On The Imperium’s Secret Service (Imperium Cicernus)

by Christopher Nuttall

Fitz studied a datapad wired into the chair. “Interesting,” he said, cheerfully. “And did Professor Snider produce the plan for bringing down the network?”

  “No,” Red said.

  “Ooh, a lie,” Fitz said.

  Red looked shocked.

  He grinned at her. “Oh, don’t be so surprised. I’m not poking a probe into your brain, merely monitoring the patterns that suggest if you’re telling the truth – or trying to lie to me. And even what you choose to lie about will give me valuable data.”

  His smile widened. “Tell me if this statement is true. Professor Snider’s plan reached the Secessionist leadership.”

  Red said nothing.

  “It’s true,” Fitz said.

  Mariko realised that Red might have been able to keep her mouth shut, but she couldn't control her brainwaves.

  But Fitz had gone on. “Have you seen this plan?”

  “Of course,” Red sneered. “We’re going to blow up Homeworld’s star. I told you.”

  “Lies,” Fitz said, dispassionately. “You haven’t seen the plan. I assume that means you don’t know how they intend to do it?” He nodded to himself, using the datapad to monitor her reactions. “None too surprising; they wouldn't trust anyone in such an exposed position with knowledge of their main plan. I always used to hate that need-to-know shit when I was going through basic training. Half of them seemed to think that no one ever had a need to know.”

  He winked at Red, who glared helplessly back at him.

  “Where do you come from, Red?”

  “Prime Number,” Red said.

  Mariko had heard of Prime Number, a world where numbers determined everything.

  “I was born there and had to leave because I found it so stifling.”

  “Another lie,” Fitz observed, “but a clever one. I could read planetary names to you all day and not touch upon the one that gave birth to you. Still...

  “Chances are that it was a colony world,” he added. “The colonists suffer worst under the Imperium, apart from the aliens, of course. Which one gave birth to you...?”

  He laughed. “Oh, I’m wrong. A core world, then? Or perhaps one of the corporate...ah, a hit!”

  Mariko shook her head as the absurd question and answer session continued, eventually revealing that Red had been born on Hades as the youngest daughter of a worker peon, a Class-Three citizen so heavily in debt that he was on the verge of being automatically downgraded to Class-Four, a status that would have automatically been passed down to his children and their descendents.

  The system was rigged, of course. Why would the corporate worlds pay cheap labour when they were legally enslaved?

  Red had left the planet as soon as she was old enough and never looked back. And then she had been given her basic training on Tuff.

  Fitz went over that time and time again, trying to pull as much information as possible from the resisting girl. She had been picked up by a Secessionist recruiter and transhipped to Tuff. Later training had been from someone who had probably been in the Imperium’s service at one time or another, perhaps one of the officers whose disappearance Richardson had masked. She’d become a practiced bodyguard and sent out on her first mission, followed by a string of others, but she never saw the ultimate result of her work. And her first failure had come when she’d underestimated Fitz at the dull red star.

  “Curious,” Fitz said, finally. “My offer does stand, you know. Cooperate openly, and I will ensure that they don't kill you while trying to crack your implants.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Red said, and followed up with several words that Mariko had never heard before. “You fucking piece of...”

  “That will do, thank you,” Fitz said. “I’ll arrange for your transfer as soon as we reach Sumter. You have that long to change your mind.”

  He led the way out of the cabin, followed by a pensive Mariko. Automated subroutines would monitor Red at all times, even though she should be unable to move enough to scratch an itch, let alone escape.

  “You’re very quiet,” he said, when the hatch had hissed closed and sealed itself. “Are you all right?”

  “I didn't like watching that,” Mariko admitted.

  “I don’t like doing it,” Fitz said, softly. “There are people who live for breaking suspects, but they’re the ones you really don't want in charge of an interrogation room. The idea is to use everything from drugs to outright torture to extract information, not to indulge someone’s sadistic little habit. I knew an intelligence agent who got dismissed after punching out an interrogator who enjoyed his work too much, the little bastard.”

  He shrugged.

  “Not that it matters much in her case,” he added. “Getting anything else out of her will be difficult, and I suspect that whatever else she knows won’t be very useful. But we do have to try and beat that implant before we catch the person who knows everything.”

  Mariko looked up at him. “And you know who that person is?”

  “There’s only one place left to go now,” Fitz said. “Lady Mary is involved in this, right up to her stupid headdress. We have to go back to Tuff and grab her.”

  “But...” Mariko stared down at the deck. “Last time we went there, we might have triggered all kinds of alarms.”

  “But they let us leave peacefully, so we didn't,” Fitz said. “Besides, didn’t you promise your boyfriend a second date?”

  Mariko felt herself flushing, again. After everything they’d seen and done, it didn't seem like that much, but the memory still made her want to cringe.

  “You’re a bastard,” she said, finally.

  “Literally,” Fitz said, with some pride. “Uncle Hercules couldn't get his wife pregnant, so he banged a serving maid and, nine months later, out popped I.”

  Mariko gaped at him. “Hercules? As in the Grytpype-Thynne?”

  “That’s the one,” Fitz said, cheerfully.

  “But...” Mariko swallowed and started again. “Wouldn't that make you the Heir to one of the most powerful men in the Imperium?”

  “Matter of opinion,” Fitz said. He grinned at her as they reached the bridge. “Uncle Hercules doesn't have another direct child, but there are several in the cadet lines that may have a better blood claim than I do. He could declare me his Heir if he wanted, yet that would come with excessive scrabbling amongst the family. Better to keep the vultures guessing who will be nominated when the time comes. The real jackals might betray themselves in the meantime.”

  “I'm surprised he lets you out of his sight,” Mariko said, faintly. She’d known that Fitz was an aristocrat, but she’d never realised just how powerful he stood to be if he did inherit. Why would anyone throw that away to go charging around the Rim trouble-shooting for the Imperium? “Doesn’t he worry about you?”

  “The only person he’s ever worried about is himself,” Fitz commented. “The bastard is a hard man to love, but he does have the well-being of the Imperium at heart, which is more than can be said for many other Family Heads. He knows what I do for the Imperium and blessed me when I left. We really need more people like him.”

  He shrugged.

  “Besides I never quite fitted in at court,” he added. “Everything has been so tense for the past two hundred years. You don’t dare cough for fear that someone will take it as a sign to start something violent. It’s so much more comfortable out along the Rim.”

  Mariko giggled. “Does Prather know just how high-ranking you are?”

  “No one does, apart from my superiors,” Fitz said. “And now that you know, please keep it to yourself. The last thing I need is overawed people crawling around me.”

  “The Twins know, don’t they?” Mariko guessed, teasing him. “What would have happened if you had gotten them pregnant?”

  “It would have been difficult to say,” Fitz said. “But once the fatherhood test proved that the kids were mine, they would have been in line for a share in the family’s holdings. It would have been very interesting to watch...fro
m a safe distance, of course.”

  ***

  They passed through the wormhole at Marius’s World and emerged at Sumter, where Fitz promptly made contact with Prather using codes he pulled out of his implants. An hour passed before there was a reply, ordering them into a holding orbit that would take them away from the standard shipping lanes. Mariko steered them into the orbit and waited, wondering just what Prather and his subordinates were playing at, until a large freighter signalled them with Imperial Intelligence codes. The docking tubes were extended and Colonel Prather walked onto the Bruce Wayne. Fitz would have preferred not to allow him onboard, but he’d been insistent that they needed a secure environment.

  “Remarkably luxurious, for a courier ship,” he said, rather snidely. “Anyone would think that you were stealing money orders and ripping them off.”

  Fitz scowled at him. “We don’t have time to argue,” he said. He passed Prather a chip, one he’d spent the last day putting together. “This is what we have found out from our mission, including a detailed idea of what the Secessionists are planning. We also have a lead on a major Secessionist leader that I intend to follow right now.”

  “Oh,” Prather said. His tone turned sarcastic. “And what does the high-and-mighty Priority-One Agent wish his loyal subordinates on Sumter to do while he’s gone?”

  “I expect you to look to the junction’s security,” Fitz said, sharply. “The Secessionists, we believe, intend to take and collapse the wormholes. Order the Admiral to concentrate the Sector Fleet and ensure that the junction is secure. Pull intelligence priority if you must.”

  Prather stared at him in disbelief. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “I just killed one of the Imperium’s foremost experts in wormhole science to keep him out of enemy hands,” Fitz snapped. “And we have a Secessionist agent on this ship who can corroborate the basic idea behind their plot. I suggest you start taking this seriously before the Secessionists arrive and start their operation. Losing the wormholes would mean the end of the fucking universe! Do you understand me?”

  “You can't come in here and give me a crazy story...”

  “That’s what they’re counting upon,” Fitz hissed. “It is a fucking crazy story. That’s what they thought when they calculated that no one will believe us. You have got to listen, right now.”

  Mariko glanced at him in alarm. She had never heard Fitz so stressed.

  “I’ve already sent a compressed packet through the datanet to Homeworld,” he added. “Do you want to take action now, while you can, or do you want to explain to the Imperium why you did nothing?”

  Prather locked eyes with him for a long moment, and then looked away.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “Part of the Sector Fleet has been dispatched to Iceberg and is beyond recall for at least three weeks.”

  Fitz gaped at him. “In God’s name, why?”

  “Iceberg has been experiencing heavy levels of piracy recently and their governor managed to be very persuasive...”

  “Paid a very large bribe,” Fitz injected.

  “...To the Governor and Von Rutherford, the CO of the Sector Fleet,” Prather continued. “Over half of the Sector Fleet’s active units were dispatched to patrol the region in the hopes of stopping the bastards before they cut into the profits...”

  “And the Governor’s bribes,” Fitz snapped. “I suggest, very strongly, that you urge the Governor to recall them, at once. If that fails, get in touch with Baron Yu and convince him to order the Governor to recall them – and send some reinforcements while we’re uncovered here. You have got to understand, Colonel; we’re looking at complete disaster for the entire damn Imperium if we fail. Can you really take the chance that we’re wrong?”

  “...No,” Prather admitted, finally. For some reason, he didn't look keen on the idea, even if success would win him certain promotion. “And your prisoner?”

  “Take her on your ship, get her to higher authority, try and crack the implant in her head,” Fitz ordered. There’s a transcript of the original interview I did with her on the chip; see if your experts have any other ideas we can use to break her. And if you can convince her to turn state’s evidence in exchange for cancelling the death penalty, do it.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Prather said. He hesitated. “Do you remember that we had a handful of important officials who might have been targeted for blackmail?”

  “Of course,” Fitz said, impatiently. “I thought you were interviewing them.”

  “We were,” Prather said. “Two of them ended up dead, seemingly in Undercity. The bodies were recovered carrying wounds that suggested that knives were used to kill them. We cannot understand how they escaped protective custody...”

  “Unless they had help from the inside,” Fitz snarled.

  “Precisely,” Prather said. “I’ve contacted Baron Yu and asked for assistance, but so far I haven’t had a proper reply. What’s going on in the heart of the Imperium?”

  “I wish I knew,” Fitz said. “Believe me, I wish I knew.”

  There was something in his voice that made Mariko look up at him, sharply.

  Prather stood up. “I’ll take the prisoner now and then let you go,” he said. “Do you need another wormhole transit?”

  “A priority passage,” Fitz agreed. “At least that won’t look unusual for the Wally West. We might have to leave the Happy Wanderer here, perhaps on a powered down orbit.”

  “It could go into the docks here,” Prather pointed out.

  “I’d prefer it somewhere where it won’t be noticed,” Fitz said. “And Colonel...I wasn’t joking about the fate of the Imperium riding on this. Don’t let up. Even if we defeat this threat, the universe will be changed forever.”

  “I won’t,” Prather said. “Good luck.”

  ***

  Later, after they had passed through the wormhole and set course for Tuff, Mariko found herself standing with Fitz as the ship ploughed her way through phase space. There was nothing out there to see, of course, but the darkness attracted her on a primal level. Others, groundhogs mostly, never grew used to phase space. A handful even went insane when they saw the endless darkness.

  “I’m scared,” she confessed, finally. “Everything could be riding on us.”

  “I know,” Fitz admitted. He put an arm around her shoulders and she relaxed into his grip. “I’m scared too.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “It looks just the same as before,” Mai said, as the shuttle swooped down towards Lady Mary’s compound.

  Fitz smiled, but his heart wasn't in it. “What did you expect? A massive brooding planetary garrison? A flashing light with SECRET REBEL BASE blinking on and off?”

  Mai looked at him in surprise. They’d been working every day on possible scenarios in the holochamber, rehearsing what they might have to do with Lady Mary.

  “I would have expected her to run and hide,” she said, with great dignity. “Instead...”

  “Here she is, inviting people to come and hunt the Hex,” Fitz said. He’d picked up a copy of the brochure when they passed through Ming, a colony world only ten light years from Tuff. It was also connected to the wormhole network, a stark warning of the chaos that would rage over the entire Imperium if the Secessionists succeeded in bringing the network down. “It’s a perfect cover for her. She looks innocent, yet she has a chance to feel the pulse of the entire sector.”

  “It looks busier, too,” Mariko observed. Yet despite that, OTC had already assigned them a berth. “How many people do you think are here?”

  “As many as she can get,” Fitz said. “Hunting the Hex isn't something you can do anywhere else. I’d bet you good money that half of the wild sportsmen in the Imperium have decided to come this year.”

  The shuttle dropped to the ground and landed. Mariko shut the systems down, one after the other, and opened the hatch, allowing the warm smelly air of Tuff to flow into the shuttle. Mai wrinkled her nose as she picked up her sh
are of the luggage and stepped out of the hatch.

  They were met by a pair of porters. This time, they would be staying inside the walls of the compound. Fitz had special-ordered it while they’d been waiting for permission to land.

  “Take these bags to our quarters,” Fitz said, drawing the Lord Fitzgerald persona around him like a shroud. He produced a pair of silver coins from his pocket and passed them to the porters. “And then please let Lady Mary know that we have arrived.”

  Mariko blinked before realising that Lady Mary had no reason to connect them to Imperial Intelligence. Or so she hoped.

  But what if someone had made the connection between them and Imperial Intelligence along the way? What if Prather was dirty?