“You…you’re serious?” The Captain replied, his eyes widening in fear.
“Oh shit man! All you Invictus Legion are the same, you’re all insane fanatics!”
“Calm down,” Andrew told him.
“Calm down? You fucking want to kill me! I…I should have just let you bleed out, instead now I’m stuck here with a psychotic killer!”
He took a step back from Andrew and pulled out a small survival knife. Even with his injured leg Andrew was faster. Keeping his left hand on the beam for support he pivoted on his right leg and brought the edge of his right hand to bear on the man’s left temple. The Captain’s head snapped to the side and he fell limp on the floor.
Andrew sank down next to him feeling his neck, no pulse. He pried apart the man’s fingers and retrieved the survival knife. The blade was eight centimeters long and made of Titanium. There was a small light source built into the back of the handle that you could turn on by twisting it. He began taking stock of his surroundings. There were only two intact crates in the ship’s cargo bay. The first contained dried pineapple, well at least he wouldn’t starve. The second container had a locking mechanism. Andrew used the knife to pry it open.
It was instantly apparent why this container had been locked. Inside were three stabilizing canisters each with a large red ‘T’ painted on them. This was the Imperial standard symbol to indicate that these containers were filled with Tritium. Normally used as fuel for fusion reactors, it was of no use to Andrew now. However, if he could get his hands on a plasma grenade or something similar, that would create on hell of an explosion.
Andrew looked around for the gear he had taken with him from the Gorgon, but it was nowhere to be found. He would make do with what he had, which wasn’t much. A survival knife and possibly a large bomb, provided he could find the other parts he needed. He set about searching the ship for something he could use. The engines were his best bet, but the shengyet had no doubt concentrated their fire in that area.
The door that led from the cargo bay to the engine compartment was jammed. One of the cargo crates had slammed into it, leaving a large dent in the door as well as warping part of the frame. Andrew squeezed his fingers into a small crack between the door and the top of the frame and pulled.
He pulled with all his might, the door creaked and groaned, finally it popped out of its frame and clattered to the cargo bay floor. The engine room was pitch black. Every so often an electric flash from some malfunctioning piece of equipment pierced the darkness. Andrew turned on the light source built into the knife and entered. The engine room was a mess, power lines and support beams were strewn everywhere.
As he approached the ship’s main reactor, his hopes of salvaging anything vanished. The core had been on the verge of overloading. The intense heat had completely fused everything near it. A clanging sound from the front of the ship, made Andrew freeze. Turning off his light source, he melted into the dark engine room. Loud hissing and heavy footsteps where drawing ever closer. Through the demolished engine room door, Andrew could see the cockpit door open. Two shengyet lumbered into the cargo bay, communicating in their strange hissing language. It didn’t surprise Andrew that they weren’t wearing any breathing masks. Shengyet were able to adapt to a wide variety of atmospheric environments.
They were tall, almost seven feet, heavily muscled and covered with dull green scales. The twin nostrils at the end of their elongated heads sniffed the air. Their mouths were filled with large, pointed teeth. Like humans they were bipeds, but unlike humans they had three digits on each of their hands and feet. Digits capped with long, wickedly sharp retractable claws. By far their most striking feature however, was their eyes. Situated halfway between the front and sides of their heads, they appeared to glow with a deep blood red.
Their glowing red eyes darted around the room and spotted the Captain. The one on the left stooped to examine the body. After a second it let out a sharp horse cry and its partner automatically tensed. They were clever, Andrew gave them that. They must have figured out that the Captain had been killed by something other than the crash. Both sets of eyes focused on the engine room door and both their weapons snapped up. It was at this point Andrew realized just what type of weapons the two were carrying. Each was holding a brand new R6 rifle. Where the hell had they gotten those from?
True, it wasn’t that hard to come by standard Imperial military equipment. There were enough Imperial personnel who weren’t above falsifying a requisition order or two for a little extra credits. But that only worked with standard military equipment, the sort of thing that every soldier in the Empire would have. The R6 was a prototype, not even officially in service yet. The only military unit that had access to it was the Invictus Legion and they had only just received them. Every member of the Legion, save Andrew, was aboard the Gorgon. The weapons couldn’t have come from there. Even if the shengyet had somehow captured the Gorgon, there was no way for them to get here this fast.
That left only one place they could have gotten those weapons from, directly from the manufacturer. But the Empire’s weapons research facilities were some of the most heavily fortified installations in the galaxy. It would be impossible for the shengyet to get anywhere near them. His musings were cut short as the two shengyet cautiously stepped into the engine room. All Andrew could see of them now were those glowing red eyes. They split up, one pair of eyes going right, the other left. The one on the right was now only feet from him, Andrew tensed and held his breath. The shengyet came closer, he tightened his grip on the knife.
Andrew lunged forward, driving the knife right between the two red dots facing him. The shengyet fell to the ground, dead before it even knew what had happened. Its partner was fast, in one single motion it dropped to one knee and whirled around. But Andrew had already retrieved his knife and hurled it where he guessed the creature’s throat to be. A strangled gurgling confirmed that he had been correct and the second shengyet crashed to the floor.
Andrew dragged them both into the cargo bay. He relieved the two of their rifles and began to search the bodies for anything else useful. Both were wearing body armor, but shengyet physiology was sufficiently different from humans that it was useless to him. However, both had a bandoleer of extra ammunition for the rifles. Each could hold up to ten clips but there were only two in each, Andrew combined them into one. One of them also carried a small scanner and radio device. He could perhaps use it to call for help, but for the moment he wasn’t even sure how it worked and the shengyet would probably be able to triangulate any signals he sent.
Andrew examined the R6 rifles, both were brand new and in perfect working order. He checked the weapon’s serial numbers only to discover they had none. This was getting stranger by the minute. Serial numbers on Imperial weapons were engraved in several places, making it impossible to remove them without leaving some sign of tampering. Yet these weapons were spotless and had no trace of a serial number.
The only explanation Andrew could think of was that they had been purposely made this way during assembly. Which meant that either one or more research facilities had been captured, highly unlikely. Or that someone with substantial influence in the Empire was selling advanced Imperial technology. He didn’t much care about the intricacies of Imperial politics, but Andrew wasn’t crazy about the idea of facing Imperial prototype weapons in combat.
Especially the R6, it was an incredibly deadly weapon. Like all other Gauss rifles, the R6 used a series of magnetic fields to accelerate a pellet down the barrel of the weapon. Because the pellets were accelerated to nearly the speed of light, they could be tiny and still do tremendous damage. Standard Imperial ammunition was about the size of a grain of rice. A single clip held hundreds of rounds, which meant the major limiting factor of any Gauss rifle, was its energy supply.
Standard Gauss rifles used battery packs that ran out of power after about fifty shots. These rifles were also only capable of semi-automatic fire. The R6 rifle was completely differen
t. It had its own miniature fusion reactor, giving it unprecedented power for a portable weapon. It could fire virtually unlimited amounts of ammunition on fully automatic fire mode. The result was a weapon that could unleash a hailstorm of death, limited only by the speed at which one could slam a fresh clip into place.
Andrew pushed these thoughts out of his head; they did nothing to address his current problem. He needed some way to get off this planet or send out a distress call. Preferably without bringing the shengyet down on him in the process. He knew enough about shengyet battle tactics to know that they would have set up a base camp. That brought him back to the Tritium canisters, he could use them to take out the entire camp. Provided he could find it and provided the shengyet didn’t have any additional ships orbiting the planet. Too many variables for his liking, but there was nothing he could do about it.
After about ten minutes, he had managed to fashion a crude backpack from parts of the shengyet’s body armor and pieces of the Captain's clothing. Inside it he stored the Tritium and some of the pineapple. The weight in the pack was starting to add up, it would slow him down. He slung the bandoleer over one shoulder, then put on the pack. He picked up one of the rifles and set off.
Outside the crashed freighter he could see the two shengyet’s tracks in the Invictus oxide dust that blanketed the planet's surface. A lucky break, but it also meant that he could be tracked just as easily. It was the first time he had got a good look at the planet. Andrew’s first impression was of a vast red desert. There was only flat ground covered in red dust. He didn’t like it; it felt too open, too exposed. There was no cover, nowhere for him to hide or sneak up on an enemy. His only consolation was that the shengyet couldn’t do so either. Then again they might not need to. For all he knew, they could have sensors at their base or aboard one of their ships tracking him right now. He could be walking into a giant trap. It didn’t really matter though; his only chance of survival was getting off this planet or calling for help. Both options required that he find the shengyet camp.
Andrew had been walking for what seemed like hours. Constantly following the set of shengyet footprints. The planet's surface was hot, he was sweating profusely and the damn breather mask just made it worse. Not to mention the so-called pack he was carrying. He had cobbled the thing together out of anything he could find and he had to admit, he’d done a terrible job. The straps were far too thin and slowly dug themselves into his shoulders.
Normally it wouldn't have bothered him all that much. Andrew was used to pain and discomfort. The real problem with this endless march, was that it gave him time to think. How was he going to get off this planet, even if he found the shengyet camp? The shengyet would shoot him on sight and he doubted they’d have a ship sitting on the surface that he could commandeer. Even if he did manage to get a hold of one, from what he’d seen of the shengyet ships they were all short range fighters. He might be able to make it back to the Gorgon, but that was a long shot.
And for some reason his thoughts kept drifting back to the freighter Captain. Andrew couldn't figure out why. The man had been a threat and he’d neutralized him. Something he’d done countless times before. So why was this bothering him? The Captain had bandaged up his leg…but that didn’t change the facts. The man had represented a threat and Andrew had to take him down. He’d been a threat, right? The man had pointed a knife at him, that made him a threat.
The more he thought about it the less sure he was. Yes he’d had a knife and Andrew was injured, but even in that state he was more than a match for a freighter Captain. He could have tried to reason with the man, tried to calm him down. Oh to hell with it, he wasn’t a damn shrink! It wasn’t his job to calm down hysterical idiots.
The terrain had become slightly less flat, there were now many small hills scattered about the landscape. As he crested another one of the hills, Andrew spotted the shengyet camp. It was roughly a hundred meters straight ahead of him. Bringing up his rifle, he sighted through the scope. The camp consisted of a ring of small buildings centered around a larger one. All the buildings were made of various bits of scrap metal or pieces of whatever they could find it seemed. The large center building, he realized was the mid-section of an ancient inter-system freighter. There was no fence or other defensive perimeter that he could see. No guards, no shengyet at all for that matter. Either they were all inside the structures, in which case they were incredibly sloppy, or something was very wrong here.
The door to the large structure opened and out stepped a young shengyet. Andrew had learned to spot age differences in the species. This one was smaller than the adults and its skin was a lighter shade of green. The door opened again, and out walked a young man. Andrew had to convince himself he wasn’t hallucinating. They were discussing something but Andrew was too far away to make out what was being said. Both were wearing the raggedy assortment of clothing typical of shengyet pirates.
The human pulled a small device out of his pocket and started to fiddle with it. Suddenly the scanning device Andrew had taken off the dead shengyet beeped. He was sure they were too far away to hear the sound but both of them looked up in his direction. Andrew ducked down behind the crest of the hill, but the human was gesticulating in his direction. The scanner! It was probably linked with the device the human was holding. The young shengyet let out a tentative cry in Andrew’s direction. They must be expecting the two shengyet he'd run into earlier. Andrew had no intention of being around when they discovered what had happened to them. Dropping the scanner, he slowly retreated back down the hill.
Chapter 5
Vice-Admiral Marcus Jones cursed under his breath. He scanned the records on the view screen in front of him, trying to glean any more information. But no matter how many times he read through them, the records didn’t change. Major Clark had disappeared, vanished completely. Jones prided himself in digging up information, on anyone no matter how well they hid it.
He had spent much of his career expanding his access to any and all kinds of information. To the point where he now had a network of contacts throughout Imperial space. Yet even with all his information gathering resources focused on one person, he’d come up empty. The last record anyone had of Major Clark, was that she had boarded the Terra civilian space dock. There was no indication of where she had gone from there and no mention of when she’d be back.
It was obvious the Major had boarded a vessel, but which one? The Terra space dock had been completely evacuated before her arrival. None of his contacts had been able to follow her. Which meant she could be on any one of the thousands of ships docked there at the time. Jones was about to close the record when something caught his eye. The evacuation order, it was missing something. Normally every official order had its own serial number. Allowing anyone with the proper clearance to check who had given the order and why. The order to evacuate the Terra space dock however, had no serial number. In fact, now that he looked more closely, Jones could see no indication where this order had come from. Terra control had simply received an order to evacuate, no reason or identification given.
This was most curious; there were only two people in the Empire who could do that. The Emperor himself and…
“Constantine”, breathed Jones.
Of course! That was why Constantine was dragging his heels organizing a response to that frigate being destroyed. The old man had some clandestine operation that he wanted finished before anyone else got a look at the Dominance’s wreckage. That was where Major Clark must be headed.
What was it she had said at the briefing? Something about sending a small stealthy ship instead of an armada. Admiral Jones pushed a button on his desk to speak with his personal aid.
“Lieutenant Taylor.”
“Yes sir?”
“I need some information. Access the Imperial Intelligence database, I want a complete list of all their ships that have recently been pulled off regular duty.”
“Just how recent sir?” Asked the Lieutenant.
&
nbsp; “The last two days should do.”
“Very well sir, do you require anything else?”
“No, but send that list to my computer as soon as you have it.”
“Yes sir.”
Admiral Jones sat there, impatiently tapping his fingers on the desk in front of him. He realized what he was doing was dangerous. Admiral Constantine had authorized this mission. Which meant that if he interfered, he would be drawing the wrath of the head of the Imperial military. Depending on how this all turned out, he might even be facing charges of treason.
Then again, what choice did he have? The Human Empire could not afford to do this. Negotiating with someone who had attacked and destroyed a human ship would make them look weak. Jones was all too aware of how most alien races regarded humanity. Fear was what kept them in line. If they sensed weakness however, how many would rise up against them? How many human lives would be lost in the ensuing chaos?
Constantine and Clark wanted to avoid a war, to avoid what they thought to be unnecessary bloodshed. What they failed to realize, was that by doing so they would be starting something much worse. Instead of one war, with one enemy. They would end up setting events in motion that might turn the entire galaxy against them.
His console beeped and a list appeared on the screen. There were quite a few sudden re-deployments but that was normal for Imperial Intelligence. Jones scanned it until he found what he was looking for. The only ship that had been redeployed with no new location indicated. He read the name, the H.S. Twilight. The Twilight was one of Imperial Intelligence’s stalker class spy ships. Minimal crew and no weaponry to speak of, Marcus activated his com once again.
“Yes Admiral?”
“Lieutenant, patch me through to Captain Gerard and have my personal shuttle readied for immediate departure.”
Chapter 6
Imperium: Contact Page 5