On The Imperium’s Secret Service (Imperium Cicernus)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Fitz chuckled when she said it out loud.

  “Imperial Intelligence Investigators are meant to be cruel and heartless,” he said. “E Branch – never mind about the others right now – is specifically charged with watching for disloyalty, espionage, corruption and other naughtiness among the Imperium’s personnel. It has close ties with the Inspectorate General, which has the same basic mission, but unlike the IG it attempts to turn enemy agents rather than just eliminate them. By the time we reach Sumter, you are going to be word perfect on these details. They might save your life.”

  Mariko stared at him. “But will these cards pass if someone checks them?”

  Fitz’s grin widened. “Anyone who checks them will get a coded response confirming your authority – which, just incidentally, isn't limited to just forcing people to answer your questions. You can commandeer entire starships if you want, or get the support of everyone from the Marines to the Civil Guard. And you could even draw on the vast funds available to Imperial Intelligence and buy an entire planet if you wanted it.”

  “But we don’t work for Imperial Intelligence,” Mariko protested. She was stunned. She had known that Imperial Intelligence enjoyed powers beyond almost anyone else, but this was too much. “Surely someone would question us...”

  Fitz assumed a contemplative pose.

  “You know, a court ruled five years ago that a forgery made by Imperial Intelligence counted as the real thing,” he said. “But those cards aren't really forgeries. They were originally produced on Homeworld; all I did was add a few details, a couple of really bad pictures and update the records accordingly. My superiors will confirm that the cards are real if anyone pushes the question up that high, which isn't likely. The cards will pass a basic check; after that, most people will be too scared to ask any more questions.”

  He shrugged as he passed Mai her card. “But don’t abuse it too much, or my superiors will ask very sharp questions the next time I return to Homeworld,” he added. “Ideally, we won’t be using them at all until we confront Richardson himself; the cards will establish our bona fides and convince him that we have the authority to decide if he gets turned into a valuable source, and therefore becomes a hero, or if he gets thrown to the dogs.”

  “Right,” Mariko said, slowly. She was still nervous over that prospect. “And how do we approach him?”

  “We get his address details out of the system computers first, then we decide how best to approach,” Fitz said. “I’d bet good money that he lives alone, probably in one of the vast apartment blocks they construct for lower-ranking civil servants. But we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  He produced a second set of cards and passed them over to Mariko. “These are the Interstellar Couriers' ID cards,” he added. “As we won’t actually be docking with any of the orbital stations, we won’t need to worry about them searching the ship, but they may insist on searching us when we land. Keep the Imperial Intelligence cards out of sight unless they push too far, in which case feel free to tell them that they are interfering in an intelligence operation and the best thing they can do is let us through as quickly as possible. But I’d prefer to avoid that.”

  “Because they would talk,” Mariko said.

  “They’d talk, even if we told them to keep their mouths tightly shut,” Fitz confirmed. “And sooner or later the word would reach the Imperial Intelligence officers on Sumter. They’d probably make a fuss to their superiors about being kept in the dark...and if one of them is working for the Secessionists, they’d warn their friends to duck and cover. We’d lose our chance to track them before we actually realised that we had a chance.

  “We’ll get a good night’s sleep here, and then we will proceed to the wormhole,” he added. “Once we’re done on Sumter, we may not have time to sleep properly – and walls have ears, anyway.”

  Mai looked up at him. “Are you going to leave me on the ship again?”

  “I don’t think so,” Fitz said, with a grin. “There’s too much firepower in orbit around Sumter for us to risk using the assault shuttle again. The Imperial Navy ships on duty would fire first and ask questions afterwards. You can come down to the surface with us, and then...I think Mariko will take the lead on confronting Richardson. I’ll be her bodyguard and assistant.”

  Mariko looked at him. “But I don’t know anything about confronting a spy...”

  “That's what we’re going to practice in the holochamber,” Fitz said. “Simulations are never perfect, but they will give us a chance to train you in the basics. I’d do it, but male spies seem to respond better to females than males. Perhaps they think that females are a softer touch.”

  Mai chuckled. “They don’t know much about women, do they?”

  Fitz shrugged. “This guy has been putting his penis in alien bodies,” he said, sourly. “I don’t think he knows much about human women at all.

  “It isn't unknown for someone with considerable achievements to his name to be shy around women, or to curse the men who somehow find it easy to convince women to open their legs for them,” he added. “These people are social outcasts; bright enough to make their own way in society, but not capable of making connections with their fellow humans. Some of them are bullied and treated like shit by their fellows as they grow older. They seethe with resentments that they can never vent into the open air, or lack the confidence to approach women when they become older and more mature.

  “And then someone spots their weakness, and uses it to seduce them into becoming traitors. It’s a very common pattern, one dating all the way back to the origin of humanity. Sometimes they turn completely, devoting themselves to the side that seems to recognise their true value; sometimes they are pushed into treason and then blackmailed into going further, until it is too late to seek help from their own people.”

  He gave them a long, level look. “Richardson could be anything from a willing traitor to blackmail victim. We need to discover his story so we can manipulate him for ourselves.”

  Mariko frowned. “And what will we do with him if he cooperates?”

  “It depends,” Fitz said. “I’d like to leave him in place, reporting to us. If he cooperates and is then exposed, I can probably arrange something for him that will give him a new chance at life. But if he refuses...”

  “Things could get nasty,” Mariko said, quietly.

  “Don’t waste your sympathy,” Fitz advised. “Richardson may be responsible for thousands of deaths – and millions more if the Secessionists launch their uprising and the Imperial Navy responds with brute force. Outright traitor or blackmail victim – he isn't going to get out of this without a great deal of suffering.”

  ***

  Five hours later, Mariko staggered out of the holochamber, feeling tired and utterly overloaded with information. Fitz was a hard taskmaster when it came to preparing for operations – “Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Performance,” he’d said – and they’d run the entire simulation countless times. The simulated traitor had given one response, then another...and they’d followed them all carefully. At least one of them had ended with the traitor drawing a knife and stabbing it into her chest, something that had sent phantom pains scurrying all over her body. The simulation was so real that it was hard to escape the belief that she had actually been stabbed in real life.

  “That’s a persistent problem,” Fitz admitted, as the simulation vanished around them, to be replaced by grey bulkheads and a single projector built into the roof. “Holographic addiction is becoming a major problem in the Core Worlds – and VR addiction is even worse. Do you know that you can experience any kind of sex you like without actually finding a partner and seducing them?”

  “Because someone else recorded their experience and it gets played into your head,” Mariko said. She’d heard about the technology, although it was rare on strict, traditionalist Edo. “Do people manage to break the addiction?”

  “Not easily,” Fitz said. “Given the right life sup
port, a person can exist in a VR fantasy for years without ever returning to the mundane world. Worlds where they are masters of all; worlds where they are gods; worlds where they can experience anything they like without fear of social disdain...it’s incredibly tempting to pretty much anyone. I know a hundred young aristocrats who dived into VR worlds and never looked back. Why experience the Imperium, with all its problems and moral compromises, when you can enjoy a perfect world?”

  “You make it sound so attractive,” Mariko said. “Can't the technology be abused?”

  “Of course it can,” Fitz said. “It’s astonishing how easy it can be used for interrogation, or blackmail, or all kinds of other unpleasant tricks. I heard a rumour that it was once used to warp a fine, morally upstanding man into a complete monster. And what happens when most of our population chooses to retreat into a fantasy world?”

  Mariko winced at the thought.

  “The Imperium falls apart,” she said. “There won’t be enough humans keeping the system going.”

  “And then the Snakes and a dozen other powers try to muscle in on our territory,” Fitz said. “My father was part of a consensus that wanted to ban holographic and VR technologies completely, at least for civilian use. They put it before the Grand Senate, hoping that enough Grand Senators could be swayed to issue the ban. But there was too much money in the business for them to make much headway. They even had the gall to claim that VR technology prevented people from becoming addicted to drugs, as if that was a major problem after they discovered how to directly simulate the pleasure centres in the brain.”

  Mariko looked up at him. “Does it ever end?” she asked. “I mean...is there no end to the problems facing the Imperium?”

  “I think that each solution we find creates its own problems,” Fitz said. “And all we can really do is run around patching up the leaks, try to let some of the pressure blow out gently and hope that we can buy enough time to produce a permanent solution. But everything we do runs into a wave of opposition from the factions who profit from the current chaos. Did you hear about the Alien Homeworld Bill?”

  Mariko shook her head.

  “It was proposed ten years ago,” he said. “It would have banned settlement on worlds that had given birth to intelligent life, even granted the aliens autonomy on their own homeworlds. The reformers hoped that it would give the aliens a greater stake in the Imperium. But the bill never even reached the Senate. Too many enemies meant that it could be killed before it was put before the elected representatives, let alone the Childe Roland. And so we lost another chance to reform the Imperium.”

  He touched her shoulder lightly. “Go get some sleep,” he ordered.

  Mariko nodded. Practicing for the mission had taken a great deal out of her. Mai had spent the time brushing up on the procedures for wormhole transit, lucky her.

  “Tomorrow,” he said ominously, “we may have no time for sleep.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Secure for wormhole transit,” Mariko ordered. “Transmit our IFF to Karats OTC and request a slot for transit.”

  Mai tapped her console. “IFF sent.”

  Of course, Mariko knew. it would be several seconds before Karats responded, even though the OTC station was established right next to the wormhole.

  “All stations report secure for wormhole transit,” Mai said, rather unnecessarily.

  Mariko smiled. A starship with a large crew would have had live officers to check that the ship was secure, but Bruce Wayne had only the most advanced automated systems in the galaxy. Securing for wormhole transit wasn't difficult, luckily. The only real danger was a gravimetric flux that would toss around anything that hadn't been fixed to the bulkheads or sealed away before they entered the wormhole.

  “We’ve been given a slot,” Mai said, after a moment. “We're number nineteen. And they want to be paid.”

  “Pay them,” Mariko ordered. It was exorbitant, but necessary. “And then make sure they give us a receipt.”

  Mai nodded as the wormhole came slowly into view. It was a colossal ring of metal, easily fifty kilometres in diameter, with a line of starships proceeding towards it one by one. When a starship entered the ring, there was a flash of light and it vanished, catapulted across seventy light years to Sumter, the wormhole junction for the sector. On the other side of the ring, other starships were appearing and shaping their courses towards Karats or away from the system, having used the wormhole to skip seventy light years of travel. It was humbling to realise that the wormhole network was all that bound the Imperium together, and that much of the wormhole was essentially invisible. Most of it was really a complex structure of exotic matter and gravity fields that created a singularity that resonated with another in Sumter.

  No other race, at least according to the Imperium’s propaganda, had invented wormholes for interstellar travel. They weren't as useful without phase drive as one might expect, if only because it took years to cross interstellar space without some form of FTL drive, yet once established they had rapidly become the backbone of the Imperium’s economy. The wormhole network also allowed the Imperial Navy to reinforce threatened sectors by funnelling ships through the network, giving it a speed and flexibility no mere system-defence force or alien power could match.

  Mariko studied the giant ring as another starship vanished, wondering why the Imperium kept so many details about the wormholes to itself. The files they'd found on the Bruce Wayne had been the only ones they’d ever seen, even when they’d been training to be space pilots. But surely they weren't a secret any longer...

  “Two more ships to go,” Mai commented, which brought Mariko out of her thoughts. “And then it’s us.”

  The ring was now visible with the naked eye, glowing with eerie energy that seemed to build to a crescendo as the starships approached the singularity and vanished in a flash of light. It wasn't the largest construction built by humanity in space – the Imperial Palace, in orbit around Homeworld, was much larger – but it was easily the most impressive. She was suddenly aware that Fitz had joined them on the bridge, strapping himself into the command chair as the countdown ticked down the final few seconds. He probably hadn't seen many wormholes either.

  “Here we go,” Mai said. “Three...two...one...zero.”

  Mariko braced herself as a faint sensation ran through the ship. For a moment, she was convinced that they were falling down an endless rabbit hole, before the stars blinked around them.

  Of course the star patterns are different, she thought scornfully. We just travelled seventy light years in a single second.

  Behind them, the wormhole junction flickered and another starship emerged. The automated systems had already thrust them away from the gate, but she took control and put some additional distance between them and the following ship. It was rare for starships to collide, outside deliberate ramming actions, yet it was alarmingly possible near a wormhole. Too many starships trying to enter the same area of space.

  “Impressive,” Fitz murmured. “I never get tired of seeing the junction.”

  “It’s very impressive,” Mai agreed. “Do you think they’d give me a look at the generators if I asked nicely?”

  “Only if you want to spend the rest of your life on a penal world,” Fitz said, dryly. “They guard their secrets very carefully.”

  Mariko shrugged. The wormhole gate at Karats had been impressive, but the wormhole junction was something else. It was an entire series of gates, rotating around a central core that seemed to flicker in and out of existence every four seconds. Her mother had used balls of wool to knit when she’d been taking a break from bringing up two very untraditional children and the junction reminded her of them. There were no less than twenty-four gates worked into the junction, nineteen of them leading to works within the Sumter Sector itself. The remaining five reached further out, connecting with other sectors in a chain that eventually led back to Homeworld itself. A starship with emergency priority could cross the entire Imperium in
a chain of jumps within days.

  “I'm picking up a message from OTC,” Mai said, as one of her consoles started to beep. “They’re demanding a full accounting of us before they can allow us to proceed any further.”

  “Shoot them our IFF and priority codes,” Fitz said.

  A pair of gunboats swooped towards the Bruce Wayne, their weapons ready to open fire on a ship that refused to cooperate. Behind them, there was a small flotilla of destroyers maintaining patrol around the junction.

  Oddly, Mariko felt reassured. Sumter was the one system in the sector that the Imperium could not afford to lose, so it was good to know that the Imperial Navy was taking good care of it.

  “They should agree to let us enter orbit without searching the ship,” Fitz put in after a pause.

  Mariko looked at him. “And what if they insist on searching us?”

  “We have to wave the cards under their noses,” Fitz said, “and that will attract attention.”