Rebels and Patriots (Imperium Cicernus Book 3)

by A. G. Claymore

  REBELS AND PATRIOTS

  By A.G. Claymore

  Edited by B.H. MacFadyen & C. Nuttall

  Copyright 2014 A.G. Claymore

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and brands are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of any products referenced in this work of fiction which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Under Attack

  Reconnaissance

  Enemy Contact

  Escalation

  Consolidation

  From the Author

  Under Attack

  Terrorist Incident

  The middle-aged man dragged a hand across his forehead, scraping the sweat away before it could run down into his eyes. He was having a hard time getting used to the long hair. It made it harder for his scalp to radiate away the heat of Irricana’s three suns.

  Despite the heat, he liked the view just fine. Having been born on a binary system, any world with only one sun just felt… wrong.

  He leaned against the hood of the large ground-car and closed his eyes, enjoying the dry, rattling croak of the local avians. The jungles here were filled with some of the strangest life forms he’d ever seen and he’d fought on dozens of worlds throughout the Imperium. Harsh environments always seemed to bring out nature’s creative side.

  Those sounds were definitely starting to diminish and he opened his eyes, knowing what it meant. If they didn’t manage to find…

  “I think we found it!” one of the younger men shouted. The older man walked across the maintenance road, stopping at the concrete barrier to look down the slope.

  Six men, stripped to the waist, had hacked the exuberant foliage away from an airlock hatch and they stood looking up to him for orders.

  He nodded up at the jungle canopy.

  The reddish orange foliage, dominant in the permanent twilight latitudes of Irricana, was slowly retracting into the dense wooden trunks. “Get it open and place the charge,” he ordered. “Storm’s coming and we want to be far from here when it hits.”

  Irricana was a tidally locked planet, one side eternally facing toward the three suns of the system. It made the presence of indigenous life something of a minor miracle and many Imperial terracologists insisted the world had to have been developed by an unknown alien race.

  Terraformed or not, the constant condensing of the atmosphere on the night side combined with the malevolent convection currents generated on the day side resulted in a planet lashed by storms of incredible violence.

  The sounds of wildlife were fading fast as the animals sensed the change in air pressure and sought cover. A large, scaled avian landed on the slope just beneath him and began burrowing into the hillside with its wide, flat beak.

  He frowned up at the treetops. The jungle was almost completely barren now. “We’ve got less than ten minutes,” he shouted down at his men.

  They were manhandling an unconscious form in through the upper airlock hatch.

  “That’ll do,” the younger man asserted, waving them up toward the access road. He followed them up the slope, scrambling over the barrier as the first drops of rain came pelting down.

  The older man held out his hand to catch a few drops. He licked the water from his palm. It wasn’t gritty so he figured they could get all the way back to the city without having to stop and take cover.

  He looked up at the muted crump sound from down-slope.

  A howl of rushing air grew in volume, suddenly deadened as the unconscious body plugged the hole and then resumed as their unfortunate victim was spewed through the rough opening.

  “Alright,” the older man shouted over the noise, “mount up, we need to get…”

  His sentence was cut off as a rumble beneath their feet preceded a jet of plasma up through the shattered airlock. They dropped, scrambling over to shelter behind the concrete barrier.

  “Shit!” one of the younger men exclaimed, flinching as a small piece of debris struck his shoulder. “That wasn’t in the projections. Who do you think…”

  “Never you mind who it was,” the older man snarled. “Get in. We need to get moving.”

  The shriek of rushing air was already diminishing as the safety shields started to cut in. The High Speed Vacuum Line was the life blood of Irricana and, for once, the Imperial Engineering Corps hadn’t skimped on the design.

  The HSVL was a tunnel system that ran around the doughnut-shaped habitable zone of the planet. There was wide band of territory circling the day side of Irricana at just the right distance from its three suns to allow liquid water. The planet’s North Pole continually pointed in the direction of its suns, resulting in a world with no seasonal change.

  The shape of the zone made for inefficient ground transport and so the HSVL was built with a near-total vacuum inside. It allowed vehicles to move at incredible velocities, reaching cities on the other side in a matter of hours.

  Unfortunately, some poor bastard had come along just after the inner airlock hatch had been blown, but before the safety protocols could kick in, seal off the section and halt all traffic. Whoever it was, they’d slammed into the intruding air like an orbital tender hitting atmo, but without any shielding.

  The older man climbed into the front passenger seat, leaning forward to look up at the fast-moving clouds above as the vehicle started accelerating along the maintenance road.

  If not for the damned storm making them rush, someone would simply be sitting down there, facing a containment shield and cursing the delay.

  The man they’d put in the airlock had been a real piece of Human garbage and he didn’t regret his role in killing him, but that might have been a family down there…

  The pounding of the rain on their roof suddenly ended as their ground-car floated into one of the hundreds of mountain tunnels between their objective and Vermillion, the planetary capital.

  “Thirty klicks to the end of this one,” the young man behind the controls advised.

  The older man nodded, releasing a tired sigh. “If the wind reads negative for particulates, we’ll keep moving.”

  The repair crew would arrive within the half hour, after all. They didn’t want to be seen anywhere near the mess they’d just made.

  Portal to Hell

  “Davai,” the crew chief shouted at his thruster team. The recovered diplomatic shuttle was slowly easing through the forward nav-shielding of the CVN Manifest Destiny and you’d think it was the first time they’d pulled in a drifter.

  “Come on!” a loud voice exclaimed behind him. “I don’t have all morning!”

  The chief closed his eyes, taking in a deep, calming breath. This was why he conversed with his crew in Rushto, their ancient language. If their clueless, high-born officer was going to insist on trying to do the chief’s job, then he at least had to come up with his own orders.

  The thruster team always took the Rushto orders anyway.

  They were through the shielding now and coming down on the quarantine pad. “Smirno… smirno,” the chief urged as the last few inches disappeared between deck and shuttle.

  “Easy now…” the aristocratic officer growled authoritatively.

  Though the chief wasn’t rolling his eyes at this, he somehow managed to convey the impression that he was.

  “We’ll need to get the containment shielding in place before we cut into her,” the officer advised the chief.

  “Spasibo za informatsiyu,” he repli
ed politely, noticing his plasma specialist had turned away to hide his expression. The phrase was usually said in a drier tone, indicating the uselessness of the offered information.

  It was an odd little game that had sprung up when the young aristocrat had rotated aboard the Manifest Destiny six months ago. The chief was free to poke fun at his officer in Rushto and the officer, in turn, was free to pretend an understanding of their enigmatic language.

  The crew got stress relief and the young noble got a little respect from his fellow officers.

  With the shielding up, the plasma specialist moved his boom-lift forward, leaning over the railing of his basket as he ignited his cutter.

  The instant his torch began emitting a pilot-arc of plasma, every helmet inside the containment field snapped into place. The visors darkened, protecting their retinas from the torch flare and the helmets would stay closed to protect against any bio-hazards that might be lurking inside the stricken shuttle.

  The boom pulled back, taking a door-shaped section of hull with it and the chief was shouldered aside. Their brave officer marched to the opening as a crewman extended a boarding ladder.

  This time, the chief actually did roll his eyes. His officer’s ‘first through the breach’ attitude was almost certainly a symptom of the shame he must be feeling at his safe posting.

  If an aristocrat intended to hold public office, he first had to serve in the military. Most took the requirement as a chance to seek combat on the frontiers, burnishing their reputations against the day they would need to seek votes.

  Some, like this pompous young fool, sought out the safest postings. The Manifest Destiny cruised the deepest heart of the empire, never seeing a hostile vessel.

  The officer disappeared inside and the chief caught the raised eyebrows of his plasma tech. He shook his head and shrugged. “Chto delyat?” he asked pragmatically – What are you gonna do? If they managed to arrange an ‘accident’, the next guy might actually be worse.

  His gaze darted back over to the opening in the hull, his knees flexing as if to propel him toward or away from the mysterious shuttle as the comms system picked up a strangled scream of pure terror. He heard a crashing noise through his ear-piece and then the young officer came scrambling out the opening, tumbling down the boarding ladder to slam onto the carrier’s deck.

  “Se… security!” the young officer blurted frantically as he crabbed away from the shuttle, waving a warding hand in front of his face. He convulsed, eyes wild, his hand scratching at the front of his visor, and then he vomited all over the inside of the glazing.

  “Bozhe moi!” The plasma tech looked back at the opening, drawing his sidearm.

  The chief backed away from his panicked officer and drew his own weapon, pointing it up at the rough portal. He waved the security team forward through the shielding.

  Bio-hazard or not, there was something terrible going on in that shuttle and it wasn’t his job to deal with it.

  A visit from the Eye

  The desk sergeant looked up as the shadow fell across his counter. He gave Paul a quick once-over before turning his chair toward the back wall to continue his conversation, touching his right hand to his ear-piece as if to accentuate where his priorities lay.

  Paul’s lips twitched up at the corners. Nobody of any importance would be standing at this counter. His expensive clothing, combined with his being here would have told the desk sergeant he was dealing with some prosperous merchant from one of the non-voting classes. Some disenfranchised plebeian come to bribe his son’s way out of trouble.

  If there was one thing a flatfoot like this loved, it was putting prosperous merchants in their place. Cops were usually just barely on the right side of the poverty line and the system of baksheesh had been an accepted form of income for so long it was no longer considered to be even remotely illegal.

  He’d start by making Paul cool his heels on the sidewalk while he finished his conversation. The more a citizen felt like a supplicant, the bigger the bribes.

  Paul understood the tactic. A rush of warm stink blew past him as a cargo carrier roared past, forcing poorly-circulated air down a passageway that was miles from real sunlight. Nobody stood out here for long if they didn’t have to.

  Whatever Paul’s ‘son’ had done, it would require hefty payments, first to the desk sergeant and then to the investigating officer. From there, the money flowed up the chain. If a death was involved, it could take a cop’s annual salary to make it go away.

  Except Paul wasn’t a prosperous merchant. He slammed his palm against the secur-shield, square in the middle of the area marked for identification.

  The sergeant, hearing the hum of the resisting shield energy, turned a bored face back to Paul, his mouth opening to issue a reprimand that died as his eyes widened in shock at the orange haze around the palm.

  Paul Grimm, much to the sergeant’s dismay, was an equestrian-knight, an Imperial rank that indicated friends in very high places. He was also an inspector and, to make matters even worse, Paul wasn’t just a local city or planetary inspector.

  He was from the Imperial Corps of Inspectors – the ICI, the ‘Icy Eye’ or, most commonly…

  “Sir…” The sergeant jumped out of his chair. “My apologies, Inspector. I didn’t realize the ‘Eye’ was sending anybody down here to…”

  “The door, Sergeant,” Paul cut him off.

  “Sir?” The terrified officer gaped at him like an idiot.

  Paul pointed at the shutter, just to the left of the shielded window. “The door. It stinks out here.”

  A moment of stunned silence and then the man seemed to lurch back into action. “Yes, sir. Of course. My apologies for any…”

  His words were lost in the grinding of metal on metal as the ancient grille rolled up into its housing. Paul stepped through and the portal snapped shut with a crash behind him.

  The station was laid out in accordance with standard police architectural guidelines. If you were a cop, you could walk into any station in the empire and know exactly where you were going.

  Paul headed for the inspectors’ bullpen. A knot of plainclothes cops were huddled around one desk and he headed straight for them.

  They turned at his approach, their faces showing that amusing blend of hostility & curiosity common to those who find their inner sanctum breached by a stranger.

  He looked down at the inspector behind the desk, the one who’d been the center of attention until he’d walked in. “Inspector Mallas, I presume.”

  It was a safe bet. The attention from his co-workers was almost undoubtedly due to his newest case.

  “I am,” the man replied cautiously. “And you are?”

  Paul smiled. “Inspector Paul Grimm, ICI. You’ve been assigned a hand-over case from the military,” he explained, “and the senate has asked me to conduct a jurisdictional review.”

  Inspector Mallas nodded. “Hardly surprising, given the connections involved.” He waved a hand at the one man who hadn’t melted away when Paul announced his credentials. “This is Captain McElroy, our boss.”

  “Captain.” Paul nodded politely. He turned back to find Mallas rooting through a desk drawer. The home-world cop held out a handful of green and white plastic bags. “Bag of joe?”

  “Thank you, no,” Paul smiled. “I’ve had too much already this morning and I’m dangerously close to seeing through the fabric of space-time.”

  With a shrug, Mallas handed one to his captain and each gave their bag a twist to release the heating catalyst. Mallas gave the bag a good shake and set it down while he brought up a holo-screen.

  “Pretty much cut and dried,” he declared. “The CVN Manifest Destiny found a drifting diplomatic shuttle and, when they cut her open, they found the entire crew and two couriers stabbed to death.” He brought up the evidence holo, putting them in the cockpit, though the effect was marred somewhat by the furniture of the bullpen.

  Paul suppressed the shudder of horror crawling beneath his skin, t
ickling at his muscles. “Where’s the pilot’s skin?”

  Mallas put his hands above a point on his desk and dragged them back toward his abdomen. The shuttle slid past them, putting them in the passenger area. More bodies and at the back, draped in the pilot’s skin, was the closest thing to a friend Paul had ever had.

  And the reason Paul enjoyed the patronage of the powerful Nathaniel family.

  “Julius Nathaniel,” Mallas announced, “son of Senator Hadrian Nathaniel and the current magistrate of Kepler62e. He killed three flight crew and two Imperial couriers before helping himself to a nice new suit.”

  Paul cut him off. “It’s only cut and dried if we understand the motive.”

  A nod. Mallas brought up a new scene and the other inspectors cheered. The holo showed Julius in bed with two young women. “They’re not on any retinal register,” he said with a shrug. “Big surprise, right? But the tattoos are clearly visible, showing them to be from a courtesan guild on TC-465.”

  “The ‘happy ending’ virus,” Captain McElroy explained. “Carried only by the guild members of Temporary Colony-465. It’s sexually transmitted, spreads quickly and dies out within forty-eight standard hours.”

  “Giving the client a delightful, eight-hour burst of endorphins as the infection dies out,” Mallas explained. He nodded to where Julius lay. “A very small percentage of clients are genetically predisposed toward a psychotic break.”

  Paul looked away from the holo of his old friend. “Well, I suppose that covers motive, doesn’t it?”

  “So are you taking the case off our hands?” McElroy opened the nozzle on the corner of his coffee bag and took a sip.

  Paul shook his head. “Like Mallas said, it’s cut and dried. You don’t need me interfering.”

  McElroy’s brows lowered a few millimeters, but it was the closest he came to showing his true feelings to an inspector from the Eye. He obviously assumed Paul didn’t want to get tangled up in the prosecution of an aristocrat.

  In most cases, he’d be correct. Most inspectors knew better than to make powerful enemies and putting a senator’s son in a ‘silk scarf’ was a sure way to end a promising career with the Eye.