Imperator

by Timothy Ellis

  Imperator

  By Timothy Ellis

  The Hunter Imperium, Book Seven

  Copyright © 2019 by Timothy Ellis

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and events are fictional and have no relationship to any real person, place or event. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely co-incidental.

  The author is Australian and the main characters in this book are of Australian origin. In Australia, we colour things slightly differently, so you may notice some of the spelling is different. Please don't be alarmed.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contents

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Twenty Seven

  Twenty Eight

  Twenty Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty One

  Thirty Two

  Thirty Three

  Thirty Four

  Thirty Five

  Thirty Six

  Thirty Seven

  Thirty Eight

  Thirty Nine

  Forty

  Forty One

  Forty Two

  Forty Three

  Forty Four

  Forty Five

  Forty Six

  Forty Seven

  Forty Eight

  Forty Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty One

  Galaxy Map

  Core Imperium Map

  Old Sector Maps

  Imperium Ranks

  Imperium Uniforms

  Imperium Insignia

  Imperium Fleet

  Acknowledgements

  A Message to my Readers

  Also by Timothy Ellis

  Read series in this order

  The Hunter Legacy Timeline

  One

  The rift opened.

  BigMother powered into the Trixone system, and settled into orbit of the single habitable planet, Trixone itself. In quick succession, we were followed by Sceptre of Kali, Hammer of Thor, Trident, Valkyrie, Orion’s Belt, and Orion’s Stars. Six titans and my command carrier. I’d left everyone else in blocking positions at jump points into our space, under siege by the Trixone.

  Within minutes, we’d taken carefully selected positions around the planet.

  It was just Jane and I on the bridge. I’d left everyone else behind. On the titans, only the captains and their AI avatars were there as well. Neither of the carriers had fighters.

  Hunter, Lacey, Bentley, Jedburgh, Bigglesworth, Hallington, O’Neill.

  Seven names to add to the rolls of the infamous.

  I’d made it quite clear this was volunteer only. I needed the ships. I didn’t need people to join me in hell. We’d offloaded all the crews, but the captains had refused to move from their chairs.

  I contemplated ordering them to leave, and even having their AI’s physically frog-march them off the ship. And if they still refused, I also contemplated having a mage jump them off the ship. But I couldn’t do that to these people.

  The AI’s had also been given the chance to pull out. Jane and I were committed to this, but we could have done it without each ship’s AI, with them withdrawing to an avatar, and letting Jane take full control. After all, she’d controlled far more during the Darkness War. But they all stayed. Of their own free will.

  Seven people. Seven AI’s. About to be damned.

  I made eye contact with Jane, seated in her normal position on the left end of the main front console. She looked as grim as I knew I looked.

  The war raged on. We held our own at the entrances to our own space, but the Trixone were an endless series of tidal waves, breaking on the shore of our defenses. And given enough time, they would wash them away, and us.

  There were no doubts now. The new jump drives were fitted to all our ships, including a set of unused freighters Jane was now using to place comnavsats on every known jump point we could reach. The live navmap was steadily growing bigger across the line of the Trixone frontier every day, and the extent of how badly the rest of the galaxy was screwed kept getting worse.

  We’d been building battlestations as fast as we could. But the further Jane dropped comnavsats, the more beleaguered species we found, who needed them to defend their systems. We barely had enough, and yet, how could we not help those in dire need?

  The problem was logistics. We simply didn’t have enough shipyard facilities for the amount of ship building we needed to do, let alone for battlestations and trade network stations. The Keerah and Ralnor had capacity, but they were totally absorbed in replacing ship losses, even if we’d been prepared to share the specs for the battlestations, which we weren’t. We had treaties with them, but not anything near an alliance level. We’d barely started trading with the Ralnor, and adding in special networking for them to move troops independently of the trade network had only just begun.

  Several Imperium members had reasonable shipbuilding capacity, but were mainly building civilian ships. They had very little ability to rapidly retool for battlestations. No-one had our level of automation in the building process. No-one had AI’s doing the work through specialized builder droids.

  The Imperium itself was still in its infancy, and mobilization was taking too much time. Only us Havenites, all fifteen thousand of us, had fought a major war in recent times, but we were the leftovers of the human survivors of the Darkness War, and we didn’t have the numbers to fight this one alone. And only we had decent ships, or tech. The Keerah and Ralnor had equivalent tech to the Trixone, and were more advanced in some areas than we were, but they’d not been fighting a war, just border skirmishes. At least until we’d come along and sparked it all.

  This only ended one way if we couldn’t solve the basic issues. The Darkness War had been a fight for survival with the entire universe at stake. The Trixone war only had the animal life of the galaxy at stake, but from my perspective, both were as bad as each other.

  The war would probably take centuries. But even in the few weeks it’d been raging so far, the death toll was in the tens of billions already. Unique species, gone for good.

  And it was my watch.

  The galaxy wasn’t going to end on my watch. Not if I could help it.

  Which brought us here. And now. To Trixone.

  I’d been here before. I rifted down to negotiate a ceasefire. They attacked me. I told them I could end their world if they didn’t negotiate a peace. They brought in heavy weapons I had to chop up using my sword. They tried to overpower me. I was forced to kill all those who tried. In the end, with them refusing to even talk to me, I left.

  The Imperium council had watched the whole thing.

  They called me back.

  They gave me orders.

  I refused them.

  They argued it for a very long day.

  I couldn’t come up with a counter argument which worked. Neither could Jane.

  They told me it was the only way.

  I told them it was bullshit.

  They gave me the ord
ers again.

  I broke my wrist slamming it into the table with too much force.

  The meeting adjourned while I had treatment. I spent the night in a care unit while my wrist mended. It still twinged.

  In the end, I gave in.

  It had to be done. There was no other way.

  And so, here we were.

  I sighed. Jane nodded. The six captains appeared as hollos over the console. I looked around at them all. They met my eyes, but said nothing. Their expressions mirrored my own.

  “Targets locked,” said Jane.

  “Fire.”

  Two hundred and forty one titan turrets, and nine hundred and sixty four battleship turrets all fired down at targets all over the world at the same time.

  Four thousand eight hundred and twenty four big guns.

  Never before had this sort of firepower been deployed at a single target.

  The surface of the planet was torn open along fault lines and the edges of tectonic plates. Lava flowed. Volcanoes created themselves. Dirt and dust was blown up into the atmosphere, joined by smoke and ash.

  What could burn, burned.

  We shifted targets, and hit the planet again. And again. And again.

  When we left a half hour later, there was nothing left alive down there. Not so much as a single blade of grass was left. The planet would be uninhabitable for a long time.

  The next rift took us to the planet which was now the new Trixone capital. Like Trixone, it had no defenses. They didn’t believe they’d ever need any, not this deep into their space.

  I opened a channel and told them about Trixone. We waited while they confirmed there was no response from the system. I asked them to negotiate a cease fire. They told me they didn’t negotiate with their food.

  A half hour later, and this planet had suffered the same fate.

  We moved on to the next nearest major system. They confirmed no response to either of the first two systems. I asked them to negotiate a ceasefire. They told me they didn’t negotiate with their food. I asked them if they wanted to die? They responded with everyone dies sometime. I asked them if they cared two planets were dead? They told me it made no difference to them at all.

  Along the Trixone border, nothing changed. The war went on. The still open rifts allowed the Trixone to communicate with their forces at the front. They didn’t bother.

  My orders gave me no latitude.

  We burned this planet as well.

  I closed the other rifts, and opened one for home. I sent the titans back to where they’d been on picket duty at each of our under siege jump points, and parked BigMother next to Terminus station. The last rift of the day opened into the council chamber. I stalked through it.

  I stood behind my chair at the round table, and looked at them all.

  “I fucking told you so!”

  Two

  Aline and I sat on a beach.

  Neither of us said anything. We sat there, watching the sunset. Angel was scratching at a bug in the sand a short way away.

  My head was throbbing with a massive hangover, and my medical monitor was turned off.

  I wanted this hangover. I needed this hangover.

  I’d told the council to go to hell, rifted myself to my suite on Haven, and rifted Aline and Angel back with me to BigMother. My staff had appeared in my hand and I’d ground it into the deck with a savagery I’d never felt before, and we’d found ourselves orbiting Gold Coast. The staff vanished.

  Aline had held my hand while I’d drunk myself paralytic. They told me Jane had to help put me to bed. I’d forgotten Jane was still on board. I’d slept well into today, and woken needing the bathroom urgently. It wasn’t so much puking, as projectile vomit.

  I sat in the shower, head throbbing, and did release after release, coughing my guts out, the water washing tears away.

  When I emerged, Aline wrapped her arms around me, and we stood there for a while, just hugging.

  Jane took us down to our beach in a gig, and left us there. The mansion we’d had here, had never existed.

  I could see Aline didn’t understand. But she wasn’t going to ask. The sun set, and the skyline turned a brilliant orange colour, which slowly faded to black. The stars came out. Familiar ones.

  Angel curled up in my lap. The silence was broken only by the lap of waves on the shore.

  “It’s not the killing of three planets of Trixone,” I finally said.

  “What is it then?”

  “It was killing everything else. Laying waste to three habitable planets where life thrived.”

  “You had to do it.”

  “I know. They were never going to understand the Trixone without the demonstration.”

  They, was the council of leaders who actually ran the Imperium. Technically I was on it, but I left them to it. They were politicians. I was a soldier. They didn’t understand.

  “What was there to understand?”

  “Any other sentient species, destroy the homeworld, and you destroy their leadership. The next leader sues for peace. The ultimate expression of the weapon of mass destruction. Has to be used at least once. Use it, and they surrender. But not the Trixone.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told them. The Trixone have no central government. Each planet is autonomous. They live with a biological imperative to feed and propagate. When a planet is full, they send the overflow to find a new one. When a sector of space is full, they throw their spawn to the galactic winds. When they filled up all the space the Keerah and Ralnor allowed them, they swarmed. Or at least they were about to, and we triggered it a bit early.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “Just joining the dots.”

  “You make them sound like an insect hive.”

  “There are some similarities. But even insects stop when you kill the queen. We could spend the next hundred years killing planets, and still not eradicate the Trixone. I told them that. They didn’t believe me.”

  “It had to be done.”

  “No, it didn’t. We killed I don’t know how many billions of beings in less than two hours. And it accomplished nothing.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Why isn’t it?”

  “It demonstrated what you said was true.”

  I sighed. True enough. We sat there a bit longer.

  “So what do we do next?” she asked.

  “There are two options.”

  “Only two?”

  “Yes. But also no.”

  “Clear, like mud.”

  “That’s usually my line.”

  “I know.”

  She chuckled, and leaned in close, the slight chill of the night air starting to be felt. She waited me out.

  “We need to build an iron curtain across the frontier.”

  “Option one?”

  “No. Part one.”

  “What’s part two?”

  “Sealing off a third of the galaxy from the other two thirds.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Sealing the Trixone into their own space?”

  “Yes.”

  “A lifetime.”

  “So we better get started then?”

  “I guess so.”

  We sat there some more, the anger, frustration, and sorrow leeching out of me into the sand.

  I knew what needed to be done now.

  The one thing I hadn't wanted to do.

  The one thing more dangerous than the Trixone would ever be. Although no-one but me would think so, at least not until too late.

  I turned my medical monitor back on, and the throbbing in my head ended. Plucking Angel from my lap, I stood, helped Aline up with my other hand, and rifted us back to BigMother.

  One last night of peace and quiet. Even while we were making love, I was getting my thoughts straight. After Aline went to sleep, I lay there, working out the plan.

  What do you do when the jungle claims everything, and defoliation was going to take too long?
r />   You unleash the galactic locusts.

  Three

  “So who didn’t get drunk?”

  Bigglesworth was grinning as I entered the small conference room, but everyone else looked serious. No-one raised their hand, or in any way indicated the negative. I sat at the head of the table, and looked around at my titan drivers. Bigglesworth downgraded his grin to a smile.

  “Boss?” said Lacey.

  “You want to renew your objection to being captain of Sceptre.”

  “Yes.”

  “Noted. Who do you recommend instead?”

  He looked down, and said nothing. No-one offered a name. No surprise there. I was using all the captains I had already.

  “Do we have a plan?” asked Jedburgh.

  “We do.”

  They looked interested, but no-one seemed to be the one wanting to ask what. So I went on.

  “We need several things.”

  “Just several?” asked Susan.

  “Minor things really.”

  “Such as?” asked Bigglesworth.

  “Shipyards, ships, pilots, troops.”

  “That about sums it up,” said Jedburgh.

  “Where do we get them?” asked Lacey.

  I told them.

  “Isn’t that expecting too much?” asked Susan.

  “Possibly. Jane’s recalled her biggest freighter for recon. By the time BigMother is out of the shipyard, we should know where to hit.”

  “Are we all going in?” asked Bigglesworth.

  “Actually no. The titans have to stay where they are while I’m gone. I’ll probably need one of them for a short time, but I’ll wait and see first.”

  Most of them were nodding. They knew if I needed them, I’d create a rift, and bring them through it. I turned to Lacey.

  “Talk to Chet about his pilots.”

  Chet Hallington commanded Orion’s Belt, where our fighter pilots were being trained, and he was sitting next to him. Lacey had until the other day been CAG there.

  “I want four squadrons of Excalibur fours on BigMother when she comes out of the shipyard with the accommodation, launch tube, shielding, and gun upgrades complete. Call them 666 Wing, but they operate as a single squadron. But I only want the middle section of the flight roster. Keep the best, and the worst on Orion, and continue training them.”