Frith turned to her Emperor and nodded to him.
“This moment belongs to you, Sire, and I think this makes us even on the life-saving stakes, does it not?” she enquired with a broad smile on her normally impassive face. “I arranged for us to survive the first attack and you’ve done the same for this one.” She directed a private thought to him, “I think I’ll take up your offer of that expensive bottle of wine when my shift is over. Seven o’clock, my quarters, as yours remain uninhabitable? I’ll make arrangements for food.”
“You’re on, Janice” came the reply, before switching so everyone could hear and launching into the prepared short speech he’d written earlier in the hope he would have the chance to deliver it.
“Fellow Officers and loyal crew, thank you for your appreciation. I must point out that the real credit goes to Emperor Josef, who, even after all these millennia, is still looking after his Empire and loyal servants. Without his research, we wouldn’t have managed to stabilise the Jump Point in time. Information on this system we are now in is on a need-to-know basis, so you will find certain areas of information unavailable for a time. I’ve instructed the AI to limit access to these areas and I know you will understand the reason why, until such time as more information is made available to you when we near the fourth planet of this system. It’s thanks to the loyalty and courage of her officers and crew that make the Imperial Navy what it is today. My thanks to you all.”
The clapping began again in earnest and this time, neither of them made any effort to stop it, allowing the crew to express their feelings. After a time it died down naturally, Alexander taking it as his cue to leave the room and make a tour of the ship, leaving Frith to deal with everything else.
He took a transit tube down to the hanger that held his remaining serviceable yacht, needing to change his clothes before starting the tour, for the tension of the past few hours had left the ones he was wearing sodden with nervous sweat. Alexander entered the docking tube and walked across to his yacht, stripping off the damp clothes before stepping into the shower unit, letting out a sigh as the scented hot water eased away some of the day's tension in his neck and shoulders. As he relaxed his mind went over the successful escape plan.
The idea had come to him the day before whilst sparring with his two Sergeants. A particularly sneaky bit of misdirection from Sergeant Lynch had given him the idea, albeit at the cost of a split lip and sore jaw. Lynch’s feint and knock-out blow had sparked it, and after coming around from the blow he had most of the details already worked out. Misdirection was the missing key and he thanked again his decision to spent time sparring with the two Sergeants, for without it, the idea might never have come to him and by now they would all be dead. He remembered what his old Weapons Master, Hiro Katana, had told him, “In critical moments, the enemy sees exactly what they wish to see,” and so had planned their escape accordingly.
Once the basis of the idea had literally hit him, the logistics were relatively simple. He had arranged with Vimes and Dauntless’s AI to falsify the readouts and information coming into the screens of the Bridge crew and scientists working on ways to re-stabilise the Jump Point. It was a relatively simple matter to do so, reliant as they were on the data being provided by the AI and the sensors it controlled. In warfare, those holding the high ground tend to control the battlefield and the same applied to information; control the flow of that and you hold another metaphorical high ground. At his meeting with Admiral Frith, he told her he had been able, thanks to Josef’s research, to discover a way to temporarily stabilise the Jump Point for one ship and allow Dauntless to flee, backing his assertion with false data provided by the AI. Once she agreed to his plan, everyone from the remaining ships was moved over to Dauntless, leaving the AI’s in full control. At a predetermined point in the attack, they had been given instructions to trigger a failure in their matter conversion engines in a pre-programmed order, making it look like a cascading failure caused by battle damage.
The difficult and most dangerous part of the whole plan was to avoid being caught in the resulting massive explosion and all-consuming conversion wave. In common with most of his personal yachts, Dauntless was also capable of making Jumps outside of regular Jump Points, something known to only Vimes and, of course, the ship’s AI. To avoid being caught up in the expanding total conversion blast wave and being converted into energy herself, Dauntless had to time her Jump to within a few hundred nanoseconds of the ships exploding around her, so as the blast wave hit her outer screens the enemies sensors could not detect her Jumping. If there was any miscalculation she would be caught up in the expanding wave and converted into energy herself, adding to the overall explosion. If Dauntless Jumped too early, the enemy would detect it and reveal the secret Jump technology.
While washing his hair, Alexander scanned the sensor logs to see how close a call it had been. From the state of their screens after Jumping to this system, there had been no margin of error whatsoever. Another few nanoseconds and they would have been consumed along with the other ships. He smiled to himself and began rinsing off the soap. A few minutes later he was dry and padded over the soft flooring towards where a few changes of clothing were kept.
“What to wear for the walkabout? “ he asked himself out loud, “nothing too ostentatious, yet something memorable,” flipping through the clothes hanging in the wardrobe. Alexander finally chose a set of underclothes made from neutral coloured impact cloth, covered by a dark grey flight suit, a wide smart-metal belt inscribed with the Imperial insignia, and finally, a cream top. Dispensing with using a mirror, Vimes presented an all round image of what he looked like in his mind. Satisfied, Alexander selected a low powered firearm from the yacht’s armoury cupboard and merged it to his belt.
Just as he reached the exit, Alexander remembered he hadn’t eaten anything for hours and took a quick detour to the food dispenser where he selected a fruit flavoured protein bar from the selection available.
“This will do until I get the chance to eat something more substantial in one of the canteens,” he thought, after quickly checking which ones were still open along his intended route. “Ah, that’s good, Meena’s is open,” making a note to drop into the canteen run by her first. He could see it was already crowded with people who, like him, now the immediate danger was over, had suddenly realised they were hungry. “There’s nothing like escaping from a hopeless situation and realising you have survived to make you hungry or horny, even both,” he thought, “I’ll wager they’ll be some wild celebrations in the ward and common rooms tonight.” He sent a warning note, via Vimes, to the Duty Officers who would be in charge of security this evening, reminding them to post extra details, just in case.
Hunger temporarily assuaged for a while by the protein bar, Alexander exited his yacht and began his walk, flanked by two Marine bodyguards. Without being asked, Vimes had again assigned the two Marines and they had been waiting patiently for him to exit the docking tube. From the moment Alexander left the hanger area and began walking to the more populated areas of the ship, he noticed how crowded Dauntless had become and was soon glad of the Marines presence as they kept a large number of the people crowding the corridors from approaching too close. Unlike Dauntless’s crew, almost all who had either seen or spoken to Alexander at least once in the past and were used to seeing him around, the vast majority of the temporary residents from the other ships had never seen him in person before and were unsure how to react to having him amongst them, let alone stop and chat. Alexander soon felt rather awkward at everyone’s reaction and was glad when he and his escort finally reached Meena’s canteen, on level thirty-three. He joined the long queue waiting patiently in line for food and began chatting to the people in front of him, not recognising any of them, although Vimes was providing him their personal details and background by way of a gently whispered running commentary in his mind.
“What are you having today?” he asked the couple in front, two men wearing uniforms indicating
they were both pilot officers from the late carrier, INS Courageous. One was slightly built and below average height, the other, a squat, bear of a man who was a good six inches taller than his companion.
Alexander thought the two looked distinctly unnerved at being spoken to by him, so, taking pity he began again, shuffling forward as the queue advanced a few feet.
“If I’m not mistaken,” he said to one of the men, “You’re Hinchin,” pointing to the smaller man on the left, “and you’re Wanderley.” He extended his hand and waited for them to respond. Lt Carlos Wanderley was first to respond, his face lighting up with a big grin as he took the proffered hand and shook it firmly. Hinchin followed a moment later, but still looking nervous.
“Sorry about what happened to your ship, but you and Captain Woods put up a good fight. You were both in the flight that first spotted the enemy, weren’t you?” he asked them, quickly checking with Vimes if there were any casualties amongst their squadron.
“Yes, Sire,” responded Wanderley, who now seemed more at ease. “Our Squadron Leader was the first to spot them on her fighter’s mass sensors and the rest is history, but then we were all taken out shortly afterwards before our fighters had a chance to engage properly.”
“Where did you get those bruises?” Alexander asked, noticing each sported a number of almost healed injuries, “Was it during the subsequent shipboard fighting? I had to do a bit of that myself on INS Glorious.”
“Yes, Sire, I got mine from rescuing our Squadron Leader who was badly hurt in the fight, and Hinchin here,” Wanderley said, giving his colleague a nudge, “got his covering my back as I pulled her out of the fighting. We didn’t go to Medical as there were more deserving people in greater need than us.”
Vimes presented Alexander with an update on the Squadron Leader’s progress. Squadron Leader Harris was currently undergoing treatment for massive head trauma in the main infirmary. Injured beyond the capability of battlefield nanites to do anything other than stabilise her, she was now in a medically induced coma while her memories were being restored.
Alexander addressed them both, “I see she was also the pilot caught up in the incident on Heaven with Duke Gallagher. She’s not having much luck but it looks like having you two around has changed all that. I was going to visit the infirmary anyway, so I’ll check in on her after I’ve eaten and see if she needs anything. By the way, as you are new to Dauntless, Meena makes the best chicken curry in the Imperial Navy, so that’s what I’d recommend if you’re hungry.”
Now almost at the head of the queue, the two turned around and started looking at what was available, their hunger overruling any desire for more small talk. Like Alexander, neither of them had eaten since the day before. Alexander looked at who was serving and caught sight of Meena, who was helping out her staff by serving herself, seemingly doing three things at once. She hadn’t seen him in the queue but she knew he was in her canteen as it alerted her whenever certain people entered, with Alexander obviously being at the top of her VIP list. They caught each other's eye and she shouted across the noise.
“I hope you haven’t pushed in, Your Majesty. If you have, then get to the back of the queue for I’ll have no queue jumpers in my canteen!”
Alexander laughed and shouted back, much to the amusement of everyone in earshot, “No, Meena, I’ve waited my turn. Is the chicken curry on today? I’m starving.”
Meena had worked on Dauntless for nearly fifty years and she and Alexander were old friends. Everyone knew, including Admiral Frith and the other senior officers, that in Meena’s Canteen she was in charge and woe betide anyone that tried to pull rank or seniority. A short, lovingly round woman from one of the hotter jungle worlds, Meena had another string to her bow outside of work; she was an inveterate matchmaker of people and there were dozens of couples on Dauntless and across the fleet who owed their relationship to Meena’s subtle matchmaking.
Alexander smiled inside as he recalled Meena messaging him when his son first came on board, asking if he wanted her to “find someone nice for him,” which then made him wonder how Adam was coping on Earth, his inward smile vanishing. With all that had been happening he hadn’t given Adam much thought, for he knew Vimes would do his best to keep his son out of any serious trouble.
Finally his turn, Meena served him personally, commenting out loud “that he needed fattening up; and should take better care of himself,” again, much to the amusement of everyone around them. Alexander winked at her then went to find himself a space to sit down and eat. The smell of the curry was making his mouth water and by the time he’d managed to drag a chair over and squeeze himself some space on a long table between a couple of civilian workers, he barely had time to nod a greeting before tucking in.
Alexander reluctantly finished the last mouthful, said his goodbyes to his eating companions around the table and picked up his two bodyguards as he left the Canteen, silently messaging Meena a heartfelt “thank you” as he exited the doors. He stopped to take his bearings, then headed for a transit tube to take him to the main infirmary where Squadron Leader Harris was being treated along with many of the more seriously injured. The journey was only a matter of moments and Alexander soon found himself standing by Harris’ bedside, after first negotiating a visit with the staff nurse in charge of the ward, a formidable looking woman with a no-nonsense attitude Alexander immediately warmed to. He had left his Marines outside and was looking around at the rows of injured servicemen and women, all of whom were being kept sedated until they were fit to be wakened. Many were suffering from flash burns and radiation poisoning, with a smattering of traumatic limb or head injuries.
Medical nanites could stabilise most injuries if administered in time, keeping the blood and brain oxygenated for up to an hour, even if the patient had stopped breathing, also stimulating the bodies own repair mechanism to produce large quantities of healing factors and directing them to the right place, but even so, the most seriously injured required specialist care. Lost limbs could be regrown, although the process took several weeks, depending on the size of the lost limb. Head injuries were trickier and although brains could be regrown, memories were harder to replicate and almost always the patient suffered from patches of lost memory; a piano lesson, first date, a missed birthday etc.
The staff nurse had told him Harris would be brought out of the induced coma within the next fifteen minutes, so rather than come back, he decided to sit by her bedside and be there when she awoke. He pulled over a chair and sat down, taking the moment to think of Christine and Adam, wondering how his son was coping getting on with twenty-first century Earth. Using his near perfect recall, courtesy of Vimes and his genetic makeup, Alexander relaxed and let his mind drift back over seventy years to his own testing…
Scene 8, 27th May 1940, near Dunkirk, France
Alexander was struggling with the controls of his escape pod as it streaked down into the atmosphere at over five thousand miles an hour, a long bright tail of fire stretching back behind it. Lumen dampening of the now transparent smart-metal windscreen stopped the glare from burning out his retinas but was still bright enough to make his eyes water if he looked at it for too long. He was now reliant solely on the wraparound viewscreen in front of him, currently displaying a sea of red warning symbols apart from a small section of blue directly in front of him. He cursed loudly as another jolt of turbulence caused him to bite deeply into his tongue, the coppery taste of his own blood an unpleasant reminder of what would happen to him if he misjudged his landing approach.
What started out as a routine Jump to Owl 3, Sector One’s library planet, had ended with the ultra-secret Jump drive malfunctioning and bringing him to within a few hundred thousand miles of this unknown planet. Somehow, the faulty Jump had also destabilised the molecular bonds holding together the smart-metal of the ship’s hull and it had been slowly disintegrating on the short journey to the planet. With little time to do anything and completely unfamiliar with the workings of his father�
�s yacht, Alexander had taken the lifeboat and jumped ship before it degraded completely and left him sitting it space with no means of changing his course or slowing.
Worryingly, this lifeboat was also now showing signs of the same problem, manifesting itself in the turbulent ride down as repulsors and control surfaces degraded. To make matters worse, if such a thing was possible, Vimes had been unable to tell him much about the planet as it had no global communications network that he could tap into, just rudimentary radio and audio-visual capabilities from which he had been able to extrapolate the languages of the largest population centres.
Another jolt of the ship brought yet another curse and a trickle of blood which ran down from the corner of his mouth, a drop splashing onto the control panel. Not bothering to wipe it away, Alexander reluctantly handed control back to Vimes, his arms burning from the effort of trying to keep the ship steady as it burnt and bled off speed. The moment he did so, the jolting lessened off as the superior reflexes of Vimes, interfaced with the lifeboats moronic AI, improved the flight down. Alexander took the opportunity to review the information and recommendations Vimes had presented him with, such as they were.
According to Vimes’s socio-economic and political assessment of the planet, again taken from radio transmissions, large areas of the world were currently in a state of war, and those that hadn’t been affected by the growing conflict soon would be. The technical level was barely post-industrial revolution, with no evidence of nuclear fusion or fission. Power was generated mainly through the burning of fossil fuels, in particular, coal. The countries of Britain and France had empires of sorts but, from the communications Vimes had intercepted, they were unlikely to survive the conflict with the aggressively martial German nation, which had swept everything before it and already annexed surrounding countries, manifesting a superior understanding of combined tactics compared to the others. With little control over his ultimate destination, he knew it would be somewhere on the continental landmass called Europe.
Imperium: Revelation: Book Two in the Imperium Trilogy Page 6
