Galactic Imperium

by J McGovern

  ‘What job?’ Glitz sighed.

  ‘Just a little one, just a little one! Word has it that a shipment of medical lasers was sent to Hansea last week. Just a routine delivery, you know. The equipment was sent to the Abigail Smythe Hospital on the planet, in fulfilment of an order. But, for some reason, the lasers were recalled by the delivery company. I expect there was some kind of mechanical fault with the equipment — something trivial, you know.’ Spaceman smiled, revealing a gold tooth among his white teeth. ‘Of course, when the lasers are returned, they will probably be stripped of their components, so no one is to profit from them as matters stand.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Well, if the lasers were to go … missing, would it be such a big deal? They’re only faulty equipment after all. And no one would lose out — the insurance company would cover the losses of the manufacturer.’

  ‘I’m not sure about this. How many lasers?’

  ‘I don’t know … maybe around a hundred? The thing is, these medical lasers contain Zirgotic crystals, which I’m sure you know fetch up to ten thousand credits a piece. So you stand to make a profit of — well, let me see now — around one million.’

  Glitz whistled through his teeth. It was certainly a lot of money. And the plan was undeniably attractive. If everything went well, all he would need to do was walk into the hospital, pick up the crate of medical lasers, and walk out again. But a part of him was worried. He was very lucky to have not only escaped from Malus, but also to have obtained a full pardon. If he was sentenced again, there would be no Tekka to help him get free.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said finally. ‘It’s a tempting offer, but I promised myself I’d stick to legitimate cargoes from now on. I can’t risk going back to prison.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Doland said, turning to Glitz. ‘I mean … one million credits? One million credits for picking up some medical equipment?’

  ‘For stealing some medical equipment,’ Glitz replied.

  Doland shrugged. ‘We could do with the money.’

  Glitz frowned. He had to admit that the promise of such a great deal of money was exciting. The First Naval Lord’s gift of fifty thousand credits had been generous, but it would hardly last for long. And it was unlikely that he would find a job again — at least not as a cargo trader. Criminal records could be accessed by any potential employer.

  ‘No one will find out,’ Spaceman said, wiping his sweaty brow with a handkerchief. ‘The East Galaxy Company fulfils millions of orders every single day — they will hardly pay much attention to a single missing shipment.’

  Glitz stroked his chin. ‘The East Galaxy Company, you say?’ So the shipment of medical lasers had been delivered by his old company, the one owned by Ozytan. And Ozytan had told them that his profits from the company helped to fund his military movements, so in a way they would be doing the Imperium a favour by stealing the equipment …

  ‘What cut would you be looking for?’ Glitz said.

  ‘Standard rate. 10%.’

  Glitz nodded at Doland, sighing slowly. ‘We’ll do it.’

  Spaceman grinned. ‘Fantastic. I assume you know the location of Hansea? It’s in the Silver Sector — the planet’s part of the Helliam System. The hospital itself is located almost in the centre of the Health Zone. You’ll be likely to find the equipment in the main surgery equipment store. Failing that, you can use one of the computer terminals to check the purchase log. I’ll send you the laser serial number.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I’d better leave you now. I’ve heard rumours of a collapsed gold mine on Sygmus. There might be a job in it for my old friend Jocka the Digger. Good luck! You can wire me the 10% after the mission — if you’re successful, of course. Have fun! Spaceman out.’

  ‘Hydra out.’

  It didn’t take long to travel to the Silver Sector, and Glitz spent the entire journey wondering if he had made a mistake in accepting the job. But there was no turning back now. Spaceman was in charge of nearly all illicit trade across the galaxy, taking 10% of every job. If you let him down one too many times, he would simply stop giving you work. But maybe that’s not a problem, Glitz thought. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe if I stopped getting work from Spaceman I’d be forced into doing something honest.

  But he decided that he would carry out the job on Hansea. With half a million credits, he wouldn’t have to worry about getting work for a long time …

  They reached the vicinity of the planet. It was a strange looking world. There was a divide almost exactly down the centre, splitting the eastern and western hemispheres. Half of the planet was covered in snow and ice, and the other half was hot and barren. The two halves were demarcated by a strip of verdant country.

  ‘The planet of extremes,’ Doland said, quoting from an article he was reading on the Net. ‘Half of the planet is inhospitably hot, and the other half is unacceptably cold. The strip of land in the centre is called the Health Zone; it is a habitable area filled with thousands of private hospitals. Patients from all over the Imperium visit the planet; it is famous for medical excellence.’

  ‘Any Imperial hospitals?’

  He scanned the text. ‘A few. Luckily, the Abigail Smythe Hospital is private.’

  ‘Thank space for that.’ Glitz paused, staring at the bizarre planet. ‘How could a world like this ever come about?’

  ‘A terraforming experiment that went wrong. According to the Encyclopaedia Imperia, the world was originally supposed to become a paradise planet.’ He scrolled down through the article, quoting loosely again: ‘The original settlers around two hundred years ago used the now-defunct technique of particle excitement … blah, blah, blah … alter the weather conditions without the necessity to move the planet closer to the sun. But the technique was only partially successful, leaving the small belt of green land, etc … etc … Of course, the developers had spent vast amounts of money on the terraforming process, and they did not want the planet to go to waste. It was clearly unusable as a paradise world, so it became a centre of medicine.’

  ‘So where’s the hospital?’

  ‘Right in the middle of the Health Zone.’ Doland pressed a button, and a flashing light appeared on the scanner. ‘That red light is the location. That’s where we need to go.’

  ‘Fine. You ready? Let’s go.’

  Glitz contacted the OTC, and requested permission to enter orbit around the planet, so they could land. He explained that one of his crew was seriously ill, and he needed urgent treatment. The man in charge of landing permits pointed out with an air of snobbishness that medical treatment on Hansea was invariably expensive.

  ‘Are you saying that I’m poor?’ Glitz said.

  ‘No, sir. I am simply suggesting that perhaps a man who is driving a rundown Box 2000 ship might not have the funds required for treatment in the Health Zone.’

  ‘If you must know, I have a credit bar here worth fifty thousand credits.’ Glitz flashed the silver bar in front of the camera. ‘That’s enough to be get things started, right?’

  The man’s demeanour changed. ‘Of course, sir. My apologies. Permission granted to enter planetary orbit and to land if you so wish.’

  ‘Well, thank you!’

  Glitz deactivated the communications line and grinned at Doland. They had permission to enter orbit around the planet, and the man hadn’t even taken their names or credentials. Every planet had a different space traffic policy, and Glitz had been worried about giving out his name. But now it would be easy for them to land near the hospital, steal the medical lasers, and fly away again. Then they could dump the Wreck in a scrapyard somewhere — maybe even back on Cronor — and enjoy the one million credit profit. No one would ever find out.

  ‘Did you find out anything about the lasers?’ Doland said.

  Glitz accessed the file that had been sent by Spaceman, and summarised the information for Doland. It was the supporting documentation for the delivery of the equipment, evidently stolen fr
om the servers of the East Galaxy Company. The lasers had been delivered two days ago. They were called Cellzers, which Glitz thought was a silly name. The item specification revealed the nature of the equipment; Cellzers were cutting tools used in surgical procedures. Instead of actually slicing into the skin of a patient, Cellzers would create an artificial opening by shifting around the skin cells, allowing the surgeon entry into the body. After the operation was complete, the Cellzer would seal up the wound without leaving any scarring. There had been similar devices around for decades, but the Cellzer was the first not to leave even a superficial scar.

  ‘Sounds high-tech,’ Doland said. ‘And profitable …’

  ‘Right. I’m taking us into orbit now.’

  Glitz had become fully accustomed to the idiosyncrasies present in the ship’s design, and he could operate it easily, compensating for any hardware faults. He brought the ship into a perfect orbit with ease.

  ‘So here’s the plan.’ Glitz paused, checking the structure in his head before confirming that it was sound. ‘Right, OK. First, we land on the planet and go into the Abigail Smythe Hospital. Our story is that you’ve been infested with a Gargonian brain parasite, and need urgent treatment.’

  Doland let his eyelids and mouth droop; a line of saliva dropped from his lips.

  ‘Uncanny. Once we’re in the hospital, we make a break for it and enter one of the staff changing rooms. There’s bound to be some spare uniforms lying around. So we change into a uniform each, and then travel down in one of the elevators to the main storage area. We pick up the Cellzers — they’ll probably be pretty heavy, but we’ll manage — and return to the Wreck. Then we get out of here as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Ready?’ Glitz said.

  Doland nodded, and Glitz prepared for landing.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Glitz and Doland were standing in a lush green square, which was part of the courtyard of the Abigail Smythe Hospital. Glitz didn’t know who Abigail Smythe was, but many modern hospitals were named after exemplary scientists from antiquity. The courtyard made it clear that it was a private hospital; Glitz wondered vaguely how much treatment would cost in such a luxurious place. A crystal fountain stood in the middle of the square, surrounded by benches carved out of fragrant limewood. The white brick path leading to the hospital was edged by excellent statues.

  The two men followed the white path towards the hospital. The building itself was a stunning design, which clearly followed the classic architectural principles laid out by Sir Delphon Bruneletti in his excellent book Principles for a Classical Future. Neither Glitz nor Doland knew the first thing about architecture, but they both recognised the splendour of the fine building.

  They entered through the main door, and stepped into a finely decorated reception hall. The two men walked along the flagged stone floor and approached the reception desk. A blonde woman was sitting at the desk filing her nails discreetly, but she put away the nail file and smiled when she saw the visitors.

  ‘Good morning!’ she said politely, her golden hair illuminated by sunlight streaming through the glass roof. ‘Welcome to Abigail Smythe Hospital. May I take the name of the patient?’

  She politely averted her eyes from Doland, who was slumped against Glitz with his eyes rolling and his tongue hanging out. He was giving a very good impression of a man with a Gargonian parasite, even though Glitz thought he might be overdoing it slightly.

  ‘His name’s Ral Burnote. I’m afraid it’s a pretty bad case of parasite infection.’

  The woman typed into her computer terminal, then looked up at Glitz. ‘Thank you.’ She waved a hand over a sensor, and a glowing white shape appeared. It was a kind of stretcher that seemed to be made of light. ‘You can let go now,’ she explained.

  Glitz — hoping that Doland wouldn’t give himself away — let go of him slowly. As he did so, Doland began to rise slowly into the air, as if carried by an invisible force. The force lifted him, like some great puppet, onto the glowing stretcher. Then the stretcher began to move away from the reception desk.

  ‘Please follow the stretcher,’ the receptionist said. ‘It will lead you to the appropriate ward. The Abigail Smythe Hospital wishes you the very best of future health.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Glitz still felt ridiculously nervous; it had been a while since he had been on a job. But everything seemed to be going smoothly. They followed the stretcher as it led them away from the main reception area, and along a white corridor, which was labelled CRANIOSURGERY DEPARTMENT. Glitz noticed a door marked STAFF CHANGING ROOM and tapped Doland.

  ‘In here!’

  Doland leapt off the stretcher and followed Glitz inside the room. It was a small room with lines of pegs and changing cubicles. The room was empty. Thank space for that, Glitz thought. He began to open the nearby lockers one by one, searching for …

  ‘Here we go.’

  Inside the locker, there was a pile of sealed plastic bags, each containing something made from white fabric. Glitz pulled out two bags and checked the sizes. They were both marked ‘Medium: Single Use’.

  ‘Put one of these on.’

  Glitz and Doland each dived into a separate cubicle. Glitz pulled off his leather jacket and jeans, pulling on the white medical clothes. It was a one-piece garment that looked almost like a white jacket and trousers, except that the arms and legs were short. The texture of the thing felt strange, because it was made of recyclable plasthyne. Doctors had been ordered to start wearing these type of clothes, which were called ‘singles’, after the terrible TRPT pandemic thirty years previously, which had been the scourge of the galaxy.

  After the two men had changed, they hid their old clothes in one of the lockers and left the changing rooms. The floating stretcher was no longer in the corridor; Glitz guessed that it must have either dissolved or returned to reception. He turned to Doland.

  ‘Right. Remember what Spaceman said? The Cellzers should be in the main equipment store, rather than in a specific department. So we need to find an elevator.’

  ‘I saw one on the way here, just outside the corridor.’

  At that moment, two doctors wearing singles appeared and marched down the corridor. Glitz froze, and nodded stiffly in greeting as they passed. The doctors ignored them, apparently lost in their own conversation. Glitz and Doland exhaled slowly, and left the corridor.

  They stepped into the elevator, which was panelled with limewood. A female digital face appeared in the gilded mirror.

  ‘Good morning. Which floor do you require?’

  ‘Main storage,’ Glitz said, unsure of the floor.

  ‘Certainly, sir. Please provide your security clearance code.’

  Space, Glitz thought. Where’s Tekka when you need him? He racked his brains, trying to figure out what to do. If they gave the wrong code, they risked attracting the attention of security. But if they didn’t enter any code at all, they wouldn’t be able to enter the storage area.

  Then a nurse entered the elevator. She had dark hair and she was dressed in blue plasthyne scrubs. She frowned at Doland, and smiled at Glitz.

  ‘Second floor,’ she said.

  Glitz touched her arm. ‘Er … my name’s Dr. Glitz. I’m new here. I wonder if you can help me? I don’t seem to have security clearance for the main storage floor … I don’t suppose you have an access code?’

  The woman smiled. ‘I’ll swap it for your contact chip.’

  ‘It’s a deal.’

  ‘OK, the override password is ‘Velvet Nights’, you know, after the chocolates. But don’t go telling everyone. It’s bad for security. You’re supposed to have the full ID scan and everything. But us nurses always forget our clearance cards.’

  Glitz winked. ‘I won’t tell a soul.’

  The elevator doors slid open when they reached the second floor.

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ the nurse said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your
chip.’

  ‘Oh, of course.’ Glitz reached into the pocket of his single, into which he had dropped his wallet. He removed a contact chip, and passed it to the nurse.

  The nurse grinned. ‘I’ll call you.’

  With that, she turned on her heel and walked primly out of the lift, turning to wink again at Glitz before the doors closed. Doland glanced at Glitz with some jealousy. He really couldn’t understand what women saw in the man. To be able to walk into a lift, persuade an attractive nurse to give you security clearance … and then for her to ask for your number … Doland had never had an experience that came remotely close.

  ‘Take us to the storage floor,’ Glitz said.