On The Imperium’s Secret Service (Imperium Cicernus)

by Christopher Nuttall

  As they kept walking, they saw hundreds more bodies scattered through the corridors, all killed by the gas. A handful seemed to have been moved to one side by someone who had survived, but there were no other signs of other survivors. Fitz wondered out loud if the Secessionists hadn't moved them, yet there was no way to be sure.

  They reached the lift shaft and used armoured strength to tear it open. All of the lifts would have been locked at the bottom as a security measure, but their suits could elevate them up the shaft towards the command centre.

  “Come on,” Fitz said. His suit drifted off the ground and floated up the shaft as the antigravity generators cut in. Mariko followed him, allowing Mai to bring up the rear. The interior of the shaft was pitch black, forcing them to use their sensors to navigate. Mariko hoped that the enemy wasn't scanning for active sensors, or their presence would be detected.

  Fitz halted at the top of the shaft and pointed towards another door. Mariko placed her fingers on the solid metal and pulled at it. Mai joined her and, slowly, the hatch slid open.

  She cursed as she realised that three figures stood in front of the lift shaft, spinning around to face them. Fitz opened fire on them at once, unleashing the full power of his suit; Mariko and Mai opened fire a second later. Bolts of energy tore through the figures' suits, ripping them to shreds; they collapsed to the deck and vaporised a second later.

  Fitz studied their remains, puzzled. “There is no logical reason why the Secessionists would rig their suits for self-destruction,” he announced, finally. “So why did they do it?”

  Mariko had to agree. The suits were marvels of engineering. They could have carried on the fight even if they had been penetrated by enemy fire. Some of the simulations they’d carried out had shown suits continuing to fight even though their operator was dead.

  They stopped outside a heavy metal security door and paused. Mariko had studied the engineering specs on the station and knew that nothing short of a starship-grade phase cannon would burn through the armoured sheath protecting the command centre from mutiny, internal uprisings and boarding parties. There was no point in unleashing the suits against the armour when it wouldn't even scar the metal. Fitz hesitated – she knew that he wasn't going to stop now, balked by a solid metal hatch – and then rapped on the door with his fist.

  A moment later, the hatch started to hiss open...and they came face-to-face with a pair of Snakes.

  Fitz was on them like lightning, tearing through them with armoured force. “Don’t damage the consoles,” he yelled, as Mariko followed him through the widening gap. “Try and take one alive!”

  There were nine Snakes in the compartment, all reaching for weapons. Mariko allowed the suit to take over as she lunged towards the remaining aliens. She went through them like a knife through butter. But she wasn't able to take any of the Snakes alive. As soon as they died, their bodies burst into flame and they crumbled to dust.

  Mariko blinked in surprise, and then understood. If the plot to collapse the wormholes failed, there would be no direct proof of their involvement, nothing that would galvanise the Empire against them.

  Fitz sealed the hatch, cursing all the while, and then motioned for Mai to take the main console. Mariko sat next to her sister, trying to understand the system in front of her. It was more complex than anything she’d seen in her career. Each station controlled one of the wormholes, all of which seemed to be unstable – except one.

  The wormhole to Dachshund remained open.

  “They’ve introduced some kind of feedback harmonic into the wormholes,” Mai said, finally. She didn't sound confident, but then she wasn't a wormhole expert. Professor Snider would probably have known precisely what to do and how to fix it. “Something like a computer virus, but linked into the harmonics that hold the wormholes together. I’m not sure how to dampen it.”

  Fitz stared at her. “Are you saying that we've failed?”

  “I’m saying that we may collapse the wormholes ourselves while we try to fix them,” Mai said. She sounded as if she were near tears; she hadn't trained for this, none of them had. “And I don’t understand why they left one of the wormholes alone...”

  Mariko peered down at the console controlling the Dachshund wormhole “I think I do,” she said, after a moment. There was a live FTL feed from the wormhole gate, after all. “They’re bringing in another fleet.”

  “Show me,” Fitz snapped.

  Mariko tapped a control and shot the live feed over to the console he was occupying. Thankfully, most Imperium equipment was standardised, even if there were additions here she didn't understand.

  A hundred ships, mainly heavy cruiser-sized, appeared on the display. “Those are Snake warships,” Fitz said. “Shit!”

  Mariko scowled. The Snakes went for a more fearsome appearance than the blocky crudeness of Imperial Navy warships. Each of their ships was painted in a bright snakeskin pattern, with bright eyes where the main weapons were positioned and teeth running along the underside of the hull. If they’d been able to escape the same design constraints that dogged the Imperial Navy, their ships would probably have looked like classical snakes.

  “But what are they doing?” Mariko asked. “Why didn't they come in with the Secessionists?”

  Fitz pulled a live feed from the exterior sensors. “The Secessionists are winning the battle,” he said. The final remnants of the Imperial Navy were being forced back to the planet. “Once the Imperial Navy ships are gone, the Snakes will presumably double-cross the Secessionists, destroy their ships and then bring down the wormholes for themselves. They eliminate another possible threat and crush Sumter at the same time. Brilliant.”

  “Assuming that the wormholes go down,” Mariko pointed out.

  “They might,” Mai said. She was pulling sensor feeds from everywhere. “I can see how the Dachshund wormhole is stabilised; instability must be a constant part of the system. The gates use focused lasers to manipulate the exotic matter, resonating it together to create singularities. So I can simply copy what they are doing to keep the other wormhole open to save the rest of the links, but I think that they may have managed to inflict enough damage to make it impossible to save the wormholes.”

  Fitz swore. “Do you mean to tell me that they’ve won?”

  Mai looked up at him, her eyes hidden inside the suit’s armoured helm. “Not exactly,” she said, flatly. “I think we can cut one of the wormhole links ourselves, quickly enough to prevent the damage from spreading outside this sector. We’d still lose the wormholes in this sector, but the rest of the Imperium would be safe.”

  Mariko stared at her. “Are you sure?”

  “No,” Mai snapped at her. “I think that the rogue harmonics they’ve introduced into the system are what will bring the entire wormhole network down, eventually. They’re so subtle that the other stations won’t notice them at first until it’s too late. If we cut off this part of the network, the rest is likely to be safe and...”

  Mariko glanced back at her console as the alarm sounded. The Snakes were preparing to make transit. “They’re coming,” she said. “And once they’re through, they’ll retake the station and start bringing down the rest of the network. Shut the sector down now.”

  “It can't be done that quickly,” Mai insisted. “I need to bring down the link to the rest of the Imperium first, then we can concentrate on trying to save the sector’s wormholes – or bringing them down as painlessly as possible.”

  She hesitated. “But I think we can cheat...”

  Fitz chuckled. “I like the way you think,” he said. “Do it. Do it now!”

  Mariko blinked at him. He’d clearly figured out exactly what Mai had in mind. But she was baffled.

  Mai’s hands danced over the control panel. “The wormholes are really nothing more than bridges between two singularities,” she said, “caused by both singularities resonating in the same harmonic pattern. Thing is, there is no actual distance between the entrance and exit as long as the h
armonics are maintained. Understand?”

  Mariko shook her head, knowing that Mai wouldn't be able to see it inside her helm. “No,” she said, finally. “What do you intend to do to them?”

  On the display, the first of the Snake ships plunged into the wormhole – and came out of the other end a drifting wreck. Others followed, spinning out in total disarray, even colliding with their fellows before they could escape...they weren't even trying to escape. Mariko stared in absolute disbelief as the entire fleet poured out of the wormhole, some ships nothing more than piles of wreckage in a vaguely ship-like form. And none of them seemed to be under any form of intelligent control.

  “They’ll have to sweep the lanes before they can be used safety,” Fitz commented, with heavy satisfaction. “Good work, Mai.”

  Mariko found her voice. “What happened to them?”

  “She altered the distance between the two singularities,” Fitz said, quietly. “For the Snakes, the voyage took over a million years. They all died in the wormhole, hundreds of thousands of years before they reached the far end, while it took bare seconds for us. I’d heard that it might be possible, but no one was ever willing to test the theory.”

  Spacers told tales of being stranded out in interstellar space, forced to use stasis pods to remain alive while their ships crawled towards the nearest colonised star at sublight speeds. It could take centuries to get home, even if they only had to cross a single light-year. No wonder the Snakes were all dead. Even the solidest technology built by the Imperium wouldn't last a million years.

  “My God,” Mariko breathed, finally understanding. “How...?”

  Part of her felt sorry for the Snakes, trapped in a pocket dimension and crawling towards the edge with no hope of escape. The rest of her knew what the Snakes had intended to do when they reached Sumter, starting with betraying their Secessionist allies. They could have ripped the Sector apart, destroying the remaining Imperial Navy ships before they had a chance to concentrate their forces against the new foe...no, she wouldn't mourn for them. But, spacer to spacer, she would pity their crews. They’d died fighting entropy itself.

  Mai swore as one of the consoles started to chime. “The wormhole harmonics are reaching dangerous levels,” she said. “We need to cut the link to the Imperium now.”

  Fitz tapped his console, sending his final report through the Imperium’s datanet. “Do it,” he ordered. “Now.”

  Mai ran her hand down the controls. “Done,” she said.

  Mariko shot her a questioning look. She was starting to feel useless.

  “I desynchronised the wormhole so badly that the link between it and its twin was cut sharply, before the rogue harmonics had a chance to infect the rest of the Imperium. What they did was clever...”

  “But can it be countered in future?” Fitz asked, urgently. “Can we stop them from trying it again?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Mai admitted. She nodded towards the consoles that monitored the wormholes, occasionally altering the singularities with modified lasers. “The harmonics can be easily countered if you have the right tools and equipment.”

  Mariko bit down a curse. “I think we have a problem,” she said. It was hard to be sure, reading through the wormhole distortion, but the pattern was becoming too clear to ignore. “The remaining Secessionist ships are altering course.”

  Fitz peered over her shoulder as the Secessionists scattered. Most of the ships were retreating towards the phase limit, but one was coming towards the wormhole junction. It read as a battlecruiser, although the files stored on the station refused to make a completely positive identification because it had been extensively modified by the Secessionists. Behind them, the Imperial Navy ships on station had been crippled or destroyed by their enemies. Mariko found herself wondering how the Imperium’s self-confidence would survive this day, even if the Imperium managed to survive. Perhaps they’d take a tougher look at their safety precautions after this.

  “That isn't good,” Fitz said. He sounded...tired, too tired to continue.

  Mariko realised that they'd completed their mission. They had; the Imperium’s wormholes would not be coming down and his superiors had been warned about the dangers. Whatever happened in the Sumter Sector, the Imperium would survive until the next crisis.

  But that didn't make them safe.

  “Lady Mary will want a little revenge for what we’ve done to her,” Fitz commented.

  Mariko looked at him. “So...what do we do?”

  Fitz looked back at her. “This station’s weapons have been disabled,” he said. “Call in the Bruce Wayne; she can lift us off before Lady Mary opens fire. And then we can escape, knowing that we have done our duty.”

  Mariko linked into the Bruce Wayne and ordered the cloaked ship to head towards the station, but she didn't need to run a projection to know that they would be cutting it awfully tight. Lady Mary’s sensors would probably be able to pick the ship out amidst the wormholes and if so, she’d simply open fire as soon as she entered range. Bruce Wayne had had problems facing a light cruiser. A battlecruiser would blow her apart before she could even return fire.

  “I wonder...does she know what we’ve done?” Mariko asked, out loud. An idea was glimmering through her mind. “Does she know that we have cut the wormhole link to the Imperium?”

  “There’s no way to tell,” Mai said. “All of the remaining wormholes in this sector are coming apart now; there’s nothing we can do to stop it. The Wormhole Engineers will have to rebuild this part of the network from scratch.”

  “Assuming they can,” Fitz said, tiredly. It was quite possible that the Wormhole Engineers wouldn't be able to rebuild the network in the Sumter Sector for years. They’d be busy trying to safeguard the remaining parts of the network first. “This sector hasn't been very profitable for the Imperium. They may just decide to write it off; leave it to the Snakes if they want it so desperately. Or the Secessionists can do what they can for the Slimes and the other victims of the Imperium.”

  Mariko took direct control of the Bruce Wayne as the little ship came into range. Lady Mary’s battlecruiser was closing in rapidly, her sensors already locking onto the junction station and the small ship. She keyed in a command for the Bruce Wayne to drop both shuttles and then alter course, launching drones to confuse Lady Mary’s sensors as much as possible.

  Fitz caught her arm. “I ought to hate you for this,” he said. He knew what she had in mind, all right. “But you’re right. Do it.”

  Mariko understood. Few spacers would ever be happy losing their ships – and Fitz, whatever his flaws, loved the Bruce Wayne. But there was no choice. Quite calmly, she gunned the engines and forced the Bruce Wayne towards the battlecruiser at maximum acceleration. There was a hint of hesitation from the battlecruiser and then she opened fire, too late. The modified starship shrugged off the hits, evaded the missiles, and kept closing in...

  Bruce Wayne impacted directly with the battlecruiser and both ships vanished from the universe in a tearing sheet of fire. There were no survivors.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Two of Homeworld’s three moons were rising in the sky as Mariko stared out over the endless cityscape. Homeworld had been inhabited for so long that the cities had merged together into one giant metropolis, playing host to billions of humans and an uncounted number of aliens. The High City, the very core of the Imperium, seemed to dominate the skyline for miles around, centred on the towering Imperial Palace, where the Childe Roland waited to achieve his majority. It all seemed so safe and tranquil.

  Thousands of aircars floated through the sky, while dozens of starships hung overhead, linked to the colossal orbital towers that formed Homeworld’s main link to the Imperium. Mariko had been told that hundreds of thousands of citizens were deported every day, often for the merest of crimes, but such measures couldn't put more than the tiniest dent in Homeworld’s massive population. Hundreds of starships carrying foodstuffs docked at the orbital towers, trying despera
tely to feed Homeworld; a single interruption in trade would be disastrous for the population. And what would have happened, she asked herself, if Lady Mary had succeeded and interstellar trade had died along with the wormholes? Homeworld would have collapsed into anarchy within the week.

  She looked up as Fitz joined her on the balcony, placing one arm around her waist. The flight back to Homeworld had been nightmarish, even though the Happy Wanderer had been untouched by the fighting around Sumter. They hadn't been certain if the wormholes hadn’t collapsed, not until they’d crossed the sector line and entered the Glister Sector, the closest wormhole to Sumter that was still active. Once they’d confirmed that the wormhole network was largely functioning, Fitz had used his emergency priority to get them to Homeworld over the next two days. Mariko had never expected to see Homeworld – the trading cartels had the shipping locked up tight, which was a large part of the problem – but Fitz had been insistent. They had to report to his superiors – and ensure that steps were taken to prevent anyone else trying to bring down the wormholes in the same way.