When she got back to the main hospital block, she thanked the ICU Ward Sister again for allowing her to stay and look after Adam. Unsurprisingly, his scans had all come back clear and his rapid progress hadn’t gone unnoticed. The Ward Sister was eager to free up his bed for more seriously ill patients and return him to a normal ward, but as a professional courtesy wanted to check with Karen first. Both agreed this was the best course of action and a bed was quickly found for him in a single room, away from prying eyes. The transfer didn’t take long and as Karen was placing Adam’s clothes in the plywood cupboard in his new room, she enquired how he was feeling.
“Much better now Karen, although I’m still hungry,” came the prompt reply with another of his smiles.
Karen returned it and headed off to the canteen, hoping the sour faced woman wasn’t still on duty. Returning with another tray full of food, Adam waved away her assistance and asked for it to be placed in front of him. Gingerly at first, but with increasing confidence, he picked up the utensils and began to eat. Karen watched him, fascinated by his actions. He seemed totally at ease with the fork but the shape of the knife at first gave a few problems, however within twenty minutes all the food was gone and Karen was able to move the tray away to the foot of the bed. Looking down at his chart she checked the numbers. Blood pressure 105:65, heart rate 60bpm, oxygenation 100%, all indicating a very fit person in the prime of health. The only anomaly was his raised body temperature, several degrees above normal.
“Have you been to the toilet today?” she asked. Again there was that momentary look of distraction she had come to recognize.
“The nurse kindly brought me a bottle to use after you left. There is likely to be no solid waste until tomorrow.”
The way he said it with such a deadpan expression made Karen laugh and he asked if he had said anything wrong.
“No, it’s just the way you looked when you spoke. It was just funny, that’s all,” Karen apologised, still smiling.
She pulled over a chair to the side of the bed and they talked. Karen found his deep, yet soft voice attractive to listen to and was getting used to the slightly sing-song quality of his accent. He was curious about her life and this time she decided to open up to him, explaining about her work and somewhat estranged family, hoping it might jog some of his own memories. She suddenly felt uncomfortable at the thought of mentioning Ian to this man and carefully avoided bringing him up in the conversation. Adam appeared very interested in her medical training and how she fitted in with the community. Another topic that fascinated him was politics and the Royal Family, which struck her as a strange subject for an amnesiac to be interested in. The longer they spoke together the more obvious it became that if Adam was feigning ignorance on all these subjects then he was a superb actor, for it was plain there were huge holes in his understanding of even the simplest day to day things. She tried to trick him on a number of occasions, but his story ran true.
As the afternoon turned into evening, Karen was surprised to find herself looking at his handsome face. For a brief moment she wondered what it would be like to lean forward and kiss him. Something must have shown on her face, for he stopped talking and asked her what was wrong. Somewhat flustered she changed the subject and inquired what the large armband was for, something she had been meaning to ask since he woke up.
As expected, Adam protested ignorance, but pointed out it didn’t hurt and seemed to have been formed in one piece around his forearm. He held it up to her for closer inspection and she could see it was indeed made of one, seamless piece of metal. She ran her hand along its surface, noting how smooth and warm it was to the touch. In doing so, his arm moved slightly and she found herself holding the back of Adams' hand. Despite having done so many times before when attending to his wounds, on this occasion she felt an electric tingle go through her and she pulled her hand away with a start, looking up at Adams' face and seeing in it something that mirrored her own surprise.
Adam too, sensed something had happened at that moment and now wanted nothing more than to be left alone to think. Feigning a yawn, he apologised and said he needed to have a rest. Glad of the cue, Karen agreed and said she would return in the morning with some more food. Briefly showing him the pull-cord that would summon a nurse should he need any assistance, she wished him goodnight and closed the door behind her as she left.
Adam stared at the closed door for several minutes, before closing his eyes in attempt to sleep. After an unsuccessful fifteen minutes, Adam gave in and asked Vimes to help him, his last recollection before drifting off to sleep was hearing a quiet chuckle from his ever-watchful companion.
The walk back to her room was an interesting one for Karen, full of conflicting emotions. She couldn’t believe she’d even considered kissing him, if for no other reason than she was currently his de facto Doctor. The electric frisson when they touched hands was something new, however, and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted it to happen again or not. Slipping into bed and laying her head on the pillow, Karen didn’t know if she would welcome any dreams of Adam that night, before gently drifting away.
Scene 22, Planet Kiyami, Sector 12
During the hours of darkness, Dauntless slowly moved into a geostationary orbit above the capital city Kirushan, with Admiral Frith taking care to position the flagship directly above Frederick’s personal residence. Unlike the planet Capital, on Kiyami the signs of an advanced civilisation were noticeable everywhere from orbit. On the planet's dark side, great cities shone brightly and the large central continent, making up ninety percent of the total landmass, was edged with light. Much of the interior was also illuminated by artificial light, with national parks and nature reserves standing out darkly against the bright background. The remaining landmasses were made up of numerous small islands, dotted around the central continent, the majority of these also shining brightly.
Colonised in the early part of the second millennia, Kiyami was strategically important due to the number of planets that came under its control, the number of Jump Points and its proximity to three aggressive rival human empires, the Durotriges, Dubunni and Silures. Although the Empire was nominally at peace with all three, the reality was somewhat different. Intermittent border infractions, depending on their severity, required varying degrees of response and extended periods of peace were rare. It was not uncommon for the rival empires to be at war with each other and on occasion fighting would sometimes spill over into Imperial space.
Before moving into orbit, Admiral Frith had ordered all planetary weapon platforms within range of the flagship to power down. She had no intention of taking any chances with the Emperors safety, nor that of her flagship or task-force. The recent attack on Alexander’s life had made her realise that in some areas she may have become complacent, a potential flaw she would not repeat. Frith decided to follow the example of her predecessor, Dauntless’ second Captain, Admiral Hale. On taking command, he’d given her just thirteen words of advice before leaving.
“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”
Those simple, if stark words had proved useful on a number of occasions, but did nothing to endear her in some quarters, especially to those who spent their military careers trying to get promoted at any price or were focused on the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
Until Frith was certain there was no longer any risk to Alexander’s life, she was going to insist all safety protocols were followed to the letter, especially when a planet had such formidable close-in defences, capable of overwhelming her relatively small force in a short space of time. Looking at the defences protecting Kiyami, Frith thought to herself that although Duke Frederick may have been reluctant to spend on his naval fleet, whatever money he’d saved had obviously been spent on upgrading his planet’s fixed defences.
Personally, Frith disapproved of trying to protect a planet through over-reliance on orbital or ground-based defences, preferring the flexibility of a strong, mobile na
vy with the ability to engage attackers away from the planet, rather than waiting to engage at close range. Experience, hard-won on battlefields over many years fighting against the Empire’s enemies, had taught her the importance of controlling the fighting distance and retaining the ability to move to a position of advantage. To her mind, allowing the enemy to close within range of the planets defences allowed no margin of error or retreat. It would only take one vessel, travelling at a small fraction of light speed, to impact the planet and it would cause tremendous damage to the ecosystem and massive loss of life. However, there remained many who were convinced sheer firepower alone would keep a planet safe from attack.
While she had no reason to doubt the Duke, nor the loyalty of the forces locally, she agreed with the Emperor’s decision to entertain Frederick and his retinue here on Dauntless, rather than go down to the surface. A formal reception taking place on the ship would also provide a welcome distraction for her command staff and allow them an opportunity to mix socially with their opposite numbers locally, before moving out to engage with the raiders currently plaguing the border regions. Dauntless’ AI confirmed it had everything in hand and the guest staterooms prepared in case they were needed.
Newly promoted, Squadron Leader Christine Harris was making use of her free time to go over the personnel files of the twenty fighter pilots who made up her new command. The promotion had been bitter-sweet for Harris, coming as a result of the recent action that saw her fellow pilot killed. There was no time for regret, however, as she would be taking up her new command on INS Courageous once the task-force headed back out to engage the raiders.
For their first meeting, she knew making a good impression was important. Her few possessions were already packed and waiting to be shipped over to Courageous on the next shuttle. Whilst in no way cramped, she would not be sad to say goodbye to her current quarters and was looking forward to the additional cabin space that came with her new posting and promotion. Carriers, although normally larger than battleships, had less communal space, as any spare room was usually reserved for spare parts, fighters and repair facilities. She was fortunate to be going as a Squadron leader and not an ordinary pilot, for this entitled her to larger quarters.
The previous night’s party, celebrating her promotion and transfer, was somewhat subdued, tempered as it was by the losses they had suffered on Heaven. To make matters worse, she found herself having to listen to Flt Lt Schmidt go on and on about what a bastard the Crown Prince had been and the embarrassing meeting she’d had with the Emperor. Initially, she found the story hilarious, but Schmidt had drunk one too many and just didn’t seem to know when to stop talking about it. Soon afterwards, Harris decided to get an early night and leave her own party, not sure if anyone had even noticed her leaving.
A new fighter plane from the Carrier had been selected for her and flown over to Dauntless on autopilot earlier that morning. She would use the flight back to familiarise herself with its own peculiarities and handling characteristics. On arriving at her new ship, it was traditional for a Squadron to greet their new leader and this would be her chance to make a good first impression.
Her eyes scanned the list of names and summaries on the screen, matching them with the fresh faces of the pilots. The holograms had probably been taken when they first enlisted and not updated since. Most of the pilots had been in service for several years and almost all had seen at least one combat action.
With no replacement pilots joining the squadron in the past twelve months, there was every chance it would be nice and tight. A few names stood out for her to watch. In particular, Pilot Officers Coleman, Hinchin and Quigley. All were experienced and competent pilots, however, the outgoing Squadron Leader had commented that they tended not to mix too well with the other flyers and Hinchin was displaying an issue with authority figures. Harris made a mental note to watch them for a while before making up her own mind about what, if anything, needed changing.
Finishing off, Harris downloaded the files into her personal data storage. She took one last look around the room that had been her home since being posted to Dauntless, squared her shoulders and walked through the door for the last time.
The transit tube took less than thirty seconds to arrive at the flight deck where her new fighter was docked. She looked through the transparent smart-metal of the hanger bay, her eyes scanning along the row of fighters until she recognised hers, decked out in the colours of Courageous and docked closest to the transit tube. Ten yards in length, with three matter conversion engines placed at the rear, it gave off an aura of menacing power. Single seat, with just enough room to fit one passenger behind the pilot for short journeys, it had one large and two small diameter rail-guns situated along the ventral axis, complemented by four missile racks under the small extendable wings. Its smart-metal hull was currently matt black, highlighted along the tail and wing tips with blue and yellow markings to signify where it came from. A few twin-seater variants of the fighter had jump capability, but this came at the expense of armour and manoeuvrability.
When Harris’s original application to join the Imperial Navy was processed, she discovered her aptitude scores had ranked her high for aggression, individuality and G-tolerance, making her a good candidate for officer training at flight school. Before becoming a pilot, she had, like most of her fellow applicants, wondered why human pilots were still needed. Fighters equipped with semi-sentient AI’s could tolerate far higher acceleration and G-forces than their human equivalents. It had been carefully explained to her that human pilots had two abilities AI’s could not currently match, namely unpredictability and intuition. AI’s, for all their advantages, were predictable and tactically boring, preferring the certainty of algorithms to the sheer unpredictability of feeling or instinct. Those two talents could not effectively be duplicated by systems, hence the need for humans at the controls, despite their inherent limitations. The realities of modern space combat meant that fighters were remotely controlled by their pilots from the relative safety of the carrier and their pilots would normally only get in the actual cockpit for training, acclimatisation or atmospheric flights in support of some ground actions.
For Harris, it came down to something far simpler. To her, killing another sentient was personal, not something you delegated to a machine. In close combat, be it on a blood-soaked battlefield fighting your opponent in single combat or in the airlessness of space, dogfighting with an enemy fighter, it was one on one. Bombarding a planet or another capital ship, hundreds or thousands of miles distant, was too impersonal and didn’t seem right. She knew her viewpoint was deemed old-fashioned to many people but it was just the way she felt.
Harris walked through the waiting area, instructed the smart metal collars of her flight-suit to form a helmet and gloves, then entered the airlock leading to the vacuum of the flight deck where her fighter was sitting. After the airlock cycled, all external sounds suddenly cut off and all she could hear was the noise of her own breathing and vibrations being picked up from the floor via the soles of her flight boots. She walked the short distance to her fighter, stopping at a control interface situated beneath her ship. Harris placed her gauntleted right hand against it, transmitting recognition codes to the ship.
On-board, the semi-sentient AI recognised them and welcomed her, activating flight systems in readiness for departure. Smart-metal dropped down from underneath the cockpit area and formed an open cocoon, inviting her to step inside. Having done so, it retracted up into the body of the craft, where a standard breathable atmosphere was maintained. The fighters AI requested permission to integrate with her implant, and on doing so she could feel it interfacing with her senses. Taste, sight and hearing all merged with its sensor array, whilst touch and bodily awareness became one with the feel of the fighter. Muscular awareness, even discomfort, became linked to the performance of the engines, and her sense of wellbeing merged seamlessly, reflecting the fighters combat status.
Interfacing with a top of the
line fighter was a far more intimate experience than the simple linkages to other craft, for example, her previous shuttle. Harris remembered back to her first full linkage at the naval training academy. A number of her fellow candidates had literally freaked out at the sensation and those who could not accept the intimate connection were instantly dropped from training and reassigned. In civilian life, some people were prepared to pay thousands of credits to achieve the feeling of superiority and wellness that came with a merging, yet here she was, a girl from a farm planet getting to experience this all for free.
Looking around the interior, she instinctively recognised everything, another benefit of the merging. All systems were at one-hundred percent efficiency and Harris could almost believe she could sense the fighter wanting to get out and fly free of the hanger’s confines.
“Primary Hanger Control, this is CF103 requesting permission to depart for INS Courageous.”
“Agreed CF103, please follow designated flight path. On behalf of the PHC team, good luck with your new posting. Lift when ready,” came the almost immediate response.
Letting her mind relax, Harris gave the fighter its instructions. Lifting gently from the docking station, CF103 rose to a height of thirty foot, rotated left forty-five degrees and began passing the lined up fighters at a fast walking pace, heading for the hanger exit. PHC gave a green light and she exited the bay, accelerating rapidly away from Dauntless in the direction of her new home. Agreed earlier, her flight path followed a roundabout route that would allow her to test out the new fighter, which would remain hers until she either moved on or it was destroyed in action. Fighters almost always came back from actions unscathed or not at all for space and modern combat made for little or no margin of error.
Imperium: Betrayal: Book One in the Imperium Trilogy Page 19
