The Thin Blue Line (The Empire's Corps Book 9) (v5.1) Read Free Page B

identified, I want to know just who let them through security and why ...”
    “If we have the manpower,” Dempsey cut him off. “Will your boss authorise such an effort?”
    Glen swore. With the threat of food riots, nearly every law-enforcement official on the planet had been diverted to patrolling the cities. Even the backroom experts who made the service work had been forced to remember their basic training as they donned armour and set out to try to make the streets a little safer. It was a recipe for disaster, everyone knew, but there was no alternative. They just didn't have the manpower to flood the streets with officers, let alone Civil Guardsmen.
    His terminal bleeped, loudly. It was Isabel’s ringtone. “Excuse me,” he said, removing the terminal from his belt. “Glen here.”
    “Glen, I just got called by the boss,” Isabel said. “She’s sending a team of experts over here, but she wants you to report back to the station at once. I think you're in the shit.”
    “Come back this evening ... tomorrow morning and dig me out,” Glen said. He wasn't surprised. The raid had been a great success, but he would still have to answer a great many hard questions. “And bring coffee.”
    “Will do,” Isabel said. “What would you like me to write on your gravestone before I dig you up and put you back to work?”
    Glen laughed, tiredly. “Something witty,” he said. “Take over here; let me know if we took anyone captive. We need answers from them.”
    He stepped back out of the warehouse and walked over towards the line of vehicles screeching to a halt. One of them would take him back to the station, probably far too quickly for his peace of mind. He needed coffee and a rest, not a lecture from the boss.
    But an Imperial Marshal’s work was never done.

Chapter Two
    The definition of crime is, of course, part of society. Throughout history, there have been no shortage of acts that we would unhesitatingly deem as criminal, yet were not considered crimes at the time.
    - Professor Leo Caesius. The Decline of Law and Order and the Rise of Anarchy.

    Belinda closed her eyes. When she opened them, she saw the city.
    It was an ugly sight. Dozens of gray cookie-cutter houses, each one completely unremarkable, completely indistinguishable from the others. There was nothing to separate each of them from their partners, no trace at all of individuality. Whoever had designed this suburb, she decided as she started to walk, had no intention of allowing human sentimentality to affect their design work. There were no shops, no schools ... nothing, but endless rows of houses ...
    ... And there were no traces of any living beings, none at all.
    Alarm bells rang in her mind as she started to run. The mission was simple enough, which meant, in her experience, that there was a nasty sting in the tail. All she had to do was get from one end of the city to the other, without allowing anything to impede her path. She’d run countless such missions before, when she’d been nothing more than a Marine Rifleman, but then she’d been surrounded by the rest of the company. Now, she was alone.
    Her enhanced senses, such as they were, probed the darkness as she ran faster, keeping to the shadows as best as she could. If someone was setting an ambush ahead of her, she was reasonably sure she could hear them lying in wait before they realised she was there, unless they knew what she was. Or they were just being paranoid. Even the most enhanced humanoids known to exist couldn't hear something if it wasn't making a sound, even breathing. Belinda had set enough ambushes in her time to know how the ambushers were thinking. They’d try to lure her into a killing zone and do whatever it took to stop her.
    She darted down an alleyway, then out into the next street, ducking into the shadows long enough to scan for anything out of place. The soulless buildings seemed to mock her, casting dark shadows that were almost completely shrouded,