On The Imperium’s Secret Service (Imperium Cicernus)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “This is your final warning,” a voice boomed in her ear. “You will surrender now, or we will take steps.”

  Mariko switched the channel to her link with Fitz’s battlesuit. “They’re running out of patience,” she said, hoping that he’d donned his suit by now. “I can hear them issuing threats.”

  “I’m on my way,” Fitz said. He had always been able to don the battlesuit faster than she could, something he put down to long training. “Get into the airlock and prepare the emergency vent cycle.”

  “Understood,” Mariko said. She hesitated. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Of course not,” Fitz said, as he clomped into view. As well as donning a battlesuit, he’d brought along a plasma cannon far too large to be used by an unarmoured human. It was nearly the size of the cannons used by Imperial Marines as light artillery. “I’m just making it up as I go along. Keep one eye on the Professor at all times. We cannot allow him to fall into their hands.”

  There was a groan from the Professor.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Red hit him with something I didn't have time to analyse,” Fitz told her, as he started to key the airlock control panel. Mariko admired his fine control; if she’d tried to program the airlock using her armoured fingers, she would have broken the entire panel. “Probably a mixture of sedative and hypnotic, something to keep him docile and cooperative.”

  He snorted as he finished tapping in commands.

  “As soon as the airlock opens, get out onto the ship’s hull and prepare to repel boarders,” he added. “They won’t be expecting us to challenge them in open space. Activate your suit’s chameleon function, and they might not even be able to see us.”

  The airlock hissed open, revealing the inky blackness of space. Mariko realised that the Secessionist cruiser was approaching from the other side of her ship, unable to see them as they crawled out of the airlock and onto the hull. Fitz pulled the Professor with him, tethering him to part of the hull before standing upright and clomping after Mariko on magnetic boots. The suits had their own internal manoeuvring systems for operating in space, but using them might have been detected. Wearing the suit made a person feel invincible, yet Fitz had reminded her, time and time again, that there was no such thing as an invincible weapon. A single burst from a high-intensity plasma cannon would cut the suit in half and kill her instantly.

  Fitz touched her suit, making her jump.

  “There,” he pointed, using the induction contact system to avoid any betraying transmissions. “They’re on their way.”

  It was difficult to make out the cruiser against the stars without the passive sensors within the suit, but something disengaged itself from space and zoomed into view, heading right towards them. Her suit identified it as an Alicia-class assault shuttle, one originally developed for the Imperial Marines before entering common usage and finally being replaced with another design. She managed to shut the suit’s databanks off before it provided her with a full breakdown on the class, its history, its known weaknesses and everything else anyone might have wanted to know about the shuttles. How Marines and the other elite units managed to use the battlesuits constantly was beyond her.

  Fitz lifted his plasma cannon and took careful aim, sighting on the shuttle as it closed in. Mariko braced herself, knowing that the moment he activated the plasma containment chamber, it would send out a betraying emission to the enemy ship. Warnings flashed in front of her as Fitz clicked off the safety and pulled the trigger, sending a series of blinding white flashes towards the enemy shuttle.

  The shuttle was hit twice, spun out of control and then exploded in a huge fireball, taking all hands down with her.

  Mariko felt a brief moment of pity for them. But she reminded herself that the Secessionists had set out to hijack her ship and then take them prisoner – and presumably kill them. They didn't deserve sympathy.

  “Target destroyed,” Fitz said, with heavy satisfaction.

  Above them, the cruiser started to move, advancing towards the Happy Wanderer. It made no sense to Mariko; if they’d decided to cut their losses and vaporise her ship, they were already well within weapons range. Happy Wanderer had almost no defences at all.

  “Good shot,” she said, as the enemy cruiser came closer. “Now what do we do?”

  “Activate your linked combat modules and brace yourself,” Fitz said. “This is going to be a stunt.”

  Mariko wondered what he meant as he switched channels and started sending coded signals to Mai, who was presumably watching from a distance. But what would happen if she had lost them? Fitz’s contingency plans hadn't included a possible hijack; he hadn't even considered the possibility after confirming that Red and the Professor were unarmed. Her sister might be left waiting helplessly for months before finally realising that they were gone, leaving her with no alternative but to go back to Sumter and contact Prather.

  “All right,” Fitz said. “Here we go.”

  Mariko felt her legs bend against her will as the linked combat datanet took control. She kicked off the ship and found herself flashing through the void, right towards the enemy cruiser. It grew rapidly from a dot of light into an intimidating teardrop-shape, covered with sensor arrays, weapons blisters and communications domes. Someone had been trying to turn an old patrol ship into a long-range sensor ship.

  The perspective changed once again as she found herself plummeting towards the ship’s hull at terrifying speed. Then all of her weaponry came online.

  She shot at the weapons blisters as they moved to track her. A dozen were blown into flaming debris before they even started to shoot back. She silently blessed Fitz’s insistence they practice shooting, then continued to fire ...

  She hit the deck with a bump she felt even through the suit’s compensators, no longer fully in control of a suit which had developed a mind of its own. The suit laid waste to the enemy hull, picking off weapons and sensors with remarkable ease. They didn't even seem to be shooting back any longer; maybe they couldn't depress their own weapons far enough to shoot at targets on their hull?

  Fitz rampaged his way towards one of the airlocks and washed his plasma cannon down the hatch, making the super-strong compound used for starship hulls run like water. It withstood his fire, but now they’d have to blow it open from the inside if they wanted to get out.

  Another airlock opened too quickly for them to intervene and burn it closed. Mariko’s suit whirled around and opened fire, picking off the Secessionists as they emerged from the airlock and tried to find cover before they were burned down. None of them escaped in time to prevent Fitz from running up behind her and launching a plasma grenade into the hatch. The resulting explosion sent atmosphere venting out of the ship, although not for more than a few seconds. Despite the damage they’d inflicted on the ship’s sensors and weapons arrays, the ship’s integrity was still intact.

  A plasma bolt shot past her. The suit sent her diving to the hull.

  Some Secessionists emerged from a third airlock, advancing towards them in battle array. Half of them wore battlesuits that looked to be outdated Imperium designs, while the remainder wore suits that her suit couldn't identify. A present from the Snakes, perhaps, or something constructed on a hidden world along the Rim?

  There was no way to know, but she suspected that neither she nor Fitz would like the answer when they found out.

  Paradise had blossomed by ignoring the Imperium’s laws; what might have been possible on a world completely unknown to the Imperium? An entire battle fleet, perhaps?

  “Keep firing,” Fitz ordered. “Mai should be coming soon...”

  Mariko snorted. She was effectively a passenger in her suit as it fought the battle for her. Every time an enemy showed himself, the suit shot a load of plasma at him, forcing the target to duck quickly to save his life.

  Mariko saw beams of light blazing away from the undamaged weapons, just before Bruce Wayne came into view. Mai was a good pilot, Marik
o acknowledged, as the tiny ship evaded the incoming fire and shot back, scarring the enemy hull. But a single lucky shot would cripple her ship...Mariko wanted to scream at Mai to run, even as she came in for another attack run. She didn't want to see her sister die while she watched, helpless to affect the outcome.

  The hull of the cruiser tilted suddenly as her helmsman brought her about, trying to bring her surviving weapons to bear on their tiny tormentor. Mai couldn't win, but she could keep them distracted while Fitz and Mariko made their escape.

  Fitz led the way back to the other side of the ship, shooting a handful of weapons and sensor blisters before they could be turned against the Bruce Wayne. The enemy cruiser had to be half-blind by now, Mariko told herself, as she opened fire on a pair of enemy soldiers trying to creep up on them. Mai might be able to win after all if she stayed in the ship’s blind spot.

  New alerts flashed in front of her. She cursed. The cruiser, clearly accepting that it had picked on something more dangerous than itself, was rotating, preparing to leave by the shortest possible route to the phase limit.

  “We have to get back to the Happy Wanderer and secure the Professor,” Fitz snapped. “Mai can keep them off-balance long enough for us to escape.”

  Mariko sighed in relief, feeling sweat pouring down her face even in the cool interior of the suit. How could combat in an automated suit that did most of the work be so exhausting?

  He fired a final spread of shots at the enemy, forcing them to keep their heads down, and then threw himself into space. Mariko followed a second later, trusting in the suit’s guidance systems to find their way back to the Happy Wanderer. They still couldn't use the onboard systems, for fear of being detected and vaporised by the enemy cruiser before it left.

  It struck Mariko that the ship might fire on the Happy Wanderer anyway, in the hopes of eliminating the Professor and all evidence of what they had been doing with him. But what had they been doing with him? Why would they want a wormhole expert? None of the possibilities she could think of sounded very pleasant, or possible.

  Mariko’s ship loomed in front of them and they impacted on the hull, just before a burst of laser fire scorched the side of Mariko’s suit. Red warnings flashed in front of her, warning that her left arm had been compromised, the outer layer of armour almost completely destroyed. She hit the hull of the ship and clung to it like it was a life preserver, desperately trying to figure out what happened. Had Red broken free of the duct tape and set out to get revenge? But Fitz had knocked her down effortlessly...

  Fitz swore as he opened fire.

  “They sent a team over here while we were over there,” he said, angrily. “God damn it – I thought there was a small number of troops trying to kill us.”

  Mariko felt a hot flash of anger as her suit managed to stabilise itself, although real repairs would have to wait until they were back on the Bruce Wayne. How dare someone try to board her ship?

  Fitz was still firing, but he was placing his shots carefully; it took Mariko a moment to realise that the enemy boarders had managed to capture the Professor, as they'd removed him from where he’d been tethered. Mariko’s weapons array had been damaged, yet she realised there was enough left to force the enemy to take care. She opened fire with gleeful abandon, trying to drive them away from her ship.

  Her radio crackled. “I don't seem to be able to damage this thing properly,” Mai said, angrily. “Should I try to take out the phase drive?”

  Mariko smiled. Her sister sounded fine, but irked.

  “Absolutely not,” Fitz said, sharply.

  Mariko blinked in surprise. Taking out the cruiser’s phase drive would leave them stranded in the isolated system.

  “We really don’t want them stuck here with us,” he added.

  Mariko understood, suddenly. The cruiser still had a manpower advantage; they could still win, particularly if they couldn't retreat. And if they got their hands on the Professor, they might call it a victory, even if they had been humiliated by a pair of operatives in battlesuits. They’d even have data they could use to ensure that the next encounter didn't go the same way, perhaps altering their shields to prevent slow-moving objects from slipping through without being interdicted. It would cost them in power, the engineer in her said, but it would be worth it.

  The cruiser was picking up speed, heading directly towards the phase limit. For a moment, Mariko wondered if it intended to abandon its soldiers on the Happy Wanderer, just before they gathered themselves and leapt away from her ship on a course that would intersect with the cruiser. Fitz cursed out loud as they sped away, carrying the Professor with them. There seemed to be no point in giving chase, not when the enemy had managed to turn the undamaged part of their hull to cover the incoming soldiers.

  Fitz lunged forward, his suit rapidly reconfiguring itself to deploy a single weapon. A long, thin tube emerged from his arm, which he pointed in the direction of the fleeing soldiers. There was a brief pause as he took aim...

  And then, as Mariko stared in surprise and horror, he fired, burning right through the Professor’s spacesuit.

  Professor Snider, wormhole expert, died instantly.

  Chapter Thirty

  “What the hell did you do?” she demanded.

  “What had to be done,” Fitz said, as the enemy cruiser recovered her soldiers, crossed the phase limit and vanished into phase space. “There was no way we could allow them to take him.”

  Mariko stared at his armoured form in complete disbelief. Killing someone who was trying to kill her was understandable – and it worried her just how quickly she’d become used to it – but murdering someone in cold blood...? That was something different.

  He turned as Mai brought the Bruce Wayne in towards the Happy Wanderer.

  “We both need a shower and a rest,” he said. “After that, I know where we’re going next.”

  “No, we don’t,” Mariko snapped. “I want to know why you killed him!”

  “And so do I,” Mai chimed in. The airlock on the Bruce Wayne gaped open, invitingly. “Come aboard and tell us!”

  Mai sounded shocked, worse than Mariko herself; perhaps it would kill the crush she’d had on Fitz.

  Fitz jumped to his ship. Mariko followed.

  She wasn't sure how she felt. Part of her was very attracted to Fitz and she believed the feeling was mutual, but she didn't really know him. She had certainly never expected him to kill Professor Snider in cold blood. If nothing else, he was one of the very few experts the Imperium had – and killing him would weaken the society Fitz was trying to protect and preserve.

  Inside the hull, she climbed out of the battlesuit and rubbed uncomfortably at her shipsuit. The brief battle had lasted no more than fifteen minutes before the enemy cut their losses and retreated, but she was covered in sweat and gel from the suit. Despite that, her body ached. The suit’s automated combat system was designed for a trained and enhanced Marine, not for an inexperienced newcomer.

  “Red is still aboard your ship, unless they triggered a suicide implant remotely,” Fitz said. “She should be safe for the moment, but we will have to move her to a secure cabin onboard this ship sooner or later.”

  Mai looked up from where she’d been waiting at the end of the corridor. “This ship has a brig?”

  “One of the cabins can be sealed,” Fitz said. “You’d never know unless you took the command modules apart to discover what’s hidden inside.”

  He sounded tired and worn, almost bitter. Like Mariko, his face and body was streaked with sweat. He stank...and Mariko was uncomfortably aware that she probably smelled worse. For a moment, she considered suggesting that they went for a shower after all, before stiffening her resolve. They had to know why Professor Snider had been sentenced to death...

  And what if you don’t like the reason? she thought, mockingly. Are you going to leave him now, despite giving your word to stay and see this to the end?

  She looked at Fitz’s back as he headed towards the di
ning room, and shivered again. It was hard not to like him, but part of her was also scared of him. She’d thought she'd known him – a common delusion among women, part of her mind said derisively – and yet she hadn't realised that he would carry out what amounted to cold-blooded murder. Professor Snider had never done anything that caused him to deserve death, had he?

  And yet...what if Fitz had let him go? The enemy could have snatched victory from the jaws of a bloody stalemate.

  “Water,” Fitz ordered, as they entered the dining room. “Water, and some supplement bars. Mariko and I burned a great deal of energy over the last fifteen minutes, and the suits don’t let us stop.”

  Mai nodded.

  Mariko collapsed into a chair, the tiredness threatening to overwhelm her. Fitz had his augments to keep him walking, but she just wanted to close her eyes and sleep. She barely noticed the water until Mai held it under her nose, eventually splashing a little into her mouth. It tasted of almost nothing, like all water that had been recycled time and time again, but Mariko found herself gulping it greedily. The supplement bars tasted ghastly, as usual, yet she crammed three down her throat before remembering her manners. Her mother would have screamed at her.