On The Imperium’s Secret Service (Imperium Cicernus)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “There's a variant on those suits for civilians,” Fitz observed. He seemed tired too, despite his augmentation. “They make people do exercises and they don’t let up, even when the person inside is screaming for mercy. But they’re quite popular if you have money to burn; if your kid is too fat, you put him in one of the suits and make him exercise.”

  “Seems cruel,” Mariko commented, sharply. “Why did you kill Professor Snider?”

  Fitz looked at her. “Because there was no choice,” he said, levelly. “I realised what the bastards planned to do.”

  Mariko stared at him.

  “You worked out what the Secessionists intended to do just from the Professor? How long did you spend talking to him?”

  “Not long enough to learn everything, but there were a few hints from what he mumbled,” Fitz admitted. “You know he was famous, right? And very important? So why was he muttering about being demoted by the Wormhole Engineers?”

  “Maybe he wasn't as brilliant as everyone said,” Mai offered, after a moment. “There was that big scandal on Edo a couple of years about a Professor who had been stealing the work of his interns and claiming that it was his.”

  Fitz shook his head.

  “Professor Snider was a wormhole expert,” he said, grimly. “He couldn't have faked his genius for long, not with so many other experts nearby, willing to check everything. And he was a genius, one of the few that these depraved times have produced. He couldn't have faked it, so why was he threatened with demotion?”

  He stood up and started to pace the compartment, rapping out his words like bullets.

  “The Secessionists have to be out of their minds to think they can win an insurgency against the Imperium using conventional strategy,” he told them. “And the Snakes would have to be completely insane to try to match themselves against the Imperial Navy, which has no qualms at all about bombarding alien worlds. The Snakes could cause havoc for a month or two, devastate this sector and a couple of others...and then the Imperial Navy would drive on their star cluster and obliterate their empire, piece by piece. There is no way they can build up a fleet capable of standing off the Imperial Navy, once a hundred battle squadrons are concentrated in one place.”

  Mariko was appalled. If Fitz was going where she thought he was going…

  But Mai was on an entirely different track. “Perhaps they’ve invented a new weapon, something more powerful than anything we have invented,” she suggested. “Or perhaps they’ve improved on our designs...”

  “Quantity has a quality all of its own,” Fitz said, harshly. “Think about it. What keeps the Imperium together? What gives the Grand Senate the confidence that it can deal with any crisis despite cutting the military budget back to the bone? What gives the Imperial Navy a decisive advantage over the Snakes or any other challenger?”

  Mariko knew the answer: put that way, any freighter commander, or anyone familiar with interstellar economics, would know the answer.

  “Wormholes,” she said.

  “Precisely,” Fitz said. “Wormholes. They are the core of the FTL datanet, the means for jumping hundreds of light years in a split second, the link that binds the Imperium together. And the key to massing the Imperial Navy in one place, if necessary. Right now, those battle squadrons are scattered all over the Imperium, but if called, they could move through the network and appear almost instantly anywhere along the Rim. That’s what gives the Grand Senate the confidence that they can win any dispute with the Snakes, or anything else that might have hostile ambitions.”

  He stopped and turned to face them.

  “The Secessionists are planning to collapse the entire wormhole network,” he said, quietly. “That’s their endgame.”

  It—it was unthinkable, Mariko knew. Wormholes bound the interstellar economy together. Without them, interstellar trade would rapidly become a shadow of its former self, with shipping lines that had once crossed half the galaxy reduced to servicing a single sector or two. It would take months to send messages from one Sector Capital to another, far longer to push a message all the way to Homeworld and receive a reply. Years would be needed to put all of the worlds of the Imperium back in contact with one another.

  And because it was so unthinkable, she realised, the Secessionists might just manage to pull it off.

  “Collapse the wormholes,” she breathed. “Is that even possible?” She looked over at Mai, who shrugged.

  “There isn't enough data in what you gave me to suggest an answer,” her sister admitted. “But maintaining the wormholes requires vast amounts of power. If that power was to be stopped, the wormholes might start to desynchronise and collapse.”

  “Even desynchronising would be disastrous,” Fitz said. “Anything that stops the wormholes from working normally would threaten the entire Imperium.”

  He resumed pacing, angrily.

  “Think about it,” he said, after another long moment. “The network is gone, lost forever. All of a sudden, the sectors are completely on their own. Whatever units of the Imperial Navy that happen to be stationed there are stranded, unable to ask for orders from higher authority. Interstellar trade will be effectively shattered; hundreds of worlds, dependent upon support from outside, will collapse into barbarism. How long will it be before the aliens start lashing out at human populations, intent on freeing themselves from human domination?

  “Some Imperial Navy officers are known to be dangerously ambitious. How long will it be before they start setting themselves up as warlords, rulers of their sectors? Or if not them, what about the Sector Governors? And if there are Secessionist cells scattered on hundreds of planets, they may rise in revolt against what remains of the Imperium’s authority.”

  He shook his head. “And even that may not be the worst of it. What happens when the Snakes invade?”

  He stared into space, his eyes showing the same horror that Mariko felt.

  “Homeworld won’t be able to concentrate the Imperial Navy to stop them, not without the wormholes,” he reminded them. “They won’t even know that the invasion has begun for years. What units of the Imperial Navy remain in place out here won’t be able to do more than slow them down. All of a sudden, the sheer size of the Imperium works against it...

  “Five years later, there won’t even be an Imperium.”

  “You could be wrong,” Mai said. “Collapsing the wormholes...”

  “Is unthinkable,” Fitz snarled. “Of course it’s unthinkable – that’s why we didn't think of it. But the wormholes don’t work for the Secessionists, or the Snakes; why shouldn't they look for a way to bring down the wormholes and shatter the Imperium?”

  He marched over to the small kitchen unit and ordered a drink.

  “You have to hand it to the bastards,” he said. “It’s a really neat plan. And if it works, it might just win them everything they wanted in one fell swoop.” He savagely took a drink.

  Mariko shivered. What happened if Fitz got drunk?

  Could an augmented man get drunk?

  Then she shook herself into sense. Fitz's augments were probably programmed to filter the alcohol out before it entered his bloodstream. Hell, there were nanites that did similar jobs, available cheaply to anyone who needed them.

  But was he right?

  Mariko considered what she knew of the interstellar economy and realised that Fitz probably was right. The disaster would be worse, if anything, than the scenes he’d painted.

  Severing the connections between the different sectors would bring down the entire economy. The big corporations the Secessionists so detested would be utterly ruined, throwing billions of people out of work. Maybe it would be a fitting end to corporations that had raped so many worlds, rewriting the rules to make theft legal as long as it was committed by them, but it would be a colossal disaster for their employees and everyone who depended upon them. And Homeworld, dependent upon interstellar shipping for even the smallest thing, would collapse within a year. God alone knew what would happen
to the Emperor, the puppet Emperor, or the Grand Senate. The chaos would be endless.

  “We built the first wormhole network,” she said, finally. “Couldn't we build a second one?”

  “It would take years,” Fitz said. He hesitated, and then admitted something else. “And much of the knowledge behind building wormhole generators may have been lost over the years. Even if we somehow managed to rebuild the entire network within a year, the results would still be devastating, and the Imperium would be utterly shattered.”

  “And it couldn’t be done within a year,” Mai said, very quietly. “It took centuries to build the first network, decades to add the junction to Sumter...at the very least, we’d be looking at fifty years just to rebuild the core part of the network. What could the Secessionists or the Snakes do with fifty years?”

  “Too much,” Fitz said. He finished his drink. “I'm going to go fetch Red and secure her in a cabin, then get a shower. Mai, set course for Marius’s World and slave Happy Wanderer to us. Once I'm back aboard, take us away from this star and back to the wormhole network.”

  “That’s why you killed him,” Mariko said, quietly. Now she understood. “You killed him because he could have told the Secessionists how to collapse the wormholes.”

  “Perhaps,” Fitz admitted. “They demoted him, and the only reason I can think of for demoting him is stumbling upon something the Wormhole Engineers wanted to keep firmly under cover – like a way to collapse the wormholes. Too many scientists ask questions without bothering to consider what the answers will do to the world around them. But Red had drugged him, which suggests that he might already have said too much.”

  “So we might be too late,” Mariko said. “You killed him for nothing.”

  “I intend to find out from Red, if I can,” Fitz said. He looked at her and shook his head. “There’s nothing neat and tidy about this job, Mariko. Like I said, it isn't for everyone.” He walked out of the dining room, leaving them alone.

  “I don’t understand,” Mai admitted. “How can he be so...cold?”

  Mariko would have smiled – her sister didn't seem to have a crush on him any longer – but she was too tired. Cold-blooded logic told her that Fitz was right. Professor Snider could not be allowed to fall back into enemy hands, whatever the cost. The sheer magnitude of what he might do for the Secessionists dictated that they had to do whatever it took to stop them, including gunning down a Professor who might have been drugged rather than an willing Secessionist agent. But part of her was still shocked at how quickly and ruthlessly Fitz had made his decision. Would he dispose of them as quickly, if he felt it necessary? Or would he expect them to abandon him if the situation called for it?

  “I think it’s just the way he is,” she said, finally. “I think you should find someone safer to chase.”

  She remembered, suddenly, offering herself to Fitz in the hopes that he wouldn't take her sister. What a fool she must have sounded to him, who had known that they would become involved in something far more dangerous than Carlos’s sexual sadism. And yet...maybe she understood him a little better now.

  Mai blushed.

  “It’s hard to laugh, isn’t it? The entire universe could be on the verge of crumbling around us and...” She made a show of covering her nose. “Go take a shower,” she added, firmly. “This compartment will probably have to be fumigated before we try to host guests aboard again.”

  Mariko nodded tiredly and followed orders.

  Halfway to her cabin, she met Fitz, who was carrying a struggling Red in one hand. The bodyguard glared at her angrily, trying to shout abuse through a mouth that had been covered with duct tape. Mariko ignored Red's attempt to kick her as they passed and walked into her cabin, surprised by how much it felt like coming home.

  She pulled off the shipsuit and stared at herself in the mirror. Her pale body was covered in bruises and her eyes were haunted. Perhaps she had grown up too much, too quickly. There was a universe out there that she had never really known existed until she was enmeshed in it, a universe where no one had the luxury of foregoing the hard choices. If she had had to choose between killing Snider and allowing the Secessionists to take him...what would she have done?

  Or would she have hesitated until it was too late?

  She stepped into the shower. The water felt warm against her skin, even when it touched the bruises the battlesuit had left behind. If she did stay with Fitz, and part of her wanted to stay with Fitz, she resolved to ask for augmentation of her own. Real combat soldiers, marching across alien worlds in battlesuits, didn't wind up covered in bruises. Some of them lived in their suits for days on end.

  “We’re about to enter phase space,” Mai said, through the intercom. “Mariko, I have orders to tell you to sleep. We’ll wake you up when something interesting happens.”

  Mariko nodded, stepped out of the shower and dried herself as the ship slid into phase space. A moment later, she stumbled to her bunk and turned out the light. She was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “I don’t recall seeing this part of the ship before,” Mariko said. The cabin had lost its bunk, shower and compartments for guests to stow their luggage. Instead, there was a single chair positioned in the exact centre of the room, where Red sat, tied firmly to the metal. A set of tubes had been linked to her arm, providing food and drink to keep her reasonably healthy.

  “I reconfigured it,” Fitz explained. “You’ll be amazed at how much of this ship is reconfigurable.”

  “I’m not sure I would be amazed by anything right now,” Mariko said. “What do you intend to do with her?”

  Red stared at her, cold murder clearly visible in her eyes. But Red said nothing.

  Fitz attached another device to Red’s forehead. “Interrogate her,” he said, simply. “Or at least I’m going to try. Secessionists give their important agents implants that suicide if they detect that they are being interrogated.” He looked at Red. “Isn't that true?”

  Red merely glared at him.

  “It’s a bit of a problem,” Fitz admitted. “Try to drug her, and the implant will turn her brain into ashes. Direct neural simulation? Her brain turns to ashes. Simple, old-fashioned torture? That’s very bad news for her, too.” He grinned. “Not least because torture is nothing more than inflicting pain, which means that sometimes an implant can decide that an injured person is being tortured and kill her. That was actually how we managed to uncover a Secessionist ring on Zebra IV.”

  He straightened up and peered down at Red.

  “I know, you’ve probably been prepared to resist tricks that won’t set off your implant,” he said, addressing her. “But I don’t think that you’re really prepared for something that is nothing more than a lie detector. Are you?”

  Red said nothing.

  “This is how it is going to go,” Fitz said. “I am going to ask you some questions. You are going to give me the answers.”

  “Get fucked,” Red said, icily.

  Fitz ignored her. “If you cooperate long enough to allow me to solve the rest of the puzzle, you have my word as a Peer of the Imperium that you will be transferred to a penal colony where you will spend the rest of your life,” he said. “If you don’t...you won’t be taken to an empty cell and blasted. You’ll go into one of Imperial Intelligence’s little cells, where they will try to outsmart the person who created your implant. They haven’t had any luck so far, but maybe you’ll be the lucky one who survives the procedure.”

  “Try it,” Red said.

  Mariko ignored her. “Why can’t you just remove the implant?” she asked Fitz.

  “Because the implant is wired directly into her brain,” Fitz said. “Removing it will trigger it, killing her. Using nanites to break it down will probably trigger it as well, or send particles crashing through her brain.” He shook his head. “It’s been tried, several times. Every time, the implanted person has ended up dead. Very frustrating if you want to get informati
on out of them.”

  He looked back at Red. “There’s no need for this, you know,” he added. “You could just cooperate...”

  Red said nothing, merely sneered.

  “Very well,” Fitz said. “The Secessionists plot to bring down the wormholes, correct?”

  “Of course,” Red said, mockingly. “And then we’re going to turn Homeworld’s star into a supernova, turn the alien population into toads and then declare unlimited rice pudding and custard for everyone.”