“Karen, it's James. Michael and I are here at Portree when we got the call. You’re bloody lucky we were in the area, love. We were about to head back to Raigmore with a casualty, but diverted and should be with you in eight minutes. Exactly where in Struan are you?”
“Down near the jetty where you picked up the Scandinavian woman you told me about,” she replied, never taking her eyes off the body. “When I hear you approach someone will wave a torch to show you where we are. Park on the roadway. There should be sufficient clearance on either side if you are careful.”
“OK, we’ll see you shortly.”
Looking up, she could see an elderly man and woman following the driver back to the lorry, each carrying blankets and a torch. The driver got to her first and she handed him her powerful torch, instructing him to shine it in the air when he heard the helicopter. Looking again at the mangled wreckage of a man lying in front of her, Karen marvelled at the tenacity of the human body’s ability to cling onto life. Running her hands over the body, she could feel compound fractures in both legs, definite problems with the right arm and the horrific facial trauma on the left side of his face. His left forearm was encased in some sort of a cast that she could feel under the cloth. Finally, she noted some of the bicep and shoulder tissue had been abraded away. She grimaced, unable to stop herself from picturing the scraping of the flesh of his face along the rough road surface. She fervently hoped by then he was unconscious, otherwise the pain would have been unbelievable.
The older couple arrived the same moment a helicopter could be heard coming over the hill road to the south-east. She fended off the customary offer of a cup of tea from the woman and told the man to cover the driver with one of the spare blankets, as he too was in danger of going into shock. Why he was driving without his lights on she might never know but she fervently hoped he had a damn good reason. If not, she would make sure the Police threw the book at him for this.
The helicopter approached, illuminating the area with its spotlights. Karen worried she might go into shock herself and asked for one of the spare blankets, wrapping it around her shoulders.
“Once we have stabilised him,” she told herself, “I’ll allow myself the luxury of a good cry.”
Scene 17, Vimes
Thanks to the night vision lenses he was wearing, Adam had seen the woman leave her house and start walking in his direction long before she could see him. Using the zoom function, he looked closely at her face. Two strange white pieces of wire or string hung down from each ear and vanished inside the neck of her coat, probably some sort of ornament, he reasoned. He found her strikingly good looking, even for someone like him used to the company of beautiful women. He resolved to try and talk to her, hoping she could provide valuable information to help him decide what to do next.
Vimes was keeping quiet, having decided to only interrupt or talk when asked, knowing from past experience it would be some time before Adam was completely comfortable in having him around all the time, so wanted to ease him in gently. It was still early days in their relationship and after being estranged for so many years, he thought it would be good for Adam to have time alone to think everything through for himself.
Drawing closer to the woman, Adam had his first proper glimpse of a ground vehicle commonly used by this culture to move themselves and goods around. Closing behind the woman, the large vehicle was approaching rapidly. Although his lenses made it clearly visible to Adam, he was surprised there were no lights illuminating its path. He wondered if the woman knew it was there, for she seemed intent on looking at the sky. Zooming in on the driver, who was seated behind a circular wheel high up from the road, Adam could see he too was not paying attention to anything other than the sky and the vehicle was drifting over to her side of the road. Fearing the worst, Adam sprang forward towards the woman, just as the vehicle mounted the grass verge and began sliding out of control. Adam could see the look on the driver’s face change from wonderment to one of fear as he spotted both Adam and the woman at the last moment.
Reaching the woman a split second before the vehicle, Adam registered the look of surprise on her face before he threw her out of the vehicles path. Before he could do anything else he was struck harder than anything had ever hit him before, flying him backwards. In the merest instant before blacking out he wondered if he would ever know who she was…
Vimes was unexpectedly jolted out of his dormancy. Unable to open Adams eyes to see what was happening, multiple catastrophic damage signals were being relayed to him via Adams nervous system, indicating major trauma to the body. Simultaneously replaying the last few moments, while at the same time diagnosing what remedial action to take, Vimes was in danger of becoming overwhelmed himself by the damage. Severe skin and muscle trauma to the limbs and torso, combined with the loss of an eye, impacted for a moment on his ability to think. Immediately, his own redundancies kicked in, replacing the lost memories. Adams body had gone into shock, sealing off damaged veins and arteries. Vimes used his emergency control over the autonomic system, accelerating haemostasis to aid clotting and the production of healing factors. After ten seconds, no additional trauma was registering, but the litany of problems began to rise for Vimes. Adam’s heart was labouring under the effect of massive shock and one of his ribs had badly punctured a lung. With few options open to him without access to a medical suite, Vimes set about shutting down all non-essential bodily functions and ensuring blood was kept flowing to the brain. Fortunately, the sinus node hadn’t been damaged and through this Vimes lowered Adams heartbeat to the minimum compatible with life. Running test signals, he checked the spinal column was intact. Fortunately, although bruised in places there was no serious damage, the second bit of good news.
Vimes could hear faint voices and fought to open Adams remaining eye, but to no avail. Concentrating on reconstructing the damaged internal organs, Vimes was able to stop the blood loss in Adams' spleen, effectively sealing off hundreds of damaged blood vessels. The impact had partially torn a kidney loose so it was shut down while he tried to rebuild the damaged area. Granulation of damaged tissues was already taking place and he diverted stores of sugar and protein from the remaining healthy muscles to repair and replace tissue lost in the accident. This would leave Adam very weak for a time until he was able to replace the muscle mass being cannibalised to heal the injuries.
Sensing movement, Vimes recognised several voices, probably rescuers of some sort. One of them seemed to know what she was doing and was taking control of the situation. He wondered what the chances were of it being the same woman Adam had just risked his life for. Still unable to open the eye and see what was happening, and unable to influence events in any way, Vimes diverted all of his attention back to healing.
Scene 18, Dauntless
Alexander was in his quarters, reviewing the Ascension fleets deployment around Heaven. As promised, he’d made his decision what to do about the situation here the day after Adam left. A good night’s sleep had allowed his natural temperament to re-establish itself, despite the loss of his men and the uncertainties over his son.
Other than what had already taken place to neutralise their offensive nuclear capacity, he ruled no further punitive action would be undertaken against the population or leaders provided they co-operated and made no further hostile moves. In addition, he decided the Ascension Fleet would remain for only twelve months instead of the planned three years.
If, after being shown the truth, they demonstrated sincere regret at what had happened, then they would be allowed to join the Empire. However, in light of the attack and loss of life, it would only be as a normal Class Three planet. As Collinson had predicted, senior religious leaders were currently refusing to engage with them and were continuing to extol their followers to ignore the “demons from the skies that were coming to enslave them.”
Dismissing them as idiots, Alexander sighed heavily, shaking his head at the stupidity of otherwise intelligent people when it came to matters of
religion or racial purity. Four thousand years of fast mass transit and no planetary borders had merged the three main ethnic races of his Empire into one, homogenous population. In addition, most religions didn’t survive the shock of contact with other alien races or foreign belief systems and were now mainly relegated to ceremonial functions. A few religious groups in the Empire could still be found, clinging on to a hard core of believers on a few planets, however, the majority of his Empires population considered themselves to be of a secular inclination.
For a few brief moments, Alexander had been tempted to resolve the matter of what to do with Heaven once and for all by sterilising the planet. Introducing a lethal, short-lived virus into all the main population centres was one option; the second to introduce one designed to render everybody sterile. The beauty of the second was that one hundred years from now the problem would be solved without additional deaths on his conscience. It was tempting but too early for him to consider either of those somewhat final courses of action.
Looking around, staring at the pictures and priceless paintings hanging on the wall of his private room, Alexander recalled the propaganda messages he’d recorded yesterday, full of Imperial magnanimity and forgiveness that his advisors hoped would play well with the population. Alexander had his doubts but followed their advice.
“After all, that’s what they were employed to do,” he thought to himself.
Smiling, he recalled one of Christine’s favourite sayings, “There’s no point in having a guard dog if you insist on barking yourself.”
Surprisingly shy by nature for someone in his position, in the early years of his reign that followed the Succession Wars, Alexander had to force himself to take centre stage and fight his natural tendency to allow others to lead. It was only because of Christine’s emotional support that he found the strength to wrest back control of the rebellious Sectors and reassert his authority over wavering Nobles.
He sighed again, remembering those early days with Christine, fighting side by side and taking on the universe together. He missed both her touch and companionship every single day they were apart. After every campaign or State visit he tried to return home, promising himself they would take a holiday or spend more time together. Invariably, matters of State always interfered with his plans and after too little time he would find himself having to leave yet again. Heaven, and now this border dispute were just two more examples of how fate continually conspired to keep the two of them apart.
His thoughts turned again to Adam and he allowed himself a few moments to worry about his son. Their parting had not been a good one, and although the decision to send him away had been correct, he could not help but blame himself for not having provided him with more guidance and support. If only and what if were four words that a successful leader could not afford to dwell on for too long, so he brought himself back from his reverie and focused again on the situation at hand.
Alexander could see his messages were already being inserted into every electromagnetic based means of communication on the planet and he knew within a few days everyone would have heard them, despite the religious leader’s best efforts to have them blocked. It pleased him to think of how they would react when their religious broadcasts were replaced with Imperial messages showing images of what the Empire was really like and the many advantages of membership. In addition to the messages, Infiltrator Programmes designed for their backwards technology had also been introduced and were working their way into every mainframe computer and global Internet system on the planet, monitoring for and identifying the key people behind the original attack. Unless they were willing to shut down their entire system of communication and data storage, in time the key players would be identified and located. He would let the Ascension Fleet and the clever people of the Imperial Intelligence Service deal with them for the time being.
Internally checking the time, Alexander realised it would not be long before Dauntless made the Jump to Kiyami, the capital planet of Sector 12, where he would meet with Duke Frederick. As a courtesy on arrival, Dauntless would pay its respects to the Jump Station, then travel inwards to take on fresh supplies and send away the bodies of those who had fallen to their families, along with Alexander and Christine’s personal invitation to be their guest at the Imperial Palace whenever they liked.
If Alexander shut his eyes it was easy for him to recall the faces of the fallen he’d known personally, in particular, that of Captain Stuart-Jack. He was, “no, had been,” he corrected himself, watching the young man’s progress with interest, marking him down as a future Commodore or higher.
Bringing his mind back for the second time from what might have been to the present, Alexander noted the journey in-system to Kiyami would only take four days. Kiyami’s sun had a particularly weak gravity well, and boasted several Jump Points, the main reason why it had been chosen as the Sector capital. He hadn’t seen Duke Frederick since the last Grand Council meeting and wondered what the wily old man had been up to. Approaching two hundred and thirty years of age, Frederick was currently the oldest of the Sector heads and had a well-founded reputation for being miserly with his wealth. Alexander also found him arrogant and even condescending towards him at times, but had made allowances in the past, for Frederick had been a close confidant of his father.
After his own, with two hundred and eleven inhabited planets, Sector 12 was also the most densely populated and wealthy in the Empire. In comparison, Duchess Helena of neighbouring Sector 13, ruled only fifty-three planets yet maintained a battle fleet almost comparable to her larger, wealthier neighbour. Still only fifty-one years old, the Duchess was a formidable woman who had a great deal of support in the Council and was not afraid to verbally cross swords with Alexander, having done so on a number of occasions, albeit respectfully and with good arguments to support her position.
There was no love lost between the two neighbouring Sectors, allegedly as a result of Frederick trying to seduce Helena when she was a teenager. To further her education, as a young woman she had been assigned by her father to attend Frederick’s court for a season. Alexander didn’t know if the Duke had been successful, but when Helena became Duchess, relations between the two Sectors had rapidly cooled. Despite the best efforts of Vimes and the Imperial Intelligence Service, other than the two antagonists, no-one knew the real reason for the mutual dislike.
“Typical of the nonsense I have to deal with, one Sector spending too little on defence, the other possibly too much,” he thought.
Looking again at the original request for assistance, Alexander would take this opportunity to insist Frederic finance a ship building programme and improve his military readiness. After all, he reasoned, it’s not as if he has any valid excuse not to, especially with the Dubunni and Silures Empires currently disputing the borders.
Alexander heard the ship-wide Jump Warning sound and counted down the seconds until the…
Discontinuity
...Jump happened. He sensed Vimes send off an update to his counterpart on Kiyami and would review the response when it came back, giving him plenty of time before he transmitted his courtesy greeting to Frederick, advising of his arrival.
A familiar knock on his door told him his old friend and mentor, Duke Gallagher, had arrived. Ambassador no longer from the moment the Ascension Fleet took over responsibility for Heaven, Duke Gallagher was clearly itching to get home to Sector 2 and his family. Rising to his feet and walking over to the door to greet his friend, Alexander instructed it to open at the exact moment he knew his friend would try knocking again. The door opened to reveal Gallagher standing there with his fist poised, making them both laugh out loud. For Alexander, it was the first real laugh he’d had since arriving at Heaven and he could feel some of the weight lift from his shoulders. Shaking hands, Duke Gallagher spoke first.
“With your permission Alex, I will leave and use the Jump Station to get home. I know it’s only a short hop to Kiyami, but I really can’t face another of Frede
ricks interminably boring lectures on how much money he’s made from this or other venture. Good luck with trying to persuade him to spend on new ships.”
“If he doesn’t take the hint then I will simply order him to do it, Patrick. Are you taking Collinson with you. He seems a bright young man.” Alexander asked, changing the subject.
“Yes, he’s starting to grow on me. He finally stopped asking if he could carry my case so I gave it to him just now to look after. The look on his face was priceless. There’s a lot he has to learn and I think he might find living on my estate quite educational.”
Alexander chuckled, “Poor man, I hope he survives the experience, especially as I remember how delightfully forward your great, great granddaughters are. Even Adam barely escaped unscathed by the experience when he visited last year.”
Becoming serious, Alexander placed his right hand on his friend's shoulder, “Be careful Patrick and watch your back. You are my most trusted friend and Duke. This, along with you being the second most powerful Noble in the Imperium after myself also makes you a key target for the plotters. Should anything happen to me every other Noble knows you would come looking for vengeance, so be careful. Please.”
“Do Dukes shit on golden toilets Alex?” asked Gallagher, shaking hands again in farewell and heading for the door.
“No Patrick, just silver ones,” he replied just as Duke Gallagher left the room.
Alexander watched the door close behind his friend then returned to his desk, debating what to do next. Although Frederick’s contribution to the Imperial Navy was not as powerful as might be expected from such a wealthy Sector, barely exceeding minimum requirements, it remained a potent symbol of power. Consisting of one hundred and eleven carriers, over two thousand front line attack ships and double that number of auxiliaries, the Navy of Sector 12 was certainly capable of holding its own against any known threat from outside the Empire. Currently, a few ships protected each planet, with the remainder spread out along the Dubunni border in substantial battle groups. In comparison, latest reports from the Imperial Intelligence Service indicated the Dubunni could field less than a quarter of that number across their entire empire. It was unlikely they would ever be able to field them all together in one place, as their preferred method of attack was hit and run, like the Corsairs who roamed the seas of Capital in ancient times. Tactically, the advantage lay with the raiders, unless they could be lured to a specific system and defeated in a pitched battle or their bases found and destroyed, thereby denying them repair and refuelling capabilities. Maintaining the space worthiness of a ship, enabling it to operate safely and effectively, required the use of dedicated repair facilities and regular maintenance. Destroy or capture those and their ability to mount attacks would be severely curtailed.
Imperium: Betrayal: Book One in the Imperium Trilogy Page 15
