Imperator

by Timothy Ellis

  He seemed unable to say anything, so I saved him the need to.

  “Yes, I could’ve killed you where you sit, before you even knew there was a threat. I could’ve done so the moment after you fired a gun at me. I still can.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  “Because you’re no threat to me. There is nothing you can do which can harm me.”

  “What do you want?”

  Said in a voice which implied I wouldn’t get it.

  “I want peace, trade, and the use of your military to fight a bigger enemy than you will ever be.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “I’ll leave you, and return to my ship. But before I go, I need to know exactly how we stand.”

  “We’re at war. Nothing you’ve said or done changes that.”

  “Fine. I assume you accept the consequences of that?”

  “There will be none. We are supreme in this area of space, and if you challenge us, we’ll destroy you.”

  “As long as we’re clear about that. What if we pass through your space peacefully?”

  “You will be attacked and destroyed. How much clearer can I be?”

  “Jane?”

  “Sir?”

  “Did you record all that?”

  “Confirmed. The Imperium council was watching.”

  “And their recommendation?”

  “Proceed.”

  “We’ll be back on board momentarily.”

  “Confirmed.”

  I rose, and looked down at him.

  “In the days to come, I trust you will remember I offered you peace. Thank you for your time, and I bid you a good day.”

  I gave him a nod, which he ignored, turned, and strode to the door. It opened, Aline on the other side, and I could see the team were mostly back in the room, with just Groves and Shaw pointing their guns up the corridor from the doorway. I closed the door behind me, opened a rift in front of it back to the bridge of BigMother, and stepped through. The others followed, and just before I closed it, I could see the receptionist standing there with horror showing on her face. I smiled at her, and the rift vanished.

  I shifted languages again.

  “Phase two,” I said to Jane, and took my seat.

  Thirty Five

  BigMother appeared just out of gun range of the Nazi fleet near the inhabited Athens planet.

  Before we jumped, I’d severed the jump point between Sixth Reich and Berlin, isolating the Nazi systems completely. It gave the planet’s defenses a chance to fire missiles at us, but we were long gone before any got even close to where we’d been. Had there been warships in orbit, Jane would probably have had to fight the ship before we returned, but there weren’t, all being at the jump point with their cousins.

  The fleet in Athens reacted to us appearing, by turning towards us as fast as they could, which for us was ponderous and slow, and pointing all their turrets at us. Missiles launched, but mosquitoes dealt with them in seconds.

  Staff in hand, I put a rift in front of the fleet, and they flew straight into it, appearing on the navmap in the same relative position in the Sixth Reich system. As soon as I removed the rift, Jane jumped us to the next fleet, where the same thing happened. Rinse and repeat, as they say in game circles.

  Half an hour later, we were in Jamaica, and there was not a single warship left outside of what I’d defined as core Nazi space. The Sixth Reich now had all of those ships, and most of them were pointed at the jump point up spine, and going as fast as their admirals could push them.

  “Phase three,” I said, and Jane popped up three screens, all showing the orbitals around the inhabited planets in what we knew as the Jamaica, Cuba, and Romania systems.

  On each, the missile platforms went red, with the exception of those with people on board, which went black. Stations with turrets capable of firing at the ground went blue. Fortunately, none of the main stations had any weapons at all, and the guns capable of firing down were like the missile platforms, unmanned and controlled from the military station around each planet.

  I concentrated on all three screens, and moved each of the red stations to the Redoubt system one by one as fast as I could. Followed by the blue stations. I left the black ones for last, moving them to the system before Redoubt, which had nothing there which confused and itchy trigger fingers could fire at, just to be sure.

  “Go,” I thought at Amanda and Aleesha.

  A few seconds later, a group of twelve Cobra dropships jumped in nearby the stations. They each headed for one.

  “Phase four,” I said.

  The three screens vanished, and three new ones popped up. These were much larger, being maps of each of the three planets, and highlighting all the military installations. In particular, my focus was on the military barracks and bases.

  I spent the next hour moving rifts across them, forcibly moving the people within to a large open area of land outside the capital on Sixth Reich. When all the military bases were empty of people, I moved the heavy vehicles and the contents of armouries to an empty continent on the planet in the Redoubt system. It wasn’t habitable, but Jane was going to send AI’s down there to determine if we could use any of it ourselves.

  By the time I finished all of the moving, I was exhausted, and lunch seemed like a good idea. We ate as a team, more to keep me awake than any other reason, and after a good meal and a solid jolt of caffeine, I returned to the bridge for the remainder of the job.

  There were already reports coming in of fighting on the planet below us, as the resistance mobilized itself, having taken the disappearance of stations in orbit to be a sign it was time to take their planet back. The police forces were attempting to impose order, and the result wasn’t pretty.

  It was happening on all three planets, and it meant I needed to hurry up and finish the job before the chaos spread any further.

  Jane moved BigMother to the system we knew as Bulgaria, and I did the whole thing again. Move stations, move soldiers, move equipment. Jump to next planet, ditto. Rinse and repeat.

  It seemed the other planets were already forewarned of what was coming. The police forces and any military units I missed were out in force, and the resistance hit them as soon as the stations vanished from orbit. If anything, I’d underestimated the determination of the people to take their planets back, and how far they’d go doing it.

  It was a bloodbath.

  Jane intercepted all the media reports, and they went back home, where I knew David and the Imperium council would be watching. The only surprising thing was none of them had anything bad to say about the Imperium, and plenty of thanks for making this possible.

  With the last rift removed from Athens, I was ready to collapse. The team were all grim faced as I staggered off the bridge, and with Angel streaking past me going down, I headed for bed. Angel demanded a cuddle first, and I managed to keep her happy, but I flaked out on the bed as soon as I could.

  “Sleep, Jon,” said Amanda, in my head. “The teams are on call if we need to go in anywhere.”

  “We’ll handle it from here,” added Aleesha.

  Blackness took me.

  Thirty Six

  When I woke about six hours later, I still felt like I’d been mugged.

  Food helped, and while eating I was regaled by stories of what’d been going on while I slept.

  Aline’s team had gone planet side three times, into hostage situations where Gestapo officers were using human shields. I let them go on about appearing, shooting the perps, and vanishing again, letting the locals complete the take downs. But I was obviously missing something. Jane started telling us about marine teams doing similar things across ten planets. My sluggish brain finally caught up.

  “Wait. How do you appear and vanish? Or has Syrinx been busy moving groups?”

  “Better,” said Aline.

  “How then?”

  “Tanith,” said Jane.

  “He’s been moving groups?”

  “No. He finally perfe
cted Grace’s other magic box idea.”

  “What was that?”

  “She wanted a way of putting a team anywhere, when you didn’t have a jump mage available.”

  “I don’t remember hearing about that one.”

  “Probably not. It’s taken Tanith and his mage team some time to get the magic to work.”

  “How?”

  “Ships with the magic box fitted now have a square big enough for twenty people laid out somewhere on the ship.”

  “Ours is on deck zero,” interjected Aline.

  “So the AI feeds the box the destination co-ordinates, and whoever is standing in the square, is jumped to where the destination was specified.”

  “That sounds dangerous. What if the destination has things already there? Do you appear inside them?”

  “That was the hard part of the magic apparently. Making sure each person arrived safely.”

  “It works though,” added Aline. “We’ve used it three times now. And if you have a full hollo of the situation down there running before you go down, you can point yourself in the right direction for an almost instant response when you get there.”

  Groves was grinning in a way which was very unsettling.

  “Instant kneecap shots,” said Reece.

  “Or headshots if they were holding a gun on someone,” added Shaw.

  Which meant casualties.

  “Do we have an estimates on the casualties?”

  They went silent, and I looked at Jane.

  “Tens of thousands dead, across the ten planets. Probably more than a hundred thousand wounded.”

  I flinched.

  “Most of the fighting is dying down now,” she went on. “The teams are still going in to hot spots, but Amanda’s expecting our work to be complete in the next couple of hours.”

  “There are prisoners,” said Aline, and I looked at her for more detail. “A lot of the party members in lower echelon positions simply surrendered. So did a lot of the infantry units which were out at the time you moved most of them. The SS fought to the last man. The Gestapo tried to hostage their way to freedom.”

  “And the locals?”

  “Like white blood cells attacking diseased red ones,” said Jane. “As soon as the word went out the missile platforms were gone, there was a complete uprising on all the planets.”

  “Uprising? I thought they had resistance movements.”

  “We,” Jane paused. “I, didn’t check well enough. Beneath the surface of seeming normality, most people hated the Nazis, and people simply vented their anger at the nearest ones. A lot of people died, but no-one is blaming anyone, least of all us. The media are showing the entire spine our teams surgically taking out the worst of the hold-outs and hostage situations. There’s been a lot of positive stories going out from here.”

  “Lacey’s been in the news as well,” added Aline.

  “Oh?”

  “He had the four squadrons from here jumping from planet to planet taking out local air fighters as they tried to support Nazi units. The whole spine has seen just how lethal they are against anything designed purely for in atmosphere fighting. And their space police interceptors were a joke. Most of the pilots ejected as soon as a missile locked onto them. As a result, pilot recruitment has already accelerated.”

  All I could see was more casualties. My brain just wasn’t up to it.

  “There was one quite comical aspect though.”

  I looked at Aline, and around the group, who were all grinning.

  “What?”

  “How do you traumatize a Nazi?” asked Jane, not quite keeping her face straight.

  “How?”

  “Have their arses kicked by a Lufafluf,” they all said together, whereupon they all laughed.

  Maybe it was just me, but I couldn’t picture it, let alone laugh at it. I shook my head to try and clear it, but failed.

  “Does anyone need anything from me?”

  “No Jon,” said Jane. “Go back to bed. Your people have everything in hand.”

  Aline nodded her agreement, so I finished my apricot crumble, downed the last of my wyvern beer, and went back to bed.

  I was aware of Aline joining me much later, but was too far gone to be even half awake. The level of power I’d wielded had been necessary, and I knew it’d take a toll. But it seemed to be more than I’d thought.

  Still, I woke the next morning with a clear head, feeling great, but with a full bladder demanding attention. Aline joined me in the bathroom, we did our shower dance together, and I headed for the bridge while she went for breakfast with her team. I’d barely taken my chair, before Jane followed me in and sat as well, turning to face me.

  “The interim governments of the ten planets want to talk to you. I sent a Lightning to pick up representatives from each. You ok with them coming here?”

  “Sure. Do you know what they want?”

  “I can guess, but they’ll tell you in a half hour if you wait for it.”

  I waited. The Lightning docked at an airlock off deck one, and Jane led the ten people to the conference room off the bridge. Aline and I were waiting for them, with her team also in the room, standing the walls like I remembered the twins doing several years earlier when they were body guarding me.

  They sat, introduced themselves, and while I noted names and planets in my PC, I didn’t bother remembering them. After this, I didn’t expect to see any of them again.

  And it wasn’t much of a meeting. A quick thanks for setting up their liberation. A polite question about the Imperium’s intentions, which was quickly answered with we didn’t have any. A few even more polite requests.

  They left as quickly as they came, and Jane took them back to their own planets. In the meantime, I returned to the bridge, and started in on their requests.

  They had no intention of starting a sector, but didn’t want to be isolated. I told David of the first request, to be reconnected with the American systems, so he could ask them if they’d allow it. While I was waiting I did karmic releases for all the people who’d died as a result of my actions. I’d finished coughing when the answer came back.

  The Americans had agreed, as long as there was no direct link down spine from any of their systems, which had been expected. I put the Jamaica Bermuda jump point back the way it had been.

  The second request, on the assumption the Americans agreed, was an Imperium trading station in local space. I officially claimed Ionia, and for the time being, Jane jumped in one of the basic four dock trading stations, since we didn’t have a bigger one left to use. Bob was asked to produce at least three more, for joining to it, so as to give it at least a half decent docking capacity.

  I also changed the Puerto Rico jump point to Dead Man’s Chest, so it bounced anything going through it back, while also linking the blocked Midgard jump point to Miami to Dead Man’s Chest instead. This gave us two more systems for Imperium space should we need them, including the unnamed system beyond DMC which had a really good planet in it, which had never been colonized before.

  By the time I’d finished with jump points, the third request was ready to be done. I spent the next few hours moving people from designated areas to Sixth Reich. When the last was gone, those who wanted to return to a Nazi planet were gone, albeit with only the clothes on their backs, and what they could carry.

  I suspected there were still more who would have liked to have gone with them, but were not as they were due to be tried for crimes. I didn’t want to know. It seemed most of those who’d committed crimes were now dead, but the teams hadn't gone in to kill, so the jails were probably full. Not my jurisdiction. Not my problem.

  My last act before leaving this chunk of space was to have Jane jump us to Sixth Reich again. I didn’t muck around this time, jumping the Nazi leader directly onto the bridge from his office. He looked around at the guns pointed at him, looked at me, and calmly sat in the nearest seat.

  “Am I here so you can kill me?” he asked.

&nb
sp; “No. I merely wanted to point out the consequences of declaring war on the Imperium.”

  “We will beat you.”

  “No, you won’t. You already lost. Shut up and listen for a minute.”

  He looked annoyed, but didn’t say anything.

  “Your space is now isolated to a total of twelve systems. No-one can enter your space. No-one can leave your space. When this ship leaves, you will lose communication with the rest of the spine. For humanity at large, you will become a distant memory, and eventually be forgotten. All your ships are here. All your military has been returned here, as have the survivors of those systems which overthrew your rule yesterday.”

  “And what systems are those?”

  He seemed to be genuinely unaware. Jane popped up the nav map, and highlighted the systems now independent again. He looked confused. I nodded, and she removed the map.

  “Twelve systems is all you have now. The rest are independent of you, and you will never have access to them again. Our war is now over. The Imperium is leaving, and I expect will never come back. Enjoy your isolation.”

  “The war is over when…”

  I jumped him back to his office, not caring if he landed on his feet or his arse. With a moment’s concentration, I removed the ability for com signals to go up or down spine from this little pocket of systems. It wouldn’t stop everyone else’s coms getting to their destinations, because whatever was going from the two ends of the spine to the other, was now going the long way via Haven. It added a minute or so to the round trip, which no-one was going to notice.

  “We’re done here, Jane.”

  “Confirmed. Where next?”

  I told her.

  BigMother jumped.

  Thirty Seven

  The Reichstag was in session.

  This time I was going there. We were expected, if not overly welcome. Aline’s team stepped through the rift after me, with heavy guns on their backs, and sidearms visible. Aline and I had nothing visible. I wasn’t even wearing a gun.