Chapter 9 - Bartain

Camp Sergeant Major Mark Bartain lay back on the bed in the small county hospital. A nurse and a doctor peering at his numbed face. CRRRRRRRRRACK. He felt nothing, but knew that his nose had just been rebroken so as to return it to its normal position. A few days of painkillers and a little restorative collagenic therapy supplements in his food and it would be bad to its normal aqualine shape.

One of the privileges of being the Senior Soldier on Camp was he could disappear for a day or two with only the vaguest of excuses and it would be accepted quite readily, without questions. He knew his reputation as a strict rule enforcer meant that the staff underneath him and the officer corps to whom he ostensibly reported were both quite relieved to have a few days of relative relaxtion with him gone. This time he had decided to claim he was called away to a training course to advise on some procedural changes. It was a lie at the time, but he still had enough friends in enough places to set up a few last minute meetings in Yorkshire, and then simply claim the paperwork must've been deleted or lost.

So, after he had his little encounter with one of Bramo's 'Gowned Goons', he had jumped in his personal vehicle, a government issue auto-taxi on the priority military network and gave the voice command to take him to Yorkshire barracks via a small hospital somewhere in Lincolnshire. That wasn't too far of a diversion and he could have the travel logs encoded so a casual security sweep wouldn't detect anything other than a journey that took 15-20 minutes longer than usual, which he could put down to any number of glitches or understandable minor inconveniences.

He'd been aware of the little cabal that Bramo and his kind had been buildling within the Space Force for some time. But for one of them to strike him, on his own base, in that silly archaic costume? They were either getting bold, or stupid. Perhaps both. Perhaps they felt confident enough that they were in the business of 'sending messages'.

He had thought he'd been able to keep his knowledge of their existence and activities secret, but clearly they were aware that he knew something. Hopefully they didn't know what he knew or how he knew it.

So, now here he was giving a false name and masking his location having his nose fixed 'off the grid' as much as that was possible nowadays. All because he needed to maintain his facade of ignorance. The blow he had allowed that uppity little cultist cadet Morrison hadn't been strong enough to knock him out. Mores the pity. He could have claimed amnesia and been able to continue his investigation into The Cult covertly. Now he would have to either make an official report (unthinkable without knowing who was compromised) or he would have to ignore it. So he had chosen the later. Remove all evidence. Offer no reaction. Show them he was unperturbed, but willing to play their secrecy game, for now at least.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"That's you all straightened out now, Mr. Jones" the young doctor said "Just add 20 ml of this collagenic to any soup, stew or other water based meal twice a day for the next 3 days and you will be good as new. Better even."

"Thanks Doc, much obliged." Bartain answered committing the doctor and nurses faces to memory. They were a weak link. He had booked the session electronicaly via a throwaway datasphere account, but if someone did in fact track him to this hospital, at this time, the doctor and nurse here would be able to give an accurate description of him. He filed their images and names away in a little folder in his mind, hoping he'd never have to look them up again. Even he didn't enough ruining civilians lives just for the sake of it, besides it would be a lot of effort and impossible to cover up as they both had families.

Back into his unmarked military auto-taxi, he went over the situation in his mind. Two things bothered him. First, he didn't know what The Cult's endgame was. The second, why Kat Suzuki? She was a good cadet, good team player, excellent academics, did well in all the key skills from manual shooting to basic system repair. But she wasn't The Cult's usual type. Every cadet course The Cult took an interest in certain cadets. Not always, but usually the physically impressive ones who were merely competent at the more technical tasks. It worried Bartain. It was classic terrorist recruitment, but without, until now, the usual violence. Perhaps the boy Morrison had misunderstood his instructions and overstepped? Perhaps even now Bramo was having him punished for taking things too far? Possible. Possible. A professional investigator, Bartain reminded himself, often sees conspiracy where there is mere incompetence.

Still, if his information was correct, Bramo had inducted Miss Suzuki into his little club. Yet, she was exactly the psychological and intellectual type Bramo and his lot usually were very careful to avoid. Very careful indeed. It is hard to take a smart, capable and insubordinate soldier and make them your unthinking follower. Sometimes it was necessary, of course, and the military had centuries of data proving it knew exactly how to do it. But it was a lot more effort. And you ended up destroying the rare personality that was suited to solo operations where a high degree of autonomy was required. Odd to try to turn a potential special operations personality into a line infantry personality.

Then again, Bartain mused, without knowing The Cult's intentions over a longer time horizon, it was hard to assess exactly why or how they chose particular cadets.

That's why he had set this plan in motion. That's why he had made sure to catch Miss Suzuki in some minor yet undenable infraction, then to over punish her. To see if she was indeed a a Cult member, and to see if the Cult would protect her. And they had done so in an unusually direct manner.

He needed time to think. He needed to get some good advice. He needed to figure out who was compromised, how deep the rot was, and whether the Space Force itself was at risk.

Camp Sergeant Major Mark Bartain sat back and closed his eyes for the final 20 minutes of his journey to the training centre in central Yorkshire. He had given 35 of his best years to the Space Force, the UK government. The was no way this side of hell he would let it be destroyed, from without or from within.