Imperium: Contact

by Kabbabe, Malek

  Andrew scanned the settlement with his thermal sensors. No life signs, although the fire and smoke meant he couldn't be sure of that. Flicking off the safety on his rifle, he made his way down into the valley. As he approached the settlement, he spotted several dead rebel and Tenth Legion soldiers. Some of the transponder signals he was tracking corresponded to the dead. Most however, were clustered somewhere near the large building he had spotted earlier.

  Andrew picked his way through the settlement. He spotted more corpses and not just soldiers. As he moved further into the settlement he came across humans and bessra who were obviously civilians. They wore no armor and had no weapons. As he approached the larger building, he saw the bodies of hundreds of Tenth Legion troops. There were more amongst the pile of debris from the collapsed wall and roof. There were more dead rebel soldiers here too.

  Andrew approached the collapsed building wall, picking his way over debris and corpses. The building had six floors and stretched out in a large square shape. Most of the upper floors had collapsed down one side of the building. Chunks of metal and concrete were strewn everywhere. In the center of the lowest floor Andrew spotted a pile of bodies, half buried beneath the rubble. As he moved in, he noticed that these were a lot smaller than the ones he had come across before. It was dark and Andrew had a hard time making them out, he switched on the light source built into his armor's helmet.

  There must be over fifty bodies here. Most of them were children, both human and bessra. Andrew scanned the bodies, looking for evidence of how they had died. He didn't spot any injuries from weapons fire, they must have died when the floor above them had collapsed.

  A slight rustling sound made him spin around. Something was moving under a pile of debris. He brought up his weapon and moved towards it. Suddenly a small hand emerged, grasping at the air. He lowered his rifle and began pulling away chunks of rock. The head and torso of a small human boy emerged. His eyes widened in fear at the sight of the Sergeant.

  Andrew put down his rifle and continued removing the rubble surrounding the boy.

  “Don't be afraid,” he said.

  “I'm going to get you out of here.”

  The boy coughed into his breathing mask.

  “Where's my mom and dad?” He asked, looking around the room.

  “I don't know,” Andrew replied.

  “We'll worry about that later, first I'm going to get you out of here, okay?”

  The boy looked up at him and nodded, suddenly he grimaced in pain.

  “What's wrong?” Andrew asked.

  “My chest,” said the boy.

  “It hurts and it's hard to breath.”

  Andrew stopped removing the debris and pulled out his med kit. The boy started coughing again and he could hear him gasping for air.

  He pulled a medical nanite injector out of the kit and held it against the boy's arm. With a slight hiss, the injector released a dose into his bloodstream. Andrew synced his armor to their telemetry. The boy had internal bleeding in most of his chest and abdomen, including the lungs. He coughed again and suddenly his head slumped back.

  “Hey,” said Andrew, lifting the boy's head.

  “Wake up, stay with me.”

  Sergeant Andrew Williams woke with a start. He shook himself, trying to clear the vestiges of that all too familiar nightmare. A deep and persistent rumbling filled his ears and it took him a few seconds to figure out where he was. He rolled off the crate he’d been lying on and stretched. Andrew looked around, he was in a cargo bay. Yes, of course, he’d been transferred to a civilian cargo freighter a few hours ago.

  He and the rest of the Invictus Legion had been aboard the Gorgon, a Leviathan class troop transport. They had been busy prepping for an operation, when orders had come in from Earth. Orders bearing the official seal of Admiral Constantine himself. Moreover, they were orders that referred specifically to Andrew and no one else. It would have been unusual enough for the Admiral to call back his Legion right before an attack, but to go through all this trouble for a single soldier. The Commanding officer of the Gorgon, Captain Bentin, had conscripted a passing civilian freighter. It was to take him to the nearest Imperial military outpost and from there to Earth.

  “Heads up back there,” the freighter Captain’s voice called through the ship’s speakers.

  He and Andrew were the only two people aboard.

  “Unknown vessel approaching.”

  Andrew walked towards the cargo bay door, a second later he was knocked to the floor by an explosion that rocked the entire ship.

  “Oh shit,” yelled the Captain.

  “Lizards.”

  Lizards, was slang for a race that called themselves the shengyet. Most alien civilizations humanity had encountered had been subjugated with a certain level of force, but none more so than the shengyet. They were a relatively primitive race when the humans had first discovered them. However they were strong, tough and ferocious warriors. This, coupled with the extreme conditions of their home world, had led to a particularly lengthy and brutal campaign. Eventually, their planet was conquered and placed under human rule.

  Even after their defeat, the shengyet had refused to give up. They had formed an underground resistance movement. Quietly stealing human machines and technology, learning all they could about them. The official Imperial version of what happened next, was that the shengyet had managed to steal a large number of human ships and make their escape. Although some people insisted they had learned enough about human technology to build their own from stolen parts. However they had done it, a large number of shengyet managed to escape their home world.

  At first they had roamed the galaxy looking for a new home, but the humans had pursued them relentlessly. Eventually the refugees had splintered into smaller groups in order to make it harder to track them. Now they tried to exact some measure of revenge on the Empire by engaging in piracy and harassing trade routes in general. Any ship they found they would rob of its cargo but usually let the crew off unharmed, they made an exception for humans however. Any and all humans they got their claws on, they killed. Which was probably why the Captain sounded like a man on the verge of panicking.

  Shengyet ships were small and poorly armed, mostly scrounged and cobbled together from whatever they could find. However, they usually traveled in rather large groups and the freighter was even more poorly armed and far less maneuverable. Andrew opened the cargo bay door and stepped into the cockpit, the pilot was on the radio.

  “This is the commercial freighter Rendezvous, we are under attack by pirates. Any sips in the area, this is a general distress call from the freighter Rendezvous, we are under attack. Repeat we are…”

  Static filled the speaker on the radio console.

  “I take it that’s the shengyet jamming our transmission”, Andrew remarked.

  The Captain turned to face him.

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t really matter. The closest ships in the system are from the task force you just left and it'll take us at least half an hour to get there. Judging by the speed those fighters are closing on us, we'll be dead long before that.”

  Andrew sat down in the empty co-pilot’s chair and looked at the controls. The sensors showed at least ten fighters closing fast on their six.

  “Can’t we run? Those are short range fighters, they don’t have Dimension Drives?” he asked.

  “Aside from the fact that I'd be breaking every inter-system traffic regulation by opening a dimension vortex this far in system,” the Captain said dryly.

  “There's really no point, the D drive takes at least five minutes to charge and they’ll be on top of us in less than one.”

  Andrew looked at the displays again.

  “Any habitable planets nearby?”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “We land somewhere and hide, wait for reinforcements or maybe they won’t be able to find us and just leave.”

  The Captain shook his head.

  “Look, even if the
re’s someplace for us to put down. We’ll never make it before they’re in weapons range and if we do…no one knows where we are, they probably won’t even start looking until you don’t report for duty. By the time anyone even has a chance to find us, we’ll have either starved to death or the shengyet will get us.”

  “Listen,” said Andrew grabbing the man by the front of his jacket and almost lifting him out of the chair.

  “You may have resigned yourself to that fact that you’re going to die in this miserable tin can, but I haven’t”, Andrew pulled him up a little higher.

  “Which means that you’re going to find us a planet to land on and then you’re going to get there before they blow us out of the sky. Because if you don’t, I can guarantee you the shengyet will be the least of your worries.”

  Andrew slammed the Captain back into his seat.

  “Now, get to work!”

  “O-okay man,” the Captain looked at Andrew as if he was not entirely sure about the other's sanity.

  He started rapidly typing commands into the console in front of him; all the while mumbling something about overly high strung soldiers.

  The Rendezvous banked sharply to the left nearly knocking Andrew off his feet. Through the right side window of the cockpit, Andrew could see a burst of Gauss cannon slugs shoot past where the ship had been a second ago.

  “Tell me you found us some place to land,” he said, getting to his feet.

  “Well yes we can land on it but I’d hardly call it habitable,” replied the Captain.

  His brow was sweating profusely.

  “Just get us on the ground,” said Andrew.

  “Yeah getting us there won’t be a problem, it’s just how we get there that concerns me.”

  A series of jolts ripped through the ship, red warning lights and smoke filled the cockpit.

  “We’re hit!” Shouted the Captain.

  “Just stay focused on landing this thing,” replied Andrew.

  A small red planet came into view. More Gauss cannon bursts flickered past, some impacting the hull.

  “Okay, strap yourself in,” said the Captain.

  “This planet’s got a toxic atmosphere, so grab a breather mask in case we have a complete hull breach.”

  “Where’s your mask?” Andrew asked him.

  “Right next to yours under the console.”

  Andrew reached down and grabbed both. Using an exposed pipe that ran across the top of the cockpit to keep his balance, he moved towards the Captain.

  “What are you doing, I told you to put one on and strap yourself in.”

  “Just stay focused,” Andrew replied.

  The breather mask consisted of a piece that covered both nose and mouth with a miniature tank of highly compressed oxygen and an air recycling unit. It had two rubber straps to keep the whole thing on the wearer’s face. Andrew reached around from behind the Captain and put the mask in place, then slid the straps in behind his head. Once he was done, Andrew returned to his seat, put on the second mask and strapped himself in.

  “Thanks,” said the Captain without looking up from the controls.

  “Yeah no pro-”

  An explosion shook the entire ship.

  “Main power core’s been hit…I’ve got to shut it down,” the Captain announced.

  “We’re going in hot!”

  Flames formed around the freighter as it entered the planet’s atmosphere. The ship began to shake violently. Andrew was a veteran soldier, he had survived countless wars and campaigns. He had enlisted at the age of eighteen, from that point on the military had been his entire life. Moving from one battle to the next, almost constantly engaged in combat.

  In all that time he had never once feared for his life. By now he was so used to death, that in the moments where he faced it he felt calm, even peaceful. Yet somehow, as the crippled freighter plunged through the atmosphere, a tremor of fear crept through him. Or was it regret, regret at dying by the hands of physics rather than an enemy he could engage? It didn't really matter, there was a good chance that soon nothing would matter anymore.

  Andrew closed his eyes, the faces of the dead flashing before him. He saw friends, fellow soldiers who had died alongside him. Enemies he’d killed and the innocent who had got caught in the crossfire. All of their faces flashing before him with perfect clarity. All of a sudden the ship lurched sideways, sending them into a rapid spin. His vision blurred and grew dimmer as blood stated to collect in his extremities. He felt a stab of pain in his right thigh and then everything went dark.

  Chapter 3

  Major Sarah Clark walked swiftly through the main corridor of the Terra space dock. The corridor was a ring of glass that went all the way around the circular station. Long spikes extruded from it at regular intervals, along which ships of all sizes were docked. The spikes were in fact just more corridors also made of glass, giving the station the look of a giant crystal.

  It looked pretty all right, but it also made her feel uncomfortable. The glass was incredibly strong but that didn't stop it from looking too fragile in her opinion. A military space dock would have been constructed of nanite armor and would be bristling with weaponry. But this place was meant to look beautiful and make an impression on the rich merchants and business people who usually docked there. The ships out there were pleasure yachts or corporate shuttles. It was certainly the last place anyone would think to look for a military ship.

  Apparently the brass at Imperial Intelligence shared her opinion. Admiral Constantine had given her the pick of any ship in the fleet and she had specifically requested one of the intelligence network’s stalkers. They were small, the usual crew compliment was about twenty. They were also fast and came equipped with the best sensor and stealth systems the Empire had to offer. When she had informed Imperial Intelligence of her request Sarah had made it clear that no one else in the fleet was to know about it. In typical Imperial Intelligence fashion, they had followed her request to the letter. Here at the commercial space dock, no one in the fleet would think to look for a military ship.

  That still left idle spectators though, who might wonder what a stalker class ship was doing here. For that reason the entire station had been in emergency lock down for the past hour. No more ships were allowed anywhere near it and those already there had had their crew and passengers removed. The whole thing would probably infuriate a fair number of people who had their travel plans altered at a moment's notice, but that didn’t concern her. If anyone really went digging, they would undoubtedly find the evacuation order. That wasn’t enough for anyone in the fleet to discover what Sarah was up to however.

  As she approached docking spike thirty seven, she got her first view of the Twilight. Like all stalker class ships, she was painted completely black, with smooth rounded edges, designed to deflect sensors at irregular angles. The Twilight was narrow at the front and got progressively wider towards the rear culminating in her two main thruster ports. The underside of the ship's hull was more or less flat. The upper portion had a raised spine running down the length of the ship that sloped down towards the sides. Apart from the two rear thruster ports, the ship's hull looked completely smooth.

  Sarah noticed a small group of people gathered around the doors connecting the docking spike to the central docking ring. The crew she had requested was waiting. When they saw her approach, they all snapped to attention. There were five of them, a much smaller than normal crew size, but certainly enough for her purposes.

  Sarah stopped facing them, casually returning their salute.

  “At ease”, she said.

  “Before we go any further, I must impress upon you all the utmost seriousness of the situation.” Sarah noticed that they all stiffened at her words.

  “Secrecy on this mission will be paramount”, she continued.

  “I must therefore ask each of you to show me your orders before we do anything else.”

  The man closest to the door stepped forward. He had a short square build, w
ith short, dirty blond hair and close set brown eyes.

  “Frank Nolen, Chief Engineer”, he said thrusting a fleet ID card toward her in his outstretched hand.

  “You wished to see my orders Major.”

  “Yes, thank you”, replied Sarah taking the card.

  She slid it through the verification device she was carrying. A second later the device beeped, confirming his identity and orders to report aboard the Imperial stalker ship, Twilight.

  “Thank you Chief”, she said giving him back the card.

  “Lieutenant Ingrid Dolohov,” the woman next to Nolan said stepping forward.

  She had light blond hair with equally light blue eyes. She seemed to be the most at ease of everyone.

  Major Clark took her card and slid it through the reader.

  “You’re the sensors operator I requested?” She asked.

  “Yes Major.”

  “Very well then, next please.”

  “Ensign Joseph Aziz, helm officer,” said a dark skinned young man stepping forward.

  The next member of Sarah's crew was a tall red haired man sporting a thin scar over his right eye.

  “Lieutenant Steve Graham, systems officer”, he said handing her his card.

  When Sarah reached the last crew member she found herself facing a young woman about her height with coal black hair and eyes.

  Her face had a cold look to it, betraying absolutely no emotion.

  “Commander Anna Jackson”, she said dryly.

  “And I guess former commanding officer of the Twilight. If I may ask Major, what am I doing here?”

  Sarah thought she might have caught a brief twitch in her stone carved face but it was gone in an instant. Taking her card, she slid it through the reader, identity confirmed.

  “You are here because I ordered you here”, she replied handing the woman back her ID.

  “I require the use of this ship and I need someone who is familiar with its capabilities and naval tactics in general.”

  “What does that mean?” Asked Anna.

  “It means Commander, that while I am in charge of the overall mission, you still have command of the Twilight.”