Imperium: Revelation
By Paul M Calvert
Text copyright © 2016 by Paul M Calvert.
Paul M Calvert asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.
Front cover photograph: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team
Bubble Nebula NGC 7635
Housekeeping
To make everything seem more familiar, I’ve deliberately set out to anglicise names, places, and things. For example, if on an alien planet there is a drink analogous to tea, that’s the name I’ve given it. I hope this will allow you to immerse yourself better in the Imperium universe. Measurements are in Imperial, somewhat apt if you think about it.
If you are new to the Imperium universe, you may wish to read first Imperium: Betrayal or the three appendices at the end of this book, for Redemption is not really a stand-alone novel.
To the brave men of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment,
4th Battalion Cheshire Regiment,
Gunners of the Royal Artillery,
the French soldiers guarding the military depot,
and the gallant Captain James Lynn-Allen
who were massacred by Waffen-SS on 28th May 1940.
“Lest we forget”
Imperium: Revelation
Scene 1, The story so far…
Scene 2, Palace Gardens, Capital
Scene 3, Dauntless, System DU-499
Scene 4, Skye, Scotland. A Revelation
Scene 5, Risks are sometimes worth taking
Scene 6, Skye, Scotland. Where to begin?
Scene 7, A Long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away
Scene 8, 27th May 1940, near Dunkirk, France
Scene 9, Duke Fredericks Palace, Kiyami system
Scene 10, Planet Wayland, Duke Gallagher’s home planet.
Scene 11, Skye, Scotland. Trading Places
Scene 12, INS Dauntless, approaching Planet Arisia, hidden system.
Scene 13, France, near Wormhout, 28th May 1940
Scene 14, Capital
Scene 15, Wormhoudt, France. 28 to 29th May 1940
Scene 16, Arisia, squared
Scene 17, 28th May 1940, Dunkirk
Scene 18, Commodore MacFarlane, Sector 10
Scene 19, The Smoke, 1940
Scene 20, Planet Loki, Sector 9
Scene 21, Hello, Goodbye
Scene 22, 1940. Home from home
Scene 23, Arisia rising
Scene 24, Loki system, Sector 9
Scene 25, RAF Hornchurch, early August 1940
Scene 26, What’s in a name? 1940
Scene 27. St. Andrew's Church, Hornchurch. Spring 1943
Scene 28. Planet Wayland, Sector 2. Seven decades ago.
Scene 29. What goes around…Planet Wayland, present day
Scene 30, Dagenham, 1943. Imperium Revelations
Scene 31, Capital
Scene 32, Empress Freyja, Felidae Empire.
Scene 33, All good things…
Appendix 1, The Alexander Doctrine
Appendix 2, Capital and a bit of history
Appendix 3, Quantum Attraction
Scene 1, The story so far…
On a mission to welcome the protected planet, Heaven, ascend into the Empire following its first successful manned space flight, an attempt on Emperor Alexander's life sets off a chain of events with unforeseen consequences for everyone.
In the aftermath of the attempt, at the behest of Duke Frederick, Emperor Alexander took his personal task force of capital ships to attack a pirate base, at the same time bringing forward the training of his headstrong son, Adam, the Crown Prince. Alexander sends him away for safety and training, ostensibly to a loyal branch of the Imperial Navy, far away from the intrigue of the royal court and safe from the plotters. En route, a sabotaged ship’s Jump drive sends Adam to an unknown star system, far away from the life he knew and safety.
Leaving the booby-trapped ship in a small lifeboat, Adam lands secretly on the system’s only habitable planet, called Earth by the people of the world, and is seriously injured in a road traffic accident while saving the life of Doctor Karen McLeod. Because of his genetically enhanced metabolism, Adam recovers far faster than normal and a grateful Karen allows him into her life and ultimately her heart. Believing himself stranded on Earth for the rest of his life and with no means of communicating home, Adam begins to come to terms with his changed status, with only Vimes, his symbiotic aide, to guide and teach him.
Near the pirate base, another attempt on Alexander’s life sees both he and his task-force almost destroyed in a clever trap. Only quick thinking by Admiral Frith manages to keep them alive, albeit at the loss of most of their ships. Although successful in defeating the enemy, they are stranded in the star system by a destabilised Jump Point, and watch helplessly as another, larger enemy fleet emerges from behind a nearby gas giant and approaches their position, intent on finishing them off. With what’s left of his task force unable to escape before the Jump Point stabilises, Alexander is faced with a dilemma: does he use an ultra-secret Jump technology to escape alone, leaving everyone to face the approaching fleet without him, or does he abandon his duty to the Empire by staying and dying with his officers and crew?
Empress Christine, is having her own problems on Capital, planetary home to the Imperial Palace and Court. An assassination attempt on her life, timed to coincide with that on her husband, sees hundreds killed in the Palace. With the help of a Palace woodsman, Francis De’ath, she barely escaped with her life, which leaves Francis on death’s door. Badly shaken by the attempt on her life, news that her husband is dead and the rebellion has spread to a third of the Empire, Christine decides to get her son and bring him home early from training.
The first book concluded with Empress Christine on Earth, surprising a startled Karen the morning after she and Adam had spent their first night together.
How did Christine find Adam when he was supposedly lost in space? What happens to the Emperor and who was behind the revolt?
Imperium: Revelation, the second book in the Imperium trilogy, provides the answers, moving between 1940's England, the present day, and Felidae space in the continuing epic tale of war, love, and duty.
Scene 2, Palace Gardens, Capital
Francis De’ath carefully made his way across the immaculately manicured lawn towards his destination, a white pavilion artfully positioned to give anyone sitting in it a magnificent view across one of the lakes that were dotted about the Palace gardens. He’d changed from the temporary clothes provided to him at the medical facility, into a loose-fitting jumpsuit, with a dark brown cloak and comfortable soft boots. His left shoulder, impaled by a knife thrown by one of the Empress’s would-be assassins, was still weak and he was having to use his other arm to lean on the elegant cane held in his right hand, an unexpected gift from the Empress. His other healing wounds, especially the deep puncture to his abdomen, were tight and itched terribly.
He stood for a while to catch his breath, still a little weak and unsteady from the after effects of the healing process, and took the time to think back to the events that began the day before…
Although some of the details from the assassination attempt in the woods remained vague to him, he
remembered hearing a disturbance near to where he had been working, clearing the undergrowth from around a number of old statues. Curious as to what was causing it, he had followed the sounds, emerging unannounced behind ten, black-clad assassins closing in on a woman hiding behind a statue, who he recognised as the Empress. Seeing her about to be attacked, Francis had hurled himself at the attackers, his Berserker rage blinding him to the danger, using the scythe-like gardening implement he was carrying to kill a number of the assassins before they could react to his presence. This distraction bought Christine enough time for Vimes to form an armoured battle suit around her body from the smart-metal of the statue she was hiding behind. Outnumbered and mortally wounded, Francis lost consciousness from multiple stab wounds and blood loss and was told later how Empress Christine had tended to his wounds after dispatching her attackers. Before racing back to the Palace to help repel the rebels, she had left him propped against a tree in the dense woodland, surrounded by the dead or unconscious bodies of the assassins he’d helped her defeat, but not before calling in medics to pick him up and Marines to take the surviving assassins in for questioning.
Bringing his thoughts back to the present, Francis looked up at the sky, noticing how gunmetal grey clouds were coming in from across the nearby coast, threatening rain. Despite the morning’s warmth, he could already feel the air’s moisture content rise and he knew it would only be a matter of time before the heavens opened. Despite the discomfort coming from his healing wounds, Francis began moving again, trying to close the distance to the pavilion and shelter. As he walked, leaning heavily on the cane, he tried to recall more of the previous day’s events from when he woke up in the hospital…
Always uncomfortable when forced to come in from outdoors and leave behind the open sky, on awakening from his medically induced sleep in Hospital where he had been taken by the Marines for emergency treatment, Francis had done everything asked of him to ensure he would be released in double-quick time. Thanks to Christine’s quick thinking in administering battle-field nanites to his dying body in the woods, he’d survived the injuries that otherwise would have been fatal. Feted as a hero by the medical staff, he was embarrassed by all the attention, believing he had simply done his duty.
The following day, after being brought out of his coma, the Empress herself had briefly visited him, the nurses telling him afterwards that earlier she’d also spent time sitting by his bedside, watching over him. He had only met the Empress once before, but this time she had seemed a little preoccupied and quiet, saying little before presenting him with the cane he was now holding, an elegant design of smart-metal and wood, embossed with the Imperial crest and her private motto, “Protégé infirmus contra fortem in malum.” Despite his protestations, she’d told him in no uncertain terms that she considered herself in his debt and that he only had to ask and it would be done. Making her excuses, the Empress had left soon after, looking sad and citing urgent business that needed her attention. After she left, he remembered falling asleep again, for the nanites he’d been injected with took a heavy toll on the body. On awakening a few hours later, he’d asked his room’s AI what the ancient language on the cane meant and had been told, “Protect the weak from the evil strong.” On checking what had happened while he was asleep, Francis soon discovered the nature of the Empress’s urgent business and was shocked at news of the rebellion and the assertion from Sector 12’s Duke Frederick, that the Emperor and Crown Prince had both been lost when their task force was ambushed by rebels in a star system deep inside the buffer zone between Empire and Dubunni space.
He then understood the look of sadness in the Empress’s eyes and had been humbled to think that despite worries over her husband and only son, she had taken the time to sit by his bedside. Already a little smitten with her from the first time they’d met, Francis knew then he had done the right thing in risking his life to save hers.
A few hours and several large meals later, Francis had been declared well enough to leave the medical centre and return to his small apartment at the Palace. Before leaving, in the sleek private flitter provided as a courtesy by the Marine Bodyguard, General Parmenion himself had briefly stopped by to personally thank him for aiding the Empress. During Francis’s short service in the Imperial Navy, he had learned enough to know that Parmenion was an almost legendary figure in the Marines, due to his exploits in the Succession War over seventy years previously and to be thanked by someone like him had made Francis feel very uncomfortable and a bit of a fraud. On finally being dropped off at the Palace, Francis remembered with embarrassment how the flitter driver had insisted on shaking his hand before leaving.
Francis had watched the flitter disappear as it shot away back towards the barracks, after which he turned to look at the Palace façade for any signs of the fighting that had taken place while recuperating in the medical centre. By all accounts, at the same time as the Empress had been attacked in the woods, hundreds of Rebels had unsuccessfully tried to take over the Palace and kill those diplomats loyal to the Crown. Expecting little resistance from the unarmoured Palace staff, the unorthodox counter-measures put in place by Vimes and Emperor many years previously had won the day. Despite the bitter fighting that had taken place yesterday, many of the scars of battle had already been erased from the building, and a number of carpenters had been hard at work crafting replacement doors for the main entrance.
On reaching his old room, Francis had been shocked to discover that, on the Empress’s instructions, all of his things had been moved from the small ground floor apartment he called home, to a much larger and far airier suite on the top floor with magnificent views across the valley down to the coast. On entering his new rooms, he’d had a few seconds to take everything in before being greeted by a kindly voice that identified itself as Vimes, the royal family’s AI that ran everything on their behalf. Years previously, when he’d first arrived at the Palace, Francis had heard about Vimes but never had any reason to talk or have dealings with him, since his role as Woodsman was quite low down in the Palace hierarchy. Startled, Francis had exchanged a few pleasantries with Vimes before being told this was his new, permanent residence. It had been specially chosen for him because of the view and its airiness, given his preference for the outdoors and wide-open spaces.
“Who knows,” Francis had thought to himself at the time, “with rooms this size I might be persuaded to spend more time sleeping indoors and less out in the forest.”
Vimes had personally thanked Francis for his bravery, then proceeded to present him with a few more surprises. Whilst asleep and healing in the medical wing, a very expensive, command-level implant had been provided to him, replacing the basic communication one used by most people. Normally available to only the extremely wealthy or members of the armed forces, it was another gift to him from Christine. In addition, he had been embarrassed when Vimes indicated a sizeable amount had been transferred into his private bank account. Enough for several lifetimes at his present standard of living, he was now in a position, should he ever feel the need, to go off-planet and see more of the Empire. Francis had been at a loss for words, so Vimes tactfully left him alone with his thoughts, promising to check in on him from time to time to ensure he was settling in properly and getting used to the new implant.
A sharp stabbing pain in the abdomen ended his reverie and brought Francis sharply back to the present. He stopped walking and leant heavily on his cane. The earlier sunshine had now almost gone, replaced by heavy dark rain clouds that he could see were already discharging their contents over the Palace. Francis suddenly spied a familiar figure sitting in the Pavilion, the main reason why he had chosen this particular route through the gardens today. All he currently knew about the young woman was that she worked in the Palace. Other than that, she was a pleasant mystery to him that had suddenly appeared around the gardens several months ago, and a part of him felt a little ashamed when he wondered if his new found fame might make introducing himself to her less stressfu
l. Never a great conversationalist around women, for someone so handsome, Francis was surprisingly shy at times especially with those he hadn’t already been introduced to, often finding himself tongue-tied and at a loss what to say.
Reaching the Pavilion just as the rain began to come down in earnest, he carefully took the steps one at a time, his cane tapping softly on the seasoned wooden steps as he helped himself up. Reaching the top, Francis took in the scene as the young woman looked up at him, her eyes red from crying. Her companion, a medium-sized dog of some indeterminable breed, was already aware of his approach and softly padded over to check him over. It deliberately sat down in front of him, blocking his entrance further into the Pavilion. Francis responded by extending his hand slowly, allowing the dog to sniff it. Satisfied, and its guard duty done, the dog padded back to its owner, tail wagging furiously.
“Nice dog, is it yours?” Francis asked, not knowing what else to say and uncertain as to how he should proceed.
She nodded, sniffing. “Willow, his name’s Willow,” she replied, wiping away the tears from her eyes with one hand and meeting his gaze. “Seems he approves of you. He’s a good judge of people.”
An uncomfortable silence followed, with Francis desperately trying to think of something witty or insightful to say but failing miserably.
“You’re Francis aren’t you?” she asked, filling the awkward silence for him. “I’ve seen you quite a few times in the grounds when out walking Willow. You were all over the news today and I heard what you did for the Empress. How are you feeling now?”
Relieved she had broken the ice for him, Francis nodded. “Sore. I’ll be back to normal tomorrow, but for now, where my body is healing, everything either hurts or itches.” Feeling uncomfortable, he changed the subject, “I’ve seen you a few times in the garden too. You know my name so have me at a disadvantage. What’s yours?”
Imperium: Revelation: Book Two in the Imperium Trilogy Page 1