by J McGovern
Prologue
Wilderness
Paradonian Sector
The planet loomed on the scanner, unfriendly, ominous. A fiery seam ran through its centre.
The young Lieutenant approached the Captain of the ship and saluted. ‘We’re approaching the planet now, sir,’ he said, needlessly. A stickler for the regulations. As most of the young were.
‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’
Captain Blane stood up and approached the scanner. The control room pressed in on him, and he stuck a finger between his collar and neck to let in some air. The Churchill, an auxiliary warship, was significantly smaller than the Imperial superdreadnoughts he was used to. It was designed to supplement the larger Navy ships, and it had been chosen for this particular assignment because it was fast, inconspicuous; it could flit through space unnoticed, like a bumblebee from flower to flower.
The brief was simple: the Navy had received a tip-off from a scientist working on one of the MARS outposts. MARS stood for ‘Multiple Area Response System’: it was a network of observation stations which covered virtually the whole Imperium. Vital to keep an eye on things with an empire so vast, especially since it was impossible to police every boundary in the traditional way.
The MARS scientist had detected an unidentifiable ship in orbit around a planet colloquially named Chaos, located in the Paradonian Sector. The planet, known to the Navy by the official code GG-MP8999, was a sphere of barren wasteland. Thus the discovery of the ship had alarmed the admirals; had it found something the early explorers had missed? What was worse, early scans suggested that the mysterious ship was armed to the teeth: rail guns, plasma cannons, you name it. Loitering without proper authorisation, not to mention carrying illegal armaments, gave the Navy enough justification to intervene.
What reason could the ship have for being there? The Admiralty Board had come up with several possibilities. One option was that an unauthorised terraforming process was taking place on the planet. Another possibility was that a rebellion was forming. Admiral Blaize, one of the key commanders of the Navy, had argued that they should send a fleet of ships to neutralise the threat, but the rest of the Board had argued for more furtive tactics. The ship was unregistered, and of an unknown origin: it would be foolish to blast them to kingdom come before learning of their purposes. Foolish to destroy every trace of evidence.
In the end, it was decided that a single vessel would be sent to ascertain the situation.
Now that very ship was approaching the planet.
‘Captain, you might want to take a look at this,’ Lieutenant Ava said.
The Captain peered at the scanner. And gulped. The ship they had been sent to investigate, now in visual range, was almost the size of two Imperial superdreadnoughts. Before the Captain could begin to think properly about their next move, there was a loud crash, and the deck of the Churchill shuddered.
‘Enemy fire!’ the Lieutenant shouted.
‘General quarters!’ the Captain cried.
The crew jumped to battle stations, preparing to fire on the enemy ship. Captain Blane had been prepared for a fight — Naval commanders always had to be — but he hadn’t expected one. The mission was supposed to have been peaceful; they were to make contact with the mysterious ship and find out their intentions.
Bloody admirals, he thought, stingy with their ships. Just one tiny warship to confront this beast. I could really do with back-up right about now.
‘Concentrate fire!’ Captain Blane said. ‘Antimatter cannons — fire! Phase torpedoes — fire!’
Another crash rocked the ship. The Captain glanced at one of the screens; they were too close to the planet to make a phase jump. The operator manning the antimatter cannons checked the console; the weapon was fully charged. He slammed his hand down —
— but it never touched the launch button. A plasma bolt shot out from the enemy ship, blinding white. The last thing the crew saw was the intense light as it pierced the hull of the ship.
In a mere moment the area of space they had occupied was empty.
Chapter One
Interstellar Shipyard
Terminal Island
Varon
Harlan Glitz scowled at the guards as he was pushed forward by the steady flow of prisoners. He stuck out his chest, trying to maintain some dignity.
The prisoners were all handcuffed, and he knew it was futile to attempt to escape. A single prod with a shocker, one of the guards’ electric cattle prods, was enough to make you comply. His foot caught on the edge of the entrance ramp and he nearly stumbled, which prompted a heavy kick to the ankle from one of the guards.
‘Watch it!’ the guard yelled.
Glitz grimaced.
Once the prisoners were all aboard the ship, the ramp was quickly raised, sealing them inside. Prison ships in the Imperium had a somewhat unusual layout: the front entrance led on to a large open space, almost like a warehouse, which was called the floor. Prisoners were generally confined to the floor, the canteen, and the living quarters. The floor was usually where prisoners would be forced to perform menial tasks. Cells were reserved for the most violent, the most troublesome. The back entrance led to several other parts of the ship, including the canteen, the living quarters, the flight deck and the officers’ lounge.
‘Nice holiday,’ Glitz muttered.
‘Shut it!’ one of the guards yelled. He was a thin man with pimples, he couldn’t have been older than seventeen.
‘School out for the day?’
‘How dare you!’
‘That’s enough,’ the Commander said, and Glitz continued to grin at the guard. The guard began to redden with annoyance.
‘Sir,’ the young guard protested, pointing at Glitz. ‘He’s still smiling at me. Can’t you make him stop?’
‘Grow up, Harka,’ the Commander said. He turned to face the assembled band of convicts. They were all dressed in regulation prisoner uniforms, grey bodysuits bearing a circular badge with the letters ‘P.I.’ The letters stood for ‘Property of the Imperium’. Once someone was successfully convicted of a felony — unless they were an aristocrat, of course — they became legally owned by the Imperium until they had finished the period of their sentence.
‘Now, my name is Commander Halland Rica. You will find that I am a fair and just man, but that I can also be ruthless if you get on the wrong side of me. If you all behave like civilised people, we can look forward to a pleasant journey. If not, you will spend the trip in irons.’
Yeah, Glitz thought. Pleasant, that’s funny. It was well known that prison ships were anything but pleasant. Often, prisoners were forced to work in the engine room, which could be extremely hazardous.
‘Providing there is no trouble,’ Commander Rica went on, ‘you will not be forced to do any kind of work. Behave like good little girls and boys and we will get along just fine.’ He emphasised the word ‘girls’.
‘That’s all,’ Commander Rica went on. ‘I’m going to deactivate your handcuffs now, and I expect you all to be on your best behaviour for the duration of the flight.’ The Commander had the air of a schoolteacher addressing a class of wayward children. He activated a switch, and all of the handcuffs clicked open. The men stretched their arms and wrists gratefully.
‘We make planetfall in approximately one hundred hours,’ the Commander said. He turned to his guards, and nodded. ‘Good work. I suggest we retire to the officers’ lounge and get ourselves a large brandy.’
To Glitz’s astonishment, every single one of the guards filed out of the floor, following Commander Rica to the officers’ lounge. It had to be some sort of joke. It was a total contravention of Imperial regulations to leave a ship of prisoners unattended. Glitz knew this well, because he had once read the ent
ire Imperial Military Handbook. When he was sixteen, he had been a cadet in the Imperial Army, before being unceremoniously discharged for a romantic liaison with an older female officer. Romantic relationships were strictly forbidden between members of the armed forces. It had completely ruined his life, but somehow he still didn’t regret it.
With the roar of engines, the ship began to rise into the air. Glitz glanced around at the occupants of the ship. Another man might have been intimidated by being in a room full of prisoners with no official authority present, but Glitz wasn’t the kind of man to be easily intimidated. He wasn’t particularly large, but he wasn’t weak either, and he had picked up a few tricks in his years of being a spice trader for the East Galaxy Company. Most people didn’t realize how tough it was to pilot a freighter, but there was always some bastard that wanted to steal your cargo.
‘Want to play me?’
Glitz looked up. A skinny man was pointing towards a chess board laid out on one of the tables. He nodded. ‘OK.’
The two men sat down at the table. It was a real chess board with metal pieces, and Glitz thought it looked quite old-fashioned. He wasn’t really a chess player anyway, but the last time he had played it was with a holographic board.
‘I’ll be whites,’ the man said.
The newcomer had white hair and small dark eyes, and a sort of nervous energy. Glitz guessed that he was in his early thirties.
‘What’s your name?’ Glitz said.
‘Doland. Raja Doland.’
‘You a Proteist, Doland?’
Religion was frowned upon by the Imperium, as the Senate disliked any other organisation that could hold power over people. Religions could become a conflicting source of loyalty; this would be especially problematic if there was ever a disagreement between the Imperium and a church. The official religion of the galaxy was formerly Monarchism, a kind of emperor worship, but it no longer had a statutory place in society, and it was hardly ever practised — largely because the Senate discouraged it. The last thing they wanted was for the people to be loyally devoted to the Emperor. Inhabitants of several planets in the Imperium adhered to a religion called Proteism. It was a curious amalgamation of a few old religions, including Planetiatry and Hullism, and it boasted many celebrity members. It was perhaps most famous for its peculiar belief system, holding that the only way to attain salvation was to engage in sexual encounters with complete strangers.
‘Why? Do I look like a Proteist?’
Glitz pointed at his hand. ‘Your ring.’
‘Oh, right.’ Doland glanced down at the ring on his index finger. Prisoners were allowed to keep one item of jewellery if it had sentimental value. It was engraved with a purple eye, which was one of the symbols of Proteism. ‘No, ha, this isn’t sentimental. I just told them that. I just found this in the street. I thought I could use it as a knuckleduster if someone attacked me in here.’
Looking around, Doland felt that depictions of convicts in popular vidfilms had been greatly exaggerated. When the guards had all left the floor, he had felt an overpowering wave of terror. But no one had tried to beat him up or do something worse … yet.
Glitz nodded at Doland. ‘Your move.’
Doland moved one of his pawns two spaces forward. He had never been very good at chess, but it was useful for passing the time. Doland was just grateful that he didn’t have to work in the engine room, and like the other prisoners he was determined to obey the rules so he could keep his surprising measure of liberty.
‘So what you in for?’ Glitz said, moving one of his pieces.
‘Voting fraud.’ Doland sighed and leaned back in his chair. ‘I live on Opus, and we use a computerised system for voting in our regional leaders. Each person of legal voting age is sent a transmitter with two buttons, one for each Regional Governor. The two candidates were Jog Rasputt and Charl Hens. Now Jog’s a nasty piece of work. He’s been involved in more scandals than a tabloid news feed. But for some reason the people of our region always vote him in. On voting day I was especially fed up, so I took my wife’s transmitter and voted for Charl.’
‘So you had two votes?’
Doland nodded.
‘How did they find out?’
‘The bitch told them. She would have voted for Charl anyway, of course — she voted for him in the last election. But she’d been looking for an excuse to inform on me anyway. Got another man waiting in the wings, I reckon.’
Glitz felt a strange mixture of pity and amusement. He felt sorry for Doland, but at the same time he couldn’t help finding it slightly funny that his wife had managed to get him exiled to Malus.
‘How long’s your sentence?’ Glitz said.
Doland tapped his fingers on the table. ‘Five years. What about you?’
‘Same. Five years.’ Glitz nodded. ‘Five stinking years on the most miserable planet in the Universe …’
He stared at the board, formulating his next move. Eventually, he decided which piece to pick up.
‘Bad idea.’
Glitz and Doland turned to face the man that had spoken. He had dark hair and his brown eyes were intense and cold. His pronounced nose gave him the aspect of watchful bird of prey.
‘What’s a bad idea?’ Glitz said.
‘You were thinking about moving your bishop to D4. But look —’ The man pointed at square F5. ‘— that would allow this man to take your bishop. He could then move his queen to D3, which would be checkmate.’
Glitz examined the board. The man was right; he hadn’t noticed the knight at F5. He turned to the newcomer. ‘How did you know I was going to move my bishop?’
The man shrugged. ‘I find most ordinary minds easy to predict.’ Without another word, he walked away from the table in search of something more diverting than interfering with chess games.
When Glitz and Doland were nearing the end of their game, an electronic bell began to sound through the ship. They heard a voice over the intercom, explaining that it was mealtime. The metal canteen door slid open with the whirr of a motor, and the prisoners made their way eagerly through it. The canteen was very small, but large enough to seat all of the fifty or so prisoners. Unsurprisingly, the guards didn’t show up for the meal. Glitz guessed that they had their own dining area. A robot armed with a shocker was apparently in charge of the canteen. It was an old X-90 model — roughly humanoid in shape but with clearly robotic features and an immovable neck.
‘Form an orderly queue,’ the robot ordered, its synthetic voice reverberating through the canteen. Glitz hated robots, especially when they were carrying weapons that could send over 1,000 volts at a current of 0.2 amps through your body.
Glitz lined up behind an obese prisoner, who was carrying two meal trays. The man pressed the button on the food machine twice, collecting two meals. He turned around with an angry face, as if daring someone to question his right to have twice as much food as everyone else.
‘What?’ the man said fiercely, catching Glitz’s eye.
Glitz shrugged. ‘Just looking.’
The fat man glanced at his two trays, looking slightly confused. ‘Are you trying to be funny?’
The robot’s fight detection circuits perceived the signs of a possible brawl and it edged closer, wielding the shocker eagerly. But, luckily for Glitz, the man simply glared at him before walking away. Glitz stared at the choices on the machine, trying to decide which option to choose.
There were three buttons, which had changeable labels with pencil writing. Today’s choices read CHEESEBURGER and VEGETARIAN. The second option sounded suspiciously vague. He wondered how many convicted criminals were vegetarians. Not many, he would guess. He opted for the cheeseburger. He pressed the switch and a burger appeared on a paper plate, along with a side of fries.
He glanced around the canteen, where the seats were filling up fast, looking for somewhere to sit. At the far end, the man who had interrupted his chess game was sitting alone at a table. Glitz made his way over to him and sat down.
/>
‘Hi,’ Glitz said.
The man said nothing. He had also ordered a burger, and he was eating it slowly with an air of being deep in thought. Glitz frowned and started to eat his own meal, noticing that Tekka was wearing a large golden ring with a blue stone. The burger was, surprisingly, not bad. There was a good helping of meat inside it and the bread was fresh. Again, although Glitz was grateful for the humane treatment, he was conscious that conditions on Malus would seem even worse by comparison.
‘Tekka,’ the man said finally, after finishing his burger.
‘Glitz.’ He paused. ‘What did you do to end up here?’
‘I committed a crime,’ Tekka said simply.
‘Yeah, but what crime?’
Tekka didn’t reply; he just stared darkly into space. Glitz shrugged and continued to eat his food. Doland sat down at the table, carrying a plate of curry.