Imperium: Betrayal: Book One in the Imperium Trilogy

by Paul M Calvert

  “For years we have tried to contain rather than confront them,” he thought, “but now might be the time to remind them of our military and financial power. If we offer sufficiently large bribes or rewards for the location of the bases we might be able to take them out with very little collateral damage.”

  The last thing Alexander needed at this moment was to turn a deteriorating border dispute into a full-blown war with another empire by going in blind and without specific targets in mind. A surgical strike, then presenting the Dubunni with irrefutable evidence of their raiding, would be far better than simply blundering around in their space looking for possible targets, annoying the Dubunni and potentially bringing them all together.

  Alexander spent another half an hour fleshing out a tentative plan then summoned Admiral Frith to critique and improve it. She told him it would be a while before she could attend, so in the meantime he dictated a short, but suitably non-committal greeting to Fredrick, requesting he assemble his military advisors and visit Dauntless to pay his respects once they made orbit in a few days’ time.

  “Making him come to me will give the old miser something to think about,” he thought. “He will think I am unhappy about something he’s done and potentially make him more receptive in an effort to please me. That’s the problem about keeping lots of secrets, you never know if or when one of them has been found out.”

  Scene 19, Western Highlands, Scotland

  In the Air Ambulance, since becoming airborne, Karen and Michael had been working non-stop on stabilising the patient, trying to assess the extent of the damage and keep him alive long enough to reach the Hospital. Before bringing him on board, broken bones had been splinted and the wounds they could get to covered with dressings and pressure bandages. For some reason, their normal surgical scissors couldn’t cut through the tough material of his clothes, so, in the end, they’d had to use shears, taking many minutes instead of seconds. Karen had tried first with the scissors and in frustration, Michael had taken them from her with a terse “let me do it” only to find he had no more success. It was only when the shears were used that they managed to reveal the full extent of the patients’ injuries. With little they could do without more sophisticated equipment, they settled for fixing a drip and checking he remained immobilised and warm.

  Both puzzled by the lack of bleeding, at first they worried if he had gone into severe shock and might suffer imminent heart failure, but despite everything his heart beat remained slow and steady. Core temperature remained higher than normal although his undamaged extremities were cold and turning a faint blue.

  They looked at each other in puzzlement. By any measure, this patient should be dead or have bled out by now, but despite everything he seemed stable.

  “Who the hell is this guy, Karen?” Michael asked, shaking his head. “How come he arrived on your doorstep?”

  “I don’t know anything about him, Michael, except he came out of nowhere and saved my life.”

  Speaking these words, Karen could feel hot tears welling up in her eyes and begin to roll down her cheeks. She bit her lip and fought to take the tremble out of her voice.

  “I thought at first he was going to attack me, but he literally picked me up and threw me out of the lorry’s path as if I was a child. It’s no wonder his heart hasn’t given out yet, he must be as strong as an ox.”

  “Hey, guys,” James’s voice came over their headsets, “Words gone out and Karen’s team are on standby at Raigmore. ETA twenty minutes if I push it. How’s the patient?”

  “Stable, but God knows how, it's nothing we’ve done for him,” came the reply from Michael.

  Karen took a few moments to look out the window into the darkness outside. Little could be seen except thin ribbons of roads, lit only where they passed through villages. The constant drone and noise of the turbines made her glad of the headset. She shut her eyes for a moment, allowing herself the luxury of looking back over her day. Surprisingly she let out a short laugh.

  Michael looked at her quizzically. “I was just thinking it’s a good job I put the crab in the fridge earlier, otherwise the house would be stinking when I got back,” she explained to a confused Michael.

  He shook his head and moved back into the co-pilot's seat to give Karen some more room. She looked down at the stranger's face, now partially covered by a thick white dressing. Looking at the part of his face not covered, Karen thought how handsome he had been. If he survived, how would he react to the loss of his eye and the horrid scarring that would be forever visible? She closed her eyes for a moment and sighed deeply, and in that instant resolved she would not leave his side until he either died or she was able to properly thank him for saving her life. The problems she was having with Ian and having to find somewhere to live were suddenly put into sharp contrast with the issues this man would have to face.

  “Again, if he survives,” she reminded herself.

  Karen looked over at the other passenger, a middle-aged lady with hair dyed a startlingly dark black, but badly needing the roots touching-up. She’d earlier been lightly sedated to help with the pain of a broken leg and lay quietly on the other stretcher, falling in and out of sleep. Her broken leg was encased in a large inflatable splint, mirroring those covering the other, more seriously injured patient.

  Over the intercom came the voice of James, “Not long now, just another few minutes, everyone’s waiting at the helipad.”

  Bringing her gaze back to the man, Karen thought for a moment she could see his mouth move. Leaning forward to get a closer look, she violently flinched back when his remaining eye opened and looked right into her own. For a moment, it searched her face as if looking for something, before fixing on her eyes. The mouth moved slowly and she leant forward again to try and catch what he was trying to say, temporarily lifting the transparent oxygen mask away from his face.

  His damaged lungs could obviously only spare a little breath, but as Karen concentrated she heard him say quietly, “Cut nothing away, this body will heal itself. Please, do nothing else.”

  She asked what his name was and whether he was in a lot of pain but couldn’t understand the reply. Leaning forward again she asked him to repeat it. “Adam. My name is Adam. I will sleep now. Remember, do not cut anything away. It’s very important,” and with that, his eye closed.

  From the front of the helicopter Michael asked what had happened, having been listening over the intercom but only hearing Karen’s questions.

  “His name is Adam, that’s all I got,” she replied, making sure everything was ready for a quick exit as they made their final approach before landing.

  She felt a bump as the wheels touched the concrete helipad, followed by a gust of cold air that rushed into the cabin as the large hatch was opened and the faces of Colleen and Frank appeared.

  Frank shouted out something, but the headphones and noise from the rotor blades spinning down stopped her from hearing. She took them off and set them down onto the seat next to her, asking him to repeat the question.

  “Couldn’t keep away, could you?” he shouted, reaching for one end of the stretcher and pulling it towards him with a grunt of effort.

  Grabbing the other end, Karen pushed it forward so that one of the orderlies could take it from her and drop the wheels down. Another orderly was waiting with a wheelchair for the other patient who had been woken by the cold air and noise. Two ambulances were waiting twenty yards away to take them the three-hundred-yard drive to A&E. They hurried Adam on board the nearest before closing the doors and driving off. Karen waited with the wheelchair for the next ambulance to move forward and was soon entering A&E, heading for the Trauma area. Although she was only a few moments behind, by the time she arrived the team were already going through their well-rehearsed routine, re-checking vitals and calling in various specialists. She could see the radiographer, Alice, looking to assess what to scan first.

  Removing her coat and draping it over a nearby chair, Karen walked over and started lis
ting the injuries she’d seen and what had happened. She also mentioned he’d briefly regained consciousness and seemed lucid but other than that had been unresponsive. For several minutes she watched the team work until a tap on her left shoulder made her look around. Behind her was James, proffering a brown plastic cup of hot tea. Michael was standing behind him, looking unsure whether to say anything or let James do the talking.

  “Here you are love, take this,” said James, “sorry I’ve nothing stronger to give you. What’s the prognosis of our RTA?”

  Karen shook her head. “I’m amazed he’s managed to survive, James. He should have bled out, but almost nothing happened. Once they wiped away the initial bleeding there was hardly anything new, just minor weeping. Most unusual. He’s displayed none of the classic symptoms of shock either. Other than his name we know nothing about him.”

  “Michael and I are going off duty now until Monday. Is there anything we can do for you, Karen?” he asked, a look of sympathy on his face. James had never seen Karen react to an incident like this before. Normally always in control, she seemed lost today and he was concerned for her.

  Karen looked at them both and managed a small, tight smile. “I’ll be fine. I’m just glad you two were there to help. Thanks, guys, I owe you one.”

  Both men stepped forward and gave her a reassuring hug, for an instant making her feel less vulnerable. Michael gave an extra squeeze before letting go and they turned around and walked off, leaving her with no-one to talk to for the moment. Seeing her standing there, Frank came over and suggested she go and wait in the nurse’s room as they had everything under control and it would be some time before they had anything new to tell her. Knowing Adam was in capable hands, Karen wandered off to make a telephone call. By now the Police on Skye would have arrived at the scene and she wanted to make sure the lorry driver was taken in for some serious questioning.

  Vimes had been monitoring Adams vital functions since the accident and was satisfied he’d done everything possible to keep him alive after the initial trauma. Finally managing to open an eye, he’d recognised the woman attending Alex as the one they’d saved. She was obviously a medical practitioner of some kind and her intervention, although minimal compared to his, had been welcome. The addition of a drip helped combat the body’s natural instinct to go into shock and he hoped she had understood and would act on his brief message. An amputated limb would take weeks to re-grow properly and could not be explained away easily, or at all given the medical knowledge of these people. As it was, the accelerated healing that Adam would soon display was going to be problematic and he didn’t know how to avoid drawing unwanted attention. In his weakened condition, Adam was very vulnerable and their ability to escape severely limited.

  From the motion and noise, he recognised they were travelling by air and surmised it would be to a medical facility of some sort. There, he hoped Adam’s broken bones could be properly set, the one thing he was unable to assist with while Adam remained unconscious. Remaining vigilant, Vimes sensed the landing and subsequent entry into a building. From the voices he could hear and the actions being taken, he knew the damage to Adam was being assessed, so he continued with accelerating the healing process further. This would result in a marked increase in body temperature as the injury sites became highly inflamed, a by-product of the healing process, however, the Doctors would be able to keep the body cool if it went dangerously high.

  He could sense Adams consciousness beginning to surface and so made sure pain signals were kept to a minimum to keep him comfortable. It would not be long before he could explain all that had happened and allow Adam to decide on what to do next.

  Karen had just spent thirty minutes on the telephone with the duty Sergeant at Portree Police Station and was unhappy, but not surprised, at the news. The lorry driver was claiming a fuse controlling his lights had blown just before the incident and this was why he hadn’t seen her, but they had arrested him on suspicion of dangerous driving and retained his lorry for examination. As she didn’t know when she would be returning to Skye, a local Policeman would be coming to the Hospital to take a statement from her at some point.

  Frank popped his head around the door with news on Adam, providing a list of injuries and an update on what treatments they’d provided. Providing he survived the night, his need for reconstructive facial surgery would be assessed. To everyone’s amazement, there were no signs of internal bleeding despite the punctured lung which they’d manipulated out. The lung had immediately reflated and was showing no sign of bleeding or sucking despite the puncture. His wounds had been washed out, cleaned and dressed, but further treatment would depend on his condition tomorrow.

  Karen thanked Frank for the update and followed him back to the Trauma Room where a nurse was checking the two drips hanging from a cradle above Adam. Two orderlies were getting ready to take him to Intensive Care where he would be left until morning. Walking over, Karen noticed that his arms and legs looked a little thinner than she had remembered and his face seemed pinched. Unsure what to do next, she remembered her promise in the helicopter. Decision made to stay and do whatever she could, Karen accompanied him to the Intensive Care Unit.

  Compared to A&E, the place seemed like an oasis of calm and quiet. Everyone spoke quietly and unless there was an emergency, the loudest noise was the beeping monitors. As he was being transferred from the trolley onto the bed situated at the far end of the room, Karen spoke to the Ward Sister and asked if it would be alright for her to stay by his side. As an extra pair of trained eyes would always be welcome, she was found a comfortable chair and allowed to stay. Ten minutes after entering the ICU, all the required monitors and equipment had been attached and sat gently beeping and flashing next to the bed. She thought Adam was lucky, for it was rare for there to be an empty space in Intensive Care on a Saturday night. Karen pulled up a chair next to the bed and sat down, declining another offer of a tea with a shake of her head.

  Two hours later, her vigil was disturbed by a bored looking Policeman who had come from nearby Burnett Road Station. His grasp of grammar was poor and she resisted his efforts to write it in the fashion he preferred. She wondered if most statements ended up sounding as if they had been written by the same person and whether anybody at Court ever noticed or cared.

  It was going to be a long night for everyone concerned.

  Scene 20, Palace Woodlands

  Parmenion had surprised Christine earlier in the day by suggesting she join in with a mock exercise his Marines were holding in the woodlands and forest surrounding the Palace. Reluctant at first, Christine warmed to the idea after he suggested she would be able to see how effective his troops were and it was a way for her to forget for a while the problems of running an Empire. Karen had to admit the thought of getting physical and working off some of the aggression she had felt on learning about the assassination attempt was very appealing.

  So here she was, several hours and three skirmishes later, wearing her personalised armour, trying to ambush the last squad of blue armoured Marines, whilst they, in turn, tried to ambush her red ones. Using them as a decoy, she and the dour looking Master Sergeant Zuber had swung around behind the blues, using a natural gully to hide their approach.

  To make things more interesting for the Marines, all of their tracking, targeting aids and field communications had been switched off, and their suits enhanced sound and vision capabilities reduced to normal. Although able to amplify the strength and fighting capabilities of the wearer, the suits still required input from the users own body, which in turn required the Marines to be in superb physical shape. It was at this point Christine was questioning her decision to get involved, for, fit as she was, she could feel her muscles starting to complain about the unusual demands currently being made of them.

  A sudden hand signal from Zuber made her halt and she tried to ignore the pain signals coming from her stomach and knees while hunched over. Ahead, Zuber motioned them forward and she gratefully unwound
, moving next to him as they lay down on a slope facing the blue group. The red were acting as decoys, drawing the attention of the blues who had fanned out into four groups of three, facing away from Christine and Zuber, towards the approaching reds. The rules of this exercise required the use of bladed weapons or flechettes only, which would be fired at a much-reduced velocity so as to only mark armour and not penetrate. Swords had their monomolecular edges blunted for the same reason, however, a well-timed blow could still cause considerable pain or break a bone if the target was unlucky or unwary.

  Tapping Christine’s shoulder, Zuber indicated himself then the group to his right. She nodded, pointing to the six blues to his left, then herself. Setting her flechette launcher to rapid fire, Christine missed Zuber’s cue to begin firing. She fired an instant later, unleashing her own fusillade towards the blues. Her split second hesitation meant two of the group managed to raise their shields in time, so her flechettes simply bounced off instead of registering kills. Zuber’s targets had been less fortunate and all lay where their suits had frozen them, watching events through their helmet’s internal screens.