The Imperialists: The Complete Trilogy

by H. T. Kofruk

  The rest of the speech was almost perfect, Qin had to admit. He hit on everything that mattered to the defectors such their sense of disloyalty to the New Han Empire, anxiety over their future and about their families, and helplessness amid the schemes of powerful men. He offered them a vision of a future with no wars, at least between Renden nations, the distribution of power among the people and no more suffering at the whims of politicians and generals.

  “This is your place” he said as he finished. “This is where we fight together for everyone we lost.”

  The last sentence reminded him of his reason for being there. The young princeling had certainly grown up. Who would have known he would become such an orator? He had even gotten Qin dreaming of democracy. What a naïve idea! The Chinese Empire had never practiced any form of real democracy, especially since the western nations had turned their backs on the form government at the advent of the One God movement. Democracy, the idea of each person having a say in how they were governed, was an idealistic farce much like communism. The people needed a father figure to guide them, a true leader who merited their ultimate respect and obedience, not a politician! How dare he put such subversive ideas into their heads!

  His hatred resurfaced just in time to decide his course of action. Fann was leaving the platform and giving orders to a major who would take care of the administrative tasks concerning the defectors. He then headed to the same pulse glider alone. Qin approached him just before he mounted the glider.

  “General Han” he said.

  The traitor turned towards him with his hand still on the door. Qin saluted smartly, obliging Fann to turn completely to receive it. “It’s Lieutenant-Colonel Han, as you can see” said Fann as he pointed to his collar. “And you are?”

  “Captain Derek Wurth of Installation Security, sir.”

  Fann winced as he looked at him. “Yes, I’ve heard of you. You’re the one who escaped the Chinese torture chambers” he said as if to say that he didn’t believe him. He was sharper than expected.

  Qin’s mind raced to continue the conversation with a natural flow. He needed a viable reason to be alone with him, all the while realizing how his blind hatred had robbed him of all his tactical instincts. How had he not prepared this encounter?

  Fann looked at him with suspicious eyes, waiting for something to confirm his doubts about the Shadow. The princeling shifted his weight and twitched his head. He was smart enough to wait for a remark from the stranger rather than saying something first and giving any ideas.

  “I wanted to talk to you about your cousin, Han Wei” he said, just about hiding any triumph in his voice.

  Fann’s expression softened. “Wei” he simply said. “I’ve heard from Terry Southend.”

  “I was imprisoned for a short time with one of her servants who had attempted to smuggle her out of Diqiu Two, sir. He’s dead now.”

  Fann turned and got in the vehicle. “We’ll talk a couple minutes until I get to the logistics bay. Do you need to be dropped off anywhere?”

  Qin hid his elation and walked to the opposite side and climbed in. “No, sir. I need to do a security check there anyway.”

  “So, she’s being used as a puppet?” said Fann once they started moving.

  “More than that, sir. She’s being used as a vessel for Minister Bo to become emperor.”

  “That cunt” said Fann. “I swear I’ll have his head on my lap one day. But he can’t become emperor since he isn’t of the Royal Han bloodline.

  The hatred leaking out of Fann’s voice surprised Qin. He had only considered him a mild, cowardly boy.

  “He is not an honourable man, it seems” said Qin trying to anticipate the other man’s reaction.

  “Honourable? You have no idea, Captain Wurth. Is she being hurt or drugged?”

  “No, just kept under very close surveillance, it would appear.”

  “Are there many of those accursed Shadows on Diqiu Two?”

  “Quite a few according to the servant though he never gave me an exact figure.”

  “What have you got to say so special about Wei?”

  Qin gave his prepared answer. “She’s pregnant. Bo will soon be the father of an emperor and husband to an empress.”

  Fann had kept his head looking straight ahead even though the pulse glider was self-driving. Now he stared at Qin with a look of shock. “I have a nephew fathered by that son of a bitch? Why didn’t you tell anyone else?”

  “I didn’t think it would have any strategic importance. I chose to tell you since she’s your relative, sir.”

  To his surprise, Fann’s eyes were getting glazed with tears. “That bastard is the curse of my family.”

  “Sir?” said Qin, genuinely curious about what he meant.

  “He left my brother to die at the hands of those monsters. He killed Uncle Qin. He obeyed my brother even after knowing that he killed my father.”

  Dark clouds immediately started to form in his crystal-clear mission. Was any of this true? Could ‘Uncle Qin’ be his own late father, Colonel Qin? What reason did Fann have to lie? If what was being said had a grain of truth in it, Qin’s personal mission would have been for nothing. A plethora of emotions and visions threatened to cloud his judgement. He was a soldier; he carried out missions to the end. But what if the mission intelligence was wrong? He had to find out more before judging anything else. All of a sudden, he found himself envious of the Phantoms’ ability to sense perjury, an advantageous quality for the intelligence business.

  “Uncle Qin? Was he your father’s brother?” he said trying to sound ignorant.

  Fann smiled at the remark as if it had been ridiculous which it was. “He may as well have been. They grew up together and then Uncle Qin became my father’s chief bodyguard. He has a son somewhere. When all this shit calms down, I hope to locate him and tell him how he died.”

  Qin could feel blood racing to his head. He struggled to keep his voice as calm and as nonchalant as possible. “How did he die, sir?” he managed.

  Fann looked at him again and this time studied his face. Had he given away too much? “Bo put a knife through his heart for trying to protect me.”

  Lies! The traitor had everything to gain from this, he realized. After having killed his own father, Fann had surely tried to silence his noble brother by killing him. The Shadows had been too late to stop the murder of the Emperor but had tried to reason with Fann while protecting his frailer brother from his treacherous blade. Qin’s father had obviously tried to reason with him. As soon as Fann had given his assurance to stop his rampage, he had stuck the blade in the chief bodyguard’s back. That was what Bo and the two other Shadows at the scene had said.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to drop you off somewhere?” said Fann uncomfortably.

  “No, sir. I’m supposed to meet someone at the supply bay.”

  “I thought you said you needed to do a security check there?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s why I’m meeting my colleague there.”

  Fann was looking ahead once again. He had visibly calmed after telling his false story and looked more awkward than anything. Qin could see that he was still tense from the pulsating artery in his neck, just next to his Adam’s apple. He could kill him right at that moment if he wanted to. He could move so fast that the traitor wouldn’t even see his artery being cut and wouldn’t notice it but for the spray of blood on the windshield.

  He just about managed to suppress the urge and was glad he did so on realizing that at least a dozen people could see him through the clear glass of the pulse glider. Even if he could kill his father’s murderer at the blink of an eye, it would be impossible to plead any sort of innocence if he was seen in the same vehicle.

  They rode in silence until they reached their destination. Qin decided to wait until Fann was alone in his office adjacent to the supply bay. The Web-Com surveillance would notice if Fann’s vital signals suddenly dropped and also report that Qin was with him at the same moment. He woul
d have to ensure a delayed death, and he knew the perfect technique. The Seven Blood Points was relatively simple in theory but to correctly implement, it took a master of the Shadow Arts. He would impact seven critical areas of the body at different intervals and with varying pressure. The victim would remain conscious between half an hour to forty minutes before suddenly fainting. Within ten minutes, his respiratory system would shut down without explanation and he would suffocate do death. It seemed an unsatisfactory, painless end for such heinous crimes. He would have liked to use his pain inducement methods but that would be noisy and attract attention.

  The pulse glider landed gently on the floor of the supply bay and the two men got off. “Thank you for telling me about Wei, Captain Wurth. I have some business to attend to” said Fann somewhat guardedly.

  “Very good, sir” responded Qin with a curt salute. He noticed the suspicion in Fann’s eyes as he returned the salute and walked off to his office.

  He planned to do a routine security check of the supply area including the office of the supervising officer. After making sure that Fann went to his office, he started to check the personnel working in the bay.

  “Derek?” said a familiar voice. He swivelled around to see Major Geraldine Schmitt standing in front of him with two members of her team. “What are you doing here? I thought you were off today.”

  Though Geraldine was the head of a tactical team, she doubled as a security officer while on the station. But what were the odds that she was scheduled to do a security check at the supply bay today? He felt a surge of frustration ascending like bile.

  “I’m just checking a few things…” he said weakly.

  Fann came out of his office at that moment looking at a Web-Com spread sheet, probably just to check inventory levels. Geraldine saw the former monarch and an expression of understanding came over her face. She knew the source of his obsession.

  “Arrest him!” she shouted as she raised her rifle towards him. Her two team members did the same.

  Qin couldn’t let anyone get in his way, not even Geraldine who looked so much like…her. He coiled his muscles and then released them before the tactical team could react. None of them had lowered their visors, making their faces vulnerable. In a blur he was in front of one of them and punched him in the nose with lightning speed. He felt a crunching sensation at the tip of his elevated middle knuckle that notified him of broken bones.

  The second one fired his weapon at him to the protests of the workers in the supply area. Qin guessed that there was something flammable stored near them. He saw the brief hesitation in the dark-faced soldier’s face and took full advantage of it. In another flash, he was in front of the soldier but had seen Geraldine swing her gun towards him. He whipped around and kicked the barrel away from him. Her aim didn’t budge much since her strength was augmented by the amplifier suit but it gave him enough time to take care of the other man to whom he gave a crushing side kick to the face.

  He turned to face Geraldine for the last time. She had her gun raised to his chest. He knew that he could move fast enough to attack her but couldn’t imagine hitting her for some reason. Her eyes were red with emotion, with the pain of being used and then betrayed. He was almost amused about how much her face mirrored exactly how he felt. Before he could get drowned with remorse, he decided he would have to hurt her.

  Geraldine seemed to sense his decision. A split second before he moved, she pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 21: A Cup of Tea

  ‘I don't know whether the tears I shed tonight are from sadness or relief. Likely both.’ - Terry Southend, personal memoir, year 2917

  Terry came back to his quarters and sat on a metal stool. He was emotionally exhausted. It seemed that a million thoughts were going through his head, and that his head was completely empty at the same time. With a soldier’s determination, he stood up and started taking off his uniform hoping that a soothing shower would invigorate him. The warm water did feel good as it ran down his back and chest and he was able to forget about the unpleasant, awkward meeting with Heera, at least for the time being.

  He got out and dressed in his ‘civies’ before sitting at his desk and turning on his holograph projector. A myriad of paperwork needed his attention, some concerning his duties as commander of the United Terra Marine Corps, others about his failed diplomatic trip to Diqiu Two. Bongani’s orders had been clear; he was to keep a channel of communication open with the Chinese Empire even if he didn’t trust them. Bongani and the other members of the war cabinet had decided to prepare a full scale attack on Earth in three months. Patchy reports suggested that the Renden population had been halved in the past few years. Though United Terra’s military capacity had quadrupled compared to its inception, the Nikruk had taken full control of all the remaining ships around the Renden home planet and, furthermore, were finally capable of building their own.

  That still left United Terra with less fire power than the aliens but Fann’s recent engagement of their forces had showed an amateur level of crew readiness. Terry supported Bongani’s decision to strike while the enemy was still highly inexperienced in deep space warfare.

  Another factor had weighed heavily; the alleged Nikruk acquisition of Death Beam technology. Everybody on the cabinet knew that the remaining billions of survivors on Earth would not live long if the invading aliens started using the mysterious weapon to exterminate them. Terry vowed that if they won the war with the Nikruk, Death Beam and fusion-missile technology would be banned and all knowledge of them discarded.

  Terry had five hundred thousand marines at his command. The enemy ground forces were estimated to be three million and growing with new soldiers being shipped in from…somewhere. The truth was that the Marine Corps and the army were almost non-factors in this war. Unless they could stop the infinite flow of enemy troops from the source, the ground would always be dominated by the Nikruk. And millions, perhaps billions of civilian lives would be the price to be paid. His head ached with frustration when he thought of how Minister Bo was using those lives as a bargain chip to secure his empire. Though what remained of the Chinese Empire had less than half the number of warships than U.T., their ground troops were similar or perhaps even more numerous.

  He needed to look at the figures given to him as estimates for the power, food and munitions consumption of the whole Marine Corps for a two year campaign. If he agreed with them and their underlying hypotheses, he would send them to General Donskoy, the highest ranking among the relatively few Orthodox members of United Terra and acting Minister of Munitions. Numbers had never been his strong point and the three dimensional data file started to nauseate him, even with the friendly female voice explaining them.

  Heera would have been able to understand these figures without problem, he thought. He had seen her treat data and derive meaningful information like magic. How he felt like a brute with digits being thrown at him. He had been shocked at her different appearance after four years; she hadn’t gotten any less beautiful but instead of a slender, delicate lily, she was now a hard, thorny desert rose. The hope and energy in her eyes had given way to a wistful cynicism.

  He felt distracted. In all these years, all he had given her was pain and disappointment. He had never been as wildly in love with anyone else. Admitting that unleashed a flood of emotions and he bit his lip at the crass way he had treated her two nights ago. Knowing Heera, she would probably get over it surprisingly fast though a bitter scar would persist.

  He was less strong than she. He was not proud to admit that Fatima was more of a consolation than a passionate love. Complicating things was something that he didn’t want with her and every time a look of suppressed heartache passed over her face, he had inevitably glanced away in shame. If he complicated anything with anyone, it was with Heera.

  The holographic digits disappeared. He could no longer focus on them and he must have willed them to go away despite himself. A splash of cold of water on his face helped him see things clearer.
An unrecognisable man looked back at him in the mirror, a man whose face was laden with guilt, sorrow and remorse. Someone had told him that ‘you get your real face once you turn forty’. He certainly didn’t want the face of a sad man when he reached that age.

  Without thinking anymore he walked out of his quarters.

  Heera caught his eye three days later coming out of the sick bay. She was dressed in the United Terra Army Medical Corps uniform with the rank of first lieutenant on her collar. She looked dashing in it. He walked quickly to catch up and then kept pace with her.

  “Hello, Terry” she said without looking at him.

  “How was your first day back at work?” he said casually.

  “Not too bad considering everyone thinks that I have a perverted sexual affliction with an alien whose buddies are bringing Rendens to the brink of extinction.”

  Terry laughed awkwardly. “Don’t they know that they don’t even have sex organs?” He immediately regretted his words. He could almost feel Heera rolling her eyes. “Sorry” he said sheepishly.

  She stopped and turned to look at him. “I saw a holograph of one of your speeches. How can you be so sure of yourself and eloquent in the footage and then be such a dolt in front of me?”

  “Heera, that’s a bit harsh…”

  “Perhaps I do have a sexual perversion about giant, armoured aliens with yellow eyes. Well at least I’m not the cruellest person with the best intentions.”

  “He’s no longer in confinement. I’ve had him transferred to a safer location where he won’t have any more tests done on him. We’re going to treat him like an ally.”

  Heera’s eyes grew wide. Her rigid face morphed into an expression of gratitude. She threw her arms around him. “Thank you” she said through a sob.

  He felt his heart melt as he held her close. This is my girl.

  She extracted herself from his hug and dabbed at the moisture on her face with her palms. She looked so vulnerable that it made his heart ache. Even after losing Earth, he had built his world around the people he came to know, respect and love. She had nothing except Bin’ja and he had even taken him from her. He had known that Bin’ja was probably of much more use as a friend rather than a guinea pig but he had supported the decision to perform tests on him just to demonstrate that his judgement hadn’t been clouded by his prior relationships with Heera. He had taken away her world just to appear unbiased.