On The Imperium’s Secret Service (Imperium Cicernus)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “And you did save our lives on Greenland,” Fitz said, in a tone of placation. “We may need you to do it again.”

  Mariko watched Mai stamp off to the other ship, and then looked at Fitz.

  “She’s going to sulk for hours,” she predicted. “Don’t you want to risk exposing her or something?”

  “She has a remarkable engineering talent,” Fitz reminded her. “I will recommend her to the Imperium’s Engineering Corps, if we live long enough to return to the Core Worlds. The Imperium just doesn’t have enough trained engineers these days. You saw the dome on Sumter.”

  Mariko nodded. From what Fitz had said, the entire Imperium was decaying slowly through a lack of maintenance. The Imperial Navy hadn't built a new capital ship in decades, no new wormhole junctions had been established since Sumter – even though building one out towards the Snakes might have kept them under control.

  Or would it have simply taught them how to make wormholes for themselves? Humans were the exclusive owners of wormhole technology, but the laws of science worked the same for every known race. There was no physical reason why the Snakes couldn't develop wormhole theory for themselves and produce their own networks.

  “I have a question,” she said. “Why don’t we just train up more engineers?”

  “You want a list of problems?” Fitz snorted. “Let’s see – the teaching establishment these days isn't very good at actually teaching, so kids don’t really learn very much. And then there are security concerns about knowledge spreading to the colonies along the Rim, because they might use it against the Imperium. And then, kids like to have easy days at school where they just regurgitate what the teachers tell them rather than actually thinking about the material.”

  He shook his head, bitterly. “I heard that the ICE actually has to run remedial courses for prospective engineers,” he added. “Many of the candidates are so useless that they crumple when faced with the actual prospect of having to think. And that takes engineers away from actually maintaining the Imperium....half of our tech is modular because our people don’t have the experience to know how to fix something. One tiny flaw, and an entire component needs to be discarded.”

  Fitz sat down in front of one of the consoles and motioned for her to take the helm. “Mai,” he said, keying the communications switch, “follow us through phase space, but cloak the moment we return to normal space. Hold position until we call you.”

  “Understood,” Mai’s voice said, tightly. She definitely didn't sound very happy. “Call me as soon as you need me.”

  Mariko keyed a pre-programmed switch and the Happy Wanderer’s phase drive came online. It was nowhere near as smooth as the Bruce Wayne’s drive – they’d had to add additional drive nodes in order to generate a proper phase field – but it felt perfect, almost like coming home. The inky blackness of phase space yawned open in front of them, sealing the ship off from the rest of the universe.

  But not quite. One glance at the sensors told her that Mai had followed them into phase space.

  “She is a good pilot,” Fitz commented, when Mariko pointed it out. “And besides, anyone scanning us as we return to normal space is unlikely to notice that two ships came out of phase space, not one.”

  Mariko nodded as she stood up. The five hours they’d spent in interstellar space probably wouldn't be noticed by any watching observer. Interstellar shipping schedules could never be quite guaranteed by anyone, even the finest ships in the Imperial Navy.

  “It’s two days to Paradise from here,” she said. “What are we going to do until then?”

  “You implied that you wanted to learn how to fight,” Fitz said. He leered cheerfully at her. “Or have you changed your mind?”

  “But you said that it was impossible for an unaugmented person to beat an augmented person,” Mariko said, crossly. “I don’t know what to believe any longer.”

  “There’s no such thing as an invincible warrior,” Fitz countered. “Take it from me. Anyone can be defeated by someone who refuses to panic when under attack.”

  ***

  “You're sure you’re not cheating?”

  Mariko ached, almost everywhere. Even with his implants stepped down – or so he said – Fitz was stronger and faster than Mariko. The only time she’d come close to beating him was when she’d used the capture web they’d purchased on Marius’s World, and that hadn't held him down for long. It took her several tries to realise that the ex-Marine they’d faced on Sumter had managed to stick him to the floor as well as covering his mouth and nose.

  “I’m afraid so,” Fitz said.

  He was sweating too, although she was sure that he’d kept the pain dampeners online. She’d managed to hit him in the chest and that should have hurt.

  “Why do you think they make military training so harsh?”He answered his own question a second later. “Because the training pushes you right to your limit and you learn to cope with little things like fear, panic or chaos. And you learn to push pain to one side, even without a dampening implant. I once knew someone who kept firing at rebels even though his legs had been blown off by enemy fire. And he wasn't augmented; he was just a bloody tough soldier.”

  Mariko staggered to her feet and glared at him. “You’re really sure you’re not cheating?”

  Fitz started to laugh.

  “A few hours of training isn't really enough to turn you into Stellar Star, Heroine of the Space Ways,” he said, dryly.

  Mariko flushed. She’d devoured that show when she’d been a kid, but later experience had shown that it was all terribly unrealistic. Stellar Star’s fighting style was absurd, particularly in a tight uniform that showed off a pair of breasts too large to be natural. And her boyfriend, the loyal but dumb Buck, had had muscles on his muscles.

  “A few weeks might have you mastering some of the basics,” he told her. “Then you could move on to the next few steps.”

  Mariko rolled her eyes at him. “And how long did it take you to learn how to fight?”

  “Months, even before I was augmented,” Fitz said. “I took being in the Guards seriously, you see. One of the Sergeants was happy to beat the crap out of me every day for six months, until I learned to defend myself. I was too stubborn to quit.”

  “I wish I felt that stubborn,” Mariko said, sourly. “Right now, all I know for sure is that I don’t want to piss you off.”

  They shared a laugh.

  “Get a shower and wipe off the sweat, then get into your shipsuit,” Fitz said. “We’ll be arriving at Paradise within three hours.”

  Mariko nodded dumbly and stumbled down into the ship’s washroom. After the Bruce Wayne, it was almost unpleasant to go back to sonic showers, but Happy Wanderer didn't have the space to carry a large water tank, even with recycling. She stripped down, scowled at her reflection in the mirror, and then stepped into the chamber, allowing the vibrations to push the dirt and sweat off her body. Water would have felt a great deal better, she realised, and then cursed herself. Fitz had spoiled them by allowing them to use water on his ship.

  The timer on the bridge had almost counted down to zero when she returned and took the helm console. At her suggestion, they’d modified their official records to make no mention of Mai – and to imply, if not confirm, that they’d only just purchased the ship at Marius’s World. Very few in the Imperium would take that on faith, but Paradise simply wouldn't care. The inhabitants hated the Imperium with a passion that seemed inexplicable, until one looked at their planet. Few more ill-named planets existed in the Imperium.

  “Ten seconds,” she said. Fitz didn't even look exhausted by the workout, damn him. “Are you ready?”

  “The IFF is online, but I won’t send it until they ping us,” Fitz said. “We don’t want to catch their attention by being too efficient.”

  The Imperium’s Survey Service hadn't taken a good look at Paradise, leaving the task of conducting a detailed survey to a contractor who had filed a report claiming that Paradise was...well, a
paradise. No one had bothered to check while the settlement rights were being sold off, eventually being purchased by a loyalist group who were too loyal to the Emperor for the Grand Senate’s comfort. They’d taken sixty thousand people from Homeworld through the wormhole network to Paradise, where they’d discovered – too late – that the contractor had forged the entire report.

  Paradise was a remarkably inhospitable world, complete with poisonous seas, deadly animals and a biology that seemed to repel human crops. Matters had only been worsened when the first reports were quietly ignored by the Grand Senate, something the new settlers assumed was a deliberate attempt to leave them to die.

  They’d eventually carved out an enclave on Paradise, but in doing so they had openly rejected the entire Imperium. Paradise played host to smugglers, pirates and even rebels, ignoring the Imperium’s demands that they did something about the rogue elements in orbit around their world. The lawsuit over the forged settlement certification was still working its way through the courts, and had done so for the last one hundred and eighty years.

  Mariko's eyes opened wide as she took in the sheer level of space activity around Paradise. There were more freighters in orbit than she’d seen anywhere else in the sector, with over five hundred circling the planet or landing on its surface. The giant ring the locals had built around their planet, a magnificent construction in its own right, played host to hundreds more, all docked in a neat array. There wasn't anything like it outside the Core Worlds.

  “They needed something vast in orbit,” Fitz said, quietly. “Every world is supposed to be able to feed itself, but Paradise can't – not without orbital farms and food imported from elsewhere. The ring provides enough living space for millions of people, as well as space to farm and raise animals.” He shook his head. “Malice, or incompetence?”

  Mariko blinked. “I don’t understand?”

  “My...mentor used to say that there was no point in looking for malice when incompetence would do to explain something that's gone wrong,” Fitz said. “Do you think that the settlers were sent here through incompetence, or malice?”

  “I don’t know,” Mariko said. She’d studied the files, both the official histories and the alternate versions Fitz had had with him, but there was no clear answer. “Incompetence, perhaps?”

  There was a chime as the local OTC finally hailed them. Fitz tapped a switch to send their modified IFF back to the ring.

  “Even with the wormholes, ruling something the size of the Imperium is difficult from Homeworld,” Fitz said. “The smart solution would be to grant all of the worlds internal autonomy and allow them to solve their own problems; hell, they’re the people on the ground. They should know what needs to be done.”

  He snorted. “But one thing most of the colonies need is a rejection of corporate power, and that will never get through the Grand Senate. If we could find a simple solution to the whole problem...”

  Mariko frowned. “Is there a solution?”

  “I don’t know,” Fitz admitted. “As God is my witness, I don’t know.”

  The console chimed again as another message appeared on the display. Compared to Sumter, the local customs officials seemed to be slacking off; they only wanted confirmation that the ship wasn't carrying any infectious diseases or a handful of prohibited goods. Mariko looked at the brief list and shook her head. She could have raised an entire army without buying anything on the prohibited list. Fitz confirmed that they were disease free, their status having been checked on Marius’s World. Mariko doubted that the customs officers would accept that and, moments later, they were informed that they would both be screened before they were allowed to enter the ring proper.

  “Typical,” Fitz snarled, without real fire. “Everyone’s still worried about another Scarlet Plague.”

  Mariko found it hard to condemn the planet’s guardians. Five hundred years ago, a disease had appeared on the other side of the Imperium, infecting seventy worlds before its presence was noted and the Imperium swung into action to contain the threat. Eventually, a cure and a vaccine had been found, but no one – according to the official histories – had ever located the source of the Scarlet Plague. It was enough to make someone wonder if the disease had been engineered by an alien race who didn’t like humans.

  “We’ve been sent a docking slot,” she said. “Should we confirm?”

  “Yep,” Fitz said. “And then link us into the local datanet. It’s time to advertise what we have and see who comes crawling out of the woodwork.”

  “You are confident that the Secessionists would want to buy what we’re carrying?” She scowled.

  “They’re building a fleet,” Fitz said. “No one would want everything we are carrying unless they had a respectable number of starships at their disposal. We can hedge the advert to make it more enticing to anyone willing to pick up the entire load in a single purchase. That should discourage buyers unless they want it all.”

  Mariko hoped he was right.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “While we do understand why you would wish to dispose of all of it, I cannot take your entire cargo,” the dealer said. “I would be willing to make a very sweet offer for the GR-17 control nodes and the Type-IV phase cannons...”

  “But not for everything else,” Mariko said, refusing to rub at her stinging arm. The oily man was getting on her nerves, if only because he kept dropping his eyes to her breasts every other moment. “Which I am afraid we have to sell. I’ll take your details – in the event we change our minds, you will be the first person to know about it.”

  The dealer dropped her a contact chip – a use-once chip, she noted – and walked away, leaving them in their rented office.

  The dealer wasn't the first to inquire about their merchandise. There had actually been an entire string of visitors who were interested, but none of them had wanted all of it. Unsurprisingly, the weapons and their control systems seemed to be much in demand. They could have sold them for a handsome profit, if they’d only been on Paradise to make money.

  But then, pretty much everyone on the ring surrounding the planet was intent on making money. Money kept the planet’s limited infrastructure from tipping over into ruin.

  “Hang on,” Fitz said. He’d been allowing her to take the lead again, as the owner-commander of Happy Wanderer, while he’d been playing her crewman, bodyguard and general dogsbody. “It seems our last friend left us a surprise.”

  Mariko rolled her eyes as he used a multitool to remove the bug from the chair and vaporise it. Knowledge was power on Paradise and it seemed as if everyone wanted power, to judge by the number of bugs that had been covertly left behind in their office. Luckily, removing the bugs wouldn't alert any of the unseen watchers; anyone who visited Paradise fairly often would know to bring their own bug-detectors and removers. Or they could buy them remarkably cheaply in the markets scattered through the ring.

  “Another shifty bastard selling goods to pirates,” Fitz muttered, after running a second sweep of the room just to be sure. Paradise’s bug designers were alarmingly ingenious. “Pity we can’t report him to anyone who might take action.”

  Mariko shook her head. She still found it hard to believe that no one would take action, not when pirates were the scourge of interstellar shipping. But Paradise didn't give a damn what happened outside its system and it had enough firepower to keep the peace on the ring. The system prospered by providing neutral ground for smugglers, pirates and secessionists.

  “You could just bring in an entire team from the Imperium,” she pointed out. “A small squadron of warships to stop anyone escaping while you searched the ring...”

  “It would be blocked,” Fitz said, sourly. “Paradise has a remarkable number of friends in high places, people who have been compromised or who come to Paradise to obtain things they just can't get anywhere else. It’s been proposed, from time to time, that the system should just be occupied and the leadership dumped on a penal world. The idea never manages
to win the official stamp of approval.”

  He glanced down at the datapad in his hand. “So, Captain, we have seven offers on the GR-45 weapons arrays, five offers on the TSR-34 sensor nodes and one suspiciously high offer on the Type-One internal security system. And our friend who just left probably wants to make his own offer. It’s a shame we can't sell them all, collect the money, and then vanish before they realise that they have been duped.”

  “We could,” Mariko offered. “Do you think it would be worth the effort...?”

  “Breaking a contract isn't a harmless little prank like piracy, rape and murder, not here,” Fitz said. “We’d have what passes for the local authorities after us, too. On the other hand, we just can't stay here very long. The docking fees are eating up our meagre supply of credits.”

  Mariko nodded. A freighter on the ground or docked in orbit wasn't making any money for anyone, apart from the owners of the docking space. The economics of interstellar trade dictated that a freighter had to spend most of her life moving from star to star, not costing money in a docking port. Their would-be customers knew that they were hoping for someone to buy them out of everything they’d brought, but they would also know that the longer they waited, the harder it would be to refuse deals for individual parts of their stock. Mariko’s best guess was that they could wait no more than five days before they had to leave, without purchasing additional supplies from Paradise, or start selling their stock off piece by piece.