleavage, yet she knew it might be pointless. Director Von Donitz was boring. As far as she knew, he was completely faithful to his wife. He’d certainly never tried to get Felecia into bed.

Not that I would have said yes, she thought, as she slipped back into her chair and accessed the internal security monitors. The system had been deliberately downgraded already … she frowned in confusion, then remembered the meeting was probably completely off the books. There wouldn’t be more than a handful of people who knew it had taken place. But if he was distracted by me …

The door opened. “Felecia,” her boss said, “can you arrive earlier tomorrow?”

“I can try,” Felecia said, doubtfully. She was tempted to ask for a stipend to cover her living expenses, but held her tongue. It would be ironic indeed if, for once, her boss said yes. “I’d have to get the earlier bus, then be cleared through the gates …”

“Speak to the security office about arranging it,” the director said. “You’ll have to take Anna’s shift, as well as your own. I have something else for her to do.”

Felecia bit her lip, trying to look as if she didn’t have the slightest idea what that something else might be. “Overtime pay?”

“Put in the usual claim and I’ll authorise it,” the director said. It was so out of character for a corporate official that alarm bells would have rung in her mind, if they hadn’t already been clanging loudly. Her superiors were normally reluctant to authorise overtime, even though her pay was such a tiny fraction of the planet’s overall budget that paying her overtime for centuries couldn’t possibly make or break the planet’s finances. “Just make sure you’re here in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Felecia said. She’d make sure of it. She’d also do what she could to keep an eye on her colleague, to figure out what she was doing. “I’ll be there.”

She stared at her terminal, alternating doing her work and digging through files to try to determine what was actually going on. It was hard to tell if what she was seeing was real or not – anything could look like a pattern, she’d been taught, and then you were halfway to becoming a conspiracy theorist – but it looked bad. The truce had allowed the corporation to evacuate some of its outposts, leaving them defenceless … no one had noticed, because they hadn’t been attacked. Felecia was astonished, but … she supposed the insurgents were scenting victory. They could afford to wait long enough for the corporation to pull out, then finish the job. A bloodless term, for rape and slaughter and destruction …

Her shift came to an end. She closed her terminal, after wiping all the evidence of everything she’d done, and then said her goodbyes. An electronic audit would probably reveal everything – the only way to hide from an audit was to destroy the computer cores completely - but she doubted one would be carried out before the evacuation. If half the orders she’d seen in the files were what she thought they were, a lot of supplies were being moved back to the spaceport and the neighbouring industrial complex. It was hard to be sure, of course, but it looked as if quite a few boxes of supplies had vanished over the last few weeks. Bribes? Theft? Or something that had vanished long ago, only to be left on the books until now. If it had ever existed at all … it was quite possible it hadn’t. There had been so much money sloshing around the planet that corruption had been pretty much inevitable.

She made her way to the bus slowly, half-expecting to be picked up by the security forces as she left her workplace. Someone might have noticed her little excursion, someone might have realised she’d spotted the mystery guest … the corporation had plenty of ways to keep her on ice until after the evacuation, if her boss refused to authorise something more final. The guards seemed more alert than usual as she passed through the checkpoint, but made no attempt to grab her. She boarded the bus, took her seat, and gritted her teeth as the vehicle rumbled into the storm. The sandstorm was eerie as hell, faint flickers of multicoloured light darting at the corner of her eye. She checked her mask carefully, not trusting the bus’s filters to keep out the pollution. The vehicle was just too old.

Her heart clenched as they neared the settlement. There were hundreds of people inside, second and third generation immigrants … they had been born and bred on the planet, never going into orbit let alone anywhere further afield. They had as much right to live on the planet as the older settlers, but … if the insurgents overwhelmed the walls, they’d be slaughtered without mercy. And that meant … 

I have to do something, she thought. And I can’t do it alone.

The bus passed through the gates and rattled to a halt. Felecia stood and followed the others off the vehicle, heading back to her family home. She still lived with her parents and would continue to stay there, until she married and moved into her husband’s family home. It was a strange thought, one that excited and scared her in equal measure. Her mother ruled the roost, with a stern voice and an iron hand, but other homes were different. What would it be like, to be married? And how would her new mother-in-law treat her?

She’ll be dead in a year, if I don’t think of something, Felecia thought. She’d discussed getting married with her boyfriend, but they hadn’t so much as seen each other for the last two months. He was on deployment with the defence force … she swallowed hard as she realised she hadn’t heard from him for a week. It wasn’t uncommon, but … right now, it was worrying. What the hell do I do?

She took off her mask as she stepped into the home, hanging her cloak by the door. The smell of her mother’s cooking – the fusion dishes created by blending a dozen different cultures into one – wafted through the air, making her stomach growl. She’d never liked eating in the spaceport, even though it was cheap. She had no idea what they put into the burgers, but she was fairly sure it wasn’t beef. It tasted more like cardboard. She didn’t want to think about it.

“You’re home late,” her mother said, reprovingly. “What” – her eyes hardened suddenly – “what’s wrong?”

Felecia flinched, despite herself. Her mother always managed to make her feel like a child. She was also terrifyingly perceptive. Trying to lie to her was a waste of time.

“It’s a long story,” Felecia said. “I need to talk to Father.”

Her mother eyed her, sharply. “Are you in the family way?”

Felecia almost giggled. If only it were that simple. Her mother would scold her, and her father would say nasty things to her boyfriend, and the marriage would be arranged quickly to hide the fact the baby had been conceived out of wedlock … everyone would know, of course, but they’d keep their mouths shut if the proprieties were observed. If only …

“No,” Felecia said. “But I do need to talk to Father.”

***

“I feel dirty,” Marcus complained.

“It’s the sand,” Glazebrooks teased. “It gets everywhere.”

Marcus couldn’t deny it. A soldier could walk outside in full combat dress, or even a MOPP suit, and still find sand in his underwear when he got back to the barracks. It was bad enough on a relatively safe world, but here … the sand could be lethal. He’d taken his pills, and marines got all sorts of treatments to boost their immune systems, yet it was hard to believe it was enough to keep him safe. He was a brave man – a coward wouldn’t have made it through the Slaughterhouse – but there was something oddly unnerving about breathing in poisoned sand or polluted atmosphere. They’d been lucky they’d made it back to the spaceport before the storm hit.

“It isn’t just the sand,” he said. “It’s dealing with … him.”

He sighed inwardly. He wasn’t naive enough to think the Marine Corps never negotiated with insurgents. The only way to win an insurgency in the long term was an approach that combined military force with political outreach, making contact with redeemable aspects of the insurgency while exterminating the irredeemable terrorists, but it was better to hold such talks from a position of strength. The corprats didn’t have the firepower, or the nerve, to impose their will on the planet and the locals knew it.  The Caudillo’s quiet gloating, and excessive displays of confidence, were a sign he knew the war was over and his side had won. Why try to compromise when you could take everything?

They passed through the checkpoint, then headed straight for the barracks. The guards on the door looked lax, but straightened up rapidly the moment they saw the two marines approaching. Marcus glared at them both, making a mental note to hold another security exercise when they got the chance. The guards might have been more alert than they’d looked – he certainly hoped so – but they were inviting attack. If someone got into the barracks with a bunch of grenades, a sizable chunk of men would be wiped out in a flash.

“Hah,” Glazebrooks said. “What now?”

Marcus sighed as he surveyed the barracks. The corporation had a bunch of different security units, and a handful of military personnel they’d begged, borrowed or stole from the army, and very few were used to working together. His old sergeant would have thrown a fit if he’d seen the barracks, then made his charges clean the building from top to bottom. It looked like a hostel, not a military barracks; clothes lay everywhere, datachips and pornographic magazines were scattered on the bunks …

“We get a shower, then hide,” he said. The spaceport wasn’t a bad place to hang out, if you had money and plebeian tastes, and it would let them have some downtime before they were called back to duty. “What do you want to do?”

“Go play games at the arcade?” Glazebrooks laughed. “Can you believe a little kid beat me at Marine Combat IV?”

Marcus laughed. Marine Combat IV was about as realistic as Stellar Star, Queen of the Spaceways, but Glazebrooks losing to a little boy was still hilarious. Any marine who tried half the crap the main character got away with would be lucky if he was merely dishonourably dismissed from the corps, if he didn’t get himself and everyone else in his platoon killed first. Marcus had never heard of a marine being fragged in real life, but if someone had acted like that …

He shrugged, and put on the whiniest voice he could. “I’ll tell the captain on you.”

Glazebrooks snorted. “What captain?”

“I’m spoilt for choice,” Marcus said. It wasn’t really funny. The corporation had secured their services without any clear idea of what they wanted to do with a pair of marines, which meant they’d spent most of the last two months doing odd jobs rather than serving as part of a frontline unit. No one was quite clear on who their superior officer was, or to whom they reported. “Which one?”

“God knows,” Glazebrooks said. “I’ll see you in the diner.”

Marcus nodded, then headed into the shower, rolling his eyes at the large sign ordering him to conserve water. Boot camp had taught him how to wash in two minutes or less … he undressed, showered quickly, and changed into civilian clothes. He made sure to strap his service pistol to his belt as he headed outside, just in case. The truce might be broken at any moment, no matter what promises the Caudillo made. If he was in sole control of the insurgency, Marcus would eat his hat.

The thought haunted him as he walked down to the diner. The crowds seemed larger, eating and drinking as if there was no tomorrow. Something hung in the air, a faint – and unspoken – assertion that the good times were coming to an end. He spotted a trio of young women laughing and giggling as they drank with a pair of low-level workers, the sound so intense he knew they weren’t faking it. Others were more restrained, their faces showing hints of quiet desperation even as they quaffed alcohol and flirted with the waitresses. A lone man sat on a bench, his corporate jacket hanging open, and stared at a glass of dark red liquid as if it were blood. He was alone … Marcus shivered, despite himself. He’d been in some places, but this …

It felt like the end of the world.

Chapter Four: Mictlan, Montezuma

Garibaldi Kahn, Chairman of the Huésped Council, felt oddly cold as he stepped into the meeting room. The Huésped Council had little real authority, on paper, but they’d made themselves so useful to the corporation that they’d managed to amass a surprising amount of power and influence, as long as they didn’t challenge the corporation too openly. It had been a difficult task, but as the first generation of newcomers gave way to second and third generations who’d been born on the planet the Council had steadily grown until it encompassed most of the Huéspeds. There’d been little choice. There were so many cultures represented amongst the first generation that they’d had to find a way to live together. Or die.

He scowled, inwardly, as Felecia followed him into the room. She had insisted on attending the meeting, insisted that she had a vitally important report to make to the entire council … a procedure laid down decades ago, to keep one group from monopolising a piece of vital intelligence, but not something he’d ever thought would work against him. He was her father and yet … he shook his head. Felecia was hardly a little girl any longer, as unbelievable as it seemed. The days in which she’d been under his authority were long over. Sure, he could threaten to kick her out of the family home, but she might just go.

His eyes flickered from face to face as the rest of the Council assembled. They were a diverse group in everything, but the one thing that mattered; staying alive on a very hostile world. They had no illusions about what the insurgents would do, if they came over the walls, or how quickly the corporation would turn on them if they proved themselves more hindrance than help. It was difficult, if not impossible, to strike a perfect balance that would last indefinitely, but what choice did they have? They needed the corporation and that meant sending their children to work for it, or offworld to get the education they needed to make themselves very useful indeed.

“I’m sorry to gather you together at such short notice,” he said. If Felecia hadn’t been so desperate, and her mother hadn’t made it clear she was desperate, he might have thought twice about sending out the message. The sandstorm made travel between the settlements dangerous, even at the best of times; he wasn’t convinced the insurgents would honour the truce if they saw a Councillor in their sights. “However, it is urgent.”

He looked at his daughter. “Felecia, you have the floor.”

Felecia took a breath. She looked nervous, deeply worried … Garibaldi wondered, with a sudden vindictiveness that surprised him, if she’d gotten into trouble with an offworld man. Or something … he had no idea what might have brought on her panic, but she was in a position to hear gossip that wouldn’t normally reach the settlements. The spaceport wasn’t exactly isolated, yet …

She swallowed, hard. “I work for the director,” she said, as if it were something minor and not a position right next to the de facto ruler of the entire world. No one took the President seriously, least of all herself. “I … he’s been having meetings, secret meetings. One was with the Caudillo.”

Garibaldi sucked in his breath. The insurgency had been a constant threat since the corporation had taken over, but it had taken a long time for a true leader to emerge to unite the different factions into a single force. The Caudillo might be a man of mystery – there were all sorts of stories about him, most completely unbelievable – yet he was clearly an effective leader, energising the insurgency to press closer and closer to the settlements in the wake of Earthfall. Officially, there was a sizable price on his head; unofficially, if the director was willing to meet with him …

“I … I checked,” Felecia said. Her voice started to shake, her eyes flickering down as she spoke. “They promised us they’d evacuate us … when they pulled out, but … I checked. They’re going to abandon us.”

Garibaldi sucked in his breath. The room was deathly silent. “How can you be sure?”

“I checked the shipping schedules,” Felecia said. “They’re planning to close everything down and evacuate us in a month or so … there’s some leeway, but not much. They … they don’t have the shipping to lift us all out, not even a tiny fraction of us. They’re leaving us here to die.”

“Impossible,” Andrew Murphy said. The Assistant Director of the Mictlan Mining Corporation – the man who actually did all the work, from what Garibaldi had heard – sounded astonished. “They can’t just pull out and abandon us!”

“They don’t have the shipping,” Felecia repeated. “They’re going to leave us behind.”

The room broke out into hard, brittle chatter. Garibaldi kept his thoughts to himself as his peers argued, some convinced by Felecia’s obvious sincerity while others thought she was wrong … the arguments ran back and forth, growing more heated as they grew louder. Garibaldi glanced at his daughter, then reached out and tapped the table sharply. The room quietened, enough to allow the Council to hear themselves think.

Garibaldi looked at Colonel Stephen Hullott. “Colonel?”

The colonel looked upset. “General Hampshire is reluctant to share his operational plans with us,” he said. “He has not discussed any plans for an evacuation with me, which is deeply worrying. Evacuating the outer settlements will be extremely difficult even if the insurgents honour the truce, and the corporation hasn’t started preparations. They certainly haven’t told us what, if anything, they want us to do.”

“Crap,” Murphy muttered.

“Quite,” Garibaldi agreed.

“There’s another problem,” the colonel added. “Two weeks ago, the corporate security forces recalled a number of our heavy weapons; not an unusual request, under normal circumstances, but now quite troublesome.”

Garibaldi swore under his breath. The Huésped Defence Force had never been anything more than a militia, and its soldiers had never legally owned anything heavier than an assault rifle. The rest of their weapons, and air support, stemmed directly from the corporation and could be recalled at will … it was funny, but he’d never considered they should seek to purchase heavy weapons of their own. Not until now, when it was far too late. They couldn’t hope to correct that mistake in time.

“They’re setting us up to be killed,” Councillor Singh said.

“Madness,” Murphy said.

“They don’t have the shipping to get us out,” Garibaldi said. He wondered, grimly, just what deal the corporate staff had made with the insurgents. If they’d sold the Huéspeds out … “They might just abandon us to our fates.”

He stared at his hands for a long cold moment. The Councillors could not afford to waste time with wishful thinking. They had been promised evacuation, if they wanted to leave with the corporate leadership, but none had been told when they’d be going or where they’d be heading … worrying, in hindsight. He wanted to think Felecia was wrong, yet he didn’t dare let himself believe it. The corporation couldn’t evacuate the Huéspeds without shipping, even if it wanted to. His mind raced, accessing his options. What could they do?

“We can fight,” Councillor Singh said. “Colonel?”

The colonel grimaced. “Assuming they don’t confiscate any more of our weapons,” he said curtly, “we can hold out for a few weeks at best before getting overrun. Most of the outer settlements are indefensible, without heavy air and orbital fire support, and without heavy weapons we won’t be able to launch counterattacks that might drive them back for a few weeks.”

“And that’s the good scenario,” someone muttered.

Garibaldi cleared his throat. “We have several options,” he said. “First, we can do nothing and hope we’re wrong …”

“We’re not,” Singh said.

Garibaldi ignored the interruption. “Second, we can talk to the director and try to shame him into evacuating us, as planned, or at least taking steps to defend us. Third, we can talk to the Caudillo instead and try to come to terms with him … it isn’t as if we’re not useful.”

“It won’t work,” the colonel said, quietly.

“We’re the ones who make the planet work,” Murphy said. “He has to know it. The man might be an asshole, but he isn’t stupid.”

“No,” the colonel said. “However, hatred for us runs very deep in the insurgency. Their leadership may be smart enough to know it would be better to keep us alive, even as de facto slaves, but the population wants us dead. The Caudillo cannot make any deal with us or he’ll lose his head, with us losing our heads immediately afterwards.”

“And besides, they don’t want the machines we operate,” Garibaldi said. “They want all offworlders off their world.”

“We were born here,” Councillor Singh pointed out. “We have as much right to live here as they do!”

“Clever argument,” the colonel said. His tone was harsh, sarcastic. “Try it. See if it works.”

“That leads to the final option,” Garibaldi said. “We fight.”

“We’d need better weapons,” the colonel said. “Where do we get them?”

“We control the industry,” Murphy said. “We could churn them out in droves.”

“If we had time,” the colonel said. “Do we?”

“A month,” Garibaldi said. “Is that long enough?”

“Barely,” Murphy said. “But they’d notice what we were doing.”

“Perhaps,” Felecia said. “We could keep reports from reaching their senior officers.”

“Not indefinitely,” Murphy said. “All it would take is one little mistake and …”

Garibaldi frowned. “Are there no other options?”

“There might be,” the colonel said. “We can steal the weapons.”

“From the corporation,” Murphy said. “You think …?”

“They’re going to leave us here to die,” the colonel snapped. “They know we’re going to be slaughtered. What do we owe them?”

“Our ancestors …”

“They brought our ancestors here because the Aztecs wouldn’t bend over and let them shove it where the sun doesn’t shine,” the colonel said, raising his voice. “They never intended to take us offworld, just abandon us when we outlived our usefulness. We owe them nothing!”

Garibaldi couldn’t disagree. “We must gamble, and hope for the best,” he said. His eyes darted from face to face, quietly assessing their feelings. “Does anyone believe we can make a deal?”

There was no answer. Garibaldi nodded to himself.

His mood darkened. It was easy to feel sorry for the Aztecs, to understand why they hated the corporation and the ‘guest workers’ so intensely, but that didn’t mean he had to stand aside and let them slaughter his sons and rape his daughters, before killing him and destroying all evidence they’d ever been guest workers on their world. What else could he do? He hadn’t asked to be born on Montezuma; none of them had. They had been marked for death before they’d even come into the world, victims of corporate decisions made hundreds of light-years away. No one could ask them to cut their own throats, or let them be cut, to avenge a historical injustice. They could neither flee nor surrender. They had to fight. 

“We fight,” he said. “We fight because we must.”

He took a breath. “The colonel and I will discuss possibilities,” he said. “The fewer of us who are actively involved at this stage, the better. Not everyone in our community will agree with us. We’ll meet again in two days and hopefully, at that point, we’ll have a workable plan.”

“Keep us informed,” Councillor Singh said. He shook his head. “The idea someone might betray us …”

“Someone will, if they think they can’t get out any other way,” Garibaldi said. “Or even if they’re loyal to the corporation and think they’re doing the right thing.”

He smiled inwardly as he dismissed the Council, motioning for the colonel and Felecia to remain. He wouldn’t get away with that normally, but the Councillors were still shell-shocked. God alone knew what they’d expected to discuss, when they’d been summoned, yet … none had expected the truth. Give them a day or two and they’d be back to their old selves. By then, he hoped to have a plan. If he didn’t, they’d waste far too much time arguing over their options and there’d be little time left to actually do something. It was going to be difficult no matter what.

“There are two major targets that have to be seized as quickly as possible, when the balloon goes up,” the colonel said. He’d been thinking quickly, while the rest of the Council had filed out. “First, we need to secure the military complex near the spaceport before the insurgents get to it; second, we also need to secure the industrial complex by the Dead Sea. It will be impossible to secure them both without heavy weapons.”

He leaned forward. “We need to steal those, and quickly.”

Felecia frowned. “How do you plan to do that?”

The colonel grimaced. “It will be tight,” he said. “The majority of the confiscated weapons went into the storage depot, near the spaceport. There’s a small guard force, all corporate security. I’d expect, to be honest, that the insurgents are already plotting to steal the weapons themselves …”

Garibaldi scowled. “Or the guard force is relatively light to give them a chance to take the weapons away without making it obvious.”

“It’s possible,” the colonel agreed. “I can put together an assault force. The next storm, we move in and take the weapons, then vanish into the sands. There’s a settlement only a couple of miles away … if we can get the weapons there before the storm dies down, we’ll be relatively safe.”

“If,” Felecia said. “Are there no other options?”

“None,” the colonel said. “We can’t convince the corprats to hand the weapons over to us. We cannot purchase them on the interstellar market. We certainly can’t get them from the insurgents, and producing them ourselves will take time we don’t have. If we get caught, we’re fucked; if we don’t try, we’re fucked anyway.”

“Language,” Garibaldi snapped.

“The point stands,” the colonel said.

He looked at the map. “I’m going to have to get a proper plan worked out, and quickly. We don’t know how long we have before the weapons are moved to the spaceport, or destroyed, or handed over to the insurgents. Or whatever they have in mind for them. There’s no way to do it without a storm either” – his lips twisted – “if we’re lucky, we can make sure everything is blamed on the insurgents. Who knows? It may change a few minds.”

“Do it, quickly,” Garibaldi said. “Call on whoever you need.”

“I might need to discuss what, if anything, a contact in the director’s office can do for us,” the colonel said, looking at Felecia. “But right now, we need a plan.”

He stood, nodded politely, and left the room. Garibaldi sagged back into his chair the moment the younger man was gone, suddenly feeling old. He’d thought the corporation would keep its word … he wondered, numbly, if his parents had ever considered their children and grandchildren would be abandoned, or if they’d just thought the corporation’s word was good. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t had options, he reminded himself. Skilled labour had been in increasingly short supply for years. In hindsight, it was just another symptom of the empire’s decline and fall.

“You did well,” he said, to Felecia. His daughter looked as tired as he felt … he reminded himself, again, that Felecia was a grown woman with a job that had suddenly become a great deal more important. If nothing else, they had to find out just when the planet was going to be abandoned. A few weeks either way could mean the difference between life and death. “If you hadn’t brought this to our attention …”

“Thanks.” Felecia coloured, very slightly. “We have to fight, don’t we.”

It wasn’t a question. She knew better than anyone just how little interstellar shipping there truly was, how few seats would be available to take people away from the suddenly worthless world. Garibaldi looked at his daughter, his brave and brilliant daughter, and knew exactly what would happen if she fell into enemy hands. The best she could expect was … he felt sick, sick at heart, at even thinking such things. He was her father. He had a duty to protect her and if he failed, he’d fail her. And everyone else.

“Yes,” he said, quietly. The odds were against them – they would be heavily outnumbered even with captured weapons – and there was a very good chance they’d die anyway, that their fight would be nothing more than kicking and scratching on the way to the gallows. But they had no choice. “We do.”

He stood. “Go back home, get some rest,” he said. It was the most practical thing she could do right now. “Be very careful tomorrow – everything you do could be noted and logged, then held against you. If they realise you’re spying on them …”

“I understand,” Felecia said, quietly. She stood and gave him a quick hug, holding him tightly for a long moment. “I won’t let you down.”

She left, leaving him alone. His thoughts haunted him, a grim reminder they’d always been living on borrowed time. The corporation had poisoned the population’s minds as well as the air they breathed, leaving nothing behind but a desperate desire for freedom and revenge. A storm was brewing, one that would never abate until after the planet was drenched in blood. His people’s blood … he knew their enemies had a cause, he knew they had a right to be angry at how they’d been treated, but … that didn’t mean he had to let them kill hundreds of thousands of people. They had to fight in self-defence, whatever the risk. 

The only other option was death.

Chapter Five: Mictlan, Montezuma

Felecia had never felt as nervous as she did right now.

She was reasonably sure her boss cared little for her, certainly not enough to keep an eye on her. The complex was a hive of activity, with so many people running around and boxes of supplies being moved from place to place that she was reasonably certain her activity would go unnoticed. There were so many orders entering the system, and then being updated or countermanded, that no lone man could hope to keep track of what was going where. She suspected the confusion was intentional, a way of concealing the signs of impending betrayal, but it didn’t matter as long as she could take advantage of it. A proper audit would reveal everything, if one was ever held; by then, she hoped, it would be far too late.

The corprats won’t want to hold a proper audit, she thought, as she used access codes she wasn’t supposed to know. Their own treachery would be revealed.

She put the thought out of her head as she skimmed the files, copying as much as she could to datachips for printing and transport out of the complex. The guards might notice a datachip and ask pointed questions, but paper would pass unnoticed as long as no one drew attention to it. The logistics files were copied rapidly, providing an insight into just how many supplies remained in the depots and how much would be moved back to the spaceport, days before zero hour. She’d grown used to the knowledge of impending betrayal, she’d thought, but it still hurt to see how thoroughly the betrayal had been planned. The departing corprats weren’t even going to try to destroy the military supplies, just keep them out of enemy hands. It was hard to be sure, but it seemed they wanted the enemy to capture the supplies. Perhaps it was a bribe. Her boss had to be hoping the mining equipment would be left intact. If it was, the corporation could return when the galaxy calmed down a little …

Wishful thinking, she told herself, savagely. And they know it.

The other betrayal was more personal and yet … in a way, it hurt more than the first betrayal because it was easier to grasp. Anna had been assigned to plan the evacuation, without breathing a word to Felecia. Anna had never been a close friend – they were too different to be that close – but she’d thought the other woman would at least try to convince their boss to evacuate Felecia as well … perhaps she had, Felecia thought, only to be rebuffed. The evacuation plan, hanging within Anna’s private files, didn’t include provisos for even a single Huésped, let alone anyone else. The offworlders would make their way to the spaceport on the appointed date and retreat into space. Everyone else would be left behind.

She ground her teeth as she worked her way through the system, taking advantage of the constant changes to insert her own orders into the datanet. A handful of outposts and supply depots, both on the list for being evacuated and disarmed, were listed as already having been stripped of everything useful. A collection of older weapons and supplies brought back to the spaceport were sent out again to the warehouse, their shipping details carefully adjusted to ensure they effectively dropped off the record books the moment they arrived at their final destination. Felecia doubted anyone would ask questions – the orders purported to come from the very highest levels – but she couldn’t help the sweat prickling down her back as she uploaded the revised files. If someone did ask questions …

They’re planning to betray us, she thought, coldly. They won’t risk doing anything that might expose the betrayal until it is far too late.

The thought haunted her as the hours wore on, as she worked both shifts while her boss was busy holding mystery meetings. Felecia didn’t know who was visiting, or why the details had been kept from her, but she could guess. The corprats were laying down the plans for the final betrayal, probably negotiating with the insurgents for a clear path out … she tried, time and time again, to think of a way to get into the room, but nothing came to mind. Nothing that wouldn’t be blatantly obvious, at least. If she revealed herself so quickly, she doubted she’d be allowed to go home. She’d be locked up until the evacuation, then left behind. She knew what would happen to her if she fell into enemy hands. Her boss would probably see it as a fitting punishment for her betrayal.

It was hard not to feel tired as her extended shift came to an end. She stood, hiding the papers within her bag, and made her way down to the bus station. The only upside of the corprat system, she supposed, was that nearly everyone would follow orders without question, allowing their masters to play a shell game with vital supplies and information. The orders she’d issued looked innocuous, in isolation, but put together they stood in stark contrast to her boss’s wishes. None of the workers who followed the orders would have any reason to question them, even if they wanted to. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been bombarded with vague and contradictory orders over the last few weeks …

She grimaced as the bus rolled out of the spaceport. The sky was darkening already, eerie lights flickering in the distance as a storm came into view. It was too early for the planned assault on the warehouse to go ahead, too early … she prayed, to a God she wasn’t sure existed, that there’d be another storm before zero hour. If there wasn’t … she didn’t know what would happen, but she doubted it would be anything good. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the shacks outside the walls, the ever-growing shantytown. It was larger than ever, with dozens of faces – hostile faces – staring at the bus. She wondered, numbly, if the insurgents were already planning to seize the spaceport. If that were true … she shook her head. There was nothing she could do about it. She’d just have to hope. And pray.

***

“You wanted to see us, sir?”

Marcus saluted, smartly, as he led the way into General Hampshire’s office. It wasn’t a very reassuring sight. The chamber was surprisingly comfortable, with fancy furniture that was clearly expensive and a giant I-Love-Me display behind the general’s desk. There was no sense the general was planning to pack up and leave at any moment, no sense he could even if he wanted to. Marcus had been in makeshift command posts, put together in the middle of a battlefield, that had given a far more reassuring impression, even if they’d been well within enemy artillery range. General Hampshire wasn’t a bad officer, compared to some he’d encountered in his career, but he was far more of a corporate politician than a soldier. Marcus had no doubt he’d sell out his subordinates in a flash if it was the only way to preserve his career.

“Yes, I did,” General Hampshire said. “Please, close the door and take a seat.”

Marcus studied him, thoughtfully, as he obeyed. General Hampshire looked as if he could have stepped off a recruiting poster, a red flag for anyone with real military experience. There was a time for spit and polish and it wasn’t in the middle of an insurgency, even in a supposedly safe zone. The general would be a very attractive target indeed if the insurgents got anyone into the spaceport, all the more because the chain of command below him was kept deliberately hazy. Marcus didn’t pretend to understand why the corprats had allowed their security troops to fudge the chain of command – the corps would certainly never tolerate it – but there was nothing he could do about it. They’d just have to hope the unquestioned commander remained alive and in command.

“The evacuation date has finally been set,” General Hampshire said. He picked up a datachip and held it out. “Everyone on this list will be recalled to the spaceport beforehand, then ordered onto the shuttles once the evacuation convoy arrives and flown out as quickly as possible. The final evacuees will be the men guarding the walls, who will have a very difficult task if everything goes to hell.”

Glazebrooks frowned. “I take it you believe the truce won’t last?”

“No,” General Hampshire said. “The insurgents are unlikely to honour the truce indefinitely.”

Marcus slipped the datachip into his reader and scanned it thoughtfully. An evacuation under fire was always difficult, even with orbital fire support. The corprats had requested an Imperial Navy squadron to support the evacuation effort, but – as far as he knew – they’d been unsuccessful. The Imperial Navy was coming apart at the seams, if the last report was accurate; it was unlikely any of the remaining commanding officers gave much of a damn about an isolated mining world so far from their bases. It just wasn’t that important.

His eyes narrowed. “And the promise you made to the Huéspeds?”

General Hampshire had the decency to look embarrassed. “That promise was always conditional on us having the capacity to evacuate them all,” he said. “It is no longer possible to keep it.”

Marcus glared at the list. There were at least a million Huéspeds, perhaps more. The planetary census had been half-hearted at best, with both factions concealing a number of births and deaths from their corporate overlords. Even if the figure was accurate, lifting them all offworld before the insurgents got tired of waiting would be impossible … not unless the corprats could somehow scrounge up more transports. He wondered, coldly, if they’d even tried. It was quite possible they’d found nothing, but also that they hadn’t bothered to check.

“If you leave them behind, General,” he said coolly, “you’ll be sentencing them to death.”

It was an old story. Half the uprisings that had shocked the empire over the last century stemmed from ethnic groups and factions coming into conflict with other ethnic groups, groups that had only gotten along as long as the empire had the power to make them. Now … if half the reports were accurate, dozens of worlds had fallen into bloody racial and ethnic conflicts, with mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing the order of the day. A few decades ago, the galaxy would have been horrified. God knew, the atrocities on Han had shocked everyone. But after Earthfall, even millions of people being murdered for being the wrong race, or religion, or skin colour, or anything, was nothing more than a drop in the bucket. There was no one who could make the locals behave, or separate the factions, or do anything other than helplessly watch the slaughter …

He felt sick. The Corps was supposed to stand against such atrocities. And yet … his mind raced, searching for options. What could they do? Nothing came to mind. They didn’t have enough ships to evacuate the Huéspeds, they didn’t have enough weapons to arm them against such overwhelming numbers, they didn’t have the clout to make the Aztecs behave … what was left? Nothing, as far as he could tell. Montezuma didn’t even have the decency to have large bodies of water, allowing the corprats to separate the two factions long enough for the galaxy to calm down. The Huéspeds were doomed, and there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn’t used to feeling helpless, but he did now.

General Hampshire stared at his hands. “The Caudillo has assured us that the rights of the Huéspeds will be respected.”

Marcus resisted the urge to snort. “Do you really believe that, General, or are you just trying to convince yourself?”

The general’s face twisted, as if he wasn’t sure just what he was feeling. Marcus waited for him to make up his mind, wondering – idly – if the general would shout at them or put on a fatherly mien or … who knew? General Hampshire wasn’t the most intimidating officer he’d met … but then, most of them had at least known what they were doing. General Hampshire had willingly sold out the Huéspeds …

“If the Huéspeds are mistreated, the planet will be denied further economic assistance,” the general said, in a tone that suggested he didn’t believe what he was saying. It was unlikely the planet wanted any further economic assistance, or that the insurgent leadership could prevent a slaughter even if it wanted to try. The hatred was just too great to be quietened easily, not without mass bloodshed. “We have little choice, but to place our faith in the Caudillo and hope for the best.”

Marcus met his eyes. “And when his people slaughter everyone?”

General Hampshire showed a flash of irritation. “This isn’t some textbook study of planetary politics, written by an armchair expert who’s never left his homeworld and seen the galaxy, where there’s one clear answer and a whole host of bad ones. This is the real universe, where we have neither the shipping capacity to evacuate everyone who might want to go or the firepower to make the insurgents do one damned thing we want them to. There’s no easy answer, not here. The best we can do is hope the Caudillo keeps his word.”

He may want to keep his word, Marcus thought, although he doubted it. His people will have other ideas.

“I assume you wanted us here for a reason,” he said, instead. “What do you want?”

“It is vitally important the full details of the evacuation plan are kept in confidence until the very last moment,” General Hampshire said. “I want you to look at the list and draw up the plan for evacuating the security troops, once the remainder of the corporate officials are on their way to orbit. Can you handle it?”

Marcus kept his face under tight control. “It depends on just how the insurgents react to our departure, sir,” he said. “And what sort of orbital firepower we have at our disposal.”

“None,” General Hampshire said, bluntly. “The corporation was unable to convince the navy to dispatch even a single escort, let alone an entire squadron.”

“Shit.” 

Marcus considered it for a moment. The hell of it was that there weren’t many other options. If they had a few months to prepare, and if he had complete authority, he could have ensured the safety of the entire spaceport … he checked the date, just to be sure, and sucked in his breath. Three weeks … nowhere near long enough to set up a support base, close enough to cover the spaceport, yet far enough from enemy positions to ensure it remained untouched until the evacuation was completed. Perhaps they could call upon the Huéspeds … no, at that point it would become all too clear the Huéspeds were being abandoned. There’d be a riot.

“We need to move the locals back from the walls,” he said. The shantytown, like so many others he’d seen, was more than just a hive of locals looking to profit from offworld visitors. If it wasn’t a recruiting ground for the insurgency, and a staging post for attacks aimed at the spaceport, he’d eat his hat. “They’re too close for comfort.”

“The Caudillo insisted they were to be left alone,” the general said. “Any move towards the shantytown will break the truce.”

Marcus sighed, inwardly. “How much authority do we have?”

“As much as you need, assuming it doesn’t break the truce,” General Hampshire said. “When the time comes, we need to get everyone into orbit and leave as quickly as possible.”

“It’ll be tight,” Marcus said. “Can we have authority to hammer the shantytown if all hell breaks loose?”

The general grimaced. Marcus wondered what he was thinking. The idea of the corporation returning, and resuming operations, was just absurd. There was nothing to be gained by pretending otherwise, or ensuring the enemy had a safe place to plot and plan … maybe even launch missiles at departing shuttles. The local intelligence network was effectively useless – the corporation’s sources had dried up as soon as it became clear their dominance over the planet was coming to an end – and no one had any clear idea how many surface-to-air missiles the insurgents had, but … losing a shuttle would be fatal. It would be utterly disastrous.  

“I’ll speak to the Director,” General Hampshire said, finally. “But we need to avoid provoking the locals as much as possible.”

“I think you’re a hundred years too late for that,” Glazebrooks said, dryly.

“Draw up the plan, and prepare to implement it,” General Hampshire ordered. “Dismissed.”

Marcus said nothing as they made their way back to the barracks, and into the office that had been set aside for them. They’d checked the chamber for bugs and found nothing, but Marcus didn’t feel particularly safe until he’d turned on loud music to annoy any potential listeners. Both men were well practiced in lip-reading, and talking without ever quite speaking out loud …

“Fuck,” Marcus said. “What do we do?”

“There aren’t any other options,” Glazebrooks said, after a moment. “Evacuate a tiny fraction of the population, or none.”

“They’re evacuating the corprats and troops and leaving everyone else to die,” Marcus said, sharply. He’d been given orders he’d disliked in the past, but this … this was appalling. “What can we do about it?”

“Well, we can refuse to follow orders,” Glazebrooks pointed out. “What then?”

“Nothing,” Marcus said. They were the best-trained troops on the planet, but they weren’t gods. The general would order them arrested and then get one of his cronies to draw up the plans instead. If there had been a marine officer anywhere in the system, they could have appealed to him … but there wasn’t. “There’s nothing we can do.”

Chapter Six: Mictlan, Montezuma

The road looked perfectly safe, despite the storm coming in from the west. That worried him.

Lieutenant Jim Kratzok kept one hand on his pistol as the handful of vehicles rumbled towards the settlement. There might have been a truce on, according to the corprats, but he had a feeling no one had bothered to tell the insurgents. There’d been no real pause in the bombings and shootings along the edge of the disputed zone, no hint that the insurgents had any intention of letting the planned evacuation go ahead without interference. Jim and his men had been on patrol for the last two months and they’d gotten into a dozen firefights, none of which had been supposed to happen. The senior officers didn’t seem to care. They certainly hadn’t bothered to send air and ground support to settlements that had been attacked in the last few weeks.

He didn’t let himself relax as they neared the gates, even though there was no visible danger. The oncoming sandstorm could conceal an entire armoured division, if the insurgents had had one under their control, and the harsh landscape was littered with so many rocks and sand pools that it was almost laughably easy to conceal an IED or sniper post without setting off alarms. Montezuma was a beautiful world in places, despite the pollution, but it would be a long time before anyone could relax outside the walls. The insurgents could be anywhere.

The outer gates swung open. The guards kept their weapons at the ready as the patrol scrambled off their vehicles and pressed their hands against the fingerprint scanner, checking their identities before they were allowed to go any further. The entire gate complex was a trap for insurgents, if they captured a settler vehicle and drove it into the complex; the walls were carefully designed, he’d been assured, to redirect the force of an explosion up and out of the complex, rather than letting the blast do real damage. It had been tested more than once, by insurgents who thought they saw a weakness in the defences. He didn’t begrudge his superiors for being paranoid. He’d seen what happened when the insurgents got into the defences.

An officer met him as he passed through the inner gates. “Report to the colonel, please.”

Jim nodded and dismissed the rest of his men. Some had sweethearts in the settlement, others would head straight for the transit barracks for a good night’s sleep before they resumed their duties in the morning. A handful would probably head to the brothel near the spaceport … Jim wasn’t supposed to know about its mere existence, or that some of his men would go there, but he knew to turn a blind eye as long as the men were careful. He couldn’t help feeling a twinge of jealously as he hurried towards the military HQ. He’d been courting Felecia for months now, and yet she’d refused to go any further than kissing …

He put the thought aside as he reached the HQ, where the guards searched his body carefully before pointing him into the colonel’s office. There was a handful of other young officers, reading books or datapads or otherwise pretending to be busy as they waited for their superior to arrive. Jim frowned, inwardly, as he spotted a number of familiar faces, all young officers who’d spent the last few months on detached duty. He hadn’t expected them all to be recalled at the same time, not when the defence force was so widely – and thinly – spread. Unless he missed his guess, a third of the force’s officers were gathered in the chamber. Waiting.

The door opened. Jim stood, automatically, as Colonel Stephen Hullott strode into the room. The colonel was not known for formality, unlike the corporate troops who guarded the spaceport, but showing respect made them look professional in front of the offworlders. The Huéspeds were completely dependent on their support and they knew it, which meant they had to look and act as if they were worthy … Jim ground his teeth in frustration. The offworlders simply didn’t understand the realities of fighting on the surface, against a capable and cruel enemy who wanted them all dead. If it had been up to him, the insurgents would have been pounded into the dust long ago.

“Be seated,” Colonel Hullott said, curtly. “I shouldn’t need to say it, but I will anyway. What we are about to discuss must not be shared with anyone outside this group without my prior permission. If anyone does talk, they’ll be for the high jump. And I don’t mean metaphorically.”

Jim felt his eyes narrow as a rustle ran through the group. The Huésped Defence Force had always been more of a civilian militia than a regular army, and the concept of following orders without question was alien. There was no debate on the front lines, true, but otherwise … orders could be discussed, and they could be debated, with everyone having more of a say in planning and execution than anyone in a more formal army. The offworlders might sneer at such informality, yet it served a very useful purpose. His men were simply more invested in their own success than any of the corporate troops.

But then, our families live here, he thought. If we fall, they’ll fall too.

He frowned, inwardly. Colonel Hullott was being incredibly blunt. And that meant trouble.

“As you know, there was a plan to evacuate the majority of our population,” Colonel Hullott said, curtly. “We have discovered that the plan simply does not exist. The corporation intends to abandon us to our fate.”

Jim stared, feeling as though he’d been punched in the belly. He had no illusions about their chances, if the offworlders pulled out. It had never seemed quite real that they would evacuate the entire population, but it had never seemed real that they’d abandon the world either. Montezuma was a net gain for the corporation, despite the growing insurgency. The idea they no longer needed the mining program, or the Huéspeds, or …

“Fuck,” someone said. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Colonel Hullott said, bluntly. “We have three weeks, no more, before the offworld staff are evacuated, leaving us alone. We will be left to the mercy of the locals.”

“They have no mercy,” Jim muttered.

He reeled, silently relieved he was sitting. His legs felt as if they were going to collapse under his own weight. The war had been growing worse over the past few years, with the insurgents uniting under a new and charismatic leader, but the defence force had been holding its own. Or had it … in hindsight, he wondered if that was true. The corprats had abandoned several outposts and mining stations, pulling back until they were concentrated in a handful of complexes around the Dead Sea … Jim scowled, wondering just when the decision to abandon the Huéspeds had been made. Perhaps the betrayal had been planned years before Earthfall …

“We have a serious problem,” Colonel Hullott said, with masterly understatement. “At best, we will be left to face our enemy alone. At worst, we will be disarmed and staked out for the kill. We need to act, and we need to act fast. I don’t believe they can alter their deadline, even if they wanted to.”

“Three weeks,” Jim muttered. “That’s not much time.”

“No,” Colonel Hullott agreed.

He pointed to the map on the wall. “You will all be assigned to planning cells,” he said. “Some will be detailed to seize important targets when all hell breaks loose. Others will defend the settlements and try to hold the walls long enough for help to arrive. Still others will have specific tasks, which we will discuss later – in private. Like I said, do not breathe a word of this to anyone without my prior permission. If the insurgents realise what we’re doing, they’ll try to stop us. And then all hell really will break loose.”

Jim nodded, then waited as the colonel assigned tasks to the other officers. Most were logical, although he couldn’t help feeling the defence force was going to be spread very thin indeed. A handful made no sense … he hoped the colonel knew what he was doing once the balloon went up. An icy hand clenched his heart as it sank in that this was no drill, that they really were being abandoned. His family was going to be raped and murdered, everything they’d built was going to be destroyed … his body started to shake, as he watched a handful of officers being dismissed and others ordered to remain in the antechamber. It felt as though they really were on their own, abandoned by their former masters … he wondered, suddenly, if his grandparents had ever realised they were going to be discarded, the moment they’d outlived their usefulness. Perhaps not. They’d certainly made no attempt to leave after their first employment contract had run its course.

And now we’re naked and vulnerable, he thought, numbly. We might be dead in a month.

“There was a reason I wanted you to remain behind,” Colonel Hullott said, when the last officer had been sent out. “I understand you and Miss Kahn have been walking out …?”

Jim flushed, despite himself. There were few secrets in the settlement. Everyone knew he’d invited Felecia to walk out with him, everyone knew they’d gone out time and time again, enough times that the relationship might have progressed to kissing … or even further. Not that it had, he reflected. It was a little perplexing. No one would have said anything if they’d gone out twice and never again but going out so many times almost always meant marriage in the very near future. Certainly, if he’d gotten her pregnant … perhaps she didn’t like the idea of moving into his family home. Jim liked Felecia’s father, respected him, but he wasn’t sure he would have enjoyed sharing a home with him.

“Yes, sir,” he said, carefully. His relationship was none of his superior’s business. “I assume you have orders for me?”

“Yes, which will require you to work closely with your girlfriend,” the colonel said. “She was the one who alerted us to the impending betrayal.”

Jim smiled. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to lead a very special squad,” the colonel said. “And there isn’t much time to get ready before you have to move.”

“Yes, sir,” Jim said. “What do you want me to do?”

The colonel told him. Jim swallowed.

“If we lose anyone,” he warned, “the body is going to be a dead giveaway …”

“We know,” the colonel said. “And ideally, we won’t kill – or lose – anyone. If we do …”

He met Jim’s eyes. “You know what will happen, after the evacuation,” he added. “This is our one chance to save our lives. All of our lives. It’s worth any risk, because the alternative is death.”

Jim nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Report to your new duty station tomorrow,” the colonel ordered. “Tonight … go meet your girl. She’s cleared to know the details, but do not talk to her anywhere you can be overheard. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jim stood and saluted, then left the office and made his way onto the streets. The settlement had always struck him as more civilised than the local towns and cities, although the combination of poor government and corporate greed had hampered development so severely that the entire planet had regressed … something the corporation had used, more than once, to justify maintaining its control over Montezuma. What was the point of creating wealth – whatever form it took - if it would only be stolen? The locals had had a nice world once …

He shook his head. Past injustices didn’t justify present injustices. No one could deny that the planet’s population had been brutally screwed – Jim had dug into the forbidden histories, texts that had been banned by the corporate government – and their entire planet stolen through legal trickery and extensive bribes. It was true, and yet it didn’t matter. Jim had seen the horrors left behind when the insurgents stormed a settlement or ran a convoy off the roads; he had no sympathy for people who could inflict such horrors, no matter how badly their ancestors had been treated. His ancestors hadn’t been corporate royalty. He didn’t deserve to be punished for the crimes of men who hadn’t been related to him. Nor did anyone else.

The sky darkened rapidly as he stopped outside the Kahn home and knocked, once. Felecia’s mother opened the door, gazed at him for a long moment, then nodded shortly and stepped aside to allow him to walk up to Felecia’s room. She was already opening the door, her smile warm and welcoming and yet edged with a tiredness that made him want to take her in his arms and promise she’d never have to work again. It would be nonsense, of course, and they both knew it, but he still wanted to say it. He wondered, suddenly, if her reluctance to marry him had stemmed from a reluctance to give up her job … not that it would matter long. They both knew the corporation’s days on the planet were coming to an end.

“We’d better leave the door open,” Felecia said, quietly.

Jim nodded, hiding his irritation. It was insulting to think that he’d do something without her consent, but … he supposed she had a point. She’d been walking out with him long enough that everyone would expect them to get married, and if they didn’t – for whatever reason – they’d both be in some trouble. Having parents who could testify they’d never been alone long enough to have sex might save them both, if the worst happened …

He studied her for a moment as she waved him into a chair. Felecia had always been thin and willowy, but she seemed to have grown thinner in the last few weeks. He wondered, numbly, just how long she’d known about the impending betrayal. Weeks? Months? The colonel hadn’t been clear on just how long the Council had known, or how long it had been planning its response. Her hair was starting to thin too … he swallowed hard, feeling a surge of protectiveness. He wanted to promise her it would be fine, but … he knew better. Their entire world was about to be turned upside down.

“The weather is really lovely today, isn’t it?” Felecia tapped her ear meaningfully. “It’s all hot and dry and poisonous.”

Jim nodded, flicking his eyes at the door. There was no one in sight, but their voices would carry quite some distance. He’d heard his sister talking to her suitor and he’d been left with a feeling of profound sympathy for the poor boy. A man now … he couldn’t help fearing his sister would be left a widow, with a baby on the way, if her husband died in the coming firestorm. It would be the end of a great many lives …

“The air is lovely and warm,” he said, in the same bland tone. He was relieved to see a glint of amusement in her eyes. “The sandstorm was quite refreshing, was it not?”

He paused. There were no distant giggles. Felecia’s mother would be close enough to hear her scream, but perhaps not make out words … he wanted to ask her about what she’d found out, or what else she might have done over the last few weeks, yet the colonel’s warning echoed in his ears. The settlement was supposed to be safe, but walls had ears. Someone could be a spy, or an unwitting intelligence source, or … who knew?

“It’s been a rough few weeks,” Felecia said, quietly. “How was it for you?”

“Rough,” Jim said. There was nowhere they could go talk privately, certainly not about the impending disaster. “Would you like to join me for dinner? We could go to the Winchester.”

Felecia smiled, rather wanly. “If only I had time,” she said. “I’m working for two right now.”

“You do look tired,” Jim agreed. He opened his mouth to point out she should go to bed, then closed it again. If there were listening ears, they could hardly fail to draw the wrong conclusions. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t think so,” Felecia said. “Not unless you’ve suddenly learnt how to become a secretary.”

Jim had to smile. “I don’t have the brain for it,” he said, “Or the nerve.”

He wanted to lean forward and kiss her but refrained as he heard someone clumping their way towards him. Felecia’s mother, practically stamping to make sure they heard her coming and had plenty of time to break contact. Jim glanced down at himself to ensure he was presentable, then looked up. It wasn’t as if they'd done anything, but it was well to be cautious. An angry mother could mean the end of their relationship.

“I brought you both tea and biscuits,” Felecia’s mother announced. “Jim, dear, do you have time to join us for dinner?”

Jim glanced at Felecia, who flickered her eyes slightly. Very slightly. “I’m afraid I have to report back to the barracks,” he said. If Felecia didn’t want him there, for whatever reason, he would honour her request. She probably didn’t want to endure a dinner with her relatives asking subtle questions about why they weren’t engaged yet. “But I thank you for the offer.”

“Please come back as soon as possible,” Felecia’s mother said. “It is nice to see you again.”

Jim nodded. “I’ll do my best,” he said. It was nice her mother was saying so. If she disapproved, she certainly would not hide it. “But I don’t know what’ll happen tomorrow.”

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