fire while the fighters and Aquila took out their defense systems. It was cruel but necessary.
Valeria turned. “Your Highness, we are detecting a battleship class vessel behind that large asteroid. Bearing: four-zero-three.”
Lucius looked there. He couldn’t spot the ship. All units – he sent to the fleet’s captains – prepare to engage the battleship.
“Hold on,” Valeria said, “our readings show the battleship is offline.”
Belay that order – Lucius sent again – focus on the outpost.
But oddly, Burnum wasn’t defending. First they didn’t respond to his hails, now they didn’t fight back. Something was wrong. “What are the readings on the outpost?”
“It seems Burnum is offline as well,” Valeria said and then turned to Lucius with eyes full of confusion. She was undoubtedly asking herself the same question as Lucius did – What in gods’ names was happening down there?
Lucius pushed himself up on his wheels. “Captain, prepare a boarding crew. Commander, you’re coming with me.”
“As you command, Your Highness,” both of them said.
The boarding party was already assembled when Lucius and Valeria entered the hangar bay. They were strong men, as far as Lucius could tell, soldiers, just what he needed for this assignment. One of them carried an EMP cannon on his back, the rest were armed with the standard military issue pulse rifles. Lucius wanted to ask for a weapon, but then he never used one before. He fought with hands and feet alone. Now he wasn’t even sure he could use a weapon with one hand and one claw. He gritted his teeth as he entered the shuttle. Valeria took a seat next to him.
“What do you think has happened, Your Highness?”
His focus was out through the porthole, watching Aquila’s bay door open. “I don’t know. Last time I was here the outpost was thriving. There were two hundred Imperials, working day and night to satisfy the Empire’s needs for raw materials. Three battleships were assigned to defend Burnum even though no one outside the highest-ranking officers knew of its existence.”
“When was that?” Valeria asked.
Lucius counted the years as the shuttle left the Aquila. “Twenty years ago,” he said.
“It seems a lot has changed since then, Your Highness.”
The emperor nodded grimly. He needed this outpost operational, not offline. Gods, I ask only for a pair of legs.
The outpost’s bay door had to be blasted open by Aquila’s cannons so the shuttle could land. Whoever left the base had made sure the bay door was sealed for some reason.
“Okay, soldiers,” Lucius said once the boarding party was out. “Use your flashlights. If there’s anyone alive out here it won’t show on the thermal imaging. We need a sweep on the entire outpost. Your priority is to search for cybernetic parts – legs in particular. Your secondary objective is to look for anything that might answer why the outpost is dead. And keep your grav-boots on.” Lucius didn’t have them, but his wheels had some magnetic ability that kept him from floating.
“As you command.” They bowed, and then scattered around the base. Lucius, Valeria, and two other soldiers, handpicked by Arrius as a personal guard to the emperor, headed for the bridge. If there was anyone alive in this gods’ forsaken outpost, the bridge had to be the place.
Their footsteps clanked on the metal floor. But not the wheels, he thought, servomotors don’t clank. The echo was louder than Lucius was used to. He took a deep breath. He had no cranial computer to compute air density, but he could feel its weight. “Do you notice something, commander?” he asked.
She walked next to him, her hand keeping the flashlight steady ahead. Circle of light showed empty corridor while Lucius waited for her answer. Valeria turned the flashlight up on the overhead and around the walls. “Except the fact that the outpost is abandoned?” she asked.
“The air,” said Lucius. “It is stale and heavy, almost Bion-like.”
Valeria sniffed, her metal nostrils widening. “Indeed it is,” she said. “Do you think Bions are behind this?”
Lucius didn’t think it was possible, but Imperials would never waste so much energy on producing oxygen. They could survive in less than what the Bions needed. Even if they were in areas without oxygen, their bodies were designed to put everything in hibernation and focus on keeping the brain alive.
“I think we will find out,” Lucius said.
They climbed two decks above the hangar bay. Lucius cursed every time he saw stairs, cursed the power shutdown and the inoperative elevators. For the first set of stairs he gritted his teeth and fought his way up, holding the railway with one hand and slowly lifting one wheel after another. But at the second set of stairs he wasn’t going to suffer anymore humiliation while Valeria watched him struggle. He commanded his guards to carry him over the stairs – it was the lesser embarrassment.
They reached the bridge without encountering anyone or anything.
Valeria unscrewed a command panel near the door and pressed a button hidden inside that caused the door to slide up. The doorway let out a burst of weak solar rays from the bridge’s windows into the dark corridor. The need for flashlights instantly diminished, though the emperor’s guards decided to keep them on.
As Lucius suspected, the bridge was abandoned as well. Two rows of computer screens and dashboards stood empty and covered with layers of dust. The round table in the middle of the bridge, where the usual status report was projected, was now dead and hollow.
It seemed as if every Imperial soldier that was stationed here just disappeared.
Lucius moved to the closest computer screen. He knew there was no electricity in the outpost but he pressed the power button on the keyboard, nonetheless. Except for a faint click, noting else happened. He turned to Valeria. “Can we get the power back on?” Lucius asked.
Valeria looked at the portable computer on her wrist. She tapped few buttons. “Negative. It appears that they have dismantled the power core before they left.”
Lucius looked around. The two soldiers were sweeping the bridge, rifle and flashlight in hands. One of them even was checking under the seats.
“Can we get some power to the bridge?” Lucius asked.
“Depends on how much power you need, Your Highness.”
“I need these computers online. I want to see the security footage.”
“Maybe if we attach Aquila’s power core to the outpost we can reroute enough so that the bridge would have all the power you need.”
“Do it, commander,” he said.
Valeria immediately contacted Arrius and started working on it while Lucius was moving around the bridge, trying to find some answers. What happened here, Dillius?
He stopped at the center of the wide panoramic window stretching on three sides of the bridge. One fighter flew close by. It was headed toward the Aquila.
Captain – Lucius sent – send another boarding party on the battleship. Maybe it would have the answers Lucius needed.
The emperor turned his back on the space view and drove himself to the command seat. He swiped his hand over the metal before he seated, leaving a crescent black trail. He took a seat and tried to assess the situation. There was no beam damage on the walls, no fluid on the floor. Maybe those savages boarded the station somehow. But what would they want from Burnum? It had nothing they might need. No, Lucius shook his head. Bions don’t even know this outpost exists. It had to be someone else. But who? If there was no attack, maybe the Imperials thought it was one of their own…
The usurper! Lucius stood up from the seat, almost losing his balance on his freaking wheels. But what would the usurper need from this outpost? Lucius tried to remember what was so important here. He remembered Captain Dillius, the big cybernetic creature he was with two sets of arms and tools always hanging down his waist. Four arms usually meant someone was an engineer as it made their work easier. Lucius also remembered that he brought his friend Olybrius here to have his neck wires replaced after a battle with the Bions. Palatine doctor
s said that Dillius was the man for such delicate job, they didn’t want to risk it – Palatine doctors didn’t want to risk it!
What else? The outpost was assigned to watch for incoming threats from beyond the system and to extract raw materials from the nearby asteroids in the meantime. It was nothing particular of value.
Modius – sent Lucius – did you know Captain Dillius?
After a slight delay the answer came right into Lucius’s head – Dillius, Your Highness? The engineer?
You know him?
Know him? Your Highness, that was the man that taught me how to fix people. He was an expert doctor, but he always considered himself an engineer rather than a doctor.
Do you know if he was involved in any illegal activities?
Mmm, not that I know of – was Modius’s reply – although…
Yes?
Well, I know that he created prosthetics for some people.
There’s nothing illegal about that – Lucius sent.
I know, but … let’s just say these prosthetics were way better than the original ones.
I see – Lucius clenched a fist, his eyes drifting to the window and his battleship – Prepare the infirmary, doctor. I intend to bring you a pair of legs in a few hours.
It will be my pleasure, Your Highness.
And it will be my pleasure to take off your head for what you did to me, Lucius thought, but he brushed away those thoughts. First things first. He needed to find out why the usurper needed Captain Dillius and his outpost.
“Commander,” he said, “how long will it take?”
“Clodius is working on Aquila, Your Highness. It won’t take long.”
Lucius drove himself toward the security console and waited there pressing the power button over and over until finally it turned on. Lights started to illuminate the overhead. Every computer screen flickered as they came online with the image of the Imperial golden eagle.
Lucius drove his hand over the screen and then over the keyboard, to clean them as much as he could, and he started tapping buttons. Soon enough he found what he was looking for – the last recorded security footage. Valeria came closer as he started the video.
It was the command bridge from one of the upper cameras. Dillius was sitting in the command seat. “What is it?” he asked.
“Sir, we have an incoming Imperial vessel,” a voice from one of the personnel answered.
“There is no landing scheduled for today,” Dillius said. “Are you sure it’s one of our own?”
“Affirmative, captain. IFF says it’s an Imperial battleship.”
“A battleship?” he stood up. “Hail them.”
It took a minute for the reply, “They are not responding on any of our frequencies, sir. Not even to our cranial transmissions.”
Dillius rubbed his chin, his eyes set on the holographic projection of Burnum and the approaching battleship marked in neutral yellow. “Maybe their communications are down…”
“But what about their cranial transmitters? They would certainly work.”
There was a moment of pause.
“Our battleships are awaiting orders, sir. What will it be?”
“We are not going to fire on our people, ensign. We are already few as it is. They have permission to land.”
The next camera was inside the hangar bay. Dillius and a small group of soldiers were standing at the ship’s docking ramp. The airlock door was opened, but no one was coming out.
“Hello,” Dillius called. “Anyone there?”
No one responded.
The soldiers exchanged nervous glances, their pulse rifles and flashlights trained at the door. After a couple of minutes of silence, Dillius ordered his men to move in.
Two soldiers went first, followed by two more. Six soldiers were left standing in line next to Dillius in the hangar bay. Suddenly there was a flash of light extending from the ramp. Two soldiers collapsed. The rest opened fire at the door.
One soldier came out running. He
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